City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we're going to call this meeting to order at 5 p.m. on August 3rd, 2026. Roll call, please. 6 p.m. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco. It's 5 p.m. Council Member Klein.

Here.

Council Member Fugazi.

Here.

Council Member Hilton.

Here.

Council Member Marks. Here. Council Member Ramirez. Here. Mayor Bozo.

Here. Here. Andy, can you help take us into closed session? Sure.

The only item is item 1.3, closed session conference of legal counsel and anticipated litigation. Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to paragraph 2, subdivision D of government code section 54956.9 and Gilroy city code section 17A11, subdivision 3, two cases. I, pursuant to our normal policy, I give you advice at this time that to discuss these matters in open session would likely and unavoidably prejudice the position of the city and therefore recommend that we go into closed session. We need to first ask if there's any public comment.

I have no speakers.

Okay. Then it is appropriate to take a vote on whether to go into public, excuse me, whether to go into closed session.

Okay. Got a thumbs up from most. I'll yell. Yep. Everybody.

Okay. The vote is unanimous. So we're now in closed session.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Klein, for sprinting. Okay, we're going to call this meeting to order 6 p.m. on August 3rd, 2026. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco. Council Member Klein.

Here.

Council Member Fugazi.

Here.

Council Member Hilton.

Here.

Council Member Marks. Here. Council Member Ramirez. Here. Mayor Boto.

Here. Andy, could you please take us and report on the closed session, please?

Yes, we had the closed session starting at 5 p.m. and there was no reportable action.

Thank you very much. Moving on to item 4.3, city clerk's report on posting of the agenda, please.

Thank you, Mayor. This agenda was posted on Thursday, July 30th at 1.26 p.m.

Okay, we're going to have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilmember Bracco. And then please remain standing for invocation by Pastor Trevor Van Laar from Gilroy Presbyterian Church.

Ready, salute. 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.

Good evening, Council Members, Mayor. Please join me in the invocation. Holy God, this Monday night, we pause before the work of this meeting to confess, to give thanks, and to pray for our city and these elected servants and staff members of our city. First, Father, we thank you for the blessing of successful downtown live events, a sold-out garlic festival, and soon a car show and a rodeo. We find ourselves blessed by a great city reputation and the boost of tourism because of it. But Father, even though we celebrate our blessings, we also confess the ways we have become weary and worn by the political process, which is sometimes marked more by misunderstanding and fighting than by grace towards one another. We confess our ignorance and pray for your wisdom tonight. We confess the ways in which we grow resigned to the way things are and the systems that refuse to change. We ask that you tip the scales towards compromise and agreements tonight. We acknowledge the many burdens that are carried into this work. Attend to them, oh God. We give thanks for the communities that support us, the spouses, the friends, the neighbors, and loved ones who sacrificed so that we may be here on this day attending to the business of your city. Please bless them. We pray for all the elected officials entrusted with this holy calling of public service. Keep them pure in heart. We pray for those who have recently elected to run for elected office. May you prepare their hearts to serve the public. We pray for the residents of this city and the constituents we serve. For all those seeking full, meaningful employment, we pray for work. As our new school year starts soon, we pray for all those seeking education. We pray for the administration, staff, teachers, and most importantly, for the students and their families. For all those seeking peace, train us to listen more than we speak, to learn all sides of the issues, and to work for justice and fairness. Father, bless the work that is before this city council tonight. May every decision made, phone call answered, every email responded to be done with generosity of spirit. Turn us again and reorient our hearts. Remind us of the truth of Jeremiah 29.7, that in the welfare of the city we find our own welfare. In all that we do and all that we say, may we seek the welfare of this city and its blessings from you. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Van Laar. Moving on to item 4.6, orders of the day. We are going to move item 10.1 from today's agenda to a future council meeting with a date to be determined. So once again, item 10.1 will come off tonight's agenda and move to a meeting with a date yet to be determined. Skipping over 4.7 and going right to ceremonial items, proclamations, and awards. Item 5.1 is I will be reading a proclamation for screen-free week proclamation to be received by Sean Chipper. So, Sean, you can meet me up front. Okay, I'll read this and you'll see if you... Okay, City of Gilroy Proclamation. Whereas excessive screen time has become increasingly prevalent among individuals of all ages across Gilroy, impacting physical health, sleep, quality, attention, and overall well-being. And whereas high levels of screen use have been associated with reduced sleep, decreased focus, and diminished opportunities for meaningful in-person connection between Gilroy residents. Whereas individual schools and community organizations across Gilroy can participate by setting goals and hosting activities that promote connection, creativity, and well-being. And whereas raising awareness for the importance of balanced screen use can support healthier lifestyles and stronger communities across our city. Now, therefore, I, Greg Bozzo, Mayor of the City of Gilroy, on this 29th day of June, excuse me, on this third day of August, 2026, along with the colleagues on City Council, do hereby proclaim this week as Screen Free Awareness Week, excuse me, in the City of Gilroy. And I encourage all residents to participate by limiting their screen time and increasing offline activities to improve the health, well-being, and community.

Congratulations. Thank you.

First off, I would like to thank the City Council of Gilroy for working with me to make this possible, and I'd like to thank them for their for clear support and care for the people of Gilroy. I feel like this proclamation and this initiative to have a screen-free week will genuinely benefit the city of Gilroy. So I'd like to thank them all and I'd like to thank the city of Gilroy for electing such caring and honest individuals to have these positions so they can serve the city of Gilroy as they do. Thank you.

All right, let's move this way just a little bit. All right, you guys are good? Stop there? All right, I'm going to have you look here, and then we'll have you look over there. Ready? One, two, three. And take a couple more. One, two, three. All right. Thank you. I missed it. Totally missed it.

All right, okay, moving on from item 5.1 to item 6, presentations to council, this public comment. Before we go into public comment, we have a few public comments this evening. Before we go into public comment, I want to remind everybody we did this last week as well, but we do have a new ability to do public comment remotely now. That started last week. So thank you, Kim, for introduction that. And thank you to the IT department. I know there was a lot of time that went into doing that. So thank you very much for doing that. As a reminder to, I know most of the folks in this room understand the process, but I want to say this publicly. Just for those who may not or maybe those who are watching remotely, I think for some folks there's a little bit of a misunderstanding about public comment. When the public comes to make comment to us, we are not able to get into a discussion. It's not that we don't want to, but for Brown Act rules and FOR THOSE REASONS, WE DO NOT GET INTO DISCUSSION DURING PUBLIC COMMENTS. I KNOW SOMETIMES THERE'S SOME FRUSTRATIONS OF WHY WE DON'T DO THAT. THAT IS A ROUTINE ACTIVITY AMONGST ALMOST ALL COUNCILS, I BELIEVE. FINALLY, JUST AS A REMINDER, MY SENSE IS WE DON'T HAVE A GIANT DEMAND THIS EVENING FOR PUBLIC COMMENT, BUT THE WAY WE WILL BE DOING PUBLIC COMMENT IS WE'LL START PUBLIC COMMENT AND THEN WE WILL LET THREE SPEAKERS GO. And then folks can still put their card in to do public comment, but after the third speaker, we will close public comment for that agenda item. And again, I don't think we have this issue tonight, but if we see that there's an additional amount of speakers, that would leave the door open for me to change. For example, if we start at three minutes, we may go to two minutes to keep consistent with the amount of time that we allow people for depending on how many speakers are there. So with that being said, I'll open it up to public comment.

Thank you. Greg Filios, followed by Connie Rogers, and then Armando Benavides.

Thank you.

Good evening, public servants. Tomorrow night is National Night Out. Tomorrow night we celebrate our city's public servants. We have the police department. Chief Sanchez will have his people out there. And Chief Sanchez has really opened up the department. It's a very welcoming department, as you saw at the... The Gilbert Garlic Festival, they were all there dressed with the hats and the boots and the blue jeans, and they looked great, and they were part, and they were very great. And they were great. It was great talking to them and having them be out in the crowd. Same thing with Chief Flipp's fire department. Again, they were there helping out with... first response with the medical facilities providing that. So tomorrow night, if you get a chance, right out here, right out here, there's going to be a number of booths, informational booths, and come out and say hello to Chief Sanchez's and Chief Fleaup's people and welcome them and thank them for all the service that they do. That's tomorrow night. Wednesday, on Wednesday, the Recreation Department for our city is having an assessment where people can come in and talk to them. It's also online, which people have haven't done, but if people want to actually talk to people. Okay, so tomorrow from 9 to 10 in the morning and from 6 to 7 at night at the Regulation Department right across the street here in the Senior Center. This is an opportunity for us to get information. Again, it's an assessment of what the people want for recreation? Do we, you know, what services, what programs? You can follow up right here. We have the screen-free week and get people actively involved. That's what this recreation is all about, getting people off their screens and actively involved in some sort of recreation. And indeed, it is something healthy for the community and also getting the community involved in some of the activities, something to be involved in in the community. Here's a great opportunity. So for Wednesday, if you get a chance, spread the word with this assessment We're going to be looking into, again, I'm with Parks and Recreation, and so people say, well, should we have, we're doing park assessment as something a little, that's a little different. Let's do this recreation. We're working with the Recreation Department because many of their programs are within our parks, but there's also a lot of indoor activities also. So you say, oh, parks, I don't want to go outside, but they have a lot of indoor activities. So tomorrow night and Wednesday, Recreation Department assessment. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Just to be clear, Greg, I heard at one point you said tomorrow rec assessment. Wednesday, 9 a.m., 10 a.m., and then 6 to 7 p.m., Senior Center for everybody. Senior Center. And then tomorrow.

Tomorrow night, 4.30 to 8. Here, Wednesday, in the morning, 9 to 10, and in the evening, 6 to 7. Great.

Thank you. Okay, Connie. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening mayor and council members. Um, Connie Rogers, I have sat in your shoes, so I know that it's not always comfortable, but I do want to assure you that the comments I'm going to make are sincere and meant to be constructive. I want to comment about the data center. The public, and by that I mean voters, are very concerned about protecting Gilroy's environment and quality of life. We know we have something special here. The public feels left out of the approval process for the data center, and they are skeptical of both the information that Amazon has put out and the city's reliance on it. For instance, Amazon has said that we'll only need to use water cooling 3% of the time. Well, that amounts to about 10 days a year. But those of us who live here know that Gilroy has some pretty hot days, like today and yesterday and the day before. And so we don't really think that the ambient temperature year-round is going to be enough cooling for Amazon to cool all the megawatts they're going to put in. And I say this because to me, this is why the city's credibility remains low. We want the zoning ordinance revised to require public hearings at both the planning commission and the city council, because this is the only way that we can hold our elected officials accountable. The public is definitely against the second data center for which you have already received a pre-application and staff members have reviewed the plans in a preliminary way. The solution for all of us is for the council to declare a moratorium against future data centers until the city can develop its own standards for this type of development. Just the way we have for multi-family housing, for instance, it really behooves us to set our own standards for what we want to accept here. We ask you to have a moratorium until we can set those standards. Thank you.

Armando Benavides, followed by Mary Yates.

Good afternoon, council members, mayor. Today I feel a little compelled to ask the council to consider instituting a temporary moratorium on new data center approvals. And my request really aligns with the recommendations and agenda item 12.2 to amend the city's noise ordinance. There, the staff recommended, and I quote, as staff allocates resources for a comprehensive zoning code update, the city may prepare a zoning amendment in the meantime to modify or, where appropriate, prohibit drive-through uses near residential properties that generate noise above typical residential levels without lowering the citywide property line noise maximum limit. To me, that's a prohibition, and it really looks smack like they're recommending a moratorium. Other recommendations include for the staff to undertake a technical study, expert analysis, public input, and research into best practices before adopting permanent regulations. That's exactly what I have been suggesting that you consider all that. Now, I agree with all the recommendations for the city noises ordinance, but it leads me to ask a question. Why not use the same approach towards data center developments? Those developments are of greater concerns to the community just as much as noise. They have a greater impact on our electrical infrastructure, water resources, emergency resources, neighborhood, and long-term growth. It is now known that Amazon has submitted a development review group pre-application proposing an additional data center on the 60 acres with the potential for additional development in the future. The thing about Amazon is that it mostly develops hyperscale data centers. The total land they have available to develop is over 100 acres. So far, 56 acres have been approved. There's still a lot of undeveloped acres available to Amazon or other companies to purchase for additional development of data centers or similar new evolving technological facilities. Now, as you know, the city's current zoning regulations were developed long before the emergence of modern hyperscale data centers and do not comprehensively address the unique demands of these facilities. A temporary moratorium is a well-established planning tool that allows the city to pause, gather facts, consult independent experts, involve the public, evaluate infrastructure capacity, and adopt thoughtful development and standards before additional approvals are granted. So adopting a temporary moratorium and directing staff to prepare a comprehensive data ordinance just really makes a lot of sense right now. And I hope that one of you will consider filing a fair memo to agenda, just like Mr. Councilman Hilton here felt that noise was important, something to consider, and I would hope that one of you submits a fair memo to that effect. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor Yates?

Mayor Yates, good evening, council. Amazon just reported a second quarter revenue of $200 billion. Do you think they're sharing any of that with us in a meaningful, life-altering, uplifting way? Do you think they could possibly afford to put a data center that would have no environmental impact, no water usage, no electrical usage that would detrimentally impact our cost of living or the natural world around us? Personally, I think they could. but I also feel that, like any corporation, they're only concerned with, concerned about the general public, sorry, they're only concerned with their bottom line because the greed and not caring about the general public comes with capitalism when companies reach such growth. Robert F. Kennedy said, The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better. You, Mr. Mayor and council members, can make life better for the residents of Gilroy by adopting an urgency ordinance for a moratorium on the data center so that we can really find out what and how Amazon's data center will affect our water, our electricity, and our environment. If you can adopt an urgency ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium for a new tobacco retailer, you can certainly do it for the data center. Please do so now. The people of Gilroy have spoken as to their feelings about how things are going. You need to do something about it. This is your job as our elected representatives.

Thank you. Thank you, Mary.

I have no further speakers.

Okay. Thank you very much. We'll now move on reports by council members. Council member Bracco. That's in a report. Council member Fugazi.

Yes, for Visit Gilroy, they're actively pursuing methods to train the AI services. It comes up when you search, for instance, in Google, now AI comes up first. That Gilroy is a standalone destination that complements locations like Santa Cruz and Monterey. Visit Gilroy wants to thank the sponsors, volunteers, and organizers of the Gilroy Garlic Festival. and the Hecker Pass Event Center for their contribution to the Gilroy economy. Hotels reported high occupancy and an increased average daily rate on festival weekend. Through the first half of 2026, Gilroy's lodging market outpaced comparable cities in occupancy and revenue growth. Year-to-date occupancy is up 12.6% and revenue per available room has grown 21%, the strongest rate among the four markets tracked.

Thank you. Council Member Marks. No report.

Council Member Hilton. Thank you from Silicon Valley Clean Energy. Save the date for a special event for local elected officials preparing for upcoming air district regulations. The date is August 31st from 530 to 8 p.m. Location is at Sunnyvale City Hall. The Bay Area Air District will vote on updates in the zero NOx water heater rule in October. We anticipate that elected officials may receive or continue to receive many public questions related to both the rules and electrification. The evening is designed to move beyond the headlines and equip you with the facts, context, and communication tools to engage constituents with certainty. Over dinner, you'll receive a grounded balance briefing on the push for zero pollution appliances and receive tools to help you effectively engage constituents. To ensure that customers understand their energy bill and how SVC coordinates with Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E, Staff created a suite of web-based resources and sends required mailings to customers throughout the year. These resources emphasize that SVCE provides customers with clean, renewable energy that is cost competitive to PG&E. SVCE makes up an average of 18% of the residential customer's bill through the generation charge, while PG&E makes up 82% through transmission and delivery charges and other fees. If members of the community have questions, they are more than welcome to contact SVCE. The board approved final rates for two new pilot programs, the eELECT 2.0 rate for customers with both heat pump, HVAC, and heat pump water heaters, and the SVC EV rate effective June 1st. Both rates feature a deeply discounted super off-peak period during midday hours to encourage load shifting to times of high solar generation. With these rates, customers will be able to save hundreds of dollars annually. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Council Member Ramirez. No report. Okay. Council Member Klein.

I just want to do a shout out to Gilroy Gardens. I got to take my grandkids there for a yearly visit and it just reminds me of what a great place that is. They do such a great job, the staff and all that they're doing out there. So just a shout out to them.

Thank you. I have nothing to report this evening. So I will move on to item number eight, consent calendar. Any council members have questions about the consent calendar? Okay, we have any public comment?

I have no speakers.

Okay, I'll entertain them. I'll have a motion by Council Member Fugazi. Second. And a second by Council Member Ramirez to approve the consent calendars item 8.1 through 8.4. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco.

Yes.

Council Member Klein. Yes. Council Member Fugazi. Yes. Council Member Hilton.

Aye.

Council Member Marks. Yes. Council Member Ramirez. Yes. Mayor Bozo. Aye.

Yes, motion passes seven to zero. Thank you. Moving on to item nine, 9.1, bids and proposals. Award a professional services agreement to Kimley Horn for a not to exceed amount of $237,117 for the development of a city of Gilroy comprehensive roadway safety action plan. Add the project to the capital improvement program and adopt a budget amendment resolution to appropriate grant and gas tax funds to the project. A staff report, please.

Good evening, City Council, Mayor Bozo, staff, and the public. I'm Nisha Patel, and I'm the City Engineer and Transportation Engineer, and tonight I'm presenting on a professional services agreement with Kimley Horn for the development of the Comprehensive Roadway Safety Action Plan. And in January 2025, FHWA awarded an SS4A grant for the development of a comprehensive roadway safety action plan, also referred to as the CSAP. The grant amount was for $190,000, and so that is an amount that can primarily fund the CSAP. And since then, the City Council approved a resolution to amend the City of Gilroy budget to appropriate the SS4A grant funds. Staff had solicited proposals for the development of the CSAP. We received several proposals. We reviewed all those proposals, rated them, and then we selected Kimley Horne to develop the Gilroy CSAP. And then in this past June I presented this item and city council had voted three to three on the item to award that agreement to Kimley Horn. And tonight I'm providing additional information to better explain the importance of that plan. And the comprehensive roadway safety action plan documents our approach to reducing these serious crashes. It identifies the factors that contribute to crashes leading to fatal and serious injuries. It identifies solutions to prevent traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. And it better positions the city to receive safety implementation funding from state and federal grant programs. And the city, since the beginning of this year, we have applied for several transportation grants. And these include the SS4A grant, which is the Safe Streets for All grant. And we applied for a grant for the School Safety Action Plan for $1.8 million. We also applied for OBAG 4, that's one Bay Area grant program, grant applications, grant application funding, and that was for $7.7 million. And then we also applied for a CARE grant, that's Community Action Resource and Empowerment Program. And that grant was for $1.75 million, and that was for a 6th Street from Princeville to Carmel sidewalk repairs and Carmel Street from 1st to 2nd a sidewalk gap closure so that would be a new sidewalk for 1.75 million dollars. And the OBEG grants were for a sidewalk gap closure on Monterey Road from Luchesa Avenue to 10th Street for 6.2 million dollars and a traffic signal at I00F and Monterey Road intersection, and that was for $1.5 million. So the total grant applications for OBAG is $7.7 million. And to further emphasize the need for the CSAP, in the last five years from 2021 to 2025, We've had 82 crashes with serious injuries and fatalities, of which six were fatalities. And in 2025, we've had eight crashes with serious injuries and one with a fatality. And since the beginning of this year, there have been at least five crashes with fatalities. So with the significant number of serious injuries and fatalities from crashes within the city limits, the city would greatly benefit from a CSAP, which creates a plan and countermeasures to reduce these types of crashes. So with city council approval, staff would proceed with the plan development. It will involve extensive community outreach and engagement. will have council review and approval, and will take a year to complete. The total cost of the project, which is the amount of the services agreement with Kimley Horn, is $237,117.25. The reimbursement through the SS4A grant would be $189,693.80. And the total match for the city, which would be through gas tax, is $47,423.45 because the city is required a 20% match. And so staff recommends that the city council award a professional services agreement to Kimley Horn for an amount not to exceed $237,000. $117.25 and authorize the city administrator to execute the agreement. They also recommend that the council add the project to the fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program and adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 26-27 budget to appropriate $189,693.80 in fiscal year 24 SS4A grant funds to the project and $47,423.45 in local match from the gas tax fund balance for a total of $237,117.23. So this concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I DON'T SEE ANYONE ON THE BOARD. THERE THEY GO, SORRY. COUNCILMEMBER MARIS AND THEN WE'LL GO COUNCILMEMBER FERGATI.

THANK YOU FOR PUTTING MORE TIME INTO THIS AND BRINGING THIS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. CAN YOU HEAR ME?

THERE YOU GO. THAT'S BETTER. OKAY. GOT TO GET MUCH CLOSER.

Can you go back to the slide that shows the different grants and the funding amounts? So the SS4A grant, the other two grants, the LBAG and the CARE, are they dependent upon getting this funding? So the SS4A grant is paying for ALL BUT 20% THAT WE NEED TO MATCH OF THIS CONTRACT. AND THEN SOME. BUT THEN IS IT MY UNDERSTANDING WAS THAT THESE OTHER FUNDING SOURCES ARE DEPENDENT UPON HAVING THE STUDY DONE. IS THAT CORRECT?

THAT'S CORRECT.

THANK YOU. COUNCIL MEMBER FUGATI AND THEN COUNCIL MEMBER MARKS.

So the SS4 grant, $1.8 million, what exactly is that for again?

It's for the school safety action plan.

Okay, so this is what exactly that's already been identified?

So it develops a citywide safety action plan, which includes concept plans for 10 prioritized projects to support schools implementation and future funding and it also includes demonstration projects such as speed feedback signs at all the schools, speed bumps, curb extensions and separated bike lanes.

And what in your experience or maybe the director's experience do you think is our likelihood of getting that grant? Is it a 10% chance or is it a 90% chance?

Well, I can't say the chances for sure, but I know that we put together a really comprehensive and very strong application, and we consulted grant consultants that write these grants, and we looked and researched what types of projects get funded, and so that's why we selected this project.

Is it usually all or nothing, or they usually give you a fraction, or how does that work?

I'VE SEEN IT, YOU KNOW, GRANTS.

I'M NEW TO ALL THIS, SO I'M LEARNING A LITTLE BIT TOO.

I HAVE SEEN GRANTS GIVEN FOR PART OF THE AMOUNT. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT SS4A.

OKAY. AND THE OBAG 4.1, THE POWERPOINT I HAVE THAT I GOT AT LIKE 1 O'CLOCK TODAY SAID 1.49 MILLION, BUT THIS ONE SAYS 7.7 MILLION? YES.

projects that we submitted was for 1.49 so I corrected it and it's 7.7 because one of them 6.2 which is the new sidewalk along Monterey from Luchesa to 10th. That's 6.2 million and then the signal at I00F and Monterey that's 1.49.

And again we have a high likelihood of getting these or they're like pie in the sky or I'm just trying to get a sense of, and again, this is also, none of these have to do necessarily, or at least this one doesn't have anything to do with the fatalities that we've had recently, right? So it's not necessarily associated with that.

Yeah. Well, again, I can't say for sure the percentage. I know that these projects are in our capital program. That's why we chose them. They were unfunded. So, well, one of them was unfunded. One of them was partially unfunded. And the one for IOOF in Monterey was partially funded by TIF, and then we'd have to pay the the remaining amount. But so we needed to look for funding sources. And they were identified as a priority for the city. And it did fit the criteria of the grant, which some cities weren't even going to apply for OBAG for because it's hard to fit the criteria. So I think we have a strong chance of getting the funding.

No, I get it. It's not for sure.

I don't know the percentage, but if we don't apply, we... Of course, you don't get it at all.

THE NEXT THING REALLY THAT CONCERNS ME WITH ALL OF THIS IS IF THIS REPORT COMES BACK AND THE AMOUNT OF UNSAFE AREAS THAT WE HAVE IN THE CITY ARE $30 MILLION OF THINGS TO CONTEND WITH, ARE WE PREPARED TO EXPLAIN TO THE RESIDENTS HOW WE'RE GOING TO pay for, mitigate. I mean right now we don't necessarily know all those things, but knowing that now becomes something that hangs out there over our head a little bit.

I don't see that being the typical issue that we're dealing with. I will align this with we do ADA planning for Americans with disabilities, transition plans, and we're required in fact to do those similar to this activity. And we do that to identify the needs and to prepare and create a plan for long-term implementation of that. This is sort of a very similar situation in which we are identifying where our shortcomings are. We'll identify what are the low hanging fruit, as we might say, in terms of the easier things to do, and identify how we basically proceed down the path with this over the long term. Our objective is to increase awareness within the community. Part of this also is dealing with driver behavior. And we've seen this occur with the conversation we've had through the schools. There are activities and issues that are resolving behavior. So this is not only physical improvement, but also behavior modification, perhaps, and education that comes with it.

So you don't have any concern that we have, let's say, 15 sidewalks in town that are now identified as super hazardous sidewalks. And in four months, somebody gets whacked in a sidewalk and We have that hanging over our head because we never could take care of more than 14 months. I don't know how many, I don't know how much deferred traffic safety issues we might possibly have in Gilroy that this would identify.

And again, I don't know that this is, the intention of this plan and this grant was not to look at our limitations and and limits to where we're dealing. It's to basically identify just what our system does and how we approach those things. We have signals. We have a whole system in place. We've analyzed and evaluated over the years. We're trying to connect the dots between those improvements, existing improvements, the things that are in our capital program, and what needs to be ultimately implemented. This isn't all physical improvements. And I think the assumption is a logical one, which is that these include all physical improvements. They're not necessarily all physical improvements that we're looking at.

Okay. And this, once it's completed and it's unaltered form, will be available on the city website?

Sure. This would be something adopted by the city council ultimately.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Marks and then Council Member Bracco.

You know, I don't have a question. I have a comment. Would you rather have me wait until after public comment?

Council Member Bracco.

On these fatalities you listed, how many of them happened when they were obeying all traffic laws?

Council Member, I cannot tell you that particular information. They're in the reports. There's certainly public information in terms of for most of those. Some of those are still pending investigation and action. I can tell you.

I've been responding to accidents for 45 years. Never do they happen unless somebody screws up. Either they're drunk, they're on their phone, they fall asleep. It's always, it's nothing that can be predictable. No one can predict where it's going to happen or when it's going to happen. Otherwise, they wouldn't happen. So, okay, that's all I have.

Thank you. Further questions? Okay, I'm going to go to public comment.

I have no speakers.

All right. So why don't I go to Council Member Marks. You had some comments.

Yes. Thank you for this report. It's a lot more detailed this time around because I was one of your no votes. And as I read through this and I saw the different types of grants, whether we pass it tonight or not, all these situations in the city still exist. And if we can get any kind of dollar amount back through grants, we're better off than getting zero. So tonight I will be supporting doing this application. Thank you.

Additional comments? Yeah, I'll make one. I hear what you're saying, Council Member Bracco. A lot of these things that happen are because of driver error. But something that do give me hope that hopefully prevent members of the public from driver error would be grants Grants that we're attempting to get that we could put in sidewalks and things like that would take people further away from the potential for error. So I appreciate you guys being more detailed about the type of potential that we can get for some of these grants. It's not just trying to interfere with driver practices, but also make pedestrians more safe and things like that. So if there's no further questions, I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Okay, I have a motion by Councilmember Marks to award a professional services agreement to Kimley-Horn for not to exceed amount of $237,117 for the development of the City of Galway Comprehensive Roadway Safety Action Plan, add the project to the Capital Improvement Program, and adopt a budget amendment resolution to appropriate grant and gas tax funds to the project.

Second.

I have a second by Councilmember Ramirez. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco.

No, I'm sorry. Hold on. I'm sorry.

We're going to do them separately. I would appreciate if we could adopt the resolution separately. One and two are okay together, but three should be separate. Okay.

Okay.

So, so far, if we interpret this motion as one and two, in other words, award the agreement and add the project, I think that would be appropriate to go forward and have a separate motion on the resolution.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. Roll call, please.

Council Member Brocko? No. Council Member Klein?

Yes.

Council Member Fugazi?

No.

Council Member Hilton?

Aye.

Council Member Marks? Yes. Council Member Ramirez? Yes. Mayor Bozo?

Yes. A motion passes 5-2. And now I will entertain a motion to adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 26 budget with the gas tax fund. to appropriate $189,693.80 in fiscal year 2024 SS4A grant funds to the project, along with $47,423.45 in local match from the gas tax fund balance for a total of $237,117.25. I'll motion. Second. A motion by Councilmember Klein and a second by Councilmember Hilton. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Bracco?

No.

Councilmember Klein?

Yes.

Councilmember Fugazi?

No.

Councilmember Hilton?

Aye.

Councilmember Marks? Yes. Councilmember Ramirez? Yes. Mayor Bozo?

Yes. Motion passes 5-2. Thank you very much. Moving on, we, as I said before, item 10.1 has been pulled from tonight's agenda, so we will move right along to item 10.2. Consideration of the report of abatement of weeds and refuse within the city of Gilroy and adoption of a resolution confirming the imposition of assessments leans against the land. Staff report, please.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and residents of Gilroy. Tonight's agenda item is the final step in the 2026 weed abatement program process. Earlier this year, the City Council approved the county weed abatement contract and adopted Resolution 2026-09, declaring weeds to be a public nuisance and initiating the annual weed abatement process. Santa Clara County then identified properties requiring abatement and mailed notices and instructions to all affected property owners. A public hearing was held on April 20th, after which City Council adopted Resolution 26, Approving the final list of properties subject to the program. Following the May 15th compliance due date, the county and city conducted inspections. Property owners had the opportunity to communicate with county staff and fire prevention staff if they needed assistance or wished to discuss their property. Properties that remained out of compliance received failed inspection notices and where necessary were abated by the county's contractor. The attached staff report and assessment spreadsheet identify applicable inspection fees, failed inspection fees, administrative costs, and contractor abatement costs for each affected property. This year the weed abatement list includes 118 properties continuing the gradual decline from approximately 160 properties in previous years as vacant parcels have been developed. Property owners proposed for assessment were notified in July and were provided an opportunity to contact county weed abatement program manager or fire prevention staff to discuss or object to their assessment. To date, fire prevention has not received any requests to remove a property from the assessment list. Property owners still have the opportunity to raise any objections during tonight's public hearing. Therefore, staff recommends that the city council adopt the resolution confirming the assessments subject to any qualifying objections presented this evening. Santa Clara County Program Weed Abatement Manager, Garrick, and myself are available if there are questions. End of report.

Any questions from Council? Yeah, go ahead, Council Member Fregatti.

In short summary, are we getting better with weeds in Gilroy or worse, like year over year?

I would say we're gradually getting better. There's the quantitative. Almost 10 years ago, we had 300 parcels in the program, and now we're down to 118, and I just hope that it continues to do it. But we do have increased reporting, more awareness with fire safety and fire prevention, so increased reporting means we could have more properties reported, but I think the general trend is that we are getting better.

More resident input, too, right? Yeah. Which is good. All right, thank you.

Additional questions? Okay, then I will open the public hearing and ask the city clerk if there's any public comments.

I have no speakers.

Okay, I'll close the public hearing, bring it back to council. Any final comments? Well, I'll make one comment. I think it's incredible. There's five properties that were assessed, and they have a potential fee from $6,000 to $8,000 just for weeds, and they didn't even contact you, so... Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I will entertain a motion to adopt a resolution allowing the assessment of fees minus any qualifying objections as reported by the Santa Clara County Weed Abatement Program. Moved. I got a motion by Council Member Fugazi.

Second.

And a second by Council Member Marks. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco. Yes. Council Member Klein. Yes. Council Member Fugazi. Yes. Council Member Hilton. Aye. Council Member Marks. Yes. Council Member Ramirez. Yes. Mayor Bozo.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thanks, Jonathan. Moving on to item 10.3, adoption of an urgency ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy establishing a temporary moratorium on the issuance of a new tobacco retailer permit citywide through December 31, 2026. Staff report, please.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this is a continuation of the discussion that Council has been having about tobacco retailer permit regulations, or TRP as we call them. This is a follow-on from the direction that was received by Council on June 1st, which included not pursuing the zoning amendment regarding smoke shops, extending the temporary moratorium, and returning with maps of draft youth-oriented facilities prohibition zones. The first two items are going to be discussed this item, and then the other one is a sister agenda item following. So in those discussions, the council analysis continues, but with the direction to no longer pursue land-based or zoning-based regulation, the existing moratorium that was directed to be continued or extended was based on California planning law. So in order to alleviate us of those conditions that are around that which would require land use assessment being done, we are going to adopt instead an urgency moratorium using the existing city charter authority and police powers. And so that requires a new adoption, which is why the ordinance is not stating an extension. So overall, the moratorium proposed is largely similar to the one that's already in effect that it plans to overtake, and that the findings are consistent as the conditions remain the same regarding tobacco retail permits and the work the council is doing. It is effective through December 31st, 2026, if approved. Again, like the existing moratorium, it prohibits staff from processing TRP applications, but it does allow for the renewal of existing TRPs as long as the permitting remains the same, it's in the same location, and there are no other violations that are associated. And again, the moratorium does not prohibit us from enforcing any other regulations related to tobacco retailers. Alternatives, council has several alternatives. You can choose not to adopt the urgency ordinance, in which case, once the existing moratorium ends, then applications will be received per the normal process. Council may provide direction to prepare a regular ordinance instead. There might be a small gap when the existing moratorium ends before the next one becomes effective. Council may also adopt the urgency ordinance before you tonight with modifications. Since this is an urgency ordinance, it does not reset the clock, so we can still adopt with any modifications to tonight's meeting. And then finally, Council can provide direction on permit amendments only, similar to number one, taking no action but giving direction if there's another course of action that Council decides to pursue. The fiscal impact for the moratorium, obviously potential minimal loss of permit fee revenue and some staff time to effectuate the moratorium. But again, these are minimal. Next steps, if Council approves it tonight, we'd implement the ordinance and then continue evaluating the TRP amendments with the City Council, continuing on the next item on the agenda. So staff's recommendation is to adopt the urgency ordinance that was established in temporary moratorium for TRP citywide through December 31st, 2026. That completes the presentation.

All right, I have first two on the board. I have Council Member Fugazi, then Council Member Hilton.

So when we did the first moratorium, my and even the more general moratorium across the city, we did the first one in the one section and then the general one. My reasoning behind it was because it appeared at the time it was found out afterward that We had major holes in how we administer the TRPs and how we enforce and all of these kinds of things, which I don't need to rehash. So the question I would ask you right now is, do we feel as a city that we've now fixed those things, we've plugged those holes, we are set up to issue the proper TRPs, to issue the proper business license that say things like tobacco and then require them to have a TRP if they've got a business license that says tobacco. Do we have the ability to do the inspections and these other things that we didn't have nine months ago, let's say?

So the authority hasn't changed that we have nine months ago. We do have a lot more eyes on the issue, so we can still utilize the existing tools. What we've presented to council and we've had general settlement on are the terms of enhanced enforcement authorities within the ordinance.

That wasn't my question, though. That's not even close to my question. My question is now, if somebody, if we were to not do this, could we today, with the way staff is set up and new procedures or whatever they are, affect a TRP application in a new, more enhanced way so that we don't have the problems that we had in the past?

So I was going kind of around to the answer to address it. Largely, yes. The only thing that we're missing is the enhanced requirements on the permit application and some of the tools that we have.

Only if we choose to have those. Only if we choose to have those. As you said, even if we do that, there will be a potential gap in between the moratorium and those being enacted, correct?

If we don't adopt the urgency ordinance.

Even if you did, you said that there may be a gap.

As the alternative, so the urgency ordinance would take effect immediately upon adoption tonight. If, as one of the alternatives, we adopt a regular ordinance to place a moratorium, there would be a gap because that ordinance would not be effective until 30 days after final adoption. And so the current moratorium ends August 24th. So we would have a small gap of a few weeks. to when that new ordinance would be effective. So there'd be a gap where an application could come in between the two moratorium periods.

Okay, so just to restate though, you're in agreement that the city could properly now receive TRP applications, process them, enforce them, and all the things required to have the proper set of things in place for tobacco sales in Gilroy.

Enforcement, yes. The question that remains for council is the...

I understand that there may be enhancements, but let's say there's no enhancements and there's no moratorium. Are we able to handle it as a city?

Handle the permit, yes. The question is the other item later on the agenda, the youth-oriented facilities prohibition. That process is still underway. So if August 24th, after that period, until any update of... The city code that relates to you should we have done these in Reverse it would not Well, you know the the the process is the next item is is receiving direction not input not adopting an ordinance I don't know that you're clearing up confusion for me.

You're creating more.

Okay, so the the Prosser now there's more turn there's an existence Already, it's set to expire August 24th At the same time council's looking the moratorium is depleted used in effect to allow time for council to evaluate the ordinances and requirements around tobacco retail permits, including enhanced enforcement after this process, as well as looking at youth-oriented facilities and whether we're going to put a prohibition zone around youth-oriented facilities similar to schools, 1,000 square feet. That's the other component that has not been resolved yet. Can we do enhanced enforcement? Yes, we can regulate permits with the same code that we have now, and when the enhanced provisions come back to council, if adopted, those would still be in effect and apply going forward, especially since tobacco retail permits are renewed every year. So any new requirements that were required...

Understood that part.

But we haven't... For youth-oriented, it's still not resolved.

We have increased confidence now, is what you're saying, compared to nine months ago, that we can handle this. That's correct. Okay, great.

Council Member Hilton. If I get this right, there's still language that we need to codify that we've been talking about for a long time. One of the items is coming up, but at the same time, THERE'S ALSO OTHER STUFF THAT WE'VE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT THAT HAS NOT BEEN INCORPORATED INTO THE TRP YET, AND THAT'S THE GAP WE'RE TRYING TO FILL WITH THIS TONIGHT. SO, YEAH, I UNDERSTAND IT COULD HAVE COME BEFORE IT, BUT IF THAT ITEM CAME BEFORE IT AND WE SAID, YOU KNOW WHAT, WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO THE USE-SENSITIVE SITES, WE'RE FINE WITH SCHOOLS, THERE'S STILL STAFF WORK THAT THEY NEED TO DO. YEAH, NO, NO, BUT THAT IS CORRECT, RIGHT?

SO THE ORGANIZATION was brought back was the youth-oriented facilities enhancement. Council signed the enhancement, but it wanted to discuss the youth-oriented. So it was not split into two different ordinances to be brought back at different times. So they're, at this point, linked based on the direction it was received.

Thank you.

Any further questions? OK. I'm going to open the public hearing for public comment.

I have no speakers.

All right. Bring it back to council. Council Member Furgati.

For myself, the way I stand on this is that we had ordinances in place. Had they been taken care of the way they were supposed to, then we probably wouldn't have gotten to the situation that we did. We resolved it. City came together, staff came together, and did everything that they need to do. At the same time, we have other concerns, or some council members have other concerns, which still exist around tobacco. And to me, they're two completely different things. So I believe that the city and the city businesses should be allowed to continue to follow the ordinances that were already in place and should have been working just fine. And then at the same time, we can continue to discuss and refine ordinances just like any other policy that we have. We do not hold a moratorium on something while we're trying to check it out and figure it out and discuss it and everything around that and especially if it's related to to business in the city, so I am NOT going to be in favor of pushing forward another moratorium timeframe on this and I am for working as quickly as we can if other council members want to Have the discussion and figure out how we have to modify it and move it forward Additional comments

THEY'RE HEARING ME NOW?

YEAH.

SO I APPRECIATE BOTH OF YOU AND THE WORK YOU'VE DONE OVER THESE MONTHS. I AM CONCERNED WHAT YOU SHARE ABOUT CONTINUING THE MORATORIUM. IT'S KIND OF A, I DON'T KNOW, CAN WE, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO MOVE FORWARD TOO, BUT I UNDERSTAND THE CONCERN WITH THE MORATORIUM TOO AS FAR AS GETTING THIS STUFF DONE. SO AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO THIS POINT.

COUNCIL MEMBER RAMIREZ.

So I appreciate also the fact that we have made significant strides in improving. I guess my question would be, given that we have such a limited, since we have such limited resources, how resource taxing is this in order to keep it at the levels that Mr. Fugazi is asking? You know, what are we not paying attention to in order to pay attention to this, or is that not a concern? Does that make sense? Making sure that the enforcement part of the tobacco is being addressed.

It's not additional resource demand of significance. So we've established as part of this new practices with the joint meetings with police department, code enforcement, finance to do this process on an ongoing basis. So there's more eyes on it. So the work is shared across multiple departments. It's not a meaningful increase of workload to keep this up.

So I'm assuming these are like stings that happen and things like that?

Yeah. So there's the PD has grant for the next three years to conduct enforcement operations there. Again, that will still continue beyond that. Really, it's the communication and enhanced, having some more eyes on the situation helps to help us to capture that and to show that workload. Thank you.

I just want to say, we've already kept a number of businesses like C-Stores, convenience stores, and others on hold for quite a number of months to not be able to establish a business YOU KNOW, IN THIS AREA. I HATE CIGARETTES, OKAY? I HAVE NO LOVE FOR CIGARETTES, BUT I DO HAVE A LOVE FOR BUSINESS, AND I DO HAVE A LOVE FOR BUSINESSES THAT WANT TO SET UP IN GILROY, AND I MENTIONED IT BEFORE, AND ACTUALLY THE MAYOR MENTIONED TO ME A LITTLE BIT EARLIER, WHICH IS THERE'S EVERYTHING FROM THE C-STORE WHO HOLDS CIGARETTES TO THE HIGH-END CIGAR STORE THAT WANTS TO GET SET UP AND SERVICE THEIR CLIENTELE. AND I JUST THINK HOLDING THIS UP OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR US TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER OR NOT WE WANT TO RESTRICT IT MORE, IT'S JUST NOT FAIR TO BUSINESS.

SO I HAVE SOME COMMENTS. I APPRECIATE YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON THIS, COUNCILMEMBER FUGATSI. I THINK WE'VE COME A VERY, VERY, VERY LONG WAY SINCE WE STARTED THIS PROCESS ABOUT A YEAR AGO. AND WHILE I APPRECIATE YOUR OPPOSITION TO THIS FOR YOUR REASONS, FOR ME, THIS IS A TOOL IN THE TOOL BOX. AND I THINK WE'VE COME SO FAR, AND WE ARE VERY CLOSE. AND FOR THAT REASON, I CAN SUPPORT THIS. BUT I'M GOING TO NEED SOME HELP ON COUNCIL.

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU FEAR, MAYOR? IF THE MORATORIUM IS LIFTED, WHAT DO YOU THINK MIGHT HAPPEN THAT WOULD BE THE ANTITHESIS OF WHAT WE WANT HERE?

AS COUNCILMEMBER HILTON SAID AND AS STAFF PRESENTED, THERE ARE A FEW GAPS. I WANT US TO GET OVER THE FINISH LINE.

And to me, too, it's to be able to see the final product. We have not seen that yet. We haven't had a chance to see that yet. We still have to go through that next item. But even if that next item gets approved or not approved, we still haven't seen the new TRP, the one that we can vote yes or no on. We haven't seen that yet. We're trying to get to that point, but we're not there yet. That's what staff and that's what I'm trying to ask you to give us a little grace for. We have not finished the process yet.

Again, every time we have something that we're trying to regulate in town, we don't enact a moratorium so that we can then figure it out for six, eight, ten months and then make the changes that we want and enact it, whether it's a card carrying thing or whatever it is. Yeah, card room, thank you. We do what we need to do and in the interim, until it gets done, it stays the way it was. And so if somebody can give me a public health reason why this should be stopped, then that would make sense to me. But if it's just, hey, we'd like to get it finished, what is possibly going to happen? We're going to have somebody apply for a TRP, and they're going to put something in place in an area right now that already is restricted from schools and already has restrictions in place, many restrictions in place, and it was what we had already for some time. and the only reason one of the main reasons that we put it in place in the in the first place we saw how crazy it was uh... around all the site eight i would listen to the reason for me to say yeah we've got this problem we don't want to make that we don't want to have a new uh... tobacco retailer in this particular area and that's just not what i'm hearing underage is out come from brocco bryce uh...

I noticed driving around Gilroy, it looks like about half of them are gone. The stores are empty. They're boarded up. Do you know how many have just left?

Let me see here. I want to say eight. Eight out of how many? We had 50 at the beginning, so I think we have about 44 current right now.

So that's all TRPs, though. We're not talking about smoke shops.

Correct, all TRPs.

You don't categorize them into the smoke shops or vape shops?

No, it's all lumped together as just one tobacco retail permit.

Okay. And like Council Member Fugazi was saying, I mean, it's been a year. If we don't adopt anything, you still have rules that you go by, right?

Yeah. So the decision about the moratorium at this point would be if, again, just kind of circling back, if the moratorium does not get extended, in the between time while the decision on the prohibition zones around youth facilities, you could have a business pop up in an area that is about to be prohibited. Again, with the proposal that we'll talk about at the next meeting, there's Obviously, anything that's in existence would then be grandfathered in and be able to remain in operation as long as it has the arm's length transaction. So that's the gap. That's what the moratorium at this point would be protecting, would be keeping any applications from coming in that would be in a potentially prohibited area while that decision is being made by council.

And how long of a moratorium are we looking at?

So we slated through December. We can alleviate it early once council's direction is finalized, we have the ordinance adopted, and then we can alleviate it.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Marks and then Council Member Ramirez.

All right, the problem, I am supporting this moratorium. I'm supporting this moratorium because I think what angers me the most is that these smoke shops come in, they're given all the regulations, they know the rules, and they break them every time. And I just find that's unforgivable that we're exposing our kids to drugs that they're selling. And then they play dumb, like, oh, I didn't know. Well, you have to read it. And you have to know what your responsibility is. So I have no sympathy for them. Secondly, Can you have this done by end of September or at our second meeting in September? Because I do agree with Council Member Fugazi. This has been going on and on and on and on and I felt like this was a very important issue that we wanted done and I thought it was going to be done in six months and it isn't. And I may be hard pressed to go ahead and give another extension after this because to me it's just a matter of people sitting down and coming up with something that's common sense. and needs to be brought back to council. And I feel like you guys have had plenty of time already. So can we get it done by the second meeting in September?

I believe there's only one meeting in September under the current calendar. The challenge that we run into is once we have clear direction, which we'll have tonight, we have stuff to do.

First meeting in October, then?

Potentially, yes. So we legally advertise it. We do introduction at the meeting in September. October will be adoption, but still be 30 days beyond that before the new ordinance is in effect.

All right. Council Member Ramirez.

So I appreciate the comments made by Council Member Fugazi. I do have a question. Are there, in trying to differentiate between like the smoke shops and then like the circle Ks or grocery stores or something like that that sell tobacco, do we have any applications in the process that are being held up by this? Or do we Have there been any coming into its full opportunity?

So the basis of the moratorium is that we do not process applications, so we don't track. We just simply return it as not. So I don't have statistics as far as there's no waiting line or wait list to begin that process. So anything that's been submitted at this point in time during the moratorium, we just simply would decline and state that there is a moratorium. Have you had to decline anything? We have, I believe.

I just don't have the specific numbers in front of me, though. AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHETHER THEY WERE SMOKE SHOPS OR MORE?

AGAIN, THE TOBACCO RETAIL PERMIT DOESN'T DIFFERENTIATE. OKAY, THANK YOU.

WAS IT ONE, TEN, 100? I MEAN, AGAIN, THESE ARE BUSINESSES THAT ARE TRYING TO... FROM MY UNDERSTANDING, IT'S A SMALL BIT, MAYBE ONE TO THREE. OKAY.

ALL RIGHT. WELL, I'M LOOKING FOR SOME ACTION HERE, SO ANYBODY WANTS TO MAKE A MOTION?

I'll do the motion.

Sorry, I think we're going to break this into two motions.

The first motion would have to be a motion to read the ordinance by title and waive further reading. Under our charter, that motion has to be unanimous, even if someone is opposed to the ultimate moratorium. But I would hope that that motion would pass unanimously so the clerk can then read the ordinance by title only. So moved. Before the ordinance itself is voted on.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, so I have a motion by Councilmember Hilton and a second by Councilmember Marks to read the ordinance by title only and waive further reading.

Councilmember Bracco? Yes. Councilmember Klein?

Yes.

Councilmember Fugazi?

Yes.

Councilmember Hilton?

Thank you. Yes.

Councilmember Marks? Yes. Councilmember Ramirez? Yes. Mayor Bozo?

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you.

So the clerk will now read the ordinance by title only.

An urgency ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy establishing a temporary moratorium on the issuance of new tobacco retailer permits citywide through December 31st, 2026. So moved.

Second. And this motion requires five votes for passage.

Roll call, please, Sam. Council Member Bracco? Yes. Council Member Klein? Yes. Council Member Fugazi?

No.

Council Member Hilton?

Aye.

Council Member Marks? Yes. Council Member Ramirez? Yes. Mayor Bozo? Aye.

Yes, motion passes 6 to 1. Thank you. OK, moving on to item number 11, unfinished business. If you haven't got enough tobacco talk, here we go. Consideration of a tobacco retailer permit prohibited areas around youth oriented facilities. Staff report, please.

Yes, Mayor, Council. As discussed last time, this is the The items talk about the youth-oriented facilities. Again, the TRP program was established in 2014. It was adopted with the focus of preventing youth access to tobacco. And so one of that is the current youth protection mechanism is 1,000 feet prohibition zone around schools. Council has continued reviewing TRP regulations and direction is needed as there's been discussion back and forth about the nature of youth-oriented facilities being proposed. So the original proposal had public libraries, parks, playgrounds, and recreation facilities included, as well as the youth centers, which can be privately owned. And then the matter of discussion was on the licensed child care facility preschools. Specifically, there was a discussion about whether the age that those facilities serve would be affected by a location of a tobacco retailer nearby. So staff did initial research. 46 potential youth-oriented facility locations are identified. Again, this is potential. You know, new facilities could open and close, and this is from what basic internet searches are available. It is proposed to use the existing 1,000-foot school parcel-to-parcel measurement as the current method. It would apply prospectively to new TRP applications, so it would carry the same benefit to pre-existing retailers within those prohibition zones, that they would be able to continue to operate as long as they're operating legally. and that any transaction sale of that business would continue on as long as it's an arm's-length transaction. And, of course, also renewals as well we covered. So in this, this is a table that was also in the staff report identifying current facilities that have been identified. Again, the largest part being parks, the licensed child care facilities, youth centers, about five that we've been able to document, and then one library park. I'm sorry, one library, playground, and recreation facility, which are actually here on the Civic Center campus. So in a minute, I'll pull up the interactive map to show the different spheres of prohibition. But there's alternatives for council. One is to take no action. In that case, we would then bring back the ordinance with just the enforcement language that was presented to council previously. It could modify the definition of youth-oriented facilities. Staff can modify, I'm sorry, staff, council can modify that to add or remove different classifications. And then alternatively, you could also use a different distance in the 1,000 feet that was proposed. Fiscal impact, there's no direct fiscal impact from the direction being received. We have staff time, minimal legal advertising for the ordinance adoption process, but no budget action is necessary. And the next steps, depending on council's direction, we then prepare the final ordinance return to council to start that adoption process. And so the recommendation is to provide the direction regarding the the youth-oriented facilities' desire to prohibit new tobacco retail from opening in those areas. So with that, let me go ahead and go back and open up the map here. One second. My apologies. Okay. On this is a portal. The link was included in the staff report, and maps were included as attachments that were based on the areas for these facilities. Happy if council wishes to see different configurations, we can enable or disable different boundary areas and zoom into different areas to whatever council is desiring to review. And that completes the structured presentation. Happy to address any questions, answers, or run a few different scenarios.

Council Member Furgati.

So it looks like quite a bit of coverage of the city. Probably with three more youth facilities, you'd pretty much have the whole city pretty much off limits if they were one over on 1st Street, one over on 10th Street, and one over by the outlets, I guess, or somewhere around over there.

Yeah, there's a few pockets that remain. Yes, the combination of parks significantly consumes that from the sheer number of parks. If we were to, let me take this out here. So if we were to take out parks, let me disable the schools because those are, well, we'll keep the schools in for this one. So this is where we'd be without the parks being included. Schools are the other large consumption with 14 locations scattered throughout. Most of the schools affect a lot of the residential area, but it does have crossover into commercial areas, especially as you approach the downtown and a little bit on the first street closer to Monterey access. Parks are scattered throughout, and so you do have small sections, especially small parks like, for example, the one here on Santa Teresa where it would actually block a part of that commercial area.

Right. So that's, I mean, a potential area for filling station or C-Store as well as down on, you know, over by 10th Street and over that way. And if the ones over there off First Street are not, you know, you have a grandfathering issue there. So it's quite a bit of the city covered by that. The second question, maybe it's I think it's for our director of economic development, because I'd like to hear her opinion on this and how it affects the city. And if she was working with you and anybody else on this topic, how it affects our economics and what her feelings are about having this.

Good afternoon. I apologize. I have not been working with them on this, so I'd have to come back with, really take a look at it, talk to community development.

So is this a surprise to you or?

Not a surprise, but I have not been working directly with them. So I'd like to have the opportunity to have a discussion and dig a little bit deeper into the issues.

Would something like this be a concern? It's something that obviously is going to limit business and economic development.

Well, like you, I always have a concern on how we're dealing with businesses in the city. And for me, it affects our climate and culture of how we do business or how we're perceived to doing business in the city. That said, with clarity of policy or working towards clarity of policy and if there's clear communication, I mean, Sometimes this is what's needed for certain types of businesses in our city.

Well, we have some new C-stores in town, one over off of 10th Street and whatnot, and a big component of their business is tobacco sales. And clearly that business is a big economic concern for us, gas sales and everything else. So, I mean, limiting these abilities would affect the economic return to Gilroy, would it not?

Right. I mean, I think taking a large, like a very big, broad attack at something without being specific to get to where we want to be is difficult. That said, I have to say I would have to sit down and talk to them about the nuances of the policy they're proposing. I'm just not prepared to speak about that tonight. Okay.

Thank you. Council Member Ramirez.

So I would like clarity on, if we move forward with this, ANY PRESCHOOLS THAT ARE LICENSED IN HOMES, THINGS LIKE THAT, WOULD IT PREVENT SOMEBODY FROM BEING ABLE TO DO THAT, OR WOULD THEY, THEY WOULD HAVE TO JUST UNDERSTAND THAT IF THEY OPEN UP A PRESCHOOL, THEY CANNOT, IF THERE'S ALREADY AN EXISTING ESTABLISHMENT, THEY CANNOT FORCE THE CLOSER OUT. THEY HAVE BEEN OR SCHOOL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

CORRECT. For the comments, questions, excuse me, for the questions?

I mean, is there a concern from the city, from a health perspective, of a tobacco establishment, tobacco sales establishment, cropping up within 600 feet of a place that has five-year-olds in it? I mean, are we really worried that they're going to hop on over and grab a pack? I mean, I don't understand...

But I think it's important to step back and look at the evolution of this conversation. And largely this is this is not a staff driven proposal right. This is council driven policy level discussion. And staff is providing the information to facilitate the discussion. So when we're talking about if a particular use is identified as having a boundary around it that we don't want tobacco, then that would be the policy level discussion we're looking for today. And it's ultimately completely counsel's discretion on what the tradeoffs are. Is there an economic development tradeoff that you think is important? Is there a reality of use tradeoff that you want to

Yeah, I understand. I get it. Again, you just said it right there. Is there an economic development impact? And I would expect that to come with your report for something that restricts the economics of Gilroy.

I think the initial discussion was around youth-oriented facilities and what youth-oriented facilities we should be considering. I think this is a response to that in terms of what the boundaries are and what the potential impact is to Gilroy. the sheer potential.

But we don't know the impact. That's the thing that's what I'm saying is we know the impact of where it is, but it's hard to make a decision if you don't know what the intent the exact implications or even the unintended implications are of doing something like this to then go, oh, well, if we did this, it would restrict the city from earning this in the future potentially.

So I think it's pretty easy to get to the conclusion that there would be an economic impact if we created a barrier to development at a particularly intense intersection, right? Some of those that we've seen, the Circle K example is a great one. So I think you can get there pretty quickly. It becomes the policy level decision of how much is reasonable. And I don't think we'll be able to quantify in dollars what that amount is prospectively. I think we can look at what we have now and where we would preclude future development. But forecasting what would go in in a particular corner is going to be very difficult for us.

But you and the economic development director can have an opinion, right? Like that this is going to have a significant, a mild impact, a I'M NOT GOING TO KNOW THE EXACT NUMBER, BUT I'LL BOOK END IT AT 300 GRAND TO 500 GRAND A YEAR, SOMETHING, RIGHT? SOMETHING TANGIBLE. NOBODY'S GOING TO HOLD ANYBODY TO A NUMBER.

I THINK PUTTING A NUMBER ON IT'S NOT REASONABLE. I THINK SAYING THAT IT WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC IMPACT IS AN EASY ONE. YES, IT WILL.

COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ?

SO A MOMENT AGO WHEN WE WERE ON THE PREVIOUS ITEM, WE KIND OF LINKED THESE TWO ITEMS TOGETHER, RIGHT? AND SO I'M GOING TO TRY TO to do the same thing in a sense. If I recall, we had a significant concern about most specifically smoke shops and the sales that were happening, the legal sales that were happening. We've established that we've made significant strides in that area. Most smoke shops are being down, right? And I do not recall the conversation of concern being around the convenience stores, the Circle Ks, things like that. So I guess, you know, I appreciate when this was originally brought forward, there was a concern because of the sales that were happening and all of the illegal things that were going on. But I'm just wondering if the level of CONCERN STILL EXISTS TODAY GIVEN THE STRIDES THAT WE HAVE MADE WITH ENFORCEMENT AND SHUTTING DOWN ESTABLISHMENTS THAT ARE KEY DEFENDERS, IF YOU WILL. ARE WE AT THE SAME LEVEL?

I THINK THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION. I THINK THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE WRESTLING WITH TONIGHT AS A COUNCIL.

RIGHT. I had a higher level of concern when this was first brought forward. I don't know that I share the same concern now. I think that we have come so far that I just... Yeah, and that's fine. I was asking if it was...

So I'll ask a question and make a comment, sorry, all at the same time. Hopefully it's related to what you were saying. And maybe Councilmember Hilton, you can help a little bit here. Going back to where we were a year ago or so, what did we have? We had an ordinance that prevented TOBACCO RETAIL WITHIN 1,000 FEET OF A SCHOOL. IS THAT CORRECT? I THINK AS ALL OF US ARE TALKING ABOUT, YOU HAVE LESS CONCERNS. JUST BECAUSE ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE ON HERE, THEY'RE TAKING GUIDANCE FROM US TODAY. I THINK THERE'S ROOM FOR A DISCUSSION HERE THAT MAYBE WE DON'T WANT ALL OF THESE. This giant list of things restricts. So I just wanted to put that out there. I think we're all going to be on, I don't know if we're all going to agree exactly.

Are we still on questions? Are we still on questions?

I can't remember. Well, I'm trying to.

No, it's okay. I forgot already.

I'm just trying to put in perspective what she said, that there's a giant list that, okay, here's a question. Can't we consider doing a lot less of what's on the list? Yes. Okay. There's a question. Council Member Rocco.

Yeah, I'm not sure what our end goal is here. We have rules a thousand feet from a school and I think we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. These mostly are all legitimate businesses that there's no problems with. So I think we should just leave it the way it is.

Okay, so let's, thank you. We'll go to public comment, please.

I have no speakers.

Okay. I can't get a break. All right. Okay, let's open it up for deliberations.

All right, go ahead. You know, one of the things I wanted to bring up because it was brought up on council here is that tobacco establishments and some that are labeled as a smoke shop, which we tried unsuccessfully to try to define at one point, are bad because they sell illegal things. Well, if they're allowed to sell illegal things, then we're bad as an enforcement arm of the city to keeping them from doing that. If they are violating other ordinances around signage or smoking around the facility or any of these other things that are all written in there, it's a very comprehensive ordinance already. then we are at fault as a city for not enforcing what we already have on the books. So if we have bad actors and we allow them to be bad actors, it's our fault. It's not the ordinance's fault. So to what Council Member Bracco said, what we really need to establish here is, is the ordinance that we have on the books today not enough? And if so, in which way? So is it not enough because it doesn't block enough areas and which ones do we want to block? Is it not enough because it doesn't have big enough penalties? What are those things? Right now we're talking about the area. I think we already have the schools in place. We already have all of these things in the ordinances that haven't been given a chance to really be affected like they should for years that we now can't. And I would say that that we should leave it at that We should see what the city can do to enforce this and at the moment that we see That we have bad actors again that are being allowed to exist Then we as a council bring it up to staff and say hey you need to get back on top of this and That's that's where I stand on it further recommendations for staff

Well, we're not taking action on this tonight. So after we do the deliberation, this is what staff is looking for, right? Some guidance from us. What do we want to see?

I feel just input a little bit. I feel the same way as Council Member Ramirez, Council Member Fugazi, and Bronco about it's not as big of a pressing issue. We're concerned about that, but we're seeing what's been taking place in these last nine months and where it's really improved. We want to see this ordinance in place. I just think Not maybe as much like what you said still look at that. We want to complete this I get that too, but maybe not as much Now can I ask another question to like okay?

So let's say we decide as a group to tell staff that hey look Let's just leave it the way it is We just passed a moratorium for what reason that's why I said why did we put these in that order because if we came to this conclusion First, we might not have passed a moratorium.

Additional comments?

Fair enough.

You know, I think I'll take credit for pushing us towards this youth-oriented one because, you know, we were trying to think of anything and everything that we could do to regulate at that time, but we kept pausing when, you know, back in June where we wanted to, like, push, push, push, and we all kind of agreed, like, hey, hold on a second. You know, let's use the summertime. Let's have a little bit of a cooling off. Let's figure out whether we want to do this or not, and, you know, THIS IS A GREAT TOOL THAT YOU PUT TOGETHER, BRYCE. I APPRECIATE IT. WHAT I WAS REALLY TRYING TO GO AFTER IS THE SPECIFIC USE CENTERS THAT WE KNOW THAT ARE OPENING UP. BUT I THINK WHAT WE'VE SHOWN, EVEN IN JUNE, AS SOME OF THAT INFORMATION WAS COMING OUT, HOW WE WERE PRETTY MUCH RUNNING THESE SMOKE SHOPS OUT OF TOWN, BY NOW, I AGREE WITH YOU ALL. THERE'S NO REASON FOR US TO DO THIS EVEN FURTHER, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE WE CAN ALREADY SAY IT WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC IMPACT. AND WE MANAGED TO RUN ALL THOSE SMOKE SHOPS OUT OF TOWN. when we were looking for all sorts of ways to get them away. I do not feel as worried that somebody like a smoke shop or whatever would open up next to any of these youth facilities because there's just no place for them. We ran them out. There's no place for them. They know that they're going to get a knock at the door or immediately if they disguise themselves as a gift shop or anything else, everybody's spidey senses are going to go crazy. They're not going to be able to do it, right? So I don't have that fear like I did before. But, you know, staff does need to be able to get that time to come back here. And that regular ordinance process, unfortunately, just takes too long. And so that's why they needed the urgency ordinance. But I agree with Council Member Marks, like, let's get it done with, let's mark this off as an achievement of what we did. But I still am really nervous that staff will let this go again, that this council or this future council will let this go again and think that it's all okay. I want to continue to hear those stories and that implementation of the Department of Justice grants. I want to hear those friendly knocks at people's doors and those friendly, I forget what they called it in the DOJ. I want to hear those reports back. Maybe they could be during the city administrators. Whatever we're allowed to say publicly and keep that conversation going of what we are doing to these individuals, they're even legit businesses. THAT ARE SELLING ILLEGAL STUFF OR EVEN TEMPTED TO SELL IT, I WANT US TO CONSTANTLY TELL THAT STORY. WHEREVER AND WHEREVER WE CAN.

NEW SPEAKER COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ AND THEN COUNCILMEMBER MARKS.

NEW SPEAKER I JUST WANT TO SAY, YOU KNOW, I APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN, COUNCILMEMBER FAGAZI. I DON'T SHARE THAT CONCERN SO MUCH BECAUSE I THINK IT JUST KIND OF, I DO WANT IT TO COME BACK WITH ME. AND I THINK WE'VE ESTABLISHED THAT. I think it's kind of a, you know, businesses that are coming in now are aware that we're watching you. This is important to us. You know, when I come in, welcome to do business, welcome to do legitimate business, that this council has directed staff to keep eyes on this to make sure that the illegal sales do not happen.

Council Member Marks.

Okay, I have a question, because from what I'm hearing right now, it sounds like this council is going in the direction of saying, let's leave the locations alone. We have it 1,000 feet from a school. Now, my question, Bryce, I thought at one time this council said they did not want smoke shops downtown. If we left, if we go back and just leave it alone, as I'm hearing it talked about, does that mean a smoke shop can open up downtown? Yes. Okay, we have to think about that because I would not approve that. I would want to see no smoke shops downtown. So I would agree with everything else, but... How would you feel about a high-end cigar shop? I know you really want one badly. I don't smoke cigars, but I like money. No, they could go to one or the other. They can go to one of the other areas of the city.

And to be clear, what he's presenting to us is about youth centers, not about downtown. So that's a completely different thing.

But downtown was why we got here. That was one of the reasons when that smoke shop tried to come. That opened up all these conversations.

Right, because again, back to smoke shops selling illegal things in order to make a profit. When they can't sell illegal items, they don't make a profit. So the reason C-stores exist is because they sell a lot of other things. They happen to be at a gas station and they sell cigarettes and it's part of what they do.

I don't have a problem with that.

But the reason that smoke shops, the only ones that exist, the smoke shops, are the ones that are selling illegal things. So if you make yourself a town that doesn't allow illegal stuff to be sold... by tobacco retailers, then you won't have them here. The reason we don't have food trucks in town as much anymore is because we attracted all the illegal food trucks. Then we created a temporary food truck ordinance, and they all left because they didn't want to get county permits, and they didn't want to get all of the regulations. And so when you enforce the things that you have on the books, it creates the order that you desire to have in a city. And you don't have to create layers of layers of other ordinances to correct for things. You do what you have first, and then you see what isn't covered.

How do we get to, go ahead. If I can, Mayor, I just want to remind the council that at the previous meeting, and the reason that we moved away from a land use moratorium is because we decided not to regulate by land use. So we had already made the decision that downtown would not be something that we would separate independently. We would rely on the enforcement side of things.

So how do we get to some language to give some direction to staff? I've heard, I've heard from this council that we want to stick to what we already have, but I'll also heard from council member Hilton that you meant you, you've mentioned the youth centers.

Nope. Okay.

I want you to re re give your words of what the direction we're going to get to staff and see if we have a consensus.

It would be basically be to, to not focus around these youth centers, right? That's clear enough. Whatever we already have existing, the buffer on the school zone is where we'd like to move forward. BUT WE ARE NOT MOVING FORWARD WITH ANY OF THESE YOUTH-SENSITIVE OR YOUTH-ORIENTED SITES.

SO ESSENTIALLY, WE ARE STICKING WITH WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE ON THE BOOKS, WHICH DOESN'T REQUIRE US TO HAVE A MORATORIUM BECAUSE WE ARE STICKING WITH WHAT IS ON THE BOOKS BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE TO BRING IT BACK FOR A NEW ORDINANCE, DO WE?

IF I MAY, THERE ARE SOME CLEANUP LANGUAGE ELEMENTS THAT WE WOULD LIKE. WE CAN BRING THOSE BACK AS A SEPARATE ITEM. AND THE NEED, IF WE'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING FURTHER TONIGHT, THE NEED FOR A MORATORIUM IS MUCH LESS OR NON-EXISTENT, AND SHOULD THE COUNCIL WANT TO RECONSIDER THE PREVIOUS ACTION ON A MORATORIUM, YOU COULD DO THAT TONIGHT.

OKAY. BACK TO THE GUIDANCE THAT WE'RE GIVING STAFF. DO YOU HAVE THE GUIDANCE FROM COUNCIL? I BELIEVE THAT WE ALL AGREE WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER HILTON SAID ON THE GUIDANCE THAT WE'RE GIVING TO STAFF. CORRECT.

THE GUIDANCE IS NOT TO PURSUE YOUTH-ORIENTED FACILITIES AS AN ADDITIONAL BUFFER ZONE OF PROVISION.

Well, I have six people nodding their heads.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. So we have six. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody for the conversation.

Uh, if the council desires to entertain a motion for reconsideration, this can be done under Robert's rules of orders, which we obey the way it works is that the previous motion to impose the ordinance passed by a vote of six to one with one dissenter. If one of those six persons who voted for the motion makes a motion to reconsider and it gets seconded, the council can then consider that motion. In other words, have a discussion right now of do you want to reconsider or not? If that motion passes, the council can then actually reconsider the ordinance.

the moratorium and decide whether to keep it.

But the first motion would have to be, if someone wants to, a motion would have to be made by one of the six council members who voted in favor of the moratorium, and the motion would be a motion to reconsider.

Second.

Okay, that motion is now open for discussion or for simply a vote on the motion whether or not to reconsider it.

I just have a question. So if we allow the moratorium to continue under what you're working on, would smoke shops be allowed downtown?

The moratorium, if the moratorium continued, then all tobacco retailers would be prevented.

From downtown?

From citywide, which would include downtown. If the actions reconsidered, the moratorium would end August 24th, in which case tobacco retail permits are allowed citywide, excluding the areas around schools 5,000 feet. Okay.

So basically, we went right back to where we were 10 months ago, except the only change was we now had enforcement that could have, and yes. And some less smoke shops because of the enforcement.

So enhanced enforcement. We also have, as City Administrator Morey mentioned, we're coming back with, as you may recall from previous discussions, we have a lot of language to increase, basically add more tools to the enforcement that we had proposed back before. So we'd be bringing that ordinance for adoption. That does not depend on the moratorium, though.

Council Member Ramirez?

Can we get a commitment to get that brought back Would it be too much to ask for the August 17th? Okay, how about the September 14th?

So what we'll commit to doing, so we already had council review the language, proposed language. So it'd be really quick. As soon as legal postings allow to be effective, then we'll go ahead and introduce the ordinance at that point. So we'll aim for as quick as we can. At minimum, it'd be introduced at the meeting in September. and then adoption 1st of October, assuming it goes through the public hearing process and council adopts it.

And so once it's adopted, then it has to wait 30 days.

Correct.

So if we adopt at the beginning of October, it's effective beginning of November, and then the moratorium is lifted.

The moratorium ends August 24th regardless. Unless it's extended by council, the existing moratorium ends August 24th.

Okay, but we currently voted You just voted to extend it, emergency, right? Now we're having a conversation. As it stands right now, the emergency is in place.

Correct.

So the conversation now is if we were to remove that emergency and we move forward with you bringing it back in September and then October and then it's the second of November, then if we keep the emergency moratorium in place, AND THIS BECOMES EFFECTIVE IN NOVEMBER, WE CAN THEN LET GO OF EMERGENCY MORATORIUM AT THAT TIME.

THAT'S ALWAYS AN OPTION, BUT THE ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS THAT WE'VE BEEN PUTTING IN PLACE ARE AFTER THE FACT. SO THE MORATORIUM'S LENGTH DOES NOT AFFECT OUR ABILITY TO EFFECTIVELY, YOU KNOW, MANAGE, FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM, ENFORCEMENT ON TOBACCO RETAILERS. WE GET A FEW EXTRA TOOLS, BUT THE TOOLS WE HAD USED ALREADY TO SHUT DOWN SMOKE SHOPS HAVE ALREADY BEEN EFFECTIVE.

You understand my question, right?

Yeah, so your question is, I think what you're trying to see is how to align the timing of the moratorium that we're discussing right now with a potential modified ordinance that would come back for final adoption and implementation in sort of November timeframe. And I think what Bryce is saying is that the work that we would bring back that would get adopted in November is about the enforcement side of things, not about the issuing a permit side of things. And we have tools in place already on the enforcement side of things that work for us. This just makes it better for the more egregious issues that we face. So we would be okay from an enforcement perspective without a moratorium if that's the direction the council wants to go.

Can I jump in again for a second? The motion on the floor is a motion to reconsider. So you have to decide whether you want to even reconsider. Then we have a separate discussion of reconsideration. Is there any public comment on the motion to reconsider?

I have no speakers.

Then it's appropriate to take a vote about whether or not you want to reconsider. And then if that motion passes, then you do the reconsideration. It's confusing, but that's the way it should proceed.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor to reconsider item, sorry, make sure we got this right, 10.3 on tonight's agenda. So roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco? Yes. Council Member Klein?

No.

Council Member Fugazi?

Yes.

Council Member Hilton?

No.

Council Member Marks? No. Council Member Ramirez? No. Mayor Bozo? No.

Motion fails, so there will be no reconsideration.

All right.

Thank you. Moving on to item number 12, introduction of new business, report on Gilroy Connect C-Click Fix, service level agreement performance update, benchmarking comparison and communication protocols. Bryce, again. Good evening, Mayor and Council.

So this is the first report to Council on the Gilroy Connect system. This is a program that was Launched in March of 2025, it's a customer relationship management system that was established in order to allow easier reporting and transparency for service requests to the city. It utilizes a website and mobile application configuration in order to document, track, and report out on the service requests that are submitted through it. So a snapshot through June 2026, the city's received 4,100 requests. 1,700 were submitted by constituents, which is the name that this program uses for account holders. And then 2,400 were submitted by guests. Of those requests, 98.7% of all requests were closed. Again, that's through June 2026. There were 410 account holders. 94% of those submitted five or fewer requests. On the screen, are the top 10 categories all time of service requests by number of requests received. It's in reverse order from the way that the report was produced. So inoperable van and vehicles, the bottom, is the largest category of request at 567. And then it tiers up from there. Of all the requests, 62%, 2,550, were submitted in the top 10 categories. Of those top ten, five are managed by the police department, four are managed by Public Works, and one is managed by Community Development. The system uses what's called service level agreements, which is established to determine the expected response time for resolving a reported issue. These are only visible to internal staff. It is not something that's displayed out for those that are submitting requests. And they are calculated Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and account for federal holidays. those are settings in the system itself are not able to be edited or changed by the city. We have an SLA that is set for each of Gilroy's request categories, which is actually fairly rare from our research, and we'll go over that here momentarily. So on the screen is the history at several intervals of our performance, starting with the time frame of all time at the top, and then trailing 12 months, six months, three months, and then last 30 days. In the chart at the bottom is a visual representation of the data on the top. So again, 4,100 submitted all time, 307 in the last 30 days. Between then, we see a steady record of performance improvement by the city overall. At all time considered, we have 62% that have closed within the SLA, But if you look at our last 30 days, we have 83% that have been closed within the SLA, with steady increases throughout the different periods. We also have average days of closure, shortening from 15 days average all time to the last 30 days at seven days on average. On the screen is another chart that shows those top 10, comparing the all time percent closure within SLA to the last six months. The all time is blue. The green is within the last six months showing marked improvement in all the categories with graffiti on private property matching about the same. So again, repeated improvements in each of those categories. We did look at benchmarking, one of the items on the administration department's work plan. Reviewed 21 cities in California. So staff looked at cities within a population of plus or minus 20,000 of the city of Gilroy. They used C-ClickFix to try to get as close to a direct comparable as possible. In the research, we found that half the agencies, roughly half, don't use SLAs at all to measure their performance. Eleven use at least one SLA. Only three have an SLA per each of their categories. So most cities apply those SLAs selectively. Additionally, as we've kind of looked at the SLAs, for more information, we could could review. The Cs tend to define structure and apply their SLAs differently and use categories differently than Cs. So we've included the collected benchmarking data in the staff report, but they don't provide a great example for us to compare against since there's so much difference between those. Additionally, most of the participation of the Cs was forced through Public Records Act requests, not voluntarily provided. And so the information that we have is extremely limited to just what was in the PRA responses. So moving on, we also included for counsel the standard practices. There's 11 standard practices. This is one of the exhibits in the packet. Some of the key ones that are listed on this screen, department's manager own requests and avoid cold reassignment to help ensure that when a case comes in, if it's been submitted by the reporting party to the wrong categorization, we ensure that we transfer only once to the right department. Manager supervisors provide public comments for consistency, but there are certain exceptions. Usually those are certain field positions such as code enforcement that would be providing response directly. And resolve requests are closed promptly with encouragement to provide document outcomes, like pictures, whenever possible. In reviewing the service level agreements, we have identified a couple of changes and adjustments that we're going to be taking on. One is the communication protocols. So in the standards, we have a blanket setting for communication once every week, regardless of the nature of any of the communications that's been, not sorry, regardless of any of the completion or progress that's been made. What we're noticing is that the communications are not really being completed as has been proposed under those standards. And so in looking at that and trying to find a consistent way to apply a standard citywide with different SLAs is to focus on completing the service request in the initial SLA period, but if not completed, an update provided each SLA interval. So a service level, a requested service level agreement of seven days, every seven days a communication would go out. If it's a 20-day SLA, every 20 days. That does not apply to a few categories. One, there's some automatic notifications that send out whenever a ticket advances from open when it's been received to acknowledge in progress and close. Those updates will continue to be provided as they move through that system. Additionally, there are some requests that are closed that are transferred to another system, such as traffic calming device requests, major street repairs above and beyond a pothole. Those would be transferred to another system and closed out in C-ClickFix. The other adjustment are to recalibrate some of our SLAs where we've noticed that the difference between what has been in the SLA and actual work accomplishment as far as within that timeframe where there's a disconnect between what's actually possible. So, for example, we have a lot of requests that have an SLA of one to three days. So if there's some that have one day specifically, well, we get the request the same day, the SLA period starts immediately. It's not actually time to close. even if it's not seen, the SLA clock starts instant the request is submitted. So we have a couple of those. Additionally, we see a lot more complexity in some cases where the repair takes an extended period of time that is not anticipated and is not the average outside norms. And unfortunately, due to the sometimes a smaller amount of requests, it ends up affecting the SLA significantly. So these categories require adjustment. Again, as I mentioned, there's some unrealistic one- to three-day SLA periods. The clock starts at submission, despite any other factors. And some requests, again, are more complex and require more time. So next steps, this is an informational item. I know actually it's being asked of Council. Staff will be scheduling annual updates to bring that back. Adjustments will continue to maximize performance. Staff is looking at setting the next performance target to 80% over the trailing six months. We have reached 80% in just the last 30 days, but we have not reached that for a prolonged period of time, so it could be still an outlier month. And so we're looking to track that and monitor that, and then once we reach that target, then it's time to set the bar up a bit higher. That completes the presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions. And if there's anything specific to a department, then department heads are available to answer those.

Thank you. We'll start off with Council Member Hilton, and then go Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you. So I have a first couple questions and then maybe on round two I'll ask more. So my first one though is we're developing this policy, right? We're going to provide some direction on this. How is this being passed on to the staff member that's the actual user end? How will they know what we're implementing and how do they know these standard practices?

So there's a Gillard Connect Working Group that's represented by one member from each department meet together regularly to go over those standard practices, performance, you know, experiences, and to talk about issues that may be coming up. And then those representatives then promulgate all those standards back to the departments through their various department meetings with their staff or department heads. And a good number of those representatives are the department heads themselves.

Okay. The second one is, do department directors get notified when some of these standards aren't being met or there's a ticket that's been opened and there's not continuing conversation? Aren't there automations that are automatically sent in there, and how high up do they go?

So each request category has a set number of automatic subscribers that come in. That's set by the departments themselves and the department directors. They establish any number of employees that they want to include in that initial notification. Once the request hits the SLA time frame or a due date that's been established in the system, it then goes through an escalation process. And I haven't seen any of the categories that have not had a department director on that escalation factor. It is possible, depending on the request director may set to be a lower position, but the vast majority I've seen have had a director on that.

So, I mean, there's tickets that have been out there that are still out 60 days, 90 days, 120 days. Who's getting notified every day that council members, when we hear from our constituents and they're like, what's going on with this? Who's the department director that I can go and speak to, you know, along with the city administrator copied on it, but I can say, this has been going on for 90 days. Did you know about this? Will they know about that?

The department director would.

They would. So they're getting an email?

they'll get an email once it hits a certain, like I said, once it hits a service level agreement, anybody in that escalation bracket receives an email, a daily email.

So, okay, that's good to know. My last question for this round is, I can see that there's some AI technology that has been implemented into it, into some of these changes over the last like 30 days. Maybe that's made it a little bit quicker. You know, it can detect, you know, what they think the issue might be, but it's also being automatically assigned to staffers. And I see that being implemented in the public works division. But how have you decided, are you testing it out in certain departments to see if it works? Or are you planning on implementing that for other departments?

There's a couple of different components. So public works requests have an integration with CityWorks, which is the work order system for public works department. So in that case, when a service request hits that, then There are settings already as far as integrating that, and we're going to have to defer to PubWorks on how that integration is finally set up. As far as other AI opportunities, there has been recent work with an AI company to look at finding ways to run more enhanced reporting and producing reports for that. At this point, aside from the SLA notification that something is beyond the time frame, the system itself does not have any AI integrations in it. So it's still a very static type of process. And so that's something that I know the administration department has been talking to an AI company to look at options going forward to enhance that so we can have that more rapid response to that. But all the progress that we've had has been through those manual means.

Thank you. Council Member Ramirez.

Okay, I have a couple of questions here. What is a guest user?

So a guest user is, there's a couple of options for anonymous reporting. And so a guest user is a way that we allow a reporting party to submit anonymously in order to submit their requests.

These other cities that you looked at, the 21 cities, do they all have anonymous options?

We don't know. So the only real data we received from the PRA request from those cities was just their service categories and any SLAs that they have. how it's implemented on the back end, we don't have that information.

Okay, so then is this a commitment issue or a capacity issue, the close rate? I mean, is it staff is just, we don't care about this tool, or is it more like we have a limited number of staffing resources and we have all these different things going on, And we have these things coming in, and we're just stretched, and we're trying to address these as quickly as possible, but we are at capacity right now with resources in other areas.

I would argue, if you look at the table we have here, we actually show marked improvement over time. I appreciate that. Yeah. And so 100% SLA compliance, especially when you deal with, so let's take a group of categories, for example. code enforcement. So what we end up experiencing with code enforcement is that it's all dependent on an external party doing their part to attain compliance. So some of those long-term cases are some of our very blighted properties that we continue to try to work with property owners to gain leverage on to bring their properties into compliance. And so there's in some ways like that, or you have cases where, let's say, a repair is needed but a part is taking longer than normal due to supply chain issues. There's different reasons why a particular individual case may go beyond that SLA.

So you could say it's not a commitment issue. I think it's not a commitment issue. So I looked at this, and I think it's a great tool overall. I think it's, in my opinion, it's way too broad. It needs to be focused.

Can we have questions? Oh. And leave that deliberation. Okay, sorry. Council Member Furgati.

So to be clear, these practices you're showing are new practices that you intend to put in place, not practices that are currently in place? Because I was a little confused.

They're practices that are currently in place. The programs are in place. We're just announcing the adjustments are the only things that are being announced at this point that staff will be making as far as communication protocols.

That's what I was asking. So the communication protocol is what's changing?

Correct.

So to get a more enhanced communication back and forth with the public?

Yeah, more consistent across the different categories.

So to follow up on the escalations from Council Member Hilton, Escalations have been in place since its inception, have they not?

Correct.

So when we get something that is out there for a resident that has taken 30, 45, 60, 120 days, those directors are getting those emails? As long as they're signed up on the escalation. So they're choosing to ignore C-Click fix? I don't understand how that can be possible.

I don't think that's a fair assessment whatsoever. I think if you look at the numbers, we're at 84% completion within the SLA. I think that's a phenomenal number.

Sure, but I'm talking about there are cases where there are ones that have zero.

There are going to be extenuating circumstances that have, as Bryce explained, that have continued work on them that are the anomaly, that are

I'm talking about where somebody said, hey, somebody will help you is the first response. And then three months later, it gets closed with no other communication, no other person coming in. So if we're doing escalations, I guess the question I'm asking is, are we going to improve our ability to respond to escalations? Because escalations have been in place. And that is where I think we're missing the mark on a lot of this.

I think there's always room for improvement and we are committed to that and you see the upward trend in the charts in the completion. I think we're going to continue to work on that. There's always going to be anomalies and there's always going to be areas that we can catch for improvement. I think that's ultimately the story is tonight is where are we today? How have we done in comparison with where we were a year ago? And will this trend continue? I think that's the message we're trying to carry tonight.

So obviously we have the staff are the ones creating the SLAs, right? And are the actual SLAs determined by what we can do, what we strive for, or what even the public might expect? Because those are all different things.

And so we work to achieve as SLAs where we think the public would expect something to be done. So where there's something that is an immediate, for instance, safety issue, we would expect that our SLA would be much shorter on those items. And there's going to be times where we need to adjust that, where maybe our SLA is out of whack and we'll continue to look at that. And there's going to be times where where we're achieving the SLAs and we need to sort of raise the bar to shorten the amount of time frame because we're getting there and we need a higher target to shoot for. So there's continuous adjustments and continuous improvement processes that's going on and that's why Bryce has the working group put together so that they can talk through these things.

So there's a real, I'll give a real example. Since you say it's what we think it's close to what people should expect. So a dilapidated car on a public street in front of somebody's house that gets reported, you've got an SLA in here of 30 days. I don't think most of the public would think that that is a reasonable time frame to have the dilapidated car pulled off from in front of their street.

Great. Thank you.

So what you're saying doesn't align with the SLAs that we think that they're close to what the public might expect. If somebody downtown wants to have a, what is the SLA for food trucks or food vendors downtown, according to our ordinance there?

Let's say it's 30 days, but let me double check.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I believe it's 30 days, but let me double check. I think it's 15. Yes, 15 days. 15 days. So if somebody reports having a food truck on one weekend or a food cart, I should say, that's illegally on the sidewalk, their expectation is that it might be there for another two weekends before we get to it. And that aligns with the SLA. I mean, that aligns with what we would think those business owners would have as an expectation.

That's what we're balancing with the resources.

I know that's what you're committing to. That's why I asked the question. Is this what staff can do? That's what we think is close to what residents can.

That's what we're aiming for. The other issue that, for example, just kind of those complexities is that we may shut them down and then they pop up somewhere else or they re-pop up.

Sure, we'll discuss that later in comments. But this is why the question was valid for me because when we show these things to residents, I think it's going to be a big disconnect for them on many of these to go, wait a second, Why does it take 30 days to get rid of this car from in front of my house? And I, anyway, I'll ask more later.

So I'm just curious. Prior to implementing this tool, there was, you know, each department had workflows, right? And so you kind of, based on the priorities set by council, you kind of had your work plan set, and you were moving in that direction. And we've implemented this tool. How much of a diversion is this tool in trying to achieve that closeout rate from the work plan that has been set by council priorities? Am I making myself clear on that?

Yes, but it's not really an additional work. It's just another method of reporting issues.

So the things that are being submitted through this tool are things you're already working on anyways?

Yes. So abandoned vehicles, instead of taking a phone call or waiting for an email, you go through this app to report that. So in the past, before this, every department had their own. It was call-ins, emails. So it's just another tool in order to receive those complaints.

Did this tool increase those requests instead of making it online?

I think it did. I think because it made it a lot easier to submit the request.

Other questions? No. Jump to public comment.

I have no speakers.

All right. BRING IT BACK. COUNCILMEMBER HILTON, WERE YOU REACHING? NO.

I'LL LET SOMEONE ELSE GO.

COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ?

OKAY. SO I THINK IT'S A GREAT TOOL. I HAVE SOME REAL CONCERNS. I THINK WE HAVE A CAPACITY ISSUE, I THINK, WITH STAFF. YOU KNOW, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT MOST OF THESE OR FALL WITHIN LIKE THE POLICE DEPARTMENT Personally, I would rather have staff assigned to crime prevention, gang suppression, enforcing safe driving in traffic, than on, if you will, playing whack-a-mole with some of the requests. Not to say that these requests are not valid and important, but when we're talking about capacity, I think that we need to focus on priorities. I think that we should remove the anonymous option for two reasons. One is a customer service. If I were to submit something and it is held up for a while and I'm being contacted, I want to be contacted, you know, hey, Kelly, look, you know, I appreciate your patience, we're working on it, but these circumstances required a little bit longer. I promise I'll get back to you in two weeks if it's not done. It's a customer service thing to me. It also, in my mind, who's to say that there are not, you know, there isn't an individual or a couple of individuals out there that are, you know, this is just a game to them or they have a bone to pick with the city and so they're going to just kind of clog the system. I would like to see the anonymous option removed. And I also think that we should put a pause, a review, and a relaunch into place. I think I counted 53 categories. Why can't we limit it down and make it more, I don't know, I just think it's way too broad, and I think it needs to be narrowed, and I think it needs to be, MANAGED A LITTLE BIT BETTER. LIKE I SAID, I THINK IT'S A GREAT TOOL IF USED APPROPRIATELY, BUT I WANT TO SEE LIMITED STAFF AND RESEARCHERS THAT WE HAVE REMAIN FOCUSED ON THE PRIORITIES THAT THE COUNCIL AS A WHOLE HAS SET.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on most of that. The anonymous thing is there so people don't have retribution concerns and they will report things that they might not otherwise report, including the examples that I gave earlier of dilapidated cars in their neighborhood or, you know, food carts that happen to be on Monterey. So the anonymous thing I think absolutely has to be there. I don't know how much you've utilized the C-Click fix thing, but even as anonymous, You get all the responses back. It comes to your email. It's anonymous. And you can have that conversation with THE STAFF ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO BE GOING ON. YOU KNOW, I'VE BEEN USING THIS FOR A LONG TIME, AND PROXY FOR RESIDENTS, QUITE FRANKLY, AND EDUCATING RESIDENTS, AND THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE LAST MONTHS, ABSOLUTELY, AND I SEE IT. AND SOME DEPARTMENTS, ALMOST SINCE DAY ONE, HAVE BEEN EXCELLENT IN IT, AND I DON'T MIND CALLING THEM OUT BECAUSE THEY'RE EXCELLENT, RIGHT? SO PUBLIC WORKS, And the parks guys are spot on. Like these guys, they must be riding with that thing in their car. And no, it's not additional work. It's stuff that they're already doing day to day. They're just being more responsive and more customer centric with the residents of Gilroy. I think the biggest concerns that you saw on the chart there are things around parking and things around in that area. I think that the response historically, and I'm not going to lay this on the new CHIEF, BUT THE RESPONSE HISTORICALLY SINCE ITS INCEPTION HAS NOT BEEN GREAT OUT OF PD. AND THE WAY IN WHICH THAT WE'RE DOING MANY OF THESE THINGS IN REGARDS TO TOWING ARE CREATING MORE WORK FOR US RATHER THAN ELIMINATING IT. WE'RE EXTENDING TOWS TO 30 DAYS, 60 DAYS, 80 DAYS OF THE SAME VEHICLE IN LOTS, GOING BACK, RETURNING. WE'RE CALLING RESIDENTS TO SEE WHETHER OR NOT WHO IT IS AND WHAT NOT, AND DELAYING THIS. we get more and more repeat tickets that come into the system. Tickets by certain departments, too, are closed really early. Sometime, I believe, last year, and Bryce, you can correct me, they turned off the ability for residents to actually reopen a ticket. So now this does two things. This creates A erroneously fast response SLA, but the person that's the determinator of whether or not that's really closed in the legitimate sense is the customer, whether or not they felt like they got it resolved. And many times they're not. What happens then? You create a new ticket because that one did not get resolved. It was misunderstood. It could be a number of things. So there's a lot of wasted time. work that could be resolved out just by keeping the same ticket open and taking care of it. I think if you're going to have these SLA days, they should be communicated to the customer. When they put their ticket in so they have an expectation. And that should be right front and center. If it's going to be 30 days to take care of my car, I think you're going to see some response. Not my car, but the car that is on my street. They need to know that. The escalation has to work, right? People have to feel like they're responded to. And I will say again, some departments are really responding well. You know, when I see the weed abatement stuff, there's pictures and hey, we're taking care of it. When I see the public works, when I see the Now the code compliance people going out, like behind Kohl's, there was a whole section, cleaned that all out. They got the landowners to take care of that in days. They had pictures of all of it. It's excellent. So there is an example set here that I think we can all aspire to for the residents. For many years, a lot of this stuff that is now coming through C-Click Fix was just done in the city. We went to COVID. Things changed a little bit. And as it was mentioned in our strategic session that we had last year, the city was admittedly reactive, not proactive. And many of the things even that I've reported are things that proactively have to be seen by people in the city. It's impossible for them not to be. And if they were taken care of, again, that wouldn't have been a resident or a business owner having to put it in. and not making frustrated residents. So I think this is a good progress. I do. But I think the SLAs need work. I think that the data out of the cities, some of that has to match up. For instance, on the parked cars one, on public, I think it was six and seven days for the min and the max, or six and eight, and we put it at like 30. So we have to look at what the expectations we think our customers might want, put them in. We might miss them for some time. And if we need to adjust them, we adjust them. If you need to come to council to get money to make that work or we have to communicate it to people, we just can't do that, then we'll do that. That's it.

Council Member Hilton.

Yeah, so, you know, beautification economic development was a top concern of this council when we met, you know, several times, whether it was a reintroduction with a new city administrator or even before. You know, I can tell you some council members might feel like abandoned cars and junked cars and cars parking on lawns is not a, they don't see it every day, is not a concern that they hear from their constituents and their They're districts, but I can tell you my district and the areas that I've been really trying to help people and coach them to use this tool. Blight is a big concern for them. AND MOST OF THIS STUFF BEFORE WOULD JUST GET IGNORED BY E-MAIL OR PHONE CALLS.

CAN I SAY ONE THING QUICKLY TO FOLLOW UP ON THAT? ONE OF THE THINGS THAT PEOPLE MENTIONED AT LARGE OF WHERE THINGS ARE TAKING PLACE, THIS IS REALLY THE BLIGHT ISSUES THAT THE COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE PUTTING IN PLACE. THEY'RE NOT HAPPENING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. THEY'RE HAPPENING IN OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS THAT DON'T DESERVE THIS TO HAPPEN TO THEM. THE NEIGHBORHOODS THAT PEOPLE QUITE FRANKLY CAME IN AND TOLD ME I WOULDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO. THOSE ARE THE ONES WHERE I'M PAYING THE MOST ATTENTION TO. BECAUSE THEY DON'T NEED TO HAVE ALL OF THIS BLIGHT IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD.

I JUST WANTED TO ADD THAT, COUNCILMEMBER. I THINK THERE IS A DISCONNECT. I THINK THERE'S A DISCONNECT IN THREE WAYS. I THINK THAT STAFF, YOU KNOW, THIS IS A TOOL THAT WAS BROUGHT ON BY THE PREVIOUS COUNCIL THAT WANTED TO SOMEHOW ORGANIZE THIS AND GET AWAY FROM SENDING EMAILS AND THEN FOLLOWING UP THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR AND THEN HAVING OUR CONSTITUENTS CONTACT US AND BE FRUSTRATED. BUT I THINK THERE'S A DISCONNECT THAT STAFF IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A WAY TO WORK IT AND MAKE IT BETTER, AND IT IS GETTING BETTER, BUT I STILL, I DON'T FEEL INCLUDED IN THAT. I DON'T THINK THIS COUNCIL IS INCLUDED IN THAT. AND I DEFINITELY DON'T THINK THE COMMUNITY IS INCLUDED IN THAT. AND SO I'D LIKE TO SEE SOME TYPE OF CONNECTION BACK TO THE COMMUNITY. YOU KNOW, ANONYMOUS IS HIGHLY IMPORTANT, JUST LIKE COUNCILMEMBER FUGAZI SAID. You know, we don't want retribution. We want people to be able to feel comfortable, you know, to see something, say something. And, you know, but the city does have the ability to contact some of these folks that do have user accounts and they have put stuff in there. You know, why don't you invite some of those members of the public that maybe you have regular interactions with, invite them in, invite them in and get their feedback. So when you come back to us, you can also talk about You know, like, hey, we had a couple of constituents that wanted to come in and they wanted to talk to us about the SLAs. You know, maybe that's a tool that you all can use, but I'm just telling you, I feel disconnected from these rules that you're coming up with. I know we're giving direction now, but I have no idea when this item is going to come back. I do not only feel that this is one of the best customer service tools that we have, but it's really a reflection of the day-to-day operations that you all are already doing as staff, and I appreciate that. And I just, I mean, I look at it as this is just more orderly for you. I agree the public works department and the streets division and the parks have been like top notch. I could report something that I see on my bike ride out and three hours later when I come back, it's already been picked up because they have this app on their phone. Like, that is the type of, like, I want to elevate them. I wish I could give them bonuses. Because I want to, that's a friendly competition between departments to say, you know what, my percentage of completing our SLAs are higher than yours. I like that competitiveness. The last thing that I want to talk about is that, you know, I also look at this as a chance to adopt policy, right? That's what this council does. We adopt policy. And if there's policy gaps, in my opinion, there's a policy gap somewhere in the police department when it comes to towing vehicles. There is. It's there, it's clear. This tool is also an opportunity for us to develop policy, and if I don't see clear policies coming forward and I see certain vehicles or certain neighborhoods getting certain treatment and others not, and there's a lot of subjectivity out there, and I can see some of that subjectivity on comments and I also hear it, BUT I WANT TO GIVE THIS NEW POLICE CHIEF THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW US, YOU KNOW, WHAT THE POLICY IS ON TOWING AND THE REASONS WHY. AND I AGREE WITH WHAT COUNCILMEMBER FUGAZI SAID AND THE REST OF US HAVE ALWAYS SAID, WE'VE SAID THIS TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MANY TIMES, IF YOU NEED MORE FUNDING, COME BACK AND ASK. BUT TAP BACK INTO US NOW. DON'T WAIT UNTIL A YEAR FROM NOW. THAT WOULD BE MY LAST MESSAGE.

Thank you. I just want to follow up on the one thing he said, which was this community involvement. I think absolutely when you're creating these SLAs, when I read the staff report, it said, well, that was decided by our little team of people who work on C-Click Fix. I think that whether it's even through email or a survey or whatever it is, you should be polling the residents or have a small group of people to help you, guide you with that. And if you need to have, like, this is what our target is, this is what your expectation now is, I think that would be really, really helpful.

Thank you.

I'd like to say I do appreciate the app being able to refer people to that because someone will complain and I just point it on my phone, download this app and make the report. And it's easy to do. I appreciate staff and what they've been doing to make it better, you know, bringing it on at the beginning. It was really important to us. And, again, economic development, you know, talking about our gateways and making it look better. And this is a tool to really achieve that. I do appreciate both my council member Hilton and Pagazzi and their passion in this and driving this. I appreciate that. We all have our passions, but I do appreciate that. And I appreciate staff and how they're working through this to really make it work better and respond in timely fashion. So I appreciate that. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Great conversations, everybody tonight. Great ideas. And thank you, staff, for the report.

Thank you very much.

Okay, moving on to item 12.2. Consider recommended actions before adopting a zoning code amendment to section three zero point four one point three one This is from a an agenda item from a fair memo submitted by councilmember Hilton Take it away, Michael A moment mayor.

I'm just wanna make sure I can share this with the rest of the community. Got it Thank you Thank You city clerk Good evening mayor City Council residents of Gilroy This item from you today this evening is a discussion on a fair memo regarding noise as regulated per our zoning code. I In February of this year, Councilmember Hilton requested the city consider amending the zoning standards regarding noise. In April of this year, we brought the item to city council to receive approval and where we received approval on the work for the proposed amendment which was authorized. And today we're here to provide some recommendations on how to move forward. The fair memo proposed three items. One was to lower daytime noise limits in residential areas near commercial and industrial areas. The second item was to clarify a certain section in the zoning code by removing the word prohibited. The third item is to add language restricting hours for operating power tools and landscaping equipment. That action also applies to residential areas near commercial and industrial zones. We'll just go through each item one by one. City code section 30.41.3. 31 sets the current noise standards as a citywide daytime maximum noise level of 70 dBA L10 at the property line. I'm going to try to explain each item, starting with the first one using plain language. The way the code reads now, noise from commercial and industrial uses near residentially zoned properties may not exceed 70 dBA at a residential boundary unless it's intermittent and less than 10% of the time. So I'll give you an example. If a loud truck delivers goods to a commercial business and idles for a few minutes, producing noise above 70 dBA, that's okay per the city code because it's temporary. Once the truck drives away, the idea is the noise level drops down to 60 dBA or underneath 70 dBA. If council directs staff to draft a zoning amendment as written, the maximum level would go from 70 dBA to 60 dBA. Therefore, if noise from a commercial or industrial use exceeds dBA continuously, or more than 10% of the time, that use, and that's what we call a business, it would be in violation. The second item was specifically just to a language change, as shown on the screen. The argument is that the word prohibited is inappropriate because louder noise is allowed intermittently. Lastly, there's no performance standards for outdoor power tools such as landscaping equipment in our current zoning code. So if approved, new language will be added to the zoning code to limit operating tools at those given times. So to use resources efficiently, staff reviewed the department work plan and suggested the city council consider a zoning amendment to address noise concerns and drive-through uses near residential zones and commercial areas. We call this action one. Please note, Action 1 would not address the proposed performance standards for outdoor landscaping tools. So if that action was agreed upon, you may want to direct staff to also address landscape tools if the Council so wishes. City Council can also consider Actions 2 and 3. Actions 2 directs staff to prepare a proposed zoning amendment. If approved, we ask the City Council to approve the hiring or at least the consideration of hiring a qualified acoustical engineer to evaluate the amendment's feasibility and ensure it does not significantly harm commercial, industrial, or mixed-use developments near residentially zoned areas. But we'll just speak specifically about Action 1. The City Council has expressed a desire to address noise from drive-through uses near residentially zoned properties, as this has been on our department work plan in prior budget cycles. This may be a more efficient action for staff to support as drive-through uses near residentially zoned properties increase noise and have been a topic needing attention for some time. The other action is the direct staff to move forward with, actually, I apologize. We provided pros and cons for action one. Pros would be addressing the drive-through noise, which has been on the work plan, Cons would be, as previously stated, it didn't address all three of the concerns followed in the fair memo, but that could be addressed per the council's direction. Action two is shown above. The red underlined language shows that the proposed changes to the zoning ordinance. Here are some of the pros and cons for action two. Pros include providing strong protections for residentially zoned properties but the cons include the potential negative impact on commercial retailers and their operations that are adjacent to residential uses. Action three has to do with retaining an acoustical consultant. Pros include a technical analysis the city can use to determine if the proposed change would negatively impact commercial uses adjacent to residentially zoned areas, but the cons would be the cost of hiring the consultant, which the city has not budgeted for. Our recommendation is for the City Council to direct staff to move forward with Action 1 or Action 2. Staff believes Action 3 would be appropriate if Action 2 is recommended. If Action 1 is proposed, an acoustical engineer would be welcomed but may not be needed. Concerns about drive-through uses near residential areas are common in most cities. We believe there's a good list of mitigations out there with other cities that the city could probably look to. to demonstrate a zoning ordinance, a zoning amendment for drive-through uses. This concludes that summary of the fair memo. I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. But I'd like to preface, before I do that, I'm not a noise expert, but I do have limited knowledge on the subject, but I might not be able to answer all your questions specifically about noise. Thank you for your time.

I'm going to go Council Member Hilton, and then Council Member Bracco, and then Council Member Fregazzi.

Thank you. Great staff report. Appreciate it. Like how you split it up a little bit. My question was, when was the last time the city even hired somebody to do something like that? And I know you came from another agency. Is there like a standard, like, let's go through this, let's do this during the zoning code update, which would happen with the general plan, you know, maybe every 10 years. But is there some sort of standard that we have? Because right now, if we were to look at this, we obviously don't have it.

No, no, that's a great question, Council Member Hilton. In my experience, a zoning... A zoning ordinance amendment, like a comprehensive zoning ordinance amendment, there may be some limited noise reviews. The city has done a review I got to find on a project about eight years ago for a particular project along Monterey for a development. And I was able to use, I referenced it in the staff report, I was able to use some of that data, but unless the council directed it, it's limited on where we would get an acoustical consultant. In my experience, sir.

All right, and just a quick brief statement, since this was my fair memo, I'm more than willing to also split up the power tools and the reduction of the 70 to the 60 also, if that's a, I just want to throw that on the table.

Okay, Council Member Bracco.

So, we have grocery stores in town, so Costco, Walmart, Knob Hill, Safeway, they have a big rig in the back unloading, reefers running, so you could go out and site them for that?

That's a tricky question, Council Member Bracco. If we were to move forward with the zoning amendment, and I'm kind of using just typical land use law, the Nob Hills, Safeways, those agencies would be considered legal non-conforming because they can't, they're developed to meet what the zoning code is at that time. Where we run into issues, in my experience, is when we have new vendors come in, and then you have a new staff member, and we see the new code. So typically, non-conforming uses continue to go where they're not in violation. But there's limited times where there's a misunderstanding. Because when you're a new staff member, you kind of look at the zoning code. If we get a complaint, and we If this were to move forward, we'd get a complaint. And I'm just saying how it may operate. And you're a new staff member. You look and like, oh, it's 60 DBA. Someone's kind of shown 70 DBA for an hour. Then they would be perceived as violations. Hopefully, we'd be able to work through it because they're legal nonconforming. But that is a concern we have. And that's why we recommended the qualified acoustic consultant. Because what I have learned, and I thank you, Council Member Hilton, for letting me review this, what I have learned is going from 70 to 60, that's a big jump, one. And two, there's other ways to mitigate sound between mixed use and commercial uses and residential uses.

And how many noise complaints have you gotten in the last six months?

That's a great question, Council Member Brock. As a planning manager, I haven't received any.

So, I guess this is for Council Member Hilton. What is our goal here? What are you trying to fix?

So one of the reasons why I wrote this five years ago was because I was being asked by community groups that I was meeting with if there's anything we can do to limit the time that commercial landscapers would be coming to like the shopping center plaza like next to them when they're living upstairs in the next unit. Like is there any way that we can just, you know, so I was, I love getting into the detail of the code. I was like let me look at the code. And when I looked through the code, I realized it was like, oh, in 2013, it got removed. It just got removed. I can't tell whether it was like even talked about or anything like that, but it used to be in the code. Like, be nice. If you're a commercial landscaper, like, come on, man, don't come at 6 a.m. on a Saturday. Can you just softly wait? And it got removed. So it just became this subjective thing of like, we don't enforce it because it's not in the zoning code. So that's why I said in the beginning, too, if I'd be willing to I'd be willing to at least try to work on that if I don't have an agreement for us to do any kind of acoustical engineering or standards to bring it down to 60.

I'm more, I guess, opposite of you. I would like to throw out the rest and just keep the landscaping part.

Well, it's not keep it, it's add it.

Yeah, that's what I mean. But do something about the landscaping because that's everywhere in town and residences and stuff. People are out there at 7 o'clock in the morning with a weed wacker and stuff.

Yeah, I think it's a problem in the residential zoned areas, but I think it's also a problem, like we were talking about, where you have the commercial industrial impacting the residential.

I'm going to go to Council Member Fregatti. This is a comment, even a question back at you, Council Member Bracco. Because you asked about some of the large trucks delivering. But aren't we at the state level already have no EIDL laws that sort of takes care of that? You would know with your big trucks.

Not with the reefer units. They have to run. Otherwise, the load goes back. Okay.

Council Member Fregatti.

So it says... such as drive-through facilities. So it's not just drive-through facilities? I'm very confused.

Oh, I apologize for the confusion. Direct staff to draft regulations addressing noise-generating uses near residential zones such as drive-through facilities. I could have been adamant and just said drive-through facilities, but...

So is it, you know, as Council Member Bracco said, the supermarkets as well would be one of these, or it's only drive-through facilities?

If we were to go, if the council were to go with Action 1, it would strictly go to like a Starbucks with a drive-thru. It wouldn't, what Council Member Bracco said is a delivery truck delivering to a Safeway, that wouldn't be impacted. We'd take a more view of subjective standards or objective standards on drive-thru facilities near residentially zoned areas.

So it would be specific to that kind of business? That is correct. Okay. And existing businesses, what would happen to them?

of similar to what I shared with Council Member Bracco, existing businesses near residentially zoned areas, they would be considered legal non-conforming. But again, I'll state it, but if you're a new member in the community and there's an existing drive-through there, Starbucks per se, and you happen to be savvy on the noise regulations, we may receive some secret fixes about the noise where we'd have to do a little back and forth. So that's the operational, but legally they'd be able to continue.

Okay. And sorry, let me get closer.

So I want to hear the story on why the drive-thru, because that wasn't their idea. That was our idea. That was actually.

No, I know the one that was basically for the new Starbucks over there near that other one. That was before I was on council, but I remember that issue. So.

It was, but it also had to do with emissions too. That was the big.

So. Generally, for these drive-throughs, it's not the vehicles that are creating the sound. It's the intercom systems and whatnot. Is that what we're seeing?

So I took the liberty of kind of looking at some of the issues because I wanted to wait for council members' direction. But, yes, it could be this.

One could be mitigated fairly easily by the businesses and the other cannot.

Sure, yes. Okay.

and other cities that are doing this, what would be a couple of examples that have done this that I could go look up?

Yeah, I can say in my previous jurisdiction, Milpitas, when instead specifically drive-through uses are allowed, if it's adjacent to a residential area, the speaker box would need to be shifted in a way that doesn't directly face the residential area. I mean, that's an example of perhaps a sound wall would be appropriate.

Okay. And again, whether it's to city administrator or to our economic development director, do we see this kind of restriction having, you know, a significant impact at all in businesses that would want to bring drive-thrus and whatnot? Or, I mean, or we've got enough examples where we think it's not going to be a big deal?

Yeah, I think that reducing the decibel level at the property line is something that you should do cautiously. And if you look at slide four, it talks about what level 60 is in comparison with others.

Yeah, it's twice as loud, 60 to 70. That's the way the decimals work.

And 60 is like normal conversation. So bringing it down to that level at the property line is a pretty significant reduction. So I'd urge caution there. We can mitigate a lot of the 70 decibel requirements, as Michael was talking about, through conditions on the project. So those are things that we can manage operationally. If we create big limits, then yeah, we're going to see areas, maybe not broad areas, because there's limited areas where residential abuts commercial. 60 is rough anywhere. Yeah, it's rough if you're standing in your backyard talking to somebody, right? Thank you.

That's all my questions for right now. I got one follow-up one.

Council Member Ramirez and then thank you.

So as I was reading through this, I'm thinking, okay, without doing a study by a specialist, you know, what are some things that in residential areas that make noise? Recess at a schoolyard. I would imagine it exceeds the 60, probably even exceeds the 70, but then it falls within that 10% or downtown music that falls, I guess, within the 10% because the music is only two hours. But there are a lot of people out there for quite some time. Those, you know, football game at either Gilroy High or Christopher High, they're both in neighborhoods. Yes, it falls within that 10% time. But what about things that are like tournaments at either of the high schools that are all day long? THAT DO EXCEED, SHUT THOSE DOWN? ARE THERE, LIKE YOU TALKED ABOUT, I FORGET THE TERMINOLOGY THAT YOU USE THAT ALLOWS FOR THIS. HOW DO WE MANAGE THOSE TYPES OF INCIDENTS IF WE WERE TO IMPLEMENT THESE?

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. ONE THING I LEARNED ABOUT SOUND WHILE I WAS DOING THIS EXERCISE, AND THE L10 IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE, SOUND IS CONTINUOUSLY MEASURED. Sometimes it's low, sometimes it's high, because something happens, an event happens, and the sound increases. In regards to events that do happen that make a lot of sound, technically they would be potentially in violation of what the code says. I think this is, you know, a community is a community, but it makes Gilroy so great that just living close to the school, you're going to hear kids, you know.

I MEAN, THIS IS WHERE I'M GETTING A LITTLE BIT CONCERNED WITH THIS, IS LIKE, OKAY, SO THEN, YOU KNOW, SOMEBODY, OH, WE HAVE THIS NEW CODE, AND NOW I'M REALLY UPSET BECAUSE THE FOOTBALL GAME IS GOING ON, SO NOW WE'RE GETTING ALL THESE CALLS, AND IT'S LIKE, WELL, NO, BECAUSE IT'S IN THE TEMPERATURE.

I THINK COUNCILMEMBER HILTON THOUGHT ABOUT THAT. I DON'T WANT TO PUT FORWARDS IN YOUR MOUTH, BECAUSE IT SAYS SPECIFICALLY RESIDENTIAL USES NEXT TO COMMERCIAL ZONES. In the residential area, actually, it's a 60 DBA, and there's schools in residential areas, so there's probably some issues there, but I think that's kind of just left undone. It's probably that way in all cities. Okay, thank you for that clarification.

So going back to the drive-thru, do we have enough, is there enough discretion, or do we need to write a, do we need to put in the code to do things like the one where the the project was developed right behind those homes, right? Where second story homes could look down on it. And I don't know whether I didn't think about this until now, like whether staff said, you know what, but you're going to put your speaker box on the other side. So it's not facing the residential. Was that a discretionary move or, or was somebody in staff thinking like, Hey, don't, don't put it in the back where, you know, where it's here, put it over there. Like, or could that, could that could, could we run into that in the future? where a speaker box ends up getting put actually right next to the sound wall. And we're like, oh, sorry, it wasn't in the code.

Well, I think to city manager Morley's point, we can create standards, come back to the council and say, hey, this is kind of what we found. Or I really appreciate what you said in the item 12.1 about engaging with the community and asking like, you know, What's so loud? This is what we hear. And we'll probably get some great feedback. Make those objective standards. And another interesting thing I found and why we did want to provide pause is because when businesses, rarely do businesses come in and say, tomorrow I'm going to open up my drive-thru. I mean, it's years long. And one thing I've noticed specifically is when they design these uses, they take sound into consideration. And they engineer their overheads, they engineer their sound walls, the engineers, a lot of different things to make sure that they meet that city requirement because they don't want to, they don't want a community resident to come and complain. They want to be ahead of it. And so what we could do is, you know, if the council's direction is reach out to the community, you know, as with any zoning amendment, maybe have a community meeting, have a discussion. It may take some time, kind of get some feedback and draft objective standards to address those issues.

And I intersect for just a second. Uh, I know San Jose for many years has had drive through standards, uh, where the speakers can be that they can't with it, with, with reference to the property line, how they face, how they're, whether they're sort of shielded the decibel levels of the speakers. So that's, that's actually very common or not, maybe not very common, but certainly is common and has been true in San Jose for many years. So it's possible to have those kinds of things also. auto dealers with outdoor paging systems.

Thank you.

I just know, living where I've lived for 26 years, and the level with the, I know, concern about the guys doing the yards, but it's always in that time factor that they have after 8 o'clock. I've never had that issue. The schools down the street, I don't really hear much other than the kids, the traffic, and all that. I'm wondering how many projects would this address in the future? I mean, how many places could we put drive-thru near residences that we've already done that to this point? But for the future, how many more restaurants can go or fast foods can go near a residential based on where that's going? First Street's kind of maxed out now.

I can't answer that question. I know. I apologize. I know. No, it's fine.

Yeah, it's fine. Don't forget about redevelopment. Right. No, I understand. Yeah. You got to pick back there.

Mayor, I have a clarifying question. So if we go back to the landscape, so we're talking only in the commercial areas, not in neighborhoods, with regards to the hours of use.

Right. I mean, what I read, I kind of read into the memo, and I may ask Council Member Hilton to say if I read it right or wrong, but it was, this item is specifically for commercial areas adjacent to residential. So. Not industrial? Well, commercial and industrial. There's, Council Member Fugazi, there's not many industrial next to residential, but there may be some. Okay. Okay. No taking.

The reason I'm asking is because my concern with the limited hours, not starting until 10 on Saturday, commercial is different because then you have the large landscapers. This is why I need clarification in this. In a residential area, they typically, the landscapers that come in with these blowers and they're just taking care of yards, they're typically independent, and they're typically, they're working from dawn till dusk to put a roof over their head and food on the table, the type of thing I would hate to do with that. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding it's not those types of landscapers. It's in like the Blue City area or the Walmart area, those types of things.

No, I think it would be near the Brew City area. It would be commercial adjacent to residential.

Perfect. Thank you.

It's not 10 p.m. 10 a.m. It's 9. All right, let's go to public comment.

Armando Benavides.

Thank you for this item. I think it's timely. I want to say, you know, it does cover the industrial basin. If you look at the industrial zones, the current ordinance for law related to industrial zones is actually that the businesses cannot operate between the hours of 10 p.m. or 7 a.m. And so I don't know how it is that the Amazon facility was approved because it's operating 24 hours. The other thing that happens with the Amazon is that because it's not constructed, it was basically modeled, so we really don't have any idea what that data center is going to look like in terms of the noise, but you also have a phase one, a phase two, and now you have Amazon basically coming in to develop the third facility, so you're going to have a cumulative amount of noise kind of being generated by the all the fans that are going to be going on and all the swamp coolers that are going to be activating. And so I really believe that this is really a good time to select number two and number three because I really believe that when you look at models, yeah, you know, you can look at models, but we're going to have a phase one being developed pretty soon and it's going to be up and running. We're gonna have the phase two. I don't know when that's gonna come up, but we have actually a phase three. And there's a lot of agricultural land up there that could be purchased by other facilities. So Morgan here just picked up a whole new high-tech company that's gonna come in. They're gonna do the taxis, aerial taxis. So you're actually gonna be, they're gonna be producing the taxis. We have new technology that's coming out, and Gilroy has been really selected. as one of the industrial sites for high tech development. And I really believe that this is a really good opportunity to really do a noise study. And I understand that you could be concerned about drive through, you could be concerned about you know, people coming in and doing the lawn and all that. And I really appreciate that. By the way, I think most people do wait until 9 o'clock to do their lawn or do their yard work. But in terms of the data center, it was just modeling. You really don't have no idea what it's really going to be like up there. And so I'm going to urge the council to select two and three so that we can look at those industrial sites beyond modeling. I think it will give us an opportunity to really get a good sense of what the sound system is going to be over there. And I know there is residents that live out there, believe it or not, and that noise is just going to be cumulative. So I would recommend that we do the study and comprehensively, hopefully, you include the industrial base.

Thank you, Armando.

I have no further speakers.

Thank you. All right, bringing it back to council.

So here's my suggestion. If we could put this all together, this would be the three items that I would like to move forward with. Number one is to incorporate the drive-through, those standards, those open source standards that are already probably good practices that are out there. Be able to have those standards put into our code. Number two would be to remove that word prohibited so it's very clear to anybody that reads it. And number three is talking about the power tools yard and landscaping to make sure that that's prohibited, not subject to the L-10 between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Monday through Friday and 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. If the council feels like we should split some of those off and not move some of them forward, I'm open to that discussion.

Go ahead. Sorry, I was trying to keep up with that.

So the drive-through part, all of the physical restrictions and whatnot that Andy happened to mention, I think I'm totally on board with. I think that's reasonable. 60 dB sound levels and whatnot in any part of the city I am not on board with at all. I think that's way too restrictive. I think when it comes to the landscape stuff, I don't know if this is only intended to be in commercial and industrial, but I would extend all the way across the city. I think that we have, I mean, if you really wanted me to say, I would say like four days a week and like no two-stroke you know in the city and that's a whole nother topic for us another time i think seven o'clock is too early even on weekdays to be honest with you it's very annoying in my neighborhood and for those who think that doesn't happen to like nine o'clock i'm telling you it's nonstop all week long so i'm totally on board i'd extend it even to eight o'clock in the morning on the weekdays and the way you have it on the weekends and um... But anything for me that has to do with limiting business development, industrial areas, anything like that, especially with the 60 dB part, is a no-go for me.

Council Member Bracco, then Council Member Marks.

Yeah, I agree with Council Member Fugazi because a lot of our businesses, they hire these outfits. They come in 2 o'clock in the morning. You know, and they buzz their parking lots and do the sweeping. So I don't want to limit our businesses. You know, Knob Hill, Safeway, they have nighttime deliveries. And these trucks are going through the alley there. And I don't want to see us. I feel like we're creating a problem where there is no problem right now. I've never heard a complaint about the commercial businesses making too much noise. So I think we've done a good job at policing our city and I don't see any reason to change it.

So are you, where were you on the power tools and the yard stuff? Before you said that was okay to put that in there, are you not?

Well, no, I was talking about residential.

Got it.

Council Member Marks?

I have a question, I guess. Now, would this affect golf courses? Because on weekends, I believe golfers are out there at 8 o'clock early in the morning, and to restrict all of the lawn mowing until 9 or later affects their business. And for a council that seems to be so bent on economic development, all of a sudden we're cutting into their development. If I had to choose, I would go for option one with commercial right by residential, you know, for the drive-throughs. I'm a firm believer that for some of the people that are complaining about noise on a business that's already existing, you know what you're moving next to before you move in, and I have a real problem with them coming in and all of a sudden interfering with someone's business and saying, no, you cannot... clean your parking lots at a certain time. You have to work within my parameters. No, you can't mow your lawn. Again, you're also cutting to those landscapers' businesses because they have other places to go. So, anyway, option one would be what I would be talking about, or action one.

Council Member Ramirez?

Well, Council Member Marks really touched on some of the concerns that I have, and so I'm going to lean either with NOTHING OR WITH.

COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN.

I HAVE TROUBLE WITH THAT. I KIND OF LEAN TOWARDS COUNCILMEMBER FUGATSE AND LOOKING AT THIS. I'M NOT SURE HOW MUCH THE DRIVE-THROUGH, JUST BECAUSE DEVELOPMENT, A LOT OF THAT'S DONE. BUT THERE SHOULD BE STANDARDS, SO I GET THAT TOTALLY. THE CONCERN IS JUST THE the noise level in the residences. I'm not concerned about industrial. I'm more concerned about residences and maintaining that. So the timeline, where I live, it's not an issue, but other places it could be. So allow that, like what Councilman Pagazzi talked about.

If you have to carve out golf courses, that's fine. I mean, the Gilroy golf course, isn't really a business when you look at the numbers. And then you have two other golf courses, one of which sits in the middle of a ton of houses already. But if you wanted to carve those out, that could be done also.

But also, most golf courses, I mean, if anybody plays golf, they're taking care of the course the entire day. They don't do everything before everybody starts and then go away. They're working around people. They're oftentimes even cutting while people have already shot. So I'm not too worried about that.

So I have a question about, back about the comment from the power tools, let's say the 10 a.m. to 8 a.m. or 7 a.m. on weekdays. Sorry, I missed that. Is there a... Thank you, sir. Correct. My question, though, is about the... Is there a noise level that you're attaching to those timelines?

No, it's not. It would not be subject to any percentage or any level. It's just prohibited.

No, so what I was wondering is what if someone's using a battery powered power equipment, which is the way the state is going to and the decibels are already fairly low? Right? So the state is already moving towards two strokes and gas powered, and we're going towards the battery powered. And I'm sorry, I don't know the decibel levels of those, but I believe they're quite low. And that's the way we're going anyway. So I just want to be careful. If we want to encourage quieter, let's be careful and not allow outlaw quieter. So keep that in mind when we come up with some final language. Because even some of the large golf courses and stuff are already moving in that direction. Believe it or not, even large mowers are moving towards electric. So let's not outlaw those. So I don't know.

Well, you would just make it more hard on staff to determine. They'd be like, okay, great. Something happened within those hours or whatever, but let me go out and make sure that it doesn't meet within this decibel. Rather than just saying clear cut, hey, man, I don't care what you're using. We do not, you do not do yard work at this time, period.

It's easier. With equipment.

They can do yard work all night as long as it's quiet.

I mean, back to that point, an electric blower is still pretty loud.

I just go back to Councilman Rock's question. I mean, the impetus for this is like how big of an issue is this

I still hear it often when I'm out tabling, when I'm meeting with community groups, especially those that are impacted by us building more residential development near commercial industrial. I hear it often. I wasn't trying to stack the room full of people tonight. But we did, especially the drive-thru one, that was clear years ago. And they haven't shown up here tonight. But that was clear that they wanted us to develop some type of standards, maybe even not allow it.

I believe the residential is an issue. That's why other cities around the Bay Area are banning them completely. They've gone to complete bans, not just time zones. So you'd be meeting them halfway.

You're talking about landscaping.

Correct. The equipment in residential zones, which is everywhere in this community.

It drives me crazy, too, being woken up. But, you know, I mean, let's take it piece by piece. I don't know if we could, if that's something that's, you know, that everyone would be interested in.

Well, go back to what you said. Sorry, go back to what you said about landscape equipment from the 10 p.m. to the 7 a.m. He's asking for 8 a.m. Go back to that. And I think there's a conversation to be had here about that.

ALL RIGHT. SO WHY DON'T WE DO IT IN MULTIPLE MOTIONS HERE. MY FIRST MOTION WOULD BE TO CREATE STANDARDS FOR DRIVE-THROUGHS. NO, THIS IS MINE. FORGET ABOUT WHAT STAFF HAD.