Hayward Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh,

it's still sent over in hand, and

I still call the meeting to order. We have a volunteer to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

I'll do it.

Thank you, commissioner.

I pledge allegiance to the of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, justice, for all. Thank you.

Emily, do we have any teleconference notifications or considerations? No. No request to participate remotely and no emergency participant.

Very good. You. Miss, would you so kindly repeat that the phone calls?

Yep. Commissioner. I'm here. Here. Commissioner Gao.

Present.

Commissioner Dunn.

Here.

Commissioner Camoros. Present. Commissioner Medeiros. Here. Commissioner Manchin. Here. Commissioner Jack Deep Singh? Here. Commissioner Jay Singh?

Yes.

Commissioner Sledge?

Here.

And commissioner Wong?

Here.

Thank you. And

thank you. I will read our statement about public comments. There will be opportunities for public comment on items on agenda as we get to each item. If you have a comment on something that is not in the agenda, now is the time to make those comments. Please note that virtual public comment has been reinstated.

For those attending in person, please command complete the comment card and give them to miss Olivera. You will have three minutes to make your comment. Speaker should not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a commission meeting. The city is committed to maintaining a workplace free of unlawful harassment and is mindful that city staff regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are to say disruptive to a meeting will not be tolerated.

As a reminder to commenters and my fellow commissioners, commissioners are not permitted to respond directly to or engage with public commenters under the Brown Act. Great. Next item on our agenda is to approve our minutes from the January 21 meeting. Does anyone have comments, corrections, anything of note with respect to those minutes?

Just juggling. I can't tell if that's is there any public comments?

Yeah. Don't see anyone online. Yes. Thank you,

vice chair gun. I totally just believe perhaps it even though just me. Comments, questions, updates, revisions to our January minutes? Is there a motion to read them? A motion to. Thank you. Chair. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, commissioner.

K. Roll roll for minutes. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. Commissioner Dunn? Yes. Mister Angola? Yes. Commissioner Dow? Yes. Commissioner Camura? Yes. Commissioner Maderos? Yes. Commissioner Faction? Yes. Commissioner Jagdeep Singh? Commissioner Jay Singh? Yes. Commissioner Sledge?

Yes.

And commissioner Wong? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. We

will

have reports from our staff support with respect to public comment. Period on public comment on CDBG funding.

Thank you. So with our presentation today, we're gonna be for how we're going how we're planning to allocate CDG funding. Along with your feedback, we also have a public comment period. So that starts technically Friday, but we can receive them now up until the next CSU meeting in April. So we will have a discussion. There's a slide on that during the presentation of how to comment or how to provide a public comment. It doesn't look like anyone's here right now. Or Oh, yeah. Sorry. Don't have my glasses on. Thank you, Evelyn.

Yes. That's

me. Thank you. So

yeah. If anyone wants to make a public comment, they can reach out to me, and my contact information will be on this slide during the presentation. Thank you.

Please. You'll have an informational report for us.

Yeah.

So in addition to being now your staff liaison, I am also gonna do the presentation, which you've

all seen me do in

the past. So, yeah, good evening, commissioners. So tonight's presentation will provide an overview of staff's recommendations for this upcoming upcoming fiscal year for c CDBG allocations, and we will also continue last month's conversation around the CSC working groups and CSC work plan just to we wanna better understand where you all are at and also get your feedback on a potential proposal.

Does it look like this?

I'll make sure everyone can see the slide. Just on.

Yeah. Just show them.

Yeah. I've been having difficulties with that. Yeah. It was on by the way, and

it turned on. Oh, there's You're

just gonna have to keep passing them on. Yeah. Well, it's

not that right. Like, I can't see it. So hopefully, folks

if if you need to see, you

can get closer to the slide. So before we jump into the details, there was a request from the last CSC meeting to provide some context setting on where we would typically be in the funding cycle if CAF or the community agency funding process had not been canceled, and also provide a summary of the recent policy decisions that have impacted the changes that we're seeing with this year's process. So we can sort of start with our quote unquote business as usual timeline. So for our newer commissioners, this may be new, but for returning members, you'll remember that applications are usually reviewed in December, and then you all would do interviews by January. And then these were conducted through your application review committees, or ARCs, organized by funding categories.

And the ARCs would then develop funding recommendations, were presented to the full commission in February. March, the commission would finalize these recommendations. And then in April, we would present them alongside the CSC from mayor and city council where CSC representatives would join staff and share how they arrived at those recommendations. So as you all are aware, the city unfortunately canceled its notice of funding availability for community agency funding process on October 20. And due to the city's current fiscal strain, the city manager directed staff to implement cost savings measure cost saving measures across all departments and made the decision to both pause the scheduled community aging funding process, but also terminate all current general fund funded contracts.

Since CDBG funding is federal funding, our concern is mostly in the general fund. All CDBG contracts are still intact through the end of this fiscal year. It's a very small tape small fonted table, but we did show you all which agencies are still funded through the end of the year in the staff report. However, there will be no CDBG or general fund allocation based organizations for this upcoming year, which we've communicated to both the commission and our agencies. Given the city's projected multimillion dollar deficit, the city made the difficult decision to cancel the no fund October to ensure that we can continue providing continue to provide the essential services that the city provides to Hayward residents.

And while we still we do still plan to gather feedback and also public input on staff's recommendations and share that share that summary with counsel. So this year, the process will look different compared to past years. Believe in the city. Current financials are the way that they are right now. And I want to pause.

I'd like to pause and just see a difficult situation that we're in, and I know you all have expressed just distraught that that brings to not just what's going on here, but also in the community. It's not just the city. It's all over right now, the funding cliffs that we're experiencing. So is there anything you wanted to add, Mary? Yeah.

So I'm I'm available. I think I'm, like, you're doing you're doing a great job of presenting a very difficult topic, and I and I appreciate any frustration that you all feel. I think we can talk about it. We hear it. Don't wanna hide from it. And we also are in the fiscal situation we're in, and so staff's recommendation. I'm assistant city manager and then Jen, who's the city manager, we have to present a balanced budget to council. And we cannot use reserves because we find reserves, so we are you have to make the recommendation. If you have any questions about budget, I wanna be here and answer them transparently. We did present our budget forecast to counsel on February 28 if you were unable.

I can't imagine you sat there and watched our eight hour presentation. So we did. So back. So in in summary, the forecast for next year is a $33,000,000 deficit. So including sort of continuing our challenges, and then that is so it more or less looks like the structural deficit for the next five years.

So you can go back and look at that PowerPoint. We could send out that PowerPoint to the commission. I'm happy to meet with you guys or at the next meeting or tonight, talk about any of that. But in short, we so it's significant deficit, and we have to be done. So we have certain tools available to us as management, and the recommendations to counselors were some of the tools we had available to us to just try and not go bankrupt is essentially what what we're doing right now. So

Just to make sure I understood. So zero funding or or any partial funding? I just wanna show

So if I could just step in really quick. If you don't mind maybe writing down your question, we're gonna get to questions after the presentation.

Thank you. Emily is a child.

So I'll just take that pause. If you have any questions to ask Mary, just jot them down, and then we can address them at the end. Yes. She had a slide to get through. That's right.

So yes. Thank you. Yeah.

Just want to make sure we get out of here at a reasonable time. You for your patience. Thank

you. And just as a point of order, you wouldn't mind just allowing me to call on you so we can get the minutes and everyone recorded who's speaking, asking questions, and whatnot as well.

And what are you? So

So with that, we heard the CSC last meeting. There were some requests. So that you all wanted to know the reasoning behind recommendations, eligibility. And then I also remember just not wanting to commit to ongoing type of activities because you all and so do we. We wanna ensure that this is something that's available in future years.

So in fiscal year twenty twenty six, through 2027, the city estimates around $1,400,000 in CDBG funding. This table provides a summary of the CDBG category amounts. Commissioners who've gone through this process will remember that some of these categories have caps. So the admin and planning has a 20% cap, and the public services category has a 20% cap. And before you check my math on that, the the twenty and fifteen percent caps are based on a more conservative estimate, so it won't look exactly like the 20% or 50 15% of this estimated total.

But we did just wanna be more conservative given our current situation. And then the other categories listed here, housing and infrastructure, economic development, CDBG activities, they do not have caps. So we estimated them based on housing amounts that we previously allocated for through the city's commitments in the general plan, which we'll get into in the next few slides. And then any remaining amount we allocate into public facilities activities. Yeah. So this next slide reviews an overview of staff's recommendations. If you, like me, can't see this slide at all, it's also in the staff report.

So you can look at

that table there. Staff evaluated potential one time CDBG eligible projects for allocating funds to internal services while also considering that feedback that we heard about not wanting to dedicate funds to ongoing expenses. And these recommendations include projects that are mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, also includes projects that the city has already committed to funding, and lastly, anticipated city projects that meet eligibility requirement. So we can first go through the required and committed allocations. So here under the admin and planning category, we set aside a specific amount for admin.

So that would be first half time to review this to process CDBG reimbursements to reporting and requirements. And then there's also 26 around $26,000 that's set aside for fair housing services that are required by HUD, and we get those we get that fair housing assessment done annually, and that's provided by Echo Fair Housing or Eden Council for hope and opportunity. And we present on that annually in our general plan dedicated to housing specific. And then in the middle, you're you'll see housing commitments. So as a result of Alameda County analysis of impediments to fair housing, very long report.

This was completed in 2020. The city commits a portion of its CDBG award annually to this program. So last year was $350,000 to home rehab programs to prevent displacement of low income households. And that's also written in our housing element. The city allocates in addition to that $3.50, 25,000 to Habitat for Humanity to support project management of CDBG infrastructure grants, which there will still be some for like, currently, we have some infrastructure grants that will move forward through the next year because they haven't completed.

So they continue to utilize Habitat for Humanity as a project manager to ensure that they are in compliance with federal regulation. And also, the city does public infrastructure projects, we also work with Habitat with Humanity to help us make sure that we're following federal compliance. Yes. And then lastly, the city commits $50,000 annually to Eden INR to provide informational information and referral services to Hayward residents seeking re resources. The city has contributed this funding historically through, general fund, but staff recommends shifting this project's funding source from general fund to CVG as it meets CVG eligibility requirements to provide information referral services to individuals seeking for low income service types.

And now that we've reviewed what is required and committed by the city, we can review staff's recommendation on how to allocate the remaining amounts of CDBG funding. We recommend that the remaining public services allocation get so that would be the 150,000 and any additional public services funding to be allocated to the Hayward Navigation Center or the HNC. And the HNC is the cornerstone of the city's homelessness and production strategy with 83% of all exits from the agency going into positive housing destinations. And as we understand through the CSC's priorities and services that homelessness and housing was defined as one of the CSC's top priorities last year during the 2526 process. So we thought this would be an appropriate recommendation for public services housing or public services funding.

And you can see some more facts there about the agency, and that we are also there's a mix of funding sources that are going into that project. But, Carol also here manages the operating contract for the agency. So if you have any additional questions, well, we have her. And lastly, for fiscal year for this upcoming fiscal year, staff recommend recommend allocating the remaining amount to require equipment purchases for stations located in low to moderate income areas. The reason why we're doing that is because we evaluated several different capital projects.

One being that we thought, you know, the CSC could get behind, like improvements to the Lavista Park or ADA upgrades to City Hall. However, we experienced some constraints, specifically if we were to invest any federal funds into La Vista Park that would trigger a whole slew of requirements, meaning that the entire project of Lovista Park would have to follow Build America, Buy America standards, and that would drastically increase the project costs. We also, Mary specifically, reached out to development services, public works, maintenance departments to explore upcoming eligible projects like eighty eighty improvements to City Hall, which would be an eligible cost project, but none were identified at this time. And so staff will continue coordinating across departments as future opportunities may arise. But after evaluating potential projects, we developed this recommendation based off of not only the project's eligibility, but also administrative factors.

So the proposed projects the proposed project here is something that we know not only won't be eligible serving low and moderate income areas, but also we know it can meet our timeless timeliness requirements. So we know it's a project that we can spend the money down quickly because if we don't spend our funds down in a timely manner, that essentially impacts our future CVG award. And so we're almost done. The adjusted timeline here. So we don't have things are different now, so I wanna acknowledge that our current landscape has drastically changed this process by shifting these funds that typically would go towards community based organizations, but now they're directing we're recommending to direct them towards city provided services to ensure that we can do that continuation of service to serve Hayward residents.

And in the past, the CSC would work with the, staff to share that thought process behind the CSC's recommendations, and we suggest that this year's staff present on these recommendations and include your feedback, which is gonna be an iterative process. We wanna take your questions. We wanna take your comments, and we will address anything in the next meeting with the CSC, which will be in April. Anything that we can't answer now. But yeah.

So January looked different for you all. Now we're in March, and now we're presenting staff recommendations to you. But in April, we're going to answer any unanswered questions, and we also need to present our annual action plan, which we submit to HUD. And so we'll review that with you as well, and that will be once we end our public comment period is in April. And in May, we will present and go to city council to present these recommendations along with the CSC's feedback.

And you are all, like, typically the chair and the individual the ARC chairs would join us. Since things look slightly different this year, you are also welcome to come and provide public comment, but it would just be a public comment to the item. Yeah. Yeah. And then in June, the proposal there is to continue the conversation on the CSCs work plan, which we'll get into in the next few slides.

So the recommendation from staff, which we want to get your feedback on, is that the CSC move forward as an advisory board with updates from staff on the CDBG project projects every quarter. As a requirement, as a CDBG project, we have to report every quarter. So the results of that would be available to us, so we can present that to the CSC and receive your advice, feedback, and anything we we should take back to staff that's implementing those projects. Also, you know, should anything come up, at least we have this board, in the event that things get better and something becomes available, we have this board to be able to potentially make decisions about funding. But we can't make those promises right now.

And I can jump in

on that particular note. So just to provide some as much clarity as we possibly can. So so we we're not giving out grants next year because the NOFA this year was canceled. Then, typically, you would come back in the fall and do another NOFA. We so right now, we have several outstanding revenue questions that relate to our budget.

We're we're potentially we are going to staff is going to bring a recommendation to council in April and May about putting a revenue measure on for business license tax, which would pass if if that got put on a ballot, it would be put on November. So we wouldn't know until November if that passed. In addition, we anticipate some additional user utility users tax, but it depends on a ruling by the California Supreme Court, so we're not sure about that. They're also we're thinking we might get some additional cannabis revenue. However, there is a lawsuit related to that.

So there are just some things in the works that could if opt like, if they are optimist if they come in at an optimist optimistic level next year, allow us to re like, reconsider opening funding to some extent. I do not imagine us doing the full amount that you did last year to some extent, but it would not be on the fall time frame because it really will be up to that November valid measure if we put it on. And so I wanna just be really clear that we're not doing a funding where staff does not feel comfortable recommending to council that we do a funding process in the fall. There is a possibility of doing some something in the spring. We did not include we included using the CDGP funds, as you said you saw right here in our five year forecast for the for this coming year, but not in future years.

So we do not we do not plan on using CDGP for general to supplement general fund purposes in future years. But we, as staff, don't feel like we can make a recommendation on that until we see the revenue numbers coming in. So that's where we're at. I just wanted to see if that's as much clarity as I it's clarity and timeline as I can provide right now. Thank you.

So in addition to providing those reports, the CDBG quarterly reports also proposed that the meeting frequency of the commission go to bimonthly for working groups to report out or even working sessions as I've heard in the past, if desired, and then we'll make sure to do that quarterly report for you all on any CDBG projects. And the suggested next steps there was that would be the feedback we received was that we communicate often, not just to you all, but also to agencies. So, we suggest writing an email and letting agencies sort of know where we're at so they can plan. And then we potentially, depending on what you all decide and what your feedback is, is that, we put out a survey to gauge any interest and need from the agencies for CSC report support to sort of dive in deeper on the ideas that you all have provided in the last meeting. And also next steps being that we meet in June Me and June has a working meeting to discuss the results of that survey and have the CSC's work plan be informed by the agency feedback just so you all have a better sense of how to touch base with these agencies and what would be most impactful.

And so this is a list of the some of the working group ideas that you all came up with that staff we reviewed that all of the ideas we all came up with. And these are the ones that we thought were closest to the CSCs spoke in with and with direction that we've received from council in the past. And happy to send out these slides. It's a lot of words. But, you know, I can read read some of them, but you all have mentioned, doing matching high school students to volunteer opportunities, even planning a day for volunteering with the CSC, promoting the CSC's work and agency resources on individual social media accounts or partnering with

the Hayward Herald,

or eliciting agency events, information to host on the Hayward Herald event page, or providing TA webinars on different grants, subscription portals, like, how to access different types of discounts for technology and websites, hosting capacity building events using city meeting space, develop a list of four volunteering opportunities to share with the CSC webpage, compiling compiling a list of grant platforms, subscriptions to share with agencies, compile a list of technology and, website service discounts and reaching out to local businesses for sponsorship and in kind gifts, promotion, or events, and all of these are within your purview as a CSC. Other things that we've heard from agencies is if the city could provide a letter of support, which we've done for different agencies before, but we can include that in the email that we send out to agencies just to let them know that that is on the table. And in the last CSC meeting, you all had discussed making meeting rooms available to to agencies. And upon research with the library, it looks like there are two meeting rooms that are available to nonprofits. There's one in weeks and one meeting room c over here.

So we can share that information too. But if the CSC wanted to, you know, host an event or, like, a meeting with agencies, we I'm more than happy to staff that as a staff liaison, and we're always, you know, we within Brazen, can do some prep jobs and such like that. Is there anything you wanted to add to that? Yeah. No. I mean so I think, again, know I this is not

what you signed up for, so this is brainstorming. I wanna hear from you what you are interested in. Yeah. I think areas where we can support are limited print jobs. We couldn't if I think we we we can't just open city hall for any nonprofits whenever they wanna meet. But if there are CSC meetings, convenings, events that you wanna have here, we can we can use City Hall for that. And and then also, you have any questions about, like, what US commissioners we wanna we wanna, you know, grant you permission to to go out and do work as commissioners. So if you have questions about kind of what those limits are tonight, we can go go for that conversation.

Thank you, Mary. So coming back to the public comment period, it says we're we have two things going on. Right? The work plan and also the CDBG recommendations. But for CDBG recommendations, the public can reach out to me.

This is my email, phone number, and the public comment period technically runs from this Friday through the next CSC meeting, but we will take public comments now. I also wanted to introduce Eric, who is our TDA consultant. And we invited Eric to come on to answer any CDBG in the weed questions that you all might have. He's our CDBG consult primary consultant that help that helps us with our annual action plan and all of that. So hi, Eric.

Hey. Good evening, everyone. Glad to be with you.

Thanks for being here. Yeah. Like, that's in case

you have questions on like, we I learned a lot in the last month about what's eligible and not eligible because I was asking all the departments, so what about this and this and this? And then they were going back, and I was continuously told that that's not eligible. So now if you have questions about what's eligible, Eric's resource.

So the way that we'll go here is questions, public comment, which unless someone new comes on, it doesn't seem like we might have public comment tonight, and then CSC discussion.

So we'll go with questions first, I'll pass it on to the chair.

Are these clarifying questions from the presentation, or is this open clarifying, like, questions about any of the things that have been said to them thus far about the To be alternative

It sounds like we want to collect your collect your comments on the CDC recommendations in particular so you could put that in the staff report. But I think Yeah. Recommendation. Yeah.

So I guess If you have

to clarify right now.

If have a question about the recommendations, maybe just say I have a question about the recommendations. If you have a question about the work plan, we can talk about I have a question about the CSC work plan, and then we can parse it out when we go into the next meeting. Fair

enough. A lot has been said. I'm not sure where folks are, where your minds are, or if everyone is even clear on what is exactly happening right now, what you know, where we are in the process, what are next steps. We're definitely not dividing up into arcs. We're definitely not giving responses on, applications and how we understand our nonprofit partners to be performing.

But we are here still with the same charge to support the city with allocating these funds, and, the staff team has made some recommendations to us. There are some things that are already committed, and that train has left the station, if you would. And I don't believe there's much flexibility. We can certainly comment on that or give ideas on that, but it doesn't appear as though there's gonna be much flexibility on things that are already pen to paper. But opening the floor for folks to inquire about, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and please correct me if my understanding is incorrect, can we go to the slide where it had the table of committed, eligible, and required?

Amazing. Thank you. I've I'm understanding correctly, the two bottom rows which state eligible is what essentially we have the ability to ask questions about or weigh in about. I'm not getting the sense that there's going to be input that will change what's happening with the things above those rows. Is that correct understanding?

You're welcome to provide comments or questions to any of these. And if you wanted to add. No.

I think that's fair. I mean, I think in terms of committed, you know, if if there's yes. You can you can provide comments and questions on those too if if that's a good thing. Those are the category those are committed to categories. I would say the Eden IR is a regional contract, so we do try and adhere to our commitment to that regional contract. But the housing thing, those are just the service providers that we use for that category.

So the committed words does not mean those are in contract? It does not. What does that mean? I actually I have

a comment. So Oh, okay. My comment is typically the all of the rows above Eden INR have historically not been subject to review with ARCs. ARCs have historically these are typically noncompetitive, or they have been previously negotiated. So even outside of this process, those lines typically do not, get recommendations from the ARCs to get adjusted.

These are commitments that the city makes as part of our annual action plan and our con plan that we follow through, with these allocations. Eden INR is new. Historically, the CS the community services division has supported this with a general fund allocation. It is an eligible activity for CDBG, and so that's a recommendation that's being made. So, essentially, the bottom three are the new recommendations that staff is making.

Everything above that, historically, CSC has not really weighed in on in terms of funding allocation, if that provides some clarity. Clear as mud. Yeah. Okay.

Just No. Thank you very much. Do folks have thoughts, ideas, initial reactions? Vice chair Gunn.

Yeah. Just a couple questions. Question for for Carol. The navigation center, did that face any cuts that this is meant to lessen, or is this in addition to what our

Yeah. So there has been a significant reduction plan for fiscal year twenty seven, and that happened sort of outside of this process. The program itself is slated to be relocated to Regis Village. And through that process, city staff has negotiated with BACS a lower operating contract. Staff supports actually, the city supports changing the model from being a 22 person dormitory style setting to a two person per room setting.

And that is in alignment with best practices. So it's no longer gonna be congregate. However, we are reducing the number of beds, the capacity being served from 66 beds to 44. And staffs, after doing quite a bit of analysis and research, believes that that trade off is a benefit, that the outcomes typically are better. We saw that in the annex program that we had during COVID, that we had higher success rates to permanent housing.

I do want to note something that Emily touched on. In the last calendar year, the agency has they saw an 83% exit rate to positive housing. That's stable, permanent. You're not couch surfing. You're not going to another shelter. You're going to long term housing. 83%. And the national average is somewhere in the 30s.

Yeah. And

so it's really good. And we believe that they're gonna continue to maintain that type of exit to positive destinations. Staff also has worked to leverage or to secure additional funding. So there's prop 47 funding. There's, a couple state and county sorry. A couple state grants one administered through the county, and all of those funds are being leveraged to continue services.

Have I answered Yeah. So I think that and you you yes. Yeah. Okay. Such a wealth of knowledge. I think the main question is so this is not offering new services. This would be keeping the existing services, but what Carol's pointing out is the existing services are actually just happened to be shifting right now anyways. There's a structural change. The other thing to note is the and this is fascinating if you wanna I will not speak long about this, but the funding landscape for homelessness services statewide has changed dramatically in the last two years. The proposition one, which was in 2023 was passed, and that took away funding for some services and added funding for others.

So some of our services are in danger of losing funding, but we are receiving new funding for things like Regis, like a facility at Saint Rose specifically for mental health and a facility around my. So so happy to speak to that. But but yes. So this is this shift is part of all of that changing landscape.

Okay. Other question I have is the the funding for the fire equipment purchases. Is this, planned purchases that we're gonna do anyway that we are supplementing with CDBG funds, or is this additional plans for new things to tap in low

income areas?

Yes. So, essentially, it is planned purchases. And by us using this funding, we are as we're not having to cut other city services. Gotcha. And the reason yeah. So the only thing that we found that was eligible so, yes, it is. So things like just to give you a sense is we have a life of equipment for medical devices that all all paramedics use when they respond to community members for, breathing devices for our firefighters. We have we have equipment that we need to replace, and then we do have to make sure that our offices are running. And so that we have yeah. You got great thoughts.

My and then my last question is, normally, we would need, counsel would receive this in April, I suppose, and so now it's May, and and everything's on schedule with that. We're not at risk of, like, using CDBG funding by that timeline or anything.

Yeah.

The plan is to go in May for the work session, and then because there's a shift in how often council has meetings now, the next that we'll finalize in June. So the June 5, I believe, or the June.

Commissioner Wong?

I just have a few questions as well. The first is for the administration and planning aspect, you said part of the recommended, funding is for staff administrate administrating of CDBG funds. I was wondering, if I guess, how much did it cost in terms of my just for staff administered funds before? And is any of this funding similar to Jesse's question being used to supplement any loss in funding to staff?

Before. So

similar. So 15% oh, well, 20. 20. Thank you. 20% of the admin cap, minus the Fair Housing, contract that we have with Eden or at Go for your housing. And can you tell me that your second question and your follow-up question?

Also, I guess the question was, is any of this, recommended funding amount being used to supplement any losses in funding considering, like, the city recently had layoffs or anything? And so is this being used to, like, stop saves of people, I guess, from being laid off?

This is being used to maintain the Maintain. Yeah. And it it is the same amount as previous. I think I think they're you may be getting at a question, which is we will have fewer in number of contracts. So

is the workflow mean,

there's there's a question there that I you may or may not be asking, but I basically, we'll we're this is the same amount that we've used in the past and will allow us to maintain those existing staff. Yeah.

Historically and, Eric, you can confirm this. Historically, we exceed our admin cap every year. And so what happens is that general fund pays for staff time that exceeds this allocation. This is the maximum allocation in admin planning that we can use towards staff time. So staffing may have changed based on having less work because we are not managing that many contracts, But this number did not increase. We always allocate the maximum, the 20% towards admin and planning. And historically, since I've been on this team, we've exceeded it every year. So it's not supplementing anything. It is pretty much status quo. That make sense?

Yes. And, I mean, I was kind of thinking about it the opposite way, not because of, like, less staff work. And so this might I was thinking more like, is it because there's this dire situation where you didn't get this funding done, staff? Got it. Will more staff will be cut in something like that. Okay. Yeah. That's helpful.

I don't know if Eric wanted to I see

Well, I I was just gonna absolutely confirm that the city has the opposite, has has always supplemented with general funds the the administrative burden of the CDBG and and home programs. So, yes, you've always used this allocation for the admin and your obligations for the fair housing programs. Absolutely.

And I can speak to that. I mean, we we haven't presented our budget yet to council, but right now, with potentially because we've supplemented in the past in the general fund, we are holding for the moment the the new service manager position vacant so that we don't have to supplement this coming year with the general fund. We are leaving it on the books so that we can fill it in the future. We're not getting rid of the position. We just, for the moment, are holding that vacant because that was someone leaving, and and it wasn't.

Amy. You love me.

Amy. I know. We envy all. It's her terribly, and it's a horrible loss. She is working for the county for their homelessness plan. So that's a yeah.

Commissioner Wang, you had additional questions?

Yes. I did. This was on the fire equipment. And so I guess the first is I know these were planned purchases. One such thing you mentioned maybe, like, breathing equipment or, I guess, maybe there was something like a new fire truck. Was that something? Anyways, I was guess I was wondering, are the current is the current equipment that we're planning to replace at the end of, like, its life cycle, and that's why, like, we actually, like, really they they really need these replacements, or it's just we have the opportunity to have the funds to be able to replace them, like, in the near future.

No. I think that's a really good question. And yes. So we are, we have paused all fleet purchases except for when the vehicle is no longer basically off operable. It's so beyond its life cycle that because of the fiscal situation. So we and I'm happy to provide I think it's totally fair and great that you guys have some questions. I'm happy to provide more information sort of our analysis around our equipment and how we're not we're not just replacing equipment because there's a schedule, but, like, we're trying to cut down and extend useful life as much as possible. For things like cardiac, like like, a medical equipment, we do stick to the, you know, the life of

the equipment. We don't

try and extend those again.

Okay. Then just one last question on this then. Because there's a the city is facing a budget, deficit again, are there any anticipated reductions in, like, fire staff at these low to moderate income, fire stations that would result in, say, people being cut off. And so you're gonna have more than necessary, like, breathing equipment or other equipment that you're planning to purchase. Is there any anticipated cutoffs at those departments?

We so we have contractually obligated staffing levels at our for fire. So we have to we have to maintain per our union contracts those. So so in short, no. We don't anticipate any additional, like, equip extra equipment. It's like I because that is the question. Yeah.

Or, like, would the United contracts change in any time soon?

The this contract we are in a closed contract until fiscal year twenty nine.

Okay.

And so, yeah, so that's part of what's what's happening right now with the city is we have a closed contract, and so we are contractually obligated to meet our obligations unless the unions voluntarily make concessions to those contracts.

So that's

Okay. Thank you.

And and and I will say that the fire department has voluntarily made reductions in their minimums and minimums thing, but not in a way that would, you know, generate this additional equipment as you're you're talking about.

Okay. Thank you.

It's a good question.

Thank you, commissioner Wong. Any other thoughts, questions? Commissioner Medeiros.

Yeah.

So back to the Hayward Navigation Center. So you said those those agencies, so Eden and are Hayward Navigation, Habitat for Humanity, and we'll be rebuilding together. East Bay would not have been a competitive they wouldn't have had to put in an application for funding because that was in another funding stream. Right? It's in general fund?

So it's everything above Eden INR. So it's the first two admin, first two housing. Yeah. Those are those are noncompetent. Like, historically, they've been noncompetitive as.

Mhmm. The the nav center would have had to put in an application. I

think we're navigation. Would have to put an application. So

Eden INR, the CSC make an made a recommendation, and council approved that they would no longer have to compete for funding because this was a contractual agreement amongst city managers in the region to fund this regional information and referral. Yeah. For the whole county. Right. So the only change this time is instead of allocating the general fund, it's being recommended to be supported through CDBG.

Hayward Navigation Centre has historically not, applied for CDBG funding. It has been funded through many different types of funding that's been braided together, including Measure C, general fund, grant opportunity different grants, and opioid settlement funding, but not CDBG in this manner. So this is they have not had to compete because we did if we did put them in this pool, there would be insufficient funds to successfully support the various exactly. It would have required a significant portion of the homelessness funds available. So it is a new change.

Okay. Thank you.

Think you were getting at this. But, essentially, then if you were to open up the public services competitive process again Mhmm. We would have to find other funding sources for the navigation center because we wouldn't want them to compete and take up the entire the entire amount. Mhmm.

Thank you.

I have a question. This calf process this year was going to be the two year cycle. The slide says fiscal year 2627. Is it just for this year, or is this for what two year cycle would have been?

This recommend yeah. Go ahead, Amaya.

Yeah. So this is the twenty six point seven cycle, what we're proposing. We don't know what we're gonna do for 2728. However, I will refer to Mary. I know that when we met, we made the chair. You wanted sort of like a definitive when well, when will CAP come back? And that is uncertain right now, but I'll let Mary sort of speak to that.

So, yeah, I get some a very fair question. So we will not be doing a process in the fall, which would be the typical process. What but this is only for next year's budget. So if what happens next spring and and this would still be we'd have a con like, we'd have a conversation with you, and I think it it depends on our revenue coming in, basically. That's fair.

Yeah. So this structural budget challenge is impacting in multiple ways the CAF process, which includes not the two year cycle, but now because of the fiscal challenge, it needs to be annual review.

No. So the whole I

think my hope I'm sorry. Shouldn't get on. Is I think you guys have a two year cycle that would have started this this this call with applications for next year's funding and then next fall for applications for the following year's funding. That the entire two year cycle will be will be not followed in the way that we had intended in any or in any way. And then but then it's possible that for the the following two year cycle, that that's just where we're we're we're gonna have to evaluate where the budget is at that point.

We are not we're not recommending going into a year to year. But in this particular case, I guess, if you if if you guys have feedback for us and you'd rather for us to just keep this as the same recommendation for two years, we are very open to that feedback and probably will be easier for us. But we were we're trying to not, you know, allocate this money for two years if we don't have to in this way. That awkwardly give the Mhmm. Some clarity.

It certainly does for me. Okay. I understand. Okay. And additional context.

It's not clarity on the presentation, but context on where I'm going and where my mind is is recognizing that many of us wanted to participate in the CSC for a myriad of reasons, understanding this is what the CSC does. And we're hearing now for the next foreseeable future, I'd say two to five years, probably closer to five years, just guessing with understanding the money is funny right now. It may change some people's desire to continue to participate in the CSC. So this is the what was the underneath my question and asking for I understand there can't be a definitive answer. But if this is annually, you know, how does this impact?

Some people may decide, this isn't what I thought it was going to be. I I'm gonna choose to support somehow, some other way, my volunteer time or my my volunteer hours. So that's that's the underlining of where I was going. Then connected to that is we, maybe in the last year, give or take, changed. We don't have bylaws anymore. Right? We've changed the structure of commissions and task force. The task force is now a commission. Quorum numbers have changed because the number of individuals on the commission have changed. And we have been enforcing term limits.

And so it also factors in, okay. Well, if this isn't what the design was when we all signed up and the clock is still going and we're not sure when we'll get to do it, how does that affect term limits and the people's ability to continue to participate? Like, so so so just giving more context to what may is beneath my questions and inquiry, certainly. I'm not wanting to speak for the larger commission, but, again, not related to this, which is why I wanted to get clarity before. What exactly are we talking about now?

Because it's all connected, and I recognize you all have a charge and your minds are in a very specific location. I can only imagine the pressures of needing to make all the things fit. But, certainly, I could see us sitting around the table having some of that concern, but then also there are real challenges for us if we wait for the next five years and how does this go. And then in the meantime, our terms have ended and we can't do this anymore when it does return. I think that's a real conversation that we should also be including with these types of funding recommendations.

I appreciate that. Sure.

And and it's also a requirement that you have a CSC for these funds too. Right? Even if you're doing it this way, there still has to be, you guys still have to present it to some kind of commission.

The public body. Yeah. So so

there needs to be a commission. It's just what that looks like. Right?

Eric, can you it's yeah. You raise your hand.

Yeah. I mean, not not to be negative or argumentative, but note, the this commission is not required by HUD. This is strictly a a city of Hayward established entity or body to to garner further feedback and deliberation on the on this process. But this this isn't this is not required at all from HUD's perspective for CDBG.

Yeah. We can do public comment period with counsel that Right. So we do it twice and work with the CSC because you all have been so passionate about allocating funds to their community. But a lot of other cities, they don't allocate funds directly to community based organizations, or they allocate less awards to community based organizations? So

I think with that with that as well, that information, I think step step here to hear the feedback you had, and we can take it to council and hear council sort of comments because I know there was a whole effort to sort of talk about this as well at the council level of if if you if you're requesting longer term limits, which I think is a very reasonable request considering the circumstance or or any other things and and so or you wanna hear what is council and staff's commitment to continuing this relationship even in this moment. Like, as we just heard, we we don't have to do it, but do we still want to keep doing it because we're committed to this? Like, I think those are questions you can ask us, and we, in April, can come back and have some feedback and have some conversations with counsel in between. That's helpful. Unless you're looking for specific answers right now, in which case I will try and do what I can't.

Okay. I understand you're not able to give specific answers, but I do think it's important to know, I think, all of the thoughts or all of the considerations from the myriad of us sitting around around the table. And I imagine some folks are maybe even still processing Yes. All of this. You know, each meeting, it feels more like, oh, this is happening or, oh, this is is is different.

I am interested. I understand public comment will begin starting Friday, and we'll go till whenever it ends. And I imagine our community partners will be tuning in and listening and have been maybe were at some portion of the eight hour, you know, budget presentation. But I am interested in, where they fit in just hearing this information. Is it just gonna be through the open public comment period and they'll have that opportunity, or is there anything else we're doing formally or informally with notifying them, at least those who had either signed up for the bidders conference or those who had received funding before, to get some heads up in advance and just not hearing it at the general city council meeting? I'm curious what the thought or plan is in that regard.

So we typically send out an active campaign to our interested parties list, when the public comment period is published. So what we can do is when we send that out, we can forward that to our agencies that we that one signed up for the bidders conference and also we previously funded.

And on the and also separately, and Emily mentioned this earlier, but we're gonna the city manager is going to send an email to everyone who's received funding in the last few years or was part of the bidders' comp just to reiterate what we shared at the February 28 meeting and make sure that that we're not being we're not being tested, or letting them know kind of what where we're at.

Fair enough.

I'd like to take a risk and ask if if there's any part of the commission that would have difficulty with getting behind these recommendations or have inability to come by Do we have to

go to public comment first before we deliberate that part?

Report item,

information and clarifying questions from commissioners, public comment, commissioner discussion. You. Appreciate it. So I

just wanna make sure we do it.

Fair enough. Thank you. I just realized now that you were just only asking questions.

So Yes. Follows the key. Yeah. I had a lead in question. Do we have any comments before we move to discussion? Public comments before we move to commissioner discussion or any lingering clarifying questions? I don't know if all the clarifying questions got out. Commissioner Metz.

This one was regarding the potential business license tax for the ballot measure. If it were to pass, how much money would the city receive? Yeah. So absolutely. So right now, we are so

we presented to the city council, and feel free to jump in anytime. But we presented to city council on the twenty eighth concepts, a couple concepts, and we're pretty we're pretty clear direction and that counsel first of let me give you some context. The business license tax has not been updated since 1978 and has dollar amounts in there that are reflective of, in some cases, 1978. And so and, also, it's extremely complex. It's many, many pages long and has many different business categories that are no longer applicable and does not include business categories that are like, it doesn't have anything with the tech side of sector.

It's it's a completely different landscape. And so we regardless, should be modernizing our business license tax. When we looked at it, we are by far the lowest we're not I guess, we're not we are much lower. There's one other city that's low too. We're about a third lower than all of our neighbors in terms of revenue we get.

We currently get about $4,000,000 from business license tax. So if we were to bring ourselves up to our neighbors more or less, and that depends on the business type, that gets us about additional $10,000,000. 9 to 10 is what we're what we're so we are pulling the council gave us the direction to go and pull voters, likely voters to see if this would pass it as a tax, so it gets to go to voters. And we also are doing surveys with our businesses communities right now to kind of understand the sensitivity in different business types. And we will present back to council on April 7 on that.

Council then would give us some more direction, and then they would need to place this item on the ballot by council motion and adoption for November. It's a very long way to answer that question, but about $10,000,000. For context, our deficit is 30,000,000, so it's about a third. But we are we are identifying many other ways to try and close that. So yeah.

Would that tax go towards general fund, or is it a special tax where it goes to a specific

It's a general tax, general fund. Okay. Yeah. Good question.

Verifying questions on the informational report. I mean, where do you see us addressing the working groups?

Like, to the slides that were presented or, like, anything in addition to that?

Not with respect to the slide. I don't recall the I know you gave the sort of general overview. There were working groups to address these things. Mhmm. And we conducted a survey at the time. The CBOs were notified we weren't doing this path process, and they stated these are some general areas. Mhmm. And then we have met and said, you know what? These are areas where we think we can support, but I'm not certain. Do you see that as part of this conversation that it's not on the agenda highlighted separately?

So yes, we would love to be able to talk about that, and we'd love to

get your feedback on that.

So I can move to that section. So, yeah, the ideas that you all presented last time around, we pulled out things that we thought fit best with the CSC scope and also fit best with what we've heard from council in the past in terms of direction for the CSC. So these are some of the ideas. And then the idea moving forward is to continue working groups. If you all wanna keep the working groups as they are, you can.

But we also suggested possibly doing a survey to gauge their interest on the ideas that you presented that fit within the CSC scope to better inform your work moving forward and engage interest.

Right. So we are looking for comment on both the recommendations and this proposal at the same time unless you, chair, would like us to split those things up, in which case

I assume to split it up. Okay. But just I am not certain that if folks have comments on the working groups or additional thoughts on the working groups or any clarifying questions with respect to the working groups. This does not appear to be an either or. Mhmm. This can be a both end. I'm just not sure if people are clear on that or understand that, and this is now the time to get the clarity if it's needed. I have a question.

Okay. Thank you. So what is the diff are are we formally recommending that the commission moves to an advisory body, or are we saying that it remains a commission? It just goes into more of an advisory state versus a formal funding recommendation.

So the last Okay.

Good. It's already in the five yeah. Okay.

Because I just wanted to make sure that we weren't trying to move it in a task force or some other form, because it seems like we're trying to move it from a commission into an advisory board, and that I

think Yes.

No. That would not be in staff's prerogative to recommend that. That would be up to the council members. So, no, it was it's more of a statement. It's an advisory body already, but remain effective.

Maybe it's it it functions, you know, in an advisory capacity versus advisory body because I think advisory body, that's a very specific definition. And then the other thing is just from my own perspective, you know, and a little bit of context. So the community services commission came together as a result of the merger of two separate commissions back in the day. Mhmm. It was the human services commission, and we might wanna go back and look at what was the charter of that commission, and it was the Citizens Advisory Commission.

And the Citizens Advisory Commission had the responsibility of the CDBG funding allocation. The Human Services Commission had broader sets of responsibility around human service related things like quality of life and and, like, social welfare issues in the city. Mhmm. So what I'm and if we merge those two, but there's other cities who like, for an example, Alameda, and I'm thinking about Jen. They call theirs the social service human relations board, which could be a commission, and it's to the the purpose is to assess and report to city council the social service needs of the people of Alameda and to encourage the formation of private social welfare organizations to serve those under under met needs.

So that to me seems much more meaningful for this commission to be trying to do a reform than trying to, like, hold events or connect volunteers at high schools or things like that. Right? So I guess what I'm wondering is if the commission, since we have some time, maybe there's an opportunity to sort of step back and say, of being so task oriented, how might we reform the mission of the community services commission staying true to still serving unmet needs of Hayward, but maybe doing so in a way that respects the guardrails of other commissions, but maybe finds a way to start to create social private enterprises or network. I mean, I don't know what this commission does, but maybe we can start to explore what other cities are doing in terms of social service and human relations since that was also a part of the charter of this commission initially, if that's something that the commission is interested in doing. And then the other question that I had was, how long does it take to kind of go to to move from, let's say, the navigation center on an average, you know, to this kind of positive of, you know, housing thing?

Is it is it like a quick jump? Because then that can start to help us understand capacity. Right? Because if you have 44 beds, but you're turning over those beds every six months, then that makes us feel a little bit better than shrinking cap you know, and I get why we're having to remove capacity because of the funding issues, but I was just wondering if you can kinda speak to generally Individual quickly the average you know, how quickly the people transition from those beds to this positive housing thing where we have a success rate of eighty percent.

I would imagine it is very dependent on the

individual, but Girls pulling up the data.

Maybe, like, an average.

Yeah.

Yeah. We can we can get that for you.

Okay. Perfect. And then and then as it relates to Eden INR, Eden INR used to be a part of the competitive funding process of the CSC. The reason why it got pulled out is because city managers had made a commitment to fund it, And there was a year when I was chairing the commission that we chose not to fund it, and it created issues because we didn't feel that anyways. So then we said, let's kind of take them out of the process because it's a commitment that's already made.

So the CSC doesn't really have a say in that if the city manager's already committed funds to it. So now what it sounds like is, which I understand and I agree with, if those funds were in net you know, let's say, last year coming out of the general fund and we're doing everything to restrict the use of general fund dollars, and this is now an eligible use that does seem like the responsible way to get that funded without continuing to use the general fund when we've made decisions that the general fund needs to be much more restricted.

And I would say with that, I did not not know all of that context. If there was a reason why it was not recommended for funding and those reasons still exist, like, don't think it's meeting its need, half

of meeting its need. It was just things like, you know, basic They

were coming back every year.

That's exactly

what was like, no. You can't come back every year. You gotta figure out another way.

Funding sources and not rely on

The city managers got together. And because they provided service for the whole county, all the cities are paying a portion

of all

the cities. Were paying a portion already. The difference was the city other cities were paying a portion from wherever. We were paying a portion from CDVT. So when we said no as a commission, then the city manager said yes. And then because they control the general fund, she said, well, I'm pull gonna it out, the general fund. Well, the the council said that too.

Okay. Good point.

But, yeah, I would just say, like, you know, because I see kind of the social services and human relations commission in Alameda, mean, I maybe it's even worth the conversation between you as the chair and their chair to understand what they're doing, or maybe you can go in I mean, just to sort of see how this group can kinda still stay strategic and advisory and not so, like, in the weeds of event planning and connecting volunteers. I mean, if that's where they wanna go, I can see that, but I just see the council wanting the group to kind of be a little bit more impactful as it relates to solving some of the deeply rooted social service unmet needs within our community.

That's fair. And I will say what, I think, adds some, challenges. We've gone through some different changes and iterations. I'd say the last three years with this commission with sort of removing the bylaws and the charter and then reducing the size and feeling as though there were instructions coming back from council around this is what you get to do and you're don't move out of this spouse. And I I I certainly feel like I don't wanna speak for the rest of the commission, tentative around proposing or suggesting or recommending things that are not directly tied to allocating CAF funds.

Mhmm.

And I'm seeing heads nodding, and it did feel very much a bit of we got spanking. If I could just be direct in that way. And but I'm I feel like I'm hearing something a little different now, which I am all here for and open to and appreciate the opportunity to do what I think many of our hearts are seeking. But I think at some point felt as though we were limited to very specifically, it has to be helping determine what happens to this fund to this money. And I believe we're now we're doing our best to figure out, okay. Well, that's not really an option. So what is there that we could maybe what's our commitment? Or advocate to counsel. This is still us being of value and use to you.

Yeah. I I would say going into whatever brainstorming session you're gonna go into knowing the constraints of what not to bump up against. Right? I mean, I would say and I'm not gonna say what you can and can't bump up against your vision gets open. But for an example, if we're to say that and this is debatable, so I don't wanna get into this. Right? But if if we're talking about social service and human relations needs or social service needs of the city, does police oversight cross that line? I don't know. Right? But or is that off limits, right, because that's handled somewhere else?

Is reparations something that this group is gonna handle, or is it something that's being handled somewhere else? So, I mean, I think as long as we're not duplicating things that are happening elsewhere and we sort of acknowledge that there's groups that are doing things, so where can we fill in the need of maybe things that aren't being done so we're not duplicating other groups or stepping on other people's decisions or maybe getting into spaces that the council hasn't asked you to get into, I think would be I think aligning with the council on the direction you wanna go before you kinda just head in that direction would maybe help us stay aligned as we move forward and reinvision the great work that this this commission can do for the community.

Thank you for that. Mhmm. So yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I was gonna say this is super helpful for me too to understand kind of because I'm getting more familiar with this commission, more familiar with the background here. So I think we will like, so any and all comments, we will write down, and I think that can be part of staff's role is to help be doing that back and forth between you guys and your feedback and counsel and figuring out how to have that conversation in a way that both meets our Brown Act rules, but also, you know, meets everyone's timelines.

I have the data that you just Okay.

However, if you'd like, we can

also email it out. If you want, generally, I can provide just a quick

Yeah. Just like I said.

This is just for calendar year sorry. This is last fiscal year. And for context, the goal of interim housing is really between three and six months. But that is not what reality is. Right. There is a huge challenge to find affordable housing, especially in this area. And a lot of the individuals who are in our interim shelter needs some sort of level of continued services and support. So there are limited resources. This is something not just the city of Hayward is experiencing, but it is across the county. Actually, thirty days or less for people staying in the agency was about 15%, which is fantastic.

So maybe they come for a little bit, they get matched, they maybe have income and can be placed. More than fifty percent leave within that first six months. Let me just give you the percentage. It's actually fifty one percent. And then, unfortunately, there are there's about 28% that is between six months. And

And those are usually people that have lower income too that might be on SSI or something like that. Possibly.

I don't have that connecting data. And I apologize. That 25 individuals is between ninety and a hundred and eighty days. And so actually, one hundred and eighty days, it's actually 74% that leave in that Six months. Yeah.

Period. And then we have about 41 individuals that stay over, like, between six months and a year, and then 29 folks who have been there longer than a year. And that is unfortunate, but the reality of the situation, that they have not been matched. A lot of those individuals actually are matched, are eligible for permanent supportive housing, but there is no available unit for them to so they don't return back to the streets as long as they can maintain it. The city has tried to be flexible and believe the same way that we do what we can to support folks.

We don't just exit because they've reached their six months term. So we can send this information. In fact, I can run one for this year, however you guys want that information. This is last fiscal year. And I know that they are making progress to actually increase that.

You.

Any other clarifying questions around our presentation, which, encompasses both, I'll say the CAF process because I don't know what to call it, and then also our CSC work plan and the work groups. And then I will hold another comment for our calendar later. But any other clarifying questions before we ask the staff to open public comment?

Thank you all. So what I'm hearing as a next step for regarding the work, I don't know if now is a

good time to talk about that or later. You're leave comments.

I think we're gonna do public comment and then our discussion.

Okay.

He's wanting to stay if there's discussion and there's questions. Okay. But the one plan he probably doesn't need to stay.

We're going into public comment.

Seeing no comment cards, and I see three dots on the screen or boxes, but I don't believe it's anyone online. No

one on

the screen. Thank you. Absolutely.

And then I'm gonna release Eric and say thank you so much for joining us, Eric.

Have a good evening. Thanks, everyone.

And also continue to collect questions that he can answer, and

then get back to the end.

Thank you. If anything comes up that feels like it's an Eric question, you guys will take it for us. Awesome. Discussion, not so much clarifying questions.

I quite frankly feel like the floor

is open to whatever is on your mind by Sheregen.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your your direction. Navigating this is kind of difficult because it felt like we've really got our narrow path of where we're supposed to go, and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, nope. Change directions. So I wanna make sure that we are still within that path.

And so my question for you is, and and if this if you need to if we need more additional comments from the council as a whole, would be interested in that as well. But with this the cuts, not just within CSC, but within the city itself and what we're having to do. You know, we have a a safety net of support services for our most at risk and marginalized people in Hayward, and there's holes in it now because of where we are in in our budget. I would love my personal opinion is for CSC to look at where those holes are and how do we solve it. Not necessarily how do we ask ourselves solve it, but how do we advise counsel where those holes are so they can look at this.

And does that sound like something that counsel would say, yes. That's in your purview sort of thing? Or

I mean, it sounds like something that's reasonable, like, identifying the unmet social needs of the community. And, I mean, and there's ways that they can do that too. Right? Like, we have a point in time count that they can look at. We have, like, a community needs assessment that they I mean, we have all of this data that talks about our community needs. Maybe they can start looking at it and provide I mean, I I think it's great. I don't know, Mara. Don't wanna put words in your mouth. Right?

So I'm writing this first

of all, we are collecting all of this, and we'll continue to do that. But off off the bat, I think sort of that needs assessment lens is super helpful for us, including you know, we try to talk between divisions. We do our best, and I try in the city manager's office to under we may not understand even what some of our divisions are doing in other divisions and then definitely the county. So so it sort of help yeah. If you if that is if that is the direction this commission is interested in, I think we we can definitely refine that scope and figure that out and how that works for your screen.

Awesome. And then, I do wanna give some feedback from our working group. Is that that the okay time for that?

We

kind of hit

a snag when it came to collect connecting volunteers and agencies. The most major one was that the different groups that I reached out to that have collections of student volunteers. They were all in favor of, yes, we want to volunteer, but bring that to us. And from reaching out to different agencies, they needed a lot of volunteer hours during school hours, which is very helpful. And I also heard back from, educational leaders that part of the reason they had to do student volunteering is for that experience of calling themselves and reaching out to places and saying, hey.

Where can I volunteer? And actually searching on their own. It's it's a big educational point that I hadn't considered when we were initially making our brainstorming plans.

So That's fair. Like a leadership development of young people.

Exactly. Yeah. And if you just hand it to them, then you'd miss out on that opportunity. So Interesting

finding. Uh-huh.

Thank you for that. I do feel a part of me is like, oh, I I know we're gonna look at our calendar. And but I I would like the opportunity to I think for all of us to have an actual working meeting to talk about the working groups and the CSC. We initially sort of broke up into smaller groups to try to tackle what we thought was the immediate need of we're not able to write a check to these organizations. What can we do?

And it felt very like we gotta do something. It was it was heartbreaking to be here, and people were coming, and they were essentially saying if there's anything you can do, and it felt very much in response to that. But I don't believe there's been a just kind of sort of step back, big picture, and kind of let's look at the landscape and really come up with some sort of plan of what is this body, what can we do, what do we want to ask specifically to city council or recommend, not just within the context of we're not able to write a check, but this is what we would like to do to move forward to continue to support our community in this regard. And I I would love for us to have that opportunity to do that. I know we talked about, I believe, at next fall, which I think we start in September or I think right?

But I would love for us to maybe even revisit the the meeting schedule. You know what I mean? Based off of what that is, I know you'd initially recommended maybe we move to bimonthly or something. Yeah. But I would love for us to have the opportunity to just sit with our own heads together and really kind of come up with what is it that we think we can do, would like to do in response to supporting our community and CBOs.

Do you want to hear something?

Please. So it sounds like with this information, we'll staff we have some research to do. And, also, I wanna hear from you all if you all wanna connect with similar bodies that council member Bonilla is bringing up or do your own individual research. So we need to finish the CDBG process. So I would recommend April be let's finish that. If there's any additional things you want staff to look into in terms of larger visioning ideas, you can bring those there. And then June can be our working meeting.

I I think that's fair. I do want to ask the initial question that where I started to get us off track and I sure can put us back on. Was around if we currently right now because I do feel like sort of two things need to occur. You have this charge of like, hey. I gotta respond to this.

We have this process that needs to go forward with respect to CDBG. And then I see related, but also to some extent separately, okay. What is this working group thing that we're going to do to support our CBOs? For this first part of allowing or having the the staff to be able to go before council with the April working meeting and or whatever the data is, do we have any challenges with what was presented to us? Do we have strong reactions or feelings around, I'm just not able to get behind that. I need my city council to know. You know? I don't know. Something about that. But I think it's important for them to walk away from tonight's meeting understanding clear on, yes.

We're here. We're all in. We're gonna do the best we can from our perspective to support you to make sure that that happens or occurs or to be very clear and, like, we have issues with whatever it is. Yeah.

And that's very helpful because council's gonna want staff and the commission to be aligned on the recommendations. Okay.

Commissioner Singh, are you raising your hand? No? Okay. Scratching an itch? Cool.

Well, I I'm just glad to see that what you are funding does line up with, you know, the specific needs of the, you know, to moderate income folks and and marginalized folks in the city of Hayward. So, you know, at first, I was just like, where is this lining up? How does this match up? And because that's my whole heart. That's why I came on the commission was about serving the people of the city of Hayward that are, you know, low income or marginalized or, you know, just folks that are suffering. You know? And so I see some of that in there. And, you know, it's just where we're at in a point in time right now. Right? And so it doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good at all. But we still have to be and, you know, think logically about things. And even, like, you know, trying to get together with working groups, I get there's there's some Wednesdays I can't participate in working groups because I have an obligation at my church on Wednesday nights. But I stopped doing it this third one Wednesday night because I was committed to this, and this was the process that the calendar looks like. Right? So I I base my whole life off a calendar. You know what I mean? This isn't the only volunteer thing that I do. So that also feels like, okay. So am I gonna continue to do that?

You know? Because I it's very important to me to be active in, you know, change in whatever I'm volunteering in. So thank you, Commissioner Wheeler, for bringing that up of how that feels for us now is, you know, our what's that gonna look like moving forward? You know? So thank you so much. But, yeah, I'm I was happy to see that, you know, what where the funding is going.

I just want Just

brief thing. I don't I mean, I don't have any issues with the plans for where the recommended amounts and where they're going to. I guess the only thing to me is I still would like to wait in here after, like, the public comments just to see what perhaps different organizations come in and propose, like, alternatives or, like, their situations, and they propose, like, maybe we get this amount of funding. I just would like to hear that to see if there's any of, like, that out there. But for the most part, I have no problems at this point.

Don't know if one can If I may, please. I'm wondering if the commission is sort of becoming what's my two rivers flowing in the same direction but not mixing. One River is is, you know, obviously focused because of the budget issues and so forth. Focus on the official or the recommendations for funding and financial, most of which seems to be going toward housing, just looking at the list, and that's that's this river. But then the other river is becoming sort of a volunteer recruitment outlet, if you will, where I think we will be asked to approach various groups and say, we have no money for you, but we would like to help you organize volunteers to help the community even though the city would essentially be in no position to to help financially, if you will.

Am I reading this? Is that a good way to look at how we're sort of going forward?

I think yes and no is the response. We are, I believe, trying to accomplish two things. And the first, I believe you identified correctly, is like, yes, we have this immediate need to where this CAF process and use of CDBG allocation of CDBG funds needs to happen. And it this year, it needs to happen in a way that it has not happened traditionally due to the budget challenge. In response to it happening differently, I believe the second river you're describing is us as a commission trying to identify what can we do that's not monetary in the form of written check, but is still helpful and supportive to our nonprofit community partners.

One of those recommendations was to connect volunteers. But vice chair Gunn just shared with us that how he was working on that committee, it has some challenges. And so I believe what we're now discussing is with respect to the second river, we would like to come together as a group and really talk about what is that second river. Mhmm. If I can continue to use your language in in describing that.

So it is not specific to a volunteer organization going out and matching folks, but I do believe it is specific to us either reevaluating, assessing, or identifying what is it we can do as a commission, what would we like to propose to city council to still be supportive and helpful to them as well as our community partners.

In the context of social services, human relations Correct. And serving yeah. But yeah. Not just generally what You're correct.

Thank you for thank you for I I need all the help

to No.

No. You're doing great. Thank you so much.

Yeah. That's fine. Does that answer you?

It basically does. I'll tell the reason I asked the the question, today I spent some time with Spectrum and Meals on Will. They had an event today, and I I wanted to go just see what they do. And then I went along a ride on to some of the deliveries, you know, when they were going out to people's houses. And and then when I spoke to some of the other what well, maybe seniors at the senior center, and I didn't wanna get specific, but but they kind of brushed against the question of will the city be able to help as far as, I well, I guess funding.

I mean, they didn't use this specific language, but but but I think the subject of grants and so forth came up. And my answer, of course, is I don't know. I can't I I could not address it. But but I'm just wondering if and then I may end up doing more volunteer work with them because it it may be something that I would be able to, you know, as I'm trying to deal with my own life things. And but but maybe I may end up at a point where at least one to two days, I may actually go out and help deliver meals on wheels because they desperately need volunteers.

That just kept coming up. But I just wanted to know if I'm if the question is posed to me, what do I tell them about? You know, is there any help coming from the city, or are we or we just keep trying to round up volunteers and people who can donate the time? So that that's one reason I asked that specific question. I'm just trying to get an idea of what do I tell people if they ask me.

That's fair. And I believe we're going to come across that with whatever it is we decide to do to support these community partners. We'll all need a shared language and script and alignment on how are we representing the CSC extension of the council in that work? It's definitely going to be different. We're gonna be riding this bike and fixing the broken chain at the same time.

Yeah. And in terms of language, I think it makes sense, Mary, and the suggestion was that we would send an email to communicate with our agencies, and we are in communication with SOS, Meals on Wheels, because we still fund them through the end of the year. So we're gonna send them an email, and I think what makes sense is when we do send that email, we'd be cc you off so that you can see that language. Hopefully, that's helpful. Yeah.

And and and again, just to be clear, some of the questions that came in here were not from the representative the official representatives of of the agency. They were just old folks sitting around the table, you know, we're having a meal before we went out. So that's like the direct conversation with the people. But they so they're not gonna get any email we send out, but but they wanna know is the because, you know, part of it is a social gathering for them too, for the people who still get out. But but they knew enough to ask the question, you know, hey.

I hear Citi's in financial trouble. Is there any risk for this program? You know, that I was asked that a couple of times. So, you know, I had to sort of dance around my response.

Thank you for your question. Yeah. Commissioner Singh.

Are there any grants in pipeline?

There are grants

In pipeline?

In the pipeline. For well, so so the reality right now is that the there's not there there there are very limited grants at the federal level available to us. And then the state is is experiencing a similar situation to almost all localities right now, which is our our revenue has stagnated. And so there is not everyone has a budget. So there is I mean, grants that we typically would apply for.

There are some courses, which the the navigation center has gotten some, but there are not as many sources as we've we've been able to apply for in the past. Yeah. If that answers that question. I mean, it's not Yeah. So the answer is for this particular work, For things like water, and there's certain things that the federal government are still funding, but it's not different a different type of policy.

K.

I think we can also add that the county is working towards distributing funds for, homeless and housing, services. But the a lot of the CBOs that you are all familiar with are directly applying or in partnership with each other or possibly, you know, cities within the region to, you know, send a proposal for these funds.

Yeah. So this is and this is where I think I'd be curious in response to your sort of question about safety net assessment is we do there is part of funding, measure w, that the county has been holding on to and not spending, and there's been pressure for them to spend it. So they are going to be releasing funds, and they have a very specific way that they're approaching it. And I think there's office schedule too. And they have a schedule, and then you have an opportunity to look at is this you know, and talk to like, if that's something you're doing to sort of provide some feedback on is if is this is this approach something that's gonna work for the payroll community? There's there's an opportunity there, I think, to plug into that process because it does have a lot of funding and for you guys to be curious and learn more if that is something you're interested interested in. In. Don't wanna put that on you, but if it is

And, also, just for framing, it is not the end all be all answer to Yeah. All of these funding cliffs and challenges that the community is facing. There's an eligibility requirement, and it is for a very specific type of service. So for example, food insecurity, that is being addressed in a different way through the county. The board of supervisors had allocated other funds for those type of services.

So through the county then, not through the city?

Yeah. The so even the city would have to apply for those funds. And the services dedicated for these safety net services would be directly from the county, not through the

city. That's my understanding.

So yeah. So go ahead.

No. I was just gonna add. So that's why I was wanting I know we did our list and and obviously housing is at the top of everyone's list and the most important of all. But I was just wondering other things like food and security or the library learning programs or leadership program. I was involved with that for a while. Are those programs gonna just automatically be short shortchanged for lack of a better term. I don't know if that's the right term. But will they be short term or shortchanged because the little resources we have will all be focused on housing issues.

So I can speak only to the library right now because that is a city that is a city funded service. So by doing the c h by doing the c h u fundings in this way, it's relieving pressure off the general fund, which will support our library. So General funds. So to allow our general fund to support as much of our library as possible, we have already cut hours, and we are desperately we're really, really trying to not have any more services cut, including literacy program. Unfortunately, it's possible we're losing some state funding for the literacy program.

So Goodness. Just every right now, just everything is nothing but yeah. But I think I think I don't wanna go too late. But I think there is a real interesting sort of conversation here about county is has the county, not not cities in California, have the the the sort of the state funds counties to provide social services. It does not fund cities to provide social services.

So having a city social service lens is is extremely important. And I think one of the reasons the the council's interested in this is because you guys understand the community better. The county can sometimes be a pretty zoomed out, and there's very different things, you know, out in Pleasanton than there are in Berkeley than it it's a big county. It's a very big county. And so having that local lens is really important. And so but there that's a lot of what we're doing now at the city level is if we have less money to fund things ourselves, how do we have established those partnerships with the county and make sure that, hey. We're it's one getting its fair share of funding, but two, that the programs are effective. So something that yeah.

Commissioner oh, vice chair again.

One other thing I just wanted to make sure we keep on our radar is that commissioner Wong had put in a really incredible amount of work, on examining the city's communications on different services available and the website. And I I wanna make sure we keep that, in mind as we go forward, as a potential project to work on this year because I think how people receive their services, how people find out about their services, it changes all the time. And what worked in 2020, for example, might be different than what would work now.

So Thank you.

Shots that commissioner Wang and I, we've talked about it offline too, but I can give the commission just, like, an overview of where we're at. So I believe the recommendation was to improve access, so mobility access and also just ease of finding events and services and resources in Hayward. And we were looking at the library as an example, which I agree the library's event page is very nice. So we did some research on that, and it looks like they do pay a vendor to manage that page. And all of the events on the library are library specific, so it wouldn't be receiving community and man managing and filtering from outside in.

At least that's how that vendor works because it's library specific, and it is a initial cost of $7,000 to implement that program or implement and manage an ongoing cost of 3,000. So given

Per year?

Per year.

Yeah. So given where we're at right now, we can't meet that specific need, but I think, again, commissioner Wong made great points regarding mobility access, mobile mobile phone access, which is something I shared with our webmaster, and they are they're updating the website right now. So they're each website so they're going through different phases of updating and making sure it's right on the it works on the SIO. So we were able to share that. And also, it is the library's page, the community resource page that we reviewed.

So as the commission and as the staff liaison, I don't have any say on what other staff does. But we've shared that. We've shared it and I, you know, we can continue to talk with all

the think it's valid. And if we're finding that Eden INR is the vendor that we use for making referrals and providing the information to is not meeting with that goal, I think that is a very valid feedback for you to provide to us. And either we can provide direct directly if you get, like, go do a secret shopper on an I and r. If it's not working, I do notice that it's not super mobile friendly either. They are our vendor, so we should be providing that feedback if you guys are finding that you can't find things there or groups that you work with can't find things on their website.

Yeah. And so since, you know, we work we pay we pay them, so that's something we can do with your advice or guidance that we can reach out to Eden INR and say, hey. This is what we found and these are recommendations. Are you going to work with us? And we can talk about that in our contract. And from my understanding is that they're primarily doing call, and so they're not as focused on the website.

Mhmm.

But that could be a recommendation. So yep. Commissioner Sledge?

Oh, I was just gonna have a a excellent point about these sites being mobile friendly because even these days, even many unhoused people are mainly doing things on cellular phones. And sometimes a website designed for a laptop or a desktop is much more cumbersome than one designed for a a mobile phone, which is which is sundown. So so they're trying to handle a, you know, one designed for desktop or a laptop on a mobile phone. It's just gonna it'll buffer and load forever, and it'll become very frustrating to say usage that comes up even in normal business websites. So that's a good thing to really emphasize that maybe that you're talking to the vendor in my opinion.

Mhmm. Yeah. So

Thank you for letting us know. Citi's website is not please please flag those flag those pages for us. We

Yeah.

Actually, I think,

have a legal obligation to do this.

Well, thanks, everyone. I would like to advocate for and I just have to say it. If there's any way that any of the eligible funds could be carved out, any portion of them that would allow us to do whatever our alternative nonmonetary work would be. I have no idea what it would be. I have no idea if we would even need it.

But I just if there's anything that would support us, then I have no idea. Are we gonna you mentioned printing or something, but if if whatever working group subcommittees, whatever we land on and whatever that charge would be, I'd like to ask that of the carve out, there is some bit and I don't know if no. No. If that's eligible or if it fits into I think this is a question for Eric maybe or was that it? What was his name? Yeah. Okay. You can keep this as a question for Eric or something, but just putting that

out there. Yeah. So I think okay. That's a I think a fine question. I think when we understand a little bit more what that is, I don't think CGB money will be eligible, but there if it's a small amount like, I think we can look at some options within the city manager's budget if there's specific asks that are, like, defined and and not a huge amount of money. Yeah. Cool. Because you guys because we get more offsetting so much from CHP that I think that's a very reasonable ask.

Good bet. Okay. Any other discussion before we move on to our planning calendar? You guys are the best guess.

Yes. The three well, sorry. This is part

of the planning helper. Go go go for it.

Is it on our other item, or we don't have to move on? We haven't yet moved.

It is.

It's related. It's both. So let's move. Let's move. So for April, since I have not gone through this before, mean, thank

you all for going through

this MyLearning with me. If we don't get a lot of public comment, which we will know by the April meeting, is there is it will it be a short meeting, and could we potentially move on to doing a working group a working

Yeah. I think that's a possibility as Yeah. And I think it's it doesn't seem like there's as like, typically in the past, we've come back with Lots of more answers to questions. We wanted to see more, like, data. Yeah. Right. So the way that it stands now, it sounds like we can time for that working session that in April. Yeah.

Okay. Done. It's not under now. And correct me if I'm wrong. Historically, I believe we've received messages. I know when people responded to something maybe application related or whatnot, you would send us an email specific to the ARC saying, hey, ARC. This came in from such and such a group. Mhmm. But re remind me what happens with public comment. Are we getting those as they come to you, or are we reading them all in the packet at the meeting? That's what's happening. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Fair enough. So And what's the last day?

Does it

close at the meeting?

Yeah. It'll close on the twenty second. I we have a proposal to move the, April CACFP. But any public comment that we would receive before that meeting will be included in the agenda packet.

Okay. If they come up to 4PM, it will be added after, and that will be added. So it's documents received after publication. Okay. And so so you will have everything. It some may, depending on when they submit it.

Thank you, miss Ochla. Thank you, you, miss

Well, Karen will Yes. And, also, if people come and make live comments, it is also included as part of the annual action plan. Staff does note that, and there's an official record.

Okay. I believe we have a proposal to change our agenda planning calendar, which is to add a working group to the well, two things. One, to have our CSC meeting on April 22 instead of April 15. And then addition to that, to include a working group meeting to the April 22, meeting. I believe those are the changes we're making to our calendar leaving May as is with no meetings so we can attend the city council work session.

And then June would resume with another work group session.

And we can address that again

If we need to.

Enough. Fair enough. Okay.

Is there anyone who'd like to make a motion for that change? I'll just make the motion. I motion that we accept the agenda planning calendar with the addition of a working group session to April 22. Give me one second. I'll second it. Thank you, commissioner Madillas.

So it it already says April 22 here.

Correct.

So that would then become the working I I just

wanna make

sure I'm clear on what what April 22 come the working day?

It would remain April 22. The action item would remain, and the two oral reports would remain. And we would add a work group session to that meeting.

The goal would be that those first three items would be but if if they're quick, they're fast, then,

yeah, that'd be some space. Okay. You could continue for the book. Any other questions or comment? Are we good, Commissioner Sledge?

Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Evelyn. Miss Evelyn, excuse me.

So we have a first from commissioner Wheeler with the second from commissioner Maderos to add working group session to the April 22 established CSC. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. Commissioner Gunn?

Yes.

Commissioner Angulo? Yes. Commissioner Dow? Yes. Commissioner Camura? Yes. Commissioner Medeiros? Yes. Commissioner Match? Yes. Commissioner Jagdeep Singh? Commissioner Jay Singh? Yes. Commissioner Sledge?

Yes.

And commissioner Long? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you all. We now we're at commissioner announcements. Are there any? City of Hayward staff, do you all have any announcements?

Yes. You've received emails from me. The city clerk wanted me to remind you if you haven't already submitted your annual form 700. That's Oh, yeah. First. I also have to do it too, so we are all in this together. And then if you are overdue on your training, the city clerk's office should have reached out to you. And if you're a new commissioner, then that's just due on April 1. Thank

you. Do you have any? I don't think. Okay. Well, I'm going to adjourn our meeting at 08:54.

Thank you.

Down four.