City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's 7.07. I'm calling the City of San Leandro City Council meeting to order. Today is Monday, June 15, 2026. And I do apologize for the delay. Our closed session ended about 7.02, and it just takes a while for us to get down here and assemble. At this point in time, I'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Join me if you're able to.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

Madam Clerk, would you please take our roll to establish quorum?

Council Member James Aguilar.

Present.

Council Member Victor Aguilar.

Present.

Council Member Simon is absent. Council Member Bowen. Present. Council Member Bolt.

Present.

Vice Mayor Viveros Walton. Present.

A special shout out to my son. I am presently at work. I am present.

Mayor Gonzalez.

Present. Thank you. So the city of San Leandro conducts quarterly meetings to fulfill its mandate discriminatory statements or conduct that would potentially violate the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and or the California Employment and Housing Act, California Penal Code. Penal Code Sections 403 or 415 are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. Please see the City Council Handbook and City Council Meeting Rules of Decorum for more information. Madam Clerk, your announcement.

If you would like to make a public comment during the meeting, you can do so in person or via Zoom. If you are present at the meeting, please complete a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk before the item is presented. Then wait for public comment on that item to be called. if you wish to participate in public comment via zoom you can use the raise your hand tool when the item is called during the public comment session speakers will be invited to speak and will have a set time to share their comments a countdown timer will appear for their convenience and when the time is up all hands will be muted The microphone will be muted. All hands raised outside of public comment will be lowered to avoid confusion. Once public comment is opened, hands may be raised to speak. There will be a 30-minute window for public comments on items not on the agenda, which will take place under item 7, public comments, as per the published agenda. After this time is up, the council will proceed with the rest of the meeting's agenda. If you have not had the opportunity to speak during the initial 30-minute period, there will be another chance to do so after Item 12, City Council Reports.

OK. Moving to Item number 3, there was no reportable action taken during closed session. And we don't have recognitions on today's agenda. But we do move on to the consent calendar. So my question first is, does anyone have an item that they want to pull from the consent calendar? And if not, I'll go to public comment on this item. seeing none let's go to public comment on the consent calendar mayor we do not have any comment cards but we do have one hand raised online okay so we have opened and closed public comment in person and we're opening it up online our online speaker is douglas spalding

Thank you and good evening, Council. Item 5D of the consent calendar is the final vote on your annual military equipment item. And I want to just reiterate something that I said when I came before, which is, again, there is no need to replace the disrepaired command vehicle. We've been using the backup just fine. So that's an item that we can save money on. And the other thing that concerns me that's a potential money loser is that some of the military equipment is what our police department would use in case of a a big demonstration slash mob action slash riot kind of situation. And that's when other municipalities such as Oakland, for example, have been doling out settlements to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. Unfortunately, we don't have a much, if any, policy of crowd control or what to do in that situation. And I think it would really benefit the city to really spell it out so that we protect ourselves in the long run. Hopefully nothing like that will ever happen here. But there have been things that have come close, like when the Dodge dealership was... was raided a few years back, you know, or when the police department prophesied a riotous mob coming to Bay Fair. That I think turned out to be poor intelligence. But, you know, we talk about this every year, and I brought this up every year, and yet we seem to never quite get down to brass tacks when it comes to the crowd control policies. Thank you.

Mayor, there are no more hands raised on line.

So we're closing public comment on line. Coming back to council members for any discussion. If not, I'll take a motion. Council Member Victor Aguilar.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to move the consent calendar.

Thank you. Council Member James Aguilar. I'll second. I have a motion from Council Member Victor Aguilar with a second from James Aguilar. Any desire to discuss further? Seeing none, please vote.

All votes are in and the motion carries unanimously.

Okay, so for item number six, we'll move on to our city manager announcement.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, council members and community members. I have two announcements this evening. The first one is I need to report that I approved an emergency purchase to repair the failing HVAC system at the water pollution control plant. The purchase amount was $156,481. Staff sought quotes from multiple contractors and only one vendor was able to locate the necessary parts. Because these parts are no longer being manufactured, the city risks losing them to another buyer if we didn't act quickly. Under Municipal Code Section 1-6-310, I can approve emergency purchases under $200,000 without competitive bidding or council approval when there is a threat to public health, safety, or welfare. As you are aware, the plant performs the essential functions of managing wastewater for much of the city, and the failed HVAC system was causing extreme temperature fluctuations for staff in the building. Without the repairs, those uncomfortable conditions would have continued into the summer, given the essential operations in that building and the limited availability of parts I authorized this emergency purchase. And my next announcement is I am pleased to share with everyone the appointment of our new interim police chief, Joseph Crimes, if he could come forward. Chief Crimes joins the city today and brings more than 45 years of public safety and municipal government experience. Throughout his distinguished career, he has served as chief of police in Sausalito, Nevada, and Vallejo, as well as the assistant city manager in Sausalito. He has also worked extensively with law enforcement agencies throughout California on leadership development, organizational effectiveness, accountability, and community policing. I am pleased to have our new interim chief serving the city of San Leandro. His experience and professionalism and commitment to public service will provide steady leadership for the police department as we continue advancing our commitment to accountability and contemporary policing. Please join me in welcoming interim police chief Joseph Crimes to the city of San Leandro.

Well, thank you. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, members of the community, I'm truly honored to be here in San Leandro. I have a special affinity for San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and the surrounding area. I actually grew up in Hayward and San Leandro. I had many aunts and uncles that lived in San Leandro for many years. In fact, one of my uncles had a store, a small grocery store right here off East 14th, just down the street. And we spent a lot of years there in my formative years growing up. In fact, my mom was born and raised in this area, comes from a Spanish family here in San Leandro. And I still have an aunt that actually still lives here in town. So like I said, it's a very special affinity for San Leandro and the area. Love having the opportunity to be able to come back and help the organization and help keeping things moving forward, albeit on a temporary basis, to be here as long as I need to be to help things move forward. So I thank you for that opportunity, and I look forward to working with all of you.

At this point in time, we move to our next item. Our next item is public comment on items that are not on our agenda but are within the subject matter per view, subject matter jurisdiction of our council. So, Madam Clerk, how many cards do we have?

Mayor, we have received three comment cards.

I'm sorry, you said three?

Three.

Thank you. If we can proceed with those here in person.

Our in-person speakers are Sarah Bailey, Mason Rashid, and Nawal Rashid.

I'm here to speak for a band of data centers in San Leandro. All you have to do is open the newspaper to learn that the opposition to data centers is ballooning all over the country. Cities and states are imposing moratoriums and considering bans. This month, voters in Monterey Park near LA overwhelmingly voted for a ban on data centers. Trump wants more data centers. Democrats see opposition to them as an election opportunity. Please don't be on the wrong side of that story. Data centers are an environmental nightmare. They require massive quantities of water, suck up massive quantities of energy, and pollute our peace with the noise of their constant hum. Please don't throw to the winds your commitment to the Climate Action Plan to pursue the almighty dollar. Commit the time and expertise to make that business license fee update fair and put it on the ballot. In the meantime, commit again to the Climate Action Plan, to our San Leandro 2050 goals, and ban data centers now.

Thank you. The next two speakers are Mason Rashid and Noel Rashid.

Good evening. I'm Mason Rashid. I last approached the council December of last year when one of my neighbors crashed his car straight into my driveway gate, which pushed my brand new Subaru Forester into my house, causing $70,000 in damage. That was the second straight head-on collision from Cascade Road into my house in less than two years. I've since had 12 other collisions on my vehicles that have either been parked across the street, down the street, or even around the corner from my house. There was a recent collision four or five weeks ago where a speeding car came northbound on Tudor Road and crashed into three parked cars, totaling all three. So Tudor Road is a speeder's haven. And the only thing that's gonna slow these cars down are speed bumps. This morning, I came home from a meeting and I saw a city employee with a can of spray paint in front of my house. This employee was spraying white paint saying red. So apparently the city wants to paint the curb in front of my house red so that I can't park my car in front of my house. Well, I'm a disabled veteran. I'm blind in one eye, visually impaired, and I have other medical issues that will prohibit me from parking down the street and walking to my house. I was volunteer of the year last year for San Leandro High School. I deserve better than this. I deserve an accurate response.

Thank you, sir. Your time has elapsed. Thank you, sir. Our next speaker is Noel Rashad.

There are actually 20 spots on my street that were marked for red curve. 20. Where are we going to mark? You know, we're a small little neighborhood.

at this point in time we're going to take the next speaker thank you thank you our next speaker is noel rashid good evening um i'm noel rashid and i am the wife of mason rashid and i want to um PRETTY MUCH EXPOUND ON WHAT HE JUST SAID. AGAIN, THE SOLUTION, AS HE ALREADY MENTIONED, BY THE CITY IS TO TAKE AWAY PARKING FROM US WHO HAVE INCURRED THE BURDEN OF HAVING OUR PROPERTY DAMAGED, AND THAT'S OUR CARS, OUR GATE, AND OUR HOUSE. SO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE HITTING OUR PROPERTY, are speeders. The solution here is not taking away parking from the homeowners. The solution here is a stop sign on Cascade to prevent these speeders from hitting our property, our cars, and neighbors' cars. And the solution on Tudor Road is obviously speed bumps. So this is very, it's simple to us what the solution is. We were shocked today by just arbitrarily going in our neighborhood and finding people spray painting the curbs. And so I think another issue is why aren't they incorporating us as giving options or solutions here now they're going to take away parking my husband is handicapped he's i mean where are we supposed to park the last thing i need is to come home from work and concern myself is where am i going to park now where am i going to find parking this is only going to bring animosity among the neighbors who's parking where So our neighborhood is congested. There's about three to four people in every home that drives in our neighborhood. It's congested. It's a small cul-de-sac neighborhood right behind Costco. This is not the solution, and we're begging for incorporating us, the homeowners, as part of the solution. Thank you. Your time has elapsed.

Mayor, we actually received one more comment card.

Please proceed.

Our next in-person speaker is Paulo Campana.

Hello. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. It's my first time here. But I'm actually neighbors. I'm actually neighbors with those two in the back. I also have the same concerns about the red zones they're about to put in. I think that neighborhood is very like, there's way too many like cars, especially like now with those red zones, I find it really difficult to park around. And especially with my neighbors, I feel very sentimental towards them because their whole front house is going to become a red zone and they would have to park probably like five houses down just to get any parking. And with my family, we, oh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. But we use the parking right across the street from our house. And it's very important to us, especially when we're holding like parties. We don't like, there's like limited amount of parking space. And I don't want my cousins and family having to park like, you know, five houses, 10 houses down, whatever. Like, I know I'm using that as like example, but You never know because you're moving like 20 spaces of parking. Everyone's fighting to get it. And I agree with them. I feel like we should add a stop sign or at least a speeding bump because I know the main issue is like visibility during the turn in the intersection. I know most of you probably don't visually see it, but I get it like I get why you would want to add it but also then again it's just very hard to park around the area so one thought I had was just having a stop sign speed bumps and also one thing I talked to my neighbors is that like that place struggles with a lot of lighting especially around there my uh I got broken into in my car. They stole my wallet. Other time, a person stole our catalytic converter. And then another time, they stole our tires. And then just recently, someone stole our car.

Thank you, sir. Your time has elapsed. Mayor, there are no more comment cards from within the room.

OK, so we'll close public comment here in person, and we'll open it up online.

Our first online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.

Thank you so much. I don't really have any answers about Cascade and Tudor but it sounds like the city maybe doesn't have much better ideas. I don't I think in situations like this it it would be good for the city to convene a meeting with the neighbors who probably have some good ideas about possible solutions. I WANT TO WELCOME INTERIM CHIEF GRINDS. I ENJOYED HEARING ABOUT YOUR FAMILY'S GROCERY. MY GRANDPARENTS HAD THE SUN KICKS GROCERY ON BANCROFT ACROSS FROM WHAT IS NOW THE MIDDLE SCHOOL UNTIL THE EARLY 50S WHEN THEY MOVED IT TO CASTOR VALLEY. I just want to say that I will look forward to the return of Chief Everett, and she has widespread support in the community. It's unfortunate that our current district attorney has chosen to pursue the misdemeanor traffic charge, a little bit of an overzealous prosecution in my mind. I will be going out to... Chief Everett's arraignment to support her. But the thing that troubles me is here's our current Afro-American chief of police. The previous chief of police, Chief Pridgen, also an African-American man, was run out of town. And in between, former Lieutenant Antoinette Turner was very controversial and also an Afro-American. And while I could not prove it in a court of law, it sure has the appearance that the San Leandro Police Officers Association just will not tolerate any black members of the command staff. And that has to change. It really fundamentally has to change if we're going to move on as a community. Thank you.

Thank you. The next online speaker is San Leandro Chamber

Hello everybody, good evening, this is Emily Grego. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Wonderful. While I'm joining you virtually, I wanted to ensure that the Chamber is still very much present in this room, representing our members on this issue of the proposed business license tax. We want to thank the Council for your thoughtful discussion at the last meeting. and for recognizing that this policy simply is not ready. And we are here again tonight to strongly reinforce the exact concerns that many of you raised. You correctly pointed out that there has not been enough time to flesh out necessary protections for sectors like manufacturing and retail. Without these protections, this tax will cause real economic damage to the local industry San Leandro has always proudly supported. And we also want to thank you for recognizing that the business community shouldn't be the only group asked to fix the city's budget gap. Because you have asked staff to investigate a lot of new pieces, it is clear this cannot be rushed. These things take weeks of study and teamwork. It can't just be a fast rewrite to hit a deadline. Even if the city tries to compromise by phasing in these rates over time, If the underlying structure is flawed, it will still prove disastrous. And once a tax structure is approved by the voters on the ballot, the city cannot easily fix it later. It would have to go back to the voters. At the end of the day, the staff can only produce what they are directed to do, but this is the council's responsibility to ensure whatever goes before the voters is fair, sustainable, and fully fleshed out. You hold the ultimate authority. We urge you tonight to do this correctly, not quickly. Please formally pause this measure to the November ballot so we can build a policy that truly protects San Leandro's economic future. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, there are no more hands raised online.

So we will close public comment online as well. At this point, hold on just a second. Okay, so the one thing that I will say just for our record is that there have been discussions with two, there's been input from our public speakers before regarding the intersection. There is discussion amongst city staff and exploring what can be done. what would be legal and there's a variety of things that are being considered so just be aware that there is thought being put into it but there are things that we have to do legally so that discussion can happen can happen separately at this point time we're gonna move to item number eight which is typically where we hold public hearings but today we don't have any scheduled We'll then move on to the two largest items of today, the first being a presentation, after which we'll go to our action item. So let's begin first with our presentation by Residence Consulting on the City Branding Assessment Process, the plan. We've got Economic Development Manager Katie Vohman here to introduce the item.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. We're here tonight to provide an update on the city branding project. And we're in about a quarter or a third through our process. We're deep in community outreach and really excited to be sharing with you updates on that. And I have with me tonight Jake Bugansky, who is the project manager with the branding consulting firm Resonance, as well as Ilana Lipset, who is a local outreach expert who they brought in to work on the project. I also want to thank our working team, our power team. We have great interdepartmental support on this project with a number of department heads, Tom Liao, Community Development, Vicente Zuniga, Parks and Rec, Brian Simons with the library, and we really appreciate their support as well as working closely with Angela on our communications team. And so with that, I can hand it over to them and note that it's really, we'll share a little bit more of the things we've been hearing from the community. It's really been invigorating. I've been in all of the sessions, most all of them, and really it's been encouraging to hear the excitement from our community, And even when we're talking about challenges, people invested in trying to make things better. They want to share with others what they, you know, how special San Leandro is. And also they want to hear more from us. And so all really great things to hear as we work on not just our visual branding, but our core message and have it reflect our community and what sets us apart. And with that, I'll hand it over to Jake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I'm happy to be here today to talk about the branding and marketing work that Resonance has had the pleasure of collaborating with you on for the last few months. We've been working with the economic development team since mid-March, and we're excited about what we've accomplished so far, and we'll go into a little bit more detail on that But in our presentation tonight, we'll talk about the project itself, a little bit about resonance and our experience, and then spend some time talking about what we've learned so far as we near the end of the first phase of the process, which was the discovery phase. So we'll start with a project overview here. We have three overarching goals that we want to achieve through this process. So in terms of civic pride before loud and clear so far that the city of San Leandro is a diverse community and that the community feels that that's something that needs to be emphasized and articulated in the new brand for the city. We've also heard that it's been challenging to unify such a diverse and also geographically expansive community. terms of destination appeal and economic growth we know that the new brand has to be the foundation for business attraction and that there are specific industries that are good fits for the city's character and for your economic development goals and finally consistency not only helps ensure the first two goals are achieved but it provides a way to constantly reinforce across all city departments and in its communication strategies exactly how we want the world to think of us So some important things that we considered as we embarked on the process were, first, that the city already has a comprehensive economic development strategy to help guide our process, and that there are some brand equity considerations to take into account. These are things that we could build upon. Second, for the brand to work, it has to be structured in a way that ensures city departments, neighborhoods, and the business community all feel like they're aligned toward the same common goal of raising San Leandro's profile. Third, we need to create value by addressing a need. We heard Hidden Gem, mentioned again and again so our brand needs to be oriented toward achieving the measurable outcomes like removing hidden from that equation so the city just becomes known as a gem oops so in terms of our process specifically we make sure that we're not just attaching a new logo and tagline to your city. A successful brand is much more than that, and it doesn't focus as much on what we're saying about ourselves so much as it focuses on articulating what we stand for, what our values are, and what brings us together in a way that gets the entire community excited about being part of a winning team. Ultimately, our goal is to create this, the shared business asset that supports economic growth by improving consistency, differentiation, and destination appeal. So to get into some of the particulars of the process, we're using a three-phase approach, which you see here. We originally proposed, we started off with phase one, the discovery and situational analysis, which took into account all of the research and information that we had available and then moved into the comprehensive community engagement piece that we'll be speaking more about in a bit. Phase two is the brand identity development, so that's where the creative team actually gets into the hard work of creating the brand itself, and then finally we end up with the brand application strategy, which puts that brand to work for the city. So we had originally proposed a 36-week timeline. Once we got under the hood and heard more about the city and how important the community engagement piece was going to be, we added about four more weeks to ensure we were able to accomplish everything that we needed to accomplish. We identified the Cherry Festival as an important touch point, and we revised the timeline to accommodate that. So onto our experience. These are the key members of the team that are working on your project. We have Jeremy Feinblatt, who is one of our principals. He's the lead strategist who oversees the entire project, and he has decades of experience in placemaking and place branding. Myself, Jake Boganski, I'm the associate strategist and the project lead. I have 20 plus years of experience in destination marketing. Next we have Dominic Prevost, who's our vice president of creative. He's a world-class creative director with decades of experience working with brands at some of the top agencies in the US and Canada. And then Ilana Lipset, our local community engagement guru and one of the most forward-thinking, with one of the most forward-thinking approaches to her work of anyone in her field. So as a company, Resonance has worked with cities, counties, regions, and countries on place-making and place-branding projects over the last 20 years. These are just a few of the more than 100 cities we've worked with. And then next we have a few of our case studies, and we don't have too much time to go into detail on these tonight, but the presentation deck we provided for your reference gives you a few examples of our work in the branding space, including the Bold Moves brand for the greater Baltimore region, the Tulsa Inspires campaign for the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce and Visit Tulsa, the LYH Loves You brand for Lynchburg, Virginia, the Power of Together platform for the Houston First Corporation, and the Brussels Between book, which was part of a larger body of work that we created for Brussels that demonstrates one particularly unique brand expression that goes far beyond the quote unquote logo and tagline. So from here we'll focus on the outreach plan that we mentioned that we put particular emphasis on here in San Leandro. The goal was to make sure that everybody in the city felt like their voices were heard and that they were a part of helping the city become the best version of itself. So from here I'll turn it over to Alana to discuss exactly what that process entailed.

All right. Thank you, Jake. And hi, Mr. Mayor, council. It's nice to see you. I've met some of you through the process of doing this outreach, whether in one-on-ones or at the Cherry Festival or at the farmer's market. So nice to see you here. So we have done eight community roundtables focusing on these sectors, the seven sectors, and then open to community residents who came. We've also, as I mentioned, had a pop-up booth at the Farmer's Market and at the Cherry Festival as a way of kind of catching people in action and asking them their opinions and their thoughts and their experiences with San Leandro. I'll get to that in one second. In these roundtables, we've had a total of, we've asked five kind of standard questions across the board and have had close to 500 responses to all of those. Those are... And I'll give you some kind of quotes and best of from these, but to give you a sense of what we were asking, ask people to finish the sentence, San Leandro is the kind of place where. What spaces, what places, what parks most represent or embody San Leandro and why? What's something that surprises people about San Leandro when they find out about it? What's something that most people from neighboring cities don't know? And then finally, in 10 years, San Leandro is finally known for dot, dot, dot, fill in the blank. And then there were other questions that were tailored specifically, for example, to the business and science and innovation communities about why locate your business here as opposed to elsewhere? What amenities exist for your employees? What do you tell customers? So having questions that were a little bit more tailored to the groups that we were talking to. I just wanna give you some highlights from these conversations because they were so insightful. There's also been a lot of consistency and I will also just say from my personal experience, I've been doing community engagement for the past 20 years or so and typically community engagement meetings, as I'm sure you all know, are filled with people who come to complain and this has been full of people who want to talk about how much they love San Leandro. So it's been a delight for me to be working here. So San Leandro is the kind of place where you know your neighbors, you can walk, bike, access public transportation, you can raise a family, you probably have a fruit tree, and you have a great library. Brian, there were a lot of library shout outs. What does San Leandro have that nearby cities don't fully understand? How safe and walkable it is, how easy it is to get to anywhere from here. Although there were also a significant number of people who said San Leandro itself, that most people don't know we exist, don't know where it is. I just tell them it's outside of Oakland. So that points to the need to have a story and to have a brand around it. In terms of places and spaces, most people mention the shoreline and the marina. Again, many people mention the library, parks in general as a kind of, this is what San Landro is to me. A lot of people talked about cool immigrant-owned restaurants. And then for 10 years from now, what folks said San Leandro should finally be known for is existing not just as a thruway, but as a community, being a still affordable, diverse, welcoming community that's not a commercial monoculture, but a rich blend of companies, people, and experiences. So. Lots of great ideas that have been coming out of this. We also have put out a community survey online and we've gotten 262 responses so far. The vast majority of those have been in English, although we do have a Spanish translated and a Chinese translated survey, so we're working on getting those out to the Spanish speaking and Chinese speaking communities. And then we've also been doing one-on-ones including with some of you and we are more than happy to Do them with those of you who we haven't been able to schedule yet So in brief and Jake kind of alluded to this but some of the main things we've been hearing so far is about This sense of belonging, people describing the city as rooted, connected, diverse, homey, culturally layered. The identity is both stable and evolving. There's a lot of talk of continuity. A lot of people, as the interim police chief just shared earlier, a lot of people come with stories of them growing up here, of their families growing up here. My mom grew up in San Lorenzo, San Leandro border. So a lot of people have that kind of family community continuity, but also talking about the innovation with Bayfair, with biotech manufacturing and things changing. Again, to the point of San Landro being a hidden gem, a lot of mentioning of these assets that again are real, but not always obvious. A lot of people talking about the shoreline, a lot of people talking about the cherry festival, the farmer's market. And these these things that they said you know if you're here, but people from outside of here don't necessarily know and then last a number of a number of conversations around the quality of life issues most of them As Katie mentioned extremely positive about people coming here to raise families about the the walkability the livability the proximity to surrounding to surrounding amenities And so that is, yeah, that's what we've been hearing so far.

So based on all of what Alana's gathered and based on the one-on-one interviews that we're continuing to conduct, these are just some of the examples of how the work translates to the next phase of the process. So you may not immediately make the connection between doing this much community outreach and how that informs the brand, but these are just some of the practical applications of Incorporating what we've been doing into this next phase So I want to spend the rest of the time talking about that next phase and it's not on the slide here but because we're at the end of phase one moving into phase two I just want to give you a little bit of Taste of what that phase will look like so that's you know, this is kind of the research foundation for everything that we're doing and Not necessarily anything that we expected to wow us or blow us away, although it was, as Alana said, very kind of refreshing to have a community engagement process that was very, very positive, primarily positive. So that was certainly a unique aspect of that phase of the phase of the process, but the fun part, the brand identity, the actual brand for the city is where we'll move next. And so first we'll digest and reconcile all of the findings into a relatable brand narrative. And a brand narrative is the overarching cohesive story that connects the city's identity, mission, and values to all of your audiences. And that starts with developing personas, which capture the common personal values, needs, and behaviors that are shared across all those groups. From there, we'll create some of the fundamental building blocks of the brand that will lead us into a virtual co-creation workshop that we'll hold with the team here and some important stakeholders. We'll refine the initial thoughts and concepts to get us closer to a full brand platform. From there, we'll move on to that visual identity itself, and once we have a draft version of that, we'll pay you another visit out here to present our work and solicit feedback before we finalize that visual identity. We expect that to happen sometime in early October at this point. So after that, we'll develop the brand architecture hierarchies and principles that define how the brand will be articulated across all of our different audience groups. And the final deliverable for phase two will be a comprehensive brand book that the city will use to activate the new brand. So from there, as you saw earlier, the final phase will take us to the brand application, which is putting that brand to work for us. We'll create a strategy for the city to implement what we've done, and we expect that to happen sometime in mid to late October.

Thank you for your presentation. At this point in time, we will.

Yes, and one clarifying on the overall timeline. We are slated to finish the plan and project by the end of December in line with the council work plan. So that's our overall timeline. And then also a few other odds and ends. I think, you know, we, as he mentioned, our survey is still open. And so we do encourage you, we will be keeping it open for one to two more weeks and encourage you to help spread the word. We will also be doing some additional outreach, including to additional youth and potentially use a youth advisory committee We have had a variety of feedback from youth and youth-serving organizations on some of our roundtables, as well as a lot of people at our very busy day at the Cherry Festival. But there have been that group and some other groups that are a little harder to reach. So they'll concurrently start the next phase while we continue to do some additional outreach.

Thank you so much. At this point in time, what we'll do is we'll take clarifying questions, then we'll move on to public comment, and then come back for ongoing discussion, beginning with Council Member Bowen.

Thanks, Mayor. I actually had more comments, so I can wait and do it at the end then.

Thank you very much. Vice Mayor, please.

Thanks for your time and for coming out tonight. My colleagues hear this all the time, but my goal for the year is to make the implicit explicit. And I wanted to take a step back so we can level set with the folks that are either figuring out that there's a survey out there. So I'm going to take us back one step. And I would like to kind of asked a question around what is the brand application? Like who are the intended audiences and what is the city's intended use for whatever product comes out of this process?

So the audiences will identify specifically who the audiences are in the next phase, but generally it's everybody who you're talking to. It's your residents, it's potential current businesses, potential new businesses, visitors, potential new residents, anybody who the city would want to speak to, as well as the media. We heard a couple of times in the one-on-ones in particular that It seems like the only time that folks hear about San Leandro is when something negative has happened. And they said, you know, it's by and large not a negative place, but there's just not as much positive messaging being, you know, proactively served out there. So one of the goals of this will be to develop those messaging platforms that you can consistently put positive messaging about the city out into the media.

And I can also add from a practical standpoint, how it would be used by the city is on the city's materials, the city's messaging across different departments. And so part of what we'll be working on in the application plan is how to apply that consistently across the city so that, you know, we hear and I've heard the phrase from Janelle, one city, one voice. and thinking about how when people are interacting with the city across departments, they're getting similar messaging, similar experience.

Is this intended to be rolled out through, for example, a little bit of brand confusion in terms of what San Leandro Next is, which is our economic development outreach versus our recreation newsletters or library newsletters. I hear a little bit of brand confusion. Is the intent that this were kind of overlay all of our external communications, or will that continue to...

I'm just trying to figure out how is this going to apply? I think that is the intent, and certainly your feedback on that is helpful. We don't have it fully mapped out at this point, but the San Leandro next example is one thing that... Once we update the citywide things, we could update that to align and different things can be updated to align as we're able to. And so, as you may expect, certainly getting the plan complete and then implementation will take time and we'll work on that timeline as we get closer.

Thank you. I did have some earlier feedback around the audiences and I appreciate our reaching to kind of our younger residents. I think one of at least the way that it sits for me, branding is not just about who we are, but who we want to be. And ultimately, young people need to see themselves here and would like to see what it is that they look for, how they want the city to feel and sound and taste and all of these things. Just looking through my questions to see if I have any more. We talked a little bit about the timeline. So we're looking at, you mentioned your, we are at like week 14, 15. So we're kind of out of the blue zone into the green zone or kind of where are we on that?

We're actually about 18 weeks in. Like we said, when we started to discuss the community engagement, we identified the Cherry Festival, which was a few weeks beyond the original intended end date for phase one. So we kind of recalibrated to make sure that we incorporated that into the first phase.

Okay. But overall, this will be done by the end of the calendar year. Those are all my questions. The rest are comments. Thank you for your time.

Seeing no other questions, I will ask just one with respect to promoting the survey. So literally, what would that look like? It's an online link that you give us, so we could just do Instagram, TikTok, whatever that just says.

Go to sanleandro.org backslash branding and take a five-minute survey to tell us about, oh, I'm forgetting our tagline, but what you want San Leandro to be. We have a tagline on there. And we have been sharing it on social media, so you can also share our social media from San Leandro next.

Thank you very much. Vice Mayor.

Apologies, my handwriting is terrible and I skipped over one question. In terms of outreach, is there any stakeholders on kind of regional, like what is the kind of regional vision or perception of San Leandro? I'm thinking about, I don't know, the... I'm blanking on the new organization that former Mayor Schaaf is leading, someone. Anyway, so a little bit about, yes, so some of those kind of regional organizations and how we are being perceived, because I think that might also, at least the way I'm looking at it is that San Leandro sits within a very culturally rich region. And oftentimes, I'm not from San Leandro. My husband grew up. He's like a third generation San Leandran. So there's like this kind of a really good tension, I call it. But there is a certain pride of San Leandro being in the Bay. Because a lot of, sorry to the cities that say if they're from the Bay, but not from the Bay. But we are in the heart of it. And I think for me, I am interested to see how we are being perceived from outside stakeholders, from the outside looking in. And I'm wondering if there's a little bit of that existing work. You're probably already doing it. I just want to be explicit about whether that's happening or not.

Yes, through our one-on-ones, we have had some of those conversations. I think just by virtue of the fact that a lot of the larger businesses that we talk to, the folks don't necessarily live here, so they do have some of those outside perspectives. But Alana, if you want to share some of what you've heard for you.

Yeah, so in terms of the sector-specific roundtables that we've done, as I showed you there, a number of people don't live in San Leandro. And so we were able to have those conversations of actually the tension or kind of dichotomy that you're speaking about of actually choosing to locate their businesses here or choosing to work here, but choosing not to live here. And so we were able to tease some of that out in conversation. And then at the, actually both the Farmer's Market and the Cherry Festival, we had a pop, I know you stopped by, Mr. Mayor, we had a pop-up booth there and so talked with tons of people and asked, you know, as we were asking them to fill out our sticky notes or fill out our poster or our postcards, we're also engaging people to see where they lived and there were a decent number of people who don't live in San Leandro and so getting to speak with them and having them write their opinions of, you know, why they do come here I will acknowledge, though, that that is different than asking a formal organization like the Bay Area Council or something that's a little bit more kind of institutionally regional, but I think we have gotten some of that with the one-on-ones.

We can add a couple more one-on-ones with the heads of those organizations.

Yeah, I'm just thinking about who's not at this, like who's not here, and I'm thinking we have... large influential philanthropic organizations that are based in the Bay Area that we look for and that we would want them to see San Leandro as when we not see we are but there are really big philanthropic organizations of San Francisco Foundation that does region-wide work would be and I I'm happy to make those connections I'm just thinking about If we're thinking about brand application and how it lands, it needs to land outside of the people living here and working here. It needs to resonate either something like an aha, oh my God, I didn't know that was happening there, or yeah, I've been knowing that, and I'm glad it's now getting out. So I'm balancing that, but that's more of a comment. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me extra time for questions.

What we'll do now is open public comment on this item.

Mayor, we have not received any cards from in the room, but we do have two hands raised online.

So we've opened and closed public comment in person. Please move online.

Our first online speaker is a phone number that is ending with the numbers 662. Phone number ending in 662. You may unmute yourself.

Oh, I finally unmuted. This is Jenny Madsen.

We can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Okay. Um, I don't know where to start on this cause one, I think Katie did a great job and I think, um, This company sounds like they might actually do it, but a lot of what they have found at the Cherry Festival, I've found over years of being out at the shoreline, people come from out of town to come here. People come to the Dahlia show. They used to come to the Dahlia show at the library from out of town, mainly because people in town invite them. For years, I've been saying that it takes a long time, it takes time to develop a reputation and it takes even longer to change that reputation. And that is what, this is the first breath of fresh air I've seen in a while. I'm mainly interested in what you guys are planning for the city, because I really don't want this to be all about revenue production. People come to San Leandro because they want to see it. They want to experience things that are here, like the shoreline. But it doesn't necessarily produce revenue. And so much of what the city is focusing on now is all about revenue. I do want to mention that when I tried to Google the community survey, because of course I've not been asked, I got taken to a city website that says, take the survey on your phone. And it's all about the business license. It does not say anything else about the city. It is only the business license. And I think that's an issue. Mainly I just I don't know how much time I have left because I can't see. Years ago I saw a postcard Thank you.

Your time has elapsed. Our next online speaker is Douglas Spalding.

I can't yield my time to Ginny. Well I think Ginny made some good points there. Certainly, San Leandro has a lot of features, the Cherry Festival, the Dahlia Show, the performances at the Bell Theater, our comedy festival that Brian has organized for several years here. There's lots of reasons to come to San Leandro. I was lucky to be invited to participate in the Arts and Community Roundtable which was a very rich discussion. Unfortunately I'm sure every one of them was and you can't represent everything that was said so I'd like to maybe just chime in a little. I appreciated the remarks of Councilwoman Varese-Walton. I think we should lean into our history. You know, we have rematriated land in San Leandro. Sigorte could participate in that. We have a history of the oyster beds. You know, this is where the best tractor was developed. There's lots of things like that. But when I heard your formula, which goes something like city name and action verb, it made me think. of the words San Leandro reconciles. Wouldn't it be interesting if people came to the city San Leandro that was once the subject of congressional hearings and then a textbook law case on the subject of redlining to see how it's changed and transformed become one of the most diverse cities in the country. But that does mean we have to continue reconciling. You know people go to to Massachusetts to see the place where the Salem witch trials happened. They go to the door of no return in Senegal. Why not come to San Leandro. But we have to be transparent and open and embrace our history. And you know unfortunately we're at a tipping point right now where we need to do the right thing going forward. Thank you very much.

DIRECTOR RIVERA- Thank you. Your time is up. Mayor there are no more hands raised online.

So we'll close public comment online and come back to our council colleagues for discussion, beginning with Council Member Bowen.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I'm going to have my one-on-one later this month, so I'll go into more detail when I meet with you all. But I'll start with saying that I appreciate so much of the feedback you've gotten from the community because As a parent, as a mom of three young kids in the schools and lots of activities, I'm all over San Leandro all the time talking to a lot of people. And what I will say is that for the most part, people have really positive, exciting things to say. lots of activities, I mean, we give shout outs to the library and to Parks and Rec and just so many great things and so what I would love to be able to see too as part of this is a recognition of maybe, like you know, the highlight, the gems in each of our district, all of the activities that we have, there's so much that is that draws people into San Leandro, whether it's all of our food and the restaurants and all of the new places that are coming in. Our schools weren't mentioned, I mentioned it before, but really a wonderful place to raise your kids. The fact that we have four dual language immersion schools is a huge asset to the community and that's a partnership with the city and with the schools. The businesses, big and small, our parks and our recreation, I think there's, you know, Chabot Park on one side and the marina on another is fantastic. And really kind of figuring out what does that mean when you live here? What does it mean to be drawn into a community that has all of these things that are really accessible? And I think accessibility and authenticity is something that I often think about when I think about San Leandro and the people that I meet. I'm from the Midwest, and it feels very Midwest to me, and Midwest-friendly, and just really building community. One of the things that I think were touched upon by my colleagues, too, is this idea of the San Leandro we are today, the San Leandro that we are becoming, and the San Leandro that we want. And so there's a real change in growing demographics. neighbors that I have now versus when I moved here 10 years ago and just the number of young families, especially in my district, that's something to really think through in terms of what is the branding that we are and the branding that we want to achieve. And when I say the branding, it really is like When you think of branding, it's sort of like this marketing thing where it's like, what is this messaging you want to send out? But I think it's really like a reflection and a celebration of who we are and how do we communicate those things in a way that will help us feel proud of our city and also help partners in the community, whether it's businesses that want to come here or organizations, all sorts of things. That's how do we partner together? So I think that that would be a goal of this work as well. You know, Revenue, that's the thing too, we want people to come here and of course we want economic development. That's literally why we're doing this study to begin with. And then the other thing too is as we're doing a lot of feedback, I would actually love to see the barriers and challenges that you're hearing about why people don't live in San Leandro, whether or not it's, this team's job to come up with the answers is different, but that's helpful information for us to be able to make decisions going forward about how do we make it more accessible for people to work in San Leandro and stay in San Leandro, right? Like is it that we need more child cares, that we need more apartments, that we need whatever it is? but finding ways to do that so that we can figure out how to fill that gap. But I really appreciate this work, and I think that there's a lot of potential use for it, so as much information that we can get besides just the particular branding. And then also, I'm heading to Baltimore next month for a conference, and the conference collateral very much reflects the branding that you all have worked on, so they're still very consistent with that. So clearly it's working. Thank you.

Thank you. I know some others did have commentary. You spoke a lot, is your assessment. Okay, I think then, so I'll let you go and then I'll kind of wrap it up. There you go.

For a group of people who always have something to say, I'm surprised. So just a couple of thoughts. One of them is something that I was just surprised by are the number of folks moving into... The east side, so kind of your district, my district, and Sue's district. I don't know. This is where I live, so I don't know how it feels like. But there's a lot of partners and couples with no – they have no kids. They don't want to have kids. And they come here, and they are like – having an amazing time, and that's something that was new to me. As I stated, I came with a San Leandro native, so I didn't have that part. And then, again, this whole kind of branding exercise, What is and I have a question? What are the other feedback points from the council from the process? So we have we're in phase We're kind of in the middle of phase two and I'm just wondering like what are the the formal feedback loops with? me and my colleagues and I appreciate I'm gonna have my My feedback session I have to respond to that. So thank you. Um So it'll happen. But what are the formal feedback loops for our body here present? And then how is the feedback that has been collected in the survey responses, how is that going to be communicated back to the community about how that feedback was used?

Yeah, thank you for asking. That's good points that I can share. So the consultants are working on an online dashboard that will also live at sanleandro.org backslash branding. And we hope to have that up by July. And that will have a lot more details on the survey responses, on the community responses. that we haven't had time to get into today. So we will be doing that. There will also be a full, and I'm forgetting the title of the report, but a full research report that we can also post there. And then we have all the contact for all the people who we've worked with so far, and we're going to certainly follow up with them. And then we anticipate coming back to you as a body in the fall with draft identity from the creative phase to share that with you. And so that's when, and they call it socializing the identity. So we start to get it out and share it and get feedback.

For the folks that are online, they can't hear you unless you speak to the mic. And it's red. There you go. Yep. The online dashboard component of the project that Katie mentioned, that's exactly what that was intended for, to keep everybody informed about the process, where it was, how their feedback was being incorporated. So yeah, as soon as we now, we'll start creating some infographics and cool different things about the things that we heard to be able to share them with the community. And that'll continue to be updated as we complete the process.

And I'll just add to that that We actually started doing that informally at the Cherry Festival because we had done a lot of the survey and the eight round tables already by then. And so in addition to having kind of the general input of the questions that we've been asking, we had some specific questions getting into, like, what we've been hearing from your neighbors and colleagues is, you know, San Leandro's a hidden gem, what makes it so? What we've been hearing is this small town city versus or small town feel versus big city amenities. Where do you land on this and what makes it so? So we've kind of been informally adding in that feedback loop and sharing with people as we go. This is what we've been hearing. What are your thoughts on it? And so when it comes time for the socialization, we'll do some iteration of that as well to let folks know, as Katie said, we have contact information of everyone who has participated. So we'll be able to share back what we heard and what we did with it.

Thank you. Appreciate the feedback loops and being intentional in communicating how people's input and feedback is being used and how that's kind of living in that. I think those are all just in closing. I don't have any more questions or comments, but I just there. I just want to reiterate for the folks that are listening and maybe for the folks that might listen later, branding and communications are really deeply important to the work that we do and how we show up visibly. And it helps give us language and images about how we see ourselves and how we want to be. And so I, for some of the folks is like who cares what logo we use or what type font we use or what color it matters a lot um it matters because it um it reflects our culture and who we are and who we want to be and so thank you for all of your work uh the communications team in the city manager's office and the economic development team over in Tom shop. Thank you so much for weeks and weeks of work Thank you, I think the feedback is Intense indeed because we truly truly care Thank you so much for your time and for the presentation tonight Councilmember Simon Thank you for the presentation Very good.

There's a couple comments. I wanted to make just on branding in general I just wanted to bring up art and how important art is to our city. And in your first slides, you showed some nice pictures of art and images. And I think that's something that we're starting to do in our city, but we're deficient in art. And people who live outside of our city, and I tell them, I'm from San Leandro, and they say, oh, I drive through sound walls. And that's all they see when you drive down 880 are sound walls. That's it. So I think to get our message and our brand out to beyond San Leandro. We have to kind of beautify not just internal from our city, but what people see as they drive through. And I think we have opportunities with our overpasses. I've seen other cities do really nice things when you drive through to bring out what's in your city. And I think we need to do a better job at that if we can kind of incorporate that. And also within our city and partnering with our neighbors. ALAMEDA COUNTY, UNINCORPORATED TO THE SOUTH, AND OAKLAND TO OUR NORTH. FOR EXAMPLE, THERE'S AN UNDERPASS IN MY DISTRICT THAT CONNECTS WITH COUNCILMEMBER JAMES EGULAR DISTRICT IS ON LIEUWELING BOULEVARD, AND IT'S A VERY BLIGHTED UNDERPASS. AND A LOT OF PEOPLE GET OFF TO SOME PRETTY POPULAR IN-AND-OUT BURGER, FOR EXAMPLE. EVERYONE STOPS IN AND OUT FROM AROUND TOWN, AND THEY SEE THIS BLIGHTED UNDERPASS. And we don't need that. I mean, San Leandro is a beautiful place, so let's show people that get off the freeway to eat that we are a beautiful place and clean it up. But we don't own that underpass. It's owned by the county or Caltrans, and we really have to partner with our partners. But I'm really interested in the art component of this and the logo and things like that, but also physically getting it on the ground, whether it's the underpass or the freeway. And then also getting out the messages that I've heard from my colleagues to our past culture, the Native Americans who lived here before us, when our public commenters recognizing the redlining that we've been through and how we're transforming out of that and recognizing that. the last point is volunteerism how it's so important in our community as we are resource constrained like many cities and we rely a lot on volunteers and the people coming together i think people coming together is so important and we need more of that so but thank you

Okay, seeing no other hands, I'll quickly wrap us up here. Thank you for the update. I think it's spot on. The summaries that you provided, I think for someone who's lived here 35 years, I kept hearing things that I've heard from people over many, many years. What I hear at the Cherry Festival, what I hear at the library, etc. So it's It's at least validating, and hopefully it's not just confirmation bias. I do think that there is a lot, that there are many good things that are happening. I think this expression of San Leandro proud, that Council Member Bowen brought up, I think is spot on. I think you get a lot of that pride. The city, and I heard it today at the city's Juneteenth celebration that we were supporting at our senior center. Just really good things that happen in the city. be it through our library, through our rec and parks department, through our senior commissions, et cetera. Just people are happy, and we just need to find a way to uplift that. This concept of outsider perceptions, I do agree very much so. It's something that we need to be able to tap into primarily from my perspective to understand, What is it that other people think of us? Not just what do we think of ourselves, because that's nice, but what do others think about us? Because that goes to what we have to do to target and change their perceptions eventually. It's probably beyond the scope to fully understand what people around the Bay think of us, but having some insight to that would be incredibly helpful in terms of actioning what comes out on the backside of this conversation. Because ultimately, that does go to how we communicate. Because ultimately, if we have a promise of that experience delivered, right? That's what you told me branding was. A promise of an experience delivered. Then we have to know what it is that people fear, right? about coming to San Leandro? What do they think's not going to happen? And how do we address that so that we can really convey what in fact that is that will be delivered? Because we want to have some of their mental space. The last thought that I'll leave us with is I do agree that art is particularly important to how we define our space in the long run. And I do think that we have some iconic pieces of art and some locations that we eventually need to find a way to take advantage of and keep driving visitors to those locations to photograph and to take advantage of food establishments and like around those locations because every city has iconic places or should and I think we definitely have some and if you have ideas that that you at the end identify locations for more iconic art gee it would be nice if you would help anchor the entrance to the city at this location or anchor the entrance at another location that kind of thinking could help flesh out just based on things you've seen in other cities fully understand that's not your scope but boy we've got a lot of opportunity to um to learn from you so thank you for the work that you're doing at this point in time we move on to our next agenda item but thank you both to you and to the team So our next agenda item is item number 10. And this is an action item that involves a resolution to amend the city-wide master salary schedule. This is a no fiscal impact item. We've got human resources manager Tiffany Johnston here to introduce the item.

Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm Tiffany Johnston, the human resources manager. In accordance with government code section 54953C3.

My apologies. If you can get just a little bit closer and a little bit louder. Okay.

No problem.

And you can pull the whole microphone box towards you. I just want to make sure that we can hear you online. Okay. There you go, thank you so much.

You're welcome. In accordance with government code section 54953 , we are required to provide an oral summary of the recommendations for salary and benefits paid to local executives. The action item before you is a resolution to amend the master salary schedule, which includes salary increases for the city manager and police chief. The salary increases are those that have been previously approved in each of their respective employment agreements. For the city manager, a 3% salary adjustment will be applied effective July 1. For the police chief, a 3% salary increase will be applied. In addition, negotiated salary adjustments for the San Leandro Police Management Association, San Leandro Police Officers Association, and San Leandro Management Organization are also being applied effective July 1. The city moved to this master salary schedule format last year to comply with CalPERS requirements that all city classifications appear on one document. That summarizes the recommendations I have, and I am happy to answer any questions.

I don't see any questions. Public comment on this item, please.

Mayor, we have not received any comment cards, and there are no hands raised online.

OK. So do we have any discussion on this item? Council Member Simon.

Thank you. I see the master schedule. This lists all the employees in the entire city?

That's correct.

Okay. And it lists the COLA increase for everyone?

That's correct.

Okay. A question related to us as council. Do we as council, where do we get included or discussed as far as COLA increases and when does that happen?

So I'm coming to city manager with that question.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Simon. The council's salary increases or lack thereof is a separate discussion decision that was brought up during the budget process and council provided direction to staff to not move forward with any increase.

Okay. Yeah, I'll just state, I do believe to bring in new, fresh council members and make us more competitive, we should consider that. I mean, I guess the decision's already been made, but I'll just throw it out there. I think it's important for us not to go stagnant. It reduces our pool of candidates for council, but thank you.

Any other discussion on this item? Seeing none, I'll gladly accept a motion to accept the recommendation, beginning with Council Member Bolt. I'd like to move this item. Sorry. So I've got a motion by Council Member Bolt. Council Member or Vice Mayor Viveros-Welton? Second. With a second by Vice Mayor Viveros-Welton. Is there any other discussion on this item? I cannot tell Council Member Simon that's from before. OK, thank you. So seeing no further discussion, please vote.

All votes are in, and the motion carries unanimously.

So we'll go to item number 11, council request to schedule agenda items. Council Member Bowen.

I get confused, is this where I talk about referrals?

Yes.

Okay, yes, then I do have one. Let's see, let me pull it up. I submitted it to the city clerk and our city manager. The referral is. for a ban on AI data centers. So it is an ordinance to ban data centers and include clear policy guidance and specific zoning standards in order to address the most urgent threats, water scarcity, grid strain, pollution, affordability, community health for our city, the county, and our businesses and residents. This includes defining and then restricting certain types of data centers and zoning permitting environmental and noise standards, water use regulations, and transparency requirements. And if recognizing where we're at as a city, if there was a situation where we would need to address this more urgently, then I would have to, this is to add on to our priority workshop in the spring, but I would come back as an urgent referral if necessary for this particular case.

Thank you. Thank you. So now we go on to council reports, calendar, and announcements. Beginning with Council Member Victor Aguilar.

Thank you, Mayor. On Wednesday, June 10th, I attended the 1,148th meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Alameda County Muscogee Obeyment District. THIS IS WHERE WE DISCUSSED IN A PUBLIC HEARING ON THE PROPOSED TAX RATE. WE APPROVED A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ENGINEER'S REPORT AND ORDERING THE LEVY OF CONTINUED ASSESSMENTS FOR FISCAL YEAR 26-27 FOR THE ALAMANTA COUNTY MISCONDUCT BEATMAN DISTRICT. um we also uh also discuss the compensation and move forward with the recommendation for general manager based on manager evaluation committee according to our employment agreement and i think most of you have received an email from alameda county mosquito abatement district that there was a mosquito that was collected that tested positive for West Nile virus in Newark. So please keep your eyes out and make sure that you're turning over any still water. And you can contact the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District if you need mosquito fish to come and help abate those mosquito eggs or larvae that are sitting in still water. That concludes my report, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bowen.

Oh, thank you. What I always want to mention every single week is please donate to the Alameda County Food Bank or the San Leandro Food Pantry. They are looking for volunteers, and we continue to have a strain on basic essentials for folks to be able to get to work and eat and live, and so just to encourage residents to volunteer. and donate money. And then also one of the things that that I've heard from some folks that I wanted to uplift, which I didn't recognize, was when we had looked at, again, the library has a sweet spot for me and I'm really sad that on July 1st we're gonna make some changes, but we'd made some cuts to library programming and I believe it's under reimagining library program offerings or reducing general operating expenses. But one of the things that has changed for our residents is actually being able to, we've often in the past, and if you go to San Leandro Library, the first review is it's really nice that you can print for free from the public library, which is a common offering. And that's something that we have had to cut back on. And I just wanted to uplift that to say that if there's a way for us, maybe, Mayor, a few meetings ago, you said that you were going to agendize potentially looking for funds to be able to do a geotechnical study, I would love for us to maybe add ways to be able to bring back some of these lower cost, low lift, but direct impact to community programs. I would just love for somebody to be able to print out their financial documents, apply for their jobs, so many of the things that are really important for access. You know a particular resident called and said that she prints out her Bible study notes And it was really sad to not be able to do so and it's just those little things that really do affect the community And I just want to offer that up as some some little thing that maybe we could find a way To be able to slowly bring back.

Thank you Thank You council member bolt, please

Thank you. Before I start, I will second that idea. I think that is a great benefit to the community. Knowing that we had to make some cutbacks, things get cut. But when we're getting calls from the residents, then we need to possibly just see what it entails and how much money it does actually cost us. OK, now moving on to the situation. tutor the parking situation I would like to urge us to go back to the table to understand the unnecessary burden we are proposing taking away the parking from the residents in the neighborhood does not feel right to me our city government should be here to help us live a peaceful existence this solution does not does just the opposite I know none of us got into these leadership roles from staff, council, mayor, city manager, all of us to make lives harder. I truly believe that and I personally know all of us and that wouldn't be the angle we're taking. So I'm asking us if we can take the time, reconsider the decision that has been made. None of us would accept this if it was resolution in front of our home it would feel like a slap in the face so again I'm just urging us to sit down together and kind of hash this out and see what we could come up with give it one more shot with that I'll end thank you we will move to vice mayor

There you go.

Thank you. Just a couple of shout outs. Juniper Corner, which is a community asset and nonprofit organization aimed for young children, is officially opening their doors on June 24th. So congratulations to the Juniper Corner leadership, Eve King, who is spearheading this. I also wanted to one shout out to the recreation staff today was day one of the city camps. And it is a day this morning was full of energy and jitters and nervousness and all in the best way possible. Um, my son came home just covered in dirt, which is exactly what I wanted. Um, tired, happy and dirty. It's best, best thing. So, uh, thank you to the recreation staff for creating experiences for our young people that really, um, create that kind of pride that we've been talking about through the branding. And it starts with that. It starts with how they experience the city and our services and the people that represent the city. So thank you to the recreation team, both at Camp Hootie Hoo, over on Manor, and then Chabot Day Camp, which is over at Chabot Park. So just want to urge the folks that are near those areas to please be patient. There's lots of families and children walking to and from the camps. So just... Keep an eye out. And then I also wanted to I also wanted I saw online that our chief buoy was recognized for 21 years of service and for a promotion. And so I wanted to elevate that and she left. But thank you, Chief Bowie, Bowie, Bowie, Bowie, Bowie. She heads the alternative response unit. She was charged with launching it and has been doing a great job. Thank you for your 20 plus years of service, not just to San Leandro, but to Alameda County residents. Those are all my comments.

Moving. Thank you. Going on to James, Council Member James Aguilar.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of shout-outs tonight. First to Director Vicente Zuniga for his amazing and incredible work on another amazing Cherry Festival. And I think more than a lot of years that I've been to the Cherry Festival... did I go run into people who are coming from other cities? Ran into a couple of folks from San Francisco, ran into a couple of folks from way out. And so I appreciated having conversations with people. And one comment even being, this is so much better than the Gilroy Garlic Festival. And I was like, whoa, that's a... compliment to end all compliments. And so I had a really good time. I enjoyed watching the parade. I enjoyed being in the parade for the first time. I enjoyed being around people. And I think that's what the Cherry Festival is all about, is being with people and celebrating San Leandro. Also shout out this Friday, the Juneteenth celebration happening at Butterfly Plaza. I'm going to be there for a couple of hours just to hang out. eat some good food, listen to some good music, and I really hope that the community will come turn out and enjoy some time with each other as well. Also wanna lift up that I hope you guys will take the opportunity to sign up for tabling. with our city departments at the farmers market by the library. I chose to take a couple of spots, one next week on Wednesday, joining Recreation and Parks. And so I just hope that you take that opportunity. I think it's a fantastic way to meet the community where they are and where they're heading. And so hopefully I can have some good conversations and also with staff who are going to be there. And so, yeah, open invite, get to that signup sheet, go get a table. I think it's going to be a good time and it's a good opportunity for us to get together with our staff as well. So that's, that's what I got for this evening. Thank you, Mayor Gonzalez.

Thank you. Council Member Simon, please.

Yes, I also was gonna give a shout out to the Cherry Festival, just absolutely incredible, like Councilmember James Aguilar has said. And this gets better and better every year. Every year it gets better, it gets bigger. And to all the businesses that participated, St. Leander School that opens up their parking lots. There's just such a sense of community, just great job staff and businesses and community, thank you. Also, wanted to give a shout out to Chief Paige Bowie, also. She's doing an awesome job, as we know, and she's going to be at the Washington Manor HOA meeting this Wednesday, 6.30 p.m. at the Marana Community Center, and she's going to be talking about the Alternate Response Unit and how that really provides such a valuable service to our communities. And Chief Bowie plays a huge part in that. Also wanted to recognize, not sure if we picked this up, but this was back in March, March 21st. Chief Bowie, she was recognized by Assemblymember Liz Ortega as a Woman of the Year. There was a few others, but Chief Bowie was recognized. I was there. The mayor was there. Janelle Cameron was there. And it was just an honor to be there to witness her receive that award. So I want to recognize Chief just as Councilmember Villes-Walsett did. And thank you, Chief Bowie.

OK, so I'll take us home with a couple of recognitions. First, I do want to thank Union Pacific Railroad and the staff for coordinating on the fix on the Marina Boulevard bump. I checked it out today and it is a lot smoother than it used to be. So thank you for all the work that went into that. Getting collaboration. I know that some cities find it very difficult to collaborate with the railroad But what I have found is that we seem to be hitting the sweet spot here in San Leandro We're getting good action and good response and I am grateful for their partnership I also want to celebrate on the fact that we slow down from time to time to Enjoy each other's presence the ice cream social last week. I think was a big plus letting staff just take 30 minutes to spend time with each other, laughing a little bit, having some ice cream on a warm summer day. And I know that some people had to rush back for the ERP implementation meetings, but still that ability to carve out a little bit of time to just let their guard down and enjoy each other's company a little bit is a very positive thing. When we talk about something like branding and selling the city, I just wanted to report that I spent some time last week with the Bay Area Association of Realtors, talking about the city of San Leandro and in particular about why someone should live in the city of San Leandro. So some of the comments that were up there were the types of things that I was discussing with realtors, because I do think that it's incumbent upon each of us to tell our story. And we know the story. We just have to tell it. And so that's my encouragement to all my council members. Cherry Festival. Oh, my goodness. I can just tell you that that's a big commitment that we made. What was that in 2023? We brought it back. And each of the last three years, just boom, boom, boom, knocking out of the park this year. Again, another amazing event. Even more people, even more vendors, more activity. And what I like about it in particular from the evolution perspective, city manager, your team does a good job of taking some lessons learned from the prior year and implementing them in the subsequent year. I can tell you, because I went to every single vendor's booth, there was not a single complaint about Wi-Fi or technology access this year. And I actually saw the antennas going up on Friday night So, thank you for the learnings that are happening and how we continue to drive an even better experience for our residents and for the vendors. I do want to highlight two things that are happening in the broader Bay Area, but that tie to organizations that that i represent so i'm on the ava board ava community energy board of directors and we celebrated ribbon cutting on a project in east oakland on about 185th street where solar panels have gone into a or to the top of a warehouse i highlight this in particular because there is such availability of warehouse roofs in the city of San Leandro, the city of Hayward, along the corridor leading to the Oakland Airport, that I think that when we talk about things like sustainability, diversified production of electricity, that that is a tremendous place, tremendous opportunity for the implementation of solar panels. So it's nice to see that actually coming to fruition. There will be projects in San Leandro supported by Ava Community Energy. So I look forward to talking more about that. I sit on the Bay Conservation Development Commission. And one of the things that I just want to highlight from there is that when we talk about dredging and the potential to maybe one day dredge our marina, the concept of what you do with the dredge spoils, and I use that in air quotes, is that now the focus is on beneficial reuse. How can you actually take that soil that's being removed and put it to good use to protect the shoreline? It could be, for instance, in developing new wetlands and supporting the existing wetlands. So instead of hauling it 50 miles off into the Pacific Ocean, reducing the cost and delivering economic benefit and environmental benefit from a sustainability perspective. So I think that's another good thing that's happening out there in the broader Bay Area from a sustainability perspective. And the last thing that I'll highlight is that I do want to make sure that the residents from Tudor and Cascade, that they understand that there's a couple of things to consider. First, there will be a neighborhood meeting opportunity to hear from the residents next, is it next week, the coming week? I don't know. in the next couple weeks, in the near future. I think that that's important. But it's also important to recognize that when we had our discussion about daylighting maybe a year ago, one of the commitments or one of the things that we were told explicitly is we cannot, as a practical matter, paint every curb red where you can't park in the city of San Leandro. And it is legally illegal. the case that when you are at a T intersection that you're not allowed to park in that T. And, you know, the public commenters are requesting that we maintain parking in the T where by law by vehicle code you're not supposed to park so we're going to have to work through that situation because people in the city have become accustomed to doing a number of things whether it's parking on lawns paving their front yards parking where they're not supposed to park and so that will be part of what we are working through as we try to figure out how best to address that situation so I just want the council to be aware. I want the public to be aware that we're just not up here trying to be cold-hearted, but we're trying to balance legal obligations, the danger that's posed by a current situation, and meeting the needs of residents in our city. So with that said, I do thank council again for an effective and efficient meeting. It is 844, and we are adjourned.