Hayward Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

May I call this meeting to order at 07:00? Thank you. Alright. Can we do the pledge of allegiance now, please? Do we have a volunteer to lead us?

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

Alright. So now the point where we do our teleconference notifications in consideration, nobody requested to participate with a Just Cloud participation, and we didn't receive any request for emergency participation. So we can move on to a roll call.

You're okay. Commissioner Moore. Commissioner Maxon? Present. Commissioner Angulo? Present. Commissioner Breard? Commissioner Dow? Commissioner De Leon? Present. Commissioner Gun? Present. Commissioner Kasuf? Present. Commissioner Kimura? Present. Commissioner Singh?

Present.

Commissioner Treviso? Present. Commissioner Wheeler? Present. Commissioner Wong? Present. Thank you. Thank you. Regarding public comments, there will be opportunities for public comment on items on the agenda as we get to each item. If you have a comment on something that is not on 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 commit complete a comment card and give them to miss Oliveira. You will have three minutes to make your comment. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane or abusive language, which disrupts, disturbs or otherwise in the orderly conduct of 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 per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. As a reminder to commenters and to my fellow commissioners, commissioners are not permitted to respond directly to or engage with public commenters under the Brown Act. So

I I we don't have anybody in person, but we do have folks online. Are any of the people joining online here to make comment on something that is not on the agenda? You can raise your hand.

So you can go on. Alright.

We need approval of our

summary notes of the 02/19/2025 meeting. Has everybody had an opportunity to review them?

That they be approved.

Alright. It's been moved in second. Can we have a second? Action. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. It came from you.

Think it did? K.

Can we have a vote, please? Commissioner Moore? Yes. Commissioner Maxon? Yes. Mhmm. Commissioner Engbrook? Yes. Mister Dahl? Mister De Leon?

Yes. Sorry.

Oh. Yes. Commissioner Kasuk? Obstained. Commissioner Kamura? Yes. Commissioner Singh? Yes. Commissioner Tadiso? Yes. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. Commissioner Wams?

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

Yes. Alright. So we have a couple informational items. Just quick updates for you all that don't have a staff report. The public comment period for comments on your funding recommendations for fiscal year 2526 closes this evening. There will be other opportunities and other public comment periods, but this period for the CSC discussion closes tonight. And Emily will share more with you about what other options there are for comment. Additionally, related to that, we are posting a thirty day notice of the city council's public hearing regarding these funding recommendations. The public hearing is a requirement of CDBG funding. So council will hold that public hearing on April 22.

Okay. So for our action items tonight, we're gonna do our first one is election. So we have a vacant chair position. Before we get into the elections, we're gonna have, as a staff announcement, more information for you about council's recent action, on boards and commissions. But you have in your packets the uniform I didn't get the name wrong. The uniform guidance for the operations of city commissions as well as the updated appointed officials handbook. So council has made some changes affecting all boards and commissions. We'll do more discussion of that later. But as it relates to elections, there's no longer a parliamentarian role. And so Fast.

Dave commissioner of action, we appreciate your service, and you are relieved from that role. I would empower all of you to remember our Robert's Rules. And candidly, Daisy, if

you wanna check us on that, I think you're so ganky. You

won't have the title to back it up. Alright. So we have a chair vacancy. So tonight, we're gonna do a nominations process and voting to fill the chair. Vice chair Moore has been filling in that role. So this is the same way that we've done elections before, except we're just gonna vote on the chair. If the current vice chair is elected chair, for example, we'll do another round of voting to replace the vice chair. So we're just gonna vote on chair first. The way that the vote works, members of the CSU can make formal nominations for other commissioners or for yourself. The person nominated must accept or decline the nomination.

And then prior to voting, folks are welcome to make a candidate statement if they want. Then from there, you have paper ballots in your packet. One says chair, and one is just blank as a backup if we need it. So you'll cast your vote using a ranked choice process. So if there's multiple nominees, you'll rank the nominees, and each person will get one vote per position. Sorry. That is less relevant. We're just voting on one position right now. You'll submit your paper ballot to us. Staff will count them.

We'll take a quick recess for staff to count, and then we do that really fun process of reading everybody's vote out loud to be in compliance with the Brown Act. Any questions about the process itself? Okay. So at this point, I'd like to open it up to nominations for chair. And you can look at the uniform guidance if you'd like to see the updated duties of the chair on the first page.

And I do also think that where is it? Thought there was a thing in here that said the chair had to have at least a year of experience. Yes. Is that there? Okay. The bottom. The first page at the bottom? Alright. To be chair, you need to have at least a year on the commission.

I'm going to nominate commissioner more for sure.

If I might, respectfully decline. Thank you. I'd like to sorry. Tricia, and then

I'd like to put my own name up.

I'd like to nominate miss Leila.

I would like to nominate commissioner of action.

Do you accept that nomination? I respectfully agree.

The other nomination. Okay. So from here, you on that ballot that says chair, you vote. You can you have two nominees. You can it's been choice voting. Any questions about that process?

Great.

Can we get that statement?

Oh, sorry. I have a statement. I skipped over that. If you were thank you so much. Candidate statements. Okay. I won't time them, but I'd say two minutes. Whoever would like to go first.

Okay. I can go first. So I guess I don't usually put my name up for these types of roles, but I was thinking about it a lot because I came to the conclusion that the next chair is going to have a very major role in the development of the CSC considering the context that it's about to walk into. And that context is that, one, we see that city staff is proposing pretty significant significant changes changes to to the community agency funding process, which will have pretty significant changes to how the CST operates. And then two, we've had the city council, vote around two weeks ago where they put, I guess, stricter guardrails on what they want the role of the CSC to be.

And so I think we're actually heading into a very pivotal moment in the CSC's history, and the chair has a very important role in defining that sort of development. And I wanted to have an active role in that. And by that, I mean, I think that the CFC has something that's really valuable in the sense that we have so many people, both as commissioners here with

such different

perspectives, experiences, and coming from diverse set of backgrounds. And that that eclectic set of of experiences and array of diversity has led to very nice change, good change to the city, such as changes to the public safety committee and, good work on reparative justice. And I personally just think that it would be a waste of that energy and that type of being perspective to whittle us down to five or six meetings in a year where maybe, like, three or four of them are actually rounded in, like, hard decision making. I personally just think that would be a waste of time. And so I'm hoping for the CSC to be in a role where it brings out a lot of the value that we should us bring to provide more value to your community.

And that's the type of framework that I want to embed in the processes of the CSC as we think about as we think about developing it within that context I laid out. And then I guess just as, like, a last thing, and we definitely take into consideration when voting. I see the chair position as more than just a meeting facilitator role, and that is probably the least exciting part of the role for me. So if you want someone who's, like, a really good meeting facilitator, maybe I'm not the best candidate for you. But, if you want someone who wants to bring about that framework that I just laid out, then I hope you vote for me.

Yeah.

Thank you for the nomination. Agree with commissioner Ram in regards to the CSC being at an inflection point. This is where I have spent my entire career, not on the CSC, but in this space, in the nonprofit space, in the public agency space, in the community development building and engagement space. I have experience working with numerous boards and commissions, nonprofit boards, agency boards, public agency boards, well as public officials. And I believe that experience and understanding will serve us well, as we're at this inflection point.

And it remains to be seen as we dive into the document that was given to us today and also the meeting in the first. But I'm confident in my ability to be the bridge, the bridge between the council, ourselves, and community members, in addition to meeting facilitator. So it would be my honor and privilege to serve you all in that way if you decide to give me your vote.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry to be skipping that step. Okay. So now go ahead and complete your ballots, and we'll collect them so you can just pull it up in the air when you're done.

We have everybody?

You don't keep your seconds valid. So we're gonna take a brief recess while staff counts. So if you need a bath and break water, so those of the folks who are online, we're gonna go ahead and mute the room while we take this brief.

Every night. Yeah.

Yeah. Like in the tourist

pool area. This might be the last time. Okay. Alright. Back in back

in session. Off mute. Okay. So I'm gonna go through and read. I'm just gonna say last names.

So the first one in front is the commissioner Dow voted, so I'm gonna say Dow is who he voted for. I'm reading just top votes. K? Dow Wheeler, Gun Wheeler, Wong Wong, Angulo Wong, Moore Wheeler, Raar Wong, Treviso Wheeler, Camura Wheeler, Sting Wong, Hasuf Wheeler, Wheeler Wheeler, Alviate Wheeler, Leon Wheeler, Maxeon Wong. So with nine votes, commissioner Wheeler is our new chair.

Commissioner Moore. I I think the uniform guidance say that you'll be exceeded at the next meeting. So enjoy this last gamble free. Alright. Thank you everybody for that. Thank you both for your willingness to serve. And with that, I'm going to turn things over to Emily to discuss our next item, which is the fiscal year 2526 funding recommendations.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Wong. Thank you for having me back to present to you all, and I also thank you for offering, your attention, for this presentation. So my portion of the presentation will be a brief summary of the funding allocations recommended and discussed during the last CSC meeting in February. And then Amy will discuss staff's recommendations for improvements to the community agency funding process, before we ask the CSC to finalize the funding decisions that we will present to city council.

Next, please. Yep. That's me. I will pay attention to the process. Very good.

So to put ourselves in a context, we're nearing the end of the cap process. Last month, the CSC reviewed the initial funding recommendations and had discussions. Tonight, when the CFC will vote the the CSC will vote on the recommendations to present to city council during the April 1 work session, and that'll be done on Tuesday. Next slide, please. So here you see a table reviewing the, all of the categories of funding for the cap process, which includes the amounts recommended through both CDBG and general fund amounts.

You can also see the funding recommendations in detail in your attachment two, which is in front of you. Additionally, annually, we have non competing CDBG CDBG projects that we fund in order to meet requirements, which includes fair housing services, home rehab, and infrastructure project management. And finally, we use estimates to calculate the CDBG amounts. We should know our entitlement entitlement amount by late March. And should there be more funding, we will follow the guidelines proposed by the arts.

And you can also see the guidelines proposed for additional funding on the most right column on your attachment two. Something to note is that potential cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development staff and budget may result in delays, receiving no award in executing our upcoming As of now, staff has been successfully able to perform draws and receive federal funds, but it's always something that you could expect, and potentially prepare as well. And now that we've covered an overview of the funding recommendations, we can review of the decisions for each specific application review. Here, we will review the economic development infrastructure. Nothing changed from the last meeting.

Looking at the deliberations overview, we were able or you all, decided to fully fund four agencies, partially fund three agencies, and then decided not to recommend funding to meet an investment. The plan for recommending additional funding is to fund central community partners fully first, following, love never fails would be a fully fund up to their requested amount. And then after that would be to fund Eden Investments specifically for their parking fee portion of the request. And then should there be any funds left, the funds can go to downtown streets. Next, we this is a quick overview of our you the services arcs deliberations.

The services category was the most competitive with applicants requesting a total of four times the amount of funds that were available. In recent years, we did have one time funds available to supplement the services ARC. However, those one time funds are not available this year. During the last CSC meeting, commissioners discussed the difficulty of having to prioritize some projects over others due to fewer available funds and an increase in applicants. Due to this challenge, the services are prioritized funding housing and homelessness, food security, and legal services programs, as well as programs with an emphasis to offer services to immigrant and undocumented populations.

They evaluated scenarios that included distributing funds across all services applicants, but determined that more awards with significantly reduced amounts were not an effective use of resources and may reduce the community impact while increasing the administrative burden on both agencies and city staff. So multiple commissioners in the last meeting did express concerns that there were no funds, recommended to education and youth services projects or serve among the services arc. And while there was a consensus that youth and education services are important for preventing the need for future social services, the CSC also agreed with the services parks decision. And, these services decisions we have to bear in the next two slides. The first slide is, services service projects that are funded by CDBG.

And to review the deliberations, very quickly is we are decided to fully fund one agency, partially fund five, and did not recommend funding to one agency. They did not recommend funding to Covenant House as the ARC believed that their budget and funding were adequate without Hayward funding, demonstrating less need compared to other funded agencies. And should there be any additional funds, those funds will be given to Covenant House up to $30,000, and then the remaining amount would be allocated evenly across legal assistance, seniors, Spectrum, the Alliance for Community Wellness, and. And to wrap up services, the overview of the deliberations was that the ARC decided to fully fund two agencies, partially funded 19, and did not recommend funding to 13 agencies. The plan for additional funding is to fund Bay Area Community Health for up to $25,000, and then Eden Youth, Family and Eden Youth and Family Center for up to $25,000.

And lastly, we have arts and music, which is funded by general fund. So, the ARC decided to fully fund three agencies up to their funding caps, partially fund seven and did not recommend funding to one agency. And the, services or the arts and music arc, they spent all their money. So there's no more money. So now that we've covered covered the debrief of the AHRQ's deliberations and recommendations for allocating additional funding, the next steps for the CAF process is that you all will vote on these recommendations tonight.

We'll bring those recommendations to the work session in front of city council on, April 1. And then there will be a public comment period from between April 4 and May 4. So anyone can email me to provide additional public comment. And then on April 22, we'll be hosting a public hearing for the allocations of these funds and also to approve the city's five year annual plan, that directs how to spend these funds and is required by HUD. That will be hosted on April 22.

In April, the CSC will not have a meeting. And then in May, we will be meeting back again to discuss the agency community agency funding process as a whole for input and improvements. But we're also gonna be talking about improvements because, not only do we wanna hear your input, as a CSC, but we also wanna bring these changes or potential recommendations in front of city council to get a sense of their input as well, and see how we can improve this process for applicants as well as, you all. So staff collects feedback from applicants and the CSC each year to refine the agency funding process. Typically, do this before the May, CSC, but we think it's advantageous to bring it forward so we can start having this conversation earlier and staff can prepare for the next funding cycle.

We do this so that we can refine the agency funding process and promote continuous improvement. This year's staff have also conducted extensive benchmarking research, reviewing similar funding processes across the entire East Bay and also looking at San Francisco. So I will pass it off to Amy to speak to these improvements.

Yeah. Great. So this is much more in-depth than your staff report, so I'm gonna be kind of high level on some of these. Some of these changes that we're recommending are, like, really just administrative changes. Others, I think we're looking for more of your input in them and council's endorsement as well. So the first is one of the more administrative ones, transitioning to a two year funding cycle. Almost every jurisdiction that we looked at does this. Whether their city does a two year budget cycle or not, their funding cycles are two years. We've had applicants tell us that this would be preferable. It gives them the predictability of a little more long term planning, particularly with these swings that we've had from year to year with changes in recommendations.

But it also gives them a little bit of breathing room to do the work as opposed to be constantly applying for funding. Just so you can kind of picture our full cycle, we released the notice of funding availability for the upcoming year in September. So we released the NOFA for this process we're talking about, 2526, in September. They interview. They apply. They interview. We go through this process. Council goes through their April process. Council adopts the budget formally in June. Yeah.

Thank you. And then we start executing contract. And because of our kind of fiscal policy, we're not able to actually cut them checks until September. So it literally is an entire year cycle from when we start the funding process to when we cut a check. So giving them a two year cycle basically gives them a year off of that before they have to start going through the funding the application process again.

And another change, which is both administrative, but we also want input, is establishing a separate arts and music process. Each year, this process gets harder and harder for arts and music applicants, both the application process, but also once they're in contract, the reporting requirements and the requirement to serve only low income folks just kind of based on the types of activities that we're choose that you all are funding. It's very challenging for them to meet that requirement, and they are not getting large amounts of money to support the administrative work. So, really, if we think about the amount of money an agency is receiving and the amount of staff time required to administer it, our arts and music applicants are the ones that have kind of the greatest burdensome ratio, if that makes sense. Mhmm.

And they are they try their best. This is this is not a reflection on their performance. It is through several years of observation and conversation with these folks and their feedback on the survey Emily talked about. So we're looking at a different process that would be a little more over the counter, more along the lines of the special events process that we tried one year here, and it was very clear it didn't work in this process. We think arts and music kind of belongs closer to where special events is.

We also recommend update the scoring rubric to better account for council priorities. We're really thinking here about services funding because that is where it's the highest competition, and it's where our funding caps are. And what we're referring to here would be something like and this is just kind of an example of what we're thinking. Confirming with counsel the priorities that you all established in this recent round, we'd be able to kind of reaffirm those priorities on a regular basis, but making sure that there are points associated with that in the rubric. So a category in the rubric that is the funding the the project category itself.

So if you are doing an activity that is housing and homelessness, you get five out of five in that category. If you are doing a project that is food security or legal services, you get four out of five. If it's something else, you get three out of something like that so that the priority is reflected in the scoring itself as opposed to kind of more of our, like, discretionary trying to elevate those but not being consistent across the board. And then the kind of another bucket of improvements and changes to the CAF process are just things that would look at increasing transparency and objectivity. I'm gonna be really clear that I by no means are we saying that the individuals on this body are not capable of being objective.

We are saying that the current process is not objective based on our research looking at other jurisdictions and the feedback we've received from applicants, particularly the the deliberations process. Because it is individuals bringing their own value system, we don't have a very consistent and clear directive from council about what types of projects to prioritize. If you map on the types of projects we fund to the strategic priorities road map, every single thing we fund fits. So it's very hard to say let's let the road map lead because every one of these agencies very clearly could see a fit on that. Like, do know what I'm sorry.

I'm I'm kind of assuming it's in your orientation packet. But the strategic road map for council has several categories and a really pretty colorful wheel, and our funding applicants fit every single one that fits along that wheel. And so it's looking to find ways to be a little more transparent and objective with that. So that would be removing the deliberation, using the scoring rubrics, which we would reevaluate the rubrics with you all to make sure that it really is reflecting what we want to be assessing in the application process, and then making the aggregate scores of all of the applicants. So not what every single rater scored them, but what their total scores are publicly available before the meeting for funding recommend.

And then finally, we're looking at revisions to the application review process. So in addition to removing deliberations, we were looking at interviews. This is more based on feedback from applicants and then our research looking at different jurisdictions. It's kind of mixed in terms of what other jurisdictions do, whether they do interviews or not. But consistently, they all do public interviews. And they don't do them on the weekends. They do them, like, at their meetings. The Tri Valley is what they call themselves. Right? Pleasanton, Livermore.

Mhmm. Double Double Thank you. They actually have now aligned their commissions to do kind of a they all kind of fund together. They kind of collaborate on the funding. So they do their interviews public, but there's only a couple other jurisdictions that we looked at that do interviews. So we looked at kind of two different options based on what other folks are doing. The first option is removing interviews altogether and implementing a q and a period. So if there are questions that commissioners have similar to what you already do, we just formalize that process. So you submit your questions, and then applicants have the opportunity to provide those responses. And then you score the application and the responses to those questions in the same way that you've been updating well, at least this past year that the past couple of years, you've updated the rubric after the interviews.

Mhmm. And then in that case, the scores would still determine the funding. Option two is to conduct interviews and questions during a CSC meeting. So right now, you don't meet in January. So if we weren't to if we kept kind of the timeline the way it is, it would be meeting in January, for example, and doing the interviews in public. But we are proposing that we don't interview every single applicant, that there'd be a threshold. For example, something like we only interview the top 75% scoring applicants, and those that score below that threshold aren't advanced for funding. And then, again, after the interviews, you'd update your scores. Those scores would be made public, and the scores would determine the funding. So these are kind of what we're looking at.

I think that's it. Based on, again, our benchmarking research or feedback from our applicants and staff's, perspective as well based on our experience. I didn't say this earlier, but there was a an ad hoc committee of commissioners and counsel a few years ago that did look at the process and did make some changes. That's when the rubric got added. And I will say that the rubric has not been consistently used since then.

We've, over the past couple years, got it into CDS, which I think was a win from before. But now we're still not at a place where those scores are actually dictating any of our decision making in any consistent way. So we're trying to bring that rubric along, the spirit of its use, and in line with our peer communities. If you have any other questions about how that ad hoc went before, we can also talk about that. We're gonna wrap up the presentation, and then so I'm gonna I'm gonna stop here. I know you probably have questions and thoughts. I'm gonna turn it back over to Emily, and she's gonna wrap it up and then give you kind of the overview of how we'll move forward with questions and comments. Sound good?

Amy, I wanted to reiterate. I know I think commissioner Wong said that, you know, these are substantial changes. So and they will be iterative. They are not set in stone. We're really just introducing them to start the conversation as staff.

At least myself and also my team, we have constant conversations with agencies. So bringing these these recommendations to we're always thinking about the agency at the end of the day and how we can best support them and minimize the burden on them. So moving forward, we would like to ask the CSC to do two things. One, to update the application review committee's funding recommendations and recommend them to city council for review and approval. And then the second is to provide initial feedback on the CAF process to present to city council for review and approval.

And, depending on how that process goes, we will work with the CSC to implement specific improvements in the next country. And this slide is to provide, the structure for how this action item, will proceed. So first, we'll go with commission questions and then public comments. And we will close the public bond period. However, there are additional opportunities to provide public comment to our audience that are with us remotely today.

The first is that, April 1 at the city council work session. There is a public comment period between April 4 and May 4, that you can email any written public comments to me. And then lastly, on April 22, city council will be hosting a public hearing. There's another opportunity to provide public comment there as well. And then lastly, the fourth item that we have here is that commission the commission will discuss and then vote.

Right. So

I'll leave this slide up as kind of our outline. So the first piece here are commissioner questions. Again, these are clarifying questions. If you wanna share your perspective, we ask that you hold that until we get to the discussion so you're not influencing public comment at all. I see commissioner Gunn and then commissioner.

Okay. Can go. Sorry. Thank you.

Just a a quick question is that, you had said that you were hoping to see a recommendation for this. Is it for the changes to the CAF funding process as well or just recommendation for our funding allocation?

You are voting on your recommendation for the funding allocations. Okay. We're asking also for your initial feedback on the changes, and we will consolidate your feedback and integrate it with staff feedback for the council report.

But we're not voting on that?

There is no action being taken on the changes to the process. The only action is for your recommendations for funding for fiscal twenty five, twenty six. Right now, that's the only thing we're doing. Right? And then we're gonna discuss the Cal afterwards. Unless you have, like, clarifying questions, you can ask them now. If you'd like, you can also hold them for the discussion too.

Okay.

My question is, what happens if the draws don't occur in the future from the federal funding? Is there an impact on the city of Hayward budget if that does not happen?

There is an impact, and that would be a conversation that we'd have to have with the city manager's office and council about where the funds would be available to pay our vendors.

I would still be paid, though, or they would not

Yeah. So I I think that we're exploring adding contingency language with the assistance of our city attorney's office to future contracts because the city cannot be committed to engage in funding if they don't have the resources to do so. And so we're watching most of what's happening at the federal level. I don't know if any of you may have watched the strategic road map sessions that we had in a couple of weekends ago or budget workshop, but we're looking at about approximately maybe 14 or 15,000,000 in federal funding that we currently receive. And so the city would have to figure out of that, which we are committed to, how we'd fund it.

But in terms of offering grants to the community, we might need to sustain or suspend rather than process until funding is paid.

Jennifer Fuller? No. Thank you. I have a question around

a couple of questions. Establishing a separate arts and music funding process, would that be a process the CSC still participated in making funding recommendations for?

Possibly. Yeah. We would be open to your feedback. Okay.

Oh, there was some research other jurisdictions and and what they're doing. You mentioned Tri Valley. Are they receiving similar amount of applications? Are they allocating a similar amount of funding? I'm just interested in understanding how they're stacking up to how our city

Yeah. It varies.

Sure. Yes. That's great.

Can we that's a clarifying question to ask just questions about the funding, and then we can do a round of questions about the CAF changes from chair more. Very well.

Do you

mind if we do that?

I do not mind.

Okay. So we're let's do questions just to give clarifying questions about the funding recommendation. Same.

I think my question relates to the. Okay.

There any more questions regarding the funding recommendations?

Just I just have one minor question. For services, I see some that have been awarded more than 50,000. I thought that was threshold or threshold for some other category.

That's the threshold for service of agencies that aren't doing housing and homelessness. So housing and homelessness, the threshold is a 100,000. I'm you should do clarifying questions about the recommendations and then go to public comment just in case any public comment is about the Commission's office. Oh, commissioner's online. Sorry. No. There are commissioners online. Okay.

Alright. Oh, just more of a comment. I think

Oh, sorry. Hold please hold your comments until we wrap up the questions. Oh, so just We wanna reserve commissioner comments until after the public has had the opportunity to comment, so we can do anything to influence their comment. Thank Questions about the calf changes?

Are are the three of you calf change questions? Okay. Then let's let's start. Commissioner Singh.

So my question is that you do funding, let's say, for a two year period rather than every year. Then what will commissioners do from that period that they are not doing the recommendation for?

It's a good question. I so there is the potential that we receive funding in an off year, and so the commission can be leveraged or, like, we would do a special NOPA in those off years. Additionally, we've received interest from council members in bringing back some of the more engagement that the community services commissioned in with the funding applicants. So that would give us a little bit more space to do some of that work, which would be, like, either site visits or presentations. So more to actually understand the applicant's work, so that we were looking at that.

So it would be potentially a reduced meeting schedule, but we would iron that out with you, and it would be hopefully a little more opportunity to get to know the applicants and the folks that we're funding, which is what used to be the practice many years ago.

Can you say more about that form of practice?

To applicants that receive to to agencies that receive funding.

It was it was on a city bus or rental, and they were they were timed. So we would meet here, go in a bus, in a van, to a location, they would show us their operation, and then we would move on to another location, maybe four or five in a day. And they were welcoming, they were very open, You had a chance to see the operation as it rolled. And it I thought it was very informative.

And my other question is, if we do, do funding for a two year period, what happens when, you know, we typically don't have consistency, in funding year after year from the government. Right? So in that case, would we kind of give a disclaimer to the agency saying that, hey, This is what we're projecting, but it could possibly change.

Absolutely. Yeah. There'd be language in the contracts that make that clear. And we've also and part of our benchmarking is we've received complex contracts from other jurisdictions to see how they do it, and we talked to our CBBG consultant about it. It would be they'd be guaranteed basically the unless there were drastic changes, but it would be something along the lines of the proportion of available funding. So if right now an agency is receiving 5% of the available CDBG funds, it would be that same proportion for the subsequent year. And there would be language making it clear that we can't get what that amount would be. Questions about the recommendations just to clarify, and then we can get into discussion.

Commissioner Wheeler, you had a comment or question?

Regarding the, email communications we've received, this afternoon with agencies providing advocacy, for themselves. I'm not certain. Is that what gets taken into consideration during the public comment portion? Okay.

Yeah. That so for folks and for the public, community members can submit comment about the funding recommendations either in person at this meeting or via written public comment submitted to either me or Emily by 4PM today. In prior years, you've all requested to see that comment sooner. What we normally do is we take it. We compile it all into a PDF.

It gets posted online, and we send it to you as soon as we can after 4PM. I've been sending them to you because we received the feedback that you wanted to see those sooner. Some of the and we got one at, like, 03:55 today, so I didn't send one to you. But that's what that packet is. It's comments on this agenda.

Commissioner Wheeler, do you have follow-up? No. I don't. Okay. Commissioner Gannon?

Yeah. I had a question about, well, two questions. The first one was on the two year potential, funding plan. If, cities considered staggering that so that, applicants who don't receive funding one year can try again the following year, it would mean reducing the amount that we're budgeting in in that time, but, it could provide an opportunity. I'm just curious if that was considered.

We we think we've considered it. Yeah. Okay. And we'd be open to discussing that one.

Okay. My other question was, with the rubrics themselves. I know I'm I'm curious if, about essentially council guidance to figure out not just does this fall within our priority, but how much their recommended funding amounts are per sector per, like, what are the lifeline services that we would we should not not fund is essentially it.

That's an interesting way to frame that, and we can include that framing when we bring

it to council. Okay. Commissioner Kimura? Yes. Yes. Just about the question about the site visit, it sounds really exciting, but, question is how that schedule look like? We need, like, a evening right now at the site visit. It was daytime. Daytime? It was day. Start at maybe eleven. Weekly or evening. Hour and early afternoon. Weekdays? Weekdays. Yes. Yes. And it

would get noticed as, like, a special meeting so we wouldn't run into quorum issues. Yes.

I have a couple of questions around the two year funding cycle. The first question being, if there's a two year funding cycle, then is there gonna be, like, a mid year or between the two years, some kind of, check on the deliverables?

Or Absolutely.

And so I guess I wanted to see what the process was when you say that there are other other studies that are doing the two year running cycle, what the process looks like for that. And, also, if they are not meeting those goals, like year one, year two Mhmm. That's gonna be part of the application, then what the process is.

Yeah. We would that's a great question. We would have language in the two year contract that they have to maintain the scope of work. We actually monitor the contracts already. They submit it depends on the funding source, either quarterly or semiannual reports where they report on their progress achieving the contracted goals and outcomes. So we would be monitoring that as we normally would, and we'd have language in the contract that gives us the opportunity to reduce or suspend further funding if they're not meeting those goal. Or if there are other performative issues in the contract, not just not meeting those targets, but if there are other ones. Thank you.

But following up on that.

So if there are concerns, let's say, with the two year application at year one, and there's, like, a 100,000 that's supposed to be allocated for year two, but you decide to pull that funding, is there, like, a midyear review process by which that $100 could be reallocated?

Absolutely. And that's kind of what we're talking about with the special NOFA. Okay. So if for whatever reason more funds become available so for example, last year, we had funding available through the city's opioid settlement money. And so that was put through the timing work to do it within our normal CAF process.

If it were a two year cycle and that was an off year, but we still wanted you all to help inform the allocation of that funding, we would do a special NOFA to make that money available. And we'd time it at that midyear of the middle of that two year cycle. So if there are I don't foresee surprise funding sources coming down, especially not federal ones over the next few years. But if for whatever reason that were available and if it were because other agencies weren't unable to spend, we would do a special NOFA, and we'd do a similar funding cycle.

I have a question. Yes. Regarding the no interview or maybe the top 75, Quite often agencies that have reduced funding or, in this case, it would be no funding, they come to counsel or they come here and they want to figure case for some funding. Would it be possible for a an organization that did not get an interview to get funding?

No. So the the what we are presenting here is something where the score that an applicant receives is what informs the funding they receive. So in the two scenarios and tell me if I'm getting your question if I'm misunderstanding your question. But in these two scenarios, in option two for example, if they didn't get an interview, it's because they didn't score high enough to get an interview,

and therefore, they've been eliminated. But we only have a recommendation. And if they

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Counsel could decide not to go with the CSC recommendation. I apologize. I misunderstood your question. Yes. Council could do that at any point. You all, this body makes recommendations to council. Staff also makes recommendations to council. So far, we've been we think you guys are good. So we haven't made contrary recommendations. But there could be a scenario in which the CSC says one thing, staff says another, and council chooses to do a third thing. That it is council's decision on how to spend these funds. You are their trusted advisers, and you make recommendations. But you're right. If an agency were to appeal to counsel in a way that they found compelling, they could decide to fund them outside of your reputation.

So that would basically just negate the process because they scored low, they weren't interviewed, but they had a compelling story to counsel.

Yes. And that could happen in any anytime, any and whatever the process is.

Gotcha. Okay.

And I think that we would still encourage you all to come to the council work session, to come to the council public hearing, to present regard even if there aren't interviews, if there's not deliberations, you are still the deliberating body. You still reviewed and scored these. So it is just as important for you to show up and explain to council why these recommendations are what they are regardless of what the process is. And I think that that would help, prevent what you're describing.

So my other question just one second, commissioner Wong, is these are options one and two, and I assume they've been called down. Mhmm. Was there an option three?

I no. I I don't think so. No. Okay. Alright. But, I mean, we are still looking for your So if you if you feel there's an option three, we'd be happy to discuss that in the next part of this conversation. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. Was there an option three? No. Okay. We did this based off of what we

what we see in the community across we did benchmark research of 12 jurisdictions in that area, and this is just what we've seen. So and seems to be, like, a best practice across jurisdictions. So that's what Were

these jurisdictions similar size, similar awards?

That is kind of like because your I I realized I didn't answer that part of your question today. I yeah. There's some variability. Okay. But they all receive federal funds and do a combination I think all of them, a combination of federal and local funds, which is kind of what we were trying to Okay. That was one of the things we were looking for. And then we were also looking at folks who fund similar things to us, which is why we kind of stuck East Bay. Okay. But we also looked at San Francisco because they do so much funding. We kinda wanted to see how they do their process because they've got so many applicants. Because our number keeps growing and growing and growing, so we decided to look at a large jurisdiction to see how they can fund.

Thank you. Commissioner Wong. I

want to inquire about the nature of other how other jurisdictions do their interviews because, like, right now, we have them come on to a online meeting, and they're not allowed to use a presentation or anything. It's just them speaking and answering questions. And these other jurisdictions, maybe do they do presentation, or they're, like, coming in and they just, like, speak?

I know they come in person and

they speak. It's not virtual. Remember, I think some do they have

presentation restrictions? They don't. At

least I mean, we can do more of these.

Yeah. I'm not sure. We didn't Yeah. I did not ask staff to look for that level of granularity, so I wouldn't be able I don't think we can speak to every jurisdiction because we didn't actually look for that specific.

Thank you.

Yeah. There are gonna be or six known agencies that perform or out of the 12 that we saw that do interviews, and three of them were optional. So the three that were mandatory, that was a public meeting. So that's something we can look into.

So the next step is now public comments on this item.

Again, what comment?

So public comment, not commissioner comment.

Sorry.

I If you have a comment, we'll hold public comment until we're finished with all of our comments.

No. We wanna do public comment before we get to our

No. I have a question. What he what his question is now.

He doesn't have a question.

So I had a comment.

You had a comment. Okay. Sorry.

Alright. So we'll close this section of commissioner questions, and we'll open it up to public comments. So folks who are online, we've got one phone. I had to look at my notes to remember how to tell Zoom. So if you are on the phone and if you wanna raise your hand, it's still fine. I'm I'm gonna go ahead and allow, Chevy, our first public commenter. You can unmute yourself to make your comment. And I apologize. We don't have the timer pulled up. Actually, can you hold on one second?

Let me pull up the timer so we can I apologize? I'm just gonna stop sharing for a moment.

Okay.

Just gonna share the timer so the folks online can see.

Alright.

Have you can you hear us?

Hey, Sushida. You can come off mute. Okay.

Good evening, everybody.

We can hear you. Go ahead.

Can you hear me okay? Good evening. My name is Shubi. I'm the director for the. One of the part of the Freedom Store, which is located downtown. I want first of all, wanna say thank you for all you do, the committee, all the members, the team members at. But, basically, I wanna appeal to you regarding the funding recommendation. Last year, we were awarded, 10,000, and the same recommendation was made this year. And the impact, we're filling a gap downtown a ward, and it's not just for low income. It's for low to middle income.

And our numbers keep increasing based on everything going on in the economy, and it's a lot of work. This has been a one man show for a long time, and we're we're looking to the city to support us. And just food recovery picking up donation is a lot of work. I don't know if anybody has done it before. They're stuck in the shelf.

Because the reason why we have the Freedom Store is to change the to to make it a client choice model where we set limits and people can pick what they need and not what we wanna give them. And, you know, the 10,000 that was recommended for us is we we need more, honestly. We need more we need more support because it's it's, we pay the rent there. We open twice a week. We we open to the public twice a week, and we open every day because we have people call us from the school district as well.

We get we get parents sent family sent to us from the district for clothing, for food, for basic stuff, and we source for these items apart from what we get from we go out to San Francisco to pick up donations, and we just feel like we need more support. We need more help from our city based on what we're doing. And I don't know, how you guys support us to give us more funding because we we requested for 50,000, and we recommended 10,000, and which was the same thing we were off given last year. And I remember when we had a public comment with the city council, they recommended we go more, but nothing was done last year. And now we are at the same place again this year, so I hope you guys will be able to review the recommendation and please support us and support what we are doing.

Because we don't know who might need help in the future, but this is a place where people come children come, people come with their families. The children are happy to be there. We get toys. We get everything all new, and we give out to families without holding back. So, I really appeal to you, to your office, to the committee to please support us and give us more funding. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. I'm next on our list is

Sam.

Good evening. My name is Samantha Beckett, and I'm the directing attorney of the tenants rights practice at Centro Legal. I wanna thank the commission for your funding recommendations and all of your work as part of this commission. The funds for Centro's Hayward project are critical at a time when eviction rates are at record levels. Alameda County is in the midst of an evictions crisis, with eviction rates holding steady at 150% of pre pandemic levels even two years after the expiration of the County Eviction Moratorium.

Unfortunately, Hayward tenants are being the hardest hit. Additionally, we expect informal evictions, where tenants are pushed out by landlords outside of the court process, to rise as tenants from marginalized communities, particularly immigrant tenants, face additional harassment and fear. These funds are critical to ensure that we can assist as many low income Hayward families as possible with both upstream and downstream interventions, including defending tenants in eviction court. Tenant Legal Services is the most cost effective homelessness prevention intervention. At a time of historically high eviction rates, we thank the Commission for prioritizing funding for tenant legal services and urge the Commission to do what you can to fully fund our services, including advocating for more funds at City Council to help get our program and other critical services to or closer to our full funding.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you.

That appears to be all the public comment that we have. Put the slides back up so we have our okay. So we are now officially closing the public comment period. But as a reminder, as Emily already shared with you, there are additional public comment opportunities at the council work session. Got a public comment period open from April 4 to May 4, and folks can email Emily their comment just like they did for this meeting.

And then council will hold that April 22 public hearing, another opportunity for public comment before they take their final vote on the recommendations. So now we shift into the commission discussion. And, also, at any point, somebody can make a motion regarding the funding recommendations. And, again, we're not asking for action on the CAF changes. We're just asking for your on that.

She's saying? Regarding the cap changes. So my first comment is that believe the interview process is very important in terms of terms of the cap process. I think during the interview process, the commissioners get more insight into what the organization does. They get answers to their questions, and it just provides more background that we don't typically receive by distributing the application itself.

And then I also would recommend that the deliberation process is very important as well. So not solely relying on the scoring rubric to make a decision as to whether as to the amount of funding that an organization gets, but also having the discussion, align commissioners to discuss amongst each other what they feel the amount should be recommended to a particular agency. So I feel like with the, diverse set of commissioners that we have here that they'd be given the opportunity to continue to deliberate amongst each other to make a decision as to what the recommended recommended amount should be. I think that's all for me for now. Thank you.

Commissioner Treviso?

I I would like to comment on my first year experience that I had within the scoring rubric and the interview process. And I felt that there needed to be a change, in I felt there was too much individual discretion that was brought to the process. And and so I feel a scoring rubric that is aligned with city council priorities starting there and is going to help eliminate that and to make the decision to remove that individual discretion that people have or their experience that they have and to make it fair for applicants that come seeking the funding. I would like to see that rubric, of course, right, once it's completed to make a decision about it. I also appreciate the two year cycle and possibly having, like Jesse had suggested, like, between to give other folks opportunities, I think we can, you know, look into those different methods or cadences for funding that will help ensure that the maximum amount of people are able to buy and benefit from the funding that we have allocated.

So I like that idea of the two year transition cycle because, you know, it takes they're just trying to catch up, and then there's reporting in between that they have to do, and it's just a lot of work. I know.

I report program. Mhmm. So That's fun.

You barely start the work, and then, you know, you gotta do all these other things. But I appreciate some of the changes that are being made so that we can flush out some of the inconsistencies that I have seen so that we can have a fair process.

Thank you. Commissioner Wong?

Yes. This first, I just maybe a question is because I know that there were some public comments that were re received, and I can't remember specifically which ones, but there were some that said we can't sustain ourselves if we don't get this funding. I wanted to know if maybe you know in particular like, if they do not get funding in this cycle, like, will they go under and not exist anymore, if you're aware of any of those?

I'm not. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Then I guess my other points are just one. I appreciate, the public comments that were just given. And like I mentioned last time, like, I was getting my dentist appointment.

I happened to cross by the Freedom store, and there was a massive line there. And so I appreciate the direction to move toward having site visits because I think that is a very important way of learning more about the, organize the organization beyond just an interview and, like, an application that you just read. And on the app process, I would like to see the ability for agencies to be able to give presentations. I think that allows them to better express themselves. And I know there were some organizations that, like, in the services arc this year that had a presentation prepared turned out you can't have a presentation.

And so I think that might have affected how they interviewed. But I do think that being able to see pictures of, like, their work and having those slides would be very helpful in informing myself and perhaps others on the commission, when making those decisions on, like, how to evaluate them. In terms of rubrics, I'm kind of conflicted. I I guess I have a little bias against having rubrics because I think that they get the veneer of objectivity, but fundamentally, what's onto the rubric is quite subjective, like, dependent on what the priorities of city council are and the members of the commission. And I think that it might just be going down a road that you can never win.

You're not gonna describe the objectivity, but I don't think that that's ultimately a possible thing. And I think that what is valuable on this commission is because we have all this different experiences and having that individuality in decision making is key. And so I agree that we should we we need the deliberation process to be able to talk with one another and bring in those, individual perspectives together and make a common decision, more than any one, rubric. And then in terms of the options for promoting transparency, I don't like the idea of not giving interview opportunities just because they don't score high enough on a rubric when scoring their, application. Because I know that there's some organization at least, like, this year in services, I saw some applications that were not great.

But when they interviewed, they were pretty stellar, and I was convinced. And we wouldn't have that opportunity if we denied them that chance to interview. And I know that some organizations don't have, like, the largest grant ratings for them, and so that's also a factor in terms of equity if we were to go about it that way. So those are just my thoughts.

Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler? Thank you. I agree with some

of the comments that have already gone forth around the importance of allowing our nonprofits to present in a way that is best for them. And so I'm not certain, is it a presentation? Is it a rubric? Is it an interview? But I do believe that having only a written and rubric opportunity, I don't believe that's a fair and equitable.

And I would like for some method, it is, for our our CBOs to have the opportunity to present their work in a way that feels like it matches them, whether it's the site visit, whether it's the interview, or something of nature. I do think that's important, and I do think that allows for somewhat of a leveling of the playing field to the points that have been made around resource availability and experience. I think that would also support our outreach with new applicants or even more grassroot organizations. I think that's also where we learn a little more about maybe technical assistant needs. And if there's other ways we can support these nonprofits, if it's not through the funding cycle, I think we do or you all certainly maybe reach out and provide some other resources to help them maybe have to help them in the future.

And so those are just my thoughts in whatever adjustments are made. I just wanna hold that up and keep that in mind to allow for our CBOs, community based organizations, to be able to present however that is for them, whether it's in their own language, if that's needed, or if it's through interview. And then also, I agree that there is some importance in deliberation amongst ourselves. We do have various backgrounds, knowledge, information that supplements what's on the paper that I do believe I have I have certainly found helpful in the arts that I participated in, and there's been some value in that to me. I'm not sure how do we maintain that with creating more efficiencies because I feel like I'm hearing us talk about we wanna have some more efficiencies.

It's unclear to me how the public meeting, would work, exactly. And so I'm just interested in understanding a little bit how more that would take, like, something in all day and anyways. And so I'm interested in understanding more about how that would work and how that does or doesn't meet, the needs of our CBOs and their, I don't wanna say comfort. I'm I'm not certain. Forgive me for not having the vocabulary right now that's top notch. But I could see how that could create more angst, this idea of public presentation. And are we creating more harm than good? Just some thoughts that

I'm having.

So I feel like I'm adding more challenge and not answers. So I apologize for that, but I I do think it's important that we do continue to hold up at minimum being mindful that I I just believe that funding in general is inherently biased, period. And I I just wanna name that and say and not even pretend like it isn't, but it is. And I believe we've made a commitment. I believe the city of Hayward has made a commitment as well and as much as possible reducing those.

And I do believe interviews, deliberations, things of that nature are helpful in reducing some of what's already baked in. Not to dismiss the importance of a rubric, but I don't think it's the only story. And I think I'm advocating for us to have as many elements that tell us the story as possible.

I had a question because commissioner brought up a a good point. So commissioner said if some of these are not receiving funding, they will go under. So in my opinion, if they're not if they do not have other funding to sustain themselves, then to me, they're not a strong candidate. Like, if this money is going to make them or break them, I I don't know, you know, I don't know what what what does the body feel about that? What does staff feel about that is do we have policy around that, or is there guidance around that? Or

I would say that, historically, the commission has looked at and valued that applicants are leveraging other funding sources. I don't remember if it's in the rubric as an item. It may be. Yeah. It is.

Yeah. It

will be. I thought it was, but

I was like And I saw also in response to your comment, I think, Michelle, we say that's actually gonna answer.

I just wanted to respond to that.

So you talked about it in some

of our groups, when we've been considering the funding, knowing that when we talk about equity again, if there's those, organizations that are just starting or we wanna make sure that we give them that opportunity, which again talks about the value of the interviews. Giving them say they've been in this you know, doing this work for multiple years and they're still just depending on the city of Hayward funding, then we talk have a discussion about that as well. Have they looked at other funding sources? But I think that's the value in having these separate interviews and being able to collaborate with other commissioners around experiences and, you know, what we consider would be best for our community in terms of continuing funding. And then I just wanted again, I'm I'm also I think about and I appreciate all the work that you guys have done in terms of trying to see what other cities are doing in terms of this funding process.

I I wanna know when you decided to take this on, what was the problem you were analyzing? And I know you took feedback from a lot of our applicants. But it when I and I'm just trying to put it together because I don't have the answer to that one. But it seems like the question is it says transparency in there. And so I kinda wanna know what the ultimate goal is because I think what's most valuable in something like this is getting as many data points as possible.

Because, again, in terms of equity, some do not have the funding to rank those like they do, but they do have a vision and a goal that's really gonna serve our community. And we won't know that from maybe the application. So I think as many, data points in the end, as your point commissioner, that that would be most beneficial.

I I think to speak to the question about, like, what spurred this, I think we try to approach all the processes our division touches with continuous improvement lens. It's been four years since the process was evaluated, And I think that a combination of an increase in applicants less progressively, like, more and more competitive funding cycles, we have received more and more feedback from applicants that the process isn't working for them. I there is what we hear in public comment. There is also what staff the feedback staff receives directly. That, to me, from a staff capacity standpoint, my team is finally fully staffed.

We are well cross trained. We're in a good place where we can wrap our arms around a big improvement process. And a tipping point for me is when applicants are coming to us on a fairly consistent basis with concerns about equity and fairness and opportunity and transparency. That was really kind of the tipping point for us to as we wrapped up sort of the interviews in the last cycle and got a little bit more of that feedback to take a step back and look at what are other folks doing Yep. With that lens where how can the process become more transparently effective?

I think I just would wanna know what that data is. What have applicants shared with you? And it doesn't have to be you know, we wouldn't have to say what organization asked what or what the concerns were. But just the data around what the concerns were that kind of propelled you to do this data analysis across different county. Yeah.

I think what I'm sharing is about as comfortable as I'm willing to be to share it without it getting too identifiable. But it is concerns that personal bias was at play in the deliberations. And I think we can share the survey results, which we're also informing in this. But when you're asking, like, what brought us to this point, it was that was kind of the we've been looking at this. We've been thinking about it, and this is, like, finally the time where I think we can step back. We've got the staff to do the work.

And this is applicants only, or was this commissioners were there commissioners that had concerns about the process?

In prior years, commissioners too. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Excuse me.

I just wanna stay in order.

That's it.

I just have some feedback with the rubric if we go with it, but I I really appreciate the research that y'all been doing, getting best practices from different areas too. One of it being, like, how often will the rubric be updated? Because I know a lot of the things that we have shifted to fund for this year was in response to a lot of emerging community needs, like the rapid response stuff or vulnerable communities. So, like, for example, if we're stuck to one rubric and then an emerging issue happens again, like, how will that be in practice? You know, how can we break that? Yeah.

I think what we've been looking at is on the kind of two year funding cycle, doing a reevaluation of the priorities, which would then influence the rubric. Okay. So kind of getting it doesn't need to be a large council work session, but just like a reaffirmation of the priorities or, like, you're saying, an acknowledgment that there has been, knock on wood, a large natural disaster, so we need to shift to a different focus, like that kind of

thing. Yeah.

I think that's my only feedback just to keep it updated as we progress.

That is another thing that spurred this too is that Rubrik is now four years old, which in the grand scheme, four years. The lot has changed. Yeah. I don't know if you see Janet Heather here. Did.

Okay. But it's commissioner. Okay.

I'll be real quick. Just going down the line, I'm in favor of the two year funding cycle as long as there's some element of staggering. I believe there should be doesn't have to be a fifty fifty split. I probably shouldn't be a fifty fifty split, but some way of coming back to applicants who didn't get funding the first rounds who can try again without waiting two full years, I think, would be good. The separate arts and music process sounds good, but I would love to keep some some way of having community and public involvement in that process so it's not just a staff discretionary thing, whether that means coming to this body or incorporating some elements of what was learned from the people's budget or something like that, to keep the community aspect of that process alive.

For the rubric, this is something I was really conscious of this year was, not necessarily dollars per person supported, but also weighing the depth of that support. If it's somebody who is getting a referral to other services that are gonna support them versus somebody who is getting the direct services from this organization, that was impactful for me. Is this something that is gonna have a monumental impact on an individual or a family member's life, or is this a onetime sort of, situation? So in the rubric, I'd love to see some way of differentiating between the depth of service to an individual or family, as well as, some way of quantifying dollar amount per depth. That that's super hard to do.

I understand. Which brings me to the next thing. I think the interviews are super and deliberation is super important for that. If this was able to be analyzed completely by a computer, none of us would be here. But I think there needs to be a human element involved in in making these decisions, and sometimes that comes through deliberation.

Sometimes we're gonna get some opinions that we don't all agree with, and it's up up to us to come together and and and build that consensus. The application review process, similarly, I have kind of a different idea about interviews. Rather than interviewing the top 75%, I'd rather interview the bottom 75%. And the ones that score amazing on their rubric, I'm less inclined to wanna interview them because it seems like they have everything under control, and they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Whereas the bottom 75%, it's possible that they just didn't have a good application, but they're providing good services, and they need that chance for an interview.

So that's where I would come from from there, and that's it for my

Thank you. Commissioner Kasous?

Well, I sort of concur with some of the things you just said and Ms. Wheeler's too because AI could replace all of us with just grant grid grant writers putting in a paper and then calculating the rubric, and then we're all done. And that's not the human element. Because you can really tell by seeing the person that's

gonna

be in charge. Are they do you feel they can communicate well? Do you feel they're sincere? I think that's an important element speaking to the customer, if we wanna call it that, the person to say, oh, you have a great thing here, but I don't know if deaf person can really deliver on what they've written. So that's important to me.

And the other part that's in that I find valuable is I'll call it return on investment from a business standpoint to always look at. If we're putting in $2,000,000 or 200,000 for this project, how many people are being served? So it's cost per person versus looking at that's important, or could those dollars be used better elsewhere, or are they do are they not using the money wisely? Do they need to have more coaching from city staff or come back with a different plant, or those dollars being wasted. Even if it is a preference in city council, which we try and accommodate, but if certain programs aren't they're waxing and leaning on what their priorities should be, we might wanna relook at that project and look at maybe different vendors to do the same thing.

That's important to me because we're entrusted with all the dollars to do a fiduciary thing for citizens at Hayward. So that's an important issue. And I think we do a good job, but sometimes I think we look at how much it costs per person to serve versus if we could serve more people also for less. And I still wanna keep the in person interviews. And if we are gonna stagger things, maybe $60.40 or $50.50, however we're gonna do it, or if we're gonna do it every other year, I think that would be too much and maybe if we don't stagger it.

Because on some of these individuals, I would have liked to have had for our whole group, not just for me, maybe five more minutes to ask a few more questions, but it's boom, boom, boom. And certain groups might require more a few more minutes of question. That's it. Sorry. I concur with the rest, but I have, like, a few little things.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh?

Just wanted to share my concerns around the two year funding cycle. I think these issues can be addressed, but the issues are that, you know, let's say the organization doesn't get funding in that fiscal year, in that first year, and they have to wait two years to possibly apply again. But whereas now if an organization doesn't get funding in, let's say, this year, they quickly find next year and possibly get fundings. The other issue is that, let's say, if there's an organization that misses the deadline to apply for funding instead of just having to wait one year, now they have to wait two years to go ahead and apply for that funding. So those are two sort of I see as major issues, that can have a major impact on the organization.

So if there's a way to possibly address these issues, I'm okay with your cycle. But if there is a, I think it could potentially do a bit of an arm to start an organization that either don't get funding in a particular cycle or have to possibly wait because of they missed the deadline or whatever reason it might be. That's thank you.

Thank you. And there was another one here. Was it you, commissioner? Was there was someone right here. Okay. So you've changed your mind.

Commissioner Wheeler. I'm interested in the transparency, objectivity, concerns. Did you get the sense that what's being asked is for the rubrics to be released or to share? Or did you like, does that feel like it would address that for people to just be like, here's the rubric. And then if we then figured out some way to quantify a deliberation and quantify an interview, is that what individuals are asking for?

I can imagine if Yeah. If it was me, I'm thinking, well, how did they pick Amy over Linda? I feel like I'm should have more than Linda should have. And so I'm I'm just imagining people are anticipating that, but they don't know Exactly.

Okay. That is kind of where where the transparency piece is stemming from is that right now, you do share your deliberations, but the deliberations happened in real time behind.

And then there's no more shared about, like, how folks were evaluated beyond that meeting. The reason I asked is because I'm thinking if we if just providing the score sheet answers the question, do we need to remove interviews? Do we need to remove delivery? You know I mean? I'm just I mean, are we anyways, it's

just a thought. There's two objectives. There's the transparency objective and the objectivity objective. So the sharing how the decision making occurred is the transparency piece. The objectivity piece is looking at the process itself and whether or not it was objective. And so that's where we're looking at the rubric and the adjustments to interviews and, letting the scoring. That that's we're trying to get the objectivity piece there.

Sure. I think that, in regards to objectivity, receiving additional feedback and guidance from a council or this body determining sort of this is the priorities, excuse me, would help for that. Because on the same or on the opposite side, you could say, well, you're not objective because you're not allowing for these other data points. Do you know I mean? Like, it's objectivity is subjective. Yeah. Right? So Interesting. Okay.

No. I think what you're articulating is a lot of what was kind of churning when we did the previous evaluation of the process several years ago. And so we're kind of in a similar place still because the things that were implemented to get to the objectivity aren't quite there yet. I'm I and so my train of thought has fully derailed, so I'm gonna just pause there.

Commissioner Wong? Yes. I was wondering,

did staff happen to do an analysis of whether or not I know some organizations get, like, fund grant matching depending on, like, funding we give. I would I don't know if staff maybe did analysis on that in.

Now looking at matching, I personally don't know of any jurisdictions that are doing that. What we looked at were jurisdictions that are allocating some combination of the DBG, home, which is another federal funding source that the city receives, but it's allocated through a different process, and general fund.

Okay. And then, I guess, just if we go to a two year cycle and if some organizations, when they get, like, they were funding from this process and then they get grant matching from elsewhere, once they be impacted. It's, like, becoming a two year cycle, and so one year, it wouldn't have interest.

If they were funded for the two year cycle, they would be able to match in that second year because they're receiving funds for two years.

I think I see what you're saying. Yeah.

So if if you if your agency is funded for a two year cycle of a $100,000 Yeah.

Per year, Well,

it'd be a $100,000 in year one, and then year two would be contingent. But the assumption would be you'd be funded at that same level, assuming funds are available to fund you at that same level for year two.

Okay. I appreciate that clarification.

You. I was just thinking, you know, to have a balanced approach of wanting objectivity at which the rubric, if aligned with priorities of the of the city, will reflect on the rubric and then be able to still have that engagement of the of the commission and and that ability to be able to, you know, interview and deliberate, probably have a weight on, like, this is the wait for the rubric. This is the wait for the, you know, the interview process. So I think it will balance it in a way. And that's what I was kinda thinking and hearing everybody's, you know, comments.

Commissioner Singh?

Just one last one comment is that I feel like an issue with the rubric can be that let's say if you're just using the rubric to do the funding allocation based on scores. Right? Now you're gonna make that decision based on questions that are asked on that. But when but there could be other things that are not considered on that rubric that you can potentially gain through the interview process. And then there's basically, what I'm trying to get at is that there's sort of values or things that we know as we live in the city that we feel that are important that a particular agency is providing.

Even though it might not be necessarily captured in that group break, I think personal input becomes valuable at that time.

Thank you. Well, I have a couple of comments. And regarding the two year funding cycle, I would like to suggest consideration of an option three. And that would be to pilot the two year with perhaps just one ARC. And I would start with services since it would have the biggest impact, but I don't see jumping into all of this at one time only because it there's no guarantee that the data points are even going to align, let alone match.

I think we could do ourselves a favor by looking at adhesives. And, you know, there's this whole thing about how do you eat an elephant. It's one bite at a time. So I think this would be our bite.

Delicious.

Okay. This is gonna be fine. So then the other thing is I do agree the rubric needs to be updated, and it needs to be updated on a regular basis so that it is reflected. But I would also suggest that we continue the interviews. And, personally, I like the in person interviews.

I think the Zoom provides convenience, but I also believe it promotes a barrier. I think there are people who are afraid of technology. They don't know how they're coming across, and they come across as a little plastic. Mhmm. So I would I would ask for an in person interview, and those are really my three pertinent comments.

Anyone else?

Can I make just a couple additions based on the comments? I I think the elephant metaphor is apt and have been kind of as you all have been offering your comments speaking through what are bite sized to continue the metaphor options and thinking about ways to stagger. I think a fifty fifty stagger would be an annual funding process. So I would not necessarily recommend that. I think part of what we're looking for also is reducing the burden on applicants.

So folks who apply in one year and don't get it are forced to apply again, which would be their prerogative. But I think we we're gonna take it back at staff, but, like, just so you can kinda see where my head is right now and thinking about we have CDBG funding, and we have general fund funding. So we could do a two year cycle for CDBG grantees who are already a little more robust in their admin capabilities and are the ones that have the greatest administrative burden to begin with because they have monthly reimbursements, and they have more frequent reporting obligations. And they have to absolutely get us the report. There's no flex because we can't be flexible with HUD.

So we could potentially look at two years for CDBG, annual for general fund, which would reduce the number of applicants. We have to figure out how agencies could appropriately self select into those. I'm a two year cycle agency. I'm a one year cycle agency because we do have some agencies that have never received CBD coupons but still think they do. So there's so I'm I'm hearing you all, and I think our team, as you can tell, are taking very detailed notes. It's like a typing pool. Thank you. Alright. Alright. So we I think for next steps on this piece is that we will put our heads back together with your feedback.

I am hearing that a rubric is not exclusively objective. I agree. Rubrics definitely have inherent bias. I think rubrics that you use and don't use are just are very complicated. We're trying to get us to a place where we're at least consistently using a tool. But I hear the pieces about interest in some sort of interviews that we don't wanna lose the kind of human voice. So we'll bring it back and kinda talk about where we can strike balance. I I do wanna say I've been really focused on the transparent transparency and objectivity, but I don't wanna lose sight of we're also trying to reduce the burden on our applicants. Mhmm. And so they have been very clear with us that the weekends are the time where they don't have to work.

So if we can get away from Saturday interviews, if we can kind of, like, think about some of those things or for some agencies, whether it's because they scored so high, they don't interview. Like, so we're trying to also think about what we're asking of them that is reasonable compared to other jurisdictions. I'll stop there. So we do still need to take action on the funding recommendations. Yes. I apologize. We kind of combined some things here with work section and

act.

So we can vote on each separately, or we can have a motion to adopt all the recommendations in one. Is there a preference?

I move to adopt all the recommendations as set forth by.

I'll second, miss.

Are there any revisions or friendly amendments? That's both. Edmund, did you get the first one especially? Do, but I would make sure as as the recommendations have been lifted. This okay.

Hey. Commissioner Moore? Yes. Commissioner Mattson? Yes. Commissioner Alvitek? Yes. Commissioner Angulo? No. Commissioner Braar?

Yes.

Commissioner Dowell?

Yes.

Commissioner De Leon? No. Commissioner Dunn?

Yes.

Commissioner Kasuk? No. Commissioner Kimura? Yes. Commissioner Singh?

Yes.

Commissioner Tabitha? Yes. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. And commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you.

That passes. You very

much for all of your attention and interest and comments on this issue.

I this is a standing item. I we previously have had updates from the Brussels City steering committee. I don't believe we have any updates on those for you all tonight. And I'm gonna move us to the agenda planning calendar. Does everybody review this?

May I ask a question regarding conversations on racial equity public safety?

I'm I'm not looking to pick a scab here, but, I'm just not recalling our expectations for this agenda item moving forward. Is there a a work group that's happening now that in the future will update us, or is this

just here until something Give me a pin until we get the staff announcements because I think it'll be relevant. Okay. Or I can jump ahead if you want. But it is, I think, related to the council's changes in the appointed officers handbook and the uniform guidance. If you don't mind, we can discuss it there.

Are there any comments or changes that you'd like to make to the planning calendar?

Question. When would we debrief the CAF recommended changes again?

We would do it in May.

In May? That's what that item would be. Yeah.

Oh, I see it now. Okay.

I will motion to accept the the calendar as it is.

Second. September 20 calendar of. Yes. Mister Jackson? Yes. Mister Albinci? Yes. Mister Anulu? Yes. Mister Brewer?

Yes.

Mister Gao? Yes. Mister Daley Young? Yes. Mister Gun? Yes. Mister Kasuk? Yes. Mister Kumar? Yes. Mister Singh?

Yes.

Mister Felipe? Yes. Mister Wheeler? Yes. And mister Wong?

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. It's kinda. Okay. Thank are down to council member and commissioner and staff announcements. Council? Okay.

Sure. I have three, and I'll be brief. The first one is Tennyson High School. The students that there's a group of Tennyson High School students called We Are We The People. They are going to DC because they won a very, very prestigious award, the John Lewis Team Award, which is an extraordinary honor given to one team in the country, and it was given to Tennyson High School.

Wow. And and that's And

there's about 20 students who we need to

get to DC to go and get this award and then to compete in a national competition. It's gonna cost about 40 to $45,000 to get these kids to DC, but we are committed to doing it. So we are having a fundraiser this Sunday at Casa Del Toro from 3PM to 5PM. The mayor and all kinds of council members are hosting it. We're expecting, you know, perhaps our congressmen to stop by and others, but we want you guys to stop by.

We want you to spread the news. I posted it on my social media. The mayor has it on his and so do other council members, but please do spread the word and also consider contributing as well to, you know, sending these kids to DC. That's my first one. The second one is the Hayward Youth Commission is currently doing recruitment.

So the youth commission deals with issues that impact youth in Hayward, and they're an advisory board to the city of Hayward City Council, to the board of education, as well as to the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District. So they meet here once a month. I encourage you guys if you know young people who wanna be interested in, you know, civic engagement, governance, local government. If you have kids or people in your neighborhood, please encourage them to apply. The deadline is May 9. I was on the youth commission, so I'm happy to talk to anyone who's interested or who's gonna go through that application process, but the application deadline is May 9. And then lastly, I just want to congratulate congratulate, the new chair of the CST, chair Wilder.

Thank And

also thank commissioner Moore for her time

as chair. Thank you. Yes.

Alright. Commissioner announcements? Moving right along. Staff announcements.

We've got some. Very important reminder, if you have not completed your form 700, please do. If you wanna commit it complete it in paper, you can give it to me if you happen to have it with you. I promised the clerk I would say that. But, please, if you have it, the clerk sent emails reminding you all to complete it this week.

If you have questions, there's a phone number for the Fair Political Practices Committee, and they are responsive and will answer your questions. I'm gonna skip around a little bit. If you did not attend the December volunteer appreciation event, that means you did not have the opportunity to pick up your City of Hayward branded beanie. Honor system, if you didn't get one, there are nine in a pile over there. Feel free to pick up yours if you didn't get one. Oh, yeah. Not like a baby baby. That's okay. Sorry. I would better be sweat. I'll talk to economic development.

He'll create

Well, I apologize. We can't

Baby baby.

Yeah. Okay. We'll get on that. I'll give you the feedback. That's always a very useful group. And then I'm gonna turn it over to assistant city manager, Yanbug, to give you some updates on the council ad hoc committee on boards and commissions.

Yes. Thank you very much, Amy. Thank you. So on March 4, the city council approved recommendations that came from the ad hoc committee on boards and commissions that the mayor seated after a work session that was conducted last March. There were some updates to, the appointed persons or appointed officials handbook, and also, an ordinance was introduced on March 4.

The key updates that affect the CSC include reducing the CSC membership from 17 to 11 through attrition, clarifying the CSC's role to focus on advising council on resource allocation for community services, reducing the number of meetings to better align with the funding cycle. And we talked about a little bit of that tonight and how those meetings might be repurposed to address outreach and understanding of service providers and their work. Removing outdated responsibilities that no longer reflect the expected scope of report. And so speaking to chair elect Wheeler's question, that would align with the standing items that had been on the commission's agenda being removed to focus the scope on funding allocations for community service. And so just yesterday, council officially adopted the ordinance that updates the CSC's structure, and those changes take effect in thirty days, which that would put us around mid April.

In addition to the changes, because the changes were not just focused on the CSC, were updates to the appointed officials handbook, which you have in front of you today that established the general guidelines for all commissions to follow in terms of establishing their meetings, their structure, and the clerk's office is also gonna be implementing a digital welcome binder for new commissioners that will roll out, after new appointments.

Thank you.

I would just add that follow-up binder will be made available to everyone. In terms of getting this volume down to the 11 folks, as Regina said, it'll it will be done through attrition. And there are eight members of the commission currently whose terms end in September. Two will be termed out and unable to continue based on these guidelines. Six of you can can affirm that you want to continue to serve and serve a second term.

I'll be emailing folks individually if that applies to you, and then the clerk will be following up. So we will still be doing a recruit like, participating in the recruitment this spring. I know there was kind of some uncertainty about that. I confirmed with the clerk that we will still be recruiting for new members. So we will be leveraging you all to share with your networks when we get to that point. It'll be in April. Also, if you have ideas for ways for the clerk to do effective outreach to get more folks interested in serving not just on this commission, but our planning commission personnel, library, youth commission, which is being recruited, like, right now especially. But, please feel free to share. The clerk has asked. They they're looking for feedback on how to best get the word out.

But we will do we do recruitment. They'll at least have alternatives ready, that type of thing. So we wanna make sure that we don't get to a situation where we're not able to make quorum, that kind of thing as we kinda slowly bring the number down to 11. Are there any questions or anything on that? I also realized you have the updated handbook and the uniform guidelines.

I forgot to get you a copy of the ordinance that was updated. There is a red line copy that we'll send to you electronically so you can see what changes happened to the ordinance as well as well. I have a question about the youth commission particularly. I was wondering if they're able to decide on funding that our youth services, if we're able to give them how in that way. The youth commission making funding recommendation for, like, the youth services that would come up. I don't know the answer to

that question, but we can ask.

We can put it to

I don't know who, but we'll we'll talk about it.

A couple of recommendations that came forward.

A couple of members from the youth commission came to

the meeting on board, and they

had some recommendations for how they could be more engaged, and we might wanna review those as well.

Missionary, you got your hand up. Yes. Thank you. I have a

clarifying question. Are you just, suggesting that a youth be on this commission or have a seat on this commission or just a special kind of arc situation?

Yeah. Maybe, like, a special kind of arc situation. Thank

you for your update on the March 4 meeting. Is there any place where these conversations are taking place, or is the city council deciding where like, I know that I'm forgetting the title, but there is a a new, I think, DEI or equity officer or something of that nature. Are the and I know that the Russell City task force, I believe, concluded their work. Is there any location or body where those conversations are continuing? I understand they won't be continuing on this agenda.

Yeah. So the city has equity ambassadors. Unfortunately, we have recently lost our equity and inclusion officer to the county.

Oh. And she got a

great promotional opportunity, so she'll continue to be working with us on on things, that that address equity in the the county and how they touch us here in Hayward. But continuing on in that work are a number of employees who have been trained in equity work who are broken down into three different subcommittees focused on increasing their membership training for the rest of the organization and then also, language access. And so that's how they're going to be focusing their efforts as we move forward in this time of transition. But those those conversations are happening within the city, and then we hope to see them pushed out. But, of course, every department and division within departments have an equity focus.

They have projects that they have, an equity lens attached to. And so we're trying to make it part of the work and not an additional piece of work, and just providing guidance and tools to people to help them think differently about who's being served, who might be impacted by different policy changes. Thank you.

And then just adding on to that, you know, I think that equity is a priority for everyone on city council through everything that we do. So to what assistant city manager Youngblood was saying is we're now using equity as a lens in which we view every decision. So when we're looking at public safety, we're looking at it through a lens of equity. When we're talking about housing community services, we're talking about it through a lens of equity. So I appreciate what she was saying is instead of sort of having this as a separate initiative, we're really embedding it in the fabric of how we operate as a city to make sure that everything we do, we're looking at it from who's being served, who's not being served, and how is this either, you know, advancing or perpetuating issues of equity or inequity within our community. But I really appreciate that question.

Thank you.

Yeah. And and I appreciate that also. One thing I wanna make sure is since this is not gonna be a standing item on our agenda is that similarly to council that we are using this lens as we go forward. So my I'm hoping that as we do the recommendations to the CAF process, and I realize that part is over, but, I'm hoping that that lens remains just as it does with council with public safety committee outside.

That it? Okay. I'd like to thank all of you for allowing me to serve the last two plus months in this position. Thank you very much. Now we are adjourned at 09:02.