City Council - meeting_joint_regular

call the rules and over government committee meeting to order let's start with roll please yep here here thank you we're going to start by reviewing the council agenda for Tuesday May 12 I'm Well, you can't bring me anywhere. All right, we'll start with this agenda. The closed session at 9.30, regular session at 1.30, and consent starts on page five. All right, need some duct tape. Consent ends on... Consent ends on page six. Section three, we have a public hearing on the operating capital budgets. And in section five, we have an amendment to the airport master plan. Section six, public services solid waste services rate. Section eight, major events status report. And 8.2 being deferred to June 2nd. And it looks like there's no land use items, so do we have any public comment?

Approval. Second.

All right, I don't see any hands, so let's vote. That motion carries 5-0. And now we're on to our first review of the agenda for Tuesday, May 19th. This one has a 9.30 closed session, 1.30 regular session, and the cancellation of the evening session. And consent starts on page five. And continues on pages six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and ends on page 11. Section three, our citywide customer experience transformation status report. section five item five one deferred to june second item six one san jose clean energy program roadmap status report and one item in land use and our environmental review policy do we have any public comment all right we have motion in a second so let's vote on the agenda Okay, that motion carries 5-0, and so now we're on to our consent calendar, which has only one item today. Do we have a motion on consent?

So moved.

Any public comment on consent?

I just thought it was important to acknowledge the work that the auditors do and how it keeps us all in the straight and narrow, so to speak, and I just want to thank them.

Okay, back to the committee. We have a motion already, so let's vote. And that motion carries 5-0. Now we're on to item one of action, the policy analysis of vacant commercial storefront activation tools. Were you here to, did you want to say something on this, council member? No. Oh, okay. Anybody, nobody? Any public comment on this one?

I know activating our storefronts is a critical area, critical. The city has talked about it quite a bit. I don't know how much you've actually resourced right down the street at San Jose State. They have civil engineers, they have people that are hungry to get something done, and I bet you cooperated with them. You may already do that, I'm not sure, but this could really open the door for some people to actually get their feet wet in city work, and certainly not a far way to commute. Best of both worlds. I'd encourage you to look into it if you're not doing that now. Thank you.

Jordan Moldau, District 3. I'm supportive of doing what we can to try and eliminate hurdles to filling in vacant storefronts. I wanted to add some of my own thoughts on the matter. I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago and I went to a coffee shop And then I noticed that later in the evening, it's no longer a coffee shop, it's a bar. So two completely different businesses operating in the same storefront, presumably each paying half the rent or something like that. And so I'm not familiar with what restrictions may or may not be in place for that kind of use, but if there are any restrictions like that, We might want to see if we can make it easier to do things like that because maybe a business isn't profitable enough to be open for a full day in order to pay the rent. But if two businesses could move in and pay half the rent, then maybe that opens up more opportunities that we wouldn't have otherwise. So I'd encourage maybe to add something like that into the scope. And then maybe other creative ways that we might think about besides just getting a single business into a storefront. I don't know if there's ways that If a BID collectively wants to make a particular storefront less empty, I don't know if there's ways for BIDs to pool their money and rent a vacant storefront to do something collectively with the space. So I don't know. But yeah, hopefully we can think creatively on that. And very relatedly is the topic of vacant. parking lots that aren't doing anything either. And I believe there was a proposal that was adopted last year to figure out ways to reduce the red tape for activating them with food trucks. And I'm wondering where that's at and if that has moved forward or if that's still being worked on.

Back to the committee.

Okay, it looks like Council Member Mulcahy is in the box and wants to give a little introduction or comment.

Thank you. Jordan just kind of gave me a reason to say something. And, you know, I really look at this as much about an economic development tool. And I just want to recognize the council members who we worked with, Cohen, Ortiz, Tordillos, and Duan. And I want to recognize Joey Morrow, who's been working for months on this through lots of different departments. Vacant storefronts are where all five of our city council priorities meet. And by turning empty, blighted spaces into active small businesses and community uses, and even looking further at cooperative kind of uses like was just mentioned by our speaker in Jordan, it makes our streets feel safer and more cared for, supports small business entrepreneurs, creates healthier, safer, better lit corridors, and cleans up our neighborhoods. And I just want to reiterate, above all, this really is an economic development memo. Less vacancy means more jobs and sales tax, and less blight equals less strain on our public safety response. Thank you, colleagues. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I'm glad to have signed on to the memo with you. And we're back to the committee. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Thank you for bringing this memo forward. I think it's an important work. I will move approval of the memo subject to workload analysis.

Second.

Okay, so the motion is to send it to workload analysis probably to come back in a week or two for us to reevaluate and send to council potentially. So without anything other in our hands, let's vote. Oh, I did. Okay, I guess I didn't see your hands. Well, go ahead, Council Member DeWong.

No, thank you, Chair.

No, a very supportive memorandum, because I think it's an activation of the vacant commercial storefront, which reduces a lot of blight, and it speeds up the process from six months up to three years. So it'll give rooms for the PBC to be able to plan it out. So I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.

thank you now there are no more hands so let's vote motion carries 5-0 and we're on to the second item this is our return from the workload analysis of the memo on prefab factory produced housing structures looks like it was fully green lighted anything else to say no it's a green light this is work already initiated within the department okay do we have any public comment Ryan

green light it sent you another email this one has a long attachment it's about 70 pages long I think maybe 30 pages I got it down from 300 so I just want to let you know that I took the time to go through each of the contacts on there they're either organizations that help with manufactured housing they provide various types of manufactured housing There's a rubrics, I took all the memos I could find and put that into the mix for the AI to sort it out, write it out, and I hope it's of some use, and I hope that you at least take a glance at it. Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Okay, we'll start with Council Member Kamei.

As part of the work coming back, will that also include, you know, how tall these things can be and any kind of criteria?

It's my understanding staff is going through their criteria as part of this, yes.

Excellent, thank you. Okay, your hand's up.

No, I just wanted to give my appreciation to staff for the work on this and I look forward to the follow-up and it being green-lighted. Thank you.

Did we move it already?

No, we did not. Go ahead and make a motion. Did we move it already? Okay, all right. Oh, we did move it, okay. Did we?

We made the motion. I didn't think so. No, I don't think this one had a motion. Go ahead and make a motion.

I'll move.

All right, we have a motion and a second, and no more hands. Motion carries, 5-0. My microphone is red-lit right now, and we are on to open forum. Public comment, please.

Brian and Jordan.

I know the long days are coming up with the budget I think it's it's late part of May June when most of the budget takes place and then the long nights start. But after that, during your July, I would like you to consider, I've sent it a couple times, some kind, there are some people I tried contacting, but because I don't represent the city and would not do that unless given permission to do it, for a special day of remembrance or a day of acknowledgement for people who are crime victims. It crosses all geopolitical, it crosses all political, race, religion, or not religion, any demographic you can name, people are victims of crime. I spent, at times, going through next door, and you read about people who lose their tools, their car is stolen, and it is their life. They work two, three, four jobs. It's not an exaggeration. Their car is stolen. They're often told, and this is no fault of police or anybody, that they can't be everywhere. There's not much we can do, or they find the car and it's been stripped. Their insurance goes up. They lose their jobs. They can lose their apartment, and it does happen. some kind of acknowledgement for what these people go through we have a flag raving ceremonies and days of recognition that you do up here all crime victims have one thing in common they've lost their sense of security and that is something that is very hard to get back these days of recognition this day of recognition may help that process thank you okay oh sorry one more

Jordan Moldau, District 3. I was listening to part of the budget study session this morning on YouTube. And if I heard correctly, part of the budget proposal is to do a slight increase in the parking meter fees downtown. I'd like to say I'm generally supportive of that idea. I hear occasionally from people, oh, it's too hard to park downtown, which I don't believe that. Despite what you might believe, I own a car and I occasionally drive it downtown and I've never had trouble parking. I assume that folks who are having trouble are only looking for curbside parking and aren't looking for the many parking garages. And increasing parking meter fees during times of high demand can actually increase parking turnover. which makes it easier to park. So we generate more revenue for the city budget and people don't complain as much about not being able to find curbside parking. So I think it's a win-win. I do know that there are cities out there that have experimented with sort of pseudo-dynamic parking meter fees where they look at their data of when is parking highly utilized, when is it less highly utilized, and then they have a time of day fee that during the days and the hours when demand is expected to be high, the rate is higher, and when it's low demand and there's lots of empty spaces, the price can be decreased. And so possibly experimenting with something like that could be a way of maybe raising additional revenue if our rates are too low during high demand times of day, and also providing relief during non-peak hours where there isn't as much demand, you can lower the rate and then people pay less. So maybe something to consider. I know that piloting that might itself cost money, so that might not be possible, but I just want to put the idea out there for consideration. Thanks. Thank you.

And we are adjourned at 2.15 p.m.