City Council - Regular Meeting

ALL RIGHT. WE'RE ABOUT TO GET STARTED. THANK YOU, EVERYBODY. HERE WE ARE MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 5 P.M., SPECIAL STUDY SESSION ON PLACE-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC PLAN. A ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

COUNCILMEMBER BROCKO. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN.

HERE.

COUNCILMEMBER FUGATSI. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER HILTON.

HERE.

COUNCILMEMBER MARX. HERE. COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ. HERE.

Okay, Raisa, take it away.

Okay.

Sorry. One second, Raisa. Are the screens off?

Yes.

They're not on. Sorry.

It is now. Thank you. Thank you. And now my mic is on. Do you guys have it up there yet? Okay.

She just needs to have a single button, red button. Button's underneath there.

All right. Oh, OK.

Yeah.

Right. So did ours.

I didn't push any buttons. She came up and did it.

I AM HERE TODAY WITH DAVID ZENDER AND PETER CHANG OF Economic and Planning Systems or EPS. They're the consultants who wrote the 2019 place-based economic development strategy and most recently are providing us with the completed data update. So before we get into their findings and get deep into data, I just want to take a moment to ground us in a definition of economic development. And the reason I'm doing this is somewhat selfish. It's because I am frequently told what economic development is. And it runs the gamut, right? It's anything from sales tax revenue generation to a workforce development program. Most specifically, people love the idea of the magical business job fair model. But it's also business attraction, which I frequently ask, what kind of business, where, why, how? So for that reason, I just want to take a moment and read you the CalEd definition of economic development, which is that economic development is the creation of wealth from which community benefits are realized. It is more than a jobs program. It's an investment in growing your economy. and enhancing the prosperity and quality of life for all residents. And what I love about this statement is that it doesn't isolate the role of government from that of the community and from business. It's really just a gracefully global application of what economic development is, and I think it's an important ground setting for the discussion we're going to have today. The other thing I want to do is just tell you where we are in the process. As I noted in the staff report, the ultimate objective of coming to you today and through a series of study sessions or what do you call this, a study session, is to fully develop an action plan, an economic growth and vitality action plan. I'm choosing to call it an action plan because we have existing strategies and we need to just get down to the brass tacks of doing business. And so where we are now is in the assessment part and we're in the process of building out the action plan that will eventually get us into implementation. And with that, I'm going to hand it over so you see where we are. in relation to where we want to be and how we're going to get there. So with that, oh, I have to get out of this. Stop share. And switch, I'm gonna just quickly switch presentations, okay. It should switch over in just a second, I think.

Yeah. Perfect.

So like you said before, David, correct? Before David starts, the idea is he's going to be presenting some data and information to us sort of from the past. So during his presentation, that would be the time for questions about that. And then you're going to be coming back

Thank you. I forgot to mention that. So, yeah, this is the data update, and it might be helpful to you to ask questions about the data because it is in-depth and data-heavy. So if you want to ask questions about the data, that's a good time to do it now. And then I'm going to come back up and then walk us through the outline of the action plan and where we are now. So it's up to you if you want to ask questions now and later. We'll be around.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Hi, I'm David Zender. I'm a senior principal with EPS. And it's nice to be in front of you, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. So we're going to take you through the sort of foundational aspect of our data analysis that we've done to really update post-pandemic. Very few jurisdictions have a clear idea of what's happened since the pandemic. So we're going to bring you up to date with pretty much all the economic trends that are pervasive here in Gilroy. And so I'm going to take you through a quick update or kind of intro here. We're going to talk about a lot of different things here, as you can see. I'll provide an overview, and then I'm going to turn it over to Peter to take you through items two through five, and then I'll be back up to talk about the real estate context and economic development to wrap it up. But please feel free to ask questions as we go. I think we can be informal here and really field questions on the fly. It's easier that way because it's more in the moment as opposed to waiting until afterward. So please feel free just to jump in with questions. Happy to handle those. So this is really for me in particular, this is the culmination or sort of were being brought together here at the end of an eight-year period where I've been advising Gilroy on different economic development things. And that started with the place-based economic development strategy seven years ago, as was mentioned. Of course, our work on that began something like eight years ago. So the development of that report, which was a joint effort between the city and the then Economic Development Corporation here in Gilroy, And since that time, of course, the city has taken over the economic development function. And personally, I think that's a good thing, as it allows for bringing multiple things to the table in terms of tools and techniques. And so we don't need to belabor this. I'm David. That's Peter. The firm deals in more than just economic development, but I think all the list of things that you can see here that we handle can be considered part of the overall economic development milieu. It's kind of a cluster of topics. Economic development does not exist as its own discipline. It's really a combination of a multitude of things. So land use, fiscal impact, public finance. So you're trying to work with finance department, with your planning department, with administration, and all these. Having it in-house allows you to do those things as far as coordination really effectively, whereas having an outside corporation may have made it a little bit more difficult. to have that kind of coordination. So just my take on it. After doing the place-based economic development strategy, we, of course, worked with you on Gilroy Gardens, the Sharks Ice Project, and a number of other analyses. And so here we are today. We're going to take you through an update of the economic development fundamentals driving Gilroy's future. And so we're going to turn it over to Peter first. to take you through a few things. Just quickly before we go into the data, we want to set the geographic context here. And I think it's clear Gilroy enjoys a really unique and valuable location on the 101 corridor. A lot of our analysis looked at your position on the 101 corridor from Salinas to San Jose. And it is interesting because I think for a long time, Gilroy has been looking north. and wondering if there would be a tech influence descending down to Gilroy that would help drive its economy. At the same time, you have a massive industrial agricultural complex to the south in Salinas. And so clearly that is going to have influence. This is still an agricultural community as well. And so what you see kind of from the meta view is, well, there's a potential for both of these things to cross over. agriculture and technology. And so that would seem to be sort of a natural for Gilroy in the future. And that's one of the things that we've been looking for as we go through this kind of analysis. And so we'll tell you about sort of what we found as far as influence from these adjoining counties and then some of the other factors that are influencing what you have currently. But certainly those are a few interesting aspects. And then here, looking locally, clearly you have a very diverse economy in Gilroy. And Gilroy is very different on the west side versus the east side. So we talked about that in the place-based economic development strategy a bit. And we'll talk about that a little bit more today, because there may be some opportunities emerging to diversify somewhat on the east and strengthen yourself economically. But that's just one of the things to come. So I'll let Peter take you through these next few topics, and I'll be up to talk about real estate. Thanks.

All right. We're going to kind of move through some of these data points really quickly because there's a lot of material to go here. The one thing that we found in the data analysis here is that Gilroy, your economic base, and your labor force, they are unique and distinct from Santa Clara County. In fact, you share a lot of characteristics with San Benito and Monterey counties. You're at a very unique crossroads. And so your economic roles and your opportunities are very different from your neighbors to the north, to the south, and to the west here. The population grew really rapidly in the 1990s, and it's slowed in recent years. But the one thing that defines Gilroy that makes it a little bit different than your neighbors is that you have large households, but you don't have overcrowded conditions. And so that makes it a little bit different here. The demographic characteristics, you align closer to other communities along the 101 corridor than the rest of Santa Clara County. And your economic development opportunities, just from the top level, from the top level data analysis here, You've got a lot, but you're really kind of focused on a lot of things here that are more driven by tourism growth, that are with higher level agricultural and food processing industries, and also industrial activity that might require a higher level of skill, but is more cost sensitive. is really where you're looking at your opportunities that might be coming down to Gilroy from parts of Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the Bay Area economy. Demographically, you can see this is the population trend. Very rapid growth through about the year 2000, slowed down in recent years. Unlike your other neighbors, Gilroy did not really lose population during the pandemic. So that differentiates you from San Jose and other parts of the Bay Area. Demographically, you can kind of see here, this is the educational attainment. The blue bar is showing the high school education. The yellow bar, that's showing the bachelor's degree educational attainment. You can kind of see Gilroy is about close to the state average for high school education, below the state average for a percentage of the population of bachelor's degrees. Gilroy, your unemployment rate is about on par with the rest of the state, but your labor force participation is higher than the rest of the state and also higher than your neighboring counties and some of the other communities around here. The commute, yes, you got some long commute times, but one of the more interesting data points with the commute has to do with the remote work. You can kind of see here that Santa Clara County in general, very, very high remote work rate. Gilroy, you're below the statewide average, and that's a reflection of the labor force. They tend not to be as tied in to the occupations that are reliant on remote work. Yes?

Can you go back?

Yes.

Can you go back just the month before this?

The month before that, the unemployment.

So when I read through this packet, I was surprised unless I read it long, which is very possible. that when you talk about our unemployment rate, it seems to be on par or whatever, and we have a high rate of those that are unemployed. But talk to me about the income levels of those employed versus the others. And when I read the packet, it made reference to $350,000 and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure I read it wrong.

Yeah, I mean, you have a good income level here in the community. I mean, it is higher than the statewide average. It's lower than Morgan Hill and Santa Clara County. It's kind of like you have, like I mentioned in the beginning here, you have a lot of characteristics here that are kind of crisscrossing between parts of the Santa Clara County economy, parts of the San Benito County economy and Monterey County. You're kind of an amalgam of all that kind of stuff together. And the unemployment rate, you're below the statewide average. for unemployment for the labor force. Your labor utilization is really high. So that could indicate a lot of things in terms of, it means that you don't have as high a level of people, for example, who are retired. It might also reflect that there's a slightly younger demographic here than elsewhere. And so it means that you got people who are ready to work. and who are ready to participate in the economy. But they might also be in economic sectors that may not have as high a labor demand. So you have people who are willing to work, who are ready to work, but they might be in some occupations. You'll kind of find here when we go over the industry clusters, there's a big bifurcation here in terms of where you have your concentrations of the labor force. Okay. So we already went over that. Demographically, you can kind of see that, you know, Gilroy, your household income is above the statewide average below the county average. You also have a public assistance dependency that's below the state average. It's a little bit higher than other locations in Santa Clara County. But you also have a very high percentage of your workers that earn income. So it's kind of the same thing as that previous point in that you have high labor participation. It also means that you have a high percentage of people who are earners. And another interesting point here with Gilroy is the household size. The blue bar there indicates the percentage of your households that have four or more people in it. And so it's an interesting part here where you have, on average, you've got larger than average household sizes. But if you look at the orange bar right there, that's the percentage of households of one or less occupants per room. So what that means is that you don't have overcrowding. You have large households, but it's a reflection of the quality of the housing stock here. And so just kind of an overview of the economic base, your proximity to both Silicon Valley to the north, Salinas Valley to the south, Monterey County to the west, you have a lot of economic opportunities that are tied into multiple areas here. The economic activity, it doesn't necessarily mirror the rest of the county economy. Your largest job generator is retail trade. That's a reflection of the presence of the outlets and also just the fact that you have a cluster in the visitor serving sector. So your major sectors here are construction, manufacturing, arts, recreation, and hospitality. Since the pandemic, this is a trend here that just kind of shows what happened during the pandemic. Yes, the employment took a hit in 2020, but you can see that your employment overall has completely recovered to the pre-pandemic levels. And this right here illustrates where the shifts occurred. This is not all of the industries, but it's kind of an indication of At the top, where are your jobs shifting towards? And then at the bottom, where are your jobs shifting away? And you can see at the top, it's healthcare, management, administrative services, educational services. Go down to the bottom, your jobs are shifting away from retail trade and manufacturing. So in general, the job shifts towards services at the county level trend, it's mirroring a lot of what's happening in Gilroy. Gilroy is really not unique in this. Most of the job forecasts that we've been looking at, they are projecting a general slowdown in job growth across multiple sectors. This is over the next decade. But ABAG, their latest forecast seems to be showing things that are more in line with historical trends. And so they are presenting a more optimistic outlook for this part of Santa Clara County. Now, industry clusters are groups of interrelated industries that kind of work together to kind of reinforce growth for one another. And Gilroy's largest clusters include hospitality, business and information services, distribution, and education. But your top two industry clusters also have a gigantic difference in the average wage levels. Hospitality, the average annual wage level is about 28,600. Business services, that's a reflection of Silicon Valley here. The average there is about 374,000 annually. So the county differs from Gilroy in that it has more tech-driven clusters. And so that potentially bodes well for Gilroy in the long run. And looking at labor supply, when you're looking at surpluses and shortages, Gilroy has an overall labor surplus of about 11,000 workers. This is the difference between your employed residents versus the number of jobs that you support locally. only retail trade has a large labor shortage right now. Every other sector has surpluses, and your largest surpluses for labor are in construction, manufacturing, professional services, and health care. The out commute of workers, you know, you're really going, to a large extent, the out commute is going to higher paying and skilled jobs outside of Gilroy. And so that Potentially bodes well for the long term if you're talking about local job development because you already have the labor force in place here. So we're looking now at transitioning over to taxable sales per capita. And overall, you can see for the orange bar here, overall the Taxable sales per capita are virtually unchanged. But what you do see with the blue bar is that for retail and food service, it has declined. So what's making up the difference here is your non-retail business base. That's what's propping up your taxable sales. And looking at it compared to the outlying areas here, you're higher than all the surrounding communities. Overall, the taxable sales per capita in Santa Clara County are higher. For retail, it's lower. And that big difference here with the county average is just a reflection of business-to-business transactions. That's just the fact that you've got some of the most lucrative tech companies located elsewhere in Santa Clara County, and that in turn generates a lot of taxable sales. So in terms of taxable sales per capita, retail and food service declined while your non-taxable transactions increased. The largest sales declines were motor vehicle sales and clothing stores. The latter part is a reflection of what's been happening with the outlets. The largest sales growth has been in general merchandise and food service. And there's a lot of competitive pressure with the outlets that they're facing from other retail outlets. And so with that, I will turn it back over to David, who will be going over some of the commercial real estate trends.

All right. So far, so good. Any questions at this point you want to throw out there? I have about 10 more minutes, and then we can have at it. Okay, great. All right. So you expect to see your commercial real estate sort of mirroring the economic realities that Peter just talked about, and I think that's true to a large extent. So initially we're talking about the industrial sector here, and one of the questions really is whether, you know, Gilroy is being perceived as a part of Silicon Valley, or if it's perceived as a service center to Silicon Valley. And I think the available evidence, this is based on a lot of broker interviews and developer interviews, but Logistics continues to be a real important driving industry here. And logistics is a classic kind of cost sensitive industrial use. Logistics is also becoming more of a high tech sort of use as well. As the buildings are becoming taller, more sophisticated. You see the improvements replete with robotic systems and really highly automated inventory systems overall. And so if you look at the Cochrane Technology Center that was developed in Morgan Hill, several million square feet by Trammell Crow, I believe, in that area, completely unleashed at this stage. They're geared toward a whole wide variety of things, but they are shooting at least for some logistics. It looks like they're set up for advanced manufacturing as well. And so far, it looks like it's not really taking. And I think that's consistent with what we have heard in terms of interest in value added kind of knowledge intensive industry coming south. It's not quite here yet. But at the same time, every indicator is with your labor force, and some of the other things Peter talked about, it's going to arrive if you have land and the willingness and so forth, okay? So that was sort of the meta message that we heard regarding kind of all classes of office and industrial that you're really still in quite a support mode at this stage, but there are some positive healthy signs. So some of those, I mentioned the advanced manufacturing, That's sort of focused right now in the 880 corridor, Fremont, and so forth. People have been expecting it to jump over into the Tri-Valley, and people are gearing up for that. It's not quite happening yet. And then there's some anticipation that it could come south. I think it's still a long-term prospect. It's going to take several more years before we see non-logistics, sort of more data-intensive, knowledge-intensive facets of industry moving to Gilroy. But it is a possibility, I think, within a decade. So vacancy rates are still healthy. They were tight at 3%. There's been some product added. We're looking at a healthier 6%. Generally, you want 5% or 6% in your economy to allow freedom of movement. If you're down around 2% or 3%, that's kind of dysfunctional. It means your market's too tight. Often you'll get rapid increases in lease rates under those conditions. So where you're at right now is pretty healthy. Lease rates are showing some positive growth. And again, I think you're riding the logistics wave now. And then the other really important piece is owner users. So a lot of markets around the Bay Area are sort of spec markets. People come out and they take a bet and they build product and lease it up. Gilroy is still driven by owner users who have an industry, they need a facility, they look for land that suits their needs from a labor and capital standpoint and they build and they control and operate that asset. So it's very different and you have a much higher percentage of that than say Morgan Hill. Salinas actually has quite a bit of this type of space as well. So you can see here these three comparisons of Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Salinas. Gilroy has 7 million square feet of product and an average price of $16 per square foot per year. Morgan Hill has almost half of the industrial product that, or a little over half that Gilroy has. And then Salinas is a behemoth at 16 million square feet and a slightly lower lease rate because it is a more a little bit more sensitive in the ag industry. Lease rates are a bit lower. In the real estate market and in the retail market, I should say, we've seen overall in the country sort of a lull in retail construction. I think it's pretty well accepted by a lot of folks that we're over retailed in America. We have something like 25 square feet per capita of retail. Other advanced Western economies have more like 10 to 15 square feet per capita. And you can see it when you look around, and you can see quite a bit of, not just in Gilroy, but Morgan Hill and other, all up and down the corridor. There's excess retail, poor performing, low sales per square foot, Class B and C buildings. But those do offer opportunities for startups, and it's not a bad thing to have some less expensive space in your community. But that said, You know, so where we are in Gilroy right now is we have vacancy rates that have fluctuated, obviously, with the outlets. Simon has, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but Simon has consolidated their holdings. They've moved away from half of their outlets and consolidated to the area over to the, more to the north. And that is going well. did a little impromptu market research on my way in. And they're very optimistic about the customer flow and the amount of people coming through. So it seems like Simon has made a good decision and so forth. So the retail piece is strong from a local serving perspective. From a regional tourism perspective, we know the story. We know that Simon's not investing here to the degree that they are in Livermore and other locales. And so we have some more thoughts about that. But to move on, market for office is largely unchanged. The whole office market throughout the country, with the exception of really important employment nodes, is pretty dormant. So suburban office space isn't likely to happen here or really on a 101 corridor, perhaps Some space could be speculative built in San Jose, but otherwise it's sort of an industry that's dormant for the time being. It's just not a preference for office users. So you can see in the retail, you've got about four million square feet in Gilroy, about two million square feet or three in Morgan Hill, and then a much larger market In Salinas and Gilroy, you've seen the precipitous drop from 23 to 25 as the outlets have consolidated. And then I'm not going to speak too much to the office market because there's not a lot of activity there. But the one thing I'll say is I think downtown offers a great potential for boutique office, local office users. I mean, it has a quality of life that people like and want to work in. So I think you should explore that as part of the totality of uses that you'll be exploring for downtown in the future. So industrial outlook, slow uptake in the short term, advanced manufacturing is off in the distance a little bit. Zoning flexibility is a real big issue. People prefer the M2 zoning here over M1. It gives them more flexibility. Almost all M1 is included, but then the ability to have more kind of intensive industry under M2 is attractive. Having options is attractive. So that's something we definitely heard. There's been some, again, reinforcement that the market here is very price sensitive. And then the other thing is there are some significant development constraints. And power is one of those. And then land is another. So we have some very large lots, and then we have lots that are too small. So there needs to be more investment in connecting the pieces of the east side in particular to create more development opportunities for these employers. Retail outlook. I think, again, we are... out of time maybe but we're seeing that the outlets do need some TLC and that we think that there is opportunity for some creative repositioning on the east side to perhaps get a little bit more creative with land use and to like focus on quality of life and diversify a little bit and we can talk about that more if you like. So that will wrap up my comments, and thank you very much. Thank you.

OK. I am going to jam through more information for you. Hold on one second. OK. I'm going to get into what I'm proposing for the action plan. So again, just some quick additional place setting on this. I wanted to show this wheel just to give you an idea of all the elements that go into economic development and all the departments that affect it. So literally, there's not a department in the city that does not involve themselves in economic development. The tools are generally not in the economic development department. The benefit of economic developers is that they are good at persuading people to consider broader considerations as they're working through policy development. The other thing I want to say is that as we're developing an economic development action plan, We have to do so in consideration of all the existing and upcoming plan strategies, et cetera, that we have. So obviously there's the general plan, there's the zoning code, but we are looking at climate action plan. We're looking at the downtown stationary specific plan. We have not a lot of wiggle room around state policies, AB 2011, all of those type of things. So as I'm coming up with the place-based strategies, I'm sorry, the broader action plan, it's in consideration of all of these things. The proposal for you, I'm just trying to jam through this so we can get to some discussion, is building out three pillars of a broader economic growth and vitality plan. And that includes the first pillar of which, of course, is the place-based incentives or initiatives that were outlined initially in the 2019 plan, addressing what those look like in current context, rounding out with business retention, expansion, and attraction tactics, and then obviously economic vibrancy and resiliency in the purple bubble there. So what do we mean when we talk about place-based initiatives? It is very... It's just a fancy word of saying that we're looking to enable and incentivize desired activities on identified opportunity sites and corridors, like corridor infill sites. So those were identified in the 2019 plan. Not included on this list is the outlet sites. Those obviously are... top of mind, we're always thinking about them, and they're identified in the work plan. I will say that without having an action plan and without a dedicated internal force, the market is just driving a lot of activity. Quickly looking at this, this is going to be relevant in the next thing I talk about, but on some of these sites already, there are a number of developments coming in. So we have a 500-unit housing project that's going to take up the bulk of Los Animos, the Los Animos site here. There are some smaller sites or parcels available within that Los Animas identified area for limited industrial, which will become important to us. We're working on an applicant who's going to take up about half of the San Ysidro site. This is actually great. It's anticipated to generate a solid sales tax numbers for us, so positive look at what we had originally identified for that site. Both the South Point Business Park site. We don't, but I can send you some. They're in the 2019 plan, so I can share that with you. Yeah, so these are on the east side, or the South Point Business Park site and Rancho San Ysidro site. That's already under development or planned development for some warehouse uses, and then like the TVT site, we got Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. So you can see that there's ongoing movement in the sites that were identified in 2019. In terms of the tactics for this action plan, this pillar of the action plan, it really comes down to policies, financing tools, and partnerships and engagement. So the urban growth boundaries are causing us to look really strategically or they really require us to look strategically at the remaining land that we have available for development and how we best using it to get the highest best use out of it. So that might include redevelopment of sites or assessing sites as they're used currently or as their zone currently so that we can understand how to incentivize them. When I'm talking about policies, I'm talking about the land use policies that mostly community development is working on. Financing tools, there are a whole slate of financing tools that are relatively new to California. have replaced redevelopment, but there are things like enhanced infrastructure financing districts, CREAs, community revitalization infrastructure, A something, but lots of state-level financing tools that we can start tapping into And then we can do this in partnership with the community. I will tell you that it is going to, the idea of this action plan is that it's a three-year action plan. Some of, probably about two years of that, and when it comes to financing tools, is going to be seeding the idea of participation from a regional level. Those kinds of financing tools don't really make sense unless we have county partnership, and we're going to have to identify mutually beneficial projects and terms in which to try to achieve that. Okay, getting on to the business retention expansion attraction. This is the most obvious form of economic development, so I'm not going to spend time on the large business attraction, the small business support, and workforce development. Needless to say, this is where partnerships come into play. I'd like to call out the chamber, Gilroy Chamber, they're taking on. the workforce development element for us and when Victoria Valencia comes back in October, I had a wonderful three months of my six months here with her and I know for a fact that she's amazing at the business attraction components of it. So I'm going to take a moment to talk about the city's business climate and culture. This is an element of a strat plan that is typically not recognized when it comes to to business attraction retention. And this is really understanding how we operate, how business friendly we are as the city. And so we have in this section ideas to build out what that looks like. We're starting with things like permitting, moving all permitting online. This is just a quick graphic of, for example, we're going from a one-page economic development web page to something that is going to be robust, that provides resources so that, in essence, help people help themselves. and be better prepared when they come into the city to do business. I am jamming this because I want ten minutes of discussion for you guys. Okay, so the last element is the economic vibrancy and resiliency. And what we mean by this is that this pillar reinforces the private sector's role in helping to drive growth and the city economy. with the city providing supportive frameworks and predictable processes with targeted investment tools. So again, you see financing tools in this section as well, but those are really more things like the PBID, the business improvement districts, that will provide funding to help our private sector help themselves and help us, right? Also, downtown revitalization falls into this category. We're looking, if you think back to the CalEd definition for quality of life for all people, but also enabling an atmosphere in which it is welcoming to do business within Gilroy. So I am jamming to the end here. I wanted, before I finish, to really take a moment to talk about the tasty pie that is economic development. We are in government but one slice of that pie. We are reliant on community and business partnerships to get us to the place we want to be. And then within the government section, I just want to do a special call out to council And the role that you play, because you are the ultimate in helping a set policy and then oftentimes deciding on special land uses or or whether they can or cannot go through. I have to tell you in the, again it's been six months I've been to every council meeting. I've watched them all and I am just incredibly appreciative of your ability to work through complicated issues to get to solution. And I am hopeful for the continued consistency of this council as we look at policies because it comes down to setting a vision and being able to get us to the end line in three to five years. So with that, we are done and any discussion?

I'm not looking on the board here, council, so anybody has questions? Anybody? I'LL GO. SO YOU, IN THE PREVIOUS PRESENTATION, YOU DID TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE RETAIL BASE, ESPECIALLY ON THE EAST SIDE WITH THE OUTLETS.

YES.

AND TALKED ABOUT SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THERE. TALKED ABOUT WHAT THE OWNERSHIP IS DOING IN OTHER CITIES.

RIGHT.

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. I BELIEVE SIMON'S ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.

CORRECT.

And can you talk about some possibilities that might exist here in Gilroy for us to revitalize our outlets?

I mean, the idea that we have for those outlets is to move into a lifestyle center. Firstly, I have to say that we have to be able to allow housing on the east side of Gilroy. I know it says no in the 2040 general plan. However, housing and residential uses carry ancillary uses. We do have a pathway through a number of state initiatives, but that specifically for the outlets. I've personally worked with Simon in other jurisdictions and have seen where they've been able to add housing to be able to support the retail uses that they have on their parcels. So we're lucky that Simon owns all of it and have historically been a collaborative partner in that front.

Any other questions? Could you take that same? Go ahead, Council Member Ramirez.

Can you give an example? You spoke about different types of state-level financing and how critical it would be to do partnerships with the county.

Sure. So, yeah. So, when redevelopment went away, I forget how many years ago, new versions of, like, redevelopment came around. But what they did, so it's still tax increment financing. It is not a tax. It is taking the increment of existing ad valorem tax, not usually on property, and then creating that same redevelopment model of stabilizing the tax, taking the increment, and then bonding against it. So those are coming into and are being pushed by the state as options like most common is a version of an enhanced infrastructure financing district. And what, because it's property-based, the partnership with the county is critical, but does not require, where redevelopment required 100% of the buy-in, right? They had to take the increment and they had to give 100% of that. The county can come in and we can negotiate, say, 15%. Even the city wouldn't have to put in 100% of the increment or commit 100% of the increment. You can say 15, 25%, and that's still enough. But if the county does not participate, it means that it limits the amount of revenue through property tax increment that we could bond against or use to get projects like infrastructure problems like roadways or to help. The benefit is if we put all... conditions, say road rate improvements or utility improvements on a new development or, say, power for industrial uses, it can sometimes stop a project because they cannot make it pencil out. So it gives the city something to play with in order to meet the developer partway. Thank you.

Council Member McLean?

I just think it's a great job in putting this together.

I feel like I'm jamming it out of you.

So I appreciate that. That was the whole focus last year in our getting the economic development department together. So this is a great start.

Oh, thank you. I will be back for future study sessions because I want to develop the tactics with you. and just get the nudges along the way in order to make sure we're on the right place. And I look to have a completed plan, you know, certainly by the end of the year, early next year.

I'd make one suggestion to make it a longer time period than just before one of these meetings so it doesn't feel like it's crammed, so we actually can work on a study session. That would be my recommendation, especially when there's actionable items coming back from this.

Yeah, great idea. Maybe one of the morning sessions like we did last year where there's more time. Yeah. Okay, right. So thank you very much.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have any public comment on work? I have no speakers. Thank you for the reminder. Thank you. Okay, so we will close the working study session at 5.52 p.m.

All right.

All right, thank you everybody for being here this evening. We'll go ahead and get this meeting started. 6.01 p.m. August 17th, 2026. Calling this meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco. Here. Council Member Klein. Here. Council Member Fugazi.

Here.

Council Member Hilton.

Here.

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

Here. City Clerk's report on the posting of the agenda, please.

Thank you, Mayor. This agenda was posted on Wednesday, August 12th at 6.15 p.m.

Thank you very much. Moving on to item 2.4. A Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Councilmember Fugazi. Please remain standing for the invocation by Pastor Malcolm McPhail.

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.

Please remain standing if you would. Oftentimes our problems, our opportunities are disguised as problems. And so my prayer is that as you work with all the problems within our city, that the optimistic look of opportunity would be prevalent in your decision making and thinking. Thank you again for allowing us to pray and be a part of this meeting. Lord, we just stop and bow our heads and we say, be with our city, watch over our city. Protect the gates of our city. Be with our first responders, our police officers, and our firefighters. Bring them safely home after each watch. And I pray for our crew that's down in Big Sur that you bring them back safely as well. I pray, Lord, that our city would continue to work through all the different issues and that you would give our council wisdom, guidance, and understanding of the process and the decision making that needs to take place. We thank you for your wisdom. And we ask those things in your name. Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor McPhail. Jumping ahead to item 2.7, employee introductions. The first two employee introductions will be done by Police Chief Brandon Sanchez. Brandon Sanchez.

Good evening, Chief Brandon Sanchez. I have two introductions for tonight. First, I'd like to call up Alex Cassell. Alex has a background in military, education, childcare, and working with individuals with special needs. Throughout her previous roles, she gained experience in communication, teamwork, problem solving, and working in challenging situations. She's excited to bring those experiences with her as she begins her career in public safety. She is also currently pursuing her bachelor's degree in psychology at Southern New Hampshire University. Her education has given her a strong foundation in communication, human behavior, critical thinking, and understanding how people respond to different situations, which she feels will translate well into her career in public safety. Alex is married and has five kids, ages ranging from ten to two, so family is a huge part of her life. They are a very nice and active family. A lot of their time is spent together at sports, activities, community events, and just enjoying everything that comes along with raising a big family. She also enjoys working out, crafting, and baking, specifically sourdough. Please welcome Alex Cassell as a public safety communicator.

Hi, I'm excited to be here and become a part of the community in a bigger way, especially in a town where I raised my own children and I was born and raised as well.

Thank you.

Next I'd like to call up Melissa Talbert. Melissa began working with the Gilroy Communications Department on 616. She came from a long career in the medical field as a medical assistant. off and on for 23 years. Outside of work, she loves to spend time with her family and dogs. She loves to go to church and spend time at the beach and have barbecues. Please welcome Melissa Talbert to Public Safety.

Thank you very much for allowing me to be a part of this community. I've been with Gilroy living here for over 16 years, and I've always wanted to have my hand in it, so I'm glad I get to be on the other end of the line if you guys need to call on your worst days.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Next, we'll have Assistant City Administrator Hajo Tsengha for the next introduction.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, members of the community. It's my honor to introduce our new Recreation Supervisor, Melissa Pasquale. She joins us from the Chico area where she served as a Recreation Supervisor. for more than 20 years. And during her career, she has managed a broad range of recreation programs and special events and such. She holds a master's degree in recreation administration and a bachelor's of arts in psychology from CSU Chico. In addition to her recreation background, Melissa has taught part-time in higher education, has worked in administrative support roles in academic sectors. Outside of work, Melissa enjoys spending time exploring the outdoors. She recently learned to sail and is always looking for a place to paddleboard and is very excited about cooler coastal temperatures here. Again, privileged to announce and introduce Melissa.

Thank you for the opportunity. I'm excited to be part of this community and serve the community with new recreation opportunities.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on to item number 3.1, proclamations and awards. We have a proclamation today for Emergency Management Awareness and National Preparedness Month, which will be received by Emergency Services and Volunteer Coordinator Andrew Young. Okay, City of Gilroy Proclamation. Whereas emergencies and disasters can occur at any time and affect the safety, well-being, and resilience of the Gilroy community, and whereas emergency management is a year-round effort encompassing mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, and depends on collaboration among city departments, first responders, public agencies, healthcare organizations, schools, businesses, community, and faith-based organizations, volunteers, and residents. And whereas residents are encouraged to understand local hazards, make emergency plans, build emergency supply kits, stay informed through trusted sources, know how to evacuate and maintain supplies to sustain their households for at least 72 hours, and ideally up to two weeks. Whereas August is recognized as Emergency Management Awareness Month and September as National Preparedness Month, providing an opportunity to recognize those who support emergency management and encourage everyone to prepare for emergencies. Now, therefore, I, Greg Bozo, Mayor of the City of Gilroy, along with my colleagues on the City Council, do hereby proclaim August 2026 as Emergency Management and Awareness Month and September 26th as National Preparedness Month. and encourage all residents, businesses, and organizations to take meaningful steps to prepare for emergencies and help Gilroy remain a safe, resilient, and prepared community.

Andrew.

All right, thank you Mayor Bozzo and members of council for recognizing Emergency Management Awareness Month as well as National Preparedness Month. Preparedness, it's a shared responsibility. And it begins with simple practical steps such as understanding local hazards, making emergency plans, staying informed, and gradually building emergency supplies, and also participating in preparedness training. For example, we have community emergency response team training that our community is welcome to sign up for. And also, we welcome the opportunity to work with our organizations locally and help tailor content to our community members and get the word of emergency preparedness out to everyone. I'd also like to recognize our city staff, volunteers, community organizations and partner agencies. Their continued efforts, collaboration and coordination strengthen our community's readiness throughout the year. And I encourage everyone to take meaningful steps towards being better prepared at home, at work or in our community. Even small actions can make a significant difference when it matters most. So thank you everyone for contributing to making Gilroy a better prepared and more resilient community.

I'm waiting for everyone to get in.

All right, thank you very much, Andrew. Moving on to item number 4.1, Presentations to Council. Today we'll hear the annual presentation from the Arts and Culture Commission. Take it away, Ruben.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mayor, members of the council, community here. Thank you for being here today. Today, I wear a lot of hats in the community, but today I come to you as the chair of the Arts and Culture Commission. My name is Ruben Dario Villa, also known as Mr. Fuchila, and I'm here to talk about how over the last couple years, the Arts and Culture Commission has worked to move from a commission that simply encourages arts and culture, but one that connects directly with the community and invests in the creatives that make it all possible. One of the biggest examples of the way we've been able to do this over the last couple years is the public arts campaign for the love of Gilroy. It's a public arts campaign created to design new banners in downtown Gilroy and hopefully some of y'all have been able to see this. You can see some of my fellow commissioners here holding up banners. These are the actual banners that go up in downtown Gilroy on the light posts there. And I'll tell you a little bit more about the program. In 2024, we launched our pilot for the Arts for the Love of Gilroy. We pitched a new program to get the community involved in beautifying their downtown and their city. We were able to put out an ask to local artists, local Gilroy artists, and we were able to receive 37 submissions. We selected 14 artists that created 14 new banners in the first year, and we paid each artist $500 to do so. As an artist myself, I know that was very important for our program to make sure that that was possible. We created a new process and strategy around making that possible, something that didn't exist before. And we all convened around a community event that brought a lot of smiles and recognition to the artists and the community at large. You can see some of the banners here on screen. And as they go up every year, you'll be able to see them in person again also in downtown Gilroy. These are some of the artists from the first year of 2014. We were able to receive a commission from the city. The city now owns these artworks, so we'll be able to find other ways to potentially put them up and use them year round. All in all, I think what we've been really proud of as a commission is the bridge that we've been able to build from city hall to the community. Like I said, it's important for us to lead with community outreach as our strategy as opposed to one that waits for the community to bring us things for us to approve or to recommend approval by city council. And you can see we've had quite a great turnout that day for our unveiling. In 2025, we added it officially to our work plan. We were able to define a new fundraising policy one that the city didn't previously have. So we worked collaboratively with city staff to make sure that that was all created in alignment with city policy. And we were able to increase our submissions to 65 in year two. Again, selecting 14 artists and selected 14 new banners installed as well. again with the convening of community unveiling event. And we were really proud of how we were able to increase awareness. And this picture you see of artists and their families looking up at their banner in downtown. with, again, with the sentiment of pride. And that's something that we've worked hard to instill in our community, making sure that our community members are seen and feel seen in their environments and kind of where they choose to call home. In 2026, this year, we've established a new, at this point, it's an annual tradition. We're looking to do this again. This year, we've refined our processes and our policies and per recommendation from city council, we were able to reserve four of the 14 spots for youth. So that's zero to 18. We did that on purpose so that we could intentionally involve youth, making sure that youth also saw themselves. We didn't want to leave it to chance, so we decided to define what kind of participation we were looking for from youth artists. We set a replica calendar that we could replicate every year so that we make it easy for council or for commissions in the future to continue this program. So that way it's not something that needs to be created from scratch every year. And again, we've set a new strategy to institutionalize the way that we fund the arts. We're very, as a commission, very interested in finding ways, creative ways like endowments, percentage for the arts, et cetera, where we can try to bring that to council and other members of our community to understand the investment that it's going to take to continue not just this program, for arts and culture at the city level for our community. Over the last couple years, we've already invested $14,000 back into the creatives, and so we feel like that's just the tip of the iceberg for us. And if anyone interested, or just for your knowledge as well, submissions open up at the end of this month. through the first to December 4th. And so please encourage your youth, your children, your grandchildren, the folks that you know, teachers that you know, let them know. We've been doing a lot of partnerships to make sure we get the word out across social media and other partnerships that we have and working to develop. So hopefully that continues to thrive moving forward. Above and beyond this, we've been able to sort of address the whole ecosystem and looking to expand on public art. We've been able to receive a more diverse portfolio of arts and culture projects, a few murals, some augmented reality projects like the Womanhood Project in downtown Paseo. We've also been able to approve not just murals, but a couple of public art installations for the Monterey family apartments soon to come. Wrapping up. IN ONE OR TWO MORE SLIDES. WE'VE BEEN LOOKING TO BUILD THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR WHAT ARTS AND CULTURE MEANS AT THE CITY LEVEL. WE'RE LOOKING AT THE FUNDRAISING POLICY, HOW TO USE THAT, RIGHT? WE'VE CREATED IT, SO NOW LET'S PUT IT TO USE. WE HAVE A PUBLIC ART DEVELOPMENT. WE'D LIKE TO CONTINUE TO DISCUSS WHAT PUBLIC ART DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS WE HAVE, LOOKING AT ART IN LIEU FEES THAT WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO RECEIVE PREVIOUSLY AND HOW WE MIGHT BUILD MORE STRUCTURE AROUND THAT. We're looking at also a public art resource guide and see if that's something that we can create and produce to collaborate better with our developers that come to Gilroy so they're not left empty-handed when it's time to put up a piece of public art on their property. We've also looked at the Arts and Culture Strategic Plan and ways we've been able to update that. The last time that was updated was in 2010, so it's due for sure, long overdue for... for an update there. And finally, some finding more sustainable arts funding avenues. Like I mentioned before, that's gonna be critical for how we look at arts and culture across the next, till 2040, as we've defined as a city, so. And you can see here a bunch of youth artists that were painted the pillars in front of the Center for the Arts. And it was an amazing program that we were able to kind of bring to life in partnership with the city. And arts, one thing that is really important I'd love folks to understand is that arts accelerates economic recovery. I'm sure I didn't get here for all of Raisa's presentation, But I'm sure she mentioned the positive impact that putting an artist to work has. Growth in the arts employment is directly correlated to overall employment. So what I tell my daughter is when you put an artist to work, you put everybody to work. And so when an artist eats, everyone eats. And so that's kind of the ethos that we all have. And so looking ahead, we're looking at community engagement as core to our mission. Arts and culture is really the vehicle that we have to use that and to engage the community in. And again, finally, and I couldn't have stressed this more, just institutionalized funding for the arts as our goal as a commission and finding ways that we can collaborate, continue to build a collaboration we've built with the city staff and city council along the way. So, questions?

Any questions for Ruben? Yeah, go ahead.

I got a couple comments. So yeah, arts and recreation was mentioned as one of the job sectors. for for Raisa and I know that means a lot to you all especially being on this commission but you know to you in particular that's been on the commission I think maybe the longest now yeah almost almost four years now yeah I'm just being able to see that I know that that's a that's a really stamp that's a stamp meaning that you guys are making a positive impact um and a great report and I really enjoy seeing you all out in the community too I think it was a national night out We had booths diagonal to each other, and Matt came up a bunch and talked. I got to meet a lot of his family and friends. So I just really appreciate you guys' collaboration and just being out there. IN GENERAL AND TRYING TO GET ALL THESE DIFFERENT THINGS. THANK YOU FOR THOSE YOU SPOTS FOR THE LOVE OF GILVORY BANNER. I REALLY APPRECIATE THAT. AND LASTLY, I JUST WANT TO SAY, JUST REMEMBER THAT BUDGET SEASON IS COMING UP WITH THE NEW COUNCIL THAT'S GOING TO BE SEATED. BRAND NEW BUDGET STARTS IN JANUARY. YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS MANY TIMES, BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE NEW, NOW'S THE TIME TO START THINKING ABOUT ALL THESE THINGS THAT YOU WANT TO, YOU KNOW, ASK FOR BUDGET REQUESTS AND THINGS TO GO IN YOUR WORK PLAN. SO THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU GUYS HAVE DONE. Thank you. Any other comments? Oh, sorry.

I have a comment that you can comment on, please. Yes, of course. You talked about the ecosystem. You had that on one of your slides, the ecosystem.

Yeah.

And most of what you talked about today was about the coordination, the collaboration you're doing locally. But could you talk a little bit about your relationship with SV Creates, what they do, and how that benefits Gilroy, even though they're not... Located in Gilroy.

Yeah, yes. So SV creates is a is the arts You call the Arts Council for Santa Clara County. They've been involved in in the That's the steady support of the arts and culture ecosystem here in Gilroy They've been able to bring outside funding into the city to create the the city's first arts grants program called Gilroy elevates the arts grant and It's a grant that has been able to support local artists here in Gilroy putting together such events as La Ofrenda Festival, Tamal Festival, and other festivals that have been able to kind of come to life because of this funding. Sixth Street Studios. So there's a lot of folks in the community that have been able to benefit from the involvement of SV Creates and that collaboration started many years ago. And one of the vehicles that we use at the grassroots level is through the Gilroy Arts Roundtable. So folks are interested in getting involved and getting like a deep dive into what's going on at the grassroots level in the community per arts and culture. Please join the Gilroy Arts Roundtable the last Wednesday of every month. We tend to move locations, so looking us up on Instagram or coming to speak to me after is also a good way of doing that. But we try to approach this collectively from the grassroots side here in City Hall and across the rest of the county.

Thank you. Great comment. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Ruben. Thank you. All right, moving on to item number 4.2, public comment. This is the time for public comment by members of the public on items not on the agenda. So if you have an item that you would like to comment on this evening that's on the agenda, that time for you to do that would be a little bit later when that agenda item comes up. So this is a time to talk about things not on the agenda. And as a reminder, I've been doing this the last couple weeks. Just as a reminder to some folks that this might be new to them, during public comment is a time for comment. But it's not a time for dialogue between council and the members of the public. So just a reminder, because some people feel like they've been disappointed that they don't get dialogue from council. But this is time for public comment and public comment only. And also, I think now we're in our second or third meeting, where we are now doing online participation and public comment. So we will be doing that at the end of June. PUBLIC COMMENT ON EACH AGENDA ITEM. AND AS A REMINDER, WE DO HAVE, WE DO INSTITUTE SOME TIME POLICIES, SO IF IT'S ZERO TO TEN PEOPLE, IT'S THREE MINUTES. IF IT'S TEN TO 20 PEOPLE, IT'S TWO MINUTES. AND IF IT'S OVER 20 PEOPLE, IT'S ONE MINUTE. AND THAT DOES INCLUDE THE ONLINE SPEAKERS. CORRECT. WITH THAT BEING SAID, I'M GOING TO GO TO KIM ON THE FIRST ITEM, 4.2 ON PUBLIC COMMENT.

THANK YOU. GEORGINE, FOLLOWED BY STEPHANIE L. AND MO LONE.

So at this point, we have three speakers. Correct?

We have five.

Five. OK. Excuse me.

Good evening. Council members Bracco, Fugazi, Ramirez, I'll sit on the board of South County Regional Wastewater Authority. City Attorney Andy Faber is also acting general counsel for SCRA and City Administrator Matt Morley is SCRA's manager. I'm placing a conflict of interest question on the record. Five people at this dais have a role at SCRA. When you serve two masters, how does the public know which one you're representing at any given moment? especially on votes that affect both agencies at the same time normally we trust this process but council has already shown us that it doesn't always follow its own process so forgive us for not simply just trusting your word item nine point two is a direct scraw related agreement item eight point one sets the standard for how nine point two is governed and reviews future data center projects like the recycled water before you vote We ask the five of you to recuse yourselves, and if not, to explain why by telling us whose interests you are representing tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Stephanie L., followed by Malone, and then John Guffey.

Recently, Mayor Bozo was quoted saying, Gilroy is adapting to the times, but are we? Council Member Carol Marks asked for a drive-thru ordinance about four years ago. Staff has still not deemed that that topic fit to be brought before City Council. And while the Council waits for the ordinance it requested, the City managed to approve a drive-thru. Gilroy is not prepared to be a modern city. We do not have surveillance technology ordinances. We lack clear standards for emerging technologies. We don't consistently monitor completed projects. to verify continued compliance. A climate action plan was paid for and begun and drafted more than a decade ago and never completed. And the greenhouse gas reduction plan promised in our 2040 general plan is overdue by three years. Meanwhile, permits get issued, projects get approved, and decisions get made. And drive-throughs were invented in 1940s. In the 1940s, do we need to wait another 80 years to adapt to everything else? People are here now. They're showing up. They're asking questions, they're trying to engage with their local community and their local government, and they continue to feel dismissed. People have lost confidence in Gilroy and our city management. Trust is rebuilt by listening, being transparent, and giving residents a meaningful voice. And that meaningful voice also should include the city council. And this brings me to the fair memo process. This process for people who don't know outlines how council members can agendize items. A council member must first consult with the city administrator, prepare a memo, have it reviewed for compliance, then wait 30 to 45 days for it to appear on an agenda. Even then, council is only deciding whether that issue should return for discussion and potential action at least two meetings later. At an absolute minimum, that's 58 days just to get an issue before the council for deliberation, and there's no deadline for when that final discussion must be agendized. Staff expertise is essential, but Gilroy elected seven council members to set policy and determine the direction of this city. And when elected officials face months of procedural delay just to deliberate an issue, when requested policies have languished for years, then the process is working against the people who we elected to lead. The fair memo policy needs to change, and it needs to change now. Being a modern city isn't simply about what we approve. We become a modern city when our policies, processes, and government are prepared to govern what's next. Please remove the fair memo policy.

Thank you very much. Malone, followed by Jan Guffey and Bill O'Connor.

Hello, Mayor, and hello, council members. My name is Malone Ezoha. I have lived in Gero here for more than 23 years. It's a nice city. My main reason of coming out here is just for one issue. You know, the mayor, we have this serious issue of secondhand cigarette smokes. You know, the city or the council has already addressed an issue before, secondhand cigarette smokes, but it only applies to multi-unit residents. But the problem is also applicable to private homes. You know, new developments in the new homes, you cannot have your neighbor here. It's like a court. You have your neighbor here, another guy here, another neighbor on the other side, and you have a fence. So your neighbor that is smoking cigarettes, marijuana, can just keep you out of enjoying your own backyard. You know, please, I want the city hall members to take a sneak, a gentle peek on this issue. Because it's time people should be able to understand that secondhand cigarette smoke is very dangerous. We heard it from CDC and also from California Developmental Public Health. that 400 people die every year because of secondhand cigarette smokes. In California alone, why is it not something done about it seriously? And I'm very glad that when I read the laws of second-hand cigarette smokes on multi-unit residents, it was very nice, very strong and innovative. But the law doesn't go far enough. We need to extend the same law to private homes. Somebody saying his private homes cannot be polluting all the homes around him. We have kids, we have family, and those people, everybody have... can suffer the harmful effects of cigarette smokes. Please, city hall members and mayor, please look into this issue. It's time secondhand cigarette smokes be regulated also with private homes, not only at multi-unit residences. It has the same harmful effect, whether it's from multi-unit residences or from private homes. Why is it exceptional? Because you have your own home, you can pollute all the homes around you. Please, Mayor, please, I pray to you guys to take a look at this. And thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak.

Thank you very much. Great job.

Jan Gaffey, followed by Bill O'Connor.

Before Jan gets started, just a reminder to everybody, the reason why we ask folks not to clap, it's not because we don't want folks to clap against us. It's because we don't want other members of the audience to feel intimidated by clapping. So if you could please refrain from that. Thank you very much. Go ahead, Jan.

Hi, I'm a Gilroy resident and I want to thank you all for your service to our city. Regarding the ICE Detention Center, which is planned for Santa Clara County land just outside our boundaries, I would like you to consider signing on to the amicus brief as so many of our local municipalities and counties have already done. It was heartening to see county supervisors from Santa Clara County, Monterey County, and Santa Cruz County here in front of City Hall last Friday at the press conference and standing with us to oppose the ICE facility. We know it affects our whole region. In addition to the resolution you've already passed, opposing the ICE detention facility, signing on to the amicus brief, even if it costs, would send a very clear message that you stand with all of our Gilroy residents who are persons of color, who are the targets of these ICE kidnappings. If parents are afraid to send their kids to school in Gilroy because they don't know if they'll be targeted by ICE, that hurts our Gilroy Unified School District's bottom line. Our kids can't progress if they don't go to school. Most people who are suffering in ICE detention facilities run by private corporations which have been documented to provide inadequate food, water, and medical care have no criminal record. That is about 75% of people who are suffering in these facilities have no criminal record. 52 people have died in ICE custody under the current administration as of June 2026. Thank you, Jim.

Next is Bill.

Hi.

Council, at coffee with the mayor on August 8th, one of the council members mentioned that campaign signs were not allowed until 30 days before election day. Since there was no rebuttal to this statement, I took it to be true. Seeing campaign signs around town for one of the council candidates, I was disappointed in that candidate. Before jumping to conclusion, about the candidate ignoring timing of a campaign sign regulations, I went to find that regulation on the city website. Page 55 in the candidate instruction guide addresses campaign signs. There is no mention of timing on that page. I then went to the web and inquired about campaign sign timing in Gilroy. The information I read indicated there is no guidance regarding timing in Gilroy and that direction is taken from California guidelines. California guidelines are that campaign signs are not allowed before 90 days prior to the election and are to be removed by 10 days after the election. If there is a directive indicating that campaign signs are not allowed until 30 days prior to the election, I would appreciate someone contacting me to tell me where to find it. Misinformation I received at coffee for the mayor led me to believe that one council candidate was either unaware or ignoring campaign rules. I am glad that was not the case. Please be careful with your statements. Thanks for listening to my input. Thank you, Bill.

I have no further speakers.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, moving on to item number five, reports of council members. Council Member Bracco. That's in the report. Council Member Fugazi.

No report. Council Member Marks.

No report.

Council Member Hilton. Thank you. From Valley Transportation Authority Policy Advisory Committee, as VTA prepares for the exciting transition to the new headquarters, we have an opportunity to make a small but meaningful update to the agency logo, one that reflects where we are today. As VTA continues to evolve, we want our visual identity to better reflect the work we do. The refreshed logo places greater emphasis on the T in VTA, transportation. Transportation is at the heart of our mission and the service we proudly deliver every day to the community. This is intentionally a refresh, not a complete rebrand. We recognize the importance of being good stewards of public resources and a full rebranding effort is not fiscally responsible at this time. Instead, we're making a thoughtful enhancement that builds on the strong recognition and trust the VTA brand has earned. From Silicon Valley Clean Energy Bay Area Air District Zero Knox Water Heater Rule Updates. The board received an informational update on the Bay Area Air District's draft amendments to Rule 9-6, covering the proposed changes to compliance date, the exception framework, and SVCE's role in providing technical input and coordination with other local agencies ahead of the Air District's planned November decision. The Air District proposed Changes are designed to significantly reduce the burden of customers while easing rule implementation. The board learned about the results of SVCE's annual residential customer survey. The survey measures SVCE and electrification awareness and informs the agency's marketing and messaging. Results show that awareness of SVCE has improved. and favorability is positive. While there is an increase in customers visiting SVC's website, purchasing all electric equipment is down with rising costs being the top of mind. The results will guide staff to expand outreach to vulnerable groups, expand electrification education, and improve income qualified offerings to ensure SVC's offerings are accessible to all residents. From ABAC General Assembly, I'm the General Assembly delegate. In June, I spent the day as our City of Gilroy delegate to the ABAC General Assembly and Business Conference in San Francisco. Association of Bay Area Governments is the official comprehensive planning agency for the San Francisco Bay Area region. ABAC's mission is to strengthen cooperation and coordination among local governments. We determined policy, received a regional housing needs allocation arena for the seventh cycle housing element presentation, adopted the annual budget and a work program. In addition, the General Assembly reviewed policy recommendations from the ABAC Executive Board established annual membership fees, and reviewed the bylaws of the ABAC Association. An early preview of the RHNA Cycle 7 was provided, including phases, timeline, and notable statutory changes prior to the kickoff in early 2027. The recording of the ABAC presentation is on my YouTube page, along with the PowerPoint and staff report. There are materials that I also brought back, and those are available in the library of our council member office. The upcoming seventh cycle of RHNA covers the planning period of 2031 to 2039. Housing elements must be adopted by January 31st of 2021. And lastly, over the next few council meetings, I'll be providing some of the key changes to the process so that council, staff, and the public are all on the same page and well prepared ahead of time. Thank you.

Council Member Ramirez. Nothing to report. Thank you. Councilmember Klein.

No report.

Okay, thank you very much. I'll move on to item number six, consent calendar. Any questions from council, for staff? Nothing. Any public comment, please?

I have no speakers.

Okay. I'm looking for a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar, item 6.1 through 6.5.

A motion.

We have a motion by Councilmember Klein. Need a second. Second. And a second by Council Member Hilton. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco.

Yes.

Council Member Klein. Yes. Council Member Fugazi.

Yes.

Council Member Hilton.

Aye.

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

Yes, motion passes seven to zero. Thank you. Move on to item number seven, 7.1. Adopt, this is a long one. Bear with me, please. Adopt a resolution approving the plans and specification for the precast concrete fence replacement project, amending the fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program to include the project, awarding a construction contract to Silicon Valley Paving Incorporated for an amount not to exceed $415,000 with a total construction cost including contingency of $456,500 and amending the fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program budget by appropriating $456,500 of community facility district funds to the project. Staff report, please.

Okay, I can put it.

Just because I had to find it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Thanks, Kim.

All right, Ryan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry about that. Take it away. It's okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Ryan Oz. I'm the project manager for Public Works. The original precast concrete fence was contractor installed along the pedestrian trail at Hecker Park Pass around 2013. City staff have received numerous complaints regarding the fence in this specific area. And upon inspection, the fence line has deteriorated to the point of requiring replacement. The fence has failed due to several issues, mainly original design material usage and irrigation overspray. Staff have since modified the irrigation system to reduce that overspray and future damage. And staff also did research utilizing the warranty for replacement, but determined that the warranty period had passed. This is the main area of replacement for the pedestrian trail. The project is for approximately 2,700 linear feet of fencing material. And there is damage throughout the project area that has worsened since the original bid was issued. And additional materials will likely be necessary utilizing the contingency funding. Staff issued the RFP in May of 2026 and received four bids on the project. And after reviewing each proposal, it was determined that Silicon Valley paving was the lowest responsible and responsive bid received at $415,000. Staff is recommending a 10% project contingency, which would bring the total project budget to $456,500. Funding for this project will come from the community facilities district fund, and there will be no impact to the general fund with this project. Staff is anticipating completing the contract this month. Upon contract completion, we will work with Silicon Valley Paving to ensure materials are ordered in September, and we are anticipating construction beginning in October and wrapping up in December. So in closing, staff is recommending that City Council adopt the resolution approving the plans and specifications for the project, award a construction contract to Silicon Valley Paving for a total project construction cost of $456,500, amend the FY26-27 capital improvement program to include the project, and finally adopt a resolution amending the FY26-27 CIP budget by appropriating $456,500 of CFD funds towards the project. Thank you. I'll take any questions you may have.

Council Member Furgati. I've got a number of questions. The original warranty was for how long on these?

I don't know off the top of my head.

We surpassed it at some point. Yes. And they were put in at what year? I'm sorry, I already...

It was around 2013.

So can you go back to the map of where this is? So you show it not encompassing the south side of the trail. Is it both sides of the trail?

Yeah, this picture is actually outdated. I had updated it earlier today to include the section at the top of the screen. You can kind of see the corner right there that's cut off. There's another... About 900 linear feet or so.

Yeah, it goes all the way down to Santa Teresa, does it not?

Yes, yes, that's correct.

And then it goes under the overpass and continues on the other side of the overpass as well, right?

I'm not sure at that point. I didn't, in my investigation, I didn't go past this point.

I'm sure because I reported the broken ones there probably three times myself. Probably. So those are not included in this? That's correct. How many other places do we have in the city with the same latent defects that these seem to have?

I'm not sure on that one. I haven't explored the entire city.

I reported three of them that were obviously been replaced and so I know it also runs all the way down whatever the street is that runs next to the levee where they start the levee over there. There's a bunch of it there as well and I'm just trying to understand this is obviously coming out of a particular fund right from the development of that area but we have all these other areas and at the same time it stands to reason to try to find out what our overall liability might be here on all of this fencing.

I can't say the focus on this area is related to the funding coming from the community facilities district fund.

But we don't know how much more we have in the city elsewhere that might.

Not that I can say to speak to right now.

Okay. And with the people who bid on this, I know we picked the lowest bidder, but, and I haven't researched them. I'm just looking at their names. And one of them that we chose was an asphalt company. And the one that we didn't choose that was 10% more specifically does precast concrete. So can we get some confidence that we picked the lower bid one, but should we have paid 10% more to get the company whose name seems like it's more in line with precast concrete?

The bidding documents were through the RFP process, which was determined to be lowest bid. This was not a best value proposal that was issued.

If I may, in public contract code, when it's a construction contract, we have to award to low bid unless there's some extenuating circumstance where the low bidder cannot produce on the project. So the spec is super important on these that we're able to monitor the project throughout construction to make sure that it's done to specification.

And what's the warranty on the new ones?

I would have to read the proposal to remember exactly. I don't remember off the top of my head. It is listed in their proposal with the warranty, though.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Marks.

Council Member Fugazi asked if I...

Okay, sorry. Additional questions? Comments? Go ahead, Councilmember Hilton.

So it's the lowest responsible bidder, right? So the lowest bidder, like, completely is not able to do this or they don't have any expertise or anything like that. That would have come up during your RFP process? That's correct. I assume. So I am also concerned. I just want to make sure that you know that the project scope should go down farther. Yes. And they know that too? They bid it on?

It's included in that. Just the picture that was included in the presentation is incorrect. So it's not on the... It's listed as 2,700 linear feet of concrete fence replacement.

So the contingency would cover anything that like maybe they found that's like more Western or more Eastern and they spot that out to you or neighbors spot that out to you like, hey, you guys missed one. It's up over here. That'll take care of it.

The contingency would go towards the additional footage in this area that's unaccounted for that has been damaged since we issued the RFP or that we have been notified of the damage since the RFP was issued. Thank you.

Further questions? Public comment?

Sorry. Go ahead.

Most of my questions were asked by one other.

With regards to the contingency, and you said that additional things have been identified, how confident are you that the contingency will cover all of that?

That's why I'm here. In a perfect world, I would ask for additional contingency, frankly, with that deal, because I think we're going to be at that point. We can still work through this and return back to the council if we need to do a contract amendment to that point. So I'm not asking for that additional contingency dollars a day but I think it's worth highlighting that I think it's going to ultimately exceed that point. If I could I just want to say the focus of this was the retention The basin area there that is within the CFD the remaining fence along the Along the walkway the bikeway is the cities and so doesn't mean we don't have to look at it and deal with it It did not get the same overspray issues. It's not showing the same amount of deterioration, but there's issues there and we need to be looking at it I know that there are Their Sunrise Park. There's some other parks That use some of these concrete We're seeing some of the spalling there as well. We're going to have to be looking at how do we basically deal with replacement and fund that ultimately.

Would it have made sense to evaluate that and include this in a larger project in order to get economies of scale or other things that would be associated with being able to do more areas or more frequented areas? Yeah. To the Mayor,

Certainly it's it's always nice to be able to do that But frankly we did not and still do not have a funding source identified to to address that larger issue And again, I was out with staff today looking just looking at that area along the walkway again It is at a at a very different level. Yes. There are some other Sunrise Park I we were running through that has some of these. They're in less good condition. I think we can handle that through some of our maintenance efforts rather than through a full contract. Again, optimally, we'd love to try to batch these things together and get the largest bang for our buck, but when you don't have a funding source that's readily identified, and you can see these are pretty expensive, we are looking to defer some of that and work toward that in the future.

To finish my question here, I can appreciate you don't know off the top of your head the warranty on this, but was the length of warranty a part of what was considered when granting the contract? So if the next second closest YOU KNOW, TEN YEAR LONGER WARRANTY OR FIVE YEAR LONGER WARRANTY OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, DOES THAT CLAY INTO THIS AT ALL?

SO LET ME, TO BE CLEAR, TYPICALLY PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS HAVE A YEAR WARRANTY PERIOD ON THEM FOR DEFECT. YOU CAN EXTEND THAT TO SOME EXTENT IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES DEPENDING ON THE ISSUE. THIS IS KIND OF ONE OF THOSE ODD THINGS. IT'S A PRE-CAST, PRE-CONSTRUCTED, AND We'll certainly look into what the warranty is on it. This is basically virtually a sole source provider that provides this material virtually anywhere and everywhere. So there isn't a lot of ability to find alternative other than going to a completely alternative method rather than using this material. And so we will look at that, but We see this as a 30- to 40-year construction length in terms of what this should last. It should have lasted optimally that long this time, but it did not, obviously, because of the reasons cited, overspray and issues with regard to the ceiling and the rebar. So those have been taken care of with this material. We feel confident that this will hold up for the time that it needs to be.

One last follow-up, just so I have an understanding. So all of these contractors will be using the exact same manufacturer and model components. Okay, that would have been good to know. And so it really doesn't come down to them putting them in. It comes back to the manufacturer themselves, not that. Okay, thank you. Yes, thanks.

And I have a comment slash question. So the difference between now and then is then the developer chose the product. Although City Gilroy, or cities, not just Gilroy, does have an opportunity to encourage developers to use certain product. But in this particular case, it appears that we got a product that was defective, possibly. Compared to now, we're choosing a different product that has a long, you expect a much longer lifespan.

There are elements that you can choose within the products. They chose, I would guess, basically the least expensive version of the material, and that's why we're having the problems that we're having, frankly.

Got it. Further questions? And public comment, please.

I have no speakers.

Okay. Bring it back for deliberations. I HAVE NONE. SO I WILL ENTERTAIN A COUPLE MOTIONS. AND THE FIRST ONE WILL BE A LONG ONE. SO BEAR WITH ME HERE. SO I'M GOING TO ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO APPROVING THE PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE PRECAST CONCRETE FENCE REPLACEMENT PROJECT AND AMENDING THE FISCAL YEAR 26-27 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM TO INCLUDE THE PROJECT NUMBER 801240. and awarding a construction contract to Silicon Valley Paving Incorporated for an amount not to exceed $415,000 for the precast concrete fence replacement project and establishing a construction contingency of $41,500 for a total construction contract amount of $456,500 and authorizing the city administrator to execute the construction contract and authorizing staff to approve any amendments, extensions and change orders until completion of the project in accordance with the plans and specifications up to the project construction amount. Looking for a motion and a second, please.

So moved.

Okay, I have a motion by Council Member Marks. Second. And a second by Council Member Fugazi. Thank you. Roll call, please.

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

Yes, motion passes 7-0. And I have one more. Amending the fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program budget by appropriating $456,500 of community facility district funds to the project. Need a motion? Motion. I got a motion by Council Member Bracco. Second. And a second by Council Member Klein. He went first. Roll call, please.

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

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Moving on to item number 7.2. Pilot program seeking to award a contract to CityGuard Incorporated for city parks after our security... for $69,203 and a total not to exceed amount of $346,015 over a five-year period and approval of the second amendment to the agreement with Frank and Grossman Landscape Contractors Incorporated for park restroom cleaning and gate opening services for $129,841.60 and a revised not to exceed total of $1,711,718.20. Staff report, please.

No, that's wrong. Close that one. One. Two. No, two. It's not labeled that.

What?

That one.

Seven, two, one. All right, Matt, all yours. All right. All right, good evening, community, mayor, and council. My name is Matt Jones, Deputy Director of Public Works and Operations. Tonight, we're seeking council support for a 14-month pilot program, which is intended to improve evening and early morning park operations with three primary goals. Improve after-hours management, 6 a.m. access to clean and sanitary restrooms, and then free up city staff to focus on inspections, repairs, and preventative maintenance. City Guard provides a visible security presence, scheduled clearing, locking in facility checks. Frank and Grossman would have parks opened at 6 a.m. and restrooms cleaned from ready for use each day. As you see, here's a list of locations. The only outliers, Christmas Hill Ranch site would not receive restroom cleaning as we don't have a city installed restroom. There are porta potties, which is managed and cleaned by a vendor. Staff submitted an RFP request for proposal received we received 12 proposals City staff looked at all 12, and then we pulled three and interviewed those And during this process we identified city guard as that top Vendor to move forward with as you'll see the frank engrossment is more than more than anything than a CONTRACT AMENDMENT AS FRANKENGROSSMAN CURRENTLY FACILITATES OUR CITY FACILITY JANITORIAL SERVICES. SO THAT WOULD EXIST FOR 14 MONTHS. THAT'S THE PILOT PROCESS. AND THEN THE FINANCIAL SIDE OF IT. SO THE CITY GUARD, IT'S A REQUEST FOR A FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT. HOWEVER, STAFF IS ONLY TONIGHT ASKING FOR THE ROUGHLY 70,000 FOR THE FIRST YEAR WITH CITY GUARD. MOVING FORWARD, The additional years would be administrative process. So that would be at the city administrator's approval, which would be based on the performance of that vendor performing those services. And then you'll see the Frankie Grossman, again, 14 month, around $130,000. And then you'll see some of that savings at the bottom will roll from the security fund into covering part of that facilities fund for the janitorial services. And then on our recommendation, staff's asking for council's support, award the initial one year agreement to city guard for 70,000. Approve the contract amendment with Frank and Grossman for 130,000. Adopt a resolution amending the fiscal 27 budget and then authorize the city administrator to finalize and execute both agreements. And then next step, if approved, staff will finalize both agreements, will work to coordinate the transition. Restroom cleaning and then both vendors will commence work on September 1st and with that any questions Councilman marks who is going to oversee?

City guard and this other company to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing would be myself in the parks and landscape supervisor Okay, but you'll be working some nights then to see that they're out there Patrolling well we have on-call staff

And we can schedule those. Our parks and landscape supervisor on occasion will go out at night and see what's going on and walk around and see how things are going.

Okay, great. Thank you.

I have a question. Did you talk a little bit about, and I don't know if the chief wants to get up and answer as well. I'm not sure. So what about the relationship between the city guard and PD when it comes to some of the engagement that the security team would be having with members of the community in the park after hours when the park's supposed to be closed? Can you give us an idea how that works?

Can you just repeat your question?

Sure. So we have the security team that's going to be patrolling the parks during the block of hours after they close it. So what type of interaction would you expect between the security team and members of the public who are not supposed to be in the park? And what happens when the security team needs additional help from PD?

Thank you, Mayor. It's a layered approach. So essentially, the security team We try to make contact with those individuals that are there after hours, ask them to leave, try to get them to follow what the security is asking them to do through the education of the park hours. If they can't get those people to leave the park, then they would obviously call the police. We would come and supplement that to try to get them to move out of the park.

Okay, thank you. Additional questions? I don't see it.

Sorry, go ahead.

Can you go back a few slides to show the savings? So we're saving, is that one for one coverage for what we had before?

I would say that this is increased coverage. And what I mean by that is that with the city administrator and staff, we went back and looked at the previous process, what's working. It's really not working. So we looked at it from a community focus and what we're seeing from the reports from the current vendor. Decided that let's focus on the community parks those larger parks the ones that we have the routine issues the sports courts the restrooms the tennis courts skate parks large large areas parking lots and tailored that down to focus on those five four or five parks and and Really eliminate that routine Scan of those 14 or 15 other locations. We're asking the previous vendor to get to which they weren't going to get to anyways So we went with one person The five locations in really a four- to five-hour window.

So if there's drinking in the park in one of the other parks, it's up to PD to take care of that?

It would be up to PD.

So a little bit less coverage but better coverage in some parks.

What about the hours? We're going to run with Monday through Thursday. I believe it's 10 to 2. And Friday through Sunday will be 9 to 1, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Is that the same as the last vendor? No. That vendor was going from starting at 11 p.m. and running until roughly about 7 a.m.

So there's a gap in there that PD would have to cover if there are people in the park or something's going on in the park. Where I get that the last vendor, you're nicely saying that they weren't good. Okay, I get that. But we were paying $85,000 to get a certain time coverage. Would we be better off spending the $16,000 and getting the time coverage, albeit in less parks? Have you considered that? We could look at that. No, we have not considered that. Okay. So back to the chief, if I could. A couple of questions for you. How do you think this will impact your force in terms of this? Obviously the last ones weren't doing it well at all, so it might be more of the same that you had, but your hope, I would guess, would be that having this in place would alleviate some of the need for you to respond to less critical calls and whatnot. But now with less parks being covered and also this gap in time, how does that affect it for you and your staff?

It complicates things a little bit. I mean, our staffing isn't great. Of my six patrol teams right now, three of them operate at a minimum staffing level of three officers. Last year in 2025, we hit that mark 81% of the time. So after hours where this will be really the time where the issue is, sometimes they'll only have three officers working the entire city. That's not three calls they're working. That's usually one call. and an officer that kind of waiting for the next call. So we really have to really work together with that security team to try to balance where our priorities should be. We are employing some technology in Los Animas. We bought two security trailer cameras. They're gonna help kind of bridge that gap. As we start to see some successes with those, those may be some things that we deploy in other parks to kind of help us. It'll be coordinated with that security component as well. So they'll be able to see the same stuff that the PD will see.

What about the rate? Would it be, I mean, is contracting this particular group cheaper than the same amount of FTE covering, you know, from the police department? If we wanted those extra four hours, for instance, and didn't have, is it a savings actually and an increased level of security for residents if the police are doing the hard stuff and we have less expensive people kicking people out for drinking in the parks, for instance?

I mean, without having all the crunch of the numbers in my head, I would believe that having security do it as opposed to PD to do it would be cheaper.

Okay, and one last question for you. What is the, the mayor asked, you know, how you're going to coordinate, but what is exactly the way that they would be contacting? Would they be using a non-emergency line or would they have a hotline or how would that work?

Yeah, great question. I think we're still working through some of those specific details, but essentially... How did it work in the past so far up to now? I don't have the answer to that in the past, but I can tell you that I think going forward... Well, it's actually current, but... Yeah, I think going forward, one of the ways that we would collaborate and coordinate is giving that security supervisor or that security person direct access to the watch commander that's on duty at that time.

Okay, thank you. FURTHER QUESTIONS FOR EITHER MATT OR THE CHIEF? NONE? WE'LL GO TO PUBLIC COMMENT, PLEASE.

BRIT SMITH?

MAYOR, I'M SORRY. HANG ON ONE SECOND. I DID HAVE SOME OF THE QUESTIONS ON THE CLEANING THING BECAUSE YOU STACKED BOTH OF THESE THINGS TOGETHER. WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO THOSE QUESTIONS? OR YOU WANT ME TO TAKE THEM IN COMMENT?

NOW THAT WE HAVE BRIT UP, LET HER DO A PUBLIC COMMENT. YOU CAN DO A QUESTION AND THEN WE'LL MOVE ON TO DELIBERATIONS. GO AHEAD, BRIT.

Hi, thank you. So just a quick question about this. It sounds like from the discussion thus far, there is going to be redundancy in staffing regardless. So if there's an emergency or somebody calls GPD, GPD is going to get dispatched. What's the point of spending all this money if at the end of the day, if there is anything that warrants escalation is going to meant by GPD anyway? Can you answer that? Or can, am I poisoning that as like a hypothetical?

Yeah, let us try, yeah, thank you. It's a hypothetical. Let us try to handle that through our deliberations as we come through. Okay, thank you. If that's okay, thank you. Great, so why don't you go back to your question.

I do have one more speaker.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. Sorry, I don't remember.

Joshua Thompson.

Thank you.

Just a quick question. Do we have like a rough estimate of which parks will actually be covered by this new system if it goes into place?

We do. I believe it's in the staff report, so I'll have Matt get to that once your comments are over.

Well, that was my question.

Yeah, cool. I'll have him review that. Thank you. Any more public comments?

No more speakers.

Okay, so why don't I jump back to Council Member Fugazi, and then Matt, you could expand on where this is coverage. Go ahead, Council Member.

If you can go back to the restrooms that are covered, the parks restrooms that are covered. Oh, you can't get your slide up now.

That's okay. They took it down.

That's fine. No problem. Were all of them there? Because I think one was missing. I think one park was missing there that has restrooms. Miller Park. It's not locked anymore.

No.

So will Miller Park be cleaned or it doesn't get cleaned? While we're doing this, yeah.

The staff report includes a brief conversation to that point. And our recommendation is that from an operational perspective, we are having significant problems with the restrooms there. What our suggestion and recommendation and operational standard is suggested to be at this point is to proceed with closing those bathrooms Monday through Friday, leaving them open and operating using our part-time staff to operate when we have reservations on the weekends, Saturday and Sundays.

So we have issues there, and what are those issues?

Significant vandalism damage.

Is that one of the parks that's going to have security?

That was removed. Miller is a neighborhood park. We basically focus this entirety on community parks. But if we have vandalism there and whatnot... We have vandalism because they continue to be open and they're not getting locked appropriately and dealing with that. We don't have vandalism throughout the park. What we have is vandalism focused basically solely on the restrooms.

Do we have vandalism in the other restrooms that are open and closed?

We do. We do. But there's more of a presence there. in the other sites to some extent, or there's less of a focal point to that location perhaps.

Okay, that's the last question. Other than, I guess, this is 1.45 FTE, right? So we are essentially adding staff by shoveling it over into funding current processes with outside help, right, and ostensibly increasing the staffing by not removing those individuals or those staff from that.

That's clearly the objective of this pilot project.

So we have funding now, but we're going to have to figure out how to fund this in the future as if it were an increase in staff size. All right. Thank you.

Okay, so... Moving on, any comments, final comments? Matt, can you just go ahead and please list the parks that this project, this pilot program incorporates?

Los Animas Veterans Park, Gilroy Sports Park, San Ysidro Park, Christmas Hill Park, and Christmas Hill Ranch Site.

Okay. There are some other things in there, too, that you might want to look at. And if it happened to be part of the bidding... The sports park shows that you've got restrooms, Mulberry and Amphitheater restrooms in it, and there's no Mulberry and Amphitheater restrooms there. And you also show that the holiday rate's $39, which is lower than the regular rate. So you might want to go in and clean up that stuff and make sure it wasn't part of the bidding. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and entertain.

Excuse me?

You want me to read it for you?

Yeah, please. We're going to do one, two, and four. One, two, and four, and then we'll do three. And Matt has some clarifications first. Go for it.

Thank you. Just for clarification in the presentation, I think there was some alluding to the ask on the recommendation. The ask is for a total not to exceed of $346,015 over the course of five years, so $69,000 a year. That would be a one-time contract ask for that amount, not the smaller amount that was referenced of $69,000 and change. The recommendation in the staff report and on the agenda is correct.

This is correct. Yeah. Okay, so the first one would be award an agreement to City Guard Inc. for after-hours park patrol services at five city parks. The agreement would have an initial one-year term of $69,203 for up to four additional one-year administrative extensions for a total amount not to exceed $346,015 over five years. Next would be approve the second amendment to the agreement with Frank and Grossman Landscape Contractors, Inc. to add park restroom cleaning and gate opening services from September 1st, 2026 through October 31st, 2027. Increase the agreement by $129,841.60 and establish a revised total amount not to exceed $1,711,718.20, and then authorized the city administrator to finalize and execute both agreements and related documents, including any authorized administrative extensions subject to satisfactory performance and available appropriations. And I'll make that motion.

Is there a second?

Second. Second.

So there's a motion by Council Member Hilton and a second by Council Member Bracco. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco. Yes. Council Member Klein. Yes. Council Member Fugazi. No. Council Member Hilton.

Aye.

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

Yes. Motion passes six to one.

So next would be adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 2027 adopted budget to increase appropriations in the facilities fund 615 by $92,744.40 and decreasing appropriations in the general fund 100 by 16,489. And that'll be my motion. And looking for a second? Second.

Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Hilton and a second by Councilmember Marks. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Bracco? Yes. Councilmember Klein? Yes. Councilmember Fugazi? No. Councilmember Hilton? Aye. Councilmember Marks? Yes. Councilmember Ramirez? Yes. Mayor Bozo?

Yes. Motion passes 6-1. Thank you very much. Councilmember Hilton? Moving on to item number 7.3. award a professional services agreement to KTUNA for preparation of a new parks and recreation trails master plan in the amount not to exceed $310,000. Staff report, please.

All right, good evening. My name is Brian Rodriguez. I'm a management analyst trainee with the City of Gilroy's Public Works Department. Tonight we're asking that the Council award a professional services agreement with KTUNA for the Parks and Recreational Trails Master Plan preparation. This is a planning and implementation document. It is a Council Parks and Recreation Commission and Planning Commission priority project. This last came before you in January of this year where you authorized a total not to exceed of $310,000 in the Capital Infrastructure Reserve Fund. In May we went out for a request for proposals and we received a total of six proposals. Staff reviewed all the proposals and we had two Parks and Rec commissioners join us in the interview. So we had Greg Filios and Emily Miller participate with us and kind of interview the top three candidates. The project approach is these five phases but I really like to break it up into three. The first phase is really what are we doing. So they're gonna be doing that inventory analysis, kind of examining our current operations. Then they'll kind of move into phase two of where do we wanna go? So that's the community outreach, that's kind of engaging members of the community, engaging council and really determining where do we wanna take our parks and recreational trails for the next 10, 15 years. And then that phase three is really how do we get there? So that'll be the comprehensive action plan, looking at our CIP, providing recommendations, you know, giving us those performance measures. So that's kind of how I like to break it up. To do that, we're looking at a realistic 14-month timeline. We're going to hit the ground running this month. Then we'll go into kind of that inventory and analysis through the start of 2027. We'll have community engagement throughout the process and that kind of action planning development will go through February through August. And the final plan is tentatively scheduled to come before you in November of 2027 for approval. You know, before we engage in embarking on a new master plan, we thought it would be good to kind of reflect on the previous master plan. It was last updated in September of 2004, so it's been a few years. But kind of as we looked back, we noted there were about 30 parks-related capital projects that were really guided by the master plan. Since then, there were about four parks that were built. I'll see if I got it in order. It's Sunrise, Carriage Hills, Loza Royals, Hecker Pass. All of those parks were really guided by the initial master plan that was done in 2004. We did a rough kind of back-of-the-napkin calculation on numbers-wise, how much did we invest? And it was about $20 million through grants, donations, and city funding. And additionally, the master plan really talked about trail access expansion. And so it kind of helped guide us through that process. 20 years ago, who would have guessed that we'd be building a pickleball court at Los Animas Park or kind of doing a disc golf demo pop-up at Christmas Hill Park? And so as we move forward, those are going to be the questions that we engage in is, you know, how is the next master plan really going to help us through the next, you know, 10, 15 years. So the recommendation before you tonight is really to enter and award a professional services agreement with KTUA for an amount not to exceed $310,000 to prepare the new parks and recreational trails master plan and authorize the city administrator to finalize and execute that agreement. I'm available for any questions.

First member of council up on the board is council member Fugazi. Just a quick question.

When you give them kind of our overall requirements in the city, is a level of resources given to them that brackets, for instance, hey, our city is going to have this amount to about this amount we project available. So as you're coming through this and going through this and you're thinking about, you suggestions, etc. It's within the scope of what's reasonable for our city either now or maybe it's, you know, worst case, likely case, best case kind of thing. How will that work?

Yeah, but that'll definitely kind of come into that phase three of implementation and kind of really drilling down what do we foresee. Of course, it's kind of hard to foresee what funding is going to look like 15 years down the road. but we'll definitely kind of be having these conversations of what's realistic, what is that kind of short-term five-year window of, you know, what CDBG funding do we have down the pipeline that we could potentially tap into versus, you know, five to ten years, and then ultimately that 15-year kind of down the road. We're going to put it on there and kind of have that be our guiding star, but, you know, acknowledge that the funding may not be there at this time.

Are there questions for Brian? Moving on to public comment.

Greg Filios.

Thank you. I was one of the members on the committee to interview the finalists for this project. And we chose KTUA, KTU and A. They had already been working with the recreation department. They were the ones that were doing, the people that you saw doing the recreation assessment, that was KTUA. So they already had it in. So they have an idea as to what kind of things we already have, what kind of things we need. These people will work tremendously with us. They've already got a great head start. They know what we've got and what people want. And the Parks and Recreation Commission will work with these people to put forth what we can. And yes, we worry about the budget. That is what we'll be looking at. Again, and they're going to be providing us with options. Because they know so much, they're going to be providing us with lots of options. Those options will come with timelines, budget, and availability, accessibility. All that will be there. And we'll be watching that as this comes out. So having this company do this, they were very warm, receptive, and I think you should follow up on them. Thank you so much.

I have no further speakers.

Thank you very much. I'll take it to Council Member Hilton, please.

Thank you. So comments, you can sit down if you want. But I just want to say thank you for keeping those commissioners. AT TOP OF MIND TO GET THEM INTO THAT INTERVIEW. THAT IS A GREAT INSIDE LOOK OF WHAT YOU ALL DO, AND I APPRECIATE THAT. AND, YOU KNOW, THIS ALSO, TOO, IS A CULMINATION OF TENACITY BY COMMISSIONERS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS. I WAS ONE OF THEM MYSELF WHEN I WAS ON THE BIKE AND PET COMMISSION, REALLY TRYING TO GET US TO UPDATE THIS 2005 PLAN SO WE COULD HEAD INTO THE FUTURE. WE DID GREAT STUFF IN THE PAST BUT GO INTO THE FUTURE. And it was something that we always pitched we always asked for it, but in January 2025 with this new council here You know along with the commissioners really putting this finally on their work plan on multiple of them I remember as the Parks and Rec Commission put it on there And there's some members on this council They were on on that previous to and then the Planning Commission when they went over the CIP budget They said make sure you fund this but it wasn't funded And this council decided to do something creative this year where we get those excess general surplus funds. We can do some fun stuff with it back towards capital improvement. And that's where this funding is coming from. So I just really want to just tie that in there just to show that, you know, getting involved in these commissions and committees, you know, not only does it provide experience to get to this level to be on the council, but it really just takes continuous community engagement to get things done. So thank you.

Thank you. I have a final comment as well. You were talking about the last time this got done was 2004, I believe, around then. And I think I might be speaking for a lot of people who have been in Gilroy many, many years. The idea that there would be some paths all the way from Gilroy that stretch now from the southern part of our town, from the sports park, to reach all the way to Uvis Creek at Virtual Road. I think now it's normal, but 22 or 23 years ago, that wasn't so normal. So that was somebody along the way that had an idea that maybe at that time seemed like that'll never happen, right? So what I want to encourage the community to do and some of the Parks and Rec Commission is think big, right? So now that we're out to Uvis Creek and Birch Hill Road, let's start thinking about, because I hear it all the time as a member of the Board of Directors for Gilroy Gardens, wouldn't it be great if there was a bike path all the way to Gilroy Gardens? So if that means that we have to start thinking big and getting a bike and ped bridge over Uvis Creek to get to Gary Gardens, wouldn't that be great? In addition to that, we need to leverage some of the other agencies that have plans for biking around South Santa Clara County as well. And we know that the county already has land that is connected on Redwood Retreat Road all the way coming through to Sprigg, Sprigg Lake Park where there's hiking trails, and they have grand ambitions about getting some of that access all the way along this coastal line, possibly even to the property that the City of Gilroy owns behind Gilroy Gardens. So wouldn't that be phenomenal that one day that someone's on a mountain bike, that they could leave Gilroy, ride behind Gilroy Gardens, get up to the ridge, and keep on going all the way to Redwood Retreat Road. So for the community, think big. Think big, please, when we go through this process. So thank you, Brian, for your presentation tonight. And with that, I will entertain a motion to award a professional services agreement to K2UNA in an amount not to exceed $310,000 for preparation of a new parks and recreational trails master plan and authorize the city administrator to finalize and execute the agreement and associated documents necessary to implement the project within the approved budget. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Hilton and a second by Council Member Ramirez. Roll call, please.

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

Aye.

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

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. All right, moving on to item number eight, public hearings. Introduction and first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 30, article L of the Gilroy City Code relating to architectural and site review permit process and to enhance public outreach. Staff report, please.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and members of the community. Sharon Goey, community director, and tonight I will bring you in a draft ordinance relating to zoning amendment about the architectural site review permit process and to enhance community outreach. For some background, in January council members Ramirez and Marks submitted a fair memo that's future agenda item request memo to review the Arkansas review process and to find ways to increase public engagement. That item was agendized for the March 16 council meeting. At that meeting staff reviewed the current process and council directed staff to come back with options. At the June 15 Council meeting, staff brought Council some options and Council selected those options and directed staff to proceed with implementation. In July, staff presented those draft amendments to the Planning Commission at the July 16 Planning Commission meeting. This slide is a refresher. At the March 16 and June 15 council meeting you saw this slide which staff is presenting the current process. So under the current city code many architectural site review permits are reviewed administratively at the staff level. There are some applications that are reviewed at a public hearing by either the Planning Commission or City Council. So, for example, if you look at a project that's in the Murray-Los Alamos overlay district, that kind of project, architectural site review permit, will go to the Planning Commission for their decision at a public hearing. Another example would be a project with a planned unit development zoning designation. For a project like that, the architectural site review permit will go to the planning commission at a public hearing for their recommendation. And once they make their recommendation, that application will go to the city council at another public hearing for their decision to either approve or disapprove the architectural site review permit. Under the current code, staff decisions may be appealed to the Planning Commission, Planning Commission decisions may be appealed to the City Council, and anyone may file an appeal. At the June 15 Council meeting, staff presented options to the City Council, and Council selected some options. One of the options is to enhance public outreach. I just want to clarify that for this proposed public outreach for projects, it is applying to projects regardless of the approval process. So whether an application is subject to staff approval or Planning Commission approval or City Council approval, this public outreach process is being proposed. Here are some of the components of the proposed outreach. Staff will continue to update the online development project list with current project information, and we'll also continue to create project web pages for large non-residential and multi-family residential projects, as well as the projects of interest. We're adding another element to the outreach to feature projects in the email express newsletter. The new component of this plan is to create this policy, which is one of the component in front of you tonight, to require applicant-led neighborhood noticing and community outreach. Another option staff presented Council at the June 15 Council meeting is regarding establishing a threshold for Planning Commission review. This option will require Planning Commission review and approval for architectural and site review permits with an environmental impact report that identifies significant and unavoidable environmental impacts under CEQA. Other architectural review permit applications are still proposed to be reviewed at the staff level administratively. And the appeal structure, which is the two-step appeal structure, planning commission, and then city council would remain in place. This approach provides public hearing for the most environmentally significant projects. And for other projects, this approach provides a more efficient and more cost-effective administrative staff review. So in accordance with the June 15 Council direction, staff brought forward the Council selected options to the Planning Commission in July. At the July 16 Planning Commission meeting, staff brought forward what I just mentioned on the prior two slides to the Commission. And what you're seeing on the slide here are the Planning Commission proposed modifications to the staff proposal. So regarding the public outreach, staff initially proposed requiring enhanced public outreach for all projects except for single-family residences and accessory structures in hillside zoning districts. Planning Commission supported the expanded community outreach, but they wanted to reduce the financial impact for small residential development projects. So they propose to require enhanced outreach for all projects. I'm sorry, not for all projects, but for just the new non-residential projects, 15,000 square feet or larger. Regarding mail notices for community meetings, staff initially proposed to mail notices to property owners and residents within 500 feet radius. Planning Commission recommend expanding that to 1,000 feet radius and also adding the 14-day notice before the community meeting. Planning Commission also recommended publishing a newspaper notification with a 14-day notification prior to the community meeting. And just to reiterate what I mentioned earlier, this proposed outreach is for all projects regardless of the approval process. And as part of that second option that staff had mentioned earlier from the June 15 Council direction, staff brought to the Planning Commission the proposal to require Planning Commission review and approval for architectural and site review permit applications for projects with an environmental impact report that identifies significant and unavoidable environmental impacts. Planning Commission identified one change and recommended to review all projects with an environmental impact report. They did not recommend changes to the other elements. At the same meeting, Planning Commission also recommended that Council consider a separate policy discussion to establish objective development standards. So staff is forwarding the Planning Commission recommendation to Council tonight. And now I'm going to hand this over to our planning manager, Michael Fassati, to focus on the draft ordinance that's in front of you tonight.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, residents of Gilroy. Michael Fassati here. I'd like to speak out the staff recommendation for this evening's meeting. Staff recommends that the Council consider Planning Commission's recommendations on the enhanced public outreach. As stated previously through Director Goey, the proposal will increase enhanced public outreach to non-residential projects 15,000 square feet larger. Typically those are projects that could affect the community. Have the applicant host a community meeting and mail notices to property owners and residents within 1,000 feet of the project no later than 14 days before that community meeting, trying to give adequate time to the residents to come to the view the community meeting. Also Planning Commission recommended publishing a newspaper notification and at the end the applicant needs to provide the project planner and the city that document other community engagement efforts. Staff recommends City Council move forward with your initial June 15th recommendation and I wrote down some notes on why. The EIR does not mean a project has unavoidable impacts or that CEQA authorizes denial. The EIR is the city's tool for identifying impacts on the environment that may require enforceable mitigation. When the EIR analysis demonstrates that feasible mitigation reduces impacts to less than significant levels, the city's responsibility is to adopt and enforce those measures, not to create a scenario where we do not certify the EIR. We should avoid giving the impression that environmental review by itself is enough to deny a project if the CEQA findings do not support that decision. Community input is essential to identifying real world concerns and making sure appropriate protections are included. At the same time, the city must follow CEQA's legal framework. If environmental impacts can be reduced to a less than significant level through enforceable mitigation, CEQA does not provide a basis to deny the project solely because the EIR was prepared. The city can still evaluate whether the proposal complies with the general plan, zoning design standards, public safety requirements, or any applicable rules. As with all zoning amendments, projects require, or as with this particular zoning amendment, we did add language in the zoning code to effectuate these changes being proposed. And as with all zoning amendments, the amendment itself needs to be consistent with the general plan. determine that there's three goals in one policy and the general plan that this zoning amendment proposed is consistent with. In summary, staff recommends the City Council find that either amendment each uses is exempt from CEQA, read the ordinance by title only, and waive further reading of the ordinance, and introduce the ordinance amending chapter 30 article 50 relating to the architectural and site review permit process. This concludes that summary of the proposed project. Both myself and the Community Development Director are here to answer any questions. Thank you for your time.

All right, thank you very much. I'm going to go to Council Member Ramirez and then Council Member Fugazi. And then Council Member Marks.

So thank you for this presentation, all the work you have put into it over the last several months. Thank you to the community for all of your emails, phone calls, conversations. Just to kind of, as a reminder, we brought this forth. Council Member Marks and I, impetus was a concern about the data center, but we did not want to limit this to data centers. So I appreciate that that was not mentioned throughout because we're not sure what emerging technology may come as we wanted it to be. So my question is, to be clear, if impacts identified significant impacts IF IMPACTS CAN BE MITIGATED TO BE LESS THAN SIGNIFICANT, THE PROJECT CANNOT BE DENIED BASED ON STATE LAW. IS THAT CORRECT?

LEGALLY STANDING, IT SHOULD NOT BE DENIED.

OKAY. IF A PROJECT IS EITHER APPROVED OR DENIED BY EITHER ADMINISTRATIVE APPROVAL or if it goes to the Planning Commission, then it can be appealed by anyone. It can be appealed by a member of the community. It can be appealed by a group from the community. It can be appealed if it's denied. It can be appealed by the project developer. Is that correct?

Yes, but I first want to go back to your first question about the denial, because an EIR can not BE, YOU CANNOT NONCERTIFIED EIR. YOU CAN DENY A PROJECT IF IT DOESN'T MEET THE FINDINGS ASSOCIATED. SO THE PROJECT IS SEPARATE FROM THE EIR. RIGHT, RIGHT.

THESE ARE TWO SEPARATE QUESTIONS. YES, OKAY. GREAT. YOU ANSWERED NUMBER ONE, THAT IT CANNOT BE DENIED. NOW I'M JUST TALKING IN GENERAL ABOUT THE APPEAL PROCESS. SO IF EITHER AT THE STAFF LEVEL or at the planning commission level if the project goes to the planning commission. And if it is either approved or denied, it can be appealed. So if it's approved and someone in the community doesn't want it to be approved, they can appeal it. If it's denied and the project developer wants to appeal it, they can appeal it.

That is correct.

And then it moves to the next

LEVEL OF THE PROCESS, RIGHT? SO IF IT'S DENIED AT THE STUFF LEVEL, IT MOVES, AND THERE'S AN APPEAL, IT MOVES TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. IF IT'S A DETERMINATION IS MADE AT THE PLANNING COMMISSION LEVEL AND THERE'S AN APPEAL, IT GETS MOVED UP TO 2,000. YES. OKAY. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO OPEN? DO YOU HAVE, LIKE, A ROUGH IDEA? IS IT $100,000? IS IT $100? NO.

That is a very good question. I believe...

It's a few thousand dollars. It's with all the staff fees combined with some of the standard fees that's applied on top of each permit.

So it differs between projects based on the size of the permit?

No, actually, I don't think so. I think it's the same fee, yeah. Okay.

But it's, you know... it's pennies to a developer to submit an appeal, and if residents want to appeal, it's more expensive for an individual, but a group of people could bring the money together to appeal, as long as the dollar amount is there. Yes. Okay, thanks. That's it for my questions. Thank you.

We're going to go Council Member Fugazi, then Marks, then Bracco.

So the Planning Commission came forward with five recommendations, right? And we basically have put into this four out of those five, right? Like verbatim, basically.

Is that correct? Yes. We put four out of five in one of the ordinances. We gave the council the ability. There's two ordinances, one that has all the Planning Commission's recommendations and one that has four of the five recommendations.

Right. And on the four of the five recommendations, the outstanding one differs from the Planning Commission. How?

The direction that we received was that a project that required an environmental impact report and had one or more significant and unavoidable impacts would go to Planning Commission for review. Planning Commission's recommendation is that any project that requires an environmental impact report goes to Planning Commission for review.

Okay, so that's the big difference. Yes. And I think you tried to explain it, but it might have gone over a lot of people's heads, why you chose to make that distinction. Try again, and if not, I'll try to reword it maybe and see if I'm correct in my understanding.

Okay. Yeah. SQL isn't built or created. It's used as a tool. FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW, MEANING, SEE IF I CAN KIND OF EXPLAIN THIS AGAIN. IT EXPOSES ELEMENTS... PRETEND I'M YOUR MOM. OKAY. MOM. MOM, WE... ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW IS HERE TO REVIEW ANY POTENTIAL IMPACTS TO THE COMMUNITY, AND IF THIS PROJECT AFFECTS THE ENVIRONMENT. this project can mitigate, and she'd probably say, what does mitigate mean? And I would say it can solve the problems that impact the environment. You're still doing an environmental impact report, but all the impacts that were initially found are being mitigated. They're being fixed. So if that's the case, we're going to take that to the decision-making body. And the argument is if All the environmental impacts can be mitigated. There's no basis to deny the environmental impact report.

So to bring this back to kind of here and now, what I think what you're saying is if you brought it to the planning commission, because any EIR would end up in project when the EIR would go to the planning commission, You could have all the public involvement that you want. You could hear about all the reasons why they don't like it, valid reasons even, but it did what it was supposed to do. It comes to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission really cannot deny that because there isn't anything in there that legally they would be allowed to deny it on. Is that what you're saying?

That is correct.

And if they were to deny it, or it would go through all the denial, the city could have some sort of legal ramifications if that were the case.

Yes.

And so that's why you, your department, basically decided that that would not be a good idea, along obviously with the city administrator, a good idea to have that in there because it could open us up for legal challenges and other reasons.

Compared to an EIR with significant and avoidable impacts, that is correct.

But all of the rest of the things in terms of involving the community and things that are not in place today go into place going forward and also on projects that might have started but didn't get to that particular phase already?

The proposal, I think I'm hearing you, the proposal regarding enhanced public notification, even if a project... does not require an EIR, but it's over 15,000 square feet and it's new non-residential, we would take in public feedback. We would have that community meeting. Even if it didn't require, even if it was exempt from CEQA or there was a mitigation for CEQA.

But it would be kind of like, yes, you can say what you want to say, but really if this has got an EIR and it passes through, thank you very much for your input. Is that?

That's why we have to differentiate between the project itself, if there's an argument that there's findings can't be made or can be made in the reverse, or that a project is not consistent with the city's community goals and values, and those goals and values are in the zoning code, and there's a strong argument that the project itself is inconsistent with those, then the argument can be where the project could be denied, but that's separate from the environmental review.

Understood. This is super helpful. Thank you. Council Member Marks.

Okay, yes. I think for the public, let's talk about the 15,000 square feet because I know Councilmember Ramirez and I did not put in a number. And let's say that I was going to build a 15,000 square foot fabric building. Okay. You know, now in my mind there's no significant impacts to the environment. Would that have to go through Planning Commission? Because when we did it, when we did this, we were talking about environmental impacts. So I need clarification on that. Because I don't want every 15,000 square foot building going through, you know, the different commissions and council. Why not? Because it takes a lot of time.

Well, hold on, hold on. Let's hear from staff, please. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Marks. First, I just want to clarify, let me go back to this slide. The 15,000 square feet is the trigger recommended by the Planning Commission for the community outreach. It is not a trigger for the Planning Commission review. So what you're seeing on this slide, which is staff recommendation, that's the same as the Planning Commission recommendation. These are the This is the criteria that, you know, where a project will be required to have community outreach conducted by the applicant. It will be applicant-led neighborhood noticing and community meeting.

So then if I understand you correctly, then every project that comes through at 15,000 square feet and above will have to go through this process?

New nonresidential projects, at least 15,000 square feet. Because staff originally actually were, we were being more conservative, we were recommending to require community outreach for all projects except for single family and accessory dwelling units in hillside zoning districts. And the Planning Commission supported this expanded community outreach, but felt that that could be putting too much financial burden on small residential projects. So they wanted to require the community outreach just for non-residential projects, 15,000 square feet or larger.

You know, maybe this is my problem here. I guess I picture a lot of 15,000 square foot projects coming through. How many do you normally get 15,000 and above? Because maybe it's not a real burden to the Planning Commission.

This is not the trigger for going to the planning commission. I just want to clarify. This is where the applicant has to conduct community outreach by doing the mailing to the residents and property owners within a thousand square feet and hold this community meeting where they will engage with their residents and get their feedback and to document that and submit that to staff. Okay.

Is that going to be a hardship for a developer, you know, to do the community outreach part of this?

At the June 15 meeting where we presented as an option to council, we did kind of present the pros and cons. And one of the cons is that, you know, it could add to some more cost to the developer and the applicants and add to the timeline, yes. But the pro for that is that, you know, it's definitely opening up opportunities for the community to be engaged, you know, directly with the applicant. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Bracco and then Ramirez.

Yeah, I'm concerned that this really doesn't do anything. We currently notice a project, right, to the neighbors, 500 feet?

We do for public hearing projects that go to Planning Commission.

Okay, and 1,000 square feet, or 1,000... If you're going to notice 1,000 feet, take, like... the Amazon property on 10th Street. Would any residents get notified?

I don't know if there's any resident. I don't think there is on the east side.

None would be notified from the existing project. I was expecting something a lot more tonight. This all started because of data centers. And there's no mention of data centers here. I think it needs to be more specific. Because we did a terrible job of communicating with the public. And that's what we need to work on. And this doesn't do anything to help with that. This just shows more distrust. So I would like to see us have a more specific data centers, battery storage facilities, this kind of thing, that we would notify the community, even if we had to mail out a flyer to every house in town.

So can I just clarify, because we wrote the fair memo, it is, correct me if I'm wrong, But it is intended to do that if it does have significant, how is it? And unavoidable. And unavoidable impacts.

So we didn't want- Within 1,000 feet.

I don't care if it's 500 feet or 1,000 feet, but it's not- It's with projects that have these unavoidable, significant and unavoidable impacts. And we didn't want to narrow it to a data center or a battery or something like that because new emerging technology two years from now, who knows what it is? And then the developer says, well, it's not in your zone. We can do it without doing all of these things. We wanted to make sure it was broad enough so that it was any kind of an industry that came in that had these impacts. So it's not, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not, you know, if I'm going to put, and give me an example, you know, Carol and I did some research and something that is approximately 15,000 square foot would be perhaps the size of a car dealership, right? That's roughly 15,000. Costco's nearly 150,000. IF I WANTED TO GO BACK TO THE FABRIC SHOP THAT COUNCILMEMBER MARKS TALKED ABOUT, THERE ARE NO UNAVOIDABLE SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS, SO IT WOULDN'T EVEN TRIGGER THIS.

I'M GOING TO LEAVE IT THERE. I KNOW YOU STILL WANT TO FINISH, BUT REMEMBER, WE'RE STILL IN QUESTIONS MODE, NOT IN DELIBERATIONS MODE. WE STILL HAVE TO DO PUBLIC COMMENT, SO HAVE AT IT FOR YOUR QUESTIONS, PLEASE.

OKAY. GO AHEAD.

You're done?

Yeah, I'll hold.

Yeah, you got it. So any further questions for staff at this point? Thank you. Then I'm going to go to public comment. Looks like we have a lot of people going to do public comment tonight. Well over 20, so we're going to leave it to one minute.

Open the public hearing.

Yeah, excuse me. Open the public hearing for public comment. Right, we have a lot of speakers tonight, as a reminder, so we'll go to one minute, and then we'll let the speakers speak here, and then we'll go to online, see if we have some speakers online. And take it away, Kim, who's the first three speakers?

Serena, followed by Georgene, and then Britt.

Good evening. My name is Serena and I've lived here my entire life. A small business downtown has to ask to hang a sign and two data center buildings didn't have to ask anybody. That's not because someone did it wrong. It's because a rule written in 1981 said automatic yes and nobody looked again. Tonight's ordinance is a real step and thank you. But it changes how we get told. It doesn't touch table 30, 2310. And in that zone, a hospital needs a hearing. A warehouse needs a hearing. A concrete plant needs a hearing. A data center doesn't. You inherited the rule. You didn't write it. But you're the ones who can change it. 7,400 people signed their names, not to fight the building going up, but just to be asked next time. We live here. Amazon doesn't ask us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Georgene.

Hi.

Will everyone who agrees with the Planning Commission's recommendation please either raise your hand or stand up? This is to have an EIR no matter what the

That's what the Planning Commission voted 6.0.

Let me clarify this for you, because I don't think you understand. And if I'm wrong, please correct me. The difference between the two is that staff gets control or the Planning Commission gets control. We have to pay, if we want to appeal this, $2,500. If it goes to the Planning Commission, we at least get to weigh in and review it. You don't want to let Planning Commission have control. That's what it's all about. It's not about all the other stuff. It's about letting go of the control and giving it to the Planning Commission so that the people can come to a meeting free of charge and not have to pay $2,500 to give our opinion on a project. That's all it is. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thank you, Britt.

Britt, followed by Kyle and then Mark. Mac, sorry.

Well, recognizing the Planning Commission's effort to be more stringent in what project scope would require public input, I believe that neither the Commission nor staff drafts are the protections we'd need to avoid where we find ourselves today, blindsided by a hyperscale data center that will cost our community more than money could buy. We are headed in the right direction, though. Tonight, I asked the council direct staff to modify the Planning Commission's draft to add the following. Expand the community meeting notice range from 1,000 feet of property line, which is, by the way, from here to the front of the library. That's not adequate. To what, actually, Rocco said, it would be great if everyone within city limits, Gilroy city limits, and one mile of surrounding unincorporated properties of Santa Clara County were notified. Applicant must also host a minimum of six community meetings, at least one per district, across 90 days to ensure maximum awareness and involvement. Finally, community meetings must be accessible in person and digitally via live stream to be publicized via City of Gilroy project page, newsletters, social media channels, and at least three local newspapers. MEETING RECORDINGS MUST BE SHARED VIA PROJECT WEBPAGE. WITH THESE ADDED CONSIDERATIONS, THAT WOULD ENSURE EVERYONE HAS A CHANCE TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION, AND I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SUPPORT AMENDING THIS ORDINANCE.

THANK YOU, BRIT.

KYLE, FOLLOWED BY MAC. THANK YOU. AND THEN LINDA.

HELLO, CITY COUNCIL. MY NAME IS KYLE. I'M A TEACHER AT GILROY HINE, A MEMBER OF THE GILROY TEACHERS ASSOCIATION. I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE THE CITY COUNCIL TO LOOK AT IMPROVING THIS PROPOSAL. including expanding notification to all residents of the city of Gilroy, including those in the unincorporated areas, as well as limiting any fees that are required for the appeal process as that hampers the community's efforts to participate, which I think we should be encouraging the community to weigh in more rather than limiting their access. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mack, followed by Linda, and then Jack.

My name is Matt. Thanks for giving me time. First of all, I want to send a thank message to Matt Morley, city administrator. Their message to the public was written so beautifully, so well done, so clear in a very simple language. Thank you for that. And we do read it, so please feel free to write anytime anybody feel doing so. On the data center, I took some time, read about pros and cons about the health center being built throughout the U.S., different states, different cities. And as I studied it, I felt pros are more than the cons. So my request to all of you guys is please look at the pros and cons other than just saying, may I agree and disagree. Please read more and make a very, very good decision. Our city does need a revenue. REVENUE COMES FROM IMPROVEMENT TECHNOLOGY AND BUILDING THE BUSINESS CENTER. WE CANNOT CONTINUE SENDING THE TECHNOLOGY. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, MAC.

LINDA, FOLLOWED BY JACK.

HI, CITY COUNCIL. MY NAME IS LINDA.

Linda, can you pull the mic down a little lower? Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

This is just a question. I'd like to know who on the city council was in favor of the data center and why. and I would like to be notified if that's possible. I also read that Amazon gave Gilroy money. I'm just curious if that was a true statement or not. And how will it impact my water and my electricity? They say they're going to produce their own, but are they going to start producing everything from the get-go, or is that going to be a problem and a drain on us until they finally decide to do it? That's it.

Thank you, Linda.

Jack, followed by Armando and Justin.

Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Jack. I'm speaking on behalf of please being able to review the staff's presentation that was presented to us today. It seems as though there was not a lot of community input. There was a huge rally that was taken outside of over here, not just for data centers, but other key issues that are happening within the Gilroy area. As many other people have spoken before and will speak of today, these public utilities rates are gonna skyrocket if this data center is going to be put into here, thanks to Amazon and their cronies. I really would strongly advise folks to really, really look into themselves and see, is this something that Gilroy residents want to see in their community? We want to have an urban sprawl that's over here in Gilroy. And having a data center here is going to displace not just our residents, but people here that come here for work, farm workers that work the fields, who grow crops and are able to pick crops. pick fruit and vegetables that go to our dinner plates at the end of the day. If you would like to see healthier dinners, please vote against this.

So I want to say that the community is basically sending a clear message that data centers are problems. You're talking about, oh, we don't want to change the rules because there may be emerging technology in the future. Well, the emerging technology is here, and that is data centers. The community wants more than for you to just basically take the approach of adding a little change to the architecture and site review process and think that that's enough. The community is not agreeable to that. The community wants real change, and what they want is an ordinance that really addresses the concerns, set standards so that if it goes to the Planning Commission, no project, if you say 50 megawatts is the maximum amount, then the Planning Commission can say, hey, no 60 megawatt is going to be allowed here. That's really what the community wants, standards, so that the Planning Commission and you yourself, because I think you should have some obligation to pass judgment on whether we should have data centers or not. You are our representatives, and you basically should be the ones that will be deciding most of the decisions. And I'm telling you something. I think that looking at the Architectural Site Review Committee, that is just not the way to go. Making certain little amendments is not the way to go. Thank you, Armando.

Destin, followed by Landon, and then Ron.

Good evening. We want to say on what happens in our hometown, especially when it comes to extremely powerful corporations who have a well-documented history of predatory and duplicitous business practices. We are not against AI or against innovation. We are against unregulated resource extraction and obfuscation of public process, which seems to have been happening. And steps are being taken to change that, and we deeply appreciate that. But I'm here to urge you to modify the Planning Commission draft by adding the following stipulations. One, applicants must hold a minimum of six community meetings, one per district, across 90 days to ensure maximum awareness and involvement. Two, community meetings must be accessible and in person remotely via City of Gilroy digital outlets and must be advertised in at least three local publications. Meeting records must be shared via project webpage. And three, expand community meeting notices range from 1,000 feet of the property line to all property owners and residents within Gilroy city limits and one mile of surrounding unincorporated properties of Santa Clara County. I ALSO URGE YOU TO APPROVE A MORATORIUM NOW ON NEW PERMITTING APPLICATIONS FOR CONSTRUCTION THAT SUPPORTS DATA CENTERS, TECHNOLOGY PARKS AND FACILITIES. THANK YOU.

LANDON, FOLLOWED BY RON AND ETHAN.

Good evening, council members and to those in the gallery. My name is Landon Sepulveda, and I am here along with others to once again demand action against the data center. This fair memo is simply a start after months of no real action from the city. But even this does not go far, as Bracco stated. My group's goal since February of this year, when the council made it apparent that they would do nothing about the current data center, has been to place a moratorium on future projects within Gilroy. Not just more transparency, but a moratorium, which to my knowledge the council has not considered. It has been proven time and time again that the people of the city do not want these projects, and yet they still move forward. A second data center in development by Amazon within Gilroy proves of such a moratorium than needed. If the desires of our neighbors and friends are not being looked after by you, the people they have selected to keep them safe, listen to them, and to work with their best interests in mind, then this is what needs to be done. I hope for the sake of our community and their confidence in you, that you consider my words and the words of all others speaking today to place a moratorium on data centers within government.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Matt, Andy, City Council, and community. I agree somewhat that how this came about was a little bit confusing. And probably what led to what we have today is because it was confusing. It wasn't laid out very well to the community. So what you're doing here with the Planning Commission is going to be useful, I believe, in future projects. But I would also like to remind everybody here, I see signs about the data center and stuff like that. that I had worked with Valley Water, Dr. and Ms. Kirsten Struve, and I gave you a report on what I found, and basically they said that there is no problem with water. It's 23 acre feet of water, and we've got over 54,000 acre feet of water below us. So it's like a drop in the bucket. So I don't understand why we haven't gotten that across to the people yet.

Thank you, Ron. Thank you. One minute. Thank you very much.

Ethan, followed by Bill O'Connor and Joshua Thompson.

Hello. We've heard a lot of talk up here about who this affects, and that being the effects of it as far as committee goes, who fronts the cost of labor and all this. Does it not also affect us? Do we not get an actual say? Like Britt said, a couple of feet out there is nothing. Do we or do we not get a say in what goes up in our community, in what happens to our water, in what happens to our land? Is this our city or not? Are you our representatives or not? We are asking not for piecemeal ordinances. We are asking for a moratorium. I cede the rest of my time.

Thank you, Ethan. Bill, please.

Bill followed by Joshua and then Cindy.

Council, at a previous council meeting, it was determined that the permitting process needed to be amended to enhance public outreach after public response regarding the data center. Public concerns around the data center concerned Electricity usage, water usage, and noise, among other concerns. During the discussion among council at that meeting, it was noted that there should be various triggers to create the need for public outreach. Potential triggers that were mentioned included square footage, total cost, level of electricity, level of water usage, noise levels, and specific types of enterprises. If this is the response to the citizens of Gilroy regarding their participation in what could be the permitting of significant and impactful projects in Gilroy, it fails in two ways. First, the only trigger is the square footage of the project. Second, it only reaches out to neighbors within 1,000 feet. Remember, the objectives to the data center are not based on its square footage, and it was mostly from citizens, most all of who reside more than 1,000 feet from the project. There's probably nobody from Gilroy who would be that close to the data project. Thank you for listening to me, and by the way, I support the data center.

Thank you, Bill.

Joshua, followed by Cindy and Connie.

Council, amendments to the architectural review system are just not enough. They're a good start, but they're not enough. We need a full moratorium for 12 months so we can take the time to establish standards, thresholds, maximum square footage, maximum amount of water use, maximum generators, noise, pollution, light pollution, power usage. We need to do this because, geez, I'm completely and totally blanking. Most of these reasons have been discussed already, but we need these for any projects that use over 5% of shared resources in the city, and we need to institute them now. So for the data centers, This would be extremely helpful. This includes the new data center that is being planned on the corner of 152 and Camino Royal. I appreciate the effort to extend public outreach. We also need a moratorium. We can't just stop short of outreach. Thank you.

Cindy, followed by Connie and Basil.

Hi, my name is Cindy. I've lived in this town for almost 45 years. My son is 45, and I hope to go out of it leaving him something to be proud of. I'm not proud of this. I'm not proud of what you have done, and we've had no say in it. The first thing I did when I found out about a data center is I drove to it, and then I drove to my house. They say the noise is five miles away. I'm four miles away, so guess what? Noise is coming. I'm unhappy, and I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong what you guys have done, and I'm disappointed.

Thank you very much. Connie's next. Connie, then Basil, then Lauren.

Good evening, council members. Thank you very much for reconsidering changes to our zoning ordinance and the architecture and site approvals. Again, it is very important, probably essential, to get this right in order to earn back the public trust. This is an opportunity for you to earn back the public trust. The Planning Commission has recommended that every architecture and site permit that requires an EIR be subject to a public hearing at both the Planning Commission and Council levels. The staff has recommended otherwise, citing the reason that applications offering economic benefits can be approved faster. That should not be the criteria. We, your residents and voters and our health should be the priority. Your purpose in all legislation should be first to protect the citizens, then pursue economic impact. I'm sorry to say that EIRs do not always include the effects that should be measured. The one the Amazon data center did, did not include the heat effects, the exterior lighting, or low frequency noise effects on our health. It also did not include information about how the rate payers would be affected in regards to electricity and water usage. If a public hearing had been held, then these effects could have been topics for you to negotiate with Amazon. Community meetings can be very beneficial, but the one conducted by Amazon was very ineffective and not useful, not in place of a public hearing.

Thank you, Colleen. That's one minute. Thank you very much.

Faisal, followed by Lauren, and then Sana.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Member. My name is Basil Merrill, IBW Local 332 and a Gilroy resident who supports the data center and I also support the proposed audience before you tonight. I understand why residents feel a project of this scale should have generated greater public awareness earlier in the process, requiring community meetings, additional notices and planning commissions, review when an EIR identified significant and unavailable impact seems like a reasonable way to improve that process. At the same time, I think it's important that the greater public participation is grounded in accurate project specific information. This project underwent an extensive environmental impact report covering water, noise, energy traffic, air quality, fire risk, and other impacts. Some of the most alarming claims we have heard simply do not match what was actually studied for this project. We also have decades of real world Experience nearby Santa Clara has one of the largest concentrations of data centers.

Thank you, Basil.

Lauren, Sana, and then David.

Hello. I appreciate Mr. Bracco's point about data centers. Thank you. I WANT TO ALSO URGE THE COUNCIL FOR A MORATORIUM FOR DATA CENTERS TO STUDY THE IMPACTS AS WELL AS SINCE THERE ALREADY IS ONE GOING THROUGH THAT CAN ALSO BE STUDIED. FURTHERMORE, I WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE CITIZENS OF GILROY AND IF YOU WOULD RATHER FARMLAND IN GILROY BE CONVERTED INTO AGRICULTURAL LAND OR CONTINUOUS FARMLAND, PLEASE STAND. So the citizens of Gilroy want a sustainable future. Data centers do not create that, do not help that. My son and my other son and all of the children of Gilroy cannot eat data. We can't drink data. Data centers do not help us. There already is over 4,000 active data centers in the country. Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren. Sana, please. And then David.

And then I have three speakers on Zoom after that.

Hello, council members. I know that we have another agenda item discussing the moratorium, so I'll hold my comments for that in a bit. But I wanted to address two things right now with my time. One is this idea that I believe Councilwoman Ramirez brought up of it takes a lot of time. This issue is impacting people's lives. It will be impacting our lives for generations to come. So when an issue like this is impacting our livelihoods, it may take time. But because it is important to us, we believe it is incumbent upon all of you as our elected representatives to represent the people and our concerns with an issue like this. I agree with the decision that you guys are proposing of, yes, let's include the public more, but let's not stop there. Let's increase the bounds to be all residents as well as a mile outside of Gilroy, as well as extend the criteria to six meetings with the community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. David.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I think the controversy around this project has exposed a legitimate weakness in our process. The project followed the rules that existed, but I understand why residents expected more public awareness before something this large was approved. I also know that a lot of folks here are giving some good THAT COULD GO BEYOND THIS MEASURE. I THINK THIS MEASURE IS A GOOD START. AT THE SAME TIME, I THINK THAT THIS DISCUSSION SHOULD INCLUDE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF A PROJECT LIKE THIS, NOT JUST THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS. THE CITY CURRENTLY ESTIMATES 40 million in new city revenue over 10 years and 6 million every year at full build out. And this is in addition to about 50 full time high paying jobs, much more than the amount of full time jobs provided on the same land previously. Additionally, I think we should look to Santa Clara. They have over 50 data centers within city limits roughly the same size as Gilroy. Residents there pay some of the lowest energy rates in the entire Bay Area. We should learn from them both what's worked and what hasn't, rather than assuming the worst possible outcome. For Gilray.

Thank you, David. One minute. Thank you very much.

And I have Elizabeth on Zoom. I am going to unmute you.

Elizabeth, you have one minute, please.

Hello. Good evening, City Council and Mayor. There is no debate that there is a lack of cohesive and established data center regulation federally at the state level and locally. There's also no debate that there are well-documented problems with AI data centers in communities across our country. Given these net negatives, no sane, rational people would argue for allowing and accommodating such an industry into their community. The sole benefit to our community must have been the projected $6 million in property and utility user tax benefits Gilroy is slated to gain at full build-out annually. It appears that we have auctioned off our precious resources and our precious community environment to the highest bidder. As elected council members and our mayor, you were elected to be the stewards of our city and community to protect, guide, and safeguard its development with the engagement of your city constituents. This week, City Administrator Matt Morley stated that the City of Gilroy strongly supports current state bills aimed at providing sensible guidelines and regulations for data... Martha, I will unmute you.

Hi, good evening.

The Amazon data center was approved under old rules. I am against it. Most residents are against it. The fact that it was approved by one person. Why is this a dictatorship when we are a democracy? Give our residents all should have been included and should have a vote. You be our voice right now. The current data center brings a great disappointment, especially to lifelong residents like myself. We didn't need it in Gilroy and we don't want any more future data centers. And the fact that most of you aren't supporting the residents of Gilroy, that's a big disappointment. Be our voice. I'm the voice of Gilroy. Data centers are bad. They affect residents. They affect residents' lives and especially wildlife. Please stop being sheep. Manage our city better and stop future data centers. Get it out of our cities.

And I have Sharon.

Good evening, council members. My name is Sharon Luna and I'm a San Martin resident. San Martin may be outside Gilroy's city limits, but we are your neighbors. Large-scale developments can have regional impacts on water, electricity, roads, emergency service, agriculture, wildlife, and other shared infrastructures. Those impacts do not stop at city boundaries. I know that you have fiscal responsibilities, but it is important that you look out and that you are the stewards of the land. It is important because we have had problems with chlorite. Never, never, we were told that there would be no problems with the Olin Fair Blair Company. We also have had human waste on San Martin properties as they go to your waste station. Please consider helping your California residents, Gilroy residents. Thank you.

Thank you. And I just want to remind those on Zoom, I do have one hand raised. However, it was after the third speaker had spoke. So those on Zoom, if you want to speak in public comment on an item, be sure to raise your hand at the very beginning of the public comment period so that we can get you on the books. And I have no more speakers.

Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. SO I'M GOING TO BRING THIS BACK TO COUNCIL FOR DELIBERATIONS, BUT I WANT TO DO A LITTLE REMINDER OR REVIEW FIRST. SO REMEMBER THE ITEMS THAT ARE UNDER CONSIDERATION TONIGHT. I'M GOING TO BRIEFLY SAY THEM JUST AS A REMINDER. SO THE FIRST ONE, WE'RE TRYING TO DETERMINE THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE IS STATULATORY EXEMPT FROM THE CEQA PURSUANT TO CEQA GUIDELINES. THAT'S WHAT MICHAEL TALKED ABOUT FIRST. WE'RE ALSO GOING TO BE TAKING ACTION ON A MOTION TO READ THE ORDINANCE BY TITLE ONLY AND WAIT FOR THE READING. to introduce an ordinance amending chapter 30 article L of the planning department applications related to ARC and site review. This is where staff presented two options, attachment one in the staff report, attachment two, the staff recommendation and the planning commission recommendation. So I just wanted to make that clear that we're on track for that. And I did hear some stuff from Council Member Bracco about some design standard specifications. That would not be action tonight. That would be direction to council that we could also talk about, but I think we should keep that separate. We'll give direction to staff based on design review. That sound about right? Okay, so who wants to go first? Okay, Council Member Bracco.

I feel like we're being herded into a decision that the city wants. And I agree with what Stephanie said. This has taken way too long to get from the fair memo to here, seven months. You know, it just, we need to, listen to the community and make some changes. I think I don't support what staff is recommending. What I would support is stopping all this and having a commission of community council and planning commission to come up with guidelines for development in our city. They haven't been visited in 30, 40 years. We need to be ahead of the developments that are coming into our town. We need to be going through and changing the rules now, not wait until, oh, it's too late. They already applied and they're all good with our existing ordinances. So I'm a no vote.

Council Member Fregassi, so this is a reminder we're trying to keep separate the direction we're giving to staff and we're considering the ordinances recommended by Planning Commission or the staff.

I'm going to use four seconds to agree with him on the fair memo thing. So there you go. There's my four seconds on that. One thing I'd like to say to begin with is we started before this meeting with an economic development study session. And whether or not everybody really understands the predicament or how the city is funded, how budgets work, where the money comes from in general, uh... and and be clear i'm not even talking about amazon right now i'm talking just in general of how money comes from different places all around the city and when we zone we zone certain areas to to allow businesses to come and set up in those areas And although it's novel to want to have farmland everywhere, it's not going to generate the revenue. I would like it. It would be quaint. But we absolutely have to have these particular areas. And then we need to strike a balance. We have to strike a balance between understanding that if you could not have any industry at all and still pay your bills, I would love to have zero industry and pay my bills. IT WOULD PROBABLY BE THE BEST. BUT IT'S NOT THE CASE. WE WILL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO STRIKE THE BALANCE WITH INDUSTRY AND STRIKE THE BALANCE WITH THE VARIABLES THAT ARE IN THIS RIGHT NOW TO SAY HOW BIG OF A RANGE DO WE WANT TO HAVE. THE IDEA THAT SIX MEETINGS FOR 15,000 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING WITH GOING A MILE OUTSIDE THE CITY IS JUST COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE in terms of economic development. People will not come and want to put business in Gilroy with things like that. So we have to keep that in mind. I am not sold completely on the variables in this, but I'm going to support it in some form. We need to understand that there are multiple steps here. This is one step of it. I think there's also a lot of room for objective standards in a different talk, in a different meeting, even possibly the way that Councilmember Bracco suggested there. I think that's something entirely different to look at. But in terms of notifying the community, in terms of not getting ourselves into a pickle, in terms of the things that we didn't have already, that the Planning Commission which, by the way, I watched the Planning Commission, and there were some speakers at the Planning Commission, but I wished all of you also would have gone to the Planning Commission and spoken there because you might have influenced them even more to change the way that those variables end up coming to us. So, you know, in some form, I will probably support this, but I would like to hear from other council members what they think about those particular variables.

Council Member Marks.

This was not really what I had in mind when Council Member Ramirez and I started this fair memo back in January. We wanted to have that ordinance updated. We wanted to make sure that whatever industry came to Gilroy, the public was going to be protected by environmental protections whenever there was electrical, water, battery storage, You know, whatever. And we purposely did not say anything about data centers because, as Council Member Ramirez said, we didn't know what was coming down. In five years, there could be a similar project coming that's not a data center, and we wanted all those projects protected. I have to have some changes made to our fair memo because 1,000 feet out is unrealistic. Everyone needs to be notified. Everyone has to have a say. And I don't even like the idea of having, I'm losing my train of thought here, even having it in six districts. We need to be all together. And this is where I want this to go to the Planning Commission. They review it. They either say yes or no. But I wanted to go to City Council. We wanted City Council to also hear this and be the final say. And it's at these Planning Commission and City Council meetings that the public needs to be all together, no matter where you live in the city. You need to be here voicing your opinion. So for me to vote yes tonight, there has to be a few changes made. Oh, and one last thing. I don't like the amount of money that's being charged for an appeal. There would be one appeal. All one person has to do is say, no, I'd like to appeal this, and it goes to an appeal, and then whatever that decision is made is final, and you would have to accept that. But to make it so costly that all of a sudden the normal citizen cannot afford it, that's wrong.

Okay, I'm going to move on to Council Member Hilton.

I'm glad to see the community so engaged. Thank you for all the emails, phone calls, texts, and for your public comments tonight. We all take responsibility, including the public, for zoning the land in Gilroy and all the conditions needed for approval while removing the red tape for development. The city of Gilroy, like many other jurisdictions, have streamlined ministerial processes in place to approve many types of developments when applicants follow a clear, objective application and approval process. This makes the development process predictable for landowners and cuts the red tape. We don't actively block projects or block certain applicants from developing on their own land. We have a current growth plan that was established through the general plan of 2040. The 2040 general plan process includes an extensive environmental review. Business, community, electives, every city commission played a role, and that was approved in November of 2020. The city council has provided an annual progress report each April. AND A NEW GENERAL PLAN SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED EVERY 10 YEARS. IF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OR CITY COUNCIL DISLIKES A PROJECT, THEY MUST FORMALIZE THOSE OBJECTIONS INTO VALID LAND-USE ARGUMENTS. IF AN APPLICANT CAN PROVE A DENIAL WAS ARBITRARY OR BASED MERELY ON DISLIKE RATHER THAN FACTUAL EVIDENCE, THEY CAN SUE THE MUNICIPALITY FOR VIOLATING THEIR LAND-USE LAWS. It is illegal to make the scope of any environmental review so large that it creates mitigations to make the project infeasible. I am supportive of objective design standards for industrial and commercial. We do this for residential to speed up the process and we want to remain predictable for the development community and not subjective. Our housing element calls for this to be updated this fall of 2026, and this council hasn't even had the chance to provide their current input on the residential side. We could mirror that process. As new projects are proposed, we should establish clear and consistent objective design standards that consider community needs, economic development, energy use, environmental impacts, public health, and neighborhood quality of life. Thank you.

Council Member Ramirez.

So I appreciate all the input, especially by the council members here before me. Just to clarify, I did not mention anything about time. So that was not ever an issue. So as far as whether the things, I agree that there should not be six separate conversations separated by districts. If there is a concern about a project, everyone should come to the table. Everyone should speak together. Having people at the same table makes for a better conversation. What is said at one meeting might not even be brought up at another meeting, and it's not even considered then. So I would not support six different conversations. I would support one conversation. I, you know, whether it goes just whether these significant and unavoidable impacts go only to planning commission for decision or to planning commission for Review and recommendation and then it comes to council Either way is fine by me where I am concerned though with that is when we cannot deny it based on state law and When it comes before us it is often implied that we can make that decision And so that is the concern that I have we I know on and I dealt with this on a number of occasions at the planning commission level where things came to us and there were certain planning commissioners that didn't like the project and argued and argued and argued. We had nothing to say, you know, it's not a matter of whether we like the project or not. It's a matter of whether we can legally deny it. And so my concern is, is that if it comes to council, AND PEOPLE COME AND THEY SHARE THEIR CONCERNS, WE MIGHT SHARE THE SAME CONCERNS, BUT OUR HANDS ARE LEGALLY BOUND. SO THAT'S THE CONCERN I HAVE.

I'M SORRY. COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN.

I DO APPRECIATE EVERYONE COMING. YOU'VE BEEN COMING OVER ALL THE MEETINGS WE'VE HAD AND SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. I appreciate this council because we take the time to deliberate and talk this issue through. This is a first reading. This is the first conversation. I agree with Council Member Fugazzi about that. What Council Member Hilton and Ramirez said too, I mirror that too. I think this is just, again, the first reading. It's not the end. It's just the beginning of the process that we're taking this through to upgrade this ordinance.

Thank you. So one of the items that I've focused in on, Council Member Fregasi brought up earlier, and we've heard from public comment, is that the staff report and the planning commission's recommendation are not that far off from each other. They're really, really close. So to start this conversation, to see where we're going to get tonight, because let's remember, at this moment, we're not doing design review standards and objective standards. We are trying to determine, it sounds like we're This is boiled down to the staff recommendation or the planning commission recommendation. Planning commission recommendation includes that all EIRs go in front of the planning commission. If I understand correctly from the staff report, very few EIRs don't have significant unmitigated circumstances. Not with development projects, that's correct. Right.

So some of the conversations that I what I'm hearing from what you're saying Let me let me just can I just add one thing that to make it more clear So what you're saying is almost all of them would end up there anyway, correct?

Yes. Thank you so so as it's as it's I'm leaving it to you guys to discuss it further, but I based on what I just said I would recommend that we recommend the Planning Commission recommendations. We're voting on that tonight and not on staff recommendations.

So did Planning Commission say the 1,000 feet? Correct.

That is correct. Correct.

Can we amend that? Just that part of it of Planning Commission. That's what I would like.

We're here to talk about that.

Can I ask a question on that one specifically to help you out? So if it went from 1,000 to 2,000, what would be the burden of impact on the applicant?

Well, Sharon's looking for that. The burden on the applicant. More or less. If we went to 500 to 1,000. So, no, no, no.

You're at 1,000. So, if we doubled that to 2,000, what would be the increased burden on the applicant? Approximately.

Yeah, we actually kind of did this math at the planning commission meeting. Because right now the city code specifies 500 feet radius for public hearing. So for this, this is a community outreach, not public hearing, but we did the math and if it's a thousand square, a thousand feet radius, you know, so it's double the radius. And if just looking at the radius, The area, right, pi r squared, that will be four times the area. And I know that doesn't necessarily represent the number of parcels, but just assuming, you know, pretty uniform size, then that's four times the amount of the notification. And so if you're going to do from 500 to 2,000, that's four times.

No, I'm asking you from 1,000 right now, okay, to 2,000. There's four times as many people on average, depending on where it is in the city. I get that. WHAT IS THE UPTICK IN COST TO THAT?

ASSUMING IF IT'S UNIFORM PARCEL SIZE AND THINGS LIKE THAT, THAT WOULD BE FOUR TIMES. I KNOW.

I GET THAT POINT. I'M SAYING HOW MUCH DOES A THOUSAND COST ON AVERAGE?

I'LL DO THE FOUR TIMES.

THAT'S WHAT I SAID. I MEAN, MORE OR LESS. OKAY. SO THEN TAKE IT TO THE NEXT STEP THEN. EVERYBODY IN THE CITY. WHAT'S THE UP CHARGE GOING TO BE TO AN APPLICANT? to do that notification? Is it a dollar a resident? Is it five dollars a resident?

So if we sent it to every home, it would run into tens of thousands of dollars. Because just simply look at it as a postcard has noticing, it has to be created.

I get that. I'm asking you the question. That's why. So it's a dollar a resident. So on any, I'm trying to put this into real terms so we can understand what real terms mean. So on any uh... development that's over fifteen thousand square feet if it was supposed to go to citywide forget about the mile outside the city for a moment here it would cost sixty five thousand dollars or sixty three thousand dollars to notice everybody in the city is right Now you're in households. Okay. So that's why I'm trying to help everybody else here understand this as much as me. Okay. Because not everybody's as quick as some of you. Not everybody shares it in a house.

Yes. You would be talking thousands of dollars, not tens of thousands of dollars.

Okay. So that's what I was getting at too. Okay. So it might go from maybe $1,200 or $1,500 to $6,000 or $10,000. Right. Right. So it may be a big impact for somebody with a 15,000 square foot facility relatively, but it's certainly not going to be a big impact for somebody with a 30,000 square foot facility more or less. I mean, in my business sense, right? So if that's helpful for any of you, it's certainly helpful for me.

Or what would it be like if you kept it to, say, maybe 2,000, make it a little bit bigger, but then... You don't send it to everyone else. You notice them in the City of Gilroy email. You put it in the Gilroy dispatch. You put it on the website. And we make people more responsible to look at those different areas to read the information and come to a public meeting, one public meeting, where everyone's together. And even if you send it out to those 2,000 people, people will start talking and the word will spread. So it makes it a little bit more economical for the developer.

I'm going to comment on that because that's what I was trying to get at. So there's two things that are going on here. There's the linear feat that they have to notice, but part of the recommendation is also all publication is going to do noticing. So the whole city is going to get noticed through publications. They just might not get a card. So I would say let's be careful about how many postcards that we're going to require to send out, and let's focus on the fact that public

Planning Commission recommendation is we are notifying the whole city right to that so The other thing is in its minor in a sense that it's perhaps supportive of this is the Link to the project page. I think it should be just at the bottom of every newsletter that goes out and STANDARD THING THAT IS ALWAYS ON EVERY NEWSLETTER SO THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE THE STATUS.

IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE HONING THIS DOWN TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION REVIEW. ARE WE STICKING WITH THE THOUSAND FEET? LET'S HEAR IT, IF NOT. The Planning Commission recommendation is 1,000 feet.

1,000 feet would be fine with me as long as the whole city was notified through paper.

Which is also part of the recommendation already. Which is also part of the recommendation.

Okay, perfect.

So as it stands right now, it feels like we are going towards the Planning Commission recommendation. What am I missing?

Okay.

All right, so... I'll do a motion. I WOULD LIKE TO DO THE MOTION FIRST AND THEN DO THE DESIGN REVIEW DIRECTION FOR COUNCIL AFTER. TAKE IT AWAY FROM THE ACTION. YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION FROM THE TOP, NUMBER ONE? ONE AT A TIME, PLEASE. NUMBER ONE. READ NUMBER ONE, PLEASE.

I'm sorry, Council, if you can just clarify. We mentioned that there are two components to the ordinance. So one is the public outreach, which is the 15,000 square feet non-residential projects that we've been talking about. And then the other component is the threshold for projects to go to planning commission for review. And that is the CEQA threshold that's based on projects within EIR, either with or without significant unavoidable impacts, depending on if you're going with staff planning commission. So I just want to clarify that.

Correct. Correct. Go ahead. With the planning commission. Number one, please.

To determine the proposed ordinance is statutorily exempt from the California Environment Quality Act pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15061 , the common sense exemption for the adoption of an ordinance relating to architectural and site review permit process and to enhance public outreach.

So that's a motion by Council Member Ramirez. We need a second, please.

I'll second.

I got a second by Council Member Marks. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco? No. Council Member Klein?

Yes.

Council Member Fugazi?

Yes.

Council Member Hilton?

Aye.

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

Yes. Motion passes six to one. Want to take the second one too, Council Member Ramirez?

Motion to read the ordinance by title only. and waived further reading of the ordinance and... Oh, stop, stop.

Sorry about that. That's fine. Just stop there. Okay, stop. Okay. Kim? Is that Kim there?

A motion. We need a motion. Second.

Second. So I have a motion by Councilmember Ramirez and a second by Councilmember Hilton.

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy amending the Gilroy City Code.

Hold on a second. I'm sorry. You have to vote on the motion now to read by title only and waive further reading. This is a motion that requires... Council Member Bracco?

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

Aye.

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

Yes. Motion passes 7-0.

And let me read the title of the ordinance. An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy amending the Gilroy City Code Chapter 30 Zoning Article L Planning Department Applications regarding the Architectural and Site Review Permit Process.

I knew. Now it's time for the third motion. And for the record, that was attachment two with the staff report.

No, number three would be heard. Okay, take number three then, Kelly.

And number three, I move to introduce an ordinance amending Chapter 30 zoning, Article L, planning department applications relating to architectural site review permit process.

Attachment two.

Attachment two.

I have a motion by Council Member Ramirez, a second by Council Member Fugazi. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco?

No.

Council Member Klein?

Yes.

Council Member Fugazi? Yes. Council Member Hilton?

Aye.

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

Yes. Motion passes six to one. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. So let's go quick and have a quick discussion. Now, this is not action. We're going to give Direction to staff regarding some design, objective design review standards. I'm going to start off with Council Member Hilton.

Yeah, I can try to form this for us. So it would be provide direction to staff to bring back objective design standards in concurrence with the residential design standards for commercial industrial projects that consider community needs, economic development, energy use, environmental impacts, public health, and neighborhood quality of life.

Everybody okay with that? Okay. I have a thumbs up. Thank you very much. That's the direction. Thank you. No action. Any more? Any more on that? Okay. Thank you very much. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, let's resume our meeting. We're gonna get right to it. Item number nine, 9.1, introduction of new business, authorization for council travel to the League of California Cities annual conference, selection of a voting delegate and direction regarding the proposed league resolution.

That would be me. So as the agenda item says, there is a league meeting this year. At the league meeting, annually, there is an opportunity, most years, for a delegate from the city of Gilroy to vote on specific items that the League of California Cities is fronting. There's a whole process for getting these things before the league at the meeting. like to have a delegate assigned and then provide direction for the delegate to support, not support, or abstain from any items that are on the agenda. So this year, Council Member Ramirez will be traveling to the League of California Cities, so we'd like approval for her travel for that function and then further direction on the item that is going to be heard at the League of California Cities. That concludes the staff report.

Questions for Matt? No questions. Okay. Public comment, please.

I have no speakers.

All right. So I'm going to, we're going to break this up into two different motions and I'm just, I'm going to start with the first two, and then there might be a little, we might need a little explanation from Council Member Ramirez on number three, if you don't mind. Okay, so authorized travel for Council Member Ramirez to attend the League of California Cities Annual Conference and select Council Member Ramirez as the voting delegate. A motion. I got a motion by Council Member Klein.

Second.

I have a second by Council Member Marks. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bracco.

Yes.

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

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. So then I'm going to ask Council Member Ramirez to comment on the league resolution that she's going to be voting on perhaps. Go ahead.

So I just would like to try to get some support for this. First of all, the resolution, the process, as Mr. Morley explained, is it's first reviewed by the resolution committee, Cal City's resolution committee, and then it's also being reviewed by the Housing, Economic, and Community Development Policy Committee. That is the committee that I personally serve on. It has not yet come to us. We're having a Zoom meeting, and I forget the date, if it's September 14th or 17th, but it's prior to the conference. But looking at it, the reasons that I would like to support this is that the purpose of it is to restore and strengthen local authority over housing and land use, including general plans, housing elements, zoning, density, design and development standards, approval or denial of housing projects. But at the same time, we'll still preserve state's authority to set broad statewide housing goals, enforce civil rights, fair housing, building safety, environmental standards, but still while protecting local control. And what they're proposing is a very collaborative statewide working group or committee to conduct the legal fiscal and policy analysis and to engage cities and other stakeholders. So again, it's really the impetus is to try to get some local control back so we can basically follow all general policies. And they are recognizing THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ALL OF THESE STATE LAWS IN TERMS OF, YOU KNOW, IMPACTING PUBLIC SAFETY, INFRASTRUCTURE, ET CETERA. SO I THINK IT'S SOMETHING THAT I RECOMMEND.

NEW SPEAKER P. QUESTIONS FOR COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ? NONE? OKAY. I'LL ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO IDENTIFY IF COUNCIL DESIRES TO SUPPORT VOTING ON THE LEAGUE RESOLUTION IDENTIFIED BY COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ.

ARE YOU STILL READING?

NO. I'M LOOKING FOR A MOTION. SO MOVED. A MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER MARKS. SECOND. SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER FUGATZI.

COUNCILMEMBER BRANCO.

YES.

COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN.