Economic Development, Communications, and Marketing Committee - Regular Meeting

Just tell me. Good afternoon, everyone. Hello. Hi. Hi, everybody. So glad you're all here. I have something to read into the record, before we start. This meeting will be recorded, we hope. The Zoom application will notify you that this meeting is being recorded. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting.

Use the raise your hand feature in Zoom when you would like to speak on an item and to also lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute yourself when called to speak and mute yourself when you are done speaking. If you are calling in by phone, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item. Press 9 on your phone to raise and lower your hand. Press 6 if you are participating by phone to unmute. So I'd like to call this meeting to order. And a roll call, I see Vice Mayor Gonzales there. Is that you? Present.

That's me.

Very good. And I'm present and council member Cox is on her way so we can can move ahead. We're gonna start with our consent calendar. May I have a motion, Albert, to approve the consent calendar?

I move it.

Does anyone have any questions on the consent calendar or changes or anything about that? And that's approving our minutes from February 19. Alright. That's a motion. I'll second that motion. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Very good. That passes unanimously of those present. So next, we have public presentations. Do we have anyone that would like to make a public presentation? Ryan? Yeah. You need the microphone. You can pull it out too, I think. Well, I thought you could.

Yeah. Anyways, I I turned in several emails and at the Santa Clara council meeting and never really heard back about developing economic things around the Santa Clara core and wanting to make it there seems to be a lot of people out there that have a lot of ideas that aren't really connected through whatever situation why there's not really an avenue for us to, like, why don't you try this idea, this idea, this idea, or to say, no. We can't do that. Either way, it helps. And I would appreciate if maybe when because I spent a lot of time on it.

I actually went through and called different cities and wrote them and asked them what they did at their big public event. And the 49ers came, and it was a great game, and I'm sure there was a lot of positive. A lot of people didn't feel like they were heard during that situation and that a lot of cities, San Jose, San Francisco took a lot of the dollars away instead of Santa Clara. And Santa Clara tried to offer a new mayor, tried to make sure that it was enough stuff was being done in Santa Clara that validated our expense for what we were doing. There's a lot more people that have a lot more ideas and can help even take some of that pressure off city staff willing to I know I was, and I brought it up several times, and it didn't really go anywhere. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Well, you're here. So this is a good place for you to be with your ideas. Do we have anyone else that has a public presentation here? Anyone online? No online? Okay. So we're gonna get started with our general business, which is the let me see. Business. Report to economic development and marketing committee from city staff oh, here it is. Sorry about that. Discussion and input on the citywide twenty twenty six economic development and community engagement. But first of all, I wanna thank our committee and our staff for the event at Levi's Stadium that happened. Was it last weekend or the weekend before? Feels like a it's all a blur.

That was a fantastic event. Did was everyone here present? Did everyone had get a chance to go? So I'd like to hear some feedback on that. So I don't know if it's appropriate time or right now. You oh, okay. You've got it because I have to say our staff did a phenomenal job putting that together at the last minute. So let's give them a round of applause. I think in the history of any city putting together an event like that with weeks notice, it's something that is, for the record books. So alright, Steph. Go ahead. I'm sure, we'll get the input from our committee as as we're moving along the agenda today.

Thank you, mayor. Yes. Good evening. So we were here just a couple weeks ago, so today's agenda is a little bit light. We're just coming off of having the event, but we do have some input that we needed from the committee and wanna we'll be going over that shortly. So we will be doing a recap of what we've been up to, a recap of celebrate Santa Clara, the stadium event. The input that we need from the committee today is about the art activation. We have some good news and and wanted to move forward with, the art activation. An update on the stem zone, that is our next event next month. And then just wanted to remind, the committee members if they wanted to volunteer and then budget and updates, for the group.

So what we've done so far, I think the the as the mayor mentioned, the last notable event was a stadium event. And so we've we've launched the events, we've hosted our first event. And so we're very excited that we're able to to launch it with the stadium event. We can next one. And I'll so before I turn it over to Alicia, I did wanna thank, the committee and the members here that helped make that event possible.

Your input was very helpful in shaping the scope of the event and making it happen, and individuals like Mike making part of those components come to life and bringing our our Santa Clara youth to the field. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Alicia. Oh, so just as we discussed last time, we have launched the events. We've as I mentioned, with the stadium event being the first one that we launched two weekends ago. The next one is StemZone, a Sunday, April 19 from ten to four, and it'll be at the Santa Clara Convention Center. And then we are working on finalizing the dates for the night markets, will be May, June, and July in Downtown Santa Clara.

There's a little bit of a delay. There we go. So these are just some really nice photos of the event that happened on Saturday, February 28. The city opened the stadium doors to Santa Clara residents for a community field day. And as you can see, it was very exciting.

Doors opened at twelve noon, and people were greeted with music and food. And the theme for the day was DJ Palooza. We had so many different DJs from across the Bay Area that are all sports arena amp DJs, and so we were really excited about that. We also had about 125 youth athletes participate in soccer, flag football, skills and drills, which were on the sidelines, judo as well. You see that middle photo there.

And they were also able to refuel at the city's Tapwater Express, which was also on the field, if you missed that. Some of the groups and we'll allow Mike to hop in. Paulina said it earlier, but Mike Walkie was really instrumental in getting our local youth groups and schools out there on the field. And what an amazing sight to see with just all these kiddos running around on the field. It was beautiful.

A couple of participants, and Mike, if I leave anyone out, keep me honest, but we know Powell was there, the Lions were there, Rush was there, and we had flag football teams from, I think, across all three local high schools. Yeah. It was incredible. We then rolled into a PD versus fire scrimmage, which was also amazing. It was opened by post 04:19 with the opening ceremony.

We rolled into the scrimmage, which was commentated by NBC Telemundo personalities, so professional personalities. They also commentated on the youth scrimmages as well. So they were like real games going on for the kids and for PD and fire. And then we also had our very own EDMC member I don't see him here, but Taylor Amarante, he was also one of the commentators for both the youth scrimmages and PD and fire. At the concourse level, we had a couple of photo ops, so we did have the FIFA countdown clock present.

We had a couple of activations, Brick Blaster, Everybody Can Paint, which is our community muralist that is going to be present at, and has been present at the different community events that we've put forward. We had a silent disco, if you missed that. That was up on the plaza for the teens and families. We also had the Super Bowl Roman numerals. At the atrium level, we had all the partner and community services, which I have to say were packed all day long.

Anna, I'm looking at you because I know you were down there. So hopefully, when we open it up, if you could give your account, we had so many different community partners out there in city services. It was incredible. But we also had face painting, which was a hit, and balloon animals, which was a hint a hit, and Nitro Dunk, which was like a basketball athletic jumping situation. It was this is pretty cool.

And we also had the library mobile, which I heard was also packed, yeah, the entire time, which was really good. The United Club was also open to all residents, and we did have a couple photo booths in the United Club. The FIFA Championship trophy, which was provided by NBC, Telemundo was in there for folks to take photos. And also, the concessions were open. Kids ate free, which was incredible.

And we also had the meals meals discounted. There's Taylor, everyone. He was our commentator for the day. And so meals were discounted. There was also Super Bowl memorabilia, and this was all offered by way of sponsorship from ProLogis. So we wanna thank ProLogis for that. Yep. And kid kids also ate free. We also, within United Club, had Cornhole, Giant Jenga, Connect Four, and there was an arcade game activation. So we tried to have something for everyone, whatever you were into, and I heard that was pretty popular as well.

So really excited about that. And then as you left the United Lounge, you were greeted by Booker Middle School's Mariachi band. They were there playing for everyone as well, which was incredible. They had fun and lively music, so we're really excited about that. So, again, the theme of the day was DJ Palooza. So you can kind of see here, this is when the day opened into the community field day. We had multiple DJs spinning, which was incredible. The 49ers Museum was open and was also a hit. I heard the line was wrapped around. So that was really, really cool.

And there was discounted 49ers merchandise right outside the museum as well. So hopefully, you all were able to pick up your gear. And then the day continued with the field opening, and we had a couple different activations on the field, so you could do simply a photo op or just play around on the field. We had Ultimate Frisbee. We had tug of war, which I heard was I saw was extremely popular.

Potato sack races. Kiddo Kinetics was out there for the younger the younger generation, just working on their coordination skills and drills, and then the earthquakes led some skills and drills as well. And then the day ended with DJ Goshfather, which, again, was a recommendation of our very own EDMC member, Misha. And we believe that he was the perfect way to end the night. He had high energy.

We had glow sticks, if you can see here, wristbands that were glowing to the beat of the music, and everyone was just having a really good time. I I failed to mention also that our very old Sean, the voice of Santa Clara, was also commentating on field day. And so he was out there running around with all oh, you. Running around with all the kids and all the families. It was incredible.

So I I I would call the event a success. Santa Clara definitely showed up represented. We showed our community what we could do. And we're really, really excited, as the mayor mentioned, to be able to get this done in record timing record timing. So really excited about that. So give your give yourselves a hand. But from here, just wanna open it up for folks that were there. We'd love to get your feedback, hear how the event was for you all, and then also just to share your experience out. This event was yours, so just wanna hear about it. I'm gonna pick on Mike, actually, to kick us off.

Mike? Mike needs a Mike. Talk about your experience with the kids on the field, all the activities that were down there and the different coaches.

K. So as Alicia said, we had just under a couple 100 kids out on the field. We had right around 35 high school girls playing flag football from all three high schools. We had, 40 judo kids, demonstrating judo, all pal judo children. Some of them are competing internationally even, so that's a very high end program.

And then for soccer, I invited every nonprofit soccer group in the city. Three took me up on it, and the understanding was that, look, we don't have a whole lot of details. We're gonna make it work as we go along, which didn't settle real well with some of them, but it all worked out. I said, you guys called each other and we had roughly a 120 soccer players from three different nonprofit youth groups. The the only drawback, and Alicia and Paulina and I have all talked about this, was as we were building the plane and trying to get the information to people, it wasn't fast enough.

And it next year, when we do this again, we'll have more time, and we'll be able to get this and we've done it once, so we'll be able to get the communications down better. But everybody loved it. The kids had a blast. I have to give props to coach Kelly Cox. She she was she was leading the team from Santa Clara, and, they did a great job.

But everybody had fun. Everybody totally enjoyed it. The parents thought it was awesome. Yeah. It went over big time after everything came together and we got stuff figured out even the morning of, we were still figuring out some stuff, but it happened. It worked. So great job by everybody.

Anyone else? I'm gonna pick on people. Taylor?

Testing. Testing. Good afternoon. I do have some feedback, and it's 99.9% positive. We live in this city. Right? We we talk to people all week long. We we see colleagues. We see classmates. We see neighbors.

I have never had a week where I heard so much about the city of Santa Clara and specifically that event. I heard it from people at work, I heard it from friends, family. There was a lot of people saying Wow, I can't believe like when they saw photos, for example, at the end of the evening when the mayor spoke, and then I believe DJ Umami was spinning. My friends saw those photos and they were like What the heck? What what what what was that? You know? They were so surprised that that event had that kind of turnout. Outside of that, I was on the field. I wanna give Alicia props because she was really taking on a ton in in quarterbacking, like, to her very best. So major props.

I was down there. I I saw what was going on. There was a lot of a lot of decision making and things happening that really, you know, would've event of that magnitude. Sometimes people might buckle under the pressure, I thought you did great. I heard a lot of people saying it was the first time they'd ever been in the stadium. A lot of families who were down on the grass, I kept hearing, wow. I can't believe it's this big. Oh, I can't believe the field's this long. Like, every other family that was down there was probably first time inside Levi's Stadium, so I thought that was cool. I also thought the age groups from the littlest kids all the way to grandparents and great grandparents being out there, I thought that was cool.

My family went out there and we have eight kids under the age of nine and they were blown away by the chicken tenders and fries. Mhmm. Like, I now as a new dad, I understand the impact of the chicken tenders and fries. Right? It it's expensive at stadiums.

People always wonder how my kids gonna eat when they got there and find out and to find out, wow, this is a guaranteed meal here for these kids. They'll eat it up. That was huge. Last but not least, I thought there was a lot of cool photo ops I saw, but I also thought the police versus fire game, I thought that was special. And having done that before at PayPal Park, I know that communities really are invested in those kinds of games because it's the people who are serving your city and they get to have a a fun time in front of everyone and and kind of just I feel like that was a really cool piece and I think in future years, if we do this again, expanding on that kind of idea would go a long way. That's that's all I got.

Really nice to hear from everyone. But I'm looking at the age range of who's speaking. And as a representative for the 30 year olds, I have a lot of criticism right here. So, you know, I'm really happy that it opened up with, like, positive comments. But, you know, I just I wish that the planning was a little bit better because this committee began in April.

And seeing how San Jose coordinated, they hired maybe, like, an event producer in January. So to say that, hey. We're gonna speed it up because of the turf, I don't think that was a good enough, you know, excuse. And so, I mean, the the event producer was as was trying to get a consensus of, you know, like, what what's popular over here in this area? And, you know, props for for the team for for, like, the rushing, but I think it could have done a lot been executed a lot better.

You know, I appreciate, you know, all the families having a great time. But if it was a date night and you don't have the kids with you or you don't have any children, I saw the children just having a great time and, like, you know, rolling around in in the grass. And that's nice, but it it could have been you know, I don't think the 30 year olds were really taken into account when it came to this. And, also, the food, great on the chicken tenders if you're a child. Right? But if I'm an adult and I'm asking for nachos did anyone get nachos by any chance? Anyone look at that? A bag of Tostitos and a little dip of cheese and jalapenos on the side? No? I don't no.

I don't think so. Yeah. See. So that I mean, if you go to a baseball game, it's a whole different situation. And and and but props to to any of the sponsors that did cover the the cost. I do wanna give credit to that. It's just that, again, maybe better surveying of Santa Clara. City staff, I appreciate you, but you're you're talking about Santa Clara residents, not what you the staff thinks. And so, you know, I just wanna give that criticism while everyone's being positive. You know, I just wanna make sure take that into account.

When there's if you anticipate some issues coming up, maybe plan a little bit better. Like, what was the the purpose of this? What was the RFP here? I I don't understand. But I do I do appreciate that the request for proposal, like the outline, the purpose.

What what was the the goal intended here? What was the end game? And so I I do appreciate this because Santa Clara had did not have something like this before. And I appreciate the council pushing for this because this is a way to really initiate something for Santa Clara, make it historic, and we have time to make it better. We have these these upcoming international games that's gonna put attention to Santa Clara, and we have a moment to really step up to that moment.

You know, mission meets the moment, so let's let's live up to that. And that's my criticism, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing that one moment where it's like I saw Santa Clara people getting to see each other again after so many years and the newer Santa Clara people. So I I did appreciate that. And yeah. But, you know, good job on the other time frame. Great job.

Just, I think it was really well done. I appreciate the the criticism and the, compliments. I don't know if this is doable, but a lot of residents in Santa Clara can't make it. There's convalescent facilities. There's group homes. A lot of people are immune. And to go to one of these places really literally taking your life in your hands. So some way of filming to build that community, I know a lot of people, they give their they would love to be able to go to one of these things even if it's virtual. I mean, I wish there was a way we could take people there. But especially with the new cuts that are coming, transportation is gonna be sliced really almost in half if something doesn't change at the federal level.

And so I think those populations, which really are served in Santa Clara, I think there's a just off the top of my head, I can think of five convalescent facilities in Santa Clara proper that I worked with over my career. And probably maybe 800 people, maybe more, that are provided services in those areas. They would really love to see something like this. Thank you.

Comment? I I wanted to say, and I wanna follow-up a little bit about what Yvonne said, is that I think the during the day, especially the the families with children, it was like there was a lot of activities, a lot of fun activities. By the time we got to the evening, many people had been there since early morning. Right? And it was a warm day.

And when the first what was her name? Ama Amani? Amani? She you know, it was pretty full in the stadium in terms of everyone on the field, and Taylor took some good pictures of the the field with everyone out you know, everyone pictured. By the time it got to the goshfather, people started leaving, and I thought he was great.

And people started leaving, so it was almost like two events. You had the morning, you know, morning with the family event, and then in the evening event was more for, you know, people dancing around and maybe younger a younger crowd if you could stay that long. So I think, you know, in the future, advertising advertising what's what's gonna gonna happen at at a whatever time period. So, you know, we had it, like, come to the stadium from twelve to eight. Here it is.

That maybe we would have, like, two different crowds as well. And I remember council member Cox Cox saying, oh, you know, in the evening, we're gonna get a rush of, you know, different people, but I didn't really see that. So I that's just my feedback in terms of, you know, in the future, advertising. Again, we only had a few weeks, and I get that. We only had a few weeks.

And once we had that window of opportunity, we wanted it to be the next weekend, but we had to take it. Whatever it was, we had to take it granted. We paid through the nose to go there, and I'm gonna be scrutinizing those bills. But but we had to take it, and I think for the opportunity we had with such a short period of time, I think it went went over very well because I heard over and over and over, I have never been to the stadium before. I've never been here.

This is amazing. So, people were very appreciative. I believe we're gonna be getting the numbers of of attendees at some point who attended. That's everything we did was a lesson, a lesson to be learned, like a best practice for the future. If we give out 30,000 tickets and 15,000 come, we know that people are we have to over oversell for for our events.

And I think our next test is gonna be the the STEM the STEM event because I believe that's gonna be really popular. And we've had, you know, more time to advertise that as well. But I'm still pushing for us to have a concert or two before the end of the before we start the World Cup, so we're gonna be working on that. But I all in all, I think it was a really fun day. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. So just to piggyback off, I think it it was a big event to host an event or a community event that size. And then inside the stadium, there's a lot of complexities that at least I had to work with to make sure that it happened. So, yeah, I I I think if we had more time, we would have been able to do things a little bit differently, but I think that we were the fact that we were able to plan and coordinate it within the time frame that we did. And I think one of the things that I kept hearing all day too was this is my first time in the stadium.

I've never been here. And so and it was just really special seeing the families on the field during the the DJ time and when they were out there just picnicking, hanging out. It was really, really nice to see that. Is there anything else you wanted to add, Alicia?

No. I think I think it's all been said. I just wanna thank you all for for, number one, trusting us to be able to put this on in two to three weeks. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for showing your support in partnership with us. This was our event, not not just city staff. This was everyone in this room helped put this on. So just wanna say thank you.

Okay. So in addition to the great events we're having with this campaign, we are also looking at doing art activations as part of the mission where the mission meets the moment campaign. And so I know, in December, we had we had previously talked about corridor art, where we are gonna be celebrating Santa Clara champions or athletes throughout the city. And in December, I provided an update that the artist was unable to do the artwork, but the artist has since come back, John Cerny, and he is able to commission two pieces. And so and this is the artwork that he does.

This is outside of the Triton Museum. Next slide, please. And he is known for his murals that go along freeways, and they depict different individuals. But they are large scale, and they do look like life size. And so what we had previously come sorry.

Next slide. To the committee was Brandy Chastain, Donna DeVerona, Brent Jones, and then they we had included Jaylen Williams who's a current athlete. And so we had identified 900 Lafayette for Brandy Chastain, nine Donna DeVerona at Central Park, Brent Jones at the Convention Center, and we hadn't identified a location for Jaylen Williams. So with the artist with the artist coming back and saying that they could do two, we met with the subcommittee for the art activations, and we narrowed it down to Brandy Chastain and Jaylen Williams. And if you can go to the next slide.

So these would be these are the mock ups that the artist provided. We will be working with the athletes themselves because this is pending working with them and making sure that they are okay with the artwork. Part of the reason that these athletes were selected is that they would be able to be part of an unveiling of the murals. And so this is a feedback that we or mock ups that we got from the artist, and we just wanted a feedback from this group in in moving forward with commissioning the artwork. Because we are looking at doing two right now, we are looking at move locating Brandy Chestain's mural near Levi's Stadium near the Convention Center since we are having soccer the FIFA World Cup in the upcoming months, and then locating Jaylen Williams who played at Santa Clara University at locating his mural at 900 Lafayette.

And so you can open it up for any input or comments.

Is that Brandy in her Santa Clara University

uniform? I think The US jersey. Wait. Why don't we put the bra one?

That's what most people recognize. Right? They'll say, Brandy Chastain. Oh, her. Right. That is a USA outfit? I believe so. Yeah. Is there is there information about them? Is there a sign that talks about them?

So, yeah, we had talked about that. So we were thinking of locating a QR code with that would take you to provide information about the athlete and how they are tied to the city. They're so that would be part of the mural, not on the mural, but near adjacent to.

So is the thought that by the convention center would would be an enormous amount of people during World Cup and then Jaylen Williams by the university?

Correct.

Engagement of the students.

Mhmm. And we were thinking if we do it at 900 Lafayette, we're intending for the night markets, and that

would Oh, I see. Okay.

So we would want somewhere that is visible and people could and safe enough where people wanted to take selfies, they would be able to

go.

So they're pulling up a map, but we haven't identified, like, the exact location, but just the general area. And so we would walk with the artist to identify the ideal location. But

mhmm.

So there's that plaza area between the two buildings too. Right? So that would be yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. We'd want somewhere where people can interact with it and interact with it safely. Oh, sorry.

Sorry, guys. Can you answer my question?

Yeah. For Jaylen Williams at the university, I would suggest next to the horse that's right off the, road there. So everybody can take selfies of the Bronco and of Jaylen.

Is it where

where are you talking?

Take us on the Safeway. When are going to Safeway?

Oh, I see.

Right there at the bend to the left.

Oh, one other thing if you wanna tie it into the night market, the Franklin Street that the university purchased, the open space that leads to the Art And Art History Building right there. So it's, like, right across the street from but it it would be part of our night market because it's all kind of in that same area.

Deborah? We did want to sorry. Yes.

I was

just going to say we were thinking more like Franklin and Lafayette. In between the Commerce Plaza and the the Togos, there's kind of a little grassy knoll or something that would be, you know, visible from the university and from Lafayette, but also could then be included in the night market activities.

Deborah, if you look just right across the street from that on the university property, if they would allow it, which would still be in the area. It's Franklin Street, Franklin And Lafayette, but it's it's an open space. It's it's a permanent open space. We required that to be open, the Frank right there, which is kind of an entrance to the university, but it's right across from Togo's. Like, it's an art paseo with no art. So this could be the first art piece on the art paseo.

There. Is it on?

There we go. Now we can hear Howard. Sorry for being late. I probably missed a lot of the meeting. But the pictures you just shown of the athletes you're looking to highlight, I have no idea who they are. Maybe I'm in the dark ages. I'm sure there's other people out there who have no idea who they are. One guy's basketball. It's cool as soccer because it is soccer. We couldn't get anybody from University of Santa Clara who are big stars win. Okay. We got one. How about the basketball player? Well, let's put a soccer ball in his hands. Okay.

Let's put a soccer ball in his hand and play soccer. Can't we find a soccer guy?

Well, no. We have a woman who's changed the the world for women's soccer. Yeah. He pitched the pitcher of It's

World Cup soccer. You're the guy.

One of your The guy.

First one on the right. Person on the right bit World Cup soccer. Person on the left, holding a basketball. That will be pulling a soccer.

He's a basketball player.

So can't find somebody else? He can

Hang tight. I got another one for you.

Kick the ball somehow. They even took the mic from him.

Part of what Okay. I When we were if I could respond real quick. If when we were looking at athletes, we wanted a diversity of different sports that would be represented, not just soccer and football because I know that's, you know, we hosted the the Super Bowl, we're hosting the World Cup. But we wanted a diversity have diversity amongst the types of sports that their athletes represented. And so but we wanted to ensure that they all had a Santa Clara tie, which both of them do have Santa Clara ties. I think Chastity played at Santa Clara University, and then so did Jaylen Williams.

I go, oh, don't shave your back.

To help you out, I can think of another Santa Clara U graduate whose dad was a Santa Clara U graduate whose mother I went to high school with. Volleyball player, if you don't have enough athletes, there's always Carrie Walsh Jenning who's now back in the area. She was volley well, you guys know her. Do you know her from gold medal at the volleyball?

She didn't go to Santa Clara. Did she say you went she didn't go to Santa Clara.

I thought she did. Well, she's got ties to Santa Clara because her dad sure the hell did. And there's also oh, she went to Mitti. Catholic school girl who forgets. There's also at a baseball that's if you don't have enough athletes. Okay? At a baseball, there's always Carney Lansford. He went to Lisa's alma mater. And I know we have somebody swimming, Donna. There's Mark Spitz.

And Lisa, who was the another Books are grad football. Barkowski, that's it. But I think you have a 49, and it's probably better than somebody who wasn't a 40 niner. But I just thought Carrie Walsh Jennings, Carney Lansford, perhaps Mark Spitz were also people that could be on the list.

What does it cost us to sponsor one of these? What is the cost of this? Do we know?

It's So

if we wanna add athletes, we can go out and raise money to add athletes.

Well, I wasn't sure if you had enough, so I just throw that out there.

Thank you.

We have we have funding for, I believe, four. The artist is giving us a a very nice, rate, and so we have funding for four. If we'd like to add more, we can take a look at that. But at this point in time, we just wanted feedback on these two.

I think Does anyone have objection to these? So it's Howard?

That would be nice, Howard. If you can you could reach out and let us know.

Well, I'm hoping there I know now we're hoping well, Brandi lives in San Jose, so she would be accessible, and we would have to work with Santa Clara University to help us with Jaylen Williams Mhmm. Because it would be nice when we place them that they're there. Is that that would really that would really excite the community to have them there. When Jaylen Williams was honored at Santa Clara University, the entire school came out. It was amazing to honor him.

So he's still playing, so it's basketball season. Alright. After basketball season or or in between. He comes to play Golden State. There you go.

I think they just played over the weekend. Yeah. Next time.

Okay. Hello? I I got one thing to to ask. Does it have to be athletes only? Because I know that in Santa Clara University, you had Shamar Moore as a student over there, and that guy I mean, he's he's big in Hollywood and very good looking.

Wanna sponsor his

Just an idea.

We did wanna keep it to athletes because of the sporting events that we're hosting, and that's the tying it in with the okay. Thank you. We we that's a great idea. We haven't had any that were suggested. If there's anyone that knows of one that you would recommend or suggest, we would be open to that. Okay. Okay. So you can Okay. So now I'm gonna turn it over to Rachel who's gonna be providing us an update on the next event, STEM zone.

Hi, everybody. Yay. It's the next event. I'm very excited. So as you all can see, there's a QR code. I hope that you can all just register with Eventbrite today and come to the STEM zone. It's going to be a one day Sunday event from ten to four filled with tons of hands on activities. Every space will be hands on activities, and so we have asked that every booth that is a part of the event to be hands on learning in science or math. Can you go to the next one? Thank you.

It's okay. We can wait. So I wanted to share some

of the

panels. I think the star of the first one bringing George droids to life is Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, will be there, and both Mike Senna and Paul Thompson worked together to actually build baby yo Baby Yoda, and Baby Yoda will be there to take pictures with. So go meet Baby Yoda. And then we have some amazing women in science. So Tracy Fenara, she's from NOAA, Scientist and Environmental Engineer, Inspector planet.

She'll be there speaking on the panel with our astronaut, Suresha Brandla. She's an American aeronautical engineer. Carrie Byron from Mythbusters, and our host will be Jenny Bukos. If you want to go to the next slide. We these are all of our big, big panels.

We've coordinated a lot with Santa Clara University, and they will be kind of heading off from lab to real life human machine interaction with action. And so you're going to get to meet professors that work in the lab, and then they'll talk about how Think Surgical and Intuitive use these techniques for surgical robots in the field. And I think that will be really cool. And then we also have STEM behind the sports, which is kinda coming together with folks that work behind the sports in marketing, logistics, all those cool things. And then if you wanna go to the next slide, these will be more hands on workshops with for kids.

And so the kids will get to have a q and a with astronauts. We're gonna have two astronauts there. One, we're still finalizing with NASA. And then we also have meteorologist Mark Austin from Las Vegas coming, and so kids can talk about how the weatherman comes up with the weather for the day. And then the physics show from Foothill College, Silicon Valley chess, we're working with the SJSU robot lab and the iSchool, and Stanford genetics and, of course, the 49ers STEM institute students.

And then if you go to the next slide, you can see all the partners kind of that we're working with together. So it's gonna be really fun. If you wanna volunteer for that event, we would love to have you, and I think we're kinda working on getting that together. And it's gonna be really fun. Please share share the stem zone with all your folks and family. It's gonna be something fun from pre k to gray.

Thank you. How do we get tickets? How are we

If you go to that first slide, there's QR code to Eventbrite, and then that takes you. Yeah.

Are we gonna send this out to, like, the coal communities?

We have, but we will do a series of it. We just sent it out, I think, Monday, right after the stadium, like, big push. But I think as we finalize all the speakers, we're gonna do different types of marketing.

Great. Reached out

to And the school district already promoted for us too, which is great. They

did. Yeah.

Keep doing it.

Yes.

Awesome. Any There's also handouts if you all when you signed in in the back, we do Kranti, if you can hold it up. There's handouts. Those also have the QR code on them, so if you wanna take those and pass them out. It's also on the city's website as well. So if you wanna direct folks to the city website, and we'll continue to just to push it out to the community.

And it's free. Free parking, free everything. So just please share that. And there'll be food and everything, too.

Can I just add? I saw a friend this weekend mention Ms. StemZone, and she is a teacher at a Challenger School and a Stafford School also. We want to make sure we're hitting all those as well. Private schools?

Yes. That's a good point to I'll add it to my list. Thank you.

Do you have an estimate of how many people you can accommodate with this, or you're are you gonna put limits on it? Or I don't think so. Determined because it's in a big space.

It's really big, which is great. I think we're hoping for more than 10,000. I think we'll get that easily. Agree. Yeah.

So there's 90,000 square feet between all of the exhibit halls and everything else. We also have the Exhibit Hall A And B, and then we also have room across the way. So it's almost the entire 1st Floor, not all of it, but most of it. So that gives you an idea of how how large it's going to be. We hope it'll rival Comic Con. Not rival, exactly, but we hope it'll be a nice complement to Comic Con, and get please tell everybody. As Rachel mentioned, it's it's for every age. It's not just for young people. It's not just for old people. It's for everybody.

And a lot of our city, groups are gonna be there too. I think SVP has some very special projects that they're working on that they wanna share. We're gonna have the water truck there, but water will also be showing their separate camera where they actually investigate all of the pipes. Actually, as Rachel said to me earlier, everybody loves poop. So, you know, they actually use this camera to make sure that we have clear sewer. No. This is not this is a real thing. So, anyway and I know Parks and Rec is coming, so so it is really something for everybody. I can chat one more thing. Go ahead, please.

The other thing I forgot, which is probably the biggest part, is robotics. We're working with first robot all the high school leagues. All the leagues in the area are gonna come together to do robotic battles and demos. And so that'll it'll be a big community event, but also a lot of really good, like, extra companies and all that stuff too.

So yeah. Will there be food available for purchase Yeah. There?

Yeah. We have food vendors for purchase.

Don't think that you can bring food inside of the convention center, but the concessions will be we will be open for folks. We'll have food and snacks.

Also, leave and come back too. Yeah. Think You can be in

and out. You don't have

Okay. Thank you. Do you wanna

talk about our navy air?

No. Okay. I can so we we did one of the other sponsors that we were able to get was Intel for the and their sponsorship is for the stem zone. Okay. And so with Rachel following Rachel, if you guys are interested in volunteering or being part of the, stem zone or the night markets that are coming up, just wanted to remind you guys that we do need to have you onboarded as a volunteer, through the the, city's, volunteer program. Yes. Sorry?

Uh-huh. No. You can't help.

You need to use the microphone, hot dog dude.

That sounds loud and dull. It's high. Come on.

On mine. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Disappear, bro. The last I see some interview.

Howard, Al Albert needs to hear you.

Hey, Albert. How are doing? Okay.

Good. Good seeing you.

Good. The last time they were asking for volunteers, I offered to do a couple hours for it, and they said, no. You can't do it because you haven't been background checked and all that yet. So Yeah. Well, I've done that through the Santa Clara Police Department. They know all about me.

Well, unfortunately

did another process.

You to go through the city's volunteer program. Process? Yes. Okay. Yes.

Just checking because you know?

I don't know what the police department has on you, but we need our our application filled out.

They do it deep, deep. Alright.

Okay. Next slide, please. And as I mentioned, we are just coming off from the stadium event. We have there's been no updates to the budget that we shared with you three weeks ago. No additional sponsors to to announce today.

We're still finalizing the numbers for the stadium event, so those are the reflection is the million that the council authorized from the stadium authority funds, And so that is where we're at. Next, we do have a couple of subcommittee meetings. The Night Market, as we're now past Stadium event, we can talk about the night market subcommittee. It's gonna be on March 19, 03:00, and I believe we already have those that have signed up to be on the night market subcommittee. If you wanna know if you are on it or want to be a part of it, just email Alicia and myself, and we'll be able to include you in that meeting request.

We're also gonna have a follow-up global relations subcommittee meeting on March 26 at 9AM. And then as we've talked about, the next event for the campaign is April 19, and then we'll be providing updates on sponsorships and the event budget. Last slide. Thank you. So these are the next EDMC meetings with the subcommittee meetings at the top. So the next one will be April 13, May 11, and June 8. And that concludes our presentation.

So I had, some people I talked with, and they were talking about the night market. And they wanted to know there's putting on an event at the night market was, Lucha Libre. So they knew about 400 square feet. This would be for wrestling, PG. It incorporates Hispanic, black, Asian, Caucasian, male, female, bi, gay, trans.

Everybody is is involved in it. So there was a cost for it. So I was wondering how I could see if we could, maybe in the May event, maybe I don't know when it is in May, but maybe tie that into a more Latino feel of I don't know if the night markets are specific. Like, the the market we had before was for Lunar New Year. So I don't know if we have separate ones that will be more community and more diverse getting more people to come.

Yeah. So if you can come, first step, come to the night market subcommittee. Actually, second step, come to the night market subcommittee. And then if you can send me an email

Okay.

With that information in it, and I think the the point of the subcommittee is to shape what each of those might night markets are gonna be themed around and and and and how we're gonna proceed.

Okay. Yeah. I'm not on, but I that's one I would like to sign up for, you can

No problem.

Call me in on that one. Thank you very much.

No problem.

I also think that as we advertise all of these events, we let people know that stay in tuned with us because more events are coming. Because after Diana did the Lunar New Year night market, people are saying, I didn't know about that. Where was that? How come I didn't come? It looks so fun. So, I mean, we wanna get people, you know, signed up so that they see, okay, there's events. So then when we add in our concerts, we wanna add in that you don't know about yet, that we're gonna add in, that people are ready, you know, that they keep in tune to the calendar that we have so that they can attend all these all these 26 events. Twenty twenty six events, not 26. Number.

Yes. We do have Satish online. He's raising his hand.

Oh, Satish. Go ahead.

Oh, hi, Mayor. Yeah. I heard a lot of great things about the the Field Events Stadium. I did, you know, advertise to my folks within our district and the friends also within the Santa Clara. Kudos to you because you all could do it in two weeks, and that's amazing turnout.

Unfortunately, I could not be there. I was sick, actually. I had a viral flu, and I miss so much. And and I really appreciate all the work you have been doing. Coming to the STEM program, I hope we can find a way to let the FLL and FTC STEM, you know, program for the robotics, some kind of a circulation where they can also participate.

There have been certain robotics, I think, events and some places within the San Jose and Santa Clara where we can make an, an attempt to reach them so they can also participate and make it a grand success, coming on April 19. So thank you.

Thank you. Any any other comments from online? One more. Hello?

Habir. Oh, yes.

Go Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Go ahead, please.

Okay. Hi, everybody. Hi, mayor and council. First, again, just to reiterate, it was quite impressive to see event of that scale produced in such a short amount of time. But really, having been a producer, I can tell you that was just unbelievable.

So really big round of applause to you all to pull that off. A couple questions I had of I'm not sure if you heard this is Herbir, CEO of the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. Not sure if my gut was able to be heard at the time. We do have more and more people interested participating. Thankfully, we could have three of our members join and be a part of the Super Bowl.

They brought some really amazing activities. The one had I-nine Sports, which brings different stuff. Of course, we also had a BOSSY, BAWSI, then SVG. For the upcoming events like STEM and then the night markets, Are we doing them in a similar fashion? I appreciate the presentation, but I just couldn't see.

Do members of businesses or nonprofits who are connected to that space have participate, or is it something that's being procured by Citi with their process? That's the first question. And the second question is night markets going to be handled the same way as Super Bowl where it's community organized? Or will that be where there can be proposals submitted to, you know, provide a night market? And again, thanks everybody.

Thank you, Habir. Someone want to answer those questions about the night market? Do Yeah. You have that information

So I'll start it, and then Alicia can add to it. So the proposals because I know we talked about that last week or sorry. The last meeting was the partner led events. And so those are specifically if the chamber or another organization would like to have an event on their own. If you want to be part of the night markets, I would then suggest that you be part of the subcommittee to help shape that, and I'll turn it over to Alicia.

Yeah. I guess just echoing what Paulina shared, Harbir, if there are events that the community is wanting to put on partner led similar to Lunar New Year, Diana Ding, we're happy to take those proposals and work with you in order to get those events produced under the guidelines of the partner led events, which were presented I think at the last meeting. Also happy to sit with you and connect with you offline as well. For the night market specifically, those are events that are city led, so city produced, But we will open it to have participation from community partners as well, similar to the stadium event where we had different groups that were out tabling and participating. That's also what we'll be talking through at the subcommittee meeting next week as well.

Hopefully that answers your question, Harbir.

It does. Just the second part of that, or the first part of that was for the STEMBL. Students really are getting more and more nonprofits joining, and even small businesses who are really building ideas that really help bring STEM and AI to the youth. Do they have a pathway to present or have a space at the STEM Bowl, or is that something that's being designed and procured by the city?

Yeah. Hi, Javier. This is Rachel. So

Hey, Rachel.

How are you? So we we are pretty full. That's the only issue right now is it's pretty packed. We've been working on it since but, you know, if there's something that hands on that you think that the Santa Clara community cannot live without and they wanna see that STEM, let me know because I think we are leaving spaces for folks that are really sharing those those big STEM things with kids and families and stuff.

Excellent. Excellent. Thanks. I'll reach out to Rachel about that because I think that we have one that might be pretty, pretty great. And can I just take a shout out to Goshfather? My god. That was one of the best DJs I've heard in a long time. And I felt like it had the perfect vibe with the, those oldies, but and well mixed for the new stuff. So it kinda really was all age friendly. So I just wanted to say, Misha and for us, that was really one of my favorite adjectives I've heard in a recent time. So thank you for that.

Oh. Oh, Esther. I'm not didn't see you here. There you are, Esther.

Hi. On.

Yeah. It's Esther here. I'm on the EDMC committee. Just wanna make a quick comment. My husband and I went to the stadium, and we had so much fun watching the children having fun. And we were there for a few hours. And I think I was very impressed by how successful it turned out, you know, even though I feel like I haven't done a lot, and I I felt like it's, like, very short short time. And I I just felt very proud of of our city. Yeah. But it was really enjoyable.

And then then a quick question for the stem zone. Is this event, mostly for the Santa Clara residents, or is it are we promoting this to the whole kind of Silicon Valley, you know, area, like other cities as well? Like, is there a a worry for having too many people or, you know, capacity issues?

I think we're promoting far and

wide. We

would love as many Santa Clara residents as we can, but but it's it's open to everyone for free. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Alright. Does anybody have anything before we adjourn this meeting? Yes. We'll have a lot more energy next meeting when we come with as we fully recover and then wanna give, you know, three or four more events to add on to the ones we have. So get ready for that. Could I ask everyone to come up so we can take our photo before we leave? Oh, can you make the announcement about the sweatshirts, whoever didn't get a sweatshirt?

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you

wanna say how how they get them?

Yeah. So if you did not receive it,

you can