City Council and Authorities Concurrent - meeting_joint

City Clerk, you can tell me when we're ready.

All right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority concurrent meeting. It's actually a special council meeting tonight, so you're here at a special time. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Confirmation of a quorum, Assistant City Clerk?

Yes, I'm here. Okay, very good, very good. So we have one item for our session here before we start our regular meeting at 7 p.m., and that is action to conduct applicant interviews and appoint two applicants to the Civil Service Commission to serve one partial term ending June 30th, 2028, and one full term ending June 30th, 30th, 2030. So just for everyone's information, the partial term is potentially the longer term than the full term because you serve a partial and then be eligible for two four-year terms after that. So it could be a potential of 10 years and then the other would be two po

Can you tell us, Assistant City Clerk, about the process in terms of timing for their presentations?

All right, thank you so much. So our first candidate is Barbara Estrada, if you'd like to come forward, please, since you're here in person. Welcome, and when you're ready, you can begin. Barbara, can you please speak, and let's pull the microphone right over to your mouth so all the folks at home can hear you as well.

You can rearrange down there, it's okay.

Thank you, Barbara. So as you've probably been made aware, we have some questions for you. Hopefully, you've been. I am now. No, I have them. OK. Were they provided ahead of time? I think they were. And I'm a little crazy. City Clerk, right. So.

Oh, OK. But I'm good. OK, very good. We're going to start with Vice Mayor Gonzales to take us with your first question for Barbara.

Thank you. Does Council Member Chahal have the questions? Council Member Chahal, question number two.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for applying, Barbara. Thank you. What do you believe is the most important role of a civil service commissioner, and how would you balance protecting the rights of city employees with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability, high performance, and public trust?

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hardy.

Thank you, Barbara. Do you have any thoughts about the high vacancy rate of our staff?

Thank you. So my question is, do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Thank you. Thank you, Barbara. And then Council Member Park, you have the final question. Yes.

Thank you very much for applying and coming in person. Thank you. Do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees?

All right, thank you. So now it's time for your closing statement. When you're ready, when you're ready.

Thank you so much, Barbara, and again, thank you for coming and participating in this. If you just want to hold tight after we finish our next... Do I go outside? No, you can stay here. Our next two interviews, yeah, the other candidates just listened to you online, so yeah, it's okay. We'll be making a decision this evening, so just stay with us. Thank you. City Clerk?

Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Go ahead, please. I think you know our process here. So whenever, I hope you have the questions that were given to you. I do, Mary. Okay, very good. So whenever you're ready to start, we'll be ready to hear you. So welcome.

Thank you, Terrell. We appreciate that. So we're going to start now with the questions. We'll start with Council Member Jane.

Thank you, Terrell. You've heard this before. Civil service commissioners may be asked to make decisions involving employees, management, labor organizations, and city policies. How would you ensure that your decisions are fair, impartial, and based on the facts rather than personal relationships or outside pressure?

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for applying, Tyrell. Do you have any thoughts about the high vacancy rates of our staff in the city?

Thank you, Amar. Thank you, Council Member Hardy.

Well, this is kind of a follow up to something you mentioned. Do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Thank you. Thank you. And Terrell, your last question, and I know you've answered parts of this already. Do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees?

Thank you so much, Terrell. Now it's time for your closing statement.

Thank you, and thank you for applying, and we have one more candidate, and then we'll be making a decision. Thank you so much.

Timothy, can you hear us? Timothy, are you there?

Yes, we can. So whenever you're ready, thank you so much for applying and welcome. And when you're ready, we're ready for your opening statement.

Oh, perfectly timed. Thank you, Timothy, we appreciate that. So we have some questions for you and I assume that you received them ahead of time as well? Okay, very good. So we're gonna start with Council Member Park.

Yes, thank you very much for applying. Civil service commissioners may be asked to make decisions involving employees, management, labor organizations, and city policies. How would you ensure that your decisions are fair, impartial, and based on the facts rather than personal relationships or outside pressure?

Thank you, Timothy. What do you believe is the most important role of a civil service commissioner, and how would you balance protecting the rights of city employees with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability, high performance, and public trust?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for applying, Timothy. My question is, do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Yes, last question. You've touched on this a little bit, but I'll give you some more opportunity. Do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees?

Thank you, Timothy. And now it's time for you to give us your closing statement when you're ready.

Thank you so much, Timothy. All right, City Clerk, now we have heard from our three applicants, and I don't even know how we're going to do this because they're all so qualified, wonderful, yeah, all well-suited for the job. So we have two positions, and then we also carry what we call an eligibility list. Would you like to explain, Assistant City Clerk, what it means to be on the eligibility list?

So if a vacancy occurs in the next six months, they would automatically fill that vacancy?

Okay, because I wish we had three openings, but even with an eligibility list, that'll help a little bit. So I think our process then is for each of us to pick two. two applicants if the council chooses to i don't know what other way we would do it we only have three applicants so uh and if we each uh give the city clerk when she calls us two names and then we'll see how that pans out and it would be if it works we're missing a council member tonight so we have six it could be a tie let's see if it works uh that the top two would then uh top vote getter would get the longer appointment the par

Mayor. Barbara and Timothy. Council Member Hardy. This is Hardwin.

Barbara and Terrell. Council Member Shahal.

So according to, let's see if I'm correct. Terrell. Highest vote. Highest vote getter. Barbara, number two. And Timothy, eligibility. Yes. All right. May I have a council motion? Council Member Hardy.

I'd like to move that we... give the partial term to Terrell, the full term to Barbara, and we put Timothy on our eligibility list.

Second. Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales.

That was a tough decision, I'll tell ya. Everyone's so extremely qualified. I have great faith now and hope for our Civil Service Commission. Well, let's see if it passes first.

All right. Are we doing all roll call votes tonight? Yes. Okay.

Yes. And that passes unanimously of those present. So congratulations to the two appointees. And hang in there, Timothy, in the eligibility list, because things happen around here occasionally. So again, thank you all for applying this evening. So it's 6.53. We're going to take a 10-minute break and then start our regular council meeting. Thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Concurrent Meeting. Could you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for our Statement of Values. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Unit

As we gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage, and will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice to all. Let us seek wisdom so that we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbours, and our country. All this we ask so that we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs before all.

Thank you. Please be seated. Roll call, City Clerk.

Thank you, Nora. I just joined as a panelist. Yes, I'm sorry, I missed your question. I am joining remotely from my location and the agenda was posted.

Could I have a motion to excuse Council Member Cox?

Motion to excuse Council Member Cox. Second.

Motion by Council Member Park, second by Council Member James. Use Council Member Cox.

Yes, and that's approved unanimously at present.

Thank you. So welcome everyone. Good evening. For today's meeting, the council's back in person and is conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner. The public is welcome to attend in person and the city continues to use a Zoom feature to allow participation from your home or office. Members of the public can still join via the link and or call into the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen now. If you would like to speak on an agenda item or during public presentations, please raise your hand on the Zoom application or press star nine on your phone. Please only raise your hand while the

Yes, I'm requesting that we move item number 10. That's my 030 on the sustainability manager.

Let's wait till we get to that, okay? We'll get to that in a second. Report out from closed session 818, city attorney.

All right. And we didn't have one today. So thank you very much. All right. Continuances, exceptions, reconsideration. Council Member Jane, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm requesting that we move item number 10, that's my 030 for the sustainability manager, to after consent. We have a number of high school students here in the audience, and we have some online that need to go to school early in the morning, so we don't want them to wait till 11 o'clock to hear that item.

I'd like to hear that after our appeal. We have a lot of people here for the appeal and maybe they will learn something about the appeal process, so.

It's not gonna take very much time as our previous 030.

Okay, council, are you okay with that, moving it after consent? All right, all right, we will do that. Okay, any other continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations? Okay, seeing none, we have two very special orders of business this evening. For our first special order of business this evening, the City of Santa Clara is honored to recognize our outgoing commissioners for their dedication and service to Santa Clara. So before the commissioners present come to the front, I would like to acknowledge all seven outgoing commissioners. And we'll call you up one at a time and then ask you to take a gr

Okay. So for our next special order of business is the recognition of our 2026 Mission Meets the Moment campaign sponsors. So I'm just going to say a few words and then turn it over to our staff to give a presentation about what we did during 2026 because it was a lot, it was a lot. But good evening and thank you all for being here. There's a saying in our community that a community's greatness isn't measured by what it dreams, but by who steps up to make those dreams real. Tonight, we get to honor the people and the businesses who did exactly that for Santa Clara. When we set out to make 2026

Thank you, Alicia. And now on behalf of the Santa Clara City Council and our entire community, we want to thank each of our sponsors for your generosity, your partnership, and your commitment to Santa Clara. Your support allowed us to create opportunities for the community to celebrate together, experience something really special right here in Santa Clara. and make lasting memories during what has become truly a historic year for us here in the city. So that's why your partnership is so important to us and we were able to make the most of these historic events. So at this time, I'm gonna call

I can't figure it out, I've only been here 30 years, okay. Our second sponsor, we have Sutter Health, who is our exhibitor sponsor. We have Jenniger Elman, Vice President of Clinical Planning for Sutter Health. If you'd like to come forward and say a few words.

So next is a familiar name in Santa Clara, the Morley Brothers, premium exhibitor. Eric Morley, co-founder, principal, if you'd like to come forward and say a few words.

All right, next we have Intel Silver, Intel, which was our silver sponsor, and they sponsored our STEM Zone. So we have Margarita Lay, Director of Facilities, Engineering, and Operations with us today. So Margarita, please come forward.

All right, and next we have Prologis, which was our silver sponsor for our Celebrate Santa Clara Day, a day on the field event. And we have Ben Yu, SVP Investment Officer. Please come forward.

Okay, for our final sponsor, we have our platinum sponsor, which is DEVCON. We have Gary Filizzetti here, but before you come up, I'm gonna take some personal privilege and say a few words about you, Gary, because this isn't your first sponsorship of major events in the city of Santa Clara. You sponsored a huge event for us for Super Bowl 50. It was the Huey Lewis Concert at Santa Clara University, if any of you remember 10 years ago. So you were so generous in your company and you personally sponsored that event and you really stepped up this time and became our platinum sponsor. And I just w

And Gary, I know you donated to San Jose as well, but make sure you tell Mayor Matt that Santa Clara is your favorite city, okay? I want to make sure you do that. Also, on behalf of the city of Santa Clara, we received a donation from FIFA. Johnny Infantino, when I went to the mayor's conference in January, sent us 200 soccer balls. And so they're sitting in my office, but we blew them up today. And we're gonna give you each, you're the first to receive soccer balls on behalf of the city. So do we have those? And then I'm gonna invite you forward to take a photo with our entire city council, b

Okay, I guess we have to go on with the rest of the meeting. Fun's over, everyone. No, we always have a good time here. All right, the next item we have on the agenda is our consent calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless you, council member or a member of the public, would like to pull an item from the consent calendar. I am going to be abstaining on item 3B, which is action on historical preservation agreement, a Mills Act contract for 1261 Jackson Street. My office is very close to that, so I will be recusing myself on that item. And I want to pull item 3E, because when the

Balance for the consent calendar? Yes. All right, Council Member Hardy. I was gonna make the motion, so I'll second that. Okay, so we have a motion and a second for the consent calendar. City Clerk noting the items that I recused on and the item that I pulled. Is there anybody from the audience? Okay, go ahead, City Clerk.

That includes the stadium minutes, correct. So Council Member, Board Member Chahal?

Yes. Noting my abstentions. Yes. Okay, and that passes unanimously of those present. Okay, moving on. Hold on a second. Okay, that brings us to public presentations. Do we have any public presentations?

Kristen. Here he is. Howard, you're up. That's okay, we'll forgive you.

Thank you, Howard. All right, next we have Chris. Chris, come forward.

Thank you, Chris. Next we have Anthony Becker.

Thank you very much. Next we have Brian. Brian online. Go ahead, Brian.

Thank you Brian. Next we have number 0183. Go ahead.

Thank you. City Clerk, do we have, Assistant City Clerk, do we have any other public speakers? Is there anyone else here that would like to make a public statement? All right, we're gonna move on then. We moved item, I'll take it before the consent item I pulled. Council Member Jayne, you wanted your item heard. Item number 10, action on a council written request submitted by Council Member Jayne to place an item on a future agenda regarding a dedicated manager responsible for sustainability activities, such as increasing recycling, reducing water usage, increasing composting, and reducing car

Thank you, Mayor. I've actually been advocating for this for 15 years now, before I was on Planning Commission, before I was on City Council, and I'm just gonna read from the 030, which is a request to have this agendized for a future council meeting. The city used to have a sustainability manager who reported to the city manager. That person ended up working on other issues, like public relations, while still being in the role of the sustainability manager. We now have a management analyst who is supposedly dedicated for sustainability but is working on a number of issues like supporting the

Is that a motion to put it on a future agenda?

That is a motion, but I believe we have some Thank you.

I will second that motion item right so Jane made a motion to Place this on a future agenda seconded by councilmember Park. All right councilmember Hardy.

I Was going to make the motion so that's fine. It's been made. All right. Very good councilmember Park.

All right, so knowing that it's going on a future agenda and our discussion should be related to putting it on a future agenda and your thoughts on that.

Okay, somebody needs to mute themself. That's on, okay. City Clerk, well, is anyone here in the audience that would like to speak on this? Please come forward. Madam Mayor, we have cards. Oh, the people here first. So go ahead, City Clerk. Sruthi, followed by Abhi. Are they here in the audience? The cards are received, yes. All right, please come forward, and please direct your comments on whether or not we should put it on a future agenda. Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you very much, and I would ask the audience to just keep focused on whether or not we should put this on the agenda. Abhi, please come forward, followed by Bruce. Welcome.

Thank you. And as a reminder, if we can keep our comments to whether or not we should put this on the agenda. I know it's hard, but if we can focus on that, we have Elaine followed by Chanel. When it does come back to the agenda, we will have full discussion about this. Welcome.

Thank you very much, Elaine. Next, we have Chanel, followed by Betsy, followed by Brian. Welcome.

Thank you very much. All right, next we have Betsy. Is Betsy online? Yeah, go ahead, Betsy. Unmute yourself.

Thank you, Betsy. Next, we have Brian. Go ahead, Brian.

No, it's okay. All right, is that it, Brian?

All right, thank you so much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this issue? because we have a motion and a second to place this on a future agenda. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. Councillor Schell. I was gonna say register your vote. Sorry, I forgot you're doing.

And I vote yes as well, so that passes unanimously of those present. All right, thank you, and thank you all who participated in that. Next item is consent item, polls for discussion. I would normally put this at the end of the agenda, but the conference is coming up soon. So I pulled item 3E, which is action to designate a voting delegate and alternate delegate for the 2026 League of California Cities Annual Conference. The staff did not know that I was going to be attending, so I'd like the council to appoint me as the voting delegate and Council Member Park as the alternate delegate.

All right, we have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Any public comment on that? Any discussion?

Yes. And that passes with those on the dais, I guess, and Council Member Shahal. Thank you very much. All right, next item we have is a public hearing, item number five. Public hearing action on appeal PLN 26-00318 of a project located at 860 and 858 Civic Center Drive, and 1526 Albiso Street of an approval of an architectural review permit PLN plant 24-00533 for the demolition of existing buildings and construction of three separate multifamily buildings resulting in 14 townhomes and a duplex building with commercial space and determination of statutory exemption from CEQA near per Public Res

Should I wait for Council Member Park to be back?

That's correct, yes, Vice Mayor. Go ahead. I just want to declare that on. Hold on.

So this is the right time city attorney, right?

Thank you. So I just want to disclose that on 22nd of June, as a Council Member for District 2, where the project is and appeal process is going on, I met the appellant, Mr. Michael Fisher, at the project site basically and he did talk to me whatever basically disclosed whatever he exchanged emails with the staff all the reasons why he want to appeal and i did look at the project site at that visit thank you

Vice Mayor Gonzales, can I also make another disclosure? I did receive a couple of emails from the appellant, Michael Fisher, during this process when he was requesting a meeting, and I forwarded those to city attorney, and those emails can be a public record as such and maybe attached to the post-meeting agenda item to this agenda.

Thank you, I was taking copious notes. I'm gonna see if I can read my own handwriting. I was surprised, 715 square feet for commercial is very small. I was wondering if that is set up so that it could be, coffee house or something like that because that does require more infrastructure. I was a little surprised about the setback. I understood fire needed at least five feet. Now I do know in historic situations where we have zero lot line garages, that if it's historic, we've allowed that to remain. But I thought, and it was just less than five feet, so that was a question. When I looked at the

Yeah, I believe you said that the density bonus law provides an unlimited number of waivers and one concession. And I guess, wouldn't that concession allow for them to have zero commercial? And the other thing is, I'm curious, It seems like they could just reduce the setbacks to zero for the front setback and get more space. Is that allowable? I think Council Member Hardy was correct that certain setbacks are required for fire safety. So the space between the building and the masonry wall needs to allow firefighters to get in there. Is that the only constraint? Otherwise, it could go to zero s

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thanks for the report, Director. I have a question. First question is, how do we differentiate between architectural design guidelines for a single family neighborhood and community design guidelines, as mentioned in the report, versus the objective design standard? Because this was an architectural review. And I know we are talking about objective design standard as well as the design guidelines. How we distinguish between those two, basically. And my other question, I had the same question about the fire safety guidelines. How the setbacks reduction will make this deve

Yes, thank you very much for the report and thank you very much for the other council questions. I think that their questions are my questions as well. I did have a note about side by side elevation map. I mean, it looks to me like there is no sunlight from the south at all. And that, or from the west after 1 p.m., and especially during winter hours. In England, they used to have daylight laws to prevent exactly this kind of thing, but I don't know that people remember what those are. Looking at four stories less than 20 feet away, and even though you say it's the three-story side, there's a t

so i'll also ask about the um affordable housing ordinance that the city has because it seems to me and i think council member jane brought this up earlier before can you tell us more about the affordable housing ordinance that that essentially requires that developers put in affordable housing in the amount that immediately automatically grants them a state bonus density law bonus. I'd like to know a little bit more about that and how we counter something like that. I'd also like to know a little bit about the timelines for why our El Camino specific plan was so late that it could have preven

So in the timeline, you said that this project was deemed complete a month before the El Camino Real plan was approved. Had, I believe part of the reason is that before the El Camino Real plan, we didn't have objective design standards. Is that why there's no requirement for articulation had this been approved after, would that have forced it to have some articulation of the building facade? I just wanna make sure that, to understand better what is different between this project and maybe some future projects.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thanks, Nora. I appreciate that. I have a follow-up question. I know Council Member Jane touched on that. We did pass objective design standard for the El Camino Real Specific Area Plan. It happened past this project got deemed complete, basically. But we did pass some objective design standard under our zoning code. Was that also post that project when the project was deemed complete or was it passed before that? That's my question, thank you.

I guess I'm saying will they get the half credit for that M&E space?

Yes, but we give them a half credit if it meets certain requirements.

So you're saying it doesn't matter whether that El Camino Real plan.

I'm still trying to understand what is the point of objective design standards if they can get all the waivers they want?

I have a follow-up on that. I know I just listened to the conversation regarding objective design standard and the state laws. I do remember we were always, as city manager also mentioned something to that context, we were always told that if we do have objective design standard, that is the only way the cities can maintain their control. on land use zoning decisions, basically. And I'm hearing today that state laws can override even the objective design standards that I want a clarification on that because we were always told that if you have an objective design standard, yes, you can overrid

So my point is the city has a right to strictly adhere to objective design standards and not to waive them off. Is that correct?

Vice Mayor, this is pertaining to the discussion we have ahead. It's pertaining to the same question. That's why I'm discussing. Otherwise, I will not.

So my question is, if objective design standards are there, it's the city's discretion whether to give that waiver or not.

My question was different. My question was, We did have objective design standard approved under the regular zoning code. When was those passed and do they apply on this?

I can't see the screen, but I think I'll do the same on page 17 of the development plans out of the 33.

Yes, in fact, I asked specifically what were the timelines so that people can see what the times were. When you say that, well, we talked about this, we had work that would need to be done, I don't think that tells the full story. I'd ask other questions as well, which is, When you say a shadow study is not required, my question was can you tell us what the shadows would be if there were a shadow study? Like are my statements correct? Is there sunlight during winter? Is there sunlight after 1 p.m. at any time of the year? When we talked about the windows, I understand you said that, well, we'v

Oh, no, no. But for this project, I still want the other questions about is my thought about shadow, is that correct? Do the privacy, I understand you're saying, well, we have these things, but can you detail what those are and contrast them with the fire safety concerns that the council members have had? Because you've stated them. Some cases you said, well, we've talked about a lot and we don't have to talk about that more. That's fine. But in those cases, can you just reiterate the answer? Is it a yes or a no? Is it, you know, what it is? But just simply saying that we've talked about this

Yeah, I'm not asking for a shadow study, but I am asking if my thoughts are correct.

The ones that I just asked. Okay. I mean, are my thoughts correct about of shade. We're not asking for a shadow study. I'm just asking if there's a general concern. I mean, we've got, again, four-story units less than 20 feet away from two-story residential. I mean, my, you know, are there concerns there? I mean, we don't have, you know, we're looking for standards for objective design, which don't seem to matter, but we don't have standards for fire safety or privacy. I mean, there is, we talked about fire safety, but I don't know if there was a study done on, is it only on one side? As long

Okay, and again, with the privacy studies, it's funny to hear you say that shadow studies were not required. Shadow studies are not objective. There is nothing more objective than a shadow study at some point. I think at some point, if somebody does a shadow study and somebody wants to refute that, they can refute that, but at some point, et per se, move. I mean, the sun is there, the shadows are there.

Again, my questions were along the lines of what is the city doing, what kinds of things are we doing, even if they're not required, what kind of work is the city doing to ensure that the public is being protected, that the residents that are there are being you know that that we're we're considering that we're not sacrificing existing residents because of you know what the state seems to allow for future developments and the question is how are we We're supposed to represent the residents, right? I mean, at some point we have a financial fiscal responsibility, but I think that comes after our

Okay, I just want to be clear that what I heard, because I think what you said earlier, and I'll check the video later, it says privacy can be waived due to state law. I think that this is a very important point, but I just want to verify that that's what was stated.

Yeah, I think you had mentioned that it's viable commercial space, but then you had said that it would be only a community room, and I'm trying to understand what that means. If it's a community room, will it have a restroom? How will it be reserved by members of the public? And then if it's a viable commercial space, will it have grease straps and vents. Yeah.

Do you agree on a number of community meetings per month One a month, two a month, three a month?

Okay. And will there be, I know you said there's a restroom in there. If it were to be converted to a coffee shop, does it have grease traps or vents?

Yeah, I had a question for staff. HLC Commissioner Kathleen Romano mentioned that there were minutes from the HLC designating 820 as a historic property, but apparently it didn't show up in the registry. Can somebody?

I learned a lot today. I learned that our hands are really tied here based on these new state laws that have gone in. you know, these automatic waivers, unlimited waivers, the concession, I don't see any room to wiggle here, and so I'll make a motion to overrule the appeal.

I'll second that, and I will say, My state senator and my state assembly member are gonna get an earful.

Go ahead, Council Member Chauhan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will not be supporting the motion and I'll give you multiple reasons for that. If you look at the resolution, let's go point by point. Resolution Clause 3B, it states that the design and the location of the proposed development and its relation to neighboring developments and traffic is such that it will not impact the desirability of investment or occupation in the neighborhood. will not unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of the neighboring development. That is completely wrong. It is impacting the neighborhood. It is i

Yeah, so I have a couple of questions about the historic preservation resource inventory, which is I've been told that it's not up to date, that things are, that the website is not accurate. I kind of want to know if that's true and why that's true. I've been told that there is a, meeting on November 1st, 2018, or recognized 820 Civic Center Drive, I'm being told that the applicant withdrew the historic application twice. So I kind of want to understand that. I want to know, Like, we kind of clarified this. I had a question about what the affordable units would be. I mean, I know that there wa

I don't believe I heard two council members state that they were going to vote against this. I don't believe I heard that at all.

Thank you Yeah, I mean I do want to have comments for that which is again, I think that staff is Jumping the gun making a number of assumptions, which should not be made I mean at some point I think that council members do understand that whether they agree or disagree with something that there are findings There are decisions that need to be made. I think that this is very true. I have voted for or against things that I don't agree with because, well, it seems like it was necessary. I think it's actually bad practice to make that kind of assumption and make that kind of a statement in a respo

Oh yes, I suggest you do. I take notes and I'm gonna say that usually the reason why I speak even as clearly as I do is because I write down almost every single thing I'm going to say so that when people misquote me, I can. Go ahead, Council Member Park. So that when people accuse me of saying something that I didn't say, I can go back and say that's not likely.

Oh, I mean, but by all means, go back and take a look at the video.

so the other thing i want to i want to say is that i know that you're saying that the code has subjective findings and i think that there are some objective findings that we say are not required but i almost feel like they should be done because there's nothing more objective than a shadow study there is nothing more objective than the sun in the sky being able to go into windows or not going to windows. And when you say that that is the basis of a subjective finding that is not allowed, that doesn't make any sense to me. And when you tell me that, well, we don't have to do that and that's the

I will request a speaking after this, which is my point that I want to make is we have a lot of issues ahead of us. We're at 1115, and this is not a failure of council or robust discussion. I think this is a failure of meeting management. There was no way that all of these items were going to make it through this night. And when we look at all the the meetings that have gone long, the one that occurred at the end of July, there was no way that these meetings were gonna end before midnight. If you just did a simple meeting analysis of the agenda items, And I think that at this point, to try to

actually if if the motion this motion failed and the motion was for the recommendation there could be a an alternate motion made rather than simply saying that this this is over this literally happened with the peregrine and i think that this is one of the things why we need you know better input from executive staff to tell us what our options are because the fact that this vote failed does not mean anything. I mean, there's still a lot more to this item. I mean, there's still possibility of a lot more to this item.

Yeah, I have a couple of questions. First of all, if we go back and we ask staff to relook at some of the issues, some of the items that have come up, for example, if we had the appellant look into historical, you know, being added to the historical landmarks list, if we looked into the welfare issues, like what is our ability to ask for additional information? meaning when i'm told things such as this is not legally required that's fine but if we're asking for it at what point uh... can we get can we make can we ask for additional information like i would like a fire report i would like uh...

All right. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for your patience. We're going to move. Oh, before we move on to item number six, I want to tell the council item number seven, the consideration of a historic resource designation for the Tabercio Vasquez gravesite located in Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. His family was here. They had to leave. So I'm going to ask the council to... may consider a continuation may have it yeah sorry I'd like to make the motion to continue item number seven for the historic designation for the gravesite all right we have a motion by councilmember Hardy second by cou

Yes, and that passes unanimously by those present. All right, we're going to move now to item number six, public hearing, action on a vesting tentative subdivision map. PLN 24-00665 for 147 units and one commercial building located at 3521 and 3591 Homestead Road, subject to Senate Bill 330-2019. CEQA determined that the vesting tentative map application is within the scope of the adopted MMD, and this is a public hearing, so it is open. City Manager.

Thank you. Welcome, and thank you for your patience staying this late. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. So before we go to the applicant, I'm going to ask the council if they have questions. Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. Just very quickly, you said something very fast that I did not truly understand. You said that you needed to have windows in the garage doors because of offsite parking concerns. That didn't make sense to me.

I had a question about demolition because, hold on, the applicant, we don't, I know you raised your hand. Jim, we don't call on you yet. Okay, got that, all right. One of the concerns I have is about demolition because when we have vacant shopping centers and we see that on the El Camino now with the project that we approve, feels like eight years ago with the vacant buildings, can demolition occur can we require that or does that interfere with SB 330 so I want to know what are what are what are what we can do in terms of requiring the developer to demolish because that's gonna be an attracti

I have a question about demolition as well. I mean, we've seen, at least in my district, that any time that we have a demolition of a large project, whether it's remodeling of a apartment complex or a shopping site, that usually pushes a lot of rats into the neighborhoods. Is there anything that can be done to ensure that demolition, that remodel, these kinds of things do not have this kind of effect on the neighborhoods? Which is, it's very clear, and you can see, I can show you the bite marks on The trash cans on the, I just want to make sure that when we do things, maybe we fumigate, maybe

Anyone else on the council? All right, those are the questions. You're getting off easy right now. Thank you.

So you can see in the windows, is that the purpose? You can see if the car is in the window? Yes. Through the window? Window in the car.

How do we prevent pests, rats, things going into the neighborhoods from demolition, especially for buildings, including a market that have been abandoned for a long time? I mean, even a month. How can we mitigate that?

Maybe the question can go also to the applicant, because one of the questions would be, is there still material inside the market? And how are they going to plan to deal with it? I would punt that to the applicant for now.

Very good, thank you. All right, now we will hear from the applicant, and you have, I think, sorry, Council Member Jain.

Yeah, I just wanted to ask, in the commercial space, are we requiring vents and grease traps? I didn't see that in the conditions.

Yes, we will. Okay, now the applicant. 10 minutes, please come forward. City, Assistant City Clerk, do you have that?

Okay, thank you. Council, do you have any questions for the applicant? You've got six and a half minutes left. Are you sure? We're not forcing you to take it all. Okay. All right, he's done. Thank you. Very good. All right, now it is a public hearing, so I'm going to the public. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? Anyone here in the audience? Anyone online? No one online? May I have a motion from the council to close the public hearing? Council Member Hardy. Motion to close public hearing.

So we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales to close the public hearing. City Clerk, when you're ready.

Yes, and that passes unanimously of those present. All right, Council Member Hardy.

I'll make a motion for the recommendation from staff to determine the proposed subdivision as within the scope of the adopted mitigated negative declaration and adopt a resolution approving the vesting tentative subdivision map. I will say when a developer does their work, it really, really helps. and makes us a little more superfluous, which is nice. And I was thrilled to hear that Kaipo Market will go closer to my house in my district. We didn't lose them.

All right, we have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales. Councilmember Park on the motion.

Yeah, I mean, my question for staff is what actually can we do here? I mean, this is just an approval of the I mean, I feel like there isn't really anything that we can do. Everything's been done. This is just a ministerial approval. That's the first question. Second thing, I have a couple of comments, which is I remember a time when in order to add high density residential, we had to justify that residential with supportive retail. I mean, we used a lot of tricky things like horizontal zoning and things like that to show that the people that we were bringing in were being served by the retail

Okay, I'm going to stop it right there because I think that someone needs to explain to Council Member Park what Senate Bill 330 means. So can someone from the planning departments talk about that? Because our authority over this development is significantly limited. No, I understand that. That was my first comment. And it doesn't sound like you understand, Council Member Park. It's significantly limited and the developer has chosen to use this state housing law that allows waivers and concessions from our local development standards. That is not something that our planning department or commu

Motion to continue the meeting only until 1230.

What do they do back to the grand jury? And we're not staying past that, so... There's no way we're going to get through those items. I can tell you right now. Nothing is straightforward with this council. I'm sorry to argue with you. There is nothing straightforward.

I'll amend my motion for we will not go past 1 a.m.

But even if we don't finish those, we're done at 1 a.m. Whether we finished or not, I would ask to send a notice to the grand jury that ours is going to be delayed. We can hear it on the 15th.

Okay, very good. So now we're back to 1230. Thank you.

Which is basically finishing this item. All right. We have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales for 1230, finishing this item.

Yes. And that passes four, five, no, there was, yeah, five with one abstention. All right, thank you, I'm sorry. Staff, there was a question in there in the beginning, if you'd like to answer that, please.

And it's the state laws that govern this. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Council Member Park, without repeating.

Yeah, I mean, at some point, this is for robust discussion. I could talk about other things.

No, there's discussion and then there's monologues. And yours is a monologue. So if you have a question, get to the question.

Mine is a discussion and it is, I think... instructional to staff which is when we look at sunnyvale sunnyvale has tells people what they want i mean they've got zoning which which tells people what they want that we add they advertise this is what we want the city to look like they've got zoning such as itr which is industrial to res to residential they've got things like art you know where they say this is currently this but this is what we'd like this to be and they have a vision for their city which is not just well we've got this general plan we have this general plan and they have a they

I can promise you, Council Member Park, that the City of Sunnyvale and all the cities you mentioned also follow state law exactly like we do. City Manager?

Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. We have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales for the recommendation for approval.

Mayor Gilmore? Yes. And that passes five yes, one abstention, and it passes. Thank you very much, and thank you all for your patience and staying so late. We appreciate it. All right, we're moving it after number seven. We have continued. Number eight, action on city council's response to the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report entitled Pothole Damage Improving Claims Processes within Santa Clara County City Manager.

Oh, Sue's still here. Hi, Sue. Thank you for staying. We appreciate it.

Are we getting close, Sue, since we have five minutes left?

Very quick question, I actually had a neighbor ask me the other day, when you have a connecting road such as an off ramp from a federal freeway onto a expressway such as Lawrence Expressway, Jurisdiction-wise, who is in charge of that in-between area? And I had the same thought about off the expressways, you've got some loop arounds that take you onto city roads. I'm not real clear jurisdiction-wise because I know that the county is in charge of our expressways. Caltrain State is in charge of El Camino, and then we have the listing of all the other highways and freeways and things like that, b

it's more complicated than it should be yes that's very complicated it's a lawyer answer we're going to continue this we're talking about potholes so that's actual road so that's will that map or whatever show the jurisdiction for who is in charge of that i hope so yeah i hope so all right councilmember park and then i have a public member that wants to speak

Yeah, I mean, what do we do with the claims that are wrongly directed to us? Do we forward them off to the appropriate parties, or do they just get dropped? Do we send a response that says, this is not us, you should really file someplace else, or do we just not do anything? I understand that including a list of roads that we do not maintain would be easier, but what happens on roads that are city boundaries um i mean what happens in those cases i mean there are clearly local roads that are boundaries between cities and who who has jurisdiction there i i i guess i'll i'll save the other ones b

All right, I'm going to go to a member of the public. Edward, go ahead, Edward. Thank you for waiting this long.

You have a motion? Second. And a second for the staff recommendation for the response to the grand jury. Assistant City Clerk.

Yes, and that passes unanimously of those present. It's past 1230. I have an adjournment to read. City Manager or City Council, is there anything anybody needs to say right now? All right, I have an adjournment. The President of the United States asks that our flags be flown at half staff in honor of Dolly Parton. So I would like to adjourn this council meeting in memory of Dolly Rebecca Parton. Dolly Parton, the legendary singer, songwriter, actress, and philanthropist passed away on August 25th, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 80. Dolly's commitment to childhood literacy has had a