City Council - Regular Meeting

on Tuesday, September 8th, 2026, commencing at 6.40 p.m. Council members in attendance are Council President Stewart, Council Vice President Nueva Camina, Council Members Forsyth, Kritzer, Parsi, and Procrea. And I will announce Council Member Stoney when she arrives. Tonight, we are having a special meeting to interview our Library Board of Trustees and supposed to be Human Services Commission candidates, but she is not here yet. So we're just going to start with the Library Board of Trustees. Navin Yajaman, Vice Chair for the Library Board of Trustees, will introduce the Library Board of Tru

Yeah, Jenny, if you want to just say a few words of introduction. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then we'll all ask council members the questions for you.

That's all right. And we have a human service candidate as well. Allora, could you please introduce her? Sure.

Thank you. So we have two candidates for two different boards, but I know you guys are brilliant, so you'll be able to maneuver through this. Council Member Forsythe.

Thank you. Question for both. Given the instability and the times we're facing right now, how do you see your role playing a part of keeping stability and what will you in particular focus on for that?

Thank you. Great question. Council Member Percy.

A question for both of you imagining that you're at the end of your term, what would you like to step back and look back and think this is the mark I left on the city?

Yes, thank you. And I'll acknowledge that Council Member Soni has arrived. Thank you. Well, thank you both so much. You are wildly impressive and wildly qualified for the roles that we are seeking to fill here through this process. It's been a true honor to get to meet you both. I previously served on the library board and I know several of us have served on other commissions. One of the roles that we haven't spoken about yet tonight is actually the role of commissioners as ambassadors to help in your own circles, in your own networks to be able to be a trusted resource that folks can go to to

Great. Thank you. We have a council member Procrea online and we do have about six minutes left just so everyone knows.

Great. Well, first of all, thank you so much for being willing to step up and volunteer to help serve this city that we all love. I have a question for Jenny and not to quote, Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones but a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone right and I'm really of the opinion that you know the reason why we are all living in this world that we are living in today is because of books it's because of the written language you know 800 years ago people thought that 95% of people weren't capable of reading now we know that almost everybody is capable of of reading. But I

Thank you. Council Vice President Nueva Camino, we'll try to get to our other question, too.

Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues for asking really great questions. I had to kind of dig deep, but One that I would be remiss if I did not ask, so thank you, is for both of you and keeping it as concise as we can. One of the things that I believe deeply to my core is the power of diversity. With that in mind, what do you believe that you personally bring to the table that might be missing from the conversation?

Thank you. Council Member Kritzer, would you like to wrap us up tonight?

Yeah, thank you, and I'll wrap up actually by asking a question to Hannah, but if it feels relevant, Jenny, feel free to answer as well. So in particular, the Human Services Commission, they do us an incredible service of doing a lot of work to sort through a really important set of applications for funding, and there's always a difference between the amount of money we have available to spend and the amount of requests. And so have to spend a lot of time figuring out what the prioritization is there and making hard choices. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on how you'd approach making

All right. Well, thank you all very much for the questions. Thank you to both of our impressive candidates. Seeing smiles. So both of these candidates will be on next week's consent agenda. If you would like to come with family, friends, or whomever, if you can be in person after the consent agenda is passed, you will be sworn in. If the timing doesn't work for you, we'll make sure we work with you and get you sworn in at a different time if that's the case. But once again, so thank you. And thank you, Naveen, for coming as well. Thank