City Council - Regular Meeting

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

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

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

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

Can you go back just the month before this?

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

I'm not looking on the board here, council, so anybody has questions? Anybody? I'LL GO. SO YOU, IN THE PREVIOUS PRESENTATION, YOU DID TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE RETAIL BASE, ESPECIALLY ON THE EAST SIDE WITH THE OUTLETS. AND TALKED ABOUT SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THERE. TALKED ABOUT WHAT THE OWNERSHIP IS DOING IN OTHER CITIES. IN OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. I BELIEVE SIMON'S ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. And can you talk about some possibilities that might exist here in Gilroy for us to revitalize our outlets?

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

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

I just think it's a great job in putting this together. So I appreciate that. That was the whole focus last year in our getting the economic development department together. So this is a great start.

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

Yeah, great idea. Maybe one of the morning sessions like we did last year where there's more time. Yeah. Okay, right. So thank you very much. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have any public comment on work? I have no speakers. Thank you for the reminder. Thank you. Okay, so we will close the working study session at 5.52 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on to item number 3.1, proclamations and awards. We have a proclamation today for Emergency Management Awareness and National Preparedness Month, which will be received by Emergency Services and Volunteer Coordinator Andrew Young. Okay, City of Gilroy Proclamation. Whereas emergencies and disasters can occur at any time and affect the safety, well-being, and resilience of the Gilroy community, and whereas emergency management is a year-round effort encompassing mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, and depends on collaboration among city depar

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

Any questions for Ruben? Yeah, go ahead.

I got a couple comments. So yeah, arts and recreation was mentioned as one of the job sectors. for for Raisa and I know that means a lot to you all especially being on this commission but you know to you in particular that's been on the commission I think maybe the longest now yeah almost almost four years now yeah I'm just being able to see that I know that that's a that's a really stamp that's a stamp meaning that you guys are making a positive impact um and a great report and I really enjoy seeing you all out in the community too I think it was a national night out We had booths diagonal to

I have a comment that you can comment on, please. Yes, of course. You talked about the ecosystem. You had that on one of your slides, the ecosystem. And most of what you talked about today was about the coordination, the collaboration you're doing locally. But could you talk a little bit about your relationship with SV Creates, what they do, and how that benefits Gilroy, even though they're not... Located in Gilroy.

Thank you. Great comment. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Ruben. Thank you. All right, moving on to item number 4.2, public comment. This is the time for public comment by members of the public on items not on the agenda. So if you have an item that you would like to comment on this evening that's on the agenda, that time for you to do that would be a little bit later when that agenda item comes up. So this is a time to talk about things not on the agenda. And as a reminder, I've been doing this the last couple weeks. Just as a reminder to some folks that this might be new to them, during public comm

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

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

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

Council Member Hilton. Thank you. From Valley Transportation Authority Policy Advisory Committee, as VTA prepares for the exciting transition to the new headquarters, we have an opportunity to make a small but meaningful update to the agency logo, one that reflects where we are today. As VTA continues to evolve, we want our visual identity to better reflect the work we do. The refreshed logo places greater emphasis on the T in VTA, transportation. Transportation is at the heart of our mission and the service we proudly deliver every day to the community. This is intentionally a refresh, not a

Council Member Ramirez. Nothing to report. Thank you. Councilmember Klein. Okay, thank you very much. I'll move on to item number six, consent calendar. Any questions from council, for staff? Nothing. Any public comment, please? Okay. I'm looking for a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar, item 6.1 through 6.5. We have a motion by Councilmember Klein. Need a second. Second. And a second by Council Member Hilton. Roll call, please.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, it goes all the way down to Santa Teresa, does it not? And then it goes under the overpass and continues on the other side of the overpass as well, right?

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

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

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

And what's the warranty on the new ones?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Bring it back for deliberations. I HAVE NONE. SO I WILL ENTERTAIN A COUPLE MOTIONS. AND THE FIRST ONE WILL BE A LONG ONE. SO BEAR WITH ME HERE. SO I'M GOING TO ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO APPROVING THE PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE PRECAST CONCRETE FENCE REPLACEMENT PROJECT AND AMENDING THE FISCAL YEAR 26-27 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM TO INCLUDE THE PROJECT NUMBER 801240. and awarding a construction contract to Silicon Valley Paving Incorporated for an amount not to exceed $415,000 for the precast concrete fence replacement project and establishing a construction contingency of $41,500 for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So there's a gap in there that PD would have to cover if there are people in the park or something's going on in the park. Where I get that the last vendor, you're nicely saying that they weren't good. Okay, I get that. But we were paying $85,000 to get a certain time coverage. Would we be better off spending the $16,000 and getting the time coverage, albeit in less parks? Have you considered that? We could look at that. No, we have not considered that. Okay. So back to the chief, if I could. A couple of questions for you. How do you think this will impact your force in terms of this? Obviousl

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

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

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

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

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

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

We do. I believe it's in the staff report, so I'll have Matt get to that once your comments are over. Yeah, cool. I'll have him review that. Thank you. Any more public comments? Okay, so why don't I jump back to Council Member Fugazi, and then Matt, you could expand on where this is coverage. Go ahead, Council Member.

If you can go back to the restrooms that are covered, the parks restrooms that are covered. Oh, you can't get your slide up now. That's fine. No problem. Were all of them there? Because I think one was missing. I think one park was missing there that has restrooms. Miller Park. It's not locked anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and entertain. Yeah, please. We're going to do one, two, and four. One, two, and four, and then we'll do three. And Matt has some clarifications first. Go for it.

This is correct. Yeah. Okay, so the first one would be award an agreement to City Guard Inc. for after-hours park patrol services at five city parks. The agreement would have an initial one-year term of $69,203 for up to four additional one-year administrative extensions for a total amount not to exceed $346,015 over five years. Next would be approve the second amendment to the agreement with Frank and Grossman Landscape Contractors, Inc. to add park restroom cleaning and gate opening services from September 1st, 2026 through October 31st, 2027. Increase the agreement by $129,841.60 and establ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. So comments, you can sit down if you want. But I just want to say thank you for keeping those commissioners. AT TOP OF MIND TO GET THEM INTO THAT INTERVIEW. THAT IS A GREAT INSIDE LOOK OF WHAT YOU ALL DO, AND I APPRECIATE THAT. AND, YOU KNOW, THIS ALSO, TOO, IS A CULMINATION OF TENACITY BY COMMISSIONERS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS. I WAS ONE OF THEM MYSELF WHEN I WAS ON THE BIKE AND PET COMMISSION, REALLY TRYING TO GET US TO UPDATE THIS 2005 PLAN SO WE COULD HEAD INTO THE FUTURE. WE DID GREAT STUFF IN THE PAST BUT GO INTO THE FUTURE. And it was something that we always pitched we always a

Thank you. I have a final comment as well. You were talking about the last time this got done was 2004, I believe, around then. And I think I might be speaking for a lot of people who have been in Gilroy many, many years. The idea that there would be some paths all the way from Gilroy that stretch now from the southern part of our town, from the sports park, to reach all the way to Uvis Creek at Virtual Road. I think now it's normal, but 22 or 23 years ago, that wasn't so normal. So that was somebody along the way that had an idea that maybe at that time seemed like that'll never happen, right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if they were to deny it, or it would go through all the denial, the city could have some sort of legal ramifications if that were the case. And so that's why you, your department, basically decided that that would not be a good idea, along obviously with the city administrator, a good idea to have that in there because it could open us up for legal challenges and other reasons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't care if it's 500 feet or 1,000 feet, but it's not- It's with projects that have these unavoidable, significant and unavoidable impacts. And we didn't want to narrow it to a data center or a battery or something like that because new emerging technology two years from now, who knows what it is? And then the developer says, well, it's not in your zone. We can do it without doing all of these things. We wanted to make sure it was broad enough so that it was any kind of an industry that came in that had these impacts. So it's not, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not, you know, if I'm going t

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

Yeah, you got it. So any further questions for staff at this point? Thank you. Then I'm going to go to public comment. Looks like we have a lot of people going to do public comment tonight. Well over 20, so we're going to leave it to one minute. Yeah, excuse me. Open the public hearing for public comment. Right, we have a lot of speakers tonight, as a reminder, so we'll go to one minute, and then we'll let the speakers speak here, and then we'll go to online, see if we have some speakers online. And take it away, Kim, who's the first three speakers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. SO I'M GOING TO BRING THIS BACK TO COUNCIL FOR DELIBERATIONS, BUT I WANT TO DO A LITTLE REMINDER OR REVIEW FIRST. SO REMEMBER THE ITEMS THAT ARE UNDER CONSIDERATION TONIGHT. I'M GOING TO BRIEFLY SAY THEM JUST AS A REMINDER. SO THE FIRST ONE, WE'RE TRYING TO DETERMINE THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE IS STATULATORY EXEMPT FROM THE CEQA PURSUANT TO CEQA GUIDELINES. THAT'S WHAT MICHAEL TALKED ABOUT FIRST. WE'RE ALSO GOING TO BE TAKING ACTION ON A MOTION TO READ THE ORDINANCE BY TITLE ONLY AND WAIT FOR THE READING. to introduce an ordinance amending chapter 30 article L of t

I feel like we're being herded into a decision that the city wants. And I agree with what Stephanie said. This has taken way too long to get from the fair memo to here, seven months. You know, it just, we need to, listen to the community and make some changes. I think I don't support what staff is recommending. What I would support is stopping all this and having a commission of community council and planning commission to come up with guidelines for development in our city. They haven't been visited in 30, 40 years. We need to be ahead of the developments that are coming into our town. We nee

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

I'm going to use four seconds to agree with him on the fair memo thing. So there you go. There's my four seconds on that. One thing I'd like to say to begin with is we started before this meeting with an economic development study session. And whether or not everybody really understands the predicament or how the city is funded, how budgets work, where the money comes from in general, uh... and and be clear i'm not even talking about amazon right now i'm talking just in general of how money comes from different places all around the city and when we zone we zone certain areas to to allow busin

This was not really what I had in mind when Council Member Ramirez and I started this fair memo back in January. We wanted to have that ordinance updated. We wanted to make sure that whatever industry came to Gilroy, the public was going to be protected by environmental protections whenever there was electrical, water, battery storage, You know, whatever. And we purposely did not say anything about data centers because, as Council Member Ramirez said, we didn't know what was coming down. In five years, there could be a similar project coming that's not a data center, and we wanted all those pr

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

I'm glad to see the community so engaged. Thank you for all the emails, phone calls, texts, and for your public comments tonight. We all take responsibility, including the public, for zoning the land in Gilroy and all the conditions needed for approval while removing the red tape for development. The city of Gilroy, like many other jurisdictions, have streamlined ministerial processes in place to approve many types of developments when applicants follow a clear, objective application and approval process. This makes the development process predictable for landowners and cuts the red tape. We d

So I appreciate all the input, especially by the council members here before me. Just to clarify, I did not mention anything about time. So that was not ever an issue. So as far as whether the things, I agree that there should not be six separate conversations separated by districts. If there is a concern about a project, everyone should come to the table. Everyone should speak together. Having people at the same table makes for a better conversation. What is said at one meeting might not even be brought up at another meeting, and it's not even considered then. So I would not support six diffe

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

Thank you. So one of the items that I've focused in on, Council Member Fregasi brought up earlier, and we've heard from public comment, is that the staff report and the planning commission's recommendation are not that far off from each other. They're really, really close. So to start this conversation, to see where we're going to get tonight, because let's remember, at this moment, we're not doing design review standards and objective standards. We are trying to determine, it sounds like we're This is boiled down to the staff recommendation or the planning commission recommendation. Planning

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

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

So did Planning Commission say the 1,000 feet? Correct. Can we amend that? Just that part of it of Planning Commission. That's what I would like.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is also part of the recommendation already. Which is also part of the recommendation. So as it stands right now, it feels like we are going towards the Planning Commission recommendation. What am I missing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I just would like to try to get some support for this. First of all, the resolution, the process, as Mr. Morley explained, is it's first reviewed by the resolution committee, Cal City's resolution committee, and then it's also being reviewed by the Housing, Economic, and Community Development Policy Committee. That is the committee that I personally serve on. It has not yet come to us. We're having a Zoom meeting, and I forget the date, if it's September 14th or 17th, but it's prior to the conference. But looking at it, the reasons that I would like to support this is that the purpose of it

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

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

Yeah, council member, I just want to say I really appreciate that you came and asked us.

Most of the time we don't know what gets done.

But you still asked us and that was very nice.

Moving on to item 9.2, Amazon Data Services Reimbursement Agreement for Recycled Water Improvements and Memorandum of Understanding with South County Regional Wastewater Authority.

Thank you. Okay, staff report please. Derek.

All right. Thank you, Derek. Looks like first person on the board is Council Member Fugazi.

I do have quite a number of questions, so if you will bear with me. Can we do three-ish or four and then jump to someone else and come back to you? Sure. That is fine. Like three or four would probably get me through the first set. Okay.

Oh, my God is right. Come on. All right.

Go ahead. So in terms of timeframes and whatnot, the timeframe for them to do the pipeline itself, okay, not just design the pipeline, but actually build the pipeline, has no timeframe associated with it whatsoever. Did I understand that correctly? No, that isn't correct. It does have a timeframe.

But that's not a date, right? So it is, if Amazon decided to not do phase two, they won't have to build the pipeline. They have to design the pipeline. That's in there, right? And they have to put a water tank on their site That's in there within two years, right? It's actually a little bit different, by the way, in the staff report than in 53 on that one. But there are, by the way, I'm pretty much in favor of this, but I want to kind of go through these things so we can see where the outs are that Amazon could have on this project. Am I incorrect if they abandon phase two? AND EVEN IF WE WENT

Understood, but that's a fraction of what the actual pipeline will cost. Very small fraction. The condition 53 says Amazon has two options to do the off-site work, right? They can either fund something for us to do it, or... you know, they can do it themselves. Obviously, we don't want them working out at the scrap plant. So we've decided to create this particular mechanism to do it. But it doesn't exactly follow kind of the way this condition works on 53. And it leaves what seems to be some sort of vague area in this. Is there anything that you or even a city attorney can can speak to in term

Yeah, that's when they get the pipeline done. Yes. They have to connect to that. That I understand. All right. I'll leave it right there for right now and then come back to me if you will.

Thank you. Council Member Mayers? Yes. Go ahead. Okay.

Just for clarity, Is it a condition of the agreement that AWS will pay 100% of all costs associated to build the pump station, the wastewater treatment facility, including design, construction, and any improvements? And a storage reservoir that they are building on their dime, will that be used only for AWS?

Okay. And in regards to, you know, we've already established that the SCRAW staff out at the treatment facility, they will be OVERSEEING THIS AND PROVIDING THEIR EXPERTISE. IT'S NOT AWS STAFF THAT IS ACTUALLY DOING THE CONSTRUCTION AND MONITORING. BUT WHO WILL MONITOR, LIKE, ON THE PIPELINE, THE DESIGN CONSTRUCTION AND UPKEEPING OF THAT?

And I know that you spoke about if, for some reason, they decide to pull out. But what if they fail to comply with something within the MOU? I don't know. I can't even think of anything. But we're monitoring it. They fail somehow to comply with it. Then what?

So we've pretty much safeguarded ourselves. Yes. You referred to the 23 AFYs. Who monitors, what happens if they go, First of all, who monitors that?

OKAY. SO LET'S SAY THEY WENT TO 100. COULD WE SHUT THEM OFF?

SO WE CAN SAY, YOU KNOW WHAT, THE AGREEMENT WAS 23 AFY, YOU'VE GONE OVER. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO SHUT OFF WATER. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT.

YEAH. AMAZON, HOW MUCH INVOLVEMENT WILL THEY HAVE IN THE DESIGN OF THE PIPELINE AS FAR AS GOING TO SCRAW? ARE THEY DESIGNING ALL OF THAT?

And then accelerating the pump station, what is that compared to regular time of building the pump station? How much are you accelerating that?

Yeah Councilmember Rocco Yes, um What if They get all done and they're using the recycle water and they call and say, you know, it's too salty I don't we don't want to use it anymore What happens?

Yeah, they still need to use it and treat it and what happens right now With the water that doesn't get sold where does it go? I

The water we don't sell because we make more than we sell.

And then so that water now with this reservoir and the customer will be making money off of that water instead of it just evaporating and going into the ground.

And will the existing rate payers at any time pay for any of this?

I have a couple questions. First, and I'll go back to Council Member Fugazi really quick. Council Member Ramirez asked you about everything being, all the costs being reimbursed, soft costs and equipment costs, infrastructure costs. I think you mentioned this earlier, but that does include staff costs as well.

Great. And you also talked about the pipeline moving across town north to the Amazon site and that it would be available to other users in the future. So I'm going to try to give an example, see if I get it right. So the pipeline moves north from the straw plant. It goes through an area that's already zoned industrial. That's out across from Target and this McCarthy Park area. And there's a bunch of empty lots out there that one day might be a hotel or a fast food restaurant or light manufacturing. All of those locations will be able to tap into this line and use recycled water for their lands

Thank you. Back to Council Member Fregazzi.

I know I had some emails recently to the city administrator and even to the city attorney regarding EIRs and CEQA out there for this, and there was a little bit, I'll blame it on my own confusion, but I didn't exactly get it straightened out. Either one of you straighten that out for me now in terms of do we need to have that? Is it going to go through a whole new process? Is it going to ride on an existing one, et cetera?

So you're saying we don't know if it's going to require a full EIR or not?

And all the costs related to that would be within this contract?

So when you said that this was already part of the master plan, the reservoir is. Is the pipeline also part of that as well?

Okay. And so Amazon gets to design the pipeline and it's not really going all the way to Scraw, right? It's going to another section of the pipe, right? Venture, I think it is, is where the point of connection is. Yeah. I was just saying that because I heard somebody say it's going to... Anyway, so... they get to design that pipe. We're already designing where it's gonna go because we've got a right-of-way of where it's gonna go. When it gets there at the corner of Camino Arroyo or wherever I think it's gonna stop, is it gonna go through to the other side? Is it going to be available for us to

Are there any binding pipeline contracts in the works already done already signed. How is that going to work with them or we just say hey go build this and they go kind of do it along with our advice on the plans.

So you guys kind of hash out what you're going to make them do, and they're going to say we're not going to do that, and then you guys come to some sort of an agreement, and it just kind of works out, or? Well, I mean, sorry, I'm done.

Yeah, and I get that. But I mean, there's only a page and a half on condition 53, and it says it's going to do a 12-inch pipe. So, I mean, we bind them somehow in this.

Now, to be clear for the public, as it was mentioned about sell the water from Council Member Bracco, we don't sell the water, correct? Correct. Valley Water. Valley Water sells. And do we get any portion of that money? Not that I'm aware of. I understand the other benefits. I'm just getting the clarity. Thank you.

This is a question to the city administrator because I know we're trying to talk about the pipeline because this is our opportunities on the agenda. If we gave direction to you would you be able to provide or the utilities director be able to provide like an update on the pipeline you know you know when we ask it or when it's often to let the public know what's going on let us know what's going on would you be able to do that?

All right, I'm going to move to public comment. Looks like we have over 10, so we're going to go two minutes. And take it away, Kim.

Georgine, I'm sorry, we went over two minutes. The bell didn't go off, sorry about that, but we're well over two minutes. It's okay, it didn't go off, but I wanted to let you know. It didn't go off? Yeah, but we're over two minutes.

Give the staff on there, please. Thank you. All right, next is Jack and then David. Jack's still here? We'll go David.

All right. Thank you, everybody. I'll bring it back to Council. Any further thoughts for our staff? Council Member Fugazi.

Yeah, I'm ABSOLUTELY GOING TO SUPPORT THIS INFRASTRUCTURE. IT'S INFRASTRUCTURE WE PLANNED AND SOMEBODY ELSE IS PAYING FOR IT AND THIS AMAZON DATA CENTER IS GOING TO EXIST AND WE HAVE AGREEMENTS WITH THEM AND THEY'RE GOING TO PAY FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE PLANS FOR US. SO IT SEEMS TO I DON'T SEE ANY OTHER THING BUT TO APPROVE THIS AND MOVE IT FORWARD AND I SHARE COUNCILMEMBER HILTON'S concerns always because of, even with what some have said, if you're a large corporation and you have lots of lawyers, you have lots of people who are looking out for how to save on your bottom line, I

On my left, any comments? Council Member Ramirez.

So just in regards to the comments by Council Member Fugazi, I agree 100% with what you said, especially with regards to Glen Lomer. I do want to point out, though, I believe every single leadership position in the city has changed since then. And so I don't anticipate that we're going to run into the same situation. there's a number of watchdogs sitting up here. So I have the confidence that this will be monitored.

Thank you. Then I'm going to move to some action. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agreement with Amazon Data Services to reimburse the City of Gilroy for design and construction of recycled water improvements at the South County Regional Wastewater Authority site. Okay, I'm looking for a motion. Motion. I have a motion by Council Member Fugazi and a second by Council Member Klein. Roll call, please.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Second one, direct staff to engage with South County Regional Wastewater Authority representatives to negotiate and execute a memorandum of understanding for reimbursement of the recycled water improvements. I have a motion by Council Member Hilton and a second by Council Member Ramirez. Roll call, please.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for all the great conversation from the gallery. Moving on to item number 10, city administrator's report. Moving on to item number 11, city attorney's report. No report. Okay. Item number 12, adjournment. Thank you, everybody.