City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Let's call to order the special council meeting study session of August 11, 2026 at 534 p.m. Before we begin, the city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. This council meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the council. If a speaker's comments are not related to an agenda item, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of a disagreement with the

Council Member Cisneros has just arrived in the room.

Thank you. All right. Moving on to our next item, 26-057. Is there a staff report?

Thank you very much. I am going to ask my Council member colleagues to hold questions to four minutes. I will be giving two minutes to members of the public. I see eight attendees in the zoom room, so by my math that means that we should be done with Council and public comment by 640, which will give some time for Council discussion after public comment. Do I have any colleagues wishing to ask questions on this item? Councilmember Srini-Vaasan.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned that YETCD requires a feasibility study for greater than 15%. Who does the feasibility study? The city or the...

And then in your financials, I like the way you presented. But the returns doesn't include the land value returns, right?

Thanks for answering that, because that was my next question, because there was a red bar there. Thank you. And then You mentioned that 20% inclusionary can be done for townhomes. Right now, these are moderate income level. Are you recommending the same, continuing with the moderate income level?

What was the discount these inclusionary units will go from a base unit, let's say, million versus inclusionary, how much would be the discount?

And then in slide number 17. Santa Clara has one unit. What does that mean there? The last row there less than 10 units.

You also mentioned about the next few slides which calculates on-site equivalent for rental and then also for townhomes. This calculation, slide number 18 would be fine. So what you're suggesting here is if we go by in lieu fee, realistically, it would be $72 or 91 or 98, right?

Okay, thank you. And then last question. Any update on Mountain View study?

No, but you said that the study was completed in Mountain View?

Thank you very much, Council Member Srinivasan. Next up, Council Member Cisneros.

Yes, thank you for working on this study and for bringing such valuable information. This is such a difficult topic because at one hand, you know, we have a vested interest both at gunpoint and not to go ahead and produce affordable housing on the other side of zero percent of zero is always going to be zero. So we're trying to avoid that calculation. uh primarily or at least in my perspective my first question is when you're calculating the impact of either a fee or um an inclusionary requirement on the residual land value Are you calculating an ongoing difference between the BMR and market r

You're taking it right back to my economics class. I appreciate it.

Capitalization would be the best way to do that because we're looking at two different graph types, really, with the cost and how to factor that in. How much is it to build an affordable unit? Like, and that is a, I mean, that's the question, right? But are we looking... Because of that capitalized cost over time, is that taken into account when we're calculating, say, an in lieu fee and wanting to understand, like, are you giving us in lieu what it would cost for us to go ahead and subsidize or otherwise aid the development of affordable housing in another way?

And so when we're calculating the fee, we're not calculating it based on the depth of affordability. So when we have for ourselves low and very low required for renter, whereas you see other cities saying, well, we have moderate or even above moderate sometimes. I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to then adjust the in lieu fee based on what we're asking them to build and what that cost would be.

That makes sense. This is really helping me narrow down on what's important in this decision.

Councilmember Cisneros, we're actually at time. If you can hold your questions until after the round. Thank you.

Mayor Klein. Thank you very much. First, so before this comes back to us again, Definitely want to find out what Mountain View did if they decide to make any changes in any cities that you talked about. Other cities are going through the studies right now. If it makes it to their council, make sure that we get what their new numbers are if they've made a decision to make any changes as far as that's concerned. You said in your presentation that in lieu fees are paid up front that's not the case in Sunnyvale okay so in Sunnyvale we pay as the units are sold and we take that seven percent right

I understand. And so I'm trying to get a better idea. When this comes back, I would like to know. that what other cities are doing for in lieu fees? Are they taking them at groundbreaking? Are they taking them at full occupancy of all units? Because there's a very big difference from that standpoint, from a city standpoint, that because we take them as, you know, after groundbreaking, but not until occupancy of each unit and taking seven percent of that cost and we're just talking about um um affordable affordable housing right i mean talking about for sale housing only i want to make sure tha

For me, it's important that. We get that money, get the money as possible and whether or not that's that at that's at approval of the process groundbreaking.

Okay. Because to me, figuring out what other cities are doing there, what we can do from a state standpoint, to me, is part of this process that we can apply that money. The sooner we can apply that money, the better, especially if the project doesn't go forward. And then I would love to see, so you based all this specifically on Sunnyvale and we've had tons of multifamily apartments, we've had tons of multifamily townhomes, we've had very little condos. And you're kind of saying, Well, we could get more from in lieu on condos and, and. I, you know, what that percentage is, is it is it 17? Is

Yes, I do see that. Is there a comment from staff?

Thank you for your presentation. For cities that currently have 20%, has there been any analysis on how it's impacted the rate of development of new housing? Any thoughts on that?

And what were some reasons for them like lowering it?

Okay. And then from looking at Sunnyvale, you don't see a reason for rolling it back.

Thank you very much, Council Member Sell. Council Member Chang.

Thank you for the presentation and to Council Member Purcell's point I would be interested I know we're looking you're talking about San Francisco and San Jose rolling it back but I would be interested in seeing cities like East Palo Alto or Santa Cruz that have the 20 percent and how that's impacted development just as a comparison and then just some short requests if If we could get the presentation for September a little bit earlier, I know it's going to planning and housing and human services. So if it's possible to get the presentation and some background a little bit earlier, just becaus

Thank you, Council Member Chang, Council Member Lay.

Thank you so much. And to also piggyback on Councilmember Sal's point, you mentioned in San Francisco they have a policy that this is updated every three years. As a process question, Ms. Ryan, what is our current policy on how often these are looked at? We don't have an adopted policy. We don't have one. Okay. It's based on when the... council sees a need to look at it. Okay, so this was a study issue that came in 2003 and it says that it was last updated prior to that in 2021 and there was no update and no study.

Okay. And that's reflective of the needs of the community and the current market conditions

And then as Council Member Chang mentioned, this is my first time encountering this. For my reference, how many of these units are being built in the city? How many have we seen since the last IHO update or how many townhomes, how many condos, how many apartments are we talking about? How many are we looking at?

This is a question for Director Ryan. Would it be fair to say that we're seeing a lot more townhome starts over the past five years than other development types?

So townhome development is more or less staying level.

I had not heard about the Moffett Park approval. That's good news. But would it be fair to say, in general, that we're seeing a lot fewer rental starts over, say, the past five years since before the pandemic?

It's all this is. We're dealing with small numbers, so it's all very spurty and pointy graphs and so forth. I will say that in my conversations with developers, the phrase that keeps coming up is it just doesn't pencil when talking about virtually anything other than townhome development. And so looking at this, my understanding is that Mountain View has differential IZ rates based on product type with townhomes specifically, I think targeted at 25%. And then other development types targeted at a lower percentage. Is there some evidence or best practices about using inclusionary zoning to sort

And then depending on what we move forward out of this meeting, that's going to have an impact on staff capacity for the following several months, I'm presuming, depending how much we want to change out of this meeting.

OK, understood. Alright, I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I keep forgetting that this is my meeting has been a. All right, I see no further hands from my colleagues, so I'm going to go and open it up to public comments. Since we are currently running on schedule, members of the public will have two minutes to speak. Going first, we have our first in-person speaker, who will be Dan Kay.

Thank you very much. Next up is Gabriel.

And after you're done, if you could fill out a speaker card for the city clerk.

Thank you very much. Does anyone else want to speak on this item before we hear remote speakers? Seeing none, City Clerk, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item?

Thank you very much. Next up is Dennis M. Sorry, that was your line.

Thank you very much. I will close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for discussion. Council Member Srinivasan.

I had a... Actually, I had a question on slide number 20... One, this is, sorry, slide number 17. Last Gatos has 20% moderate for 100 units plus. How do they pencil out? The difference could be the below market rate or moderate. Is that the difference? Why it's penciling out for them?

I don't have specific comments except from members of the public. I am also agreeing with the comments we heard. Current market condition may not be conducive for any change. But having said that, I agree with Mayor Klein about how we collect in low fee. That is, I see on the slide at 25, that Los Gatos, I think they collect during the building permit valuation. Sorry, two slides before that. And then we correct at the sale price, which may not be the right way because as Mayor said, now we are waiting for the sale of the unit as opposed to some other event as such. I think from what I underst

Thank you very much, Council Member Srinivasan, Council Member Sell.

from what we've heard from your report and from some of the input we've gotten. I also don't support making changes at this time. But I'd like to come out of this study, if possible, with some guidance on what signs we would be looking for to reopen this study, how often, what is a good recommendation for a process to be you mentioned San Francisco is pretty aggressive about looking at this. So I think that's a good thing. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Council member. So council member Cisneros.

Yes. Thank you. I think you staff and the members of the public who took this opportunity to speak and tell us about your perspective there and what the thing that we kept coming back to as I was listening is 0% of zero was zero. You're not gonna have any inclusionary units at all if you make them impossible to build and that's just the way it goes. And these are just one, when I think about this, Inclusionary zoning and inlay fees are just a couple of levers that we have at our disposal economically to affect the kind of changes we want to see in our housing market. But they're limited, they'

Thank you, Council Member Cisneros, Mayor Klein.

Thank you. First, thanks for the presentation. You had my questions from earlier. I appreciate the speakers who talked about that the economic conditions are difficult. That's all I ever hear from developers. It's always difficult. No matter what in lieu fees we set, no matter what inclusionary requirements we put on, it's always difficult. But I think looking at the data, we can definitely say that rental inclusionary increase is not called for. I will question staff to evaluate whether or not now or sometime in the near future we should look at conceivably inclusionary increase for townhomes

Thank you. I agree with the Mayor in that I feel like the in lieu housing has room to shift given the Mayor's justifications there and as many of as my colleagues and the members of the public have said it seems unwise at this time to pursue increasing our percentage. I am interested, as Council Member Sall said, in looking at this on a schedule. I don't know if the three years that San Francisco has is reasonable for us, but I would like to see this looked at as soon as market conditions permit. I'm Everything's a little bit crazy right now with the market, with international relations. But i

Thank you, Council Member Lay. I will speak next. I'm going to say that I very broadly agree with the mayor's comments. It is important that when we are looking at housing types, we look not just at the amount of affordable housing we're getting, but at the relatively affordability of different types of market rate housing. If you are working class, you are not going to be buying a townhouse. You are not going to be buying a condo. If you can't get into an affordable unit, you are going to be looking to rent an apartment, possibly with roommates, possibly a smaller apartment than you would lik

No, I feel pretty similarly, so I don't feel like I need to hash it out again.

Alright, thank you. And with that, unless I have any further questions or comments from my colleagues, Mr. Mayor, when would you like to open the Council meeting?

Let's go ahead and take, let's do a nine-minute recess and come back at 7.05.

Thank you very much. This meeting is now adjourned at 6.56 p.m.

Good evening. Let's call to order the council meeting of August 11th, 2026 at 7 0 6 PM. The city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. Sunnyvale prides itself on the rich diversity of our residents. We are committed to creating a culture of belonging where members of our diverse community feel included, safe, and respected. This council meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by council for a consent calendar or public hearing i

Thank you. Next up is oral communications. This is now the public's opportunity to address council on topics not listed on tonight's agenda. This section is limited to 15 minutes and may be extended or continued after our general business section of the meeting. individuals may only speak once during oral communications this council meeting is considered a limited public forum which means the council can regulate the time place and manner of speech speaker comments during oral communications must be limited to matters within council's authority generally referred to as council subject matter j

After their summer break fun, Sunnyvale students are heading back to school. In the upcoming weeks, students all over the city and South Bay will be walking and biking to school. Some students are driving to school for the first time this year. To ensure a safe return and commute for everyone, here are a few pointers. Obey the 15 miles per hour speed limit around schools. Our public safety officers will be there out there as a reminder. Drive carefully and observe all traffic laws. Be alert for pedestrians, bicyclists, and student drivers. Please obey all crosswalk guards. Do not use disabled

Thank you, council member. I now will be reading the speaker card names of people in the room. I will read off two names. The first name, please come to the lectern. The next person be hopefully waiting in the wings so we can reduce the amount of transition. First up is Russ M followed by Mike C. Thank you. One second.

Thank you. Next is Shangi P. Followed by

Vice Mayor Mallinger. Thank you very much. Question for staff. Madam City Attorney, the concerns raised by the member of the public in the previous comment, First of all, was the feedback that he received from DPS accurate that regardless of hour that the talking or regular comment that that would not be enforceable?

And the difference that he cited with the Cupertino, I believe, Mountain View codes, you know, under, you know, the reasonable person definition that was cited, would that materially change the outcome of his call?

And Mr. Ping, I believe you should look up the process for council priority projects, which is how we in general change policy in the city of Sunnyvale. And we just got a hold the date. uh on that for next march but i'm assuming the proposals are going to need to be in what mr city manager into january i'm going to ask uh assistant city manager sarah johnson rose to yes that's correct in january okay thank you thank you vice mayor um and my last speaker card in the room is manny g

Thank you. That was my last card in the room. City manager, did you have a comment?

This question is for staff. How would people be involved, engaged in the process on the Las Palmas? Just normal, general people that are interested but want to be involved and give input.

Okay, thank you very much. So the best way to get involved is to go to the website. You do Google Las Palmas Park Renovation, and it takes you to the webpage. And on that webpage, there's a signup list to be on the mailing list. Thank you. Council Member Lay.

Thank you. To clarify, Mr. City Manager, the focus groups will be starting in September? Okay. Thank you. And are we doing that in-house or through a consultant?

Sorry. Are we doing this in-house or through a consultant? Could you please remind me?

Okay. And so that will be coming in September, and it will be coming before Parks and Rec and Council first quarter of next year. First quarter of next year.

That's correct. Thank you. Okay. That was my last speaker card in the room. City Clerk, do we have any remote speakers? wishing to speak under oral communications.

done properly we are not against the new construction we want to have new construction but a reasonable construction sensible construction in our neighborhood thank you mayor that was the final remote public speaker for oral communications okay thank you i'll go ahead and close oral communications uh next up is our consent calendar i'll open up our uh public comment on consent calendar items uh please submit a speaker card to the city clerk raise your digital hand now Board, I'll start on your telephone, indicate that you wish to speak. I will call on members of public participating in person

I will close public comment and bring it back to Council.

Vice Mayor Malinger. Before I make a motion, Mr. City Manager, I wanted to ask a quick question about the bridge repair project. I noticed that the bridge from San Miguel to Lakewood was not included in that repair. I just wanted to check and see when was the last time there was a safety evaluation on that bridge or evaluation of whether it would need repairs or upgrading?

was already made a second you can send second thank you i didn't hear the move thank you thank you um any other comments seeing none city clerk can you please conduct the vote the motion for the consent calendar carries seven zero Mayor Mrakas, Thank you let's go ahead and move to our general business, our first item is item 26 dash 0498 approve the city's response to the. Mayor Mrakas, Santa Clara county civil grand jury reports titled for pothole damage and bts management oversight of Bart silicon valley phase two is your staff report.

Hi, thank you for responding to these grand jury reports. I read over the letters back and forth and very well written, so thank you. So one of the questions I had which related to questions about the VTA. There's the VTA response to the VTA grand jury. We had a pendium to our council questions. And so that took that paragraph and staff suggested an alternate paragraph. So I was just wondering if staff could elaborate on why those changes were made or I could elaborate on why I requested changes. Any thoughts?

So let me understand this. So there was the current paragraph that was in the letter. And then in our council response to questions, staff came up with an alternate paragraph. So staff is fine with either paragraph. And it's up to council to say which one they prefer. Okay, thank you. That's all my questions.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for the presentation. You said 92% of the claims are rejected. Does that mean that we are responsible for 8% of the claims? And then what are the results of those things? Thank you.

When was these claims filed, which I know it's from 2020.

Are we liable for these claims, or are we paid, or how does that work?

Thank you, Council Member. Next up is Council Member Chang.

Thank you for the presentation and for drafting the letters. I had a thought that in the end summary, if we wanted to, if we could include something about a closing that makes mention of our city's good efforts. In page 10 of the Civil Grand Jury report, it says of the 16 jurisdictions, the Civil Grand Jury found that only Gilroy, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale provide adequate claims process information on their web pages or on the claim for itself. a separate item is that we're one of the three cities that took helpful step of providing additional language options. I just t

Thank you. As we go forward, as we go towards a motion, consider whether or not that's part of the friendly amendment or not, but thank you. Let me go to a few questions, and some of them might be to our VTA rep. So thank you for staff's response concerning the VTA response to the same grand jury reports. uh specifically for vta bart phase two and and staff's response for monday morning questions was the vta has given had published but not given let's say the final updates to that i'll ask the our our vta board member the changes that conceivably were made when this came in front of the VTA bo

So this month, the first Thursday of every month, we have a board meeting. And a large time was on the agenda to discuss the response. VTA staff provided a response to each question. There was new information that came out. the board with the auditor had some red lines that they wanted to put in the letters and staff agreed to those red lines but I think that we wanted to make sure the board as a whole seemed like they wanted to make sure that the language was tight and had been reviewed so as board we asked that the letter be sent back to the subcommittee of the um bart silicon valley subcomm

i assume okay so yeah so so if you can forward when that's finalized if you before have staff forward that to council that would be approved be um preferred you know at some point so that we see what their response is and you know going through their draft version that went in front of the board um and you know the the the grand jury report was pretty specific on kind of cost overruns and estimates and scheduling since the project's begun. There's a recommendation that, so the response to one of the recommendations is the VTA board was going to prepare an alternative funding strategy, estimate

I have to look at the specific question, but I could go back to the VTA staff and get back to you on that. They did say in it that For some of the answers, they did say we already have the information, but the information is not in a format that is currently publishable. But by a certain deadline, we will have a pathway to publish that information. So those were some of the answers that the information exists. But by that date, they would have a plan to publish that information. That was a response to some of the questions, but you're welcome to email me and I will get back with VTA staff and

And you know, because the report brought up lots of issues on whether or not they would request to go above their percentage of sales tax revenue. And you look at the cumulative sales tax the VTA is getting above, ultimately, More than every city more than our city is getting on a, on a sales tax, you know, we're getting 1 cent of sales tax and they're getting 1.1 and slightly more than that. If you look at the breakdown. So, it it's. I would love to hear, you know, making sure that that percentage is. for what needs to go to all the other items of Measure B specifically, making sure that that

And I did want to make one clarification, which they did put together in their press release. that the grand jury report seemed to tie this measure that will be on the ballot in November to BART Silicon Valley. BART Silicon Valley will not use the funding related to the November ballot. So that's what they...

Definitely made clear. They were they were more looking backwards at all the other and that's what I was looking at as far as far as all the multitude of ballot measures that the county's already approved to fund either BART itself or VTA. And so that to me was the bigger question here is making sure, especially from Measure B 2016, that the there was a maximum percentage going to BART. That percentage, of course, kind of varies. Well, it has a ceiling on what could go to Bart Silicon Valley. But, of course, it's based upon an ever-increasing revenue stream and things that conceivably VTA coul

John Kane- And then from a. Timeline so so we weren't going to list the roads that from pothole standpoint where we weren't going to list the roads that were. That are not sunnyville roads, but we were going to list expressways and freeways and who to contact on our web page the timeline for that from a city standpoint. uh we are in we are in the planning phases for that and we'll meet the deadline of december 15th provided by the civil grand jury okay thank you um and then that was all of my questions uh councilmember lay

Thank you. Just a quick question for staff. Of the rejected pothole claims that are in a different jurisdiction, are the complainants then directed to the correct place to make the... Okay, thank you.

That was all council questions. Let me go ahead and open up the public hearing on this item. um please submit a speaker to the city clerk raise your digital hand now or dial star nine on your telephone to indicate that you wish to speak i will call on members of public participating in person first followed by remote participants speakers will have three minutes to speak i have news i have one speaker card in the room uh zach k

Thank you. That was my last speaker card in the room. City clerk, do we have any remote speakers wishing to speak on this item? I will go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to Council. Council Member Selle.

I had a comment of the paragraphs that we could do for the VTA letter. There was one paragraph version that's in the original. You want to make a motion and include that change? Yeah. Should I make the motion? Go right ahead. Okay. So I'd like to make a motion to accept... The staff recommendations, which is accept alternative one and three, approve the city's response to the 2026 Santa Clara County grand jury report, potholes, damage, improving claims processes with Santa Clara County as presented in attachment one to the report and authorize the mayor to sign the response. Alternative three,

So that's OK. We can talk about that. But basically replacing an item three and item four approved with approve the response with with appropriate replacement as the second response from staff today.

I wanted to make a friendly amendment to the first.

Do you want to second the motion? Second. Thank you.

With a friendly amendment to the first response to include in the summary the mention of our city making good effort on the adequate claims process and the providing additional language options.

And any other change? I think that's good.

Okay. To your motion. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to say a point of parliamentary procedure. I believe for the benefit of the public, it would be appropriate to share the paragraph differences for a moment, and so that that can be in the public record. Mr. City Clerk, would that be possible? That can be in the public record and on the video.

OK. Thank you, city clerk. Councilmember Sell, to your motion.

So I think these were good responses and thoughtful responses that staff came up okay and um and the only from like looking at the letters very carefully the only item that i found would i talk about now was that there was one part where um on the letter related to the vta they talk about um Sunnyvale appointing alternates to the VTA board. So we don't appoint alternates to the VTA board because we share two of the seats on the board with three cities and so the three cities rotate being on the board And then there's one of the city representatives that is not on the board. So the representati

Thank you. Mr. Kirby, you had a comment or a question?

Yes, it was initially 1 and I'll say 1 and 4, but with the additional, with the friendly amendment, it's really 2 and 4, Alternatives 2 and 4. It's 1 and 3, both with modification.

Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you. Council Member Chang.

Thank you. I think staff's responses were good to the civil grand jury reports. And I think it's pretty clear that Sunnyvale is making a pretty good effort already based on their own report. So I wanted to include that part. For the second report and finding, I do think Appropriate experience is broad and it could lead to potential conflicts of interest. So I think it is best to leave it up to the individual jurisdictions on appointment process. And so I urge my colleagues, I vote.

Thank you. Next up is Vice Mayor Mellinger.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to Council Member Sell and Council Member Chang for their proposed amendments. I think they're very positive. I will be supporting the motion. I want to say I am grateful to the Civil Grand Jury, especially for the report on BART Silicon Valley. I will say that I largely agree that that project has not been well managed by VTA. I think that that goes back much longer than any of us have been on council. And I do appreciate the civil grand jury looking at it. However, at the end of the day, we are required to appoint a member of this body to the VTA boa

Thank you to. Staff for. Um, thank you to staff for, uh, creating this response. Um, and I just wanna thank, uh, I'll echo what the vice mayor said, you know, thank you for council to council member sell for, for being on the VTA board and, and, you know, ultimately I appreciate what the grand jury did here. You know, it's like, and kind of going through, um, the report, it's very clear, you know, that there have been ongoing questions. VTA initially funded BART back in 2000, the year 2000 with Measure A. So here we are more than 25 years later and finally getting to boring and the questions o

Thank you. And let's move on to our next item. James Meeker & and 26 dash 0630 except the Community equity assessment and findings on the Community access belonging and equity gaps is there a staff report. James Meeker & And we can pause for we can pause for a moment actually let's take a five minute recess and come back at 811. James Meeker & Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and reconvene and move on to our next item, item 26-0630, Accept the Community Equity Assessment and Findings on the Community Access, Belonging, and Equity Gaps. If you'd like to start.

Thank you very much. Are there questions for staff? First up is Councilmember Sell.

Hi, I wanted to thank you for doing this study. It was... I, during the study, saw you go to many places, so it was all good, and it came to this conclusion. So I had a question. When I looked at many of the charts about income, inequality, and other things, it would always go back to like some areas of inequity on a lot of the maps were relating to North Sunnyvale. So when you're deciding how to prioritize, how to look at things and stuff like that, how will those things kind of come across? Like when I look at the graphs, many of the graphs talk about different demographics, different langua

Okay, and I think it's great. I think it's like a big reservoir of knowledge. And when you're looking at other things, studies, then you can refer to this and it can give you more information on how to approach those other programs. So thank you for your work on this.

Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Vice Mayor Mellinger.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much staff for this very thoroughly researched report. I will say that this was difficult to read and it's difficult to see many of the findings here, but it is important that the city face these findings without flinching and look them in the eye. something that i the the points that i found most concerning and that i think are going to need a great amount of effort to address um in general the lack of the sense of a lack of belonging in north sunnyvale a difference between three percent for 94086 and 94087 and 49 percent for 94085 and 94089 resp

you used a verb there several times that I think is absolutely critical, and that is institutionalize. That, if nothing else, is something I want everyone to take away tonight is the importance of institutionalizing this, of having this baked into the fabric of the city going forward. To that end, one thing that I will say I would like to see is performance indicators in next year's budget for every single department. on how they are working to address equity. I don't know if that's necessarily feasible or necessarily needs to be included in a motion, but like that would be something I would l

Okay. Yeah, and I could imagine that for some departments, it might be easier to come up with those than others. IT might be a little more challenging than, say, library, or maybe not. I don't know.

Okay. And that's a point very well taken that much of this is interdepartmental and cross-departmental and we don't want to overly silo and overly break down. And what you said about practice makes permanent, you know, to echo that there is a saying from Stafford Beer who was a cyberneticist, the purpose of a system is what it does. And I feel like that is something that should be taken into account here as well. The purpose of a system is not what the authors say it's supposed to do. It's what it actually does. And that's what we need to be looking for here. Not good intentions, but actual im

thank you um quick final thing um some things that i would love to see for both columbia neighborhood center and the lakewood branch library would be making city services accessible there during specific hours so perhaps having office hours of some sort at those locations for residents to access city services that they might normally need to come to city hall for I think a mobile farmer's market, having a farmer's market at Columbia Neighborhood Center and or the branch library would be something that would be a very positive thing to look at. Um, and then finally, I'll note that we, you know,

Thank you. Vice mayor. Uh, next up is council members to snares.

Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, staff, for preparing this with such thoughtfulness and care to the community. It was really apparent, and as I was reading it, how much everybody who contributed to it genuinely cares about the people and see them as more than data points. And I think that standing out to me, I'm like, we're off to a really good start then, right? And I will note, there is a lot of positive things in here too about what people love about Sunnyvale and I get it I grew up here and I live here now I'm raising my kids here now um just more people want to be able to do that with g

Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Councilmember Srini Basin.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for a wonderful report. And then on the positive note, what I really liked is the people who like Sunnyvale, the percentage or the trend is very similar to the national community survey. So which validates this survey in a both were done with two independent organizations. And then that's what I really like. Thanks for doing that. And then I totally agree. There are a lot of gaps. I liked what assistant city manager said. Equity is a foundation on which the city should be built. But having said that, I would like to see... People are always complaining about programs a

Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Councilmember Chang.

I'll let her go first. Not according to Zoom right now, but okay. Whoever wants to go first.

Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the hard work. I really appreciate the depth and the breadth of the organizations that you reached out to this to get a statistically significant survey set. And to me, as Council Member Srinivasan said, it's interesting seeing how this lines up with the overall for the city and then the gaps that we are seeing. I think that everyone knows, knew to some extent the gaps that we're discussing today. It is nevertheless good to see them quantified with percentages. I think we all knew that North Sunnyvale feels and is in many ways historically margi

Thank you, Councilmember. Now, Councilmember Chang.

Great, thank you. Thank you for your work on this. It was really interesting. I thought that there was an intersection of poverty and seniors living alone in the middle of Sunnyvale that I hadn't anticipated when I looked at the report. So that was really interesting to me. And as we look at grocery stores and as the disparity of grocery stores in the northern Sunnyvale area, it's also that the grocery stores are just concentrated along El Camino Real specifically. And so as we're looking at more diversity development of grocery stores if not just centered along El Camino Real and other parts

And I have a few comments and maybe a question or two. So so first, you know, thank you for the report. I think it as as the rest of Council said, it's it's interesting data and you know, definitely we've seen that ongoing disparity, especially from the northern and I'll agree there's some surprises in the data that that you know, like what Council Member Chang just mentioned that that is interesting when you start looking at. how residents around the city are are you know feel that they're not being served and that's there's lots of disparities in their historical and and how we try to correc

Thank you. And my last speaker card in the room is Manchu.

Thank you. That was my last speaker card in the room. City Clerk, do we have any remote speakers wishing to speak on this item?

Okay, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to council for any final comments or a motion.

Vice Mayor Mallinger. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the members of the public who commented and spoke tonight and for the concerns that you've raised. And I am ready with the motion if my colleagues are.

Thank you very much. I am going to move staff recommendation with a couple of modifications. The first is that we add a fifth point to the four mentioned, which is actually let me forward this email I had drafted, but I did not send it. Sorry, I have just sent that to David, but I'm going to read it aloud, which is. A fifth point to improve access to critical non-city services. Where'd it go? Apologies.

No, no, it's something I'm adding. So it's not in the original document. My email disappeared from the screen. Try this again. A fifth point to improve access to critical non- What are the first four points that you're trying to add to is what I'm- The first four points are in the staff recommendation.

okay if we're not formally recommending that i still have a fifth goal that i would like included for consideration um and mr city clerk you should have gotten that by now and i will accept staff's direction on how best to incorporate this in the motion but i would like this memorialized in some way um

The Jeopardy music is copyrighted, isn't it?

There we go. Yes. So in the staff recommendation and improve access to critical noncity services for underserved communities identified by this report, including but not limited to retail and third spaces, public transportation options, schools and other educational resources, healthcare and affordable housing. And I really see this as pairing with goal one cited in that report on improving equitable access to city services.

and non-city services um i will respectfully say that i would prefer to have this call down separately so that the items are listed but i'm happy to have say to accept the language of consider including among the goals

And the 2nd thing I would like to add. Is to explicitly identify North Sunnyvale as a region in need of additional services and special care as far as equity goes.

94085 and 94089. if if you say specific uh zip codes that's better than than a region because we don't uh it's hard to define otherwise just north versus south that's fair then to specifically identify 94085 and 94089 as areas in need of specific care and attention regarding equity council member so

I would second that motion. Is this the motion?

Yes. Yes. I would second that motion. In addition, I don't know where this fits in, but what I heard, okay, amendment. A friendly amendment.

So it was mentioned by some community members that they would like like a community advisory group. I remember when we had the mobile home community and we had 13 mobile homes represented by one representative from each other mobile home. And then they were able to work with the staff and the developers to come up with an agreement. So I do see over my many years of advocacy that when you do engage like a pretty knowledgeable driven group that they're able to bring insights in and then their insights are just the iceberg of what many other people are thinking so then if you're able to hear fro

Okay. And then because of the motion of this North Sunnyvale being a focus area, then North Sunnyvale.

The two zip codes mentioned, like there would be more information about all those resources of how someone can engage that go to community members in those two zip codes so that they can engage in already Some of the programs we have, like the Teen Advisory Committee, the Community Committees, the Senior Committees, and all of those. That would be great. So no amendment needed. Okay. So second, as said. So second.

Okay. Thank you very much, Councilmember Sell, for your second. And while there's no amendment there, I do believe that that feedback is worthwhile. and especially seeking to directly engage with North Sunnyvale neighborhood associations, leverage the teen advisory committee, senior disability, and human relation committees. These are all valuable bodies that should be directly engaged with as part of this work. So I will speak very briefly to my motion. I want to thank staff. and our consultants for a really excellent, thorough, detailed, and I would say unflinching report, a report that goes

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Sell.

I think this report is great. You know, over the years, my four years here, I've heard of little this and a lot of that and, you know, concerns about inequity in North Sunnyvale, but we weren't able to really substantiate that. And then, so this report does a really thorough job of going through all these different parameters and substantiating some of the things that we've been hearing. And so that makes it easier for staff and the council and the community to focus on those areas. So I think that's great. I remember when I first came on the council, we were doing Moffitt Park specific plans

Thank you, Mr. Kirby. Council Member Sreenivasan.

uh thanks city manager for that comment and then in fact i wanted to say the exact thing instead of focusing on geography we this report first of all thank you la thanks a lot for this report uh for uh Backing the finding with data is very, very important. Of course, this is survey data, but having said that, we now know what are the problems we have. As city manager pointed out, If you look at Southern Sunnyvale, whatever the zip code 94087, for example, we don't have public transportation at all. There is nearest bus stop to my home is more than two miles. So, those kinds of things are still

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Srinivasan. Council Member Mellinger, I will allow you a quick rebuttal.

I will very briefly say that I consider the city manager's feedback to be well taken. Regarding the non-city services, I absolutely, you know, state law does severely limit us. That said, we do have a number of items coming forward in the next year. The economic development study, the general plan review, where I believe having this guidance made explicit will be valuable. and regarding north sunnyvale i want to be clear my intention is to identify it as a specific or should i say those two zip codes as a specific area of concern but not to exclude any other areas of concern that is i want to

For clarity, could. The vice mayor please remind me the content of the motion.

Thank you. And this was also the second point was the focus on the northern zip codes with the corollary that you just added. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to be clear about that and I will be voting in support of this motion again. I would like to thank staff for their hard work in this and in quantifying the gaps as the vice mayor has previously expressed in the rest of my colleagues have in the geography where I feel there is a special concentration of need. None of this is because of the current council or because of staff, but because of historic underrepresentation, historic

Thank you. Council Member Roussel, you have a quick comment?

Yeah, I had a quick comment. One of the public commenters mentioned that when we focus on certain areas and we solve problems, that her hope is that it'll solve problems for everyone. And just one comment, when we started working on this shuttle, we were just going to make it a shuttle for students to get from school to home. And then we made it a citywide shuttle because that's what Mayor Klein thought was pushing for in another way. and staff was able to help us find a solution that helps everyone in the city although when we started we were just going to help the students and so hopefully t

Thank you. Could you display what it is specifically? Is it just city and non-city services, or has it been changed?

The 94085 and 94089 bit was actually separate. It was just to identify those two zip codes as areas of special concern. Thank you.

On 94089 for special concern, how would that take the Moffett Park specific plan development into consideration for future development?

So I think that would be a question to staff, how they would see that as opposed to the maker of the motions.

Thank you, and I'll be supporting this motion. I have definite concerns about calling out the two zip codes a little bit because I think one of the things that the, depending upon what issue you're looking at, there are issues all over the city and a lot of this has to do where we've heard outreach or where we've heard response from outreach, whether or not you talk about issues of English as a second language. It's in the north, it's in the center, it's in the south. you look at transportation, you look at seniors living alone, you know, depending upon what issue you want to focus on, it's a

And with that, we will move to council reports from activities from Intergovernmental Committee Assignments. Vice Mayor Mellinger.

Thank you very much. Last month I attended the meeting of the Bay Area Water Supply Conservation Agency. We discussed, among other things, the status of SFPUC's capital improvement program and the potential cost that that is going to impose on water customers, as well as the emergency resilience framework. As part of that discussion, I did raise the that we needed to be looking at the threat from small drones. This is an increasing concern when we look at the global international security situation. Yeah, I believe that about does it. Thank you.

thank you i see no other reports move on to non-agenda items and comments uh this gen this portion of the agenda is for oral oral reports and announcements from council and the city manager to share information first for purposes of transparency i would like to disclose that an inadvertent brown act violation occurred on july 8th 2026. this violation occurred when a member of city staff forwarded an email thread between staff and one council member to the whole council subject to the email thread with Sunnyvale service request pertaining to recreational vehicle parked in city streets. None of

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I want to offer my compliments to the Department of Public Safety on two items. First, the recent enforcement action taken against smoke shops selling illegal materials such as flavored nicotine vapes. This is a matter that this council and members of the public have been pushing hard for additional enforcement on. I am very grateful. I was very gratified to see that report. And the second is knocking down the battery fire this past weekend from our right here, right behind City Hall, and doing that in a timely, efficient manner that preserved the safety of the

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lay.

I would like to thank our Department of Public Safety for two completely different things. First of all, National Night Out. It was a very fun event to go to. My toddler enjoyed the fire truck party. He talked about it for several days afterwards. He was very excited about that. And also for getting the Safe Routes to School website up in time for back to school. uh and looking forward to seeing the maps up but appreciate what's done so far and am very impressed by the quickness which which we were able to organize the working groups for with the various school districts thank you thank you co

i also want to mention that national night out was wonderful with public safety and i see the neighborhood association more and more neighborhood associations forming more and more neighborhood associations wanting to apply for the grants i think when michelle her mentioned that we would increase the grants And at the time you said it would be, I forgot what you said, but you would see it's a game changer or something like that. It has been a game changer. It's getting people excited to form neighborhood associations, to apply for grants, to come up with events that they wanna do. So it's brin

Thank you. I wanted to add the Department of Public Safety has been really busy this month. Laurelwood Elementary also opened its first day yesterday and had its ribbon cutting last Friday. So thank you to the Department of Public Safety for coordinating with Santa Clara Unified on safety improvements and in general, more coordination.

thank you and i'll just echo what my other council members have said you know so first it was great being at the laurelwood elementary ribbon cutting on friday and good to see you know um From that neighborhood standpoint, having a brand new school and investing in our future students is fantastic. And then, of course, that opened yesterday. But National Night Out was a lot of fun. I was able to make it to nine of the 17 locations around the city. But it was fantastic. um good to see so many people out and i had a lot of comments thanking council exactly what council member said cell said on t

I realized I had one more, which is a compliments to the Department of IT, although it's not just the Department of IT on the successful rollout of my Sunnyvale in June. I have already filed probably dozens of tickets. My apologies, but sorry, not sorry. And I have to say just how much of an improvement it is as a user. And I know, like I said, I know IT led that rollout, but it's a cross-departmental effort that everyone has been involved in. And I want to thank staff for that very successful launch.

Thank you. City Manager, do you have any non-agenda items?

Thank you very much. With that, this meeting is adjourned at 10.04 PM. Thank everyone for participating tonight. Have a great evening.