City Council - Regular Meeting

That's a little slow, right? It is right. The clock is right. Okay, we're going to call this meeting to session on Monday, September 14th at 5 p.m. Roll call, please.

Here. Then we're going to go to public comment before we go into closed session.

All right. Thank you, everybody. We're going to call this meeting to order. Monday, September 14th, 6.04 p.m. Roll call, please.

Here. And before we go any further, we're going to have a report on our closed session.

That concludes the report. Thank you very much. Item 3.3, City Clerk's Report on Posting of the Agenda, please.

Okay, thank you very much. Will you all rise, please, for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilmember Marks. And please remain standing for invocation by Pastor Trevor Van Laar.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty

Are you stepping in for Trevor? I don't see Pastor Van Laar, so I'm so glad to see you right now. Yeah, all right. Jesse, perfect timing.

Thank you. Great timing. Okay, item number 3.6, orders of the day. This evening I will be moving item 10.3. I'm going to read it. Consider adopting an urgency interim ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications and entitlements of a new data center facility citywide for a period of not to exceed 45 days. I'm going to be moving that up to the beginning of the agenda. Next, I'm going to jump right to employee introductions, item 3.7. And that first will be Community Development Director Sharon Goey. Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you. Okay, next we have another round of employee introductions. This will be by Utilities Director Derek Cray. Thank you, Derek.

I just want to say thank you guys for the opportunity, and I'm ready to serve the community of Gilroy. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. Moving on to item number four, ceremonial items. We have a proclamation tonight. Alyssa, are you here, Alyssa? Okay, great. Yeah, come on up. I'll give it to you. So we have a proclamation tonight for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and I'll be reading the proclamation.

Thank you very much. Moving on to item number five, we have some council correspondence. We received some correspondence from the Open Government Commission to approve a proclamation request and activities for Open Government Week, November 16th through the 20th, 2026. Thank you, Open Government Commission. And moving on to item number six, this is presentation to council. So this is public comment time for members of the public for items not on the agenda, but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council. So as I've been doing since June, since there's a lot of new rules regardi

Okay, so right now, we will be at two minutes each, please. Recall, though, if we get additional speakers, I may have... No, we'll be at two minutes. Thank you. I may have to change it, but I think we'll be at two minutes the entire time. So thank you very much. So please, the first person.

Thank you. Kyle's next, please. And after Kyle, as Kyle's coming up, it will be Jose.

As a reminder, as I was saying earlier, the reason why we're trying not to clap, because there might be other members in this room that might be intimidated by clapping. So it's not us that we're afraid of clapping against. It's the rest of your community. So please remember that those are the rules. Go ahead.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT OF NOT ALLOWING NEW INPUT AFTER THE THIRD SPEAKER. THIS IS LITERALLY A PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PUBLIC INPUT.

Thank you, Kim. So that concludes Item 6.1, Presentations to Council. Thank you, everybody, for coming and speaking. Moving on to item number seven, reports of council members. I'm going to start with council member Bracco.

Yes, I have a report on the library. I just wanted to let everybody know the Dolly Parton Imagination Library has been a huge success. Since January, we have 8,063 new kids have signed up. And Santa Clara County leads. We're at the top of the list. The next county is Monterey, and they're only at 2,700. So the Imagination Library is doing very well. And we have 22,234 kids have signed up for the Imagination Library since January. So it continues to grow and it's doing well. And the library district has recently partnered with the Sharks. So if you need a library card or you want to just trade

Council Member Hilton. Thank you. From the Valley Transportation Authority Policy Advisory Committee, happy transit month. VTA has an active transit-oriented development TOD program which partners with developers to build TOD projects on VTA-owned properties at transit stations. These TOD sites serve as gateways to the VTA transit system, offering significant potential to attract new transit riders. The Gilroy Transit Center serves as a key hub for multiple transit for multiple transit options. The VTA-owned 7.8-acre site on the west side of the tracks is identified for future mixed housing, m

Thank you very much. Council Member Ramirez.

Yes, thank you. It's been a busy couple of weeks. I attended an SV Home elected official roundtable in San Jose and learned more about the tenant preference policy for low-income housing. I continue to participate in the unhoused ad hoc committee meetings. I attended the City of Gilroy's Car Show at the Senior Center, which was unfortunately a rainy day, so a lot of people did not want to bring out their beautiful cars in the rain. But it was still a great event. I attended an opening of Sun Palace in downtown Gilroy. I attended, along with the mayor, the Appliance Regulation Briefing and advo

Thank you very much. Next, Councilmember Klein.

I was also able to attend the Friday ceremony, and it was a moving ceremony outside the police. I also recently was invited, along with nine other electeds, to tour Israel. It was the San Francisco consulate reached out to us. It was the area of Pacific Northwest. There were two two mayors and two council members from Idaho, a supervisor from Montana, a council member from Washington, a council member from Vacaville, a supervisor from Yolo County, and then a council member from Fremont, and also myself. And we spent, we left, it was from, let's see, August 28th to September 4th. It was around

Thank you very much. I have nothing to report this evening. Moving on to item number eight. It's a consent calendar. We have items 8.1 through 8.11. Any questions from council?

I'd like to pull 8.4 for further discussion and consideration.

Okay. Pull item 8.4 and then we'll go to public comment. If we have any public comment on 8.1 through 8.11. No speakers. Okay. Thank you very much. So I'm going to take some action on items 8.1 through 8.11 excluding 8.4. Can I get a motion? Second. A motion by Council Member Bracco and a second by Council Member Hilton for items 8.1 through 8.11, excluding 8.4 on the consent calendar. Roll call, please.

Yes, motion passes 7-0, sorry. Okay, then we're going to go back to item 8.4. Who will we ask to come up with that? Okay. Thank you, John. It's okay. Yeah, so Council Member Fugazi has a couple questions on 8.4, please.

THE LAST MEETING WE OBVIOUSLY WENT OVER THIS QUITE A BIT WITH MATT JONES REGARDING THE EXTENT OF THE FENCING AND AT THE TIME YOU DIDN'T HAVE A MAP THAT WAS UP TO DATE AND REFLECTING WHAT WE HAD AND THEN ALSO I HAD ASKED WASN'T THERE OTHER FENCING AND DIDN'T SEEM LIKE THERE WAS AND Can you tell me how we came to get 900 more feet now of fencing in a couple of weeks? Ryan was actually the staffer for that one, so I just wanted to be clear.

Which I completely understand. And I thought, obviously, for asking the questions, that it might have been. So the next question I have is, why not have a map in our packet because that would have been easy for me not to pull this and recommend that maybe we bring it back even another time because it is a large expenditure. It's not really something that is a contingency. It's a third of the original ask. So does that seem reasonable to want to ask that?

And to have it as a contingency versus, you know, what would it be, an addendum or something like that, why was it chosen to be done in that manner.

I don't have any other questions, Mayor. Okay.

Then I'm going to need action. I'm going to go to a public comment.

Then... How might I move to bring this back with the proper, what I think is an addendum and a map so that the public knows exactly what we're getting for the extra 100,000? Is that, I don't know procedurally how we would do that.

I move to move this to a later date and also request that this be categorized not as contingency, but as an addendum and have the proper documentation.

And I'll second that for discussion. And just to add on that, I think that would help because I've already been contacted to you by a couple of people that have tried to identify things and when I don't even know and I don't want to send them off to staff yet. So this would really help provide clarity where anybody that says it, you could just send it to them. Like, hey, they are doing this part. They are doing this part.

But this come back, though, at the next meeting, so this whole process isn't delayed?

Yeah, so I have a motion by Councilmember Fregazzi and a second TO DELAY ITEM 8.4 AND COME BACK AT A SOONER DATE, PLEASE, WITH THE ITEMS THAT WERE SUGGESTED BY THE MOTION AND THE SECOND.

IN THEORY, THREE WEEKS OR SO. OKAY. SO I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. A ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

Yes, motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Okay, as stated earlier, I mentioned that I was going to be moving item 10.3 to the top of the list. So we're going to join now to item 10.3. I'm going to read it out. Consider adopting an urgency interim ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications and entitlements of a new data center facilities citywide for a period not to exceed 45 days. Staff report, please.

Matt, how will that affect the second data center that we got the pre-application on.

So we haven't, just to be clear, we haven't received any other formal applications since this was put on the agenda on the 10th? That's correct. So in the staff report, the contemplated zoning proposal obviously defines the use and standards and whatnot. Is it also going to include You know looking at the current industrial designation on those parcels given the other three parcels are all commercial and that one happens to be industrial.

So could part of the standards be that even though something is zoned industrial, if you intend to have a data center there, it can't be within x feet of commercial property?

AND THEN A PARTICULAR APPLICANT WHO MAY OR MAY NOT OWN SUCH A PIECE OF PROPERTY COULD CHOOSE TO APPLY TO LOT SPLIT AND CHANGE ZONING ON ONE PIECE OF IT OR ANOTHER? THAT'S CORRECT. THANK YOU.

COULD IT BE A CONDITION and part of the process to require a data center on that property if somebody were to apply for it to have them build that commercial space that you just kind of mentioned or just allow it to be built

Okay. COUNCILMEMBER FUGATI SORT OF BROUGHT IT UP AND IT'S ALREADY BEEN SAID, BUT I'M GOING TO GO FOR IT FOR A THIRD TIME. A PRE-APPLICATION IS NOT AN APPLICATION, CORRECT?

FURTHER QUESTIONS FROM COUNCIL? WE HAVE A LOT OF PUBLIC COMMENT TONIGHT, SO IT LOOKS LIKE WELL OVER 20, SO WE'RE GOING TO GO TO ONE MINUTE, PLEASE, ON PUBLIC COMMENT. AND KIM, TAKE IT AWAY.

Thank you. Your one minute has already passed. Thank you very much, Colleen.

Hello. I'm urging all of you to approve this moratorium for the health of our children. and future generations and to help the wildlife stay healthy. Thank you.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, EVERYBODY. WE'LL BRING IT BACK TO COUNCIL. AND SO FAR, I HAVE COUNCILMEMBER FUGATSI ON THE BOARD. SO GO AHEAD.

SO I JUST WANT TO SAY, I MEAN, FIRST AND FOREMOST, IN FAVOR OF A MORATORIUM AND POINT OUT THAT, AGAIN, A MORATORIUM IS NOT A BAN. And to that end, I would not support an outright ban of these types of business. I think there's standards like many different types of businesses in a city that have to be established and they have to change with the times. We have to look at what has happened and demand out of companies that they meet certain standards, but they have to be reasonable standards. And banning outright is not, in my opinion, a reasonable standard. So I think it's a good opportunity fo

Thank you very much. Council Member Hilton.

Thank you. Thank you all for coming out tonight to speak. I too am in favor of the moratorium. I like the, I want to go into a little bit of detail just on uniform standards and best practices just to kind of like drop that here right now because I do agree that 45 days is probably not going to be enough time FOR US TO DO THIS, BUT I DO AGREE WITH WHAT COUNCILMEMBER FUGAZI SAID ABOUT TRYING TO LOOK AT ESPECIALLY THOSE AREAS THAT ARE INDUSTRIAL MEETS COMMERCIAL, WHERE WE COULD PARSE OFF OR AT LEAST hide any of these industrial projects, whatever they end up being, with some commercial to match

Thank you. I'm going to go to Council Member Klein, then Council Member Ramirez.

I SUPPORT THIS MORATORIUM, TEMPORARY MORATORIUM. I DO AGREE WITH COUNCILMEMBER PAGASI AND COUNCILMEMBER HILTON IN LOOKING AT THIS AND MOVING FORWARD. IT'S GOING TO BE LONGER THAN 45 DAYS, BUT IT'S A PROCESS WE NEED TO DO. I FAVOR THAT, AND IT'S A CHANCE TO REALLY GET IT RIGHT MOVING FORWARD, SO I'M FOR IT. COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ.

So I agree that there are benefits to data centers, but that putting a pause and looking at what kind of standards we can put forth is the great way to go. And what I also like about this is it allows for community input, conversation, and engagement. So that's great.

Great. I think that I'll go ahead and comment. I'm for this ordinance as well. As everybody has already said and was mentioned a lot in public comment, is that there's a lot of reasons why we're doing this now, and one of them is because of you, the community. And it's important that you guys know this, that we have heard from the community, and Gilroy wants to do things, City Council wants to do things with more transparency, more input, and more feedback from the community. So I heard that specifically from a couple of the speakers, Armando and Colleen, I believe, I wrote down your names, is

Okay, so I'll start with determine the action of adopting the urgency interim ordinance is exempt from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, pursuant to section 15061B3 of the CEQA guidelines. So that's the first one.

We had a motion by Bracco, and who was the second? I was. Council Member Marks. Roll call, please.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Next one is introduce the ordinance by title only and waive further reading. A motion.

There's a motion by Councilmember Klein and a second by Councilmember Ramirez.

All right, number three is adopt an urgency interim ordinance imposing a temporary Okay, so number three and four together. Yes, thank you. Adopt an urgency interim ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium citywide on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications and entitlements for new data center facilities for a period not to exceed 45 days pursuant to California government code section 65858 and make findings as incorporated in the ordinance that adoption of the ordinance is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, safety, and welfare of the city and its

So there's a motion by myself and a second by Council Member Ramirez.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Council Member Hilton. All right. Now we're going to jump back to item 9.1. This is an introduction of an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy amending specified provisions of Article 8 of Chapter 13 of the Gilroy City Code relating to tobacco retailer permits, compliance, enforcement, and penalties.

OK. Yeah, and it's almost free. That's typical. OK. Kelly, Kelly.

Yeah. Hi, members of the audience. Connie, Connie, Lauren, members of the audience.

Okay, thank you very much. We will resume. Thank you very much, Bryce. Take it away.

Great stuff on this. I think we've come a long ways. Just one question. In terms of these additional aspects to enforcement, given our last year of this particular experience, and obviously without naming any businesses or what have you, how would you see, if this was in place before, how would it have helped us through the years prior in order to, well, to have a better city in terms of tobacco and tobacco enforcement?

So maybe you can give me an example on the one that allows for immediate revocation or what have you in terms of health and safety. So if somebody were selling like they have been, let's say, packets of magic mushroom, whatever gummies or whatever they happen to be, Does that alone create that because clearly somebody could ingest, you know, an entire package of that and that's health and safety. Would that qualify or is there some other example you'd give me?

Other questions for staff? No, thank you. Any public comment? Or excuse me, open the public hearing for public comment.

Okay, I'll bring it back. Any further? Go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead. I wish the community was here. Hopefully they'll come back and watch it because This also too is a huge story, but we'll go into that in another documentary. But first, I want to give some thanks, because I want to give thanks to staff. Bryce, you've been here the longest in many multiple different seats, and you've always had the patience to work with this topic on tobacco prevention. So I appreciate that and I appreciate the rest of the staff for all you've done to get us to this point. I'm very confident that we will do an excellent job from here on out. I've already seen it

I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT THIS TO ME IS WHEN GOVERNMENT IS WORKING. SOMETIMES IT'S PAINFUL AND I KNOW STAFF HAD SOME PAIN AROUND THIS AND THERE WERE SOME UGLIES AROUND IT AND THINGS THAT PROBABLY NOBODY REALLY WANTED TO NECESSARILY DIG INTO RIGHT AWAY BECAUSE IT DIDN'T SHOW THE BEST SIDE THAT WE COULD BE. For me, when you have an issue and then you try to legislate a quick knee-jerk reaction to whatever that thing is, and there were other reasons this came around, different ones from the mayor and different ones from Councilmember Hilton, it's better to step back, look to see what it is you're t

I'm going to tell my story, too, because you talked about having a documentary. I have to tell a story because Here we were talking about doing policy, and it just took a year and a year and a half to do this. But I have to go back to one morning when a smoke shop was trying to set up shop in Gilroy. And things were moving so quickly by text and email and things like that. And we had a shop illegally setting up a smoke shop in downtown Gilroy, in our downtown corridor. And it was so great to watch our community development department, Sharon Gouet, operating from the command center down here w

So I guess the first motion would be to read the ordinance by title only and wait for the reading? Yeah.

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

I was just saying how many people voted.

So I'll make the motion to introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Gilroy amending specified provisions of Article 8 of Chapter 13 of the Gilroy City Code relating to tobacco retail permits, compliance, enforcement, and penalties.

I'll second it. So we have a motion by Councilmember Hilton and a second by the Mayor. Roll call, please.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Okay, we are going to take a brief break. Thank you very much, everybody. Good time for it. Thank you very much. We're going to get restarted. Thank you, everybody. Okay, we are moving on to item 10.1. It's the introduction of new business. Presentation of a development services fee study. Staff report by Sharon Goye, please. Community Development Director.

Council Member Fugazi has first question.

Did we not have CPI increase before or you're just stating that it exists?

And on some of those charts where we saw huge discrepancies is that simply because they didn't have as good a firm as we had hired and picked the wrong number? Because it's like nine times as much, for instance, for an appeal in Morgan Hill than it is here, which if it's full cost recovery, how could there be such a discrepancy?

Right. So it begs the question, did we include the right things? But evidently you're saying we did. And it just means, I guess, in some of these, especially with the fees, we just end up being more competitive. And if I'm correct, you did all that analysis, then you went back and looked at all of it. How did you choose which cities?

Further questions? I have a question. You talked, part of your presentation, I heard cost recovery a lot. At one point, I heard you mention a little bit about in cases where you don't go for cost recovery. Can you elaborate that on a little bit more?

So, so far you talked about appeals and variances. Could you think of any building practices that communities that you see in your trade, that communities oftentimes feel like doing it themselves is a little bit better than going out and paying the fee to get the permit. And therefore, that's where your community benefit comes back in, that you should target certain building practices.

WHAT I WAS ALSO THINKING ABOUT IS SOME OF THE SMALL PROJECTS THAT YOU HEAR ABOUT, YOU KNOW, THE SMALL ELECTRICAL PROJECTS AND SMALL GAS PROJECTS. THERE'S A FINE LINE OF THE CONTRACTOR OR THE HOMEOWNER NEEDS A PERMIT AND DOESN'T NEED A PERMIT. IT SEEMS LIKE THAT MIGHT BE SOMETHING THAT WE SHOULD CONSIDER COMMUNITY BENEFIT AND SUBSIDIZING SO THAT We don't have those situations where people, they need to switch out their water heater or that small electrical job that turns into, no, it's not 120, it's 240. And then those are where those accidents happen, where the gas leaks because they didn't ge

Perhaps, yeah. Okay. Council Member Ramirez, you had your hand up, but then maybe the question get answered.

I think that... but I also want to know, in your professional experience and opinion, is there any place where you felt that we are not capturing full recovery where we should?

We can't hear you. THERE YOU GO. I JUST NEED TO GET THESE.

SO IS THERE ANY AREA WHERE PERHAPS MAYBE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE WHERE WE REACHED FULL RECOVERY OR CLOSER TO FULL RECOVERY WHERE WE'RE PERHAPS LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE? CERTAINLY THERE ARE AREAS LIKE THE MAYOR JUST BROUGHT UP WHERE THERE WOULD BE COMMUNITY BENEFITS TO NOT DOING SO. Given how it does take, like you said, to your point where it does take from the general fund to subsidize this when there are so many needs that our general fund is trying to... I just want to make sure that we're not leaving something on the table that we should be calling.

And in your professional experience, we're capitalizing on what we should be.

If there's no further questions, we'll go to public comment.

Okay, bring it back to council. Well, I'll have a couple ideas, thoughts, recommendations for staff. One, I think staff should keep in mind something that Councilmember Ramirez talked about earlier. She and I attended the Bay Area Air District meeting recently, and there are going to be significant changes coming to all over the nine counties, especially Gilroy, and there are going to be recommendations about Switching out our gas water heaters to electric water heaters, and I this is one of the excuse me Most likely yeah But I just think this is one of those items that we might want to consid

We'd want to consider that at least, right?

I AGREE. SO OUR GOAL IS TO GIVE GUIDANCE TONIGHT. WE'RE NOT TAKING ACTION ON THIS. IS THAT THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF GUIDANCE AT THIS POINT FOR YOU, SHARON? SO BACK TO IF IT'S OKAY WITH COUNCIL, I LIKE THE IDEA OF EXPLORING NOT ONLY WATER HEATER permits, but whole house heater permits because that will also be on the furnaces. That's also going to be integrated into the Bay Area Air District's mandated changes from gas to electric. And these are the things that you hear horror stories about. Someone makes a change, there's a small leak, it gets all into the attic and it blows up and takes everyone

And I think when you bring that back, I think we do have those numbers, right, of projected numbers and past numbers of water heaters already. So we would be able to say, like, okay, well, you know, let's reduce it down to 100 because we've only put in 700, right? I think that would be good for us to be able to analyze, to know the actual numbers that we've been putting in and projected.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Terry. Okay. Sorry. Lost my space. Item 10.2 is an update on the homeless encampment at 6th Street and Camino Arroyo Drive. Staff report, please.

So, Council Member Ramirez, sorry, I know you put your hand up. I don't see you.

Before the Council Member Ramirez goes, Matt, can you also expand upon your staff report? Because you did give recommendations, did you not?

Thank you. Okay, Council Member Ramirez.

So thank you for bringing this back, because we did ask that it be brought back if it was. I sit on the ad hoc committee, and we are working diligently and as quickly as possible to bring something back to council. I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the growth when we asked to not do it. I understand the social . But I have some questions, and I'm not quite sure whether I'd rather do that or to the chief or Sharon. So I'm going to throw out the questions and then . Perfect. If we were to abate this, is there any data or any EXPERIENCE THAT SAYS THAT THE 25, 30, WHATEVER NUMBER OF PEO

Is there, but you don't anticipate that to be a significant number? And then the, so basically we go back then to having these additional 25, 30, 35 people. Our staff would then be playing the whack-a-mole game with these people as well.

And you did say that it grew, but Do you have numbers on how many, because one of the arguments that was given to us and one of the reasons that, for me, that I approved Camp Hope was because we have been told that it's easier to provide housing if they're in one area they can be found. Are there numbers that have shown that that has happened, even though it has grown? Have there been people that were originally there, have they been housed? And do we have the number?

Do you know if housing has happened at all? Or you just don't have the number?

And there's going to be a significant, if we decide we want to abate this camp, completely abate it, there's going to be a significant cost associated with it, I'm assuming, to have an organization come in and fully abate and get rid of the hazardous materials.

Is there a cost associated with, you had made reference when you were giving your presentation about the accumulation of items that typically happen, you've seen it in Camp Hope, but you made reference to that happening in individual campsites or smaller campsites. If you don't get to them in a reasonable amount of time and they start to accumulate and then there's this, larger. When we do get to them and do abate them, there's a larger cost associated with those individual sites as well.

And when I read through this, I got the impression that it would be less impactful on our staff and our city resources if we did a reset and to completely abate. Am I reading that correctly?

I'm going to move on to Council Member Fugazi. Thank you.

So based on the population of the homeless in Gilroy, what percentage is this?

No, they count people that are living in garages and their cars and sleeping on sofas.

So if there's only 40 in Morgan Hill, they really have nine? I mean, we have to go with numbers that we happen to have there. As far as the situation in the particular camp that's on city property, would our building inspector or our fire inspector, you know, go through there and feel pretty comfortable? With pallet buildings and the fire issues? I mean, I know if I had that on my property, I would probably get red-tagged or have an issue. Would that be fair?

So the situation there you said has degraded and we think there's 35. Did we actually do any counts? Have we ever done any counts?

25 to 30 tents if you figure that most of those are single occupancy, but some of them are double occupancy gives you about about 35 individuals in the encampment But our conditioning on this the last time was really based around not growing the camp but we really don't have a an official way wouldn't you say that we've been counting to make sure that that would be the case or not the case? Correct

A few times that I've been down there and walked through, some of the campsites that you're referring to are vacant. They've been housed, and it's just left there.

Well, that's an interesting anecdote, I know, but there's no official count. There's no official count.

But maybe the chief has quality of life.

Or they abandoned it for some other reason. Maybe they didn't like their neighbor. I don't know. You were asking about numbers. Well, point in time. Yeah, go ahead, Chief.

We had individuals arrested, not in the camp, but somewhere else, is that what you're saying? In the camp. So we have had people arrested? For one arrest, yes. Okay. I think that was one of the conditions also that was up to that we wouldn't have any problems like that in the camp. The systems that we have, Chief, in place for identifying when we have incidents, do they use GPS in terms of when we have an incident to know within 20 or 50 feet where that incident happened, or do they just put in a location in those records?

And how many calls for service in that new area in the last month and a half?

Right. Got it. I'll hold my next questions after the next council member.

Council Member Bracco and then Council Member Marks.

Chief, have we had any violent crime over there?

Thank you. I want to point out, because I'm on the subcommittee also, And when we originally did this. You know those of you that know Aubrey is a super nice guy. But he's not a site manager for that place and we we didn't set it up for fail for success by not. Having some kind of management.

Why don't we hold that for after for deliberations and go on to further questions by Councilman Mark, sorry.

In May, when we heard about Camp Hope and the people and they came, it did tear at your heartstrings because where were they going to go? And we had given very specific instructions. We were told at that time there were 15 tents. They were going to be decreased with housing. Now I'm hearing there's a lot more. Along with the 15 tents, we were led to believe there was around 15 people. And please correct me if I'm incorrect on that. Now it's 25 to 30. We also said we wanted to hear if there was any crime in the camp and we were expecting a monthly report. And now I sit here listening about the

And I feel like if we... You've got to get to a question at some point, sorry. Oh, okay. This will be deliberations for after, unless you have a question now.

Oh, yeah, you're right, you're right. Okay, I guess my question would be, why would we continue the camp when they did not, you know, live up to what we expected? That's it. I mean, I don't expect an answer from you. I'm just...

Yes, I'm that's a thought. That's not a question for you chief. Sorry, Council Member Marks. I have a question. Go ahead, Council Member Rocco. I was leading up to a question.

Sorry. Matt. What could we do about the management of Camp Hope? I know we don't have anybody specifically for that position. But can we do something in-house where we go and inspect it once a week or every other week or whatever it would take and try to keep it clean and get the people to pick up around there and do what they said they were going to do?

I have a question. Back to one of your recommendations where you said conduct a cleanup and a reset. So... IT'S PRETTY SELF-EXPLANATORY, BUT I'M ASSUMING WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT IS YOU WOULD SEND IN THE CONTRACTORS, NOT OUR TYPICAL CITY STAFF, THE CONTRACTORS THAT DO OUR CLEANUP AND ABATEMENTS ELSEWHERE, AND THAT YOU, AGAIN, I'M READING FROM YOUR WORDS HERE, CLEANUP AND RESET. YOU WOULD GO IN, YOU WOULD THROW AWAY EVERYTHING AND TAKE THE 6th STREET ENCAMPMENT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS WHEN IT STARTED.

OKAY. COUNCIL MEMBERS, FORGOT YOU HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS? I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU.

Yeah, so I'll follow up on that. So by that, what you mean is move everybody out, clean up the whole site back to original, and then let them move back in? Is that what that means? That's what that means. Okay.

Then I have a question. So then every two weeks, you go back and do it again?

Are you still have a question, Council Member Fugazi? Go ahead. Go ahead, Council Member. All right.

So then in two weeks' time, you would go back and reset it again, move everyone out, and you do this in two-week intervals? Because I'm sorry, I'm not real impressed with what I'm hearing today. I mean, would that be the plan?

So Then you have to determine standards now of what's reasonable or not reasonable. And we now create like the data center objective standards for homeless encampments. And then we go in and enforce those. And that sounds to me like we're managing a homeless camp without the resources assigned to managing a homeless camp. Yeah, it sounds like that. Okay.

You and Council Member Bracco and I sit on the ad hoc committee. We have our final meeting tomorrow. When do you anticipate coming back to Council with something?

So that's two months away. Obviously if Council decides on a direction it would take a while. This would be then a

LIKE IT'S BEEN. AT THIS POINT, IF THERE'S NO FURTHER QUESTIONS, WE'LL GO TO PUBLIC COMMENT, PLEASE.

Can we check the mic to make sure it's on, please? Hold on, Ron. We'll reset your time. Maybe it's batteries. Britt has a booming voice. We couldn't tell if it was on or off. Thank you. Great. That sounds better. Okay, Ron, you have 12 seconds. Go ahead.

Thank you, Justin. All right, bring it back to council. Some thoughts? I'm going to go with Bracco first. Sorry, he's had his hand up. And then I'll go Fugazi, and then Council Member Marks.

Well, since we're, our subcommittee is wrapping up, I would propose that we go ahead and have Matt deal with getting it cleaned up, and then we'll be coming back with a recommendation from the subcommittee and then take it up then and make a decision on a long-term plan of what we want to do.

First of all, to address the subcommittee issue, I definitely support the ad hoc committee's work and I definitely want to get the recommendations, but It's a committee about homelessness citywide. This is about this particular site. We had a deadline in February. We had one in May. We've seen it fail. Not really interested in waiting to see what we might come up with that might still take another six to ten months to implement and require budget we may or may not have right now. I'll also say that I don't have an issue per se with having a homeless camp. that supports people and it gives them

I have to agree with Council Member Fregasi. You know, if we were to do a reset, who is going to be managing it after that? I agree with him. It's going to go right back to the condition that it's in. And when that video came out a few weeks ago, which got us all stirred up, it made it look really, really bad. I had no idea that all the garbage had accumulated. When Councilmember Ramirez and I went out and walked through Camp Hope a few months ago, Aubrey had everything I thought under control. It was pretty clean. I didn't realize he had lost his funding, so I understand that part of it. Why

Thank you. So I totally agree with Vanessa and many others. The arrests, drug abuse, all that kind of stuff, that's citywide. We already know that. The difference is that when we're able to, when we have places that have those type of effects, like in this case, the no news ended up being bad news, right? We kept being told every single day, like, you know, have some compassion. There's nothing happening at this camp. It is perfectly fine. Don't look at it. And now we know we've had, you know, dozens of contacts by GPD, arrests inside the camp. We've got a 40-yard dumpster that's out there now

AGAIN, WE'RE FACED WITH A VERY COMPLEX SITUATION WITH NO EASY ANSWER. I CAN'T ARGUE WITH YOU, COUNCILMEMBER HUGHAZI. YOU BRING UP VALID POINTS. I CAN'T ARGUE WITH COUNCILMEMBER MARX. I CANNOT ARGUE WITH COUNCILMEMBER HILTON. My concern is, you know, and I appreciate the optimism that you have for the ad hoc, because I do think that we're going to bring something back that will probably be a unanimous vote and be something very good for this community. But we're not there yet, and government gets in the way of government, and things take time. I'm looking at this from a couple of different pers

Can I ask you a question? So you said you don't want it to go out and disrupt the other businesses and the residents, right? The inverse of that logic would say, why don't you invite more people from the general community to come to Camp Hope because that's going to be beneficial to all the residents and the businesses because you'd be getting them out of... I don't understand where you're getting... Because there's 90%, okay, of Gilroy's homeless, or 80% even, whichever numbers you want to use, are not in Camp Hope. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear to you.

My request of this reset is instead of moving everything... No, I understood that part. ...starting over, keeping it so that nobody else can come in, and if there are empty tents, whatever, get rid of those and do not allow more to come in.

No, I understand, but you said the reason you don't want to just abate the camp was because these particular individuals would then be spread around the rest of the community. Correct. Right? And that would be bothersome to residences and businesses, because they would no longer be congregated in Camp Hope. They would be out and about. And the inverse of that logic is to say, well then, because the vast majority of the homeless are not in Camp Hope, and they're out there possibly disturbing residents and businesses, why not invite all of them into Camp Hope and make it bigger?

And hopefully, the ad hoc will come up with something like that.

And right now, we would make it better for everybody.

15 more, 25 more, 30 more is going to bother 25, 30, 15 more homeowners or business owners. And so I'm saying let's not add to what is already an issue by dispersing those that are in this.

Why don't we go on to Council Member Klein?

Well, I'd like to say I've supported this, naturally. I'm glad the ad hoc is doing the work working at those solutions. They're having those discussions. My challenge is we were supposed to reduce it, but we haven't reduced it. And things that we were supposed to do, we're not. And I don't know the solution of... cleaning it up, they're going to be displaced for a time because you're going to clean it up. So where are they going to go in that time in cleaning that up? That's the challenge there. And it's just, and also the sheer cost of doing that cleanup too. And it'll be a continual cost. So

Okay. So, um, can I make a motion? No, I have some comments. Okay. Um, so council member Klein talked about the, um, THE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS. WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT COSTS OF ABATEMENT IN THIS COMMUNITY FOR YEARS. THIS IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I BROUGHT UP THE LAST TIME WE HAD THIS CONVERSATION. We continue to have these costs with dealing with the homeless community in Gilroy. And we have proven time and time again that abatement doesn't work. And that was the challenge that I had when I made my decision last time is that You know, like we just said before, I can't disagree with anyb

I mean, I would like to have a report in one month. Looking back on this, we should have been asking for monthly updates and maybe taking walks. Ask for that.

SO THE ONE SPRINKLE ON TOP OF ALL OF THIS IS WE'VE OBVIOUSLY ALL HAD SOME LEGAL INFORMATION AROUND OTHER POTENTIAL COSTS THAT WE HAVE THAT WE SHOULD NOT IGNORE. AND THIS SHOULDN'T BE JUST A COST EXERCISE HERE. because we're talking about city property, we're talking about a city ordinance that we're not just ignoring, we're talking about a situation where now we are actually more and more managing a homeless camp and not allowing one to just happen to congregate on our property. And we are increasing our risk, we are increasing our liability, we are telling the residents THE HOMELESS RESIDENTS

Hilton had his hand up first. Oh, okay. Council Member Hilton, do you want to let him?

No, go ahead and make your motion. I just want to really just double down on we're really trying to stay away from marking territories and telling who and who can come out of there because that starts getting into the management roadway and that's what we're trying to stay out of so we don't increase our risk. But go ahead with your motion.

So I'd like to move to direct staff to provide notice and discontinue the encampment at 6th Street and Camino Arroyo Drive, also known as Camp Hope, with the abatement completed no later than October 19th and coordinated with the service providers so that available shelter and services, if they are available, are offered to residents in advance and to return with the ad hoc committee's recommendation in October, obviously, as scheduled.

For discussion. Yes, there's a motion from Council Member Fugazi and a second by... Council Member Hilton, is there any discussion on this motion? Right. So any discussion from Council Member Klein or Marks? You guys had questions? You had concerns?

There's always a concern where they're going to go. That's always the concern.

Just ask me if you have any more questions.

We're trying to get to a place where we get some solutions. I know that's what the ad hoc is doing. So that's the challenge with this.

But I think we already know too, right? Because we've been told this, and we already have heard it, that they're already moving people out of there when they don't want them in there. Right? They said that to us. I don't know. If we don't want them there, we'll make sure that they don't end up here. If they're causing trouble, then they'll get out of here. Or I guess in worst case scenario, you know, people get arrested inside there. But yeah, we've already been told that. So people have already been displaced out of there.

And it's moved away from self-management. RIGHT? THERE'S NO MANAGEMENT THERE.

STAFF MADE A RECOMMENDATION TO GET IT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS WHEN THIS STARTED. AND COUNCILMEMBER MARK HAS MADE SOME SUGGESTIONS ABOUT REPORTING. WELL, WE CAN HAVE DISCUSSION ON A MOTION. SURE.

THAT WAY WE'LL GET CLEAR AND IF IT DOESN'T PASS OR WHAT HAPPENS. I WENT TO SOMEONE ELSE.

HE STILL HAD DISCUSSION ON YOUR MOTION. HE HAS A RIGHT TO DO THAT. DOES ANYBODY ELSE WANT TO HAVE ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION ON IT? Okay. Take a vote, please.

No. Motion fails. Did you guys miss my speech earlier today? Please. Yeah. Well. So we still have to figure something out then.

I would like to make a motion, Mr. Mayor.

So I... Council Member Bracco would like to make a motion. You're welcome to second it or make an amendment, and we can have a discussion on it, just like we just did. Go ahead.

I would like to make a motion that we go with staff's approval and go ahead and clean up the camp and then see what happens when the subcommittee reports back and have... our city administrator, however he deems necessary, to try to put something together to manage it a little bit. It's not fair to try to make Arbery self-manage it over there and I think that's some of the problem is some people have moved in there. I mean, he's not a security guard. Poor guy. Right. Do we have a second?

Yeah. His motion. Do you want to repeat that motion in condensed and forget the part about Aubrey?

Okay. My motion is to have staff do what... Matt's recommending with cleaning it up reset however, he deems necessary to do it and then try to Come up with a plan to manage it.

Can I make a friendly amendment to that and add that we get a monthly report?

But I would also like to add something else to report from who about what about how it's going I

We can find out how many arrests are being made.

That would be good. Also, I would like to have Matt be able to tell us right now, is it possible to have someone from staff, like the motion is requesting, to manage that? Because if not, then we're back to zero one again.

So we have a motion so far by Councilmember Bracco. I will add one other point.

since we are discussing it. Go ahead. I do believe that the risks associated with this have not been adequately discussed. If this motion passes to not completely abate this camp, I will have to inform the council and the public with all of the risks that are associated around this camp.

Thank you. So there's a motion on the table by Council Member Bracco and a second by Council Member Ramirez. A friendly amendment. The motion is for staff to carry out a reset in the best management way that they can according to Council Member Bracco. We have a second by Council Member Ramirez who has a friendly amendment of monthly reporting from staff. Council Member Marsh, do you want to add anything to that, or is that monthly reporting work for you?

I mean, we... Council Member Bracco said that we'll bring it back when we bring back the recommendation from the ad hoc.

Someone had asked me earlier, and I had said November. First meeting in November. Roll call, please.

It has to be cleaned up. There's no doubt about it.

Council Member Klein, you... I know, I flipped. Something changed. Now maybe you need to make a motion that you're more comfortable with and see what the rest of us are. Back to where you said you were comfortable with it.

There's got to be an end to it. So in my mind, you say two months. I just don't know because I don't know if they're going to come back in two months.

You can end it in two months. We'll come back with a recommendation from ad hoc. We'll come back. We'll make a recommendation and end it. This council can end it.

You know what I'm having a problem with is that if tomorrow's the last day for the ad hoc committee, why can't we get a report at the first meeting in October? That might help us in a lot of our decisions to know what you're thinking, where you're going, because November is just too long.

Well, and I want to make a comment on that, too, is that we're going to be right back in the same boat where it's rainy season. Right. Which is the decision that you made, Mayor, with the interim that that you two made that decision overrode everything and just basically said, hey, it's rainy season, compassion, health and safety. Just let them stay there. And we let them stay there until February. So I would expect that same thing to happen again.

THE FIRST MEETING IN NOVEMBER, COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN, IS LESS THAN TWO MONTHS. YOU CAN MAKE A MOTION THEN TO END IT.

I'M UNCLEAR WHAT THAT IS. CAN I HELP WITH THIS? JUST CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG. reset, have staff provide a monthly report and end this at the beginning of November when the ad hoc committee brings back their recommendation.

Okay, wait a minute. Just clarify something. What's this? End this. What do you mean? End the camp? End what? Be specific.

Yeah, I'd like to say that you voted against, so you need to come up with something that you can support.

He had a problem with the opening the date, and I'm just saying, I'm saying that when we come back and report, the council can make a decision that night to close it.

That's fine. That's fine. I'll make that motion.

Okay, so that's what say it again then be real specific because that we could bring it back in November to vote on it Okay, so let let me see if I can help them councilmember Bracco made a motion This is you're gonna try to make them councilmember Bracco motion The motion is that we're asking staff to do a reset on the cleanup We're gonna let staff use their discretion on how they do that Yeah Right staff is going to do some outreach with some local service providers to help provide better guidance at the camp

Is that what you meant? But you said to close it. I'm very confused on that. No, no. You mean close it?

No, bringing it back. The idea of bringing it back.

Council Member Klein said he has a hard time leaving it open. So I'm suggesting that we come back in early November with a recommendation. And at that time, we can talk about it again. And if you have enough votes on this council, you can close it.

You can make a motion to close it. I'M SAYING THAT BECAUSE PREVIOUSLY ON BRACO'S MOTION, HE VOTED YES. I KNOW.

I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A FRIENDLY AMENDMENT.

WHAT'S THAT? WAIT A SECOND. WE DON'T HAVE A MOTION. I KNOW I FLIPPED, BUT IT WAS A CHALLENGE I HAD WITH THAT. AND I'M STILL HAVING THE STRUGGLE, BUT I GUESS THE BEST THING TO DO IS BRING IT BACK IN NOVEMBER AND HAVE US VOTE ON IT.

OKAY. SO YOU CAN MAKE YOUR FRIENDLY AMENDMENT IN A MOMENT. I'M GOING TO GO BACK TO BRACO. BRACO'S MOTION. I'm going to do this for you. You're going to have to so move. Brocko's going to make a motion. The Brocko motion is for staff to do a reset, use their discretion on how to do that. The friendly amendment was from Council Member Ramirez for monthly check-ins. And we're going to come back with a recommendation from the ad hoc in early November to further discussion.

So I have a motion by Council Member Brocko. A SECOND BY COUNCIL MEMBER RAMIREZ. A FRIENDLY AMENDMENT?

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE BENEFITS THAT THIS CAMP PROVIDES TO THE GENERAL COMMUNITY BY BRINGING ALL OF THESE PEOPLE TOGETHER INTO ONE PLACE, I WOULD ADD TO THIS A FRIENDLY AMENDMENT TO SAY WE INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE CAMP TO ALLOW UP TO 100 PEOPLE, AND THEREFORE IT MAKES IT THAT MUCH EASIER FOR THE CITY TO MANAGE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF ABATING THESE ALL AROUND THE CITY.

No, okay, so roll call please Councilmember Bocco.

Yes motion passes four to three Thank you everybody for the spirited discussion Moving on to item number 11 future council initiated a AGENDA ITEMS. 11.1, REQUEST TO ESTABLISH FREE COMMUNITY-WIDE INFANT SWIMMING RESOURCE PILOT PROGRAM. FAIR MEMO BY COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ. STAFF REPORT, PLEASE. TO COUNCIL RAMIREZ.

THERE'S NO STAFF REPORT. IT'S JUST A FAIR MEMO, THUMBS UP, TO HOPEFULLY GET THIS ON THE AGENDA. THE REASON I AM DOING THIS IS I HAVE COME TO REALIZE expense these types of lessons are and also to realize they are not swim lessons, they are life-saving lessons and I would like to see us come up with a way to provide this to the community.

Any opposition? Any questions? No? Okay.

Bring it. Yeah. Yeah, we have public comment. Sorry. Thank you.

Thank you. And thumbs up or you want to vote? Okay. No, we're going to vote. We're going to vote. So make a motion, somebody, for Council Member Ramirez. OK, SO WE HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER KLEIN TO REQUEST TO ESTABLISH FREE COMMUNITY-WIDE INFANT SWIMMING RESOURCE PILOT PROGRAM, RIGHT, TO COME BACK TO COUNCIL. DO I HAVE A SECOND? I HAVE A SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER MARKS. ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

YES, MOTION PASSES 7-0. MOVING ON TO 11.2, REQUEST ANOTHER FUTURE COUNCIL INITIATED ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ, REQUEST TO ESTABLISH A LEGISLATIVE ACTION COMMITTEE. COUNCILMEMBER RAMIREZ.

SO AS YOU KNOW, I SIT ON THE CITIES ASSOCIATION AND OFTENTIMES WE ARE ASKED TO VOTE ON DIFFERENT BILLS THAT ARE GOING THROUGH TO EITHER OPPOSE OR SUPPORT, AND I JUST FEEL IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE SOME TYPE OF A COMMITTEE THAT WOULD REVIEW THE CITY'S POSITION, SO IT'S WHEN WE SERVE ON THESE INDIVIDUAL COMMITTEES, IT'S NOT OUR INDIVIDUAL VOTES, AND AN EXAMPLE OF THAT, WE TALKED ABOUT THE TWO NITROXIDE BILLS THAT ARE ON THE GOVERNOR'S DESK. WE ARE BEING ASKED AS CITIES TO SEND IN LETTERS OF SUPPORT a number of different items, including these. And so I just think it would be beneficial

So my only question is that when this item comes back, I would really like for you to really think hard and for staff to think hard about the sequence of events. Because I've been watching you guys at City Association for years now. and you can never catch up unless you have a really on the spot. It's true. It's usually the chair that's on the spot, like Mayor Moore is really good at it. He usually tells you guys ahead of time. But if we're not on a regular, very frequent cadence, and you can actually get three of us that want to do it and some staff to support it, it's not going to be worth y

And I understand because there are often times when cities that do have these LACs, they have to say that we abstain because we have not reviewed it. And so one of the things that I pushed for here when I came on was to get the packet ahead of time. We got it 72 hours. We both pushed for it. Terrence, thank you very much. And so it is one of the things that I am going to be pushing forward with Cities Association is look, We have a number of LACs that, you know, a number of cities that have these LACs, and I think it's imperative that they get it out in time. Awesome. So I move that we direct

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

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Moving on to item number 12, City Administrator's Report. Moving on to item number 13, City Attorney's Report.

Okay, thank you very much. So we will adjourn. Adjourn to closed session. Adjourn to closed session.