City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. I'm calling this meeting to order. Good evening, everyone. Calling this meeting to order at 05:03. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

Council member Hicks? Here. Council member Camay? Here. Council member McAllister? Yep. Mayor Ramos?

Yep.

We have a quorum with four members present.

Thank you. And now we'll begin with item three or 3.1, fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty seven capital improvement program. The purpose of this study session is to provide the city council an overview of the capital improvement program and obtain city council input on the draft recommended fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven capital improvement program. Public works director Jennifer Ng and Senior Civil Engineer Joy Houghton? Houghton.

Okay. We'll present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. On to you guys.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We are pulling up the slide deck now. While we're doing that, again, I'm Jennifer Ng, Public Works Director. Sitting to my left is Joy Houghton, who's Senior Civil Engineer in the Public Works Department. Our topic for tonight is the fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty seven CIP.

We're getting our technology to hopefully cooperate with us. There we go. We're up on the screen. We can flip to the next one Joy. Thank you. So our CIP is a biennial, meaning every two years planning process. This year is a roll forward year and is primarily an update to the CIP from last year. Two categories of projects that we'll be discussing tonight include nondiscretionary and projects. Definition of nondiscretionary is up there on your screen. Next we want to switch to what we have actively going on right now.

We have a lot going on. We have two ninety active projects underway. The vast majority of that 290, 221 are led by public works, and 13 of those projects are council work plan projects. Just quick note that 221 is a slight deviation from what you saw in your staff report. We had reported out two twenty two, but we forgot to attribute one project to community services.

On the right hand side, can see that the volume and funding allocation breakdown. The bulk of our time and our money spent in public works for these projects is allocated towards three main categories of transportation and streets utilities and facilities we do have a quarterly update of 25 featured projects on our city's website we started that at the end of last calendar year and we're currently in the process of doing our quarter one update for 2026 and that will be up on the website shortly you'll see that it'll be slightly reorganized to categorize projects by type of project so it's a little bit easier to find if you're looking for a specific project type and what's going on in that area. On our pavement management program in 2024 we reported out that our pavement condition index PCI for short is at 67 and this is generally considered in the fair category for our roadways. We've been trying to increase our pavement condition up to 70 to elevate us from a fair condition report to a satisfactory condition report. In doing so we plan to spend quite a bit of money on our paving program between '24 and twenty seven twenty twenty four and 2027 excuse me we plan to spend over $62,000,000 on paving projects several of these do have active transportation elements As an example, Moffitt will receive class two bike lanes where there are none now.

Middlefield will have class four bike lanes where there are currently class two bike lanes and part time bike lanes, and a section of shoreline will be upgraded from class two to class four bike lanes. And just as a reminder because I know I'm doing engineer speak right now, class two bike lanes are on street stripes adjacent to the vehicular lane. Class four bike lanes have a buffer and a vertical component separating bicyclists from vehicles. As we look ahead to our paving program on the left hand side you can see a map of the city. A little bit of shoreline is chopped off but we don't have lines on there but it shows all of the pavement work scheduled from now through 2028 you can see that several arterials and major collector streets are being addressed which is consistent with the direction that we've received from council last year and as part of the budget item that you'll hear later tonight from the finance department measure g funding has picked up and as a result we were able to capture an additional $125,000 towards the paving program.

That's a win for us. In terms of our strategy here in Mountain View we employ a best first strategy in which we spend money to maintain our fair condition streets to keep them from fully deteriorating. Cost exponentially rises as we have to rehabilitate a roadway as opposed to maintaining a roadway. And then one last thing to mention is that we have a standard details update planned in the upcoming complement the work effort that CDD is advancing on objective design standards. Our standard details update will look at filling in the gaps between recently approved precise plans with respect to roadway.

So we want to look at roadway widths and allocation. We want to look at widths for standardized vehicular lanes, bike lanes, sidewalk and landscape strips and we want to create a couple of new details for duck outs as well as green street infrastructure. Since active transportation improvements and paving tend to go hand in hand This is what we have planned for the active transportation plan. The draft plan will be undergoing community review starting next week. It will go to the b pack at the April and CTC in mid June and then finally adoption by City Council is scheduled for September 2026 when we look at funding sources for our CAP there are five main buckets five I shouldn't say main buckets five buckets that are utilized in our CAP unrestricted funds are our most valuable funds and can be used by any project enterprise funds are used for our utilities so water and wastewater as well as solid waste projects.

Transportation funds are a combination of gas tax, SB one, vehicle license fee, and VTA measure b sources. Shoreline funds are generally for projects in the shoreline area and are the source for landfill post closure and sea level rise projects. And there are a subset of utility and transportation projects that fall within the boundaries of the shoreline area that are funded that way. And as you're aware a major source of funding for our parks and open space projects comes from the development fees and charges category. When we look at trends over the past four years for our CIP funding sources you can see that the funding has been relatively flat with enterprise funds receiving a bump in this past year due to a revised fee study taking effect.

With respect to workload that's something we're always monitoring in public works because we do have a heavy workload. One of the major things that we've done this year to help address workload is creation of a new fourth division within public works. This new division we're going to call the transportation division and it will be headed up by a chief transportation officer and we're going to take the two sections of traffic engineering and transportation planning and merge them together into this new division. This group will focus on delivery of initiatives that are currently underway one of the benefits of doing so moving the traffic section out of engineering allows the engineering division to really focus on delivery of those capital projects. Other workload that sits below the waterline using an iceberg analogy takes up staff capacity.

So this year we've seen the numbers of public information and public records act requests increase substantially. In addition, Mountain View in general as a city has taken on many large policy documents, which do end up requiring significant coordination and effort from public works staff even if we are not leading that particular effort. So I mentioned earlier how valuable unrestricted funds are because they can you be used by any type of project and this is a strategy that we've been employing for how to prioritize projects utilizing that funding source. So on the left starting with non discretionary and pavement first then funding amendments to existing projects and finally discretionary projects in terms of criteria that we use there are six main ones and they include safety regulatory maintenance matching grant funds pavement and council priorities and council work plan so for fiscal year twenty six twenty seven non discretionary projects and going into that year coming up we have 21 projects total with two projects needing modifications to increase funding the first project is an increase of $90,000 to the annual parks and renovations improvements and that supports activation and maintenance of amenities for the Castro Pedestrian Mall.

And the second project to receive a modification is an increase of 390,000 to replace 15 analog irrigation controllers with digital controllers and an antenna. The digital controllers will focus on and help us achieve water conservation and efficiency out at the golf course. Moving on to projects needing amendments 27 projects need amendments and not all amendments are increases some projects need increases because we add scope typically there is some sort of hidden issue that makes itself known as we progress along during design or we get favorable bids and can decrease funding. A recent example of that is the shoreline pathway project or we're swapping funding sources. With respect to discretionary projects there were 24 new ones scheduled to roll forward from last fiscal year fiscal year twenty four-twenty five but due to shifting priorities staff is now recommending that 22 projects proceed ahead in 2627 so we recommend two projects move forward as high priority those are Crittenden Field which is led and managed by the school district, and the city pays a cost share, and the fire station master plan, which will set a foundation for how we plan to renovate and or replace our fire stations.

11 new projects are being added because they can't wait for the next cycle of five year cip planning and those include categories of building renovations park renovations and a safety project and 12 projects are being recommended for deferral predominantly due to resourcing whether that's staffing or whether that's funding and or project phasing not being ready to proceed In terms of next steps for the CIP we next plan to go to the BPAC, the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee later this month. We will visit the Parks and Rec Commission next month in May and then council adoption in June so that leaves us with the one question that we have for you all tonight and that is does council support the staff recommendations for projects in the draft fiscal year 2627 CIP or have any suggested changes. Thank you. Looking forward to the discussion.

Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have looks like we only have two speakers, so three minutes. So first speaker will be April Webster.

Hi. Good evening. I want to thank staff for the additional detail provided in response to council questions including the break breakdown of projects and associated funding and, overall depth of, an organization of the CIP. That's all very useful context. But I did want to point out something that seems to be missing and that's the next layer and how those investments translate into measurable outcomes.

So right now it seems to be at the level of categories, subcategories and project counts but it doesn't clearly map to what is actually being delivered on the ground. And that's what's important and needed to evaluate effectiveness, cost benefit trade offs, or compare investments across projects. For example, with the complete and green complete streets, parks and biodiversity, I feel it would be helpful to track outcomes like canopy coverage and distribution, tree counts and retention of trees including heritage trees, green stormwater performance, miles or linear feet, protected bikeways, as well as parks and open space. All of this could be tracked with an equity lens as well so we understand how much not not only how much is being delivered but where and for whom. I wanna point out this is already being done elsewhere.

In my role as vice chair of the Caltrans d four bicycle advisory committee, I've been reviewing the SHOP projects, at the PID stage, and they clearly identify for every single project how many linear feet of bikeways are class four, class three, class two, etcetera. So it's being done. I'm guessing we have this data, but I feel that if we start tracking that in addition to how many projects we have and just how much we're spending, that could help us better connect the what we're doing to actual outcomes. We also see this with storm water under the water permit requirements we have with MRP three point zero. They require a certain number of acres of impervious, pavement land to be converted to green storm water infrastructure.

And I and we do this in a way with the PCI as well in terms of having that index that we're monitoring. So I feel like taking it to the next level, we need just a little bit more data to really quantify, and track some of that. I realize this is a newer way of thinking about the systems, but, today pavement and vehicle infrastructure tend to be treated as core assets and we're tracking that clearly but bike lanes, sidewalks, parks, urban forests are often treated more as secondary or project based elements and this is not necessarily unique to Mountain Dew. I've seen this in Caltrans and other cities and regions as well. However, I do think that there is

Thank you. We will now take, virtual speakers starting with Cliff Chambers.

Hi.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'd just like to briefly touch on three things in the staff report. First, I think the reorganization of the new transportation division is really important, and I certainly applaud the administration for this path. I think it's going to help with communication, coordination, and most importantly, project delivery. Palo Alto has a similar organization, and I've observed over many years that they've really pushed forward with good project delivery.

The second thing I'd like to say is that I really do support the importance of the $54,000 for the standard details update, Project 2,727. We've talked a lot about Green Complete streets. I think as Ms. Ng mentioned, this will be an important addition to the current details, but there's a lot of best practices that need to be updated, and this will have important return of investment for the city for the transportation planning and the new division. So I really applaud this and really support it.

And then just finally, I'm really happy to see the pickleball solutions going forward. We added thirteen hours, and the pickleball club has been working really closely with city staff, and we're really making a lot of progress. The courts are really packed, and we're really looking forward to hearing more about the update of the private property public pickleball court, in the near future. But I'm happy to say that things are going extremely well right now, and the communication between our club and the city has been excellent. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll have Celia Pamer.

Hi. Good evening. I'm Celia Pamer, resident of Mountain View. Couple of things. I was excited to see in the report that we're gonna get a transportation manager.

It's been, I think, a year. I think we lost ours May. So I really hope that that is expedited and we start seeing that impact because I think it's been a department that's been really missed for many months. We I also noticed in it, again, our repayment plan, the Miramani project, the part between Castro and Cuesta was supposed to be done in the '24, and that's what it said then. And so I hope this time it happens because I believe it does lose some of its federal funding if we don't start it this year.

While we got postcards that it would start in February, it has not actually started. So, I hope that someone can maybe look into that and double check that that will be completed. And then also, wanted to also give support for the the street standards. I think this is something that could help a lot of projects going forward. I think many of our projects end up repeating work. I The standards we apply to one, we then have to start over again on the next one instead of being able to kind of learn and make progress and use best practices when it comes to alternative transportation. So I'm excited to see that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. James Kussmaul.

Good evening. James Kussmaul, just speaking as personal resident. I wanted to echo some of prior comments about being cautiously optimistic about the transportation department reorganization as well as to look forward to some of the update and the standard details, which have not been meaningfully updated in a while. The one other thing I wanted to call out as a place where it would be lovely to see the city defer more work from the CIP is on the Lot 5 parking garage. We're talking it looks I can't tell the exact status of that project from the description, but that's a project that's continued to be deferred for a while and is currently on the books for some design work.

And I would hope that long term, we were not going to be adding hundreds of new parking spots, which would drain the city coffers of tens of millions of dollars and just continue to stifle our downtown with excessive traffic. If we have we want to spend tens of millions of dollars getting more people to downtown, there's far more cost effective ways to do it with improvement to the community shuttle, more bike lanes, that sort of thing. So if we're concerned about staff capacity, it'd be lovely to see, the design work on that further deferred. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Bruce England.

Thank you, mayor. Bruce England, Wisbon Station Drive. I will be brief because most of my efforts today were working with April Webster on the comment letter. So a lot of our thoughts kind of came out of that. So and but I've heard all the comments and I agree with everything everybody said.

So I won't repeat them. A few things that I want to note in particular that maybe weren't in the comments I have to get to my notes. The question about how to handle the pavement management program. I would really like the city to refocus the pavement management to take into account the areas where vehicles aren't traveling. So all the sidewalk areas, the walking areas, the biking areas, and the maintenance procedures that happen around those areas too, because sometimes you see clean roads and then there's a lot of stuff all over in the bike lanes, broken things and screws and all kinds of stuff like that.

So it'd be great to see that. And the last thing I wanted to bring up, I brought it up before, is the general plan update. Because the current general plan is targeted for 2030 and presumably pretty soon, you'll start working on that. Again, and that's going to be an ideal way to consolidate a lot of these ideas that people are talking about, the sort of forward path for Mountain View. And also to take advantage of the newer precise plans, like the North Wiseman precise plan, East Wiseman sorry, North Bayshore and East Wiseman precise plans. So those are my thoughts in short. Thanks.

Thank you. Next, we have Tracy.

Hello. I just wanted to keep it brief and say I agree with the updated standard details and support the comments by Bruce and Sylvia and April. And I don't remember the other speakers' names. But thank you, and I hope you will fund this.

I'm done. Thank you. All right. That is it for our oh, wait. Never mind. Jesse?

Thanks, Emily. Yeah. I got kicked out of the Zoom for a sec. Now I'm back. I kinda generally agree with everyone. I, you know, would like to see the design standards updated, so that we can have better bicycle infrastructure and more street trees and things like that. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Now the council will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Mayor, you still have one person.

Oh, shoot. They just keep on popping up. Rashmi.

Hello. Yes. Thank you. I also wanted to just express my support for the standard details and updating those so that we can align our design more with our values and our vision and our strategic goals of Mountain View. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm watching the Zoom. Going once, going twice. Okay. We're now going back to us. Okay. So the council will now have the opportunity to ask questions and then discuss and provide feedback on the study session question. Does any member of the council have questions? Councilmember Hicks.

Well, have lots of great comments, but I'll save them for a comment period. Period. Just a couple of questions. One is the Evelyn Avenue Bikeway Study. Actually, we got a comment letter, and I'll just quote them.

Is the city considering a broader green complete streets approach to that bikeway that and is there coordination with the city of Sunnyvale? I know that when I talk to the mayor and council members in Sunnyvale, they envision a wonderful green street that connects our two downtowns. There's been a lot of visioning, and I'm wondering how much we're connecting to their vision and and how green it might be. I do know that on our end there's more there are more difficulties with that than on the Sunnyvale end, but any, you know, any additional, details you can add would be appreciated.

Yeah. So the first thing I want to say is we recently got a grant from VTA to help us look at the Evolent Complete Streets so that was definitely a win for us. We haven't quite started the study yet, but absolutely the intent and end goal of this project is connectivity. Basically to connect from Sunnyvale's Caltrain station all the way to Mountain View's Caltrain station, right, would would be the limits. As you noted, we do have some constraints in Mountain View that Sunnyvale does not have.

We have a beautiful planted median in the middle of Evelyn. My understanding is that went in something like twenty years ago, and the trees are beautiful and Sunnyvale doesn't have that constraint. We also have some very nice trees that are planted along the edges of the corridor that will have to be taken into account as we start planning for this area. So long story short absolutely we want to keep our vision and our values true to what we have here in Mountain View but because the study is we just got the funding and haven't even gotten a consultant on board yet the study hasn't hasn't quite started. Okay well I'll look forward to seeing how that rolls out

and I know there are a lot of members of the public who will as well. Then another question is the scooter pilot. Do you have I actually in our written questions asked one question about that but do you have multiple locations chosen for the pilot or one location or can you give a little more detail on that?

The study for the pilot is citywide. I know one of the questions that was asked in particular was around the San Antonio area and could there be scooter hubs in that area and the answer is yes that can absolutely be evaluated.

So you haven't chosen any. You're just in the process of evaluating. You've chosen no particular locations at this point.

Correct. Happy to take

feedback. Okay. Thank you. I think those are my All

right. Thank you, Council Member Hicks. Council Member Schorwalter.

Yes. There were a lot of questions submitted. And so first, I just want to thank you for your patience and wading through all of them and answering them. I know that represents a lot of work. But it's really helpful for us.

And we do try and read them very carefully, which is you know, we have to kind of sit down right in the afternoon to do that, because we don't we don't have much time for them as well as you don't have much time for them. But anyway, one of them I wanted I did ask a couple questions about the Safe Routes to School, and I appreciate your answers, but I wanted to of pair them back because I think it's important for the city to get credit for this project. I think a lot of people might think this is something that the school district is doing, but it's not. We run the Safe Routes to School program and what the school I think what you said very diplomatically is that the school donates class time for the kids to take classes and the rodeos that we have to teach safe practices. We run this program and we also provide most of the money for the school crossing guards.

So, just wanted to ask you how that negotiation is going to go forward. There's some mention of talks in the not too distant future with the school district about the program.

Certainly we always try to keep an open line with the school district with respect to communications. To date they haven't had a whole lot of excess money in their coffers in order to share with us for advancing those programs. Those programs are very important to us in this particular city and so thus far we've been handling the bulk of that cost.

And I get that. I just do think that when we talk about the collaboration between the schools and the city, we don't want to be too quiet about our contribution. Because as the logic has been explained to me, and I think it's really good logic, it's our streets. So we want these kids, our kids, to be safe on our streets. But still, because it's a safe route to school, I think a lot of people jump to the conclusion that it's a school district project and I think it's important for us to take advantage of it.

So that's why I'm asking this question. And then kind of following up on when is the Miramonte Complete Streets happening? I know in the questions you said that the construction has started, but I've driven by several times and I haven't really noticed what has started. So I thought maybe you could go into that in a little more detail.

Yeah, so we've engaged the contractor and the contractor we're doing a bunch of pre construction type activities right now. We're setting the schedule, we're reviewing submittals, basically getting ready for construction. So you might not have seen you know a big yellow caterpillar truck out in the middle of the street quite yet but we are getting there.

Okay. Does it still look promising to get that first section completed this summer?

That's our goal, yes. That's excellent. Summer is prime construction season.

Yeah, yeah. We have to have the temperature above 70 degrees. Isn't that what it is or something like that?

I want to say 60 degrees and rising for paving. Am I right? Fifty five? Sixty five. Say that again. 55 and rising.

Okay. Alright. The next question is related to the CCTV cameras at the Police Safety Building. So, this capital project is to put in CCTV at the current building and that building will probably be in use for another five to ten years before we what?

Thank you, Council Member Shewalter. So hopefully less time than that construction is anticipated to start on the Public Safety Building sooner, so within five years I'd say.

Okay, we heard it here. All right, so those CCTV cameras will be valuable for the next five years at least until then. Okay. Thank you so much.

Alright. Any other questions? Alright. We will move on. Is it questions or are you ready for comments now essentially? Oh questions. Okay. Council Member Hicks.

So that brought up another question, which is the Safe Routes to School. When it was last brought to the council transportation committee, that plan was brought as a sort of completed plan to just say that we had received it. And I I think that the council transportation committee at the time asked whether we could have a more thorough review because it is so important to because the city plays, as council member Shewilter said, a large role in it and because it's very important to many members of the city and in particular there were two things it it focuses primarily on biking and somewhat on walking whereas I know from when my own children went to grade school there were a lot of people on scooters and I've also seen recently people arranging walk pools, kind of like a carpool only without the car. So I'm wondering whether the we could make it regular that the council transportation committee review that and whether we could add additional modes that we look at. I guess we are adding electric bikes but those are two things.

Can we can we add those things?

Well rolling is already a focus of the safe routes to school program so rolling would be as it implies anything with wheels right and so that does include scooters as part of that I know scooters are at least when my kids were younger super popular amongst the elementary school set as a means to get to school so I think that's definitely something that can be included and is already in the process of being included into the program. The program itself, we bring a yearly update back to the CTC. If you're looking for more, perhaps we can talk a little bit more about what that looks like offline.

Sure. I'd love to do that. Great. And then my last question is members of the public, many of them have brought up the updated standards for roadways. And I noticed one of their questions was, will standard details, updated standard details include context sensitive approaches.

And I imagine what they mean is more than one standard detail depending on perhaps is there a stream nearby, are there existing trees, is it a small, medium, or large roadway? So that actually did interest me. Will there be multiple for standard details, will there be multiple approaches and context sensitive approaches?

Yeah. I envision that just looking at the different types of roadways that we have, we will have to develop different details. For example, a sidewalk and a landscape strip on a small residential street or a cul de sac looks very different than what a sidewalk and a landscape strip will be on a major arterial like Ringsdorf or like Moffitt. And so we will have to take that kind of context into account as we're looking at updating details. Now they are standards, right?

There's always room for a deviation. If there's a beautiful heritage tree that is blocking a portion of the sidewalk and we say our standard is to have a specific type of configuration, obviously we would try to save the tree and deviate from our standard in that case. So there's always engineering judgment that goes along with application of standard details.

Good perfect exactly what I wanted to hear.

Thank you Councilmember Hicks. Councilmember McAllister are you we still in questions or are we in comments?

Question.

Alright. Perfect.

Go

ahead. So I have three questions along the lines of cost efficiency and expedition of projects for the city. And my first question was under the objective design standards, and I asked the question, will the the street projects, will they be cost more effective, efficient, and more common sense valued? And it wasn't I didn't see the real answer in your response, but I've seen a couple projects recently where we've had a lot of signs, subjective, from my point, that there might be too many signs, too many confusing, and so forth like that. And so going forward with the sense of cost because we are at a particular point in time where we don't have a lot of excess funds, will this particular standards help control costs, help the lens of the people that design these to say, what can we do versus what has been done in the past?

And it gives them more flexibility. Standards are just sort of like guidelines, but is it guaranteed that they gotta do certain things, there's some discretion in how they design them?

Standards are the standards that we're looking to update are intended to be focused on the roadway itself. So the pavement, the sidewalk, the landscape areas and any sort of green storm water infrastructure that goes in those landscape areas. Signage is more with geared towards safety and those guidance documents that govern safety you've heard of a bunch of them you know MUTCD we use NACTO as guidance documents etc etc. Those we absolutely there's requirements that must be followed And so our traffic engineer, when he's looking at application of signage to roadways, starts with safety first.

My second question is that we have 229 projects. And I asked the question, the dates. And so I pulled out this attachment one, and I looked at active projects. And there are 22 projects that are active projects on this thing that are ten years old. And I wonder why are they still really active?

Why are they still here? What can be done to eliminate 20 10 of them that are ten year old. There's nine that are nine years old. We have a lot of old projects here. And if we could what can we do to get these type of projects off your list and make the workload workload easier and spend less money?

They're active projects now, so we're spending time and effort on those particular projects. Some of them are large and long scale, long range projects that will absolutely take several years to design and work through issues and come up with funding plans. Other projects are lingering because a few years back we got ourselves into a situation where as we've discussed in the past there were a lot of projects that were in the CIP that we just did not have the staffing resources to complete. So our goal over last year and continuing into this year you'll see a trend of completing more projects than we are starting new projects with an attempt to essentially dig us out of this hole.

Would it be possible to give us a stage of completion on some of these older projects?

Sure.

Okay.

If you wanna give me a list, we can follow-up with that information.

Because we have one here from 2004, and it's the Huff Park Restroom. And I am glad to say that it got completed this year. So that was one that we can consider done. So okay. And my last question for you is what can the council do in guidance to help your department reevaluate a lot of these projects, the 02/2029, and give you the flexibility to reprioritize these items, including the council's work plan to get things done in a more efficient and quicker manner so that you can get that list from February to something that's more reasonable.

All guidance that we receive from the council is valuable it helps us prioritize our projects other things that we look at include outside influences such as have we received grant funding right those shoot to the top because they have grant deadlines is there other external influences other than council work plan items that need to be considered so all of that gets taken into effect when we look at how to prioritize projects. As for what can you do to help I would say that your continued support of staff is greatly appreciated. Know we do have a lot of workload on our plates. We're doing the best we can. We try to tell the story of how we're advancing and making our way through this giant list of things to deliver for you.

Thank you.

You Councilmember McAllister. Councilmember Schawwalter is there still questions?

Yeah, I just remembered one that I forgot to ask and that's related to the Evolent Corridor, you know the bike path. And I think I've asked this before and I've been given an answer that I didn't like, but I think I'm going ask it again just in case. And that is, is it possible to create a bike path on Evelyn kind of on the railroad side that's two way? Because on side, on the other side of the street, there's all these streets that come in, there's driveways, there are all these things that interfere with a bike path. But if you could put it two way on the other side, that would just be so much nicer.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Schwalter. I think what you're referring to is commonly called a cycle track. And that is what Sunnyvale is looking at doing. So as we look at how we're going to butt up our project and merge our project to Sunnyvale's we will absolutely be looking at that as an option.

Excellent, thank you.

See, you ask and you get the answer you want. And don't forget please remember to unclick when you say your questions. Next is council member Kameh.

Great. Okay. So I just have a question for staff about our like, how Vision Zero interfaces with the CIPs we adopt. So I know we adopted the action plan, the safety plan. You know, that's more like the plans, policies, procedures of what we do, but

I feel

like recently council gets feedback on why are you doing this project or I don't like this, but it all is a lot of it is to tie into our larger plans that we're adopting like Vision Zero. And so I just wonder and that's one of the seven e's, right, the engineering part of the Vision Zero plan. So I was just wondering is there a way for us as we're looking at our certain CIP projects to be able to either have like a column or something where we can have that highlighted? I think it would be really helpful as staff was mentioning to support these projects that are going forward for us to help on that education component of why certain elements may be added. I don't know if staff has any comments on that, but that's just one of the things I was thinking about is council member Schowalter brought off the safe routes to school.

And it can be maybe only answered later.

Is the question how to tag essentially certain projects if they fall under the umbrella of Vision Zero? We currently do you'll see on the featured projects page and even throughout the document that we have before you tonight we've tried to flag those projects which have active transportation improvements I don't know if you're looking for a combination of both active transportation and Vision Zero or if you're looking for something

Underneath which cat tell me which category so in the various attachments how is it tagged or how can I find that?

Let me pull up a page for you as an example.

Because I went through the document and you know I don't

Yeah so if we look at attachment five which is the pretty pink one. We've specifically called out in a column those projects which have active transportation elements and what we anticipate those elements to be.

So I see the elements I guess I just didn't see anything tagged Vision Zero but if it's an active transportation element is that considered Vision Zero?

Active transportation is really more focused on how people get around. Vision Zero is really more focused on safety and getting to zero accidents. So if we're looking to distinguish between the two I don't have a specific column right now for Vision Zero projects.

Right so that was the crux of my question is you know we had we adopted that in '24. I think we're implementing that but finding a way for the public and therefore Council to be able to champion those projects and to be sharing that to keep the document I would call it maybe more evergreen, You adopt something and we're adhering to it but I think that would just be that's the question that I had. It sounds like staff is tracking it and if there's a way for it to be perhaps more apparent because I looked through all the tensions and I didn't

We see absolutely do refer back to the Vision Zero document as we are creating projects. I think the trick as you mentioned to trying to capture how we do that in projects on our spreadsheets without making it look too cluttered is that's sort of the trick right so

yeah

let me look at how how we might be able to do so simply and get back. Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Camille. Seeing no other questions we will now move to comments by Council which should include feedback on the question on the questions staff poses a staff report. Question was does council support the staff recommendations for projects in the draft fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven CIP or have any suggested changes? We will begin with council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. First, I appreciate the questions submitted, and, provided by council colleagues. A lot of important information and some food for thought. I don't have any questions. I just had a few comments.

First, at a high level, I support the staff recommendations, and wanna call out a couple in particular. The first is, I wasn't sure how to characterize them other than as sort of general administrative updates, but those were the the efforts described in the staff report, to increase transparency, clarity, and simplicity, closing out making it a concerted effort to close out projects as council member McAllister was, describing. That's the concern I've I've had in the past too, and, I think staff has done a phenomenal job to to do that. So I I wanna commend you for that work. I think it is this is a tough item for the council.

I'm sure you can appreciate. There's a lot of attachments. The council member Showalter and I were just talking about the very small print. My eyes are not as good as they used to be, so you have to blow things up to see, you know, what all is happening in the city, and there's a lot happening. I don't envy you the the responsibility of monitoring and making progress on so many projects.

So any any work that you're doing to make our jobs easier and understanding, the capital improvement program and also increase the, the the transparency and clarity to the public is good. So thank you for doing that. I, as members of the public, and and council have done, I wanna highlight and praise the inclusion of the standard, details update. I was joking with someone at work, earlier. There aren't many people who would be very excited to see update to the standard details, but we are wonky and technical, and it's it's a very important thing.

One of the things that that council members have struggled with for many years in my entire time on council is when we are talking about development outside of a precise plan, we have limited ability to make changes to things like the streetscape. So this is the way to do that. I, I like to break the fourth wall. I envy you who are running for city council, because you will be the beneficiaries of our work today. And I'm sorry that we, this council that is departing, won't have the opportunity to provide a lot of input into that.

But I I'm I'm grateful to the staff for, including that in the the capital improvement program and and, as a relatively high priority. This is not something we're talking about, you know, five years out. This is something that you're gonna begin working on very soon. It's very exciting work. The last thing I want to call out is the the unfortunate news that three of the five budgeted positions in tran transportation planning are vacant, and that diminishes our ability to achieve council and community goals.

I know there's a lot of good work to recruit and full you know, fill those those those positions. But in the meantime, it means projects that that we have to do a little bit of triage. And I don't remember if this was last year or two years ago, but I remember making a valiant effort and failing to postpone or eliminate the Terra Bella Avenue bikeway feasibility study, which I don't think is anyone's high priority right now. There are a lot of important things that I would personally rather see completed sooner, like the active transportation plan, like the transportation demand management ordinance, like the higher priority, bicycle facilities, including Maramonte and others, that the community has, been very aggressively advocating for. Terabella has never once been elevated as a community priority.

So I would I'm not if other council members wanna join me, you know, in my, once again, valiant effort to try and postpone or or eliminate that program entirely. I'd welcome that. But that's that's one thing. I think if we're if we're if you have two staff, right, and we're down three, we we have to we have to pick and choose. We can't expect the staff to advance every project in this very ambitious project schedule expeditiously when we just don't have the people to do it.

So with that, I will say I support the staff recommendations. I think this is excellent work and very exciting work. I'm I'm a little sorry. I won't be around to, to see it executed, but, I'm, very proud of of the work that we've done over the past several years to to bring us to this point and very proud of the staff for, for achieving the goals that you've been able to achieve thus far. I do I would like, you know, council input on the Terra Bella project in particular, but I'm not gonna fall on that sort if if no one else stands up for it or stands up to oppose it. Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Ramirez. You could always come back after two years. Councilmember Schowalter. That's right and even if you're

not on the council we would welcome you for public comment anytime you want to come. Wouldn't we? Yes. I would like to sort of follow-up on Councilmember Amaris' congratulations on this report. It was easy to read.

I mean it took a long time because there is a lot in it. But I mean for instance, don't know if the folks at home can see we had six pages of this sort of single spaced, but by alternating the colors I don't know what the type font is on this. This is an 8.5 by 11. I think it doesn't pass the rules for many It's not ADA compliant. But that said, the use of color and that kind of thing, that did make it easier to read, so I appreciated that.

And on the ones that were I had to print them out. It was too small on my little iPad screen. But on this one, the color helped a lot and helps focus. Kudos to that. I think the way things are laid out does make a difference in how easy it is to absorb the information.

That counts. I too basically think that I'm very supportive of what is suggested here. And I was delighted to hear kind of the groundswell of support of the standard details. It is a very kind of engineering geeky thing, but it's very important and it's kind of like the objective standards that we need to have for our housing and zoning development. So it's good and I think it will be very helpful.

The one conceptual thing I wanted to bring up is artificial turf. We do have a number of projects where we are working on replacing fields that have artificial turf. Apparently current practice is to replace with what's there going forward. But I think that we do need to have a community conversation about artificial turf. There are pros and cons to it.

There are certain places where it allows you to use the land where you probably wouldn't at all. For instance, the shoreline athletic fields which are on top of a landfill cell. You wouldn't be able to have a field there if you had something that had to be watered. Period. To me, that's a place where we'll probably need to have artificial turf or something very different from regular grass pretty much forever if we're going to use that as a field.

But, I'm not so sure that's the case other places, and I really do think that we should be having a community conversation about that. So I wanted to bring that up as a comment. Then the other thing I was going to say is that as part of your projects, you don't just do engineering. You do a lot of planning and you do public outreach and you do all of those things. So I was pleased to see that you mentioned those, that that was an important part of your job, because I do think that how the city brings all this expertise to bear on a single project or issue that we're moving forward on is really important.

It's important to share with the community what we're doing. I hope that you feel like you have the breadth of expertise on public outreach or various things available to you so that you can do the best job possible. And I think that's important. And then I just wanna say keep up the good work.

Thank you council member Showalter. Council member Hicks.

So I'll start off by saying thank you for, you know, the comprehensive report that was maybe a little difficult to read but much easier than it would have been if it had been presented differently. And also that I do support the staff recommended projects. And then as for what previous speakers have said, previous council members, I I would I would go along with eliminating the Terabella project if other council members agreed. And also, I do agree that we should have a community conversation on artificial turf. So in addition, I thought I would have a really unique comment to make when I said I was really I was gonna say I was really excited by the Mountain View standard detail update that you've put on the as one of the projects, but I can see absolutely everybody saying that.

So that makes me happy. Not and people have said it's very kind of wonky and so forth, and but the council is that kind of body. But it's our public as well. Like, how many members of the public spoke up for it? So I guess I'll just I'll say in addition to being excited about it, I want to highlight a few details about it that I think are important and why members of the public and maybe council as well are excited.

I think this is really good timing, although okay it's the standard details are very out of date. So in that way maybe not good timing. But that we are in the midst of updating our our parks and rec plans. So parks, I know standard details are about streets, but I'll link it in. Don't worry. So, we're updating our parks, our biodiversity, and urban forestry, and our active transportation plan. So all of these things, I think, interface with the standard details. And the standard details can

be

a vehicle for delivering some of the things that members of our community really want, like more trees and canopy in particular over our sidewalks and bikeways so that during those hot days it's comfortable to walk and bike. Or buffers landscape buffers on very car intensive roads so that we feel comfortable again walking or biking there other things like bioswales and other landscaping for drainage to prevent flooding let's see what else pocket parks if there's excess roadway in some place linear parks through possible lane reallocation if there's that much extra room, both in the streetscape and beside it. I think there is a number of things that we can pull out of the standard details. And I like that you said that we could have multiple possibilities, context sensitive. And I'm hoping that we can have enough public and counsel interaction with it, because I do with the plans.

And I hope that they'll be ongoing over the years, because I do think that it's I guess you can tell from the public testimony and the email we've received, it's one of the things how we use our streetscapes is one of the things that people are very interested in. See if I had anything in addition to that. You know, I'm just gonna also call out what council member McAllister has said from time to time, that, that sometimes some of our projects seem a little overengineered. To me, sometimes there's maybe, maybe a little too much concrete, too much signage, which she said is not a part of the, of these particular guidelines. But that if we can lean a little more into green infrastructure and a little maybe lean a little less into some of those things, I think it would make members of the public very happy.

So those are my comments.

Thank

you. Thank you, council member Hicks. Council member McAlester.

Yeah. Thank you. So, I just wanted to, before I bring up my first ones, I do agree with council member Schwalter about the turfs. We need to have a conversation. The staff report did say that they are not recommending them at the time or doing it, but that was, that was a concern on and I appreciate you bringing it up.

We cannot talk about CIP projects without talking about project number 1454. And that's my favorite McElvie ballpark. And getting some benches and getting that resolved so that people can enjoy it, that when we put on league tournaments and so forth, the people appreciate coming to Mountain View and able to see the ball game. So every opportunity, usually do to write it. But, yes, 1454.

Hopefully, that's on your calendar to get or radar. Going back with my my feelings that I support the staff report, but I also like to be able to say, get some of these done, get them off. There were some projects that we were talking about that goes in one way comes up that's five year project. But I would like see a concerted effort that somebody reviews and says, this is dead. This isn't going anywhere.

Let's clear up the clutter because I think it's a distraction potentially to what's is important to us. My focus on CIP projects is infrastructure, parks, roads, streets, water lines, mains, public facilities, parks. Those, to to me, are important because that benefits the whole city. And we have a very passionate group of people that speak up on active transportation and bike lanes and etcetera, and that's important. But I don't think it is as important as addressing the concerns of the whole community.

We have 85,000 people that we need to look out for, and we need to make sure that their life, their quality of life is is listened to even though it's not here at the council meeting, but it's out there that people are are talking about. Let's take care of our streets, take care of all the other necessary things that keep us safe. So keeping that in mind, if you need any help to cut a few projects, be glad to. If you need a shovel to help on McAfee, I'll be glad to help you out. So thank you.

Thank you, council member McAllister. Council member Kameh.

Great. Thanks. Just wanna echo colleagues. Thanks to to staff. Really appreciated how the information was presented and just all the hard work that goes into it.

Thankfully, we sit on the council transportation committee so we get to see some of these and get some previews of some of the projects. So I think I'm not sure I want to pull any of the threads that my colleagues brought up yet, but I did want to call out thank you for finding ways for us to just highlight the Vision Zero. Wanna, double tap on council member Schwalter's comments on the complete streets because I think council members, we we get well, we get a lot of comments on on that as well. And then, just wanted to provide just a brief comment on the historic preservation ordinance project which is just wanted to highlight that as we're looking at the various elements and actions that will go into that making sure that like language accessibility ADA accessibility is built into that for our residents. Those are my comments.

I look forward to when this comes back as a final action. Feel like a lot of these things we've been talking about for a long time but I can see the progress and I'm very excited and heartened to know that when this comes forward next year you're gonna have all these things on the completed list for councilmember McAllister. Thank

you councilmember Kemet. With no other comments, I'll go into mine. I will agree with council member McAllister's elevation of McKelvey Ballpark. I am I'm happy to join you with a shovel as well. Let's go.

Also I'm, I guess, another one of the plus ones for the standard detail update. I would love to get that through. I also would like to elevate the conversation about artificial turf. It's not something I know we had some people advocate to us to put down in our council priorities. And clearly, none of us did because we want to elevate different priorities.

But the idea of just continuing and then adding artificial turf in our CIP is kind of doesn't feel great kind of thing. It's one thing to be like, Okay, we're going to actively study and work on this issue on artificial turf. It's another thing to be like, yeah, we're happy to just let it happen. And we're like, I'm not there. And I guess I am also Okay with killing the Terra Bella Bikeway.

I I I we could delay it if that's also kind of an issue. I'm not entirely sure. It it feels kind of weird to kill a bikeway. So that that I'm okay with opening up that that conversation there. But I guess, oh, I see council member Kamay in the comments. Oh, no. That's done. Council member Clark.

Oh, it was just, just to chime in overall. I I'm fine with the staff recommendation, and I don't I have some reservations about completely removing the Tarrabella Bikeway. We my thoughts behind that initially was that, you know, we we are putting in housing including subsidized housing, and that is kind of the main thoroughfare in and out. And I think that I think it would be shortsighted to to just completely axe that. So but in terms of prioritization, you know, I think there are other projects.

I I would agree with my colleagues that there are other projects that probably warrant higher priority than that, but I think we would do a disservice to the future residents of that area if we just completely take that off the map. I think I think it needs to be understood long term that our plan is to connect that area those areas that we're increasing our housing in to ensure that they have the proper connectivity to get over to Shoreline to Middlefield to access the the services that they need because there aren't a lot of services in that that neighborhood today without being able to get to Shoreline, Middlefield, and those other areas. So I I don't know what the yeah. In in terms of prioritization, I'm fine with changing the priorities there. I just don't want that to to get lost in the

Thank you, council member Clark. I'm assuming in response to that, council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. Maybe a question for staff. Would staff, feel comfortable with placing that project on the unscheduled list, pending, resources and council prioritization. Would that be reasonable?

We can certainly defer this particular project. The consultant has already been under contract for this project and started some of the outreach with the surveys and such for the Terra Bella bikeways. However due to staff resourcing that effort has sort of been put to the side in favor of advancing our higher profile projects such as our TDM ordinance and our active transportation plan. So it is entirely feasible to push this project off and defer it Moving it to unscheduled, I'm not sure exactly how that works when a portion of the project is completed and a portion of the funding has already been spent.

So staff would be comfortable with deferral pending resources? Yes. Okay. That seems reasonable to me.

Can I I just ask how that's any different from what you're already doing? I guess it sounds like you've kind of already you're you're you're so well versed in this that you've probably already taken those particular actions. So I guess I'm not sure us telling you to defer it even more really does anything.

Yeah. In in my mind, it's really a question of how long to defer. We've already had to triage, like, a ER room with all of the work that's on the transportation team and the limited bandwidth that they have. So at such time as we get fully staffed we would be looking at pulling this back up to the front because it is a partial work completed type of situation. But if you were to tell me that you wanted to defer it out, you know, several more years, I would certainly take that into consideration.

Alright. I don't know if, so now we're at the point where I get to ask staff the summary of the majority of council direction. Where did we land, staff?

I am looking at my notes. For the most part, we are seeing support for the staff recommendation. A couple of things that came up that seemed to resonate with the majority of you include discussion around timing of the terra Bella bikeways project some for elimination and some for a deferral And then there were multiple comments around having a community conversation on the use of artificial turf.

Does that sound right to everyone? Council member McAllister? Does that sound right to everyone? Is that okay. Councilmember Schowalter?

I would just follow it just sounds like that there this this project is underway and I think we should just defer to the judgment of the public works staff about about when to provide resources to it. I don't think we need to do that from the dais. I mean we've talked about how from our point of view nobody's clamoring for it. Yet on the other hand if work has started that's important. And the other thing that Vice Mayor Clark said that's very important is that we do expect to have quite a bit more housing there, although it's not in the short term necessarily, but not too long term.

And the bike lanes will be important. So I just feel like we can defer to staff judgment.

Alright before we get to Vice Mayor Clark we have City Manager McCarthy.

Thank you Mayor. So I would just like to ask Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour to provide some context on the work that staff has been doing with quite a few of the business owners along Terabella just to provide some context as to what is going on versus what's been paused. Thank you City Manager. Audrey Seymour, Assistant City Manager. There are a number of large property owners and businesses on Terabella that have contacted the city with concern about traffic safety, the circulation for their employees coming to and leaving their sites, and that that is impacted by concentration of parking by oversized vehicles.

And they did participate in the initial outreach that Public Works Director Ng mentioned has been started about the potential use and need for bike lanes in the area, And I know that they have interest in that as one of the constituents in the area.

Alright, Vice mayor Clark.

Yeah. So I don't know where we'll end up with the majority, but, my my preference would be to kind of leave this at the discretion of a staff. And the thing that the ultimate outcome is, you know, it's at least the the ultimate goal from my perspective is that by the time that housing gets built, which is gonna take a few years, because we've we've just been approving some of those entitlements, there are second phases to some of these things that, you know, the folks who live there, you you this ultimately gets done, you know, reasonably close to when, some of that housing farther down Terra Bella is is actually occupied because it isn't sustainable. The business concerns aside, I would not I would not wanna be a resident there who is strongly encouraged to to bike, walk, do all those things. And I can't do that on a what ends up being a very busy street, especially a couple of times a day with lines of RVs where there's just you're you're forced to just go with traffic.

Right? So I think the long term, I think it's just really important that we have, safe facilities there when that housing comes online. And that's that's what was driving the timing in my mind.

Thank you, vice mayor Clark. City manager McCarthy, are you still in the queue? Okay. Council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. I guess, this will be the last effort I make on this. I'm I'm a little sad that we said the quiet part out loud that the the bike lane is it's it's the pretext for getting rid of the RVs in the area. There are a lot of RV well, that's sure. And and there are safety concerns also near that school where the representatives have come time and again every council meeting to express similar concerns, and we're not talking about a bike lane there where there are actual students going every day to school.

I so if we wanna use the bike lanes to get rid of the RVs, the future council will have extraordinary ability to do that, and that's fine. But we've heard extensively from the community about a bunch of different, I think, higher priority areas, including Merrimonte and Moffett and Middlefield and Shoreline, and we've really struggled with transportation planning in part because we don't have enough people. If we had five people, I wouldn't have said anything, but we have two of five. And I think our our attempt to try and get all of the things through has not worked because we don't have the capacity to do it. So that that's that's why in a previous version of this conversation, I suggested this is not the priority that we're hearing from residents.

There aren't a lot of people who live there today. There's not, like, the same business intensity that we have in in other parts of the city. It doesn't strike me as a high priority. There are other areas where there are RVs that would love a bike lane too. I have a hard time personally prioritizing this and expanding staff capacity on this area when we've struggled immensely in other parts of the city, but I will leave it at that. It's something that the next council gets to take care of. Thank you.

The staff have what they need.

I'm sorry. What was the question?

The staff the staff have what they need is

For artificial I mean, for Terabella, yes. Do we want to come back to artificial turf?

Okay. Councilmember Khamenei. Great thank you.

At this time I don't I don't feel comfortable adding or subtracting from our CIP list and so I welcome when this comes back for final action if at that time their staff can evaluate and see if there's anything they would want to remove or add because I'm hearing some ideas of what could be removed I'm hearing some things what could be added I think hopefully in a as a compromise we could just turn to staff and say is there anything that you all recommend maybe for deprioritization or prioritization I'm open to that however adding anything at this point when there are already two twenty one projects just doesn't feel like the appropriate time for in my experience or my point of view but so that's why I would prefer not to take a straw poll on it if we do I will vote no and that's why thank you

Councilmember Schwalter.

Well although I think that that you know this is a kind of because there are artificial turf involved in projects we're moving forward with, I think that it's not necessarily a CIP project, it's another kind of work plan project. And I'm not sure when is the appropriate time to be talking about that. So I'm looking to the City Manager. Perhaps she has an answer for me.

Thank you Councilmember Schwalter. So I think this has more of a nexus with the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan. There are various things in the works, like, for example, the Los Altos School District, tenth school site. You mentioned the Shoreline Athletic Fields. And I know that our community services director has more context.

And I also know that we've received feedback as staff from a lot of the youth sports groups about it. So I would ask our community services director to just let council know what's in the Parks and Rec strategic plan and then I think as council member Camay said staff can figure out how to perhaps weave this topic into what we're already planning on, working on.

Good evening, John Marchant, Community Services Director. Thank you city manager, thank you council for the questions. And in regards to the Parks and Recreation strategic plan, we have not identified a specific use of synthetic turf versus natural. Basically, as the q and a stated to the question asked is, at this time, moving forward, we are not looking to add any new net new artificial turf, but looking to replace in kind with what we have. And as far as moving forward, I don't know if you have seen some of the other agencies that have taken on this this item.

Typically, is a very long process. At least three of the most local agencies that have done this. It has been multiple months, if not more than a year, of discussion. And so we are, in this case, under a timeline in relation to Crittenden. This is a school district repair that is necessary for safety, and so the timeline is, coming upon us to do that. And the fact that it also has lights, the number of youth sports organizations that utilize that site, if it if we were to try to change that dynamic at this point, it would be a significant delay to getting that done. And so that needs to be taken into consideration as we we look to to schedule this item.

Okay. The staff have what they need.

I believe so. Thank you, mayor.

Alright. With that, we we have a two minute break essentially before regular session starts at 06:30. I'm just going to extend that to about five minutes too. So we'll come back at 06:33. See you guys then.

Alright. We're gonna get back into the council meeting. Yay us. So good evening, everyone. Welcome to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community of 04/14/2026. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Alright. 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 and justice for all. Alright. Great job, everyone. Now the city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

Councilmember Hicks? Here. Councilmember Camay? Here. Councilmember McAllister? Yep. Council member Ramirez?

Here.

Council member Schwalter? Here. Vice mayor Clark?

Here.

Mayor Ramos?

Yes. The court? Alright. Thank you. In recent weeks, the city along with a few of our neighboring elected decision making bodies have been subject to to disrupted disruptive racial racist verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments. The city of Mountain View is fully committed to racial, religious, and cultural equity and justice as we strive to create a welcoming safe and inclusive community for all. The council welcomes respectful non threatening public comments on matters within our jurisdictions. Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to the council code of conduct and the government code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period. We will now move on to presentations. Please note there are these are presentations only.

The City Council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you would like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So now we will go to item 3.1 teen month proclamation. Yay! So we are happy to be joined this evening by the Youth Advisory Committee Chair Sheehan Raju Sikhun Ren. I hope I really got that right and Vice Chair Sophia Lu to accept this proclamation. Commissioners will you join me on the dais? I mean, right right there on the podium. As soon as I find it.

Here we go. Found it. All right. The proclamation reads, whereas youth and teens account for approximately 20% amount of the Mountain View population and play a vital role in shaping the character and future of our community. And teens represent an often untapped resource with diverse perspectives and innovative ideas that can contribute to positive change and help strengthen our community and you can, like, stand right here.

Whereas recognizing, including, and amplifying the voices of teens empower them to become leaders and change makers in our community and beyond, and the contributions of teens in student based organizations and youth committees are invaluable as they lead initiatives addressing critical areas such as educational access, mental well-being, climate action, and the promotion of inclusion and diversity. And whereas since 2017, the youth advisory committee has championed teen week, now teen month, as an annual celebration designed to showcase the talents and creativity, intellect, activism, and overall well-being of Mountain View's teens while underscoring their immense value to our community. And teen month emphasizes the importance of celebrating teens and fostering positive connections among teens, families, schools, organizations, businesses, and community leaders, and whereas in recognition of teen month, teens can attend teen only events including a simple sewing and clothing repair workshop. Oh, that sounds like fun. And dodgeball and donuts while community members can show their support by attending the teen art showcase, cultural diversity fair, and teen open mic night.

Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of April as teen month in the city of Mountain View and encourage all residents to recognize, celebrate, support the youth who strengthen our community today and will lead it tomorrow. Alright. Congratulations. National Volunteer Week proclamation. We are happy to be joined this evening by Claire Hubel, Chief Operating Officer and Founder of the United Effort and Eddie Chang, Volunteer Usher at the Mount Vie Center for Performing Arts to accept this proclamation.

Claire and Eddie, will you join me? Okay, Claire. Oh,

there you are. Thank

you, Edie. Okay. So the proclamation reads, whereas volunteers generously share their time and talents across the city of Mountain View programs and facilities, including park beautification, ushering tutoring activity leaders, docents, front desk support, and serving as community greeters, thereby enhancing the quality of life in Mountain View. And volunteers serve as an essential partners to city departments and local organizations helping deliver critical services, expand access to opportunities, and ensure programs will remain inclusive, effective, and responsive to community needs and whereas volunteers advance literacy and lifelong learning at the Mountain View Public Library, preserve local history and culture through the service at Deer Hollow Farm and Ranksdorf House and strengthen community engagement through the arts, recreation, and environmental education programs through the city programs. And youth engagement remains a cornerstone of city's volunteer efforts with teens participating in structured programs such as teen volunteer summer program where participants develop leadership skills while supporting recreation and environmental education initiatives.

And whereas the city hosts a biannual volunteer fairs that strengthen connections between prospective volunteers and community organizations, broaden volunteer participation, and encourage residents of all ages to engage in meaningful service and the city gratefully recognizes the dedication of volunteers serving at Deer Hollow Farm, the Mountain View Public Library, Shoreline at Mountain View, the Mountain View Center Performing Arts, and Rankstarf House, and the Mountain View Senior Center, the View Teen Center, citywide special events and through programs such as Cool Block Leaders, Police Explorers, Kindness Ambassadors, and the Community Emergency Response Team. And whereas National Volunteer Week provides an opportunity to celebrate and honor invaluable contribution volunteers, bring to our community. Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim April 12 through April 18 as National Volunteer Week in the city of Mountain View. Oh, we have two. Yay.

Okay. So Claire, Edie, would you like to say a few words? Good job.

Well, thank you so

Thank you.

Oh sure.

My name is Claire Hubel and I'm honored to accept this volunteer proclamation on behalf of the United Effort Organization. Our organization works in a volunteer capacity with members of the community or who are homeless or unstably housed, helping them navigate a complex system of benefits, services, and housing opportunities. Since our inception, we've always been a volunteer driven organization. As such, we have seen the benefits of volunteering not just for our community but for our volunteers themselves. Several of our key volunteers are former clients who have found their involvement with our organization has given a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, keeping them engaged and giving them a family of people working towards a common goal.

We're thankful to be part of a community in Mountain View that appreciates and recognizes the value of volunteering for all those involved. Thank you.

I represent

the Center for Performing Arts right across the way here, and I want to thank the city council for all of the support you give to that organization. There There are probably about 200 of us who volunteer and we are so grateful. We're grateful for the diversity of programs that are presented at the theater. We're grateful for the diversity of the patrons who come to our theater. I saw your mayor on Sunday reading the group called The Links.

And it was a group of African American women who belong to a sorority from various colleges, but they're based now in South San Jose. And they presented a concert or a recital for 13 young people who came from all over the Bay Area. And it's such a thrill to have people come from everywhere and be so impressed and pleased with what you have to offer us. And we are so grateful to get to have that diversity of people who come to us. Sometimes we have And our group of seven people who were ushering or being the house managers that day, one was an immigrant from Hungary, one was an immigrant from Romania, and one was an immigrant from Iran.

And I think how fortunate I am to be able to go and interact with these people. Not only the ones who come as clients but the ones who come as patrons and certainly the ones who come as volunteers. So thank you so much for acknowledging the volunteers that I get to represent this evening.

All

right. The proclamations are keeping coming. We have a lot to celebrate. So 3.3, Arts Culture and Creativity Month proclamation. We are happy to be joined this evening by Adriana Marisol, executive director of the Community School of Music and Arts, to accept this proclamation. Adriana, will you join me at the lectern? Hi. All right. Where this oh, where's the proclamation? Thank you.

All right. Whereas the twenty twenty six Arts Culture and Creativity Month in April marks the eighth annual statewide celebration of this vital role that arts and culture play in enriching communities throughout California, recognizing themes, joy, action, and power. And the city of Mountain View recognizes that arts and culture are essential public goods that foster Pacific pride, strengthen neighborhood identity, and contribute to the social and economic vitality of our community. And whereas the city of Mountain View's commitment to public art enhances public spaces, reflects shared values, and makes art accessible to all residents and visitors through permanent installations, temporary exhibitions, and community driven projects. And the city's visual arts committee advance public art initiatives that integrate creativity into civic spaces, support local artists, and expand equitable access to cultural experiences and whereas arts education provide youth and lifelong learners with opportunities to develop creativity, confidence, collaboration, and critical thinking skills essential for success in school, work, and civic life.

And whereas the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View has served the community for decades by providing high quality arts education, performances, exhibitions, and outreach programs that inspire thousands of students of all ages and backgrounds. And through its commitment to access inclusion access, inclusion, and artistic excellence, the Community School of Music and Arts strengthen Mountain View's cultural landscape and nurtures the next generation of artists, performers, and creative leaders. Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the City Of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim April as arts, culture, and creativity month in the city of Mountain View and recognize the Community School of Music and Arts for its outstanding contributions to arts education and cultural enrichment in our community. Let's make some art. Do you have any comments to say?

Sure. Yes, I do. Thank you so much. On behalf of the Community School of Music and Arts, we are honored to receive this proclamation from the City Of Mountain View, especially during California's Arts Culture and Creativity Month. The Community School of Music and Arts has served Mountain View residents for fifty eight years.

It has grown from a grassroots organization led by just 10 volunteers committed to providing music lessons to youth to a $7,000,000 widely respected arts organization with a reach across the Bay Area. CSMA's success has been in large part due to deep support from the city of Mountain View and its residents who believe, as we do, that art strengthens a community and fosters a sense of pride and belonging. Today, CSMA continues our mission of inspiring excellence through music and arts education for people of all ages and abilities, now serving 28,000 people annually, including 8,000 Mountain View residents. In Mountain View, we provide low cost arts and music for the Mountain View preschools, offer music and arts classes for teens and adults with disabilities through our artistic intelligence program, and when only eleven percent of K-twelve students in the state of California receive arts education, we are very proud of our long standing partnership with the Mountain View Whisman School District to provide art and music to all elementary students TK-five during the school day. Thank you so much to Mayor Emily Ramos and the council members for recognizing CSMA and for supporting arts education in our community.

All right, in our next presentation, we have item 3.4, local investment plan presentation. We are happy to be joined this evening by Greg Richardson, BTA Deputy General Manager, and Manolo Gonzales Estee, Government Affairs Policy Analyst for this presentation. Welcome. Nope. Is on now.

You got it. Thank you. Well, thank you, madam mayor, and to the city council and to the city administration. Thank you for giving us this opportunity, to present to you. I am Greg Richardson, as was said, deputy general manager for VTA.

And I am joined actually by Sam Sargent, our director of strategy and transformation. So he'll be joining me in this presentation. For Sam and me, this is part of what we're referring to as our little concert tour, the spring tour, to introduce this draft investment plan related to proposed regional transportation revenue measure, ideally to gain insight and solicit feedback from the cities and community groups directly impacted by the measure. This evening, we'll provide a little background, a framework of the draft investment plan, and seek feedback, again, as we said, on what's important to you as we continue to refine the plan. Next slide, please.

So I'm trusting that each of you is aware of the role that VTA plays in the region, but just in case, this slide provides a brief snapshot reflecting our responsibilities in transit as the congestion management agency and as well as a funding partner. And we fundamentally see VTA's role as connecting people to the things most important to them: jobs, medical needs, school, and family and community. Next slide. Oh, she's good. The city of Mountain View sees and experiences some of VTA's major transit service via bus and light rail options, as shown here.

And it actually serves as a major connection for passengers traveling to Super Bowl sixty, and will do the same for the upcoming six FIFA World Cup matches. Additionally, the city and VTA have partnered and collaborated on projects in the Mountain View area focused on multimodal solutions with a few shown here as reference. And you'll see these projects range from bike pet improvements to grade separation to local streets and roads and highway work. And I would be remiss if I did not mention really how excited we are with the recent work in collaboration with the city of Mountain View on the Ringsdorf grade separation project. We're very excited about how that's moving forward.

The next slide provides a brief summary of the fiscal elements of the regional measures specific to Santa Clara County. The regional measure is designed as a citizens initiative, meaning that it requires a 50% plus one vote for approval rather than the two thirds. Through our board, VTA was able to ensure a full return to source component with the measure, ensuring that over 84% of sales tax generated in Santa Clara County is returned to the county through VTA. The 84% return is after contributions of 5.25% to MTC for transit transformation initiatives and administration, and then our obligation to help fund Caltrain capped at 10.38%. And using the measure's base year of fiscal year 2031, this means that approximately $264,000,000 annually will come to the county through VTA to support transit in the region.

And at this point here that I'm gonna turn it over to Sam to take you the rest of the way. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Sam Sargent. I serve as the director of strategy and transformation here at VTA. Next slide, please. So this evening, we're really talking about s p 63, which was the name of the enabling legislation for the five county regional measure that the VTA board unanimously agreed to be a part of back in August.

I'd like to recognize that chair Sergio Lopez is in the audience tonight. But very important to wrap our minds around sort of what this money could be used for. And so s p 63 different than measure a or measure b where you had a much broader range of investments that could be made. This is for public transit expenses and roadway repayment projects on road served by fixed route transit. So it's transit operations, transit related capital, and roadway projects long as we've got a VTA bus or light rail line on that corridor.

Next slide. And over the course of a of a number of meetings, including a workshop on February 27 with our board, we've got a second workshop this Friday to talk about local investment plan, which is what we're calling the Santa Clara County portion of the regional measure principles. We focused on outcomes because we think whether it's for the regional measure or really any of the investments that VTA makes going forward, we want to be focused on outcomes that are measurable and are impactful to the people that we serve. So we are focused on growing ridership, on increasing productivity so that we can be a more efficient system and make better use of taxpayer dollars, and enhancing the customer experience, which can mean a lot of things, but I think for a lot of people, safety, security, and cleanliness come to mind, and doing so in a way that's financially sustainable. As Greg mentioned, this is a fourteen year measure.

So how can we make changes to the way that VTA delivers its service and conducts its business, so that potentially we do not have to come back out to voters at the end of these fourteen years? How can we make a better VTA transit system with these new dollars? Next slide. We've also focused on three strategic areas. So foundation, which is leveraging our expertise and data to drive our decision making today.

Re imagine, which is modernizing our business model and improving our service delivery, including implementation of our visionary network and transformation, which is new technologies and partnerships with the public and private sector to future proof the system. Next slide. And because this is an invitation for input, this is not meant to be any kind of ask for an endorsement or any decision by this body this evening. We want the public, we want our cities to be thinking about potential uses of these funds. So we'll be organizing the local investment plan into these strategic areas.

And if you think about foundation, here's some of the things that we're talking about. These are examples. Bus corridor improvements, station upgrades, improvements to transit service, and transit capital improvements. Next slide. Reimagine, again, the visionary network, you at a highest level you can think about is how do we get more of our bus routes that are at thirty minute service to fifteen or better, speed improvements to enable that type of service, which would be things like transit signal priority, fare programs for seniors and students so that we can better serve a greater swath of Santa Clara County residents, including the next generation of transit riders, safety and security enhancements.

Next slide. And then transformation. How do we look at new technologies to drive a better customer experience, including the replacement of our light rail fleet, advanced vehicle technologies, and continuing to work on our transit oriented development program? Next slide. And at the end of this process, which we will wrap up with our board in June, we will have something that looks like this.

And it will be a list of projects put into these categories, the percentage of revenues that would accrue to each of these program areas, what are the three outcomes, one, two, or three, hopefully many of these hit all three outcomes will these projects drive, and what are the key performance indicators or KPIs for each of those projects? We want to make sure that we can measure and manage this so that we can make course corrections as needed. Next slide. And we're with you tonight just inviting that feedback. We have our workshop on Friday.

We'll continue to refine in April and May. And then June 4, our board will take action on the local investment plan. And then I believe I'll close with final slide. And so just we want the city and we want the public to be engaged. This is your plan. We want this to mirror the needs of our communities. They're very diverse in this county. And investment.plan@vt.org comes to a number of staff members including myself. The QR code goes to our landing page. And with that, Greg and I welcome any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. So we will now take public oh, council would any member of the council like to say a few words, I guess, about really any of the presentations? Council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. And it's tricky, I think, because we've grouped together all of the presentations, and one of the four is substantially different from from the others. So I I'll confine my comments to the the presentation by VTA staff. And first, I I do wanna appreciate you, Greg, and Sam for the presentation, and I also recognize Manolo who I've had the pleasure of working with for many years. You have a a great team over at VTA.

I guess some high level thoughts. I I I wish this were ed agendized a little bit differently, maybe more like a study session or or even an item for action, to allow the council to provide, some, input, as a body rather than just sort of one off ideas here and there. So I I would welcome staff's feedback for if there is an opportunity for for us to do that. But I I did wanna share at a high level. I'm I I had the the privilege of serving on the citizen advisory group or committee.

It had multiple names way back in 2015 and '16 and and had the opportunity to participate in various public processes for the development of 2016 measure b. And that was an extensive process. That was two years of work and maybe even a little bit longer. And I'm I've been a little disheartened that there hasn't been the same robust approach to soliciting input. I know there there are different circumstances, some of which are beyond the control of VTA, but it's a very truncated time frame that you're working under.

And it I think it makes it hard for the the councils who, I think, would would generally like to provide robust feedback and the communities to to participate in a meaningful way. Feel like a lot of this a little rushed and less less than clear about how how best to participate, what kinds of input are actually useful and relevant. And I would love, I think, maybe at a staff level to collaborate and figure out how we can do something a little bit more substantive than what you're likely to receive tonight. But with that, the the one thing I did wanna highlight was we've done a lot locally, and I'll I'll I'll I'll be charitable. I think, you there's a recognition that we could be better served by transit, and because our residents and the major employers and and small businesses also have not received the the level of service that we would like to enjoy from VTA, we've really stepped up locally through the creation of the Mountain View Transportation Management Association and and have provided that that that service ourselves, right, through collaboration with major employers, through conditions of approval for development, and also through local funding for the community shuttle.

And if there's one thing I would love to see come out of this measure, it's VTA stepping in saying, look. We're the experts on providing transit. We're happy to to take on that service and free up city funding for capital, right, or or some other type of transportation enhancement investment. So that that's if there's nothing else that comes of this, that's the one thing I would love to see. I love the community shuttle.

I think it's a great service. I hear nothing but good but good things from our our constituents, but it's a it's a major operational cost. And it's ongoing, and we don't really have a a long term strategy, I think, for making sure that that doesn't become, you know, an increasing burden on our general fund, especially if, you know, as I hope we do someday, we we decide to expand it, adding additional stops or increasing the frequency of service. That's a a core service provided by VTA. You're the experts locally.

We're not. I think we do a great job, but I do hope that VTA is able to work with city long after I'm gone from the council. I'm turning out, just so you know. Never to be seen or heard from again. So I I would love to see VTA to to collaborate with the city, and I would welcome ideas from from the staff or the mayor about ways we can provide formal feedback as a body. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Ramirez. Council member Kameh.

Great. Thank you. So just a question on the information. Is this when I scan the QR code it goes to a site that's 100% in English and you know trying to serve our diverse populations is there going to be and it's just one question which is, and I can, please give us your thoughts on VTA's draft local investment plan for the potential five county regional sales tax measure in November 2026.

It it is very open ended because for for for a lot of reasons, the website should have translation, but I will go back and confirm, and when we've done our public meetings, we've obviously made sure to have the right translation. But I appreciate you calling that out because it's a that's a problem. So let me circle back and then I can share with city staff when we make that adjustment.

Okay. Yeah.

On your website, it's English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Okay.

When you scroll to the bottom of the join the SB 63 conversation at a community meeting. So really appreciative of the conversation of VTA's staff being here but I think I don't know if we're allowed to give comments but that would be my if open to it I think for our residents in the city of Mountain View would be great to have it in we have a whole like multilingual engagement program and we have different leadership academies that we provide and so I think that that would be useful. Also want to thank councilmember McAllister for his service on the VTA board. I'm sure he's bringing up these thoughts to all of you as well. So I I also wanted to ask given council member Ramirez's kind of questions, aside from joining a community meeting or the SurveyMonkey question, are there other ways where residents can provide input?

Is that something you'll be sharing with the 15 cities in the county? Perhaps you could share a little bit of next steps with us. Thank you.

Yeah. I think, so council member, Ramirez and Kameh, great great points. I think that a lot of the input is very broad in part because it is a very different type of measure. I mean, but not only do we have a truncated, period of time to take the engagement compared to a measure a or a measure b, but the fact that it has a lot of breadth to it. And because Santa Clara County is in the fortunate position to be able to have a local investment plan because we're not putting all of the money into keeping the lights on at at, you know, at our main transit agency, we have the ability to program it for something else.

And so it's it is very broad. It is a little bit open ended. I think it's something that we can work on with both our the the web form, including making sure that it adheres to our language access policy, which we did during the public meetings, but I wanna triple triple check because that's very, important. But it is meant to be broad. And in terms of how cities can provide input, they've done it in different ways.

The city of San Jose passed a resolution where they had their priorities. Others, I think that we've mainly been speaking with the city managers. I would expect that sometimes we'll get individual input from members of city council, and we welcome it in in all of its forms. I think if a city wanted to do it in a formalized fashion, that would be totally fine between now and June 4 when our board takes action. And I think the one other thing that I will mention, because I think it's a really important caveat, is that unlike a measure a or b, what goes into this local investment plan is not gonna wind up on the ballot.

Because what's on the ballot is gonna be common between the five counties. And so VTA through the board will have the ability on some kind of cadence, could be the biannual budget cycle, to make adjustments. So if we're measuring how well these investments are doing, some things we may want to expand and other things we may wanna contract. And so what goes into the June 4 resolution that the board will take on is not gonna be the end all be all for fourteen years. I think that that's important to note.

Great. Thank you. So one of the other boards I sit on is the Cities Association as well as the Peninsula Division for the League of California Cities.

Yeah.

I think it'd be great if you would join both of those bodies to provide information. I don't know if you're already gonna be I believe

that we are, but I'll confirm. Okay. Great. Yeah.

Thank you

for that.

Because I'm Transport is coming up quickly. Yes. Thank you very much.

Yeah. And and, again, public meetings, our councils, the board of supervisors, a couple dozen of our community based organization, we share the link which we will improve upon. But we also ask people to be a force multiplier, which is that if your neighborhood, your church, whatever it might be, wants to hear from us, we wanna go to you. So thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Kameh. Councilmember Schowalter.

Yes, well I am going to talk just first about the other presentations. And I wanted to say that these organizations are organizations that were started in Mountain View because of a Mountain View need. And I really appreciated having them recognized and I also appreciate the grassroots initiative that represent. Certainly CSMA is a wonderful story of how they got going with a few teachers who decided that kids needed to have art lessons. It's just a wonderful tale.

The United organization getting together to help our homeless work because the bureaucracy of the services is difficult and everybody's needs are difficult. And then the performing arts volunteers. I mean, there was a performing arts center, we needed help to make it run and they rose to the surface. So I just really applaud that initiative. I think that there isn't I don't think we give enough credence to that characteristic.

Anyway, so changing to this presentation. I just would like to say kind of from a higher level, I'm really concerned with climate change and what we can do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. And I understand from every presentation I get that the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in our county is transportation. And it's primarily cars. So what I'm really interested in is what you can do to make your system so good that it reduces the amount of cars.

And to me that really has to translate into frequency of service. We've recently experienced how nice it is to have that service increase on Caltrain. You don't really have to have a schedule anymore on Caltrain. They're basically pretty much every twenty minutes or half an hour. And you can just show up and wait a little while and you know there'll be a train.

And for the most part, they stop at every station so you don't have to worry about where they're going either. They're going where you're going if you're on the line. And that is a big change. But the bus system is not like that. You really have to know how it works. And it needs to be much more seamless. So that driver of GHG reduction is what I want to bring up. And then the other thing is I really like the idea that I forget the amount you mentioned $264,000,000 or something? Yeah, okay. Of funds will come to Santa Clara County every year.

That seems like an amount of money that we can do some significant good with. So, I think concentrating on what we can do locally is really important. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Scholwalter, Mr. Transit, Councilmember McAllister.

You heard that, Manolo, mister transit over here? Okay. Thank you gentlemen for coming. You too, chair. So, it was interesting that council member Ramirez mentioned the twenty fifteen measure b. I'm proud to say that myself and mayor Schowalter at the time were very instrumental on keeping the budget, the money going to services and not BART. So with that said, when you said you'll get this money, how much of it could be go to BART? Will it be a cap or could it all go to BART? I

am on record saying that none of the measure s b of our of s b 63, none of that money is going to BART phase two. It all stays in transit. It all stays within the service and the systems that we are operating right now today exclusive of BART phase two.

Okay. So there's enough funding to get BART going without tapping into that?

That's a different question. But

you know change,

and so

the board has discretion.

But the board does have discretion. Primary goal on this is to make sure that these funds are available for transit operations, the transit system overall, basically the CTA as what VTA operates overall for the county, it's really to focus on those core items that need to be focused on exclusive of BART phase two.

So those core things. Sitting here representing the city of Mountain View, is there any way determine how much money you would allocate to the city of Mountain View? You were very generous in the other things, and I was just wondering if that would continue to help us with our grade separations, our light rail, local transit systems, and so forth.

I mean, don't wanna say, you know, yes or no to a question right now to to that degree. But I think once are that Sam was talking about and we go through all of the different levels of needs that exist, once there becomes a more clear picture of what it is that we need to do from the overall system, then we can maybe identify the places in which they become more beneficial. So then the cities that might have the greatest impact and greatest return might be the areas that we would then focus on. So that's when I would say we'd probably have an opportunity to start focusing specifically on, I'll call it a return to source of the cities from the funding perspective as compared to what the county is doing.

So we can hold that to you?

No. You can't hold me to the return to source to the cities.

Return to source.

But the concept is what I'm referring to.

Because that's what the county is asking for, return to source. Yeah. I have and I'm gonna bring in some inside knowledge maybe or whatever. So down the the forecast for the VTA down the road is that there may be some shortages in funding. How much

of

this potentially could go to cover our deficits?

There will be some that most likely will have to cover deficits. We're in the process now of reforecasting our next ten years. I think although, and yes, I was a part of it.

Yes.

But I think we might have been a little one, were a little aggressive in some of the assumptions we were making. I shouldn't say aggressive. We were too conservative. We were showing some pretty substantial deficits that were gonna be happening starting actually in fiscal twenty eight, which is our coming fiscal year with the following. Things have changed a little bit, and I think we'll see some expert we'll see some forecast that'll change that to some degree.

Again, plus what Sam was talking about, some of this effort is any any projection that we've got from a long term perspective that shows deficits, the same way that BART, Caltrain, Muni, and AC Transit are doing it. We cannot simply rest on the fact that this measure would fund those deficits. We have to figure out how we change that business model. And that's the focus that we've got. And so even if we're showing deficits in five, six, seven, eight years, we're gonna have to we have to figure out ways, utilizing some of this money over the next four or five years, to figure out how we how we close those deficits without utilizing these this measure, but by doing it in other other means.

And so that's part of the work that has to go on productivity, reducing cost, increasing ridership, all of these different things that will help offset some of those things that we're projecting. Those are the efforts that we've gotta put forward now utilizing these dollars to make sure that those deficits don't happen in the future.

Is it too early to say some of this money will be discretionary and some will be nondiscretionary?

I guess if you you term it nondiscretionary, if it's if it's something that we're gonna have to utilize from an operations perspective because it's there and it just has to be fixed, And I would say that's probably a block that would be at least identified. Now whether that's identified on the front end, I can't guarantee that. There's there's gonna be an understanding that if there's deficits that need to be filled, just like the other agencies, we'll have to address those. But everything that we'll do, we'll do everything in our power to reduce that number so that there is more discretionary money than non discretionary.

Okay. Thank you. One last question. Light rail, thirty eighty three per person to operate. I'll just leave you with that thought.

I appreciate that. That question was raised to me earlier today, so it was embedded in my mind, but thank you.

Thank you Council Member McAllister, Council Member Hicks. Oh wait actually, city manager Kimber McCarthy. Oh wait okay we'll go with Councilmember Hicks first.

Thank you for taking your time to come visit us tonight. I just have a brief comment for your both short term and long term outreach. I'm I'm just hoping that when you do outreach, you can take time to do outreach to parents of young children. I have to say I took transit a great great deal before I had young children and I found it surprisingly difficult to use once I did have young children and I will not give you my list of difficulties here but tonight but you know there were a number of them that could have been fixed and it kind of it kind of made a break in my use and I didn't end up using it with when I had young children, medium children, older children, and probably stopped me from using it to some degree even today. It was that kind of break.

So I do encourage you to to do outreach to parents of young children.

Are you open to sharing that with me separate of this meeting?

Sure. Thank you very

much. Thank you.

You Council Member Hicks, City Manager McCarthy.

Thank you Mayor. So I just have a couple technical questions from staff perspective because this is the first time that I'm hearing this or seeing this. So a couple things. First, how is VTA staff going to determine proportionality once you all get the Santa Claus wish list from every city of what they want on their local investment plan? How are you going to determine what you're recommending to the board on June 4?

I think part of that's gonna be informed by the list that we receive and recognizing where those priorities exist from the information that we've we've received. I think when Sam talked about the foundational reimagine and the transformation components, I think what we've got to figure out is within those, what are the critical needs? What is it that we've got to address that might require a little bit heavier funding, maybe on the front end, not so much on the back end? And that's gonna then dictate sort of how the the percentages will break down. I think anything related to kind of that foundational reimagined component that has to do with ridership and increasing frequency and doing the things to the system that need to be done, that's where you're going to most likely see the funding go.

But anything we can do on the back end from a capital perspective, even leveraging those dollars, not necessarily using a 100% of those dollars for the purpose of what we're looking at from a capital perspective, but if there's a way for us to leverage a certain percentage of it to then finance or fund through grants or other mechanisms to to do additional funding for some of those capital projects. And we'll find ways to utilize these dollars, not necessarily a 100% going to one single project, but leveraging and attaching it to other funding options.

So what I'm hearing is the funding priorities will go towards those projects that increase ridership. So for example, if council should decide to put different projects on Mountain View's list, for example, as council member Emera says, perhaps community shuttle funding, perhaps funding for our streets and roads, perhaps funding for our Ringsdorf grade separation project, is that then going to be less of a priority because it doesn't increase ridership?

No, I think we need to keep in mind that there's I used increased ridership as one of the examples, but the three that Sam had talked about with the priorities that we had, I think we've got to keep in mind those critical items that are necessary that we're saying for VTA and for the agency and the system to succeed. But we also have to recognize we have a large county that has needs that go throughout all of the the cities and we've got to figure out where those priorities are as well. There's gonna be a large list and so not everyone's gonna get everything they want or need, and it's gonna be up to us and through this process to really prioritize those effectively so that we can at least address what everyone believes to be the most critical items.

Okay. Thank you. So June 4 will be the actual vote of the board on what you are prioritizing in the plan.

Yeah. And and I guess I'm gonna I'll say it this way as well. I think the the effort is to what Sam had said before to provide some flexibility. So as this evolves, because again, we're trying to put something together as it's been talked about. This is a pretty quick process. Trying to put something together that gives us the flexibility to identify things that could come up later that need to be done, but still stay within the framework of what's been basically approved with the measure. So, you know, if there's gonna be specific specific projects, may not be as as concrete, but it it may be something that's more in a in a framework that makes sure that we are addressing some of the critical needs that are being identified and then prioritize as we move forward.

Okay, Mayor, may I address council? Yep. So I would just suggest to council that I've talked to our Public Works Director Ng if you would give staff direction to let us think of what lists might look like for Mountain View for our local priorities that we would have specific to our city and then staff could bring something back for council to react to. Maybe on consent or otherwise but I can talk to all of you about it and just kind of let staff think about what that might look like.

All right, sounds good. Sounds good. All right, we are now going to public comment. Finally. We will now take public comment for presentation items. This is all for the all the item threes. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each person will have two minutes. So mister Zaworski.

Jim Zaworski. I'm speaking on the VTA issue as an individual. I've lived here for forty years, and I remember how excited I was when the light rail was built. My wife at the time worked at the DA's office on 70 West Heading, and she was really excited that she was gonna be able to take the light rail to work. Until the first day when it took an hour and twenty minutes to make the fifteen minute drive, and then she never took it again.

John McAllister has correctly pointed out that $83 a person is something that the people in Mountain View don't really like. We don't wanna fund that. We don't care about that. We see the VTA coming up with plans to extend VTA light rail into East San Jose while doing nothing to bring the light rail into Google or places where lots and lots of people work and lots and lots of cars could be taken off the road and lots and lots of people could be put on light rail and not driving and not causing traffic problems. Yet the VTA has consistently shown that it's willing to take political paths of least resistance and thus make the the jobs of our city manager and our council harder.

I know you're constrained by political things and you've been very very kind today, but the the public is very frustrated that none of the benefits of VTA funding is going to North County. And we're very upset that we're not looking at our advantages as a region, not as an individual city where everybody gets a couple crumbs and VTA gets the closest deficit. We would ask the council to look at asking VTA to take a regional approach, look at Mountain View as a major employer, and extending VTA into the major employing centers. It would do a lot of good to have Downtown Mountain View and Caltrain attached to North Of Bayshore where lots of people work and lots of people in Sunnyvale work and lots of people in Santa Clara and San Jose work. So they're not riding on one zero one.

Yet, we don't see any of that here. So I can say this, you can't, and I did. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zarevsky. Okay. Let's we'll keep the clapping down at a minimum for now. Next is April Webster.

Hi, thank you. I'll echo what Jim had to say. It'd be great to actually service locations where a lot of people are moving. It just makes sense. I also wanted to echo what council member Schwalter said about frequency of service. This is a key part of usability. If service isn't frequent or reliable, kind of what Jim said as well, people just don't use it. It's hard to use in practice. I'm originally from Vancouver and I rarely needed a car there which I absolutely loved. But then I'd only have to wait on certain lines maybe five minutes and there was a bus within a block of me.

And a lot of other people used it too in business suits. Many people going downtown would use the bus so it was a very common practice. I'd also want to maybe talk about I think the framework that was presented was really good, but I'd also sort of emphasize how people get to the bus and what they're doing while they're waiting is part of the user experience and usability. And so I think it would be helpful to include in those measurable outcomes from that first and last mile access how accessible it is to biking and walking, what are people doing when they're waiting. I've seen so many bus stops where there isn't enough room, people are sitting on the sidewalk, there's no shade.

This isn't especially in the summer, it's very uncomfortable. So I think that part of usability, in addition to what's happening while they're actually using transit, that whole experience is really important to consider. I also want to support council member Kemet's comments about equitable outreach. If we want these investments to be effective, it's important that outreach reaches the people who are most impacted. And there are really strong models of this in other cities. Sacramento, there's an organization called Civic Thread where they go into the communities, and work directly with the people there. There are the promotoros in San Francisco, that model, and these engagements, they work with local leaders in the community who are much more impactful. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next we will move on to virtual public comment. Bruce England.

Thanks, Mayor. Bruce England, Wiseman Station Drive again. I ask that you do what you can to ensure that the funding you're considering might go as far as it can to help lead the way towards sorely needed improvements both BTA and SamTran service. For certain, we need to see more frequent service than we do today and with as many forms of transit as possible support it. Service to underserved communities is essential where it is lacking or falls short today.

As you know, making reasonable connections across the network is challenging as folks navigate across shuttle, bus, light rail, shuttle, and train systems. And assurances riders will arrive at their destinations can be uncertain. If we want to see the mode shifts we dream of today, these improvements are essential toward helping to get more people out of their vehicles. Also, agree with Jim's comment on adequately serving North County. Thanks.

Thank you. Next is Arjun Govanji.

Hi, my name is Arjun. I live near Downtown Mountain View. I'd like to start by seconding council member Schwalter's comments on improving frequency. To make transit a viable alternative to driving, it has to go where people want to go when they want to get there. I'd also encourage council to work with VTA to consider improved weekend service, particularly on routes fifty one and fifty two that cross Mountain View and increased frequency across the board.

This would provide our residents better daily access to our neighboring cities of Los Altos and Cupertino. This is a unique opportunity for us to bring VTA service up to par with our neighbors to the North. We should prioritize funding for transit priority projects that make service faster and more reliable while ensuring seamless connections within VTA and to Caltrain and BART. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Daniel Hulse.

Hi. Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Alright. Yeah. So my name is Daniel Holz. I live in the, I guess, Northern part of Mountain View, up by San Antonio Station. I guess, what I'd like to see from this this plan, you know, I I support this measure.

And what what I'd like to be supporting in this measure is better service on on our bus routes. And I I think especially when you think about Mountain View specifically, we've we've got a great route on El Camino. If we could get something perpendicular to that so you could take it throughout the system, that would that would be good. And also, like, that that improves service and improves experience. So, you know, I I ride my bike lots of places.

We've got two new, great bike lanes. One of the missing links in those bike lanes though on both California Street as well as El Camino is you've got all of these conflict points with buses. And so I think better bus stops that deconflict buses so they don't have to wait for bikes and bikes so that we're not afraid of buses would be just really better for all users of the road. And so I think doing stuff like that throughout the county would be great, but especially here in Mountain View. And then finally, you know, I I wanna stress that we need to think functionally about this.

You know, you take transit from one place to another. It's not about what's happening in one one city. It's about the whole place. So I I wanna take an orange line all the way to Milpitas and not have it take forty five minutes. I want it to take twenty. I wanna take transit to Valleyfair. I wanna take it to San Francisco. Let's think, region wide.

Thank you. Next is Adena Levin.

Hello. Good evening, mayor and council members. Adena Levin with Seamills Bay Area and Friends of Caltrain. I wanted to echo what a number of the previous community members have said and, you know, starting actually to thank VTA for a lot of the thoughtful work upstream of this presentation asking about the expenditures in laying out some really good goals and strategies to increase ridership and to deliver service more cost effectively. The Visionary Network is a high level plan to really increase service, bringing it up to par where Santa Clara County has for many years not grown its bus service with the population growth and has less service than other parts of the region and other parts of the country.

Funding the visionary network would do that, And that is paired really well with the plans for transit priority to make local transit bus and light rail faster, more reliable, more cost effective, and more competitive with driving. And the combination of the visionary network and the transit priority investments together are something that this pot of funding can really uniquely do to really greatly improve VTA service, including with the lens of serving Mountain View and North County. And so we'd really encourage putting a high priority, as some of the council members have spoken about, to that service frequency and the speed and reliability and competitiveness and cost effectiveness in order to move people who depend on transit in order to help achieve the climate goals. Thank you.

Thank you, Adena. Next is Kevin Ma.

Evening, counsel. My name is Kevin Ma. I'm speaking in my individual capacity today. I agree with some of the speakers about I would like to emphasize that I would like to see a lot of the money to go to operations specifically. Operations money is incredibly hard to get compared to capital projects. Operations pretty much always depend on ValidBox money, which means they're rare, they're then they should be spent in the best they can be. Everyone has talked about, you know, the buses aren't that great. The buses aren't that great because there's not enough money. So money goes to the places where ridership goes most because that makes the most amount of any sense. So therefore, I do believe that we should be focused on operations so we can get things like the 51.

51 doesn't run on weekends. Maybe we can get on the weekends. People have discussed the 40 not being reliable enough. Maybe it can be made reliable. Maybe it can spread out. But that requires the city to be focusing on the needs of the service. I would rather not see this on projects like the greatest separation. At the end of the day, greatest separation is really a road project, not a transit project. And there will be capital, again, is easier to find. And I would like to see the city also to do its part to make sure that transit is successful.

You know, we have talked about, you know, there's some things that VTA does, and there's something the city needs to do. Right? The city does not have a transit priority policy even though MTC will probably push you guys to do with one later this year. But as mentioned, you know, transit is also a regional thing. We most peep you know, the community shuttle does do a lot of transit within the city, but for the people complaining about, you know, where the Google is going, you know, they do live in other cities, other counties, and there's not a lot of connections because, again, due to how stringent we are with money, you know, VTA doesn't even go across county borders compared to AC Trans or Sam Trans. So there's a lot to fix and there's a lot that money can help with that.

Alright. Thank you. And that ends public comment for item three. Yay. So as we finish that up, I will end item three with your mayor's call to service, call to action, call to community. And to note that this Saturday is the spring volunteer fair. Please sign up. Volunteer for your community. It'll be fun. I promise. It's gonna be at the Mountain View Community Center at 10AM to noon. Alright. Oh, do we have more comments? Councilmember McAllister?

Just one comment. I will be at the workshop at VTA on this Friday. So if anybody wants to, give me some ideas and channel anything through me, I will be there.

Alright. With that, we will now go to item four, consent calendar. The big event. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following an approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you would like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non agenda items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Council member Hicks, do you have an announcement to make?

I do have an announcement to make. I will be recusing myself from discussing, the downtown entertainment zone pilot program which is item 4.7 because the proximity of my residents to the downtown entertainment zone. I would also as your next question is going to be would any member of the council like to pull any items I would just it would be item the item regarding burrowing owls I would just like to ask a question on but not pull it.

Alright. That is item 4.3.

Yes. It is.

Does anyone does anyone else on council want to pull an item? Seeing no other council members, council member Hicks, feel free to ask your question for item 4.3.

So I have received a number of email messages on this, item and also read an article in the voice on it. So I believe there's a lot of community concern around it. And one of the questions I've been asked is whether we are gonna hire a biologist, and I would just like our staff to answer that question because it's not clear if we just pass the consent calendar or if we don't pass it. Either way.

Good evening, council. Once again, John Marchant, community services director. Looking forward at the position of the biologist for Shoreline, we are interested in filling that role. We are in the process of analyzing exactly what those responsibilities would be, possibly in coordination with continuing some of the consulting services that we're using now. They do bring the consulting service that we're using now do bring a lot of positive resources to us, and so it's a matter of being able to look at what that position may look like in the future to also support Shoreline, the environment.

And it's just a matter of being able to put together how how these can work together, and so that's what we're working on right now. Right now, the goal is to look to fill the position by the end of the calendar year is what we're looking at.

Okay. I think that's what many people wanted to know, so thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Scholwalter.

As I often do, I have a couple of comments on them. But I do have a question about the biological services one. I think I really appreciated the breadth of the biological services package that you put together. It seems very appropriate for the range of issues that the city needs to be on top of. It's not just burrowing owls, it's also with our upcoming biodiversity plan, there will be a need for somebody with quite a bit of not only just wildlife but also botanical knowledge that can help with trees and that sort of thing.

So I can see how we do need more biological services. So I'm glad to hear that. But I did want to ask you a little bit about how you share the information about the monitoring with the I understand it's shared regularly with Parks and Rec. And if you could share that with the audience at home today, I would appreciate it. We had a discussion earlier today and I hadn't understood how this was done. So I'm probably not alone.

Thank you council member Showalter. Yes. Each month to the Parks and Recreation Commission staff completes a monthly report of the different things that we have completed month to month. That also shows a graph of each of the last five, six years of Burrowing Owls where we are currently. That report is available in two locations on the website.

Number one, if you go to the Community Services Department website on the left hand side, you can see the reports available there, And then the public can also go to the Parks and Recreation Commission under commissions and then look at the agenda items for each of the months. And one of the attachments will be the monthly report that shows those numbers.

Thank you. It's good to know that. And we can get that information whenever we need it. And then I just wanted to speak positively about the national opioid sediment. I think it's good that we take part in these opportunities, so I'm happy that we're doing that.

And the entertainment zone, is that going to get pulled? I don't think I was just going to say this is a fascinating concept. It's a new law and when I first heard it I thought entertainment zone entertainment is sort of a broad thing. But really this law has to do with largely being able to serve alcohol in public outside of a store or a restaurant that has a license. And it's going to be because of the pedestrian mall we have, it will really be nice to have this area set up so that people can buy a cocktail or a glass of wine somewhere and walk down the street to play cornball or sit and talk to friends or someplace else.

And utilize the facilities of the whole pedestrian mall, not just the tiny area in front of the restaurant where they bought their drink. So I think that's really a nice idea. And I'm glad we're going forward with this, particularly in time for the World Cup. That's our deadline, I know, for getting this pilot started and it's a good one. But I also hope when we move forward, after we've done the pilot and we've had a little more time to think about it, that we take a little broader view of what entertainment means.

And we might think of do we want to encourage people to do busking? Or do we want to have some other areas besides the downtown? I, you know, I look forward to seeing how this project how this project evolves. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Schorwalter. Council member McAllister.

Yeah. I'm gonna take a big stretch here on 4.2 because I see that the fire chief and the police chief. Does anybody know why on Easter that power went out in Mountain View?

Council member McAllister, I can answer that question.

Oh, okay. So

our intergovernmental affairs manager found out from PG and E. Let me find the it affected about 40,000 people. Minutes, and apparently it was due to work that was being done. PG and E work.

And that's all they're giving you? Work?

I am summarizing. Let me find the email.

Council member, I if I may, I I had a summary from PG and E.

I'm happy to forward it to you

and or the entire council if you want.

It may be general knowledge that if okay.

But but but the city manager says. Correct? There was a I think there was work. There was a there was a switching issue during that that created a an outage for a big chunk of the city if you looked at the map when it happened, including including our building. But

Okay. You get the answer that we'll maybe you could share that with the rest of the public too. They may be interested in that too.

Is that everything? Alright. With that, we will have would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on these items? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have because there are more than 10 people signing up, we're gonna go down to ninety seconds, which is a one and a half minutes. There we go. So our first speaker, Albert Jeans, followed by Donna Kirasako, followed by Shani Kleinhouse, followed by Ping Ling. So if you could get into like a line so we don't have to wait for you to mosey on down, that would be great. Go ahead, Albert.

Okay. Hi, Albert Jeans, long time resident. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the burrowing owls. You know, like to see anything done to increase the numbers. Ever since the biologists left, it seems to be going downhill. You know, I go by there probably at least every week to shoreline to check and see how they're doing. And all I see is the burrowing areas are left unkempt, the weeds grow up too tight, the lows leave. And so, we've seen the number of owls decrease. And so, I don't know why we're paying this outfit, you know, $250,000 and another 100,000 just to ban them. Are they just watching the owls decline?

Is that what we're paying them to do? They don't seem to be doing anything to really encourage the growth like the biologists did where they had, you know, captive breeding and little aviaries set up here and there, and the number of owls is actually increasing for a while. So, I really, you know, think you should rethink whether we need to pay these people another 100,000, as opposed to just hiring one or two biologists who can probably do a much better job. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Donna Kirsako, followed by Shani Kleinhouse, followed by Ping Li.

Good evening. I'm here to speak on

You can speak into the microphone.

How's that? Yes, perfect.

Okay. I'm here to speak on item 4.3. I've been a Mountain View resident for over twenty years and I use Shoreline quite a bit. And I really love the burrowing owls. They are a bird that's found around the world and I think it's very important what Mountain View is doing here because Mountain View is one of the last bastions of burrowing owls in the Bay Area.

I really was heartened to hear about the idea of hiring a new wildlife biologist, but I think the timeframe needs to really be sped up. Right now, it's breeding season for the burrowing owls, and from what I saw of the information spread about provided on the monitoring of the burning owls, there hasn't been a report since January. So I really think that it's important to find a qualified biologist to work on this project and support this project so that we can continue to fulfill the obligation of protecting the burrowing owl and the habitat that Shoreline has. Thank you.

Thank you. Shawnie Kleinhouse followed by Ping Li followed by Zoe Zeroski.

Good evening. I'm Shawnee Kleinhouse with the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance and I would like to support the additional funding for the program. Think it's primarily for the scientific monitoring and for compliance with state and federal laws. However, in the last few years, as you well know, the maintenance for the borrowing hours, the programs that supported them, the programs that increased their numbers have stopped. And so, the boring owl preservation plan calls for 10 pairs, breeding pairs at shoreline, which was the estimate by the biologist to prepare the plan of what is feasible in terms of all the activities and needs of shoreline.

They didn't want to go above that and they didn't want to think that below 10 pairs would survive, the population would survive. I'm told that there's one pair this year. There may have been three last year. That is not enough to sustain this population. And so the burrowing owl preservation plan needs to be resumed and I hope this is the beginning of that.

Beyond that, collaborations with the Habitat Agency is what brought the success and I think that should be resumed as well. So, I'm we're happy to see that there is investment and the city is serious about it and the public supports the Borrowing House but there's gotta be urgent urgent action to revive them. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Ping Li followed by Zosarovski followed by Tracy Feria.

Hello. My name is Ping Li. I live in Saratoga and I'm a brother and I particularly am fond of bringing out and sometimes I volunteer to help for the habitat for them. This is very special. This is my first time to speak in front of any city council, but what the heck?

I feel like we're like a bunch of lorex and trying to speak for the owls because they can't come here. So I think we all know they are struggling to survive in the Bay Area. We're seeing a decline significantly, and I feel like we have the obligation to help them. And so I strongly support the investment to monitor and recover and consistent with the city's 2012 Boring Isle provision preservation plan, and I also support the hiring of qualified biologists and dedicated to save them. Thank you.

Thank you, and welcome to your first public comment. So next we have Zoe Zarevsky followed by Tracy Feria, followed by April Webster.

Thank you. I'm Zoe. I wanted to say that I support the funding of the Burrowing Owls Monitoring and Banding at Shoreline Park. And I am a runner, so I run at the Baylands often and I see the burrowing owls. When I was younger, they used to be at the Googleplex where the fields are, and now they're turf fields.

And so just some data's here. There's fewer than 25 breeding pairs remaining in Santa Clara County. The species has been extirpated from 19 counties across California. And in October 2024, the state designated them a candidate for endangered species list, a decision expected by August. The state is watching what we do.

So meanwhile, And the owls along the Bay Trail are vulnerable. They actually go beyond the Googleplex and and into the tiny strip of land where the runners, cyclists, and dogs are, and there's no buffer. And so having a dedicated biologist to watch after them and hopefully grow their population back would be great. Thank you.

Thank you. Tracy.

I'm Doctor. Tracy Feria and I want to thank you for bringing up this extra funding and I support the extra funding for the consultants because our OWLs desperately need it. However, I'm deeply concerned about the burrowing owl program. I haven't seen any owls in my last few times volunteering out there in the preserve, and the program that was dismantled by Parks and Recs really needs to be restored. We had one and a half biologists working and that program worked.

The population says it all. After dismantling the program, the numbers have kept dropping. Before the owl was owl population was increasing. The question is will we even have one successful brood this year? And if the city council doesn't really take immediate steps to get this program back on track, this could be the council that may unfortunately be remembered for presiding over the loss of the city's owls.

Remember the plan changed from a shoreline burrowing owl management plan to the burrowing owl preservation plan because the city and the residents wanted to preserve the Owls and the legacy as a home to the Burrowing Owls. We were meeting the numbers before the program was abruptly dismantled. The report says that staff is anticipating recruiting a Biolish in Q3 twenty twenty six. It makes it seem they don't really understand the urgency of the situation. Thank you.

Thank you. Finishing up the in person speakers is April Webster.

Hi. Thanks. Please include me as one of the Loracs speaking for the OWLs. So I support funding, continuing the funding to avoid gaps in protection, but I'm also concerned, like others, about that shift from more of a hands on stewardship, with expertise and to more of a consultant based focus mainly on monitoring, especially when it comes to wildlife and and being good stewards of that. I usually speak about the trees and people, but this is part ecosystem and the wildlife in our community also matters for maintaining that.

As Shani pointed out, with this change in how we're, managing this thing, this, the owls, the population has dropped. So I strongly encourage council to pair this funding with a clear plan to hire a full time biologist but sooner than the end of this year. Given how long the position has already been open, this just makes sense. And yeah, thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to virtual speakers. Dash Olides.

Hello, my name is Dash Olides. I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Loma Prieta chapter. I'm speaking on item 4.3 on the consent calendar, the biological services professional service agreement. Please approve this item, and please do everything you can as quickly as possible to hire an on staff city biologist to support our local burrowing owls. As other speakers have said, we've seen a rapid decline in breeding pairs in these burrowing owls. These precious, adorable, and vulnerable beings need our help and support. Their recovery is extremely important. Please, let's do everything we can to save the species of special concern. Time is of the essence. Let's act now before it's too late. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Next is Connie.

Good evening, Mountain View City Council. I'm speaking on item four dot three with the burrowing owls. My name is Connie Cunningham. I'm an advocate for birds with Santa Clara Valley Birding Association, especially in California and along the Pacific Flyway. I have followed the burrowing owls for years.

I urge this body to reinvigorate efforts with additional funding to continue the good policy that Mountain View did have before with the 2012 burrowing owl preservation plan. Please invest with additional funding for monitoring and recovery of the burrowing owls. And please hire as soon as you possibly can, not the end of the year, but now because it is urgent. Hire a qualified biologist to carefully manage and maintain the burrowing owls at shoreline. The biologist needs to put recovery measures in place to fix recent losses.

And as someone has already noted, it is the breeding season. Burrowing owls are charming, they're small, They're long legged owls who live in open grassy habitats and often can be seen during the day. In 2024, California Fish and Game Commission accepted the petition to list these vulnerable birds as a candidate species for threatened or endangered status under the California Endangered Species Act. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Thank you. Next is Bruce England.

Thanks, Mayor. Bruce England again. This is for item four-three. I would like to express my support for the requested funding for the Burrowing Owl programs, including monitoring and recovery measures, which are both consistent with the city's 2012 burrowing owl preservation plan. We cannot delay this work as burrowing owl populations are falling dangerously low according to multiple measures has been mentioned by others too. To make all this work properly, both the funding and hiring a biologist with burrowing owl expertise must happen as soon as possible. Thanks.

Thank you. Okay. Bruce England just went. Ina Monger.

Hi, good evening. My name is Ina Magner, and I live in Foster City. I'm a strong supporter of funding for the recovery program for burrowing owls. Please help in this recovery their population in such decline. And I definitely hope that Mountain View will approve additional funding for monitoring and banding of those owls.

They are very unique birds, And it's such a shame to see them disappear from our environment. I really thank Mountain View for taking this step of kind of recovering them. Hopefully, they won't disappear in that area. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Rowena Dee.

Hello. This is Rowena Dodson. I live in Los Altos. I'm a member of the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, and I'm also speaking with grave concern about the OWLs and also implore the council to, as so many of the speakers have said, urgently take action to help restore this still tiny population, but surviving hopefully population in our county. And thank you so much for your efforts, and just wanted to be here give voice to that. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. Linda Ruth Ruff.

Hi, I'm Linda Ruth Ruff, and I've been following the plight of the burrowing owl for about seventeen years now. For a long time, it was doom and gloom. All the sites with burrowing owls had declining populations. The first big win was when they were finally included in the habitat conservation plan. And then when Mountain View developed a management plan and hired a biologist, it was amazing, and it worked.

For many years, things improved tremendously for the burrowing owls, and then due to unfortunate circumstances, the implementation pretty much declined. So I'm pleased that you're planning to once again hire biologists. They don't need to reinvent the wheel. What was being done was extremely successful. They you know, there's already a plan in place. I agree with other people that the end of the year is way too far off. I I urge you to hire somebody very soon because this population is disappearing. Thank

you.

Thank you. Next we have Leslie Friedman.

Hello. Thank you very much for this time. I want to speak as so many other and very well educated on this program. You you are in a position where you can save a species. I can't understand how anybody would think, well, we'll need to think it over.

Do we wanna kill them all, or do we want them to live? I've lived here in Mountain View for more than twenty years, and I remember a number of times when the burrow burrowing owls, came up and down, and then they came up and down again. And this is just it. Let's go for it. You guys are gonna be in the books. You saved a species. Don't let it go the other way. That's about it. I hope that the help that's possible funding will go ahead and work. And thank you very much.

Thank you. Next we have Diane McCoy.

Now can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Oh, thank you. Okay, thank you for the time. And I'm also speaking on item 4.3 and I just want to echo what everybody has said. I love burrowing owls, and I believe, like many others that have spoken, that they are very extra special. I applaud Mountain View for their 2012 burrowing out preservation plan, but there have been challenges of late.

So unfortunately, their population has been declining. I also wanna echo that very urgent action is needed very much right now. So please support and invest in the recovery of the ALS, especially by hiring a qualified biologist as soon as possible to steward the owl's recovery. Thank you very much for your time. I just wanna echo what Leslie said.

Mountain View could be the town that continues a species and brings it back. So you can be the heroes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next we have Karen Jeffrey.

Hi my name is Karen Jeffrey and I'm also speaking on the Burrowing Owls. First of all thank you very much City Council for taking up this issue and I can only echo what all the previous speakers have said that we implore you, those of us who love the Owls, we and I implore you to approve the funding and to please hire a qualified biologist ASAP. As has been pointed out, this is breeding season, the population has been declining, the numbers tell the story. If we don't have a viable breeding season this year, we may not have burrowing owls left next year. So the safeguards that a biologist, a qualified biologist can put in place need to start happening immediately.

And I really don't think that you know because the owls live on their own cycle and are not subject to legislative schedules, I don't think they can wait until the end of the year biologists that they need. We need to demonstrate also that we are good stewards of our land and that we're not going to let the species disappear. So thank you all so much for giving us this opportunity to speak. Please prove the funding. Please hire a biologist. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next we have Tatiana Kuvaldina.

Hello. Can you hear me well?

We can hear you.

Thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Tatiana Kvaldina. I'm speaking on behalf of Odd Fellows about Item 4.7 entertainment zone. Odd Fellows are located at the intersection of Castro And Ville Streets. And with the current proposal, our main concern is safety.

We open our doors to the public during city events as we accommodate art and craft shows. And, unfortunately, drunken people have proven to be an issue for our artists, especially when only female artists are present. With the entertainment zone enactment, we can expect the number of intoxicated people to considerably increase. I'm hopeful the safety will be taken seriously and the necessary oversight will be provided for events when entertainment zone is active. We don't want to choose between artist safety and engagement with the public.

We don't want to close our doors during the city events. So please consider what can be done and how we can manage it because I understand the necessity to help the businesses and the desire to improve the experience for people, But safety has to be taken seriously as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we have Annie Yang.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Annie Yang, and I'm a big supporter of helping burrowing owl populations recover in the South Bay. I'm happy to see that Mountain View will be adding funding for scientific monitoring and banding of the owls, and I really hope to see the city reignite the stewardship of the burrowing owls at Shoreline as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, have Annette Hertz.

Hello. My name is Annette Hertz. I'm a Mountain View resident since 2007. Some of the older folks around you might remember me because I was part of the original advocacy on the Bering Owl preservation. And I have been proud of living in Mountain View and of Mountain View itself since then and especially because of the way that you treated the owls.

Meanwhile, I'm also a naturalist, in the Jasper Ridge in Stanford's Preserve and at Mid Pen. And I've been telling people about Mountain View and what Mountain View did for the owls. So when I realized what was happening, that you dismantled the program, that the biologist was gone, and that there's a consulting company, I was literally horrified. This is my first conservation project. I'm really proud of that. I love the Alts. And the biologists that you had were clearly very, very passionate. They were not just qualified, they were passionate. And alts in or any endangered species needs more than just knowledge. They need the passion.

And clearly, that consulting company didn't bring the passion because you can see it in the numbers. So like all the speakers before me, please, please use the money better, hire not only a qualified but a passionate consultant, And please have him do what the previous consultants did because it simply worked. Thank you.

Thank you. Melanie B.

Hi. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm doctor Melanie Barnett, and we've lived my family, we've lived in Santa Clara County for forty years, and I'm here for item four three to support the burrowing owls and specifically to meet the requirements of the 2012 preservation plan and to hire a qualified biologist. Where we live, where we've raised our kids, we used to be able to walk ten minutes from our house and see a spot where burrowing owls bred.

It was the last time I saw an owl there, 2011. My has we we still my husband and I, we still grieve for those owls. They're just gone. We know they're not coming back to that spot. If we had known, we would have probably been out there every few days.

I mean, I regret not spit. They're just such special, iconic species. Everybody loves them, and Mountain View is now the closest spot to our house where they breed. And it's somewhat of comfort, but seeing the decline over the past few years has just been really sad. I was there a couple years ago, and there was a dad with his child, and the child's like, there's burrowing owls here. I don't think they were there at the moment, but he knew they were there behind that fence.

Thank you. Alex Brown.

Hi friends. I just wanted to call to speak in support of biologists. I think that seeing the decline in their population over recent times given all the circumstances has been really unfortunate, and I think that we should do our part to maintain the biologist population, by feeding them burrowing owls, I guess. I I I I think I understand what's going on. Anyway, I support funding biologists to actually help the burning owl population, and I think that we can do our part to invest in the ecology of the area. Thanks.

Thank you. Ayesha Thiessen.

Good evening council. I'm Ayesha. We meet again. I also speak on behalf of our owls. I am the organizer of the burrowing of the Guardian Project, our community's volunteer effort to save our burrowing owls and shoreline park through habitat enhancement.

While I support maintaining care for our burrowing owls, especially adding banding for better tracking, I am deeply concerned by the lack fiscal and ecological sense in this proposal. Parks and Rec staff is asking for a total of $345,000 for contract biologists this fiscal year. By contrast, our last dedicated full time biologists cost roughly 165,000 and provide at least twice the value. LSA's expanded services for over double the cost still lack essential conservation efforts we've lost such as volunteer supervision and on-site public education, supplemental feeding, juvenile overwintering and captive breeding programs, regular camera monitoring, and artificial burrow maintenance. Since moving to this contract model, the owl population at Shoreline has dropped from 27 to just 16 in one year, a 41% decline.

Furthermore, the contractors haven't been mowing adequately. There's consistently been tall vegetation around the boroughs that should be barren to protect our owls from predators. I urge the council to approve this funding only as a stopgap, but more importantly, to demand that parks and rec staff immediately begin recruitment for our permanent full time wildlife preservation coordinator. We need a dedicated expert on-site to ensure our tax dollars actually result in survival of our owls. Thank you. Thank you. Rashmi?

Hi, yes, Rashmi Sahai, resident of Mountain View and Green Spaces member. I'm also here to support support the funding of four point three, and also to urge that we hire a biologist as soon as possible so that we can properly take care of the owls. I was very surprised to hear the former speaker share those cost numbers. Clearly what's happening now is not working and we're spending a lot of money on it. So please shift the approach. Let's rehire another biologist and yeah, let's try to get these owls back. Thank you so much for your attention on this issue.

Thank you. Next, Celia Pamer.

Good evening. I'm Sully Pamer, resident of Mountain View and also a member of Green Spaces. I'm also speaking on 4.3, echoing others' comments in support, as others have said. While I am in support of the funding for consultants, it is a band aid, and it's a band aid on a kid who needs stitches. It's only going to buy a little bit of time.

A cynical person may think that given the evidence of the precipitous decline in burrowing owl numbers after the removal of the full time biologist and the lack of filling the role per the preservation plan, that the goal is to entirely remove the owls out of convenience to city staff. I absolutely hope that this is not the case. Please prioritize and expedite the hiring of a new full time biologist. We don't have the time to wait a year like we have been forced to wait for the hiring of a transportation manager. Clearly, based on the comments tonight, there are many community members who are keeping eyes on this hiring process.

I would hope the city finds a way to fill the position with a person as qualified, as good at public communication and as dedicated to preserving burrowing owls as our previous staff member. As someone who frequently attends city meetings, I see how the wait for large plans often prevents the implementation of projects desired by residents. This request already has a plan. If our city plans are not enacted once approved, I think it will be hard to convince residents that our big P plans should be waited for and trusted to meet our city needs. Please hire a full time staff member to make sure we preserve our OWLs. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last virtual speaker is Yili.

Hi. Good evening, council members. My name is Yili. I live in Sunnyvale and work at Google's Mountain View campus next to Shoreline Park. I've organized volunteer habitat restoration events there and seen the decline firsthand.

Borough areas overgrown with invasive weeds, artificial burrows deteriorating. I'm here to support item four-three, but also to urge you to think beyond it. The city's former full time biologist did comprehensive work for about 165,000 a year, captive breeding with DNA testing, a juvenile overwintering program, supplemental feeding, predator trapping, habitat enhancement and trespasser deterrence. Since he was placed on leave, nearly all of that has stopped, and the owl population has crashed. The contract before you tonight will pay a consulting firm up to $145,000 more than double for a scope that essentially adds only banding on top of bare minimum monitoring, no breeding program, no feeding, no predator management.

Please approve this funding tonight because something is better than nothing, and these hours can't wait. But I also urge the council to prioritize hiring a dedicated full time biologist who can do the comprehensive recovery work this population actually needs to survive. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now I will now bring this back to council for action and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinances and resolutions attached to consent calendar items four point one four point two and four point seven. I see council member Kameh in the queue.

Great thanks thanks so much mayor appreciate all the comments from the public on on all these items. I just had a quick question for staff on item 4.3. I know that there's a lot of the there was the staff report. We've

heard a

lot of feedback. I just wanted to give staff the opportunity if there's anything you wanted to clarify from the plan. I I know that one of the things I asked staff was updating the burrowing out plan and I think that that is something of of interest for the cities. I think there's gonna be some other next steps. So I wanna give staff the the opportunity to come forward before we vote on our consent calendar. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Once again, John Marchant, community services director. There's a number of items that are related to tonight's ask. Number one, as stated by members of the public, the status of the burrowing owls are being reviewed. And so as California Fish and Wildlife Fishing Game are looking at that, once that decision is made, then they're going to be giving us some new guidelines.

It is at that time that we expect to look at our 2012 burrowing owl preservation plan and make some updates based on what comes out of that transition. In addition, part of the the request is necessary for additional funding for this year is because of that change in status. And so whereas prior, the biologist on-site was able to understand that there was going to be a project that was being taken place, He would review the site. He would clear the site and let staff know they could do the job. He would not have to be on-site to do that.

Under the new guidelines, while the status is being reviewed, the Fish and Wildlife is making us actually have a biologist to be on-site with boots on the ground during each and every one of our projects. And so that's another reason why we're seeing a significant increase in the cost for the biologist services.

Alright. Councilmember Hicks.

You may want to walk back up. So the other concern of the members of the public was the timeline for hiring and I know given what the answer you just gave us, it's not I know you can't immediately find an appropriate person and you don't know the items to do, but can you add more clarity to what the timeline would be in terms of people's immediate concerns and then the timeline for hiring?

So the immediate concerns, the there is a sense tonight that we have seen a significant decline in OWLs. If you look over time, we were working with the Habitat Agency to bring forward some of the elements that were talked about tonight, the overwintering program, supplemental feeding that has been put on hold. So during the two years that we did provide those services, it was not necessarily directly through that biologist but through the habitat agency's assistance that brought those burrowing owl numbers up. If you look at the history of the burrowing owl population numbers, then you will see that the burrowing owl numbers are similar, not exact, but more similar to what they were before the actions were taken with the Habitat agency. And so just wanted to clarify that.

Number number two, related to the staffing, I understand the desire to have someone sooner. We will do what we can to expedite that process. And it just depends on how much we need to change job description. Then there's some additional steps through HR to make that happen. So it's just a matter of getting through some of the administrative situation as well. And so we we will work as quickly as we can to fill the position.

You will

expedite it as much as possible?

As much as we can. We understand there's a desire in the community and understand that there's we have the duty to do so.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Hicks. I see that Council Member Scholwalter is ready to make a motion.

Thank you. And thank you to Council Member Kameh for seconding. Yes, I would like to move the balance of the consent calendar and I need to read a few items. Item 4.1, adopt an ordinance of the City Of Mountain View approving a zoning map amendment for the properties located at 922 To 950 San Leandro Avenue, APN 153 Dash 18 Dash 26 And 150 Three-eighteen-thirty 1 from the General Industrial Zoning District to the R3 1.5 multiple family residential zoning district as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.2 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View acknowledging receipt of the Mountain View Fire Department's annual inspection report pursuant to California Health and Safety Code section 13,140 six-four to be read in title only, further reading waived.

And 4.7, introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View establishing an entertainment zone on portions of Castro Street consistent with Senate Bill nine sixty nine as codified in Business and Professions Code section 25,692 to be read in title only, Further reading waived and set a second reading for 04/28/2026.

Thank you. Council Member Scholwalter has been moved and seconded by Council Member Kameh. I'll just say before we get to the vote, it is very clear that our community really cares about our burrowing owls. We view this as a yes and kind of scenario. Hopefully, we will get this through, and our staff will be working very hard to, make sure our burrowing owls are are protected and safe.

They're really adorable, and we know we love them in our city. Alright. Shall we go to a vote? Yay. Unanimous. So now we will go to item five, oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city's council subject matter jurisdiction up for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first because we're kind of behind now. Each speaker will have ninety seconds or one and a half minutes. First, we'll have John Schaechter. Sorry.

Thank you mayor and thank you city council members. My name is John Schachter and I am speaking about the Twilight membership at Shoreline Golf Links. I have been a Twilight member at Shoreline Golf Links for eight years. Twilight members pay an annual fee of approximately $1,700 per person to golf at Shoreline in the late afternoon during off peak golf hours. Kemper Sports, the private equity company that the city council has hired, has made the decision to cancel all twilight annual golf memberships.

This is deeply disappointing. Shoreline Twilight members are a large friendly group, including golfers of different abilities, races, religions, ages, political beliefs, and income levels. We play together. We talk. We joke. We argue. We enjoy each other's company. We come together for recreation, connection, and well-being. Thank you for creating the Shoreline Golf Course and funding it, city council members. The purpose of a municipal golf course is to provide a recreational amenity at an affordable price for the community and should not be operated with the primary objective of maximizing profit.

Thus, why is the city of Mountain View allowing Kemper Sports private equity to eliminate Shoreline Twilight memberships? City council members, did you know that in 2025, Shoreline Golf Links reported an annual profit of $345,000? Did you also know that loyal Twilight members are a key

Thank you. Next. Thank Next we'll have Ramesh Babu Patabiraman followed by Glenn Stewart followed by Hormaz Romer. I'm hoping I'm getting these names right. And then followed by June Lim. So if you could line up so that other, we can move quickly to the. Comments. Go right ahead, sir.

Yeah, hi, my name is Ramesh Babu, resident of Mountain View since 1994. I'm a Twilight member from 2012. My membership is expiring within a week. I went to renew in the shoreline. They're saying we cannot renew. They did not email us or communicate with us. It's abruptly they're saying like that from March membership. Whoever renewed in January, they gave them a year but we need some time. They should have communicated, you know. They cannot say you cannot renew.

You have to switch to other member, you know, like So that's my concern and John talked everything about, you know, profit and other stuff. So city council should address to shoreline what is happening or give us more time and give everybody like three months or four months, switch to other members or whatever or you can raise the fee. Okay, that's my concern and I've been living here for twenty five years or thirty. Thank you.

Thank you. Just a reminder that we can't take action on items for open public comment. We can maybe in item eight, but you won't hear that till the very end of this meeting. Glenn Stewart followed by Hor Mazromer followed by Joon Lim. Glenn Stewart? No we don't. We don't see time like that. Hor Maz Romer followed by June Lim followed by Jennifer Yoon.

Hi, I'm Hormuz Romer. I'm also a member at Shoreline Golf Links and I'm facing the same situation. I really enjoy being a member at Shoreline Golf Links. I've been there maybe five years and it brings great joy and peace to those of us that get to participate in the golf there. We are very disappointed because we don't know if staff was aware of these changes.

There was no communication to the members. There was no call for public opinion or anybody inquiring with the members on how they felt about it. We do feel, we suspect that Kemper Sports which just was is private equity owned, which took over and bought a management company that was already there, is driving a lot for, we think, corporate profit. We don't know. But we would like the city and the staff, we would like to work with them collaboratively to give us some time, let's review and let's examine what is going on, what needs to happen, what can be done about the membership program and how we can save this from being canceled where it's a service to the community that seems to be taken away to profit some private equity stakeholders.

So, we hope something can be done about that. Thank you.

Thank you. Joon Lim, followed by Jennifer Yoon, followed by Theresa Cho.

My name is Joon Lim. I've been the Twilight member for many years. I'm here at the SABRE Twilight membership. The Shoreline Golf membership program has provided a space where the people of all background across age, income, and ability can come together for recreation and connection and well-being. However, I recently realized that Shoreline Golf Link seemed to operate it for maximizing profit.

As a public asset, Shoreline Golf Link should not be operate this way. Should be balancing the financial responsibility, we believe, with the public accessibility and community benefit. Prioritizing higher margins over risk limiting our access, reducing participation, and undermining the public purpose of the facility should be avoided, but unfortunately, campus sports seems to pursue this direction. We respectively urge the city council and park recreation to carefully evaluate whether camper sports current strategy fully aligned with the public interest and the long term vision of a shoreline golfing. We ask that the city ensure engage management decision to reflect community values, access, and sustainable operations so that the course continue to serve people broadly by keeping Twilight membership rather than shifting toward a highly profitable golf course business model.

Thank you.

Thank you. Jennifer Yoon?

Hi, my name is Jennifer Yoon and I'm here for saving Twilight membership and I've been member for more than six years and then, you know, this is a public golf course, so it should be treated like a library or like a park. And for the shoreline, for us, who is a golfer playing golf is like you know, people go to library for book and then for people who like us who play golf, it's like this shoreline golf course because it's very affordable. So I like to maintain that one. And then also people like us who would like to play golf, this is where we socialize people. Like John mentioned, we talk with the people, we meet new people, so it's really good for us.

And the third one is even though it's money is reasonable, but this is the one let's see. Let me read this thing. While expense round make more money for people, cheap membership show up constant consistently even in the off season which is wintertime and it's raining, you still pay. So, they provide a steady cash flow keeps the golf course running year round. So, what I'm saying is, like, this is since it's a public, should the money should be reasonable, and then this is what Twilight membership is.

So I really like to council looking into it for the keeping this twilight membership. Thank you.

Thank you. Theresa Cho?

My name is Theresa Cho and my daughter is called Melinda Cho. We are from Special Olympics. I served as a volunteer coach for the head golf for thirty years. And I was I was and then we also participated in the Santa Clara Special Olympic golf training in the summertime since 2021. Melinda Cho, my daughter, she loves to play golf.

So I like her to have a longer training. So we purchased the Twilight membership so that we can play golf after this training season. But she worked full time. She could only play golf on weekends. Now special now Shoreline is canceling the Twilight membership, and that is affordable for members to play on weekend.

So, Melinda, my daughter is concerned whether she can be able to afford to play at Shoreline in the future when she had to go up to a higher

Thank you. Next our last in person speaker is Albert Jeans.

Obviously chose the wrong night. Yeah, the next slide please. Yeah, just an update on the number of RVs. Last April Thursday, a couple weeks ago, three ninety three. That's five more than the previous month, still going up. Reason is next slide. Yeah, in Palo Alto, they really rolled out their street cleaning biweekly. So that severely cut down the number of RVs on their streets, gone from 172 at the beginning of the year to 108, and probably falling still. Next slide, please. Now, at the last council meeting, you know, staff said we were paying something like $3,000,000 going forward for the safe parking lot at Shoreline.

Will it be a 100 spaces? $30,000 of space. Now, wouldn't that be used better used as a relocation allowance? It turns out Zillow is a very good tool for looking at apartments in other cities. This is for Dallas Fort Worth. Median price for a two bedroom is $1,800 a month. Next slide, please. There's 10,000 rentals available. Here it is, Silicon Valley, $4,000, 1,200 rentals available. Next slide, please. And, it's even worse. At $2,200, there's only eight available. That's why, say, parking is not working. These people have nowhere to go. You can't expect those people to pay $2,000 a month.

Where are they going to find that kind of money? Whereas, can go to next slide, please. They can go to Dallas, Fort Worth, of other cities in The US. For $1,300, they can get a two bedroom apartment. There are still 2,000 rentals available and this is just one city in The U. S. There's hundreds of others. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to our virtual speakers, Tim McKenzie.

Hi all, I'm Tim McKenzie, hehim pronouns. I've lived in Montaloma for over a decade now. I have a flock camera directly across the street from my house, my driveway. It is impossible to leave without seeing it or being seen by it. I know that we've turned off the cameras. I know that we've canceled the contract. I'm just curious as to when we will be getting the cameras actually taken down. I know that installing the cameras took more than a year or much longer than was anticipated. And part of that had to do with getting permits working with Caltrans things like that. But we shouldn't need permits to take them down.

I would like to see these cameras gone like physically removed, not just turned off. That would be lovely. It is a bad reminder of the surveillance state every time I leave my house.

Thank you, Tim. We have now concluded item five, oral communications for public comment. We will now go to item six and six new business. So 6.1, adopt city council policy A dash 13 a disruption of telephonic and internet service during city council meetings. City clerk Heather Glazer will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Good evening, mayor, city council members. So the item before you arises from recent updates to parts of the Ralph m Brown Act, which requires cities to adopt a formal policy by July 1 in order to continue offering two way remote public participation for city council meetings. The this policy provides a clear framework for how the city will respond to service disruptions, restore access, document all actions taken, and determine whether meetings may persist may proceed if an I an issue persists. Its purpose is to ensure compliance with state law, maintain transparency, and support continued public access during technical outages. Adopting this resolution and policy will ensure the city remains compliant while continuing to provide reliable and accessible public meetings.

This concludes my presentation, but I'm available for questions.

Thank you. Does any member of the council have questions? Seeing none, would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. A timer will be displayed on the screen. Each speaker will have ninety seconds or one and a half minutes. I am seeing no public comment. We will now take virtual speakers. I am seeing no virtual speakers. We will now bring this item back to counsel for questions and deliberation. Please note that a motion to approve the recommendations should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. I see a motion by council member Clark. Go right ahead. Vice mayor. I'm so sorry.

I move the the, staff recommendation, which is to adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View adopting city council policy a dash one three a. Disruption of telephonic or Internet service during city council meetings to be read and title only for the reading waived.

Thank you. Vice mayor, motion by vice mayor Clark, seconded by council member Ramirez. I believe we are ready for a vote. And that looks like that motion passes unanimously. We are actually going to take a ten minute break.

So we will It is 08:51 right now, and so we will be back at 9PM. Alright. Let's get back to business. Alright. So it is 09:09, and I'm calling the meeting back to order.