City Council - Regular Meeting

And with that... All right, good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our closed session. Interim City Attorney Quinn will make a closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the items listed for closed session.

I forgot how to do that.

Public employee performance evaluation pursuant to California government code section 54957B1. The title is council appointees of the employees is council appointees, city clerk, and city manager. And then there will also be 2.2, conference with labor negotiators pursuant to California government code section 54957.6A. The agency designated representative is our vice mayor, Chris Clark. The unrepresented employees will be the city clerk and the city manager. And that is all.

Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session items listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes. Seeing no speakers, we will now take virtual speakers. Seeing no virtual speakers, the council will now recess to the plaza conference room for closed session and return to the council chambers at the close to continue to the regular session.

you

All right, everyone. All right, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council and the Shoreline Regional Park Community of September 8th, 2026. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. 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. Great job, everyone. The city clerk will take our attendance by roll call.

Council Member Hicks?

Here.

Council Member Kamei? Here. Council Member McAllister? Yep. Council Member Ramirez? Here. Council Member Showalter? Here. Vice Mayor Clark? Here.

Mayor Ramos? Here. You have a quorum? Yay. All right. Thank you. In recent weeks, the city, along with a few of our neighboring elected decision-making bodies, have been subjected to disruptive 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 jurisdiction. Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to the Council Code of Conduct and Government Code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period. Now I would like to take a moment to highlight a new tool the city is piloting to make our public meetings more accessible to our diverse community. The city has launched a pilot of Wordly, an AI-powered translation and captioning service that allows members of the public to follow meeting proceedings in their preferred language using their own device or headset. The service offers translation in more than 60 languages. Tonight marks the first city council meeting where this service is available. Wordly is also being offered at the Environmental Planning Commission and the Rental Housing Committee meetings. This pilot is an important step in expanding language access and helping more members of our community participate in the civic process. We encourage residents to take advantage of this new service and share their feedback as we evaluate the pilot. For those watching from home via Zoom, YouTube, the city website, or cable TV, Wordly Translation Service can be launched by scanning the QR code displayed on the screen or by clicking the direct links provided in the meeting agendas. For more information about the AI Translation Service, please refer to the AI Translation Service flyer slash handout provided with today's meeting materials. In addition, we are currently recruiting members to serve on our boards, commissions, and committees. So this is our call to action, call to service, call to community. We are accepting applications until 5 p.m. on October 2nd for the Bicycle Slash Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Board of Library Trustees, Downtown Committee, Environmental Planning Commission, Human Relations Committee, Parks and Recreation Commission, Performing Arts Committee, and the Senior Advisory Committee. Please visit mountainview.gov slash BCC or contact the City Clerk's Office for additional information. Interim City Attorney Quinn, do you have a closed session report? There's no closed session report this evening. Yay. All right, now we move on to item three, presentations. Please note, 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 we are going to go to item 3.1, National Hispanic Heritage Month Proclamation. Now we are happy to be joined this evening by Maria Herni and Chris Sayago, graduates of our 2025 Spanish Language Leadership Academy to accept the proclamation. Maria and Chris, will you join me at the lectern? Okey dokey. All right, the proclamation reads, whereas in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson first introduced Hispanic Heritage Week to recognize and celebrate the independence of our neighbors in Central America and Mexico, and in 1988, President Ronald Reagan expanded the recognition period from one week to one month starting September 15th and ending October 15th of each year and whereas Hispanic and Latino communities in Mountain View who call our city home and help Mountain View thrive represent a diverse group with roots throughout Latin America and beyond and many Latino residents are also trace their heritage to the original indigenous communities of Latin America and Africa. And, whereas in recognizing and celebrating the achievements of our Hispanic and Latino community, we honor them and recognize all they have helped to build in our state and city. They are leaders, community organizers, first responders, healthcare professionals, teachers, artists, athletes, entertainers, colleagues and friends. And, Whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities make incalculable contributions to our neighborhoods and community in every sector of the economy, and we are a greater and more vibrant city because of them. Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council, do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th as National Hispanic Heritage Month in Mountain View. Maria and Chris, would you like to say a few words?

Good evening, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos, council members and guests. My name is Maria Herney and I am here today with Chris Sagallo, both proud members of this community and graduates of 2025 Mountain View Leadership Spanish Academy. It is with great honor to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Latino community and the Academy. It represents the rich history, the strong traditions and heritage that connect us to our roots. It also recognizes the dedication and determination of Latino families and individuals who have helped shape the community of Mountain View, which is our Mountain View today. Thank you for honoring the importance of our culture and for creating opportunities that allow people from different backgrounds and experiences to connect, learn, and participate in the life of our city, giving us another way to appreciate the diversity that makes Mountain View special. By coming together, supporting one another, and working as a community, we can continue to make Mountain View an even better place for everyone. Thank you.

Ahora yo voy a hablar en español. Somos un grupo hispano orgullosamente representado aquí. Solo quiero decir que esta proclamación es en honor para y para la comunidad latina. Que no mengue la cultura, tradición y la hispanidad en toda, con toda su diversidad en este país. Que viva la comunidad latina, que viva la comunidad hispana, y que viva la gente. Gracias.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Great. We're going to have two proclamations. Both proclamations?

Yes, both proclamations. Great.

Thank you. And then we're going to take a group picture. Sure. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right, we will now move on to item 3.2. That's a fun one. A certificate recognizing Skye Thompson for winning the MPower Silicon Valley Annual Scholarship Competition. So we are happy to be joined this evening by Cheyenne Lipp, Community Engagement Intern with Silicon Valley Clean Energy, to present the certificate to Ms. Thompson. Cheyenne and Skye, will you join me at the lectern? Yes, hi. All right, Cheyenne, make your brief presentation.

Hi, I will also be introducing Juliette Pascal, who is the Community Engagement Specialist at Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and she will be making the comment.

Thank you. Just really briefly, Juliet Pasquale, Community Engagement Specialist at Silicon Valley Clean Energy. We are the local clean electricity provider for Mountain View. We are a not-for-profit entity, and we serve our community by providing electricity and helping residents reduce their use of fossil fuel. So I would like to shout out Skye Thompson, who is here in the audience today. who participated in our recent empower silicon valley art competition for local students to submit works for in order to win a scholarship our theme this year was powering communities and it asked students to envision artistically how clean energy would improve their community and how it would work in the places where they go to school, local businesses, and where they live. So Sky submitted Solar Butterflies, a sticker design that we can give out at community events that envisions a really beautiful depiction made by watercolor and other mediums to just show how bright and beautiful a clean energy future can be. So with that, I think that we are ready for Sky to come up and accept her certificate. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

Do we want to take a picture all together?

Yeah. Let me also give her this one, too. Wonderful. Congratulations. High five. All right. And then we're going to do a picture. Okie dokie. Now, would any member of the council like to say a few words? Seeing none. Oh, go ahead, Council Member Showalter.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that this is one of the many, well, first, congratulations to Sky. We really think that your sticker is beautiful, and I know that a lot of people will enjoy it, so thank you so much for taking part in this and for your talent, sharing your talents with us. And I just also wanted to share that at Silicon Valley Clean Energy, we are the energy, we do buy the energy for the area and we buy clean energy for everyone. and it's a very important service and we take some of the extra profits that we get, we're non-profit, but we take some of the extra funding that we get with the difference between PG&E and other things and we put it back into the community with rebates to help people electrify like for heat pumps and for things that raise awareness about the importance of clean energy. And this is one of those programs. And I'm so glad that you took part and you won. We're gonna enjoy your sticker.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter. Anyone else? Seeing none, we will now take public comment for the presentation items. 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 in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in-person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes. Seeing none in person, we will now take virtual speakers. There looks like there's one raised hand. Madeline Lusante?

Yes, hello. I just wanted to confirm that it's all right to comment now on item six related to the keeper report.

Sorry, you're a bit early. We're still on item three.

Ah, my mistake. All right. I'll tune back in later then.

No worries. All right. And that seemed to be all the virtual speakers. We will now move on to item four, consent calendar. 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 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. Would any member of the council like to pull an item? Oh, wow, okay. Council Member McAllister.

Yes, I would like to pull items 4.4 and 4.5 for a briefing from our housing manager on that.

All right, Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to poll 4.11 for comment and action on the second recommendation specifically, 4.12 and 4.14.

All right, Council Member Showalter.

Okay, I have a few that I'd just like to comment on, and I was going to also poll item 4.12, but that's already happened. So should I go ahead with my comments?

Let's get everyone's, oh, actually, yeah, let's go with that, since no one else is polling.

Okay, all right, well, 4.7, that was a item on public engagement, put together a public engagement plan, and I just wanted to say that I really appreciated this report and seeing all the ways that we engage the public, and this is something that changes a lot over time as, social media evolves and different technologies are available. So we really have to evaluate it from time to time. Thanks to staff for doing that. And I hope that we may continue to add some things going forward like We'll talk about this a little later in the agenda, but maybe civility round tables and maybe more surveys. But all in all, I just wanted to say thank you to the staff. Then on 4.13, we have two grand jury reports. One was about potholes and one was about the VTA. And I wanted to say something about the value of grand jury reports. The grand jury is a group of individuals who does an investigation on topics that are believed to be an issue in the county. And they get to choose what those topics are. And I think that, It's always important to take a really good look at what they've suggested because they have the advantage of kind of looking from the outside in and maybe noticing things that those of us on the inside of the government don't notice. and particularly bringing to light better ways to communicate things or things that aren't communicated adequately. And that was a number of what this report was about. So I just wanted to kind of give a little commercial for the grand jury reports in general. I appreciated our responses to them. I thought they were very logical, like for the potholes. I mean, we're going to do some things to make our process clearer, which is good. We want processes to be clear. And then the other thing I wanted to say is that every year there is a call to serve on the grand jury, and it's usually a one-year thing. It's a big-time commitment, but it is a very good thing for public service. So if anybody out there is listening and thinks they might really like to dig into some issues, that's a good thing to serve on. And then 416, the Middlefield and Moffitt Sewer Replacement. Phase one of this project was started several years ago. It was designed to avoid possible issues with our creeks and make sure that our creeks are kept as clean, as a way to keep our creeks as clean as possible, and to make sure that our sewer practices are up to date. It's really important that the city just keeps up with all of this infrastructure. It's one of the things that we don't want to have to think about. But the reason we don't have to think about it is because we have good city staff that takes care of it. So I just want to say that I'm glad that this additional process, phase two, is going on. And I look forward to, to hearing that it's completed and learning about, as time goes on, other infrastructure improvements that are needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter. No other comments or polls? We will now take public comment for the consent calendar, including the items that have been polled. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person would like to provide comment on the consent calendar listed on the agenda? 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 three minutes.

I have, oh, someone disappeared.

I have, oh, Jamie or Jaime Ortega.

Good evening, council members. My name's Jaime Arteaga, and I'm with the North Core States Carpeting Union. And today I'm here to speak a little bit on 96 West El Camino project. I have a little bit of a concern. The reason I have concerns is In the city of San Jose, the general contractor for this, or the developer, had two big projects. And on those projects, there were serious wage-death violations. I mean, serious enough which I believe you need to look into. I respectfully ask that you look into them. Also, I'm asking for the city to pull the vote or table the vote on this project so you guys can receive more information on the aspect or pertaining to what I'm talking about. If you guys are willing to, we'd really appreciate it. Just think of it like this. If your son or daughter is working on this project and they were victims of wage theft, how would you feel? Just because of lack of worker protector language or the compliance aspect of it? you wouldn't like it i i wouldn't like if my children were victims of wage theft sons or daughters neighbors whoever constituents so please i ask you to please table the vote on this please thank you thank you next we have harvey mckeon

Hi, good evening, Council. I'm also from the North Coast States Carpenters Union, and we represent workers from all across NorCal up into the border, to the northern border. I want to thank the council, you know, because we've, you know, spoke to several members of the council ahead of this meeting about this project. And, you know, I want to emphasize that we're not, we're in favor of housing, you know, the Carpenters are well-known housing advocates. But the union has written to the city to inform that a recent Danko housing project in San Jose played host to a number of labor violation allegations. that are still being investigated by numerous state agencies. And this isn't an isolated incident. There's a Department of Labor records showing that wage and hour violations affected numerous workers on another Danko project. And it's worth noting that repeated violations like this are rare since wage theft is so seldom captured and punished by authorities. So this is really significant information we'd like you to know more about. And the recent projects I referred to in San Jose even saw workers threatened with referral to ICE in the context of them trying to enforce their rights. Employers, it goes without saying, should not be leveraging the specter of immigration enforcement to have a chilling effect on workers simply trying to be treated properly. Council should question whether this type of track record represents public benefit. Is this the type of job site behavior that should be invited into the community? Now the project in question already has significant public funds, both from the city and the county and the tax exempt bonds would add yet another layer of public subsidy on top of that. And as much as I'm a union organizer, I'm also a taxpayer. So I really want to question from two fronts whether a tax break is really merited here. In our view, this should not be the case at least until all stakeholders have had a chance to speak, until insurances have been given. as to the protection of workers so i'd say tabling this until next meeting seems like a very reasonable thing to do and uh as a reminder i think you know um mountain view has some good wage theft policies uh so does san jose that wasn't enough to stop what is alleged to have occurred from occurring and uh tear for hearings are not rubber stamp procedures um and you can look at other municipalities and public bodies where electors have voted no. We're not even saying vote no now, we're just saying table it so there's more time, so you get full information. It's what the community deserves, it's what the project deserves, and it's what workers deserved, and it's the day after Labor Day, so happy Labor Day. Thank you.

Thank you. We will, seeing no other in-person speakers, we will now take virtual speakers. I see Rashmi.

Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you. Great. Yes, Rashmi. I am a resident and a member of green spaces. I'm calling to speak about item four point twelve. The work plan for the Parks and Rec Commission. I would like to say that it would be nice to see The projects that are going to be implemented by the Biodiversity and Urban Forestry Plan get a chance to be reviewed by the Parks and Rec Commission. We don't see that on their work plan right now. April Webster sent a letter signed by me and many other folks and other organizations Outlining why this is important, mainly because if we want to be able to give input and review in a timely manner before the project gets too far along, then we need to be able to see it at that point, Parks and Rec Commission as well, before it comes to council. Usually when projects come to council, it's hard to make changes. The changes are made, they're costly. So it would be really nice to see the projects that are planned for the next year to have the PRC get the opportunity to review The other thing I would like to say is we had sent a letter to City Council this past summer with a concern about trees dying on Franklin Street and there are trees dying in Wisman Park, over 20 trees in Franklin Street and Pioneer Park and over 20 trees in Wisman Park and across Mountain View. um green spaces mountain view is pretty concerned about this tree death especially because the city has not yet identified the cause of death and we'd like to see that being addressed at a parks and rec meeting so it would be great if that could be incorporated into the work plan as well um that is all i have to say thank you so much thank you next we have april webster

Thank you. I'd like to start by, of course, echoing what- April, you're a little faint right now.

Can you get closer to the mic?

You bet. Is this better?

A little better.

Okay, sorry. I'll try to speak up. It's just my laptop microphone. So I wanted to start off by, you know, echoing what Rashmi had to say, and also just thanking staff for all the work that went into the Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan. And I think a lot of us are excited to see that put into practice. But as she mentioned, the concern that a number of us are having is that the projects and standards that will actually implement it and determine what those projects look like on the ground aren't showing up in the PRC, which is also doubling up as the Urban Forestry Board work plan. So that includes projects like the Rengstorf Green Complete Streets project, Evelyn, projects where we're making decisions about things like tree canopy, biodiversity, native planting, shade, green stormwater infrastructure. The standard details update is another really important example because those standards are going to shape how we design our streets and public spaces, and that also includes a lot of those elements I just mentioned in the other projects. So making sure that they're on the PRC's work plan so that they can be reviewed by those experts and advise the council. And then also giving it just an opportunity for the community to voice that early on before, you know, she pointed out it becomes baked in and it becomes a lot harder to make changes once it's presented to Council and and can mean you know going back and making a lot of changes which can cost you know take more time blow out budgets extend timelines and everyone becomes a bit more frustrated including the public so getting it in early is really important and then there's just a second letter that Rashmi didn't talk to because it's from more the bike walk mountain view Los Altos group and that is similarly this standard details update which applies of course to a lot of those active transportation and complete streets projects it would be great to see that added to their work plan as an action item and then have it be early enough that you know the even the folks who are advising on this can actually provide feedback and then staff will have enough time to respond and incorporate that feedback as well as the public's. We haven't consistently seen that with Complete Streets projects. In the past couple of years, they've come to the advisory body when it's almost finished and then it's just an information item. So if you could take that into consideration, we'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Hala Ashwani.

Hello, good evening. Can you hear me okay?

We can hear you.

Great. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. This is Hala Alshalani, a longtime resident of Mountain View. I am calling to support my colleagues from Green Spaces Mountain View and asking that you involve the public input and contribution to seeing how the biodiversity plan gets implemented. The PRC can definitely help with that. But seeing that the projects on their work plan will enable them to have an actual implementation actionable items in there. to have the plan become a reality. And then it's also a chance for us, the public, to attend these meetings and give input and get updates. And as the colleagues before me mentioned, when this happens during early on in the process, a lot of things can be improved and maybe can be done much more efficiently than if they, you know, are done towards the very end when the project evaluation and implementation comes to the end. I also would like to have the PRC get involved in the investigation of the library trees that have disappeared, the 26 or 28 trees that we lost all at once. We still don't know what the cause is. In fact, the subject has not come up in the PRC since the removal of all these trees. I believe that was in July, July 8th or July 9th. That was about a couple months ago. I think it's really important for us to stay up to date on what's going on. Some of us are worried about the trees across the street or even in Eagle Park because those are very similar to the ones that we lost in front of the library. And we just don't want to see actions like that, you know, removing massive amount of trees without really knowing what's going on. So one way for the public to be informed and to be able to get the information and give input is having this on the PRC agenda. So I would like to urge the council to give PRC more active role in what's going on in our city as far as trees and biodiversity planet and so forth. Thank you very much.

Thank you, we will actually go back to one in-person speaker that we missed, Travis Cooper.

Is this on?

Oh, there you go, now it's on.

My name is Travis Cooper. I'm a financial advisor for the California Municipal Finance Authority, and we're the bond issuer for the Danko project. I just want to add my two cents, I guess, that it's our understanding that those issues with the project in San Jose are being worked out and will be worked out within the next, finalized within the next couple of weeks. just a reminder too that the TEFRA hearing itself and the TEFRA approval is approving CMFA to issue bonds for the project this is a project that is applied to the state to SIDLAC and received allocation in the competitive process so the state has looked at the project and approved it to receive that that bond allocation and the approval by the council today will allow that those bonds to be issued by the the CMFA we have been quite a few projects with with DANCO and and They've been around for 40 years, a great company to work with. So that's all.

Thank you. I will now bring this back to council, I'll bring this back for council action and note that a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinance and resolutions attached to consent calendar items 4.2, 4.3, 4.6, 4.7 and 4.9. Just as a reminder to everyone, 4.4, 4.5, 4.11 and 4.12 have been pulled.

Do we have questions?

Wait, which one? Pulled that one. All right, and also 4.14 was also pulled. Do we have a motion for the balance of the consent calendar? All right, Council Member Hicks, go ahead and have the fun reading.

Yes, I'm volunteering to read, but you're going to have to help me as I go through them because I wrote the ones that are pulled on multiple pages. So I motion that we adopt item number 4.2, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuants under the Public Employees Medical and Hospital Care Act with respect to a recognized employee organization. Group 001, Safety Fire, to be read in title only, further reading waived, and adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuants under the Public Employee Medical and Hospital Care Act with respect to a recognized employee organization this time group number 002 safety police to be read in title only further reading waived also item 4.3 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of mountain view number one accepting and appropriating um 388 515 dollars IN 2022-2023 PERMANENT LOCAL HOUSING ALLOCATION OR PLHA PROGRAM FUNDS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN THE PERMANENT LOCAL HOUSING ALLOCATION SUBFUND. NUMBER TWO, APPROPRIATING $336,483 of the 2022 through 2023 PLHA program funds in the permanent local housing allocation sub fund to the 96 West El Camino Real affordable housing project. And number three, appropriating a $142,036 in PLHA program funds in the permanent local housing allocation sub fund to the home ownership assistance pilot program consisting of the reappropriation of $110,000 in 2019-2021 PLHA funds and the appropriation of $32,036 in 2022 through 2023 PLHA funds and number four authorizing the use of $74,132 in PLHA program funds for the eligible administrative costs consisting of the reappropriation of $54,136 in 2019 through 2021 PLHA FUNDS AND APPROPRIATION OF 19,996 IN 2022 THROUGH 2023 PLHA FUNDS AND NUMBER FIVE, REDUCING THE EXISTING HOUSING IMPACT FUND APPROPRIATION FOR THE 96 WEST DEL CAMINO REAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT BY 336 from $7,070,000 to $6,733,517, reflecting the replacement of these funds with 2022 through 2023 PLHA funds to be read in title only, further reading waived. um 4.4 and 4.5 have been pulled so let's see if there's anything else i have to read 4.6 4.6 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of mountain view authorizing the city manager or designee to reimburse the Mountain View-Wisman School District a total of $941,571.05 as the city's share of the cost to install the restroom facilities at Castro, Amai, and Landels Elementary School to be read in title only, further reading waived. and 4.7 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of mountain view adopting council policy a13b governing community engagement in public meetings to be read entitled further reading waived and lastly item 4.9 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of mountain view authorizing temporary closure of parking lots numbers four and eight from 7 30 a.m through 2.30 p.m. on select Sundays occurring between September 20th, 2026 and February 7th, 2027, not to exceed eight Sundays for use by the California Farmers Market Association to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Thank you Council Member Hicks and it is seconded by Council Member Kamei. Do we have any comments on the balance of the consent calendar of everything that hasn't been pulled? Seeing none, let's get ready for the vote. First vote back from summer break and it's unanimous, yay us. All right, so now we're gonna do the pulled consent calendar items. We're gonna start with 4.4. Council Member McAllister.

Thank you, Mayor. Actually, we can do 4.4 and 4.5 together because it's a similar request. And I should have mentioned it was not a, I shouldn't have pulled it, it just was a comment. But if you look at this, this is for bonding and funding two projects in the city of Mountain View for a total of $125 million. And that's a great sum of money. And we're only putting in $8 million to get these projects for each one. So we're putting in 16 and we're leveraging it to $125 million. So I thought that's very impressive for the city of our size to do that. And so I wanted to bring the gentleman that was helpful in getting this, the director of housing, to explain how this process works and how we are fortunate to be able to add 239 affordable units to the city.

Good evening, Wayne Chen, Housing Director. Thank you for the question. Yes, so both projects involve city funding, and city funding is necessary for an applicant, for a developer to apply for tax credits. Traditionally, tax credits have been the main source, the bulk of funding for affordable housing projects, and both of these projects involve city funding, tax credits, and then the company tax exempt bonds. So tonight's hearing, the tougher hearing, allows the tax credit, the tax credits and the bond financing to be issued so that the tax credit can be completed and awarded and paired with the bonds. So the summary of that is the city's funding was able to significantly help leverage extensive amount of funding in order to have two of our pipeline projects move forward, which is just one of several pipeline projects.

Thank you. Mayor, if you want, I can make a motion to pass this if possible.

Before Mr. Wayne steps away, I would love to ask him some questions that he provided us ahead of time of the council meeting. What are the safeguards in place to help prevent wage theft in our city, especially in use of our funds being used?

Yes, thank you for the question. I appreciate the information provided by the Carpenters Union. It's an important issue. Just using the project as an example, we meet with our developers and we talk to them about the process going forward through the construction period. for any project, but also with the 96 West El Camino Real project and Danco and our developer partners are committed to complying with labor compliance. So that's the first part, just making sure that we're meeting with them, ensuring that they know and they're expressing to us their commitment to labor compliance. There are at least three things that we've done in terms of our projects to help mitigate these issues and really ensure compliance and make sure that the rules are followed. The first is we have a labor compliance consultant. For example, for this project, 96 West El Camino, there'll be biweekly labor compliance site visits. The second item is that we have a construction management consultant who will do monthly visits in addition to the labor compliance visits. The third is the release of city funding. So the city will release funding only after it's been verified that the work being done is compliant with labor requirements. And the amount of funding is only going to be released in terms of the progress being made towards the construction of the projects. So we believe that with these three sort of safeguard provisions, we'll really be able to make sure that the projects and the developers are also working with their contractors and their subcontractors to meet labor compliance requirements.

Thank you, Mr. Chen. I do have a council member. I don't know. Oh, yeah.

Council member Kamei. She has a question for you. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much. So I just had a question because my understanding too is when the city has projects on our website, we have a kind of a status page and how the projects are going and so um you know i don't i think that information is readily available so hopefully people will be able to check back there in terms of status on the project if there's any types of concerns that pop up but i also know that we've been working with the county with the office of labor standards enforcement and so maybe you could talk a little bit about that and because I think there's safeguards there that they help provide to the city, the 15 cities in the county as we're looking at situations like this that may arise.

Yes, absolutely. Starting with your second question first, this project is part of our Measure A MOU, so it's one of our pipeline projects there. We know that the county is very aware of this, is working also very closely with this particular developer on this project. I won't speak to the particularities of how they sort things out there, but we know that they're very committed and they have their process there through the county. Regarding the website information, this will definitely be online. We're actually going through our housing department comprehensive website update where we are going to make the information much more user-friendly and we'll have information on projects as they move forward. So this project will be on our website as well.

All right, thank you, Mr. Wayne. Thank you, Council Member Kamei. I'll just say that it's not out of the ordinary. Well, it is a little out of the ordinary for projects to be essentially challenged or flagged during a TEFRA hearing. Famously, Valley Palms in San Jose used a TEFRA hearing for their tenants to get attention from their property manager to fix things. But otherwise, I do hope that this provides a spotlight on the developer knowing that whatever they manage to attempt to get away with in San Jose, they're not gonna get away with it in Mountain View. Eagle eyes, us right there. So with that, Council Member McAllister, I see you made a motion. And you're gonna have to also read the item too. And we have a second by Council Member Showalter. So take it away, Council Member McAllister.

Can I do four and 4.5 at the same, or are they separate readings?

As long as it's okay with the seconder. It was pulled, yeah. Okay. All right, go ahead.

Okay, adopt. Thank you, Mayor. Adopt the resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving the issuance of the California Municipal Authority exempt facility bonds and the aggregated principal amount not to exceed. And so if I'm doing two of them, should it say $125 million?

I think just follow the script on the thing. So it should be.

Okay, I'll read both of them then. For the purpose of financing or refinancing the acquisition, construction, improvement, and equipping of a rental housing project located at 96 West El Camino Real and certain other matters relating thereto to be read in title only further reading waive. Item 4.5. Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain proving the issuance of the California Municipal Finance Authority exempt facility bonds and an aggregated principal amount not to exceed $75 million for the purpose of financing or refinancing the acquisition, construction, improvement, and equipping of 87 East Evelyn Avenue and certain other matters relating hereto to be read entitled Further Reading Wave.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister. And we are ready for a vote. Motion passes unanimously. We will now move on to item 4.11. Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I'd like to... What I'm going to do, Mayor, is I'm going to start with a motion and then for the remaining recommendation, I'll give comments and then make a motion that is different from the staff recommendation. So first, I'm going to move to designate Councilmember Kamea as the voting delegate and Mayor Ramos as the voting alternate for the General Assembly meeting at the 2026 Cal City's annual conference and authorize the city's voting delegate or alternate to cast a vote at the Cal City's annual conference to reflect the position adopted by the city council. And then after that motion, I'll provide comments on the second recommendation, if that's okay.

Sounds good. Council Member Kamei, did you want to speak on this or the part two of whatever he's planning?

Well, I'll speak now if that's okay, Mayor. Sure. So in anticipation of perhaps what may be happening as the second part of the motion, I just was hoping that we could elevate our Peninsula Division Public Affairs Manager for our League of California Cities. His name is Montana Cruz. I believe he's watching in the audience. I asked him to be available if council had questions. prior to this item. So just like to make sure he gets elevated.

All right, I see him. Oh, there he is.

Wonderful.

Did we wanna handle this motion and then we can go on to part two and then?

Yes.

Okay, wonderful. All right, so we have a motion by Council Member Ramirez and seconded by Council Member Hicks. This is item 4.1 and a half. 4.11 and a half. Would you like to join us in the vote, Councillor McAllister?

Could you just give me an AI summary of what?

Staff recommendation in recs one and three.

We divided the question up for 4.11, so we're gonna do part two of 4.11. This is supposed to be the non-controversial, well, I wouldn't say controversial, but the easier part of the motion. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, colleagues. So the second recommendation is to adopt a recommended position regarding Cal City's annual conference resolution for 2026. That resolution is League Resolution Number 1, a resolution of the General Assembly of the League of California Cities calling for a working group to consider a state constitutional amendment or other form of initiative to ensure final local authority over housing and land use decisions. And the staff recommendation is to support this resolution. And what I would like to do is persuade my colleagues to take a position that is different, that we rather oppose this resolution for a couple of reasons. I have to say, when I was reading the staff report, I was very sad to see this recommendation and disturbed. And I thought a lot about, it's hard not to become sentimental at the conclusion of my time on council. And I think a lot about why I ran. And a big part of that was to create housing opportunities for residents like me, who grew up in substandard conditions. If I weren't in Mountain View, I probably wouldn't have been able to enjoy the good fortune that I've been able to enjoy. And part of that is like the kind of housing I grew up in, right? Many of us probably have grown up or have lived in at some point, gentle density or missing middle types of housing. I grew up in a duplex that is technically illegal. And I think a lot about why it is illegal. It's illegal because many, many years ago, decades ago, a different community in Mountain View felt that they didn't want to see that kind of development anymore. It was an exercise in local control. And what that local control was intended to do is make it harder for families like mine to move to Mountain View or to remain in Mountain View. That is how local control often is exercised. I'm not going to accuse any, okay, I am going to accuse some cities of being bad actors and Mountain View is not gonna be one of them. But I think a lot about some of our neighbors who are entitling a lot of housing, right? NEIGHBOR TO THE NORTH I THINK PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG ENJOYS I BELIEVE NINE SB 9 APPLICATIONS AND TEN BUILDERS REMEDY APPLICATIONS I THINK WE HAVE ZERO SB 79 APPLICATIONS AND ONLY FIVE BUILDERS REMEDY BUT PALO ALTO IS ENTITLING A LOT OF HOUSING NOT BECAUSE They want to, but because the state is actually doing something for the first time in many decades about our housing crisis. And if an initiative or a constitutional amendment like this were to pass, then cities like Palo Alto would not have to build any more housing the way they haven't over the past 20 some odd years. And when other cities like Palo Alto or Cupertino or Los Altos or Menlo Park don't build housing, that's bad for our residents. It means that there is less housing for people who want to move here or remain here, and that means prices go up. I was thinking a lot about what staff had elevated in the report that there is I think an effort to strive for balance and that this initiative would allow for the enforcement of constitutional and civil rights, fair housing requirements, building and life safety standards, and generally applicable environmental protections. But I don't think, that local control has been used to erode any of those things. There aren't very many examples of cities saying, we want to erode building and life safety standards, that we want local control so that way buildings are more dangerous, right? Or we want local control so that way we can provide fewer environmental mitigations. That's not what local control is used to do. What local control is used to do is make it harder to build housing. So I don't think that the balance that is referenced here is actually the point. I think the point is for bad actor cities, many cities up and down the state of California to continue to be bad actors, to continue to deny housing or to, you know, down zone or take whatever actions that we've been taking for the past several decades that have led to a severe housing crisis and to among the worst homelessness crisis in the entire country. So for those reasons and many others that I won't share, I think that we should take an opposition position and therefore I will move to, let me see if I could find the language here. MOVE TO ADOPT A RECOMMENDED POSITION OF OPPOSITION REGARDING THE CAL CITY'S ANNUAL CONFERENCE RESOLUTION FOR 2026.

THANK YOU COUNCIL MEMBER RAMIREZ. COUNCIL MEMBER COMEY.

Yeah, thanks so much. So I just thought it would be helpful because I was asking Mr. Cruz kind of how this came forward. It's been something that's been, I sit on the League of California Cities Board of Directors. So there's been lots of different conversations that we've heard on the board. And so now seeing the final agenda for the conference, I asked Montana if he could give some background and perhaps just some information on the item. Because I had asked, it's going to, I think, the housing committee next week. Is that right, Montana? Yeah, so maybe you could give a little bit, because there's no recommendation. the board will get a recommendation from the committee. And I was trying to get to see what that was. So I could inform all of you. But maybe you could give some background, Montana. And I just thought it would be helpful context because I myself was trying to understand the current status as it's been fast moving. Thanks.

Good evening, mayors and council members. So as you know, Cal cities forwarded one resolution to its 2026 general assembly and is asking each member city of the league of California cities to take a position or its voting delegate to take a position. So my purpose tonight, I'm just happy to give some background about who exactly has put forth this resolution and kind of the process behind it. So. just for background cal cities does have multiple policy making processes one of them is a is signing up to work on a policy committee or seven policy committees this is our annual conference policy making process where A city plus five, so it has to be six cities that support whatever resolution they take, can sign up to bring a resolution to the annual conference where it is then voted on by the General Assembly. So in terms of how much support this actually has, as of now, there are eight concurrence letters, six from cities and two from individual mayors, It is a filing requirement, not a vote count, and it doesn't really tell you much about how the full membership of Cal Cities will vote at the General Assembly. Has Cal Cities taken a position? Like Councilmember Kamei mentioned, not yet. Both committee recommendation lines in the packet you received are blank. The Housing, Community, and Economic Development Policy Committee will discuss virtually on September 17th. And review the resolution and we'll make a formal recommendation to the resolutions committee. There will be public comment and advanced registration is required. So if you'd like to tune in on that end, I'm happy to provide that to the mayor and council here. So, beyond that, there is no formal recommendation on the Cal city side. There has there been little discussion on the policy committee end. So. I think on our end, we just really appreciate engagement of cities and do appreciate Mountain View for taking this up at the council level and either supporting or opposing. But in terms of giving advice as to which cities are voting where for this resolution, I don't have that information at the moment. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Montana. Next we have Council Member McAllister.

Thank you, Mayor. I will not be supporting the motion. because Council Member Ramirez kept saying all these bad actors. I've been on council for 10 years and I have never heard the City of Mountain being accused of a bad actor. If anything, I've always heard Mountain View being a leader in building of housing. And so when that came up, I go, Mountain View will do what's best for Mountain View residents. And there's two ways to do it is by policies that we've done. And the second is the electric policy of where they elect people that have those kind of views. And you can control local input on housing through your election. When I heard of local control, I've seen there's a lot of things just more than housing that can be involved, and we get a lot of unfunded mandates, how we have to do certain things because of other actions that the state says we have to do, and yet we don't, we're taking money away from other important projects that we want to get done. And so we want to make sure that we have control of our budgeting and how we go forward. And in those ways that I mentioned, I think Mountain View is able to take care of local control and satisfy a lot of people's needs. And I'm very proud of what we've done in the past. So with that saying, I think Mountain View should take care of their own issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister. Council Member Hicks.

So I didn't hear Councilmember Ramirez calling Mountain View a bad actor, although I could have heard wrong. Maybe he can correct me. Maybe that is what he said. I guess I'm... I'm kind of uncomfortable with both sides of this. I'm uncomfortable with some of the examples that Council Member Ramirez did give of building housing. I don't find the builder's remedy projects that we have in our city to be, you know, I'm all for building more housing. I lived in San Francisco and Oakland and was very wary of moving to, thought that this city was not dense enough for me. So I would like taller buildings, but what we're getting from Builder's Remedy is not, and I thought that a place generated in as many jobs as Silicon Valley does would become denser and should become denser. The builders remedy projects we're getting where they are tall buildings with unchanged sidewalks that were designed to be adjacent to single family homes and probably will not, building like that over time will not allow people to get out of their houses and go on and walk down the street. I guess I'm a planner at heart and I need a little more local control than we're getting. And I don't think we're getting good solutions. So I would prefer a neutral position as opposed to the current motion.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks. Council Member Showalter.

Well, I think this is a very interesting discussion. I ran the first time to be pro-housing and I've continued to be pro-housing all the time I've been on council. I'm very proud of Mountain View's record for building. And I think that that's something we should be proud of. But I do think that we, I remember initially thinking, well, we'll build housing and we'll do it right, and we'll inspire our neighbors to come along. Yeah, you're laughing, like, well, I was just very naive. That inspiration that I hoped to happen, hasn't materialized. Now I do personally think that some of the bills that have come through and the requirements involved in them go over the top and they need to be fixed. But I think the initiative process is kind of like doing surgery with a machete. You know, I just really feel like we need to talk to our legislators and say, hey, this has gone too far. These are things that are wrong with it. I mean, for one thing, what do we get for being a pro-housing city? We work very hard to get that designation, and we don't get many kudos for it. And there's no, in many of these legislations that have been passed recently, there isn't any carve out if you're a pro-housing city. You don't get slightly more time to evaluate things, that kind of thing. So I do feel that some of the legislation like SB 79 have gone too far, but I just don't feel like the initiative process or a constitutional amendment is the appropriate way to fix it. You know, we're the political leaders of the city of Mountain View and I think we're supposed to be knowledgeable about how governance works and make it work for the best way for our community. And to me, the best way for our community is to be talking directly to our legislators and saying, okay, these bills have been passed, and now that they've been in place for a few years, here are some things that need to be tweaked. I think that is a much better way to go, so that's why I am opposing this. It's not that I don't think there needs to be some tweaks, I do, it's that I think that this methodology is not a good idea.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter. Council Member Ramirez.

Well, I see Vice Mayor Clark in the queue too, so I'll be very brief. I just wanted to say I really appreciate the way that you framed that, Council Member Showalter. I think we all lament the reality that the housing crisis is regional, right? That even if we built a lot of housing, if none of our neighbors are building anything, then we're barely going to make a dent in the problem. And I guess what I didn't mean to say was the builder's remedy is great, right? Obviously there are really terrible examples of misuse of the builder's remedy, right? The examples that you've brought up in the county, unincorporated county, you have farmland turning into hundreds of single family homes. And that's not really the type of development that we don't want to contribute to sprawl. I guess what I mean to say is in the very narrow example of Palo Alto, a lot of projects are being proposed and entitled, not because Palo Alto got religion and said, we want to be pro housing, but because they had no choice. and every multi-family development in palo alto that is built is good for our residents right cupertino didn't say we want valco to be redeveloped into you know 2 000 residential units they didn't have a choice right and if if an initiative like this passes or a constitutional amendment passes that means that there no longer is pressure put on neighbors who aren't interested in developing to help address a regional housing crisis. And I think that's why this is so dangerous.

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez, Vice Mayor Clark.

So it was mostly a question. So the league meeting starts on the 23rd. It sounds like, based on what Montana said, thank you for the information, there's some meetings happening next week. We have a council meeting on the 22nd, but that packet will probably go out on the 17th, which is the day that some of these conversations are happening. So that's a very long way of asking we've already designated our delegates. Is this a question that we could punt to the 22nd when we have more information about what's going on here or is that just a bad idea and we should just dispose of it tonight? Dispense with, not dispose. I don't know who's answering that question and it's okay if we don't have the answer.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark, Christina Gilmore, Intergovernmental Relations Manager. I'm gonna answer part of the question then ask Montana just to verify my information. My understanding is that as part of the process for preparing for the conference and General Assembly is that we have deadlines in order to submit both our voting delegate and alternate. And so I don't believe that affects how they will vote. So as long as I think we meet the deadline for submitting the names of the voting delegate alternate, if the council were to decide to take this item to the next council meeting, they could do that for discussion to provide direction. Is that correct, Montana?

That's correct, yes.

Thank you.

Great, thanks. Council Member Clark is reading my mind because I also think as part of it and remind me, Montana, if this is correct, so CalCities has it go to the policy committees and then we'll actually discuss it as a full board on Wednesday when we meet. and I wanna be able to vote on it when we meet. And so I will likely abstain regardless because I wanna make sure I have my Cal cities vote and then the cities vote, but obviously I will vote however my colleagues would like me to. But I would also wanna highlight one of the things I've noticed in my four years on the board is that this conversation keeps bubbling up and coming up. And so I read this resolution, which was the fine print, which is that it could be a working group or it could be, you know, what else did I say? Or like a committee might be formed. And I think that the idea was we wanted a seat at the table if there was gonna be a working group or a committee. There is a little bit of a Northern California, Southern California dynamic going on related to this issue as well. So it's not just a region specific. Who knows if we're gonna get quorum to even vote on it when it comes forward for General Assembly. But I think it's... the discussion keeps coming and the group is gonna continue to find different ways. And so I think that that was the thought process, but I know that the full board will take a vote on Wednesday, right, Montana? And I'd be interested to hear what the recommendation is out of the housing committee, which we won't know till the 17th. And that vote would be the recommendation to the full board.

So I'll just say, if the question tonight is, will I support a resolution? to advance a state constitutional amendment or some ballot-based strategy, the answer is no, I don't think that is the right approach to address this. There are other ways to address this that are more appropriate. And they do say it could be a legislative or policy-based strategy, but it leads with the advancement of a state constitutional amendment. So I think I know who probably suggested this, or I can surmise who suggested this. So my preference is to get more information and have this on the consent calendar on the 22nd. and handle it then. If we really wanna force the question tonight, then I'll figure out what I'm gonna do, or I'll just, I don't know. But anyway, my preference would be to see where this goes on the 17th. even if that information can't be added to the packet, at least we'll probably be able to receive a verbal update as part of the consent item, and we can make a decision then on that, because we've already taken the vote to do the time sensitive thing, which is to designate our voting delegates. That's my preference, but I put the cards on the table.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. Council Member Hicks.

Yes, so my previous, so I generally agree with what the Vice Mayor said. My previous comments did not mean that I thought a constitutional amendment would be the best solution. But I also wanted to register some, I think that some of the legislation has been very heavy handed and is not leading, I like great cities, it's not leading to great cities. It's gonna make people hate cities and move up to the hills if they can, or out to the suburbs, which are being developed at a very rapid pace. So, and I could say more on that, Good evening. So I would prefer to put it off and then excuse my, as the Vice Mayor said, and then excuse my naivety, do we have to take a position or can we trust our delegates to kind of surf the various, I mean, I think we've just chosen two very good delegates, to kind of surf the conversation and and go their own way, not, I mean, I would trust that. So just, I'd like more information. Do we actually have to take a position? If we do have to, I'd like to take it with more information. And I would like more information whether we have to take a position or not. But do we have to tell our delegates how to vote?

Mayor, Council Member Hicks, so no, you don't have to tell them how to vote, but I think typically when there have been issues of great interest or importance, it wouldn't be unusual for a council to weigh in to publicly say whether they oppose, support, or neutral on an item. For this item, As has been mentioned, we do packet the agenda on the 17th. So you have designated your two voting delegates. We can wait and see what happens. We can continue this part of the item until the 22nd and then just receive an oral update about what happens on the 17th if council's comfortable with that. But you do not have to, you're not compelled to take a position.

Thank you. So I will, I, prefer to wait for more information. And so for that reason, I will not be supporting the motion.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks. Council Member McAllister.

I like the idea that the Council Member Hicks mentioned about a neutral. And I don't know if it makes sense, but to me, if we took a neutral vote tonight, It was just Lisa, okay, we got something on the table and then when more information came, we could discuss it on that day and it's going forward. So, I mean, I do like pulling it and waiting, but that's why if we do a neutral, we do have it covered one way or the other. It covers all ideas and then we can confirm it when we get back together. But I do support giving our delegates direction on this particular item.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm appreciating the likelihood that the September 22nd agenda might be pretty heavy. And rather than relitigate this, I'm happy to change the motion. I clearly do not have the votes. but I'm happy to change the motion to adopt a neutral position so that way we don't have to spend time on September 22nd with the consent of the seconder. So that way we don't have to spend time on September 22nd to deliberate this further. I'll share though, I think like the challenge I have with the neutral position is I personally, because housing is a regional issue and I like the idea of taking a leadership role and saying we need to stand firm against something as dramatic. We may not like SB 79, but a constitutional amendment is dramatic on the opposite end. It means that there no longer is any way to pressure other cities that are not you know, contributing to the solution that are actively making the problem worse. There's no way to, there's no accountability for them either, right? I think another, I don't know if I've seen like oppose unless amended, maybe that's one more, you know, option that we could consider where, maybe the working group is fine, but we wanna take an initiative and a constitutional amendment off the table, right? If you wanna, like, as Council Member Showalter was suggesting, this is, maybe there are legislative fixes that we can pursue, you know, as a council or through the league, and that way we can find a healthier balance and we're not committing ourselves to, you know, a constitutional amendment that precludes the possibility further. So I would also be interested in hearing my colleague's thoughts on oppose unless amended to strike initiative and constitutional amendment so that way we can pursue legislation or some other policy.

Council Member Showalter. Well, I would question your ability to count, but given that. I'm counting three. You're counting, yes, three and then some wiggle worm. But I do feel like we wanna be really clear that we don't think that a constitutional amendment or an initiative process is appropriate. So I would like to make a friendly amendment that that's what we change the, and then we can get some more information the next meeting if it changes to that. I think that there is consensus about that and I also would like to ask the questions of my colleagues just for a hand raise. Has everybody talked to their legislator about how they think these bills are a little too much? I certainly have. Haven't you all? I mean, really? I think these have been a subject of conversation for the last two years, and most of us have weighed in at least socially with our legislators about this because it's such a big deal, right? So anyway, that's my friendly amendment that we change this to we oppose the use of a constitutional amendment or initiative. And we would like to revisit with new information at the next meeting. Is that acceptable to the maker of the motion?

Yes, if he gets us the votes.

All right, Council Member Kamei.

Oh yeah, and I think Mr. Cruz can help provide an update once the meeting on the 17th happens and let us know. I'd be curious if the housing committee might ask that be removed anyways. I think that's what I'm interested to see if that happens.

City Manager McCarthy.

Thank you, so council, I'm thinking too that another avenue we can pursue besides seeing how it plays out on the 17th, we can bring you the update on the 22nd, is to also engage with our state lobbyists on this issue and work with them on a way that we can try, I don't wanna use the word ensure, but try to advocate for Mountain View to have a seat at the table of whatever comes of this. So if it's clear that the council is not open or isn't interested in a constitutional amendment or initiative, but if there is some sort of committee or some sort of working group to discuss this issue, that at least Mountain View's voice could be heard. That's certainly something that we can also pursue with our state lobbyist, however, this plays out after the 17th. So just wanted to tee that up for council as well that I think there's some other avenues beyond just this one position, this one day. So that's what I'm hearing sentiment from council and I think that that could be a solution as well.

Thank you, City Manager McCarthy, Council Member McAllister.

So is there a revised motion presented at this moment?

I'LL LOOK TO THE SECONDER WHO I THINK MADE THE BULK OF THE AMENDMENTS, BUT IT WOULD BASICALLY BE OPPOSE THE USE OF A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT OR AN INITIATIVE. AND THEN RETURN ON THE 22ND WITH AN UPDATE, I GUESS IF THERE IS AN UPDATE THAT MAY MEANINGFULLY INFLUENCE OUR DECISION. AND THEN YOU DIDN'T SAY THIS, the city manager's suggestion that we work with the lobbyists to, if such a working group is convened, that we ensure that the city of Mountain View is a participant.

I will not oppose, I will not support this motion. The reason being is if push came to shove and they hear the constitutional amendment, I think there's gonna be more room for compromise that people are willing to go, Let's not go down that path. Let's get some compromises then. And so carrying the big stick might motivate others to come along and say, OK, let's find a solution. And so that's why I would rather keep that in there. Hopefully, it goes down. To Pat's comment about talking with our local legislators, we've been talking for two years. I haven't seen too much movement on the builder's remedy and some other things. So maybe that's a little slow process. So that's just something to think about. So thank you. That's it.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister, Council Member Hicks.

Yeah, I'm weighing this. So I may be in the minority. I definitely oppose a constitutional amendment or initiative. And I like the additions of returning with more information and engaging with lobbyists. I guess I'm not sure, and trying to get a seat at the table, I guess I'm not sure why we're, so we're sending our delegates out with, with we're telling them some things we want them to do. But in my mind, we also, as Council Member Showalter said, we want some tweaks to some of this legislation, and we're not putting that into this motion in any way. So I'm a little uncomfortable with that, that we know we need changes. Just saying that we should, when we're Yeah, mingling and networking with our elected officials in Sacramento, we should be talking to them, is not quite enough for me, because we're sending our delegates with the views of the council, and I feel like there's a piece of this that's being left out.

Is that a sign?

Yeah, it looked like Councilmember Ramirez had a response to that, so I'd stopped waiting for his response.

I don't want to interrupt your train of thought but I think implied in the direction is that we're not opposed to the convening of a working group and I'm looking so outside of the title which is you know so the title of the resolution explicitly says consider a state constitutional amendment or other form of initiative so outside of the title in the fine print it says or legislative policy, and then it says reiterates ballot-based strategy. So I think what we're saying is once you take a ballot-based strategy off the table, we're not opposed to a working group. If a working group convenes, we want to be at the table. But the working group would then be authorized to discuss legislative or policy solutions to this challenge.

So I would like to be clear that that's what I'm voting for.

I think that's what you're voting for. OK.

Okay, thank you.

All right, are we clearing my queue? Yay! So I'm glad that we managed to work that all out. I'm happy, we're such a great council. I'm happy to support the motion. I will also like to add in, I do find, quite honestly, Council Member Kamei is one of the most sophisticated council members in our region. I think she, She will be able to maneuver based on the direction that we will give for the voting unless something goes wrong and somehow I'm magically there too. Not as sophisticated but with good direction can work wonders. So I'm glad that we're taking the major concerns that my colleagues had had about the staff recommendation. and finding something that fits what we all want, because we're such a council. So seeing no other comments, we are ready to vote.

Can I hear the motion again, please?

SURE I'LL DO MY BEST COUNCIL MEMBER MCALISTER SO IT WOULD BE TO OPPOSE BASICALLY A BALLOT BASED STRATEGY SO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT OR AN INITIATIVE BUT ONCE THOSE ARE OFF THE TABLE WOULD SUPPORT A WORKING GROUP WITHIN THE LEAGUE OF CITIES THAT WOULD PURSUE A LEGISLATIVE FOR POLICY FIX That was the first part. The second part was the city manager's suggestion to work with our lobbyists to ensure that if a working group is convened, that Mountain View would have a seat at the table. And then Council Member Showalter, you had another suggestion that those were the two? Okay.

All right, now we're ready to vote. Motion passes 6-1. All right, now to our next consent calendar item. Item 4.12, Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. I think multiple members of the Council wanted to pull this for different reasons. I will share my very narrowly scoped reason, and then I think the bulk of the discussion will occur with John over there. My reason for pulling it was to provide, in addition to approving the work plans, some direction for staff, not before the end of this year, but when there's capacity to think about the roles and purviews specifically of the planning commission and the downtown committee. I think these are things many of us independently or in collaboration with members of those particular advisory bodies or hearing feedback from the community, I think many of us have come to the conclusion that it might be time to rethink the purviews and roles. The planning commission, I think other members of the council have observed, is particularly challenged with changes in state law that sort of diminish their ability to meaningfully weigh in. And I think it might be good for staff to think through how we might want to reimagine the planning commission, again, not this year, but with the next council. And with the downtown committee, one of the things that I saw in, I like the fact that the staff in the agenda will sort of keep a list of items for review. And there are, THERE'S A LONG LIST. ITEMS CURRENTLY ON FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS ON THE DOWNTOWN COMMITTEE AGENDA, THERE'S A STANDING LIST, RIGHT? VACANT STOREFRONTS, PARKING PLAN UPDATE, ART MURALS IN DOWNTOWN, PRECISE PLAN UPDATE, SCHOOL PERFORMANCES IN THE DOWNTOWN, STREET RETAIL COACH REPORT NEXT STEPS BIKE PARKING HISTORICAL MARKERS BUSKING ORDINANCE DOWNTOWN PARKING STRATEGY DOWNTOWN REST RESTROOMS DOWNTOWN CONDOS COMPOST AND RECYCLING BINS AND FIRE DEPARTMENT ACROSS THE PEDESTRIAN MALL AND I THINK WHAT THAT TOLD ME WAS WE MIGHT NEED TO RETHINK HOW THE DOWNTOWN COMMITTEE IS FUNCTIONING THE FACT THAT THAT LIST JUST GROWS AND GROWS AND GROWS AND I'VE BEEN MANY OF US READ THE AGENDAS FOR THE ADVISORY BODIES NOT SEEING THOSE ITEMS COME UP SUGGESTS MAYBE WE NEED TO think whether it's appropriately scoped. We might need to rethink membership. We might want to consider focusing it explicitly on the economic vitality strategy implementation. I don't wanna be prescriptive. I just wanna make sure that in the motion, in addition to approving the work plans, we authorize staff to think about those two bodies in particular and return to the council in 2027 with recommendations for an updated and perhaps more appropriate purview and scope.

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez. Council Member Hicks.

WELL, MAYBE SOMEBODY WANTS TO COMMENT DIRECTLY ON THAT. I WAS GOING TO MOVE ON TO ANOTHER COMPONENT OF THIS AGENDA ITEM. I GUESS WE CAN, IF OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO COMMENT ON WHAT I AGREE WITH WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER RAMIREZ SAID AND IF OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO COMMENT ON THAT I GUESS THEY CAN DO IT AFTER I TALK. SO WHAT I WANTED TO BRING UP ABOUT THIS ITEM WAS THE SCOPE PARKS AND REC COMMISSION WORK PLAN. I PUT IN A COUNCIL QUESTION ABOUT THIS AND I'M GOING TO READ FROM IT SO I DON'T LEAVE THINGS OUT. THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN CONCERNED ABOUT A BUNCH OF ASPECTS OF TREE PLANTING IN THE CITY OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS INCLUDING TOTAL AMOUNT OF CANOPY, ROLLOUT OF THE NEW BIODIVERSITY AND URBAN FORESTRY PLAN, RECENT LOSS OF CITY TREES AND HOW THE ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION PLAN CAN INCLUDE substantial tree planting, which I think is super important for pedestrians, probably bikers as well. So I asked whether how staff might recommend that we make sure those things are done well so that we don't just have a thick stack of plans that we don't implement and review. And staff proposed the following additions to the PRC work plan, I'm just reading them, that the PRC review and provide input on public works projects related to trees and biodiversity, also on relevant biodiversity and urban forestry plan action items such as landscaping standards guidelines and heritage tree ordinance updates on relevant parks and rec strategic plan action plan items such as the review of the recreation finance assistance program and on standard detail updates related to sidewalk and landscaping strips and green storm water infrastructure. So that was staff's recommendation addressing what has been a lot of community concern and we've received letters on I'M HOPING WE CAN JUST ADD IT TO THE MOTION AS STAFF OUTLINED IT BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO SAY THAT WAS DOABLE. DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ON THAT?

I DO NOT. I'D LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR MAKING THAT RECOMMENDATION. IN ADDITION, I'D LIKE TO make clear to you and also to the public. Not only do we create the Parks and Recreation work plan and over time, sometimes we bring in new ideas that aren't necessarily on the work plan early in the process and roll them into the process over time. And then for both the biodiversity and urban forest plan, staff is working to create a public dashboard. So that's one of the things that we committed to as part of the adoption of both of the plans. And so we will be creating this public dashboard that will show every single one of the action items. AND THEN THE PUBLIC WILL BE ABLE TO FOLLOW ALONG WITH US WHERE THEY ARE IN PROGRESS AND AS THEY GO THROUGH THE NEXT APPROPRIATE STEPS WHETHER THAT'S PRC CITY COUNCIL OR BEING COMPLETED BY STAFF SOME OF THEM ARE STAFF ACTIONS THAT DON'T REQUIRE ANY SPECIFIC FORMAL ACTION AND SO THE PUBLIC ONCE WE HAVE THAT UP AND RUNNING WE'RE WORKING ON SOME SOFTWARE IN THE BACKGROUND IN ORDER TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN THE PUBLIC ONCE AGAIN WILL BE ABLE TO FOLLOW ALONG AS WE GO THROUGH THOSE those action steps. And each of you were given an updated work plan that incorporates the items that Council Member Hicks had added to that. Thank you.

So we already have an updated work plan with that? Oh, right here. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks. Council Member Showalter.

Okay, well, I was delighted to see this updated matrix on the dais here, so I just want to thank you so much for that. I do think it's quite responsive to the letters and the comments that we've received, which is good. And also, I just want to thank you One of the things I thought was interesting is kind of how we perceive different things. And when I, you know, I'm sort of inside the city, I'm on the city council, and when I saw that that was on the list for June, that you would have the update of the annual report, I didn't assume that that meant that you were never gonna talk about it at a PRC meeting before that. but I think it's better to have it written out like this so that it's clear for everybody because there were other people who didn't perceive it that way. I mean, you can't, you know, to develop a report, you have to go through draft normally you go through drafts and that's just part of the process. So I think that maybe having this a little more explicit and better explanation really is valuable. Because this list, as it often is, is kind of terse and sometimes that leads to misunderstandings. So thank you for that. I think the other thing that's really important just really mirrors is how excited the community is about this biodiversity and urban forest plan. People are really jazzed about it and they love taking part in the development of it and they don't wanna give that up in the implementation. They wanna take part in the implementation as well. So I think that we should view this interest as a very positive part of the civic involvement of our community for biodiversity and for sustainability in general. And we really should be proud that there are all these people in our community who care about it and wanna help us work on it. So I think we've resolved it, great. I also wanted to talk a little about the civility, round tables and HRC. Those were one of my favorite things. Over the years, they've been one of my favorite things. And I don't see them on the list this year. And I did ask a question about that. And the answer, well, the answer was it just, they were doing public outreach other ways. And I just would like to have the, I would like to have the PRC reconsider the idea of civility round tables that are What, did I say the PRC? I did, I'm sorry, the HRC, the Human Relations Commission, consider civility roundtables. I thought they were sort of a discreet event that was maybe a little less elaborate than some of the ones that we've had more recently, although they've been wonderful. And we were able to have them on a variety of topics, and I think that's really valuable. A number of us were at the Mayor's Innovation Project this summer and one of the things that we heard about was the importance of civic engagement and different ways to do that and essentially civility roundtables were one of the things they highlighted it as a good practice. And another one was having regular surveys. So anyway, I just wanted to put in a plug for that. And then another thing, I'm not sure if it's in here, we had a request from certain people to, several people to have the evaluation of standard details associated with traffic improvements and particularly curves evaluated by the BPAC. And I just wanted to ask staff, is that something that is going to happen or do we need to add it or is it part of it? Yeah. Nice to see you, Jennifer. How would you expect that to be handled?

Good evening, Jennifer Ng, Public Works Director. So I have my cheat sheet here for standard details updates. So what we're looking at is updating a few standard details and creating some new standard details as part of this new project that was recently approved by the last budget. We're actually looking at kicking off that project right now in September of this year. So we'll be looking at standard street cross sections, vehicle and bicycle lane widths, sidewalk and landscape, strip, widths, for various typologies of streets, I should add. Driveway, site visibility, speed humps, green storm water infrastructure, which is a new detail that we currently do not have, a duck out, which is a new detail that we currently do not have, and bulb outs for corners, which is also new. We do have in our work plan that we would be developing these standard details for about the next six or so months, and then trips along the way before we get to approval would include the Park and Rec Commission, the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and the Council Transportation Committee.

That's good news, thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, so those are my comments.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter. I'll just mention very briefly, I don't have any prescriptive changes, although I'm supportive of all the prescriptive changes that my colleagues have brought forth. But I do want to kind of highlight that this is a big volunteer commitment that our community members have done, and I want to make sure that they are doing the things that they want to do. that they aren't limited to the work that they can provide to our city, to their community. I don't know if this is something that the, as we look at our volunteer framework, I view them as volunteers, so I feel like it should be covered under that kind of framework, the things that they want us to do. And they want to be helpful to our city. So I really hope that we find ways to make that happen. So Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna go ahead and move to approve the updated work plan as recommended by staff and then to add direction to the city manager to return to the council or in whatever capacity she deems appropriate with some recommendations for maybe a revised purview and scope for the planning commission and for the downtown committee. at her discretion, so 2027 probably. Yeah, but Chris will be mayor.

All right, are we ready to vote? Oh, and that was a motion made by Council Member Ramirez and seconded by Council Member Showalter, and it passes unanimously. Yay us. Next, we have item 4.14. I actually did not pay attention who pulled that. Oh. All right, Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. This one... FIRST, I WILL THANK THE COUNCIL FOR YOUR INDULGENCE THIS EVENING AND I APPRECIATE STAFF PUTTING SOME OF THESE TRICKIER ITEMS ON THIS CONSENT CALENDAR BECAUSE THE BALANCE OF THE AGENDA IS PRETTY LIGHT AND I WOULD HATE TO DO THIS TO YOU ON A HEAVIER EVENING. SO I APPRECIATE THE WORK OF THE CIVIL GRAND JURY AND THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE AND STAFF FOR PUTTING TOGETHER THE REPORT AND THE RESPONSE. speak to i suppose it's um civil grand jury finding seven and recommendation seven that's uh bta board appointing authority group groups two through five have different processes for making board appointments and the city is represented in appointing authority groups two through five should agree on a uniform process for making board appointments and i know that's going to be difficult especially by the stated time frame but one of the things that um i i had asked a series of questions that didn't quite make it into this report um but i've uh long long hand had interest in um challenges related to uh council member mccallister we might have differences of opinion on this one too um the group two cities working group which I understand includes the PAC members, right, the VTA Policy Advisory Committee members who are generally appointed by the mayors of each city. The problem I have with this group is that, to the best of the city organization's knowledge, there was never actually an action taken to authorize the working group to have for the city councils to delegate to those individuals the responsibility of selecting the group two cities board director representing group cities. I have many different challenges with how the group two cities operate. There's no accountability, there's no transparency, it's not a Brown Act body. So I had a good conversation with the city attorney about this earlier today. AND I THINK THAT OUR MORE NUANCED RESPONSE THAN SIMPLY SAYING THIS REQUIRES FURTHER ANALYSIS IS TO AT THE VERY LEAST MAKE SURE THAT THE BYLAWS ARE REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY THE CITY COUNCILS OF EACH OF THE GROUP TWO CITIES. RIGHT NOW NO ONE HAS EMPOWERED a group of these four to provide their own bylaws and then on behalf of us, right, to select the director who will represent us in really important multi-billion dollar votes. This is weird, right? Or like I feel like this is especially for that action to not withstanding, you know, a kind of a throwaway line in the bylaws that the meeting shall be, you know, noticed and made public, the reality is it's really not. You know, there are no minutes, right? Because it's not a Brown Act body, there's no, like, it's not really clear where exactly that meeting is noticed, how it's noticed, how members of the public are supposed to go in and make public comments and to, like, say, actually, I think it might be more appropriate for a board director to have this set of characteristics. I you know, in an ideal world, I think we the city council, each of the city councils would appoint the director because that director is accountable to us, you know. and not to a random group of people, whomever the mayor at a given point in time decides should be on the pack. And then John will remember this, I think there was also a kerfuffle several years ago when a Los Altos rep inappropriately made that vote. But there's no transparency and there's no accountability, so they got away with it. So my request would be, again, not this year, there's a lot going on, but for the, and actually I'll invite the city manager and the city attorney to help me with this direction because we talked about it, but we didn't really quite figure out like the best. We want to give staff some flexibility here, but I think it would be appropriate at the very least for the group two city councils to review and approve the bylaws. and to have some formal action clarifying that we are delegating to the PAC the ability and responsibility to select the director. That's basically what I would like some help figuring out how to direct.

Another option to consider is maybe have the Council Procedures Committee take a look at these bylaws and make a recommendation checking in with the city manager, whether that makes more sense to look at this process. And then once they have a recommendation, we could consult the other cities in group two.

I would be comfortable with that. So essentially this was the city manager's recommendation. So I'll move to approve the city manager's suggestion for how we might want the city council to weigh in and, approve the bylaws and then formally, if this is what the council wants, formally delegate to the PAC member the ability to vote for the board director.

Do you want to provide more flexibility to have the Council Procedures Committee review the bylaws and make a recommendation and they can? or the CTC, one of those committees could actually.

I think my preference would be give it to, I would rather empower staff to be flexible and determine what you think is the most appropriate process. I'm probably not gonna be in the council when this actually occurs. So if CTC or CPPC makes sense, I'm happy to defer to staff.

Council Member McAllister.

Having a little bit of knowledge on how this process works, I'd like to remind Council Member Ramirez that the Council does vote for the PAC member in the past. Once the Mayor, we put up the names for nomination for the Board Director, so from that then the PAC does vote for the Board of Directors. In essence, when you nominate someone, you are giving that person the power to do it. From the council, saying, we want this person to be our representative.

Except you don't have to appoint that person, right? The bylaws also give the PAC members the ability to decline to appoint those. But the deeper challenge, though, is that there was never actually a formal delegation of that authority, right? For everything else, you know... We just voted in a public meeting with the public's ability to participate to select our delegates to Cal cities and to approve a position. That was done here. But the problem with the current process is there was never that delegation of authority to actually vote for a board director. And that is a very important position, as you can attest. I've never been on the board of directors, but you have, right? Multi-billion dollar votes. At the very least, the public has a right dissipate in a process where we review the bylaws and approve them, and then formally delegate that responsibility

I cannot confirm that there never was authority, because it's been going on for a long time, so maybe at one point there was that authority given, and we just continue to go forward with it. It's a process that has maybe not the transparency that you like, but it has worked trying to get four cities working together, where everybody wants a piece of the power pie. So yeah, maybe it's not perfect, but it sometimes works, and sometimes it works for Mountain View.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister. I'm also supporting this motion. Largely, because I joined you in the northern county, and I remember when we did the vote. Now, I don't think it would be any different, but it did strike me kind of odd that it was in a meeting that I didn't, I don't know if that was actually a Brown Act. like like I literally like pop on on my phone sometimes on that I didn't know if that was like that that formal of a meeting kind of thing and like I've seen like colleague and not colleagues counterparts in other cities either not show up or unclear on who's technically showing up on their city or that they're there and their camera is off so I And there's very important things happening in that meeting. Usually most of the time it is getting updates and going over what's the next agenda for VTA. But there is that one meeting where we actually have to take some kind of formal vote and then which we did, I think we voted for like the mayor of, well, no, former mayor Weinberg to be like the delegate and then you were the alternate and that seemed pretty straightforward to me but like if we had a council, a neighboring city's council that was a little bit more chaotic that we have seen in other cities, it could be a problem if we didn't have a more formal process. We're just very lucky that Mountain View is a very sane and good and collaborative city. Vice Mayor Clark.

to clarify what we're voting on now so 4.14 i just want to make sure we are submitting the response the grand jury as drafted by staff and your side quest is a separate direction to uh thank you for the correction yes so a move to approve the staff recommendations and then the additional direction for staff to bring to a council subcommittee um the bylaws for review and then take the other actions necessary to ensure that there's Council formal support for the bylaws and an appropriate delegation of authority to the PAC member, if that's what the council wants for the selection of the group two cities board director. Got it.

All right, and we are ready to vote. And motion passes unanimously, yay us. So now we have completed our, wait, did we complete the calendar? Yes, we completed our consent calendar. It only took a couple hours. All right, so we will now move on to item five, oral communications. 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 City Council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during the session. 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. Each speaker will have three minutes. Next we will have, so our first speaker will be Lowell Chapman.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. It's Lonnie L. Chapman, actually. Yeah, that's an N instead of a W. But I'm a facilities manager for a company called Ignite. We are on the corner of MIDDLEFIELD, WEST MIDDLEFIELD AND TERRABELLA AVENUE AND THE ISSUE I BRING BEFORE YOU IS THE RV PARKING THAT'S ALONG TERRABELLA. THE ASK IS THAT THE CITY TAKES ACTION TO ADDRESS THE PERMANENT CONSTRUCTION OF THE RVS particularly in front of our building and um if you drive down terra bella you'll notice that all along the street the the rvs are parked and they're packed in right and it's the same rvs now i do understand that there are rules regarding how long you can be parked in one particular location I DON'T KNOW IF OTHER COMPANIES HAVE ADDRESSED THIS WITH THE CITY AT ALL, BUT IT IS AN ISSUE FOR US AND WE'RE HOPING THAT THE CITY CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT. A COUPLE OF CONCERNS THAT WE HAVE, FIRST AND FOREMOST, IS THE SAFETY OF OUR EMPLOYEES. folks exiting the parking lot either on bike or by car, the view is obstructed with the RVs being parked along the street, right there along the side of the street there. So I've had many employees tell me that they've had issues at times with being able to see exiting the parking lot. So that's first and foremost for us, we wanna make sure our employees are safe, they can get home safely. The other thing is the impact on employee recruiting, retention. If you can imagine folks coming up to our building and you're seeing these RVs just parked along the road there, it does really kind of impact. make for you know not necessarily a pleasant view now I'm saying this understanding that you know for some of these folks it's home so I'm not making light of that at all but for us as a company doing business in Mountain View there is an issue there and where we are hoping that it can be addressed we do have a couple of recommendations but I do understand also that the RULING THAT WAS PASSED ALLOW THESE RVS ON TERRABELLA I THINK IT EXPIRES IN FEBRUARY AT THE END OF FEBRUARY OF NEXT YEAR SO I DO WANT TO UNDERSTAND IF THERE'S ANYTHING IN PLACE OR IF THE CITY PLANS TO DO ANYTHING BEYOND THAT OR WHAT WHAT THE PLAN MAY BE OR IS THERE SOMETHING THAT WE CAN RECOMMEND OR SUGGEST THAT THE CITY WOULD TAKE INTO ACCOUNT. thank you uh councilman mccallister may have some questions for you i just have one question do you see unattached trailers in front of your property absolutely yeah they're they're unattached and um i think the the ruling with that is three or 72 hours and um after 72 hours you have to move a certain distance but a lot of these some of the ones more particularly the mobile RVs are maybe moving 20 feet or something like that, but there are some that are unattached. Thank you. Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you. Next we have KBT.

Okay. So I'm speaking to you on this because the survey is still up through the 11th, I believe. And I just, I don't like any of the alternatives either. I saw you guys had the meeting earlier. I missed the previous meeting where public could come in. And I saw that a lot of you were like, well, I don't really like this one. I don't like that one. Can we combine them? I have a completely different alternative that I would like to splice from alternative A. Our primary objective is that Rock Street, that intersection is one of the most dangerous intersections on all of Rangstorff Avenue. I have to cross it with my young children, six and eight years old, every single weekday, and one of the crossing guards, Mark, he actually agrees with me, and we came up with this separately on our own, so like minds, that that crossing has to be addressed in the plan, and it really isn't properly addressed in either of the alternatives. If we could move on to the next slide, that'd be great. I can move on. So my very high tech labeling of the plan is the point I want to make especially is that Rock Street should be turned into a flashing red lights, which is also used on El Camino and Sunnyvale, so it's not unheard of, that all vehicles must stop. because frequently vehicles go through 35 to 45 miles an hour. And frequently when Mark the crossing guard is trying to help us cross in the morning, he is literally putting his body out on the line and both of us are getting potentially almost hit because people either try to fly through because they don't wanna stop or they literally try to turn left or to turn right in front of us or behind us. So I want it to be red flashing lights. and also have it designated as an actual school zone with the appropriate fines and tickets associated with that. Next slide, please. For these other intersections, I want to just maybe propose a simple addition of having flashing, or not flashing, sorry, flags that people can use to help them cross and have the entire street be 25 miles an hour. You will not make the streets safer unless it is slower. And people, it's 35, but people go 45, even 50. I'm not kidding you. It happens constantly. And if a police officer was stationed right there on right by that Rock Street in Middlefield, oh man, they'd get so much revenue. And so I really wanted to extend a school zone from Old Middlefield Way all the way to Jane Lane. I want that to be a school zone because there are children crossing to Crittenden. There are children crossing to Monteloma where my children go. And there are also tons of bike commuters that use that avenue, which is a designated bike avenue, to get to the different Caltrain stations. So I really urge you guys, please consider that when you're looking at these alternatives because neither of A, B, and C are enough, and they don't actually address one of the most dangerous intersections, which is at Rock Street. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we will now take virtual speakers. Seeing none, that ends public comment and oral communications. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna actually call this a break and reconvene at 9.05.

I move to adjourn the meeting.

All right, I'm gonna call this meeting back to order. It is 21.07. So now we're gonna move on to item six, 6.1, public hearing on downtown business improvement area number one. Council member Clark, do you have an announcement to make?

Yes, I am recusing myself from participating in any discussion or determination about the downtown business improvement area number one due to the proximity of my personal residence to the improvement area.

Thank you. Council Member Hicks, do you have an announcement to make?

Yes, I'm also recusing myself from participating in the discussion and determination about the downtown business improvement area number one because of the proximity of my personal residence to the improvement area.

Great, Economic Vitality Manager Amanda Rotella and Community Development Director Christian Murdoch will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Tonight we are holding the first public hearing for the annual renewal of the downtown business improvement area number two, or number one, starting with one. The second public hearing will take place on October 13th to approve the renewal. BIA number one includes all businesses along Castro Street and side streets between View and Franklin and Evelyn and El Camino Real. The BIA assessments generated from area one are used for specific programming and promotions to support the downtown businesses. And the annual report prepared by the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce is included as attachment three in your packet. And the 2027 projected revenues for BIA number one are $45,000. Tonight, there are two recommendations for council consideration. First, to approve the Chamber Annual Report for 2026. And second, to adopt a resolution declaring intention to levy an assessment in business improvement area number one for 2027. And this concludes staff's remarks. And myself, Community Development Director Christian Murdoch, and Chamber CEO Peter Katz are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Does any member of the council have any questions? Any questions? Oh, Council Member McAllister.

I read in the report that the Chamber decided not to raise fees. Is that correct?

That's correct. Fees are not being raised.

Okay, is that the Chamber's decision or is that the City's decision?

We work very closely with the Chamber and look at, you know, the fee structure each year. So I don't know if Peter would like to speak to it, but, you know, we collaborate with the Chamber in preparation of this item and the annual renewal.

Good evening, Peter Katz, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce. The fees are actually done by a vote of the members of the Downtown Business Association. So it's not something that the Chamber would do unilaterally. It's something that we would call for a vote of the members.

And if I could just add, sorry, and so given that there's quite a bit of work that has to go into calling a vote, preparing the ballot for the businesses, the outreach, we've decided in past years instead to pursue a more comprehensive analysis of all of the assessments in the downtown. The city's in the process of bringing on a consultant team to help us do that. So we're looking to take a more comprehensive approach that looks at how much, what are the fees being charged, what they're being used for, and to bring forward some more comprehensive updates that will better serve the downtown is our hope.

So is the goal of this outside consultant to determine to raise, what fees should be?

It would be a variety of things. We'd look at both the structures we have now in terms of the business improvement areas, the parking and maintenance district, and we'd evaluate whether those are indeed the right structures that we should use or if there are other types of assessments or improvement areas. Property-based improvement districts or business improvement districts are kind of a newer model, and we've seen jurisdictions around us utilize those. So we'd be looking to see, you know, is there a better way to achieve more of our goals and and as we've seen and you've seen in this packet you know it's a relatively small amount that is raised each year both the chamber and the city have acknowledged that this the resources we have do not match the the needs and that we're hearing from the business community and the and the community at large and about downtown and so we're looking at ways to better resource the downtown and so we'll be looking at other models to do that

When was the last time the fees were thought to have been increased? Well, when was the last time the fees were increased?

They have never been increased since they were first incepted.

Okay. Also, there was another line in the staff report where it says that the goal, the responsibility of this chamber is to supply support. Is there a board of directors for the DBA?

There is not a board of directors for the DBA. There is an advisory council. The DBA no longer is an independent 501c3. That happened when, during COVID actually, when they came to the chamber and basically said, we can't run it anymore.

So the chamber is the executive, you're the executive director of the DBA?

being as the DBA is not an official entity, I don't know if that's a fair statement to make. What I can say is that the Chamber of Commerce is the body that is disseminating and using the funds that are collected by the BIA and what actually has been happening in actuality is that the Chamber has been using Chamber resources to supplement some of the things that are specified in the BIA.

And did I hear you say that the downtown businesses want more resources?

WE'VE HEARD IN JUST OUTREACH THAT THE CITY AND THE CHAMBER TEAM HAS DONE AND WE JUST HAD A DOWNTOWN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION MEETING THIS MORNING. WE'VE HEARD OF A VARIETY OF ITEMS THAT WE'VE HEARD FROM THE BUSINESSES THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO SEE AND THEY FALL INTO CATEGORIES OF ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING IN THE DOWNTOWN, ADDITIONAL MAINTENANCE, YOU KNOW, VARIOUS PLACEMAKING INFRASTRUCTURE TYPES ITEMS. kind of compiled a list of things that we've heard from the downtown businesses and from the community that they would like to see for downtown.

And are they willing to pay for them?

Well, that would be part of the... Did anybody say we're willing to pay for it?

Tell us how much?

I've had a number of conversations with businesses that have asked that or have similar businesses in other jurisdictions where they have things like a property-based improvement district and are paying a higher annual fee. and have expressed that they'd be willing to pay a similar amount. That being said, part of what we bring the consultant team on is to do that outreach and analysis. So not only are they looking at what models might be appropriate here and applicable to Mountain View, but assist us in conducting that outreach and having those conversations of how much are you willing to pay and doing that analysis of these are the needs, and this is how much we can raise realistically, and helping the city navigate putting together a package that would most likely be supported by the most number of businesses or property owners, depending on the type of assessment.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to add a little bit of a history and perspective to this whole situation. And that is that when the BIA was originally formed, certain conditions were in place and an independent body, the downtown, actually it was the Central Business Association at that point, was formed. And it was put together to market downtown. And since 1996, I believe, is the last, it was when BIA 2 was put in place. There were actually two, it happened in two tranches, one in the 80s, one in the 90s. And by the way, the second BIA was put in place because the first one wasn't doing enough. And so for years, that was the way it operated. And part of the challenge is that because you need an entire vote of the downtown businesses in order to increase fees, it was easier to kind of kick the can down the road than it was to really try and go back to the well, if you will. um during covid when the cba came to the chamber and basically said you know you guys tend to put on events better than we do you tend to do more to support downtown than we do you have more resources at your disposal How would you feel about, you know, actually, you know, kind of helping to do the back end of running the organization? And we said, you know, if you're actually looking to close it down and it's going to go away and the businesses have no support whatsoever, yes, of course we will step in. And we did. Since that time, we have tried to do everything we can to resurrect the Downtown Business Association. At the time that it came into our purview, if you will, they had gone from a membership of about 20 to three. they had burned through the 40 grand with one advertising campaign, and that was it. Because it was about 40 grand was how much they were receiving from BIA funds at that point in time. And so in the six years since, what we have been working very, very closely with, and again, we do it with the city's support as well, is how can we do a better job of serving the downtown businesses, listening to the downtown businesses, making sure that they are secure and growing. And of course, with COVID thrown in, there was a whole other set of circumstances that had to be dealt with. But the most important point here is that I believe we're at a point in what Amanda has been saying is true in that, you know, we've talked to a lot of the businesses, we've talked to them about what they could use, how they could better be served, et cetera. And if you ask the average business on the street, you know, are you a member of the DBA? They'll probably say yes, because I'm a downtown business, not because they necessarily equate it with paying a fee. And if you ask them who runs the DBA or how does it work or whatever, I doubt many of them could answer that. And so one of the most important things that has to happen, both from the city and from the Chamber's perspective, is education, is really informing the businesses as to THE FACT THAT YOU ARE PAYING SOMETHING ON YOUR BUSINESS RENEWAL EVERY YEAR. AND WHAT DOES THAT GO TOWARDS? AND WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THAT? AND THAT IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT THE CONSULTANTS HELP WITH IS THAT COMMUNICATION EFFORT, THAT EDUCATION EFFORT.

WHO'S GOING TO PAY THE CONSULTANT'S FEES?

SO THE CITY, WE APPROVED AS PART OF OUR BUDGET RESOURCES TO GO TOWARDS THAT CONTRACT.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister.

Do we have any other questions from our colleagues? All right, 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 three minutes.

Any speakers?

No speakers. We will now take virtual speakers. Seeing none, I will now bring the item back for council questions and deliberation. Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should include also reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. I see Council Member McAllister has made a motion, seconded by Council Member Kamei.

Go ahead, Councilman McAllister.

Can I do this like we did 4.4 and 4.5?

No, technically we can't.

Okay. I'll read the motion then. Yes, please. Okay. Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving the annual report of the Downtown Business Improvement Area No. 1 and declaring its intention to levy assessments for 2027 to be read in title only, further reading waived, and set a public hearing date of October 13, 2026.

Once again, that was seconded by Council Member Kamei. We are ready for a vote. Motion passes, five yeses, and then two people recused. We'll now move on to item 6.2. Let's bring back our colleagues, Council Member Hicks and Vice Mayor Clark.

Come back.

Now there were some questions asked during the last portion that may have, okay, just making sure. All right, item 6.2, public hearing on downtown business improvement area number two. Economic Vitality Manager Amanda Rotella and Community Development Director Christian Murdoch 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.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Tonight we're holding the first public hearing for the annual renewal of the downtown business improvement area number two. And the second public hearing will take place as well on October 13th, 2026 to approve the renewal. BIA number two includes businesses on the 1, 2, and 300 blocks of Castro Street, and the BIA assessments generated from this area are used for specific programming and promotions to support the downtown businesses. As you know, the annual report prepared by the Chamber is included as attachment three, and the projected revenues for BIA number two are around $15,000. And again, there are two recommendations for council consideration. First, to approve the chamber's annual report for 2026. And then second, to adopt a resolution declaring intention to levy an assessment in business improvement area number two for 2027. That concludes my remarks. And we are here again to answer any questions.

Thank you. Does any member of the council have a question? Council Member Hicks.

Yes, thank you. Well, happily, while I was recused and you were talking about the programming in general that applies to both areas, the television was on in the green room, so I got to see what you were talking about this time. And one of the things you brought up was that some of the downtown businesses were interested in placemaking infrastructure. Can you give me some detail on what that might be?

Yeah, so we continued here, you know, in that category, things like additional art fall into that. We've had feedback about, you know, more activities for kids in the downtown. So we've gotten feedback on a variety of things that I would consider in the placemaking category, some of which we've been able to already move forward with, with some of the new art pieces that are in the downtown, the additional games that have been installed. But those are the kind of the big buckets that I've heard. I don't know if the chamber has anything generally that captures it.

So mostly art and games, okay. Okay, that was my only question, thank you.

Any other 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 or turn in a blue speaker card. A timer will be displayed on the screen. Each speaker will have three minutes. Seeing no public comment, we will now take virtual speakers. Seeing no virtual speakers, I will now bring the item back for council for questions and deliberation. Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. And I see a motion has been made. Oh, I see Council Member Showalter.

Now I just wanted to comment that this is very timely, very timely discussion because this coming weekend is the Art and Wine Festival, which is when kind of all of us go and celebrate in downtown. And I will be supporting the motion.

Thank you. And we have a motion made by Council Member McAllister, seconded by Council Member Kamei. Go ahead and read the resolution, Council Member McAllister.

Thank you, Mayor. I adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving the Annual Report of the Downtown Mountain View Business Improvement Area Number Two and declaring its intentions to levy assessments for 2027 to be read in title only, further reading waived, and set a public hearing date for October 13, 2026.

And we are ready to vote. Passes unanimously. Yes, now item 6.3, fiscal year 2025-2026, consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, keeper. Housing Officer Alec Vibrio and affordable housing manager Julie Barnard 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.

Go ahead.

Hello, honorable Mayor Ramos, Vice Mayor Clark, and council members. I hope you're all doing well. My name is Alec Fibrill, housing officer, and I am joined by Julie Bernard, the affordable housing manager. Today, I will be giving you a presentation on the federal fiscal year 2025 through 2026 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, also known as the CAPER. The city receives grant funding on an annual basis from the US Department of housing and urban development or hud for two programs, the Community development block grant program and the home investment partnerships program known as CDB G and home for short. To receive this funding, HUD requires that the city complete an annual report called the CAPER, which summarizes the accomplishments that were achieved using CDBG and home funding over a fiscal year and in alignment with the five-year goals established in the city's consolidated plan and how effectively those funds are meeting the needs of the community. The fiscal year 2025 through 26 caper covers the period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026, and reports on the accomplishments for the fiscal year 2025 through 26 annual action plan, which is also the first year of the 2025 through 2030 consolidated plan period. Note that the CAPER is completed on a required template provided by HUD that includes predetermined questions and tables to be completed to describe the city's overall housing and community development initiatives. In addition, the city provides general fund grants to support additional public services, but these are not reported in the CAPER as it focuses on CDBG and home funds. As required by HUD, the CAPER process includes a 15-day public comment period and a public hearing. Public notices were published in the Palo Alto Daily Post and the Mountain View Voice to notify the community of these opportunities to provide input. Following tonight's public hearing, staff will finalize the CAPER and submit it to HUD by the September 30th deadline. The annual action plan is typically drafted and approved before the city receives its actual annual CDBG and home allocations from HUD. or receives program income during the year. Therefore, the initial funding anticipated and allocated often differs from the final amounts received or made available through the fiscal year. After accounting for the final prior year unexpended funds and program income, the city had approximately 2.6 million in CDBG funding and 2.3 million in home funding available in fiscal year 2025 through 26. In total, the city's CDBG and home funded activities served 4,323 Mountain View residents, 84% of whom were extremely low income. Home affordable housing capital funds were expended on the Lot 12 project, which began construction in March, 2026 and is anticipated to be completed in 2028. The project will provide 119 deed restricted rental units to households earning at or below 60% of the area median income plus one manager's unit. CDBG capital funds were carried over to the fiscal year 2026 through 27 for rehabilitation projects at Mid-Penn affordable housing communities, which are anticipated to begin this October. The minor home repair program administered by Rebuilding Together Peninsula provides critical repairs at no cost to low-income homeowners who cannot afford to make repairs or modifications to their homes. This reporting period, Rebuilding Together served five households. In fiscal year 2025 through 26 the boost program operated by upwards care successfully launched in mountain view. By providing technical assistance to eight micro enterprise childcare providers, the program helped to create jobs and expand childcare opportunities in the city. CDBG funding was provided to local nonprofits for public service programs which were successfully able to help 4,300 low-income residents of Mountain View over the fiscal year. These programs provide services that help seniors, people at risk of homelessness, and people with disabilities. Staff recommends that council hold a public hearing to receive public comment and approve the CAPER to be submitted to HUD by the deadline. This concludes staff's presentation. Thank you for your time and we are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Does any member of the council have questions? Council Member Hicks.

So I asked this as a written council question, but I guess I have a follow-up question. The staff report said that the minor home repair program had lower than anticipated utilization. And I asked, can you reallocate that money? And the staff said, that they could and they have in the past. I guess the follow-up question is would you recommend doing that? Are there other, for example, homeless prevention comes to mind? It just seems to me that if there's not much demand for minor home repair and there's a lot of demand for homeless prevention, it might be good to move the money over. Is that something that staff would recommend or support or recommend against?

I think when it comes to the funding levels for Rebuilding Together Peninsula, we like to try to get as close as possible to the amount that they're actually able to spend. For fiscal year 2026-27, we chose an amount of $100,000 because that was approximately the amount they were able to expend in fiscal year 2024-25. So based on historical data, that's our reasoning for choosing that number. When it comes to taking funds perhaps from that program and moving it towards homelessness prevention, that is something that we would not be able to do because we already allocate funding to the maximum amount for public services as per the guidelines by HUD.

So when the answer here says that, so that was clear, but when the answer here says that it has been reallocated in the past, that was to some other program that was not at its cap.

That's correct. If we were to reallocate funds from Rebuilding Together Peninsula, it would need to be towards an uncapped funding category, which might include capital funding or economic development.

So do you recommend either of those, or either or both? Something that there's little demand for, if there's a lot of demand for other things, I wouldn't want to give to things that there's not that much demand for.

I think staff are working very closely with Rebuilding Together Peninsula to try and identify more clients. We're having a collaborative process and their staff are working really hard to get the word out and let people know about this great program that they provide. As it currently stands, we're working hard to identify more clients so that they are able to fully expend their funds.

Good evening, Julie Barnard, Affordable Housing Manager. If I can just sort of maybe reiterate also, CDBG funding is a little tricky in that there's certain buckets that have thresholds, and it's not as simple as sort of we can't spend enough here and just dropping it somewhere else. We have to find another program that would fit within like a capital project, and usually that's like in the form of like affordable housing. the sort of small amounts moving around doesn't really make a bigger difference when we're talking sort of $10,000 versus $400,000 that we have as like a capital projects balance, so to speak. So it's very difficult to just sort of move things across categories. Certainly not during a program year, but from program year to program year, we do work with our subrecipients that maybe aren't spending as much, and then we would reallocate to maybe some of the other capital projects that we're contemplating for the program year.

Okay, and it looks like maybe Mr. Chen has a comment as well.

Good evening, Wayne Chen, Housing Director. Yeah, so just to echo everything that Julie and Alec mentioned. So the short answer is yes, there is the ability to do so. The more nuanced answer is there are various considerations regarding caps, whether any organization wants the funding, et cetera, et cetera. And so in the past we've had, certain barriers to actually allocating funding to projects because folks may not have wanted to receive the funds. And so that's another part of the equation, which organizations are interested in doing work and serving the residents of Mountain View, along with the other factors that Ms. Barnard and Mr. Viparo mentioned.

Well, it's good to hear the background that you're weighing lots of alternatives and maybe we'll see it reflected in the next year sort of information on demand, whether you're able to drum up more demand or not. Thank you.

All right, next Council Member Showalter.

Hi, I also ask a question. I was interested about where the program income came from, and you responded that essentially it was the payback on loans, and the one you gave an example for essentially was a 30-year loan, and I just wondered if that's standard when we make a loan for affordable housing, or do the periods change, or could you tell us a little bit about how the loan and the loan payback process works?

Thank you for the question. Our current loans in my tenure here in the city of Mountain View and maybe a few years preceding have been 55 years repayment. I do think that older loans, like in the 90s, certainly with CDBG and HOME, in my experience, have been around 30 years. Cities can structure each loan depending on what they may be, usually from 15 to 55 years, depending on the amount, depending on where they're the type of loan it would be, and by that I mean as an acquisition preservation type loans. I've seen those be generally shorter terms than for full construction. I don't remember the loan that we gave the example of, whether or not that was an acquisition preservation. Okay, or whether or not it was new construction, but I think long story short, like generally the city could contemplate their own loan terms in terms of the duration of years for repayment or whether or not it's forgivable.

Thank you.

Council Member McAllister.

Yeah, I had a clarifying question on page 12 that you listed leveraging and you say the city separately allocated 171. So you got $239,000 for CDB funds to nonprofits for public service. And then you separately allocated an additional $171,000 from the general fund to supplement. So you're not really supplementing. I mean, these examples here are great examples. So I'm just curious how you classified putting those in the CDB category, even though they're general funds to do all these items. Is this the correct place to present that? So let me understand.

So the CAPER presents an opportunity for the city to talk about all the various ways that we try to contribute to community development for our city. The main focus is on our CDBG and home funds, but the city chooses to go above and beyond and allocate a portion of general funds to help more nonprofits with their public services and help to expand those services that are available to the city. So in that specific section, HUD asks, okay, we know how you're using your CDBG and home funds now. Tell us what else you're doing. So in that certain area of the report, we illustrated other ways that we were assisting residents, which in this case was through general fund public services. Okay, that helps.

Thank you. Thank you. We will now move on to, so no other questions? No other questions. All right, would any member of the public on the line like to write comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone or turn in a blue speaker card. A timer will be displayed on the screen. Each speaker will have three minutes. First we'll have in person, Melissa Lucan.

Good evening. My name is Melissa Lucan. I'm the executive director of Rebuilding Together Peninsula. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight on behalf of the residents of Mountain View who have benefited from this year's funding. CDBG funding has provided critical support for low and extremely low income residents who would have nowhere otherwise to go, who live in the most cost-effective affordable housing that already exists. Our mission is to repair homes, revitalize communities, and rebuild lives. And in real terms, we essentially ensure that the peninsula's most vulnerable residents, those who are elderly, who have a disability, and who have otherwise been marginalized, don't have to choose between living in a safe home and buying groceries. But more broadly, we prevent displacement and also pride ourselves on preserving affordable home ownership and helping maintain the diverse fabric of the community. Over 100% were low income and extremely low income this past year. 67% of those homes that we served had a person with a disability and 80% had a senior living in the home. Among the repairs that we provided were smaller but potentially life-saving, installing fire prevention material and smoke detectors, grab bars. Others received repairs for leaks, fences and fences and floors, gutters, and others got plumbing improvements and lighting, and one person even received a working stove. Given that we live in the most expensive area to provide construction almost in the world, it's no wonder that many of our homeowners indicated that we would otherwise be completely out of reach, and many of them have indicated the impact is significant. Over 70% said that they claim that they feel safer as a result of the work. Almost 80% indicated that they feel more confident they can age in place. 80% reported that they have mental health issues. and that many actually indicated they're most likely to invite people over, and you know that one of the social determinants of health is isolation. So while we're very proud of the work that we've performed and grateful to the city for your acknowledgement of the need, we recognize that we need to up our game in terms of our outreach. to ensure that folks are served and receive enough applications to fulfill our deliverables. We received only eight last year, since October 1st, towards our deliverables of 12 homes. We completed five, as you heard, but this year already, we have four in progress toward our sixth deliverables and as you can imagine the need remains significant but so too are the obstacles to spending CDBG funds from the complexity of the volume of income eligibility documents to for many garnering the courage to ask for help for overcoming the suspicion that in the end free repairs is just too good to be true. We have some work to do, but we've already doubled down with the staff, as you've heard, to collaborate, to post in the local newspapers, in the Mountain View Voice, in news.

Thank you so much. All right, we will now move to virtual public comment. Melanie Favre from upwards.

Good evening, honorable Mayor Ramos, Vice Mayor Clark and council members. My name is Melanie Four with Upwards. Thank you for your continued support of Mountain View's family child care providers and our BOOST program. Our BOOST team works with low to moderate income family child care providers in Mountain View to strengthen their businesses and expand access to quality child care for local families. We pair providers with experienced early childhood business coaches who help them develop personalized business action plans focused on marketing, enrollment, finances, staffing, and more. In other words, we help take some of the administrative burden out of running an in-home child care business so providers can spend more time doing what they do best, caring for children. Stronger child care businesses mean more stable providers, more local jobs, and more families able to find affordable quality care close to home. Thanks to Council's past support, last year we partnered with eight Mountain View providers, helped create three new teaching assistant jobs, and supported providers in expanding care for local families. There's still a significant need, and we're excited to continue that work this year by partnering with 10 more providers and helping even more families find care that meets their unique needs. To build on what we've learned through the BOOST program, we've evolved the program this year into BOOST and Learn, which combines our personalized one-on-one business coaching with the self-paced online learning library. The personal mentorship remains at the heart of the program, while the online resources give providers additional tools and training they can access whenever they need them, even after the program year ends. Thank you for continuing to invest in Mountain View's child care providers. Supporting these small businesses is an important part of building a stronger, more accessible child care system for Mountain View's families. Thank you and good evening.

Thank you. Next up, we have Madeline Musante.

Yes, good evening and thank you so much for funding all of these wonderful projects. So my name is Madeline Musante. I'm the Director of Institutional Giving for Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and I'm here to speak on behalf of our organization tonight. With Mountain View CDBG funding, Vista Center has provided vision loss rehabilitation services including case management and behavioral health care to 38 visually impaired Mountain View residents over the last year. This included helping clients adapt to vision loss, age safely in place, live independently, and overcome barriers to accessing other public services, such as getting to the doctor or getting connected to affordable food sources. In the same way a person who has lost a limb receives physical and emotional rehabilitation care, Vista Center helps a person to adapt when they lose their sight and it cannot be medically corrected. Vision loss is the third leading cause of disability globally and as our population ages, visual impairment has become more prevalent locally. Visual impairment also leads to increased risks of falls and medication management as well as other mental health challenges. Despite all of these difficulties, Vista Center remains the only local provider of vision loss rehabilitation care following the closure of Kaiser's low vision clinic last year. Over the past two years, we have lost $600,000 in annual federal funding, so we are extremely grateful for the city's ongoing support so that we can continue serving some of the most vulnerable people in our community. With the support from the city, we provide a whole person approach that helps each community member experiencing vision loss learn how to use a white cane, travel safely, navigate their homes, and complete other daily tasks and achieve goals that they have set out for themselves. More broadly, 90% of our clients reported a two-point or more improvement scale on a five-point scale that measured their confidence and ability to conduct daily in-home tasks. To better illustrate our work, I'd like to share a testimony we received from one of our clients last month. To protect her identity, I'm going to keep it anonymous. So thank you, she says, thank you for the fact of Vista Center. My life has been so multi-changed in all the best ways. I have freedom now, options that I never imagined possible, and by agency staff and caretakers with no agenda except to facilitate the self-determination of clients like myself, all of which has enabled my confidence, growth, skill building, independence, and many fun opportunities to connect with others like me. Close quote. Regaining daily autonomy restores our clients' dignity and alleviates burdens on caregivers and the local health care system. We are extremely grateful for ongoing CDBG support from the City of Mountain View. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Katrina Logan.

Yes. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Ramos and city council members. My name is Katrina Logan, and I'm the Executive Director of Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. We thank you for your trust in our ability to provide high-quality legal services to residents of Mountain View. Through CDBG funding, our housing legal services program helped Mountain View tenants stay in their homes, fix dangerous conditions, and push back when landlords broke the law. Over the past grant year, our attorneys staffed the housing help center clinics twice a month. They took direct referrals from the rent stabilization program staff and gave tenants legal information, advice, and legal representation. Our goal was to serve 50 households, and we nearly doubled it, serving 96 households and reaching 229 Mountain View residents over the grant period. About a quarter of our cases involved elderly clients, a third involved people with disabilities, and nearly 60% of our clients earned below 30% of the area median income. Legal work involved no-cause and just-cause eviction notices, unlawful detainer defense, habitability, rent increases, tenancy disputes and affirmative litigation. We provided advice or brief services in 90% of cases and provide extensive or full scope services in about 10% of cases. In terms of outcomes achieved, we enforced tenants housing rights in about 54 cases. We prevented the loss of housing in 12 cases. negotiated seven soft landing move outs, giving families time or funds to find new housing instead of potentially becoming unhoused. And we were able to help enforce habitability protections for six clients, securing safe and healthy housing. So we'd like to just thank the city staff and the city of Mountain View for your support of our legal services. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Angie at the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. I assume that's what the acronym is.

You're correct. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Wonderful. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Angelica Holguin. I'm the Director of Programs with Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. It is a pleasure to be here this evening to share an update of the work that we have been able to accomplish in partnership with the City of Mountain View. First, I would like to sincerely thank the Mountain View City Council and the City of Mountain View for your continued investment in our community and for supporting services that help residents with disabilities achieve greater independence, stability, and quality of life. Through this program, SVILC was able to assist 39 low-income Mountain View residents with disabilities, including seniors and individuals with chronic health conditions. Our goal was to serve 38 consumers and we are proud to have exceeded that goal by one consumer achieving 103% of our service goal. The individuals we served included residents experiencing homelessness, transitioning from nursing facilities or living in unstable or temporary housing. Through housing workshops and individualized one-to-one housing counseling, consumers received education and support to help them identify affordable and accessible housing opportunities. Our services include helping consumers understand housing eligibility requirements, identify appropriate housing resources, complete housing applications and connect with community resources. Most importantly, we worked alongside with each consumer to help them build the knowledge, confidence and skills that they need to pursue safe, stable and accessible housing. For many individuals with disabilities, finding housing is about much more than securing a place to live. Accessible and affordable housing is foundational to independence, health, safety, and the ability to remain connected to one's community. We are grateful to the City of Mountain View for recognizing the importance of this work and for partnering with SBLC to ensure the residents with disabilities have access to meaningful resources and opportunities. Thank you to the City Council and the City of Mountain View for your partnership, your support, and your commitment to making Mountain View a more inclusive and accessible community for all residents. On behalf of SVILC and the consumers we serve, thank you for allowing us to be part of this important work. We appreciate you.

Thank you. Thank you, Angelica. Next, we'll have Georgia Bassel.

Good evening. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Mayor Ramos and members of the City Council, Georgia Basile, Directing Attorney of Senior Adult Legal Assistance. You know us as SALA, S-A-L-A. We provide free legal services to Mountain View residents 60 or older targeting clients that are low income or at risk of abuse or loss of independence. We provide our services locally at appointments at Mountain View Senior Center and by phone for clients that cannot leave their homes or with emergencies. We are a current CDBG grantee, and we thank you for that support. Your funding supports expanded availability of our services to Mountain View residents. We were also a CDBG grantee in 2025-26. A summary about our services is included in the staff report for the CAPER. Specifically, the CAPER notes, SALA provided free legal services to 59 Mountain View residents 60 or older, I want to share some additional information with you about those clients. 86% of these clients had very low incomes at or below 50% of the median income. They would not be able to pay a private attorney for the services we provided. 41% of these Mountain View clients were 75 or older, placing them at higher risk of abuse or loss of independence per the Older Americans Act. Under the Older Americans Act, our major funder, SALA cannot charge fees for our services or accept fee-generating cases. The primary way we support our services is through grants like Mountain View CDBG. Your funding helped us provide the highest level of service possible to Mountain View seniors last year, and it will continue to do that this year. We thank you so very much for your support. We truly appreciate it. Good evening.

Thank you next we have Alex.

Hi, city council members and city staff. Thank you so much. I just wanted to commend you all for the funding that you gave specifically for homelessness prevention as well as expanding childcare access. We know how serious childcare deserts are in this Bay area. I live in a different city, but I think Mountain View leads the way on these issues. I'm really excited to see you all continue similar funding that other cities can emulate. I also just want to thank staff for their excellent presentation. I think their professionalism and their quality of work is something I would love to emulate.

Thank you. And our final speaker tonight is Milton Cadena.

Good evening Mayor Ramos and City Council members. My name is Milton Cadena. I'm a Program Director for Senior Services of Catholic Charities. Being here tonight to represent and to say thank you on behalf of the Ombudsman Program, who is a beneficiary of the CPG funds. I want to say thank you to the City of Mountain View for the past and continued support for this program. The Ombudsman is an advocate for the most vulnerable citizens in your city, those who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. we advocate for the dignity rights and needs of seniors and disabled in those facilities this is an unduplicated services in santa clara county no other program has a 24 7 access to residents in these facilities all of them are required by law to have our information posted at their sites The Ombudsman Program is authorized by the Federal and State Older Americans Act to advocate for the rights of seniors and disabled residents in those facilities. The main function of the program is to investigate and to resolve complaints made by or on behalf of the residents to related issues of quality of care and abuse. Ombudsmen protect and help improve the quality of care for the lives of the frailest seniors in those facilities. Living in a long-term care facility is no one's first choice. Many seniors and disabled adults now have other options. And that's why it's very important for us to take care and to care for their rights and to see that they are protected. These facilities are now their homes, and many are being discharged because the facilities don't like the problems with the families or because they prefer private pay over medical reimbursement. The ombudsman more often can stop these discharges if they are notified on time. In essence, the ombudsman investigates elder abuse, resolve complaints, mediate, gives referrals, and witness advanced health directives. Our services are free of charge for the residents of those facilities. For the City of Mountain View, we oversee three skilled nurse facilities and five residential care facilities for the elderly, or RFCFs. which covers a total of 409 beds in the city of Mountain View. And this year, we completed our goal of serving 49 citizens, residents of your city. On top of that, the program responded to 77 incoming calls and doing 91 general visits to these 49 individuals that we serve. Thank you so much for support, and we really appreciate that we can continue to be in partnership with your city.

Thank you so much. I will now bring the item back to council questions and deliberation. Don't all hop in at once. All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Clark with a second by Council Member Kamei.

We move this to have recommendation.

All right, are we ready to vote? Motion passes unanimously, yay. All right, we will now move on to item eight. No, seven, council staff and committee reports. Do we have any staff? Okay, Council Member Showalter.

All right, well I have sort of a two pronged part I wanna talk about. One is just some of the things I've been to since we were together the last time. I attended the Mayor's Innovation Project summer meeting in Madison, Wisconsin along with a couple of colleagues and I'll talk about it too. It was really interesting and I learned a lot And they gave us a thumb drive with all the information on it, so if anybody would like to borrow that, I would be glad to lend it. And I mentioned a couple of the things that we talked about, such as the surveys and civility roundtables. BOSCA, we had a July meeting in BOSCA. Basically, this was the end of the water They reported at the end of the water year report, and our water situation this year is quite healthy. So that's always good to know. And Silicon Valley Clean Energy, there have been a number of meetings, the July meeting, the standard meeting, and the executive board meeting. But one of the things I really wanted to share with you is the new decarbonization roadmap. In fact, I... I had Heather distribute the presentation to everybody. It's really in line with what we're working on in our Council Sustainability Committee. And one of the things that is a new way to look at it is instead of just looking at the greenhouse gas reductions, we are looking at more what we need to do to get there, and keeping count of those things, such as how many heat pumps there are, are put in, how many electric chargers are put in, various things that happen to reduce our greenhouse gases, in addition to the big one, which is that Silicon Valley Clean Energy buys us all clean energy. And our goal is really to drive the Silicon Valley region to fully electrify every building and vehicle by 2045 and power it with clean energy. So I just wanted to share that with you. And then moving on to an ask, I'm following up on a request by Representative Sam Liccardo. Council Member Kamei and I attended a Zoom for electeds from his district a couple of weeks ago, and the request is to pass an emergency zoning ordinance to ban detention centers as an allowable use in Mountain View. There's a toolkit that is available about how to go about this. And basically the idea, one of the ideas behind it is that we don't really have an operational detention center in our locality. We've all heard a lot about what's on the news about the possibility of building one in Gilroy. and that is before the courts as we speak, and probably going to be, well, we don't know what the outcome will be, but at the same time, not building that facility or being able to adjust a building to it, leads to the idea that they will be looking for other locations in the area. This toolkit has been put together, which has a master ordinance that we can rewrite to be appropriate for Mountain View. And so I wanted to bring this to everybody and suggest that we ask our staff to develop an urgency ordinance for our approval as soon as is practicable. And that would of course include them doing all of the legal analysis that is appropriate about, you know, is this the right mechanism and that sort of thing. So I just want, I wanted to start the discussion of that and perhaps Council Member Kamei has another comment, part of it.

Council Member Kamei. Thanks Mayor. Thank you so much Council Member Showalter. So I want to voice my support for this, our first time on item seven coming forward. As Councilmember Showalter mentioned, on August 21st, we attended a Zoom gathering from Representative Liccardo. This was after he had held a press conference where he announced the creation of this toolkit. And so as part of that, he has put forward basically an outline of a draft ordinance that would establish a 45-day temporary moratorium on the establishment, expansion, or change of use of detention and custodial facilities. The belief here is though it is quote unquote promising news that we received earlier today that the courts have continued to block the construction of a facility in Gilroy, the community has also expressed that the Department of Homeland Security may look for alternative sites We know that there's already thought to look at the city of Dublin and the urgency is not alleviated because of the court's ruling. If anything, it may mean that it's even more imperative to act. So we believe that the temporary pause will provide the city with an opportunity to review basically our existing land use regulations, assess potential impacts on our community and determine whether additional development standards or safeguards are needed to address these uses. So we, in the conversation that we had with Representative Liccardo, We also tried to voice that, you know, our biggest concern is the, you know, the federal land that is just adjacent to us with which we have no purview over, which is Moffett Field, and how, you know, that this urgency ordinance is appreciated, but what can we do with the representative related to that federal land and to understand what we can do to protect our residents and our community. So hopefully embedded into this motion will be to not only look at the 45-day temporary moratorium and the ordinance, BUT WOULD ALSO BE TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATIONS WITH REPRESENTATIVE LOCARDO'S OFFICE BECAUSE HE'S VERY KEENLY AWARE OF MOFFETT BEING ADJACENT TO US. AND THEN WANTED TO ALSO SHARE THE CITY, I GUESS THERE ARE Are some good things that can come out of the City of San Jose, Council Member Ramirez, and they adopted the ordinance, or they gave direction last Friday to look at adopting the ordinance, and we'll be reviewing that at their next council meeting on the 15th, so that's in a week. So there is something that's out there. So as part of the council direction, we could also include looking at modeling ourselves after that ordinance, which would be modeled after Representative Liccardo's model in his toolkit. So hopefully colleagues will be in support. But counting, I count to two so far. Council Member Shelvelter. Thank you.

I'm gonna take on this item. Council Member McAllister, would you like to speak specifically on this item or would you like to hold off on your item?

I had a question. Go ahead. Staff, we had quite a few items on the program that a lot of these council members that are gonna be leaving us shortly wanted to get done. So if... how much time you think is gonna be needed to get this, if this motion goes forward, to get an ordinance and to review it and et cetera, and then the timeline of if you present it, then the 30 days, the whole timeline, how's that come about?

Well, we haven't had time. to really put together a work plan or think about what the timeline would be. So the urgency ordinance in and of itself, it's an actual work item but it won't be as significant as the work to adopt an ordinance that would need to go to the Environmental Planning Commission and then to the council. And so that would take a little bit more time. And Mr. Murdoch might have some comments on that as well. So it would have to be a joint effort between CDD and the city attorney's office to put this all together.

But do you have a, you said, but you didn't give me a timeline.

So to bring an urgency ordinance, that gives us the space to actually draft a routine ordinance for you, right? That we could do, relatively quickly like maybe we could do that in a meeting in october and we would really like to see what transpires in september with the city of san jose september 15th and then i noted in the email from lucardo's office they're planning on having another zoom meeting on the 18th and also check in with our neighbors about what they're doing too so if you have something on the 18th

Does it need a second reading or the formality of it?

No, the interesting part of an urgency ordinance is that it's introduced and adopted at the same hearing.

Okay.

Just one meeting.

Okay, so it's not a heavy load for the city to take on?

We'd like to be able to review the toolkit and read it and think about it and research it and check in with our neighbors, see what San Jose is doing, but it's something that we could accomplish by a meeting in October.

Okay, thank you.

Possibly November.

Possibly November, okay.

Council Member Ramirez. Vice Mayor Clark.

So I would just note, and I can follow up separately, there might be another path, which just through zoning text, because I think we already have categories for interim incarceration facility in the code.

So it might just be something of a definition, but maybe that takes longer than, I guess what I'm getting at is I just want to make sure,

One size fits all toolkits typically aren't actually one size fits all, especially if they're geared more toward counties than cities. I appreciate the toolkit, I'm not knocking it. I just think that we might already have some definitions that there might be a simpler path, but I just wanted to call that out. Because there's public safety facility and then there's interim incarceration facility. Why that's in there, I don't know, but apparently it's in the zoning text somewhere.

And obviously we would look at our existing zoning code as part of any urgency ordinance, just to make sure that we don't already have something that would fit the bill.

All right, are you still on the queue? All right, I'm supportive of, is there even, oh, there is a motion. And okay, so a motion by Council Member Showalter, seconded by Council Member Kamei. Yeah, if you could clarify what the motion is.

Okay, I was gonna make it very simple, which is to ask staff to develop an urgency ordinance for our approval as soon as is practicable. And I think it's appropriate with that to take into account all of the things that Council Member Kamei brought up about using the toolkit, seeing what's happening in jurisdictions, comparing to what Vice Mayor Clark said about comparing to what we already have. I mean, to me, all of those things are sort of incorporated that the staff to look at this carefully and come back to us with what you think is appropriate.

Go ahead, Council Member Ramirez.

So what's going to the San Jose City Council on September 15th is a land use moratorium. And there's a fairly lengthy legal memo that accompanies it explaining why a land use moratorium is appropriate, right? There are... legal restrictions and obligations that the city attorney can explain far better than I could, but you start with a 45-day moratorium, and basically what that buys you is time to develop more precise zoning code amendments. The amendments that we would pursue are probably different from what San Jose would do. But if we need more time, I think it's typically the meeting before the expiration, staff could come back with an extension to the moratorium, right? And I think there's like a, I forgot how long it is, maybe it's two years or something, but there's sort of like a time limit to how long you can enact a land use moratorium. But that's what I think we're voting on, please correct me if I'm wrong, is staff would come back, the city attorney's office would come back with a land use moratorium for 45 days, and then maybe some accompanying information about like what it would take to adopt more precise zoning code amendments that would you know be permanent right and then if we need we need more time staff could come back with a moratorium extension that's that would be my understanding and that's presuming we're following sort of the playbook in san jose thank you council member ramirez council member mcallister um

So I'm just trying to understand the reality of you put this moratorium on the city of Mountain View, but all the federal land around us would be exempt. And so what do you hope to get? the outcome of this if we put this moratorium in place, that ICE is not gonna come to Mountain View and find a plot of land that's as hard to find or an office complex like Shenandoah, well that's federal, that we would prevent them from building a facility in Mountain View?

So I could probably take this answer. I actually just had, Congressman Liccardo just had a North Santa Clara County leaders meeting earlier today, right before this meeting, and he met with the mayor's, North County mayor, so it was me, Mayor Vinker, Mayor Meadows, and Mayor Bajee. I asked, particularly that was a concern for me and Tom Myers was also in that meeting with me. We're like, hey, what about Shenandoah Square and what about Moffett Field? And the way Congressman Liccardo was kind of framing it is that it's almost like creating like this, we are just covering the land that we can. And then there are probably other mechanisms to fight, having Shenandoah Square and Moffett Field. What he's relying on there is that other federal agencies will be fighting for their own land kind of thing, for what they want to use their own land. And he told me the joy of bureaucracy will be fighting for that, but we need to create the net on our own land, essentially. I also went to the press conference that Congressman Liccardo, Councilmember Kamei was also with me. That was on August 5th, where it was in San Jose, right in front of their city hall, as they were reviewing the toolkit. They are trying to make this easy for cities to pass, essentially. and I'm sure that they will offer resources for us to figure that out. My understanding from the meeting earlier today, Los Altos will also be taking it up in a couple weeks. If it's not clear, I'm very supportive of some motion.

But I also heard the city attorney say that she would like to gather information from other cities and get a better idea of what's happening. So is the motion negating her being able to get more information?

No.

Okay, I just wanted to, because you're saying an emergency and so bring it back and I just want to make sure that.

Well, I said for our approval as soon as is practicable. So to me that includes all the appropriate research that our trusted staff feels they need to do.

Okay, that's fair, thank you.

I don't even, Vice Mayor Clark.

I'm happy to support this, I just wanna, you specifically said urgency ordinance and I just wanna make sure we're giving the, the city attorney's office the leeway to pursue whatever the most expeditious path forward is.

And so I assume that will be some sort of urgency ordinance or moratorium.

If it ends up being something slightly different, I'm fine with that too. I just don't want to be so prescriptive that they feel like they can only pursue this particular path, even if it's not as expedient as we think it will be.

No, I think we want to, you know, what we're really asking is our staff to go and research this and come back with the appropriate thing. Okay. And I mean, we could wordsmith it a little more if we wanted to. We don't need to, as long as it's an appropriate vehicle. But I think that, you know, I think we've had this discussion and that provides guidance.

Okay.

Right?

Yes, I understand that we have flexibility that if in our opinion that a moratorium isn't the best option for the city or there are multiple options we think are worth the council considering we can bring those and just to clarify too that the moratorium is just the beginning of the process. So it's direction to staff to come back at a later meeting with the moratorium to start the process of enacting a permanent ordinance. And at that time we could give you the timeline for being able to complete that.

Councillor Schell.

Great, thanks. And just to clarify, cities are working on it, but counties have already adopted it. So San Mateo County, Napa County, and maybe Mayor via the clerk, we can share the links to the toolkit and to the whole package if colleagues haven't already seen it. Representative Liccardo's office has been sharing widely, but that way people can see all the different resources. that are available and I would say the growing number of both cities and counties that are moving in this direction and taking steps.

All right, with that, I'm assuming Council Member Ramirez, this is not for this item, it's for your, all right, we're gonna take it to a vote. Passes unanimously, yes. Council member, are you done with your item eight reports out or do you want to? Let's let Council Member Ramirez go.

Very briefly, I just wanted to also, like Council Member Showalter and the Mayor, attended the Mayor's Innovation Project Conference in Madison, Wisconsin in, I think it was in July, is that right? July, yeah. It feels like an eternity ago. And like Councilmember Showalter reported, I found many of the presentations or the panel discussions very enlightening. And I think you may have alluded to this. THE NATIONAL CIVIC LEAGUE, I THINK, PROVIDED A PRESENTATION THAT INCLUDED A DISCUSSION ABOUT WORK THAT THEY'VE DONE WITH OTHER JURISDICTIONS ON CHARTER MODERNIZATIONS AND CHARTER AMENDMENTS. AND SO I REACHED OUT TO THEM AND I'M TRYING TO GET SOME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION THAT I CAN SHARE WITH THE CITY MANAGER IN THE EVENT THAT THE NEXT COUNCIL IS INTERESTED IN PURSUING MORE SUBSTANTIVE MODIFICATIONS TO THE CHARTER.

THANK YOU.

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez. Council Member McAllister.

I would like to report that I walked in the footsteps of my fellow Council Members that have visited the Diablo Grande Nuclear Plant. I went down there and I enjoyed it and I got a very good education about the safeguards and what takes place there. But I also got to better understand the importance of nuclear energy, even though there's some drawbacks that it provides 9% of the electrical energy for clean energy for the state of California. And so that we got the awareness that we need to keep our minds open to how we get our clean energy. And it was interesting how the federals have given them a 20 or 40 year license to go forward But the Coastal Commission might reduce their timeline. So it's interesting how the different government agencies are playing, kick the ball around, see how long it's gonna last. You heard that it was supposed to shut down at one point, but then Governor Newsom said, we need this energy, so keep going. So as we look forward to the goal of clean energy and trying to get all these things done, We always gotta keep that mind in the back of us that's saying, okay, they've taken precautions. If something happens bad, it's bad, but Pat will probably, Council Member Showalter, the waste that they had over 20 years, how they contained it is what supposedly the danger is. It's interesting to see that it's not in a big area. I mean, it's like on the size of a tennis court. where all 20 years of waste is presented. And then they also presented, they also said some of the things that have, I asked about Japan, how that happened. They said, well, you need to keep the water flowing. The generators were below the water level, so when the tsunami came, it took out the generators, which prevented keeping the cooling going. whereas they put all these safeguards. So a lot of my preconceptions were, oh, answered. So everybody should take the opportunity to go down there and see what's taking place. It's interesting and enlightening and just keep an open mind afterwards. But that was a lot of fun.

Council Member Showalter.

Yeah, how did you arrange that? I went with Silicon Valley Clean Energy. How did you get to go?

I just said, how can, no, the PG&E new government relations person, Maria, I sat down with, talked to her about it, and I said, hey, she goes, I said, well, you know, we started talking about nuclear, and she said, would you like to go?

Oh, well, that's great. Well, anyway, I would just, you're right. But I'm glad, so there's a way for everybody else to go. And I just want to urge everybody to go. I mean, it really is, for one thing, it's a beautiful part of the coast, but it's fascinating. And then the other thing I wanted to say is, when you guys always hear me talking about sea level rise, right? When I was there, one of the things that really struck me was how high up all the facilities are. They're above all of the sea level rise projections for, you know, certainly for this century by many, many feet. and i don't know too much about tsunamis but uh they said they were also you know they had considered tsunami issues so i thought that was very important and then the other thing i think is amazing about that is this is a big piece of real estate it's 14 miles of the coast that is devoted to kind of the area around this. So I just think that it will be part of our energy system for maybe forever, whether we have nuclear power there or some other kind of power there. But yeah, it's really worth a visit.

And I also want to add that my wife was allowed to attend.

Yeah, Steve went.

So that was nice. And there are two chambers there. That area was designed for six towers. They got two now. So if need be, they can expand that. But there's all kinds of fun facts that you can do. Interesting. Also, if you're an abalone diver, it's protected. There's abalone down there all over the place.

All right, Council Member Kamei.

How do you follow that? All right. I know, I know, but I have to disclose my conferences. So in July, I attended NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials annual conference. I had my Cal City's board director summer meeting. And then I also attended the annual AAPI lead, the Asian American Pacific Islander lead conference. In August, our Cal Cities met. So we had our legislative committee as well as the board meeting. I think for just an update for everyone on the LAC meeting, it was trying to talk about a lot of the bills that were going to come forward for the end of session. And just a preview for before Cities Association, this Thursday is, Montana, who is here today, is going to be presenting. There were quite a few bills that kind of went through this cycle, and so having the Peninsula Division Manager there plugged in with our Cities Association Board just to kind of talk about what the next cycle would look like is of interest to the group. And then wanted to highlight, and not to steal the mayor's thunder, but I just wanna say a huge thank you to our city staff who helped organize our 50-year celebration with our sister city, Iwata City. It was a Herculean lift to prepare, as the mayor mentioned. There's a lot of protocol. Thankfully, we have our Silicon Valley Office of Protocol. We had our Mountain View Chamber, but most of all, our city staff who helped lead this delegation of, how many was it in the end? Like 15 people, something like that. And they had a full Mountain View day. So on Monday, August 24th, they got the full day. Big thank you to our partners, Google and Waymo, who helped host them. So they got the full Silicon Valley experience. And I think it was beautiful to see how this has been able to flourish for 50 years. Personally, I feel very grateful to have relatives in my family have been founding board members of our sister city nonprofit, still involved, and to see that, and we had a reception here, to hear two generations of family members who were able to go through that program and hoping for the next generations to go through was really moving and a testament to think bilateral relations, international relations, but I think just how you can create friendship that exceeds language and culture. And I love that about our city and that was on full display. So just want to make sure that I have my sincere gratitude to staff. Thanks.

All right, we'll close this out. It was a very busy B summer. We haven't been able to update all the wonderful things we were doing. So on July 4th, the New Frontiers had a 4th of July celebration. They used our, and Council Member Kamei was with me on that, they used their neighborhood grants fund for that, They're so, I love that community, it's wonderful. I also attended the Mayor's Innovation Project in Wisconsin. I got to do, as mayor, I got to present at the Mayor's Showcase, where I presented about our language leadership academies, and everyone's so jealous of us, as they should be, because we're the best city. I provided the opening for the technology showcase panel. They did a AI and small businesses panel. That was kind of cool. There was national night out, which I'm pretty sure most of us went to. So that was also really, really good. The community action team or cat ice cream social. There was a ribbon cutting for the 25 West gallery ribbon cutting and a good chunk of us were there too. There was also a ribbon cutting for V Lux. experience and a number of us were there too. I did the opening for Kidstock, which was really fun. I'm the alternate for ABAG and so I covered for Los Gatos Mayor Rob Moore and one of the major items of that meeting was that they installed the new officers. So the new president of ABAG or the new The president of the executive board is Susan Adams. She's a council member in Roanoke Park. And then the vice president is Wanda Williams, who's a Solano County supervisor. Then on August 22nd, there was the old Mountain View Ice Cream Social, and as Councilmember Kamei mentioned, on August 24th, we hosted the Japanese delegation, and I did not cause an international incident, which is yay us. But I also learned, did you know that Mr. Myers, the CSA, was a exchange student along with that? There are so many people who are involved in our community, that were were products of that exchange program and they've all said it's changed their life so it's really quite wonderful and with that i have no more comments in the queue the next city council meeting will be held on september 22nd this meeting is adjourned at 22 33.