Downtown Committee - Regular Meeting

Yeah.

We've got it's showing. John's another new board. Alright.

Thomas here.

Well, good morning, everybody. We will go ahead and call the meeting to order at 8AM. And, Amanda, would you take the role, please?

Yes. Committee members, Kavanaugh, Foreman,

Keith? I'm here.

David Lynn, not seeing him. Stephanie Lynn? Here. Marisol? Here. Jake? Here. Vice chair Baird? Here. And chair Kasparzak?

Here. Am I no longer on the list?

I thought Marisol took your spot.

No. Marisol has her own spot because she's DBA on the chamber.

Oh, okay. My apologies. I thought it was a I

I I may be stepping off momentarily.

That's why you don't have a bath to maintain. Oh, it

has nothing to do with that.

I'm sorry. I I thought Marisol was the chamber rep. So, yes, I will add you.

And here comes

Anne. Good morning.

For some reason, I thought

Are you still sick?

I yeah. I am. I am actually. I thought Marina was the DBA representative. I'm just a problem. You're just okay. That was my misunderstanding. Peter, I will get you an official placard too.

You know what?

Okay. So many different quarter So many

special No. No. We're so happy you're here.

Mean, this is Washington interdisciplinary. This is the most complicated committee in terms of the structure It's So true. Of the membership of the committee. So moving on, item number three is the approval of the minutes, and the minutes for the April 1 meeting have been delivered to committee members and posted. If there are any corrections, please voice them. Otherwise, a motion to approve the minutes would be welcome.

I know that we approve the minutes

as witness.

Hey, Pamela. It's made the motion, and Marina has seconded. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. The motion carries unanimously. Item number four, upcoming agenda topics. And you can see on the list some of the things that are on the list. We got vacant storefronts, parking plan update, art murals, downtown, precise plan update, school performances, joint meeting with visual and performing arts committee, street signs, PG and E, and retail coach report next step, and bike parking.

Anything that anybody wants to try and get on the next thing? Pamela?

Well well, I was wearing two hats. I would like to see us again look at try to do historical markers for buildings and or places in downtown. And, of course, the Mountain View Historical Association would be glad to work with committee to make suggestions.

Let's let's talk offline. Just, know, because we can't talk about it here. So

Are we allowed to talk about it offline also? What? Are we allowed to talk about

it offline? No.

Yeah. I was like

Well, no.

And I just went through the rule of reasoning.

That's not that's not true. A core a quorum cannot talk about it

Okay.

Offline. So just We we are the two of us are not a quorum.

Okay. So Yeah. Okay.

Right. So

nor would we share our conversation with others.

Mhmm. Right.

Yeah. So It's all up.

I have a could could we revisit the music in the amplified sound

Oh, busking? Yeah. The busking ordinance? Yeah. Yeah. I'm still not really certain where that actually ended up either because I know some provisions were put into the the what do we call it? The where it's closed. Oh, into the head Mall. Street is closed. Yeah. Yeah. But in terms of overall, I mean,

maybe Busking is not allowed.

Right.

Because we But

we were looking at that, and that was on the agenda as a thing to come up with a new busking ordinance or something.

So I'll add it to the list.

So Just a comment on that note.

Well, we can't we can't really discuss it.

So discuss it in Right. Add it to the

So, yes, we'll put the busking.

We wanna add that if we can compare what the other city nearby city is doing. You know? Right. Yeah.

Was just in the other night.

I can order first Friday, and

they actually have open carry of that call.

Oh, they

do. Friday night. First Friday. Entertainment sounds

good. Alright. Anything else on item number four? Alright. Do we need to do the public on that, Amanda?

I I think, yeah, we do.

Okay. And is there any member of the public that would like to address item number four? There's no one online

and no one in person. Okay.

We will end number four and move on to item number five, oral communications from the public. Before I go through the big deal, nobody go online? Nobody online? No person. Alright. I see no public. We will move on to item number six, unfinished business. And item 6.1 is the downtown development update. Sneaking in just in time to make his presentation. Good morning, everyone.

Associate planner here to give you guys the development updates for May. There's limited updates for this month. The only two, which direct your attention to item number fourteen, two six two cash flow free. That's a recently approved provisional use permit for a medical service. I would consider a medical service, which includes massage and acupuncture, which replaces an existing furniture store in downtown.

So that was recently approved a couple weeks ago on April 23, and currently, they're awaiting a building permits at all before they will kind of begin fully occupying and using the space. The other item I guess, are there any questions regarding that one?

It's 262. Is there anything

Is that base shop right now? Yeah. This is Okay. It's like empty

spaces. Yes.

And they don't have very hours, so I think this is a win. This will be a more That's right. More activated store. Yeah.

So that's the first item that I could bring your attention to. Second item is for item number 17, just, for 384 Castro Street. It's a minor facade, up, modifications to the existing space. That's the, currently the mDesign, architecture group, and, they're doing some minor facade updates That was approved back in 04/04/2025 by the planning division. That was staff approval, and it's currently awaiting building permits in the middle before they begin construction and modifications to the existing structure.

And then, I guess, three items. Sorry about that. And lastly, it's item number 18 for 303 Bryant Street. This was a minor facade modifications to the existing commercial building that's right on the g corner of where CVS is right next to it. So there's some minor facade modifications to that building. It's got the construction, so you may see some, construction activity out there along that that frontage for the other.

Peter, did you have your hand up?

I don't. Okay. Well, I

thought I maybe you were going to rest. Okay. I just wanted

to comment. That particular project looks amazing.

Yeah. It's definitely an upgrade from what it was previously. So and, hopefully, that'll be completed in the next

month or two.

Which project is that? It's right on Bryant and Innovus CBS. Yeah. We're gonna decide. Right? So Bryant And Dana. Yeah. It's just

a commercial building. Right?

It's a comer yeah. I haven't paid attention

to what it looks like. No.

It looks like

I don't know what, like, what current who's gonna be occupying the space, but it's a facade upgrade to I believe it's, like, some sort of stone veneer on the outside. So they're installing it currently.

That the old PayPal building? Sort of a sort of across the street from the parking lot?

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Point of one. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's where PayPal was.

Yeah. Oh.

Long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Are these available publicly? Like, what that facade's gonna look like?

Yes. They're publicly available downstairs.

You can Oh, yeah. They're available. Mhmm.

If you'd like to look at it, you know, any of those plans, you can you're welcome to go down to our community development department and just look at those plans of what they are proposed to look like or.

I'm I'm guessing it's too much to hope for. When when that was Yeah.

As far as the listings building permit under review, some of these same listings have been on the report for some time. Would it be disclosing too much information to say when the building permit request or was presented to the city? Or is that disclosing information that you agree for the public to know? Just curious about how long it takes for you know, we're going out of the city. I'm not seeing as they are far off campus.

And applicants can have things that are not complete or don't get around to filling out all the paperwork properly. I'm just kinda curious about how long some of these processes occur.

Sure. I will tell her Diana to speak to that. Diana?

Good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes. Hi.

Thank you for the question. I just wanted to say that that information can be availed about specific projects. If somebody wants to know, they can come to the counter to get that information. But it is it will be too much to keep a track of that and to bring it into the a report format. But that information is definitely available if somebody wants to know about a specific project. They can come to the calendar and, inquire about that.

Thank you.

And, Diana, presumably, if when, members of the downtown committee get the agenda packet, if there was a specific project they were curious about, they could submit a request in advance of the meeting, and then Vincent could report on that at the meeting?

Absolutely. I think that will be a perfect way to do that. Or you can even email Vincent or I at any point of time and ask about that, and we'll be more than happy to present that information. Great.

Any other, comments or questions from the committee?

One comment is that the Mediterranean Mediterranean Cafe right next to Starbucks, I think it has some other cafeteria to cover on it and not not Sana Cafe. It's Sana Cafe. And it's over there. Busy.

Inefficient.

It's an addition.

Addition to yeah. Yeah. And it is it's so busy, like, 09:30, 10:00 when I walk. It's just good sight to see. It used to be totally nothing here, but it's Yeah. Like, it's packed here at that time, 09:30, 10:30. Yeah. So we just wanna bring it up. Sweet. And I wanna have

it late dinner. And, Jamil, I don't know if it's appropriate timing wise, but, one of the things the chamber and the city are working on is how to activate that space better. And so we've got it actually meeting with Prometheus talk about that in more detail because Prometheus obviously owns a alleyway as well. So trying to look at ways that we can activate all of that together. Alright. Thank you.

Is there any public comment,

Amanda? I see no members of the public online and no one in person.

Any other questions? If not, we will move on down to item 6.2, the Castro Street update. Thanks, Vincent. I

have just really one major exciting update to share, but decorative street treatment. Delayment starts today. Oh. So you'll start seeing workers out there. They're taking a well, I'll show you. They're taking it, excuse me, in half block segments. So they'll be on the two hundred and three hundred block the next couple of days, but you can see how they're sort of shifting. The point is really to try and not close down the entire street so that pedestrians can still have access and that we can hopefully avoid people trouncing through the street Mhmm. Leaving footprints all over. So, yeah, really exciting.

And we've done a lot of outreach and communications. I just walked these sandwich boards out there this morning before our meeting. So we're we have signage up so people who are coming into contact with the project can get more information. We've emailed all the businesses on social media, press release, yeah, in person outreach. I've set up a web page. So I'm really trying to make sure that the public is aware of of this happening and the businesses. But this is really, really exciting. As you know as you all know, this is a long time kind of coming just in the last couple years we've been working on this, and I think it's gonna be really make for fun.

How long it takes to dry? I

I it should be dry by the end of the day. That that we purposely picked a hot Perfect day. You know? It yeah.

Perfect day.

So the contractors will actually stay on-site until it's completely dry to Great. People off of it. But they're anticipating, yeah, that it'll take about two to three days per block in about nine days total.

Is it they're right.

Oh, is it a paint or is it like the thermo plastic that they that traffic uses?

Let Runa speak to the technical piece.

Hi. This is Aruna, transportation planner. This is a water based paint. It's not thermoplastic. That's much more expensive and probably not needed for the surface. So yes.

No. Thank you. Positive.

So we anticipate it'll last

Yeah. The the vendor said it lasts five to ten years with, you know, basic touch ups, but doesn't need a total redo given that only pedestrians are gonna be walking through and not vehicles are not gonna be there, so it's much less attrition.

Cool. So is there going to be an unveiling ceremony?

No. We do not have any unveiling planned. But we are we are

Now that you've said that, we'll probably have a major earthquake.

Yeah. So that's exciting. And then just a verbal update, letting you all know outdoor patio licenses all expire at the end of this fiscal year, so June. So we are doing outreach to the existing businesses that have outdoor patios to let them know that it's time to renew. So they'll need to provide updated insurance information. You know, if they've encroached into their neighbor's frontage, they'll need to renew that approval. So there's a couple of steps that they'll need to take, but reminding you all and the public that this is happening and to work with us early earlier rather than later to make that possible happen.

Is there a way to have a multiyear

multiyear what?

Yeah. Don't think cost. Yeah. Part of the challenge, you know, is that with, like, the approvals of neighbors, you know, it's it's we've heard that it's easier to kinda digest one year approval, and we assess. It's something we could certainly look into. But I think for now, you know, with the first year of the program, we we wanted to take it in sort of year long chunks. So it's certainly something we'd look at it for the future.

I just think of a lot of, you know, businesses that don't change over time, but it's just like, oh my gosh. Something else I have to think about, right, type of thing. And so if we could get some consistency, that would be good. I appreciate that the personality of the street and tenants and all that change over time, but it might not be a bad thing to look at.

Yeah. No. Thank you. And is it

the same process for those that already have it?

It is the same process, but they they they don't have to there's a onetime application fee the very first time they apply, but they there's no additional fees in future years. Yeah. Runa?

And I just wanna add something else to your question, Peter. Insurances expire annually. There is, you know, county health permit that needs to be annually, so there is a lot of tie up. If there is no due process, it will be hard to get all the information back from the businesses. So this is one approach to

That makes sense.

All that. It's a whole thing.

Lord knows we need due process now to do this. And and sorry. Didn't mean to get political. But Amanda also, as I've learned about, and I I may have gone asleep or something if this came up before, but the the was it the AG's opinion on contracting work and our bollard painting programs? So,

yes, the as you know, the visual arts committee selected artists to install art on the on bollards at every intersection along the pedestrian mall. We've learned that their their current sort of state opinion are that artists should be considered contractors, and so need to have a contractor's license to install art. So it is essentially halted art public public art, not private art. Halted art just sort of in California. And so we are waiting on legislation going through California right now to get an exemption from our Muralist.

We likely won't know until the fall and whether the governor will sign it and it'll be immediately in effect or if we have to wait till the New Year. So we're disappointed to have to put that project on hold, but there was just too many

Has there been any discussion or are you aware of any other cities, you know, through the league or through town cities or anything, that's challenged the interpretation of this law? Is my understanding this was an interpretation of existing law?

Yeah. Let me I see Kirsten Heinz, who is our public art staff, and let me just see if she's available to speak. Most Hi, Kirsten. Not to put you on the spot, did you hear the question about how other cities are handling?

Well, more specifically more specifically, is anybody challenging the interpretation? I imagine most people are just laying down and saying, okay.

Yeah. It's a it's from what I understand, other cities are handling this the exact same way. They don't want to I think Amanda mentioned there's a a bill going forward. It's senate bill four fifty six. So at this point, because there's a bill going forward that would exempt muralists from needing to be licensed contractors, cities are they don't wanna risk this bill getting passed and and moving forward, and so they're pausing art or public art projects or at least mural projects.

Is Cal City supporting the bill?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In Mountain View, we submitted a a letter of, in support of it as well.

K. Great. Thanks.

Very good.

The if you could take the other route, to give them a permit to be a contractor. Is that done by the city?

It's a state license, and it's quite involved, unfortunately. Yeah. It requires a certain amount of, you you know, years, I believe, of of work and yeah.

It can

it can be expensive and insurance and all that.

There's bars you have to pass and things like that. Yeah.

You start with the crayon and then you go Right. Crayons. Yeah.

But as soon as we know more, we'll we'll send the report out. But, yeah, we were disappointed to have to put that project on hold.

So how would that affect the mural panels? Maybe and Kristen knows this. The mural panels are going to be installed on the train station that that was has a grant from a BTA. Mhmm. Those are removable. So is that considered art because it's not attached to the building?

Yeah. Kristen, do you wanna field that one?

Yeah. The it's not a mural. If the murals would or they'd be something that's painted on the building, and, this came up the this issue with, muralists needing to be licensed came up, because they were told they needed to be a I think it's a painter c 33 license licensee or something. But the the project that's being proposed on the Train Depot Building, That would just that would be art that's created off-site and then printed on something that can be installed by a contractor onto the building. So that's still in a proposal state and needs to be reviewed and approved by the city manager's office.

But but it the way that the project is being proposed, it's not considered a mural. It's art that would be installed.

Right. Thank you.

Anything else before we, seek public input? And any public yet?

No members of the public. Alright.

Then we will close 6.2 and move on to new business and item 7.1, the annual downtown parking maintenance assessment district number two. Is that you? Oh, no. Is that you?

That's still me. So as you saw in your in the memo in your packet, this is our annual review of the Downtown Parking District. I did include a map so you can see Oh, no. In your packet what the what the Downtown Parking District look like. It's sort of a wonky little wonky little polygon, but you can see the kind of how it moves its way.

This is an annual renewal. So this is the district that has been has been around since 1979, and it's an s there's an assessment formula that looks at both the land use that looks at the land use on the on the on the parcel. And we collect the same amount every year, a $150,606. And that it we kind of as parcels as uses change and new development happens, we sort of cut the pie in different slices, but it's essentially at the same amount every day. And oh, yeah. Please, Sean.

So Lot there's Number 12 not in the parking district country?

It is not. Yeah. Lot Number 12 and Lot Number 11 are both outside of the parking district. Yeah.

But the 158,000 covers all of the other, Like, it covers all of these parking. The So,

no, the parking district funds can only be used inside of a parking district. Yeah. And Lot Number 12, we're hoping to see development an affordable housing development take place there. And then Lot Number 11 yeah. And if it's city maintained, it's sort of a third lot. It's not very sort of a semi parking facility. Yeah. And then I apologize. I realized yours is not in color. I could pull up the map, but there is a difference between where parking permits are allowed.

And so I can pull up a map color, but we do sell parking permits. And so you have to be in you have to be a property within the parking district to be eligible to purchase a parking permit, and then there are only certain lots that you could park in.

This is the site. It's like nothing new, nothing changes. I one quick question, though. So the the rate is based on the permitted use. Is it the permitted use or the use? So because sometimes there is like

It's bay it's based on the current use. So Okay. If it you know, because there could be lots of uses that are allowed. But if it's currently office, and that's what it is assessed on. Okay.

So actually, the total could it could change. The rate doesn't change, but the final take could change if

No. The final take will not change. The final take stays the same, and so it could be that you were assessed $200, but then we got another big development over here. And so you'll be assessed less this year, they'll be assessed more. So Or if

you change your use from something like a retail to restaurant.

So we recalculate, but we rejigger the whole thing every time because, yeah, in order to make more than that There's a cap. Yeah. There's a cap.

Okay.

It's just based on on how this district assessment district was set up. We wanted to change that. We'd we'd have to open the whole thing up again, and and we've

sort of like the business improvement district.

So I have a question. It's sort of an odd figure. A $158,606. So that sort of implies that one point in time there was a escalation clause, and then it got paused. It just seems like why did not make it 800 500 1,138 thousand even. So was there escalation?

Yeah. I don't know. As it says in the memo, it's been that way for the past twenty nine years. So Which you could buy a

lot more twenty nine years ago. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean suggesting that we increase the the cost, but just sort of a odd way that the whole system was set up.

Yeah. I mean and I will say from an operations and maintenance standpoint, I mean, our costs are going up, you know, to maintain our parking facilities. So there there are some challenges there. With this. And maybe these

things change with, like was it prop 14 where I think, you know, the council could raise things, but then prop 14 basically came in and said any fee adjustment also requires a vote. So I think I I don't know if that's the case with this, but I think it might be not the same with the business improvement district. But

We have a question. So if you purchase you lived here. You purchased a permit. Are those lots like, is this permit parking allowed? Can a non permitted person park in that lot too? They can, but they there's they have to adhere to the time limit. So it's two hour parking, otherwise. Working holders can park for longer.

Got it.

For Lot Number 12, we have that's the one you said will be turned into. Is the lot itself expected to be turned into affordable housings, or is the other half of that block gonna be affordable housing, and they'll use the lot for parking?

So it would be an affordable housing development on that park on that city owned parking lot. So parking the parking would go away.

I think a lot of that residential housing, though, is owned by the city.

Think On the other side.

I think some of it is. Anyway one street.

Think so.

Anyway, so do we have an idea what the timeline for that would be? Yeah.

Yeah. I I don't know, yeah, where that what the set project status is. Yeah. And I know, you know, just in general, a lot of development is being challenged right now just with find the financing environment and tariffs. And so there's quite a few projects that are still working their way through viability.

There are no other questions. Is there any

I just wanna clarify what you're saying. So there is there is no shovel date yet.

I don't not that I'm aware of. I don't know. Diana, have you heard any updates on Lot 12?

Okay. Just

just just making sure.

That's what

I'm saying.

To put you on the spot the second you walked through the door. Great. Diana,

principal planner with the city's planning division. Good morning. The applicant has submitted a revised plan set for our review, and we are currently looking at that. The revised plans do not include any retail at the bottom. It is gonna be just a housing project. So staff is currently reviewing it. That's that's the update.

Thank you, But who owns all these lot? Is it all city owned? So these are all city owned lots. Yeah. So the city pays the 159 or over the 58,000. What is this revenue? I'm still unclear. So so, like, all of the inside the gray area, there's all these businesses.

Oh, it's the businesses that

are suspended. Because of the got it. Yeah. Well, it's assessed on It's within the property tax. Yeah. It's assessed on property. So, technically, it's the property owners, but oftentimes, they get passed on to the businesses. There are also a number of residential properties within here, and so they get charged as

well. Yeah.

Although residential is charged at a lower rate, I believe.

And does this does do the revenues cover the cost of maintaining the parking? No. We're close

to it. Yeah. So

there are a couple of different and we could do a deeper dive into the parking district at a future time. I'm I'm still wrapping my brain around it as well, but there are a number of different revenue sources that we have that come into the district. And there are some that are sort of discretionary and some that are not, you know, back when we collected in lieu fees. So this would these are fees that would be collected if a development wasn't going to be able to provide all the park needed parking on-site, we would collect fees, and that money can only be used for the creation of new parking supply. So some of that money is of tied up with those rules.

And then we have some other funding sources that we can be used, but we, you know, we have a reserve that we try to maintain for future, you know, future upgrades that need to take place. But the quick answer to your question is no. Expenses are outpacing. Okay. Then can I ask a follow on question?

Yeah. So then is what is the reason that we haven't increased it in twenty nine years? Is it just because it's such a hassle to, like, redo Yeah. The

Okay.

Yeah. You could lose the district if you reopen it? Yep. We could reopen it, and there could be a vote to not renew to not have the district. So there's sort of that It's sort of the risk with all assessment districts is you kind of leave them as is because it's better than nothing or risk or risk losing kind of the whole ish caboodle. But we can certainly do a deeper dive where we currently have a scope of work. We're working with Nelson Nygard who put together the 2021 parking study to put together a work plan for some implementation of the parking study. So there'll be more to come around the parking district in this next year.

Yeah. Just somewhat related to this is it might be a good idea to sort of keep a little log of issues that come up every year and so that there's, like, a little primer booklets for new downtown committee members. So we don't have to reeducate everybody every year about things that come back, you know, on a real calendar basis so that everybody sorta has a set. So

And and that's the same logic behind the BIA. Why, you know, that hasn't been updated in thirty years. So

any public?

No members of public.

Alright. Is there a motion for the Downtown Parking Maintenance Assistant building? So the motion Jamil makes a motion to approve And Pamela, second. All in favor, aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Alright. The motion carries unanimously. Moving on, downtown committee, work plan.

Oh, okay. So oh. So Diana, I'd like to provide just a quick precise plan update if we don't mind just taking that

since Yeah.

I wanted to provide it with the development update, but that wouldn't be distracting. So, again, Diana Pancholi, principal planner. I'm leading the effort for the city on the downtown precise plan, comprehensive update. We have started with our community outreach program and talking to a lot of different stakeholders because there are so many stakeholders for downtown as you can imagine. We did a business focused outreach walking survey. Met a couple of you. And we got 50% survey response, almost 50% right now. You. Yeah. Yeah.

We were really happy. I think one of the most successful things that came out of it was that we had a team with Chinese, Vietnamese, and Spanish speakers. Mhmm. So that actually really helped. Businesses, felt really comfortable, especially those who were non, English speakers and provided input.

Some of the key themes that came out was need for more safety, a lot of support for Ped Mall, some complaints about cities lengthy permitting process that it takes too long. Some businesses also were they showed interest in more outdoor patio space needed. And we're still assessing the survey themes and the results that are coming out. It's still going on. We are following up with email communication to get survey results from other businesses who did not participate in our walking survey because they can fill it in by email as well.

So we thought that it was, like, a really successful outreach effort, and our team was there two days on Castro And The Parallel Streets and then, yeah, following up with email. So, hopefully, we'll get more results, as we go through this outreach effort. In addition to the business outreach, we are also reaching out to other stakeholders. I mean, we talked to the historical association yesterday. We're talking to, some of the other folks, today and later this week and next week as well. So I will be bringing back, updates to the downtown committee as it moves forward. Thank you. Is the email also gonna be multilingual, or is that an English only? It does have options on that. Will stop.

Yeah. Any other questions? No? Okay. Thank you. Great.

Thanks for your help.

I'm sorry. I do have a question, Diana. When is a draft going to be available to will there be a draft that circulated to anyone, or we just see the final report?

The report? I think it's going to be a final report, but it's gonna be part of our existing conditions. So we're still preparing that. I think once the survey is completed, then we'll include it as part of our existing conditions report. We're hoping to go to planning commission city council

in

fall this year. So I'm hoping by that time, we'll we would have finished that, and the report will be available.

Great. Thank you. And

just to clarify, sort of your report from the outreach, is that what you were asking about, Peter? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great.

I I I have just just came with my my question is that the the the questions we had for historical association, so every stakeholder were asked similar type or same? So

some of the common themes remain the strengths, challenges, opportunities, but our outreach is being tweaked specific to each stakeholder Stakeholder. As well because not many peep like, businesses might not answer for the historical resources. So we're tweaking it to get, you know, key input from from the stakeholders in addition to the common questions like the strengths, challenges, and opportunities.

Very good. And the reason I was asking that I was looking at if there are any surprises, something the other committee, we can't see it.

And people

businesses were there all the time see something different. You know? So that'll be interesting to know later on. Maybe more will come out. Yeah. Great. Thank you.

Okay.

Now I'm moving on to 7.2.

Okay. So for those of you who are new to our community, every year we have to put together a work plan. And this year, we submit this to city council in this fall for review and approval. So included in your packet is the work plan from last year, and it says draft, but it's final. And that it's the one that has the title 2024.

I have a draft work plan for the next fifteen years, and we'll be taking comments and feedback now to bring back to you for your meeting next month for final approval. I'm happy to pull it up if it's helpful. But it's broken into sort of ongoing work items and then some fiscal year specific work items.

And do you have a version on the computer that is shows the changes from, you know, in color? I I don't know if those are here, and we can't see it because it's in black and white.

Yeah. Okay.

Yep. Mostly. What's what isn't here that was here, and what's new that wasn't there?

Ah, okay. Yeah. I have the chart changes.

Also, it'd be kinda nice to know, given our recommendations from the last time, what kind of made it in. Right.

You said

at '24 yet, '25. It's like it's too fancy. It's a gentleman looking at the sun.

Right. You're doing the old The old. Okay. So

So some of it so we could just sort of state test of the forms. So I removed some I added some language to kind of make it sort of match by putting action words you can see in front of the some of those key milestones. Development of city owned properties, I it's not something I was aware that we were doing, so I removed. Although, if you'd like to see that capped, we certainly could. Supporting economic development initiatives, I added some language here, as you can see, around, you know, sort of the challenges and opportunities facing downtown businesses.

Yeah. I've removed support the downtown corporate community. I just figured that would be a kind of have to fall into the larger economic vitality initiatives. Yeah. So, yeah, rather than having it subgrouped out into corporate and downtown businesses, I kind of just created a a singular item there. I added some updates. So specific to we're we're gonna be working towards the World Cup and Super Bowl tournament twenty twenty six, so added some specific logos there. I included language about our joint our joint ad hoc committee that we've created. So that's, just the collaborative efforts there. That's new.

Added to this one, recommendations on the implementation of the downtown parking strategy. So as I mentioned, we have that current scope of work, so there'll be some yeah. We'll be doing some work around that. So just added some more clarifying language. Again, reviewing the parking district, so adding those action items or action words there.

And then so Ballard art project, that's done. So remove that. And then, yeah, we're just given the challenges we're currently having with MURAL and the state legislation, I pulled that for this fiscal year. And then lastly yeah. Again, this is related to the park downtown parking strategy that I've worked we're likely have some work plan items that will come before you.

And that's it. But mostly just some cleanup items here. Yeah. I think there are a variety of tacks you could take with our work plan. We could try and be super detailed or give ourselves sort of just some keep it more general so that we have flexibility to go where we wanna go.

Questions? Comments? I have one one other one. Given given that we're working on the upcoming work plan, know, like, current status I mean, I guess I look at that as are we if we look at it over the course of the year, what's the current status is? So it seems premature to put current status here. Because I look at current status as not the current of today, but once we're into the plan, what's the status if we look at it in December sort of thing. And so I don't know if that's So you You know, I guess that's progress as opposed to current status.

So doing we're just trying to start an update.

You know, like, I know for, like, when they're doing stuff when the city managers suffer the council, they've got their so the red, yellow, green is, you know, on the work plan for the year. And, okay, this one is completed. This one is bogged down, and it's got a big red a big red dot next to it, stuff like that. So I I I don't know if we're talking about under current status whether we're sort of talking about progress towards the work plan, or is that current status as of the time that we're preparing the work plan?

So you're wanting from, like, our our current work plan for there to be sort of a status report. And we oh, you mean these notes here?

Right. Well, I'm just I'm just notes. Yeah. They look

like notes, not so much as current status.

And that's what I'm that's what I'm saying. You know? So notes might be in italics in current status. But I'm just wondering, do we plan on doing current status? And if not, let's just put notes.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. Yes. I mean, some of these have I think in the past, we've done some current status, but because current status, that changes

Right.

It's not sort of yeah. That I've kind of tried to keep things more of a note section. So, yeah, we can remove that right off.

And just just for clarification of the

Yeah. Sorry. Didn't understand.

Question. Has the city been thinking about adding events to these, Let's say, in what a variety of business outreach services and activities available downtown, and key milestones. Additional events. What kind of additional events are we talking about here? Do you know?

We have with the joint committee, we've talked about whether there could be some more events around the art that is being exhibited in the CPA, perhaps having, like, a artist open house sort of a thing. So that's specific to kind of that collaboration. In terms of additional events, you know, we've been talking with the Downtown Business Association about some of the desire for additional events and whether there be modifications to city processes that could support, you know, some of the smaller scale events happening. So worth And I

think that, let's say, an example would be, let's say, the bunny hopper just recently there, which was it wasn't a great like, the other, but it's the first time we did it. I still think that a lot of kids came out and, you know, got their tattoos. But I think it was a really great start to, you know, something maybe a make a tradition out of it and where, technically, we should have a TUP or whatever it is that, you know, city requires, but then the city can come in right there and just kinda let things happen. You know, it's within safety boundaries, of course Yeah. Aspects. But I think those types of events and now we have the taste amount we're coming out. Right? Should be really good.

Yeah. I think there's also a distinction too between, you know, what is it that the DBA is going to take responsibility for versus what can the city step in in either as a lead role or a supportive role. Exactly. Yeah.

1776, 2026, or is the city planning doing anything for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seventeen seventy six.

Of the constitution? Of the

Of the papers? The lost lines of papers? Not that I'm aware

of. I think.

It's the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the city? No. The United States. Oh, think you always. Okay. I'm on no.

Sausquicentennial or sausquicentennial? Next year. Next Next year.

Or do you say

it's sas

fesquicentennial. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm not gonna be able to say that. I've heard

her. Sesquicentennial.

No. It's because it's it's like a half of 500.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So it's like it's sesqua sin cent quincentennial, I think is what it is actually.

Jamel? So, I mean, we can add, you know, add more leads into the cornhole games and things. They they were really improved, so we can add to it, you know, to have more event that way. Or

And I think our community services department is looking at whether it can be expanded because it was so successful.

Yeah. It was really great.

Just Oh, sorry. I I was wondering, is I mean, I think part of our role or most of our role is meant to be of use to city staff in providing community input on things. So does this reflect what what we can be helpful with, or are there other things that that we could be helpful with that you would add to the work?

Yeah. You know, I added those pieces, like the Super Bowl, World Cup. Mhmm. That's a lot of the stuff on the parking district is what I'm anticipating working on. So, yeah, I tried to couch a lot of that in there.

K. Well, Marina, just to kinda

combine now that you mentioned this order thing. Two hundred fifty years with the Super Bowl cup I mean, not Super Bowl. World Cup coming up. That would be a great opportunity for the Bay Area to really present itself. Would there be any you know, okay on the city level, but what about county level funds or something plans that maybe the city can reach out and ask if any plans are being drawn up for this?

So I'm in regular communication with the Bay Area host committee who is the organizing entity. And, yeah, we've I've met with them three, maybe four times, and they're gonna actually put together a toolkit of sorts for local for local cities to use and, you know, what they can and can't do they can't do. There's, you know, rules around logo use. Like, NFL is very protective of their their logo. And so we'll we'll know more about what's possible, but we've already started a we're starting an internal city working group to kind of figure out how we leverage it.

I don't know of any funds that are available at the county level, so it'll be city meeting to figure out what we can afford to do. But we'll be working closely with Peter and myself on sort of a joint idea around how we can leverage, you know, having a a great train station right here, which may be a connecting point to getting to the games, whether there's opportunities for businesses downtown. So, yeah, more to come on that. So

And remember and just just before I get well, first, it's Peter and then you. But, also, we're what we're trying to do is just finalize the work plan, not delve into all of the details that might be under the work plan or stuff like that. So we're just working on this document at the moment here.

Yeah. It's just an additive, point of information, and that is that as we dig dive deeper into this, understanding what the city's resources are, is going to be important.

So Right.

Is it just going to be, you know, fine. We'll waive waive permits, or is it going to be there's actually we can provide cash. We can provide humans. We can provide direction, and it's also about ownership. You know? What is there are certain things that the city has demonstrated desire to want to own. Great. Fine. But, you know, but then there are other things that we need to know. You know?

Are we be are we taking on? And that's kind of tangential to this group, and that and that's what I wanted to be clear on is that the downtown committee is my understanding is really the as Anne was saying, the advisory body to the city. And so I I just procedurally wanna make sure that we're focused in the right way and being the most productive because, you know, Marina and and our team can go out, you know, and talk DDA all we want and and all that. Is that something that needs to be approved by DTC? Is that something where we come to DTC DTC for, you know, extra resources or or recommendations or what? So understanding the process better would would be really helpful.

I I actually agree with that. I mean, I think that's that would be really helpful for me. I because I've been on the committee now for a little while, and it's still not very clear to me.

The process specific to the work plan or process around the committee? Like, what we So How things come to the committee?

Or So so kind of, you know, I guess, when it comes to events, it's unclear to me what role the DTC wants or should play. Because there's a lot that can happen, you know, outside

of this room. We're we're not a governing We are an advisory committee to Amanda.

Right. And so that's why I wanna understand what kind of advice she needs.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Yes. And is that better served in, for example, having Amanda come to the downtown excuse me, the DBA versus us discussing it here kind of thing. Right. Agreed. Just wanna be efficient.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's helpful. And it's there are some things that council wants to see come to you first in sort of an official capacity, and so, you know, items that come through. But it's a fair question in terms of what we what we look at. Thank you.

Pamela, let you know.

Point was similar to Peter's. You know, if we have ideas or suggestions, how do we present those to you or to ourselves or amongst ourselves and decide this is something that we think you should be Teaming. As a staff. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And and that's it's sort of a tricky question. We have our, you know, future agenda topic list, but it's for me, it's sort of trying to think, okay. If there are a couple of things that are high priority for the downtown committee, you know, carving out staff time to pursue those and having to give up other things we're working on. So it's sort of how do we layer it in. And yeah. So and and I think for me, that's the thing that I'm a little tentative about just because we we're being just short staffed. You know? As you all know, I'm just doing the work of two people right now. And so jumping into new waters is a little it scares me about the extra work.

But certainly, we can coalesce around a couple of key issues, then yes, I think there should be some items that are initiated at the count at the committee level. Those issues that the one or two, three the one or two things this year that you all wanna dive deeper in. I will do the research. I'll prep. I'll research what other cities are doing. So it would be good to get some clear direction and sort of consensus on what those would be. And then I will have things that I will be bringing to you. Sorry to interrupt.

And my take on that is from a more of a governance perspective is, again, Amanda does not work at our behest. We work at hers. And so just because we have stuff that sounds good and we would like to get it done doesn't mean that's something that the, you know, economic development department is going to pursue. And so, I mean, we are not the city council, and Amanda is not the city manager. We are advisers to her, and it's really on her to ask us for advice and thoughts and comments that she can use to implement the city's goals with respect to the downtown, not vice versa.

So Actually, as you're saying, madam, a good place to start might be for us to do a deep dive into the economic vitality strategy. We have a goal a whole goal that is focused on the downtown. So maybe we go through there and see what kind of alignment there might be with the interest, with the priorities that you're seeing, and what's in that council accepted program because it it'll be, I think, easier to kind of bring resources to the table. We've been directed to implement the economic vitality strategy. So that might be a good next session.

I'm I'm going to counsel with an update, so we'll I'll have more current status question status. So maybe that's what we do next meeting is actually go through that and see what what's been flagged there and if there are some things that we can begin to work on sort of as a next step.

You know?

I was just wondering the events we're talking about is the has to do with the downtown businesses and all that, or we could tap into the entities and other entities in the our city, which like like schools, we can tap into that. Would you like to have any events here? So it would kind of bring them in and take the downtown to them, you know, so it's more so just just I mean, not adding more work or something.

Yeah. I I think it would be really helpful to see the economic vitality strategy. It's probably publicly available, and I could just go look at it myself. But I think it would be good to hear you speak about it because I do think I mean, so now having heard you say this, I'm assuming this work plan is what you were saying that you would like for the committee to advise on this year, which is great. But I think for at least for me personally, knowing knowing what that strategy is Yeah.

Would help inform when we, every meeting, ask what our future agenda topics we think are useful. It helps us it helps us if we know what your priorities are, it can help us say, oh, here's something I've heard that might be help useful for that. So it gives it gives us a context for what your priorities are and, I think, makes us more efficient in our advisory capacity.

Yeah. Absolutely. I will talk with our chair and vice chair about when we can Thank plug that in. But yeah. And I'll say it there's, like, a 164 items in the area, so I'll bring a more focused focused deep dive for us on just the downtown specific ones.

Is there any more input on the sort of proposed work plan that Amanda has submitted? Because this will come up at the next meeting for Approval. Actually, adoption.

Yeah. And it's need to happen there or between now and next month.

And while you're all looking, is there any public that may wanna comment on this?

Question. Seeing none online or in person. Okay.

And not

seeing any comments.

So I guess I'd ask a stupid question.

Maybe it's a smart one.

Well, we go from a b c d e f, then and we go to 1234.

Yeah.

Is there some delineation I don't know about, or is it is that Well,

I think we're ongoing and then some are

Okay.

Either different categories. Fiscal year.

Yeah. Okay. That just makes sense.

Yeah. It's Yeah. It's just price. It's an interesting template. I inherited this template. And Well, you know, we feel to clean

it up.

Yeah. If I hadn't just been on vacation and then sick, it it's something I would have had that

I just wanna make sure they weren't a separate set of

Yeah. It's just delineating categories.

Yeah. These are all part of f one two three four. Okay. Right?

Perfect. Yeah.

Okay.

Alright. Well,

thank you

all for the question.

Moving on then to item eight, committee staff comments, questions, committee rewards, random thoughts.

Hold on a minute. You

said that the the artwork applied to the bus stop is done by an artist and then applied by a contractor. It's sort of the bollards. Yeah.

We've looked into that, And we'd have to figure out how to transport the bollards off-site and potentially transfer ownership of the bollards so they wouldn't be public property. Yeah. It got very confusing.

I mean, I assume the bus stop is like a film that gets applied.

Yeah. It's gonna be actually panels. So they're gonna the art will be installed on panels and then donated to the city, and we will install the art from there. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. I mean, we went down a lot of rabbit holes trying to figure out how we can make it happen.

Well, there was also discussion too about having the ballots be a wrap. Right? So that you could have the artwork done separately and then have a contractor actually install it. But that didn't seem to be a way that the artist really wanted

to And we talked to the vinyl wrap people. They were like, it would have to be very simplistic.

Right.

Because it would it wouldn't be Astonished. Yeah. Their roundness is problem. Makes it complicated. And we had an artist that wants to do mosaics. It's gonna be really cool.

Right. Yeah.

Right. Disappointing. I'm disappointed. No.

I just wanted to, I mean, thank the Amanda and the staff, you know, for all their work. And if that goes on behind the scene, we just just think it's all done. It's you for that.

Sorry. Can you go first?

I'm sorry. I was gonna say, the parking district number 2, is there a number one? There is a number one. So we have two parking assessment districts? Yes. It's yeah. I'll I'll have to come back with more information.

I was just wondering.

I was like, it's you know, I was like, is there another one?

Okay. Yeah. A secret one.

Yeah. Just like there's two business improvement districts.

Yeah. It's like v one, v two. Yeah. Right.

Seeing

nothing else, we can move on to adjournment.

Well, we'll Oh. Oh, no. Couple of things. First of all, I just wanted to let the the downtown committee know that, the chamber spoke up to, the council regarding measure g and how to, use the measure g funds with some suggestions. And one of them that was directly, applicable to downtown is that one of our recommendations was to use Measure g funds to do more of the basics, I e cleaning, policing, etcetera.

The idea being that we always hear, oh, we're short staffed or, oh, we don't have the funding. Well, guess what? Measure g funds, there's five to 15% of that dedicated to small business. Nothing will help small businesses more. Not many things will, but something that will help small businesses quite substantially is to be able to really have clean and safe streets and to do the basics that that need to happen.

And measure g is, of course, the

Parcel tax.

The the parcel no. Not the the transfer tax increase on parcels on transfers over $6,000,000.

Right. The other thing that we mentioned too is that and that you all should know is that in Sunnyvale, Scott Johnson, if that's a name that will live forever in infamy, I will remind you that this is the person who drives around in his car and hands out frivolous lawsuits or ADA noncompliance.

Oh, yeah.

He's out of jail.

No one is back. No.

And he has hit Sunnyvale. And so, one of the things that we would like to work with the city on is some of the preventive measures we can do to show that, you know, if you're gonna drive through our streets, we've actually kind of done some work in in advance. So this wouldn't be a good idea. And so we wanna continue to, yeah, be vigilant on on that one as well. So that's one thing. I have more.

Are you reading between the

laws? No. No. No.

No. Just that those, I think, are uses of Measure G funds that directly apply to downtown. The others are more a general small business. The Downtown Business Association is and I should let Marina talk about this a little bit, is talking about putting together an open house in June. And, Marina, do you wanna

So we're planning on doing a kind of a what we did during COVID, like a get together with the community and the businesses in downtown just to kinda there's a lot of new businesses that came to downtown, and, hopefully, we're able we will be able to get them in and have them kinda introduce themselves, have, a mingling, sit you know, session. There's gonna be food, refreshments, provided. There's gonna be a panel, right, decided on that. Just to for for for, you know, where the the community can ask questions of businesses of you know, they have any concerns, any, you know, feedback, anything that business can use to improve or to reach out more to the community. And so, last time we had it, it was a great return out even though it was older.

Right? Yeah. So we're hoping this time we're gonna do it on the Main Floor where it's bigger. Hope At

Monte Carlo.

At Monte Carlo. My dad is cooking.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Alright. I'll be there.

Oh, no. It's happening. Your dad is cooking. Yeah.

It's the June 26. From 05:30 to 07:30. And so I think it should you know, I I'm looking forward to it. I'm really excited about the whole setup.

If I can toot your horn just a little louder, and that is the when when we did it when we did it last time, there were about, I think, eight people eight eight different businesses that presented. It was really a chance to for public to see a name a face with the name.

Mhmm.

Right? And so it wasn't just Monte Carlo. They could actually meet Marina and hear from her. And so, especially during COVID where it was all about shop local and these local business, and this is the pain that they're going through. It was a way of reinforcing that message. What we've found what we found in doing that too, we had two of the city council members there. City council kind of said, wow. We need to hear this. And so we also are looking at this as being an outreach to the city to say, hear hear us that, you know, here's what we're going through. Here's here's why we're what we're doing is on name to a face. But, also, these are some of the challenges that are specific to our downtown businesses. It's a chance to actually have that kind of a presentation as well.

So The new the new businesses, what their child what they have faced as far as, like, you know, actual obstacles of you know, prior to opening their business.

I I wanna Yeah. Be careful. This isn't a discussion item. This is a report item. So let's try

and keep it report y. Yeah. Yeah. Then I'm gonna have the newest member of the downtown committee pop just report out on celebration of leaders.

Oh, yeah. It's happening. We have celebration of leaders next Friday. We are honoring a number of businesses and business owners, leaders. So Jean, our fellow Red Rock leader,

she

is small not small business. Business leader of the year honoring wealth downtown.

That would be a downtown. Anyways.

But but other peep so if you haven't registered yet, please do so. We are closing registration probably either at the end of this week or early next week. It will be at the Ameswell Hotel,

which we

didn't A week from Friday.

Yes.

So Get the date yet.

Next Friday, May 16 from 05:30 to 07:30

or 05:30 to 09:30. See you there. Great. And Taste of Mountain

Yes. Taste of Mountain View is June 11, so that'll be, like, a week or two before the open house. That is our wine, beer, and food walk in the downtown area. We have, I think, about 17 businesses signed up this year. So I think that's one more than last year, and I'm really excited that we have actually two. So it's not on this end. So it's not just one ounce holding. We'll also have MedGrill participating this year, so it should be a lot of fun. And those tickets those early bird tickets end next week as well. So if you haven't purchased your ticket yet, I would do so ASAP. That's June 11? Yes. Wednesday, June 11 from four to eight. Great. Thank you.

Seeing nothing else, we will stand adjourned.

Excellent.

Thank you, everybody.