City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. I'm going to call the New York City Council meeting to order. Let the um uh let it be reflected that all council members are here. Council member Jorg um Jorgens um Gindall is out of the country, but he will be attending remotely. Is he currently online? Yes, he is. Great. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the pledge.

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. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be closing tonight's meeting in memory of a longtime New York resident, Margarite Durand. Let me tell you a little bit about Margarite. She's lived in Newark for over 64 years. She and her husband, Rick, raised five children here in Newark. She worked for the Newark Unified School District at Memorial High School and the district office for 28 years. She's been retired for 26 years. During her retirement, she volunteered her time at St. Edward Church, Oakland A's, and Kaiser Hospital. She loved living here in the city of Newark. I had the chance to attend her memorial service this morning over at St. Edward. Well attended. She made a real impact on our community. One thing about Margarite and Rick, they were just such active residents uh in our community. And again, as mentioned, raised five kids. And Liz, one of the daughters currently works for recently retired from the um Newark Unified School District. Her other daughter Chris uh works for the chancellor at Shabbo College. But um just fine individuals and um anytime we can recognize somebody in our community that made such a significant contribution, somebody that people will look at her and say, "I know her, but I don't know her." And that was the type of person that Margarite was. So we're going to close tonight's meeting in her memory. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go out a little bit out of order um because it's such a privilege uh to welcome Alama County's district attorney here this evening. Um, Miss Jones Dixon is the uh, district attorney for Alama County. Um, one of the most critical issues that we in Newark and other communities are concerned about certainly is public safety. And a significant part of ensuring that our community is safe is not only our outstanding police department to which we have, but it's also our district attorney. so that when folks are arrested that we want our district attorney to hold folks accountable for the decisions that they've made that have impacted others in our community whether personally or uh of a business nature. So, it's with great pleasure that I want to welcome our district attorney to the great city of Newark, Miss Jones Dixon, district attorney. Welcome back. I'm going to be talking this way. Okay. Thank you.

These folks are great, but I'm going to be talking directly to you guys today if that's okay with you. All right. I am Ursula Jones Dixon, Alama County DA, and I just wanted to give you a bit of a snapshot of what's going on here at the District Attorney's Office, talk a little bit about what the DA does, how we do it, and look at some of the data over the last year or so uh that I've been here in this position. So, let's first talk about the DA's mission. Our mission is to ethically prosecute those who commit crimes, uphold the rights of victims, and provide them with compassionate support, protect the communities that we serve. We collaborate with justice and community partners, and foster policies that prioritize public safety and restore public trust. We are also reinforcing innovative programs that provide opportunities for rehabilitation and reintegration and to enhance the lives of the residents here in Alama County. Now, district attorneys also have a mandate. There's certain things we're required to do, and the district attorney's office represents the people of the state of California ethically, professionally, and with integrity in criminal, civil, and juvenile matters. The DA's office always pursues the truth, demonstrates commitment to fair and equitable justice for all, and ensures that victims of crime are treated with respect, dignity, and empathy. That's me. So, just to tell you how I got here. Like I hate this photo and my team keeps putting it in this stack, but I keep thinking it's a nightmare every time I look up there. But here's the thing. This is all you need to know about me. I was a deputy district attorney for almost 15 years. Then I was um elevated to the bench by Governor Jerry Brown in 2013 and was a judge for 11 years and then appointed to the position of uh the DA in February of 2025.

And so I've been in this position since then. Uh the DA's office has multiple branches and so I want to talk about those. One is Renee Davidson. That is by the the courthouse that's by Lake Meritt in Oakland. Consumer Environmental and Worker Protection is out by Oakland Airport. East County Hall of Justice is right near Sanorita. Uh and the Juvenile Justice Center is in San Leandro on 150th. Uh Fremont Hall of Justice is of course in Fremont. And our victim witness assistance program is spread throughout all of these divisions. Our family justice center is located on 27th um street in Oakland between Broadway and Telegraph and Wyman Emanuel Courthouse is right by the Oakland Police Department. So you find us throughout the county rebuilding community trust. So we have been trying to strengthen your your district attorney's office. We launched a regional organized retail theft task force that establishes a countywide organized retail theft uh task force to address repeat organized offenders and restructured that uh prosecu that prosecutorial unit to be vertical. That just means that one attorney is handling the cases from beginning to end. We just had a press conference yesterday. It was not really a press conference. We did what we call a Walmart walk. I went to Walmart and Union City um to meet with their legal department and their lost people just to kind of figure out what's happening in stores um especially larger retailers, what they're doing to ward off organized retail theft and hoping that some of those things without all the cash that a Walmart has of course could help some of our smaller businesses as well and also ideas how we can better prosecute those cases. We're also bolstering operations by filling leadership positions, relaunching dormant grant and consumer protection initiatives, and beginning a top-to-bottom fiscal review. Um, those actions create a more transparent and

accountable office. We restored our prosecutorial capacity. That means that we allow the district attorneys who have the experience in our office to charge cases without asking for layers of of permission to do so. The reason that's of import is because when I walked in the door, we had a thousands of cases that were backlogged that had not been charged. And some of that had a lot to do with the fact that when there was a request to charge a case in a certain way, it had to go to multiple supervisors and often times uh those cases didn't get charged in a timely manner. We also reaffirmed our commitment to fair and equitable justice by focusing on consistent community informed decisionmaking rooted in public trust, service, and legal integrity. We're also serving survivors and supporting safety. We've advanced a gun violence prevention program with a um it is a pilot for four counties in the state of California uh through AB 1344. It allows district attorneys to do a gun violence restraining order program so that if we identify people who we think might be risky owning a gun bas based upon mental health issues or other issues, we can ask for a restraining order on their on the city and the county's behalf. We strengthen community stakeholder engagement by convening safety conversations with business owners, survivors, faith leaders across Alama County. Um, and the goal is to just directly hear from different communities. I mean, we have to realize this county is almost 1.7 million people. It's probably more diverse than any county in the state of California. And um, the amount of just geographic area is crazy. Like now that I know, now that I have to travel it all the time, it's pretty crazy. So, we try very much to reach out to communities individually and ask them what's going on with you, what's happening in your neighborhood, what are your concerns regarding public

safety and otherwise. And also, we've protected resources fighting against devastating budget cuts that would further harm victims, successfully securing new funding to protect victims. and to support Alama County Family Justice Center and the Trauma Recovery Center. We've had to finagle funding for the Trauma Recovery Center because we did lose that funding. A lot of grant funding is drying up for us. And interestingly enough, people assume that the DA's budget pays for a lot of the services for victims is actually the opposite. Almost all of the victim witness advocates, several of them who are here today are grant funded. And so there's always that fear that we need to find a way to make sure that the county can reinforce or be a safety net for funding for us so that we don't lose services to victims. And I'll talk to you about our victim witness advocates when they come up and accept the proclamation. So justice by the numbers, everybody loves data. All right. So referrals reviewed. So let me just talk a little bit about how the DA's office works. What generally happens is there's a agency, generally a police report or a police uh agency that provides a police report to the DA's office for review. We review that report to determine whether or not a crime has occurred and then whether or not we believe we can prove that that crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 jurors. If the answer to that question is yes, then we move on to the next step. If it's a misdemeanor, that case is charged. the person accused of that crime has a right to an arraignment or just to be told what those charges are. After that arraignment and they get a lawyer, everybody has a right to a lawyer and a criminal proceeding. Then we move on to whether or not this is a case that's going to resolve, whether or not it's diverted away from the criminal justice system by way of diversion or some other thing, deferred entry of judgment. If not, maybe the case is a plea bargain. Maybe this case goes to trial. Or like every other case I've

ever touched, it either gets better or worse. Maybe it gets worse. and so it gets dismissed. Those are your options for a misdemeanor. If the case is a felony, similar, but there's one extra step. Uh we review the case to determine whether or not it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. If the answer is yes and it is charged, multiple things can happen. It can be deferred away from the criminal justice. Let me start back. You need to be arraigned. Every person accused needs to be arraigned and get a lawyer. You can either have a case that is deferred away and diverted away from the criminal justice system by way of diversion, all of those other things, but before you get there, you have to have what's called a preliminary hearing. That's a probable cause hearing. The reason is because a felony has more exposure from the perspective there's more time that you could spend in custody. And so, a judge gets to look at that case and determine whether there's a baseline amount of information for that case to move on. And if the answer is yes, then we do all the same things. That case can resolve by way of plea bargain, it can go to diversion, it can go to trial, etc. So the referrals really police reports generally that we've received, you can see there's been a heightened number of referrals um from 23 to 25. You know, I I have ideas about why that's the case, and I've talked to a lot of police officers trying to figure out what their feelings were about that. Um, there was a lot there were many indications that a lot of the officers felt demoralized because they were bringing they were doing work. They were bringing cases to the DA's office and they weren't being charged. And so to some extent it does make me wonder if officers felt so demoralized that they weren't working as hard as they have been working before to try to resolve these cases because nothing was happening with them. Um what I can tell you is these are only in custody cases. So think about the number of cases that we see. They're very they're much fewer in custody cases than out of custody

cases. And in 2025 for misdemeanor alone that came in in custody was 12,962 referrals and 5,856 referrals for felonies. What happens once a case is referred. Many things can happen. We can charge that case. Um and you see under the misdemeanor portion, 7,000 of those cases were charged. 980 were given an alternative action. that can be diversion, um, deferred entry of judgment. Uh, the police reports that weren't charged means we couldn't prove those cases beyond a reasonable doubt. And so sometimes there's something missing in that report. There's not enough evidence for us to get there and then we don't charge those cases. Same is true in felonies. You see those numbers. All of these again are in custody. Um, but those numbers have gone up significantly over the last couple of years. We also try to track referrals with a gun charge because there's so much gun violence. Um I I shouldn't say so much. It's coming down, right? Um and there less deaths than we see before because our hospitals are really good. Like Highland Hospital in Oakland is one of the best trauma centers in the entire country. So always think about the lack of deaths is not always because of the lack of shootings. It's because we have great doctors who do wonderful work in those hospitals and just bigging up um healthcare workers right now just because I always do when I have an opportunity to. Um but the referrals with guns is something we've been tracking quite a bit and we've seen in 2025 those referrals went up significantly. That doesn't mean that it's just a gun charge. It means that a gun's involved in the crime. And so it's kind of good to kind of realize that there's so many cases that are coming to us for review that are involved in illegal gun.

All right. Uh theft related property crimes. Total number of theft related property crimes uh filed cases. This is just just what's charged. I mean that's a huge jump over the the three years before 2025. I mean I've thought about that as well. I mean, we also had Prop 36 happen. I think that people started to focus more on property related thefts. I think that um I think that there's the possibility that police officers uh I was at went at Union City yesterday and often times in that Union City Walmart there's a police officer and I'm like, you know, we that would never happen in Oakland. We just don't have the number of officers to do that. Um, that conversation included another conversation I had at Whole Foods in Oakland where of 550 stores in three countries, the Whole Foods in Oakland has the biggest loss of any Whole Foods.

$3.4 million in 2023. And in 2024, I think it was 3 million. I mean, that's more than any store in LA. And so, when you start looking at the property related crimes, one, it can be individual crimes like someone stolen a car. I mean, that's a huge setback for a family that doesn't have money to go out and buy a car. Um, and in addition to that, the theft related crimes for in the stores, we see we're seeing stores disappear. Small businesses are disappearing at a high rate because they just can't keep the doors open with this amount of theft. So, these are cases filed, the 4,627. The charges, you can have multiple theft charges on a case. So, they're more theft charges, but the only difference in those stats are just um the number of charges that are filed in any of those dockets. Now, I want to talk about victims receiving services, new victims and clients receiving services between 2022 and 2025. I mean, you think about the number of people that uh the DA's office is servicing. I mean, we are providing on average in that little small blue box 39 services to each victim between 2022 and 2025. Those services are some of them are based upon Marcy's law which is in the California state constitution. I'm wanting to educate you all if you don't know and remind you if you do uh that victims in the state of California have constitutional rights as well. It's not just accused. And I think for a long time people stopped saying that out loud. And I every time I get a chance I say it out loud because I think it's important to remember that we owe victims certain things based upon our California state constitution. There's 17 enumerated rights. And so as a result of that, the victim witness advocates make sure that we help to usher victims through the criminal justice system. The

work they do is amazing. um I don't know that we could do our jobs without them and it is very important for us to keep that top of mind. So in 2025 7,646 new victims receiving services. The the portion at the bottom about the kind of services we offer, what kind of crime type is any crime, anything that can be charged is what we offer. I don't think people think about the types of crimes that we have. It could be identity theft. It can be a battery which is like an assault. um drunk driving, violation of a protective order, uh aggravated assault, attempt murder, murder, even family, uh victims, families can get those services as well. The work ahead. So, what's ahead for the Alama County DA's office? Key priorities are developing a hate crimes unit. We have a grant for that. The goal is to educate the community and law enforcement about hate crimes. very difficult to prove a hate crime. So, what we do is document hate incidents because it helps for us to get to the state of mind necessary to prove a hate crime if somebody continues to do this over and over again. Restoring our human trafficking, wage theft, and labor exploitation efforts. Human trafficking is a huge issue in our county, specifically in Oakland. I think people who don't live in Oakland don't realize that there's basically an open air market for human trafficking. And because of the way the laws are set up, it is difficult, very difficult, um to to get after the people who are doing the trafficking, the pimps. Uh we've been really good at it for many, many years, and I think the laws are changing and resources are changing. We're building up those resources to support individuals who have been trafficked so that we can help to get them to a point where they're able to testify in a case. because once we charge the case, remembering that if that case goes forward, we still need witnesses to come

in and testify and to prove that to a jury of 12. So, we're working on building that up again. Also, improving and expanding W victim witness services and relaunching our inaugural annual report. And that's a little scan me little QR code if you want to take a look at that. We have some here as well. Uh we're rebuilding community trust. We're committed to working alongside community leaders to improve public safety, increase trust, and ensure accountability through fair charging decisions. Our engagement efforts include town halls and safety forums. Love those. Call me, ask me to come to your city and sit with your community and talk about public safety issues, community listening sessions. We've done that as well with businesses, um, with victim rights advocates, um, all kinds of folks just coming to the table to talk about their concerns in the community and continual conversations with local leaders to include your elected leaders to determine what the needs of your community are. We're also partnering to promote safety and justice by neighborhood organizations. Um, partnering with them because they're essential in building safer communities. Um, also our involvement uh with those organizations strengthens the legal response as well as the collaborative response because fighting crime efficiently and effectively uh requires some level of collaboration between law enforcement, the community and the district attorney's office. How uh we can work together. Ask me to host a listening session or a safety forum. Encourage crime reporting. If you see something, say something. Even if you feel like, well, that didn't get charged. that those reports come up again like something happens we pull those reports it helps us to prove up other cases and share DA office resources which we have many resources for victims of crime specifically these are all our contact numbers if you have a phone like I'm not I'm too old to

like grab my phone and take a a picture really quickly but if you have your phone and you want to do that these are the numbers where you can reach each of the divisions we discussed earlier and if you have any questions you can reach out to these two individuals, LD Lewis or Austin Brookner Coreo, and they will get a hold of me if you need to speak with me directly. All right. Do you guys have any questions for me? Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a rare opportunity to have the district attorney here in the city of Newark. Uh she gave you a wealth of information about the role that her office plays and the role that we play um as a government uh here in Newark. And as I as I um extend our appreciation to the district attorney, I want her to know that if there's legislation that's being pushed by in the state, we're here to advocate for public safety and issues where we hold folks responsible. So if if we can partner as a council on letters of support on legislation that you believe is important for your office, certainly don't hesitate to ask us. Ladies and gentlemen, a great opportunity to ask the district attorney questions. Are there any questions for the district attorney? Don't be shy.

Behind you. behind you. I I'll come to my council in a minute. Any questions for the district attorney? Nothing. Anybody have a traffic issue or felony pending? You know, there's an opportunity to negotiate. I'll turn to my council colleagues questions. I'll start with council member Eve Little. Yes. I So, I had a question. On one of your first slides, you had a lot of backlogged cases that you were mentioning. Um, so what happens with the the individual that's accused during a backlog? Are they in jail at that point? Are they at home rest? Or what usually happens for back I've always wondered this.

So a backlog case means that it's not been charged. So you would not be in custody for something you weren't charged with. So let's say somebody commits a crime today, say a robbery, and they're arrested for that crime. If we don't charge that case while they're in custody, we have 48 hours to do it. That person gets out of custody. So then you're looking at that case as an out of custody. We have much longer period of time to charge an out of custody case. But if it never gets charged because there's a backlog of cases, often times the statute of limitations, if it's a misdemeanor, is already run. It's been a year and then you can't charge that case and whomever the victim is is not seek able to seek justice in a court of law. So that's why it's such a big deal. Interesting. Other questions, colleagues?

Yes. Counselor Delatio. Yes. Um, it's actually more of a comment. I did want to say as a fellow USF School of Law alumni, go Dons. Go Dons. Go Dons. Yes. Okay. Also, your legal background is very wellversed. In fact, I've actually appeared in front of you a few times at the JJC. Um, and so I do want to thank you for all your hard work that you're doing not only in the tri-ity area, but as you mentioned, in all of Alama County. Um, and also I wanted to thank you for the data tracking especially so that way we could see the data tracked by years and I think that it helps us to have this open continual conversation. So thank you again for your presentation.

Thank you. Nothing else. I do have a question attorney. Again, thank you for coming. I know one of the challenges coming into office was a you saw a significant um number of district attorneys with significant experience move out of the DA's office. Could you provide an update as to where you are with putting your office back at full staffing?

Sure. So, um, this office had a lot of institutional knowledge. That just means we have folks who have been around this old folks. We know a few things, right? And so, my command staff includes um, no one under 27 years of experience, right? Up to 33 years of experience. um we lost a lot of that institutional knowledge under uh the last administration. We've been able to bring back 12 maybe 13 people now. Um we're working on a 14th so that we have people who have experience in the DA's office and know how to prosecute a case. Just because you're a lawyer doesn't mean you can be a DA. DAS have special ethical prosecu I mean ethical obligations in prosecuting cases. And um people find themselves in trouble when they don't know that. And so what we are doing is finding ways to train up lawyers who say you're a seven-year lawyer, but you caught COVID and then a period of time where you weren't trying a lot of cases, then you don't have the repetition to feel like most seven-year lawyers do. So right now, we're pushing very hard to try as many cases as possible. We have over 260 murders waiting to be tried

and overwhelmingly that's what we're trying every week. Like every Monday I have a meeting about all the felonies that are being tried in Alama County and overwhelmingly they're murder cases and sex cases, sex assault cases. So we are pushing to get those cases out to trial to get our lawyers as much experience as possible so we can get back up to speed and we brought people back to teach as well. I have any other questions or comments? Yes, council member. I have another question. I'm only going to come back to her one more time.

I promise. So, let's just say scenario. Someone broke into my house. I've always wanted to ask this. You're the perfect person to ask. Someone broke into my house. I am a gun owner. Very proud Texan gun owner. Um, and my question is he comes and advances towards me and I shoot that individual. Is that I've heard rumors that there has to be an angle of the shot. If it's from the behind, I'm going to be in trouble and I can go to jail. But if it's in the front, I'm good to go. I can just theoretical theoretical theoretical random rights first. Go ahead. So I cannot give you legal advice but what I would advise anybody to do is not shoot anybody in the back. Well, not in the back, but like in the belly or I mean just I'm just curious.

Everything else is fact specific. I can't give you legal advice, but I would advise you not to shoot anybody in the back. Well, so okay. Just wonder just curious. Uh thank you, district attorney. We have a council member online. Council member um Grindall, questions, comments? I do I do have a comment. I really want to thank the DA for this great presentation and for all the work you're doing to be um as you say, equitable and clear that backlog and and be um working on justice and helping and helping our the v victims. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Sorry you're not here in person. Didn't get a chance to say hello.

He's in Japan. Oh, is him. Um, I'm going to ask the district attorney to stay up here for a moment and invite senior victim advocate Selena to join us up here if she would please. If all of you would.

Oh, sure. All of them. Ladies and gentlemen, um, I'm proud to recognize this is National Victim's Rights Week and the district attorney gave a great presentation that anytime there's a crime, there's two sides to that crime. There's the perpetrator and then there's the victim. And sadly to say, the victim is going to live oftenimes a lot longer with the impact on the crime to them or to their property uh more so than the perpetrator. And so these folks are so valuable in terms of networking, talking to, consoling folks that are victims of crime. So it's it's our pleasure here in the city of Newark to recognize this is National Victim's Rights Week. Whereas more than 26 million people become victims of crime each year and these crimes affect family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, the Alam County Victims Witness Division is dedicated to ensuring the rights of crime victims and their families by providing services to aid in their recovery from emotional, psychological, social, economic impact of crime as they reclaim their sense of safety, well-being, and dignity. The victim's witness staff assist victims of crime without regard to a person's race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and gender identity or immigration status. And I'm going to pause there on the immigration status because we in the city of New York are a welcoming committee uh community. It doesn't matter to us what your immigration status is. If you're a victim of a crime, we want you to call our police department. You have rights as a resident of our community and we are going to safeguard those rights. Our officers are out there. They're going to advise you uh irrespective of your immigration status. Uh we're here to help you. And I'm so pleased to hear that the victim's rights folks are of the same mindset. You're a victim,

you're a victim. It doesn't matter what your immigration status is. Whereas the Alam County District Attorney's Office Victim Witness Assistance Program was the first such program established in 1974, beginning with one victim advocate. One, can you imagine? Today, the Alam County District Attorney's Office employs more than 40 individuals dedicated to working with victims of crime. Whereas in 1984, the victim's crime victims fund was established by the victims of crime act to provide a permanent source of support for crime victim services and compensation. Alama County District Attorney's Office, victims witness assistance division partners with survivors, community survive uh service providers, criminal uh justice professionals and victims to enhance a criminal justice system responsive that is accessible, culturally competent, and appropriate for all victims of crime. Whereas in 2025, the Alama County District Attorney's Office uh served more than 13,160 survivors countywide, awarded more than $2 million in California victims compensation board program funds to survivors, and recovered more than $1 million in stolen property through the organized retail theft vertical presentation protection unit. whereas National Victims Right Week provides an opportunity to celebrate the energy, creativity, and commitment of advocates for victim's rights. Now, therefore, I'm Michael Hannon. On behalf of my colleagues on the New York City Council, I do recognize April 19 through 25 as National Victim's Rights Week and reaffirm the commitment to respect and enforce victim's rights and address their needs and express our appreciation for the victims of crime who have turned personal tragedy into a motivating force to improve the response to victims of crime and hold a more just for a more

just community. So, I award this to our victim's rights folks. Thank you. Please.

Good evening, mayor, council me, council members, city staff, and members of the public. My name is Selena, and I'm a I serve as a advocate with the Alama County District Attorney's Victim Witness uh Assistant Division. I'm honored to be here this evening on behalf of District Attorney Ursula Jones Dixon who has served as Alama County District Attorney since her appoint since her appoint by the board of supervisors on February 18th, 2025 to accept this proclamation recognizing National Crime Victim's Rights Week. Our victim our victim witness advocates work closely with crime victims and their families as they move through the legal process. We help survivors understand their rights, keep them updated on their cases, prepare for court, and provide support during some of the hardest moments they may ever face, including while testifying. Our advocates also help survivors complete and submit California Victim Compensation Board or Calvcb applications so they can access important support for counseling, medical expenses, lost wages, relocation, and other crime related needs. In 2025, our office helps survivors secure more than two million in Calvcb support. Behind every Calv application is a person or family seeking stability, healing, and a path forward. That is why we work our victim witness advocates uh matter so deeply alongside the care and support offered through the family justice center and the trauma recovery center. Together, these resources help survivors find support, begin healing, and and move forward without having to face aftermath of crime alone. National Crime Victim's Rights Week is an opportunity to recognize the resilience of survivors and to reaffirm our shared commitment to standing with them every step of the way. This proclamation is meaningful reminder of our shared commitment to survivors. It also reflects District Attorney Jones Dixon's

belief that victims and witnesses of crime deserve to be heard, supported, and treated with dignity, compassion, and respect. Thank you for standing alongside District Attorney Jones Dixon, survivors of crime and their families, and for recognizing the importance of National Crime Victim's Rights Week. I have one other thing to say. Um, these folks are the angels in our office. We can't do our jobs without them. Um, but for their patience, their compassion, their work ethic, victims would be struggling through because lawyers are trying to put a case on, right? And this is this is the soft hand that we need for victims. We need these folks. They're amazing. I'm just lifting them up today. I know this is about victims, but it's also about the people who uh give their lives to help victims. So, I appreciate the work you all do. Thank you.

Council would like to get a picture. Sure. I'd love that. Colleagues, let's get a picture with the district attorney and uh I'll call the USF grads down as well. City manager, USF grads, we got a picture with the district attorney.

Maybe in the front here. District attorney. All right. One, two, three. Perfect. Oh my gosh.

Thank you. Again, thank you to the victim's rights advocates for the work that you do. We greatly appreciate you. Thank you very much. Next, we're going to recognize Earthquake Preparedness Month. And Rich, was someone else coming up with you? Rich, if we could talk.

Yeah. Rudy Kelly and Todd Stewart. Yes. Thank you. They're the ones that keep Rich on task. Come on. I know. I know what's going on. Hey, Rudy. Nice to see you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to declare proclamation number 1967, earthquake preparedness month. You know, it wasn't that long ago for some of us that have been around a little while to remember the 89 earthquake uh and the impact that it had on us. Now, granted, I'll remind my Giant friends that the A's were up two games to none and completed the four game sweep soon thereafter, but uh the 89 earthquake, as many recall, disrupted that World Series. But, uh we saw the devastation associated with that earthquake. I mean, when I got home from work and I saw that part of the Bay Bridge had fallen down and the fires in the Mission District and the thousands and thousands of phone calls we received in San Jose where I was working at the time from concerned property owners who were afraid that their homes were going to collapse and many in many of those cases of course chimneys fell down uh etc. You know, houses came off their foundation. So, we know what a devastating earthquake can do to this region and you know we've been fortunate. We've had a number of tremors over the years, but nothing of that magnitude, thank goodness. But we need to be prepared. And so this is earthquake preparedness month. Whereas Californians have witnessed and experienced earthquakes that have resulted in significant property damage, injuries, and loss of life and indirect costs. And whereas as many 10 as 10,000 earthquakes occur each year in California, 10,000 earthquakes in California every year. and mitigation measures can save lives, reduce property damage, and alleviate economic dislocation caused by earthquakes. Whereas California is the first state in the nation to offer free cuttingedge technology to alert Californians before shaking begins through the earthquake warning California system, including MyShake app, Android alerts, and wireless emergency uh alerts. Whereas the city promotes readiness through free community training programs such as

community emergency response team which equips residents with life-saving skills including disaster response, fire safety, basic first aid uh skills and how to build a go bag. Whereas the city's plan, prepare, respond, and recover outreach program provides tailored preparedness, education, and training to business organizations, community- based organizations, faith-based organizations, homeowners associations, and apartment communities to strengthen neighborhood resilience. Whereas these programs empower residents to take personal responsibility for emergency preparedness, support their neighbors during disasters, and contribute um to a coordinated and effective community response. We've all heard the stories that if we have a major earthquake, as much as we have an outstanding fire department, outstanding police department, you're going to be on your own in many cases for a period of time, which why is why we all need to be prepared. We need to have adequate supplies so that if we don't get the medical response that we need or the assistance that we need that we're able to take care of ourselves and more importantly our neighbors if need be especially those that are homebound. So as we build a culture of preparedness across our whole community including seniors, youths, renters, and non-English-speaking population we want to ensure that Newark is better positioned to withstand and recover from seismic events. Now, therefore, I Michael Hannon on behalf of my colleagues on the city council declare earthquake preparedness month in New York and encourage all residents and businesses to be prepared. And I present this proclamation to our friends at CERT. Oh, by the way, all volunteers. These are volunteers in our community. So, thank you. All right. Well, thank you all. Uh really appreciate it. I just want to

take a few moments to um kind of uh shine on our C team. Um we have two of our new uh C board members. Um back in 2020 when I originally u started with the Newark SER program, we uh we had one person uh that was running uh the C program and um bless him for for what he did. He kept the the program alive. Um but through the years we've uh we've been able to grow and we've added uh a few new board members. And tonight I wanted to introduce Todd Stewart um who is a returning C member. Um he was part of the C team when uh Newark Fire was uh was part of it. Um and so he's returned. Uh we also have uh Rudy Kelly here who's uh a new C member. Um and he uh they're both on the board. We have two C board members who are not here tonight. uh Sam Albadunk who is our uh cert volunteer coordinator as well as uh Jared Schlob I hope yeah I'm working on it um I got Jared down um and he uh he also is a new uh uh board member as well uh with these four individuals they have uh really taken the reigns of this C program and uh really helped me build uh and then we also I'm sorry we also have Kelly Joe here uh who's also been assisting me as well. Um the CERT team uh really is going out and advocating to uh to our community about emergency preparedness. We're teaching people about, you know, um how to build a gold bag. Um how to prepare uh and help each other uh the neighbors um when uh disaster hits. Uh because we're going to have to uh depend on each other. Uh we we do have uh we will be having a booth on uh April 18th uh at the state of the city. So uh please come visit us. And we're going to also be uh providing some uh

demonstrations as well of some of the things we do such as uh basic uh headto toe uh assessments and um and ham radio. Um mayor, if you don't mind, I'm going to have uh Rudy uh share a couple of moments about his experience as part of the search team. So Rudy, good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rudy Kelly. Um actually I did start with cert when the fire department was part but uh what happened was that there was a like a lull. You like it better?

Well I somewhat anyway uh since this is earthquake preparedness month I give two advice uh to you. I could give I could talk all night but I know we're limited. But the main thing because we had an earthquake uh what a couple weeks ago and I know my wife woke up and she says, "Hey, did you hear feel that?" I said, "No, I didn't feel it." You know, but if there was a major earthquake, I am prepared because one thing you should do is have a pair of shoes underneath your bed. I'm not talking about open to toed shoes, closed toed shoes, also socks. Simply because if there is an earthquake, especially at night, if there's no electricity and you start walking around and you're bare feet, there might be some glass so you get cut. So, make sure you have shoes, hard shoes near your bed so that you can uh put those on. Also have a flashlight. The other thing is uh your kitchen cabinet should have some sort of safety lock so that your dishes don't break. But uh that that is my advice for everybody to follow because you never know uh when the earthquake will happen. It's not if it'll happen, it's when it will happen. So just be prepared.

Thank you very much. Let's hear for our search team over here, guys. I'll even it out.

All right. One, two, three.

Awesome. Thank you. The thing that Rich forgot to mention, Rich, uh the the lone C member was Mr. David Libby. And David Libby recently was recognized as the senior volunteer of the year for the city of Newark. It's a man that has dedicated. He doesn't even live in Newark, by the way. He lives on the other side. Um, but we welcome all the help we get from Fremont residents. Um, especially because it's free. Um, but Dave Libby served uh as our lone representative uh and and working with Rich, they've built the team back up to what it needs to be, but they're certainly looking for additional volunteers. you know, maybe you represent your community in your neighborhood. They're always looking for representation. And Rich, I imagine there's something on their website that they can contact somebody at CERT if they're interested in signing up or see you at one of the daily events.

Yes. Excellent.

Excellent. So, thank you for your presentation and keep up the good work. You're appreciated. The next proclamation I'd like to issue is for fair housing and I'd like to invite the executive director Christina Sodto from Echoh Housing to join me as well as members of Bay East Association of Realators Jason Sage, Margaret Lynn, and Steve Madera. So, if you would come up and join me, please. The thing about this proclamation that just amazes me that the Fair Housing Act was enacted in federal law in April of 1968. 68. You think we would have had fair housing laws in this country for longer than that? But uh it did make federal law in 1968. It established a national policy of fair housing with a goal of eliminating racial segregation and ending housing discrimination for all who live in the United States. Whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, and national origin. Whereas fair housing is a positive community good benefiting the environment and our social fabric. Whereas the city of Newark is a community of inclusion strengthened by its diversity and acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal housing opportunity violate our shared value of decency and fairness. Whereas fair housing is an integral to the ethical commitment of members of the National Association of Realators and the Bay East Association of Realators and is critical to the ability of all real estate professionals to serve their clients, customers, and communities. Now therefore, I'm Michael Hannon on behalf of the New York City Council declare this to be fair housing month in New York and recognize the city of Newark as an inclusive community committed to fair housing that will further advocate for

equal opportunities for all residents and prospective residents of Newark. And why this is so important, we live in such an incredibly expensive part of the country. Um, vacancies at our apartment complexes and our homes range somewhere between 3 and 4%. Uh, there's not a lot of opportunities for folks to find homes. uh rental prices continue to increase as families struggle to live in the Bay Area and oftentimes whether it be uh immigration issues, cultural issues, religious issues, whatever the case may be, uh discrimination still continues and it's folks from Echko and folks that advocate from Bay East that make sure that everybody's given a fair opportunity to get the housing that they and their families need. So, I want to thank both Echo Housing and Bay East for the great work that you do and know that you have our support. So, I'll present this certificate to Echo Housing and give you a few opportunities to say a few words if you would like.

It's good to see you. Nice to see you as always. And I'll present this to my friends from Bay East and they'll have an opportunity to say a few words as well. Go ahead. I'm getting older so let me put my glasses on. So, my glasses in my car.

So, first thing I want to say is happy fair housing month. Um, it is one of our most busiest months of the year, not just with receiving proclamations, but also doing workshops in all of the jurisdictions that Echo serves. I do want to let you know that in 1963, the Rumsford Act was passed in the state of California and that was one of the first laws that was passed in regards to housing. But in 1964, Prop 14 passed, which included rental discrimination or allowed rental discrimination to happen within the state of California. Echo Housing was founded in 1964 after this proposition was passed by a group of volunteers who got together and said, "No, this is not acceptable." Ekko then incorporated in 1965. After that, after that in 19 in 196 1966, Prop 14 was found to be discriminatory and was no longer a part of California state law. I also wanted to let you know that the Fair Housing Act was signed on April 11th, 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson and it was actually signed a week after Martin Luther King was assassinated in his honor is one of the reasons why they made it a push to pass this housing the fair housing law. I also wanted to let you know that Ekko has been partnering with the city of Newark since 1977 49 years and our first grant was doing weatherization for the city of Newark. And so I gave Stephen a copy of the newspaper article that we had um to share with you as

well. And lastly, the last thing I want to say is April 14th is actually fair housing day. So next Tuesday is fair housing day and I will be in the city of Union City accepting a proclamation for fair housing on April 14th. So, thank you city council and mayor for all our great partnership that we are having with ECHKO and we look forward to even more services out in this community. Thank you.

Do not get me started on fair housing. Um on the 14th we'll be in Berkeley. Uh Bay East is an association of about 6,000 realtors. will be not all 6,000 of us but a lot of us will be in Berkeley celebrating uh the day uh for with C the California Association and I have prepared text uh but I feel very comfortable with this group so although I'm not used to having council people look at the back of my head u but it's okay we'll go ahead and go into it let me introduce uh our uh my friends here we have Margaret and Jason and we have Devon who is staff from Bay East and they never get any recognition. So, give them some. He's Yeah, he works all day and then he comes out here with us. So, my name is Steve Maderas. I'm a longtime Fremont resident and Newark property owner. I've paid my taxes here. Uh um I'm past a recent past president of the Bay Association of Realtors. uh member of the local government relations committee which some of you know know me from and some of our friends you know them from uh that committee. Uh and I'm a full-time realtor. That's what I do for a living and I got five kids so I'm working till I'm 95. On behalf of Bay East Association of Realtors, I appreciate the opportunity uh to participate in this presentation. It just means the world to us that we're recognized especially for fair housing because realtors that's what we're all about is fair housing uh for all social stratification any level entry uh seniors we're proponents and advocates of private property rights and putting people in homes and making it easier for all of us to attain the American dream. We thank the city council of course for recognizing the importance of keeping

fair housing issues u and for acknowledging April as fair housing month. Very cool. Uh this proclamation is a powerful symbol of that commitment and I accept it with the promise that Bay East Association of Realtors will continue to ensure all who seek to become homeowners are provided fair, equitable, and professional help from our members. Uh we also promise to promote within the city any initiatives to further principles of fair housing that the council comes up with that they could use our help on will be there for them. Again, thank you for this proclamation and thank you for the partnership we have with the Newark Council, New York City staff. Um I love Newark and uh I love working with y'all. um you have always had um property uh rights issues in mind and you've stood up with us when it mattered and you've stood up for us when it wasn't popular and uh we appreciate your partnership with all of you.

That's that's all I have for you.

Excellent. You might come over. Oh, I get it on The last proclamation we're going to be issuing tonight and certainly not the least as we talk about a diverse community that we live in. Uh we're proud as a city of Newark to issue a proclamation uh declaring uh April as American Muslim appreciation and awareness month. And uh I would ask Musa Tariq to join me from the Council of American Islamic Relations uh if she's here. Yes. And other CIR members uh as well committee member here speak.

Excellent. Hi. Thank you. No, no,

so this is again proclamation number 1970. American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month. Whereas enriched by the unparalleled diversity of of its residents, the city of Newark takes pride in supporting individual religious freedoms and it's strengthened by the contributions of its diverse population, including those that practice Islam. whereas over 90,000 Muslims live in Alama County and make innumerable contributions to the cultural, political, economic fabric and well-being of our community. Whereas in 2024, the Council of American Islamic Relations received 8,658 complaints nationwide, the highest number in its 30-year history, reflecting a 7.4% increase from 2023. Whereas the city of Newark acknowledges the importance of peace and justice, understanding that Muslims deserve to live in peace and safety. Where is the Al Medina Education Center established in 2009 in the city of Newark provides spiritual educational social services to the Bay Area and beyond offering regular prayers and programming for all ages while promoting a powerful a purposeful life needed in Islamic values and a commitment to unity, growth, and service. Whereas in it is appropriate to acknowledge and promote awareness of the myriads of invaluable contributions of American Muslims and extend them the respect and camaraderie every American deserves. Now therefore, I, Michael Hen, and the mayor of the city of Newark, uh, declare April as American Muslim appreciation and awareness month. It's always interesting to me when we set aside these specific months for various religions and cultures, you know, but I'm going to say this and I know my colleagues on the council support me on this. Every month,

every year should be we should be aware and sensitive to all the various religions, cultures that we have in our community. I know we set aside April to recognize, for example, Muslim awareness month, but let's make it our commitment in the city of Newark that every month in every year, we need to have that recognition, not just April. Uh so we do declare specifically in April and urge all Newark residents to take the opportunity to better understand, recognize, and appreciate the rich history and shared experiences of American Muslims. And so I I present this proclamation and uh thank you for being here this uh this evening.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Of course. All

righty. Hello Mayor and council members. My name is Musa with CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations, and we want to thank you for recognizing American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month in Newark. This proclamation is especially meaningful as our Muslim communities have faced an unprecedented and unrelenting wave of Islamophobia and discrimination over the last several years. 2024 was previously the worst year of anti-Muslim hate recorded in CAR's 30-year history with a sharp rise in hate crimes and discrimination. This trend has only increased and continued through 2025 and into 2026. We have a federal administration that is openly and violently targeting our most vulnerable immigrant and Muslim communities. 2025 saw powerful public officials try to tell Muslim Americans that American freedoms come with conditions that they must look, speak, and worship in their approved ways or they do not belong. And this all has very real consequences for Newark's Muslim community right here. And that is why today's proclamation is an important step in celebrating and cherishing Newark's Muslim community whose contributions continue to strengthen Newark's civic, cultural, and economic life. We thank you for affirming that Muslims are woven into the fabric of the city of Newark, especially in this critical moment. Thank you.

Sure. Yes. Help. Yes, of course.

Thanks, Mike. Uh thank you mayor Mike and uh council members uh like I'm Chamsa Rafi a resident of Unic City and a attendee of Mina Education Center and uh thanks for the proclamation recognition of American Muslim appreciation awareness month and for recognizing the meaningful contribution of the Muslim community in in our city. We Muslim residents have long been an integral part of Newwork serving as educators, business owners, healthcare leaders, healthcare professionals, students, community leaders, and elected officials. From volunteering and civic engagement to supporting our schools and neighborhoods, our contributions are both visible and impactful. Your acknowledgement of these contributions affirms a shared commitment to inclusion and unity. We appreciate your leadership in celebrating and d the diversity that strengthens our community. Thank you.

A photo council.

Oh, now you come up. Thank you. I'll just make one more comment on this item. Um, as was mentioned, there's a lot of uh noise made at the federal level. Um, regarding not just the Muslim community, but other communities. Uh, we in the city of Newark uh certainly don't tolerate that, will not tolerate that. and uh again encourage all of our residents to know that they're welcome in our community and we're here to support them and if they believe that they're being victimized in our community, we want to know about it because we're not going to tolerate that here in the city of Newark. Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the part of our agenda. It's the public comment section. This is an opportunity for you to speak on any item that is not on the agenda this evening. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to an item not on the agenda? If you would like, please come forward and and just give us your name, please.

Hi, my name is Partoshnav.

Welcome. Uh, thank you. So, uh, like I said, my name is Partoshnav. Good evening uh everyone. Uh I live on MS Avenue and uh I'm here today along with several of my neighbors and fellow residents who took time to come and support this concern that I'm going to express. So first off uh I do want to express my sincere gratitude for all the work that you guys do. Uh it's not easy to keep a city of a few of several thousand residents running smoothly especially in the current environment. Um, I'm here to raise a safety concern about persistent speeding on Moors Avenue and request a formal traffic calming evaluation and follow-up action. Uh, I sent an email over the weekend to the city council. Uh, and I'm here today in person to just follow up and request that this concern be put on record. So, residents on our street have observed frequent high-speed driving for quite some time. There have been close calls involving children on bicycles, pedestrians, and pets. Uh this concern became very real and urgent last Friday when a neighborhood cat was struck and killed by a speeding vehicle. Uh this incident highlights the immediate danger and the need to act before something more serious happens involving a child or pedestrian. Uh now that the weather is warming up, this issue becomes even more concerning. More children are playing outside, families are walking, people are biking and running, and pets are spending longer period outdoors. Uh with increased outdoor activity on a residential street, the risks from speeding traffic become significantly higher. Uh this is not a new concern. About two two years ago, a resident on our street had already requested a traffic speed study and had collected enough signatures to support speed bumps. Unfortunately, the said resident had to sell their house and move due to personal circumstances and the conversations fell through. We've seen some efforts made by the city over time. A new speed limit sign was installed a few months ago. Last year we had uh police vehicles monitoring speeding for a few days. We definitely appreciate

these steps but realistically enforcement cannot be permanent and behavior has not changed in a meaningful way. Uh there have also been instances of late night donuts at the Avenue and Bird Street intersection which further adds to safety concerns. So, as a result, um, we request that the city initiate or revisit a traffic speed and volume study on MoS Avenue, evaluate the Bird Street intersection, and share the results of any previous or future speed studies with residents so we can understand actual traffic behavior and work collaboratively on solutions. Uh, based on those based on those findings, we ask the city to consider appropriate traffic calming measures, including speed bumps or other physical safety features if warranted. Our goal is to make Moors Avenue safer for children, pedestrians, pets, and family. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. And unfortunately, the council doesn't have the opportunity to comment on public comments, but I do know that we've received the email and we'll be responding accordingly. Am I correct, Mr. Bon? That's correct, Mr. Mayor. Um, per state law, the council's not allowed to uh comment on any item that is not on the agenda. So, please don't interpret their silence as some sort of level of disinterest. Um we did receive the communication. Um uh we will uh approach it from two perspectives. Uh one, our public works department will review your traffic uh calming requests. And two, we've made a request to our police department for increased um speed enforcement. Our public works director is here uh in the audience and be happy to talk to you after you're done with your comments this evening.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

No, thank you for coming. This is what the public comment section is all about. You know, there's things that go on in our community that we as council members, we try to make sure that we're in touch with and in tune with, but sometimes, you know, it's it's the comments that we receive from the public that bring these issues to our attention. So, we're we're thankful for that. So, please um just to add on to him, right, I'm his neighbor. Just to add on to it, uh we have seen I've been living in New York, same house for almost 15 years. Um Amazon warehouse being there has been a great advantage. the stuff gets delivered on time. Lot of employment there and stuff like that. But in the morning when kids have to be dropped to school, especially Newark Kai, that's where the traffic is the max on our street because it's the last street before uh Mari Avenue and people cut there to get to school and that's where you see the majority of the traffic and kids might be having these cars. They just road race there. Well, uh just to add on to uh what he is saying, that's where we have seen the majority of the traffic come in.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on uh any public item that's not on the agenda this evening? If not, I'll go ahead and close public uh comment section and I'll turn to the consent calendar. The consent calendar will consist of the following items. The first item is the approval of audited demands. The second is the approval of the March 2026, 2026 city council minutes for special and regular meeting. Three is wave full reading and introduce by title only an ordinance of the city council of the city of Newark amending chapter 2.14 public art committee of the Newark municipal code. Four, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the third amendment to the contractual services agreement with Art Builds Community um for on call public art consulting services and amend the 2024 2026 bionial budget and capital improvement plan. Five, adopt a resolution approving the updated operational area agreement between the city of Newark and the Alama County Office of Emergency Management. Six, adopt a resolution amending the 2024 2026 banual budget and capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2526 to reallocate two positions. Amending the city's salary schedule in conformance with California code of regulations title 2 section 570.5 and approving a side letter agreement with the New York Police Association reflecting a classification change. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to have any one of those items pulled for further discussion? City Manager, did you want to pull any of those items for discussion?

Not this evening. Colleagues, any items that you'd like pulled for discussion? Council member Gindall, would you like to pull any of the consent items for further discussion? No. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. May I get a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar, please? So moved by Vice Mayor Jorgens. Oh, we need to take I can take the motion, though, right? Yeah. So, the motion by the vice mayor, second by council member Deltansio. Ladies and gentlemen, we need to take a um a vote because council member Gindoll is not here. Do you want to lead that, city clerk?

Council member Gallal. Yes. Council member Little. Council member Karansia. Yes. Vice Mayor Jurgens. Yes. Mayor Hen. Yes. Motion passes. Ordinance of the city council of the city of Newark amending chapter 2.14 public art committee of the new municipal code.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is the to adopt a resolution approving appointments to the public arts committee. I'm only going to make a couple comments. Um, we've uh passed an ordinance uh before we got to this item that actually increased the number of public art committee members from 5 to 9. And I want to thank my colleagues on the council for agreeing to that amendment to the ordinance. I received 26 applications for uh residents wanting to serve on the public arts committee. I was overwhelmed. Uh there was such passion uh by these folks wanting to serve uh on this committee. They brought a wealth of experience whether they are artists themselves, have worked in art and uh telecommunications or are simply citizens interested in participating in how we continue our beautifification efforts around the city of Newark. And so, um, I'm really pleased, uh, and I have put forward for your consideration, uh, nine citizens, uh, that have asked to be on the public arts committee that I've approved. Um, we have 17 additional folks in the in the wing uh, should we need additional members for any particular reason. Um, I was just overwhelmed when we have committee opportunities. It's oftentimes we get a handful of folks that are interested, not this case, 27 26 people and I interviewed every one of them and they're very passionate about beautifification of our community. I really look forward to the work that they're going to do around our community and so I would ask for a motion and a second to approve the committee members as mentioned, but I'll ask for uh any public comments on this item before we move forward. Any public comments,

Council Member Gindle? any public comment on this item? Just um I just to just to note it's it's heartening to know how much interest there is in this position and it's exciting for this for the city to be kicking off this new commission. Thank you, council member. Other comments, colleagues? Yes. Uh Council Member Little,

I actually have a question. Um so concerning not so much with the committee but with the public arts um work that we're working on all of the public arts will that be approved like all the projects that we want to do is that being approved by the committee or does the city say or you know you know city manager or or you know the group say this is what we need to get done who who chooses where public art is placed that's a question. I'm going to invite our uh interim recreation and community services director Roy Gonzalez to provide a response to that question.

Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for the question. Um there's two different types of public art that can come forward. Um public art can be incorporated into new development projects and provided by the developer or applicant as part of their project. Um those applications and their public art um proposals will go through the public art committee which will review and approve them. um they'll be looking to make sure that they uh adhere to all of the requirements in the public art ordinances, making sure they're accessible to the public um and done by a uh professional artist. Um the public art committee will also be developing annual work plans um on the the process and the proposals for um public art funded by the um art and public places fund. Those projects will also funnel through the public art committee.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure we didn't have like one area where all the public art like Oldtown all the art being done there or the mall area all want to make sure it's we have equity and it's all over our city. So we want to make sure it's fair. So it's going to be done the people who are making the decisions are the nine people on the committee for this. Is this correct? That's correct. And an annual uh public art work plan will um be presented to the council. Thank you very much. Other questions colleagues? Thank you.

Uh no but I would like to move uh the item. I think uh we have a incredibly uh terrific group of folks to start off our public art uh committee. They've got, you know, being the first person to uh be on a committee, that's always going to be tough work, but we've definitely got people uh this group of people is definitely up to that challenge. I'm looking forward to their work and happy to move the item. Thank you, Vice Mayor Jorgens. Can I get a second, please? Second. Seconded by Council Member Little. Please vote. I'm sorry. Council member Gindall, yes. Council member Katans Little, yes. Council member Katansio, yes.

Vice Mayor Jarens, yes. Mayor Hannon, yes. Motion pass. Motion passes.

So that passes unanimously. U for those that are watching online or that are here, we will have a second reading, Mr. Bon, on this item on April or no, when is the second reading, my friend? Second reading for the ordinance that was approved on the consent calendar earlier this evening will be at the next council meeting April 23rd. So uh the ordinance would take effect 30 days after that towards the end of May. So those that have been appointed to the committee you can probably anticipate a call from uh city staff probably miday probably beginning to set up you know when the committee will begin meeting kind of the logistics around that. And again, these are public meetings. So any resident, any member that was not selected to be on the committee. Uh these are going to be open meetings. You're you're certainly to uh entitled to attend and certainly are welcome to attend and and I would certainly encourage my colleagues to, you know, periodically attend to, you know, wish them well and um you know, kind of see the day um you know, the goings on of the committee as they um do good work for our community. So thank you for all the folks that volunteered to uh be on the committee. I look forward to I look forward to real beautifification around our city. One of the first projects I know that our former mayor was interested in was the uh utility boxes. So, we look forward to beautifification of the utility boxes because it serves two purposes. One, it's a beautifification opportunity and secondly, it eliminates graffiti, we hope. So, thank you for those that attended tonight uh that were appointed. We look forward to the work that you're going to do moving forward. The next item, ladies and gentlemen, is to receive a report regarding business license tax analysis and provide directions regarding potential next steps related to evaluating potential ballot measure. Uh, Mr. Benoon.

Yes. Good evening, your honor and members of the council. Now, tonight we have a presentation from Mr. Eric Meyers, a representative of HDL Companies. Uh, HDL Companies is uh our city's sale tax consultant. uh that includes sales tax, business license tax, and all other sorts of taxes. Uh tonight's presentation focuses on the city's existing business license tax, which we at the staff level refer to as BLT. Uh the existing BLT was enacted in 1970 and remains largely unchanged. As will be shown in tonight's presentation, staff and our consultant recommend that the city's BLT be updated for three primary reasons. First, the existing tax structure is inequitable in terms of how it applies to small and large businesses. Uh to illustrate the point, the largest 100 businesses in New York generate roughly 75% of reported gross receipts but contribute only about 47% of total business license tax revenue. Secondly, economic activity throughout the region has transformed over the past 55 years and thus the existing tax should be modernized to reflect current economic activities. Third, the current BLT has 30 categories and subcategories. Staff recommends simplifying the BLT to uh to five taxable categories and one taxexempt category. Any changes to the BLT would require voter approval. Following the presentation, staff recommends the council provide direction on whether to hire an independent thirdparty consultant to conduct a community survey of Newark voters, determine whether there is voter interest in modernizing the BLT. If so, the results of the community survey would be presented to the council later this spring. And at that point, staff would solicit direction from the council on whether a measure should be placed before Newark voters that would simplify and modernize the BLT. Before we turn it over to Mr. Meyers, I'll pass it over to our deputy finance director, Miss Gloria Del Rosario, who has some opening comments. Mr. Rosario.

Thank you, city manager Bon. And good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. I'm Gloria Del Rosario, deputy finance director. Go Dons. Tonight we have a presentation as Mr. Benoon um noted from Eric Myers. He's a representative from HDL, the city's tax consultant. Mr. Meyers will be presenting on the city's business license tax study report, and we'll discuss current business tax structure limitations, an overview of the business tax, model options, and recommendation for updating the city's business tax, regional comparisons, and procedural out um timeline. And so with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Myers for the presentation.

Thank you very Thank you very much. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay, great. It's my pleasure to present to you our tax study looking at the business license tax structure both what the city currently has and what opportunities it might have uh to sort of reinvent that structure if you will for the future of the city. So uh Lori have the next slide. Let's look at a simple question first. Why? Why consider changing the business license tax at all? Well, as you've already heard from your city manager, uh, one reason, improving equity and proportionality. Um, another, the opportunity to look at the structure and make sure that it's better suited for the future of the economy of the city. And then third and fourth somewhat related uh fiscal concerns of strengthening reserves, sustaining long-term fiscal resilience, and providing funding that can be used for any purpose, including support of city initiatives such as capital improvement projects and infrastructure needs. Next slide, please. So what are the current tax structures or business license tax structures limitations? Well, they really sort of fall into three broad categories. One is that the current system despite some economic growth and even inflationary growth. You'll see that the city hasn't really been able to ride that tide as it has risen uh because of some of the structures that it currently has in place. And so there's a flat revenue trend. Second, system complexity. As you heard the city manager say, got uh quite a few very particular classifications. We think we

can simplify that and modernize that structure that would be helpful for the businesses and your city as you administer the tax. And then finally, inconsistent tax methods. You've got businesses in the city that are being taxed some on gross receipts, some on gross payroll, others purely on the number of vehicles. So getting a consistent tax structure or way of measuring the taxable activity can also simplify and modernize the tax structure. Next slide, please. All right, so we just mentioned the flat relatively flat uh revenue. You can see that the revenue um for from business license tax has been hovering right around 1.4 million um for the last four completed fiscal years. Um it really has stayed fairly flat despite the fact that we've seen inflation and other economic growth factors that we would normally see this growing in. So right now your revenue structure isn't giving you some of that upside uh that you might otherwise participate in. Uh next slide please. Here you can see a little bit of the the current complexity and makeup of the tax structure. So we've listed out the major tax types here. Um of those there are I believe 17 or 16 listed here. Uh you have some businesses, the majority that are taxed on gross receipts, others are taxed on gross payroll like admin and support offices. And then yet others are taxed on the number of vehicles for example or other unit type fees and some even on the basis of

employees. So you've got this diversity of tax basis that makes it difficult to administer. um or more difficult to administer I should say. Next slide please. Now one of the things we want to point out as we're going to talk uh quite a bit about some of the models and their basis in gross receipts tax is that the gross receipts tax is not a new tax for the taxpayers in uh the city of Newark. uh about 53% of your revenue right now comes from businesses that are paying gross receipts. So the idea of a gross receipts tax is pretty well established in the city. And what we're looking to do is modernize, simplify, and then consolidate some of those tax bases towards this gross receipts basis. Next slide, please. So reworking the business license tax is an opportunity to modernize the structure, simplify, address some equity concerns, and make sure that the structure is aligned with today's economy and tomorrow's fiscal needs. Now, what I'd like to do is take uh just a few moments to kind of go over how does a gross receipts tax work u and some of the characteristics of the tax structure that you currently have. So a gross receipts tax in terms of a business license tax um as the name implies is based on gross receipts not net income as say the state income or federal income but gross receipts and it's different than a sales tax. In

sales tax the taxable activity is the sale of goods at retail. In a business license tax, it's the conducting of a business. So, as a simple or trivial example, under the sales tax, you don't tax services. Um, say a a gardener or a doctor or a lawyer. They're typically not producing sales tax uh or collecting and remitting it. And in fact under a business license tax because they are conducting business activity that is part of the broader base of a business license tax. Once you have the gross receipts you apply a rate or formula to those gross receipts to calculate the tax due and then the business pays on that business revenue. Meaning that a gross receipts tax by design is more proportional to the amount of economic activity undertaken by businesses. Next slide, please. So, uh, your city manager mentioned this as well. Um, if you'll look at the green part of this pie chart, this ring chart, that is your top 100 businesses, and they currently report or generate 75% of the reported gross receipts. Next slide, please. But those same businesses pay on just under 47% of the taxes. So even though they're reporting on gross receipts, because of the kind of regressive structure built into the gross receipts right now, those top 100 businesses are not paying in proportion to their economic activity

at the moment. Next slide, please. So okay, what does this misalignment show us? Well, what it shows us when we look at this is that where we'd like to see proportionality between economic activity and the taxes paid, we've got a gap there. Why is that happening? Well, you've got different tax bases for some industries. In some industries the rates are lower and in certain cases you have a drop down in the fees in the gross receipts for example from say 66 cents per thousand right now roughly once you hit the threshold it drops to 15 cents per thousand. That sort of regressive tax structure accounts for a lot of this gap. There are caps or perhaps we might better say soft caps um in some of the structures. Uh realtors for example um have a structure that for four or more employees they pay a flat fee. They it doesn't matter how many homes they sell, what the size of their economic activity is, it's just a flat fee. So you've got sort of a s soft cap there. We mentioned the threshold in the gross receipts over I think it's a little bit over a million 1.6 million or so that threshold drops the tax rate significantly by about 75%. Um and so and then you've got some exclusions as well. Uh but those are the main reasons for that misalignment that we just showed. Next slide please. So, what are we proposing to do? Well, roughly we're looking at proposing to modernize how the city funds its

essential services uh with a implementing a modest business-based tax tied to economic activity and updating the structure would allow the city to better align tax contributions with economic activity um while maintaining a clear and predictable system for businesses. it wouldn't be so complex that businesses wouldn't know how to report. Um, and as we noted before, about half of the city's businesses are already tax based on gross receipts. So, this is more of an adjustment for the rest of the structure than it is a new base. So, we did consider three models uh as we looked through this study. Tonight we're going to talk just about model three um which is the variable gross receipts rate model. We did consider what if you just did a a an increase in place uh of the existing model. That would be what we call model one here. Model two um could be to change everyone to a single gross receipts rate. Um, and model 3 that we'll focus on tonight says, "All right, well, we can do a little bit better than just a single gross receipts rate. We can tune that gross receipts rate to some of the different circumstances for the businesses. Simplify the existing categories still. Um, and we modeled two flavors, if you will, of model 3. They're referred to in this presentation as option one and option two. And so we'll go ahead and jump into that now. So in model 3, the two flavors and sort of their revenue impacts and outcomes are shown here. On the left hand side, we

have the new proposed business types. These would be the I think there are six classifications here um plus an exempt category that would allow us to tune some of the rates to different circumstances for businesses um and for the city. Uh then you have to the right of that the number of businesses that we estimate would be in each of those new classifications followed by what we estimate their gross receipts are. If we have their actual reported gross receipts, we use those numbers in the study uh to build our model. If not, then we use some estimates and then you can see what those businesses after we reclassified them, what are their current uh 2025 charges. And then we get here to sort of the meat of option one and option two. Two different rate structures. uh a more aggressive rate structure and option one that would we think bring in around 6.7 million in extra revenue for the city. Um and then option two which is uh closely related to Union C's uh model that they passed in 2024 and that looks uh based on the model like it would bring in an extra 4.6 six million or so in revenue along with both of these models simplify the number of categories give you some more modern structure and get everybody into a gross receipts basis. Next slide please. So with these tax models let's just take a quick second to compare. We already just talked about the projected revenue,

but I'd like to draw your attention to the the bottom of the two tables here on this slide. The we're looking here at the median tax amount. So 50% of your taxpayers uh are going to pay less than this, 50% or above. So this is this break point. Right now the median tax amount is $96. under option one, which has some more, as I indicated, some more aggressive rates, uh $145, not a huge increase at the median. And option two would be 118, even smaller. Um, so that's part of the design was to try to keep the impact to small and medium businesses lower. Um, and you'll see uh how we kind of structured that in just a moment here. So, next slide, please. So this slide lays out what the actual rate structures are for options one and options two. So just by way of example, a general retail business, which is the second line here, uh would pay uh everybody pays a $25 flat rate for the first 25,000 in gross receipts. That means your micro businesses, uh, they're going to pay 25 bucks for these little small businesses. Um, then beyond that, everyone pays according to what category they're in and then the rate that's applicable to that category. So general retail, for example, would be a dollar uh per thousand in option one, 43 cents per,000 uh in option two. Um just as a note, for example, warehouses would fall under the industrial category. Um and so they

would go up just back of the napkin. That's about a four-fold rate increase on industrial um under the option one model and probably about a two-fold increase under option two. So that's where we make up the difference if you will in the model is getting everybody on these rates getting those a little bit more standardized and uh making sure that micro businesses have a nice flat rate that's predictable. In fact, if we go to the next slide, we'll look at sort of the impact on small, medium, large businesses, if you will. Some examples in any event. So, small businesses, particularly these microenterprises, very predictable, nice low flat rate at $25. Um, midsize businesses, a growing business can predict their cost as they scale. They know what category they're in. They know what the rates going to be. It's predictable for them and promotes more consistency. And then for large businesses, because of the gross receipts and removing the regressivity, um keeping that rate the same no matter how big you are, um we now pick up more of the actual economic impact or economic footprint of a business. um when they grow larger in the city. Next slide, please. Now, what we've done here is take a few these are just hypothetical businesses for confidentiality reasons. We can't disclose anything about specific businesses in the city, but we pulled a few examples and what we're trying to do is show

what the impact of these models would be on those examples and how they compare for example to Union City. So you can see for example here that a microenterprise right now uh maybe this is a homebased business but it's a microenterprise very small enterprise $39 now 25 under either of the two options. Uh in Union City that's 132. Um and then you can kind of read across these examples. um you know a grocery store that might be grossing 15 million uh which up in the Bay Area that'd be not uncommon. um right now pay about $3,000. Under option one that would go up to 15 at a dollar per thousand or in option two about 6,000 um at the 45 uh 43 cents per thousand rate. So ultimately what you get to see is that option one uh which as I noted has some of the higher rates uh would significantly impact uh and increase the revenue. Uh option two uh very close to what New York City is bringing in and does decrease for some of the smaller businesses um the very small businesses keeps it moderate for the middle size and then increases on the larger size. It's proportional to the size of the business. Next slide please. Um

the the result of this new structure is in terms of equity is that you pay based on your economic activity if you will. So the larger you are uh the more you'll pay but the rate stays the same uh across uh the for within the business type. And so small businesses contribute a smaller share. Uh the distribution of the tax responsibility shifts and aligns more closely with the scale of the business activity. Next slide please. Um, one of the things you may notice in the model, and if not, I'll I'll call it out, is that some business types perhaps don't generate any meaningful revenue for the city through say collecting or remitting sales tax or other revenue sources. um and those businesses for example the ability to tweak the rate and address that concern is one of the benefits of this model 3. So warehousing and logistic uses or administrative and support offices right now are taxed on payroll which is an input not even necessarily a measure of the economic activity. professional services. Also, a doctor's office can be pretty productive in terms of economic activity uh and productivity per employee may have a smaller property impact but still has uh a greater amount of taxable activity. Um the new structure would address this imbalance by moving all these businesses to the gross receipts basis um and

having a consistent rate by category. Next slide please. So what are your peers doing uh as a city? Well, you can see that from we we took a selection of about nine uh other cities in the region. Um we new work is one of the oldest uh this is 1990 as the last major update to or substantive update to your ordinance for business license tax. That's a fairly dated tax structure at this point. Um you can see that for example Union City East PaloAlto updated in the 2024 election. Uh we included Saucelo in part because they have they adopted a fairly aggressive uh version of Model 3 back in I think it was 2018 and uh and had some significant revenue impacts as they modernized their structure as well. Significant meaning positive revenue impacts for the city. Next slide please. So you're amongst the oldest models. You're basically at the bottom right now in revenue per capita of the comparison group. Uh and again you can see Selita way up here with their more modernized structure and Union City here with what they had uh updated and adopted. Um next slide. If you were to adopt uh the version of model three uh you would see if you can go back one Lauria please you would move from the tail end to more

of the the upper end of revenue per capita in your new tax structure. Again, a lot of that coming from getting rid of the regressive nature of the current tax. Um, all right, next slide, please. We also took a look at revenue per business. Uh, right now you can see Newark on the far right. Um, not necessarily at the bottom. Um, San Mateo is, I believe that is. um but um near the bottom in terms of how much revenue is produced per business by this tax structure. Next slide, please. If you were to adopt uh something like option two, then your revenue per business would be significantly higher. You'd be up at the top of the list here as well. Um so again that goes to some of the fiscal sustainability uh as you move into the future. Next slide please. So procedurally what would be next? We've we've worked on the study uh with staff given you some highlights and we'll have an opportunity to discuss it here tonight. What would be next procedurally? Um, and as was already mentioned, generally speaking, uh, there'd be an opportunity for polling and community outreach. That's what we've seen a lot of cities do at the next stage if they're interested in modernizing. Uh, they want to take a look at the community's voice and and polling. Um and then from that you could come back, look again at specific options, select a final model, um finalize the ordinance language, and then because this would go to a ballot

measure need to be adopt a resolution and a ballot measure typically in the July time frame to get over to the county registar of voters uh in time uh to get the measure on the ballot. Next slide, please. And with that, I'm going to turn it back to to Gloria. At this time, we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Gloria. Thank you for the presentation. Uh, is there anybody in the audience that has a question regarding the presentation that you uh just had an opportunity to hear? City Manager, any final comments?

Um, refresh my memory, city manager, if you wouldn't mind. the passage rate for the business tax license in Union City was passed by their residents. What percent? If memory serves me correctly, I believe believe it is around 80%. Is that correct, Mr. Rosario? About 80%. Excellent. Um I know there are going to be a number of questions from my colleagues. Um I'm going to start to my right. Council member Delcatio.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation. I was thinking about slide I believe it was 28 and slide 29 um about the revenue uh per capita slides. Um, and I was wondering, assuming that we went with model 3, then would that now then put us higher than Fremont? And if so, would that um possibly encourage businesses to leave Newark for any reason to go to a different location? I think Eric has an answer for that one.

Sure, I'd be happy to take that. Uh so it would put you higher than Fremont in terms of revenue per capita. Uh the rates themselves however I think there's an interesting point here. Union City adopted rates very similar to option two uh from model 3 and uh to my knowledge has not experienced uh a significant outflow of businesses. Generally, we don't see that because these taxes are so low at the margin, right? We're talking for $1,000, you might be paying a dollar every $1,000 that you earn. So, um or less in a number of the cases, 43 cents or 45 cents on $1,000. So, we're talking fractions of a penny on the dollar. And at the margin, that's usually not worth it for a business to consider relocating, particularly if you've got things like a good workforce and uh access to transportation and other attractive items for the business community. Um then you you wouldn't expect to see u a major risk there. But it is worth being wise about in today's economy. So I I do appreciate the question. I would say generally historically that hasn't been the case. Um, and ratewise you would be very close to Union City. So your rates would be more in the middle. You just happen to have in certain parts of your economy a more robust economy that allow that produces a little bit more revenue per capita um and more per business.

Thank you for the clarification. and I appreciate your response. Thank you. Thank you. Are are you aware of any other city that is looking at a ballot measure in November among the other cities that you have mentioned that have not updated their business tax license? Um on from those that we've studied uh here is that the question Mr. Mayor? Yes. Um I personally am not. There are a number um I'm working with some in Solano County that took a look at it um and some over in the uh Bay Area but not that were included in this peerreview study. Thank you.

Your honor, if I may. I think there's a few cities in our county that are looking at this at this point, at least one or two based off my recollection. Miss Yeah. Hayward went to council just this week and um are considering a ballot measure for this November. Okay. Thank you, Vice Vice Mayor Jorgens. I I just want to thank you for the presentation. It was terrific. Um you know, we haven't modernized this uh this tax since uh 1990 and that was before I was born. So I think uh you know now is time at least uh to look at you know different ways the you know Newark's economy has changed and how um you know we might better capture what we're trying to capture.

You know I'm finding it difficult to find things that we didn't do before I was born. Council member Little. So I have a quick question on slide 18. Um, where do restaurants and hotels and hospitality industry go? What category are they considered? We'll just swing over real quickly to 18. Sure. I can take that if you'd like, Lauria. Sure. 18.

Yep. In slide 18, uh, which is the the model, they would fall under general retail. And if you look at slide 20, I think it is.

Mhm. Um what you'll see is we've tried to take into account in both of the models the lowest rate um and in option two by a significant amount the lowest rate is on that general retail and that's for a couple of reasons. one concern about restaurants and impacts and things like that, but two, your restaurants and a lot of your retail establishments, they're already collecting and remitting sales tax and contributing to the tax base for the city in a in a different way. And so that's part of what this structure allows you to do is fine-tune in that way. Um, so I'll pause there. Did that help answer your question?

Yeah, that was great. Thank you, Council Member Gindall.

Yes, thank you for the excellent presentation. Um, and uh I thought it was very clear the um I I I believe the modernization is is certainly certainly necessary. Um um there I do have um one I have one particular question. The um and then and then a larger point. the um is is manufacturing and distribution centers warehouse considered the same under or is there a different rate for um distribution just just to just to uh fill that in a little bit. um distribution uses generate a a lot of truck traffic, very little employment. Um and and so right now they they they don't they don't pay very much in impact fees and they don't really gener they don't really compensate us for the damage they do to our roads. So um I'm whereas manufacturing generates a lot of employment creates creates a lot of spillover effects um positive spillover effects in our economy. So, um was was wondering if they are considered the same and and why they and if they have to be.

Uh great question. Uh under the current model, they are brought together under the industrial category. If you look on slide 20, if you were looking there, that's where they would fall. Um they don't have to be grouped together. Um, one of the nice things about this model is if the council were to give us direction, we can tweak some of the membership in the different groups. Um I would note that there's a couple of things with warehouses uh that this model does already and then you know you can obviously we could discuss other options but one of them is uh the industrial rate is still I think a three might be a 3x uh increase over the current gross receipts rates for some of that warehousing um under the current structure. Let me just double check my my facts here. I think the current structure is it's 20 cents. So, it doubles. Uh, and it's on gross payroll right now for warehousing. So, we'd be significantly increasing on warehousing. We'd be saying, look, you're not going to pay on the number of employees or your gross payroll. You're going to be paying on what do you get paid to do this work. And we build in what's called a cost of operations. So that if someone says, "Well, I do warehousing, but I don't really have traditional sales, etc., etc." Yeah, but at least as much as it costs you to operate this, that's going to be subject to the tax. So built into this model are some protections in that direction. To summarize, we could separate those two functions. The model does not do so right now, but there's no principled reason we couldn't look at doing that.

Great. Thank you. And yeah, and I I do want to reiterate that um I do think the new system that you're look that you're looking at is better. I'm I'm I'm in support of uh of the way you've structured it. What I what I what I I do but I do and we'll get back to it, but I do think that we should be separating warehousing from warehousing and distribution from manufacturing um because of the differential impacts on our community. Um now the the the f the other the larger issue is I I don't understand why there isn't an option three that keeps the revenue roughly neutral. I don't like seeing this as a major way of uh increasing our revenue just because the you know it's possible to increase revenue um is not necessarily the right thing to do. businesses are the goo the the goose laying the golden egg and we don't want to kill that goose. Um the the money that's taken from from businesses in Newark could could have otherwise been used by those businesses to expand their operations to hire people to pay our employees. So, um I am highly concerned about the the major the the massive increase in revenue to the city that I really I really would have liked to have seen option three which modernized this code but left but left the income to the to the city relatively the same.

Thank you. That's I don't think that was a comment. I don't think that was a question. I think it was a comment. Um so um so I guess my question would be why wasn't an option like option three um studied? Why why was it assumed that we wanted to quadruple the revenue? Um that may be for staff. Okay.

Well, I I'll chime in if I may. Uh city manager and I think you hit the nail on the head, Council Member Gindalf. That goose that laid that golden a egg hasn't been touched since 1990. And uh you know we the city continue to provide services and our residents demand services that uh that cost the city um you know that that we need that revenue to support it and we haven't modernized our BLT in 36 years and we're trying to align ourselves uh with our neighboring cities like Union City and and other communities and I think this is a step in the right direction but uh I certainly appreciate your comment. City Manager, did you want to add to that? Other questions or comments, council member?

Um, no. That's that's it for it for now.

I will say this, Council Member Grindle, I do agree with you on the separation of the manufacturing and uh distribution. Um, I I would like to see the U. distribution folks be more along the line of option one and and maybe continue to keep the manufacturing folks at the option two. That would be the only suggestion I would make relative to that and I think that would be in alignment with your suggestion. The other questions I have um Mr. Mr. Boon, uh the business license tax, will there be uh will the ordinance include an escalation based on CPI so we don't have to go back to the voters every few years for an increase in the tax or are we allowed to even do that?

I'm going to pass that over to Miss Dylan Rossario. Yeah, that hasn't been included in the um in the recommendation. Are we aware whether Union City included a CPI escalator in their ordinance? Uh certainly I can address that Mr. Mayor. Um it the Union City didn't. Um I think the rationale is that because it's based on gross receipts that inherently you know as inflation is included in that it's kind of already built in. Okay. Um whereas as you can see in our current model it's basically flat. Um but with the gross receipts model you will have a natural inflation capture there. And that makes sense. Yeah.

I'm concerned about small businesses. Uh, and I know that in essence, uh, if their revenues are $25,000 or less, they play they pay a $25 flat fee, if I understood correctly. But I'm worried about those businesses, u, Mr. Benoon, that may be $25 to $50,000. I want to make sure that whatever that escalation is between the small business at 25,000 and the relatively small business at 50,000 or 75,000 that the tax doesn't become overburdensome for those folks that are not at the 25,000 but maybe just above that. Can can staff talk about that for a moment?

Sure. Uh we'd be happy to receive any direction that the council provides this evening. Should the council provide direction to further study this and provide an analysis provide analysis as to what that appropriate threshold dollar amount should be? Uh we'd be happy to do that. Um as the I think it was the one of the last slides indicated um assuming the council provides direction for us to continue with the next steps. We would then come back with further refinement of the proposed ordinance uh for voter consideration. And at that time we'd be happy to include whatever it is uh that the council would like to provide direction on this evening. whether that be further analysis as to um the appropriate threshold uh for small businesses as well as warehouses and any other items that the council raises tonight.

Do we do we currently define a small business relative to its revenues? I mean, is that something that is defined anywhere in that you're aware of? In other words, a small business is defined as X number of employees or X number of revenue. Do we define what a small business is from a revenue standpoint with respect to the existing BLT? Yeah. No, I I don't think we have a def definition for what is a small business.

So, I would ask and certainly ask my colleagues certainly to weigh in if they believe necessary is to have staff kind of study that issue u because again I I worry about the small businesses. I'm going to use uh maybe $100,000 as that threshold in terms of making sure that whatever that escalator is in terms of the tax between the 25,000 and the 100,000 that we somehow account for that so that folks aren't settled with a significant increase in their business tax even though the revenues may be less than $100,000. Uh comments on that?

I I wouldn't mind seeing that. I think the more things we try to add, we'd be coming dangerously close to our 30 categories that we have under the current. You know, meeting our goal of streamlining becomes more challenging. Uh but certainly wouldn't mind seeing what that might look like to see if, you know, we can hit both goals and be more streamlined while also and and maybe in that regard, vice mayor, maybe what we look at is maybe raising the flat rate from $25,000 gross receipts to something maybe a little bit higher than that, whether it be 50,000 or 75,000. and that way we keep it the same or tying the 25,000 to the CPI because that doesn't capture inflation whereas the gross receipts would. Um, Council Lud, do you have a comment on that?

I I agree with absolutely everything you just said and I really like the number 100,000. You know, I own a small business. I own a Spanish translation business and I know the exact $39 that I pay every single time. So, the 25 is great. Um, but I do think I do think 25,000 is too low. I think we need to look at 100,000. Um because the catch is the big the big companies, they can pay this without a problem. I'm I'm concerned about the middle class and the middle class businesses, especially restaurants and hotels. They're really struggling right now with the cost of food. The big thing is cost of food for restaurants and things that sort. So just adding this in to a small location would really make a big deal. So everything the mayor I completely agree with that. I also really like I think Terrence made a really good point. I think a lot of the ones that that use the freeways and use I mean use our especially our Cherry Street and just really go through with it. I think they need to pay a higher amount on it as well versus like we said a lot of the retails, hotels, they do pay in sales tax. So I I I think every single point you made was head-on. So thank you for that.

The last question I have or maybe a couple questions I still have. You made reference to real estate uh uh real estate agents and you mentioned of course under the current structure I think they pay based on the number of employees and you indicated that they would now be um looking at gross receipts. How would they how would that be calculated? Would that be calculated on the income of the specific real estate agency? Is that how that would be calculated? Yes, that would be based on the gross receipts or the commission. Okay. Um, gasoline sales, I'm assuming Costco, for example, that comes under gross receipts for them as well. Yes.

Okay. Um, I think this is long overdue. Um, it's a simplification of the tax. I mean, we we've been talking at a federal level about simplification of the IRS rules and the tax rates as it relates to federal taxes. Um, it's confusing and when when businesses are struggling day in and day out to try to figure out, you know, what's my tax assessment going to look at? Anything we can do to simplify that tax that makes it easier for folks to understand it, which is really key, and to pay it is critical. Uh, I'm very sensitive to small businesses um because oftent times, you know, people put their heart and their soul and their dreams into these small businesses. is I had the opportunity to attend a small business recently over on Thornton Avenue where she's going to be selling uh candy and other similar products um at her business and and I just think to myself just the amount of money that she's going to pay for rent and overhead and everything else uh you're going to have to sell a lot of items just to make you know to to make a profit. So I don't want businesses going out of business. I mean, I don't want this tax to be one for small business that uh as mentioned, uh it just is that that last thing that just causes them to have to close up the doors. So, I'm really looking at simplification and reducing that tax for small business. Um so, I appreciate the analysis that staff did. I appreciate you bringing this item forward. Um

yes, vice mayor. Just a quick question for staff. Um on the what happens next slide, we've got the polling and community outreach that will be happening in May. From council's direction, um we've asked for a couple things to come back to us that I think um you know, we do want to see are we able to do the polling community outreach on that timeline given that given the direction that you've received this evening?

Correct. Uh that would be sufficient time. Should the council um direct us to proceed with community outreach? I would envision a couple of things. Uh, one, we would enter into a contract with a thirdparty professional uh, consultant. Uh, he's done pulling for our community in the past. Uh, he would be out to go pulling uh, at the end of this month. I've already had that preliminary conversation with him. Uh, at the same time, our economic development team would be out uh, working with our New York businesses uh, to receive their feedback on a proposed update as well and hold a series of community meetings and focus groups with the impacted businesses. Okay. Um, that would work in parallel and that would uh bring us to the timeline of presenting uh polling and community outreach to the council uh as early as May and further refinement in June and council um what we call the placement in July.

Okay, sounds good. Any last comments, questions? This is anformational item. There's no action required by city staff. So again, thank you for the presentation. Uh uh thank you to the uh HDL folks for uh presenting. We appreciate the hard work you do for our community and um your information was well received. Thank you. Thank you. You ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is is uh adopt a resolution approving an agreement with community planning collaborative to update the city's general plan in the amount not to exceed contract amount of 145,939. Mr. Benoon.

Yes. Good evening, your honor and members of the council. Uh this is a recommendation from city staff to enter in a contract with a thirdparty consultant to assist us with updating uh a particular component of the city's general plan. Uh and that would be the open space element. Uh we're required to do so under state law. Uh we have a relatively brief presentation from deputy director. Uh Mr. Mr. Interion will walk us through the basic components of the open space element as well as provide us with an overview of tasks that we hope to accomplish with respect to this agreement. With that in mind, I'll pass it over to Mr. Interiano.

Thank you, city manager, honorable mayor and city council. Uh today we are looking at for the city's council's approval to enter into a contract with a professional planning firm to update the city's open space element. So why are we doing this? The city is looking to comply with the requirements of Senate Bill 1425. This bill was introduced by Senator Henny Stern in 2022. The goal of the bill was to address structural inequities that have historically led to disparities in access to safe, healthy, and climate resilient environments. Uh specifically, the bill requires cities to evaluate their general plan open space element to address these uh inequities. uh some of the areas they're close we're going to be closely looking at. Uh the bill describes three key areas that we would evaluate. Uh one is um climate resilience which refers to the ability to encourage nature-based climate solutions in sensitive open spaces. Uh second would be the equitable access which focuses on all Newark residents having equal access to the benefits of open space. And third would be the wilding opportunities to identify significant ecological areas that can be restored or connected such as wildlife corridor or repairarian zone. As part of this effort, staff intends to work with a consultant to evaluate a technical advisory document established by the um office of land use and climate innovation. That's from the governor's office. Um that document aids jurisdictions in conforming with the intent of the bill. As part of this effort, staff um I mean as part of this efforts, the consultant will analyze the city's key relevant documents such as the recently approved climate action plan, the safety element and other documents as shown here. Staff issued an RFP in the fall of last year and it received two proposals to meet compliance with its bill. One

proposal was from community planning collaborative and the other one was by urban planning partners. staff evaluate the proposals based on their experience, project approach, and cost of services. Staff is recommending that the city work with community planning collaborative as they demonstrated to have a qualified team with uh vast experience. In particular, uh they have experience with newer projects such as the 2013 general plan and the most recent six cycle housing element. In terms of CPC's project tasks, they will uh essentially review the baseline conditions, associated data, um identify meaningful community engagement opportunities, establish a policy framework, and draft revisions to the elements uh for city council to consider. Overall project timeline will be approximately 6 months and approximately $146,000. With that staff request that city council authorize the city manager to enter into a contract services agreement with community planning collaborative to update the general plan parks regression and open space element to comply with this bill. Be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you. Uh Mr. Chair Tariano, is there any questions from the audience on this item? Uh council member Gdall, any questions on this item? Um yes. Um I I I want to make a snide comment about the state once again requiring us I was going to council member I was going to do that now that's not fair. Okay I'll leave that to you. I'll leave No, go ahead my friend. I'm I'll echo your comments.

No no no that that was just my preamble. Um the uh otherwise I I want to say this this actually is a great um idea. It's a great effort. Um um Mr. And Tyriono is is the is the linkages between open space areas, things like trails and um connections and bridges um going to be a part of this analysis or um or not? Yes, it will be. Thank you. Um and um so otherwise I think it's a great presentation and and I'm I'm happy the team that you've assembled seems excellent. So, I'm I'm looking forward to having this work get done. Thanks.

Thank you, council member. Any other comments from colleagues? Vice Mayor Jorgens? No. Terrific presentation. Just want to echo. Want to uh look forward to seeing this work done. Seems like a really good first step. So, thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Council Kangio. Yes. Thank you for your presentation. I thought that it was well thought out and thorough. Thank you, Council Little. I I have a question just to add a little bit more on that open space element. You know, are we talking Okay, I understand parks, I understand recreation. Can you give us more examples of open space is such a broad term. Could we just go a little bit more into that? Sure. Um so like wide open spaces like

So the general plan has an open space element. It talks about the city's kind of um different parks and open space areas. It also it also discusses kind of the bay area, how we're kind of abuing that. Um it also includes um natural um elements like uh wetlands. Um and so we we be looking at a lot of different types of open spaces um not just like public open spaces but just in general open spaces where there's any types of wildlife or habitat or anything like that that we could find those opportunities to kind of connect them or enhance them in any way as part of this effort. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Would you go back to slide three, please? I believe it was slide three. Sure.

Key requirement. Well, first of all, do you have any idea what the impetus was for the state to adopt SB1 1425? What was the impetus? Do you have any idea? Um, honestly, I don't I don't blame you because as I look at the key requirements, equitable access, ensuring that all residents regardless of social, economic, or racial background have access to open space. requiring coordination with environmental justice policies. You know, that just seems to be a no-brainer. You know, it just seems like that's something that we just do naturally.

Um, no, we all struggle. And I imagine out of the 145,000, that's simply the balance of what we will owe for this work to be accomplished because I'm sure the state sent us some money to implement SB1 1425. How much did the state send us, Mr. Manune? Nothing, sir. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Um, it just it just irritates me because that 145,000, ladies and gentlemen, is money that we can use to hire parks and wreck people, maintenance people, police officers, improve our roads, but we're going to spend 145,000 making sure that we make sure that our residents all have equitable access, which they currently have today. I wish the state would focus on those communities that are creating barriers for their residents and not simply adopt uh legislation that impacts every city in every town around the state. Um it it's just disappointing that um these are these would be dollars better spent and these are things that nobody in our city is going to disagree with the um these requirements. Um, and we're happy to adopt these without any hesitation. Uh, I'm sure. So, this is a U action item, folks. We're going to need to take a I need a motion in a second first.

So, moved by Vice Mayor Jorgens. I'd like to move by Council Member Grenal. Thank you. All the way from Japan. That's, you know, that's probably the longest second that's ever occurred in our history. Oh, Google. Can we Portugal's Portugal is up there? Okay. Council member Gdal. Yes. Council member Little. Council member Katansia. Yes. Vice Mayor Jorgens. Yes. Mayor Hannon. Yes. Motion passes. You Thank you very much for the presentation. Council and I

are going to get great satisfaction moving forward on all of the opportunities to um thank our state for all the work that they're doing for us. Um the next item is to receive a report on the status of implementation of the 2025 housing element annual progress report andformational updates on the affordable housing work plan. Mr. Benoon.

Yes. Good evening your honor members of the council. Uh this is a two-part presentation. The first one is a presentation from city staff uh that provides a summary of the annual progress report that staff submitted uh to the state and to the governor's office. This is with respect to the 2025 housing element annual progress report. The second component of the presentation is an update on the city's affordable housing work plan. If the council may recall, uh council had approved and enacted a work plan um to regulate and guide uh the use of our affordable housing impact fees. Uh that plan was adopted in 2021 and is in need of an update. So at the second part of the presentation, staff will be soliciting from the council direction as to uh the parameters and guidelines that should be contained in an updated affordable housing work plan. Uh for tonight's presentation, we have two presenters and we'll start with our housing programs policy and manager, Mr. Mr. Michael Culum. Mr. Culum, you have the floor.

Thank you, honorable mayor and members of the city council. I'm pleased to present to you tonight an update on implementation of the city's housing element and to request your input on next steps. And what a great evening to be doing this on uh fair housing month. There we go. This is the agenda for tonight's presentation. Don't be put off by it. We will have you out of here in the time it takes to fly back from Tokyo. Um after some some very brief introductions. Uh we will review some of the slides that you've seen before to help describe the scale of our housing shortage and some of the ways in which it impacts our community. With that stage set, we'll introduce to you how Newark tracks its progress in addressing our housing needs, the annual progress report. We'll then review why the annual progress report is especially significant this year as it marks the middle of this housing element cycle. Finally, we'll transition into discussion of the city's affordable housing work plan, request your input on the preparation of an updated plan, and close out with uh the sequent implications of this item, next steps, staff's recommendation, and discussion. As I said, my name is Michael Culum, and as the city's housing policy and programs manager, my role at the city is focused on supporting the city in implementing its housing element and achieving the community's housing goals. I have the pleasure of being joined this evening by assistant planner Ivan Wyn, who among her other responsibilities has prepared New York's housing element progress report for the last two years. There's many different ways of measuring housing need. Uh, but the state department of finance and the department of housing and community development

measure that um in a way that estimates California needs 2 and a.5 million more homes by 2030 to adequately address our housing needs. This means that everybody who is currently unhoused is housed. People who are costburdened have an affordable rent or mortgage. And people who are doubled up or living with family, couch surfing and so on can afford to move out and form their own home. Of that 2.5 million uh housing units, the state estimates that 1 million should be affordable to low and very low-income households. This is a huge number and probably is not achievable by 2030, but it is at least helpful in diagnosing the problem so that we can start to look towards solutions. The biggest challenge to meeting our community's need for affordable and stable and highquality housing is that California broadly is starting from a major deficit. While the last few years have felt like a major construction boom, statewide we've been building it below the 40-year average. um which is the middle horizontal line going across the screen before you. The horizontal line at the top of the chart is the amount of units that California would need to permit each year to meet its housing needs. Again, accordwide housing plan. We've only reached that line once last um we've only reached that line once in the last 40 years back in 1986. Um, and so really what we've seen is that while the last 10 years may have felt like a bit of a construction boom, in reality, California has been building at rates similar to the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s. The most direct uh consequence of the housing supply shortage is skyrocketing home prices. In Alamina County, the cost of home buying has increased by just by 64% just since 2020. This means that a

house that cost $800,000 in 2020 could now cost as much as $1.3 million. For a bottom tier home, meaning a smaller, older home in a less desirable neighborhood, you're looking at a monthly payment of about $5,414 a month. And to comfortably pay that, uh, you would need a household income of about $140,000. Buying a mid-tier home would require household income of about $230,000 to comfortably afford that home. Rents are also increasing, albe albeit not quite as dramatically as the cost of home ownership, with the average monthly rent in Alama County now at about $2,753. A second direct consequence of the housing supply shortage is homelessness. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, measures homelessness one way and the Department of Education measures it another. HUD uses what is called the point in time count or the PIT count where every two years volunteers fan out across America across Alita County on a given night in January to try and count all of the people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness such as living out of a car, RV or tent and those who are in an emergency homeless shelter. New York's pit count has fluctuated slightly over the years with 76 people counted in 2024, of which 47 were were unsheltered. The pit count was last conducted in January and we expect to get the results of that in the summer or fall of this year. The Department of Education on the on the other hand reports on the number of school children who experienced homelessness at any time during the academic year. So that could have just been for one night. It could have been for a week or it could have been over the course of months. Uh the Department of Education also uses a broader definition that includes children who are doubling up, meaning

they're staying with other family members, friends, relations but not in their own home. And so in the 2024 2025 school year, 227 NUSD students experienced homelessness. Uh and these students were disproportionately Hispanic or Latino or Pacific Islander. Uh most commonly these students were doubled up with friends or relatives which is much better than being on the street or in a shelter but is a very vulnerable position and um not a good one for learning or childhood development. Um I'll conclude here with the national implications of our housing supply shortage. Um it's not just here in California but certainly in many other states. Uh the 2020 dennial census showed that California's growth rate is below the national average and for the first time in its history that year California lost a congressional seat. Also for the first time in in state history we had a net loss of population from 2020 to 2023. That loss has now stopped uh and we're increasing again but our growth rate is lower than other states. At this rate, California is expected to lose an additional four to five congressional seats in 2030. And the map on the right shows the states that are losing uh seats in yellow and orange and the states that are gaining seats in blue. There is a correlation here between the number of homes built and the cost of housing. With that context, I will now turn it over to assistant planner win to introduce the annual progress report. Uh thank you Mr. Culum. So the annual progress report is of great importance to both the city and the state as it reports on housing activity from the previous calendar year and provides the state and the public with an annual update on local government's progress towards meeting their regional housing

needs allocation or reena over the entire planning cycle. It also tracks the implementation of go the goals, policies, and programs defined in each jurisdiction's housing element. This process gives local governments an opportunity to evaluate programs and identify necessary adjustments to improve implementation. As you may recall, on October 26, 2023, the city council adopted Newark's six cycle housing element after a robust community and stakeholder engagement process and presentation to the planning commission. Subsequently, the California Department of Housing and Community Development or HCD certified the city's housing element on December 21st, 2023, finding it to be in compliance with state law. With that framework in place, the housing element APR must be submitted to HCD and the governor's office of land use and climate innovation by April 1st of each year. The city has submitted a housing element APR each year since 2017 for the fifth cycle housing element and has already submitted reports for the first three year of the sixth cycle, including the APR for calendar year 2025. While this is the first year that staff has presented the APR to a city council meeting, moving forward, each annual report will be provided to the legislative body with each April 1st submitt deadline. A key part of the annual progress report is tracking housing production and affordability to determine whether jurisdictions are on track to meet the state mandated target number of housing units each city must plan. This target is known as the regional housing needs allocation or REA. And to provide a little bit more context, REA is based on projections from the state department of

finance which anticipates how many homes will be needed to accommodate population growth during the planning period and to address existing housing shortages and affordability across all income levels. The department of finance establishes the total housing need for each region in California and from there the regional housing need is distributed by each region's council of governments to individual cities and counties. Here in the Bay Area, AAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments assigns Newark's reena targets. For this current sixth cycle, Newark must plan for 1,874 new housing units with nearly half designated for lower inome households. These targets are broken down by income level to ensure housing is provided for all residents at all income ranges. The city is not uh responsible for building these units, but rather creating policies, programs, and zoning in place that would allow for the construction of these units in the planning period. As mentioned in the last slide, Newark's sixth cycle reena target is 1,874 new homes. This is significantly higher than the city's fifth cycle arena target of 1,078 homes, but still approximately 600 fewer homes than the 24,42 units that the city actually permitted in the fifth cycle. The table here summarizes the city's fifth cycle reena achievements as well as our sixth cycle reena by income band. Um for the city issued building permits for 139 housing units in 2025, roughly half of which are attributable to the 73

unit CCCMA assisted living facility project at 6214 Thornon Avenue. Approximately 23% of total units permitted were single family dwellings intended for home ownership at above moderate income rates. Accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs, account for the remaining 24% of the total units permitted in 2025. The city entitled 288 new housing units in 2025. Entitled units were distributed across four projects. one multifamily development, two single family dwelling projects, and a large-scale residential development that includes both single family homes and a multi-family apartment building. 13% of entitled units are designated for very lowincome households, 12% for lowincome households, and the remainder for above moderate income households. Finally, the city issued certificate of occupancies to mark completion of 53 housing units in 2025. Roughly 74% of completed units were single family detached dwellings for above moderate income households with the remainder consisting of ADUs. Compared to previous years, the number of housing units permitted and completed in 2025 decreased. The city issued 139 permits in 2025 compared to 185 permits issued in 2024. This reflects continued softening in the market for new construction as the result of high cost of debt, labor, and materials and is consistent with trends in other ABA bag jurisdictions. Notably, the number of units receiving certificates of occupancy in 2025 is

significantly lower than in prior years with only approximately 50 units completed compared to about 250 in 2024 and 450 in 2022. This decrease is to be expected as several large developments completed construction in earlier years, while more recent projects have not yet reached final inspection. Optimistically, entitled units increased to 288 from the 162 units entitled in 2024, although this is still down from the high of 370 units in 2022. While the city is making progress towards its REA goals, it's doing so at a slower rate relative to this stage of the sixth cycle. Newark is halfway through the sixth cycle and has issued permits for approximately 22 of the 22% of the 1,874 units in the total arena. Unlike previous years, the city is not on target to meet RENA targets for any income band as it's shown here on this table. Um, it's likely the city will continue to be subject to Senate Bill 423. This means that projects that restrict at least 10% of units to lowincome households or 20% to moderate income households will be eligible to opt in to a streamlined ministerial approval process until at least 2031. Um the city has a pipeline of several hundred homes for which entitlement applications have not been submitted or approved such as but not limited to FMC Willow Maui Village and the Saha Thornton Avenue apartments. The former two projects are reliant on significant and expensive site preparation work

prior to building pulling building permits and the latter is dependent on scarce and highly competitive public subsidy. This table summarizes the entitled housing units for major projects that are still in the pipeline and have not yet received building permits. Building permits for these projects would bring the city's reena targets reena progress to 61% in total. In terms of ADU production, ADUs have been a reliable way of making Reena progress across all income levels. In 2025, the city issued building permits for 34 ADUs, showing an increase of approximately 17% compared to the 29 ADUs permitted in 2024. ADU production in Newark is anticipated to grow now that the newly amended ADU ordinance has gone into effect, allowing for greater incentives and allowances for ADU production. And in the past year and ongoing, the city has made significant progress in advancing the development of affordable and accessible housing across all income levels. Some of the key accomplishments include the following. The first is the Saha Thornton Avenue Apartments. In 2025, city council and the plan commission entitled the 59 home 100% affordable housing community. In April, building on that progress, in January 2026, Alama County awarded the project $2.95 million to reserve 13 units for household exiting homelessness. Terancina, the 91 unit affordable housing component of FMC Willow and Harbor Point projects uh commence site work in March. And lastly, the Timber Senior Housing Project, a 79 home

affordable senior community is slated for a grand opening in May. This project is the first project to implement the city's live, work, local preference pro policy. Um, that's that concludes uh my highlights of the APR and I'm just going to pass it back to Mr. Culum to discuss the midcycle review.

Thank you, Ivon. So, we're now nearly halfway through the six cycle housing element, meaning that this APR submission is a major component of HCD's midcycle review of our progress. Uh to summarize what Ivonne stated, even though we're halfway through the cycle, we've permitted only 22% of our arena. That's a shortage of 522 units distributed fairly evenly across the four income bands from above moderate to very low income. Uh this is common among jurisdictions in our region and many other parts of the state, but it still has implications on the laws that apply to our land use processes. For the last eight years, Newark has been subject to state law concerning streamlined ministerial approvals or SNAP. Um, Senate Bill 423. As Ivon stated, a streamline ministerial approvals process is an accelerated way of approving or denying projects. This is accomplished by uh consolidating approval at the staff level and not having a public hearing of the planning commission, city council, or any other discretionary body. In 2017, the state legislature passed a law aimed at increasing housing production in jurisdictions that were not meeting their housing goals. Projects in these jurisdictions could opt in to a streamlined ministerial approval process if the project conformed to the general plan, zoning code, objective design standards, and was not located in an environmentally sensitive area. For the past eight years, housing projects in New York have been eligible to opt into this uh this this process if they agreed to restrict 50% of their units to low-income households. Um though we have not seen any projects elect to do that yet. The midcycle review triggers a reassessment of eligibility for this process. um and staff anticipate that because the city is halfway through the

sixth cycle but has not yet achieved its permitting targets and any income ban projects here will be eligible to continue to opt into a streamlined ministerial approval process. Um happy to answer questions on this in the future. It will also come up at uh future housing element programs as we discuss them. Um, in addition to Reena permitting progress, the second major component of HCD's evaluation of the annual progress report is our progress in implementing the city's 45 housing element programs. In this regard, we're doing slightly better than our reena permitting progress. Um we've completed 29% of our housing element programs and are about uh 2thirds um of our programs are in progress or continuous meaning there's something that we will keep doing throughout the cycle like participating in the county's community development block grant minor home repair program. Staff are preparing to bring several recommendations to the planning commission and city council within the next few months. If adopted, um the city will have either completed or be continuously implementing over 50% of our housing element programs. So, we're just a little little tiny bit late, but we're on the precipice of doing a lot. Staff understand that there may be some specific programs that HCD will review as part of the midcycle review. Um, HCD sent the city a letter on December 23rd, 2023 confirming that our housing element is in substantial compliance with state law. And as part of that program, they uh that letter, they named 19 specific programs that the city should timely and effectively implement. Um, those 19 programs are on this slide and the next. I won't call them all out, but you'll recognize some in what you have already taken action and we can mark as complete, such as our ADU program. Move to the next slide. Um, another one

completed is uh program H3.6. Um, this was one of the first uh housing element programs that city council took action on and it created a byite housing overlay zone. Um you'll see that at the bottom of this slide, uh the midcycle review and annual progress report are each programs in their own right. And so we can pat ourselves on a back for those. Uh now that we've delivered to you the annual progress report and the importance of the midcycle review, I'd like to transition to focus on the affordable housing work plan. In 2021, city council approved resolution 11201 to adopt the 2021 2023 affordable housing work plan. At that time, the city was greatly exceeding its targets for above moderate income housing, but falling behind on its goals to meet the needs of other households. The table on the right shows uh the data from the end of the fifth cycle. what we completed between 2015 and 2023, we attained 537% of our above moderate income goal, but we didn't reach 50% in any other category. That finding is consistent with the city's own 2022 displacement study that we discussed as part of the inclusionary housing and tenant protections items in January in which found that the city was overwhelmingly producing single family homes with much fewer development of multif family housing affordable to a broader population. With that context, city council resolved that the purpose of the affordable housing work plan would be to achieve its moderate and lower income housing goals for the remainder of the fifth cycle. The work plan did this by identifying priority populations and priority housing types. The priority populations were young families, key workers, people at risk of homelessness, people with disabilities and other special housing

needs, and low-income seniors. Approximately 79% of New York's housing stock is single family homes, the median price of which is around 1.4 to$ 1.5 million. Uh, conservatively, the monthly mortgage insurance and property tax payment for a home that price would be well over $6,000 a month. Um, and so even with down payment assistance, uh, the median priced home in New York would still be out of reach to those priority populations in the middle class more generally. So, taking that into account, city council identified these priority housing types that could be more naturally affordable to the priority populations and the middle class. These include medium to highdensity apartments, condos, and town homes, as well as duplexes and forplexes. Those housing types are illustrated in the image on the screen. Commonly referred to as missing middle housing. Missing because this housing is commonly missing from a city's housing stock and middle because it's somewhere in between the size of a single family home and a in an apartment building and because it's intended to serve a more middle or working-class households. In identifying these priorities, the work plan aims to retain the city's economic diversity by diversifying its housing stock. The work plan established an investment framework for spending housing impact fees. This included six primary programs with anticipated spending targets. These were just targets, not formal allocations, but they were still a helpful framework. Um, you'll see them here in this chart. They included the housing element update for the six cycle studying and preparing the inclusionary housing ordinance and nexus study financing development of new affordable housing development um through uh competitive notices of funding availability the local preference policy first-time home buyer program and the acquisition of land for new affordable housing. We've now completed or nearing completion of pretty much all of these programs. Um and ultimately um some of

these were folded into each other. So the inclusionary housing study also included the local preference policy. Um the um funding notice of availability for the Saha project for example included the acquisition of land which the city now has control over. Um and uh and so on. Another way of looking at the 2021 2023 work plan investment framework is this uh this pie chart. about 80% of housing impact fee funds were to be used for development of new affordable housing with about 5% to the first-time home buyer program and 15% to various studies and planning efforts. So now we are discussing updating the affordable housing work plan. Uh the timing is prudent um given we've completed all of the other programs in the last work plan that the midcycle review shows we are um um that achieving our housing goals will require additional intervention from the city and thankfully the housing impact fee fund still does have a healthy balance of approximately $29 million in existing available revenue. We do anticipate ac um collecting some additional revenue over the remainder of the sixth cycle. staff have generated seven potential programs for the updated work plan. These are not formal recommendations at this time. Um we just wanted to share our thoughts with you to receive input and feedback. The first could be uh new notices of funding availability. In other words, those competitive applications for housing impact funds to support 100% affordable housing. uh that $29 million that we currently have available, if we were to put all of that into developing new affordable housing, um would probably be enough to constitute the city's contribution for two to three new affordable housing projects. Uh we could consider ways to further

leverage the city's investment here. Um things that we can we can analyze um further in the future. Um but one example could be um housing element program to evaluate um the use of city-owned land for affordable housing development. Um we could pair that notice of funding availability with the notice of availability of surplus land. Another way to further leverage our dollars that we could look into is taking advantage of those streamlined ministerial approvals processes to frontload council's discretion at the project selection process with the aim of accelerating pre-development to get our projects built faster and of more opportunities to apply for competitive state and regional funding. And um one third possible opportunity of leveraging that funding would be to partner with funders like the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund or Silicon Valley Housing Trust. These are private philanthropic housing um um development organizations that invest in highquality affordable housing projects that can be built significantly cheaper and without scarce state funding by using lowcost land and local government partnerships. A second program could be augmenting funding for existing projects in the wake of reduced state and federal contributions. Three is continued implementation and funding for the first-time home buyer program um which will be coming to you very soon with a recommended um budget allocation and um program documents. And four would be targeting a percentage of funds to implement recommendations of the also forthcoming homeless action plan. Um these are the last ones. Five imp would implement another housing element program to partner with Newark Unified School District to to support them in evaluating the redevelopment potential of their land for housing in other school district and community benefits. Um there's associated opportunities for for boosting that as well going beyond

our housing element commitment. And then six and seven are both potential studies. Six would analyze different models for structuring and spending our housing impact fees. Perhaps not just a notice of funding availability, but perhaps other innovative ways of making use of those funds to support affordable housing. Seven would be a study um effectively a 360 degree review of the city's regulations, policies, and practices that help or hinder housing production. Uh this is something that's typically done only every 8 years as part of the process for developing a housing element, but some cities are doing it now, looking at the results of their midcycle reviews and saying this isn't working. What else can we do about it? Uh so I've consolidated those seven programs into five spending buckets just for envisioning that a conceptual investment framework. Um just food for thought, not formal recommendations. Um, but with our little over $29 million in affordable housing impact fee, um, if we were to stick with the previous work plans 80% target of, um, producing and preserving affordable housing in New York, um, that would be about $23 million, which again, I think is still probably enough to support two, perhaps three if we really push it. Um, new affordable housing projects. If we targeted 10% of funds to the first-time home buyer program, we'd have a little less than $3 million for that program, this would actually be a slight increase um in the percentage and dollar amount from what the previous workline envisioned. We could then target an additional 10% for implement implementation of the homeless action plan. Uh this could be for homelessness prevention, things like continued operation of our emergency rental assistance program, legal assistance for households facing eviction, rapid rehousing and hotel vouchers, and so on. Um and then finally, we estimate about

$450,000 in studies and technical assistance um in that partnership with the school district, innovative funding, and the constraints analysis. Um the 2024 2026 capital improvement plan um tackled this in part by creating five projects related to the housing element implementation. All of which are um almost all of which are now encumbered or nearing encumberment. And so staff would recommend allocating additional funds for the forthcoming capital improvement plan um to continue that housing element implementation. The first would be that $450,000 for those those three studies. Um and the second would reserve funding um funding authority for further amendments to the zoning code or other areas of our code in order to retain housing element compliance, comply with state law or otherwise as staff may be directed. Uh so I'll return to this slide at the end of the presentation if you want to look at it again. Um but there's really five primary areas in which staff are um requesting input from the council in preparation of a work plan. Um the first is whether the goal of the new work plan should be to achieve our sixth cycle arena targets. Again that was the goal for the previous fifth cycle. Um whether this term should extend through the end of the sixth cycle. So that would be a 2026 2031 work plan. Whether it should adopt the same priority populations and housing types and um what if any programs should be included in the investment framework. Uh the strategic priority for this item is to further economic fatality and housing for all. Um and both the APR and the work plan are exempt from SQUA. For next steps, uh staff will respond to any feedback received from the state department of housing and community development about the annual progress

report and our midcycle review and will report to council accordingly. staff will incorporate council's input on the work plan and return to council with a recommended draft affordable housing work plan. And finally, um we move forward recognizing that achieving the city's housing goals will require not only continued focus on getting our entitled projects permitted, but also on getting more projects into the city's pipeline. Uh so it's staff's recommendation that council receive the annual progress report, provide input on the preparation of the work plan, and authorize establishment of two capital improvement projects. And so uh with that, we welcome your questions and input on the work plan. And I'm happy to return to any slides.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Appreciate it. Is there anybody in the audience that has questions on this particular item or comments? I'll start with Council Member Grenal.

Yes, thank you for the excellent presentation. Very detailed and informative. The um just wanted to sort of point out that the city's really done its part in terms of zoning land for development and and that's why we're that's why we got a letter of compliance from the state. um we can't of you know um having an administration of the federal government that causes interest rates to rise things issues like that that have really impacted the ability for for the private sector to build. Um, I so I just wanted to sort of reiterate that we we can only do so much, but the economy has to help us out and it's it it occurs it occurs to me that we that we're really doing everything we can. Wanted to I'm hoping you you would agree with that assessment.

Certainly, sir. I think that we are doing everything we're following through on all of our commitments in our housing element to the best of our ability and at um the the pace and with the resources that we have available to us. Any other questions or comments? Council member, that's all I have. Thank you, sir. Uh, Council Member Little. Um, so I know we have a lot of numbers and things of that sort. I'm just curious, just flat numbers. How many houses are we required by the state to have built brand new by 2030? What's the number? Uh, we do not have a number that we have to have built. We do have a number that we are targeted to permit and that number is 1,874. Um, I have a tattoo right here.

Give it. Yeah. By by 203 temporary tattoo since we're halfway through, right? Um, but yeah, that's that number is 1,874. Um, in the previous housing element cycle 2015 to 2023, we actually permitted uh 2500 homes. So we actually permitted more in the last cycle. Okay. But how many have we built? How many have we at this point? How many are actually built in progress? You know, yeah, here slide on that for the six cycle, Elvon. Or can you answer that? So that's the number for the six cycle. Let's see. About 50.

It's not on this slide, but I could get that number to you after. within this year we've like final 53. Um and then in the previous years or well it is on this slide. So as you can see in 2025 we finaled 53. in 2024. Um it's about a little less than 150 units and then oh I'm sorry two 200 it's hard to read but a little under 200 units and then in 20 oh sorry

sure it looks like we have uh in 2024 five excuse me uh we completed construction issued certificates of occupancy with respect approximately 50 units. 2024 approximately 250 units. Uh 2023 a little over 200 units. So uh and then in 2022 almost 450 units. Yes. Thank you. So, we're looking at 965 more or less and we're at So, we're literally technically at half.

Well, I I don't think you can include the 2022 number if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Right. That's correct. Because it's the 23 through31. Darn it. That's a good number. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Darn it. Council member Danchio. Yes,

thank you so much for your presentations. Um, both of you did an excellent job. It does seem that we do have diversified housing stock and we are making progress with our housing production. Um, I did have a question though regarding slide 27 if we were thinking of focusing um on just different ways. Uh, oh, you can wait till we get to the slide, but I was just looking actually at number three

which is about firsttime home buyer programs. And I think that as you mentioned that that's going to be something that we're going to see on our horizon soon. Um it also I was thinking about that compared to in the next slide I believe number seven. Um when you were talking about I believe um how some places are looking at the midyear cycle or the midcycle now as opposed to waiting eight years. When was the last time that we reviewed ours? um that was in uh 2022 2023 in order to prepare this current six cycle housing element.

Okay. Do you feel that it would be of value to us to review it now? I think that it could certainly um it couldn't hurt um there are other jurisdictions in Alama County that um are taking that action or considering taking that action. um the real estate market changes very regularly. Um and so I think at the very least it could help us to understand the current context in which we're we're working.

Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. And just back one slide um just thinking about number three and the firsttime home buyers programs. I know that um our other cities nearby have done that in the past and it seems to have been successful for them. So I am looking forward to seeing that as well. Um, I was thinking a little bit about what our fellow um, council members were talking about regarding private sector and interest rates and what was just mentioned during your presentation about the permits. Is it the case that the permits are issued by us but given to people in the private sector and then they're holding on to permits but actually not using the permits to build? Is that an issue that's happening? Um I do think that is an issue that may be happening but the um the larger issue is that projects are receiving entitlements from us the planning authority to to build but then they are not pulling the building permit approvals to actually start construction. Um and it's because the building permit approval has a much tighter um requirement to start construction than the planning approval. typically. Um and uh so if if they did carry on to pulling those building permits, we would be in a much better place in terms of reporting on these numbers.

Sorry, that is what happened with the project at New Park Mall about 5 years ago. Correct. Where permits were pulled and then uh construction did not happen. They were ready to issue. They were ready to issue. That's correct. Council member

and if I may comment, council member deansio, that's one of the reasons why this council or the previous council like actually adopted the ordinance that said we're going to issue the entitlement and you have two years to pull a building permit to begin construction. Otherwise, because the view of the council may change in terms of the need then and the need today, which is why those projects when their um entitlements lapse, they need to come back to the planning commission and resubmit. And I think we recently had that with the project on um Cherry Street. Cherry Street. Correct, Mayor.

Yeah. So, um we we we need to be in a position where developers need to be serious about wanting to build um because it takes a great deal of staff time and effort to go through that entire entitlement process, council review, commission review, and then simply not have it move forward. So, uh, I think the council did did a wise thing in in requiring them to come back to the commission at minimum to see whether or not the view that we had for that development may have changed and maybe um maybe look at additional units or whatever the case may be. Council member Duck,

thank you. And I I appreciate um the clarification as well um your honor. And I was also thinking a little bit um about one of the first slides that you were talking about of the students and the 227 students that experience homelessness um during a given year.

I and I was just thinking about the context of doubling up. It would be helpful, I think, just for us to understand our the lives of our New York students, too, if we understood a little bit more of like the length of time or if the parents were also involved as well as opposed because I'm thinking about students on their own couch surfing without parents knowledge or something or um if they're in foster care or how we could also assist students in that situation um to continue on with their studies, things like that. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm going to make a quick comment. I absolutely agree with Councilman Datanchio on that. The 227 is alarming and and I wanted to ask just a scenario. A a child living with grandparents, would they be then considered part of that homeless count or because they're an immediate blood relative, they would not be counted? Do you know off hand? The data is self-reported, I believe, by parents and like guardians and in some cases um guidance counselors. Um I think it would be up to the that reporting party to determine that.

I agree with the council member. I think I'd like to see more information regarding that issue. Um there there may be a greater role we can play in partnership with the school district to try to ensure that those students that are currently being counted as homeless we we either have a better understanding as to who they are where they are and what uh why that designation to see if there's something we can do from a policy standpoint to assist in that matter.

Yeah. I uh just as a comment to start out you know given the projects that you know we have to entitle come from the private sector that the developers are the one building you know pulling the building permits you know I don't think it's you know that fair to say that we're delayed on implementation because it's you know

this council you know is excited to see projects you know from everything I seem staff is eager and effectively working with anyone who's brought forward a housing project so you know I think you know while that's the technical definition I don't think that's necessarily a fair representation of the work that this city has done over the last four years. Um, you know, the reality is, you know, this city has set aside a lot of space for housing. You know, everything from, you know, a project that was first brought forward to council 40 years ago that is in our pipeline that, you know, we're just sitting on. And, you know, there's nothing more that we can do to, you know, bring that forward. And you know, when we go through the housing element, the state will, you know, come forward and talk about how much they care about building housing. And to me, that doesn't ring true because they're setting up an incentive system where they're caring about the entitlements and the permits, not counting the completed projects as much as they should. that creates an incentive structure where if I own a piece of land zoned for housing, I can just wait all the cities are going to be, you know, cities across the state are going to be, you know, asked by the state of California to continue to incentivize and add more and more incentives. There's not a real incentive to build at some point. So, I think we're going to be stuck in that. And as we look forward to our work plan, um I do think, you know, we've got this money set aside. One of the things that I would like to see in the work plan is um just kind of clear guidance on like hey this money is here now it may not be available later because I would like to set up you know something with you know this money is temporary it's not going to be you know try to cut through some of those incentives to uh for developers to you know squat on their land and not build anything. So using that you know in a very kind of timely fashion to be able to bring that forward. I do have one question you had mentioned one of the things that we could do is look at streamlining

uh some of the projects. It seems to me you know under um SD423. A lot of those streamlining options have been available to developers for many years and they're not taking advantage of them even though you know the state is saying that like oh it's just these city requirements that are preventing housing. take away the requirements, they're still not being built. So, I guess how do we streamline things because I would I would like to see projects completed and however that happens, let's get it done. Um, so what is what is streamlining look like that is different than the 423 streamlining that, you know, we've had in place that people aren't taking advantage of?

Thank you for the question. Um, I'll state that the SB423 streamlining, also sometimes known as SP35, I think, was very much so a product of its age and when the law was first passed in 2017 and the real estate market was very different. Um, but it's also a reflection of our current um our current uh housing element progress. So, I was looking at this data the other day. Um, and through 2024, I think there were only 11 housing projects in Alama County that used SB423. Um, and overwhelmingly they were affordable housing projects. The reason being that um SB423 has certain labor requirements uh that would not otherwise um apply in order to use it. Affordable housing projects, most of them will be subject to those labor requirements anyways um by their funding sources and so it's not going to create an additional expense for the projects. Um some other jurisdictions that have implemented um local streamlining measures um have kind of ranged from just putting this into their own code so that at least you know they can say to their constituents that the project went through a local process and was dually considered. Um others have um put additional um or augmented affordability requirements, labor requirements, environmental requirements, and so on. It's um it would be, you know, it's their own code, so they can put into it what they please.

Yeah. I mean, I I I would be fine with, you know, looking at some of that. I mean, the biggest thing for me on any work plan is um that the money needs to be um timely and defined, you know, once the project is, you know, ready to go, that it's uh clear that, you know, it's a you build now or you're not going to get the funds. Um that that would be for me. I I think my only other comment on the uh potential programs is the uh 360 study. You know, to me, I think we can go out and ask, you know, you know, figure out, you know, we we can put in place exactly what the private sector tells us they need to spend. And I think they're just going to wait four years for us to do it again, then they can tell us they need a little bit more because four years is not a very long time frame. Um, you know, if they've been sitting on their land for uh longer than that. So I I don't see at least uh from my perspective I don't think I would learn very much from you know 2026 data versus 2023 data. Um but I think looking at some of the other uh you know potential programs which working elsewhere that that may be you know effective if it's something that can be done uh again reasonably quickly.

Thank you. I think one of the changes and uh certainly correct me if I'm wrong, the state has changed the um the requirement as to when housing impact or impact fees need to be paid if I'm not mistaken. Developers have the opportunity to pay them upfront or they can defer payment on those impact fees until construction has begun or actually finished in some cases. So, I think there have been some changes in terms of trying to assist developers. Uh I I have a lot of questions. Um

I by the way I think you and your folks have done a fabulous job. A fabulous job. I don't know what we would be doing uh in this area without u your input and your expertise. But I think the most um thoughtful comment today was made by Ivonne. We don't build homes. We the city of council we don't build homes. We provide the opportunity. We provide the um streamline the process. I was I was amazed to hear that through the U SMAP SMAP process, no one's taking advantage of that in Newark. Um I have a number of questions, so bear with me. Um let's go to slide four to begin with. So in cycle five we built 1,00 our target was,078. We exceeded that target by over 150%. And received absolutely no credit for exceeding that amount in cycle six. Correct.

Correct. That's that's that's shameful. So, we one of the few cities in the Bay Area that actually met our goal are now having to come up with another 1874 units. Uh it's it's like we're almost chasing our tail. We're trying we're trying to build houses that uh it's really the private sector, the developers that are going to be coming to the city and building these homes. Uh we're going to streamline the process. We're going to encourage the process. We're going to provide funding as we did with Saha. $12 million.

Still not built. Uh I'm normally an optimist. I don't think it's going to be built. I I just don't see uh any additional, you know, uh county or state funding coming to them. Um but the goals uh if you look at the um the LA was it the chart where we're showing on a statewide basis, was it the number three or number five? Yeah, this one here. We are so far behind. And I think the last time you indicated that we actually met our goal at at a statewide level was 1986, 40 years ago. We're nowhere close to meeting these goals. Yet this state continues to ramp up the number of units that cities need to build. It's it's it's depressing in all honesty. It's depressing. You know, we're doing our best to build. We first of all, this council recognizes the importance of affordability. We recognize that. We've made that a mandate that development that comes to the city needs to include an affordability component. I mean, that's pretty much understood. But then you have cities like Half Moon Bay. They haven't even turned in their their their arena has not even been certified by the state. So, forget the annual performance reviews. They haven't even met the first target of submitting a certified uh application that's been um approved by the state. Am I wrong in that regard?

I believe that's still correct. Yes. So, what are the penalties? See, that's always the thing, you know, what are the penalties that the state is going to impose on those cities that one haven't even submitted a certified uh re uh application or two, cities that don't submit an annual APR, we're submitting our annual APR. I got to believe there's a lot of cities out there that are simply like, hey, you know what? So, what you know what what's going to happen to us? So, what are the what are the statutory penalties prescribed by the legislature for those cities that are not meeting any of these goals? Have those been defined?

They have. Yeah, thank you for the question. Failure to submit an annual progress report can result in HCD descertifying your housing element, in which case you would be subject to the builder's remedy and effectively lose um all local land use authority. that could escalate to the state revoking your availability to issue building permits even for something as small as a kitchen remodel. That happened to the city of Beverly Hills. Um Oh, those poor folks down there.

Yeah, their kitchens. They're too old. Um but um in the other instances of cases that you've mentioned um like Kathleen Bay, if not already subject to the builder's remedy, they could be made subject to it um very soon um and potentially risk action by the state attorney general's office. And you know, I'll point out builder's remedy is a punishment. This idea that you know, cities are the primary component in preventing housing from being built. It's not like there's a bunch of builder remedy program projects going into Half Moon Bay. So this this idea that it's just the, you know, city's requirements is

No. In fact, I'll make an additional comment. I was excited that we were going to be hit with a builder's remedy because 20% of the units had to be affordable

and that basically killed the project. I I was actually excited about a builder's remedy opportunity. Um I I can't imagine there's been many uh cities that have been subject to builder's remedy um as uh anticipated by the state when they uh impose that uh alternative. Um I'm interested in slide 17 please. And this is the Saha project. And uh now we did receive $2.95 million in January. And I appreciate the u that additional funding. Why the $2.95? Because I think we're still about, if I'm not mistaken, about $8 million short on that project. Did did we apply for the entire 10 plus and they allocated 2.95 or was there something about the 2.95 we found meaningful at that point?

The project applied for the maximum amount of funds that it was available based on the number of units um for those households exiting homelessness. Theoretically, the project could have applied for more funds, but it would have had to make more units homelessness units, and I don't believe that SAHA um was interested in the project becoming a permanent supportive homeless housing project. It was approved as a family workforce housing project. And I think providing more homelessness units than that would substantially change the character of that project. and and I love the project, so don't get me wrong, but I'm also don't want to sit idly by as I wait for Saha this year, next year, the following year to figure out whether they're going to be able to come up with the additional 8 million or whatever that millions now become because the cost of construction goes up every year. You talked, Ivon talked about the cost in terms of uh labor and materials and debt and things of that nature. Those don't come down over time, they go up over time. Um, and I mentioned to the city manager earlier tonight about opening, is it a NOA, uh, for that land that we now own to other developers to come in and capitalize on that investment that we've made. Uh, I put that out simply as a suggestion if that's an opportunity for us to look at. I also think we need to be we've been very creative when it comes to housing here in Newark. I was intrigued by San Jose basically turning the Bank of Italy building into apartment complex uh down there. I recall working in San Jose. That was where BART was going to run. Bart was going to run in underneath that building. Um that didn't happen. Um but I look at properties uh and I know Council Member Gindal and I share the same viewpoint. properties that are

blighting our community and and we talk about four corners for example and of course that's where the meet PBLO business was located. Mr. Ben, what are your thoughts on city looking at uh an eminent domain action at that location to basically take a blighted vacant commercial property and what's the better use for that property but then housing and affordable housing. I know that we would have to go out and do a study as to the uh value of that property and pay the market rate, but what what are your initial thoughts on that?

Yes, feel free to add on to that question or any other kind of blight ordinance where, you know, if we had a site that was zoned for housing and say our fourth, you know, housing element and we're now on housing element number six that then, you know, we start applying some kind of penalty for not building.

Your thoughts? Uh we'd happy to research both questions. Um obviously the first one involves a a legal opinion. Uh there has to be some sort of public benefit that would have to pass constitutional muster and of course defer to the city attorney on that one. Uh as far as the second question uh from council member Jorgens, uh we'd be happy to look at that and and determine uh if legally we can impose some sort of consequence for failure to comply and what that would look like.

Yeah. My thinking is if the state's going to require us to throw out all these carrots for the private sector, I'm happy to do so. Wanting to see affordable housing, but you know, if they know that more carrots to come, be good to have some some kind of stick to be able to get construction going.

And I think the state would actually appreciate the initiative by the city of Newark to try to meet its goals by becoming creative in terms of opportunities to build affordable housing units. uh whether it's a site like Newark Boulevard and Mayheis Landing that continually sits vacant where we either penalize that property owner for failure to build the project that they agreed to build or we we look at an eminent domain action to have a motivated developer come in and and develop some affordable housing at that location. So, I know there's a number of legal questions there, but uh you know, we need to get creative when we look at some of these opportunities moving forward. Um I have another quick question. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, if it's okay.

Yes, Council Gundall. I'll come back. Council Gund, I was just going to say I wanted to second your um your I Yes. Um I I just wanted to agree with you. Encourage staff to look into the eminent domain if necessary to move these projects forward. Good. Thank you for that, Council Member. Council member Little, my question is I know that we had Aloney College come out and chat with us about student housing for for both the Fremont and the Newark campus, but they would be done here. Is each one of those units count as one of the units towards the 1874 answer that student housing?

Yeah. Yes. So, it's current the project I believe you're referring to is um currently under review, but if it were to be entitled um it would when it when it's entitled. Yes. When it would is entitled um it would count towards that number. And how many units is that going to be? Um and I I know I'm asking a 275. 275. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And we all know those students have no money. So that's totally affordable.

My last question is really uh regarding the ADUs and uh I did read the staff report regarding the ADUs. Um and I don't think we uh capture this information. Uh many of these ADUs in my estimation and opinion are probably built as an opportunity for an extension of the family unit to live on the property. Uh in many cases I've heard where senior citizens are building an ADU uh allowing their children to take occupancy of the main dwelling and they move into the ADU. Uh so it's not really creating an affordable component in that regard. We don't measure. We're getting credit for all ADUs, period. But we don't measure whether or not it's the ADU is kind of an extension of the family unit living on the same property versus actually creating a unit for somebody else to be able to live there at a reasonable price or actually purchase at a reasonable price. We don't capture that differential, do we?

We don't. And currently, it's not possible to separately sell an ADU. Um, but that is something that could be considered in the future. Oh, I thought that was something that was approved that you could sell a ADU on your property. Did I miss that? You can rent them. No, I thought I thought there was a there there was a state law that was passed in the last year or two that allows cities to opt in to certain provisions in which an ADU could be sold separately, but that's not something that New York has has yet considered. Okay, that might be something we might consider under revisions on the zoning code, Mr. Interiano.

Yes, I think there's one program that you're probably um referring to, and that is where you could sell the ADU, but it only applied if the owner was going to be a nonprofit organization. Okay, that's what that's what it was. Thank you. Okay, these things linger.

Yes, council. I have one more question and this is I just it's more of a theory question. We have to build these 1874. What happens in 20 30 years from now? We have to build more houses. We run out of space. I mean like we don't we're we're surrounded. We're we're surrounded by another city. There's we we can't grow anymore. What I mean like Athetherton, what what's Athetherton doing in all this? They're completely surrounded. Like what are they doing? It's a genuine question. Like what what happens when we have no more area to sell? Well, I think hopefully and what is Athetherton doing? I'm sorry, double question. Yeah,

I can't speak on Athetherton's behalf, but if I could, I would call Steph Curry. Um, but um, you know, I think to a theoretical answer to that, by that point, we would have, you know, reached a greater stage of housing stability and would have met our housing need and so we wouldn't need to see these significant increases year after year. Um but effectively I think the the strategy there is infill development. So um um looking at places like four corners me PBLO and doing some kind of mixeduse infill development kind of reusing and intensifying. Yes. Um building up or something of that nature.

They did in Rome. Rome did that. Rome just goes up fast. They didn't do it in the day. No, they did not. Very good point. They did not. All roads lead to Newark, right? So, okay.

Again, my last comment, great presentation. Like I mentioned, I really appreciate the hard work that you did on this. Uh I absolutely support higher density housing. Uh I know that on one of your charts, you showed a variation in the middle. Uh I don't support uh town homes. I think higher density, more units, smaller units uh uh is really, in my opinion, where we need to be moving. And uh we're starting to see that with some of the senior housing projects that we're building that are now five stories high. Nothing wrong with building up and uh and I certainly encourage that because I think the more units we create on our property, we make it more affordable for folks to pay the rents or buy the homes. Um but um again, thank you for the presentation. I greatly appreciate it. Any last comments from any of my colleagues? Mr. Gondal, any last comments? Um, nothing further.

I think I opened it up to the public. Did anybody have comments on this item either either presentation? Again, thank you uh for the presentation. This is anformational item and we look forward to further conversations as it relates to housing moving forward. So, thank you. Thank you.

Uh, Mr. Ben, before I turn it over to you, just an excellent presentation. A lot of hard work went into this and it was it's a complex issue. uh one that we know we're we're held accountable, you know, so we're not, you know, we're not turning a blind eye to our responsibility and this council's never done that. And uh but I I want to thank you and the staff for a great presentation. Uh we we have a real understanding as to where we are, where we need to be, and uh uh you know, you have our support uh on these items moving forward. So, thank you. With that being said, I'll turn it over to you for announcements.

Yes. Good evening, your honor and members of the council. uh four items for your information this evening. Uh the first one is our annual slurry seal work is expected to start. It's actually expected to start next week. Um we will be slurry sealing 65 lane miles of pavement in our community. Uh we are working with our community providing them notice 3 to 5 days in advance of when we will uh be slurry sealing their streets. Uh they'll be working Monday through Friday with the exception of a few school sites. Those will be done on Saturdays. And um again 65 lane miles of pavement. This is a a substantial increase in our typical uh pavement management program. So looking forward to seeing that uh start next week. Second announcement is we are continuing with the success of our PPRR emergency preparedness program. This is the plan, prepare, response and recover. Um, so far we've trained over 300 individuals from over 100 businesses and we have another round of workshops. The three are listed there on the screen. Uh, this is a free uh training opportunity for businesses here in our community and we do offer it in multiple languages and residents and businesses are encouraged to register on the city's website uh listed right there. Third one is the planning commission is holding a study session to discuss objective design standards. Uh this will be a key initiative to implement housing program H3.2. Uh this uh study session is scheduled for next week, April 14th at 7 p.m. here in these chambers. And last but not least, on Saturday, April 18th, uh Mayor Hannon will be delivering the state of the city address here at the Civic Center uh complex. This is from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Uh the event highlights include uh live

performances, food trucks, resource fair activities for all ages, and of course the state of the city address. And that concludes our announcements for this evening. And thank you your honor for your kind comments in regarding city staff and city staff is here in the audience. We have a lot of talented staff members who are here with us this evening and we're very fortunate to have such dedicated staff members.

Okay, council comments. I want to start with my good friend from Japan, Council Member Grenal. Um, thank you. And first of all, I wanted to thank u my colleagues and the and the and staff for allowing me to participate and dealing with the voice votes and whatever annoyances were involved. I really appreciate that opportunity. Um, and that's all I have. I look forward to coming home in a few days and um and getting back to getting back home to Newark.

Well, travel safe. Council member Little. So, I want to just make two um I have three announcements, but um the on April 18th, we have our our city of address going on, but the night before we actually have the bingo night to help raise money for the night softballs. They're going to nationals. They made to nationals and they're going to be competing at Reno. So, they are hosting a bingo night at the Tri City Athletic Center. It starts at six o'clock. If you guys want to bring your stampers and come out and have a good time, it's going to be raising money to help out these kids to go to their softball tournament. be a lot of fun. Also, April 18th, while you are having our wonderful state of address in the middle of it, the sheep are getting haircuts at Ardanwood Farm. So, if anybody wants to go to the sheep sharing day, break away and go get some fancy haircuts and go enjoy seeing them. And there's a lot of babies that are born in lands and stuff. So, I'm a big fan of the East Bay parks and they'll be doing some fun stuff as well. So, they can hang out with you and then they can go get see a bunch of bad boys get haircuts. Oh, and then then the following weekend after that is of course my coastal cleaning. We're going to be cleaning up Don Edwards. Don Edwards needs help big time. I've teamed up with a couple organizations. We have so far 75 people signed up to come out and help clean up Don Edwards. They need help, please. And uh we just go and pick up some invasive species trash that the tide brings in and people leave and we could definitely use some extra help. Thank you,

Council Member Del Katanchio.

Yes, thank you. Um, since we were last here, I was able to attend the Newark's volunteer recogn um, recognition program. Um, that was on March 31st, and that was a great time. I was also able to attend family day at the park. Um, and I observed uh a lot of great things, not only from our community and the egg hunting, um, but also from volunteers and various people that were able to be there to help, uh, with the community and as well as the schools that were involved. Uh, at our middle school, they were able to have the band come out and our high school was able to have band as well as singing. Um, so I think that was really great. I also wanted to mention that I did observe um some of the beginning of the sirly seal um happening about two weeks ago. So I did see the trucks come out and start and so I I wanted to extend my appreciation about that. Um even this last week I saw the mowing of the lawn um that was happening in the park area that I live by and a well done upkeep of Newark. So, I do appreciate that. And also, our newest geese and ducks have arrived. Um, if anyone's interested at the lake area, I've seen a lot of little new families.

Thank you. I had a chance to walk around the lake the other day and uh I love walking around the lake. Amazing the number of people fishing in that lake. Uh uh none of them look like they were having much success, but they fish fishermen love to sit there and and hold the pole. So, vice mayor.

Yeah. Yeah, I just want to thank uh staff for the family day at the park. It seems every year um it gets bigger and somehow better organized and seems like those two things should be at odds with each other, but they're not. It uh seems to, you know, uh get better and better every year and uh so it's a very great event. And then today we got the uh terrific pres presentation from the district attorney and the annual report is talking about how it's the hundth year of the uh inspector's division at the district attorney's office. And you know, I've been sharing stories about Newark's history on the 150th anniversary of the town. So, I was starting to think, you know, if the DA came 100 years ago to the city of Newark and presented to Newark leaders, what might that look like? And um the DA um in 1926 would have been Earl Warren. He was appointed um in 1925 to succeed Ezra Dakota. um he would have been bragging about his uh you know inspector's division, but he also probably would have brought up um because of his you know well-earned reputation as being an effective fighter of corruption, you know, vice and gambling, he probably would have brought up the issue of a lot of that criminal activity happening at uh dog tracks. That might have been a problem in the city of Newark because at the time at the Newark Hotel, um there's a Greyhound racing track in the back and dogs are brought, you know, from throughout California to run. It would attract gamblers from throughout the region who would arrive by train. You know, on Saturdays, there would be about six races throughout the day. You know, it was pretty good business for the hotel. But on the other hand, Newark residents knew that it's probably better to avoid um the the area to, you know, avoid the drunken gamblers. And you know, Earl Warren's focus on protecting law-abiding Alama County residents from criminal activity um you know that he is DA and then attorney general you know did put an end to dog racing throughout California and you know Earl Warren of course would go on to become governor of California and chief justice of the Supreme Court and Alama County District Attorney's Office continues to uh you know protect Newark residents.

So I was really appreciated the presentation earlier. I didn't hear that Earl Warren was a UC Berkeley grad though did I? Um He was but walked right into that one.

Thank you for that report. Um just a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, you're going to be um thankful for this reminder because this is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Our police officers going to be out looking at you and making sure that you're not distracted as you drive. Put your phones away. Plan ahead. Keep your both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Be a role model. Speak up if you're a passenger and the driver is distracted. Pull over if necessary. Sadly to say that in the state of California in 2023, 158 people were killed based on distracted driving uh crashes in California, a 6.8% increase. So, uh they're going to be looking and I'm glad they'll be looking. Um, it's amazing. And you've heard the statistics on how far a car will travel in just a few seconds when you're distracted. So, pay attention because that family member or friend could be the one that's impacted and or yourself u as a result of being a distracted driver. So, be be advised of that. With that, good meeting tonight. Um, thank you to my colleagues for excellent questions, uh, excellent presentations. Um, appreciated all the proclamations. appreciate the DA coming to to Newark maybe the first time

Mr. you know, so uh uh that'll be next week's uh historical perspective. But with that being said, we are adjourned. Question for you about the city. Recording stopped. I was going to ask you do that because staff does such a great job. No, I agree. I agree. I want to watch it. I agree. I agree. I agree.