City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. Your honor we are live.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I'M LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I'M GOING TO CALL THE CITY GOING TO CALL THE CITY COUNCIL TO ORDER JULY 9th. COUNCIL TO ORDER JULY 9th. LET IT RECORDS SHOW THAT ALL LET IT RECORDS SHOW THAT ALL MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL ARE MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL ARE HERE THIS EVENING. HERE THIS EVENING. WE'RE GOING TO DO A COUPLE OF WE'RE GOING TO DO A COUPLE OF THINGS OUT OF ORDER TONIGHT. THINGS OUT OF ORDER TONIGHT. WE'RE GOING TO BE DOING WE'RE GOING TO BE DOING RECOGNIZING THE STATE OF RECOGNIZING THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA'S 175th BIRTHDAY AND CALIFORNIA'S 175th BIRTHDAY AND Then we're going to be commending Saheli, protecting our daughters. That'll go number two. And with all due respect to my friends from AC Transit, because we have a number of folks I think that want to speak on an item, we're going to do public comment on non-agendized items next, and then we'll go to AC Transit. So I'm going to ask my colleagues on the City Council if they would join me down at the podium. Colleagues, go ahead and stand behind me as I read the proclamation.

I'll read it here. We can stand over here, okay?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is proclamation number 1983, recognizing the state of California's 175th and the United States of America's 250th anniversary. This is really an instrumental date in our history of this country. And I actually didn't realize until I read the proclamation that it was also the state of California's birthday. So we're actually celebrating two birthdays at once. And because in my mind this is so significant, our birthday 250th for this United States. We are going to ask the Council to sign the proclamation, the entire Council will sign the proclamation, and then we're going to post this in a prominent location because, again, We're part of this great nation. I think this great nation deserves this recognition. We're all Americans, we're all members of the United States. Whether we're citizens or residents, we live here, we participate here, and we're valued here. And I certainly want to make sure that that's known here in the city of Newark, and we hope that is shared across the United States. Whereas on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, affirming the enduring principles of liberty, equality, self-government, and the individual rights that continue to shape the United States. Whereas in 2026, the United States commemorated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, while California continues its celebration of 175 years of statehood, providing an opportunity to reflect on our shared history, recognizing the contributions of generations of Americans and Californians, and reaffirm our commitment to civic engagement and democracy. Whereas these milestones invite the communities to honor the many individuals and organizations whose service, innovation, resilience, volunteerism, and dedication have strengthened our nation, the state of California, and the city of Newark, while recognizing the diverse people and cultures that have shaped our shared history. Whereas the City of Newark encourages residents to celebrate these historic anniversaries by participating in educational, historical, cultural and community events, preserving local stories and traditions, volunteering in service to others and reflecting on the ideals of freedom, opportunity and civic responsibility that unite our community and inspire future generations. Now for the entire City Council of Newark, hereby recognizes the state of California's 175th and the United States of America's 250th anniversaries, honoring the enduring ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, celebrating California's 175 years of progress and innovation, and encouraging all residents to commemorate these historic milestones through learning, service, civic participation, and community engagement. So I'm gonna go ahead and come over to the podium here and sign, and then I'll ask the vice mayor and the council to follow me. Let's sign here so folks can see.

Do you have lupins, or watkins, or salami?

Am I the only lefty?

Owen is a pretty broad... Let's hear it for the United States and the State of California. Ms. Shaw, you knew I was making a mistake and you didn't call me on it. Folks, I'm going to come down and do the pledge. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Your timing couldn't be more perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, it's with great honor that we recognize Sahili, protecting our daughters in partnership with Guru Nanak Global Foundation and Roar for Change. And if I could have Mr. Singh come on up and join me, please.

Nice to see you.

Nice to see you too. Ladies and gentlemen, we are issuing accommodation to Saheli, as I mentioned. The purpose of Saheli is protecting our daughters. It's an initiative that works to prevent gender-based violence and support vulnerable women through culturally responsive education, advocacy, and community resources. Whereas in partnership with Guru Nanak Global Foundation and Roar for Change, Saheli provides guidance, support, and resources for women helping them navigate challenges related to safety, isolation, exploitation, and mental health. Whereas this partnership demonstrates the power of collaboration in promoting awareness, empowering women, supporting survivors, and fostering a culture of dignity, respect, safety, and equity. whereas the City of New York recognizes the dedication of organizations and community leaders whose effort strengthen communities and create partnerships and opportunities for lasting positive change. Now, therefore, I, Michael Hanna, on behalf of my colleagues on the New York City Council, I want to recognize and commend Saheli for protecting our daughters, for their outstanding commitment to protecting and empowering women, supporting survivors, promoting education and prevention, and building a safer and more compassionate community. And so I want to award this commendation to the Saheli group.

Thank you for having us here at the beautiful meeting today with our proud mayor for the city of Newark. Thank you for inviting us and give us an opportunity to talk to, on this topic, vulnerable daughters in Canada. They got betrayed because the agents from India and send them on the visa for the better future and the better education in Canada. But fake colleges in Canada, which were shut down by the Canadian government, they have found that there's nobody left. that can stand for these daughters, for their dreams they took from India. So, a group of peoples from Bay Area Sikh community came forward to help them. Mr. Baljeet Singh, head of this non-profit Roar for Change and Sahildi Initiative came from Texas, USA to help them and they, Just to form a group of people among the Punjabi community in the Bay Area, four of the girls were trapped in Canada by the gang-roomings. So that's what this nonprofit for, we are fighting for and spreading awareness for the women's safety. This is the mission of Guru Nanak, who is the founder of Sikhism. Sikhism is the fifth largest religion. It's not actually religion. Sikhism is based on the human values. If we find the UNO's top 17 priorities, like hunger, salvation, slavery, justice, environment and these kind of 17 priorities we are working on it with the blessings of such a nice people like our proud mayor for our city and the like-minded peoples around the globe. They have found such a platform that we can support UNO for these 17 points. So it's a blessings I'm getting from you guys today. Here I'm living for last 35 years and I'm preaching the mission of God, Vaheguru, Guru Nanak Dev Ji, which is based on love, peace, and service. So our charity is a platform giving back to society. So that's why we are here. Thank you so much again for having us here. And thank you for your help and honor for such a noble cause. Thank you.

And I know that they want to recognize our police chief and our deputy fire chief. If I could have you gentlemen come forward, please. Their certificates are here. The deputy chief will be accepting for the fire chief. This is our police chief. This is our police chief, Mr. Arguello.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your support. Thank you so much for your help and your outstanding services for the community. Thank you for your partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Let's get a photo here in the front, okay? Chiefs? Colleagues, you want to join me?

One, two, three.

One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I understand Mr. Bejit Singh is also online and would like to say a few words, Madam Clerk.

Mr. Singh, you should be able to unmute yourself and you can speak.

Sure. First of all, honorable mayor and the city council members, thank you for the opportunity to recognize everybody who is contributing to the society. Just wanted to add a little bit further. As a chairman of Roar for Change and the Grunanak Global Foundation, Saheli, we are initiating this initiative from Canada, but we will be getting this initiative to America. Our focus is going to be is stabilize the entire four pillars of the initiative, which is all around education and awareness, mentorship and empowerment, protection and community support for all the female, young and adult uh female uh partners or which we call sahelis uh our phase two of the program will be focused in united states of america and that's where we again will be launching this from the city of new york because of the great support mayor hannon and the team city council has given us i again from the entire community and also roar for change and gurnana global foundation heartfully thank everybody for the community support for such initiatives thank you

Thank you, Mr. Singh. Is there anybody else, Madam Clerk? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to move on on the agenda. This is always part of the agenda that I greatly appreciate. This is the opportunity where we are either presenting new employees or promoting employees, but I'm going to start with the Sergeant Blair or Arroyo. Sergeant? Sergeant? Ladies and gentlemen, Sergeant Arroyo Blero was promoted to the rank of Sergeant on July 5, 2026. Sergeant Arroyo began her career with the Newark Police Department in April of 2016. Raised locally in Fremont, she saw the light. I did. WE LOVE THOSE FOLKS FROM FREEMONT. SHE PURSUED HIGHER EDUCATION AT CAL STATE UNIVERSITY SACRAMENTO WHERE SHE EARNED A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE. In addition to her detective duty, she holds several specialized roles within the department. She serves as a field training officer, an instructor in multiple disciplines, including search and procedure, standardized field sobriety training, use of force, and defensive tactics. Beyond her official responsibilities, Sergeant Arroyo is committed to serve both within and outside of the department. She currently serves as Vice President of the Police Officers Association and regularly volunteers her time for community initiatives, including the Special Olympics and other charitable events. During her tenure, she has received multiple Mothers Against Drugs Driving Awards from MADD. Congratulations. You make our community so much safer.

Thank you for that.

for her efforts in combating impaired driving. Outside of law enforcement, Sergeant Arroyo enjoys spending time with her husband and young son, embracing the adventures of raising a toddler, and making memories with her family. She enjoys being out on the lake, staying active through fitness and endurance events, and challenging herself through Spartan races and half marathon training. Wow. You are the athlete. How old is your toddler?

He's three.

Three years old. Well, keep that training up. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Chief, we told Sergeant Arroyo that I drive a white Tesla. I now want to recognize Sergeant Frank Herbert. Frank?

I did. Close, but I did.

I actually met Sergeant Herbert on the 4th of July. He was in the office and his fellow command officers were teasing him a little bit. You know, you just have three hours to go. Just three hours to go until it becomes official. So don't screw it up. And so I suggested to him, lock the door, close the windows, you'll be okay. What a great attitude. We missed him during the promotional ceremony that we had here. because as I understand you were on vacation, probably well deserved. Nobody works harder in the city of Newark than our city employees, and that includes our police department as well. They give it 110% every day to make sure you're safe, your family's safe, the community's safe, but that comes with a lot of stress on yourself, stress on your family, because you wanna do the right thing at all times. You know, Sergeant Herbert shares that philosophy, not just among himself and his colleagues, but that's kind of a city philosophy. So when we talk about the Newark Way, you know, it's really one of those undefined terms, but I would certainly say that that's part of the definition itself. So Sergeant Herbert was promoted to the rank of police sergeant on July 5, 2026. Sergeant Herbert joined the Newark Police Department as a police officer in March of 2017 after graduating from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office Regional Training Center. Prior to beginning his law enforcement career, he worked as a legal assistant for both workers' compensation law firm and a family law firm. A native of San Jose, Sergeant Herbert attended Santa Clara University. Go Broncos. where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication with a pre-law emphasis and a minor in political science. Throughout his career, Sergeant Herbert has demonstrated a strong commitment to service, leadership, and professional development. In 2018, he received the City of Newark Pride Award in recognition of his contributions to the community. That's not something that is awarded to many people. In fact, I think we only award it to one person. Am I wrong in that? It can be several, but it takes a real effort to be able to get that award. He's also served as a field training officer, a member of the department's unmanned aerial vehicle team, and a first aid AED CPR instructor. In May of 2020, Sergeant Herbert was appointed to detective and served both the Silicon Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and the Newark Police Department's detective unit for nearly five years. In April of 2025, he was selected to serve as acting police sergeant, a role he held until his promotion. Sergeant Herbert is also a proud graduate of Inner Perspectives Leadership Program, completing the course in May of 2025. Outside of work, Sergeant Herbert enjoys collecting shoes, traveling.

He won't be willing to wear those on duty, undoubtedly.

traveling, attending concerts, and spending time with family and friends. I had the chance to meet Sergeant Herbert's father and mother before this event. You know, his father served in public safety with the County of Santa Clara and other places for 31 years. Let's hear it for Sergeant Herbert's father.

Okay. Make me look taller.

Tonight during the meeting, ladies and gentlemen, because of recent passage of state law, we will be soliciting input from those folks that may be online. But I will certainly go to folks that are here in the audience first, and then I'll look to the city clerk to find out if there's anyone else that might be online that wishes to speak to the item to which we are going to discuss. And I appreciate AC Transit's willingness to wait for a few minutes. So ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna go right to the public comments section of the agenda. This is an opportunity to address the city council on any item that's not listed on the agenda. Public comments are generally limited to five minutes per speaker. Please note that state law prohibits the council from acting on non-agendized items. In other words, you can raise an issue, but we really can't take any action. We really can't discuss it to any length or degree, but we're certainly here willing to listen to the community. Can I get just a show of hands? How many folks would like to speak under public comment? Okay, I see one, two people. Okay, two people. You're gonna get your full five, no, I'm kidding. So folks, it looked like we had about 10 to 12 folks, five minutes each, that's well over an hour. So I'm gonna ask folks if they would reduce the time to three minutes, which is really a lot of time. So if we can have the first three people come up to the podium, it doesn't matter, we're not gonna call you by name. So three people come on up to the podium, please introduce yourself. The clerk will run the clock and you'll see it behind me here. No, you wanna stand in front of my friend. They'll turn the mic, you can turn the mic around. Oh, what? Oh, did we? Okay.

Okay. Good evening. Good.

No, that's what we want.

That's what I wanted to do. I saw the podium.

Yes. Well, welcome.

Your name, please. I'm Tom Pelk. I'm the HOA president of Mayhew's Landing. And my comment is in relation to a proposal two weeks ago to build housing on a site at 8100 Jarvis Avenue. So I've been the HOA president for 21 years. I consider the homes in Mayhew's Landing to be probably one of the best places to live in the city of Newark, right next to the wildlife refuge, right along the trail where I found out from the video you walk your dog. And it's nice and quiet. For those of us that live there, we think this is like the American dream. It's our American dream. We won. We did it. It's been an incredible experience living in Macy's land. It really has. And I'm thrilled to have the honor of being the president of the HOA. Then there's the people. We have a lot of great people in our community. We have people who are bank presidents, former CFOs, tech professionals, engineers, entrepreneurs. It's a tremendous mix of people and a tremendous intelligence resource. The proposal. We know the proposal was preliminary and we realize this is a new process, right? And it's something you haven't tried before. We get that. We understand that affordable housing is a really key priority for the city of Newark. We get that. We understand why it's so critical. It's critical for some of the people in our communities. Am I out of time? I want to go to Tom.

If you go a few seconds down, one minute, don't worry about it.

Let's finish your last comment when we get to the minute.

So to fast forward, we're not too happy with the proposal. Let me go to the next topic. We're working very hard to be a great partner to the City of Newark. We're learning as much as we can about affordable housing and the RHNA goals, the situation you're in, the situation the investor's in. We want to talk to the investor and understand the whole picture. And then I'm sure we'll have a lot of really intelligent ideas on what could be done with that piece of property that's so valuable. And in closing, if you decide you want to take that piece of property and switch it from jobs to housing, we want to see that done very well. And we want it to kind of mirror our community. Is that it? Thank you.

Good evening Mayor, City Council members and staff. My name is Mary Vincent and I've been a Mayhew's Landing resident for 25 years. I chose to live here because of the peaceful environment, trees, diversity, proximity to the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge and my drivable commutes to work. I am here to share a community vision regarding the Jarvis Light Industrial Site and potential future housing. If we cannot retain the current light industrial technology in business buildings and enforce strict gate closures on Coyote Drive, any housing must be carefully planned. We strongly recommend the following. One, restrict traffic and preserve nature. Any townhome plan must prohibit vehicle entrances on Coyote Road. It must also protect our valuable marshlands, wildlife, and migrating birds, and strictly limit noise and light pollution. Two, build market-rate townhomes. We support market-rate townhomes that mirror our existing neighborhood. These include green spaces, safe areas for children, and sufficient parking for residents and visitors, similar to the recent Robson Homes Cedar proposal. And lastly, three, keep affordable housing off-site. Affordable high-density housing does not fit this site due to the lack of public transit and the distance to essential stores, like Safeway on Cedar Boulevard that is two miles away. Affordable projects should be planned closer to city resources. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued protection of Newark's families and natural spaces.

Can you hear me? Hi, my name is Kim Conright. Sorry? I'm short, sorry, vertically challenged here. My name is Kim Conright, and I've been a 28-year resident of Newark, also at Mayhew's Landing. Firstly, I want to say that we do support Newark's inclusionary ordinance designating 10% of new developments for affordable housing. If the 74 townhomes in the Jarvis proposal represent 90%, then we only need to add eight units and designate those as affordable housing, not the currently proposed 85. Also, as an original Mayhew's Landing owner, we understood when we bought our home here that we would need our own transportation because there's no amenities within walking distance. I'm not sure what AC Transit has to say, but we'll find out. SO, BUT AC TRANSIT STOPPED SERVICING JARVIS AT LEAST DURING COVID-19, IF NOT BEFORE. SO THERE'S EVEN MORE REASON FOR THE NEIGHBORS TO HAVE THEIR OWN TRANSPORTATION BECAUSE WE HAVE NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AROUND. substantially smaller, or that Jarvis location is substantially smaller than the five-acre FMC Willow Grand Park, which plans to build a commuter rail station next to the 91-unit affordable housing apartment building. And AC Transit also services that neighborhood, and developing higher density units along the bus lines makes sense for both AC Transit, for the ridership, and for the residents in that area. The Jarvis proposal is for 85 units in the apartment building, and we have no access to public transportation whatsoever. Reducing the affordable housing percentage from 53.5% to 10% brings the proposal more in line with the Maori Village, which is also a bigger area than off of Jarvis, and that area is targeted for 196 single-family homes and a 13% affordable housing ratio. So reducing our ratio to 10% would result in the need for 77 less parking spaces, which creates opportunities to use the land for maybe a park or a playground or visitor parking. In addition, reducing the density of affordable housing there would lessen traffic impacts on the surrounding neighborhood while still allowing the city to meet its objectives under the new ordinance. So thank you for your time and for listening to the concerns of our community. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. I'm Mike Marzano, and I represent the First Presbyterian Church of Newark. And I wanted to come and thank some of our city staff that here last Sunday, we had an incident at our church. We had a homeless gentleman that was having medical issues, and the police responded and worked with him even though he was trying to fight them. And I think they ended up with six officers trying to manage the situation and took care of that. It had the fire department there. And again, their compassion in working with someone that's not doing well was admired by a lot of our congregation that were able to witness what had taken place. So again, thank you to the police department, the fire department, and the city for the services they provide. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Jocelyn Abisha and I've been a Newark resident for 30 years. I also live in a Mayhues Landing community and I'm here to speak about the proposed development for 8,000 and 8100 Jarvis Avenue development that's being proposed across the street from our community. I anticipate I'm here to speak tonight in the best interest of my community to formally object to the use of any SECA categorical exemptions for 8800 Jarvis Avenue. I anticipate the developer will try to use a class 32 infill exemption because the site is currently paved. However, on slide seven of their own presentation, which we have, they outlined their intent to seek a rezoning and a general plan amendment. I want to spell out exactly what that means for this council tonight. Because this developer is asking you to rewrite the city's master blueprint, this is not a by right project. Your hands are not tied by state housing mandates yet. You hold total discretionary power over this land. And state law is explicitly clear. Projects requiring general plan changes do not qualify for infill exemptions. Furthermore, under SECA guidelines section 15300.2, exemptions are strictly prohibited when a project threatens a sensitive environment. This parcel shares a direct fragile boundary with the protected marshlands of the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge. Replacing empty daytime offices with 159-unit, 24-7 complex is a massive intensification of use. WITHOUT A FULL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT, YOU ARE IGNORING THE MATHEMATICAL REALITY OF UNFILTERED TOXIC STREET RUNOFF AND COMMERCIAL GRADE LIGHT POLLUTION DRAINING DIRECTLY INTO THE HABITATS OF PROTECTED SPACES. I AM PUTTING THE CITY ON NOTICE. GRANTING A CICA EXEMPTION FOR A GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT NEXT TO THE FEDERAL WILDLIFE REFUGE EXPOSES NEWARK TO MASSIVE LEGAL LIABILITY. I plan to actively rally our surrounding communities to prepare to engage the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and I expect the city to mandate a rigorous full EIR requiring zero runoff bioswales and bird safe glass before any approvals are considered. I do have a lot more points, but I do intend to submit these to be included as official administrative record. I do want to still ask finally, we need absolute transparency regarding the 53.5% affordability allocation. I am asking for clarification exactly which Alameda County income tiers are being targeted by the developer. Are these units designated for extremely low, very low, low or moderate income households? We must know exactly who this is being built for to accurately assess the true transit and social service impacts on our under-resourced neighborhood. FURTHERMORE, ISOLATING LOW INCOME RESIDENTS INTO A SEPARATE SEGREGATED FIVE STORY BUILDING CONTRADICTS EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT AND I URGE THE COUNCIL TO EXPLORE INTEGRATED DESIGNS SIMILAR TO THE ROBSON CLEAR PROPOSAL. BUILDING MARKET RATE TOWN HOMES ON CHIOTI THAT MIRROR ADJACENT SINGLE FAMILY HOMES WHILE MANAGING AFFORDABLE HOUSING RESPONSIBLY. I ASK THE COUNCIL TO UTILIZE THE DISCRETIONARY TOOLS IT STILL LEGALLY CONTROLS TO ENSURE RESPONSIBLE GROWTH. and I'm organizing our surrounding neighborhoods to ensure we achieve an objective, legally compliant outcome here. Thank you.

Hello, council members. My name is Vish Bindagi. I'm also a resident of Mayhew's Landing community, which is right next to 8000 Jarvis Avenue. We moved to Newark about 15 years ago, my family, and one of the reasons we moved here was it was relatively affordable in the Bay Area, so I'm more than supportive of the affordability initiative for which this is being proposed. And in my speaking with everybody around the community, one thing I've noticed is everybody has that same feeling, and we are here to talk about mostly unintended consequences of you know, rushed planning process here. One thing I've consistently felt living in Newark for so long is the city feels extremely well planned. And what I'm urging the council members to do is to really look at all the historical decisions that were made in this particular context, specifically the reasoning that is required for this particular piece of land. As far as I understand, this is one of the very few commercial properties of this size, which is really beneficial for somebody starting up new, somebody who can afford it from that lens also. So I would urge the city councils to evaluate all those options thoroughly. Another practical and tactical concern I may have as a resident in the community right next to it is the Coyote Drive, which is a one-lane street, and even with the conservative estimates given in the proposal, it can add about 300 to 400 cars per day on that single-lane road. As you can imagine, that can create a lot of safety issues as well. There has been some history around why a gate was proposed for evening time around that area. I would urge the city members to also look into those historic reasons. Finally, a related point I would like to make is also about the transit, and not just the AC transit, but the entry into the 84 freeway, which having commuted for so many years, I realized that it's a bit of a tricky situation to get into that freeway in the morning from that part of the city and this adding of dense housing of this level can certainly exacerbate that situation so I would urge the city members to also look into that carefully I believe many of my other points I would have loved to speak are also covered by other members and I am fully supportive of those as well and I just want to thank you all for listening and giving us time to hear thank you

Good evening, my name is Celine. I lived in the Newark residence on Crystal Springs Drive and I speak on behalf of my father. I also speak up against the use of the nature preserve for the use of building housing just because I studied material science at UCLA and part of the reason I chose this was because of the type of materials and toxins and chemicals that could leak into these very sensitive environments i was very inspired by the nature preserve growing up and i think one of the wonderful reasons what makes our city so amazing for the youth that grows up here including some of just the friends i've made in the neighborhood i think it's like this beauty of nature that inspires us and it's this whole argument of like having a place that we can all go to. But even more than that, there's an historical and almost like this just magical feeling of going into there. So I do kind of speak from a more emotional standpoint of the preserve just because, and I think there were so many wonderful and really strong arguments made on the scientific perspectives, but there are these channels and ecosystems that live below the marshes that we don't see. So the types of birds, the types of worms, and the types of creatures that live beneath these marshes, there's an incredible complexity and also the runoff that goes from the bay into the ocean. It's this whole complex web of things. So yeah, there needs to be a lot of work done. So I was a little bit surprised, but I'm happy and eager to see the work that the city does if they are to move forward on this. And hopefully there will be work and show like a lot of complex research into the topic. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you.

OKAY. HELLO, CITY COUNCIL. MY NAME IS MARK. I'VE ACTUALLY JUST MOVED INTO THE LANDING THING SO I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH HISTORY BUT ON A SIDE NOTE THIS IS THE VERY FIRST CITY COUNCIL MEETING I'VE BEEN TO AND PROBABLY THE BEST CITY COUNCIL MEETING I'VE BEEN TO. I think as being someone new to the community, and I actually took a few walks for the first time around there, it's really something special. Even though I have nothing against low-income housing or any new housing, I would love more people to experience this environment. I do just ask that we be very, very careful about preserving that area. Because if we disturb the atmosphere and the nature of it, it's not going to be special anymore. I just really don't want that to happen. The other thing is I did take a look into the plans that were proposed. And they are estimating 0.7 parking spaces per unit. Now, I don't know about everybody else here, but I feel like everybody here has a car. 0.7 spaces does not account for any family, and a family has multiple cars sometimes. So if the whole lot only has 0.7 spaces, where is the overflow parking going to go? And Cayo, as we just mentioned, is a one-lane street. So if you start throwing cars there or you start padding cars onto Jarvis, which is a very busy street, you're going to introduce problems. So I'm not opposed to things. I just want things to be done right and to be done very smartly. OK, thank you.

Well, welcome to Newark.

good evening mayor good evening city councilman thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight um i'm a huge landing resident and homeowner as well i've been here for 25 plus years love the city that's why i enjoy like my neighbors have called as well and i'm speaking for the new development, at least in the proposal that we have. I definitely agree with many of the concerns that our neighbors have raised. I'm not gonna reiterate like traffic, the scale, even the quality of the life for those residents who are proposed to come in in 159 units. One thing I do want to highlight based on why we love living in that area is the environment around, right? The land borders, the Don Edwards Refuge, A nearby parcel was set aside decades ago for the same reason which fish and wildlife later acquired it, for the habitat reasons. Living in the region, I know the wildlife still moves in that corridors. We see all the migratory birds, the geese, and others which regularly come across. in the area, in our neighborhood. And the council also heard about the environmental stewardship that Saheli also mentioned, the agenda item we had today, what UN recognizes, right? One of the 17 ones is for an environment. So I definitely want an urge to say the SICA review should not be just a formality for a project of this density, that you are also looking for an exemption to get the density approved. And And it's right against the wildlife refuge. And it's the responsibility for us as a network city, as a whole region, to make sure the habitat and environment review is kind of taken care and preserved there. So just want to reiterate, I share a lot of concerns, but I want to also make sure that environment and habitat review, it's real, it's not procedural, and especially given the scale of what is being proposed. Thank you for your opportunity.

Thank you, sir. Good evening, Mayor and council members. I'm Rupesh Gupta. I'm also part of the Mayhew's Landing Homeowners Association. I share the concerns that have been expressed by my neighbors, but I would just like to reiterate two things that are important for me. First, this number 53% for affordable housing is unusually high. I know that other projects approved by the city have allocated 10% or less to affordable units. So I would like to know how was this number determined? Why is it so far above the percentages typically seen in other developments? And what incentives are driving this decision? And secondly, putting affordable housing residents in a separate apartment building is going to create segregation. We need to ask ourselves, is that even ethical?

That's all. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for this opportunity to talk in front of the esteemed council members and the mayor. I'm here to talk about the, express my opinion about the Jarvis Avenue project, the 8,108,000. It definitely echoed the same sentiments of my fellow residents. I'm still a Newark resident for the past 25 years and a homeowner in Mayhew Landings for about 20 years. I think Rupesh stole my thunder in terms of another point I wanted to highlight, but I kind of agree with what he highlighted too. My main two concerns amongst all the other points which have been mentioned is the high percentage in terms of the affordable housing, 53.5%. I believe other projects have been approved within the city, which is around 10%, so I would like to know what's the justification there. And the second point is, of course, any housing, any development with the appropriate supporting infrastructure. As we came to know through some of the comments made earlier than me, we have lack of transportation and other walkable distance facilities around that place. So I would like to definitely keep that also in consideration when making any decisions. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, sir.

Hello, Council Members. My name is Sean Nand. I lived in Newark for 35 years, in the community for about 28 years. I just wanted to come in and show my support to my neighbors. I think they all have expressed the similar things which I would like to share. Two things I would like to point out is One, the impact this development, not only this development, other developments I've seen in the city is impacting on our services, like the police department, the ambulance response time. I read on the internet that Newark has about 50,000 residents, and we have about 55 police officers. That is about 1.3 per resident. When we should have at least two per thousand residents in the city of Newark. Those 55 officers are supposed to cover 24 hours per day. And when you really do the calculations, it comes to about .06 officer per thousand per shift. I think that is something which the city council should look into, not only for this project, but for all the projects. Coming back to point number two, which I wanted to make was, this low income housing which we are going to put into this project. The medium household income for Newark residents is about $169,000 per year. To fall into that medium for a limited county in low income, you have to be below 120,000. That would be about 80% of the 120,000 which is under 100,000. So building these homes, who are we serving? Are these homes for Newark people, or are we gonna be getting people from outside? One thing I want to bring to your attention, I am a voter, and we voted all of you to protect Newark and to serve Newark. not to build homes to bring people from outside. I'm okay with 10%, like everybody's saying, but not the 52 or 53%, and I would like to see more transparency from the council to share with its residents what did they use, what studies did they use, and how did they come to the 53%. Was the public involved in this? were the ideas and thoughts taken into consideration. That is all I want to say. I want all council members, I also want to thank you for the good job you're doing, and I'm pretty sure that with the community and with you folks, we'll come to a good decision. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Glenn Abisha, also from Mayhew's Landing, and speaking on the 8800 Jarvis Avenue. First, I must confront the mathematical reality of the proposed 0.7 parking ratio. By providing roughly 111 spaces for 159 multi-bedroom units, this project completely ignores standard urban planning. The average suburban multi-family housing generates at least 1.2 vehicles per unit. Furthermore, that 1.2 statistic assumes a traditional family structure. It does not factor in multi-adult households or roommates, meaning the actual number of cars per unit will be much higher. Mathematically, this development is guaranteed to forcibly displace 80 to over 100 residents resident vehicles onto our constrained neighborhood streets every single night. HOA rules requiring residents to park in garages cannot fix an overflow of this magnitude. Because state law allows this under parking, you must force the developer to aggressively manage the fallout of their own property. I ask the city legally require aggressive transportation Demand management measures including developer subsidized transit passes and dedicated on-site commercial loading zones. Next, the massive vehicle displacement is especially dangerous because the location completely lacks the infrastructure to support a car light lifestyle. Safeway is almost two miles away. AC Transit ceased bus service here five years ago and Newark does not provide school buses. Families living here will be entirely dependent on personal vehicles. making that severely under calculated parking ratio a direct threat to neighborhood functionality. Next, I am asking the city to protect the existing neighborhood's safety and privacy utilizing Coyote Drive as a primary entrance creates a severe traffic bottleneck and a dangerous fire access hazard. I demand that the development redesign the layout to route primary traffic directly onto Jarvis Avenue. Additionally, I ask for strict legally binding conditions of approval that all exterior lighting be heavily shielded and angled straight down to protect the homes across the street and adjacent wildlife refuge. To ensure security, I also ask that strict CPTD standards include controlled gate access, high-resolution cameras, and a 24-7 on-site property manager. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you for coming.

Hi. Good evening, everyone. I am Tejasvi. I'm president of Newark and Mayhus Landing for the last four years. Since we moved here, one thing we really enjoy is having our evening walks in the very safe and calm neighborhood of Newark. We see a lot of people walking their dogs and kids riding their bikes and people running to access the Don Edwards Regional Park through Coyote Drive. I will reflect some of the other people's concerns here saying that if we add a lot of new residents to that on that street and like 300 cars moving in and out on that single lane street with a very small bike lane it adds a huge safety concern for the kids and the people walking and running and using those spaces for their just regular exercise. It's very difficult to get outside of that community because Jarvis is a very, very busy street. So a lot of residents we see that are utilizing the QTA Drive and Don Edwards Park for these purposes. So I would like the city to consider this and also share any plans about traffic management and parking space management with respect to this project. Thank you.

No, thank you very much.

GOOD EVENING. HELLO, CITY COUNCIL, THANKS HELLO, CITY COUNCIL, THANKS FOR LISTENING TO OUR CONCERNS. FOR LISTENING TO OUR CONCERNS. MY NAME IS FRANZ BROOKNER. MY NAME IS FRANZ BROOKNER. I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT AT MAYHEW'S I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT AT MAYHEW'S LANDING FOR 27 YEARS AND I'VE LANDING FOR 27 YEARS AND I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT IN NEWARK PRETTY BEEN A RESIDENT IN NEWARK PRETTY MUCH MY WHOLE LIFE, MY 63 YEARS. MUCH MY WHOLE LIFE, MY 63 YEARS. I GREW UP IN NEWARK EXCEPT FOR I GREW UP IN NEWARK EXCEPT FOR THOSE SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS I THOSE SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS I WAS I agree with pretty much everything my neighbors have said, but I'm more on the emotional side. It's a beautiful area and changing anything in that area is even putting up one new house is going to change that environment. I mean, so I just urge you guys to consider that. People from all over the place enjoy that area. They walk to Coyote Hills. They walk to the Wildlife Refuge. And it's a beautiful area. So I just want you guys to understand that and carefully consider what you guys are going to do next.

Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Teerth, and thank you, Honorable Mayor and the members of the City Council. I'm also the resident of the Mayuse community, and we moved here at a very emotionally interesting time when our first child was just 10 days old. And that too after looking for housing in the Bay Area for almost two and a half years, actually makes us appreciate city's effort on affordability housing a lot more, because we were trying to find houses that we can afford. And Newark was the best place where we are as close as possible to the peninsula, but still not in the peninsula. Closer to this would be in the water. So we really love being here, and our entire family do so. I'm here just to make two or three quick points. One is the thing about the density. I think the parking ratio is something that affects us, like our family, the most because we're on the street where we think that this additional density would guarantee the parking spilling over right in front of our houses. And the second is that the sudden drastic surge will overwhelm the small park that we also have in our community and might really disturb the LIFE OF PEOPLE, RIGHT, LIVING NEXT TO THOSE PARKS. THE SECOND QUICK POINT IS THAT WE LOVE TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE CANNOT KEEP THIS PARCEL STILL LIGHT COMMERCIAL. WE THINK IF WE DO THAT, MAYBE THE CITY MIGHT HAVE ADDITIONAL TAX DOLLARS THAT ACTUALLY HELP BUILD MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AT LOCATIONS THAT MIGHT BE MORE APPROPRIATE. points that the rest of our neighbors have already made in terms of whether that's the right place in terms of accessibility to Safeways and all that. I think that's already done. So I hope we take this decision keeping a lot of such sensitive things in mind and continue to keep Newark the beautiful place that it is.

Thank you for coming tonight.

Hello, everyone, and our esteemed council here and the wonderful city staff. The persona I'm representing today is all that you heard in the past hour, all the passion and the energy that we have in the room. I'm one of them, a Mayuse Landing resident. Like one of them said, I moved here in search of a good neighborhood. When I first moved in here with my husband, that was when I was much, much younger, we wanted to upgrade after five years. So we had plans to move out after five years. And it's a good 25 years today. still we are here and in fact looking to do much more for the community for the city we talked about American dream here we talked about people who have so much passion for the habitat and the natural environment there we have people in the city who talked to us about in our community who talked to about talk to us about the legality of what we are trying to do and I know having worked with many of you and having talked to many of you how much you are considerate in terms of what should happen in the city and how much each one of you loves the city, how you have grown up here and how you take into consideration every little thing. So I'm here just to package up all of this passion that you heard. We are saying three simple things, right? Just because of the density of that affordable housing community and its impact on the city, on that area, and also on the people who we are trying to attract into that area. I won't belabor on any point. We heard all the objectivity around accessibility to the Safeway or not having public transport. So what I'm trying to summarize here is the infrastructure, which is not appropriate for that locality, for the affordable housing targets that we are trying to invite. the impact it's going to have on our natural habitat the open spaces and more importantly the social and civic disparity we might create by having that density for the kind of targets that have been proposed for that development plus i would also at the end conclude by saying that We in the entire community are not opposed to building something there. We want to work with the city. And having spoken to many of you, as I've found out, we will have multiple opportunities to confer, look at any proposal that's being made for that parcel. So just bear that in mind. We are responsible residents, want to work with you, want to make our city better, more thriving. And thank you for listening to all our points and for having been there for years.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city councils. My name is August Shaw, and I'm maybe one of the original owner of the property there that was built from the ground up. And I love the area. It's pristine. It's beautiful. It's one of the gems that we have, and we need to preserve it. Yet my question is, if you come into the area, there is a sign, street sign, no outlet. no outlet so how can you put in so many people and housing if there is only one lane going in and going out it will be very very hazardous if there is an emergency or anything so that one most consideration that we need to put before we go ahead with this project secondly Why our community? Our community is small and fragile because it's next to wildlife refuge. So not to say that there are so many beautiful and And then your species may be in the area. And there are so many other places or area that you guys can consider, like Cherry Road. There is so many land in there to put this project in. Also in the area of snow school. There are lands that are not being used for the snow. So please consider this. I lived there for 28 years. I was naturalized there. And I'm sticking my ground in there until the end. So please, I want to live peacefully in my home till I go. Thank you so much.

Good evening. Good evening. Hello. My name is Kai, and I'm also the owner of Mayhew Landing. So me and my wife, we moved from Fremont to Newark just like this year. We purchased a house.

Thank you. Thank you.

And then emotionally speaking, we love this neighborhood and enjoy everything we have so far, the nature, the wildlife. And then coming from Taiwan, it's like an American dream come true for sure because such a big housing, good environment. And then logically thinking, I think we definitely respect the plan and the city's development work. And then we do want to attract like, people to hear and then, you know, experience this wonderful land. But my only concern is like the safety issue, the density, the parking, and then lack of the public transit. And then because, you know, I'm expecting my first child come in. And then with all the project coming up, it really scares me a little bit. But I'm sure like with, you know, all the effort we're going to put in and then definitely think like, we should really have a thoughtful thinking about this project and make a good you know investigation about not only the you know wildlife resources and also like the safety concern and and also a lot of like density issue we talk about yeah i just want to bring this up again and yeah hopefully you know we will have a great conclusion yeah thank you no thank you for coming

Good evening. Good evening. Hello, everyone. My name is Yvonne Bowman, and I bought into Mayhew's Landing from the plot plan before anything was built. And I stood on that land and looked out the wildlife refuge, and it's behind my fence. I just wanted you to see a senior citizen who walks the neighborhood every evening, early evening. I'm a senior, I'm 90 years old. I walk 7 tenths of a mile and that means I then walk the whole neighborhood and up Coyote to Jarvis and turn around and come back and I crossed the street two times now at 90 years old I'm walking a little slower than I used to and I'm concerned about a whole lot more traffic and I'm not the only senior walking every night and several of us plus all the dog young people walking their dogs, older people, families, whatever. So I just wanted you to know that I do walk that every day. I wanna feel safe there crossing that street. I'm a little slower and I just am nervous about having way more traffic on that street. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Is there anybody else here to speak under public comment? Yes, please.

Hi, good evening. My name is Daphne, and my family moved to Mayhill Landing community like 16 years ago. We are not the original owners, but we also love this community as much as they do. So all my neighbors already expressed a lot of concerns. So mostly, I think it's the safety that's in our mind. So I still remember when we first moved into this community, almost every weekend, there was huge noise came from the previous W Hotel. So because of the wild parties going on every weekend, this scared us a lot. We couldn't rest well for the weekend. And until a few months later, suddenly it became quiet. Because I had the August newspaper at that time, and one morning I read from the news. It said a young lady's body was found in the marsh along the coyote drive next to my house. It's so scary. And so this plan, actually, we enjoy this community and we are not against to build houses for more people to come to enjoy together. But however, with 159 families, that means a few hundred people and a few hundred cars will be crowded into this small area. So this will cause a lot of potential safety issues. That's I see. I and I believe all our neighbors, even the residents in the nearby neighborhood, because I see them like walk dogs and walk in our area every day. So we want to keep our neighborhood as peaceful and quiet and beautiful forever. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

GOOD EVENING. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, CITY GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. COUNCIL MEMBERS. I'M ROBERT. I'VE LIVED IN NEWARK FOR I'M ROBERT. I'VE LIVED IN NEWARK FOR WHAT IS IT NOW? WHAT IS IT NOW? OVER 20 YEARS. OVER 20 YEARS. RAISED TWO KIDS. RAISED TWO KIDS. ONE OF THEM IS NOW A RESIDENT. ONE OF THEM IS NOW A RESIDENT. ALL ENJOYED LIVING IN NEWARK. ALL ENJOYED LIVING IN NEWARK. NEWARK IS BEAUTIFUL. NEWARK IS BEAUTIFUL. MAYHUE'S LANDING IS JUST as everybody described. I also am in support with everything that was said here. I want you, hopefully, to consider all that we're probably going to affect here, all of the changes. I encourage you, if you haven't yet, spend an afternoon. Just walk through our neighborhood and see what's going to change if this development comes to fruition. We have birds coming into our neighborhood, and who can boast that nowadays? We have turkeys running around the neighborhood. We have egrets, as you can see. They fly around. There's just so many of this wildlife, so many of this environment that may change with this project. I ask not here to oppose anything, but for you guys to carefully consider that of what you're probably going to take from each one of us that live in that community. I thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, is there anybody else online to speak under public comment? Anybody else? Any last comments? If not, I'm going to go ahead and, yes, sir, please.

One last one.

Of course.

If you want to walk around Mayfuse Landing, leave my number with somebody, text me. I would love to walk with you and your dog and tell you all about our community, show you all the great things, show you the problems so you'll get to know exactly who we are and what we deal with.

Thank you, I'm gonna go ahead and close public testimony. I'm gonna turn it over to the city manager in just a moment. First of all, I've walked to your neighborhood many times. I have a Golden Lab and a Golden Retriever, and those dogs do not walk together, they walk separately. And so I've had many opportunities to walk down Thornton Avenue and turn on that kind of vacant street and I've walked into your neighborhood and I really do, well, first I wanna thank everybody for coming tonight. You know, this is what democracy is all about, right? We are here to represent the best interests of our community but also to listen to our residents in terms of any decisions that we make that may impact them. So I wanna thank the community for coming out and expressing their opinions. As you all know, No decision has been made. So with that in mind, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to the city manager to kind of lay out how this came to us, what we were asked, and let's assume for a moment that it does or does not move forward. What are the kind of the next steps? City manager, Mr. Mnuchin.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the Council. Typically, comments are made and directed towards the Council and the Mayor. Your Honor, would you be so kind as to allow me to speak directly to the residents who are here?

I will allow you to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Only if you caveat everything by saying, boy, we have such a great mayor serving this community.

Well, thank you for coming out this evening and expressing your concerns. I just want to go back and I just want to make a few points. I'm going to start off by going back to the beginning of the conversation. where the mayor indicated that the council is not free to make any statements in regards to items that are not on the agenda. So there's certain laws that regulate and govern council meetings, and there are open transparency laws that come down from the state. And a very clear law is that the council can't speak to an item that is not on the agenda. And so the item that we're talking about was discussed at a previous agenda excuse me previous council meeting and is not on tonight's agenda so i wouldn't take any of the council members silence as disinterest of the important item that you're discussing with us this evening so please don't think for a second that the council has no interest in your concerns i would imagine it's quite to the contrary it's just unfortunately under state law they're not allowed to say anything one way or another The concept that we received, I don't know exactly when we received it, this is a development concept. So it's not an application that was submitted to the city. The city did not solicit this application. This is something that is inconsistent with the city's general plan as well as the city's zoning. So the city's zoning and general plan lay out the vision of how the city council sees our community going into the future. It does not contemplate residential use for this particular area. What we did is something kind of new, where typically when you receive these applications, you go through, of course, a very thorough process. It takes 18 to 24 months. You do all the appropriate studies. Several speakers spoke to environmental review. You hold community meetings. You hold public hearings, et cetera. Considering this is something that the council is not obligated to do, so let me make that point clear. The council is under no obligation to approve a project should it even come forward. There is no legal authority for them that would require them to do that. The council actually has to remain silent if they do submit an application for the entire two-year process. The developer is entitled to what we call a public hearing process, quasi-judicial. They are entitled to fundamental due process. So in other words, the council, as you speak with them, so you invited the mayor to walk with you and the rest of the council, unfortunately they wouldn't be able to share with you their concerns about the project in case it does come to them in two years down the line. So I just wanted to make that point clear as well. I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you about dogs and walking and all that fun stuff. Again, what this would require should this project be submitted, it is a legislative act. So the council is not required to approve this project. They'd have to make their own determination as to whether or not this project is beneficial to our community. In order to make that determination, we have to go through a very thorough process. So we would, assuming, let me take a step back for a moment, actually. The developer has not submitted an application to the city. This was just a concept where they approached us, again, without our solicitation. If they decide to submit an application, then it would go through the full process. Environmental review, community hearings, excuse me, community meetings, public hearings. We would do whatever appropriate analysis that we would feel is necessary so that the council can make an informed decision. staff at some point would ultimately come up with a recommendation one way or another. It would also be reviewed by the city's planning commission and so on and so forth. What we did in this case, because it's not required that the council approve this project, we wanted to do a preliminary review where the developer came forward and just to discuss at a very high level their project. And so that's what we did two weeks ago. So the council was only able to make basic high level types of comments. They couldn't say one way or another how they really feel about the project because the developer has to go through that full process and we have to hold a public hearing down the line. I DO, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR IS HERE. HE WAS TAKING COPIOUS NOTES. I OBSERVED HIM. UNDOUBTEDLY HE WILL FORWARD HIS COMMENTS, YOUR GUYS' COMMENTS, OVER TO THE DEVELOPER AND SHARE THEM WITH THE DEVELOPER. AND I WOULD IMAGINE THEY WOULD WATCH THIS MEETING AS WELL. THE DEVELOPER MAY NOT SUBMIT AN APPLICATION. THEY MAY. THEY MAY NOT. THEY MAY SUBMIT AN APPLICATION THAT LOOKS TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT WE DISCUSSED TWO WEEKS AGO. IT'S ON THEM. SO WHATEVER THEY DO. If they do something, we will process it. We will certainly work with our community, notify the community, hold community meetings, and go through that type of process. I do thank members of the public for coming out here this evening. This was kind of the purpose of why we did what we did two weeks ago, so that we could hear early on from the community, as that will help inform the developer about what decisions they make, whether they want to submit an application, modify it, or not submit an application at all. So I'd be happy to, if you haven't submitted an email to the city, please do so. Our in-contact information is posted online. Our community development director is working with our community engagement manager to create a separate webpage on this should this item go forward. We'd be happy to notify you of any community meetings should they occur. Again, the entitlement process would take anywhere from 18 to 24 months, so that's quite a lengthy period of time. The council would not be making any decisions anytime soon, again, should the developer decide to submit an application. So I'd be happy to talk to you at any point. Our community development director is sitting here in the front, as well as the deputy director. They'd be happy to talk to you as well.

Thank you, City Manager. I know that Council Member Little had a clarifying question she wanted to ask, Council Member.

Yeah, I just have a clarifying question, and I know we can't make any opinions or anything of the sort, but I did have a question. On the Quixote Street you guys are talking about, when you say it's a one-lane street, my question is, is it parking on one side, parking on the other side, and back and forth, or are we talking it is one lane, one lane?

First of all... in their development.

Yeah, that's the main street to get in and out of their development. So that's what I'm asking about. Is it, you can't even park on that street? So it is one end. So if someone's coming the other way and you have a person, you have to do that wave of you or me or you or me? Okay, yeah, okay. Sorry. I don't know I didn't know the question. Yeah, okay, but that is my question because I'm curious how that street set up Ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen

Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a, ladies and gentlemen, this is not an opportunity to have a conversation about this, because it's not on the agenda, as we mentioned, but I do want to ask the city manager if you want to provide.

No, that's correct, Mayor. Unfortunately, this isn't a community meeting, so we're prohibited by state law from talking about this project.

Yeah, so, but I hope the city manager's clarification as to where this is at in the process And I know that I think you've communicated with the president of the HOA We're certainly happy to answer any other questions that folks have Please contact the city and they'll make sure that they respond to you in kind But again as if I can just capture what the city manager said we are so many months away so many public hearings away and We have not even seen a formal application submitted to the city at this point. So I Thank you, City Manager, for your comments. Again, thank you for the community for coming out tonight. As the City Manager said, we can't comment on what we heard, but we heard, because that's our responsibility to listen to what the public says when they come to the public comment section of the meeting. So thank you for coming. With that being said, because I want you folks to be able to not necessarily have to stay for the rest of the meeting, unless you'd like to, I'm gonna go ahead and take a five-minute break, Mr. Bennoon. Oh, are there any additional online comments, Madam Clerk, under public comments?

No, Your Honor.

Great. So, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a five-minute break until 8.30, and then... Recording stopped.

RECORDING IN PROGRESS.

THANK YOU, MADAM CLERK. I'M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND CALL THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING BACK TO ORDER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE. I'M GOING TO GO BACK ON THE AGENDA AND WE'RE GOING TO RECEIVE A PRESENTATION FROM AC TRANSIT.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the Council. We have one or two elected representatives from AC Transit.

Diane just left.

Okay, all right.

Catch an airplane. All right.

As well as the External Affairs Representative, Ms. Diane Castleberry, and I'll let you introduce the elected official.

LONG TIME NEW YORK RESIDENT AND RECENTLY RETIRED. LONG TIME NEW YORK RESIDENT AND RECENTLY RETIRED.

I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT FOR NEW I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT FOR NEW YORK OVER 50 YEARS. YORK OVER 50 YEARS. MY NAME IS ANTHONY SILVA. MY NAME IS ANTHONY SILVA. I'M ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR I'M ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR AC TRANSIT. AC TRANSIT. I REPRESENT NEW YORK. It's a real pleasure to be here today. I will talk about a central role for AC Transit Plays in Newark. Alongside my colleagues, well, Board President Diane Shaw, she just left, and our AC Transit staff will also directly address our current budget challenges. But first, let's start with who we are. HC Transit is a special district serving 13 cities and eight incorporated counties across Alameda, Contra Costa counties. We carry more than three million riders each month and are governed by publicly elected board directors. Nearly two thirds are low income, making HC Transit a central lifeline for the communities we serve. We're proud to have received a top honor in outstanding public transportation systems in the United States in 2023. We provide 40 million rides every year. More than 140,000 riders board the typically weekday. And when school returns, at least 30,000 students will depend on us to get safely to and from class every day. February, March, and April delivered our first three straight months of the year over ridership growth since the pandemic.

On the table. Do you want to take it or do you want me to take it? Go for it. Okay, I can go for it. Okay. All right, so I'm going to take over some of Diane Shaw's comments. Let's see next slide. So AC Transit supports more than 5,100 jobs across the East Bay, and more than half of those jobs are created outside our agency. And together they generate over $604 million in annual wages, and they inject nearly $1 billion in East Bay economy every year. For over a quarter century, AC Transit has led the nation in zero-emission buses, and today our fleet of 58 zero-emission buses are eliminating any tailpipe emissions from our streets, and that leadership earned AC Transit a $40 million federal investment that launched the transit industry's first zero-emission bus university, or what we call ZEBU. Alongside Chabot College, which is based out of Hayward and Union, ATU Local 192, the Zeb University will help our employees earn associate degrees while preparing the clean transit workforce for tomorrow. This slide just shows different ways that people can get discounts on our service, such as our E-ZPass program, the Clipper Start program. We also, as part of our Realign project, which you may recall, we redesigned 104 bus lines last summer and cutting travel times and kind of right-sizing our service. And then also we have this safety technology using AI-powered cameras mounted inside buses that are keeping the bus lanes clear. Sorry. Board Director Silva mentioned that three out of four of our AC Transit riders are people of color and nearly two-thirds are low income. More than half earn less than $50,000 a year below the federal poverty level in one of the nation's most expensive regions. 65% of our riders are transit dependent. Service cuts would not be an inconvenience. They would upend some lives of those who rely on AC Transit bus service. Sorry, we had to make some adjustments today. So once again, my name is Diane Castleberry. So on this slide, we're gonna talk about the importance of being good stewards of public dollars. And simply put, it means making every taxpayer dollar count. This month, we launched the Multilingual Fair Required Fair Compliance Campaign. Also, a comprehensive California state auditor review found that AC Transit syncs service well with other East Bay bus agencies. Our collective real challenges are sustainable funding and not mismanagement what's more what's more an independent review confirmed average annual savings of 33 million dollars since 2020 and this commitment to making every taxpayer dollar count is why we have a top tier double a plus credit rating In terms of our financial outlook, the cost of running our bus network is rising faster than the revenue supporting it. The result is a fiscal cliff that we're in. So what's behind all of this? Federal pandemic relief funding is now gone. Regional sales tax revenue has flattened and fare revenue growth has slowed. Fuel costs are up 28%. Bus maintenance parts have increased 14%. The cost of buying new buses has surged 35%. And so you can see it's very lopsided. It's not sustainable. So we've been taking action. In the last fiscal year alone, we had tightened our belt by $9 million. We also are hiring only positions that directly support service. We scaled back our temporary staffing, saving roughly two million annually. We brought outside professional services in-house. We partnered with other agencies to purchase goods and services for less, such as with the state of California and MTC. And we're just making every taxpayer dollar count. AC Transit, so as mentioned, AC Transit faces a projected $200 million deficit over the next four years. This translates into an annual funding gap of at least 50 million beginning in 2027. Without long-term sustainable funding, service reductions of up to 16% become unavoidable. And so would the human impact potential layoffs affecting as many as 300 employees out of our 2200 workforce. We've been thrown a lifeline from the state of California, but it's not a permanent solution. It's a state bridge loan, and it is exactly that, a loan, not a bailout, and it must be repaid with interest. AC Transit's share is 55 million, enough to close this year's budget gap and avoid service cuts today. But next summer, in June, the loan is gone, reserves are exhausted, and the funding challenges return. That's why we hope now rests with the Connect Bay Area Act. The measure would ask voters in the five Bay Area counties to approve a 14-year, half-cent sales tax, one cent in San Francisco. And if approved, it would generate an estimated $980 million annually to Bay Area buses, trains, and ferries. AC Transit would receive approximately 52 million each year, helping protect existing bus service and prevent layoffs. Without long-term funding, our bus network remains at risk. I'd now like to invite Owen, our transportation planner, to provide an overview on our proposed contingency service plan.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Owen Christopherson, and I'm a transportation planner for AC Transit. So you've heard from Board Director Silva and Ms. Castleberry about the local and regional importance of AC Transit, as well as the financial uncertainty facing the district. So to respond to this moment, our approach is simple. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. which is why we've developed a worst-case scenario contingency service plan. Now, this plan is just that. It's a contingency option that would only take effect if no long-term funding is secured by December 2026. When our team set out to develop this plan, we did so with some clear guiding principles, maintain the realign network which was a comprehensive network redesign recently completed by the agency miminize wholesale route eliminations and maintain frequent bus service where riders depend on it the most the proposed uh oh sorry i'll just go back one sorry um The proposed contingency service plan is designed to provide the most service for the greatest number of riders. We do that by preserving what we call the primary route network, which is essentially the backbone of our service. This includes the lines here described on this slide, being able to be maintained at 15 minutes or better on weekdays and other lines in the primary route network with service hours no less, no worse than 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and every 30 minute frequencies. Out of these routes, 93% of those lines remained unchanged, not truncated or canceled. So now I'd like to talk about Newark and about the AC Transit routes here and how they would be affected by the Contingency Service Plan. As a reminder, Newark is served by Local Lines 200, 216, 215, and 281, as well as three school routes that cover the Newark Middle and Memorial High Schools. Lines 216, 251, and 281 would see their hours of service reduced to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And line 200 would also see a reduction in service hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., a little better than the others. Unfortunately, due to low ridership, weekend service on line 251 is eliminated in order to preserve service on other parts of the network.

Which line is

251 on the map can you show that to the council so we as we reduce the service on the weekend yeah i can um it's kind of hard to point out there i can i can show you another uh visual in a little bit um So, yeah, as I said, unfortunately, that weekend ridership will be eliminated on 251. So now I'd like to take a look at just let you all know of kind of the road ahead, what the next kind of the rest of the year is going to look like. So on their August 12th meeting, the AC Transit Board of Directors is expected to set a public hearing for the plan on October 14th. On that day, AC Transit will also host an open house at our office in downtown Oakland where community members can learn more about the plan and make comments. As we all know, the general election is scheduled for Tuesday, November 3rd. If no new long-term funding is secured, the board will vote on the final plan on December 9th for an implementation date of June 13th, 2027. So the changes that we're describing here, if no new funding is secured, would take effect in June 2027. And of course, as a reminder, if new funding is secured, the contingency service plan would not need to be implemented and the plan would not move forward. And with that, I'll turn the mic back to Director Silva.

Thank you. Well, AT Transit wants to hear from CD and Newark. residents and here's how to engage. If you scan the QR code, you can learn about the AC Transit's proposal contingency plan or you can email, there's a planning at actransit.org or visit actransit.org and learn more. So thank you for listening to us. And AC Transit is committed to keeping Newark and the East Bay moving with 40 million trips a year, connecting riders to jobs, schools, and essential services. Thank you for adding us to your agenda. I'll answer any questions if you have any.

Thank you, Board Member Silva. Is there anybody in the audience? I'm sorry, you had a last comment or? Oh sure, is there anybody in the audience that has questions or comments regarding the presentation? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online that has questions or comments on this item? Colleagues, I'll turn to you for questions or comments. I'll start with Council Member Little.

Thank you guys for coming out here. I really appreciate it. So first of all, my son drives you guys to go his job. So I appreciate it. Bus 200. So thank you guys so much. That saves me a lot of crazy driving at the last second. I do have a question on the... Half cent on the sales tax that you guys are proposing is that overall sale any items sold? All the whole area would be half a cent. Okay, and you said it really quickly But what was the projected amount the half cent tax would make it wasn't on the slide nor was that you guys said it real quickly nine hundred and eighty million dollars and fifty two million would go to AC transit and So 900 and, I'm sorry, say it again?

80 million.

80 million, but that's not just for you guys. This would be for all transportation. Five counties in the- And you guys would get how much again? I'm gonna write this all down. 52 million. 52 million, thank you.

And so based on your forecast on your budget over the next four years, 52 million is slightly less, I think, than what you're really going to need for each one of those years, if I recall the chart correctly. So I'd imagine between now, assuming that that measure passes there will be still some additional structural changes that will be made to the system to help you reach that goal say so on the one chart you're actually anticipating a 60 million dollar deficit well the 52 doesn't make up that entire deficit so imagine you're going to continue to look at structural opportunities to balance that budget yeah um

We have a grant right now to keep us going without cutting any service from now, from June 1st, 2026 to June 1st, 2027. If the regional measure doesn't pass, then we're gonna go into that contingency plan. If the regional measure passes, then we'll be right on track and we'll do our normal services. with no service cuts, good, so.

And if I can add, yeah, and so, and we're continuing to look at places where we can make some additional cuts. Our general manager is aggressively, I mean, we can't even, if you wanna buy a pencil, like you have to go through like an act of Congress to be able to get by that pencil. So it's a very strict and stringent process for every expense that's going out and also review of, you know, do we really need this? Do we really, you know, those kind of things. So yes, yes, we are continuing to tighten our belt.

Yeah, I remember those days in government. Other questions?

I'll ask my question.

Colleagues, other questions? Council Member D'Antonio.

Yes. Thank you. I was thinking about, well, obviously I've been a rider when I was younger, and then as sometimes when we get the ability to have our driver's license, then we take it a little more infrequently. But I still do wonder, how would schools be impacted, even if it does for some reason, even if we... say that we're not going to be cutting the school lines because I don't believe that that's part of the plan is to cut the school lines, but if people are taking after-school programs or something like that, then inadvertently are the school children going to be impacted by cutting the lines?

We won't be cutting school lines. I don't know about the after-school programs. Owen might

Yeah, I'll just add a little bit. So, yeah, you are right that not only do, you know, school children utilize the specific school lines, but also other, you know, the regular fixed route lines. You know, as I said, we are, you know, these lines will be in this area will be cut from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And as I said, that weekend service on line 251 will be eliminated. So, You know, I think the answer to your question is likely. If school kids have activities that may, you know, after school late in the evening that may run past that time, certainly so, yeah. But we are able to maintain the frequencies that we currently serve on those lines. We're not going to cut that.

Can I just add, so as you can imagine, this is like worst case scenario, nobody wants it to happen, but we have to prepare just in case because we just don't know what's, I mean, it's good management, right? So you're absolutely correct. We intentionally did not make any changes to the supplementary service that I believe serves about 900 middle and high school students. in Newark. However, there are local lines that those youth use, and there's some who, where they live, the supplementary lines don't serve them, so they do use local lines to get to their school. So there will be an impact, but what we try to do is preserve the number of bus, the actual bus lines that serve in this community but reduce the hours and then the span of hours as well as some additional reductions in frequency. Is that correct, Owen? No frequency reduction. Oh, you guys are lucky. Some other places they have, well, but also the frequency is not that great, right? So yeah, so we did, the planners really did their best to try to protect the service in this community.

Okay, I really appreciate that. And thank you so much for your presentation. I guess I was just thinking back to school-age days. If we missed the bus or we're doing an after-school activity, something like that, then, I mean, things change with the buses.

Well, what's nice is Newark is really small compared to a lot of the other cities that we cover. So, yeah, we want to really, my district, so I want to make sure we get coverage.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Council Member Grindahl.

Yes, first of all, I want to echo my council member, my colleague's comments. We really appreciate you bringing this presentation forward. Also, I particularly recognize the difficulty that you had to go through in order to have this sort of contingency plan. I know it's very, very hard to, you would love to be increasing service and increasing ridership and it's a very difficult professional thing and you've done a great job trying to protect your the the community so i just want to say i appreciate that effort and um and again thank you for this for the excellent presentation and the work you're doing thank you thank you

Yeah, the AC Transit, the staff, they really deserve a pat on the back. They really spent a lot of hours on coming up with the contingency plan. It's more than what most people think. There's a lot to it, cut and service. So thank you for listening to us.

And I'll echo Council Member Grindahl's comments. As you some may know, I sit on the Alameda County Transportation Commission. And when some of these items have come before the commission, AC Transit was first to step up and say, we've made some cuts in terms of our services and or, staffing and things of that nature to minimize the impact that this is going to create on community. So they were already kind of forecasting some real budget challenges and were already stepping up and making those hard decisions. So I give you credit for doing that because it's one of those situations when you're dealing with a deficit, it's only going to continue to accumulate over a period of time. So the sooner you kind of stop the bleeding and the better it's going to be. So we certainly recognize that public transportation, especially in parts of our community, are critical means of transportation. So we want to thank you for those efforts. Vice Mayor Jorgens.

Yeah, I just want to echo my colleagues' comments and thank you for your terrific presentation. I also want to thank you for being amenable to us kind of reconfiguring the agenda. So I do appreciate your time and I really appreciate the presentation.

That was never my intent for me to think how long could I get folks to talk before I get Ms. Shaw to say, you know, I gotta go. We appreciate your service. We appreciate Ms. Shaw's service to our community because you're both compassionate about transportation and public transportation. We see that. I'm more likely to support a measure like this because of the longstanding history of outstanding efforts made by AC Transit, because that's the transportation that really impacts our community. We don't have BART here, so it's hard to make that sale to my community. But when it comes to AC Transit, we're going to be on board to support that because it's important to our community. So thank you for coming.

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Anything else? I think that's it. All right. Thank you, Mayor Hannon. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Dave.

You're always welcome at our meetings, by the way. Take care. I would like to say one last comment as you leave. Whether it passes or doesn't pass, I'd like to see AC Transit on an annual basis come to the Newark City Council and talk about service delivery challenges, how we can work in partnership together to improve ridership, increase ridership, because whether it passes or doesn't pass, we're gonna be advocates for the bus system because it serves so many members of our community. So I would like AC Transit, Mr. Mnuchin, to reach out and work with those folks, maybe on an annual basis to come back and let us know how things are going.

Yeah, you know, we had our ILC, I actually got to sit in your seat. But we had an IOC. Hold it, let me raise it. There we go, that explains it. So we had our IOC and it turned out really well for a first time in many years. And so we're keeping contact with each other and trying to make things happen. And it was a good, it's really good. Great.

Keep up the good work. It's always nice when you have an actual Newark resident sitting on a board representing our community. So thank you for that service. We know where you live. No, I'm sorry. Take care of yourself. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the calendar is our consent calendar. These are generally considered fairly routine items. You're certainly entitled to pull any item for discussion. I'll certainly reach out to folks online if they'd like to pull an item for discussion. But let me read the consent items and see if there's any items that anybody wishes to pull. Item one is the approval of audited demands. Two is the approval of the June 25, 2026 City Council minutes. Three is adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an on-call professional planning services agreement with community planning collaborative Good City Company and Urban Planning Partners, each in the amount of not to exceed 500,000. subject to available appropriations and approved task orders. Four, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the annual CDBG agreement with Alameda County for fiscal year 26-27 and approving a budget appropriation. And five, adopt a resolution authorizing a change order in the amount of 40,505.77 with a 20% contingency to the agreement with Adams Pool Solutions to increase the not to exceed amount of 48,607 for a total project allocation of 310,163.25 to complete the lazy river pool replaster at the Silman Aquatic Center. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to pull any of those items for discussion? Madam Clerk, anybody online that would like to pull an item?

No, Your Honor.

Colleagues, any item that you would like pulled for further discussion? City Manager, let me ask you, any item you'd like pulled?

Not this evening, Your Honor. Mr. Mayor, I just have a minor question, if that's okay?

Yes, of course.

Which item, my friend? On, I don't think it needs to be pulled, but on item three.

Okay.

Can I? Yes. I just wanted to say that I wanted to applaud staff for doing this kind of work where you're bringing contracts forward to help speed the development process. In the case of private development, of course, this contract Anyway, and this can really help us to advance our community. So I really wanted to just applaud staff for that, if that's okay, Mr. Mayor.

Of course it's okay to applaud staff. I'm always looking at opportunities where we can expedite the process, whether it be building, planning, whatever the case may be, to help folks that want to develop in our city get that project moving quicker. I appreciate that effort. Other comments? Yes, Council Member Little.

I have more of a question. On the fifth article that we have here, we have on here that we are putting in 48,607 for the allocation of this pool. My question is, is there a warranty on it? How long do we expect that this plaster work's gonna last? Is it a five year, 10 year, 15 year, or is it kind of reflecting pool, Washington D.C. type of warranty?

I will defer to the public works director, city engineer, or the project engineer.

Gentlemen, don't all stand up at once.

This is our engineer who's assigned to the project, Mr. Tim Au.

Hey, Tim. Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. Thank you for your question, Council Member Little. Typically, the general lifespan of the pool is seven to 10 years. That's typically the warranty period but we're expecting with previously when this contract was awarded an alternate item was a new UV system that's going to help prolong the system and also improve the water quality of the

What is a UV system? Is that just to, could you just?

It is a, so there's a mechanical room inside the pool, aside from where the typical users are. There's suction pumps, and that's sort of the purpose of this change order, in which the suction pumps, they take water to the mechanical room, which controls temperature, run through the filters, and someone pees in a pool, it treats it. And then the chemical, the UV system is in line with the system, and it kind of improves water quality, chemicals, oxygen, et cetera.

Okay. So in your opinion, we have a warranty right now for 7 to 10 years. We think we're looking at 10 to 12, 15 to 20?

General lifespan is 10 years. The current coal plaster was recently replastered, last replastered in 2017. Okay. So we're right on that seven to 10 year window.

Okay, thank you. Can I get a motion to approve the consent calendar? So moved. By Vice Mayor Jorgens. Seconded. By Council Member Cantancia, please vote. And that passes unanimously, thank you very much. The next item on the agenda, ladies and gentlemen, is public hearings. Public hearings for landscaping and lighting districts number one, two, four, seven, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, and adopt a resolution confirming diagrams and assessments and the levying and collection of assessments for landscaping and lighting districts number one, two, four, seven, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 for fiscal year 26 and 27. Mr. Bennu?

Yes, good evening, Your Honor and members of the council. Item E1 is our annual public hearing for the Council to consider staff's recommendation to confirm the diagrams and assessments for the landscaping and lighting districts that Your Honor so indicated, as well as authorize the levying and collection of those assessments. Tonight we have a brief presentation from Mr. Anthony Hernandez. He's an employee with Francisco and Associates who prepared the diagrams and assessments.

Thank you, good evening mayor and city council members. So this item tonight relates to the assessment proceedings for the city's existing 11 landscape and lighting assessment districts. They fund ongoing landscaping, lighting and related improvements throughout the city. Under the Landscape and Lighting Act of 1972, the city is required to complete a three-step annual process. to approve the engineers reports and to levy assessments for each fiscal year. The council has already completed the first two steps of this process for fiscal year 26-27. On March 26th, 2026, the city council initiated the annual assessment process and directed the preparation of the engineers reports. On May 14th, the city council preliminarily approved the engineers reports, declared its intention to levy and collect assessments and schedule tonight's public hearing. So tonight is the third and final step in the annual process. Staff is recommending that the City Council conduct the required public hearing and adopt the final resolution approving the engineers reports in the fiscal year 26-27 assessments. Notice of the public hearing was published in a newspaper of general circulation. as required by the Landscape and Lighting Assessment Act of 1972, and approval of the final resolution this evening will authorize the assessment to be placed on Alameda County property tax rule, and it will generate approximately $430,000 a year. This assessment revenue will fund the maintenance and operation of landscaping and lighting improvements. And as requested last year, improvement diagrams were inserted into the engineer's reports. And so that concludes my presentation this evening and I'm available for any questions you may have.

Thank you for that. Before we get to questions, I'm gonna go ahead and open up the public hearing. Public hearing is open. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this item? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online that would like to speak during the public hearing process? Great, I'm gonna go ahead and close public hearing and turn it back to colleagues for questions, comments. Otherwise, I'll look for a motion and a second. Made by Council Member Little. I'll second. By Council Member Grindahl, please vote. That's okay. And that passes unanimously 5-0. Thank you very much. I love landscaping and lighting districts. To be honest, I love those. So let's go on to the next item, which is a public hearing and adopt resolution approving the final engineer's report confirming formation of a landscaping and lighting district number 21 and authorizing the levy and collection of assessments for fiscal year 26-27. Mr. Mnoon.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. This is a public hearing to consider staff's recommendation to form a new landscaping and lighting district. If the council may recall, council directed staff to begin the preparation of the necessary documents to establish this district. Tonight we have a brief presentation from Mr. Hernandez on this one as well. At the conclusion of the presentation, staff recommends that the council open the public hearing and then receive the ballot and have the city clerk will tabulate it in front of us and then accept staff's recommendation to approve formation of the district. With that in mind, I'll pass it over to Mr. Hernandez.

Thank you. So this item is the third and final step related to the formation of Landscape and Lighting District number 21. And it's for the development up there on Cedar Boulevard between Moores Avenue and Cedar Court. It's the Taylor Morrison project, track 8665. Just like City Manager Boone said, on April 23rd, the council initiated the proceedings and directed the preparation of the required engineers report related to this landscape and lighting district. Then on May 14th, the council approved the preliminary engineers report, declared its intention to form the district and levy assessments and set tonight's public hearing. THE PROPOSED DISTRICT WILL ULTIMATELY INCLUDE 76 TOWN HOMES AT BUILDOUT AND THE PROPOSED MAXIMUM ASSESSMENT RATE IS GOING TO BE $59.75 PER TOWN HOME AND THAT'S IN $26, $27 AND THAT'S GOING TO GENERATE APPROXIMATELY $3400 ANNUALLY. THE PROPOSITION 218 REQUIRES PROPERTY OWNER APPROVAL. PROPERTY OWNER APPROVAL. THIS MAXIMUM ASSESSMENT CAN BE THIS MAXIMUM ASSESSMENT CAN BE INCREASED EACH SUBSEQUENT FISCAL INCREASED EACH SUBSEQUENT FISCAL YEAR BY A CPI TO KEEP UP WITH YEAR BY A CPI TO KEEP UP WITH MAINTENANCE AND UTILITY COST. MAINTENANCE AND UTILITY COST. SO THE FORMATION OF THIS DISTRICT SO THE FORMATION OF THIS DISTRICT REQUIRES PROPERTY OWNER REQUIRES PROPERTY OWNER APPROVAL. APPROVAL. IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROPOSITION IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROPOSITION 218 THE REQUIRED NOTICE AND 218 THE REQUIRED NOTICE AND AS and if there's no majority protest, the formation of Landscape and Lighting District number 21 can be formed and we were able to levy it in the upcoming fiscal year. So that concludes my presentation this evening.

Thank you for your presentation. I'm gonna go ahead and open up the public hearing on this item. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this item? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online that would like to speak to this item? No, Your Honor. Great, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and ask the City Clerk if you would be kind enough to open up the ballot and let us know the results.

The ballot is in favor.

Great, so we have a unanimous approval on that. Council comments, discussion, otherwise I'll look for a motion. I'll move staff's recommendation. By Vice Mayor Jorgens, by Councilor Contancio, please vote. And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much for the brief presentations. You're greatly appreciated. Thank you, guys. Ladies and gentlemen, the next item is other business. This is gonna be to provide direction regarding proposed ballot measure to modernize and streamline the city's existing business license tax.

Mr. Bennum? Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. This item is a continuation of our discussion from two weeks ago. If the council may recall, council provided direction to city staff to return at a future meeting tonight to discuss an additional ordinance for council's consideration. Before we go any further, I'd like to acknowledge that we have Mr. Eric Myers from HDL, the city's tax consultant. He's available on Zoom should the council have any particular questions relating to the ordinance. Also in the audience, we have our finance director and deputy finance director, as well as our deputy director of economic development, Ms. Angela Sway. They'd also be happy to answer any questions that the council may have. The presentation tonight will be relatively brief. since we've had several presentations on this already. Usually these things are user error, but I'm just pushing one button. At least in my experience, they're user error. Thank you, Mr. Miranda. If the council may recall, this discussion was initiated back on April 9th when the council received the presentation from HDL Services. It was an overview of the existing business license tax structure that the city currently has. For simplicity reasons and going forward, I'm going to refer to it as BLT, so that will stand for business license tax. And during that presentation, Mr. Myers provided various options for council's consideration to modernize and streamline the city's existing BLT. Council provided direction to staff to consider some sort of gross receipts variable model. At the May 28th city council meeting, A representative from Guy B. Research, which is an independent public opinion poll, polling firm, came in and provided an overview of their findings. Essentially, they found that there was favorable voter support for a measure for voters to consider later in November that would modernize and streamline and simplify the city's BLT. Staff returned at June 25th. with a presentation that was rather detailed that provided information regarding the city's business outreach efforts as well as a refined ordinance for council's consideration. It was at that meeting that council directed staff to consider an additional BLT update ordinance and that would take into account two things. One, it would lower the category, the tax rate for the category for property rentals And number two, it would increase the rate for manufacturing. And that's the purpose of tonight's meeting. After tonight's meeting, assuming there is consensus as to which model the council prefers, then we would return on July 23rd for formal action. That would be the meeting where the council would review the proposed ballot language provide the necessary resolutions for the council to consider. That would direct staff to work with the registrar voters to place this item for voter consideration, as well as direct the city attorney to provide an impartial analysis. And then of course, voters would vote, assuming this goes forward on November 3rd. I do note that in order for the council to place this item for voter consideration, it would require a four-fifths vote of the city council. As I said earlier, this is a relatively brief presentation since we've discussed this at length before. We do have options one and two for your consideration and review this evening. I'm going to refer to option one as the model that staff recommended at the council meeting two weeks ago, and option two is the model that the council directed staff to put together for council's discussion this evening. As you can see, the recommended approach is to simplify the 29 categories into the seven simple categories there on the screen. We left the tax rates for contractor, distribution logistics, which is essentially warehouse, and general retail, professional, and service categories the same. As you can see, as denoted by the red, manufacturing and property rental were modified. So under option one that we presented to the council two weeks ago, manufacturing would be at the rate of 0.045. Under option two, it would be 0.075. For the category of property rental, the rate would be 0.225 under option one and under the new option for council's review this evening, that would be 0.075. I do note that There was some questions and concerns from the council two weeks ago as it relates to property rental and that additional BLT increase being passed over to tenants. I would just like to point out that in terms of our affordable housing providers, all of those affordable housing providers who provide services to the city of Newark, those are 501c3 nonprofit organizations. They currently do not pay any, well, they would be categorized as EXEMPT, AND WE WOULD EXPECT THEM UNDER THE NEW ORDINANCE, SHOULD THERE BE A NEW ORDINANCE, TO ALSO BE CONSIDERED EXEMPT. THIS SLIDE SHOWS THE CURRENT REVENUE THAT WE RECEIVE FROM THE BLT, HOW IT WOULD BE MODIFIED UNDER OPTION 1, AND AS WELL AS HOW IT WOULD BE MODIFIED UNDER OPTION 2. Again, the council saw a very similar slide two weeks ago. This slide is updated to reflect option two. Same thing with the previous slide. The red denotes the updates. So as you can see, manufacturing under option one would increase from $136,000. Again, this is collective payments the city would receive under these categories. So we basically took all the businesses that we currently have issued licenses to, categorized them under the new frame, the new a regulatory proposal. So that would be under the seven categories listed there. They'd be classified in one of those seven categories. And then we didn't calculate the current collective remission, collective remittance that we receive from those businesses. And then we didn't extrapolate it out to what it would be under option one, as well as option two. And as you can see, the increase from $136,000 under manufacturing that we currently receive would go up to 521 under option one, and then 867 under option two. Under property rental, currently receive $97,000 per year. Under option one, that would increase to $471,000 per year. And under option two, that would increase to $160,000 per year. If the council may also recall, two weeks ago we provided some illustrative examples of how the update to the BLT would impact some of our businesses. Again, these are not specific businesses that are listed here in Newark. These are meant for illustrative purposes. These are mere examples. The ones that we've modified, as you can see, are the ones in the red below. So assuming that we have an apartment complex that generates $2.5 million in gross receipts, they currently would pay the sum of $1,186 per year to the City of Newark for the BLT. Under option one, that would be increased to $5,425. And under option two, that would be increased to $1,825. The additional example that would have changed with option two is the product manufacturing business with gross receipts of $15 million. That company would currently pay $5,311. Under option one, it would be $6,730. And then under option two, it would be $11,200. If the council may also recall, two weeks ago we provided some comparisons so that the council could see how the proposed ordinance as well as the existing ordinance relate to neighboring jurisdictions. This slide has been updated to take into account option two. And again, just as the previous slide indicated, the businesses that were impacted by that are the ones at the bottom, the apartment complex generating $2.5 million in gross revenue and the manufacturing business generating $15 million in gross receipts. And this is the comparison here. I'm not gonna read it to you. I'm just gonna pause for a moment and let the council consider that. Just wanna take a final moment to highlight that the business structure that staff is recommending, the BLT structure that we're looking at, currently there's 3,100 business licenses the city has issued to our businesses here in town. Under the recommended ordinance, 1,523. currently report business receipts, excuse me, gross receipts of $100,000 or less. Staff is recommending that that would be the threshold for the flat rate of $25. Currently, those 1,500 and so businesses collectively remit to the city $90,000 under options one and two, that sum would be reduced to $39,000. So essentially half of the businesses here in Newark would have lower BLT payments to the city of Newark. Next steps, staff is recommending that the council consider the two ordinances, provide direction to city staff. Should council provide clear direction to staff on this issue, then staff would return on July 23rd with all the necessary resolutions in place for council's consideration to place this item for voter consideration later this fall. And again, as I indicated at the beginning of this presentation, this item would require four-fifths of the council to vote to put this item for voter consideration in the fall. That concludes my presentation. Be happy to answer any questions the council may have.

Thank you, Mr. Mnuchin. I'll come back to you on questions from the council after we hear from the public. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to listen to folks in the audience that are here. Those that are watching on Zoom, if you would raise your hand so we can tabulate how many folks may want to speak on this item. But again, I'm going to open up it to folks in the room. Who would like to speak first? Yes, Ms. Lopez. And ladies and gentlemen, I think where we limited public comment under the public comment section to three, you have five minutes. We don't change that timeline, do we? Okay, you have five minutes, go ahead.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lupe Lopez, and here with me is Agustin, representing La Hacienda Market. We both respectfully ask you to reconsider the proposal to increase in business license tax for grocery stores and other small family-owned businesses, and to explore alternative solutions, or to the very least, to create a separate category for grocery stores and restaurants, very small businesses. Today, every level of government is talking about food affordability and food access. We all recognize that families are struggling to put food on the table. Yet, the policies being adopted continue to increase the cost of doing business, making it even harder to keep food affordable and on the table for families. As a small family-owned grocery store, we have absorbed significant increases in labor costs, paid sick leave, insurance, utilities, food safety regulations, refrigeration requirement, recycling mandates, and many other government regulations. Individually, each may seem manageable, but together, they create an overwhelming financial burden. Unlike large corporations, independent grocery stores operate on pennies, and those pennies only go so far. We simply cannot continue to absorb this cost forever, and eventually they are reflected in the prices families who stop at our stores pay. A business tax increase may seem small on paper, but it becomes one more cost added to an already lost long list of expenses. If our shared goal is to keep affordable food, then we should be looking for ways to reduce cost, not to increase them. I respectfully ask you to reconsider this proposal and explore alternatives, solutions to address the city's financial needs without placing another burden on local businesses and the families we serve. Please, stand with New York small businesses and with families who depend on affordable groceries. Keep food on their table, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Other speakers, please. Yes.

Good evening.

Good evening, I'm David Stark. I represent the Bay East Association of Realtors, and while I'm an advocate for the realtors tonight, I'm not advocating specifically one way or another on this proposal, but I do want to acknowledge a few things and then ask for some direction as well, or at least a favor for the business community. First, I want to acknowledge city staff who have been extremely responsive during this process. As you know from the presentation tonight, you're being asked for direction regarding multiple options. And this is, to my understanding, still a work in progress. There's still some tweaks that can be made. We had some questions about initial proposals as articulated in the staff report. And again, I want to acknowledge the responsiveness of city staff in responding to those things quickly. Even just a few minutes before the meeting started, I had a conversation with the city manager and he was clarifying some things. The ask I have is that you would continue this process and continue the outreach. I'm not sure if staff has scheduled any more opportunities for representatives of the business community to interact with them, but I would encourage them to continue doing that in case there are more questions. It makes the process transparent. What's unique about this situation is that You're asking, and not every business that is situated here is owned or operated by a resident. And so, you're essentially asking residents to make decisions for businesses that may not have an opportunity to vote as well. That said, there is something that businesses and residents have in common, and that's meeting a budget, making sure they're making sound financial decisions, and living within their means. So while businesses may not be able to ultimately vote on this measure, they would like to know what is in this measure. And again, I want to acknowledge city staff helping us in the real estate community acknowledge what may ultimately be in this measure. So again, being transparent, being open to the business community as you develop this is an opportunity for businesses to, while they may not be able to vote on this, at least understand what their future can be like and what decisions they may need to make if this does ultimately go into effect. And The last thing that I would ask is that the information found on the website is good. It's a good start. The examples and models that staff have shared with you tonight are also extremely helpful. The more examples, the more models that you can create, especially as you hone in on a specific example or specific option, would be extremely helpful. You're going from a system that, again, has been in place for literally decades to a completely different system. And in some cases, it may require accounting and understanding of budgeting issues that some businesses may have never even taken into consideration. So the more modeling and examples and simulations that you can provide would be very helpful. Thank you for your time tonight, and I'm available if you have any questions.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Stark.

Okay. Thank you.

Are there any other folks in the audience who would like to speak to this item? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online that would like to speak to this item?

No, Your Honor.

Great. So I'm going to go ahead and return it back to City Manager. You heard some comments from the public. Any comments on those comments?

No, we'd be happy to hold more informational sessions. We'd be happy to provide more examples. We're here to partner and serve our community. We'd be happy to work with them further.

Great, and I do want to, Mr. Banoon, go back to maybe Ms. Lopez's comments regarding grocery stores. Can you pull up the chart that would kind of give the council some indication as to how many grocery stores we have in the city of Newark? Would that be reflected in one of those charts?

If I could have my PowerPoint back on the screen, please. slide four please thank you mr miranda um so uh so these produce retail that would fall under the third category so it would be general slash retail uh so we currently have 631 businesses in the city of newark who would be classified under that category I don't have the exact number of how many produce retailers there are, but I'd be happy to look into that.

I would appreciate that if you do that. And let's take for just a moment a grocery retail store, because those are the folks that are here, and we want to be responsive to those folks that have taken time out of their day to appear and hopefully be able to answers to some of their concerns. The current tax, can you go to the charts that would show me what their current tax would be under either, do you have that on, is it number five? So again, this would show that if it's a business less than $100,000, they would actually see a reduction in their tax.

Correct. The examples we took a look at, as you can see, there's three general slash retail illustrative examples. The second one there in light gray. General retail, home-based retail, 25,000 gross receipts. Let's see a slight reduction. The shoe store, we just picked the shoe store at random. Gross receipts of $200,000. Currently have 137, excuse me, they'd currently be paying $137. Under option one and two, it would be $68.

So let me ask a hypothetical, Mr. Banoon, if I may, and I hate to put the finance director on a... on the spot. Let's take, for example, you have a grocery store in the city of Newark who generates gross receipts in the amount of $10 million. Mr. Mnuchin, are we able to calculate what their tax would be on that specific example today?

It's relatively straightforward. It would just take a moment. So you would, there you go. So up to $100,000 is a flat rate of $25. Anything above and beyond that in the general retail category would be subject to the rate of 0.043. Okay. So 4,455.

That would be the current tax today?

No, that would be under both proposals, that would be- 4,450?

Correct. What would be the current tax today? Somewhere in the neighborhood of between 1,500, 2,000, somewhere in that area?

Around $2,000.

Okay. So if you're a $10 million grocery store, and I'm just picking that number for simplicity, your tax in essence would go from $2,000 to about $4,400 per year. Okay. Okay. Other colleagues comments? I wanna just lay a foundation if I may real quickly. One, we're not making any decision tonight. This is gonna go to the Newark voters and the Newark voters are gonna have their say. And as you all know, we're big believers in democracy as we demonstrated earlier tonight. And it hasn't always worked in our favor. We brought a utility tax to the voters a number of years ago and it lost. and we had to make some changes to how we operated government here in the city of Newark with that loss of revenue. We have not raised, and as Mr. Mnuchin mentioned, we have not raised this business tax since 1970, though I think I heard recently it was actually 1965. So we're really looking at 55 to 60 years, we've not really made any substantive changes to the tax measure. Yet we continue to see significant increase in cost of government here in the city. We know that there are cities out there that are looking to hire our police officers, the best and the brightest in our community, by offering them more pay. And we've had to look at the salaries that we pay our police officers because we want to make sure that we're competitive so that we keep that outstanding police force. And we heard that from one of our speakers tonight, the outstanding police that we have in our community. We're also looking at significant infrastructure improvements around our city. We're looking at two libraries that we want to build. There's a lot of things that the community is expecting us to deliver on. And we need to find some funding revenue sources that are going to help us meet the community needs. We're talking about a... revenue source in the neighborhood of five, five and a half million dollars. That's gonna help us move in that direction. You all recall the budget discussion we had just a few weeks ago, where if you look at the out years, 28, 29, 29, 30, unless we make some changes, we're gonna be in deficit spending. And we see what's happening in other communities that are dealing with deficits. They're struggling to provide services and they're looking at wholesale changes. And many of these communities are looking at tax measures themselves. We've always been very fiscally responsible in the City of New York. We will continue to be fiscally responsible. We only come to our residents when we find there's a critical need, and I find that this is one of those situations. Our businesses, for the most part, have been, in all honesty, I'll be honest, have been underpaying for many, many years. We probably should have brought this to the council 25, 30 years ago and built in a cost of increase so that it wasn't going from $2,000 to $4,500 in one year. We apologize for that. But we're dealing with services that our residents are expecting us to deliver on and it's our responsibility to at least give the voters the opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. Comments? Council Member Little.

I have a question since we have David Stark here. David, David, I have a question for you. So my question is, I'm curious, you know, one thing I'm thinking about is real estate agents, if they go and they purchase, you know, they have a house and they may be headquartered here in Newark, but they sell four houses in Fremont, nine houses in Hayward, four houses in Newark, are they going to pay? I'm noticing the gross, I'm noticing net, would they Could you give us a little more clarification on that?

I'm happy to tag team with staff on this because that was a question that we had.

Mr. Banoon?

Yes, excellent question. The way business license taxes are structured as it relates to realtors and brokers, as far as what is included as gross receipts, it would only stem from commissions that occur from transactions that occur here in Newark. So if you have a realtor or broker who's situated here in Newark, maintains a home office or a storefront office, whatever the case may be, If they do transactions here in Newark, yes, the revenue received from those transactions as commissions would be included as part of gross receipts. If they make transactions outside of the city of Newark and neighboring jurisdictions, the commissions received from those transactions would not be included as gross receipts reporting to us.

Okay, good to know. That's a question I have for that because one thing I'm concerned about, and I know there's people that we have discussions and things, but If someone's selling five homes for $2 million each and it's that $10 million, I'm glad that we're not doing it on gross on everything because that's a ridiculous amount when you're just looking at the commission, things like that. So a lot of these numbers that we're looking at are gonna be based on the commission, not the gross sale of the homes, is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay, good. Good. Thank you. Oh, I have one more question, if I may. I'm currently looking at my business license that I have with the city.

Well, that's a different topic for a different discussion. Staff will contact her regarding her delinquent. Oh, it's not delinquent?

No, no, it's just my question. No, no, no, no, that's not no. Don't throw me under the bus like that. My question is, are we also, there's other fees as well, like a registration fee, penalty fee, a state CASP. Is this all gonna be changed? And also the home occupation fee. Is it just going to be one fee that we're working on or are we also bringing all these other ones in and going to drop the other ones, the other fees? Do you understand what I'm asking? Does that make sense what I'm asking? Because I know we have additional fees. Is this the one fee, what we're doing right now is just going to be one fee for everything or is it going to be still the additional fees as well? Okay, that's my question. So the other fees are still going to be separate. So we're mainly just looking at business license tax. Thank you.

Councillor Gondal.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the mental, though, maybe.

That was not my intent.

Not the perfect time. So first of all, recognizing that we all support democracy, all five of us face the voters, and we're elected to make judgments based on our best judgment of what we think is best for the community. And the state law literally requires that four fifths of our council is willing to go forward with an item. So I do appreciate the effort to reform the business tax and I agree that the existing system should be updated. However, I have serious concerns about the proposed approach and the significant tax increase that comes with it. A substantial increase in business taxes will have real consequences. It will dampen economic development, it will increase costs that are ultimately passed on to consumers, and make Newark less competitive when businesses are deciding where to locate, expand, or invest. My biggest concern is that the in terms of the structure is based, that the tax is based on gross receipts rather than a measure that reflects the business's actual earnings. This creates an unfair burden for businesses that operate on very thin margins such as grocery stores. or other high volume retailers. For example, imagine a business that purchases $9.5 million worth of goods and adds a value through a processing of service and sells those goods for 10 million. Under this proposal, the business would be taxed on the entire 10 million in gross receipts, even though the net margin was only half a million. That does not accurately reflect the business's economic reality and results in a disproportionate tax burden compared with businesses that have a much higher profit margin. I understand that state law may prevent cities from taxing net revenue, but accepting that limitation does not mean this proposal is the only option. There are ways to design a fairer system by adjusting rates, creating classifications, and providing relief for businesses that would otherwise be disproportionately affected. Those alternatives deserve careful consideration before adopting a system that creates obvious inequities. I also don't believe that the fact that neighboring cities have adopted similar taxes or charge higher rates is sufficiently justification for us to do the same. Our responsibility is to adopt a tax structure that is fair, economically sound, and appropriate for our community. I encourage that we develop a BLT reform that modernizes the system without creating unintended consequences for employers, consumers, and our local economy, and based on maintaining the level of revenue we have rather than a major tax increase. Thank you.

Just a comment, Council Member Gondal. It's our responsibility to focus our efforts on the financial health of our community. Under your scheme, we the City of Newark are going to be dealing with deficits in no fewer than two to three years. We have a responsibility to the public to have a fiscal budget that maintains services to which our residents expect. The scenario that you described puts us in a precarious situation financially. Other comments? Council Member Del Contancio.

Yes, Your Honor, thank you. In thinking about Newark and what makes Newark really special is the idea that we do have a small community. And I think that because we have such a small community, everyone shares the idea that we're all putting effort in together to maintain the community and so what that means is it could mean our parks it could mean our roads but it's also public safety so that means our first responders and the buildings that some of them live in and reside in for example our firefighters and so it seems that the money that would be generated or assuming that the voters decided to pass this then it would be a benefit to the community and so Because of that, then I really feel that we really should give it to the community to determine if this is a way to generate funds, because we have heard some presentations regarding a future deficit if we continue with our current spending without generating funds. And so this is an idea that's on the table, and I believe in democracy. And so perhaps we could give it to the voters.

Thank you, Council Member. Vice Mayor.

Yeah, I think I understand the dream of being able to add every category for every possible thing. I think that's why we ran into trouble with our existing model. That's why it became outdated is because there are too many classifications that is leading to us in a position where our BLT is taxing We're not taxing the business activity that we're trying to, and this is an attempt to reform that. And by making the same errors that were made before, I don't see how we end up in a positive situation in any kind of long-term scenario. I will say we're looking at two options today, and we're going to need to come back in two weeks and look at one option. It's not a strong preference. I would be more amenable to option two because I do worry about the property rental. and that tax getting passed onto the renters and seeing essentially the tax getting risen on businesses twice for that reason. So I would be more amenable to option two, looking at these two, but I'm open to more expansive discussion in two weeks on either one of these, but I think staff is looking for direction on one of these options and I would be most amenable to option two.

I support option two as well. Mr. Benun, I hate to put you on the spot and I hate to spit all things, but I do recognize as we were mindful of the impact on renters in terms of pass through, I'm also mindful of our grocery store owners and the very small margins from what I understand historically they've had to deal with over the many, many years to provide quality food products to our community. Have you or staff given any thought to opportunities to look at reducing the tax on grocery stores? in light of the comments that we've heard last council meeting and this council meeting. Has there been any thought or discussion on that item?

We haven't had the time to do any full analysis, but we would be happy to do that.

return in two weeks and and and we would be able to bring the ordinance at that same time that would be true that yes that would be correct okay i i would ask if my colleagues are agreeable um to have staff kind of look at the uh tax as it impacts grocery stores and i know that we've i know we're creating an essence and maybe another category but maybe because of the unique nature of the business, we can carve out the actual number of grocery stores in our community and kind of see what that tax looks like for those businesses and see if there's some opportunity to provide some relief to the grocery stores. I certainly would be willing to at least look at that opportunity. Any questions or comments on that, Council Member Grindahl?

I support that idea. It's well established that for public health purposes, having fresh food close at hand in our community is very important. In addition, we have a number of small grocery stores that serve ethnic communities. So I think taking a look at that is probably beneficial.

So if there's no objection, I'm gonna ask the city manager to look at that opportunity and Mr. Mnuchin, do certainly your best as your staff always do to try to get that, you know, maybe one or two different scenarios to the council for our consideration in advance of the council meeting so we'll have an opportunity to, in essence, maybe, I think if I hear the vice mayor, Councilman Contancio, did you have a preference on option one or two at this point?

I do have a preference on option two. I also agree that if possible, staff could also have more information about the amount of grocery stores, and then that way we would have an understanding. Although I know previously we were thinking not to itemize more categories, but in this case, because we're dealing directly with food that helps everyone in our community, I think that we should have a better understanding before a decision is made.

Councilman Little, do you have a preference on option one or two with the understanding that, and the reason I ask that is because in essence, I'm asking the city manager to come back with another second option. If we agree that option two seems to be what we are focused on, then we would have another option to at least look at the grocery stores as another option for us to consider.

I'm also in unison with option two. I like it a lot. I really think one of the biggest things that I admire about it is the property rental side of it, because the catch is if you increase the taxes, it's just going to roll over to the tenants, which is back to one of the life skills and one of the life things we have to pay if we like it or not. So that's to go from 225 to 075 is a big deal. So I really, really like that change in it. So thank you to the staff.

So I think you're hearing from the council that we are suggesting option number two, but in essence, creating a new option that looks at grocery stores. And I think it's for the same reason we talked about the rental market in terms of the pass through to tenants. This is obviously would be a pass through to our customers who may be on a low income situation dealing with other inflationary issues that the cost would simply be passed on to them as well in terms of their food. So does that provide sufficient direction?

Correct, Mayor, that does provide sufficient direction. So what we will do is we'll return in two weeks. We'll provide a detailed presentation as to all the necessary resolutions that the council would have to approve in order to place this item for voter consideration. As a part of that presentation, we would include two permutations of the proposed ordinance. One would be option two that is presented on the screen here, as well as another option that would potentially look at a reduction of that rate for produce producers.

ANY FINAL COMMENTS? VICE MAYOR?

VICE MAYOR? NO, I JUST WANT TO SAY NO, I JUST WANT TO SAY EXPRESSED WORRY ABOUT ADDING EXPRESSED WORRY ABOUT ADDING MORE CATEGORIES. MORE CATEGORIES. I THINK GROCERY STORES DO FIT I THINK GROCERY STORES DO FIT INTO A UNIQUE NEED THAT WE'RE INTO A UNIQUE NEED THAT WE'RE STILL WELL BELOW WHERE WE WERE STILL WELL BELOW WHERE WE WERE FROM OUR EXISTING BLT THAT FROM OUR EXISTING BLT THAT WAS SEVERAL DECADES OLD BY THE WAS SEVERAL DECADES OLD BY THE TIME I WAS BORN. That kind of fine-tuning of it for what I would consider essential services is I don't think puts us in the same position that we're in now.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there's no voting on this item tonight. So we will return on the 23rd to have further discussion on option. We'll continue with option two, but then looking at another option that takes into consideration the grocery stores. I want to thank all those folks that appeared tonight and spoke. Again, this council listens, we hear, and we certainly are sensitive to the impacts on our community. So thank you for that.

I do have one question.

Yes, ma'am. We greatly appreciate it. It makes it easier for us. You heard me throughout kind of a situation of 10 million. I have no idea what the market looks like in terms of grocery stores. So any information that grocery stores can give us relative to their gross receipts and how we can then work with those numbers to come up with a tax that's reasonable under those circumstances would be helpful. Thank you.

I do have an additional question. If we're gonna open up a category of groceries or of that sort, would we be doing a convenience stores as well or like little stores that have food? I mean, I'm just saying this is part of a Pandora's box.

No, I think any grocery store and anyone that sells food, in my mind, I would at least characterize. Your thoughts, Mr. Mnuchin?

Well, I think that Council Member brought up an interesting question in terms of the Pandora's box and this opening up a can of worms, whatever metaphor you want to select. Potentially, without consulting our tax consultant, a potential elegant solution would be to simply lower retail across the board. If I could go back to slide four, Mr. Miranda. Thank you, Mr. Miranda. As the council can see, we have 631 businesses in general retail, currently gross receipts of $1.3 million. Actually, that's a million, sorry. So we currently receive revenue of $396,000. Potential solution would be to come up with a rate that would keep the revenue somewhere close within that $400,000 range and not increase up to 571. and that's a question for council if we were able to come up with some sort of calculation to essentially try to keep that revenue close to the existing amount would that be something that the council would consider that would obviate the need to do a separate category for uh producers and go into that kind of pandora's box situation is that that would of course affect all retailers across the board not just produce retailers.

Yeah, I could support that. Then I'll turn to my colleagues for their comments because one, we're talking about folks that hire young people in our community, first jobs for teenagers, et cetera. So there's a real benefit to, and we're not talking about a substantial amount of money. We're talking about, you know, 375,000. I think we, as we looked at the manufacturing, we actually, you know, pretty much made that up just by raising the manufacturing for the most part. So it certainly would simplify the process. Right, which is the goal here. If we stayed with option two and kept the tax the same for all retailers, I think that would certainly simplify the situation as you described. It sounds like, Vice Mayor, you support that?

Yeah, I mean, I would be more amenable to that. SORT OF SOLUTION RATHER THAN SORT OF SOLUTION RATHER THAN TRYING TO CREATE ANOTHER CATEGORY TRYING TO CREATE ANOTHER CATEGORY AND CREATING CONTROVERSIES DOWN AND CREATING CONTROVERSIES DOWN THE LINE OF WHAT COUNTS IN THAT THE LINE OF WHAT COUNTS IN THAT CATEGORY. CATEGORY. THAT WAS YOUR COMMENT AS WELL.

THAT WAS YOUR COMMENT AS WELL. IF I HAD A FOOD OPTION I COULD AT MY RETAIL STORE AND AM I CONSIDERED NOW? I'M NOT JOKING. IF I SALE SOME SODAS, COULD I BE CONSIDERED A FOOD VENDOR NOW? IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE AN IDEA OF IT SO THAT MAYBE THE IDEA OF THE WHOLE CATEGORY GOING DOWN A LITTLE BIT, I THINK THAT'S AN IDEA ON THAT. THERE COULD BE SOME LOOPHOLES, THERE COULD BE SOME STUFF. I SEE YOUR POINT OF VIEW, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT, MAKE A LINE OF A OR B SO WE CAN MAKE A DISTINCTION ON IT.

Councilman Cantancia, thoughts on that?

Yes, actually I think that would make sense as well because otherwise we would have to recreate the wheel as to redefining what we mean by grocery store.

Okay, so I think that was a very astute suggestion on your part, Mr. Bennu, thank you for that. And so at this point, the council on the 23rd will basically be looking at option two only with the understanding that the general retail will stay the same in terms of its business tax REVENUE THAT WE WOULD ANTICIPATE RECEIVING WITH THE REVENUE THAT WE WOULD ANTICIPATE RECEIVING WITH THE ADJUSTMENT ON MANUFACTURING AND ADJUSTMENT ON MANUFACTURING AND PROPERTY RENTAL AS PROPOSED BY PROPERTY RENTAL AS PROPOSED BY STAFF UNDER OPTION 2. STAFF UNDER OPTION 2.

IF WE'RE COMING UP WITH A NEW IF WE'RE COMING UP WITH A NEW OPTION, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE BOTH OPTION, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE BOTH OPTIONS. OPTIONS. OKAY. OKAY. I THINK I WOULD BE MORE I THINK I WOULD BE MORE AMENABLE TO SOMETHING THAT WE JUST AMENABLE TO SOMETHING THAT WE JUST DISCUSSED. DISCUSSED. THE WORK ON THIS OPTION 2, WHAT THE WORK ON THIS OPTION 2 Let's include it, and we'll have the discussion and make sure that that's the right way going forward.

Sufficient? Then that would be fine. All right. All right. Well, if nothing else, we demonstrate in Newark that we don't chit-chat behind closed doors amongst each other. We make decisions here after a thoughtful discussion that are in the best – best for our community. Thank you again, Mr. Lopez. I appreciate what you do for our community. We're under city manager updates. City Manager Bonneau.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. Mr. Miranda, if you could please pull up the PowerPoint slide. We have Yes, we have five items for your information this evening. First, next slide, please. Oh, cool. Groovin' at the Grove returns this Friday, tomorrow evening, Friday, July 10th. Summer concert series, we are featuring Cisco Kid. This is an evening of free live music, great company, fun community atmosphere from 5 to 7.30 p.m. at Shirley Sisk Grove. Gates open at 4 p.m. The public is invited for this free event. Secondly, candidate nomination period opens July 13th for the November 3rd, 2026 general election. Offices on the ballot include the two-year term for the office of mayor and two city council four-year terms. Nomination period begins July 13th. and closes August 7th. Candidates must schedule an appointment with the city clerk to pull papers. To be eligible, candidates must be qualified voters in the city of Newark at least 18 years old on election day, Newark resident, and otherwise meet the requirements of California law. Third, celebrate at Newark's Mariachi Festival on Sunday, July 19th. Join us for Newark's annual Mariachi Festival, a free community celebration featuring live mariachi music ballet folklorico performances, a community resource fair, food trucks, and family-friendly activities. The date is Sunday, July 19th, from 1 to 5 p.m., also at Shirley Sisk Grove. Newark's Parks and Open Spaces. We are inviting our community to take our survey. We are currently updating our parks, recreation, and open space element. This is a long-range plan that will help guide the future of Newark's parks, trails, recreation facilities, and open spaces. It is a 10-minute survey. We ask that you share your ideas on how we can improve parks, protect natural areas, and prepare for future community needs. The feedback we receive will help shape the plan and future investments in our community. The survey is available in multiple language and at the website listed right there. It does close on August 7th. Next to last announcement, public review is open for proposed Cherry Street housing development project. This is Harvest. This is a 274 proposed unit rental housing development on the Ohlone College site on Cherry Street. As part of the environmental review process required under CEQA, the city has issued a notice of preparation for environmental impact report. That notice of preparation is available for public review through July 13th, and community members are encouraged to provide their comments by july 13th at 5 pm and as always more information can be found on our website and last but not least i'd like to acknowledge and thank all the public safety staff that worked on july 4th holiday law enforcement and fire safety staff were out in our community, it's not an easy task. A lot of activity taking place that evening. And I thank everybody for their tremendous efforts in safeguarding our public and community that evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mnune. Council comments. I'll start with Council Member Contoncio.

Yes, thank you, Your Honor. Actually, I did have one point of clarification for staff regarding item E2. When we moved it, I believe it was Vice Mayor Jorgens that moved and I seconded, but when we voted, I'm not sure if our votes were reflected. I thought that the first two were grayed out and the other three were green. I'm not sure.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Madam Clerk?

I believe Mayor rescheduled it and it was all yes.

OK. OK, great. Thank you. And regarding comments, I believe that July 4th was grand. I was able to go to the pancake breakfast as well. And so that's always wonderful. And also see everyone in the community. I did have one last note, which is to also always shop Newark. And Jeffrey and I were able to celebrate our 25th anniversary, so that's the silver. And we've known each other since middle school. So there we go.

Tell us more about it. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE EVENT THAT I HAVE COMING UP THAT I'VE ORGANIZED IN AUGUST. IT'S GOING TO BE SATURDAY, AUGUST 29th. IT'S THE FIRST ANNUAL NEWARK RECREATION SPORT AND WELLNESS FAIR. IT'S IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE NEWARK LIBRARY, ALAMEDA LIBRARIES AND EAST BAY REGIONAL PARKS. AND IT'S GOING TO BE BASICALLY FOR THE SENIOR CITIZENS A CHANCE TO MEET It's to help with the wellness. It's to help with social wellness, mental wellness, also physical wellness. And so we're gonna have a lot of like, all of the nonprofits here in Newark are invited to come out. So all the football teams, the soccer teams, all the groups are welcome to come out, have a booth and talk about it. So we want the kids of Newark to come out, see what options are available and invite the cricket group to come out as well. And the goal is to see what outdoor activities are available for kids if they wanna join a club or if they wanna do something of that sort. For senior citizens, I'm inviting a lot of the social clubs, so not only can they do fun stuff outdoors with hiking and things of that sort, but they can also make new friends and kind of help a lot with loneliness and social wellness. So those are the activities. I am partnering with the Newark Library to do this, and we'll have that coming up, so I'm very excited about that. Slightly off topic, I want to talk about something a little bit different. I think it's kind of important. I don't usually talk about things like this, but... Last, two weeks ago, I was in Hawaii for vacation and I got a chance to go to Pearl Harbor. And I wanted just to express to you guys what I felt there. And what I mean by that, it was when I went over to see the USS Arizona, it hits you because for our freedom, and I'm mentioning reason, I mean, just because of 4th of July and our 250th anniversary, we had 1,177 young men die. instantly when they were attacked. And you'd read about it and you hear about it and you maybe watch the movie with the famous Hollywood actors in it, but until you're there, You truly do not understand what people have done to sacrifice for the freedom that we have today. And I don't usually get very emotional, but it got really traumatizing because it's just like these, and by the way, I found out through the park guide, some of them lied about their age and they were actually 15 or 16. My son is 16. And just the idea of these kids dying for us so that we can declare our independence and have a free country where we can have our democracy, where we can do all these things, it just hits you at a different level. And one of the things that really hit me and I think is important is that a lot of the service members who were able to live through that, they actually asked to be buried there. So many of them, they just buried the very last one in 2012, and one thing that I read there that I just fell apart crying was that when the scuba divers go to leave the urns, that when they leave the urns, the water sucks it in and takes it in, and it's like that's the way the USS Hornet accepts and brings you back in with the group. So I just want to let you guys know, I know it sounds really cheesy and maybe what I'm saying is, but a lot of people have fought for us and died for us so we can continue to have our independence that we have. And I think we need to understand that it's a really big deal. And the fact that we could have people come out here tonight and talk and mention things, Lupa's come out several times to mention her points, that we have it and no one gets hurt and we're not going to have police officers coming and arresting people FOR THEIR OPINION. I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT WE DISCUSS THAT. THAT WE DISCUSS THAT. SO JUST TO CELEBRATE OUR 250TH SO JUST TO CELEBRATE OUR 250TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY, I JUST WANT TO YEAR ANNIVERSARY, I JUST WANT TO REMEMBER EVERYBODY WHO HAS DIED REMEMBER EVERYBODY WHO HAS DIED SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THE LIBERTY SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THE LIBERTY THAT WE HAVE TODAY.

THAT WE HAVE TODAY. WELL STATED. WELL STATED. WELL STATED. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

THAT WAS VERY WELL STATED AND VERY MUCH APPRECIATE YOU SHARING THAT, COUNCILMEMBER. AND I CAN'T FOLLOW THAT ANY FURTHER. JUST WANT TO I HOPE EVERYONE HAD A WONDERFUL 4TH OF JULY. I HOPE THEY REMEMBER THE PEOPLE WHO DIED TO KEEP OUR FREEDOM.

THANK YOU. VICE MAYOR JORGENS. YEAH. SO I'VE BEEN SHARING STORIES FROM NEW YORK HISTORY TO CELEBRATE OUR TOWN. from mostly the period of 1876 to 1955, but I thought, you know, given how we started our meeting, it would be fun to talk about what Newark was like in 1776 and then in 1850 when California became a state. So in 1776, Newark would have been entirely populated by the Ohlone people. That had been the case for centuries and wouldn't change until 1797 with the establishment of Mission San Jose. Fast forward to 1850, the What would become Newark at the time was a part of the Rancho Potrero de los Cerritos of Augustin Alviso and Thomas Pacheco that had been a rancho that was granted by the Mexican government during that period of time. So I think as we think about 1776 and 1850 and we think about our community, it's also important to remember the importance of the Ohlone people and the people here during the rancho period and their contributions to building the community to what it is today.

Not so quick, Vice Mayor. So the Vice Mayor is planning a historical tour.

Yes, this Saturday, if I recall. That is true. This Saturday at 11 a.m., we'll be meeting at the corner of Rich Avenue and Sycamore Street. We'll be walking a little bit in Old Town, seeing some of the sights and telling some of the stories of the town of Newark.

So I certainly encourage residents to take part in that, the history of our community. And again, I'm going to be as similar to Councillor Grendel. I'm not going to follow up with any comments. I thought your comments were well taken. Those of us that have children, and many of us do, recognize the value of life. And one life lost in a war is one life too many. And I did see the USS Arizona and saw what you saw as well. And we take for granted in this country the liberty and the freedoms that we have. Because we're not always as nice to each other as we really should be and need to be. And your comments just kind of remind us that there are a lot of folks that fought to give us that opportunity to have discussion, dissension, and different viewpoints, but at the end of the day, to still be respectful of the other person that's making that decision. that statement so we we need to live by that our country is swayed a little bit away from that my hope is that we'll return to that where we can have conversations um land of the free because of the brave there you go so with that being said uh we are not adjourning because this council will be going into um closed session um anything else i need to say relative to that mr benoon and any we need to take public comments any comments on the public uh on the consent item

Closed session item.

Closed session. Closed session.

I don't see any hand raised on Zoom.

Okay, so with that being said, we will go to closed session and close the council meeting after that. Thank you.

Sorry about that. No, no, no. It's only after I come back.

Yes. Recording stopped.