City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call the city council meeting to order.

Recording in progress.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the city council meeting to order. Let the record reflect that all council members are here this evening. I've asked Andrew, a local Boy Scout here, to come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Andrew, would you come on up? Ladies and gentlemen, please stand. Go ahead and raise the flag, Andrew.

I pledge allegiance.

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Andrew. Let's hear it for Andrew. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we've started a tradition where I indicate at the beginning of the meeting that we will be closing the meeting in memory of a significant individual in the city of Newark. And I'm gonna do so in recognition of Mr. John Matthews. John Matthews, affectionately known as Vinu, went to see the Lord. And I'm just reading from his obituary here. On August the 11th, 2026, leaving a legacy of faith, curiosity, and deep devotion to his family. Born in November of 1967, his family's from Mumbai, India. Vinu grew up with an insatiable appetite for learning. His sharp mathematical mind naturally led him to the National Institute of Technology. where he earned his degree in electrical engineering in 1989. Venu's professional journey began with a consulting firm in India, which brought him to Chicago in 1992. After spending time in Florida and returning to Chicago, his life took a beautiful turn when he married Maya on November 22, 1997. Eager to swap the Midwestern chill for warmer skies, boy, that's a tradition around here, Maya persuaded Venu to relocate to the Bay Area where they settled and raised their two beloved children, Ritu and Mathai. Energized by complexity, Venu enjoyed a dynamic career in computer technology. His work spanned early-stage startups, retail giants, and four FAANG companies. Beyond his career, he approached life with vigor, cycling through passions for weightlifting, swimming, running, and hiking. Bennu balanced this rich life appreciation with good food. He was no stranger to the kitchen. Bennu would barbecue on summer Sundays and frequently make all of his classics like a palm, edi, and biryani. And I'll ask anybody of Indian descent to certainly correct me on any of those pronunciations, often researching new techniques and recipes to make for his family. At the heart of Venu's life was his overwhelming faith, an active member of the Thoma Church in San Francisco. He anchored his household in daily prayer and demonstrated quiet, humble servant leadership whatever trials came his way. Venu met with grace, trusting completely in God's presence and bolstered by a quiet assurance that kept his spiritual steadfast. He leaves behind his wife, Maya Matthews, his children Ritu, Matthews and Mathai, Matthews and his three siblings. So we wanna make sure that we recognize him. But why is he so important to the city of Newark, you ask? John was a Newark resident since the year February of 2000. He enjoyed his weekly visits to the Newark Library, extensively using their catalogs and sometimes requesting additional books when he had exhausted what was available on the shelves. Newark Day's festival was his favorite city activity, which he enjoyed participating in once his children started at the local schools. Even after they graduated, he enjoyed the music and festivities in September as much as the cherished Newark Symphonic Winds concert. Living in Newark gave him the flexibility to pursue outdoor activities and work without a commute, offering easy access to trails. Again, you ask, why are we recognizing the new? A number of years ago, the new came up with a proposal for the Newark Police Department to consider. We were experiencing a rash of auto theft as it relates to, thank you, catalytic converters. And Venu came up with a thought, why don't we have these catalytic converters inscribed so that if they should be stolen, there's a way of tracking them back through the person that they're selling them to. Well, the city of Newark thought that was a great idea and launched its catalytic converter program where citizens were provided access to a local auto dealership or repair shop where they could get their catalytic converter inscribed. And so again, as we've talked about here on many occasions, ideas can come from anywhere in our community. And I want to recognize the new for taking the time to advise the city that here's an opportunity to hopefully reduce the number of catalytic converters in your city. And we did see a significant reduction in the theft of catalytic converter. So we will close the meeting tonight in memory of John Matthews. So thank you for that.

Colleagues, would you join me at the podium please?

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna do something a little bit off cue. This is an opportunity to recognize an outstanding employee in the city of Newark. And we wanna take the moment to do that. So can I ask Mr. David Bennu, our city manager, to stand and come over and be recognized, please? It's a great honor that this council recognizes Mr. David Benun on being designated an ICMA credential manager. Whereas Mr. David Benun graduated with distinction in general scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his law degree from the University of California School of Law. Whereas Dr. David J. Benun officially began his service. Who wrote that, doctor?

That's hilarious.

That is hilarious. Who wrote that? That's hilarious. How about that? Dr. David J. Benun officially began his service to the City of Newark in 2012 when he was appointed City Attorney by the City Council after several years in private practice. Whereas Dr. David J. Benun was appointed City Manager by the Newark City Council in December of 2018 and has since provided leadership in implementing the City Council's vision and delivering quality service to the Newark community. Whereas throughout his tenure with the City of Newark, Dr. David, I'm sorry, You know, my mother always told me, Mike, when you come in the house, try to use your inside voice. So I was actually trying to use my inside voice there. Whereas through his tenure with the City of Newark, Dr. David J. Benune has demonstrated outstanding leadership, professionalism, and a commitment to ethical and effective local government service. Whereas the International City-County Management Association, ICMA, is a professional association dedicated to advancing excellence in local government management, and its ICMA credentialed manager designation recognizes managers who meet rigorous standards for education, professional experience, leadership, and ethical and professional excellence. Whereas Dr. David J. Bonneau was recently recognized by the ICMA Executive Board as an ICMA credentialed manager candidate because he was within two years of meeting the program's required years of service, he received the candidate's designation which will transition to the ICMA credentialed manager designation by the end of 2026. Whereas the notable achievement places Dr. David J. Banoone among fewer than 1,800 local government professionals to have earned the ICMA credentialed since its establishment in 2001, one of 1,800, that alone deserves recognition. Whereas this achievement reflects Dr. David J. Boone's, I'm never gonna call you doctor after this, you know that, right? Reflects Dr. David J. Boone's extensive experience, dedication to professional development and commitment to excellence in local government, as well as his continued service to the city of Newark and its residents. Now, therefore, I, Michael Hannon, on behalf of my colleagues, on behalf of my colleagues on the City Council, we do hereby extend our pride and commend Dr. David J. Benun for his outstanding achievement and his continued dedication to the City of Newark. Let's keep in mind, born in Newark, educated in Newark, taught in Newark, and now is our City Manager in Newark. So congratulations, Mr. Benun, on behalf of the entire City Council.

OK, sure.

Wow. In case anybody's wondering, it really does say doctor here. Wow. That's quite an honorary title. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, first and foremost, thank you, Mayor and the Council, for this lovely commendation. This is truly spectacular. I'm kind of at a loss for words, which for those of you who know me is quite an anomaly. But seriously, thank you so much for this recognition. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to serve the Newark community and that's because the Newark community is awesome. We have so many great community organizations, so many talented individuals who live here, who volunteer here, who work here. It's a truly spectacular community. I'm also blessed to work with such a spectacular group of professional and diligent City of Newark employees, and many of you are here this evening. It is a true pleasure to work with all of you. You guys are really just awesome and make this whole organization so unique and so special. Last but not least, my family is here, my wife and kids, my mother and father-in-law. Nice to see you. My sister-in-law is here as well. Five of the group are dedicated 49er fans, so thank you for missing the game and coming out here. And you guys obviously mean the world to me, and thank you so much for the support and allowing me to do the job that I love doing in serving the community that I was born, raised, and continue to love. So I know it's a sacrifice for the entire family, but thank you so much for all that you do. I appreciate it. Mariah's hiding behind somebody. Thank you. Yes. Perhaps after the intermission or? OK. All right.

One, two, three, go doctors.

By the way, for you 49er fans, we have a strict policy here in the council chambers that all phones must be turned off. There will be nobody following the game. I don't want to hear any applause or encouragement for the team. Council members excluded. All righty, thank you very much. Mr. Mnune, we appreciate what you do. Make sure you keep up the good work.

Okay, thank you.

Now I'd like to recognize Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and I would ask Angela Crawford to join me at the podium, please. These are always tough proclamations because who among us have not had family members touched by cancer, whether it be breast cancer, lung cancer, childhood cancer, leukemia, whatever the case may be. We've all had family members, friends, associates touched by cancer. It's just one of those... terrible diseases that continues to impact families. But we're going to recognize Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, whereas according to the American Childhood Cancer Organization, childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children in the United States, and one of every six children are now not expected to live past five years of age. Whereas the American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 9,680 children in the United States under 15 years of age will be diagnosed with cancer in 2026. This becomes more personal for me because I had a niece and a nephew that both had childhood cancer. Both have survived. One's going to be heading off to college, and the other one is now working as a young adult. So my family's been fortunate that they've been able to navigate that journey. Whereas most children cannot be treated at a local hospital and families must face the disruption of relocating to receive treatment at a regional cancer center. And whereas pediatric cancer research receives only 4% of all federal funding for cancer research, a fact that demonstrates why awareness and fundraising participation is so important. Whereas due to children's bodies still growing and cancer treatments largely geared towards use on adults, children are more likely to experience long-term side effects from treatments. Whereas childhood cancer treatment is handled by a team of pediatric oncologists and surgeons, radiation oncologists, pediatric oncology nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants. Sons of the most important members of pediatric cancer patients teams are experienced parents who navigate and advocate on behalf of their children. not sons, some. Whereas as a result of major treatment advances in recent decades, more than 85% of children with cancer will survive now five years or more. Thank goodness for that. Now therefore, I, Michael Hanna, on behalf of my colleagues on the City Council, proclaim September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in Newark and encourage everyone to join the fight against childhood cancer and to participate in activities and events that promote awareness, of childhood cancer and support families affected by this devastating disease, not just during September, but all year round. So Angela, it's my great honor to present this to you and send thank you. to the Jammers and all the work that you do to not only raise funds to help battle cancer, but get the word out to the communities. And that's, in my mind, equally important. Because the more knowledgeable we are on these diseases, the more likely we're able to combat them. So let me present this to you. You're welcome.

Let's see how well I use my inside voice here too. Thank you City Council and Mayor Hannon for doing this proclamation. I agree with David about how much we love this city. For those of you who have the pleasure of living and working here, please know how amazing this city is because this is the third year in a row that the city has proclaimed Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which not a lot of cities do. And it does bring forth an immense amount of awareness for such a sensitive topic. And unfortunately, childhood cancer is one of those things where you don't really think about it until you're thrust into it. And then you have to figure out how to move forward. So on behalf of the Jammer Strong Foundation, which is based right here in Newark, I just want to thank you all so much for continuing to support us and the wonderful community in Newark. All donations to the Jammer Strong Foundation in September will go directly to research at Lucille Packard Foundation at Stanford. Thank you. Sure. Sorry, Eve is telling me I need to promote more. This weekend, in conjunction with or in partnership with the Oakland Civic Orchestra, we will be holding a Concert for a Cure, which is a concert at the Valley I always want to call it Holy Names. It's at what used to be Holy Names Theater. They will be playing movie themed music. So if you would like to join us, please purchase tickets. And again, all funds go to research.

Thank you.

And take the time if you haven't had a chance to do so, but maybe go on to the website and look on jammers. I'm sure they have a barcode that you can utilize for contributions, things of that nature. So take the opportunity because this is a disease we can win. We can win in the near future. So please take the opportunity to do that. I'd like to issue a proclamation recognizing September as Hunger Action Month, and I would ask the president of the Viola-Blythe community, Mr. John Becker, to join me, and the executive director, Linda Lau, of the Tri-City Volunteer Organization, to join me, if you would, please. Hi, John. Nice to see you. Hunger Action Month, you know the only comment I'm gonna make on this is nobody, nobody in our community should ever be hungry. Let's just leave it at that, okay? Children, families, food should be one of the first priorities that we as a community make sure we provide to all of our residents and these two folks do such an incredible job to make sure that those that are hungry get the resources that they need. The challenge for us, certainly in this area, is making sure that we get the word out to every member of our community, don't be hungry. There's opportunities for you to get food for yourself and your family. We need to make sure that that information is out there in the community. Whereas the City of New York recognizes September as National Hunger Action Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness and inspire action to address food insecurity and hunger in our communities. Whereas the external factors such as federal legislation, in conjunction with the high cost of living, especially of food in the Bay Area, has exasperated food insecurity. Individuals experiencing poverty must often choose between vital expenses, including rent, health care, and food. And at the end of the day, food is going to come in last. Roof over your head is always going to be number one. The health of your family is going to be number two. Food is going to be number three. We'll try to get by, unfortunately. The City of New York acknowledges the struggle of individuals and families in our communities experiencing food insecurity and hunger. We encourage our residents to lend a helping hand by supporting one of the community organizations in our city working to address the issue by volunteering their time and treasure. And whereas the work of groups such as Viola Blythe Center and Tri-City Volunteers, as well as all of their volunteers and supporters, is critical to the ability of everyone in our community to thrive. Now, therefore, I, Michael Hanna, on behalf of my colleagues on the Newark City Council, proclaim September 2026 as Hunger Action Month in Newark and encourage our residents to lend a helping hand by donating or volunteering at one of the community organizations in our city that are working to address this issue. one of the easiest ways you can do that you see the food barrels around town or you see the boy scouts collecting food in residential neighborhoods give a can give five cans give ten cans it's it's inexpensive for those of us that are doing well to be able to donate to those that are in need so when you're thinking you know maybe i'll look in the cabinet What bowl of soup or can of soup that I don't really want to eat because my wife bought it or I bought it that I can donate? No. Donate quality food. Tuna, cereals, rice, pastas. Donate things that people really want, not things that you want to simply take off your shelf. So it's with great admiration that I issue this proclamation to you, Mr. Becker. And I issue the same... to you, and thank you for all the hard work you do. We greatly appreciate you. Mr. Becker? Sure.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, before I talk about this, I want to extend my congratulations to Mr. Bernoune on his accomplishment. Having occupied that chair for a number of years, I do know what an accomplishment it is, but I will not be referring to him as Dr. Bannon any time in the future. So anyway, congratulations, Dave, in all seriousness. First of all, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, members of the council, for... this proclamation and bringing awareness to food insecurity in our community. A lot of people don't realize the extent that it occurs. Unfortunately, at the Viola Bly Center over the last five years or so, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of our clients I just looked at the numbers ending for August. Thankfully, the numbers have now kind of moderated, but unfortunately moderated at a very high level. Viola Blythe this last year assisted over 21,000 clients. That's 21,000, a significant portion in Newark, but a large portion in Fremont, Union City, people from Hayward, people come as far away as Oakland for help. And this proclamation and the council getting behind it really does emphasize the importance of this issue. Food insecurity is a real issue. And as you said, Mayor, and thank you, by the way, for serving on the board of Viola Blythe, by bringing this issue to the forefront and recommending that people maybe donate not just stuff that may be expired, but actually maybe go out to Costco and donate. We will be starting our barrel program here in late October. in November and basically you'll see barrels around in various businesses at most of the schools. And that really does go a long way to assisting us in being able to provide food for the whole year. Got to thank Council Member Little as well. She, for the last number of years, working with the Scouts, has basically overseen a scouting for food drive. And she does that typically around November. And last year, I think it was a record year, they were able to collect in one day, one morning actually, over 5,000 cans of food. And unfortunately, all of that food is now gone. Here we are just the beginning of September, and all of that food is gone. So we really rely on that and also the barrel program and people's generosity. So thank you very much again for proclaiming this, and I'll... Let my colleague Linda have a few words.

Thank you. I have nothing to add, no notes, perfect. But I do want to say thank you to Mayor Hannon and the Council. This is our second year receiving this proclamation from the City of Newark and this year I talked to my colleagues around the county and I said, well, the Tri-Cities did proclamations last year and as a result of you all leading the way, We are now working on getting proclamations from all of the cities in Alameda County. And I was able to say, well, all my cities did it. Why can't you? So thank you for being leaders and being such supportive folks.

Let's get a photo here, John.

Let it be known, John Becker is a Raider fan, so John will be sticking around for the rest of the meeting. Thank you, John, for that. I appreciate it. So the next, of course, is proclaiming Newark Days. And I would ask, Lori is not here. I don't see Lori. But ask the Newark Days Committee to come on up, please. This is probably the most significant event in the city of Newark on an annual basis. And I always start this meeting off, this proclamation off by, again, thanking Shirley Sisk. For those of you that don't know who Shirley Sisk is, Shirley Sisk sat on the city council for 20 years? about 20 years. So Shirley was on the council for about 20 years and was instrumental in creating Newark Days. And I don't recall the first year. I've got to believe it was back in the 70s. 72. 72. And Shirley was really a principal behind Newark Days. And every year, it just grows. Every year, it grows. We get great entertainment. The parade is bigger and better every year. So it's coming up in September. So carve out your seats early if you want good seats. Now, the council will be riding on a float. And all I would ask is, as we roll on by, just give us the applaud that we all deserve. That's all we ask, just a regular applause. We're not asking for anything other than that. Whereas the New York Days Committee annually celebrates the birth date of our city during the month of September, whereas this is a time to celebrate the community of Newark in all of its aspects. Again, for those of you that don't attend these meetings regularly, remember, we became a city before Fremont had the opportunity to make us part of Fremont. So we really need to thank our forefathers for having the insight to say, you know what? We don't want to be the industrial side of Fremont. We want to be our own community. And look how we have blossomed. We are the heart... of the happiest city in the world. That's what I tell my colleague across the freeway. You know, you're the happiest, but you know, every happy city has to have a heart and we are that heart. So we thank Fremont for doing what they do, but they can't do it without our help. Whereas this is a time when all New York residents are encouraged to explore our rich heritage and a time to recognize the multicultural contributions of divergent people who have come together to create a common sense of community. Whereas this is also a time when we encourage New York residents to pause and reflect on the values that we represent on a community so succinctly stated in our New York Day celebration motto, people, pride, and progress. Now, therefore, I proclaim along with my colleagues September 17th through the 20th as Newark Days and ask that you all take an opportunity to participate in that annual event. This year, the city of Newark will be 71 years old. 71. I'd like to say, with all honesty, the city is older than I am, but not by much. Let me present this to you folks, and I would imagine somebody would like to speak. I'll start. Great.

My name is Dave Fink, and along with me is Jason Beezer and Ramona McMaster. We are part of the New York Daze Committee. And just real briefly, if you are not aware, if you have never attended New York Daze, shame on you. But you have every chance to rectify that this year. It begins next Thursday, the 17th, that is $2 a night ride night, and continues on through Sunday. Just a real quick thing, 56, I believe we have 56 artisans doing our arts and crafts, and trade show this year, huge presence there. We also have this year for the first time on Sunday will be a kids market. Artisans, kids artisans under 18 years old doing their wares. We have 50 kids participating in that. So it's a really huge deal. Music is awesome this year. We have music Thursday. I'm sorry. Well, actually, we do have Thursday night as a kids thing. But then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we have music ending on Sunday with an actual real band, not a cover band, Big Brother and The Holding Company with a couple of original members. So it's kind of a big deal that we're expanding our music program. Jason's going to talk a little bit about the race and the coloring contest real quick.

Hey, everybody. My name is Jason Beiser. I'm part of a co-chair with the Newark Mile that we put on on the Saturday, which is the Saturday of Newark Days, and it's the first event that day. We actually have registration still open, so if you, it's a 4K race, which is, you know, the new york mile uh it's a 4k long so that's about two and a half miles uh you can walk run stroller you know skip hop whatever you want um and the registration is still open that'll close at 8 30 a.m the day of the race so there's still time um but you'll get in early i also have the kids coloring contest that'll be uh winners announced on that saturday as well about 12 p.m and it's a you know annual event that we put on. It does take a little advancement because you have to color, you know, and submit it. But yeah, if you missed it this year, we look forward to what, you know, you or your children might produce next year. And we have Ramona as well for the parade.

Well, hello everybody. The parade is coming on really, really good. For adventure, it's just a page away is our theme. And one thing that we have asked all of the schools to do is to choose a book. and present it, represent it in the parade. And all of them have come back to me. I've got the things. They like Dr. Seuss, so we're going to have, oh, the places you'll go. Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Lorax. We've got Alice in Wonderland from one school, Smart Cookie. The high school is doing an interesting book. Where's Waldo? Going to turn into Where's the Cougar? So that'd be fun, Pete the Cat. So everybody is really excited, all the schools that come up with this, and we're excited to see what they do with these books. We left it to them. I've got eight bands coming, high school, middle school, Horses of Courses. Dancers, local businesses, VIPs, classic cars, nine schools. We've got, along with Newark Memorial Schools, we've got some private schools that joined us. And so each year I'm trying to expand on that. And they're also doing the book thing. We have some great sponsors. I'm just going to read a couple. Cargill, Republic Services, Safety Clean, Washington Health. Sunrun, Cisco, Fremont Bank, Privateer Swim, and more. These sponsors, they give us money or they do give us things in kind. For example, the shuttle that we use, we don't have to pay for it. It's volunteer coffee that we do, all sorts of things. So the whole community comes in and helps us. Well, I'm closing out probably around 100 applicants in the parade, which is about what we usually have. We've got a few new ones. I always like to see new people come into the parade, and it's exciting for them and for us to see how they interact. Oh, our Grand Marshal is Jean Ficklin.

Aw.

Just a perfect match. I mean, this lady, books are her life. She was the first African-American teacher in Newark in 1964. And she's done so much with the libraries and the kids. She is... I don't know if she likes it or not, but she's 96 years old. And she's still going as fast as she did before. She still makes sure that the kids have books. And her favorite book is Heidi, which is fun. Let's see. Oh, yes. We have something special that's going to be happening. On Sunday, we do the birthday bash. Everybody knows that. Well, something new is going to be added to it this year. We found out we have a time capsule for the city and for the city and Newark. in New York days. And apparently it was supposed to be buried for 100 years, but it had to be pulled up at 50. This is his 50th year. So the special thing is we are going to open it at the birthday bash on Sunday. So please join us there if you're interested. And then we'll be able to see what's in there. And what we plan to do is put it back in the ground for another 50 years, but add stuff to it. Oh, and like Dave said earlier, through all of this, Shirley Sisk, you know, we wouldn't be here without Shirley. And so we all think about her when we do these things and like that. Okay. Oh, we always bring you guys a few things for the city council. And this year is no different.

Go ahead. I'm getting yours. Thank you.

A couple things to add here real quick. While they're getting their gifts that we have, we normally will present them with our shirts. Unfortunately, the manufacturer is a week late. They'll be in time for Newark Days, but normally they get a shirt too. They will get it for that. But I just want to make this last pitch. Newark Days Celebration Incorporated is a 501c3. We are 100% volunteers. We're always looking for more people. Newark Days doesn't exist without people who do this. The city contributes their support, but this is not a taxpayer-funded. This is not city employees doing this other than the police there. So please, if you're interested, it's a great way to volunteer for your community and be a part of really a special celebration special city. I've been here 42 years. I couldn't live anywhere else. I love Newark and I hope you do too.

College, we need to get a photo with these hats on down in front. There was an old lady who saw a fly.

I don't know why she saw that fly, but she won't say why.

All right. One, two, three. Fancy. Can we hold up the sign? Sure. All right.

One, two, three. Fancy. Adorable.

Is the air conditioning working in here?

All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is probably one of my more enjoyable parts of the evening. This is the opportunity for us to introduce new employees or promoted employees. So let's start off with Ms. Alicia Day, Ms. Day. Kind of presumptuous of Ms. Day coming up here. That's a first, isn't it? No, I'm kidding. No, you've seen our meetings. Ladies and gentlemen, it's with great pleasure I introduce Ms. Alicia Day. She's relocating from Littleton, Massachusetts, where it was probably a lot cooler there today than it is here. Amazing. In August, after accepting the position of Recreation and Community Services Director, her career spans over 20 years and has taken her from outdoor adventure education to municipal leadership, including similar recreation director roles in two Massachusetts cities over the past 12 years. She is a certified park and recreation professional with the National Recreation and Parks Association and a graduate of their director's school. Remember we talked about this in the past, Mr. Bonilla, we've talked about this in the past. We hire only the best, and if we have to go to Massachusetts to find the best, it's not gonna stop us. Ms. Day earned her Master of Science Sports Management and holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Adventure Education and Telecommunications. In her spare time, she enjoys being outdoors, traveling, and making stained glass windows.

Where did you get your Master of Science from? Master of Science?

Where did you get it from?

Oh, Georgia Southern University.

Okay, excellent. Miss Day is passionate about building communities where people feel connected, supported, and inspired to explore what's possible. And she's honored to help shape the next chapter of Newark's Recreation and Community Service. Before I let Miss Day go, I have to recount this story. It's always funny when I'm in the office, I'll be coming and going, and I'll see folks kind of waiting in the lobby area, all dressed up, looking really sharp. And I saw Ms. Day sitting there, and I said, oh, this looks like somebody that's going to be interviewed for a position here in the city. So I walked over and introduced myself to Ms. Day, and she told me that she comes from a township in Middleton, Massachusetts. So we talked for no more than a minute, minute and a half, and I could already tell Her enthusiasm, not only for the position that she was applying for, but just her enthusiasm for parks and recreation in general. And I told Mr. Banoone later that morning, if I recall correctly, how I had met Ms. Day, and I was impressed with her overall enthusiasm. And, you know, you just, you know, you cross your fingers, you know, yeah, wish Ms. Day good luck, good luck, because she's competing against the top of the top. We don't bring folks in here that are not going to be competitive. So she competed and was offered the position, and thank goodness for us, accepted the position. So I hit that. I think I get partial credit for that one. I think I get partial credit for that one. But Ms. Day, on behalf of the mayor and the council, we welcome you to the city of Newark. Welcome, welcome. This is always fun. Deepa Iyer, Ms. Deepa Iyer. always tell folks that have been here a little longer their their bios get just a little bit longer you know but but in all fairness the font gets bigger so it's easier for the mayor to read so thank you for that deep ire joined the city of newark in may of 2022 as a human resource technician bringing with her nearly 14 years of human resource experience, including six years with the Fremont Unified School District. God, that makes it even so much more special. You know, when we take people from Fremont and we recognize their talents here in Newark, it just, it makes my heart pitter-patter, so I'm glad. Since joining Newark, she has continued to grow professionally, taking an increasingly complex responsibilities and expanding her knowledge across the organization. In 2024, she was promoted to management analyst, and today we're pleased to recognize her promotion to senior management analyst. Throughout her time with the city, Deepa has worked across a broad range of human resource functions, including recruitment, classification, compensation, CalPERS compliance, employee engagement, budgeting. I got to take a breath here. position control, policy development, and contract administration. More recently, she has expanded her responsibility into risk management, supporting the city's work in workers' compensation, workplace safety, liability, and regulatory compliance. Just to name them all. Outstanding. TEPA brings a strong commitment to continued learning and professional development. She holds the professional in human resources, PHR certification, as well as certification in human resources, employment law, risk management. She earned a bachelor of arts and a master's of arts in English literature and holds a master's of business administration with a specialization in human resources. Man, you are talented. You are talented. Most recently, Deepa was selected as a recipient of a scholarship for the 2026 Risk Management Practitioner Certification Program. This opportunity will allow her to further develop her expertise in risk management and bring that knowledge back to her work serving the city of Newark. Deepa's progression from human resources technician to management analyst and now to senior management analyst is a wonderful example of the opportunities employees have to develop new skills, embrace new challenges, and continue building their careers with the city. Outside of work, if you have any time outside of work, Deepa enjoys spending time with her girl gang, her girl gang. Is there like a sign for the girl gang? What's going on, Deepa? I don't know. her girl gang cheering her way through every World Cup football match, the original football, as she would be quick to point out, and firmly believes there is no such thing as food that is too spicy. Please join me in congratulating Deep Iyer on her promotion to Senior Management Analyst, congratulations. Well done, well done, you're welcome. Bless you. See, we can walk and chew gum at the same time up here at the dais. Let me now recognize Gabriela Mendez. Miss Mendez. Gabriela has been a longtime, lifelong resident of Newark and has been part of the City of Newark Recreation and Community Services Department for nearly three years, working at the Silman Center and Family Aquatics Center as a senior customer service rep. During her time with the city, she has worked her way up through the various roles. And that's the nice thing about a small city like the city of Newark. You can start as an analyst and work yourself up to senior management analyst. You can start as a rec person and work your way up into management. There's so many opportunities for growth in the city organization if you work hard and you're committed to the work that you do. So she's worked her way up through various roles, gaining valuable experience in activity coordination and office administration. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cal State University East Bay, and is returning to Cal State East Bay to pursue a Master's of Science in Hospitality, Recreation, and Tourism, and will continue to work in the city of Newark once I receive my Master's degree. I added that. I just want to say that. Gabriella was promoted to recreation coordinator on August 31st and now supervises the Sillman Center front desk, staff, cafe, fitness center operations and coordinates the Betty Gentry Dance Program and various special events and activities. And if you have a chance to go to the Betty Gentry Dance, I encourage you to do that. It's such a fabulous event. Outside of work, Gabrielle is very involved in the Portuguese community and enjoys spending her free time attending events throughout California with her family and friends. Please congratulate Gabrielle on her promotion. Ladies and gentlemen, it's about seven, about 12 minutes to eight. We're gonna take a two minute break for those that need to go and catch the diner game. You're free to leave.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. It's always fun, this council, in recognizing higher achievers and recognizing organizations and recognizing folks that are getting promoted within our organization. It's really truly what government's about, is recognizing excellence. The next part of our agenda is the public comments section. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to talk or speak to the council on any item that is not currently on the agenda. And please understand the council is not in a position to be able to comment on your public comment, but we can certainly... Ask the city manager to comment if there's something that he can address on issues that are raised. Is there anybody here? First of all, is there anybody on Zoom that would like to speak on public comment? Okay, is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak under public comment? Yes, sir. Did you raise your hand? Come on up. Welcome. On the other side, my friend. Good evening.

Good evening to you, too. So good evening to Mayor and all the council members as well. So today, I'm Eric. And I'm Edward. And we're representing a local volunteer group called STEM Bridge. And our main mission is to help provide STEM kids to kids in the Bay Area, especially in New York as well as Fremont area. Can you do me a favor? Just speak up a little bit, please. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Currently, we've helped over... 100 kids and donated over 500 kids to kids in the local area through the Newark Library. Currently, we're thinking about expanding to a more permanent STEM corner in the library in order to help encourage kids to learn more about STEM. We are currently asking for the city to help start with materials as well as funding a STEM corner in the library in order to help with this. And we can help provide, for example, labor as well as all the energy needed to help sustain this operation. So like in California, only one in five students, they have a proficiency in STEM and many students actually aren't that interested in pursuing a career in STEM. So our concern is helping kids, especially young kids, which are much have much more interest or who are very interested in learning new things, help them gain an interest in STEM in order to help further interest in STEM in order to help, for example, us in the future. And our plan is to use the library, since it's a public space, it's a free space for the community to come and engage, use that as an area in order to help boost kids' interests as well as a place for it to gather like-minded people.

So yeah. Through our engineering case and workshops, we have already demonstrated how kids can get interested in STEM. So our STEM kits use simple materials like rubber bands and plastic straws and sort of stuff to teach real-world concepts, scientific concepts. And the kids really enjoy these. The main part of this is kids aren't learning as part of a school. It's more tactile because kids learn better this way. It's not like a structured school program. And most importantly, we've seen these kids really enjoy these workshops. Last time, we were at a library, and we were expecting little to no turnout from the kids. But we invited some in, and they had a lot of fun with it. So I think it's our mission to expand this joy to as many people as possible.

And, yeah, so we've seen, like, lots of kids and parents, they've really enjoyed, like, these STEM workshops. And it's really been, like, it's been really fun for us, and it's also really, like, rewarding for us in order to, like, help the community. And I think, like, through this more permanent STEM Corner, we'd be able to help further this enthusiasm about STEM through, like, a more, like, official and a more permanent means.

Excellent. I really love when young people come forward to the council and talk about innovation, especially when it comes to higher education and education of our kids. Do me a favor and please leave your information if you haven't done that with our city clerk over here, because I know our city manager will undoubtedly put you in contact with I don't know if you've met our librarian, Mr. Joe Stoner, but Mr. Stoner is very innovative when it comes to creativity, when it comes to programs and opportunities for anybody that utilizes our library. So please make sure you leave your contact information with our city clerk. And thank you for what you do, you're appreciated. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak under public comment? Okay, folks, we're gonna move on to the consent calendar. These are typically routine items that can generally be approved by one motion. The consent calendar will consist of a number of items. Madam Clerk, I'll come back to the Zoom on this after I've read the consent calendar. One is the approval of audited demands. Two is the approval of the 2020, July 2023, 2026 City Council minutes. Three is adopt a resolution amending the compensation and benefits plan for the management, supervisory, and professional employee group and the confidential employee group to clarify special assignment pay provisions. Four, adopt a resolution approving a side letter of agreement with the Newark Police Department and PA regarding compensation reporting and special assignment pay. Five, adopt resolution approving a side letter of agreement with the Newark Association of Miscellaneous Employees to add the recreation assistant classification to the Memorandum of Understanding, MLU, and amending the citywide salary scheduled in conformance with California Code of Regulations Title II, SECTION 570.5, 6, REPORT ON ADMINISTRATION ACTIVITIES DURING THE AUGUST RECESS, 7, ADOPT A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONTRACTIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH KBA, DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS LLC, INCREASING THE TOTAL NOT TO EXCEED COMPENSATION FROM $390,000 TO $500,000 AND AWARDING THE 2026 BIENNIAL BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEARS 2026, 2027. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to any of the items on the consent calendar? Is there, Madam Clerk, anybody online who would like to speak to the consent calendar?

No, Your Honor.

Mr. City Manager, any item you'd like pulled?

Not this evening, Your Honor.

Colleagues, any item you want pulled from the consent calendar? Okay, folks, can I get a motion to approve the consent calendar? So moved.

Second.

By Vice Mayor Jorgens and seconded by Council Member Grindahl. Please vote.

Do you see it now?

Yes, thank you. Let's try it again.

Let's see.

Vice Mayor's right here. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna go to public hearings. Public hearings, the first item is hearing to consider an ordinance amending Title 17 of the Newark Municipal Code at Chapter 17.28, residential and residential mixed-use design standards in Chapter 17.42, reasonable accommodation and amend Division 2, base and overlay districts, Chapter 17.17, general site regulations, Chapter 17.21, landscaping, Chapter 1723, parking and loading. Chapter 1734, design review. Chapter 1737, waivers. And Chapter 1746, definition generally affecting development and design standards for residential and residential mixed-use development. Mr. Mnuchin?

Yes, good evening, Your Honor and members of the Council. This is a public hearing to consider amending the Municipal Code to incorporate objective design standards in order to implement various housing element programs. To provide some brief background and context, the existing municipal code has a combination of objective and subjective design standards and guidelines to review and regulate the design of most residential projects. We committed to developing objective design standards in our state-approved 2023 through 2031 housing element, and this obligation to establishing objective design standards was a consideration when the state of California approved our housing element. If the city does not enact objective design standards, then we would be potentially out of compliance with our housing element, and this could result in the state revoking the certification of our housing element because the city took an action that is inconsistent with our adopted housing element. Before I turn it over to staff for the presentation, I would like to briefly and publicly acknowledge them and thank them for their tremendous efforts over the past two years. This item is quite complex, involved drafting, various amendments and updates to several municipal code provisions, as well as community engagement. I thank you for your diligence and professionalism, Mr. Coulomb, Ms. Lopez, Mr. Interiano, and Mr. Turner. Thank you. Heavy lift. With that in mind, we have a joint presentation this evening, and we'll start off with our senior planner, Ms. Carmelissa Lopez. Ms. Lopez?

Thank you, City Manager David Benun. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Carmelisa Lopez, Senior Planner with the Community Development Department. Thank you for the opportunity to present this evening. The presentation before you is for a proposed zoning tax amendment to Title 17 of the Newark Municipal Code, which is our zoning code. This amendment is the result of a multi-year comprehensive planning process to develop objective design standards, or ODS, for the city. The amendment includes the creation of two new chapters and various amendments to the zoning code. The amendment also includes process updates to align with state law, streamline project review, and establish procedures for exceptions and waivers. On July 9th, 2026, the Planning Commission held a hearing and adopted a resolution recommending the City Council approve the proposed amendment and adopt the draft ordinance, which is included as attachment A in the staff report. So this is our agenda for tonight's presentation. It's quite a hefty agenda, but we'll do our best to comprehensively address all of the main components of the project. I'll start off with introductions. We'll provide some background information, do a high-level overview of the proposed changes. Midway through the presentation, we'll provide an opportunity for some questions, or we could wait till the very end. We'll also present the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA analysis and then briefly discuss Planning Commission's review. And at the end, we'll provide staff's recommendation. To start off, I do want to present and acknowledge the project team who have contributed to this effort from the city's team, includes myself, Housing Policy and Programs Manager Michael Coulombe, Community Development Director Steven Interiano, and Deputy Director Art Interiano, and then our consultant who have helped us tremendously with this effort from Good City Company. We have Aaron Aknan, Nicholas Hamilton, and Ralph Robinson. Michael, Nicholas, and Ralph will be joining me tonight for our presentation. All right, to start things off, we do want to provide a quick refresher on the difference between objective and subjective standards. As you can see on the screen, this is the state law definition for objective standards. In other words, objective standards are requirements that don't rely on personal opinion. They're very clear, measurable, and based on uniformly verifiable criteria that both the applicant and staff can understand before project is even submitted. So it's codified in the zoning code. Generally, development standards, which define the fundamental parameters of what can be built on site, that includes building height and setbacks, are objective standards. But design standards, which address how a building and site are designed, can also be objective. Comparing to objective standards, subjective standards rely on personal interpretation, and many of the city's current standards and guidelines fall into this category. On the left, you'll see an example of objective standards. It's very clear that, you know, the orientation, the required orientation for the residents, it's specified in this standard, and there's no room for interpretation. However, on the right, it's an example of a subjective standard also in our current code and includes words like compatibility, disproportionate, language that can be interpreted differently depending on the reviewer. It describes the intent but doesn't necessarily provide clear enforceable rules for the reviewer or the designer. So what are objective design standards? So the development of ODS is in response to broader state and local efforts to address California's housing crisis. State law has increasingly prioritized streamlined ministerial review processes, as well as limits on subjective design standards that can delay or constrain housing development. Together with development standards, ODS can provide a clear understanding of the city's expectations for project design. This could result in a more streamlined, efficient review process, as well as support increased housing protection and high-quality design outcomes. It is important to note that ODS would not eliminate the city or community's role in shaping development outcomes. Rather, they translate those priorities into clear, measurable standards that can be applied consistently during project review. Now, in the next part of the presentation, I'll hand it over to Mr. Coulomb, who will provide some background on the housing element and the importance of ODS.

Thank you, Carmelissa, Mayor, members of the City Council, Michael Coulombe, Housing Policy and Programs Manager. As the Council is by now well familiar, the housing element is Newark's plan to meet the housing needs of all members of the community. The Adjective Design Standards Project contributes to two of our housing elements, six goals. Goal H2 aims to develop more homes for more people, and Goal H3 aims to reduce and remove development constraints. I like to think of these two goals as working together to build high-quality housing faster and more affordably. The primary programs that the ODS project addresses are H3.2 and H3.4, which call for adopting objective design standards for single-unit, multi-unit, and mixed-use development. We're also addressing a few other programs in whole or in part through this effort. This includes Program 3.1 to prepare and publish procedures for ministerial approvals. Since 2003, the city has had an ordinance complying with state law to allow applications for certain ministerially approved projects, but we do not have documented procedures for reviewing such projects. This would accomplish that. Other programs that the ODS take into consideration are missing middle housing and public lands for affordable housing. But cumulatively, the purpose of ODS is to develop clear, measurable, high-quality design expectations for applicants, to align the zoning code with evolving state law, to modernize the city's development review, and to reflect community priorities through standards developed with community and stakeholder input. We're also crafting ODS to take into account the housing needs of priority populations and priority housing types as identified in the city's affordable housing work plan. The majority of the city's existing housing stock is not affordable to these populations. And for that reason, the work plan provides a policy directive to encourage the development of housing types that could be more naturally affordable. And so while we're presenting these ODS to you to comply with state law, we're also doing so to externally communicate the city's vision and expectations for new development. Over time, state laws have layered on top of one another to limit the scope of design review to ODS. And under these laws, cities without objective design standards have limited basis for conducting design review, meaning they have very little design authority. ODS works to communicate the community's vision and expectations to each other and to home builders and developers. And for that reason, it's important that ODS go through a rigorous public engagement process as we've done here. If we can communicate the community's expectations clearly from the beginning, we can complete design review faster, get to yes or no quicker, and reduce uncertainty for the applicant, the reviewer, and the public. The table on this slide is from our housing element and it illustrates the many permit processes that we have. As you can see, ministerial processes are one small subset of those that apply to very specific project types and permits, meeting very specific criteria. Because of the limited scope and eligibility of those projects and permits, ministerial reviews can be completed an average four to seven months faster than discretionary reviews. Reviewing projects faster correlates directly with building projects faster, and thereby making housing more affordable for the general public. The chart on this slide is from a report published last year by the Rand Center on Housing and Homelessness. Rand found a strong correlation between discretionary approvals, development timeframes, and total development costs. California was the slowest of all states included in the study in terms of bringing new housing to market, and the Bay Area is the most expensive region to build. The report concludes that if California could reduce development timelines by 22 months, it could reduce total development costs by 8%. For a 50-unit building, that's a savings of about $1.5 million that would otherwise ultimately be passed on to the homebuyer or renter if the project were to be built at all. Streamlining can also create risks for the city, however, if the processes for its implementation aren't done right. One such risk may be Senate Bill 423, formerly known as SB 35. This chart shows the number of building permits we've issued between 2023 and 2025, and where we would hope to be by the end of 2026. The city is making progress on our housing goals, and in fact, we're doing far better than many of our peers in Alameda County and the Bay Area. but we are falling short of where we'd hoped to be at this time due to market conditions. That means the city is still likely to be subject to Senate Bill 423 beginning in 2027. Under that condition, the city would be required to accept and ministerially review applications for certain housing projects without discretionary action. based on our mid-cycle permit process, staff expect more applicants to be eligible for SB 423. And so for this reason, staff have drafted an alternative local program with strict eligibility requirements that Ms. Lopez will discuss later in the presentation. That concludes my portion of the presentation. I will now invite Nick Hamilton from Good City to continue. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Good evening. Thank you to the city of Newark, city council, city staff, and all of the community members and stakeholders who've contributed to this project. Good City Company is grateful for the opportunity to partner with the city to develop this important new set of tools for the city to facilitate its physical environment around housing. I'M JOINED TODAY BY MY GOOD CITY COLLEAGUES, RALPH ROBINSON AND AARON ACKNIN WHO JOINED ME TODAY. THE PROJECT, JUST TO GIVE A QUICK OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT, AS THE CITY MANAGER NOTED EARLIER, THE PROJECT FORMALLY LAUNCHED IN THE FALL OF 2024 AND BEGAN WITH A SERIES OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES INCLUDING NEW YORK DAYS IN THE PARK, TWO OF THOSE. POP-UPS AND OPEN HOUSE JUST ACROSS THE PATH HERE. CONCURRENT WITH THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT WAS AN INTENSIVE ROUND OF ANALYSIS TO UNDERSTAND THE CURRENT CODE AS IT STANDS, HOW IT RELATES TO STATE LAW AND HOW IT RELATES TO YOUR HOUSING ELEMENT AND OTHER ELEMENTS OF YOUR GENERAL PLAN. ALL OF THAT BUILDS INTO THE DRAFTING OF SOME PROPOSED STANDARDS WHICH ARE BEFORE YOU, EXCUSE ME, ZONING TEXT AMENDMENTS WHICH ARE BEFORE YOU TONIGHT. A PUBLIC DRAFT WAS RELEASED EARLIER THIS YEAR DURING A PUBLIC REVIEW PERIOD. WE RECEIVED WRITTEN FEEDBACK WHICH WAS VERY IMPORTANT TO BRINGING THE FINAL DRAFT FORWARD. Just to summarize some of the community engagement, one of the things that was really wonderful about getting to speak with many of your residents and community members at these events were to understand what the relative priorities of different things that could be governed through the objective design standards are. And we learned a lot through that. One set that actually is not very well codified in the objective design standards is street trees. Street trees were really identified by the community members as very important. And while the objective design standards was not the vehicle to communicate that, it was important, I think, to honor the spirit of a lot of community members just to share that with you tonight so you can consider that in other initiatives. THE PUBLIC REVIEW PERIOD EARLIER THIS YEAR, I REALLY WANT TO THANK THE STAKEHOLDERS, INCLUDING ARCHITECTS AND DEVELOPERS WHO READ THROUGH THE DRAFT DOCUMENT, WHICH IS VERY TECHNICAL AND DENSE. WE ENDEAVORED TO MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE IN PLAIN ENGLISH WHEREVER POSSIBLE. It's a formal document. They read it and we received some really meaningful feedback, written feedback. There's an example on your screen. In many cases, we were able to clarify the language and make it easier to read, make it easier to interpret from both the applicant's perspective and for staff to implement it. In addition, some stakeholders identified areas where they thought perhaps the draft standard might be a challenge to feasibility for a project. And we looked on a case by case basis at all of the areas where they identified to see if there were adjustments that we could make. And in many cases, we made some adjustments. I'm going to provide just a quick overview of what the text changes are. I'm going to invite my colleague, Ralph Robinson, to dive into a few examples. So at a high level, there's a new chapter proposed to be introduced, which would be chapter 17.28. And it would be the residential and residential mixed use design standards chapter. Many of, I should say, that chapter, the foundation of it, really uh is it takes draws uh you'll notice a lot of uh existing standards from your current residential the design residential zones chapter in your in your zoning code those many were objective already and we endeavored to include those and build upon them in the in the new uh chapter But it will be applicable to residential development in other districts as well. There are a number of changes throughout the base and overlay districts to make that applicable, put that into force, and to align and remove any conflicts where there may be conflicts. And in some cases, try to iron out certain standards that may have been subjective or had potentially subjective language that we could really clarify and sharpen. THERE ARE ADDITIONALLY REVISIONS TO THE DESIGN REVIEW WAIVERS AND REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER 17.28, THE NEW OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS CHAPTER IS BROKEN OUT INTO THESE SECTIONS THAT YOU SEE HERE. BUILDING, MASSING AND ARTICULATION IS REALLY FUNDAMENTAL TO THE OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS. THAT'S WHERE THEY HAVE A LOT OF they really, really influence the real mechanics of a building. And then we drill down to some more specific topics, some building element standards, windows, materials and colors, and a smaller set of site design, open space, and mixed use standards as well. Finally, these standards, what will they apply to? They will apply to residential projects, including single-unit and multi-unit projects. For residential mixed-use projects, those projects that have a residential component and also a mixed-use component, state law puts guardrails around that to clarify that objective design standards will apply to the residential portion of a mixed-use building if the total floor area of that building is greater than one-third commercial or not residential. But the kind of discretionary tools would still apply to the commercial portion of that development. If the building is all residential, of course, it will be governed by these standards. And then if a building is greater than two-thirds residential, the whole building, including that commercial component, would be governed by these standards. And of course it would apply to the state mandated ministerial projects, SB 35, SB 9, AB 2011, et cetera. And in some cases it will apply to exterior modifications and in other cases not. And I will invite my colleague, Ralph Robinson, to join me at this time. And as he comes up, I'll just note, in the code proposed, many of the standards apply to all types of residential development. And in some cases, we drill down where there's some specific standards that are applicable to some of the smaller type of buildings that you might see and some of the larger ones, as well as some mixed use standards. Ralph.

Thank you, Nick. Good evening, Council Members, and thank you again for your time this evening. So Nick gave some overview as far as our process of putting these standards together, a big piece of which was taking existing objective standards and carrying those forward. But of course, there are also a lot of existing standards written in this subjective language. If you've ever reviewed a project, taken your own project through the process, you're likely familiar with this. So words like adequate, avoiding a bulky appearance, integrated composition. So trying to find a way to maintain the spirit and the intent of these standards, just translating them into that objective terms. So what does this look like? So as an example, roof design, we have this existing language that speaks to consistency with the individual residents and complementing the neighborhood. So translating that to provide essentially a menu of here are the different design elements that could be included to provide this variation in the roof form, things like variation in the roof elevation itself, changes in the roof angles, changes in the eave depth, all of which are provided with a dimensional requirement or a dimensional minimum in order to meet the standard. And going away from things like references to complementing neighborhood or neighboring residences, for the most part we're trying to keep these standards confined to the individual project, with the exception of our window standard, which we'll get into in a moment. Another example, we talk about avoiding a bulky appearance. So how do we do that? Well, we have mandated changes in wall planes or changes in material, all defined, again, dimensionally for the frequency of these variations in the wall, as well as minimum dimensions for when you are providing these changes in the wall plane or, again, run of a change in material, etc., So I mentioned our window standards. So this is a standard that very similar to existing standard that again we're carrying forward. We are just adding to this language for clarity as well as adding additional options to meet the standard and then updating graphics in this example you can see here and then the other examples throughout where the graphics and the language having those work together so that as applicants and staff are going through this language there is very little room for uncertainty or lack of clarity on what actually is the intent and the meaning of this language. And another example I want to bring up of standards being brought forward. So a lot of existing landscaping standards within the code. So providing those within that ODS chapter and with the priority of okay being very clear on what are the required landscape areas and for different types of landscaping, the frequency of those landscaping. Also integrating things like when you're integrating, for example, a path into these landscape areas, what are maybe the exceptions or additional considerations so you can still meet maybe the constraints of the site while providing the necessary landscaping. Of course, we're not just writing individual standards. We're trying to have these all come together to achieve preferred outcomes. So when we think about single family residential, we don't want necessarily a very busy or a lot of different elements stacked together just to meet the standard. But we do want to achieve some kind of variation in wall planes, variation between the first and second story, having a welcoming street-oriented entry facing a well-landscaped lawn for a good that you know good street aesthetics that we're all looking for. And as we translate this to a larger scale so larger multifamily buildings we still are looking for again that variation in the wall plane. Here we see variation materials to help achieve that variety as well and still again incorporating things like landscaping to again improve the overall aesthetics. And our kind of third big category within these standards are also our mixed-use projects where we don't have residential on the first floor, but we have some kind of active or commercial use. So providing those standards, for example, the existing window transparency standards, adding to those for clarity and maintaining those because, again, we want active, welcoming ground floor areas. Getting into some of the associated changes throughout the code here, what we're looking to do, and you see those summarized here, is looking to achieve consistency between that updated objective design standard chapter, as well as achieving compliance with the City's housing element programs. And thirdly, trying to improve feasibility for these potential projects to come in. So again, you can see these summarized here. It includes modifications to define when the ODS apply in place of some of these existing regulations. and in limited cases we have again changes to development standards to refine things like height limits, setbacks, open space requirements, and other site development standards. And so related to that, you can see here, as an example, you can see these changes to height limits, setbacks, open space requirements for that consistency between the rest of the zoning code and that new objective design standard chapter, as well as, again, compliance with housing element programs and improving feasibility for projects. Couple other minor things, quickly note, so we have some terminology updates. So single family to single unit, for example. And another element of that housing element compliance is expanding the areas where housing or particular types of housing are allowed. So you see those summarized here, notably the 100% affordable allowance within the public facilities district. So I think we'll take a pause there if there are any questions. And if not, we will continue with Ms. Lopez.

Why don't we go ahead and just finish with the presentation. We'll ask the questions at that point.

All right, thank you, Mayor. So for this next part of the presentation, I will provide an overview of the proposed updates to some of the city's existing review processes. As the City Council is aware, state law is increasingly limiting the discretion of planning commissions and city councils on eligible residential projects. It's become very clear that ODS is one of the city's primary tools for shaping high-quality development outcomes within the constraints of state law. As part of the process, the project team reviewed the city's existing processes against what state law requires and also looked at how other jurisdictions have updated their processes in response. The Planning Commission also provided some great direction during the study session to allow for some flexibility in the standards. We found that really helpful as we guided our approach to that. As a result of these efforts, these process updates aim to streamline review and incentivize housing production. So in the next few slides, I'll provide an overview of each process update. The first process update is related to exceptions and waivers that I'll describe in the next two slides. So for exceptions, they are incorporated directly into the new chapter 1728. Exceptions would be granted so long as the project or site meets this condition specified. One example of that is that a non-street facing exterior addition or modification that is less than 50% of the proposed floor area would not be subject to ODS. So in the image on this slide, you'll see an example of this in the yellow. The addition is all the way in the back. You can't see it from the street, so it would be exempt. It's also less than 50% of the proposed floor area. In comparison, the addition in red would not be exempt. That is clearly visible from the street, so we do want to apply those standards to that specific part of the house. As for waivers, there is an existing chapter 1737, a title of waivers, which we propose to revise to provide some limited flexibility for certain site or project specific conditions. I would say compared to exceptions, it's just like a level higher. So what we propose is up to three waivers for certain specified ODS. Contained within this chapter, there's a list of eligible standards, and they're also noted in the ODS chapter as well, just for consistency. So if the project requires four or more, it would have to be redesigned to require three or fewer or perhaps zero, or the applicant would need to pursue a variance or other process to support the requested deviations, and that would be a discretionary process and could potentially be denied. It's important to note that there are state density bonus incentives that can be granted, so those are not considered waivers under this chapter. And generally, you know, this chapter was designed to provide limited flexibility while ensuring consistency with the intent of ODS. THE SECOND PROCESS UPDATE INCLUDES A NEW CHAPTER FOR REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS. THE CURRENT STANDARDS ARE IN CHAPTER 1737, BUT WE PROPOSED TO CREATE A STAND-ALONE CHAPTER, CHAPTER 1742. THE INTENT IS TO DISTINGUISH AND SEPARATE REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS FROM WAIVERS. difference between the two. This is generally consistent with the model of reasonable accommodation ordinance published by HCD as well as a typical organizational approach that many jurisdictions use. The last process update is by far the most significant and is largely in response to state law. The city's current process requires discretionary design review for most projects. And what we mean by discretionary is that the decision maker, such as the city council, has the ability to exercise judgment in evaluating a project. You can weigh factors such as design compatibility and can potentially approve, deny, or condition a project because of that. In contrast, ministerial review requires a project to meet all applicable objective standards, and if it does, it is simply approved. So over the past several years, the state has adopted housing laws requiring ministerial review, and the rationale behind that is that these projects already are consistent with the city's adopted general plan zoning and objective standards, and therefore should not require discretionary review. On this slide, it just lists out a few of the common criteria for state law minister review eligibility. For example, notable environmental features such as hazardous materials or wetlands that would cause the project to not be eligible. Also, if there's a legislative change like a rezoning from light industrial to residential, that would also not qualify. Ultimately, these are intended to reduce approval on timelines and increase housing production. In response to these minister review processes from state law, many jurisdictions have established minister review processes to align with state law. And in some cases, jurisdictions are also providing local alternatives to state streamlining laws. The city of Newark has a good example of this in the current code. In January 2024, the city council adopted chapter 1715 by right housing overlay district, which allows for a ministerial review process for eligible projects. So under this overlay district, as long as the project complies with the applicable standards, objective standards, achieves a minimum density of 20 units per acre, and provides at least 20% of units as affordable to lower income households, they could go through that ministerial process. We just currently don't have a procedural guidelines in our code for that. And actually Mr. Coolum will be presenting on that in more detail in the next item. And this table before you on this slide, it shows the different processes that we are hoping to establish. There's four that are proposed. The current process would be to be titled Discretionary Design Review and include three subcategories. One would be Standard Design Review, one would be Single Unit Design Review, which is our current single family design review process. As Mr. Robinson noted, we would be changing it from single family to single unit. And the third would be discretionary streamlined design review. As for the new ministerial review pathway, that would be called ministerial streamlined design review. And this would be established for qualifying single-unit, multi-unit, and mixed-use residential projects that meet specific criteria. And on the last row there, you could find some examples of projects that could be eligible for these pathways. Happy to go over that during the discussion if requested. So this is a, perhaps a very complicated flow chart, but it is really just to illustrate the process that one would go through to determine what pathway a project would be eligible for. The project team has put a lot of effort and thought into how these are structured as well as what projects would qualify for each. One pathway that we'd like to highlight is projects that involve a single unit dwelling. We recognize that some applicants may prefer the current discretionary process, so we've provided two options, either discretionary or a ministerial review. I'm happy to discuss this flow chart in more detail during the discussion. As for the difference between the two review processes on this table, you'll see the differences in review authority, public hearing, noticing, and appeal rights. All pathways can be approved at the director level. In certain instances, some could go up to the planning commission level. This is consistent with the current design review process. For ministerial review processes, certain state laws actually require, sorry, for minister review through state law, there are certain specified time rates such as 60 days. So planning commission review could be limited depending on that and depending on the project. And a few other differences are that public noticing appeals and call for reviews would still be applicable to discretionary design review. However, for ministerial, those wouldn't all be inapplicable. However, staff did want to note that in lieu of public noticing for ministerial review, the planning commission and city council would still be notified of the decision. We'll also be posting it on the city's websites for the public to be aware of the decision. And the next two slides are really just to illustrate the step-by-step process and the difference between the two in terms of timeline and review processes. So the key here for discretionary design review is that there are additional three steps after the director or planning commission review. So there's the appeal period, the call for review period, potentially a public hearing if appealed or called for review, and then the final decision. This process could take six to nine months, could be longer depending on how many review cycles there are. And this shows the ministerial streamlined design review process. It's considerably shorter with fewer steps, with the key change being that the elimination of the appeal period and the call for review period. So that's why it reduces significantly in terms of timeline from six to nine months to 90 days. And as Mr. Kulin mentioned earlier in the presentation, the city is making slower progress on its six cycle RHNA goals and is not on target to meet RHNA targets for any income band. If this trend continues, staff anticipates that Newark may become subject to SB 423's lower 10% affordability threshold rather than the current 50% threshold. So in response, staff has... SAF is proposing revisions to this chapter to establish a local ministerial alternative within the ministerial streamlined design review pathway. This approach is modeled in part by other jurisdictions and qualifying projects containing between two and 200 dwelling units could qualify for this process. Similar to state mandated minister review, eligible projects must be consistent with the general plan zoning and all objective designs and development standards. They also cannot request any legislative changes or only waivers for that matter, otherwise they would be ineligible. As for this diagram, it's really to just illustrate the difference between the two pathways. As you can see in the middle, both pathways share some common ground, consistency with the same standards, as well as exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. Where the two paths differ largely is around affordability, labor requirements, and timeline. So rather than the state's own affordability thresholds, the local alternative would require the city's inclusionary housing and local preference requirements to apply as well as underlying zoning standards. So some state laws allow you to go over certain density limits and may not have parking requirements, whereas this local alternative would require it. This proposed alternative also neither required nor prohibits labor standards. The zoning code is not authorized to set labor requirements, but there are different mechanisms that could impose that for certain projects. And this last flowchart illustrates the rigorous criteria that a project would have to go through in order to be eligible for local ministerial alternative review. There's very strict eligibility criteria, and in most cases, it aligns with state law with some exceptions. One example is that the project has to be on an urban infill site of no more than 20 acres. That means that the project can't be proposed in an area that is not a developed area of the city. So it would have to be surrounded by urban uses on all sides. The project also cannot involve the demolition of historic resources, recently occupied or indeed restricted affordable housing, or result in a net loss of housing or lodging units. I realize that that's a lot. I just wanted to pause again if there were any questions. There's only one last part, but in case you did have something.

Just a quick comment. Maybe we just designate everything in the city historical. Go ahead.

Please continue. Just a little bit left. So the proposed zoning tax amendment does align with the city's housing element, as we've expressed many times during this presentation. It directly implements housing element programs H3.2 and 3.4. It also partially implements 2.8, H2.12, 3.1, and 5.3. So we are achieving a lot with this project. And under a recent state law, which is SB130, we are allowed to do this sort of amendment to not require a concurrent amendment with the general plan. However, we do plan on updating the general plan and we're anticipating to do that in 2028 to start that project. As for review in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA, this is required for all projects at planning processes. We have confirmed that it is exempt from further environmental review. So the first would be under Section 15061 , which applies because it can be seen with certainty that the proposed amendments will have no significant effect on the environment. And the second would be 21080.085 because the proposed amendments is a rezoning that implements the schedule of actions in the city's housing element. And last but not least, we did want to briefly highlight the Planning Commission review on July 14, 2026. The Planning Commission reviewed the proposed zoning tax amendment. After discussion and questions, they did vote 3-0 with two commissioners absent to recommend approval and recommend that the City Council adopt the draft ordinance. In conclusion, staff's recommendation is to approve Z2025-004, which is an ordinance amending Title 17 of the Newark Municipal Code, adding Chapter 1728 and Chapter 1742, and amending Division 2 to Chapter 1721, 1723, 1734, 1737, and 1746, which generally affect development and design standards for residential and residential mixed-use development. This concludes our presentation. We thank you very much for your time this evening. We know that was a lot, so we're very welcome to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you. Before I get to staff questions, thank you for the thorough presentation. I greatly appreciate it. I'm going to open up the public hearing. Is there anybody in the public that would like to comment on the presentation that was just presented? Madam Clerk, is there anybody online that would like to speak to this item? No, Your Honor. Great, so the public hearing is closed. You know, I think it would be a lot easier if I just simply had state legislators sitting up here telling us at the local government what we can and cannot do when it comes to housing. Just a quick editorial thought on that subject. Comments, questions?

I had a quick question. Thank you. You make me feel so small. On slide 37, I just had a question about exactly when you're talking about an extension. I know we're going way back, sorry, but I can verbally just mention it. I just wanted to make sure I kind of understood. If I wanted to add an extra bedroom in my backyard and I wanted to add it in, do I have to go through all this since it's not... I think the rule was like 50% of the area being used or something like that. But if I wanted to add to the front, that's where I have to go get permits and stuff. I just wanted to have clarification on that. It was 37.

That's true.

So just to confirm. So I can add an extra bedroom. I don't have to go through all the permit stuff. And I'm not saying I'm gonna add an extra bedroom because it sounds like that.

We'll keep an eye on your property.

Okay, I know, right? But is that correct? If I add an extension or extend like the living room or a sunroom or something, we should be fine?

SO THE KEY CRITERIA IS IT VISIBLE SO THE KEY CRITERIA IS IT VISIBLE FROM THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY? FROM THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY? SO DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU ADD SO DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU ADD YOUR EDITION. YOUR EDITION.

IT WOULD BE IN THE BACKYARD. IT WOULD BE IN THE BACKYARD. LET'S JUST SAY SOMEBODY WAS LET'S JUST SAY SOMEBODY WAS GOING TO ADD IT IN THEIR

WE'RE GOOD, MOVE FORWARD.

AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT ON A AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT ON A CORNER LOT WHERE THAT EDITION CAN BE CORNER LOT WHERE THAT EDITION CAN BE SEEN FROM THE STREET, FOR SEEN FROM THE STREET, FOR EXAMPLE.

EXAMPLE. FOR THE MOST PART, YES. FOR THE MOST PART, YES. IF YOU'RE INCREASING THE HIGHS IF YOU'RE INCREASING THE HIGHS BY DOUBLE, WE DO WANT YOU TO BY DOUBLE, WE DO WANT YOU TO FOLLOW THE OBJECTIVE DESIGN FOLLOW THE OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS. STANDARDS. IF IT'S LESS THAN THAT, IT'S A IF IT'S LESS THAN THAT, IT'S A MINOR EDITION IN THE BACK. MINOR EDITION IN THE BACK. GENERALLY YOU WOULD NOT HAVE TO GEN

SLIDE 13, I NOTICED THAT TEXAS CAN GET THINGS DONE REALLY, REALLY QUICKLY. WE KNEW THAT WAS COMING UP. I JUST NOTICED. WHY CAN THE LONE STAR STATE, THE ALMIGHTY GREAT ONE, DO IT SO MUCH QUICKER THAN CALIFORNIA?

LAND COST IS ONE ISSUE, CERTAINLY.

I'M CURIOUS, WHY DOES IT TAKE SO MUCH LONGER IN CALIFORNIA, WHICH I LOVE, I LOVE THE STATE, BUT WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET THINGS DONE HERE VERSUS TEXAS? THAT'S A REALLY GREAT QUESTION. I'M REALLY CURIOUS. WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG?

WE DON'T INCLUDE VOMITOS.

WE CAN GO TO SLIDE 13.

I DID NOT PUT THIS AS A PLANT SLIDE.

YOU CAN KEEP IT FOR THE REST OF THE CONVERSATION. I REALLY ENJOYED WATCHING THAT.

I'LL TRY TO BRING MORE TEXAS CONTENT. But yeah, so what you see here is the gray is pre-development time. So that's before the shovel goes in the ground. And orange is the actual construction time. Texas is done on average by the time California has actually started construction. And so there's many different reasons that are cited in this study. But California's penchant for discretionary processes is one of those, whereas Texas processes things much more commonly on a ministerial basis. So they'll review an entitlement application much more similar to the way that we do a building permit application. If you meet the basic standards, you can go. And then there are other things related to construction timing related to like overlapping or having closer sequencing of inspections between building divisions, fire departments, stuff like that. A lot of this is stuff that we in Newark are already doing, but many parts of the state are not. Okay.

Thank you. To that point, this will come back to the council, won't it, for a second reading, yes?

Correctly.

Is it possible, when you come back, can you have a slide that includes the average production time for newer development? Because you mentioned we're already doing a lot of these things. I'd love to see or believe at the end of the day that we're doing it much quicker than what was described on that slide.

Yeah, thank you, sir. And we can certainly elaborate on that. And we do have this permit processing time frame from our housing element. But we can certainly look at what what else there is.

Great. Other questions, Council Member? No, that's perfect, thank you. Council Member Gondal?

Thank you, Mayor. And I share the mayor's frustration with the state telling us what to do. I don't imagine they wrote us a check for the time that we spent working on this effort. No, I didn't think so. However, I do have a little more positive attitude towards it. At least I'm an optimist about it. I do hope that this process will speed our progress. we'll speed our development process and develop the same be able to incorporate the things that have made Newark development special that makes us look like we do, that's part of our community. So I really appreciate staff and the planning commission's deep dive into this to really make sure that what makes Newark special is carried forward into the objective design standards. And I am hopeful that we will speed up the development process for projects that comply with those standards. ONE QUESTION SLASH PLEA IS THAT WE SHOULD BE, I DO THINK WE SHOULD BE ADAPTABLE AS WE GO THROUGH THIS AND IMPLEMENT THIS PROJECT. YOU MAY FIND THAT SOME OF THE OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS DON'T YIELD THE RESULTS YOU'RE HOPING FOR. AND SO HOPEFULLY YOU'LL BE ABLE TO ADAPT THIS GOING FORWARD AND AS YOU DISCOVER IN THE IMPLEMENTATION HOW IT WORKS. BECAUSE YES, WE WANT TO SPEED THE PROCESS BUT WE STILL WANT TO MAINTAIN THE QUALITY OF DEVELOPMENT IN OUR COMMUNITY. SO I GUESS MY QUESTION, THE QUESTION PART OF THAT IS, IS IT ADAPTABLE? COULD YOU BE BRINGING, IF YOU DISCOVER AN ISSUE CAN STAFF BRING US A CHANGE GOING FORWARD?

Yes, definitely. The zoning code can be updated, and we've designed the objective design standards to be an iterative process. We understand that this is not going to always create the best design outcome. We also know that we might get some complaints from developers or even property owners trying to improve their property. So we want to hear that. And if we feel that we have to make some changes to our standards, we can definitely consider that.

Great. Two more things. I don't think you mentioned ADUs at all in this process. Am I right in my understanding that ADUs are exempt from these standards or which of them are? So how do these objective design standards get applied to ADUs? And just a brief answer. I know there are books written on ADUs. So just a brief discussion of that.

Yes, that's a really good question. The accessory dwelling unit, and we currently do this now, we view them through a different lens, through our standards for specific uses section. If you recall, we did update our ADU ordinance several months ago. So we do have to look at through those lens due to certain state law constraints. So if a project includes an ADU, but also includes an addition, for example, to the primary residence, we would just look at the primary residence unfortunately our hands are tied with that and we've found ways to make that work but we are very clear in our process that the accessory dwelling unit cannot be a part of that process right but you could you could sort of turn these objective design standards into a guidebook or a handbook

guidelines. That's what I'm looking for. Guidelines that are voluntary, that encourage people to follow. That's something that staff could consider?

Yes, that's definitely something we could consider.

Great. Just my last point is, and I know you're deep in this and you're all professional planners, but some of the flow charts are kind of scary. So... So... If there's ways to simplify that, I even think that you could have sort of an AI chat bot that would walk people through this process to some extent and ask relevant questions and sort of take them through it rather than what looks pretty daunting to most people going forward. So that's just one comment I wanted to have because it did – WHAT WE WANT TO DO IS GOING BACK TO THE SPEEDING UP THE PROCESS. WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE PROJECTS THAT ARE GOOD QUALITY PROJECTS MOVE MUCH, MUCH FASTER THAN THEY MOVE IN CALIFORNIA AND EVEN HERE IN THE PAST. SO HOPEFULLY WE ARE AIMING TOWARDS SPEEDING THIS PROCESS UP. THANK YOU.

That's an excellent point. And just to add to that, the implementation component is the second battle. We do have to make sure that the processes and the standards are clear and comprehensible to the public. So that is the next effort that we'll be going forward with. Thank you.

Yeah, just my comment on the flowchart. The flowchart is supposed to be something where a customer can understand visually what the process looks like. It may be a situation where we're trying to incorporate a number of different variables into that flowchart. So maybe by breaking the flowchart up into different variables on a singular page might be easier for the customer to be able to read. Going back to Council Member Grindahl's comment on the ADUs, because looking at the chart that we have in front of us, it looks like those are pretty much handled as a ministerial by right, unless the height exceeds a certain amount. So it sounds like that process has been certainly streamlined to the benefit of our citizens. Questions on this side of the aisle? Council Member Del Contancio.

Yes, thank you, Your Honor. Well, I do support having clear local design standards that would also protect Newark's character, and I do appreciate your presentation. I just wanted to confirm whether or not my assumption is correct that staff does believe that the objective standards provide sufficient local design control while allowing qualifying projects to proceed ministerially without discretionary review.

That's a really good question. Through this effort, we have tried to achieve standards that include the Planning Commission, the City Council, the community's input. We didn't just take these standards from other jurisdictions and applied it to Newark. We tried to make it unique to Newark. We'd like to say in Newark, the Newark way. So we're hoping that the design outcomes that will come as a result of this would allow projects to be proposed, but also built. So that is the hope. We'll just have to see how these processes iron out. And again, if we do have to make some changes, we can make those changes.

Okay, great. Thank you. I don't have any other questions. Thank you.

Vice Mayor? Yeah, I just want to. First, thank staff for their work on this. I think as we're looking at our goal to remove and reduce those development constraints, I think what we're looking at here is a real way forward to be able to do that and provide a lot of clarity. And just from the whole process down from the community engagement part down to this evening's presentation, it was very well done. I think where we're at is in a very good place. It's going to be helpful in a lot of ways for our community. I will say one of my concerns with this is one of the virtues of having a subjective process is once something does get approved through that subjective process, it creates a real incentive for the project to be built within the period while the entitlements are there. Because if the entitlements were to expire and the developer were to have to go through a lengthy, opaque, and subjective process, that's a real incentive to build what they got approved. And by having this process, which I am optimistic is going to be much quicker. It's going to be much clearer. We're going to see projects coming through following these rules that we're setting out. I do worry that the approval isn't going to be correlated with the project actually being built. So I think as we go forward, it's going to be something we're going to have to watch. you know, okay, we're getting these projects coming forward under these standards. What's actually getting built? And if we're going to need to, you know, put in place, you know, other standards, you know, post approval, you know, put in place incentives for these projects that are being approved to actually be built because, you know, as we're looking to also, you know, develop more homes for more people, just approving the housing doesn't accomplish that. Housing actually needs to be built. So I think this is a good step, especially when it comes to reducing or removing barriers. We need to make sure that at the end of that is housing actually getting built. And for now, I'm going to be optimistic that this is going to help us there. And I do think it will. But we're also going to need to be cautious about some of the other things that can go along with it.

And I would almost segue on that last point. How many units, Mr. Benun, have we built in the city of Newark in just roughly a rough estimate in the last five years? Two to 3,000. So we, the city of Newark, have certainly not hesitated to provide quality housing and affordable housing to our residents without the necessity of these state mandates. We're not turning developers away who are desirous of building quality housing in our community and certainly affordable housing in our community. But again, the state of California looks at issues not from a... micro perspective. They look at it from a macro perspective. And so though we, the city, have been building quality housing for the last number of years, other communities and cities that have ignored their RHNA requirements and have been subject to no penalties are now, we're now caught up in that process. And that's troubling to me. Mr. Colum, you mentioned SB 423, and we're not likely to meet our numbers, and there will be a change as a result of SB 423. Could you clarify that one more time for me? You mentioned a 10%. lowering?

Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. So the city is currently subject to a version of Senate Bill 423, whereby a project can go through a ministerial approvals process if they restrict 50% of the units to lower incomes. That's based on our previous housing element performance. In 2027, HCD is going to look at our housing element performance from 2023 through 2026. And unfortunately, we are not making as much progress as we did in the last housing element. And so under these conditions, we are going to be subject to a different version of SB 423, most likely, in which a project can take advantage of streamlined ministerial approvals per SB 423 if it restricts 10% of all units to lower income units, to lower income households, or 20% of all units to moderate income households.

So kind of to Vice Mayor Jorgen's comment, if I'm a developer, why not simply wait on my development because the standards for affordability are going to be a lot less and a lot less government review at the council and the committee. Why would I not just simply wait and then allow myself to then build something where the criteria is less than what it is today?

I think that that could certainly be a possibility and a calculation for some developers. And I think that's exactly why we are trying to present and propose a local alternative that gives us some leverage back in that situation.

Can you go to slide 49? I just have a quick question on slide 49, please. It had to do with the timeline. that was presented. On the left hand side of the screen, it says that state mandated ministerial will deem approved if 60 to 90 day deadline not met. When does the 60 to 90 day deadline begin? Is it when the development permit has been reviewed and approved for commencement of the development? When does that 60 to 90 day timeline begin?

I would have to double-check the state law, but from what I recall, I believe it's when the application is formally submitted. So that's when the applicant makes the payment. So we check that the materials are in, and then we allow them to pay. Once they pay, that starts the clock.

Okay.

It varies on the project size, the 150.

So it sounds like it varies depending on the number of units in the project. So I believe the threshold is 150. So the 60-day deadline would apply to projects that have less than 150 units. And then over 150 units would be a 90-day deadline, so a little bit longer, about a month.

And as I understood the presentation, two units up to 200 units, at some point if they meet... very specific guidelines, general plan, et cetera, et cetera. It could be ministerially approved. My concern, again, with that is that it takes away, at least in my estimation, other unanticipated impacts on neighborhoods and nearby residential properties. How does that issue get addressed?

So similar to equivalent state law, there is a very set, a very rigorous criteria for determining if a project's eligible. So some of those could be that there can't be historical resources on site, archaeological resources, there can't be a notable environmental feature like wetlands, there can't be hazardous materials. So you're essentially limiting a lot of the large environmental impacts that one would be concerned about with allowing a project of that size and that

Let me be more specific with an example. We had a citizen that came to us just in the last month or two that wanted to build an affordable housing project and also a residential project across from a defined neighborhood. I think it's the Mayhew's Landing neighborhood. And we heard a lot of residents that came and spoke in opposition of that possible development. Of course, we, the council, were not making a decision that night one way or another. Would something like that, with a development proposal like that, would it be allowed to go through a ministerial process which would then take away the public's ability to comment on the possible impact of such a development on their neighborhood?

So we would certainly, you know, provide them with the opportunity to, you know, for us to review the eligibility criteria. So this is only an assumption. But, you know, one of the criterias is that it be an infill site. And from what I recall, you know, the site is not technically an infill site. Right.

It was not an infill site.

Right. So it's just at the perimeter of the city. So potentially it might not be eligible. It also would require a legislative action. I believe it may have been a general plan amendment or rezoning. that would definitely eliminate it from ministerial review. So it would have to go through the planning commission recommendation and city council decision process.

And one of the other points, and we discussed it briefly, and I don't know if it was covered under the presentation, but we're on cycle, is it cycle six? Is that what it's called, cycle six? We talked about cycle four and cycle five, where those, we identified parcels in those two cycles that we're now describing as reused parcels. And my understanding is that if those properties come forward with development proposals, just because of the nature that they've been identified in previous cycles, they would be permitted to go through the ministerial process. Am I reading that and understanding that correctly?

Yes, sir, and that is the subject of the next public hearing item. Oh, it is? Yeah.

Then let's wait till we get to that one. Okay, excellent. Any other comments, questions, thoughts? This is an action item by the city. to Can I get a second? I would well first I think we need a motion. I'm sorry. Can I get a motion? I would like to move staffs recommendation. All right. Is there a second? We have a motion by the vice mayor second by a counselor. Don't contentio. Please vote My screen came back And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Appreciate all the hard work that you folks have done. City Attorney? I was just going to read the title, Mayor. That's okay.

Okay. Ordinance of the City Council of the City of New York amending Title 17, Zoning of the New York Municipal Code, Add Chapter 17.28, Residential and Residential Mixed-Use Design Standards, Chapter 17.42, Reasonable Accommodation, Division 2, Base and Overlay Districts, Chapter 17.17, General Site Regulations, Chapter 17.21, Landscaping, Chapter 17... 23 parking and loading chapter 17 34 design review chapter 17 37 waivers in chapter 17 46 definitions generally effective development design standards for residential mixed and residential mixed-use development

Your Honor, if I may, just for some clarification. On the second reading, Your Honor, you asked for some additional information. Typically, we leave second readings on the consent calendar. Would the counsel's pleasure be to have a brief presentation on non-consent or provide that data as part of a consent calendar item?

If you provide that as an item on the consent item, I would be okay with that. But I do want to make one more comment. I meant to make this during the testimony. I'm really attuned to what the vice mayor was saying. We approve these developments around our community and we just don't see them being built. So we put a lot of staff time and energy into bringing quality housing to our community that just simply doesn't happen. I'd like staff to investigate or review whether or not there are other cities that are doing something to incentivize developers to actually get these units built, whether it be some type of bond of some sort or some type of commitment financially that they're going to do. I don't know what it looks like, but maybe have staff make inquiries as to what are other cities doing to try to incentivize these developers to actually get these things built. Because I sense the frustration. I share that frustration on projects that we review and approve, and just they never seem to get built. All right. Thank you for the report and the presentation. Item two is a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance amending the Newark zoning map to rezone certain property into the BRH overlay district. And I understand Vice Mayor Jorgens needs to recuse himself from this item.

Yes. Vice Mayor? At this time and for this item, I will be recusing myself. I have a real property leasehold interest that is adjacent to a property that is proposed to be included in the overly disturbed by the proposed zoning map amendment.

City Manager Bennoune.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. Back in October of 2023, the city council approved the sixth cycle housing element for the period between 2023 through 2031. As part of the sixth cycle, and as the mayor just indicated, the city elected to reuse sites that have been carried over from the fourth and fifth cycle housing elements. In order to reuse these sites in the sixth cycle, as per state law, the city had to rezone certain parcels to allow residential use by right, for housing developments in which at least 20% of the units are affordable. Back in January of 2024, the council enacted such changes to the city's zoning map. However, certain parcels were inadvertently omitted. This is a public hearing to amend the zoning map so as to include these parcels. With that in mind, we turn to our Housing Policy and Programs Manager, Mr. Michael Coulomb, for a relatively brief staff report. Mr. Coulomb.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager, Mayor, and City Council Members. Again, Michael Coulomb, Housing Policy and Programs Manager. The item before you concerns the city's by-right housing overlay district, which is codified in Newark Municipal Code as Chapter 17.15. The By-right Housing Overlay District, I'll also refer to it as the BRH District, is required by state law and has existed in the Municipal Code since its adoption by City Council in 2024. This is a public hearing to consider an ordinance to amend the Newark zoning map by applying the BRH Overlay District to specific parcels. And this hearing and staff's recommendations do not include any changes to development standards, design standards, permitted uses, or any other zoning text amendments. As for the agenda for this brief presentation, I'll provide a quick overview explaining how this item relates to our housing element and the history behind the BRH overlay district. I'll then display the sites proposed for rezoning into the district and conclude with a brief discussion of required findings, noticing, and environmental review requirements. Finally, I will present the recommendation made by staff and the Planning Commission. I'm joined this evening by Community Development Director Steven Turner, who's also available to take questions on this item. Council is very familiar by now with our housing element and New York's target of building new homes by the end of this housing element cycle in 2031. Housing element cycles are eight years long and we're currently in the sixth cycle. The fifth cycle consisted of years 2015 to 2023. State law requires the housing element to identify sites with the realistic capacity of accommodating the city's housing targets, also known as Regional Housing Needs Allocation or RHNA. The city went through this exercise for the sixth cycle in 2022 and identified sites with sufficient capacity and infrastructure for supporting over 150% of New York's required RHNA. Those sites are shown in this image. State law allows cities to reuse or carry over undeveloped sites from one housing element cycle to another. If we do that, however, reuse sites must be zoned for buy-right development. Buy-right means a city will review and approve projects that meet specific criteria without a discretionary action that would trigger further environmental review requirements. The law also says that this rezoning must take place within one year of housing element adoption. Rezoning reuse sites to allow by right development are both a policy and program of the housing element. I won't read those fully out here, but specifically the BRH overlay district implements policy H3.1 and program H3.6. Newark six cycle housing element includes 11 reuse sites consisting of over 40 individual parcels. The Planning Commission voted unanimously at a public hearing on November 14th, 2024 to recommend City Council adopt the BRH Overlay Zone. And then City Council subsequently accepted the Planning Commission's recommendation on January 11th, 2024. due to an inadvertent omission, 17 parcels were not applied the BRH overlay zone. So the item for this evening concerns rectifying that issue and applying the BRH overlay district to the remaining parcels. The map on the right shows the location of those parcels and sites. The parcels in yellow are in the original BRH overlay. They're in that district today. In the parcels in blue are those that staff recommend adding to the BRH overlay. All of these sites have frontage on Thornton Avenue except for one irregularly shaped remnant parcel between the Cedar Boulevard public storage facility and the freeway. And all of these parcels were identified in our fifth and sixth housing elements as affordable housing sites. This close-up map shows the proposed parcels to be added again. Site 16 consists of parcels in the Old Town Newark specific plan area and site 20 consists of Thornton Avenue parcels outside of the Old Town area. Site 22 is the Cedar Avenue public storage site and you can see the primary developable parcels of the site are already in the BRH overlay district. This slide just shows a table of the 17 individual parcels identified by their assessor's parcel numbers and their street addresses. State law requires BRH sites to be zoned to allow residential as a permitted use, which all of these sites do, and to allow densities of at least 20 homes per acre and to be physically large enough to accommodate at least 16 homes. All of these sites meet those specifications, and that requisite analysis was conducted as part of the housing element process in 2023. Those conditions have not changed. It's important to note, however, that not any project can use the BRH approvals process to be eligible. The project on that site must restrict at least 20% of its housing units to lower income households and comply with all local objective standards and site development criteria. And fresh off the press, this site is outdated because city council has in the first reading approved the objective design standards that would be applied to qualifying projects in this overlay. So to quickly summarize, the BRH overlay district was codified into Newark Municipal Code as chapter 17.15 in 2024 in compliance with state law. Today's item does not concern any zoning text amendments. Today's item is limited to amending the zoning map. This action does not grant any land use entitlements. The city does receive inquiries about sites throughout the city from time to time, but as of this moment, the city has not received any applications for development on these parcels and the BRH district does not require that housing be built in any of these parcels. Finally, we're doing this in order to comply with state law to implement our housing element and to avoid any potential land use and zoning conflicts should we receive an application for a project seeking to use the BRH overlay zone approval process. In accordance with the Newark Municipal Code, staff have made the following required findings. The amendment is consistent with the general plan. Any change in district boundaries is necessary to achieve the balance of land uses desired by the city, consistent with the general plan. And the amendment will promote the growth of the city in an orderly manner and promote and protect the public health, safety, comfort, peace, and general welfare. Staff have complied with the Newark Municipal Code and other applicable laws to appropriately notice this evening's public hearing. A newspaper advertisement was published in the Tri-City Voice on August 25th of 2026. The city staff mailed a notice to property owners of affected parcels and to property owners within 500 feet of each affected parcel. The requested action is exempt from CEQA based on the fact that it is not changing existing land uses, the intensity of land use, and because it does not approve entitlements for a specific project or have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. The Planning Commission reviewed the proposed action at a notice public hearing on July 28th, 2026, and recommended City Council adopt the draft ordinance by unanimous vote. And so it is the shared recommendation of staff in the Planning Commission that the City Council adopt an ordinance amending the Newark zoning map by applying the BRH overlay district to specific parcels.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Before I get to questions and comments, I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing. Is there anybody here in the audience that would like to speak to item E2? Madam Clerk, anybody online that would like to speak to item E2?

No, Your Honour.

Thank you, I'll close the public hearing, turn it back to the colleagues. Sounds like it's more of a cleanup item here. Questions, comments? Council Member Grindahl.

Yes, thank you very much for the presentation. the um just want to be just want to make sure i understand properly um i mean it is a cleanup item in fact i think a property owner could probably ask ask for that ask for that to apply since it was included in the housing element at any time um one question though the um by right housing actually has more severe um RESTRICTIONS THAN BY THE OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS PROCESS THAT WE JUST TALKED ABOUT AT LEAST IN THE IT'S NOT GOING TO HAVE ANY EFFECT BECAUSE IT REQUIRES 20% FOR LOW EFFECT BECAUSE IT REQUIRES 20% FOR LOW INCOME RATHER THAN 10. INCOME RATHER THAN 10. I WOULDN'T EXPECT THAT WOULD I WOULDN'T EXPECT THAT WOULD HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE DEVELOPERS. DEVELOPERS. YOU DON'T HAVE TO COMMENT ON YOU DON'T HAVE TO COMMENT ON THAT. THAT. JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE STATE JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE STATE HAVING US RUNNING AROUND IN HAVING US RUNNING AROUND IN CIRCLES FOR NO REASON. CIRCLES FOR NO REASON. ALL THESE LAWS SOUND GREAT WHEN the table in Sacramento and then they get down here and they're useless. So I just want to be clear that buy right housing doesn't mean they can change the underlying of the property or any other requirement, they can apply the buy right procedure but they still have to comply with the general plan and zoning regulations. Yes, sir, that's correct. Thank you. Not that we would have any choice of not doing it anyway since we've committed to doing this in the housing element but I just wanted to clarify that so thank you very much. Thank you.

Council Member Contaccio.

Yes, thank you, Your Honor. And thank you for the presentation. I really did appreciate all the maps and the colors. So it was helpful for us to identify things more easily. And it does seem that when we're thinking about in terms of SB35 and its extension of SB423 that we spoke of today in item E1, it sounds like this is just also an extension too. It complements it more of a policy cleanup policy. It sounds like we're speaking of it under E2 when we're thinking about the buy right housing. I just wanted to note that is it correct to assume that they could work everything works in conjunction? It really is not just really a map of rezoning but also a policy that works hand-in-hand E1 and E2.

Yes, Council Member, that's correct. I would concur. This also falls under our housing element goal of reducing and removing constraints to building housing.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'd love to see a presentation sometime, Mr. Mnune, maybe from developers, where we put in such constraints on their ability to develop in our city, because I just don't see that happening. I see us having a team in the economic development department, planning department that are here to assist developers in building quality homes, certainly affordable housing. I'd love to hear where we, the city, are putting constraints in on development, because I just don't see it happening. In fact, I see the reverse happening, as we mentioned in the last item, where we approve development, and we still look at that vacant lot there at the Newark Boulevard Mayhew's Landing location, to name one. or the one on Cherry Avenue, to name two. You know, we approved some beautiful developments there at great cost and expense on staff time, and they just simply don't get built. So this is an action item. Can I get a motion and a second to approve staff's recommendation, please?

I'll move approval.

By Council Member Gondal.

I'll second.

By Council Member Del Contancio, please vote. And that passes with four ayes, and Vice Mayor Jorgens recusing himself.

ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEWARK ADJUSTMENT CHAPTER 17.15 TO THE NEWARK MUNICIPAL CODE ESTABLISH BY RIGHT HOUSING OVERLAY DISTRICT REZONING CERTAIN PROPERTY INTO THE BY RIGHT HOUSING OVERLAY DISTRICT AND MAKING RELATED MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS TO TITLE 17 ZONING OF THE NEWARK MUNICIPAL CODE.

so that 15 story high rise that we just approved near Vice Mayor Jorgen's property, we're good to go on that, right? Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go to other business. F1 is waive full reading and introduce by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Newark amending Chapter 2.09 of the Newark Municipal Code City Council Members' Compensation to increase the salaries of the mayor and the city council members. Colleagues, we've heard this item before, and as we look at the evening getting late, I'm wondering... Do we need a staff presentation on this, or are we ready to go ahead and vote on this item? Moving forward, thoughts? I would prefer a staff presentation. Great. City Manager Burnett?

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. As your mayor indicated, this item would increase the mayor and council member salaries by 7.5%, effective January 1st, 2027. Tonight, we have a brief staff report from Assistant City Manager Havorka.

We use your inside voice.

All right, good evening, Your Honor and council members. This item is the introduction of the ordinance amending chapter 2.09 of the Newark Municipal Code. increasing the salaries of the mayor and council members. On May 28th, 2026, city council held discussion considering the consumer price index increases and increases in compensation awarded to city staff since the last increase to city council members' salaries per the municipal code. This includes increases for calendar years 2025 and 2026. Staff presented increase examples matching the consumer price index increases of 5.2%, and staff compensation increases of 7.5%, as well as scenarios of 4% and 10% increases. The current salaries were last increased January 1, 2025, and are $3,179 per month for the mayor, and $1,453 per month for each council member. At the May 28th, 2026 city council meeting, a majority of the council agreed to include a 7.5% salary increase for the mayor and the council members in the 2026 to 2028 biennial budget, which was adopted by city council on June 25th, 2026. The changes proposed to the ordinance for city council compensation reflect council's direction and would increase salaries to $2,417 for the mayor and $1,561 for each council member. This reflects an increase of approximately $12,000 in direct salary cost and a total compensation cost of approximately $17,000 which includes the impact of salary increases as well as the impact, or the impact, excuse me, of salary increases on both Medicare and retirement costs in the 2026-2028 biennial budget, and that's for a period of 18 months beginning January 1, 2027. So for that January 1, 2027 increase to be effective, the government code requires that the ordinance be adopted before the November election. So if approved tonight, the second reading of the ordinance would be scheduled for the September 24th city council meeting with a 30-day waiting period for ordinance implementation. It would end approximately 10 days before the November election. So this includes staff's report, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. to speak to this item?

Madam Clerk, is there anybody online who would like to speak to this item?

No, Your Honor.

My wife didn't call? Colleagues, questions, comments? Questions, comments? Councillor Grendel.

Yes, and recognizing we have discussed this already at the budget adoption time, I do want to indicate that when I was knocking on doors running for election, not one resident told me that a big issue was to be able to increase the pay of the mayor and council. I don't think that a council pay increase is necessary in order to attract people to serve in this capacity. And this particular increase would mean nearly 14% increase over the last two years in city council and mayor compensation. And I think that's excessive. So I'll be voting against this measure.

Other questions, comments? I'm just going to make a couple comments. We have a $95 million budget here in the city of Newark, and if I heard the assistant city manager describe that this impact on the general fund is about $17,000. I think I asked you last time this item came up what percentage of our general fund that would actually translate into, and you did some quick math. I'm not going to ask you that question again, but I just found it interesting. We do need to make the salary commensurate with the work that we're expecting citizens to do if and when they should be elected to the city council the notion that we show up for a couple meetings a couple times a month is is such a misnomer there's so much work involved in being a council member where it be attending grand openings, whether it be committee assignments, whether it be engaging the community. Folks need to be, they're never going to be made whole in terms of the time that they're committing to this position because they do it out of a love for their community and their willingness to be public servants. That's what drives people to be here where they are. The city of Fremont just undertook council compensation. And I found it interesting when you think of the city of Fremont, which is six council districts. And if you do the math based on the 2020 census, the population of Fremont was roughly 235,000 based on the 2020 census. And I may be off a little bit on those numbers. But the actual council member in Fremont represents about 39,000 residents. You folks and the mayor, we represent the entire community and our population is about 47,000 people. You represent a significant higher number of residents than they do. Yet they just voted themselves a substantial pay raise and a substantial increase in their benefit package. to the point where they are paid more than $1,000 per month more than you are and more than I am. And what troubles me about the compensation issue, and I know it's a sticky subject, and I'll agree with Council Member Grendel, in my many, many walks through neighborhoods over the many, many years, no one has ever talked to me about council compensation. Granted, I never raised the question of council compensation with them, but if I think of where I would articulate the amount of work that we do, for the betterment of our community. And if I were to poll the citizens based on that activity, I think overwhelmingly they would say that we are significantly underpaid for the work that we do. But pay is not the only compensation that we receive. We receive the love of our community and the accolades for doing a job well done. That's what we receive. that we fall back on. But I'm troubled with just the new, the council members that are running this election, just the cost to file for your election, which used to be like 400 bucks, is now $1,100. So in essence, 1 12th of your salary for the year is gonna be already taken up just by saying, you know what, I wanna do it for four more years. I love the community. I love what I do. I think I make a difference. Compensation is important, but it's not the end-all, be-all. I love what I do. But one-twelfth of your salary moving forward is going to be taken up by just simply saying, I want to do it again. So I hear Councilmember Gondal's comments. You know, I fall back on former Councilmember Suzy Collazo because she was very articulate when she talked about, if you want... dynamic individuals to sit up here and make a commitment to serve their community, you need to compensate them fairly. I don't think we're there yet, but I'm comfortable and comforted with the proposal that's currently on the agenda. So I'll look for a motion and a second on staff's recommendation.

I'll motion it.

Council Member Little makes the motion. Council Member Del Contancio makes the second. Please vote. And that passes unanimously with four ayes and one no.

In ordinance of the City Council of the City of Newark amending Chapter 2.09, City Council Members' compensation of the Newark Municipal Code to increase the salaries of City Council Members and Mayor by 7.5%. Thank you, City Attorney.

City Manager Updates, Mr. Banoon.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, members of the council. We have several updates for you this evening. I believe we have a PowerPoint presentation loaded.

You've become so high-tech, Dr. Bennoon.

Staff puts it together. I have no involvement in the preparation of the PowerPoint. That is beyond my skill set. The first item for your information this evening is that Newark News is hitting mailboxes in the next couple of days, as soon as potentially is tomorrow. This edition will be 16 pages, the longest issue yet, packed with all kinds of information and updates for the Newark community. Inside you'll find election information, upcoming fall events. tips for preparing for the wet weather we're anticipating, details on preschool and childcare registration, as well as updates on the city's projects and programs. If you can't wait for the printed version of the newsletter, you're welcome to read the electronic version on the city's website listed right there. The next announcement is applications are now open for the Newark Youth Leadership Academy. This is a free six-week program that gives local high school students a behind-the-scenes look at how the city of Newark operates. The program dates are Wednesday evenings from September 30th through November 4th. This is a six-week program. The application period closes Friday, September 18th. The third announcement this evening is that the Newark Community Emergency Response Team is hosting an open house on Saturday, September 12th from 9 a.m. to noon. This is at the fire station located on Cherry Street. Public is encouraged to attend, meet our CERT volunteers, learn all about our program and how members of the public can be part of the program and support our community when disaster happens. The next announcement, going back to the beginning of the meeting, we have Newark Days next weekend. This is, of course, the city's annual birthday celebration. Newark is turning 71 on Thursday, September 22nd. Excuse me, on September 22nd. The program begins on Thursday, September 17th and continues through Sunday, September 20th. And this year's theme is Adventure is Just a Page Away. Of course, if anybody doesn't know where the location is, it is at McGregor Playfields at Newark and Newark Community Center. And as we saw at the beginning of this meeting, the program is put together by dedicated and spirited volunteers of Newark Day celebration incorporated. For the full schedule of activities, please visit the Newark Days website listed on the screen. The next announcement is that we have a down payment assistance loan program for first time homebuyers. We are excited to announce the start of this program. City Council has approved $3 million for the program, which will provide low-interest loans of up to $150,000 or $200,000, tailored to buyer income and need. Pre-applications are accepted now through October 15th, and registration information and a complete pre-application is posted on the city's website listed there on the screen. The next announcement is that the Newark Resource Center is now open. We are connecting Newark residents with services and support available right here in our community. The resource center is located in Ash Street Park, serves as a one-stop hub where residents can access a variety of social services from trusted community partners as well as from city staff. For more information, please go to the city's website. Next, we have our Community Cultural Arts Center survey. We're moving forward with the planning for this new amenity, and we want to hear from the public. As we move to the next stage of planning, we're asking the community to help us take a closer look at how you envision using these spaces and what features are most important to you. Whether you're interested in arts and cultural programs, performances, classes, community events, recreation, or simply having more places to gather and connect, your input will help inform the planning process. And the survey is posted on the link there shown on the screen. And last but not least, I am beyond proud to announce that the City of Newark has received Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. the government finance officers association otherwise known as gfoa awarded the city of newark the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for its fiscal year 2024 through 2025 annual comprehensive financial report this is gfoa's highest recognition for governmental accounting and financial reporting and recognizes reports that meet ricker's standards for transparency Full disclosure in financial presentation, we received the highest rating of proficient in all 17 financial reporting categories evaluated, and that is the GFOA equivalent of receiving straight A's across the board. and sincere thank you to all of our talented finance department staff members who put together this spectacular document. It was a heavy lift, and it's clearly a well-deserved reward. This type of award is recognized in about half of California jurisdictions, and so we're in the top half of the state of California. That concludes City Manager Updates this evening.

Thank you, Mr. Bennoon. I appreciate that. We'll now go to City Council Matters. And we do have an item on the City Council Matters is to provide direction regarding staff preparation of City Council meeting minutes and approve the July 9, 2026 City Council meeting minutes. Mr. Bennoon?

Yes, Your Honor. Item H1 is a request from staff for the Council to provide direction on the preparation of City Council meeting minutes. For the reasons outlined in the staff report, staff recommends that the council agree to using a hybrid action and summary minutes style for drafting minutes. Should that be the council's pleasure, then staff recommends approving the July 9th city council meeting minutes as shown and as amended in attachment three. We do have a brief report from the assistant city managers this evening. Ms. Svoboda?

Thank you, City Manager Boone, and good evening again, Mayor and council members. At the July 23rd City Council meeting, the July 9th City Council meeting minutes were pulled from the consent calendar for discussion, and the discussion centered around whether the minutes should include an individual council member's comments or position on an issue outside of recording formal votes. At the conclusion of the discussion, City Council voted to continue the approval of the July 9th minutes to today's meeting in order for staff to have time to review past meeting minutes and report back to Council on our past practice. The staff report details four styles of meeting minutes describing Newark's past practice as a hybrid of action and summary style minutes. This style records all votes and provides brief summaries of topics discussed by members of the public and sometimes city council and staff where clarification or explanation would assist a reader of the minutes to understand an item that may have been changed between the agenda and the final vote or a particularly complex item. Summaries are not routinely included on all agenda items. In reviewing past minutes, some are more detailed than others. Moving forward, staff recommends continuing the hybrid style with the following guidelines. Briefly summarize public comments, city manager reports, and city council reports. Record all informal polls conducted by the presiding officer of the meeting as shown in the amended July 9th minutes, which is attachment three of the staff report. Occasionally include brief statements for clarity or explanation on items that may be complex or again change from the agenda title to the vote. And no council member comments would be included on the minutes prepared by staff unless specific statements were requested at a public meeting and the majority of city council voted to include them in the minutes. And this follows the process that is outlined in Newark Municipal Code 2.08.090, also attached to the staff report. Following these guidelines, refrains from tasking staff with making judgment calls that may inadvertently change emphasis or meaning or misinterpret or misconstrue comments. And for context, I'd like to share that of the 13 other cities in the county, 11 report that they produce action minutes, which does not include any type of comments, simply records actions taken. And only two of the cities produce summary