City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Well, good morning everyone and welcome to the 2026 city council priority setting retreat. We're thrilled everyone is here on a Saturday. Madame clerk, would you please take the role? Vice Mayor Stone here. Council member Bert. Mayor Vinker here. Council member Lot

here. Council member Lou here. Council member Rectal here. Council member Lowi here.

For the record, all present. Thank you very much. Um, and I just I I want to thank staff for their annual herculean task of moving our meeting to this room so that we can be more casual setting and together with all of you. Uh, I want to thank my colleague uh, council member Lithcott HS for joining us while she is ill because this means so much to her. So that is why she is remote this morning. Um, and you know just a a a moment of introduction. This is really a great task before us. You know, when we're each elected, we go around and through campaigns, we talk to community members. Then once we're sitting here, we hear public comment and have office hours and we really try to listen to what you want. But this is a time and place where we can really, you know, work through things together and listen to you. you know, on the job, we meet city staff, we take tours, we we learn so much about this city, and today we get to put it all together. Um, and think about how together we can really make PaloAlto the city we want it to be, what is probable, what is possible, and what is a priority. And that's our primary task today. Um, I have spoken about unlocking PaloAlto's promise, and today is about the how. How do we get there? How do we achieve that promise? And all of us up here have uh some experience under our belt with this retreat process. So, I'm looking forward to a really thoughtful, creative, exciting discussion. I think that we will live into one of my favorite sayings, which is that none of us is as smart as all of us. And that doesn't just apply to the seven of us here. There are three legs to this stool. Council, staff, and residents. And while

it's our job to set the 2026 priorities, we do so with advice from residents and from staff so that we can give staff some clear direction on how to best serve our residents. Now, we always have challenges and this year is no exception. We received a challenging long range financial forecast on Monday that will require some belt tightening. We are seeing unrest on city streets uh in different parts of our nation and uh cities in this very county are considering how best to prepare for similar situations in our own county. And we're worried about federal grants, wildfires, and the reliability and capacity of our grid. But we're also excited about the prospect of opening Project HomeKey, getting a Cubberly plan approved by voters, and continuing our ambitious climate program and more. So, I'm eager to get started. We have a very promising day. Um, and I think with that, I'll turn it over to the city manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of city council, and attendees here. One, uh, piece of logistics. I believe council member Liths has a statement she needs to make.

Yes. Thank you for that, city manager. Um, I am attending by Zoom invoking the just cause provision of AB 2449. The reason for my doing so is I have the flu despite having a flu shot. Um, there are no adults over 18 in the room with me presently, but over the course of the day, my son Sawyer or my partner Dan might come in here to bring me some liquids. And I will be keeping my camera off when I am not speaking.

Thank you, Council Member Liths. Uh we certainly wish you a speedy recovery and really appreciate your dedication to be with us this morning. Um also want to acknowledge and and thank the mayor for acknowledging the staff work to set up the Mitchell Park Community Center which you would typically see filled with anything from dance to performances to community meetings and the like. And our uh city clerk's office and IT departments in particular just do an amazing job to transform this into really a city council chamber uh for the day. And also note for uh those who may be attending online uh that we have most of our senior staff here, department heads and other uh executive uh leadership team members here uh to support the council's work this morning. Then uh just really want to introduce our uh facilitator. Uh our facilitator comes from the company MRG that city council is very familiar with that uh does our uh council appointed officers evaluations uh with city council for many years uh as well as other organizational effectiveness uh projects and we are very pleased and and proud to have with us Amy Howorth uh today from MRG. Amy uh with this particular assignment has the unique uh perspective that comes from both being a facilitator as well as a current city council member with the city of uh Manhattan Beach and actually former mayor I believe three-time former mayor with the city of Manhattan Beach uh in Los Angeles County. So with that, let me turn it over to Miss Howworth.

Uh thank you Mr. City Manager. Um can you all hear me? Uh it's very uncomfortable for a council member to have the public at their back, right? We usually we want to hear from you and so forgive me. Uh as Ed mentioned, I am currently on the city council of Manhattan Beach. Uh having just served my third term as mayor and before that I was on the school board for two terms. So I do have experience. I'm not just a consultant. Uh I know I know how that can be perceived. I am one of you. Ha. I wish I was one of you. PaloAlto is a fantastic place. I got to tell you, you're doing a great job. Uh I lived in the Bay Area for about six years uh in San Francisco and in Berkeley and I was the original photo editor at the magazine Wired. So that usually right everyone goes woo that's gives me street cred up here in Silicon Valley I feel or a little bit. Um so it's it's really a joy to be back up here. So thank you for the opportunity. Um I love this work. I am passionate about local government and want to only add value to what you're doing here in Palo Alto. So, I will do my best to facilitate this very accomplished, dedicated, engaged group. And I'm sorry that I won't get to meet um Council Member Lithcott HS in person. Um but hope feel better soon. So, I just want to give sort of ground rules, if you will, and if there's anything missing, perhaps the council member can weigh in. Um hopefully we will have candid and honest feedback. We're going to allow time for that feedback. Time is the only non-renewable resource we really have though. So it's part of my job as a facilitator to make sure everybody gets a chance to speak. And so there may be times when I say, "Madame Mayor, that's a fabulous point, but I'd love to hear from the gentleman to your

right." Uh, and I expect there there'll be times when you say no, but that's that's our that's our job today. Uh, we want to hear the ideas and perspectives of the residents in the public comments before their discussion. Uh, when I spoke to the mayor, she spoke about how much the entire council values your engagement. So that we will do and we will adhere to the schedule and allow the facilitator to move the conversation along. So I'm here so that the mayor can participate so she doesn't have to turn to this colleague and that colleague. I will probably use this microphone and walk around and say just a second. I think council member Reto has wants to jump in here. So, I will I will be watching you guys and and trying to keep the conversation going and um you know so that we can have a nice good discussion. Before we get to public comments, I wanted to ask a question if you will of our council members. Um and that question is and I'll give you an example. What has surprised you the most about being a council member? Now, I know some of you have more time and tenure on the council, so maybe you're not surprised anymore, but maybe you can think back to when you were just a baby council member. And what has surprised you about being a council member? I know for myself when I joined a council, uh, you know, I'm friendly, right? And I staff knows I respect them, right? So, if I call them up and say, "Oh my gosh, I'd really like to have M&M's in the close session tonight, or I'd like to have M&M chocolate in close session." I did this. I'm telling you, cuz I did this. My favorite color is pink. Why do you care? Because the city clerk dropped everything she was doing to make sure

she could get pink M&M's to have in that close session that evening. Now, that's really great. Thank you, staff. staff just wants to please counsel, but I didn't think they would drop everything because, you know, I'm just nice. I was just saying for the future, if you have time, I didn't realize how much staff wants to please the council members and how they'll drop everything, at least in in my city. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but that surprised me about being a council member. So, uh, who would like to go first? Okay, council member Rectal. Yeah, that's the last time I'll ask. By the way, [laughter]

the thing that surprised me is the really the caliber of the people I'm working with. The council members in close session and in committees, they really are thoughtful and it there's not knee-jerk opinion among any of us. We're really they think about it and they know the tradeoffs and they make the hard decisions. And quite often you you think of politicians just being knee-jerk and having preconceived narratives and that's not the case here. I think that the council is very collaborative and very sharp I think and also staff is kind of the opinion on the street quite often is it's a cushy job and they're not working hard and they really are working hard. They're worried about uh the budget. They're working about what's the best way to deliver these services. So I'm quite impressed more I was impressed before but I'm more impressed now that I work with them closely. Can we just go down the line or and then we we'll be sure to get council member L cuts as well or L cuts.

Uh well, I've been on council for about a year and I think what surprised me the most is the collegiality, how different it is from campaigning. Um, and like Council Member Rectal said, how there aren't knee-jerk reactions, so we can actually work through differences and I think more often than not, more than I expected, find um unanimous uh or near unanimous uh approvals or disapprovals of uh controversial items.

Well, I agree with both of those, so I'll shift gears a little bit. I think what surprised me was the how much broader the scope of work is in this city than many of our neighboring cities. Uh you know, not every city is on the bay, but if they are, they may not have a whole lot of land up in the foothills where they need to worry about wildfires. Uh not every city um has a regional water quality control plant that serves, you know, four other five other entities. Not every city uh has um an airport. Not every city has that university you might have hold heard of across El Salamino. Uh and not any city I believe in the state owns all five of its utilities. So we're rate setters too. So the breadth of what we do I I had you know I knew about but not not the way uh not not until I saw the really the scope of work that our staff does and uh the issues that are before us and that's what makes it exciting and and uh to have such a vibrant city. Well, also agree with everything that's that's been said. I kind of I guess I got a a kind of relationship type surprise then a work as well. So, I'll kind of build off of of both. Uh I think the first one on relationships, I was kind of surprised by the endearing friendships that you that you get while being on on council, not only with our council colleagues, but also with staff members and community members. kind of the intergenerational type of friendships that I've been able to build of people that I never would have met had I not sought office or been on office has been a real nice surprise about it. I think the other surprise is and at times can be a frustration for I know everyone in this room is what we have control over what we don't have control over and learning the levers and better appreciating the nuance of the

process and the unintended consequences that we're always trying to balance and competing interests and it's so that piece of it is more challenging but it also makes it much more rewarding when we're able to be able to to find that and that's why I do This process today is so critical because we can't we can't do everything in a in a given year given our limited resources and so really finding a way to move forward um a little more intentionally is always valuable. Well, I was trying to think back on because um not too much surprises me anymore. Um but as I I I reflect on my earlier years on the council um it wasn't so much u a surprise in um qualitatively and uh but um uh I I saw that uh things that I had assumed um were maybe less so in degree or more so in degree. One was uh earlier on on the council that the the um relationship between the utilities department and the the rest of the city was more segregated than it is today. And um certainly with our climate action plan, it's very integrated today. Um and that um uh I think that that the breadth of um the functions that we have in the city is even greater than most of us uh appreciate. Um and as time goes on, we we continue to just be uh surprised by all the things that the city is uh expected to address. And it's it's quite a workload. But um the last part is uh

how many of the staff are motivated by their real commitment to public service in the community. And um so those are the things that uh have become more and more apparent to me over time. So, I gave this some some thought and try to get it down to something that was substantial for me. Um, in spite of the fact that I spent a lot of years on commissions [clears throat] before I got to this body. Um, there of course I was in recommended recommendation mode. Uh, and now I have a vote on policy and so on. So what surprised me the most is that here we are right in the middle of Silicon Valley with the lightning pace of getting everything done. That does not describe our city in terms of how we execute. Uh so that was an adjustment frankly for me to make. Um and [clears throat] this is not a negative or a criticism. It's just it's just a fact. And sometimes I would push back on that and say you know why is that happening? Well, well, one is that we're very dedicated to the public process and we want to hear from citizens all the time and that sometimes actually slows down the process, which I think is good. It's not a negative at all. And then there's this thing called laws that I heard about from our city attorney. I said, "Why can't we do that?" And she said, "Well, there's a law against law. Come on. Come on. Come on. Let's get going here." So, uh, it it is what it is. I think there's places that we can tweak that. um but based on what we want out of public uh input and the pace to make sure we're making the right decisions particularly on the bigger decisions uh that just is what it is. So I had to sort of scale myself down from uh Silicon Valley you know to to Palo Alto.

Okay. I really appreciate and I'm sure the public does too hearing all this because I think it was council member Stone, you know, or maybe it was council member Lou who mentioned you get up on a deis and you agree more. You're looking for the similarities. You're looking where you share common ground as opposed to when you're campaigning, you're looking for the things that are different, right? You're differentiating yourself and that's a lot easier to do, right? That's I think it's a line in Hamilton where Oh golly. And we have Julie. I'm sorry, Julie. I will um please I I'm dying. I'm sorry. I want to hear from you, too. This is the last time that will happen. I'll give my line from Hamilton later. [laughter] No worries. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Um I agree that the relationships um are really quite good on our council, but I believe that human beings are capable of that. So, I won't list that as something I was surprised by. Um, my biggest surprise was how much I didn't know about Palo Alto. Uh, as a resident of more than 20 years, I thought I knew our city. Um, but there was so much more for me to learn about our assets and our opportunities and our challenges. Um, I was also surprised by the volume of work. I work hard. We all work hard. uh the folks on the council like council member I mean vice mayor Stone who have a full-time job in a school district. I don't know how he does it because it feels like for me at least I'm constantly setting aside all my other commitments to try to ensure that I am serving the city at the level required. It feels like a rigorous PhD program uh to serve this city. And the third surprise is I love that I absolutely love doing the work of local government. I never expected to love it. Um I have have really become quite enamored of the sector and of the possibilities inherent in work at this level. That's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm so glad we got to hear from you because like you I was surprised by the amount of work and discovered a passion. Um, and I'm glad that governing, what I was going to say from Hamilton is campaigning is easy or fighting a war. Well, let's not talk about that. Campaigning is easy, but governing is hard, right? Because that's where you do have to come together and sometimes three maybe, but that's you have to to get there. I I come from a council that there's only five. So, this is that much more of a challenge and a strength. And I am sure that you are all sitting here in the audience or at home and thinking, "Wow, we are so lucky and grateful to be served by people who take it so seriously." Um, so thank you for that. So, Madame Mayor, I believe we are going to turn to public comment now. Is that where we are in the agenda? Because I took my glasses off.

That's my understanding. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you all run that. Okay. Well, I'm going to turn it over to Madame Clerk. Uh, do we have any public comment? I'm guessing the answer will be yes. I'm hoping the answer will be yes. Yes, we do. We have one group of five and total for request to speak that would bring us to 12.

One more request came in. So that's 13 people. Okay. So then let let's do two minutes each and let's do uh do six minutes for the group. Our first request to speak is from David S. One moment. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay.

Okay, now you can. Great. Uh, good morning. My name is David Seagull. I'm a 35-y year resident of Palo Alto and I'm the president of the Palo Alto Pickle Ball Club representing over 1300 members, approximately 750 of them being Palo Alto residents. Vicki at the outset talked about the how to achieve the city's goals and I'm going to speak exactly to that. Wellness and belonging is a current city priority and rightly so. But here's the challenge. With housing, we measure affordability. With climate, we measure. We track emissions. Retail vibrancy shows up in tax revenues. But wellness and belonging, those are harder to measure and therefore easier to overlook. Today, I want to share with you a success story that proves these goals are achievable and measurable. In 2018, the city made a modest investment in pickleball courts. Coupled with grassroots citizen support, that investment has created something remarkable. Many Palo Alton of all ages and backgrounds experiencing life-changing outcomes. Let me be specific. Players consistently report significantly reduced depression and improved mental well-being, increased physical activity, strength gains, and weight loss, dozens of new friendships within the community, and perhaps most of all, more joy and laughter in their daily lives. These aren't just anecdotes. These are measurable improvements in wellness and belonging happening right now in our community. Now, I want to be clear about something crucial. This isn't just about providing space for a court for a sport. It's about creating a genuinely welcoming community space for open and inclusive play. This distinction matters because it's easy to see pickle ball is just another recreational activity and miss the real lesson. This magic happens through what we call open play. Unlike sports requiring

pre-arranged teams and locations like baseball, basketball, even tennis, pickle ball allows anyone to show up at the cluster of courts at Mitchell Park and find a game within minutes. Strangers become partners. Newcomers learn from veterans. A 30-year-old plays alongside a 70-year-old with a gentle learning curve where beginners can participate meaningfully with their within their first hour. Pickle ball breaks down barriers. It creates spontaneous connections. It builds community organically. This is this is wellness and belonging in action. Now, while open play represents about 95% of court usage, we've also developed targeted programs for seniors. For example, our club volunteers 50 of its members annually to support the Bay Area Senior Games pickle ball division. In fact, we recently hosted the the Stevenson Retirement House residents to learn and play. Attending the event was a spirited 90-year-old participant. Community partnerships. We've hosted two fundraising tournaments with the Rotary Club to benefit local charities. Another is planned for this fall. And youth engagement through classes, programs, and tournaments. We've built a club membership of over 100 young people, creating intergenerational connections on the courts. Down the road, you will hear plans to greatly expand the club's emphasis on youth, including a proposition for dedicated youth courts. I need to share an uncomfortable reality, though, with you. Current community demand vastly exceeds available court space. Long waits are common during peak days and hours of play. Consider some numbers. Nationally, surveys show twice as many pickle ball players as tennis players. Locally, the pickleball club has over 1300 members compared to about 125 for the Palo Alto

tennis club. And at last year's Bay Area Senior Games held here in PaloAlto, 350 pickle ball players participated versus 91 tennis players. Yet, PaloAlto currently has 15 pickle ball courts and 58 tennis courts owned between the city and TA USD. At a future council meeting, you'll hear about a straightforward solution. Converting just two of those tennis courts into eight additional pickle ball courts at Mitchell Park. That's right. Each tennis court occupies the same space as about four pickle ball courts. So, converting just two of these courts will reduce tennis court capacity by about 4%. while increasing pickle ball capacity by over 50% bringing supply and demand closer to equilibrium. This represents a very effective economical and environmentally practical approach to expanding wellness and belonging in PaloAlto. I recognize the countless priorities you're balancing with limited resources. Here's what makes this opportunity unique. It can be implemented with minimal, if any, cost to the city. Our club has volunteers with diverse talents and expertise ready to collaborate with you to achieve meaningful progress on wellness and belonging in 2026. That's the how. We have a strong working relationship with the city and many partner organizations. We're eager to build on this success and deliver an exponential return on social capital. Now, I understand council meetings aren't designed for dialogue, so I welcome the opportunity to discuss your questions and thoughts separately. Please feel free to reach out. Thank you for your time, your service to our community, and your commitment to making PaloAlto a place where everyone can thrive. Thank you.

Thank you. And madam clerk, I'm going to interrupt because I had misunderstood and thought there were 13 to 15 in addition to the six. There's not. So, let's raise the limit to three minutes. Our next speaker is Herby.

Good morning. I'd like to talk about uh your process and implementing it uh through your committee system. Uh the agenda for th for this meeting uh seems to be talking about evaluations and goal setting. Uh and the council has previously rejected that as a way of evaluating its manager and other council appointed officers. And to be clear of the difference between what you're doing here and what you're doing during that evaluation process, I think it will be helpful at the beginning of your discussion to disclose last calendar year's um key goals and uh key performance indicators that you uh have agreed with the council appointed officers including the city manager uh for their evaluation. uh in terms of the committee system, I think the best way to look at it is to look at it through the role of the Brown Act and that is the the city school leaison committee is not a standing committee of the city council. It is a joint committee with another legislative body. So if we eliminate that as a council uh committee, you'd have three standing committees and currently four ad hoc committees that follow the Brown Act noticing requirements. And uh that would mean you shouldn't have two members serving together on two of those committees or on any other body whether it be another legislative body like the Cal Train board or an advisory committee uh to to that board or to the board of supervisors or to a private group like Stanford University. Uh and I believe each council member should be chair of one of those committees and the other vice chair and and that would be uh enough to have some someone on a you know if only one person is absent as serving as as the presiding officer and that none of them should be

replaced temporarily due to absences or conflict of interest. only time to replace one is if there's a vacancy in a council seat and the person uh selected to fill that vacancy uh you know we'll will take up that uh vacant position on on on various uh council uh committees and I think that'll be clar clarifying on on process uh the important thing to understand is that uh if you're focused in that way you won't have a situation where you have one council member being chair of multiple committees or where you had in one year it seemed to be there were the same three council members were serving together on three committees. Uh and and that I don't think I think it's a is a bad way of doing business. Uh, and if you make those changes as I'm suggesting, I I don't think you'll be retreating at your retreat, but you'll be advancing in a different direction. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Donald B.

Uh, thank you very much. Um, I am here with three hats on. Uh, number one, I'm on the board of directors of the Avanita Senior Center. Number two, I am on the city human relations commission. And number three, as many of you know, I have been an advocate for affordable housing in PaloAlto for more than 20 years. And that is what I want to do is to advocate for affordable housing and to encourage you to keep as number one because I believe in in the in the previous year number one was affordable housing and I would encourage you to uh include affordable housing as the top priority uh for the coming year. Um, [clears throat] and I would like to have you uh follow up on a particular housing opportunity that uh you have already identified and you recall that when the council identified potential downtown city lots for housing. One of them was uh parking lot C, which is the lot on Ramona between University and Litton, as well as parking lot T, which Alta Housing is is working on developing. Parking lot C would be a perfect place for housing for seniors. And I think that um you may recall that the Aanistas did a survey of seniors and for seniors who earn less than $70,000 uh seven 66% said housing is their principal concern. Um, and you had an RFI, request for interest, uh, on parking lot C and Mid Peninsula Housing submitted a response and said they would like to build senior housing on parking lot C. And I have been in touch with Mid Peninsula Housing. They still are very enthusiastic about uh, having the opportunity to develop housing for affordable housing for seniors on

parking lot C. It's three blocks from the transit center. I'm not sure if that meets the quarter mile or half mile under SB79, but uh uh it's uh about four and a half blocks from Whole Foods. Um and uh it would be it is right next to Avanitas. Uh and so it it is I can't think of a better spot to develop affordable housing for seniors and the city needs affordable housing for seniors. So, I just encourage you please to take the actual step to have uh developers come in with specific proposals for parking lot C for senior housing and to then move forward to develop housing for seniors that is affordable. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shaunie K. Good morning, Mayor Vinker and council members. Um, just got back when I'm a bit jetlagged, but I thought it was important to come and talk to you and apologies for not having the chance to discuss this before. Globally biodiversity is collapsing and this is partially due to climate change but not entirely and every place on earth can have a contribution to sustain biodiversity in our natural element in the comp plan we do have a commitment to conservation of nature. So my requests and I tried to make it very short, keep the natural environment and include biodiversity in overall goals of sustainability and potentially ask, and this would be something I'm happy to work on. I don't speak for the PRC, but I'm a PRC um commissioner, ask the PRC to look at ways to integrate biodiversity into parks projects as feasible. Mountain View is doing that. They have a new um biodiversity and urban forest plan which is expected to be approved this week or next week. So we can uh use some of that and try to work on that within the PRC at least. Um and this is even in our comp plan. Now there is a map of biodiverse of uh pollinator corridors that is in the comp plan and could look be we could look at that and see can we make that actually a living document and actually implement it. So this is sort of what I wanted to ask. Um and I hope that you do ask the PRC to look at biodiversity because often it is

a side element and not part of the picture when projects are proposed or looking at how do we implement things. The biodiversity is sort of outside of the picture and doesn't have to be. There's so many things that can be done and integrate biodiversity into a project. So that's what I'm asking you to do to allow us to do it. Thank you. Our next speaker is Magdalena C. Thank you. Greetings council members and mayor Vinker. I thank you for allowing us to be here in front of you once again. Claire and I are here to confirm that the council's vote did determine as policy the need to set up a pilot study of a natural grass field. On behalf of our group, we are grateful that council has voted for this positive step forward. According to the studies we have researched, we believe it possible to devise and execute a natural grass turf, one that has a drainage system in place to channel groundwater off the field and out to the storm drains, which can result in perhaps as many playable hours as an artificial turf field. It will be essential to hire the right aronomist to design and oversee the project. And funding must include the ability to choose the right grass and then also have the field managed judiciously. Other communities have been able to do this and so can we. We are asking that you make this pilot study of a natural grass playing field a first quarter group one objective under council priority climate action and adaptation and natural environment protection for 2026. This objective would also help meet the public safety wellness and belonging priority. As I understand your mission for today, making the natural grass field pilot

study an objective for this year aligns well with the city's goal to further reduce carbon in the atmosphere, mitigate rising temperatures, improve environmental standards, and address public safety. As you already know, plastic turf can have very high surface temperatures on a hot day, of which we are having more and more. And these heat islands generally increase the temperatures in the surrounding areas. This can pose a health hazard for the most vulnerable. Plastic grass also exposes players to the microplastics and toxic additives in the grass blades. With this critical pilot study of a natural grass field, we will confirm for ourselves and our other and other communities close to home and even nationally that a well-designed, well- constructed and well-managed natural grass field can and will work. I applaud you all for committing to leading the way in this domain. We thank you. And uh as since I have 46 seconds, I'd just like [laughter] to say uh as you know, I'm a four-time cancer survivor. It's a miracle that I'm alive considering that I was diagnosed with two generally fatal diagnoses that are exceedingly rare. This is very passionate. I'm very passionate about this and I hope you don't misunderstand from previous comments I've made my passion for disrespect because I have the utmost respect for all of you and the hard work you do. And I also invite you that if you're curious about my odyssey uh and what has informed my passion, please don't hesitate to reach out because it would be an honor to uh privilege to share with you why this matters so much to me. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Claire E.

Hello again, council members. Um, like Magdalena said, we really appreciate uh the time to speak and also your efforts going forward for a natural grass field. We'd love to see that happen sooner than later. But I also want to ask you to consider another objective both that would also fit under climate action and adaptation, natural environment, that whole mouthful. Um, and biodiversity. Thank you, uh, Shnie. Um, but also the public safety category. And that is to develop a project to reduce microlastic pollution and the exposure of the public and environment to forever chemicals. And you can do this through education, development of thresholds for PAS and a moratorum on landscape use of plastic grass. So first I'd like you to um do several things. One of them is to reject the study that um everybody uh lots of people have agreed have faulty data and is already being quoted by other cities um as an reason to put in synthetic turf in their cities. Also ensure that the El Camino Park field will be the last one that we install on city land. Acknowledge that PAS free is not possible. So determine a threshold for what is acceptable levels in PAS and make sure the new uh alamino field has been sampled for total florine and not just a handful of of PAS compounds that may or may not be the right ones to choose for what was in that plastic. especially as we recycle plastic more and more we're getting unknown materials that were in there. Um but also there's an analysis done by an engineer the city hired to look at the data that came from field turf. It's in the study. It's actually one of the appendices in appendix E that says that the primary material that's in the grass blades is a PAS product. So I'm not sure that was

really ever brought out. Um, and then ask for a chain of custody for that El Camino turf when it leaves the site. I don't know if that happened for Mayfield. Maybe it did. Do you know exactly where it ended up? I would like to know that for for where this material is going. Then an educational program would be really helpful. I know there's zero waste programs that address plastic. Um, for instance, straws. But do people know that one soccer field is equivalent in weight? Just the grass, not the not the pads and things underneath, but just the grass layer. 42 million plastic straws for one field. That's a lot of straws to to say no thank you to. And then follow Milbrey's lead. They've developed a moratorum and now has made it permanent um asking that no plastic grass be installed on city land, residential or commercial. Thank you very much for your time. Our next speaker is Terry H. Thank you council members for letting me come and speak to you today. I'm also here representing our organization Palatans for sensible zoning. Recently we conducted a survey of our own members and the issues that are most important to them and three key issues stood out and I want to tell you them very briefly. With an operating city budget of of over 700 million, many citizens feel that they are not getting the value from their city government that they want. Many feel frustrated by the lack of citizen involvement and an ignoring of residential wishes. The city is the city's continual reliance on outside

contractors and especially consultants is especially disturbing and something that should be stopped or certainly minimized. A freeze of city staff salaries and benefits when possible should also be considered. costs are now approaching over $1 billion dollar and this is not a good sign for our city. Number two, the issue was station four. You do I need to say anything more? I don't think I do, but I will. Although the the rebuilding of station 4 is a good idea, it is totally inadequate to not staff it properly. Public safety, whether it be the police or the fire, is the council's number one job. and the city's main function. To fully staff the station at Stanford but leave the residents surrounding station 4 without a fully staffed and functional one is unacceptable to Pow Alton and this must be corrected. You need to have at least five firefighters at station four at all times. Period. Last but not least is the city's appointment of a new city attorney this year. This is one of the most critical jobs in our city and it deserves and warrants special attention not only by the council but by the public as well. We encourage the council to seek out and appoint a special citizens panel run by citizens and having special open meetings to review what our attorney city attorney should do and give feedback on potential candidates before the council votes on one this year. We shouldn't have a secret backdoor meetings with just council members selecting one. We need to have a city attorney who is supposed

to represent the citizens since they are paying that person's salary and has the backbone to do their will. For too long, this has not happened in our city. So, I encourage you to think about those things, those three issues. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Monica W. Good morning, mayor and council members. I'm Monica Williams and I'm the co-founder of the Palo Alto Pickle Ball Club and I do want to support what Dave Seagull, our current president, shared with you just a little while ago. Um, thank you for the 15 very wellused pickle ball courts that have brought a bundle of joy and social connection to hundreds of PaloAlto residents. A few years ago, the city council awarded us a proclamation for bringing pickle ball to Palo Alto and recognizing the health and wellness benefits it provides to the Palo Alto community. This proclamation is revered by us now more than ever, especially in these times of stress because the sport of pickle ball really can be a cure for loneliness and isolation. The amazing community that's been built at at the Mitchell Parks is unique. It's my second family home and for some is their only family home. Thanks to our previous board member Joselyn Sang, we now have a large contingent of youth that need a place to play after school. So more pickle ball courts are truly warranted. As you council

start the new year, I want you to know that pickle ball is a very good team builder and we can host a free team building session for the council at any time. A few years ago, we hosted one for the city managers department and received excellent feedback. So, we do have a true a track record. We hope to see you on the court soon and hope you will take us up on our team building offer. Thank you for your time and your dedication and service to the city. Thank you. Our next speaker is Cedric D. Uh good morning uh council. Um I thank you for your deliberations today. Um I think your existing priorities are good. Um I presume that climate change uh reduction adapt and adaptation will continue to be a priority but if not it should be a value that is preserved uh for the foreseeable future. That's obviously a long-term uh deal. As far as objectives um well in terms of values uh I think we should have increasing peace uh for people and planet increasing connectedness between ourselves each other and nature in environmental stewardship protection and restoration. As far as objectives uh for the N envcap affordable housing, um I would really like it if the RFP were to include uh giving points for uh projects that uh commit to achieving lead or uh zero carbon or zero um energy or um living building challenge or wellness. So, uh it's important component for the affordable housing to be healthy for the occupants and for the environment. Um I'll come back to that if I have time. Uh, I would like the city to move forward on renaturalization of Madero

Creek, the section from uh, basically Bullwware Park to Park Boulevard. Uh, we don't need to wait for the affordable housing project to be uh, bid and uh, proceeded on. Um, also I'd love to see the council commit to uh, a goal of renaturalizing all of our uh, creeks that are channelized or undergrounded. Uh, we could develop a multi-year plan to renaturalize all the creeks. Um, this is uh essential to help uh restore our riparian ecosystems, which is a crucial part of climate change mitigation. Uh, I'd love you to work with cities and counties uh and the state to adjust state laws so that we could have tighter controls of pesticide use um and uh reduce the application of pesticides to people who actually know how to use them properly and safely and um as a last resort. And in the meantime, we could work within the existing limits to educate the residents about the risks of unsafe pesticide use and their impacts on water ways, waterways and wildlife and also promote and educate on integrated pest management strategies uh for residents and uh uh businesses. Uh I believe that Palo Alto requires 80% of new planting should be native or low water. Um, I think we should try to focus on native plants especially uh because a lot of low water plants are actually non-native. We need to really be proactive in prosecting and restoring our native ecologies. Um, we need to increase services for people that are unhoused like mobile showers and laundry services and pump out the sewages from RV. Uh, just clear clearing out encampments and towing cars is not really a helpful solution. uh for civic engagement. I'd love to see uh greater connection uh dedication to consensus building um and processes for the city of how do we uh increase that instead of just um kind of polarity. Um and there's a lot of uh wisdom we can draw from native cultures and I'm out of

time. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Well, thank you very much. And I would just note to our facilitator and staff, I think we're at our break time, but I'm wondering if we hit it a little early and can go on to the staff presentation and then take a break before we get into council discussion. Does that work? That would be perfect. Okay, let's proceed. Getting nods from the deis as well. So, thank you.

Right, let's see if we can get our bearings on the slides. This should be slide 10. Is that correct? And so with that, we'll do a quick overview of uh some of the inputs to your discussion uh this morning. Let's go to the next slide, please. So, I'll do a quick review of uh some of the work that has led to this point uh and then turn it over to Amy for uh discussion of uh uh the path going forward. Next slide, please. So, first off, want to uh do a quick recap of uh the input that we have received through our community survey. This year, as we have done for the last several years, we did a specific survey uh asking uh for input leading into today's uh retreat and priority setting session. Uh this was done uh during the month of uh uh December into January and as noted here received u 291 visitors with 178 responses. This is actually fewer than we received uh in the prior year. Um, in addition, just want to note that the city council has ongoing uh opportunities for input uh including emails uh feedback received already this morning as well as our annual community survey that the city council received a uh report on and held a study session on just last week uh as well as our ongoing uh neighborhood town meetings as well as a number of other uh methods of receiving input. So then focusing specifically on the survey that was done in prep preparation for today's session. Let me do a quick overview of uh some of the feedback that was received. As noted here, there are a few uh neighborhoods that uh uh were at the highest uh in terms of respondents. Uh but that said

responses really came throughout the city. Next slide, please. So that said, uh staff took a shot at trying to uh provide something of a synopsis, but as is typically the case, that's a real challenge because the uh comments received really reflect a variety of perspectives and uh we did provide the actual uh specific individual input as part of the packet uh that is has been distributed for today. That's it. Let me do a quick uh overview in terms of some of the categories uh that are comments that fall within the 2025 priorities. Uh just note a few under climate action and adaptation and natural environment protection. Uh interest in our ongoing climate programs. uh while at the same time uh noting some concerns about programs in particular uh a theme that we saw a lot of today or this year uh related to cost considerations uh in particular in this category I would just note uh utility rates uh being one of the areas that those costs are uh felt uh directly under and I won't uh read through all of the comments uh and bullets uh listed here but they are available and would be happy to uh come back to refer to them is if needed. Under economic development and retail vibrancy, uh interest in again more uh filling of storefronts. Uh noting barriers uh that can exist uh for business openings, interest in additional retail and interest in comparison to our nearby communities. Next slide, please. under the uh heading oops back one. There we go. Under the heading of implementing housing strategies for

social and economic balance. Again, interest in more uh certainly interest in more housing supply overall as well as affordability uh being uh key areas of interest. uh housing approval and timelines and uh mixed uh comments related to density under public safety, wellness and belonging, interest in uh traffic and safety overall uh but certainly traffic safety and traffic enforcement. Uh mixed comments related to wellness and belonging uh and uh certainly interest in a variety of areas there. uh concerns raised about specific neighborhoods and parts of the city and ongoing interest in maintenance and access uh to our fields and parks and recreation facilities. Next slide, please. Then finally uh on more general uh topics uh concerns raised about city processes and governance uh as well as interest in uh ongoing progress or continuing progress on transportation infrastructure issu addressing issues of noise and uh uses of public spaces. Next slide please. Actually with that I think I will turn it over to Amy uh to start a discussion of nomenclature and your priorities for 2026.

So madame mayor we could uh begin here or do you want to take a quick break because once we start this um kind of slide in this area I think there's going to be a lot of discussion. So, which is fine. I mean, it's great, but do you want to start with this now? Yeah. So, what I might suggest is that just so it's framed up.

Yep. Um maybe just do the the the first couple of slides on input and just so we kind of have we have now the community input that was just uh character uh described and then maybe uh for the public just what these three levels are and what what has gone before and then we can come back and figure out what we're going to do going forward. Would that work? Okay.

I will I will uh as the outside person do my best. Uh I can't always I I don't know that I'll capture perfectly everything that has come before. Although I did watch your council meeting on I believe it was the 12th where you were discussing today and you were discussing priorities, values, objectives. I I did watch that meeting with great interest. So, I suggested this slide um and I do think this is teeing up the bigger discussion because you have your council values which I believe are um in your policy uh and procedures handbook. Is that what the PMP is? Right. And those um were set a number of years ago. Um and they are enduring goals and intentions that guide the work of the council. Uh so these are big things like environment uh you know sustainable environment protecting environment climate mitigation all of the seems to be a huge theme and seems to and is in your values from before but it was also in your priorities uh that you guys discussed. So then so I was thinking uh maybe you want to and and again I think we need to to talk a lot about this but I I have another slide coming up but not yet which will show that a lot of your values from before uh align with some of your priorities from last year. So maybe some of those priorities become values. That is one suggestion I have but that is just an observation because your priorities um you have these four priorities uh and priorities usually are things that have some time urgency to them right or uh or

a a set time maybe it's not urgent uh not an emergency not a catastrophe but there is a shorter time frame to which to accomplish them. So it's as is said so well here, it's a topic that will receive particular and significant attention during the year. Now housing um which is high on every single council's list in the state. There are so many aspects of housing. Um it I believe it is on your values or will end up on your values for sure. Uh I don't have a crystal ball though but anyway but there's a lot of steps to housing right so maybe you will be able to determine by the end of the day a priority which is related to housing right a priority that can be accomplished in the year or started in the year maybe it's a phasing maybe it's a planning maybe it's going out to bid maybe it's a work whatever so this is how I am thinking about it but I live in Manhattan Beach uh which is beautiful but I would move here in a second. So once again and then your council objectives are those um discrete projects that can be achieved within the year and what I saw from staff and I believe that was also what you all saw last time all these objectives I would call those a work plan right that's what they're working on um and I decided to spare you my homedrawn iceberg but I think you all know what an iceberg slide is. It's where you know you only see the tip of an iceberg, right? And that tip usually represents 20% maybe 10% of the whole iceberg. Consider iceberg is the city itself. Uh your police people uh are dealing

with your safety every single day. You don't see that above the water. your, you know, your firefighters, your public works, your utilities, uh, every your human resources, right? You are hiring and putting people on performance plans and, uh, making sure everybody is safe in the workplace every single day, right? All those thing and those aren't shouldn't be council priorities, right? Those aren't things you're going to say, well, this year we're going to make sure we complete our human resources training. That's not G. I'm guessing. So, I want you guys to keep that kind of thing in mind. So, I just threw a lot of things at you. Um, a lot of facilitators will kind of lead you to it directly or indirectly and we I don't care if you I'm not personally wed to any of these ideas, but to me when I saw this I I was very impressed, right? But I do think that some of those priorities from last year were more like values. And I think that we could have a rich discussion, a a timelimited discussion perhaps about what your values are. Are they the same that they were in I think 1986? Perhaps. But let's I think you should start there. And then perhaps you can look at what staff has provided you with like here's our work plan right now. Um, and maybe you say, "Well, listen, um, and please know I'm using this as an example. Maybe pickle ball is on there. Please, this is an example.

You're brave."

Yeah, I know. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to change the example. Portaotties. Maybe there's somebody who really wants all pink portaotties in the city of Palo Alto. Uh, you can decide you want to add that to the work plan. where it's at in your priorities or whatnot, but I I would suggest we we think about this as a framework and um I don't know how this concept lands with you, but maybe we can have a reaction to the concept and then maybe we take a break and then go into the discussion. So I I think the break is, you know, sit with this while you have your coffee and talk about pickle ball. Um, but uh this is a suggested framework for going forward for discussion.

All right. Well, that that sounds good to me. So, unless I see any objection, I'm seeing some nods. Uh, let's go with that. Um, let's get coffee. What? 10 minutes. Does that work for folks? I don't think we need 15. Um, yeah. So, let's just we'll get back to business in 10 minutes. All right. Thank you.

I believe we are back. Madame clerk, are we recording? Yes, we're ready to go. Amy, I think we're back to you.

Okay. All right. So, if we could um go to the slide. Uh that's 17. Thank you. I think we can the next one. We're going to go to the next slide because I This is a slide that I suggest. No, back back. There we go. So, as I was thinking about this, um, this is what I wanted to show you visually, uh, to the council and the public. So on the left are the council values that have been in the handbook. Um and they they reflect certain values and perhaps those are values uh you all want to keep. I think that we will be discussing that. And then on the right are your council priorities. And what struck me um this is the stuff I wake up in the middle of the night and think about. If you look at on the left, number two, a C, the PaloAlto City Council will make decisions that are environmentally sustainable now and in the future. And if you look on the right, the second priority is econom No, sorry, the first I'm sorry, the first priority is climate action and adaptation and natural environment protection. You know, that doesn't tell you a priority what they're going to do in that area, but it does say that's a value of yours. So that that's what I'm trying to show the alignment there. Um under uh let's see uh [groaning] implementing housing strategies for social and economic balance. Uh I think you could that could become a value. I mean you could look at create a healthy, safe and welcoming community for all. Uh maybe

you need to uh broaden that to reflect housing per se. uh public safety, wellness, and belonging. Um create a healthy, safe, and welcoming community for all. Right? I mean, I think I think it's I I think it you you can see the synergy, right? You can or you can see the alignment with the level of uh wording, right? That's actually what I'm trying to get across. It's not the content, it's the fact that it's so high level. So, that's what I noticed. Um, and I also want to let the council know that uh for your colleague um council member uh Lifcottimmes um we have a we have a mechanism worked out that if she does wish to speak I'm going to know it. There's going to be a green flag that I'm going to see out of the corner of my eye. And I it's important though because I'm what I'm going to be doing is watching and pointing like I'm going to be directing this this discussion so that your mayor can fully participate so that everybody gets a word in edgewise hopefully. So I'm going to be focused on you guys but out of the corner of my eye if I see that green flag we want to hear from your colleague. So how do you feel? How does the council how does this resonate? I'm going to turn over to the mayor, but I just I hope that you can see what I'm trying to communicate here that the level uh the architecture of the wording is very similar. So, I think that perhaps you want to talk about your values and either reaffirm, add, change, uh so that they can then inform your priorities. So, Madame Mayor, I know you and I talked in preparation and you liked this approach and came up with some um wording of your own that I think you'd like to present and then there will be

other uh colleagues of ideas as well.

Yeah. Well, thank you uh Amy and I know that you've sat in our seats. You know what it feels like to to try to do your best for a city and and uh to try to get both the structure and the content right. So that that's what we're trying to do. And I think what I heard from my colleagues uh on Monday when we talked about this session uh was that many of us felt that what we've said as priorities in the past including in 2025 were things that weren't necessarily specific to that year. and uh some brought up, including uh council member Bert in particular, who was on the council in 2022 when the uh council values were adopted, that perhaps they should deserve another look. And so there was a a discussion and on reflection, I think, um a feeling that some of the things we've been calling priorities might be better put into enduring values because they're ongoing, housing, climate, etc. And so that would free up our priorities to be priorities for this year. What do we really want to do now? And I feel like there's a yearning amongst us to really talk through what do we want to do now? What do we want to direct staff is truly, you know, top tier, next tier, etc. And so in order to get to that, it seems we should have this preliminary discussion about should we revise our council values uh to in to include some of these other categories. And what I noticed and you can see there is that some of the values are what we value and how we go about our work. For example, transparency, open communication, that kind of thing um is there and like item five. Um and then some of it is what we work on like the environmental sustainability in item two. So what if if you so if you could put up

the draft that I uh prepared just as a discussion draft. There's no pri authorship here. This was to spur discussion and I'm glad to see that there's already been some discussion amongst my colleagues because a couple of them have brought a draft that is somewhat similar. And I don't know that we want to spend all day words smmithing, but um this is this is this is one way we could go about it. And I I think just to to get reaction to this concept, uh I wanted to just briefly go through this. So, and and again, it was meant to to to minimize how much we talk about it today and we can certainly um as much as my colleagues want, but or we could defer it to, you know, PNS to really come back, but at the moment, it used to be item one was um balance revenues and expenses now and then the future because uh fiscal responsibility is such a a concern right now, I added our fiscally strategic and responsible Um we had uh embrace innovation was the the last one previously and I moved that up because it seemed to follow and in this instance innovation to optimize efficiency and outcomes. So you can have innovation in processes to become more efficient in how we all do our work and you can have innovation in embracing technology and outcomes and and things. But I think that culture we have here is one we want to uh propagate. Then um I took the four um 2025 priorities and introduced them here for discussion. So I think that first one and item three implement housing strategies for social and economic balance is pretty much word for word what it was before. Uh item four, promote climate action and adaptation

and environmental sustainability is sort of merging what was in um uh item. So it was a second priority but also um number two in the values which used to say are environmentally sustainable now and in the future. So those went together well. Item five was our third um one, promote economic development and retail vibrancy is pretty much the same as as our council priority in 2025. Item six sort of merges a couple um promote safety, wellness, and belonging for all. And then uh item seven, integrate equity into our decisions considering the impact on residents of differing identities or circumstances is just a little condensation of what was previously in our values. And item eight, safeguard public trust through transparency and communication is also just a condensation of what was there before. So this is one way a draft to merge them. But I think what the first question that I'd be curious to hear from my colleagues and I'll turn it back over to our facilitator is um what what what do you think about this? And then we could make most of our day today talking about this year. And I think then at some point we will can also share uh council members Rect and Bert have another version that's you know somewhat similar to this same kind of concept I think. So that's a good start. But I I think we want to hear from everybody and then if if it becomes appropriate we can put this one on the screen or or do whatever uh process folks would like. So back to you Amy.

Okay. So um so how about we if you if you want to talk just you know give me the finger. I mean like this. Um or I'll I'll watch. Sorry I can't help it. Um I see. Yes. Council member Bert. And if I if I miss if I don't call you vice mayor or something I'm sorry. Like I I don't know yet. So, Council Member Bert,

uh, thanks. Um, so I'm really glad that both Amy and the mayor have kind of embraced um this importance of both updating our core values and then what we need to do is also elevate them. So at our council meeting in December where we were looking at the policy and services committee recommendations for the process for this meeting, they had come out of policy and services committee with um recommending we just continue with the the 2025 priorities. and council member Reto and I uh really tried to elevate this concept that we're we're struggling with right now. And I realized a big part of why policy and services committee wasn't thinking about the values and this very conversation is because the values have been buried as I tried to locate them rather than throughout the year as we place our priorities there would be the values next to them. The only place I could find them was in the council procedures and protocols and just basically buried there. And when we adopted them in 2022, it was to address this very dilemma. Um they were kind of uh it was a good starting point. The ones that we adopted, we recognized the time that they were kind of rushed through and then we've never resurrected them and updated them uh and refined them. So, I'm really glad that that we're now going forward there. Um, I would like to say that we maybe we can put on the screen council member Retol and I had worked um over since that um December on just a draft of um updates to the

council values as well as kind of framing it. But I think that u you have at your places the um um framing that we did, but I think that's really been discussed already on why it's important uh that we distinguish that. But there's been this whole apprehension of oh gez if we take something off a priority we don't care about anymore or it's not important to us. And um and yet we have in our procedures a definition of what the priorities are supposed to be which are more focused. Um so we can just go down to the actual recommend recommended values. Um and this is scroll it down. Yeah.

Yeah. You want to focus on your values, not the framing. Right. Yeah. And I'll point out it's it would be nice to be able to see them side by side, but it's interesting how almost identical they are in eight and eight. So, let's talk. Yeah. Can I just ask, does Council Member Lithcot Hayes have access to both of these? Oh, yes, she does. Thank you. We did send it to her earlier. Yeah. And so, as I started trying to compare uh the mayors and Council Rectal's and mine side by side, lot of overlap. Um ours, um Council Member Rectal kind of focused on a title for each category. And I think actually that

helps everybody be clear. This is what it's about, but that's really more of a a formatting. And then uh we went into a little more detail on each uh and a little bit of difference in substance, but the substance is close to the same. So, one of the issues is, you know, with our process, we weren't able to provide this to the council in advance. And um so I know that some of our colleagues haven't had a chance to digest uh the wording and kind of look at the two alternatives side by side. Um and um and so I I do think that that's part of what we need to struggle with today if we're going to try to um refine this today or we could agendaize it to another meeting and recognize that we're going to update the core values um and um and it will be somewhere in all likelihood uh in some combination of of what the mayor's proposed and what council member Real and I have proposed. osed and if we take that as an assumption then that may liberate us to concentrate on the priorities. So, I'm not sure, you know,

let's talk about that process because you've you've you've identified I mean, if we could hash it out here, but I think what you're suggesting, you know, we we could look and to see if there's something really different and talk about that, but I think we could also go back and reaffirm does everybody appreciate this approach to values.

So, what just a second? Yeah. What I was going to say was that um we we can have both the general concept and see if we have consensus and we could have some input on on just people's thoughts without having to reconcile and uh vote on everyone today or we could choose to vote on them but that input today would kind of be helpful even if we don't resolve all the details comments. Yes. Yeah. just um

right so one of the reasons I tried to keep it kind of skinny in the revisions was for exactly that reason and this is actually encouraging that there seems to be beginning to be some you know coalescence of of viewpoints um I would think that the actual word smithing and that kind of thing could be uh and reconciling could be uh either deferred to PNS or agendaized later uh to council but I think that yes if we can just you know I think I We're all trying to do the same thing is is make sure we affirm that we care about these in an enduring way so that we are can move to the prioritization we want to do.

Okay. Does anybody else have a comment? Yes, Vice Mayor Stone.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean I I like the approach of the of the core values. I it it seems like and I think generally the council is going to be aligned on those core values because it is incredible. I'm trying to kind of compare them and they they do look incredibly similar. I like the shortened simpler version of of kind of the the mayor's values, but I also like the the titles that were there. I think that's that would be helpful for the community. I think one of the reasons why the PNS recommendation was really to kind of keep the four priorities was though so that and then what the council ultimately adopted a couple weeks ago was that we could focus more on actual kind of objectives and actionable kind of more of our actionable work plan so we do not end up in the same situation as we did last year. we weren't actually adopting that that um that matrix or until May. Uh so I like the I like the idea of referring this to to PNS. I mean maybe kind of focusing on in on the on the values. I mean just kind of supporting it but ultimately for the word smithing and everything else referring it to PNS cuz I do think that requires a deeper discussion with more plan with more time to be able to

to react to react to it. Exactly.

A clarification. So how I understand it as again an observer so if if your priorities are built into these values uh and values should be discussed every four years or so right because there may be a new council that doesn't have quite the same values um but if these priorities get moved into values if you first of all there needs to sort of be agreement that that could be handled through PNS and then at a vote at council meeting if that's the action, but then the priorities would become like a a few of those objectives that you really want to get excited about. Like that's like I want what I want for you all is to be excited walking out of here that you have agreement that staff is going to focus on pink portaotties. I'm just saying it again. you know, I want you to have four priorities or three prior whatever it is that are things that could be accomplished this year but are exciting that could be you know so it's a little different than what came out of PNS. So I'm appending the apple cart and so uh there you go. But that's so first of all I'd want you guys to affirm that the values discussion is one to have not now but in PNS and then outside. Do you agree with that? And then how do you feel about the priorities becoming something other than they were as recommended by PNS? And um I I actually see Oh, Council Member Lowing and then I think Council Member Rectal

and then back to you guys. Yeah, I just wanted to put a quick question to the mayor. Uh your I was going to say objectives. Maybe that's going to be uh get us off get us off here. The reason you put the um priorities into the values was to show how a they align, but b how some of them could actually go there and we could still have them without having on them on the priority list.

It was because I do believe that they are enduring and that they aren't things that are just one-year priorities. And the reason coming out of PNS we had talked about mid-level objectives was we were perhaps misusing but using priorities for these bigger picture things as council member Bert said we're afraid to say we don't care about and that's not what we're saying. So I was trying to put them into values because I believe they are enduring values that that transcend a given year. And then what that does is we don't need those mid-level goals because the whole point of those was what do we want to do right now and we can go back to what the P&P describes priorities as which is what do we want to do right now. So that was the goal.

It also provides clarity to the public which I think has been uh sorely missing to communicate clearly to the public what we're actually doing. So I I think both of these documents do that. If if you want any comments on any of the specifics I can I can do that later after. It's up to you guys. I mean, you could do that. Why don't we hear from council member Rectal here and and decide collectively if you want any input now or you want it later, but council member rectal?

Yeah, I guess Grace Mans do think alike because the two sets of values that we're proposed are very very similar. So, I just think we have to say we're going to move to something like that and push that down the road. I don't think we want to spend our time today doing it because really what's important today is the objectives and we really want to get that in and the staff does a really good job of going after those objectives and completing them. So this is not just a theoretical exercise. This is saying what is the staff going to work on? I think that's really critical. Yeah.

Uh the two things is that we want to make sure that the objectives now in the past had to be tied to a priority. And I think if it's tied to a value or a priority that frees us up to do what we have those priorities be priorities. And the second thing as council member Berts mentioned is whenever we list the priorities, we also should be listing the values same time. they shouldn't be separated because they go together. They're saying, "What do we value from year to year and what are we exceptionally trying to work on this year?" And so I think we want to keep that and not have them separated or buried. Okay. Um I think I I think it was the mayor.

Just quickly, I want to affirm uh what council member Rectal just said about um the objectives don't necessarily have to fit under a priority anymore. I think that there is a lot that the city does and there are things we might want to see that don't fit on that, you know, hair on fire we really need to do this year. Um, I think it's more [clears throat] about prioritizing for staff, but there may be. So, I think if it as long as it fits under a value or uh priority, I think that the objectives are fine.

Is that okay? And and and and the clunkiness a little bit, if I may. So, you still have these priorities up there and staff had already put like mid-level goals underneath these priorities. I don't think we have to throw that baby out with the bathwater. If you guys can be um fluid in your understanding that this is in transition, right, that there's your values uh and that's okay if the values are driving the staff objectives or your objectives, right? I mean, that's what you're saying. So, do you I feel there's agreement here. on value. You know, the the priorities were very high level and actually it was time to uh update the values. So now these are going into there and so now how you appro and and you've agreed that the two are very similar uh the two approaches the the rewriting and they're so similar it's it's incredible. Um yeah, well done. Um, and it will go to the PNS committee and then come out to the full council at some point and it shouldn't be a long I mean I think you guys will get there. So why don't we you can get rid this is my slide and it's let's move on. Oh there I am. Sorry. Um Oh boy. Um so uh let's let us go into the discussion of what's the next slide.

I I thought you were going to come back for a couple of comments. I was thank you council member Lowing. So yes, regarding those Yes. the inputs. Yes,

I'm I'm totally in agreement that we don't want to word smith that this today. Um I I just wanted to emphasize one point which is actually taking off on the council com u comments that we had in the council meeting. Um when we [clears throat] were talking about this fiscal responsibility part the the I actually did my own word smithing and I didn't get there so I'm not going to give you I'm not going to give you the endgame. Um but what I'm thinking about that we want to look at is first of all sort of long-term uh stability but it's fiscal stability with so far what I have is with sort of efficient execution um around our objections to deliver the services our objections our objectives to uh deliver our services to to the residents and what I mean by that is there might be some structural changes that we have to make uh we might have to do things like um you know 311 is a big problem. We can't just throw bodies at that. We have to think about what's the best way to do that starting from scratch. I mean we have disperate um systems that we have to deal with. Some of them have manual input. Um there are different departments in there. Uh that thing has to sort of start from ground zero and figure out the best way to structure it before we make a decision of it needs three more bodies. So this whole thing about what is the most efficient way to do that over the long term has to happen in the beginning of of some of these objectives. So I'm not quite sure how to get that in there, but it's it's a big deal that we're not just saying, okay, we have this much money to spend,

right? We have this many people in staff, we're going to keep it there. No, we have to disrupt that and say, where do we want to a prior what's a higher priority this year than last? and the city manager may have to say to to his directors, you know, I need another million dollars in bodies for this project. You guys need to come up with somehow help us out here and make these kinds of cuts. So, it it's that sort of optimizing for the efficiency of the design of our systems and then the execution so that residents get services in the areas that we need them the most.

Right. Could I comment on or did you have another comment? No, I was just gonna say we we could just leave it there because you Wordsmith and PNS, but I don't think either one of these quite gets to as much as we need to do uh to make sure that we have that um physical stab fiscal stability, right? But it's really on the right track. Yeah. And um I was going to add that perhaps you could consider I mean on both of them I think I do see uh embrace innovation to optimize efficiency and outcomes. um uh embrace innovation in public and private sectors. Uh Council Member Vert and then I I have another idea for how to work that in.

Letting us kind of go through where we want to go. Um uh I I think Council Member Lowing uh is talking about something that um uh I'm interested in focusing on when we actually now pivot to our priorities. Yeah. And it's very possible that a priority may be kind of a a subfocus from uh a value. Um and we don't have to think of it as either or.

Um and so I'm anxious to uh if we've got the consensus on where we're headed on the the core values and I will note uh that in the procedures and protocols they're just called council values. I don't believe that was how they were adopted in 2022, but I couldn't uh recall for sure. But I think we do want to uh name them differently uh to make sure that they are a reflection of the ongoing city values as um affirmed by successive councils. And that's different from just council values, I think.

Okay. Um, and then I I just note as we get into um the what staff has called objectives, and I I I do actually agree with Amy that it's really a work plan, a set of objectives, and we may want to uh title it a little differently. Um, but they a a concern I've raised a number of times is that there was a sense that staff felt obligated to essentially shoehorn every one of our work plan elements into one of the council priorities which by definition are only supposed to be the things we're putting exceptional attention on as opposed to our whole work plan as the mayor had noted. So I think that as we move into that uh we just want to bear those things in mind too.

Agreed. Do you need a formal referral to PNS or is this sufficient? I mean it's sufficient. Okay.

Yeah. Thanks for that clarification. Yeah. And council member Bird I I was going to suggest the same thing that as you discuss any priorities that might pop up to you from the work plan or that aren't on there even because I think you should allow yourself to do that. Um, I would I would suggest that if you get agreement on a priority, you say it's not just throwing money at the 311. It's how can we do this better? How can we Right. So, I I appreciate what you brought up, Council Member Lowing, and I think there's a way to do that um in in this discussion. So are there uh any other comments about whether we move on to I mean I think we've really I think you guys got someplace uh valuable on values and if we could move on and look at what was presented as objectives and their subheads. Uh yes

I'm sorry what about the priority setting? So go ahead madam mayor. Yeah. I so I think that um we we can move on to priorities and we can talk about categories of you know priorities people want and then the objectives that live into them or we could talk about the proposed objectives and think what do we want to lift up to priorities. I'm indifferent as to which we do but we definitely need to do both things. We need to do them separate. I would really recommend this. This meeting is supposed to be about priority setting. Absolutely. I think there's two ways to get there. Yeah. I was going to exactly I yeah I had actually recommended doing the priorities but I if there's a strong view from staff or anyone else doing the objectives no okay

I am happy to do your priorities and I want I want to state that yeah then maybe just we could start and go through council members and see what uh proposed priorities are and I don't know if there's a way madam clerk can track that on the screen or if there's what we want to do we need to track it on a screen or do we need to put it up on a flip chart because just so you know council member Robert, the the dual slide that I put up with to kind of show the alignment, but I I I do we can definitely do this. Okay. So, now that we've had the consensus that wonderful core values are going to be something different, we have a a blank slate on now what should be our our priorities.

Yeah, that was the goal. And so, I think we just want to move from the hierarchy now down to the next one.

Okay. So, um, madame mayor and council, um, when I've done this at my own council, the way we do it is we kind of take turns going down the road and so or row and we're not getting consensus at this point, but maybe we go through and each of you give one or two uh, top priorities. Then let's see how many we end up with. Maybe you'll end up with three total. But I also have dots. Um, but go ahead, madame mayor. I don't know how you guys say because council member Lith cuts isn't here. Maybe we just do popcorn style and she can raise her hand whenever and you know when somebody is spurred to have a thought from someone else.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. We don't have to go and it's not fair to go down a road because that way it's always the same person after each other. Never heard the term popcorn style, but I'm prepared to adapt. Um, so yeah, I I I just think give one or two and let's let's get them all up. Let's see. Maybe I should get a flip. Yes. Yeah. Let me let me suggest to city clerk. Are you able to be the recorder on this as it proceeds? I think that may be more functional than trying to put it on a flip chart. Okay. I just don't want to lose anything. Um I I will keep notes here too.

I think the challenge is always is to ensure that what we write down reflects what the speaker wants to be written. So I think the the screen allows us to ensure that. Yes. And we will check for clarity with that. Um it it should yeah it should arrive on your uh iPads.

Yeah, you all can see that on there. Okay. Is everybody good with this process? I think it's fantastic. She said humbly. Okay. So, um I would like to um asked if council member uh Lifcottimmes or HMS is uh would like to go first if she's available. I would rather not go first. I am doing my best here to uh I'd kind of rather respond. I'd rather add if I have something to add that hasn't been said. Okay. Rather than try to take the lead right now. Thank you.

Understand. Understand. So, all right. Why don't we start with Council Member Lou? I'm just I'm going to go like this. I'm going to popcorn it. How's that, Madam Mayor? Yeah. I was going to say one thing sometimes we do is when we put on our light, you can see that someone's waiting to make a comment. We could do that and go in whatever order you see. We can do that. Um I I still would like to start with Council Member Lou. Uh and then then you all turn your lights on.

I love revisiting the priorities and also trying to make them more focused. Uh I'll uh start with a short list and not speak too long about any of them in particular. So uh I think climate should be a priority. I think our uh priority should be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a given target. Uh that will encompass most of what is in the current climate action and adaptation priority. Um a lot of goals about uh uh um electrification but also goals we can elevate around pad and cycling uh mode share as like mid-level goals. Um and so the exact amount we can pick uh with a little bit more investigation offline but for climate I would just say reduce greenhouse gas emissions uh by some reasonable target. Uh I think we should have a priority about economic development and it should just be economic development full stop not necessarily economic development and retail vibrancy. Retail vibrancy is part of that. Um uh I think uh some good mid-level goals would be to uh uh do all the business development work we've been thinking of to uh actually set targets about incremental uh sales tax or transcency tax or other sorts of revenue because we are uh in a crunch and I think we can set good mid-level goals. Uh

what did you I'm sorry I want to clarify uh were you talking about perhaps talking about increasing toot and sales tax?

Yes. Yes. Uh we have targets to increase revenues in our uh uh long range financial forecast or tenative long-range financial forecast. So, uh, if we are already putting ourselves on the hook for an incremental 800k in revenue on average per year, we should, uh, align some of our priorities and framing and of mid-level goals and things like that around that. Um, okay. I have more thoughts about that, but, uh, we'll, um, come back to that later. And on housing, I'll echo a point that the mayor has made around getting a pro-ousing designation from HCD. uh that encompasses um probably everything that is currently in the housing bucket but makes it more focused on a specific outcome.

Thank you. More to come, I'm sure. Uh Council Member Reto had his light on. Yeah. Oh, wait. I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. Is there a question?

Yeah. Yeah. I and I I am keeping track as well, but obviously it'd be good to see them on the screen. Okay, Council Member Rectal. Okay. I mean, well, one of the things that we're going after is making priorities be a priority. And a priority is something that is going to achieve particular, unusual, and significant attention throughout the year. And so, for example, financial is a big issue. Revenue is a hard, slow process. Yeah.

And what are we going to make progress on this year? And I look at three things. One, as I mentioned in the last meeting, we're like 30 to 50 heads higher than we were before COVID. And so we really have to understand why we're being less efficient. And so we really want to study efficiency. How can we deliver our services with less heads or more efficiently? So operational efficiency is huge. Uh next is efficiency of service delivery. The former mayor mentioned 311. you know, how how can we do the things that we do faster and and serve the citizens better. And the third thing would be we really need to make uh progress on Calab and Ramona. The efficiency of how we're doing that has not been good. And so all the three of these are how can we improve efficiency of different aspects of

that? Yeah. Calab and Ramona. And so we have how can we spend our money uh wiser or more efficiently? How can we respond more quickly and how can we make some more progress on Calab and Ramona? Right. Those are the those are the three things that I really think we need to make progress on this year.

Okay. Appreciate. And we're we're just going through now. We're just we'll discuss get to consensus later. Okay. Wait, I got to stand up. Uh does anybody else have a light on that wants to go? Um anybody else have some priorities? There we go. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. We'll get there. And I wouldn't worry about um for staff I Let's see. Oh, yeah. Because he did liable goals. Okay. Uh yes.

Um so, first I I agree on a number of the um points that that uh Council Member Lou had made uh and uh and others. Uh, but I see those as objectives within the work plan as opposed to a priority for the year. And I'll note on the climate action plan, which um I'm deeply involved with and committed to, we already have those goals established. We we have our 80% reduction by 2030. We uh we have our annual SCAP uh work plan which goes into very specific goals and um and then we we actually have our carbon neutrality goals. So those are all established but then we we need to make sure that within the work plan we're we're pursuing those. Um similarly with with uh revenue but the as we're facing um a really significant budget uh challenge not only this year but in the coming years. Uh this whole concept of focusing on how we become uh as a priority for this year and next year if it's a two-year goal on government efficiency. Now, some of that always goes on in the organization, but one of the great values of this work plan has been that it really directs our staff from the the top level downward on a unifying focus on those objectives. And um so I think the government efficiency and the other one that I think is really important for this year is what is our cubby project and uh it's going to be

very challenging including challenging for the voters to support it and one of the things that we've seen in our [clears throat] um in our community survey is as well as the polling on Cberly is a question of in by the the our residents and voters is whether we're spending our money well enough and whether we really need to ask them for more funds. And so I think the the focus on efficiency has both a very important practical impact and a political value as well in support of coverly.

I I have a thought or an observation and I'll get to council member Lowing. I see. So, I hear the government or I hear the efficiency um and I think it was council member rectal who said something about um like a study on how to pro you know I would encourage I I I don't know if it's possible be for the budget process right you have a budget cycle coming up so one way to make something like this less nebulous is to come up with the priority of some sort of study, but identify what that study would do. Um, you know, in terms of efficiency, which sometimes means combining jobs, all kinds of, you know, things, right? But then the other thing is, and efficiency is important whether you have more revenue or not, right? So to to council member Lou's point, whether you raise a toot or sales tax that you know, but the things can go together, right? It can go together. Uh, Council Member Lowing, and I hope you allow uh, well, I'm interjecting, so there you go. Uh, Council Member Lowing.

So, on the list of priorities, um, I'm I'm fine keeping the four that we have because they're they are more than one year. They're all important. Um, we get a little bit charged up if we go to more than four. I'm not so bothered by if we were to go to five, but if people want four, um if people want four and there's another one added, um the one that I would think we could uh not certainly not dep prioritize, but do [clears throat] in context of what we already talked about, which is tying it to the values, um is the one currently called economic development of retail. And the why on that um is because first of all that that first started around the pandemic and thankfully we're we're well beyond that. Um happily we got 38 new businesses this year. So there is some progress uh in that. Those are not all necessarily all retail but uh it's economic development. Um and econ economic development you could also argue is sort of what I call business as usual. there's staff on board to do that and so it doesn't have to be called out and and be very specific. Uh but that said, um we're not succeeding at retail right now with some of the goals on Kell and and Ramona. So that would be the downside for taking it off if if that meant that it would have less visibility. Um I I I I do want to sort of agree with basically what uh council member Bert said uh and consistent with my previous comments is this idea of of efficiency in in distribution of services is just so critical uh particularly in a in a difficult budgeting year and difficult budgets ahead and that has to get high visibility. So if we were to put something like that as to one of the four priorities where we felt comfortable adding it as the fifth um I'm okay with that too. And one part of the efficiency that I was going to mention at this point he just mentioned which is it also has to do with how we finance our projects long-term short-term how we finance capital

projects maybe differently than before um various even you know tax measures if the the the voters say I really want you to get this thing done and here's a little bit more money from us to get it done uh that's part of what we would look at in that uh in that efficiency would be various kinds of fundraising and financing short and long term. All right, Council I mean, yes, Vice Mayor Stone,

thank you. Um, I agree I agree with Council Member Lowing. I' I'd like to see the the four priorities continue since we've we embraced the kind of the the idea last year that these priorities were going to be two-year priorities. But I think we should should continue to commit to that and just kind of focus on how we implement them to today. If that's not the that's not the will of the of the council, I think the two that I'd like to see then greater incorporated. I mean that's and again I think these pretty much already exist, but again focusing on economic development. agree with council member Lou as far as just leaving it at economic development would be appropriate. It's going to be a challenging budget year this year and over the next several. So really starting to refocus on that. The other though one that I would be I would be interested in because I think it would address a lot of need and and concerns within the the community is some sort of objective around kind of connecting Palo Alton's making PaloAlto a more vibrant livable community with various kind of community services and engagement and and just fun. I mean, I know I talked about it during the campaign as something I labeled as PaloAlto connect. Um, not quite sure the the wording that we would like to to use, but you know, one of the things I I always try to use the annual community survey as a way to frame what is what is the thing that people are are happy or not happy with. And I was really struck by one of the one of our worst categories in that annual community survey was PaloAlto being a desirable or good place to retire. I think it's clear that we don't have

sufficient senior services or affordable senior housing. So I think I I'd like to see greater focus on on that. I also think within this kind of connecting PaloAlton more it would have a focus on on Cberly as our new community center. love the love the idea of expanding pickle ball courts and access. It's clear that those are the type of and I've I've been out there with the pickle ball community and with the tennis community and have seen what what those um kind of easier to pick up sports is able to do for connecting people. I think this would also include downtown and and Calav vibrancy and I appreciate what I what I read in the paper yesterday of recommendations coming out of the retail ad hoc. I think that's going to be quite a a significant lift um and within Calab vibrancy that would also of course include really accelerating Calav and um and that that closed portion there. This this could include expanding parkland and finding ways of how do we maintain those essential services that community members really rely on and and appreciate during a year where we're likely to see some some uh fairly significant budget cuts. So that would be like kind of the maybe the one that I would I would trade out potentially promote safety, wellness, and and belonging because I think that is all that could all be included in that but with a more focus on these type of again kind of connecting our our community,

right? And you you could also just add that to one of the values of both the mayor worked up and the other uh group worked up in terms of connection connection. Um and it's as you point out um there's so many things that can fall under that. Um okay, Madame Mayor. Yeah, I I'd like to chime in on the priorities, but I've spoken a lot. I wanted to make sure we're not excluding our online colleague. No. Oh, no. I'm looking at Okay, great. Yeah, she's Oh, she does. Oh, now she does. [laughter] Let her go before. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um I'm not able to see that I'm on the screen. Can people see me?

Yes.

Okay. Um, first I want to say I appreciate this framing of values, uh, the reframing of values, um, the rewriting of values to incorporate the things that over the past many years have been enduring priorities. I really like that the priorities are being merged up a level into the values so we can carry them forward and not go through this, you know, hand ringing over why do we seem to have the same priorities year over year. So for that reason, I do support the four that we've got currently as priorities. Really living in values and then being more specific at the priorities level about what we're calling, you know, specific um we're going to give them specific attention, particular specific attention, whatever the language is supposed to be about priorities. Um, so I'm in favor of not carrying the current priorities forward as priorities, but elevating them as values, freeing up room for more specific things at the priorities level. In terms of what's been said by my colleagues, I want to say a plus one to what council member Lou said about getting a proousing designation from HCD. The reason I'm excited about this is you can already envision the work plan objectives that would come underneath. Now, what does it take to get an HCD designation? I don't know, but I imagine that things like enhancing our ADU efforts to make ADUs even more attractive and part of um you know the firsttime home buyer uh set of options um by condoizing them, increasing our number of safe parking spots and shelter spots um and working to build more affordable housing. Those

are just three items that could be in a work plan rolling up to the priority that our city would earn this designation from HCD. So, I like I like the frame of this. The other two things that I would mention are um I mean, yes, I I agree with all of the the yearning for greater efficiency. Um, when it comes to economic development, um, I agree with cutting it at economic development, not retail vibrancy. Um, and with specific measurables, what are we going to do, focus on this year? uh whether it's a reduction in the vacancy rate on certain streets or increase in toot and sales tax or however we think we're going to measure it so that at the end of the year we can say you know this is how well we did at achieving that priority um around economic development and of course I have to mention Cberly uh uh being the chair of the ad hoc uh that I serve on with council member Bert and Rick Doll um and I don't know how we phrase But is it, you know, that in this year it is a priority that we get that land purchased from the school district uh on route to building or rebuilding uh an enhanced community center. uh we can word smith what we should say about Cberly but I do think that Cberly u needs to be on here and um council member Bert's point about the efficiency that voters and residents are demanding uh is very much baked into the coverly question and so we would want to be sure to uh if this makes it as a priority that that we have efficiency uh in the description of what we're trying to achieve with that. That's it for me. Thank you very much and thanks for the system. Uh, Kylie is helping me

uh bring my request to raise my hand. She's bringing it to Amy's attention. So, thank you. I appreciate you're accommodating me in this strange circumstance. Okay. Uh, thank you, Madame Mayor. I thought Yeah. Okay. Excellent.

Um, well, thank you, Council Member Liths, for hanging in there with us on a Saturday when you're ill. So, uh, appreciate it. And I didn't know what a great segue that would be to to my comments because I I I plus one to the way you phrase the the comments about the values and priorities. I think that um so when I look at um the priorities for this year, I'm thinking that we need to narrow them to what do we really want to do? What's urgent this year even though we're not abandoning the four that we had. And so, um, I'm first going to start with one that I'd like to add. I had written down the the same exact phrase that council member Rectal mentioned. So, we are in a mind meld today. [laughter] Uh, uh, operational efficiency. Uh, it's sort of an overarching priority, but um, I would wrap uh, service delivery of 311 and the other things into that. And I I think it it it is sort of an umbrella thing that's I think our staff does keep that top of mind always. But I think that this year we need to be in greater partnership because of some of the budget considerations. And I I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I think also to let our public know that we know that right now is a time we really need to keep an eye on that and support uh efforts uh toward that. Um but council member Lowing I agree we don't want to just have a whole bunch of these. So we'll have to figure out though now within the other four um whether we can can let one go as a priority this year. And so let me go through sort of my thoughts on within those four what we might list as a priority. Um, so, uh, for housing, um, obviously I I I I spoke, um, uh, the night I was selected as mayor about the proousousing designation from HCD. And

for those that don't know, that's something that some of our surrounding communities, many of them have, Los Altos has it. Um, and it allows us um it it we have greater eligibility for certain grants and uh assistance from the state to to achieve the housing goals we want. It's in process already with our staff and I think what we would be doing by elevating it to a priority is just saying we really want to get it done this year. Um, and I think that that would then enable some of the other things we're trying to do. So, but you know, there's a lot we want to do on housing. So in addition to that uh you know completing home key I think that uh discussing um the and and pursuing the downtown senior housing uh is something those could be uh in objectives and by the way I'm going to interrupt myself to say great ideas from the public commenters and I have added to my list of objectives so if you don't hear some of those things now they may be coming later. Um, so I'm wondering if an umbrella term for housing that's still a little narrower than we had before is uh pro progress on near-term and completion of inprocess housing milestones. And then those milestones would be, you know, the pro housing designation, home key, downtown senior housing. But I think really trying to support our staff in moving forward some of the things that are close to the finish line, getting them done. Um is it would should be a 2026 priority. Um for wellness and belonging, I would I would have the priority there that we really need to do this year is Cberly. you know, a couple of my colleagues have said that we are we're on deadline and uh this is a chance after 20 years of work to to make something move forward and we can talk about what the right words are to put around that but for now I'll just say coverly I believe is a

2026 priority. Um climate we have you know a wonderful work plan we have our escap uh and the work plan under it. So there's a lot already there on the specifics, but one that I think is achieve receiving a lot of attention for different reasons is electric utility optimization. And what I mean there is people want reliability and resiliency and we're working on it. We have a plan. Um people you optimizing our use of our utility for our electrification goals. We have those goals, but you know, making sure that they are as wildfire safe as possible. There's a lot of specifics that we have, but I think a priority right now when people are worried about grid capacity, worried about resiliency, worried about data centers coming online and sapping up things, worrying about how green the power is, we are addressing that, but I think listing that as a priority uh might be very timely. Um, so then that leaves economic development, which is super important such that we've just elevated it into our values that are ongoing. Um, but I feel like a lot of the things that fall under that could be put into objective. So if I had to choose, um, I don't know that I would leave that as a separate priority this year. Um, I also agree that uh, it should be to the extent we're working on it, we definitely need to work on it for retail, but also beyond retail. the climate has changed in larger business um within our boundaries. We've had a jobs housing imbalance um that we have worked on correcting, but I think that right now we're in a different situation and to to maintain our tax base from some of the bigger business will take some intentional atension, but I think we can do that at the objectives level. Thank you.

Um so I'm hearing a couple different things. Um, and so let me take it back up a level. So, a couple council members wanted to like keep the four priorities with maybe adding one or getting rid of one. Uh, so last year's priorities because as was mentioned, those were supposed to be two-year priorities. I think a way to accommodate uh and and accommodate that desire so that the public doesn't think you've abandoned those is maybe oh gosh going to throw a wrench at y'all. U I'm not from Texas. I don't know why I say that but it's really handy. So um is to call those priorities goals underneath. So you've got your values. So then from last year you could have if housing is your goal uh you could do you know then your priority underneath that is the uh proousing city uh acknertification from HCD could be madame mayor your thoughts or we could but I there were a couple members who wanted to keep those priorities from last year's work. I thought

my first instinct and I'll ask my colleagues is to stick with priorities and not introduce a new term into that beautiful beautiful slide you had because I think we've struggled a lot with what these different things. Okay. Um I appreciate you trying to accommodate the the four from last year and the narrower priorities we're talking about but I think if we first stick to the narrower priorities that people have articulated. Okay. Then if we if we can't manage that maybe we can go to something more creative. But that would be my instinct. Okay. So that's fair. So, um, council member Bert had a comment. Yes. Oh, sorry. Thank you.

So, I just want to point out we had had this consensus about updating the core values and then we seem to be slipping back into saying, but we don't want to leave some of those core values off from their existing categorization as a priority.

That's what I was That's what I was referencing. I think we just need to stick to that concept that it's not going to reduce its importance by saying this is an enduring core value of the city. Uh especially if we don't bury the core values like we've done the last three years. So I I again think that we were on the right track on really looking at the guiding language of that the priority should be unusual and significant attention during the year as opposed to ongoing uh uh attention. I mean our climate plan uh we have a great attention to that. Um and we we have uh similarly with with a lot of the other uh things that we've discussed. Um so I I do think that uh it's best that we we really discipline ourselves to think about the priorities in the way that the council procedures say we're supposed to. I think that's on the right track and and we should continue that way. on the housing. Um, uh, director late had mentioned, uh, I think at the recent meeting that we're or it came up that we're exploring this HCD categorization and I think it was in the staff report that said we may have much of what's required there. Council hasn't heard what would be needed to achieve that. And so, um, I am intrigued by that, but I don't know that we without having understood what's needed that we're ready to say that's an explicit priority. The mayor had kind of talked about something that might um enable that and then we would even if it's not today,

uh, it could be I can't remember. I don't think it's yet in the work plan. Is that right, John? No. So, it might become part of the work plan or is it that city manager have some insight on that? I was just going to confirm that it's not part of our work plan, but it could become one. Yeah. And so, I I I'm intrigued by it, but I don't think it's ripe for us to say we know that we want to set that as a high priority. It

it's it's very promising. Um so um I would I would again um uh really emphasize that we we focus on things that were really going to have the unusual attention and um with our budget uh operational efficiency or government efficiency the coverly project and whether there's some element of economic development perhaps um uh that might be So, um, you know, the discussion about a vibrant community or about kind of some of what the vice mayor was talking about, um, in the, um, in the draft core values that council member Retol and I had, uh, addressed, we tried to embrace, um, uh, some of those elements, but once again, as it goes to policy and services committee, that can be uh, flushed out more. But I certainly agree that that that value is something that is really important to the community.

I don't know that it is a one-year top uh unusual focus. It's an ongoing focus and within the work plan, we can have those specific projects and objectives that is designed to fulfill those core values and not just our priorities. Right. Uh I see council member Lowing would like to speak.

Yes. Thanks. Um I'm hearing some members talk about sort of substantial shift which in general I encourage don't disagree with shifts. Um but I find it a little bit confusing. So for example, let's just stay with housing. um you know in terms of figuring out again since we don't want six or eight uh priorities I was saying which one of the fours could we get down in all my study for this and I tried to convince myself that we didn't really need housing as because we've gotten so much done and the laws are in place and the zonings are in place um but if you look at the 20 objectives here under housing um that are proposed that's still obviously a lot of work and a lot of it is not quote business as usual I mean there's really new ground to be broken there. Um, one of the things that we've talked about doing which are waiting the objectives which I'm taking that the ones and twos that are in there are the current um format for for waiting. Um but when we talk about this um HCD project uh pro housing for example, I I just don't understand how we could go from housing with 20 objectives to saying more important than that for this year is the pro-ousing HCD. I mean to me that seems like a number one level priority within all of the housing things that we still have to accomplish. So, um, and maybe this will be even a less popular, but I'm using it for, um, for debate. Um, Cubberly, I think, is a top priority in terms of getting that project done, but it still feels like a project to me. It doesn't feel like something that you would throw away 20 things on housing and say we have uh, Cberly up here. So I'm I'm bringing up just um examples [clears throat] which may be controversial to just sort of focus on what's the difference between a priority

and objective not for not for u wordsmith reasons but for focus reasons. [clears throat] Did you want to madame mayor because I I did I I think the difference between priorities and objectives is in the eye of the beholder where exactly that line is but I agree that we need to to get try to get more consensus around that. Well, that's that's a bad answer because we want everybody to know what we're talking about.

Yeah, I know. And so, we have to get more consensus around that so that we can we can have it less and just individualize. I agree with you. Um, Madame Clerk, I want to thank you because we kind of put you on the spot with doing this and you've done a tremendous job. Um, I uh if you could scroll back down to mine, I just want to clarify one. Um, and it's because I generally agree with um what council member Bert said about um the uh we've sort of elevated our 25 priorities into enduring values. And so what I was trying to do is get a little narrower on some of them. And so on that third one, but I was correlating them with the four. So uh the third one, wellness and belonging, that actually is uh is coverly. So you can just pop that up there and we don't need one below it. Um so with respect to the HCD discussion that has gone on um I I agree that that could be an objective. What I was trying to do was say there are there's a there's a few things that we've been working on and trying to do this year and if we can kind of throw our sorry trying to do over the last recent period of time and if we can throw our weight behind trying to make sure staff has the resources to do their best to bring some of these home that's what I'd like to do. And so that's so I was trying to make it narrower than all the housing things, but um allow room for those bullet points below um there to be in our objectives. And so I I do concur that if we should, you know, whether or not it's these four or what four, that that we should try to have priorities that are narrower than our values. And then we need to get down to how do we live into them? And we're we're going to disagree on just exactly which is at priorities and which is at objectives level. But I think if we can get some consensus around substantively first what we really want as this year priorities then we can have the follow-up conversation about which

get democ and and I see your city manager has a comment and I let me ask if this let me before if I want to clarify something you said if some of these priorities obviously will have like objectives below them but maybe I ask actually asked the city manager If they had four things up there that were a mix of what or five things or three things, does it help you and the staff because then you can say, "Okay, Coverly has been an ongoing thing, but we have to put more of our resources towards that or is that just a given?" Like, does this help you if they do that?

I'm not quite sure how to position uh response to that question. Um, so let me think about that. But go back to the comment I was going to make, which actually is uh ref uh responding to council member Lowing's point on the distinction between the two uh priorities and objectives. And let me put it this way, your priorities will impact our ability to have objectives and what those objectives should be and and certainly our capacity to deliver on the objectives. I I'll give you and first let me make the comment. First off, I really appreciate this conversation and and what I'm sensing is a wonderful freeing of your ability to talk about what's really important in this moment as opposed to feeling like, you know, you had to carry over the four from the prior year and either modify it or what have you. So, this this is actually wonderful. Um, I will note it will present a challenge to our staff as you get more granular in trying to respond to can we do this? And that question of can we do this I certainly expect will be a substantive part of how we spend the afternoon. So that said again let me reiterate my point. Your priorities will impact our ability to deliver on objectives. I'll give you the example of operational efficiency as it's just described here. As you all know we have our current budget process that provides a structure for reviewing at at some level operations. Uh and so clearly what I hear you referring to is more than that. And I will also share that through my career and having been through u multiple uh iterations of downsizing in organizations that are are very difficult uh but nonetheless uh necessary. that how we scope, how we approach and how we follow through on uh that interest is really critical and it

ultimately could be a massive undertaking that is again super important and that on behalf of our organization I know we're we're very uh willing to undertake that will that could certainly impact our ability to undertake new initiatives in a variety of areas. So I just want to use that as an example uh and reinforce the importance of the conversation and then when you get specific as to what you want to accomplish within any given priority uh this year and actually I think you did answer the question and I uh Vice Mayor Stone

thanks. I just want to and and follow up uh with with the city manager. I I like the idea of of the council values. My and I think it should advance my one concern and I think I raised this the other week after council member Rectal brought up the idea of the enduring values and and and right kind of the council values that we adopted to in 2022. And I think I I asked the city manager similar question. I think you needed a little more time to kind of consider. So to reask the question, if we have council values and then priorities, I think we're all kind of, okay, well then the values are going to continue to get as much attention, but now we're adding in additional priorities from a staffing perspective. How do you then manage really what all of a sudden then I think becomes a whole lot more of right priorities. So can you talk about that?

Sure. I'm going to say what I want to say irrespective of how it comes across. Everything we're talking about is really the tip of the iceberg of what staff does. Everything we're talking about is still the tip of the iceberg. And so, you know, as was referred to earlier, whether it's our our police department, fire department, community services or other there there's a whole body of work of running an organization, providing the services to the community, providing staff the training they need, ensuring that the the organization runs that you're not even talking about, which is fine. So for this part of the iceberg that is above the waterline such that you can see it I think it is fair to see to say that uh in in the case of your priorities those can and and I think will clearly communicate to us the must dos the the things you want to spend your time and therefore our time on and ensuring that those get done. There is still a body of work that is uh high visibility and that we do want to continue to use our objective structure for the purpose of ensuring we can um reinforce both council and community awareness of that work and that progressing. Um at the same time I think it would be fair to say if those are not priorities then they may be more uh you know flexible in terms of of time frames and at the same time I would expect that the values help us uh determine what should be even above the waterline because the values uh uh statements are are clearly uh items that the council has expressed an interest in ensuring we're seeing through. Yeah, I I appreciate that and that was been my my concern and kind of we we learned that lesson at least those I guess just council member Bird and I who were on the 2022 council that that was the intent of those kind of enduring

values then and they just kind of got lost and we all kind of really forgot about them uh until until recently and thanks to council member for reminding us all about it. Um, so yeah, that that that's my that's my worry is that we're kind of coming back into this again thinking, okay, this is going to continue to be prioritized to the extent of maybe the priorities and and I don't think that's very realistic. So that's my again I I I continue to support this idea of council values. Um, but there are there are some things that I would I would want to make sure we continue to see in the priorities so staff gives it that that attention. So thanks for the cander on that. If if I may, uh, Council Member Bert, um, before I, uh, so perhaps this helps, I think I'm trying to triangulate between what's what's being said here. Um, the specific um, the priorities, if they're specific, so the priorities are probably going to also reflect a value, right? So, a priority is still reflecting housing or the environment or safety. So it's not an additional thing is what how maybe if if if if this is common understanding here and so when you get your specific priorities it shows the st it's actually makes it easier for staff to put their focus whereas if you say implement housing strategies for social and economic balance and that that's a really big broad topic area. So I that's that's kind of my is that does is that sound does that make any sense? Um maybe [clears throat] to your point, but I I council member B.

Well, first I agree with that that um what we're this year and going forward, I would not expect that whatever priorities councils set would be inconsistent with our core values. um they would basically at a higher level was the core value and its particular focus area for one to two years. Um and then I I just wanted to comment on because we may be kind of getting closer to um uh uh consensus on what we might have as priorities. um when mayor the mayor uh had brought up um one electric utility optimization. So and I think if I understood it right a lot of what you're getting at there is is really that uh uh reliability and resiliency so that the community is really confident in be becoming electrified. And I went to our objectives and we have a lot of our ESCAP objectives and we don't have that. We actually have a reliability and resiliency strategic plan which has a big part of it. This very thing it's not listed in the objectives out of all so many uh very important SCAP objectives. It's happening for some reason. is not on that list, but it's there's a lot of staff work going on that and uh calling it out I think is entirely appropriate and I think we can put in the objectives um and um I support that and then um on the housing um so in addition to the uh what I'd still support on the operational efficiency which I want to uh give a little uh context on that uh but uh

operational efficiency and coverly and if if we still are wanting to have a focus within the housing something along the lines of the sub bullets that are under the mayors maybe we just need to think about how to title it um I don't think progress on near-term is necessarily the way we want to capture it but the elements I think um uh really probably capture the focus that we want to have this year and I did want to note under this operational efficiency um that captures both a a really important need that we're recognizing with our budget shortfalls. There may be time that's needed to be or a devotion to things, but it is intended to be something that will create capacity by improved efficiency. It's not just an outlay. It's what we need to do if we're going to continue to provide the city services that the community expects and we all want to provide. And we we have ongoing efforts at improving the efficiency. This is just saying this is a year that we want to have particular focus on that. And on note, out of ones that we're already working on, we have in my mind the consultant study on how we uh have more efficient and less reliance on outside consultants, process streamlining, our own city processes that not only create time and expense for businesses and residents, but for our own staff. And this is a balance that we'd have to have between a lot of the community who wants to make sure we have all those process steps, but how do we become more efficient there? Um the um we've had discussion about really what is transformative of AI in government and local government

and the the movement that's happening there. Three years ago, it was a twinkle in everybody's eye maybe with overexpectation of what it could it could happen and when. But the real world values to that are emerging and our staff is starting to do some of that. Other cities I would say are even more aggressive on that. And I think that just AI society-wise for all its pluses and minuses is viewed as a massive productivity tool and really to have a strategic plan that would be what are the near-term things that we're doing now? What do we think are on the near medium-term horizon but we're still understanding them? and then a set that is the longer term that we really don't know but we're we're looking at and tracking and anticipating and then I'd add two other things related to that efficiency um facility utilization and uh both we have coverly and elsewhere but how do we really take advantage of our physical assets and then leveraging public private partnerships when we as a city have a limited resources and we have this incredible community base of of um nonprofits that we can partner. How do we how are we as a government more efficient by leveraging those relationships? So, those are the sub bullets under operational efficiency that I've been thinking about.

Okay. Now, I see uh council member Rectal. I mean again if the priorities are going to be receiving particular unusual and significant attention by definition they have to be narrow and all these that we have right in 2025 are all still very broad and they're all in value. So I think we should be getting rid of all those and saying what narrow topics are we going to give exceptional attention to and the number one to me is operational efficiency or budget. I mean the budget shortfalls are like an albatross around our neck. We have all these good ideas and we say, "Oh, it's a good idea, but we can't afford it." You whether it's affordable housing or coverly, fire staffing, calav climate actions or bike ped stuff. Those are all good ideas that we want to do and we can't do them if we don't have budget efficiency. And so that has to be the number one thing that we look at this year.

You mentioned you said organizational efficiency, but then you said budget efficiency, right? So yeah, can you elaborate? Are they the same? Are they together like

Yeah. What can we do to uh both the money that we spend how can we spend it more efficiently? Whether it's AI, whether it's it's other and that's the thing is that we have an auditor that can look at it and I think staff if we tell staff this is a priority. staff time now comes in where so we're spending money to look at how we spend money and in the long run I think that is like council member Bert said is that that enables us to do the things that we want to do and I and I think that staff if they look at it and back up and and look at how they spend money and say what are the bottlenecks and where are we spending money and how can we do it more efficiently okay I think that would be very useful

okay thank you I just wanted a clarification um I have a question madam Mayor, I see you have your um light. Um so it's almost noon. So I just if you could maybe have your talk to us about how you envision process after your comments because I do think we should try to take what all you have said and try to maybe come up with some priorities but I don't know can should we try to do that now or should we take a break have but so whatever you want and then also your comments whatever you all of you want.

Thank you. Um, I think we're doing kind of what we tend to do, which is we talk it around and then we're getting to uh uh closing in on consensus and I sense that now. And so I would hope that we can hopefully narrow in on our priorities and then have our lunch. Um, I like that and I think you know we're hearing at least a majority of us um talking about efficiency and exactly what the phrase is. I mean, I had operational efficiency intended to be both organizational and budget. And I want to look at staff and see if that's an accept. Is that a meaningful term operational to to give you the flexibility? Well,

and I know you're doing it. [laughter]

I believe well certainly I understand what you're referring to and I think the the the rub will be the what, right? Not unlike all of our other uh priorities. what is it that we'd want to accomplish? I I certainly appreciate and agree that the goal of it would be to uh is is to build capacity to to make it available. I will tell you through experience that that will involve a number of steps including uh making choices on on priorities. What's the most important work in in some cases? what's work that uh should no longer be continued as well as uh uh I think it's certainly uh through council members comments important that we do this in a way that provides uh visibility for the community and uh so communication both uh of the ongoing discussions as well as opportunity to get input will be important as well. So uh I think we understand what we're referring to and look forward to uh tightening that up.

Yeah, thank you for that insight. Um because I would suggest that, you know, we should hear if anyone has disscent, but that that that is one that we're sort of that we're centering on. And I do think that, you know, in some ways it's an enduring value, but it's not one that we've lifted up to a priority recently. And I think this year in this climate, that's what we're hearing. And then so because we haven't lifted it up before, it will take probably more interaction with staff to understand, you know, our concerns to hear your, you know, how you think best to go forward. and we'll have to have a lot more conversation about that. But um so I would suggest that we you know see whether there's consensus around that one. Um you know I agree with uh council member Bird on on the housing thing. I I would been struggling with what to put on that that line and perhaps we could do I don't know if this is a lot better but um something like achieve near-term priority housing milestones and then we can get into the objectives as to what those are but really trying to bring home some things and I am very open to other language but I think it's not just housing it's there's some specific stuff that we think we can get to this year but I don't want to pick just one of them. Um, so but I I do think we're hearing housing come up a lot. Um, Cberly, I don't know if we've got a majority on or not, but I'd be curious to to check. And again, I think um, and that's one of those Well, that it's in the eye of the beholder as to whether or not it's a a priority or an objective. And I think there may be enough to say it's a priority, but we should check. And then finally on the electric utility um yeah um the there is a lot of work going on on the reliability and resiliency strategic plan right now. Um and I do think there's a bunch of objectives under this. I I guess the reason um I had mentioned it and and this is

another one that you know could go either way depending on how we're defining it, but it's also our whole grid modernization project is overlapping but distinct from our RSP and that is a big thing that's adding capacity and reliability and resiliency. Um and that so there's a lot of stuff that sort of falls under it. So, I was trying to lift it up because it also lives into our climate goals, but I'm not wedded to that. But that's why I'd put it up a level. Um, but maybe we should have uh be led through a discussion of how we're doing on these first three.

Okay. Um, so one one thing I mean I think so here's a question. So you want to know if there's consensus on coverly, right? because there were a couple maybe opinions that maybe that's not a priority. Um, somebody mentioned I think it was you uh Mr. Lowing or maybe it was council member Bert uh about you know you don't know if the public supports you know a bond or you don't know if this is happening but that would could take a lot of effort from staff to figure it out right so there are significant steps that could be taken from what I'm hearing uh but so do you want to decide if there's consensus

I I think you should do some straw polls on some of these and see how we're doing so let's do straw poll what more discuss session. So, uh, and so if you, uh, Key, if you could, uh, check with us with, uh, Council Member Lifka Hs, if she agrees. So, before we do the strong poll, and I think we're very close, um, on the the operational efficiency, I think, is more narrow than saying government efficiency, which could include some of these other aspects that I mentioned.

Yeah. Um, and so I I prefer that we maybe use the term uh government efficiency. And I think that says something more clearly to the populace, the residents, what what we're really aiming to do and addresses a desire that they have. And we talk about listening to them. Um, I think that's something that's there. Um I I think um the the second one has captured uh the housing intention that we would have in a priority and then coverly we maybe uh need to say it's not that's a subject uh and just so you know uh Amy we we have an ad hoc committee a very involved plan that's going forward on coverly. What we're really saying here is that we're going to try and cross the goal line with that.

Yep. And with an unusual priority. Um, so I don't know how to title the coverly slightly differently, but maybe people can and by the way, and I see council member Lowing, there may be some others that come up here. This is just the mayor's suggestion. So, uh, I'm not trying to say these are the only ones we're voting on. And also, I think it was you, Council Member Bert, who mentioned AI. And so I don't know if you want that to be that was that would be within the government efficiency. Okay. I I listed six different categories on you did and I just I know that would be a significant amount of study and you know so

no I you know I I would say that um what I'm looking for is to us move from emerging ad hoc efforts to a strategic plan.

Okay. All right. Council member Lowing. Thank you for your patience. I want to come back to to cover since now on back on the board um by first saying that when we go through all this um we're doing this in the context of we are not going to increase headcount during the year on all these objectives. This is the baseline and we're going to and we're probably not going to be able to give current service levels because we have to cut dollars. So, at the end of all this process, X weeks from now, um, city manager might come back and say, I need 21 priorities cut out of these 72 given where I think we're going. Perfectly the right way to iterate. So, I don't think we're done today. So, that's still, I think, the overall overlay of this session and where we're going with these objectives. Um and without being repetitive, we can I think say without a straw vote that seven people on this dis are adamantly in favor of getting Cberly across the finish line. And so I don't want to get too structural or hung up in things, but if you we're going to do waiting and you've got some ones and twos, we could even choose that within each of these categories there's a you know top two or something like that or top one. And it's just that the that the narrowness of Cubberly um is is just different than everything else that we're doing. And that so far, yeah. Um but it fits so well within the wellness category

that to have that be the top priority within wellness and the city manager knows that and the finance committee knows that and everybody else knows that is going to get you exactly where we all want to go. Yeah. Um that's a fair point. But but it to me it's just an outlier relative to describing the things in the wellness category. Yeah. Okay. And I I I do understand that again. Um so there's also um a mention of is it 311 service delivery? That seemed pretty important to some folks. Is that something that is something that you want and I'm

that's in the operational efficiency category. Okay. Well, you could put it I mean Okay. So, um who else? I was sorry, Council Member Lou. Uh so, first of all, I like this list. Uh government efficiency is great. Could be even more efficient. Just call it efficiency. I think people know what we mean. Um on nearterm priority housing milestones. I like that

or I like the spirit and the work encaptured in it. But it is uh extremely ambiguous and vague. It's just uh we're going to do housing stuff. I I mean I like the framing of uh you know HCD pro housing designation, but I totally understand actually that we don't uh that that's still a kind of aspirational priority that we don't really know what goes into it. Maybe one framing for the housing uh priority is to uh be in control for the midcycle arena update which should be in 2027 just be in a really good position that we uh that our own housing plans uh sort of carry the day as far as the state is concerned. Um so that means achieving all our housing goals and doing them really well and maybe also getting a prohousing designation. Uh on Cubberly uh yeah I realize I I agree it is a it's framed differently. We could call it something like community spaces or community connections because that would encompass the work for the teen center for Kellaf for Ramona uh for even our uh playing fields. um while being pretty obvious that Coverly would be the headline project within that. Uh and as a fourth one, I would still pitch economic development. I think there's so many opportunities for this city. Uh not just from a budget perspective. Um you know, we see uh a lot of class C office buildings stay as class C office buildings. We also see a lot get renovated into class A without adding square footage. We see a lot of motel on El Camino being renovated and generating a lot of transit occupancy tax. And we also see a lot that are uh seemingly falling apart. Um uh you know, we see some car dealerships investing, we see other car dealerships

leaving. Um, and I think there's an approach to zoning and uh more strategic approach to economic development that I think uh won't pay off on year one, but uh will make us a more vibrant and livable and sort of happening city. So, uh those are my comments on the three and what I would pitch for four.

If I may, Mr. Mr. Sorry, Council Member Stone, just just I appreciate what you're saying, but maybe you you want to get a little more granular rather than putting economic development because I think the point is to help the staff figure out where you want to focus. I don't know what you all think about that. Maybe not. Um because there's revenue enhancements, there's zoning amendments, there's things that could help that. Council member or Vice Mayor Stone. Well, just plus one, Council Member Lou. Um, but also agree with you, Amy. I think economic development, we can get a little more granular to be able to help uh staff there. But I think given

the economic situation we're in and what we've just received last week from staff, what we know what to expect this year in the budget process, I think that lot that that makes a lot of sense. I I really liked how council member Berloo kind of modified my kind of connect PaloAlto to community connections. I I really liked that verbiage that he used cuz I I agree with what counciling has been saying to me and I I think we're all incredibly supportive of of Cberly. I I just don't like the idea of making one project no matter how big that project might be a a priority. So if Cberly is the number one thing that we're achieving under that community connections, great. And I think the impact ends up being that being the same. But then there's other things that we can also focus in those community connections that are going to be so critical and I do think are going to be higher priority projects this year. I was just on Calab last night with a with a couple of friends and they were pointing out what the hell's going on here? Why does it still look like this? We're we're trying we need to really prioritize this. So I think there's a lot more that that can be that could be done there and I think we're kind of missing an opportunity if we just have it as complete coverly project.

Madame Mayor. Yeah. Um just on on that last point um you know I I I just think Cberly needs to be named because we are on deadline. the others. I agree, we need to move them at the Ramona, the Kalive, all of that. But if it lagged again, we wouldn't lose the opportunity to do them. I feel like Cubly, man, we got it. This is our shot. So, I want to at least name it whether others want to say complete coverly and community connections projects. That's fine. But what I'm wondering at this point, Amy, is whether we ought to kind of go one by one and see because I think we may be able to instead of each person talking about all of them, we can have a more code discussion on each of them.

I think that's right. And I think, you know, Yes. So, um, so we'll start, um, with government efficiency. Um, I'm sorry. Is there someone was there? Oh, okay. Government efficiency. Um, and do we want to just is it just a straw poll? Yes, I think that should be on there. Or do you want to flush it? I think we flush it out after lunch, right? We say after lunch we say that means this, this, and this. And that, oh, look, that matches the objective. M, madame, I think we name the priorities before lunch and then after lunch, we'll go to the objectives fall under them. I think that's fine. I would do a straw poll on each and then at the end take a formal vote on all of them as a group.

Yeah, that's what I was We're saying the same thing. I I'm hungrier than you are. How did we just lose coverly? Pardon me. Coverly just disappeared. Yeah. Oh, no. Maybe you write Coverly. I I would I don't think we meant coverly. Coverly and slash community connections, but we we had not you had not voted to remove Cly. Good call. And can I make one final comment on that because I see this this question of

okay, it is one project. We don't have other $200 million projects. As the mayor noted, this has been 20 years in the brewing. We have a window that we're either going to exce succeed or fail. We also have seen from the polling that the community isn't broadly appreciating or understanding or supportive of it as much as uh as a whole as much of the community is and we as a council appreciate. So without that focus I worry we will not succeed. Okay. All right.

It is it is yes a discreet project. There's nothing in our priorities that say it can't be a discreet project, especially when something is so consequential and large as this. So that's my reason. Thank you for that. And then council member rectal and then perhaps we will just do the straw polls.

Yeah. I just want to ensure that we stay focused on all these that if we make them too broad, it's makes it hard to stay focused and economic development. I mean, how can you argue against that? But I think we should be off the list to keep the list short and focused. So, um I see that council member uh Lifcott HS wants to speak, but I I think what we were we were trying to address that concern by after lunch going through and kind of flushing out a few objectives underneath that. So then it wouldn't just be economic development for all. I mean for all but Yeah. But if I mean if you ask staff how much work each of these going to take, they're going to say a lot already. Yeah. So that's when they're fairly narrow. So

Okay. Um if we could uh hear from your colleague.

Thank you. Um uh I just want to clarify on number three Cubberly. I'm a little worried that we're overstating complete Cberly project. We know that we mean we've got a land acquisition and looking for voter support for funds to um renovate and add buildings. But that will by no when when that is accomplished that will by no means be completion of coberly completion of coberly is going to take years. So I just wonder if we might say complete you know to Pat's point council member Bert's point about you know the goal line the goal line is actually narrower than completion of coverly. So, if there's a way for somebody to word smith that a little bit, I just don't want to project and you know that that we think it's all going to be done in a fairly short turnaround by saying complete.

I'm sorry. That's fair. Good point. I something like resolve cubly status or or I don't know. I I had some words yesterday more about this year and voters and I don't know Pat, do you have

Yeah. Um I I think um Council Member Lifcott Hayes point is really appropriate. Um and I I don't know about reusing milestones, but we have certain coverly milestones and really the thing is um uh achieving funding for land acquisition and renovation. Um uh I don't know if we want to be that specific. I'm I'm certainly open to others uh coming up with a way to uh capture what uh Council Mo member Lithcot HS was uh getting at. I I agree with her wholly

and I like I'm sorry to jump in but it's so cumbersome with me being remote. I just I really like what uh Council Member Burch just said. I would thumbs up that. Thank you. Maybe seek success successfully fund acquisition of Cubberly or seek funding or revenue streams for Cberly acquisition acquisition and renovation

and renovation. We've we had a similar thing happen in our community. Um, so actually if we could put that up on the board [clears throat] if we could change on item number three. It's not complete coverly. Yeah, I see that you've written it down below whether it's acquisition renovation uh determine revenue sources for what if we just said coverly acquisition and renovation funding.

That's great. That's so efficient. Oh, that's my opinion. Sorry. Did you did the council hear that coverly fund acquisition and uh renovation funding instead of complete? What do you how do your colleagues feel it would be Cubberly acquisition and renovation funding? Yes. Okay. [laughter]

So this is see I can well you guys can see it on your iPad but um so and to council member rectal's point now this number three becomes more of a real goal right like a specific you know there's uh tangible stuff that could be done on this right and it and a real focus on it um so um this community connection now just dangling. Now that we have that focus, we got it. Council mayor George.

Okay. Thank you. I was I was I was watching him say it. Didn't see the light, but yeah. Cut that. So, do you want to do your poll on number three since we've words smmith that? Uh, sure. So, um, let's let's with number three. May I get a list a raise of hands uh of who support that? One, two, three, four. And there's four and and does and council member Lisk. So, that's five who do. It's not a formal vote. You said you would do that at the end, but So, let's move on to uh up to you guys. Do one, two, or four. Which ones of those do you want to narrow?

I think one is easy. Okay, tell me. Hit me somebody. Yes, council members. Oh, we've got three hands. I'm going to go I think we're just doing the straw vote right now. Oh, we're doing a straw vote. Okay. All right. Straw vote. I thought I thought you guys were raising your hand to speak. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So, I think right now we're asking for a straw vote on item one, government efficiency unless Thank you. Thank you for being a great facilitator. Um, we have wait raise your hands again folks. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. And then after lunch, we can come up with some nice objectives there. Okay. Item number two, achieve near-term priority housing milestones. We have six in-house and seven. Okay. And economic development. talk about that one a little more. You absolutely what I'm going to slow us down on.

Um, so obviously I want economic development for the city. Um, that to me though feels very high and broad and especially when we think there's there's there's retail, then there's things like hotels and car dealers that are a little bigger, and then there's things like uh biotechs and tech companies that are not are more in play than they used to be. And I I I know this covers all of those, but that seems awfully broad and back up to the prior priorities level that we were trying to narrow down from for what do we have to do this year. So that was why I was suggesting we take it off of the list, but I'm fine with it being on the list, but I would ask the proponents of it to see if there's a way we could narrow it.

Okay. Uh I think so. if you're a proponent of this bullet or this item. Yes, Council Member Burke. I I just want to point out that in the core values and this this can be tweaked, but this is something that is a ongoing core value as well. And so I'm not sure if it's a core value, what is the the added the the importance of saying this is an unusual focus for the next year or two. That's exactly what I was trying to say. You said it better. Yes.

Um I see is council rectal. Were you trying to hit your button or no? Okay. [clears throat] Um is there maybe something specific under it that the maker of this was thinking of like um study zoning, study this, or is there or is there something else or or the three? If your city manager did say government efficiency in the different ideas that y'all brought up would be a big topic, right? So, do you want to just have three or do you want to have something else in this position or do I mean we can vote on this if you want to have this? But if there's um I I think if there's no proponent that's going to speak to keep it on, well, if they are if they are, they should speak now or hold their peace. And if not, we should take a stra vote on it. Okay, let's take a straw vote. Does e uh all those in favor of keeping economic development as one of your priorities, raise your hand. Uh and is council member uh liftcotts, she's yes. Okay, so that's three people. Was that correct? Okay, so Okay, so let's take that off for now. Um,

here's what I It's so close. Do does do any of the three want to tell us anything more than they've said already or should I We'll leave it that we'll leave it without unless they do, but I'm I'm happy to listen. Great. If you're Go ahead.

I I I can just say a very brief piece. I mean, I think uh efficiency and uh economic development go really handinand. We want to do more with less, but we also just want to have more. Um, so, uh, uh, when you look at our built environment, when you look at the vacancies, when you look at, uh, the, um, uh, sort of economic opportunities that we could have, but we don't quite have. Um uh I think there's uh a lot of economic growth that we can have without uh major drawbacks or uh controversy within the community. So I think about budget increases. I also think about our ULI plan uh where we discussed reactivating the uh university uh downtown train station area. And uh I think if we want to make concrete focus on uh growing our tax base and um getting that ULI plan which will create a really vibrant urban center off the ground, we should have uh some prioritization while those items are hot, while we uh need to grow budget over the coming years, while we uh before we forget about the ELI plan in a you know before it feels less fresh in a year or two. Um uh so that would be my pitch for economic development. Um and of course we can refine it and figure out which of all of those different pieces we actually want to take on.

Okay. Your colleague at home would like to speak.

Julia, thank you. Um yeah, I loved I I laughed out loud when George said what he said. We want to do more with less, but we want to do more. And um I want it to be in here because yes, we need to become more efficient. We also need to generate more revenue. And so I'd like it rewarded to be something like enhanced revenue generating opportunities. There are so many things that fall under that from zoning to activating calav to reducing the vacancy rate. you know, there's so many things that roll up to that that I think it's a lot more specific than economic development. Um, but still big enough that it encompasses a lot of objectives that could come underneath it.

Okay. So, uh, Coun, uh, Vice Mayor Stone, uh, her Oh, sorry. I was going to reiterate the suggestion of making it enhance, uh, revenue, uh, opportunities, but go ahead. Yeah, and I I could support that because I could see what we could do in the objectives to be able to further refine that. I just kind of want to bring us back to what the city manager said that if I think in reality of what this is going to look like from the staff perspective, what's going to be prioritized values might be more on a multi-year or maybe not as timely as these priorities. So even if something is within our values, our priorities should be something that we're saying specifically we need to call this out this year because this is a particular important issue. I mean we're achieving near-term priority housing milestones. We have housing in our in our values. We're clearly saying we need to focus a little bit more on this. So I think this is consistent with kind of our philosophy that we're saying is values great, but what do we need to ultimately prioritize? And I think given how long our our long-term fiscal outlook not looking so great and the budget the budget constraints we're going to see in particular this year. Um I I think calling this out and finding those additional revenue sources to be able to try to mitigate these these um to kind of mitigate the economic impact as much as we can and expand the services or at least preserve as much services as we can. requires that additional prioritization.

All right. So, and I see so if I understand you correctly, you are uh in favor of switching up a bit from economic to develop development [clears throat] to generate revenue enhancement opportunities. All right, [snorts] Council Member Bert.

So, I I do appreciate that point from a practical matter. Um and um and I think that those specific um uh objectives uh can be in the work plan. I'm also concerned on what that message is to the community as we're going forward uh with coverly and and other struggles that we're having. are uh is it going to convey to the community we just want more money and I understand it's much more complex than that and we should be maximizing revenue. I'm concerned about placing that as a priority and the message that sends. So, I I I strongly support looking at um in our our work plan having objectives that are concrete that would enhance uh revenue. Um uh but I I hesitate to put it there as a priority.

I might comment. I I believe uh uh there might be uh to council member Bur's point some wording that might help uh make it a little more precise what I think we're referring to which is uh enhance revenues not wherever it comes from but it's to enhance revenues uh from business activity to support services or something along those lines. I I want to suggest that if that is uh perhaps what the uh proponents are suggesting and again it's enhanced revenues through business activity. So, um I kind of I agree with all of my colleagues and uh on this one uh who have spoken so far and the way I would reconcile it is um yeah I the reason I didn't support it before was I thought economic development was redundant with our value and that we really were at the objectives level a lot of the stuff that council member Lou you described but I agree with you that those these are things we have to really focus on. So, I like the way uh Council Member Lithcott Hayes talked about enhanced revenue generation, but I also agree with Council Member Bert's concern. So, I appreciate the effort to uh restate it, re reward it. Um and I wonder whether what we want to say is enhanced enhanced business [clears throat] sector. This is a lot of words, but first I had enhanced offsetting revenue generation, but I do like the the business idea. So what if it was enhanced business sector offsetting revenue generation? Now that's too many words, but if someone can take that and condense it, I think that's the concept we're going for is that we're not generating revenue for revenue's sake. We're generating offsetting revenue because of some of the other circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Uh council me Oh, sorry. Council member Lowing, I think. Oh, council member on first. Oh, sorry. I'm so council member. Yeah. In the past, uh, Council Member Bird has talked about, for example, changing the zonings to track hotels, and I think that's a really good idea, and I think that should be in the work plan. I don't think it should be a a priority. I agree with Council Member Bird about the optics of that. Um, okay. Go ahead. Yes.

I spoke about uh this priority [snorts] at the beginning. Uh, and I think uh this is sort of a business as usual. It's below the water level, but it's work that's getting done by staff and we are staffed to do it. So, I don't think this is something that's going to be dropped and I don't feel like it needs to be on here. That said, if we take it off, we have to find a place for the retail objectives which are behind and we want them to pick up the pace on that. So, those are my comments.

Okay. um other so would some of those retail objectives be able still be you're not saying elevate one of those to a priority you're saying just make sure those don't get dropped okay so it was four to three oh no c I'm sorry vice mayor stone

was just trying to take the the mayor's proposed language and in the spirit of government efficiency maybe embracing AI. I put that phrase into chat GPT to see how it could be concise. And one of the options expand business sector revenue could be if that if that uh captures it. The other three were increase business generated revenue, boost revenue from the business sector, strengthen business driven revenue growth. So some thoughts

without the um offsetting concept I worried that expand business sector revenue won't land well in the business sector right [laughter] because it may sounds like a one-way thing as opposed to create a hospital environment for them you know did it partner with them and providing you know business offerings so I I don't know if I'm quite there yet your colleague uh oh sorry yeah who's oh maybe grow local businesses. Okay. So, that's an opportunity. Grow local businesses. I know council member Lah on the phone. Businesses in Paulo. Okay.

Yes. I I am enjoying this conversation. I was going to add something, but I think you all are doing a great job of wordsmithing this. So, I'm just going to hang back and when the vote comes, I'll vote. I you know where I stand on this. I I would like this to be a priority and I think we're figuring out how to articulate it in the right way. Uh to council member Bert's concerns to what the coun what the city manager came up with to what AI came up with thanks to the vice mayor. I think we're we're on to something um that will signal to our business community that we want to create conditions under which they can thrive so as to yield enhanced revenue for them and for us. So maybe that's something create conditions you know enhance you know the conditions under which businesses can thrive. Um just the thought I'm not wed into it at all. Yeah, that's that's a good point because I think that's what the mayor was trying to get to with the offsetish like because you don't want to it's not that you're raising the business license fee, right? You're just you're trying to create the zones for hotels or economic success for your businesses. So, um what was the what was the AI? What was that or

Well, I think George afterwards Oh, yeah. Right. No, I heard that. But Jordan, what did you say afterwards? What was the Oh, uh, grow local businesses. Love that. Or and I I would like to say grow PaloAlto businesses because local could imply mom and pop. And I think we're talking up and down the scheme. Okay. I feel like we're getting to some consensus here. Why don't we um do a straw a straw poll on grow local business? Is that Are we there? Well, I'm still concerned that that's so broad and we're trying to keep this narrow, but yeah, I'm a broken record here.

Yeah, I I think we should fold this into objectives.

Well, let me offer something. Um, go back if you could go back to the priorities that we So, government efficiency is pretty broad as well. Um, just saying um, but I and I do appreciate what council member rectal is saying is that the whole goal of kind of how I framed this conversation was maybe make these very oo golly make these very doable with objectives etc. and and which gets into then you would put all this in the objectives, right? I have a process suggestion. Perhaps we vote on these three. Mhm.

After lunch, talk through the objectives and if after talking more specifically about them, we feel like we want to add this. We can always add Yeah. a fourth priority after the objections conversation and maybe it's a more informed discussion at that point. There seems to be a lot some nods on that. So may why why don't we if you're okay with that? Let's I think that's smart because also I mean this this is still going to come back to you but I think that this it is a lot's going to be a lot more clear. So how uh do you want to break? I think that means we that's either the right thing to do or people are getting hungry. One of the two. Either way we should vote. [laughter] So uh can we just How long do you want to take for your uh lunch? Oh, you're going to vote on this? Okay.

Okay. think we should vote and so at least we've got those three more formally. I guess I'm I'm the hungry one. Sorry. Okay, I'll let you do that, Madam Mayor. That's your I think it's Madam I don't think there's any further discussion and uh so I would say madam clerk please call the role. I believe we need a maker in a second. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll move with priorities listed on the screen. I'm so into the informality I forgot I and I think council member Bert second or was Council member Lowing, yes. Council member Rectal, yes. Council member Lou, yes. Mayor Vinker, yes. Council member Bert, yes. Council member Lethod Hayes, yes. Vice Mayor Stone,

yes. Motion carries unanimously. All right. So, with that, we can take our lunch break. Um, staff, what what was the default that had been baked into this agenda? 20 minutes or people? It's about right. So we can keep going. Uh, mayor, it was 30 minutes. 30 minutes. What time is it now? How are we doing on schedule? It's 12:30. So if you took a 30-minute break, we would resume at 1:00. Yes. But was that the plan? Or was there a plan? I don't know what Oh, we're 30 minutes behind. We're 30 minutes behind. Let's do a 20-minute lunch. All right. Thanks,

ready staff to get back in business here. All right. Okay. Well, so we'll reconvene this afternoon and I believe it's back to staff so that we can move on to a discussion of objectives.

Thank you, Mayor. I think we're we're settling in trying to make sure we're all organized uh and that council member Liths is also back with us. We're confirming that. Um so if I could what we plan to do just over the next few minutes is give you a quick walkth through on the preliminary uh objectives that staff has identified in preparation for today. Now obviously the organization of what we will walk through is based on what are now the 2025 objectives. So or goal uh priorities excuse me 2025 priorities and as such the organization would change but this should give you a feel for the both volume and type of objectives uh that uh staff has identified to this point based on those uh priorities. Uh what I hope you would take away from that is uh a sense of the types of uh again milestones we could expect to achieve this year. That said, given uh the the work that the council has just done, we'll want to take another look at both these objectives as well as I suspect the conversation you'll have to follow, which will be what may be missing and then uh work up uh what uh we believe to be an achievable work plan for the calendar year. So, with that, let me ask our assistant city manager, Kylie Nose, uh to provide that walkthrough on the work that has been uh done to date. Thank you, city manager Shakata. Good after Yep. Good afternoon, uh, Council Kylen Jose, assistant city manager. So, we're actually going to move towards the back end of the slides. Um, so we're actually all the way on slide 32. Um, as the city manager just just noted, staff came up with uh just shy of 70. I think

we're at 66 67 objectives and then we grouped them into group one and group two uh with one of the key signifying differences between group one and two as group one is going to require uh significant council involvement uh in the actual accomplishing that goal or milestone. Um if I were to uh isolate for simply those group one um priority objectives there are 41. So you'll notice it is a much more cold list as the council articulated a desire to stay in that 30 to 40 range. So we'll go to the next slide under climate action and adaptation and natural environment protection. Um you'll see a lot of items on here that are on the SCAP work plan that uh the SCAP committee reviewed back in early January. So we'll start from top to bottom. And just to orient you on these slides, the left is the row that equates to the same row that's in your attachment A in your packet. So if you wish to read your notes from your attachment A in your packet, it should be a one to one relationship. Um, okay. So under climate action, uh establishing additional green building standards and energy reach codes, uh continuing the work and finalization of the bird friendly design standards, finalizing the 2026 BPTP plan, bike and pedestrian transportation plan, continuing and finalizing the stream and creek corridor setback requirements, uh preparation for ultimately council's acceptance of the bioolids facility plan in 2027. Uh that includes refining recommendations this year so that we are ready to adopt that plan next year. Uh implementing the city's facility electrification plan at least the first two buildings. Uh implementing quarry road extension in partnership with Stanford University, Calrans and VTA and

advancing the great separation projects at Charleston Meadow uh Charleston Meadow and Church Hill. uh ultimately identifying the selected local preferred alternative that we would seek 35% design at each of those crossings. On the next slide, we're still in climate and adaptation. Um piloting electrification as a service and ultimately at least one financing program for single family, multif family, and or non-residential customers to be implemented. Uh developing a long-term climate action funding and financial strategy. And then uh final approval of multi-year grid modernization capital improvement plan and this may include debt financing uh the first trunch of it. Moving on to economic development and retail vibrancy. Develop a formal business retention and expansion program that's going to focus on increasing the tax base, job creation and community prosperity. Uh you will see this is a new uh priority this year. Um, second one, expanding retail opportunities, strengthening retail resiliency. Uh, Calav, the near-term implementing the near-term signage plan, replacing the uh, El Camino Rial and Oregon expressway signs. Uh, continuing work on the new parking structure in downtown uh, in lot D, California Avenue outdoor activation guidelines. So, both the activation of the street as well as the parklet regulations, finalizing those and implementing them. uh expanding activation activities and events in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and the Palo Alto Rec Foundation. Moving on into the implementing housing strategies for social and economic balance. Again, we're still in those group one items. A lot of these are either projects that are continuing from the prior year or

are part of our approved housing element associated with reaching our rena goals. So accessory the first one is accessory dwelling unit or ADU ordinance um updating it to comply with state law. Um exploring approaches to incentivize multif family housing over office use. Completing the Peloto home key project. Land use and transportation alternatives for the San Antonio uh road area plan. adopting objective development standards for the south of forest coordinated area plan or sofa, codifying RS1 SB9 interim ordinance and ultimately establishing objective development standards and increasing the maximum floor area for SB9 units. A study of short-term rentals and adopting housing and neighborhood preservation. Draft uh a draft downtown housing plan scenarios for city council review. Um ultimately working towards uh drafting the plan and environmental review, beginning environmental review, support innovative housing typologies, including micro units, um intergenerational housing, housing for aging adult students and lower income households. I'm doing this through zoning incentives and development standards. And

pause for a second so the clerk can catch up with the slides.

Oops. Thank you. And one more. Thank you. Okay. Uh we are on row 52. Development uh updating and adopting new development impact fees for public safety, government facilities, housing, transportation, parks, community services. Yes, these are all of our development fees. Uh this includes completing Nexus study as well as feasibility study. And as part of that, really looking at fee waiverss for low-income and inclusionary units. Um, issuing an RFI or a request for information or proposal to develop affordable housing or workforce housing units on city-owned parking lots. Uh, implementing Senate Bill 79. So, implementation options and recommended approach for city council. Um, uh, you've established an ad hoc associated with that. uh designate additional housing element site capacity so that we can maintain our arena compliance. Next slide, please. Uh implementing the oversized vehicle phase one work that you just adopted back in October. Um and then initiating uh the phase two work for oversized vehicles. Next slide. Okay, last one. Public safety, wellness, and belonging. So, opening Bryant Street Community Center. So, 429, formerly 445. Um, so just in case you're wondering the difference in address. So, opening 429 Bryant Street Community Center. Um, partnering with the county and uh continuing the assignment of a clinician to uh PD for the psychiatric emergency response team or per uh updating the natural environment element update to comply with the recent state laws. updating the safety element and developing an evacuation plan pursuant to some state laws, supporting community

mental health uh through continuing work with the Jed Foundation under the current engagement. uh advancing the coverly project, developing and adopting updates to the seismic r seismic risk mitigation ordinance, pursuing natural grass athletic fields pilot project, and then advancing quiet zones on Palo Alto Avenue, Church Hill, Meadow, and Charleston, including identifying funding to implement those. So that reflects the top I would say 40 in that group one um with that uh staff's initial cut. But obviously we would need to revisit these in alignment with your revised priorities. Yeah, I would suggest that um my colleagues react to this uh with things that they believe are missing and would like to be included, things they don't think need to be in this uh group one. Um obviously, as you mentioned, these are curated into the old four priorities. So, we are not restricted to that given the priorities and and values amendments we just did. Um so, I would invite people to comment on what's missing. Um what should what should be removed if any and what might not may or may not be priority one. The vice mayor has a question.

Yep.

Kind of more of a a process question of how best to move forward because staff I mean overall I think this is a great objective list. Pretty much everything that I came into today, minus maybe a couple that I was wanting to see as objectives are included in here, but staff came forward with the objectives based on I guess what our prior plan was was to continue the four objectives and now or yeah objectives for the year. Now we kind of have three new ones. So, but is staff will staff kind of go back and sort of rework this and just kind of regroup those? I I feel like that would be I don't think we need to waste our time today now trying to figure out where does each

Yeah. Sorry. Agreed. And in fact, uh I would I would take the liberty and on behalf of staff to set the expectation that we will drop things that are not perhaps uh needing the visibility with council u and add items uh related to the priorities that may not have already been listed. So yes, that that would be followup. I think it's it's unavoidable. You're you're not going to be able to address that all today.

I would just say that when you asked me about process, thank you for adding that because we've discussed that and I did not say it out loud, but yeah, I think the idea is to give staff more direction on these objectives given our prior conversation about priorities. But we will get to see this again after they've heard what we said earlier, what we said today and what they look at being able to do. And so, but hopefully we'll this will not now extend to May 5th because we're much further along than we were last year at this time.

Um, and I I think that if I'm hearing it correctly, the the ones that your assistant city manager went over are the ones that really are like in the council focus in the sites right there, the tier one. Correct. That was what was really presented. Well, we called it group one just again. Um, yeah. Not to suggest that there's a necessary hierarchy, right? And so, do you want to um It's good to hear that the vice mayor like

you love those objectives. Are there any uh that folks want to add or are get rid of um or put on a lower priority? I think that would be maybe an appropriate uh discussion. And I see council member Bert. Yeah. So, [clears throat] first, um, just some thoughts on kind of the whole formatting. As we've acknowledged, we're going to need to, uh, come up with a new way that we categorize what they're fulfilling. Are they fulfilling a core value or a priority? And rather than have now, you know, a dozen columns that you check, I'm thinking maybe there's a box that you just say uh which of these and that one of the I I see one of the things that we've done this year that hadn't been done previously was saying, well, which of these fulfill more than one? And we do we do acknowledge that. Um and then um uh under each one well under many of them we have a milestone uh just from a readability that that gets lost without either underlining or bolding milestone and every because that's a lot of what we want to zero in on is okay that's the subject but what are we going to do and when and uh just uh having some way that that stands out and And some of them were still uh even though with having core values that opens up kind of a more uh appropriate alignment between a project and um an objective uh I mean a a value or a priority. But some are kind of still a force fit. There are and and I don't think we

should feel obligated to force fit it. Uh there are some that as I thought about well they're actually departmental priorities you know in transportation um or in public works I mean is the airport modernization really part of our climate plan etc.

Sure. Um thank you comm uh thank you council member Bert. Uh couple things. one uh as in all honesty as we were developing the list and trying to figure out how we organize them in and amongst the four priorities and our core values I we got wrapped around the axle a little bit unnecessarily and so simply out of simplicity just left it in that a bit forced state. So I think as we revisit this looking at your current priorities and what ultimately the direction is of the council we can make those adjustments prospectively. Um, so I think for sure I will say even including the airport master plan, um, all of the items that are in that group one list are direction from council. So they do reflect existing, current, present council direction to staff um, you know, perhaps not in the right category.

Yeah. And then even however we might put them in um what whatever major categories um it might be I think there's some natural groupings that we say okay these two are related to airport you know and it just helps everybody zero in on that and then on specific ones uh what's listed as 19 but the formatting is a little strange because we start with number seven as really is number one right on page uh staff report page six. Um we don't get into an actual objective until uh seven.

These are just row row numbers. This was a spreadsheet. So yeah,

but since we're we're really numbering them and things, we we'll just figure that out. Anyway, um, oh, and I I'm sorry, I skipped over I I still think that, uh, calling this a work plan is, um, the better title for it. And then within the work plan, whether we call them projects or objectives, uh, some are projects, as I would use the term, and some have more what we call having an objective goal. Um, and so I'm still struggling with with that nomenclature. So then numerically the one on um that's labeled 19 the south PaloAlto bikeway that's not the bike and ped grade separation right that the okay different

but we had how did we describe the south PaloAlto grade separation was very similar nomenclature go ahead Ria and step forward Ria Barlo, our chief transportation officer. Um, yes. So, the uh the one that you're referring to is South Paloato connectivity project or ped pedestrian bicycle. Yeah, I wrote 20 that we similar we we come up with more clear differentiation in just how we title those.

Sure. Um and then on um 20 uh this is uh whether we would proceed on a second east west bike connection and I I don't think that's a two uh it's it's not in my mind a priority this year. we we want to zero in on the one in the vicinity of Matadoro and that was the direction that I think uh rail committee and the council gave is focus on accomplishing one and um and then in a subsequent years we can look at whether we can or can't pursue a second one. Um, and then on number 31, we get into some of the the retail things. And the near-term signage plan for Calav is now Q4 of 2026. Um, that includes the Oregon Expressway plan, but that we had a tenative replacement sign precoid. This is just when we when we look at our own processes and how we're creating additional staff work and community work. Uh this is a poster child. Uh we're really turning this in to this involved timeconsuming project on something that is a sign replacement like a six-year project to replace a sign. Um and then um uh then similarly the urgency on 33 the calav outdoor activation guidelines came to us uh I think it in the spring of this last year.

Uh they were with the retail committee in May and the council in June.

Yep. So spring. Um and um the previous goal was to make sure that we had adopted them in time for those businesses to then be able to go forward and have designs and contracts and construction before the next winter. Well, now we've got this out um at uh Q3 uh the fall. Um is that no, excuse me. And yeah, um, excuse me, summer, uh, which makes me worry that we're going to lose another year, uh, versus bringing it forward on Q2. U on number 34, uh, on the economic development, it talks about branding opportunities, and I I think that's really good. Uh, I I would add it's about marketing opportunities as well. I mean, that's why we're looking at doing the branding is to be able to market ourselves. Um, so I'd include that. Um, I've got a just a few other Well, let me just say on number 38, uh, feasibility assessment district for UN University Streetscape over on the dollars, it's $2 signs. I don't know that the feasibility assessment is expensive. Doing it will be very expensive. designing it will be moderately expensive, but this is a feasibility analysis.

Uh $2 signs means anywhere between 50,000 and I think 499,000. So it's a pretty broad range in there. I do believe a feasibility study will cost over 50,000. Um and then um and so three dollar signs is over a half million. Is that correct? Yes, there is a key on packet page 18.

Okay. Well, uh, number 39, which is design and, uh, funding appropriations for, um, Carfree Calav, maybe it will be that much. We've already done an awful lot of work. I just don't know if there's that many dollars, uh, remaining. Um and uh just wrapping up, uh 49 um is about a study on short-term rentals. Um if we're really looking at how our housing supply is being diminished, it's the ghost homes that are the big problem. We we don't have a massive number of short-term rentals. is not a non-issue, but we aren't addressing in any way the ghost home issue, but we are this one. And I just don't know certainly whether it's a one priority any longer. Uh, you know, the whole um short-term rental issue seems to have diminished in our community. We just don't hear much of an outcry, but we do hear a lot about ghost houses. So, it's listed as a group one. I would question whether it could be reduced which once again we're looking at ways to create staff capacity. Um and I didn't remember on 59 and 60 the anti- gouging uh and the fair chance ordinance those those were referrals from previously. Is that right?

Director Lee. Yes. Yes. Director Le is nodding. Yes.

Okay. Um and that about wraps it up. Um oh number 74 it lists as this is a priority objective for hands-on CPR classes etc. I don't think I have license being a project here. Um similarly on 75 within this electric stove initiative goal of 50 electric cooktops I think that is a detail beyond what we need in this plan. Um and then uh and then 87 uh which was dropped but uh it's about Calav uh housing capacity and we have this focus on SB79 that we folded in with the downtown housing plan but I think it actually would the SB79 would address this issue as well and so maybe we want to fold those together. Um so thanks. Okay, I have a question and I see that um Council Member Lifcott HS would like to speak, but are we capturing these is the intent to say, well, there's consensus here. Let's drop this one or let's fold this in because if if that's the intention, there were some good, you know, there are some ideas thrown out there. So, um, it was my I I thought that that's maybe what you're trying to do more or less or, you know, [snorts] codify these. So, could we maybe capture them on a screen or, uh, Mr. City Manager?

I actually don't know that we would go that far this afternoon. I I would take uh, Council Member Bert's feedback as initial input that staff will use as we refine and bring it back to Council.

That's that's that's fair. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. So, uh, from council member, no lifes. Okay. Thank you. Um, uh, putting my retail committee had on, I find myself feeling that a lot of the work that staff uh, undertook and the retail committee undertook uh, has not made the cut. When I look at the items that are neither group one nor group two but are in the third group, that's not recommended to move forward. Item 83, um development, develop and implement strategies to activate vacant commercial storefronts. Uh that's something we worked on in retail. It impacts Calab. It impacts downtown. It impacts Midtown. Um item 84, comprehensive update to the zoning code to include policies to support economic development. Right? This is, you know, I'm putting my retail committee hat on, but this is all about that priority number four that we were arguing about, economic development. Okay. Item 86 is on the cut list. vacancy tax for commercial properties that are empty and for ghost homes. Item 87, increase housing capacity in Calav corridor by developing policies and zoning options. Um item 90, design options for Calav. Bruce Fukuji did a ton of work and came up with three concepts based on community input. council got to look at it and you know here we are trying to re really reactivate

Calv and and really define what it means to have a car-free street a pedestrian place you know speaking to our wellness and belonging uh values and that's that's on the cutting board. So, except for the sign replacement that has been alluded to as being a long time in coming on Oregon Expressway, there's two signs that are going in. One's at Oregon. I can't remember where the other one is. Except for that, we seem to be turning away from concerted efforts to really focus on bringing Calv to where it needs to be. And I worry about that. And I know there's a lot below the iceberg. We're only looking at the tip of the iceberg with the stuff we're looking at. But from the face of it, it looks like we're going to have a couple new signs in on uh directing people to Calv and then none of those upgrades that we've really extensively talked about. So, it's making me wonder what is retail committee even? Why why do we exist? What are we doing? And I'm I'm I'm sort of sad and concerned to see so many items uh on the on the don't move forward list that relate to uh economic uh development, retail revitalization and calv.

Sure. If I might address um council council member Lithkane's comments. Um I first want to acknowledge you are right. We have looked and rep prioritized and adjusted things. uh some version of this is a consolidation of it and putting it in a more strategic way that is looking at economic development citywide as opposed to in a specific district. Some of it is frankly associated with limited resources and what we actually can accomplish. Um and so as just to provide some color to that um when we talk about um the idea of how are we going to activate empty spaces? How are we going to continue to promote uh business uh growth and expansion? We tried to implement that or reflect that in rows 29 and 30 which are looking at a more comprehensive retail expansion program supporting the growth with more specific or measurable outcomes like increasing tax trying to increase uh tax base or job creation uh for that overall community prosperity. I do want to recognize to your point things like Calav and the idea of a full-blown street redesign versus more incremental improvements. A full-blown street design is going to be an extraordinarily costly endeavor. We would need both staff as well as the capex necessary to do something like that. And so staff in row, where is it? 39 is reflecting those car-free improvements, including funding appropriations that would adjust for the council direction associated with bike and ped calming measures and creating those spaces as well as u eliminating some of the friction with the so we can continue to activate the outdoor space. So I do want to acknowledge they are in a more moderate uh capacity. um and reflect kind of staff's anticipation of what we actually can accomplish.

Okay. Uh council member Rectal. Thank you. Question for the city manager. So, you have a whole bunch of projects here and we also gave you new priorities. Do you have a guess of how many of these you're going to have to cut to make manpower and the money for the new projects? I quite frankly can't give you a a number today. The process we uh anticipate doing is going back with staff, taking a look at the new priorities and what would be involved in terms of uh objectives there and seeing what how that might impact what's already here on the list.

Okay. So, when [clears throat] I look through here, there's not a lot that you can cut. A lot of it is housing element stuff that we have to do. And so we're our hands are kind of tied. When I look at 38 about the University Avenue streetscape, uh how much staff time does that take? This is the feasibility of the assessment district. Um it's a we would be able to do that within existing staff resources based on the current plan as outlined. the additional funding that would be necessary is we would need to bring a consultant on board um to aid us in that because ultimately to be honest there's a lot of outreach that needs to be done associated with it.

Yeah. Let let me also just uh recap where we are. As uh council may recall that uh the initial cost estimate was uh too high really uh for uh it to be uh supported uh by the businesses recognizing that and some form of assessment district is expected to be uh the primary uh financing mechanism. So that said, uh we are currently finalizing uh an initial value engineering effort and that based on that I think we'll we'll need to uh have another round of community engagement with the businesses in order to determine whether uh it's worth uh proceeding.

Yeah, I would like a new university streetscape. I think it's lower priority than Calab and Ramona. And so if we can bump this out to make more progress on Cal and Ramona, I think that would be a good thing. Um, okay. Next one is 41, which is the comp plan. Uh, is that is that mandatory? Can we bump that out a year? I'll ask Director Lake to help walk through this. So, Jonathan Leate, director for planning and development services. Uh, thank you. Um, and council member that is there's really not a lot of work that we anticipate this year for this item. This is, um, we actually debated whether this gets on the list for your consideration this evening. Um, but what we wanted to do was at least put it on your radar that this is something that is uh forthcoming and depending on the approach uh the council wants us to take. It could be a big ticket item spanning many years or we could explore opportunities to uh use our government efficiency uh to streamline that initiative and really focus our interests on what we want to accomplish with that. But this year's work uh won't be a big push and does not take a lot of time.

Okay. There's three dollar signs there. Is that conservative? Um is that the most we can assign to a category? [laughter]

Um for this year, it's not going to cost us anything. uh when we actually secure a contract um by way of example I think the last time we did the the comp plan it was north of two and a half maybe $3 million and it took several years to do um so the work this year doesn't cost any money and uh if we were to model that similar process we would ask for uh the funds over the period of time that it would take us to um uh implement ment that program. So, we wouldn't ask for all of the money up front.

Okay. And you said staff time was minimal, too. I mean, we have two resources here. We have money and staff, and we're limited on both. Yeah. So, so for this item that's on your objectives um for this upcoming uh for this fiscal year that we're or the calendar year that we're doing these objectives, there's not a lot of staff time uh or resources needed to do what we've talked about. We're just again putting it on your your radar. Okay. Thank you. Uh move down to 71, which is a seismic risk mitigation ordinance. How much staff time is involved in that?

This does require a fair amount of staff resources. Um and the city council has approved a uh a consultant uh and consultant budget for this work. We're actually going to the policy and services committee. Um I think a packet's getting released next week on this item. Uh so we have made uh significant progress. There's some work to do and we hope to uh continue that this um this year. Okay. And what kind of cost is this? Minimal cost or is it significant? Well, there's no additional cost. It's already been funded and it's fully accounted for in our budget.

Okay. Thank you. Uh then um 87 which was one that was dropped the housing on Calab. I I think I would like to take that bring that back. uh how much work would that be to to evaluate the zoning for housing at Calav?

Yeah, great. Thank you. Uh for this one and for uh the other one related to El Camino, which is line item 85, these are uh carryover um direction from city council to actually prepare the equivalent of coordinated area plans uh for these areas. If you recall, um the city council was interested in uh um accelerating housing opportunities downtown along San Antonio, Calav, and El Camino Riale. And we simply can't take on all of that work at one time. We are currently doing the downtown housing plan or or at least we were uh until SB79 came into play and we have the ad hoc and we're going to explore what our options are. Um and we're doing the San Antonio plan. So, uh, this is really it's below the line now because we don't have the resources to actually work on them right now. Um, and it's possible that depending on the direction we take with SB79, they may not be necessary in the future. So, it's I I think appropriate to have these be where they are at the moment while we work on these other initiatives.

Okay. A couple other projects that are not on the list. Entertainment zone. There's some talk about adding entertainment zone to Calav. Uh, is that still in the pipeline? And if so, how much staff time does that take? Correct. Staff is already actually working on that in concert with the city attorney's office. Okay. So, but that's not a big sync of time. Uh, I believe the bulk of the work actually was worked on last year and so now it's finalizing the ordinance. Okay. And one thing that council member Lou had talked about is adjusting the zoning for hotels. Uh, do we have plans to look at hotel zoning? There's no plans for that. There's no current plans for looking at hotel zoning.

Okay. And is that something that we could bring in? And if so, how much staff time would that be? Um so yeah I I think it depends on the scope of what we're um being asked to do. Um we currently incentivize hotels with greater F. So, if the council that I guess the clearer the city council is on what incentives you want to offer uh for hotels, then that might uh shorten the amount of work. If it's something that we're having to go um conduct public hearings, receive feedback from hotel ears uh and get that, you know, build that knowledge, that's going to take more time.

Yeah. [clears throat] I don't think does council member Burke want to chime in and I'll hear it all about his thoughts on uh hotel incentives. I would think it's just an F limit and and giving that F raising that limit.

Yeah. When we increased the F to 2.0 in 2008, that then moved hotels above mixed use and residential and uh retail in the same zones. And that's what spurred us getting five to 10 hotels and how we increased our our uh transit occupancy tax and funded our our principal funding for our our our major capital plan. It was it was a big deal. But now with the state mandates, housing has significantly higher F than hotels. So I think that at a minimum we could simply choose u an adjustment on F without going through a big study and we may not get it perfect um but if we wanted to move something forward uh I think we could do so without a study. Is that that is that a question for staff or

he was just asking for a comment on the context of when we previously did this and what it might entail from my perspective and so I think that's something staff has to talk about and figure out how much time it would take if we do a minimal impact. But I think there there's some there there and that if we can get more hotels that would help our um toot and also help the community.

Yeah. H happy to look into that. I I'll note a lot of the hotel um uh folks that come to us are also seeking parking reductions um that align with their um what they believe to be their um appropriate amount. And that inevitably generates conversation about what that threshold is. But um we can look at this as we go back and evaluate all of our objectives uh in the context of the council's priorities. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Council member Lou.

Thank you. Uh all right. Um I'll start with some general thoughts before uh running through some spec specifics briefly. So, uh, one thing that I really appreciate is that we have more and better milestones. I see that effort went into that and I really appreciate it. Uh, I still think there are some tweaks to the milestones that we could make to be more clear. Um, so for example, on row 19, there's an item on uh, the milestone is to initiate work on pilot bikeway project and it's not really clear what work is being initiated. Uh similarly, there are a bunch of rows that say council review or council consideration. And I think from last year's priorities when we did the recap, there's some ambiguity on whether that meant we actually uh approve or disapprove uh of something or whether we just hear it in a study session. And you know, if we just hear it in a study session, it shouldn't be a tier one or a group one or group two priority. It's just uh uh something that isn't going to deliver outcomes this year. Um, uh, on things to take out, I think there are a handful of things that, uh, are definitely important, but I don't know how significant they are, and I don't know if they're the kind of things that would just go on council consent, like green building standards. We always need to revisit that, but unless there's some major change incoming, um, I think that's in the past just gone on consent. And so uh uh oh I see director late coming here. So maybe there is some major change coming. But for example uh if there's a major change coming absolutely keep it uh as a group one. Uh if there are other examples where it's the kind of thing that will go on consent or not require much discussion bump it to a tier two or take it off the list. Um yeah so um I

think it's yet to be uh known what uh level of [snorts] work is um going to be required on this. I will say it's not likely uh a consent calendar item. Uh it is something that's going to take a fair amount of staff resources not only in uh my department but in public works and utilities in the city attorney's office. It's it's a pretty significant endeavor. Got it. So, I picked the worst example uh but the sentiment uh is uh is there. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. Um uh okay. So, uh right things that will go on consent or things that are not necessarily actionable. Another example, something that's important but not maybe uh necessarily actionable is that uh our natural grass athletic field pilot. uh unless we can do the pilot and collect data and hear something in council that's really something that's maybe a tier 2 and then comes back to be a tier one next year for example. So just uh fine-tuning um on again what is actionable um some thoughts on what is missing uh on the climate side. I don't see in the tier one or really for uh for the most part in tier 2 either opportunities to actually increase uh pedestrian or cycling mode share. Uh and I don't see clear projects that will improve safety this year. Um, and so quick build is uh sort of under consideration as a tier 2, but it's not really uh we're not really proposing x number of quick build projects or x uh intersections daylighted. And we've been waiting for a while for the bike and pedestrian plan

and for the uh safe systems uh plan. And um I would love to see at least uh some concrete objective there. Um uh as I've mentioned before, I'd also like us to decide whether we need to revisit our 80 by30 goals. Um we'll see more in a study session in February, but we just want to make sure that our goals uh are always realistic and or a little bit more ambitious uh than we would like, but not um but if it's something we can't hit, uh it's not a great goal. Um on economic development uh uh I think increasing revenue is a good goal. I think the uh first economic development item does a lot of work. It's developing a business retention and expansion plan for Paul Alto businesses. And for me that kind of made me think of oh hotels uh maybe we need to uh be flexible on F and parking to retain them or get them to renovate or invest. uh um uh I don't know is that the intention of that item to sort of cover look through the big uh economic development uh buckets and see what what's most impactful for overall economic growth.

Good afternoon, Alex Andrade, economic development manager. And yes, the the essence is certainly to preserve and enhance the Palo Alto business climate. And a good part of that is ensuring that we're building relationships with our existing building existing business community. So a formal retention and expansion program would work serve the city well

as well as a business attraction program in terms of revenue generation. So yes, um it is kind of broad, but building that relationship is really important and it's also inclusive of our real estate brokerage community as well as our development community.

Okay. Um uh well I would like to see some objective that casts a clear goal um uh for uh that lays out a plan for like actual economic development outcomes like uh if I keep using this example but if a slightly rundown motel actually renovates is that good for an extra $50,000 of transit occupy tax revenue over a course of a year. Uh and then we can do some math like, okay, if we get these motel to renovate and one of them to upgrade to a hotel and we get this car dealership to expand somewhat, uh we can back into what we need to do to get $800,000 or more of uh new revenue for the city. So that's kind of what I would have or or or what I would have imagined or wanted to see out of a uh uh a formal plan to develop Paul Alto businesses um and improve the tax base which is uh what's described in that in that bucket.

So council member you're seeking more metrics as it relates to revenue generation.

Yes. Yes. Um uh yeah, and just seeing what the biggest opportunities actually are for uh for growing um growing local businesses. Um on housing or or actually on economic development, I'll say uh I Council Member Bird rightly pointed out that of course for the ULI and downtown Station uh reactivation and development and revitalization, there are a lot of things that are outside of our control. Exactly. But there are opportunities um with housing around MacArthur Park or uh um uh making Sheran Hotel a more inviting gateway where we could be creating some relationships and understanding what's possible. Um okay, more properly on housing in our housing element, there was an item to talk with Stanford about the shopping center and research park. uh in December 20 by by the end of last year and um the hope was that there could be some outcomes or conversations around uh housing opportunities. I'm just curious is that removed or not on the list on purpose? Is that uh something we've already done?

Yes, thank you. We we we pulled that off because it's not something that um fit the group one or group two definition. It's just something that staff is it's the to use the metaphor that's been described tonight below the water line I guess and so it's just stuff we're working on. Okay. So we don't see any opportunities big enough for council consideration coming out of the research park or shopping center.

I would say that I we're we're having conversations. Uh there was recently the ULI study that was done. There's SB79 which uh factors into a lot of properties that you've you've referenced. I think the conversation is ongoing. Um but there's nothing actionable at the moment. Okay. Um Okay. I'll think dwell on that a bit later. Uh the last thing for housing is that I would love for us to take a more concrete objective and goal around uh safe parking or interim housing. So, if we set a goal like identify uh 120 units of safe parking or interim housing in 2026, uh I think that would uh be a very strong metric driven goal. So, we take a number like 120, we know we get 88 almost for free from home key. we can find uh you know 40 others um between dedicated street parking or safe parking at religious sites or permitting extremely low-income housing. We can pull out uh I think ambitious but realistic numbers if we uh uh structure an objective that way. Um so comment but also curious for thoughts. Well, I was just going to say received and we'll take that into consideration in what we bring back.

Yep. Okay. Those were uh my initial comments. I guess maybe we'll do another round about efficiency uh because that's like a whole other big priority, but so I won't talk about that now. We could do that. Yeah. I I uh see or vice mayor Stone and then Council Member Lowing.

Thank you. Um, I'll try to first I'll I'll focus my comments on what's in here that I hope is not lost, especially since if we're not continuing forward with our one of our priorities being public safety, wellness, and belonging. I know it'll now be a value, but since the city manager said, we'll be coming back with kind of revisions and some things are going to have to be lost. uh hope and imagine we will keep uh item 69 supporting community mental health and really appreciate the call out of continuing to work with the Jed Foundation to support youth mental health and suicide prevention efforts. That is a a must that needs to continue this year and as a and as a tier one I for me 72 pursuing a natural grass athletic field pilot I I think I think that does belong as a as a tier one. I think there could be some discussions as a tier 2 if staff is confident that by pushing it to tier 2 that does not create the risk that we find ourselves in another situation where a synthetic turf field is at end of life. We need to replace it and yet again we are then approving it and saying because we don't have a we haven't done the pilot program yet. So I would bet I would want to better understand the timeline of what we're looking at as far as end of life of existing synthetic fields

to really know the level of prioritization. But I think it's critical. I think it was an implicit promise when we when we approved the synthetic turf a couple of weeks ago. I mean I know we included in the motion the pilot program. I think there's a bit of an implicit promise that or at least a strong hope that that was going to be the last synthetic turf field that we approve. And in order to make sure that happens, we need to have this natural grass um pilot program and advancing quiet zones. I think also needs to um need to make sure that we we keep that in there. So, I'm glad that that's included. Uh uh a couple other things I was couple on the list that staff is recommending that we don't pursue. My three disappointments is the implementing a gas powered leaf blower ban citywide. I I guess I don't quite understand why that would be such a significant lift since we already prohibited in in residential zones expanding that citywide. Um, so I'd like to maybe learn more about that. Um, especially since we know just how just how terrible these gas powered leaf blowers are on the environment. And I would imagine continuing to allow them in commercial zones is a is is a significant contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions in the in the city.

Great. Uh, thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh certainly no objection to the policy direction and think it be good for us to to move forward on that. Um a couple of factors um that uh relate to why this is not recommended at this time. Uh there's been some recent state law changes that are limiting the um sale of the sale of uh combustion um engines for uh landscaping services. Uh that's one. Uh two, um as the council knows, we have a a difficult time even enforcing the existing leaf blower ban that we have. We're trying to make efforts to uh address that and other code enforcement issues. Um I'll be, you know, I've been working with the city manager on that and we can provide an update to the council as appropriate. Um and then thirdly, and um it it's really just a function of staff resources and capacity. Um there's a lot of items on this objective list that um draw from planning and development services. And to the extent that uh this is another assignment, um I don't believe it's going to be possible to complete all of the objectives that are already on this list for 26, many of which are mandated by our housing element programs and state law. Uh it's just um I don't believe it's realistic for us to do that without pulling other items off of the list.

Yeah. And I mean to the point of yeah I think the state is moving in the right direction of prohibiting but that seems to be more of a long-term kind of solution because I don't know the I don't know how long these leaf blowers last but just prohibiting the the new sale of them. I would imagine they'll continue to um to be used for quite some time and hopefully while we're expanding our our code enforcement, strengthening it that that we can um that we can incorporate that. So, so I I mean I I' I'd like to see that move forward, but also recognizing that means some things are going to have to come off and there are definitely things that are more important than than that. My other one I I agree with um Council Member Bert mentioned the short-term rental ordinance. I I believe I was a co-author on the colleagues memo that advanced that several years ago, so I know this has been a really long-term thing. I I do think times have changed and the popularity of Airbnb and the use of it has has changed quite significantly. We're not hearing the complaints that we were hearing from the community at the time that that memo was written. So I I would be fine us not continuing that. I think there are more important issues that we can address. I I think so I was I was disappointed on 86 not pursuing the ghost homes. That's a significant um problem in in PaloAlto. I know we have an estimated about 2,000 ghost homes in in PaloAlto. and looking at various ways to raise revenue. If we were able to do a a vacancy tax, I think we could raise some pretty significant revenue for the for the city. So, I do think that's something to to pursue and I know there are

unanswered legal questions and appeals going on around the around the state and so added complexity to it, but I think we should be continuing to explore that. Um, and then I was going to have an issue with the California Avenue corridor housing capacity 8087, but I think your response to council member rectal I yeah I I accept that and also recognizing changes in state law which actually might not make that uh necessary right now. So that's fine. And then couple of other things on item 75 or yeah on 75 PaloAlto education rebate program for electric stoves and and cooktops. Would that include incentives for multifamily units as well? Staff anticipating that. I believe this is director Curatori. Um uh yes, that would include multif family as well as uh and the council could discuss other rebates as well. We we were recognizing from the um the uh residential surveys that there was a 58% of um look at additional rebates coming from the utilities. So we we wanted to start with uh the the induction cooktops.

Great. Thank you. And oh and glad to see other things like a ad condo. I think that's a um I'm excited to explore that as an opportunity to be able to expand uh access and ownership for for people in PaloAlto. And then my only other real ad here is so now that we're talking about government efficiency, I think that should also include council member efficiency as as well. And one of the things that we've we've talked about as a council quite a bit actually over the last several years, but never really have gained any progress on is having a council uh a council member executive assistant that can serve the role of being an executive assistant for the full council. maybe a half-time position to be able to to be able to do those administrative tasks that take up so much of our time, which then doesn't allow us to be able to focus on constituent services or policy development or doing the real work that we were elected to be able to to do. So I think if we were to have a halftime person to be able to do that work, we would save ourselves time and ultimately to resources on existing city staff because the typical process is us often going to the city manager, the city this the city clerk, the city attorney, our very uh competent and and well- paid members of staff to do work that uh is I think making us a less efficient organization. And so I think I could actually see this as being a more cost-saving tool uh overall for for the organization. So I'd like to I'd like to see us finally start moving forward to to be able to do that.

Something we've talked about over the years, but I can't imagine a halftime position would cost would cost much and I think we'd get a a really great return in that. So I would like to include that in the government efficiency objective. And those are Let me just make sure I got through all my notes. And those are those are mine for now. Thanks. Okay, Council Member Lowing.

Yeah, thanks. I'll generally go in order, but I want to start with 72 since Council Member Stone just said a number of things about that. Um, one thing about this one is it it's an indication when you use the word pursue a natural gas athletic field pilot. Uh, that's not a good enough metric. You know, we need to have something more specific there. What what is it you're going to pursue this year uh that you're going to accomplish. So, it's just an example of a number of places where we still need, as other council members have said, um, kind of beefing up the specific metric. Then I also noticed like a lot of these objectives are all falling in Q4. So I know it's a busy year, but um we can't have them all in Q4. And in this case, we need time for the grass to grow. Um just semi humorous way of saying that we kind of have some planning to do and some selection to do and now we do have to get grass to grow. And so it seems like like this is an example of one that should have more specifics and um and and moved up. you know, it's recent policy on a controversial issue and um I think we need to get moving on that one. So, going back and I'll just briefly do plus ones on items that some other um folks have noted, but in the climate action area, um the vast majority of things are are happening in Q4. So, that just concerns me uh in terms of all the things that we have to accomplish. And it's particularly uh a problem when we found out in the survey as if we didn't know that uh it's it's money that's going to move the needle on folks trying out uh electricity instead of gas for stoves etc. So when you have [clears throat] things like gas transition study um review at the end of 26 and then maybe not even to to 27 um there's one item that comes in Q2 which is great affordable housing electrification grant program. Um, but generally I I know this isn't the time to talk about the exact

quarter that you're going to do these in, but there's a general trend line there that's uh that's that's concern concerning. Um, then let's see on item 30. Um, retail like it seems like it's it's moving too slowly. Uh, I mean, I think I I know I worked on the first version of that when I was black on on planning and we've been talking about that for a while as a way to um encourage other kinds of businesses to come and do retail. So, I'm not sure why we have to wait to Q3 for that. Um, and PTC needing it, you know, in four or five months from now. So, I'd like to see that get attention [clears throat] earlier than than planned. Um, Council Bert already commented on 31 and 33. So, I just plus one the concerns in in in that area. Um, on item 38, plus oneing, uh, what Council Rectal said there that, you know, maybe that could just be pushed. We're talking about there again, we don't even have a metric. Begin feasibility analysis. I don't know what that is. you know, is that a summary of what we're going to do or whatever. Plus, it's a consultant and uh I think that can be pushed. Um similarly, us wanting on 41, I think the comp plan could be pushed. Um 45 on the home key project. I mean, we're almost there, right? We're not going to drop it, but that's not something that's substantive and and it's on target now. So, I think Q Q2 is right for that technically, but we might even um be closer than that. Let's see. Um I didn't quite understand the action item on 55, which perhaps director late

can can speak to that um council has to address capacity shortfalls. We have um buffers filled in there and we knew from the get-go that some places are not going to be used for housing and others that we didn't think would be are going to be. So, this seems like a pretty simple simple task. So, what's really involved there from a council standpoint? uh approving a uh new list of um uh housing sites is the council action. So

we um we do have a buffer. It was a tight buffer and we are find we expect in this year that we will exhaust the buffer for our um moderate income housing units based on pending and planned development and which means we will have 180 days I believe to find new sites in order to remain in compliance with state housing law. So this is not an insignificant task. Um, this is something where we need to identify new sites and rebuild our buffer. Um, we think we'll be able to do it. We have learned more from, you know, since our housing element was updated and with changes in state law, notably um, SB79, we think we'll be able to identify more sites. Um, but it's it's a notable staff effort and and [clears throat] we're likely to need uh consultant services to support us. Okay. I'll also add actually one of the things that we're going to study and it it ties into another objective on the list is the downtown um uh surface parking lots and um us, you know, the city deciding whether we're going to continue to pursue uh that housing element policy or if we need to identify additional sites to make up for uh us deciding not to pursue uh the surface parking lot um program in the housing development.

Okay, good. Glad to get that explanation. Uh and then just sort of plus oneing 74 and 75 from uh council member Bert uh the education and rebate program you know again timewise you know taking a whole year there that seems long and I don't think we need to specify the 50 the not not recommended items just you know for the public's point of view this is I think an appropriate what I'll call line in the sand uh from staff to say we aren't going to get everything done and these are the ones that we think should be pushed. So, some of my colleagues are saying maybe we should change that around, but I'm really glad that you have it here uh to point out the the fact that we we just have to make some some tough priority decisions or objective decisions or work plan decisions or whatever we're calling him at at this at this hour. So, that's it. Thank you.

Okay, madam. Yeah, I was going to ask staff and and you for sort of your next step on this piece. I'm wondering about council member Lith cuts if she cares to chime in or not. I don't know if she's able. She did in the beginning, I think, but obviously if she has more to say. We want to Oh, okay. She did. She's fine. Thumbs up. Okay. No, she does want to.

I just I just wanted to um be um endorse or throw my support behind two things. Council member Lou's idea of a specific goal on the number of housing units uh we would seek to achieve for safe parking or shelter housing. He pointed to the number 120 units noting 88 are already planned to come online with Homeke. I think 120 is a reasonable number. There may be a better number. Would love to know staff's thoughts on that. Um and second to uh vice mayor's comment about administrative support. I know a number of council members have spoken up about such a need and um I think it helps um uh ensure a lot of um what am I trying to say? Uh I think there's a lot of stuff that it ends up being uh redundant efforts on our part because we're not able to act efficiently uh due to the Brown Act. We can't talk to each other about various things. And so if we had a a halftime administrative support, I do believe we could get things done a lot more efficiently without taking up um staff time of people much more senior on the org chart. That's all. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. So, um, now can I Yes, please. Yeah, I haven't gone through mine. Oh my goodness. You know, your light is hidden behind me. Thank you. You know, just since we're making a bit of a transition, I I do want to ensure that council members have an opportunity to put light to government efficiency. Um, so yes, uh, hear from the mayor. Yes. No, absolutely. I just wanted to make sure that uh I primed that pump before you transition to something else.

Yeah. No, I just wanted to be the seventh uh to comment on objectives and suggest that after that um in the interest of government efficiency [laughter] that invite folks if there was something more on that topic or that you know really was missed that you know certainly we won't cut that off today. I wouldn't think but we will have a chance when these comes back to give any further. So yeah, if there's more specific feedback you want on some of those things, please do let us know and so thank you. Um, so first, uh, I als I'm a plus one to, uh, the vice mayor and and, uh, council member Lithcott HS on, uh, having a, I think halfime for seven of us, uh, is probably about right on a dedicated, uh, council administrative, uh, support. Um, because I know I spend a disproportionate amount of my time on that, but also I feel like I take more staff time than I would need if it were centralized. and could become more routine on someone who understood what we all need. I truly believe it would be more efficient both for me and for staff. And so I am a plus one to that. Um then on uh the housing priority. So in I look at 50 and 51. So 50 talks about drafting a downtown housing plan and 51 talks about innovative housing typologies and I I kind of put those together. One of those is housing for aging adults, but other than that I don't know that we have at this point a specific objective on exploring um senior housing, specifically downtown senior housing or or do we and I'm missing it.

We we do have um an objective I believe that speaks to um yeah preparing an RFP for redevelopment. It's number 40 or the other. Oh, it was a request for proposal to um see if there were other additional downtown lots to be um developed for affordable housing, but nothing specific, for example, for lot C um or uh other other parcels or or or specific to seniors. Uh correct. Or specific to seniors.

So, it's kind of the intersection of those three then and I just don't want that senior downtown housing, senior affordable downtown housing, uh, even better, um, to be explored in this next year. So, I don't know how to, you know, I don't know that it's necessarily an additional thing. I just want to make sure it doesn't get lost because I think that's been more specifically lifted up and brought to our attention. And so, exploring that RFP, I I think is the intent is for it to be captured, but I I don't see it set forth that way.

Yeah. So, um I don't have the exact number, but when we do an RFP, uh and if you're thinking downtown, uh that would come back before the city council for consideration, and that would be an opportunity for the council to say this is a site that we'd like to see earmarked for or dedicated to senior housing, for example, affordable senior housing.

Yeah. And that's great. I'm not necessarily suggesting a a specific site should be called out now, but if even downtown is too specific, then that's that's fine. We can withdraw that. But I if an RFP uh associated with that is pursued and could come to council um so that we could then have that more specific conversation. Is that what you're suggesting? Well, so I found the So it's line uh row 53 is the one that I'm referencing. So if it went beyond that uh then I think through part of this process if that doesn't capture your interest then we'd want to hear that and we would take that information with the other information and and come back with our updated list.

Yeah. No, I appreciate it. I I think it's that um it's sort of the intersection now of I would say of 53 and 51 that I just would um like to make sure that uh senior housing is included in that if if my colleagues agree obviously we'd have to have that conversation but exploring that perhaps or whatever the right language is um I think is important. It's at least my two cents. Um ah and then I I did want to talk about I think it uh so so I did want to talk about the uh pro-ousing designation um that I believe Bill this is your chance to talk about I should ask you to to talk a little bit about it where we are what's going on.

Thank you. Yeah, this is something that we've been looking at uh for for some time. Uh we've been obviously preoccupied with housing element implementation. We have seen um other jurisdictions in the area receive um uh that title from HCD and it is something that we think we are eligible and and qualify for um based on our existing um uh work that the council has done the existing initiatives. Uh we have begun the work of preparing an application And um we anticipate that we'll be able to um initiate that process formally soon. There's a public engagement component uh that needs to be done and then we would come to the city council and seek your endorsement for uh submitting the application and then we would submit it and HCD has a you know I don't know the exact time but probably like 60 days to review or something like that and it's our expectation that this could all be accomplished in the first half of this year.

Great. I I would love to see that set forth as a specific objective. Um because of two things that you mentioned. One, we could apply. We believe we are eligible based on existing policies. So it's not like we have to go do something or that this necessarily intimates that we are doing something differently than we're doing now. And second, it will come back to council before the application goes in. So I think with those safeguards I I'm ask my my colleagues to chime in if they have any concerns. But what it does is it gives us eligibility for more money which is what we want and I think um you know pursuing that application in a timely fashion given the given the pressures we have uh I would love to see us add that. So I would suggest that we talk further about adding that with with that understanding. Um then uh I also wanted to chime in on the natural grass fields. Um pilot study 72. Uh agree it should be more specific. Um agree we need to keep it as priority one and do it this year because this has a runway and a and a and a a a time by which we need some answers. I would also ask that we add because I don't think it's much more and monitor hybrid turf options. We don't have to put them in. We don't have to, but those are evolving. And what I'm concerned about is this. If we're trying to chart a course toward transitioning away from adding any additional synthetic turf fields and if the uh natural grass pilot doesn't pan out to give us enough additional hours of playing time such that we're in the same boat, I just want to make sure we're aware of all the options on the table. And I did go back and look at some of

these um hybrid turf. They can be expensive. My guess is they're going to get less expensive. they are working on these bio uh polymers so that they don't even have even the uh non-natural grass portion are not synthetic and I think just monitoring that as we go along is something we don't want to get caught not having done so I would suggest that we we add that in there um and then on also a plus one on the um electric cooktops Um I think really important. We've heard a lot of uh public interest in that. Um we also um sorry uh yeah I I I'm fine whether or not it has the 50 in there. I don't necessarily need that detail, but I do think we want to bear in mind that um I like I like the electric and induction cooktops education and pilot, but I think the education uh please also include cooking processes because we could do it all at once. It's not much more. And what one cooks and how one cooks it also contributes to emissions that we care about uh under the public health uh mantle. Um, last, um, and I suppose we can pick this up at the climate committee, but I would like to to see us as a city consider um, ways to uh, pick up on the public suggestion to reduce microplastic exposure. I think we do a lot of that now. And I don't know if director Egleston wants to fill us in, but you know, there's the turf thing we've been talking about. There's some movement on the plastic food wear, uh, plastic bags. You know, we could think about as a

city. Do we want to not buy plastic furniture and that kind of thing? And I think it's just something that I don't know that it we're developed far enough to be an objective for this year, but I think an objective is to figure out if it should be an objective. So, I don't know if you have anything to add, director. I will listen if I hit. No. Okay. But that that's something I would like perhaps staff could consider and whether we direct it to the climate committee or not. I think it's something we should look at these days. And I think that's it for me. I had one followup if I may

please. Um the the mayor mayor and vice mayor had raised this uh question about a half-time administrative assistant serving the council and [clears throat] we actually excuse me we actually uh addressed this in the city clerk's review. I I think unfortunately the mayor and vice mayor weren't able to join that but it's in a work plan for this year. Uh we and um the council had not the five members of the that were there uh had not supported immediately moving forward on that. We're in a budget crisis uh where we're looking at eliminating positions. And so I just want to caution against um uh taking that as a directive uh because the council majority has already taken a given guidance on that. So, I'd like to add something on that. Um, because I don't know if the council majority is that specific. I did see the objective of uh the city clerk uh doing a survey on that which I believe she is doing. Um I actually have also asked uh each of the other cities uh when I was vice mayor all the vice mayor colleagues and there is precedent in some other cities but that's not does not answer the question. That's still her objective and that's fine. But um I think you have I don't think we said we wouldn't. And I also um it's it's a uh minimal position that we have in mind and we've done some exploration on what those costs would be. So it would have to go through uh that approval. But I think I I feel quite certain I would use far less staff time and more appropriate levels of staff time at an administrative uh level if uh we had a designated person who could get in efficiencies of redundancies and

processes. So the idea is to ultimately reduce demands on other staff concentrated in a more appropriate level of staff so that the whole concept is to have it be more efficient. So, just to clarify, I did not say that the council said we wouldn't do it. What I said was what's exactly in the work plan is the city clerk has been tasked with evaluating uh what uh has been done in other cities and what this would take and that's the council majority direction, not what individual council members may be wishing to direct at this time.

And that is what it was. I do agree that was in the work plan and so what we're doing today is suggesting an acceleration of that because by the time that is done at the end of Q2 and then if we decide to act on it in Q3 and then we hire someone we're starting in Q4. So what we're asking today for colleagues to consider is accelerating that. I don't support that. Okay. And council member rectal

I just want to chime in that personally I do my own calendaring and I want to do it so I'm not an unbiased observer here. So, I I think it is hard because we're beating on the city manager to cut heads and then we're asking for an extra half head when at least for me that's something that I'm happily happy to do myself, but I understand other people don't operate the same way I do. So, I understand why you might want it, but the optics do trouble me.

And I do um I want to point out all of these things that you said, I mean, are going to come back to you in some form, right? because on some of them there was one or two and then there were a plus one here and then there were individuals uh right so all of this is going to come back uh to you at a later date and then that's when you can make your pros and cons right and and try to figure that out. So now we've got about a half an hour here. Um how y'all doing? Okay. Yeah. Uhhuh. That's how I feel too. Uh no it's that you've got you've done a lot today. Um and there's still more to do. I'm getting there. I'm I promised you I promised you so uh now I think we do have a slide about it. Um so on the you know how to advance these goals that you've all come up with I mean you have a series of ad hoc committees now and I think we want to decide or you want you guys to decide are there uh ad hoc committees you want to continue different ones you want to uh create are there some or I could ask it this way how how do you envision engagement in and advancing your priorities So um do we have after this? Right after this. Okay. So you know last year you had your um ad hoc committees and you have ad hoc committees in addition to your standing committees. So are there any of these that you can maybe cross off for this year since you might be getting new ones coming up? Are there new ones you want to have? Do you want to make a recommendation to staff of a different way to achieve some of these goals? I mean, this is, you know, staff would like to make all of your dreams come true. And so, they want to

figure out the most efficient strategic use of everybody's time. Um, keeping in mind that, you know, these committees require quite a bit of staff time, right, to keep them going is uh is how that works. So, um, are there any of these that do are there ad hoc committees that overlap with any standing committees? Are there are there any committees? And Mr. City Manager, maybe you want to opine on your uh preferred direction or your ideas.

Sure. Well, I I would start just by noting uh the standing PNP uh policy and procedures or procedures and protocol direction that ad hoc committees would sunset unless explicitly continued. So I think the question may be in the other direction. That said, uh also understand that many of these are ongoing efforts and so it would make sense to continue. My my comment here would be really to impress upon the council the need and really the request from staff to correlate your committees uh with your priorities and recognize that uh these committees do take resources and a couple of corlaries to that. the council is the gatekeeper for uh managing the committee work plans in a way that protects against scope creep and that scope creep is the enemy of our ability to achieve your objectives. Let me say that again. Scope creep is the enemy of our ability to achieve your objectives and so uh discipline in the establishment and continuation of uh ad hoc committees I think is is a direct uh uh impact on that. So with that, we'll turn it to the committee or the council to consider where you want to focus your time in their four hours.

Any thoughts or comments, council member Lowing? Yeah, I think a couple of easy ones on this list. I think we've concluded the work of synthetic turf, so that can probably come off. And we haven't even had the first meeting of the SB79 committee, so I suggest that that can't come off. Um, in fact, it's probably worthy of a debate with direct relative if if that should be expanded to include any other topics, but that's not for today. [clears throat] Um, and rail has gotten down to a very small number of committee meetings. So to start with that,

so when you say rail has gotten down to a small number, keep it on it last year at this meeting to about quarterly. I see. Pardon me. Okay. Okay. So, keep it at that. I'm just trying. Okay. All right. Council member Bert.

Yeah. So, first um I want to address the premise that the ad hocs are necessarily uh reflection of the priorities. That's just not necessarily the record. So, rail committee is technically an ad hoc. And we have two forms ad hoc. One the true ad hoc that is not brown acted. It's for one year for a focused amount and then others that are ongoing but they're not listed in our charter as standing committees. Uh so I think we need to differentiate those. The rail is not was not a priority and yet it's gone on. Cberly was not a priority but it's been an ad hoc. Uh the oversized vehicles was not a council priority. Uh the synthetic turf wasn't. The valley water wasn't. So that premise I don't think holds water. Um they're really recognized as things that have come up. Some may be correlated to our priorities and others not. But it just goes to show that what we set as the annual priorities. It's not the only important stuff that comes up in a year that might need an ad hoc. I mean we had the El Camino uh bikeway that had a a limited time frame ad hoc. Um, and I think, you know, there's there's a tension because uh staff has a hesitancy to uh have to do the staff work to support these and that's real. But in terms of productivity and getting things to the council that are flushed out and moving the ball forward, I think they've served a real function. Um, so still begs the question of which ones we ought to have and um, but I I just wanted to frame it that way. Um, that I I just don't agree that they're they correlate to uh, the council priorities necessarily.

Okay. Um, oh yes, Council Member L.

I agree with all of that. Um, I think retail should become economic development. I think synthetic turf is uh, uh, properly wound down. Um uh I admit I am not uh really up to speed on the suitabil on like the uh intensity that we want for rail or valley water uh shoreline funding reallocation. Um efficiency uh of course was something we all wanted. It's not on here. I think it could be probably reasonably handled between finance and policy and services. I think when we actually look at costs and uh headcount um and to be clear uh we're not talking about layoffs. We uh discussed this last Monday uh during the longrange financial uh forecast meeting. Um that that goes to finance and then for service delivery improvements and optimizing 311 and things like that that could just go to policy and services. Um some things, you know, the odd study session could just go to the full council. Um uh so yeah that's uh I I I think if we just handle efficiency in that way we'd have really captured all of our uh major priorities here. Um I do have more thoughts about efficiency. I am not sure if it's the right time to

I would I would think that I mean you might as well because it's kind of we're going to Yeah.

So I think efficiency isn't just the tools that uh staff uses or the funding that staff has. Um but I'd really encourage staff to look at it in terms of problems that you need to solve and things that you need from council. And so uh just a couple of examples off the top of my head, we the economic development uh team does a lot of permit streamlining. But you know after so many years of permit streamlining, we should make that almost automatic, right? We should have said, okay, there are only so many super common issues and now we only have to permit streamline the edge cases and we can level up our uh ability into something more strategic. Uh or something like traffic calming and quick builds. we can see, okay, traffic calming uh the south the the the Crescent Park traffic calming project has not gone all that smoothly on great schedule. So, the right action was is to bring it to council, may council make a decision and may council lay out some guidelines for what we want out of future traffic calming projects. So I just uh think that we should be really aligned with the most common and most painful workflows and start with that rather than any specific technology. Uh like AI can help but AI is just a tool for things like that. So that's my piece on that.

Um and uh my thoughts on committees.

Okay, Madame Mayor. Thank you. Um so yeah on the uh committees the the ad hocs um yeah I think they form a very useful purpose um and then we try to keep them from outliving that purpose. Uh so I think that uh climate action and sustainability has been elevated to a value and so that that needs to stick around. Um Cubberly I think this year for sure. Um and then we might consider uh do we reconstitute it in some way uh based on what happens in the uh election in November because it would be a different project thereafter and I think we can make that decision at that time whether there's a new coverly committee or or how we how we pursue whatever our new circumstances. Um rail we just uh it's a very uh it I appreciate committees doing a deeper dive into that. Um I think that the we've adjusted the frequency of the meetings I believe so that to to to reflect um the current uh pace of uh feedback and and and need. So I think that's appropriate. Um yeah, re retail I've heard a lot about um a frustration or concern something [laughter] less than delight um about the the the the outcomes that have come from it. But I do think if we rescope it as uh economic development more broadly and look at some of these other issues we've discussed today um that that would be a useful committee. um plus one that uh the SB79 committee is just getting going. The OSV committee is there's a great need for and I think again specified knowledge and uh learnings turf is done and I believe

that we still need the shoreline one. Um but I I don't see a need for any additional ones at this point but as the year unfolds I suspect we will. And if as the year unfolds, it could be that we get something like um OSVs stabilized enough that any additional decisions could be done at the committee level, but I can't predict that now. So speaking and these can be I mean we we review them annually, but they can start and stop mid year in including stopping. [laughter] So I think that's something that that we should keep in mind.

Mr. Yeah, thanks. I actually didn't speak to the last one. Valley Water Shoreline. Th this was uh formed in response to a proposal from Valley Water to reallocate funding away from a specific project to another project. Uh Valley Waters actually uh stepped back from that alto together and is uh taking a different tack on that. So this uh ad hoc actually never met and I think at this point is moot. So, does that leave us I It sounds like a relative consensus so far for getting rid of the last couple and the ones above I haven't heard any naysayers

and I think I heard you guys say that for retail put that into more of an economic development uh heading is did I hear that would be my preference. I think I heard that from a couple others certainly from council member Lou. I mean maybe when staff brings them back and then you could you know if there's any discussion then well I think from a staff perspective what we would hope that with the broader title that we would uh package the objectives that have been discussed today and that would really be the charge of the economic development committee to oversee and advance those objectives.

Okay. So, I think that we're uh we've come to a a natural stopping place. I don't think Am I missing anything? I don't think so. I think we're on Do we need anything more specific on the efficiency objective? We didn't go through a lot of that in detail together, but we did we did comment on it earlier. Yeah, I think there was an an opportunity, but not many of us took it. I think uh council member Lou just added his but I would think since it's new if there are additional thoughts you want to share we we have time I would I'm sorry I'm not trying to rush you I really am not

I I would go if you like mayor or who'sever whoever says yes now that I can speak I would like them to yes [laughter]

um I I think one of the things that we that I think I would want is with this overall umbrella uh for staff to come back and say here are some interesting areas that we could pursue. Does this kind of match up with what you think would create some efficiencies and have a discussion about that. So this is definitely not one way. We're just trying to elevate it to say that we really want to do this in a different way than sort of quote just budgeting and that you know you you you know where the skeletons are buried so to speak even better than we do. So you can come and put those on the table. You know, that said, I think we gave a couple of few examples like the 311 system is something to, you know, look at how to strategically make that an efficient system. Um, some people mention uh AI implementation in the city, how that would work. Um, fund fundraising options for either future CIPs or future projects or initiatives. And I think by definition the consultant issue goes there. Are we using the right ones? Spending the right amount of time? Do we have the right criteria for selection, termination, that kind of stuff. Um [clears throat] and then you get into areas like should we do things like what I would call zerobased budgeting for headcounts? Meaning at the beginning of the year, I'm looking at our city attorney as I say this, so I'll use as an example. you know, if you've got a dozen attorneys, you say, "Well, you know, I think I could do that with 10 and use more specialists outside when I need it." Um, so those kinds of initiatives, I think, is what we would be looking at to just think a little bit differently about the problems that we have to get to get more efficient. So, those are just some examples.

Great. And I do um want to call on council member Liscott Hayes.

Thank you. It's just a minor point. I agree with the consensus here, but on oversized vehicle regulation, I don't know if this was shorthand off the cuff uh summary of what the ad hoc is actually working on or if this is the actual name of the ad hoc. But either way, it needs to be restated as including both the impacts of oversized vehicle dwellers and the services we're trying to provide them. So, as a member of that ad hoc, I thought I was on something called the oversized vehicle impacts and services ad hoc. Um, and and if it's not currently contemplating that second half u in its title, I think it needs to.

Uh, good good afternoon. Uh, Chantel Cotton Gains, deputy city manager. That was my understanding as well. Either oversized vehicles, ad hoc, or the way that council member Lithcot Hayes just stated it. It it was the former to begin with, but we can change it to whatever we want. Exactly. Great. Is that is uh any other comments, Councilwoman? I don't think so. Okay. Oh, thank you. Better. [laughter] That's a good catch. Okay. So, um, so again, lots and lots of discussion. Are there any more? Um, I see council member rectal with his light. Yeah, I want to give my two cents about the efficiencies, please.

And we mentioned earlier that the only observable that I have or two observables is one is the budget shortfall and the other is the headcount. And I so I don't know how the city works and I think it'd be good for the city management to back off and say, is there anything where are we spending our time? is there time that we're wasting and uh I can't say that there's fat there but it'd be good to have their assessment and so taking some time to do that uh you know we talked about consultants consultants can save you money can cost you money and are we doing that optimally uh and then like for example the s uh AI was brought up and the new SAP includes some AI features that's brand new and be talk good for it to say what are those new features and how can they help us and really try to talk to the each individual manager and say, "How could this these features help your department?" I think that some thought there could save us some money. Uh, and also it'd be good. We have the city auditor. This is what they do. They audit things and they could look at the management structure and say, "Is our management structure too flat or should it be less flat?" Our processes, you know, if we have something has to be approved, we have to have five signatures. Well, do do we need five signatures? I don't know. That would be something this the auditor could do. Um and you know we we buy a lot of stuff. Are we doing that optimally? Is it I assume that we have a single procurement but you know c can that be made more efficient and those are the types of things that we don't have insight into saying and so having some studies on that I think would be very useful.

U I was just going to pipe in just as a reminder to the council you actually have only formally adopted three priorities. Um the fourth one, economic development. You punted to have a discussion of refining afterwards. So before you leave today, if you wish to add that, um that would be a final action. Yeah, thank you for that. I also was wondering if you wanted to respond at all to some of the uh audits of things that are kind of following following under this rubric of efficiency. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't we should alter our priority, but just I think for those who haven't been on PNS, you might not have seen all the audits we do. just also for public awareness where we're starting from.

Sure. Um, one, I'll recognize we do have our city auditor Kate Murdoch in the audience with us today. Um, I believe to the mayor's point, the policy and services committee has been reviewing a number of audits that are looking at um, you know, everything from compliance but to performance. Uh I suspect one of the ones that falls closely in alignment with the government efficiency priority uh that the committee just reviewed is about purchasing thresholds. Um and so ultimately that audit found or it's an assessment on an audit. That assessment found that adjusting our purchasing thresholds up um authorizing more work at the staff level as opposed to the council level uh would help with those efficiencies. And so I think that's something that staff would bring forward as part of our upcoming objectives.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that example. Um I think that is exemplary the type of thing. I'm not saying it's sufficient for what we're now talking about, but uh just so that people know a lot of that does happen during the the normal course. Um but back to your point, uh assistant city manager, um I think we should just lift it up because we said we would. Um, and I've I've been thinking about it and I know that um, you know, in the past our our chamber president and business community has talked a lot about the vibrancy being important and I I I it may not be quite as narrow as uh, council uh, encourages us to be, but I wonder if we said enhance business vibrancy if that would be uh, focused in a way that's that's that is if you're going to enhance the vibrancy, you're going to generate revenue, but you're also sharing in the the the proceeds of it with with with our community and our business community. And um so I just I just put that out there for discussion. I think if we have this discussion that it can we can end on this note, but um before we adjourn, I think we should talk about whether we want to add that or some other language to the priorities.

Okay. Vice Mayor,

I really I really like that idea because I think that also then encompasses a bit the community connections idea as well because I see kind of that business vibrancy is also creating more a more vibrant downtown and Calav where people are going to want to go and and spend time and hang out. Just yesterday afternoon, Council Member Bird and I were meeting with Stanford journalism students, talking to them and answering questions about local government. And I asked the qu they were asking us questions. And I turned around and asked them about where do they how do they view PaloAlto as a place to to go? And one of the one of the uh Oh, one of the students on the panel was actually at least 21. and she said, "Oh, we never we never think of PaloAlto as a place to go. We go to San Francisco." And yeah, they go they want to go to the big city. And so they're willing to get on Cal Train and spend that hour there an hour back rather than just going next door because we have just lost that reputation of being a place to go out for them and have a good time. And I know council member Lou and I council member Malu has talked about these things as well as far as maybe re-examining um times for rooftop uh lounges and different things like I mean there's so there's so much stuff here that goes into the vibrancy of not only the businesses but also just as a community and as an as various entertainment zones. So I really like that that language and I think uh and so I would I would support that.

Okay. Is there any disagreement on any dissension on that? Uh council member I would say you know particular unusual and significant attention. This is work we want to do. I think it's under the waterline. We will be working to try to keep everything economically u vibrant but I I think it comes at a cost is that we lose focus and with these three existing priorities we're trying to make an unusual uh progress and the more we muddle it the more we lose focus of making progress on those three.

Excuse me. Um could we what uh if you could um the four go the three priorities were um if we do you have that slide somewhere city clerk bring it up. I think she's got the

the three and then we talked or maybe you have the four but because I want to be sure because there may be a way to do what you're trying to do in a maybe underneath of it in a because what I was going to say is there's a lot of next steps. I want to talk about what we accomplished. Okay. up here, government efficiency. So, see, that's also very vague in a way, right? Like that's that's that's tasking staff to come back with some of these ideas that you've talked about. Um, achieve near-term priority housing milestones, coverly acquisition and renovation funding. And then fourth, if you wanted to do um, one thing that was talked about, I believe, was enhance um, uh, revenue or business revenue. Um I I forget what the

it's business activity. Business activity uh business. So earlier we talked about grow parallel to business or enhance uh business gener uh revenue generation. Yes. I was saying enhance business vibrancy because the vibrancy word seems to resonate. Yes. No I and that's that's what I was trying to get you. You could say advance enhance vibrancy and revenue generation. Um I know the vibrancy is important to the businesses. I it's the same thing in my community by the way. So, um, maybe you guys can put up the fourth goal and potential words missing later or because there's going to be more coming with all of this, right? Need a motion on that. Yeah,

yeah, I'll move so that we can discuss it. Um, adding a fourth council priority of enhanced business vibrancy and then people can amend it if they would like. There second? Second. Second. Okay. And a third [laughter]

discussion or call for the question or what? Looking to see I can't see if council member lift hand. Yeah. Often the clerk will put it on the screen for us. So I think she's doing that and then Okay. I don't see lights but I don't know if council I'm I'm I'm watching. Okay. No. Uh, okay. Let's see. I think I've said my pieces has a seconder. Do you have anything more to say? We're just waiting to see it up there. So, after Why did my phone ring? Clerk has had a very long day and we thank her for it.

Yes, [laughter] she's been trying to keep track of what everybody has said. So is there I mean you should probably call for the just just for clarity on this is does it read as you had hoped enhanced business f vibrancy? Uh it should be enhance just without the D. I don't think there's I think we've worn out the discussion at this point. So, I think we can go ahead and and call the vote whenever the clerk is ready. Council member Bert, yes.

Vice Mayor Stone, yes. Council member Lou, yes. Council member Liths, yes. Mayor Vinker, yes. Council member Lowing, no. Council member Rectal, no. Motion carries 5 to2. Okay. Thank you, madam clerk.

Okay. So, I I wanted to remind everybody what we have done today before uh we talked briefly about the next steps. you made a real change to how you think about this process in enhancing agreeing to enhance the values, your value statements with a couple of different suggestions by a few different council members. It's going to go back to the PNS committee. That's a big deal. I mean, I think it makes a lot more sense for you and what I'm hearing from you and for staff. uh and then you tried and uh succeeded to get to four sort of discreet priorities and now it's and then you had discussion on the objectives that staff had presented that you had already discussed before and you added a bit to that and and tweaked it a bit and now it's up to staff to come back to you um with all of that perhaps divided into the new goals perhaps with different milestones separated out whatnot but I think you did a lot today. And as an observer, as an outsider, um I have to tell you, I I wish more communities had a council like yours that contributed so much and had such a great discussion. And kudos to council member Lethks who's sitting list, sorry, sitting at home and clearly clearly suffering and still so cogent and smart and wonderful. So, I'm I I want to thank you all for your attention. It's this is a lot of hard intellectual work and um but I think there's some very clear next steps and um Madame Mayor, I'm sure you have uh some comments if I'm leaving anything out in terms of next steps. Um well, we'll figure it out.

I was just going to make a closing comment, but I wanted to see if the city manager has anything to say. No, I know I'm not going to keep us here long. I just wanted to uh echo that I really pleased with this retreat. I think it accomplished what we all wanted which was to have a real serious discussion about priorities and uh I you know I would say it takes a village but in this case it takes a city and that's our city and we really did uh I think move to a to a deeper uh hopefully much more useful discussion um you know and thanks to our residents who have given us input before today and and today our staff who supported us both logistically and substantively in thinking through these challenging issues and yes a lot of them will come back and we'll further refine them but I I I agree that we made a lot of progress and I just want to commend and thank my colleagues for that so unless there's anything further we stand adjourned thank