City Council - meeting_joint_regular

K. It's 02:00, so we're gonna call today's meeting of the Rules and Open Government Committee to order. Let's start with roll call, please.

Candelas? Here. Duan?

Here.

Foley? Here. Kami? Here. Cohen? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you. We're gonna going to start by reviewing the agenda for next Tuesday's council meeting. It's noticed for a 09:30 closed session and 01:30 regular open session, and consent starts on page five. Continues on page six and ends there. Section seven, library facilities and customer experience plan status report and the approval of a park master plan and turnkey park plan agreement for two city charter parks. Section eight, public hearing and approval of the annual action plan for HUD. And that is it. Do we have any public comment?

Brian, please go ahead and make your way to the podium.

Hello, everybody. I hope you're having a nice day. Thank you for letting me bring this to your attention. I'm here to discuss I it's 7.2 on the agenda, and it's about Parks naming. And I just a little story when I was at I worked like folks know, I worked at Agnews and they tore down Agnews.

I think it was the East Side and they built a bunch of schools. And on the I beams, they let us sign. I consider it one of the best things I've ever had a chance to do in my life was to sign, but I didn't sign my name. Signed two people, Lacey and Susan, were both students I worked with who were like a spectrum of the folks that went there. Anyways, I would recommend in your park naming that you think about naming it after people because we've know that we've had to change a lot of names because something was found out about a particular individual.

And the even the Parks Commission, I think, mentioned that in the letter they wrote to you. So we'd like you to think about that. There's I I gonna send an email. I think I already sent it. And this covers that. I just think it would be nice because parks are for everybody. I know we wanna name stuff after people that inspire us. Well, to be honest with you, the nice guy, the seven eleven inspires me a lot too, if that makes any sense. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

Back to the committee.

Okay. Do we have a motion or any comments or questions? Move approval. Second. Right. Seeing no discussion, let's vote. And that motion carries five zero, and we are going to review the agenda for May 12. Notice for 09:30 closed session, 01:30 regular session. Consent is on page five. Section three, we have public hearing on the proposed budgets.

Section five, amendment to the airport master plan. Section six, Republic Services solid waste service rates. Section eight, 2026 major event status report, and 8.2 recommended deferral. No land use items, so we'll go to public comment.

No public comment.

Okay. Back to the committee.

I move for approval. Second.

K. We have

a motion and a second, so let's vote. And that motion carries five zero. So we are on to consent today. We have three items on consent. Do we have public comment?

Brian?

There were eight letters in the public record. All of them had to deal with the closing of the quote unquote jungle. I'd like to bring this back up. If you move people out of a place and the people who are living there and the people who go there every day and talk to them tell you that they don't feel connected or they're not getting the services they request, I would take that because we're not there every day. I've gone out there only once or twice.

I'm not sure. I'm sure you've probably gone out there more than I have. If they're not even if they don't even have a way to transport transport themselves, there's either a miscommunication or a misstep. The people that are trying to assist them don't understand or the people that need the help don't understand. And I would it's just important that you hear their voice and they can't really make it here. I'm very blessed to have a car and able to drive. They don't even have bus passes a lot of them. So I'd encourage you please to look into that. Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Do we have a motion on consent? So moved. Second. Alright. Let's vote.

Motion carries five zero, and we are on to our action items for today. The first one is a revolving door request from Diana Alanis. We will start, Diana, with your two minute

city attorney's office has prepared a short introduction if you would like or

Oh, go ahead and give the introduction to Diana. Okay. Go ahead and give the introduction to Diana. You can give your have two minutes after that.

Okay. Good afternoon, committee. This item is a request for a waiver under the city's revolving door ordinance in chapter 12.1. This ordinance is intended to ensure independence and integrity in city decision making and to prevent former city employees from using their prior positions in ways that could create an advantage in dealings with the city. Generally, for one year after leaving city service, a former employee cannot represent a private party before the city or work on matters they were involved in during their last year with the city.

This is a request from Diana Alanis, a former council district seven community relations director who now works for Canyon Snow Consulting representing LS Power on city related matters, including energy and climate issues. She has indicated she did not work on matters involving LS Power while at the city. Miss Alanis is here today and has submitted a letter requesting a waiver. The rules committee's role is to review the request and determine whether to recommend approval or denial to the city council. If the committee recommends approval, it would also include findings that the waiver is in the city's best interest and consistent with the purposes of the ordinance as outlined in the staff memo and in miss Alanis' letter.

If the committee is not able to make these findings, it may recommend denial. The committee's recommendation will then be forwarded to the city council for consideration at a future meeting. The city council would then make the final determination on whether to grant or deny the waiver based on the required findings under the ordinance. That concludes our presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Diana, go ahead and take a moment to give us your pitch.

Perfect. Good afternoon, members of the rules committee. I am Diana Alanis, and I am a former employee of the city of San Jose. I served as the community relations director for council member Bien Duan from October 2024 through March 2026 and with council member Davis, from 2018 to 2024. So, I am here to, request a waiver of the remaining eleven months under the city's revolving door policy.

Since March, I've been working as a community relations associate with Canyon Snow Consulting in this role. I support Ellis Power with their community outreach efforts for a project that directly aligns with the city's priorities, particularly around energy reliability and advancing San Jose's climate goals. Ellis Power's work is focused on strengthening our energy infrastructure to ensure reliable power for homes and businesses. This is especially critical for our community as we continue to grow and collectively work toward a more sustainable and resilient future. Granting this waiver would allow me to engage transparently and effectively with city departments, staff, and elected officials in a way that supports these shared goals.

I want to emphasize that my intent is to continue serving the public interest just in a different capacity. The ordinance allows for a waiver when it is in the best interest of the city, and I believe this request meets that standard as it enables, timely collaboration on issues vital to our community's well-being and long term sustainability. So I wanna thank you for your time and for your consideration.

Thank you, Diana. And do we have public comment on this item?

No public comment.

Okay. So back to the committee for comment. Anybody? Oh, go ahead. Oh, sorry. Didn't look this way. Councilmember Dewan.

Thank you, chair. Good to see you, Diana. And you you have carry yourself with dignity, respect and integrity within the city of San Jose. And I know that you will continue to do the the work out there to support the community. And I appreciate that. And with that, I move to grant the waiver. Second.

Alright. We have a motion and a second. Now, vice mayor Foley.

Thank you. This isn't about the individual who's applying for the waiver as much as the policy itself and how we apply for the apply the policy. Over the years that I've been involved in this city council, we get asked for exemptions all the time. And and we also have people who wait out the time in order to meet the meet the time frame. For example, couple of years ago, we changed the, revolving door from two years to one year and council member Jimenez and council member Davis both waited the twelve year twelve months before they started lobbying their lobbying efforts, one for PG and E and one for Canyon Snow.

So I'm I'm very concerned that we get asked often to implement or to approve these exemptions and and I'm wondering what's the purpose of an ex of this rule if we grant the exception all the time. So what I'd like to see is us go go to counsel, bring something forward as a memo or a policy that changes and firms up the policy so that we are not hearing these on a regular basis. There's I I'm gonna support this going forward to city council, but I do so with concerns that the intent of the revolving door is to eliminate that ability to walk onto the 18th Floor and have those close held relationships where others who don't have those close held relationships might not be able to come in. So I I really, Neelam, I appreciate your presentation and I I take it very seriously. I take this role in granting the exemption seriously And and again, all supported moving forward to council, but I we really need to firm up the policy.

Council member Kameh.

Thank you so much. I would agree with the vice mayor. I think, you know, why bother have

a

policy if everyone is granted? So I think and it's not about the individual. It really is about, you know, a level of fairness. There are those who have waited the the year, the twelve months, and, you know, they could have probably applied for a waiver. And I just I just have a concern that we're not the intention of this was to be able to have some separation from the the those who perhaps don't have relationships on the 18th Floor or within the city.

And and I think that it it's it's a concern that I have as well in terms of of how this policy is and the purpose of the policy. So I think I I don't mind, it moving forward to the city council, but, I also think that it might be appropriate for the board of political practices that the city has also takes a look at this because I think that it would be worth, sort of just figuring out, what do we have here that's wrong? We went from two years to one year and, and I think that for those who do wait, you know, the fairness for them is different than, you know, just ignoring the policy. So, that's just my concern.

Vice mayor, you have a question?

I have a clarifying question. So if we approve the wager waiver, this is still subject to approval by city council. Is that correct?

Correct. Under the ordinance, the council makes the frame final determination. Rules only makes a recommendation. So rules committees, rule is to either approve, deny, or you could also make no recommendation as well.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Yeah, and I appreciate the comments. You know, having a policy, I'm not personally convinced that the policy is that meaningful anyway, but having said that, we have a policy that we're trying to follow. This one's a little high a little more unusual to me because usually when we've granted when we've had a request for a waiver, it's usually closer to the end of the one year, not at the beginning. This is one month in and not eight, nine, ten months in where which are typically what we receive at the Rules Committee. I don't remember receiving one this soon after person separating, so it's a little bit more difficult for me to grant it.

And as was mentioned, you know, that well, I will say also that there's a slight difference in my mind between a council member, and that's why, I mean, I certainly think it was reasonable for the two council members to wait a year and just let the time run out because it's a little different. The access a council member would have should presumably be a little different than a respected staff member who was so I so, I mean, I see both both parts of this. I I'll I'll I'll vote to move it forward to the council, but I I do, you know, think that there is if we're going to have a meaningful policy, typically, we want to have some waiting period that we we enforce. But, oh, I see Councilmember DeMille Cantelis has raised his hand.

Yeah, I I just had a quick comment on that you said, Councilmember Cohen is, I think it is important to be able to differentiate, especially the role that an applicant had with a council member's office as opposed to the principal of the council member. And I think one of the biggest issues that we have attracting staff is is one of these reasons for fear of, you know, because obviously the the pay, we're not as competitive as folks in the private sector. And for fear of somebody joining a council office and then having the restriction of, you know, having to wait a year, which not a lot of people can financially do because it is expensive to live here, and and therefore having to come before, you know, the body to request a waiver. So that's also an important factor that I think differentiates this. And while I I I certainly appreciate the vice mayor's comments on bringing forth updated or strength what would you say?

A false a memo that changes and or firms up these policies, I'm interested to have that conversation. I think it would would be it would be fruitful. But ultimately, I think I think we, you know, we have these revolving door policies for a reason to ensure, you know, folks who are on the outside aren't using, you know, these halls as as, you know, leverage on the private sector that may hurt and be a detriment to the public. So that's that's that's important. So that that being said, I I will be supporting the the the granting of the waiver, but I look forward to future conversations on this topic.

Yeah. Mean, it's a tough one for me because I'm not convinced that even a one year waiting period, if somebody really is a well known person around city hall that, you know, puts the difference between a year or two years or five. I mean, so I but I think it's a it's a conversation for us to have separately about what what we really intend from the policy and whether the policy is necessary or whether it should be refined about what type of who it applies to and who it doesn't. So, let's take that separately. But, at this point, let's vote on the motion to grant the waiver and move it to counsel for consideration. And that motion carries five zero, so we'll be moving on to counsel. I don't know. When when would it come to council?

May 5 next week on Tuesday.

So next week, it'll be added to next week's council agenda. Okay. Thank you for being here. Alright. We're on to item number two, which is the memo with council member Kameh, myself, council member Campos and Tordios on a ministerial approval for a b one thirty qualifying projects. And we will give council member Tordios a little time to give an overview of the memo.

Good. Thank you. Rules committee memo members. The memo that we are presenting today proposes expanding the city's ministerial approval process citywide aligned with the eligibility criteria for statutory CEQA exemptions outlined in AB 130. As we all have discussed at length, the high cost of housing remains one of the most urgent challenges facing both the city and our residents, and yet the city has consistently struggled to meet our housing production goals.

At the same time, the recent cost of residential development study highlighted the real financial feasibility challenges facing new multifamily residential construction in San Jose, with projects requiring between a 10% and a 30% reduction in development costs to reach market feasibility. As we all know, many of those costs like interest rates and the cost of labor and materials are firmly outside of the city's control. But one thing that is within the city's control is our own discretionary approval processes. As recently as last week, during the study session on building and permitting, we heard directly from members of the development community who pointed to expanded ministerial approvals as one of the most impactful steps that the city could take to speed up project timelines and bring down costs. I'll note that these savings are not theoretical.

The very first projects approved under the city's existing ministerial approval ordinance have already demonstrated a reduction in permitting time by 50% or more. The model has been proven, and now it is time to scale it. The city's twenty twenty four ministerial approval ordinance applied only to a small number of approved urban village plans and specific plans. This memo would expand this expedited pathway citywide, aligned to the eligibility criteria for a statutory CEQA exemption from AB 130 last year. This approach will align our local streamlining with recent streamlining action by the state, providing a clearer pathway for developers that will compound both time and cost savings.

By aligning our ministerial eligibility criteria with the exacting and carefully designed standards from AB 130, the city will be able to expedite much needed housing throughout our city, whilst ensuring that any of these projects are subject to key environmental and labor protections. Moreover, a ministerial approval process for AB 130 qualifying projects may in the long term actually ease load on our PBCE staff by minimizing the capacity and time taken up by preparing hearing notices and related staff reports, and freeing up PBCE resources for projects that require a closer degree of review, or for long term policy making activity. In closing, I just wanna thank all of the members of our Brown Act for their support and contributions to this memo, including council members Kameh, Cohen, and Campos, as well as all of my other colleagues who've spoken favorably about ministerial approvals in the past. And with that, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, council member. Let's start with public comment.

No public comment.

Okay. Let me ask just ask Lee then. This is something that we wanna probably get an an load analysis on? Yes. Okay. We'll go with vice mayor Foley.

Okay. That was my question. So I will move approval subject to workload analysis.

Second. Okay. So we're we're sending this off workload analysis to come back to rules in two or three weeks with the analysis, so we can One or two. One or two weeks, so we can then move it to counsel, deemed appropriate. Yeah. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Let's vote. Motion carries five zero. Thank you so much, council member. And are you staying for the next one? No. You're not staying for the next one. Okay. This one is the alternative financing for affordable housing. This one has the workload analysis done. You want to give us just a brief overview of that, what that says, Lee?

Sure. It is a green light as indicated by staff. It is part of the existing work plan, you know, within the community and economic development CSA so this can be moved forward, and is already underway by staff.

Great. Thank you. Do we any public comment?

Brian.

First of all, I just wanna really thank the city and all of you ladies and gentlemen and this the staff for how hard they try to help people who are unhoused and people with disabilities, veterans, people who are anyways, I I agree with this. I just wanna let you know there's a lot of us out here that really wanna help you. So the the work plans that you have, you can offload some of that on us, and I'll talk more about that in open forum. But thank you for what you're doing.

Back to the committee.

Okay. Back to the committee. Do we have I don't see any hands. So do have a motion to move this forward?

Move forward. Second.

Okay. Seeing no hands, let's vote. And that motion carries five zero, so we are on to open forum.

Brian?

Okay. This was about 75 pages long, and I'm sure nobody wants me to have the or people in the have to copy it and send it. So I sent a a broke down break broken down version. Anyways, I run a server farm out of my house on my apartment. It's very low key, so hopefully nobody hears about it. No. Anyways, I run this stuff through, and I went through and I asked it to look over the entire world looking for ways to quit build housing quickly with modular, the one gentleman that put in the modular part. Well, this is seven pages. There is a breakdown of each one. Do they do business in California?

There's, like, 18 criteria that go along with what the state asks and what the city asks. This is only seven pages of front and back. And all of them have videos that show the kind of work they do, websites for the place, and it ranks them a to c I mean, a to d as far as their use usability in the sit in the city. This took me the prompt took me about ten minutes to write, and it took the analysis about twenty minutes. It took me about twenty five or thirty hours to go through everything because I go through and I check every single connection, every single, you know and that's those hours are something that the staff doesn't have to do, and that's the whole point.

I've come here several times to say this. There's a lot of us out there that wanna do this kind of stuff for you, offload some of that to us. Thank you.

Back to committee.

Alright. Thank you so much. And we are adjourned at 02:25PM.