City Council - meeting_joint_regular

Okay, it's two o'clock and we're going to call our meeting of the rules and open government committee to order. Let's start with roll call, please Thank you the first item of business is to do our final review of the council agenda for Tuesday June 16th with the 930 Morning closed session 1 30 open session and cancelled evening session. I And so we start with consent on page five. And I'm not gonna count it out this time, because I remember last time it was a lot of pages. So we're going to make our way through these pages to page 21. And We have an item, the final approval of the various budget actions will be heard before consent, that's item 3.3. And in addition, also 3.4, the appropriation ordinance will be heard before consent. Then we have several contracts with our labor groups, S.J. PDA, ABMEI, ALP, and also the compensation and benefits changes for Unit 99 and unrepresented employees. Section eight, we have some business improvement district public hearings, Alum Rock, Downtown, Japantown, and the Alameda. Also a grant agreement for multiple interim housing sites. And if I remember correctly, yes, there's one item on land use consent, which would be heard immediately after regular consent. Do we have any public comment?

No public comment.

Okay, back to the committee.

Approval, approval, second.

All right, we have motion and a second, so let's vote. Oh, my mind got turned off, sorry. My motion carries 5-0. I'm waiting for a vote, and it was my vote we were waiting for, all right. Now we're moving on to the review of the agenda for our last council meeting of the fiscal year on Tuesday, June 23rd, and consent starts on page five, continues on pages six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, and 12. In section three, we have a discussion of potential ballot measure for rank choice voting for council vacancies. Section five, an award for large format advertising signs at SJC and Willow Keys Corridor Improvement Project. Item six, a long-term power purchase agreement with Shell Energy and the San Jose Clean Energy Integrated Resource Plan. Section seven, an amendment to the agreement between the City of Milpitas and San Jose for animal care services. Section eight, grant agreements for multiple homelessness projects. and home key agreement and also a multi-family housing incentive and fee waiver for zero CLE and three items on land use consent to be heard immediately after regular consent. Is there any public comment?

No public comment. Okay. Second.

Motion and a second. I don't see any hands so let's vote on that one. All right, that motion carries 5-0. And we are now on to our consent calendar. And today we have seven items on consent, including many of our committee work plans. Do we have any public comment?

Yes, we do have one speaker, but before I call the name, as a reminder, speakers must comply with the city's code of conduct for public meetings. Please direct comments to the body, limit remarks to the agenda item, and observe the time limit. Conduct that materially disrupts the meeting or interferes with others' ability to participate may result in muting or removal as authorized by law. Jordan?

Jordan Moldau, District 3. I have a couple comments on the committee work plans. One, I'm not sure why this is, but the semiannual Vision Zero report, it's not really semiannual so much as there's a four-month gap and then an eight-month gap. If it's possible to make it an even six months, I think that would be nice for the public and also nice for the BPAC that only has a couple months to write our report. So I hope you'd consider that. Also, I'd like to continue to point out that it would be really great if there was a council focus area that sat within T&E. I think there's a lot of good work that T&E could be doing if we had the resources of having a council focus area around Vision Zero and the environment. And as I wrote in a written public comment yesterday, there's a very strong relationship between transportation and cost of living. So I really hope that we can consider that as we evaluate focus areas over the next year. Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Thank you for that comment. Do we have a motion on consent?

Second.

All right. Let's vote. Motion carries, 5-0. And now we're on to our two action items. The first one is the return of our data center standards memo with the staff analysis that I think was green lit.

Yes, it was. Deputy City Manager Manuel Pineda is also here to answer any questions that the committee might have.

All right. Well, let's see if we have any public comment.

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

Hello, my name is Dasha Leeds. I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Loma Prieta chapter. The city is currently barreling forward with data center project proposals without adequate community notice or engagement. The city should restore the trust that it has broken by pausing the in progress development proposals to allow time for these standards to finish first. Also, we hope you direct the city manager to pursue a robust community engagement process that allows for the community to actually help write the standards that'll shape this process. We're concerned that if the city creates these standards in a vacuum, then it's just gonna lead to streamlining of data centers without the robust protections that the community needs and can provide input on. Thank you.

Also calling Marcus and Jordan.

Good afternoon, committee members. I was just wondering, today when you brushed your teeth, did you turn the water off in between brushes? I know I did because growing up I was taught to conserve water. With these data centers, you know, using amounts of waters that is not even documented or shared publicly to the community, especially the community I represent, Alviso. with these new data center proposals being streamlined. My community has shared a lot of concerns with these developments and not being able to be disclosed about water usage, energy usage. So I came here in support and with the backing of my community to support these standards that DASH and other members have brought to the committee. And I hope you guys would consider them and, you know, make sure we could plan this out and make sure, you know, the right studies are done before these projects go through. Thank you.

I'd like to uplift the group letter that was sent by the Sierra Club and a bunch of other co-signers. They raised a couple good points that I hadn't previously considered. You know, we're saying that we expect data centers to generate a certain amount of revenue for the city, But how does that compare to putting any other industrial type thing on that land and generating tax revenue for the city? So in order to say that, you know, this is the thing that we should be going full speed ahead on, you know, what are the alternative uses for these sites and what tax revenue would they generate? And tax revenue is nice to provide city services, but also having our residents employed at job centers is also very good for the population. And the general plan does call for intensification and densification of our job-producing land. So I think we really should consider other possible uses for the sites. And again, I want to call for an EIR for the agri.

Back to the committee.

All right. Thank you for the public comment on this important topic. Do we have any comments on the committee?

Move approval.

We have a motion, do we have a second, and then we'll?

I'll second.

All right, now over to Council Member Kamei.

I just had a quick question of staff. Is this going to go then to council for discussion? Or will it come to council when it's completed?

With standard practice, if staff green lights something and the rules committee moves it forward, staff ultimately brings the full work product, once complete, to the full council. So this doesn't need to go to council for conversation. Staff has their direction. that's outlined in the form of what they'll be doing. And then back to Council, when?

Manuel Pineda, Deputy City Manager. We expect to be back at Council by December of this year.

Okay, so end of the year. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Oh, go ahead, Council Member, you can tell us.

no thank you you know I guess Manuel sorry I do have a question for you what about the concerns from the community that they've stressed about you know in the interim while we develop these these standards or refine them you know the concerns about how all the projects in the current pipeline you know what kind of scrutiny they're gonna have with regards to water usage energy consumption GHG emissions etc etc can you speak to that

Thank you. Thank you for the question. Yeah, so each individual project, as they have in the past, will continue to have its own process that requires environmental analysis depending on the project. It will depend on the type of environmental analysis, but the environmental analysis does look at the amount of water that's going to be used. There's going to be, it has generators. It discusses how many generators they will have as well as the air permits associated with those generators and also discusses electricity uses as well. So there will be continued, continued analysis if we do today that's required. I think with the goals of the standards is to kind of formalize them as well as provide additional guidance beyond all the work that's already done.

Okay, great. Thank you. You know, that's it. That's it for now, Manuela. I'm good I think this is important that we as a city have an opportunity to be at the forefront of this given the concerns that we're hearing you know I also think it's important you know one of the concerns that was also brought up is with the one-off analyses and not taking the the cumulative or the totality of all these projects could you maybe maybe speak to that

Sure, and there's a couple of items in that. I think we discussed the capacity improvements that are being created within the South Bay that gives the city an opportunity for up to 2,000 megawatts. It doesn't say that 2,000 megawatts are going to be implemented into the city. In addition to that, those 2,000 megawatts are not just for data centers for electrical customers. It also includes other projects like manufacturing, electrification, EVs. for a whole host of projects that we're likely to see in the city. With regards to the data centers, we do have a large load of customers. They all have to go to the formal city process for submittal as part of their land use applications, and it varies depending on where they're at.

And ultimate approval by our body, correct?

It depends on where they're located. So sometimes it could be director's hearings. Sometimes it could be council. If it's in an industrial area in North San Jose or Edenvale, if there's some downtown proposals that you're aware of, but they all will have a public process associated with them as part of the land use approval process. I think from that perspective, we will continue to do the analysis for each project as they come along. And I think one thing I mentioned at the last meeting that I want to emphasize that different projects are very different. If you're looking at a project in North San Jose, right that would be a very different project than a project downtown and the project in vale different areas are served by different water providers different areas have recycled water some areas don't so there's different opportunities and different constraints at each location got it no thank you and obviously one of the conversations or one of the aspects that's important is also uniform standards with regards to strong

prevailing wage requirements and ensuring that we're using adequate labor and skilled labor for these technical projects. And ultimately, I think this is the most important point, is making sure that we are producing easily accessible for the public and a robust community outreach process. that's not a token check the box, that we're not just doing a mass mailer, that we are offering the opportunity to hear from in multiple languages and not just a postcard. That's the standard process I hope we would think about and lean into hearing as much from our residents as we can.

Yeah, and certainly that's part of the actions we're going to be taking. We already have our outreach policy and we're going to see if that can be enhanced. In addition to that, I can let you know that we are creating separate list that's going to be within the city's website that's specific to large load customers so if you're interested in kind of where a large load customer or data center might be in the process you'll be able to look in one web page instead of have to search through different permit locations so that's one of the ways we're trying to facilitate everybody's ability to understand kind of what's going on and if they want to participate they'll be able to see where the projects are happening or being proposed awesome thank you

That's great because I get asked that question all the time. Where is the place where we can see a full list in one place? So I'm glad that we're doing that. And I'll just mention that when it comes to public outreach, beyond what happens with almost all development projects which have public outreach to the area around it, there's an additional layer of requirements for large load customers when they have a substation that's really a part of it because the State Energy Commission, is that what it is? The California Energy Commission? requires a noticing and a process for input when that is happening on, kind of like a small power plant kind of noticing as well. So there's multiple layers of noticing and input when it comes to projects of this scale, is that correct?

That's correct, and that's actually as part of the backup generator, so if they have a certain amount of backup generation, they go through a full separate outreach process as well that is through the state.

Right, okay, Council Member DeWine.

Thank you, Chair. Do you have a central site that lists out what type of... Is it a closed loop, open loop? What type of water is going to be using so that way we don't have misinformation out there to the community?

Yeah, so as part of the water analysis that's completed as part of the project and also as part of the environmental document that that feeds into, we do look at that. For example, the recently... completed Equinix project in Edenvale, used as much water as four to 10 single family homes in all that acreage, because we had a closed loop system. We recently just went to a groundbreaking for a Microsoft project, and that uses recycled water as part of the project. So they're required to do a water service assessment. Projects are when they're at that size, and we have presented on that before, but we'll formalize it more. As part of that water service assessment, they have to analyze how the project will be served, whether it's potable water, recycled water, and then what kind of system they're using. As another example, the Equinix project, actually part of the mitigation was to go to a system that used less potable water And like I said, that one only used the equivalent of 8 to 10 single family homes.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I mean, there was that article where there was a professor who said there was not a way to tell how much water they were using. But every project that we've had come through the city, I've been aware of, and I think it's public information, how much water was being used. So I just want to make sure it's clear. We are, as a city, and I can't speak for other cities around us or any other jurisdiction, but we are, as a city, carefully tracking and making sure that we're responsible when it comes to water use.

That's correct, and I think as a staff, one of the things we have to take more ownership of is making sure that those documents are easier to find for the community, and that's one of the key things we're looking at. Obviously, as you all know, sometimes with the environmental documents and the analysis that we do, they can get pretty big, and we want to just make sure to point people in the right direction when they can find the information that they're looking for. So it's one of the goals as part of this project. additional outreach that we plan to do and that's also part of the goal of creating this web page just for large load and or data center customers so at least they can look in one location if they're interested in those type of projects great and when I just want to ask about the timeline you mentioned December I had intended through this process when I was one of the authors of this memo

to make sure that there was public engagement as part of the development of the memo itself. I know that's not necessarily enumerated in here. I assume or I'm hopeful that you have a plan to do some of that outreach so that it doesn't come and then have a whole bunch of concerned input right before the council meeting where we might have to make adjustments to things, but we have time to get to for people to understand what's in there before it comes to council and time to make adjustments.

We will do public engagements as part of the development of the standards. So that is part of the process.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I assume as council members, too, we'll have chance to see and have input before it comes before us. Yes. And then I just want to ask the one last thing. There's talk about pausing the process. I will say these developments of data centers are years and years in the making. They're not something where a project, a proposal comes forward and six months later there's a groundbreaking. I mean, the groundbreaking we had this morning, the first entitlement on that site was 10 years ago. So this project took 10 years to go from beginning to groundbreaking. So there really isn't a project planned for a groundbreaking between now and the end of the year, but the idea that we would somehow pause the process of working with people who are considering projects just doesn't necessarily make sense from a development and economic development standpoint. So I just wanted to raise that and make it clear. As far as I'm aware, there's no data center breaking ground between now and the end of the year after today.

I will need to go back and check all the schedules for the projects, what's happening within the next six months. I think the last update we provided to the council, we gave you an update on six or four different large load projects. And I'm aware of that.

Many of them are in my district, and I'm sure we're further away than the next six months for all of them.

This was citywide, but I don't want to speak without going back and looking at the details as to where those projects are at.

Appreciate that. All right, thank you. I think we've exhausted questions, so let's vote. All right, that motion carries 5-0. I look forward to the ongoing conversation. Now we're on to the second item. It's a joint memo by myself, Councilmember Kamei, Campos, and Tordillos. to ask the council at next week's council meeting to officially oppose the ballot measure coming in November, which would make it particularly difficult for cities to raise revenue. And in addition to making it almost impossible for cities to raise local revenue, it would invalidate previously passed measures and it would immediately or within a year invalidate our Measure E, which would be a huge hit to our budget. So it's a particularly important thing for us to be aware of and engaged in. So we'll start with public comment before we go to council.

Jordan.

I'm in support of the memo, the reasons that council member Cohen stated. I feel like we could do more as a city than just adopt an opposed position. I know there was a similar measure two years ago that was defeated in the courts before it even made it onto the ballot. So I think it would make sense maybe in a separate memo to authorize the attorney to be allowed to engage in lawsuits or to sign amicus briefs or whatever in any sort of lawsuit against the measure or defending our existing tax measures if it does end up passing uh so i hope we'll consider being a little more proactive on making sure that this doesn't go into effect there's also aca 13 which would uh make it more difficult for this measure to pass so i hope maybe the council can support that ballot measure as well thank you back to the committee thank you and and this this would help the city be part of allow the city to be part of a coalition being led by the league of california cities to uh

work on this moving forward. Two years ago when we had that previous ballot measure, I helped coordinate and spoke at a press conference on that one and will probably be doing similar things to raise attention to this measure as well, but obviously as a city, we can't be directly political, only us as individual council members once we take this position on the measure. Any other comments or just a motion? All right, we have a motion from Kamei and a second from Duan. Let's vote. All right, motion carries 5-0, and now we are on to open forum.

Alina?

Okay, so I'm here once again to ask for a public study session to be scheduled with council on the cumulative public health impacts for bringing this many data centers to San Jose. And as of today, we have over 2,200 people who have signed a petition at ilovesanjose.org asking council to hold a public study session on the long-term public health impacts of air quality, water, noise, and heat. And here are a few of the reasons. So you just had a groundbreaking at the Microsoft data center. That data center will have 224 natural gas generators. This is in District 4 where there's air pollution already exceeding the standards of EPA. And so you're essentially creating a sacrifice zone where the community is asked to absorb the additional environmental and health burdens of this data center, and it doesn't even include Prologis or the other planned data centers, and so that's why we want a cumulative health impact, because there's a lot going on in terms of these backup generators. Thank you.

Back to the committee.

All right, thank you. We are adjourned at 2.26 p.m.

Thank you.