Community & Economic Development Committee (ced) - Regular Meeting

Who are not here, which is okay. Let's first this is the Community and Economic Development Committee. If you could please take the role.

Council member Casey. Here. Mulcahy. Absent. Ortiz.

Present.

Kamay.

Here. Foley?

Here.

Thank you.

Great. We have the review of the work plan. Status report will come has been dropped. It's been added into another plan a report, actually. We don't have anything on the consent calendar. Before we move to the reports on the committee, I would just like to note that we will be hearing the item number two last. That's the 2026 major event status report. He's in another meeting, and we need him to accomplish his work there before he comes down and talks to us. So with that, why don't we begin with the cost of special events audit report? And I believe Joe you're kicking it off? Yes. Thank you.

So good afternoon, Joe Royce, Citi Auditor. I'm here in the box with Brittany Harvey, Michael O'Connell and Dilnosa Kadoya Berganova from my office for our city costs for outdoor special events audit. Opportunities exist to enhance customer service. Also in the box are Kerry Adams Hapner from the Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs or OEDCA and Sergeant Tony Dieppe from the Police Department. In fiscal twenty three-twenty four, there were 84 outdoor special events that because of their size and scope required permits and services from multiple city departments and coordinated through OEDCA.

These include large annual events like Christmas in the Park and San Jose Summerfest, Jazz Fest, as well as smaller scale community or cultural events. Overall, they attracted an estimated 330,000 attendees over 300 event days. City costs charged to event organizers which include the cost of permits, labor such as for security or traffic control and other costs such as the rental of traffic control equipment totaled $622,000 the majority of which was for labor. The objective of this audit was to assess city required security or other costs to organizers for large outdoor special events. The audit did not include city sponsored events, for example, Viva Caye or similar events, or smaller private events that did not involve multiple departments or were not facilitated by OEDCA, for example, a corporate event where a park facility may have been reserved.

The report had two findings. The first finding is that more transparent and predictable police staffing costs can help event organizers. Of the $622,000 collected from event organizers in fiscal year 2024, 03/19000 or roughly 51% of overall costs were for police department staffing, which included both sworn and non sworn staff such as community service officers and crossing guards. We found that cost estimates for security and traffic control were not consistently provided to event organizers, and not all hourly rates are posted on the city's special events website. Sworn and non sworn police personnel voluntarily sign up for work to work special events through the Police Department's Secondary Employment Unit or SEU and fully staffing events has been a persistent challenge for SEU.

Lastly, roles and responsibilities for sworn officers, non sworn staff and private security are not clearly defined and clarifying those roles and encouraging the appropriate use of private security can help organizers ensure a safe and affordable event. In this finding we had recommendations to the administration and police department to identify a threshold for which cost estimates would be required, update the city's website for sworn and non sworn rates, and update the special event guidelines to define and prioritize rules for private security and non sworn staff. The second finding is improving coordination in the event process may help enhance customer service. The city has developed a customer service vision and standards to improve customer service across the organization and while the outdoor event processes meet some elements of these standards, there is room for improvement to better support event organizers. We found that currently event organizers receive separate invoices and go through different billing processes for each department involved and in some instances they may receive multiple invoices from the same department months apart.

And a more coordinated approach can streamline the permitting and invoicing processes to provide a seamless customer experience to event organizers.

So in this finding we have

a recommendation to assess how the city can better coordinate the permitting process potentially through a technology solution and formalizing OEDCA's procedures to follow-up with departments around timely invoicing. The report has four recommendations to improve cost transparency for outdoor special events and costs generally. I'd like to thank the Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs, the Police Department and all the other departments that helped us provide their insight in the course of the audit. I ask that you accept the report and cross reference to the August 19 City Council meeting. Happy to answer any questions but first I'll turn it over to Carrie for the administration's response. Thank you.

Thank you Joe. I want to take this opportunity to thank the city auditor's entire team for always having, you know, excellent fact based, very responsive approaches to your audit. So I am the director of cultural affairs for the city manager's office of economic development and cultural affairs. I'm here today with sergeant Tony Diep from the secondary employment unit. Also, we have lieutenant Paul Hamblin with us as well in the audience.

So again, we wanna thank the auditor's auditor's office. You know, the city of San Jose does take pride on the way it supports outdoor special events in terms of the the quality of the city services as well as our facilitative approach. We always want to get to yes. That said we also do recognize that we need to have a spirit of continuous improvement and also a consistent and coordinated approach to our service levels as well as our overall approach to costs as well as innovation and also looking at how can we adopt new tools. So we consistently across all of these four recommendations agree with the city auditor.

Furthermore,

with

the exception of one which I'll give you more detail on, have ranked them all as green. That means we will begin the implementation immediately and we don't anticipate any issues with the implementation. Just generally said on recommendation one, again we agree. We do also recommend that the city services related to traffic control and safety required for outdoor special events. We do absolutely need to communicate what the range of those city service costs are, as well as we will be working very closely with SCU to ensure a very timely communication to event organizers around the available level of SCU staff.

So that if SCU staff is not available, then they can look at alternative staffing solutions. The second recommendation related to department and making sure that all updated police costs are on our are in both our special event guidelines and transparently listed on our website. We 100% agree and commit to that. And we will complete that by the end of this calendar year. In regards to recommendation three, which is specific to the costs and sworn staff challenges that we will be working with the police department to update the special event guidelines as well as the secondary employment unit procedures guide to define and prioritize roles for our sworn officers.

So what's the highest and best use of our sworn officers as well as what are the roles for private security specifically related around traffic control. So again we see this as something we can prioritize over the next fiscal year. And finally around recommendation number four which is specific to how we can be better coordinated across departments to provide permits as well as billing. Are right now the police department is piloting a new software system that they're using for permits and we are going to look at that software system as we're gonna assess it and if it's successful and we think it can be adopted across departments we're gonna explore that. So that one has given a timetable of June 2027 just recognizing that the adoption of a new software platform will require additional budgetary resources.

So we need to give some time to build that into our respective budgets as departments. But we would absolutely embrace innovation in this area, and we think that will improve customer service. So in conclusion, I just wanna say outdoor special events are what I describe as at the nexus of community, economic, and cultural development. So when outdoor special events thrive, so does our economy as well as our community and our culture. So thank you very much and that concludes any response that I have.

Thank you, Carrie, for that presentation. I'm just here to answer any questions you guys might have. Again, my name is Tony Diep, I'm the sergeant with the secondary employment unit.

Thank you sergeant for being here. Hardly recognized you.

Same haircut.

I like it.

Thank you Joe for your presentation and Carrie your response and any questions we have for secondary employment, we'll be sure and ask. Well, first I'll go to council member Ortiz. Not acknowledging that there isn't anyone in the audience other than staff on the right.

Great. First off, just wanna thank staff, the auditor and, OCA staff for your your response to this report. I think this is an important discussion just based on, you know, how all of us have events in our districts, whether we're sponsoring them or they're, you know, they're just occurring in the neighborhoods that in which we represent. And this is also timely given our our discussions around the entertainment zones and and just, you know, FIFA coming and, you know, other other discussions that we'll be having in over the couple next couple of years. Did just have a question, do just wanna thank staff for always being helpful to my team.

My team definitely enjoys working with all of you. I know Tony, you assisted us with our most recent Cinco de Mayo event, specifically, you know advising us on security to make sure that our participants were safe and it was a safe event. You know one largest of Cinco de Mayo we've had in years and no issues. So you know knock on wood for next year, but I think we're on the right track. But I just want to mention, you know, thank you both for the assistance you provide my team and to our residents.

I wanted to ask one thing that I've, you know, just been surprised about is I noticed kinda like sec I I figure out second hand from people in the community that major events are are occurring in my district. For example, there's a one occurring next month where they're shutting down King And Story which is a large a large thoroughfare. You know, would say a lot of people on the East Side use that inter intersection and the on ramps to the freeway are right there. But I kinda hear after the fact that somebody has permits and they're closing the streets down. So I just wanted to see what what responsibility does staff have to inform their council members when something like this is occurring that may have impact to the council member in his office.

Thank you for the question. So community communication is core to every special event and associated process. So we do require event organizers to reach out to impacted businesses as well as residents within a certain radius of a closure or even an event. That said, I think with Major, and we also review what are the impacts of major intersections like King And Story. And we would absolutely benefit from any outreach that you can also support to ensure that residents are aware of street closures.

If it was my event, I'm happy to dedicate staff to do that. But I think, like, if this is city staff approving this, think that your site should have some skin in the game as well. And I don't know if there's been anybody talking to the business owners, but I know they're upset. I know they're upset.

It's a requirement for receiving the permit by the for the event organizer to conduct that outreach. It is a requirement of the permit.

Okay. Well, from my understanding, nobody's done it yet. So just so that you know. And then in regards to, you know, the whole entire process, I see that we're trying to streamline permitting because I know that that can be an issue for our event organizers. Was there any opportunities, Joe, that you saw to like potentially reduce reduce cost for the overall process of these permits or anything like that?

That's a great question. So primarily as I mentioned one of the biggest drivers is the security costs. So the last recommendation and the first finding is really trying to get at how do we identify and prioritize those roles where non sworn staff can fill in. Because sworn staff, it's never a one to one comparison between what a sworn officer can

provide

and what a non sworn. But there are certain roles like traffic control or just general security around perimeter or something that a private security potentially could. So that's what that recommendation is really getting at is where do I let's really clarify and identify those roles where non sworn or private security can step in, understanding that SCU has real challenges filling those positions. So let's get ahead of that and just try to clarify and prioritize those roles where we can and that could potentially have cost implications.

Okay. That sounds good. Thank you, Joe. Just one thing I want to raise, I don't think there's really a solution, but I just noticed when you maybe not for the small events, but like for these larger events, we easily can have like security firm contracts that could go over 10,000, which I believe triggers the the bidding the bidding process and, you know, same thing for other avenues. I don't know if if there's like, we do the whole bidding process and somebody gets the account and, you know, the the lowest bidder isn't always the best person to provide security services in those type of situations.

So, you know, we had to get two different security firms in order to make sure that the event was secure. But it's just something that as an event organizer, I could see come up in those discussions which could cause some some stress to the organizers. Alright. And I guess I will, move to accept this report. And are we forwarding this to the city council?

Yes.

And and do forward it to the city council.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Council member Kamay.

Thank you so much. I'd like to thank the auditor and his team for a thorough as usual, report, and and I'd like to thank the office of economic development for your responses. I had a question regarding recommendation four. You know, was really surprised and I knew that there was a number of of, invoices and permits that were needed, but I didn't realize that the timing in which, an organizer an event organizer gets information is, extremely varied. So as your, response for the police department piloting a new centralized permitting, you know, because it also, would be the same for the fire department, parks, other services, public works.

I'm wondering, you know, everybody does their invoicing separately because everybody has their individualized way of submitting that information. And I'm just wondering since it's gonna take till June 2027, might it be appropriate to think about all of the permits that are needed in addition to the invoicing to be centralized. I understand that when people pay their bill, it goes to finance. Somehow, finance has a way of making sure that, you know, the invoices, whichever they may be, are are paid. Right?

So if the, you know, the accounts receivable could be tied to the accounts, you know, the other the the other accounts. It might be you know, and I don't know if that's what you're trying, but since you're trying it and we're gonna have to wait so long, it would be very, helpful to have the other departments take a look to see, oh, no. You know? Because I mean, if you get a new system and then public works has to get a new system and somebody else has to get a new system, you will end up in the same spot. So I just think that since you're gonna do the work already, bringing others in whether it's fire, parks, public works, whatever, to all at the same time say, you know, yeah, I can I can probably use that or or let's see how it works with police and and we could it would be also in line with what we need?

Because I don't understand why we have to have so many invoices. To to me, it's just like why isn't finance doing invoice? And there may be a good reason. It's just that if the money coming in is going to be, all taken in through finance, why can't the invoices going out? And I there may be a good reason, but I just thought that since we're gonna do this work anyway and, you know, from your recommendation, it sounds like you agree with it. Given the time that it takes to do this, it would be good to incorporate everybody as opposed to just the police department. Is that possible?

Thank you. Thank you for the question. And I think I I need to provide some clarification. So currently, the police department is piloting a new software program that can be adopted by different departments. So it would be one system that different departments can utilize.

So it would have some type of a centralized approach and it wouldn't be a different system. And then what would happen eventually, you know, our department is going to be doing the follow-up to ensure that the billing is being done in a timely way. The reason why it might take more time is we need to do the analysis around the software system that's being piloted right now, including the costs associated with that. And then for, you know, to ensure that we have the staffing resources as well. But to your point, council member Kameh, we agree.

You know, we do wanna ensure that we have the left hand and the right hand working together efficient manner. So I think that is that maybe the spirit of this so that we as a city whole are working and being facilitative and efficient with our event organizing community.

Thank you for that. You know, I I appreciate it. I just you know, I looked on page 23 of the report where it shows the multiple invoices with separate timelines after the event. And to me, it was rather unusual. And so if there's a way of bringing it together, I I think that that would be great.

I don't know if it's possible, but, you know, it certainly would assist in in moving things along. You know, I got an invoice that was two years from Chappie Jones. Right? And I'm like, I didn't use this service? And so, you know, I I just I just think that's maybe that was an out outlier, but I just, and it wasn't the police department. So there you go. You know, I I just thought that it was a little bit unusual. And then we couldn't track down what it what exactly it was for. So So I just think that if we're able to somehow bring it together, it would benefit everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Mulcahy.

Thank you, vice mayor. Thanks for the report. And, Joe, thanks to you and your team for the briefing. And, you know, having been in this community a long time and been on the producing side of events, providing more clarity, certainty for our presenting community would I think be really invaluable and it sounds like it's taken a long time to get us to this audit and to look at one of the many variables and issues that our presenting community faces. So I've got just a few questions, certainly support moving the report forward.

And maybe Carrie, this is probably best for you because I will come to more specific, but this is really about the labor side side of the equation and sort of the headcount on security and so forth. But have we and do you talked about like an ongoing evaluation but there's many other costs that give our presenting community a lot of heartache and that is the scoping of things like the porta potty numbers, the fencing requirements, the garbage pickup requirements. Are we doing our own sort of internal auditing on that to make sure that we're rightsizing these requests for events? And I know they have to be based on size, but fundamentally, are we doing that on an ongoing basis to make sure we're making this as affordable for the presenting community as possible? Yes,

our events team, they coordinate with different services and provide ongoing technical assistance and suggestions to our event organizers. Just short of telling them what vendors to pick because we don't select vendors on their behalf. But that is part of our regular analysis. This is something that we do on a regular basis, and it's very important to our department. We also make recommendations around locations as well where they might be able to improve costs related to where they're having their event.

And maybe if it's a run, maybe, you know, what's the route, what would be more efficient in terms of labor cost. So I would say that's an ongoing part of our work and spirit of what we feel like we can bring to the process.

So having said that, is that also then you know let's say that you know, Sergeant sitting next to you is scoping the security side of the event. Are you bringing that experience and that knowledge of events on the ground to then influence the scoping of what is required around security? Because I will just say, by and large and no disrespect to our police department and and that work, it's in every event, I'll probably get, you know, emails after this that I know you're wrong, but it seems to me that most people will say that the security costs are the most significant line item in their package of costs. So are we doing a good job as per kind of your client, Carrie, is the presenter and then we've got to sort of pull in the security piece. Are we really working with that information and helping the sergeant and their team determine on the security side requirements?

I'll answer that question. Thank you. We all, during the pre event meetings, we would talk to the promoters and ask them basically what is the size of their expected crowd, what type of event is it, do we have any back history on it, is this a brand new event or is it an annual reoccurring event. Also too we look at what safety plan they present to us and then we work off of that and we make necessary tweaks and adjustments to staffing. During those pre event meetings I always give the disclosure like plan your event as if you do not have PD support because it is on a volunteer basis and I can't guarantee you that officers are gonna sign up for a particular event.

And it's just the staffing in general with the police department and with secondary employment. It's paid at a different scale as well. So that's challenging to get officers working on their day off to come and work a four to five hour event that pays probably less than what they get hourly. So that's a challenge.

You walked right into a question that I was gonna ask. So because of our lower staffing levels out in the field working as a police officer not in off duty at an event. Is there a nexus between our ability to even staff SEU because we've got to be deploying people on overtime out into the field.

Yeah, there's always that nexus and that's always a competition that me over at Secondary Employment is competing with. Patrol officers getting time and a half to work a patrol function as opposed to the flat rate of $70 an hour to work a secondary employment job. So that's the challenge that I come across.

So, sorry.

But with that we try to provide alternatives to the promoters, additional security. And if traffic control is needed incorporating our CSOs, officers and crossing guards in certain situations where there's not really a need to direct traffic but just a body there to prevent vehicles from crossing a particular intersection. So these are all different strategies that we've started to incorporate in the last year due to our staffing challenges.

So with security being one of the highest line item costs and the challenge that you have with facilitating whatever it is that you're requiring, it's really one of the biggest outcomes of the audit is that we're not giving promoters a clear answer on what their cost is going to be for probably their biggest line item in their budget. Whether we build them two years later or two days later, the reality is the upfront challenge for them in planning is they don't know what their cost is. So that is a deep concern for me because I really want San Jose to have more fun and if we're not able to give promoters more certainty, we're not giving them an opportunity to do more. And so I think we really have to work harder at this particular issue. And so for example, one of the things I was wondering is we've referred to crossing guards, secondary unit and our CSOs.

But how are we qualifying our third party security organizations? Do we have a go to list of five that PD has vetted and says you can go to this list and this is as good almost as good as hiring a cop?

Well obviously there's no real replacement for what a police officer can do in regards to enforcing the law

No quarrel here.

And just the visible deterrent of having uniformed police officer at a particular location. However, from my experiences in this unit for the last two years and seeing different promoters hiring different security companies, I've seen some security companies are better than others. To answer your question, we don't have a necessarily a pool of recommendations that we can provide for the promoters.

Okay. Go for it.

Council member if I may just add, I really do think that's one of the key spirits of this audit and if you look at recommendation number three, it's really to tease out the specific roles for our sworn officers, for private security, and non sworn. So I think that that is this is gonna be a key priority for us to implement over the next year. So I I do wanna really acknowledge the auditors team for really hearing us and hearing event organizers and really kind of getting to the heart of some of those key issues.

Let me just see, may have one more. So Kerry, are you saying that you like you're going to work on this idea of having sort of a go to list of security so that it's not, know doesn't sort of show up at the end that oh my god we don't have our five police officers we got to go to a security company to get them.

We can evaluate that in terms of having lists of potential private security companies on our website. We've had to work with you know the attorney's office to find out you know what's the right approach to do that. We typically don't make specific recommendations around private security firms. But the heart of this recommendation in my opinion is really about what are defining the rules and the priorities for these different positions. And so that when you're an event organizer and you know you're going to sell wine and beer at your blues festival, that you know if and you're going to shut down some streets that you know which positions can provide which roles and you can plan and budget accordingly.

Okay thanks. I'm out of time. I appreciate it. We'll get another bite at this when it comes to council. Appreciate it.

Can I just add to Carrie's comment? Thing we noted, we talked with some other jurisdictions how they do this. I just want to quote from the audit. We were looking at City of San Diego's event guidelines and they say very specifically, private security is typically used for enforcing operations, rules and regulations established by the host, crowd control, alcohol safety, money transfers, VIP management and parking at the venue. So it very clearly says this is what you should be using private security for and if we had similar guidelines, event organizers beginning can fill those positions then with private security and not. Mean some of these was always going be private security but just being really clear about that so folks can get those positions filled early.

Thank you, Joe. Council Member Casey.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sort of, I don't mean to answer Michael's question, but looking through and we canceled the July 4 at Amador Lake primarily due to security concerns. And one thing we figured out was and the concern I would have with us endorsing any outside security forces is that in the event that they're not good or something happens, we'd be liable endorsed them because we had a security outfit for the last two years at Almaden Lake. One year they were really good, the following year they were awful. And there's I would imagine a lot of turnover in the ranks of those companies.

So one of the things I would caution is us not to necessarily endorse any outside security for the liability concerns. Thank you.

Well said actually, I was gonna make the same point that we wouldn't wanna put ourself out there with a list because of the liability and the possible risk. I'm thinking of Gilroy Garlic Festival and the security they had down there and the liability that they faced as as a result of some of it. So or potential liability, I should say. With that, I do have a question about the secondary employment unit and how they sign up. How do they And it doesn't sound like they're actually committing to the time they can back out at the last minute, right?

How do they know about it? How do they bid on it or do they just raise their hand and say I'm not working that weekend, that sounds like fun.

Thank you Vice Mayor for that question. So we use a system called e resource and as soon as we get an application in for an event, a special event, once it's vetted and it's permitted and we have the pre event meeting we establish the staffing as far as PD, the numbers, the hours, my staff specialist will post that job on eResource for any officer, whether it be full time or our reserve unit officers to pick up on a voluntary basis. And I do get last minute cancellations that they call me and, hey, I need to cancel. I know it's in four hours. So I try my best to get ahold of the promoters and advise them of the officer that's not showing up as well as the fellow officers that are already signed up.

They're they're hey, you're gonna be short one person.

Is there is there anything you can do to get the officers to, if they're going to withdraw, I mean they may be on the edge now and if something better comes up, I'm not gonna do it. So is there some way you can encourage them to respond or withdraw more quickly so that the organizer because I see that that's the issue. You have the secondary employment unit, they're all ready to go and then three or four days before event, there's not enough. So the the organizer's out scrambling trying to get the number of security they need. So I don't know how we confirm that up because it's not a commitment. It's not like a contract or anything.

It it actually is not too big of a problem as far as last minute cancellations, and it's not due to them finding something better. They understand if they start getting a reputation for doing that, then obviously they're gonna be, not requested again to to work secondary employment jobs. So and and they know that. There's there has been a few times where the same officer has has canceled last minute, you know, more than two or three times. I would have a separate conversation with that individual officer like hey, I don't know if you're canceling due to personal reasons or medical or whatever but it's starting to become a problem and with that conversation it was addressed and it never happened again.

So it does happen but it's not often. Okay. So

Great. Thank thank you. That's that's reassuring. We just need more officers.

Yes. We do.

Yep. Okay. Thank you for the report and the presentation and the response to our questions. Let's vote. Thank you. That motion carries. The next item, because we're moving item two to the end, is the downtown annual progress report. And Blage, are you and Chris presenting okay?

Okay, good afternoon Vice Mayor Foley and council members. Blag is the Lalich Deputy Director in the City Manager's Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs and I'm here with Chris Arkley, the city's downtown coordinator. We're going to present the annual downtown progress report and although the making of a city is never finished, downtown has compiled a healthy list of notable achievements and milestones and successful initiatives during the fiscal year twenty four-twenty five. Chris is going to take us through the presentation and I'll come back at the end to provide some context on how we're going to report on downtown's progress moving forward.

Thank you Blaget. Unless otherwise noted our conversation today will focus on the geography shown on this slide called the downtown growth area. Both our memo and today's presentation are organized along these four components of a successful urban core. Before we go into these areas, I'd like to start by giving a snapshot of downtown by the numbers. The number of down residents downtown remains consistent with last year's report.

While we have 3,700 residential units under entitlement, there has been limited residential development activity with three twenty units currently under construction in the first phase of Jay Paul's residential conversion at City View Plaza. Jobs in the downtown core increased slightly, but unfortunately, did office vacancy. We're still grappling with return to office and hybrid work policies. However, of late, we are seeing increased interest in office space downtown. The cultural and public life indicators show positive momentum.

In the past year, the Office of Cultural Affairs permitted over 100 additional event days, contributing to a 7% increase in overall foot traffic downtown. Events and activations continue to be the most visible indicators of downtown's vibrancy. Moving to look at business development and investment. There was some good progress in the areas of business development investment this past year. The biggest news is the purchase of four eighty eight Almaden Boulevard by VTA for 30 for $63,700,000.

The purchase of this nearly 400,000 square foot office tower will breathe new life into the southwest corner of downtown and bring in five to 600 daily VTA team members into the building with plans to attract additional office workers into unoccupied floors. There have also been recent exciting developments in the downtown hospitality industry. Recently opened TownePlace Suites adds a 175 much needed hotel rooms to downtown and is the first new built new hotel built in the downtown core since 2017. The recent purchase of Hotel De Anzo will bring renewed investment to this historic and treasured downtown property. It's also worth noting that the Signia Hotel's ownership recently transitioned to Bright Spire, a long time investor in the property, and they are planning new capital investments.

Our downtown office incentive established late last year offering business license and parking incentives to qualifying new office leases in the urban core has seen some uptake with the opening of offices from Plug and Play and Abacus Semiconductors for a total of nearly 9,000 square feet added through this program. Plug and Play's lease is especially notable as San Jose is the location of the group's first AI center of excellence, an AI incubator program working in partnership with collaborators such as San Jose State, the City of San Jose, PG and E, and the Knight Foundation to name a few. Joining Abacus and plug and play in the tech office space, the recent additions, Talis Group, and Hippo Analytics, who have also chosen Downtown San Jose for their new offices. While large developments in office leases are the biggest economic drivers downtown, the most visible indicator of downtown's health is the state of our ground floor retail. I've highlighted just a few of the many openings in the past year.

You can see the ribbon cutting for Press Room. Joining EOS Cynics, which opened in late twenty twenty four, the Press Room adds another elevated dining option downtown. Along the Paseos De San Antonio, we've recently welcomed Sumi Sushi and last year cut the ribbon for Campus Burgers. Both of these locations cater heavily to the adjacent student population at San Jose State and have been a hit with students and downtowners alike. In April, Jackie's Place opened in the Sofa District with a huge community celebration building off of the Sofa Street for that weekend.

The moment pop up expansion on Post Street in the Paseo De San Antonio recently completed their first year of operation with 10 concepts operating downtown and one, Miggy Sara Candles, recently moving into a retail location in San Pedro Square Market. We also welcomed Dental Specialties Institute, which moved into the space formerly occupied by Western Dental. Despite a difficult financing environment, we've seen meaningful movement in residential development this year. Spartan Village on the Paseo opened last fall with 700 student beds on the Paseo De San Antonio, which has not only strengthened the city and university bond, but also added beneficial foot traffic along this corridor. The previously 10% occupied 188 West Saint James sold to new owners, likely to bring most of the remaining 570 condos to the market soon.

City View Plaza is proceeding with an office to residential conversion with 680 planned units and construction currently underway on the first 320 units. We know that development interest depends heavily on the positive perception of downtown, which is why clean and safe operations remain top priorities. Groundworks, funded by downtown property owners, removes nearly 80,000 pounds of trash and over 2,000 graffiti tags monthly and was recently recognized with a well deserved commendation from city council in February. San Jose Police Department foot patrols were 80% staffed in the past year, and the San and San Jose State's University Police Department is active along the Paseo showing a more visible and collaborative safety presence while supporting the new students in the area. Clean and safe work is further supported the ongoing downtown safety and security committee, which convenes monthly to coordinate safety efforts across public safety agencies and social service providers.

Building off of these meetings, SJPD and the city's attorney's office recently instituted a stay away order for Saint James Park for a group of individuals with numerous drug charges in the area, addressing a community concern and creating a more safe and welcoming area for students at nearby Hilberg Upper School and Third Street Community Center. Through PATH and the social impact team, we've reached more in house individuals connecting them with critical services. Combined, these two teams working in the downtown core have made over 5,000 contacts in the past year. PATH assisted a 141 individuals in obtaining housing. The social impact team, now in their second year, continues to be a resource available seven days a week downtown with the goal of building trust and connecting unhoused individuals with case management through partner organizations.

A working group comprised of PATH, the Social Impact Team, City of San Jose Housing, and Santa Clara County Behavioral Health, known as the Collab, focuses on identifying and coordinating services for our most vulnerable individuals experiencing homelessness. In the past year, this group has identified 46 vulnerable individuals and has been able to assist 18 of these into transitional housing or more than a third of those identified. Identified. This makes a huge difference downtown. Major public realm announcements, including the establishment of a pedestrian mall on Post Street early this year, follows last year's establishment of the pedestrian mall on San Pedro Street.

You can see a few images of the many celebrations on Post Street here. There are plans underway for a vibrant street mural on the street with the Downtown Association, which should be completed ahead of Pride celebrations in August. In early March, ahead of NVIDIA's conference, 61 new pedestrian wayfinding signs were installed throughout downtown, helping visitors to navigate through the area and discover nearby amenities. Placemaking efforts continue on Santa Clara Street where the downtown association in partnership with the city is completing targeted placemaking efforts between Market And 4th Street. Every block face along this corridor has seen some type of improvement or major major property transformations are shown in these before and after pictures.

You may have seen the vibrant mural taking shape at the former VTA office. This installation will soon be complemented by an illuminated and refreshed sign on top of the building featuring the San Jose placemark. One of the most visible additions was the recently installed tree lighting along the corridor. This addition brings vibrancy and additional color customization similar to other Downtown Association lighting installations at the Circle Of Palms and on the San Pedro Street arch. When activated, this provides visual continuity looking east on Santa Clara towards Sonic Runway and City Hall tower lighting.

Aside from placemaking, Downtown has also seen positive impact from legacy and new events and attractions in downtown. In the past year, the Office of Cultural Affairs has permitted 102 events downtown, which represents a total of three hundred and sixty eight days of activation, drawing an estimated 2,100,000 people into downtown. Some notable new events were DJ Fisher and Steve Aoki concerts, which combined attracted over 20,000 attendees. We saw another year of successful downtown for the holidays programming with 1,000,000 visitors combined coming into downtown between Christmas in the Park, Winter Wonderland, and Downtown Ice. Projection lighting on Saint Joseph's Cathedral complemented these activations.

After a two year hiatus, downtown again has a farmer's market, Open weekly on Wednesdays from 9AM to 01:30PM centrally located on the Paseo near Hammer Theater and providing fresh produce and prepared foods downtown. Again this year, downtown hosted NVIDIA's GTC conference. NVIDIA's team this year worked collaboratively with the city and downtown partners to create a downtown campus for event attendees with a notable expansion into Plaza De Cesar Chavez for the duration of the conference. Downtown certainly felt alive for the week NVIDIA was in town with an estimated 27,000 attendees and $270,000,000 in economic impact to the city. 2025 also marks the ten year anniversary of Viva Calle, whose routes featured sections of downtown and complemented other parks' activations such as Starlight Cinemas, Paint the City, and the Levitt concert series in Saint James Park.

Downtown's park network saw improvements this year with the reopening of Pellier Air Park, demolition of the former ranger station and ticket booth at Arena Green, and advances on planning for the St. James Park redesign.

So there were some great photos that went along with the explanation that Chris just gave, but somehow the clicker decided to stop working on us. I know if you guys can, our techno folks, if you can advance the next slide. Hence the great photos of all the downtown activation. And then lastly, moving forward we intend to wrap the elements of the downtown progress report into the reports that we'll be doing around OEDCA's newly approved economic strategy work plan. So if you'll remember we came to council in March and council approved our economic strategy work plan.

It has five major objectives each with their own key results. And the slide before you has those five objectives. The number three objective is accelerating a thriving downtown and as part of this we'll be reporting out on the four stated key results that you see under that objective generating new commercial leases, facilitating new commercial business attractions, achieving a 10% increase in downtown daytime foot traffic and increasing positive community sentiment around downtown when we come forward to report out on our economic strategy work plan. And with that staff concludes their presentation. We're here to answer your questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you Chris and Blagge. Certainly there's a lot going on downtown. My staff and I walked down to San Pedro Square for lunch today, and we noticed a way finding sign that on Santa Clara going this direction that said five minutes to a city council meeting. So we clicked on the QR code, but it didn't do it took us to the main website rather than the city council agenda. So I'm wondering if the QR codes match up to the direction directions that they're trying to give and if they don't, they should.

So I I thought it was a great idea, but if you could click on it and say, oh, this is the agenda at city council. Okay, yeah, I'm not interested anything there or I am.

Maybe we were trying to be a little too cute. We kind of were trying to get people to go to city hall and so we thought that seeing a city council meeting might be just more fun and enticing but your point is well taken.

Really you think they're fun and enticing? I

mean we thought that

it was

I'm just kind of saying I mean we signed up for this but But was one for the library I didn't click on the QR code for the library because we were curious about the council meeting. Just a note, thank you. Do we have any members of the public who wish to speak?

No public comment.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Then council member Ortiz.

Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, Blagge and Chris, for your very informative presentation. Always exciting to hear about the new and and best of the best that's going on in Downtown San Jose. Definitely have been keeping up to date. Obviously, my partner works for the downtown association.

So I've been part of captive audience meetings at some of these events, but they've definitely been fun. And I think it's safe to say that the downtown areas and the upswing of things, especially with the recent events that have been occurring. I I attended the Fisher event. I know my partner attended the Steve Aoki event and both of them were very well attended. I do have just one specific question I heard you speak about in regards to the safety of downtown, I think is, you know, something that we'll always be talking about as people are always attracted to city centers.

You you mentioned in regards to the Saint James Park, there is something called a stay away order. I wanted to ask just if you could provide just a little bit more information about that. Is in order to have something like that, do we have to have individuals who have a criminal history? What what, I guess, entailed being able to get something like that ruled?

Thank you. So I will say the the city attorney and PD work most closely on this. But at Saint James Park, you know, don't think it's a surprise to anyone. You know, there's a perception there's a lot of drug activity there. So with PD making arrests in the area, they were able to identify a minority of individuals in the park with a high number of drug related charges.

Okay.

And with that, they were able to implement a stay away order essentially saying, you know, you are habitually doing this activity in this small geographic area. So unless you're going to the courthouse or the post office there, you cannot be in that general area.

Okay. Is that like an injunction or what what it oh. Okay. Alright. Because I've I've just been having issues in some of my parks. There's individuals who they kinda go on like a on a tour of gambling. They gamble at Capital Park, we have police talk to them, then they go to Hillview Park. And I don't know if that could possibly be a solution, but it's something I'll I'll definitely look into. Thank you.

Would you like to Yes. Thank you.

I will move the item. Are we referring to the council?

No. Are. No. We are

not.

I will move the item. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Seeing no further hands, let's vote on this item. Thank you. That motion carries. Thank you very much for the presentation. A lot going on downtown. It's exciting to hear it. Oh, okay. Not hey. Alright. Next we have a report on the foreign trade zone and sister city programs. Joe Hedges, I believe you're giving this presentation. Oh and blog A2, okay.

Good afternoon council members. I'm pleased to provide the committee a report on the city's foreign trade zone and sister cities programs, which are managed by the city manager's office of economic development and cultural affairs. The Foreign Trade Zone is a federal program established by the United States Congress in 1934 to facilitate commerce and trade in the nation. The city of San Jose applied to the United States Department of Congress, excuse me, Department of Commerce in 1974 to establish a foreign trade zone for San Jose and the region. The San Jose Foreign Trade Zone was the eighteenth Foreign Trade Zone in The United States.

Today there are over 200 active Foreign Trade Zones nationwide and 17 in California. In November, the city marked fifty years of the San Jose Foreign Trade Zone and the council presented commendations to our foreign trade zone companies at a city council meeting. This was greatly appreciated by the companies that operate as part of the San Jose Foreign Trade Zone. The city of San Jose is the grantee or the local administrator of this federal program that helps to grow manufacturing, support jobs, and trade. A grantee is typically a city, a county, a state government, an airport authority, or a seaport authority that promotes economic development for the region.

A foreign trade zone is a site in The United States that is considered to be outside of a U. S. Customs area. This allows foreign merchandise to be admitted into a foreign trade zone without a formal customs clearance and without the payment of duties. A company is able to delay, reduce, or eliminate federal duties and tariffs on foreign merchandise.

The

San Jose Foreign Trade Zone includes San Jose, all of Santa Clara County, the Southern Part of Alameda County, and Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley. Any site that is zoned for a business activity in this area could potentially be approved as a foreign trade zone site. There are 11 companies that operate their business as part of the San Jose Foreign Trade Zone. The grantee is the applicant to the federal government on behalf of a company that seeks to operate as a foreign trade zone. And the authority that is provided to the company is through the grantee.

So anytime a company wants to make changes to their foreign trade zone to enlarge it, to deactivate a site is done through the concurrence and the support of the grantee. The foreign trade zone provides companies with financial savings benefits. Importantly, this federal program facilitates economic development for a region and also helps to anchor companies in The United States that might be considering shifting operations to other markets. Perhaps to markets where their customer base is located. The San Jose Foreign Trade Zone has grown significantly in the past two decades.

This coincided with the city's efforts to redesignate the Foreign Trade Zone with the federal government which streamlined the application process and resulted in many new Foreign Trade Zone projects. In 2023, the San Jose Foreign Trade Zone accounted for roughly $25,000,000,000 of activity, over $5,000,000,000 in exports, and over 30,000 individuals were employed within the Foreign Trade Zone. The current trade environment is challenging for many businesses locally and in other parts of The United States. The Foreign Trade Zone can provide savings to companies and also provide flexibility in their operations during uncertain trade times. The city is currently working with several companies on potential Foreign Trade Zone projects.

Anticipate that we may be adding five to 10 new Foreign Trade Zone projects in the coming year. In the past year there were three new Foreign Trade Zone projects in San Jose. The second program for this report is sister cities. The city of San Jose has been at the forefront of this national program that originated in 1956 at a White House conference on citizen diplomacy. San Jose is a charter member of the National Sister Cities program and established one of the nation's earliest sister cities with Okeana, Japan.

In 2027, the city will be marking the seventieth anniversary of the sister city relationship with Okeana. San Jose has also played a key role in sister cities nationally with several council members historically elected to serve on the board of directors of Sister Cities International with vice mayor Foley currently serving on the board of this organization which represents The US Sister Cities program. A sister city affiliation is a formal city to city relationship that encourages international community engagement in education, the arts, sport, economic development, government, civic affairs, and community programs. San Jose has eight sister cities and five active community organizations for the Okeana, Tainan, Dublin, Puna, India, and Guadalajara sister city programs. Highlights in the past year include a San Jose sister city delegation visit to Dublin, which was led by vice mayor Foley and included council member Kemet as well.

The city recently hosted a visit by the Okeana City Council and Okeana Chamber of Commerce and included a city hosted dinner at the vice mayor's home. We were very appreciative that the vice mayor and her husband opened their home to welcome the Okoyama delegation. San Jose State University has been integral to the sister cities program from the very beginning, and president Matson hosted the delegation for a luncheon at her home. Other programs have included the annual Saint Patrick's Day Shamrock Run, which is organized by the San Jose Dublin sister city program, which was held downtown in March and attracted over 2,000 runners. And last July, six San Jose high school students had the opportunity to travel to Okeana, Japan for a one week sister city exchange program which was organized and hosted by the city of Okeana.

In the coming year, eight Okeana students will visit San Jose for the sister city summer exchange program which will be organized by San Jose Okeana sister cities. The San Jose, Dublin sister city program will resume their university scholarship program for Dublin and San Jose students. And plans are underway for the cities to involve for the city to involve our sister cities in the two thousand twenty six Make Music Day, which will have a World Cup theme. With that, I would conclude my remarks and I would be pleased to answer any questions from the committee.

Thank you, Joe. Do we have any members of the public?

There is no public comment.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Being more familiar with the sister cities program than the foreign trade zone, although I learned about this when I was a brand new council member on this committee. I think the foreign trade zone is a real wonderful opportunity for us and our businesses. The Sister City program is one to create international goodwill and peace, as as you mentioned, and it's really developing and and growing year from year as we expand to Africa and China and other parts of the world. We are create seventy years with Okeyama

Yes.

Next 2027. Yes. And I think we're sending a delegation over there or they would like us to go over there. I don't know that that's been decided yet. One thing I did want to a couple of things regarding the Okoyama relationship.

If if any of my colleagues ever visit Japan, you you should go to Okoyama and, reach out to the council because because they are very welcoming. The Japanese are tremendous hosts when you are in their when you go meet with them, they are very gracious in in all that they do. This year, we do an exchange with students, middle school and high school students where we bring send students over to Okeana for a week, and they live with families, and another week and then this year, they're coming to San Jose. So actually the program is looking for host families here. So if you know of anybody who'd be interested in hosting, it's just five days and it's at the July, early August.

It's all the Okeoma sister city program here in San Jose is the lead organizer. But if you know of any families who might be interested, please let me know and I'll be happy to share the application information with you. I also want to announce that the as part of the sister cities international program, this year we're hosting a summit with Japan. It'll be it's a US Japan Summit in Izumizano City, which is outside of Osaka. And during in Osaka right now is the World Expo.

So if you care to travel during September, I will. I I will be missing a council meeting that week to go to the US Japan summit, and there will be people from all over world the world and actually world leaders coming in and attending. So I'm really actually honored to be a delegate and a director with programs. That's all I have to report as a sister city. Any I don't see any comments from my counsel. So with that, let's vote. Oh, I need a motion.

I would so move acceptance.

Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion is second. Let's vote.

Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Blagate. Okay. That concludes our meeting except for our presentation from, on the twenty twenty six Destination Sports events update.

Chair Foley, Roselyn Huey. I am happy to start this presentation. I've got staff from OCA who will also cover a few slides, and our hope is that Tommy O'Hare may be able to join us before we end the presentation or will be available for questions. Great, thank you. So I'm gonna ask Carrie to advance the slides for me.

So I guess first and foremost, we're really delighted that Tommy O'Hare has joined the city manager's office serving as our 2026 sports and special events director. Director. He's been on board since February and has done a tremendous amount of work, already meeting a number of our key stakeholders and, cultivating those relationship and driving his work forward. We shared with you. I think we were last here with the committee in October, and we presented to the full council, in December talking about how our staff is organized around the effort.

Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of, internal coordination among city departments. You see them all listed here, on this slide. And in addition to that, we have a number of external, partners that we work with really on a regular basis, but obviously for this effort around 2026, we are in close coordination with the Bay Area host committee. I will say that the sports authority, John Poach, is a gem in our community. We're very thankful.

The sports authority actually serves as San Jose's official sports commission, and John Poach and Tommy O'Hare are working hand in hand on on all of this work. And then, of course, our other partners, the sharks, earthquakes, of course, San Jose State University, our chamber of commerce, the downtown association, SAP, SV Creates, Team San Jose, who is actually taking a lead on all of the marketing efforts around 2026, as well as the Urban Vibrancy Institute. Next slide. So Tommy has taken staff's initial framework, and has created what we're calling an s j twenty six strategic plan. We have three objectives, and we have they're gonna be measured, obviously, by key results.

Our three objectives really focus on three key things. First and foremost is around our community. 2026 is huge. We're gonna have lots of visitors, international, national visitors into our community, but we wanna make sure that our residents here, have a way to participate. And so we see this as an effort to build Silver Pride right here in our community.

Obviously, we wanna maximize local economic impact, by making sure that we do have lasting value for members in our community, particularly around our small businesses. And then lastly, it's not just about the events in 2026, but we see this as a platform to really help the city help position the city as a premier destination for major sports events moving forward. The strategic plan has several work streams, and I'll just go through these real briefly. Obviously, branding, we're very excited. We've been working with the airport, with team San Jose, and consulted with a contractor called Populus.

They're working on a branding item for us, and we're gonna be very excited to, announce that later this week. So we're really excited that we'll have a logo, a branding that everyone will be able to recognize throughout the city for 2026. As I mentioned, Team San Jose is taking a lead on marketing for, all of the events. John Poach at the Sports Authority has a sponsorship program meeting with many of our corporate, partners in our community and gathering those donations and sponsorships. Of course, a lot of this is all around all of the major events, and the programming that we'll speak about later.

The policy work, which we'll update you on a little bit later. You know, we have to pay attention to our our public right of ways and our public spaces, making sure that they are well maintained and in good condition, and also making sure that our unsheltered residents, particularly in our downtown downtown area, that we are, doing the advanced work to make sure that we are connecting them to services. And then, of course, making sure that our community is safe, so public safety and emergency operations. Next slide. Not sure if this is animated or not, looks like it's not, but again, this slide just highlights the three main, objectives in our work.

Next slide. So in terms of the activations, we really are focused on key things that will be big drivers for our community and really focused on those spaces spaces in areas in downtown. It's and in addition to that, we'll be laying on the cultural music, food, all of those activities that happen in our community, we'll be laying those on throughout next year as well. But in terms of the major events, we're looking at major blocks block parties, watch parties, obviously, in the downtown and and other neighborhoods throughout the city. We've talked about way finding a little bit earlier in the in the committee today.

We're also we we know that there is particular interest in digital way finding, and we're actually moving forward getting some more information. We found a model in the city of San Diego that we're going to be exploring. We're not sure if we're gonna be able to actually have digital way finding for next year, but staff is exploring that. We've got our super graphics ordinance updated and approved by city council. Working very closely with the airport team San Jose in our fly, stay, play campaign to make sure our visitors know that SJC is the place to land.

With their coming to the major events, it's the closest to the events. And then once they get here, we've got hotels for them to stay, and we have great things to do while they're here. Regarding the outreach programs, Tommy would tell you a lot on this. He is working with a number of sports entities organizations and making sure how we can connect former athletes to actually do some community work. So whether it's that speaking with groups at schools or at leagues, and just a hope a host of things to make sure that our children, in particularly, are connected, to sport.

And then I've already talked about the sponsorship program. Next slide. Again, we know about the events. We've got Super Bowl in February. We have the NCAA West Regional, games here. There'll be three games played here at SAP. We do wanna highlight, because don't wanna wanna make sure that March Madness doesn't get overshadowed because we are going to be the host for that West Regional, championship. San Jose State University will be heavily involved. And then, of course, FIFA World Cup starting in June. Next slide.

So we are going big. We have we are looking to host 13 concerts, major concerts in our downtown. This is a lot of the fundraising is around that because it takes money to host these major events, particularly if we want to have them either free of charge or at a nominal cost to to our residents and the attendees. And we're building on lessons learned already from recent concerts like, the fishery event that was held here at City Hall Plaza, as well as the Steve Aoki event held in SOFA.

Next slide.

Drone shows. So a lot of excitement around the possibility. Tommy is actually working, with solidify this. We're actually planning 13 different drone shows throughout next year. It's really exciting because it's yes.

It's gonna be fun and fabulous and fun to watch, but we have the opportunity to showcase and highlight our culture here in San Jose. So this is an example. It's kind of hard to see. For Super Bowl sixty, for example, the Roman numerals LX, we think we have the opportunity to actually highlight some of our our number one, colors in in all the cultures that are represented here in San Jose. So we think that's gonna be really exciting for our community.

Next slide. 107 watch parties. So a lot of games, matches to watch. A lot of those will be focused, here in downtown, San Pedro Square, the heart, the core of our downtown. We're also want to mention that we're looking for, the possibility of watch parties at Mexican Heritage Plaza in East San Jose.

Next slide. And then San Jose House. So this is very exciting that Tommy has been working with the sports authority, and here comes Tommy as I speak, on creating a venue in our downtown that really will be a a hub of innovation and culture. This is actually a corporate space for, companies and businesses to use to highlight their products, to host their clients, and it really will be a a meeting space and an entertainment space for our companies. Next slide.

Actually, this is the opportunity now. I'll turn it over to Carrie to talk about some of the work that we're doing around arts and culture for our local arts organizations.

Thank you, Roselyn. I will give Tommy a minute to settle in since he ran down on the steps. The office of cultural affairs is really excited about all that 2026 offers in addition to the great programming that is part of the strategic plan, we're also looking at how we can engage our local arts community and also how we can augment or curate some of our existing programs to complement the themes and the ideas around 2026. So I'm gonna go through these relatively quickly but if you have any questions about them please follow-up afterwards. But we are going to curate existing programs like our city dance program, our we create four zero eight program, sonic runway, events, things like that that are already happening.

We are going to either curate them thematically to maybe be arts, creativity, and athletics. Or if we know what the we will know in December what teams are gonna be participating in FIFA and we're gonna curate some of the musical genres accordingly. Gonna So it's things like that or for example at Sonic Runway we can do a DJ showdown with featuring the music of the two participating teams. So it's things like that that we're looking to curate to make it fun and unique and work in complement with FIFA specifically. One thing I, there's a couple I wanted to also mention as well.

We have a really exciting very special upcoming temporary installation that's going to be here at City Hall Plaza just before Super Bowl week and that will be Elizabeth Turk's Invisible Skies. Elizabeth Turk is a world renowned artist. She does what's called social sculptures, and she designs these umbrellas with different themes. This will be skies and constellation, and she invites the community to come and participate for free. And they received this very beautiful elegant illuminated umbrella and she captures the footage via a drone and it really does have a magical effect.

We've seen it in other communities. We'll also be doing some temporary public art as well as projection mapping. We've got some pretty exciting things that we're lining up. And then finally, right here in City Hall, you know that we have this City Hall exhibition program. We're gonna mount some new new exhibitions that are gonna focus on artwork that it has a sports theme by local artists.

Another thing we want to ensure is we have the opportunity to promote our local arts organizations and artists. So we are working with Visit San Jose and we are encouraging our arts community to ensure that they are placing their programming onto their calendar. And that way we can build that into all of our existing and anticipated marketing around 2026. Another unique thing we're doing for this year is we're going to make arts grants available to participate in the cooperative marketing buys that Visit San Jose is doing. So we're looking at anywhere from 10,000 to $15,000 grants to 10,000 to 15 organizations.

And by running it through Visit San Jose it'll provide that data analytics. And we are currently working on the development of that and we are anticipating that we'll be releasing those guidelines mid summer. And then finally and briefly we have as Roselyn mentioned, we've done a number of different policy items. We had the council approve the renewed revised super graphics ordinance. We're very excited about launching the entertainment zone.

Thank you for your approval of that new ordinance. We are working on the toolkit for event organizers in the different zone areas. And then finally tomorrow for your approval we will have a major event zone ordinance policy. So we've been busy, it's been great but all of these different policy areas really help us set stage for our success going forward. So with that, I am gonna turn it back to Tommy or Roselyn, whoever you would like to.

Okay. Council members, my apologies for being late to the meeting. We have an exciting lineup of events coming. So while we're focused on 2026, we have a huge lineup of events for 2025. This past weekend we hosted the official FIFA one year out to go party for the Bay Area. We were the only city to have it. It's very exciting for us. Our partners at Creekside and their operating partners Sole Focus put it on for us, so it was great to work with local business on this. I think the event was very, very successful, it was a great kickoff and really helped us set the tone for what we want to do for 2026. So with that, right behind that we had the U.

S. Men's National Soccer team play at PayPal Park last night in a stunning victory, so it was good to see them have some momentum as well. And we have a whole host of other events that are coming up, more Gold Cup matches that'll happen. John Poach from the San Jose Sports Authority has done an amazing job in bringing in other events like bringing back the rock and roll half marathon, and then another huge feather in his cap, we have landed the National Women's Soccer League championship game which will take place in November at PayPal Park. So we really are becoming a powerhouse, would say not only in the Bay Area but also across the country in terms of sports, and really obviously helping to propel our sports tourism business.

So a lot of big wins for us and big thank you to John Poach from the San Jose Sports Authority. 2026 is obviously the big year. We are really excited that we obviously had the FIFA one year out party because it gave us a great chance to really force us early on to plan and flex our muscles that we're going to use for 2026, and so we're already in the process of doing reviews of what happened on Saturday in areas where we can do better. We really by the time the Super Bowl happens on February 8, not be trying anything new, so we'll be trying everything, we'll have already done everything that we want to do for the Super Bowl, then we'll have a brief period of time, about five weeks, and then we'll have the NCAA men's West Regional Basketball tournament. We'll also have Slam Jose in coordination with that which is a participatory sporting event and we'll also have an addition of that coming this next weekend in San Jose which brings in significant hotel nights as well as investment into the community.

And then John Poach will continue with his REACH program and then we have the FIFA World Cup and have six matches that will happen here in the Bay Area between the twelfth and the first. We have five of the pool play matches and then we have one knockout match that will happen, and then a whole series of other events, John Poach's landed the Junior Olympic water polo championships and the USA table tennis championships. I think between the two of them we're looking at tens thousands of hotel rooms that will be booked for those two events. So while they may not seem like major headlining events, they do really book the hotels for us. And then we'll cap off the rest of the year with another rock and roll half marathon and the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame banquet where hopefully we'll be toasting all the success that's happened in 2026.

That concludes our presentation. Thank you.

So exciting. The countdown is here. The way finding's out, that's my issue as you know, the super graphics. I talked to a business the other day who's really excited about the super graphics and the location of their building. Just wonderful opportunity for the city of San Jose and it feels like a year ago I didn't feel as optimistic as I do today. Today I feel very optimistic we're gonna be able to pull it off. Thank you Tommy for leading the charge.

Thank you to all of you. Very much appreciated.

Council have any questions? Okay, Michael. Sorry. Council member Mulcahy.

It's alright vice mayor.

Sorry.

Just a couple of things. I was at the event on Saturday. It was both great to kinda kick off the one year until FIFA but also a new event space in our greater downtown over there on Creekside and so that was cool. But a couple of questions, so when one of the little nuggets you talked about was like the two events like the Junior Olympics and then I think what was the other one at the same time?

The USA table tennis national

And you referred to the hotel rooms. I think it'd be cool and whether we ask TSJ to do it or you can make it part of your presentation, kind of creating that connection between like those actual hotel rooms like what we actually realize there because that's really where our TOT is and the other spending that happens and with those smaller events, we may sell more hotel rooms for those than we do Super Bowl, right. So I just think that will be really helpful for this crew to understand that. So anything you can do to help continue to help educate us on the impacts of these events would be helpful.

Okay. Thank you for mentioning that. The next time we present we'll come with essentially our estimates for the hotel rooms and then for any events that we've happened and we have the data for it what we actually contributed to for booking the hotel rooms. And then specifically for the big three sporting events, the Super Bowl, NCAA tournament and the FIFA World Cup, we have some OKRs that we want to see in terms of lift and so we can start to report on those once we've got the data back on that.

That'd be great. Thank you so much.

Thank you Council Member McKay.

Great, thank you. Council member Kamay.

Well, as I our chair said, this is very exciting, and, we're all, I think, really looking forward to this. One of the things that occurred to me is that most of the fans out there who follow this very closely, you know, they've already kind of like booked their tickets and they're gonna be here and all of that. When you're thinking about who's your audience, are you thinking that it's more on a regional basis where we'll be attracting, you know, those who are fans but perhaps, you know, may not be able to, I don't know what these tickets cost, but I imagine that it's quite expensive. So for those who are enthusiasts but not not able to do that, is your I'm just wondering is your target like more regional or local or you know because I think that it'd be nice to be able to have more people here but not everybody will be able to stay.

Yep. So I would say in terms of the audience that we're trying to track it's three fold. One would be international and the national audience who's gonna come in and wanna go to these sporting events. Although there are people that just come to the Super Bowl just to be around the Super Bowl. So there is a healthy audience that will just come in from around the country just to be here.

Two is regional, and the last one is our residents. And I also think that's probably one of our most important aspects because the reality of the situation is these sporting events are so expensive and there's so few tickets, most people won't be able to go to these sporting events. And we don't want to end up in a situation where we felt like we threw a big party here and our residents weren't able to benefit from it. And so everything that we're trying to do involves everyone in the community being able to come out to these events, and we do have a lot of stuff focused on way finding where you can select what are the free events that I can go and attend. So we look at what can we do to get the local community out, and what can we do to make them feel like they had an experience with these sporting events without having to buy a ticket to go to the sporting events.

Then what can we do to attract regional business in here, so booking hotel rooms, spending money in our restaurants here, and then three really relates to flying to San Jose, staying in San Jose, and playing in San Jose. So it is threefold, but a really big effort on making sure that the community feels like they benefited from these events without having to buy a ticket to the events.

Great. Great. And then earlier today, we had a special events audit report, and it talked about, you know, when you're putting a huge event together and all of that. It sounds like this is gonna have multiple overall period of time depending on which event we're focusing on. And I'm just wondering, you know, will other events that are usually part of will they sort of get incorporated because I think that it seems sort of natural that some of the events that would already be happening that are kind of like happening on a annual basis.

I think probably the best way to answer that is what we're doing working with Carrie's group on the cultural side of things and making sure that that's incorporated into what we're doing. So when people are planning their journey through our microsite, we'll have all of their event data in there as well, so they can plan their entire day around that and they can see everything that's happening here in San Jose. So it's not just like come to a concert or come to a watch party, but it's see basically what's gonna happen with Elizabeth Turk and her art exhibit. And so we don't wanna feel like it's like oh and by the way you have this, it's integrated in terms of what we're doing. So we wanna have a seamless experience across like when a concert ends and a drone show happens or sometime in between there, can see projection mapping that the Office of Cultural Affairs is working on or the Elizabeth Turk exhibitor, things like that.

So we're really trying to make sure one, we're incorporating because it's a great user experience. Two, use these national events to shine a light on San Jose and tell the story about the diversity and culture that we have here in San Jose.

Nice. Nice. Well, I I thank you so much, and and I'd like to move acceptance of the status report and cross reference it to the city council for our meeting about August 19.

Second. Great. See, thank you for that. And very excited to see this come forward and really excited to see the report that the NFL, one of the teams is gonna stay down here at the Signia, I think the report said, and we're still trying to get media day, which should be awesome. Yes. And practice will be at San Jose State. Those are wonderful community opportunities for us.

Yeah. It's another big point is that it's not just like we're the big city next to where these events are happening. Things are actually happening here and significant money is being spent here in our community. So to your point that when an NFL team will stay here at the San Jose Marriott, practice at San Jose State, and then on the FIFA side of things, FIFA's West Coast headquarters will be here in San Jose. So they'll be booking office space as well as hoteling space and practicing in San Jose. So on top of that, then we have the NCAA tournament that's happening here. A significant amount of investment is happening directly related to these sporting events.

A lot happening next year. Wonderful. Thank you. With that, let's vote. Thank you, that's approved unanimously and we'll see you in August.

Thank you.

So concludes the regular meeting. Moving to public comment, I don't see anyone here. Do you have any? You had one but he left.

James, if you're still here.

Took off. Come back to the committee.

Okay, great. Thank you. We stand adjourned. We'll see you in a couple of months.