Neighborhood Services and Education Committee (nse) - Regular Meeting

To begin, I want to remind the committee members and members of the public to please follow our code of conduct at meetings. This includes only commenting on the specific agenda item and addressing the entire body. Public speakers will not engage in conversations with the chair, council members, or staff. All members of the committee yeah. Failure to comply with the code of conduct will result in removal of the meeting. This meeting of the Neighborhood Services and Education Committee will now come to order. Can the clerk please call the roll?

Campos? Absent. Candelas?

Here.

Casey?

Here.

Vice chair, Duan absent. And chair, Ortiz? Present. You have a quorum.

Awesome. Thank you so much. We did that. There's no items for review of the work plan. No consent agenda. So that that brings us to d, reports to the committee. The first item is Children and Youth Services Master Plan Status Report, and that is by Andrea Flores Shelton, head Olympia Williams. Here, but Andrea Flores Shelton.

Andrea Flores Shelton. I'm the assistant director of the Department of Parks, Recreation, Neighborhood Services, and we are happy to give bring you the regular report on the children and youth master plan. Just for awareness, the council did adopt the Children and Youth Services Master Plan two years ago, and we are at a stage where we're at the towards the end of the first year of implementation with our two grantees. Those grantees are, we have Somos Mayfair and Grail in the Mayfair Poco Way neighborhoods. We have Catholic Charities in the 7 Trees Santee neighborhoods.

Those contracts go through December 2026. And so we also have direction to come back with lessons learned, sort of results of where the pilot status is in the fall to this committee. So we're looking forward to bringing back to you sort of the lessons learned because, well, this is a transformational effort that really is encompassed on seven large policy priority areas. One of them is the no wrong door approach. And the no wrong door approach, if you really think about year one with our grantees as sort of a start up year.

Them getting their footing with the city departments as well, trying to understand how communities access not just city services, but community resources as well as county services. And I think we can all be frank that this is quite been a it's been a very challenging year in terms of the safety net. The county safety net is going to be going through a lot of change, and we've been meeting with our partners, Angel Rios, other department heads. We've been meeting with our county partners, and we are anticipating, unfortunately more upheaval in what the safety net that we've come to know as really basic services for the last ten to twenty years. The county budget because of the federal and state impacts, it's going look very different next year.

So I just want us to be very aware of where we're headed into is unfortunately a little bit more uncertainty. But we are committed to whichever door, and hopefully doors remain open, right, at the city, we are very committed to keeping our doors open, maintaining services for children and youth that we have, and we're again working through the budget process, and you will learn more about that. But through the no wrong door approach, making sure that people feel welcome, people and our staffs, whether that's CBO staff, or whether that's city staff, or whether that's county staff, we have to go through a learning about what are those services that we can connect people to, refer people to, do they feel safe, do they feel welcome. And that has been something that we've been one of the lessons learned this past year is everything that's going on is creating a challenge. So again, we look forward to bringing in the fall more details about where we stand in those two pilot sites, what are the services that we are connecting people to.

And hopefully we have results. We have really good results for you. But we promise to bring you that back in the fall. I do also want to we do meet with the county regularly, and I think there's been some really good information in the childcare front. So they have a grant to expand childcare.

Specifically they had 500 applicants and they were able to award 53 grantees. Half of that, so that's a countywide childcare expansion grant, half of those are in the city of San Jose. So we're happy that they are pushing out sort of the last of their ARPA dollars. And so those grants are coming forward and the county will be giving a larger presentation to their committee next week. But we wanted to sunshine that for you so that you knew that again, county childcare expansion dollars are coming to the city of San Jose.

So with that again, we're working with collective, Somos and Grail in the neighborhood. They're doing a lot of work. And I know council member Ortiz and I just heard about a lot of the inspiring work they're doing with their youth. Youth, so when it comes to the Children Youth Master Plan pillars, they are obviously very steeped in the early learning and childcare through GRAIL. The learning and empowerment pillar, that is something that Somos, through Jovanos Actilos, is doing a lot of work on.

They're also working on workforce pathways with their young people. And so they have a lot of partnerships, and they're convening with their partners at both the school level and at the economic mobility level. In Santee and Seven Trees area, we are grateful for our partnership with Catholic Charities there, and they have longstanding partnerships and convenings that they're doing. So we'll be bringing forward more in sort of as we think about year two, starting in July 1 and beyond, about what those opportunities are if you and your staff want to engage in understanding what's happening at the work group level. But right now that's really anchored in the community and it's also city staff is still working directly with the grantees.

So more to come in terms of sort of formalizing how the priority areas are being convened. So with that I'll take any questions.

Wonderful, thank you so much for the report. Do we have any public comment?

No public comment.

Alright. Thank you, Clerk. Do we have any comments from my oh, Council Member Condellis.

Thank you, Chair. Andrea, thank you for the report. You know, I I obviously full full full fully believe in investing in our youth and the youth programming that plays such a critical role in creating that safe, supportive environment for our young people where they can stay active, build relationships and connect with positive role models. That's part of the mission that we seek to provide in order to enhance, from the way I see it, public safety in our city. You know, I fully believe in this and curious as to the thinking with regards to the next fiscal year and the amount of money that we put into, I guess, phase one of kicking off the Children and Youth Services Master Plan and the implementation phase.

Remind me how much we had allocated from our ARPA funds for this launch phase. How much money did we have for that?

So for the pilot sites,

we

granted $400,000 to both sites. And that was roughly about an eighteen month period. That contract that I was talking about runs through twenty sixth.

It. And so I guess part of the lessons learned report that you mentioned in fall, I'm hoping that we can obviously see like how many youth or families were served as part of that report and hopefully get some data to see if we can scale this program in identified or and or pilot neighborhoods and or partner with philanthropy out there that's willing to fund a data foundational program that produces positive outcomes. And so hopefully that could happen. It's incumbent on us to be able to find the money to make sure that we're not just depending on what if dollars, or potential dollars, but dollars that we have the power of the purse with, if you will, in our city. And so I look forward to talking about that and and and advocating for that.

And given I guess this question is for the administration. Given the the the funding runs through December 2026, any potential funding that's allocated in the budget could potentially just be for the second quarter of next year, Angel? Or how that work? Because we've directed as part of the March budget message to fund, I guess, up to 1,000,000 or I think it was $05,000,000 but curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, councilmember, so the direction that we have right now is kind of twofold. One is under the Mayor's March budget message, there's a proposed allocation of $500,000 subject to the development and completion of an MBA. Okay. And then there was also additional direction for us to take a deeper dive look into the use of opioid funds to see if there's anything there that we could potentially redirect. And so that's the formal direction that we have right now. And so that's really kind of the two priority areas that we're focusing on

right now. Okay, thank you Angel. I appreciate the reminder and Andrea, thank you for your verbal report today.

And if I could just to the first part of your comments. So for the fall report, we just do want to be mindful that part of the no wrong door, there's a lot of existing services and programs that we're connecting people to, right. So if I think about if someone came to the library and they needed to have a childcare, right? So there's sort of existing services that we're gonna try to capture. And then like I said, it's been sort of a startup year and I failed to mention in my brief at the beginning is that for example, we have GRAIL.

GRAIL was awarded the Capital Park Neighborhood Center through our NCPP RFQ. We're aligning that. Are, well they have some services there right now. They're actually not gonna be in full implementation until this coming school year. So in terms of the type of results that we're gonna have, they're all gonna be sort of to date.

I just don't want folks to think we're going to have maybe a full year of service because we have been in startup mode. We're looking at sort of processes and approaches. And it's been a lot of regular service delivery that we do and seeing if we can do it better. And do it more with warmer handoffs for families. And under the comments I made earlier is, do people feel welcome? Do they feel safe? Are we making sure that they trust government? All of those are some of the soft results that we're also going to be sharing. As much as I want to have lots of hard data for you, I

just want to be mindful

But I mean that's all part of lessons learned. Yes. So I would hope that yes, we have the background as to not the full year scope of why one of our providers wasn't able to do or delivered this or delivered this or delivered other. I just, I hope it's something that we can actually root and say, okay, yes, feelings and X percentage of people felt safe, great. But I think something that we can actually go and chase after funding from other folks is what I'm looking for.

That's rooted and yes, lessons learned is great, but it's rooted in fact is is helpful for us. And especially as we're advocating with each other to to, you know, make make investments in this program that that, you know, we firmly believe in. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Candelas. Council member Campos.

Thank you, chair. And thank you, Andrea, for bringing us this update today. I also really appreciate getting regular reports on how we're implementing the Children Youth Plan. It really brings this document to life. So I am just so appreciative of that, and have a couple of questions I want to ask today.

My understanding is that we are going to be reconvening some of the groups that helped create the document in the in the first place, and that grantees are currently driving convenings at pilot sites while the city is still working on internal alignment, and and as we're working towards establishing our formal work groups. So given that the children and youth services master plan is the city's plan, what is our timeline as the city for the concrete structure and taking a more active leadership role, especially as it relates to formalizing that cross system coordination, the decision making, and the accountability with our nonprofit partners.

Thank you for that. And we've been really thinking a lot about that because we do want to continue to strengthen our role to advance this. I think we're doing some of our best thinking right now, and the management budget addendum that we have coming back to you, I think will be able to carve out sort of a clear pathway about what next year looks like in terms of the support, sort of the priority, how the priority area implementation plans will roll out. So if you wouldn't mind waiting for the manager's budget addendum for more details, I think that would be best.

Okay, absolutely. I'm going to ask a couple of more questions, and if there's more information to come in that MBA, please let me know. But the the next question is just given that we have these two sites functioning as pilot sites right now. We know that the goal is for the Children Youth Master Plan to be implemented throughout the city. And so with these pilot sites working as as a demonstration model that could be showcased and replicated in other districts and city, how is it ensuring now that our CBO partners have the sustained funding, coordinated infrastructure, and clear governance needed to succeed?

Yeah, so we are as I mentioned earlier, we are in a grant relationship with them through December 2026. We're looking to see how we can continue that. And that sort of governance structure sort of moving forward the priority areas in a very specific way, I think is forthcoming. We have been sort of looking at this past year as kind of a start up year. We're kind of storming a little bit, and trying to balance that this transformational work really needs to be anchored in the community with city county support.

And so we're looking at how that relationship and how that partnership really sustains itself. And what is that structure that is going to make the most sense for long term sustainability as well as scalability across the city.

Absolutely that that part is really important to hone in on. I see tremendous success so far in what I've heard about the pilot sites. And I also recognize that there is already trust in some of these anchor institutions in these communities that might not exist in other districts. My district for example in Southside, we have a lot of residents who go to District 5 for these kinds of services. So it is really key that we're thinking about that coordination approach and and and really like what it takes to be successful.

So I only have two more questions. My third question is what specific elements will be in place to document and elevate this as a scalable model rather than an ad hoc pilot that is driven primarily by grantees?

So we are excited to be working with external partners on understanding what a strong evaluation framework looks like, as well as sort of our internal data systems. So again, we've kind of our internal data systems are kind of at the infancy stage, as well as we're hoping again when we return in the fall that we will have landed on sort of what are those not just the outputs, but the outcomes that we're striving for and how can we measure progress towards them. I think the next six months we'll have a lot of work in solidifying that.

Yeah, thank you. That relates to the previous message that I was sharing about my district. There's a lot of infrastructure that might be needed in some places. And so thinking as as a whole city, what what all of those components might be that help bring more success into the entire city. And so my last question and your responses have been really helpful. So thank you, Andrea Mhmm. For responding. I also might have missed in in your introduction about the MBA that is being coordinated between PRNS and library staff. So is there any way that you can clarify the scope here or what the council should expect to see in that MBA?

So as Angel was mentioning we have direction for the $500,000 to come forward on how we would recommend a spending plan for the $500,000 So at this time we're trying to sort of prioritize what that looks like and as well as understanding are there other funding sources, other people's money that we can use to move the needle on some of these things. Again, I think we're doing a lot of good work and we're gonna have something to recommend to you that tries to get at multiple priorities and multiple strategies. Because I think there's with the multiple priority areas that we have, we have to understand where's there some low hanging fruit to really advance some of these initiatives. So we're trying to figure that out. I think you'll you'll see more in the next month or two.

Amazing. I know that our Children Youth Master Plan is truly a transformational visionary document, and it is not easy to accomplish that vision, but I know that we have so many people here who are invested and especially in our community who are just invested as folks at City Hall are. So thank you again for for this update.

No.

And I will move to accept the report.

Second. I just wanted to thank you, Andrea, for the very informative presentation to the NSE committee. As mentioned, I share my colleagues' perspective on wanting to continue to support the Children Youth and Services Master Plan, whether that's allocating city services and resources or identifying philanthropic partners to breathe more life into these services. I know you did touch on during your talking points, you kind of cautioned us about some potential impacts in the next year or two that we may be seeing. Is there any sort of like tea leaves that could give us an understanding of just how this may impact us and how the services may have to, I guess evolve during these hard times?

Yeah. I mean I this is all public information because the county committees have they met yesterday, safety and justice in particular. And as we know, we are very proud of being the safest big city in America. And we believe, and you'll be hearing about the Youth Empowerment Alliance, right, and our decades of investing in our young people at both primary prevention and at intervention level. And then of course our partners in PD and others do their part on the back end.

But again, this is what we're told by the county. If it's not mandated it most likely will be cut and we're seeing that in the proposals. This is proposed. The county hasn't adopted their budget. I want to caution that but let's just take for example our our friends at the community prosecution unit, right? Decade of partnership there that is on the chopping block, right?

Oh wow.

Neighborhood services unit and probation department. Those are things that are very well known to us in the city of San Jose and have improved the lives of people in San Jose. So I don't want to, I'm probably naming too many programs already, but I just want us to be mindful that again these are part of our collective impact strategy. And we have to understand that the city can't compensate for all of those things, And so how do we, again, focus in terms of what are those things that have at primary prevention level as well as the intervention level? Thank

you for that.

Sorry, go ahead, Angel.

Yeah, councilmember. I think it's a real important question. And I'd like to add to what Andrea said real well already. You know, as part of the Youth Empowerment Alliance, we have an interagency subcommittee that consists of a lot of the key players in this work. Right?

The public defender's office, the DA's office, probation, school superintendents, you name it. Anybody that invests in the area of youth, especially around youth intervention. And it was a pretty sobering meeting because we basically did a round robin around the room to just get a glimpse of what the forecast is looking like in terms of budget reductions, proposed budget reductions. And just back of the envelope math going around the room there, back of the envelope math put it at a little under $100,000,000 in terms of the safety net. And when you take a look at the type of projects that are being proposed or slated to be either eliminated or reduced significantly, they're basically speaking about our safety net, right?

The safety net that typically captures. And as you've heard police say for so many years, you can't arrest your way out of these So situations, our safety net is going to be in some serious jeopardy, right? Now we of course are hoping that when everything is said and done through the budget process because as of this point, these are proposed budgets, right? Budget reductions. This is not a done deal yet.

But in a worst case situation, I think that that's going to really compromise our safety net, right? Now having said that, one of the reasons for convening that meeting wasn't so much just to admire the problem. It was around how can we get in front of it. So come July 1, when we know exactly what is the final tally of reductions given everybody's budget constraints, how are we then as partners in this arena gonna work together and kinda prioritize amongst ourselves on on how to mitigate some of these situations? Because we know, as we saw as we saw in 2008 and 2010 when we experienced similar reductions, our incarceration rate shot right up.

Yeah. Crime rate shot right right up. That was when we lost our safest big title. Remember, we we held that title for almost ten years straight. That's right. And we just recently got it back. Right? And so so again, we we raised this not to not to just cry wolf, but to just say, hey, look. Let's let's go into this with eyes wide open in terms of what is our landscape in our city gonna look like and what do we need to do to mitigate and offset and get creative about how we handle this, right? Now that's actually a good segue into the Children Youth Master Plan piece because these are all great questions that we've been getting.

There's a challenge and an opportunity piece to this right? And the reality is that we know that with budget constraints, we're not in a position to throw a lot of money at this, right? Mean when you just kind of look at the overall forecast. So we're going have to get really creative even at the expense of there may be some things that we slow down in the Children Youth Master Plan in order to just if all we could afford is X, Y, Z with a certain amount of money then that's what we're going to be able to do. And so we just want to kind of caution because we're driving this with a lot of vision and optimism, but we also have to be realistic around the true cost.

And I understand that, Angel. My goal is to make sure that this master plan is effectively used for the rest of the existence of our city, not just a short sprint, but for the marathon. And so, think if we have to look at some sort of minimum viable product to have something that we can maintain and maybe put some of those other services, not shutter them, but you know, put them on like life support during these hard times. I think that's, you know, what we have to do. But what I don't want is like for that the master plan to just go up on the shelf and not be used.

I wanna make sure that, you know, we we put it in a in a situation that once when we get the resources, we could breathe life back into it. Because I I truly believe that, you know, my district is pretty much just the test case. I wanna see it in Meadowfair. I wanna see it in Roundtable or Hoffman via Monte and, you know, but if we don't get past this budget crisis, it's not even gonna be in my district either. And so, you know, I'm gonna be leaning in.

And I know my colleagues are very passionate about that, and so I'm sure they're gonna be leaning in. There was one positive thing that you said, though, Andrea. Was, I think you said the grant in regards to childcare slots. I'm sure Councilmember Campos was probably plugged into that. How can we use this, those type of support to, I guess, build up the capacity of the master plan or what is our plan for that? Are we already thinking about it?

The child care expansion grants from the county. So they've built up an infrastructure through the Valley Health Foundation. And so they're looking to see with that sort of backbone support if there's more ways to help continue. And they're really focused on family based childcare where they might have eight kiddos and they can expand to 16. So it creates again sort of small business support and viability for folks that are really struggling to find infant toddler slots So right again that becomes a budget priority or budget conversation as to whether we want to sort of join that effort.

I see.

Right, so again it's a policy question.

Okay, that's something I think that me and my colleagues would like to follow-up with you guys outside of the meeting on. Thank you and let's go to vote. Alright. Now a topic very close to my heart, the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance, bringing everyone's strengths together. Safe Summer Initiative Grant and Youth Intervention Services Programs Annual Report. And this will be presented by Olympia Williams, Aurelia Bailey, and Petra Riguero. Oh, and Andrea Flores Shelton.

Thank you. Good afternoon chair Ortiz and members of the committee. I am Olympia Williams, deputy director of the community services division in PRNS. Today, I'm joined by Andrea Flores Shelton, assistant director, Aurelia Bailey, division manager of our youth intervention services, and Petra de Guerrill, who is our program manager for our BEST and SSIG programs. Thank you for the opportunity to present the annual report on the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance, bringing everyone's strengths together, our BEST program, SSIG, and youth intervention services programs.

As the deputy director of the community services division, I am pleased to share the progress we've made in advancing a coordinated, data driven approach to youth violence prevention and intervention. Through the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance, we are implementing a collective impact model that brings together city departments, the county, schools, community based organizations, and public safety partners to serve youth and families with the greatest need. This work is grounded in prevention, intervention, diversion, and healing, ensuring a comprehensive and coordinated continuum of care. This past year, our program served more than 13,000 youth and families and delivered over four hundred and sixty thousand hours of services across the city. More importantly, we are seeing meaningful outcomes.

Youth connection to caring adults has increased. Three out of four of our priority schools saw reductions in chronic absenteeism. And the most serious school based incidents declined by eleven percent, demonstrating earlier intervention and stronger coordination. Additionally, juvenile arrest in San Jose decreased by five percent even as we continue to monitor concerning trends among younger youth. These results reflect the strategic shift towards early intervention, stronger partnerships, and more targeted investments in priority neighborhoods.

At the same time, we are strengthening our infrastructure, enhancing data systems, aligning with the children and youth services master plan, and advancing a no wrong door approach to better connect youth and families to services. While progress is evident, we recognize that this work requires continued focus, adaptability, and collaboration to respond to evolving trends and ensure long term impact. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Petra Rieguero and Aurelia Bailey who will walk you through the remainder of the report.

Thanks, Olympia. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. My name is Petra Rieguero. I'm the program manager for the grant making for committee impact team, which has the privilege of partnering with the many community based agencies who implement services through the best in SSIG grant programs. The San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance brings together strategy, services, and funding through three key roles, convener, direct service provider, and funder.

As the convener, we align partners at the policy team and technical team as as Olympia mentioned, like county departments, schools, San Jose police department, nonprofits, and other city departments through a coordinated approach. As a direct service provider, youth intervention services supports high risk youth through mentorship, crisis intervention, and family support. And as a funder, we invest in community based partners through BEST and SSIG grant programs. So together, this creates a coordinated continuum of care, ensuring our approach is strategic, targeted, and aligned to meet the needs of the youth and families. Next slide.

So this visual shows the full investment of PRNS for youth services within SJEA and how everything works together as one coordinated system. So in the purple are our youth intervention services, which our city staff direct support for our highest risk youth, including school based intervention, workforce development, and specialized services. In the orange are our grant programs, BEST and Safe Summer Initiative, which fund community based organizations to expand our reach into neighborhoods and schools. And in the light purple law, there was partner delivered programs providing a range of supports from prevention to intensive intervention. It's also important to note that the Trauma to triumph program has shifted back in house in youth intervention for the current twenty five, twenty six year as it strengthens the alignment with the city's overall youth violence reduction strategy, and it reinforces that trauma responses services are a core part of our approach.

So together, this ensures that youth can access the right support at the right time. So we've talked about how SJI is structured and how PRNS services are delivered. This illustrates what we are driving toward as a collective body with our partners within SJEA. So this table outlines our strategic work plan objectives, which are also aligned with children and youth services master plan. Across the top are our four pillars, prevention, intervention, diversion and reentry, and healing, which together represent a full continuum of support.

Under each, we've defined clear goals and objectives from reducing chronic absenteeism to strengthening trust and safety to increasing access to jobs and community resources. Our work is outcome driven and aligned, allowing us to track progress and adjust in real time based on what youth and communities need most. So for the prevention pillar, we've focused on reducing chronic absenteeism in priority schools, and this table compares baseline data from 2023 to 2024 to the '24, twenty five year performance. We're seeing positive progress in three of the four schools with reductions of five to seven percentage points. This reflects the impact of targeted on campus supports like daily engagement, mentorship, and family support through youth intervention services.

One school did see an increase, which reinforces the need for ongoing monitoring and tailored strategies in coordination with school administrators. Overall, these early results show that focused interventions are making a measurable difference, and we'll continue refining our approach to sustain progress. So for the intervention pillar, in in addition to prevention in schools, we're also focused on how we respond to youth violence in real time. This slide highlights progress through our safe school campus initiative. We're seeing a shift away from the most severe incidents with level one responses decreasing from forty one percent to thirty percent.

At the same time, increases in level two and three responses show that situations are being identified and addressed earlier before they escalate. We're also strengthening coordination with San Jose Police Department to better track broader trends, and this approach is helping deescalate incidents earlier and improve safety outcomes while continuing to build stronger data systems to guide this work. Now I'll turn it over to Aurelia.

Alright. Thank thank you, Petra. Good afternoon, council members and members of the public. My name is Aurelia Bailey, and I'm the division manager for the San Jose Youth Impairment Alliance. Today, I will highlight key advancements, outcomes, and where we are headed as an alliance.

For diversion and reentry, we established a baseline of 2,431 participants last year. To ensure long term success, we've aligned this work with with the Children and Youth Services Master Plan, shifting our focus from simple participation to tracking long term employment outcomes. Key highlights that's included in your memo, San Jose works, which saw a 5% increase in completions, and our clean slate tattoo removal, which expanded from 604 to 804 clients. By clearing away obstacles and teaching job skills, we are clearly helping youth build a stable future. The healing pillar redefines safety to include everyday conditions like infrastructure and housing.

Our goal is to move beyond making resources available and ensure they are truly accessible to our community. To ensure this, we've hired a senior analyst to serve as our program evaluator and data manager, tracking our impacts specifically in priority areas like Valley Palms and Plata Arroyo. A central part of this effort is the launch this January this past January in Mayfair Poco Way and Santee 7 Trees. This model ensures that no matter where a resident enters our system, they are connected to the services they need. Our key success and outcomes.

Our progress this past year proves that targeted investment works. We've seen a 3% increase in youth adult connections with ninety two percent of best participants now reporting they have a trusted adult to turn to. School engagement is also rising. Three out of four priority schools saw a 5% drop in chronic absenteeism. Safety and workforce metrics are equally encouraging.

Critical school safety incidents fell by 11%, and San Jose works, like I've mentioned in my previous slide, grew by 5%. Our progress is a direct result of strong collaboration, most significantly citywide juvenile arrest have declined by 5% since 2024. This is a milestone made possible through our unified partnership with SJPD and the alliance. Alliance. By working together, we're creating a safer community and a more supportive environment for our youth.

This past year, the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance made a significant impact by serving over 13,000 participants participants and delivering over four hundred and sixty thousand hours of dedicated service. A major highlight was the expansion of our youth intervention services, which grew to support 3,572 high risk youth through a specialized hospital based program in case management. At the same time, we've increased the reach of our best in summer and our safe summer initiative grants by as much as 12%, ensuring a complete range of support from street outreach to job rating readiness training to help our youth build a more stable and successful future. Beyond the numbers, our services are providing stability for high risk youth. 90% of school administrators credit the Safe School Campus initiative for keeping their campuses safe.

Most importantly, youth themselves fell the impacts as 92% participants of BEST and our Safe Summer Initiative programs report feeling safe and supported. These results prove that we are building trust and security for our youth need to thrive. So looking ahead for fiscal year 2025, 2026, SJS transforming into a more data driven and evidence informed program design. By expanding internal evaluation capacity, we can now provide the real time analysis needed to refine program performance and funding decision. With the 2026, 2029 best service provider list finalized and our new no wrong door framework in place, we are better equipped to target resources precisely where they are needed most To ensure coordinated citywide impact, the reestablished SJI interagency working group is aligning with city and county strategies.

We are also strengthening our direct services by bringing the Trauma to Triumph program in house and launching a summer leadership academy. Finally, I know it's not on this it's not on here, but I do wanna just let you all know that on April, we we hope for you all to join us for our youth violence prevention week. While prevention violence prevention is a year round commitment, this week serves as a special celebration for our city's collective investment in preventing violence and empowering youth. We will be at Hoffman Via Monte. Look for us at the youth empowerment zone during Viva Calle.

We will have a peace walk at the Cadillac in Winchester neighborhood, and we will also have a lunch lunch activation at Overfelt High School. These are just a few of some of our events during that week. So we do hope to see you there. Okay. Lastly, I'd like to thank our grantees, partners, and PRNS leadership team, deputy city manager Angel Rios, and our staff, for their support. We also have several of our participants here today as part of their spring break learning about civic engagement and democracy. I'll hand it back to Olympia.

With that said, that's the end of our report, and we're available for questions. Awesome.

Thank you so much for your presentation. Do you have any comments from the public?

Yes. We have 12 speaker cards. Can the first group of speakers please line up on the steps in front of the podium? Will each have two minutes to speak. The timer is displayed on the screen above. We have Jose, Perla, Lynn, Rain, and Ashley. Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Jose Pena, and I'm a participant from the youth intervention program. I attended Sonora High School, and with the help of my mentor, Chris Hernandez, I was able to graduate early at 16 years old and obtain a job after high school. If you would if you would have to ask me if I was to graduate and find a stable job at 14, I would have told you it was impossible. But thanks to the support I received, and I'm standing here sharing my achievements with you Because of the the program of youth interventions, please continue funding youth programs to help other kids like me. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Perla, and I am a participant in the female intervention program, also SJWORKS. I attend Oak Grove High School, and I work with Sadi. I have been with the program for almost half a year. This program has actually made a great impact in my life because this program has helped me realize my own potential. Before I didn't think I was capable of achieving my own goals, but now I have the confidence and skill to proceed them. I have also gotten a job with SJ Works and thanks to my mentor, Sadi and Giovanni from SJ Works. I invest I invested my money into starting my own business as a lash artist. Please continue prioritizing and founding for any other youth program. Thank you for our

time. Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. Good afternoon, city council members. I'm from Silver Creek High School, and my mentor is Sadi Flores. I just wanted to tell you the achievements I've made throughout the year being at this program with the youth female intervention. My grades have definitely improved. I've gone to sports, and I've also got a job at SJ Works that really helped me with things I wanted to get. And I still want you guys to, prioritize funding this program because this has really helped me improve with things. And yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker?

Good afternoon, councilor members. My name is Rain and I was a participant in San Jose works. I attend Antwerp Hill High School and work with Giovanna Verdin. During my time in the program, I learned how to show up on time, communicate with others, and take my work seriously. These skills that helped me in school and my future jobs.

And thanks to the support to the staff, especially Giovanna, I felt encouraged and guided every step of the way. She helped me stay confident, ask questions, and push myself to do better. Because of this program, I now feel more prepared for my future and motivated to keep working hard towards my goals. Please continue prioritizing funding for this youth programs like San Jose works because opportunities like this truly help young people like me grow and succeed. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. The next group of speakers to make their way down, Ray, Lisette, Urania, and Alyssa Marie. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Ashley Tamayo, and I was a participant in the youth intervention program. I attend Luis Valdez High School and worked with my mentor, Sari. I have been with the program for a year and a half. This program has made an impact on my life by helping me improve my relationship with my mother. They gave me a support system I really needed. My grades have improved. My school attendance has increased, and I am participating in positive activities like basketball and cheer, staying and staying away from negative environments. I have also found a job with San Jose Works, thanks to my mentor, Sari. I also attend girls group I also attended girls group through the female intervention team.

That is where they helped me understand how to set healthy boundaries with significant others. They provided resources to stay safe while being in relationship with partners. All the staff was always very respectful and loving, and I appreciate everything they do for our community. And I hold a special place in my heart for them all. Please continue prioritizing funding for youth programs. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Alyssa Marie, and I'm a participant in the Clean Sleep program. I have been with the program since May 2025 and have worked alongside youth outreach specialist, Vanessa Lopez, and youth outreach worker, Phoebe Hipholtan. This program has made such a positive impact on my life, providing me with the opportunity to start back at a clean slate from poor decisions I have made some time ago. Unfortunately, we are always under the judgment of others, and I personally have felt like I have been looked at a certain way because of my tattoos.

When we are young, we sometimes don't think about how certain things will affect us later on. You never know what you want until you have it and either want more or better for yourself. In my case, I wanted better and I'm doing better for myself. I am a behavior technician working at an elementary school in the Fremont District. I encounter lots of county workers, district employees, parents, and, of course, children whom I wanted to present a more professional appearance and version of myself. And thanks to Clean Slate for helping me to do so. Please continue prioritizing funding for youth programs as they are vital in bettering our community in the long run. Thank you for your time and all that you do to support the community's

youth. Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Lisa Castaneda, and I've been part of the Clean Slate Tattoo Removal for the past seven years, and it truly gave me a second chance in life. There was a time where I made poor choices that didn't reflect who I really was. I carry tattoos that reminded me of that past, and I feel like they would follow me forever and limit my future. But this program changed them.

As those tattoos were removed, I started gaining my confidence back and started believing in myself. I'm a mother, and that means everything to me. I don't want my children to repeat my mistakes. I want them to see that changes is possible no matter where you come from. Because of this program, I was able to move forward and achieve something that I always dreamed of, and that was becoming a nurse. I graduated from San Francisco State University.

Today sorry. This this really means a lot to me. Today, I just wanna thank this program because I know people would have looked at me differently. I just wanna say to continue funding this program. Sorry. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. The next group of speakers to make their way down, Danica, Antonio, and Connie. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Danica Cote, and I'm an active participant in the Clean Slate program. I'm a student in San Jose City College in their alcohol and drug counseling program. I've been with Clean Slate since last year, and this program has greatly impacted my mental health as well as my opportunities for professional growth. How people perceive you affects every area of your life, and having certain tattoos can limit your potential.

When many people look at me and see my tattoos, they automatically assume me to be unprofessional or untrustworthy, which in turn lowers my confidence. Being in this program has helped me maintain a four point o GPA, a spot on the president's list, and an invitation of Pi Theta Kappa, an international honor society. Without CleanState, I never would have had the ability to remove my tattoos and work with their amazing staff one on one, for which I'm so grateful. They have been a huge factor in my educational success and sobriety from fentanyl. Please consider prioritizing funding for them and other youth programs. Thank you. Next speaker.

I have, written down on my phone, so I apologize.

Hello.

My name is Iranya. I am 21 years old, and I have a two year old daughter named Penelope. I am currently studying at West Valley College and majoring in child development. I work as a student teacher, and I also participate in many resources, programs, and support groups. I am actively involved in my Christian church.

I am survivor of domestic violence and single mom. The clean slate program has supported me both emotionally and physically. The program is supporting removal of my tattoos that will reflect the way I am treated and my job opportunities. My future is secure, and I am offered the opportunity to move past my physical appearance and past challenges onto a hopeful future free of reminders of my body. The program is giving young adults the opportunity to repent and start over, create a new beginning in their lives where they are able to remove a tattoo that may be challenging for them and damaging their mental health and barriers to their future success.

While clean sleep program officer focuses on supporting young minors, adults focusing motivating, encouraging them to be productively active in their goals, create future generational beginnings for themselves and their children. The opportunity to pursue in this program is allowing feelings of hope to arise, create and create real application to life change in these young lives. A change that starts with seeking support. Having a program like this motivates, influences, and encourages young adults, minors, families, and communities not to not be discouraged or identified by what they have done in their past, but by what they will begin to do from today moving forward. By these programs support and god's will in their life.

Supporting programs like these save life.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Antonio Sotelo. I'm 23 years old, and I'm with Clean Slate tattoo removal program. And I recently got released. I've been I was locked up from 16 all the way to 23, and this program is helping me remove my tattoos. And it's giving me the second chance that I I want and that I need, and, pretty much it. Didn't really came here. But thank you, guys. Thank

you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Connie Bustillo. I'm a clean slate participant, and I'm also a youth intervention, gang prevention former employee for the late night gym program. I wanna say Clean Slate has made a positive positive impact in multiple areas of my life as well as the life of my former case management client, Shay. Clean Slate helped me leave behind parts of myself that I outgrew and embrace my new growth and wisdom.

It helped me refine my personal and professional brand. I feel more confident in the workplace and with accomplishing my future goals of becoming a county employee in the child welfare department and future foster parent within the next few years. I am a former foster youth who emancipated at the age of 18. And programs like Clean Slate have immense have been immensely helpful to someone like me. I believe in the power of using community resources to improve, one's life and help others do the same.

As a case manager for Abode, where I have worked for, going on six years, I referred my, client Shay to the Clean Slate program as he is a survivor of gang violence. He suffered a gang related attack that put him in a coma for six months and left him permanently disabled. He has mobility issues and some speech related issues. Shay made the choice to leave that life behind him some years ago, but was still at risk of gang related physical violence due to his gang related tattoos. It's important to Shay to stay out of trouble and that his kids not follow his footsteps. Shay has two sons and a daughter. Today, he can confidently tell his kids he has changed.

That's your time. You got two minutes? Thank you. I've called all the names. If you did not hear your name, please make your way down. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Ray. I'm a current staff here at the youth intervention services. I appreciate you guys for allowing us all to speak today. I'm not only representing the Safe Schools and Clean Slate programs as a staff, but I'm also an alumni to both programs. Just as these youth behind me grew up in not so great circumstances, and I found myself in things that I shouldn't have even known as a youth. Beginning in elementary school, I was introduced to the gang lifestyle and found a sense of belonging in it. It wasn't until my later years in high school that I was introduced to the city of San Jose's mentors. Back then, it was not called Safe Schools. The program was very different yet still impactful.

They showed me where my life was currently by introducing their background and familiarizing how their past how both of our past align. Then they showed me the two paths I could choose. One of the past began a life of imprisonment, injustice, and possibly death, or a life of prosperity and having a future of things that I never thought I could achieve. In the way the program gave me the vision I needed to see my future, it helped me show that there were things beyond my neighborhood that I can do. Now that I'm a little older and a lot wiser, and with my experience behind me, I'm able to portray the message that was once given to me to my youth.

It's now my turn to propel their futures forward. Before doing this though, there were a few barriers I had to get past. One of them being my tattoos. I was so stressed thinking about the choices I made and how it was too late until one day a friend of mine was going in on me about how messed up my tattoos were and introduced me to a new outlet. Once again, I found myself in the doors of the city of San Jose's youth intervention team.

I met with a woman named Solchi who made me feel super comfortable and reminded me that these tattoos are not a reflection of me anymore. The feeling I had once seeing my bare skin again, I can only be described as free. I know it sounds cliche, but this program really did give me the clean start that I desperately needed. I thank you once more for hearing me out. It's been an honor to be able to stand up here and speak not only on my experience, but also to

Thank you. Back to the committee.

Thank you so much. Now I just want to thank all of our our participant speakers for taking the time to be here to provide public comment. You've made this meeting very special to me, and I think very special to all of our colleagues that are up here on the dais. But especially to me because I was a former participant of Clean Slate and Work to Future. And back then, it wasn't called Safe Schools, but the Safe Schools Program.

You know, I I joined a gang at the age of 12. I was active in gangs till 24. I've made some definitely some tough mistakes, but the city had a huge part of my ability and able to turn my life around. And I know that I heard someone speak in regards to, know, just individuals passing judgment on people with tattoos. You know, I have tattoos all over my body, my back of my head, my legs, my neck, my formerly my hands.

But, know, through the clean slate program now, I I don't have the ones on my hands anymore. And, you know, I'll just advise you to never let anybody try to put you in a box because, you know, you you could be the next council member here and making the rules for the city of San Jose. Just was it was very touching and and beautiful to hear all of your stories because when I hear you, I see myself when I went through the program. And so I just really wanna thank you all for for making the time. And really, you are, in my opinion, the heroes here in the city of San Jose.

Wanna just start also by recognizing, you know, the clear intentional focus on my district, East San Jose, for the great work that's being done in in this organization. It's important these communities have faced a long standing lack of investment, and it's good to see resources directed in ways that reflect that that reality. And I know that from personal experience that, like I just mentioned right now, that these programs have real impact. They help young people stay connected, stay on track, and see a different pathway forward. And I've seen firsthand how access to mentorship, and it's great hearing everyone mention who their mentors are, really happy about that, a sense of community and op and how opportunity can change the trajectory of someone's life.

And that's really what this work is is all about. That's why I ran for office before I was a council member. I was on the school board, and my main focus was youth intervention and youth advocacy. And so looking at this report, I'm glad to see the strong outcomes here. And I think, you know, it would be foolish of us not to realize that the reason why we are one of the the safest, largest city in The United States is because we've been working hard on this.

And it's thanks to the Youth Empowerment Alliance, you know, the Clean Slave program, our library programs, our community center services that have brought us here. You know, and we're we are seeing increased connection to caring adults in our areas, reduction in chronic absenteeism across our priority schools, and few of the most serious school incidents. I was really happy to see that in in the data, especially decline in juvenile arrests. We're also seeing more young people engaging in workforce programs, and importantly, completing them. You know?

That's not just about starting, you have to follow through. That follow through is critical, and it speaks to the strength of these programs and their ability to reintegrate young people who might otherwise have been incarcerated or unfortunately have been targeted by the criminal justice system in in their neighborhoods. And we know that these results don't just happen by accident, you know, they're the product of these intentional investments, strong partnerships between city and schools, city and county, and of course, our community based organizations, whether it's City Peace Project, New Hope for Youth, so many to to name, but I know that there's so many best participants, funding app app receivers that that provide support to our our most in need youth. At the same time, the broader trends we're seeing, both nationally and locally, are still concerning. Right?

We're doing good, but it's still concerning. Especially what we've seen as a increase in violence on the West Side of our city, whether that's Cadillac, you know, Santana Row, or or Monterey. You know, and and and we're seeing these trends where younger people are becoming more involved in violence and more young people are entering the system for the first time. And we know that disruptions like school closures, which my district is experiencing, I think a lot of our districts have experienced, only are adding to that instability. So while we've made progress, the need is still very real and in some ways is growing.

That's why continued investment in programs like BEST and these intervention services is so critical, even and especially in difficult budget years. You know, I know that this Brown Act well, actually everyone on this diocese is part of the same Budget Brown Act. We attempted to expand the best funding during the most recent budget debate. Unfortunately, we weren't successful, but I think that's why it's so important to hear voices of individuals who are who are hearing and and who are benefiting from these programs. If if those council members who aren't in this room heard from you, I guarantee you, we would have been successful.

The these are the kind of investments that save us money in the long run by reducing involvement in the justice system, by improving educational outcomes, and by creating more stable pathways in the in the work in the workplace. The reality is this is a moment to lean in. We should be finding ways to do more so we can build on build on the progress we're seeing and reach the young people who still aren't connected to these resources. And so I just wanna really elevate staff. Thank you so much.

I know Petra was leading the Clean Slate program when I went through that that system, and I'm glad to see she's still exercising her leadership here at the city of San Jose. You know, this is the kind of coordinated intentional approach I think we need to keep building on. And so I just do, using the privilege of the chair, I do have some questions before my colleagues are you guys, but this is an important topic to me. I know that in the previous conversation, Andrea had mentioned concerns about reduction of funds due to budget shortfalls, whether it's city, county. I know that a lot of these programs receive support from various different funding outlets.

What does potential budget shortfalls look like for these programs and what are we what plans do we have to to offset that?

We are working through with the budget office finalizing what the proposed budget looks like, but we have been very intentional with them about very limited, very limited to minimal cuts that would impact intervention, as well as our nonprofit grant programs. So I believe with the cut that PRNS got, there's

sort of

across the board impact, but we have been very intentional again with the budget office and CMO that intervention, youth, children, and youth services would be very, very minimal, and we're hoping it's not felt or seen.

Okay. Well, good. I'm glad, and I know that as the budget forward, myself and my colleagues are a resource and happy to brainstorm how to make sure we're limiting, any sort of impacts because, know, as I think Angel mentioned, the city is making large investments in law enforcement. But in that same conversation, law enforcement respond to crime. They don't necessarily prevent it.

It's these these are the programs that are reaching out to our kids, going into our neighborhoods, whether it's Mayfair, Capital Park in my district, or, you know, 7 Trees in District 7, and actually having relationships with these youth. And that's how you truly, you know, stop a bullet, you know, by by building relationships and providing alternatives. And, you know, I do wanna acknowledge we're not at the level where it was in the nineties or the February. You know, we had some issues at James Lick last couple years. There was a stabbing.

But really, when I was in a high school, I went to Independence High School, there was like stabbings every other week. And people were jumping in who didn't even go to Independence High School with bars and bats. And so I'm glad we're not there. But how we how we stay on this pathway is by maintaining our our trajectory and and investing in that. Because what I would hate to have is, you know, we make it a decision like having to make cuts and then we lose this progress on being the safest largest city. Because I know that in in reality, it's many of these programs that make that a a reality. Okay. Thank you. I believe And and thank you so much for your work and thank you for everyone. I will go to council member Campos.

Thank you, chair. And thank you for starting us off with a a really important conversation and a conversation that as you said is really meaningful to so many of us in the room both on the dais and in the public, so just to staff I want to start off and thank you all as a former educator. I understand that the partnership between our city and those who serve our youth is so critical and so appreciated and sometimes it it goes without hearing a thank you. So I just want you all to hear a thank you because when I'm meeting with my principals this work matters, Right? At Oak Grove School District, Davis Intermediary, our principal called out Safe Schools Campus as one of those programs that she would hate to see our city cut or eliminate funding to.

This work matters to our neighborhood leaders, right? The best and the safe summer grants are lifelines in our communities, and it's what brings some of our neighborhood associations together, and so I really just want to acknowledge the tremendous success that this program has created in our community, and I also want to acknowledge and uplift the healing component, which is sometimes not not at the front and center of the work, and it is still so important. In the Silicon Valley, we all know the hustle culture that we have to live in. Folks are struggling to pay their bills. They are trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and sometimes we overlook the importance of mental health.

And sometimes our children and our youth have to grow up too fast, And I'm inspired by the strength, the resilience, and the hope that you all shared today with your stories. I just want to share with you all that I am now in my early thirties, and one thing I've learned is that the most important relationship you can have is the relationship you have with yourself. And as a child who also felt that I had to grow up too fast, I'm I'm proud of the investments that you're all making in maybe healing your inner child, becoming that adult that you know you can be because that's that's what we need in our community. We need our children and our youth to be strong. You are our future.

I truly believe that our our wealth in our city is our people and the best investment we can make is in our children and our youth. So you have a strong advocate in me, and I I just really really appreciate you all coming to amplify the importance of this investment in our city. And with that, I'll I'll move this report. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you so much. Then council member Candelas.

No. Thank you for the report. I appreciate staff's comments, but, you know, I just wanted to address all the young people who are here and everybody who came out to speak. You know, I I'm I'm a proud product of of East East San Jose, and, you know, I would never have came came out in a public setting at your age to to speak on on behalf of any issue. So I I it means a lot seeing you all here, and I know it's hard.

It's tough, but but it's appreciated from where's two year old Penelope? She's I know she wanted to hop on the mic. And also Perla, who Angel and I were commenting, you're gonna make big money on the lashes. We know. You know, so keep that hustle.

And I know I know it's tough and it's it's difficult to balance all the all the pressures, not just from, you know, the the negative the negative forces around us, but but for for just getting by. Everything is so expensive. Like, gas is what, $7 a gallon now. So so it's hard. But this this program and this is to staff and the administration for for folks is this is the the the public safety investments that we make and the fruits that we sow in the future, in the near future.

And so, you know, as we talk about a $56,000,000 deficit, as we talk about identifying cuts. And I know in the previous presentation we were talking about the county's budget, our budget is just as difficult. And I would highly urge if the administration is looking at redirecting, cutting, looking at this program, look elsewhere. And I can say that and yes, this is our budget brown eye group that we've we've we try and we will advocate for more more funds for programs centered around youth. But it's a public safety investment and it's an investment in keeping our community safe and keeping that title that folks love to tout of the safe is big city.

And so if we're serious about it, we will fund it. So thank you again to the young people. I had some questions about some other stuff, but I'll just leave it at that. And I will throw another thing out there before I wrap up is, you know, we do have pockets in our city that are high need. We talk about the pilot sites for for the youth children youth services programming.

But, you know, in my district, we look at Brigadoon, Meadowfair, Welch Park and even other parts of our city. We do have pockets and, you know, there's people that may not live in quote unquote the East Side, but there's still areas that are still high need. You look at Cadillac Winchester in District 1, that's West San Jose, but it's still a high needs area. And so let's let's think about how we strategize around identifying and or helping those youth that are at risk in those areas that are not quote unquote priority in those neighborhoods that are not priority and how we tackle and identify those. Yes, there's no wrong door.

We have a Children's Youth Services Master Plan that encapsulates this strategy, but I just wanted to throw that out there for staff that I am thinking about that, and it it is something that that I am mindful of it as as you are as well. This is something that you all have talked about before, and Angel, I know we've talked about this.

Yeah.

Yeah. Counsel, you know, one thing I'd like to underscore here, because I think something that just kinda just observing kinda like listening to the report by staff and then listening to the public comment kinda just of triggered something in me. And that is that and Andre, you used the term you said beyond the numbers. And I know we're in a very data driven environment, right, where we like to quantify everything, qualify everything. And I'm big numbers guy too, so I support it.

But I think it's also important to also understand what we don't count in numbers. And what you see beyond the numbers is this whole process of you know, of personal healing, personal transformation, and overcoming, which doesn't, you know, translate into a statistic. But you heard it today. Right? And is a lot of folks are kind of in that process.

And you can't put a dollar value on that. Right? And what makes it I've got to tell you, maybe this is little therapeutic for me or whatever, but what makes it very difficult to have these conversations these settings is that what you see in motion right here is harm reduction and access to opportunity kind of happening at the same time. And harm reduction you can't quantify harm reduction. You can't say, well, this crime would have happened had they not taken this decision.

Right? And so that makes it very difficult. But the one thing that we are shifting towards as a staff, as an administration, as a city via the Children Youth Master Plan, via programs such as this, is really looking at how do we minimize harm and how do we increase access to opportunity. Because we know that the data is very clear, that if you increase access to opportunity, that's the best antidote to poverty. Right?

The more opportunity you have it's so commonsensical, right? The math is so simple on that one. And so I guess I'm just sharing that because as we have these conversations going forward, we're not going to always be able to quantify every single thing. But I think what you heard today is the power of that investment in an unquantifiable manner. So I feel better.

Sorry. Can I just add? Yeah, I do want to note a good point you made, Councilmember Candelas, about priority neighborhoods. So as Aurelia mentioned, we just finalized our eligible provider list for the next triennial period for '26 through '29. And so we have 52 eligible providers for our tier two services, which is those that serve kind of the higher risk youth.

And then we have five eligible providers for that highest risk youth, which is tier three. So within that process, we have another iteration of priority neighborhoods, actually priority locations. So we're looking at neighborhoods and priority schools. And so the process to identify those neighborhoods is data driven, we're looking at crime data, graffiti data, but we're also collecting qualitative information, so those groups that are out there in the communities doing the work, we're getting input from them, And so we have about 26 total neighborhoods that have been identified across the city, and we do have them, and I can share those the new list with you, and we'll be working with our nonprofit agencies to determine who will who will serve those areas. And then for priority schools, looked at chronic absenteeism, suspension rates, and we were working with school districts and schools to identify the need and get their input and the highest priority for those school districts.

Just to add that.

Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I I just want to, you know, elevate and and piggyback off your your comments. Council member Condellis, think given that I I represent kind of like East Side proper, my district does, you know, see a lot of these resources.

But, you know, just as important as as Capital Park or or Pokoe is, you know, Meadowfair or, you know, 7 Trees or or, you know, Via Monte, of course. You know what I mean? And so we need to make sure that we're we're able to provide, you know, some sort of minimum viable product or or, you know, package services to all these neighborhoods because focus on one area and then while we're focused over here, then some stuff ends up happening over there. And so but I I know that our city, we have the right people working on this. Council member Dewan. Thank

you, chair. You know as a father of three children I understand the the problematic and and all the needs. And I tell you this, I I heard some of your speakers and your courage is amazing. It's inspiring as an empowering not only to me but my colleagues and and other news out there. And so I believe this we we shouldn't.

You know, no child should be left behind. Even though we have pilot program over Santee and and and seven tree in in in my areas, but it's never enough because there was always some young kid That needs that little bit of extra service or to reach out to pull them out of that darkness. To. To become a leader in our community. I don't think we invest enough.

Because. You guys are in your twenties. Think of thirty forty fifty years from now. How can we change that vision that we have. That no child is left hungry. No child is without education. No child being bully. In our, you know, a world as it is. And obviously our our federal government did not show us that. It's a bad example for all of us.

It's not a way that we should have our community. And, you know, back to the the basic needs. Right? When. Parents are working two or three jobs. It is extremely hard to be there with their child because they're putting the food on the table. They're putting a roof over their head. And I think that back to the basics when a child have all the needs are met. Meaning from having love, having not being hungry, having the support. Only then you can concentrate on growing.

And I ask that, you know, we, we as, as community leaders continue to, you know, especially in our Brown Act, we would all agree on the same thing. It's about our youth. It's about our future. And then how how do we fight for that funding? How do we inspire and empower just like these young people have have the courage to speak today? And and I say, I wanna say thank you to our staff that does incredible work. Thank you to the the young people that that inspire me today and your courage. Thank you again.

Thank you so much vice chair. Coming back to council member Campos.

Thank you, chair. I didn't think I any I had any questions, I do have just one. Just given that we are in our March or in our budget Brown Act group and in the mayor's March budget message, there was, I believe direction to preserve funding for these programs. So I'm curious if staff can clarify the status of implementing that direction.

Yes, so again through conversations with the budget office and the CMO, we think the proposed budget will again get to some preservation of anything that might have been proposed originally. But we also I think that direction is also embedded in the use of the $500,000 for kind of all things children and youth master plan and youth empowerment alliance. So we're taking that into consideration. So again, you would see something back in our MBA if we needed to make something whole. But again, I'm feeling pretty optimistic that we're in a good place without Appreciate saying much

that.

Thank you so much. I believe we have a motion, so let's move forward with a vote. Alright. Unanimous. Thank you so much, and thank you for the presentation. Okay. Moving on to another exciting topic, code enforcement annual report. And this is by Rachel Roberts. I'm gonna have to use the restroom real quick. I'll be back.

Good afternoon. Should I wait for the chair? Okay. So good afternoon, chair and committee members. I'm Rachel Roberts, deputy director for planning, building, and code enforcement.

And I'm joined today by Alex Powell, our department chief of staff, and I'll be presenting the code enforcement annual report. You have me there? Thank you. So our work over the past year and a half was shaped by a clear challenge, growing demand for service and expanded responsibilities while working with constrained resources and systems that hadn't kept pace. This had led to higher caseloads, slower response times, and an added strain on our ability to consistently deliver the level of service that our community expects.

But it also created a clear opportunity and responsibility for us to evolve. Our vision 2030 is to become a trusted, fully resourced, and data driven division, one that delivers prompt, consistent, and effective enforcement through modern tools, efficient processes, and strong partnerships. At its core, this vision is about strengthening community confidence and ensuring we are responsive to the needs of our residents. To move in that direction, our focus has been on building a more strategic and sustainable foundation, approving our processes and how we prioritize our work, investing in systems and tools, and strengthening our operational capacity so we can deliver better outcomes over the long term. So over the past eighteen months, we've made meaningful progress in advancing this approach.

This annual report will provide an update on that progress, highlighting our fiscal year twenty four, twenty five accomplishments, the transformation progress over the last eighteen months, the status of our key initiatives, and a look ahead as we move into the next fiscal year. As we reflect on fiscal year twenty four twenty five, it was a pivotal year as we built the foundation for improvement. We first held the city council study session in January where we owned our challenges and established the initial improvement framework to streamline, prioritize, invest. This was followed by an operational assessment completed in May that identified three key areas or themes for transformation, which developed into a two year code transformation work plan. While advancing the transformation efforts, we also continued to deliver our core services to the community and advance ongoing work, including city council directed initiatives.

Even with the transformations efforts underway, core service delivery remained our priority. The slide here shows our performance responding to complaints, managing case loads, and addressing violations across the city with the continued demand and the team's commitment to maintaining service delivery. Across all programs, we opened 70 or excuse me, 7,800 new cases and closed 7,300 cases. We issued 727 citations and completed 43 of community outreach and engagement. We inspected over 1,700 multiple housing buildings and over 8,200 multiple housing units, resolving 8,389 violations.

We opened over 3,300 general code cases and resolved just over 3,200 cases with the 61% of those cases closed within our standard processing timelines. We exceeded our priority and routine initial inspection response targets for a second year in a row, reaching 79% for priority and 70% for our routine initial response target. We conducted over a thousand required special program inspections, and we continue to provide support services for fireworks, illegal dumping, mobile vendors, and we incorporated tree mitigation enforcement, which was just implemented this past fiscal year. In parallel, we advanced improvement efforts focused on prioritizing enforcement on problem properties, streamlining the enforcement processes, and expanding enforcement tools, reflecting our shift towards a more proactive and strategic approach, and helping us to focus resources where they have the greatest impact. We continued our focus on blighted and chronically vacant properties, implementing the operationalizing downtown strategy and our interdepartmental working group.

We increased the use of administrative and legal enforcement tools such as receiverships and public nuisance lawsuits. We prioritized high impact cases for the appeals hearing board and legal escalation, and we implemented the appeals hearing board horizon report and a biweekly tracking tool to ensure that cases remained ready for the board and stayed on track. As a result of these efforts, we saw a 258% increase in appeals hearing board cases in fiscal year twenty four-twenty five, bringing the total for the year to 43. We also advanced efforts to manage cases and overall workload more efficiently. We developed two new case management tools, the pipeline report and the last action report, which for the first time gave us clear visibility into our workload at both the program and inspector level.

These tools show showed us where each case is in the enforcement process and allowed us to identify the most recent action taken. We also conducted a GIS based workload rebalancing effort which reduced general code inspector caseload variation from a wide range of 200 to 450 cases per inspector to a more consistent two to two fifty cases per inspector, creating a more balanced and manageable distribution of work. We incorporated special programs cross training to improve efficiency and build capacity to meet operational needs. And lastly, why we were not able to meet our fiscal year target of reducing the year over year open general code caseload volume by 3%, we slowed the general code caseload growth to only 1% compared to recent year growth of 56%. Following the operational assessment in May 2025, we focused on refining the scope of our transformation work plan and defining a clear implementation strategy.

The plan is built around three core themes and recommendations from the assessment with a two year implementation horizon beginning in July 2025. The scope was expanded to include a fourth theme, organizational readiness and leadership, to support change management and strengthen communication with staff and key stakeholders. We intentionally incorporated ongoing and council directed initiatives to ensure alignment and coordinated execution. To manage this work, we adopted a scrum based approach with clear quarterly objectives and key results. Given the volume of work already underway and our capacity constraints, it was critical that the scrum based approach not only organized the work but helped us to prioritize, align, and track progress.

We designed our objectives and key results to optimize our resources, maximize outcomes across division priorities, and align with our service delivery goals while continuing to incorporate those council directed initiatives. We also established clear measures of progress for our quarterly goals at 100% complete, greater than 60% complete, and less than 60% complete. As of Q3, we're seeing steady progress. 45% of our key results have been completed, another 26% are well underway at more than 60% complete, and another 29% in earlier stages with less than 60% complete. Consistent with the scrum based approach, key results were not modified once established for the quarter.

As priorities evolved, some key results became misaligned with available resources and operational needs resulting in lower levels of completion. Focusing in on our work time accomplishment over the past three quarters, we have highlighted some of the key improvements that we have made thus far. Starting with theme one or objective one, develop and optimize the workforce. We have made important strides towards stabilizing staffing, strengthening training, and improving our organizational structure, which all factor into the quality and timeliness of our services. We advanced staffing and recruitment for critical roles with the planned onboarding of a transformation manager in April, a community engagement supervisor onboarding in May, the division manager recruitment concluding and onboarding in June, and the onboarded of retiree hire already on staff to help support Codex.

We started work on a classification assessment, including a job classification survey for all staff, and we implemented an annual training plan in July that provides new and refresher trainings to staff in areas such as case management best practices and inspection protocols. Moving on to the second theme, operational and program performance, this theme focused on improving how we deliver services on the day to day basis. With the recommendations to set a strategic vision for the division, we developed a five year strategic plan incorporating the operational assessment recommendations as well as key initiatives, and as part of that, developed a working strategic vision, the vision 2030 I shared earlier, to guide operations until a new strategic vision developed in partnership with the community and key stakeholders is established. We developed the chronic offender resolution and enforcement pilot program, which aims to address chronic violators and pro problem properties and reduce repeat violations, expediting enforcement, preventing legacy cases and nuisance properties, and improving overall responsiveness while ensuring fairness and due process. With this pilot just launched in March 2026, following the development of program materials, policies and procedures, we are beginning to process cases and evaluate for criteria.

While originally only focused to While originally planned to only focus on new cases, we have expanded the program to include current cases that meet the defined criteria. Our plan is to evaluate the pilot program in September to analyze its effectiveness, make improvements, identify any resource needs, and determine potential scalability to other programs such as multiple housing. As part of the recommendation to update policies to support strategic enforcement, we updated our escalating enforcement policy to provide clearer procedures and a more structured step by step framework to ensure consistent and timely enforcement. The policy establishes defined timelines, a formal escalation process, expanded criteria for the city attorney referrals, and greater inspector discretion supported by tools designed to improve consistency and decision making. The policy was rolled out to staff in September 2025, and we've already seen measurable progress in moving cases through the enforcement process.

As shown in the diagram provided here, when comparing the Q2 data from the fiscal year twenty four-twenty five to the current Q2 of this year, we see that cases are moving out of the investigation and warning phases and into enforcement phases such as citation, appeals hearing board, compliance or compliance order, or even compliance in greater numbers. While demand remains high, we are beginning to see improvements as operational changes take hold, suggesting we're moving in the right direction. Staff also implemented the aged case triage project earlier this fiscal year with the goal of systematically reviewing cases with no recorded activity for two years or more and advancing cases toward resolution through either reactivation, escalation to enforcement, or case closure. While we initially identified twelve sixteen cases for review, as of January 2026, we have reduced the number of inactive cases to 893. In December, we also implemented Freshdesk, which is a help desk application that consolidated three of our main inboxes into a single shared workspace, allowing our staff to manage and prioritize and respond and resolve service requests and increase more efficiently.

This has allowed us to track incoming service requests, reducing staff time and improving responsiveness. Reports over the first ninety days of implementation showed good progress with all service requests addressed within fourteen working hours or less. We have continued our work on our Code X project to replace our legacy case management system. While many project objectives have been completed, the project timeline has been extended with the current go live in July 2027. The project delays have been driven primarily by resource constraints, excuse me, resource constraints, technical challenges, and greater than anticipated complexity.

Limited staffing, the challenge of balancing project work with day to day responsibilities, limited support capacity from partner departments, the age and the condition of the division's legacy system, the overall project scope and complexity that were initially underestimated, and our involving business needs including the new requirements from our transformation work have added to the level of effort required. Currently, we are in the process of a contract amendment to update project scope, revised timeline, and aligned deliverables to address some of these factors, and also complete a mail merge project for the existing system to preserve its functionality until go live. There has also been work underway in the area of theme three to increase our customer service and communication. A key goal of this objective is to strengthen partnerships with other city departments and divisions that we frequently coordinate with, but may not have limited regular formal opportunities for direct communication and information sharing. This year, we focused on two critical partnerships, finance and the city attorney's office.

In December, we implemented shared monthly reporting of outstanding code enforcement invoices to improve our transparency and support collection efforts. In January, we launched biweekly finance and code coordination series meetings focusing on two initial objectives, to strengthen and improve collection rates and improve invoicing processes, coordination, and systems integration. In partnership with the city attorney's office, we're in the process of creating an interdepartmental tracking tool to document cases referred to the city attorney for litigation and other legal support. And we've also expanded our code city attorney biweekly meetings to include two newly assigned attorneys, one litigator and a transactional attorney. Our final theme focuses on organizational readiness and leadership to ensure we have the structure, alignment, and leadership capacity to sustain improvements over the long term.

While there's still more work to do in this area, we have already made good steps forward. We implemented our executive sponsor oversight of our work plan implementation. We published two key informational memorandums. We're keeping staff informed through division and monthly staff team meetings, and we developed a code enforcement transformation story of progress framework to identify more opportunities to communicate transformation progress and milestones to staff and throughout the organization. In addition to our core service delivery and work plan implementation, we've also advanced city council initiatives, which you are very familiar.

Staff was directed to increase our maximum administrative penalties and complete a fine study of our administrative citation fines. In August 2025, we brought forward an ordinance amendment increasing per maximum administrative penalties from 2,500 to $20,000 per violation, and a total maximum administrative penalty of up to $500,000. In February, we completed part one of the fine study Guidehouse Consulting, and we'll be moving into part two where staff will continue benchmarking and analysis and develop proposed fine amendments to bring to city council for consideration next fiscal year. As you know, we also completed the abandoned shopping cart pilot program in November 2025 where we gained insights on a proactive model, pain points and challenges of our current processes and hotspot areas, and also made improvements to cart related operations. We advanced work on the tobacco retail license temporary moratorium work plan.

While staffing vacancies have delayed progress in this area, we continue to make progress as best we can for this important work. In April in this this month, April of this year, we'll in the process of onboarding our retiree rehire, and we are in the process of issuing our cease and desist letters to the 80 known unpermitted businesses to begin enforcement. In May, we'll be working to finalize our interagency procedures and workflow and present to those agencies for review. Now in in quarter four of this fiscal year, our focus will be to continue to complete our key results in support of our objectives and advance remaining priorities and continue to stabilize operations. As we prepare for next fiscal year, we will conduct a comprehensive review of outstanding key results, the status of our council directed initiatives, and emerging division priorities to inform our fiscal year twenty six, twenty seven work plan objective and key results.

We will continue to refine and communicate the transformation progress to staff, key stakeholders, city council, and the community, and plan to provide another status update next fiscal year through the code enforcement annual report. Looking ahead, staff is committed to continue progress on the code enforcement transformation work plan to strengthen our service delivery, to improve customer satisfaction and community confidence, to advance key priorities in a deliberate and sustainable manner, to improve our capacity to coordinate and execute priority initiatives as key positions are filled and stabilized, and build on the foundation for a more efficient, responsive, and sustainable enforcement program. So in conclusion, I'd like to thank our Code Transformation scrum team for their unwavering commitment in advancing this work. This includes Alex Powell, Raymond Ho, Amber Zink, Maria Diaz Perez, Rick Arnaz, Laura Sanders, and Ecebio Esvidia. I also would like to thank assistant to city manager Peter Hamilton and our executive sponsors, Chris Burton and Angel Rios, for their continued support.

And with that, I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Rachel, for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

No public comment.

Okay. Now I see my colleague council member Casey has his hand up. Thank

you chair Ortiz. Thank you for the report. There's clearly a lot of thoughtful work underway to improve operations and use data more effectively. But one area I'd like to better understand is how much staff time is going towards manual processes. The memo notes things like reports taking weeks to produce by a supervisor, staff needing to manually review cases to determine status, and significant efforts on data cleanup.

It seems like there's a lot of time and staff capacity going to manual items as opposed to actual enforcement. In addition to the technology like Codex, is there a plan or a timeline to reduce manual efforts?

Thank you for the question. So that is in direct relation to our ability to bring Codecs online. Our current system is very much legacy system, operating system from the nineties. And so as a result of that, we have some pretty significant limitations that we're kind of forced to do it manually until we have something better in place. So there is a plan and effort underway to do our best to bring codex online as quickly as possible.

So Codecs would prevent, for example, the supervisors taking weeks to do a report and all that?

Absolutely. It's going to provide us quite a significant number of improvements in terms of data and reporting capabilities, but also providing dashboards at the inspector level, the supervisor level, the the manager level. We don't have any of that insight right now using our current system. And And the work we've done to create reports to gain that insight has, yes, it's very cumbersome. But we'd like to think that the is definitely, or excuse me, the benefit has outweighed the cost in that regard because it's helped us to develop some of those initiatives that I just reported on today because we have a better understanding of our work and how we're moving cases through the process.

So help me understand the technology a little bit, the codex and all that. How much of that is going to incorporate new technologies like AI? Or is it just some platform that is used around the country? Is it some outdated software? Like how cutting edge is that? Is that something we're going I don't know, adopt and it's gonna be antiquated by the time? It sounds like there's a lag time between now and when we fully adopt it. Is it gonna be something that's still gonna be, I guess, cutting edge or even worthwhile?

Yeah. So thank you. So one thing in particular why we selected this vendor is they're customizing it in some ways to meet our processes. Also had a very clear plan going forward and were also contracted with them for over several years to continue to make improvements as needed. So I think in that regard, that's that's a good thing that provides us some confidence.

It's I'm not sure about an AI component, but but we're definitely have been, as I noted in our presentation, some of the delay has been because as we're we're going through so much transformation right now that they've been a very willing partner to kind of accommodate some of the the things that we are looking to implement post requirement gathering. And so that's been a really positive thing as well as far as our work with that vendor.

And if I could just add a tiny bit more though, as we assess the new system, we know that the transformation from a a legacy system that's twenty years old to a new one is gonna be a big transition for staff. But whatever the system turns out being, we know that it's not the final iteration. It might not be cutting edge at that moment, but we want it to be a framework that we actually build on to add new technologies as it goes. And currently, that's the way that we've structured it with the vendor that, hey, this is just the beginning, and that we keep building on it. So for now, probably AI, probably a little bit less. As we started the procurement back in 2023, it wasn't as much of a core part of the requirements, but that we've made it clear to them that, hey, we need to build on this over time.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much, Councilmember Casey. Really appreciate those comments. I do have some if none of my colleagues have any comments to propose. First I just want to thank staff for bringing this report forward. It's obvious there's a lot of work happening on the ground level. I recognize that this is a very challenging division with growing responsibilities. And I think I personally have been increasing those responsibilities. So thank you for that work. But I also want to be candid about what I'm reading from the report.

We're seeing a system that's still under significant strain. At the end of the fiscal year, there were over 4,300 active cases, while the stated goal is closer to 2,800. And that gap is fairly significant. And it directly impacts residents who are waiting for action in their neighborhoods, in all of our neighborhoods. At the same time, only sixty one percent of cases are being resolved within the city's own timeline standards, below the sixty five percent target.

That means that many residents are still experiencing delays when they report issues that affect their quality of life. We're also seeing long standing inefficiencies in the system. Staff still have to manually review cases, and reporting tools can take up to two weeks to generate, which raises real concerns about how effectively we're managing ongoing workload and prioritizing cases. And while I understand the shift towards stronger enforcement tools, including significant increased fines, I do think we need to pause and ask whether we're scaling up penalties faster than we're fixing the underlying system. Because if we're not delivering timely consistent service, then increasing enforcement pressure risks creating frustration and inequities in how this system is experienced by our neighbors.

So I appreciate the transformation efforts underway, but this report makes it clear that we still have to work to do we still have work to do to ensure code enforcement is not only effective, but also fair, responsive, and accountable. With that, I have a few questions. I I mentioned the the gap in regards to the active cases and and our goal. 4,300 active cases and and the goal is 2,800. What's the realistic timeline that we have in order to close a gap like that?

That's a really good question. I think the HK's triage project is one step in that to that end, or in support of that effort. The 1,200 cases we originally identified is part of the four thousand cases, and so we've pulled those out and are doing a review one by one to, you know, as I was mentioned, either restart, you know, enforcement on it, close it if that's what's appropriate, or or move to some other level of enforcement. And so we think that has helped the inspectors focus on their other parts of their their caseload while we kind of remove those out. So that's one piece.

But, you know, it is it is it is hard to say. I know the op assessment identified that if we were to try and close all of our existing active cases within one year, we would need, you know, over 20 additional inspectors to do that. So, it is a significant amount of work, and we are continuing to try and find other ways to tackle it. That'll continue to be part of this work.

Okay. And oh, yeah. Go ahead. Were you gonna say something, Angel? Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry. Thought I heard you turn your mic on. And then I saw that the timelines in regards to closure, 61%, which is below the 65% target. What does that delay look like in real terms for our residents who are looking for updates on their code enforcement items?

Well, so this standard is actually measuring for each case type. So when cases are created, they're categorized as according to violation type that's been reported. So they're either going be categorized as a blight case, a building case, a zoning case, and so on. So each of those cases, based on the type that they're categorized as, has a certain amount of days these cases are supposed to be closed within as a target. So we're only meeting that target 61 of the time right now. So what that means for our residents is that they are having to wait longer to see resolution.

Any idea, like, how much longer?

It does vary. We have some outliers. But I would say, for example, with blight, I think our average case duration is around sixty five days, and our goal is forty five days. And so it can be several weeks, or it could be more than that.

Okay. And then for cases, because I know that sometimes in reporting, the city may say that a case is resolved, but a constituent or a resident may think differently. And so do we have an understanding of like how many of these resolved cases are actually resolved or stay resolved, or are people just opening up another case on them? Are we looking at that?

Yes. So that is kind of the nature of code enforcement, you know, in that some cases, it it is a one time thing. We get a case, we we go out and and we resolve it, and we don't have another case for twenty years. But there are other properties where we see repeat cases, often with the same violations. And so our chronic offender resolution enforcement program is designed to get at that particular type of circumstance or property with the criteria, you know, as I had outlined in our in our memo.

You know? And we're we're using that pilot to determine, like, do we even have the criteria correct? Right? We're gonna be using it as we're doing our case evaluation and and as we're identifying properties to move through this process. Does that criteria need to be narrowed, or does it need to be expanded?

But that is the goal to try and get at those those repeat offenders. As far as case resolution, if we're closing a case, it's being closed like, the majority of the time it's being closed because we resolved the violation, but there are instances where it might be a duplicate case or the complaining party called back and said, you know, oh, it's it's fine. We don't need you to continue with the case. But the majority, they're only being closed when we rectify the violation, and a supervisor is reviewing every case to ensure that we've done that before its closure.

And sorry, a few more questions. In regards to, I commented on the fines. We've increased the fines, which is important. But do we have the capacity to actually like levy these fines and obtained the funds based off of staff's ability to go through the cases? What has our, I guess, experience been like so far in the department with these new level of fines?

Yeah. So they went into effect in October, and so any case that is brought to the appeals hearing board that was issued the compliance order after October will be subject to the new fines, and we have already seen a pretty significant increase in the amount of fines we're collecting through the finance department, but there is always that, you know, percentage of folks who do not pay, and we have processes in place to address that through you know, finance goes through their processes, and if they're not successful, then attorneys can do collection cases. So we have already, there are several cases we've already applied those fines to.

Great, good. Well I mean in theory, know, I guess as a layman, somebody who doesn't work in code enforcement, I would assume we're finding more. Does that mean that eventually we will have more money to hire more code enforcement officers? Have we looked at that prospect?

Well, that is a policy decision. Any funds, unless they're cost deemed cost recovery, such as our fees, those funds that we're taking in as a result of administrative fines or administrative remedies, it goes into the general fund.

Oh, interesting. Yes. I see. I thought it was going back into code enforcement. Okay. Well, that may be something we want to talk about if we're trying to, you know, increase our effectiveness of the of the department. Appreciate glad I asked that question. And then, obviously, something that's been a a hot button item for many of the council members on this diocese is that the smoke shops, the tobacco retail, the moratorium work plan. But I also see that a lot of the staff vacancies have kind of essentially delayed the progress on the on the work plan goals. Are we still confident that we're going to be able to deliver some of those goals by the dates or the targets we've set up?

I do believe so. There are some dependencies there of onboarding a retiree hire to help with the staffing, ensuring that you know, one of the next steps is getting our partners on board for a collaborative kind of enforcement approach. And so there are some, you know, dependencies we don't have a ton of control over. But as far as the things that we our division is responsible for advancing, yes, we're we're you know, we we think it's a really obviously, all of our work's important. This is very important that we continue to move this forward, and so staff knows that this is a priority for us.

Thank thank you so much. Did we have a motion?

Move to accept the staff report? Second.

Alright. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no further questions, let's vote. Alright, thank you so much. Last but not least, a local favorite, Library Facilities and Customer Experience Plan Status Report. That's going to be by Jill Born and Margaret Sullivan. Okay. Alright.

Thank you, chair Ortiz and members of the committee. I'm Jill Born, city librarian. And as you said, I'm joined with Margaret Sullivan, who has been joining us in this work. As the committee is well aware, the San Jose Public Library System is comprised of the unique Doctor. Martin Luther King Junior Library, 23 permanent branch libraries, and the Mount Pleasant Bridge branch library.

Library branches serve many functions for our system and our city as neighborhood anchors and a network of spaces that make the city's knowledge resources, public technology, educational programs, and community connections accessible to all. Each day, our libraries welcome more than 10,000 visitors, they loan more than 23,000 items, and answer 1,000 actual reference questions, not just like where's the bathroom, and host a variety of groups and organizations holding meetings, offering programs, and conducting outreach. The library currently has 635,000 library card holders, and a library card is not required to visit and use library facilities. We are keenly aware of the importance of these community assets. Throughout the past year, with the support of the San Jose Public Library Foundation, we engaged Margaret Sullivan Studios to help shape a plan that is informed by both analysis and community.

We brought forth an inclusive design process that incorporated progressive library planning with the best practices of community economic development to position the library as a citywide growth partner. We gathered both qualitative and quantitative data to inform these comprehensive and evidence based recommendations.

The resulting plan captures the programmatic or service elements of the library's future, identifies facilities improvement priorities and opportunities for future library capital, and considers potential funding and development strategies. The community and data driven approach for the development of the plan heavily emphasized community involvement, including nearly 3,000 survey responses, 180 community partners, the San Jose Library and Education Commission, the San Jose Youth Commission, additional focus groups, and interviews with civic and community leaders. A key summary finding was that our libraries are trusted and heavily used, yet our facilities are undersized relative to demand and best practices.

What we learned is that not only are community members invested in seeing the role of the city as classroom deepen for lifelong learning opportunities. They are eager to see the library take on expansive roles as the center of social, cultural, and civic life. This is great news for you all as city leaders. The library, with its facilities optimized, will be a powerful partner for the city's quality of life objectives. It is an opportune time to build on the momentum of this work, to create the vibrancy that fosters safety, feels welcoming, continues to be accessible for individuals of all abilities, and enhances the diverse neighborhoods that make San Jose so special.

Critical building systems typically have an expected useful life of between twenty and thirty years before extensive renovations and replacements required to maintain safe and welcoming facilities. Currently, 11 of our 24 locations are more than 20 years old. Six are between 18 and 20 years old, and seven libraries are between seven and 17 years old. High usage, of course, contributes to wear and tear requiring ongoing investments to maintain aging infrastructure and everything from automated doors to elevators to flooring and furniture. Now to get into some of the interesting data, to determine the library's facilities performance and growth potential, the plan drew from industry benchmarking research while recognizing the fact that effective service to surrounding communities is impacted by the correlation of dedicated branch library space to the size of the population in that area.

This chart shows the comparison of library spaces per capita to their individual surrounding service populations. The dark blue shows the current square feet per capita by branch library. The midway dotted line serves as a visual reference showing the benchmark of point five square feet per capita. The upper dotted line shows the best practice of point seven square feet per capita, and the green bars show the difference between our current state and the national best practice benchmark, which is theoretically the potential growth goal. The city's general plan currently articulates a goal of point five nine square feet per capita for libraries, and 20 branch libraries are currently not meeting that goal.

Only one branch exceeds the point seven five square feet per capita threshold. And then another lens by which we analyze the need for library spaces and services is the library's equity index, integrates social, economic, and mobility characteristics surrounding neighborhoods in the prioritization of library spaces and services. This high level view shows the neighborhood disparity analysis with branches overlaid by their per square footage per capita status that was shown in the last slide and is in the attached executive brief. The colors are yellow is lower than point five square foot per capita, and purple is less than point seven five square foot per capita.

This plan will be dynamic and responsive to align with sustainable citywide development strategies. Specifically, we put on our real estate developer hat and we did an analysis of population shifts, the library parcel opportunities and zoning, and the city's general plan and area specific plans. This enabled us to identify opportunities to expand branch square footage and add library branches in targeted areas where population is expected to grow, and to also foresee where library services may be co located in new developments. The plan's multiple scenarios will provide flexibility for future fiscal conditions and opportunities for responsible and well informed real time decision making.

And this view shows the plan's aspirational vision for potential long term growth and renewal with a corresponding investment framework. To allow maximum flexibility and room for creative opportunities, there are three scenarios proposed that reflect investments which will have the greatest impact, prioritizing targeted improvements in existing facilities and strategic expansion opportunities across the system. The three categories are renewing sustaining, which is realigning interior spaces and existing buildings, growing on-site, which is obviously expansions and additions, and then co locate and build new, which is really an exciting approach that allows us to think about how libraries should could be in new development across the city, especially considering where people are living and making sure that there are library services available to, our residents. This map is one of many in the plan showing an ultimate growth possibility in which we utilize these strategies according to population need and development opportunities.

We have identified a four phase approach to address the most immediate needs for investment based on age of the facilities, community needs, and particularly, as exemplified with Alviso, immediate development opportunities. As Jill stated earlier, this is another format in which you can see how the plan identifies the initial option of renew and sustain, to invest in the existing facilities and then also the aspirational growth plan of the option of either growing on-site or co locating and building new for optimal realization of the objectives of the plan. The phase two, similarly, is the second tranche, again, based on facility age and the community needs. The phase three are identified as relatively young facilities in terms of either newer builds or even more recent renovations. And then the fourth phase are buildings where there are more recent investments as well as the opportunity for these aspirational growth locations.

The full facilities and customer experience plan outlines the status of each current library facility and creative options for growth and renewal that will continue to meet the needs of our residents. Adoption of the plan provides a framework to guide future renovations, system wide growth strategies, and associated funding considerations. And with that, we thank you for your time. We welcome your feedback and any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Really appreciate the presentation. I also wanna thank the library department for the briefing. My myself and my office received. So exciting to learn about the future of our library and our library public spaces and looking forward to this great work. Passing it off to council member Condellis.

Thank you, chair. No. Thank you, Jill, for your presentation. You know, I think this is Margaret too, sorry. This is exciting. Mean, it's nice to have these kind of reports where we can look at, you know, the big picture knowing, how useful our I only get two minutes for public comment. No kidding. No, I'm kidding. I'll wait. Oh, I'm sorry.

If you want to have public comment.

I'm an amateur. Sorry about that. My apologies. I thought they were just smiling up there to smile, and then I realized, oh, sorry about that, council member Condellis.

That's okay.

Alright. Please please public comment.

Dawn make your way down. You will have two minutes to speak. Thank you. And then we read it. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council. I'm Dawn Koppen, the CEO of the San Jose Public Library Foundation. I am so happy to be here today speaking on, in support of this amazing plan. Being able to work with Margaret Sullivan Studios over the last, you know, nearly a year has been incredible. And seeing the community come out, be engaged, be excited means that this plan really is that community informed as well as bringing all the best practices to you.

So we, on the Library Foundation, as the primary funder of this report, encourage your adoption and approval of it and moving it to full council. And it shows such an aspiration and such a great plan and opportunity for what we can do to grow the library fan or the library even further and even better for years and years and decades to come. So very shortly, we recommend that you adopt and move this forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Back to the committee.

Council member Condellis.

As I was saying, no. No. Thank you, chair. No, it's good to have, you know, these, these kind of strategic plans, especially when it comes to, you know, our libraries, which we know are very, very popular. And, you know, and so, you know, I look at the entire cost of what we're talking about and it's substantial.

And, you know, if we are in the next decade facing the average lifespan of some of some of our libraries, I think it's prudent that we act now so we can plan for how we're going to be able to pay for some of these aspirational plans to make sure that the libraries, which we all love and our residents love, are kept as beautiful as they are. And so I guess I have a question with regards to, so we adopt this report, it comes to council, I think it's cross referenced to come to council in May. And then what happens with regards to, I mean, with the Library Foundation, figuring out, you know, polling? Is that in the next year? I'm all ears with regards to next steps.

Thank you. That's a great question. So one of the reasons that the plan is broken down by all these phases with all the different options is so that upon adoption, can start working with counsel, with our neighborhoods, and with our city manager's office to understand strategies, what are the potential options out there, both potential public funding, but also where are those, like I was mentioning, the co located opportunities for development, for instance. Libraries are this incredible they're really a flexible model to bring positive and energetic activation to spaces, which is typically can be a problem in cities. Right?

And so maybe there are ways, what we wanted to look at is all the ways where the costs of construction could be mitigated so that we could focus on the cost of operation. And so this gives us a really flexible approach to start considering that. Do we focus on funding for just phase one because that's the most immediate need for the next ten years? Do we focus on some of the renewals, the co locations? We can approach it based on opportunities.

But to your question, we certainly could also over the next year look at public opinion research about whether or not funding specifically for library capital is of interest. I think the one added concern we had this year was just that you can build new libraries and if you can't staff them, it's difficult to operate them. But as you know, with Village Square branch library, are always looking for innovative ways to operate and keep buildings open as well So with minimal it's a long answer, the answer is yes. I think upon adoption of the plan we can begin a more systematized direct approach to solving that problem of funding.

No, for sure. No, thank you. And I appreciate that response and I guess it's an all encompassing next steps, right? It's a, it's a, how do we work with the city manager's office with the administration? And also look at, you know, the, this, the economic circumstances of, you know, elections, right? Turnout elections, the macroeconomic climate, all these different things. And, you know, as long as we get that evergreen library from phase two to phase one, you know, I'm kidding. I've but but this is this is this is great, and I appreciate the flexibility on that. So, with that, I'll I'll move, acceptance of the staff recommendation on Thank this you. Great.

Thank thank you, council member Condales for your comments. You know, I I share your interest in moving, this topic forward. You know, a lot of these, libraries were made quite some time ago. And they are still, you know, great jewels of the of of our neighborhoods, but they they need to be polished and turned into shining jewels, like they were, you know, years years ago. You know, I think I was I was there at the opening of the Alum Rock Roberto Cruz Library, which was some time ago, and I was just at there, I think it was last year, their anniversary.

You know, you could tell that, you know, some of the infrastructure needs a little love. You know what I mean? And I think that, if we see this as an opportunity, as a way to improve our ability to serve our residents, It should be something that this council is willing to do. And I know that I'm interested in it, and I look forward to the ongoing conversations. Seeing no other, questions. We have a motion, so let's let's, vote. Okay. I believe unanimous. Alright. That moves us into open forum.

Members of the public are invited to speak on any items that do not appear on today's agenda. I don't see anybody here. Right?

No public comment.

Okay. Adjournment.