City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Thank you for your patience. Welcome to the city council regular meeting this Monday evening, March 16th. I now call this meeting to order and we are pleased to welcome Troop 44F to lead us in tonight's flag ceremony. We can please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Guard advance.

Please place your right hand over your heart and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Kelly Guard dismissed.

Okay, I believe we may be seated. And thank you again to Troop 44F for making that possible. Deputy city clerk, can you please call the role? Certainly. Mayor Mayor Luring, sorry. Council member Diaz Nash, present. Council member Spogitzki here. Deputy Mayor Fernandez here. Mayor Lorraine here. Council member Nam

here. Thank you and welcome everyone. We're excited to be here in person with options for those who choose not to be in person to still participate virtually. Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us maintain an efficient and accessible meeting environment. There are several ways for others to participate and including yourselves. For those attending in person, you may complete a yellow request to speak slip if you have comments and hand it to the deputy city clerk. If you're participating remotely, please use the raise your hand feature in Zoom and you will be called on at the appropriate time. If you're calling in via phone, please press star 9 to raise your hand. And when you're called upon, you may press star 6 to unmute. These options for public comment will remain available until I close public comment periods for items during tonight's meeting. For anyone who may be watching us on YouTube at this time, at the moment, we don't currently have a public comment feature within YouTube itself. So, if you wish to give public comment, you'll want to join the meeting through the Zoom webinar instead. Uh, please use the access information in our agenda, which can be found on our website, city of samonteo.org. We begin tonight with uh three ceremonial items. Item number one is the Sonteo AYSO boys U14 Winter Select Team recognizing them for their championship win.

I believe we I believe we have a few words from some of the coaches of the team. Uh Brandon Arnold and Adam Fehee. I apologize.

Thank you very much for having us here. Um, you know, we we had a very special season with these boys. They've had the opportunity to play with each other mostly for the last uh four or five years and they've continually been improving. It's it's an honor to coach them and both Adam and I kind of left it up to the boys to do a lot of the coaching this season for themselves. they they held each other accountable to continue to improve and we were able to have a really successful season led by led by these boys um and playing teams all over Santo County and uh you know we we we're just so proud of how they played and and came together as young men.

Excellent. And thanks to everyone who made it out to be with us today. I believe we have some certificates that I uh can come I can I can allow the coaches to hand out to players that you can name and then I will uh be there to to shake their hands and celebrate. And I think Brandon's being modest because they beat all the cities in the county. Becket Arnold,

Salvador Barrera Brian Cammy,

Tate Sphere, Gaditzki,

Xander Deiden, Nikolai Dennis, Braden Fehee,

Thirstston Fletcher, Moises Garcia.

Haha. Anthony Koig,

Jackson Kosma, Jose Madreal, Bobby Portis,

Julian Ruiz, Caleb Schiffett, Shiffett Yordi Valdez,

coach Adam Fehey,

and coach Brandon Arnold. Can we get the team to come back in front and then we can take a photo? Join us.

Over here, over there. behind you.

Everybody look up. Everybody look up. Who the champions?

There we go. Thank you guys.

Sorry. Great job, guys.

Yeah, if you're kidding. Yeah, I think so.

Okay. Yeah, let me just Yeah. Yeah. For them. What else? So, at this time, just before we move on to the next ceremonial, since we still have Troop 44F here with us, I would like to invite you to take a group photo with the city council. if you'd like, maybe we could do that uh to commemorate your uh contribution to tonight's meeting. Thank you very much.

You guys, that was the San Francisco.

All right. Thank you very much. Now we have ceremonial item number two, a presentation by Atrisisk Youth Foundation. And uh with us tonight we have uh Tully who may have a presentation. Please come up to the dis and and share a little bit about your organization. Thank you for being here and thanks to others part of the foundation who are here as well.

Uh good evening Mayor Lorraine, Deputy Mayor Fernandez, city council members and city staff. Uh my name is Tully Wsbornne and I am the co-founder and director of the nonprofit The Risk Youth Foundation, also known as TARF. Our nonprofit has two programs. Every 15 minutes, which is a powerful DUI educational program where we help high schools produce a mock DUI crash with the assistance of law enforcement, fire department, paramedics, and coroner who all respond to the scene involving students as treat it as though it's a true crash scene. We actually held a very successful and impactful every 15 minutes program at Sanonteo High School back in 2015 and Hillsdale High School back in 2017. The second program is Trauma Bear. This is our most active and utilized program right now. The At Rescue Foundation provides teddy bears to first responder agencies so they can be given to children on the scene of traumatic incidences. Incidences such as accidents, child abuse, domestic violence, just to name a few. They can also provide comfort to children during sensitive interviews, sensitive examinations, testifying, and more. When a child is given a teddy bear, it is theirs to keep. The mission is deeply personal. I am a former coroner investigator for Sonteo County, and I saw true grieving and fear at its core. I have personally seen families trying to grieve and struggle to process the death all while the children are not getting the full attention they also need during these

difficult circumstances. As a corner investigator, I began buying teddy bears on my own and bringing them to death investigations. This was the first step in creation and implementation for the trauma bear program at the corner's office. I wanted to do more and soon I discovered I wasn't alone. I created the at rescue foundation with two CHP officers in Redwood City in November of 2011. Since then, the atrisisk youth foundation has given 3,271 teddy bears to first responders. And these are just similar shisk youth foundation. Uh oh, these agencies include law enforcement, fire departments, paramedics, and the corner's office. And at times we have given to Kora Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse and North County Mental Health Juvenile Department. I have personally given teddy bears to impacted children. It has had a profound effect on me. It has given me some solace seeing that child grab that teddy bear and hug it tight and not let go. This creates a ripple effect. These teddy bears have given the parents and loved ones a level of comfort. The ripple effect continues. These teddy bears also help give the parents and loved ones a level of comfort. These teddy bears have helped first responders as well. It helps keep the kiddos calm while law enforcement, fire personnel, paramedics, and hospital staff can do their job. but it helps

with the first responders and second responders emotions as well. The paramedics at American Medical Response use most of the bears. This is where I've learned that stuffed animals have a unique use. They have put stuffed animals like monkeys and other type of special stuffies on the ceiling bars of the rigs of the paramedic ambulance rigs. And this has helped um even adult patients focus and become calm in a stressful situation. The Atrisisk Youth Foundation is 100% volunteer-based and thanks to donors in the past and a grant from the Sanonteo County Measures K fund in 2017, we are able to continue our mission and passion. I want to say a special thank you to all of you for coming out to our most annual first our our most recent annual first responder teddy bear drive with Build-A-Bear Workshop at Hillsdale Mall in December. This was our fifth year partnering with Build Bear in Sonteo and we we received a record-breaking donation of 46 teddy bears. The teddy bears collected at this event were donated to AMR, San Monteo County and Santa Clara County, the Sato County Sheriff's Office and Sonteo Police Department. Thank you for your time, your support, and allowing me to share the heart of Tariff with you this evening. Well, thank you very much for your presentation and uh I'd like to invite my council colleagues for an opportunity to take a photo if they so wish.

Thank you guys. Thank you. We have one more ceremonial item tonight. Item number three is the San Francisco Peninsula 2025 to 2022 strategic plan presentation. And we have with us a team from the San Francisco Peninsula, including John Hudar, the president and CEO, who will share a few words on this. Thank you for coming, John.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Lorraine, Deputy Mayor Fernandez, members of council, city manager Kojikian, and city staff. I am joined here uh at the podium this evening uh with two of our executive committee members and officers of the organization. Pine Punia is the owner of the Best Western Coyote Point. Randy Johnson uh CEO of Johnson Hospitality. His company manages the new Hampton Inn suites in San Mato. John Paradine, our director of marketing, is a San Mateo resident. Nova Maldonado, our chief advocacy officer. And if we could please advance to the next slide. Uh our organization uh also fulfills the duties of film commission and manages the county's farm-to-table program as fresh as it gets. In 2022, we rebranded for marketing purposes. When we speak about the destination, we refer to our destination as the San Francisco Peninsula. In 2023, we came before you as we formulated our new tourism funding assessment. And uh this past year, we launched a tourism advisory council which led to the strategic plan and we are now out uh sharing uh and educating on that message. Next slide, please. uh just a sample of some of our body of work. Uh here are some references in our social media marketing work. Uh pointing out the the highlights of our cities uh in the case of San Mateo, Fieldworks Brewing, the the lovely Japanese gardens, uh urban ritual. Uh and this is one snapshot uh that these combined

campaigns received 34,000 views uh almost 2,000 interactions and 242 re-shares. And we do this uh kind of marketing for all of the 14 cities in our district. Next slide, please. Uh our board of directors. Uh I highlighted the uh individuals uh with San Monteo businesses here tonight. Uh you can see a thread that we have representation from all of the 13 cities and and county uh on our board and uh a few non hotel businesses such as San Francisco International Airport, the rental car industry uh two restaurant tours and Mitch Postol uh from the historical association. Uh next slide please. During 2025, we stood up a advisory council on seven uh threads of our community, education, business, government, hospitality, labor, parks and wreck, venues, uh community at large, and uh worked with uh a facilitator to develop the plan, which I'll get into next. Uh it is based on three pillars. Next slide, please. The first to support destination asset development and uh it speaks to uh three objectives. Advocate for significant upgrades to the San Monteo County Event Center. Analyze opportunities to develop additional tournament grade sports facilities throughout the peninsula. You had a little example of that here earlier with the soccer team. uh business travel tends to occur Monday through Thursday and then there are 52 weekends which we feel are are ripe for uh sports tourism. Uh and uh we feel that if these

conversations are robust, it'll take us down the path of developing a tourism master plan so we can get input and and have a cohesive strategy throughout our 20 cities in the county to welcome tourism and grow the tourism economy. Next slide, please. The second pillar, endeavor to maximize the destination experience. analyze the opportunity to develop an annual destination event and uh we are happy to announce four of them coming up which I'll mention in a moment. Uh there are some gaps in the Bay Trail and there are parts missing, parts that are done in a superb manner and parts that need uh attention and uh we feel that that we have a place to work with the communities uh throughout the peninsula to get the word out on the robust music and night life uh that could add to additional visitation. Next slide, please. And the last pillar really speaks to uh organizational excellence. Uh getting out into the community more with meetings such as this uh and continue to work with our advisory council and continue the dialogue on how we can grow tourism. Uh this uh Thursday, next slide please, will be our annual lunchon and we will celebrate tourism and its impact in the county. uh we will share with you before we leave our 2025 annual report that is officially unveiled Thursday afternoon but we felt being here tonight you have it thank you uh we would be remiss not to share it with you and uh if you would like to join please let us know we will make a seat at the table uh next slide please we are very happy to announce four signature events uh starting with flavors of the

peninsula which will commence April 23rd through May 3rd. U right after progress seminar. We feel that's a great uh podium to to launch from. Uh our restaurant tours felt very strongly that this event should happen in the month of January. This year the merrygoround was already spinning. Uh so we jumped down for April. But we want to own the last two weeks of January in perpetuity. So we've already announced dates for 2027. And this is a restaurant uh uh flavors of the peninsula is a restaurant style week uh here countywide through through all of our cities. And then very excited uh we are working with the organizer of the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival to bring Heritage Fire to Coyote Point in San Mateo on July 26th and Whisies of the World uh to the Halfoon Bay Brewing Company u on August 28th and and we have a balance of coastside Bayside uh that that it is quite obvious there. So with that, we remain at your disposal if there are any questions and appreciate the opportunity uh to present to you tonight. And uh San the city of San Monteo is very important to the fabric of tourism and we appreciate your leadership which makes it a great place to live for residents, but equally a great place to visit uh when we have visitors and we appreciate all of your work. Excellent. And thank you all for coming. I uh particularly appreciate having folks who represent Sonteo businesses as well as uh executive board members who uh and parts of the team who are are part of Sonteo for for representing tonight. Uh if any council members happen to have a a comment, they're

they're free to give one. Uh thank you, Council Member Diaz Nash. Thank you through the mayor and good evening, John. How are you? and the entire welcome the entire group. We are so grateful for all the work you're doing. I'm interested in what feedback you can give the city as to how particularly around our downtown. It's really become more and more vibrant, more and more popular, but how can we as we look at events make them more attractive to the broader tourism industry groups?

Well, I I'll lead off and then uh jump in please team. uh the the we work very closely with economic director Chen and and the chamber of commerce and the steps taken on on B Street and and creating that mural, the night life uh that is uh all very very positive and and very interesting when we bring social media influencers into the region, travel journalists uh etc. Uh you in the previous meeting there was a comment about the San Monteo Marriott and that is a huge loss uh for your budget uh for our budget and beyond budget uh to lose a a 500 room hotel with substantial meeting space uh was just a profound negative impact. Uh unfortunately we're not going to solve that this evening. uh but the path you are on I would say please continue and and continue to make it a compelling environment uh as you have been and uh uh you know we understand resources are are thin and and there are all kinds of constraints but uh anything we can do throughout our destination to make it unique different something that this individ individual won't have in their backyard at home is a win-win. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for being with us tonight and thank you for the report and uh if you'd like a photo. Yeah, I'm I'm happy to come.

We'd love a photo. Very good. You're welcome to join me anytime. Thank you guys for being here. You're the first Bobby that has offered a

photo. Nice to see you. Say visit Sanit. Agreed.

Thank you. We are now moving beyond the ceremonial portion of tonight's meeting. Are we?

Which includes the business items being considered by the council. For this reason, I would like to remind all in the room and online that we will now be enforcing rules of decorum. As such, we do not at this time allow for cheering, jeering, or booing during the business portion of the meeting as this tends to put a chill on public comment. Our goal is to ensure that all perspectives are heard. Our motto is give respect, get respect, and we appreciate your cooperation with this. But be uh we typically go to the consent calendar at this time, but before we move on to it, council member Spearokki has a brief statement that she would like to share.

Thank you. Um please record me in the minutes as abstaining from items 8, resolution number two, and item 20 due to the proximity of these projects to um a real property interest and to a source of income from the last 12 months. Thank you. Thank you for this. And at this time, we will now review the consent calendar with the deputy city clerk. Deputy city clerk, if you could please read through the consent calendar.

Certainly. All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion without discussion. If discussion is desired, that item may be removed and considered separately. Item number four, San Monteo Public Library Foundation operating lease amendment. Item number five, AB481 annual military equipment report approval. Item number six, real time information center agreement. Item number seven, city of Foster City interest on wastewater treatment plan payments agreement. Item number eight, citywide capital project appropriation amendments adoption. Item number nine, Microsoft Enterprise Agreement subscription increase approval. Item number 10, customer relationship management software and services amendment. Item number 11, city council meeting minutes approval. Item number 12, temporary sign placement enforcement policy during election periods. Adoption. Item number 13, operation of leaf blowers ordinance adoption. Item number 14, reach codes for the 2025 code cycle ordinance adoption. Item number 15, citywide fire life and safety inspection testing and maintenance services reise agreement. Item number 16, citywide street reconstruction phase 5 agreement. Item number 17, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Resiliency Center Program Manager Amendment. Item number 18, Bella Terrace closure project funding agreement. Item number 19, East 41st Place and Pacific Boulevard trash capture project

contingency increase. Item number 20, regional measure 3 funding request approval. And finally, item number 21, Marina Lagoon spot dredging project bid rejection approval. Thank you. Is there any member of the council who would like to pull an item for the consent calendar?

Um I have a question for the city attorney if I may. U Mr. City attorney um I was not I had to recuse myself on the villa um uh item when I when it came in front of the council because of my real property and it was not noticed that I had to recuse myself on this item. Is that do I have to? Uh if you recused yourself previously then uh I recommend that you uh ask to be recorded as abstaining from that item. Okay. May I please be yes recused on that item please?

Thank you to deputy mayor for that. Uh does anyone else wish to pull an item or have any questions on an item? Seeing none, if there are any members of the public who would like to comment on any of these consent calendar items that were just listed, now would be the time to make your comment. You can bring a slip to the deputy city clerk if you're in chambers or raise your hand on the webinar at this time. Deputy city clerk, do you have any public comment for consent calendar items only? So for consent calendar items only. No, Marine, we do not have any request to speak.

Okay. I will close public comment on the consent calendar and entertain a motion to approve. Um before that, if I may, so on item 21, just for the public, um just so there's no confusing confusion, can we explain why we're rejecting the bid for dredging? We'll have our public works director come on up. Thank you so much.

Good evening, public works director Matt Fabri. Uh I believe we're rejecting the bids on this one due to uh the biders being non-responsive in terms of there were certain forms that were supposed to be included in the bids that were not and so we're required to then reject the bids and then we would put that back out to bid. And I know you said this in the last meeting but we're still confident we'll hit the October 2026 dredging deadline of for this year. Our staff believes we still have time to do so as long as we get uh good bids on the next round when we go forward. Fantastic. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve the consent calendar. I second. Thank you both. Uh, Deputy City Clerk, may we have a roll call vote, please? Certainly. Council member Nuome, yes.

Council member Spogitzki, yes. Council member Diaz Nash, yes. Deputy Mayor Fernandez, yes. Mayor Luring, yes. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Through the mayor, yes. if that would be possible. Just a couple of comments on the items that have been passed.

I wanted to call out item number 12, the temporary sign placement enforcement policy during election periods. I think this is a great piece of work by the uh city clerk's office to try and make it much clearer about where you can put signs, where you can't put signs, and what the process will be if uh someone does something incorrectly. So, um you know, hats off to the city clerk's office for doing that. And number 13. Okay, it is now official. Gas leaf blowers are banned as of January 1st in San Mateo. So that is that's very good news for everyone. And I encourage everyone to learn about how to get educated and to tell your neighbors too that this is the community has to really enforce this one. And then number 14, the reach codes for the 2025 code cycle. This is going to be really, really helpful for our efforts to clear the air, improve the sustainability of our community. So, I just wanted to call those three things out.

Thank you, council member. At this time, we'll move to general public comment. So, this is the period in the meeting in which members of the public who wish to comment on an item that's not on our agenda tonight, you may address the city council at this time. State law prevents council from taking action on any matter not on the agenda, but your comments may be referred to staff for followup. This public comment section is generally limited to a total of 15 minutes. However, that is subject to council's discretion and can be extended if council wishes to do so. If needed, an opportunity for additional public comment may also be provided later in the agenda. Deputy city clerk, can you please tally request to speak on general public comment? Certainly, if you wish to speak on general public comment and you're participating remotely, please raise your hand. Now, if you are uh joining us in person, please uh deliver your yellow request to speak to me. Now, we have nine requests to speak today. uh per our rules and procedures that would be three minutes per speaker. We'll begin with um our last speaker in chambers is uh May Lee and our last speaker in uh the remote environment is Nahil Patel and we'll begin with uh Rebecca Banette. Hello, my name is Becky Bennett and I live on Kami Street in District 1. I'm here to talk about the development that is being proposed at 1700 El Camino Rial. I thought I understood the changes that Metro T was bringing to our community, but I was honestly shocked when I saw the plan proposal on March 6th for this parcel. The proposed

housing project completely fills in the 3acre lot with little to no setbacks and reaches 95 ft into the sky. That is less than 47 feet. There is less than 47 feet between my neighbor's property line and that of 17 El Caminos. Because this lot is to the southeast of the abuing neighborhood. And because the plan pushes the bulk of the eight stories against the residential side of the lot, the proposed building will blot out the sun for a significant portion of the surrounding community, particularly in the winter months when the sun is low on the horizon. My husband and I are definitely not experts, but we fiddled around with the Suncal website, and we estimate that we will receive as little as two hours of sunlight during parts of the winter at our home. This would be absolutely devastating for my family and I suspect for many of my neighbors. When you look at the map for Measure T, most of the designated parcels for high-rise housing are surrounded by mid-rise parcels, which softens the transition into the single family home neighborhoods. In fact, this was one of the promises made by the city when they added measure T to the ballot that it would prevent highdensity housing directly next to single family homes. Unfortunately, this lot is directly next to single family homes and because of its position relative to the neighborhood, it has the potential to cause great harm. I'm not here to argue against building highdensity housing here. I understand why it's needed and I also understand that there's not really much that can be done about it at this point. Um, but what I am asking for is your attention and your help. There are a lot of new developments coming to San Monteo and it could probably be a little bit overwhelming to look at all of them, but I feel strongly that lots with the high-rise development abut single family homes are going to need your special attention because their design could significantly impact the surrounding neighborhoods. for this project. Something as simple as moving the 90 foot wall to the businessfacing side of the lot and introducing a tiered building design could really improve the situation for me and my neighbors. I will be at the community meeting tomorrow where I hope to discuss these

issues and I'm hoping as this project moves through the permitting process that you can support our community and minimizing the impacts these developments will have on our homes. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Marjgerie Ruiz Sidalgo followed by Anna Spark Goritzki. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council, city staff. Hello. I am Marjorie Ruiz Elgo, your local government affairs representative for Pacific Gas and Electric for P Genie. And I would like to bring your attention to another tool in our safety toolkit that P Genie has rolled out to the public this evening. We work very hard to keep these our community safe. And I don't know if many of you are aware of this, but we use drones, helicopters, and cameras and more to enhance our efforts. But now members of the community can also help us keep our system safe. The P Gen Report program, it's an app and it's also a website. It's available on the Apple Store and for Apple Android. is a valuable part of our toolkit. With it, you can send us photos of possible non-emergency safety issues with our electric system to help us keep your community safer. The P Gen Reported app allows members of the public to submit pictures, submit it to our safety team, track the status of these submissions, find submissions made by others, and follow the the submission all the way to through to conclusion so you can see the findings. This is not meant in any way to replace 911. If you see a downed wire, please stay away from it. Call 911. If you smell gas, please call 911. So, it is definitely not an emergency replacement, but it adds another layer of accountability for us. So, in addition to the amazing staff that you have here with Alex and Matt and city inspectors and city staff, this is just one more tool that members of the public can use to help keep us safe. Um, I would also like to point out that this website also has tremendously in helpful visuals. So, members of the public often don't understand the different

difference between communications lines and our electric lines, nor should they really have to, but if you look at the visual, it tells you where is what on the pole. And I think that can also add in a layer of psychological safety. So, I will be sending out the website and this information through the city clerk and make sure that you have it. And my hope is that as we step into the summer season, I know all of us get calls from the public and escalations. People are concerned and so we want to be able to have a way to track those concerns and follow them through to conclusion. I know last year you and I were concerned about wire and trees in San Monteo County. And so I think this will be an invaluable tool to members of the public. So I will send it out through Alex and I will send it to all of you and there will be links. Again, this app is available on Android and Apple. It is easy to use and it is called the PG reported app. If you put it in Google, I believe it's the first and second result on your Google results page. As always, I'm here to answer questions. Please feel free to reach out. I think at this point everyone has my cell phone number. I think many of you have used it. Please continue to use it. I'm here. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Anna Spogitzki followed by Mey. Good evening, mayor, council, city staff. My name is Anna. I'm a senior and a resident of Shore View. I'm here to bring to your attention a funding opportunity for summer, potentially several grants for four years under the federal older Americans act. The city knows about this funding and is expected to apply for the King Center senior lunch program. maybe one or more other areas. Summit County issued requests for proposal, but they are due on April 19th, so there isn't much time. I urge the city to commit the resources necessary to review all funding areas such as supportive services, congregate and homed delivered meals programs, disease prevention, health promotion, family caregiving, and assisted transportation and more. The city could work with other organizations providing services for the elderly. I know the grants are competitive, but San Mato elders have a lot of needs and I would like to see a new infusion of funds. If we miss this opportunity, we will have to wait four years for the next requests for proposal. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker in chambers is Mey Hey, this is May. Uh uh my phone name is Shim. Um I previously uh provided some con big public safety concerns about the burned trees and leaves um um in some uh different locations including CSM. So I'm sharing couple of uh keywords. So hopefully everyone can do some homework and maybe share with your doctors and then this is truly a public safety concerns and personal safety concern as well. So one is a visible light communication. So, visible light communications and just type in the Google and you can learn a lot of about maybe our LED lights and then uh maybe they're for reasons that our street lights cover with the deflectors and uh the other one is another major thing that another keywords is the heart gun and you can type in Google and uh there was uh 70s in the 70s There was a church committee hearing. So basically this is a old technology. This stasis will be much more sophisticated. Basically can remotely inject a tiny substance and leave tiny skin marks in different locations. And uh what I'm talking about this is what I truly believe that we carry by our sensors not knowing it and we now we can add all that kind of to uh things together. Another keyword is a human augmentation market. This is

a big market and we can do some research and part of it I believe is hidden that is not visible to general public yet affect all of us. If we carry sensors not knowing it meaning our body the access to our bodies and brains are on the market for someone that knowing it and uh utilizing uh our public resources and um I believe fully government officials as well and this is not based on there's no color difference no skin color difference and no country difference this This is truly public um safety concerns and I've do a lot of research and then based on recurring symptoms and the neighbor symptoms and uh I hope uh city officials and then and if you guys want a um more information you have my contact and I live in the same place with my husband for over 25 years almost 30 years my husband's state employee and we had the same turbulence back in 201617 our longtime neighbor a veteran was sent to jail by

thank you FBI so thank you contact me if you need more and now moving to our virtual environment our uh last speaker in our remote environment is Nil Patel and our first speaker is uh Katie Milligan please um unmute your mic Hi, I would like to first let you know that the Zoom meeting link that you all provided is invalid. Um, I know a lot of people who were trying to attend this meeting and are unable to. I had to go backwards and find the ID and put in the password. So, the link is invalid. I'm not sure if you did that intentionally.

No, we we we updated the link just for awareness. We the link has been updated and um the Well, that must have just happened, right? It happened about 20 minutes ago.

No, 20 minutes ago. I tried to log in and it didn't happen. But it what it didn't work. So, I'm just letting you know. Um as per your earlier meeting that you guys were discussing traffic study, my topic is the proposed uh center detox center 69 bed detox center at 101 North the El Camino Rial. Um, interestingly, you clearly Sano does a great job of traffic studies. I'd like to know what traffic study you all have done for that. It's a particularly dangerous intersection and uh it will cause a lot of backup traffic. So, have you done a traffic study for that? Not going to answer that.

Sorry, ma'am. Uh, state law prevents council from taking action on items not on the agenda tonight, but we can bring your item for followup. So, I'd like to further pursue that to find out what traffic study you've done. Also, given that the Sanonteo City Council was aware of the location in November at least, probably in October, why is it no one notified any residents of the possibility of this center and that we only found out about it through Next Door, not through our elected officials, but through Next Door. That's how we found out about the 69 bed detox center. I am shocked by that. Lastly, Prop One requires that letters of support from the county, the city, and adjacent residents um be included in their application. I'd like to know who from the city council wrote letter of support and how we can get our and how we can get access to that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Taso Zapos. Hello, my name is Tasel Zagraphs and I'm speaking on behalf of many residents, concerned residents regarding the proposed Horizon detox facility at 101 North El Camino Rial. Tonight, we are asking the city council to take a clear position on behalf of your residents. Plainly said, you are either for or against this project. Pick a side, either for or against. And please don't play vanity politics by simply writing the fence. We all want more information, but we need you to send a clear no to the county and to the state. We're asking you to formally and firmly say no and oppose this project and put an immediate stop to this project from moving forward until the community is fully informed. And that means you as well. and the ability to have meaningful public engagement for all of us. If you truly want more info as we do, then you should tell the county and the state. No, halt this project and give us all the details we seek and deserve to receive. Right now, residents still don't know the full operational details of this proposal, its impacts on the surrounding neighborhood, or the details about any location comparative analysis that was done, and how this location was selected just less than a,000 ft from an elementary school and other senior facilities. Yet, the county went ahead and approved $2 million of funding commitment without public discussion and before residents even knew this project existed. That is backwards. It is both absurd and insulting. Major projects that affect

neighborhoods should not move forward without transparency, without details, and without the community being properly informed. So tonight again, we ask you to stand with your residents and send a formal letter to the county and state clearly stating that the city of Sanonteo opposes moving forward with this project until full details are disclosed and the community has had a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Our community deserves nothing less. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Katherine Collins. Good evening, mayor and council members. Um, my name is Katherine Collins. I am a sanitary resident and I am the vice chair of the board of trustees at the Episcopal Day School of St. Matthew, which is a prek through 8th grade school with 285 students located at the corner of Baldwin and Elita Rial. I'm speaking tonight regarding the proposed Horizon Detox and Sober Center at the corner of El Certo and El Camino Rial just 800 feet away from this school. This is a sponsored program and uh partnership between Horizon Services and the county of Sanonteo. Speaking plainly, the county of San Monteo and Horizon Services have failed this community by advancing a project of this scale and intensity without meaningful outreach, transparency, or engagement with the residents who will be most affected. When outside agencies fail our community, the responsibility to stand up for Sonteo residents falls to this council. State law may limit certain regulatory powers available to the city, but it does not limit your duty to advocate for your constituents to demand transparency and to ensure responsible land use and safety planning, especially when a project of this magnitude is proposed in the heart of a residential neighborhood and adjacent to highly sensitive populations and a vibrant downtown. This proposal would be the largest detox facility in the nine Bay Area counties with 69 beds and it would be located within 800 ft of Episcopal Day School within feet of multiple senior housing communities and so many residential family homes. Residents have not been informed. We should not have to fight simply to be informed or to be heard.

The community is asking the council to take four actions. First, agendaize a publicly noticed special city council meeting on this project with the county and Horizon present. Second, send a formal letter to the state grant agency clarifying that meaningful community engagement did not occur prior to funding this application. Third, provide a clear inventory of sensitive land uses within a thousand ft of this site. and fourth, request that the county and state evaluate alternative locations within Samonteo County. We are simply asking the council to take these reasonable steps to stand up for your constituents and to ensure transparency, accountability, and responsible planning for our great Sato community. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Katherine McDonald. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Great. Um, I'm also speaking about the Horizon uh facility at 101 El Camino. I'm just wanting to voice my objection there. As everyone else has mentioned, there was no community community engagement and I respectfully request that this project be halted until all questions are answered because there's so many people that are going to be affected by it that in the adjacent communities. So, just wanted to voice my deep concern about the way this has come through and the lack of community engagement overall. It it seems mysterious to me that it would happen this way. So thank you.

Thank you. And our last speaker is Nahil Patel.

Thank you. Thank you for taking the time. I'm writing as a concerned Santo resident regarding the proposal of the Verizon detox facility at 101 El Camino Rial. Similar to other residents and as they've already explained, there has been a complete lack of transparency and communication regarding this particular project. Um, there's been no information about the impact to the community. I live very close by to the proposed center and I've had heard nothing and similar to other residents, I heard it through social media. Um, as far as I'm aware of, there's been no study regarding the safety, the traffic, um, as well as the land use compatibility of this particular site. Um, I've never seen anything even talking to some of the county officials about other sites that were considered. As other residents have already pointed out, the decision to fund this put this site with Horizon was made without any community involvement uh months prior to any residents being made aware. Most residents only heard about this project again through social media back in February 2026. Uh I simply ask the city to stand and say no. They all citizens within the the county and the city of Sonteo deserve to have transparency and actually be informed about a project of this magnitude. So I formally request a letter of opposition where we basically say no to this project until we can learn more. What sites were considered? What was the have we considered the community impact? And do we have we adequately communicated with the community at large? Thank you again for your time and I formally request a letter of opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Lorraine, that concludes general public comment. Thank you. And uh I believe the city manager may have uh is there anything you'd like to share?

If I may, through the mayor. Um just so I'm clear on the Zoom meeting, are there other public speakers that wanted to speak on any issues? We have uh 17 attendees in Zoom and about 15 to 16 in YouTube. Uh the one of the links was not was broken and the other ones worked. What I did is updated the link the same link and recompile the packet and republish at 7:31 p.m. Thank you. see manager.

Yeah. So, I'm happy to respond to the public comments that were coming in regarding the Horizon behav the proposed Horizon behavioral health facility. So, I want to first and foremost state that this is not a city project. this behavioral health facility. This is a Horizon Horizon which is a nonprofit and it's sponsored by the county of San Mateo and uh with the sponsorship of the county of San Monteo there had to be a formal grant application that was submitted and I believe that went in front of the board of supervisors for approval in October 2025 and that was in order to go after 25.5 million in state funds for this project. Additionally, the county uh approved to provide $2 million as part of this project as well. So, uh they're a funer and a sponsor of this project. Uh they're partnering with a nonprofit Horizon. The city has no involvement in this project whatsoever with the application. I'd look to you guys. I don't know if any of you guys did a letter of support. Nothing came from the city on a letter of support for this project. I'm seeing no one on the council provided a letter of support um for this project either. Um additionally, the city's anticipating a future development application for this project. That's when the city does get involved. But this future application, what we've heard from Horizon and the county, they will be using state assembly bill 531, which basically limits the regulatory oversight of the city in the permitting process. So when you have residents talking about what traffic studies have been done, what other studies there there needs to be no studies with the state AB531 uh law. It basically supersedes and overrides the city's regulatory capacity on this project and that is what is being utilized in order for this project

to proceed forward. It's a ministerial approval, an approval that doesn't even come to this council. Just being very direct with you. Uh, Horizon held a virtual meeting in February of this past year. Um, in response to that, council member Lisa Diaz Nash asked this council um to give direction to staff to go ahead and send a letter to the county in order to um ask that the county hold and host a meeting regarding this project. Um and with the city promoting uh that meeting as well on all our comm's channels, we have asked the county to provide us the details. This meeting is supposed to take place on March 24th at 6:00 p.m. at the San Mato Event Center. And so we're waiting to get the details from the county so that we can really promote this far and wide to our community. Um so I'm hoping that we get something this week on that front. Um, additionally, I would say that um the county um has also requested that staff uh participate in this meeting on March 24th. And I have notified county representatives that I have not received direction from this council uh to have staff be part of that meeting or take a formal role in that meeting. Um, at this time the only direction I've had from the council is to one request an addition uh request the county to host a meeting for our residents to engage on this project and two for staff to go ahead and promote that meeting as well. So, with that, I've also uh had conversations with the county manager as of recent because we all it was a surprise to us that the county uh or not the county, but Horizon was awarded the state grant of 25.5 million last week as we were told this entire time that a decision would happen in June, but the

governor fasttracked the approval of these grant funds almost three months earlier than what was uh stated to us as staff on that front. And so, uh, with that said, the city is awaiting an application, um, that Horizon will bring forward and then we would have to process it within the guidelines and parameters of State Assembly Bill 531. And my understanding is is that Horizon went ahead and looked at this property and this site and it must check all the boxes in order to be able to get that ministerial approval on this. And then just going back to my discussion with the county manager, my understanding is is that that $25.5 million of grant award that has come in is tied specifically to that site. Can't go to any other site. And so that's kind of where we're at today. Um, overall as city manager, I found out about this, I believe, in October and I've been uh pr in all my emails and I've been advocating to the county or really demanding of the county and also of Horizon that I demand that they need to engage this neighborhood and this community as soon as possible. It went all the way through till December of this year, early December, where I also sent an email because I had not seen the engagement happening that I said if they will not engage, I will go ahead and engage. Even though it's not a city project, we don't have we're still learning about the details. There's nothing for us to really share at this point in time because we don't have those details. We have to wait for a formal application for the city to then get involved in the regulatory process um or the permitting process overall. And so with that, I know that council member Lisa Diaz Nash went to the Daily Journal and the Daily Journal went ahead and published a news article on this

back in December, I believe it was. Um, and then I believe that from this time where it really uh got on people's radars was finally Horizon, they went ahead and mailed initial notices that there's a potential project on the horizon. Should they get a grant award? I think that happened in January or early February. And then what happened after that was then there was a mailing my understanding is to those addresses that were nearby. They might not have hit all the addresses because I heard complaints from our residents um as well on this matter. And so where we're at today is we had Horizon had their own virtual online meeting. They didn't they don't from a legal standpoint they didn't have to do that. They did that and then uh we have demanded that the county host a meeting which has that's scheduled for March 24th and then looking for any further direction from the council at this point in time. So thank you.

Thank you for that statement. City manager. Does anyone else have something before we get into comments? I've I've gotten a message from the public that there are a number of people on their phones that want to speak and they got on their phones because they couldn't get on the Zoom link. So, is there anything we can do? Natalia? Yeah. I'm sorry. I was picking up my daughter and I was listening to you, but I wasn't able to join you. Yeah. Um, so I just wanted to say that I've been u Mayor, it's up to you if you want to do you want to ask I I think before we get talk I was just asking a technical question mayor. Okay. And what was that

was if there were people on the telephone who wanted to be able to speak and they they couldn't. That was so just Yeah. Deputy City Clerk, do you do you have a sense of I I mean is there are there folks who are trying to reach us? Have have we learned anything? You know, it sounds like we have at least one person who came in. Um but do we do we have more who wish to give public comment who are now in the Zoom environment?

Uh we don't have we have about 16 attendees in the Zoom environment. We have two that join uh through the phone. Um, nobody is uh with has their hand. I see Tus Graphos has his hand raised. However, any other uh other attendee doesn't um I do not have not received any emails. The link however for one of the agendas seem to be requesting a passcode which is part of the agenda itself at the top and the title. It has a meeting ID and passcode. That depends on the settings for your Zoom account.

So, how about we do this? Do Do you want to go and look if there's just if anyone who hasn't spoken, give them an opportunity? There's only 16 people online and it looks like there's one in the audience. Mayor,

I I I I I think maybe if there's an opportunity given that there are multiple ways to to get into the meeting without necessarily giving public comment, if we wanted to try and broadcast the current information for how to access the Zoom webinar to give public comment, uh the updated one for people's information and if they others who have heard it want to share it for a moment, we could take a brief recess maybe and allow for people an opportunity to make use of that and then we could reconvene, check for public comment, reopen public comment for uh a brief period. Uh and and we could take we could take one

for anyone who hasn't already previously provided public comment. Yes. Would that would that sound okay to Okay. All right. We'll do that. Does that Okay. Yes, please. Thank you very much, city manager and deputy city clerk. Five minutes. And yes, I suppose we could take uh Yeah. Well, let's let's take uh this this if that's all right. First, I have a comment question. As I was uh listening to Alex, he said that the city has very limited um powers to um One moment. We want to get you on there so I don't hear you online. Go ahead. Okay.

Oh, okay. As I was listening to your comment as uh to as far what city can do about this project, you said that and what I've read in those papers that were provided to us is that sim city can only um uh deny this project based on the objective design standards which is uh you know what we can do. I live on the lot adjacent to the bank clinic and uh our building was built in 1977 according to the old fire codes. We all share fire lane with the bonnke clinic and uh it's a very long fire lane. However, bonnke clinic will be redeveloped. They cannot add any more dwelling units to that site according to the current fire code. And I was trying to like I wrote Lisa, you saw my two letters. I'm waiting for your answer. I've been to the fire department. I went to the pub uh planning desk. Like you know I can't get that answer. There are a few sections in the fire code that uh can actually address it on top of the discretion of our own city fire marshall. You know that does impede the safety of the residents. We have uh a row of tall cypress trees that are very dry. they you know they don't allow for aerial access of any sort. The fire lane itself is very narrow. You know it doesn't uh you know uh it doesn't allow for the modern fire trucks and our building uh because of the height and uh the story count and also because of the length of that fire lane. It has to be uh you know it's longer than 150 ft. uh you know we are um basically our fire

safety will be um compromised and as well as our evacuation uh route and escapes. Um, so I I'm asking you to please get with the our fire marshall and our planning desk and maybe they can proactively advise Horizon facility that this cannot be built. They cannot add residential units and that's exactly what their application uh says. They want to add 56 residential beds.

Would you like me to swan? Uh I I think maybe if we now take our recess reopen public comment for those who are going to join virtually take it all in and then allow for a staff response on anything captured and deputy city

through the mayor. I just want to add uh if you wish to provide public comment please uh the link can be found in our website city of san monteo.org under agendas and minutes public meeting portal. you will go to today's regular meeting and there you will find a link if it is asking you for a conference ID that would be it is listed on the agenda but I will read it for everyone is 88664371438 and a passcode if it's requested it's 900817. Thank you. Okay, I appreciate that. And we'll just take a recess at this time for five minutes and return. Thank you.

Come on. Heat.

Okay, thank you. We have returned. And uh deputy city clerk, at this time uh how many additional public comment requests have you received? If you wish to provide general public comment, please raise your hand now or provide me with your request to speak. We have three requests to speak uh per rules and procedures, three minutes per speaker and we'll begin in chambers with um Jean McCarthy. Good evening, mayor, city council people. I'm apologize for my voice. I've been ill. Uh, thank you very much for having me speak. I want to add my voice to those who have spoken out against the uh project on 101 North El Camino in San Monteo. I recognize uh city manager that uh it is a county sounds like a feta comple is what I was hearing you say. Uh and that's uh may or may not be true. There have been other instances of things happening that uh don't always go through and I've been a part of that process also. I would however strongly strongly encourage the city council to demand that the county officers who have made this decision

come and face the citizens of San Mateo and hear exactly what we have to say about their decision to negatively impact our city. Further, after having listened to this gentleman tonight talk about tourism in Sonteo, I don't see how this project coincides and dovetales with this project. So please on behalf of all the citizens that you represent in Sonteo, please demand that the county come to your your city council, your place of business here in this facility and speak to the residents about what they have done. I will certainly add my name to the state and to the county after this meeting to encourage them to do so. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And moving to our virtual environment, our first speaker is Jean. Please unmute your mic.

Hey there. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Okay. Good evening everyone. U mayor and city council members. My name is Jean. I live within walking distance your proposed sobering center uh one at 101 El Camino that you know multiple folks have already mentioned today. So I do appreciate the input the council has given especially the details from the city manager. I honestly think that's the most I've heard about this project and it's already gotten to the point of being apparently approved. Um, so which brings me to a point of uh I'm very concerned about the lack of transparency in this project and while I do understand this is a county project, it is within the city limits of Sonteo and it does directly impact your constituents. So, I think what we've heard from a couple folks is like we really need you guys to come step out of the shadows here and you know speak what everyone here is saying and I know you guys have received multiple emails about it which is that people are very very concerned and we need your help here to take a stance and push back. Um I want to also note that this project is within walking distance of downtown. We heard earlier about how much the city has done to increase the vibrancy of downtown and it doesn't take a a very much stretch of imagination to think of the impacts to our downtown um if this were to happen. So while you know I believe that you're hearing a lot from local residents, I really think that this issue is not only for local residents, it's an issue for all of Sanonteo given that downtown is really the heart you know of our city. On a personal note, I have a seven-year-old daughter that goes to school within walking distance here. I pass by this intersection very very frequently, pretty much every day. You know, I see the schools, I see the elderly. And I just want to speak plainly just given the fact that, you know, how Horizon has and and the county has approached this. What I believe is I don't think Horizon really cares about kids. I don't think they care about the elderly. And I don't I think they only care about just putting this thing in because the way that this has gone down is just is just not good. So, I guess in summary, what I'm asking you guys, our

elected city leaders, is to step up. We really need you guys to take a formal stance against this location to help bring transparency and knowledge to the community and work with us. Really work with us to help push back on this. Thank you. Thank you. And our next speaker is Christina Johnson.

Christina, please unmute your mic.

Um, good evening, city council. Um, many comments about the proposed Horizon facility. Again, appreciate the fostering of dialogue, but we really need the city leadership to step up. You've heard our voices. We stand for care. We do not stand for this location. This is an opportunity for you as our leaders to be heroes for your constituents. However, I do not see a single city official who has currently had the backbone to step up and do the right thing for the city. Blindly following a by-wight narrative is a lack of diligence and a lack of representation. This facility is unprecedented in size in the Bay Area. 69 beds, high intensity. The grant requires 30 years of operations in order to be acceptable for this grant. Choosing this facility is a one-way door to change our residential area as well as you just heard the downtown area forever. Will you get creative to protect your citizens? I understand that the city will not write a letter of opposition and I ask you why not. It is fully legal to do so. Would you please answer why you will not write a letter of opposition?

And if you're able to address that, I would No, we are not. I apologize. Do you have any further comments? Um, I do not have further comments on this. I think you've heard the residents, um, a range of residents. I too have young children. We walk by it daily. We have lemonade stands. Um, it's a very much, uh, unfortunate impact on how we feel about our beautiful neighborhood.

Thank you, Mayor Luring. That concludes general public comment. Okay, thank you for those who gave extra public comment and uh thanks to everybody for bearing with us. Um at this time I would see if staff has anything further they'd like to add.

So just uh responding to I believe it was the second round of inerson public comment that we had just before our break specifically um talking about fire safety and other requirements. We have not received an application yet for us to even weigh in. And so when that application does come in, we will route it through um all the required um regulatory oversight that is within our purview. So I just want to be very clear with that that it'll have to go through um our regulatory regulatory process, but there's a state process that limits what regulations we can actually hold the project to specifically with this AB531. Uh so once we have that, you know, staff will take a look at the entire project itself and then about opposition and whatnot. That's a council decision if you guys wanted to do something like that.

Okay. Council members Kadiski. Yes. I just wanted to also first I want to thank everyone for your public comments. We hear you loud and clear. I would also just like to get on the record in case you're wondering who else you should speak with is our county supervisor Noelia Cororso as well as county supervisors Jackie Spear, Ray Mueller, David Canipa, and Lisa Gocha. And you can ask them. This was agendaized on the county's agenda, not the city council's agenda about this project. You can also reach out to

on October 28th. Thank you. on October 28th. You can also reach out to Mike Callig who leads the executive board at the county's office if you have more questions. And we too are waiting for more details as a council about the meeting on Tuesday, March 24th. Thank you.

Please, uh, Council Member Diaz Nash. Thank you through the mayor and thank you to everybody I've been communicating with for the past couple of weeks. Uh when the public commenters say there's so many people who are upset, they are not exaggerating at all. I answered two weeks ago over 200 emails in the past 24 hours. I personally answered 150 emails. There are a number of people who are on the call tonight or in the audience or were. So there is very genuine concern about what's going on here. Um, and I think I personally, and I would love to hear from the rest of my colleagues, but I think that there has been a direct uh transgression because there has been tremendous lack of transparency. This project has not involved the city from day one. And that might be the process, but that is not the right thing to do. And I think what we've got to be here tonight is to try and start to address those wrongs and start to bring our community in so that the questions can be asked, the answers can be given, discussion can start to happen between Horizon, the county, even state health officials as to say why did this happen this way and why wasn't the community involved. So, I would like to read a letter and and by the way, I have spoken to every one of the supervisors that supervis that uh supervisor I'm giving you a promotion. Um, council member Rich Gitzky mentioned today and the county executive Mike Caligie and I have said the same message and I am about to to ask our deputy city clerk to share a letter with our staff and our council members. I've got a copy. Thanks. uh that I sent today to the president of the board of supervisors Noelia Cororso

and to County Executive Mike Callig. And I could only share it with my colleagues right now because of Brown Act restrictions, but I want to give everybody time to read it. And in the process, it will be available as part of this meeting. So, anybody in the public who wishes to see it is welcome to as well. Dear President Corso, just last week we learned from the office of Assembly Member Diane Papen that the state approved a $25.5 million grant to the Horizon Recovery Center nearly three months early. The center would potentially be cited located at the busy intersection of North El Camino and Elserto Avenue here in San Mateo in close proximity to residences, schools, and elder care centers. Not to mention the dangerous intersection that some of our previous commenters talked about. Sonteo is a very generous community. We all want compassionate, effective services for the most vulnerable families and residents, and that's all of us. These services serve people of all races, all income levels, all areas. However, Sanail residents deserve a detailed understanding of the proposed project's parameters and the process or lack thereof for community input and views to be considered. Now that this grant has been approved, it is critical that the city and our community have a decision-making seat at the table for all decisions moving forward. I am angry and disappointed that the county has not met its previously stated commitment to transparency and community collaboration on this proposal and our city manager as an aside speaks the truth. We have not seen a proposal. We have not seen anything and until we receive that we cannot look at it from a staff

perspective. So, at this evening city council meeting, I will be requesting that we schedule a special city council meeting for the sole purpose of discussing this issue. And for those of you who need to know, I need to get majority support from the council. So, that's at least two other people agreeing for me with me to have this meeting. Um I will request and expect for that meeting that high level state, county and horizon decision m makers attend this public meeting to respond to our questions and share their plans to address our community's concerns. And I should also say that I've reached out to Horizon CEO Compos and I look forward to speaking with him as well. Without significant resident engagement and input as a foundational part of this process, I will not be able to support the sighting of this project at the current planned location. We need to have talk. We need to have community input. We need to figure out what is going on and that's the foundation for anything going forward. Thank you, President Corso, for your attention to my request. As always, the city is prepared to work collaboratively with the county to address major issues and concerns for all of us, but such has not been the case so far on this project. So, I would open this up to comment and questions for my fellow council members, but ultimately I would request that at least two others, hopefully I'm everyone agree that we ask for the county for Horizon and state officials to come and hold a meeting as the community has requested here to talk about the process and procedures. I am fully supportive of

the county meeting that President Corso is convening on the 24th. That will be the first in-person opportunity for our community to ask questions and get answers and start to have the dialogue that is so necessary to clear up questions and start to rebuild trust. Thank you, council members Kadiski.

Thank you through the mayor. Um, so Lisa, I hear you and I thank you and I am supportive. However, I do think if the county is holding a meeting and I would still like details on the meeting, but if they're holding a meeting on the 24th, I want to hear what they have to say first. So, I'm happy to support your request, but it needs to come after the counties had a chance to weigh in on their project. Is that fair? We're talking about six days from now. The mayor, if I may respond. Yes, of course.

Okay. Thank you very much. Um, we couldn't possibly organize a meeting on our own before the 24th. So, by and large, the the 24th is the right thing. What will happen at that meeting and what the community has asked for and what the the supervisors are supportive of is an opportunity for the community to ask questions that we've heard tonight. What I want to have happen at the meeting afterwards whenever we can organize it is to start talking about the procedures, the process, why did this get to this point. Now that is not, you know, that is going to be much more in the weeds. And I also would like to ask that a working group start that would be made up of Horizon staff uh the community um you know the county probably the Sato Police Department to really go into the weeds on the procedures and the process. So I think those two things absolutely if if we I don't want the meeting on the 24th to get bogged down with let's talk about this process and this this regulation. This is the this is the opportunity for the community to talk. But there's going to be other reasons why we need to hear from the county and Horizon. And that's why I'm respectfully asking for support tonight to agree to that. Others have something they'd like to contribute. Council member Newsome.

Sure. Thank you through the mayor. Uh, council colleagues, Mr. Mayor, I just want to also express my sincere concerns with this county project. Not because of what this project does. The city of Sanonteo has a long history of supporting detox and rehabilitation centers and programs. I have family and friends that have utilized these services in this city. We have great programs in Sonteo like Project 90, the Vendome, Hosienda House, and even an existing smaller horizon facility on Palm Avenue. The city of Sonteo is welcoming to programs for those in recovery, and I stand by that we should continue to be. The concern with this project is that the impacts it will have both on both because of its size and because of the location and the impact that they will have on the neighborhood. My message to our county supervisor colleagues is that if we as a city council have learned anything in the past few years, it is that moving quickly without community engagement just to acquire funding deadlines often does not go well. It's important that our PD are brought into this that we can address the security concerns and safety concerns for our neighbors. I think that we as a city must do whatever we can to ensure that our community's concerns are heard and addressed so that the county and Horizon can move forward steadily and deliberately to make sure that wherever this project is installed, it's done right for our residents and the Horizon clients. Thank you. And I with that said support the idea of the city having a city meeting.

Deputy Mayor, uh thank you. Uh, Council Member Diaz Nash, I still am not quite getting the difference between the meeting that's going to be happening on the 24th versus the special council meeting. Forgive me, please, if you wish.

Thank you. Um, the meeting on the 24th is an opportunity for the community to start ask questions. It's an hour and a half. It's at the event center. Please everyone come. uh but it is it will not get into excruciating level of detail that we need to get into. What I want to have what I'm requesting is that representatives high level representatives from the county from Horizon from the state who are involved in this process come and talk to us about what the process was. How did this happen? How did we wind up in this point where this project has been approved and no one from the community where it's happening has really had a meaningful opportunity to input and then secondly I would like to hear their plans as to what are we going to do what are they going to do to make sure that wherever as council member Nuome said wherever this project winds up it is done seriously and with great detail and with co collaboration with the residents and the small businesses. It's not just the residents and the schools and the places of worship. So to me that requires an agreement at the meeting here to say okay we are ready to negotiate. Here's how we want to negotiate and we will go through all the plans, all the procedures, everything that needs to happen to put up any of these centers. and Horizon is very experienced so they should be able to share a lot with us. But we need to have them all coming here as one of our uh speakers said ear earlier to talk to us and talk to our community here as to what those details are and to agree to continue to negotiate.

May I? Yes, please. Um

Oh, sorry. Um I I so I appreciate it. It it does feel a little bit like with regard to the process that the horse has left the stable. It feels a little bit like an autopsy. Like I'm in in as much as like we we're already at this point. So what what is what is the utilizing the staff time that we're going to have put into that? And I'm actually not supportive of us sending staff to a meeting like that um on the 24th. I don't think we should be a panelist. I don't think we're not a stakeholder in this project yet. I I would not be supportive of that. It feels a little bit to me like beating a dead horse unless I see an agenda. So that that that's my perspective. And I just this I don't know how to dis this whole project in in some ways reminds me of what happened in Milbury with the Lita project in as much as the project moved forward without community engagement and the result was that the county eventually had to drop the project. And I just hope moving forward the county does engage in res with residents on on issues like this which is a larger topic which I do appreciate that you want to have a a subcommittee or something like that. I just hope that the county sees this and increases their engagement, especially on controversial items like this. Um, and maybe to add to the request, if you were going to do something, I would love to see us in anticipation of the 24th meeting, perhaps we could request county manager Caligie um to ask him to engage um additional county staff or resources to do more outreach in anticipation of that meeting, meaning having county staff walk the blocks surrounding where the proposed site is so that we can make sure every neighbor is hit. That's that feels like a county responsibility to me.

Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you. And I have have spoken with County Executive Calgi and he has agreed to do additional meetings. Great. So that's that's wonderful. And I also would not uh ask the staff to go city staff to go to the meeting on the 24th. So that's two. Is there a third? Three. So, if I might, um, I mean, I'll just note that. Sorry. I was just saying there's three of us who do not want to have staff vote. So, I just want to say just

Yes, I I would agree with that. Um, that said, I I imagine there will be some council member attendees. Uh, and and I certainly am interested in in hearing like learning if I can participate in the meeting as an attendee. I would like to uh I'll I'll defer to uh the the proper legal procedure for how many can potentially join, but um I I do I think I just heard uh council member Dash, you mention that the county executive has agreed to more meetings beyond this meeting on the 24th. Is that right? So to me, if that's the case, then um you know, I think that's what's needed. um as they are the partner for this pro this program this project um I I agree with council member Gadiski in that I want to learn more in this upcoming meeting that we had requested through the letter at the last council meeting here um before you know and to me I I I can sense that given that today is the 16th and that meeting is the 24th and some folks folks have not yet heard about it. The city manager mentioned uh we haven't received the resources we intended to have to share it and uh advertise that people attend it. That there there should indeed be more meetings beyond or at least at least one more meeting beyond this one because not everybody will get to attend this one it sounds like. Um, but I I I feel that I would like to, you know, learn more from the county on their outreach plan before specifically demanding something happen here at city hall. It seems uh that we shouldn't

necessarily have to have the meeting here. um if if it can be in Sonteo, if it's if this one is at the county event center, you know, it provides an opportunity for people to gather and learn from those who have put together the project the details of this project. Um but I at this time that's that's I I feel like I would want to start with next week's meeting. Um follow up with county staff and the board on plans for the next meeting. advertise that as soon as possible and um and then get a sense from the community who had the chance to attend that first meeting um you know what what more is required and and potentially uh revisit at that time. That would be my preference.

So I guess there's two different ways of going about this. you can either schedule look to schedule an upcoming special meeting or I've heard from the mayor uh to maybe wait see how the county meeting goes and then you guys can decide to do that down the line. So looking for direction through the mayor if I may. Yes.

Um we requested this near over two weeks ago and all I know this is hearsay. There is no agendaized meeting on the 24th that I can find anywhere online, not on a county website, certainly not on ours because we haven't been given anything. So my suggestion is is that we do agendaize a meeting with the idea that we could move it out to a a further out date, but at least then we now have a meeting on the calendar and we are doing we're walking the walk by saying we're communicating and giving people the opportunity to be heard. And for that reason, I I continue to support the idea of us agendaizing a meeting in the future and after the 24th because that gives an appropriate amount of time for people to attend.

Plus one to Rob's comments. So I see a council majority then if and I can support that but I want to make sure that it is specific to your point because we we can't wait three months while we go talk to people. This is happening. if this is approved, they want to get started this summer, you know, so we really do need to move. So, I am I am comfortable with putting the meeting on the agenda if my council members, you know, the majority agree and um then continuing to work with the county and with Horizon because we really haven't had a chance to hear from Horizon either. So, um

So, would you say to look at the next 30 days to schedule a meeting, a special meeting? Yeah. Is that okay from three but with the 30 days you're okay that in the next 30 days? Okay. I have direction. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Can you just reiterate what the direction is, please? So it's very clear.

Okay. Direction that I have I've heard from the council. One is that we will not be formally sending staff to the March 24th county meeting to have a role in that meeting. Two is that we'll look to schedule a special meeting in the next 30 days and invite the county horizon leadership and state officials. Is that correct? I'm seeing nodding heads. Okay, I see three nodding heads. Okay, thank you. Okay, we will now move on to our next item of business. Item 22 is a public hearing for the 2026 solid waste collection rates for the 2026 rate year. This is a public hearing and we have a presentation by Jack Johnson, our waste management supervisor. Mr. Johnson, thanks for coming. Hi, my name is Jack Johnson. I'm the waste management supervisor for the city of Sonteo. And we are joined also by

Okay. Thank you. I am technically challenged.

Uh we are joined tonight by uh Rick Simson and Gabe Sasser, our rate setting consultants from HFNH consultants. they uh prepare and advise us on what rates should be. Uh what we are doing tonight is uh conducting a protest hearing uh per Prop 218 uh to consider uh 2026 solid waste uh rates increases. Uh the request of council tonight is to conduct the 218 protest hearing and um if a majority protest does not exist, staff uh recommends approval of the 2026 solid waste collection rates that were included in the Prop 218 notice and available on the city's website. Uh the annual rate review process um is that rates are reviewed at by the council every year and once adopted are effective for the next year. The city follows the California constitution when setting solid waste rates which means that all rates must be based on the actual cost of service. Currently residential rates do not cover cost of service. There are approximately 20,89 residential accounts in Sonteo. Commercial rates do cover costs. There are approximately 2,674 commercial accounts in the city. Before we discuss the rates, I would like to remind everyone uh about the solid waste process and what services the rates actually cover. So, let's consider for a moment what actually occurs on garbage pickup day. After the typical resident has put out their bins for collection on what most of us refer to as garbage day, three trucks visit every address on the route and pick up various sorted materials and take them to other locations for processing.

For instance, the black bin, the garbage bin is taken to the Shoreway transfer center where and then it is uh further taken on to Ox Mountain Landfill and Half Moon Bay. The blue bin, the recycling bin is taken to the Shoreway recycling center where recycling is sorted, bailed, and taken to various locations for further processing. And the green bin, the organics bin is taken to the transfer station and then on to either of two composting facilities. um either in Tracy or Mil Pedis. So in addition to garbage collection, residential rates also include recycling and organics collection, transfer and processing all for one charge. So while there is no charge on your Recology bill if you're a resident for recycling and organics collection and processing, these services aren't free. They are all included in the garbage bill. These solid waste rates also include all the city's efforts to keep Sonteo clean and reduce waste. Our anti-litter programs, the trash capture maintenance costs of preventing trash going into the bay, all of the city street sweeping and the public outreach and education. We do our e-waste collection and shredding events, uh hazardous materials collection, construction and demolition recycling, and the illegal dumping program. So let's remember that what we refer to as the solid waste rate or the garbage bill actually includes many more services. the background. Um, we have and usually receive public comment during the protest period. Uh, that the proposed rate increases are designed to punish those who produce the least amount of waste, that they are not competitively bid and that our collection, processing, and diversion activities are too expensive. The city has long been and

remains committed to waste reduction, but regrettably, because of state laws, we are no longer able to fund our waste, recycling, and compost programs in the way that we had been when using the pay as you throw model. As to competitive rates, the city is in an exclusive franchise agreement with Recology that was competitively bid in 2019 and will be up in 2035 when it will also be competitively bid. So, as to expense, how did we get here? Well, in 2006, in order to promote recycling and reduce waste going to the landfill, San Monteo, like many progressive communities, adopted a pay as you throw system. But in the intervening years, California didn't meet its landfill reduction targets established by law. So, in 2016 and in 2022, new regulations from the state came into effect mandating recycling and composting. Neither is voluntary for anyone in the state any longer. And because the California Proposition through 218 requires rates to be proportional to the cost of service of the parcel, we can no longer use the pay as youth throw model and have been in the process of transitioning to a true cost of service model. We have been have been adjusting rates per this requirement since 2021. I'm now going to turn this over to Rick Simson and Gabe Sasser from HF and H Consultants. Uh they will walk you through uh the proposal for 2026 rates.

Good evening. I'll start with background on the 2025 rate setting process for the city solid waste rates. There were four outcomes. The city deferred the portion of Recy's increases that exceeded 5% last year. A temporary deferral of $331,000 in 2025 is a part of the revenue requirement. In 2026, the city used $400,000 from the solid waste fund to reduce the balancing account with recology. The city increased residential rates by a range of $7.50 50 up to $9 per month. The city increased 20 gallon and 32 gallon rates for both commercial solid waste collection and commercial organics collection rates as well. Next slide please. The 2026 revenue requirement consists of three categories listed in order of largest to smallest. The Recology collection costs which are increasing by more than 4% for 2026. These are based on Recy's compensation application which are which is submitted each June which allows for inflationary increases as part of the city's franchise agreement with Recology. Additional increases of $331,000 from 2025 are also included as part of the decision from last year carrying forward to this year. The disposal and processing costs are increasing 7 and a half%. This is for the costs that the uh that are required to dispose and process of the material. So each time the material is brought to the Shoreway

facility and weighed, that weight is applied a volutric rate that Rethink Waste sets. And so Rethink has increased its rates by 5% toward those tipping fee rates in this year and that accounts for five of the seven and a half%. In addition, we're projecting larger disposal volumes and this accounts for 2 and a half% of the overall 7 and a half% increase to this cost projection. The city fees make up the additional portion. City fees fund the city's solid waste program, street sweeping, trash capture device maintenance, and many of the programs that Mr. Johnson previously discussed. The increase of $625,000 in this revenue requirement from 2025 is largely attributable to street sweeper equipment. Next slide, please. The revenue requirement is summarized in this table. Lines six, seven, and eight make up the three cost categories that I covered on the previous slide. In total, this works out to row nine, a total revenue requirement of 35.6 million. We compare that to the revenue at current rates from those rates set April 2025. That revenue of 34.5 million generates a shortfall of $1.17 million. And as such, we're recommending addressing that shortfall through increasing rate revenues. Next slide, please. Each year in conducting the rate setting process, we evaluate the cost of

service. And as you'll see in the table toward the bottom of this slide that residential rates are not meeting their cost of service as indicated by the difference between the rates currently being charged and the 2026 cost of service base rates. The percentage indicates the comparison of that difference column to the current rate. Those percentages may be large in some instances, but they are declining in that the difference between the rates being charged and the cost to serve each level of subscription is going down over time. And that's evidenced by the graph toward the top of this slide, where those percentages have been declining over time as the city continues its plan to realign all rates to the cost of service. And this is year five of that plan. And so next slide, please. We're recommending increasing the residential rates to address the cost of service by the proposed rates shown in the column that's bold on this slide. These are the rates that were mailed via the Proposition 218 notice to all rate payers. And these would require changes to the monthly rates as shown on the slide. And those changes range from a minimum of $416 to a maximum of $6.50. Specifically, the 96gallon rate for solid waste collection service and the bundled services of organics collection and recycled recycling collection for these single family residential customers. This rate would meet its cost of service by the proposed change and that's why you're seeing a smaller increase for those customers

despite disposing of a larger solid waste volume. No increases are proposed for the commercial customers as Mr. Johnson stated earlier that they currently meet their cost of service. Next slide please. The next four slides, including this one, uh consist of a residential rate comparison based on the four subscription sizes available to single family residential customers, starting with a 20gallon comparison. So, this compares San Mateo's current rates, the light green, to the San Monteo proposed rates as part of this Proposition 218 notice and public hearing. those shown by the darker green against other member agencies of Rethink Waste and other agencies within San Monteo County. So all these agencies are subject to the same costs associated with Recy's collection services and Rethink waste disposal and processing services as part of their solid waste collection rates. Next slide please. And this is a comparison of the 32galon bundled rate charged to single family residential customers. Again, the proposed rate falls at or below the median of those compared. Next slide, please. And a similar theme is true for the 64gallon comparison. Next slide, please. And finally for the 96gallon customers uh this subscription level is now meeting its cost of service based on the proposed rates which is a part of our recommendation. And again the proposed

rates fall within the median of this comparison. And with that next slide please. In summary, we're recommending uh rates such that rates must cover the cost of solid waste services and cannot be based on a progressive pay as you throw or a diversion incentivized program. The proposed 2026 rates move the city closer to compliance with Proposition 218, which is the guiding principle for rate setting in California for u parcel based rate setting or in addition um in the rate setting process we're always considering cost projections for the future and there are some that are being contemplated on the horizon. Horizon Rethink Waste, formerly known as SBWMA, is considering capital expenditures and investment uh to its Shoreway facility. And so this is certainly a consideration for future disposal and processing fees as well as the ZEV or the zero emission vehicle infrastructure that Recology would be required to update its fleet to should California implement these regulations in the future. Next slide, please. Mr. Johnson, I'll return it to you. Thank you. Staff recommends the following uh 2026 rates uh for residential solid waste uh subscriptions that Gabe um just went over. Um these were determined uh in consultation with HFNH over a period of time and this is what staff recommends.

The rate adoption timeline this year has been that we met on July the 12th. Uh council approved uh the mailing of the 218 public notice that was mailed on the 16th of January. Uh there was a 45day public notice uh mailing u period and now we are here tonight um to to hear the results of the protest hearing. So the request of council is to ask clarifying questions to conduct the 218 protest hearing and then if a majority protest does not exist to approve the 2026 solid waste collection rates. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. So let's see. Typically, I would ask for public comment first and then ask for clarifying questions. I did just see in the slide that it seemed that we would potentially ask clarifying questions first. City attorney, do you have any thoughts?

I think you could do that either way, but it's fine to ask for public comment first. Okay. But e either way is acceptable. Well, I'll just uh Okay. I mean, I think public comment would take form in the public hearing process. No. or is there more public comment that we would invite? So this is the time to as part of this process uh staff will tabulate the number of votes, number of protests. So you could I think the the rhythm of the hearing is to I think ask clarifying questions of staff and that way you can consolidate public comment with the tabulation of any protest that might exist. You could do it that way.

That sounds great. Thank you for the guidance. And with that, I will ask council

I will open up public comment. Uh for anyone wishing to give public comment on this item. Uh if you're in chamber, you can give a request to speak slip. If you are on the Zoom webinar, you may raise your hand or if you're on the phone, you may press star 9. Um deputy city clerk, can you please tally public comment? Mayor Lurine, we have one request to speak today uh per rules and procedures that would be 3 minutes and um Mr. Rak Haram,

thank you. That was very instructive to hear your presentation. So, I guess where I come from is uh we throw garbage maybe once a month. We don't use it every week. We probably recycle once and again 3 four weeks and use composting again once in 3 four weeks. And if you go back 15 years, we probably used bulk maybe once or twice. So I guess I was looking for something that might sound like pay as you throw as you mentioned. Uh yeah, and again looking for some creative ways where we can mitigate, you know, cost increases either through, you know, household sharing, things of that nature. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Lurine. That concludes public comment. Thank you. I will close public comment and uh then I will ask my council colleagues for clarifying questions. Council members for Kokadiski. Yeah. So in a similar vein to the gentleman that just spoke on slide 15, um I think Gabe, you were going through different options. I have heard from a few folks on fixed income that the cost burden is becoming too much for them and so I do wonder like what we can do in those types of situations if anything.

So I can jump in and answer um for you. So uh basically what we're we're limited on the types of funds that you can use. You can't use trash rates to create some type of fund uh for say people on fixed incomes or low income, an assistance fund, so to speak, but the council could if they wanted to establish using general fund dollars um money that you would pledge and then we'd have to establish a program basically um for people who would apply for assistance with the program. similar like what you guys did with rental assistance, you'd do it for uh trash pickup.

Thank you. Yeah, I just um I wonder if we need to look at that because we have to get to par it looks like and we're still not all the way there and then costs are rising exponentially right now. And so, you know, it's going to become more and more of a problem, especially for those that, you know, are on those fixed incomes. I appreciate that. That's a good point. Uh, do other Yes. Council member Diaz Nash.

Thank you through the mayor. Um, Mr. Johnson, thank you very much and thank you to your partners for making that presentation. I'm wondering, as I recall, whenever I' I've gotten rate increase notices, it's been here's what the new rate is, but there hasn't been anything accompanying it saying here are ways you can reduce the charges, you know, so do a little bit of marketing with the here's the information. I know in my case, um, I was using a a bin that was really way too big for what we we really needed anymore because our kids are gone, but I was still paying for that bin. By switching to a smaller bin, my rates went down. And I'm sure there are lots of other suggestions. So, I'm wondering whether there'd be an opportunity to try and add some suggestions to people about what they could do because if they're looking at the rate increase, you're going to get their intention at that point.

If if you'd like. Yes, please. Thank you. Um there are and we have and we will continue to uh we have an opportunity through bill inserts to make people aware that they can call rcology and request a review of their service and potentially lower uh the size of uh the their garbage bin which would lower their overall rate. and we can continue to send that out in our bill insert.

Thank you, Council Member Council Member Newsome.

Thank you um for your great presentation. Um just to continue on this vein, u I think when we first proposed these rates, I asked a similar question to Council Member Diaz Nash, which is, you know, what is the right size for your needs? And I was tickled to see like about a month after that or maybe a couple weeks after that, a postcard came out from Recology saying, "Do you have the right size bin?" And I thought, "Yes." Uh, but I just want to echo the continued idea of continuing that. And also suggest that um some email blast is done in that same vein because I know many if not all of us have switch are switching to e billills. Um, so making sure that we're marketing it both online and on their socials and everything is is appreciated. I also was curious, does Recology have any any type of financial support or hardship uh plans for people on fixed incomes that are, you know, not in addition to whatever the city might try to provide?

I am not aware of any. However, we do have representatives fromology here tonight. if you would like to invite them to answer that question. Sure. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Uh Monica Deanchenzi is here. Uh she is the main customer service person that I work with and a fountain of lots of knowledge. Thank you, Monica, for coming. Good evening, mayor, uh members of the council and staff. Um, so any kind of rate setting decision-m is done by the city. So, and that that direction is what we would follow. So, it's not something that we could do on our own per the franchise agreement.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just two more quick questions. Um, Mr. Johnson, last time we talked about this, uh, we were looking particularly at Foster City, Berling, and San Carlos, some of our neighbors, and seeing that they were consistently lower rates. Have we had any idea or any outreach to them to find out how they're they're keeping their rates lower than ours or do we think it's just an anomaly that they're not collecting enough to cover costs? I have reached out to them.

You got to turn your mic on you. Sorry. I have reached out to them casually um and formally uh not in any way that would um uh engender a a response I think that w that would get to the heart of the issue uh for a couple of reasons. one other city staffs. Other cities don't have as big a solid waste team as we do and and there are fewer especially in those cities there aren't very many people to ask. They rely more heavily on consultants. Um and however um I could make more formal requests uh as to where they are. Um, however, I do know that all cities in the state are subject to Prop 218.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't think that's we can we can reach out to our council member colleagues in other cities. So, I will I will take that on as something for myself to do. Uh, and my last question is when we look at the city's piece of this, um, looks like it's a little over $5 million. Uh I I assume it's primarily the sweet the street sweeping and the city staffing. Uh is there is there anything there that we any any opportunity there that we could be tightening our belts or finding potential cost savings?

Um to my knowledge neither well of course yes if directed to do so. However I've been with the city four years. uh we have only once I think increased um this the solid waste budget and that was a request uh based on um our need to procure compost through um Senate Bill 1383. Um I don't know that this until this year with the EV street sweeper purchase I don't think the streets uh program h has increased their um budget either. Uh so basically we we are flat for the past four years.

Okay. So I mean we're already doing everything. So that sounds great. So I think I can jump in and just say about cost savings overall and my thanks to our director in public works. One area that we are looking at saving money for our waste services uh fund is actually there is a trailer out at the corpyard right now that is funded I believe correct by by this fund. Director Fabri

partially. Yes. partially. And so what we're looking at doing is moving out of that trailer so that cuz we lease that trailer so that we don't make those lease payments anymore over there and utilize one of our um corpyard facilities to put our staff over there to get an annual savings I think of over $40,000. Yes. So we're looking at every which way to save the taxpayer their dollars here in this city. And so we're going to continue to do that whether it's a restricted fund or a general fund. So, we're work working and we're just lifting up every stone that we have here. And my thanks to the public works team.

It would echo your thanks to you and and all of the staff for looking for these things. I think, you know, right now for all of us, um, money is tight and everything seems to cost significantly more than it did a year ago. And so, I really appreciate, you know, us and working in good faith to try to find ways to at least keep costs at a minimum. So, thank you for all of that to all of you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Of course. Thank you very much. Any other questions or feedback? Um, I guess just to follow a little on what council members Gadiski and council member Diaz Nash mentioned. Um, Mr. Johnson, would you would you say we have any idea of how many of our customers who pay rates might be in a situation in which they feel like burdened by these increases? I I don't I don't have any idea and frankly I don't know how I would how I would um find that out. A few years ago, uh, this topic came up about, um, assisting lowincome folks, uh, or people on fixed incomes. And I did research into, uh, what the water program does and what the city of Menllo Park does. And they um they they had a there is a program that one enters into and discloses one's financial condition and gets certified um as to need. uh we could copy that model, but I I wouldn't I don't have the ability to request that information from people in any kind of real way um without a formal application process.

So, so just how just to provide just some of the lived experience on on this kind of um front. Typically, you'll here we're served by Cal Water and they have a rate assistance program. Typically, if you are able to qualify for that rate assistance program, a city would typically um look to that as kind of the means test in order to provide our own rate assistance program. That's the quickest and easiest way. Um I would say with the overlap overall, I think that helps. I believe that is what Menllo Park does. That's what Redwood City does too. Same kind of thing. had an establish a whole program this over there before I came here.

Interesting. Um I I I get this. I'm I'm gonna guess maybe well I won't guess. I'll I'll take a look around and see if if council colleagues might be interested in um maybe learning a little more about Menllo Parks program and and that sort of model and perhaps it could be shared via the the weekly council digest. Would that would that be okay?

So I see I see direction to look at it. The other thing I'm going to just get creative. I just wonder um working with our housing team because this is just another this is utilities, right? Um overall, maybe we can tap into our housing fund uh to potentially help with this um as an alternative. Um maybe not as I'm seeing our housing manager looking at we'll look at every different way, you know, we'll look at all funding options over there. Figured I'd stretch it and see if there's opportunity, but u more to come. We'll take a look and follow up.

Thank you. I appreciate uh the discussion on this and with that if I don't hear if uh if we've given the the clarifying questions and whatnot I would like to open the public hearing. Uh so at this time I will do so and ask if there's anyone from the public wishing uh well to comment on this item. I I guess like in terms from a protest standpoint perhaps an official protest at this point. Um, comments would be limited to 3 minutes per speaker and received by the city council for consideration, but only written protests will be tabulated toward a determination of whether a majority protest exists. Written protests may be submitted until the end of this public hearing submitting to the deputy city clerk. And so, at this time, I'll just ask uh deputy city clerk, do we have hands raised for public comment for this item? We

No, but this is uh so we already had that public comment. Uh and we have no hands raised in our virtual environment or public comment to this public hearing.

Very good. Yes. Uh city is there any do you did you want to say something? So, we follow the Prop 218 uh protest procedures and as part of that uh if you'll recall from the last presentation, uh notices get sent out. Uh there's instructions on how to lodge a written protest if you wish to do so. So during these hearings what happens is the uh protests that have been filed are tabulated and if there is no majority uh protest then the council is free to adopt the rates. So at some point during this hearing the council will need that you as the mayor as the as running the meeting will need to ask the deputy city clerk to tabulate the written protests that have been filed. And again, if there's no majority, the council can adopt the raids.

Yes. Thank you for that clarification. I would like to ask this at this time, please, Deputy City Court. We have not received any additional public protest as of right now.

Okay. So um since we've determined there are no more public protests coming in I am going to close the public pardon me city attorney.

Yeah I'm I'm sorry if I can just clarify. So I think that the question is it's not so much who has spoken right now at this meeting. It's who has filed a written protests um leading up to this meeting, including up and and up until and and until the conclusion of public comment is how many people have actually filed a written protest. And that's the number that we need to determine whether that number is, you know, zero or five or 10 or 20, whatever that number is. That's what needs to be articulated. Thank you. And I will then ask the deputy city clerk to please uh share that information with us at this time.

Perfect. We have tall tally all of the written protests to the proposed increase in the solid waste recycling and organic collection for the 2026 rate year and there were 31,59 notices mailed to property owners on the tax role and a majority would require one more than half that number which is 15,755. The number of ballot protests received is 29 as of March 16, 2026. Based on that, it is clear that a majority of owners have not protested the fee increase and the council is free to take action to increase or or otherwise modify the fee.

Thank you, Deputy City Clerk. At this time, I would uh entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay, that's a second from the deputy mayor and uh deputy city clerk, can you please call a roll call vote? Certainly. Council member Nielsen, yes. Deputy Mayor Fernandez, yes. Council member Speritzki, yes. Council member Diaz Nash, yes. Mayor Lorraine, yes. Motion carries. 5-0. Okay. City Attorney, do you have any anything else you'd like to add? Oh, no. Nothing further.

Okay, very good. Uh, thank you for your presentation. That will close item number 22. We'll move on to item number 23. 2025 annual progress reports, housing element, general plan, and housing successor agency approval. We have Rachel Horse, housing manager, Steve Golden, principal planner, and other members of our community development department with us tonight. Um, good evening council members. Rachel Horse, housing and neighborhood services manager. I'm joined by Steve Golden, principal planner. And we're going to present tonight on three annual progress reports. The housing element general plan and the housing successor agency annual progress reports. Next slide. We would like to just recognize all the staff who contribute to these reports. So you can see them all here from planning and housing. So some background on what these annual progress reports are. They're required by statute. Each year we are required to submit them by April 1st to the respective state agencies. It's a different sections of the government code and health and safety code um that apply. We submit the housing element annual progress report to the department of housing community development or HCD. Um we submit the general plan APR annual progress report to the governor's office of land use and climate innovation and we submit um the housing successor agency report to the department of finance.

So, some additional background on where we are with these um various documents that we're reporting on. The first being the housing element. This is the 2023 to 2031 housing element. It was adopted on May 20th, 2024 and then amended on February 23rd of this year. And we'll speak to that a little bit more in a subsequent slide. We are currently in the sixth wina, the regional housing needs allocation cycle. And this is the third year of reporting um in the cycle on the annual progress report. The general plan is called the strive Sanonteo general plan 20 240. It was adopted on March 18th of 2024 and this is then the second year of reporting for that document. And then finally the housing successor agency report. This is a report on the uh fund that we manage as the former redevelopment agency, the successor agency to RDA um which is the city. This is a report on expenditures and uh revenues um and assets in the low moderate income housing asset fund. So moving on um to housing element amendments. So as part of the settlement agreement with the housing action coalition or hack um and and also well the amendments were um initiated as part of that settlement and also um to align the housing element with measure T which was approved including updating the language and densities. Um the housing element was amended as I said in February of this year. So, it included some uh modifications to the housing sites inventory, adding certain sites, removing certain sites, removing non-active projects from pipeline projects list, um revisions to the realistic capacities estimates, and some very minor updates to uh the objectives in the imple implementation plan or the

goals, policies, and programs of the housing element. So we'll go in depth now on the 2025 housing element APR. First um this chart is showing uh Reena the again the regional housing needs allocation breakdown for each year in the reporting cycle. So starting from the left you have the affordability levels um and the and then the the total number uh for the entire cycle totaling 7,15 units. And then as you go to the right, this shows you the number of units that received a building permit in that year. And remember that the building permit is the key milestone for reporting and counting a unit if you will towards the arena. Um so as we move through to 2025 um we can see um how many units were received a building permit and then total 602 units thus far um have received a building permit. That's approximately 8.6% 6% of the city's reena. Now, there were more building permits um released in um 2025 than in in prior years, but uh these numbers are still relatively small. So, some observations there. Um these numbers that we're seeing are likely coming from projects that were entitled in the previous cycle as some time can pass between when a project is entitled and when a building permit is pulled. Um this really can depend on a lot of factors including the economic conditions whether or not they're favorable to residential development and in recent years uh they have not been. Uh the city's pipeline is quite robust as we will discuss in a subsequent slide. Um and as conditions evolve we anticipate that these numbers will really tick up in the coming years. Next one. So um just some highlights from 2025, some progress towards Arena. There's

some projects that were permitted, projects that began construction, and those that were under construction. So one project um that was permitted in 2025 and has not started construction yet is the Bay Meadows MU3 or mixeduse 3 development that includes 67 residential rental units, of which seven are lowincome units. Project that began construction in, excuse me, in 2025. It's 477 9th Avenue. This is a mixeduse project on a former office site that includes 120 rental housing units, of which 12 are very low income. So, that's currently under construction. And Peninsula Heights U was under construction in 2025. You'll recall we mentioned Peninsula Heights last year as well because this is a phase project of 290 uh total units since uh the start of construction. It's happening as I said in phases. 71 units have been completed. The total project includes 29 moderate income units because this is a fourale development mixture of town homes, single family homes, and condominiums. Um it can be a little hard to track um the affordable units and how many were completed since they're located. They're dispersed throughout the development, but um two units were uh closed or or sold in 2025 and there we know that there were another five that closed early this year. So they're not counted in 2025 and there will be additional ones coming online this year. Finally, ADU construction was higher than anticipated. ADUs constitute a non-trivial share of the um city's arena or progress towards the city's arena, I should say. 92 units were um issued a building permit in 2025 versus the 55 that were anticipated or projected for this year. So I'll hand it over to Steve for the pipeline discussion.

Thank you very much Rachel. So um with regards to pipeline projects, it's obviously has a lot of community interest amongst the council. So we tried to break down slice the pie as best we could with all the details. So since the adoption of measure T, we have received uh 20 applications for uh new multifamily or mixeduse housing projects. It includes approximately 1,600 new units that are in the preliminary application stage. So they haven't submitted a formal application yet, but they've submitted a preliminary housing application. And we have um nearly uh 4,000 uh new units that have submitted formal applications. We have approved the city has approved three applications since measure 2 was adopted. And if you add in the three previously approved applications, it totals 800 units that are entitled. And then there's 411 units that are currently under construction. So the total pipeline, if you add all these numbers up, is uh nearly 6,800 units, which is coming close to our uh total uh RENA numbers. However, uh as Rachel described, we don't get credit for projects that are just in the pipeline. and they have to pull a permit within the housing cycle. So, this does include potentially includes uh projects that will get approval and we'll see how many of these will get permitted. We've also included the affordable unit numbers here and you can see that um based on the pipeline project there's

about 28% of what was expected or what what our reena number um was assigned. Uh this slide just shows you sort of our top 10 projects, the largest projects that have come in since measure T was adopted. Uh Hillsdale Mall of course is our largest project with an estimated uh 6 1,670 units and um on down the line to uh a projects projects that have um more in the range of 200 to 300 units. Uh the total number here again is just our top 10 list. So about 4,800 units and uh 92 affordable units in those 10 projects. So going from our largest projects to really our smallest projects, which is our ADU production or accessory dwelling units. Um, as Rachel reported, we have 94 units that were um issued permits in 2025. This is well above the annual estimate of 55 units that we included in the housing element. And um within the first so we're 3 years into the cycle. It's an 8-year cycle and we're already over 50% of our estimated ADU production. And according to the HCD website for San Monteo County, San the city of San Mo has the highest production of ADUs across the county. As far as other work that's been done um for the ADU uh implementation is the council did adopt a new ADU ordinance which is policy H1.4 in the housing element. It was required by the state uh to comply

with state law. We got a a letter in 2024 from the state outlining compliance issues. staff met with HCD and we worked throughout 2025 to update the ordinance. Um there was planning commission study sessions in 2025. Staff conducted outreach and the city at the beginning of the year adopted the ADU ordinance. other implementation items for uh for ADU uh objectives is that uh in order to be able to um receive credit for ADUs and different income categories, the state is requiring us to update our survey, our affordability survey. So, we worked with other Bay Area jurisdictions. uh it was managed through the Association of Bay Area Governments to update our numbers based on a new survey. We implemented that survey in 2025 and submitted to HCD. They did review the numbers and they found that the previous assumptions uh were consistent with the new results. So you can see on the screen there's a 30 3010 split um that we can continue to use for housing element and that's just to uh categorize ADU into different income groups. Uh moving on to SB9 projects. You might recall that Senate Bill 9 became effective in 2022. Uh this is housing development through uh ministerial processes which allow urban lot splits and up to two primary units and uh state um uh ads allowed uh through state law on single family lots. Uh this is our trend is fairly similar to statewide trends that it's not a very large

production of units. We've only had seven applications since 2022. Three of those applications are purely ministerial and four applications have been discretionary. Those uh property owners have asked for exceptions to our standard SP9 development standards through a discretionary review. In 2025, we only received two SP9 applications and they're still under review. Okay, we're going to hit some highlights uh for the implementation of the housing element in 2025. I should let the council know that new this year, I shouldn't say new, but table D of the APR, this the annual progress report, uh HCD did update that table. It is much more detailed. It requires us to provide much more documentation and much more granularity than previous years and so the community might be interested in looking at that for all of the uh the highlights to our implementation plan for 2025. So we're just going to try to summarize at the high level progress um for the implementation of the housing element. So with that, um the council did adopt an ordinance to amend the zoning code uh to implement general plan 20 240. Uh we found that if there are that the code uh addresses if there's conflicts between the zoning code and the general plan, it establishes that the standards in the general plan um will be implemented until the zoning code has been updated. And then there were many updates to the zoning code. They

were done in two different phases under various policies in the housing element. Um I'll try to um quickly list these out. Again, this is a summary, not all of them. I hope to take a couple breaths in between. Some of these are more important than others, but we wanted to update or um just reflect on the last year of all the work that went into this. It did implement um uh policies H1.6, H1.7, uh H1.13. These are um uh updates for uh streamlining development. Um updating special needs and group housing requirements. updating codes to support housing production. And there's many more policies, but those are kind of the highlights. So, um again, uh some of the things that the zoning code did was we updated the code to allow residential uses uh as permitted in commercial district and office uh districts. We added a definition for single room occupancies and we amended the code to allow single uh room occupancies and highdensity districts. Uh eliminated the need for special use permits for multiple h multiple family housing in mixed use zoning districts. We removed all prohibitions of ADU development and zoning districts. Um so it's a permitted use per state law. We added um many new terms and definitions related to housing and updated existing definitions to be consistent with state law. There were amendments to allow group home group homes and residential care facilities for people with special needs. Um there were modifications to emergency shelter

definitions. We added development standards uh to the definition, new terms for supportive housing and low barrier navigation centers, and we're allowing for emergency shelters, supportive housing, and low bar low barrier navigation centers in uh certain zoning districts per state law. Uh eliminating the need for uh special use permits um for multiple family housing. I think I said that already, but we'll say it again because it's important. Uh we the last few are um we revised the code to reduce development review timelines for housing projects by streaming streamlining the development review process. We aligned a lot of our code requirements with uh a little law called SP330 which is um um requiring us to streamline this develop to streamline housing development. We are uh reduce the uh or streamline the review for projects up to 99 units uh for allowing the zoning administrator to approve those projects. We're providing greater certainty to approve development projects by uh extending uh approvals of expiration dates. And finally, we establish minimum densities for all residential mixeduse development projects that have general planned land use designations that are mixed use with higher minimum densities for areas within half mileile CALR stations. And then I'll turn it over to Rachel to talk about the bullet points on the right side of the slide.

Thank you. staff began work on tenant protections and anti-displacement policies in the housing element in 2024 and u this all led up to a study session on April 21st of 2025 and we covered three main policies in the housing element in that study session and in the stakeholder outreach and research that led up to that to that session. So as a reminder policy H3.4 four includes multiple policies uh which include um extending AB1482 provisions of specifically relocation benefits for um tenants who are evicted for no fault. So for no fault evictions and extending the the benefit of relocation bene extending the benefit of relocation payments to tenants who've been in their units for less than one year. So AB1482, which includes a lot of different tenant protections in the civil code, um applies to certain units and it applies to tenencies of one year or longer. So the commitment was to um to um require this relocation payments for tenants who lived in their units for less than one year. There's also a commitment to to researching and making recommendations um to city council for um establishing policies that require documentation for um substantial remodel evictions um and for researching and making recommendations on a right to return policy also for substantial remodel evictions. The same um policy included um a commitment to amending the city's code. So, it's an existing ordinance, the tenant relocation ordinance for tenants who are displaced temporarily or permanently due to habitability issues or substandard unit issues.

Um, and policy H3.6 relates to collecting data on the the status of of rental housing in Sonteo. So on monitoring rents and evictions citywide and uh there was a commitment to researching and making recommendations on potential rental registry and um so the and H5.4.1 is um it's essentially restatement of policy H3.4 and it's within the city's um affirmatively furthering fair housing plan. the uh city council directed staff to um undertake the these three bullet points here which included I'll take the first one the emergency rental assistance program. This was not included in the housing element, but was directed by the city council in response to the findings that staff presented, including um findings from a study on evictions in Sanonteo County that the the key reason or the primary reason for evictions, the vast majority of evictions in Sonteo County being non-payment of rent. So, uh, in order to, um, directly address this known cause of displacement, city council directed staff to create this emergency rental assistance program, which is now administered by Samaritan House and is funded by the housing successor fund, which I will talk about in the subsequent slide since we're reporting on that this evening. In addition, the city council directed staff to return with two ordinances. One is the called the residential tenant protection program ordinance. It adds a chapter to San Municipal Code. It should say chapter 10. The one is a typo. I apologize. Um and and this extends that relocation assistance um benefit payment to tenants who have been in their units for um 11 months or longer in a no fault eviction scenario. And it also requires property owners to um notify tenants who

are evicted for a substantial remodel when that unit becomes available again. The other ordinance uh the tenant relocation ordinance cemetery municipal code as chapter 7.50 already exists as I said um and this um ordinance uh amends that section of code strengthens uh this ordinance um which requires relocation um payments to tenants who are displaced as a result of a of a habitability issue or substandard unit conditions. Um while staff were not directed to uh return or to create a formal rental registry, staff was directed to find other ways to collect data on on rental housing in the city. and and so we are still working on um adding some questions to the city's uh business tax uh payment platform that HDL um that then um we can collect data on a voluntary basis from property owners when when they um apply. Um the other alternative compliance options policy H1.3 um was um introduced in um 2025. This was an ordinance and a resolution amending the city's below market rate or or BMR um ordinance. This allows for two alternative options to the standard requirement to provide 15% of units in a residential development of 11 of 11 units or larger um at affordable levels very low income or excuse me lower income or moderate depending on whether it's a rental or for sale development. This simply um allows for off-site units or a developer proposed alternative and um elaborates on those options for

developers that want to pursue that. Um which findings the city would have to make to approve the project to allow for greater flexibility because this is one of the many policies in the housing element that are aimed at incentivizing the production of units through creating uh flexibility for developers. Okay. So, now we'd like to move on to the 2025 general plan annual progress report. Uh you might recall the general plan um is inclusive of eight elements required by the state includes land use safety, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety. uh in the general plan 20 240 we also included three three themes throughout the document environmental justice sustainability and community engagement. I believe in environmental justice is now a required element moving forward starting in 2026 I believe but we did include it in ours. Um, it was also the city's first general plan to specifically identify and address equity priority communities as well as comprehensively addressing climate change and sea level rise. So, attachment two in the agenda report has a very detailed report on the progress of all general plan goals and policies in 2025. But this is just a quick summary. Uh with the approval of measure T in 2024, the city is now implementing measure T with increased highest densities um as found in the general plan land use designation. And then as previously discussed, the city has received 20 development applications since the

adoption of measure T and many of them are taking advantage of the increased densities and heights allowed in Measure T. The city initiated the comprehensive zoning update in 2025 by hiring a consultant to assist city staff. We have study sessions with council members and opportunities for uh community input through workshops. And this work will continue through 2026 leading up to the adoption of the comprehensive zoning code. Uh in 2025 uh we also initiated the climate action plan for sea level rise that will be an important uh tool to assess the vulnerability of urban development and natural ecosystems and threats specific to sea level rise and will develop adaptation options to address those vulnerabilities. In 2025, staff began working with a technical consultant to develop the climate action plan for sea level rise. Uh staff also began to uh coordinate with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission to initiate the plan development. And then with regards to a few of our projects that we've made uh um updates to the third the third avenue and North Folk Street intersection safety improvements which will improve uh pedestrian bicycle safety um was um was initiated. Construction uh began in February of this year. Oh, sorry. the the the de the design was completed in 2025 and an update from 2026 is that um the construction began

in February. Uh the complete streets plan um is a complete the north central complete streets plan is a complete streets plan developed in coordination with the community focusing on the north central area which is also an equity priority area. Um we did initiate this in 2024. Don't have any um anything to report specifically in 2025, but we're forecasted to restart in fiscal year 2026 um when the staffing vacancies are expected to be filled. Uh there's also the 1530 Susan Court capital improvement project which is the Marina Branch Library improvements which started in uh September of 2025 and has a 16-month um completion. And I'll turn it over back to Rachel for the housing successor report. So we have one final slide on this somewhat obscure report to the department of finance. We just wanted to highlight um that this report is filed and it does contain important information including the fund balance, revenues and expenditures and the assets owned um by the city as the successor agency to the redevelopment agency. Um I just wanted to point out that um well the balance which is identified here five almost $5.5 million um typically we report on that and on revenues which consists mostly of uh repayments on many loans that were um made over the years from the redevelopment agency and also loans loans to individuals and loans to development projects um for um ELI extremely low income and lower income housing. Um but a highlight that we will report on next year and we couldn't

report on this year because it's a look back to the 2425 fiscal year um is that the city began using these funds to support the emergency rental assistance program and the amount of 168,000 as I mentioned earlier and that um these funds are now supporting the personnel costs for the um or cost of the homeless outreach team which is operated out of the police department. This was previously funded out of the entirely out of the general fund and we're now utilizing these funds because we we can um a jurisdiction can use up to 500,000 um for to prevent homelessness and so we are properly using this fund um to to support these really important activities. That's all. So with that um the recommendation uh for the council is on this slide and we'll open it up to um comments and questions. Thank you for your presentation. Uh, at this time I'd like to open public comment. If you're in chambers, you may submit a request to speak slip. If you are online in our Zoom webinar, you may raise your hand. If you're on the phone, you may press star 9. Deputy city clerk. How many?

We have no request to speak on this item. Very well. And I shall close public comment and ask my council colleagues for any questions. or comments related to the presentation at this time. Okay.

All right. Um just a general comment. So I think many residents um feel like development is happen happening faster than the community can absorb. Um I think that's a valid concern. Um, and I just wonder what we're doing to support the community through the transition and that they understand the impacts also, you know, that we're highlighting on the way in terms of growth um, for San Mo. But, but really showing them that, you know, we are thinking about schools, traffics, um, affordability, quality of life, etc.

Through the mayor, uh, yes, we've gotten a lot of applications for for development projects. I guess the real question is when shovels actually go on the ground as we've seen in uh previous years where we're kind of lagging in building permits actually getting issued not the result of city processing but um more likely the financing high labor cost and various other things going on. Um so with regards to impacts to the community, we have been developing as far as construction impacts, direct impacts. We have been developing new uh conditions of approval which staff will implement during the construction stages to ensure that there's um mitigation and ways for um for the city to address just the construction impacts related to projects. We have been asking projects, the larger projects that um do have concerns with the city concerns with regards to traffic to uh to provide traffic impact analyses to the city. We do have thresholds that we're looking at to try to address those the largest uh projects. Um, with regards to schools, we have been providing the school districts our estimates for future uh for future development. I did see a demographic report that was taken the school board. They did have all the projects up to that to that point. Um, believe it or not, they're still, I believe, if looking at that demographic report, they're um estimating reduction in schools in students over the next coming years. Um, but that's their report based on their own demographics.

Um, and then of the 6,200 units realistically, like what are we going to see in terms of the next three years? I'll turn that over to Zach, right? We don't have a crystal ball, but he might have some intuition.

Yeah. So, I I think kind of building on what Steve said, um this is the first wave. It feels daunting, but in reality, there's probably going to be a a roll out where we'll start to see some projects, but it's not going to happen all at once. In theory, you I mean, it a lot of it is more of that larger economic picture. if there's a big shift where financing becomes readily more available. I think we will see a spike in projects seeking building permits. Um so that's where we are looking at things like construction management. In the near term, we anticipate a couple of our projects probably more with the town home style units um to be moving forward with um permitting. Um, usually we're looking at in the neighborhood, I mean, a project moves really fast. Probably the quickest they could get a building permit is six to nine months. In reality, it's more one to two years. Often times, we are seeing projects move kind of p um plotting through the process, not going super fast because I think there is a lot of trying to time the market. So,

over the next three years, I I don't at the current rate, um, we're probably going to see some permits issued, but a lot of projects continue to make progress, but not being too aggressive with construction. Well, so on that note, and I totally respect the fact that the city has no control over the financing, but what is going on with the vacant lot downtown and what is going on with like the Fremont lot and the fish market. I feel like there's a lot of, you know, proposed housing that like what we don't even know what's happening.

Yes. So I and I think each one of those sites have different circumstances and are kind of on their own different timelines. um the site, the vacant lot downtown block 21. We remain in regular contact with that property owner developer. Um they are actively working on trying to secure financing. I I think the the big thing is is it's very challenging for projects with office space to get financing right now. So um our understanding in the most recent conversations is they're eager to build as soon as they can secure financing, but that has not happened yet. So um nothing eminent. Um but um we are continuing to stay in contact. uh on the Fremont lot. Um we are working on um how we move forward. That property owner has gone through bankruptcy and it is now owned by um the lender I believe. So um that one is really that one's got a duration. So we're working on taking near-term steps to try to remedy the current situation. Ideally get it resolved to at least we can stabilize it as a vacant lot and not a abandoned construction site. Um and then with regard to the the fish market site, um we are really waiting for the property owner developer to get back to us and see which direction they go if they keep on with their prop project or proposed or or take a different route. Yeah, I guess just on that note, I think what's what confuses me, um, and this is just my own personal opinion, is some of those projects that I just mentioned, the same developer is now proposing new projects at new sites, and yet we still don't have a solid understanding from them, you know, what's happening. And meanwhile, residents in Sanonteo have to look at a vacant lot in the downtown. So, like at what point, you know, are they going to actually come in and give us an update? Because why do, you know, 110,000 residents have to look at a vacant lot that was supposed to have infrastructure going in and then they're proposing a new project. So, it's a

little confusing to me. So, point taken. And it's something that we brought up. I think we met just two weeks ago and I said exactly what you said to the developer um and went through basically exactly what Zach has provided on overall updates. But legally, when I look to the guy to my right here, the city attorney, there's not much we can do from that. They can always go and uh put, you know, new applications out there further, but it is something that city staff is being very vocal about on a regular basis. So, I just want to make it clear. Uh we're trying to be guardians of our community at the same time.

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Um, and then just the last question, um, of the projects, I know that we kind of approve ministerial approval for zoning for 99 units or less. So, how many currently are 99 units or less?

Well, so it's not a ministerial approval. It'd be a zoning administrator level approval. Um, so we do still have discretion obviously very limited um with the way state law is structured for housing projects. Um, I believe most of our projects are over 99 units. It the key is it's 99 units or less and consistent with objective design standards. And I think that last piece is what disqualifies most projects because just about every project has an at least a few waiverss from our objective design standards. So, I think we have one project that's at 10 units that's probably going to qualify, but I think we have a couple others that are under 99, but because they aren't fully consistent with ODS, they would still require that public hearing. And that that's something we'll pro we'll need to assess in the coming years. And I think um take a second look at our objective design standards and address some of those. Um but that at this point very few mo most are over 99 but then of the ones that are under they still aren't are not fully consistent with ODS.

Got it. Okay. I think that might be something I get that was a new policy we just implemented in the last year but that might be something we look at again just because we want to make it impactful and really focus on those larger scale projects. That's all my comments. Thank you for those. But anyone else? Yes, Council Member Diaz Nash.

Thank you through the mayor and thank you both and everybody else who helped you put that report together. Um I can't wait to get a hard copy of it so I can have a couple sheets and carry around with me as the city manager knows. Um, so there was one slide that showed, I think it was the pipeline slide that showed, you know, that we were at something like 94% of our reena numbers overall, but um, we were only at 28% of affordable units. And I'm wondering how that obviously it's always going to be less and it's going to be harder, but does that tend to be where the percentage hits? It is 28% better than we normally do this time in the cycle worse. How do I evaluate that? Because I'd love it to be 94% as well. But

well, I can't speak to the prior cycle so much, but um if we think about it, these projects are largely private development projects that have an inclusionary requirement. So they have that BMR requirement of 15%. So that's why it's always going to be uh riding on the coattails of a larger development and only representing that smaller portion. Um what will bring a any jurisdiction even close to its arena for the lower income levels is a few affordable housing developments. And so I would say that um this does not take into account um those projects that we haven't necessarily seen yet um where there could be a like a Kiku crossing 225 unit fully affordable project

or bespoke bespoke is bespoke or future 41st. Yes. Yeah. Is bespoke in that or not? I'll have to check the numbers and get back to you. We had a lot of pie slicing at some point. No, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Um, and even then that would be 71 units, which is not nothing but still doesn't get at how do you get to that 97% on the affordable and the answer is uh fully affordable projects which we fully anticipate would happen during this arena cycle, but we don't know the exact timing and we don't know the shape of those developments yet really so that we can include them in our pipeline. And just real quickly adding on to what Rachel had said and and I think we highlighted this throughout the duration of our housing element process, the reena allocation for our affordable units is I mean we would literally need 20 Kiku crossings um to get to that number. And we also can see even when you have a very large pipeline, you can't get there just with private development using your inclusionary. And so ultimately this comes down to a matter of money and access to capital to build 100% affordable projects. And so and we would we had have seen different sites float potentially projects like that. Um and so that'll be a big piece of getting there. But I think getting state and federal funding um to fund affordable housing and I think in our housing element we stated to get to those 4,000 affordable units that's that's over 2 or3 billion. So, it's not an insignificant amount. And so, at the end of the day, um the policies and everything else we can do can move the needle, but we really need that funding when it comes to truly meeting the state allocation when it comes to affordable units.

And through the mayor, one other additional point is with regards to these numbers, it doesn't include ADU development, which we estimated 55 units per year, 440 units over the 8-year period. We're well beyond that. we can allocate 70% of those to affordable units. Um they're um you know through the our affordability survey that's what we're allowed to. Um they're some of those are also affordable by design being smaller units. So it's not a non-trivial amount but it does add to the to the overall amount of units.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. And I guess my other comment is the elephant in the room is what target we get in the beginning, you know. So that's that's a whole another discussion. Um that was an just one sort of tangential question. One of our public commenters tonight talked about the Safeway new development that's just come in and she said there was a community meeting tomorrow night about it. I don't see anything on the website. Is there any way we could find out? Is this the one on 1700 that she just talked about El Camino? She was she was Yeah, she was So 1700's across the street from Safeway, but she was talking about Safeway, I thought. No,

that it's the one across the street. 1700 El Camino is the one that is on the Jack side of the street. Okay. And 1655 is the Safeway, I believe. Okay. 1655 is the Safeway. Okay. So, I don't Do you guys know there? Let me look because there we do have opposite the Safeway site. We do I believe it's 1755 um is the 400 unit proposal that current that's an office building with parking behind it. Let me just look real quick. That might be a neighborhood meeting, but um that might be the meeting that was being

it sounded like it was a neighborhood meeting. Yeah. Um, anyhow, I would be interested in the information about that meeting if it was given that it's in Is there any way when those meetings happen that the council member of that district can find out because and I don't know whether you even get the information, but you know, if they go to a meeting, they say, "I've got all these questions and I don't know that the meeting's happening." Um, is there any way to

We've been working on getting the word out. I I think we've we've been adding re recent ones in the city manager weekly update. Um we also add them to our our community calendar. Um and so um we're looking at different ways to push that um information out beyond just the the public notification um that goes out to the 500 or thousand foot radius area. Okay, great. All right. Well, that's all my questions for right now. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Fernandez.

Um just one question. Um, your slide very briefly touched on the rental assistance program and in the last report we showed that perhaps it wasn't being utilized as much as we expected. Do we have any updates on numbers and how much money has been used out of that allocation? Yes, I pull up the exact numbers. Turn on.

Yes, I can pull up the exact numbers uh for you momentarily, but um we it it it is definitely tracking to be spent down by the end of the fiscal year. We were at a point where we were wondering if we had enough money um if we were going to have to come back and add to the contract. Um but we don't we're we believe we have enough to get through the end of the fiscal year. But my point is um it it is being um spent down fairly quickly. Um but if we just if I can just take a moment I can give the exact numbers to you as if we Yeah. Why don't we have someone That was my only question. So why don't we have another council member ask the question and then we can come back when you have that data. Council member Nome.

Thank you. And uh thank you council member Fernandez because that was my first question. Uh that's all right. Um, and add on to something that council member Diaz Nash said, uh, there is a project happening here on O Farerrell Street. Yes, it's 10:36 p.m. Um, there is a project happening on O Farerrell Street and the public noticing was not done very well. Um, it happened at uh 6:00 on a Friday of a 3-day weekend and um, the council member for this district was not informed. I think it's it's a great idea to try to use our council um members and our networks to promote and get the word out when there's uh projects in our district. So, I I I ask that we try to find um ways to, you know, to get us some notification when that's when those projects are specifically in our district. And I also hope that we can um put pressure on developers to not uh try to have meetings specifically at times where no one will attend. um through the mayor. Just real briefly, as noted, we'll look at other opportunities for getting the getting those notices out and that project specifically. Um and we're also looking at updating our um policies with regards to when those committee meetings can happen. And that project, I believe we've directed the applicant to hold another neighborhood meeting.

Thank you. Uh my last question was a comment that Rachel made. Um thank you for that Rachel was that we now fund our homeless outreach hot team through our housing fund as opposed to our general fund and we're allowed to spend up to $500,000 with that. Is there any um is there any opportunity to do more homeless outreach? I mean our hot team is just two people. Is there is there more opportunity there um that we're not realizing that we could uh put more funding there from our housing fund specifically to uh doing homeless outreach?

Yes. Um there we could add somewhat to it. Now all of the activities so this would include the emergency rental assistance program um under under that umbrella of homeless prevention um can add up to 500,000. So, it's it's not as if we could increase it a lot, but definitely we could support more of of HOT um with with our funds. In fact, I believe we were discussing doing that as part of the departmental budget discussions. Um but we just had to make sure that we're coming in under that 500,000, especially if we are thinking ahead to um increasing emergency rental assistance potentially, you know, to maybe 200,000. Um so, but yes.

Yeah, absolutely. That was my more of a request. So, thank you for thinking ahead. Thanks.

And while I have the the mic on, um I have the numbers for the emergency rental assistance program. Um keeping in mind that the report that they gave to us was for Q2. So, it's through January 31st of 26. So, we don't have exact point in time numbers. I'm sure this has increased, but um we have a total of 56,459 spent from August 25 to the end of January um of uh 2026. Um and we have um a total of uh 2,131 persons served or 99 households.

Thank you. Yes, indeed. Um, I just was curious given that we were talking about um possible inclusions in our current pipeline um andor RENA accounts. Um, in our current RENA accounts for uh below market rate units, do we have um the conversion of the Hillsdale Garden Apartments uh reflected in some way in our current numbers? We do not have that included in the pipeline or in the current numbers because the ability for the city to count any of the units in Hillsdale Gardens um would require us to have um completed our uh committed assistance um commitment in 2025 and technically was would be 2026. So we we don't have we cannot claim it for 2025. Um and it is a little tricky to guess the number because um it's a it's a moving target. Um as the units lease up they um they will convert to the I believe it's lower in I think it's 80% AMI below the low income. Um, so we did not include that number in the the pipeline chart to be conservative in the tax

and through the mayor building on what Rachel said, the state also caps how many units we can get credit for in in the conversion category. And so we are also working with the state to to maximize the credit we can get. But um, in all likelihood, we wouldn't be able to claim all of the converted units toward our our arena totals. And one more comment, the pipeline projects are are estimates for future development, but they're not captured yet in the in our housing element like our APR because we do cap the the state does capture entitlements, although that doesn't it's not the same as a a permit issued, which is the real credit for against the arena numbers. our pipeline estimates were for the council's uh review and just to see looking out further what what types of projects are going to be approved or have been approved under construction and in the process. So, we're just trying to give you a little bit of a um a future projection indeed. Thank you. Uh, with that, uh, if I haven't, if I'm not hearing any other questions or feedback, I would, uh, entertain a motion to, uh, approve submission of these reports.

I make a motion. Oh, second. Public comment. Did we? Yeah, I think I think we asked for public comment. Very good. I believe I heard a uh motion from council member Diaz Nash, a second from council member Fuko Gaditki. Uh deputy city clerk, may we please have a roll call vote? Certainly. Um council member Diaz Nash. Yes. Council members Gaditzki. Yes. Deputy Mayor Lauren. Yes. Or uh Deputy Mayor Deput Fernandez, I'm so sorry. Yes. Mayor Lauren, yes. And council member Newsome. Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. And thank you very much for your presentations tonight. That will close this item. There's one more item 24. Oh, uh, charter amendments study session with a presentation from our city attorney, Presana Riah. Mr. Mayor, before we proceed with um City Attorney Risiah's um uh presentation, should we take into consideration whether we want to extend the meeting beyond 11:00? Yes, I believe we should. Thank you for this reminder. Fellow council members, as we are approaching 11 p.m.

Are we comfortable? Uh yes, 30 minutes. Uh just in case, not necessarily having to exhaust it. We okay with Yeah, I'm okay extending. Thank you. Right. Um, sorry. Who made the motion? So, sorry. Can I make a motion?

Yeah. Uh well that that was for the other item. This is for going beyond 11 o'clock. I make a motion to extend. Thank you. Deputy city correct me. We have a roll call vote please. Thank you. Uh to extend the meeting. So um council member Diaz Nash. Yes. Council members for Kogaditzki. Yes. Deputy Mayor Fernandez. Yes. Mayor Lorine. Yes, council member Num. Yes. Motion carries 5. Thank you for that. And without further ado, excuse me. Through the mayor. Oh, pardon me.

Can we just let the city attorney know that just because we extended beyond 11 does not mean that we need to go beyond 11. Thank you.

Uh, Mr. City attorney, please go ahead. Thank you. Uh good evening. I will be brief given the hour person to the attorney. And so the theme here is um really non-controversial cleanup amendments to the charter. This of course is a council priority for fiscal year 2627. a lot of words on the slide, but uh one of the items to clean up in this uh in our charter is to reflect a change to district elections. You'll recall that we are now you are all now elected by district uh and the charter still refers to elections on an atlarge basis. So that needs to be corrected. So that's the first paragraph. Uh the first paragraph also and by the way the new proposed language is in bold and then the strikethrough is kind of self-explanatory language to be stricken. So the first paragraph reflects would reflect a change to election by district and also that if there is a recall election or a special election or appointment to fill a vacancy that's also by district. The second paragraph just addresses what we do every 10 years as called for by the US Constitution. there's a federal denial census and then those uh new numbers that we receive from the US census uh then has to be implemented through redrawn district lines because as you'll recall each district has to be roughly equivalent to the number of voters. There's a lot more to it than that but that's the idea. So this just says we'll redraw every 10 years. And then uh the last paragraph simply mentions that if there's a change to district boundaries and the term of that council member has not ended then uh their term is unaffected by the change

in boundaries. So they would still continue to serve out their term. Moving on. Um so there's several provisions in the charter that are really outdated and can be removed. So this is one of them. Uh you'll recall that uh SB415 extended the terms for council members by one year for those elected in 2015 2017 to align our elections to uh the general elections consolidated election. So those terms have ended. So, this special language uh is no longer needed because there's other language in the charter that says uh council members elected in 2020, 2022 and and so on, you know, will be elected to four-year terms. So, this is just now outdated. Also, there's a theme here of uh providing more flexibility and this is an example of one of those. So currently the council the charter provides that if a council member is absent from the city continuously for more than 30 days under the charter anyway they technically need permission from the remaining council members. So 30 days is a pretty brief period of time. Um you'll recall we had to do that once for a now former council member and you know given that individuals may have to travel they can take an extended va vacation 60 days is just more flexible and I think more reasonable it also aligns with state laws applied to general oities um also on the theme of flexibility currently the charter says that when there's a vacancy on the council we only have 30 days to fill the vacancy. That's a very short period of time. And sometimes uh when there's a council

member that's been elected to to a different office, that occurs usually like in November. And then that means we have to fill the vacancy during the holidays like over Thanksgiving. So that that's difficult. 60 days is more reasonable. I think allows for more public outreach, more transparency, um and I think just a better process. All right, this is in the same provision of the charter. So filling council vacancies. The last sentence here that you is shown in the strikethrough text, it's just unnecessary and it's connected to um being elected at large. So there's there can be situations where um the candidate receiving the most votes uh serves the longer of unexpired terms. So let's just say you have more than one vacancy being filled and there's a different remaining remaining term to the vacancy. You may have like under the prior system you could have m multiple council members. So this addresses the situation where there are multiple vacancies, multiple individuals running for office and under this language the candidate receiving the most votes serves the longer of the unexpired terms. that that's just not going to happen anymore because you're being elected by district. So, hence the proposal to delete this language. I'm I'm really close to being done. Um, also sometimes the charter is uh overly specific. I think this is one of those examples. I think at one time this was had some controversy to it but um the charter says that the council meetings can't begin earlier the regular meetings of the council can't begin earlier than 6:30. So instead of being quite so specific I my suggestion is just to say a time spec specified by resolution and then that way the council

can decide maybe to hold regular meetings at 6:00 if it wants to doesn't have to. you can continue at 7:00. It's just if you're going to clean up the charter, this is something to just provide some more flexibility and just be not quite so uh overly specific in the charter. And then for uh emergency ordinances, right now uh we have a process where you can do ordinance summaries and so you don't have to publish the entire ordinance in the newspaper for regular ordinances. And that's what we do, publish summaries. So we don't have companion language like that for emergency ordinances. So what this would do is it would allow publication of a summary of an uh emergency ordinance is what it's called in the charter. So it just allows for um it's a little cheaper and it allows for the same process to apply to urgency ordinances than standard ordinances. In other words, you get to publish a summary. The strikethrough language uh simply indicates that instead of an urgency ordinance being automatically repealed uh 90 days later uh it just it continues it for longer than that until the council repeals the urgency ordinance because an urgency situation an emergency can last for longer than 90 days. Um so this just provides for a little more flexibility. You can repeal an emergency ordinance sooner than that if you want to, but this um just eliminates a situation where we have to come back to the council to extend uh the urgency ordinance. Okay. And then this language, I'm I'm not including the full text of it, but suffice it to say that um there's language from the original charter that requires a lot of biographical

information to be submitted to the city clerk when you're running for office. And this would eliminate all of that because it's not it's not required. Um it's not illegal, of course, but the city is not necessarily the same source of information as it was in 1922. So, you know, we have the internet, social media, all kinds of other sources. So, anyway, again, just clean up. It's just kind of unnecessary and outdated. So this one I know it's a lot of words in the slide but this this in summary it's the idea is we have language in the charter that specifies how to pick an official newspaper for publishing official notices like public hearing notices. So that's also called for by state law. We can't get away from that quite yet. So instead of requiring the official paper to be the low bidder, this just has a more flexible process because if it's the low bidder, you might get a newspaper that's adjudicated as a newspaper general circulation in Sonteo, but maybe they only publish here once a week. Um maybe their circulation is very limited. So this allow this flexibility allows the city to consider um elements components other than price uh that you can consider local circulation. You can consider the frequency of publication that has a real impact on uh getting public hearing notices published. Okay, so close almost done. Um so now the current schedule this is uh there's special noticing requirements for uh the charter and there is there are two public hearings that are required they have to be spaced out a bit. So, we have the study session tonight, the first of two public hearings, and then um in this schedule, I have it as the council, if it so

chooses, to submit the measure to the voters, uh well ahead of the deadline, which is 88 days before the election. I think that might be my that is my last slide. Um so, I'm happy to take questions. Maybe before that we could see if there's any public comment either in person or online.

Thank you. Yes. Let us open this item for public comment. If you're in chambers and wish to speak, you may request to speak with a slip. If you are on our Zoom webinar, you may raise your hand. If you are on the phone, you may press star 9. Deputy City Court, can you please tally public comment? We have no request to speak on this item. Okay. I will close public comment and ask council colleagues for questions or comments on this item. Council members FCO Gaditzki.

Yes. Thank you through the mayor. Um thank you persona for the great presentation. Way to finish quickly too um before 11. Um, so as I brought this forward at um, Blue Sky, just to recap, this is really just cleanup um, to the city charter and I hope you'll all support this um, and move us forward to the first public hearing. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member N. Thank you, Persona, for a great presentation. Sorry to bust your chops a little, but thanks for getting through it fast. Uh the only other thought I had was we we've talked about this, but um it says the first and third Monday shall be the council meetings. And I'm wondering if we could um re reward that as well because if you look at just the first two months of this year, we met on the second and fourth um Mondays already twice. Well, so just just Yeah, go ahead.

Sure. So um there's already flexibility built into the charter where the council can can make its own schedule. So for example, if uh the first or third Monday falls on a holiday, you can move it. Or what the charter says is basically if there's some inconvenience, if there for some inconvenient uh reason why the first and third month or third Monday um doesn't quite work out, you can pick a different day. Um and so that that h has happened a little bit. So there's there's already flexibility. My point is there's already flexibility built into the into the charter. Okay. Um to not necessarily require it to be on each and every um first and third month.

I was just asking does it make more sense to make it purposefully vague to give you more leeway?

Um no, not necessarily because you know you want to be very clear when the regular meetings uh are. Um, I mean, I suppose you could just make I get what you mean. You could make it even more general, but there's no um harm really being caused by the current language. It's not really presenting an obstacle to making adjustments as needed. If the council wanted more generic language, could look into that. But um you with these changes I'm trying to solve for just outdated language or language that's creating um problems, difficulties, and that particular language I didn't see as um causing any challenges really in setting a schedule.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Any other questions or comment? Deputy Mayor Fernandez, can I move acceptance of this? Well, no. This is just a study session. There's no vote. So, great. The the the council action would not occur until June 15th under this schedule. So, you're going to hear this presentation a couple more times. As quickly. Yes.

All right. Seeing no more, I believe uh we can conclude this study session and thank the city attorney for his presentation and move on to reports, announcements, and committee updates from any council members. Do we have any of those? Yes, council members.

Um just two quick things. Um, so first this Friday is Lights and Sirens um through the Police Activities League. So please, if you haven't gotten a ticket yet, please do. Hopefully you have. Um, and we'll see you there. Um, and then I just had a quick um point of clarification for the city manager. Um, so a few weeks ago I raised concern about a bus stop um by Third in Norfolk across the street from Chavez and um I was told by city staff that they did put in a request to SAM Trans and then I heard back from the SAM Trans rep that actually it's city staff's responsibility.

Staff was working on that. So, we got notified there's certain bus stops that are under our maintenance and control and so that just happens to be one of them and so staff is following up on that. Okay. Interesting. So, they're not all SAM trans. Not all of them. No. So, there's specific ones and so that one in particular is uh city. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate the update. Yep. Thank you. Anyone else? Council member News.

Thank you through the mayor. Uh just a kind of a shout out that we are having extremely high temperatures uh for March and tomorrow is predicted to be in the mid 80s. Uh the city does have facilities such as our public library which act as cooling centers and so we encourage our our um public that if they don't have air conditioning at home which many of us still do not that they get to somewhere cool and stay cool and hydrated. Thank you. I appreciate this. Deputy Mayor Fernandez.

Uh just a shout out. Uh it is women's history month and the state legislature typically um uh nominates each legislature nominates a woman of the year. And I am very proud to see today that Assembly Member Diane Papin um uh named Dana Store, the head of the event center, who's also a San Mo resident, as her woman of the year. So I just wanted to shout Dana out. Excellent. Thank you for this. Okay. Um, that's happy. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day.

We have some green on us. Um, I'll just note that I appreciated the opportunity uh to represent the city with the city manager, Alex Kojikian, at the Yak Attack uh event when the deputy city clerk was also with us uh in Los Altos. our uh city's youth activities council was there um along with many other cities in the area. A number of counties uh were represented in this regional biionial meeting. Uh, and so this one happened to occur in in Los Altos. And uh, we, the city manager and I were on a panel along with um, council member Phoebe Vincet of uh, Foster City and a Berlinger game uh, commissioner to uh, answer some questions from the youth about uh, participating in local government and its importance. Um, so that was a privilege. Uh I also happened to cut the ribbon for a renovation of a our Safeway at Dansza uh in Crystal Springs Shopping Center in District 5. Um and so it was just nice to uh be present for a grocery store that is investing in its future here in the city of Sonteo. Um and uh I participated in the uh Noroo's uh celebration, Persian New Year at the Sanato Public Library this last Saturday. Um and it was just a pleasure to be with our uh city librarian Rashana Singh. um and many members of uh the community, a number of volunteers from our library uh who happen to be uh part of the a community that includes those who have been teaching Farsy in our city for decades. And uh I just wanted to

thank folks who did attend uh for celebrating in a public space uh in our city uh in in tough times to because I think um you know we we need to uh meet our neighbors more so than ever uh learn uh their customs and and celebrate diversity. Uh so it was a pleasure to be there uh for that and with that if there are no other uh reports announcements and committee updates I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you all. Good night.

Recording stopped.