City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. Good evening and welcome to the city council regular meeting for this evening, Monday, April 20th. Can you please join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance 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. Thank you. City clerk, can you please call the role? With pleasure. Mayor Lorraine, Council Member Diaz Nash here. Council member Sphere Gaditki here. Deputy Mayor Fernandez here. Mayor Lorraine

here, and Council Member Nome here.

Thank you everyone for your patience uh as we finished up our special meeting. We are 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 to participate in public comment if you're so inclined tonight. For those who are intending in person here at city hall, you can complete a yellow request to speak slip. the city clerk is holding one for your example. Um, you can fill one out. We have some in the back there. You can hand it to the city clerk. If you're participating remotely, we have a Zoom webinar feature. You can use the raise your hand feature in this and you will be called on at the appropriate time um on various items. If you're calling in via phone, you can press star 9 to raise your hand. And uh if you're called upon at that time, you can press star six to unmute yourself. These options for public comment will remain available until I close public comment periods for each specific item we have. For members of the public who may be watching us on YouTube tonight, if you wish to provide live public comment, we do not currently have this feature in YouTube. Um please join our Zoom webinar. Instead, use the access information listed at the top of our agenda. This is available on our website at cityofonteo.org. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to highlight an important opportunity for community involvement available to all. The application deadline for our city's boards and commissions is fast approaching. We are seeking residents who are interested in serving as part of the community advisory arm of city decision-making, helping to shape policies, programs, and the future of San Monteo. If you're

interested, or if you know someone who might be, I encourage you to apply online at www.c cityofonteo.org. You may also speak with our city clerk who is here this evening uh for additional information. Flyers are available as well at the back of the room. So, please feel free to take one and help us spread the word. Thank you for your attention to this. And we now have a number of ceremonial items. We'll begin with item one, volunteer appreciation week. And I'd like to invite to the podium Paulina Compost, management analyst with the city of San Mo. Thank you, Paulina, for joining us.

Let's give her a ROUND OF APPLAUSE. THANK YOU. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Paulina Campos and I oversee the citywide volunteer program. Thank you for the opportunity to highlight our 2026 outstanding volunteers just in time for National Volunteer Week. Great. Uh, city volunteers contribute every day to essential city programs, including city departments, boards and commissions, the Sonteo Consolidated Fire Department, Neighborhood Watch, and many more programs. Over two quarters in 2025, uh, we had over 1,400 people that volunteered across these programs, contributing over 17,000 hours of service combined. Tonight, I will spotlight four exceptional volunteers who have gone above and beyond in their service to the city. Thank you to the city staff members who took the time to submit nominations this year. For each volunteer that I highlight today, I'll share some of the kind words from those nominations. And volunteers, uh, when I call your name, uh, feel free to join me up here in the front. And, um, at the end, we can take a group photo together. Allison Jolie is a volunteer with the library department storytime programs. Allison is a storytime volunteer who consistently goes above and beyond what is asked of her during story times. She advances the display slides, helps pass out musical toys and props to the kids, and importantly keeps the kids from running up to the storytime readers and interrupting. She'll chat with caregivers if they need to attend to their children, help clean up and reset the room after each story time, and she also volunteers at multiple story times per week. Allison

knows all the storytime songs. She sings along and performs all the movements, no matter how silly. Not tonight.

Yeah, not tonight. You got to buy a ticket to the storytime program. Um uh just kidding. They're free. Allison knows all the songs. She sings along and performs all the movements, no matter how silly they are. She also had the group sing Happy Birthday to one of the children's librarians as a very sweet surprise. Allison also helps library staff in the summer with story time in the park, which is a big endeavor all the way from June through August. Not to mention, she also helps out with our Halloween party every year, as well as the May the 4th program and other various special programs throughout the year. She also volunteers in one of our children's book clubs each month and is also a member of the volunteer board or the library board. Our library department and all patron regulars are very lucky to have her appreciation.

Great. Okay, up next we have uh Barbara Serest who is a volunteer. Barbara is a volunteer with the Police Activities League or PAL. She joined PAL as a volunteer in 2024 and immediately jumped in to support fundraising efforts and youth programs. From helping collect and wrap holiday gifts for PAL families to decorating and preparing for the annual golf tournament and volunteering out on the course on the day of the event. Barbara brings energy, enthusiasm, and heart to everything she does. She has also been instrumental in securing donations for the lights and sirens gala silent auction, helping make the event a success. Barbara's positivity and love fill the PAL office every time she walks through the door. The PAL team are incredibly grateful for her dedication, generosity, and spirit she brings to our community. PAL is lucky to have her and truly appreciates all she does to support the youth and families we serve. Thank you, Barbara. I know.

Adam, get in.

Back up.

Okay. All right, up next we have Renette Robelard, who is a volunteer with the parks and recreation department dance and fitness programs. Renette has been a dedicated volunteer monitor for many years in the city's strength training and posture power class. She consistently manages weekly attendance, tracks makeup classes, and supports essential class administrative duties with exceptional care and accuracy. Renette arrives each week with a welcoming smile and inclusive tone sets an inclusive tone for the entire class. Her reliability, warmth, and genuine commitment exemplify the spirit of service and community the city strives to cultivate, and we are truly grateful for the pride and professionalism she brings to our program. Thank you so much, Reette. And finally, we have Yamani Ponugoti, who is a volunteer with the library's project read program, which is an adult literacy program that provides free confidential literacy tutoring. Yam skills make her an invaluable volunteer tutor. Despite working full-time, she has faithfully taught a group of adult learners for several years while also providing one-on-one tutoring. She supports her learners not only in English, but also in math, demonstrating both versatility and dedication. Thanks in large part to Yammen's guidance, one of her learners recently passed the GED and even invited her to attend the graduation ceremony to celebrate the achievement, a true testament to the impact that she makes. Thank you, Yes. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Of course.

We'll put you guys in the middle. You guys open so Thank you so much. Thank you very much. On to our second ceremonial item which is coming up in just a moment. So excellent. Thank you very much. This one is National Library Week. I have a proclamation and we also have our city librarian Rana Singh who can join us. Okay, she's taken a strategic position. So I will begin by reading the proclamation and then perhaps she may have some words for us. Whereas libraries spark creativity, fuel imagination, and inspire lifelong learning, offering a space where individuals of all ages can find joy through exploration and discovery. And whereas libraries serve as vibrant community hubs connecting people with knowledge, technology, and resources

while fostering civic engagement, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment. And whereas libraries provide free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background, have the support they need to learn, connect, and thrive. And whereas libraries partner with schools, businesses, and organizations to maximize resources, increase efficiency, and expand access to essential services, strengthening the entire community. And whereas libraries empower job seekers, entrepreneurs, and lifelong learners by providing access to resources, training, and opportunities that support career growth, and economic success. And whereas libraries nurture young minds through story times, steam programs, and literacy initiatives, fostering curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime. And whereas libraries protect the right to read, think, and explore without censorship, standing as champions of intellectual freedom, and free expression. And whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all. And whereas libraries, librarians, and library workers across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme, find your joy. Now, therefore, I, Adam Lorraine, mayor of San Monteo, and on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim April 19th through 25th as National Library Week 2026.

During this week, I encourage all residents to visit their library, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that the library helps our community find joy. Thank you. And we have our city librarian, Rukana. Good evening, honorable mayor uh and council members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this evening and for the proclamation. The theme for this year's National Library Week is find your joy and the spokesperson is Michael Thes Bay Area librarian who champions libraries, mental health, and diversity. There are four official days that are celebrated as part of National Library Week, which you can see here on this slide. I want to acknowledge our hardworking and committed library staff as tomorrow is National Library Workers Day. And we have some of our staff in the audience, so they'll come up and and take a photo at the end. This is the beginning of our fourth annual Sonteo Celebrates Festival and we hope that you'll be able to join us for all the exciting events we have coming up this week. Today, the ALA released the names of the top 10 books that were the most challenged. They do this every year on the first Monday of National Library Week. Most of the challenged books represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA plus people and people of color. 2025 marks the second highest number of book challenges since ALA began tracking in 1990. In this context, it is more important than ever to affirm that the library is a place for all members of our community and to emphasize the importance of the work that we do. I want to take just a moment to preview the events we have coming up this week. Next slide, please. And the next one.

So, um, we have several events coming up, uh, this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. And, uh, Sato Celebrates is intended to highlight some of the programming that we already do. So, on Tuesday, we have a biotech lecture. On Wednesday, we have a musical performance in partnership with Cole Mansion. And then on Thursday, we have a film screening about the history of Bank of America. And then on Saturday, um we have a full day of intergenerational family programming. We're going to have a a guest appearance by um the stars Elephant and Piggy of Mo Williams books, a musical performance um by Joseé Luis Orosco, and then a cooking demonstration by Chef Martin Yan. So we hope that everybody will be able to join us for some of the events this week. and uh thank you again for your support of libraries and for taking this moment to celebrate National Library Week.

Thank you, council.

Thank you library for joining us. Thank you. Happy libraries. One, two, three.

Read a book. Thank you everyone. We have two more ceremonial items. The next one is ArabAmerican Heritage Month and we have Fiza Coinwala, the executive assistant with the Council on American Islamic Relations California with us today. I have a proclamation that I can read and we can hear any words from our esteemed guest. Thank you for being with us. Whereas Arab Americans have a rich history in the United States and for over a century have enriched our nation through meaningful contributions across all facets of society, including medicine, law, business, education, technology, public service, and the arts. And whereas individuals of Arab descent have brought with them a vibrant cultural heritage, enriching their communities through the sharing of traditions and active engagement in civic and public life. And whereas Arab Americans have brought to America their resilient family values, strong work ethic, dedication to education, and diversity

in faith and creed, which have added strength to our great nation. And whereas Arabameans have also enriched our society by sharing in the entrepreneurial American spirit that makes our nation prosperous. And whereas the celebration of ArabAmerican ancestry and cultural heritage educates our fellow Americans and helps counter misconceptions and harmful stereotyping by recognizing their many achievements. And whereas ArabAmericans join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feels safe. And whereas the incredible contributions and heritage of Arab Americans have helped us build a better nation. Now therefore, I, Adam Lorraine, mayor of San Mateo, and on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of April 20126 as ArabAmerican Heritage Month. Thank you very much for being with us.

I do apologize if I didn't pronounce your name correctly. It's okay. I'll correct you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having us today, mayor and council members. My name is Fizz Coachinwala and I'm here from the Council on American Islamic Relations. I want to thank you guys for recognizing ArabAmerican Heritage Month in San Mato. Moments like this really matter and it really helps the Arab-American community feel seen. Um I myself am not ArabAmerican, so I wanted to give this space to Stephanie who is with me. She is an Arab-American woman. She lives in San Monteo County and she is a proud advocate for Peninsula for Palestine. Thank you. Salam and good evening. My name is Stephanie Abuar and I'm so honored to be here accepting this proclamation for ArabAmerican Heritage Month on behalf of Peninsula for Palestine. Peninsula for Palestine is a coalition of Peninsula residents who've been organizing for the end to the ongoing USbacked Israeli genocide in Gaza for over two years. The genocide in Palestine has greatly impacted families and communities here in San Monteo, the Bay Area, and the entire world. And now, with the US and Israel waging devastation on many more Arab countries, it's never been more important to stand in solidarity with and humanize Arab communities. I thank the city of San Monteo for taking the opportunity to acknowledge acknowledge and celebrate my people, our people. Growing up in the US as ArabAmericans, it's a unique and profoundly confusing experience. Our existence often vilified not only by those who loudly profess their extremely bigoted beliefs, but also by those who champion protecting vulnerable communities. We often live at an impass where our trauma isn't met with compassion, but rather justification. Now more than ever, people are finally feeling the commonalities shared between their own communities and the Arab community rather than the artificial and manufactured differences. As the Arab

community navigates exceptionally challenging times, please do not forget to check on your AUB friends, family members, neighbors, and colleagues. After all, we are teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, tradesmen and women, and business owners of this community and more. We love this community. We invest in this community, and we contribute to the fabric of what makes this such a special place, just like all of the other beautiful groups that comprise our amazing home. Thank you so much, Sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. We have one more ceremonial item tonight, an Earth Day proclamation. Pardon me. I would like to invite to the podium uh Commissioner Sabrina Okmpo

from our parks and recreation commission and give her a round of applause. I have a proclamation and then she may have some words for us. Whereas Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22nd, 1970. And just by the way, it's April 22nd every year. If you ever wonder what day is Earth Day, it's April 22nd with the goal of inspiring an appreciation of our nation's natural resources through conservation and protection. And whereas this year marks the 56th annual review of and commitment to the principles of Earth Day. And whereas the city of Sonteo celebrates Earth Day by extending it to the month of April to recognition in recognition rather of the commitment to environmental stewardship. And whereas during the month of April our appreciation for the natural world reawakens, reminding us that each day we can renew our commitment to environmental conservation and the implementation of sustainable practices. And whereas the earth provides habitats for all creatures and we must acknowledge that our actions have an impact on environmental degradation, global health and climate change. And whereas the actions we take on the individual level through education, public policy, and consumer activism can help our planet heal and thrive. And whereas it's easy to forget how much we depend on our planet. And the city of Sonteo encourages residents to implement practices to preserve and protect our environment and shape the future of environmental security. Now therefore, I, Adam Lorraine, mayor of San Monteo, and on behalf of the city council, do

hereby proclaim April 22nd, 2026 as Earth Day. Thank you. and our commissioner Okmpo has some information on an event that we will be doing to celebrate.

I do. Um, thank you. Good evening everyone, honorable mayor and esteemed city council members. Very honored to be here tonight um with the city of San Monteo for this year's Earth Day proclamation and especially to talk about something that's so simple but so powerful, showing up for our community. Team up to clean up is exactly what it sounds like. It's neighbors, friends, co-workers coming together to take care of the one thing that we all share. And what I love most about it is that you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to have special skills. You just show up

um and help. Um show up that and it shows that by showing up you show you show that you care. Um because the truth is small actions really do add up. Um and here's a fun fact. Just one organized community cleanup like the one that's going to happen this Saturday um can remove sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds of waste in a single day. So while it may seem small in the moment, um it makes a huge impact. So this isn't just about picking up trash. It's about creating a ripple effect. It's about pride, visibility, and community momentum. And that's where all of you come in. If you've been thinking about getting involved, don't wait. The Saturday, April 25th, is the opportunity. Um, it starts at 9:00 in the morning, ends at 12:00 noon. Um, and it will be followed, it's Ryder Park right here in Sano. Um, and that'll be followed by a really nice barbecue. There'll be a DJ. Um, so it's a really fun family event. Come out, make a difference, get to know people you don't know in your community that you probably live right next to. Um, and then at the end of the day, you feel like you've absolutely made a difference because you actually have. Um, and so please go ahead and scan the code, anyone there, um, to get signed up or just show up. Honestly, just come. Please make a difference. Um, and team ups to cleanup happens every third Saturday of the month. I know it's Saturday. I don't like waking up at Saturday morning. It's it's 8:00 in the morning, 8 to 10. We rotate the location each week um each month. And so, just um please come out and make a difference. It's a lot of fun. You meet people that you don't know. Uh and uh at the end of the day, it does really add up and makes

it makes a big impact to not only our community, but the earth. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. See you Saturday. Yes.

Okay. Thank you everyone for allowing us the opportunity to celebrate many things. We are now moving beyond the ceremonial portion of tonight's meeting which includes the business items being considered by the council. For that reason, I would like to remind all in the room and online that we will be enforcing our rules of decorum. As such, we do not 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. City clerk, can you please read our consent calendar?

Certainly, Mayor Lorraine. 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 five, city council meeting minutes approval. Item number six, participation in national opioid settlement agreement approval. Item number seven, service employees international union side letter of agreement amendment. Item number eight, 1949 Pacific Boulevard public utility easement adoption. Item number nine, second in El Camino public garage license agreement amendment. Item number 10, Sato County Community College District use of Laurelwood Park agreement. Item number 11, Sonteo Consolidated Fire Department use of Laurelwood Park open space agreement. Item number 12, on call design and consultant professional service agreements. Item number 13, integrated supervisory control and data acquisition system evaluation and improvement change order. And finally, item number 14, on call building support services agreements. Thank you very much. Is there any member of council who would like to pull any item for the consent calendar? Seeing none, uh, city clerk, do we have any public comment on any items that are on the consent calendar only?

Mayor Lorraine, at this time I have not received any requests to speak on any of the consent calendar items. Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar. Second. Thank you. We have a motion in a second. City clerk, may we have a roll call vote, please? Certainly. Council member Nuome, yes. Deputy Mayor Fernandez, yes. Council member Diaz Nash, yes. Council member Sphere Gaditzky, yes. Mayor Lorraine, yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is general public comment. Members of the public wishing to comment on any item that's not appearing on our agenda at this time may address the city council. State law prevents council from taking action on any matter not on the agenda. Your comments, however, may be referred to staff for follow-up. This public comment section is generally limited to a total of 15 minutes. However, that's 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. City clerk, can you please tally the number of requests to speak on general public comment?

Certainly, Mayor Lorraine, at this time, I've received three requests to speak on non-aggendaized general public comment. Um, if you wish to speak on general public comment, please provide me with a request to speak slip or if you're participating in Zoom, please raise your hand. We'll give you just a moment to do so. Mayor Lraine, that uh concludes. We have three requests to speak. Um for uh general public comment um and per council adopted rules and procedures, we would set the time at 3 minutes per speaker. And if I call your name, if you could please um come up and uh line up to my right, that would be greatly appreciated. Our first speaker will be John Ebnett, followed by May Lee and Trina Pierce. Good evening, Mayor Adam Lorraine and esteemed council members. On April 17th at the county board of supervisors meeting, council member Lisa Diaz Nash mistakenly stated that this council opposed the Horizon Detox Center at 101 North El Camino Rial in Samonteo. Seeing that this project has not been voted on by the council, this left the public confused and the board of supervisors with an inaccurate data point to work with. The city's strategic plan that this that this council unanimously supported is based on a promise of integrity through ensuring transparency and accountability for all cities actions. To ensure that these guidelines of integrity and accountability are are adhered to, I encourage this council to send a letter to the board of

supervisors to clarify that you have not taken a position on this matter. Let the county know that you are following the city's procedures and are properly addressing this matter as you do in all city business. If you t choose to send a letter, I recommend that you point out that anformational public meeting was held on 4:15 in Sonteo. At this meeting, Horizons presented the city council and Sonteo residents with information about the project and took questions from the council and is working on addressing all stakeholders concerns. Two points the council members agreed on were the need for regular or for more granular information and more public meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is May Lee followed by Trina Pierce. Hi, this is May again. Um, I previously shared this burned tree leaves and then um covers uh seven street lights in front of a street cover with the deflectors and I also reported other uh suspicious items uh to the police uh and then share those information with the fairies. So basically to make it really short because I didn't plan to talk about this what I have been um experienced is matching something called organized against stalking and there's another term that is very complicated I cannot pronounce it but you guys can do some research. So basically um we experience some sort of a uh items that don't belong to us that place in our home car and things taken away from my car and the home and uh this is very bizarre after all this over 26 years uh with my husband living in the same place and we always trust everyone and we believe it's a still a nice community uh probably a lot of people and official resources and being fooled or misused the taxpayers money and what the most bizarre thing I've recently experiencing it uh since 2019 after this uh volunteer emergency responder in our neighborhood that attached uh installed the 24 long feed conduit on top of my request without my knowledge and I've been receiving this letter in writing with a word specifically trying to put me in this category uh as some sort of a dangerous

person for example using the word that I threatened someone and now a neighbor that f false claim against me so that's that said this is a completely false uh multiple accumulated a false uh information and then I have fabricated medical record in my uh after two years I found out after my ER. So I do believe my ER was a result of this remote in implants meaning remote remotely inject the nano sensors and I plan to share more symptoms with you guys but uh I ran out of time. So one is the um physical symptoms is a right face and right ear. If you have right ears you measure your ear temperatures during the day. They're different during the day and back to the uh at night they're back to the same. So I believe you have nano sensors inside of your ear. It is a bizarre but there are tons of it's already proven. You can watch six minute 60 minutes for recent the uh government employees that identify their family members or um so their deformation on the forehead and also on particular on the right hand side on the forehead you have this um symptoms and I can share more nicely.

Thank you may thank you and our final speaker for general public comment will be Trina Pierce. Good evening, Mayor Adam Lorraine, and to the city council members, to the staff. Um, of course, my name is Trina Pierce. I'm here representing um North Central Neighborhood and I have a question for not just the city council members but also to the employees, the um supervisors of city hall. What is everyone afraid of? Surely it is not the residents of North Central, but it is the groups with the money and power. I would like city hall employees and everyone to remember this country was built on the backs of many dedicated workingclass people. All races, all colors, all religions and people were treated very bad. Then of course as many people gathered together, no matter the color of the race, changes were made. Why is the wants of the wealthy advocacy of the various organizations um taken over the needs of residents who live in um North Central 24/7? North Central res residents have been promised solutions that will um that would help people who live there over money and status such as North Central was promis pro promised 100 parking spaces to be returned but that did not happen that was reiged on and that wouldn't have happened in any other neighborhood but ours and then um some groups did not want that so of course they fought it they don't even live there don't even go there every day if they if they need something, they call Uber or what, whatever. A lot of those citizens there can't. That's why they're walking. They're walking in the

rain. And um I just feel that the needs and we've asked this so many times and I get it all the time on my phone calls when I'm walking. What are you doing, Trina? They're not listening to us, you know, and it's just sad that it's not listened to. Um, and it's amazing how some neighborhoods and districts, we just watched them band together and are heard are heard, people listen to them, what makes North Central so different. And we all know, I don't have to stand up here and say why, but I just really wish you guys would think about um, not so much money all the time, but think about these people that have lived there for years, 80, 90 years. Thank you guys very much. Thank you, Mayor Lorraine. That concludes public comment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Through the mayor. Uh yes. Uh go ahead.

Thank you. I would just like to comment on one of the public comments to correct the record. My comments to the board of supervisors were directed at the sighting of the project. I am extremely supportive of the delivery of treatment services on the 15th of April. We had a very good education session raised a lot of questions and Horizon shared a lot of very good information that we have to work on. But I just wanted to be very clear. I am not opposing the project nor did I say that the council opposed the project. The discussion was around the sighting of the project. Thank you. Okay, thank you. That concludes general public comment and I think we'll move on to our next item which is item 15, Glazenwood Historic District Designation Adoption. We have a presentation from Zachary Doll, community development director and community development staff. Thank you. Welcome. Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the city council. Zachary Doll, community development director with the city. I'm also joined here this evening um by senior planner Summer Smith and then virtually online um Julianne Murphy, historical um architectural historian with Ringcon Consultants um who have all all um are part of the team that has worked on developing um the report that supports the item before you this evening.

Um so what we are discussing is consideration of the Glazenwood district as um designate for designation as a historic district. Um I wanted to start by providing some background um that has led us to this point here this evening. This starts with um the neighborhood first being identified as part of the 1989 survey that took that looked at um many um individual properties and districts around the city. Um there was a subsequent discussion um before the city council in 1994 um but ultimately no action was taken following that study session. Um the district has also been referenced in um the prior as well as current general plan um as being eligible for designation at the state, local, and um federal level. Um more recently, as part of the city's um historic policy update effort, um questions and comments um came up regarding the status of the Glazenwood neighborhood um and requests to have it formally recognized. Um following at the meeting on February 2nd of this year, um council provided direction to staff to move forward with um preparing information for consideration of Glazenwood as being designated as a historic district um to align with the past documented history that existed for this neighborhood. in order to provide a legally defensible document that also has what it um takes to be administered moving forward. Um staff worked with um our um our our consulting consultant firm who's supporting the historic update effort um to develop a neighborhood evaluation um to pull in all information um that existed as part of the 1989 survey. Update that that information as it is um 37 years old. um fill in the gaps um do um um property bypropy evaluations um and we also relied on our recently

developed historic context statement um to build out this evaluation. Um the methods um to pull this information together and build um the report for the neighborhood included an intensive survey effort um with photo documentation of each property within the district um and both primary and secondary um research of the necessary sources um to build out the record including um original mapping and development information. Um, as you can see here, we've got some photos of some of the examples of the homes um when they were originally built and um in their current condition uh more recently in the neighborhood today. Um based on the report um we have findings that um this is a harmonious well-designed residential neighborhood um that was um constructed in the 20s into the early 30s. Um the construction was primarily developed um by the SA Born company. Um and um many of the the homes were built in the 20s. Um and that period wrapped up and I think um contributed to falling short of developing that full track um due to the dissolution in 1929. However, there was some ongoing development that continued through um the 1930s. Based on the information and findings in the evaluation, um we are recommending that it is eligible for designation both at the the national and state level under criterion A1 which is related to events and then also criterion C3 um for architectural design. Um the map before you is um the um what constitutes the Glazenwood Historic District that you are considering here this evening. Um this map includes a total of 36 contributors and 39 or three

non-contributors, you can see those three properties highlighted in blue. um of these 36 contributors, this includes um the gateway posts at the entry points to the neighborhood as well as the um lamp posts um that are located within the neighborhood. Um and this district, if designated, would be subject to um the updated historic preservation ordinance um assuming that it does move forward with adoption um in May. So the recommendation before you here this evening is to adopt a resolution to designate the Glazenwood Historic District at the local level um and find that the action is exempt from SQA. Myself as well as as the staff who worked on this are here and available if you have any additional questions. And that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. And at this time I would like to open up public comment for this item. If you are in city hall and would like to give a public comment, please bring a respect uh yes, a yellow uh speaker slip to the city clerk and uh request. That's what it was, a request to speak. And uh if you're in Zoom, you may raise your hand at this time.

Thank you, Mayor Lraine. Um and just uh as we're tallying the total number of requests to speak, just a gentle reminder on our rules of decorum in council chambers. We do not allow for cheering, jeering, or booing during public comment as that can put a chill um on public comment. So we we appreciate your um uh respect for that. Um Mayor Lorraine, we've received a total of seven requests to speak on this agenda item, including one organized presentation. Um so we would set the timer at three minutes per speaker for individual speakers and we'll begin with our organized presentation in chambers and we have no request to speak in our virtual environment and our final speaker will be Brian Samson. So we'll start with our as was mentioned our organized presentation. I would invite Chris Eert to the podium uh to speak on behalf of Glazenwood. Go ahead.

Good evening, mayor, council, and city staff. I'm presenting a petition signed by 83% of Glazenwood households. We're asking the city to formalize a fact that it recognized since 1989 that Glazenwood is a historic district. Next slide, please. The issue is simple. Qualifying as a historic district isn't the question. That was answered in 1989. The city identified it, the state accepted it, and two general plans confirmed it. The only question tonight is will the city stand behind its own findings. Next slide, please. The record is consistent. For 35 years, this has been city policy. The 1989 survey spelled it out. The state recognized it and both the 2030 and 2040 general plans adopted it. We're asking that you do what the city has affirmed in two general plans twice. Make it official. Next slide, please. We're not asking for a new designation or a change to the standards. We are asking that you recognize what's already been settled over the past 30 years, that Glazenwood is a historic district. Next slide, please. Now, there are those who might say that we are trying to bypass the new ordinance, but the new ordinance governs future districts. Glazenwood is a 35-year legacy case recognized decades before these rules existed. Applying a brand new process to a 1989 qualification is moving the finish line after the race is over. And we all know that you can't move the finish line after the race is concluded. Next slide, please.

Others claim that Glazenwood isn't special. Yet, the city's own experts found we met local, state, and national criteria, a fact accepted by the state and reaffirmed in two general plans. Next slide, please. Now, some claim that homes have changed, but under the National Register Standard, individual changes don't disqualify a district. Our neighborhood's historic character has remained intact. Next slide, please. So, here's the mandate. 30 of 36 households or 83% signed this petition. These are physical verified signatures from property owners exceeding the city's threshold of 23%. Next slide, please. By every measure, the standard for historic status has been met. The lead opponent stated on record that they would support this with 60% consent and we have delivered 83%. We met the exact standard that the opposition defined. There is no remaining objection. Next slide, please. For over three decades, residents relied on general plan policy to make real decisions about their homes. If 35 years of city policy can be set aside because files went missing, what can any resident rely upon? This is about the city's credibility. Next slide, please. 35 years ago, the city made a promise to this neighborhood. Tonight, you have the opportunity to keep that promise. The evidence is in, the petition is delivered, the community is united, and the moment is yours. We respectfully ask

you do what the city has affirmed in two general plans. Make Glazenwood official. Will the Glazenwood community please stand so that the council can see the people behind this petition? Thank you. Thank you. We will now move to our individual request to speak. If I call your name, if you could please line up to my right. Uh that'll make sure we receive all of your public comments expeditiously. Um so our first speaker will be Thomas Bram, followed by Ada Ketaphors and Desiree Laben.

Okay. Go ahead. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members. My name is Tom Bram. My husband, Greg Zincl, and I uh moved to Glazenwood uh just this last July, purchased a house at 901 Laurel Avenue with the understanding that we were buying into a historic district and we were excited to be part of that. Um as Chris just mentioned, this is not a new item. This is a request to formalize what has been understood and printed for decades. Uh so uh I respectfully request that you support the resolution. Um thank you for everything that you do for the city.

Thank you. Our next three speakers will be Aah Ketaphors followed by Desiree Labau and Courtney Cross.

Hi there. I'm Aayita Ketaphors and I'm a resident of Glazenwood. Uh my husband and I purchased our home one year ago. The information that was presented to us by the real estate agents and in our own research stated that Glazenwood is a historic district. So it's very surprising to hear months later that that is not the case. Uh one of the reasons we purchased our home was for its excellent location uh near downtown and for the cohesive charm of the neighborhood. We neighbors would like to maintain the visual coherence and architecture of our homes which were built in the 1920s. Since our neighborhood has been mapped and treated as a district, please approve and formalized Glazenwood with a historic designation. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Desiree Leau, followed by Courtney Cross and Carol Gilman. Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff. Uh, thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Desire Leau. Um, I have been a happy Samatoin for the last 17 years. Was a neighbor from, uh, for Lisa Nash in Baywood and then moved to Glazenwood a couple of years ago into a beautiful home which I named Coco, which I have a little watercolor of here, painted by my neighbor and friend Liz Jordan in the back there. I also have a glazing wood calendar in here and actually a stack of individual artwork of from Liz about all of our beautiful homes. So if you need to take a peek, let me know. Um so I just wanted to say that um let's see. Okay, so Glazenwood isn't just a neighborhood. It's one of the few places in Sano where you can still see the city's early 20th century character intact. historic details that tell the story of how this city grew. For years, as you just heard, many of us believed that the history was already recognized, so we've cared for it, protected it, and invested in it as stewards. But without official designation, none of that is actually protected. And the data is clear. Historic districts stabilize property values, encourage thoughtful investment, and give cities a framework to manage change rather than losing character piece by piece. And that's what would happen. Not dramatic change overnight, but gradual erosion. One remodel, one tear down, one mismatch at a time until the charming identity and cohesion of our neighborhood is gone. And once it's gone, it cannot be recovered. This isn't about stopping growth. It's about guiding it. It's about deciding that some parts of Sanonteo are worth preserving, not just for nostalgia, but for identity, continuity, and community. And we are a loving, diverse community

that cares for one another and our beautiful historic homes. So tonight, I urge you to officially recognize Ga Glazenwood and protect it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next three speakers will be Courtney Christ followed by Carol Gilman and Doug Deanna.

Good evening. My name is Courtney Krauss and I'm a resident of Glazenwood. As I noted at a prior meeting, I purchased my home several years ago. Based on information provided by the city's own website, including the general plan, I reasonably believed that Glazenwood was a historic district. I'm requesting that the city restore Glazenwood's long-standing status as a recognized historic district. Please correct this oversight so citizens can rely on information circulated and published by the city. Thank you. Thank you. Our next three speakers will be Carol Gilman followed by Doug Deanna and Brian Samson.

Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for hearing us and for being attentive to the situation that we find ourselves in. Um I bought 16 years ago. My family has lived in Glazenwood. Um we actually moved from Baywood right across El Camino um to accommodate moms as they got older. So we needed a little bigger space. um that neighborhood when that house came up, I went, "Oh, perfect. It's older, but it has enough room." And I love those streets because I rode my bike there when I was like a long time ago, when I was in my 20s, and it was one of my favorite streets in Sanonteo. So, um it's a beautiful historic neighborhood with lovely houses that are slowly disappearing, which is really sad. And we bought there knowing it was a historic district. That's what we were told. And we've remodeled. We've done very thoughtful remodels to keep the original integrity of the house. even though we're a non-conforming, we tried to make it look a little more conforming to the neighborhood um and the age of the neighborhood. So, um we just don't want to see that eroded and have our original expectations when we bought it to be eroded that it would be a historic neighborhood, the character would remain. And um we thank you for your time. We have a lot of support from our neighborhood like we said, so I think we're all on the same page and hopefully you guys will be too.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next two speakers will be Doug Deanna, followed by our final speaker, Brian Samson. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Doug Deanna. Oh, Doug, could you please uh speak into the mic?

The tribe has spoken. 83% of Glazwood homeowners signed the petition in writing. It's not a survey, not a digital poll, not a certified letter and a reply card that could get lost on a dining room table. This is a documented, verifiable consent from the people who actually live here. And the opposition set the bar high. 60% written consent. Well, we cleared up it by 23 points, exceeding every threshold in the new ordinance that hasn't even taken effect yet. The signatures are in your hands. The community is here in the room. The record is complete. We ask the council to act tonight and affirm our historic district. Thank you.

Thank you. And our final speaker will be Brian Samson. Uh good evening, mayor, council member, city staff. Um I also live in Glazenwood. I'm in one of the uh contributing homes and uh I just wanted to support what other people have said. The community is uh I think holds historic status as a point of pride. If anything, we all want to see that continue and we all like contributing to supporting the historic nature of the city. And so I also uh would like to ask that you support this and adopt this resolution so um we can continue to do that going forward. Thank you. Good night.

Thank you, Mayor Lorraine. That concludes public comment. Thank you. I'll close public comment and bring it back to council for questions or comments. Council member Diaz Nash.

Thank you, Mayor Lorraine, and thank you city staff for a great presentation and a great agenda report, too. It was very, very useful. But my thanks tonight are really to the Glazenwood community. I have been so impressed throughout this entire process with your individual involvement, but also with your collective involvement. You have demonstrated what a neighborhood really means. You know each other, you enjoy each other, you get in debates, you disagree with each other, but the one thing you really agree on is the beauty and importance of Glazenwood. And you have shown up throughout this process in person, via email. You invited us kindly to hear your perspectives and I personally think Glazenwood is an incredible place too. I do not live there but I value coming there and I value the experience. So I just wanted to say thank you to all of you because you've shown what community engagement is all about. You didn't just react emotionally. You saw what the needs were. You answered those needs. You answered the requirements of the city. And I would hope tonight that we definitely strongly approve this resolution to make Glazenwood an official historic district. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Council members FPodski.

Um if there's no other comments, I want to see if there's a motion to move forward. And then I would just also ask that if we do move forward perhaps we could look at ways to um celebrate something like this. So um I know one of our um planning commissioners um who happens to have a historic background had suggested doing something like what they do in London where they do like plaques um or things that really commemorate the area um as historic. So, um, that might be something we consider as well, but just wanted to start with if there's a motion to approve.

I would appreciate if I could have the opportunity to make the motion to approve the resolution to make Glazenwood an official historic district. Second. Sorry, I didn't mean to steal your thunder. Well, we have a motion in a second. And, uh, Mr. City Clerk, may we have a roll call vote, please? Certainly. Council member Diaz Nash. Yes. Council member Nuome. Yes. Council member Sphere Gitzki. Yes. Deputy Mayor Fernandez. Yes. Mayor Lorraine. Yes. Motion carries. 5-0. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh yes. Uh thank you very much. That concludes this item and and we'd like to take a brief recess. Uh please permit us a few moments and we'll be right back. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you everyone. We have reconvened and we'll now continue with item 16 which is connect Bay Area local investment plan. This is anformational item and we have a presentation from Emily Beachch, chief communications officer with SAM Trans. Thank you for being with us, Emily.

Thank you, Mayor Lorraine and honorable members of Sano City Council. Thank you for your public service and for inviting me to be here tonight to represent Santo County Transit District and San Chance. So, the purpose of my presentation tonight um is to provide you a brief update and to seek your feedback and the community's feedback on our public education and outreach effort. It's related to a potential um a potential revenue measure for transportation that could be possibly on the November ballot this year. It's called the Connect Bay Area measure. And tonight, I'll provide a brief overview about what that measure is all about, but also help you and your community understand how you can help shape some funds that could be spent here in Sonteo County. So, we'll go to the next slide. You can see our agenda. You've probably already gone through these slides in advance, so I will try to move through them quickly so we can get to discussion and questions that people may have. Um, but the agendas here really I'm going to spend the most time providing not just an overview but really focusing on the second to last bullet which is the local investment plan. Because if this revenue measure does pass does make it to the ballot in November and if it does pass bus service, the SAMR board of directors will be administering a portion of this measure that would be returned to source funds that would come back here to Sonteo County. And that's what we need feedback on from the community at this time. So we'll move to the next slide. A little bit about SAMR. We're celebrating our 50th anniversary of being uh providing comprehensive mobility services here in Sonteo County. You know our buses, but we do a lot more as well listed there on that slide. I think just what I want to point out um on this particular slide is what essential service provides for our

community. We have 94% of our riders are considered lowincome and 80% of our riders either do not own a car, do not drive, do not have a driver's license or don't have access to a car. Next slide, please. You may recall last year there was a piece of legislation that moved through the state legislature called SB63. It was signed into law by Governor Gavin Nuome in um in this past fall. And what it did was create um a it created the Connect Bay Area Act, which is a a piece of legislation that is trying to help transit operators, our major transit operators in the Bay Area who carry millions of riders every day, um address their operational deficits so that they can keep providing service for our community. Um the reasons the purpose of this presentation is not to uh tell you all about why uh they find themselves in this position. Many of those major operators you'll be hearing from in the coming months like Cal Train, BART, MUN and San Francisco and at AC Transit. Those are the major the big four operators. They will be telling their stories. But the long story short is that commute patterns have shifted post pandemic. uh revenues often depend on writership. Many one-time bridge funds that were a result of COVID 19 post pandemic uh those funds no longer exist and particularly for the rail providers there's very high fixed costs. So they find themselves in a position where there are major operational deficits and without new revenue they could uh experience major service cuts. Next slide please. Just a highlevel overview of the Connect Bay Area measure. If it does make it to the ballot, it is a limited term 14-year

sales tax measure rather than a 30 or 25-year measure. Here in Sonteo County, it would be a 1/ half cent sales tax, but it is a combined regional effort that involves not just Sano County, it also involves Santa Clara County, Alama County, Contraosta County, and the county and city of San Francisco. In San Francisco, it's actually a one a full one cent sales tax to help cover MUN's expenses. It would basically inject about $1 billion uh through these five counties into public transportation. And the pie chart here gives an overview that most of it is very prescriptive. It's written into the legislation. It's those major transit operators that are facing deficits that would get the majority. But in the blue section, about a third of the measure would come back to various counties um of Santa Clara, Sonteo County, Contraosta, and Alama County for return to source funds. Of that blue pie, what's at stake for Sonteo County that we're talking about tonight is about a about $50 million a year. It's a slice of that blue pie that would come back to here in Sano County that Samrans would administer. This revenue measure is not being placed on the ballot by any uh government agency. It is working its way to the ballot right now through a private uh signature gathering effort as a citizens initiative. And if it does make it to the ballot, then it would be a pro it could pass with just a 50% plus one majority. Uh let's go to the next slide. This uh what what uh we are talking about really the focus of tonight's presentation is this approximately $50 million a year annually that would return to San Monteo County to be administered by SAMR over the course of

the 14 years. That's about $700 million which is substantial. It does have some guard rails. It must be used for public transit operations. They could be capital and operational expenses. There also is a provision written into the legislation that it could be used for pavement repairs for potholes but only on local roads that are served by fixed route transit. So by our Samrans buses. This is why uh Samrans really does need uh community robust community input on what those priorities could be for this funding. and we're taking everybody's ideas. We've got very clear instruction from our board and we've heard from the public how important it is that we do robust outreach. Let's go to the next slide. So, all ideas are great, but some ideas that that may come up may not fit into those guardrails for the connect bay area measure. But fortunately for all of us here in Sanonteo County, there are other ways to fund public transportation projects. We do have sales tax measure measure A and measure W that currently exist. I know Sonteo County um of Sam the city of Sanonteo knows measure A well. Much of your uh formula pothole funding comes uh via measure A uh funds bike paths, protected bike lanes. Your beautiful Hillsdale station, that Cal Train station and the associated grade separation projects. about 50% of that $200 million project was funded by measure A. So the city of Sonteo understands how important these uh local funds are. So for things that maybe come up in the public discourse that hey we really would like more and more bike lanes, we're going to take that feedback um and we'll help educate the community that there's other ways those projects can be funded. But what's important to understand here is that measure A does

expire in 2033. It's a sales tax measure that has been in existence since 1988. The voters have reauthorized it twice and probably in 2028, so just around the corner, um the board, the transportation authority board may um ask the voters if they would like to reauthorize measure A. So the feedback we're getting through this process may help inform it will help inform early feedback of how a modern measure a um expenditure plan could look uh in the coming years. So all feedback is valuable even if it doesn't fit directly and squarely in the bucket of the connect bay area act. Next slide please. Little bit about financial outlook. We are very fortunate that we're um at the bus at Samrans bus are not facing those kind of devastating um operational shortfalls that our sister agencies like BART that's facing. BART's facing about a $375 million a year average annual deficit. Calr's facing approximately 75 million a year. Um SAMR is has a balanced budget now, but we do see an inflection point coming in fiscal year 28 where our expenditures are starting to outpace the revenues that are coming in. We are mindful of that. Um and we know that uh as a result, well, we have we're fortunate in in SAM Trans and the Sanonteo County Transit District, we have some uh built-in administrative efficiencies here in our transit district. All of our administrative overhead like HR functions, IT functions, communication functions, finance functions are shared services among three different agencies. So, we do have some built-in cost savings, but we're doing even more to uh not increase staff unnecessarily, not approving new

staff headcount, uh leveraging technology where we can, reducing things like discretionary travel and consultant work, and we're also aggressively seeking new advertising and partnership revenue so we can address this. But if uh the connect bay area measure were to pass um certainly some of the funds would be very valuable to preserve SAMR bus service as well. Next slide please. So how do we go about um creating uh um a local investment plan? We're really putting the show on the road and uh listening. Um, a lot of conversation has already happened during the SB63 legislative development. Many organizations, many people, many elected leaders, community members weighed in on what their priorities were. Um, we also have a number of planning documents like our strategic plan and our capital improvement plan as well. We're hearing from our board of directors at SAMR who will administer this. We have also um we are we have offered this presentation to every city council throughout the county. So we're in the process of doing those presentations. We have a survey that's online and paper survey and people can call in. I'll tell you more about that in just a moment. But a really important first major step is we hosted uh two advisory groups the agency advisory group with many members of uh city staff that would be responsible for implementing some of this funding if it were to come in. So we really want to thank the city of Sonteo. We had your city manager, your public works director, deputy director have been a part of this process to get that technical staff feedback. And then we also have a stakeholder advisory group with various business leaders, CBO organizations, service providers, advocates in the transit space to hear their feedback as well. So, uh, our goal is to gather all this feedback from the

community and from these different groups and to present it to our board in May and then have an adopted local investment plan by June of 2026. Next slide, please. with a million different great ideas. Um, we coalesed around with some help from some professional consultants that have helped us sort of formulate this. We have heard the preliminary feedback and we've um we've identified 10 categories at this time for the community to help prioritize one through 10. And that's what we're asking people to do, which is a hard task because a lot of these things are very important. Through the next few weeks, we're going to gather this information and some of these categories may um may uh you know end up collapsing together or we may regroup them. We're going to get a lot of feedback at the next advisory group. But these are the 10 priorities. Um we have here on this slide presentation they're only one sentence explanations but we call it the extended play version is available on the website. You can click on the dropdown and get examples of what these things mean. Um and all of this information is available on the website. Um and it's translated into not only we have English, Spanish, simplified Chinese and Tagalague. Um, and we also have these uh these surveys which are in the back of your council chambers and we're putting the show on the road at our different presentations. There's also a paper survey version where people can either hand it back to us or yes, rip it off, tear it off and mail it back. Or for folks that maybe would like to talk to a human rather than mail it back or do an online survey, they can call our customer service center and there's QR codes and phone numbers and everything available um in different languages as well. Next slide. Uh very accelerated process because the

legislation was signed into law last fall. We had to gather our team and basically in about a 10-week process, we are doing this really uh aggressive uh public information campaign. So people are going to be hearing more and more about it, but we do need your help to get the word out. So the opportunity to come present at your city council is very valuable to us. So, we thank you for your time this evening and again um to really March through May is where we're doing the outreach. The board will hear the initial sort of feedback and summary from the community on May 6th with we'll get additional feedback from them with our goal to adopt a local investment plan by June 3rd. And the reason we're accelerating this so much, just to kind of really button it up, is uh we we want voters, if it does make it to the ballot, we want Sonteo County voters to know what's in it for them. In addition to um funding that is prescripted uh in the legislation that will go here in Sano County to Cal Train, to BART, and to MUN. these flexible funds. We want voters to have a sense of what the board will prioritize based on what they heard from the community. Next slide. So, here's just um a a link in the presentation for community members. If they're not here in chambers with us tonight, they can find the survey. Um we've actually got some boosted paid uh advertising to really promote this survey as well. And again, all the toolkits are there for your city staff to put in um newsletters, but if you have constituent newsletters as well, and you can help us on social media, we'd very much appreciate it. And there's information for community members to get in touch with us as well. So, with that, we um I just want to mention that the survey will close on April 30th. So, the more we can get information out in the next two weeks is very important to us. And I think I'll close at that point so we can take some public comment and uh hear from the

council if you'd like to share any priorities tonight or questions. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with us tonight. And at this time I would like to open public comment. If you're in council chambers, you can give a respect uh request to speak slip and uh with the city clerk or uh if you're on Zoom, you may raise your hand. City Clerk, how many commenters do we have?

Thank you, Mayor Lorraine. At this time, I have three requests to speak. If you're participating in our virtual environment in which to speak, please raise your hand now. We will be closing the request to speak period momentarily. Um so, we'll give you just a moment or two to do so. Mayor Lraine, that sets um us at three speakers for this item. And per council adopted rules and procedures, we'll set the speaking limit at 3 minutes per speaker. Our first speaker will be Max Mottner. Max, please unmute your mic.

Hey there. Uh, I'm Maxer. Uh, while I'm a SAM Trans CAC member, I'm speaking on my own behalf tonight as a Sanonteo city resident and frequent SAM trans rider. Um, I just wanted to give my feedback uh to Mrs. speech on what the uh priorities I think should be um for the proceeds of this funding measure if it ends up passing. Um key being to uh improve service, more frequent service um and funding transit priority projects. I just want to relate a personal anecdote from being a community member here in Sonteo. I convinced my neighbors to go on a birthday outing via the bus to Redwood City. Uh we live one block from uh El Camino and a bus stop and it took us an hour and a half to travel under 11 miles. So we discussed how we could have biked there together with a couple of members of our party being seniors. Um, and part of this was sabotaged by the street work that's being performed on El Camino. Um, but this funding would really go a long ways towards perhaps increasing the bus frequency on El Camino and perhaps creating bus priority uh, infrastructure on El Camino, which renders taking the bus a very unattractive option to our community as it is right now. So, just wanted to give my input on how the funds could be best invested, which is on improving service frequency. Um, and thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Rich. Rich, please unmute your mic. Thank you. I've actually just got a couple of questions. I just want to clarify the funding. Uh and looking at the chart, it looks like 63% will go primarily to BART and MUN and 50 million total to SAM Trans and Cal Train. If I'm wrong, please correct me. Uh but I'm questioning how we'll make up that other 25 million shortfall for Cal Train. Thank you. Thank you. And our final speaker on this item will be Gina Papin. Gina, please unmute your mic.

Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. Um, I'm a little confused here and I'm hoping that this is not Samr getting ahead of the game here. Um, this is a 14-year measure and I hope people are not going to be locked in to survey questions. I know cities and each city council has their own priorities and the measure has yet to pass. So I think it's a little premature to be out collecting information other than generally speaking. I do hope that people are not being put into a specific box and then being locked in by the SAMR board moving forward here. This is important. Um we all have needs and every city I'm sure has uh different needs here. So adopting a plan in June, uh, no one should be locked into here. MTC did a blue ribbon transit recovery plan over five years ago that included improved coordination and scheduling, better signage. These are things we're not seeing here. I know part of the funding uh will go there, but it would be nice if part of the return source funding also uh was used there. So, I don't think anybody should be limited by the categories here um or squeezed into a little box on that front. Uh we are not sure whether this is going to pass, but I hope that Sonteo County is looking also at alternative funding sources. There are opportunities as San Francisco has done um a tax on Uber andyft kind of like a hotel tax, but this is a regressive sales tax that will impact particularly the riders of

Samrand who are lower income and many many of our residents. So, I do hope that the city of Sonteo takes serious effort in focusing on what you believe your city needs and what portion of these fundings you could use in a way that meets the established legislation. But we all want to make sure that this legislation um has more accountability. MTC did an efficiency review on Friday and the agency's BART is saving over $500 million. Cal Train $70 million, but we're not hearing that part of the uh situation here. So, we do hope that the efficiencies will continue on all operators moving forward here so that the public has something to believe in that transportation would have a bright future and I hope they continue to work in that direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Lorraine. That concludes public comment. Thank you very much. close public comment and ask council members if they have questions or comments. Council members Vo Gadinski.

Thank you. First, I want to um thank Emily for being here tonight. Um so, just so the council's aware, I was going to bring this up in reports and announcements, but I stepped in as Lisa's alternate at CCAG. Um and CCAG received a presentation um on this topic as well. Um some of the questions actually majority of the questions that came out of that discussion were about what percentage of the 50 million goes to cities and how will that actually be allocated. Um so right now that's not clear. Um the other thing that came out quite a bit it was the equity piece. So certain parts of certain cities get more or less for some of these locations. And so how would that actually be distributed amongst these different um cities? Um so that was not clear in terms of the metrics if it was based on population, unique situation, etc. Um so just so we're all starting from the same place. Um, generally my perspective on this is I really do want to support um, SAM Trans just because I feel like compared to other transit agencies, they do go out of the way to support lowincome folks that are trying to go to work every day. They give free rides to students, um, free rides to seniors. Um, so whatever we can do, you know, to support SAMR and the fact that this is a, um, communitydriven initiative. That being said, um I do remain concerned that there is a lack of clarity on how the funding would be distributed and um to some of the comments made today by the public. You know, I do agree that we might be jumping the gun um trying to say that we're limiting it to these specific categories um when every city has unique situations around where and how that funding could

be utilized. So, for example, um like on the east side of the the free the freeway where my community is, um there's several like bus stops that don't have accessibility for seniors, don't have benches, don't have coverings um for people to sit in. Um you wouldn't necessarily see that though on in other parts of the city of San Monteo. And so, if you were to give funding to the city, how would we guarantee that some of these redlined communities or historically redlined communities would get the proper funding that they need? Um, so that's just like one example. I also obviously I'm a huge advocate for sea level rise and flooding, but um, if you look at future projections for a city like Sanonteo, most of the city actually is underwater in 20 to 30 years. So it's like we'd be giving fund funding for transit when most of the city would be underwater. So, I'm just not like fully sure how some of these things align to the city of Sonteo and and future forecasting or predictions and I'd like more clarity there. Thank you. That was really a comment from my perspective.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I may I respect because that's exactly the kind of information we're trying to learn through this process. So, for example, if um bus stops were a critical need in your district or in your community, we would hope that folks would go to the survey, you would go to the survey and prioritize um increased safety, cleanliness, and accessibility at bus stops. You know, that would be something you might rate higher. If you're concerned about climate resiliency in bus operations, um there's uh you know, there's a sustainability, you know, bucket. There's also a free form at the end of every survey. There's a place where people can add whatever else. The reason we created the 10 categories is if we just said, "What's your priority?" without any u structure for seeking thousands of pieces of feedback. It would it would be a little bit chaotic for us to get that information back. So in hearing the initial feedback from the stakeholder advisory groups, the um and the community uh stakeholder groups and the agency advisory groups and taking information from our strategic plans which had a lot of community input. That's how we came up with these 10 categories. But there is a free form category at the end of the survey where people can say whatever they want and we have a methodology for sort of gleaning that information and then incorporating as well. So the the answer is we we don't have all those details uh yet. When it comes to how would money come back to the cities, we would want to hear in the survey. We want to see formula funds come back to the city for potholes if that's if that's a priority. So you would rank maybe potholes or you could in your free form say I want formula funds at least x number of dollars to come back to the city and and there will be a process to figure out

how to get that done should the measure pass. But if we don't do this work now and it's just $50 million comes back to SAMR, it's up to the board however they want to spend it without doing this community work. People would be skeptical about what's in it for them. So we're trying to hear that now. So, there'll be at least a um an investment plan that can be changed by the board of directors through a public process through through feedback, but at least we have some structure for for what those funds might be. Thank you.

Hopefully that addresses some of the public comment and your terrific comments as well. Thank you very much. Does any other council member have questions? Council member Diaz Nash.

Thank you, Mr. mayor and thank you so much Miss Beach for a great presentation. I've also heard several presentations about this and I think the more we can get the word out the better. Uh just one highlevel request I have or preference is for more east west transportation and not just the big buses. you know, RI ride plus is a specific option, but how do you serve that last mile? I think we all want to help people find find easy ways to get all the way through their their routes. And as one of our public comments said, it sometimes can be difficult. So, really focusing on how do we deliver east west in a way that gets to more of our cities should be considered. Thank you.

Thank you for that feedback. And um there is a category in here for uh on demand programs to reach communities. You know, it could be ride share, it could be other things as well. So that's great feedback. Thank you. Any others? Yes, Council Member N.

Thank you for a great presentation, Emily. Um this weekend at the progress seminar I was listening to a lot of this talk uh with people from Half Moon Bay and Foster City sitting right next to me and uh I was telling them you know I I'm going to support this and they were like well we're not going to support it doesn't do anything for us and I think to council member Diaz Nash's point and I've talked about this a lot. I've I've worked 35 of the last years of my life in the East Bay and after the pandemic we lost the Transbay Express. Um we really need to see that restored. Uh the one of the biggest challenges with Foster City in Sanonteo is people trying to cross Samonteo Bridge and there is not a good alternative solution for that. And if we don't have a way for a bus to get across faster than sitting in traffic, then people are going to sit in their own cars. And so I I think that that that that's something that could definitely be included uh is the idea of how you solve for that problem. You know, looking at the traffic hotspots and I'm of course centered on Sonteo cuz we're here in Sonteo, but I think you know SAMR could do us a great service for the whole peninsula if they could identify where these traffic hotspots are and figure out how SAMR routes could could help us alleviate that. And a lot of people, like I said, just don't do it because, well, if you want to cross the bridge, there's no way to do that. Um, I I've also, as an experiment, every year I will take um Calrans up to or I'll take the buser or SAMR up to Milbury, take BART all the way around, and then take AC Transit to work. It takes two and a half hours. It's not it's not a realistic um solution to a problem. and and it so so I think you know my this is a suggestion but my suggestion is that we need to encourage SAM trans to help find solutions so that people look at it and say of course I support that because otherwise you have these communities and

pockets that are like means nothing to me oh I won't be able to take the train to go to a concert once a month or once a year like oops

so um finding ways to really bring home that that benefit to the local pockets that are isolated and east west is a big part of that problem. And the other suggestion um which I see you have some here is is looking at ride share and on demand programs. I I live on a bus lane in on Delaware Street and after 9:00 10:00 at night that bus which can seat about 60 or 80 people, it usually has two. And so I I look at it and think, you know, it would be a lot more practical to use technology and have ride ride hailing, still have routes, but but um you know, be faster and more economical probably. Uh you'd still have a driver working and you know, you might have to have some drivers displaced, but then you could have them being dispatchers to to help uh figure that out. So, I'd also be very uh supportive of the idea of looking at on demand programs, especially starting at like after hours when we have empty buses running. So, those are my suggestions.

Thanks for that feedback. Um, and we've heard from a number of folks about that connection east west across the the San Monteo Bridge. Um, expanding access to transit for communities that are currently underserved like Foster City, the coast. That's becoming a very popular one as well. uh improving transit routes to reduce traffic on those heavily traveled corridors and in the free form. It would be great if you you know I'm I'm taking a note of these notes here but for people to advocate for that and then of course it's not only the service but it's the infrastructure. It's making sure there's bus lanes and express carpool lanes things that so you're not just stuck in traffic if you have a bus. So you know that's great feedback as well. Thank you for that. and the innovation. Yeah,

I have an idea, but I'll give it to you offline. Yeah, no, totally. Thank you. Very good. I have a a question or two if you don't mind. Um, so first, um, I think we did have a public commenter, uh, curious about the the split, uh, in funding, I think, from Connect Bay Area itself. And um I wonder if perhaps in your presentation you had a slide or something that perhaps you could just uh return to it and uh clarify how much I guess SAM trans gets and and how much other operators are are expected to get from the measure.

Yes, we could go back to the slide presentation and I think it's slide five.

Thank you. Sorry, city clerk. Sorry to ask if I'm if I'm reading the numbers correctly. Uh there we go. And actually there's another uh MTC has created, of course, our focus at SAM Trans is this local investment plan, right? The slice, the $50 million return to source slice, which is a portion of that 30 that blue part of the pie. The pie that's shown here is the entire $1 billion measure. and MTC has a fact sheet which I can leave one of them here that I have, but I can also follow up and send uh the city clerk a link and we can, you know, publish it as well. Uh but there's a a a really good piece of information that rather than reading the detailed SB63 legislation. It kind of summarizes all the different buckets and the funding. So that that would be a long presentation in and of itself, but I'm happy to leave this um with your city clerk and I we can provide that. Um to to be clear, the legislation itself covers it's prescriptive for those major operators. So the money coming back to BART which is divided up among all the different counties that are participating that have BART service that touches them. The money going to Cal Train the counties that have Cal Train in it are participating in Cal Train. Calra's um projected annual deficit will be covered through this measure unless it changes dramatically. BARTs will be substantially supported but there will still be some shortfall. Um, this 50 million that we're talking about in Sonteo County is separate and above and beyond those major operator funding. That's the pink section here. Um, I can give you some numbers if you

want to know how much uh the percentages of what Sonteo County sales taxes are going towards those operators are in the last bullet there. Um, there's associated estimated numbers. Again, these are all future numbers if you're interested in the millions, but um big picture, the 50 million local investment plan that we're talking about is one portion of that 33% that's returned to source to the counties and it doesn't affect it doesn't take any money away from Cal Train or BART or MUN or those other operators.

Excellent. Thank you for that. And um we we had another uh public comment ask about whether uh concerned about being locked into uh the the feedback that's being given. Uh I feel like in in maybe some of your response to council member Spear Cookiski, you you uh shared that there will be next steps beyond this um and there's an opportunity perhaps uh for for more robust discussion, but this is the the first steps. Is does that is that about right or am I missing it?

Yes, that $50 million um the SAM transboard will decide how it's spent. Um and they are going to be having a robust discussion on May 6th about that at their meeting, but they're going to take into account all this feedback that we've received. And so the the feedback is really important. And I think they want to they have said they want to be thoughtful and hear from the community so that they understand what the community values so that their local investment plan will reflect what the community wants as well as their responsibility to make sure Samrans can continue to providing the core service that it does. So is it locked in? Um, it will be a commitment and there will be a public process where the the local investment plan will be adopted presumably in June because we want to answer those questions for people. They're confused. What will it be spent on? Um, and in five years into it, if it's not working and there's other needs, there will be a public process where they could be revisited. It's not like a um it's not written into the legislation, right, like these other formulas for BART, Cal Train, and MUN are

Thank you. Yeah.

Um I was uh just thinking on these, you know, top 10 options. I I do want to um tread lightly uh with my comments as I want of course the the overall survey results to to be strongest and most resonant. But um I did think about um the ECR rapid which I I feel like was I I don't remember completely but I believe before the pandemic we had um not just uh it it was significant investment in in the El Camino routes such that we had SAM trans running ECR about every 15 minutes and then on top of that if I recall there was a there was a rapid option that made uh more targeted stops. Um, is is that something that's um on the table with uh something like this? Was that successful? And is that is that a an interesting option for this?

Thanks for the question. Um, you may recall reimagine SAMR was a really big effort to study our bus system and figure out efficiencies and what would be best. And if I recall correctly, this was before I was on staff, but that's where um some service changes changed at that point. So there's probably a lot of planning data I can circle back for reasons why that decision was made um thoughtfully. That said, if that's something that falls into uh we want to improve more transit routes to reduce traffic on the most congested corridors, ECR certainly qualifies and put in the free form. I'd like to see the, you know, community members could say, I'd like to see the rapid ECR or the rapid owl come back because I work this shift work and I'd love to get to, you know, daily city faster from East Palo Alto. That would be very valuable information. And then there were some other new routes that were added as a result like EPX that goes from, you know, East Palo Alto to Redwood City Transit Center to jobs at SFO and goes all the way up to the city. Those were some new routes that were developed as well.

Thank you. Um I'm curious about the potential uh relationship opportunities perhaps between this effort and the Grand Boulevard initiative because uh you know continuing I guess uh in thinking about El Camino um and some of the opportunities here um is is you know what what does Samr uh think of of this possibility?

Well, thank you for that question. Um our SAMR staff did a lot of uh collaboration with the cities along El Camino and that is something that um not only is Samrans but the transportation authority and cities are invested in seeing that vision become a reality. So we are hearing feedback like that from the cities that we'd like to see more investment in in realizing that vision and that takes money for planning effort. It takes uh infrastructure money to make some of those things happen like you know different ways you could make the bus move faster along El Camino. There's there's solutions to that. Um and so that is that is percolating. Some people say gosh some of the potholes on ECR are awful. So maybe we want to collaborate with Calrans. Now Calrans owns the state highway. It doesn't belong to any of our cities. But maybe there's some ways that we could accelerate through some of these so it's a smoother ride on El Camino. Um, that's feedback we're gathering right now and we'll see if that rises to the top.

Excellent. Well, um, I appreciate the the comments and feedback from both uh, our members of the public and our council members. And I want to thank Emily for being with us tonight. And at I believe uh, we may have given you what we can at this point. and I hope that others will continue to uh consider taking this survey between now and the 30th. So, thank you for highlighting that and for being with us tonight.

Appreciate that, Mr. Mayor, and thanks for the thoughtful feedback. We we do appreciate it and we know it's important um important work we need to do ahead. So, thank you and thanks for amplifying the survey as much as you can. Happy to answer any follow-up questions as well as they come in.

Excellent. That will conclude item 16. And we'll continue with item 17, which is general fund 2026 to 27 operating budget preview and general fund 10-year forecast. We have a presentation from finance director Abby Viser. Okay. All right. Uh, good evening, honorable mayor and city council. I am Abby Viser, the city's finance director. Um, and now we'll be doing a presentation on the fiscal year 2627 general fund operating budget. So, this is our preview. Um, I do have a good number of things to go over, but we'll try to to get through all the material and get you all up to speed here. Um, okay. So, just to kind of do a recap of where we are in the city's budget timeline. This is a two-year budget. This is the 2628 uh fiscal year budget we're putting together right now. Um we focus mostly on the 2627, but it is a two-year budget. We started that in December of 2025. We had the budget kickoff working with our departments to start having them work on their operating budgets. We did come back to the council on February 23rd for our midyear updates where we looked at where we were with the 2526 budget to kind of see how things were coming. This is the budget preview here in April. You had the CIP earlier this evening and now we'll be doing the operating budget preview. Um, and again, we'll be coming back to the council for the proposed budget and public hearing. So, you'll have a pretty good budget book at that point. you'll be reviewing that'll be on the June 1st meeting and

then June 15th will be budget adoption um with again another public hearing. All right. So just to kind of give you a sense of how we went about the budget this year. I mean we used a lot of things that are in our normal process but given some of the economic indicators out there and revenue projections. We did ask departments to kind of maintain a baseline operating budget. So we wanted to make sure they kept their operating costs um to a you know increases to a minimum. We also asked for no new requests. So there wasn't any big asks this year. We didn't even ask them for them. Um so they may have asked but we didn't ask for them. Um we are trying to integrate all the financial sustainability plan that we can um as we continue to look at expenditure controls and and things like that. We're looking at that in the budget light. Um we do align with the city council strategic plan. Um and also the priority initiatives that were adopted for this year um and going forward. Those are kind of things that we look at in terms of if there's one-time funding or things like that. We look to the priority initiatives. And then of course obviously we want to make sure that the operational needs of the city are taken care of that we maintain quality service. So we do look at that supporting of the day-to-day needs. Um did want to talk just briefly about the economic outlook because that does impact again what we're looking at in terms of our revenues and other things for the budget. Um I think it's unfortunately still a lot of uncertainties. Hasn't changed in a year. I look back at last year's staff report. We still had uncertainties back then. and we have uncertainties now. Um we um you know we have inflation as a concern. We had kind of thought that that might go away but unfortunately that is still a concern. Um inflation was creeping up

in February to about 2.9% and that was before um that we entered the conflict of the war with Iran. So we don't know what inflation is going to do depending upon the shocks from that um conflict. Um we are kind of keeping an eye on what the Federal Reserve is doing. They are in a wait and see um mode and that's partly because the labor market is not looking as strong as they'd like it to look, but inflation is still high as I mentioned. So we're not hearing that there's going to be more than one rate cut in 2026, which is definitely going to affect um interest rates and potentially impact our housing market depending upon how things go. Um, we're looking at maybe interest mortgage rates going around 6%. Um, so we'll kind of see if that puts a damper on our housing market. Our housing market has been resilient so far. So, we'll kind of see. And also, we've heard that GDP growth may be slowing, kind of slowed throughout 2025. And although they're looking at a 1.5 to 2.5% increase in 2627, again the impacts of the current war with Iran and the economic shocks that could come from that are still yet to be seen. So a big uncertainty there, of course. Um and then on the legislative side, we also have some some uncertainties that have kind of cropped up. Um, as we've talked about, the current administration at the federal level, um, is definitely looking at ways to limit our access to federal funding, I guess you could say, because there's a lot of certifications that they're looking for us to do with our grant agreements. Um, they've even gone so far, SAM.gov is a portal that we use. We have to register that in order to be eligible for federal funds. And they're saying there's certain certifications we need to do to get onto that portal potentially. So, there's things we're looking at from the federal landscape that could impact the funding that we're

getting from that area. Um, at the same time, um, we do have the property tax in lie of vehicle license fee, which I believe is facing the greatest threats we've ever had with that. We've talked about it as a fiscal concern, but to have the state not fund us fully um, for this current fiscal year, to not do that backfill only at 67%, that's a greater threat than we've ever had. And that's partly why we will be looking a lot at that in the budget presentation here. And then the third thing is the the new statewide proposed ballot measure. Um not on the ballot yet, but it's looking to eliminate real property transfer tax, which again is our third largest revenue source right now. So that also is a a threat that's out there that we're concerned about. So how do we approach the budget given that? Um, again, we're trying to kind of maintain our core approach of we we can't predict the unpredictable. Uh, we don't know what's going to happen. We're here for the long term, right? Sonteo has weathered difficult economic conditions before. We do long-term fiscal planning and we're continue to focus on that long-term stability. So, no short-term reactions. We're not going to react to since we don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to focus on the stability. Return to fundamentals. uh kind of conservative approach in revenues and um estimating and that is also why we reduced VLF funding because we want to be conservative in how we're looking um at our revenue. So in terms of the um general fund revenue base, the reason we do talk so much about all the different the economic outlook as well as the legislative environment is because of the you know the makeup of our general fund revenue base. Um, as you can see, 79% of it is tax revenues. Uh, for 2627, I'm estimating 174 million. So, 137.9 million is that from taxes. 90% of those tax revenues come from three sources

again, property tax, real property transfer tax, and the sales tax. So, a lot of that is impacted by these economic indicators. And so, it's why we keep looking at them. um some of the ones that are kind of most important. Um obviously housing market trends continue to be important for a city like us who are so reliant on property tax and have such a good single family um and other residential base that kind of supports that property tax. So we like to keep an eye on housing market trends because they'll affect that and real property transfer tax. Interest rates also for the same reason that affects the housing market. we have to see what those interest rates are going to do um to the transfers in the housing market. Um economic growth is very important for our second revenue source. Um a reduction in growth expectations could impact our sales tax revenue. So that's why keeping an eye on the the GDP and where they think the the economy's growth rates going to be is important to our sales tax. And then finally, we always look at inflation because that's going to affect our expenditure numbers. And so we've got to see um are we going to be able to keep our operating costs in check or is inflation um getting us from those angles. Okay. So just to kind of give you two slides. I didn't go crazy with the graphs. I just want to give you a little bit of information for the housing market. Again, we do keep an eye on what's going on with the housing market. You can see from this graph that in 22 23 or 2022 and 2023, those are calendar years. Um the housing market kind of slowed in Sonteo, but you can see it's gradually coming up. 20 2024 and 2025, we've seen an increase in the number of housing units sold. The average median sales price has, you know, dipped a little bit, but it's been coming back up. It's remaining stable, um which is good for us. Um demand seems to be remaining strong. Um and so it does seem like it's maintained some resilience even with kind of the higher interest rates that we've had. Um, and keeping an

eye on the median home price is helpful as well as kind of how much is turning over in the housing market because that also affects our assessed valuations and then as a result the property taxes that we receive. Um, in fiscal year 26 27 um we're estimating about a 3.17% increase in uh property taxes. Um, which is good, but it's it's lower than it's been in previous years. um we do think it's going to go back up in future years, but for this year it's a little bit lower than it's been. And then also to take a look at the sales tax trends. Um I think we've looked at this a couple times, but you can see in blue is the regular 1% sales tax. In yellow is the measure S. Um we again are predicting kind of a a flat um sales tax at this point. We think that that's again a good conservative estimate. We have a diverse set of business types. we're not we're not reliant on one or two types of business and so if things don't look great we think we can recover from that but right now we're just kind of predicting we're going to be slow and steady and kind of hope that the consumer continues to spend as they've been doing. So with that backdrop I'm going to kind of go into what we've put together in our initial kind of operating budget. Um just to remind of the challenges that are always in our general fund budget. Um the cost to provide city services does continue to go up. The long-term pension obligations also continue to go up and those are our legally obligated liabilities. So those are always a cost. Um and then of course there's city facilities and infrastructure. Um we do have to maintain and repair city facilities as we discuss and there's also those long-term infrastructure needs. So those costs um continue to increase and revenues are just not keeping pace um with that increase. And then, as I mentioned, we've got our two big uncertainties, VLF shortfall, there's a potential of no backfill from the state, and our new threat to real

property transfer tax. To see how we use that, again, as I mentioned, property tax, we've built in a 3.17% growth rate. And for the VLF shortfall, the one that we would receive in 2627, that's based on the shortfall from 2425, we've currently assumed a 0% receipt of that. That's estimated to be about $7 million and we felt like at this time we did not want to include that in our revenue estimates. So that is assumed at $0. Um again it's just a portion of ELF but it is a significant portion. Um sales tax we're budgeting it fairly flat. Real property transfer tax I have increased that slightly. Um typically we've budgeted about 8.6 million for that. 8 was the baseline. I've moved that baseline up to 8.4 for because we have seen some increases in that based on on just increasing costs. I believe uh business taxes um also we've raised that baseline a little bit and transit occupancy tax it actually was 4 million kind of has been our baseline I I put a little bit of an increase in that not a large one just kind of keeping that a little bit stable increase right so given that for our general fund revenues this is um what we're looking at for our first stab at the budget you can see we talked about the revenues at the tax side and then we also have uh our fees. We have permits and fines, interest, uh transfers from other funds. So you put all that together and you've got about 174 million that we're projecting right now for revenues. Now that is less um than we projected at midyear and um so that's about 2.8 less than we projected at midyear. So that's a change negative 1.6%. So we are going down, but a large portion of that is the 7 million that we're not budgeting for VLF. So although we did have some

increases and we have um you know modest increases in some revenues, the VLF really offset what we were going to see for our revenue and that's why it went down. Okay. So next we'll look at general fund expenditure assumptions. Um, in general for personnel costs, um, for salaries and wages, we do that per the labor contracts. For benefits, we kind of average out what we see in terms of rising health care. Um, this year, I believe it's been about 6%. And then for pension costs, um, Kalpers usually provides that data for us, so we're pretty on target with what the pension costs are. In terms of non-personnel operating costs, the departments typically work on the discretionary components of that and put that together. And again with the direction to kind of keep that at a baseline amount, um we've kept the base of operating to an increase of about 3%. Unfortunately, there's some other pieces of operating that we can't control. Um so there's some increases way above that that we do have to absorb in the budget. Um insurance, it's gone up over about 20% um from last year's budget to this year's budget. So that's a big increase. And then utilities, like everyone else, PG& and water is going up. and we do consume a lot of of electricity and water. So it's up 15 to 18% in those categories and again that's out of our control but we do have to absorb that in our operating budget. In addition in the operating side we do the transfers out. So our transfers out for right now are estimated to be 7.6 million. Um that includes 4.2 2 million to CIP projects, 3 million to debt service, and the 410,000 equipment replacement fund contribution. Now, this is lower than we have done in previous years. Um, as you saw, part of that is measure S is lower, but also the general fund is lower, and we've decided to use some one-time measure CC to help offset that because we just felt like with the deficit that we were starting

to see, we needed to reduce our capital contributions at least for this year to kind of see how we were going. So that's why we're at 7.6 million. So if you put all that together, you are getting 190 million as the expense estimate for 2627. So if you compare that to the adopted budget for 2020 2526, it's a $2.3 million increase. Um, again, as I mentioned, you can kind of see from here, uh, personnel, there's some movement between salaries and wages and benefits, and that's mostly due to how our new software is budgeting. In the old software, it budgeted some things slightly differently from the new software. So, it's it's really taking that in account. If you look at them together, the changes kind of offset one another. For the operating expenses, um, you can see a 5.7% increase. And again, that's the cumulative when you take into effect some of the other costs that go together with the 3% baseline. Uh we have the fire and legacy costs up about 5% and then as you can see we we're reducing the transfers out compared to what we did in the 2526 year which is then um getting us only an increase of 2.3 2.3 million or 1.2%. So again, trying to contain those expenses as much as we can to offset um what we see is a deficit. Now before I go into kind of the fund balance and the ramifications of that, I had promised you a measure S um overview. And so I want to show you a little bit about measure S. Um it is a subfund of the general fund and I wanted to make sure y'all had a chance to look at it. Um, again, this graph should be familiar because it's kind of similar to the sales tax measure, I mean graph we saw, but I kind of wanted again to show because we had done a five-year forecast for this fund. So, we can, you know, it's one of our special funds. We'd like

to look at what the five years is going to entail. And so, you can see with that moderate increase of 1 to 2% that we're kind of predicting for this, there's a little bit of increase, uh, but it's fairly limited. And so it's a it's a conservative but but it's definitely going to grow which is helpful but unfortunately it's kind of a microcosm of the overall general fund. It doesn't grow as much as the expenses are going up. And so I did want to kind of refresh on how do we use measure S and what are kind of the ongoing operating expenses that we do. Um and as you can see with measure S we actually fund four police officers. They use measure S as their dedicated funding. We fund a library staff person and extra operating expenses to support extra hours at the three libraries. Um we have 1.16 FTE and parks and wreck which helps to do programming as well as the mobile wreck program and the getaround senior ride program is in that budget. And then of course as we discussed the debt service cost for the 2020 uh bonds that we did for street and levy controls that was that is a continuing contribution from measure S towards that that bond repayment. So those are kind of the ongoing costs that we always need to use measure S to fund and those are increasing at more of the 3% 4% range based on how we keep operating and personnel costs going up. But then the expenses, the revenues are only going up one to two percent as we saw. So when we did the uh five-year forecast, um you can see what we were seeing in why we put that smaller amount of CIP funding in 2627. Um we we ended up getting ahead of ourselves by budgeting a little bit more revenue than we had coming in. Um and so what we were deciding to do this year was reduce the capital contribution. That's kind of what's available in that yellow line is what's left over. You

know, when we have the revenues, expenditures, and transfers out to debt, what do we have left over in our fund balance for measure S that we can put towards capital? So for 2627, we estimated about 700,000 could be put towards capital and we could still then be reimbursing the fund balance. So at the end of 2627 we'll have a positive fund balance and then in the next year 2728 we can kind of return to putting a little bit more significant money aside. But as you see in out ears, it's not going to be as large as we used to do because as we fund a little more of our commitments in the operating side, we're going to have less available for the CIP. And again, that's just partly a f because revenues are not increasing as the expenses are for the operating commitments. But again, as I kind of said with this this fund, it's not got a negative cash balance. We have 10 million in the fund balance for this one. some but all of it's committed much of it's already committed to projects that are getting underway still. So that's why we want to make sure we didn't get ahead of our budgeted commitments. So that's kind of an overview of measure S and then we'll kind of go back now and look at the overall um general fund which again includes the the measure S operating in it. Okay. So, based on the revenues and expenditures that we looked at, you can see that right now we're projecting a $16 million deficit. Um, that's obviously um larger than 2526 adopted budget when we had 12 million as our estimated deficit. Now, again, as with 2526, the hope would be that we wouldn't end with a $16 million deficit. Just as we're kind of working our way down for 2526, the hope would be we'd be working our way down for 2627. But right now, based on the revenues we're assuming, um, that's where we're looking at in terms of a deficit.

How does that affect our overall fund balance? Um, so just want to give you a little bit of overview of where the fund balance was and how this impacts it. So, if you kind of start with the ending year, I think it's most helpful for 2425. We ended that year with 119.5 overall in our general fund balance. Um, if you kind of work that through with the estimated $6.9 million deficit for this year and also subtract the 25 million capital reserve because this will be the first year. We'll kind of reflect that in our accounting is showing that reserve is held aside separately. then the ending fund balance is about 87.6 million at the end of 2526. And if you carry it forward and you actually realize a $16 million deficit in 2627, we're looking at a $7.6 million um fund balance left. So again, those are still healthy fund balances, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on, which is why I also want to just kind of give it to you in another another way of looking at it. So you can see um about a year or so ago we adopted the new general fund reserve policy which set aside these different buckets within the general fund. And so as you can see for 2526 if you kind of um show how these different buckets are um filled we have 15% of general fund expenses. Um 26.3 is set aside for the contingency reserve. 6.5 is set aside for the housing set aside. The CIP carryover, that's CIP monies that are committed from the general fund that we haven't spent yet. That's about 9.2. We have a budget stabilization reserve of 15%. So that's about 26.4 because that's of revenues. We have the $10 million but pension stabilization reserve and that leaves us I put the capital investment reserve in there as well. And I I have

the unassigned found balance of 9.2. So again, this is similar to the fund balance I showed. I just left the 25 million in rather than taking it out. So you could see all the different buckets. So for 2526, we'll still have an unassigned fund balance if we kind of end the year with a $6.9 million deficit. But as you see in 2627, if we actually um experience the full $16 million deficit, then you do not have an unassigned found balance anymore and you do start to um use some of your budget stabilization reserve towards paying that deficit amount. So that's why that's only 18.4 in that second column. So again, just kind of how it plays out to the overall fund balance that we're looking at. Um so then the next thing I kind of um did want to spend some time on because when we do the budget planning um we always start updating our 10-year forecast. Um and so we've been u working through updating that um and we came up with a couple of scenarios. So I'm going to go over kind of our expectations about how we set up these forecasts and then I'll go through the kind of scenarios. Um again just to let you know in terms of what we're expecting um salaries and wages we increase with kind of general alignment of historical CPI. So these are not big increases. Um medical costs we do an annual growth rate of about 6% because that's kind of been on average what we've see for health care costs. And then pension costs we actually use there's a tool that Kalpers provides that helps us estimate what our long-term pension commitments are going to be. And so we update that and update those to make sure that we've got the most recent uh data especially for the unfunded liability because that's where the biggest change going to be and where the biggest increase is going to be. And then for non-personnel costs uh for the

26 27 and 2728 we did kind of a 4% compounded annual growth rate. Um again looking at a lower baseline but knowing that there's some costs that are higher than we'd like to be and that's just how they're going to be. And then we did 3% for the outy years. So again, very conservative for our our 10-year forecast. And for transfers out, which again is those contributions to the CIP, we did a $7.5 million baseline. This is actually more than we're doing this year because that doesn't include the debt service. So, uh, this year's 7.6 includes the debt service. This is $7.5 million. And then we also assumed the $3 million debt service. So, it's a little bit higher, but we wanted to kind of provide for that CIP and see what it looked like if we could actually put in CIP because there's obviously the need for that. And then on the revenue assumptions, um again, property tax is one of our most important to estimate. Um when we look, we'll just look at one part of that, which is the secured property tax growth. Um again, 3.17 for 2627 and then we do about a 4% going forward. Um, we do have a consultant that helps with that and she actually did predict about 4.5% for some of the years out, but we again felt like 4% was a good conservative number to keep for now going out for the 10 years. Um, we kept the sales tax relatively flat just as you saw kind of in the measure S slide. It's a 1.2% increase. Toot, we we built in a slight increase. Uh, property transfer tax, we budget that as a baseline, right? Because it's very cyclical. We don't know how it's going to be. So we did 9 million um out through all 10 years and then we did moderate growth in some of the other revenues. Now where we didn't know how to address some of our revenue uncertainties, we did the scenarios. So within our

property taxes, we have you know a lot of these um things going on. So we wanted to model them. Um so we did four scenarios. All of them included no state backfill in 2627. Um, optimistic said, "Hey, the state's going to 100% backfill us going forward. How's that going to look?" In the practical scenario, we did 67% backfill since that is what actually came in this fiscal year. In the grave scenario, we said, "What does it look like if the state does not backfill VLF in the future?" Um, and so we have that. And then finally, we said if there's no state backfill and the proposed tax measure actually is passed that eliminates real property transfer tax, what does that look like? Again, that's kind of the dire scenario. We would hope that's not what we're going to see, but we wanted to kind of at least model it as we were looking at some of these uncertainties in our revenues. So, the first one, the optimistic. Um, I do think this is an important one. Um, this assumes a 100% BLF shortfall will come to us. So, two years after the shortfall happens, we'd be reimbursed for it. It does assume three more school districts will move to basic aid status from non-basic aid. So, that is a change. We don't know 100% how that's going to happen or not happen, but we like to model it just to kind of see. And that's a it's an assumption we have used in the past. The county has been a little bit more aggressive in that. And I we felt like three was the right number to use at least for this 10-year forecast. Um and that is in all the scenarios the same that three schools move to basic aid status over the time of the 10 years. So as you can see from this this is getting our full VLF back after every two years. Um and what I want to point out is you know obviously the first year is a deficit but we do have a deficit going forward um in up

until uh 2034 35 because of this. So even with that optimistic scenario, you can kind of see that underlying structural deficit is still slightly there. Um it gets better as our revenues kind of catch up with our expenses. But to begin with, there's a deficit for a couple of years and that's the optimistic scenario. Oops. So then I go to a practical scenario. Again, 67% of VLF coming in. This is not as as extreme. you know, this this could happen. And so, we wanted to look at that. And it it's not too bad. You don't catch up to um the revenues don't catch up to expenses quite yet, but they're getting closer, right? By 20 35 36, you're you have a smaller deficit, but you do have deficits throughout that time. Um when you have the 67% and again underlying kind of that structural deficit that's there. Um, and then I called this one the grave scenario because it is it is serious. It's a 0% VLF shortfall in those years. Um, and it does get um it does get your deficit pretty high. Um, and again, the VLF is probably about 15% of the the VLF shortfall amount is about 15% of that property tax revenue. So, it's a significant amount and it does get larger. And again, if the basic aid the non-basic aid school districts do move to basic aid status, it gets larger. So that's why partly some of these get larger because I'm assuming that transition is happening. Um, so you can see the deficits there. You can see in this scenario by 203031 you're getting to use up the fund balance. So definitely actions would need to be taken before that time. And then finally, the dire because we wanted to look at it. Again, we don't know

where the real property transfer tax proposal is going. Um, but based on how it's out there right now, um, they would eliminate real property transfer tax two years following a potential approved ballot measure. And so that is how I've modeled it here. So there's no VLF shortfall and there's also a loss of property transfer tax. um you get half of it in 2829 and then it's gone starting in 202930. So again it just shows you how quickly um your deficits can increase at that point and how quickly you go through the general fund balance. So again something like that would be dire and would need to be addressed immediately based on how large that would be. Um but again we don't know the where that's going to go and how that's going to go just yet. We're keeping an eye and monitoring it and hopefully we'll have news to share with the council when it's out there. Let's see. And then finally, I did want to just kind of remind everyone about our fiscal sustainability activities because this again has been a part of our budget planning. It's a part of our budget monitoring. Um we do continue to look at expenditure controls, revenue enhancements, the cost recovery keeps moving on. We look for grant opportunities where we can and of course are addressing those economic development um work plan activities. So um again for for the budget obviously the expenditure controls and any new ones that we can come up with during this period of time are important. We have for example continued to deduct less in workers compensation from the the general fund and other funds because the workers compensation fund has enough funding right now to cover our our costs. it built up a nice reserve. So, that's one way we're saving money is by keeping that 1.5 million from going to the workers comp fund and keeping it within the general fund. So, again, those are things we'll continue to look at. We'll continue to update you as we have new things on that.

And with that, I am done and I am here for any questions you might have on our budget preview. Thank you very much. At this time, I'd like to open this item for public comment. So, if you're in council chambers, you can give us a request to speak slip. Uh, if you are on Zoom, you may raise your hand. If you're on your phone, you may press star 9. City clerk, who do we have? Mayor Lraine, we have not received any requests to speak on this item.

Very well. Then I'll close public comment and I'll ask uh if any members of the council have any questions or comments. Council members Spaditzki. Um, so this is more for the city manager. Can you just start by giving us an update on VLF and where we're at with that?

So in regards to VLF, uh we have a county group amongst the county and 20 cities. First and foremost, we have a lawsuit right now uh that the city has um engaged in against the state along with our 20 cities in the county. So, that's happening. In addition to that, there's been major advocacy as of recent in the last two weeks um where we had a big major rally downtown Redwood City front of the firehouse uh to bring attention to this issue of you know to bring it more prominent to the state and to Sacramento. And so with that, I know that there's a contingent that will be going up to Sacramento to advocate not only this week, but also on April 28th. Um that'll be the first hearing and our local assembly woman Diane Papin will be, you know, taking the lead and really pushing to look, you know, really advocate for a permanent solution. In addition to this, our county uh executive and his team have met with the state department of finance about a few weeks ago to have initial talks. That's a breakthrough that we haven't had uh previously. So, they're supposed to get back to the county executive who's then going to get back uh to myself um because I am part of the city manager, county manager working group on VLF. there's uh all of three of us um working on this uh regularly and so we'll be meeting to discuss this further next week. So hopefully we'll get some more information but at this point in time I cannot recommend that we budget for VLF. Uh understand that we're in an active lawsuit. We've already been stripped what 2.2 million I think it is Abby so far for this current year. Um and so it's really concerning overall and so we're already as you're aware we've brought this forward even in the last

budget cycle that we're looking at our 10-year forecast without you know even if we had VLF fully funded it's about 7 million annually of a structural deficit for the next 10 years. Then you take that 7 million of VLF and then potentially that real property transfer tax. If you would have keyed in on that last dire scenario, the the my the area where my eyes go is the 2030 2031 uh where you're seeing a $29 million deficit. Um and so with that, that's an existential threat for this city and our services and for our community. And so with all this, you know, we're going to advocate very hard on VLF here.

Um, you know, we won't go silent. We're going to be vocal all the way through the process and we'll go down without a fight, you know, and we'll we'll fight hard and try to get the money that we're owed. Actually, it's our taxpayers. It's our residents who are paying this and the state is taking this away uh from us to provide essential city services. And so we've sent letters uh giving the equivalence of what this means for us as an organization. And so with that you'll see the financial sustainability plan. And I know that we have our ad hoc committee on our revenue measure group. Um in addition to you saw that we've already um made um I'd say efficiencies uh maybe budget budget reductions of 3.2 million. You would have seen that in the little star over there of just our existing operating costs. So, you know, we're starting to move forward in that direction. And so, as a city manager, I have to plan for worst case scenarios and also Rosie scenarios. So, that's why I had Abby go ahead and show you um you know, all four scenarios to be very transparent to this city council and to this community. Um but of course yeah we're professional staff and so whatever comes our way we will go ahead and we'll manage accordingly and with that um we will have those discussions. I don't anticipate with this upcoming budget that we have to make any changes um regardless of what happens in November. November is going to be a big month for us to really understand what our economic future holds uh because of these uh ballot measures um that are out there that can impact us. Can you explain a little bit more about this HR1 bill and the potential impact with the real property transfer tax?

Yeah, so this is a a um proposition, a state proposition uh and it's led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and what they're looking at uh doing is they've collected, I believe today, our legislative consultant up in Sacramento let us know they've collected 1.3 million signatures. They only need 800 and I believe like 50,000 uh signatures to get this on the ballot. Should that pass, it would retroactively get rid of the city's real property transfer tax that our residents voted for. Specifically, Measure CC was approved by 71% a super majority of our residents and it would actually get rid of that. And so with that, we're relying on about 9 to10 million. Um well I think it's 9 million what what we uh showed here in the presentation tonight. Um and so losing that if we lost VLF of 7 million and another 7 million structural deficit it's not looking too good but we'll continue to work our strategies and you know make sure that we're on solid financial ground as a city. I I always say we've been here 130 years we'll be here for another 130 plus years at the same time and we'll find a way. Um and then just last question slashc comment. Um so insurance up 20% and then PG& as well. Um is that something we can follow up with our state legislators on because also on next door a lot of residents right now are talking about their PG& bills and how there's there's sudden inconsistencies and things are going way way up. Um, and it's just interesting that the city is also seeing that. Um, and I know that they also changed the structure in which they're kind of showing their bills and other things to the public. Um, it used to be very clear how water, electricity, all of these things were delineated and they've since

removed all those graphs and so people are not really sure why there's all these spikes in the cost. Um, and then I'd be curious to know why our costs are spiking as a city as well. So, I can just say, I think you nailed it, that the city is not insulated to these cost increases just like our residents are experiencing with their own home budgets. Overall, we have the same issues that we are challenged with. And so what we did earlier this year and we went through an exercise with our city attorney and with our finance director really to look at our options regarding let's just speak to insurance I guess at at this moment our insurance costs and uh what it would take. I'll have our city attorney kind of lay out kind of our approach overall on our insurance costs because they are have gone up significantly.

No definitely the our insurance costs our excess uh coverage uh has gone up significantly over the years. Um, we've taken steps to try and uh reduce those increases year-over-year by uh basically increasing our deductible. Um, now there's it's a it's a tradeoff. Um, you want to be careful not to increase your deductible too much, but by doing that we we have seen some uh savings in our premium over the years. We are part of an insurance pool and the other members of the insurance pool do have experienced significant increases in their premiums over the years and it it's it's something that is has been um impacted by nationwide events that have occurred across the country. If you think about uh natural disasters that have occurred across the country and uh other events, those all have impacts on the insurance market, which also affects the insurance premiums that we pay in California and is part of our insurance pool. So they what they our insurance broker tells us is that insurance market it's a hard market and um it's resulting in these 10 20 like 30% plus increases year-over-year. We we have looked at at different options for increasing our deductible. Um but then again that's the same tradeoff. If you have a very high deductible and then you have one say catastrophic event that results in a major payout then you know that that's going to put you in a deeper hole than having these um insurance premium increases that we've seen currently. So there there it's a difficult situation but situation where that many other jurisdictions uh are in right now. So, I think the the approach that we're recommending and we'll recommend as part of our annual

insurance update that we bring to council in June is to really kind of stay the course as far as um the balanced approach that we've taken to date. But, no, we we've definitely kept a very close eye on how our insurance rates have increased and we get kind of a preview in January and then we get uh another preview kind of closer to the um uh April May time frame. and I keep our finance director and our city manager informed right away as to those increases. So, bottom line, long answer, but we're keeping a very close eye on that. Um, does our insurance company itemize what those costs are or is it just a lump sum?

Well, I mean, again, it's not really insurance company. It's an insurance pool that public agencies up and down the state are a part of. But in terms of um the the premium, so it's not it's not itemized exactly. There's different kinds of insurance coverage that we get for excess coverage for other things like um uh bridges um property insurance cyber like there there's different types of insurance but it's not broken down um further than that because our insurance pool goes out to the insurance markets to get if you think of Lloyds in London like other insurance and reinsurance companies they they our pool goes out to um see what insurance they can obtain and then this is this is what um they obtain and this is what the the kinds of coverage and at the amounts is what gets translated to the insurance coverage that we can receive and then we have to pay a premium for.

Thank you. I I'm done. But I still want to know about why PG& rates are fluctuating and going up across the community if we can also follow up with them too. We can go ahead and follow up with Cow Water and P Gen as well. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or Yes. Sure. Council member News. Thank you through the mayor. Um I was curious. So I know what real transfer property tax is. I also know what measure CC is. What percentage of our real property transfer tax is that measure CC meaning sales over $10 million versus everything else? You mean in terms of the dollar values that we're looking at,

right? Or even a percentage is is the real is the sales over 10 $10 million like 3% or is it 20%. Well, I don't know if we have enough of a history to know what percentages is, but for example, last year um when we look at our because that was our it was our first full year of full measure CC I think. So last year we had about 11 million in regular so the 0.5% of the prop real property transfer taxes and we had about 6 million in the measure CC so the extra 1%. Um, so it really, again, I don't know if it's a percentage because it really depends on when those big property sales come in, right, which are fairly infrequent. They're not as consistent to take in. The year before, I think we'd had just a a fewer number of transactions, but it had been a shorter year. So, I think it was 600,000 um, of our total real property transfer tax was measure CC the year before. This year to date, um, we're seeing about 2 million in measure CC and we've already got 6 million in in the 0.5%. So the 0.5% is still a a very um solid uh source of revenue because that you know that 0.5% is on all those transactions. So the but the the measure CC it's it's much more random. I want to say we've probably had three or four properties that have brought in that 2 million that we've gotten so far this year. So,

and and just to just jump in on that, I think that you saw a major spike because of measure uh the measure the land use measure measure T overall and so that's why you saw some of these bigger properties exchange um hands and that's how we were able to get a spike in measure CC. But I also want to remind the council that measure CC is one-time monies and it's only and our principle of how we budget is onetime monies are used for one-time expenses and ongoing revenues are for ongoing expenses. And so we, you know, when you see earlier this evening when we talk about the CIP using 1.25 25 million of measure CC. It's because those are onetime funding for different um projects overall. And so I just want to make that clear that we rely more we can budget our that.5% ongoing and I believe it's the 6 million mark comfortably because we've seen that we have histo. It's been with us since I think 1976.

Yeah. I guess the other thing would be is that the measure CC, even though that's was a standalone measure, that does get wiped out if the real property transfer tax is passed, right? Or Right. Yeah, it all gets wiped out. So even though it was a standalone thing, it's still gone. All of it's gone. So the 0.5% the 1976 item and measure CC both would be gone. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for questions. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Council member Diaz Nash.

Thank you very much through the mayor and thank you Abby to you and your team. Um not great news, but it's good to know details and know sort of where the pulse points are. So let's stay on it. Um, I just had two general questions. Uh, in terms of the pension rates and what we're being told to to budget at versus what we think, you know, what the rate of return, are we vulnerable in that area?

So, good question. Um I mean the the pension rates for this current year well we'll see what we get the everything that we get for our pension estimates is usually two or three years behind where the market results end. Um so a lot of times they don't make those changes till later. So that's why for 2627 we know what percentage of payroll we need to pay towards our existing employees and we know exactly what the unfunded liability amount is u because again it was kind of calculated from the returns two years ago. Um the last two years for kalpers have ended positive. They they've been much higher than the 6.8% discount rate that's expected. So we didn't come with like bad news that oh our unfunded liability is going to get this much larger because the returns had been good and there was a significant amount of funding of the overall pension because of that. We're in March right now um or not March right now we're in April right now but when I last looked at the numbers they were from March um because and they had a meeting in December. All of those were good signs. the the Kalpers was well funded. It was higher than it was at the end of last year. The market was strong. In the next three months or next two or three months, we don't know what's exactly going to happen because Kalpers doesn't mark this year until the year closes. So, as long as the market kind of maintains um its levels or doesn't dip too long, we anticipate that they'll make their 6.8% and that we shouldn't see anything negative in those future out years. Um, in general though, we do continue to see the increases we're seeing right now are mostly involved in their their redoing of the actuarial costs, looking at people's expected life

um, expecties and things like that. So, there have been some increases because of that, but not necessarily because of the market returns at this stage. So, we're hoping, fingers crossed, that things stay good till the end of the year. Well, that's that's a big fingers crossed. So, I hope you're right. Um, and I was also a little surprised to see that healthc care were budgeting at sort of 6% going forward. And I my assumption would have been that it would have been at higher and higher rates.

So I mean this we do base it a little bit on historical data. Um, and again we are kind of in the pool with cowpers. So, we do have some guardrails on our costs that they helped to negotiate on our behalf, but we didn't have any other data from them that kind of contradicted going forward that 6% at this time. I know a lot of our budgeting, you know, we pay at the Kaiser rate, so we kind of keep an eye on what Kaiser's costs are. Um, and although they had a really um kind of an increase, I don't know if it was the year before, I think 2020 25. Yeah, 2025 they had a really strong increase, but then 2026 they kind of balanced out that increase. So, right now the data is not showing that we need to be going higher than 6% but we will keep an eye on it as we get the updated information from Kalpers.

Great. Thank you. That's all of my questions. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Yes, council members.

Apologies. I'm just um thinking in what ways does the city staff look at existing programs and say to themselves, okay, I know that we've been doing it this path for 30 years. What if we branch out and do something totally different? So, I'm going to give a hypothetical. Totally made up. Totally made up. This is not real, but hypothetical. So, like the lagoon, right? I know we put it out to bid. There's nobody here, I think, that wants it dredged more than me. But what if hypothetically we partnered up with Foster City and bought our own trwler, right, and we were selfdreding that? Like do we look at these types of outofthe-box ideas and go is that coste effective or cheaper than the way we've been doing things?

Absolutely. So what I ask our public works director to do we have to look at all different No, it's not even hypothetical. It's actually what we actually will look at overall because that's us doing our due diligence as staff to really do costbenefit analysis. that's, you know, really the standard, you know, from a foundational standpoint. That's good public policy overall. And so, you got to look at all the different options that you have at your disposal to make sure that you can get the best still. Um, so I would say at this moment in time, the city has actually never dredged the lagoon. So, let's start with there. So, it'll be our first time idea.

So, so I think as a first time, it would make a lot of sense for us to do this contract at about 1.6 mill. I think we're averaging like 1 point I don't I don't get the recent bids but the last time I thought the bids right Matt were like 1.5 1.6 million and so it's something that we would see how that goes but yes no would we be open to partnering and use you know efficiencies and leverage absolutely now you'll see that tonight you guys gave direction to go ahead and move forward with a $250,000 analysis on our recreation and aquatics facilities. We have to think outside the box. We not, you know, we were going to look at Lakeshore public private partnerships. These are things we have to look at. How do we do things differently overall and so we're constantly doing that. When I talk with our different departments, we're really I'm always having them think outside the box. That's that's one of the big things and informed risk-taking. That's one of our main, you know, when you look at just who we are as an organization, that is something that is part of the DNA here overall. And so it's really taking taking all that into that is like these are like for example with CIP these are just the true costs

of like what what it costs to get those materials to actually build and construct and do all these things

that that's exactly what you would have right when you're putting out a bid. You're saying this is what it is and understand it costs us a lot more as a city. we have way more regulations and layers than you know any person from you know you working on your house right for for a project itself and so when I talk about doing a bathroom remodel here as a city it's way higher than doing the bathroom and I know you guys will ask me that all the time uh but there are prevailing wages we got you know we got to meet the needs and different standards because it's for the public you know the way we service and the regulatory regulations that we have to meet um with within our codes overall that increase costs. Got it. Thank you.

Yes, thank you for that. Um I was just I feel like just a a clarifying question related to PG& um because I my understanding is with regard to electricity like the city uh municipal facilities might be powered by Peninsula Clean Energy but we still have costs from Pen related to transmission and and some other things. But just just making sure that's the case. Yeah, we're in the 100% renewable category actually. So, uh we're in the highest tier with PC.

Mhm. Okay. Um and Abby, could you um help me understand? I just wanted to double make sure I understood. I feel like you shared a bit about measure S um trending slightly upward. Um, and I was curious, is is that different from the sales tax trends we're seeing? And if so, could you please help me understand the the difference?

So, no, I the the two trends are fairly related. Um I think what we showed for 2627 with the sales tax was flat but when I put overall sales tax so both the 1% as well as the measure S we are putting in about a 1 to 2% increase over those 10 years. So because for measure S I was giving you a five-year forecast you could see that 1 to 2% kind of going out. So that's why it had a little bit increase because we were looking at the other four years besides just 26 27.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um yes. So sobering forecasts. Um and and even with just not getting VLF uh in in the dire or is that is that the the Yeah, not not the grave but the but the dire situation. Um I I am I I share uh colleagues thoughts in in appreciating uh the sober look at what we have ahead. Um but we are working toward doing what we can to uh persist. So, I would say, you know, one thing that I want that I'm so proud of as a city manager of this city is that previous councils, this council, previous administrations, this administration were really fortunate to have a solid reserve to help us weather these storms that we have right now. You know, a lot of cities don't have that opportunity. And, you know, I was just talking I was on a call with Arie Crochi, who was 18 city manager of this city. And you know, we talk about just what we're weathering here. You know, we're fortunate that we've built this reserve to go ahead and help us so that we don't have to right away have to really make those hard decisions that we can deliberately take our time, put our strategy together overall so that we know what's coming out ahead. And so I appreciate just what we've done in the past and just how as a council you guys are giving us direction. we're conservative overall when we're looking at our revenues and and how we are budgeting for these and then just overall how we're managing our expenses. And so I just want to thank you guys for your leadership. I want to thank our great staff um for everything that we're doing to really put us in a position so that we can react and respond um in the

best way possible to really support this community um as we provide the essential city services that they deserve. Thank you for that. We can end on a higher note on that item. Um thank you Abby for the presentation and that would conclude item 17. And we can now move to uh reports, announcements, and committee updates. Who would like to start? Council members Fuher Giddyski.

Yeah. So, uh a couple things. Um this Saturday the 25th um Max Mountainner along with other residents um have organized like a community bike ride to the third in Norfolk um intersection for like a ribbon cutting for the new infrastructure there. So if anyone wants to participate can reach What time is it? I believe it's at 12 to 2. I'll double check when the bike ride starts cuz it's coming from different locations. Are we the city cutting the ribbon? I believe so. Yes. So, if you can attend there's

No, I I thought it was my in my head I thought it was maybe before the Bayfront cleanup, but it would actually make it would be nicer if we did it after. So, it would be good to get

I'll double check, but there is that happening. Max, if you're listening. Um and then um there is the Bayfront cleanup um 9 to 12 as well. Um I did just want to share since I know senior hubs was a big topic um for this council. I did receive a note unfortunately my phone died but I did receive a note from a senior that shared about two programs that they went to in the last few weeks um with the senior hubs. Um, so they were both kind of like the first one was a plants kind of nature update and the second one where there was about 20 seniors that went on a walk around the city with the city arborist. Um, and there was really positive feedback about that. So, good job. Keep it up. Thank you.

Thank you. But anyone else? Council member Diaz Nash. Thank you through the mayor. I just wanted to re-emphasize what you talked about earlier tonight, Sonteo Celebrates, which is library week and just the tremendous amount of services and programs that the Samato Library is going to be putting on. I would encourage everyone to go. There's something almost every day of the week and Yen Ken Cook is going to be there. I mean, my goodness gracious, don't we? That's pretty amazing. Uh, but it's just a lovely opportunity for people to see our library. We have books, but we have so many other things as well. So, please encourage everyone to go and attend.

Thank you. Indeed. Quite a bit going on uh in in April. Council member News, did you want to

Sure. Um well, I think four of us went to the progress seminar this weekend. I can only speak for myself, but I thought it was very informative. Got a lot out of the session, so thank you for letting me go. Um, also I attended the commute.org. I didn't I wasn't able to attend a commute.org meeting in person this past week, but I did um watch the whole session online. Um, the biggest takeaways were well, a small takeaway was that um they were trying to extend their lease in their existing property for 5 years, but they're not being given that extension. Um, which may be good for them because the other dire risk for commute.org or is about 80% of their service services people coming from trains and BART and so uh goes back to the transit measure. If the transit measure doesn't pass uh it's going to put commute.org in a very precarious situation and that uh they won't have people to move uh because they tend to focus more on the last mile. So just that that was that was the message. Uh I don't know, you know, how we take that yet, but um I think it goes back to supporting uh the the revenue measure, but we'll see how that goes. Um that was it. Those are my my report outs. Uh looking forward to this weekend because there's a lot of great events. So, thank you.

Indeed. Um, I would uh like to mention that I appreciated the opportunity to cut the ribbon at Johnny's downtown. Um, we it's a second location. They have one in Half Moon Bay and now they they've brought one here to to Samonteo. Uh, Council Member Diaz Nash was was on hand and uh I hear that the the grilled cheese and tomato soup is really good. So, make sure to check it out. Um, and you know, it it was it's a a great occasion. It happens to be the the last uh least piece of brick line as well. So, um, good to see uh transit oriented development near our train station working well. Um, I uh I wanted to thank Deputy Mayor Fernandez for joining me in a uh a meeting about uh our approach to boards and commissions and just uh exploring possibilities and uh looking forward to the upcoming interviews for folks who uh have applied. And uh I'll just repeat the the call out to make sure anyone who's interested to please do so uh this week. Um, and I think that might be all I can remember to share at this time. Yes, please.

Sorry, just one thing. Um uh I was uh pleased to be with uh Council Member Nuome and our city staff on a meeting with our state legislators um uh Senator Josh Becker and uh Assemblywoman Diane Papin about the 17th and El Camino um uh intersection. Um and I was wondering if the city manager might be able to do a brief report out on that. I can do that or I can have our public works director. He's here tonight. Matt, you want to give an update? Is still here? Yes, of course. Thank you.

Good evening. Yes, we had a a virtual meeting with our uh state legislative representatives as well as CALR staff to talk about um desired safety improvements at the 17 and El Camino uh intersection. Uh we also, you know, highlighted for CALR that we have other locations along the El Camino corridor that have other uh safety concerns as well and asked that they commit to an ongoing monthly um check-in with staff to to move forward on all of these. So we ended up having a staff meeting with CALR staff the next day. Um they uh had quite a few people that joined the meeting. Uh we talked about the recommended safety improvements including trying to get an exclusive pedestrian phase at 17th and El Camino Rial that would prevent uh having conflicts between pedestrians going east west through the intersection as well as vehicles. um Calrans uh I think is in in support of going forward with that, but they want to um work collaboratively with this the city staff in terms of reviewing and validating the models that have been done in terms of when you do create a exclusive pedestrian phase, it will prevent vehicles from being able to move. Uh so it will result in greater queuing in terms of vehicles queuing at that intersection. So, um, both city staff and CALR staff want to make sure that we're in agreement and understand the ramifications of that so that we can message that out in terms of of how that goes forward. So, Calrans was going to be providing their models to city staff to review and then we'll have a chance to then re-engage with them on that as as we get a chance to look at that. So, but they generally were in favor of proceeding with those short-term improvements um in terms of making exclusive phase for pedestrians, but we need to validate the models first. And and then just to follow up on that, we did get commitments from Senator Becker and also Assemblywoman Diane Papin that these monthly meetings, we want their staff there too with us to hold CALR uh accountable along with the

city as we move forward collaboratively to make these fixes along our corridor. Great. We are grateful for um Assemblywoman Papin and Senator Becker's leadership and we also thank uh Calrans for their partnership too. Um, as this council works to increase pedestrian safety, it continues to be our um, utmost responsibility and priority.

And could I ask when will there be some type of public communication about the meeting update? So, we did discuss that and our plan for that is to make an update to the transportation safety web page and to go ahead and follow up with all of the people who signed up for our email updates and notify them to check back with the web page and send them a link to the updated information that has a follow-up um with the meeting update. And does that include all the people who emailed us or is it only people who signed up for the updates?

The people who we emailed, we asked them to sign up if they wanted updates. Okay. So, they should have all signed up. And so, we did track the people who did sign up versus the people who just sent the email, but we we gave them all the information to sign up if they wanted updates. So, we're not just updating them if they didn't opt in. Right. Thank you. Mr. May, one more comment. Um would would would we be doing something in our newsletter and social as well? I think this is of a higher priority than maybe other incidences. Yes, we will we will be doing a gen generalized updated information. Um yes, thank you.

Thank you. Um there was one other thing. Before we adjourn, I'd like to highlight a special upcoming event in our community. The city will host its Memorial Day wreath laying ceremony on May 25th at 10:00 a.m. at our fallen heroes memorial in Central Park. We invite you to join us as we come together to honor and remember those who gave their lives in service to our country. Following the ceremony, the community is also welcome to participate in a letterw writing event in support of the city's adopted military unit, the 101st Airborne, beginning at 11:00 a.m. at the adjacent Central Park Recreation Center. So, a great new event. Thanks to those who made this possible.

Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Martin. Name Martin McTager's office. With that, I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you. Good night.