City Council and Authorities Concurrent - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Could you please stand for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing for our statement of values. 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.

As we gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage, and will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice to all. Let us seek wisdom so that we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbors, and our country. All this we ask so we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs before all. Thank you. Please be seated. Roll call. Assistant city clerk.

Madame Mayor, I'd like to note for the record that council board member Jane will be participating remotely under SP77, Just Cause. Um, Council Member Jane, as you participate, please ensure your audio and visual technology is on and when action is being taken on an item, please publicly disclose if someone over the age of 18 is in the room with you and your general relationship with them. Tonight's votes will be by roll call vote. Okay. Um, I'm yeah attending uh under the just pause provision official travel and there's no one in the room with me. Thank you. Okay, roll call. Uh, Vice Mayor, Chair Gonzalez, present. Council Board Member Chahal,

present. Council Board member Hardy, present. Council member Park, here. Council Board member Jane here. Council member Cox here. Mayor Chair Gilmore here.

AB23 announcement. Members of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, Sports and Open Space Authority, and Housing Authority are entitled to receive $30 for each attending attended meeting. Statement of behavioral standards. The city of Santa Clara has adopted a code of ethics and values and behavioral standards for public meetings to promote and maintain the highest levels of conduct. This includes mutual respect, robust discussion, and allowing city business to be done in an efficient and consistent manner. Please note that as the presiding officer, the mayor's chair's direction and matters of process and decorum should be followed and that use of the gavl indicates all conversations must conclude and everyone in attendance should come to order and attention. Welcome and thank you for your participation. Lobbyists speaking in a lobbying capacity are required to identify themselves as such and disclose the clients and or organizations that he or she represents at any meeting held with city officials or at public meetings pursuant to city code section 2.155.110.

Uh thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome for tonight's meeting. The council's back in person is and is conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner. The public is welcome to attend in person and the city continues to use a Zoom feature to allow participation from your home or office. Members of the public can still join via the link and or call into the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen. Now, if you would like to speak on an agenda item or during public presentations, please raise your hand on the Zoom application or press star 9 on your phone. Please only raise your hand while the item you're seeking to speak on is presented. Staff will enter your name or the last four digits of your phone number and I will call on you to speak. As a friendly reminder, members of the public have two minutes to speak on an agenda item and three minutes on public presentations and those are reserved for topics that are not on the agenda. Prior to each agenda item, staff will lower your hand to ensure that members of the public are seeking to speak on the appropriate agenda item. Um, so before we continue with tonight's meeting, I would like to ask the council and the the um uh people here um to for a moment of silence for Rod Deiron, Senior. We are deeply saddened by the passing of one of our region's most cherished civic leaders, Rod Deiron, Senior. We are deeply um throughout his legendary career in public service, Rod championed the development of a sustainable 21st century transportation system for Silicon Valley. He was a formidable

force for good, dedicating his life to serving our community and improving the lives of South Bay residents. Rod leaves behind a remarkable legacy of accomplishment and impact. And he will also be profoundly missed for his authentic kindness, generosity, generosity of spirit, and enduring commitment to the community. Our hearts are heavy, but his legacy will live on through his family, friends, and all those in public service who share his commitment to making a positive difference for their neighbors and community. Now, please join me in a moment of silence for Rod Deiron, Senior. Thank you for that. Um, but as someone who knew him for over 40 years, I'd like to make a few comments as well. Rod Deiron, Senior passed away on April 3rd at the age of 87 after a lifetime of extraordinary public service. He is remembered as the father of modern transit service in Silicon Valley, a title that barely scratches the surface of who Rod Deiron was. I knew Rod since I was a young woman in my 20s. The very first political dinners I ever attended were his. And I remember being in a room full of people who believed that government could actually work for the people. That was Rod's room. That was Rod's energy. And it was contagious. When I entered public service, he became a mentor and an adviser. He had a gift for counsel. He knew when to push you,

when to steady you, and when to simply remind you why you were doing this work. On transit, of course, he was a class entirely his own. For more than 50 years, Rod advocated for expanded equitable transit, helping shape the systems our communities depend on today. When he weighed in on a project here in Santa Clara, you listened because he had seen more, built more, and fought harder for this valley than almost anyone alive. But I was far from alone. Rod Deiron was a mentor to a generation of public servants across this valley. He had a rare and gener generous quality. He invested in people. He saw potential in young leaders long before they saw it in themselves. He opened doors, made introductions, and shared his wisdom freely and never asked for anything in return except that you go out and serve your community well. Congress representatives, senators, assembly members, supervisors, mayors, council members, transit directors, advocates, so many people that have shaped Santa Clair County over the last 50 years got their start, their footing, or their direction because Rod Deiron believed in them. He didn't just build rail lines and transit systems. He built careers. He built leaders. He built the civic infrastructure of this entire region one person at a time. His public service career began in 1971 and he never truly stopped. Even in his final weeks, he continued meeting with the California highspeed rail CEO and legislative leaders from his hospital bed following chemotherapy.

That is who Rod Deiron was. Not someone who served until it was convenient, but someone who served until his last breath. No one, I mean no one, gave more of their life to making our communities thrive. He defined what it means to be a lifelong public servant. He campaigned for the county's first halfsent sales tax for transit, led the creation of VTA's light rail system and chaired the the study that brought Cal Train commuter service to our region. Every time a Santa Clara resident boards a train, and my son did this weekend, a light rail or rides a bus to work, Rod Deiron made that possible. But what I will remember most is the pride he had on his face when his son Rod Jr. was elected to this very Santa Clara City Council. I was proud to serve alongside at least one Dearon in this chamber and that name belongs in Santa Clara history. How do you thank someone who's contributed so much to of his life to making things better for everybody? I've been asking myself that all weekend. I don't think there's an answer except to keep doing the work that he believed in. Santa Clair is a better city because Rod Deiron walked this earth. We are grateful. We are honored and we will not forget him. At the end of this meeting, we will adjourn this meeting in his memory as well. Thank you for that. Uh city at

I would like to make a comment who Oh, Suds go ahead.

Yeah. Uh Rod Diridon um was truly a champion of the environment. He was a resident of my district, District 5. Um he was key in the founding of the Open Space Authority. He was very active in the League of Conservation Voters, hosting candidate interviews at his home. He opened his home many, many times to support candidates with their launch parties. Uh he was very active as I think everyone knows I've been very concerned about climate change. He was very active in the Rotary Club of San Jose pushing climate change initiatives there. Um many people may know that the Rotary Club um a few years ago took on climate change as a priority issue. And then of course you know we have Deiron station. Rod was very key um in promoting um I serve on the VTA board. He was very key in promoting transit for all and equitable transit and I'm very proud to consider him a friend. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Chaw.

Thank you, Mayor. uh as an immigrant uh when I came to this country I got involved into some civic duties and Rod was the one person who really encouraged and basically not only encouraged I could see him where he was for his selfless service what he did for the community basically you name it your transit transportation uh environment like he was champion for Sierra Club and uh he encouraged everyone to get involved into the civic duties. That's why he as council member SS mentioned he held multiple times uh fundraisers at his house for the right cause. So he will be dearly missed and uh uh if the community want to see a leader whom to follow, he is the one we can look into our local community. So he will be dearly missed and but his job or the work he has done will live forever. his name will live forever in the city as well as in the county of Santa Clara and even in California because he was passionate about the high train highspeed rail. Even as mayor mentioned, he was still involved into those things. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh city attorney um items taken in close session. Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, council did meet in close session on item number one, conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation, one potential case based on a claim filed by stack as listed uh um on the agenda and attached to the agenda. However, there's no reportable action. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Uh continuences, exceptions, reconsideration. Does anybody in the council or the city staff have any? Any member of the public? Okay. Um, moving on, we're going to our first special order of business, which is a presentation from the Valley Transportation Authority. Please come forward. Welcome. Thank you very much. And let's turn that on. Did we do that? I'm trying. There you go. Hopefully. Okay, there you are.

Um, well, thank you very much, Mayor, and Sam Sergeant. Uh I serve as the director of strategy uh and transformation for VTA and I just want to say first off thank you very much for having us on the agenda uh today. Uh I will be succinct but we've got some really exciting updates for you and just a really important invitation for both council and community input. And I'll also say just to the mayor and to members of council and everyone who who shared their uh their remembrances of of Rod Deirodon as somebody who currently worked for VTA and previously worked for Cal Train. uh both agencies are forever in his debt. So, thank you very much for that. So, this evening um I want to bring to uh to the council and to members of the community uh an update on the regional transportation revenue measure and specifically VTA's draft local investment plan for Santa Clara County's portion uh of this potential new uh revenue source. And first off, just because I always like starting at a 40,000 foot level and specifically I know folks on council and probably everyone here in the room is fully aware of what VTA is, but I always think it's important to lay out that foundation which is that VTA is very different than other transit agencies certainly in the Bay Area and is a rarity even within California broadly in the breadth of things that we do. We've got a lot of tools in the mobility toolbox, including running bus, light rail, and paratransit service, which is what most people know us for, but also serving simultaneously as the count congestion management agency or CMA for the county. And then being a funding partner as well as uh holding board seats for regional rail operators including Cal Train, Cap Corridor, and ACE Stockton. You know, the scope of what we do within the transit space is large. You know, we live in a in a community where yes, there are many folks who are who are very car uh dependent and and that's okay. That's how a lot of places are built. But we

still operate uh we still move about 27.7 million trips and 134 million miles annually. And between the CMA function and the transit function, we are very confident in the in the positive role that we play here in Santa Clara County. Within the city, as you know, uh we've got a lot of different transit services here. We've got all three of our light rail lines, two of our rapid bus lines, five frequent bus lines. Those two combinations or categories of transit services are 15 minutes or better. and then seven local bus routes. But also as the manager of some of the sales taxes or the transportation sales taxes in this county like 2016 measure B, we also work with the city and with other partners on a lot of other projects, multimmodal projects, bike ped, Silicon Valley express lanes, highways, city streets, including some of the projects and studies that you've seen here, whether it be bikeways or bike ped encouragement program or just local streets and roads at about $26.6 6 million uh allocated for that uh amount of money. So for today's purposes though, many of you uh have have likely stayed up on this uh SP63. So SP63 is the name of the enabling legislation for a regional sales tax measure that the VTA board unanimously voted to join in August. And what it is, you can see here on the map, is five counties, a half cent rate, a 14-year term, which is shorter than most of the other uh sales tax measures that we think of in California. Within uh the legislation is uh a carveout for VTA or Santa CL County's obligations to CALR. You know, many of the counties or many of the transit agencies that initially pushed this piece of legislation into motion are facing some very dire existential financial situations. That includes Cal Train, that also includes BART, it includes AC Transit, and it includes

MUN. But this will allow us to take care of our Cal Train obligation, keep them running. Obviously, as you know, they are running incredible service on the electrified trains. they have seen tremendous writership growth and we want to make sure that that continues. This would also be a shared obligation of course with Sanonteo County and San Francisco and then five and a quarter for uh both administration and some regional priorities but that still means that 94.75% uh of the money that would be raised as part of this regional measure in Santa Clara County comes back to Santa Clara County. That's something that we're very proud of that we were able to negotiate in Sacramento last year. And at the end of the day, after those obligations, Cal Train and the region, 264 million uh estimated annually for Santa Clara County. This is also a citizens initiative, so signatures are still being gathered. Obviously, not by VTA. Um but when or if those are certified, this would be a 50% plus one, not a twothirds um threshold. So, what can the money be used for? So unlike some of the other broader measure A, measure B uh sales tax measures where you've got bike, ped, highway and transit, streets and roads, this is specifically for and this is from the legislation public transit expenses. So could be operating, could be transit related capital and roadway repavement projects if those roads or those corridors are served by fixed route transit. That means buses and light rail. is we've worked with our board uh and we've had the first of two workshops uh on February 27th uh and we've got our second workshop, final workshop uh next Friday. We've tried to focus on outcomes. We we want to be sure that we are showing the public that our use of their money is going towards things that move the needle on things that matter. So growing writership, increasing our productivity, which means making the transit system more efficient and enhancing the customer experience. That means not only the the joys of riding transit, if you've been on the new Cal

Train uh vehicles, you know what that can be like, the difference between that type of experience on a new modern uh innovative piece of transit uh equipment, but also safety, security, and cleanliness and making sure that we do this in a way where we are not uh having to reup this measure 14 years from now. We've also focused on three strategic areas uh to try to ground ourselves in the the sort of what of these potential investments that we're asking for input on a foundational area which is how do we look at our current expertise and data to drive decision-m reimagine which is modernizing our business model so that we can do a much better job we do a good job of delivering our service but how can we do a much better job of delivering it efficiently effectively being on time reliable and then transformation or transform. So adopting new technologies, whether it's customerf facing technologies, new types of vehicles, and forming strategic partnerships potentially with the private sector to futureproof our county's transit system. And today, we're not asking for any kind of endorsement. Again, this is the start of a conversation. This is an invitation for input from both council, not necessarily this evening, but over the course of the coming months, as well as from the public for ideas for types of projects that we should be considering. Um, and so these are just some examples. They're nothing locked in, but think about things like bus corridor improvements. So when we think about improving these corridors, sure it may be some repaving, but people need to get to and from stations and stops. So do we have an opportunity to do more complete street treatments or upgrade uh bikeways that may lead to transit stations or to sidewalks, lighting, that kind of thing. station upgrades and our light rail, bus stop upgrades, transit service improvements, and other smaller transit capital improvements. Under reimagine, which I said was sort of how do we really try to uh jumpst start our business model and our delivery service, the visionary network. This is VTA's sort of service planning northstar. How

do we get more of our bus routes and trains to 15 minutes or better? Because when you have 15-minute frequencies, how you experience transit is wildly different. Um speed improvements. This would be partnering with our cities and the county in particular on things like transit signal priority where appropriate, fair programs for seniors and students to get more people on board uh for less money out of their pockets and safety and security enhancements. And then finally, innovative customer transit customer experience projects under this transformation category. You know, things like digital wayfinding, digital real-time arrival information, improvements to our app, improvements to fair payment. I mean, we tap credit cards and debit cards to buy just about everything. Transit as an industry has sort of lagged on that front. For example, our light rail fleet replacement, they're coming up on the end of their useful life. Same with uh a decent portion of our bus fleet. And then station redevelopments. We've got a very very robust transit oriented development portfolio so that we can build more housing in areas where that's appropriate and drive more ridership in those areas as well. And at the end of the day, uh, and I'll show on my next slide, uh, I believe it's my last slide, sort of the timeline to come. We want to come together with a local investment plan that's really meaningful to the cities, to the county, to the communities that we serve, and take these sort of strategic areas, come up with types of projects. We don't want to lock it in to be so specific that 10 years from now, we think, well, we wish we hadn't locked that in uh, quite that way. We want this to be an iterative document, but we want to make sure it also points VTA in the right direction to uh program this money. Uh associate a percentage of revenues with each of these categories. And again, these are just examples, primary outcomes to make sure we're focused on writership, efficiency, customer experience, and then KPIs. We we can't measure manage what we can't measure. And so we want to make sure that we've got public facing dashboards that can tell the story of we said this investment would move the needle and it did and here's how or we thought it was going to move the needle

and it didn't and how are we going to correct ourselves and make sure we use this money the right way. So right now we're doing again city county and community engagement. Uh we have our second workshop with our board April 17th which is next Friday. We also have public meetings this week uh virtual tomorrow evening at 6 pm uh and Thursday at 3 p.m. and then at the Basam Community Center at 5:30 p.m. in person. These things are on our website. Um and then we will continue to refine the plan and June 4th the board will take action uh on a local investment plan. The last thing that I will note um is that the board is going to take action on this to help guide staff as we program these new monies. What is different from measure A or measure B is that you would not see these types of projects on the ballot. And so I say that because we're not going to change things willy-nilly, but but it's not going to be locked in for the full 14 years of the measure. So if we if you see if this community sees things that may not be there in this plan, know that there are always uh avenues for uh for engagement and for updates. And so got a QR code up there, investment.plvta.org. group of people think of great ideas that email address I'm one of the people it comes to and uh and with that I greatly appreciate the council's time welcome any questions

thank you Sam this special order of business so we're going to move on but thank you so much we appreciate you giving us this presentation of course a comment yes quick comment go ahead so I just want to say that we just hosted our Japanese sister city of Imo here and we took Calra and Calrrain has a $2 youth rate

um to anywhere And it we went to Stanford, we came back, it was it was beautiful and I just thought that everyone should know that. And we took the new trains. Um they were very beautiful and clean. Um it was funny, but I felt really awkward uh taking people from Japan onto our trains, but um it was it was worth the ride and the the price could not be beat. So just I told my Calrine colleagues and$125 for youth on VTA. I'm Yeah, I'm gonna say every family and every school should know this. Council member Hardy comment.

Quick comment. I take Cal Train whenever I go up the peninsula. I have many meetings up there and I can tell the difference is amazing between the older train and the new electric. And I will say I would just from watching I would say the wrership has at least doubled possibly more. Uh, you did mention bike lanes and things like that that might augment and we have worked on safe routes to schools and have two uh planned bike lanes in front of our two high schools in town and have not found the funding for that. And that might be something we could partner with. And I will say a lot of people are not as aware of taking VTA to the airport and how to do that. That would be a good thing to help our public understand that that is possible.

Thank you. Comment suds. Go ahead.

Yeah. Um, you know, everyone is now dealing with the high price of gasoline. Um, the public transit rates have not changed yet. So, um, it's a good It's it's always been a great bargain. It's uh even a better bargain now compared to driving. Um and a few years ago, VTA adopted its next network where it really provided very frequent service 15minute um maximum service uh on spines like El Camino Royale. And so you have the 522 and the 22 there. and bus ridership is actually up to precoid levels at PTA. So that is very impressive that by realigning the network, they've gotten the ridership up. But, you know, I'm speaking as a Santa Clara Council member or for myself, not as a VTA board member, but um due to COVID, due to changing work patterns, uh transit is suffering and uh a lot of the transit agencies are looking at pretty substantial deficits. I think BART has a $400 million deficit. There was a um newspaper article about possibly closing 10 stations and changing the frequency of travel and that would be really detrimental. I mean, it costs about $10,000 to own a car. So, for people who can't afford that $10,000, the transit is really a lifeline service. So, um I'm encouraging everyone to vote for this measure. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Sam. We appreciate it.

Uh for our next special order of business, the city council proclaims April 19th through April 25th as National Library Week. Libraries provide the opportunity for everyone of all ages to engage in lifelong learning. Our libraries play a critical role in providing our community internet and technology access, early literacy programs, ESL programs, connections to services, resources, and books. I hear from so many of our community members how much they love our libraries. It's a testament to the amazing staff at the Central Park Library, our north side branch, Mission Branch, and our library bookmobile that they are such a critical part of our city services. Thank you for everything that you do. I'd now like to invite city librarian Patty Wong and chair of the board of library trustees, Jonathan Evans, to the podium to say a few words. Welcome, Patty and Jonathan.

Thank you, Mayor Gilmore, and members of city council. and of course our community for their critical support of our Santa Clara City Library. It is my pleasure and honor to be here as your city librarian to celebrate National Library Week and honor our staff, volunteers, and our partners who provide exemplary service to and with our community. This is a critical time to highlight the importance of libraries. In 24 uh fiscal year 24-25, we had a banner year with more than 10,000 programs reaching 72,000 people with more than 1.86 million circulation. Um, and that's of print and electronic materials and more than 750,000 physical visits to the Central Park Library, Mission Branch, North Side Branch, and our bookmobile. Last year, we were able to offer Sunday hours at Central Park Library and more than 65,000 additional visitors took advantage of that um over the 25. Your investment in the community's library and the restoration of collection funds through 2027 helped to make this happen. Um, even though we had significant reinvestment in our libraries, this year is particularly difficult with the change in federal funding priorities, our state grant-f funed Read Santa Clara program, which focuses on ESL learning, began with 15 learners in 23 and now has improved the lives of more than a 100 people. This is the last year of formal state library funding. Um, it ends this June of 26. uh but we are pursuing local corporate and other resources. The national library uh week theme this year is find your joy. An invitation for all people of all backgrounds to explore

and discover what's what sparks joy in them at the library. Uh we wanted to bring to your attention two big events that are happening during National Library Week. On Sunday, April 19, we join the city in welcoming everyone to STEM zone from 10 to 4:00 p.m. at the convention center. The STEM zone highlights Santa Clara as the heart of Silicon Valley, where innovation, creativity, and community comes together. This is more than an event. It is a hands-on experience connecting students, educators, and industry leaders. It's designed to inspire the next generation through realworld STEM applications tied to sports, sustainability, and technology. We are bringing together tech companies, universities, and local organizations in one space with learning and play, live demos, and workshops connecting STEM learning to major global moments in sports and innovation. Stanford, Santa Clara University, Mission College, San Jose State University are just among many of the of the higher educational groups that are coming. We're going to feature robotics, engineering, and creative challenges. Our awardwinning local Santa Clara Unified School District robotics teams will be on site. In fact, we are featuring robots built by 150 students. Um, and we will feature a battlebot arena they're going to fight. Um, you can hear from an astronaut, engineers, doctors, scientists, and creators. We're going to be featuring programs STEM careers behind sports, women leading innovation, how ideas move from lab to reality. We're going to feature a droid Star Wars

building panel with film industry experts and a special appearance by the Mandalorian Grou. These are the inventors of Grou that are coming. Um, you can come and learn to build a Mars uh rover. You can create a DNA necklace. Um, you can code to fly many drones. So, we hope that you'll join us on April 19th from 10 to 4 at the convention center. And it's free. It's free

and it's absolutely free. Um the library is taking the lead on this. So um thankfully uh we'll be closed that day because all of our staff are going to be working the event. It's 90,000 square feet of all of these wonderful things that I've been talking about. Um also in celebration of National Library Week, please see our calendar. We are showing a special film, Freefor All the Public Library on April 22nd at 5:30 at the Central Park Library. Um, I'd like to ask Jonathan Evans, chair of our Santa Clara City uh, library board of trustees to say a few words. Thank you, city librarian. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, city librarian Wong. So, before I get going, I wanted to briefly mention that we have a position opening up on the board of Library Trustees in June. Um, and applications are currently due on April 17th at 5:00 PM. So, I want to encourage folks to apply. If you hear if you think that STEM event's fun, you should come come join us on the board. uh though we don't get to do those events all the time. Uh this year's National Library Week theme is find your joy and so I wanted to take a moment to share a moment of joy I found at the library. Um I had the good fortune this year to be invited to the Career Online High School's 2025 graduation ceremony. And Career Online High School is one of the programs that we offer through the Reed Santa Clara Services Program. And at that event, I got to hear the stories of various graduates who and what they went through on their journey to get their high school diploma. None of them had an easy path um to get their graduation. I heard from a young native Spanish speaker who worked with Reed Santa Clara to learn English, a mother who worked full-time and managed to while working full-time complete their high school diploma. And a senior who immigrated to the US as a at a young age and finally and had the work to support his family and finally got his high school diploma in in his uh retirement years. Each had finally achieved their goal of a high school diploma when their friends and family were there to show their support. It was a moment of inspiration to me and a pure joy for all the participants of the thing. And these sort of special moments are what our libraries enable with programs like Reed Santa Clara and specifically two of the folks I met that day went through the Read Santa Clara adult literacy program on their way to achieving their diplomas and that was a program that city librarian Wong mentioned is losing its funding as of June. These programs though change the lives of our residents and I hope spreading awareness of the impact these programs have will help us close future funding gaps um so folks are aware of that. And with that, I hope everyone here has a chance to find their own joys at the library, no matter whether it's finding that lucky day book, um getting to the front of that really long hold queue or participating in one of the many fun events like STEM zone, a book club or story time or graduating high school. So, thank you

for your time. Thank you. We're going to have a lot of fun at that STEM zone. That's going to be so much fun. So, um, thank you so much both of you. I'd like to invite you up here now to meet with the council and let us present you with the proclamation. And if you have any staff with you or any We do have staff and we have um members of the board and we also have the the executive director of our foundation and friends with us today too.

Please, please come. No, no, no.

Thank you so much for that. All right, for our next special order of business, the city of Santa Clara is honored to proclaim April 2026 as Autism Acceptance Month. An estimated 5.4 million adults and 1 in 36 children in the United States have been diagnosed with autism. As a community, we must strive to have a better understanding of everyone's uniqueness, emphasize inclusion, and support acceptance of our autistic community. The 2026 theme is autism and humanity. Every life has value. This theme emphasizes affirming the dignity, rights, and potential of all autistic individuals while fostering inclusive environments focusing on the belief that embracing neurodiversity is essential for a sustainable and equitable future. We are honored to have the San Andreas Regional Center, SARKC, here with us this evening. I invite SARKC government affairs and community relations manager Francisco Valenuela to the podium to say a few words.

Okay, you both can come up if you like. Welcome.

Welcome. Well, thank you. Forgive me. I've been a little under the weather, but thank you so much for the honor of this proclamation today. As you know, the city of Santa Clara has a unique history serving people with developmental disabilities as the state hospital AUS was in this area. And for over a hundred plus years, people with developmental disabilities were often locked away in a state hospital because that is what society deemed was appropriate. Fast forward all these years later, we are happy that 2026 is the 60th year of the Lanchman Developmental Disabilities Act, a real act of ci of of civil rights, unique to the state of California. It's the only state that will serve people regardless of the funding level. The San Andreas Regional Center serves approximately 23,000 people with developmental disabilities and autism in four counties with most being here in Santa Clara County with that totaling around 14,500 people. To serve these people well, the state has made a commitment. Our operating budget to serve the 23,000 people is now $1.1 billion. a significant investment just for this center. There are 20 other centers that are in the state of California. We appreciate that this is a real commitment to the people of the state of California. There are many things that the community wants including inclusion. so many people feel isolated and to have cities like the city of Santa Clara and others

have days like this make me make people feel valued, seen and heard seen even the presentation of VTA earlier where they're looking to modernize many of their facilities but to also ensure that there's access. We take for granted I can easily walk and jump and and run to a late train. many of the people we serve however cannot. So to hear that they are also committed to making the community better is something that is a real benefit to all of society including uh here in Santa Clara. Of note uh we must resist the urge uh to go backward. It was very disheartening yesterday to hear the president himself use a a term we we've long stopped using to prop himself up in comparison to his predecessor. It was disheartening because it again shows that people that are different may not be valued and that's not okay and hopefully that people will will reject that kind of a characterization. uh included in the ask for people in the state. Of course, employment, uh inclusion, social recreation, transportation, and making sure that the safety net is there. 95% of the people that we serve that are over the age of 18 rely solely on public benefits. And with so many public benefits being uncertain, the regional center will be here to support them and ensure that they maintain a safe and comfortable living situation. We are happy to host our 10th annual since we built inclusion, our 10th annual superhero festival here at Almaden Lake where we bring the community together. Last year, we were

happy to welcome over 200 families, over 90 vendors that came through, and this is our fifth year of doing the superhero fun run. It's fun. We call it the run, rock or roll because some people roll on their wheelchairs, some people walk it, some people run it. We'd love to see you all dressed in your superhero costumes and join us. It's a fun event. Ultimately, what we do is to ensure that people like Pam, I'll have her speak in just a second. Uh Pam is was our past board president and a current board member. And it's people like her that we want to make sure that when family members are not here, the one thing they ask and the one thing they they look for is stability and love to continue when they're no longer here to provide it. And when we create a society that's accepting, inclusion is the motto, we can get there despite the numerous barriers that are there. And before I hand it over to Pam, I'll simply mention that we're having our annual legislative lunchon coming up on Friday, April the 25th. We're honored to have uh a a couple of distinguished people including Congressman Licardo Cortezy, Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin, and others that will be joining. You are more than welcome. We'd be honored to have any of you that are willing to attend here at Via Reagusa down in Campbell as we continue to build uh the the next generation and current generation and make sure that this population that is very easy to forget is not forgotten. We are honored. Thank you so much for this pro proclamation. And Pam has a couple of words as a parent and as a mother of somebody served by the regional center.

Thank you.

Yes. So, um, Javier mentioned that I was a board member, but my more important role is really as the parent of Nolan, who's 31 years old, and the thing that I had been, um, advocating for for him for his entire life was to be accepted and to be included in the community. And um I'm just so pleased to see now that things are starting to open up and people are starting to realize that people with autism and other developmental disabilities, they're very capable. In fact, my son works full-time. uh he works for San Andreas Regional Center and um I'm very proud of that and proud of him and I just would wish that everybody um opens up their their minds and their hearts to people with developmental disabilities and and include them in in everything that we do in the community. Thank you

and thank you for joining us today and thank you for your most meaningful work that you provide to our community and to all of our residents here in Santa Clara. And thank you for um sharing, you know, more awareness for our community as well. I'd like to invite you all with uh Francisco over there to come forward uh to take a picture with the council and we'd like to present you with the proclamation.

Okay, guys. All right, for our last but not least special order of business, the city will proclaim April 2026 as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month. The Bay Area has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States with nearly 250,000 Muslims and diverse mosques, religious centers, and community institutions. This year, we are proclaiming April to honor the contributions, service, and resilience of Muslim communities across the United States and in Santa Clara. and more importantly to stand in solidarity against acts of discrimination and Islamophobia towards our Muslim communities. This evening we are honored to have local leaders from the Muslim Community Association which most of us know as the MCA and the Council on American Islamic Relations which we know as CARE here with us. I now invite Sufian Sadiki from the Muslim Community Association to the podium to say a few words. Welcome,

honorable Mayor Gilmore and distinguished members of the city council. My name is Sophan Sadiki and I serve as the president of the Muslim Community Association. On behalf of the thousands of families who call MCA their spiritual home, I'm honored to accept this proclamation designating April as the American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month. We extend our sincere gratitude to the city of Santa Clara for renewing its commitment to recognizing the diversity that strengthens our civic fabric. As we ac accept this proclamation, we see it not just as a supportive gesture, but as a growing tradition of mutual respect that reflects the highest civic responsibility of our community. This recognition particularly is poignant as it follows a season of reflection, fasting, and community during the month of Ramadan. The American Muslims of our community are far more than just residents of the city. We are active invested stakeholders in its collective success. Whether through our commitment to educational excellence and youth leadership or our dedication to outreach and social services, our actions are a reflection of a faith that inspires us to work for the benefit of all humanity. We are proud to serve as our neighbors and continue building relations across all faiths and creeds. Awareness is just the first step towards understanding and understanding is the foundation of a compassionate society. By issuing this proclamation, the city council reaffirms that Islam's value of peace and justice are integral to American experience. Building upon its foundations that we've laid, we remain committed to our mission of empowering the community to lead a way of life that contributes individually and collectively to meeting human needs. We look forward to a continued collaboration with the city to ensure

Santa Clara remains a place where all people can live and share their faith with dignity. Thank you for this recognition. May we continue to work together to foster an environment of brotherhood and mutual respect for generations to come. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for your organization's amazing work. So, I'd like to invite uh representatives from MCA and CARE to come up here to we have two proclamations, one for each that we'd like to present to each of you. Thank you.

Okay. Uh, next item we have on the agenda is consent calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless an item's pulled for discussion. Um, do we have a consent calendar item uh from anyone on the council? First, I'm going to pull item 3F, which is uh action on the 2026 city council priority setting session framework. Anybody else in the council? Anyone in the public to pull a consent calendar item? Uh, David, do you have a consent calendar item to pull? Please come forward.

Maybe not pull, but I'd like to see the deferred March 24th 2B and 2E, which is on the agenda item six. I'd like to see if we could move that to after the consent calendar. Uh, that's too late for that. Okay. Sorry about that, which they pretty much are after consent, but okay. Anybody else? Mayor. Oh, city manager. Yes. Yes. Just a clarification on item 3C. There's a small typo in the recommendation. It's meant to be 1.6 million. There's one zero left off of um 1.6 million.

It's a little error. Okay. Hope it's in our favor. All right. is uh council member Chahal. Motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar. Thank you. Second. We have a motion by council member Chahal, second by council member Hardy to approve the balance of the consent calendar minus 3F and I'll take that at the end of the meeting as well. I know there's a lot of other items. Please register. Oh, wait. Do we have to do a roll call? Vice Mayor, Chair Gonzalez. Yes. Council Board member Kahala, yes. Council member Hardy, yes.

Council member Park, yes. Council Board Member Jane, uh, yes. And there's no one here. Council Board Member Cox, yes. Mayor, Chair Gilmore, yes. So, that passes unanimously. Thank you. Next is uh public presentations. Do we have any public presentations? Uh Jay, public presentation followed by Stephen followed by Brian. Brian D. Welcome. Hello again. Good evening. I wanted to ask to have um item eight moved ahead of the other items

to um Well, because I want to I'm gonna I'm gonna have it pull. This is public presentations. These are for items not on the agenda, right? So I can't ask to have a motion to have the item move ahead. No, because that's what I've done before. These are for items not on the agenda. This is public presentations. We passed that. Reconsider it. We did that in the beginning. Okay. Because usually they call my name for it and I didn't get called this. Sorry. Uh next we have Stephen Swanson followed by Brian D followed by Bob S. Welcome, Elisa. Know me. See this plaque? Can you speak in the microphone so everyone at home can hear you? All right. Do you see this plaque?

I can barely see it. My eyes Well, here I'll read it to you. Okay. It says, "Sergeant Swanson, honorary member of the Tendo Legal Office. Happy retirement.

Here's my recommendation letter to my next employer. It was a pleasure to work with Sergeant Steven Swanson at the legal office as he waited disposition for a medical board. Having miraculously survived a life-threatening accident, he has rebounded and unbelievable fashion. His health is good, his attitude is positive, his mind is very much intact, and his wit is as sharp as attack. It is very encouraging to me to watch this man come back to life with such vigor. and administration skills are superb. His general manners in dealing with clients and customers are especially keen and valuable in a normally stressed and filled environment of the base legal office. I highly commend this man to you as one of who has matured beyond his years and whose wit and energy will greatly complement any work environment because of Steve's high very high personal standards, his conscientious attitude, and his perfectionist nature. He'll never let you down. You'll do yourself a favor in hiring Steve Swanson. Feel free to contact me for further import in imports. Sincerely, Gregory A. Hoffman, Captain, United States Air Force, Chief of Military Justice. Okay, I'm upset, Lisa, because why wasn't workman's comp stress put on my workman's comp? I go to HR and complain about the senior center and then I get investigated by the police department as a resident, as an employee. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give this document to him and he's going to give it to you and you guys get to hash it all out because we're going to court. Okay? Defamation of character, slander, retribution, and hostile work environment. And guess what? The Santa

Clara Police Department knew about it for six years, and they chose not to do anything. And that means the HR did. And you guys paid $2.4 million for a broken ankle. Santa Clara PD. What is a mine worth? Think about that. Um Stephen, if you have anything, you can give it to our city clerk here and he'll make sure that it's distributed to the manager's office. Thank you, sir. Uh next we have Brian, followed by Bob. Welcome, Brian.

Welcome. Um did you feel the energy? We made it back to the moon. Artemis, too. It sort of got drowned out by the the colorful uh uh social truths from our leader threatening to wipe out a society. Um but we were pulled back from the brink again because um there there's at least a twoe ceasefire. Um and nothing's really changed as far as what we're getting out of that. But um it should shake us up. It probably won't because people are just trying to struggle through. I guess I bring this up. But I know the city council can't really do much about our president, but we can do something about the thought that there's two things that our society is able as a civilization, as a species, we're able to prevent possibly two. One would be vaccines. Billions of people have been saved with vaccines. Billions. That's not arguable because of COVID, because how it was handled. That was put aside. There there literally nothing that any other realm of reality outside of science has been able to save that many lives, save that much pain, that much grief, and the potential for our species to deflect an asteroid which could wipe out everybody. I know that's sort of like, well, maybe that's in the outer space or that's thinking about it's not. We have been hit by asteroids before and they've had horrible consequences for us. We now have the technology to avoid that because we I I've stressed this before. We live in a probable pro probabilistic um universe with absolute thinking. And I bring this up and I bring it back to what I I read com mental health. I read comments sections about each of you on some of the local publications. I hope you don't read them because I don't think they're true. All of you are

involved in some kind of giant cabal against somebody else. And it's so very tiring just to try to keep up with who's doing what to who. I I personally can't believe that because you don't really have anything to gain from it other than headaches. I'm sure that you get quite a bit of. I would ask you to take great hope though. We've pulled back once again from the abyss. And that's because there's something or something in us restraining that, encouraging that by creating an open place for people of different faiths to be. It is worth it because you're sewing into the future and not always worth it, especially for the children. Thank you. Thank you so much, Brian. Uh, next we have Bob. Please come forward, Bob.

Welcome. Hi. I just wanted to clarify that it's an appropriate time to comment on agenda item eight. Uh because that's what I was my comment card was for. No, it's No, we have to wait. So then I should come back around for agenda item back around for that. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Uh Linda is online. Linda, go ahead.

Linda, I was actually raising for your recognitions and stuff. I use the library a lot. and I'm very happy about it. There are a lot of services that they do there. The other one was the VTA. I use bus a lot, the Clipper card. Uh, and being a senior, it's like a dollar to go on bus almost anywhere. And it's wonderful. And I also use Cal Train a lot. So that's it. I just I didn't get my hand up in time. Bye.

Thank you, Linda. Uh, next we have 2669 2669.

Good evening. My name is James Rowan. One of the great dramatizations going on on PBS right now is the dramatization of the count of money by Albert. Well, before Edund Dantes begins his revenge against the people who hung him, he stops and uses great fortune to redeem Mashure Moral who he said was truly a sainted person. Such was Rod Bearden senior. Rod Bing senior was in all definition in Roius theorus by the Oxford secretary as a nice guy. He fulfilled all the requirements. I remember when I was elected to Democratic National Committee, the first man I went to tell that I had been doing it is Rod Darden senior. Why? Because he was the first man to endorse me. W Bearden Senior was truly the sheriff Andy Taylor of Santa Clara County. I've said that Santa Clara is the Mayberry of Silicon Valley. Well, Rod Darden Senior was truly truly the sainted individual that everyone everyone respected and everyone valued. I will leave you with this and God love you. God loved the city and God loved very much the city of Santa Clara. Rod Bearden senior when he first ran for supervisor was running as quiet Clark Mkens a wellestablished supervisor. He dropped off a flyer and my father who as you know enjoyed being a critic of everyone and by the way he's now meet meeting Rob Senior at the great condominium in the side wrote down I have questions for you. Rob Bearden senior came to our

house and spent an hour talking to my dad and convinced my dad to vote for him and my dad said I didn't think you could do this. And Rod Dar senior looked at my dad and said, "Mr. Allan, every voter is worth talking to." That was Rod Senior. And I hope to God everyone learns from that. Be well, everyone. And be well, Rod Senior. Truly a thinking man.

Thank you, Betsy. Go ahead, Betsy. Thank you, Betsy Magus. Uh, talking tonight for myself. Uh, I am I was hoping to talk on the VTA item. I'm currently volunteering to collect some of the 200,000 signatures we need to get the measure onto the ballot at all. People are supporting it uh despite a lot of sales tax fatigue because they recognize how vital transit is. I'm all for technology and business model improvements, but please, if you have anything to do with deciding how to use the funds, please keep your eyes on the prize, which is improving service. Currently, there is no trip inside of five and possibly inside of 10 miles of my home that is faster to ride a VTA bus, even with my bike, to get there, than it is to bike the whole way. And I'm not a bicyclist. Nobody cares how shiny and new the bus is. Nobody cares how smooth the road is underneath it if it doesn't run nights and weekends or if it doesn't run often enough to get you where you need to go when you need to go there. The current system is not getting people out of their cars. This is a huge, huge opportunity. Please focus on improving service. Thank you.

Thank you, Betsy. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? If so, please come forward.

Welcome. Evening. I am going to be speaking as well as I have time donated from my husband Abel.

Okay, go ahead, please.

Thank you. Greetings, everyone. Uh hope you all had a great Easter this year. Um I've been coming to the I'm council member, former council member Anthony Becker. I've been coming to the last few council meetings uh with the goal of agendaizing an item. Uh that was February 10th. Uh we are now on April 7th. Uh this council nor the city manager has taken no action on something that has considerable concern about the city council and public trust. Since we're all concerned about that, I had asked the council and city manager to take action by putting an item on the agenda addressing a real investigation into the May 7th, 2024 FIFA uh disclosure that appeared days letter in the San Francisco Chronicle. At the time, I raised serious concerns with the city manager about the integrity of that investigation, whether it deliberately voted, looking at everyone who was present in that room, including the council members. When I was pressed for answer, when I pressed for answers via email with the city manager or in person, he responded to me, he know, you know, she's just going to lie. Referencing Mayor Gilmore, I called the phony investigation and and its entire focus on what the city employees was, and it was absolutely questionable, even though statements and circumstances suggested the disclosure may have come from the dis, not a city employee. Here's some facts, though. Council member Jane stated publicly he wondered who disclosed the FIFA info and his concerns of all the records in relation to that this situation and if they're going to disappear into it disappear as of May 7th the 2-year mark. Council member Hardy was there with me when she discussed it with council with assistant city manager Chuck Baker about the disclosure and Chuck says you know exactly where it's coming from pointing to the mayor's table. Council member Park, when I was on the council, you were CCed in my emails uh of concern over this investigation and the lack of authority and accountability. Same as you, Council Member Jane. Uh Council, uh you know, my question is what's being hidden from the public? Council member Cox and Vice Mayor Gonzalez, you guys

weren't there then, but the responsibility lies on you guys to ask the questions. I truly hope that we are not delaying this particular item from seeing the light of day because we're hoping delay long enough for records to disappear or just be forgotten or just I go away. In Silicon Valley, Santa Clara is famous for the delay game. I should know based on the past experiences. I will mention again the recent Brown Act violation to current city council members. The delay investigating the uh delay of uh council meeting when Shahal was trying to have the discussion about CVR lawsuit. um a lot of issues that were delayed, including recent, as I said, recent Brown Act violation. So, I asked again and again, did we the city spend taxpayer money on a phony investigation that was never intended to cover uncover the truth? Are we selectively applying accountability or potential Brown Act violations being ignored? Remember, we didn't even investigate a dark money violation that I filed. Then, no follow up on that. Are we protecting one person? And are we diverting transparency? The public deserves clarity. City employees deserve fairness. And this council owes the community transparency. Why is there no action on this? City council? Nothing. City manager? Nothing. Mayor's favorite blog still silent and doesn't want to draw attention. However, it doesn't stop him from saying everything that is that is a conspiracy theory. Again, no one has denied. Instead of claiming the ketamine sting of a former assembly member and myself, he has not only discussed the he never discussed the request of the FIFA disclosure. Interesting. I find also interesting that the district attorney and prosecutors are silent that they don't stop that they don't look into this. But it doesn't stop them because the district attorney is using the mayor's blog as a major news source on his website for his re-election campaign, a place of misinformation and illegitimate news that's cited by our own district attorney. That's about me. What a coincidence. So, I am formally

requesting again for the fifth time and will continue to request this item about an investigation into the disclosure of the FIFA information that ended up in the San Francisco Chronicle days later. I ask that this be agendaized for public discussion that can result in a truly independent investigation with authority to examine everyone who was present in that closed session and the events that followed. No exceptions. city council, city manager, it's a no-brainer. I think to the public, it's also a no-brainer. Do the right thing. Don't be afraid of those who are in power. You may know I'm an example of that. Until that happens, this issue remains inol unresolved. And from my experience on this city council and what I have witnessed and sacrificed and why I'm here, my experience as a documentary film journalist now over a decade in the making continues to prove true that with every moment and every action that this council, myself and others take here continue to prove the thesis I made 10 years ago about the state of this city and the state of politics. It's funny because we look at the world today and look where we are. So, I asked this council to agendaize this. I know last meeting we did have a conversation about agendaizing items during uh public presentations. I don't see any will of this council which I start to question. Um what is it really about? Are we really about public trust and accountability? Because I think if it's be honest you are about that we'd be taking this on right now. No one should have anything to hide. Correct. So, hope to get that and I hope you guys put this on the future agenda. Thank you again, everyone.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Do we have anyone else online? Ben, we have no further requests to speak. All right. Thank you. We're going to move on. Uh we're going to go now to item number five, which is action on an amendment number one to the agreement with West Coast Turf for the supply, delivery, and installation of SAD for the field at Levi Stadium to extend the term by one year, increase the total agreement amount, update the compensation and fee schedule, and delegate authority to the executive director for future amendments. And I believe it was pulled by council member Cox. That's right. Did you have questions on this? Yeah.

Yeah. So um uh having gone through my first budget cycle, you know, I left our March 10th meeting certainly concerned about our uh our dismal budget portfolio and projections. So we had approved a budget on March 10th, which was just a few weeks prior to the consent item coming forward with these items. And I think originally I had pulled uh four items from the consent calendar, and this will just be focused on the one or perhaps two. Either way, it's only one tonight. Um so what I wanted to do in talking about this consent item was just really understand the budget implications of this item. So I want to ensure uh that the consent calendar items which I think are moved with a high expectation of lower input align with budget assumptions. And so this uh cost here it's a $1.6 million contract extension as I understand of that we're required to pay uh 30% of the share which is roughly 480. we'll round it to 500,000, but that was not in the budget. We approved just the the meeting before. So, this expense will completely consume um the $728,000 groundskeeping budget, I'm assuming. So, first and foremost, I want to understand if we have these foreseeable costs that are significant, why are we not budgeting them? Um and so, building on that, because it was not accounted for up front, I want to understand the impact within the existing budget structure. So, like I said, this is going to be uh roughly $500,000, but $545,000 of that $728,000 budget has already been set aside for staff work that basically maintains um outside services, and that represents the largest share of that groundskeeping budget. Um and so if this cost consumes that, I don't know where the overages of this cost category come from. It is my assumption then that they would hit the operating reserve of the stadium authority which then impacts a general

fund. Um my third question about this with this level of uncertainty and potential overrun I just want to ask a a broader question because in these items that were on the consent calendar regarding stadium expenses I saw a pattern of the removal of the board's approval of these items and that a lot was going to the executive director. And so in a budget environment that's already reflecting the real need for constrained um spending that our reserves are being hit and we need more fiscal discipline. I want to understand the rationale from delegating this away from stadium authority, stadium board authority to the exe executive director. It seems like this should be a time where we have more oversight, but these huge ticket items are coming through with less oversight. And that leads to the question of the contract establishment in the first place. And I I know I've been a proponent for making sure that we do equitable bidding, but this bid came through in 2023. Um it's a $2.5 million total bid and it was one single bid and um it's the Bay Area. There's a thousand stadiums everywhere. You know, granted this is an NFL stadium, but uh the justification was was cited as proprietary growing in installation methods that led to a single source bidder for a $2.5 million contract. So, I want to walk through the outreach process for RFP on that. Um I know when the city goes to RFP, we'll publicize it on the city's website, and I understand when we get one or two bids for these really complex complex uh like SVP projects, this doesn't seem to fall within that. So I want to understand our internal process for bidding within the stadium there and see what efforts have been made since 2023 to broaden that vendor pool. I think that's it. Thank you.

Uh thank you. I had a similar question. Why were we looking at this a week after we approved the budget when this was quite foreseeable? And um actually I think authority member Cox asked all my questions. So thank you. I don't see anyone else on the council or board that has any questions. Sure. Um thank you mayor or raised.

All right. Go ahead. Um yeah, I mean I guess this went through a bidding process. I do want to know um you know why we got only one bid and uh why uh what we can do to get more bids in the future. But um it seems to me that this uh type of turf is very specialized. You know, we talked about injuries um among NFL players and how possibly the 49ers have higher injuries, but I want to remind people that um on April 4th, 2023 um that this item came before the board. It was uh 1.6 6 million per contract year, not to exceed the amount of $4,800,000. And so, um, that contract came came to the board and the votes for that contract to approve it were board member Watnabi, board member Chahal, board member Hardy, Vice Chair Park, board member Jane, and Chair Gilmore. And uh it was a six vote and board member Becker was absent. So it was essentially unanimous vote among those present. Um I agree that we should be budgeting for these things. But um this amount is not unusual given that what we've done in the past. So it's fully in line with budgets that we've approved for the turf maintenance. Thank you. Um, thank you for that history lesson. But what's before us now is an extension of this without re going back out to bid again

and allowing the executive director to um to authorize further extensions. And so this is different than what what happened before. And I think as authority member Cox had mentioned this because of the state of the condition of the stadium authority budget, we need more not less oversight on all of these costs and that's what we're talking about this evening. Authority member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um just a question as far as I know we've been dealing with this uh vendor since 2020 since 2023. Has there been any issue why we should not be dealing with them? Um and uh the other question was just uh the single source I know that I I could tell you I've installed thousands of of square feet of soda in my younger life with my uh my father in his business. But um this it seems like this uh this this uh vendor probably has some uh very uh special skills as far as you know a stadium is a different it's a different type of uh sod and the way that they implement that with the equipment that they're using. So are there other vendors that that would be plausible to be used?

All right go ahead. Um, oh, sorry, one more. Authority member Hardy,

I'm concerned because there were questions turned in specifically to this. I think about four or five of these questions and staff did a very thorough job of answering that and that did come in in our email earlier today. And now the almost exact same questions are being raised when staff took the time to answer that and go through the history. So, I'm concerned that we're not maybe reading our email in real time or that uh that maybe someone didn't understand or I'm not certain why staff is spending so much time to answer these questions in written form if they're not going to be used. Thank you. Well, that leads uh maybe the the staff can let us know if those answers went out to the public.

All right, Authority Member Park.

Yeah, I think it would be useful if some of the questions that uh council members asked that were answered by staff were added in the um post meeting material or the meeting material. That would be interesting. And I remember that vote in 2023. I want to apologize to everyone here for dis for literally discussing a groundskeeping matter that should have been approved on consent. Um I mean this is just more dirt and politics. I'm not just sure what kind of dirty secrets that the mayor or council member Cox expect to unearth with this these kinds of questions. And I think that no matter how we look at this, how much the replacement costs, what the new contracts are, it's dirt cheap. Um, we have a lot of ground to cover tonight. And, uh, but we're willing to spend a lot of it on sod, on groundless speculation. I had a lot more puns, but they were too dirty to share. So, I think I'll just continue. Thank you. executive director.

Okay. Uh thank you uh board. Uh and so for the public, the city council is sitting as the Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board of Directors. Uh I'll look to the city clerk's office because I know we invited Manco, the stadium manager, um to this meeting. I'm not sure if they're here, but I can respond to all all the questions. Um, let's unpack this a little bit because I I think there's some um misunderstandings on the actual item. So, I think first if we go back to the item uh this item uh in your packet uh that you had on March 24th, which was the first time this came to you, uh there was a letter request from the stadium manager dated March 19th. We in due course brought that to you on March 24th. It is for the requested amendment and the staff report details that. Uh I'll also note that uh the questions that were referenced, those were questions asked before the March 24th meeting. Uh they were uh appropriately provided to council. They are um postmeating uh materials. And in in addition, because the item was carried over to this meeting, we actually attach those answers to the questions to the staff report, so they're there for you and for the public to see. Now, let's talk about uh the contract. Uh it was noted that the solicitation occurred in 2022 and in 2023, uh exactly on April 4th, uh 2023, the board um approved the contract. Important to note that it was a three-year contract with two one-year extensions. Correct. So, those initial three years, and I'm going to move the mic closer to me just so um my voice is not fading out for those that um are remote. That first term was from April

1, 23 through the end of March 26. And then the the first option was for a year four from uh 20 April 26 to March of 27. The second option year five would be from April 27 to March of 28. So with regard to the question of why wasn't the additional proposed costs included in the budget uh lack of oversight for that nature there are no additional cost in this item for the budget that you approved. In fact any additional costs would only be in year five that start the fiscal year April 27th through March 28th. So there are no additional costs if you approve this item that should have been or needed to be added to the budget. In addition, there was a note of the amount of this contract uh and the requested extension. In fact, uh this amendment seeks to maintain the initial 5 years again that go through March of 28th and only add a six-month extension. Uh and that extension uh would only be granted if the stadium manager is actively pursuing a additional solicitation process. that is a part of our normal uh course where we typically extend an agreement for that solicitation to occur. So the only potential extension that is proposed is an additional 6 months that would only be granted if the there was an active solicitation process and additional time was needed with regard to the um increased cost. As noted in the original staff report, the revised staff report that was uh republished today, the only additional costs that are proposed is a 5% increase that would take effect potentially in year five and then a 5%

increase only for the six months that would that could be approved in year six. The first four years of the contract, the amount has been capped with zero increases. And so that would be a zero increase in the authority in the term from April 2023 through March 31st of 2027. And so it's providing the possibility for a 5% increase after four years of that amount capped. Uh there was a question on uh why uh would that increase be needed and what analysis uh was undertaken. Uh that was question four that again was attached um to this staff report and provided to the public before. I won't read the entire response but it notes the consumer price index for index for all urban customers for the San Francisco Oakland region uh which is used as a baseline indicator historically from 2012 through 2025 has ranged from 1.7 to a high of 5.6 with an average of 3.3. The most recent uh consumer price index for 2025 was 2 uh2. The CPI reflects a moderate increase that may not capture the full cost of providing services uh in the Bay Area. Additional it additionally, it is not uncommon uh in the city budget for us to receive increases of 5% for goods and services. Accordingly, establishing an an allowance of 5% of an annual increase is considered prudent to account for the regional market flexibility. Any requested increases must be supported by reasonable justification from the stadium manager and will be reviewed by staff against the CPI and other factors to determine their reasonleness. Uh under the current recommendation, any requested increases above 5% even if reasonable would need to come back to the board for additional approve

approval. Lastly, staff considered the fact that the 5% contractual authority was only requested for year five, which means that years 1 through 4 would have been capped at the annual rate of $1.6 million. Lastly, given the geopolitical factors and rising costs, the stadium manager and stadium authority staff believes believes that is reasonably prudent and foreseeable that uh future increases may be higher for SAD based on a number of factors including transportation, fuel, labor, and fertil and fertilizer. Um, and so that's the answer to that question. I'm I'm going to look through my notes to make sure that I captured everything. There was a note around um I'm not sure if the word soul source was used but but but one contractor uh that was question one that was submitted back on March 24th and again republished in this staff report um and it reads the original RFP in 2023 was published in Bonfire Interactive the stadium manager e- procurement portal I'll pause there and articulate that in the stadium agreements uh in fact the management agreement that I know this entire board was not there But but the stadium board approved and I think the mayor was on the board at that time. The stadium manager was given the authority and delegated the authority to undertake the procurement for stadium authority. And so the stadium for stadium authority contracts and so the stadium manager they have to comply with the city's rules but they handle the the procurement. So that was published in Bonfire Interactive, the stadium manager e- procurement portal. Um, in their recommendation memo uh that requested approval of the original agreement, again that was in 2023, West Coast Turf uh the stadium manager stated that in addition to providing firms um on their established supplier list, they also selected vendors registered on the portal with specific commodity codes offering SAD. As part of their 2023 request, the stadium manager provided stadium authority staff with a

list of SAD providers as part of their supporting documentation. This board reviewed that when you approved the contract in 2023. That list included eight vendors in Northern and Central California, including West Coast Turf. Staff did not have any staff does not have any additional information on why other vendors declined to submit a a proposal as a part of the RFP and the stadium manager and staff shared that in the 2023 recommend recommendation memo. That was clear. There's one bid. There was one bid, right? And and as you know oftent times uh even for city contracts I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm just

right there there was one bid which is distinctive from a sole source right a sole source is when you do not conduct a competitive bidding process uh a but when you do compet conduct a competitive bidding process at times there there's one bidder uh and there are laws and and guidelines around that and it allows the board to accept that one bid. Uh, and this board did that in April um of 2023. Um, and I I think the the record of um who supported that has already been stated. Lastly, um there are uh people on Zoom from the stadium manager's office. I think there's a Kevin uh Wang who who works for the stadium manager. I'll turn it over to Kevin uh to answer anything that I left off. Thank you. I don't see that person.

Can I get clarification while we wait? Go ahead, Council Member Cox.

Again, I I think city manager, you made a statement that this had no impact on the upcoming fiscal year 27 budget, but when I'm reading the recommendation, the stadium is to increase the maximum compensation by 1.6 6 million to cover services from April 1st, 2026 to March 31st, 2027. And while I do see that the questions about the bid were answered in your response, these parts were not. And so again, what I want to understand is where is this $1.6 million represented in the budget that we just approved the meeting before this came forward. I don't see it in the groundskeeping. And and again, in fiscal prudence, 1.6 is a lot. And I understand we fractionally pay for that, but I am trying to put consent items that are large going through against an actual budget.

Well, those that 1.6 million is already in the budget. Um that recommendation number one um in the groundskeeping. No, it's not. Look through it. Go to staff.

I'll invite the finance director up to articulate. Good evening, honorable mayor, city council. Ken Lee, director of finance, stadium authority treasurer. So, the $1.6 million is the total amount of which uh the stadium authority is responsible for 30% which is roughly 480,000. Um there is a line item in uh the shared expense budget um for outside services. Uh that total budget in the budget that was approved was $545,000. So it it does contain the $480,000

um necessary uh for this contract. So that uh outside services if you're saying that represents it is only budgeted at 545. But that also includes routine facility maintenance, cleaning on off days, stadium upkeep, janitorial, and so that groundskeeping is included in that. Um that is one line item. There's also I believe some salaries which is a separate line item on top that includes uh portions of the 30% portions of the shared staff that that are also there to maintain the field and and some of those duties that you just described. Okay. Thank you, Kev. Director Lee,

I have a follow-up question. Um, and the reason I wanted to talk about this item, too, is because we're talking about authorizing the executive director to approve future amendment to the agreement. I understand the agreement and the options and everything else, but you're also asking for a future amendment when it ends in March of 2028 to go an additional six months to September 30th, 2028. um because they may be going through the the bidding process which would hopefully save us money at some point and they're not the only turf company. There's a lot of turf companies. Um why would we have to do that? They know they have to this contract ends by 2028. Why aren't they going out to bid, you know, soon in 2027 even for this contract? Why do we have to extend it? give you authorization to do that because they may go past March 2028. We're talking, you know, two years from now. Why aren't they going through the bidding process before that? That seemed odd to me.

The intent is for them to go through the bidding process. The additional six-month extension was if in fact they needed additional time. I think the board um and the city council is familiar. We we oftentimes bring forward uh e extensions because of contracting timelines. I'm even thinking of our UNICES contract that that recently came through where the board authorized a several year extension knowing knowing the process and and the time that it takes to change over. But with that, I think we do have Kevin from the stadium manager on now who can provide additional

question. They have two years to get this done. So what is why are we even that's the only reason I had questions about this. Is he on? What's his name?

Yes. Uh, thank you very much for having me. Uh, honorable members, uh, my name is Kevin Wang. I serve as vice president and senior stadium counsel for the stadium management company. Um, so to answer the question regarding the uh additional sixmonth optional extension timeline, that's simply to allow us to not have to essentially come back to the board for additional uh approvals if our RFP timeline runs long. And that's simply because the RFP process can at times be complex um as a result of a variety of factors including for example uh questions from vendors during the process um additional feedback that's needed uh from the stadium management company um that we need to issue uh clarifications for in the RFP process. So, it's it's simply to to give us additional time if needed, but our hope certainly is to not need that additional time to be able to wrap up the RFP process ahead of the expiration of this contract in its fifth year.

May I ask you how long it would take you to prepare an RFP process? More than is it more than two years?

No. No, certainly does not take a two-year timeline to run an RFP process. And so we have in our planning process um set timelines that we've worked out with stadium authority staff uh for the timing of our solicitations and and we want to ensure certainly that we're we're carrying forward on those promises that we make with respect to those timelines. But again, there are at times unforeseeable circumstances that you run into in the public procurement process and we want to be mindful of that um that we don't know what we don't know at this point. And so we would again say that we will endeavor to the best of our ability to uh meet the timelines that we've agreed to and certainly to to try to wrap up the solicitation process and have something before the board ahead of the expiration of the existing contract with West Coast Turf. But again, the six months is is simply to give us an optional extension as needed, if needed.

Council member, authority member Cox, do you have questions? Oh, I don't have no. All right. Thank you. Okay. Um, let's go to members of the public. Does any members of the public have any comments about this item? All right. Seeing none, Member Hardy. I'd like to make a motion to um approve the and approve the extension and authorize the city manager to execute the amendment. That is the staff recommendation. I think we've had enough turf wars.

I'll second.

I won't be supporting this motion because this makes no sense to me. if they want to um the the extra six months makes no sense and the explanation made no sense. If they want to do a bid, they have pl they have a two-year runway to do that. We don't need to add additional time and money with no oversight. Authority member Cox. Yeah, I will not be supporting as well just because I I do think this is a time when we need to have more oversight and be more involved in our budget um with the capital expenses the way they are. Uh a budget that says we are no longer in a money-making position of the stadium. It is not the time to reduce oversight.

All right, clerk. Vice Chair Gonzalez. Yes. Board member Shahal. Yes. Board member Hardy. Yes. Board member Park, yes. Board member Jane, yes. And there's no one in the room with me. Board member Cox, no. Chair Gilmore,

no. And that passes 5 to two. All right. Uh, next we have All right. Uh, next we have action on monthly financial status and investment reports for December 2025 and approve the related budget amendments item 2B and 2E continued for March 10th, 2026 uh deferred from March 24th, 2026. And one of those items is the downtown parking maintenance district fund and the request for $180,000 for a paid parking project and my office is in the Franklin Mall. So I will be recusing myself and Vice Mayor Gonzalez will take over this item. Thank you. Albert, when you're ready, come on down. All right. So, we're going to deal with item six, action on monthly financial status and investment reports for December 2025 and approve the related

budget amendments. Items 2B and 2B continued from March 10th, 2025, deferred from March 24th. So, um, is there a presentation? No. Similar to the prior item, uh, just want questions from the, uh, individual that pulled this item, which I believe is council member Suds Jane, who has his hand raised. Just look at the council member Jane.

Yes. Um I um want to uh there's been some misunderstanding about the origin of this study and so I'm going to go through a a fairly lengthy history of this item to make sure that people are aware of maybe the origin of this. So for a number of years the council the the city has two parking maintenance districts. It has one for the convention center and it has one for the uh Franklin Mall. Uh on a August 8th, sorry, August 30th, 2022, I did a 030 request and I'm going to read that request. Um it said, "Recently, the city council approved an annual renewal of the parking maintenance district at the convention center. Parking is free, but is there there are no accumulating reserves to make any major repairs to the parking structure, which is aging. I recently attended a Boy Scout breakfast at the Santa Clara Marriott and Mission College. They were charging $5 per car for parking. I also recently visited the Baylands Park in Sunnybell. They charge $6 per car. Valley Fair shopping center has also started charging per parking including per employees. Valley Fair just did a very large expansion which included adding a lot of parking in the parking structure which probably costs more than $50,000 per spot. Valley Fair is trying to get people to carpool and to use public transit or other forms of mobility. When I brought up charging for parking at the convention center, I was told that the city has a policy against charging for parking. So, I'm asking for a discussion of charging changing this policy since providing free parking is

very expensive as explained in Donald Sh's book, The High Cost of Free Parking. Perhaps charging for parking at the convention center could be used to put aside money for future repairs of the parking structure. And that was my entire 030. As you can see, there was zero maintenance mentioned of the Franklin Mall. Now, I'm going to go to the actual um uh council agenda item on the Santa Clara Convention Center complex maintenance district number 183. So, it's a special benefit assessment for fiscal year 2025 to 26. So from the director's report and it says table two property owners to be assessed city of Santa Clara 940,19 Hyatt Corporation $49,460 Hudson Techmark Commerce Center LLC 643,656. So, you know, my concern has been for a number of years that just like the swim center, past councils didn't plan for the future. They just like the swim center, they didn't put money aside to repair the swim center and then we ended up having to close it for two years. At the convention center, no money has been put aside for that. This seems to be the only convention that center that I know of that does not charge for parking and we are taking $940,000 a year out of our general fund to fund maintenance of that district. Now, um

for the Franklin Mall, um I had been complaining that uh we and I'm looking at the budget for fiscal year 202526. The city from the general fund pays $144,647 to maintain uh the maintenance district number 122 including but not limited to water, sewer, electrical costs, sweeping of parking lots, mall area, maintenance of pavement, striping, landscaping, mall fountains, city supervision, 50% of labor and fringe benefits of street maintenance worker one um the history of the Franklin Mall is that um and I'm going to read from a council agenda. Whereas on the 16th day of January 1996, this council adopted resolution number 6105 ordering that 75% of the cost and expenses of maintening and operating said public improvements beginning with fiscal year 1996 to 97 within the parking maintenance district, including the cost of necessary repairs, replacements, water, fuel, power, gas, electric, current care, supervision, and any other items necessary for the proper maintenance operation thereof shall annually be assessed either partly or wholly upon the lots and parcels of property within the parking maintenance district benefited thereby accordance with the formula set forth and that the city shall be responsible for the balance of the costs and expenses. Then uh the owners who are the only people allowed to vote voted on ballot measure

on in a ballot on June 24th, 1996 on the level of assessment and uh on November 5th, 1996, Proposition 218 passed and it and the council um whereas in this um report says in this resolution says whereas On the 9th day of July 2002, the council determined that the property owners contribute 14,200 annually lest earn interest on the accumulating balance to pay for capital repairs of the parking lots and none towards the c the costs of other costs of maintenance and operation of the parking maintenance district. So that is the history. Now, as you recall, my 030 had no mention of charging per parking at the Franklin Mall. And so, my question to staff is what problem are we trying to solve by doing this study? So, I'd like to know, are we solving a problem of trying to recover that 144,000 or are we trying to solve the problem of we've run out of parking? That's usually why people charge for parking or implement parking districts in residential areas, permit parking, is when you run out of parking. So, what is the problem? The issue that we're really trying to solve here, um, as I said, I am really concerned about the $940,000 that could go to supporting services for our residents. And that's what my original resolution was. But my question to staff is what problem are you guys trying to solve by doing this study?

Thank you for the question. That's my only qu that's my only question. Okay. Thank you for that. We're going to go to

Yeah, wait. I have one more thing. So, um there there has been a problem at the Franklin Mall where we used to have portaotties for the um the farmers market and those got tipped over multiple times and we stopped putting um portaotties there. So, I would like to know how can we get public restrooms at the Franklin Mall and how can we repair the fountains? Where would that money come from? So, um, those are my two questions for staff. What question what problem are we trying to solve and where will we get money if we wanted to do public restrooms and repair the fountains?

Thank you. Um, Councilwoman Cox,

thanks. Um, I appreciate Council Member Jane's uh backstory there and I I do agree when I looked into this a little bit, my concern with how this was uh brought up in the last two priority session things, it always included um the convention center. And from the outside looking in, when the convention center is a $2 million cost to the city, that again is paid by the tech mark and uh the high included, it still is such a larger ticket item that could put money into the general fund and offset. I'm trying to understand why that is no longer included in this study. And again, like council member Jane says, if we are trying to solve a problem and it's recouping some of these costs, I don't know why we're not looking at the big fish first. So,

thank you. Any other one? Anybody else? All right. Sure.

Okay. Thank you, council. Again, Javon Grogan, city manager. Uh, I think we can address those. And we have Mike Lou, our assistant public works director here to help support uh and respond to those questions. Uh, so I think let's take the the uh latter questions or or the last questions first. We are absolutely continuing to work on parking in the convention center as well as downtown. In the 2024 city council priority setting process, there was a count council strategic initiative that uh directed staff to look into park paid parking at the convention center and downtown. Both of those are moving forward. They're moving forward uh in a uh simultaneous fashion. The item here tonight only talks about downtown. That's for a reason. We'll talk about that. So, globally on that strategic initiative, what is moving forward is a request for proposals uh to solicit uh parking vendors uh that would provide metering the the meters as well as service um and technology to support that uh both downtown and at the convention center. and we want to to have one vendor citywide. Um, so we're moving forward on both. Also important to note that uh connected to the council member or council member James question, what problem are are are we trying to solve? So, we began both of these projects downtown uh and convention center. Uh and then there was a community meeting for downtown uh and um um assistant director Lou Lou was there and he'll he'll talk about that. But at that meeting there were a number of questions and concerns raised by members of the community. Staff took that feedback back and said you know what we for downtown specifically we should

undertake a study um to to answer those questions and we'll we'll talk about the scope of work for that study. A similar study is not being done for the convention center because implementing paid parking at the convention center garage is fairly straightforward. Um we can do a benchmarking on what uh all the other convention centers in the area charge. We've talked to our our uh third party operator. They are supportive of paid parking. Uh we feel that we can very easily work that in and not hurt the business model of the convention center. And so we don't need a global consultant study for the convention center. We feel very com comfortable there. But we do want one for downtown in particular to answer a number of the questions that that the community raised which about which is regarding uh how how much the price should be. Will parking be pushed off into the neighborhoods? Where do you set where do you set the rate precisely to uh not push parking into the neighborhoods but but obtain re obtain the revenue that you're seeking? And so addressing council member Jane's question, what problem are we trying to solve? I believe the council conversations around this has been very similar to what council member Jane mentioned, which is the city has a fairly unique setup with the Franklin Mall, right? It's a privately owned strip mall. The city does not own a business uh in uh in that mall, but we do own the common areas and the parking lots and we subsidize parking at Franklin Mall uh to the tune of um 130 some odd thousand in the last budget, but in our um budget that you recently passed, um the projections go up to over $150,000 a year. Out of all of the businesses in Franklin Mall, they pay 13 approximately $13,000. the city bears the bulk share to maintain the parking lots in the common areas. And so as as a part of setting the rates uh for Franklin Mall, what the study will look

at is to obtain that level of revenue, does it need to be 50 cents, a dollar, etc. And and and where do where are those thresholds? Uh and certainly I think council member Jane's other question or or comment around portaotties or potentially reactivating the fountain. Both of those could be placed in the common area. If the maintenance district um raise the funds or we could set parking rates to raise funds to uh enhance that certainly that could uh be covered by parking rates or the city could pay for it out of its general fund. Right. And this city has a history of of funding uh part of the common areas in Franklin Mall again where we don't own where the city doesn't own a space out of the general fund. Uh and I know this effort to look into paid parking in Franklin Mall was to defay that cost from the general fund and really have uh that that being born. What I will also say is parking in downtown areas is a hotly debated topic almost everywhere, right? Um, anytime a city is implementing parking, paid parking for the first time, it's the first time. And and and and there there there are a lot of concerns from businesses and communities around that. In fact, I I recently read an article that I think we sent to council. The city of Milbury is considering the exact same thing and and undertaking the exact same study. Um, and and this is a common uh practice when you're uh implementing parking uh in an in an area where uh there are concerns raised by either residents or businesses. With that, I'll turn it over to Assistant Director Mike Lou to talk a little bit more about the scope of work and the the concerns in particular that were raised at that meeting.

Great. Thank you. Um, thank you, city manager Grogan. Um, mayor and council Mike Lou, assistant director for public works. So, a pleasure to be here. So, for this particular item tonight, you know what it is is a budget amendment to add funds to fund the study for parking study for the Franklin Mall. uh as as discussed earlier or mentioned earlier you know this effort came about through you know c various council meetings over the years so like for instance in 2022 and years before that and after that there's been discussion related to the Franklin mall its costs it's an annual budget action that takes place and the fact that the city pays the line share of the on&m if not all of it so ultimately there was a lot of discussion related to the district itself you know should we be collecting the funds Can we change the district? You know, that was all settled through various discussions and council um and information from the attorney's office. That being said, there was a topic related back in 22 related to potentially char charging for parking. It's come up at council before uh in the staff report from 2022, staff highlighted if you were to do that, you might want to conduct a study. this could be the potential cost. Ultimately on the at the April in April 2024 meeting related to the district, there was direction from the council to look at paid parking. So that basically amended from my understanding that amended the initial priority to look at paid parking at the convention center. Franklin mall was added to that and that's basically council priority um high priority number five. So it's been that way for some time. Um, as the city manager mentioned, in order to get this effort going, the city hosted two community meetings with uh in 2025, May and July. The first meeting was with the just the ownership, the owners of the Franklin Mall that we typically deal with on the annual basis. That meeting expanded a little bit, meaning that

there were other members from the community that were invited um by, you know, some of the ownership. And then the meeting we got some pretty um serious feedback related to do you you they they didn't they didn't support paid parking at the mall. Ultimately we went back in July and presented options for a study. There were a lot of questions asked at the May meeting in terms of well how are you going to determine who parks here? What what's the how is this going to affect you know neighborhood parking street parking private parking lots neighborhood parking lots? ultimately a study the desire for a study similar to what I mentioned earlier back in from the 2022 time period came to fruition in terms of we need to study this in order to determine you know what the benefit cost benefit would be to implement paid parking whether it's um and then to look at you know what potential revenues could be generated from it as a manager mentioned you know the discussion of paid parking and what that could potentially fund it centered around the time related to maintenance on&m granted at this point we're not looking to say that it would for that purpose. Right. Right now, we're just looking at paid parking as an option and um you know, basically, you know, how we we put out an RFP to hire a consultant to help us study that. And what you have before you tonight is the budget action to um to to fund the study. And then in terms of any other capital repairs that, you know, may be desired at the uh the mall itself, um you know, staff can certainly look at that. I think you know we're we we'd be doing cost estimates looking at what what's in the fund today because there is a downtown fund um for the parking district not the on and piece in that fund. There's a capital portion of it that's been accumulating over time and that's the portion that the ownership of the Franklin will contribute to. Um I think it's important to note that that is typically for what's there today and to basically upkeep that. So capital maintenance and repair significant repair not daily on&m. So any use of that funds at least in my opinion at this point

would need the ownership's approval and of course it would have we'd have to look at the dollars to see if it could be um funded appropriately. It's likely to need some general fund funding based on what I'm hearing today in terms of the desire for um restrooms. Um in terms of the um the fountains, it's a little bit of a different discussion. and we'd have to go back and talk and find out what the cost is to potentially bring bring that fountain back up in into operation similar to the one here at city hall. It's been dry for quite some time as from my understanding. So, there would need to be a work to to see if that could take place. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have uh before we take uh Council Member Jane's hand, um is there any member from the public? Well, I had a clarifying question. Go ahead. Uh, Council Jane.

Um, yeah. So, uh, I'm confused about like if we were to repair the fountains, wouldn't that just come from the capital fund that's been accumulating, the 14,200 um that would just pay for the capital repairs of that? Now, of course, the water and the electricity would come out of this um you know, operating fund, but do the owners have to vote on repairing the fountains?

Uh if I can if I can answer that question. So, I I when I was referring to the owner's voting, it was really related to the potential for a new restroom. So, um, in terms of the fountain being an existing asset to bring it back into operation would likely come out of the capital fund, wouldn't need the owner's approval, but we would want to make sure they understand as the ownership that this is what where the money's getting spent. I'm still confused. Capital do all capital expenses, if we want to repay the parking lots, does that require approval of the owners?

So, Let me um clarify. Maintenance or repair of all existing facilities uh in the common areas or the parking lots that the city owns does not require approval of from the property owners. What requires approval from the property owners is increasing their assessment portion which um was noted that they in the last election they have the vast majority of the vote. The city is outnumbered. uh they have capped their contributions uh in total for all property owners at around $13,000 or adding an asset to the capital maintenance plan would require a vote of the property owners. And so that was in reference to your restroom question. Now potentially there's a nuance there if the if the city was not asking the property owners to help contribute toward restrooms, you know, would we need um their approval? That's a question that we can re that that we can research if if desired.

Thank you. All right, we're gonna go out to the public. Uh we have one member of the public, Anthony Becker.

Hello, council. Um I was a former council member here uh when we talked about this item. Uh, I know that for sure when we did have this item presented, um, as it was, um, it was supposed to be about the convention center, about charging for parking for the convention center. Nowhere in there was about Franklin Mall. I know specifically I spoke about Franklin Mall uh, should be paying their fair share. Just a quick Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Some issues over here. Sorry, timer.

All right. Go ahead. So, I I I realize that this issue has been very controversial recently that it's I think it's taking something out of context. When we voted on issues about the Franklin Mall, it was about making Franklin Mall uh uh tenants pay a little more of a fair share instead of the city taking on the cost. It wasn't about creating paid parking for the the for the location of Franklin Mall. So, when I look at it this way is I I never agreed to that. I think it's stupid that we would be paying for parking in Franklin Mall. However, we were looking at the issue of in the convention center. I know council member Jane and I, we may have disagreed on a lot of this issue together, but I sided with him on it because I wanted to have a discussion about a further elaboration of what we can get into because remember when he tried to put some things these things on the agenda, we couldn't get into the details. So, in order to discuss it, you have to put it on the agenda. So, when we did decide about moving forward with Franklin Mall, I said no, maybe they should pay a little more of a fair share. No paid parking options. However, when it comes to the convention center, that's where we should look in the options. I said something about maybe 90 minutes or something, free parking, and then you start paying for it. I know again, Council Member Jane and I differed on a lot of these things, but when we go back in our in time and look at this, it wasn't about pushing for uh paid parking in Franklin Mall. And I think that is a very disturbing rumor that keeps going around that keeps being pushed uh that council member Jane was pushing for this. No, he wanted convention center parking. He wanted, you know, a fair share. I wanted a fair share in the Franklin Mall, but it wasn't about making them uh uh the public going out there and pay for uh public parking. Um and again, uh I think I'm concerned as well as council margin is is how did this become an issue? Uh and I don't know even know why we're having discussion about the fountains and why they're not on. They should be on. They should they should have been on. Uh so again, uh looking into history, Council Member Jane never asked for paid

parking. I never asked for paid parking. We wanted stuff in the convention center and Franklin Wall just needed us pay there first. So, thank you. We have uh David Curtis and then after that we're going to have Mark and Kathy Kelsey.

Okay. Good evening. Uh I was going to say Mayor Gilmore, but she's not here. City council and city staff. My name is David Curtis and I'm a resident of District 5. Uh, I'm here tonight because I cannot understand why we are still considering spending 180,000 of taxpayer money on paid parking at Franklin Mall. Back in October 2025, more than a hundred residents attended the meeting that we had and overwhelming everybody said no, we did not want this. We don't want to spend 180,000. It's not a good use of money, taxpayer money. Um, the proposal is a bad deal for Santa Clara. It will lose money. You're going to have to do upkeep. If you're going to put it in, things are going to get broken. Uh, it'll push overflow into parking into surrounding neighborhoods, and it'll hurt small businesses at Franklin Mall and the Saturday's farmers market. And despite the impact on residents, the city never conducted a proper survey to gather community feedback. That's something that we need to make sure we do better job in the future. What makes this even more frustrating is the inconsistency. So, city manager Javon and potentially city council members now are willing to spend $180,000 on parking plan residents do not want. Yet, we they opposed spending a similar amount to return the Fourth of July fireworks to Central Park. That something residents overwhelmingly did want. Tonight, the council has an opportunity to correct the course. Several me members failed to listen to residents on fireworks location and on the $20 million decision to move city hall. That pattern of not listening and wasting taxpayer dollars is exactly why I'm running for mayor in Santa Clara in November. You now have the chance to show residents that their voices matter. You need to vote no on paid parking at Franklin Mall. Show the community that you hear them and that their input still counts in this city. We had Bill Wilson uh center out here uh at the last meeting looking for funding. Why don't we just use this $180,000 that's burning in your pocket that you want to waste and give it to charity and other places that can use the money correctly? Thank you very much for your

time. Thank you. We have Max and and uh Kathy Kelsey. Are they online?

Hi, this is Mark Kelsey. Um and I I I want to say first of all that that that the council needs to vote no on this item and redirect the 180,000 to improving Franklin Mall. The community feedback has been consistently negative on charging for parking in Franklin Mall. No need to do a study of it. Secondly, um the the city should be ashamed of its current parking management in the areas around downtown quad. There is virtually no parking enforcement. So, put in parking meters and we're going to start charging. There's no parking enforcement. This is ludicrous. And if we're willing to spend $180,000, let's spend $180,000 to clean up Franklin Mall. Let's get the fountains working again. Over the weekend, the Old Quad Resident Association held the Easter egg hunt at the farmers market on Saturday. We had to spend a significant amount of time cleaning up the common area. There's so much that could be done with $180,000 at Franklin Mall. This is ludicrous. And I urge the council to vote no.

Thank you. All right. So, we have a uh we'll go back to council here. Council member Shahal, board member Gonzalez, we have a new raised hand on Zoom.

All right, hold that thought. Council member Michelle Hall. We have uh number 4440. Please address the council. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh this is Kathy Watanabi. Uh I'm calling in because I want to express uh my concerns about the paid parking in downtown uh Santa Clara. Uh when I served on the city council, this was never uh a discussion. This was never an issue. Uh the people have spoken. I mean there have been enough council uh there have been enough community meetings for people to express how they feel about paid parking. I have talked to enough residents in district five who expressed how they are opposed to paid parking in downtown Santa Clara. This is a no-brainer. This is an opportunity for the city council to be able to stand up and support the residents of district 5, to support the small businesses, to support the farmers market on on Saturdays and be able to say that this is not the time for paid parking in downtown Santa Clara. It has never been an issue discussed in the past. It is an issue to be discussed now. Right now, there is not the um development in downtown Santa Clara that would warrant the uh opportunity for paid parking in

downtown Santa Clara. Let's focus on that $180,000 being focused on um developing business in downtown Santa Clara. Let's develop the future, the economic development that is important to our downtown instead of putting in paid parking. Let's support our small businesses. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh we have uh Linda. Go ahead, Linda.

Yes. Um, this is not unpaid parking. This is about the fountains and I um would I understand fountains look very nice and I really miss the fountains. On the other hand, I don't think that in drought situations we can have water. What I would like to see is something else. whether Christmas lights or whatever, something that looks nice. And you can actually ask some of the artists around, how can we make this uh that used to be a fountain, how can we make it beautiful? Just a little bit of tweaking to make it look really nice. Both the round world dome or whatever, and the fountain in front of the um the post office um and the one in front of city hall. It's like they could look nice and not be filled with water that we don't have. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Linda. We'll come back to council. So, we have uh council member Jal.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I just want to bring this false notion that council member chain wanted a parking paid parking at the Franklin Mall. As he mentioned in his 030, it was very clear it was referred to the convention center parking lot only. And uh if you look at the major convention centers almost everywhere they charge the parking and council member Jane was very right if we don't have funds to maintain a facility it can deteriorate and the one good example we already seen was the swim center how the international swim center went down the drain and because we didn't had the maintenance regular maintenance and we and allocate funds for the maintenance of that. So this notion that council member Jane wants to have a paid parking at Franklin Mall is wrong and it's not on record. Nothing is on record on that. Uh I think this study uh council member u city manager mentioned that convention center parking fixing the parking problem over there is easy. If it is that easy, let's focus on that and let's do it. And I know I was in a recent um cities conference, some league of city conference or somewhere there are vendors available where cities does not have to invest anything. They provide all the infrastructure and city gets into the sharing mode. Basically, I think we should look at those type of uh contractors where they implement everything. We don't spend anything on the study. We don't spend anything on

the infrastructure and we start getting paid x% of whatever. I don't know the details but we should be looking at that and for that matter and uh I know I did receive some calls about Franklin Mall uh parking and uh I did not recall that council ever mentioned that thing that we should have a paid parking at the Franklin Mall. I know staff mentioned that it was on the council priority session. uh maybe I'm missing part of it or something, but I specifically I never recall that um council at least I did not um recall that I asked for a paid parking study at the Franklin Mall for that matter and u multiple um residents meetings have incurred uh I've spoken to the business owners over there and uh Nobody wants the paid parking over there because unless we build up redevelop our whole downtown and that will be a big project and at that time we can find out options what we can do for the bigger picture what we can do but as of now have a parking study for Franklin Mau is not what I think we should do and u with that I'll be ready to make a motion that uh we should be uh um not recommending this thing. $180,000 for the parking at uh parking study at Franklin Mall. I'd be ready,

but I have a comment. Yeah. All right. So, we have a motion and second. So, that's to not support staff recommendation. You're not you're not talking about either B or E just in general.

And and rightly so. Multiple comments have come that we should be if we have this fund I know it's not on the agenda today but if we have these funds allocated for budgeted or spending 180,000 I think we should spend this money to upkeep the Franklin Mall as requested by residents as well as council member Jane if we can improve the fountain or add a restroom or something like that. Thank you. But that's a different agenda item which can be brought forward down the line. I'm not taking that up today. Thank you. All right. So, can we have council member Hardy? I had a comment after my second

chair. All right. Council member Jane.

Yeah. Um, you know, I mentioned this book by UCLA professor Donald Shupe, uh, the high cost to free parking. And there are two models for parking in uh Redwood City has paid parking. It's a park once model and then you just walk around. It's paid parking. Sunnyvale, they actually have a community district and all of the businesses contribute to that and then that subsidizes the parking. I don't want to do paid parking at this time because we're redeveloping the downtown. And I expect at $50,000 a spot, we'll need $20 million to build a parking structure. And at that time, we should look at how we're going to recover and maintain that parking structure because we have failed to do so at the convention center. We failed to put aside money for the swim center. Uh we need to have a plan for how we're going to do parking once the downtown is further along. Uh at the Franklin Mall, I don't still don't know what problem we're trying to solve. I wish the uh owners, the property owners, uh would come back to, you know, something like a 50% or a 30% share in the operations and maintenance costs. But we can't force them to do that. that's they have pretty much sole authority to decide how much they want to contribute which is why I have again and again reserve the right to dissolve this maintenance district because the the current agreement is all in favor of the property owners the private property owners

so I'm not supporting this moment this um $180,000 expenditure at this time um we had a number of things in our budget where, you know, we talked about CDBG funds and we talked about government funds being really reduced. I'd actually prefer to put this into subsidized housing to prevent people from getting homeless. But, you know, um I think at this time, uh doing this study doesn't make sense. Uh certainly makes sense as we get further along with the downtown. Thank you. All right. So, we do have a motion in a second. Councilwoman Hardy.

Thank you. Um I was going to second it, but Council Member Jane was a little bit faster. I will say that when we first saw this, it had both of the parking studies together and this has been bifurcated. And it sounds like listening to the city manager that there's no study needed that we recognize that we need to have paid parking at our convention center which I don't think there's any problems about. I will help people very quickly with the fountains. There is now a state law since the last drought that public fountains cannot use potable water unless they are a closed loop. You may either have reclaimed water or a closed loop or both, but that's the only way uh those fountains could be back on is if they were set up in that manner, and they are not at this point. Thank you,

Councilwoman Cox.

Thank you. Um and I'm supportive of uh Council Member Chahal's motion as well um to not move forward on these items. I think what I'd like to understand is again the maintenance district 122 and 183 operate independently and so it sounds like we don't need a study for the convention center but have we assessed what we would be making to offset those costs and does the mechanism then just offset the general fund or does it allow for as far as I understand it one maintenance district can't support the other so the money that we would make off convention center parking can't then offset the costs that we're occurring ing um at the Franklin Mall parking. However, uh it gives us flexibility within the general fund. My follow-up question to that, and I'm sorry to belabor the point, is again, if uh we choose not to put this 180,000 into the study, do we have flexibility with that money as council member Jane said to look at um sustainable housing or anything, or is it going to be money that must go back into the the maintenance district? Thank you. Sure. Um, a few questions there. One, uh, you're absolutely right. One maintenance district cannot subsidize another. Uh, the city does own the convention center. It does operate as an enterprise, but the city has contributed funds to support its its operations from the general fund. We have not yet determined what the parking rates at the convention center would be. that is a part of the the scope of work uh that is that is coming in the future. With regard to the future revenue raise there um that will certainly come before the city council in future budgets. I will say at a staff level uh we've looked at the convention center needs and we talk about that on on uh almost an annual basis when we do the budget. The reality is the convention center is over 40 years old. Uh it needs significant capital

improvements. we were not able to fully fund the capital improvement needs at the convention center uh for the garage or the building. And so uh certainly uh the recommendations that staff would bring to you is that as we're setting the parking rates, set them at market base rates uh and utilize the revenue to uh support operations and maintenance as well as some of those unfunded capital improvement projects, many of which are going to have to be done. And so if we don't raise the money uh from within the convention center, it would likely need to come from the general fund or another source of potentially new revenue. And so, you know, potentially it has a defraining uh cost effect. With regard to the $180,000, uh this was actually transferring money from the public buildings capital fund to the maintenance district because the maintenance district does not have the $180 uh,000. And so that money would stay in the public uh buildings capital fund that we use to repair uh city facilities. So, um, and certainly all of those items that council members mentioned, you know, needing additional funding for, as we have our budget conversations, we will we will discuss those. Thank you,

Council Member Park. Yeah, I mean I was also there during the council meetings when we uh talked about this and I think one of the provinces we discussed as council member Hardy suggested uh items 4K and 4G at the same time which was one was convention center one was the Franklin Mall and when we talked about the convention center we talked about parking and paid parking and that's where the conversation started. When we got to the the Franklin Mall, we were talking about how do we get the owners to pay a little bit more money and and everyone talks about small businesses, but let's be honest here. I mean, the small businesses that own the parcels on Franklin and Franklin Mall are not small businesses. I mean, they're some of the oldest and wealthiest uh land owners in this city and in other cities in this area. And I think that uh the recusals that people make, they're not just for Franklin Mall. they'd have to make recusals lots of places because they again are some of the largest land owners um some of the wealthiest people in this city. Um the options came up for Franklin Mall. I believe it was our city attorney that brought these up. Basically said that there were other ways options to dissolution because the question at that time was can we dissolve this maintenance district? But we even if we dissolve this maintenance district and we created a new one, there was no way to get owners to to join this new maintenance district. So the city attorney said there were other options. Paid parking areas to cover costs which takes study to determine fees. People may may park in the neighborhoods. Uh reduce the maintenance and upkeep, not necessarily recommending this. Conversations with property owners, ask them to consider an amendment to the district in lie of dissolution. Um, but again, I think that one of the issues is the owners, if they're not willing, I mean, they've got a good deal. I don't know why, um, you know, an owner that's only spending onetenth of the cost of the upkeep would want to spend more than

that unless they were actually Santa Clarins who cared about the, uh, upkeep of the of downtown. Uh, we talk about, well, we don't have enough businesses there. We don't have the critical mass that we need for the parking. And I'm I'm thinking, well, that's it's been five years since I've been on council where we've been working on downtown. And these are the things that could have been done, could have been decided by now, but here we are five years later with with no movement on downtown and no resolution for this parking maintenance district. I do know that city manager at that time was telling us about Silicon Valley Power. I believe that Silicon Valley Power was looking into um working with a company to provide charging vehicle charging stations that could bring in additional revenue and um any action on that night would could have affected that deal. Um I don't know where we are with that. Um again um city city attorney brought up once again the item once the item is dissolved there would be parking fee. We can reduce the maintenance level but you cannot make the owners pay. And again, we talk about the owners as small business owners. And maybe the small businesses are leasing leasing the um the stores that uh the land owners actually have, but the land owners themselves are the ones that should be paying more into the upkeep of their area of the the place that they're very proud of in downtown. Um, I think that even council member Hardy said it's we want to make sure that we we know what we can and we cannot do. There were options that were brought up, but these were not options that were pursued. It was a strange situation where the city owns 2/3 of the property in that area, but is is is paying 90% of the costs. It was a very strange um idea. Um, property can be sold. I think that uh city manager talked about the property could be sold because in

2002 the city put up the option of selling the land. Um and uh there was a question of whether or not we had an agreement with the land owners that prevented us from selling the land. But I think that we can sell the land at at some point we need to look at all the options. But the options that we look at, I mean, if we want to be good to the residents and good to the city, have to consider what does a vibrant downtown, what does a place where people want to work, shop, walk, go to, take pictures, what does that look like? And these are the things that are being lost in the discussions of, well, how do we make incremental money? Um, again, I I think that if we can come up with a great project for what we can do there, everybody would be on board with that. And I would hope that the land owners would be supportive of having a vibrant downtown, having something great in our city where currently we have a lot of expenses. We have a lot of costs. I'm very happy with um the comments about the fountains. I think that we can have fountains and something beautiful without water as well. If we do have water, um you know, I think about pumps. I think about lots of things that can break. I would rather have something that looks beautiful, maybe even interactive for for children and families. But again, we're losing the larger picture of this is supposed to be downtown. We should be doing everything we can to support a vibrant downtown in that area. So that ultimately if we come to questions about parking or where we put parking or how much people pay for parking, those will be those those won't be things that we argue about. There'll be things that people say, "Yes, this is what we need because holy cow, we've got a gem here." Thank you.

Thank you. Um just make a quick comment. Typically uh when you go to conferences for for council or in my previous life on school board, you learn different things. And the one thing that that uh that was mentioned at that conference in a in October was that there's no free parking. Obviously, the city's paying for some of this. the uh downtown parking maintenance district fund is paying for some of this, but there's no free parking. Even though it's the clients, the constituents, you know, our residents might not be paying for this, but somebody's paying for this. But I I will support this this uh this motion. Um I think that there's other ways that we can find uh monies to to deal with this in the future. Some of them have been stated probably, but um assistant city clerk, can we uh take the vote?

Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Yes. Council member Shahal. Yes. Council member Hardy. Yes. I'm sorry. Was that a yes or a no? Yes. Yes. Council member Park. Yes. Council member Jane. Yes. And there's no one in the room with me. Council Cox. Yes. So, that motion carries unanimously with uh Mayor Gilmore reclusing herself. Sir, we're going to take a five minute break. We'll be back at 9:45. We're going to grab her and then uh if you got to go to the bathroom or anything, please do it now. Thank you.

Thank you everyone for your patience. Our next item is item number seven, which is a public hearing action on appeal PLN26-000094 of a project located at 2892 Mosquite Drive for planning commission's affirmation of an approval of an architectural review permit PLN25-000056. decision from the development review hearing for a 621q foot first floor addition and a 397 square foot second floor addition to an existing two-story 281q ft single family residence with a 500 square f foot attached garage on a 7351qt lot squa status exempt from squa per section 15301. Uh this items comes to the city council following the December 10th, 2025 development review hearing at which the development review officer approved the proposed addition which was then appealed by the neighboring residents Serin Spino and Andrea Cosman and the February 11th, 2026 planning commission public hearing at which the commission voted 4 to three to approve the proposed addition subject to conditions which was again appealed by the neighboring residents. So this is a public hearing which I will now declare to be open. Uh but before we begin the presentations, do any council members have any disclosures they would like to make regarding exparte communications. Uh Vin, I can't see the the screen here for people that want to speak. I'm sorry. Sorry, I know you're doing two things now.

My screen went off. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Vinn. All right. Do any council members have to make any disclosures? No. All right. Seeing none, at this time I would like to ask for the staff presentation. Sure. Thank you, mayor. Uh, I'll invite community director Asha Hamid to the podium to give tonight's presentation. Also note that you will have a presentation by the appellant as well as the applicant tonight. All right, very good. Thank you. Welcome. Uh it is now. There you go.

Okay. Thank you. Uh good evening, mayor and council members. I will just get right into the presentation for tonight. Um so tonight what you are hearing is an appeal. Uh and this is an appeal of the planning commission's decision of the development review hearing. Uh the project is actually an existing twostory uh 2 uh 81 square foot home and the homeowner wishes to add an addition. They're doing an addition to the first floor which is 680 square ft and they also wish to add a um addition to the second floor which is 282 square ft. Uh the council tonight is the final review authority on any architectural review of a single family residence. Um I do want to clarify something here. Um since this project went to the design uh design review hearing uh the applicant has slightly increased the request that you are hearing tonight and the reason for that is there is a uh office on the first floor in the rear and they've slightly widened that office and I will explain more of that as we go into the slides, but I wanted you to know that there's a slight increase tonight in the request. So, uh, pursuant to the Santa Clara City Code, uh, the council will hear this, uh, project tonight as a denovo hearing. Uh, that means that any issues or

concerns that are raised are not limited to those that are already raised by the appellant. The city council can affirm, vacate, or reverse any previous decisions. And in addition, new conditions of approval may be added. Or you may also decide that you want to revert this and send this back to either the design review hearing or that you want the planning commission to resolve this. Okay. So, this is the background of the project and it's also the timeline. Um, the project uh the applicant, which is the property owner, uh they submitted an application in July 2025. In October of 2025, it was deemed complete. In other words, they had all their checklist items and it could move forward. In this case, it was uh the entitlements were through a development review hearing, and I'm going to explain why and what that means. And then in November of 2025, uh at the scheduled hearing, which is called DR, uh because of technicalities for the Zoom, uh it was rescheduled to a December meeting. at the December meeting uh the DRRO which is the development review officer which is like staff level appealed the decision. Now the DRRO is a notified um public hearing. Uh so the DRRO at that time determined that um it was meeting all development standards and approved the project. The neighbor appealed that decision. That appeal went up to the planning commission and in February the planning commission

affirmed the staff level DRRO decision u by a vote of 4 to three and the neighbor is now appealing the planning commission's decision uh to city council. I do want to explain something here. I want to pause. Uh why is a single family home uh coming before the DR uh which is um uh a public hearing? So, in our Santa Clara city code, the zoning code, um a single family home will come to the design review hearing, which is a public meeting, but it's a staff level and it could the reason it's coming is because um they're doing either a second story or they're doing five bedrooms or they're doing five bathrooms or in this case they're doing an addition to the second story. So that's why it instead of being done at a staff level it was moved up to the next level which is DR. So a little bit about the existing site and the neighborhood. Uh this slide um shows that the uh home is in an existing subdivision which is off Prune Ridge and Kylie Boulevard. The subdivision is in conformance with the general plan and the zoning the zoning is R1-6L. So it's very low density residential and it's single family residential. The surrounding uses are all single family. And a little bit about the subdivision. Uh the subdivision was uh laid out in

1962. Uh and the home was most likely constructed shortly after probably 1962 as well. Um and so were many of the homes in this neighborhood. The layout of the subdivision is typical with interior streets, culde-sacs, and this allows for a variation of lot designs with some rectangular and some pies-shaped lots. Um, the subdivision is thoughtfully laid out with also one-story and twostory homes. And so there's many twostory homes already peppered throughout this subdivision. So the home at 2891 MSI and the subdivision as I said was probably around 1960s early 1960s and I want to next talk about the development standards. Um in your packets um there is an attachment too that has a detailed listing of all the development standards. However, this chart summarizes the key development standards for single family homes. Uh, the applicant is meeting the development standards in the R1- 6L zoning district. Um I first want to point out the um uh what the first row here means percentage of second floor to first floor. Um, and there is a requirement in our zoning code which when you do a second story addition, that second story addition cannot exceed 66% of the first floor. So what does that mean? If you're doing a

th00and square foot first floor, then the second floor is limited to 660 square ft. So there is a uh objective development standard that sets that articulates the mass and a step back already for the second story. Um and then the second row here is the building coverage and here the requirement is 40%. Um the applicant is actually proposing 34%. So, what is what is a building coverage? The building coverage basically is anything on the lot that is not green. So, that could consist of the garage, the home, um, a shed, a sheed. So when you add all those up that in this case with the new proposal it adds up to 34% where 40 40% maximum is allowed and I want to walk you through the setbacks as well. So in this column the required setbacks are listed and in this column the proposed setbacks are listed. So the first floor um is 20 feet is what is required for the setback and the proposed is 20 feet. That means from the street all the way back to the nearest um nearest uh foundation line. So like the garage or you know a living room space. So that would be 20 ft. on the second floor. Um they are proposing 37 feet where 25 feet is required.

And then I do want to explain the left side and the right side. Um the left the left side um they're maintaining five feet even with the proposed and the required is 5T. The second floor requires 10 feet and they're well within that with 9 feet 3 in. The right side which is the side that faces the appellant. Um the required is 5 feet and the applicant is proposing 8 feet. And on the second floor um 10 feet is required and the applicant is proposing 10 feet. And so I will explain uh what that is as well. On the rear, 20 ft is required. The rear is like the backyard. So 20 ft is required and they're proposing 22 feet 9 in on the first floor. And on the second floor, 20 feet again is required. And they're actually proposing uh almost 40 feet. So 39 feet 9 in. And the height is within the code. So they're maintaining um 25 foot height with the first and second story and the roof line. So just to give you some uh imagery and some context of what we are talking about um this is um the red is the owner's home and the yellow is the appellant's home. Um the existing home is twostory. Uh and that's been in place since 1962. Um, this is a the the appellant home is a one-story home. Um, they're both uh

pies-shaped lots because they're on the curve of Mosquite. Um, and again, this is another street view of the same. This is an aerial uh and it's a closeup aerial uh of the of the project. So, this is the homeowner's um property and then this is the appellants property. Um oops, didn't mean for that to happen. Um so, a little bit before I get into the site plan, um what the homeowner is proposing to do is put a guest bedroom here. They're also proposing to do a um office back here. And then they're proposing to do an extension up here. And the extension will consist of a master bedroom suite, a bathroom, um that there is an existing attic over there. Um and they also would like to put um an AC unit in their sideyard. Um and that's where there is an existing AC unit. So I just want to um go through the site plan. Um this is the existing site plan and then the proposed site plan. Uh the proposed is 621 square foot uh addition and it does include an office. So the office is here in the backyard. It actually maintains the line where the existing family room is right here. So it maintains that line. It maintains the setback right here. Um, and then the homeowner is doing a new entry feature and they're also doing a new guest bedroom right here. They're proposing an 8ft setback here where 5T

is required. Uh, 20 foot front yard setback is required and they're doing 23 feet setback. Um, I also Okay. Just make sure I cover all my notes here. Um, a little bit about the um AC unit that they're proposing in the sideyard. There is an existing AC unit here already. So, they're proposing to put the new AC unit in the uh sideyard setback. Um, noise. Uh, there will be noise uh about 55 dBA based on the manufacturer specs. Um, well, what does that mean? That's considered like conversational noise, like when one person is speaking to another person. So, it's not, you know, a loud manufacturing type of AC unit. Um, another item to note is that there's a fence. The fence went in um I believe in February or March. Um, that fence is along here and that's an allowed fence. We allow that regardless. That fence is six feet and plus you're allowed an additional 1 foot lattice on top of it. So, it's a 7 foot fence. I'm going to just let this pause. I think it's on spring break. Um, okay. It's not moving. All right. Uh can you advance the slide? Thank you. Okay. So this um this slide is basically shows the existing

floor plan, the first floor plan, what was approved at the design review hearing and what they're proposing tonight uh and at the planning commission. Um, so the main thing is that at the design review they were proposing 685 square ft. Tonight they're requesting 680 square ft. The proposed addition is in the back. This is the the office. It's 226 square ft. It's been uh expanded to 241 square ft. It's widened, but they are maintaining the setbacks. This is um the guest room in the front. It's 255 square ft. They have reduced it to 239 square ft. Um, so the setback for the guest bedroom on the right side, it does remain at the 8 ft uh which was what was presented at the planning commission as well. This is the second floor plan. Uh this is the existing uh this is what went to the design review hearing. Um the second floor is basically for a master bedroom uh master bedroom, bathroom and a walk-in closet. Since that time uh they have reduced the request and they're now at 282 square ft. They're maintaining the master bedroom suite. The slight modification here is where there's the entrance. They're u making it a twostory so it's open to below um and it becomes an architectural feature.

So this is what was presented um at the design review hearing is on the left and here's the modified um at the planning commission and what they're presenting tonight. This is a reference uh of the renderings um and this is what was presented at the planning commission. Uh this was what was presented at the design review hearing. Uh this is what they are requesting tonight.

Could you please advance the slide? Thank you. So the summary of the proposed changes uh the total addition at the design review was 1,082 square feet. what they're proposing today is 6 962 square feet. Um the rear office edition has expanded. Uh so it went from 226 to 241. The guest bedroom has been reduced from 255 to 239. Um the guest bedroom front setback went from 21t 8 in. It's increased to two 22 feet 9 in. So more of a setback now. So the consistency with the general plan um staff has determined that the project is consistent with the Santa Clara general plan uh because 66% of the first floor area and the sidewalls of the second story addition are set back. Uh it also implements uh the site design solutions such as landscaping and increased building setbacks. Um the first story addition on the front is set back more than what is required by the code and also creates articulation and it preserves the development pattern in the neighborhood. consistency with the zoning code, staff has determined that the proposed project does also comply with the R1 dash um 6L zoning district. Um and essentially because it meets the f first story setbacks and the second story setbacks for the new construction and also the height is the maximum is allowed is 25 ft and it's meeting the height as well. And it's also consistent with the design

guidelines as it's compatible in scale and character with housing that's typical in that neighborhood. And there's also other additions in that neighborhood um recent additions. And the design protects the neighboring sight lines and the second story does not exceed 66% of the first floor. Um, in regards to the sightelines, the city of Santa Clara does not have a viewshed or sight lines in the general plan or the zoning code. The city actually uses setbacks and stepbacks as an objective standard to ensure air, light, privacy, and safety from fire are met. uh and this maintains the desirable characteristic of the neighborhood through objective standards. Um so in this case through the setbacks as well as the 66 percentage rule for the second floor is the objective standard um where it creates those sight lines. So the appellants request is when this project did go to the design review uh hearing there were two conditions of approval that were added P3 and P4 in that the proposed guest bedroom adhere to prevailing development patterns in the subdivision and that the proposed guest bedroom provide greater front and sideyard setback. The setback shall preserve the existing sight line of the adjacent properties. And then P4, which is the front yard um front yard landscaping, that bushes and code compliant hedges shall be added to the front yard. Um so the appellant desires that these should be measurable um conditions of approval. So the

conditions of approval are measurable because they are um in our stepbacks and stepbacks already. Um please advance the slide please.

Thank you. So, public outreach, uh, public hearing notices were mailed to homeowners within 300 foot. Um, and so that 67 homeowners or tenants. Um, and there was a um, the appellant uh, did provide a comment letter and the comment was regarding the massing and the size of the proposal and how it would impact privacy. And then a community meeting was not required for this project because um it it's not under our Santa Clara public outreach policy. And then since that uh notice went out, we did hear from two other we did receive two other comment letters. Uh and they're from two property owners that are in the back. And the comment letters are basically um about the seconds story impacts to their privacy. uh the project is found to be categorically exempt from SQL guidelines section 15301 uh because of the size of the um existing structure and the new structure as well. It's so finicky tonight. Okay, here we go. Uh the recommendation for 2892 MSK Drive is determine the project to be exempt from SQUA uh section 15301 and also to affirm the planning commission's decision uh to approve the architecture review uh at 2892 MSK Drive for a 680 square foot first floor edition and 282 square foot second floor edition. um to an existing single family residence and staff is here to take any

comments or questions. Um and that is it. And then we also have uh the homeowners presentation and we also have the appellant here tonight who would like to make a presentation as well. So is at this time uh city council are there any questions for the director or any other staff? And as a reminder, questions only please. Council member Hardy.

Thank you. I'm trying to remember the number of the Senate bill, but if I remember, it was a couple of years ago. It is possible in an R1 for someone to split the lot, build two two houses and even put an um accessory dwelling unit on each one of those. Is that correct? I'm going to take questions before I respond to yours. Our council knows that. All right. Um, Council Member Cox,

um, I believe in some of the notes about this, it was mentioned again that there was, uh, a unique design element to this one that said that, uh, perhaps the sighteline preservation would be um, compromised due to again, I think the pies-shaped wedging on that. I don't think that in the presentation we spoke to the unique design element piece of it besides recognizing that it was the corner lot. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez. from the presentation and the material, it seems that this complies fully with our our um I was going to say use plan, but but with our uh requirements and um just to confirm that and uh that was all I had.

Thank you, Council Member Jane. Um, yeah, the existing is 281 square feet and at one point I think you said they were proposing uh 1,082 square feet which would have been more than 50% adder to what they have now. Can you explain to us does that trigger some sort of requirements for upgrades to appliances etc when you add more than 50%. That's all I had. Thank you, Council Member Park.

Yeah, I was going to ask about that as well. I believe that if there's a certain amount of um like percentage added to a house, it uh triggers some other other requirements. Uh, I don't know if it also does um I don't know if curb cuts come into this, but curb cuts have been a a real big issue for people doing um upgrades to the houses. I I also wanted to know about the second floor, it sounds like I mean when I look at the picture on slide 11, it looks like the proposed square footage is actually larger. I mean, the red area is larger than the previous square footage, but it's being claimed to be smaller because it's open space. Uh, I guess if I just took my roof and I lifted my roof, um, keeping the sight lines but not building any structures there, that that would be compliant. That would be adding zero square feet and that would be allowed. I guess that's my question. But and then second, what does I mean I'm going to take a look at the adjunct material, but what does the the the difference in the seconds story design look like compared to the first story design? Is there is there anything that has that? Thank you.

That's it for the questions. Do you need some time, director?

Oh, absolutely not. Here we go. Okay. So, um, Council Member Hardy, your question was, uh, there's a law that allows, uh, you to split the lot and also to build an ADU. That law is SB9, and that allows for a lot split. Um, and it also allows, yes, well, not that law, but a separate law. Many laws now allow you to streamline ADU approvals. Um, and that's allowed by the state. If you split the lot, I think you can add two ADUs to each lot as well. Um, Council Member Cox, um, you're correct. I, um, should cover the unique design element. Um, and let me cover that a little bit. Uh, let me go back. So um the existing subdivision was done in 1962. What the existing subdivision did was lay out all the streets. When you lay out all the street, it also lay out lays out all the lots. Um so with the streets and the lots the way they were designed back in the 60s and even today, um it's typical design of subdivisions. It allows for rectangular lots as well as pies-shaped lots. Um, and so when you're placing the home on each of these lots, there's some variability and it actually creates interest because not everything is lined up exact. And in this case, this subdivision allowed for one-story homes, two-story homes, which allowed for a lot of interest as well. Uh so

this subdivision design is um pretty typical and pretty standard of many subdivision designs uh and also pretty typical of how subdivision designs are done even today. Um and your other question was about the sighteline preservation. Um so our city code does not have anything our general plan and our uh zoning code does not have anything specific on like viewshed cord viewshed corridors or sight lines. But what our zoning code does is it has setbacks and stepbacks. So the step back is when you do a second story addition, it must be 66% of the first floor addition. So that step back kind of reduces the bulk and the mass and allows for those sight lines to be created through a very objective standard. And then we also have setbacks. And the setbacks uh in this case uh are five feet and five feet on the side and what they are proposing is actually eight feet uh adjacent to the appellant. So and then what you will notice is as you look at the subdivision in some cases um the setbacks appear to be more narrower. So this is the appellant. This is the homeowner. Uh there's this setback here I is like over 8 feet. What they're proposing here would also be 8 feet. And in some cases because of the the way the lots are um

the zoning code is very objective. So regardless of whether it's pieshaped or whether it's rectangular, you need to maintain that five foot setback. So it makes it very objective. Um regardless of whether it's pies-shaped or on a corner. Uh council member Gonzalez, you asked whether the project complies with all development standards. Yes, it I'm confirming that it appi it complies with all development standards. Uh, Council Member Jane, um, Council Member Jane, um, the 281 square feet. Let me see if I can go back uh to the go forward. Okay. Could you please move it forward to the summary of the proposed changes? Thank you. Right there. So, what they're proposing is um they're proposing 680 square feet on the first floor. That 680 square feet consists of a 241 square foot office, 239 square foot guest bedroom, and then a porch and an entrance. The second story is 282 square ft. Um, so the overall initially was 1,082 square ft. what they're now proposing as a total is 962 square feet. So they've reduced it from

when it was initially submitted to what is being presented today. Uh and then you asked about the 50% upgrade to appliances. Um that would probably it would it would be a building code requirement. Um adding square foot footage can trigger some mandatory appliance and energy efficiency upgrades but that depends on the side of size of the addition and that would be handled through the building code. Uh and then council member Park, you asked about curb cuts. Uh and that's a valid question. Uh in this case, they are not touching the driveway or the public right away. They're basically maintaining their addition and their square footage on their private property, so it would not impact the curb cuts. And then uh you asked about the proposed um open space, the larger square footage. I think I think that was in reference to the entryway. So just an explanation on the entryway. Um can you go back to um the second floor? One more right there. So what what they're doing is um previously there was a entryway proposed. What they're doing now is that entryway is still propose but they're just creating more of like a volume space. This is not livable space. This is where a stairway comes up and goes up to this the second floor. So because it's not a livable

space, it's not counted twice. It is counted to the overall square footage, but it's just count it's just a volume space. It's to create architectural interest. Um, so it's not counted twice. Um, and then you asked about the difference in the second floor design. I wasn't sure about that question. I I mean if you look at this picture right here the um the part in red actually looks much larger even if you take out the open to below the PC's approval the two 282 agree so I I guess the question is how how is that how is that space

the 282 how is that larger red area I understand there's an open two below smaller than the correct 297 like how is it smaller yeah I understand okay So, um, thank you. Thank you for that observation. And when you say that there's no livable space, like maybe there's no room there, but is there there are hallways? There are other things that that count the things that count towards towards, you know, floor space,

any any livable space, including hallways, uh, would count. Uh, in this case, it's just a volume space, so it does not count towards that square footage. It's just open. It's just a design feature. It's just interest. And then I do want to explain what happened here. Um so when this project came to the design review officer there they had an architect. Since then their architect has changes changed. Um so they've the architectural the architect style has changed. So, for example, in this one, you see the roof and you see kind of like where the tile roof would go. In this one, uh the new architect didn't include all that, but they would probably include it in a roof plan. Um, so that's why there's like a uh a difference, but staff is measuring this and based on measurements and square footage, it's 282 square feet. even though visually um it's off because of the drawing styles.

Are you finished with your answers? Thank you so much. Uh we are going to now move to the appellants uh Saurin and Andrea who have up to 10 minutes to give us a presentation. So when you're ready, please come forward. Yes. So when you get prepared um 10 minutes in for this presentation

and we put the presentation up so before we start is that does that look like the first page of your presentation? Good evening major. Um, ma'am, can you just open the microphone so everyone can hear you at home as well? Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. Welcome. Thank you.

Uh, good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Andrea Kosamin. I'm originally from Romania, but I live in Santa Clar since 1997. And I live at 2896 Messi Drive with my husband. Our daughter finished her studies and works now elsewhere, but we hope that she will return to live with us. I cannot. Okay, move just say next and we'll move it for you. Next, please. Can we help her, please? Thank you.

I want to highlight from the start, we support our neighbors project. We never contested it. We are not here to block improvements. We want to project uh the project to succeed in a way that is good for all of us. Our appeal is focused on one narrow point to make sure that the plan check project aligns with the Santa Clara general uh plan purposes respecting neighborhood scale ensuring compatibility with exe existing home, protecting privacy and livability and preserving street frontage openness. The conditions P3 and P4 of the architectural review approval which are still current are meant to ensure. We are asking for measurable enforcable criteria for these conditions. Without measurable criteria, these conditions cannot be enforced at plan check. This is a core of our appeal. Next slide, please. Uh here we can we show the and it was shown before the unique positioning of properties track m uh to understand why this transition matter we need to see the loss geometry and positioning. Our home sits on a pie-shaped lot in a corner, not on a standard rectangular parcel. The zoning code was written for our lot at 2896 MKidra have a 20 foot front, the narrowest on the entire block. The 2892 front is 4977 while typical ones has about have about 60 or 65. And our home from sits 53 feet back from the lot line. The existing home front at 2892 currently is about 38 feet back, but the proposed addition would bring the home front to 20 plus 68 ft. That's from the plans. Because the street curves and these loss converge like pie slices, the houses are rotated towards each other to face the

street. The rotation means that what happens at the front of the 2892 property has a disproportionate impact on the adjacent one. Next slide please. We uh did this drawing to show in the relative position of the houses and the lots what's happening. Um standard setback rules assume and work for rectangular lots on these pies lots. These rules do not achieve their stated purpose. The city's design review officer recognize this and added condition P3 and P4 to their architectural approval. They are the city's chosen mechanism to address it unique circumstances. Next slide, please. I will not read the statements of uh the conditions, but I would like to highlight that P3 states that the setback shall preserve the existing sideline of the adjacent property, our property. Bushes and code compliant hedges shall be added to the front yard. These conditions were added as a key mitigation mechanism for the impacts we raised. sideline preservation and privacy for new windows planned to be added on the side uh walls looking towards the front of our home. The enforcability of these conditions is therefore essential. The question tonight is how they can be verified and enforced. Next slide, please. We are not the only ones who have acknowledged this problem. City officials recognized the issue and highlighted the need of discretionary findings and related solutions. At this December uh meeting, Dr. Rosing added P3 and justified the flexibility built into PC stating there are probably different ways that could approach it. Maybe there be a temper, may there be a step back, staggered, not sure. In February planning commission

hearing, Commissioner Cherukuru recommended if everything was allowed by right, then they didn't have to go through a discretionary approval at all. Why is needed a design review committee? Then she said, "I would suggest the architect rethink the front." The planning commission voted for three to keep P3 and P4 conditions as written and encouraged a neighborly compromise. Unfortunately, the property owner have refused to make any further compromise or engage in any constructive discussion. Next slide, please. This slide shows the gap between P3's intent and what the current plans would deliver. On the left, you can see the street looking directly ahead ahead from one of our front rooms with the new front edition estimated prediction and the daily erected fence both visible. At the right, the annotated sideline shows where the minimum sideline falls relative to a proposed building. And this sideline I would like to high that it's not what any straight lot would do wall plus five on their own lot. We understand that. Um it was mentioned that um there was a move that happened before the PC approval which is actually 8 and 9 and 16 of an inches which is less than a log of a brick. I have bricks on front of my house. This is not a question of good face or bad face. It's a question of enforcability where there is no number any amount above zero can be called greater greater. What we're asking is straightforward. Set back the front wall approximately 4 feet to align with a planned fire and some as a measurable or some maza measurable front and side setback increases that achieve the same sideline

preservation that gives the plan checker a specific plane to measure against and is consistent with the prevailing pattern on the block. Next slide please. So PC mandates bushes and corn compliant hedges in the front yard. The photo on the left shows a sideline we had for 23 years completely unobstructed. The photo on the right shows what it looks like today. On February 18, the property owners erected a 6 plus one ft tall fence extending approximately two 20 ft further in the front yard. The newly erected fence worsens the very sideline that P3 was designed to protect. And because our front door is much further from the street than is typical, it also creates a concealment concern near our deep set front entrance. The the next this shows next please shows the sideline and impact of the fence from the street. The current resolution depends on a V condition. As you can see uh in the resolution that you are having to uh look at and approve finding 3EI states that the project satisfy design compatibility with adurance to condition P3. The resolution's all findings depend on P3 foring but it has no measurable criteria. Next slide please. So next slide. So that what we are asking that the sideline will be pres preserved. There are different solution as the the arrow suggested and also for P4 reduce the height of the nail extended fence for 6 + 1 ft to 3 ft as it contradicts the

purpose of P3 and is not consistent with the character of the neighborhood. I want to emphasize we are not asking the five foot as I mentioned earlier. We are asking for conditions that respect outside line that a plan checker can measure. Next slide. So that's the vinyl. I will close with the question on this slide. What does a plan checker do with no measurable criteria? We trust that the council will ensure that the conditions of architectural review approval are enforcable so that they protect not only our homes and livability but also the neighborhood character that made this community worth choosing to be our home for 23 years ago and will continue to be so for us and for all neighbors. Thank you so much for your time. Um, thank you. If you stay there just for a minute and if I ask the council members, do they have any questions only only of the appellent?

Okay, seeing none, mayor, took me a while to find it. Go ahead. Question only. Yeah, I seem to recall in the report there was something about adding uh clear story windows for privacy. Um, so I wanted to understand the privacy concerns. Is this for the appellant? Uh, yeah, because I think they were asking for clear story windows. You're asking the appellent this question? Yes. The appellent, would you be able to answer that question?

No, we didn't ask actually because those windows that are added that there's a big new kitchen window on a wall that there's no window. You could see in the pictures. Uh we are okay that the wall up to the existing level of the house is up to 6 + 1 ft. And we assume that the bathroom window will anyway will be like a bathroom window you know I I'm not an architect but you know how so that's why it didn't come it come came earlier and that's why we accepted the high level to the level where it is if you go back somewhere uh there is a so-called good neighbor war um Uh yeah, just back back a little bit back. Okay,

we can't hear you unless you're you need to go back in the microphone. Thanks.

Where the yellow line intersects the property line, there is where the current uh the current uh fence exists. After that there was no fence ever because in the design of the neighborhood the designer tried to keep even the five foot. We understand that the things change but you see now you have that protrusion plus the the um extension on the second floor that uh councelor Park mentioned. That's a significant and this is just looking in front. This would be like we would be in their backyard. Okay. Thank you very much. I don't see any other questions. So now we're going to go to the uh applicant presentation. Um Ling Ling Shiao who has up to 10 minutes to give a presentation. Please come forward. and welcome. Do you have a pres you have a presentation? Yes, you do. I see. Is that yours?

Okay. Is that it? All right. Very good. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and the council, city council, and the city staff. So, my project has been a while since last year. Um, so I I want to talk a few topic. First one is the project compliance with the m uh money mic municipal code. So proposal project is consistent with all the plansable provision of Santa Clara uh municipal code including the development standard for the setback hat and the lot coverage. There are no uh identify valuation and the project meet all objective zoning requirement. Second procedure background the project has been approved by development with development review officer and the planning commission. Condition of approval include the P3 and the P4 are evaluate and deemed the sufficient insurance comp compatibility. The third uh condition P3. So setbacks and uh compatibility condition P3 has been satisfied and exceeded in the coordination with the planning staff. The applicant removed the bay window and increase the front setback by one ft. This change reduce the perceived mass and reflect good faith compliance. The appeal concern regarding the sat line um preservation

related to maintaining a private will cross the subject uh property which is not protected under the municipal code. The wearing condition described as a function of the neighborhood property in ir in regular lot conf uh configuration which is unexisting when they purchase and is not attributable to applicant the project. Yeah, this is the picture is what look like between the two house. Please nest. And this is the exiting setback. See my uh my house. So toward the fence, that's a eight a feet. That's a setback. So second page, a second picture. Did you see the black rectangle? So that's a additional part. So that part is not over existing setback. I think they still have five feet um to reach the existing wall on the setback. So plus 5t plus 8t is over 10 ft setback and also this additional part not um beyond the existing fence and existing set setback. So it's kind of like a stuck in there. Yeah, please. Next. And this I just want to make sure you guys can see clear. So this additional not cross the existing fence right now.

So for the item four condition P4 front yard improvement and fence. Condition P4 required front yard landscaping. The project include a front yard improvements consistent with the city standards. Front yard improvement. The design the design incorporate front yard landscaping consistent with a city standard. No fence in proposed outside of front yard setback area. In fact, we are 24 from the front yard u property line setback where the 20 ft is the permit. The other improvement is the small bushes from the end of the six plus one fence to the property line. The planting compliant comply with a plant uh applicable visibility and landscaping requirement. We had a a lessened survey company make the property side and the front property lines. I have a report I send to the city. So for the side and rear yard uh fence 6 plus one the project include a 6 ft fence with one ft extension and the Santa Clara uh code standard for residential fence fence of this height are permitted inside and a real yard location. The proposed fence fencing comply with a applicable height limited and the placement requirement outside of visibility triangles. Um so the inclusion of the code compliance fence does not inate

landscaping required and do not consistent non compl uh compliance with the condition P4. So see this uh picture on the top uh from the exiting front front wall to the fence that's only 17 ft 17 feet. So uh so um based my um architect's information the maximum I can build like a 21 ft but we choose a 17 ft. That's enough. So item five. So good phase design refinment although not required applicant work with a planning staff reduce the building messing and increase the setback beyond minimum standard. This action um to show the good faith effort to the neighbor. So number six basis of for appeal appeal does not uh indeation of the code. Um so it reflect disagreement with a pre discrimination approval and seek the impose additional subject design restriction. Seven conclusion the project comply with all applicable code position has been approval through the city process and include a um volunteering re refinment the appeal provide no substant

uh basis to overturn provial approvals sorry I'm too nervous you're fine yeah good so request I please I just want to consider my stuff. Yeah. Thank you so much for

Thank you. If you hold on one second, let me ask the council. Do they have any questions? Questions only for the applicant. Okay. Uh seeing none then thank you very much. We are now going to go to move to public testimony. Each member Thank you. Thank you. Each member of the public will have two minutes to speak. Do we have any member of the public that would like to speak uh during this public hearing to give any testimony? Anyone online, assistant city clerk? Okay. None. So, um at this time now, we're going to we're I'm going to ask for rebuttals. At this time, um, does the applicant who was just up here have the opportunity, you have the opportunity to ma make a rebuttal. You have up to five minutes. If there's anything else you'd like to add, let me talk the applicant. Yes, you. Is there anything you'd like to add? Not at this point. Thank you. Uh, the appellant now. Um, finally, at this time, the appellants have the opportunity to make a rebuttal and you have up to 5 minutes for a rebuttal.

Hi, the owner said that the project meets the code. We highlighted that the code we don't didn't put the compliance with the objective standards. Our appeal aders to this the discretionary conditions that are acceptable by the code if issued by the DRRO they P3 and P4 added precisely because code minimums were not efficient for these unique lots. So uh that's according to 180230e we just asked for these conditions to be measurable conditions. Uh also it said that uh the lo geometry makes impact inevitable. No um I think that they said that the set setback was increased one foot. We showed it was eight. It's a cosmetic thing. It's 8 in because the rest is removal of a bay window which can always be put back. We measured from the plants. We didn't invent anything on this. So uh and also I said that uh previous approvals were uh accepted but all approvals that were accepted and never contested included P3 and P4 and our discussions with the staff we raised this and they didn't say no. They told us give us some numbers what you think it's appropriate and I think that's about it. But the municipal code allows for discretionary setbacks.

Okay. Thank you. So, uh, now I'd like to return to our director to see if there's anything you want to clarify or add to the record. No. Okay. Thank you. I was waiting for some. No. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, may I have a motion to co close the public hearing? Uh, Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Second. So, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Gonzalez, uh, seconded by Council Member Hardy to close the public hearing. Vice Mayor Gonzalez, yes. Council member Hard, uh, Council Chahal, yes. Council Hardy,

yes. Council Park, yes. Council member Jane, yes. There's no one here. Council Cox. Yes. Mayor Gilmore. Yes. And that passes unanimously. Thank you. Um, now I'd like to move on to council deliberations and actions. If someone has a motion, council member Park.

So, I don't have a motion right now, but I want a clarification. And I believe the what I was looking for is I want to know how the larger change to the upstairs uh resulted in a smaller area and I I think when I look at the plans what I understand now is the upstairs is largely the same size. The change of the upstairs is largely the same size. What's moved is they've moved re removed that where the second bedroom used to be or the third bedroom used to be and they've put that as open space. What what's interesting to me is uh basically that leaves the change the outside of the house the same size as it would have been if they had kept that extra footage in. All they did was they said, "We're going to remove um you know, part of the the ground there so that even though the outside is the same size, the massing is the same. The amount of square footage that that we get credited for is is a little bit less." Um that's a little bit important to me because again, you brought it up. I saw it in one of the slides with the SQA 15301 existing facilities exemption clearly states that the additions to existing structures provided that the addition will not result in an increase of more than 50% of the floor area which the previous the previous design had. It did exceed the 50% of the existing floor area. And this seems to be a way to go around that by keeping the house size the same. you lose a little bit of of space. I understand. But I I feel why couldn't they have made the uh second floor? Why do they need that that upper, you know, that open space? I I feel that I agree with the uh planning commissioner who said, "Well, if I were to ask the architect to look at anything, I would have them to

reconsider the the the front." Um, another mention that you had made that the uh, director had made was that the second story edition was well within the right side the right side uh, limit but but it was it's it's sorry left side the left side second floor was required 10 ft and I believe the director said that the 9 ft 7 in was well within that which isn't it doesn't make any sense to me that nine uh feet and 7 in is greater than the 10 ft required setback. So I I think maybe you were looking at at it from a inverted perspective. And with something like this, especially when you've got neighbors and the neighbors seem, you know, fairly supportive, I don't know why the architect wouldn't look at every single aspect and just be within spec, right? I almost feel that, you know, we've got a situation here that talking to the neighbors would have been the easiest way to resolve this. We wouldn't be here late at night if if we had neighbors talking to neighbors. I I've said this many times here and in planning commission, but I've never seen a project where neighbors come in conflict. I've never seen a successful project, even after it's done, no matter what what the solution was, I've never seen that be a good project if the neighbors weren't talking to each other. Right? I think that regardless of what happens here, the fact that there was no relationship built in, you know, built into this process, I'm kind I'm kind of worried. I'm kind of nervous about what happened here. I also have this thought that anytime there's a new addition that the new addition should defer to the

existing existing situation. I mean if you've got a new apartment complex and it's it needs to have sightelines that you know they come at the expense of the new development. You don't impose those onto existing the existing residents. I mean, this is kind of tough because again, I see what what looks like they're trying to make every room into a master bedroom with its own bathroom and its own its own closet. I think that's a little bit excessive in some cases. I don't know what the point is. Maybe it's to rent out the the individual rooms. I don't know. I don't care. It's not something that we can we can consider. But I feel that if it comes at the cost even with you know one small measurement um I I don't I don't tend to like that and the fact that you are keeping the external massing and changing the internal floor you know the square footage to stay within the 15301 uh squa exemption. I have to think about that because it just doesn't feel good to me. Thank you. Council member Hardy.

Thank you. I will bite the bullet and make a motion. I will say first off that it's very hard and sad when our neighbors don't get along and can't work together. I will say I love my neighbors. We have so much fun and we have good neighbor fences where we both split the cost right in half. So I I wish everybody had that, but we do not have that here. I'm going to make a motion to determine the project to be exempt from SQUA and to adopt to overrule adop okay to affirm the decision of the planning commission and to overrule the appeal because when you want we've been shown by staff very clearly that this fits within our envelope and that is our design guidelines. I spent many years on the planning commission and on architectural review and that's what we look at and that's what we need to do and we need to do this equitably and when you don't want that to apply you have to show us very clearly why it the rules that apply to everybody else shouldn't apply here. Um, I understand about the curve. It does narrow your front access some, but that's a reality and we have many of those in the city. So, it's not abnormal. So, my motion is for the staff recommendation to um determine the project exempt and to overrule the appeal and affirm the decision.

I'll second. All right. All right, we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Council Member Chahal. Is that you, Chahal? Oh, uh, by Vice Mayor Gonzalez. All right. Um, Council Member Cox,

we'll support that. I would like to get further clarification um, perhaps from Director Hamid. you're in a a scenario right now where it sounds like because criteria was met, we can't go into objective versus subjective standards because there are very objective guidelines that have been placed around this that are being met. However, because of the unique design of these houses, we're coming across the problem where even if we were to uh suggest a different thing, it would be on our own objective standards right now, our subjective standards. So, um, what I'm wondering is if there is a way to look at these properties instead of the cookie cutter method of everything's in a straight row, um, where there are going to be unique scenarios, but I am supportive of the the motion.

Are you looking for a response to that? Because that's a long response. No. Um, we'll talk I guess I can talk about it offline or is that new? All right. Um, we have a motion and a second to the motion. Council member Park.

Yeah, I'd like to add I mean I think again the the appellant is not asking for this to be overturned. They have some modest requests and the requests are condition P3 ensure that the sight line along the wall the sidewall of our building towards the neighboring building is unobstructed towards the street. Um and I I think that's a reasonable request. The other request was to reduce the height of the newly constructed 20ft fence extension from the 6 point the 6 ft plus the 1 ft lattice to 3 ft, you know, along the the front of the house. Like I think that those are reasonable requests to add to this motion. And I'd like to I'd like to see if anyone would would like to to um accept a friendly amendment amendment motion which is ensure the site lying along the sidewall uh toward the neighboring building is unobstructed toward the street and reduce the the height of the newly constructed 20ft fence extension the extension not the existing fence but the extension to three feet.

That changes the entire motion. But if anybody wants to change the entire motion then they would vote no on this motion. So I see no other speakers. So well then I would put a substitute motion in

substitute motion to to um to add conditions P3 and P4 from the appellent in which is to reduce the 20ft extension to reduce that from the 6 ft plus 1 ft lattice to 3 ft and to ensure that the sight line along the sidewall is unrestricted toward the Is there a second to that substitute motion? Dies for lack of a second. City assistant city clerk, when you're ready. Vice Mayor Gonzalez, yes. Council member Shahal, yes. Council member Hardy, yes.

Council Park, no. Council member Jane, yes. And there's no one here. Council member Cox, yes. Mayor Gilmore,

yes. and that passes six to one. Um, so the planning commission decision was upheld. Thank you very much. Tough decision. Thank you. All right, we're moving on now to item number eight, which is reconsideration of action on an agreement with Paragrine Technologies, Inc. for a data integration platform and professional services for a not to exceed amount of $2,82,02 over a 10-year term and to approve the related budget amendment. Um, police chief, I know we had this presentation already, so if you have an a shorter version of the original presentation,

it's much great. Thank you so much. It's much shorter. Uh, good evening, Mayor and Council Chief Morgan. I do appreciate the reconsideration of this item uh which is about operational efficiency, situational awareness and service to our community. When this item was previously heard, there was general alignment on the value of the platform. The concerns were focused on privacy and the contract. And tonight, we're here to address those concerns, privacy, data governance, and oversight. I would encourage you to evaluate this item on its merits. And our goal tonight is s is simple, to provide clear information so you can understand and make an informed decision because this is one that will have a tremendously positive impact on the community. And with that, I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Lutz. Thank you.

Welcome. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. As Chief Morgan mentioned, we're here tonight to provide additional clarity regarding Paragrin's functionality, data governance, security controls, and operational benefits. Paragrin is a data integration platform that brings together information from multiple existing department systems into a single secure interface. Today, much of this information already exists across systems like records management, dispatch, automated license plate readers, and digital evidence platforms. But those systems operate independently. Paragan does not replace those systems or create new data. Instead, it allows authorized personnel to search across them more efficiently and in one place. This improves situational awareness and reduces the time it takes to develop a complete operational picture from hours down to minutes that allows officers and supervisors to make more timely and informed decisions both in day-to-day operations and during critical incidents. It's also important to note that this platform is foundational to the voterapproved measure I realtime intelligence crime center or the Arctic. Its value extends beyond the Arctic model, supporting daily patrol operations, investigations, supervisory oversight, and command level decision-making. Importantly, the platform does not expand the department's authority or change how data is governed. It improves access to information that is already lawfully available. Several questions were raised about data sharing and control. Data sharing through this platform is not automatic. It occurs only between agencies that use the platform and have entered into

formal agreements. Each agency, including the department, retains full ownership and control over its data and determines what, if anything, is shared. Any sharing must be established through a memorandum of understanding which defines what data can be accessed by whom and under what circumstances. Even within those agreements, access is further restricted through RO based and attribute-based controls and requests must be affirmatively approved. If a request if a request comes through from a nonauthorized agency, they are redirected to the source agency. There is no open or default access. It's also important to note that data sharing across law enforcement uh systems is not new. It is a standard part of public safety operations. What matters is how it is governed, controlled, and audited. This platform does not change those rules. It operates within them and provides a structured transparent framework for managing access. Access, excuse me, access to the system is limited to authorized personnel only and is based on role and job responsibilities. Administrative authority over system access, user permissions, and data sharing agreements is maintained by the administrative services commander or designate, ensuring centralized oversight. All systems activity is logged, traceable, and auditable, including searches and data access. The department conducts routine audits to ensure compliance with applicable law and department policy. Questions have been raised about how shared data may be used by partner agencies, including concerns about

misuse. Sharing only occurs through formal agreements and is governed by state law, policy, and criminal justice information system or sieges requirements. Importantly, all access is logged and auditable, and any misuse may result in administrative, civil, or criminal consequences. Any changes in law or policy are reviewed and reflected in updated department policy and system settings. Overall, the system operates within a framework designed to ensure accountability, oversight, and responsible use. Questions have been raised regarding cyber security, data protection and system integrity. The platform operates within Amazon Web Services or AWS GovCloud, which is a siegis compliant environment designed to meet federal and state criminal justice security standards. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. The system also uses a redundant architecture. While there was discussion about multiple servers, this is a standard security practice. It reduces risk by eliminating a single point of failure and ensures the system remains operational if one location is disrupted. Access is further protected through authentication controls, role-based permissions, and comprehensive audit logging. In the event of a suspected or confirmed breach, established incident response protocols and legal notification requirements would apply. From a data integrity standpoint, the platform does not create or alter data. It mirrors existing department systems and all data remains uh remains governed

by law, council approved retention schedules and department policy. If the information is incorrect, it must be governed. It must be corrected by the system of record and those updates are then reflected in the platform. Overall, the system operates within a framework designed to ensure security, integrity, and accountability. Questions have been raised about how we ensure public trust and accountability. Trust is built through transparency, clear standards, and compliance with the law. This platform will operate within that framework with oversight, audit, accountability built in. The department will return to council with a one-year follow-up report to provide transparency on usage, safeguards, and outcomes. The agreement also includes a 30-day termination for convenience clause, ensuring the city retains flexibility and ongoing oversight. Importantly, this platform does not expand the department's authority or change existing legal protections. It improves access to information that is already lawfully available and supports timely, informed decisionmaking. I want to emphasize that this tool aligns with the voter approved funding for the Arctic, allowing us to build that capability in a phased and fiscally responsible way while we deliver immediate operational value. At every step, the department, not the technology, retains control over what data is used, how it is used, and under what conditions. That's the framework. Oversight, transparency, and department control. But ultimately, the question is what does that look like in practice?

Paragan platform offers and the Arctic Connect information across system we already use so we can move faster and make more informed decisions. These are real South Bay examples where that impact mattered. In one case, officers were able to quickly locate and safely reunite a non-verbal autistic individual during a welfare check. In another, investigators identified and arrested suspects in a sexual battery and public lewd conduct investigation. And in a more complex case, detectives were able to identify identify a homicide victim after a month without leads. These outcomes are not about new data or new authority. They are the result of using the information we already lawfully have more effectively and in less time. It connects information we already have, turning fragmented data into actionable intelligence. Staff requests that council authorize the city manager or designate to execute and administer an agreement with Paragan Technologies along with the associated budget amendment to support implementation. That concludes the presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you very much for that presentation. Uh questions only from council. Do we have council members with questions? Council member Chahal.

Thank you mayor. Thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions like um the contract says 30 days uh termination clause without any reason. So can you elaborate on that that it is truly at the discretion of the city to terminate this contract any time with the 30 days notice and u second thing uh about the data breach consequences I don't see any consequences of data breach I know you mentioned that if there is a data breach they will report it and take remedial actions but uh what are the consequential um damages city can be held responsible for uh this data breach because even though they're processing the data to make a final report but they still have lot of data into in their platform basically. So I want some clarification what are the conditions for the data breach.

Thank you council member Jane. Yeah. Um, my question is that you're going to give us a report in a year and I'm wondering how will that report be generated? Will you use some sort of outside expert that has a third party that would actually verify that the settings are correct and that there were no breaches. um rather than rely on sort of our own staff um which may not be as expert or paragrin itself. That's my only question.

Council member Hardy. Thank Thank you. Um, one question that has come up from the public over and over again, is there any way for a federal agency to come in and request this data in a way that we would not have control over it? All right, Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um just uh I think it was answered last time just making sure that as far as the California Values Act SP54 that you know it complies with that uh that statute or that law.

Uh Council Member Park.

Yeah. So I just want to point out that the fact that we're considering this item again at all is kind of a miscarriage process. um we have to misunderstand prevailing party reconsideration process and the fact that the city attorney suggests that we can consider this item and then contemplate correcting the misunderstandings after the fact is pretty darn serious breach of I think the public's trust. Um I mean it basically says let us allow this one thing to pass. I'm going to stand behind it and then we'll correct we'll close the gates afterwards. I think that this is a pretty sounds like smacks of corruption to me because that's exactly what corruption is, which is allow this to happen and then we'll we'll do it we'll do it better the next time. So my questions are how are theus put in place? How does the public know whatus are active or being pursued or in progress? Um all system activity be will be logged and auditable but you just said in the previous presentation that there were some things that were not logged. Um, and then how will those things that are will not be logged? And I'm looking for it. I'll get it. It's my other notes, but how will those be audited? Who has access to audit them? And when will how how many times will the audits be made? I mean, are there going to be regular schedules for these audits? And how will the audit results be made made public? Um, how do we know which data are being retained longer than our standard retention policies? I mean, we've got standard we've got our retention policies. In fact, I've got I think all the changes to the retention policies right here on this this uh this flash drive. Thank you to the city clerk, assistant city clerk for that, deputy city clerk for that. But we know that the system, I believe, has 30-day retention policy, but we can save data longer than that um during investigations, for example. How do we know which which data will be retained

longer? How do we guarantee that that information is also um destroyed or or done in a timely basis? I would think that we kind of have a conflict between uh privacy and security which is we don't want people to know what investigations are happening and then how do we know which you know if we're following the the policies when it comes to retention? How how do we know when you know that with for example the people who have access we talk about role-based access controls and um you know attribute-based access controls but I mean somebody with access can do the wrong thing. uh I think that the the what was brought up at the last meeting was the fact that uh the cities which cooperated nobody had to hack the system we had cooperation the the uh information was given freely by the people who had access how do we determine that this won't happen and how do we you know what are the consequences for something like this I also think that it I believe this is a 90-day bringup to integrate this into our system you talk about not creating new data But the fact that we are putting combining different data together, it is creating new data. I think that the fact that you can combine a place, a date, a person, that is a new Shannon of data that's being created. So when you say that new new data is not being created, that's not exactly true. Um I think that the fact that we don't understand this kind of makes me very worried about the type of of data that we are managing and who's managing the data. Okay, I'll save the other questions for later. Thank you.

Uh, Council Member Cox, I just want to understand that the recommendation is staying the same as it was at the previous meeting. I think one of the issues we ran into is um the five votes were needed only for the financing piece and if we had separated those uh this would have passed at that point. So I I want to understand is the recommendation the same as it was then or is there any need now to separate the recommendation? That's a question um for the city manager. Sorry. Okay, those are the questions. So do you need some time for that? Are you prepared to answer? If you just give me one minute

or city manager, do you want to answer the last one? So, this item was brought back in its entirety as uh structured on the last agenda as as per the council action. When we get down to motions, uh staff will recommend that we break uh the the two the contract approval as well as the funding as can you speak. Kelly, can you please speak in your microphone? Thanks. Just clarifying, you're saying when we get to that point, you will recommend splitting the recommendation up. Yes.

Yes. So, I do have another question. Go ahead. While we're waiting, again, want to make sure that everyone

so the city manager can take it down. So, we know that we we've got 90-day and I think that uh the city manager brought up last time that having a 30-day termination clause is the same thing or is essentially the same thing as having a one-year one-year um trial policy. And I that's absolutely not true. I mean, the the reason that I brought up a one one-year trial policy so that we can review what went right, what what did not go right, what we need to do, what kind of changes we need going forward um to negotiate that, that was a very real thing. The fact that we are right off the bat doing a five-year a five-year contract

with an additional additional five-year extension. Like what what is the thinking behind that? I mean, we this is a new technology we've never integrated before, and we're going directly to a 5-year contract with a 5-year extension. Why aren't we considering a one-year one-year contract with a review of of what this what this has done before we commit to something that could be a 10-year contract? We we got it. Thank you. This was this was my my question. Thank you, mayor. I'm going do my best to go through the questions. I was writing pretty quickly here, so u

Yeah, we do your best. Thank you. Uh there was a 30-day termination question that was brought up um after speaking with the gentleman from Paragan that is confirmed that we can cancel the contract within uh with 30-day notice for any reason that the city decides that the police department determines um data breach consequences. So um just like with every other database that we have uh everything has to be segus compliant. So if there is a violation um there is um policy that's set in place that they're they're held accountable towards um policy within the department and potentially depending on the degree of the uh consequences it could be held criminal as well. Can I supplement that if I might? Officer, the um member Chahal, I wanted you to hear from me as well, not just the the party we're contracting with regarding the termination, right? There's an explicit provision in this contract, as there is with most of our standard contracts, that um I'll just read it to you. It's a termination for convenience clause and it says the city shall have the right to terminate this agreement without cause or penalty by giving not less than 30 days prior written notice to contractor. So it's pretty clear u um in the language. It's not anything that we would do lightly, right? And it and there would be some things to sort out with it, but it's a very clear, you know, direct right. Um in reinforcing the other uh point that was made regarding you know what are the potential consequences of you know of a data breach you know there there's also a provision in the contract uh and again our standard provision which is a hold harmless and indemnification you know provision which has them indemnifying us against a whole you know range of potential um violations of applicable law or representations in the contract or standards in the contract. And so if

there was a data breach and data was disclosed to another party under this provision, we could hold the contractor responsible for that data breach. That doesn't mean no harm would be done or that there wouldn't be issues with that. But there's a contractual basis for us to um seek a remedy under that. So I wanted to add those points if if I may. If there is a data breach and the person sues the city for that, so all those consequential um indeaminity will be done by the contractor. I just want to make sure that is the case.

Yeah, I'm not telling you that will be a a a love festival between us and the the the contractor because as you know there's disputes arise, right, over the causes for things. But there is a good uh um strong contractual right for us to be defended by the contractor under those circumstances. Okay. Thanks.

All right. Uh there was another question regarding um the the one-year report. Um would this be conducted by a third party? Um similar to the way we did the ALPR report uh I believe a week or two ago. um that was done internally from uh members of the department uh that worked um closely with the company itself. This would be in the same fashion as that um information is not shared federally. Um I think that was asked as well. Uh we do not share the information uh with any federal entities. Uh it is SB4 compliant. Uh and theou um is you know established by the department and is reviewed and approved by the city attorney's office. Um again this kind of goes back to the information is controlled by the the agency or by by the department and only shared under um contracts orus that are established with other agencies. Um this is obviously are publicly uh public information as well. There was a question about retention policies. So again, the platforms that are already in place, all the data um the softwares that already have in place have retention policies built in. This doesn't add anything to those. This is still abiding by those retention policies that are already in place and established with other uh systems that uh the Santa Clair Police Department is already utilizing. And There was a question regarding the protection of the information. I believe council member Park, would you would you mind expanding a little bit further on that so I could understand that question better?

I mean, even even what you said before, the softwares already have retention policies, but we have retention policies beyond what the software um has, for example, if we have an ongoing investigation like how do we know when those when those retention policies are being extended? Is there any way to audit? Is there any way to look into that? When you talk about protection, um I mean all system activity be logged and audible. That's a different thing. But who has access to audit them? How are we going to audit them? I think that you said that you would have people within your department uh working with other people but working with the vendor with the contractor but at some point I would want somebody with you know a third party with with audit expertise with data expertise doing this because again when you say that no data will be created data are being created right data are being created simply by putting other pieces of data together if that were not the case then we wouldn't need the software where

did that clarify your question? I think so. Um the question had to do with you know is it auditable like yes the all the information is auditable and discoverable and you're I think the question had to do with who can audit it. Um okay so it is my understanding that the the police department um the commander of the administrative division has the ability of the ability to audit the information through the paragan software and I'm trying to track the second question I apologize I don't think he knows the second question

understood well I'm going to say that I mean when you say police can do it through the paragan software I think at some point we would we would want to know like at some point we're doing an audit of what what the software is doing as well, right? I mean, are we we're going to hire audits? I mean, are we do we have a process that says every n months, every you know, on a schedule we're going to have people audit both the software, what we think the software should be doing and what we're doing internally and what we say that is is happening is actually happening the way that that that we think it is or we're telling people it is. I think when we do the report to council in a year, that could be something that is explored at that time where we can figure out the audit uh calendar or system to see what is working, if we need to extend more audits or less audits to figure out if it needs to be done on a monthly basis, a weekly basis or uh you know twice a year kind of thing. I think when we go back in a year from now with the report, we can speak to that a little bit more intelligently once it's been in place for a year.

So there is an audit schedule now then. Yeah. No, there's no there's no audit schedule right now. Okay. Is that it for the questions? I believe so. I have a fair amount of public that want to speak. So,

all right. Thank you. Um I'm going to call the public members up and if you wouldn't mind queuing up as well. Uh and each public member has two minutes to speak. We're going to start with Jay. followed by Musa, followed by Bob. Please come forward. Jay has time donated from Brian, so he'll have four minutes. From who? Is that Brian?

All right. Go ahead, please. Is there a presentation? Yes. There you go. Go ahead, please. Okay.

Good evening, Madame Mayor and Council. I'm here to address item 8. But before we analyze this contract, we must look at the company behind it. Paragrine Technologies was founded and is currently staffed at a ratio of 1:4 employees by the architects of Palunteer's federal mass surveillance tools. They're asking for your blind trust, but my review of the contract reveals that the legal reality of the agreement contradicts the administrative asurances you have been given tonight. This is not a partnership. It is a lopsided extraction of public resources. First, let's look at the at the financial risk. Staff characterizes this as a protected $2.8 8 million investment, but section 15B of the contract explicitly caps Paragan's liability for data breaches at just $1 million. In a standard professional agreement of this scale, the liability cap should meet or exceed the contract value. Instead, this council is being asked to accept the $ 1.8 million uh dollars in uninsured risk. Furthermore, the indemnity clause the city attorney relies on is a mirage. Section 9 only protects the city from technicalities like patent and intellectual property claims. Critically, it explicitly excludes the customer's use of service. This means that if an s uh Santa Clara police officer uses the platform to share data with federal agencies in a way that leads to a civil civil rights lawsuit or a wrongful arrest, Paragrin does not pay a dime. It is on the city and the taxpayers. We will pay we will bear 100% of the legal fees and settlements for any operational misuse or constitutional violations. We are essentially signing a contract that grants federal agencies access to our data while leaving Santa Clara residents to foot the bill for any resulting legal fallout. Why is this council accepting substandard terms that

a private sector negotiator would reject as negligent? Transparency. Second, we're told this system ensures accountability. But this is a this is legally impossible under this contract. Under section seven uh excuse me, section 11, paragrin shields its algorithms as trade secrets. But the real danger is in section 12, which states city ownership shall not extend to any enhancements, configurations, or derivative works. By owning the derivative works, Peragan owns the intelligence behind the system. the int the intelligence the system produces, excuse me. If an auditor asks to see the logic that flagged a resident or a connected social media post to a crime report, Paragrin can legally block that review by claiming the logic is a proprietary enhancement. You cannot verify compliance with antibbias laws such as RIPA if the vendor owns the right to hide the machine's thinking processes. You are trading your power of oversight for a black box you can never legally open. Let's talk about data control and ownership. All right. This ownership clause creates a corporate enclosure of public work. We are paying Paragrin to let our officers spend thousands of hours refining and configuring their platform. Under this contract, S Santa Clara pays for the labor, but Paragrin owns the intellectual property that results from it. Furthermore, this this creates a vendor lock-in trap. If the city ever tries to leave Paragrin, you can take your raw data, but you can't take the desert the derivative works. All the custom intelligence and workflows built over a decade stay with the vendor. This gives Paragan total leverage to hike prices in the future because they know it's financially and technically impossible for the city to switch vendors starting from zero. Fourth,

let's look at the the architecture. Exhibit A, section 1.3.4 4 mandates a system built for interoperability with external sources, including unstructured data from social media. This creates an automated technical pipeline designed to fuse local records with federal data fusion centers, council members Gonzalez and Cox. You have been very clear about your concerns regarding federal overreach and ICE. However, once our data is ingested into a system built for federal interoperability, the local sanctuary policies are technically bypassed by the software itself. You cannot claim to protect our communities while purchasing a tool specifically built for federal interoperability. By automating data sharing with federal fusion centers, this platform creates a technical bypass of SB54, the the California Values Act, and effectively renders our local sanctuary productions productions meaningless. Do not fall for false for promises and pinky swear from a company built on Palunteer's foundations with Palunteer's blood coursing through its veins. In this chamber, you should you should not rely on trust. You should rely on the asurances that a vendor is legally bound to. I urge you to protect the city's oversight and its residents. Reject the budget increase. Reject item 8. Do not sign a 10-year agreement that bypasses your authority and compromises the very people you've worked you've worked to protect. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Musa. Is Musa here or was that from an earlier item? Possibly. We have Bob, followed by Kimberly, followed by online WBC. Welcome, Bob.

Hi. Thank you. Um, my name is Bob Summers. Um, I'm a staff engineer working at a major tech company living and raising my seven-year-old daughter here in Santa Clara. Um, who's here with me, has been here for the last five hours. She's way up past her bedtime. Uh, but we've been city residents for the last six years. Um, I specialize in AI similar to the type uh which Peragan claims to be offering to the city. Um, I urge the city of Santa Clara to oppose agenda item 8 uh the reconsideration of Paragan Technologies as our city's uh data integration platform. Um, as council member Park pointed out uh earlier, this vote already failed on March 10th. Um, the democratic process worked as intended. We of this we the residents of the city do not want it. Let it die. Our nation has taken a hard turn toward authoritarianism and all forms of mass surveillance like Paragan put our residents at risk. I do not trust Paragan's billionaire investors and former Palunteer executives. They will happily lie to you and sell all our personal data down the river just to get your $2.8 million check. Their platform, like all ALPR vendors, lacks transparency and lacks accountability. It's designed to create fear among our residents with its penicon effect. Additionally, Paragan's platform may put the city at risk of violating California Values Act SB54 through data sharing with immigration agencies. I want to be clear, my concern is not with the accountability of our local police force. I trust them to keep our community safe. The problem is that they aren't in a position to make accurate statements about Peragan's transparency and accountability. They can at best read to you Paragan's marketing materials, and I don't trust Peragan, and I don't think you should either. to summar to summarize, it's expensive. We don't want it and the vote already failed last time. Please stop forcing this down our throats. Thank you.

Thank you. Is Kimberly here? Uh Kimberly, please come forward.

Hi, I'm Kimberly Woo from Siren, which serves immigrant communities around Santa CL County. We urge the city of Santa Clara to reject the reconsideration to implement Perog tech as our city's data integration platform as this vote already failed on March 10th. If you wanted to vote on the item, then you should have been there. I understand that there are emergency circumstances on your absence. But what about the countless emergencies that Perogan will inevitably cause over the next 10 years if this vote is reconsidered? the painful emergencies that will happen when they separate our families and violate our privacy. Peragan Tech is another Palunteer spin-offs created by a former Palunteer executive. It consolidates massive amounts of our personal data from AOPRs to geospatial mapping to body wound cameras into one mass surveillance database that is vulnerable to security risks and constitutional privacy violations. This data gives police unprecedented levels of tracking such as determining when and where to deploy police based on historic crime data. In fact, organizers in Norham, North Carol in Dorham, North Carolina actually successfully combed paragrin and their police data use because of their AI usage. Because paragrin uses predictive policing to determine when and where to deploy police which then would throw Santa Clara into dystopian world of state sanctioned violence and over policing. We have seen how the harm of such AI technologies on our black and brown communities who are already racially profiled and over police and in our and on our immigrant communities with ICE who has the ability to racially profile and this harm will only be exasperated by this AI mass surveillance weapon of paragrin. We don't know enough about paragrin and we can't vote on something that will impact us for 10 years. The vote already failed on March 10th. So, let this vote lie dead because we must protect our democracy and the

safety of our people. Thank you. Thank you. Uh WBC, you're online. Go ahead. Unmute yourself. There you go.

Thank you. Uh thank you to City Council member Mr. Park for um your statements regarding this item being brought back to this council as corroing the public's trust. You are asking the company that is providing the tech to inform the city when and if the data is breached when it is a clear conflict of interest for them. The city council members here are intelligent enough to understand that doesn't make any sense and so a third party audit would be needed. To have a third party sift through the system and report if any data has was breached is a very costly and timeconsuming endeavor that no city wants to be chained to every year. Why would the city want to test a new technology at this critical time in history when data is currently being used by the federal government to imprison immigrants, black and brown members of our community, and to prosecute women seeking abortion access in other states? Why would the city want to be in litigation with a billion a multi-billion dollar tech company to prove that they h have been in breach of a contract? The system will be a parasite and drain on city resources and a violation of the residents privacy rights. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Linda, go ahead, Linda.

Who will watch the watchers? That's what I want to know. Do you want the far left watching the far right? Do you want the far right watching the far left? I think that Palunteer has a record of combining things that makes me feel like Gatka and all the other dystopian feel uh movies are in. I don't feel safe. I feel less safe by having them around than I do the wonderful police. So, I like our police. I do not like feeling watched by everybody with Palunteer being the one who controls everything. Thank you.

Thank you, Hugh. Go ahead, Hugh. Good evening, council members. This week, Tran, executive director at Siren. Uh, first thing I want to bring up is definitely there are a lot of process concerns here. um not just in the how the issue was brought up uh back again, but the fact that an item that has already received a lot of attention from the public and has this is the third time the council is discussing automated license plate readers is put at the at the agend at the end of the agenda such that uh one of the residents of city of Santa Clara has a seven-year-old daughter there for 5 hours way beyond her bedtime. I think right off the bat uh that is something that has to be noted and has to be addressed in the future for an item of such import. I want to highlight a couple of things though and this is again something that we have discussed repeatedly here. Uh cameras catch everything right we're told these systems catch license plate numbers but when we look at blurred footage that's not an indication that what is being blurred is being ignored. Cameras have to capture everything that is falls in front of them and then the process has to be applied to that footage. That means it is recorded. That means it is processed. And if that means at some point that information is being stored, these systems have the ability to capture and document everything, creating an enormous pool of data that is controlled entirely by automated systems or operators who can access anything and everything by simply toggling the relevant settings. So there's only two guard rails realistically that currently exist. One is time, which is how long data is held before it is deleted, which in and of itself is not a clear-cut process because simply moving files to the trash bin doesn't clear the files. And the second guard rail is trust us. We keep hearing that repeatedly from the ALPR proponents who believe that we should just trust the people in charge with the systems. But who exactly are we trying to put our trust into? There's a lot of questions around vendors like Flock and Paragrin who are riding this huge growth in this wave of surveillance for profit

and whose investors support the federal government. Uh I urge the council to reject this entirely uh and trust local law enforcement. Thank you, Tim. Go ahead, Tim.

Hi, I'm Tim McKenzie. Um, I am urging you to not go through with a 10-year contract with Paragrant. 10 years is crazy. That's multiple election cycles coming up. You could get elected and term out before you could and then run again with how long the contract is. It's it's actually wild that that's under consideration for a first try. Um I have a question about what happens if data that is being integrated is incommenurate or incompatible say with ALPR data where there's a use policy to not use facial recognition. What if it gets integrated in this system with a fake facial recognition tool that that is making uh conflict with the multiple policies data use policies of all the different tools that would be integrated here. Uh we shouldn't be giving money to tech companies to collect our data, extract it from us and make a profit off of it. Uh please reject this. also the the concerns about the undemocratic nature. I would like to echo and raise those. Uh this is a failed vote and to bring something back to reconsider. Under most normal parliamentary procedure, it needs to be someone from the prevailing side to ask that it comes back, not someone that lost. Don't be a sore loser.

All right, Drew. Go ahead, Drew. Hi, thank you. My name is Drew Seagler. I'm with Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Clara County. Uh I just want to I mean I want to uplift everything that has been said by the other speakers tonight. Uh the other the other uh commenters tonight. Um but also I I just want to throw out there that like we are we are in a time of of fascism, you know. I mean there there there is there is fascism kicking down the doors uh and stealing people from their homes. And the only thing that's worse than fascists are people that enable fascists. And I mean like you know do you really want to be like hey I'm I'm the modernday Neville Chamberlain and just give the fascists the keys to you know all the data on all of your all of your constituents. I mean that's just that's ridiculous. And so I I urge you to to have have some sense and don't go through with this contract. This is anyway tonight.

Thank you. Uh Karen, go ahead. Karen

Corrin reminds me of an anime show called Psychopaths, which is set in a dystopian Japan where a room of brains and jars functioning like AI, determine the criminal potential of people and the police's weapons then make a choice to detain or pull them on site. Predictive policing is the frightening step toward AI deciding life and death with no due process. Why would we give this tool to the police? Hardy and Gilmore, you both are up for reelection this year, it seems, according to public records. Your terms are up in December. And why, Karen, must you continue to ruin our shared name? You circumventing council policy and laws for what is clearly your own secret agenda trying to drag this vote back out is gross. And your bestie Lisa is backing you up as mayor is corrupt. Both of you are awful. Just drop it. If you really wanted this stupid contract, you should have made the point to be there. Drop this stuff. We know what you're doing and you're both up for election. Not true, but thank you. Okay. Uh Edward, go ahead, Edward. Edward, unmute yourself. There you go.

It just came up late on the screen, but uh yeah, I just want to say I do understand, you know, we all want privacy. Uh but it's it's tough being to I mean I can imagine being a police officer and having to deal with what's happened uh with the previous administrations when they had the borders open and other countries are emptying out their uh insane asylums and uh prisons and um bringing people across the border where they're raping children. There's kidnapping of children, child trafficking. I mean, I don't understand how a a policeman could actually do his job and and why a police officer would want to be a police officer to do that kind of job when they're just going to be released back into the public if they are arrested. Uh let's say someone that does something uh that's horrible and they're released back into the public again the the very next day. I mean, you hear about those horror stories all the time. So, I do understand the frustration of being a police officer and and uh uh all we can do is pray for them because uh it it's horrible what's happening uh right now uh with this. And as far as the the vote goes, yeah, I I understand it was turned down previously, but that's like with Mission Park. I live on Mission Park. We had a vote as in regards to the parking uh situation that was turned down and and that's being brought up again. Uh I don't know if they're going to get around the vote uh for something like that, but uh you you know people had already uh voted and spoken and said no, we don't want this. We don't you know everything's fine with the mission park as far as uh uh the voting I mean the the parking situation. So please don't bring that back up. But again, I I support the police and I can understand their frustration. Thank you very much.

Uh thank you David. Please come forward. Good evening again, Mayor Gilmore, council and city staff. Um, just want to start off with I'm in support of the Perine Technologies and the platform and the services. I am an actual resident tonight. I'm not someone that's been brought in or called in tonight from outside our cities to speak for our residents. Uh, using scare tactics of ICE and others, just for the record. Um, I'm against what ICE is doing. Um, but again, this is a license plate reader and and looking at a license and bumper. There's proper protections that are in place and they are compliant. Consequences will be upheld for data breaches. Provisions to the hold the contractor liable for data breach. Um, there's no information shared with federal authorities. This keeps coming up over and over and over again. Data is controlled by the department. The retention policies are already in place. Uh, I'm 100% confident in this system and look forward to its use to continue to serve the public with outstanding safety and response that we depend from our Santa Clara Police Department. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, I don't have any other speakers and it is 12:00. So, council, are we going to come up with a time to complete this meeting? Does someone have a recommendation? I believe we can continue the item that we're in progress. Council member Cox. Yeah, I'll make a motion for uh 30 30 to 45 more minutes. 30 or 45. Um let's do 30. I I'm not willing to make a continue the item because I think that becomes a game. It does. So, I would say 30 minutes. Okay. 30 minutes to 12:30. Is there a second? I'll second that.

All right. Motion second. Uh, city clerk, council Gonzalez, yes. Council member Shahal, yes. Council Hardy, yes. Council Park, no. Council Jane, yes. And there's no one here. Council Cox, yes. Mayor Gilmore,

yes. Thank you. That passes six to one. All right. Um, so now there is uh discussion by council and potential motion. Council member Cox. Oh, somebody. We only have 30 minutes. Somebody Oh, Council Member Jane.

Yeah. Um, I'm going to insist um for my vote that we have a third party do the audit for the leakage because um I think it's important that we hire an expert that understands how data can be leaked and uh to protect our residents and the public from overreach. council. Somebody council member Hardy.

Um I guess because I heard a lot of claims, I'm wondering if we can have either the police officer or the company answer to any of those. and and to council member Jane's idea of a third party. Could we have someone answer that please?

Thank you. Uh so a few points um before I hand it over to the gentleman from Paragrin. Um there are annual audits done by the DOJ um for access for information within our department. Uh this for the use of the state and federal law enforcement databases. So that is done uh an audit held by DOJ uh yearly. Um we don't use predictive policing or we don't use any type of automated decision- making when it comes to police deploy uh deployment. Um I'm going ahead and hand it over to Tim Shrivever here who's going to talk a little bit about the paragan thirdparty um auditing that it does exist. Thank you,

mayor, city council. Thank you all for having us. Um yeah, specifically I mean I can speak to a range of the questions um depending on what you're most interested in but um a few things what about the auditing would be great.

Yeah absolutely. So so just to clarify on our end so auditing that the police department decides to do of their own usage of paragrin is up to the city and the police department according to policy. I just want to let you know you all know that we also undergo our own thirdparty auditing the results of which are available to you all. We undergo what's called a sock 2 audit on an annual basis. That's a third-party audit that comes in and reviews our security and that is available. We had one earlier this year that's available. Future versions of that will be available. Um so we have our own thirdparty audit in addition to whatever auditing you all want to do of your usage of the platform. When it comes to the usage of the platform and the auditing that that we provide. Um council member Park you know you were asking about you know what is available. Basically what we provide is every click, view, search, anything that's typed into the platform, any usage of the platform, all of those things are traced and auditable. So anything you're doing in the platform can be viewed um and can be viewed by whomever within the police department, you all deem to be administr the administrator to review that um as well as anyone who you all seek to have be a part of that auditing process. So in in that case we are providing those audit logs that you can see all activity within the platform that touches any Santa Clara data. Um let me just pause there. I can respond to other pieces.

Um council member Jane you have a followup to the audit question there. Unfortunately um I can't actually trust the DOJ we currently have to do a fair audit. They seem to want to go after people for retribution. I I think correct me if I'm wrong, officer, but or Lieutenant Lutz, but I think the the officer was referring to the California DOJ. Is is that what your concern is? Probably thought you meant federal.

Yeah. So, so I believe you're saying the California DOJ conducts the annual audit. That's our familiarity working with police departments in the state. So, the California DOJ also conducts its own audits. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. But can we hire our own third third party auditor? Do those exist out there? Do one for us or hire? Uh you you of course are welcome to hire your own third.

So you're saying our police department has full authority to hire whoever we we want in terms of auditing. So yeah, of course we can hire our own. I imagine, Chief, is that you're all the way back there. Is that something we can do? Is that something we can do? The answer is yes, we can. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Council member Hardy,

one quick question. Um, what other cities or entities in Northern California are using this platform? We have uh over 100 cities and counties in the state of California that are using Peragan, including the uh nearby to you here, the county of Santa Clara, the city of San Jose, um most of the cities throughout Alama County, Contracasta County, the city of San Francisco, uh San Monteo County. I mean, uh most of the police departments and sheriff's offices in the greater Bay Area um are are paragan customers currently. And and just just for history, um because a lot was said about our history, Paragon was developed here in the in the Bay Area, our co-founders embedded at the San Pablo Police Department and spent two years in the San Pablo Police Department, deeply understanding the work that the officers were doing every day, the problems they faced, and developed the platform here in the Bay Area. And that has been our home base ever since eight years ago when we were founded. Um a few things just to clarify. Um, I think it's been said a few times because there's been some confusion with other vendors. Um, we are not a license plate reader company. We don't provide cameras. We don't provide license plate reading. We don't collect any new data as has been said, but I think there's just been some confusion because I know there's multiple law enforcement vendors that have been discussed here before the council. Um, and one other thing I just wanted to to to point out or or to respond to was this question of interoperability and data sharing with the federal government. Um, as was shared by Lieutenant Lutz, the only data that will be shared out of Paragon with any other police law enforcement agency of any kind are agencies that you all say on paper we want to share with. There is no end. There is no interoperability made possible with any federal agency, any fusion center, um, any anything. Um, you know, as was shared before, Paragan by its nature, by its default, all that

data is kept within uh, just to Santa Clara users. Um any sharing outside of that has to be explicitly made in writing directed to us or else we will not share that data. Um and those just I mean there's there's a lot more but I just wanted to respond to that. No, thank you for those clarifications.

Um council member Park then followed by Vice Mayor Gonzalez. So I mean you talked about internal audits and so two testing is about the system penetration testing passwords arbback things like that it has nothing to do with the how the data will be used and how the data you know traverse the system I don't believe it has anything to do with that I was a cso myself and we've done I've done a lot of sock 2 compliance um I think that it's nice that you do that but that's the quality of your product has nothing to do with the way the product is used for for the purposes. I think they're just throwing that out there. Can I can I just respond on that? Sure.

Because you are I think the reason the reason I shared that is not to um is that there's there's different types of audits. Of course, there was conversations around the need to audit the security of the platform and there's conversations that you had raised around the need to audit the use of the platform. You're correct. The SOCK 2 audits focus on the security of the platform whereas audits regarding the usage of the platform are generally performed by police departments or folks that they decide to have audit the use of the platform. That's not something we conduct. You're you are correct about that. So those are two different forms of auditing that cover different parts of uh security and privacy. Um so I didn't mean to um confuse on that. You you are right. Those are two different types of auditing.

Okay. Okay. And I'm just saying that from the context that I think people were bringing up to not make that differentiation was a little bit disingenuous. Um I mean data is shared immediately when somebody makes a query otherwise you couldn't use the tool. I think that people do not understand what data are and how they're generated. I think that by putting data together you are creating new new data. This is how scalers become vectors. This is how you know different things become u more useful. And if they weren't more useful you wouldn't have a company. you wouldn't have a product. Um, I'm worried about training. I think that uh the data that you're using that our data I think that you have exclusive rights to use that data for in training your product to make a new product or better product. I don't know if you're using our data for AI training. Even if that AR train, even if the uh the the raw data are are removed afterwards, the fact that you've got uh data that's been created from our data, if you've got I how do we how do we control that? I don't think we have any policies for that. And this is also a question for city attorney and city city manager, which is I don't believe we have any usage or training policies which limit this. um how would we you know would you we would use our data in a in a box which means that none of our data I don't want any of our data to be used for training even to make your your product better. I think that you've got a lot of other jurisdictions that may be more than willing to share the data with you to make the product better. But I I think it's very clear there are a lot of people in this community that they don't want our data to be used for for purposes like that. I don't know how we'd we'd be able to limit that. I don't know how we'd be able to control that. Um I mean when you talk about data, we've got points that are wrong. I know that some jurisdictions say that every negative hit, like we make a query and that query is is bad. The data that are generated from that query must be

deleted within minutes. But they really aren't deleted. Especially if you've got something that audits the query that logs the query that's being made. the fact that you've got a query being made and that query that query log stays around for a long time that that gives people information as well. It tells people what people are looking for and in some cases depending on how the query is written the query itself is is is data. How do you fix or remove data that are wrong? How do you fix or remove data that should not be there? And how can we tell? Um I do heard some questions. I heard some issues from the public which are the uh indemnity uh clause that it's only indemnity against patent and intellectual property claims. It's not uh indemnity against misuse. It's not indemnity against uh product going wrong. Uh is is this true? I'd like a little bit more detail there. Um yeah, I think that there are a lot of a lot of people are asking for the data. Again, the fact that we can't see how the data are be are being used. The fact that uh we've got MUS which should be public, I think that at some point we should have a announcement every single time an MOU is made. when we're, you know, if we're this motion is going to pass at all, I think somebody should make a motion that we come up with an audit schedule. We have an audit schedule during the first year so that we're not one year later and we have no idea what to do and what the effect of this product was and to have if we're going to put put money into this, set aside money for hiring our auditors as well. But again, the fact that we're considering this again, you know, is kind of a miscarriage of justice and

tells me a little bit and kind of informs how this this city uh takes justice and how it takes process. And that being the case, I'm not comfortable with any of this, right? I mean, the fact that we're sitting here right now having this discussion without any agreement and council members brought this forward, I want to make this very clear. It it has eroded the the trust not just of the the public that came here to speak public that also lives in the city. You know there is no there is no solitary claim that one person can live in the city and be concerned about about this topic. But it's eroded my trust too. I think that it's eroded my trust not just in this one issue but in the entire council process and uh input from executive staff. Um, and again, this really smacks of corruption from a very high level.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Gonzalez. But can you address the uh Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to go to him first in case there's questions.

Um, we'll make a comment and then uh make a motion. So, our our chief of police has definitely brought trust to the the city. you know, we've uh in the past people were stopped in my district for park parking in places they probably shouldn't be parking, right? So, illegal search and seized fourth amendment. He's definitely earned my trust and and the trust, I think, of the public here in the city of Santa Clara. That's why he's our chief. Um, you know, I'm not going to rely on prayers to to provide our our our PD the tools that they need, the resources that they need. Um, we have data. the data just sitting in different silos is not going to help us. I think that um we're legally bound by uh statutes and legislation that uh our state legislators have brought forward and and I know that our our police department will comply with that. So I'll make a motion for the staff recommendation.

Is there a second? I want to ask the question. It was alluded to that because we have recommendation one, two, and three, three needs five votes that we bifurcate that and we take um recommendation one and two first and then we can look at part three. That's my That's fine. We don't have a whole lot of time, so let's do it that way. Let's do one and two first and then we'll go to three. Is that your motion then? Would that be your motion for one and two recommendations? That's my recommendation.

And uh would we also put in there a sixmonth um audit for the city? I think it's to the police chief on this and the police department for the audit. Are you comfortable with six months? Okay, got the nod. A second. So, it's staff recommendation for one and two with a six-month audit. Second by the police department.

Okay. Um, Council Member Cox.

Yeah, I'd like to support the motion, but I I want to just make a comment. Um, and I'll try to do it quickly. I think that one of the dichotoies we're facing right here is that going uh and supporting the police needs is antithetical to supporting what the community wants. And I know our job up here is almost in a utilitarian way to figure out what's best. And so we can have the hypothetical issues of what all this can become, but I think the police are trying to solve real issues on the ground right now. Um, and it it's alarming because when somebody says something at the at the stage here, there's people in the back saying it's not true. And so, you know, ultimately this is about who are you going to trust to bring forward the information um that you're going to need to vote on. And again, I've encouraged people go on a ride along, talk to our police. I I trust our police and what we're trying to solve. The problem came up. What what problem are we trying to solve? The issues right now are real for our community and they are about uh supporting our community with the best tools they can. So I'm absolutely supportive of this measure, but I I would like to say for me that is not an indication that I don't support our public. That is I am trying to do the best thing to support our public and I feel giving tools to our police force is the best way to do that right now.

Thank you, Council Member Chahal. Thank you mayor. So and there were some questions raised by even the residents have raised some questions about transparency about section 12 data control ownership and uh interoperability within federal fusion centers. I I would like to hear those answers like when a residents ask those questions they may need basically. So we I need to hear those answers first. I think that you come up again and please repeat what you said earlier because I think they answered a lot of those questions already, but

please go ahead and reanswer them.

Yeah, absolutely. So on the data ownership front, um Santa Clara will maintain throughout any any contract with Paragan complete and total ownership of their data. any data that is being brought from Santa Clara systems into Paragrin um throughout that process will be owned and controlled by Santa Clara um and and that includes any data sharing. Um and so suggestion so interoperability is a term we use to refer to the challenge we were built to solve which is that the challenge facing you know to to council member Cox's point if you've spent time in police with police departments in police cars you'll see that there are many systems and they you have to log into four five six seven different systems those systems don't speak to each other. So when we say interoperability we're speaking about the ability to make systems speak to each other so that they can more effectively do their jobs. So when we're talking about interoperability, we're not talking I think the term federal interoperability was used. We're not talking about making inter like Santa Clara systems interoperable with ICE. We're talking about making the CAD system and the RMS system, the evidence system speak to each other to make it easier for police departments to move faster to make better decisions. Um so that kind of speaks to both to I hope well let me pause there. Does that speak to your concern or your question?

Okay, that's fine. How about audit trails? You know you did mention that every click you make will have a trace right just like an accounting system they all maintain a regular audit trail so how long the audit trail is maintained in this system permanent permanent and let's say if I query uh gentleman x what did he query what time and where was the data downloaded I'll have all the details for right absolutely

that user Yep. You can search by user, by time of day, by week, by you know, wherever whatever kind of filter you want to use. You can search by role in the organization. Um, you know, what whatever filter criteria you want to use. You have instant access, whoever has administrative access. So that those audit logs are not available to any user. As we talked about, we have role-based access controls. And so the department decides who gets to look at those logs and then those logs are fully searchable um in granular fashion by whomever has that administrative control and you can restrict the download capability of a user. Correct.

So if we sign anou with another municipality in the PD are we I'm not sure I'm just taking example like you mentioned you have contracts with multiple municipalities. Are they having the full download cap capability outside the their own organization? How do they do that? That is up to your that is within the control of the department. No. So the the department so Santa Clara can determine when they share that data what are the controls they want to put on that data. I'm talking in general practice are they what standard what the standard is like are they sharing all the all the down because are they sharing

I'm so much concerned about my PD I'm concerned about because if we have a fiveUS with five different municipalities and and I know flock data they didn't had the control of the downloads right but in this one you say we will have a control over downloads and we will have a audit trail of the downloads. So how what are the best practices to restrict that type of a download? Because if the data is downloaded from you, it's basically somewhere sitting outside. You may have a sock to operations but if it is sitting on my desktop or somebody else desktop, it can be hacked within seconds and that doesn't mean anything basically.

Yeah. What are the checks and balances for that?

Yeah. So there's a few things that we see departments standard best practice um or I would say standard practice. We really defer to the department on on what they feel is best for their community or what their community desires. But what's key is that every department can decide first and foremost who data gets shared with. So is it uh this police department or this sheriff's office? Um two, what data gets shared. So if you're to think about a 911 call, there's lots of parts of a 911 call. There's the address they went to. There's the officers that went to the address. There's the people that were served at that address. There was um there's the call narrative from the dispatcher. All that information, the department gets to decide what of that gets shared. So, it may just be, hey, we had a 911 call of this type that gets shared. Some other departments might decide we're actually comfortable sharing the narrative of what happened in that call. And so, there's control over what fields get shared across. And um one of the ways in which our departments can decide to kind of li uh uh protect themselves is by limiting what data that they decide to share with other departments. And then yes, you can then in addition to that um limit the download capabilities such that they can see it but they can't download it. Um so those are a few of the ways in which we have departments controlling what gets shared with other agencies when they decide to share.

So I will have a counter question to my PD basically. Do you have any guidelines what uh download policies we'll follow with ourus? Do we have a standardou type like have envisioned anou let's say we sign with municipality x u what what would be our checks and balances on that?

You don't have anything in place as far as like downloading regarding anou. um it falls back into the same compliance we fall into with seizures compliance and and any information that is being accessed or uh made available to the officers um obtaining or retaining that information is still protected through uh checks and balances. So nothingou that says you know the downloadable stuff is is um not allowed. uh even if even if the raw data is not downloadable u refined report I can ask okay give me a list of all the flock um ALPR data on a particular intersection ABC it will get a report right so that even getting that data itself is quite a bit of information for anybody else outside the jurisdiction basically so download is one like download is basically you are downloading all the raw data and you can play play around with it but even downloading a particular query report is a concern so I I want to see what are the checks and balances we as a center PD will maintain on those type ofus council member I think where you're following is you're trying to see how we can control downstream data downloads because those people that we share data with, they're bound by the same laws and rules and regulations that we are.

Yes. But laws are broken by so many people certainly and we employ humans and we have we have a discipline process. We have uh criminal punishments and penalties and we have had and it's challenging to go into specific details on personnel matters but we have uh held people accountable up to and including termination for misuse of of data outside the jurisdiction. I know you have full control of your own team basically. But what if municipality acts downloaded the report, downloaded the data and they misused it?

Yeah, they're they're subject to the laws of the state of California. they'll be held accountable by their either local district attorney's office or the state department of justice uh depending on what threshold they committed the crime. But yeah, we police in the jurisdiction of Santa Clara and other jurisdictions navigate their own criminal justice process. Okay. All right, Council Member Park. And then we're going to take a vote. And with that, Madame Mayor, I just want to make a comment. We have five minutes, so I'm trying to move it along. Thank you. Yes, it's a we are signing a fiveyear contract and we can't spend 10 more minutes or five more minutes then it's

we've been spending hours on this. So

spending hours but go ahead please just go ahead with your important information. Go ahead. I yeah it's important information in a sense like if we are coming to this thing why don't we sign a six month or a one-ear contract versus a fiveyear contract so that we can learn our department will learn because they will be first time handling this thing they will be first time handling all theus first time handling the data so why not uh why we are signing five-year contract basically I would say ask a friendly amendment like we should go for one-year contract and learn from it and find out what are the pros and cons of this thing and then go from there basically

instead of fiveyear contract. Okay. Um are you finished with your comments? Yes.

All right. Council member Park. And actually, this was my my request the first time this came up, and I think that council member Jane had seconded that motion up until the city manager talked him out of it by saying that the 30-year termination clause, 30-day termination clause was the same thing. We've been talking about this for a long time, but we still don't have these qu these questions answered, which are training, AI or otherwise. We didn't talk about that, you know, for the improvement of the product. How do we keep that out of there? How do we delete data? the indemnity. I mean, at some at some point, I believe that the city attorney owes us a little bit of of what actually the city what they're going to indemnify. Um, I recall now that there was no logging of the data that was downloaded or exported, but I'm I think that this is not true that you do log what's being exported and what's what's being downloaded, right? And I want to make sure that that is um there. the fact that we've got we've talked about an audit schedule, that's fine. I'd like to also put provisions in for an auditor because we want a third party auditor for that. I think that the idea of having a one-year contract and forcing a report, forcing a a this is what this is how the product has has made our lives better would be a very important thing. going to a 5-year contract with a 5-year extension is madness for this type of product. I don't understand why people aren't talking about that at all. I mean, the fact that people are talking about how this came back for reconsideration, that's a good thing. But there are so many other other things that we're missing. Again, logging data that's exported, downloaded, training, AR, otherwise for the improvement of product. How do we keep our data out of there? How do we remove data that uh we see you know how do we ensure that's removed and how do we find the data to remove? How do we separate it from the the other things

that we've already combined it with uh indemnity uh misuse audit schedule auditor and one-year contract with report. I think that we've come up with a six I I believe the chief uh agreed to a six-month report because that will take us right past FIFA and I think that that will give us a good idea of what we've learned, what we were able to do. But these are the questions that still have not not been answered. And I think that that those many of them have already been answered, but you're not accepting the answer. So Oh, no, no, no. I don't think I'm going to now go. I'm calling for the vote. Let's see what what happens here. Um because if not, we're going to have to continue it. Mayor, so yes,

I'm sorry. I know the city attorney wants to say something, but before the vote, can I recommend splitting? We did already. Did you not notice that one? I'm sorry. It's one and two. I just want to make sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. If I may answer the indemnity question. It was directed at me. I can do it quickly. You do 10 seconds. Go ahead. Um the um suggestion was that the indemnity was limited just to infringement of third parties intellectual property rights. That's that's not in fact true. It includes um uh contractor's negligence, willful misconduct, violation of law, breach of any material warranty, representations, covenant made by contractor or infringement of third parties intellectual property rights. So it is broader. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you for that. All right, Vin, go ahead. Vice Mayor Gonzalez, yes. Council member Shahal, no. Council Hardy, yes. C. Council Park is absent. C. Council member Jane. No. Council member Cox. Yes. Mayor Gilmore. Yes. And that passes 4 to two. All right. The next item. Is anyone going to make a motion? Motion on the recommendation three.

Yes. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve the 2526 budget amendment in the general fund to increase the police department budget in the amount of 244,420 and decrease the budget stabilization reserve in the same amount. Um, which needs five affirmative votes. Second. All right. Uh, we have a motion and a second for the funding of this. Vin, when you're ready. Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Yes. Council member Shahal, no. Council Hardy, yes. Council Jane, no. Council Cox, yes. Mayor Gilmore,

yes. So, that item fails because you need five votes. Okay. Mayor, um, because part of the recommendations passed and part failed, I think it's important to articulate the next steps uh, and what staff would do. So what we have is the authorization to proceed with the contract was approved.

A budget amendment to add additional money to the police department's budget for the contract was not approved. And so you provided the city manager with authorization to execute the contract. I can execute that, but I do not have additional money. So we will seek additional funds from within the police department's budget to fund year one of this contract. Okay.

Uh and so that's consistent with uh the city council approval. Any subsequent year funding of the of of the contract will be put in future years budgets and the council can have those deliberations at that time at that time. We will certainly um given the um vote on this matter uh ensure that the contract maintains that 30-day cancellation clause. So if funding in future years is not approved, we can cancel the contract. Thank Do you not put it in the budget for this upcoming fiscal year?

Well, the it it yes, for the upcoming fiscal year, um it will we will seek to put it in in the budget. Uh the budget is being de developed right now and I know finance is crunching numbers to provide you with a draft, but certainly um if it's not in your printed materials, we can add it um um at the meeting.

Thank you. All right. So, um, thank you very much for that. Uh, this meeting is I'm going to adjourn this meeting and I have an adjournment in memory of Rod Deiron, Senior. Rod Deiron, Senior, the former Santa Clair County Supervisor known as the father of Silicon Valley's modern transportation system, passed away on Friday, April 3rd, at the age of 87 due to complications from cancer. The California Transit Association described him as the father of modern transit service in Silicon Valley. Over a public service career that began in 1971, he cheer chaired more than 100 international, national, state, and local programs. Most focused on transportation and environmental progress. Trains were his lifelong passion. As a young man, he worked as a railroad breakman and fireman to support his education, attending Shasta Junior College in Chico State before transferring to San Jose State University. At just 32 years old, he was elected to the Saratoga City Council in 1971. Three years later, he became the youngest person elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, where he served for two decades. During his career, he served as the chair of the board of supervisors and the county's transit board and led major regional agencies including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the Association of Bay Area Governments. He also played a pivotal role in preserving the historic Cahill Street Train Station following the 1989 LMA Prietta earthquake. In recognition of his leadership, the station was renamed Deiron station upon his retirement in 1994. Today, Deiron station serves as a central transit hub for VTA buses and

light rail, Cal Train, and Amtrak and may one day connect to BART and California highspeed rail. His name continues to shape the surrounding community from the Deiron station area to local businesses and developments. US highspeed rail co-chair and former US Secretary of Transportation Ray Lehood called him a giant in the transportation world. Totally committed to making high-speed rail a reality in California, Rod Deiron leaves behind a legacy defined by passion, vision, and leadership in public transportation and climate progress and extraordinary contribution to Silicon Valley and beyond. He survived by his two children, Rod Jr. and Mary Margaret, four grandchildren, and his wife, Dr. Gloria Duffy. We offer our deepest condolences to the Dearon family and to all those who were fortunate enough to know him. This meeting's adjourned.