City Council and Authorities Concurrent - meeting_joint

Okay.

Always, Mayor.

Good evening and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority concurrent meeting. I apologize, we were meant to start at 5.30, but we had to make sure there were at least four of us here on the dais. We have two online, which the city clerk will talk about, so we had to delay the meeting. So apologies for that. Confirmation of a quorum, city clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirmation of a quorum. And as you noted, we have Councilmember Hardy and Vice Mayor Gonzales online. And at 7 o'clock, we'll announce that as well. They are participating remotely pursuant to SB 707 just cause. Thank you.

Thank you, and so we have a study session before our regular council meeting. It's gonna be an abbreviated study session. We'll be stopping at 10 minutes to seven so that we can transition to the city council meeting. So without further ado, city manager, we have study session review of and input on the proposed fiscal year 26-27 and fiscal year 27-28 biennial capital improvement program budget and fiscal year 26-27 operating budget amendments and setting june 9th 2026 as the public hearing date for the city council action on the proposed budget city manager sure thank you mayor thank you members of council and public the item before you is the second of three meetings on the proposed budget

The first one, as you know, was May 5th, and the second one, Mayor, as you just noted, will be on, or the third one will be on June 9th. At the May 5th study session, staff provided a detailed presentation of highlights for the proposed capital budget and operating budget. The City Council provided and asked a number of questions. At this study session, staff will focus the majority of time on responses to those questions. You also have received in your packet detailed written responses to 30 questions that were asked at the last meeting. It's my pleasure to state that the proposed budget resolves our structural deficit. It allocates funds to continue with the implementation of Measure I. It sets aside funds for future infrastructure investments, which we know has been a significant council priority. It also proposes new positions to align with growth and city council priorities. Also worth noting that Santa Clara's unique mix of housing, commercial office, R&D, and data centers provides a solid revenue base such that it allows us to invest in needed enhancements. It also allows us to fund our personnel costs and the City Council will know that we had just about every bargaining group open last year, and we were able to resolve, frankly, all but one of those contracts that we are still negotiating. But those have provided predictable and stable labor costs that have helped us resolve our structural deficit. With that, I'll turn this presentation over to Director Ken Lee, Finance Director for the City.

Welcome, Ken.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council. Thank you, City Manager Grogan. Appreciate the opportunity for round two of the budget study sessions. I know I have time to make up, so I will talk quickly. There's a lot of repeat here. I'll focus on the high-level kind of summary of our proposed capital budget. I will focus a lot of time and a lot of slides on the responses to questions. You, as the City Council, as well as the public, asked some very good questions, and I want to make sure that we spend the bulk of this presentation on that. By way of just budget calendar, as I mentioned in prior presentations, the budget work is not just a one or two week or month process, it's almost a year-round process. We're here with the second study session, a little bit different from prior study sessions tonight. There is a recommended action to place The public hearing on for June 9th, conferring with our city attorney and our charter language, that is a new kind of recommendation for tonight. So just wanted to point that out. By way of background, we do alternate biennial budgets every two years between our capital or operating. And so in this budget before you is a capital budget cycle. I will highlight the key investments in that capital budget. We do have a number of operating budget amendments, and I have a couple slides on that as well. uh... on this fly just some of the major themes of this budget and as your uh... finance director this is a budget a i'd say you know the bulk of my career i've been solving deficits budgets and this is one that uh... just want to highlight where we have funds that we are allocating to some very key areas and and also and record making recommendations for structural changes within the budget that promote long-term sustainability for both the budget as well as some of our capital infrastructure. On this slide, the box on the upper left, our measure IGO bond, as you know, our voting public passed that bond. We recently went out to the market and obtained the first tranche of $100 million of bonds, so this budget continues that as the highest priority of delivering on those projects. It includes dedicated staff focused on project delivery. And then notably tranche two and three are reflected but will be in detail in future budgets. So the focus of this budget is tranche one, that $100 million. The box on the right, upper right there, Capital Project Delivery, includes significant funding for our utilities, our electric, sewer, water utilities funded primarily by rate payers and necessary for the needs of our utilities. Allocates dedicated funding primarily around our transportation projects. We get a significant portion of funding from our gas tax, Measure B, SB 1, dedicated sources. And then select a number of projects out of our general fund capital projects reserve. This has historically been the funding source for capital projects, so this budget continues that in areas of projects where there is no alternative funding source. at the bottom right uh... box here fiscal sustainability and planning for the future as as the city manager mentioned this forecast in this budget includes uh... addressing the structural deficit and uh... good news from a long-term perspective but also just a cautionary note it doesn't include all the costs that as a growing city, as there are multiple competing needs identified through various stakeholders, and our council priority setting session doesn't include funding for everything that's needed in our city, but significant progress from a fiscal long-term standpoint. The budget includes a new infrastructure replacement capital fund or a sinking fund. The recommendation in the budget is 3% of our general fund expenses and I'll talk about through the Q&A, I know there was some feedback on how we can increase that potentially to a 5% level. And so I'll talk about opportunities to do that. And then the last bullet on the right there, restoration of frozen positions. These are a handful of positions across all city departments through the COVID pandemic that were unfunded. And so with the funding in this budget, it sets aside dollars to have a separate process to restore those positions. And then the bottom left box here around organizational effectiveness and city services includes a $2 million allocation for council priorities. There are upcoming priority setting sessions in May and July, and so this allocation is acknowledgement of potential investments necessary through that process. And it also recommends a number of position changes related to organizational reviews in a couple departments. That's been a process that was started about a year and a half ago and continuing through several departments. And so we do have some augmentations to the budget around those reviews. By way of numbers, the budget before you is $1.7 billion in activity. This is across all our city funds and from a government accounting standpoint. By fund type here, I just wanted to highlight our enterprise funds, primarily consisting of our utilities, $1.2 billion in activity. The debt and other classification here, the up and the down between fiscal years reflects timing of debt and annual payments, and then third to note here on capital funds, the higher number in the adopted budget for the recommendation that will be before you on June 9th, the carryover of a portion of those capital funds, those projects will be recommended as those projects continue beyond the fiscal year. So for the capital budget itself, this slide's been out in the public. These are the buckets of Measure I dollars, the $400 million of GO bond authority that was approved by the voters across the different buckets. As I mentioned, tranche one was issued earlier this year, and we are looking to issue over a three-phase process. On this slide, just a reminder for those at home watching around the bond, it does include transparency and accountability and a process and guidelines to ensure that those funds are spent in accordance with the desires of our voters. And so listed here just for awareness. As I mentioned earlier, the budget includes an allocation from our general fund capital projects reserve in key areas where there is no alternate funding source. And a lot of these projects includes our city facilities, this city hall campus, as you can see, as systems fail or are in need of repairs, our historic facilities, dollars around. progress for our ADA settlement to progress the needs around that, transportation. So just wanna highlight $16 million across a number of projects. I know I had about six or seven slides last time going line by line, but I will keep it high level in this presentation. As far as CIP investment by theme, our biennial budget totals $593 million, the largest of which in our electric utility over the two-year period, almost $400 million. And I'll talk about those projects. And then over a five-year capital planning period, $1.1 billion allocated here by theme area. So in our electric utility theme area, $739 million over five years, several key activities related to our SVP utility. The first I want to talk about is our KISO planning process. This is working with our state regulatory agency as they balance a load within the state across different electric utility projects. providers, we do work with them on an annual basis for projects that are required to kind of maintain that balance across the state. And so this first project was the result of the last process. It requires about $100 million investment in a transmission line into our northern receiving station. The second project here, transmission loop, as our electric system grows, there's a need to balance throughout segments of our city. And so depending on the low demand and types of businesses, these different loops needing improvements around the equipment, upgrades to equipment capacity. And so loop one here, about $107 million. the third bullet um and and so around the maintenance of our existing infrastructure and main and maintaining a key equipment and so earlier this year you may have heard that our dvr substation had an engine go out that was unexpected and so this budget does allow for the procurement of an additional spare to ensure reliability improve reliability and including some long lead time transformers, just a proactive strategy to keep our system functioning and reliable. And then the last bullet here I want to highlight here is our transmission and distribution capital maintenance, the poles that our residents, our businesses use to transmit that power, taking a look at kind of a lifespan period and an increase in that investment over the five years here, $35 million or so over five years. So some of the key projects in our electric utility. When it comes to administrative facilities, so the focus here are on our Measure I bond projects, our Fire Station 5 and 7 replacement, security upgrades, improvements at our police center, police training facility, a drone infrastructure, and a real-time intelligence center as we have the very large events, as we work with jurisdictions around the area, critical to have the most up-to-date infrastructure and tools to catch those committing crimes. And then to round out that list here, EV charging, public parking improvements, repairs to historical buildings, and then advancement of our ADA transition plan. In our community facilities areas, key projects are around the libraries and our parks, including our Central Park Library carpet and paint replacements. And the picture on the bottom right, I know there was a recent groundbreaking at our International Swim Center, so advancing that project is a key part of this budget. Convention Center, so the picture there shows the new paint right before the Super Bowl. There is a separate process underway to prioritize and identify some of the key projects at the Convention Center that will be brought forward separately at the end of this calendar year. Parks and trails, so some key projects both included in our bond and underway through primarily our impact fee dollars. So we have some playground replacements and renovations, Maywood, Earl, Carmichael, Henry Schmidt, Warburton Park, Mary Gomez, and additional kind of advancement. I know the parks master plan recently was approved by the council. So really planning for the future around our parks and trails. In terms of our sewer utility, our key investment here is around our regional wastewater facility. That is an aging infrastructure, but very critical to convey the sewage from our city to treat it, to convert that sewage to potable, recycled uses and alternate uses. Significant dollars in the CIP, it will require future debt issuances to fund that large of a And then along the sanitary sewer conveyance system, just condition assessment capacity and system improvements. Solid waste, so we do have activities around our closed landfills. And in this budget, it does include a new project to increase that reliability of the city's landfill gas flare system. In our storm drain area, our Measure I projects around both the storm pumps or green infrastructure, this budget has a combination of both Measure I bond dollars and general fund dollars to invest in our storm drain to prevent both localized ponding, 10 year and century type flooding within the city. Technology and equipment, some of the investments here around our Acela developers permitting system, our GIS system, working with our IT department in terms of some of the key equipment that needs replacement over the five year term. Transportation, Measure I projects, including street resurfacing and rehab, ADA improvements, trail rehab, bicycle weight finding. And so just notably, the Public Works Department uses a pavement condition index to rate our streets, the quality of our streets, and so projected to increase to about a 74 rating over the five-year CIP. And then notably some other dollars allocated for Vision Zero, traffic calming, El Camino bike. I think one of the questions in the Q&A was around El Camino bike lane projects, so I'll talk about the status of that. Water and recycled water, important to note that 20% of the water sold in our city is recycled water, so that's a key area as wastewater is treated and used for alternate sources, and so this budget includes $24 million around the distribution system, grounds, valves, mains, related to both water and recycled water systems. And then around our unfunded capital needs, this is a slide that we update every two years with our capital budget. And with the approval of our $400 million GEO bond, this is over a five year working with our departments. identifying roughly a quarter billion dollars of unfunded needs over five years in that chart on the right. And when you look at all the master plans, the needs within the city, storm drain, bicycle master plan, and then public buildings, over a billion dollars in our need. Around City Hall, that's not included in that number, as you see in this facility, a lot of needs when it comes to HVAC and systems that are aging. Shifting gears to the operating budget, so the two-year operating budget was approved last June. This budget includes adjustments and amendments based on updated revenue estimates in the general fund, updated labor costs, as the city manager mentioned, with most of the bargaining units approving multi-year labor agreements. This budget updates the dollars in the departments to those costs. resource and production costs in our enterprise fund, and then some enhancements around priorities, frozen positions, and I'll talk about those key areas around the position changes. On this slide, our Parks and Recreation Department underwent an organizational review this past year. This budget includes a net addition of six full-time equivalent positions, a management analyst, office assistants, and two rec coordinators. It also includes the net zero reclassification of management positions, maintenance workers and repair workers, recreational supervisors to coordinators. So really a cost-effective approach to reorganize our parks and recreation department based on the consultant's review of the services and the organization. In our Public Works Department, the net addition of seven full-time equivalent, that does include one senior engineer around Vision Zero that was approved by the Council earlier this year, two bond implementation Measure I positions as Measure I projects ramp up, two engineers needed there, and then a reclassification, a deputy director to an assistant director within the Public Works Department. Around our electric utility and finance, there was a restructuring recommended by the organizational review consultant. Late last year, business services was restructured to the finance department, so that did shift 22 positions in the new division around purchasing and fiscal. And so this budget adopts or memorializes that change. In the electric utility, it also has a recommendation here to add for FTE that's included in the proposed budget around our public benefits program, engineering support, uh... and supporting a large key customers and the budget also sets aside a eight hundred and thirty thousand dollars for additional positions that organization review is is ongoing and so working with at that the consultant with our uh... electric utility uh... three additional positions will be recommended for the council to consider as part of the june ninth budget uh... includes one hr technician that's to uh... accelerate some of the recruitment in the SVP area, and then two key, very critical IT positions around cybersecurity and infrastructure within our SVP utility. And then on this slide, just outstanding reviews are in the works, CDD Water and Sewer, I mentioned SVP, that are set to be finalized within the next fiscal year, and then a handful of other position changes in our city manager's office, HR, and library departments. Hiring continues at a high activity rate as we're required by the state. In the next city council meeting, a report will be presented by our HR department around hiring and the activity during the year. In this case, from year to year, you know, roughly a 2.5% reduction in our vacancy rate from 16% down to 13.2. Active recruitments for 108 positions across the city, 14 as needed classifications. Compensation studies completed for four classifications. And if you look at hiring, the pace of hiring is outpacing separation, so that reduction in our Vacancy rate is a positive trend for our organization. When it comes to general fund reserves, some key areas here, I highlight our budget stabilization reserve that's set at 25% of our expenses, and so maintaining that with this proposed budget. Our capital projects reserve, we are allocating dollars away from that. We will have a separate recommendation, and I talk about it in my Q&A, to replenish dollars in that reserve. Land sale reserve. a pension trust to fund our unfunded liability, and then that last line there, the new sinking fund for a capital infrastructure replacement as we replace and improve infrastructure in need for a long-term strategy to ensure that we will continue to be able to maintain and improve our capital infrastructure. So I want to shift gears here to our May 5th study session responses. Question number one on this slide here. Council member asked, with regards to the parks master plan, technology is missing, specifically GIS asset management. What are we doing to track this? Do we need more investment? And so working with our Parks and Recreation Department, we do have in progress an IT system, Lucity, an asset management system. It's comprehensive, it's a work order system. Our parks line workers will be able to identify and log and track all the assets, any of the gaps in terms of maintenance here. So that is scheduled to roll out within the 26, 27 fiscal year. It's a new software system, fully integrated, and so that will help identify our assets in our parks and trails and make recommendations for funding in the future. So very good question, using technology here to help us manage our infrastructure. How are we funding our capital expenditures for SVP? How much is funded by debts? What's the plan to pay off? How much is funded by load development fees? What's the impact if SVP does not generate the demand from data centers and development? And so those five bullets, how we fund our capital expenses, a variety of sources. The primary sources are customer revenue. These are our rates. Notably here that 94% of our customer rate revenue are from large industrial and commercial users. So even though that is rate based, the bulk of that is from our commercial and large industrial. Only 5.6% are from residential customers. With that, our rate, Our customer revenues, our anticipated debt funding, and so an item will be before you in roughly two weeks recommending a short-term funding strategy as our SVP system continues to grow and expand. Taking a look at different financing options to ensure that we invest wisely in our system at the lowest cost interest rate possible. So that will be before the council in a couple weeks. And then around our developer contributions and our load development fees, we are in the process of a consultant study on load development fees. We want to identify areas and impacts from large industrial users to make sure that the burden of Both the investments and the fees are paid for by those connecting to the system. And so those are underway, a portion of that is funded through our CIP. And then restricted public benefit funds, in a slide or two, Restricted dollars for public benefit, a large portion of those dollars are used as commercial rebate to buy greenhouse gas-free type electricity. And so there is a work plan around those dollars. I'll talk about that later. In the next slide, so there is a $50 million balance available. This budget recommends two positions, funded from public benefits. There's a focus here on education and outreach, increased electrification, research and development. And so those targets are set every four years. The utility brought those targets to the council late last year. It's important just by restriction of those dollars, while it's $50 million, it's restricted by class. So as we collect those dollars from large users, they have to be spent to benefit those large users. If we collect it from residential customers, have to be spent on residential customers. So our electric utility is developing funding plans and expenditure plans to align with those goals. uh... question uh... councilmember jane asked about green button this is one that i track very closely because it's a collaborative effort between our utility billing system in our finance department and are complex infrastructure in our electric utility there are no less than four different systems that need to talk to each other in order for Green Button to work and go live. The first system here that I want to talk about, it's not on the written report here, but is around our customer service portal that our customers would see and interface with as it relates to the data from our meters, from our utility system. uh... been a complicated project uh... over five years and in the works as set to go live later this calendar year and we had some very difficult uh... uh... bugs to work out and we've cleared some of those and so that's set to go live later this calendar year, there's also a separate version upgrade for our utility billing system, an upgrade to our energy IP data collection system in SVP, and then replacement and upgrades of the gatekeepers to get the data from the meters to our electric utility. So those four different systems all need different upgrades. Our current goal of Green Button is to make that available in second quarter of 2028. Question number five, you know, popular events, Lunar New Year and night markets, so what would it cost to continue? And so an example here of four seasonal two-night events would cost approximately $700,000 annually. That includes staffing and support from multiple departments, including Parks and Rec, police, public works, our events promotions and all the different costs associated with the logistics of putting that on. So just providing one kind of cost data point around our night events. uh... there was a question around the adobe porch and the morse mansion paints i'm working with our public works department couple uh... strategies here first the bond program has three million dollars set aside uh... for renovation of historic buildings and so our public works departments working with the consultant to prioritize identify how those funds would be best utilized. And then separately, Public Works is also exploring opportunities to advance smaller projects like the porch ahead of those tranches. And so we'll continue to work with our Public Works Department on both the cost and the timing of those upgrades. Question seven, what's the plan to spend the proceeds from the sale of Loyalton? And so our SVP department identified, we are gonna bring forward a budget augmentation in June around the costs related to overhaul the engine at DVR. we did have to lease another engine. And so there are significant costs associated with that unexpected repair. So the proposal here is to use those funds to partially offset that very critical maintenance item around DVR, the engine. And so this is just an example of of unforeseen circumstances that can occur with the utilities, so the need to be proactive, to have spare parts, especially those areas with long lead times. So our CIP does invest in those areas. question number eights uh... with a few cycles completed is the biennial budget process that alternates between operating capital working uh... i will wholeheartedly say that yes uh... you know i'm a fan of it it allows us to dive deeper uh... within each budget and and talk about uh... in with rub specs to the needs of our departments in both the operating areas in the capital areas in a in a very detailed way uh... we have uh... a modest staff here you know the budget team of of three we have one vacancy and and uh... one at home and so small staff to to produce uh... to almost thousand page documents and so that alternating cycle allows our staff and resources to focus uh... if you see when we shifted to that A two-year process, our budget books look very different, more in-depth, detailed, easier to read. So that's our recommendation. Obviously, that is subject to council policy and council review. If there's a desire to change that in the future, we follow the council's policy lead on that. With regards to unfunded capital projects, is that prioritized? We showed the slide of 250 million in unfunded needs. Does that reach a critical point where we're at risk of compliance and legal mandates, health and safety issues? So we work. through the budget process with every city department that has infrastructure to identify what's the highest priority, the best use of those very limited general fund dollars. And so we do take into consideration health and safety, legal mandates, community needs. There's a number of master plans and studies that also inform the prioritization of projects that have been before the council. And so this is very clear in our budget documents, talking about when we moved over to that two year cycle, we were able to clearly identify what is unfunded, what's funded, what are our future needs. That was an effort that was critical to support the $400 million GEO bond. Question number 10, how are enterprise funds defined? Why are the operations associated with the treatment plant in this category? Just want to say that it's part of our governmental accounting rules and regulations. Enterprise funds are used to segregate out and support that would seem to operate as individual enterprises. And so we work with our auditor and our accountants to segregate those dollars and activities. That does include our treatment plan, and that's necessary. So when we are looking at needs for an enterprise, when our rating agencies look at debt issuances, they're identifying that solely based on the enterprise. A question 11 here around gas prices, what's our revenues gonna go up or down? And so a couple key areas, gas tax is not impacted by gas prices, that's a per gallon type tax. And so as drivers are unable to afford it, they drive less, we expect gas taxes to be negatively impacted. There is also a psychological impact as gas prices go up. The consumers tend to be more conservative with spending, and so there might be a potential impact here for sales tax. So we are monitoring the economy as a whole, as well as impacts of gas prices. Question around the city auditor position that was frozen vacant as part of COVID pandemic budget process. This budget includes funding to restore that. That is a council appointee type position. So if the council wanted to fill that upon the allocation of dollars, that would be something that would be funded and allowed to do. Around El Camino bike plan, there's a status here. Phase one is funded here and that's designing construction of a separated bikeway in the city limit from Sunnyvale to Pomeroy. Phase two is planned to be state funded here and then phase three is unfunded. So based on both resolutions that have been before the council with the repaving also of El Camino, it does allow for space for that bike lane. but different phases are both funded and unfunded. And we'll, as funding is identified, we'll continue to bring forward to the council recommendations around the El Camino bike plan. 3% funding level for our capital infrastructure fund that was based on available funding, not based on a study. How could it be increased to 5%? And so on the next slide, I'll talk about some fund balance projections for this fiscal year. And so our recommendation would be to allocate a portion of that to increase it to 5%. So as funding is identified, our staff will recommend more dollars to be set aside for that sinking fund. Question 15 around the Education Revenue Augmentation Fund, or ERAF. There is litigation with our county on the calculation of that. We have set aside 18% of that ERAF dollars based on county guidance. That brings our reserve balance to $9.4 million, so depending on the outcome of that challenge. funds are reserved either to be spent on that risk or if that is in our favor, then those dollars would be freed up for general uses and could be allocated by our city council. So we'll continue to track that litigation as that proceeds through the courts. A question around sales tax revenues, highly volatile revenue. I know we had some peak years here, and so is this growth sustainable? We do work with our sales tax consultant. For 26, 27, they gave us a range, $75 million to $86 million. Our budget assumes that conservative number, $75 million here. On an ongoing basis, a 3% growth in our forecast. That's below our 3.8% average here, so we do have some room here. If there's talk or risk of an AI bubble or slowdown, we do have some. Rome on the conservative side and and and so we'll continue to look at that and we do work with a consultant to identify one-time kind of sales tax impacts to us and we don't build that in and on an ongoing basis so they do identify hey when a corporation has a large purchase that's one time they don't see that happening year over year they do adjust our estimates as as we go forward And then on this slide here, just showing that graphic with our sales tax consultant, some of the lower growth years through maybe 10, 15 years ago through the change into online sales, some of the large growth more recently in the more recent quarters around our AI tech world, and then the forecast within the CIP here, just that 3% growth, so models kind of a moderate growth throughout that period. Question around SV Hopper, so that pilot was designed to run for four years, expected to end in November 2027. That was funded both by SVP and grant dollars. Public works staff is looking at the program to determine potential options for the future, but because of funding constraints, it's only funded here through November 27. Are there opportunities to remove center dividers for certain streets? So this CIP does have two projects around median islands, both beautification, drought conservation. It does not include dollars to remove medians. Those are typically reviewed when there are significant roadway modifications similar to the Great America Parkway Mission College intersections. So very, you know, traffic and design is a, key outcome of our public works streets and engineering team, and so they do look at traffic flow throughout the city. Bike lane delineators added for Super Bowl. They will be in place for FIFA World Cup. There are discussions to maintain those permanently after the matches. 15 mile an hour zones, which ones have been implemented? Not on this slide, but in the packet in the attachment, we have a list of those locations. Those were based on the council approved initiatives to reduce the speeds around schools. And then our police department does focus on the enforcement side of it. So on occasion, looking at those lower speed area schools, having traffic teams to ensure that there's enforcement and ensuring safety in accordance with those traffic rules.

Ken, can I interrupt you for a minute? It's 10 minutes to seven. So do you have, how many more do you have? Because I need to go to the public before... Yeah, I have about— Maybe I'm going to ask our council members to send in questions before the next budget hearing approval.

Yeah, I have about five or six slides.

I could just— Can you just speed through them? Really speed through. And then we can go to the public. Thank you, because I want at least a 10-minute turnover between this and the council meeting. Thank you.

So question 21 here around downtown, and so working with our manager's office, identified a need of about $400,000 for next year to continue some of the activities for downtown. There is an RFP in process around a consultant's. Question 22 here, offices for utilities, and so they are on Martin Avenue. If there's any movement of them to either here or a different location, our utilities can pay fair share. Question 23 around tariffs. We do monitor them. The laws change depending on the Supreme Court. The most recent changes around the type of metals used in products, and so there's not an anticipated savings here, but something we monitor with our procurement team. on a regular basis. Fast-tracking technology here, IT's very active in terms of implementing projects. Very recently, DocAccess, which complied to a legal state rule around ADA, and so that's just one of many projects that they look to identify, so a definite focus on technology and advancing them. uh... here just on question twenty six uh... wanna highlight uh... you know the question was asked how are we tracking this current year we are tracking with roughly twenty five million dollars in projected savings for this year we will uh... bring that bring for recommendations earliest and rather than december uh... looking at next month to allocate those dollars in the council can weigh in on on the allocation of that so here your feedback mayor and and bringing that forward uh... early power revenues estimated uh... different sources we have consultants for sales and property tax and we look at actuals we look at uh... data transfer my hotels for t o t and then s v p just growth both uh... usage growth and development growth uh... to help inform us Question 28 around vacancies. So we do have a vacancy factor that we pull out of the budget for that. 29 some dollars are related to universal basic income that we had our housing division manager respond to some limitations around the different housing funds. And then question 30 around seniors and the fees they pay. So currently senior center fee revenues approximately $360,000 compares to a cost of $1 million. So to the extent that those fees are reduced or waived, we would need to find an alternative source or amend the service level. So just wanted to provide that information. It's all in writing, happy to either take questions via email, but I wanted to provide that for you, Council and Mayor, and I'm done there.

Thank you so much and thank you for answering our 30 plus questions. A lot of them were very detailed questions as well. Because we are going to have a full house tonight, I'm going to ask if there's any member of the public that would like to make any comments on this for the study session for the budget coming up forward. Do we have anyone online? Mary, please come forward.

Good evening. Let me just. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am pleased to see the city planning to prioritize downtown through a two-phase RFQ process for the city-owned land. I understand the city is proposing approximately $400,000 in fiscal year 26-27 for consultants and additional coordination support related to the downtown planning efforts. I would respectfully ask the city to also consider additional funding to reopen Washington Street and Benton Street to Homestead Road, and to reopen Franklin Street to Jackson. By restoring parts of the street grid, as shown on the approved precise plan, would not only enhance circulation, accessibility and visibility, but also make the downtown project more attractive and functional for future developers considering investment in the area. Thank you.

Thank you. Wanda, please come forward. Mayor and Council. Can you speak in the microphone so everyone can hear you?

Mayor and Council, I want to thank you. I did speak at the budget meeting and I appreciate your looking at that 360,000 that is being collected that was promised that the seniors wouldn't pay, so thank you.

Thanks, Ken heard you, he answered the question. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Okay, seeing that, I'm going to ask that the council submit questions, if they have additional questions, so that we can take a 10-minute break before the council meeting.

I see the city attorney is... Yeah, Madam Mayor, as the finance director indicated, our process is a little bit different this time around, based on charter language that calls for the city council to actually set the time and date for the public hearing on the budget. I see, so you need a motion. A motion and an action on that item.

Very good. Council Member James.

The attorney, did you have a recommended date for that? Can I make a motion to a particular date?

It's on the agenda.

Yeah, it is in the agenda. It's for the June 9th City Council meeting.

I'll make the motion to agendize for June 9th.

Hearing 7 p.m. And I had questions, but I guess I'll have to mail those sick and second the motion so we have a motion by councilmember Jane second by councilmember Chilwell For the staff recommendation sitting June 9th at 7 o'clock for the budget deliberation Yeah

I have a question, which is, I know that we're trying to speed this through because of time, but I think that having the discussion is very valuable, and rather than, I mean, we can still make a motion to set a time for the public discussion, but I almost feel like that will be too late for some of the questions I'd like to ask. I know that the suggestion has been to submit these in writing, but I feel that the public input and the council members asking questions and the public responding to some of these things is a vital part of a budget process, meaning this is a $1.7 billion budget. To simply speed this along and go through the presentation because of time doesn't seem like the best process to approve a $1.7 billion budget. I don't know if we have a way to do this, but I almost feel like I almost want to continue this, maybe even to, I don't know, continue discussion in public, because I think it should be done in public, not on emails and not in questions being asked through, you know, on the side.

The recommendation is to have the public hearing with more counsel and public input on June 9th at 7 p.m. Understood.

And I believe you were one of the reasons that we had to start late today.

Oh, you cannot blame a single council member for the lack of quorum.

Excuse me. We needed four bodies on here at 530, and we weren't able to because I believe you weren't able to be here. And we accommodated you. So now we have a very long agenda, and we are here to serve the public. So if you have questions, please give them, or you can bring them back on June 9th. So we have a motion and a second. City Clerk, please.

Again, I'd like to make a statement of personal privilege, which is you cannot blame a single member. There is no personal privilege. You cannot blame a single council person for lack of quorum.

I'm calling a point of order. There is a motion second. I've called for the question. City Clerk.

Council Member Gonzalez, Vice Mayor Gonzalez, sorry.

Yes.

Council Member Shahal.

Yes.

Council Member Hardy.

Yes.

Council Member Park.

No.

Council Member Jane.

I'm voting yes, but I agree with Council Member Park that there should be a public discussion.

Mayor Gilmore. Yes, and that passes five to one. No, four to one. Can I count? Five to one. Thank you. It's hard to count when they're not here physically. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience. We'll be back in 10 minutes. Thank you. Could I ask everyone to take their seats, please, if hopefully there's enough seats for everyone? Maybe not. There will be soon. All right, welcome. I'd like to call the Joint City Council Stadium Authority Board 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 the will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice for all. Let us seek wisdom so that we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbours, and our country. All this we ask so that we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs above all.

Thank you, please be seated. Roll call, Assistant City Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before I do roll call, I'd like to note for the record for this evening, we have both Vice Mayor Gonzales and Councilmember Hardy both participating remotely under SB 707, the provision of Just Cause. Sorry, I got lost during my notes. Councilmember Hardy and Vice Mayor Gonzales, We'd like you to note, please, that you need to have both your audio and visual technology on when an action is being taken, and also please publicly disclose at this time if someone over the age of 18 is in the room with you and their general relationship to you. Council Member Hardy?

Yes, I have my video on, I have my audio on when I need, and no one else is in the room with me.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Gonzales?

And yeah, I'm here alone as well.

Thank you. Should this change during the meeting, then you can inform us at that time. There's no need to tell us every time we take a roll call vote. With that being said, tonight's voting will be by roll call vote only. So with that, Council Member, Board Member Shahal.

Present.

Council Member, Board Member Hardy. Present. Thank you. Council Member, Board Member Park.

Here.

Council Member, Board Member Jane. Here. Council Member, Board Member Cox this evening is absent. And Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Gonzales.

Here.

Mayor and Chair Gilmour. Here. Thank you.

Motion to excuse Council Member Cox. Second.

We have a motion by Council Member Hall, second by Council Member Park to excuse Council Member Cox.

Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Yes.

Council Member Shahal?

Yes.

Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jane? Yes. Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. Thank you. That passes unanimously of those present.

Okay. AB 23 announcement. Members of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, Sports and Open Space Authority, and Housing Authority are entitled to receive $30 for each 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 and chair's direction in matters of process and decorum should be followed and that use of the gavel indicates all conversations must conclude and everyone in attendance should come to order and attention. Welcome and thank you for your participation. For those joining us this evening in the capacity of a registered lobbyist, we ask you to please identify yourself as such and disclose the clients and or organizations that you represent. This is pursuant to city code section 2.155.110. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. So good evening, everyone. For today's meeting, the council's back in person and it's 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 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 nine 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. So we'll move on to the council agenda now.

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

Council Member Jane has his hand up.

I saw that, but I needed to get through that. Thank you. Council Member Jane.

Yes, I would like to move item number seven.

We're not there yet, so that'll be continuance, exception, reconsiderations. Reports of action taken in closed session, City Attorney?

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. City Council did meet in closed session on May 6th on a number of the items, but not all of the items listed on that agenda. The items that Council met on and discussed include item one, conference with labor negotiators. The employee organization under discussion is the unclassified fire management, Unit 9B. Item number two, conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation, two potential cases. Council met on both. And then item number three, conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation, Adam A and others versus the City of Santa Clara. Council did not meet or discuss items number four or five. Those are going to be taken up at a later date. We did report out, Madam Mayor, to the council chambers, as you will recall. But our practice is at the next live meeting to also report out for full complaints with the Brown Act. While you met on those items, there was no reportable action. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. So now we have continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations. Before I go to Councilmember Jane, I'm gonna go to item number two, which is continuance of the third zoning code cleanup ordinance and rezoning of properties currently designated transit neighborhood to R6 Transit Neighborhood Residential. So we wanna make sure that the public hearing is open. and continue it to, the recommendation is to continue the proposed project to July 14th, 2026. So is there anyone in the audience that wants to comment on that? Seeing none, may I have a motion from the Council to continue that item? Councilmember Jane, since your hands up.

A motion for staff's recommendation. Open the public hearing and then continue the proposed item to July 14th.

Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Councilmember Jane, second by Councilmember Chihal for the staff's recommendation for July 14th, 2026. Transfer that item.

Vice Mayor Gonzalez.

Yes.

Councilmember Chauhal? Yes. Councilmember Park?

Yes.

Councilmember Jane?

Yes.

Mayor Gilmore? Yes. And Councilmember Hardy? Yes. Thank you.

And that passes unanimously of those present. Thank you. Councilmember Jane, now.

Yes. I propose that we move item number seven. That's the surplus land

exemption and the ENA with Valley Oak to after public presentations all right very good we'll do that okay is there any other continuances exceptions or reconsiderations all right seeing none we're gonna go in we have a few special orders of business this evening But our first two agenda items for special orders of business, the city council would like to recognize our outgoing youth commissioners, and we will take action on the 26-27 youth commission appointments. So I'd now like to invite youth commission staff liaison Gail Echijo to the podium to acknowledge the outgoing commissioners and share a little bit about the new appointees. Gail, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, and City Manager. My name is Gail Etio. I'm with the Parks and Recreation Department. So first, we would like to recognize the seven outgoing youth commissioners. We appreciate the service these commissioners have provided to the community. We wish them the best to continue their service and education. Malia Martin has served five terms, most recently as our chair. Samar Suresh has served five terms. Samaria Mehta has served four terms. Namita Gandhi has served three terms. Juliana Hernandez has served two terms. Rebecca Kunz has served two terms. Naharika Upilati has served two terms. And also for the record, Ayan Mutara has concluded his service as an alter for this term. So thank you for your commitment to Santa Clara. Next is Rich Kazem, he's a recreation coordinator and he's gonna do the incoming for next term.

Okay, so before we do that, I'd like, let me see how this is going on here, hold on a second. Okay, I think we'll vote after it's all over. Okay, go ahead, sorry.

Thank you. Next for the 2026-2027 Youth Commission appointments. On March 14th, 23 candidates were interviewed for the 2026-2027 Youth Commission term. At the end of the process, seven candidates and three alternates were recommended for appointment. In addition, there are eight commissioners eligible for reappointment. Youth commissioners are Santa Clara residents between the ages of 12 to 19 and may serve up to six one-year terms. For consideration of the mayor and council, I'd like to announce the recommended candidates, alternates, and eligible returning members for the 2026-2027 Youth Commission term. Recommended reappointment, returning of commissioners eligible for the 2026-2027 term, Siyoung Chung, Alyssa Domicino, Mateo Espinal, Shrika Gopasetti, Neha Ezrani, Drew Madriaga, Brian Rong, and Anisha Venmu. Excuse me, Venmu. Candidates recommended for appointment for the 2026-2027 term, Arivan Ahuja, Nikhil Gupta, Henar Carr, Sahana Mahesh, Nevin Molina, Swasha Mutumu, and Ibrahim Reyes. Candidates recommended for the conditional appointment as alternates for the 2026-27 term, Miriam Sahid, Aditri Batla, and Hannah Mercado. Thank you, Mayor and council people, and council members for considering the recommendation.

Okay, thank you. So first let's clap for our outgoing and incoming. And we're going to take this a little backwards. So I'm going to ask the council for a motion to appoint our new incoming youth commissioners. Council Member Park.

A motion to appoint the incoming youth commissioners.

All right, we have a motion by Council Member Park, second by Council Member Jayen for the incoming youth commissioners. Let's make this official.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Yes.

Council Member Chauhal. Yes. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Yes.

Councilmember Jane? Yes. Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. And that passes unanimously of those present. Congratulations to all of you. Now before we have the outgoing commissioners receiving their recognitions, I want to do a picture with the incoming commissioners. I don't know who's taking the photo. Amy, who's taking? Should they stand there while we stand here? Does that work? Because it's long. Because otherwise they'll be crunched up in here. Okay, so we'll just stand back here and if you can capture that picture, that would be great. Well, oh, you want them up? Oh, okay, I was gonna leave them there, but you're the photographer, okay. Okay, come on this way. No, not the outgoing, they're not in it yet. They're gonna get their own, they're gonna have their own. Okay, so it's smaller, yes, they can come up.

They're gonna get their own special recognition.

I feel like I see you guys everywhere. Gail, can you get it? Does that look okay? It looks a little strange. All right, now we're going to ask the outgoing commissioners to come up. Oh, yes. Oh, pins. Amy has some pins for all of you. Make sure you see Amy right here.

Tell your father to call me.

Thank you.

Thank you all for coming. All right, so we have our next special.

Actually, do you mind if I say a few words?

I don't know what you said.

I would like to say a few words on the Youth Commission. I mean, it's kind of better that they go because, to be honest, it's a little bit emotional for me. I've seen some of these youth commissioners, I want to say children, but they're actually adults, for a very long time. I've seen them in sister cities. I've seen them in youth commission. I've seen them at events. I've seen them kind of everywhere. And I told some of them that it seems like just, I mean, last year, it didn't seem like yesterday, but it seemed like last year or two years ago that I had met some of them. And it's been a really long time, because I remember that it's been more than that, because I know some of the events that I've been at, and we've had three or four of those events that I've seen them at, and I want to encourage everyone to join. I'd like all the people who are thinking about, you know, I don't even know what I want to do. Join Youth Commission. I mean, find a purpose. Again, some of these children, some of these people, some of these young people have been supporting this city, supporting our events, and in return, I mean, I just hope that the experience does them well. But again, for the people who are thinking about it, please join. For the people who have joined, welcome. And the people that are leaving, thank you very much for your service because we remember you. Thank you.

All right, our next special order of business, the city proclaims the month of May as Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Santa Clara. Santa Clara is home to many diverse AAPI communities. This month is observed to celebrate the contributions that generations of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders have made to our history and our culture. This evening, Daniel Wu, He has a fan club. He's got the best last name, I love it. This evening, Daniel Woo, president of the Korean American Cultural Foundation, is here tonight to accept the proclamation. Their mission celebrates and promotes Korean culture while fostering community, identity, and cross-cultural understanding through inclusive events, youth programs, and cultural education. The 2026 AAPI theme is Power in Unity, Strengthening Communities Together. This theme emphasizes leveraging collective strength, fostering collaboration, and investing in future AANHPI leaders. So I would like to just say a couple things about Daniel. He's executive director of the Korean American political alliance and as president of both the Silicon Valley Korean American Federation and the Korean American Cultural Foundation Daniels has really strengthened civic engagement cultural understanding and community pride and His leadership brought us Santa Clara's first countywide Korean cultural festival, an event that has showcased world-class performers and opened doors to cultural experiences for residents across our city. And I know I attend every year at Central Park. It's just a fantastic event. He has also been named the Santa Clarin of the Year for 2025. So thank you, Daniel. So Daniel, if you'd please join us up here. So we'd like to present you with this proclamation for commemorating this month as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Thank you for agreeing to accept this. Thank you.

No, that was good.

Oh, this next one's very exciting, okay. For our next special order of business this evening, the Santa Clara Women's League will be making a check presentation to the Senior Center Health and Wellness Program. At this time, I would like to invite President Emily Adrable and the members of the Women's League up to the podium to speak and present their big check. Emily, when you're ready. Welcome. I think that was... We're going to get you all up here in a minute, so for sure.

Yeah, you're welcome with me because you are my troop. Mayor Gilmore, members of the city council, city staff, thank you very much for having us here tonight. And I thought it was very fitting. We have lots of representatives of the community. We had all the youth, and now we have us. Okay, who are still young at heart. I want to thank the city council and mayor for supporting Showtime and the Santa Clara Women's League over all of these years. Several of you were able to come to Showtime this year. That is our one fundraiser of the year and we are the Santa Clara Women's League. And we raise money for one purpose only, and that is to support Santa Clara Senior Center. It started in 1983 when funding was cut for the nurses at the Senior Center, and so a group of women got together, formed the group, and it's been going strong ever since. It's not me, it's those members back there that I am so proud to be their president. We have come from about 55 members three years ago to 73 members right now. That's due to our fantastic second vice presidents former and present who go out there and find those members. We also want to thank the Parks and Rec Department for their support and CRC staff for their support, the Roberta Jones Theater. They are the ones that really help us out during Showtime. Showtime is our fundraiser the first weekend of March and we're plus 40 years of doing that. I'd like to thank Robin Burdick, who is a director.

Could she please stand, Robin? Robin Burdick. She's hiding there. Please stand.

Robin is the director of our melodrama that is part of Showtime, and her all-volunteer cast. Since 1983, the Santa Clara Women's League has given over a half a million dollars to the Santa Clara Seeing Center programs. This year, we connected with some special people that really helped us out. First, we made a little presentation at the Rotary Club of Santa Clara, they gave us an extremely generous donation of $2,000 and brought a whole group of people to Showtime. So we really thank them for becoming our partners. We also have partnered with Mission City Federal Credit Union, who provided us with volunteers from their staff. We also, through a connection of some of our staff members, became partners of Samsung. We're part of the Samsung Heroes program, and what they did was provide volunteers to help us at showtime, and they actually are giving us money for each volunteer that came, and they are providing $1100 to us. So we have, and we had three performances for the first time in several years this year, and we had good crowds, and we had very generous crowds. We had some special people, new people for our MC. We had our police chief, Cory Morgan, for the first time, did a great job. And we had a cameo appearance on Sunday by assembly member Patrick Ahearns, who joined the cast and was more than welcome. So we're reaching out, we're meeting more people, we're getting more support from a lot of different places. This is definitely a community event. So everybody remember, first weekend of March, 2027, put it on your calendar, be there. We support the program at the senior center, various programs, the health and wellness program. Last three weeks was our health and wellness fair and we are the major sponsors of that fair. We also give money to the senior nutrition program. As you know, seniors come five days a week and have lunch at the senior center and we supplement that. But we do have one special, before we give you the check, I want to acknowledge one special person. And this person is one of our members, but also she is in charge of the health and wellness program at the Senior Center. And unfortunately for everyone, she is retiring this year. Wonderful for her, but not great for us. So I would like to acknowledge Mallory Van Coogelden.

I don't think we approved that retirement. No, I don't think so. I know, yeah.

Too late.

Mallory is invaluable to the Senior Center and invaluable to us as a member of the Santa Clara Women's League, and we will miss her a lot. But don't worry, we'll find something for her to do. Okay, so now the big news is we're giving a donation this year larger than any donation that we have ever given because of the generosity of the Santa Clara community and all the people who came and took chances to win opportunity baskets or a cash prize or bought food or brought Portuguese bread and they gave a lot of money. So this year our donation to the city of Santa Clara for the senior center programs amounts to $24,000. And that is the largest donation that we have given over the last 40 years. So that's it.

Here we are. That's pretty amazing. I have to say thank you so much. Our seniors are so grateful. Thank you for everything you do and for supporting all those programs. And we'll come down and get that check. Thank you.

Yes. And our treasurer has the real check.

And I might add that Emily Adorably has been an excellent president leading us through this.

All right.

Okay, that was great. Moving along, I hope everyone else brings us checks as well. So next we have the recognition.

Madam Mayor, there is an action on that item. Oh, there is, to accept the money? Yes.

All right, may I have a motion from someone here? Council Member Park.

I'd like to make a motion for staff recommendation, which are accept the donation from the Santa Clara Women's League, to authorize the mayor and city manager to sign a letter of appreciation, and to approve the fiscal year 2025-26 budget amendments and the public donations fund to recognize the Santa Clara Women's League donation in the amount of 24,000. I can't change the amount, right? And appropriate it to the case management grant.

Okay, there was a motion by Council Member Park, second by Council Member Chahal to accept the money and appropriate it and staff recommendation.

Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Yes.

Council Member Chahal? Yes. Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jane?

Yes. And Mayor Gilmore. Yes, and that passes unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. For our next item, the council is honored to recognize the Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures Program. We have three outstanding Santa Clara University fellows here tonight, so welcome to them. This is the fourth year of this fantastic program. By investing in our youth, this program fosters our next generation of climate leaders. So I was going to invite you, Nico, but you're already here. Nico Prokos, director of Silicon Valley Power, and Leonie Casper from Santa Clara University, a post-baccalaureate fellow, to the podium to introduce this incredible program and the fellows. Nico, you're here. Welcome.

Thank you, honorable mayor, council members. The SVP Sustainable Fellows Program was launched a few years ago with the goal of merging the innovative talents of our university students with the needs of our community. From the beginning, we aim to address sustainability challenges right here in Santa Clara. Since then, this partnership has grown into something really special. The students have effectively leveraged the city's climate action plan to craft valuable recommendations that can be directly applied to various projects and programs across the city. Their research greatly enhances our understanding of sustainability and provides actionable strategies for our staff to implement. This collaboration not only aligns with our city's goals, but also leads to meaningful improvements in our sustainability initiatives throughout Santa Clara. Both SVP and the entire city of Santa Clara deeply appreciate our connection with Santa Clara University. By working together, we not only reinforce our commitment to sustainability, but also contribute to make our community a better place to live and work. I would now like to introduce Leonie Casper, Santa Clara University Class of 2025 and the first SVP Sustainable Futures Fellow.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council. Thank you so much for welcoming us today and for your support of the Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures Program. This academic year, a new post-baccalaureate fellowship position was established, providing an additional pathway for early career individuals to build their expertise in professional sustainability. I am honored to have been selected for this role through which I support the program by mentoring our fellows and scholars, connecting them with early career opportunities, and supporting the implementation of completed project deliverables into practice. Three of those fellows are here today to share the results of the work that they have spent the last academic year completing with the support of faculty mentors Jake D'Alessandro, Nicholas Hernandez, and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Daniel Press. The fellows also receive invaluable support from our city partners, Rina Brio and Kranti Kapoor, and SVP partners, Rachel Riddell-Harris and Kathleen Hughes. We are pleased to share that they will receive the SCU Center for Sustainability's Community Sustainability Champion Award this year for their transformative partnership and hands-on mentorship. I am honored now to introduce our fellows for this year, Ximena, Isabella, and Gigi to the podium. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening, Honourable Mayor and Council. My name is Ximena Garcia-Isabelli. I'm a senior at Santa Clara University and a SVP Sustainable Futures Fellow. My research was based on GIS and cost-benefit analysis of heat adaptation solutions, taking into account the social vulnerability of the neighbourhoods of the City of Santa Clara. The key recommendations I have are, first, focus on implementation in neighborhoods and industrial areas north of Bayshore Freeway and areas that contain a high amount of commercial properties with extensive parking lots. Covering blacktop asphalt with heat adaptation solutions, such as vegetation or solar canopies, would offset high surface temperatures during heat events. Second, solar panel parking lots are an underutilized solution. Rebates for solar panel parking lots for commercial properties would make implementation cheaper for businesses to invest in. Solar panels provide shade while also generating electricity that would offset energy costs buildings spend on AC and power. Implementation of this would function similarly to the Quimby Act requiring residential developers to dedicate development to recreational spaces. Finally, while landscape rebates for both residential and commercial properties exist, offering rebates for green roofs on commercial buildings that have large roof space have the most benefit. These solutions simultaneously manage stormwater runoff, improve air quality, and cool the building. In the face of climate change, weather events will become more severe and frequent. These policy recommendations aim to investigate the benefits and feasibility of heat adaptation solutions that will most benefit disproportionately affected neighbourhoods, so as to not only improve the urban environment but public health as well. The recommendations are directly in line with supporting climate resilient land use and development in the Climate Action Plan. I would like to thank the SVP program and the city for providing this opportunity to me as an undergrad to combine GIS, public health, and climate justice for real community impact.

Thank you. Thank you, Ximena. That was great. Welcome.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council. My name is Isabella Gomez, and I'm a junior at Santa Clara University and a Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures fellow. For my fellowship, I've researched policy recommendations that the city of Santa Clara can follow to implement a native plant's landscaping policy. Before I dive into my research, it's important to give you all context as to why this research on native plants was important to me. I'm Malakma Ohlone, which is an Aboriginal tribe in the San Francisco Bay Area. Growing up active within my tribe, I observed both the cultural and ecological benefits of native plants. Culturally significant plants like yarrow and soap root are drought tolerant, fire resistant, and play a significant role in biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Native plants provide habitats for other organisms to thrive, and by being drought tolerant, they can help minimize water and fertilizer use, thereby giving the opportunity to improve public work budgets by cutting water costs. For my research, I interviewed local botanists, non-profits, tribal entities, and parks and management officials who have experience working with and promoting native plants. Through this benchmarking research, I offer the following recommendations. First, require landscapers for both city projects and all city landscaping to plant more than one species of native plants. I've created a native plant list for the city as currently only one out of 171 plants on the city's list are native. Second, motivate residents to plant native plants in their yards through lawn rebate programs similar to what Valley Water already offers for their lawn conversions to save water. Third, reach out to local native and tribal entities to ensure that there is input on plant selection and portrayal of this knowledge to the public. No other Northern California cities have taken the lead in native plant landscaping, whether for public, private, or commercial spaces. The city of Santa Clara could be a leader, benefiting from the many cultural, ecological, and economic attributes of native plants, while also honoring the natural history of our region. Thank you all for this opportunity and your time tonight.

Thank you, Isabella.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council. My name is Gigi Jones and I'm a senior at Santa Clara University and an SVP Sustainable Futures Fellow. My research on electrification of cooktops in Santa Clara employed a mixed method approach utilizing survey data and benchmarking. My survey received 227 responses and I analyzed three key programs from different cities. The key recommendations I have for increasing adoption of electric cooktops are as follows. First, expand and target financial incentives such as rebates. One recommendation is to provide lower income families with higher incentives to ensure that they aren't left behind in the energy transition. Additionally, incentives should be targeted to residents who are also considering other upgrades. An important incentive identified in my survey by homeowners was money back on electrical work, so I recommend a combined rebate program that's aimed at targeting homes that are already interested in other upgrades. Second, strengthen outreach and incentive program visibility. Many survey respondents had no knowledge of the electric hook top rebate program that exists, but they were aware of other local incentives. And because cost is a big, variable for most residents, increasing the visibility of these programs through social media and email outreach could help people make the switch and give more visibility. Finally, addressing behavioral and perception barriers. Residents identified that they believed that electric stoves don't work as well as gas stoves, so finding a way to address this misconception will be crucial in increasing adoption. I recommend a loaner lending program or workshops and even a community sponsor, such as a restaurant, to help address this perception. This study identifies the current status and some best practices in electric cooktop upgrades. Electrification upgrades in all sectors are important important due to increased strain on natural resources, and gas cooktops specifically can be harmful to human health, making their implementation a crucial part of the city's electrification master plan. I'm extremely grateful from the support of SVP, the city, my mentors, and our facilitators for this opportunity. Being able to do this research has really complemented my academic journey and the skills I've learned why will take with me as I begin my professional career.

Thank you.

I have to say from all three of you, your findings are actually things that we can adopt here in the city. They're practical for us as well. So thank you for that. Are we going to be able to get copies of your research and your findings so that our staff can have them and the council can have them as well? So congratulations. Let's give them another big round of applause. We all look forward to hearing more from you as you build your careers as well. So we're very proud of you. That's very impressive. You're all very impressive. I'd like to invite you to the front here for a photo with the council. We'd be honored to take a photo with all three of you. And how about SVP as well and our SCU representative as well?

Thank you.

We have Council Member Jane. Did you want to say something?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Yesterday at the NERC meeting, we were discussing priorities for how the city can work with Santa Clara University, and of course, I think everyone knows that there's a new medical center coming up, where they're gonna be training new doctors, and we have a new hospital coming up, and it's really tremendous to be able to work with Santa Clara University, but You know, we have a very aggressive climate action plan. I ran on a climate agenda, and it's really great that we can support students in things like cooktops and native plants. I've worked with the Amah Mutsun, been to their nursery to look at how they plant native plants to reduce wildfire danger, and then heat island effect is absolutely critical. I mean, we're in El Nino year this year, The heat is gonna be tremendous. So we just have brilliant students at Santa Clara University. We need to take advantage of them to help us achieve our climate goals. So thank you very much for your work.

Council Member Park.

Yeah, I wanna echo Council Member Jayne's appreciation. And I think that the next meeting, the next time that we have something like this, it would be a joint award proclamation in recognition of the students and adoption of their policies into city process. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, well, thank you so much. That was very inspiring. I'm gonna go back to item 3E. I did skip that by accident. So for, I think this is our last special order of business. Let me just double check. Yes, it is. For our last special order of business this evening, the city wishes to proclaim the month of May as myostasis. Awareness Month, saying it wrong. Myostasis is a rare chronic autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation of the muscles leading to muscle weakness, fatigue, and pain. Currently, there is no cure for this disease. During the month of May, hundreds of neighbors and thousands of people across the United States will join the Myostasis Association TMA in observing this Special Awareness Month. I now invite Vicki Fairchild, a current board member with the Santa Clara Unified School District, who is afflicted with myostasis, to the podium to speak. Welcome, Vicki.

Thank you so much. Thank you to Mayor Gilmour and the council for agreeing to recognize May as myositis awareness month.

Thank you for that, myositis.

It is okay that you have mispronounced it. I'm going to just kind of do a poll. Has anyone ever heard of myositis? We have a few people. Myositis is a rare disease. It does affect the muscles. The easiest way to remember that is that it affects the muscles. I am here as a volunteer. for the Myositis Association. That's who I'm representing today. I wanna make that very clear. I am a resident of Santa Clara and the Myositis Association mission is to improve the lives of people affected by myositis like myself fund innovative research, and increase myositis awareness and advocacy, which is why I'm here today. Myositis is a disease that makes your immune system attack your muscles, as I said. It causes chronic inflammation. I haven't talked about this publicly. There are several different types of myositis, and in order to kind of burn this into your souls, because that is how we remember things, I'm gonna tell you my story. I have the version that is called antisynthetase, and it is so rare within the myositis family that most of the medical professionals that I work with, when I get my infusions, haven't heard of it. I was at pulmonary rehab this morning, and the nurse again admitted to me, it was a different nurse, by the way, I haven't heard of your disease. Antisynthetase syndrome is usually diagnosed at about age 50, and I was 50 years old when I was diagnosed. About 75% of the people diagnosed with antisynthetase syndrome are also diagnosed with interstitial lung disease, which I also have. Fortunately for me, what I didn't get with my anti-synthetase syndrome, sorry, that's a mouthful even for me, is a delay in diagnosis. My diagnosis took five weeks. Most people wait one to two years. Through the stellar services at Kaiser Santa Clara and their integrated systems, I went from first overt symptom to diagnosis in five weeks. I actually had a normal blood test on January 21st, 2025, when I felt weird. That's the only thing I could explain to my doctor, I felt weird. By January 26th, I had a rash and a fever. That rash read to cover my whole body except for my face and feet. I couldn't move my arms and legs. And by January 27th, I had abnormal blood tests. It was that fast, six days. which led to more blood tests and CT scans and ultrasounds and more blood tests and final diagnosis of this very rare condition of myositis antisynthetase syndrome on February 28th, followed a week later with a diagnosis of interstitial lung disease. While myositis does not generally cause a, change in lifespan, interstitial lung disease can. And luckily for me, because my myositis was caught so quickly and Kaiser has been so responsive to my symptoms, I'm hoping to have a normal lifespan. The chances are, because of my interstitial lung disease, is I will not. In my first year, I have been hospitalized for a total of 14 days due to acute hypoxic respiratory failure. I have had to be on oxygen a total of three months, which I was able to get off. So this is a very serious condition. And as I said, the reason why I'm here is because it is a rare condition and we need funding. And the way to get funding is to one, start with getting awareness. And so that is why our little group through the Myositis Association is trying all over the United States to get people to proclaim May as Myositis Awareness Month so that people will become aware of this disease because there are people out there suffering who may not be diagnosed. who may not know why their muscles are aching and think it is maybe just they're sore. It's more than that. And so I thank you for accepting my plea to proclaim May as Myositis Awareness Month and helping us get a little more awareness to this disease and hopefully getting us a little closer to more funding and a cure. Thank you.

Thank you, Vicki. And this is our very first Myositis Awareness Month that we have proclaimed. So I think the word is getting out there and people are being educated about this. So thank you for bringing it to our attention. Would you please join us up here for a proclamation? Absolutely, yes.

I couldn't do it without the support of my husband and daughters.

It's a village. Yes, bring them up. Councillor Jane, your hand's up.

I just wanted to thank Vicki for all she does on the Santa Clara Unified Board of Trustees, and I know it's been challenging for you to keep up those duties, but I appreciate everything that you've done for our community.

Thank you. All right, now we're gonna move on to the regular agenda. The next item is the consent calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless a council member, member of the public pulls any items for consideration. Karen, did you wanna say something on this? I knew your hands were gonna go up. Go ahead.

unmute yourself please karen unmute start again thanks sorry i thought i had i need to recuse myself on 4k because of my proximity of my residence to one of the addresses that sbt will be taking care of okay so that's action to authorize the use of city electric forces for public works

at 3155 El Camino Real, 388 Woodhams Road, 3381 Prune Ridge Avenue, 5200 Patrick Henry Drive, and various street light locations along Great America Parkway, with an estimated cost of $797,265. So Councilmember Hardy will be abstaining from that, City Clerk. Councilmember Jane.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I had some questions about item 4H, so I wanted to either pull those or ask questions.

Please read it.

4H is action to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Colony Landscape and Maintenance Inc. for thatch removal and related services at the youth soccer park and approve related budget amendments.

All right, so that's pulled. Does anyone else want to pull an item? Council Member Tuhall, unless you have a motion. A motion. Thank you.

Make a motion to approve the rest of the consent calendar. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the balance of the consent calendar. Noting the abstention on 4K by Council Member Hardy and 4H being pulled by Council Member Jane.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Yes.

Councillor Schell?

Yes.

Councillor Hardy? Yes. Councillor Park?

Yes.

Councillor Jane?

Yes.

Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. And that passes unanimously of those present. Thank you. Public presentations. Do we have public presentations? George Shirley, please come forward.

welcome thank you this regards a I'd like to suggest that the city look into a ballot measure to increase data center electricity rates by way of introduction I've lived in Santa Clara since 1986 I've interacted with Virtually every department in the city, police, fire, permits, roads, water, sewage, and especially the Silicon Valley Power, they're all excellent. The only thing I would like to suggest is that we change rates CB6 and CB7. Residents currently pay twice as much electricity rates as large industrial customers, and we should, because of Prop 26, create a ballot measure so that we can increase these rates for large industrial customers that already consume 90% of Silicon Valley Power's production. Even just a one cent per kilowatt hour increase That would take data centers from paying nine cents to 10 cents, whereas we residents pay 15 to 18. That increase from nine cents to 10 cents for large industrial customers would provide $46 million per month, that's over half a billion dollars a year, to the city of Santa Clara and Silicon Valley Power. And this is based on Silicon Valley Power's fact sheet, industrial customers consuming four billion kilowatt hours every month. Lance Salame, I hope that's correct, has said, I consider data centers to be the tapeworms of the city. I know there's council members that would like to see rates increase. We need a ballot measure in order to increase these rates. It would provide a wealth of benefits for the residents, and it would prevent the data centers from completely taking over our utility. Every one cent increase would increase the Silicon Valley Power 5% payment to the city of Santa Clara by 27 million annually. This money could be used to create fallback funds in case future infrastructure projects don't quite work out as planned in terms of payback. And in general, I think that we are missing an opportunity to make, for the city of Santa Clara to thrive in this situation. Thank you very much.

And thank you, we do have your sheet here. We're gonna refer this to staff, so we're not allowed to take any action under public presentations, but thank you, we do have this. Thank you, thank you, George. Next, we have Brian, Brian Darby. Welcome.

Thank you, everybody. That was inspiring, all those wonderful special orders. This is 29 pages long, and it's been reduced from 500 pages long. Now, I would send it via email. That would be easier. I don't get responses from emails, no offense. But it is every prefab people who build modular homes throughout the world. I ran this through at least six different models and checked out every resource on it. You would pay somebody tens of thousands of dollars to do that. This one's free. I'd be glad to send it to you via email if I could be sure that somebody would look at it. The other one is 100 Resources for People with Disabilities. And it's online and governmental and local resources, again done with AI. I wanted to show what we could do with it. The other thing I wanted to point out is the executive branch of our government, at least the leader of it, federal government, no longer can be audited by the IRS. That has never happened to anybody ever. Even Eisenhower, who was probably somebody who could walk on water, no offense, but after World War II, even he, And this is the first time it's ever happened. It is not going to change, and nobody's gonna do anything about it. That should bother us. Please explain to me why it's not. This should be something that is brought up all the time. We are heading headlong into some very serious situations. And I'm not blaming the executive. He's protecting his family and protecting his interests. He should be protecting the United States' interests, and maybe he is. I don't know, maybe the IRS was used differently. All us people want, and I bring it up, all us people want is a fair shake. When I walk up here, I'm one voice. I don't wanna be more than one voice. I don't wanna sway people. I wanna just be that one voice. If Elon Musk walked up here, he's not one voice. He's several hundred million voices. That also won't change. It should, but it won't. And I'm frustrated with that. We care about these young people. I do, I don't have any children. When my name dies with me, and leave it what it is. I've sold my life into people I consider an honor. But we have to leave them a world they'll function. And we're not doing that. And it should bother us. I mean, it should bother us. It bothered me, I make hundreds of phone calls a week. I spend my retirement running all over the place like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to, because everything has an issue. But it should bother us. We say the Pudge of Allegiance. It means a lot to me. A lot of people died for that flag and died for what it represents. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Next, we have Anthony Becker.

Madam Mayor, Mr. Becker has folks donating time. I just need to ask him. So, Fred, I see him online, and Abel is in the room. But the third person, is he in the room?

Saskia.

Okay, thank you.

Welcome. Good evening. All right. Good evening, everyone. Former Councilmember Anthony Becker here. Public service is supposed to be about the public good, about transparency, accountability, and doing what's right, even when it's uncomfortable. That's the standard this Council should be held to and the standard the public expects. I've now been here for the eighth time asking for one simple thing, to agendize an item, discussion regarding the May 7th, 2024, FIFA disclosure and the investigation surrounding it. That request started on February 10th. We are now on May 19th and still no action from this council nor the city manager on an issue that goes directly to public trust and the integrity of this body. I have repeatedly asked for a real independent investigation into the FIFA disclosure that appeared days later in the San Francisco Chronicle. At the time, I raised serious concerns about the integrity of that investigation because it appeared that designated to avoid everyone who was actually in that room, including the council members. And let's be honest about what happened in that room. While others were not taking notes, Mayor Gilmore was actively writing things down at times, asking the city attorney to repeat certain things. That matters. Those details matter when discussing how information could have been captured and later disclosed. When I pressed the city manager on why the city employees were investigated, from what I remember him saying, 90% sure, he said, which is, you know, she's just going to lie, which is referring to the Mayor Gilmore. So I have to ask, was the reason for not pursuing the truth fear? Because if that's the case, that is a serious problem. And to be clear, this is not a personal towards the city manager. I believe he's in a very difficult position because accountability still belongs to this council, the city attorney, and the city leadership as a whole. Now, there are another layer to all of this that should be a concern to everyone, every resident watching in here tonight. At one of the last meetings, Councilmember Jane, he said that it was an important issue tied directly to my request, which is public records retention. We were warned publicly that the records tied to this could be subject to the two-year retention policy following May 7th, and it expired. Well, May 7th has come and gone. And since then, still not one example of the investigative cost provided to the public, not one production of records showing the scope of what was investigated, not one explanation of what was preserved, what was deleted, or whether anything connected to this match retained or at all. It's a whodunit. And all I know for a fact is there were emails to the city manager specifically questioning why only the city employees were ever investigated and not the members of this city council. Those records matter because once records are gone, they are gone permanently. And that is exactly why delays matter. Delay become a strategy. Wait long enough and long enough and eventually records disappear, the footage expires, memories fade, and accountability becomes impossible. since then silence no movement no answers and frankly it follows a pattern the same silence i've seen on other serious issues from ethics concerns involving the mayor's advisor for meth injecting questionable non-profits of dark money violations legal matters involving two former elected officials one trying to run for mayor and the other one former assembly member even a district attorney focused on campaigning and citing the mayor's blog rather than addressing the concerns actually in the city So meanwhile, distractions and delays take the center stage while the underlying issues are here being ignored. An underlying issue is simple, a disclosure happened, information from a closed session ended up in the press, that is a breach. Yet the investigation focused only on staff, even though circumstances suggested it could have come from the dais itself. At this point, the public good outweighs any claims of confidentiality. The public already knows about the disclosure. the aftermath and the information release. What they still don't have is accountability. And there are real concerns that the city is protecting certain members of this council instead of addressing actually what happened. So I continue to ask, did we spend taxpayer money on an investigation that was never meant to find the truth? Did we apply accountability selectively? Are potential Brown Act violations being ignored? Are we protecting someone instead of being transparent to the public? These are not unreasonable questions. And what concerns me is the same pattern of avoidance that keeps appearing over and over again that brings me to my public records request involving security footage. PRA 26412 was my first request regarding the March 24th, 2026 council meeting where during public presentations, public commenter Howard Gilman's made false accusations my husband and I harassed him. The alleged incident supposedly occurred on March 10th outside council chambers. I noticed that there were security cameras above the entrance over here. So I requested the footage. Then that led to PRA 26569, Public Records 25569 requesting security camera footage from March 10th, 2026 between 7 and 8 PM. The video provided by the city appears incomplete or corrupted. The footage stalls, freezes, and fails to show continuous motion, even while the timestamp continues advancing. In fact, nearly five minutes are missing from a nine-minute video, and the 49ers employee that was in the lobby seemed to be frozen for three minutes. I mean, he must be a freeze champion of all of us, right? So, and conveniently, the footage stops exactly the portion that would have shown exactly what happened and what would have demonstrated that my husband and I were actually trying to avoid the interaction, not harass anyone. In the footage, you can literally see me attempting to move away while we're trying to say we do not want to talk. So again, I asked the question, was the footage altered, footage omitted? What was the export issues, and where was the original footage preserved? Because now it's missing, now it's gone. The city said it's disappeared, because it's past the 30 days. And it creates security concerns, because the camera, if it's freezing, then how often does it freeze? If portions were unavailable, what specific time ranges were they missing and why? The city's response was that the camera stopped recording because movements are too small, as I said. But explanation needs more reasoning. There's more questions. And again, it's part of the same pattern. Whenever something needs to be verified, the truth, anything this council does to verify anything, the footage is incomplete, records are always unavailable, posts disappear, or key portions are suddenly missing. We saw similar accusations during Sud's Jane recall effort when my husband and I were accused of harassment simply questioning the recall organizers like David Curtis. Yet again, claims were made publicly while evidence that would provide context never fully appeared. I never even said anything that was out of context besides freedom of speech. We never harassed them. In fact, they took video footage of the area, they said that they took video footage of the area, and I challenged them, release the footage, because they won't, because you know why? People in that footage were calling me the C-word, and it's not criminal, it's the other one. Then at the last council meeting, I discussed another disturbing issue, an anonymous and imitating letter sent directly to my home mailbox, warning me about interference of the Deanna Santana investigation in 2022. Then at the last council meeting, I discussed the details from that closed session that later appeared in that grand jury report. The details only those council members knew about that investigation. I provide that copy of those letter to all of you. So I have to ask again, did you all receive the same letter? Did any of you recognize it? Did someone connected to the dais send it to me? Because only council members knew those details. I've been advised by many to do dust for fingerprints, but I think that's a little overkill. And this ties directly to another serious concern involving power, transparency, and the accountability here. The letter referenced the complaint filed by the city manager and the investigation initiated by the mayor following Santana's termination, the council later learned the mayor initiated that investigation into council members without a vote of this city council. Taxpayer money was used to launch an investigation even though there has been no council authorization. The justification given that there was no city manager and no city attorney at the time. So again, I ask more questions. How did the mayor have unilateral authority to initiate the investigation involving council members without the checks and balances? And when council members later pushed back against continuing the investigation because they saw political motivations behind it, the mayor reportedly stated that everyone would regret it. So who authorized it? Who knew it? Who disclosed it, and why accountability seems to only apply in this city, this county, selectively. That is why I'm here tonight for the eighth time. Because the pattern is no longer isolated incidents, the pattern is no longer avoidable. Avoidance of investigations, avoidance of transparency, avoidance of accountability, avoidance of preserving records, avoidance of answering direct questions from the public. What started for me as an effort to document and better understand local government a decade ago has only been reinforced what I continue to see here today and playing out every moment. So, once again, I am formally requesting that this City Council agenize the item for public discussion, leading to a truly independent investigation into who disclosed the fee for information, one with authority to examine everyone who was present in that closed session, what happened afterward, and whether taxpayer-funded investigations were conducted honestly, fairly, or were they political. No exceptions. No selective accountability. no protecting political allies, and no avoiding the truth. This council has a choice, continue avoiding these issues or finally confront them transparently or publicly. The public deserves those answers, the city employees deserve that fairness, and this community deserves a government that is not afraid of that accountability. So I ask for you to put that on a future agenda as soon as possible, and I thank you guys for your time tonight, and have a great evening.

Thank you very much. Next, we have number 2669. 2669.

Good evening, Madam Mayor. This is James Rowan, and I want to say God love you all. God love the people of the city of Santa Clara. I sort of appreciate the timing because my subject of the talking was just endless, endless. comments about Mr. Becker. By the way, once again tonight, Mr. Becker, I'm sure you're listening, violated Article 6 of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution, which demands that people have the right to face their accuser. Mr. Becker has accused an ethics advisor of injecting meth. The name, Mr. Becker, what is the name? And Mr. Becker is too much of a political and moral coward to say it. Mr. Becker also talks about an anonymous letter, which probably does not exist, has never been examined, has never been looked at by anyone. He says, well, I could have it for fingerprint analysis. Well, that's exactly what you do with the documents. But Mr. Becker is too much of a coward to do that. Mr. Becker said several times in his endless talks before the city council that it was Chuck Baker who said, I know, she's just going to lie. Now it's city manager Grogan. I don't know them personally, but I don't have faith that neither one of them said it. Because after all, it doesn't exist. Mr. Becker champions the Public Records Act, yet Mr. Jane and Mr. Becker attempted to write a guest editorial for the San Jose Spotlight attacking people for using the Public Records Act. And Mr. Jane and Mr. Park talk about urban environmentalism. The best urban environmentalist in the last 20 years has been Kirk Vartan. Both Jane and Park attempted every time to humiliate Mr. Vartan Mr. Barton does. Mr. Park and Mr. James just talk. Oh, Mr. Park also uses children's books. There was a councilman named Becker who liked to giggle during that. Anyway, God love all of you. Be well. God save the city of Santa Clara. But can we simply add the names, Mr. Becker? You have too much of a coverage to give them

Thank you. John Hagerty, please come forward. Welcome. In the microphone, thanks. So people at home can hear you. Thank you.

Thank you. I wasn't intending to make a public presentation this evening, but I came here and something occurred to me that has occurred to me on previous occasions that I've been here. And it's with regard to your handling of the special orders, which is very good. But I'm wondering if it should be held at a different time and a different place than the other meetings. And so I'm going to make a respectful suggestion here because I noticed this evening it was an hour and a quarter. And you have a lot of things on your plate. You have the electric company. You have the stadium. You have all the laws and other things that you get involved in. And so that hour and a quarter pushes you into midnight often, as you know that more than I do. So my suggestion would be to have the special orders maybe have them all at the Santa Clara Convention Center every two months on a Saturday, and you could have like a three hour session, and you get it all done in two months, and being that it'd be on a Saturday, family members would be better able to attend rather than on a Tuesday evening. So it would facilitate your time, the meetings, it would conceivably, the city attorney and possibly the city manager wouldn't necessarily have to be at the special orders, although I don't know the reality of that, but they could be doing other things. And it's just because you have so much on your platter, and your experience is that your meetings go until 12 o'clock. So I think it would benefit you and the people that are being special order honored and so forth, that it be on a Saturday. I suggest the convention center, but you might have a better idea of what would be a better facility. So I just wanted to respectfully suggest that. I think it would benefit everybody.

Thank you for that suggestion. We happen to have a lot of special orders tonight. This is a little unusual for us, but we did have quite a few tonight. Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak? Please come forward. Welcome.

Thank you.

I live in Santa Clara, and I'm just a regular citizen. And one of the things that I thought was unusual was item 826-482. It's the very last thing that was on.

I guess it's on the consent calendar.

I'm confused. President Clinton deported 13 million people. And President Obama deported eight million people Why are we having a problem with this now, with this current administration, when we had no problem back in 1992 with all these deportations?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to stop you right now because we haven't gotten to that item yet. So when we do get to that item... Oh, that's not on the consent calendar? No, we haven't gotten there yet. You're more than welcome to speak when we get there.

Okay.

Yeah. it's on the very end of the agenda yes sorry number eight the consent calendar yeah and we're we're getting there so thank you so much i couldn't figure it out but i did thank you please come back when it's that time thank you all right uh councilmember jane

Yes, I realize that we don't take action on public presentations, but often we connect our city staff to people that present. So I would like our city attorney to speak with Mr. Becker about the records retention and about the cameras stopping. So if you could just do that.

All right, we're going to then move on. We move this item forward, which was item number seven. Oh, consent item pulled for discussion. I'm gonna pull that later. So item number seven, which is declaration of property as exempt surplus land and approval of exclusive negotiating agreement with valley oak partners for a potential land exchange of the city hall civic center campus 1405 civic center drive assessor's parcel number 224-25-074 for the agnews office park and historic site 4220 network circle APNs 2-1-6-3-3-0-2-2 and 0-9-7-0-8-1-1-4, and the direction on the formation of a community advisory committee city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Thank you for reading that so I don't have to repeat it. Good evening and welcome. I want to welcome everybody to our council chamber, but the reality is this is only our council chamber on Tuesday night. This is the largest room we have in City Hall outside of our cafeteria. It's frankly the only conference room that can fit more than 20 people. It doubles as our council chamber. It's our board and commissioner hearing room. It's the location where we receive diplomats, international visitors and business leaders. It's also where we hold community development project meetings. This is truly a multifunctional space and actually as I sit here and look at this podium, I'm reminded that you can pull this mic out, put it in on that side and this podium works when you are speaking in the opposite direction because this is also the only location in the city center complex large enough to hold our department meetings. We do not have an employee training room. It is our employee training room. It is where we hold our budget meetings. It is where we hold our employee gatherings, our team building events, and also where we celebrate retirements. We'll talk a little bit about this facility tonight and frankly the aged infrastructure of our civic center. And the reality is that it's been functionally obsolete for more than two decades. There's significant deferred maintenance their facility needs, and also we saw in our budget presentation that this facility has sat in the unfunded category for many, many years. Staff in the city council and the community really rallied around Measure I, the $400 million capital bond, but it's important to note no dollars in the Measure I bond can be used for City Hall. The city is growing. We saw that tonight with the budget where we are proposing to add new positions. We routinely need to adjust and move around staff. We are currently undergoing plans to make cubicles smaller in our HR department in order to fit in more people, because as we need additional staff for a growing municipal corporation, we do not have enough room. We currently lease facilities, so we have a dispersed city operation. A number of our utilities are in offsite facilities. The city is set to spend over $9 million in the next five years and $18 million in the next 10 years leasing facilities. This is a $1.7 billion organization with over 1,750 employees. We need to address our city hall facility, not just for the city organization, but for the community at large. Important to note that what we're talking about here tonight really stems from a proposal that the city received in September 2025. That is a proposal for a land exchange for the current City Hall Civic Center campus for a portion of the Agnew's Oracle campus. The proposal would relocate City Hall operations to the Agnew site and enable redevelopment of the current City Hall property. Since September 2025, staff has met with the city council in closed session to discuss the transaction. We've toured the site with union reps, and we've launched an effort to explore the feasibility of the land exchange and key point other alternatives, and we will talk about those tonight. So for tonight's discussion and proposed actions, we want to do a few things. We want to first provide an overview of the proposal. We want to discuss the proposed exclusive negotiating agreement. We will also outline the timeline and the due diligence, some of which has already taken place and much of which needs to take place over the next 12 months should we continue down this line. There are a number of fiscal and facility studies that are needed, truly looking at the cost to occupy a new site from not just the cost today, but the cost in the future. Look at other cost alternatives for City Hall, a relocation or a land exchange is not the only option, but looking at those other cost options. Also tonight is a recommendation that the City Council establish a Community Oversight Committee. So why? A few months ago, we put out a public notice once we received the proposal and committed to transparency. We committed to establishing a process where really the community would walk the walk with us. And so what you'll hear tonight is a proposal for the city council to establish a community advisory committee made up of one appointee from each council member. So one appointee from each council district and an appointee from the mayor. A committee that would have public meetings, that would be a Brown Act body, that would ask tough questions, see the analysis as we receive it, and ultimately provide a recommendation to the City Council. We're also here tonight to obtain feedback, feedback from the city council and feedback from the public. I want to be very clear and I think it was noted four or five times in the staff report that no final decisions have been made. In fact, the work that is proposed to occur over the next 12 months really will provide the collection of information to allow the city council to make an informed decision. Staff looked at the proposal. We've done some initial analysis. We've also toured the site with our labor unions. And our labor unions really thought exactly what the city executives thought, which is the proposal requires expiration and seeking additional analysis and community engagement so that the community can make an informed decision is really the right way forward. So, We have a city team that has been established. The members are Liz Klotz, Rena Brio, Elysia Knight. We also have representatives from our Community Development Department, Afshar Hamid, Leslie Xavier, and Namisha. We also have assembled a team of real estate advisors from Century Urban, Ken Rich, Brian Sparkman, and Cameron. We also, in addition to our internal legal advisors, Alexander, Jennifer, Byers, we also have a team from Burke William Sorenson, who are here tonight, Anna Shimko, and Eric Phillips, who we know well, and our expert legal advisors. So we have a team of outside real estate advisors, appraisers outside legal consultants environmental consultants transportation consultants and technical experts as we go through this presentation You will understand the commitments in the proposed exclusive negotiating agreement as well as the process that will come Next and I will now turn the presentation over to list clocks our assistant city manager Thank You city manager

Thank you, City Manager Grogan. Good evening, Mayor and Council. So my role tonight is to walk you through the land exchange proposal, including the exclusive negotiating agreement, also known as an ENA, and the evaluation process that would guide the city's review of this potential project. I want to frame this discussion by emphasizing that tonight is really about the process and evaluation. The proposal raises important questions about the future of City Hall, civic services, and the long-term use of city assets. and the E&E is intended to provide a structured way to study those questions before decisions are made. This is also an opportunity to think strategically about what best serves Santa Clara and our employees over the long term, while making sure that the city remains thoughtful, transparent, and grounded in our community priorities. With that, I'll start with the project proposal. Value Partners is Oracle's selected development and disposition partner for a portion of the Agnew's office park and historical site. This is the former Agnew's state hospital. VOP had been pursuing a residential development proposal to develop about 584 housing units via Builder's Remedy on this site. The proposed project was not consistent with the city's housing policies and objectives, and a tolling agreement was negotiated to pause the statutory timelines for that Builder's Remedy challenge and allow discussion to continue between Oracle, VOP, and the city regarding alternative approaches for this site. During this period, VOP and city staff began to explore the feasibility of a city hall relocation or land exchange option. VOP spent several months working with Oracle to get that direction and concurrence that this potential city hall project may be viable at this location. And in September of 2025, that's when we received the actual offer. So what is the proposal being evaluated? We are looking at an exchange in which the city would possibly acquire and reuse portions of the Agnews campus for future civic operations, adaptive reuse of the existing structures on the site for office building, for employee use, preservation of historic resources, and expanded civic functions at the site. In return, the exchange would allow VOP to develop housing on the current Civic Center site. So here's an image of the Agnew's site. VOP would convey to the city approximately 26.9 acres, which consists of a historic easement that includes four historic buildings, if you look at one, two, three, and four on that site, as well as five modern office and R&D buildings for about 288,000 square feet. As you can see through this image, the space has developed landscape and park land and well-maintained historic buildings that could make this a location very attractive for civic purposes. In exchange, the proposal would then allow, have the city convene to VOP a 10-acre site of the city offices at the Warport rehearsal, which VOP desires to develop for housing. Here's another image of the site. As you can see in yellow, this is the 10 acres. It includes the Berman Building where it houses our IT department. It does not include the Civic Center Park. That's just south of the Warburton Parcel. That's adjacent to El Camino Real. At this stage, the city is not being asked to approve a project or make a binding commitment. The purpose of an ENA is to create a structured process to evaluate whether a proposal merits moving forward. And E&A gives the city time and a framework to study a complex proposal before making its decisions. The city can evaluate the proposal to see if it's feasible, financially sound, aligned with our community goals and public interest. That includes understanding the costs, the benefits, the risks, and the operational implications that it may have. An ENA is where substantive due diligence happens. It's where we will conduct our property and title review, our technical and infrastructure analysis, our environmental review, financial modeling, and evaluation of the implementation requirements to actually make this project move forward. Importantly, the ENA preserves the city's ability to decide later whether to proceed, whether to modify the concept, or stop altogether based on what the evaluation shows. So this is the proposed ENA, a summary of the proposed ENA that was included in the Council packet. The ENA includes a negotiation period of about a year. It would commence as soon as the agreement is signed. It would terminate on June 1st of 2027. It is subject to extensions by mutual agreement. It is an exclusive negotiation agreement, which means that neither party can negotiate with anybody else with regards to our sites. And this includes negotiating directly with Oracle. We have a reimbursement agreement within this ENA, which is really helpful because VOP will be paying for all of our due diligence costs. They will be paying our real estate advisors, our outside legal counsel, the CEQA consultant, as well as all the third parties that we will need for conducting our due diligence during this period of time. And in the agreement, there is no obligation for us to actually have to transact and complete the deal. Also, our exposure for default under the agreement is pretty limited. So if there is default under the agreement, either party can terminate the agreement, except for one provision, and that is if anyone from the city, employees or council, interfere with their transaction with Oracle, that would carry additional penalties or damages. And those penalties and damages are capped. The cap would be for any of the reimbursement costs that the OP has paid for our due diligence period. That is the cap under the default provision. The ENA also includes milestone schedules for negotiations, approvals, and closing of transactions. And we'll see that on a later slide. And just to understand what the city's flexibility, we have the ability to terminate this agreement upon 30 days notice. So we have flexibility to get out of the agreement if the city decides to not move forward with this transaction. During the ENA process, one of the key questions is whether relocating City Hall makes sense from an operational, financial, and community perspective. These criteria provide the framework for how the evaluation will occur. First, we would assess the condition of the current buildings and whether they can deliver or meet the city's operational needs, and that includes the functionality, space requirements, service delivery, accessibility, technology, workplace efficiency, and the ability to support future municipal operations. We would then evaluate the cost of maintaining that site, the cost for renovating, modernizing the current facility compared with other alternatives, and this includes the major capital needs, deferred maintenance that may be in these 20-year-old buildings, and the infrastructure upgrades that might be recovered. Beyond the upfront costs, the city will also need to evaluate the long-term value. This means looking at the operating expenses, the ongoing maintenance obligations, and the lifecycle costs for maintaining these buildings. And then we would also need to evaluate for our residents, our employees, transit access, parking, and the overall service delivery for our community. And finally, the city would consider the broader community priorities and future civic needs. That includes how City Hall supports long-term growth, community expectations, civic identity, and the evolving needs of our residents. As part of the E&M process, the city would evaluate multiple options to understand what approach best meets the city's needs. First, we would evaluate the proposed transaction itself. As mentioned before, we would want to understand the financial structure, public benefits, operational implications, and the costs. A key comparison would be to really understand the cost that if we were to renovate or modernize our existing city facility and what that would actually cost for the city. And also another option is to really understand what it would cost to rebuild the Civic Campus and to support the long-term municipal needs of the city. The city would also evaluate potential redevelopment of existing city properties for broader public benefit. This can include housing, mixed use, public space, and other community benefits. And finally, we would evaluate whether existing buildings elsewhere in the city could be adapted for city use. The key point is that the city needs to evaluate the city's possible pathways side by side to understand what are the available options for the city. If the land exchange were to move forward, there are some key project approvals that would be required. It would need an EIR and there are other CEQA documents as well. It would also require a general plan and zoning amendments at these parcels. It may require a development agreement. Depending on how the project's negotiated, we're not certain a development agreement would be required at this time. And we would need a land exchange agreement to document the land transaction. And then also we would need to make surplus land act exemption findings regarding our city hall parcel. So this is the project milestone schedule that we've also attached to the agreement. And it shows how we can achieve meeting the timeline to get to a transaction date if the city decides to move forward. The notice of preparation and public process for CEQA would commence on August of 26. We would have six months to conduct due diligence process that would start immediately after the agreement signed and conclude around November. We would release the CEQA documents for review in early 27 and expect to go to Planning Commission March and then April of next year, April for City Council of next year. And so this is a very tight timeline but we wanted to kind of put it out there if this transaction were to move forward, what would need to be achieved to get there. Another consideration is the evaluation of the Surplus Land Act, which establishes procedures that governments must follow before disposing of public land. The law is intended to ensure public land is evaluated for community serving purposes, such as affordable housing, public use, public agency use, open space, and other community benefits. For this proposal, the current City Hall site qualifies as exempt surplus land because state law provides an exemption where property is exchanged for another site needed for agency operations. The key point is that the SLA or Surplus Land Act requirements are part of this evaluation and the city would ensure compliance with all of the requirements under the SLA. A key part of the process is meaningful community engagement. And one proposed approach is the formation of the Community Advisory Committee or CAC. The committee would include one representative appointed by each council member to support a city-wide representation and bring forward perspectives from across the city. Appointments would be anticipated at the June 9th meeting if we were to move forward with this. The CAC would serve as a forum for community input on the potential city hall relocation and land exchange concept. Its role would be to help identify neighborhood priorities, concerns, and opportunities while advising on an outreach and communication strategy for our community. The committee would also help ensure broad, inclusive participation throughout the process, and the goal is to create a structured, transparent way for our community voices to inform the evaluation process as it moves forward. We understand that this effort will have impacts throughout the city, and we are committed to a public engagement and transparent process. We understand that we don't wanna take away momentum from our city council priorities, including the downtown revitalization. We want to make sure that we conduct public CAC meetings to gather community input, provide updates, and support transparency throughout the evaluation process. We are going to provide opportunities for our boards and commissions to tour and better understand the proposed site and facilities and gain their perspective. And we'll provide regular updates to the City Manager Weekly and the City Newsletter as we engage in this process. We'll also be engaging with our employees and labor representatives to understand operational needs, workplace impacts, and service delivery considerations. So this is the last slide. This is kind of the project timeline from September when we received the proposal through the timeline that we're given to complete the transaction, which would be May of 27. You could see in the last several months what we've been focused on. One is securing some real estate expertise to support us through this transaction. We've also secured our secret consultant to support us. It is ICF. And we've been working with our secret consultant to really understand what the process would be to do an environmental review of this land exchange and what it would take. And so a lot of that time that we have been focused on is what is the secret process for something like this. We've also engaged with our outside council in April, and they were supportive in drafting this ENA that you have in front of you today. And after today, when the ENA goes forward, we would be forming a CAC. We'd be conducting due diligence over the next six months. And we would also start commencing the environmental review to ensure that that aligned up with the timeline as well. With regards to due diligence, we're going to be doing significant research on all those sites. and we will be bringing that information back to you primarily in closed session to have those discussions. And with that, here's our recommendation. One, adopt a resolution declaring real property owned by the city to be exempt surplus land and approve an ENA between the city and Agnew's BOP for a potential land exchange and city hall improvement project, which includes declaring the current city hall property to be exempt in surplus land. exempt surplus land, authorizing the city manager to sign and execute an ENA, and substantially the form presented in a final form approved by the city attorney, and authorizing the city manager to perform all other acts and entering into other agreements or signed documents necessary to carry out the purpose of the resolution. Second, authorize the city manager to execute property owner authorization forms and related documents necessary to permit submission, processing, evaluation of development applications, entitlement applications, environmental review documents, and related materials associated with the proposed project on the city-owned site, and provide that the authorization shall not constitute approval of any project, land use entitlement, environmental determination, or final transaction by the city. And finally, direct staff to bring back the formation of a Community Advisory Committee with each council member appointing one representative from the district and the mayor in that large appointment with committee formation and appointments anticipated for the June 9th council meeting. Before we get to questions, I do want to thank you for this opportunity to introduce this really unique proposal and opportunity for the city. We welcome any questions at this time.

Thank you for that. We're gonna start with questions only. I see a long list of community members that would like to speak, so let's stick to our process, questions only, and then we'll go from there. Council Member Jayne, you're first.

Well, I know we want questions first, but I oppose the ENA for related, and that ENA did not go well. The ENA with Republic Metropolitan did not go well. I have serious concerns about the ENA. So I asked the city a number of questions. I said, how much office space is the city currently renting and for how much money? And what I got back was the Civic Center campus is 126,000 square feet. At Martin, we're renting 50,000 square feet. Another place at Martin, we're renting 32,000 square feet. And then... So if I add all that up, it's like 176,000 square feet. But for this project, we need 288,000 square feet. And The thing is that did we go out to the public and did we say, hey, this is the city of Santa Clara, we're looking for office space, we know office space, is largely vacant unless it's class A premier office space, do we go out to the public and say, we're looking for 288,000 square feet, who wants to entertain a proposal to us? Did we do that public process? Or did we just receive a proposal from Valley Oak and say, hey, we, We want to propose this thing and now we're jumping into an ENA. So that's my primary question about this. I know the city is saying that this doesn't obligate us to anything, but an ENA means you can't go talk to anybody. We can't actually just bid this out. We can't say, hey, anyone out there with a quarter million square feet of office space, give us a proposal. That will be shut off by this. And then the other issue I have is that the city is saying this is 26.3 acre, 26.9 acres, but of that 15 has this historic easement on it. And that is, that reduces it to basically 10 acres of swap. that I think we're looking at doing, not 26 acres of swap, because we will have significant restrictions on that historic property. What we can do with it, there will be liabilities for how to maintain that. I'm very concerned about the liabilities of maintaining that. And then, how long do we anticipate 288 square feet thousand square feet will take us as the city grows to say 180,000 people. Those are my questions, thank you. And of course, oh, and the maintenance costs. Do we know how much it currently costs to maintain our current Civic Center property versus what it might cost to maintain? I mean, I know we have consultants to help us with that, but we should have some ballpark number already. And then finally, if we were to rebuild City Hall in place, what is the square foot construction cost that we anticipate? Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. I have some similar questions because I was also crunching some numbers, but I wanted to understand if there would be photos available of both what our facilities are now and what the facilities are out there at the Agnew site. I wanted to understand the limitations uh for the historic parts that are already there i do know i argued for those when i was on the historic landmarks this and then moved to the planning commission and those 15 acres have four different buildings on it so i i want to know how we're comparing that correctly because if you take 15 acres off that you're right you have close to 10 but Is that really a good comparison? I don't know. And we talked about the excess surplus land. If we sign this, does that, permanently make our city hall um surplus of surplus land or is it just for this agreement and i understand that there will be our own appraisal of of the agnew site not just what what the proposal dates with because there are limitations on that land so i wanted to understand did this uh make Another appraisal part of that. Thank you.

Thank You council member Chaha Thank you mayor thank you for the presentation city manager and is a Couple of questions like I know it has been made in the staff report. It has been made that There's no decision has been made. I want to make sure that we are just doing a due diligence in the process of finding out whether this site is good or not good, or what are the financial aspects of that, basically. So, irrespective, I want 100% clarity that this is not a process where we already made a decision, basically. After all this due diligence, then only we'll make a decision. My second question is, It is mentioned that the VOP pays all outside costs. And does that happen even if we terminate this ENA as either party can terminate this ENA basically during the due diligence or even after that. Even if we terminate this due diligence process, ENA contract, are the VOP still liable to pay all our expenses which are spending for outside consultancy agencies, basically, whatever are those. Question regarding CAC. Will CAC get all the financials? One of the main aspect of this is, in a way that we need to gather all the financial aspects of this proposal, as well as if we build City Hall somewhere else, what will be our financial liability, what will be our financial cost, whether we build it place A, B, C, whatever it is, or whether we build at Civic Center, currently this location. So when we are asking CAC to vet this process, will they have access to all the financial aspects of the details, basically. Council Member Jain rightly touched that topic, like, ENAs are troublesome, like we had a history of bad ENAs. And before we go to this ENA, basically, we should have tried to find out a space of 200 plus square feet office space, 200K plus square feet office space. What did we do and what are our options doing that in parallel while if this ENA goes through, what will we do to do that thing in parallel? Because that may give us another option which can be financially better or worse or give us some more ideas about it. We are talking about majority of the property over there is historic property and we have to be diligent on how what will be the cost of maintenance of those that historic property and there will be strict limitations on that historic property down the line for number of years will not be able to do those things. So how do we discount all that part during the due diligence part basically? And I know we have a couple of historic property, Mars Mansion, other stuff, and it is very costly to maintain those properties. So we have to take into aspect how we maintain those properties at that historical area, basically. what would be our upgrade cost? Like those buildings over there which are in play may not be suitable for direct city hall usage like the way we want it. So what will be our cost to upgrade or cost to make them suitable for our own uses basically? So those are my questions before we go any further. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Thank you. I just have a couple of questions really. So just want to make sure that I know that was mentioned that there's going to be some look at, you know, costs as far as some parallel things looking at this city hall and how we move forward with that as far as maintenance and some of the things that were mentioned here in the presentation. So we'll have, you know, that data to understand where we're at. Obviously in parallel, you know, we'll be working with with the VOP if we do pass this ENA to look at the property there. I think the city grasps the, you know, what that property is like as far as historical aspect, the cost of maintenance. And if we don't have that information, we should get that. I think that we should also understand what is the cost of maintaining some of the green areas in the park, right? I think there will be a cost to the city that I think currently is incurred by Oracle. If I'm not wrong, if you can just clarify that. And the biggest thing that I would say is that just making sure that if we move forward with this today, that we're not locked into anything that obviously the city council would have to bring back any future movement on this. And this doesn't in any way preclude us from possibly building a new City Hall, moving City Hall somewhere else, or acquiring some other building, as was mentioned, as far as office space somewhere else. So just I guess those questions there. I think there were a couple questions stated a little bit differently, but thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Park.

Yes, thank you very much for the presentation. I've got some question, I know it's about timing, but why wouldn't we set up a CAC and go through all the issues and have them look at what we need to do, what the cost would be, how much would it cost to rebuild, all these questions, the CAC would look into this, have the recommendation, and then, after receiving their report, take our actions on surplus land and... the recommendations that we're doing today, as we start, we suggest setting up a CAC. I don't understand why we wouldn't do our due diligence upfront before we took any action. That's the first question. I'm also worried that while we're doing all of these things and we're looking at this land offer to stave off a builder's remedy because we don't know how to answer a builder's remedy. I mean, when I recall, the builder's remedy is due because this report tells me that the VOP put in an application in September 2023 Our housing element should have been approved in January 2023, but if I recall, and you weren't here at the time, but I'm going to tell you, we, the council, considered the housing element almost at midnight of the day that it had to be approved by the state. I think that alone opened the door for builder's remedy quite a bit. The fact that we went through four or six different revisions and we didn't get it approved until May of the following year in 2024, I'm really worried that we're... I'll let you finish the conversations. I'm worried that we're moving ahead trying to avoid a builder's remedy because we don't know how to get out of that. you know, because of what we took, you know, it took us over a year to get our housing element approved. I'm concerned about that. All the other questions about upkeep of the current parkland areas, historical costs, you know, who would take care of that, what are the costs to rebuild, what would we actually need to fix, retrofit? I mean, these are all questions I don't have for staff. These are questions I would have for the CAC, which I think would go off and do the work and come back to us and then give us justification for maybe declaring the land surplus or not. I don't understand why we're doing it at the same time now. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Chauhal, you have another question. Thank you, Mayor.

Yes. I'm not sure am I the only one missing all the exhibit A1, A2, A3. They are the only blank papers over there on the ENA agreement which was attached to the agenda.

Maps, right. Is there a city manager, can you answer that? Sure, staff is looking. We believe those are the maps. They may not be pulling up given the amount of megabytes. All those exhibits are blank on mine. We'll take a look into it.

Thank you.

Okay, so, oh, what was that?

They're placeholders for maps once the final maps are developed. So you have the structure of the ENA with attachment X. Once all the work will be done, the map will be inserted.

Okay, so they're actually blank. Okay, thank you.

Okay, I have quite a few questions. I'll try to be succinct in what I'm saying. This appears to be a a redevelopment transaction being prematurely characterized as exempt surplus land before the city has established necessity, evaluated alternatives, or completed meaningful public planning. This council had a closed session on this item seven months ago, seven months ago. And then we toured the site after that. But I'm telling you, as the mayor, I haven't heard a single thing in seven months. except for a few days ago when the city manager and i with the representatives had a meeting on this so in the last seven months apparently all of this was happening without definitely without my knowledge maybe the other council members had knowledge or not but we never met as a body together so when i saw this how how cooked this was, I was very surprised. So I have quite a few questions, because in my experience working with the Surplus Land Act, which I do in my other job, agencies establish necessity through a transparent planning process before claiming exemption status, and I haven't seen that happen today, so I have a few questions. The first is what formal public facilities analysis has been completed demonstrating that relocating City Hall is necessary and what alternate sites alternative sites or renovation scenarios were evaluated before staff concluded this property exchange should move forward and the reason I'm going to ask some really fundamental questions like I know all of this has happened. There's you know developers and exchanges and all this, but going back to step one, I think that that's where we have fallen short. Second question, why was the public not engaged before negotiations, consultant retention, and you heard all the consultants already that have been retained. CEQA planning and the ENA framework were already developed. So I think that we're actually looking at this process kind of backwards now. All of this has happened, but we didn't know about it and the public certainly didn't know anything about this. Was there any public or competitive process used to evaluate other potential development or civic relocation partners before entering, asking us to enter into exclusive negotiations with Valley Oak partners? and given the redevelopment and residential components contemplated in this transaction, what analysis supports the conclusion that this is truly exempt surplus land rather than an integrated redevelopment disposition subject to fuller Surplus Land Act procedures? Because I just don't get the exempt surplus. I don't know how you're gonna get it. I was going to say get away with that, but I shouldn't say that. Has the city received any preliminary feedback from HCD regarding whether this exemption interpretation is likely to be accepted? HCD is coming down pretty hard on municipalities and school districts on their property. So have we gotten any preliminary analysis? What is the estimated total taxpayer exposure for renovating and operating the Agnew's campus, including seismic, ADA, historic preservation, parking, deferred maintenance, and infrastructure costs? We really want to know what the real price tag is on this, and I think that's what's missing. Has the City completed any independent appraisal or valuation analysis of the current Civic Center property versus the Agnew property, including future entitlement value? Because I think the E&A process includes future entitlements, not just for this site, but for that site as well. um that's a huge issue um what long-term legal and financial obligation would the city inherit related to the historic preservation easement and maintenance requirements at the agnew site that historical easement it's also a park easement under our measure r um there it's a state historical it's on the state historical list it's also on the federal list so what um and and oracle at this point as the owner of the property has to maintain that in perpetuity to a certain standard so i i i was on the council when we did that so we were pretty strict on how they had to maintain that property Will the Community Advisory Committee have any real authority to evaluate alternatives and influence the process, or will it simply react to the framework that's already been established? Again, appointing this is after the fact. Why are we moving towards exclusivity and a surplus land act exemption determination before completing any public planning, operational analysis and community engagement? That's again, my fundamental issue. If the city determines the project is not feasible, what protections exist to ensure the city has not prejudiced future Surplus Land Act obligations or constrained future alternatives through this ENA process. And my final question is, why is the city being asked to commit to exclusivity before the public has even decided whether relocating City Hall is the right vision for Santa Clara? And I think that's the big question here today. So if the staff would like some time for those questions, we can go to the public.

I think we'll take your direction on that. Staff is certainly ready to respond to those questions, and then we can go to the public after that. Or we can take public, and then staff can do all responses at once.

Take public, and then staff can do all response at once. Perfect. one time. Okay. We're gonna start with Mary followed by Brian Darby followed by David Curtis.

Welcome. Hello again. Mayor and Council, City Attorney and City Manager Grogan, I am asking the Council to proceed cautiously regarding the proposed City Hall relocation and land exchange discussions involving the Agnew Oracle property. The facts matter. The current City Hall site, site on Warburton is certainly located, publicly owned, already functioning as a civics campus and sits in the middle of the community it serves. It is flexible land with long-term redevelopment value. The proposed Agnew site is very different. It includes historic buildings, preservation restrictions, aging infrastructure, and potentially significant renovations and retrofit costs. The city's own reports state that additional due diligence is still needed on environmental conditions, seismic issues, infrastructure, parking, operational feasibility, and financial impacts. At the same time, the larger Oracle Act news proposal includes 584 unit housing development being advanced by Valley Oak partners on surrounding land. That raises an important public question. Is the city receiving the most functional and buildable land, or is the city taking on the expensive historical portion while the most economical valuable redevelopment land remains in private hands? The public still has not seen independent appraisals of both properties, long-term operating cost comparisons, renovation cost estimates, relocation costs, or a full financial analysis comparing staying versus moving. This is not a small decision. It could shape Santa Clara for generations. Before giving up one of the cities.

Finish your sentence, go ahead.

Before giving up one of the city's most valuable public assets, taxpayers deserve complete transparency, independent analysis, and a clear explanation of why this move benefits residents financially and operational. This decision should be based on verified facts, long-term value, and protection of public assets. No pressure to solve a private development negotiation.

That was a long sentence. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Brian, followed by David Curtis, followed by Anthony Becker.

If you can't do this, but can you pull up that first slide? Please don't take my time off. The first slide that had the picture of the clock tower. I think it's important. It goes back to the slide, the beginning of the slides. There was a clock tower on it. If you don't have it, I don't wanna hold up too much. Well, if people remember, that's all right. If people remember, there was a picture of a clock tower there on Agnews. I worked there, I know I've said this before. I have an idea. There's some real choice land down there where it's a cemetery now. Let's build on it. We could build on Arlington. That's right in the middle of one of the most expensive areas. Why not do that? At Agnew's, people struggled with things that would devastate anybody, and they did it silently, and though a lot of us tried really hard, they did it privately. Those buildings out there, that land is sacred. That land is sacred. Walk very, very softly. None of us would have been able to do what those people went through, the people who lived out there. They didn't ask what happened to happen to them. They didn't. The things that I saw and the stories I read would curl your toes. But people still smiled. They still overcame. That is what makes us human beings. You don't just swap that around. You just can't. But we do. The questions you asked were the questions I asked when I first saw this, and those were good questions. I don't think in terms of those, I think in terms of those people I have the honor of working with, that's what I think every time I come to one of these places, if you haven't noticed, because they're worth it, and it's something to remember. It really is. Walk very softly, because you are walking on sacred land, and I don't care who it belongs to. It belongs to those people who lived out there and sowed their souls into that place.

Thank you. David, followed by Anthony Becker, followed by Mark Kelsey. If you wouldn't mind lining up so it helps us with timing, thank you.

I also, Kathy Kelsey is giving me her time slot. She should be online, two minutes. Thank you. I apologize. I just came from Westside Little League baseball game, coaching it. Good evening, Mayor Gilmore, City Council, and City staff. My name is David Curtis. I'm a resident of District 5. For more than seven months, it appears City Manager has been engaged in discussions behind closed doors. Ten weeks ago, I raised concerns at a Council meeting regarding the 20 million vote related to potentially moving City Hall at that time. I was told by a council member that the Ag News campus had never been discussed, yet here we are. What I'm trying to understand is why the public is only being brought into this conversation after the framework of the deal has already been created. The community was never asked whether City Hall should move, whether the Civic Center should be redeveloped, or what alternatives might exist. We are only now hearing about this after negotiations, consultants, legal teams, CEQA planning, and ENA are already underway. The public should help shape the vision before the deal structure is created, not after. The city is granting exclusivity far too early. The ENA prevents the city from negotiating with any other developer. Why is the city locking itself into one developer before the public process has even begun? Where is the competitive process? Why are we granting exclusivity before we are even determined whether this is the right direction for Santa Clara? The proposed community advisory committee appears largely cosmetic. It has no defined authority and function only in its advisory capacity. It is being formed after the deal framework already exists. A committee that reacts to a prepackaged proposal is not the same as a genuine public engagement. The Surplus Land Act issue also deserves caution. The city is attempting to declare the property exempt surplus land, yet project clearly involves major redevelopment opportunities. Residents deserve an independent legal review before valuable public land is committed. This feels less like a simple civic relocation and more like a major redevelopment transaction ramped inside a land swap. The public still has no financial analysis. Residents do not know the value of the city hall property, the value of ag news, renovation cost, seismic cost, infrastructure cost, parking cost, long-term maintenance liabilities, or who financially benefits most. What is the cost to sell half of the current 10 acres and rebuild on our site? You can then use half of that land sold to kickstart our downtown. We are being asked to move this train forward before the public even knows the price tag. The Agnews property comes with historic preservation and operational risks. Agnews is historically sensitive and renovating historical buildings can become enormously expensive. Taxpayers could inherit long-term liabilities. Historic preservation is important, but taxpayers deserve to know whether this becomes a civic asset or a financial burden. The timeline also feels unnecessarily rushed. Relocation, development of public land and land exchange and environmental route are all being pushed forward at high speed. Draft ERI by January, planning commission by March, potential council approvals by April, a decision that could reshape Santa Clara for generations should not be placed on a fast track timeline. This will directly impact our ability to get our downtown started and could push that timeline out eight to 10 years. Residents deserve to ask, do we want a new city hall or do we want our downtown back? If this truly is a good project, then it can withstand a transparent process, multiple alternatives, independent analysis, and real public participation before exclusivity is granted. I urge the council to vote no on all recommendations provided tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, David. Next, Anthony, followed by Mark Kelsey, followed by Chris Stempolis.

I have a time being donated to me from my husband and Saskia.

Just a second, let me...

Okay. It's six, I think, right? Yeah, it's two people.

Thank you, Mayor. You added another person in there.

It's okay.

Okay, there we go. Go ahead, please.

Thank you. So first off, I'll start off with Council Member Jane. You were right about the ENA for Metro Republican related. That was a terrible thing, and I think this is getting even that in that case, too. So... Before I was ever on the City Council 10 years ago when I first was running for City Council, the number one priority of mine was putting the downtown and probably City Hall moving to downtown as well. I remember when the downtown group actually started. I remember basically when I first ran a decade ago. Again, downtown was always the top of the list. When I served on this council, the priority was always downtown. And then when I made the motion for downtown, the precise plan in 2023, we've been waiting for those shovels. Many say it's economy stupid or other things like that, but reality is it's planning, there's organizing, and there's other things we could be doing. But also when I was on the City Council, I was leading the effort of submitting 030s, which included the feasibility and study of moving City Hall to downtown. These efforts were always met with big concerns and usually a no or that's not a great idea. It either needed new facilities in current land or land in the downtown. I thought at least the idea was good. It was putting the city hall in the heart of downtown and got the ball rolling, at least in the conversation. Then suddenly an idea came, which is this one right here, when I was on the city council. And the city manager made this pitch to me about the Ag News idea. At first, I thought it was a joke. I was like, huh, good one, Jovan. That's a really good one. Put the crazy city council and the city hall on the site of a former insane asylum. That's a good one. No, it was actually he was serious and it wasn't a joke. It was about the future in the city of where the city can still grow. It sounds like a good idea with the campus of Sun and Oracle and Agnes Hospital, yet it doesn't feel like the identity. It reminded me of one thing when I grew up, I was not rich and I didn't have a silver spoon, so I grew up pretty fast and sometimes my clothes couldn't keep up with my growing. So most of the time I got hand-me-downs and it wasn't until I was 18 and working where I got to buy my own clothes. Moving to City Hall into a vacated campus just feels like a hand-me-down. Into a campus built in 1987, something that doesn't quite fully fit. Yes, City Hall could grow into it, but with what identity? Yeah, there was once a major, there is also transit that goes out there, but not the same kind of transit that goes out here, five bus line 523 out here, as well as the bus lines downtown. Santa Clara deserves something new if we do go that route. The current site of City Hall is appropriate for the growth of the site of downtown, or also the site of downtown. Yet we don't have the funding that Sunnyvale has to rebuild their City Hall. Our city has dropped the ball when it comes to the funding of these facilities, and that are dated back to the 1960s when Santa Clara was suburbanizing. We should have never had to go out for bond money. We should have actually had our house in order. There are serious concerns about the process and priorities surrounding this proposal to the relocate city hall tonight. This land swap sounds like the land swap idea of the Prometheus in downtown area. I feel like the city is jumping on this too quickly without the appropriate studies, negotiations, and consultant work before having a fully discussion about whether relocating City Hall to this location is even a priority. We haven't even really talked about downtown or even on this site. The public deserves clear answers on the total cost, benefits, legal implications, and long-term impact before the taxpayer resources are committed. Questions also remain about the developer's active builder's remedy case on the Agnew's property, and the proposal feels like, to me, like we're trying to solve a City Hall problem and just passing the buck. Instead, a fully defending city's interest in public land, I can see people are frustrated. The city's continued reliance on costly consultants rather than accountable leadership and in-house expertise, especially when other infrastructure needs it already. When I was there, I saw it and I always wondered why so many consultants, to be honest. Yet there are always additional concerns about trading away valuable civic center property land without broader discussion tied to the downtown specific plan and future vision of Santa Clara. Yet the rushed nature of this agenda item placed late in the schedule with little public notice only adds concerns about transparency and limiting meaningful public input on major decision that deserves open discussion over so many multiple meetings. And you know, 2023, I was the one that made the motion to move forward with pushing the downtown precise plan. And I expected things to be moving even further. Yet here we are, we're stalled again. And I see that a lot of people show up here with those concerns along with the city hall. So I ask the city council tonight to not support this idea. Do not support this idea and do not make the same mistakes of the past where we move city hall out of downtown. Do not make the same mistakes in the past of the people who actually bulldoze downtown. Make the right choices. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark, followed by Chris Dempolis, followed by John Hagerty, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I would urge Council not to approve this item tonight, certainly not to approve the exclusive negotiating agreement. As others have stated, a lot of study is needed on this. Study and discussion of the cost of rebuilding or relocating City Hall has to come first. We should make a decision about that first before we enter into any agreements. How much will it cost? How will it benefit the city? Is this really the highest priority for city resources? There's a lot of questions here too about why is a partnership with this developer in the best interest of the city? Why are we solving a problem for the developer instead of solving a problem for the city? Relocating or rebuilding City Hall seems to be a very important priority for the city, but it should be discussed and fully vetted in public first. It has to be considered in the context of the downtown specific plan. The consideration of moving downtown or leveraging the Civic Center property to help build downtown is an important public discussion first. And of course this property that we're standing on is a very valuable resource for the city. How do we know what it's worth? What opportunities do we have? How can we leverage this for the benefit of the city? And finally, I have to say I'm not in favor of a community advisory committee. Topics of this importance need to be discussed in the city council, in front of the public, with full public discussion, and with accountability and decision-making authority that the council has. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Chris, followed by John, followed by David Keith. Welcome, Chris.

Hi.

Thank you, Chris Stamplis, Santa Clara. First, I want to compliment City Manager Jovan. The documents that are uploaded to the City's website, to me, are completely transparent, very detailed, disclosing everything that's before the Council tonight. I read all of it twice. And what I conclude is that in the resolution, it's very clearly saying that the city says that there is necessity, and then it explains why there is necessity, and then it goes to that's why it's going to be exempt surplus property, and then it goes to, okay, and we're gonna vote, you guys are gonna vote to decide to go forward. I'm not opposed. If that's where we're going to head and make a decision, then great. Let's make the decision and let's go forward. To me, I have three requests. The first is that with regard to the Citizens Advisory Committee, staff is suggesting on June 9th that the Council set the scope and appoint the members at the exact same meeting. I suggest if it's got to be appointing people on the ninth have a meeting a few days before at least to adopt the scope so then the public can at least provide a little bit of input to council members and you can decide who to appoint or go on the June ninth and do the scope then and then appoint the members at a subsequent day. Second, and the city manager already said he's fine with it, please do officially declare it to be a Brown Act Committee, so at least that way it's officially noticed, anybody wants to come, they can. Third request has to do with the building on the corner of Homestead and Lafayette. If this goes forward, then we are clearly stating City Hall is not gonna move downtown, it's not gonna be on that corner, and that building is not gonna be reused for any city purpose. We may already be at it's not gonna be reused at any city purpose, regardless of if the CNA goes forward. But if that's the case, please blow it up because it's sending a weird message to the community. It's going to sit there for three years as a building that can't be used. It's going to be an attractive nuisance. If you're not going to use it, please get rid of it. So thank you for hearing my comments on this. And I would just say I think that the only lesson I'll say is this will not come back to the council until April 2027 on page 17 of your document. It's very clear. This is your last discussion on this until April.

Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Next we have John followed by David Keith followed by Wanda.

This place is fine. We can build an annex to the current with this place if it's necessary Just like the Democratic politicians are doing up in Sacramento. They're building an annex to the Capitol They're not going anywhere else that building right there and just like the Republicans are doing with the White House now Annex is the best way to go if you need more space second I think residences would be better at Ag News. I just think it's nicer up there and so forth. I fear that this proposal pressures VOP to build here so that the city can somehow avail itself of all the legal aspects of the Surplus Land Act. I don't fully understand it, but I get that sense about it. Moreover, I don't want a city hall that's out at the edge of town. I think we made a mistake with the police headquarters. I think we should have had it here. It just doesn't make sense. It should be in the center. And then, finally, I want to remind you of the San Jose City Hall disaster. I mean, we do things right, and San Jose is where we learn our lessons. What happened with San Jose is they had a nice little building. They needed an annex, but it was nice. It's been vacant for the last 20 years. You know what I mean to say? So that was a mistake. And then I believe it was either Mr. Swenson or Mr. Sobrato, he offered them a full building closer to the center of town than where they ended up going. It was all there. And they decided to have it their own way. And they got a technology that was good in 2004. And six years later, it was outdated. and it was over on Fifth Street, and it didn't do anything. So you can make a huge mistake like San Jose did, or you can pull it back a little bit, realize you have a lot on your platter, just do an annex like they're doing in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C. And I also like what Councilmember Jaynes was saying, look into extra space. I'd assume to have that building on Lafayette and Homestead used if it's necessary, but in that order. So thank you very much.

Thank you. We have David, followed by Wanda, followed by Kathy Watanabe. Welcome.

Good evening. David Keith from Santa Clara's Historic Park Court neighborhood. 117 people died at Agnew's on April 18th, 1906. It was the greatest loss of life in Santa Clara County from the Great Earthquake. The original asylum collapsed on its patients and staff. The dead were buried in mass graves on the property. What the state built in its place in 1911 is what we are considering tonight. The new Ag News was a deliberate break from the carceral asylum model. Low buildings, tree-lined streets, light and air. It was designed to feel like a college, not a prison. For its time, this was a progressive vision of public mental health care, and Santa Clara was at the forefront. From Ag News, Billy Joel Armstrong sang openly about the effects of mental illness to the MTV generation. He returned to represent the Bay Area music scene at the Super Bowl this year. Then, Now, a historic big tech company took over the property. Mayor Gilmore, in 1997, you described the negotiation with Sun Microsystem as like fighting the titans. Tonight, the buildings you fought to protect have a path back to public ownership on the terms the city controls. Three of the concerns you raised then are addressed in what is before you now. Valuation in the city's favor, a transparent public process, and historic preservation at this property. The deal can work. The preservation easements that constrain developers will be an asset to the city. Beautiful, historic buildings repurposed for civic use are worth far more to the residents of Santa Clara than to a developer. A lawsuit is worse. Importantly, the ENA does not waive the city's position in the pendant builder's remedy dispute that we have been negotiating for the last 18 months. This plan turns a potential lawsuit

Thank you, thank you. Wanda, followed by Kathy Watanabe, followed by Claudia.

Mayor, council, staff, with all due respect, as a realtor and a citizen, location, location, location. It's a cliche that's true and it relates to money. And in this case, it relates to access as well. And it would divide our city by putting it out in that area, not even counting the cost of the historic aspect. So there's got to be a better way. But all of us are so busy, even we citizens using our time with this. Why are we doing this? We don't have enough time to do so many things. And we're going to examine something I don't see how could be even considered acceptable in that location. Quite frankly, the presentation and all the work on it was really wonderful. I wish we could have like a timeline for downtown Santa Clara that way and that that same energy could be combined in some way to be positive for downtown development along with the city. And I thank you for your time and your consideration on it. Thank you, Wanda. You're welcome.

Next we have Kathy Watanabe, followed by Claudia, followed by Jonathan Evans. Welcome, Kathy.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I live across the street from the Agnews property, so I'm very well aware of the beauty and the history of this incredible location. Before I turned off the Council, I was approached by a couple of developers who were interested in developing the property. One thing I reiterated to each one of them was the importance of meeting with the community and talking to them before any decisions were made. And I again know that how important it is that if anything were to happen tonight regarding the ENA, the importance of having a community outreach, to have town halls, and to make sure that the community has input in decisions that are going to be made. I have concerns about whether or not this is a fair swap. And because appraisals have not been done, so do we know that the city is getting a fair analysis of what this property is worth and the benefit to the city? The Agnes property is over 100 years old, and no doubt there are going to be a lot of code updates that need to be done, which is going to be very, very costly. And more importantly, that's going to include taxpayer money. Going forward, I'm concerned, even though it was brought up that the downtown is a priority, I am concerned that the downtown will be put off to the side. And this property and project will take first precedence. Finally, the City Hall needs to be kept where it is and explore expanding it here. There is just as much historical value in keeping City Hall where it is than moving it to the north side. More vetting definitely needs to be done. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Cathy. We have Claudia, followed by Jonathan Evans, followed by Rob Meyer. Welcome.

I appreciate your time. I do, truly. And this subject I had no intention of talking about, except it's just astonishing to me that there is such a large amount of work that has been done in pretty much sort of like a mystery or a secret. Citizens have the right, I think, to know what's going on in their city. And this is just a surprise. I mean, I'm just surprised that there's so much that has been done and nobody's talked about it in my neighborhood. And I think I'm pretty connected, and I don't think anybody knows about this. And it's sort of, it's, well, insulting. We have the right to know what happens in our city, and that's what we call a republic. And so I'm just saying that as a person that has been in the trades, I was a commercial electrician for 30 years, I worked on large, building projects, and I can tell you right now, if you think that this is going to be inexpensive, think again. Think 10%, 20% more than these guys will tell you about, because there's always surprises. And some of those surprises will be just the retrofitting of this facility. Just trying to make it come up to standards for earthquake proofing. And then you've got all kinds of other problems with the materials that they have that are caustic, that have to be removed. Now, you think that this corporation is excited about this deal? They are. They are jumping out of their skins for us to make a move without consulting the public.

Thank you, Claudia. Next, we have Jonathan, followed by Rob Meyer, followed by Patricia Leong. Welcome, Jonathan.

Hello. Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Jonathan Evans. I'm president of the Old Quad Residence Association. So I just want to, I appreciate all the comments, especially the mayor's tonight about, I think we skipped step one here, which is decide, do we need to move City Hall? We seem to have skipped the facilities evaluation of what is it we need. The library just finished a facilities master plan that took over a year. to complete somehow we're going to get that done and go through all the deals due diligence on buildings that were last completed in 2016 to see if they meet our needs in six months that seems like a ridiculous and very ambitious timeline and i have no idea how we're going to do it unless there's been another two years of secret meetings going on that we don't know about um I also recognize the ENA says we're not really done, but you really sign this ENA and somebody pays for all your work if you've already kind of agreed you're going to do it. And frankly, that's kind of what went wrong with one other ENA. We got sued because they said, hey, you guys backed out at the last minute, even though it said, hey, we're okay to go to all this. Really what I see here is that this also isn't really a great partner because they have a builder's remedy hanging over us. Why is that? Now, I kind of feel like after I saw the presentation, I realized that Builder's Remedy has one big loophole that you can't get around, which is historic properties. You can't just build on it just because you submitted a Builder's Remedy. And it turns out half of what I think they bought from Oracle is historic. So maybe they are trying to get out of a contract that they're stuck in where it turns out that's not nearly as valuable as they thought. And I don't know why the city's bailing out that company because that's not our job. We should be looking out for what's best for the city and doing what's best for us, which is looking at what we need in a city hall, deciding what we can do with the current facilities. If we don't think we can be here, we should go look for office space somewhere else. I think that's a great suggestion. But whatever we do, we shouldn't be signing an ENA tonight and certainly not doing it anytime soon. So thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan. Rob, please come forward, followed by Patricia, followed by Linda.

Welcome, Rob. Thank you, Mayor and Council and staff. Everybody said some great things. I want to focus on is there a need. I've heard things about this isn't a big enough facility. We need more facilities. for our employees and stuff. I've been here for 24 years, and we have packed this house on occasion, but it's worked. It's worked to this point. And I feel like we just floated a $400 million bond, and we're continuing to spend. I wish the city would start thinking about how do we generate revenue. Most of that $400 million bond is infrastructure, and it doesn't generate profits, not revenue, profits. Nor does this. This is more of an accountant mentality, and I think it's a cart before the horse. Sunnyvale got their downtown going, and then some miraculous way, they were able to build their new city hall right next to their old city hall, near their downtown, near their train station. The realtor said it correctly. Location is key. We need this to be close to our downtown because we already killed the soul of our downtown. Then we moved the city hall out of the downtown, which didn't help. Now we're going to move it further to a place someone else said that was a health facility. It seems that the problem with All of this, I read the ENA and it said that the developer may do multi-unit housing, single family housing in townhouses on this property. That is so underutilized to do that. We should be doing more density when we're near a transit head. I'm still not for it, but you gotta do your due diligence and why don't you just do a study without doing the ENA like other people have suggested. We've already done it for the building on the corner of Homestead and Lafayette. And we also did a preliminary study for this property. So it just seems so rushed to me. Let's do more with less in the city and generate revenue. That's where we need to put our energy. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. Patricia, followed by Linda, followed by Noah.

Welcome, Patricia. Thank you, mayor and council and staff. Patricia Long, chair of HLC, chair of stationary task force, chair of JPPCAC, board member of Oakwater Residence Association, speaking on my own behalf tonight. I'm opposed to ENA due to our track record with ENAs. If I was VOP, putting this large investment into this property really means that I'm committed to seeing this all the way through. This timeline is really aggressive from my point of view. And then I really appreciate Mayor's questions about the fundamentals, so I double tap on all those. Yeah, and the point about builder's remedy, it does not alleviate the BOP from the obligations from preserving the historic site. So this deal seems to be their way out of the obligation of preserving a historic site and saddling us with the obligation, with the funding that we don't have, that we don't have to preserve all the historic site that we have currently already. If this actually goes all the way through, I did read that if we have to continue to occupy this site, then we would be saddled with a lease on site that we already have. And then it's not clear that we will have the funding at the market condition to actually go through with moving over there. If we're gonna establish CSC, I would request that we involve HLC in this because of the historic elements and also the process itself needs to go through HLC as well because of historic preservation. So that's my own opinion, so thank you. Thank you, Patricia.

Next we have, oh Linda, you're online, Linda. Go ahead, Linda. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead, please.

Why can't your building at your site now move all of the city functions to rented space because there's a lot of rented space and it's cheap right now and then build the five stories on your site and one of those stories be dedicated to city business and the other story is being dedicated to residential retail whatever so you could use the same site five levels up The other thing is, if a good business deal, both sides feel like they won. All I see is losses on our side. Thank you.

Thank you, Linda. We have Noah. Go ahead, Noah.

Hello. Hello. Before this meeting, can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Go ahead, please.

Before this meeting started, I could have told you what the strongest argument in favor of this was going to be. This is just an agreement to look into things. It's not an approval of any specific plans. But I'd like to think that we, including all of you on City Council, aren't fools enough to believe that. It's as simple as this. Nobody agrees to negotiate for something unless it's something they want. They certainly don't enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement for something unless they are pretty sure they want it. So this isn't just a vote on a negotiating agreement. It's a vote to give up Civic Center to private developers and move City Hall to Agnew. If you vote yes on a negotiation, you're telling us that's what you want. Now, if you do think moving City Hall to Agnew is worth considering, consider this instead. Campbell City Hall is downtown. Mountain View City Hall is downtown. Palo Alto City Hall is downtown. And in 1958, San Jose moved their City Hall away from downtown. They regretted that move so badly, they spent $384 million to bring their City Hall back to downtown. And that was only because of a move of one and a half miles. This Agnew site is over three miles through industrial sites and two freeways from where our Civic Center is today. Do we want Santa Clara to become the only city in the entire state in the last 50 years to move their City Hall away from downtown and away from the center of civic life? The very reason we call City Hall the Civic Center So before you vote, ask yourselves, what would it say to the people you represent to tell them you want to move City Hall away from them? And don't let this be remembered as the first vote in a series of blunders that the people of the city are going to have to spend another 70 years undoing.

Thank you. Thank you, Noah. Next, we have Ed. Go ahead, Ed. Ed Stocks.

Good evening Madam Mayor, City Council Members. My name is Ed Stokes, Vice-Chair of the HLC and speaking tonight as a resident of Santa Clara. I'd firstly like to thank Mayor Gilmour, Council Members Jane, Hardy and Chahal who have highlighted some significant unresolved issues with the procedural aspects of the item thus far. My point that I would like to raise, they say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. 1961 through 65, the downtown was demolished with the promise of using urban renewal funds to rebuild it. Instead, in 1963, the current city council buildings were built with the remainder of the urban renewal funds. It is at this point, Madam Mayor and members of the council, that the city of Santa Clara took on a debt to the public. We're now faced with an eerily similar situation to the early 60s where another new city hall is progressing rapidly and the downtown is noticeably deprioritized by city manager growth. I implore this council to put right what once went wrong and redirect senior staff's time and attention to establishing meaningful milestones on our downtown, not serve themselves with another new campus before they pay back their debt. I ask you to reject all the recommendations for this agenda item.

Thank you, Ed. Next, we have Adam. Go ahead, Adam.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council. I'm surprised that the City Manager wants to enter and do an ENA without doing the public outreach and getting their feedback while discussing options with Council. Entering into an ENA without understanding the potential hazards could lead the city into another ENA lawsuit like the one we had with Metropolitan Republic for the train station property that we narrowly escaped from after they sued us. Why is this developer claiming builders remedy for the Agnew site? And why would the city management entertain trading a valuable property along El Camino Real for a desolate office campus no one wants? Is VOP and their development using the new housing laws to bully us into giving our value away? The city management states that they have been in discussions with VOP since September 25. So why do we not have any financial feasibility numbers, no metrics for long-term office space needed for factors with growth, or what the expected operational burden will be to maintain the building, including the historical registered hospital? Let the current owner continue to maintain that property. We don't have a good track record on historical maintenance either. The city manager is just trying to empire build and expand the space for the employees. While we have not reached out to any of the open market to see if there's any office space open and available at a discounted rate. A lot of it is sitting open and I would bet we would get better deal or at least we'd have a basis point. This is just a huge waste of city resources, time and money. While we have many other priorities already in progress, there is nothing transparent or community forward about this proposal. The city council and city manager just asked the taxpayers to fund a $400 million bond for deferred maintenance and unfunded capital projects. We all act like this is cash on hand, but in fact, there was no planning or savings and now where the entire amount is funded on debt at high interest rates. I'm asking this council do the prudent and responsible thing and wait for staff to do the preliminary work. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Next we have Dan. Dan's iPhone eight. Dan's iPhone 8. 8?

Yeah, here we go. It's 8.

I had the 8 in there. OK.

I upgraded it. All right, we'll start. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for your comments and council comments. They are very appreciated. Wow. Many of us wish the city manager had the same level of enthusiasm for the downtown as he does this thing. I want to talk about the land. We don't know how valuable the Civic Center lands are. They are walking and biking distance to a major transit hub, those 10 acres. And in no way did they compare to the 10 acres you were talking about, usable 10 acres at Agnews. Despite the snail's pace the city is taking, it would also be walking distance to a new downtown. We are giving away all this valuable land that could be used as leverage for priority projects, like finally giving the citizens a downtown. I want to say this, for the first time this year, reclaiming our downtown and our voting block will be endorsing candidates for council mayor. We're done listening to the talk talk about bringing back downtown, and we are watching who votes. Not talks, but votes from the downtown. This proposal should not give all Civic Center lands away. or at least four to five acres should be retained for future projects like this this should be a firm no and this vote will be watched by the thousands of voters who want their downtown return i thank you all thank you dan m go ahead m m

The letter M. All right, we're gonna move to skip. We'll come back to M. Skip. Skip?

Can you hear me? Yes, we can now. Go ahead, please. Okay, I agree with the mayor. Every single question she asked, I thought it was extremely pertinent. And if the city manager is the driving force for moving City Hall to Agnews and Valley Oak Partners is the agent of Oracle and this would be a transaction, why is the city being asked to form an exclusive negotiation with Oracle and Valley Oak Partners? This is a conflict of interest in my opinion. The city should be represented by someone who is not the driving force in this proposed transaction. City Hall's 10 acre site is prime residential, one of the best sites and most valuable sites in Silicon Valley for high density residential, much more valuable than the Agnew site, which is a commercial site, all of which have lost about a third of their value over the last few years. And the Agnew site has all the traffic issues, the noise issues with the flight path, the odor issues with the county sewer plant, all the issues and the historically designated issue as an insane asylum hospital. All of which, every one of which affects the current and future value of the Agnew site. The city manager is asking the city to let them exclusively handle a trade of the city hall site for the Agnew site and only get involved when final approvals are needed. I feel the city should be represented again by someone who is not the driving force in the proposed transaction. That's it.

Thank you, Skip. Linda, go ahead, Linda.

Okay. I agree with almost all of the statements that were made tonight. I don't know, you know, square footage and all that kind of stuff that needs to be addressed. But something was said tonight that struck me. We need, when Jovan said that we need larger quarters because we have all these classes and we have all this stuff that that we need space for. And all I heard was we need a bigger ballroom so that I can have bigger dinner meetings. There is so much that needs to be done with the city. This feels like a vanity project. And I think that whole moving thing should be postponed until we get the downtown that we've been promised for 60 years.

That's it. Thank you, thank you, Linda. All right, we're gonna try again with M. M? M. Do you see M? Is M muted? M is unmuted. M, you can speak, M. Can you hear me? Oh, yes. Now we can. Yes, finally. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, please.

No, thank you. In addition to what many others have said, and most concerning is the lack of preparation, public engagement, and Anybody getting the city council members to expressly approve hiring all these consultants in advance is very concerning. But I think the timing is way off because the economy has serious issues. The local corporations have announced thousands of layoffs to come. AI is a big issue. Disruptor of employment. People have been living off credit cards in large numbers to the point that they're out of debt. And excuse me, yes, defaults on that debt are over 30%. Utility bills are... in arrears around 35%. Foreclosures are up. And most concerning is that the banks are barely selling any foreclosures. There's no bids on most of them. So they go back to the banks for short sale. These are all really serious foreclosures. indicators of our economy being really bad. And I worked in real estate development forever. My family had owned a big corporation a couple generations ago. And I guarantee historical land sites are huge sinkholes for cash. And The city can't afford it. I recommend you just forget this idea of moving the city hall. And as others have said, focus on bringing revenue in with businesses. Developing downtown might be the answer for doing that and more taxes. Thank you all so much.

Thank you, Em. All right. I don't have any others. Is there anyone else that would like to speak that hasn't spoken yet? No? Okay, city manager, if you'd start. I think there was some questions in there. I had at least 10, so.

Yeah, I think I counted about over 100. I will organize our response to the questions, the city council questions and a number of the public comments. Myself, Assistant City Manager Klotz, some of our legal staff and our city attorney will support as well. Okay, had a slight change in the guard as I was looking down. Oh, I think we need four members and we don't have four members in the chamber.

We can have a five-minute break.

Someone been messing Could I ask everyone to take their seats, please? Thank you for letting us have that small break. I need three more council members so we can start. One, two, where's number three? The last one in there somewhere. Council Member Chihal here somewhere. Paging Council Member Chihal. Did you find him? Was he close? Oh, he's in the room, okay. There's four of us, city manager, let's go.

Okay. We're on. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. And truly, truly thank you, members of the public, for your comments. I'm going to step a little bit on the balcony before I start addressing the particular comments. And what I will say is we went into night eyes wide open. Many of you know I've been the chair of a couple city manager associations, and I've talked to city managers that have done city hall projects, and they said, really, do you really want to put this before the body? City halls are sometimes the third rail of local politics. There's so much passion and emotion wrapped up in the history of a civic center. I also talked to a number of staff and actually ran into a few staff members earlier this week, yesterday, who said, And I know tomorrow night's gonna be tough, but thank you for carrying this forward. Thank you for thinking outside the box. And I was also reminded of some of the other infrastructure challenges that we have in this building that, frankly, the public doesn't see, right? And so I come here with that. A number of the comments that were made we totally agree with, right? A number of studies and analysis need to be conducted. I will actually apologize for the polishedness of the presentation because I think it gave people the impression of so much work having already been done. That is absolutely not the case. The bulk of the work lies ahead of us. It's true that the city received a proposal in September of 2025. What's also true is shortly thereafter, we went to closed session and said, hey, we received a proposal. Here's what it is. What's also true is shortly thereafter, we adopted a budget. Council approved a budget and approved, I believe, $350,000 for us to start putting together a project because we knew all of the work that came ahead that would come before us. And I know the council knows, but I don't think the public really knows. Some contracting process of the city can sometimes take four to six months. But it was important for us to get consultants on board, to understand the proposal, to have some initial meetings with Valley Oak to say, okay, well, what is this? What is your deal with Oracle? And at that time, we made commitments to a public process. And we're actually here tonight with a proposal to launch that public process, to launch that process with a community advisory committee so that we can obtain additional community feedback, so that we can take tours of the site, so that we can analyze all the options. I also agree with all of the sentiments, and I think led off by the mayor, who I know has a background in real estate, that really sort of said, paraphrasing the mayor, are we putting the cart before the horse? I think we heard that from other members of the public. I will agree with that.

In a perfect world, and frankly, in a more normal situation, we would have evaluated city hall needs years ago, decades ago.

The reality is we deal with both the wins and the sins of the past. And the reality is this city hasn't set aside money for its deferred infrastructure. Just last Thursday we celebrated the groundbreaking and the rebirth of the International Swim Center, frankly because the community built the facility in the 60s, set aside no money for its rehabilitation and had to close it because of significant safety concerns. And so we find ourself with those level of assets all across this community. And we know when we proposed the Measure I ballot and that $400 million that there was zero dollars in there for City Hall. But many of us that work with City Hall and know some of the infrastructure challenges and the space constraints know that some attention needs to be applied to this important asset. And the reality is, It is not the most important thing that the city has been working on over these last six, seven months, but it is an important thing. And so we're here tonight, candidly, without any preconceived notions of this is the best thing for the city, that this is the... approach that will actually fit our needs one of the things that is proposed is a fit study and looking at the square foot that we have today the space that we're leasing the space that is proposed and also to look at other alternatives because the reality of santa clara santa clara had not, over the last, frankly, two decades, that this facility has been functionally obsolete, undertook the necessary studies to plan for the future of this facility, to expand this facility, to address a lot of the deferred maintenance. Like our swim center, like a number of our facilities, we've just been using them with, candidly, Band-Aids and duct tape. but we are turning the tide on a lot of that. We turn the tide with the Measure I bond. We turn the tide with the proposed budget that you saw tonight, where we're not only funding infrastructure, we're setting aside money for the future so we do not have to always go to the ballot box. And so, I want to address a number of the questions, and I also want to address a number of the comments today because I knew that carrying this to the city council, it would be a little bit of what we've experienced before, which is politics of the individual, right?

It's the city manager's fault. Why is the city manager doing this?

Know that as a city manager, I carry all of the needs of this organization and this community with me. Know that I, each and every day, get up with all of the challenges that we have before us, those that we have the financial wherewithal to deal with and those that we don't have the financial wherewithal to deal with, and partner with those in the organization and those in the community to seek solutions. Know that we've had conversations internally about we cannot in any way proceed with this to the detriment of downtown. I met with members of the community when I first started and heard of the history of Santa Clara in the 1960s and the demolishing of downtown. And as someone who has not just a bachelor's but a master's degree in city planning, it is appalling where we find ourself in this community with no downtown. And we have a project that we are working on toward that. And I know the council knows that many things are underway and we have a few members of the community partnering with staff on a way forward with downtown. So let's address some of the questions that were asked. You know, I think at a high level there were a number of questions that were regarding the condition of the Agnew site. A number of statements by members of the community that aren't quite accurate. But I totally understand that because we're at the beginning of the process ready to launch the community engagement and ready to answer those questions. And so there were things such as the condition of the historic properties. And so one of the questions from Council Member Hardy was, do we have any images? And so I do want to ask our IT staff to put up some images now. And I will say that, candidly, we were reluctant to put these up and put these in our affirmative presentation because we didn't want the community to come off as though we were selling this. We were showing a facility that, frankly, is in much better condition than the one we have today. But I know Council Member Hardy asked the question, and members of the community made statements about the condition of the facility. I think it's also important to note that those historic properties, some of which are, I think, over 100 years old, were remodeled in the 2000s. And so we have seen that, our building staff has seen that, but we also, part of the proposal is to undertake a detailed study of the seismic earthquake and retrofit that was done in the 2000s. So just if we will flip through a few of these slides, I'll try and narrate. So this is something that Valley Oak proposed when they provided the city with the proposal. It has some general information, it has that picture that you saw within our presentation if you keep going. Those are two of the office buildings. The clock tower, 16,000 square feet, keep going. Pictures of the interior of building one of the clock tower. What you see there at the top of that picture is some of the earthquake retrofit and steel beams that were put in in the 2000s. You see the furniture. You see the cubicles. Again, this was Sun Microsystems and an Oracle property. And the proposal that is before the city does include all of the furnishings. If you keep going, I guess the upgraded entry staircase. You see the grounds of building two, which was a data lab. You see building three, 43,000 square feet. You see building four, 64,000 square feet built in the late 1990s. Portions of building five, the cafeteria would be included. the interior of building five, the cafeteria, which would be included. And you see a little bit of the condition of that. And then you have a picture here of the auditorium. I don't think that there are any interior pictures here. But the point of the auditorium and one of the reasons when this proposal came before us, it's a totally unique property with the historical lands, but also it has a built auditorium that can serve as a council chamber. And so something that of course would need renovations and a dais built out. But when there was an initial look at it, it was noted that the auditorium was one particular piece that made this potential transaction unique. If you keep going.

I'm so sorry, the pictures are not showing up online. None of them.

We are, ouch, that is not good. Now they are. Okay. We will make sure to post these. There's a picture, this is a picture of the interior of the auditorium here. Again, substantially renovated in the 2000s, building 17, seven and administration building with renovations that were done and so on and so forth.

And I think,

If you just keep scrolling through, this is the mansion with, if you go back, I'm sorry, two more slides. The mansion with 17 with both classrooms and conference centers set up, again, proposed to be transferred to the city with all furnishings, continue. The historic site, the historic park that we know is 14 acres, the clock tower, and if you just keep scrolling, I think there are just some exterior pictures. So again, I show that to show the condition of the property, and if we look here, one of the initial things that staff did when we received the proposal is we took a look at the site map, we toured the property, and one of the things that we saw with the property is that there was a building that wasn't fully included. And so we started initial conversations to say, well, just cursory looking based on the number of square feet that we might need, and frankly, additional square feet so that we weren't looking to build a building with future growth. Can that other building in the lower right-hand corner be included? And that was a yes. And so that's building 18. But we're at the point now where we know a little bit more about what's proposed. and we need to do a number of studies, and again, launching the public process is where we're at today. There was a question about the ENA from Council Member Jain, which is, does the ENA obligate the city to the transaction, and can we not go through with the transaction? Absolutely the city would not be obligated for the transaction. I think if I step up on the balcony, we can think about it this way. We know the condition of our civic center facility. We know we need to invest in a number of the studies and outside consultant work that needs to be done. We have a developer that has provided the city with a proposal, and they're essentially saying, we think that once you have time to fully evaluate the proposal and do the studies, you will come to the conclusion of this is a good transaction, and we're willing to take that risk. A lot of the work that has been asked for by the council and the community is work we need to do no matter what. Essentially, we have a developer saying, we will pay for that, and we will do it at our risk. And at the end of the day, if you decide not to go forward with the transaction, we're OK with that. that's one of the things that i think we the council have before it you know do we stop this project altogether and say you know what stop all work on a potential city hall all work on studying future options on this side or elsewhere uh... or do we say Given where we are, given that we received a proposal, given that there are time limits to that proposal, is it possible to move simultaneously? Move simultaneously with all of the work that we need to do to study our existing facility, cost of other opportunities, as well as move forward on this potential transaction that the developer is going to pay for.

That wasn't my question. My question was, we can't go talk to anybody else. We need 288K square feet. Why don't we just tell the world we need 288K? Who's willing to offer that to us?

And city manager, can you answer the questions? Because I know we have a lot of questions. I know you're giving us your opinion on stuff, but can you please answer the questions?

Absolutely. I'm starting with Council Member Jane's question. So Council Member Jane, clarification of your question, which is with an exclusive negotiating agreement, can we go to the market looking for 280,000 square feet? The exclusive negotiation agreement does commit the city to working with Valley Oak partner on this transaction or the Agnew site and city hall. It does not preclude the city from looking at other opportunities for acquiring square feet. So one of the things, and based on feedback that we've heard, staff has talked, and we can add to our scope of work looking at the market and seeing what other properties are available that may fit a city hall. In addition to looking at could a city hall go downtown and the cost to rehabilitate this current facility here. So yes, that can be done. There are some limitations of the exclusive negotiating agreement and I will turn that, a summary of some of those limitations to Anna Shimko, our outside counsel.

Good evening. The limitation is that if you enter into the ENA, no one that is, the city would not have the option of speaking to anyone else soliciting proposals or entertaining proposals on this property that we're standing on, the city exchange property under the ENA. So we could not talk to another developer or any other entity about swapping, buying, any deal with respect to this property. But we could talk to brokers, owners, anyone that the city desired with respect to other properties in the city.

There were a number of questions from Councilmember Jane and other Councilmembers about the historic easement and what that would do to the value of that transaction. And I know the Mayor had a question with regard to entitlement of this transaction.

Yes.

A appraisal was submitted to the city with the proposal. We have reviewed that appraisal as a part of the scope of work going forward. We would have our own appraisals conducted both for the Agnew site as well as the city hall site. Staff is aware and our consultants are very much aware that the historical easement is one potential aspect that will reduce the value of the Agnew site. as well as, as the mayor mentioned, the request is to entitle this site for housing, that entitlement process increases the value here. Also important to note that the current market for office is depressed. That is a factor on the city side in the negotiation in valuing those properties. And so all of that is known, all of that will be taken into consideration with the city's own independent appraisal included in the scope of work. Questions from Council Member Jane about the maintenance costs for Civic Center, the current Civic Center site, and what is the cost per square foot to maintain? Again, that is a scope of work that we propose to do. The city does have maintenance costs, but the way our maintenance division is set up, it is not segregated. For us to easily break it out, we will certainly do that, as well as analyze the costs going forward. On the Agnew site, there was a question about the landscape cost and the cost of the historic properties there. A number of questions on the Surplus Lands Act and requirements for exemption. I will turn those over to Anna Shimko, who has analyzed that. Anna.

Thank you. So with respect to the Surplus Land Act, in the event that the council approves the ENA, then we would be participating in negotiations. In truth, even without the ENA, were you negotiating, you might be participating in negotiations. In order to participate in negotiations, or with respect to your land, you do need to make a determination with respect to the application of the Surplus Land Act. So at this point, there's an exception under the Surplus Land Act. Exempt surplus land includes you exchanging your land for other land to be used for the city's purposes. And that's what we're talking about here. That's what the purpose of the ENA is. And therefore, we feel that you would have the ability to adopt the ENA with a finding in order just to participate in the negotiations that the land you would exchange would be used for the city's purposes. Now that doesn't mean that you don't have any other choices. It doesn't mean that you have to have that land, that you need that land, that you can't decide to go a different direction. You definitely could decide to go a different direction. It simply means that if you did make the land swap down the road, It would be because you're using it for a public purpose. However, you cannot dispose of the land without presenting your ultimate resolution to HCD and getting HCD buy-in that the disposition is in fact exempt from the Surplus Land Act. So our vision as laid out in the ENA and the milestones is that we would approach HCD and we could do that starting immediately. We could start having discussions with HCD as soon as we begin this process. In our experience, if technical assistance is requested from HCD to give an advisory opinion, they may have follow-up questions. And so that process would be likely to take some time. It could take some months. And it could be that they're not prepared to sign off on the deal, the actual deal, until we have more data about what the financial terms would be. And we're not at that point, because we would just be beginning those negotiations now. But if you do want to move forward, you do need to find that it's exempt surplus land because the purpose is to exchange land for the agency's purpose, for the agency's use. Are there further questions about that?

I don't agree with you, but I don't, you know, I'm not gonna argue with you. Because usually with HCD, you establish necessity through a transparent planning process before claiming exemption status and we have not gone through a transparent planning process. And it includes more than just, it's not just a clear government, you know, operational exchange. There's density, there's redevelopment, there's housing, there's all kinds of things involved. It's a bigger economic, um deal than what you're talking about so that's why my second question is anybody reached out to hcd because they're very tough right now on that so and if you show them the other elements of what the city's doing we could be at risk i'm worried about that so Has anybody reached out to HCD? It didn't sound like you have.

We have not reached out to HCD. I think we felt confident that simply entering into the ENA, which is just opening the door and saying that the purpose of it is that we'd be swapping land for use by the city, would be enough for the purposes of the ENA. Clearly, we could not and would not move forward to approve the project and agree to a land swap, and we wouldn't be able to go forward with that without a lot of discussion and involvement with HCD. Oh, I understand that.

Yes.

I had a clarifying question. So the exemption from the surplus land act, allows them to build market rate housing. It doesn't have to be affordable. But if we declared it to be surplus, then we would get bidders and they would have to be affordable housing. Is that true?

They just have priority, I think.

Yes, yes. If we declared it not to be exempt surplus land, but simply to be surplus, we would have to notice it to affordable housing developers that would have an opportunity to say that they were interested. and we would have an obligation to have discussions with them. We would not have an obligation to make a deal with them, but we would have to have good faith negotiations with them.

But the exemption allows them to build non-affordable housing, just market rate?

The exemption, yes, it would because, Eric, do you want to add something? The exemption would not be based on housing. It would be based on, most likely, some discussion of land value and the fact that we are exchanging this land to use the other land for City Hall public agency purposes. Like for like, essentially.

not a lawyer but but i think a clarification uh councilmember chahal you have a question for anna i feel like i'm dancing with the city manager you mentioned that you need financial terms to be defined did i take that is that right before you have surplus land exemption from that cd that the financial terms have to be finalized

I don't know that for certain, but that is my expectation, that they will want to know what the deal is and see the appraisals that we would expect to have done and discuss the financial terms. But I don't know that for certain.

Okay, and the second question is, is the land swap acre to acre or land value, basically? because there may be buildings on that other property and the developer may not use this building, whereas we will be using, in case it happens, those buildings will be used. So how does that go, like acre to acre or the value?

Well, that may not be a legal question, but our expectation had been that if we proceed, then we would mutually agree on appraisal instructions and appraisals would be done of this property and of the property that we would be looking to acquire at the Agnew site. And so it would really be the appraisals that would tell us about the value.

Thanks, and I'm only asking this question hypothetically. I've not made up any decision one way or the other. I'm just asking this question hypothetically. Thank you.

I hate to continue on this because nothing will happen on the site if it's not either declared surplus or declared exempt surplus, right? Right. So normally, in my experience, The agency first has to determine its long-term civic needs. They have to evaluate alternatives, conduct public outreach, and only then determine whether a property is necessary for agency use. Here, the exemption determination seems to be occurring before that planning work has been publicly completed. So how are you gonna tell HCD that here's what, this is the way we've done it, without completing those other steps?

Well at this point we're only talking about making a determination in order to participate in negotiations. And it would be those negotiations that would, I think, lead to a lot of the data that you're talking about.

well the we're not just participating in negotiations you're asking the council not you to to approve an exclusive negotiating agreement that's not continuing negotiations and that's not public outreach you're saying i think we're going to do this weird kind of parallel path we have this exclusive negotiating agreement and then we're going to do our public process over here at the same time but the but the timeline is so aggressive. HCD is gonna see that. They're gonna see that timeline and say this is disingenuous. They actually are under contract with an exclusive negotiating agreement, but yet they're saying now we're gonna look at alternatives for the property. How are we gonna convince them of this process that has been put forth?

Well, we do have a right to do that. Again, the only thing that we can't do discussed with some other developer or entity acquisition of this parcel so those options are still open to us and you know if we talk to HCD and and it turns out that they have a different opinion that they don't think this deal would qualify as exempt surplus land we will obviously come back to you and and we will not be able to move forward unless we declare it to be surplus and go through the affordable housing, et cetera, noticing, but really what we're looking at is a swap. So the swap is more of a, does it make sense, is it a fair financial deal, which is what you would be looking at in the end as well. Okay, thank you. Sure.

Thank you, Anna. We'll keep the dance up. Okay, so there were also questions around the timeline and the work that needs to be done. I've touched on that a little bit, but I wanna call Assistant City Manager Liz Klotz up, and I want to ask slide 20 to be put up, because we are really at the conclusion of process one, which is really preparing for It's called process setup, but I'd like for her to describe the work that has been done since September to now, as well as the work that is outlined in phases two, three, and four, which are still to come. 20.

So just to refresh your memory from our presentation earlier about the process setup that we've done so far, and as Jovan mentioned, we have had to do some recruitment of consultants, and so that included getting our real estate advisor, our CEQA consultant, as well as our outside legal services. And during this process setup timeframe has really been meeting with the developer, understanding what the transaction is, meeting with our secret consultant and understanding what is that approval process timeline and what it would take to get these projects through in that timeline so that we can figure out if this would make sense within the transaction timeframe that the developer has given us. However, we're coming to you now with what that plan would look like. I understand there are a couple concurrent paths going forward. One, we've talked about the formation of the CAC and making sure that we get that public input and participation throughout that process. We are looking to form that in June. They would carry out through the time we take this project before the Planning Commission and the City Council. They would be very involved throughout the whole process of evaluating this project. The other piece is due diligence. You've asked a lot of questions about information about the conditions of our current property, conditions of the Oracle site. We have to do all that due diligence. The ANA actually provides us that ability to go on their site, do the due diligence that we need from environmentals, facility conditions assessment, And so through the agreement, we're getting that ability to go and start studying and evaluating the site for what the cost could be, the feasibility. So that's what we'll be getting through that due diligence that we would be doing over the next six months. So that's what we committed to doing and getting all that information forward. And then there's the environmental piece. And so the environmental does take some time. We would be looking for an NOP to go out in August. and that would take us through the process, the secret process of being able to take that, potentially taking that to Planning Commission in March. And so that is the other line.

Would that have a project description in there?

It would have a project description.

So it's the project description in the, like it's specific?

Yeah, what the projects would be. To the trade, okay, thanks. Then finally, the council decision points. We will be going to council through the diligence process, most likely in closed session because we're going to be talking about what the terms of the agreement could be and whether or not there is an interest from the city council to proceed with the transaction or not. There would be several check-ins with the city council in close to talk about those deal points because a lot of the questions you've asked today are financial in nature. Being able to really understand the appraisals, the cost, the value of that historic easement site, we really can't have a public discussion about that because it could affect our negotiations on that project. And so there will be check-ins throughout along with our public community meetings. The CAC is planned to be brown acted. I know a question came up about that. And then the decision points for the public would come in March and April. for the Planning Commission and then following the City Council on that. So that is the project timeline that we've proposed. We know it's constrained, but that kind of went along with what was proposed by the developer in this transaction.

Thank you. Yeah, Council Member Chihal has a question, Liz, if you'd like to come back.

So... My question is, like, we were talking about other secondary options which might be on the table. So at what stage are we trying to get to those options? Because if we have to make a final decision after, say, six months or almost a year, we should have other options on the table. Like, okay, the city hall at downtown can be or City Hall at some other office building will cost us this much. So when will we have those other options on the table along with this option?

Yeah, we would be studying those at the same time. So before we bring whatever our analysis on the due diligence on the Oracle site, we would also provide you analysis of what it would take and cost to rebuild on the existing city hall. What it would cost to renovate the current city hall. And so giving you the options of what potential city hall costs would be, would be part of that discussion.

So all those options will be there when you present everything. Okay, thanks.

Mayor and Council, I'm looking through all of the questions. I think we have addressed all of them. If you have a question that we did not address, please let me know. I know a number of the questions relate to data and information that we have not gathered yet that we have articulated would be a part of the processes to come. And so,

I asked about the selection of Valley Oak. Yes. And maybe I'll take it a step further. Tell us about Valley Oak and what have they developed successfully?

Right, okay. And I see we have a hand from Council Member Hardy. Mayor, in response to your question about Valley Oak Partners, Valley Oak Partners is primarily a firm that entitles property. Your question of why are we communicating with value partners for this site is actually a fairly simple one. They are Oracle's selected development partner. So Oracle, as you know, purchased Sun Microsystems that developed this campus in the late 90s. Sun Microsystems occupied the campus, I think, in the early 2000s, 2006, if I'm remembering correctly. Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems and occupied the campus. Oracle then shifted their own operations and currently occupies about a third of the campus. Oracle made a strategic internal decision to lease out portions of the campus. They tried to lease out portions of the campus, I believe during the pandemic, in some years prior, but then decided to shift, and I think it was former council member Kathy Watanabe that spoke and actually reminded me of about three years ago, Oracle was actually going through that process, working with a number of developers, trying to determine who would be their partner to leverage, frankly, two-thirds of the site. And so they selected Valley Oak Partners. And so Valley Oak Partners approached the city. We've talked about the builder's remedy case. But that is why we are negotiating with Valley Oak Partners because they do have an agreement with Oracle to close on approximately two-thirds of the property. And they provided the city with a proposal for essentially for Oracle would maintain the northern third. Rough numbers.

I understand that I asked, who is Valley Oak Partners? Who are they? What have they successfully developed? I'll turn that over, I know. You're asking the council to enter into an ENA with them, who are they?

They're primarily a real estate services firm that entitles property. So they're not developers, they're entitlers.

Well, they are primarily investment entitlement, and they have worked on projects that have been developed in San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Fremont, but also throughout the Bay Area.

I couldn't find any that they successfully completed, so can you tell us what they've completed?

They were in my report, and I don't have my report in front of me.

No, I just want, if you're asking us to enter into an ENA with them, the public should know who they are. And are they really going to develop these sites or just get entitlements and spin them off to someone else that we don't know who it is? I think the public needs to know that if you're asking us to sign these, not you. I'm just looking at you, but I don't mean you. asking us to sign these exclusive negotiating documents with the company. Are they going to build themselves or they're just entitlers and they're going to spin it off?

I think that's a conversation we can have and potentially build through our agreements with them. If the transaction were to move forward and entitlements were to move forward, we can actually talk about what that process would look like throughout. Just to give you some more background, they have been responsible for delivering 4,000 residential units in over two million square feet of commercial development throughout the Bay Area. I just want to list the projects that I kind of mentioned. The River Oaks Parkway project in North San Jose, and then Sunnyvale Saratoga Road project. There's 240 units in Sunnyvale, as well as 785 units, 350,000 square feet of Class A office space in Warm Springs, Fremont.

I don't think any of those projects are done. So anyways, I'm just saying. I just want the public to know who we're dealing with.

Yeah, understood. And we'll take that under note about the entitlements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I will note that having one firm that entitles a property and another firm that builds it is a normal and typical development process.

I understand that. I just wanted, you were continuing to say developer, developer, but I don't think they would develop these properties. I think they're just hired for entitlements.

I understand your point, Mayor.

Okay.

I had a question that I don't think was answered. I count that We have 126,000 square feet here on the campus and we're leasing 82,000 elsewhere on Martin. That's 208,000 square feet. The Valley Oaks deal is 288,000 square feet. thousand but then 50 of that is historic properties and i know the auditorium can be used for council meetings and such but um there's limited uh use of the historic properties so what i'm trying my question originally was will this allow for expansion given that maybe 50,000 of it may not be as flexible as we like for offices for employees and such. But right now it seems like we need 208,000 just for offices for employees, not conference rooms or meeting rooms, et cetera. So... The reason is, because I'm now reading from the report, it says, my question was how many office buildings, office parks in Santa Clara have at least 288,000 square feet, either in one building or in adjacent buildings? The response was the city will conduct additional real estate market research to identify office buildings or office campuses in Santa Clara that could accommodate approximately 280,000 square feet. either in a single structure or a continuous adjacent buildings. So we will be embarking on that research. My question is, how many square feet are we gonna be asking for? And are we gonna be doing that very soon? Because the time is ticking on this ENA, if we agree to go with an ENA.

Yes, so you're right. The current approximate square footage of city of this complex is 126,000. And when you added the lease property, it's around, I think, 170,000.

208. 208. Oh, you're doing both Martin places, yes.

So 208,000. The proposal to include Building 18 is $288,000 on the Oracle site. One of the things that we need to do is a fit study that will include how we could map in the space that we need both current and for growth into those properties. One of the reasons why after the initial proposal and part of that initial due diligence we asked the developer to include building 18 is to have additional square footage for growth. That's work that still needs to be done. But in looking at a comparison, looking for office space around 288,000 square feet is right. I would say the caveat where we need to do a little bit more analysis is what hearing rooms and meeting rooms and council chamber square footage size do we wanna build into that number? But again, that's work that still needs to be done and we can come back with an answer to that question. Thank you.

Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. I guess what I really wanna understand is I think I'm delineating this down to one, So you're asking us to pass this. And what we would get from it is we would get the money and the resources to do all the due diligence that we'd have to do anyway, no matter what. And we're giving up the ability to negotiate with anyone else about the property on Warburton, at least while this is in place. Am I understanding that correctly?

Yes, that's a fair summary. So during the term of the exclusive negotiations agreement, approximately a year, we would not be able to shop the Warburton site. Also note that the exclusive negotiation agreement could be terminated with 30 days notice. And so if we got to a point where we thought that the city did want to enter into that, we would not be locked into it for the entire term.

And we would have to pay for all this due diligence otherwise on our own nickel if we do not do this today. Is that correct.

Yes. And so that brings up a interesting point. And so. The materials before you are absolutely that. It calls for entering into an exclusive negotiating agreement with Valley Oak Partners where they would pay for our outside third party costs to do the evaluation. They would actually pay for the CEQA analysis. During the break, staff did reach out to Valley Oak Partners knowing the concerns that were raised around a exclusive negotiating agreement. and asked, would there be a path forward without an ENA? They did say that there could be a path forward without an ENA, where they would pay for their portions of the CEQA, but the city would need to fund its own due diligence work. I'd like to call up Assistant City Manager Clocks to talk a little bit more about that.

I did speak to the developer or VOP during the call and talked about, they were listening on as well and seeing where the discussion's going and they are willing to help to fund and keep going with their secret process for their project. I mean, that's part of the, and then the city would need to also evaluate its own CEQA on if the city hall were to move forward. And so that would be another portion of the cost that would need to be covered.

You really think there's a free lunch that they're gonna pay for all of this and then we decide we don't wanna do it and they're just gonna walk away? No, I guess you don't have to answer that, but you know the answer.

Yeah, I also don't believe anything is free. They're gonna build it into the price of the deal, so they're not gonna eat the money.

Okay, council, what do you wanna do? We wanna finish this before midnight. We have other things. Can I ask the city attorney a question? You've been very quiet all night. We have a couple of public hearings. One is for the, I forgot already. What's our public hearing? I know one's the El Camino and the other is Solid Waste.

We've got the rates, yeah.

Do we have to hear it before midnight because they're noticed? That's just my question. I've been thinking about that for the last hour.

Mayor, certainly on the public hearing on rate setting, while you can legally conduct that hearing really at any time after you've called the meeting to order and there's not a specific time assigned to that public hearing, as you get later in the evening, there are kind of due process issues as to whether or not that's something you should.

My question was, do we have to start it before midnight?

Oh, you mean under the 055 policy?

No, I'm talking about the solid weight public hearing that's noticed.

Yeah, there's no legal requirement that we have to start it.

It's on the agenda. Does it have to be, what if it's a 1201?

No, the meeting, to the extent the meeting's continuing from when it started.

Okay, even if we continued it to another meeting like next Tuesday?

So you could absolutely continue it. Keep the hearing open. Or you could hear it after midnight. Either option is available to the Council.

All right, thank you. All right, Council, we've heard enough. Oh, city manager, do you have more to say?

Yeah, just want to make sure, however we leave tonight, that clear direction be given to staff. I know we met in closed session, and then council subsequently approved a budget to start the initial process, but just want to make sure that we leave tonight with clear direction. Are we to continue to do any due diligence? Does the council want to issue and enter into an ENA? Are we to set up a community advisory committee to seek additional public input, or are we to shelve the plan? It's important to know where we're headed.

Thank you. Council Member Jane.

I think I might have expressed this to the city manager before. I participate in these community working groups for VTA, and they are basically useless. And I fear that the CAC, because they won't be able to get a lot of the numbers, they're not meeting in closed session. They're not gonna get a lot of the negotiating numbers. So I don't exactly see the value of the CAC, except to maybe have more hearings than what we're having here in council. Because they're not gonna get closed session, right? They're not gonna get proprietary numbers, confidential numbers.

Sure, if I can address that. You're right, the Community Advisory Committee would not get confidential numbers of the transaction until we reach a point to where those can be publicly disclosed. I would say there is a purpose. One, a number of condition and logistical issues around the facility are unknown, and having a committee that could tour the site, that could understand the conditions of City Hall, I think is beneficial. Having a committee to understand and walk with the city as we look through those other options is beneficial. I think having a committee that can partner with the city to understand the options around rebuilding City Hall, the options around maybe moving City Hall to downtown are beneficial. One of the things that we knew as we embarked on this is that community engagement is critical. And I think that's one of the challenges we have here is that the public has not been able to walk a part of the Walkwood staff up until this point. And so this, the establishment of a community advisory committee was supposed to be that launching point recognizing that confidential negotiations have to be confidential and should the city enter into that process. We do not want to have public conversations that would hamper our negotiation position, but there is a scope of work and things that I think would be beneficial if we are to proceed with a evaluation of improvements or a relocation of the Civic Center, whether that's in any part of the city.

Okay and my other comment is that what I'm hearing is that we could actually move forward with this without the ENA. It just then we would be on the hook for the cost which I believe would have been built into the deal anyway.

That is true. We would want to have additional conversations, but certainly there's a path forward for us to fund our own due diligence cost, fund all the analysis that we've talked about. And I think the question that we would need to go back and firm up with the developer is if this transaction is to stay a possibility based on their contractual timelines, what they would like to proceed and how those costs are paid, some on their side, potentially some on ours, just to preserve the possibility. As we've said before, we're sort of proceeding, unfortunately, on two separate tracks, right? The track of analyzing options and opportunities in future for City Hall and analyzing this potential opportunity. And so what we presented to you is a path forward where the developer would fund all of our outside costs and their costs. Another option is where we do not enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement. We fund our own costs that allows us the ability to shop the Warburton site. And then if they're willing to continue along that path, we may be able to meet and then have a decision point later and have check-ins along the way.

That's my preference. Thank you.

I'm just going to let you know what I think. The city already has a negotiating structure, consultants, environmental planning, proposed timeline before the community has ever been asked whether or not relocating City Hall is going in the right direction. I really think all of these staff recommendations, I would vote no. because we need to start back at the beginning where we should have started in the first place, is having discussions with our community about what our community wants to do with City Hall. What do you wanna do with this site? We never had those discussions. And these developers will come and go, projects will come and go, that site out there, They tried to lease it for three years and it's been on the market for sale for four years. I could tell you we'll probably talk about City Hall for two more years and it'll probably still be there. So I think that we have to make those decisions with our community. We talked about, you know, a few years ago doing an assessment of City Hall. First of all, I don't think anybody can tell me what exactly we need right now. no one can say that no one can say you know what what it will take to remodel this building or build on this site i know we talked about it before there's been absolutely no studies and in the last seven months since we talked about this there hasn't been the studies needed like what would it cost to redo those buildings out there you know what would it cost to maintain that historical 14 acres. And I'll tell you, we're not talking about money right now, but from the initial appraisals that our council is privy to, I would never go ahead with this deal ever. So I think that it's unrealistic. I think that moving ahead without a full and transparent civic and public process is truly a generational mistake. This is a generational mistake. And I don't want my name associated with this because if the council moves ahead with this, we are not doing our public good. a good service because we haven't done the basics. We're jumping through hoops for a bad real estate deal. And I just, I can't even approve it. I can't support this at all. So that's my opinion. Anybody else? No lights on? Somebody? I would ask then the council make a motion to start from the beginning and involve the public. Vice Mayor Gonzales. Vice Mayor? Oh, unmute. Sorry, I'm unmuted now.

So I think that we're talking about certain things that we know certain things that are going on as far as, the current footprint that we have there at City Hall. We know that building is antiquated. Our staff is doing a marvelous job of keeping that up. you know, too much of a marvelous job so that people think that it's a great place and that, you know, staff is totally happy with being there. Just in my short time there, you know, on city council here about almost 18 months now, I've heard of, you know, the heat's out, certain things are going on, and that building is really falling apart. What staff is doing just to keep it where it's at is... a marvelous job. We know that we don't have enough square footage there. It's not about building an annex. I mean, if we were to build a city hall there, you'd have to tear it down. You can look at what San Diego paid for their city hall, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, we're not going to – I've been looking at the situation as far as being on the school board. You know, the school district has an old – building for the district office and they've added portables there to the end. And if you've ever been in there, you know that it needs an upgrade. The public is not going to pay for that. You know, it was great to see that they stepped up to pay for some of these, you know, capital improvement projects like the International Swim Center. in these things, but we understand that they're not going to pay for our staff to be in a better situation, hopefully together one time and not have staff. We just moved out our water and sewer out of City Hall because there was not enough room. I understand that people believe that we can't have a win-win situation where we can, this is gonna defer or neglect our commitment to downtown. I don't believe that's the case. We're gonna eventually find a solution there. And if the city could build, I'm sure the city would have already built or helped to build a downtown. Obviously we're not in the building and development industry. That's not what we do. But this is just about going, moving towards a process. Obviously, yes, we have this – organization, this company, VOP, who is looking at offloading this oracle. And I'm sure they're looking at it from a bottom line. They're looking at a profit. But if there's a way that we can find a mutual agreement, and yeah, the council is privy to the numbers. I believe that we have a very strong position to where we're at and what we can do. We understand that commercial real estate is down. We understand that they want to build in certain areas. So I think we have a very strong hand. But we don't know what we're going to do with the buildings that are even possibly able to be used, like Tech Mart, that are about the proximate size Tech Mart. You can look at Santa Clara Square, where they're bursting up there. There's no room for us to even move in. And Gateway, Santa Clara Gateway. These are in my district, but whatever we do, City Hall is most likely going to move somewhere else, whether it's downtown, whether it's this site, whether it's something else. I don't personally see one day where you're going to demolish City Hall. Where is everybody going to go? And what money are you going to use to do that? The easiest thing is to find another place, whether it was ServiceNow or somewhere else if they have an empty building, which they don't. And it is what it is. If somebody wants to help me pass another bond measure, $400 million to build a city hall, hey, I'll walk with you. But if you're not willing to do that, then I'm willing to make a motion for the three staff recommendations. This is not going to put us in a position that we're going to have to do this. This is just going to give us information and move us in a direction that this is a possibility. You know, we have to vet this out, I believe. And I think if we don't do that, then it's just something that we're not... we're not really following our due diligence and looking at this. I think it's just something that we need to make sure that we vet out and we look at it. We understand that, you know, we have certain negotiations that we're, obviously we're not going to jump in this with eyes closed and just sign on the dotted line. There's definitely things that the city wants to make sure that it covers itself for. But if you look at that site and I think all the council members and mayor maybe took a walk over there. That site is in, much, much better situation than our city hall, much, much better. Some of those entities, yes, they are probably not as valuable to Oracle or VOP with the historical sites, right, but could possibly be used by the city in their current state. Maybe you add a few chairs for a dais or something, but definitely I'll make the motion for the three recommendations, staff recommendations.

All right, so we have a motion for staff recommendation. Is there a second? dies for lack of a second. Karen, Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. I was close to that, but I wanted Council Member Gonzalez to understand that I think the CAC is the most important thing we can do, is to start that process and have our put together committee of our residents so that they can have some more of that information a lot of us already have. I had not thought about that the developer throwing that cost back into us and back at us. That was one I guess I'm not nefarious enough to think that way. So I would like to, and I can't see it from where I'm at, but the recommendation, attorney member number three that gives us the that gives us the CAC without doing the NEA.

So number three, Karen, is direct staff to bring back the formation of a community advisory committee with each council member appointing one rep for their district and the mayor at large. Okay, so what are you suggesting?

That's my motion.

That's your motion is just the CAC. Is there a second on that motion? I'm asking if there's a second. Is there a second?

would like to make an amendment to that.

Amendment to the CAC. All right, go ahead please, Council Member Jane.

I agree with Chris Stampolis that it's important to set the scope of the CAC. I don't want it to turn into a community working group. And to divide it into two processes. One is set the scope and then appoint the members, not do it all at once. And I think that it's incredibly important to do a facilities needs assessment. I haven't heard from the city manager that we even know how much space we need. So meeting rooms and such. So I think my amendment is to forego recommendations one and two and move to setting the scope for the CAC and also for the city staff to embark on a facilities needs assessment for what we need. I fully agree that the city hall is dilapidated. A member of the public just told me some of her restrooms are not working and so it's a mess here and there are not meeting rooms. I encounter that when I try to have public meetings here when I'm attending NCPA meetings and such. There just are not enough rooms to meet in.

Council Member Hardy, do you accept that amendment? Yes, I do. Okay, so we have a motion and a second for the CAC, but we set the scope first and also include, City Manager, please hold, that we also include the facility needs assessment, is that correct? Is that correct, Council Member Hardy?

That is correct, I wanted to hear what the City Manager had to say.

I know, well, I'm just trying to, okay, thank you all so much, City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor, thank you, Council. Listening to Council, I have drafted a sketch of a alternative recommendation in three parts that I think aligns with the discussions tonight. Maybe not a unanimous discussion, but maybe majority. So number one, do not authorize an exclusive negotiating agreement with Valley Oak Partners, but instead direct staff to evaluate options for the Civic Center campus, including a facility condition assessment that would include options at the current location and other locations. Recommendation one. Recommendation two, direct staff to have discussions with Valley Oak partners to preserve the option of a land swap that does not include a exclusive negotiation agreement.

What does that mean, preserve the...

It means that if Valley Oak Partners would like work done that they are willing to fund that would allow the city to consider that in a year's time, that work could continue if Valley Oak Partners is willing to restructure an agreement where they would fund that work while we evaluate our options.

and they have no rights to the property and they have no rights to the property whatsoever so well they could do that on their own because they have a builder's remedy in for the agnew site so are you talking about this site i do believe that they would need our that they would want some

analysis done on this property and they would need our concurrence with that but it's essentially direction to staff to have additional discussions with valley oak partners about what would be needed to preserve the option of a land exchange proposal that does not include a exclusive negotiation agreement and so we would have those discussions and we would return to you with that why don't you just have them and then return because preserving means nothing I would like to leave here with clear direction from staff. I know that a lot of sentiments have been expressed and I'd like to launch with knowing where a majority of council would like us to go.

I understand the majority of the council bit, but when you say preserve their rights, what rights would this council be giving them? I need specifics, City Manager. It's not an ENA, but it's kind of like an ENA. What does it mean to preserve the rights on this property? If they come with an application, are you going to sign it?

so mayor i don't think i said preserve the rights i said preserve exactly okay um what i believe what i wrote was preserve the option for land swap i think that's what i said um and so what that means is there are certain things that would need to be done over the next year if that is to occur right we've talked explain those certain things we've talked about the sequence study We've talked about, which would include traffic analysis. There's also analysis of what housing development could potentially go here. It's that if that work needs to progress so that if we get to a point in roughly a year where we've concluded all of our analysis, you would essentially have both paths colliding. But we would not enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement and would not be bound to only consider the proposal from Valley Oak Partners.

So a sequel analysis would require a project? It would certainly require a project description. So you would take their project with a CEQA analysis and move ahead with that, but no ENA? Is that what I'm hearing?

No exclusive negotiating agreement, yes.

So it's the same thing, okay.

And so the third recommendation would be to form a community advisory committee to receive analysis and... support the process. And I think Council Jane mentioned to come back to the City Council with the full scope of work for that committee.

All right, so now we have a motion and a second on the floor. So if you all wanna change your motions, that's up to you.

I just wanna get to the point where we, excuse, just one second.

I would like to get to the point where we're taking some kind of action. All right.

The second withdraws the second. and proposes the city manager's recommendations.

So the city manager's, are you okay with that? I would second Councilmember James. So you're all agreeing to then preserve Valley Oak and proceed ahead with an EIR with their project? That's what he just said, with no ENA. I won't support that.

Okay. I believe it's also to start talking to HCD to see if the exemption, surplus land exemption is an option.

I would have supported the committee so we start talking to the public but the way, it's the same thing, it's just shaped and shielded another way but it's the same thing as what we're looking at so. the original staff recommendation, Council Member Park.

I mean, I appreciate the city manager's attempt to kind of save the city work, but at the same time, I agree with the mayor, which is it seems like it's doing all the work, trying to keep some of the the promises, holding some of the promises back, but it's the same thing. The problem, it doesn't resolve the problem that I have, which is I think we need to go over the issues first. We need to have a discussion first, even before we put onto the table what the, you know, any kind of agreement, any kind of work, any kind of, I think it's bad for us, and I think it's bad for anybody that we partner with. I mean, We talked about downtown, I think that the downtown needs to be part of the discussion. I think that as long as we have a partnership with VOP or we've got a relationship with VOP, I think that that would divert discussion away from properties that they don't negotiate with. They're the exclusive negotiator for Oracle. I don't know that they're gonna look at other lands outside of, you know, a land swap for something else. I mean, at some point, if they're managing the historic land, then any swap that they do is gonna end up in that historic land, and that's not, that doesn't seem like something that I'm hearing the public is interested in until we understand what we want with our city hall. I also know that I mean, people have talked about annex, looking at what's here. We can do all of that study, all of that work, without any kind of agreement with VOP. I agree with city manager. I also heard that it was preserve the option for a land swap. I wrote, keep the land swap option alive, but at some point, the land swap option always takes us back to Ag News. And I don't know that this is what we should be thinking about. We should be thinking about what we need, and what we need should be, again, if we're gonna mix priorities, if we're gonna talk about different things, I think that the thing that we should mix it with is downtown. So I'm not supportive of this new motion. I do understand how it's better than the ENA, but again, it suffers from the same problem, which is it pulls the focus away from a cohesive design, whether it's downtown and Civic Center, whether it's Civic Center, it always makes us consider the VOP property, and that's not what I want when we're thinking about what the city needs moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second on the floor.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

I want to be voting, but I'm going to have to step away now for meetings in a few hours here. different time zone, but anyways, yes.

Council Member Shahal?

No.

Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

No.

Council Member Jane?

Yes. Mayor Gilmour? I vote no. So it's three to three, so there's no action. All right. Now, we're gonna move on.

No, is there, you want some action?

Yeah, Mayor, I just would love clarity on is. I think you just got some clarity. So staff is to do no more work on this project and don't look at options for City Hall, don't set up an advisory committee.

Council Member Park.

I mean, I think that City Hall has always been a discussion point for downtown, for example. I'm gonna say if it's a discussion about moving to Ag News, I don't know that that was ever on the table before today for the public. But to say that we're not looking at... you know, options for facilities needs assessment or options for how we could move this, you know, how this goes with downtown. I think those are still on the table, but if you want explicit direction, I mean, I would ask for, I mean, I would like to see a study of how a civic center would work with the downtown and i would have a facilities assessments which which we we need anyway we would talk about all the other things that we would need to do and if you want explicit or a direction for that i i would make a motion for that but to say that you know i'm not saying that you can't talk to a deal p maybe there's something else that comes up but i'm i'm don't necessarily want us to talk about that until we've had facility needs assessment, until we've had some discussions with the public, and until we've got some idea that the discussion we have about the Civic Center is in the context of, well, we've got this discussion about downtown as well. But to say that we're gonna look at the Civic Center by itself, I don't know that that would be in the best interest. It's not what the council has been moving towards for the last four or five years. It's not what the public is looking for. I think at some point we needed facilities, needs assessment, but I think that if we're going to tie all these things together, it needs to be in the context of here are the other projects that we are working on that are priorities, and I think the main one that deals with the Civic Center is downtown.

I think we should also have a facility needs assessment. That's something we should have done in the very beginning.

Agreed.

And also have a study session with our public about options. Do we want it here? Do we want it here at City Hall? Do we want to expand here at City Hall? I don't know if people want to move it downtown. Do we want to, you know, and do you want to move it out to Agnew? Because I can tell you that property will still be available. What are the options? And so I'm in favor of that. I was more in favor, and I'm okay with the CAC, but I want it to be more public than that committee. I would have voted for the first motion until you changed it.

I'll make the motion again for number three, that we start the CAC.

With the facility needs assessment.

And we have a facilities needs assessment.

Will someone second that?

I'll second that.

All right, so we have a motion and a second on that. Council Member Chihal.

Yeah, can I ask you to add, like when we have... need a facility assessment, can we add all our options we are looking at, basically? Even.

That's what we would set up with the ACAC. This is just to set it up, we would set up the scope. This is just a motion to set this process going.

So then we have to, as mentioned by Council Member Jain, we have to put in forward the scope of CAC, basically, and that should clearly define what we are asking CAC to analyze, basically.

Okay. And I see that as a larger discussion with the whole community as well. So I'm okay with that. Council Member Jain?

Oh. Yeah, I thought the original proposal was to leave open all locations, but we're gonna now, instead of have staff do that, we're gonna have the CAC do that, it seems.

No.

And the other comment I had was that, you know, We just added in the budget 30 positions and the city manager is telling us that we're just on top of each other in the city hall right now. So I guess we're gonna have to look at possibly leasing more space outside of city hall while this process goes through because I think it, you know, we have a high vacancy rate in the city, and if employees are not treated well, they're not gonna wanna work here if they're in the basement or other places. I mean, you look at Class A office space, the vacancy rate for Class A office space is very low. I don't think we can afford premium Class A office space.

Council Member Jane, are you gonna support this motion? We need to move on.

I just wanna say that we need to move this process forward because City Hall is just too packed and we have to look at all of our options.

So the motion on the floor, Council Member Park, did you wanna say something else?

Yeah, I mean, we can do a facility needs assessment without a CAC. I mean, every single time I hear about a committee being formed before we've got a scope, before we've got anything else, and I know that we're trying to set up what the scope is going to be, but anytime that we've already agreed that we're going to set a scope and create a committee, it gives me a really bad feeling. And every single time we have this, appointing one representative from their district because we want district representation, and then the mayor, an at-large appointment, which already makes it unfair. It already gives one district more representation than another. I really think that we need to think about how we do this representation. I also feel that it doesn't... Maybe we can do the needs assessment first and then talk about the committee later. And that's what I'm saying. So I will not be voting for a committee. I think that that is another decision that we're making before we're ready for this. I think that it also, again, We keep pulling this away. We have a number of issues that we're already dealing with. We have a number of priorities that are there, and we're creating priorities that are in isolation, and we've got to start pulling how these things go together. For example, even for the International Swim Center, even when we were talking about that, we could have looked at in terms of what is a sports district, what is the entertainment district, and looked at it in terms of where parking needs to be, and I don't know if you're

looking at something else. Please be focused on this.

Well, I'm trying to be focused if I feel the people I'm talking to are being focused as well. But I'm saying we need to have these discussions in the public. We don't need a CAC to do that. I think that the CAC, again, would give a committee Very clear direction on making a decision when we what we really need to look at is ask public for possibilities So that's the first thing but the other thing is again if we are not looking at how we put these things together how we fit a Civic Center with a downtown with an entertainment district with the with other thing then I feel that doing this separately and having a yet another committee to do it separately is a distraction Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Chauhal.

Yeah. I think we should have a facility need analysis by the staff in parallel. Even if we do CAC, set up CAC, we should do that in parallel, and that should have all the options on the table, like even VOP, any third party, available space, downtown option, building over here. So all those options should be going side by side, and I think city manager looking for direction, I think we should give the direction that they should do it in parallel, and that need analysis should have all the options on the table. And once that is done, the CAC will have some scope, will find out the scope for that, and then you can present that to them also basically. So there are two parallel things can go forward.

Council Member Hardy, are you okay with that?

Well, if you listened really closely to my motion, it was a CAC and a facilities needs an assessment. So that was the motion.

Yeah, I was just talking about sequencing. Facility needs first and then CAC. But we can always appoint a CAC. And during the time we're doing that and as soon as it's ready, then they're ready to get going to meet with the community and help us and make recommendations. All right, so we have a motion and a second. City Manager? No, okay. Do you have that, City Clerk? We have a motion and a second for the... the community advisory committee along with the facility needs assessment to get that started from the city.

I'm sorry, Mayor, for clarity, that was all options, right? That's what I heard, Councilmember Jane. Looking at all options, thank you. All options, right.

Looking at all options. Facility needs an assessment. Well, an assessment is what do we need, and then location are options. So it's kind of two different things, but let's put them together.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Yes, and good night, team.

Thank you. Council Member Shahal. Aye. Yes. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park. No. Council Member Jane. Yes. Mayor Gilmour. Yes.

And that passes five to one. Thank you. Thank you, everybody that was here for that. Thank you, staff. Thank you, everyone. All right, it's 12 o'clock. We have a policy that says we are not to continue unless the Council, unless the staff, first of all, says that there's an emergency issue. But it's always the option of the Council to continue, but I recommend we set a time. that we continue until, and I know we all have very early obligations tomorrow morning. I would recommend one o'clock, whenever we can finish. Unless you wanna go earlier, 12.30. We're doing the El Camino next. I can't take the looks anymore. Even I can't see and I can feel them. Is one o'clock okay or 1230? Please somebody.

Raj, please. Which item are we taking?

El Camino.

El Camino.

Maybe if we finish, we can do the others too. Otherwise, we have a meeting next Tuesday.

We can go up to one o'clock.

One o'clock? Is that okay? Is that a motion?

That's a motion. I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion and a second for 1 o'clock, and it's 1 o'clock, no matter where we are, so we need to get moving.

Who's the second?

Councilmember Jane.

Thank you. Councilmember Park has his hand up.

Oh, Councilmember Park?

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the presentation for item six, and it's 55 slides long, so I don't know where we're going to be in an hour.

Oh, we'll truncate it.

They'll shorten it. I mean, it's the longest presentation of all of these things.

Let's get moving then. It's a, yeah, I knew you'd truncate it. We have a motion and a second until one o'clock.

Okay, got another absent. Council Member Shahal. Yes. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Do this all day.

Council Member Jane. Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Gilmour.

Yes. And that passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Item number six. Action on the revised El Camino Real specific plan general plan amendment for the creation of five new general plan land use designations. Wave the first reading and introduce an ordinance for the creation of the El Camino Real zoning districts and certify and adopt an environmental impact report and mitigation monitoring and reporting program. City Manager.

Given the hour, I'll turn the presentation over directly to Leslie Xavier, our planning manager.

Thank you. Thank you, Leslie.

Great, thank you. I'll go as quickly as I can. Good evening, mayor and council members. I am still excited to be here this evening to present the El Camino Real specific plan to you. It's been a long time coming. But the project team is here with me tonight and they're gonna give you a high level overview of the specific plan and as well as share some additional analysis that the project team completed as a result of feedback received regarding retail market and fiscal considerations. We'll close the presentation with a recommendation and questions. There is a lot of people that contributed to this plan. Our CAC, our consultant team, our technical advisory committee, as well as a lot of city staff. El Camino Real is a primary east-west route through the city and part of the state highway system that extends from San Jose to the peninsula. The 3.2 mile corridor is the city's most visible and identifiable commercial corridor connecting residents and visitors to retail and service amenities and civic destinations. It also has historical significance. It was a key link connecting the California's 21 Franciscan missions. In the early 20th century, it was part of the state highway system built to serve the automobile. And today, after the construction of highways in the 1960s, it is the urban street that you see now. In 2010, with the adoption of our general plan, the city council established El Camino Real as a focus area intended for future growth. The focus area extends from the western city limits to Lafayette Street on both sides of El Camino Real. Approximately 70% of this existing land is dedicated to surface parking. There's approximately 2.2 million square feet of commercial space and 2,500 existing residential units. So the project before you this evening is a specific plan for El Camino Real. The purpose of a specific plan is to refine and implement the general plan. The plan that we have before you this evening includes high-level policies, sorry, aligns with the high-level policies outlined in the general plan, addresses required specific plan topics such as land use, transportation, and infrastructure, creates goals, policies, and objective design standards, identifies specific improvements and actions needed to achieve the vision, and includes an environmental impact report which will also streamline review of future development. I'm gonna skip that one. How we got here, again, it's been a long time coming. We were here a few months ago with a study session for you all. We started in 2017 when we hired a consultant to help us with the specific plan. In 2021, we brought a draft to the council. The council provided us direction in 2021 to revise that specific plan. And the specific direction was to reduce density, to address the concerns of higher density development adjacent to single family neighborhoods, but still maintain our high density activity centers and retain enough development capacity to support the plan. And then finally, community outreach. We did additional outreach after the direction on the revision of the plan. A lot of that's up here on the slide for you to see. And with that super quick overview, I'm gonna turn it over to our consultant, Alessandra Lundeen with Remini Associates, and she's gonna give you a quick overview of the specific plan itself.

Okay.

Thank you, and thank you for looking so wide awake.

Good evening, Mayor Gilmour and members of the council. I'm excited to be here. I've been working on this plan for nine years since my daughter was a baby. She's in college now, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay, I'll try to run through these as quickly as possible. All right, so on this slide, you'll see the table of contents for the plan. There are six chapters. I'm going to briefly run through each one. So chapter one is the introduction. It covers location, plan context, relationship to other plans, and of course, the community engagement process we went through, and we made some minimal changes to this. We added our most recent CIC meeting, which is in December of 2024. Chapter two covers the vision and the desired outcomes, as well as the planning frameworks, including focusing development at key activity nodes, respecting the character of adjacent neighborhoods, and of course, improving multimodal access along the corridor. Chapter 3 includes the land use policies, the land use plan, the development growth potential, and the open space plan, which creates new public spaces through the required park and recreational land ordinance, as well as creating new publicly accessible but privately maintained open spaces, such as plazas. And then some of the key land use changes we made in Chapter 3 were adding a new lower density designation for townhomes, reducing the density along sensitive interfaces adjacent to single-family homes. We revised the land use plan to be consistent with recently entitled projects. And then we reduced the development potential per city council direction to the 4,400 units. And on this slide, you'll see the now four land use designations in the plan. The three on the left were the original ones. We added or we split the corridor residential into corridor residential and corridor residential low, which is the new designation for townhomes. And on this slide, we have the land use plan or the revised land use plan showing those four designations as well as areas where the ground floor commercial overlay is, which is centered around intersections and adjacent to and across from the key activity centers. And on this slide, we have a highlight of where we made changes to the land use per direction from city council. So the light blue lines, those are parcels that are directly adjacent to single family homes. So you can see we, Redesignated a number of the parcels. It was about 60 Mostly along the northern part of the corridor to that lower density townhome designation and then we made a few other minor tweaks here and there mostly to align with recently built and entitled projects just to make sure that they weren't non-conforming with the new land use plan and Chapter 4 covers the land use table of permitted uses, the development standards such as density, heights and setbacks, and objective design standards as required by state law. We also wanted to note that one of the key objectives of the specific plan is to promote a range of housing options at a range of affordability levels. And so this plan actually has a stricter inclusionary requirement than the city overall. It's 15% of new units, and the mix has to come out to an average of 80% of area median income. This is a deeper level of affordability than the citywide ordinance, which is 15% of units, affordable at an average of 100% AMI. And then some of the key changes we made in Chapter 4, we're adding, of course, development and design standards for the new corridor residential load designation. We revised transition standards for the northern side of El Camino Real to a 30-degree daylight plane, which I'll talk about on the coming slides. The commercial FAR required at activity centers and key sites through the ground floor commercial overlay. And then we made some minor revisions to development and design standards to align with the recently adopted zoning code. So one of the key concerns that we heard from the community throughout the planning process was neighborhood transitions and those sensitive transitions to single-family homes and neighborhoods So we have a number of transition standards in the plan Including really restrictive daylight planes building setbacks. We have upper story setbacks and orienting windows and balconies away from existing homes and landscape buffers just a name of you and So the plan originally had a 45-degree daylight plane. And we made a revision to change that to a 30-degree daylight plane on the northern side of El Camino Real, where the shadows are or the buildings can create more shadows on the single-family homes. So you see in the bottom corner, that's a project at the northeast corner of El Camino and Calabasas. I guess that was developed with a 21 foot setback on long the shared property line and a height of three stories. So if the plan had been in place, a 30 degree daylight plane would have stepped that project much farther back. And then the next two slides show the results of the site tests and the shadow studies we did for several parcels at the intersection of El Camino and Morse Lane. So there are currently two existing hotels on the site. They're built right up to kind of the rear property line with single family homes. And we modeled a five-story building, mixed-use building that could be built under the current plan standards. And on this slide, you'll see the shadows that are cast. So on the top of the slide, you'll see the shadows during the most extremes of the summer and the winter solstice for those two existing hotels versus a new five-story mixed-use building. And what we found was that the new building does not shade the single-family homes except on the winter solstice when the shadows are longest. And you can see there is some shading on the yards of those homes, but they're mainly cast by the six-foot fence along that property line, and they're about the same as the shadows that are being cast by those two existing hotels on the site today. And then we have chapter five. This is the mobility framework for the corridor. So it has the proposed bike and pedestrian network, all the sidewalk and public realm standards, and the right-of-way concept for El Camino. And then lastly we have chapter six, which is the implementation chapter with administration. We have a community benefits program, implementation actions and recommended capital improvements, and a funding and financing strategy. And then a program EIR was prepared in accordance with CEQA to analyze the impacts of the specific plan. The draft EIR found that all potentially significant impacts could be mitigated to a less than significant level, and those mitigation measures are included in the MMRP. The draft EIR was released for a 45-day review period in December of 2025, and we have our David J. Powers and Associates, our EIR consultants here to answer any questions on that. And then we did wanna cover some of the previous feedback that we received from planning commission and council in previous meetings and study sessions. So one was a question about why the parcels at the northeast corner of Santa Mas were designated lower density town homes. We went back, there was a suggestion to maybe make those a higher density designation. But those parcels are, they're about 12 to 15,000 square feet in size, so they're really, really small. It would be very challenging to develop them at higher densities, so we kept them at the townhomes designation. There was also a comment to consider measuring the 30-degree daylight plane from the lower grade of adjacent single-family homes rather than the El Camino parcels. There are a few El Camino parcels that are a few feet taller than those adjacent single-family homes. So we did go back and look at that. But given the topography, the minimal grade changes, the fact that a lot of those sites would probably be regraded as well when they get redeveloped, the expected shadows I should say and the expected shadows from fences and landscaping. We don't think that the change would yield any significant Changes to the shadows that would be cast and so we did not make any changes there There was also a question about stacking of state density bonus law with local incentives so to clarify that would be allowed where feasible based on the specific provisions of each of those programs and And then, oops, I went too quickly. The last two comments were focused on concerns regarding vacant retail and current market conditions to implement the plan and concerns about preserving existing retail on the corridor. So per the growth projections, the projected non-residential loss of about 289,000 square feet of retail. It's a pretty small proportion of the total non-residential square footage along the corridor, which is about 2 million square feet. So that's about a 10% reduction. Again, that's just an approximation. But in response to these comments, the project team prepared additional analysis regarding current market conditions for retail both across the city and along El Camino Real and also gathered best practices regarding attracting and maintaining retail. And I have Libby Seifel here to present her findings.

Thank you. Y'all want to know about retail?

I'm very conscious of time, so I'm going to whiz through slides. So this is going to be, oops, but it would help if I can get it to work. Let's see. I'm trying. OK. What do I have to be pointing at? Yeah. Ah, OK. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So let me just see if I can go back one to, oh, OK.

It's weird.

Well, anyway. Oh, that's weird. That's okay. You know, I think the slides got rearranged. No, it's fine. And it's easier. Okay, so that's easier. I'm just gonna skip through these slides then because the market slides aren't there, which is fine. So let me just give you a little bit of context on retail trends. Like so much in the world these days, retail is changing rapidly. You just had a long discussion about You know the changes that are going on here with respect to your City Hall and growth and that pace of change is accelerating So according to retail experts today's consumers are more intentional with their purchases there's a growing preference for unique offerings experiences and wellness oriented goods and services and consumers are consolidating shopping trips and placing more value on convenience and also walkability and and access to a multiple variety of retail offerings within a short driving distance or walking distance. In addition, hybrid work arrangements have shifted retail demand toward residential areas and also workplace-adjacent locations. And this reflects consumers' changes in their routines. And these evolving trends create opportunities for retailers while making it more difficult for others to compete. And because of El Camino's location as a traffic corridor, as a well-utilized corridor, because of the type of retail that you have there, approximately two million square feet of retail was just talked about. And the types of retail that you have, it's really important that the land use plan and the design criteria that are in the specific plan be tailored to what makes retail site selection criteria desirable by retailers and what's most important. And the plan does this. It recognizes that visibility and multimodal accessibility is important. It's tied within a transportation plan that will improve walkability and bikeability and sidewalks along the corridor. It will create opportunities to have adjacent and vibrant complimentary retailers be co-located next to residential, within a place where people can walk with plazas and access to community facilities. It will provide for adequate lot and depth and building height and features. And because of the quarter and because of the proposed densification that would occur along the quarter, it will actually allow for future growth, which is something that is really important to retailers today, is having an area where they anticipate residential growth. Not only along the quarter, but in the areas around the quarter that you've also allowed more housing to be included. Some of the retail design success factors that were looked at very carefully by the team, and I want to acknowledge Christine Furstenberg, who I know provided information to the city council before, David Greensfelder, who's provided information on the downtown plan, and other retail professionals that I know have spoken with the council, that these kinds of design success factors are uniformly agreed to be of great importance. So corners and intersections are where you really want to put retail. Those are the activity centers where you're really focusing the specific plan in those areas. Visibility facades are very important. There are design guidelines that are really designed to promote signage and visibility, transparency, lighting. There's a recognition that heights, ground floor heights are important for retail. So having 14 foot to 16 foot clear is really important. Space layout that allows for 50 to 60 feet depth preferences and a minimum of 16 and a half feet wide with limited columns and inside walls can all be accommodated in the plan. In addition, the plan provides, as I mentioned, for sidewalks and outdoor seating, It allows for there to be customization to retailers. It acknowledges the need for accessibility for customers and deliveries and garbage and curb management, which I know is a challenge because of the highway corridor, et cetera. And parking location and availability and access is also important while recognizing that parking is something that we need to be thinking about differently as we approach the future. And retail and mixed-use projects is also something that we looked at carefully, and what is it that makes it successful? Well, first, all of those retail success factors that I've mentioned are really important. But in addition, the synergistic mix of nearby retailers and business, so concentrating retail in those nodes is really important in the activity centers. Increasing the walkability, visibility, and multimodal access is important because that encourages people who live in the community to shop in the community and, again, the plazas and shared spaces. And last but not least, the larger sites have been designated as mixed-use opportunity areas, which allows for easier accomplishment. So these are the summary of the mixed-use retail recommendations, which are all followed in the plan to require retail only where it will be most successful and minimize vacancies, to allow other types of uses to activate the street. Residential can activate the street just as much as retail can, to focus on the deep sites at corners and intersections, and allow housing on shallow and mid-block properties. And I'm really sorry, I should have drank my water before I came out here.

I think she's getting you some water, so.

So I have some in my bag. Oh, there we go. Okay, great. I always have my water bottle.

Oh, good.

And then I know this is already going on with some of the developments that have occurred is to encourage sponsors to engage retail experts and bring them in to really redesign and suggest things to make it most successful. Moving on to fiscal considerations. I know you've talked about your budget, so you know that most of your general fund revenues come from property tax and sales tax, and also, obviously, from the utility district. Property tax and sales tax have been high growth areas for you in this city. B2B tax has represented a high amount of the sales tax growth over the last few years. You as a city get about 10 cents on every dollar or $10 out of every $100 collected for property tax. And growth in assessed value since 1978, according to the Santa Clara County Assessor, has been really constant and residential because residential turns over faster than retail. So the fact that you're doing this residential infill will be good for the general fund and will be good for the retailers that will benefit from the new residents that live there. The sales tax is such that the city receives a dollar per every hundred dollars collected, and the major sales tax generators in this city have grown more and more to be the B2B sales, the business-to-business sales, and also the county pool, which accounts for internet sales and transportation, motor vehicle sales and other sales that are done and that are made and allocated by the state and the county based on a formula that is based on how much sales tax you generate as a city. Your citywide taxable retail sales in 2025, based on estimates that I did from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, are about $2.5 billion from just the retail portion of what's generated, not B2B. and not including the county pool. And those consist of all of the different foods and clothing and general merchandise and home furnishings and construction and transportation related sales. If you translate that using the 1% sales tax and you divide it by about 50,000 households within the city, that means that you generate, on average, about $500 per household. So for each household that comes in, you will generate an additional $500. But in addition to that, because that will grow your overall tax portfolio in the city, you will get more county pool allocation as well. So it will be much higher than that. Um, and so in summary, for property tax generation from the specific plan area, the sources of AV growth will come from first the sale of property and change of ownership of more than 50%. Many properties along the El Camino corridor throughout, um, the valley and further north have been owned for many years. So growth can be significant when they turn over. You'll also get growth from new building construction and renovation and also from the tenant improvements and personal property that will be placed within the properties. And you'll get sales tax generation from several sources, primarily from taxable retail point of sale at the new retail and upgraded retail that will be built along the corridor. You'll have construction sales tax that will get generated by the retail and also the residential improvements and the retail sales capture from the new households that will be spent not only in the El Camino area but throughout the city. And last but not least, you will have the bump up in the countywide pool and you'll have some small business to business sales but that will continue to be mostly in your industrial areas. So in conclusion, the benefits of this specific plan that are designed to best achieve success are that it allows a broad range of residential densities. It encourages new housing growth that will generate new customers. It will focus mixed-use development on the largest, best-located sites for retail, which are primarily the community centers and neighborhood centers located at the major intersections. And it contains design guidelines that encourage successful retail and mixed-use. So from a fiscal standpoint, it will contribute to general fund revenues by contributing property taxes and sales taxes from all the sources I just went over. And that's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. If you want to know more about retail trends, we can certainly talk about it.

I think it's slide 57.

Okay, thank you.

So I'll just wrap this up really quickly. The Planning Commission hearing was held on April 8th, and the Planning Commission recommended the EIR for certification and the specific plan for adoption. The commissioners mainly just had some clarifying questions and comments. So I'll just leave that up here. It was mostly about ensuring viable commercial areas, protecting small businesses, increasing density along the southern side of El Camino. There were some questions about parking requirements, providing art with new developments, and considering the possibility of a trolley. So in summary, The specific plan in front of you today for consideration achieves the following. It implements the general plan vision for transforming El Camino into a vibrant mixed-use pedestrian-oriented corridor. It responds to market conditions by focusing retail at key nodes while allowing flexible mixed-use development to support long-term economic viability of the corridor. It balances growth with neighborhood compatibility by reducing overall density to 4,400 units, introducing townhomes, and refining transitions. It strengthens design standards with tools such as the 32-day daylight plan and other measures to reduce impacts on adjacent properties. It invests in mobility and public realm improvements through enhanced circulation, open space, infrastructure upgrades, and a clear implementation and funding strategy. And it will contribute to your general fund revenues through property and sales taxes from new development, upgrades, new retail space, and growth in household demand.

Do you want me to do this part or do you want me to?

Okay. So I think the recommendation before you today is to certify the EIR, the MMRP and related CEQA documents, to approve the El Camino Real specific plan, a specific plan consistent with California government code section 65450 to 65457, to approve general plan text amendment creating the regional corridor mixed use of 55 to 100 dwellings per acre, 0.2 commercial FAR, corridor mixed use of 45 to 65 dwellings per acre, corridor residential of 26 to 45 dwellings per acre, corridor residential low of 12 to 25 dwellings per acre, and ground floor commercial overlay land use designations and amend the general plan land use diagrams for phase two and phase three to reflect the land use designations in the El Camino Real specific plan and remove the El Camino Real focus area. And then lastly, to waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance amending the zoning code to create the El Camino Real zoning districts.

Well done, well done, I have to say. After years and years, well done.

Thank you, thank you so much to our consultants and staff, and we're ready for questions.

Thank you, and I know this is a public hearing, so we'll ask our questions, and then we'll go to the public. Council Member Jane.