City Council and Authorities Concurrent - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the City of Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Board Concurrent Meeting to order. Do we have a confirmation of a quorum? Assistant City Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum.

Thank you. We have one closed session item. City Attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, one item, conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation for the city council pursuant to government code section 54956.94, initiation of litigation, number of potential cases, one case.

All right, thank you. Do we have any member of the public that would like to speak on this item? Yes, we do, Madam Mayor.

Jeremy Burrows, online.

All right, Jeremy, are you speaking on this conference item, closed session?

Yes, correct. Okay, go ahead, please. Good afternoon, Mayor Gilmore, Vice Mayor Cox, and the Santa Clara City Council members. I was trying to say Vice Mayor Gonzalez and members of the Santa Clara City Council. Jeremy Bruce with the Amigos de Guadalupe Center for Justice and Empowerment. Just want to thank you all for your leadership and service for our community in Santa Clara. I urge you to take action right away to protect our community, our people, and our businesses. We request that Santa Clara joins the amicus brief with local jurisdictions throughout the Bay Area and Central Coast to support and strengthen the lawsuit filed jointly by Santa Clara County and the California Attorney General to block the illegal development of an ice facility near Gilroy. The cities of San Jose, Palo Alto, Hollister, and Alameda, and the counties of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo have already signed on, with more in process. Santa Clara should be part of this, as our city and community will be severely impacted if the ICE facility opens near Gilroy. The amicus brief is being prepared by the County of Monterey with Public Rights Project, with plans to file by the end of June, so your action is urgently needed now. Beyond the immense human cost, families torn apart, children losing parents, neighbors living in fear, these protections matter for our economy as well as our safety. The Bay Area Council Economic Institute reports that mass deportations could reduce regional economic output by as much as $67 billion annually. Santa Clara has been built by diverse immigrant communities. Thank you all for your leadership and commitment to the safety and well-being of our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak on a closed session item? Seeing none, we're going to adjourn to closed session. We'll be back at 5.30. Thank you.

And Mayor, we'll be convening in Sparacino.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome everyone to our Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Council meeting. Confirmation of a quorum, city clerk. We're still in a sort of a study session.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum.

All right. So we have an item number two, discussion on the allocation of additional funds in the general fund estimated for fiscal year 2526 including convention center capital projects. So I'll turn it over to our city manager.

Sure, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, members of council. Tonight's study session is a continuation of a topic that we addressed during the budget deliberations for the biannual budget that you just adopted. The city has been reporting revenues that are outpacing budgeted expenditures for the current year in our monthly financial report. Tonight's discussion focuses on options for $20 million in one-time general fund revenue for your consideration. Staff has provided recommendations to direct these one-time funds to one-time needs that include infrastructure, the convention center, and our capital projects reserve. A key piece of that recommendation is that the funding for the convention center be made a priority given the condition of the facility in the 26-27 budget. You may recall in the adopted budget, we did not have convention center capital projects allocated due to resources and said that we would come back to you. The report also includes follow-up information on the Senior Center, including membership fees, operations, and current pool staffing challenges. Tonight's presentation will be provided by Finance Director or Chief Operating Officer and Acting Assistant City Manager, Ken Lee. And with that, I will... turn the presentation over to Ken, also noting that no action is scheduled for tonight. This is truly a study session for presentation questions and feedback.

Thank you, City Manager Grogan. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council, Ken Lee, Acting Assistant City Manager, Chief Financial Officer. Happy to continue the discussion that we started as part of the adoption of the two-year budget. During those discussions, there were some conversation regarding additional funds for the current fiscal year, 25-26. So the item before you includes a conversation around that additional fund balance. And just as a reminder, historically we typically bring this item as part of a larger package of reconciling items in December of every fiscal year as we close out the fiscal year. This is the first year We're having this study session to dialogue about this additional fund balance. And as the city manager mentioned, we welcome your feedback, your direction. No action tonight, but we would bring back any action as the council so directs us. We also have item two on the agenda, working with Director Sparacino, our Parks and Recreation Department. I know a lot of conversation during the budget study sessions were around the Senior Center, the membership fees, the cost recovery levels, the revenues generated, and ultimately the services that are provided. So I do have some updates to... uh... brief the public in the council on and then uh... uh... the goal again here is for feedback from our elected are city council So around the allocation of fund balance, as staff have been reporting out through monthly financial reports, the good news from a fiscal report standpoint is our revenues have continued to exceed our budget expectations. Those expectations typically are generated or estimated up to a year, year and a half ahead of the budget, and typically we don't go through a process to update that. That is different tonight separately as part of item seven c we have our monthly financial report that includes reconciling items for department expenditure budgets as well as uh... the recognition of these revenues into a reserve for for uh... conversation today on that excess revenue it in at this point in time uh... exceeds the budget by thirty six point seven million dollars Approximately $2 million is recommended as part of that separate action on the consent calendar. Allocated to department budgets such as our police and fire departments as they operate throughout the year and have unexpected expenditures. Staff has typically at this point in time before we close out the fiscal year recommended some adjustments to our city department budgets. The adopted budget also assumed about $15 million in fund balance based on the estimate at the time of the production of that adopted budget. Most of those funds were recommended into this capital sinking fund or infrastructure replacement reserve. And so what's left at the end of the day for conversation today is the $20 million reserved for future uses. And so we'll receive feedback and direction from you today and bring back any additional allocations as so directed. Diving into the theme of the $20 million, staff does have a recommendation on the use of that. Of course, as a policy conversation, the council can direct staff to different uses. We know that there will be a priority setting session later in this calendar year. and we do have some funds set aside for council priorities. But the theme on the potential uses here continues around funding our unmet deferred infrastructure maintenance for capital needs. The first bullet here on potential uses, we did receive feedback from several council members during the budget session to increase that sinking fund or infrastructure replacement fund from 3% to 5%. And so that recommendation is before you here as a suggestion of the allocation that would result in an increase of $7 million to that reserve to roughly $17.4 million. The second recommendation is around convention center capital projects. At the time of the adopted budget, a facility condition assessment was underway. We have received recommendations back from uh... from that report and the recommendation is to find at least the first year of prioritize needs and i i will go into some detail later in this presentation seven point six million in the first year that's uh... shy of the roughly fourteen million identified that over the next five years and uh... historically the the general fund has not contributed towards convention center capital maintenance and that has been a shared kind of contribution between Levy and OVG through the existing contracts. We do know that based on the assessment that came back, the amount is much larger than the current contracts provide. And then the third recommendation is to replenish our capital projects reserve. You may recall as part of the adopted budget, we did allocate roughly $12 million out of that reserve, and so this replenishes roughly half of that. bringing that reserve to seventeen point nine million dollars and so when you look at what are the reserves in the general fund for capital needs that the first and the third bullet here roughly thirty five million dollars of reserves would be allocated uh... for capital needs uh... uh... a modest amount when you consider the roughly billions of dollars in assets that we have that the general fund would be there the primary source of a funding source for so uh... this continues that the work that the council has uh... done so for the last several years in allocating monies and setting policy around capital infrastructure needs. I do want to remind that Council also has an adopted budget principle to allocate one-time funding sources to one-time uses, and so these staff allocations are aligned to that budget principle. When it comes to Convention Center capital needs, here's the list of roughly $7.6 million. We did work with our Convention Center manager. Some of the items on here are existing items that are broken or safety issues. uh... systems that are original to the building when it comes to some of the boilers and and so uh... you can see the list here uh... a lot of it is is around systems around items that are needed for uh... safety uh... and then some of the uh... aesthetic items that the tile pavers that are uh... broken some of the pain uh... items within the building and so to really uh... be able to market that convention center as as a upper tier facility. And so this recommendation is informed by both that facility condition assessment and working with our convention center manager. WANT TO SHIFT GEARS WITH THIS SLIDE DECK HERE AND TALK ABOUT SENIOR CENTER MEMBERSHIPS. WE HEARD MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC AND MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL ASKED SOME QUESTIONS AROUND THE FEES, THE OPERATIONS, AND SO WANTED TO SUMMARIZE SOME OF THE INFORMATION THAT WAS ASKED IN THIS TABLE HERE. WE DO HAVE THREE DIFFERENT RATES OR THREE DIFFERENT CATEGORIES, A BASIC MEMBERSHIP FOR RESIDENTS, A PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP FOR RESIDENTS, AND THEN A NONRESIDENT. Membership and and this table includes the number of enrollees for each of those classifications and the corresponding revenue associated with it Do want to note there on that first bullet that the Senior Center does provide free services where there is no membership required around health and wellness programs Some counseling and advocacy programs legal assistance nutrition services. So our Parks and Recreation Department does provide free services to our residents In the form of a basic membership, what that adds are some of the amenities around billiards, computer, table tennis, games, educational programs, and trainings and seminars. And then the premium membership adds the fitness center, the natatorium, some of the recreation and laps, swimming, and senior tennis. Staff did perform benchmarking, and so this table shows Santa Clara. For those cities that do charge resident and non-resident rates, we are below the average of those cities that do charge it, in fact, on the lower tier. When you consider there are a handful of cities within the county that offer free annual memberships, we are in line. When you look at our resident rate or basic rate, it is below those cities, and then our non-resident premium rate slightly above that average. So wanted to provide kind of that full context of benchmarking to the city council. There were some questions around operations, so I had to work very closely with our director, Sparacino. Our senior center revenues estimate collect roughly $356,000. That compares to a budget of almost $1.9 million or 19% cost recovery. This is where I think there was a council question in the past where we do get senior and youth fees from the stadium that does get allocated to the general fund, and that helps pay for some of that subsidy between these expenses and these revenues. When it comes to the hours on this table here, we are behind when it comes to the hours pre-pandemic. When you look at 50 and a half hours pre-pandemic, 28 hours currently, the issue is not an issue of funding, but it's an issue of recruitment for our lifeguards. That third bullet pre-pandemic, we did have roughly 30 as needed lifeguards year-round, 60 during the summer peak. We're roughly half of that when it comes to year-round lifeguards and about two-thirds or three-quarters during the peak season. So that has impacted our hours from an operations standpoint. And so staff will continue to work with our HR department with regards to retaining lifeguards, look at the wage comparisons within the county, and make recommendations around staffing models in an effort to increase the number of operating hours at the senior center. When it comes to the facility itself, we have heard questions and feedback around the facility condition, and so we do have a couple items that are in process and funding identified. The Natatorium HVAC project, that is an item that has had funding, at least to study the issues around the HVAC and the moisture, and so an agreement for that rehab project is expected to come back to the council next month working with our parks department here and then measure i bond funding identify nine and a half million dollars for the facility itself those the scoping of that bond funds those bond funds and how they're going to be used has not been completed yet so we'll bring back some of the items here so that's some of the dollars with regards to the facility itself And so with that, you know, hopefully that information is helpful around the senior center and recommendations for added additional fund balance. Again, a reminder, no action is being requested of the council, but we welcome feedback and any additional questions that you may have.

Thank you. So we're going to start with council questions. Council Member Jane.

Yeah, you know, I believe it is council policy that excess revenues are one-time funds and are not supposed to be used for ongoing expenses like salaries and such. But, you know, I was in the senior center on Saturday for the 125th anniversary of the Order of the Eastern Star. I was in the main auditorium. And it's like the lights are flickering. And there's Stains from roof leaks on the walls. It's a depressing place. And I know that we have $9.5 million set aside, but that's for a future tranche of bond. That could be two or three years down the road. So we don't have, I mean, that place needs work. And so I really want us to allocate money to spiff that place up. There's a lot of work that that building needs with leaking roofs. So the other thing is that on Sunday I rode the San Tomas Aquino Trail and just north of Tasman, that trail has more temporary patches with that I don't know what it is, rubberized asphalt, liquid asphalt that they pour, than actually asphalt on that. And it's super bumpy and it's treacherous. And it's like we do have a streets maintenance program, but I don't know if the creek trails are included in our street maintenance programs. But that section north of Tasman really needs work. And then, you know, we have on our agenda an advisory committee for City Hall. But, you know, if you read the agenda, that advisory committee won't even finish for 9 to 12 months. And then you have to basically do a contract with the facility. You have to upgrade it. It's probably three to four years before we get a new City Hall. And this City Hall needs work. It really does. It's not good for our employees to be in a building with this condition. So I think we really need to invest in this building in the near term. It's not in the infrastructure bond to upgrade this building. So while we have almost $40 million of money, we need to take care of some immediate needs that are not covered by the infrastructure bond. And I know that we have an agenda item seven C coming up and that does allocate a lot of money. So I'm trying to understand what are we, there's a bunch of related budget amendments there. How does that item relate to this item that we're talking about now? And then the last thing that I wanna say is that I am really disappointed that we have not been able to restore the hours at the senior center. I know it's been due to lifeguards and there was a proposal to increase the salaries of lifeguards. But we're a swimming community. We have hundreds of people that have been trained. We have people that should be trained to be lifeguards. We should have plenty of lifeguards in the City of Santa Clara. I just don't understand where the disconnect is. So maybe we could try to figure that out. And then one last thing. It seems like the swimming pool at this senior center is broken a lot. It is the only warm natatorium we have in the city. And whatever it takes, we need to make sure that that is more reliable. You know, we don't want it to be closed as often as the ISC was, 100 days a year. So is there, you know, maybe our Director of Parks and Rec can address the reliability issues of the swimming pools at the Senior Center. Thank you.

Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. I was a little surprised at the largest dollar amount for the convention center being the outdoor marquee. And I wanted to understand that when we have so many realities I will also say that I truly appreciate that staff has heard us when we were very concerned and That we have one-time dollars that we're using it for that I may be able to shed a little bit of light on the lifeguard training My second daughter was the second Manager of the senior center pool after it opened and she struggled a lot personally and with her guards to get the training and we had to go to Mountain View and there's certain training that is required and only a few different groups offered that and she had to even and there's limited times and so to work for the summer she had to take Outdoor water training which was much harder more expensive took more time, but she did that To make herself available for that summer from college to be the the director there so I think we need to really be We know we need more lifeguards we need to look at the training for them and the realities to make that easier so I'm hoping not just our finances listening but everybody else is listening to that reality from on the ground. Thank you.

Thanks. Council Member Chauhal.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Kenn. Thank you, Council Member Surge. You touched very real questions about needs of the community, basically. And I appreciate Wanda Buck and Bobby Estrada and others' zeal to get the senior center up and running for the benefit of the resident basically. I have the same question. Why aren't we investing into directly whatever savings we have, why are we not investing directly into our residents so that they can get direct benefits? I don't think we should be using general fund to the tune of $7.6 million to fund convention center because they have to fund themselves long-term. I agree that we can do something down the line in a smaller chunk, but one-third of the savings we are going to put into conventions rather directly into our residents, I don't agree with that. Take an example of I was trying to make a motion last time because garbage rates have gone so much high, and there was an option to use $2 million for the residents so that they don't have to increase the garbage rate for the residents. This year, because of the savings we are making, we should have used that $2 million for saving seniors, saving our residents directly with those savings. We should have funded that increase by $2 million from this type of fund. Look at milpitas for seniors. They have 50% rates Then the normal questions waiting for a question. This is this is question My question is why we are not doing that that's my question why aren't we doing that and Why on the slide number nine? director Lee We have a membership benchmarking about senior center membership fees. And I think the average we took out is skewed because the average we took out is on top there are seven cities and on the bottom there are six, one, two, three, four, five, six cities. So what we did instead of taking into population into consideration or the membership into consideration, we just divided the total number of cities rate by total number of cities. San Jose, how we can divide when they are not charging anything? They have a million population. How can we divide San Jose as a one entity versus the, so that calculation is skewed. Instead of dividing the total by total number of cities, we should have taken how many seniors are there in each city, and then we would have come to know the right number. Why this skewed presentation is there? I have a question about that. So that's fine. I'll reserve my further comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Jane, you have more questions?

The issue about the higher lifeguard pay, when seniors pay the premium to use the senior center, they're the ones that get access to the swimming pools. So their fees are actually paying for lifeguard salaries.

That didn't sound like a question.

I guess my question is that for higher lifeguard salaries, where would that money come from? And then my other question is for the ticket fees that we get for NFL tickets, we get about $300,000 a year. And that goes into the, my understanding is it goes into the general parks and rec. budget. It doesn't go specifically to senior and youth subsidies or scholarships. It just goes into the general fund. And I think that it should be specifically allocated to extend the senior center hours and to provide subsidies for, so my question is where are those 300, where is that 300K going? Then the other question is for the convention center, why do we have There's about 100 million or so deferred maintenance on the convention center from one of the reports I saw. Do we have a plan? Because right now we're gonna put $7.6 million from general fund into the convention center and the need is 13 million. So do we have a plan to fund the convention center deferred maintenance and operations rather than use this general fund as a piggy bank. But my question is, we know that the convention center generates TOT. So are we trying to allocate the amount of TOT generated from convention center activities to doing capital repairs at the convention center to basically close the loop on the funding for the capital improvements at the convention center. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a few questions. The first one is that in April, the monthly report showed that we had this excess money in that financial report. So why is it coming to us now after we just adopted our budget a few weeks ago rather than part of the adoption process itself? Because we could have weighed at that time the senior center, the convention center, any infrastructure needs that we had in the larger picture. when we apparently knew this was coming. I know that there's 17 million that's already been identified. And this is one of my issues I had for the last budget is we underestimate the revenue and overestimate the costs. And this is an example of that. So why are we hearing this now? I mean, it's a good problem to have, but we're ending up reporting this you know through a side door rather than the front door of the budget process uh so that's what i wanted to know in terms of the convention center what is ovg's contribution and if we don't know that now when will we know that because they're supposed to contribute for a lot of these expenses and if it's coming soon Why are we not waiting to see what their contribution is going to be for the Convention Center before we put any, and this is all general fund money, into that? In terms of the Senior Center, we talked about this, you know, many of us did during the budget study sessions and that. You know, if you offer a good wage to attract full-time lifeguards, you will get them. You will just get them because of the community we're in. Just because we have a swim community doesn't mean that people are going to work full-time at a senior center for less than competitive wages. So for me, it's all about the competitive wage, and I don't think we're offering that. I was, you know, always against charging for... the seniors' use of the senior centre because I think it was a promise made way back when that they wouldn't have to pay. at the senior center and that's to me a drop in the bucket. So what method can we use to use this $20 million to reduce or eliminate the fees at the senior center and also to open the pool for them for many more hours. I know we borrowed money for to get the international swim center project going and then it was paid back by bond funds? Can we do the same thing? Because we did set aside over $9 million for the senior center. Can we borrow funds and have the general fund use money and then borrow it from the bond? to fix the pool and have it readily available with i know we can't pay wages with it but at least get the infrastructure the hvac and everything ready and completed at the senior center and then open it up for you know reasonable hours i looked at those hours i was actually surprised how little that that is open for the seniors and how popular it is especially since the international swim center is down um i think those were my My questions for now. So Council Member Park, I'm gonna finish with the council questions and then while you're doing that, I'm gonna go to the public. So there might be some more questions, Ken, on that. So Council Member Park.

Yeah, I appreciate all the other questions on from the council as well I mean when we talk about fees I would like to see at least basic fees be free I would like a senior to go to the Senior Center and have a reason to be there without having to pay if we want to charge For premium fees. I mean we could discuss that but I think that at least for basic fees there should be no fees there The fact that we don't allow non-residents to have those fees my question is why don't we allow non-residents to to partake in premium services i mean at some point if we move the fees from basic resident fees to non-resident premium you know with how which difference would that make I do agree that a lot of people will not work without a competitive wage, but do we have volunteer programs? Do we have programs that give high school students, that give swimming students a chance to be a lifeguard and earn credit or something like that? I mean, they have to do community service hours as well. Have we looked into programs like that? I would also like to see the Convention Center be a little bit more self-supportive. I think you know there We know that we need we have a convention center that's older than Triton Museum and the Triton Museum needs lots of work I mean we were told by the architects of the Triton Museum in 2023 that Right Museum is coming up coming up on 40 years and and that is the time when you need to look at major remodels Stripe Museum has been complaining about HVAC and cooling for years, and it's a museum. It needs to have those because they have artworks and statues and other things that need good temperature control, and we didn't allocate any monies from the bond for things like that. This was brought up earlier, but again, even when we tried to add that in when we're coming up with the structure of the bond, it was not allowed. We have other... a lot of other structures historic structures like the jameson brown house that was built in eighteen eighty six and it's where hemingway actually steinbeck sorry confuse the two sometimes steinbeck wrote a lot a lot of his works and i think at some point we need to look at that we have the woman's adobe we've got a lot of structures in this city that we just haven't been maintaining and they have historical significance and if they're gone we can't just rebuild them like the international swim center what are you know do we have a a comprehensive list of all the assets in the city that need repair. I know that we looked at the Convention Center, but we have a measure that doesn't allow funds to be used anywhere near the stadium, and I think that includes the Convention Center. Where are we going to get those funds? How are we holding OVG and the the other entities that are marketing for Santa Clara, how do we hold them accountable, not just for the marketing of Santa Clara, but also for the upkeep of the locations of the venues that they are marketing? I think that would be a good thing. Lastly, we have so many So many needs that are ongoing needs, but we can consider some of these as one-time uses because we need to get some of these structures up to the point where we can do routine maintenance. Some of these structures are not even at the point of doing routine maintenance. And my question is, if we... wanted to Spend money on the Convention Center to get it up to the point where we can do routine maintenance if we wanted to spend money on other things that would be an ongoing cost but can we justify it by saying this is a One-time expense to get them up to the standard where we can cover them with recurring costs or recurring expenses in the future Thank you.

Thank you. I'm gonna go to the public now. We're gonna start with Wanda Wanda, please come forward Welcome.

Mayor, council, staff, thank you for bringing the seniors, senior center issues to our attention. I'm appealing to you on behalf of the Santa Clara seniors, the older adults as well, and all those families caring for and about them. That includes most every adult in our city. It is wonderful to have the center and even having plans for expansion, yet we are poorly utilizing our big, beautiful center. There appears to be hiring processing problems, roadblocks, perhaps in HR throughout the city to adequately serve our citizens, especially seniors. Seniors have less time on this planet and are less able due to aging to wait for long-term solutions. Yet besides being long-time taxpayers, seniors keep paying taxes for the future. The Parks and Recreation 2035 Master Plan is just one example in addition to all the big money I've heard tonight. Lifeguards smash guards. Any business who couldn't solve these kinds of problems in a more timely manner would be out of business. This council is too extremely intelligent to not resolve this issue now brought to your attention. We are supposed to be the center of what is possible. Please stop all senior center membership fees and allow more access to the fitness and pool facilities as previously agreed when the center was built. Do not continue to allow access or money to show disrespect for those in the later years of life as is already enough with pain and losses. Your vote to stop the fees and increase access can show integrity for a promise kept as well as caring and respect for Santa Clara senior citizens whose votes represent a lot of votes. More importantly, regarding the voting, it is doing the right thing, thank you.

Thank you, Wanda. Next, we have Rebecca. Please come forward. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and city council and staff. I'm here tonight to urge the council to reverse the 2022 decision and restore completely free memberships to the Santa Clara Senior Center. While a $37 annual fee for premium access might look trivial on a city budget spreadsheet, it represents a real psychological and financial barrier for seniors living on a fixed income. In Santa Clara, the median senior household income is around $85,000. In Silicon Valley, where utility bills and food costs are skyrocketing, that $85,000 does not stretch far. Every dollar matters. Furthermore, separating our seniors into basic and premium tiers damages the social fabric of the center. When a group of friends gathers at the senior center, but only some can afford to use the pool or the gym, we physically divide our community. We must also recognize that preventative health saves taxpayers dollars. Free access to fitness equipment and heated pools keep our seniors physically active, mentally sharp, and socially connected. This directly reduces the risks of falls, isolation, and chronic illness. The nominal revenue the city receives from these fees is pennies compared to the massive public health dividends of fully active senior population. Our seniors have spent decades contributing to the Santa Clara sales and property taxes. They've already paid for the center. They should not be double taxed to use it during their retirement fees or retirement years. Fee waivers programs create unnecessary administrative red tape and undignified hurdles. Let's tear down these financial barriers and do the right thing for our elders and bring back universal free membership to our senior center.

Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. Next, we have Barbara. Bobby. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, council. Thank you, council and mayor and staff. I'm not going to go over all the points that Wanda and Rebecca made, but I do want to thank Wanda for spearheading this, bringing it to council's Viewpoint or view because I think they never realized what was really going on at the senior center You know and by the statistics that they put together it was really obvious that there really is a need there Looking at the benchmark if you notice that the premium in Santa Clara is the only center that's charging for the premium membership of $37 all the other centers are not and Yes, they do charge for the non-residents, which is not, that's really not an issue, particularly for me, if another person wants to come from another area when they have their own senior centers, and we charge an extra fee, that's fine. I think the division between the $12 and the 37, as Rebecca pointed out, seniors need physical exercise, and when you restrict them, for whatever reason they don't have the funds to pay the $37, then there's an inequity. I'm hoping that the council, I did the math, it's like 91,000 and I did not count the out of area people, but it's like the money that, was taken in here was like $91,247. So I'm hoping that council will help the Parks and Rec find that money and stop the fees. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else? Do we have anyone online? Anyone else here would like to speak? Anyone online? No. All right. Ken?

Thank you for the questions. Thank you for the feedback. I will tag team with both city manager and our director of Parks and Recreation. So I'll just go in order and respond to some of the questions. So a couple of questions around the capital improvements at the senior center. There's $9.5 million in bonds. There's some immediate issues. And so absolutely, as far as a strategy, if the council wanted to advance funds ahead of that bond, we could do so. There are a couple facility condition assessments in progress. So for example, the historic buildings, I know there's a significant need there as well, working with our public works department. When those needs are known, we will bring forward our recommendations. As a strategy, the council could advance some funds and use bond funds to repay that back. San Tomas Aquino Trail, I think in the broader theme of there's a lot of infrastructure needs within our city. When we had a pay-as-you-go mechanism to fund that, that resulted in a lot of infrastructure that's deferred, and San Tomas Aquino Creek is is not alone in that and and and i know councilmember jane you made some comments here about city hall and so uh... i will uh... kind of feed that comment back through uh... our public works department who manages our park trail system along with our our parks department i know there are bond funds i know there are grant funds that are typically allocated uh... for bikeways and trails and so uh... i i'm sure they're aware of of the condition of that that trail and and wolf push some of those comments back As far as City Hall Understanding there is advisory committee item later tonight the council did approve the allocation of roughly twenty point three million dollars to fund Civic Center future needs that includes any anticipated plans as well as improvements here at the City Hall campus as I discussed in our budget adoption or Public Works Department would need to do kind of a quick assessment in terms of what are the highest needs here. I know they've identified HVAC system needs here as well, but there's many others. We would come back with that list to the City Council. I know, City Manager, you want to make a comment on that as well?

Sure. Just a quick global comment. So... We have something going on in the audience.

Wait, I'm listening to that now. I want to know which character, which soap opera.

All right. Just a couple high-level comments about City Hall. As we know, there's a community advisory committee item on your agenda tonight. One of the things, frankly, we need to do with City Hall is determine which avenue we're going down. And certainly there are some needed improvements in this building, both infrastructure and space. There are minor improvements that we have been making, some additional ones even in the last 30 days that we've greenlit just to make the place more habitable. But some of the larger expenditure decisions, such as replacement of the HVAC, we really need to determine, are we taking down portions of the building? Are we expanding? We don't want to spend, the last time I saw an estimated cost of that, that's $5 million. The last thing we'd want to do is authorize a $5 million HVAC replacement at this moment. when there may be a wholesale redo of the facility here or relocation. And so we really need to get to that decision point on which avenue we're going down before some of the larger expenditures, but totally understand the general comment being made around we do need to make some immediate improvements in this facility to improve its habitability and know that a number of those are occurring.

if there was a question councilmember jane asked about items seven c and how that relates to this item and so i don't seven c every year uh... the last meeting in june uh... we bring forward a recommended items fro for department budgets to ensure that they end the year with the budget that they need and i mentioned police and fires typically one week uh... bring forward when it comes to overtime uh... occasionally they they need some adjustments there's a handful of other technical adjustments in that documents And then there was also the comments of why now? Why at this point in time? And so we have been trying to adjust our budgeting practice. I know historically that would have come in December. In our forecast in April we allocated roughly $15 million or so every year knowing that we end the year with some surplus. So $15 million or so was included in the budget process allocated to that sinking fund as well as a pension trust reserve. And then I do want to comment just on the timing, why now we had an April report with extra dollars. And I just want to say a couple things to that. The budget process actually starts in October and November of every year. It involves working with every single city department identifying needs. And then on the revenue side, we're always doing a balancing act. Revenues might look good one month and then taper off in the second month. We're asking for analysis from our consultants that serve our large revenue categories. In the case of sales tax, we're asking questions to the state to make sure that uh... like some other neighboring cities there isn't an error in that so we we have to balance the analysis what we're putting on the table and then ultimately uh... you know when we lock up some of the budget numbers which which are typically in february a lot of times there there is additional funds that may come in and they're also additional needs for examples item seven c allocates uh... you know in a in a gross level four million dollars to department budgets we've self-solved about two and so we're using about two million dollars or so it is a balancing act we have adjusted the practice we will continue to do so uh... and and look at uh... ways to include in our budgeting practice uh... as much of the current year revenues that i i do want to caution just As we consider that, historically, we've funded capital with that pay-as-you-go. And so as we shift that practice into the operating budgets and capital budgets, we'll need to look at that capital funding as part of that and to divert funds as part of the budget process away from capital. We would have to identify a new source of funds for capital. So it is a balancing act. We do hear the feedback, Mayor, and we'll continue to adjust our budgeting practice.

As you go to the next question, I'll just piggyback on that and say a number of agencies actually wait until fully the books are closed on the current year before recognizing and allocating any of that revenue. We're doing it slightly different here based on city council feedback. Also, and Ken just noted a point that I was going to make, which is historically, as you know, this city has not saved for capital expenditures, and so you've used those end-of-year savings as your sort of safety net for capital. Now that we have built in some capital funding to the budget and we have Measure I, we can adjust that practice, but it takes time to do that.

There were also some questions just around, you know, why 7.6 for the Convention Center? How much is the manager going to pay for that? And so I'll maybe broadly say some points and then turn it to city manager on the Convention Center items itself. So just when you have a city our size with a significant maintenance and capital backlog as the finance uh... director working with our city departments we work with every city to department to understand what are the highest needs what are the the critical pieces of capital investment and we bring that for to the city council uh... and typically user capital projects reserve when it comes to the convention center uh... historically the city has not made a general fund investments in the convention center and some of the items that that you see on that list of them broken for a long time some of them were were uh... put in when the building was was built in some of them like the chairs have been there since the nineteen eighties and so there's There were recommendations and assessments provided by our convention center, both business staff as well as a contractor, and so it really is taking a look at what's available in terms of funding and allocating that to the most urgent need. The council could direct a different allocation. That is a policy decision, but I'll turn it to the city manager to comment more on that.

Thank you, Ken. And I'm going to back up before we go forward because I do think it's important to talk about the Convention Center globally so we can understand a little bit of why we are where we are and the real thrust of the recommendation. Thankfully, Santa Clara built its convention center in 1985 and it opened in 1986, right? This year the facility is 40 years old. It has the same roof, the same HVAC, and in 2009 we built an expansion, the Mission City Ballroom, but at that time there was no wholesale upgrades to the facility that was at that point four years old at that point. And now we're sitting here 40 years later with really a number of capital improvement projects that are needed. And as the finance director mentioned, having no historical plan to save for those capital investments. There were a number of questions and comments around why aren't our operators, OVG and Levy, covering those costs and those are really their expenses. I just wanna clarify, that's actually not accurate. It is our facility. That is a city facility. We do have contracts with the operator, OVG, and the food and beverage vendor, Levy. As a part of those contracts, we have negotiated contributions that they would pay toward capital improvements. But candidly, they're very small contributions. OVG's contract costs for them contributing in the first year of a 10-year agreement approximately $1.2 million. Then in another investment in year six of about $500,000 and then in year 11, $300,000. Our food and beverage vendor recently, as you know, we extended that contract and they are investing in the kitchen. Now they're not doing that out of the kindness of their heart, right? And when we sit down with those negotiations, it is essentially front-loading and recapturing some of the profit that they will get over the lifetime of that contract. But the wholesale cost to maintain that facility rests with us as the owner. And so we have not manager.

I just want to clarify my question. My question was what was their contribution? Did they contribute?

I knew they had it as part of our contract So did they contribute so they were supposed to so yes, they've they paid their contributions, but mayor I'm not just addressing your question I'm addressing the there were a number of other questions that said why isn't OVG paying for that? That's that's their responsibility so I just want to clarify that that responsibility really vests with us as the owner and Also important to note that the city has not historically tracked TLT, which is hotel room tax revenue that we receive, and allocated the portion that is generated from the convention center to the convention center, or even tracked how much that is, right? And so in the current year budget, we're projected to get $31.5 million in general fund revenue that we spend all across the city on services and hotel room tax. We have not tracked how much of that comes from the Convention Center, certainly a share of it does, as well as sales tax. We're getting over $80 million in sales tax. Also worth noting, one of the things some cities do is they pass a TLT tax. a additional hotel room tax and apply that to the Convention Center this city adopted to Pass a TLT tax, but you we use that for general fund, right? And so some of those sources we've sort of in source to the general fund But we haven't invested in return in the Convention Center, which is why the recommendation here is that if The facility is at a point where we really need to make some investments in it. There was a question of why the marquee was such a large amount. I think that was from Council Member Hardy. It's important to note that we are hearing that directly from potential clients. The marquee is currently broken. They want to book with us and say, well, When people drive up, how are they gonna know that we're having our big conference here, right? One of the things connected to another question is what other things are we doing? And so while we do need to pay to replace the marquee, one of the things we're looking into in that replacement is that, is can we have additional marketing on that marquee? Because there are a couple different individuals that have rights to that marquee. Potential clients. the Hyatt Hotel, but there may be additional time and space where we can have appropriate city approved outside marketing revenue to get revenue from that marquee.

Another time stamp city manager. It's it's 637. We're gonna have a seven o'clock meeting and I want to make sure we get council Direction or at least thoughts from the council members just sure very much time.

Sure totally fair There were also questions around the projects. I won't talk about them all but individually, but what I will say is that one of the things we're balancing is how much customer-facing improvements do we do versus core building improvements. We absolutely have to do some of the customer-facing improvements like the electrical, but one of the things, frankly, that we heard from the OVG is if you spend all your money in the stuff the clients and the customers won't see, that's not going to help you with sales. That's not going to help you attract that next conference. And so we need to do painting. We need to do interior refreshes and really balance those items. More can be said on that, but in the interest of time, we'll go to the next question.

Could you tell us what our next step is after this, though? Because we're not making a decision this evening. Absolutely.

Knew that this was a very significant recommendation. Yeah, and so tonight is only questions and feedback Also note you have two other items on this pre agenda those items were actually moved from the back of the agenda You know what your business calendar looks like we were trying to front load some items to create time away from midnight to night totally aspirational

So I'll turn it back over to the finance director. I just want to just make sure everybody has a chance to say something before we end, and we're ending very soon.

Okay, and I know there were a number of questions around lifeguards, salaries, volunteering, reliability. I want to give some time to our director, Sparacino, to comment on some of those.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Damon Sparacino, Parks and Recreation Director. Some questions around, one was about that the pool always seems to be broken. I have it on good authority from our maintenance that it's as reliable, and we wish that all of our pools can operate as... as good as the senior center. We had a big resurfacing project right after I just started and the pool was down for a couple of weeks and I checked in with both the senior center staff and the maintenance staff on what the regular schedule for maintenance is and we do three maintenance schedules a year which averages out to almost four weeks. One around Memorial Day, one around Labor Day and then the two weeks around the holidays. So just like any pool, things happen unexpectedly and then we need to address those. But generally speaking, those are the maintenance cadences. Lifeguarding. This isn't unique to Santa Clara. However, we do have a year-round pool operation that has generous hours at the senior center versus like an evening lap swim or morning lap swim program that you see at a lot of other communities. Pre-pandemic, one of the things you saw was, or right before the pandemic happened, they started to increase the minimum wage, not just in Santa Clara County, but in California nationally. You know what I'm talking about. And around that same time, we started to flatten out some of the pay scales. And historically, lifeguards used to earn or garner a higher wage than the average Parks and Recreation employee And the reason being, and when you ask about volunteering and we have a lot of swimmers and there's a lot of kids, there's 30 hours of training. You have to recertify four hours every month. And then the rigors to pass the training, both my kids are athletes and they're both athletes. lifeguards but they weren't swimmers. And so we had to train to do that. They have to swim continuously 300 yards, retrieve a 10 pound brick within a minute and 30 seconds, tread water for over two minutes with their head above water. They have to pass a 50 question test and get 80% or better. All of this just to do it. So it's not as easy as it seems and it would also garner if we were to evaluate our pay scales. Potentially a higher wage than just the average recreation staffer Is there any other quite would want them to save people to absolutely yeah and be prepared to do so yes Yes, thank you.

I had a clarification question I Just wanted I just wanted to make sure that I answered the the lifeguard questions

And it's not, and we had gone back and forth, it's not an operational finance. It's really being able to find, train, and retain the guards. And then the senior center has the hours that are open during the school year that are during when kids are in school, both high school and college.

Thank you. Ken, do you have any additional questions?

I think the one topic, members of the public talked about the fees, and so I want to turn that over to city manager, and then I think that covers other questions.

All right, thank you. Then council be prepared to talk for like a minute or two each so we can give some, they can hear from all of us if you want to speak. Go ahead, city manager.

Sure. In the interest of time, I won't address all the questions about the senior fees individually, but I'll just say globally there was sort of a sentiment of why do we have the fees we have and why do we charge? And at the end of the day, that's a policy decision, right? As you know, the city council has a fee policy, like a number of cities, and what it calls for is subsidizing some programs. Typically, youth programs are subsidized the most, adults the least, seniors somewhere in the middle. And with the data you saw here, we subsidized the senior center to an 80% margin, right? However that's funded, but essentially general purpose dollars and some special purpose dollars subsidized the senior center to about 80%. When you saw the benchmarking for the cities that charge, we have the lowest fee for cities that charge a fee. And even when you include all cities that charge, charge a fee on average we have the lowest fee certainly understand the point that councilmember Jahal was making if you can do the comparison on when you look at San Jose the percentage of seniors there that's not how the analysis is typically done in the marketplace it's it's looked at sort of what is our fee for a senior in Santa Clara compared to a fee in a city, in your neighboring city. Depending on the scale of the facility, the size of the facility, it could be skewed, but this question was really at what is the cost that seniors pay here, and a request to move that from $12,000 or $30,000 six dollars a year to zero and so we provided a comparison of what a senior in another community would pay but at the end of the day it is a policy setting conversation for the city council your current fee structure aligns a hundred percent to your policy and we've had these conversations before and you can make an adjustment to your policy and have zero fees or have a modified amount

City Manager, I'm going to ask the Council for their comments on this. Can you again tell us when you will take our comments and when this will come back for the public as well?

When this comes back, candidly, as a factor on the level of response and feedback you need, before your August recess, you have two more meetings. Those meetings are jam-packed, as is this one. So this meeting is likely coming August, September, back to the City Council. Now, if you were to say, we're happy with the recommendations, minor tweak, bring it back, You know, it could virtually be a consent item at the next meeting, but if that's not the case, we need some time, and you need time for additional discussion.

Okay, thank you very much for that clarification. All right, council. Council Member Jane. Thank you, Ken.

I wanted to ask the question of Director Sparacino. There's a lot of training for lifeguards. Do we pay for training? We pay for training for other job positions. Sometimes that's an impediment for people. And then I did have some recommendations for how to spend money.

All right, if we can answer that question and then go back, because I want everyone to have a chance.

Yes, we pay for the certifications. If they're already in employment with us, we pay them for their time. and their shirts and we'll also pay prospective employees. We'll put them through the training and then pay for their certifications and then they're hired with a certification.

Thank you. That's very good. Go ahead.

So this SVP has a $50 million public benefits reserve, which can be spent for decarbonization work. And we have the boilers. We have the HVAC here at City Hall. So I would like for the city to look into applying to SVP to help fund some of that. But then I really want to set aside some money to do some aesthetic improvements at the senior center. I hear that the ballasts and the light fixtures are old and not repairable and so, We just need to set aside, I don't know what it is, half a million dollars, a million dollars to spiffy up the senior center. Same with City Hall. There are some urgent needs that need to be taken care of. And I didn't see any money set aside for that. So I'd like to see money set aside.

Thank you. Anybody else? You don't have to talk, but if you want to, Vice Mayor Gonzalez.

Just a quick comment. As far as obviously the budget we passed a couple of weeks ago, it seems like is a reflection of our priorities, our values. This, having a little bit of money extra is definitely something that we can utilize in a way to augment those priorities and values. I think that that's something that we can do. When we look at what solutions we want to solve, I think service is definitely one of those. How we get more people, it seems like we're doing what we can. I'm not sure if there's any other ways that other cities are doing a better job as far as recruiting or having their own folks somehow planting the seeds in some of the students or other folks who are maybe doing that and getting lifeguards and things like that so that we can just keep things open. I think the level of service is something that we should improve on. At the same time, as we try to... Resolve some of the issues capital issues that we've we've had in the past You know, how do we do that to make sure that the senior center somewhere where people want to go and it's vibrant You know, you don't see stains. You have a great Amenities there and the services is top-notch. Um, so these are things that were you know, how do we do that? I think the city manager is looking at that I Definitely agree as far as not investing a lot of money in a city hall that we're probably not gonna be here long. I By the way, maybe we can move it next to the senior center or something. But whatever happens with it, you know, we use our money wisely so that we can go, it can serve us longer in the long term.

Thank you. Council Member Chihal.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah. City manager rightly mentioned that we are investing into our youth the maximum in park and rec department basically so I would say We should look at the seniors also in the same fashion as we are looking at the youth They are the people who basically have invested maximum of their tax dollars into the city so they deserve to do that and investing into their health is basically investment into the city's good health basically and So with that, I think it's not a big chunk of money which they are asking for this particular additional benefit. So I would strongly recommend that we do that. Just like library, we went back to the library and restored most of the hours. And here we are like 28 hours versus 50 hours before COVID. So we should also invest into that. How can we make those 28 hours into 50 hours before COVID? How we can do that? So these funds, additional funds can help us to do that. And part of these funds should be invested into those things. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I know that whenever we look back at the change the city council made about charging fees, like almost every single one has had unexpected, undesired consequences. I think that having a senior center, I mean, we can say we compare favorably to the other cities that charge for fees, but I would like to be counted amongst the senior centers that don't charge for fees. I mean, I think we always look good in comparison, but when we look at what we actually want, well, looking good is not good enough. I know that other organizations run their senior centers around the different—I know some of them run as nonprofits, and they do other things. They generate—they ask for money because of that. We're—they're not a nonprofit. At some point, we talk about the city of Santa Clara. We're only about 130, maybe a little bit, 135,000 people, and we talk about being a mid-sized city with, you know, big assets. But I want to put it in perspective. We're a $1.7 billion budget city. We have one-tenth the people of San Jose and we have one-third their budget. I understand that some of our budget goes to SVP, but we take out SVP. We take out, let's take out $700 million for SVP. That leaves us with a $1 billion budget. multiple times that of cities in our area. And for us to have a $1 billion budget and not be able to provide services for our youth, services for our seniors, to charge to nickel and dime while our general fund is larger than the entire budgets for other cities doesn't make any sense to me. At some point, I would like to come back and look at where we're spending our money because we're not a small city. We're a $1.7 billion budget city. And I think that if we're going to look at how we compare with others, we should compare our budget with the number of people we have and look at how much we should be spending per resident because we make the most money per resident. Thank you.

Thank you. And I just want to let the people that are coming in know that we are just finishing a study session and then we're going to start the council meeting. So the comments I want to make on this is that the way I'd like to see that money spent is, first of all, dealing with our senior center. I think we should eliminate the fees to our residents. I think we should upgrade the senior center. with the cosmetic issues at the very least using our bond money and including that and including any work that needs to be done regarding the swimming pool there and that we have to increase our hours for the senior center there's no reason why we wouldn't be able to increase the hours so and get the the lifeguards i've already talked about that so i want to make sure that we completely take care of the senior center because that is a small drop in our billion-plus dollar budget. It's a small drop in it, but it means a lot to our community. Secondly, in terms of the convention center, I think we should do the life safety and the core infrastructure items, fire safety, electrical switchgear, boiler replacement, and anything that's going to help us generate more business, but without putting a lot of money, whatever you feel is appropriate in terms of the cosmetic that needs to happen at the convention center. I don't see putting any money into City Hall unless it's a life safety issue or something like that because the chances are it will be money that is not well spent if City Hall is rebuilt here or moved somewhere else. It just doesn't make sense to put that kind of money into this aging structure. And then I'm all about putting money into our reserves. I'm okay with that. So is there anybody else that would like to speak? If not, we're gonna end this and take a break before our council meeting. All right, seeing none, then we're gonna take a 10 minute break at 7.05 and be back here for the city council meeting. Thank you. Thank you staff for the report. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Joint Concurrent Meeting. Could you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for our Statement of Values? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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

Roll call, Assistant City Clerk.

Council Member, Board Member Shahal.

Present.

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

Here.

Council Member, Board Member Jane. Here. Council Member, Board Member Cox. Here. Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Gonzales. Here. Mayor and Chair Gilmore.

Here.

Thank you. The AB23 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 a 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.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome. For today's meeting, the council's back in person and is conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner. The public is welcome to attend in person, and the city continues to use a Zoom feature to allow participation from your home or office. Members of the public can still join via the link and or call into the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen now. If you would like to speak on an agenda item or during public presentations, please raise your hand on the Zoom application or press star 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 members of the public are seeking to speak on the appropriate agenda item. So we'll move on to the agenda now. Reports of action taken in closed session, city attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council did meet in closed session on item number one, conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation, the potential for initiation of litigation one case. Council did act to authorize initiation of litigation, the subject matter and details of which will be available upon filing. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, City Attorney. Next, we have continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations. We're going to start before I go. I know the City Manager has one as well. We have number five, which is continuance of a rezoning to remove the historic combining district. from 1341 Homestead Road, Cross Street 906 Monroe Street to remain in historic combining district and a tentative subdivision map to subdivide the property into two parcels, each containing one of the existing residences. Staff is recommending that we continue this item to July 14th, 2026 meeting. So two meetings from now. Is there a motion to continue? Council Member Hardy.

I'll make a motion to continue this item.

Second. Motion second. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this? Any member of the public? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to be recusing myself on this item since my office in the Franklin Mall is across the street or close enough to this item.

Madam Mayor, just to note for the record, consider the public meeting open for purposes of the continuous.

Oh, and the public meeting's open to continue, so we don't have to advertise, I guess. Again, Council Member Park?

Yeah, just to clarify, because I know that we make a lot of motions. The motion was for the continuance of the item. I believe that there was a more specific request, which was continue it to the July 14th meeting. I don't know if that was in the request, but again, I think that we need to be very particular. I mean, I've noticed that I have gone back to our minutes to see what the motions were, and the minutes, we, the minutes, Are still way back in april. I do not see any current minutes I was actually surprised that we did not even have any minutes from The month of may and when I look for when I look through my notes to see what the actual motions were I see that the actual motions weren't complete either. So I would like to request that we Make the motions complete that we write the motions complete when we vote on them Or we keep the minutes up to date so that we can see what the minutes were of more recent meetings

Okay, very well noted. City Clerk, when you're ready.

But is this motion also for continuing specifically to the 14th, the July 14th meeting?

Was that staff recommendation? That was the staff recommendation.

It is, as reflected in staff's formal recommendation on the agenda.

Yes, but the motion that Councilmember Hardy made was simply to motion to continue this item.

As requested. Okay, so I think that when we make our motions, if it's staff recommendation, say staff recommendation. Okay, we'll make it very clear. Thank you. City Clerk?

Can you see him?

I don't see anything. Are you going to tell me? It's not going to work tonight.

Vice Chair Gonzales. Yes. Council Member Shahal. Yes. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Yes.

Council Member Jane.

Yes.

Council Member Cox. Yes. Mayor Gilmour. Abstain.

And that passes six with one abstention. Thank you very much. Other continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations? I was going to move up item 11 to after item 10, but it's already there. So I don't need to do that. Is there anyone else that has anything? Okay, we're going to move on. I don't know if people can see our agenda, but it's like a book tonight. It's the thickest one I've seen in a long time. City Manager. Oh, yes, you had one. Yes. Thanks.

Council, staff would like to pull item 7K that is action on a resolution approving and adopting an updated records retention schedule for all city departments. We will pull that and re-agendize that at another date. We want to ensure alignment with all current practices and then note any significant deviations. So we'll work with the consultant to do that and bring it back to you.

City Attorney, we don't need to do anything. He's pulling it. There's no other action needed.

Staff initiated. Council doesn't need to take formal action unless someone disagrees with that.

Okay.

Thank you. Wait a minute. Council Member Chihal, you disagree with that?

No, I have different comments, Madam Mayor. Okay. We skipped item three and four. I would suggest that we take them after our public comments, after the consent calendar. Okay.

Before oh because we never we thought the city attorney said I mean city manager said we're gonna put them on a future agenda So should we take action on that if there's time tonight we can do it after the balance Calendar but more than likely we will bring them back at another meeting. We'll hold them for now Okay, and then we'll continue them if need be I'm feeling very positive tonight. We might be able to get to them Okay All right, seeing nothing else, we're gonna move forward. Exciting night tonight. For our first special order of business this evening, we are honored to recognize June as Portuguese National Heritage Month. On June 4th, 2021, Congress introduced a resolution designating June as Portuguese National Heritage Month. Santa Clara is proud of its rich history of Portuguese culture and roots. Portuguese residents of Santa Clara founded the SCS Hall in 1896. This fraternal organization was created as a means of communication and socialization, giving the Portuguese community a place to meet, to discuss current issues, and to share news from the homeland. This evening, we are honored to have Maria Ricardo of the SCS Portuguese Hall in Santa Clara here with us. And I know she's going to introduce a very special guest this evening. So Maria, please come forward when you're ready. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Lisa Gilmour, esteemed city council members, and dedicated city officials. My name is Maria Ricard and I serve as the coordinator for the Portuguese American Forum of Santa Clara Committee. On behalf of the Portuguese American community, our organizations, and our local business, I want to express deepest gratitude for this proclamation and for your continued support. We truly appreciate your steady leadership and your dedication to make Santa Clara a wonderful place for everyone. Now it is my absolute honor to introduce a distinguished guest who represents the deep and enduring ties of our global community, the Honorable Felipe Rameleta, Consul General of Portugal in San Francisco.

Welcome, Consul General, welcome.

Madam Mayor, Lisa Gilmer, members of the City Council, distinguished guests, ladies and dear friends, it is a great pleasure to be here this evening as we celebrate Portuguese Heritage Month in the City of Santa Clara. Let me begin by thanking Mayor Lisa Gilmer and all members of the City Council for this proclamation, as for their friendship towards Portugal and the Portuguese-American community. Maria Gilmar has long been a true friend of Portugal and of the Portuguese, and we are deeply grateful for that. This recognition means a great deal for us. It honors a community that for generations has helped building Santa Clara through its work, values, traditions, and civic commitment. I would also like to pay tribute to the Portuguese American Forum of Santa Clara, to Maria Ricardo, and to all the Portuguese organizations and businesses represented here tonight. A special word goes to the SES Portuguese Hall of Santa Clara, which celebrates, as you rightly said, its centennial this year. For 100 years, it has been a home, a meeting place, and a guardian of our culture, our language, and our traditions. Santa Clara is important to Portugal, not only because of its remarkable Portuguese-American community, but also because of what this city represents. At the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara is a place of innovation, talent and opportunity. The relationship between Portugal and this region goes far beyond heritage. It is also about technology, entrepreneurship, education and our shared future. And since we are in the middle of a World Cup, I must confess, we were hoping Portugal could play it in Santa Clara. Unfortunately, that was not possible, but perhaps it is just as well. Santa Clara already has enough experience dealing with people dressed in red every weekend. Thank you once again for this proclamation, for your friendship, and for helping celebrate the Portuguese heritage that continues to enrich this great city. Muito obrigado.

Consul General, I have a question for you. Did you watch the game today?

Yes, of course.

Who won?

It's an obvious... Great game, wasn't it? Yes, very good.

Thank you so much.

Our Portuguese American community presence in Santa Clara is felt through our contributions, cultural, religious, musical, athletic, and civic life, all represented here this evening. I would like to introduce the leaders of these organizations in the order they were formation. Luso-American Fraternal, Daniel Scada, marketing director, and this organization was founded in 1868.

Could you stand if she mentions your name?

Yes, please stand as I mention your names. Portuguese Fraternal Society of America, Joseph Reis, youth president, and Jerry Escobar, chief marketing officer, and it was founded in 1895. SES Corporation, Margarida Queia, secretary, with Madalena Pimentel, and this organization was founded in 1896. Irmandade Santo Antonio, Samantha Reis, past president, and this organization was founded in 1902. Irmandade Nossa Senhora de Fatima, Erica Tost, president, with Jessica Matsch, founded in 1953. Santa Clara Sporting Club, Luís Azevedo, president, founded in 1971. Sainte-Claire's Parish Portuguese Council, Edwina Faria, president, and Mary Correa, and this was formed in 1973. Sociedade Filarmônica União Portuguesa de Santa Clara, better known as Santa Clara Portuguese Band, John Dias, president, and it was founded in 1974. Irmandade Familiar do Espirito Santo de Santa Clara, Deborah Rose Mordoma, and it was founded in 1982. We also have Portuguese-American Forum of Santa Clara Committee. There was Maria Ricardo, myself, coordinator with Yudato Constantino and Pedro Ricardo, and it was formed in 1996. So equally important to our community's footprint is our local business sector. We are grateful for the city's commitment to fostering a safe and thriving economy environment that allows our enterprises to prosper. I would like to introduce several of our Portuguese American business owners. Portuguese Tasty Desserts, Helio and Teresa Freitas. The Brazil Group, Keller Williams, Vinicius Brazil. United Marble and Granite Incorporated, the Oliveira Family Business, represented by Manuel de Oliveira. He is also a committee member of the Portuguese American Forum of Santa Clara. Vieta Enterprises, Manuel Vieta and his sister Linda Vieta. Manuel is also a Loser American Financial President. And Eggs by the Bay Barbecue under Vargas Smith, also Santa Clara Parade of Champions President and serves as Vice President of Santa Clara Coimbra Sister Cities. We are deeply honored by this proclamation recognizing Portuguese National Heritage Month. Thank you for celebrating our rich history and for acknowledging SES's 130-year legacy as a cornerstone and historic landmark of Santa Clara. From our daily hard work to our proud sister city's relationship with Coimbra, Portugal, our community is fully invested in the success of this city. Thank you for your leadership and your unwavering support. We especially want to acknowledge our police department for their vital assistance in keeping our community events safe and successful. We are proud to share our heritage with Santa Clara and look forward to continued collaboration.

Maria, may I ask that everyone come up here with the Consul General? Oh, you're not done. I thought you were done.

There's a lot to say. To conclude, how could this be a Portuguese celebration without a little taste of Portugal to share with you? Or I should say two celebrations, because Portugal had a victory today with the soccer game. So imported directly from Portugal, I have pastéis nata, delicious custard tarts for you to enjoy during your break. Good evening and muito obrigado.

I heard a rumor they were here. Wow. So please join us up here and Consul General as well. I think you should stay up here. There's too many people. or you wanna move this back.

Kevin, we're gonna stay up here.

I just .

Yes.

Hey, nice to see you.

Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. Nice to see you, hey.

Give it, yeah, over there. Thank you. How about right here? How about right here? Oh, that's good. Council Member Chihal.

Okay, thank you Thank you for being here and Welcome council general Appreciate your visit over here. I had a pleasure of being being in Coimbra as well as Porto and Lisbon. And we are so glad Coimbra is our first sister city ever in Santa Clara. And as an immigrant, it makes a lot of sense to have mix of all the cultures and you can learn about different cultures. And that's the reason we celebrate all this Heritage Month for different cultures, different religions. It makes sense. It makes our society, our community a great community, basically. And today is a special day, like Portugal won by 5-0. And Ronaldo has been missing some of his goals, but he scored two today, right? And not only he scored two, he set up a world record by scoring in six FIFA tournaments in a series, even better than Messi from that perspective. So go.

That's a bold statement.

So good luck with the rest of the games and the rest of the tournament. And we really wish like either Japan, our sister city, or Portugal had played in our city or here. It would have been much more fun. Thank you again, everyone.

Thank you. And thank you, Maria and Consul General for being here. It's really an honor to have all of you here. You're the heart and soul of Santa Clara. So we appreciate you all coming this evening. Thank you. Okay, for our next special order of business, I'll just wait a second. People are walking up. Oh, you can stay all night with us if you don't have anything else to do. Bye-bye, thank you. For our next special order of business, the council's honor to recognize the Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures Program. This is the fourth year of this fantastic program. By investing in our youth, this program fosters our next generation of climate leaders. With us tonight, we have the outstanding Mission College student scholarship recipients. So welcome, let's give them a round of applause. So now I'd like to invite Teresa Tran from Mission College to the podium to introduce this incredible program. Teresa will also introduce one of the outstanding scholarship students, Adrian DeFonte, to say a few words. So please come forward. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Good evening to Mayor Gilmour and to the esteemed council members. My name is Theresa Tran. Again, I am the chair of the Sustainability Committee. But I think you would prefer to hear from Adrian, who is one of the recipients. So I will just pass this to Adrian.

Oh, thank you.

Welcome, Adrian.

Hi. Thank you for having us here. I just graduated in May with my biology degree. I am staying at Mission for one more year to do some more classes because I'm going to transfer for fall of 27. I'll also end up with a physics degree. My hope is to transfer to UC San Diego for marine biology. I want to work in marine conservation. It's definitely passionate. I have been taking care of my family for 26 years. And now I get to take care of me. This scholarship gives me the opportunity to follow my path and to do something that will, I think, better me and better the earth.

Fantastic. Teresa, would you like to talk about your program?

Oh, OK. So the Sustainability Committee at Mission College has been around since 2008. And we've had the Eco Fair for 10 years first, and then it stopped, and then because of COVID. But we started again in about 2022. And we've been so lucky to have Mayor Gilmore come out and support us. And this last time, Council Member Cox was also there. It's a labor of love that we have on campus. We actually are a committee with the most student representatives as well. And so we hold the Eco Fair. We coordinate the scholarship, which we're so blessed that the city grants to us. And every year, we grant about 10 students to receive about $2,500. and it's made a difference to, I think, the students, and you will meet some of the students as well later. But I was told to keep this short, because I know you have a very long agenda, so I do want to just say one other thing. I know that this is your final year, Mayor Lisa, and so in our appreciation, we just have a little, Certificate for you. Thank you for being such a big supporter of this You know the scholarship for coming out and supporting the eco fair Every year and that really means a lot to have the mayor come and not only come but you give us a commendation as well So it brings a lot of pride I think to the college to have that so I just wanted to read the certificate it says presented to mayor Lisa Gilmour and in grateful appreciation of your visionary leadership and unwavering support of the Mission College Sustainability Committee and its annual Eco Fair and the Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Future Scholarship. Your commitment to the betterment of our community has left a lasting impact. And this is signed by our president, Dr. Sahar Awan, the Sustainability Committee Vice Chair Tan Do, and myself, Theresa Tran.

Thank you very much. I'm supposed to give you something, not the other way around, but thank you. I appreciate that very much. I love going out to your fair every year, and I recommend everybody attend. It's really phenomenal. And the people that you have participating in the booths with all the students, it's really great. So when is it again for next year for everyone to go?

We don't have the date set, but it's always around the Earth Day, so like April 20 to 22. So it's after Santa Clara's event, so you are all, yeah.

After our Earth Day. Okay, well, very good. So I have one for each of the students, so I'd like to come down. If you could call their names, and we'll call them up and give them a certificate, have them line up here, and depending on how many are here, then we possibly have the council come down as well. Okay, great.

So Adrian, would you like to? I think she's first. Kendra? I'm Kendra Delatore. Uh, I try to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you.

We'll do that next. We'll do that next.

Get out of the way.

Sure, yeah, yeah. There we go. Yeah, good job.

All right.

Great.

And big smiles again. Here we go. Looking at the camera. One, two, three.

A couple smiles. Okay. There you go.

Congratulations to all of you. Wonderful. We're so proud of all of you. Good luck. Thank you very much. I'll shake her.

Councilmember Jain, you have something to say?

I just wanted to say that these students have really bright futures ahead of them. Unfortunately for the planet, there's plenty of work to do out there as we've crossed one and a half degrees Celsius, as Adrian's talking about marine biology, the oceans are acidifying, the ocean temperatures are increasing, the coral reefs are are under extreme stress from the heat. So we really need, we're glad that you chose these fields and we really need your efforts to help solve these problems. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now for our next special order of business. Today the City of Santa Clara proclaims July as Parks and Recreation Month. Our Parks and Recreation professionals are instrumental in creating communities in Santa Clara that are welcoming and inclusive through recreation, community events, and providing open space. Parks and Recreation is an integral part of communities promoting health and wellness. improving the physical and mental health of people who visit our city parks. Now I invite Damon Sparacino, Director of Parks and Recreation, to the podium to say a few words. Welcome, Director.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I know we have a tight agenda, so we'll keep on task here. Observed in July every year, the 2026 Park and Recreation Month theme this year is The Power Of. This year's theme celebrates the transformative impact of parks and recreation on local communities. The celebration is broken down into six core pillars. The power of connection, the power of play, the power of community, the power of nature, the power of belonging, and the power of well-being. In fiscal year 25-26, our Parks and Recreation Department served over 23,000 participants in programs. We provided over 2,000 field reservations equaling over 9,000 hours of use. We provided 322 building or facility reservations for over 1,500 hours of use. We also facilitated over 180 picnic reservations, 35 special events. For July this month, we have the Fourth of July celebration, of course, celebrating the 250th at Mission College. We have four summer concerts ranging from July 10th July 24th, July 31st, and of course we're also combining a summer concert with our night market events that are happening in July 17th, 18th, and 19th. We have a Sunset Cinema on July 10th. We have our Sunday Garden Share on July 12th. We have Disney Moana, the musical, on July 14th through the 16th. We have a Senior Barbecue on July 16th. And for those and many other things, please take a chance to visit our website, City of Santa Clara Recreation Community Services, and just check out our events calendar for those and all the other good things we have going on for Parks and Rec Month. With us this evening, we have some staff members and some park and recreation commissioners and youth commissioners. I'd like to recognize all of them for taking a time out to also be recognized by council this evening in honor of all of the work and dedication and service that they provide to the community. So we'll start off with our parks and recreation commissioners in no particular order. We have Commissioner Derek DeMarco, can please stand up.

And we're going to have them all come up here as well.

Yes, we will. Thank you. I got them all down here because I said you get a picture with counsel. Yeah, okay.

That's why they're here.

That's why they showed up. Next is Vikas Gupta. Please stand up. Thank you. And then we also have Ed Souza. Thank you. And then from our youth commission, we have Neha Israni and Ibrahim Reyes. Please stand up, thank you. And then for staff members with us tonight, we have Apexia Kanamili, we have Angelique Wilson, we have Richard Chung, Gail Itio, Kim Castro, Thuy Phan and holding up the parks mantle is our newest parks management analyst, Josh Berta. So with that, we wanna thank Council, the Mayor, for all of your ongoing support of both our programs, our events. Many, if not all of you, come out to any one of the events we offer for the community. We'll see you all at Fourth of July. We look forward to it. And with that, thank you for recognizing Parks and Recreation Month and all the work we do to lift up the community.

Thank you, Damon, yes. On behalf of the city, we are so grateful for everything you do in the Parks and Recreation Department. For our community, we couldn't do what we do without you. So thank you so much. Congratulations. Could you all come forward here for the reason you're here, for a photo?

Absolutely.

Now that looks like a used wall.

I see you everywhere as well.

And you're all welcome to stay. Okay. Any takers? All right. All right, moving on with the meeting with our booklet. The next is the consent calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless an item is pulled for discussion. Does council have any items pulled for discussion? Council Member Park.

I'd like to pull item 7a, which is action on the May 5th, the Joint City Council Meeting, Authorities Concurrent, and Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board Meeting, May 6th, 2026 Special City Council Meeting, May 19th, 2026 Joint City Council Meeting, and Authorities Concurrent, and Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board Meeting, and May 26th, 2026 Special Joint City Council and Authorities Concurrent, and Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board Meeting, meetings, meeting, meetings.

Thank you, and thank you for reading that. Council Member Cox.

I'd like to pull item 8A. Which item was that? This is 8A, the Stadium Authority Board Consent Calendar. This is the agreement with ASF Electrical Inc., Bayer Electrical Solutions, LLC, and Cupertino Electric. for on-call electrical maintenance and repair services at Levi's, limiting authorization to spend to a total aggregate not to exceed amount of $1,506,408, inclusive of all option years and contingency across three agreements and delegated authority for future amendments.

Thank you, and thank you for reading that as well, so I don't have to. Okay. Anyone else from the council? Anyone from the audience want to pull a consent calendar item? Anyone in the public? Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Move consent calendar.

Okay, so there's a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar. Second. And there's a second by Councilmember Chahal for the balance. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. We see it. Yay. Please register your votes. And that passes unanimously. See how much faster that is? Wow. Okay. We're moving along. All right. Thank you. So next we have... Oh, the book is almost there. Okay. Public presentations. Do we have any public presentations? Let's see. Lisa Thomas, please come forward.

Lisa Thomas will have six minutes. She has time donated from Jan Martin.

Okay, thank you. Welcome.

My name is Lisa Thomas and I live in District 1. It's a pleasure to meet the council as well. I'm sorry, I forgot my notes.

Okay, let's stop it for a second while she gets her notes. Okay.

I'm sorry, I was a little nervous.

No problem, you're fine, go ahead.

The reason I am here is to represent the citizens who live near the Levi's Stadium on Cali del Mondo, Cali del Luno. We are in a parking crisis. and the citizens are actively being ticketed and towing and we do not have any alternative parking available. I have my neighbor here to also help as well. As a result of this, there are children and disabled and elderly people who, which this crisis is dramatically making things worse, and they have their vehicles towed and ticketed, and they have no way to pay their rent, or the tickets. So, I'm sorry. One neighbor of mine parks at least one mile away, or further, One lady had her car towed twice that I know of. I personally seen a lot of cars being towed on Cali del Luna. And we just wanted to bring that to your attention. And so we're asking that the city initiate a residential parking needs analysis, establish a preferential parking zone on our block Halt or condition any building permit Until an adequate parking mitigation plan is approved and to please place this matter on the next available City Council agenda We live near a rapid transit area. So as a result of that I understand that they wouldn't initially give us a residential parking prevent And from my understanding, California AB 2097 eliminated minimum parking requirements for developments near transit. However, the law especially permits to a city to reimpose parking requirements if it's fine that the absence of parking will have a substantially negative impact on existing residents parking within a half mile of the project. So the conditions on our street clearly meet this standard. We also entitled under California law to again request a formal parking needs analysis and petition for a residential permit parking zone. Again, if you could please put this on the next agenda. I did inform a lot of the residents and the neighbors. To be here, we've all gotten a lot of tickets. I have a lot of tickets. I'm a good citizen. I typically don't get tickets, but I have a lot of unpaid parking tickets right now. And I would appreciate if you would consider putting this on the next agenda, on the next meeting.

All right, you still have two minutes left, are you?

Okay, and then my neighbor.

I'll comment when you're finished, okay.

Would like to.

Thank you.

I won't take up much of your time. I'm Jan Martin and this has been very disturbing. I mean, when I first moved in, I have a car and I don't now because I gave it up because one of the reasons is that I didn't want to park it on the street and get these tickets, but they have increased a lot since I have lived there since September. I mean, it was like all of a sudden there were more signs up and more signs up saying don't park here. And it's gotten to the point where she said a lady got towed two times. Well, I've heard two ladies got towed. And we're just in our apartments. It's not like we know everybody. But we stood out there the other day and there was a policeman walking down, he was parked in the street, walking down car after car just ticketing him. and I think those tickets are about $50. We live in affordable housing. There's just no way people can afford that. I think it's a shame that they're bringing people into these apartments and they can't expect to have a parking place. I mean, that kind of goes with having an apartment, I think. I've never before seen this. It's just really sad. I mean, yesterday, we did this kind of last minute, but Lisa and I went around to our apartment and talked to the people that were home, And every person we ever talked to on the street, our apartment, any place else, I've never seen worth been 100% happy that we were doing this. They didn't complain at all. They were just thrilled. It's just been, to me, just incredible that you can go to an apartment complex and not expect to have a parking spot.

Thank you very much. It sounds like you're very frustrated and I think some of us are familiar with this is Tasman East You're in Tasman East. Yes I'm gonna ask that we Refer this because we're not allowed to discuss it any further. But if by consensus, I'd like to refer it to our city manager To bring it back I'm you're probably familiar with this with this situation city manager Sure.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Just at a high level because it's not agendized, this item relates to the St. Anton parking complex. There's currently a parking study going on here. As you may recall, the street pattern on part of that calls for additional bike lanes, so a number of the parking stalls that are there would be removed. If we fully implemented the approved street plan and so we have held off on that and we are currently studying it I'll give my cards to the individuals here and then we'll report back to council when that study will be coming back to you yeah, and and We again we can't talk about what we'll do, but we will refer to give it attention.

Thank you so much Thank you Thank you All right, thank you. We have Howard next. Go ahead, Howard, when you're ready. Did Albert want to say something?

I thought he was gonna say something to the mayor.

Yeah, we're doing that. Yes. Well, that's nice. Hold your comments. This is for the public. We hear from all of us a lot. Go ahead, Howard.

All right. Well, it's good to see the people from the parks here. I work a lot with a lot of stuff they do, and a lot of them really bust their butts to make this stuff that happens in the city happen. they're out there till late at night with some of the stuff i do and i will be doing the fourth of july show so the hot dog dude will be available at fourth of july serving the all beef hot dog and the uh... polish stevens brand but also what i'm really here is I'm still locked out of my location where I earn my living. By being locked out even during non-game days, is affecting me bad. I want to thank council member Kathy Watanabe. She heard about my situation and hired me to give away hot dogs at her mayoral kickoff party. You guys weren't there, you missed it, you could've had a free dog. She was paying for it, but She kind of stood up and kind of helped me out with at least some kind of work during this time. I figured I'll be able to pay my water bill and PG&E off of her, but my mortgage payment's going to be late. I want to thank FIFA for making that happen. They make their money and a street vendor that just gets by, lives paycheck to paycheck, gets locked out of his earnings. I don't know how a person from FIFA can live with that. Street vendors just get by. We don't make a lot of money. We're not running around in a Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz like they are. You know, I get by. Now I'm going to miss my mortgage payment, because I lost out at Super Bowl. Luckily, Bay Area hosts helped me pay for my restock. But this time, there is no help. It's nothing. I'm on my own. So I don't know what to say. Just next time you guys decide to lock somebody out of their business, figure out a way to make sure not to do it. All I can say, I know it's down to FIFA, could have made the call, but they didn't. They are heartless bastards. As long as they want to make their money, they don't care. I'm out. I'm going to pay a bunch of fees. I'll work it out, but thank you very much. Make sure you show up the 4th of July. We're gonna have a good time. Thank you, bye-bye.

Thank you, Howard. Thank you for your comments. We hear you. All right, Brian. Brian's online. Go ahead, Brian.

Thank you. I'm sorry I couldn't make it today. I did have a public presentation, but I didn't want to read all these statistics. I just want people to be careful out there driving and the scooters and the electric bikes. I actually ride an electric bike and I actually obey the rules. I actually stop and get off my bike and walk across the street. I know that's probably dumb, but I live on Monroe and People come by here. This is something the city can do something about. And if not the police, they try to come out. This isn't on the city council. This is on us as drivers. It just slowed down. It's not worth it. 40,000 people have died in car accidents in the last 10 years. That's a lot of people in California. Anyways, thank you, ma'am. Have a good day, everybody.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak, please come forward.

Welcome. Good evening. Gonna have time donated to me from Saskia over here in the audience. Yeah, Saskia. Okay. Well, good evening, everyone. Former Councilmember Anthony Becker here. First, I want to address something that occurred after my comments at the last meeting. There was a discussion among council about my public comments, which everyone agrees should not have happened. But Mayor, you responded by saying allegations are allegations, take them for what they are. 200 allegations are not true. But respectfully, Mayor, it is not your role to determine what is true or what is not. You are not the judge. That crosses the line as exactly the type of conduct the Civil Grand Jury criticized falsely criticized me and others of this council of. So using the diets to comment on members of the public instead of simply conducting city business, while the report did not criticize you personally, meeting after meeting, you continue making these kinds of remarks toward residents and even your own colleagues. And I see it, you cut them off often. And since you stated the allegations are not true, I have the receipts, the documentation, and the witnesses, the people that are literally sitting right next to you, that support what I have said. And we can go through all those receipts one by one if we want by necessary. Equality California's public condemnation of the homophobic blog that you refused to denounce is one example. I think we all remember that one. Now to hear why I'm here tonight again. This is now the 11th time I am now coming before the City Council requesting the one simple thing, which is agendaizing the item of the May 7th, 2024 fee for disclosure and the investigation that followed. At that last meeting after I spoke, the City Attorney stated that the investigation was not limited to City employees or employee records. If that's true, then I have one very simple question. Why do I remember only City employees were investigated and not the City Council themselves? Was it after I left? To my knowledge, council members were never interviewed. I was never interviewed. Despite being present in the room and being a witness, if the investigation truly included elected officials, then please explain what then occurred because that was never truly communicated to me or publicly. I also noticed the charter review presentation discussing the prosecution of ethics violations. One slide stated that the district attorney declines the prosecution. The city attorney could hire outside counsel to prosecute. So why are we discussing expanding enforcement authority when the city still has not fully investigated one of the disclosures that one of the most significant disclosures of recent memory, before creating new enforcement powers, shouldn't we first demonstrate that existing violations are investigated completely and transparently? But again, we always forget these things. Just like I've said before, we forget that ethics advisors were injecting meth who are actually tied to the mayor. We forget about questions involving other closed session disclosures. We forget about other former council members attending current council members' court hearings. And we also forget that a current mayoral candidate possibly committed a crime and was never, ever prosecuted. So, and now, people are being asked to forget one of the biggest accountability questions, which is the FIFA disclosure investigation. My first request was submitted February 10th. Months have passed, no action, and that's understandable. From the beginning, I have requested a truly independent investigation because the original investigation appeared structured in a way that avoided examining everybody who was president. Council members were bound by non-disclosure agreements, except for the mayor and former council member from Watanabe, who refused to sign them. The mayor was also taking notes in that closed session and asking for things to be repeated that ended up in the San Francisco Chronicle. So those facts matter when discussing how confidential information may have been documented, retained, and disclosed. At this point, the public already knows there was a disclosure incurred, and it's no longer a dispute. And you know, the questions have always been, was staff really worried that one person was not going to be honest? Was it that there was the concern that everyone wasn't being interviewed because maybe there might be incompetence? Was every possible source never being examined? There's a lot of questions that should be talked and discussed and that's why we should put this on an agenda so this can be fully discussed. So as I said, for the 11th time I'm requesting this item be put on the agenda for a future agenda. My second item again was my second request my second time, for putting a zero authority together for putting an independent ethics elections consultant for a 2026 election cycle. And the reason why is Santa Clara has not had one since 2016, 10 years ago. That process included candidate forums, issue discussions, and accountability proceedings when campaign ethics complaints were filed. It was also the last time candidates were actually held accountable for misleading campaign statements. Councilmember Watanabe at the time was held accountable for false statements involving me and other candidates, involving allegations concerning campaign contributions from a particular attorney. Councilmember Jane was accused of it too. Since then, there has effectively been no meaningful accountability process Complaints have gone nowhere, candidates have gone to no independent review, and every candidate endorsed by the mayor has avoided any comparable public accountability process. That is why I'm requesting that the city restore an independent election ethics process before the nomination period begins in July, just around the corner. Any consultant selected should be truly independent, free of conflicts of interest, and have no existing relationships with any of you, city staff, or existing political interests, including the Markkula Center or former consultant Tom Changs. The public deserves confidence that campaign ethics will be reviewed fairly, openly, and impartially before ballots are cast. Neither of these requests should be controversial. One asks about transparency about FIFA disclosures, and the second is asking about campaign ethics in our city for our election. Both requests are about accountability, both requests are about transparency, and both requests are about storing public trust. The public deserves answers, candidates deserve fairness, and community deserves Government that is not afraid of accountability. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Do we have anyone online city clerk? No, okay moving on then so The consent items full for discussion. I'm gonna move to the end. We have a few other items to go through first So we're gonna move to now Item number nine, action on an agreement with Blair Church and Flynn Consulting Engineers for Design Professional Services for the Citywide Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Installation Project and Related Budget Amendments. City Manager.

Yes, Mayor. This item was pulled from the June 9th Consent Calendar Agenda. Here for questions from... Who pulled that?

Oh, do you want to say why you pulled that, Councilmember Jane?

And then after those questions, we do have staff members that are here to address.

Is there a particular reason why you pulled? So we can direct it to that.

Yeah, I'd be happy to talk about why I pulled it. So I read through this. It is a consulting agreement for a consultant to determine how we install fleet chargers at our yards. My understanding is that there's a list here of how many chargers, Level 1, Level 2, that would go into various locations like Fire Station 2, Fire Station 6, Fire Station 8, Mission Cemetery. My understanding is that this list was established five years ago. and it is really out of date given the fact that the number of electric, types of electric vehicles, the charging rates for electric vehicles have changed over time. I really don't see why we're putting six electric vehicles level two chargers at fire station two and no level three chargers when we're looking at trying to electrify our heavy-duty vehicles. So I have a number of questions for this. First is, are the chargers gonna be used by city cars or by employees? And what are the rates that we're going to charge? Are they going to be free chargers if they're for employees? And sort of it seems to me that we're using an outdated plan. And so what's kind of the problem that we're solving? And what is the hurry? And are we looking at putting chargers where we have existing infrastructure, where the transformer sizes are appropriate to put in the number of chargers that we're looking at, or do we have to put in extensive investments in upgrading transformers, which we could possibly offset by installing batteries I know we tried to do a battery project at the Tasman Garage, the yellow lot. I think that battery is now defunct. And then it seems like we could actually save a lot of money if we employed load balancing or load management software so we get a lot more heads for charging where we're actually sharing the charging rates so we could actually get more people charging at one time, and then why is there no DC fast chargers at the police station? Presumably, you know, other I think we have one Mach-E in our police department. Other police departments like Palo Alto starting to look at Rivians. If we have patrol cars that are constantly being used, we'd want to charge them quickly. So we should have at least a DC fast charger at our police station. So those are my questions is, you know, we're hiring a consultant for $1.347 million, but the actual installation will be $11 million. And I want to make sure that we're spending, I know it's SVP money, but I just want to make sure that we're using our money wisely in the right places where we can appropriately start electrifying our fleets. So those are my questions.

Sure. I'll provide some overall comments, and then we have a number of city staff here that can address those questions. Of the city staff here, your questions went in a couple different areas, and so one will have Rena Brio, our Economic Development and Sustainability Officer, that can answer the long-term sustainability questions. We also have SVP here, and we have Public Works Department that is handling the fleet. A couple overall comments.

I wanted to say something. Some of these could have been asked ahead of time because they're getting very, very detailed. I can see the overall, but we're trying to streamline our meetings. They were asked ahead of time. Excuse me. They're way too long, so I'm just hoping that the council be considerate of the public's time. I see the overall question, but some are so specific we could have asked ahead of time. Go ahead, City Manager. Thank you.

Some we won't drill down into. At a high level, I think many of the council members and members of the public know the city embarked on a city EV charging program really by studying that in 2018 and 2019, slight delay during the pandemic, but we then hired a consultant that produced a study in 2021 that had an EV charging strategy and we have set about to implement the Various prongs of that strategy. This is essentially the last phase of that 2021 study And so I think the council member said, you know, it's roughly five years old We recognize that we are implementing the last phase of that study. Certainly the EV market has changed the type of cars the chargers that will be needed and so when we refresh the study we will we intend to look at that and we'll talk about that and Of the chargers that are in this item, 80% are for our fleet, 20% are for the public. The 20% include eight public chargers at Central Park Library, and eight public chargers at city hall for the city hall and important to note this is this project is design and implementation but it's going to start with design given our conversations around city hall that was going to be the last tranche that we do knowing that we need to decide where we're going with city hall also worth noting as a part of that 2021 strategy the vast majority of our public chargers are level two which for a full-size EV getting between 200 to 300 to 400 miles, it's at least an eight-hour charge. The questions around should our public chargers be a level two or a level three are certainly some of the questions that should be asked, but also, what type of public program should we have, right? We can incentivize versus provide directly. We can convert some of our level twos to level threes. And also looking overall at our charging strategy five years later is important because the private market has now stepped up and is beginning entering into this space in large measure. And so does the city need to be the solution to this problem and should we scale back? And how we use our carbon reduction funds are all very, very good questions. But again, these are for our fleet. 80% of these are for our fleet. They align with EV vehicles that we've already purchased as well as vehicles that we intend to purchase. With regard to the longer term questions around should we have level three chargers for our fleet, We buy heavy-duty garbage trucks sweet stripping vehicles. We don't have those now There's an analysis going on in the Public Works Department that is looking into the future of our fleet And so those conversations are important conversations to have not necessarily conversations that are we believe are related to this item because again the 80% of the charters really reflect where we're where we're at and where we're going also would note For a lot of our current vehicles, your typical pool vehicle, we think a level two is the right model because that vehicle is plugged in at night and every vehicle has a space. It's plugged in, it's charged, and it's ready for the next day. Again, I know that there are some infrastructure questions there with load balancing chargers and putting in a level threes. But at a high level, that's where we're at. I'll turn to Rena Briel for any additional overall comments before going anywhere else.

No, and I just wanted to add, and thank you, City Manager Grogan. You did a really good job explaining some of the key points. Did want the council to recognize that the majority of this contract is for fleet. And one thing that we hadn't talked about before is that there is a study underway right now by the Public Works Department. So while some of the data that you're referencing is from five years ago related to our fleet. It's actually very contemporary. That study is going to be finished by the end of the year, but already our Public Works Department certainly has reviewed This contract is aware of where that analysis has been and feels that it's in alignment with what our needs are and where those fleet charging infrastructure needs to be had. So just really pinpointing the comment on this is an outdated plan. absolutely that is the case when it comes to our public chargers as city manager grogan mentioned that is based on survey information that we got from our residents you know now five to six years ago so really what staff would like to do is certainly move forward with this agreement make sure that the majority of this agreement gets implemented for the fleet and when it comes to the public chargers we would like a contemporary analysis that goes back to the residents also looks at really the purpose of why the city is providing chargers for the public, what those rates should be, and provide a comprehensive analysis. Now, moving forward with this contract, we have some abilities to make modifications administratively. We may not need to do that very substantially for the fleet, However, that might time well for when the public charging infrastructure gets implemented from this contract. So I think our request for staff is to move forward with the agreement, recognizing that staff is going to first and foremost focus on the fleet and then bring forward some contemporary analysis on really our public charging needs, which would then align with whether or not what's being called for in this agreement for public charging. We'll probably find that that is out of date, but hopefully we want to keep this process moving. We know we have a lot of needs, and we really don't want to hold up the process for getting that infrastructure for our fleet. So some of the other questions, Council Member Jane, I don't have, I do want to say that the charging for the fleet is for the fleet. It's not for employees. Another question you asked about, you know, do we have a sense of the rules for charging so currently the rules for charging for the public we charge very incrementally more than what we would charge the residential rate we don't know if that's really the right approach going forward but that that is our approach to date uh... and in terms of your questions about saving money with load balancing software great suggestion i think the team can certainly look into that i don't have an answer for you if anyone else has an answer uh... on our team they can step up but i don't think we have an answer on that but that's something we can certainly look at as we implement and no dc fast chargers through police station once again i think that when we do the second round of what we need to do for heavy vehicles uh... and other vehicles that are being mandated by carb into the future, those are the types of infrastructure that we will be bringing forward. But really, what we've looked at now reflects our real-time needs.

Thank you, Rena. Quick piggyback on the employee portion. So yes, the fleet chargers in here are targeted for the fleet. We could, however, utilize those for employees. You asked, would they be free? IRS rules are pretty simple. Either employees have to pay for them, but if they're provided, it is a taxable benefit and it needs to go on the W-2. And so we are currently looking into that programmatic model to see can we make any of our fleet chargers available to employees during the day. but that is a longer-term analysis and an internal thing that we can implement without additional council direction.

All right. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? If not, Council Member Jane, do you have a motion?

I guess I have a motion. I would like to approve staff's recommendation with the recommendation that they do look at load balancing software and that they look at charging for charging higher rates for public chargers when we put them in than we currently do.

This isn't on an agreement. So is it related to the agreement?

This is design professional services. So they're going to be designing the system. And so my issue is that we don't currently charge enough for the electricity and our overhead costs are much higher.

And then the other thing is that... My question is, is this the appropriate time to have that discussion that we don't charge enough and we want to charge more? Is it for this item? I just want to make sure we're aligned with what's on the agenda.

We're spending on these things. We should recover our money. We shouldn't be subsidizing everything. So we should look at load balancing software because it will save us money. When I looked at the cost, it's $50,000 to install a level two charger, which seems very excessive. And then we should... also be monitoring the usage of the charging. What is the utilization? We have 49 chargers at Yellow Lot. We have no idea how well they're being used. And their signage is terrible for those. So those are my recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to make quick comments on that. I know so for public we are only anticipating five L3, level 3 chargers. And I know for the fleet it makes sense because they can stay overnight and get the fleet charged. But for public, if we are only having one at library and four at city hall, level three chargers, I think we should expand to look into expanding that basically so that our, with the growing population of around 120, 130,000 residents in city of Santa Clara and number of vehicles, EV vehicles are much more than what we had three, four years when we were planning this thing. I would anticipate that we should have more L3 chargers in the city from the city. Reason being, we are lucky to have SVP as our own entity. And if we are really encouraging residents and other people to have more EV, this will really help us out on that. And I rightly, Council Member Jain has rightly pointed, it's almost a $50 million project overall. So we should look at what options, how we can improve the this design plan by itself by incorporating all the factors which are currently impacting the community. So that's my point. Instead of having just 16 L2 and 5 L3, we should have more L3 chargers down the line for the residents. And giving you a perspective on that, like L2 chargers take 15 to 30 miles per hour. They charge 15 to 30 miles per hour. Whereas L3 chargers, they charge 3 to 20 miles per minute. So basically 80% of charge can be done in 20 to 40 minutes. So if it is public is standing there for eight hours to charge their whole car, nobody else is coming into that. So if we have L3 chargers for the public, I think we have more room for encouraging people EV vehicle and sustainability will be much better.

Thank you Yeah, so I want to address some of the things here I believe that Jane's The council member Jane's comment was to approve staff's recommendation with recommendation that they also look into load balancing software and charging rates and things like that. I think that that was absolutely appropriate. I think that what the mayor has shown here is an example of what one of the members of the public talked about, which is excessive commenting about what should or should not be talked about. She talks about streamlining meetings, but streamlining meetings should not be at the expense of the robust discussion or just the process of public discussion. This is a very bad thing. I think that you know We've started this meeting a little late and we didn't hit the actual items until about 8 o'clock because again we we did have almost an hour of special of special orders of business another another public member commented about how much we spend on special orders of business and a Lot of people would like to say that the reason that council meetings go long is not because of the agenda not because the the length of the reports not because the length of the Presentations not because we start late because of special orders of business and other things but it's about the robust discussion Which we absolutely should have that's the only thing that we should be having here at this meeting. I mean we've had other Breaks and decorum we've had special orders of business put onto a special City Council meeting which had no place in And I think at this point. I don't think it's about streamlining meetings I think it's about controlling this council this controlling discussion, and I would like to see this move forward I don't know if councilmember Chihal Had a second, but if he seconded Councilmember Jane's motion. I will defer to councilmember Chihal if he did not second it I will second councilmember Jane's motion

As the presiding officer of the meeting, there was no second, and it's my job to keep us on track and to make sure that we're not veering from the item exactly how it's on the agenda. And what I heard was a larger discussion about what we charge for electrical charging stations and other things. I felt that we were veering from what the item is on the agenda, and that's my job that I will continue to do. City Manager.

Sure. Mayor, based on the council discussion, I'd like to proffer a modification that the council move forward with the contract with the stipulation that staff pause on the public chargers that are in the contract until the completion of a refresh of our public EV strategy. I just want to point out that of the 119 chargers in here, 21 are for the public. again, both at the city hall that we were going to do in the last tranche and the library. I totally understand the comments that have been made by council about having more level three chargers. I will say that really needs to be looked at in the context of an overall strategy. For example, one of the concerns that staff has if we put in level three chargers at more city facilities, we don't want to turn our parking lot in our parks and our libraries into EV charging stations. by adding level three chargers. It adds a certain level of service, queuing, people waiting. Also, when you take a look just at, for example, our Central Park Library, it's right across the street from a shopping center. The going rate for the private market is to actually approach those shopping centers and put in a level three EV charging station inside of a parking center. And so we wouldn't want to embark on a public strategy basically creating a portion of our Central Parking Library lot as an EV charging station if one goes in right across the street. And we just need to step back, take a holistic approach. We entered the space for a reason five years ago. That strategy we're concluding, we know we need to do a refresh of the strategy. And so that would be my modification. You approve the contract with the fleet chargers and we'll pause on the public.

Thank you. Council Member Jane, you made the motion. There wasn't a second. Was there even a second on the motion? Would you like to amend your motion to the city manager's recommendation?

I'm fine with pausing the public chargers for an analysis, but I do want to recommend that we look at load balancing software and that we look at the cost of the level 2 chargers at $50,000 apiece. That's my motion.

All right. Is there a second on that motion?

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Did I go to the public? I can't remember. No? All right. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? All right. Seeing none, Council Member Park, your light's still on.

Yeah, I was going to say that I understand the city manager's Alternative and I was going to say that it seems like it's an alternative But again, it misses the additions that this is the key point, which is the additions that councilmember Jane had put on So I'm very happy that councilmember Jane Stuck with the recommendations for the load balancing. So again, I do hear what you're saying I hear about the pausing but again the I think the alternatives have to include the the details, the key points that the council members have brought up in their motions as well. Thank you.

We have a motion and a second, so assistant city clerk, when you're ready. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously, thank you. Thank you so much. All right, next we have item number 10. The next item is a public hearing and proposed action on the adoption of a resolution declaring the results of the majority protest proceedings renewing the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District and action on an agreement with the Silicon Valley Santa Clara DMO. Inc doing business as discover Santa Clara for the administration of the district at this time I will declare the public hearing to be open Is there a staff presentation and or a presentation from the DMO? So do we start with the staff presentation city manager? So

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council, members of the public. I'll make some high-level comments and then turn it over to Ms. Lawson from Discover Santa Clara. So on May 5th of this year, the City Council adopted a resolution declaring the city's intent to renew the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District for another five years that would begin July 1 of this year, 2026. As part of that May 5th action to adopt a resolution with an intent to renew, It included several reports as well as the plan, which is called the 2026-2027 Renewal Plan that is attached to your report. Following that meeting, a public hearing was held on June 9th to allow for public testimony this evening. The public hearing provides an opportunity for the public as the City Council considers approval of the resolution to renew the Tourism Improvement District and the plan. In addition, the City Council will consider approval and authorization to execute an agreement with Discover Santa Clara for the same term for the administration of the 2026 through 2031 plan. Before we begin tonight, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to members of the Tourism Improvement District, Christine Lawson, as well as the entire Discover Santa Clara team. I also want to take a moment and truly thank the hotel GMs for the time that you spent with city staff as we worked on the plan and through this entire process. You have attended all three meetings and I know that this is a very, very busy time. for you as a hotel. So simply by your attendance, it shows how important this item is to you and to our city. So thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Lawson.

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you.

There it is.

Look at those cute people. I mean, come on.

All right, good evening, Mayor, Council. Kelly Rankin here again from Civitas alongside Christine Lawson on behalf of the Tourism Improvement District. So we are here tonight, as Jovon mentioned, for the public hearing renewing the Tourism Improvement District for another five-year term. Tonight is when Council receives final public testimony, considers any protests, and then finally considers adopting the resolution that renews the district. So another recap of where we've been. As Jovan mentioned, council approved the resolution of intention on May 5th. Notices were sent to all assessed hotels within the district. The public meeting was held on June 9th and the protest period closes at the conclusion of tonight's public hearing. Throughout this, Discover Santa Clara and the GMs from the steering committee have worked closely with city staff to advance this renewal and moving towards finalizing the agreement to administer.

So just wanted to restate last time I was in front of council we were at 93% approval from the assessed hotels We are pleased to say that we're at a hundred percent today Based upon all the hard work that Jovan was kind enough to speak to with city staff with the steering committee and the DMO and working with the other hotels that are in these tourism improvement district based upon the plans that were developed and socialized with that group.

So looking at this slide one more time, this slide lays the existing district side by side with the proposed renewal. So you can see exactly what is changing and what is staying the same. So a few things carry over unchanged. The district still applies to lodging businesses with 10 rooms or more within the TID boundary. Just now the renewal expressly omits or excludes short-term rentals. And again, this is for one more five-year term. So on the assessment, today the rate is 2%. The renewal keeps that base rate of 2% but adds the ability to move up to 3% over the term. That's in annual increments of no more than half a percent at a time. So the potential to add that one additional point, that's phased in gradually over the five year term. So again, that flexibility is only so the district can respond to what is happening in the market rather than locking in a single number for five years. And then I'll quickly speak to how any rate adjustment would actually work. So any increase as defined in management district plan would require not only approval from the Discover Santa Clara board, but also from the assessed hoteliers themselves. So these, of course, are the businesses paying the assessment and have every incentive to definitely weigh in carefully on that and vote. Once they approve an adjustment within that plan's maximum ceiling of 3%, and again at half a percent at a time, it flows through the annual report that comes to council each year. Under not only the agreement, but the 94 law, council receives that annual report and may approve it as filed or after some collaboration with Discover Santa Clara, modify that plan. In practice, the way that this has transpired and the way that Discover Santa Clara intends to keep running it, The rate, the budget, and the programs of work would all come through that annual report on a recurring annual basis. So it's a built-in collaborative checkpoint with the city every year, and that's the standard practice that we've seen for TIDs across California. So it's a partnership between the industry and the city, and the annual report is where we can all stay aligned year over year.

Just to restate I won't go through this entire slide I think it's the third time that you all have seen this slide but to focus primarily on the areas that are still in progress or pending So we are still working closely with city staff on updating and approving the agreement to administer and we are here now with City Council for our public hearing and resolution of formation and And then obviously pending is the renewed Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District and the DMO. Before we go to questions, I wanted to just make a couple of points quickly, if I may. One, I would also like to return the gratitude to city staff and Jovan, Araceli, everyone that we have worked so closely with on this, to our steering committee, the folks behind me, to my team, who have been tireless and committed to this process, to Civitas advisors who have been wonderful to work with. I want to reiterate that we're a young organization. This is the end of our five-year term. I've been here not even four years, and it's been the group that's behind me, the mighty team that I work for, have come over certain periods of time, so we're now coming together on our third year, almost fourth year for myself. In that short time, we have made meaningful momentum in Santa Clara, and we are well positioned to build upon that momentum, partnerships, business that we've developed with customers, and feel very, we have a lot of promise about the efforts and accomplishments that are ahead of us. I also wanted to acknowledge that you know I have Received over the time that I've been in this position comments about the former Convention and Visitors Bureau And just wanted to say that you know myself and my team were not here during that chapter but we also have nothing but respect for the years that they were here and the work that they did to promote Santa Clara and and to work with customers. I respectfully say that we are here now, and we are a very hardworking, passionate, and committed group of people that have not let the city down and love the city and want to continue to build upon the work that we have done. I also want to say that this work is bigger than one organization. It's not just about the DMO or the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District. It's also about the partnership with everyone in this room. And that partnership is critical because our challenge isn't in this room. Our challenge is actually other destinations that are looking to eat our lunch. So they would love nothing more than there to be any cracks in the pavement so that they could go after the business that we've been working tirelessly to bring to Santa Clara. So we are very hopeful that we continue this close partnership moving forward and that you will support the renewal of the Tourism Improvement District and the DMO as set forth. open to questions.

Okay, thank you. Council questions for staff or representatives here. Council Member Jane.

Yeah, my main concern is about the increase to 3%, and it's like I shouldn't really care about this because the hotels are just charging their people. It's all within that community. But the reason why I do care about it is because we have a 13.5% TOT to the city, and then we have the 2% facilities and then we have the DMO and so it adds up to like 17 and a half percent Currently and that would go up to maybe 18 and a half percent. And so My issue is would is that enough to detract and I asked this before to detract people from booking hotels Here I understand we need to market it. We have to spend time marketing it but you know, we just are looking at approving $7.6 million in infrastructure improvements for the convention center. And we have a deferred maintenance of up to $100 million on the convention center and a new roof and all of that. We've been paying for the parking maintenance district. We now have to resurface the parking structure. So I guess my question is, and I've been asking this for a long time is, All of these bookings in the convention center create hotel stays, which creates TOT, and I asked the city manager this, and I still am waiting to get an answer. How do we attribute how much business is created by the convention center, take that TOT and say, okay, now we're going to invest that, and the city manager said, cities have a special Convention Visitors Bureau, TOT, that is set aside. And that's kind of like what we're doing with the DMO and the district, is we're setting aside money specifically for marketing the convention center. We're just not setting money aside to repair the convention center. And so... I guess and you know I see that the budgets have been going up even with the 2% the budget went up from 3.5 million to 4 million and then in the report it said that this TID assessment outperformed projections went from 2.6 million to 3.2 million so I see the idea of reserving the ability. You're not going to go to 3%. You're not going to go to 2.5% right away. And I see the idea of reserving that, but I kind of would like to see, because it impacts the city and the convention center and bookings, that the city council approved. I know you have the board approves and then the hotels approved, but the city council would approve the increments. And I think if you can justify it, it shouldn't be a problem. That's all I'm asking.

Any other questions from council members? Any? OK, that's it for the questions.

You're it, Council Member Jain. You and me, my friend. So I think we mentioned this last time And I know it just becomes a game of semantics. We don't have a crystal ball I think you also heard from our steering committee that there there isn't an appetite to raise that assessment If you look at other management district plans Which we have done based on your comment and just understanding what our competitors are doing many if not most, have something built in so that they can increase assessments. Many do not. It really is a protective mechanism based on the fact that over a five-year period we would not necessarily know what the market would bear. The general managers don't have an appetite. And our goal isn't to continue to just have the budget continue to grow and grow. We grow it based on very thoughtful and strategic projects. We just presented our budget to the board with my 16-page budget memo. So it's all very thoughtful. in terms of the lack of competitiveness right now if you look at to your point all and not just the transient occupancy tax but everything uh... we are just around seventeen point five we are tucked just a tad under san jose uh... and san francisco were less than monterey which believe it or not there's a rather large competitor for us uh... so I know that you all have to be thoughtful about this based on any needs you have for potential TOT increases for the general fund. We want to be thoughtful as well. Our goal isn't to get to a place where we're not competitive. Our goal was just to protect our plan. Before I get to your last point about having the ability to approve uh... you talked about you know how we're attributing reserve funds uh... and the seven point six million investment in the santa clara convention center uh... i was a little i'm a little confused exactly what you're looking for in terms of the question there uh... you know any funds that you guys have that you want to put towards bringing the the santa clara convention center back to its grandeur is going to be incredibly helpful not just to the dmo but to the ovg and levy sales teams it is compre competitive out there and you don't need to fly you can just drive to our competitive uh... convention centers and see that that we are challenged uh... in that arena uh... but our goal is to continue to partner and use our funds obviously our funds are meant to drive room nights for our owners which are the hotels uh... but part of that is clearly ensuring that we are promoting the destination and building the brand for santa clara uh... both in terms of from a meetings and events perspective but also just a great place to come and bring meetings uh... so those funds automatically benefit the santa clara convention center and the city as a whole uh... in terms of approving the funds uh... i guess philosophically i i hear you uh... you know we spent a lot of time it's been over a year in this renewal process and feel very comfortable and confident with our very strong board of directors and the hotels uh... who are quite conservative about increasing Feel that we have come to a place In the time that I have been here The budget has never been over We have been managing our funds prudently and spending them strategically to highlight the city and and garner business and develop leads for everyone involved all of the three sales teams and our hotels so we feel that we have for lack of better terminology kind of earned our stripes and the right to be able to manage the funds that come from the hotels that fund the DMO 100% I actually have a question now that you've gone through all this so

So as the five-year agreement as it's written would allow the DMO to increase the TOT Up to 3%, and that's a cap. I want to make sure that's the cap. So my question is, what sort of transparency is surrounding that in terms of reporting to the city council, reporting to the public? Tell me how that's going to work if decide half a percent at a time over a five-year period, right? It's over five years. Correct.

Correct.

With a cap. With a cap. Tell us about the transparency and what the reporting requirements are with that.

I will start with that and feel free to weigh in on that, Kelly. So in the event that we felt that there was need to increase by .05%, which is the max that we can increase at any one time. We would present that both to the board of directors. It would require that we present a plan. Why do we need those extra funds? So there would be an actual sales and marketing plan that would go along with that. We would bring that to the board of directors and present that plan and also present that plan to the 11 hotels that are part of the Tourism Improvement District. And the board would vote, and a majority of the hotels need to vote on that 0.5% increase as well for it to pass. It would obviously be transparent to the public through the board meeting, which is a public meeting. And it would also be transparent through quarterly reports, depending on when it happened, and also through the annual report. that comes in front of council whereby you have the ability to approve as is or amend and then approve.

I don't know if you want to add anything.

So it's a collaboration after it is decided at the board and hotel level. It would then come before council in which you can review the annual report and modify it or approve it.

Thank you. All right. We have several public members that would like to speak. We're going to start with Scott. Wittner followed by Billy Mendez.

Please come forward.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, city council members. I'll try not to steal the thunder from my hotel colleagues who have a huge stake in this, but we do as well. So again, I'm Scott Wintner, Deputy Director at San Jose Mineta International Airport. And I've traveled all this way, once again, to remind you that we all are in this together. And again, Christine and her team at Discover Santa Clara have really brought a level of professionalism and I would say just elevated, in doing so, elevated the effort to continue to attract business to our hotels at Convention Center, which is hugely important to the airport. And insofar as the airport also is a huge contributor to Santa Clara's economy and a huge employer of Santa Clara residents. And so I would urge you to take action tonight in such a way that does not delay this process any further, would not interrupt our ability to continue to have our hotels, again, collect a self-assessment that funds a destination marketing for our region. Thank you.

Thank you, Scott. Next, we have Billy, followed by Jack Bloom. Welcome.

Good evening. How are you guys doing today?

Good.

Thank you for taking the time, and thank you to all for being here today. Actually, I'm the general manager for the Delta here in Santa Clara, and I've been here, and I've been collectively working with everybody, so I wanted to thank everybody who's been participating in everything in getting to this point. We definitely want to move forward to get this to the final end and be able to continue as business as usual. You know be part of the times I've been here a few other times I've heard different questions that been asked and I think that one that it's been asked quite often about is the Convention Center and you know talking for a For myself from my property alone the amount of business that's been really generated from the convention is very minimum to none all the business is generated directly by internal sales internally in the hotel, so It's a little bit different. Discover Center Clara has done a great job to really promote us, not just necessarily as a destination, but just be able to work with different other organizations that brings businesses of meetings and stuff like that. So not necessarily directly just to the actual convention center, but actually to the hotels itself. And that's why I really urge to be able to pass this and be able to continue as business because we truly support it. I think we're in a good standing, and I think they have a great team that really are moving the direction that we need it to as well, too. So I thank you guys and have a great night.

Thank you, Billy. Next we have Jack Bloom followed by Nancy Fullmore. Welcome.

Thank you, Council Members. Good evening again. My name is Jack Bloom, General Manager of the Embassy Suites here in Santa Clara. For the third time regarding this matter, hopefully the last, and first I also want to thank you and the city staff for all their hard work and for your considerations and additionally your challenging questions and additional thought on this matter. A few important items to note here today. As was mentioned, again, we've been working on this for over a year. We have worked together to create a district plan that first and foremost benefits the 11 Santa Clara hotels. A group of hotels, I should remind, that gross an annual revenue of $200 million and employ over 2,000 team members. In addition, growing significant economic contribution to countless local businesses outside of the hotels. As also mentioned, we now have 100% support, which shows the dedication and the overwhelming power of the organization. And again, to avoid significant delays and interruption of assessment collection and the mission of this organization, I urge you all again to approve this renewal. to echo my colleague Billy, General Manager of the Delta. Again, the impact of the Convention Center certainly is important, but this organization is so much more than that. So, thank you.

Thank you. Nancy, followed by Kevin Dominguez.

Welcome. good evening madam mayor council members city staff it's been a second job for the last year really guiding the conversation of collaboration and partnership with the end in mind of really believing in the future of Santa Clara and how the hotels contribute through TOT and the general fund. I do want to shout out to my fellow steering committee. They've taken on that second job as well with me over the, god, it's a little bit over a year now. You know, getting the 100% collaboration really was a vote by the hotels was really anchored in the fact that we wanted to be transparent. We wanted to make sure that we had built an accountability and the city staff really worked in making sure that we had check and balance and to make sure that this is something that not only benefit the hotel, the convention center, but the general public and community at large making economic impact. So I urge you to please look at the plan that is in front of you and approve as is and so that we don't lose time and we continue to lean in on our major events of this year with Super Bowl and FIFA and continue to amplify what an incredible city and diverse and fun safe City Santa Clara is to travelers that want to come and visit.

Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. Next, we have Kevin. Welcome.

Good evening Madam Mayor and City Council Members. My name is Kevin Dominguez and I am the General Manager of the Element Santa Clara. I'm here to express our support for renewing the DMO Discover Santa Clara for an additional five-year term. Our hotel employs around 40 local residents and the continued success of the DMO plays an important role in supporting those jobs and driving economic activity throughout our community. The economic benefits of the DMO extend throughout Santa Clara, supporting restaurants, retailers, attractions, transportation, and other local businesses. Approving this renewal will provide stability, prevent unnecessary disruptions, and allow CEO Christine Lawson and her laser-focused professional team to continue Discover Santa Clara's important work, promoting our city as a top destination for meetings, events, business travel, and leisure tourism. We respectfully urge the City Council to approve the resolution of renewal and extend Discover Santa Clara for another five-year term. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Anyone else here? We have Brian. Is Brian here or online? All right. We'll go to Brian online first. Brian.

Thank you. I wanted to echo that. And also, it should be brought to people's attention that the Hotel industry is a big employer for people with disabilities and anything that helps increase their access to people's access to jobs is always good. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Oliver, Oliver, please. You're online, Oliver.

Good evening, honorable Mayor Gilmour, council members and staff. My name is Oliver Caparras and I am an employee at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara since 2005 when the hotel became a Hyatt from a Westin. In total, I've worked in the hospitality industry for more than 33 years, started in 1993 as a bellman. I want to talk beyond the numbers that we heard. I chose this industry because I fell in love with the work. Hospitality is at its core, the business of taking care of people. Every day we are given the privilege of making a positive impact on someone's life. Sometimes for just 24 hours, sometimes 48, sometimes a week, whether they're traveling for business, leisure or personal reasons. When guests walk through our doors, they entrust us with their safety, their comfort and wellbeing. we take that responsibility seriously. Equally important is the responsibility we have to the people who work with us, our associates, our work families. I strongly believe in what Hyatt says, you know, we care for people so they could be their best. It sounds corny, but for me, it's not just a slogan. It is an obligation. The industry has taken care of me and my family, and it is my commitment to give back by supporting the associates who rely on us. The business that comes into our hotels allow us to provide shifts, schedules, and stability for our teams. Those hours translate directly into rent, utilities, and food on the table for their families. Unlike our guests who entrust us with their lives for a night or two, our associates entrust us with their livelihoods every single day. Our goal is always to provide a full 40-hour work week, but unfortunately, our occupancy levels may not support that at times. I've listened during my career to many associates share their concerns when hours fall short.

It is disheartening. Sorry, Oliver. Thank you, though, for your comments. Would anyone else like to speak? My computer went off, so I can't tell. Oh, please come forward, yes. I'm sorry, I got distracted. Thank you.

I know you got a lot going on.

There's a lot.

Preston Metcalf, I'm the Executive Director of the Triton Museum of Art. First, my compliments to Madam Mayor for an excellent blazer. The color of blue is outstanding. Well done.

I called you, remember? Yes.

I want to speak in support of Discover Santa Clara. There's a lot of talk about the business and the relationships to hotels. I run a non-profit museum. We're free to the public. We rely entirely on the goodwill of the public and tourism to come and visit the museum to help improve the quality of life for our residents. Over the past three years, Discover Santa Clara has been one of our major lifelines to get our word out to the public. Thank them for the good work they do and I encourage their continued support. Thank you.

Thank you Is there anyone else that would like to speak So, please come forward No, okay.

We have another hand online.

We have I could I can't see so Melissa I Can't hear you. What did you say? Melissa? Her name is Melissa Melissa Melissa. I

Hi, my name is Melissa Bellwomany. I'm the Director of Sales and Marketing at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. And I would like to request that you continue the DMO in the form that it's in. They've done an incredible job. You know, we didn't have anyone for a few years and that timeline of not having someone really had Santa Clara not being out there in the community and getting those groups and events to our hotels. And they've really worked hard and built a really good following. We recently had an incredible fam trip. It was wonderful to hear all the great comments. from the people who attended, the planners that attended, just saying how incredible Santa Clara is, and I'd love to see their work continue. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa.

Do we have anyone else? City Clerk? No? Okay, may I have a motion to close public hearing? Council Member Hardin. Motion to close public hearing. We have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales, I think, to close public hearing. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Councilmember Hardy?

Yes, I'd like to make a motion for staff recommendation to continue the DMO. And I will say I want our residents to understand that the hotels are taxing themselves. They're taxing our tourists and they're helping us tremendously. So I want to say thank you.

So we have a motion by Councilmember Hardy and a second by Councilmember Chihal. Was that Chihal?

Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor. We have an additional process because of the nature of this action. Oh my gosh.

And you did prepare me too. I did. I got distracted because my computer went off and Vin came up here.

I think the blue blazer comment might have thrown you a little bit too. It was Preston. Okay.

All right. Can I say some stuff first?

Okay, thanks.

Thank you. The proposed renewal of the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District includes assessments against certain businesses as specified in the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District Plan, which gives any interested person the right to lodge a protest against the proposed assessments. Every written protest must be filed with the clerk at or before the time fixed for the public hearing and may be withdrawn in writing at any time before the conclusion of the public hearing. If written protests are received from owners or authorized representatives of the businesses within the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District that will pay 50% or more of the assessments proposed to be levied and those protests are not withdrawn so as to reduce the protests to less than 50%, The City cannot approve the renewal of the Santa Clara Tourist Improvement District and no further proceedings to levy the proposed assessment against those businesses shall be taken for a period of one year. Assistant City Clerk, do you have any information about the number of written protests that we have received?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As of the conclusion of the public hearing, the City of Santa Clara received zero written protests to the proposed business assessment before the close of the public hearing. The number of written protests does not amount to protests from owner or authorized representatives of businesses in the proposed renewed Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District, which would pay 50% or more of the assessments proposed to be levied. Consequently, there is an insufficient number of written protests to prohibit further proceedings to levy the proposed assessments and the City Council may proceed with considering the resolution declaring the results of the majority protest proceedings and renewing the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District and taking action on an agreement with Discover Santa Clara for the administration of the district.

Thank you, Assistant City Clerk. We will now proceed with deliberations and action on the proposed renewal of the Santa Clara Tourism Improvement District and action on the agreement with Discover Santa Clara for the administration of the district. Council Member Hardy, it's now time.

No, I can make a motion. I will make a motion for staff recommendation, which includes some specific things that need to be done, but within that is to continue the DMO. And thank you so much for all your work.

I'll second it again.

So we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, seconded by Council Member Chahal. Council Member Park, comments.

So I do have a couple of questions. I've been listening to this. I appreciate the time that the hotels have brought in. Again, I remember a time when we had a Convention Center Visitors Bureau, and that Convention Center Visitors Bureau, again, looked at all the businesses across Santa Clara, not just for the hotels, but also for, you know, we have a minimum size for the hotels that could be part of this. but for all hotels, and not just for the rooms at the Hyatt or at the Convention Center, but also banquet halls throughout the city. I had a lot of questions previously, but I think I've answered some of them on what happens if the Hyatt doesn't have a, you know, they have somebody that's looking at their ballroom and it doesn't quite fit. Do they forward this on to the Convention Center? It's possible that they do. And then the question is, well, if there is something – I mean, I think that the city has an agreement for the American Ballroom at the Hyatt, so we can also consider that, look at how we sell that. But I don't know if – how do other banquet halls get – get told about opportunities, if there is an opportunity that's maybe too big for the convention center to hire, maybe too expensive at those places. What happens, you know, how do people forward businesses that come to their banquet halls to the DMO? I don't know if there's process for that. My question was also questions about how do new hotels get added? If there's a new hotel, does it automatically get added if it meets the room threshold? And if we wanted, you said that the control would be with the board, but if we wanted to amend that, I mean, transparency would be with an annual report or a month of report that nobody really reads. There's no hearing on the month of report. Annual report, maybe that gets added, maybe it's a consent item, but it's not really an item that makes it to the public openly. But how do we, if we want to amend the annual report by saying, oh, we'd like the increase that was assessed by the board, well, we don't agree with that. Again, I look at all of these things. I remember when council made decisions in the past to give control over parking maintenance fees and things like that wholly to an external entity, council lost complete control over oversight over review over assessing Values if there was this was bad for the city, but good for the board. There was no way for us to Make any adjustments and this is a big concern. We had some concerns last time about well We have lots of big budgets the the process we're looking at the DMO separately. I know that the city staff is looking at the overall structure the overall process and for how people book events at the city. I mean, currently we look at four different organizations. I mean, realistically, they probably only talk to two, maybe three. DMO, OVG, Levy, the Hyatt. You know, I kind of feel it's unfortunate that we are going over the individual renewals before we have a report on the entire process, before we had a study on, you know, how we can make the entire process more convenient, more efficient. And again, I have so many questions on what happens. How do we push businesses? How do we push events to include businesses that aren't in the district? Because again, we had a game last night. I went, I actually, I didn't go to the game. I talked to a number of people who did go. We met up afterwards and there were a lot of people there and there were a lot of cars there, but there weren't a lot of people staying after the event. There weren't a lot of people at the event before the event either, because there wasn't a lot to do there. I went to one of the watch parties in San Jose, and there were thousands. Holy cow. I could not even get close to that. And how do we get that level of event? How do we get that level of consideration? I don't know. I don't have answers to that. We're only looking at DMO right now. I'm really torn, meaning I think we need the tourism district. We need these kinds of things, but I don't know that the performance has been good enough. I would request that we get an assessment, that we get an audit of how well we're actually doing, meaning right now we say we're doing well. I keep hearing phrases such as the best in the world. This is the most amazing thing. I heard this at the last meeting. I can read from my notes. If I think about the events that we've had, the events don't actually support some of the comments that I'm hearing. And the reason that makes me a little bit nervous is I remember when we had Tier 1 events at our city, at the convention center. Like, I remember when that happened. And we did that with a budget less than $1.5 million. we had a chamber of commerce that was looking at businesses all throughout the city. And I know some of you have some personal opinions there, but again, I kind of feel that by not including an organization that's looking at businesses across the city, we are doing the city as a whole, a little bit of a disservice. I have to think about what we wanna do here. I wanna make a comment about one of the motions. I believe when I read this, it says, Number three, I believe this is included in the motion, which has authorized the city manager to make minor and administrative modifications to the agreement approved as the form by the city attorney. I kind of feel you mean approved as to form by the city attorney, which I believe means that city attorney will take personal responsibility for any of the changes. THE CHANGES, ANY PROBLEMS THAT COME OUT AS FOR THE CHANGES. AGAIN, I'M NOT AS FAMILIAR WITH APPROVED AS THE FORM AS I AM TO THE PHRASE APPROVED AS TO THE FORM, BUT IT'S AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN BY APPROVED AS THE FORM BY THE CITY ATTORNEY AND IF THAT DOES COME WITH AN ASSURANCE OF RESPONSIBILITY IF THERE ARE ISSUES WITH THE ADMINISTRATIVE MODIFICATIONS TO THE AGREEMENT THAT ARE MADE OR SUGGESTED BY THE CITY ATTORNEY.

City Attorney, would you like to respond as to what that means when you approve something to form? Sure, Madam Mayor.

That's a typo. Should have said approved as to form. There's no approved as to form. And that's a standard provision really virtually in every action that you take. The contracts are usually presented to you either finalized or in substantially final form and it's my job to make sure that there's any issue that's identified that's a mistake right or there's a minor correction that needs to be made or something that is consistent with council action, right, but would improve the contract, it's my job to make sure that the form is legally sound, consistent with council action, and addresses any and all kind of legal concerns. So that's what it is. It's usually a very administerial, you know, function, and it's a standard provision in virtually every contract you approve.

Understood. I guess my other question, the other part of that question is, and if you approve changes which may cause problems, for example, you've done something that causes problems, what does that mean for the rest of council and the city? Where does liability, what does liability lay?

I don't know if I understand the question. I mean, could you rephrase the question? I don't understand what you're saying.

So we authorize the city manager to make minor administrative modifications to the agreement approved as to form by city attorney, which means that you will make the suggestions. And at some point, the implication to me by the phrase approved as to form is that if there's an error introduced by the changes, that you would take responsibility for that.

That would be a matter of your review of my performance.

I see. So there's no automatic. It's just, well, something happened and we would take it as the city, but if we chose to see it as a change for one of the staff or anybody else, we could pursue that as an option. But in general, that's a city problem.

City Attorney, with the staff recommendation, you're not allowed to make any substantive changes. These are just minor.

That's right, Madam Mayor.

There's no substantive changes. I think the question might be if there were substantive changes that you've made without our approval, then you're held accountable, I think.

I'm trying yeah, the idea would be that and I'm sorry I'm just grappling with this as a new kind of topic to be introduced I am responsible to you and accountable to you for my performance These are intended to be administrative, you know issues and not substantive issues and But the contract that you approve that's signed by the city manager is the city's contract and

Thank you. Okay, and the reason that I asked this question is and we talked about substantive changes We've come across a number of items this year alone where things were not intended to be substantive changes and yet small minor changes have actually changed the the nature of Some of the things that we've been discussing and that's where my concern comes from. I don't need a response from that.

Thank you Any other comments I just want to say I'm supporting this. I think that the DMO, the renewal is appropriate and they have a great track record and I've never seen like such support from the hotels managers to come out three times to our council meeting to listen to us talk on and on. for this item. It's been so successful and which is evidenced by our Our tot tax that is just going up up up and is a major part of our budget So we rely on you to supply us with a huge major part of our budget and we're very grateful for what you do So when you come out and support the dmo Um, it means a lot i'm very grateful for that for all of you to come out You are a big part of our city And I I council member park said he went to the game, but there are thousands of tens of thousands of people and And I know many of them are staying in Santa Clara now. So thank you for supporting us and even coming out here in the middle of a World Cup to come and testify. So with that, City Clerk? Council Member Park, you had a long time to talk. You asked your questions. Did you forget something?

No, but I did have other things to add now that you've spoken.

Well, every time I speak, it's not necessary that you respond to what I say.

True, but if you do refer to me in a statement, I do believe I have a...

Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. It's got to be important. Go ahead.

So the first thing is I did not go to the game, and I do not contest that many people did watch the World Cup, but I met with somebody after the game. We met out of the city because there was no place for us to go. In fact, if anyone knows, you try to pick somebody up or try to go, you could not even get anywhere near the stadium if that's the direction that you were going. Everyone was leaving, and the people that were leaving were being pushed out of the city. We tried to meet several places within the city and there was literally almost nothing opened. So we ended up going to a neighboring city. So that's the first thing. But I did not attend the World Cup games. The other thing is, again, this is where I hear, this has been, I've never seen such support. It's been so successful. And again, my question to city staff would be, if we wanted to put assessments in here, because right now we're going by recommendations by requests from the GM's, which I appreciate. But at the same time, if we're looking at the bottom line for the City of Santa Clara, the City of Santa Clara bottom line is not bolstered by comments. It's bolstered by business. And the hotels, they're doing very well, which is why I'm very happy that the hotels are doing well and very happy that they're supporting the DMO. But when I look at the entire process that supports the City of Santa Clara, I want to know how we do assessments. So right now, It's kind of a popularity contest, which is no one's protesting. We've got a lot of people in... My mic did turn off. Who, I don't know, turned off my mic. Right. I could have. I could have. Mine's off too. I dare you to do it. All right. Please wind up because I want to call for the vote. I was asking my question.

I don't know if there's a question in there.

There is a question. I was asking my question.

Is this the question, please? Because I'm going to call for the vote.

So if we wanted to add assessments, if we wanted to add, meaning that I want to know what the numbers are. And right now, we are comparing against a blank slate. We are comparing, as one of the members said, that for many years, we had nothing. We had no one in that position. And if that's what we're comparing to, that's not a valid assessment. At some point to say that we're doing so well now that we've had this, that's not an assessment. That is a true statement based on a comparison with nothing but if we wanted to add assessments if we wanted to look into how it compares how it supports businesses beyond just the hotels because again many of the people that came sixty five thousand people that came to a game did not stay at hotels in the city of santa clara and there were many thousands of people who stayed at went to businesses they went to bars they went to other places in other cities And that did not benefit the City of Santa Clara alone. If we wanted to add an assessment, would there be a time to add the assessment? I'm thinking it would be at the time where, you know, this would be a good time. But I also can see that we could defer this until we have a fuller picture of the entire process. But at that time, would it be appropriate to add assessments for the partners that are marketing the City for us? Because right now, you could do anything and it would be helpful.

All right, let's see how this vote goes. Go ahead, Assistant City Clerk.

I'd like to know the answer to this question.

I don't know what the answer would be. I'm going to the vote. Assistant City Clerk.

My question was, is this an appropriate time to add an assessment?

Please register your vote. I think the vote will tell you if this is an appropriate time. Please register your vote. And that passes six to one. Thank you so much. We're going to take a 10-minute pause Thank you. Can everyone take their seats, please? We're not done.

One, two, three, four, five.

All right, the next item we have on the agenda is item number 11, action on proposed fiscal year 27-28 Santa Clara Stadium Authority capital expense projects deferred from June 9th. City Manager?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. As this item you are sitting as the stadium authority so to the board and as the board chair mentioned this is for the proposed 26-27 stadium authority capital expenditure projects following the board's action on March 10th to approve the first year of the capital improvement projects and defer years two through five the stadium authority staff conducted Additional review with the stadium manager including receiving expanded project detail and participating in a job walk or a site walk on May 4th of this year. Based on that review, staff recommends approval of the proposed 2728 capital budget totaling $11.1 million. which includes 4.1 million previously approved by the board and 6.7 million in additional recommendations as you will see in in your packet and through the presentation there are two projects totaling a little over a million dollars that we are not recommending for approval actually a little over two million dollars that we are not recommending for approval and we will talk about those Note that this recommendation is being evaluated in a broader context of the long-term capital improvement plan for the stadium authority, including a future city facility assessment and an upcoming receipt of a stadium authority manager's facility assessment. With that, I will turn the presentation over to Ken Lee, Acting Assistant City Manager and Chief Financial Officer.

All right, Director Lee.

uh... thank you executive director good evening honorable chair steam authority board members ken lee assistant city manager chief financial officer appreciate the opportunity to talk about uh... it seems like a theme tonight capital maintenance capital projects you heard earlier uh... me talk about on the city side just some of the urgent needs and as we look to protect our city assets the stadium is is not alone in this and so uh... this conversation uh... is one that started uh... on march tenth of uh... this fiscal year with the stadium authority budget. It's likely a topic that we will talk about over the next several years as we wrestle with and determine a way to fund the capital needs to make sure that our Levi's Stadium is well maintained and in good working order. Just to remind those at home watching the board, just some of the actions on that 10th. I know that was over three months ago. In that March 10th budget adoption, the Stadium Authority Board did approve the first year of a five-year budget plan. That was the fiscal year 26-27 budget, and then items in year two when there are dollars allocated in year one. So if there were continuing projects, The board did approve those items, and I'll talk about some of those that are included in the number. At that time, the Stadium Authority Board did not approve the CAPEX budgets for years two through five, those projects that were going to start there. Directed staff, upon completion of the stadium manager's facility condition assessments, upon stadium authority staff evaluation to return to the board with recommendations for years two through five. At that meeting, staff also committed to conduct further review and bring back recommendations within 90 days on the second year budget. So that is why we're here before you. This item was presented at least on the agenda within the 90 days and deferred to tonight's meeting. And so I'll talk about the recommendations included for that year two of the Stadium Authority budget. Now, there's a long list of projects on here. As the executive director mentioned, there are some modifications to the stadium manager recommendation that are included in some of the notes there in column four. With regards to premium areas, approval of 50% of the ask is recommended. uh... with regards to we finding sign at that uh... item is not approved at this time and uh... as was mentioned in the opening comments uh... on may fourth there was a two were in a walk through which included our uh... public works engineering staff staff from the city manager's office as well as staff from the stadium manager that walk this sites looked at some of the conditions, took pictures of some of the conditions of these items, brought forward recommendations for approval on that list, and noted here with additional direction is really wanting to increase and understand that engagement with our stadium manager as these projects move forward. What are the types of materials being used? What are the recommendations for exact kind of replacements on certain items. And so that's the additional direction that's noted here. And so with this, out of the $9.1 million ask, the additional recommended amount for year two is roughly $6.7 million, and that was based on the evaluation conducted during that tour. When you consider that five projects were approved as part of that March 10th item that totaled $4.4 million, those were projects where they had dollars in year one and in year two, so based on that, that first action was included in that. A staff's recommendation tonight includes the 6.7 that I just talked about in the prior slide. And then in year two, it also includes some public safety items that our city departments submit as stadium authority requests. That's the 53,000 part of a replacement schedule for the Kawasaki ATVs that are used from a public safety standpoint. So that is included as part of the recommended actions tonight just because we are looking at the comprehensive year two allocation. And so wanted to keep that brief, hopefully enough context for tonight's conversation. So the recommendation here is really around year two of that stadium authority budget that was directed as part of that adoption on March 10th. and we will continue you know the theme of capex projects additional work will be needed by stadium authority staff to continue to work with a stadium manager on on the remaining items beyond year two and so with that i'll pause i know um there i believe there are stadium manager staff available online as well to answer questions thank you councilmember jane authority member jane

Thank you, Director Lee. I guess my question is, it's $11 million. Where is it coming from and how does that fit into the funding waterfall that we have, the money waterfall that we have with the stadium when we have stadium authority money? And will, as you follow that waterfall, does it reduce the amount of money that comes to the general fund? And then again, I know you said that, you know, we have ongoing, we're looking at substantial CapEx expenditures and we need to come up with a plan for that. What is the process of determining that plan? Is that just talking to Manco? Is that talking to consultants? What is the plan for a long-term plan funding strategy for CapEx expenditures. Thank you.

Thank you, authority member Hardy.

Thank you. I did notice the two things that were pulled from what the stadium manager wanted. On the premium areas, you're suggesting we do 50%. If I remember right, on the premium areas, I want to understand if those were the luxury suites or if that was the club part, because I know we do not make the... Profit on those I was but it is our stadium. I wanted to understand was there a pushback over that and the wayfinding signs The stadium managers claiming that those are rusted and not doing well and staff wanted to wait so I just wanted to understand because it was hard to tell from the pictures which of those was more of a good argument. But the rest of it looked really good and made sense for a stadium that was built in 2024. Thank you.

Authority Member Cox.

Thank you, Director Lee. A few questions. It was noted in the report that the public works staff and engineers attended the May 4th walkthrough and saw that a lot of the capital repairs qualified as either scratches or dents. So they did not see significant deterioration or widespread failure in the luxury areas. So since our own engineers found cosmetic scratches dense chips, is it more, and I think that the report said this, perhaps looking at these as annual or on the spot fixes instead of including them in a capital expense budget. So if we were to do that and say that this is ongoing maintenance, what would that reduce from a prioritization list like this? I wanted to understand more about the approval of 50% of the requested funds from the premium areas because it again says that the plan was unclear and it was not tied to actual repair needs. So if the full scope of work is unclear, how are we committing 1.2 and how did we come up with that number? There was a footnote under the carryover that says that the $12.2 million is not included in that. I think that it says specifically the draft plan explicitly states it does not include any carry forward projects from 2025. So I just want to understand if that is not included in this total cost or if we really need to consider that in the total debt that we're working with. The stadium authority is hiring their experts via RFP, but the report isn't ready to 2027. We're hiring our own to do it. I'm wondering what happens if there's a conflict on that where, you know, they're saying something is deemed required and we believe it's cosmetic. Who actually has final authority over budget items like that? I also saw that there were several items in there that had a $100,000 placeholder estimate, and the footnote in that said that we did not know if the $100,000 would be sufficient. So when we approve something like this, knowing that the monies are not necessarily accurate and they come in significantly higher or lower, what do we do with this capital budget? And what flexibility do we have from the number that we're approving tonight? And then... I think my last question was just about understanding one of the things, it's a smaller item, but $410,000 for the beer fixing. We do make concession money off non-NFL events, but it is proportional to what we're paying the vendors coming in, et cetera. How did we deem that one of our expenses for this when it largely serves, you know, their money-making capacity? If this $410,000 in there, is that a cost share where we're paying for part of it because we end up getting a very marginal percent of the profit that's made on that? So how did that get put into the budget? Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Chair Gonzalez.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I'll start off with that last question. But without going into specifics as far as the nature of the events or the monies that we make from different events because of some propriety things, I think that these aspects are, from your perspective, are they relevant as far as in not that we're going to make our ROI necessarily, but that it does make us money moving forward? I KNOW WE'RE MOVING MORE TOWARDS MAKING SURE THAT WE HANDLE OUR FACILITIES IN A WAY THAT WE'RE ABLE TO KEEP THEM UP TO A GOOD STANDARD AND OBVIOUSLY THE STADIUM IS PART OF THAT. Moving forward, I know this report was done more from the management company, but how do we work with them in the future to find neutral parties to make sure that we, you know, moving forward that we're doing this jointly, right? So that we feel that it's something beneficial to both. I think, obviously, I believe this is beneficial to both in that They want and we want what's best for the folks who are visiting the stadium. I could tell you the way finding signs that are out there for these games are really good. I went to two of the four games and they're much better than the normal way finding signs. that we have in the past so that's something that I know we're not funding but maybe in the future as far as new technology comes out whatever that may be I mean we can see some best practices at other stadiums you know more recent stadiums that how they're working as far as way finding and maybe in the future look at incorporating something that might be beneficial to to our stadium you know in that respect the other question I had was I forgot, but I'll bring it back. Thanks.

authority member Chaha Thank You ma'am Quick question on the ad a platform which is we are approving to full 1.5 million dollars It says the project is not associated with ad a remediation projects managed by funded by 49ers. So my question is We are adding some seats on those ad a Platforms are they subject to SPL or they are not subject to SPL. I

Oh, is that it? I was waiting for an answer. Okay. I have a couple of questions. So at our March meeting, we discussed that the capital reserve balance was insufficient and the funds had been borrowed from the operating reserve to cover capital needs. This might have been asked earlier, I'm not sure. This report doesn't address funding source at all. So where is this, the 11 million coming from, or the extra 6 million, and what does approving this do to the reserve balance in the amount previously borrowed from operations? And has the amount that has been borrowed from the operating reserve in 26, 27, has it been repaid or partially repaid or is it still outstanding? Does the 11 million request assume all of it further borrowing from operations? Because in this report, the only thing I could find that talked about the funding source said, quote, the stadium authority's current capital reserve balance is far below an appropriate level and increasing the balance will be a major focus of future budgetary and capital project planning. So the original five-year CapEx plan submitted by the stadium manager already included significant investment in the out years in 26, 27. Was that plan built on assuming a healthy reserve, capital reserve? If so has staff adjusted the recommendation given the reserve is known to be inadequate.

And so those are my questions And I think that's it Ken Okay, so I think it'll be a team effort here I'll start off and then both executive director grogan as well as potentially stadium manager online and I could chime in and add, too. And so a couple questions on how this is funded. You may recall that in our March 10th budget, we did have a 10-year forecasted projection that would require an impact to our operating reserves starting in year two. So this is a plan that's focused on year two. And so all things being equal from those projections, yeah, I mean, we would need to balance out what are the highest priority projects within this list, identify funding. If no new source is available, use some of the operating reserves. fund some additional capital dollars. I do want to comment on that, though, because our contract, as it's structured, had a very low base level of capital contributions, roughly $3 million or so a year, and then through the waterfall, an additional million dollars that grows by some CPI factor, so four, four and a half million a year. For an asset this large, this expensive, that's a very small number, right? as the stadium ages the the contemplation of needing additional funds where that might come from was something that I think we as a authority board was going to have to face now are there measures that we can do to delay that or potentially prolong kind of the existing reserves and tap into the operating reserves and that's where This is the start of that conversation, but over the next course of six months to a year through the next budget process, the goal really for the stadium authority is to build a team of experts that includes conducting our own facility condition assessment study to validate it against what the stadium manager has done. potentially there are disagreements that come out of two different assessments and we would have to work through those. And then also identify just key partners within our city organization that would be the expert and point person for capital projects. That would be a combination of of experience of facility maintenance, of engineering support, as well as potentially outside consultants. So really to build a team to evaluate the condition of the stadium and provide the expertise to evaluate some of these requests and recommendations going forward. That being said, you know, the question was asked. Well, what happens if things change there's placeholders in some of these budgets This is a year to budget that that is before you today as as with any kind of long-term financial plan this budget will be back before the board as part of the 2728 budget as a year one budget as these items move forward and in the in that annual kind of review of out your budgets. Our goal as a stadium authority is to ask the questions to refine some of these projects and use that expertise team to really drill in and bring forward recommendations to this board on what capital projects are funded. With the limited dollars it is important that we do Prioritize those projects so when these recommendations coming forward when you know for example the beer I think item you know that the team that did the tour saw corrosion on a lot of the pieces of equipment and when it comes to who's responsible it's really dictated by our stadium authority contract, and so this being a capital item, the beer actually has a sophisticated distribution system within the stadium, and so we did feel that that fell on the stadium authority as far as a need. and there was a question on uh... premium areas the fifty percent and and really working with the stadium manager and trying to understand that number it was a number that was dictated by a per square foot uh... assumption there these are premium areas where there's a batch in that shared kind kind of uh... responsible space this isn't within the luxury offices themselves. And so we did identify some areas where there were finishes that did require replacements. I think some of the comments that members of the tour saw that some of the soft type materials, woods, that did experience damage, those are items where we're working with a stadium manager. Hey, if those do need replacement, let's do it in a factor that's efficient, that puts more durable products into place. And I see executive director wants to add to that.

Specific to the premium areas, as Ken noted, this is not the luxury suites. This is the clubs. Per our lease, it's shared space, but it's space that we as a stadium authority maintain, and it's our responsibility. And that's the case with all of these improvements. Per the contracts that the city entered into, these spaces are maintained by the authority. That's why they're funded by the authority. With regard to the premium spaces, what's noted is that we did not find any failed soft materials or non-movable furniture. But frankly, with heavy use, there were chips and cracks and dents throughout the facility. And so one of the things that the stadium manager did in their initial budget submittal, they did about... roughly $200 per square foot looking at the square footage of all the premium areas. We thought that additional work needed to be done to really hone in on the specific treatment. As you can imagine, there's many ways to repair a chip or a scratch. You can have a company come out and just replace the entire quartz countertop, or you can have a company come out and repair the chip. And so we thought that it was appropriate. And when you looked at the areas, They certainly have been well maintained, but they are suffering from heavy use. And there are significant areas that do need to be addressed. And so we thought that it was appropriate to provide an amount of funds to begin the process. as well as statements in here and recommendations in here that the stadium manager should work with staff on identification of any replacements so that we are involved in the selection of the replacement material. Oftentimes how the process typically works now is that the stadium authority, per the management contract, takes care of the management operations and maintenance even when they're doing it with stadium authority dollars and we will get a permit but we don't always now have a approval loop into the the material selections and so you'll see that that is throughout a number of the items here and so Certainly we note in this write-up that talks about replacement of interior finishes that we absolutely substantiate it, that they need some work.

So there was a question board member Cox did ask about the I think the footnote on the carry forward project So those are projects that are in a current year that carry over to the first year because we're talking about the second year of the budget That's why they're excluded. So just wanted to be clear about what? what the council's voting on and looking at. And that's a practice of carrying over capital budget dollars, similar to the city when there's a project that hasn't been completed or still is in progress that we carry over projects.

So because this is the year two of that plan,

not included in the numbers. There was a question on how do we determine the ROI on some of these projects? Board Member Gonzales, and a couple things. I mean, the responsibility for a lot of the capital projects do lie on the stadium authority. It is our facility, it is in our interest, both to the bondholders, to the draw of events, to make sure that our facility is in a condition that would demand kind of events and concerts and in that way return money. We do not do an ROI specific to specific projects. That's something that we've contemplated in terms of asking this stadium manager, hey, are there projects in here that would enhance revenues into the bowl? And so I think that was a takeaway that we need to continue to work with the stadium manager on. As far as technology and wayfinding finds, when the team went out on the tour, we did find that the wayfinding signs seemed to be in functional shape. And so to the extent there's technology that would be better, that would be up to either the assessment or the stadium managers to make those recommendations. And then for us as the Stadium Authority, Stadium Authority Board to prioritize it against other projects that are critical and important and determine, Does that rise up to the priority where we have limited capital dollars to use our dollars on either enhancements such as that or more of the systems that you see some of these revolve around boilers and some of the systems within the building? uh... mayor you asked about the sources of revenue i mentioned earlier a ten-year projection in march of that this would come from operating reserves uh... it's always a goal as your finance representative to ensure that stadium revenues are maximized and and i know part of that revenue stream are non nfl event revenues and so we know that It's been a topic in prior budgets that our stadium manager projects low and then hopefully exceeds that. And so to the extent that there are more events in that fiscal year, that would reduce the amount of operating dollars that would be required. But to the extent there aren't operating dollars able to cover this additional amount, the waterfall buckets do say that it would impact the relevant operating reserves that would be replenished and reduce general fund dollars at the end of the day. So that is a potential risk out there. Of course, the goal here is to ensure that the revenues are maximized and the projects are prioritized in a way that only the most critical are needed to maintain.

Ken, my question was, where is this additional money coming from? Is it coming from operating reserves?

For year two, the projection is it would come from operating reserves and need to be replenished by the waterfall. Yes.

And with that I think there are a couple more questions, but I want to note that we do have Francine Hughes the stadium manager online as well as an individual named Kevin Wang with the general counsel's office online for manco online they may want to elaborate on some of the responses know that these are the recommendations we're providing you um they're they're not contesting this but they may not totally agree with with all of our assessments and uh understand that it was this this a city team that went out to assess the facility and there are some items that they are recommending that we are not supporting so i do want to note that they're on and can provide additional comment

Were you finished with the questions? I think there was one more around ADA platforms and whether an SBL is, and I'll answer it in general and then if you wanna take it, go ahead.

So the ADA platforms are not SBL seats. They're intended for day of accommodations. And so oftentimes people buy a ticket and either they have a temporary disability or a permanent disability and having additional places to locate Individuals is an important aspect and we want to increase accessibility All right, so Did the stadium managers want to make any comments Nor will you bring in Francine Hughes?

He's here. She's on and Kevin Wang is that the other person? She's not putting her hand up or, oh, Francine? Did you want to say? I'm here. Would you like to say something?

I mean, I'd like to just comment on the premium spaces. I know there's been a lot of conversation around that. And I think it's just important to note that Levi's Stadium, as you guys know, is a world-class facility. And it's been shown through these events that we're hosting, such as Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup, We want to make sure that our premium spaces are maintained in a manner that is becoming of the stadium. So I want to make sure that everybody really realizes that we're going into our 13th season, and as a result of that, spaces are going to need to be refreshed. The club spaces are spaces that are in need of refresh, whether it's casework, ceilings, flooring, those are things that we're looking at, and we want to make sure that the SPL holders that are coming into these spaces that are accustomed to seeing a space that is well kept that we're able to continue doing that for them. I know there was a question I think from Karen Hardy regarding the suites and this has nothing to do with suites it's all about the club spaces.

So Francine, I have a question and it really relates to the capital improvement reserve since it's very low or almost non-existent. Is the plan going forward to spend the operating reserve money on these future capital improvements? Because that's very concerning. So that's my question.

Kevin, do you want to respond to that?

Sure. Yeah, this is Kevin Wang. I serve as vice president and senior stadium counsel for the 49er Stadium Management Company. Appreciate the board's time and appreciate the opportunity to commentate on this. On that particular issue, I would just generally say that from our general understanding, the funding sources that are set up under the lease The money is going to come from the CapEx fund. And then to the extent that gets reduced to a zero balance, then we shift over to the operating reserve fund. which will then get refilled at the end of the year. And so from our perspective, we don't necessarily see an issue here as far as the funding is concerned. We think there is sufficient funding. And so our position is that ultimately, you know, we're in decent shape for FY27, financially speaking.

All right. I just... find it interesting that using the operating reserve for capital improvements is not something I would use as a business model. But anyways, authority member Jane. Authority member Jane.

I was going to let the city manager speak.

If you want to speak, you can speak.

I will speak now. Thank you. I don't know how we got this wrong. You know, the It's a billion-dollar facility. HVAC systems last 20 years. That means you need to put 5% aside for HVAC systems. That means, you know, even if you use 2%, you'd need $20 million a year. If you need 5%, you need $50 million a year. And in the original agreements, I guess the city signed, we only allocated $3 to $4 million, according to Director Lee. So somehow in the original agreements, we just got it wrong. And I'm trying to figure out, you know, it seems like if we're going to take operating money and use that for CapEx, basically the flow to the general fund will dwindle to zero. And that's very concerning to me. So I'm just trying to figure out how we got this so wrong from the original agreements.

Any other questions? All right, do we have any member of the public that would like to speak? I think we have a hand. Who is it? Eric? Eric, go ahead, please. Oh, yeah.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Council. Thanks for your time. Just wanted to, just as a local restaurant in the area, just wanted to say how Levi's Stadium is really important to us. the you know we were looking at some of the stats and you know obviously the football games bring in more revenue but the concerts were particularly relevant like we were looking at some of the like Morgan Wallen, it was, I mean, it doubled our revenue. And just, I mean, obviously FIFA World Cup is doing great. So, I mean, I know you guys already know all this, but it's just, as a member of the community, just wanted to state that it is a big driver for us. And yeah, just appreciate everyone. Thank you. Have a good night.

Thank you, Eric. Appreciate it. Brian, go ahead, please.

Thank you. I just want to make sure, and it seems like you're doing that, that you make sure that accessibility and safe places for people who utilize other methods of translocation are given that, including people who use walkers and canes, that sidewalks are smooth, that there's not places to trip. Just something to think about. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak on this issue? If not, Authority Member Cox.

I just had an additional question. I wanted to know about the timing for both the stadium manager's assessment and ours as well. I know that that has been something that we've referred to for the last few years as kind of a guiding light in all of this. And to Councilmember Jayne's point, you know, I do believe we budgeted for this $11 million in the capital expense reserves, but the follow-up then to ensure that we're using it as wisely as possible for projects that are going to be needed in light of $50 million or $75 million coming in I think is really the question at hand right now. And with some ambiguity about what constitutes a significant change, a cosmetic change, and without that piece of paper as an authority, it's hard to make these determinations. So I'd like to know more about that timeline.

Yeah, so I'll comment. I know that the stadium manager's facility condition assessment, I think the year was like 2027 in terms of completion. We are working on procuring and trying to onboard our own, and so that's gonna be a process. I mentioned earlier the expertise that we need as a stadium authority, and so our goal is really to build that team, whether it's a consultant that does a facility condition assessment, Other expertise that we might need either in-house or outside that to bring in to evaluate these these projects. I'm your question on How do we know these are the most urgent coming forward? I mean these these projects will come to the board annually their contracts to the extent they're above the executive directors authority will come back to the board and and so the scopes the the bidding and and the the cadence of these projects will increase as they come to the board. And so you'll have opportunities as part of the contracting process to determine, hey, is the scope that's being bid, is this award of this contractor, is this work, does that seem to be of the highest priority? And that would also be vetted by stadium authority staff and our team of experts. So comment on that.

And so if I hear what you're saying, we've got these as placeholders, the quotes are going to come back or the proposals, we'll have to talk about that at a later date. I think my question that didn't get answered earlier was, if there is significant variance between the stadium manager's assessment and the city's assessment, where are our teeth to hold our own position there? How's that going to be negotiated?

I think the goal is obviously to close that bridge, but it's to close that bridge based on an understanding of why. Why does one expert view a project or improvement as necessary and another expert might differ on that? So I think that understanding the why of why they're different will be important for the stadium authority and then ultimately it's the stadium authorities board as part of the capital annual capital budget approval process to to approve and or deny some of these requests just as we've gone through this last budget process and there's there's language in place that dictates what happens when there are items that are not approved i don't know if a city attorney if you you have anything to add but

Just to add, consistent with that, it's your budget, so it comes back to you for your approval. And as you know, because it's happened from time to time, including this last year, if there's a dispute between the parties on what ought to go into the budget, there's a dispute resolution mechanism to resolve that. So this would fall within that category.

Thank you, Ken. Thank you, Francine, as well.

Ken, can I ask you just a follow-up? I heard the words you said and it doesn't even sound like we've started the procurement process for the stadium assessment. Have we started that and where are we in the process? Because I know we've been talking about this for years and the Stadium manager has been talking about theirs for years for an assessment that should take a couple of months. So where actually are we with the assessment?

So with regards to the stadium authorities facility condition assessment, I think that was a topic that came out of the March.

Right, right.

uh... budget and direction to staff and and so uh... a scopes been drafted it's not on the street yet we haven't selected a vendor i know that both at the procurement of of a of a consultant will take some time uh... i do know that these studies uh... depending on the depth of the study that's the work that's being asked for the scope likely longer than a couple months, but again, will depend on the quality and time period. So it's not yet started in process. Our goal, my goal is, you know, day two in this new role is to get that on the street as quickly as possible.

Did you say day two in your new role?

Yeah, in my acting role.

Okay, so you said the scope has been drafted.

Didn't mean to throw that out, but just want to caveat that.

No, that was interesting. I picked that up. The scope has been drafted. Can we see the scope?

You know when that hits the street absolutely we can share that with but you said it's drafted now The scope is drafted in my inbox city manager.

I'd like to see the scope Okay, if it's been drafted. Thank you appreciate it Thanks. All right Vice Mayor Gonzales Do you have a motion?

Thank you.

I went to the public, yeah.

Yeah, went to the public.

I did.

Yeah, so I'm going to make a motion, just make a couple comments here. So this is basically our stadium, right? If we fix it up in a way, people are not going to run off with the countertops from certain places, so... As we improve the stadium, we were talking about the convention center earlier. Sacramento spent over $350 million on the recent convention center and performing arts center 10 years ago or 12 years ago, whatever it was. San Jose put in $130 million, 100,000 square feet into their convention center. If we don't keep up our stadium, people are not going to want to go there. Obviously, Super Bowl, FIFA, people want to be here. And we just got to keep keep maintaining that and find ways to make sure that we can do that I know we want to squeeze every dollar out of there and bring it into the operational general fund for the city But as long as we're not negative and we're not we're not going to be negative We just got to make sure that we find ways to to deal with some of the costs that uh, but it takes to have Stadium like it takes to have your house, you know, you have certain certain costs that you that you have to Account for and if you don't you're gonna you know have to replace your water heater out of Some some funds maybe you don't go on vacation out here or something, right? But so we have to find ways to make sure that we do this in a way that uh, that's best for the city obviously You know if we did not send the money and it came over to the general fund that would be would be great But we do know we have to keep it up That's something that we just got to keep doing it as we move forward. Um, so I don't think it was an issue customer Jane as far as maybe people not accounting for that Maybe they they thought the foot though the four million or so what it was gonna be enough with a cat with the CPI you know accounting for that but um But we know that it's not so how do we look at maybe some other revenues and any way to do that in the future? Possibly but with that I'll make a motion for the staff recommendation. I

All right, is there a second? All right, dies for lack of a second. Council Member, Authority Member Chauhal.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to make brief comments. Thank you, staff, for doing your diligent work on all the items you were presented with by the stadium manager, basically. And I do echo Council Member Jain's comments, like our original agreement Lacked mechanism to fund the capital improvements for the long term basically and We are fully responsible for it, but we did not have the mechanism to have a capital fund which can take care of these capital improvements down the line. So I don't know where we lacked on that, but definitely the agreement was not financially sound for us to take all this responsibility. That lacks, but now it is with us. We have to deal with it.

Mr. Park?

Yeah, I hear all of these concerns as well, and I wonder how much time we're spending basically just reviewing the reports that the stadium manager is giving us. I mean, I feel like we're doing double work, which is not a bad thing. Like, you know, no pro rei, trust but verify, and we don't have to verify every report, but we have to verify enough of the reports that we believe all of the reports that come before us. And I understand that, you know, this is a year two budget. It'll be, you know, re-presented next year, I think, as a year one budget. And we'll have, you know, but it provides the amount of funds that we need to get things started, especially for multi-year projects that start in year two that will continue on. And it gives us a place to start. But how would we include year one projects that didn't complete in year one, that continued in year two and needed more funding? I mean, would those be continue on projects and we would simply apply more more funding to that, or would we choose to view them as potentially new projects? I mean, what happens when you've got a miscalculation, not just in terms of money, but money and time? I guess that's the first question. Second question is, I mean, I hear the questions that Councilmember Cox or Authority Member Cox is asking about, well, how do we verify this? How do we do things? And it seems to me that a stadium authority would need more background than a simple elected official would have, especially about managing a stadium. Is there any training that's provided? I mean, I don't know if the original stadium authority, when it was put together, which was also council members, if they had any training on this is how you manage a stadium. Because a lot of the questions that we have, I think, would be answered or would be a matter of course to a stadium authority that actually had the job of managing a stadium or knew how to manage a stadium, had the appropriate background for doing so. I would like to know how much time our staff is spending verifying. I don't know if there's a way that we can work with the stadium managers, so instead of verifying afterwards, we're doing the verification going forward along with the assessment. I mean, that's more of a cooperative partnership as opposed to a business partnership. Contract or a business deal where we don't necessarily trust we want to make sure that we're getting the best deal and the way that we're gonna Do that is we're gonna we're gonna audit every line item I think at some point there should be some level of projects which would we would want to audit especially if they're high visibility high cost, but there should be some level of Cooperative effort where we can approve and we know without question without duplicate replication of time projects that You know, we agree are necessary. I do also have concerns that everything in this city, I don't think that many things in this city at all have any thought put into them for long-term maintenance. I mean, I'm very happy that we have a demolition and maintenance fund here. And again, I think that's where things should come from. I've heard it offered that the amount of money in the demolition fund may not be the amount that's required to actually demolish the stadium. And if that's the case, are we looking into this so that maybe we can spend some of the more and some of the money on the maintenance aspects using that fund? because I think that's where the appropriate that's what would be appropriate but The drawback of that is without a an analysis without knowing how much the demolition is actually going to cost we could potentially Spend more money and not have enough Money for the actual demolition. So I'd like to do assessment there again, I share the concerns that We're going to do an assessment. Again, it looks like the State of Managers assessment is going to start next year. I mean, we have lots of disagreement at the last meeting on when you should do an assessment, how long the assessment should be for. But at this point, we've talked about it long enough that I would think that an assessment should be in place. I'm a little bit concerned about that as well. There are drafts. I heard a direction or I heard a request to see the drafts right now. would be okay with that, but if there's going to be significant changes to that draft, I'd rather not spend my time on a draft that hasn't been reviewed yet, because At some point, if there are changes, then that will cause even more questions. I'd like to at least have staff go through the first pass, especially if it's in your inbox and it's the first time that the finance director has seen it. I think that it would be wise to let him go through at least one pass with staff before it comes to anybody's eyes. I don't know what we can request with that. But again, all of these things, are there classes, are there, how do we get background in doing this? I feel like we're on the dais relatively blind because we don't really know how to manage a stadium. We don't know, we have a lot of ideas of how a stadium should be managed. We have ideas of how we would manage maintenance and funds, funding for maintenance for a different type of project, but this is a stadium, and I don't know that anyone on this dais has Experience managing a stadium.

Thank you Wow, okay count authority member Jane I Agree with what? Authority member Park said I don't think we have really the expertise in-house we're relying on the stadium manager and to provide us most of the guidance. And I think that we certainly need to do the things that are life safety related, ADA related, but some of the other things I think we could maybe defer, like the backbone fiber optics, it's not clear to me, why we need that right at this time. The furniture, I think, you know, you certainly have to do the first aid hospital beds because that's, you know, safety related. But I don't know, I guess I don't quite understand about the Swiss pearl exterior panel system. So I don't feel, as Authority Member Park said, I don't feel like I have the expertise or the competence to evaluate what is important and what's not important. But my issue is really where's the money coming from? Can we take it from the demolition reserve? Is that legal for us to do that? How much is in the current operating reserve and how much is in the current capital reserve?

Thank you Thank you, I just wanted to make certain I completely understood the time frame because we have approved year one and This was year two that we're looking at so I want to make certain if these projects are needed and necessary, would us putting this off be a problem or what I'm hearing is a lot of people don't have enough information. I'm wondering if a tour for all of us would help to point out some of this. Thank you.

I think I can answer what would help would be that that facility assessment that we've been talking about and that's was our discussion from last March that it's hard for us to approve capital improvements blind going forward without the facility assessment. That's why I'm pushing where's the scope? Why isn't it out? We talked about it in March how important that was and that's why this board only approved one year. of the capital improvement. So I was surprised to have this come back. We asked for it to come back, but to have additional projects that are going to be funded by our operating reserves, and we still don't have the facilities assessment. It's just like anything, you don't move ahead with that type of facility until you have a plan, and we don't have a plan. So this is just, you know, This is just work, this is, you know, nice to have, probably needs to be done, but without an expert that we hire going out there to give us an unbiased report of what we need to do, I don't know if our money, or this $11 million or $6 million in addition, is going in the right areas. We may say, hey, you know, this report says here's the priority areas. We should spend the money there first if we're going to use our operating reserves or our demolition fund or any amount of money because it's all going to affect the money that comes back to the general fund. So where are the priorities? And we just don't have that report. which is critical. So I'm uncomfortable moving ahead with this because I don't know better than anyone. I don't know if, you know, we do a tour. Does that make us experts because we're looking at something? No, we need the experts to look at it and bring that back to us to give us the assessment of what needs to be done and what the priorities are. That's my opinion, City Authority Executive Director.

Thank you, board chair, board members. Let me make a couple comments. Mayor, I actually think it was you at our last meeting on this topic that said we're frankly entering into phase two of capital repairs at the stadium. Worth noting that the information that staff had received in time for the budget conversation that we had in March was really a spreadsheet with titles and numbers, and we had some Q&A back and forth. But it was not the level of detail that you have in front of you. What you have in front of you are capital project pages with additional detail and budget year, similar to what you get for regular city projects, right? We work with the stadium manager, even during this, frankly, very, very busy time for... them and us, right, beginning in March, frankly, as we were finally preparing for FIFA and now in implementation of the FIFA games. we worked and provided additional information to you. The goal set out at the last March meeting was a comeback to us in 90 days for the year two projects because the stadium manager really articulated the need to know what they would be working on in year two so they could appropriately plan. And as you see from a number of the descriptions in here, they have identified what needs to be fixed, but not actually the precise treatment, right? And our recommendations and modifications, we didn't just say approve without any additional comment or changes. Throughout the, I think more than 24 page document for each project, we articulate what staff observed when they went and did a tour, as well as the professional analysis. What has been mentioned here a number of times I wholeheartedly agree with which is the stadium Authority does not have the staff on hand nor right now a contract for a facilities expert and Frankly, in the agreements that this agency set up in 2014 and a little bit before that, you vested that authority with the stadium manager, and for the last 13 years or 12 years of the facility, we've really relied on the stadium manager for their review, their recommendations, and ultimately their approval of, I believe, 100% of what they had recommended nearly for capital projects with very little detail. Now we're getting into projected significant investments into the facility. And what we've said is, one, we need our own facility condition assessment. I won't rehash the conversation that we had last time, but I'll only say that when the idea of a facility condition assessment initially came up, it was staff's recommendation that we actually do that jointly with MANCO. So we didn't have competing documents. We jointly funded it. They elected not to go that route. And so we are in this situation where we need to conduct our own and also do a peer review of theirs. And so... We are setting about that course. I will also say that there was a question by Council Member Kevin Park or Board Member Kevin Park about carryover projects. For carryover projects for the stadium, it would be very similar to our carryover projects. When you appropriate money for a capital improvement project, it goes to that project. If that project is not done in that given year, it stays in the... in the project if additional funds need to be added, there's an additional appropriation request. And so it's just a basic sort of carryover of a capital improvement project. There were a number of questions about the renovation or it was mentioned the demolition fund. I'll note the official title is the Renovation and Demolition Fund, but it's projected to be fully funded or needs to be fully funded by year 40, at which point that's when it could be used. I'm sorry, it's projected to be funded sooner, but the current agreements call for it to really be used in year 40. And so the question is, can that be used sooner? potentially, but that requires a renegotiation of the agreement. You may recall that one of the things we recently did is we renegotiated the agreement to fund that fund slower to help fund other things for the stadium authority because, as per the agreements, whether it's a renovation or demolition, it's used in year 40. And Board Member Park, you're absolutely right that that is not intended to cover the full cost of renovations or demolition, but essentially be a down payment or deposit toward that expense. And specific to demolition, the contract places the onus to dilemmas or the responsibility to demolish the stadium if the board calls for that at year 40 onto the tenant, and the money in that fund would essentially be a contribution that had built up over time to help subsidize that cost, not pay for the full cost. Also, I will say that since our last meeting, the stadium authority internally has had significant conversations around we may very well need to come to the board with a recommendation that not only doing a... Facility condition assessment, but we may need our own capital staff. That is I think a board member Park said where we're not just simply reviewing but it's more of a Hand in hand process, right? We have office space at the at the stadium that we don't use on a regular basis So one of the conversations we've been having is do we need our own facility support person that is there that that is partnered with MANCO as they're analyzing projects and replacements and that can be someone there that has a visual eye that knows the treatment that they're choosing. There was a question about the Swiss Pearl, right? The Swiss Pearl exterior treatments. If you were there and certainly we could set up a tour and you'll see exactly what we saw. The wrong material was selected for initial construction. It's not durable enough. There are holes, dents, kicks all across the facility. And frankly, I think the stadium authority, the stadium manager is right. It does not present well. Now, the parts up above are just faded, but the parts below are significantly bent and chipped, and it just doesn't look good. And so we did recommend that they proceed with that, but what we said is we, being the stadium authority, need to have a hand in the eventual selection of the material and in the premium areas. gorgeous wood that I'm sure looked great 13 years ago, but just hasn't held up and probably was the wrong selection of materials. And so, I certainly understand the board's comments around we are now looking at projected significant capital expenditures. We don't know what that number is until we have our condition assessment, until we receive the stadium manager's condition assessment or the tenant's condition assessment, and we work through that process. But what you have before you is a recommendation that was, I believe, in the original request from the stadium manager of... 9.1 million upon review and additional analysis staff is recommending to reduce that to 6.6 now Absolutely, we will have a need for expenditures in the future that will far exceed those that we that we need to prioritize and work through That is a process and and I think that there were some comments that were made, you know will the projected or anticipated level of capital expenditures Reduce the general fund money sort of nothing changes very likely. Yes, right action some of the projections we saw that was it that would that was a yes and so there needs to be a and analysis of that, a solve to that, and all of this, as we've said, really relates back to the initial agreements that called for, you know, we're operating per those initial agreements where we're setting aside $3 million a year for capital, not enough for a facility that probably is close to $2 billion if you were to build it today. So with that said, I do know that the stadium manager is still on and I do believe she may have some comments or I'm looking to her to have some comments around the need for this approval at this time.

I'm going to interrupt you, Executive Director, because I think that to avoid these types of discussions in the future, for both the stadium manager and the stadium authority. If we had that facilities assessment, we would just look at the priorities and go down the list of priorities and we could see that this is what it is. But you're gonna encounter this every time there needs to be because for some reason there is a been a reluctance to get this report done. It sounds like we did one on the convention center. How long did that take?

No, we have not done one on the convention.

Well, somebody mentioned an assessment of the convention center. Well, we should do one on that one as well. I agree with that. So I'm saying to avoid this, you know, we've been talking about this facilities assessment, I don't know for how long, and I just don't see any evidence of it coming anytime soon. So if you had that and we could see it, it would be easy for us. You would avoid all of this all the time. Anyways, Stadium Manager Francine, did you have something to say?

This is Kevin Wang again with the Stadium Manager. So just to kind of... I'll maybe go back to the concept of whether this board can withhold essentially the approval of year two. I will just note that approving a five-year capex plan is a requirement of the lease. And it's certainly necessary for our planning purposes, as Executive Director Grogan has already pointed out. And it's important for the continued operation of the stadium. We also believe it's, frankly, important to comply with the terms of the lease. And we would certainly expect that the stadium authority would feel the same way on that piece. Ultimately, our position is that we feel the FY27 projects that have been presented to the stadium authority fall within the appropriate bucket. And these are the highest priority projects that we've identified as part of our assessment and as your contract stadium manager. And so that is the reason why they are before you. And we've collaboratively worked with stadium authority staff and been transparent in essentially sharing the bases for these projects. and we'll continue to be transparent in that and we'll continue to be transparent as these projects come before the board for approval when we go out to bid and uh and and ultimately look to the board for their approval of the projects as they come as they come to pass authority member park

Yeah, I'm listening to all of these things, and I'm like, how many people on staff even know how to manage a stadium or what the assessment should be? I mean, it's very rare, and I think it's unlikely that we have people on the dais or even on staff that understand how to manage a stadium, and we should really hire out for that kind of expertise. And we did. We hired the stadium manager. We hired people who've run stadiums before to give us this information. And then we said, well, we're not really sure that what they're telling us is right. So we wanna hold off on everything. And I understand that, we want abundance of caution. And then I looked at the history of the renovation and demolition fund. I mean, I think that, Councilmember Cox was right to bring this up. She looked at it way back in March and said, well, we can use monies for these kinds of things. But I know that we had these discussions way back in February of 2024 when we were looking at settlements and a whole bunch of different things. And I can't help but think What are we renovating? Why is it called the Renovation and Demolition Fund? Is it possible that we could renovate the stadium instead of demolishing the stadium? The short answer is I don't think that's the case. I think that, again, anything above ground, the tenant would be responsible for leveling. I believe they have to restore the land to us. In the same way anything above ground level would have to be gone so now the question is why do we have renovation in the title we slowed down the filling of the demolition the revenue renovation and demolition fund because well we were filling it really quickly and Like we were already halfway there and we weren't even at 10 years. And now I think maybe we did so without thinking how else the money was supposed to be used. Maybe there was an idea that the renovation part of the renovation and demolition fund would be used for these kinds of things, for capital expenditures, for example. Again, I don't know if that's true. I mean, I see the... finance director shaking his head, but again, I'm just curious, why do we call it the Renovation and Demolition Fund if we can't justify the renovation portion of this? Right. And this is what I'm looking at. I also have a question about we've had a statement that our lease requires that we approve a five-year CapEx plan. I mean, is that true? I want to know what that is. Because I understand that we want to be very careful with how we spend our money. We want to prioritize. I feel like we're not in a position, we didn't do any of the background to get us to a point where in the schedule that we need to approve a budget, that we need to approve these plans, that we can make informed decisions. And at some point I hear the chair of this board, I want to make sure you're not I'm not disturbing your conversation there, but I want to make sure that and I've heard the the chair state that well everything would be solved by having this assessment and I'm not even sure that that's the case Meaning at some point We will be doing the same thing that we've done with this stadium manager whether you know, we have to believe one of them We have to believe our report. We got to believe their report. We have additional questions at some point and You know, we are just making, we're asking for these things because we lack the expertise. And then we want multiple choices so that we can pick the one we like better. You know, I'm almost to the point where I would like to approve a five-year CapEx plan. i'd like to approve the money but if and only if there is a way to to hold to have some accountability and say this is why the money wasn't spent well this is where the money is spent well i think that we've had you know, 12, 10, over a decade of experience with that kind of assessment, that kind of feedback. What have we learned from that? I mean, at some point, we're going to go into new phases with this stadium, which is we're going to do things that we've never done before because we had a new stadium. Now we're getting to an aging stadium. Aging stadium has different types of maintenance requirements and renovations. And again, I almost feel that we need to have accountability because trust is the basis of every relationship and it's very clear we have no trust but our no trust is based on very little background or experience all right is there a some kind of motion or option for the council to or the authority board to move ahead authority member hardy

I was wondering, I was listening very carefully to see when there will be an assessment ready because is it possible, that's why I was asking about timing, if we wanted to continue this to get some more information, if that's not possible, I would ask the stadium manager.

A authority assessment would be completed in 2027. I will also say that we looked for a vendor that we could bring on in an expedited fashion within this 90 day period to have outside expertise and honestly was unsuccessful in locating a vendor that we could bring on that would give you an outside opinion in this expedited fashion so that that's why that's why you don't have that here now and so then we pivot it to write the scope and go with the longer term facility condition assessment that that assessment will be our assessment as a part of that it would also we hope to have the tenets assessment and so it will it would be an analysis of that assessment as well there will in a perfect world we can reconcile and you wouldn't have a disagreement between the tenant and staff but you may have a disagreement between the tenant and staff but then no matter what you're going to have to resolve and we're gonna have to collectively resolve the funding piece I will address Councilmember Park's statement about a five-year capital improvement plan. Just to remind you about our conversation in March, the reason why staff did not recommend the five-year plan is a clause in the agreement that if you don't approve the subsequent year plan, the five-year plan from the previous year goes into effect. And so given the level in the current five-year plan that was proposed, presented before you from the stadium manager. We thought it was not prudent to adopt that. Where we truly landed with the stadium manager is they certainly have their position, and I'll turn it over to city attorney if he wants to speak to that. But I will say that where we essentially landed is We can argue over whether a five-year plan has to be adopted, but the most fruitful thing is to adopt year one and projects in year one that we're going to extend into year two. That was your first action. And then what you said to us 90 days ago, roughly, was, hey, assess these year two projects and come back to us within 90 days so that at least the stadium manager could have year one and two done as we did the condition assess our own condition assessment we received theirs and we grappled with these larger issues and so that's what we brought back to you right we're essentially with this action bringing back to you 24 months worth of projects so we can dig in and do the work that we all know we need to do, how we got here, why we got here, we all get it, but we need to do work, but the building also needs maintenance, right? There are some projects that need to go forward, and that's why you have the $6.6 million worth of recommendations, because we recognize in the interim things need to be done, and staff is telling you that we're comfortable with these. They recommended 9.1. We dropped it down to 6.6, and that's the recommendation you have.

All right. Council Member Park, you've talked a lot. Do you have something new to add? New.

Again, my question, I heard what you said. If we didn't approve the five-year plan, that it would revert to the previous five-year plan? Can you repeat that again?

Yeah. There's a provision in the stadium lease section 10.4.1 that has a process for approval of the capital expenditure plan for each year, which also includes a five-year plan. And if there's not an agreement on that, we have the right to approve it or not in our discretion just like with the budget amendment or any annual budget that can be submitted to dispute resolution procedures. But if that pending that or if there's not agreement on that, what steps into place in the meantime is the already approved five-year plan and that's what we operate off of. So there's an effective default plan of one that we've already approved that would continue to govern until the matter's resolved.

All right, authority board, somebody. Authority member Hardy.

I think I'm ready to make a motion. If I understand correctly, then if we do not approve this tonight, then these, improvements will not occur. Is that correct? Because that's not in the five-year plan we have. I want to make certain I understand.

This $6.6 million is above what's in the adopted five-year plan for year two. And so an approval tonight would set in place what is adopted for the stadium manager to plan for and have the funds to execute on year two as we grapple with the larger capital maintenance need for the stadium.

I don't think that was the question, not the way I understood it, was does it revert back to the previous year five-year plan if we don't approve that additional $6.6 million?

Isn't that what you asked?

And then those improvements will not occur because they were not part of it, if I'm understanding correctly. Yeah, that's right. That's our understanding. Okay. I was very close to seconding Council Member Gonzales' motion, so I will say again, I think we need to approve this because we do see some of these improvements and quite frankly, things need to be improved and maintained and some things need to be replaced. So I'll make the motion to approve Stapp's recommendation.

Can I make a comment? Authority member, Vice Chair Gonzales.

So, you know, we're contracting basically We have to keep that stadium in a great working order. That's one of the things that's in that contract. As far as if people feel more comfortable, walking through the stadium with, I don't have a problem with people going in and do that. I could tell you, Council Member or Authority Member Shane, at eight o'clock, this was a brick yesterday, and I'll talk to Verizon about it, but it was a brick, right? So what was the backbone of fiber do there to get a lot of people off? the local internet, the local, whether it's Verizon or T-Mobile, anybody's line, so that people in the vicinity can function accordingly. So there's a lot of things in here that we can nitpick and we can look at it, but they're in there for a reason. And if we don't understand that, then that's something that maybe we can get clarity. We're not going to have our own audit report, facility audit report, sometime in 2027. I would say that we should start working with MANCO to get that so we can maybe... partner up and use some of the benefit of the cost to do that together, right? But we're not going to have that analysis until then. If there's any projects that are set to be done in year two, whether it's one and a half X, two X, some X, we know that the more you delay a project, the more it's going to be expensive. As far as what Manco did with their audit, we don't have a full report. We have a much better report today than we did in March, right? So hopefully people took a look at that. But if we pay for a report with them or without them in the future, then maybe that'll give us a little bit better feel for where we're at. Have we underfunded the capital expenses for the stadium? Yeah, we have. We're not gonna go back and write contracts. We gotta move forward and see how we can get this done and make sure that that stadium's in working order. But as we move forward, there's certain things that you can see within the report that can account for that. But the more we delay this, and if we don't get things, especially in line for that year two, it's gonna cost us more money at the end of the day. Thank you, Mayor.

So I think six out of seven people here were not part of the original agreement, but we are still, as a board member, we are responsible for taking action on that. I do understand that was a very bad agreement we signed. They did not scope investment into capital fund, which we should have. But we are where we are right now. And I think, given the circumstances, staff has done a reasonably good job of evaluating the project, whatever technical expertise we had on the table, basically. I will be supporting the motion, but at the same time I would say please Prioritize the condition assessment on our behalf so that we don't land up in this situation again next year basically and What we can do I can ask the motion maker if we complete this thing our conditional assessment before any of this work is completed and stadium manager should sit with us and cooperate into the our assessment versus their assessment and if there need to be any changes to be made we should all be both the party should be open to make those changes sitting across the table authority member Cox

Again, I would feel much more comfortable just moving forward with the things that our staff clearly marked approve instead of approve with additional direction. Like I said, if you read through the footnotes, a lot of this narrative said that they weren't clear on direction, there wasn't enough information given, there was ambiguity. absolutely understand that work must be done and this is our stadium we totally want to keep it clean but the reality is we are in a budget crisis with the stadium right now where we're not going to have money coming into the general fund again because we didn't plan for this absolutely and when it goes back to the the responsibility of The facilities assessment, I'm looking at the report from March 11th of 2025, and it actually says in that that STADCO has already funded a facilities condition assessment. That was a year ago to aid long-term financial planning operational efficiency. So we've been putting this off and putting this off and I do think we're gonna be in the same spot So again, I'm much more comfortable saying if staff clearly said approve it Let's work on those because we still have a time frame to bring other things back with quotes or some kind of verification And it allows the stadium to start working on ad a and the the life-saving issues but I just You know, if money was plentiful and we didn't have to worry about this, but we have the responsibility to our public to, with fiduciary judgment, maintain this. And so I just think that we haven't done our part to assess this. And the stadium authority has it, or excuse me, STAT code didn't fulfill their facility condition. And then I think that it says on our March 10th meeting, the item C of part two that we approved says, upon completion of the FCA, the stadium authority staff evaluation and completion of its own FCA, then further discussions would occur for years two through three. We did say come back in 90 days and give us some Additional but we've given a budget already for capital expenses. We have five projects already funded for this year's upcoming capex So we're doing additional right now that we're doing blindly So again, my my amendment would be to go forward with the ones that are approved and pause and get more information on the approved with recommendation or with direction Councilmember Park Authority Member Park

Again, my question that wasn't answered from before is describe the renovation portion of the renovation and demolition fund, which is it has the word renovation for a reason.

Yes, absolutely.

Just that before you make any comments, City Manager, just answer that question.

So when the agreements were negotiated, I wasn't there, but the fund was set up as a renovation and demolition fund. I would submit nothing in here is a renovation. This is all operations maintenance improvements. The renovation and demolition fund, how I understand it and how it appears to be articulated, And the agreement is for a large-scale renovation of the facility. You're talking about annual CapEx, replacing things that are broken, fixing interior finishes. That really wouldn't qualify under what was envisioned in the renovation and demolition fund. And, Mayor, I would like to say something in response to Council Member Cox's comments, but when you're ready.

I would like to let us all finish before you go again. All right.

Because and then the other question I have is let's say we do an assessment. Let's say that we've got two assessments and we look at the changes and we show that the work is necessary or maybe it shows that additional work that we did not lay out is necessary and it's pretty pretty high priority. Like is there another chance? Is there another opportunity to approve more projects? I mean, how do we go to that? Because at some point we would have to review or we could review the rest of the five-year plan, right? I mean, we can do this year by year, we can do this however we want to do it, but we would, you know, when would we consider, you know, could we consider approving it then? What would we do then, you know, if there's Maybe additional. We have the assessment. There are additional items that are brought forward. Do we approve more money? And again, I hear what you're saying about the renovation, but I want examples of renovations that are, that would be, because almost anything I see with this stadium, unless we change it in a meaningful way, is going to be a CapEx project. It's going to be fixing. It's going to be maintenance. It's going to be something else. What would we use the renovation and demolition fund that falls under the category of renovation?

Again, I'll say that what appears to have been envisioned for the agreement is a large-scale renovation and demolition. I'll also say what I said earlier, which is the agreement's call for that fund to be used in year 40. So any change to that would be a negotiated change to the agreement and you would need the other party to agree. And so I'm not able to answer your question here of what we could use that for, because as per the agreement, you can't use it until year 40, we're in year 13. And then anything you could possibly think to use it for now would have to be negotiated with the leasee.

So is that something that we could pursue as well? Because again, what you tell me, all you said is a large-scale renovation. I don't know what that means. I mean, I have an idea of what that could mean, but I don't know what that actually means. And I would like you to give me some examples because otherwise, I believe that the renovation and demolition fund is kind of poorly named because it gives us a promise without know without satisfaction you know at some point maybe we can have a discussion with the uh stadium manager on on what this is because the word renovation i think it's the first word in that fund i mean depending on how you read it but it clearly shows that i mean it seems to be when i read that it can be used for these kinds of things but it depends on interpretation and if we and if that interpretation just needs agreement from the the leaseholder then I think maybe we should have discussions with the leaseholder because funding is one of the biggest I think it's one of the the only reason that we're holding this up and if we could have a discussion if we did have an understanding of where the funding can come from then I don't know that we'd have this much discussion about you know cutting projects

I think through the Chair, when we negotiated an agreement about a year ago, we had significant discussions about adjusting the fund and we landed where we landed in those negotiations without a major change to allow us to use the funds now. It remained at year 40.

That doesn't address my request.

Okay. I believe that We should have the facilities assessment by now. Thank you, Authority Member Cox, for reminding me that the stadium manager had that funded a year and a half ago. Again, if we had that facilities assessment, there would be a plan, and I think the stadium manager, at least on their end, should have a facilities assessment to show us what's going on with the stadium to at least have the strategic plan for the capital improvement because we, as a city manager, remind me, we're in the second phase of this stadium, so there's gonna be a lot of issues that come up. I'm okay with funding the health and safety or the things that absolutely have to be done right now, But without that facilities assessment and the fact that we're using the operating revenues should be concerning to people We're using our operating reserves. I think that's irresponsible for a long-term fix for this so I imagine that six months from now I won't be here, but you're still going to be talking about this. Where's the facilities assessment? Oh, is there enough money in the operational reserve to pay for these costs? Because as was shown at our March meeting, you'll see the revenues to the city general fund are going to decrease every year if we don't get this under control. so i like i said i'm not for the staff recommendation i'd be okay with the health and safety issues and the things that absolutely have to be done and i think there has to be pressure on both our staff and the stadium authority staff to get that facilities assessment to so we can prioritize what projects need to to be done and we can look for funding sources for those so city uh clerk Stadium Authority Clerk, you can read the motion on the floor.

So I'd like to ask the maker of the motion if it is for staff recommendation, or was there additional amendment to that? OK, it's just staff recommendation.

Please register your vote. And that passes 4-2. 4-2. Is somebody missing?

Yeah, I was thinking about it, and it passed me by.

Let's do it again. All right.

Please register your vote. And that passes five to two. All right. City Manager, could you tell me what items have to go tonight? It's 1114. Yeah.

So unfortunately, frankly, most of the items on your agenda have to go tonight. We spent a lot of time on items that were carried over from the prior meeting. Mayor, I do have one request if we think it can be quick.

Do you think anything can be quick up here?

I hope item 8a can be quick. That was pulled from consent by Councilmember Cox. We do happen to have the stadium manager on for that one.

We're not going to do that now if all these other items have to go because that one doesn't have to go.

It's for contracts that would take effect July 1.

That's not going to be quick. I can tell you right now.

All right. So with that...

Which one cannot, doesn't have to go tonight? Which one can wait till this, any of them that can wait till the 7th?

For the vesting tentative map item 14, the applicant is here.

Okay, where's the applicant here? Yes, we'll pull that one up. Please, you can come forward.

We'll pull that one up. Our master plan is a public hearing. I can confer with staff on if that absolutely needs to be passed by July 1.

Which one are you talking about, City Manager?

Item 15, the Urban Water Master Plan.

Oh, the management plan? Does that have to go tonight?

Management plan. Yes.

Because something's going to fall off.

I believe it's state requirements to have the plan adopted, but I can confer with staff.

Oh, yeah, if you could. Let's go now to the... Let's go now for the applicant of item number 14. Is that right? Okay, we'll do an item number 14, public hearing action on a vesting tentative parcel map to merge four existing legal parcels into one legal parcel with no construction or site improvements located at 3250 J Street. CEQA status exempt from CEQA per class 15 and action to adopt a CEQA exemption checklist 15183 for future redevelopment. It's a public hearing. The public hearing is open. City Manager.

Thank you. Mayor, in the interest of time, I'll turn the presentation over to our Assistant Director of Community Development, Lakshmi Rajakampala.

Thank you. Welcome. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you tonight, there's a request for approval of a vesting tentative map to merge four

Can I have you speak in the microphone? Oh, sorry. Yeah, so those at home can hear you. Thank you. I apologize.

So before you tonight is a request for approval of a vesting tentative map to merge four existing legal parcels into one legal parcel along with related CEQA actions associated with the map and potential future redevelopment of the site. So staff is requesting three actions from the council tonight. The first is to determine the project is categorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15315. Adopt the checklist under CEQA guidelines section 15183 for future redevelopment. and adopt a resolution recommending that the City Council approve the Westing tentative map to merge four existing legal parcels into one legal parcel with no construction or site improvements located at 3250 J Street. So to provide a bit of context, the proposal before you is to merge or to combine three small remnant parcels or easement areas, including the small city-owned parcel that's titled Lands of the City of Santa Clara into the larger parcel that's titled Parcel 1 at 3250 J Street for a total site area of approximately 7.96 acres. So this site is bounded by Highway 101 on the north, on the west, St. Thomas Expressway, and has low intensity office uses on the east and high intensity office uses on the south. So parcels one, two, and three total about 7.9 acres and are designated high-intensity offers. And the city-owned remnant parcel, which is the lands of City of Santa Clara, is designated light industrial. So this... Slide shows the current parcel configuration, and parcel one currently contains two existing office developments, two existing office buildings, and the remaining parcels are remnant parcels that are proposed to be merged into the existing site. Staff are also in the process of working with the applicant to convey the sale of the lands of the City of Santa Clara, and the sale has to be completed before the vesting map can be finaled. And this is included as condition P1 in attachment three of your packet, that is the conditions of approval. The applicant has also indicated a future, the applicant has also indicated an interest to redevelop this, site, so their current plan is to lease the existing buildings, but they would like to redevelop the site in the near future to construct a new 155,000 to 165,000 square feet of office building, and this is why staff, and this is why they've also requested a CEQA exemption checklist, 15183, for future redevelopment. And because the property owner has identified near-term redevelopment, the city must consider this potential redevelopment in connection with the map. And for this reason, the council is asked to adopt the CEQA guidelines exemption checklist. An adoption of this checklist will not approve or authorize any future construction. The applicant still has to go through architectural review, building permits, and potentially a use permit depending on final use.

Moving on to consistency findings.

So the subdivision map meets all the applicable zoning code standards and has been processed in compliance with the city subdivision map act and the city code title 17 in that the proposed lot merger would maintain compliance with the minimum lot size setbacks and development standards and the proposed future development will also be required to meet any applicable development standards of the zoning code. And in terms of consistency with the general plan, the subdivision will be consistent with the general plan land use designation of high intensity office R&D and light industrial, as no changes are currently proposed to the existing buildings as part of the tentative map. For the proposed redevelopment proposal, the proposed 155,000 square feet building is consistent with the city's general plan designation of high intensity office R&D uses. And this proposal will also include landscape areas for employee activities. This public hearing was noticed in the weekly and notices were also mailed to the property owners and tenants within 500 feet of the project site. And as of the time of the staff report being published, staff did not receive any comments either in support or opposition of the project. Finally, moving on to the CEQA evaluation, the lot merger is exempt under CEQA guidelines section 315, class 15 minor land divisions, as the project involves merging urbanized land into fewer than four parcels, and it is also served by existing municipal facilities. As mentioned previously the applicant is requiring an adoption of the CEQA exemption checklist for future Redevelopment of the site and I want to reiterate that adoption of this checklist will not approve any future construction any redevelopment would require the project to go through applicable city approvals including architectural review building permits and potentially a use permit for any proposed new uses and So in conclusion, staff is recommending that the council determine that the tentative map be categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15, adopt the checklist under CEQA guidelines exemption sections 15183 for the future redevelopment of the site, Adopt a resolution in the form presented to approve the vesting tentative parcel map To merge the four parcels at 3250 J Street making the required findings and subject to conditions of approval this concludes my presentation and We are available to answer any questions.

Thank you questions councilmember Jane Thank You assistant director

If you go to slide five, the thing that concerns me is that they're looking at... Okay. This building shows 22 dock doors. It seems like it's more like a warehouse than an office building. And I guess my question is they want... Future CEQA exemption for future redevelopment? That doesn't actually make sense if we don't really know what's going to be developed there. We don't know about the traffic patterns. We don't know about water use. We don't know about emissions, if it's diesel trucks. How can we grant a CEQA exemption for future use? That's my only question.

Council Member Chihal.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Assistant Director. I'm a little bit confused about the city-owned parcel within the parcel, basically. So you did mention that we will not let it go through unless the deal for the city-owned land is finalized. Are we preempting doing this thing? Why don't we finalize that first and then do this thing?

That's my question. Councilmember Hardy Thank you.

I happen to be on the phone with the city historian earlier this week and We were talking about a different place in Santa Clara and I asked why the little slices of land and She happened to tell me that it was because of eminent domain before when they were working out the grid and the different streets. And that's why we have some very unusual little pieces that the city owns. And I'm guessing this is one of them. This isn't the one we talked about, but that was my understanding. If that can be confirmed, then I understand why it is. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick question. We did get a public comment as far as this would increase the size of future development. I'm not sure if you can answer that just so that they're aware of that. Thank you.

That's it for the questions.

Thank you. So for the first question about approving the CEQA checklist for future use. So the CEQA checklist, CEQA Guidelines Exemption Checklist is a streamlined process that the state offers. And this merely identifies that the project is consistent with the current general plan land use designations. And the potential future uses that were proposed as part of the pre-app include uses such as industrial, minor industrial uses, printing and publishing, and storage warehouse uses that are currently allowed as part of the high-intensity office, R&D area a whole ceiling and distribution centers are conditionally permitted and would require a use permit so as part of the exemption checklist staff found that The proposed future redevelopment meets is consistent with the general plan. I The second question is about the city-owned parcel and why are we not completing the sale of the parcel before doing this. So staff are working with the applicant to work on the sale of this project, but the applicant also wanted to move forward with this tentative parcel map so that in the event the sale gets completed around the same time we can finalize the tentative map at the same time. And then the third question was about, from Council Member Hardy, about easements, and yes, these are remnant pieces from street vacations, so that's why we are doing this. And four is from Vice Mayor Gonzales about, does this merger increase the size of future development? It does not. It still falls under the FAR that's currently permitted under our general plan land use designation. And I think I've answered all the questions.

Thank you. So now this is a public hearing. I'm going to go to the applicant. You have an opportunity to. Speak to the council. Welcome. Thank you for your patience for this late hour.

Not a problem. My name is David Cropper, and I'm a principal at Four Corners, and I'm going to be exceedingly brief. And thanks, staff, for getting us here. When we purchased this site over a year ago, we had been looking at doing an advanced manufacturing building here, zoning compliant, general plan compliant. You're exactly right. The city-owned parcel, we now affectionately refer to it as the eyebrow. We have appraised it. We've been working with staff, and we hope to go through that. We would have loved for these all to come together at the same time, but we'll take what we can get tonight. So happy to answer any other questions.

Seeing none, thank you so much. You can sort of be handy just in case. I'm going to go to the public. Do we have any members of the public that would like to give any testimony on this issue? All right, seeing none, city attorney at closed public hearing. All right, may I please have a motion? Someone put their light on to close the public hearing. Council, Vice Mayor Gonzalez.

So moved. Second.

So we have a motion by Vice Mayor Gonzales to close public hearing, second by Council Member Chihal. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Do we have a motion for this item? Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Move the recommendation, staff recommendation. Second.

All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Gonzales, second by Council Member Chihal for staff recommendation. Council Member Park.

Yes, I've got a couple of questions. I mean, very specific in slide seven, you say that the 154,500 square foot building would be consistent with the general plan. But then slide five we say that it is the plant the project proposed to submitted in 2024 was for 155,000 265,000 I'm just kind of curious as to why a specific more specific number was given in in slide seven But I guess the bigger question is what happens if the project proposal changes what happens if there are changes to the submission? Because right now we have a very high level there is i mean i don't know exactly all the details but as councilmember jane pointed out that it's got 22 dock doors um i mean i thought about this for quite a quite a bit it's it's got the things on there 154 um thousand five hundred on the the drawing but is What happens if these things change? I mean, even with the 22 dock doors, there doesn't seem to be any question as to what the uses could be, right? I mean, it seems that when you've got that kind of, you know, that kind of detail in a plan that maybe the applicant can tell us, well, this is what it's for. Because I see that for manufacturing it would, but I would think that manufacturing needs warehousing as well. I just want to get that resolved before I vote on this. Again, what changes would be allowed? We have a checklist. The checklist says these are things going, but any time there is a change proposed, are we going to go back to the checklist? Are we going to go back to this vote and say, well, you can't do that kind of change because this is what was approved or these are the guidelines for what is part of the change or not? What happens if the zoning changes? What happens if you know, they decide to go or somebody decides what we want to do a Zone change and then what happens, you know, does they seek what does it you know now it doesn't if it's not Fully compliant or maybe it's more compliant that we have to go through a sequel again Like I don't know understand why we would go through an exemption You know for future uses if the future uses are as defined as they are or they're not defined at all.

Thank you Go ahead and you can answer that.

Thank you So the applicant submitted a preliminary application. So the purpose of it is for staff to work with the applicant and figure out how the project's going to shape up. And the purpose of the checklist is also to make sure that any future redevelopment proposals doesn't have to go through full-fledged CEQA process as long as we can staff or the checklist proves that the proposed project or the future redevelopment proposal is consistent with the existing general plan land use designation and the zoning code and the proposed redevelopment concept is proposing uses that is consistent with the high-intensity office R&D general plan designation. So from our general plan, this designation is intended for campus-like development, like corporate headquarters, research and development, and supporting users. And the maximum floor area ratio is 2.0. And as I mentioned previously, it could also include minor industrial printing and publishing, and storage and warehouse uses. And these are permitted by right. Wholesaling and distribution centers are conditionally permitted and would require a use permit. So approving this checklist would make sure that this project will be consistent with the existing general plan and zoning code, and this will help the project move forward.

Understood and I just noted that you said it as long as it's compliant with the current zoning But it doesn't it if there's a zoning change it would have to be reconsidered again So the city just went through a major zoning code update in 2025 So the project could be request a zoning change Yes, that could happen

Right, if they change the project, then they have to come. For a zoning change, that's natural, right?

Yeah, if the applicant comes forward with a different application or if they want to change the zoning, they need to come back and go through the process. And we have a very extensive process in CDD through the application. And then if it's a rezone, they would actually need to come through the Planning Commission and through the City Council. But at this point, today's application is just for a tentative map.

Right. All right, city clerk, when you're ready. We have staff recommendation as listed in the agenda. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Thank you, and thank you for your patience, sir. All right, public hearing number 15, public hearing action to approve one, the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan, and two, the 2025 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. So this is a public hearing and it's open. City Manager.

Sure. This item will be presented by Assistant Utilities Director Lawrence Tam for the Water and Sewer Utilities Department. The Urban Water Management Plan is a document that helps the City assess the availability and reliability of water supplies and their current and projected future use.

Thank you. Welcome and thank you for your patience as well.

Good evening, Mayor Gilmore, Council Members. So I'll be presenting on the 2045 Urban Water Management Plan and Water Storage Continuity Plan for Council's consideration for adoption. Agenda, we'll go through, basically talk about what the Urban Water Management Plan is for, why we're doing it, the key components for it, and then the supply availability assessment, our key findings, recognitions, and the next steps. So what is the urban water management plan? Urban water management plans are required by the California Water Code. It is a long-range planning document that's used to assess our supply and demand reliability through 2050. And again, it's basically the planning tool that allows us to see if we can meet current and projected future demands. It also serves as a document for our water supply assessments for proposed development projects. And that's a requirement for Senate bills. So. urban water management plan versus the water master plan. I think council may have heard that the city is working on preparing a water master plan update. There is some overlap between the two where we're looking at different supplies and demands. The water master plan really focuses on the capacity of the Zixon system and then provides recommendations and an outline for capital improvement projects in order to meet those requirements. So the components of the supply and demand Kind of follow together and the 2 are consistent with each other as we use the same consultant to prepare both plans. Going into why urban water required it's part of against state regulatory requirement as far as the act. Any suppliers that serve more than 3,000 customers or 3,000 acre feet are required to prepare this plan. It is required to be updated every five years and is required in order for agencies or utility agencies to remain eligible for California state grants and loans. For City of Santa Clara, in 2025 we served 26,000 connections and delivered about 17,000 acre feet of bottled water, so we're well above the 3,000 customers and 3,000 acre feet requirement. And the previous urban water management plan was adopted in June 2021. Just kind of just a list of the key components of their water venture plan. These are pretty prescribed by DWR. It follows their handbook. We go over the basic system descriptions, projections, and then again the availability and reliability, and also the water shortage contingency plan. Just a quick summary on our current water supplies. For power water supplies, we have three sources. One would be imported water from SFPUC, which represents about 16% of our total supplies. We also purchase water from Valley Water, which represents about 12%. And then groundwater pump from our own city-owned and maintained wells represents about 53%. As far as our non-potable water supplies, that is recycled water received from South Bay Water Recycling and represents about 19% of our supplies. So going to our future water supply assessment, Looking at SFPUC, there are two main scenarios that we looked at for these ones. It's without the Bay Delta Plan Amendments and with the Bay Delta Plan Amendments. Just some quick background. The statewide resource boards, they manage the San Francisco Bay, Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta Watershed, which is foreshortened out to be Bay Delta. That plan basically provides requirements as far as flow and other ecological criteria that agencies has to meet. So in 2018, the statewide support adopted the Bay Delta plan amendments. with the goal of balancing beneficial water use and preserving fish and wildlife and creating habitats. So under that Bay Delta Plan Amendment, under the worst case scenario, which represents a multi-dry year scenario, it reduces SFPUC's ability supplies by about 40 up to 48 percent and by extension to the city about seven and a half percent of our total supplies the amendment itself hasn't been implemented yet one of the items the sfpc has submitted is what's called a voluntary agreement as part of the healthy rivers and landscapes plans that has their own proposal on how to modify those flows. Those agreements are pending, and they're not included as part of the SFPUC or our city's UWMP. I just wanted to mention that one. But those are kind of the outlines of the scenario for SFPU supplies. Go on the Watt Valley water supplies Valley water basically and debates about a 5% reduction under Multi-year dry years and that that overall represents just a little over half a percent to the tolls reduction in total city supplies For our groundwater supplies. We're not projected to have any any issues and they're reliable for the future dry years similar for the recycled water supplies as well and So going into our key findings, so SFPUC and Valley Water, there is some potential reductions in dry years. However, looking at our analysis, under all the different scenarios we look at, normal, single dry, and multiple dry years through year 2050, the city has adequate supplies by offsetting any reductions that we expect from SFPUC or Valley Water through additional groundwater pumping. Going into our water shortage contingency plan, again, this is kind of a plan that is a strategic plan that lays out how the city addresses any water shortages, whether it be from climate change, drought, or catastrophic events. The plan lays out six stages of water shortages that go all the way up to 50% or greater, and there are specific demand reductions actions that go along with each stage in order to mitigate those shortages. So for example, stage one, it could be as easy as increasing public notification, campaigning to make people more aware for conservation. Stage two, there could be restrictions on landscape irrigation in order to help reduce that in order to help to increase our conservation. The shortage contingency plan also provides procedures for the city's annual water supply and demand assessment. This is a required state reporting to Department of Water Resources every year on July 1st. This is more of a short-term water supply assessment that looks at the current year and then also what the following year is, assuming that it's going to be a dry year. Looking at the city's water conservation program, the city has a rather robust conservation program. We have different programs such as outreach programs that we work with Valley Water on to educate the public, and then there are also water surveys and rebate programs that help improve water customers and their efficiency, such as providing them low-flow showerheads, aerators, dye kits for to evaluate and assess any kind of like toilet leaks. Recommendations, so staff recommends that council approve and adopt 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and Water Storage Engineering Plan. Going to our next steps here. So prior to this period, we've notified the public, provided notice of this hearing, and also made the draft plan available. Today is the public hearing that's for council consideration for adoption. Moving forward, if the council elects to adopt, we'll make the submittal for the Urban Water Management Plan and the Water Storage Engineering Plan to Department of Water Resources, and then submit it to the state library and county afterwards. And with that, I will end the presentation and take any questions you may have.

Any council questions? Council Member Hardy.

Of course I read this and had so much fun. I read it first for everything because this was so interesting to me. You didn't call it out, but the Bay Delta plan is in litigation and the state at this point is considering the healthy rivers and landscape. It was kind of buried in there, but if that doesn't go through, the understanding is they will require us to put 40% unimpaired flow out of our reservoirs, even in dry years. And that's why it would limit us on water, am I correct?

We'll answer after. Okay.

And Bosca, the other good thing, it's also buried in there, it's because of Gary Welling and Shilpa, made certain that Bosco is now considering, even though we are not full members, both San Jose and Santa Clara, that in the tier two we are considered the same and would be cut off less than we were in the last drought. Am I correct on that? And then the purified water project that Valley Water is working on, would that also shore up some of our water realities by reusing our water to be potable. And if I remember right, we're the highest percentage of reclaimed water users in the South Bay. Is that correct? Thank you.

Council Member Jane.

Thank you. There's a requirement that non-functional lawns have to be eliminated. When does that go into effect and how much do we expect that will reduce our demand? That's the only question I had.

Councillor Cox. This is as much for my learning as anything. I was actually surprised that we didn't address in here some of the data center usage because that's such a hot topic on water consumption. I don't know if that falls completely outside of this, but I'm wondering as, you know, Santa Clara boasts being the largest hub of data centers on the West Coast with 57 or 58. This looks like we have enough water through 2050, but where do I see those numbers accounted for within this? Part of our education then, as we talk to people who are really polarized on this issue, I'm wondering if you're going to address how we as a sustainable city consider data center usage when we look at our water consumption.

There's your questions. Okay.

Thank you. I'm also with Council Member Hardy regarding the Bay Delta plan. Yes, you're correct. Is it currently in litigation? And yes, the current amendment that's adopted, while it hasn't been implemented, yes, reduces unimpaired flows by up to 40%. So San Francisco, which is part of the Tulum River, SFPUC receives about 85% of the regional water supply from the Tulum River. So that's a... And by extension, that's a large impact to all the agencies that they serve. So yes, that reduces our allotment available because they will have to cut back on everybody across the board uh regarding the tier two amendment that uh previous director gary welling and shilpa meta had negotiated you're also correct as well um we have that that tier two amendment has now been adopted where um previously uh city of santa clara was had, I think, up to a 40% reduction under certain drought conditions. That has now been negotiated down to 25%. So it's a much better deal and puts aside much better supplies available for drought conditions. Going back to the Purified Valley Water Project, yes, that is also a benefit to our city and it helps shore up our supply. Through all the scenarios we've evaluated and assessments have done, no scenario says that there is gonna be an increase in water supply. So any projects that help us add more to it, especially a drought resilient supply, I think is beneficial for the city. and helps us out for long-term demands. I think the last one you had was, yes, we are currently the highest recycled water users in the Bay Area too. Let's see, and then Council Member Jane, you mentioned about non-functional turf. I will have to look into specific details on that one. I don't have the exact timeline. I know the commercial, industrial, and institutional are required to go first. I believe it's by 2027. I don't have the numbers as far as how much of a reduction we're looking at, but that's something I can look into as well. as far as Councilmember Cox regarding the data centers. So the demand analysis using the urban water plan uses our general plan guidance and zoning usage. So data centers, as they're put in, as they're allotted for the general plan, are accounted for in this. Additionally, when it comes to data centers, and just like any other entity or doing business in the city uh city has a has an ordinance that says if recycled water is available they are to connect to it and in some cases we we also require projects to extend the recycled water line where we're applicable or feasible in order to connect to recycle water system so as data centers come in the requirement is for them to use recycled water If it's available and again I think that we've seen that before where over half of the data centers in Santa Clara are on recycled water And that's something we'll continue to push forward in order to address that usage Thank you very much, and this is a public hearing so I'm going to the public Public hearings open we have Brian go ahead Brian

You're muted. There you go.

Yeah, got it. Thank you. I just I'm glad that Councilmember Cox brought up the data centers and that answered my questions. Thank you. And there are some of us still watching.

Oh, thanks, Brian. Okay. Is there anyone else? I don't see anyone here that isn't a staff member in our council. Oh, there's some in the back there, sorry. That isn't our staff members. Do we have anybody else online? No? So may I have a motion to close the public hearing? Council Member Hardy. Motion to close public hearing. Second. So we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzalez to close the public hearing. Okay. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Council Member Hardy.

More than willing to make a motion for staff recommendation, which is to adopt the resolution approving the urban water management plan and the water storage contingency plan, as well as the proposed actions that says they're statutory exempt from CEQA.

So the one, two, and three in the recommendation on the agenda? Yes. All right, very good. So there's a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales for the staff recommendation as outlined in the agenda. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. All right. Council, it's almost 12 o'clock, so I'm recommending we go till 1 a.m. Are we okay with that? Council, would you like to vote to do that or do you want to finish now? We have two more items. Well, more than two, but two that we're going to take tonight if we can.

Council Member Hardy. I'll make a motion to go until 1 o'clock, no later.

Very, yeah, no later. All right. Is there a second? All right, we have a motion and a second to go no later than one o'clock, so we're gonna have to move. City Clerk? Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously, thank you. Okay, we're gonna move backwards now to item number 13, action on approval of resolution approving and adopting the updated unclassified salary plan for various positions, including the updated salaries of the city manager and the city attorney pursuant to their respective employment agreements and adopt a resolution approving and adopting the unclassified salary plan for various positions, including the classifications of city manager and city attorney.

Madam Mayor, since this matter relates to the city manager and myself, we'll be stepping out and support will be provided by Assistant City Manager Araceli Acevedo.

Actually, before you step out, I have a process question. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, this is what I was talking about a little bit before, which is when we have motions, the motions that I see on the screen and I think the motions that we see on the board are not the actual motions. I mean, the last motion that we had, which was for, did not have the motion to go to 1 a.m. no later. And because the minutes for this meeting, for these meetings take a long time, I mean, we were looking at approving multiple minutes If we want to go back and take a look at what the motions were it's very difficult unless you're taking notes and in some cases some of the some of the motions that are being made are Not very clear meaning it's this with a little bit of changes and that the full motion When I look at my notes looks like it should imply a little bit more But if I recall the actual motion the motion doesn't do that which is why I'm now stopping this because I've had to look for a motion that I could not find because the minutes had not been published and City clerk motion the motion on the floor was to extend the meeting no later than 1 a.m Understood and I'm saying that when they take a look at the motions it often says motion for you know, it says the option and the motion was to approve and that that's You know fine when it's just a recommendation but when it has other know additions it's really nice if we have the full motion there and usually in some cases oh no but in saying in some cases when you put the motion on the screen you can't even see the full motion because it does not have enough room to show you the full motion either i mean this is just process question how do we

Okay. I've already introduced this item. That's a whole separate thing if you want to talk about that and put that later. I've already introduced this item and we have a time period. But I'm saying we can also suggest that. You're talking hypotheticals right now. No, no, no. These are real things that have happened. I've opened this item when we started it. City Attorney and City Manager are going to step away. Please be close.

Assistant City Attorney Reuters on the line and has her hand up.

Okay, very good. Sue, go ahead. Sue? Hello?

She's moving over to panelists.

Can you hear me? Yeah, now we can. Okay, great. I'm here to provide support for this item as well.

Okay, thank you. Who's introducing it? Is anyone introducing it? Araceli? Okay. Yay. Thank you, Araceli.

So good evening, Mayor and City Council. So the item before you is several items. The first item is an adjustment to the compensation for the city manager. second item is an adjustment to the compensation for the city attorney and the third item is the addition of several classifications we have consolidated the assistant director we have some assistant directors that are specific to certain departments we want to consolidate the classification to be universal and available for other departments if there's a need as you're aware we are in the process of doing some org assessments for various departments and some of the recommendations that are coming out of those reports is to add or adjust the classification to an assistant director. So this gives us the opportunity To make that adjustment as a result of that. We're also making the recommendation to with it to adjust the division manager So we have several division manager classifications And we're consolidating them and as well making them a universal classification for availability for other departments to utilize the general classification and So with that I can provide you additional information with respect to the salaries for the city manager and the city attorney they do have to be read onto the record because they are council appointee positions so for the city manager his current salary is four hundred thirty thousand seven hundred sixty seven and thirty six cents and And the recommendation is to increase it to $439,382.71. For the city attorney, the current base salary is $370,461. and twelve cents and the updated salary would be three hundred seventy seven thousand eight hundred seventy and thirty four cents. So these adjustments are currently in the amended agreements that provide a salary adjustment if no performance evaluation process has been completed. At this time, because the council is looking at, has recently adopted a new policy, we haven't had the time to complete that process for the year, so this adjustment covers that portion, and then we will initiate a process for the next grading period. With that, I'm available to answer any questions, and Sue's also available to answer any questions you may have.