City Council and Authorities Concurrent - meeting_joint

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Are you ready, City Clerk? Okay. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this joint meeting of the Santa Clara City Council and Stadium Authority Board to order. Before I go to the City Clerk, well, let's go confirmation of a quorum, City Clerk. Confirmation.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum. And I'd like to also note for the record that Council Member Shahal will be participating remotely this evening by via audio only teleconference.

All right, thank you very much. City Attorney, did you want to make a comment? I think we're having some technical issues with our video at this point. That's right, Madam Mayor.

City Attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Under city council policy, which conforms with state law, in order to properly conduct a meeting, we need to have both audio and video participation by the public. We're having some technical difficulties currently with the audio portion. I'm sorry, with the video portion. However, the audio portion is working. And because the audio portion is working under our policy and the law, we can... convene and go into closed session, but we need to otherwise work on trying to rehabilitate the video portion. And we have an hour in order to do that while we in effect recess into closed session for that to occur. So Mayor, what I would suggest is we proceed with closed session and then hopefully that will be repaired when we reconvene at seven o'clock and we can cross that bridge when we get there.

All right, very good. So while you have the microphone, would you like to describe the two items, two possibly more items we have in closed session?

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. We are scheduled for closed session tonight. Items 1A and 1B. 1A is conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation cases related Santa Clara LLC versus Jennifer Osborne of the State Department of Industrial Relations as further listed on the agenda. Item 1B is conference with labor negotiators. city representatives as listed, employee organizations, it looks like all of them, firefighters, Unit 1, POA, Unit 2, electrical workers, Unit 3, engineers, Unit 4, miscellaneous employees, 578, another group of employees, Unit 6, unclassified mid-management, Unit 9, unclassified police management, 9A, unclassified fire management, 9B, unclassified electric utility management, 9E, and then public safety non-sworn unit 10. We're gonna be convening to the Sparacino Conference Room, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much. So I'm gonna go to the public. Does any member of the public wanna say some words about closed session? Please come forward. Has there been cards filled out?

Yes, we have a card from Chris Stampolis.

Chris, go ahead, please. On closed session, correct? Okay, very good, welcome. Why is that up, I'm wondering? Yeah, it's just odd to see that up. Thank you. There, now we can see you better. Okay, go ahead, please. Thank you.

Thank you, and welcome back from break. Chris Stampoulis, resident here in Santa Clara, and commenting on the negotiations item that you have with the public employees. As you know, there are 11 public employee organizations involved in the negotiation that you shortly will discuss in your closed session. For the first time in city history, at the same time, there is a mayoral candidate, Gary Ferraris, who, if elected, would be required to recuse himself from this exact type of agenda item going forward because he is a full-time paid negotiator for the Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees, District 57. now that by itself is only theoretically relevant because as of today mister ferraris has not yet been elected however two of your staff members that you hire directly your city attorney and your city manager have cooperated in allowing mister ferraris to have an unlawful candidate ballot designation on the ballot that goes out to everybody in the city If it clearly was showing that Mr. Ferraris was either a negotiator or he may even just choose to have no ballot designation, OK, that would be fine. That's his choice. It's a political decision. However, by allowing him to put down retired when they know that he's not retired because he's a full-time staff negotiator on the other side of the table in just a few moments, that is deliberately interfering with the mayor's race and also potentially with your negotiations. So I'm speaking on this item in specific so that just as a request from the public, when you go in and when you begin to get the discussion in private with your staff members, to at least ask them if this is already part of private negotiations with Mr. Ferraris or with the AFSCME other portions of the team or with any of the other employee negotiations, if they traded out in any way for him to have this unlawful ballot designation in exchange for something related to the negotiations that you're going to discuss. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anyone else you'd like to speak? Come forward. Yes? No? Anyone's welcome? Regarding closed session only. Items on closed session. These are only the two items that the city attorney had read about our employee groups and a legal case we have with the related company. Everything else that's on the agenda, the meeting starts at 7 o'clock. So if you came for a particular item that's on the agenda, the longer agenda, we don't start till 7. But if it's regarding the 1A or 1B, if you have a copy of the agenda, then now's the time to speak. If you came on, if you were here for those items.

Public presentation.

On public presentations. I'm sorry it starts at seven. Okay, well, enjoy your city hall grounds. Thank you, thank you. Do we have anyone else, city clerk? All right, we will now.

Madam Mayor, if I could just note, I'm sorry. Our policy contemplates your decision to go into closed session under this situation of disruption by consensus of the council. So if you could just acknowledge consensus of the council to go in.

Consensus to go into closed, anybody object? seeing none thank you ma'am we'll be in closed session and hopefully we have we'll have fixed all of our issues so that we will be able to continue with the seven o'clock meeting so hopefully you'll be able to participate then as well we'll be adjourning to closed session now thank you

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council concurrent stadium authority board meeting. We have been off for a month so this is our first meeting back so we're really excited to be here and welcome to Santa Clara City Hall. So I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask you to 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.

Before we move on, I'm going to ask either the city manager or city attorney to talk about the technical difficulties we're having earlier, and I'm hoping everything is fixed now. I just want to report to the public. City manager?

Sure, thank you, Mayor. We were having difficulty with our Zoom feed earlier today. Everything is working properly now with Zoom, and so we do have remote participation, both video and audio.

Thank you very much, city manager. City Clerk, roll call.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and Councilmembers, welcome. I'd like to, before we do roll calls, state for the record that Councilmember Shahal is participating remotely in accordance with the Brown Act Government Code Section 54953B. Councilmember Shahal is attending tonight's meeting via audio-only teleconference. The location from where Councilmember Shahal is attending was included on the agenda for this meeting. Council Member Chahal, at this time I ask you to confirm that the agenda for this meeting is posted at your teleconference location.

Council Member Chahal? Are you there? I don't see him. Do we see him? Oh, his hand's up.

Council Member Chahal, unmute yourself.

You need to unmute yourself, Raj.

Thank you.

Also, can you please state whether any members of the public are in attendance at your teleconference location?

Nobody's with me right now. If any time somebody comes, I'll be proactively let you know.

Okay, thank you for that. And I'm sorry, did you respond to my question if your agenda was posted properly? Yes, it was. Thank you. So I'd like to let the rest of the council know that this evening the teleconference meeting shall be by roll call vote. So with that, I'll begin with the roll call. Council Member, Board Member Shahal.

Present, remotely.

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

Here.

Council Member, Board Member Jane. Here. Council Member, Board Member Cox. Here. Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Gonzales. Here. And Mayor and Chair Gilmour. Here. Thank you. The AB 23 announcement. Members of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, Sports and Open Space Authority, and Housing Authority are entitled to receive $30 for each attended meeting. Statement of behavioral standards. The City of Santa Clara has adopted a code of ethics and values and behavioral standards for public meetings to promote and maintain the highest levels of conduct. This includes mutual respect, robust discussion, and allowing city business to be done in an efficient and consistent manner. Please note that as the presiding officer, the mayor 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 attending 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 and good evening everyone. For today's meeting, the Council is 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 that members of the public are seeking to speak on the appropriate agenda item. So we'll move on to the council agenda now. Reports of action taken in closed session, city attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council did meet in closed session on item number 1A. However, there was no conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation related to Santa Clara versus Jennifer Osborne at all. However, there was no reportable action. Item 1B was not met on, but may be trailed to the end of the meeting depending upon when we finish. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. And we may adjourn to closed session after if there's time before midnight.

I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, that was the conclusion. Yes, we might be going back again. Yeah, very good. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Depending on how efficient we are this evening. All right. Continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations. Does any member of the council or the public or the staff have a continuance, an exception, or a reconsideration? Okay, seeing none, we'll start with our first special order of business. So for our first special order item, the city is honored to recognize August 24th, 2026 as the 35th anniversary of Ukrainian independence. Ukrainian Independence Day commemorates the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence of 1991. It is a day to recognize democracy in Ukraine and celebrate its heritage and culture. This evening, we are pleased to have the Ukrainian National Women's League of America with us. The League is the largest Ukrainian women's organization in the U.S., with Branch 107 located right here in Santa Clara. Their mission is to promote educational and cultural efforts and provide humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians worldwide. We are honored to have Oleksii Korosh, Consul of Ukraine from the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco, the President of Branch 107 of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, Irina Anpilogova, I'm so sorry. Ann Piogova, something very close, I hope, and Habir Batia, the Ukrainian Council representative for Sister Cities International here today to accept the proclamation. So at this time, I would like to invite Oleksii to the podium to say a few words. Please come forward. Has it been a year already? Welcome back. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Liza Gilmore, members of Santa Clara City Council, distinguished guests, members of Ukrainian community, friends, and neighbors. It is a great honor to gather in the city of Santa Clara to mark the 35th anniversary of Ukrainians' independence and to recognize the city's proclamation commemorating this important occasion. Thirty-five years ago, the people of Ukraine once again affirmed a simple but profound truth that every nation has the right to determine its own future, preserve its culture, speak its language, and live in freedom and dignity. Today, as Ukraine continues to defend its sovereignty, democracy, and territorial integrity, the anniversary reminds us that freedom is never automatic. It is sustained by people, by those who serve, those who volunteer, those who welcome displaced families, those who preserve culture, and those who refuse to let hope disappear. This recognition is special personal meaning for me because exactly one year ago, I had the privilege to receive the proclamation of this kind from the city of Santa Clara in order of Ukrainian Independence Day. And to see this support expressed again today is a sign of consistency, of a community that does not offer solidarity only once, but continues to stand with Ukraine year after year after year. Thank you for this. Thank you to the leaders and residents of Santa Clara County, Santa Clara City. Thank you for this proclamation, for your friendship, for your recognition. Thank you UNWLA Branch 107 for being proactive all these years here in Santa Clara, and all people who have this active position toward Ukraine and United States and our friendship. Let us honor the past, support those who are defending freedom today, and work together. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, please stay here. We'd like to invite you up. First of all, thank you for being here and for your continued contribution and support to the Ukrainian community, especially here in Santa Clara. We appreciate it. It's always great seeing you. We would like to present you with the proclamation if you come forward. And I'd like to ask the ladies of the Women's League, Branch 107 and Habir, if you'd like to come forward for the photo as well.

Here, council, let's see how many people are coming forward. Do we have a lot?

I think so, so council can stay here. Yeah, let's move this back.

Again, thank you for coming, sir.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Absolutely. It is surprising it's been a whole year.

So I have to show you. I told you. We knew. Thank you so much for standing strong with us.

I what?

You give them a run for the money.

In perjury?

No, no, no, no, no. Just in terms of clothing. I thought you said clothing.

I don't have a perjury.

And you're all welcome to stay the entire night for our meeting. I know, they're like, they're running. Good night. Good night, thank you. Okay, for our next special order of business, the City is recognizing the 49ers for their grant to youth sports in the City of Santa Clara. Youth sports groups that regularly use Youth Soccer Park experienced disruptions in January and February 2026 due to the National Football League's exclusive use of the facility in connection with Super Bowl 60. Additional impacts to field availability were also anticipated during the scheduled Youth Soccer Park field improvement work in the summer of 2026. To help mitigate these impacts, the 49ers Football Company LLC has awarded the City a one-time grant of $15,000. The grant provides financial assistance to the youth sports groups for relocation related costs and will support the creation of the city's youth activity scholarship. City Manager, did you have anything to say before I invite Emily Swide to the podium to say a few words?

Sure, Mayor. You've nearly said everything, but I will only add that when the NFL agreed to provide $15,000 to support the impacts to youth soccer, the 49ers stepped up and said, we will match that and provide another $15,000. So a total of $30,000 for the impacts. Also worth noting, the agreement with the NFL provided significant community benefits to the city, including replacement of all sprinkler heads, as well as the replacement of the natural grass turf on fields one and three to a value of $1.2 million, as well as the NFL also agreed to provide $64,000 to purchase new player and coach dugouts for all three fields. This year, the city has already requested costs from all of our youth sport leads. We have about $5,000 in costs that have been submitted. In addition, there was $8,500 that was spent to provide lights at Wilson School, which was a temporary location where the youth soccer groups played during the impact period. in addition mayor mentioned that the current field replacement project is ongoing and so we will have a similar process with all of the youth sports groups to obtain receipts for any impacts that they incur now and that will be reimbursed by the thirty thousand dollars so we're here uh accepting the fifteen thousand dollars from the 49ers as per the city council policy where individual groups are invited to the council

So just for clarification, the youth groups will be paid back what they spent for last January and February and then what they're spending now?

Yes, there has already been a process to ask the youth soccer groups for their receipts and there will be another process for the period of impact now.

Thank you very much. So now I'd like to invite Emily Swide to the podium to say a few words. Welcome, Emily.

Good evening. My name is Emily Swide, and I work for the San Francisco 49ers. And for your awareness, I am a registered lobbyist here in Santa Clara. On behalf of the San Francisco 49ers, I want to start by thanking the Santa Clara City Council for your continued partnership, and especially Parks and Recreation Director Damon Sparacino and his team for the work they do every day on behalf of this community. San Francisco 49ers are incredibly proud to support Santa Clara's youth sports programs with today's donation. We launched the 49ers Cares initiative two years ago to deepen our investment in the city we call home and to make sure the presence of the 49ers in Levi's Stadium creates meaningful benefits for the people who live here. Since then, we've been fortunate to partner with the city and local organizations on programs that touch nearly every corner of Santa Clara. For more than a decade, the city has been our home, and we look forward to continuing to invest in opportunities like this one that will benefit the community for generations to come. Thank you.

Did you bring a big check for us? I didn't, but next time we will. Well, thank you very much. Okay, very good. All right, next we have.

Madam Mayor, that item does require an action. Yeah, a little oddly, yeah.

Oh, an action, is there? Okay. Okay, Councilmember Jain.

A motion for staff's recommendation. Second.

So we have a motion by Councilmember Jain, second by Councilmember Park. Do I have to? Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? If so, please come forward. Anyone online? I don't see anyone. No? All right. City Clerk, when you're ready, I know all of our votes this evening are going to be roll call. Thanks, Raj. I don't see him. Is he still there? Yes. OK, very good. You'll tell me if he's not, correct? Yes.

Council Member Shahal?

Yes.

Council Member Hardy?

Yes.

Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jane? Yes. Council Member Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Gonzales. Yes. Mayor Gilmour.

Yes, and that's approved unanimously. Thank you very much. All right, next is the consent calendar. All items are approved. Thank you, Emily. All items are approved with one motion. If there is, if a council member, staff member, or community member would like to pull an item for discussion, now's the time to do it. If not, council. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Motion to approve the consent calendar. Second.

We have a motion by Vice Mayor Gonzales, second by Council Member Hardy to approve the entire consent calendar.

Madam Mayor, we have a card from Prakash who want to pull consent item 3H.

I can't hear you very well, Nora. I'm sorry. What do you have?

A speaker card from Prakash.

Oh, Prakash. On a consent calendar? Yes, 3H. For 3H? Did you want to pull it or are you just coming up? Please come forward. Okay, and this is on item, let me go to that item 3H. Action to approve multidisciplinary engineering master services agreements for SVP, Silicon Valley Power, and authorize additional aggregate maximum compensation not to exceed 80 million across four master agreement groups to be funded from the Electric Utility Fund and the Electric Utility Capital Fund.

That's correct. Welcome. Thank you very much. My name is Prakash Jayani. I'm the principal at Terrigal Corporation. We've been providing services, engineering services, for the last 35 years to many, many cities and counties in the United States. as well as 15 different countries around the world. So this is a privilege and honor to be selected by the City of Santa Clara, Silicon Valley Power, to provide engineering services. So we look forward to it, and we'd like to request that this be moved up to the consent calendar and approved the contract that have been selected by the Silicon Valley Power. Thank you.

Thank you, and if you wait about 30 seconds, we're gonna approve it, I think. Okay? Thank you. Thank you very much.

By the way, I work with the city of Milpitas Hall, so I'm on the commission. Oh, that's where you look familiar.

Okay, nice to see you.

Welcome to Santa Clara. We met last time at one of the conferences, Mayor Montano, and you and I, we met.

Right.

Thank you very much.

Tell Mayor Montano Santa Clara's a better city. Tell her that, okay? Thank you very much. Thanks. Okay, city clerk, when you're ready.

And this motion also includes the stadium consent.

It includes that, of course.

So council member, board member Shahal.

Yes.

Council member, board member Hardy. Yes. Council member, board member Park.

Yes.

Council Member, Board Member Jane.

Yes.

Council Member, Board Member Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Gonzales. Yes. Mayor and Chair Gilmour.

Yes, and that passes unanimously and the consent calendar is approved. Thank you. All right, we're moving now on to public presentations. And these are for items that are not on the agenda. So public presentations. Steve, you are first. Steve Zelter, are these all in public here? Yes. Okay, followed by Nicholas Morales. Welcome.

Thank you. So my name is Steve Zeltser. I'm with the United Front Committee for the Labor Party. And I'm here today to talk about the issue of the Apple Fab industrial plant on Scott Avenue. And this facility has been cited by the Environmental Protection Agency for serious violations, chemicals, and toxins. And it's next to a community center, it's next to residential facilities, and it shouldn't have been allowed to be built in Santa Clara next to the public without information. I visited the site and there's no sign that it's either an apple factory and also that there are dangerous toxins in that facility. It seems to me that the people of Santa Clara and the people of California in this country are entitled to know what's in their neighborhood. and i understand that this council city officials have been formed for three years this is facilities operating there and there's been silence about it uh... i think in the light of the deregulation agenda of the trump administration project twenty twenty five to destroy any kind of oversight any kind of regulation health and safety regulation that it's incumbent on local officials to make sure that the community is not to be contaminated people have been second by this facility these council's been informed Apparently, because of maybe Apple funding or the fact you get money for this facility, you don't want to take it on. But I think that the residents come first, the workers of Santa Clara come first, and they need to be represented. And so I'm here tonight with somebody who lived in the complex next to the facility and was being harmed, who's going to speak about it. When the computers came to Santa Clara, we were told, and I lived in this area before there was a Silicon Valley, that computers were safe. There was no problems with computer industry. The reality is that there are high degree of toxins and chemicals that have caused cancer in Silicon Valley. And this is recognized, there are studies, and people have been sickened. The communities and the officials have to take responsibility to make sure that people aren't harmed, that people who get sick can find out why they're getting sick. That is not happening at this facility. and why people don't even know in the neighborhood that this facility exists. It's a dangerous situation. The fire department has been there. There have been citations, as I said, by the EPA, and it should not be allowed, and that's why I'm here today, and I think that action needs to be taken. Thank you.

Thank you. Ashley, would you like to go next? I know I recognize you. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Gittimore. I will go next. I have slides. Good evening, Mayor Gilmore and members of the council. My name is Ashley Jovic. I'm a lawyer, a county resident, a prior Santa Clara City resident, a former neighbor of the semiconductor facility at 3250 Scott Boulevard. You should know up front that I'm the plaintiff in federal litigation that names the city as a defendant. Because of that, I've drawn a careful line tonight. Questions of liability, past conduct, and judicial remedies are before the court. And I will not raise them here. Tonight is only about prospective legislative policy, the things the court cannot legislate for you. Here's a map showing, with that red star, a semiconductor fabrication manufacturing facility on Scott Boulevard nestled directly with the Santa Clara Square apartments. That's thousands of apartments. The building's unmarked, as you can see on the right. There's no name of what company's operating there or what they're doing. You'd have no idea it's an ultra-hazardous facility with an incredible amount of lethal gases, hazardous materials, and explosives. Here, explicitly in column A, liability again is for the court. But column B is tonight's subject, prospective policy, future siting rules, a standing notification ordinance, program administration going forward, and emergency planning standards. And column C is notification that something the city could do simply voluntarily at any time without resolving or conceding anything in the case. The setting. A heavy industrial fabrication and manufacturing facility with chemicals including arsenic gas, phosphine, chlorine gas, hydrogen fluoride, and others in an unmarked building across the street from 1,840 apartments, two city parks, a playground, a children's playground, Creek trails, a water of the United States trail, the San Tomas Creek. The policy gap is the general plan contemplates at least a 500 foot setback, but no city ordinance requires that residents ever be told there's a Cal Art facility next to them or any enforcement of that buffer. The public record spans decades from the 1980s toxic gas ordinance, the 1995 appellate reversal and LSI logic, EIRs, the EPAs finding hundreds of documented violations, CalEPA's 2024 corrective action at the city's own CUPA program, settlements, general plan, and more. Every institution has spoken, but the city is not speaking to its own residents. Four gaps, all prospective and legislative. No ordinance requires notifying residents near call-up facilities or of releases. The general plan's 500-foot setback has no enforcement in the city code. And more fab-citing decisions are coming. I have five requests, each legislative and administrative. I put my public comment in writing. You guys saw my requests. I'm out of time.

Thank you. As you both know, you may not know, I can't respond in any detail to what you're saying. It's public presentations, but I believe our staff is familiar with this. So we're going to refer it to the staff members, our city attorney and city manager. And did you say you sent that?

Yeah, I sent the comment and the slides are here. I do have requests that I feel are legislative and administrative, so policy outside of the litigation.

We get that. Yes, we understand, Ashley. All right, thank you. And thank you both for coming this evening and bringing this to our attention for those who didn't know. Thank you. All right, Nicholas, please come forward, followed by Howard. Welcome. Welcome.

Thank you to the Council for hearing my presentation. I am actually going to be changing my original intent and inviting you to something that we're planning. So to introduce myself, Nick Morales. I am representing my ministry, New Heaven, New Earth. And what New Heaven, New Earth wants to do is recognize our retired first responders with a banquet. And more specifically, we're going to invite the first responders that have been retired from the Santa Clara County. So we're reaching out to the neighboring cities to invite anyone who would like to come, including city officials as yourself. And it'll be happening in around mid-October, I would like to say. We're still in the planning phase, so I'd like to follow up with the clerk with more information that we have. And if there are any city officials that also have served as a retired first responder, I'd like to say thank you for your service, and you're more than welcome to come. And that'll be it for me. Thank you so much.

So thank you for introducing yourself, and we look forward to your invitation.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming. Howard, come forward, please. Welcome, Howard.

Hello. Thank you, everybody. You all know me very well by now. And I'm just here because it's pretty much the end of the season for a lot of stuff I do for the city. I want to thank the Parks and Rec for putting so many things together for this city. Fourth of July was really fun. It was... Very profitable for me, thank you very much. And I am looking forward to the last part of the season. Will be Halloween in the park. Of course, it's a Saturday before Halloween, so you still get your Halloween. That's, what is it? October 24th. But anyway, I'm here to... make people happy and make people angry. I've been reading a lot of mean, nasty things about a new business in town, just because it's across the street from an old business. We've all been to stands, it's okay. And I don't know how many people's been to Randy's yet. It reminded me of Randy's in LA. Pretty good. And the jelly donuts are more jelly than stands. Try it out. I'm sorry. I know everybody loves stands. I'm probably gonna get a lot of hate for saying that. But it's the first time I heard hate for me. But anyway, make sure you come on out to the Halloween in the park, it's always fun. And for Albert, who's the guy in my area, I really wish you'd work on that parking lot down there for the commuters. I heard that they rent that parking lot. Every year they rent it and they're so kind to allow the commuters to park there. But now it's over, my business will start increasing again because they do block out somewhere between 100 to 200 people riding the train for training camp. So now we should get our parking lot at least back halfway Maybe somebody can look into that. I would love to see that contract, how much the city's getting paid for renting that parking lot out to the 49ers. I don't think they're paying a damn dime for it. They just take it and get away with whatever they can. They do not own city property. Please stop it. But my time's over, thank you.

Thank you. You wanna throw some hate at me? What's that? I thought you were gonna throw some hate at me. No, I'm not sure I believe your jelly donut thing, but that's okay. That's all right. I'll go try myself. All right, thank you. Akos, please come forward. Welcome.

Thank you. Last November 18, Council continued repeal of the prohibition of pedestrians to after FIFA, but staff did not agendize it. In 2006, Council voted to postpone repeal until after the 2008 County Expressway Plan is approved. Highway staff from the county lost the BOS vote. The BOS approved sidewalks on all expressways and no prohibitions. Then city staff stonewalled for 14 years to bring repeal to a council vote per the 2006 council action. I spoke to council in November 2024 and council referred repeal to staff. Staff continued stalling and I had to keep coming back to remind council of their referral. It was finally agendized for last November. At that meeting, highway staff lied to council that the BOS supports blanket prohibitions of pedestrians from expressways. I uploaded the video clip of that sentence and the proof that it was a lie. City staff also lied to council, claiming the city does not prohibit use of sidewalks on expressways. Resolution 5603 has no exception for sidewalks, paths, bike lanes, and bus stops. All are prohibited. Staff prevented me from rebutting these lies by stating them after I was allowed to speak. These lies show that highway staff and city staff are desperate to keep prohibiting pedestrians. Why? Highway staff want to construct a 10-lane freeway through Santa Clara by destroying sidewalks, bike lanes, and landscapings along Lawrence, including access to Lawrence train station. My uploaded links provide proof. Expressways have fewer stoplights, but are no more, quote, high speed, unquote, than arterial roads. The top photo, shows Java Drive where light rail patrons were forced to walk in the 45 mile per hour traffic lane, the same speed as most expressways. San Jose has 23 miles of expressways and 36 miles of arterial roads with the same speed limit. The bottom photos show Santo Mas before and after, increasing lanes from six to eight, thus creating a concrete wasteland. You now allow using the bike lane but still prohibit sidewalk use. On Lawrence, Iowa staff wants to again cite your resolution as authority to destroy sidewalks as they already have in 1993 and 2005. Don't let staff prevent Council from taking action by their decades of stonewalling. Thank you.

Thank you, Akos. As you know, we can't discuss your presentation, but I know our staff is fully aware of it, so City Manager. Sure. Thank you, Mayor, Council.

The item is tentatively scheduled to come back to you on October 6th. It is on our internal tickler file, and I do know the Public Works Department is working on bringing that item back to you.

Did you hear that, Akos? October 6th. And it sounds like it's far away, but it's not. Okay. We'll see you then. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thanks for coming this evening.

Madam Mayor, I just wanted to make you aware and the public aware per our disruption policy that apparently we're having some transmission issues with our YouTube and our Facebook channels. That doesn't require us to stop the meeting. It's only where the two-way communications are impacted. But we wanted to at least make folks available that were aware of the problem and I think the tech folks are trying to work to resolve that.

Okay, very good. All right, thank you. Chris, Chris Tempolis, please come forward.

Welcome. Hi. California Elections Code 13017A states that the Secretary of State and other election officials shall not accept a designation of which any of the following would be true. One, it would mislead the voter. And four, it uses a word or prefix such as former or ex, which means a prior status. The only exception is the use of the word retired. Now, California Code of Regulations 2716 states that a candidate may not use the word retired in his or her ballot designation if that candidate possesses another more recent intervening principal profession, vocation, or occupation. Now, in the situation of this year's Santa Clara mayoral candidate, Gary Ferraris, San Jose Spotlight reports that Ferraris is a former Santa Clara maintenance worker and labor representative. He worked for the city for about 15 years before moving into a staff role with AFSCME Council 57. Now, if one is continuing to work for pay, the simple act of applying to receive Social Security, for example, at age 62 does not grant someone legal status to suddenly use the word retired in one's ballot designation if they continue to work. Likewise, resigning from a government position and immediately entering into a new full-time job does not grant someone legal status to use the word retired in one's ballot designation, even if one is eligible to receive a full or partial pension and does actually receive it. California Elections Code is explicit that one may not use a former status in one's candidate ballot designation. Former, never okay. X, never okay. If one cannot fit the single word of retired under one's name on the ballot without any additional modifier, then one cannot use the three words retired city employee. Mr. Ferrari's own Facebook page clearly states that he resigned from the city of Santa Clara on July 22nd, 2024, and on the exact same day began a full-time job as a union representative with AFSCME, Northern California Region District 57, and AFSCME grants him a public staff page. I consider union work to be honorable. There's nothing wrong with him working for AFSCME. It could be a wonderful job. I worked in the labor movement long enough myself for enough years to receive a small pension on my own. However, to allow Mr. Ferraris the political tactic of conveying to the electorate that he is a former city employee by trying to kind of slide it under the use of the word retired is not legal because he certainly is not retired and never has been retired for even one day for the purpose of the definition of candidate ballot designation. The voters deserve not to be misled. Gary has a job. He works for AFSCME. That is not illegal. However, a conspiracy to mislead the voters is illegal. The city attorney has you as his only client. The city manager directly supervisors the assistant city clerk and she supervises subordinate staff. They know or should have known, because I brought this to the clerk's office multiple times before having to come here tonight. Conspiracies and knowing violations of state law are not okay. Finally, dealing with future recusals is not the issue here. The issue is that the word retired must be able to stand alone, and candidate Ferraris has a new profession for more than two years, which means that retired cannot be used. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. As you know, we can't really respond to that, but city attorney heard, city clerk heard, everyone heard. Thank you very much. Okay, next we have Anthony Becker. Welcome.

Madam Mayor, he will have nine minutes. He has time donated.

Good evening, everyone. I hope you all had a good summer. One of the last council meetings, this council took the vote to do two things, place the investigation, the discussion on the agenda, and to look into an ethics advisor. It is time that we have a very deep conversation about this and what the findings are and what we are going to do about it. And part of me thinks that there'll be probably more delays or someone else will probably end up taking the fall, but I don't want to think negatively on this. And I hope that we find out who disclosed the information to FIFA. So first, I want to thank the council for taking that first step in putting this on the agenda and admitting that we do have a problem here in the city about the fee for disclosure. It's about time, as I said. And I'm hoping that we can get to the deep down transparent thing about, as I said, who released the chronicle. Second, the election ethics advisor situation sounds just like it did just the past few years by not being prepared. I blame this on the elected city clerk for the last six years. They've had the power to get the ability of something like this before council in a timely manner, and they didn't. Since 2016, the city has not had an ethics consultant during elections, yet the mayor wants an ethics commission. Good question, huh? It makes no sense. It really makes me feel like we don't want an ethics consultant during the elections like it used to be because then we wouldn't be holding candidates accountable for what they said during elections. A decade ago, and especially for what they accuse, a decade ago, Councilmember Kathy Watanabe was exposed for her false statements with the ethics consultant. Suds was there, I was there, Kevin was there, Raj was there, we all saw it. Since that election a decade ago, it seems that we don't care about campaign ethics. In 2024, we got a phony ethics pledge from Tom Shanks that was sent out to the mayor's candidates before any of the incumbents was getting it and said you know that for a fact too. We need real ethics programs during elections, not the mayor's phony ethics guy who has himself problematic ethical issues and remember what I've said about him in the past. Now to a topic that has gained some heat lately about performance reveals that I wanted to set the record straight and let the public know and the mayor should probably know before she speaks. The performance review, I remember we tried to start the performance review one year after the anniversaries of the city manager and the city attorney hearings. I remember even then in closed session and out of it, the mayor and council member Watanabe were doing everything that they could to undermine this process. Just like other times when they lied and accused me of violence, they tried to undermine settlement negotiations. In this case, they undermined the entire process by not being serious. That is when council member Jane took the initiative. Councillor Jane sent an email to HR, Mayor Gilmour and me as the Vice Mayor trying to initiate this process in the February of 2024. In my capacity as Vice Mayor, I respond to say that I was eager to move forward with the process of annual performance reviews since the Vice Mayor can take the lead if the Mayor did not. The Mayor was silent to Suds. The Mayor purposely avoided the topic. I took the lead and this is where staff told me that it would not be a good look to have the performance review for the Mayor and Council, if Mayor and Council Member Watanabe were not there. So basically again, two held this council hostage like the bond measure issue. This is political terrorism. Two members caused the delay and now two members caused the delay now and it makes the city out of compliance. Now the mayor says that this is wrong that we're out of compliance, yet it's the mayor who prevented it from happening. I see what it is, Mayor. You create the problem and you're the solution. You did this with the city salaries as mayor. You created a monster by hiring the disgrace failure that was Deanna Santana. It was you who voted for it, caused it, including Kathy Watanabe, and now we are the impact of it. I knew when Jovan was hired and his salary demands that you would do exactly this, and sure enough, here we are. You did this exactly with the swim center, failed to fix it, blame this council. Then you take credit for it when it's being fixed. It's getting old, but thankfully, you're on your way out of office. But again, the topic of performance review is Mayor Gilmour's close friend and confidant, James Rowan, said that he notified the civil grand jury. The same James Rowan who assaulted transit employees and guy who keeps firing and filing false complaints to the grand jury. Little does he know that it should be he filing the complaints against Mayor, his friend. one who avoided any such review, including Councilmember Watanabe. Both made sure that the review process did not happen, and I call that sabotage. As I said before, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, so I did some digging and performance reviews, where one of the topics of the 1987 Grand Jury Report that was conveniently mentioned that Mayor Gilmour was interviewed during that period. When I noticed too on the performance review debate that there's so no called non-profit stand up for Santa Clara's got going again and doing polls on the matter. I find it ironic that they question city managed salaries and performance reviews when they were the ones behind the huge salaries of the former management and performance reviews that they thought were a joke. stand up for santa clara says that they are not political but their history says otherwise and it's no surprise they're starting up around this campaign again the city has never held them accountable for misleading posts dark money violations and no one knows who donates or supports them myself councilmember jane councilmember park filed complaints against the city with complaints with the city and nothing was ever done about it This is no transparency. They created the new website, deleted their entire Facebook page with the subject of an investigation themselves, getting rid of any trace of their political activity, including all the political ads that they ran during an election season. It says a lot when the president of the false organization blocks you on Facebook. I have noticed that is what many of these people do when they're confronted with their dirty deeds. This is the same organization that still not proved their nonprofit status from the IRS, still says on their old website they're 501c3, and on their new one they don't even have that anymore. So what is it? Why can't you explain this? And why was it that their address that they did list was in the building that was owned by the mayor? Can you explain that question too? Again, can anyone explain how they had a political forum with the old Quad Association in 2016? No. None of you can explain that. And again, we just choose to ignore Stand Up for Santa Clara. Why? Because, well, it's politics. So lastly, I'd like to mention, though, is about SUDS Jane 039, which I'm not going to be able to be here for, but it's about something else. I cannot be here because it's directly tied to that. And as I agree with what SUDS is doing about water and data centers, I believe that the city should take steps to regulate data centers as what other cities and communities are doing across this nation right now. I attempted to bring regulation to data center debate when I proposed a moratorium on data centers to the city manager and to even put it on the agenda. I wanted to have a full discussion with the city council and a planning commission to have a joint discussion about this and what we can do to come up with the regulation for data centers. This was prevented by not being able to put it forward from the city council. I know for sure when I talked to the city manager about it and having that joint meeting and the discussions of potential regulations, the city manager told me he didn't want to rock the boat and upset big data. Yeah, that's right, big data just like big pharma. The more I think back to that convo, I think I should have kept pushing because why is it big data is calling the shots here in Santa Clara? I mean, the mayor calls the shots, so I guess Big Data's calling the shots. Is it simply because Big Data is driven by related in its project in the future or where Great America currently sits? Either way, something has to be done for data centers, and Councilmember Jane's request is one step, I think, in that direction. But there needs to be more done about data centers, especially what's being currently done around the nation. I know I've contacted Aaron Brockovich on this matter because of how drastic this is becoming. And I feel one thing I'm going to admit to a lot of people right now is I feel like I failed the Planning Commission by not having this joint discussion when I was pushing for it the entire time. I even had it on a priority setting session. Oh, by the way, whatever happens to all those priority setting sessions? Oh, yeah, it gets stuck on the back burner. That's what happens. But I do want to apologize to the Planning Commission, the people, the public, that I never was able to have that discussion, the joint discussion about regulating data centers in our city. I should have never accepted no for an answer. So I hope that the Planning Commission will accept my apology and I know that Lance on there was one of the biggest proponents of having a discussion about data centers and we should have had that. So I want to thank the council for having me here tonight. And again, I think we're taking major steps in moving forward in the FIFA investigation disclosure. I'm looking forward to hear about that. But when it comes down to performance reviews, Mayor, please don't mislead the public, especially when it comes to who created the salary situation in the city. It was you, and it's always been you. And thankfully, by the end of 26, you're out of here. Have a great evening, everyone.

Thank you very much. All right, number 0183, online. Go ahead, please.

Good evening. My name is James Rowland. I would like to say God love the city council, the city staff and everyone in the city of Santa Clara. And I'd like to add all retired first responders and current responders. Thanks to what we just heard. God love them all because what they do. Now to Mr. Becker, the convicted felon, the convicted felon for perjury. Mr. Becker, as usual, once again, was convicted by a jury of his peers for lying, told a lie about me. I was never, ever convicted of any felony or any assault. As a matter of fact, after that regrettable incident of mine, which I accepted the consequences of disturbing the peace, I was reappointed by the Civil Service Commission on a motion from Mayor Judy Nadler. who I think had a lot of ethics involved. Now, oh, by the way, Mr. Becker throws people off commissions or refuses to put them on when they're critics. Another example of Mr. Becker's lying. Well, what can you say about a person who just also told a lie about Tom Shanks? I guess I'm in good company. Why would we not have an ethics commission and have an ethics consultant on an ethics commission would be appointed by the majority of the city council, not so much of the mayor, would be able to control it. Again, uninteresting, fascinating. That's Mr. Becker's only ability to do lie. Now, I will conclude by saying this. 170 years ago, in Barman Bay in the circus, there was an exhibit called the Boneless Wanda. And now we see Mr. Becker is inviting his friend, Sons Jane. 170 years later, Norman Bailey can see again with Sons Jane, the political boneless wonder of Santa Clara. Data centers, Mr. Becker says, I allowed data centers, but I shouldn't have. Another lie. It is becoming so much where he lies. One numbers if he can ever tell the truth. Well, who knows? Oh, by the way, Mr. Becker, the appeals court will soon be saying, you're out of here too. Good night.

Thank you. Edward, go ahead, Edward.

Yeah, I know that the Grand America property is zoned for entertainment. I don't know if the state can override that to put apartments. I definitely don't want an AI data center or data centers there. I'm hearing horror stories about that, how it's taking away power and water away from the people. Hopefully that's not true. But I also wanted to mention that I did hear recently about the power extension from the north coming into this side of Santa Clara on the north side of I guess through Lafayette. And I'm hoping that we'll have the related project finally get it started for that groundbreaking just north of Levi's Stadium. But yeah, I know you probably can't answer the questions right now from the people who are speaking, but hopefully we'll be able to hear more about that soon. And yeah, that's all I wanted to mention. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Edward. Is there anyone else who would like to make a public presentation? Please come forward.

Okay, all right, welcome. Hi, my name is Rabir Bhatia, and I'm speaking on behalf of the chamber, and that was my Achilles that just reacted. I just wanted to say that I'd like to invite you all to our mixer tomorrow. We are releasing a lot more activity in our Santa Clara businesses. It's actually at Method 42. They started in Santa Clara, they left, they came back, and they've actually, within the year they've been with our chamber, they've expanded to three times the size. And it's from 6 to 7.30 at Method 42, right off of Laurelwood. Please join us and come and meet all the new businesses that are opening up in the city of Santa Clara, but also joining the chamber. We recognize every new business with a certificate of recognition and offer them training with our small business growth plans. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the invitation. Thank you.

I'm going to hobble right back.

Take your time. Take your time. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Please come forward. Welcome.

Good evening, council members. I'm here tonight as a member of the City Hall Community Advisory Committee. I want to be clear tonight that I'm speaking only for myself as one committee member, not on behalf of the full CAC. I want to start by saying that our first meeting went very well. Everyone at the table seems genuinely interested in exploring the full range of options and working toward a recommendation that will serve Santa Clara and its residents well. There's real energy and goodwill on this committee, and I want the council to know that. That said, I want to share some concerns about our timeline going forward. Our second meeting, which had been scheduled for yesterday, August 17th, was canceled on Wednesday of last week. The reason given was to allow additional time to gather information and prepare the presentation for the committee. I want to note that I appreciate the effort staff is putting into this work. It's clearly a big task, and I know they're working hard to prepare thorough, substantive information for us. But given that staff has known for months that a CAC would be part of this process and that we would need a second introductory working meeting, I do think this groundwork for the second meeting, the first real working meeting of the committee, could have been prepared well before mid-August. At the meeting that should have occurred yesterday, we could simply have been given a deeper dive into the options that were only briefly introduced at our first introductory meeting. We could have had the chance to raise our own questions so staff could work on addressing them ahead of the next meeting. We could have discussed the community outreach plan, and we could have learned more about the site tours staff would like to offer the committee. None of that happened, and the cancellation wasn't discussed with our elected committee chair beforehand. We've also been given very limited options for scheduling future meetings. On July 29th, staff set us a list of possible dates for future meetings. Since then, the only meeting date we've been given is September 21st, and we only learned about that date in the same email from last week that canceled our August meeting. We have no other confirmed dates beyond that. We're all very busy people on this committee and our schedules will continue to fill up the longer future dates go unconfirmed. My concern is about time. We were told that the target is a recommendation to council within nine months of our first meeting. which puts us around April 2027. Between the canceled meeting and the current pace of roughly one or two months between meetings, we will not have enough time to fully explore our options and arrive at a recommendation the committee and this council can be confident in. More frequent meetings, more date options for these meetings, possibly alternate meeting locations could all help us find the time we need. I'd like to ask the council to encourage staff to prioritize getting these meetings scheduled and to avoid any future cancellations so that this committee can do the thorough work this project deserves within the time we've been given. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. As you're aware, we are not able to answer that, but staff heard loud and clear. Okay? Thank you. All right. Any other item, public presentations? Any online? I don't see any. Okay. We're going to move now to consent items pulled for discussion. And this item was pulled back in June, of June 23rd, 2026. Action on the May 5th, 2026 and May 19th, 2026, Joint City Council and Authorities Concurrent and Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board Meeting Minutes and the May 6, 2026 Special City Council Meeting Minutes and the May 26, 2026 Joint City Council and Authorities Concurrent and Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board Meeting Minutes. I believe it was pulled by Councilmember Park. Would you like to tell us why you pulled this item?

Yes. We actually talked to the city manager about this earlier today in our one-on-one, and I went back through my notes, and at the time, when we looked at the meeting minutes for council, we were backed up two months. We had approvals for meeting minutes that were two months old. At that time there were many issues where we needed to see for potential reconsiderations or other actions what the actions at the previous meeting were. Usually when we talk about the minutes and approval of the minutes, it's usually the approval of minutes from the previous meeting. but when the previous meeting where the minutes that are being approved are from two months ago and we have nothing from the previous month of meetings, we're a little better caught up today, but we're not up to the standard that we need to be if the public is going to have input on what we've done, if the public is going to be able to do reconsiderations, if the public is going to be able to take actions or make comments on what we've done, right? If the meeting minutes aren't published until two meetings after a reconsideration can take place, then we're not really doing the public any favors. And I pulled this item to make very clear. At that time, we were two months backed up in terms of meeting minutes. Our meeting minutes aren't that complex. We don't have narrative meeting minutes. We have action minutes. Those action minutes should be fairly easy to stay on top of. We went over schedules for how city council meetings are planned, but there is no step in there that talks about how do we ensure that meeting minutes from a previous meeting get approved. All the approval steps are way too late for approving the meeting minutes from the previous the previous meeting, and I just wanted to point that out. We're better caught up, but we are not caught up, and I would like us to do a little bit better, and if you have some comments on why this occurs, why it's so difficult to get action minutes in a timely manner, I'm willing to hear them.

Maybe I'm confused, but these were actions from May meetings that were approved in June, so I'm very confused about your comments, but City Manager, do you have a comment on these comments?

Sure, thank you, Mayor, and just a high-level comment to Councilmember Park's statements. Certainly, there are a number of process steps that occur any time a council action or agenda packet is created. For example, we are currently sitting at a meeting on Tuesday the 18th. Your very next meeting is on the 25th. That packet will be published later this week. All of the items for that, agenda have gone through numerous individuals numerous approval markers and are in their final form it is not possible to at the very next meeting whether there is a one week or a two week gap in our current process and with our current staffing in our clerk's office to provide you the minutes at the very next meeting as the mayor said this action that was originally scheduled for the June 23rd meeting had minutes from May 5th, May 19th, May 6th and May 26th on them. And so you were set to take one action to approve, to review and approve all of those minutes. I understand one of the comments that the council member made, which is, Council members may need may desire to reconsider an item I would also say you don't need minutes to reconsider an item that you voted on at a prior meeting I think on a number of occasions council members have Requested at the very next meeting to reconsider an item The minutes are not required for that action in addition the council member mentioned so that the public can reconsider an item I do not know that we currently have a a process that has been executed for the public to reconsider an item, but.

The public can reconsider. Yeah, they can. It gets submitted and a council member, yeah, acts on it.

A council member acts on it, but not directly from the, a public member cannot reconsider an item.

Council Member Hardy. That's a motion. Motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales. Councilmember Park?

Yeah, I just wanted to comment on some of the things that I've heard, which is that means that for all the previous meetings in June, we had nothing approved for May. That was my big complaint. In fact, in June, our minutes that we were approving were way back in April. When you say that the... When you tell us that the public should go to watch the meetings to do this, that's fine. But I think that we need to provide the public with the information that they need so that they can make a request for reconsideration. I hear that the public's not allowed to make the request for reconsideration. Actually, and we've talked about this, I'm surprised that you don't remember that we've talked about this in Governance and Ethics, anyone can make the motion can make the request to reconsider. But only people on the prevailing side can make the motion to reconsider. This was the subject to a discussion in governance and ethics about redundancy in the process. This is something that, again, these are the kinds of things that if we don't take them seriously in our process, then we are denying the public an ability to participate in governance. These are the things that I'm talking about. I literally said that on the June 23rd meeting, we were more caught up, but the prior meeting, we did not have a single, we did not have the minutes approved for a single meeting in the previous month. This is the problem I'm looking at. When I hear that it is not possible to have meeting minutes provided for the previous meeting a week earlier, at the soonest, You know, I find it hard to believe that we cannot do that. I know that I'm on other committees, I'm on other commissions where this is done very well. I mean, we again, we use the term the minutes to refer to the previous meeting's minutes. And at this point, to suggest that we have the the public have to attend, have to see, have to look at every single item. When we have items that are going late, when we have items that go past midnight, when people come for an item and ultimately have to go home to take care of family, for them not to be able to see in the minutes whether or not they need to look at, request a reconsideration, I think this is unfair to the public. And again, this doesn't make things better, But I did want to point this out so that in the future, when we've got this kind of issue, we have this on record that people have complained about this. I mean, I brought this up because, not because I thought about this, but because somebody in the public asked me a question, and I said, well, these are my notes, but I want to see what the minutes say, and there were no minutes available. And when I looked into it, there were no minutes available. And I believe that one of the reasons we had so many minutes on approval for that meeting is because of my questions that went to staff asking, why aren't the minutes available? So I appreciate that we stepped it up and got here. But I think that we have a lot of work to do if we really want to be useful to the public when it comes to just taking part in our meetings. Thank you.

Council Member Jane.

I recognize that often minutes are, you know, not available for the next meeting, but there is the video that is available by the next meeting. And since we only do action minutes, any member of the public that wants to know the details of how a decision was made, they pretty much have to go to the caption notes or to the video to understand the issue. So that is available at all times, well before the next meeting. but I do have a problem in general with minutes being late. Often this council approves the minutes for the Parks and Rec Committee and for Cultural Committee. Often I read those minutes well after events that they had planned have passed. Sometimes those minutes are four months late, and so events that they're planning are long gone by the time I see them in the minutes. So, I think we could do better, but with respect to council meetings are almost happening every week now for the rest of the year, I understand it's very difficult for staff to try to get the minutes done for the next meeting, but we do have the video and we have the caption notes.

Thank you. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this? All right, city clerk, we have, oh, did you want to say something? Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. Go ahead, please.

So I hear the council member's concern, and I just would like to clarify for the record that the April minutes, there were three sets, and those came before the council, and I have it written down here.

Just a second here.

those went to council on may 19th there were three sets of april minutes and i'd also like to set for the record that the minutes have been one month turnaround for the full month prior for the last two years and i know that because we strive to bring those minutes back as soon as possible however in speaking with my deputy we perhaps the council would prefer we break up those minutes. I mean, we are having back-to-back meetings, sometimes four meetings a month, so we can bring two sets within two weeks and not save them all for the next month if that is what the council would like.

I think you're doing an excellent job in the city clerk's office, considering the amount of business we have here and the frequency of our meetings. We're supposed to have meetings twice a month. Now we're having lots of extra meetings and special meetings. And I appreciate everything that you've done. So I'm calling for the question now. I don't want any more repeats. City Clerk, when you're ready, we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzalez.

I would like to challenge the call for a question. What does that mean? If a majority of council votes, and I don't know that they will, that we can challenge the call for the question because I think that there are comments that have been made and there are some rebuttals and there are some comments I'd like to make.

All right, City Attorney, what do we have to do now? I think under our policies, Madam Mayor, there can be a motion and a second to extend the debate and a super majority vote of the council will approve that.

All right. Is there a motion and a second?

Motion to extend debate. Second.

All right, motion and second to extend the debate. City Clerk, when you're ready.

Council Member Shahal?

Yes.

Council Member Hardy? No. Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jane.

Yes.

Council Member Cox. No. Vice Mayor Gonzales. No. Mayor Gilmore.

No, so that fails. City Clerk, when you're ready, we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales to approve these minutes.

Council Member Chauhal.

I would, yes. Just for record, I cannot hear Council Member Hardy. I'm not sure whether it's only me or everybody else. I think her speaker is not good. It's low.

I cannot hear you. Can everyone hear her? Okay, switch it out with Council Member Chahal's mic and see if that works. Thank you, Council Member Chahal. We're trying to fix it. We're seeing if it's the mic. Try that one, Karen.

No, I got it.

I'm not sure whether it's my problem or somebody else is complaining too. Try number one. Do you want me to try that one or not?

Mic check, can you hear me?

That's not on. She tried that one.

This is her third one she's trying.

Mic check, can you hear me?

There we go. I guess we have to turn them on. Oh, that one you have to turn on. That one's different. Yeah, that one's different than the other. I can hear you. Okay, thank you. Okay, city clerk?

Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Yes.

Council Member Jane. Yes. Council Member Cox. Yes. Mayor Gilmore.

Yes. Did everyone vote? Yes. Okay. Oh, and Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Yes. Got one. Okay. That passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Moving on. Item number six, a public hearing to waive the first reading and introduce the third zoning code cleanup ordinance and adopt a resolution rezoning properties currently designated TN, which is transit neighborhood, to R6, which is transit neighborhood residential, continued from the July 14th city council meeting. So this is a public hearing and it is open. City manager?

or city, I don't know, city attorney or manager?

I'll take it, Mayor. Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. You last updated a zoning code update in January of 2024. I like to say that these are living, breathing documents. They change over time. Staff is currently bringing forward to you a third cleanup ordinance. This has went to the Planning Commission and was approved by the Planning Commission. We will provide a full presentation on the items that are being requested to be approved. This item also includes a resolution to update the zoning code map by rezoning properties in Tasman East to be consistent with the current R6 transit neighborhood residential designation that is in our current general plan. Tonight's presentation will be provided by Leslie Xavier, our Community Development Planning Manager. Leslie?

Welcome, Leslie.

Thank you. Thank you, sitting manager, and good evening, mayor and council members. The city zoning code is the primary regulatory tool that implements our general plan. In January 2024, the city council adopted its first comprehensive zoning code update in over 50 years. Subsequently, in July 2024, the council adopted the accompanying zoning map, applying new zoning districts to the properties throughout the city. And then in August 2024, the council adopted the first zoning code cleanup ordinance, and in June 2025, the second cleanup ordinance was adopted. As the zoning code update was a substantial body of work and to keep the document up to date, staff will periodically bring cleanup ordinances to address clerical inconsistencies within the document or areas needing further clarification based on implementation of the code or revisions that are needed in order to be consistent with changes in state law. This evening we're requesting changes to the zoning code that include policy actions, code consistency actions, and consistency with state law actions. In the following slides, I'll provide you an overview of some of these actions. Some of the policy actions include incorporating provisions of the HP historic combining district and the updated zoning code. This will reestablish its place within the code. This was a district that was in the old code and did not get transferred over when we adopted the new code. Allowing for existing wireless facilities to be reinstalled as building mounted facilities after redevelopment of a site. differentiating institutional uses from assembly uses in the public quasi-public zoning district. And this is important for new institutional uses like the proposed Sutter Health Hospital. Another policy action is to change the building height for public quasi public zoning district by allowing additional building height for institutional uses. Instead of the 60 feet and six stories, this change would allow for institutional uses that are on 10 acres or more to go to 200 feet and 12 stories. This change is being requested as typically institutional uses have much larger floor plates for their operations and this change in height would accommodate those standards. Other consistency actions include adding a definition for the term dwelling unit, revising the definition of the term demolition to square with the term presented in the administrative chapter of the state building code, refining the definition of smoke shops for clarity, and making the general plan and zoning code definitions of floor area ratio consistent with each other. Another consistency action, following feedback from our Department of Public Works, staff is proposing to update the visibility clearance diagram to be consistent with the public work standard. So on my left, your left, okay great, is our current diagram and on the right is the proposed diagram which is consistent with our public work standards. To be consistent with state law, the proposed zoning code update would add a new section entitled Unbundled Parking Multifamily Projects to the Off-Street Parking Regulations and Design Standards Chapter. This addition to the code is consistent with AB 1317 that requires apartment owners to unbundle parking from rent. The standard will apply to all multifamily projects greater than 15 units citywide with exceptions per state law, which include properties with individual tenant garages, deed restricted affordable housing units, units financed with low income housing tax credits, housing development that is financed with tax exempt bonds, and a unit that is leased to a tenant who receives federal housing assistance under Section 8. For streamlining actions, staff is proposing to remove the requirement to post mailed public hearing notices on the city's website. This has not been the city's practice and is not part of the public outreach policy, but was included in the code update. This is duplicative work as the agenda with listed hearing items is already posted on the city's website and is also a searchable document on the website. As shown on the top right image, this is where we're currently posting our hearing notices. This is on the city's event calendar. And this is an example of the planning commission meeting. At the bottom, we have the notices posted in one PDF document. So the change we're requesting under section 18.146.20, notice of hearing number four, is to remove item F and all other posting requirements, so A through E will remain in effect. Another streamlining action consistent with many state housing laws and with the adoption of the citywide objective design standards, staff is proposing to streamline the architectural review of multifamily projects that are consistent with objective design standards in the zoning code by not requiring a public hearing. CEQA review and community meetings will still be required. Staff is proposing this change as the city's objective standards remove discretion from the permit approval process, increase certainty in streamlining the development review process for applicants. The proposed zoning code amendment also includes the option for a public hearing when development proposals do not meet the objective standards. And the combination of objective standards and administrative approval process provides a powerful incentive for development projects to be consistent with the city's policy framework. And the final streamlining action is to rezone the Tasman East District from TN, Transit Neighborhood, it's a holdover district from our previous zoning code, to the new Transit Neighborhood residential zone, R6, which is in the current code. On June 10th, 2026, the Planning Commission held a public hearing to discuss the code changes and recommended that the City Council adopt the zoning code cleanup and ordinance with two modifications. the Planning Commission discussed the definition of smoke shop and recommended revising it to better capture the range of items sold at such businesses. Specifically, they recommended to replace the word and with the word or in the list of items describing what smoking materials and paraphernalia are. And this is used to determine what a business is primarily engaged in. The Planning Commission's revised wording is included in the proposed ordinance before you this evening. And then in regard to removing the posting of notices on the city website, the Planning Commission recommended an alternative, such as posting the council agenda online, which are relevant and accessible in a practice that currently takes place, as this would also fulfill the same function as posting the mailed notices of individual projects. The Planning Commission also recommended that the city council apply the R6, Transit Neighborhood Residential Zoning District, to the properties currently zoned TN on the zoning map, consistent with the general plan. For environmental clearance, the zoning code cleanup is an implementation action covered under the addendum to the 2010-2035 general plan environmental impact report. The zoning code update would not result in environmental impacts beyond those described in the general plan update EIR. And then finally, staff's recommendation is for the city council to adopt updates to the zoning code consistent with the general plan and state laws and apply the R6 transit neighborhood residential district properties currently zoned TN on the zoning map consistent with the general plan. This concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions.

Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. When I read through these I was a little surprised when I saw under the policy changes that said requiring uncovered parking on residential parcels to be perpendicular to the street. Now is that saying that isn't that way now and you want to implement this because I can think of single family homes where the garage is turned so it is parallel to the street and not perpendicular and therefore parking. And so that concerned me. Is this just for new or would this apply to everyone? Because I can think of existing that this would not be appropriate. And also I was wondering right below it, it says requiring automotive service bays to not be visible from the street. I wanted to understand what that really meant and what that was requiring because I can think of many of our or service industry where that is, you can see it from El Camino. So I wanted to understand if that was for new or not, because it didn't say.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Jain.

Thank you, Leslie. I had a similar concern about the perpendicular residential parking, because For residential multifamily, you might want to have a driveway with angled parking, which actually gives you more parking spots, which is what we're trying to achieve. Are you talking about just for single family? Because it only said residential. And then on slide six, we're talking about visibility clearance diagram, and of course these diagrams are way out of scale because it's 12 feet over 100 feet. So it's deceptive, but did you survey homes to see whether their fences, how many fences are out of compliance. People always want to put a fence around their property to prevent dogs and kids, all kinds of things. And then I was wondering about the opacity of the fences. I have a wrought iron fence. It might be a little bit more than three feet tall, but would that be covered? or I'd like you to really explain what the impacts are. Can somebody plant a shrub in that area that's more than three feet tall? That's probably gonna happen frequently, but did you do a survey of how many properties would be in violation of this? Now, I imagine this is only for new construction, but I think putting a fence around your property, most people think is their right to do that. and this may preclude fences. And then in terms of the slide seven on the unbundled parking, it says to be consistent with state law, the proposed zoning code update would also allow fully unbundled parking, no assigned spaces for multifamily rental projects greater than 15 units.

But the actual code,

from the document in our packet actually says, this is section 26. Unbundled parking, multifamily projects, notwithstanding anything to the contrary for new multifamily projects with more than 15 units, including projects in the downtown district, all parking is required to be provided unbundled from the rental of the unit. So is it allowed or required? That seems very unclear to me. Those are my questions, thank you.

Council Member Cox. Mine's gonna be pretty specific just to the height for public quasi public districts. I'm wondering because this is saying on acres of 10 or more and perhaps this is because I've been following on the south side of my district with the Winchester development through San Jose, there's a ton of concerns about heights. buffering up against residential neighborhoods. So I'm wondering if within this 10 acres, there is any regulation that the building will sit further away from what might be residential neighborhoods. Is it anywhere within the 10? Is it in the middle of the 10 acres? I'm just curious about that 10 acre allotment. That seems to be a predicate of the height.

Thank you, Council Member Park.

think that there would be a lot of other requirements and setbacks that would be in play there, but I also have concerns about the Visibility clearance the question about what if their fences? I mean we just had something in my neighborhood where people were replacing wood fences that had no visibility whatsoever with with iron fences, which had lots of visibility. We could drive by, we could see right through the fences. I'd like to know a little bit about that. I also want to know why are we removing the requirement to post public hearing notices? I mean, why have we not been posting public hearing notices on the website? If you don't, if you're not in the notification area, how would you know about um an item if it weren't posted on the website would you have to come to city hall where you know where would you have to go um i also know that you want to remove the requirement for a public hearing for architectural review permits because we've got objective standards but at some point i think that there should be some transition period so that people could come to an architectural review you know, to a public hearing, see what the effect is, and if in fact the objective standards are working the way that we intend, those meetings I hope will be very short. And after a while, and I don't know what that would be, we would obviate the need for additional hearings. But to just do that in advance, I feel that there should be some transition period. But I'd also like to know why we're removing the requirement to post public hearing notices on the website. And also, why haven't we been doing this if that was in fact, the process? Thank you.

Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick question as far as, you mentioned the height of the Sutter Hospital possibly, but what is the height limit that we have? I thought the Kylie project was gonna be originally higher. I'm just wondering what our height limitations are.

There's your questions. Do you need more time? Would you like me to go to the public hearing? public. I'm not sure it's going to give you a lot of more time. It's all right.

You know, I'll go I'll go ahead and attempt and you can let me know if I missed anything. Okay, so let's start with the uncovered parking. It is just for single family homes. And that would be having them parallel to the street so that they couldn't park perpendicular to the street like a parking space in the front setback right against the sidewalk. So that was the intent of putting that into the code. As far as the service bay is not visible from the street, this is a design standard that we're proposing to put in the code. Currently, anything that has a bay adjacent to the street would be legal non-conforming. They wouldn't be required to change that. This would be just for new development. So access to the service bay would need to be behind the rear or to the side. So it's the way they choose to site the building so that the building fronting the street has a nicer aesthetic. Let's see, that was for Council Member Hardy, Council Member Jain. We did not do a survey of homes for the visibility clearance triangle. The height within that visibility clearance for fences is three feet. The height in a front setback for a single family home is currently three feet, so those do currently align. We do have a lot of homes in Santa Clara that aren't currently in conformance with that three-foot height, whether it's a fence or a hedge, but that three-foot height would remain, and this wouldn't change that. As far as the opacity of the fence, it could be wrought iron or it could be wood. We don't have any regulations as to if it needs to be see-through or not. And yes, the visibility triangle would be implemented for new construction, so we would not be going out implementing this to all single-family homes in Santa Clara. It would be just for new construction.

I understand your answers. So if somebody is building new construction and they wanna put a fence all around their property, they can't put anything in that zone?

No, they can. They can put a three-foot fence.

Yeah, a three-foot fence.

Correct. which is what's allowed already.

But it doesn't matter whether it's wrought iron or not. If it's more than three foot feet.

It's not allowed.

And if they're replacing something that's existing, it has to be within the requirements. But there's really no permits for replacing a fence, right?

There's not, no.

Correct.

Okay.

Honor system.

I see.

But yeah, currently a single family home typically has a front setback of 20 feet. Within that 20 feet, only a three foot fence is allowed. So if you're on a corner lot, it's the same. There's just this additional visibility triangle, and that's more for siting new development.

Nothing can be higher than three feet. Correct. Not a bollard or anything. Right. Okay, thank you.

Unbundled parking, apologies, that's a mistake on the slide. It should say required, not allow. So it is a state law required. For the PQP and the height change, if we could go back to that slide. It was a small four. Yeah, there. So it is on sites that are 10 acres or more, so very large sites within Santa Clara. If you see under the proposed, the areas I've highlighted, right above that, if you're within a single R1 or R2 zoning district, so if you have a 10 acre property that's adjacent to that, The lower heights do apply. So 32 feet, and there is a certain distance for that in another section of the code. I'm sorry, I don't know it off the top of my head. But there is a lower height limit if you're adjacent to that single family home. And I think Council Member Gonzales, you also had a question about the PQP height. And what is it now? So currently, it's 60 feet and six stories. And we'd be changing that just for institutional uses that are 10 acres or more to go up to 200 feet and 12 stories. And so it would be almost anywhere on the 10-acre site within the limitation of the 32 feet if you're adjacent to single family. Council Member Park. So again, why we're removing the posting of the public hearing notices, this was added with the updated zoning code. This was not something that had been practiced before and not something we had initially been doing. We didn't realize that it was in the zoning code. So we have been doing it since January of this year. And we've been posting it in that area I showed on the website on the event calendar. And the reason we're asking to remove it is it's duplicative work. The hearing agenda's already in the same location. So you can click on the hearing agenda, see all the items. You can click on the notice and see all the items. They're the same thing. So that's why we're asking to remove it. And then I've heard your comment on the objective design standards in a transition period. I think I got all of them. I do have an additional piece of information. So there are 10 parcels that are in the city of Santa Clara that are designated PQP where this height limit would apply. So an additional piece of information for you.

Okay. I have two more lights up. Council Member Park and Jane.

Yeah, so I hear what you say about the... I hear what you say about the visibility, but I think, again, the issue that I'm thinking of, if people looked at the wrought iron fences, if they looked at the fences, the actual visibility was pretty clear. I mean, in some places, the question was spacing and things like that, but the residents who applied were very willing to change things. One of the reasons they needed to be higher was they had people breaking into their property, and I think that for security, three-foot height does not give them the security that they wanted or needed, and that's why they asked for a higher height. know a higher fence again nobody came out i don't think anyone actually went out to take a look at the visibility and if we're not looking at how a wooden fence differs from even a picket fence or even a a wrought iron fence i don't think we're doing the residents a favor when they've got concerns about security and access Also, I understand what you mean by things are duplicative if you post them here and post them there, but I think that if it's a web, If it's a digital resource, they should be in one place that's easy to get to. Regardless, you shouldn't have to go into an agenda to get information. Maybe the agenda should refer to a common place where anyone could go that's easily found, and that would be on a website. Again, if we weren't doing it, and we just want to justify why we weren't doing it, or to have to justify, I don't necessarily think that's the right process. I think we should be looking at, well, people didn't use it, nobody complained.

We're questions only, Council Member Park.

But I would like... A question on the end of this. Yes. Can you look at putting items in consistent places so that anyone can take a look at them, whether they go to an agenda or not, so that people can find them? And if you want to remove the... duplicative nature of the posting have the agendas referred to that common location.

Thank you Yeah, I still wanted to drill down into the fences Is this driven by state law or by vision zero mandates or where did this rule come from and I It seems to me that wrought iron fences would be adequate, as long as they had a certain spacing that allowed a certain transparency to them. And then I wanted to go to the definition of the secured bike. I think we added a definition of secured bike parking, which protects the entire bike and its components from theft, vandalism, or inclement weather, and includes bike lockers, rooms with key access. So if somebody were to put a bike locker outside in the parking lot in the rain, would that be considered to be okay? I mean, I like bike rooms with cameras, but I'm just trying to understand how we came up with this definition.

Need a minute to answer a question. That's it for the second round of questions.

I want to see if there's any public comments. I need a minute to answer. Oh, sure.

Thank you. This is a public hearing, so I'm going to open this up for the public. Do we have anyone here in the audience that would like to make a public comment? If so, please come forward. All right. None here in the audience. Mark, you're online. Go ahead, Mark.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I would ask the Council to or not include the approval of a 200-foot height limit on 10-acre parcels. It seems to me there's a limited number of these projects, and if that's required for a particular project, the council certainly has the authority to review those projects individually and grant such approval. It would appear to me that this is an attempt to put into our code a backroom deal for development by significant medical facilities or other industrial facilities that don't want to face public scrutiny or public comment about their projects. So I would urge the council to retain the authority to approve those projects individually and not grant approval in the zoning code. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this? I don't see any.

City Clerk, do you?

All right, so I'm gonna be looking for a motion to close the public hearing. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

To close the public hearing.

Second. All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Gonzales, second by Council Member Hardy to close the public hearing. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready.

Council Member Shahal.

Yes.

Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park. Yes. Council Member Jane. Yes. Council Member Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor Gonzales. Yes. Mayor Gilmour.

Yes. And that passes unanimously. I'm also wondering if we can add Mark Kelsey's comment into answers about the 10-acre parcels and the relevance of that to the zoning code. Does this give automatic approval to projects, or do the projects still have to come back to the council for approval? Just to clarify what the process is for that, when you're ready.

Would you mind taking a recess?

Okay. How about a five? Oh, are they ready? Oh.

I have an answer for you on the bike parking. So for the bike parking definition of the secured bike parking, it's meant to protect the bike itself from theft. So not necessarily the person from rain. So to protect the bike.

The bike from rain.

Or the bike.

If I have a bike locker in the parking lot that's exposed to the rain, it's gonna rust. And so I would like it to be protected from rain. But here you're saying includes bike lockers. So if a developer wanted to put a bike locker in the parking lot not covered, you know the bike lockers, they're porous, they're metal, porous metal, they have holes drilled in them. So the chain is gonna rust, the whole bike's gonna rust.

Okay, so ensuring that it's a covered bike locker, not.

Protected from the rain, that's what it says, yeah.

Okay, okay, understood, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council, Mike Lue, Public Works. If I could get the presentation back on the screen, and then I'm here to try to address the question related to the visibility. That's slide six. In coordination with community development, I believe these two images are actually in the incorrect location. So the one on the right is the current zoning code. So what you see there is a triangle that appears to encroach a lot more into the private property. Right, but a couple things. That one's not to scale, so it's a little bit misleading. The one on the left is actually the proposed. What that does is it really focuses more on the drive approach as you're heading towards the bottom of the drawing, towards the top, It lengthens it a little bit, 125 feet, and then it doesn't focus on the other side. So the triangle is really more for visibility as the driver of the vehicle is driving from the bottom of the graphic to the north. And actually, there's a... If you can see my cursor, what I'm trying to show on the screen here with the pointer. So this, once again, this should have said proposed and then this should have said current. If you pull up the current zoning code, this is what it looks like today. This is the current zoning code. It's getting amended. We're actually adjusting the visibility to be more in alignment with what we actually do with when projects.

I'm saying you're actually reducing the visibility. because you're allowing them to put the fence closer to the corner.

Correct, and we believe that we don't need, this is a very strict interpretation from years ago from what I understand. This is what our staff says when they review projects.

That's what I wanted to get to. You're reducing the visibility. Correct. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. City Manager, do you want to respond to our public member's question?

Yes, there was a question from Mark Kelsey around the additional height for certain facilities over 10 acres. That is proposed to be a conditional use, so there will still be discretion allowed. It is not automatic, and so it's meant to not require a zoning code amendment should it want to be done, but it would be allowed with a conditional use permit.

All right, thank you. Did we get all those questions? Okay. Karen, Council Member Hardy, sorry.

Thank you. When I asked about the uncovered parking on residential parcels, it was not clear if that was only for new development. You didn't say specifically, and I thought about it as Council Member Jayne made the point, and I was thinking about slanted parking, even in residential, especially if it is a one-way street, that is helpful instead of it being perpendicular. So I'm trying to, I understand what you're trying to not allow, but by just saying required to be perpendicular, I'm wondering if that is not allowing some other possibilities. Thank you.

Does that require an answer? I think so.

I would like that answered as far as if it was only for new residential, and does that prohibit us from having slanted parking, especially on a one-way street?

So, yes, it is just for new development, and yes, you could have angled parking, just not parallel parking. So... you could add that clarification if we don't have it in the section.

Because you put require perpendicular.

Yeah.

Just would it be better to say prohibit parallel?

Thank you. Council Member Park.

Yes, I mean you you just made the note that there are only ten parcels that That need the PQP that meet the PQP and just for the public Like edification of the public. Can you name those parcels?

I don't know that I can so Kaiser is one of them Santa Clara University is one of them. There are a What else? The proposed Sutter Health site up on Mission College adjacent to the AMC movie theater there and Mission College itself. Actually, that's not yet. They're requesting a change. Sorry. There's a couple of school sites that are 10 acres. Those are the ones I know off the top of my head.

All right. Thank you. All right, council, what do you wanna do? Vice Mayor Gonzales.

I'll move the staff recommendation.

We have a motion, is there a second? I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second.

I'd like to make an amendment.

Well, let me just finish a sentence. A motion and a second for staff recommendation. Council Member Jane.

that we make the change that Councilmember Hardy had requested about the parallel parking and that we make the change that the bikes will be protected from rain.

Is that accepted, Vice Mayor Gonzales? Councilmember, no, Councilmember Cox, is that accepted by you?

Do we have a cost analysis of what that change would be covered bike parking?

Madam Mayor, if I might, I was provided a draft of the proposed change in the provision regarding the bike parking, and I believe the language covers, Member Jane, what you're talking about. What I'm looking at here that was provided to me is that The language that's added says secured bicycle parking that protects the entire bicycle and its components from theft, vandalism, or inclement weather. So I think, I don't think you need a change. I think it's already in there. Yeah, you might need to keep reading for that part.

Just Council Member Hardy's request. Okay. Accepted, yeah. Okay. Motion second. Okay, Council Member Park on the motion.

Yeah, well, again, I think that the public member was very explicit about the concerns, and I believe that with the list of parcels, those concerns have borne out, and I would like to request that we add, that we strike the 200-foot change.

I don't see a reason for that, but Vice Mayor Gonzales, do you want to strike that? All right, so there you go. Okay, City, Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready.

To the maker of the motion, staff recommendation with the amendment regarding parking changes. Could you repeat that again, please?

Council Member Hardy, would you like to repeat your amendment to that?

Instead of it, let me go back. Instead of it saying that all required uncovered parking and residential parcels be perpendicular to the street, it should say, parallel parking in residential areas, parallel parking to the street is prohibited.

Thank you.

Do you understand that, city manager, city attorney, to be added in there?

Yes. Okay. So it allows perpendicular or angled parking.

Or angled parking. I can shorthand that some way into this motion. As long as the staff and... Understands that.

Council member Shahal.

Yes.

Council member Hardy. Yes. Council member Park.

No.

Council member Jane. Council Member Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Gonzales? Yes. And Mayor Gilmore?

Yes, and that passes six to one. Thank you very much, staff. Thanks for the work on this. All right, our next item. Three 030s in a row. All right, staff update and solicitation of council import or direction on a city council request. Council policy 030 to revise chapter 17.15 of the city code property developments related to required street improvements deferred from June 23rd.

have been a long meeting on june 23rd we have a lot of things deferred from that meeting um city manager do you take this okay thank you mayor thank you council as you know that this is a 030 request from council member jahal just as a reminder the o30 request is a multi-step process so for this meeting we are bringing you back additional information and soliciting feedback on should we agendize a subsequent change to the Municipal Code Chapter 17.15. You will hear in the presentation information on the requirement, estimated cost of the improvements that have been made by property owners, the number of projects or times that this requirement has been applied over several years, as well as benchmarking. from several cities that have similar requirements, albeit slightly different. With that, I'll turn this presentation over to Mike Liu, our Assistant Director and City Engineer in the Public Works Department.

Thank you. Welcome back.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. Once again, Mike Liu, Assistant Director, City Engineer, Department of Public Works. It's my pleasure to present on this item. This is a short presentation to run through. As the city manager just alluded to, this is related to a 030 related to chapter 1715 of the city code. Let me start running through these slides. So just as a bit of background, November 18th last year, Council Member Chauhal submitted a 030 to revised title 17, chapter 17.15, table three, and this is related to requirements for public improvements. The motion was approved to agendize it, and then we were actually scheduled to be here, we're scheduled to be here on the 23rd. It was on the agenda, but the item was deferred to August as that meeting was going very long that night. So we're back here today talk about the topic. So with this slide, this is really just a summary of what chapter 1715 of the city code relates to relative to the topic today. So it's really more about property developments. There's definitions in there related to policies, requirements, and procedures. There's a section related to onsite dedication and easements and rights of way, kind of the a lot of the work we do here in Public Works, and it really gives the city the ability to require street improvements as development comes in. In specific, when you focus on 17-15-110B, there's a statement here related to the developer shall grant the city without costs, easements, and rights away for streets improvements necessary to serve the property, and install the improvements in accordance with Table 3. So the next slide's gonna show you Table 3, so it's a bit of a, journey here to get to the information. So table three is really a bit more detailed. It looks at dedication and street improvements could be required for final maps, parcel maps, and zoning, so that's typically new development. And then the next two categories are really more like existing buildings, existing development. So for residential, it's any single private improvement or any series of private improvements made within a three-year period involving 800 or more square feet of any new construction, additional reconstruction. And for non-residential, it's a very similar requirement, but it's focused on dollar. So that's really more of a $200,000 or more within a three-year period. So as mentioned previously, with this chapter, we apply in basically two situations. We have planning entitlements and building permits. So planning entitlement and building permit is when development comes in, they go through planning, they come to the council or some other body, they get approval, and then once they get that entitlement approval, then they go to the building department for approval, and then that's where we are involved in the review of those plans. The second category are building permits only. So this is really more your typical single family residential addition. There's no need for any substantial planning review or a planning entitlement update and it's really they go straight to the building counter. So this report focuses on building permits only and this is the most typical situation that we've heard some complaints about over the years. So with this slide, I wanted to walk through the process, so building applications received on the top left, Then we do the table three threshold review, so we'll just look at the application, see if it's over 800 square feet. We check the information in terms of whether that's been over, whether it's been over 800 square feet over a three-year period. At that point, we will determine the required improvements, and I do wanna pause here for a second, because what we do focus on is ADA-related improvements, and I have a slide here that shows what we're talking about, but it's really not just, we're not trying to do pavement, It's not street lighting, it's just really some ADA improvements. So once we determine those required improvements, then there's typically a condition of approval and obviously an applicant notice. So we tell the applicant this is what we believe is required and ultimately they hopefully would sign the conditional release letter. What that is is it allows the building permit to be issued with basically a promise from the applicant to come back and pull that permit to do that work. That's kind of what you see in the rest of the boxes there. Here's a slide that shows three types of improvements. The one on the left is a driveway approach and sidewalk improvement. As you can see, the driveway looks a little bit different than the sidewalk next to it, and really the intent there is to build a, if I can use this pointer again, an ADA-related surface that allows somebody in a wheelchair have a flatter surface here. This does typically require reconstruction of the actual driveway approach as well. And then occasionally there could be dedication of some rights of way to really fit that all in. There are occasions where there's some sidewalk improvements as well, as you can see in the second picture in the middle. And last but not least is the curb ramp improvement, which we're all very familiar with. If a corner lot comes in, we would ask them to upgrade that ramp. Let me just double check we didn't miss a slide. Yep, thank you. Yeah, next slide. So this slide covers information in terms of volume. So not a ton of volume, but there are applications that come in that actually hit those thresholds. And you can see that we're typically within the 20 to 30 range per year. but less than the last couple years. And then the majority of the improvements are really, as I mentioned, the existing driveway approaches and some sidewalk. The cost can vary depending upon the extent of the work. We get information from the applicants when they submit their plans, and the cost can be between $5,000 to $19,000 per improvement. And we do recognize that that's a cost that property owners often are leery of expending. We did do some pure city benchmarking. Santa Clara's not a, we're our own city, but we're part of a county and basically part of the area. So we went to Milpitas, Mountain View, San Jose, and Sunnyvale, and then asked them very similar, the question, do you have a similar codified square footage trigger for public improvements for these types of projects? And ultimately, the summary here is that most cities don't. So Milpitas doesn't have any square footage trigger. San Jose doesn't. Sunnyvale doesn't. Mountain View does have a trigger. but they tend to, and in talking with them just recently, they do focus on the sewer lateral more than anything else. So that's just a bit of information for you in terms of what other cities are doing. And then that last couple slides is if the council wants to give us direction in terms of amending this section. We did want to point out a few things. So our current ADA self-evaluation and transition plan, which was approved by the council within the last couple years, It really does note that development projects help upgrade ADA-deficient improvements such as sidewalks and, of course, the driveway approach, as I mentioned. A lot of these improvements are originally developer-built, and the city has opted to maintain the sidewalks over time. So I think that's important to note. And then if the requirement is removed, the city will bear the responsibility to upgrade facilities in the future, depending upon budget, scope, and timing. But in terms of amending 1715, obviously what we wanted to highlight here is that can be amended to modify, to eliminate the existing code requirement. We did want to mention that typically amendments are not retroactive. I know there's maybe been some discussion about can we go back in time. So typically they're forward-looking, but they could be applied retroactively. But you'd have to take into consideration applicants that already built improvements, And those are already constructed or pay fees. What do you do with all, how do you unwind all that? So it's a bit of work to propose something that's gonna work for everybody ultimately. And then the ordinance will require amendments of the code including potential coordination with some of our committees if we elect to do the changes. So really that just leads to the staff recommendation is we're hoping the council can discuss and provide direction related This is a 030 request, and I'm here and available for question and answer. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mike. Council Member Hardy?

Thank you. I read this very carefully, and I still had a lot of thoughts. It talked about the other cities not having a trigger for this requirement, but also it wasn't clear to me, are they requiring this? as well, that was not completely clear. Because we're talking about ADA and the street you showed, the driveway, where it gave more, I mean, I can't think of anywhere in any of my close neighborhoods where someone has been required to put more I mean, it dips down when you get to someone's driveway, sidewalk. And so I'm wondering, you mentioned this was mostly for new projects, so I wanna understand that. Are we requiring when someone is, it looked to me like what we were doing was requiring this when someone redid their driveway or, were redoing their house in some way, are we requiring them to put the ADA ramp if they're on a corner? I was looking for that because I know we used to use the community block grants for that and then got told we couldn't do that. And that slowed down the process of putting in those those curb cuts on the corners and we've been doing them as many as we can per year and prioritizing and I know that. So I wanna understand is this just for someone improving their property and does that trigger that? And the next question I had is, I read very carefully, if we chose to take this off, then you would have to make retroactive, you would have to give a deadline and if you wanted to go backwards with it, you would have to give a date on it. And that worried me too because that becomes a, you know, a deadline for someone, oh, I finished mine and it gets paid for and somebody else's doesn't. So that worried me as well. So, I was not real clear if we took this off, even if we made it going forward, then would the city have to pay for every one of those improvements and what would trigger that? And I think we'd be the only city doing that, but I'm not clear. And what would be the approximate cost?

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Jane.

Yeah, looking at slide nine, it really wasn't clear to me. Of course we want to support all of the ADA requirements, but it doesn't seem like the other cities are doing as much as what we're proposing. And I'd like to understand for San Jose, what do they mean by the scope creates a clear nexus? Like if the city were to be redoing the sidewalk anyway because of trees, would the city just do the driveway automatically? That seems to be, we would just add a little bit to the scope to get this done when we're out there doing the other work. Again, I think the reason why Councilmember Chihal brought this up was because There's so few of these that if one house on a whole block does it and the others don't, it still presents an issue for somebody who has a wheelchair. So I understand we're trying to get there and doing it one by one makes sense, This is a pretty big financial hazard with not as much benefit as maybe worth the expense. So I'd like to understand how other cities are getting there. For Mountain View, you say improvement's not required unless proposed by the applicant, right? That's just a voluntary compliance, and then, that first picture that you showed where people are moving the sidewalk onto their property, into the driveway, and you talked about would they then dedicate that land to the city and it would be forever an easement by the city, even if the property changed hands? it seems like the owner should be compensated for that easement. I don't know how this all works, but it just, I think it needs a lot more fleshing out before it comes to Council.

Council Member Park.

Yeah, so, I mean, I've worked with Council Member Chihal on several of the projects that were problematic. They were in my district. And my complaint was with the process, which is people had made plans, they had got them approved with the city to make improvements to their houses, and then during final inspection, they were told about this ADA requirement to also update their sidewalks. And again, they had put all the work and money into their upgrade, and then they were essentially hit with an unexpected $10,000, $12,000 fee. for work that had nothing to do with the improvements or the work that they were doing to their houses. That was the first issue. The second thing I noticed is we did the ADA curb ramp improvements also in my district and other places. I think that was a precursor to the asphalt, the road resurfacing that was going in later, but it seems like in some cases, residents can wait for the city to, you know, get the job done, and that's random because I looked around, not every ramp had a ADA compliant, not every curb had an ADA compliant ramp put in. Certainly, driveways that I thought were a little too steep, you can see that usually there's a smooth grade that goes from the street to the driveway, but there is a noticeable noticeable change in the angle that none of those were actually actually done it would have seemed to me that while we were doing that work we would have looked at all the driveways that were non-compliant and worked with the the residents to do this but again if we had done that it would have blocked blocked the driveways and in a lot of cases the asphalt work wasn't wasn't clearly notice to people and people were trapped in their neighborhoods and things like that. But again, the process is we are putting a $10,000, $12,000 cost, I've never seen anything less than $12,000 actually in my experience, onto residents unexpectedly. It didn't come up in the very beginning. They weren't told at the beginning of their project that well, because of this, the work that you're doing, it triggers this requirement, you're gonna have to do this later. It happened at final inspection. Also, the cost is a non-trivial cost. I mean, in some cases that $12,000 was a large percentage of the total amount of work that they put into their houses. And if the city is better equipped at contracting out this work and getting this work done, I mean, that reminds me of the sewer lateral question that came up in 2021. which is this is something most residents don't know about, they don't think about this, and then to be hit with this requirement for work that they have no experience in, that they didn't contract in because the people that they have doing the work that they need are not even in this area to have to get to another contractor, it just seems to me that would be better for the city to get this done so that the city gets the work done in a city-approved way, and then the cost can be shared by by the residents, the people making the improvements, maybe with other fees, but the city can use their relationships with contractors and their work that needs to be done all throughout the city to get this done much more cheaply. But I understand the reason for this. I would like to see this be removed as a requirement I mean, if it's work that's in the area and it makes sense through the course of the work, but people are doing home additions and then being asked to do street improvement, it doesn't make a lot of sense and it hits them unexpectedly and we're not telling residents that. Those are my concerns.

Thank you. Kelly, Council Member Cox.

Thank you. My question really is about applicability. It does say that 1715 is applied in two situations, and the report is specifically to building permits only. So I'm wondering if a change was made. I'm assuming that it would be applicable to building permits, planning entitlement, non-residential as well. And so I know that we're focusing on a cost analysis of just what's happening with residents, but I'm assuming that this would have larger impacts than that. If that's the case, and I know this was a 030, is this something that, as we've discussed, should this perhaps be looked at by Planning Commission first, ideas drafted up, and then brought back to Council?

Mike, I have a question, just a clarification, because it's the 800 square feet that triggers this requirement, and I think people that remodeled their homes, is this an expansion of an existing home, 800 square foot, or is it remodeling within an 800 square foot already existing footprint of a home like what what triggers the 800 square feet anybody that's remodeled their home knows that when they come to the city and if they're doing a major remodel whatever's considered major i don't know exactly what that is that you have to bring certain components of your property up to today's code i mean anybody who is remodeling would get that information i mean right from the start it's not something that is that is um sprung on you at the last minute as was described that doesn't happen so um can you please explain what a homeowner would would encounter when they are applying for a major remodel. But what does the 800 square foot signify? That's my question. And I think those are the questions, so thank you. This isn't a public hearing, so.

Okay, thank you.

I can go to the public if you want some extra time.

I can try to address the questions.

Oh, yes, go ahead, please. Go ahead.

So if I can start with some of the first questions in order. So if I can go to the slide related to triggers in other cities. These are questions from Council Member Hardy. Yes, correct, there are no triggers in other cities. My understanding is they do not require the same type of improvements that we require.

don't have the trigger and at the same time they don't ask for it ultimately.

In terms of what type of project we're talking about here, so ultimately this code section applies to new construction as well as modifications to existing structures. If we go back to this earlier slide, you can see that planning entitlement, building permits and building permits only Really the intent here was to show you that with development that comes into our city, we do require them to often do street improvements. So new retail at the corner, we'll often say please rebuild the sidewalk. Occasionally we'll make it wider, put in trees, things like that. That's not uncommon, a lot of cities do that. What we're talking about here are really residential building permit applications that come in for an addition. and improvements internal to the structure, as the mayor was alluding to, that those projects would be required to do some level of street improvements. And the practice of our department has been to focus on ADA. So ultimately, it does apply to new projects, but also existing buildings with changes to those buildings. There was a question related to the ramp at the corner in this picture. There we go, okay. If you can go to the slide with the pictures on it, I appreciate that, thank you. So the curb ramp improvement at that corner, an example where that was required because the property is at the corner. So really, at the end of the day, when we're looking at a project, a residential project, we're looking at the frontage. So the frontage just happens to be a corner. There was no ramp there or there was a ramp that was non-compliant. We asked them to fix that ramp, similar to how we were asking others to deal with sidewalk in front of their property as well as the driveway approach as mentioned earlier. There were comments related to retroactive. Yeah, so we did have a slide in terms of whether it could be retroactive, and I think the understanding is it can be, but there is some caution there in terms of how do you make sure that the deadlines are correct, and what do you do if one person already built it, and then their neighbor on the block hasn't built it yet, and then now they no longer have to do it, another person, so it's not uncommon for when rules change that it's just forward-facing completely, but if there is some desire for retroactivity, we would like to know hopefully get some information in terms of if the council's interested in that at all. And then in terms of the cost for the city, it'll vary. We have our ADA plan. There's a ton of pretty significant amount of improvements in there. We do have information in terms of the cost of each of these types of projects. If the city were to take them on, there would be additional city funds that would need to be reserved for that purpose. I do wanna point out that for driveways, And this kind of gets to some of the other questions in terms of the paving projects we have and things like that, that we don't do the driveway approaches as a city. When we hear issues related to uplifted sidewalk and maintenance, then they'll typically replace those flags of concrete in a remove and replace, they'll try to make some level of improvement. But it's not very, since I've been here, we have not focused on driveways in terms of making those, the driveway approach ADA compliant.

Let me move on to my couple next questions here.

This was the comparison slide. So Councilmember Jane had questions related to San Jose's note here related to Nexus. There was a comment related to having, if the city's gonna be doing the trees and the sidewalk, can they do the driveway as well? And then the dedication requirement. So, San Jose's requirement here, or sorry, lack of requirement, the note there is that they don't believe that requiring a driveway and a sidewalk, there's clear nexus or justification for the city to basically force somebody to do that.

Since San Jose, aren't they responsible for the sidewalk, the residents?

Unlike San Jose, they're fully responsible for the sidewalk.

For the sidewalk, unlike us, we have our city.

Very different animal. Yeah. So that's San Jose. I mean, they wanted to mention that to us, so we put that in the notes here. In terms of the driveways being done by the city, as mentioned earlier, we don't typically do the driveways when we're replacing a tree. We're dealing with broken sidewalk. It's really just focused on that one thing. We're not trying to upgrade everything at the same time. And then in terms of the detail from the picture here, so yes, in this example, on the one on the left, the driveway approach and the sidewalk improvement, the sidewalk does go a little bit further into the site to some degree. I think the question would ultimately remain in terms of whether or not, because occasionally the right-of-way can be further back a little bit, It's not necessarily right here. So we may have rights to have this area here, or if not, we'll require a dedication. So similar to other projects where you're widening a street, we'll require some dedication.

That's required in order to basically have this facility function properly.

And then there is no compensation for the property owner. And so Council Member Park had questions related to... or comments related to the timing of the requirement and ADA improvements that he's seen in his neighborhood and why drivers are not compliant or brought up to compliance. So as I showed you in this earlier slide, when the applicant, the applicant's notified, they should be notified prior to the building permit being issued, prior to any start of construction, that the requirements the improvements are required. We have them sign a conditional letter, because absent that letter, they'll disappear and I can't call them and say, hey, you told me you were gonna do this, and they won't remember that. So we have them sign a conditional letter saying they promise to come back, but prior to final, they will have finished the improvement. But it's not uncommon for a property owner to, I wouldn't say forget about it, but defer the discussion, thinking maybe they can get out of it, or they just, You know, folks, you know, people doing residential building permits, they're not necessarily contractors or developers by trade, right? They're just homeowners trying to do their work. So my understanding is that it's not uncommon for somebody to forget or not understand that's what that all meant, and then when they start getting into it, then they start realizing, oh, I'm starting to get quotes, it's a little bit more than I expected, and then that's when we start getting the complaints. But yeah, in terms of city projects, so when the city does paving, right, we do annual paving project, There are ramps that are upgraded during those projects. It does depend on the level of surface treatment that we're doing. So certain things trigger the ramp improvements, certain things don't. So when you're typically doing a slurry seal, there's no ADA improvements associated with that. If we did it, we would be spending less on pavement, more on that. Ultimately, it is required for when we're doing the work basically kind of the two-inch overlay where you're grinding out the surface, taking it down a couple inches. Those situations, we are required to do those ramps at those times. And in terms of the driveways, we don't address the driveways. The driveway itself is not an ADA facility. In terms of folks using that to get onto the property, the ramp at the corner is, the ramp at the other corner is. The driveway's really just for the vehicles. It's not intended as an ADA facility in and of itself. Councilmember Cox had questions related to applicability, building permits, and then the Planning Commission request. Sorry, request to maybe have this be presented to Planning Commission. Yeah, so once again, Chapter 1715.110 applies to development in Santa Clara, right? What I did here was just kind of break it down for the two types of projects you typically will see. Ones where there's a developer, entitlement, community process, and one where there's typically just a residential, someone going straight in for a tenant improvement or an addition. So the complaints we've received, some of the comments that we've seen over time are really focused more on the smaller projects, the residential improvements, and that's kind of where the focus was for today. If there's direction to address at all, we can certainly do that. The current practice though is that when a developer comes in and redevelops, we do take a look at the sidewalk, we do take a look at the pavement, and we'll have them oftentimes redo a lot of that in order to really bring everything up to current standards. In terms of planning commission, You know, we weren't thinking of bringing this to Planning Commission, but we haven't finalized it. That discussion depends on the extent of what the changes are today. If there's a desire for something like that, we could certainly accommodate that. And then the mayor had a question related to what 800 actually means. So I can actually, I don't, it's in the attachments, but I can go ahead and read it. There's something in the code, the table, it's like the fine print. It says residential. Any single private improvement less than 800 square feet I've improved less than 800 square feet or any new construction addition or reconstruction or any series of improvements made within a three-year period. And then there's an asterisk here that reconstruction is any work involving the removal of at least 50% of exterior walls. Interior remodeling is not reconstruction. Not reconstruction. I believe that hopefully answers most of the questions. Thank you.

Oh, I did ask the question in the process, and I think you mentioned it, that the property owner is informed during the process about the requirement to bring certain elements of their development or the improvements up to current code.

Yeah, so for example, if some... If somebody complained to us and said hey, someone's making me do this, they never told me, and then we find out that no one told them, we're not making them do that. That would not be right.

But they were told, they're told in the beginning.

I think the likelihood is they didn't understand the breadth of it, and as a result, now they have an issue. It's not uncommon for projects at the end, you spend all your money, you're in the middle of construction, there's always change orders and more you want to do to the house and then at the end not realizing this is what this would take, you find that it becomes pretty daunting.

And homeowners, I just wanted to say this as well because it happened to me as well, but homeowners that are remodeling or doing major remodeling, you end up doing improvements, bringing things up to code that had actually nothing to do with your remodeling, but you still have to bring everything up to code. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a lot, but it's part of, I mean, you're informed ahead of time, so.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right, did I go to the public? Did I? All right. I'm going to go to the public now. Thank you. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? Do we have anyone online? Council Member Chauhal, you brought this up. Hello.

Thank you. There you go. Thank you, Mayor. Yes. Thank you, Michael, for presenting this thing. Yeah. The reason I brought this thing here was because it puts extra economical burden on a resident to fix the property or the public street with the responsibility of the city, basically. So if you look at the other cities, because I was talking to this thing with city manager and I said no other cities and that's what the residents were complaining that no other city mandates this thing, whereas our city does. So we looked at the different cities, none of the other cities, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, San Jose mandate this thing for ADA improvements or the current city standards. Ours is the only city which does that. And what's happening is when some of the residents had signed this thing, they didn't understand it properly at the time of getting their permit because they have to sign this thing. Oh, you have to sign for this encroachment permit. Okay, sign it off and done. But they come to know later on that this encroachment permit was for improving their ADA-related streets. And to the point, Mayor, your point, you had a question like they have to bring the property to the current code. Yes, I agree. If they are doing major improvements, it should be limited to their property. But here, we are asking them to bring the city streets, public streets, to the code, to the city standard code, which is not mandated by any other city. We only mandate that. And other issue on this one is when we have the encroachment permit and when the resident go for asking somebody for getting this thing done as per the ADA standard and as an encroachment permit on a public lane. Most of the contractors don't have the liability insurance for doing work in the public right of way, basically. And that's the reason, like, they are charging, like, if the work is only $5,000, this contractor, you find them, they will charge you, I think, $15,000 to $20,000 just to improve the driveway improvement on the city street right of those. And these are the improvements which should be falling on city bucket, basically, because that's, if you look at the answers to my question, we have a liability of around, total liability around $745 million to improve the ADA for whole city. And out of that, curb ramps itself is $106 million, and pedestrian routes, which is, I'm talking about the public sidewalks, that's $581 million. I take an example, like, Citi did a full street improvement on Bray Street, and I think Bray and Cunningham. And when they did that, they improved the whole street, including the driveway, everything. But here we are asking a resident on a 30-house street, one resident, we are asking, hey, you improve it. The rest of the 29, we don't care about it. It doesn't help. I know it will help a little bit, but we are putting an additional burden on one resident out of thousands of that to improve that state. And you look at the historical aspects of it, like when we have only 20 or so, 22 in 21, 27 in 22, 25 in 23, 19 in 24, 18 in 25, and seven till date in 2026. So basically, we are putting a burden on these 20 houses, 20 residents, to improve their lot, whereas we don't care about anybody else on the street. So this thing is not, according to me and according to complaints from the residents, this is not justifiable. So that's the reason I brought this forward that, okay, it does make sense unless the whole street is ADA compliant, then it makes sense that, okay, whole street should be done. And that's how the city is doing it. Although city is doing it in parcels, like depending upon what street they plan to do in a particular year, what curb ramps they plan to do in a particular year, not the resident. So that's why I'm asking that we should lift, we should not have this clause for our residents who are already adding improvements to their residents. Think of an example like if a resident has to build an ADU and one of the reasons people are not building ADU is because of the financial aspect of it. Otherwise they can build ADUs but there is they don't have a money to build it. And if we have ADU and a little bit more improvement, which goes to 800 square feet, there'll be have another burden of improving basically expense of around $20,000. So I want this chapter 17 to be eliminated. And as regards the retroactive, I don't know how many of these in 24, 25, 26 have already built their ramps. If not, they should be given a benefit of retroactively. They should not be mandated to build these, improve these improvements. That's my suggestion.

Thank you. Council Member Park.

Yes, and I understand what Councilmember Chahal is saying, and I'm looking at a thread from 16 September 2025, and it talks about the signed conditional release acknowledging frontage obligations, but it's along the lines of reconstruction may be required to bring driveway up to current standards, including ADA. and without detailing the work required. And there was no expectation, especially with the words may be required, that the work not dealing, that they were doing not dealing with street at all would have these requirements. And again, it wasn't until final inspection that the details of the work that would be required were brought up. But when you look at the conditional release that was signed by the residents making the modifications, I mean, I could not discern that this would be a requirement. I would have to go deep. I would have to go into the code. I would have to have that brought to me. And again, if the contractors that they're hiring aren't doing the street work, don't have the coverage of the insurance, the liability coverage to do street work, there was no expectation that this would be a requirement. and the details were not made known until the final inspection and at that point it's too late they can't undo the work that they just did to save on the money so my complaints are again i'm looking at the email i'm looking at the the letters we may tell them that we tell them the work that's required but holy cow in this case it was not clear in this in this case it was not explicit that the fifteen thousand dollar expense that they'd have to put in was something that they signed up to do.

Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. It was brought up and I had made a note also about an ADU, thinking of someone putting an accessory dwelling unit on the back of their property and then being required to change out the driveway approach. If I'm understanding correctly, this is what we are requesting and requiring. Also, if someone's on a corner, is that requiring them to put in the ADA approach on the corner of the sidewalk if there isn't one already? And as I mentioned, the city is working on those and doing those in our approach and doing as many as we can each year, but we don't have all of them. So this is what's not clear before we made any kind of a decision. I would need to be really, because I read the report very carefully, but it was almost as if you jumped into the middle of it with us not completely understanding all the background of what was being required. Because when I looked at the comparisons for Milpitas, Mountain View, San Jose and Sunnyvale, it wasn't clear what we were requiring that they weren't. It just said no square footage trigger and I wasn't clear did that mean if you weren't doing the driveway, are we now requiring the driveway approach? Or in some cases you mentioned redoing the entire sidewalk. Now I do know that many of our new construction have destroyed the sidewalk or it's quite badly done. And that's part of the requirement. I'll give an example there on El Camino and Calabasas where Toll Brothers is finishing that. They have fixed the sidewalk and fixed the curbs. And I'm assuming that's what you were thinking of, but it sounds like it's, coming up on residents who are doing something completely different. I understand if you're going to be redoing your driveway on the approach that it has to be up to the new code. That is clear, but I'm wondering why we're tying that to improvements elsewhere on the property. That's my question.

City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. A few comments really to summarize what we've heard, but also I think drive us to a potential direction. Just want to remind Council that you have this item because of a 030 request from Council Member Jahal. I do know that there was a resident that had a similar condition that he spoke to me about. Council Member Park has mentioned other residents that have brought this to him. I know of two, maybe three. As you've seen with the data there over the last several years, more than 100 of these have taken place. So just want to put a pin in that. I know we're hearing from some residents. How many residents have issues? Candidly, I don't know. I also want to note at its core we're talking about a policy decision. The city of Santa Clara has decided that the city is responsible for public sidewalks adjacent to private property. Not all cities make that decision. Some cities frankly say the property owner is responsible for the public sidewalk in front of their property and they place the cost of maintaining and replacing that on the property owner. We don't do that. and that's a totally legitimate policy decision that we have made. However, another policy decision that we have made indicative by 1715 says that, okay, but when residents improve their property, we're going to require you to make an improvement to the sidewalk for the ADA benefit. Certainly, I think from the council discussion, there's a recognition that there's a benefit, but there's also a burden because it comes with a cost. And so part of the policy conversation that is uplifted by this discussion is, Does the city council desire to continue to require property owners to make improvements to their sidewalk when they're doing other work on their property? And if so, what is the trigger? Right now, we know our trigger is 800 square feet. Does the council wish to have staff look at potentially increasing that trigger or potentially having the trigger be where the improvement is adjacent to the sidewalk. Maybe they're improving their driveway or they're doing other improvements in the front of their house to be the trigger. And I believe I heard examples of where a property owner would be doing something in the rear of the property or fully interior to their property, and then they have to improve the sidewalk. Also we've talked about that some residents have or permittees have said, well, I really didn't know about this, even though they signed a notice. Certainly we can go back and look at that notice and through our process ensure that there is clear communication of here's the improvement that you may be responsible for at the time the permit is issued. We don't have the information on exactly what that property looks like, why there's a conditional language in there. It may be required and we don't know that until inspector goes out but certainly even if we improve the notification given the cost of some of these items we may still hear I found out at the last minute the cost is too great can I have a a waiver or some leniency but I think at its core it's a policy decision from the City Council of do you still want to maintain a requirement like this and if you do what is the trigger? And we can go back and do additional research. Also, I want to note that there were some comments around the cost or the city may be able to do this work with our contractors. I would just caution you to say, I don't, If anyone is thinking the city may be able to do this work cheaper, typically when the public and our public bidding and our public contracting, when we do the work, it's typically more expensive. So just know that going into it. With that, Mayor, I'll turn it back over to you to help process us to potential direction for city staff.

Right, we need to get to that. Council Member Cox.

I mentioned this earlier, but looking at the... the codes that are already there you know a lot of this is referred again to the planning commission they'll do the finding on the appeals i i think that we're in agreement that maybe we need a little bit more information about this i think that because we've only talked about residential and haven't hit on the the 200 000 threshold and what it might mean to include the non-res residential in this i i would be happy to support a motion um having planning commission give recommendation of this first and potentially draft a plan if there would be support for that

You're gonna make the motion?

I am making a motion to have a planning commission review this and with staff's additional information, more of a cost analysis and bring that finding to council.

All right, so we have a motion by Council Member Cox and a second by Vice Mayor Gonzales for that. Council Member Chihal. Your hand is up.

I raised my hand to make a motion that I know, I understand Council Member Cox's point that we should bring it back to Planning Commission. I think it is more time consuming when we go there, basically. We have all the data, what we need to be, and its impact is on few number of residents and it's a drop in a bucket of improvements we are trying to do on the city where we have a 700 plus million dollar ADA and sidewalk improvements. So I would like to make an alternate motion that I would like that council amend the section 17.15 of the city code to eliminate existing requirement for residents, the requirement to street improvement retroactively.

Unseen manager can could even if we wanted to do that. Could we do that tonight?

I'm not sure we can so no we can't so city manager city attorney, please explain Yeah, I'm appreciate the Clear direction and we desire clear direction, but you're not taking action on the code sections tonight it really is for us to solicit what the majority or more of the council wants to do and then

if in fact you're at a stage where you want us to bring back a particular thing we would bring that back for council consideration in action where it's more fully and properly noticed for action thank you madam this hasn't been fully baked yet i would like to get more input on this because the the downside to this um for the city is that it it takes on a tremendous expense um You know the upside of course for residents is it's one less requirement when you're doing your major development And I'd like to see what it looks like if we increase the square footage or did something so it was more in line with trying to encourage people to Remodel their homes or build their ad use we want encouragement of that but we have to look at the consequence and the impact of the city and i'm not sure we have that at this point i'd like to hear what the planning commission has to say and um and explore this a little bit more i don't feel comfortable just doing that at this moment city manager

The city attorney is actually looking at the section of our muni code that governs the work of planning commission. Right now, we're not sure that this type of item would go to the planning commission. So with that, I would say that certainly staff would need to do more work if a majority of the city council felt that some adjustment to the rule would be necessary so we can certainly if so direct it do that staff work and if it is appropriate to take it to the planning commission we would take it to them for comment but ultimately it would come back to the city council i would also say council member jaha Mentioned retroactivity certainly that is within the policy discretion of the City Council There are a number of discussions that need that would need to happen around that how many months we go back, how many do we go back a year, how people would submit information to be reimbursed, and staff have not talked about retroactivity in detail, and so we would need to go back and talk internally as well as with the city attorney's office about retroactivity.

Retroactivity is something that is going to be very problematic, and it's not something we do when we change our policies. It's going forward, not backwards. I don't see any reason why we would do that. But I also believe that there can be a change to this policy, but give us all the information so we can make our educated decisions on... you know, knowing full well what the impact would be on the city, which is, you know, important in this sense, so. All right, we have a motion and a second. We have Council Member Park followed by Chihal.

Yeah, I do have some questions on what you mean by we cannot take action on this. If I look at the way that it's agendized, it's staff update and solicitation of council input or direction on a city council request to revise chapter 1715 of the city code. I believe that the direction on city council request to revise chapter 1715 of the city code could allow a change of the type that council member Chauhal is requesting. I also want to note that I think that the problem is exactly what the mayor said. The mayor mentioned that the downside to the city is that the city would take on an enormous expense if we changed it away from the residents, but she's suggesting that we keep this enormous expense on the residents. I think that's my problem.

I didn't suggest that at all.

But that's what the suggestion is. Please don't speak for yourself, Council Member Park.

Council Member Park, speak for yourself. That's correct.

I'm speaking for myself by not putting this enormous expense on the, you know, taking it on with the city that we are keeping this enormous expense on the residents. That's what the implication is. And at some point, I would like to to adjust this. I think that when there's commercial properties, if people are remodeling their houses, I look at the picture and it looks like at least one of those pictures looks like it was part of a complete house remodel. But when people are making changes that they did not expect if it's an ADU, they had no expectation that there was a driveway change that had to be made. And again, when I look at the When I look at the agreements that were there, it does not specify you must make these changes. In fact, the wording on this particular one says may be required and it just leaves it as vague as that. There were no specified changes that were required. There's nothing that says you have to do this. And in those cases, we really need to not shock the owners after they've already put the money in, put the work in for their changes. Right, at some point, the work that they're doing to update something that was not even planned should not be a major percentage of the work that they are doing to update their houses and try to make their houses more livable. In some cases, making arrangements for elderly, making arrangements for family members who are moving back in or growing. This should not be a shock.

Assistant City Clerk, I'm sorry, I didn't see it earlier. You have something to report.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. Earlier, our city attorney provided an update with regards to our one-way broadcast streaming channels, and the update now is that Facebook dropped the live stream because of the bandwidth issues. However, YouTube is working fine.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that. City attorney?

Yes, Madam Mayor. In terms of action that's properly agendized for you to take action tonight, the way this item is agendized, it is not for you to actually implement the code section change tonight. It's clearly soliciting input and direction. if the council wants to direct us to bring back a particular kind of code amendment, that would absolutely be in order. And of course, if there's a clear enough consensus amongst you as to exactly what you want brought back, that would be within council purview tonight, but not the actual implementation of the code change.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Chihal, I don't know if your hand was left up or you want to speak again.

Madam Mayor. As mentioned by City Manager that it doesn't fall under the preview of Planning Commission. Correct me if I'm wrong. So I can make a motion that staff bring back as per the discussion today, staff can bring back this item back to revise amend the section 1715 of the city code to eliminate the existing requirement for residents, the requirement to state improvement retroactively and I know there are not many. I don't know out of those 25, 50, 60, how many have already complied with, how many have not complied with. When I say retroactive, if somebody has not complied with due to economic conditions because they did not anticipate this thing, they did not do any improvement in the front of their house, they only did in the back or in the existing beyond the driveway, So we should be thinking about retroactively who cannot afford to do these things. So I make that motion that we staff look into it and bring us the options back to the council.

City Attorney, we have a motion and a second already on the floor. Are you saying that motion that's on the floor is not applicable?

No, Madam Mayor, I just wanted to add a clarification based on what Council Member Chihal's statement was. The city manager indicated I was looking into whether this was in the purview of the Planning Commission. It's not crystal clear, big surprise, the way our code's drafted, that it is or not. I will say that it's not legally required to go to them for you to act, but it's not outside their jurisdiction. So if the council desired for that step to be included, that would be appropriate, but it's not required.

All right, thank you for that clarification. So we do have a motion and second on the floor, Councilmember Hardy.

I wanted to make a friendly amendment to the motion of, because being on Planning Commission, we were not allowed to consider the costs of things. And that was part of the requirement for the Planning Commission. So my thought was to refer this back to staff and get input from Planning Commission.

So both Planning Commission and staff input on costs and other things that the Planning Commission is not?

If the maker of the motion is amenable to that. Was it Vice Mayor?

Are you okay with that? Okay, all right. All right, so we have a new motion and second on the floor. Council Member Park, you've spoken a lot on this item.

Is there anything new that you would like to say? Yes, now we have a new motion and I'm allowed to speak on every change and every motion that's on the table. So I wish you'd really allow us to follow the process. So my question is, being on Planning Commission, you know what Planning Commission to do, and I'm really glad that you brought up the fact that Planning Commission was not supposed to consider the fiscal aspects of projects at all. That was not the, in fact, the findings, you were disallowed from considering that. I just had this discussion with somebody else But my question is, referring this back to staff with input from Planning Commission, what do you expect Planning Commission to do to give input? How would they give input on this? What would the input from Planning Commission comprise? Like what would that input be? Because it seems to me that Council Member Chal's request simply to take this to staff and get staff to make a recommendation or give input on actions that could be taken, not just direction, not just solicitation, not just a discussion, but actions that could be taken to update the city code would be more worthwhile at this point. It's a question like what do we expect? Who are you addressing your question to?

I'm asking to make your motion. Yeah, if that's addressed to me.

It's this way, if that's what you're looking at.

Well, I'm making the person that was talking about the friendly amendment. The friendly amendment was made by Council Member Hardy, so that's where we'd go. But if Council Member Cox, the maker of the original motion, would like to answer that question, that would be fine with me as well.

It is my understanding, if I may answer, that these appeals and the findings will go to Planning Commission, so I'm assuming they see these quite frequently, would be able to speak to how often there is issues with it, people complaining. It says here in Table 3 that if the Planning Commission finds on appeal that the proposed activity has significant impact on the area, then there is the requirement that falls into place. I think that we have this body to do this kind of work and see it more frequently. While they might not speak to the cost, I think we're bypassing a critical step if we just make this decision on policy. While we will make the policy, I think that we build out commissions to be able to make recommendations for us.

Okay, thank you, Assistant City Clerk. We have a motion and a second. Oh, City Manager?

Just a quick clarification. It's my understanding that the motion is to direct staff to bring back a elimination of this requirement. I just want clarity on if that is the motion or would you like options?

Okay, Council Member Cox, please repeat the motion. Everyone pay attention, please. Please repeat the motion.

Well, perhaps I agreed with the friendly amendment. So do I need care? My motion is for staff to bring back further information that is including a cost analysis, perhaps some scenarios if we do retroactive pay so that we can make a decision on it. My motion is not to have the staff Throw this out and bring us that paper or that language right now. I I would like further information And then the friendly amendment agreed upon is to have planning commission. Take a look at it as well Perhaps before you bring it back to us Okay, do you understand city manager

Yes, but one more clarification. In your statements around retroactive use, you mentioned the cost. When I heard Council Member Jahal articulate what he meant about retroactive, what he was saying was anyone that has pulled a permit and has this requirement and has not performed it would be alleviated of the, relieved of the requirement. I just want to understand, are we looking at potentially reimbursing residents for the cost that they incurred or is the council looking to alleviate someone of the potential requirement that isn't an active permit?

I think with my motion, I would recommend that you do both.

That we look into both.

Knowing how our council goes, it would probably be beneficial to have all that information.

Okay.

Council Member Chahal, is your hand up from before? Do you have any new information? Thank you. Yes.

Yes. So when I said retroactively, I did not, I do not mean that city has to reimburse the people who already done with it. First of all, I do not mean that. I've only meant what city manager partially mentioned that if we issued a permit asking somebody to do this thing and they have not complied with it, they should not be made mandated to comply with it retroactively. That's my only, if somebody has not done it, they should not be complying with it. But I can support the Planning Commission, but this matter has been going on for more than almost six months, at least six months. And if we put it to Planning Commission, this is going again into a loop. Whereas staff has all the information, city council has most of the information and we are directing staff to bring it back to the council for this is making, but it is a bureaucratic step that we want the planning commission. I served as the planning commission for five years. There was nothing like this ever came back from the council that we need to make a change in the code and planning commission has to do that basically, opine on that. Probably never asked him. All right, Council Member Park, last shot, anything new?

So I'm looking at the motion which is staff bring back further information including cost analysis and retroactive analysis not for staff to eliminate the code section with input from planning commission and what's missing for me is what the action portion of that that action with that motion would be, which is for action to change 1715 to, you know, in any way could be update. And I just want to be very clear on what this is, because again, the way that items are agendized is very important because we are disallowed from doing changes. We are disallowed from going outside of a study. We're disallowed from making decisions on a report. We're disallowed from these kinds of things. So I need to be very clear on what the motion from Council Member Cox would be.

City Clerk, if you repeat the motion, please, and then we're going to vote.

This is what I have captured. Please correct me to the makers of the motion. Council has referred this back to staff for further review with council input received this evening on cost analysis and retroactive analysis and return with options and also include planning commission review as well.

Yes, is that all right? Motion maker and motions... That...

That's what we wanted to clarify, and we're comfortable with that. That's our understanding.

Okay.

That's easy enough to optionize.

All right. City Clerk, when you're ready.

So, Council Member Cox is the maker of the motion. Vice Mayor Gonzales, second. I got it backwards. Thank you.

I had that amendment in it. She's the maker of the motion.

councilmember shahal yes councilmember hardy yes councilmember park yes councilmember jane yes councilmember cox yes vice mayor gonzalez yes mayor gilmore yes and that passes unanimously thank you um next item on the agenda is

Action on a City Council Policy 030 request for information on public participation options and audio-visual AV and broadcasting requirements for potential off-site City Council meetings and direction to staff deferred from that June 23, 2026 meeting. Was it Vice Mayor? Do you want to talk on that or City Manager?

I'll do either.

Okay. Would you like the city manager? Go ahead, go ahead, and then boom.

I just, I mean, when I saw this, and one of the questions was as far as possibly moving our meetings around to different spots like the Northside Library, like Central Park, and understanding SB 707 that we have to have a remote option for our constituents, for our community. The cost implications of this is pretty high, so... For me to move forward with this, I would say that we not move forward with this and just maintain the status quo. So that would be my, well, I don't know if it's a motion or we can just, yeah, I'll make that a motion.

Are you voting against your own 030? Yes. Strange things happen in the city council chair. I'll second that.

All right. Because I know the cost with Bosco when we have to travel and be in different places and when we are in the same place and are able to set up, it brings the cost down and it is more, we get more participation. So I second that.

right we have a motion second but i think we should maybe city manager give a brief update on this and then let's go to the public and then sure it's a little unusual but yeah sure so a uh motion was made by council member jahal and seconded by council member cox to agendize a uh review hello off off

I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Gonzalez, seconded by council member. Cox to agendize a review of public participation options such as public presentations only for in-person public speakers or holding council meetings at alternative locations outside of the city council chamber. Consistent with our 030 policy, staff went back. We did a high-level analysis of that. You have a staff report as well as a presentation, which are both in the public record. Council Member Gonzales or Vice Mayor Gonzales articulated that the costs are high and so in the packet to install the audio-visual equipment at the Northside Library would be approximately $150,000 and to install the AV equipment at the Northside Library as well as the Central Library would be approximately $260,000 with additional ongoing costs if we have meetings at those locations as well as for licensing of software. And so I think we had a motion by Council Member Gonzales having received the information to no longer proceed, and the Mayor was going to make sure that we took public comment on this item before the Council vote.

Council Member Chihal, your hand is up. Raj?

Sorry, Mayor, I loaded.

Okay, thank you. Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak on this issue?

right seeing none we have a motion by count uh vice mayor gonzalez second by councilmember hardy to uh withdraw uh councilmember cox yeah i'm gonna be supportive of the motion but i i would like to say um one of the reasons i was uh prepared slash excited to talk about this because again if the goal really is to get more participation and civic engagement. I think a lot of things that have been brought up tonight show us that we can do that by tightening up what we're doing in council right now as well. We've talked a little bit about the preparation of our slides, the timeliness of getting our packets, making sure that we have full information going in, even the meeting minutes. And so if we are going to bring this back for discussion, I think what I'd like to look at is just the decorum of our meetings right now, making sure that council members are given the full opportunity to participate with all of the information, that we understand what robust discussion really is, that we use our time well, and that we can hopefully have a meeting that draws public in because we're doing a good job up here.

Interesting. Okay. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. Please register.

Council Member Shahal.

Sorry, I was going to... So tempting, so tempting. Council Member Hardy. Yes.

Council Member Park.

Yes.

Council Member Jane.

The thing on my screen says adopt. I'm not sure what... That's a default.

We're doing it verbally.

But I understand that, but... What's written here on my screen says adopt, which is different than up there. It says maintain current practice.

Right, adopt is a default in the system.

Oh, okay. All right, so I'm voting for maintain current practice, yes.

Me too, yes. Council Member Cox? Yes. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. And Mayor Gilmour?

Yes, and that passes unanimously, thank you. Last item on the agenda. Action on a Council written request, Council Policy 030, submitted by Council Member Jayne to place an item on a future Council agenda regarding a policy limiting the type and quality of water used by data centres.

Council Member Jayne.

Yes, I'll read from the actual 030 that I proposed with some clarifications. The City of Santa Clara is home to 58 data centers, which is only limited by the lack of transmission to supply power for current and future data centers. SVP is investing heavily to expand the transmission and distribution to support almost double the data center load. Recently, there has been a lot of opposition nationwide to building data centers, primarily because of climate impacts and water usage. There's currently about 180 moratoriums around the country. Santa Clara has benefited greatly financially from these data centers, currently providing about $41 million to our general fund, which is 13%. In the 2022 Santa Clara Climate Action Plan. I pushed hard to mandate that all new data centers be carbon neutral with the ability to purchase offsets or wrecks. There was little or no opposition by the data centers and it addressed the climate change concerns from CO2 emissions for the electricity being consumed. It has not detracted from building data centers in Santa Clara. There's a huge appetite So also, many of the cities that passed the moratoriums were deeply concerned about water usage by data centers for cooling. Many of the newer data centers in Santa Clara have minimal water consumption and serve as models for data centers nationwide. However, Santa Clara, while it does have a policy on CO2 emissions, it does not have a policy on limiting water use by data centers. So I'm hereby requesting that the City of Santa Clara create a policy which limits the type of water used by data centres and the quantity of water used by future data centres. There should also be a discussion regarding participation in any future demand-side grid support programs to help support and maintain our grid during heat events. So for reference, the 2024 EIR for the 2805 Bowers Data Center states that BDC could require water when outside air temperatures approach design, 89 degrees Fahrenheit, to augment its adiabatic cooling system using evaporative pads on the rooftop air cooled chillers. The data center would be designed to use up to a half acre feet foot of water per year of recycled water via the proposed recycled water pipeline extension. And a potable water connection that would be provided as a backup source to the recycled water system. So for reference, a typical single family residence uses about .3 to .5 acre feet of water. So this 72 megawatt data center uses less than two families of water for cooling. per year, and then I'm gonna talk about a.

We're gonna put the vote to put it on the agenda or not, but you're giving a full presentation, so.

I am advocating for why we should put it on the agenda. Okay, there's an article in the newspaper recently. It says the largest data center in California has been denied water for cooling.

Now it's suing a public agency.

And it reads, however, tech companies building new data centers won't go down without a fight, it seems. And the events transpiring in Imperial Valley, California, are a prime example. After the Imperial Irrigation District, a government agency in charge of delivering the fresh water from the Colorado River to the area denied the data center developer's request to use the water supply and wastewater for cooling, Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing filed a lawsuit. The company is planning to build the largest center in the state at 330 megawatt monstrosity. The facility will require 287 million gallons of water per year. So what I'm saying is that we put in a requirement for the carbon emissions from data centers, but we have not put in a requirement for water use. We know that data centers can operate with very little water use. So I'm asking for us to look into how we would limit talking to data centers, talking to stakeholders, a requirement that limits the water use of data centers.

Council Member Hardy. I'd like to make a motion to put this on our future agenda as soon as staff is able to do so. All right, is there a second on that?

I'll second it.

Second.

All right, we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Council Member Jane. Council Member Park. Again, just to put it on the agenda.

Yeah, and I think that Councilmember Jane, and I'm reading the O30 report, talks about a lot of different things, but I want to know, I want to make sure that how it's placed on the agenda would be open to whatever the discussion comes up with, meaning that it wouldn't be a discussion of just what's here, it could be a discussion of different types of options. I mean, we're asking to put this on the agenda, It's just regarding a policy limiting the type and quantity of water used by the data centers. I want to know that the discussion would be robust and that the options that could be decided upon could also be wide-ranging. I just want to make sure that that's the case.

Usually on 030s, it's exactly what they're asking for.

Then what exactly what they're asking for is not very clear.

Mayor, I asked for, a consideration of the demand side grid support program as well as the water use.

Okay, very good. Council Member Cox. I just wanted clarification because I think Council Member Jane, you mentioned in part of it that you wanted to do stakeholder and data center input. Is that gonna be part of the feedback that we get? I think we've done such a great job in Santa Clara showing what goes right already. And so I would happily support, like you said, getting stakeholder the data center's input on this as well.

When staff brings it back to us, I imagine that that's what they normally do.

Yeah, great, I wanted that clarification. Okay, that's great. Council Member Park, again?

No, I did not.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Jane, your light's on? Okay. We have a motion and a second, right? Okay, let's go to the public. Would any member of the public like to speak on this issue? on whether or not we should put on the agenda. Edward, go ahead, Edward.

Yeah, definitely, I would like to have that placed on the agenda. Just wanted to say, I'm hoping we do not approve any AI data centers in the future. They're monster data centers and look what's happening in Lake Tahoe. All those thousands of people are being told that they're not gonna be having power And of course, I'm worried about the water problem that this might cause. And I'm here about animals and our pollinators, how they're being killed off from these AI data centers. And I guess it has something to do with the frequency of the noise that these AI data centers are making. I think I posted that on your Facebook page, Mayor.

Among other things, Edward. Among other things.

There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world today. All right, thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you for being up at this hour. Thank you. I don't see anyone else. Do you, Steph? Okay, so we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Council Member Jane, to place this on a future agenda when staff is available to place it on. As soon as you can place this on.

Council Member Shahal?

Yes.

Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jane?

Yes. What's on the screen there says only water, but we also talked about the Demand Side Grid Support Program.

Advanced Grid Support?

Demand Side Grid Support.

Demand Side Grid Support. Okay, we'll add that. Thank you. So was that a yes?

Yes. Okay.

Council Member Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Gonzales? Yes. Mayor Gilmore?

Yes. And that passes unanimously. Thank you. Do we have any other reports of members of, did somebody say something? City Manager?

you are going to ask for reports i do have a oh not you yet yeah council member um any council member reports i just got something quickly uh i want to go visit the ncpa hydro office up in uh just by murphy and uh the collier powerhouse so just uh we should get a chance to go see that it's nice murphy's a small little town which is nice quaint little town so nice to go visit thank you all right city manager sure

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. A comment was made earlier today during public presentations by former Councilmember Becker, and so I just would like to take a moment to state for the record that the statement that I said, and I quote, he said that In response to a request for a meeting to discuss regulations on data centers, former Council Member Becker said that I said I do not want to rock the boat with big data. I would just like to say for the record that is patently false. In fact, I do remember a request from Council Member Becker to have a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the City Council. As many of you will recall, that actually occurred, and the City wrote an entire white paper on data centers and had a joint meeting.

City Manager, we don't respond to public presentations because we'd be here all night.

so we appreciate that but there's no need to respond to that i i know mayor it's just while i recognize that i'm a public official albeit not an elected public official it was shocking to have a patently false statement made in public um about something i said or allegedly said we appreciate that all right um

we are now going to adjourn back to closed session, right? So with that, Council Member Park.

Yes, I had my, I did, and then it was turned off.

You did not have any hand up. You did not.

I did raise my hand.

You just turned it on, so don't blame other people.

Oh, I had this on.

What do you have to say?

Because I also have a report. I mean, I think that the policy is we need to give a report within 15 days of the event. So I submitted this by...

So when I call for council reports, that's when you put your hand up and speak?

Exactly right. Exactly right.

But that did not happen, so please don't blame others for your mistake.

I did put this up. and then you went to city manager. And again, this is a clarification, which is I believe the policy is within 15 days. We did not have a council meeting within 15 days of the event, so I submitted this by email. But I, in July, attended the third annual AAPI LEAD Summit in Los Angeles. This organization is important and different in that it comprises AAPI elected officials nationwide, whereas many AAPI organizations are more locally focused or focused on a very small jurisdiction. It is patterned very much after NBC Leo, and we often share time, spaces, and stories with NBC Leo. I arrived in Los Angeles, we talked about we had volunteer programs or food distribution projects that every elected official worked on to, you know, before the actual meeting started. In fact, I think we were so efficient that on the first day we completed all of the food distribution packets that were intended for the course of the three days. We had a lot of good evening talks. We had a surprise visit. Well, not a surprise, a planned surprise visit by Kamala Harris. We talked about a lot of issues. I was particularly impressed with Speaker Isabel Jurado, who was the first Filipino elected official city council member in Los Angeles. And the issues of AI, the issues of education, the issues of, again, Asian representation, the fact that we aggregate when we talk about numbers and we want to talk about strength, but we disaggregate when it comes to actual issues, these are big problems. And I will keep it short. but it was a worthwhile conference. I wish that other council members would go to the conferences so that we could have shared experiences and we can talk about these kinds of things, but it was really great talking to other AAPI officials in the area and then meeting with them after we returned to the Bay Area because of conversations that were sparked hundreds of miles away from where we lived. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, quick read in on item 1B when you're ready.

Yes, go ahead, please.

Yeah, thank you. As indicated earlier, we trailed item 1B for potential discussions later this evening. So we're gonna go back in on item 1B, which is conference with labor negotiators. They're all listed on the agenda, so I won't read them again. But I do wanna say that I will come out and report out on reportable actions. to the chambers and we'll also report out again at the next meeting. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So City Attorney, do I adjourn the meeting now or just wait till you all come?

No, you can adjourn to closed session and then that's sufficient, Madam Mayor. And then after closed session to the next meeting.

All right. This meeting's adjourned to closed session. Thank you, everyone.