Economic Development, Communications, and Marketing Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the economic development and marketing committee. Hear. Hear. Bang. Bang. Gobble. Gobble. Okay. This meeting will be recorded. The Zoom application will notify you that this meeting is being recorded. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting. Use the raise your hand feature in Zoom when you would like to speak on an item and to also lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute yourself when called to speak and mute yourself when you are done speaking. If you're calling in by phone, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item.

Press 9 on your phone to raise and lower your hand. Press 6 if you are participating by phone to unmute. So I'd like to call this meeting to order. Roll call. Right now, I am the only one in attendance. Council vice mayor Gonzales is running just a little bit late. He'll be here, and council member Cox will not be here today. So we'll wait for vice mayor Gonzales before we approve the minutes on the consent calendar. So we're we're going to start with public presentations. Do we have any items that anyone like would like to speak on that aren't on the agenda today?

Do we have anyone online? No? No one's online? Okay. Well, we're gonna get right into it because we have a lot to talk about today. We're gonna start with our general business, which is discussion and input on the citywide 2026 economic development and community engagement. And we had a couple of very successful events, I think, since we last met. So I think we have a lot to talk about and a lot to celebrate because they were really awesome events. So staff, I don't know who's is it you, Paulina?

Yes.

Alright. Assistant manager, Paulina.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to another EDMC meeting. As the mayor mentioned, we have a couple events we just had from our last meeting, so we have a lot to get through today. And we're gonna get some feedback from the committee on watch party, so we wanna make sure we get to that. So we're gonna cover a lot in an hour and a half today.

Next slide. So we're gonna do recap of the committee input and work as we always do just to reflect on what what we've done and accomplished so far. We're gonna then go do a debrief on the stem zone and the May night market that we had this since the last EDMC meeting. We are still gonna have a report out from the global relations subcommittee. We're gonna provide some updates on the partner led events, funding assistance that we have available to our partners that want to help amplify the campaign. We're also, as I mentioned, gonna get some feedback on watch parties, and we're gonna go over, budget updates and next steps.

Next slide. So

as I mentioned, since our last meeting, we've or since we started the campaign, we've had a lot of events and activations that we've been able to celebrate and put together and as part of the campaign where the mission meets the moment, the last two STEM and night markets. And then I don't know if Alisa's ready. We'll go into I'll turn it over her to her to do a debrief on STEM and night markets.

All right, so that is STEM. We are so grateful to have been able to put together such a beautiful event that was extremely well attended. I'm actually gonna toss it over to Rachel really quick from library. This was an effort that was

collaboratively put on with Library as the lead and city manager's office supporting. So I really want to toss it over to

April to just talk about her experience, library's experience putting this together, and then we'll talk over some key elements of the event, wrap up elements of the event.

Thank you. We're happy it's over. It was a great event. I think we looked at, about 8,000 plus people coming. Tons of robots. I think the highlight definitely if you wanna go to the next slide, it kinda shows some of the highlights in text, but John was great. He brought he was on that picture right there. He brought a lot of Star Wars figures. So if you went throughout the event, you would see all kinds of Star Wars robots and, you know, people speaking. I don't know where the slides are. They kind of disappeared.

Rachel, give me just a second.

Oh, no problem.

Multitasking right now.

So but one of the great things that we learned with StemZone was that we created a lot of wonderful partnerships with Santa Clara University, Mission College, Foothill College. They all brought some amazing things to STEM Zone, and those are partners that the city can work with, you know, from now on, bringing STEM to our city. So whether or not we do something this big, we can still bring them to the library and do really cool events. I would say the highlight of the day was Sarisha Bandla. She's in that top left picture.

She was the astronaut that came, and she actually met every kid that wanted to meet her. She took a picture with them, and she gave them her email so they could she could help them in the future to accomplish all the goals they wanted to, including if they wanted to go to space. So I would say she was really, really amazing. Every kid got free meal too, which was really great, and everything was free. They got cool robots that kids holding up in that picture too, and we had a great time.

We also learned that because, I guess, Patty Wong went to this the district meeting with the school district, and they were very happy with the event because we partner really closely with the schools and the STEM 49ers initiative, STEM group, and so they were also very present there. So thank you so much. I know we saw a lot of you there, so thanks for coming.

Rachel, I have to say I've never seen anything like it. It was so fun and exciting. People had so much fun with so engaging, and there was it seemed like there was something for everyone there, whether you're interested in rockets or Legos and everything in between. And I love the Star Wars character because I love Star So it was just it was even so much better than I had even imagined. Oh, yeah. I imagined it was gonna be great. You all did a phenomenal, phenomenal job. Awesome. Yeah. So congratulations. Let's give her a round of applause. All the library staff. How did you ask people to leave? I didn't I couldn't imagine

it.

Sorry. They

wanted to leave. We

of we're having a hard time getting people

to leave. But I have to say, there's a lot of pressure out there to do it again. Alright?

So Just went. FYI, Rachel. Six.

FYI, Rachel. I know. I know.

I mean, I think the there were some things we learned. We had a big, great debrief too, and I think some of the spaces were not quite right. Like, our our speaker stage was way too big, but I think, you know, if we ever did do something like this again, we'd know more. So good to know.

Yeah. Yeah. It would be easier. I

won't be the mayor then, so there you go.

Alright. So we're gonna keep rolling to our next event. As the mayor mentioned, we've got a bit of a packed schedule today, so we wanna keep going. But the next event that happened was the night markets. We've got another video for you, and I'll try to get the music to play this time, but a little technically challenged today.

Alright. So similarly, we had exceeded our expectations for night markets. We had a goal of about six to 8,000 folks across two days, and we exceeded that tremendously. We had 25,000 folks show up and participate at Commerce Plaza, which was incredible. This event was also free admission, so similar to STEM.

Santa Clara University did provide parking for the event, so we're really grateful for that. We had over 100 retail vendors, marketers, artisans, artists, 15 food stalls and food trucks, and over 20 specialty food and drink vendors, which was incredible. But also, what we learned is because we exceeded our expectation in attendance, the food lines were very long if you attended. And so what we learned is that we've got to increase the food vendors. So that's something that we're taking into account for June.

We had snack makers. Rotary participated and provided the beer and wine. We had a really cool entertainment lineup, so Folklorico was present on both days. We had headlining bands, Vibe Society, and the Good Time Collective. And one thing, I know our producer is here in the audience today.

They're the ones that have been standing up this event side by side with the city. When we opened the night market, their goal for us was if we get people dancing, then we know we've exceeded our expectation. And everyone was dancing at the end of the night, so we're really, really proud of that. We had the live wrestling, the lucha libre. We had community art, so mask making for kids.

Spray paint experience, we did something a little different with the spray painting this time, and then brush lettering workshop, all which were very, very well attended. So we did do a little bit of a debrief with the subcommittee earlier this week or last week I'm getting my days all mixed up, but it was a little later last week. I did want to open it up if the subcommittee had any comments or wanted to share, but we did talk through some of the things that we're already looking into changing. So specifically, needing more food vendors. We're going to change the layout a little bit for the next night market in June, possibly changing the space and location for rotary, beer and wine.

We'll also have a separate flex zone for June, so each of the months have a different theme. And so the theme for May was a nod to Latin culture. We had the car show and the Lucha Libre wrestling. But as we roll into June, we're really focusing on FIFA and sports. So we'll have a sports theme within the flex zone, and so really excited for that and starting to work through that. But we're really just taking all the feedback that we've heard from the subcommittee, and then also if we get any feedback today, and applying that to our June and July night markets.

Is there comments from the audience here? Anna?

I was there both days, and it was fantastic. I think all the comments from everyone who stopped by we had the Pray the Champions booth, so we were giving away prizes and talking to everybody. And the same comic, it was like they were thrilled, beyond thrilled, that this was happening in Downtown Santa Clara. And they wanted it to happen every month for the rest of their lives, you know, because it was that good. You know?

So you kudos to Brian over there who pulled it off in the city that pulled it off. Even though you may have some corrections with the food vendors, there were long lines, but that's a good sign when you have long lines. And 25,000 is unexpected, so congratulations to everyone. It was, like, the best night market I attended other than Lunar New Year, of course, Diane. But it was pretty impressive. Yeah.

Thank you. Annie?

Yeah. Thank you.

From a Rotary perspective, by the way, my name is Dan Holder. I'm representing Santa Clara Rotary. Tim Ford, handled it for us, and he he's already, sent a report into Gail to give a little feedback. But if I could just expand a little bit. You know, I I volunteered the last 30 plus art and wine festivals, so kinda know what I'm talking about.

The the the logistics of the food, like, you've already hit on the logistics of the food, the beer and wine, and the stage could really improve. And perhaps bringing in a second band, There is a little bit of downtime, you know, from 04:30 to 06:30, then the band finishes around 07:30 or 08:00. There's a lot of downtime. So I I think it would be beneficial for us to perhaps either add an additional band or maybe even bring in a DJ who's really vocal and the crowd could hear and project the sound out into the actual venue where the stage was presented, the sound kinda went into a fence. So the mayor was speaking at one point, and we're our rotary booth is maybe a 100 feet behind her.

None of us could hear what she was saying. None of us here could hear anything. So but I'm I'm telling you, this committee hit a home run. The way you guys put together that parking lot was absolutely incredible. When you when you walked in, I mean, it was very, very impressive. So I I think this committee really did really did hit a home run. I thought the wrestling was a kick. We didn't know if there was soft drinks, water, any of that kind of stuff offered. We did bring in water the second day because, apparently, it wasn't offered. So the Rotary Club would be welcomed if that is your objective to bring someone else in, and we could handle that.

As far as beer and wine proceeds, we did well. Just so the club knows, I mean, the Rotary Club, we're a nonprofit. We give a 100% of our proceeds back into this community. So you're supporting Rotary. You're really supporting the Santa Clara community. Yeah. We just we just approved four more scholarships this year. So, you know, last year, we contributed $16,000 in scholarships. So this year, we'll go up to 24,000. You know, our steps for success program, another $1,015,000 goes into that.

You know, our Christmas program, another $10 into that. We're we're helping out with the seniors, more now and the veterans more. So just remember, when you see Santa Clara Rotary, we really are a community based organization. Other than that, again, thank you. One one other thing is the, the parking lot. The court parking lot was closed down. I think that would really behoove us to maybe create an ADA parking lot or maybe a vendor parking lot. Because it it it's sat empty. We got to use it at the very tail end to load our really heavy kegs and equipment onto a truck. But other than that, I don't think that parking lot was utilized at all. So, hopefully, we can make some improvements on that. Thank you.

Danny, can I ask you something? Because I had a conversation with you and others in the Rotary Club that that day or one of the days. I was there both days. Where you were located and I know it was predetermined where it was gonna be, but you were behind the stage kind of in a weird corner. Are you normally are you nor does is the rotary normally kind of next to food? Because it seemed like you were there and then the food was all the way on the opposite side. I'm just curious. Is that one of the suggestions you brought back? Absolutely. Put you closer to food, like

food and drink? Well, just like art and wine, you know, we're we're set up right next to the band and right to that long line of food vendors. Dude. And I think that would really benefit just just the event itself. It it just keeps people there longer, and that that's what we want. We wanna see people stay and have fun. And I don't think enough people were dancing at the Art and Wine. You can look out there. There are hundreds of people dancing at Art and Wine. I mean, there are, you know, a couple dozen, three dozen, four dozen maybe. But it it just just to make the event more fun, a couple more bands, maybe a DJ.

Yeah. And I think the the, you know, the first one was great, but there's lessons learned from the first one. In front of the stage was a very short, like, little area where people were it was just an awkward sort of thing. Maybe we open it up. Oh, yeah.

Opening it up more. We we constantly learn. We started that

Yeah.

Silicon Valley barbecue championships back in 2012, and it was a learning curve for us. I mean, it was way more successful than we anticipated. Then, of course, we we did it every year until COVID hit.

Yeah. Well, we started the Arts and Wine Festival in the Franklin Mall.

You can imagine that. There you go. Yeah. Look what it's turned into. So Well, thank you.

Thank thank you for your feedback. Kathy?

Thank thank you, mayor. And thank you for your your comments, Sandy, because I actually wanted to bring up the the rotary. I wanted to find out if you needed more volunteers. Is that something that we need to support you with in the future and that it might be an opportunity for some of our nonprofits to help out in that respect?

You

gotta speak in the microphone. Danny, speak in the microphone. Hey, Paul. Dan. No. We're we're partnering now.

We're doing more partnering now with the school foundations, and that's that's really helping both organizations a lot. They they actually sent out several several volunteers to help out this past weekend, and they were just amazingly fantastic. You know, Steve Nisu heads this thing up. He he was at the front. I think he got almost $2,000 just in donations because peep he was telling people, each person coming up, you know, we're a nonprofit. We do this. We do this. We do that. And people are just throwing money. It was unbelievable. He collected $2,000 just doing that. So those are the kind of volunteers we need.

Thank you. Thanks. Satish?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Meyer. I would say StemZone was amazing. I've interacted with the people who were there. I took my little one, and he had fantastic day. People came all the way from even from Santa Rosa also to that event. So a lot of people interact. They enjoyed the free food. For kids, it's made a difference, and I really applaud the whole team and definitely the library, you know, all the the team who has worked with. And I appreciate Alicia promising that she's going to give caps to all the committee members here. Thank you, Alicia.

Alright. Anybody else? David?

So some of this we went over. Ryan, I'll just do it kinda quick in case you're gonna go over these things. So first of all, it was great. The bands were great. It was very busy, had the tables and chairs like like we'd asked for. You know, people wanting more on it. You said that. So there are people that are saying they already wanna see something in August and September. Some of the things we need to work on, though, I mean, everything was good, but the lines were very long. The advertising that I saw was really only for from the city or from people in this room that were passing it along.

We'd also talked about doing it, since this was supposed to be tied into Cinco de Mayo, doing it in Spanish and reaching out to, our Latin community, and I didn't see that. Beer and wine, we talked about that already with Rye moving that closer so you don't have to get your food from one side, walk for ten minutes to get your beer, and then come back. We need more seating near the Lafayette Benton area where the sushi truck and the cheesecake, there was people sitting on, which I was worried about sitting on the curbs again. We we sat on the curbs because it wasn't tables. We were supposed to look in doing more things for kids.

Math stuff was great. My little son had a great time doing it. But if there were slides or a bouncy house or something more for some of the kids as well. And then the other thing, as I mentioned, there was no Latin food. There was no taco stands. It's supposed to be Cinco de Mayo. There was no low riders. There was a lot of things I said I think we could have done a little bit more. This is not just for me. This is coming from the community that I spoke to as well. But some of that I did already give to Ryan and the subcommittee when we met last week. And then really advertising it a bit more with the entertainment that's going to be there. Think we touched on that as well. Having the other band there or DJ sounded really good. And that's pretty much it. So it's good. Thank you. Anybody else?

Can't see. Yvonne. Go ahead, Yvonne. Hello? Testing one two. I I thought it was a good I, you know, I I really enjoyed the night market or what whatever. I'm not too sure what the theme was. That's that's one thing. It's like, see the, like, matches happening, but I do think it was a a missed opportunity with Cinco de Mayo weekend taking off in, like, San Jose. And I do like the the mention of lowriders because if I I remember correctly from older generations from Santa Clara, cruising used to happen on El Camino Boulevard before it went to San Jose.

So, I mean, that would have been a really good moment to capitalize and have low rider clubs maybe participate. And yeah. No. It would have been nice to have more Latin music. District 2 has more Latin population.

And having, like, Colombian, Central American, South American, and obviously Mexican culture and every kind of culture to really represent the diversity in Santa Clara. That would have been so amazing to have. But I do like the the trend that this is a start, and that we can make it a tradition. And it's just, like, a learning moment where we can incorporate those things and, you know, kind of be aware of, like, what holiday is coming up. And so just a few suggestions, but I really enjoyed this.

Thank you. Howie?

I just wanna make a remark about the guy who said about the vendor parking. I do a lot of different events for different places too, and vendor parking is always hard. So if vendors have no place to park, you don't have no gig. So that's really, really important. That's all I wanted to say. I just heard about vendor parking. I've been through that night.

That. Okay. Can we move on to we have anybody online that wanted to say something? No? Okay. Go ahead. I know we have more things to talk about.

So next, I just wanted to do or or touch back on partner led events. I know that we had presented this back, I believe, in February about the opportunity to work with our local partners in this room that wanna have and host their own events, and that will amplify where the mission meets the moment campaign. And so we created this we have this opportunity to provide assistance for partner led events. And so we as I mentioned, we provided an update in February, but wanted to let you know that we are moving forward with it. There's two sources of assistance that we could provide a partner led event.

First is where the mission meets the moment grant. I don't know if you guys are familiar, but the city has a community grant that's up to $10,000. This is modeled very much like that grant, but this is separate and funded through seed funding. Both of the funding or both of these types of assistance that are being provided through the program are funded through the million dollar seed funding. The grant and the in kind services are the two types of funding or assistance that we could provide.

Grant the grant is an actual $10,000 check or up to $10,000 check that a partner can receive to pay not only for city permits, but also for third party vendor expenses that are eligible through the program. The other type of assistance is in kind services where we will provide assistance to help make the event successful through providing, you know, the location, staffing for the event, permitting fees. And so those are in kind services. That's something that we do not, that the city will cover those costs through the funding per through the funding program, and it's up to 80,000 per partner led event. And so we have budgeted 80,000 for the in kind services and 30,000 for the grant.

And as I mentioned, these are funded through the seed funding. And so next slide, please. To be I will get there, Satish. Thank you. Oh, one not that one, Alicia. One there you go. Thank you. So step one is you have to get support for from this committee because you guys are part of the campaign, and so we wanna make sure that the partner led event is receives support from this membership group. And so our next meeting in June, we're calling all organizations and partners that wanna have a partner led event that to bring your proposal before us at the next meeting. And then we will receive that proposal.

You'll present it, and then we'll you just need majority support from the group to move forward with being eligible for the funding assistance. Step two would be to submit the application. So once you are confirmed partner led event with majority support from the people in this room, we will you will then get the application, and then you could submit it. And it's very similar process to the grant program that we already have through the city with the exception if you are going to be using or I can walk through the steps. You'll submit an application to CMO with the supporting documents.

CMO will review the application for approval if and when the application is approved. The application itself would be the agreement for in kind services. If you're receiving a grant, we'll provide the the check before the event if time allows. And then if as I mentioned, if you're having the event on city property, you would need to execute necessary agreement, which is a license agreement. And so it should just be the license agreement.

And then once the event you have the event, then the city will require post event reporting that's outlined in the application. And depending on the type of assistance, so you can apply for both the grant, the in kind services that total up to 50,000, or you can apply for one or the other. It's up to based on your needs, and, of course, would have to be approved. Next slide. And so, Satish, thank you very much.

We timing. So as we are now approaching June, we will ask that that be that's going to be the day that you need to per present your proposal, and that the event must happen before July 08/31/2026. The reason that we're asking for this timeline, it ensures that campaign funding is intentionally allocated towards the partner led events and the overall campaign. It's important that we're we're gonna be coming back to this committee and to share a report out from the campaign, and so we need to know if where the budget is, and part of that is making sure we know what's been allocated for the partner led events. Finalizing proposals will definitely help meet these time frames so that we can come back and provide that report out in August to the committee.

Yeah. So the overall proposed timeline is intended to support thoughtful planning, fiscal accountability, and successful delivery of partner led events aligned with the campaign goals into that. I don't know if anyone has any questions, or if you do

Yeah. Just a couple questions. First, partner led event, just to be clear, people in this room are considered partners?

So you would need to present a proposal in front of this group and then receive a majority support from this group.

Okay. And then if the date is after August 31, put a hard date within weeks of that, is that is that a is there any exceptions to that if it's a hard date that's planned and city services are required or something like that?

You would have to submit it in in June, the application, and your event would have to be hosted by August 31. You're asking if you

want to put it

in beyond

thirty first, say, it's September 19, for example.

I think we'd like to stick to the August depending on the type of funding that you receive because we won't be able to close out the books if if in kind services. But if it's a grant, we might be able to.

Thank you.

Yeah. There's still our our regular grant process available up to $10,000.

Okay. Next. Global so the other we wanted to provide an update on the global relations subcommittee. So the last meeting, this group provided some of the top favorite top 10 favorites in Santa Clara, and Caitlin was kind enough to share us a sneak peek. So slide.

So this is what the insert into the Discover Santa Clara online version is going to look like. So this is all the commit the input from the committee, and I know it's kinda hard to read. So we included Triton Museum of Art, the Intel Museum, 49ers Museum, Great America, Ulystic Natural Area Park, Central Park, and then the Art Map. And then oh, thank you, Alicia. Place to grab a bite, Nuevas Generaciones Taqueria, Lupitas, Stan's Donuts, and Taplands.

And then if you notice, the image on top is from the art exhibition at Triton. So, Caitlin, I'll turn it over to Caitlin.

Sorry, Paulina. I know you didn't ask me to speak, but I wanted to to point out a couple of cool things. So first of all, as Paulina mentioned, this is going to be part of the ultimate fan guide, which is the 2026 Discover Santa Clara visitors guide. So this is specifically targeting tourists who are interested in sports, and this will live on the Discover Santa Clara FIFA website that's all about, you know, how to travel to Santa Clara for FIFA. And if the city wants to put it on their website as well, of course, you can do that.

This is going to be right in the beginning of the guide, so this is getting really good billing right up front. And then the agency also added a little note on the cover of the guide that we're adding this locals guide to Santa Clara. We actually ended up with 11 places, so we didn't call it top 10. We called it locals guide, and then we put a little line in there. The sub headline is curated favorites chosen chosen by community members. That's us. So yeah. And I I love that image. I wish I don't oh, yeah. I wish Preston was here to see that to see that soccer ball there, but he'll see it next time.

Oh, how fun. Good for him. Caitlin, in your in your guide, do you I know that you've done this in the past. Do you talk about other, like, restaurants and other places to visit in Santa Clara and anywhere else in your guide? Because I know you had a big list of other places as well.

Yeah. Definitely. Thank you for that question, Mayor. There's an article in the guide called Levi's Stadium as home base, and it talks about the stuff kind of immediately surrounding Levi's Stadium, where to stay, where to visit, where to eat. And then there's also a page all about the global games food trail. So that calls out a number of other restaurants as well with a wider geographical net than that Levi's Stadium as home based article.

Eamon?

It turns green.

There we go. Sorry. Yeah. So maybe it's just me, but when I first saw it usually, when I go to, like, a hotel travel and all that, if there's, like, a little brochure and there's a particular company name or restaurant name, I would assume that they paid for it. So when I when I saw this, my first reaction was that, oh, Intel paid for it.

And I don't know if we, Santa Clara, identify ourselves so strongly with Intel, but Intel definitely has a long history here. But if they know this, they may be willing to pay for for such an you know, like, a prominent position. But, otherwise, you know, otherwise, maybe for a global sports event, we put something more echoing the visitors, you know, hobby, like, you know, just outdoor great outdoor scenery or something. And and maybe Intel just belongs to the corner instead of, like, center of the image. That's that's just my first thought when I saw that. Thank you.

Anna? I noticed that, like, the farmer's market isn't on there or even our night markets, which would be kind of fun if you're in town to to check those things out because they're very active. Probably the most active thing you'll find.

So really, Caitlin, we wanna change everything, and and we ought to we wanna add in what we really like, so we don't know why you have to take those. But they're that's good. Could we have an addendum? To this? There's so many things that, you know, we're excited about in our city, which is a good thing. But yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Good.

Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Go ahead. Thank you.

Next, the other report out from the global relations subcommittee is the proposal from one of the focus groups regarding storytelling. So I will turn it over to Diana Dang and her group, which are proposing to create a short video to tell Santa Clara's story.

Thank you, Paulina. Thank you, everyone. Yes. We had several meetings. And for now, we decided begin a short time and without budget support. So we decided to create a shorter one around three to five minutes featuring the spirit of Santa Clara. So it can be used for social media promotion, community events, and the percent potentially showcase, you know, the the some, I would say, legendary of Santa Clara. So I'm gonna have Anna to give us a update on who are the people who are going to be featured.

We reached out to the, like, daughter of George Haines, and she's interested in sharing some stories about George who founded the most recognized swim club or top 10, at least, in the country or the world, which is Santa Clara Swim Club celebrating seventy five years this year. So we're really excited about talking to her and hearing some of those quirky stories. We also wanted to reach out to the soccer youth groups around here because, frankly, it is FIFA. And we should be hearing from some the clubs that are over 50 years in age. You know? So and that will sort of give us a multigenerational kind of history about sports in

the

city. And Diane will work in trying to connect with the Jensen Huang from NVIDIA. And we will reach out to SCU figures like Brandy Chastain and Steve Young as well. And we would love to have the first elected mayor speak about his reminiscence of what Santa Clara is. And and I think that covers rather most sides of Santa Clara. We

plan to start recording next week because I was having my events have been so busy. So we're we're starting next week, and we will invite people to our DingNing TV studio to do the recording, and then we can, yeah, follow-up. And, hopefully, we can put together something at the beginning of next month.

You mentioned that we know time is for the essence, but as far as the no budget, is there a a budget that you you think you need or that you foresee would make things even better or faster?

You so much for asking. Really, you know, we we we hope that, well, Citi can support maybe editing or something because we will work all of us will work as volunteer, but we do need a third party service, especially for video editing.

Paulina has the checkbook. Yes, she does. Yes, she does. Or Diana.

Thank

you.

Okay. Next, and our last report out from the Global Relations Subcommittee, last but not least, is from Marina, our economic development director. She's gonna provide an update on the economic development efforts surrounding not only welcoming the world during FIFA, but overall economic development efforts for the city.

Can you all hear me? You can hear me? Okay. Great. Hold on one second. I am going to share my screen.

Uh-oh. I'm not able to share for some reason. I don't know why. More. Share. Okay. Here we go.

I got it.

K. Yeah. I got it. I was able to get it. Thank you. Hey, everyone. I know you guys have something flashy in your hands, and we wanna talk about that in a second. But just providing some context. So what is economic development? And I really like this visual here.

You know, if you just talk about the core of economic development, it's really about supporting the city's revenue generation, but it's not really that black and white. It's really about supporting our small and large business environment success. It's about supporting development in the city. It's about supporting the city as a place that people want to invest and be in. And really, economic development isn't for just the sake of economic development.

Right? As a city, when we provide high quality services so that people have great utilities, or when they want to make an investment, they get through permitting really quickly, We know that they're going to have success with their business. And when they have that success, they make those investments, they make those purchases, those add revenue to the city. And what does that allow us to do? It allows us to provide better services for our residents.

So it's really a continuous circle for economic development, and everything is really interrelated. But when you talk about our recent and our future efforts so we as a team think of ourselves as the front door for business and development. So we're out there trying to build those relationships. And when people have really complicated ideas, they come to us because they know that we can wrangle the city to kind of think about things slightly differently. Right?

And I sit in the city manager's office, and so that allows me to work with all of our different departments to problem solve, to triage. We facilitate those priority projects in the city that need that wrangling. And that also, when we have things like development agreements where we're negotiating, we are trying to maximize terms that will lead to community benefits. And then also, a part of this portfolio is overseeing the city's real estate. So something I'm working on, for instance, is working with the community on launching an RFP for the city's owned property in downtown.

So lots of different things touching on. And here, just really quickly, we're gonna dive into this more, but advancing the city's brand and its reputation to drive economic success. So, you know, for the past year, we've been focusing on those bullet points. In our next budget, we have a proposal for a small business ally in order to really provide more support to our small businesses. They need more handholding.

They need those touch points, and this position would help start us in that right direction. But if I could go back, because this is what we wanna dive in on today, is advancing the city's brand and reputation to drive economic success. So really, FIFA presents for us a once in a lifetime, once once in a generational time opportunity to connect with leaders who are coming to Santa Clara to attend those games. So people obviously love soccer. They're here because they're fans, but also people are here to have business appointments to conduct business.

It is certainly an international event. So this is an opportunity for Santa Clara to be on the stage, and we wanna seize that opportunity from a business economic development lens. So when people come here who can be people of influence, who could be people who invest in the future, that we make a positive impact with that relationship and opportunity. So one, it's for those corporate leaders in Santa Clara to have an opportunity to network with their peers that will be coming here in order to attend FIFA. It's to share that economic development and innovation success that we have in our city, and really to position us for those opportunities that may present themselves when those individual visitors come here.

And really what this translates to is two business receptions that we are planning in conjunction with Santa Clara's, Santa Clara University's Levi School of Business. So we're working on these two, business receptions, really targeting those business and investment leaders that will be coming to the city so that we can, once again, solidify that reputation as they come and visit Levi's Stadium. They walk away with more than just their impression of Levi's Stadium, but as our city, as an economic engine. So in front of you, what you'll see is an economic development booklet. We've been really fortunate to partner with Silicon Valley's Office of Protocol.

The mayor has been really instrumental in helping form that relationship. And we have been utilizing it to reach out to those countries specifically that are playing here in Santa Clara. Right? So that's Switzerland, Qatar, Austria, Jordan, Australia, Paraguay, and Algeria. So we are inviting these countries to help us connect to their business leaders so that when they come, we can actually host them.

And so this economic development booklet was designed in mind with, hey. We wanna have our our pitch story ready when we make those communications. And even though it's in mind for FIFA, we certainly intend to have it updated and reutilize it in the future. So just wanna talk through you those of you who are in the audience have a a hard copy of it, but just talk a little bit about it. So this cover shot, you'll see at the very bottom, gives a copyright to Jason O'Rear.

He is an architectural photographer who did a project for the design firm Gensler. And we were really fortunate to get him to provide us this really great shot drone shot of the Santa Clara industrial landscape, which also gives a shot of where we are, which is part of the Bay Area. So you see the bay, you see the sunset. I really love and I need to I need to give props to Elia Kozak. She was really instrumented a lot of the design of this booklet coming together. And I love that she pulled the sunset photos. I tell her that this reminds me of beachy California tech, and I love that association. But that's a little bit of the cover story. And, really, it's our pitch line at the bottom. Right?

26, your guide to the compact city on the global stage, where bold ideas, innovation, and world class events drive inclusive economic growth. And we have here an introduction from the mayor and from Jevon welcoming visitors to our city, these business leaders, and calling out some key statistics, right, that our community here is incredibly diverse, that it's very educated. It's an ideal place if you're you're looking for an educated workforce. That this graphic is an infographic that we have one of our part time employees, Benton, work on, and he we've been reutilizing this great infographic about how we're a dynamic modern modern city city built built for for business. And it talks also about the main driving clusters that we have.

You can take a look at that a little more closely. So the question, why Santa Clara? Why now? So we're home to these key industry players, common household names now that we know in in next gen and tech. We have cloud and software companies who are here, health care and life science sciences, and of course, education.

We are a destination city with the presence of Levi's Stadium and also hosting major, you know, concerts and other events. We have major expansions underway with Intel and Sutter, Intuitive Surgical, Zscaler. And then, you know, that we are and this is a great a great thing that we can claim. Right? We are San Silicon Valley's fastest growing city this decade.

We have opened more housing units than any other city in the Bay Area. That's more than San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose last year. So that's something to be proud of, and it also speaks to our ability to deliver. Speaking of delivering, right, this is a slide. And if you open it, it's two different pages.

Right? One putting Santa Santa Clara in the context of the Bay Area and of other key locations. And then of, really, Silicon Valley power, they need a slide for themselves. From an economic development lens, they certainly are very attractive to businesses. So that our capacity for power will be growing, and that we have a trend line of really staying relatively flat compared to certainly the counterpart, which is PG and E, which is much higher rates.

And Elia Kozak did this great analysis. She looked at our business license data. She looked at where those companies kind of cluster in terms of type of companies, and where they're located throughout the city, and really just calling out some of the bigger names here. And, you know, we are home to the most diverse, educated workforce, and we're bragging about it here. And we got Brendan Castle, who is the c I think he's the chief people officer for Zscaler. And Zscaler has just moved here their headquarters here. So he he provided a wonderful quote about the access to talent here in Santa Clara.

On the medium age is 34 in Santa Clara. Case you wanted to know. Yeah.

You're you're representing, Yvonne. And, you know, this is our this is our moment to talk about the things that really matter and that we want people to be aware of. Right? So we're working on our downtown, and it's been a a big process, and it's taken us many years. And we have a city site that's a catalyst site that we're gonna be doing an RFP on, so letting people know about that.

And that North Santa Clara, you know, our uptown is where a lot of things are happening right now and where there's a lot of opportunity for near term investment. Patrick Henry Drive, a specific plan that has up to 12,000 units. Related Santa Clara, you know, very large transformative project for the city that's going to be a there there for the North Side. And then the Clara District, which has just taken off and become its own, you know, neighborhood, transit oriented, up by where everything's at. And calling out us as a city partner, so, the things that we can offer.

Right? We can offer expedited plan review, a pre application process, doing site guidance for people, providing some support for utilities. And, you know, just to be clear, we're not creating new programs here. We're we're utilizing things like rebates and such that we already offer people, but but spinning it so people understand that it's something that we can use as a promotion tool. And connecting to our community development department in the case that people want to check out some of these applications and processes.

And then, you know, thank you to council member Cox. She gave a great connect to leadership over at Santa Clara University, and James Glaser was able to provide a quote about how great it is for SCU to be in Santa Clara, but also how great it is for Santa Clara to be to have SCU. So it was great to to have his participation in this. And then, really, who this hits is those business leaders. When they see this and they're like, wanna learn more, who do I reach out to?

Right? They contact me. We do a discovery meeting. We talk about what their interests are, and then, you know, we do that follow-up. So this this is a pitch piece, if you will, to reach out to these folks who are interested in that we're trying to entice, quite frankly, to come to these business restrictions so that we can tell them more about Santa Clara. But wanted to share this this body of work with you. Once again, really wanna give props to Elia Kozak. She did the design work. She did a lot of the analysis around the business clusters. But for us, you know, we're working on these two events.

We're hoping they're being gonna be successful. We've never done something like this, but we couldn't couldn't you miss the opportunity that we could take advantage of.

Yeah. That's it.

Fantastic. Looks great. Wish we had these a while ago. Could've used these. Look. They're gonna very timely, gonna come in handy. Kathy, you wanna say something?

Thank you, Mayor. Now this is really exciting, Irina, and and I love the idea of the the two receptions, you know, for the folks that are going to be visiting. I a couple of weeks ago, I went to an AI seminar up at Stanford, and it was the focus was on the Irish diaspora and and and how they brought companies over from Northern Ireland, also to meet with companies here in Silicon Valley and a way to bring them together. They had a fireside chat. They had a roundtable, and they also had

The one at the bar.

Yeah. They had a great networking opportunity. They they had a wonderful luncheon afterwards. And there were, like, a 100 people there, but it was very successful, and everybody was very excited. But the one thing that they stressed was the importance of, you know, coming from another country, but having the ability to be able to con contact or work with somebody here to be able to then develop your company, you know, in The United States, but there was definitely a lot of interest. So, anyway, what you just shared reminded me of what I just attended. So and it it was very successful. Yeah.

Oh, Eamon? Yeah. Well, first of all, I was surprised and and very impressed by this. I I I love it. I think it's great.

It it summarizes Santa Clara nicely to your targeted group, and I think, you know, people love it. One thing, actually, I was thinking before Kathy was, you know, give her comments, I was like, oh, we should put a point of contact here because people may lose cards, you know, FIFA, they get high. We should have, like, a number or email there so that, you know, so that, you know, if they carry this home, they know who to contact. So but, also, I have a question for Rina. Just have you experienced, like because, you know, for for all of us who will probably be interested in helping out to get the message across, Have you come across any cases where international business come here?

I I I think there are a lot of companies who probably would want to, you know, have an office in the Valley. They probably cannot tell San Jose from Cupertino, from Santa Clara, and Sunny Valley. But to them, it's like, if they can find Silicon Valley, it's good. So but when they actually choose a location, have you run into any cases like why we were chosen or why we were not selected? Like, any idea what might be some of the gating factors?

Yeah. We do talk to businesses regularly that are interested in exploring, like, an international office. And, you know, we often talk to delegations, for instance, that build interest, and then that may or may not result in future work. But, certainly, I think Santa Clara differentiates ourself from having SVP. It's I cannot tell you how valuable SVP is for the city and our economic development initiatives and efforts.

However, I do think and we do have a very strong industrial intact area in Santa Clara. A lot of cities do not have that. We have as a city, we have our entire northern half of the city that was originally preserved for industrial land. And we now have some residential neighborhoods, but there's still quite a bit of the city in terms of land available for industrial r and d operations. And so I think that Santa Clara has a lot to offer because we have a lot of opportunities.

We also have a lower cost of operation for people who have, you know, high electric power needs, for instance. Challenges is you know, I I think in general, I've not had someone say, hey. Things were hard here, and that's why I didn't come here. But things are very expensive in California. It's going to be one of the most high cost locations that you're going to have in the world if you're an international company.

So those are things that we're cognizant about. And what we can do is kind of help people be aware of some of those costs that the city controls and and make those more transparent so people aren't unaware of that. But but certainly, you know, we think Santa Clara differentiates ourselves in the Bay Area, but we're still in the context of California and the Bay Area and being a high cost location.

Thank you. We we're gonna move on because we have one more item, and it's an important one. So we need to talk about it.

Downtown is actually in this booklet, and this is so exciting, especially after all the night markets that are happening. It just feels like we're complete as a city now. So I'm really proud of that. And this is what we needed. I don't think it's so hard to describe Santa Clara, because we have so much here. But this really encompasses everything we need to know about Santa Clara. This is exactly what we needed. So thank you.

Thank you. Hey. Yeah.

Thank you, Rina. That was great. Thanks, Rina.

Hey. Oh, claps. She gets claps. Hey, Rina.

I'll wake up. Okay. Okay. Alright.

Next, Alicia.

Alright. So next up is watch parties. So we wanted to bring this back. Staff heard very, very clearly through the community engagement process and then also throughout us kind of kicking off and launching and hosting our events here in Santa Clara that Santa Clara has an appetite for watch parties. At the last meeting, the mayor did announce that Devcon Devcon would be contributing to the campaign in support of the watch parties, and so we set off to do a little bit of homework.

So first, I wanna introduce you all to the viewing categories that FIFA has put in place. These are the categories that staff has been working with to prepare a proposal for what will be submitted to FIFA. I do wanna caveat that even though the city wants to host the watch parties and will be submitting an application for the watch parties, Ultimately, we the watch party proposal has to be approved by FIFA. So we will do you know, we're doing everything we can to get the proposal in, but FIFA does kind of have the final say in watch party approval. So what you're looking at here are basically viewing approval categories that are influenced by the following criteria.

So if you can see here, there's four different categories. Small, non commercial viewing, which is typically a bar, restaurant, small indoor screen. And this usually, typically has an attendance of less than or approximately or less than a thousand attendees, and no license is required for this type of viewing. So we're going to consider this a tier one. This is considered a low low risk category in terms of being able to stand something up under this category and and for for watch parties.

The next category is the large noncommercial or special noncommercial viewing. So this is typically city community watch parties. So this is the category that Santa Clara will kind of live in, this community will live in as we're looking to stand this up. You would typically see attendance over a thousand, which does, at that point require a license if we're over 1,000 folks. You typically see this type of event at the universities, civic spaces, community centers, triggers our outdoor screens.

And and yeah. So it's kind of we're gonna categorize this as moderate, so tier two is what you see here. The next category is the commercial public viewing. So this is a step up categorizing this as tier three. So this is a little bit harder to pass through in terms of an application for FIFA.

This is typically where you would see sponsorships come into play, naming rights, if there are ticket sales, VIP experiences, paid vendors, branding activations, commercial advertising, media promotion, and monetization of the event. That puts it into the commercial public viewing category. Again, over 1,000 attendees, and yes, a license will be required. So again, tier three, just a little bit harder to push through for FIFA. And then the final is the official FIFA fan zone festival fan zone.

So this is a FIFA sanctioned large scale activation, again, over a thousand attendees. And ultimately, this would be an extensive rights agreement that we would be working with FIFA on. And so this is category tier four, so this is very high. This is something that would take a lot of effort to to stand up, and we would need an agreement with FIFA in in order to move to put something on to this scale or magnitude. So as I stated before, just kind of looking back, the two categories in the middle, long large noncommercial or special noncommercial viewing and commercial public viewing are really the categories that we're living in.

So I wanted to take the time to just kind of outline what these triggers would be, right, in terms of kind of how we're looking at what is considered public viewing. So that's no admissions fee to participate in the event, no sponsorship benefit, no revenue generation tied to the event, and limited branding and community focused activation. So this is truly public viewing for residents of Santa Clara. And then there is the commercial public viewing. So what triggers commercial public viewing is if you have a sponsorship.

So let's say, I'm just throwing this out there, we don't have this, but if it were if if Intel were to to sponsor, it would be Watch Party powered by Intel. That then becomes a commercial public viewing. Right? Naming rights, so similar. It's kind of the the same example that I just described. And then if we're selling tickets, if there are VIP experiences, paid vendors, branded activations, commercial advertising, media promotion, and monetization.

Oops.

Alright. So we know that we have this appetite, and we're working towards this proposal. So what is the goal? It's to deliver a a community facing FIFA viewing opportunity that, number one, fits within the overall match schedule. So what's unique to Santa Clara is that we are hosting six of the matches.

Right? So our public safety resources, our city resources during our hosted matches are really dedicated to the events. And so when we talk about standing up a watch party, it's important to note that we need to be looking at match schedules that are outside of the dates when we're hosting. And so we'll we'll get into the dates a little bit. And then they need to be noncommercial civic events.

So we talked about that. We need to avoid the sponsorship conflicts. So as we're talking about DevCon again, kind of contributing to the overall campaign, right, and recognizing that we already have a few more night markets to go, and then and and that's kind of the conclusion unless we're standing up watch parties, which is what we're talking about today. And then putting together an a pro proposal that has a streamlined approach. So something that we'll be able to to get through FIFA without any without any constraints or with limited constraints.

And then this everything kind of here at the bottom, the core design principles across all sites, we've talked about this. I've it's kind of repetitive, so I I won't go over that. So now we're into the meat and the potatoes. So what we did was break down the target watch party dates and opportunities. And what you see here, these are all the games, but they're translated into Pacific time.

So these are the times that the games would be shown here. You see the first three categories at top across the top, so opening stage, group stage between July 11 and June 27. These are all watch party dates that are happening during the time that the city we are hosting at Levi's Stadium. And so, again, if we're talking about resources, it'll be difficult for us to thank you. It'll be difficult for us to stand up a watch party during this time because our resources are going to to go towards the hosted events.

However, if you look down at the bottom where we have the green boxes there, we have the round of 32, which there are games daily, 9AM, 12PM, and 3PM. And then we have round 16, which is the week of July 4, and then quarterfinals, semifinals, and then the finals. And so just based on our research, we're thinking that the best time to stand up a watch party, some watch parties, multiple watch parties will be within these time frames. So, again, the round of 32, and then also quarterfinals, semifinal, or finals. There is an asterisk on July for the final match, and that's because, drum roll, that is our final night market.

And so we thought that it could be pretty cool to conclude FIFA and watch the finals alongside of the watch parties because it's already there. Right? The infrastructure is in. We have, you know, food. We've got entertainment, or we will have entertainment as the potential watch party. The only thing is that the watch parties right now are scheduled for July. Right? Because they're Friday and Saturday. The final final will be July 19, so we'd have to consider extending the night market to be able to accommodate the final match. But it's something that we're we're looking at and talking through.

And then again, round of 32, because there are so many games within that time, It's pretty easy if we were to to build something out infrastructure out to set up a watch party and just kind of let it run during that time. And so we'll talk about that in just a moment. Alright. I think I went too far. Sorry.

So really quick, now that I've given away the cat, but we'll keep going. So venue considerations. As we were thinking about different venues that we could stand watch parties up at, these are the things that we were thinking about. So venue coordination, the availability of a venue. One thing that was that we talked about as being important is put is looking at venues that are contained.

Right? Because, again, we're talking about resources, and the city resources going to to FIFA, right, the the actual host hosted matches. But if we were to do a self contained venue, that tends to be a little bit easier, and that's something that we've seen that FIFA it passes through FIFA a little bit more smoothly. So if we're talking about like SCU or Buck Shaw Stadium, right, if we're talking about convention center, these are locations that are enclosed, self contained, and so a little bit easier from a public safety standpoint. So those are things that we're thinking about from security, emergency operations, staffing coordination, food and beverage, ticketing integration.

And then, you know, we talked about I just said ticketing, but also parking and transportation. So making sure that the venue offers the the appropriate parking infrastructure, traffic management planning, rideshare operations, because especially if we're looking at, you know, hosting something on the final, this is it's gonna be pretty big. And so we want to make sure it's accessible, right? And then we talked already about public safety, crowd management, alcohol management protocols. Those are all things that we were thinking about as we came up with our venue list proposed venue list.

And so these are some of the the venues that we we highlighted or we identified as potential areas or places that could be in play. And so I'll start at the top. I will say that in this chart, what you're looking at is the the location. You're also looking at the classification, meaning how FIFA would view this. Right?

Non commercial, special public viewing. And then you're looking at the estimated license exposure. So the piece about the estimated license exposure is that FIFA has not publicly released their fee schedule yet, and so this is based on estimates in terms of how much a license would cost. And that is really dependent upon the venue, the attendance size, and the infrastructure that's in place. And then we've also categorized it by risk level.

So this goes back back to the tiers. Tier one, tier two, tier three, in terms of how easy it will be, or hard or difficult, challenged it may be to pass a proposal through FIFA, looking at these venues and locations. So the first one that we identified is actually a little gem that we have here in Santa Clara, Alamo Drafthouse, which is actually at Valleyfair Mall. Not sure if you all are familiar with it. But the thought here is that Alamo Drafthouse has screens already built in.

So this would be a complete buyout. They've got screens built in. They've got food and beverage services that are already there. And so there is already infrastructure there. License exposure in terms of costs would be fairly low.

The risk for this venue would be if there are any food and beverage rights from a sponsorship standpoint. So let's say an example would be Alamo only serves Coke, Coca Cola, and and and FIFA is is a Pepsi is is sponsored by Pepsi, then we may have some trouble here. Right? So those are things that we're looking at. But in terms of venue attendance, a buyout for this is around in terms of attendance is around a thousand people.

So that's where it keeps it it keeps us a little low in terms of the risk category. The next was Great America. The thought here is that Great America has a theater inside. Right? If you all have been inside of Great America, there is a theater with screens where we could view it. And we all know Great America is a cherished venue here in Santa Clara, and and people really enjoy going. And so why not open up the theme park and then add the watch party component inside the theater? There's already food and beverage in there as well. But, again, similar to Alamo Drafthouse, we'd have to be concerned about f and b rights in terms of is is it Coca Cola? Is it Pepsi?

Right? We also identified SCU, so Buckshaw Stadium as well. This could be a really fun one. I will say that SCU, I think, Buckshaw Stadium seats somewhere between 6,000 to 8,000 attendees, so this could be huge. Again, it's a contained stadium, so it makes it a little bit easier from a public safety and complexity operation standpoint.

But it does have a little bit of a higher risk in terms of the FIFA barometer, right, in terms of their regulations because it's a university. As we mentioned, Commerce Plaza, I put the slash Franklin Street as well. Again, coupling this with our night markets could be cool. There there's also an opportunity to utilize Franklin Street where the street dance is and just have a screen there, and you just run it the entire time. So this could be round round of 32.

There's already businesses there. Right? TapLands is there, and so folks could kind of come in and out, patron the businesses, but also do a watch party. Where it makes that a little bit higher in scale is this is an outdoor event, so public safety comes into play, and we'll need a lot of public safety resources for that. So we're putting this at a risk level of a three, so higher risk, but it is something that we can stand up a little bit easier because we already have the night markets in place. And then the last is the convention center. And the thought here is that we could really put together a fan zone here. So something similar to what you saw for Super Bowl, like Moscone Center. So there's stuff for folks to do. Right?

We can put in activations, interactive activations at the convention center, but also stand up a screen and also have F and B there as well. It's also a city owned asset, so we could work with the convention center, and it's right across the street from the stadium. So these were the venues that we had identified that we just wanted to kind of put before you all today as we're working to finalize the proposal and and get this into FIFA. I will say that we are FIFA's a month away. And if there's anything that I reluctantly have learned that we are good at is standing things up really fast, I.

E. The stadium event. And so I have no doubt that we can do this, and and it will be really successful, but we have to move fast. And so the goal is to put in a proposal as soon as possible, actually. And so I'm gonna pause here for a second before we go into next steps and just wanna hear from you all your thoughts on what we've put together. We'll take your feedback as we do and and and apply that to make sure that we have something sound as we continue to

move

forward with with the next steps in putting in a proposal. Mayor, do you wanna So just a couple

of things. Thank you very much. That that sounds great. What I am looking for, though, is public transportation, making sure people can get there. You mentioned the convention center, but if Levi's is being used that day, I don't know what parking is gonna be like at all.

It will not so one of the constraints or things that we're looking at is to not host anything while FIFA is in play.

Okay.

So it won't it will not be being used.

Okay. And then the Barrier host committee has 30 locations. So they have San Jose, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Sunnyvale. They're not gonna be associated with this at all. Right? This is the city of Santa Clara, not Bay Area host committee, or are they involved? Because they haven't done anything for us.

This is a very tricky question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They they left us out. They left us out of the 30 and didn't do anything. So I'm just wondering, and how did they get, you know, their permits and find out how it's gonna cost already?

So the process for submitting an application, when you submit application, you push it through Bay Area host committee by way of HIPAA. So it it runs through them. Bay Area host committee can pick up whatever events that they may wanna be involved in. So as we're looking at commercial, like if we're into commercial territory or even FIFA agreement, then that's probably more where Bay Area host committee can be in play. But the way the process is set up at the moment is it it goes through Bay Area host committee into FIFA, and Bay Area host committee really looks at the application and helps tweak it, right, to make sure that once it gets to FIFA, it's ready to be approved.

And then and then the last question. So I it's talking about vendors, but food vendors and drinks and beer and wine we can have there. The other thing is, are we having one in each district? It sounds like it was maybe two or three districts up here. Have we looked at different areas so people can in that community can come watch and not have to drive across town or walk across town?

That's a good question. So right now, with the venues that we have up there, there's obviously not one in every district. And so that's a little bit more tough. I think being that we're a month away, we tried to look at what was gonna be a little bit easier to stand up. And then again, we touched on contained locations. So if there are locations that are contained and kinda fit this criteria that are across different districts, I'd I'd just ask that you identify those for us, and we can gladly analyze them and take a look and see if if they'll work.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. No problem. Kurt?

Two two two things. One, maybe this is brought up. I I missed it. But why isn't Levi's Stadium a viewing place, like, for the final? Is that possible? And maybe not. I don't maybe it is. I I I missed that. The other thing I wanted just to throw out before you respond is I'd like to throw see the idea of a block party and maybe not for the FIFA events, but as an ongoing thing for this committee to consider.

Thanks. Taylor?

Yeah. Hi. I have a a ton of things to add, and I I just wanna clarify why. So in the time I spent working with the San Jose earthquakes in eleven seasons, I over, I basically was the one to oversee all of our public facing watch parties, included the World Cup, which included MLS, in stadium, outside of stadium, in public places, etcetera. Also, prior to that, my brother and I, we have a nonprofit, we would host viewing parties for big Portuguese national team games to raise money for Portuguese owned businesses, and the senior center, etcetera.

So there's a few things that I noticed about this. First and foremost, the most important thing about the viewing party is the screens, right? And the streaming capabilities and that sort of thing. With that said, having one or two large sized screens, which some of these places might be equipped with screens already, like your Alamo Drafthouse, etcetera, but I think the big piece of a viewing party is the sense of community. When you see these across the world, they're all in these streets, or in these centers with this huge screen, or two huge screens.

So I think we need to think about that when we're looking at venues for indoor versus outdoor, is another big thing. Having done so many of these, both indoor and outdoor, I think the biggest piece about the outdoor viewing party is the shade or that type of thing to make sure that these screens that you're going to spend 4,000 or $5,000 on, that would be modular or could be just roll in screens, that you can see them correctly. So when I look at a list like this, first of all, in my own personal opinion, and then I have a sub question about the Alamo idea, I think an outdoor viewing party is really the best way to go. I know it might be easier to corral people to have an indoor unit, or indoor venue, etc, but I think the reason why the outdoor piece is important is because it just creates a better open air. People want to be outside, right?

And it's summertime, you don't know what the air conditioning's gonna be like in some of these places, you don't know what the crowd's gonna be like. I think the biggest piece though is also, when you say, oh, there'll be food in bed, or there'll be food options here or there, etcetera, one of the biggest things we had success with was when we do these viewing parties, we bring in cultural themed vendors from the community. So like, if I'm a Portuguese bakery, or I'm a taqueria, or I'm a Chinese food, etc, if I know this is happening in my area, it would be a shame for all of the food and beverage revenue to go to one partner. I think when you do an outdoor viewing party, it opens up the possibilities to bring in because maybe you have less restrictions and your hands tied when you're at, say, a competing business to bring in, Hey, we're going to do this outside, we're going have this screen, we're going to have this going on, kid zone, etc. But around the perimeter, which you then create your own kind of space that is I'm losing that word.

But you bring them in, they're gonna make that money, you have a little bit of something from all your local community vendors, each of them make a few thousand bucks, everybody's happy. So that's just my input. I would say, and I have a question, the Franklin Street Commerce Plaza idea, Maybe I'm wrong here, but is Commerce Plaza that street where the farmers market is on? Is that that area or that center area? Or what are we referring to specifically?

So Commerce is where we have the night market. Franklin is what you're what you're describing.

Okay. Cool. Sorry. I always had this dream idea of turning that darn post office road into like Yeah. We had a concert there one time that was kick ass, and I always thought, man, if you put a screen at the end of this road and it's shady, like, you would have a really good viewing area.

I'm sorry. I just wanna make sure oh, the Barrier host committee, the gal's name there, Becca Smith, I know that what I've heard from the VP of the Quakes regarding the viewing party series they're doing in Downtown San Jose is that FIFA will actually approve a lot of this stuff a little easier this year than they have in the past, with smaller fees as well. I know there's a few partners in San Jose who are applying, and what I heard from them was it was a little easier than we think. So yeah, a couple of things. And then the last thing, I do think, if the final is on that Sunday, and that's a night market, I think that is a cookie cutter, very easy thing to promote, and really, people will come see the final.

I do think when we look at these other game dates, we should look at what teams are playing when you have four or five multiple. If you have, like, a date that has a bunch of megastars, or teams that are classically represented in this area or this county, I think focusing on that would be huge. Sorry, guys. I know I have a lot here. Oh, last thing. Great America. Would people pay the Great America fee to enter into Great America to then watch the game, or would there be a separate, hey. You're here for the watch party, Latida this way kind of thing. So

These are all things that we are trying to tackle and explore. So we've talked about, is it is it paid? You know, people come in and enjoy the park, and then there's a separate watch party, or are we are we doing a buyout? Like, these are all things gonna come down to dollars and cents, and then also what's what's easily approvable.

Because I think FIFA, if you do that great merit, that's where you're gonna run into an issue. Because if it is a paid entrance than the viewing party, FIFA's going to come knocking on your door and tie your hands a little bit.

I agree. And similarly, and I know, Taylor, you and I are meant to chat. The other piece to it that worries me a little bit about the Commerce Plaza, and we kind of talked about this, you mentioned this a little bit earlier, is the monetization. So actually in the regulations they say vendors are not supposed to be there to monetize, right, off of the event. And so if you're saying you're hearing differently, that things are a little bit easier What are they doing

in San Pedro Square then?

So how are they how do they organize that?

If because they're all they're all rushing.

So so that's the thing.

They're all

Those are all those vendors are all in place there. They FIFA that's that's what I'm trying to tell you is, I think a lot of this, you'll find might be in, like, the printed FIFA, like, hey, blah blah blah. But once you talk to them, like, they're a little more flexible. I know that Quakes didn't have to jump through any hoops because of the number of vendors that will be on-site, which is something like 40 or or plus. Okay.

I do think if I think it's and don't quote me on this, but we can find out, obviously, we will. But I think it's if you're doing your own pop up viewing parties that have no existing vendors, there's a classically flexible thing that they do where some I don't I don't know. I can go back and look at emails too from World Cup twenty twenty two and '20 twenty twenty eighteen. But we did some community stuff. We had the games up, and we did have pop up vendors. I don't know if it's changed, but I think that's yeah. That's maybe something that you'll have to figure out when we when we talk to them.

More of my worries, the pop up vendors, not not businesses that are already in place.

Right? Because we're gonna have their food trucks and similar to the night market.

Sure. Sure.

Because we need food and beverage at these night at these

I do think just looking at this list from my experience more over than what I prefer myself, I think two of your bigger options that would be well received and probably easier to to do in in in the summer. I really think your Buckshot Stadium is one not to overlook because you have a huge land space. They've already operated soccer and sports games there. A lot of people know where it is. It's easy to get in and out of in several ways, parking and streets. Also, do think there is something though to the that Franklin Street Commerce Plaza area. I I like Alamo Drafthouse. I just think if you really wanna do this thing, it might be a little bigger than that. Yeah. Anyway, I think that's

Thank you.

Oh, sorry. Last thing. Also, which will factor into your pricing sorry, guys. I nerd out on this. I love this stuff. I'm doing viewing parties for this cup already. Pricing, If you think about whether it's the screens, right? When you look into the screen costs, there's two different screens you can build. One is the modular screen, which is a little more expensive on a one off, but they build that. So if you're planning to have a couple of these a few days in a row, or you're doing five games in a day, that might be the way to go.

But there's also a very turnkey, very easy way to get screens too, which these companies in San Jose and San Francisco, they provide these trailer. They drive them in already built on the trailer. You get your size lined up. They drop it there, and then they self sustain too with their own electric and energy and all that. So there's a few you have to think about how many games you're going to show in a day because then you'll be able to save yourself some money.

You're definitely on the subcommittee.

Watch I just love it, and honestly,

this He's the only person on the subcommittee.

People come to these events. If you build it, the viewing parties, people will come. They really will.

Believe. Saw from the success of the night market. Right? We had no clue we were gonna double in in size in in the first weekend.

So yeah. And I think it's important, Taylor, you may be able to help us with looking at the the games and the schedule on who's playing on what day and where we could possibly look at the best days where our community would be interested in watching because we need specific countries that are going to

The good attract people.

The good news is I think a lot of the countries that are represented in this area and big soccer bases will very likely make it out of the group stage if it is something about buying a little more time or doing some of the group stage games because of the calendar. But I do agree. I think if you look at what the culture's here, they'll show up. But if you want to do the later knockouts, I would say the final, and then round of 32, you'll get probably four meaningful games in a day, and half of them will be well represented probably as well.

Hey. More work. A lot more work on this.

Oh, yeah. Well, we did go over a little bit, but we have a couple last slides. The budget, we are still reconciling a lot of the event budget, so there's not a big update to the budget tonight. We have 320,000 in sponsorships pending the sponsorship that was mentioned at the last meeting for Nightmarq sorry, for the watch parties. So as we get that proposal, then we can move forward with that.

Next slide, Alicia. What's next? So we have our flag raising ceremony tomorrow at 09:00. I'll be sending an email reminder, but you have all been invited at City Hall tomorrow at 09:00. And what's oh, I added something, but it didn't get up there. We also have we also are partnering with Triton Museum for the Triton Museum of Art Presents Football, the Art of the Game, and so it's the exhibition, and it is gonna be a partner led event for I think it's Saturday, there's a reception. Do you know what time, Alicia?

I don't know the time, but we'll send it out similar to what we send out through EDMC. Since it is a partner led event, we'll send all the information so that you will have it.

And then we also wanted to share alright. Next slide. Upcoming meetings for EDMC. So as our campaign is coming to the grand finale of our night market in July, we are gonna have the meeting in June. So if you guys have proposals for partner led events, please, please bring them that day.

That's gonna be the deadline to submit your proposal for the the committee. July 13 is gonna be our next meeting. It's gonna be before the night our last night market, but we will be going over maybe some community debrief on the campaign efforts that we've done throughout the last year and a half that you guys have been coming to these meetings and providing feedback. And then we're still finalizing the date, but either the seventeenth or the twenty fourth, we're gonna be then presenting a report on all of the efforts, the the goals, and how we achieve those, all of that data that you've collected. So we'll be sharing a final presentation of a report with the committee, and then we'll also be doing a celebration with the members for all of the good efforts of coming in and putting in the time and effort to make this campaign successful.

And so with that, thank you very much, and have a lovely rest of your Monday evening. Or I'll turn it over to the mayor to adjourn

the meeting. Meeting's adjourned, but can we all be up here for a regular picture that we take? Thank you.

Okay.