Economic Development, Communications, and Marketing Committee - Regular Meeting

Very good. So welcome everyone to our economic development and marketing committee. Our committee council members are council member Albert Gonzalez from District 1, vice mayor Kelly Cox from District 2, and I represent the entire city. So we are the subcommittee of the city council. This is going to be all of you are our stakeholders just in case you wanted to know who you were. You're all of our stakeholders with this committee, but I'd like to call this meeting to order and ask for roll call. Is that you, Rina?

Yeah. Thank

you. Chair Gilmore? Here. Member Cox? Member Gonzales?

Here.

Thank you.

So we are being recorded on Zoom. We have the Zoom application going? Okay. So the Zoom application will notify you that this meeting's being being recorded. Please press continue on the Zoom application to stay in the meeting. Use the raise your hand feature in Zoom where you would like to speak on an item and also lower your hand when you're finished speaking. Please unmute yourself when called on to speak and mute yourself when you are done speaking. That applies to all of you here too. If you're calling by phone, identify yourself by name before speaking on an item. Press 9 on your phone to raise or lower your hand, and press 6 if you are participating by phone to unmute.

Is that it? Do you have

to read something else?

That that is it. So you can move on to the consent calendar.

Okay. So we're gonna move on to approval of the consent calendar from April 28, which was our first meeting Move to approve. This committee. We have a motion to approve. And a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Okay. We're gonna start with public presentations, but you're gonna have an opportunity to speak after each item. We're gonna make this a real dialogue as opposed to, like, an official city council meeting. So we want actual conversation amongst each other. But are there any members of the public that would like to speak on an item that's not on the agenda?

I do not see any hands raised in Zoom.

Okay. I'm not gonna be able to see anybody. So

Correct. I do see a hand raised in the audience.

Oh, come to the microphone, please. Thank you. Thank you, Howie. Alright. Do we have any others

that want to speak? Have another hand a hand that's raised in Zoom. Okay. Debbie Triforos. Debbie Go ahead, would like to speak if you will be allowed to.

Debbie, go ahead. Is she unmuted?

Able to talk to you.

There.

There you go. Go ahead. Start all over, please.

Alright. I couldn't hear anything he said. So I'm afraid that if anybody else is watching, they're not hearing anything. I can hear you, Lisa, but I can't they didn't hear the hot dog guy.

Was the microphone on?

See. Maybe I'm wondering.

Well, Debbie, stay on for a minute. We wanna test.

Okay.

Maria, can you test the microphone?

Thank you, Debbie. We're gonna have you test something for us. Yeah.

I didn't hear her.

I didn't hear her at all.

Let's just test it. Test. To make sure.

Testing? Can you hear me, Debbie?

Yes.

Alright. You.

You for letting us know.

Okay. Alright. So we're gonna get started. So good afternoon, afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Before we move any further, I'd like to take a moment to welcome each of you, not just as attendees of of a meeting, but as stakeholders in our community. You are gonna be the true architects of what we're gonna build together with this commune with this committee and what we're gonna do in 2026, which is such a unique opportunity for us to shine, you know, around the world and also to engage our community and to make it really fun and exciting for our city as well, especially our residents and our small businesses and large businesses, our educational institutions, and everyone that calls Santa Clara home. So when we formed this committee, we asked the staff to present us with some information, but not to develop a plan for us. I'm hoping that with all of us together collaboratively, we can build a plan together because, like I said, you are the community, and you all represent different different aspects of the community, business owners, cultural leaders, but we're gonna call you all stakeholders now at this from this point going forward. So today really marks the the beginning of something different.

It's really gonna be a community driven process with your ideas, your expertise, and your vision that will really shape Santa Clara's economic development community for 2026, but we're also looking at beyond because the engagements and the partnerships that we get we have with our community now through our businesses, our residents, our our cultural, our religious groups is really going to help us moving forward past 2026. So it's not like a one and done, you know, event. We have a lot of economic development going on. We have our new economic development director, Rina Brio, which I'm gonna have everyone introduce themselves. So before I would before we do that, let's let's well, let's start around the room and talk about who you are, who you represent, or if you're a resident and you're part of the community.

Just tell us just a little bit about yourself so we get to know each other before moving forward. Let's start with Rina.

Yeah. Hi. I'm Rina Brio, and I'm the director of economic development and sustainability for the city of Santa Clara.

Liz Klotz, assistant city manager.

Rabir Bhatia, I head up the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Clara Business Council.

Anna Vargas Smith, Santa Clara Parade Of Champions, and I wear a lot of other non community hats. So

A bunch. A bunch.

Christine Lawson, and I oversee Discover Santa Clara, the DMO for Santa Clara.

Patty Wong, city librarian. I'm also a resident.

I'm Kelly Fox, vice mayor.

Introduce myself. Albert Gonzalez, District one councilmember.

Preston Metcalf, executive director of the Trite Museum of Art.

David Curtis. I'm a resident as well as a coach for Santa Clara, youth soccer and Westside Little League. I also sit as a commissioner on the salary setting commission.

Satish Chandra. I'm from District 1, a resident, as well as I was been in couple of committees earlier. So I'm here to serve city again. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Jim Glaser. I'm the provost at Santa Clara University and a professor of political science.

Could we start with our Diana, would you like to come up, please? Eventually, we'll have seats for everyone as well.

Hi, Anna Ding. I'm the founder of Silicon Valley Community Media, TingDing TV, the voice of Asian Americans for the last fifteen years, and also a board member of Silicon Valley sector chamber.

I'm Howard, also known as the hot dog dude out there in North Santa Clara selling hot dogs in the middle of nowhere. I've been working here in the city of Santa Clara almost twenty five years as a business up here in District 1, and we'll learn more about each other later.

Staff.

Yes. Damon Sparacino, parks and recreation director.

Kim Castro, recreation manager with Citi.

Hi, everybody. My name is Elia Kozak. This is my thirst third day in Santa Clara. Probably, could hear from my accent. I'm European, and I just graduated from Harvard University, like, four days ago, pretty much. I am delighted to be joining the team at the City Hall, the the office of the city manager, to be helping with the communications plan for the events next year, and I'm looking forward to meeting you all. Thank you.

Welcome. Yeah.

Hi, everyone. My name is Alicia Knight. I'm development project manager. I support the city manager's office, specifically with Liz Klotz and Rina Bria. Nice to meet you all.

Hi. I'm Janine Della Vega. I'm the public information officer for the city of Santa Clara and the director of communications.

Hi, everyone. Maria Lett, assistant to the city manager, and I support most of the council committees.

Good afternoon. My name is Kelly Carr. I'm the general manager for Oakview Group at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Thank you. And online, I think we have at least Debbie. Those who Hi. Yes. Go ahead, Debbie.

Hi. Debbie Triforos, lifelong Santa Clara resident, library board trustee.

Is there anyone else?

Yes. There are. Christian Palacia, can you would you like to say anything to introduce yourself? I'm gonna unmute you.

Hello. Christian Palacia, Santa Clara resident, Mission City Community Fund board member, and Santa Clara PAL board member.

Thank you. Caitlin Studebaker, I'm also going to allow you to speak if you'd like to introduce yourself.

Hello. My name is Caitlin Studebaker. I'm the director of marketing at Discover Santa Clara.

Actually, I do need to

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, Theresa O'Neil, I will unmute you to introduce yourself.

Hi. I'm just observing. Just a community member interested in what's gonna happen. Thank you.

Teresa, I sent you an invitation, but it kept bouncing back. I think I sent it from my Citi phone, and nobody trusted that number. They didn't know. I sent out invitations, and I got 10 people back saying, who is this? Are you a scammer? So, yeah, I'm sorry, Teresa. You're probably didn't get to

you. Mhmm.

Do we have anyone else?

We have no one else online. Okay.

So thank you. I'm already hearing about the the depth and the connection and the knowledge that each of you bring to the table from different different corners of our community. And I'm sure even in the future, if you see that there is an area where you would like to fill and invite someone else to this, please please do so because this is gonna take a village to do what we're gonna do in the next year. And it's going to take a lot of work, but it's gonna be a lot of fun as well and a lot of engagement. So before we go into the staff report, I'd like to say that this is going to be probably different from any of the other city committees that we serve on because I want this to be more conversational than it is actual committee meeting.

So first, I wanna say that this is your committee. My role as mayor is to chair and facilitate, and Albert's District is District 1 where most of the exciting activities are gonna happen. Kelly's District is District 6. The other side of town where we wanna make sure we connect both sides, North and South Santa Clara, and everything in between. So the three of us are gonna be here, but we're also going to we understand that we have not predetermined anything, that this is going to be a discussion among this group, and you're gonna be the help be the decision makers in this.

Our city staff are here. As you can see, we have a a good selection. City staff from the different departments, they're gonna be resource resource guides for us for whatever we need. And you know what? Disagreement's okay, and it's actually necessary when we talk about the things that we wanna do. So I want everyone to feel free to give us your your opinion whether it's popular or not. It doesn't matter. Because I think that that's how we're gonna get to the creative solutions that we need to get to. And finally, this only works is if it's a collaboration, meaning that every voice matters here. Quiet people need to be heard as much as loud people like me.

So and some others around here that I know. But we wanna make sure that everybody's heard throughout this whole process. So before we move ahead, I wanna talk to ask my my colleagues if they would like to say a few words about what they see this committee is how you see us moving forward and how we're going to really guide what's going on in 2026. Do you wanna start, Albert?

Yeah. I'll start. One of the things that we I think we that that we as a council, and I think I've heard some consensus of this as far as having Santa Clara really participate in the events in 2026 and not have something these events happen to them, right, that they're really part of this and are benefiting from this in one way or another. And the other thing is making sure that we hear from our residents to see what it is that they wanna see, you know, in addition to to the events that, you know, possibly, you know, concerts and other things that may be happening and from our partners to see, know, hey. How can we work together to to use, you know, the the different things that Santa Clara has to offer as far as the museums and the university to to work together to benefit everybody, to make sure that Santa Clara is highlighted.

But not only Santa Clara, but everybody who's part of Santa Clara. I think many of us or all of you who are here are part of Santa Clara, so I wanna make sure that we can work together to get that done in a positive manner.

Thanks, Albert. Kelly?

Yeah. I'm excited to be part of a vision casting, opportunity with all of us. When I look at what's already going forward with the Super Bowl and World Cup, I think one of the opportunities we have at Santa Clarins is the chance to put our name on it. You'll notice right now that they talk about the Bay Area. They talk about San Francisco.

They talk about Jose San Jose. I mean, they handed the football to San Jose. And so we gotta get a little angry about that in a a righteous way and start using this opportunity to put our name on things and really take this opportunity to highlight our city. I think that this collaborative group of stakeholders all represent different areas where we look at when we wanna instill a sense of community pride and talk about what can we do within our city that is unique to us, that will get the community involved, that will make people want to participate, that from afar will have res other people saying, like, Santa Clara is a great place to live. That's what this is about, and that's the onus that is on us here today to figure out how do we put our name on the map.

And so it it is a a think tank right now. There is nothing that's too outrageous. And and then, like Albert said, you know, the NFL's gonna be able to tagline and FIFA a lot of stuff that are uniquely them. And so we have to look inward at what we do for our residents that often feel excluded from that big name marketing and say, you know, when I look at my district, Stevens Creek, we've got a lot of little mom and pop stores. And how do they feel just as connected to what's happening as the big name places going on? So, I'm really appreciative of the people who came here to help make that happen.

Yeah. Thank you so much. I had the opportunity to be here during Super Bowl fifty, and it was former council member Debbie Davis who just passed that Howard was talking about earlier who ran the marketing and economic development committee. And during that time period is when Santa Clara rebranded we rebranded ourselves as the center of what's possible, and we came up with our super community events. And we actually hired an outside firm to help us with the rebranding, and I think we had a we had some fellows from Harvard as well and to help us.

And it was kind of a it was really an exciting time because it was such a big deal for us at the time to host Super Bowl fifty. And everything that we did was the result of collaborative efforts of everyone that attended those meetings. It just wasn't the city council. In fact, it really wasn't the city council. It was, you know, the the the expertise that came together at that time.

And I see us doing that now. We're a little more challenged because we have both Super Bowl and World Cup, you know, within once we finish Super Bowl, we really have to go into World Cup, but we're a little bit I'm gonna say we're we're cutting the time real short on these things because even though Super Bowl comes first, we still have to be working on World Cup because that's a longer, you know, period of time. Most of our residents will not be able to afford to go to the games depending on well, I know ticket prices at Super Bowl, depending on who we who we we attract for World Cup. And I think we'll know maybe around December or so what what countries we're gonna get. But they may be priced out of there.

So that's why we it's so important for us to have to give them the opportunity to be involved as in part of the excitement. You know, our average age in Santa Clara is 34. Did you all know that? Yeah. 34.

To to yeah. Make that you know, fig figure that one out. So our our events have to relate, you know, to different age groups as well. Because I see some of the stuff we have on our sheet that are things that we typically do, you know, may or may not be attractive to a large part of our community. So we really have to think outside the box and what is going to be attractive and to to get people to wanna be involved because they're all proud that Santa Clara is hosting these major events.

They're very proud of it, but they wanna be involved some way, somehow. So if we can, you know, provide a smorgasbord of events that they can get involved in, I think it it'll really benefit our community, especially in the long run for people that feel so disengaged with us and and these events that are happening. And, you know, here at city hall, everyone's busy trying to work out the logistics of public safety and all the the and this is a heavy lift. It's a heavy lift for just one of these events. But now we have, like, seven Super Bowls, six World Cup games, and a Super Bowl.

It's a huge lift for us. So we're get we're providing the heavy lift, but we also need to provide a benefit to our to our residents. So that's why that's really why we're here. So I think the question that we want to explore together today and in the future and we are planning staff's gonna love this. But we're planning on having these meetings, you know, probably now at least every couple of weeks until we get, you know, our these events planned.

You're laughing, Howard. Yeah. Next time, bring hot dogs, please. So our question that we wanna explore really is, what would economic vitality and community engagement look like in Santa Clara if we got it right in 2026? What does it look like?

That's why I'd like you to really start thinking thinking about that. But let's look at currently where we are, and I'm gonna ask our staff to go into their staff report. And I just want to preface it by saying that a lot of these events that they're gonna talk about in the engagement opportunities are things that we're currently doing that will probably, you know, enhance. We're gonna enhance, you know, these these events. But what we're gonna really look for in this committee is not only ideas on enhancing them, but new ideas for people to to be involved in the community. So I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to you,

Liz. Yep.

Is that it? Yep. Okay. Very good. Thank you.

And, you know, as the mayor was saying that this is really for idea generation. We've Right. Have some suggested ideas, and we're here just for a free flow of discussion on on what we've proposed. And I do wanna thank all the stakeholders. We understand all your time is valuable, and we appreciate your commitment to the city and ensuring that we have an extraordinary 2026.

So we did meet last April or this past April to kind of provide a strategic framework for the committee on community activation and event support for 2026, which included discussion of major events task force or the stakeholder group for cross sector collaboration. We wanna emphasize inclusive engagement, engage our public, and ensure some civic pride, and also have global visibility with all these events coming to our city. And we wanna make sure that our city is ready for these high profile events. The purpose of today's meeting, we wanna encourage create creative input and collaborative engagement among our stakeholders. We're gonna review the priorities that you the committee will discuss on economic development and community programming, and then we're gonna hopefully align on a unifying theme or a process to develop a theme for our city.

And then we'll just discuss next steps and how we create a timeline for this for these events. So the role of the stakeholder group is to support strategic implementation of community engagement and economic initiatives tied to 2026. We're gonna focus on program development, coordination, fundraising, and sponsorship, and then communication outreach and strategy. We understand that each of your groups, you have a specific unique access to community and kind of having a shared communication throughout the city will be an a great way to unify our message. Just a quick looking back at 2016.

The twenty sixteen super community campaign, that was the the theme for back then for Super Bowl fifty. There was a citywide branding and civic engagement. There were partnerships similar to all the groups that are here today and sponsors. There's an emphasis on pride, safety, and accessibility for our residents. Here oh, this wasn't the updated one, but we have a list of updated community engagement highlights. There's this super community concert and fireworks show. There were youth sports programs available. We had a volunteer ambassador program for people to be able to volunteer and be participate. We had a community resource portal. There's also branding throughout the city.

The other events, there was a concert, a community concert and festival that also occurred. So for the city, the 20 there's some strategic priorities. Think one is communications and city branding. This will ensure there's cohesive messaging and a media strategy for the city. There's the community engagement and activities.

This will ensure that our public is engaged in events and feels part of the 2026 when they are not able to attend those those big games. And then there's also economic development, supporting our local businesses, our tourism, and also potential sponsorship opportunities from our businesses. We did we do need to come up with a branding campaign, and staff has gotten together and kinda came up with a few ideas as a starting point. These aren't these are just suggestions, and we welcome the committee and stakeholders to kinda provide input as well. One is Santa Clara, where the world kicks off.

Santa Clara, get your kicks in 2026. Santa Clara, 2026, the world plays here. And I think the World Ones is interesting because, I mean, we are, you know, the center of technology. We're the center of these big events. There's a lot of ways to kinda highlight that for the city and kinda use that as a play on not just the games, but also on what the city is to the world itself.

So so we can talk about that during the discussion. And then here are some of the suggested activities that we've kinda highlighted from a staff level of things that we can amplify that we're already doing in the city. One, in June, we're actually partnering with the Barrier Host Committee. We're having a plaque unveiling. So that's probably our first actual kickoff event for FIFA.

And then in September, we're probably we're hoping to do something at the Art and Wine Festival, maybe have a booth out there to kinda promote start promoting the events. October is our parade of champions and and talking with the parade organizers, potentially putting a big sports zone to kinda highlight the activities out in the parade festival area. In December, we have the tree lighting, so that's something we might be able to capitalize on as well. Maybe a community chalk art contest so that our our youth can kinda get engaged. And we've already we already do a chalk art contest, but maybe we have it surrounding one of the big events.

And then having maybe a sports themed exhibit at the Triton that we've had in the past. And I know Preston's here, so, hopefully, you know, this is something we can try to get done. We also have the firehouse run-in April and stuff trying to find ways to maybe engage that as part of the events. And then we're looking at maybe doing a night market. We recognize during FIFA, there's gonna be two weeks of games, and people are gonna be staying in town.

And they're gonna be wanting to watch the other games, or they're gonna be wanting to, you know, have something to do. And so being able to engage the community that our own community, right, by having a night market, but also for those visitors that are in town during that time period. Others is watch party for the FIFA games. This is you know, it's subject to licensing. So if we get the licensing, we can potentially do and there is gonna be a process for that.

And so we will be working to see if we can get licensing for a potential watch party in the city. And then other events, Santa Clara City Library events, they were very active in 2016, and and so hopefully engaging. They did a Stem Bowl. There was lots of just having ongoing, maybe reading times with the athletes, book clubs, things like that. And then a concert for the community is another option.

And then free youth sports and STEM camps clinic programs for our for our youth in the city. And then we're also looking at doing some banners and community wayfinding for the community as well to tie to kinda tie in the whole theme together. Some suggested economic development activities, maybe a Santa Clara Restaurant Week to kinda highlight our restaurants throughout the city, collaborate with the the DMO on some destination marketing for the city, sponsorship packages, and also in engaging with our tech community on some some type of maybe showcase or some type of event. Those are some of the ideas with the economic development. We really do think partnering with our businesses in the chamber and the DMO, we can help showcase the city as a destination for business and for travel and events.

So here's some suggested discussion questions just to kinda do the proposed activities align with our goals? Are there additional partners or events we should also consider for the city? Other stakeholders that you think maybe we would want at the table? And then thinking about a theme that resonates most with our community. So some next steps after our meeting today.

We'll try to schedule another meeting as soon as we can. Hopefully, refine an activation plan based on our feedback today, develop a detailed implementation road map on how we get these events done, identify leads for each major activity, and then launch a theme and branding campaign by the fall of this year. And that's all I had. So, now we can start our discussion.

Thank

you. Thank you, Liz. Does anybody have questions for Liz in the report, Satish?

This is fantastic, actually, the presentation. Couple of things I was looking as part of a suggestion. Last year, somebody bought me up that this is going to be in our Santa Clara. But as a Santa Clara resident, how do you feel proud of it? Right?

So one suggestion I would say that can we have an residence appreciation day within the the stadium wherein everybody has a chance within the zip code, whatever they preside in, and make sure they can come and they can see and they feel part of it. That's one thing. Second thing was as part of the FIFA World Cup, right, even the exhibition matches or the real matches, they do have kids walk with the the players. So can we have our local soccer club kids, like Lions FC or and sporting you know, there is a sporting one also. I don't remember the exact one.

But so this is a suggestion that this would re rejuvenate the people that they're getting more involved and be part of it. That's my suggestions I would like to offer. Thank you.

Yeah. Those are Kelly, did you oh, anyone else have a question or comment about that report? Yes, please.

So at the university, we've actually started to think a little bit about this. It happens that the first game of the FIFA of the World Cup is June 13, which coincides with the commencement at the university. So we've actually had a visit already from the some public safety folks to give us a heads up that there's gonna be limited support for our own event. I think the university is would be very interested in dreaming with you and thinking with you about some of the events and hosting them on the campus if possible. But we do have to think about what the resource allocation is gonna be for things like public safety and also the expense of visitors, hotels, Ubers, you know, the the kinds of costs that our families are gonna experience when they're here at that particular time and and that guests are gonna are going to experience.

So I I I am very excited to to sort of see the panoply of of ideas. I do wanna sort of throw in there that there are gonna be some additional challenges with doing some of those extra things.

Yeah. Habir? A couple of things that I think we have, like, a giant list, so I don't wanna just dump that on everybody, but I see there's a lot of alignment. The one thing that comes to our mind is that how do we do it more with less? Meaning, we have all these amazing assets. We have youth clubs. We have our so and when I always think about the mayor, you had given that data last year, that 56% of the revenue went to SFO or San Francisco. 12% was us, and 20 something was San Jose. So the thing that's coming in our mind is how do we keep our people here from going into San Francisco? So I think we're very open to other ideas as well.

But our goal is how do we give our community places to go, be here, don't drive up to San Francisco. And number two, also how do we attract people to see us as a regional area for the games because of limb serious difference in size and capacity. People don't believe that we have so much to offer. So I think we can really change at optics by utilizing activating what we already have so we can show that we're doing more without actually doing more. I think you brought up a

good point because I think the focus of this committee is not just going to be resident engagement and activities for residents and other things. It's it's really high it's also highlighting our city to the world and why they should be here and and and experiencing, you know, our businesses and our our way of life here in Santa Clara. So it's it's sort it's a twofold it's

a

twofold engagement here, I think. We can't lose sight of that because I think by by letting everyone know and I'll tell you, I think we're gonna let people know that live here what Santa Clara has to offer. I don't think we all know. I talk to people and say, oh, have you gone over there? Oh, I don't go on that side of town. Like, it's amazing that people don't know everything that we have to offer. So we're gonna be educating a lot of people and communicating, and I think that's important. Christine?

I'm not used to working with a microphone because I'm loud. It's interesting what you said, and Habir and I have spoken. Caitlin's on on the phone, and we'll be here, in future meetings. And we have an activation plan, which we can share when appropriate Mhmm. And and adjust as needed.

Besides what you're saying, I think a huge opportunity for us through the PR and the cons, and we've talked with Janine and talking with our agency of record, is how do we how do we bring people back? Like, how do we use this? How do we stand on the shoulders of these two events to kind of highlight what our city is about? And that's what we're looking at is, you know, how do we use this to actually attract people to the games and stay and share a wallet, but then come back.

One thing I'd like to ask ourselves too is, what is it about our economic landscape that's really working now, and where is their untapped potential that we have to look into as well? David, did you have your hand up?

Yeah. So so a couple of things. I think one of the things that we can do is really make this affordable to the community that's here. That way we get more people involved. I'm on a lot of sports boards, and I see what people are talking about saying, we're not gonna stay in Santa Clara. We're going to San Francisco, and we're going to San Jose. So we have to, as a team here, think of something different that San Jose and San Francisco aren't gonna do. If we just mimic and copy what they do, it's not gonna succeed. But maybe we bring since we have a good community here with the kids and and everything else, bringing things so maybe there's events I'm throwing this out that are $50. Maybe there's some free events that we do that are sponsored by somebody so everybody could come in and feel part of this.

You hear people arguing that I didn't vote for this in '24. I didn't do this. I didn't do this. Well, take that away and say, hey. We're one community now. How can we get everybody involved? And as I said, do you most of the time, it starts with the kids. Kids The are gonna be the ones that say, I wanna go to this. And the parents are gonna go, I don't wanna go to San Francisco. I don't wanna drive to San Jose.

But if we had some some great events here that really focus on some of the kids, maybe some of the things that Satish talked about, maybe there's some options where they come to the event and you use some some kinda raffle or something where they could be ball ball kit is what it is. That might help out. I think also taking advantage of, like, signage. I don't know what signage we can have coming off of Bowers on 101, but driving down to the stadium. You know, we have posts there.

You have light posts. Can we sell some of that stuff to fund some of these events that we have? That would be something because that's gonna give them everybody has to come down that way, either that way or coming off at 02:37. So some things we should think about there that we own that the that FIFA or the NFL are gonna say we we can't do that because we own the rights. But I think there's a lot we can do with the community. I think people are really excited, but it it has to be economically viable for for everybody.

And I

think that starts with the kids. Bring the kids in.

Last time in 2016 or, yeah, 2016, we had sponsored concerts at Santa Clara University and Mission College, and they were sponsored, and they were free for Santa Clara residents to attend. And we had, like, a fair there, and there was thousands of people there. It was really fun. But it was free to Santa Clara residents, but it was sponsored, of course. So, of course, sponsorships are so important for all kinds of things. So anyone else? Ideas?

I wanted to bring up since echo what David was saying. Sorry. My voice is going. But one of the DNA events of Santa Clara since 1945 has been the Santa Clara Prey to Champions. I know many of you are familiar with it.

I am a history geek, and one of the things that got me hooked on the parade as a kid was participating as a kid. It's like one of the few events that where kids can be seen and heard and celebrated. And, of course, across all generations, it's a very multigenerational event. But what's really important about the parade is because of our sponsors, it's free. And so we fundraise all year round to make sure that that tradition continues in Santa Clara, that it remains free to the public to attend.

But it also has a component for small business. There's a village. We had 60 vendors last year where they can have one on ones with the public, and the public gets to see the small businesses throughout Santa Clara. It's not just the downtown where we're located, but throughout Santa Clara. There was live music component. There's a contest for the marching bands and the dance and drill teams, and so they feel fully engaged and and seen as well. I think one of the most successful things about the parade since I can remember I know Lisa's been in it, what, 11 times or something, you know, growing up here in South Clara.

Yeah. Long time ago.

Time ago. Was just kids have, like, a path to learn about their community and engage with all the stakeholders all at once on a single day. So I think the parade is an excellent opportunity to include everybody here, and I invite everybody here to show up. Last year, we had about 12,000 people. So I think if we make this a even bigger event, it's been known to be 40,000 people throughout its history. You know? So and even the second largest parade in the state of California at one point. So this is a tremendous opportunity to offer a free event to the public and to really get to know what Santa Clara is all about. Because a lot of people have a hard time explaining what Santa Clara look like. What's Santa Clara like?

Well, if you show up to the parade, you'll definitely see what everybody's there. So I think it's a tremendous opportunity to be part of it and to help sponsor this and make it even bigger than it it's ever or maybe the way it used to be, as big as it used to be, would be great. So I invite you all to participate.

One last thing. If you remember when World Cup was here at at Stanford, you had I did a lot of events well, did went to a lot of events in Los Gatos. So that was a smaller city, but they nobody would you know, they had one hotel at that time, the Toll House, I think. So they brought a lot of people in. Maybe we should take a look at also what they did right, what they did wrong because it was packed every single night for, like, seven days. So something to look at maybe as as well as we start looking at this as a committee is is there stuff we could mimic that they did well and don't reinvent the wheel?

And just to add to something you said, one of the things we were thinking, because I understand we have to watch the public safety costs, was to think about the pre and post events, that we do a big celebration to kick it off, which doesn't then eat into our funding and our needs for during the times, is also a closing event, which, again, we can own it because it's our region. It can be anything we want and based on our the resources available to us. One of the pre events we were thinking was a youth soccer cup that I don't think it's happened because I couldn't find any research or data on this. But, you know, for us to start a tradition, that could be something that then becomes a legacy if we choose it to because soccer is so much a part of our community here. And then, you know, as a closing, again, the reason I bring that up because the mayor asked what's other things that we can consider is the pre and post.

How do we make value out of that? And the the the post is it could be a closing parade. We would love it because we love the flags to do an international village or an international flags parade. Again, that's something we can own as a city because El Camino is right here. And after the games are done, we can decide decide the narrative. We can design whatever we need, but it then brings attention back to us without the burden all of it during the games.

Right. Because during the actual events, we're we we won't have any resources as you were talking about during graduation and other things. If there's a game that day, everything we do is gonna have to be pre leading up to and then post. And then that time period between Super Bowl and World Cup, I mean, is gonna be really important, Satish.

So couple of things. What David was saying is, I think we can use a platform for revenue generation, like because the the scrolls when the FIFA World Cup happened within the stadium, right, in the same manner, we can have LED or certain kind of billboards where we can generate revenue to the city surrounding to the one of the common places. And maybe it's we can look into it whether we can generate the revenue because advertisements within this one, because you will have huge crowd, a lot of TV stations worldwide are going to look into it, and probably we can look at how we can generate the revenue with a certain kind of advertising, which we can take it outside the, you know, perimeter of the stadium, and maybe we can benefit for the city. You know? Just a thought process.

Thank you.

Howard, go ahead. Yeah. If you wanna come I'm sorry. The seats are please come to the microphone. Yeah. Or yeah. There you go. Thanks, Diane.

Yeah. You're talking about branding the city. Mhmm. Get to know the city. Hire these high end people to figure it out. City already has a motto. Santa Clara, America's city. I remember going down in the flags all along. City. Great America, Lafayette. And I'd look. I'd go, that's right. It's America's city. You're looking at people all around the world watching and everything. And here we are thinking, oh, yeah.

Kick off kids and kit no. America Santa Clara, America City. That way the guy in Dublin knows Santa Clara is America City, not San Francisco, not San Jose, Santa Clara. And you already own it. You don't even have to pay, thousands of dollars to a, I don't know, a guy from Harvard. Hotdog University just saved you thousands of dollars. How about that one? It's unique, Howard. Right. I did like that, though. I used to drive around seeing that everywhere.

It's the the poster's on the wall in twenty two thousand and one. Santa Clara became an all American city. All America's is it all America? All America City.

Right. It does bring something to you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Howard. Go ahead, Diana.

Thank you, for this opportunity. I think it's really exciting that our city have this opportunity. Let's think how to keep people in our city and also how to how to leverage what's going on in the city because many people in our community, community leaders are already organizing events, but how to leverage that. Because cities always lack of hands resource, I I believe. So we can work together.

We are organizing Asian American stories. We do contest every year. It's becoming bigger and bigger. And this year and last year, we had over 100 contestants, and we work with over 40 Asian American organizations. We host that in Milpitas currently, but I'm thinking bring it back to Santa Clara, maybe commercial center somewhere. And I'm serious thinking about that because this is my city, so I would like to bring that back to our city. We can think about how to leverage these opportunities and work together. Another thing I was thinking about is this. This is a good opportunity to promote our city. So can we create a something an opportunity for the social media influencers?

Because they can post the pictures, sending out videos, create a content, promote our city. Maybe we give a name of story of Santa Clara or Santa Clara story or whatever. You know? What's possible, mission city story or anything, encourage the influencers, key opinion leaders to come to our city and promote our city together and create a stories for us. You know, I'm still thinking, but I think that will be a very good opportunity to use. Thank you.

I think that's really great because back in back in the day, Super Bowl fifty, we didn't rely on social media as much as we do today

really important. Yeah.

To get the message out. And so it wasn't really part of our marketing plans and communication plans at the time. So things definitely have changed, and we really we really need to do that now. I think it's for this oh, Liz.

I just I just wanna jump in on something that Diana said as well that she's already planning events. And I think a lot of people are already planning events, and I think that's why it's important to get our stakeholder group because we don't wanna plan competing events. Right? We wanna make sure that we're not split dividing the city up so that everyone's event is successful. And so I think it's really important to have these conversations and understand what people are thinking and planning so that we can make sure we have that right balance for the city.

That's a really good point because I like to know what the events are so we all know so we can maybe enhance help enhance them and advertise them and communicate. Because when Preston was telling me about telling us he sent us an email about the soccer ball. Tell us about that. I thought, wow. That's great, but everyone needs to know this.

We've been thinking about this for quite some time, and we are planning an exhibition at the Trait Museum of soccer balls that we're giving to 25 noted regional artists who will then paint, sculpt, recreate, reinterpret those soccer balls as art, which will all be on display at the Triton from mid May through mid August. So we hope to be able to promote this as one more activity venue that people can go to. Of course, the advantages lead to our second benefit for the city. The Detroit Museum of Art is local. It's free.

There's plenty of free parking, and that leads to the venue. We are also available both for city sponsored events. As you know, the Triton's a private nonprofit, but the city owns the building. And so we try to make that accessible for these types of events and also for other parties coming in that may want to rent a venue for a party or a dinner or an event. I know there's the Triton. There's the convention center. There may be venues at Santa Clara University. There's a lot of resources right here, and you won't have to go to Los Gatos to have some wonderful activities. We just need to let people know that they're happening.

Really good point.

I wanted to highlight I actually had a a text from someone about the Silicon Valley Barbecue thing. Again, this happens every year. You know? It was an incredible event. It was, like, 30,000 people would show up over the weekend, and it had something for everyone. There was the beer and wine garden. There was championship teams. There was dancing. There was art. There was it was like the art and wine, but different. And Central Park is a great venue. It's beautiful, and it sorta represents everything that's great about our our park system in Santa Clara. And maybe people don't know how great our park system is, but that can hold a ton of people without having to be at the Levi's Stadium. So it's something to consider.

I think it's great. I think what we're need where we where we need to go is, first of all, we need to talk about bringing all our resources together, and we need to brand ourselves. We need to brand these events whatever they are. So we need to put our creative hats on, which I don't really have one, but I know all of you do. Then we have to look at what partnerships we have, especially for sponsoring and other things.

How can we partner with those that maybe have resources that can help us do this? Look at the events and the venues of where we can have them. We might have some large and small events. There might be a 10 k run and, you know, a cocktail party, and I think vice mayor had some ideas about what she wanted to do. And I'm sure Albert does too.

What we can do in the future. I know that San Jose has and I I think somebody said don't. I think it was David that said don't copy San Jose, but there was a a DJ that that is friends with one of the gals. She wasn't able to come today that she said, we'll we'll bring this famous DJ in, find a venue somewhere, and, you know, have this, like, party outside. I don't know who it is. I I think it was before the earthquake one. But, anyways, I'm just this is an example. I'm not saying that person, but but what I'm saying is that and that's for the younger generation and things like that that yeah.

You're like Well, I think Go ahead. So as I I I listen, I wonder if we move forward as it wouldn't be beneficial. I almost, like, see a Venn diagram coming forward. It seems like the ideas come from, really, what are we doing for our own people to instill pride? And with that, we really need a sense of, activating symbolism.

We were talking about, like, you know, what does homecoming feel like to have, you know, a shrine bowl or an alumni bowl and bring people back into these venues to have hometown parades. Then there's the other piece of this that's really about economic development. When people are here, how do we capitalize on that? And then there's gonna be this little part of overlap where we can use both our community activation and the outside tourism of it. And so I think as we start to plan this out, we really have to intentionally identify is what we're talking about right now community facing and about us.

Is this capitalizing on economics right now, or is this something that's gonna happen for both of those groups collectively? I think that'll help us really identify, the target group and the intentionality that we're coming with. Mhmm. But, yeah, you know, I I just finished a book knee deep in symbolism here. But but if we can capitalize on this sense of hometown pride, I think that's what and, you know, if I was to say, where would I land?

I definitely am somebody who wants to leverage that part of my creative thinking. I wanna talk about what gets our community involved, how do we get the residents to participate. I'm not as good at, like, the economic development. But, you know, certainly, can we create passports and restaurant tours? But it does need to have I I think when I was talking about, like, how excited it would be how exciting it would be to have, like, a prom again. You know? Bring the residents of Santa Clara back to the prom. And you've got your, you know, your Wilcox. And it doesn't need to be reductive that it's just those teams or Santa Clara University, whoever, but our alumni are noted people playing in a bowl or, a a a soccer game. And then it caps off with what we did when we were in high school that was so beautiful.

You have a parade, and your hometown is displayed, and you have a dance. And so I know that's kinda cheesy, but that's where I roll, and it would be fun. So but and I think the the point, though, is as I hear the ideas, we really are talking about very different things. We're talking about how do we activate and make money? How do we how do we give back to our community? Both of those are gonna cost us in different ways, and where do they overlap. Amir, I'll

just say one more thing before I don't know what time this closes. But just so keeping you all informed, we've launched our own thing called the games committee because we think they're gonna be ongoing programs at the the city that we need to utilize to empower our community with economically. And in that, it will be a place for not only Santa Clara to participate, but other cities as well. And we think that's important because we don't want competing events with our city. So we are hoping that that will also be a tool to other cities to collaborate because they're coming and asking us, well, what do you guys have as ideas?

And what made sense to us was to be able to have a community calendar for even them. Then our stuff is very clear, and then they don't hold an event the same day. So then they can get the benefit. And as a collective, we keep people down in South Bay than leaving up there. That's number one.

Second thing, just for informing so we can see how I'm happy to figure out how do you guys would like to leverage that. We have a Silicon Valley it's called Silicon Valley's community and business directory or Silicon Valley guide that will be called a special edition, the guide to the games. And, of course, the biggest portion of that will be about Santa Clara, and then others can be able to have different sections in it. We think that's also a way for us to promote our city and also ensure that we're coordinated and not, like, piling on top of each other in terms of schedules. And it'll be going to all the embassies and to all the chambers of commerce that we are connected with locally and internationally.

So I hope that can be a platform of use as well to, you know, showcase what we're doing, but also highlight to others the opportunities of Santa Clara.

We have a guy coming out. Yep. So

I think we're talking.

So we can all talk about that as well. Perfect. Figure out how that all works out. I was thinking just to add to what Kelly was saying too about the community also. Again, I know I'm hammering this the pre, during, and post because I obviously, at the DMO, besides the marketing and and the brand building for the city, you know, we're looking at high end media and meeting planners to really get that business back.

So, you know, ensuring probably between post Super Bowl, pre FIFA, Caitlin and I and our hotel partners in the convention center will work on a fam, a familiarization trip with key media and meeting planners to really get people in here to see the ecosystem and get more business to

the

city. And I don't know if mayor would be open, but I think a really high end media tour would be great. Again, kind of pre, here's what we're doing from a pre perspective closer to, and I think, actually, post everything. So that pre, during, and post. And Caitlin and I could work with our agency of record.

Obviously, Jean and the city have probably but really looking at high end b to c, media and having the mayor go around and really talk about, this is what we're planning. You know? Then there's the during, and we can deal with all the local media and international media and then post. How do we kind of maintain that glow and and get the return to the city?

And we really have to have our ducks in order to do that. And that's, I think, where this committee can be really helpful to us to have that happen because we can't create it as we go. No. No. Nope. We cannot. So

Are we allowed to use a space between the two events, the the field?

That's where I'm gonna ask staff to help us on this because I remember the restrictions of

we wanna do for the

Every restriction. You can't use Super Bowl. Can you use World Cup? You can't use this. You can't use that. You can't We can use the university. We can use the university. We were able to use Mission College, but there was a lot of don'ts. A lot of don'ts. So I think for this committee to to understand where our limitations are in terms of how we communicate. And even with our taglines and other things, we have to be, you know, cognizant of the fact that we don't wanna get sued.

So You know what? That's something I'll

work with the stadium staff to make sure we have some guidelines, right, of what the terminology we can use. Were you talking about using the field or just yeah. Oh, so she was asking about the actual field rather than the terminology.

It's a question of the the field, the grasping room. Mhmm. If we can have an event on there as a city.

We talk we were talking to them about with the fam trip about doing some kind of event. Either after the Super Bowl, there's talk about how the before right when the NFL moves out, there's that period of time where you can play on the grass or maybe have something on the sidelines. So for the fam, which, of course, we can all talk about, we were just gonna put together kind of an overview of what we'd like to do. But right now, we were told they don't know yet. But if we could do something like that, it would be super fun, like, to even have, like, a fun touch Mhmm. Football. You know what I mean? Or just have former players.

So those opportunities are we need to know what they are

Yeah.

So we can we can try to do that.

Just real quick. Just not to discount our diverse community that we have here, but one thing we might wanna look at with the we have over people from over 50 countries here. Mhmm. You have people all go from Howey, somebody coming from Dublin that may not experience all the food and the culture. So one nice thing to bring people from outside there is maybe you do something more cultural, different food, different events, and I think that would bring people in as as well. So just something to think about there. That would be different than San Francisco and San Jose.

Yeah. We're really known for our diverse restaurants, especially all the mom and pops all over town. You could just eat your way across Santa Clara. I mean, it's just fantastic. So So I've got the approval.

I can talk about this. So we were thinking about something similar. Again, I don't wanna go through every item, but it celebrates Silicon Valley's International Food Fest because we have all that here or just celebrate Silicon Valley's because the world comes here. But now I think the place here is even better. So, absolutely, in having different pavilions, one could be Asia, one's Africa, one's Americas. And everybody would have to come to Santa Clara, especially our own people would come to Santa Clara because nobody else is gonna think of something like that.

So one thing to add on is once we come to know the countries who are going to participate, the local in the FIFA, it's better to work with the ambassadors of those particular countries to see how we can enhance and enable, you know, these kinds of partnership also. That would be a good idea for recognition of Santa Clara within those countries because that would be the major crowd coming to the FIFA six matches. So

I did wanna point out Debbie Triforos, you have your hand up. I'm gonna allow you to speak so you can join the conversation. Debbie?

Okay. Be able to

speak. Yeah.

I've been thinking a little bit, and I know that when my children were small, anytime they could enter an art contest and have it on display, that room was so packed full of parents, you couldn't hardly move. I do are we gonna work with a school district in any way where they could, this can sponsor an art contest asking the kids, what do you like about living in Santa Clara? What's nice about Santa Clara? It might it might force the parents who don't really know a lot about where they're living to look into it, and do some artwork, maybe have a, you know, a prize depending on age group, you know, elementary, middle school, high school, and then have, like, a little art show. I mean, something that I think it would get I know parents love to be involved with their kids in this city.

I see it every time, especially at the library. They're just it's a big family thing. So it's just the thought I had is maybe getting parents more in tune with the city by this or some kind of a project for the the children.

I think that's a really good point. And we did invite the school district to attend today, so there's no one here today, but let's hope they come. We'll make sure we reach out again for them. But I think that in Super Bowl, the last one, the library was a big resource for us. Patty?

We Yes. With IT, actually, we supported the Stem Bowl. So that had maybe about, I think, 50,000 people came through. Yeah. It was a big It was a lot. It involved the entire city, but primarily IT in the library in terms of making that happen. We did get funds from NFL, though, just to let you know. You got funds from where? NFL. Oh. We did. At that time. Yeah. I know. Times have changed.

Times have changed. But but I think it just highlights the importance of, like, a majority of our community, all the events, all the attendance runs through the library. Like, all of our libraries are packed packed with young families and children, and we really have to engage, know, you that part of our community.

We have about 800,000 people who come

through the library every year.

So, Debbie, thanks for shouting out about the library. We definitely could help. I know Diana, we've talked a little bit about elevating our children and and making sure that we can promote them in in so we could do the art contest with the school district, and then we could have the celebration at the libraries and dedicate that way.

Do you see having, like, a STEM bowl or something that includes STEM?

We could easily again. I I think it would require a teeny bit of resources that we don't we're not aware of yet, but Okay. We'll figure it out.

Yeah. We'll figure out the money part. That comes later. Oh, by the way. Minor detail.

Just one I was gonna add just one thing. We had talked about at the DMO, and was it Debbie on the phone? Is that the name? Sorry. Debbie.

Yeah. Debbie. About the kids was a community mural or something commemorating, you know, the games. And, you know, and I were talking about, like, where could something like this happen, but I that seems like that would be really fun with the kids coming up with, like, being part of creating this you know, a mural that's around the games and the community that kind of lives for forever and has Instagram, you know, aspects to it and social aspects, but that might be a fun thing to do.

For high school done it before?

We learn a lot from them.

Sorry.

Can I just bring this up, the tech side of it, of the corporations? From a corporation's perspective, what we'd like to do and I think I brought this up in our panel last year, a couple of three things, and you and I both talked about Christine afterwards, but is that we have our corporations or larger corporations who have physical spaces, light them up in different colors. It's a low lift for them. It's Silicon Valley Power. We're really blessed using LEDs, but light them up in different colors on the pathway that leads to the stadium.

So this way, it's less burden on the city financially, and they get to showcase themselves. So they everybody needs sponsorship. Nobody's getting good PR these days in in corporate. So this is a great way. And then secondly, have them do we hope to ask them to do demo days to showcase what's happening in their company because Santa Clara is truly the center of everything. Right? I mean, the silicon started here. And so that's an area we think could be of great value to the city and financially as well as bringing our own people out. And we would have to do less as a city, and it would be their abilities to light up their building into whatever colors we wanna suggest. So it's sponsorship for them.

It's visibility for them. It beautifies our city, and it gets people to still come to tech and have tours and stuff.

I'm ask Rina this because you were in community development. Do we allow I thought we did last time allow businesses to wrap their buildings?

Do we allow that? Super graphics.

We actually like to change the sign code to allow super graphics, but I believe that's already kind of something in process that we're trying to accommodate.

Okay. Because I know that was really popular too back then.

Oh, I like that idea. That's cool.

Gotta go here.

Well, I have more questions about the STEM bowl, but we can talk about it offline at a different time. I mean, since my boss's boss's boss is here, I don't wanna overcommit. But but, you know, we are have the largest undergraduate STEM facility and just a a beacon of everything beautiful. And so I'd like to know more if we're interested in doing Istanbul again and really talk about know, you I have incredible TAs and students and faculty members who may be interested in volunteering in some capacity. Again, I don't wanna overcommit to anything. But if that was an experience worth revisiting, I certainly would be willing to put in some of the legwork on that. But I I don't I didn't I didn't participate, and I don't understand necessarily what it was. So I need to learn a little bit more.

We'll get you a briefing, and and then we can talk about Okay. Collaboration.

Here, you go. One other question. So is this everything we're doing in this this this team, this committee, self funded, or is there a budget for any of this?

We're gonna have to work hard to get some money.

I know. I think budget

We have to see what we're gonna do. And I know the, you know, the city and the staff is gonna say, let's do it. There's no money. But I'll I'll tell you, we're gonna have to prioritize something in our budget for this because our community deserves it.

Yeah.

You know? Again, we're we're carrying taking on the heavy lift, so we deserve some benefits for for our residents. And we'll try to get things sponsored as much as we can like they did in the past. I think it was DevCon that sponsored the concerts and other things. So, you know, we're just gonna have to rely on the community helping us. But but but at the end of the day, last time, it did cost us a couple million for the events that we had in in the city.

Is it possible in one of the upcoming meetings, not not now, to see kind of what the budget was and what was spent? Yeah.

Can we get that?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I could bring last the last events budget in, and then we can talk about what maybe the cost would be for some of the events that we're talking about today.

Okay. Yeah.

Right. May Yes.

Sorry. Go ahead.

Can we work with the within the vicinity of the stadium, you have Great America Parkway Park, and you have the soccer stadium. And you have the convention and there is a new development comes in, can we have some team based or some kind of a revenue generation for those days where the FIFA World Cup is happening so that we can definitely have some kind of an exhibition or some kind of a place where, you know, we can do a good revenue generation in those areas working with the

With the businesses there?

Yeah.

Yeah. Think in that area when you guys talked about a a night market, you know, which would be happening during the actual event so we would capitalize on tourism in that. We'd need it to be in a central area close to the stadium like that. Yeah. That's a great

food truck. Not gonna happen. Food trucks.

No. It'll happen on

Great America's No. Because there's a clean zone or a security zone that's gonna probably be even bigger. What the interesting part is now there's residents living in that zone, so that's gonna be that's gonna be challenging. We didn't have that before, but they're gonna not let us advertise or do anything in in the area around. So could we also get from staff what the what the restrictions are? The and especially in terms of the dates when they I know Super Bowl is maybe a week before or ten days before, and then World Cup, I have no idea how what that how how big that area is gonna be. They already know what it is, how big that area is gonna be and when it starts.

I just wanted to add. I think it was so great that Diana brought up social media and influencers and young people, and none of them are here today. Diana's here. Diana's an influencer.

That's why she brought it. Diana's here.

That's right. So minus Diana. But I think that there's this great opportunity for stories and people to sell Santa Clara and to do some cool social media campaign that our own people feed into so that when people check out Santa Clara, California, all this amazing stuff comes up. So I don't know how to make that happen, but that's why we can engage, you know, some people who are who are the the experts in that because there definitely is a new platform since the last Super Bowl, and it can be rather affordable if we get it right.

But it's creating the the deliverables on that. That is important because we need we have to start one tagline. What is it? And then everything that flows from that. So that's what this committee has to decide. What what what's it gonna be? And then maybe somebody can create it for us, a visual of what it is. So I'm hoping by the next meeting, we if you come back, hopefully, you'll come back. Please come back. That we talk about the branding and our tagline, and then we can go from there.

And potential think about potential partnerships. Think about events. Think about venues. Think outside the box. But social media is a very affordable way for us to to be out there really focusing on Santa Clara.

Because as far as everyone knows right now, the games are in San Francisco or San Jose. They're they're not sure where they are, but there's nobody even the Bay Area Host Committee doesn't mention Santa Clara. Nobody's mentioning Santa Clara, so we have to do it ourselves. And we're lucky because we actually have the venue that's owned by our public, So that's what I think is unique about us here having that. So I wanna go to my colleagues because I talk too much.

It's your turn.

Albert, you it's in your district. Your district is gonna have the benefit, but also the pain. You're gonna have the pain, Albert.

One of things, I mean, I I think it's gonna be citywide, though. You know, some of the things that challenges we're gonna be dealing with, and I think that we make sure, like I mentioned earlier, that we wanna have the community benefit from this. And we've already heard of an instance, you know, the first game on the thirteenth, and that was our last year for my son's commencement. I'll be there in two years for my my youngest ones. But that's a special day for those parents and those students.

So how do we make sure that, you know, when things like this arise, that we make sure that we can address, you know, the needs of of our community, whether it's university in this case or or some other venue to make sure that we don't negatively impact folks. Right? As I mean, there's gonna be some impact, but let's try to make it at least as possible. So that's just kinda what what's working in my mind. But, yeah, as we do this and we we come through rebranding and have some new hashtag, you know and you go to the center of what's possible, that's Santa Clara is the only thing that pops up right now.

But, you know, what what is what is it gonna be for if you are a new a new branding? But that's that's the one thing I was thinking about as far as, you know, just making sure that we, at least as possible, you know, impact folks. And how do we do do squeeze everything out of this as far as the benefit from this as well?

I'm curious with Santa Clara University, it's happening the same day as the first World Cup game. So there's you've been told there's no police support. Is that it? So what what are you gonna do? I'm curious.

Well, there's not gonna be police support for, like, five days before. Oh, okay. So we're just gonna be very prepared. We have, you know, we have our own public safety, and I I think we're concerned about traffic and some of the things that go beyond our campus.

Those are the things we also will be concerned about is the area around the university because we know what happens around graduations and other things. And for they can't go into the neighborhood. They can't enforce in the neighborhood. It's only on campus. It's our police. We have to make sure that that is that is covered. And when For the residents that live in the Old Quad. I don't know. That's we have to work on that, Howie. So thanks for bringing that to our attention.

When the police came, they did show us parades that took place in Los Gatos, and they the point that they were making was is that the impacts go beyond Santa Clara. They they will affect all of the communities around here. There will be activities throughout the bay the Bay Area even, you know, for their flung places. And so we won't be able to kind of Double badge. With other cities for their public safety. But, you know, we've looked at it a lot. We think we're gonna be able to pull it off. You know? We are we are concerned about the safety on the day, but we're also concerned about the student behavior. Our students are wonderful.

And Of course. They are. Everybody don't drink. They don't party. They don't do anything.

Everybody Right.

Thanks. Yeah.

The the the other thing I would say is the university has a lot of assets, including our students. I know that the students are taxed, but there are assets as well. And there's there are student groups that could participate in some of the youth activity or some of the some of yeah. Kelly mentioned this before. Some of the, you know, attempts to make sure that all the community can participate, and and so there's, I think, some free labor that's possible.

You know, I'm sitting here thinking, wouldn't it be great for some of our student filmmakers to do a documentary Right. On either the planning or the activities. The art exhibit at the museum just sounds fantastic to me, but there's other other things that we could that our students could do. So I hope, you know, we I you'll think about the university as a as an asset in terms of the of the campus, but it's also an asset.

When I saw you walk in today, I was really excited that Santa Clara is is involved because you are a big part of the community, and your students are a big part of our community. And I think they're underutilized in terms of things that and their involvement in the community. And many of them stay and live here after they graduate as well, find their jobs here, and and wanna be part of the community. So I think it's a fabulous asset for us, especially in these games, and they're the experts at social media. You know? Everything in fifteen second, you know, little blurts. Right? Yes. Absolutely. So thank you so much for for offering that. Well, this

is a once in a lifetime thing. I mean, it's it's not FIFA itself would be a once in a lifetime thing. The Super Bowl itself would be a lifetime thing, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity in a period of time. It's gonna it's gonna challenge, but so much that could happen here.

And I think people will remember this for the rest of their lives, and all your students are gonna say, hey. I was there when this happened because when again is this ever gonna happen to have these events? And it's right here in Santa Clara. So so I wanna talk about our next steps and what we do when we come back because I think all of us are gonna have some homework to do. Let's talk about think about what themes resonated with you today, what specific opportunities you think deserve deeper deeper exploration.

You know, we're all just throwing things out, and we're gonna continue to throw things out. Who else in the community we should be talking to? That's and what questions should we be asking? And, also, if you have ideas, if you can bring them back for our taglines. The our staff has given us some really good ones.

But maybe can you put those back up again? But come back with something, and and let's really decide on something at our next meeting. I think we really should so that we can get started. And then maybe through the university or someone can create a visual for us, Some creative person, organization, somebody can create something visual for us. Because I can see it like it happened before on banners and and all of our collateral materials and something that we can really we can draw from, you know, to to really explore, especially social media, to really get to everyone in our community.

Real quick. Did Yes. Did anybody reach out to Shay Salinas? He does a lot with the Santa Clara soccer as well as Earth former earthquake, and he would probably be somebody that I mean, if I can reach out to him as well.

Yeah. He's gonna be at the first event, the unveiling of the

To help out in here to get No. Let's yeah. Me stop by his house. I'll talk to him.

Yeah. Talk to him about it. Yeah. Because youth groups youth sports groups needs to be involved. You know? And we have the soccer park and the Reed Street Soccer Park as well, especially for World Cup stuff for the kids. Yeah. We can have events in our own facilities there until they lock them down. We can't get to them. So so there's that. So does anybody else have any Kelly

I had one more go ahead. I'm mentioned I'm a history geek, and many of you may not know how amazing Santa Clara is as far as Olympians, as far as sports, Steve Nash. I mean, there are so many greats that came from Santa Clara, and this is, like, an opportunity to the world to be as surprised as a lot of people are when they find this out that all these great athletes and Olympians were created in this little bitty city. So I felt like in the parade, if we can invite them as grand marshals or just and just have a huge social media event around them, like, you know, these people came from Santa Clara. You know?

And that would educate the whole world because they really don't think they don't they're not completely unaware of that about Santa Clara. So we want to remind them of our sports history. Anna, do

you think you can work on a list Yeah. Of of I know we have there's a lot.

There's a lot.

I know there's a lot, but at least I know many are in the Santa Clara Unified School District Hall of Fame, Santa Clara University Hall of Fame, Swim Center Hall of Fame, Aquamades are not artistic swimming, soccer. We have Brandy.

Yeah. Brandy. Yes. From Santa Clara U. Yeah. She was our first grand marshal for the parade in 2019.

Julia Ertz. Yeah. There's there's quite quite a few. And the ones, you know, maybe we we focus on one event for them or, you know, something

Or the sports section of the parade would be great. So the

people thinking just the parade, but but in any other event Any other

event, having access to these athletes would be phenomenal. Yeah.

The other thing that's in my head is is that you're gonna have some very notable people here for all these events. So figuring out who is gonna be here and how to invite them to participate in things, I think, has real potential.

I've asked our city manager to engage with the office protocol with the state office protocol, so we'll see. Trying to work on that too because they always get notice of who's coming and to work on that as well. Go ahead. I yeah. Let's because we have people at home listening.

Thanks. Something I was thinking about is you were talking about, like, community and branding and the vision is it might be cool to actually go out to the community. So we'll provide them a prompt, right, based on whatever the events are that we're working through, provide a prompt and go out to the community and have them actually design, right, your branding. And so that way, it's, like, rooted and community led and bread. Just a thought or an

Do do I love that. We talked about that earlier. Do we have time for that to We could. Yeah. I love it.

Just Yeah. A thought. I mean, we No. I think it's a great thought. But yep. Yeah. Putting it out. Staff, is that something we can

Yeah. We can we can take a look and see what the timeline is.

I know we Yeah. We're trying to

roll something out in the fall with branding. But if we What are we? June? We're in June. So if we come back in before by July and hopefully have Yeah. An idea of what it would be, and then we put that out for the public to to be able to participate. Yeah.

People are really creative. They really are, especially young people. So commission used to do an art competition.

We were on the competition, and I think with all those list of concerts I just handed over, that

would be a great place to collect. Oh, yes. Go ahead. Oh, did you wanna talk? Kim does. Yeah. Kim does. In our parks department, thank you for being here today. Alright. Any I wanna respect people's time. So We just

have a housekeeping item, which is if you are here, make sure you sign in on the sign in sheet that's been around. If you didn't sign in, please make sure you do before you leave.

Thank you. Since you are our stakeholders, we we own you now. No. I'm kidding. We really need you here, and I really appreciate you all taking your time to come. So I just wanna say at the end of this meeting is that my promise is this is all gonna be community driven. I think that's the only way that this is going to be successful. And whatever we do is gonna be a a collection of all of your wisdom, put it put in putting it together to have these events. And then it's gonna be our job to go to the city council to try to get the funding for some of it if we can't get it sponsored. Right, guys?

Yeah. But we're gonna be planning these events and a marketing campaign, which is I think it's really exciting. But for our next meeting, we'll send out information. So as long as we have all of your information, we can get it out. We're trying to do Mondays, probably starting maybe at four in the future. I know people are working, and it's a little bit harder. But we'll try to keep these meetings as short and succinct as possible to respect your time.

Yep. Just to follow-up, we do have it online as well. So if you're not able to attend in person, you know, please do listen on on on on on Zoom.

And I'm gonna ask that I know that we're here now, but I'd like in the future for us to meet in different places in Santa Clara. I love the libraries. I'm hoping Patty Patty can support us there. And and then we have other other venues in Santa Clara. We have there's a venue out at one of the developments in the Clara the new Clara District that said, hey. For a meeting room if you wanna do it. So let's try to meet in different places around town so everybody also can get to know, you know, what's available. Maybe the Triton Museum too at some point with the soccer balls.

I have an in with the director.

Okay. Very that's fantastic. So we're looking at, if we can, a couple weeks from now on a Monday. So anything else from anyone?

I had one question about the six acres that the city owns in the downtown, if we can repurpose that for an a night market event or some kind of multicultural foodie event because there's so much multiculturalism in Santa Clara alone. You know? I'm Portuguese. I can vouch for that, but it's pretty impressive, the the type of cuisine we have. So that can be a fun area.

It's a it's a good area, I think, even for concerts and things as well because then we can engage the university students as well in there.

So It's close to the university. How about a huge wrap on that ugly brown building?

Who owns that ugly brown building? The city. That would be our first test wrap.

Yes. Perfect. Do that.

Yeah. I think that's a great idea. Anybody else?

I was just gonna say we're exploring that site, so about what to do with, you know, do something on that parking lot. So

yep. Okay. So, everyone, you're gonna come back with some ideas for us. And and if you have anyone else that you would like invite to this meeting that you think is important to invite, please just let us let us know. Any of us up here or staff know, and we'll be happy to bring them on. Alright. Yes. Oh, meeting adjourned? Alright. Are you okay? Adjourned. All in favor? Aye. Meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.