Oversight Board Committee - Regular Meeting

I hear that this

Identify yourself by name before speaking on an item. Press 9 on your phone to raise and lower your hand, and press 6 if you are participating by phone to unmute. Additionally, I know that there's problems with the Zoom application potentially, so it could be video and audio or audio only, but, hopefully, it will work out fine. Okay. This is the call to order for the meeting of the November 19 meeting of the charter review committee. So will staff please call

Sicinski? Here.

Field? Kelly? Here. Diamond? Here.

Jensen?

Here.

Beckman?

Here.

And Peters?

Here. You have Cora.

Committee member Diamond is participating remotely from, the location that's listed, on the, agenda, and therefore can fully participate, you know, in in the meeting. She's not just watching. She is an active participant. I'm in compliance with the Brown Act. Wanted to ask member Diamond to confirm that she posted the agenda at this location and that currently there's if there is anyone over 18 at her location, she should identify that person.

I did post the agenda, and my husband is here in the house, but that's it.

Technical difficulty with the audio now in addition to the video. And so when I'll I'll ask if

Can you hear me?

But in the meantime, we'll note that you're here and present, and we'll try to get connected with you as soon as possible. Back to you, mister chair.

Of technology. Good evening. My name is Pat Nikolay, and I'm the chair of the charter five charter review committee meeting minutes.

Logistics were Here you go. The this set of minutes approval scripted for you. I think next time after people have done it a couple times, we will leave it to you to administer this. But for for now, I'll just run through it quickly for folks who haven't been in meetings like this again so they understand what this action evolved. And I will note, for the record that member Field has has joined us and is present.

So the these minutes were distributed with your agenda packet. Again, they're they're summary action minutes versus verbatim minutes. They're actually somewhere in between because we've, you know, drafted some language in there to give a a gist of what the item, you know, was, not just the pure action. It is okay for you if you've reviewed them to propose corrections or modifications as part of this action. For anyone who wasn't in in attendance, it is okay for you to vote if you've reviewed the minutes and you believe they accurately reflect, you know, the meeting. It's also okay to you for you to abstain if you weren't in attendance. You do need to ask for public comment on this item like for any other item before you actually vote, and it does require a motion and a second for adoption. Back to you, mister chair.

Excellent. Does any committee member have a question for the staff?

None. Is there any public comment on this item?

There are none in the Zoom room and none in chambers.

K. So the recommendation is to approve the minutes of the 10/22/2025 order review committee meeting in the form presented with such modifications as may be required or requested by the board. Is there a motion? Second.

Motion and second.

Steven Mark.

I have to take a look.

Nikolay?

Yes.

Roberts?

Yes.

Tanzi?

Yes.

Naved?

Brooks? Yes. Yes. Field? Yes. Kelly?

Yes.

Diamond?

Yes.

Subcommittees and discussion of ad hoc subcommittee meeting scheduling and coordination.

Thank you, Chair. We do have a staff presentation on this item. And the first slide, Report outs from subcommittees. Three of you are able to coordinate and meet, which is really terrific because I know it wasn't easy to coordinate and meet. The subcommittees that were able to to get together were group one, power and structure of city government rules process for action, group four, boards and commissions, composition, powers, and duties, and as as a late addition, group five, civil service general rules for classified and unclassified employees, commission composition, and duties.

I've been deputized by groups one and four as staff to those particular gatherings to report out for those groups. We and I'll, of course, invite the members of those groups to add whatever thoughts they had in that I maybe didn't touch upon as part of their communications to the board. And then Sue Ruder and member Roberts will report out in tag team fashion for group five. Next slide. So group one was able to meet on November 12 at 6PM in the Council Conference Room.

Members of that group, Kelly, Tanzi, Nikolai, and Jensen, were in attendance. Mister Susinski was absent but was kind enough to give us a heads up about, you know, his absence, and so we are aware of that. The the staff for that was, yours truly and Jen Byers from, my office, and we gave a presentation that I'll talk about in a minute. The meeting was convened at approximately 06:05 p. M.

And adjourned at 08:15 p. M. That night. Next slide. The presentation that we gave had elements that were both kind of general that we intend to include in our least initial presentation to every ad hoc committee ad hoc subcommittee and then elements that were customized to that ad hoc subcommittee.

So I'll spin through what those items were here. First of all, we talked about meeting logistics. Really, the primary discussion on that was a discussion of consideration of appointing of a chair, a vice chair, and a secretary. The chair's role, as proposed, is to help run the meeting, although the the meetings are intended to be informal, and maybe more importantly, to be a liaison to staff and the coordinator of the, you know, the meetings, getting everybody together, getting the agendas, you know, set, and facilitating that. Vice chair, of course, would act in the absence of the chair, and the secretary, very importantly, would not only take notes of those of the meetings.

Staff's doing that as well, but we wanna one of your members taking notes. But to be the one responsible to report out what happened at that meeting to these broader meetings. And so that was the primary discussion there. Some of you some of you acted in that regard, and we'll talk about that, and and others were waiting for a larger group in the following meeting. We presented, in addition, on the city charter basics, what charters are, right, the constitution of the city, regulating municipal affairs.

We also talked more specifically about the the history of Santa Clara's charter from its initial adoption to its most recent amendments just to give you a feel, again, a reminder and flavor of what it really is we're talking about and what this enterprise is about. We also talked about charter project basics, again, a reminder of what the bylaws contemplates for this exercise. And then we dove into a general presentation of the the group's assigned sections. For group one, of course, we talked about all of the sections that group one has been assigned, primarily in article in the early articles of this section, but in some other sections of the of the charter as well. We presented on staff's preliminary ideas and thoughts for what should consider reviewing and potentially proposing improvements on.

We solicited your ideas to the extent you'd had an opportunity to review, you know, those sections, what were your, you know, preliminary thoughts, and then we ended the meeting with next steps. For group one, next slide, some of the the the preliminary staff comments on sections what that and issues that we thought were worthy of address are presented here on this next slide. This isn't all of them. It there was a good number more than this, but these are the ones that that I'm just identifying here to give a flavor for it. First of all, for all of the subcommittees and, of course, for group one, the what part of your process is really just a general review of all the sections for improved organization, maybe improved headings, better wording, and legal compliance.

So everyone's gonna be engaged in a version of that with respect to your assigned sections. For for group one in particular, there's an entire article three that talks about succession, which is basically the provisions that, at that point in 1951, talked about what the laws were before the charter was adopted and how those laws either continued to be in effect or not once the charter was adopted. That was very meaningful and necessary back in 1951. It's really not meaningful or necessary any longer. And so as in the interest of eliminating stuff that's surplus, we thought it appropriate for us to review, you know, that article and consider what if that is now surplus and what potentially we might still wanna preserve.

Another issue identified that has been identified really throughout this process is a desire to clarifying the timing and the application of the thirty day residency requirement in section 600 for candidates. You need to be a resident of the of the district that you're representing thirty days prior, you know, to filing of your of your final pep paperwork. There's some lack of clarity there as to what that means and how that applies, and we think that's worth, you know, taking up and ought to be addressed. We also talked about the need to review and revise the ordinance adoption and and publication requirements in sections eight zero five through eight fifteen. Some of the language is is dated, that really ought to be better described, particularly the timing of the of the publication.

And we also talked about because this group has assigned some of the miscellaneous sections of the charter that apply throughout the charter, the the the what the best approach would be for including definitions in the charter. There's really only four or five defined terms currently at the end of the charter. We're thinking as a professional staff that that list ought to be expanded, and we ought to have a longer list of defined terms, consider putting it in the front or the back, you know, of the charter and making sure those terms are are are defined throughout the charter as well. So those is an example of the kinds of things that staff identified, you know, to this group as worth discussing. Next slide.

The this next slide represents the preliminary member comments. Again, these are selected. It's not everything everybody said, but just to give you a flavor of what the, you know, the the interaction was. There was definitely support amongst the group for adding defined terms and dealing with that, you know, in a sensible way. There was, more specifically, an interest in adding clarity and definition to terms like residency and an officer and qualified elector and and maybe considering, you know, adding provisions for how we would go about confirming residency.

We talked about that as being something that is is can be tricky, and frequent and most cities just defer to, you know, state law and the registrar in defining those things, but identified as, and I think rightly so, as an issue that we ought to take up. There was a general discussion about making sure that the that, know, in in all of the sections for group one and in general throughout the charter that the text be, made understandable to a layperson, and, you know, try to eliminate the legal jargon. We all the also discussed was a concern about substantial red lines making voters apprehensive. Think member Jensen, you know, made this point, and it really is a good one. When you're done with this project, the thing that's gonna go in front of the voters is going to be messy looking.

Right? Because there's probably gonna be changes made, you know, throughout the charter. And some reconsideration ought to be made to, you know, how that looks. Are people gonna be comfortable with that? You know?

And and does that change how you approach, you know, your proposed, you know, revisions to maybe minimize underlying strikeouts or to accept that as just a necessary aspect of a comprehensive review, but be ready to, you know, explain to the public in some way what, you know, substantive changes are made and what what things that are proposed aren't substantive. But in in this process, there is no doubt that a substantially redlined, you know, document, and when I say that, right, underlying strikeout, you're familiar with that, It'll show what the charter used to say, and then it'll it'll show what was what was deleted and, you know, and what was added in an underlying form. So there was a good discussion about that. There was also discussion about mindfulness of how changes are worded. Again, do assure that the amendment passes with the understanding that at the end of this, all of our work will go before the voters.

So a mindset towards thinking about how the voters are gonna view, you know, what's being done. We did get a written communication, although member Susinski was not able to attend. He did provide in advance a written communication identifying I mean, I'm sorry.

Just a quick question about

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So one of the things I was thinking about in making all those red lines I'm looking at this. One of the things would be nice is, you know, what was the intent and such behind it? So when this is presented to the voters, will there be something that besides just saying this is what's cut out, this is what's added, why was it done? Yeah. Exactly.

That that's a great, yeah, that's a great question, Mr. Chair, if you're okay with me answering that now. Again, think beginning with the end in mind, Right? What what's actually gonna be in front of the voters? And what's gonna be in front of the voters is a 75 word maximum ballot question, which couldn't possibly capture, right, all the different things, you know, that you that have been done in a comprehensive amendment, you know, to the charter. But some of the tone and texture of that could be included, you know, in in in the question. We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

The addendum to the charter and say, this time where it was reviewed, here was the intent on these sections. Right?

Potentially, yes. There could be language that that is in in the in the preface to the thing that's presented. So I wanna talk to you about the different components of it. The other component is gonna be the city attorney's impartial analysis. And in that, there there can be some reflection of what the intent of the of the group was.

Again, it's more it's still limited in in number of words that allowed. It's only 500 words, but that will allow to provide a summary of what's being proposed, including some of the flavor and the intent of what's been, of what's been presented. You're absolutely right. Then it's the measure itself, and there can be, I believe, and we'll look at that, some reflection of what this group's intent, you know, was and then ultimately the city council's intent was in in in engaging in this enterprise to provide, you know, a summary of it. And then, of course, the charter itself in all of its glory, you know, with the underlying strikeout provisions.

The other things that the voters will see, of course, are arguments in favor, arguments against, rebuttals to, you know, to those arguments, and that is potentially another place if one of your members or or or a city council member or a group is assigned the responsibility of writing the argument in favor. That is another place where the intent and the objective of of this group, you know, could be reflected. So there's a number of places throughout that where that that that messaging could occur, and then, of course, in whatever campaign efforts the city can't fund, you know, support, you know, for this as part of its campaign. But if other people wanna, you know, talk about the intent of it or we wanna include information, which we will, on the city's web page of what the intent and the purpose of the charter project was, all of those are potential mechan messaging tools that are lawful and appropriate to include.

I was thinking it was more along like a change log. Yeah. So when you have a document, you have a change log, and what it's good for is, okay, next time there's a new charter review committee, they can see what the old charter review committee had done and why. So some kind of change law saying, hey. These are the things that we recommended, and then, you know, voters said yes or no. I'm assuming don't know how the the vote goes. I'm I'm assuming it's all or nothing, or

is it It's all or the it it's all or nothing with respect to however many measures are presented to them. So if it's one measure, if that's not approved, then that measure fails. If it's broken up into multiple measures, if one part of it passes and the other doesn't, it would be whatever passes would go into effect. So that's probably worth talking about in a on a committee level to understand a little bit more what you're talking about. I'm not sure we could include quite that, you know, in what goes in front of the the the voters.

We are talking about potentially updating how the charter itself refers to what previous actions were. You can see in the version you have now, there's embedded in it. This was amended back in such and such a date, you know, in this way. I think there's better tools that can be added to the charter to actually provide an index or a matrix of that, potentially with links, you know, to explanations of what happened. So any and all of those things are worthy of discussion as we go forward.

Mister chair? The so back to member Sisinski's, you know, proposal. There there's some there is some language in section eight zero eight that, in his view, and I would agree, warrants some modification or clarification, maybe a little different than how you proposed it in because there there's there's some provisions that appear to allow for changes in ordinance. Actually, it's after it's already been approved, but before it's published and noticed that don't entirely make sense, and there's some lack of clarity of what it means to make to have someone be able to make non I think it's corrections of clerical errors or omissions. What does that mean, and who decides that?

What you know, who does that? So good suggestion on cleanup language. The committee will take that up, you know, when we when the committee next meets, and, ultimately, this group will will be looking at it. So that's the my update on preliminary member comments. I was gonna go to the last slide for this group on the actions that were taken, but maybe before I do that, are there any members of the committee that were in attendance that wanna add anything about what that discussion entailed?

Very good. I guess I did a reasonable job of capturing the conversation. So next slide. Actions taken. Member, chair, not begrudgingly, with great enthusia enthusiasm, volunteered to also be the chair of this subcommittee. Member Kelly graciously agreed to be vice chair. There was consensus for both of those appointments. The thought was that the secretary, you know, could be to to be determined. That's why you're stuck listening to me reporting out, you know, on this first one. And so when this group gets together next time with the full complement there, then that decision will be made as well an important one.

Remember Susinski, I somewhat nefariously proposed that since you weren't there, you could be assigned the secretary position. Yeah. But the but but the rest of your colleagues were much more gracious than me and and thought that you'd give you an opportunity to weigh in on whether you wanted to do that or not at the next meeting. The next meeting, I think, was tentatively scheduled for Monday, 12/15/2025 at 6PM. And so when we've got that, you know, the the room and availability of that confirmed, we'll be sending that out to the subcommittee for your next meeting. So that's the report out for that. Oh, very good. It looks like hey, Amy. There was surprises way ahead of me. Looks like that has been confirmed and sent out to the group.

So that is when this the this group will meet next. So any other thoughts on group one? I'll go on to group four. Very good. Group four, boards, commissions, composition, powers, and duties.

This meeting was held on 11/13/2025 at 6PM in the Sparacino Conference Room. Member Brooks and Field remotely, thank you, mister Field, participated. Member die Diamond, we knew was gonna be absent, and member Sisinski also told us ahead of time he was gonna be absent. So we didn't have quite a full complement of of this group, but definitely wanted to meet and have this discussion regardless because we know how hard it is, you know, to get everybody, you know, together. And, of course, we're available to answer questions for any of the folks that weren't, you know, able to to be in attendance.

This is a good place for me to note that, of course, while we want as many of you as possible, there are no technical quorums, you know, for the ad hoc subcommittee. It's not a Brown Act, you know, compliant committee. So it's up to whoever of you who shows up as to whether or not you wanna meet, you know, or not. Or, potentially, your committee could develop some rules. Hey.

Unless, you know, this many of us are there, we shouldn't really meet, and we should try to reschedule. That's that'll be up to you, you know, and and how your individual committee feels about it. I felt, and both member Field and and and member Brooks felt that we should we should meet because, again, it's hard to get everybody together, so we met. I staffed that on my own. That meeting, convened at 06:05 and adjourned at 07:15.

I'm not gonna go through this again because this really is a repeat, of the presentation that was given to group one. Group four got a version of all of this as well in the next slide. And again, preliminary staff comments, a selected number of these, not all of them, to give you a gist of the the issues that we identified as appropriate for this group to take up. Again, as will be the case for all of you, a general review of all sections for improved organization, headings, wording, legal compliance, and then specific to this group, consider adding provisions clarifying the appointment, reappointment, or removal process for boards and commission members to the charter with an option being maybe you don't include those rules, you know, in the code, but contemplate at least the general rules for that and have that administered, you know, by the municipal code. So a topic for discussion.

There is a provision, and this is a good example in section one zero zero three of things that are out of compliance with the law. There's a provision for closing a meeting to the public if the if the if the majority of the board determines they ought to do that. There's no reference to the Brown Act. There's no reference to circumstances that might apply that were they when findings they would need to make in order to to, convene to closed session. It's very rare for any border commission to actually have a lawful basis to go into closed session.

So to have this general provision in there is really something that needs to be addressed with legal language to clean that up. So that's one that we identified. Another issue is must all appointed board and and commission members be qualified electors of the city? It's an interesting, you know, question. A qualified elector is and, again, a term identified as something that should be better defined, you know, so laypeople can understand it, is someone that is both a resident and eligible to vote.

In order to be eligible to vote, you need to be 18 years old, and you need to, through a process with the register our voters to actually be a citizen of The United States. A lot of jurisdictions are now changing that rule and changing it to more just a mere residency, you know, status as opposed to citizenship status. That's something that could be discussed and and considered. It also might be considered a highly political, you know, issue that people don't wanna to talk about, but certainly within the parameters of the of this group, maybe a level three thing, you know, in in the end, you know, in a politically sensitive area, but a thing identified that a lot of different jurisdictions are dealing with. Yes, mister Sisinski?

Yeah. That would follow-up on

mister Krudzfeldt. That would something

we would want in a

separate, ballot measure. Right on the third.

Yeah. Potentially so. We you know, you're not deciding that yet, but you're absolutely right that if that is something you wanted to propose at all, you might that might be one you'd identify as as being considered separately. I know when this was it was when this was taken up down in Chula Vista, it was a very hotly debated item. It ended up going into, I think, the comprehensive amendment and was approved as part of their overall amendment.

But that doesn't mean this jurisdiction's the same or that you all will think the same about it. It's definitely in a sensitive area, but worthy of discussion. The at the core of what this group will be focused on is really the updating reviewing and potentially updating the board and commission duties and powers. An important aspect of that will be soliciting the input from the designated boards and commissions. That shouldn't be done in a vacuum.

What does the planning commission think about, you know, how their duties and powers are described? What does parks and rec think about that? What does this that that's a different committee, but civil service, you know, think about that. And, particularly, as you'll see in the in the item at the end here, what does board of library trustees think about that? One of the provisions in the board of of library trustees authority is a provision that says they shall have charge of the administration of the library system.

They do not have charge, and they haven't for years and years and years if they ever did, probably did back in the fifties, actual charge of the administration of the library system. Right? That's overseen by the library director who's appointed by the city manager. It's not a true, you know, oversight. They're not the equivalent of the city council with respect to the library. Right? It's it's been acting as an advisory body. But if that's proposed to be changed, again, to align with what the current practices is, what do they think about that? What aspect of that do they want to retain? And you'll clearly, the this group and ultimately this the the larger committee will wanna consider what they think about what ought to be preserved in that, and maybe the entire thing should be preserved.

So that was discussed or identified as an item. Next slide. Preliminary member comments, which are also selected and actions taken. I think the since it was just two members, there was not the same lean in that maybe some of the other committee members had, but there definitely was a consensus and support for, you know, consideration of the items identified in the overall work plan of the committee and an appreciation for at least the opportunity to meet at least with the members who made themselves available. So thank you to to the two that made themselves available.

There was a desire to wait for the next meeting to assign responsibilities for chair, vice chair, and secretary. Again, I couldn't lure them to the dark side again by appointing the the two that weren't their, actual authority, so that will will, happen at their next meeting. And member Brooks, agreed to take the lead on coordinating with the other members to schedule the next meeting. So it hasn't been scheduled yet, but I know member Brooks is working on that. Next group to report out is group five. Sue Rueter is gonna from my office is gonna tag team that with member Roberts, and I will turn the presentation over to Sue.

Great. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Yeah. Alright.

So we met just this Monday at 6PM here at City Hall. The members of this subcommittee are members Peters, Beckman, Roberts, and Naved. I, staffed this subcommittee meeting along with, the city attorney.

Nominally, at the very end, I I came in.

We convened at about 06:05, and we completed at about 07:45 in a robust and lengthy discussion.

Next slide, please.

I'm not going to go over the first few bullet points. They are the same as were presented to the first two subcommittees that we discussed. We did have background of the civil service system section in our discussion, so that provided the members with a history of the development of the civil service system and how it has changed over the years from federal and state based system to the municipal entities having their own versions adopted. And then we talked about the charter sections that are applicable to the civil service system as well as the creation of the civil service commission within the system, and how all of those things work together in order to further the legislative purpose of the civil service system. We then spoke about the sort of preliminary thoughts that staff had with regard to changes to those sections as well as the questions that the committee members subcommittee members had relating to the history of it, different issues that surround

Oh.

Sorry about that.

And and different topics, issues that relate to application of potential changes to our operational system and the reflection of current city operations in the language of the charter. And then we discussed next steps and how we wish to address the two sort of primary subject matters within the subcommittee, which are the civil service commission and then the civil service system. Next slide, please. Alright. So some preliminary staff comments that we had was we went over the general review of the three articles that are covered, the three articles of the charter that are covered by the subcommittee.

The first being the civil service commission, which is within the larger boards and commissions part of the charter, but we've taken it and put it with this group because from a subject matter perspective, it makes sense to do so. And the second part is the actual civil service commission I'm sorry, the civil service system adoption portions of the charter, and the last is adoption of the retirement system, the state's retirement system CalPERS. So we went through those, all of those sections, highlighted some of the issues in which it either doesn't meet with current state law or it is wildly out of alignment with the city's current practices. And so those things really do need to be updated in order to become a a workable document and one that is accurate to this to the current city operations as well as worded in a way in which it doesn't negatively impact or restrict future city operations in terms of how we organ how we organize our employee groups and how the departments choose to organize their own operations. Another issue is consistency, not just throughout the charter, but also consistency with other documents that are pertinent to the employment system of the city.

And so we're talking about things like the personnel and salary resolution, the employer employee relations resolution, and the civil service rules and regulations really all ought to use terms that are similar so that there isn't confusion in terms of application of one set of laws or one set of regulations. And lastly, to ensure that some of our some of our sections just meet basic legal compliance issues. So there are the civil service section of the city's charter was initially adopted in 1951 along with the original charter, and it was then updated in 1958, whopping 1958, and has been largely unchanged since then. As I'm sure you can imagine, there have been a lot of changes to public employment and to labor and employment in general over the last fifty years, sixty years, so it would be good to to bring some of that language up up to date. One of this, one of the good examples of this in terms of misalignment with current practice, misalignment with best practices is there is a section as required by state law in the city charter that lists out all of the types of classifications of city employees that are considered unclassified employees.

That means employees who are not a part of the civil service system. And by default, everybody who is not listed there is a part of the classified system. And so it's really important that we make sure that that list of unclassified employees is correct. And unfortunately, it's way out of date. And so we plan to bring that list of of unclassified employees up to date and use more general terms that are applicable to classes of employees as opposed to specific employees, and that will allow for organizational changes in the future that aren't constrained by some of these types of issues.

There's also some vague language that we'd like to make more clear, particularly one one example of it is with the civil service commission that unfortunately, the some of the the language in the charter relating to creation of the civil service commission and its duties, its roles and duties, doesn't isn't limited to the classified system. And so pursuant to the charter, which is not if you were so inclined, you perhaps could argue that portions of the Civil Service Commission's duties apply to unclassified employees, which is absolutely not correct that they're not a part of the classified system by definition. Right? So there's some ambiguity there. It's vague, and it's kind of inter internally inconsistent.

So we'd like to clean that up. And and yeah, so that's that's generally that's generally where we'd like to go. So those were our preliminary comments. And as member Roberts will explain, we're we're gonna we're gonna take the, you know, eating an elephant method. Right? One bite at a time. So we're little by little, we're going to get to each each one of these parts. And yeah. So if we go to the next slide, I can turn it over to member Roberts to talk about some of the comments that the members made and some of the actions that we decided to take to move forward.

Alright. So I was not prepared for this. I did my best. Okay. So some of the member comments that I can recall, we had a lot of questions of regarding classified versus unclassified employees, represented unions, stakeholders, and the like. The charter city versus the general law city, which Santa Clara used to be a general law city, and now they are not. Hiring hiring practices, probationary periods for classified employees, and then the outdated language and and rep underrepresented job descriptions that need to be included. Actions that oh, wait. Can is there anything that I missed? Because I'm sure I missed a lot. It wasn't

No. That I think that's that's That's good summary. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Actions taken. We appointed or well, we volunteered. Nobody was voluntold for the chair, vice chair, and secretary positions. So the chairman is member Beckman. Vice chair is member Peters, and, obviously, I am the secretary. Next steps, we set the next two meetings. So we'll be meeting on December 10 at 5PM and then again on 01/05/2026 at 5PM. And we set the agenda for the next meeting, at least the next meeting, and we'll start with civil service sections ten ten, ten eleven, and go from there.

Mister chair, I've I've got a little bit of a discussion on the now that at least a few of you met, and I know coordination of the meetings, you know, is important, a little bit of a discussion at that, but it might be an appropriate time any member of the public has a comment on this to go to the public about that.

I have one. Wanda Buck, you are allowed to speak if you will unmute yourself.

Sorry. I had trouble unmuting. I made a couple notes, but I want to thank you all for your work on this really important issue. And my question, and I'm sorry I missed the first meeting because it may have been addressed in some way, is how might ethics be addressed in our city's government in this process, both specifically and in general. Specifically, I can give you an example of, like, the governance ethics, and I think they award make awards committee that combine so much that don't mean often, and they have a lot to cover.

You're correct. In the first meet or the second meeting, the first or the first meeting, ethicist, doctor Tom Shanks called in, and there was some brief discussion of adding an ethics committee. And the consensus at the time was it would probably be into the group four, the commission's group. There that there was some discussion already on that.

Good. And I can I've read a lot of his articles, so I can I can get the idea of what it was about? Mine the on the specific the example that I was giving is that, as you mentioned, there is some discussion of a possible a separate commission or maybe changing the structure. You know, the members right now are just the council people, and I don't mean just to minimize that. So that's a specific.

And in general, ethics is touching every aspect of in our city. And it might on a ballot, if there was something positive woven into this using the word ethics, it might help other voters vote yes like me. And thanks again.

K. Well, I think we got the the gist of her comments.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's it. That's it. Thank you.

You, Wanda. Any other public comments?

There are no further comments.

Very good, Mr. Chair. And so wanted to talk briefly with with this group about meeting scheduling and coordination. We've sent an email and then a supplemental one, right, as you all know, to the various boards and and subcommittee members to try to support the meeting scheduling and coordination process with Amy. Thank you, Amy, at the at the helm of that.

We've suggested a 6PM preferred start time. We've identified as the available best available rooms here at City Hall, City Council Conference Room with some of you who have been in in Sparacino, you know, Conference Room, which are typically available at this time, and that's also, of course, convenient to staff, both city attorney staff, CMO staff, and the other departments who are gonna be will be coming in at some point to talk with you and interact with you. And so that's what we've set up. There's clearly been some challenges, you know, with it. Part of it's because there's a lot of committees and there's a lot of you.

Right? And and so even coordinating amongst yourselves has been tricky. But wanna get, you know, member feedback on, you know, that process and what we might be able to do to, you know, facilitate better the, you know, the coordination and scheduling of meetings. And then I'm going to suggest at the end of this meeting, like we did, I think, after you appointed the committees in the first place, it might be an appropriate venue with most of you, you know, here if you've had challenges getting together with your groups and coordinating, you could do that, you know, at the end of this, you know, meeting tonight. And Amy and I and Sue, you know, will be there to interact with you and go, yeah.

We're available for that. So that that's another kind of option aside from you doing it amongst yourselves using the after meeting time, you know, here to interact. But, mister chair, interested in your, you know, thoughts or the rest of the members' thoughts about how we might better support your schedule of, you know, of these very important, you know, meetings as the working groups for this project.

Excellent. I will go to the committee members. Anybody have a question or comment?

And Amy has some thoughts too, by the way, mister chair, before on the in in any you wanna talk now, or do you Yeah.

It's pretty brief. Part of what creates confusion in trying to get everything scheduled is when every single person emails, and I don't know what group you're in or it's all your members of the group. And so it's a lot of confusion to try and map out who, what, where, and what is asking. So what would make it easier and and faster is if one person from each group can send the request for whatever meeting date, time you're asking for and identify what group it is so I can make sure the correct attorney is also looped in to the invitation. That'll let me do that a lot faster and get back to you quicker.

And you can cc if you'd like Glenn and Sue, but, really, it's myself that is securing the room and then adding them to the invitation once I'm holding the room. And, ideally, we are going to try to always, number one, use Barracino right here, right inside the doors because I can unlock those doors temporarily for you all to enter, which makes it a little bit easier, and you can park in visitor straight out that door. So just trying to get ahead of what I've received as a challenge to try to be able to help you guys get scheduled a lot faster. If you do know in advance coming online into January, obviously, one group has given me two dates, and they're booked and ready to go. But if you do know in advance and you wanna schedule more than one, you can also send that request altogether, and I can schedule as many as possible in one email that you send me.

The other thing is please keep in mind that about the last two weeks of December, there's not gonna be any staff available. So, really, if you're trying to meet anytime after our last council meeting through about the fifth, it's pretty sure that's not gonna happen. And the building is closed one of those weeks too. So just keep that in mind as we end this year, and that's the end of my 2¢.

You're good. And one more cent, Mitch Mitchoud here, if I might. The part of the challenge in the beginning, right, without a chair and a person designated coordinate is just that, right, with multiple people communicating. That's why the suggestion of appointing a chair and a person who's a liaison, that becomes the the one point of contact that Amy's talking about. I think that will help a lot. And, of course, until you've met, you don't have a chair and a person formally designated to do that. So I think it will become easier as we get in a groove, you know, going forward, but definitely interested in feedback from the group.

Thank you. Lynn, with respect to the substantive presentations by staff, is it possible that they could prerecord those, give their, you know, PowerPoint presentation? In that way, it'd be easier for us to come back to it, review the material, and it might be easier to schedule around that.

I'm sorry. Could you say that again? I'm I'm

asking is whether the staff can give their presentations, the substantive presentations about what they feel needs to be changed and the like prerecorded with their slide deck so that they give the presentation. We can review it offline. That way we can come back to it and be a little easier. Is that a nonstarter?

I think that's gonna be awfully challenging for us to do that. I I appreciate the thought of that. We've got so much going on. We're preparing kind of our presentations right up to the point where we're presenting to you. But as you know, the PowerPoints are available.

Right? The two of them of the of the of the group that met were included in your materials. The one that happened after the materials went out will be uploaded, you know, and available in the the materials and on the website. And so I guess I would suggest I I will take it upon ourselves. If we can get things out to you in advance, we will endeavor, you know, to do that, and there will be opportunities for us to do that, particularly as one of the members pointed out when we actually get into the drafting.

If we're drafting something that we want you to react to, we should get that out to you in advance. And so because then you're gonna be much better, you know, equipped, you know, to comment on actual drafting. So when we're actually expecting you to react, you know, to to things, we'll get that in events. But a a recorded version of our presentation might be very challenging for us. And I will offer for anyone who misses, you know, either this meeting or a subcommittee meeting, I will be available, and whoever the person is staffing that subcommittee will be available to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you. And can we reflect in the minutes twenty four or forty eight hours in advance when there's suggested amendments?

And I'm sorry. Say that that again too?

When your staff is providing suggested amendments, you say twenty four hours in advance of the

We'll try to do better than that. Right? We we will try to provide it to you as far in advance, you know, as possible.

Alright. Thank you.

Eric. Thanks.

So with the scheduling, is there any possibility of doing something like a shared calendar, online so that we could see what committees are meeting and then when staff's available. So if I'm trying to, like, decide, you know, for one group, when can we meet? It would show availability of staff and also making sure that we're not

Our lapping. Internal Outlook won't let us share our internal city calendars.

Why don't we just is there a problem using something like Google Calendar, which is free?

I would have to get clearance for that to be able to pull any information from their calendars, my calendar, that end room calendars.

I wouldn't ask them to go into your Outlook calendar and share that in some way. I would say this is just a manual process because, yes, if we have to get an shared stuff, there's all sorts of security stuff that goes on, and I wouldn't ask them to do that. But we just like, hey. So the subcommittee is meeting on this night, so the rest of us kinda know, like, okay. So staff is meeting there. And then, you know, for us, we can, you know, look at that calendar and saying, hey. You know, this is when I'm free. You know, it it would help maybe coordinate a little better without having you to connect it in any way to your your calendars.

Yeah. So appreciate that. And I I I think that's a good suggestion. I don't know that we'll be able to to develop a separate calendaring tool, but we could we

You don't need to develop it.

It's Yeah. No. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm with you. It's just the the city adopting different things and using them officially is more bureaucratic than you might think. But to your point, identifying dates that we've in advance that we know city council conference room and and or room are available and haven't yet been booked and making sure that everyone knows what those dates are.

And then once a subcommittee is booked for that date, populating that date so that the rest of you know that date's no longer available, we'll we'll look at seeing if we can do something like that either through a program if we have it or just even, you know, sending a spreadsheet, you know, out or making a spreadsheet available to you. So that's a good suggestion. We tried to generally indicate to you, right, what days are good. You know, council meetings aren't. Most days of the week, you know, will will work for us.

And I think we indicated from a staff support standpoint, we will be flexible so that one or the other of us is bound to be available, you know, to support that subcommittee, ideally the right one. But I hear you getting more information to you about what dates are available and then populating that once those dates are secured so that everyone has same eyes on that. We'll look at what a mechanism the a good mechanism is for that, and you and I can talk offline if you've got a specific idea about it.

Glenn, may I ask a question? Alright. Eric, to your point, is it possible we can have windows of time where we can actually have two meetings in one night? And there's some groups that are I'm I'm part of two groups. I'd love to have group four and six meet at the same night, maybe at different times. And so just whatever we can, let's best utilize our facilities.

That's what I'm putting putting forward. If we have two rooms available, we can definitely book them at the same time. Okay. If we can if Council Conference Room and are both open from six to eight, same date, we can go ahead and do two different groups in them. That's fine.

And back to back, though, might be tricky. Right? I hear what you're saying. Right. Right. Yeah. But there is a potential to support two groups in a night depending upon, you know, if those rooms are are open, if things are going on.

Sorry. If you have rails where you're meeting from six to eight, needs to be done by eight, so the next group, that might facilitate the groups to work in a more timely fashion.

Agreed. Yep. And and potentially concurrent back to back. Back to back might be tough. Eight to ten is probably gonna be a tough slot, you know, to for us to support, but at least concurrent in in two rooms. It doesn't necessarily need to be just one per night. So good thought.

And can I nominate either Eric to be the lead of six? Because we didn't meet.

I sent out a I tried to get an email thread straight started for the group. I got a response from you. Then I realized that we can't really set this up without. So I sent an email out on on the twelfth asking for help identifying when the rooms are. Seems that it should be pretty easy. It's only five minutes a week. So we should so list.

Well, yeah, we'll we'll talk about that internally and try to get that information more specific information out.

The only tough part about that is we're all busy people too, so we wanna make sure

can attend But remotely perhaps. You know? We also have all these holidays coming up.

Great. That is a great point too that I wanted to make. We were mister Field knows he participated remotely from a different time zone, and we were able to set that up. And in fact, that technology worked great. Although, we were a little faint. I think we had a volume issue, but that's probably because I was at the controls, and I I'm I'm only so good at that stuff. But that that is another thing that if we're in either Sparacino or City Council Conference Room, remote participation is available.

The requirement that it can't be fully remote?

No. With these ad hoc subcommittees, they can be they they they can be whatever you want. A fully remote meeting would work as well.

Yeah. You can use AI to be the secretary of the summarization.

Now you're scaring me.

I do it all the time at work. I'm I'm teases. It's like the greatest thing because when you go look at it, it's like, okay. I know it's been hallucinating all day long because it hasn't been listening to any of us.

I can at least speak to group two. I mean, we we seem to have communicated within ourselves fine and gotten the schedule that we need, but seems it seems that the holdup now is just getting the staff person assigned. And, you know, I personally, you know, didn't ping anybody else because I'm just kind of waiting for, you know, who is gonna be that staff person at, you know, the first meeting. We've defined the, you know, the windows, so to speak, but we haven't heard back, and I think it's been

I don't have any pending requests.

We don't have a pending request for a room.

Okay. So I would only know if you sent me a request for a room, and then I can alert the attorneys so we

can way the read was you the that the staff member would return would tell us of their availability, and then we can get a room. So

We'll we'll track that one down. The the staff person is either me or Jen for that or both of us. I think are the assigned, you know,

folks to that. So what is an appropriate length of time? Because I I was just waiting and before I become annoying. So Or annoyed. Or annoyed. So

if you can just let us do that. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll find that. We'll search for that email. Sorry if that that that wasn't responded to properly. That it the the the staff person is me or Jen. I'm just gonna be a little out of pocket, you know, in the next, you know, few weeks for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean you can't meet because Jen can support that too.

Okay. If possible, could you give us a couple dates that somebody's available to meet with group two since we're all here today? If you give us the dates today, we can confirm if a majority of us are available to make that date.

Yeah. Let's let's maybe put take that offline and do that after. You know? And I'll stay and see what my availability is. And if I'm availability, we can even book it, you know, tonight. And if I'm not, I'll be able to check with Jen, and we'd be able to get back to you. If not tonight, then tomorrow.

That's what I was gonna suggest is that if we're going to have because we have everybody here. Let's we'll we'll vote him in something. Don't worry. Be careful. Secretary has a lot of power, actually.

I'm serious. An AI secretary.

There you go. No. But but I I'm saying that yeah. Why don't we use that time afterwards to see what we can do to coordinate it and and get these things set? I think for the moment, we're just coming up with ideas, right, or questions.

Yeah. The the the groups that haven't met yet, you'll get a, probably, a compressed version of the, you know, the presentation that everybody else get. And then providing your we'll give you our preliminary thoughts.

Yeah. Yeah.

You'll be giving us back yours. No. I'm just

thinking for tonight to Oh. Just that the discussion, given that we wanna specifically talk about groups, you know, groups that would like to schedule, we'll do that after this meeting informally. Alright?

Yeah. I think you'd be meet just meeting to schedule your actual substantive meeting. It'd be hard to actually conduct one or for us to support it properly. But you could do that too if you wanted to at least say, hey. Here here are my thoughts. I'll convey them to staff in advance of the next meeting. You could do that, but we wouldn't really get proper staff

support get for it. Us to a meeting.

Yeah. My thought was really the calendaring would be the focus. Yeah. So we'll stay. I'll I'll stay after, and and won't don't wanna speak for Amy, but Amy potentially too to for us to be able to know that. See, the there's there's two factors. Right? One is making sure one or the other room's available because they do get booked and are used. And the other is, is there a staff person available? That second part is usually easy, like I said, because we're we're gonna figure out how to support it. It's just we wanna make sure that the room one or or more of the rooms is available. So we'll stay after and talk to as many of the groups, 2236 or any of the other ones who wanna get another meeting on the schedule. We'll hang out as long as you need us to.

What you ask.

Okay. Any other questions?

Sorry. One more. Regarding the all remote option, is there are there any requirements for for that in terms of public access or anything else? I have my own meeting account, for example, or is there does it have to be a staff person?

We we prefer, at least for these early meetings, for us to to have a staff person in for it to be a Teams, you know, call because that's the the the system that we most readily support. We can do Zoom too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't the the we're we're we're most nimble on Teams.

Nimble is relative, but we're most nimble on Teams.

Any other questions or comments?

We already went to the public.

Recommendation. We have discussion. So I think we can close this and move to the next item.

Yes, mister chair. Thank you. This next presentation, I'm gonna be have brief because I I really honestly didn't get the opportunity to dig into some of these subject as much as I'd like, and some of this we'll probably dig deeper into at your next meeting, which we'll talk about at the end of this. But we identified as topics to discuss at your previous meeting and then in your agenda for this one, these handful of topics, charter language organization conventions, benchmarking with other cities, proposed standards for grouping proposed charter modifications within levels, proposed process for drafting and review of charter modifications, and meetings at central library. And I wanna at least touch on those things and get some preliminary feedback for you, and then we'll probably dive in deeper to to one or more of these subjects at your at future meetings to come.

So first slide, charter language and organization conventions. There's a lot more than this, and we've you've you've all started to grapple with some of this, you know, in your respective subcommittee meetings. There's gonna be certain things that are kind of universal that we're gonna wanna be mindful of within our subcommittees and then, of course, ultimately, at the full committee itself because we want things to be consistent and make sense and work together. Right? One subcommittee's things shouldn't look different, right, than and than another's ultimately.

And so one of the the sentiments you've expressed and that has been expressed in the subcommittees is the the desire to and and one of the named objectives of this project is to have the language and the charter be easy to understand. You don't want legal jargon legal jargon, and we we wanna develop what are termed, you know, layman's terms. Someone talked about the, you know, standard of, you know, we are we speaking to a fifth grader? You know? What what are we speaking to?

I'm not sure there's a exact standard, you know, that we're we're looking to. But no matter what, when there's a defined term or phrasing that doesn't make sense to this group, you are, for purposes of this project, the the arbiter of that. So we're gonna wanna be cognizant throughout of if you don't understand it or it's a term a term that needs to be defined, we ought to define it or use a different term that is more readily, you know, under understandable and try to eliminate that. So that is just an overall, I guess, charter language convention. And if people have different ideas or standards that they're aware of, we're gonna dig into this a little bit to see if there is one we we'd be interested in seeing if there's something to be applied, you know, in that.

We're also gonna talk with the city clerk about their their standards because frequently they've got awareness and and knowledge in that area. We already talked to this about this a little bit, the idea of using defined terms. We we definitely think there ought to be a consistent convention for how we define terms and thought put into whether or not that's something we develop up front in the charter before people even look at anything, you know, a series of defined terms, whether that's something that's in the back of the charter, and or whether or not defined terms are defined as they come up in the charter itself. Right? You don't wanna have to every time a term is created and it's capitalized to have to go someplace else, usually, the convention is you define it in place.

And then once you've defined a term, you also create a index of defined terms, again, either in the front, you know, or in the back, again, to make it a, you know, as useful and and user friendly, you know, document as possible. And so we're still thinking about, you know, what works best with that. Different people have different preferences. Different lawyers have different preferences and contracts, right, about how you, you know, how you create and use, you know, defined terms. But that's gonna be an important thing because, again, to make this understandable, we're gonna have defined terms, and we want them to be accessible to people. Glenn, quick question. Sure.

Respect to the definitions, and I apologize. Expect it to be with relation to the charter and nowhere else. I'm just wondering if the term contradicts something we're using in another document related. Yeah.

No. That's a very that's a very good point, and Sue touched on this in talking about the language that it will be built into some of the proposed modifications in her section. We want to be thoughtful about and to develop alignment with the use of those terms in other places where they relate. So how things are that are used in the law, terms that are used in our in our municipal code, there absolutely ought to be alignment, you know, there. So you make a good point that sometimes can cut against user friendliness.

Right? Because some of the terms that are in the law or elsewhere that we can't change because we're only changing what we're changing aren't so user friendly. And so we might have to use, you know, legal terms or terms of art, but that doesn't mean we can't define them, right, and and give, you know, good layman's language, you know, to indicate, you know, what they mean. Although we might have to say, and as otherwise, you know, specified, you know, by law because it could be interpreted by case law. But great point. Not just defining things within the context of the charter because we need to do that, but with eyes on alignment with other places where that term is used and relevant, and we want it to mean the same thing. So anything to add to that? That's the that was the idea of what you were pointing out.

Yeah. I think the we we were saying that this has to have a particular goal when we come up with legalese in there because the the the single goal in my mind that has to be met is that if it goes to court, it has to hold up to a legal standard. I mean, we wanna go ahead and make it in layman's terms as much as possible, but if that all of a sudden becomes obtuse or very interpretive in some way, then, obviously, we have to, you know, make it so that it holds up in court. So that's where, you know, obviously, we'll leave that up to you guys, but I think that should be the one goal we have to meet. Right?

100%. Right. And, again, what the the the court doesn't necessarily require fancied language, but they require language that, you know, a reasonable person can understand and apply. And it's gonna fall we are probably more invested than than what you just pointed out than you even are because our office is gonna be responsible for interpreting, you know, the charter if an if an issue comes up and and and defending it, and so couldn't be more aligned with you on that. And the last kind of convention, not the last one, but the one that I'm at least highlighting for tonight's discussion, is we we we expect that reorganization of some of the articles and the sections will make sense.

Right? That this doesn't go here. Why are these two things in the same section? This should go in this other new, you know, section. And we're interested when you identify things like that because, again, you're serving as the audience of, you know, people who are gonna be review reviewing this, but we'll have some ideas about that as well. And so I think that is something we should lean into, you know, and and and embrace. If we're gonna do a comprehensive top to bottom review of the charter, it should be comprehensive top to bottom. Right? We should end up with something that we hope is gonna last for another twenty, thirty, forty, you know, fifty, you know, years. And putting that effort into thinking, you know, where things ought to go, I I think, is something we ought to do.

But we all need to understand and realize to points different people have made, that's gonna make it look like a bloody mess, right, when it goes in front of the voters. And we do really do need to be able to explain, a, in some way, shape, or form, some of this is just moving things from a place you know, from one place to another and clarifying language. Right? Just because it got deleted doesn't mean it's gone. It just it might mean that it's gone.

And if if it was deleted, we need to be able to say, hey. This was deleted, and here's why. But it might just be moved to another place. And so we're supporting really leaning in and having it be, you know, fully comprehensive, but recognize that in the end, the product that's in front of the voters will will look like someone's taken an axe, you know, to the charter even if some of the changes are subtle than just reorganization. So thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Next slide, please. So benchmarking with other cities. This is something we're just really starting to do, and I hope to have more work done here by you know, by this meeting for this, but we just haven't been been able to get to it. But I do wanna share with you some just basic elements of our thoughts about benchmarking. First of all, we we've got a list. No. Actually, I'll I'll I'll circulate this. There there are currently a 121 charter cities based on this list that we were able to obtain.

There may be a few more. There may be a few less. That's one of the things we're still verifying, you know, in in the in the state of California. And we are trying to get access to as many of these charters as possible. As far as we can tell, no one's just assembled them all in one place for us, and I'd prefer not to have my staff have to go on 121, you know, websites and, you know, download download their charter.

But, you know, we're looking into how to maybe short circuit that. But we wanna get as access to as many of these as possible and want, you know, to get you access, you know, to as many of these as possible. But we also know that we're gonna wanna narrow it down, you know, to really if we're gonna look at ones, you know, as exemplars, we don't wanna necessarily look at a 121. We wanna think about what what constitute model charters. And our criteria, you know, for the charters worth looking at is is still under development.

Again, we talked about use of AI, you know, in this context, but is it really useful to have AI look at a 101 charters a 121 charters and say, here's what 101 charters say, you know, in general about this section. Right? You kinda get the the you can get a little bit lost in the shuffle with that. So we're trying to get access to all of them. We're trying to think about how to curate that, you know, and and say, hey.

Here's ones that we're looking at that we should you you know, we we think you should consider if you wanna really dive into it, you know, and be scholarly about it that you should look at, you know, for ideas and approaches. So we're working on that. We know that Sunnyvale is currently under going through a a charter review, you know, process, and so we'll be interacting and keeping our eyes on that, you know, as a a matter of not just passing interest, right, but local, you know, interest of a of a city different from ours, but similar in a number of, you know, respects. And then I am also gonna provide to you the packet that was produced down in Chula Vista that had passed, you know, back in 2022. As I've bored you with a few times, I went through this process in Chula Vista.

That charter was even had even more challenges, you know, than this one. But for you to see the start the the the underlying strikeout, right, of what went in front of the voters, the impartial, you know, analysis, you know, for that and some of the descriptions of that might be informative because Chula Vista's, while it got out of hand in a number of different ways, was also one of those late forties, early fifties, you know, original adopted charters, has a lot of the same language. We got rid of a lot of, you know, language and replaced it, you know, with our you know, with the with that charter review committees and city councils and ultimately vote voters, you know, version of what those different things are. And that's definitely something we're gonna be looking at. You know, it's something that I just worked on that was successful on a similar charter, and I'm not I don't wanna keep that from you.

And so we're gonna make that I'm gonna get copies of that and make that have that be distributed to you because I may refer to it, you know, from time to time. It's hardly the only touchstone. Like I said, we're gonna try to get other charters. But as a recent example of something that was taken from one place, you know, to another and how that looked to the voters, we think that might be So we will be sending that out to you before your next meeting for you to have and for us to have as a resource because I I wanna be open about that. Any questions about or thoughts about benchmarking or the other thing, the the conventions?

I have a question, and you might not be prepared to share this. But can you share anything or any of your thoughts on the criteria for other cities, or is that still obviously, it's still not set, but something I've thought about. So I'm kinda curious

kind of where you're

Yeah. There's a couple different thoughts about it. Right? One is maybe a grouping of, as I mentioned, kind of old charters, you know, versus recently adopted, you know, charters. We're an old charter.

Right? What are other cities that are some of the original charter adopting, you know, cities, and what do their charters look like now? So I think that's maybe one bite of that apple in thinking about ones that that are are worth looking at. Chula Vista, I already mentioned, right, for for obvious reasons as one that I've had recent experience with. But, you know, other, you know, similarly situated cities, Scott, Santa Clara is such a unique place.

I'm like, who's who's really similarly situated to us? But, you know, cities, you know, of of similar, you know, population, of similar activity level are may maybe likely to be operating in some of the same ways that we are, you know, and might have charters that are worth looking at, particularly if they've updated them, you know, recently. So there's a lot of different slices that we could take. We're also looking there is a a a national model charter, you know, that that's been created that we've not dug into or looked at yet, and I'm not sure how useful that was because it it might be because California is so, you know, unique and a lot of our laws are so unique. But, you know, some research into maybe institute for local government or other folks that have looked at and identified, you know, model charter provisions is another thing, you know, that we wanna try to find and potentially share with you.

So those are some of our our of our preliminary thoughts, you know, on that to share off the cuff.

Did you think about maybe reaching out to each of these, just sending an email saying, hey. Have you recently changed your charter? And did you do a comparison of other charters and what were some of your criteria?

Yeah. Absolutely. That would be part of what we're we're we're looking at. If we can find folks that have recently changed their charters or gone through a similar process, we we will absolutely talk to them. Not many, I think, do it because it's it's quite a lift. But, right, if we find them, that that's definitely something we'd engage in. We actually did that back in Chula Vista, and we really didn't find too many who had done it then. Maybe there's a may maybe there's a few who have done it since. And like I said, Sunnyvale does appear to be involved in at least some level of review. One difference there is Sunnyvale has a standing charter review commission as opposed to one that's formed, you know, from a project to project basis.

I don't know if it's a standing commission or not.

Yeah. Well, they're the they're the neighbors' shared resources and see what they're doing and maybe

100%. Yeah. So and that's maybe another cut is what are people doing in our immediate area. Right? What what are what are Silicon Valley, you know, cities of similar size, you know, doing is a is is part of looking at equivalent cities. There's not necessarily anything particularly unique about Silicon Valley charters, but there might be and and worth looking at and being able to report out to you.

Besides similar size, because I try to look this up, you can look it up by population, but it would be helpful to know if some of these cities have, like, full time council versus part time, if they have some of the same problems like power plant or if they have national franchise in their city. I just like to see which cities on this list would be the most comparable to our city.

Those are just really terrific examples, and you're absolutely right. And charters may have different flavors, you know, depending upon that. Obviously, cities that have have have also adopted districting, you know, as part of their election process. Not everybody has a lot of people. You know, a lot, if not most, have, you know, by now in in light of kind of a wave of challenges under the California Voting Rights Act, you know, most places have gone to districts, but member Kelly, I think that's that's excellent.

You're right. We're city manager, right, council, you know, form of government. We've got part time, you know, council members. We've got some unique elements that similarly situated cities, you know, might have. That'd be an excellent part of the curation of the of the list.

I think the the main thing that comes to mind is that our council has, in my mind, a larger workload because we have Silicon Valley Power, because we have a NFL stadium. And I would be curious what these other cities are doing to address these similar type issues.

Yeah. I appreciate that. And and to see if that manifests in the charter at all. Right? A lot of those types of things aren't don't end up translating into charter, you know, provisions. They end up being implemented either at a code, you know, level or, you know, where the where a city forms, you know, special agencies in order to in order to oversee those types of enterprises. And so you're you're right. There may be some residents in in charters, you know, to that, but charters don't necessarily get it all that. Right? Sometimes charters are generic on on a number of issues where you think they might speak to it.

I think the question is, based on everything that's going on in Santa Clara, if we deem it better to have a full time cancel, would that be reflected in the charter?

I think it would be, but I would put that squarely in category three because that would be a significant restructuring of our government. Yeah. And it might not be something that we could we could that that's I'm not saying it's a good, bad, or otherwise, you know, idea. That's a pretty heavy lift in a top to bottom, you know, you know, review of the of the charter. And it'd probably be one of those things I would not wanna dedicate staff resources, you know, towards, at least as part of this project, unless this group felt so strongly that it was important to expand your role that you got council approval and direction to to look at that.

Because that's that's that would be a big heavy lift in a significant restructuring of government, which was identified at least for now as as not something that this project was intended to do. Not that it's a bad point. It's just not probably not within what's being looked at here.

Yeah. I just one thought being that the existing charters, assuming, you know, there are challenges to charters from time to time, you would expect that, you know, a well written charter is one that doesn't get challenged as much. And I don't know if there's a way to determine that or even if you can do it do it by section, for example. Written real real well in Chula Vista, and it doesn't come up for much conversate conversation or question. I don't know if that level of detail exists within, you know, a review.

The case law? If it went to if it went to court and it was upheld,

there

you go.

Yeah. If if it was case law, great. Some of it is just, you know, common knowledge within, you know, those who are practicing the law within the state.

I have some thoughts on that, but I bet Sue does too. So I'm gonna let Sue start with that.

So sometimes it's the absence of information that is telling. And so to the extent there is no challenge to something that is, in many ways, just as good as a challenge that is won. And so sometimes it's you know, it it you don't necessarily have something that you can point to that says this is good. Sometimes it's, there's nothing I can point to that says it's bad. And that's a slightly different, you know, analysis, but it is just as meaningful, really.

With respect to some of the portions of the charter that have obvious and specified stakeholders, like the civil service sections that have obviously city side stakeholders, but also union stakeholders. Right? There will be built into this charter review process a meet and confer with all of the affected stakeholders to ensure that whatever is being proposed, everyone's amenable to that. And so in terms of looking at the charter and the changes to the charter as something that could get challenged, you also have to look at who would be challenging it. So for certain certain sections, you may have a taxpayer challenge.

Right? Anybody in the public may may take issue with it. But with other sections, the the more probable challenges can be identified stakeholder groups. And, you know, part of what we'll do is do our best to ensure that those identified stakeholder groups have their their say in the process, and that will reduce the the potential for any kind of

I agree with everything Sue said. I'll add just a couple of thoughts. Something that's been challenged but upheld is, you know, in a charter, probably not that common for for one as in terms of people actually challenging, you know, charter provisions. And I will tell you, my standard for what a good, you know, good drafting is isn't that it survived legal challenge. Right?

There could be a lot of really badly drafted things where where they're challenged in one particular respect, and they survived that challenge, but that doesn't mean it's good. It just mean it's it it just means it survived the challenge. And so I I think most of the work that you're gonna be doing, you know, in as part of this project is frankly just inherently designed to make the charter less vulnerable, you know, to challenge by the very nature of what we're doing as just part of the of the process. So I'm not sure if I I appreciate your point, and I think you're you're highlighting a point that we care about very much, which is this all needs to be really good and consistent with the law, right, and clear so that when it comes time, if someone does challenge it or if it's call if someone's called upon to interpret it, then there's a a ideally, an obvious answer, right, to what the right answer is. That's that's part of our project.

But I don't know that finding things, you know, different charters that have been challenged and using some of those provisions as models will necessarily be fertile ground for what we would do here.

And I would say that I'm I'm really responding in the way that Sue said that, you know, if there is no fire, that must be something good.

I think I think that's right. Yeah. And and a lot of and a lot of the cases and challenges, you know, are a product of unique circumstances with intense stakeholders there. It doesn't mean the provision was bad or if it's put or if it's upheld, it was good.

Right. And and my assumption is that, you know, if it's been challenged a lot, you know, it was either written poorly or was written they intended to be intended it to be challenged.

That's right. They're usually in a provocative area, right, if it gets challenged. That's that's is think that's we're And that's not that's exactly right. And that was one of the things you said better than I did. That's probably kind of not what the the nature of what we do. We do very much as part of our legal practice, and Sue will validate this. If we're looking to get into a new area and it's something we wanna do, we're not above waiting to see what happens to somebody else who went into that area first and to see if it if what they're doing survives a challenge. And if it does, we will pattern what we do if we wanna go down that path after what somebody did. So your thought process is spot on. We actually do that all the time, but it's usually when we're getting into new areas. Right? Not not so much when we're engaged in in an enterprise like this one.

So much of what I had to bring up has been covered. It's been actually pretty, pretty cool to listen to you guys talk, but we are home to the biggest company in the world, NVIDIA, right now. I think that needs to be at least addressed at some point that we do house the biggest company in the world in our city, which is pretty cool. But I had a little bit of humor here. I've never seen Solvang and Stockton listed together. You can pick two cities more diverse and different than Solvang and Stockton, and they're right next to each other.

On your list.

I haven't seen anything.

There are many cities not on the list, so they really exist.

Yeah. There's about 480 cities in the in the state, and so the number of charter cities is a is a substantial minority.

Well, I have a charter. So what is it what do we get out of having a charter in cities? Don't.

Well, you were in my presentation, and there everyone will get that. And then the but I'll repeat it a little, you know, brief version of it. Right? The the interest of most charter cities in in forming their charters back when they did and even new ones that are forming it now is to command as much local control as possible over areas of law referred to as municipal affairs. Right?

And there's a couple of classic areas of municipal affairs. One of it, although the the local authority is getting chipped away by a lot of state laws in this area, as member Krutchlob knows, you know, better than anyone, is land use, you know, control. Charter cities have much more authority than so called, you know, so called general law, you know, cities to make what their their local land use rules are, what kind of things can be developed, you know, where, and that that is a significant benefit of a charter city. Lately, there's been a lot of state laws, particularly in the area of housing, that have basically told every jurisdiction, whether you're a charter city or not, and these things have attempted to be challenged. Some of them are still being challenged, but the the the state has been viewed as having a as a matter of statewide concern, the production of housing, and so most of those lawsuits have failed.

There's a lot less local control than there used to be in what you can approve in a in a housing project. And so that's one example about getting chipped away. Another example is the rules that you make about how you elect, you know, people, how many council people, you know, how what are their terms gonna be, residency, you know, requirements, term limits, things like that are things that charter cities get to decide, and general law cities typically don't. A lot of the the rules about those things are are prescribed, you know, by state law. Another area is public works contracting.

There's been some preemption in that area too that's chipped away, you know, a little bit at a local jurisdiction's ability to make their own rules. But how we award contracts, our competitive bid process, right, what needs to go to counsel, what doesn't, where you do competitive bidding, and where you where where you don't have to, what your exemptions are, you know, where you wanna sole source a contract. A lot of those things are specifically prescribed, you know, by state law. Local jurisdictions, you know, can make their own rules about it. And then just structure of government.

Right? What departments you have, classified and unclassified, you know, you know, civil service. Are you gonna have a strong mayor for of government, a council manager, you know, form of government? You know, a you make it up yourself, you know, form of government. The the structure of government is another kind of, you know, important area for for charter cities where we get a lot more control and ability to determine those things than general law cities do. So that's the inherent value of it. And I'll I'll the when the nav the committees two, three, and six meet, I will now skip quickly over that section because that's kind of a version of the presentation that I gave in those committee meetings.

We we could ask the chair of our committee here about the benefits of having a charter that has specific in things that are specific to Santa Clara.

Like, chief?

Yeah. Right. That's exactly right. So they're like again, and that's a a great example. Structure of government. Right? Who you appoint and who you is charter cities decide that. And and general law cities, a lot of that's prescribed.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting we dump the charter. It's simply the just wanted to know what things we need to include in the charter. That's something I don't I'm not familiar with. I'm sure you guys are more familiar our

Yeah. And I don't know I I and I hear what you're saying, and it's really more

the

being a charter city by itself gives you that authority. The charter itself actually is what you do how you decide you're gonna make those decisions, you know, and potentially impose limitations on what you can and can't do.

I understand. I just Yeah. Don't know the distinctions between what we have and what for example, Dublin is not on your That might be helpful to see

Yeah. I got you. And that's and that and that's part of the benchmarking. Like I said, there's there's and if we think based on and and that's one of the things that's our responsibility to address you. If there are if there are cases out there that have concluded that because a charter city didn't have this, that, or the other thing in their charter, they were unable to exercise, you know, one of their municipal affairs, that's our job to identify that and propose that to you to be included.

One more just to follow on that. One of the things I've thought about is, okay. We're a charter city. How does our charter differ from a general law city, and does it serve us? That's kind of I can't do that analysis, really, but I think that, in my mind, is a good way to think about it because we we we specifically set something different than a general law city. And is that working or not?

Yeah. Appreciate that. I don't wanna do from a staff standpoint with limited resources, go too deep into a treatise of, you know, charter versus general law cities because I I think this city decided right back in 1951 that it wanted to be a charter city and have the opportunity, you know, to to have local control, you know, in particular areas. Most people who are lawyers for charter cities and council people and staff people for charter cities recognize that making your own rules at a local level is is beneficial, you know, and satisfactory. And so I think our project is to how do we we do how do we make accepting that.

Right? And then how do we make our charter, you know, better? Not necessarily going to the nth degree or or trying to sell to anybody why it's better to be a charter city. Right? I I think for for me, that question's kind of asked and answered, and this is, okay.

How do we make our we we we think local control is a good idea. How do we make our local control easier to understand, right, consistent with best practices or practices, you know, that we do now, aligned with state law where it needs to be aligned with state law. And if there's something missing in it for us to be able to fully exercise the full throated version of local control, we should be identifying in that and and including that.

Thank you. And I I just to clarify, I wasn't thinking we should go to be a

Yeah. That was not

the intention. I didn't think you were and member Jensen said the same thing. I didn't mean to act like I thought that's what you were doing. I was just trying to put those observations in the context of what our project was. So because they're they're good thoughts, and it's it's a fair question.

Two quick things, Glenn. First is following up with what Eric that Eric, the other Eric said. It might be interesting if we were to add that preface to the charter, which sort of explains in very brief terms why we have a charter. You know? It gives us this or it allows us to specify the certain powers. The second is your very good discussion around here regarding challenges to charters gave me a dumb question, which is has, to your knowledge, the charter of Santa Clara, city of Santa Clara ever been challenged in a legal way, and what is the disposition of those challenges?

I'm not aware of anything during I would be, of course, because we'd be defending during my my tenure. There was a, you know, a huge issue, of course, in in the city regarding district elections, but it wasn't necessarily a challenge to the charter. It was a challenge to the fact that we didn't have districts, and the the view of that was that that didn't comply with the Voting Rights Act and that we needed to have districts. So I guess that was a challenge to the charter. Sorry. Because we we didn't, you know, require districts, but now we have them. So I guess that's the most recent example. Right? Is there other ones?

In the last fifteen years, there has other than the districting a portion of the charter, there has not been a challenge. So and and and the districting challenge was to an existing and long standing portion of our charter as opposed to a challenge to a proposed change.

Mhmm.

So that there's a little bit of difference there. Right?

Yeah. And it's and it definitely wasn't our charter in particularly. Right? There there was a movement in the wake of the adoption of the California Voting Rights Act by people who are strong advocates of what they thought that stood for to require, really, any city they thought, you know, what didn't have full and proper representation, you know, on its council that that that looked like, you know, the demographics of of the of the city itself to say, city, unless you go to to districts, you are in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. And what the Voting Rights Act did, in effect, shifted a presumption from that you were, you know, in compliant with the law to you have to prove to us that you're in compliance, you know, with the law.

And it made it very challenging, you know, to defend against, you know, those kinds of lawsuits. So a lot of cities just went to districts anyway as a matter of their ethos and their policy and the and and concern about if they didn't go to districts, they might be sued, you know, because because you are vulnerable as a result of this law, you know, for being sued. Chula Vista actually got out front of that, you know, issue and decided to go to districts, you know, before it was challenged because they thought it was a good a good process. I actually helped oversee, you know, that that transition, and it was very, very interesting, you know, process to do and much preferred to facing a lawsuit that, in effect, you know, dictated to us in a lot of ways about how we needed to convert to that. But, yeah, that's the only one, Sue, at least in in our tenure and in in probably the last years beyond fifteen.

Great. Thank you both. So I I know we're getting pretty late, and so let me go in a way, who wants to speak to it? Okay. When we let me let me get through the next couple, and then and then it would be good opportunity before we get to the meeting section, and then we'll go we can go to the public.

Appreciate your guys' indulgence. The next slide, proposed levels for types of changes. We've talked about this, right, level one, level two, level three changes. I'm not gonna go over this in any great detail because I actually, I wanna give some thought and talk about it, you know, internally and refine this language. But just generally, right, the the the be mindful as we're making these changes of of where the kinds of changes making that we're making fall.

Level one is just really corrections, reorganization, addition of defined terms, truly non substantive changes, right, that that that that make things, you know, what they ought to be. Level two changes are changes to policies and procedures that align the charter with applicable law, existing city practices, and or other best practices for cities either like Santa Clara, right, or that we're looking to, you know, as being examples of of what a a well run government is. These things actually change things, right, but not in a in a way that's considered dramatic or a restructuring of government. It's just getting things, you know, aligned with either how we're currently doing business or how we really ought to be doing business as a modern city. Level three changes, we've talked about a couple of example of those tonight, are things that are that may be considered best practices or otherwise might be viewed as desirable, but are in subject matter areas of either high political sensitivity or really do involve the material, know, restructuring of our government.

I wanna refine these more, you know, before I I come back to you or even solicit input on you, but it's definitely something we wanna be mindful maybe throughout, but particularly at the end. Right? Because at the end, your presentation to the council is gonna be, hey. Here's what we think our comprehensive, you know, amendment should look like. We think it's comprised of level one and level two changes.

Maybe it has a level three change, and we think that should be included too. But those are things we came up with, and those go over here. Right? And that's gonna be something the council will look at and think about as what do I wanna put, you know, in front of of of folks. And we're really our sweet spot is our level one and level two changes with level three changes, ones that aren't necessarily disqualified, but ones we wanna be wary of and identify, you know, for ourselves and for counsel.

Finally, last slide before chair, I think we we might be a good opportunity to go to the public and and or committee members if you have any further questions. Proposed process for drafting and review of charter language. We've really already talked about this a little bit. I just wanted to, again, now that we're deep into the ad hoc subcommittee, you

know,

process, working within the ad hoc subcommittees, we're gonna be stat we're we're gonna be assisting in gathering professional staff, your subcommittee input, and stakeholder input. Based on all of that input, we're gonna be proposing draft language and underlying strikeout format for you to consider. We're not gonna do it all at once, but we're gonna do it in sections as as Sue described, you know, working with group five, and then agreed upon language will be presented to the full CRC for consideration. So that's the mode we're in. Again, it might have a different rhythm depending upon the subcommittee.

There may be it may take a while to get to drafting for some. Others, you may be able to get to it, you know, right away. But that's in general the process, you know, that we intend to develop and get when we do actually have language back in front of you as soon as possible because you want we want you to have an opportunity to look at it and think about it. So this might be a good breakpoint, chair, if there's anyone from the public to provide input. And then, of course, we're here to answer any other questions you have about that too.

So first, any other questions or comments from the committee members or questions? Any members of the public?

I have one. Wanda Buck, if you would unmute yourself.

Yeah. Hi, me again. What a lot of work. I've done comparison on ethics on other cities, but like Glenn says, you know, there's really apples and oranges in comparison. But really why I raised my hand, you know, whether it's definitions of ethics roles or benchmarks, is whom do I ask or where do I find out if ethics is going to be addressed as part of this charter review?

Yeah.

Hi, Wanda. Glenn here. Issue was raised. It's definitely a topic that is going to be part of the discussion with the boards and commissions ad hoc subcommittee. They're gonna have to, muse, you know, on on web

You're faded out.

You know, in the ultimate amendment. So, I would suggest you keep track of the follow these meetings like you're you're following. And to the extent that that the boards and commissions meetings, you know, commissions group, you know, reports out and has an opinion on that, that's when that would be, you know, publicly available for discussion and your input.

I'm Glenn? Yes. Dear attorney, I'm sorry that I lost sound when you were talking, but what you said at the end, I think what you're saying is that I'll hear the they are discussing it in groups and then when it's ready for public, I'll be able to hear it at this meeting. Is that correct? Or at these meetings? I'm losing you.

Council meeting, you know, two. It happened at the the development review committee meeting this this morning. The this the the these chambers or whatever the connectivity is has been particularly a problem lately. And so, Wanda, I'm sorry, Ali. I'm sorry. We're mail, and we'll certainly endeavor to have this, you know, this connectivity working better. Is there a phone in number that we can

give her? Sound isn't working, Glenn. I've only heard of half of what you said. I'll send you an email. Okay?

Yeah. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for addressing it.

Okay. Bye bye. That.

It's okay.

Say that again.

Sure. I think what and Wanda may have a different version of this. I don't wanna speak for her. But Just just what Yeah.

What committee it's going to be.

Yeah. When I when they raised the issue, I think the issue in in as I've heard it and understood it is a desire to have an ethics, you know, committee. And if that were to be dealt within the charter, it potentially could be added as a charter designated committee that's required to be developed, you know, and and administered in the same par as Parks and Rec, board of library trustees, you know, and the others. And so in in my understanding of what the objective of the the of the the commentators, you know, were, that would be a subject to be taken up by the boards and commissions, you know, ad hoc subcommittee as a primary working group assignment to talk about whether or not that's something that that committee thinks, you know, makes sense and make and and to make a recommendation back to you. That doesn't mean that that subcommittee is the last word on it.

Right? Ultimately, it's all of you who are making the recommendation, but that's probably the right working group to assign it to if I understand the the the the the the member's comments. And and she and and, of course, no member of the public tells you what you should be working on, but so it'll be up to the ad hoc, you know, subcommittee or this committee if the ad hoc subcommittee doesn't decide to take it up to, you know, consider that as part of what you wanna talk about.

I just needed clarity on it, and if it can be reflected in the minutes,

that's where it's going first. Yes. Yep. And I think we tentatively talked about that at the last meeting, chief, but definitely part of the the our thought about how to to to address that. So this last oh, sure. I'm sorry.

I looked up real quickly from the list you gave us. There is one other city in California that's a charter city with a public utility and a professional team, and that is Anaheim. So if you could see how they structured their charter to deal with those issues, that would be very helpful.

Thank you. Good. Appreciate that. Yeah. We're aware of Anaheim. In fact, our lawyer who is our senior counsel who advises SVP came from Anaheim, and we're very lucky to have him. So we'll we'll have some insights into that. That's a great suggestion. Lastly, as you guys may recall, we've got these meetings scheduled through an approved calendar that the city council has now officially approved. But as you may recall, we also had some potential conflicts, you know, for a couple of those dates with this, you know, meeting location, and we were gonna talk to the library about their availability on those dates.

The dates where there are conflicts were December 17 and May 20. The library has confirmed their availability. So for your next meeting, we'll be sending out some additional detailed information and the logistics of getting into the library. I think it's in the Redwood Room. Right? And so be on the lookout for that, and don't come here on December 17. You need to go to central library and follow the signs. You know, that will be there for you to get into the Redwood Wood Room. That, again, happens on on May 20. Those are dates that it it so happens, the Wednesday, that the the planning commission meeting will be happening.

Mister Krutchlow may have a challenging time to attend both, but I'll know who I know he'll do the best he can and choose and he'll choose the right thing. Very good. So finally, pre 12/17/2025, 6PM. It's not right. It's not in city council chambers. That's my that's my mistake. So delete that. That is in the at central library. We'll, of course, have approval of minutes. We're gonna have report outs from the subcommittees, you know, that have met, you know, since then.

I know we've got a couple that are are scheduled that we may get a couple more, you know, scheduled, you know, between then. And then I'll follow-up on some presentations of of of things again to try to dig us deeper into some of these issues. I don't quite have that agenda yet, but you'll you'll be tortured again by me talking about some things that I think we we need to talk about in order to keep going down this path. An option for you, and I'm not recommending it or suggesting it is, boy, that it's hard to meet, you know, as often as we are. You you because we've got a regular meeting, doesn't mean you have to have that regular meeting if if there if the group of you would prefer because of holidays or otherwise to maybe have ad hoc subcommittee meetings or, you know, more opportunity to meet with that.

That would give us time to, you know, work in the meantime and coordinate with stakeholders and provide additional information. I'm not recommending this. We're, of course, happen to meet and wanna try to keep on schedule. But if there's. If the group ever gets to a point where they're like, you know what?

We really need to focus on our subcommittees, right, and on our working groups and get into this. We really don't need to meet as a larger group. That is an option for you. So not necessarily saying December 17 is is the best option for that, but just wanted to put it out there as a potential discussion item. And so that's all I've got to present, mister chair, and I'm open to any additional, you know, questions or comments that the committee might have.

Okay. Thank you. Next, we'll go to public presentations. This item is reserved for persons who wish to address the committee on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the committee that is not on this agenda. The law does not permit committee action or extended discussion of any item not on the agenda except under special circumstances.

The governing body or staff may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed, and appropriate body may request staff to report back at a subsequent meeting. Members of the public who wish to address the committee on a nonagendized item should request to speak at this time by giving a request to speak form to staff or by using the raise hand icon if attending virtually. Are Are there any speakers on Zoom?

There are none.

Good.

Next, staff committee member comments. Staff comments?

Nothing further from me, mister chair.

Any other committee member comments? Very none. Then I think we are adjourned.

Yep. And like I said, we'll we'll stick around for any of the groups that wanna try to schedule meetings with subcommittees. Thanks, everybody.