Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Yeah. Well, tonight is not going to be a repeat. Thank you. We promise. All right. So I now call to order the planning commission meeting of March 11th, 2026. All right. Pledges of allegiance. Everybody stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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

Commissioner Botnaggar has notified us that he will not be in attendance tonight. Commissioner Buchini has also um stated the same that she will not be here tonight. Commissioner Chair Kuru here. Commissioner Wang here. Commissioner Buzza present. Commissioner Sain here. Chair Crutchlo here. Very good. Thank you.

I move to excuse commissioners botnagar and via second. The motion was made by commissioner slame, seconded by commissioner chairu to excuse commissioners from tonight's meeting. Go ahead and record your vote, please. Thank you. The motion pass.

Thank you, chair. Public hearings are conducted by the chair in accordance with the following procedures. The chair of the commission directs all activity during the hearings. All comments shall be addressed to the commission. Any item on this agenda may be continued to subsequent hearing. Applicants will be allotted up to 10 minutes to present and justify proposals following staff presentation of the item. Other speakers will be given up to two minutes. The applicant is allotted up to five minutes for rebuttal of comments. No additional comments will be accepted upon the close of public hearing. Although the commission reserves the right to direct questions to any speaker on any matter. Special procedural time limits may be applied to any items as prescribed by the chair. Appeal of commission actions must be filed in writing within seven calendar days.

Thank you. Uh copies of the current agenda and staff reports for each of the items on the agenda are available from the planning division office on the Friday afternoon preceding the meeting and available online. Continuous continuences and exceptions. Um, this part allows this part of the meeting allows for the applicants, members of the public or other interested parties to request that an item be one continued without hearing, two withdrawn, or three taken out of order. Are there any requests from applicants, the public, or the commission for continuence or exception for any of the items on tonight's agenda? No, there are not.

All right. Uh, the planning commission has seven members. Whenever the full commission is not present, applicants have the option to continue the item to another meeting. There is one item on the consent calendar today. Secretary Churu, could would you please read the procedure for the consent calendar?

The procedure of the consent calendar is as follows. Consent calendar items may be enacted, approved, or adopted by one motion unless requested to be removed by anyone for discussion or explanation. If any member of the planning commission staff or the applicant or a member of the public wishes to comment on a consent calendar item or would like the item to be heard on the regular agenda, please make your request. Now, items listed on the consent calendar with associated file numbers constitute public hearing items. Today's uh one item is the planning commission meeting minutes of February 11th, 2026. All right. So, can we vote that we vote that later? Right. We move for approval on that. No. Okay.

So, shall I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of February 11th, 2026.

Who made the second? Lance. Thank you. Motion was made by Chair Crutcho, seconded by Commissioner Same to approve the consent calendar. Go ahead and cast your vote, please. Very good. Thank you. The motion passed. Thank you, Elizabeth. Are there any members of the public that would like to briefly rate? There any way I can do a short request? Please.

Okay, I I'll make it quick. It's I was hoping that we could find a way to add to the procedure to identify the items on the agenda that we are acting as quasi judicial versus advisory so that I can have a different perspective when I'm researching and and commenting on things because I think we've had this uh come up a few times in the past where we've delved into areas and and topics that were simply outside the bounds of what we should be as the commission. So if I think it's a legal decision or some sort some way to indicate that the item is a quasi judicial decision versus a advisory to the council decision.

You like to give an example? I'd like to. Okay. Without getting too specific. Right. Well, uh we we've had a recent conversation around a permit that actually turned into being a legal issue. We've spoke of it uh at length and I was wondering since we were getting repeated advisory from uh our then attorney that we should not be talking about some topics of what we were talking about. It would help to know that those items I'm being so vague those items were in the the correct category for us to discuss.

I'm interested to see what you're would like to because I'm very sorry, Xander. The lady that was here last time, was her name? Yeah, Jen Buyers. Miss Buyers. Um, she was very good about saying to us like, "Listen, this is what it's about. Keep keep it on course here." So, she did go to that to a point. How would you like to improve that? Have like in I would like to know up front so that I would saying, "Hey, really this is the the background you need to know." Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And it it shouldn't be too big a deal. I mean just a a legal symbol or something that says we're discussing this as a legal deciding body instead of uh as purely comments to it being advisers to the council.

Well, yeah. I think the the crucial distinction you're thinking of is the distinction between quai judicial and legislative and qua judicial when you're basically acting as um like a bunch of judges and you're applying a set of facts to the legal principles um and it's really important that you tailor your comments to um the findings that you have to make for qua judicial um the city attorney has encouraged ed staff recently to be more explicit about whether it's a legislative or quasi judicial decision in agenda reports. Um so we will continue to do that and make sure that that is flagged prominently um in the future. But yeah, that's a certainly um good observation for Koi Judicial. Um it's important you focus on the findings and not things that are outside your scope.

So we can uh we'll we'll we'll redouble our efforts on that.

Just was raising the issue to see if we can find a way to formalize that avoids the the confusion we ran into. That's good. Thank you. Sure. Okay. So, public hearing items. Um, only item we have tonight is a study session role of the planning commission in the charter review process. So before staff starts, I had a request um since I am on the charter commission, what I'm going to do is um basically hand over the gavl to my air parent here, Secretary Cherikuru to kind of run the meeting if

I don't think is a conflict. Oh, sorry. She's a secretary.

Yeah. Well, Mr. Mr. Chair, um you know, I appreciate your effort to avoid conflicts. Um there are certain times you need to abstain certainly if you have a financial interest in something. There's also incompatible office conflicts where you can't both serve say on a county planning commission and a city planning commission because you have overlapping jurisdictions. When it comes to a board like the charter review committee, um it's designed so that there will be overlapping jurisdiction. You're supposed to be involved in both. So, this is sort of a rare instance where you actually don't need to abstain. So, while I'm sure your fellow commissioner would appreciate a chance at the gavl, um you're you're not obligated.

Actually, you're correct because when when I was in the uh in the chair review committee also prior to that for term limits, I was in sitting in the civil service committee too and I was in both uh committees too and there was no problems at all. and previous state attorney said the same thing. If you're okay with it, I'm okay with it. Yeah,

I'm okay with it as well. I appreciate the um chair's sensitivity to the matter. Um one thought you might have had in in thinking this was necessary and appropriate for you to do. if I might add for the record was a conversation that you and I had um when in when we were in a a committee um one of the committees that you were attending was that when it came time for this commission to provide its input, it might be better even though you might traditionally be the spokesperson for the commission that you not be the spokesperson for the commission um in that instance and that you would be receiving the information and acting on that information in your capacity as a CRC member and not as the commissioner. It doesn't, you know, prohibit you from participating in the discussions and obviously ultimately making a recommendation, including on matters that might relate to this commission. But my thought was it might be better for a different person to designate to represent this commission. But I agree with uh um Xander regarding your capacity tonight. No problem with you presiding over the discussion. Okay,

thank you for your sounds good. Let's go. Okay, stop. Whenever you're ready.

Very good. Um I think my PowerPoint is going to get loaded here in a minute. And while that's happening, I will uh introduce myself. um Glenn GooGans uh city attorney um here since 2023. Um occasional uh um presenter to to you all. I'm trying to remember the last time I I did that. It's been some time. Um and a number of you um have of course seen me on television and um come to my AB1234 presentation which by the way we will be if you're due for that training uh scheduling again for um late April, early May um you know this year. Uh so be on the lookout for that. We think it's the best way for you to get um trained even though there are other options. Um, I'm really before you tonight and we're talking about dual capacities really representing uh the charter project and the the the kind of charter review uh committee's mission you know in that project. Xander for tonight and in in most respects when he's available will be your advisor on planning commission matters. Um if you can find a way to pit us against each other that might be amusing for all involved. So, I invite that kind of question um if you've got one as we work our way through this presentation. Um still not seeing

Sorry, there we go. Sorry.

Uh very good. I'm So, what I'm here to present to you tonight is um the um a presentation on the the city's charter project. uh and most particularly um and of interest to you on the planning commission's role as a stakeholder in this project to provide input on article 10 which relates to boards and commissions you know rules and and procedures. um and uh charter section, it says 106 here. It actually should say 10006 and 10007. Those are the sections within article 10 that relate to the composition um and the powers and duties of the planning commission. Um so before though um we get into the particulars of the project, I thought it was appropriate and we did this when we presented this uh project to the city council and as part of our training in bringing the charter review commission up to speed. I thought it might make sense, even though some of you are um a good number of you probably are sophisticated in this regard, to give you at least a little background information uh on on what a city charter really is, you know, and why it matters. Um so this next slide that I'll review with you now really really digs into that a little bit. Um, the city charter is in effect the the equivalent at a local level of the city's constitution, right? It it establishes a a structure for the city's government and outlines the city's powers and responsibilities. Charters are important in California. They might there might be different

rules elsewhere um that relate to ch the equivalent of charters in other states, but in California um under the the the state constitution um cities that become charter cities have pretty substantial authority. We'll talk about how that's been been waning a little bit lately and you guys probably are more familiar than most groups about how that's waned lately. But um charter cities in general have authority over um what are referred to as municipal affairs and municipal affairs um usually fall into a number of categories and they're listed here on this slide. municipal election matters, what you need to be be um the qualifications you need in order to hold an elected office, the terms for that office, um whether or not you've got district, you know, elections or at um at large election, um who in the structure of government is elected as opposed to who's appointed. That is a considered to be a core municipal affair. General law cities have those things dictated to them by state statute. Charter cities get to decide those things themselves by vote of the people in a in a provision of the charter. Land use decisions. Sorry, this one's a little awkward because um a traditional municipal affair is in fact the uh the local jurisdiction's ability u to make decisions about what types of things go where, right? And the specific rules about that. As you know, again, somewhat painfully in recent years, there's been a lot of state preeemption in this area, particularly with respect to housing and particularly with respect to affordable housing. Um, and a lot of that local uh discretion has been taken away. the states decided in everyone's best interest uh um and certainly there

is a common interest in in having more housing and having affordable housing but much to the local jurisdictions's frequent conration right the the the intended or unintended consequences of that you know frequently put pressure on cities to have things that that they don't think make sense uh um you know um either at all or in the places where they're required. So, um, but as a charter city, you have more authority over these things than general law cities would, even if it's starting to be nawed away by the state. The structure of the government's workforce is also a a matter that is a municipal affair. What kind of departments, you know, you you have, what kind of advisory bodies, you know, you have, what positions are um selected or appointed by whom. Um in uh the city of Santa Clara, city council appoints uh the city manager, the city attorney uh and the city um auditor, although we don't currently have a council appointed independent auditor. We have that function being performed, but not by a city council appointed auditor. That isn't uniform, you know, throughout in other cities. other cities have council appointing other things directly um and or or different selection processes or different types of structures of workforce. Um every charter city is allowed to be pretty unique about how they design their workforce. Fiscal policy is another area that's a municipal affair. how we budget um spend and account for our revenues um uh and um you know the kinds of manner in which we raise revenues. A lot of that is something within local control. There is of course as you're all aware under the constitution and in other preemptive ways at the state level uh some encroachment on that particularly with respect to you know taxes and fees

where certain kinds of taxes and fees need to be adopted by state law in accordance with certain processes and certain types of things also require votes of the people. But in a lot of categories um charter cities have substantial authority over their fiscal policy. And then another important one again with some um encroachment and preeemption by the state you know over time um how the city awards and implements public works um in its municipal contracts is also a traditional municipal affair. Um um the uh the preeemption that's occurred recently in this issue in in this area have frequently taken the form of the the the state conditioning its award of state funding to cities. And we rely on a lot of state funding, you know, for public works projects on cities agreeing to certain uh um provisions regarding how they award public works contracts. Prevailing wage, for example, if you do not pay prevailing wage on your public works contracts, you get on a naughty list from the state and you are potentially disqualified from receiving a significant amount of state grants. What do most cities do now? they pay, you know, they pay prevailing wage because that's a very important aspect to them. There's also a provision in state law now that says if you as a local jurisdiction have a rule which prohibits you from entering into project labor agreements, you are also potentially disqualified from receiving grant funds. And so in in making rules even though this is a traditional municipal affair in making ru rules which relate to the state's

authority to decide who gets you know their state grants they have an effect circumvented in a way um you know the the the otherwise sacrosen municipal um affair of city's ability to decide how it procures you know public works. So interesting, you know, dynamic there. But again, most the there are still pretty good um ability of of charter cities to kind of design, you know, what government they want. Um and um as a result, amongst the 482 or more or less 84, 85, we lose one, we gain one every now and then, cities, um about 120 plus or minus are charter cities. Um and um um Santa Clara of course is one of them and that's why we're even talking about this. The um charter um provisions again mostly general provisions although different cities take different approaches to this. Some cities have super detailed charters. Pasadena is an example of a city that has incredible detail, incredibly detailed charters with a lot of provisions in it that most cities may not have it all or if they did have it all, they'd have in their municipal codes. Um, some of them are super detailed. Some of them, particularly in the more recent ones, are just a few pages long. um the uh the newly formed, you know, charter cities basically just have a few pages that um declare that they're charter cities and that they have all municipal affairs that they're entitled to and they don't bother making, you know, even even basic rules in their charter. They make all of them by ordinance. That's for purposes of trying to get um authority even if it's at the ordinance level for making rules in these municipal affair fail affairs areas. Santa Clara is somewhere in be in in between on this. Our charter is about 35 pages. It's got a lot of traditional uh provisions in it similar to a lot of

charters that were adopted at the time we adopted our charter 1951. I think there was a standard charter that was being circulated about around a lot of cities and a charter city movement, you know, back then. And so our ch our charter has a lot of provisions that are similar to a lot of other charters. Um, and like um, a lot of charters, as a result, over time, it's really gotten out of date and out of alignment with how cities currently do business. Um, and and um, we're going to talk about that in our next slide with one last comment on city charter basics. Charters, uh, um, a city to become a charter city needs a vote of its population, majority vote, in order to approve the charter. And if you are going to amend the charter, you also need a vote of the people. You can make rules at the um at an ordinance level. You could adopt resolutions. You can make policies that are implementing of your charter, but you cannot modify your charter um other than by a vote of the people and a formal amendment that's put before them. So, charter project origins, I started to touch upon it and the bottom line is in a lot of respects, Santa Clara's charter is out outdated. It was adopted back in 1951. It's been amended since multiple times. Um, but it really has gotten out of line with um a number of state laws. in a lot of instances the city's actual practices um and in in in many other instances what are now considered to be best practices you know for cities in a modern environment as you might imagine things were done differently back in 1951 the city of Santa Clara was different you know back in in 1951 I think we've quadrupled at least our population we were probably more agrarian you know back there and industrial and we are now a you know a high-tech community with a stadium um

it's different, right? Things are are are different now. Some are the same uh um and and and nice, you know, that way, but a lot of um things have changed. Examples of how what we do now is out of alignment with what our existing charter says includes um our budgeting process, right? The our charter is very specific about having an annual budget and a lot of the rules around uh what you have to do with monies at the end of a budget year and how you amend a budget relate to an annual budget. Well, without regard to the charter, a little bit of a misalignment with the with charter practices, we now do two-year budgeting. Um lawyers like their clients to abide by all the applicable laws. Um, even if it's not that significant of one, even if it's not anyone anyone's likely to enforce against us, our rules in a place that respects rule, you know, the rule of law ought to all uh, you know, all align. And there are some provisions in our charter now that are hard to apply because they relate to an annual budgeting process in our two-year budgeting cycle. And so, one of the things that's out of alignment is is how we budget. Um, that should be fixed. um the public works and use of city forces provisions in our charter contemplate and require that if we are to um enter into a public works contract or if we are to use instead of a contractor city forces to do anything that's considered to be a public work and the projected cost of that work is $1,000 or more that needs to go to the city council for approval. And if it's a public work project, needs to be formally bid. Okay. In 1951, $1,000 probably was a lot of money. I don't know what the equivalent was. I haven't done the math on that. But it's gotten

to a point where that's a little absurd, you know, for a city like this with the kinds of projects that we do and the volume and the complexity of the projects to have to go to the city council. Now, oh, did you just do the math on that? 12,500.

12, now $500. still an absurd absurdly low low number. And so one of the discussions that we're having with one of the subcommittees um is what do we do to change that, right? How do we modernize that? Do we increase the number, you know, to a $250,000, $500,000, right? What's the right number? Or do we eliminate a number, you know, entirely and say, "Hey, public contracting needs to work like this, should be let this way, you know, most of the time. There should be checks and balances to make sure, you know, it's fair and consistent with best practices, exceptions. If you're going to make exceptions and do things other than what's contemplated, you should have to make findings, right? But all of the details of that are going to be made by ordinance, right? That would be a different way of of of of modifying this. the um uh professional staff is working with a subcommittee assigned you know to that particular item to kind of address that issue. Um another example is um in the procurement arena there is no provision that allows the city to engage in um design build procurement. Uh I think a few of you might be in the industry enough here to be familiar with how that works. um design bid build is is the traditional you know standard uh for um letting contracts significant contracts um and always awarding the contract to the lowest responsible bidder. That's fine and it has you know it its value but um uh a lot of the times you end up getting a contractor that may not be uh the most qualified contractor. their bid may be artificially low and you end up having to pay a lot of change orders and as a result projects are delayed um and there's not an opportunity to to do kind of value engineering kind of along the way. the design build process and a

number of variations of the design build procurement process. Um has um instead of um a architect and then um a development of specifications and the award of that contract you know to a contractor where some where you frequently have the architect and the contractor pointing fingers at each other. The design build concept solicits a proposal from a design and contractor team where that team needs to put together a proposal for the construction of the project typically at a um a guaranteed maximum price um with some value engineering and revisiting of the design along the way built into it. It doesn't make sense for every project. Simple projects like road work don't lend themselves to that. you're probably better off, you know, getting a low bid contract, you know, in a traditional process. But you're if you're building something sophisticated like we do all the time in our in our electric utility like we do all the time in and particularly now with measure I out there and $400 million of infrastructure money to build projects replacing fire stations or doing uh um or uh um um in enhancing the um international swim center. those types of contracts of size and complexity really derive a lot of value out of a design, you know, build procurement process. And so, um, and and unfortunately in California, unless you have that in your charter, um, there there's you're you're prohibited in effect from using that in the way that really is valuable to us. So another element of this upgrading the charter to best practices would be um currently proposed um adding a design build aspect to that. So um those are the examples. A last one that hits a little closer to home for you all although it doesn't relate to you is the um the the terms that are in article 10

that relate to the board of library trustees. Back in 1951, the board of library trustees in effect ran the library system. Um there were provisions that they made all the rules. They chose the librarian. They actually were responsible for administering the library system. That is not what the board of library trustees does now. And I would venture not very many, you know, ongoing boards of li library trustees do that. They are a very significant uh um and valuable actor in providing input and you know and recommend recommendations to staff but they don't administer you know the library. And so updating those provisions to reflect what they do, to reflect what it makes sense for them to do and be clear about what staff does, what the council does versus what the board of library trustees does is another matter that the same subcommittee that's relating to the the the planning commission is currently working on. So asked for interpretations by people of things in our charter and particularly around elections time where the charter it's also isn't in clear isn't clear. It occurred to me that it was time for um a comprehensive update. It occurred to me particularly because shortly before I came up to this fair city when I was the city attorney for the city of Chula Vista. Tula Vista, also fine city with a old charter, um outdated in a lot of material respects, went through the same process. It did a toptobottom comprehensive review of its charter and the value that was added with that I think was really really appreciated and that was a successful enterprise that was approved by the voters 64 or something you know percent um and it really added a value added a lot of value. So it occurred to me in um in evaluating the governance and ethics

you know committee work plan this would be a thing to tender to them you know for their consideration. So we did as much back in um early 2025. Uh they like the idea um we refined it a little bit based upon their input. It was presented to the city council and um in um uh October of 2025, the uh the city council in effect activated the um this charter review committee um which um based on city council direction consists of 13 members, seven of which were appointed by council people and six of which were chosen by lottery. That itself was a very interesting solicitation and and selection process. Uh Mr. uh um Cretchlo you were appointed right? You were not a lottery member. So you were one of the district you know representative appointed you know members. Um and um and so as you know well uh that um group was uh assembled you know and con and convened um and we are off and running and deep into you know this this charter project. And so uh this next slide talks about this charter project implementation and and and how it's working. Um there were adopted bylaws back in October. Um,

is it okay? Yeah, I was going to say, is it okay to ask an in context question or do you want

I I I it's I don't mind answering a question along the way. Um, I was curious as to whether the charter is going to be extended for budgeting to include things like ongoing maintenance and improvements because I've noticed that there are a lot of the projects were historically uh uh bid out as build and construct, I'm sorry, design and construct, but it sort of stumbled a little bit when you got to maintenance and improvements because those were so longterm that was left to future councils to continue to approve the budget. Um swimw center, you know.

Yeah. Um um fair question and that actually issue um was raised by the the subcommittee that's looking at the fiscal sections of of the budget. The thought process at this point is that level of detail or establishing standards at the charter level might be difficult and isn't typical um in that what's required under different budgetary circumstances could vary right and what becomes a best practice for u setting aside reserves or providing maintenance again could could vary over time and those rules are important ones right crucial you know ones to the administration you know of a city effectively uh but at this point based on the benchmarking that we've done and and the thought process it's not considered a best practice to include those things in the charter itself.

There it is a moving target. There's always going to be increases of cost and changes in technology but is there some part of the process that it could be formalized to do uh scheduled review to make sure that projects aren't being ignored to death?

Yeah. So um there are provisions in the um in the fiscal section that talk about the need to the the the budgeting process and the need to develop reserve you know accounts and there's responsibilities assigned to the finance director to be um you know accountable you know for things and so that would be a place to look you know for that and I'll make a note of that um of your inquiry um and talk to fiscal about it if that's something they want to take Yeah,

if I might add to that, um I am on that committee and so I agree with everything that's being said and your question is actually being brought up, you know, how do we do that and what does belong in the charter versus let's say do by ordinance or some other method to make sure that the charter doesn't become this very very prescriptive every little thing is in there. So yeah and you know the other thing is I would encourage any member here to uh join and be a member of the the audience and have their say when we have our meetings because we would love to have participation by all citizens that agreed and and we'll talk about that a little bit um here in the charter project implementation about how valuable that that could be. I will say though, projects like this are so wonky. Um it's usually the wonky people who volunteer, you know, for it and who participate, you know, in it. Um present company included, uh that really lean into it. It's not a a uh um not the right term. Sexy is not the right term. It's not the kind of thing that attracts a lot of, you know, public interest and and input. We do solicit it. all the, you know, the CRC meetings themselves are are public. Um, surprised there's not a whole crew of people here, you know, in front of you following me around on my charter, you know, presentation road show. Um, but um the city of Sunnyale is currently going through the same process and one of their uh they they just finished their process and they reported out to the city council. One of the things and I talked to the lawyer who staffed that project said our our committee members they were so earnest and they were so hardworking but they were so sad that no one came to any of their meetings. Why don't more people care about this? And they did surveys and they and they tried oops I want to go backwards. They tried all sorts of, you know, different things to get people to, you know, be

interested and participate in the process and they just it just didn't, you know, translate. It's just not that kind of thing. Super important thing. And groups like this kind of appreciate that, but the public at large is is busier with other things than to, you know, than to turn out for such a thing. Well, there was a very nice lawyer that did bring Stan's donuts once and there was that. Yeah, that was a way to get him in. Apparently, talking about the participation from the public, when we had the term limits, we usually used to have at least 40 50 people in the meeting. Yeah. From the public coming into this meetings. Th those are and those everybody was interested in that.

Yeah. Political the political stuff um is tends to bring out more folks. Um there are some tweaks being made to those sections you know by this project but not things like that. And I'll talk about how you know this project is more focused than that and really not designed to restructure things now on this slide. So the bylaws uh provided the stated purpose for this project, right? That it was that that this charter project was intended to develop a comprehensive charter amendment, right? A toptobottom review and and recommendation or amendment to make corrections, right? There's some things that are mistakes. Eliminate ambiguities. There's a fair amount of that throughout. Um align the charter with state law and current best practices. A lot to be done in both small ways, you know, and significant ways. and also to make it easier to understand, you know, and apply. A lot of the language is kind of silly and antiquated. Um, lawyers are are can be even today, me included, silly and in and antiquated in our language. But one of the reasons why it's good to have a committee like this is the committee is is supposed to be the um and so it's really a comprehensive exercise to look at the language, look at what it says, look at its organization and bring it up into a modern, you know, standard so that it's easy for us to understand and read, you know, and interpret and anybody else who needs to look at it, particularly candidates running for office, right? They can have an understanding of how things are supposed to work. On that note through the chair, can we start by addressing acronyms? What is Bolt?

Bolt, I'm sorry. Board of Library Trustees. Got it. And so, a good good question. We're going to There are going to be some defined terms, you know, in in the charter, but they will be very clearly defined with the whole definitions, you know, section. Yeah. Bolt's kind of a cool term for libraries, right? Yeah. But I did need to make sure it took me a while to understand what CAO was and I'm doing my interpretation along the way. Yeah. Sorry. We're all I'm I'm as bad as anybody. CRC Bolt. Yeah, I I called it they're they're both the acronyms for um the board of library trustees are good. Bolt is kind of cool and BLT how good that is pretty as long as it's not BTS. I'm okay.

Yeah, that's that's right. That's right. Enough TLA. No, but I just wanted to make sure along the way uh when we are reviewing uh of course you're going to come into it and I'm very happy that our chair currently is in it. Uh but would we also be looking at why why charter? What are the perks? What are the cons?

Yeah. So I clearly I haven't done a good job of describing that earlier because that was my attempt to to say that I don't think there really are cons, you know, to being a charter city. It's it's harder in some respects and that you don't have a lot of default rules, you know, to refer to like general law cities do. Um, but if your charter is maintained and updated to be consistent with best practices, I don't see many downsides, you know, to being a charter city. So, one of the things that I have seen is your election, our election cycle as opposed to general. Uhhuh. when you have terms that are two years, you are adding cost uh to the city's budget to run that particular election.

And when so when it doesn't align with the general other cities, then there is the validation of is that I mean

so here's the thing that's good about being a charter city, right? You you don't have to do anything different than what general law cities do. We don't most most cities that are including charter cities don't run their own elections. they align as much as possible with the elections that are run by the registar because of that very thing you you stated that they're less expensive. It's less work for for local staff. You have people that are experts, you know, at running elections uh um you know, printing the ballots, tallying the votes. And so as a charter city, the thing about being a charter city that's good is if you want if you've decided and your voters agree, right, because they have to approve those provisions in the charter that you want it to be different and unique because there's something unique about your community, you want elections run in a different way, you could do that. But you don't have to. You could you could if you wanted um as a charter city refer wholesale to the elections code and go our people are going to be elected just the way it says in you know for a city council person and a general oity. So that's the thing you get choice. It's a matter of choice of local choice. So um process is supposed to be driven by practical and legal considerations. Right? The idea of this, even though you you certainly could make arguments that other elements of our charter could be better if they were different, right? This isn't designed to be a major restructuring of the city operations or change the city's elections process, right? And these things might be identified along the way by the charter review committee as, hey, maybe we should look at, I don't know, rank choice voting, for example, right? which a lot of cities are going towards as a as a as a mechanism to uh um um provide um a more um a a election process that

encourages moderation right amongst you know candidates um and um uh reduces somewhat the influence some would argue of special interest or party you know politics. I'm not saying it does do that or I'm an expert on that. Um uh and some cities have looked at it, others are not are not looking at it. That's not what this project is about, right? That is a whole big thing in and of itself and couldn't possibly be done, you know, by this group in the time period. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but this isn't to restructure any major element of government. It's to bring it up to speed, right, with what the law says and and what we're doing now and what best practices are. Um, one more question of course

to interrupt. Do and I remember this because I do a lot of the public contracting uh law validation at least I know when uh the state removed the con in the procurement contracting laws for women uh centered business to be given a score. Uhhuh. And there was a a it was like state law. Does a charter city have the o uh ability to still say minority and women businesses will Yes, they can actually overrule the public contracting laws.

Um there are there's um I answered too quickly. There are some elements of the public contracting rules that have been deemed to be of statewide concern and are things that this is when the state gets to preempt you know local jurisdictions. They do this with respect to housing production, right? They say the production of housing is a matter of statewide concern. And I Okay, Charter City, I get that you, you know, usually have control over, you know, your municipal affair and land use decisions, but because housing and affordable housing is a matter of statewide concern, guess what? I make the rules for you. Um, there are some elements, I think, of the public contracting code that work that way, too. I'm not uh um I I think charter cities have a choice in that area to either do it or not do it. You obviously in all cases need to comply with the California Constitution and you can't discriminate in any ways, right? That that it violates either, you know, federal law or local law. And of course, what constitutes discrimination now is being redefined by the current federal executive branch, you know, in ways that are challenging for a lot of local jurisdictions. Um, but to your particular answer, I don't know if the the public contracting code in that area is has been determined to be a matter of statewide concern where we're preempted or not, but that will be probably a question that that committee um takes up and talks about as part of their exercise.

Thank you.

Um, so in the charter project implementation, and we're starting to get to, you know, the the stuff that really matters to you. It contemplates the creation of ad hoc subcommittees, right? This was a big project. Um the charter's got a lot of different kind of divergent, you know, provisions in it and and the thought process was and it was a process that we used successfully down in um in Chula Vista um was to create was in effect to break the charter up into sections, sections that make sense, right? that are in roughly the same, you know, subject matter and develop ad hoc subcommittees in effect working groups, subgroups of the larger, you know, CRC in order to meet on a flexible schedule, right, without the public, you know, being there and all the the what's required to support, you know, that meeting in a in a public setting and the ability, frankly, of groups to try out ideas, you know, and be more candid and hear drafts and, you know, and throw things around without worrying that that would all of a sudden become a news story, you know, and and and uh um you know, and potentially distract from the effort. And so ad hoc subcommittees um were were created, and we'll talk about those on the next slide, as the working groups, right, to meet um as as often as they need to ultimately to report out, right, in public to the CRC itself. Um, and really to kind of get the access to the stakeholders and to professional staff dedicated to them to do the section bysection review and analysis and work necessary to piece this whole thing together, as we've said a couple times, to kind of eat the elephant, right, one bite at a time. Um, and the idea of using these working groups was to develop in the short amount of period of time, we might break a record for for this if we pulled it off, Mr. chair um to put together a comprehensive amendment to be presented to the council um which we need to do um soon um no later than June in order for them to be

able to act you know in July before they go on recess because whatever is come up with and whatever the council decides uh um to um put on the ballot they don't have to decide to do anything but if they hopefully decide to put something comprehensive on the ballot needs to be the to the registar by August 7th in order to appear on the November 2020 26 ballot. So that's charter project implementation, right? There's some guiding principles. There's um there's um ad hoc subcommittees kind of as the working group and there's a timeline that we need to meet in order to meet the objective which is a 2026 comprehensive amendment. Sorry.

No commission. Sorry to interrupt. uh and the uh state does not have to give a review preview to make sure that it is in conflict with any of the state laws or on our

no there's nothing there's no required review you know by the state in this process there are some interesting procedural internal review you know requirements and noticing requirements um in order to qualify an amendment like this for the battle we need to start factoring that into our overall you know timetable and structure and ultimately charters need to be filed with the secretary of state you know before they go into effect any amended any amendment or you know or any charter, but the state doesn't review it. And if you tried to do something that preempted the state, it just wouldn't be valid, right? It just wouldn't it wouldn't have the effect of law. And in theory, someone could challenge a charter provision if it if it if it ex exceeded its own authority. The only people that have to review it are the voters.

That's right. The voters the the voters ultimately review. So that that that's the that's the test, you know, in the end of it. So, next slide. Um, ad hoc subcommittees. So, here's the here are the ad hoc subcommittees that were were created. I'm fond of the color coding. I don't know why. It makes me happy. Um, so that's why it's done like that. There's a there's group one is power and structure of city government, rules, process for action. That's um a certain article of the section and those are kind of related things. Group two is city council elections, power and conduct of meetings. That's another subcommittee. Group three, senior officials, duties and qualifications. Group four, aha, boards and commissions, composition, powers, and duties. Group five, civil service, general rules for classified and unclassified employees, commission composition, and duties. Remember the the municipal affair of structure of government. This is one of those structure of government sections. and group six um the other committee that um member crutch is on fiscal administration and procurement um pretty logical breakdown as I as I look at it now and the kind of reorganiza overall reorganization we're contemplating some of these pieces are getting broken up and kind of put you know between and and transferred from one committee to another in the end u um we think it'll come together you know and all make sense so group four boards and commissions composition, powers, and duties. They've met a couple times so far, November 13th, um, and then February 12th. Their next meeting is actually tomorrow night. Um, I don't expect you to have anything um, you know, to provide them for tomorrow night. This is really just kind of a preview of the charter and the project and kind of what we're hoping to get the input we're hoping to get from you. at tomorrow's meeting based on a number of meetings including a presentation like that like this that I gave uh to the

board of library trustees and and a couple of meetings they had um to discuss you know what they wanted to do with their section probably more than you might need because like what I described right their section was so manifest in the authority that they were given and they knew they needed to kind of work on it yours isn't you know I don't think that misaligned right with what you're doing now, but theirs really was. And so they had to really invest some time and work in it. They ultimately came up with a recommendation and some uh talking points and a direction um and an anointment of their chair to come and actually present tomorrow night to that uh to that committee. So, we're working we we worked with the with with the bolt in order to help them develop, you know, their recommendation. We're working on some talking points and some recommended changes, you know, for that president and he's going to present tomorrow night um to this other subcommittee uh um for their, you know, consideration and ultimate recommendation to the larger CRC and ultimately to the city and ultimate to the voters. So, the role of the planning commission in this charter review process for each one of these ad hoc subcommittees, we identified stakeholders, right? There are certain staff, you know, members that are the ones who have to live, you know, and and and in effect live live by, you know, and implement these terms of the charter. And there are certain other potential stakeholders, including some outside parties, um that that are important to provide input on. Um no surprise for the boards and commissions composition, powers, and duties. every one of the charter um identified boards and commissions is being solicited for their input. Um and for you as an identified stakeholder um your input is being sought uh with the review of the boards and commissions article 10 of the charter. Um we're particularly interested of course in the

planning commission input on charter sections 106 and 107. Those are the provisions that talk about the composition, duties, and powers, you know, of the planning commission. Um, and so, you know, you're not, as I mentioned, you're not singled out. The other charterbased board and commissions, um, are parks and wreck, the board of library trustees, and the civil service commission, and their input will also be solicited. Board of Library trustees already has been, and in fact, um, the civil service commission already has been, you know, solicited. and they are the furthest down the path and that subcommittee is further down the path for an interesting reason. the the civil service rules in the in the charter and some of the terms of the of the um the civil service commission don't align any longer with current process and the current definitions of what constitutes a unclassified position or a classified position entitled to civil service protection. Right? Unclassified positions are ones that in effect can be fired and hired at will. usually senior management, you know, positions and other certain positions. Classified positions on the classic concept of civil service have certain protections both protected by labor groups and by state law that says, hey, these are you can't do these things to these certain, you know, these people without certain due process rights and certain bumping rights in connection with promotions and selection and the like. And so we've got a set of rules um in the in the charter that outline that not all the details right in accordance with an appropriate charter balance of having the right level of of of structure and language but not all the detailed rules. We've got that uh in the charter and under um applicable state law, charter

city or not, if you make changes to rules that affect the conditions of employment for your employees or could potentially do that, you're obligated to meet and confer with those employee groups before you change those rules. They don't always get to tell you what the rule should be, right? That's usually a product of you have to comply with the law and the and the contract will dictate that. But you have to meet and confer with them and get their input on, hey, how might this affect you and consider their, you know, their input when you're making the final rule. Changes to these civil service rules have potential impacts on every labor group in the city. So in order to get out front of that process and to comply with the necessity of that review, that group went first, right? And the there was a a focus of resources on getting the input from the civil service, you know, commission and the review and the the input from the committee assigned, you know, to those sections. And we're now starting down the path uh um towards the meet and confer process on the draft, you know, proposed language with the various labor groups. So they're out front. You guys aren't behind though. Um in in general and and so uh particularly and and that's why I appreciate you indulging me in this presentation with the only with this being the only item on the agenda because we did want to get you off and going and start and started with what this process would be. Um

question. Yes. On the uh unions when we do ratification of unions, how is that timeline against the timeline that we are proceeding with? Um, let's say SEIU. I'm sorry. Say that. S EIU or local 21.

Yeah. So, um, I am not the expert on the details of the timing of that process. Sue Rutder from my group is and she's administering that process. Um but there's a period of time uh that um that when proposed rule changes are submitted uh to um a labor group they have an opportunity to provide you know input and if they ask you know to u um have some discussions about you know the the proposed changes you need to sit down and talk with them about that. So there's fairly well prescribed, I think, you know, rules of engagement on that. Um, and we're okay with that. It's not three months, it's not six months, right? That, um, so, um, we're within the time frames that will allow us to get that input back.

Yeah. And honestly, the changes aren't that dramatic. We're not expecting, you know, anyone to be really that exercised about it, but that doesn't mean you can skip the process, right? You've got to go through the process anyway. And if there's issues or concerns, you know, those need those need to be discussed. So, um issues to consider the um specific provisions that relate to you. Um section 106 106 has um the composition of the planning commission seven members comprised of qualified electors of the city. Does that still make sense? And we're not changing it. You're not going to be 20 members now, right? You're not going to do all, you know, it's it's a it's a tweaking, right? It's a it's a consideration of is is is there a modification that needs to be made? Seven members. Uh um is that the right number? And interestingly, is a qualified elector the right requirement? I will note to you that the board of library trustees, which is something a lot of different jurisdictions are doing, is saying, "Hey, we don't think you should need to be a qualified elector to be on the board of library trustees. We think residency within the city is not is enough. Qualified elector is a registered voter, which also requires proof of citizenship, right? So, a lot of jurisdictions are now looking at the, you know, a broader definition of what a constituent is that should be allowed to provide input um, you know, into the the running of the city. And they've decided and a lot of them decide don't, you know, not to go this way, but a lot of jurisdictions have decided to loosen the rules for um advisory boards and commissions. you still need to be a um a citizen in order to be elected, you know, to office, but that rule is within the purview of a

charter city to decide whether with respect to um boards and commissions representation whether that's a necessity down in Chula Vista, just as an example, um a um significant Latino, you know, population, you know, community with a um I believe to be pretty substantial undocumented population. The thought process there was, hey, there's a lot of people that are disenfranchised from being able to, you know, make our recommendations here. Let's include that as a element of this comprehensive amendment. It was not, it was considered not to be so controversial, you know, down there that it actually was included as part of the comprehensive amendment and was adopted along with all the other more minor, you know, changes that the sensibilities up here, the circumstances up here may be different. I don't know. Um ultimately all of that will be filtered through these committees through the larger committee and through the city council. But the board of library trustees for one and their consideration of their rules have decided to suggest that uh maybe residency would be enough you know in order to be on the board of library trustees. So a issue to consider right is seven the right number? Is there any suggestion other than qualified elector that you want to consider or recommend? Secondly, um, does the list of your powers and duties properly describe your role and function? There aren't too many. I'm sorry I don't have them in front. I was intended to distribute all of that. Xander does. Um, and I'm going to read them to you now. Thanks to Xander. Um, they're pretty short. I could so I can read them all. Um, uh, the planning commission shall have the power and be required to a after a public hearing thereon.

I'm sorry, I'm laughing because we're hopefully thereon will no longer be a word in the updated charter. There's another there was another word

for right. That was it was fourth width was the one that we were wrestling with you with another committee and I was like we're not going to have I think I suggested language that said thereafter but that's not as bad right as forth with or thereon. Um after a public hearing thereon recommend to the city council the adoption amendment or repeal of the general plan or any part thereof for the physical development of the city. Right? That's a thing you do. We might word it a little bit differently but you know it's probably a good thing you know to list as a overall overarching you know responsibility of your group. B exercise such functions with respect to land subdivisions planning and zoning as may be prescribed by ordinance. Again, a little hotty, you know, in the language, but it is a it is a thing that you do. And maybe that gets fine-tuned or updated or expanded, you know, further in order to incorporate particular kinds of things that you're a you're asked to, you know, to act on. Although, again, remember, detail isn't necessarily better, right? Because if these encompass enough of what you do, maybe these words are okay. And then finally, right, it's just these three, right, Sander? I'm thinking is exercise such planning, zoning, environmental, or other functions as now or may hereafter authorized by the state of California in so far as they do not conflict with the provisions of this charter. Okay, that's absurd, you know, overly lawyered, you know, language, but I get it, right? There's a lot of catchall most of powers and functions and a lot of, you know, these rules is you don't want to make a list and what if you forgot something and you can't point to it, right? there's things in general, you know, like those things. A catchall provision isn't, you know, usually out of order. So, part of your deliberations on on this when you schedule it, you know, for deliberations on this is to look at these you've there's a code, I think, section that also elaborates more, you know, further on this, I think Leslie,

isn't that right, that talks about planning, but maybe you look at what the code says about what you do. Those should be aligned, right? These can be more, you know, the code can be more detailed, but they definitely, you know, should be aligned and you may want to look at that and go, hey, does this properly capture the full scope and nature of our responsibilities? Um, and or should we recommend some changes, you know, to that again to modernize to make it more clear uh um um and to make it aligned, you know, with what your, you know, what is currently doing and what your current responsibilities are. So that is something that um you you will be asked to do. Thank you Xander. Um and then finally do the other elements of the boards and commissions article 10 of general application right there's some there there's some provisions that say hey here are some general rules that apply to all um the charterbased boards and commissions and to any other board or commission the council may decide to create. Um, do you have any thoughts about those in general or as they apply to you? You know, as as probably the probably the most prominent kind of board and commission in the city, for example, there are terms that talk about the process for appointment of boards and commissioners. Um, talk about the process for filling vacancies, talk about um terms for board and commissioners and attendance requirements. If you look at those things and you think they're out of whack or they require some fine-tuning, you might not recommend the same thing as another board or commission. But all boards and commissions input is desired and being sought by this committee and ultimately um you know the council in in in terms of um wanting to develop a thing that um reaches out to the people who matter, right? Who know and who are experiencing it, you know, and and

wanted to to to get it right. So finally next steps general discussion tonight on how you want to proceed and you can provide direction to staff at least you know for purposes of agenda agendaizing something in the future obviously ask you know whatever questions you want of of me happy to answer them um ultimately agendaize for future more in-depth discussion and action and I'm not saying you need to you know make any bigger deal out of this right than you all wanted to right they the these things might not be off, right? You might be, you know, this is good, right? Or no, just a couple tweaks there or something. Um, ultimately, your action should include identifying a planning commission or commissioners, you know, representatives to present the commission's recommendations if possible at a group four ad hoc subcommittee meeting, but if that can't be aligned, you could do a written version, right, Xander or I could be your liaison, right, to provide those. Uh, um, it doesn't need to be again any more than you guys, you know, decided to be. board of library trustees was a big deal and so they they're they're going through a full representative process. It's up to you to decide how you might choose, you know, to provide, you know, to provide your input. So that's my presentation. I appreciate your patience um with um wanting to um give you guys a full understanding of this important project that's going on just as an important, you know, governmental body, you know, anyway, and certainly as a stakeholder whose opinion is valued and and being sought. Uh, Mr. Chair, back to you for questions and whatever other kind of discussions you may want to have.

Thank you. So, I'll open it up to questions, please. Commissioner Wong. Oh, yeah. Uh, question. Uh, I I Googled California. They have 482 cities. Um, roughly 121 are charter cities. How about the rest? What what how can they govern their Yeah, I'm sorry. What what how does the the cities that are not charter, how are they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, those are considered general law cities

and general law cities are governed by the laws of the state and there's a lot of laws in the government code and in the election code that you know that govern how and and in the public contracting code that govern you know how they conduct themselves and they're governed by the rules that they themselves make that are not inconsistent with those state laws. So charter a and of course they're they're covered by the the um the the California constitution as well. Charter cities are governed by the California constitution. We're subordinate to that no matter what. We're governed by our uh um charter and any laws we make consistent with our charter. And we're governed by the state laws that the state has decided are of statewide concern um or are otherwise not municipal affairs that govern us. And so charter cities get a certain amount of discretion in these areas of municipal affairs that I described early on in the presentation, but otherwise we're governed by general laws as well. The general laws of the state. General law cities are all governed by the general laws of the state without a charter.

Okay. Yeah. Uh and I could do I didn't do the there's a I've got a chart that says charter city, general law city, you know, and compares that. I should have known that the with this wonky group. I I should have busted that out, too. Sorry I don't have that. I If you wanted me to come back on a future meeting when you're digging in, I'll be happy to present that. Okay. Yeah, I'm very proud of my new title. Thank you. That is when I say it, it's a compliment. Yeah. I I cons I meant by the way I have the numbers. So, the wonky nest came already. Oh, very good. Exactly. How many at least in the county, how many are charter cities and how many actually are u general law of consequence. My numbers were roughly right. Right.

No, I'm only looking at the counties. So, out of the 15 cities. Oh, just in the county. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking from more our geography, our valley comparisons. Yeah. San Jose, you know, Sunnyale, Palo Alto. There was some discussions because it's not just the county because if you're trying to say, look, we're one of the people that have a stadium. Who else is similar to that and what kind of challenges that they may have? So right we kind of opened it up to like what makes sense to be comparable. Yeah, we did we did some we and there's more benchmarking, right? You can do really infinite amount of benchmarking demographics, election cycle, mail election, large term, rotational, there's just so many.

Yeah. So, we've identified Yeah, we identified kind of 19 that we we thought were a a good cross-section of ones that had similar qualities to us. Some of them are very different like like LA is one of them, right? Because of stadium ownership and utility, you know, involvement, right? We're an Uber city, right? We're like a big city, you know, and we're like a small city in some respects. So, we've got some regional cities identified. Chiliva Vista, of course, because my familiarity with Chilivist and having just gone through that process is identified as one to look, you know, look at cities of similar population in the region, ones with utilities as I mentioned. So, there's about 19 that have been benchmarked as, you know, very comparable. But we're looking, you know, if there's a particular issue that comes up, we are trying to look more broadly at that at other at other charter cities. You can do a little bit of analysis paralysis, you know, with that and go too far with that, but we we're trying to provide as much information, you know, as we can that's relevant um in consideration of all these issues.

Did you have more questions? Yes, please. As co-pilot,

uh yeah, actually uh yeah, you mentioned in November we have election. Uh my question is what's the deadline? Uh the reason I ask is because the AT&T cell phone base station uh we have a measure R or whatever I can't remember. So we can we cannot uh build the uh wireless station in our uh park. Uh how can we put that thing in the ballot?

Yeah. So, um, appreciate that. Um, measure R, um, as you've described, is is a measure that was adopted in 2018. Is that right? Yeah. Um, that, uh, was adopted, um, uh, I think was it a citizens initiative even that was put on the ballot and adopted. I I forget what charter section is. 17 714.1 I think which um essentially says that um the city cannot sell or change the use of park property that's identified right on a list of you know the the city park properties without a vote of the people.

Yeah. um that is a um is a section that's being looked at not to repeal, not to modify in any material way. Again, that would be a major kind of change of something that's already in the charter and and probably outside the scope of this group. But there they are looking at that as for for possible relatively minor modifications of that potentially, for example, in order to allow some ancillary use of a park property that's not inconsistent with the use, you know, of that park property that otherwise could be beneficial to the city. uh um and um maybe a bad example of this because I know it's a controversial use, but if there was a desire to have some kind of telecommunications, you know, facility um um along a you know, the edge of a park as opposed to closer to a neighborhood, right, where there may be more concerns, you know, for people about the proximity to the neighborhood. Um that's something now that pro that probably um depending upon your interpretation of measure R might require a vote of the people even though it's not disposing of the property, right? It's really just a you know a short-term license. Um and even though it's not um really changing the primary use of the property, it's really an ancillary use that could be viewed as consistent. Again, that I'm not trying to debate whether that particular thing is a good idea or not. I'm just trying to give an example of the kind of thing that if someone were to look at that and modify it or clarify it, hey, are certain is no matter what you do, you know, allowed or could that be modified? But no one's looking at that for purposes of making material changes to it or undoing it. That's it's considered a recent change that obviously was important to the voters not that long ago. Um, it's not anything that's inconsistent with, you know, best practices. It was a will of the people kind of uh um modification.

Yeah. I mean just my personal feeling is if we can have the cell phone tower the telecommunication equipment um built in the park. I I think it's it's win-win, right? the city can also get some uh income and and yeah I so so my my my question is how can we put that on the on the ballot you know right to to improve that part

there could be a different process you know for that the um if if you if if anyone who wanted to do something material to change measure R you could talk to your council person come to a council meeting and go hey I'd like the council to consider this. I think this is something that we should modify and then the council ultimately the council decides right what to put in front of the in front of the people. I think that would be a tricky one now though there's still a lot of of sensitivity um um in preserving you know uh Parkland. Yeah. Yeah. So so the then the process is to start with the city council. Yes. Propose that to city council.

Yeah. What's the deadline? Um the um well and again I don't mean to steer you away from the um from the charter, you know, the the current charter project. I just don't think it's something they'll take up again for the reasons I stated. But in order to um get anything on the ballot for 2026, yeah, um you would need to have council um evaluation and action um to allow all of the final paperwork to be presented to the registar by August 7th. So honestly, I think you'd need to start now. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. Because there's there'd be a lot to that. there be. So here, let me make one comment about that if I may. Um, when AT&T was trying to build their cell tower in here, and that's where a lot of this controversy comes from, and the gentleman that represented AT&T, very nice, very patient, worked with us very well to make sure that everybody understood what they was needed. The biggest thing that surprised me about it was the fact that the map that they showed, the heat map of, you know, what cell coverage there was in Santa Clara here in the middle of Silicon Valley was relatively poor. And for something that, you know, we represent the latest and greatest in technology and are home to people like Nvidia, Intel, and stuff like that, it was, you know, it's well, if you're a citizen here and you have cell coverage, you're lucky. And if you don't, you don't. So my my thought was the amount of time and effort that it took AT&T, it took staff, it took commissions to look at and review. I think that what we should do is is literally look at it from a very simple standpoint. We need this. Let's not do it one tower at a time. Let's get everybody in here that we need to get in here and have a master plan for putting these towers up so that we can kind of deal with the controversy all at once, which would include looking at, you know, do we put some of these in parks, but we also need to know where you're going to put a tower effectively to then get the best coverage. And it may not necessarily be in a park, but I understand where where you're coming from. And I I think it would be good to take a look at that part of it as well. master plan it, get the arguments done once, one meeting till three o'clock in the morning and we're good.

No, actually start early. Actually, we can get done in about five minutes. Thank you. Uh, did you have any other questions? That's it. Thank you. Anybody else have questions for staff? Please, Lance. Well, I'm just going to let everybody else go first if there is any other Well, I always go last, so you know how that works now.

Privilege of the chair. Um so I I have two things that I'm kind of interested in. Is there mechanisms are there mechanisms being built into this process to uh give flexibility to the charter such that we can come back in a year and see if there's something that really needs to be changed. We can add an addendum. We can uh add footnotes. we can add something that doesn't delay acceptance or our ability to migrate to some new process or technology or whatever simply because of the solidity of the the charter. And the second one which you could probably answer together with

how are we going to define qualified electors? I don't expect there to be a list of exact qualifications, but we may want to have a few examples to give people ideas about what is something that fits a given commission or or committee. Um like we I don't think we as a group would want to fill the dis with seven real estate agents or with seven developers. There should be some diversity of opinion so that we have discourse and we have an ability to explore other ideas and that doesn't get reflected anywhere in the process of defining a qualified elector. I know we can't do discrimination, but we can set uh expectations on how our commissions, committees, etc. are filled with some diver not diversity. Sorry, that's apparently a dirty word now, but uh variation of of people being used for the position.

Yeah, appre appreciate the questions. Um the the idea of flexibility on um you know on on keeping up with technology changes is a good one and it kind of manifests in different ways depending upon the section of the charter you're talking about. A very simple sorry maybe crude example of that is um currently the charter requires um certain types of notices you know be provided to people And it's um the charter requires posting uh or or the provision of notice in a in the a newspaper of public record, right? And sometimes posting in multiple locations. We will still do that because we're we're required to do that. But a number of the committees that have these notice pro provisions are saying we need to do more than that. Right? That's not a very modern way for people. No one's reading those newspapers, right? To to find I'm sorry. Some people maybe are reading those newspapers. But not really the common public, right? Isn't looking to the back of a newspaper with legal notices to go, aha, there's a public hearing, you know, that I'm interested in. Right? You need to do more than that. And so one of the things that's being proposed and I haven't drafted the language yet. Um maybe I did. I'm not remembering if I have though but is is to add to that some concept of kind of electronic or digital or website you know notice that isn't so specific that um it it that itself becomes antiquated you know some period of time uh but is techn technologically aware so that as technology evolves over time and there's different forms you know of of ways of communicating with people hopefully you capture that right in in the language at

least for the next 40 years, right? And maybe people are you're beaming stuff into people's head, you know, in a chip that um Bill Gates put in there when he got you vaccinated. Um joking I'm being ridiculous. Um for the record that was being facitious just to be clear. Um so but you know what I will add to that you can in some ways you can make it really simple in one sense because one aspect of it you could say are you using push technology or pull technology right

so pull means like hey I go to the website or I read the newspaper and I I gather that in and then you can have somebody say look I would like push technology where somehow I get on a email distribution list or I get a text message or whatever but the beauty of it is it doesn't define the specific speific means by which that happens. Just that I want something where it's you proactively send it to me rather than I have to go find it.

Yeah, that's that's a good concept. So, we'll we'll think about that. But you're an example of what you're talking about, right? And and there might be other um things that again if we're talking about this isn't technology so much but you know an evolving practice um you know they probably didn't have design build as a mechanism you know 30 40 years or no right they do now maybe there's going to be some other hybrid you know form of procurement you know 10 years you know from now and so the idea with the languages bless you is to maybe concepting like like pushpull have some some words, right? Which is my job to come up with the right words that wraps itself around current versions of that type of, you know, procurement design, build uh um managed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You're going to draft it now. Um but but yeah, but not have the uh but not have it be so limiting, right, that oh, it's not listed here, right? So, we can't do that. Now, I have to do another charter amendment, right, in order to encompass that. Um, and

there is a danger that lowest quality bids generate lowest quality results and and that mentality could be uh devastating for our city

and that's why this concept is going to be introduced. Again, it doesn't apply in all circumstances and the and but when it does apply in my personal view about structure of government, it should be applied based upon um a um professional staff recommendation in accordance with an um a ordinance adopted by the city council. Right? It's that's it's not in the charter, right? It doesn't, the charter doesn't dictate things so specifically that gosh darn it, you've did something wrong and so now you there's a new thing that you ought to be able to do that's great and would be of great public benefit, but you got to go to the people again to, you know, to tweak it. And so we're trying to be cognizant of that, I don't think we'll hit every, you know, we'll push every button. Um, and in the end, if there's something significant, right, that this group doesn't, you know, pick up that all of a sudden becomes a new thing or or a new thing that's dangerous, right, that people want to either get rid of, you know, or or add some additional checks and balances to, the charter can always be amended again. But the idea with this swing of the bad, if you will, is to try to capture as much of these, again, not revolutionary, but many best practice, you know, revolutionary, you know, changes all in one amendment as possible.

I just want to add to that. I think part of what has been said to us is that um there are times when things make sense to put in the charter and other times just do it by ordinance so that you have that ability to quickly change it but also the the process and please correct me if I'm wrong. It's we we try and line charter reviews with uh general elections. So it's once every two years. So, if we do do something that like, boy, we really want to get rid of it because that was bad. Um, we would have to have a special election to do it. So, that's Yep. That's that's the challenge. If you do something that really really has a big blowback later on, but agree with everything.

So, I'm I'm going to inject a extremely niche example just to give you an idea of what poked a hole for this for me. Um, a conversation on Next Door recently was complaints that Whimos were parking outside of a park that has a no parking sign in front of it. And the issue is coming up that a Whimo car is never parked because it's an unattended vehicle. It's an automatic. It has no driver, but it has no concept of being parked. So, we're going to be facing push back on things for even city ordinances around our parking decisions, our lane uh division uh ideas, if uh what happens if an automated or self-driving car in encroaches on bike lanes. If it wasn't part of the definition of the the car's programming, is it illegal? Is there a hard law on that? And all these things are so open-ended, ambiguous concepts that we have to have some flexibility in our charter for our even for simple things like parking ordinances to be able to adjust and adapt and evolve to uh take what the current legal results are for those kind of challenges. I I hear you and I um and I'm thinking as we think about right what goes into the charter and what doesn't that is a level of detail that I don't see being necessary going into the charter

to get it in there but it's going to come up for the the cases of ordinances. Yeah. So, here's the thing, and that's the thing that that being a charter city does, right? Is

just because it doesn't say it explicitly in the charter doesn't mean that you can't necessarily do it. It's true with design build, you know, but most things again, so long as they are not inconsistent with state laws that apply to you, the constitution and other matters of of of declared statewide concern, and as long as your charter doesn't prohibit it, you can do it. And so the um the charters are are designed to be restrictive when you are consciously wanting to restrict and control behavior and enabling when you don't want to control behavior and I would list the thing that

new things come up. So yeah. No, I I hear you and we need to be we again we need to be cognizant of that and there'll be specific provisions in there and how how charter laws relate with state laws. uh um you know with the idea again that we are in um intending to as a charter city that wants all of its authority unless we want to take the authority away from ourselves giving ourselves as much local authority as possible. That's kind of one of the credos of being a charter city. Um the other question you had regarding diversity you know on on the it was more like how do we really define qualified elector?

Yeah. So the they're a little bit different things. Qualified elector actually is a defined term. Qualified elector means that you are registered to vote within the jurisdiction that you're representing. And in order to be registered to vote, you need to demonstrate certain things to the registar of voters which include citizenry. So that's more of a resident registration citizen concept qualified elector that is a that is a defined you know term under under state law. The point that I understood you getting at was um hey if we want a certain mixed composition of representatives on the planning commission right I don't want it to be seven real estate agents. I don't want it to be seven developers. I don't want it to be seven laymen who don't know anything about you know development. I want an engineer and a you know and this and that the other thing. You you you there can be provisions you know for that. Um those things are usually done by ordinance. Um because again it can be murial as to you know what kinds of composition make you know make the most sense depending upon the phase of development you know that a that a city is in. But if that's something this group wants to say, hey, you know what? No, I want to make sure by vote of the people only to be changed, you know, if the you go back to the vote of the people to change it that you want some more specificity or at least concepts about, you know, um about how to, you know, in effect populate, you know, your commission to make sure there's diversity on there. That's an interesting discussion. again it um I don't I've not seen those things except in probably very unique you know circumstances where it's such a specialized you know commission you really need you know um absolutely need

some expertise right and so there might be some affirmative expertise I've seen that done and I think we did it um in um in Chula Vista when they were talking about qualifications for uh people on the redistricting commission right when you go to districts And then every 10 years you get the um the census and that triggers a requirement to re-evaluate you know your population to make sure the lines that you've drawn now align you know with the whatever the population growth has been in the city. there was very conscious effort there to introduce some level of both geographic diversity and other forms of diversity so that there was a composition you know that on that districtricting commission that was viewed as representative here right I think there's no requirements that there be a person from every district right

no

um and you know there that may end up translating naturally in terms of how the recommendation process is But in theory that might be an example, right, of some level of, you know, the kind of diversity that I get and could see as as being something like for this body to make sure you've, you know, it's not all district two people, right, who might have a district two mindset, whatever that is. I'm not sure what district 2's mindset would be, but I get that as an interesting topic of discussion amongst you about when you think about your composition as to whether or not that's something you want to suggest goes in the charter either specifically or in terms of maybe general language that then in turn could be translated into something that's implemented uh um by code by ordinance. So can I ask

I would suggest it would be more like I'm looking at diversity in terms that a lot of people may think about it but more of an impartiality and certain you know qualification um I mean I don't need somebody to be know SQA and stuff backwards and forwards and stuff but and you know staff does train and we can go to other training things to make sure we're up to speed and stuff but definitely um some kind of thing that would say you know hey look it's it's not going being impartial if everybody is coming from, you know, I hate to say we're going to beat up on realators, but you know, let's beat up on lawyers. If they were all lawyers, that would be very interesting. That would be great. I'm sorry, but what

I know. So yeah, not for not for the lawyer advising the group. That's it's absolutely true.

Are there any lawyers on this group now that we're talking out loud about that? Yeah. Okay, good. We're good. Anyway, but but the idea would obviously to have some kind of something in there that says, "Hey, look, you're trying to make this this group, okay, diverse in terms of making sure that they have um the right impartiality, let's just say. I mean, somebody that wants to be uh who's a realtor has people who have been realtors have been on the commission obviously, right? I think everybody has tried to I'm going to be nice about it has tried to be impartial and do the due diligence and such and the lawyers around here are very good about letting you know if you're not. So, um but maybe it makes sense to have something in there that just spotlights that.

Yeah. So, um maybe a little bit different of a concept than than the one I was talking about, but as you know, I'm forgetting. I always forget. Um, no, you're on fiscal and the other um there there's a discussion about um in one of the committees, is it yours? I'm sorry, I forget which ones you're on about about um setting up um a um because there's no list now of kind of duties of a city council person to and there's detailed duties for the mayor, right? There's detail. There's duties for boards and commissioners. There's duties for the city attorney and for the city manager and everybody else. What about duties of the city council, right? What are they expected to do? And one of the discussions of the of the duties that that in response to input from the committee that that I've now drafted, right, that may be controversial, hope hopefully not. um is you know a duty to um put um even though ethics rules right say this and the city's own code of ethics say this to give it more prominence elevate to the charter level the obligation of a city council member to put the city's interests above their own and to be professional and courteous in all their interactions with each other with staff and with the public. So there was an observed you know concern by this committee of and I'm like oh my gosh don't don't we can't put rule you know specific rules about that in the charter right that doesn't provide in the charter but can these principles you know be listed as principles the things that the you know that the city council people should do I think there's a consensus at least on that committee we'll see how it translates you know up through the channels of of consideration on that that that that that's something that could add value right even if it's not detailed you could add that for boards and commission members too, right? As a general duty of all boards and commission members.

It's kind of sad that you're bringing it up and what you're saying is that the people don't know how to behave or how to, you know, act with respect towards other. So, we have to it's like being in kindergarten. Then you just you can't do that, you can't do this. Just be respectful and treat others like you would, you know, like you expect to be treated. And we're here to serve the people, especially in the city council. So whatever any of their citizens comes up, you don't need to have a any any laws telling you that you should treat them with respect and listen to them and show that you are concerned with their issues. Yeah. So I'm not going to sad that we have to write that down.

I'm not I'm not commenting on the existence of that or the lack of that. But what I am telling you is there that was an interest of you know the committee members to elevate that principle you know into the into the charter just again even as a reminder in the end of the day right it's it's incumbent on each individual person to conduct themselves right in in an appropriate way I think was was your point and so I'm not commenting on the need for that or anyone's particular behavior but I'm I'm trying to translate into this charter project you know issues and concerns that are expressed, you know, to me through the through this committee process. Um, calibrating that for what, you know, what's consistent with the charter project and what belongs in a charter and what doesn't. So, I'm I'm uh I'm trying to do yman's duty there if I can on on balancing all those interests and getting it drafted correctly. But appreciate the interest and and the question on all those fronts. Again, things for you to talk about.

One last dimension to this conversation on qualified electors. Is there a characteristic of the individual to allow them to participate fully in the sense like if we had a commissioner who only spoke Mandarin, would we as a city be required to print all materials in both English and Mandarin, would we require uh a translator to be available for the that commissioner? Uh are there limits that we're placing on the qualifications for practicality and purpose of being able to participate fully in the commission?

Um so um interesting question not a thing that I don't think that the charter I think would direct. I mean that would be a matter of you're asking a question as a matter of law or required. You're not saying we should add this to the charter to make sure that if there's someone who speaks um a different language that they are, you know, fully supported. I didn't hear you saying that. I hear you saying, is that a requ is that something that we would be required to do? Maybe you are maybe you are saying that I honestly don't know the answer. I want to bring in ADA, but I also didn't want to say things like well a fully blind commissioner, a fully deaf commissioner. Yeah, there would be characteristics of the support that we as a city would have to provide.

So rule rules do apply to that. I am I'm aware of rules for um you know if um if a member of the public, right, um want wants to um doesn't speak u um English, you know, as their primary language, there's a there's a requirement that um that they be given um extra time, right, in their testimony, right? So if you had three minutes and English wasn't your your primary language, you'd get six, right, in order to allow you have to have a translator. I'm not sure we need to have, you know, we're required to have translators of all of all the different language. I know we're obligated to translate all of our our materials and on our website, you know, into multiple languages and Google Translate and other mechanisms are making that more and more possible and elections materials are making that more and more possible. Honestly, don't know the answer unless Sander does. um about the level of support in that context or others that we would be required you know to support commissioners and I know ADA rules would apply right you need to be able to get up on the dis right and you know and participate in access you know facilities and if you need other kinds of support you know we would be required to accommodate that but language translation Sandra are you aware of that on the last meeting is why I was curious because

yeah and those rules that I said that apply to the public were applied there. We actually had some discussions about that to make sure that you know every opportunity for due process was afforded that person. Sorry, for the applicant. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. For the applicant. Yep. I um I remember that. But again, don't don't know the answer. Do you actual board or commission member as to whether or not um translation would be required? You're did you did you Google it while we were talking?

Okay. Very good. So, um um rough justice answer pending, but regardless of that, it wouldn't go in that that that un um that that wouldn't go in the charter, right? That that would be a that would be, you know, we we'd comply with all laws. Yeah. Um and I would argue that if you wanted to make an affirmative obligation to put that in the charter, that would be a lot. That's not just a that's not just a tinkering there. There's a lot that goes into, you know, the cost of that and the analysis of that. um that that that's a bigger thing than than you might think. It just makes the term qualified elector fuzzier right now, which is uh

Yeah. And again, back to qualified elector, all that means is resident and registered to vote and a citizen. I mean, you don't need to um you know, I don't know what the language requirements are for that. Maybe you need to there there is a case saying that voter literacy requirements have been struck down as unconstitutional. So you don't have to be able to read English to be a qualified elector but in previous administ Oh I don't disagree with it. I just said it would add some interesting dimensions to our

I hate to differently if you if I recall my grandparents how to become citizens they had to uh know how to read and write and and speak English that was part of the thing that's becoming a citizen but there were definitely citizens in talking somebody in city council if somebody's in wasting time on this if somebody's in the city council and they don't speak English. How did they become a citizen if they didn't go and speak English? So, we're wasting time here. Are you getting charged by the hour or because otherwise let's wrap it up. Getting paid. That's the problem. Hold on there. Just take take it easy. Okay. I issue hard.

You're welcome to, you know, leave. No, hold on. People want to ask questions, let them do it. No, stop. We're going to conduct this in a way that is correct. If the people want to ask questions, I'm going to let them ask questions, including yourself. Go for it. Thank you. Any other questions? That was it. I'm here for any other questions that folks may have and with a commitment to come back if you want me to come back to when you actually deliberate, you know, more specifically on this, I'm happy to provide support. What's the next steps with with this from the committee that we need to do?

So, um, there's the slide. Um, I'll spin through it again. Um, ideally you'd say, "Hey, let's this is worth we want to provide formal input. Let's agendaize. Let's ask staff to, you know, add that, you know, a more detailed discussion of this to our next, you know, I would ask at your next agenda. Obviously, it needs to work with other things that you've got going on, but interested in the input of this group as soon as possible to get in the mix right of the of the committee. And then um that committee will be read you know meeting regularly and if you want an audience with that committee we'd coordinate scheduling you know in that regard. So first step really is um if you're if you're comfortable at you know collectively directing staff to agendaize by consensus or otherwise as your attorney might advise to to um agendaize this at your the next available you know meeting where it makes sense to to have the discussion and then and then dig in you know and and and decide what you want to um recommend to the subcommittee.

Okay. Given that the next time we're meeting is April 8th, I'm curious as to when do you need our there's no exact input date. It really is as su as soon as possible. So I would I would ask if you can do it on April 8th that you do it on April 8th.

It's an ugly meeting probably. Wow. We have the the power play here at the staff table. We have the Elcom Royale specific plan that night. Um and the super graphic ordinance for FIFA games. But um the next meeting isn't until May 20th. So um it's probably needs Yeah. or a special meeting. I mean um I hate to suggest a special meeting. Um

I I would if if it's design I mean our our office could produce the RTC um you know for it um probably to help frame the issues or maybe do a little single you know it wouldn't be a long RTC. It would be a here's the language, here's the things we talked about that you may want to look at uh you know to f to help focus your discussions in a deliberate way. That would be what the RTC would be. I mean, honestly, if it has to be May, it has to be May. I'll leave it to stuff. April 8. Okay, we'll be ready.

Thank you, J. Um, and thank you for keeping us straight, too. I appreciate it. So, uh, you mentioned it's a project, so I'm going to just go very logistics here. Are we able to actually measure success of this charter? Um that's a really good question and and a couple of the committees have asked that too. Um I think that or the larger committee had that discussion right um chair crutch um and and I think the answer was there are I think this pro the intent of this project is to have both qualitative and quantitative benefits. Right. qualitative benefits hard to measure. Um although I think very real and potentially in you know cost savings include um ease of user maybe not um and and so I but I think there is a qualitative value in improving you know the document. There are also any number of different quantitative, you know, um, things that, um, I'll I'll go to kind of the the one we talked about the most, which would be, you know, procurement mechanisms that save money on projects, right? Um, staff or or decisions that are logically made within staff's authority as opposed to the elaborate process. As you guys know, look, even Leslie was trying to get me to write an RTC for her. Um um there's a lot of work goes into putting an item together, you know, and and um getting it agendaized, having staff people kind of in the room, you know, to present, you know, the item to the board, you know, or to the city council. And um I've got a very very

busy, very bright, you know, lawyer um supporting um SVP who has an absurd book of business. Xander, as you guys know, can have an absurd book of business. And if we all and any of you know the business people staff probably puts the most burden on to the extent you have to put all of these things together not just to do the work itself but to package it in a way that gets properly noticed and agendaized and in front of council and it's not really the kind of thing that council should care about or should need to act on and the public doesn't really need to see. That's a lot of staff time and so again I think it's a combination of qualitative and quantitative. I don't know if we're going to go about the business of measuring those. I think that we're gonna um talk to the council and make sure the council knows how many when it comes to them. Um uh uh examples of projects, you know, that go in front of them, you know, and an estimate of staff time to that that will be, you know, that'll able to be identified as a as a potential highly likely cost savings.

Let me give you an example. You could try qualitative. This is uh election by the citizens. It's a moment in time. You decided because you came with your prior practice of chivist. Otherwise, what would be a possible mechanism to say let's revisit the charter every 10 years? Why would we not be that specific or measurable or achievable? And I'm going going uh uh smart goals here so you get the the vibe. Mhm.

But I don't think we should not have the ability to qual measure quality of life with that short because the the kind of demographics will change, the kind of technology will change, the kind of interests of the next generation could change. So I just wanted to make sure that there's a possibility to have the charter review happen in a very methodical structure. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I I don't know that I would because that standard even might change, right? Um

we might do such a good job this time that it doesn't need to be revisited for 20 years, right? Or not probably not a hundred, you know, but for 20 anyway. So, I don't know that I'd want to put a formula into the charter, but you make a good point about,

you know, it being built into, you know, how good government administers itself. there might be some one thing that comes up that you want to act on sooner than 10 years, but you know there you know periodically it ought to be reviewed. What some cities do to make that more likely um and again I'm not suggesting that here because it's a structure of government thing and I'm not trying to create new commissions but where I came from in Chula Vista they had a standing charter review commission. M

it didn't have to be a process where either for you know and I don't mean this in a derogatory way political reasons right if there's an because a lot of council driven stuff is around elections right and now and a lot of citizen initiative stuff is around elections right people decide that terms need to be longer or shorter or the appointment process needs to be this or that or you know the election system should be this and if you're that you can't be, you know, that there's a lot of interest usually, you know, in that. But why I thought the process in Chula Vista was so valuable and why I think this process is so valuable is it doesn't talk about that stuff. It talks about the efficient operation of city government and it emphasizes that and it and it solicits input from you know people who are involved in having to administer the the charter and that arguably should be an ongoing you know e exercise. Um, and if you had a standing charter review commission, you know, right, then that would be a resource, right, for city manager, you know, a finance director or council, right, or or committee to say, "Hey, as things come up, I've got a standing group here that's constantly educating themselves, constantly reviewing the charter, constantly saying, "Hey, how can we make this this better?" It can result in overtinkering, you know, right? um you know so there's a

it's a balance there's a there's a balance to it but that those are my thoughts on on that so when we setting and I'm going off of all my project management here so bear with me so when we are going on a charter which has been ancient like a zoning ordinance in some ways okay 1951 we did a charter great 1951 we wrote a zoning ordinance we never touched it after that and we continue to feel the pain points in all our you know planning commission reviews so I'm going to stick with my scope here. Yeah, it's a good analogy. The zoning code update is a is a very good analogy. Yeah.

So, in general, the loose and framework is always going to be transparency, accountability, you know, in the best interest of people's health, safety, uh inclusivity, ensuring environmental s, you know, uh whatever uh efficiency and frugality. There's all the good words that are will will always stand the test of time being good bad but what I do want to get into the nuances is where you're going into your project delivery that is coming under your capital project delivery frugality and accountability and fin fiscal respons we have about 18 terms in just how we do project delivery capital project delivery today you do not need to bel labor every one of them because you're going to have something come out.

But I will give you an example when uh when uh there was a new model especially because it's a public contracting system with the UC's they were limited by the design bit process and for a particular project it had to go all the way to the UC regions to get the qualifiable uh ability for that project to proceed. We should try to look at something that is more um principalbased for our project delivery pro because every process is going to have its own perks, benefits, best value based on but you could put it into a smart process again with a framework and the framework is is based on a rubric. Is this got you know maybe threat the cost of the project is one but the schedule of the project is the benefit to the citizens at large is there uh you know supply market demand that will dictate the delivery process so when you talk about project you you can be me but I'm just saying that there's you could build that as at least the framework doesn't have to be in the charter you should have the nimleness to actually rewrite the framework at will because That should be managerial. It should be administration taking but you could reference that that all are delivered.

Yeah. So I appreciate those thoughts and we are trying to get that right particularly in procurement. Again it's supposed to be empowering.

Yeah. Um, and it's supposed to be broad enough that it encompasses both things that are being used now and things that are consistent with those like you said. Um, you know, best value, right? Um, um, um, you know, efficiency and speed, you know, in execution um, you know, value engineering, right? Things like that to include principles as opposed to specific procurement mechanisms. I think that's a it's a good observation and that that's ideally how the charter works, right? And that when you and the procurement mechanism of the moment that's consistent with one or more of those principles um if you need details um about how you go about doing that, that's um u an ordinance and it's policy. It's not you don't need to amend your charter. And on the technology front again generic terms there's brighter minds here so I won't contest that but we're a smart city and we're where innovation so those are where we are going to drive the infrastructure we have 5G you know the nuances of the devil in the details can always come through your ordinance can come through your everyday bread and butter but to enable the thought process that we are a smart city that we are always going to look out but in the context text of environmentally sustainable.

Yeah. No. And resilient. Yeah. Appreciate that uh that input. Yeah. Appreciate that input.

And we should be I know it probably doesn't have that kind of interface yet. Uh but transportation is a huge gap right now. VTA, we don't even account for it in our charter. what is our connectivity to jobs to education to local um uh housing. So I do want to make sure we are at at least uh anticipating our city in a future state when VTA is much more um endowed that we build a very I would say futuristic transportation enabled connecting pointtooint. Today the last mile is interestingly 30 minutes to get a VTA from Tasmin Levi station but Calrian and Bart are like you know like clockwork so where is the ability for a future generation for Whimo or you know to actually support through our public transportation system so I didn't see that in our charter but I'm giving you nuggets that I may not have a future opportunity but through my chair here at least representation that we have the uh the right uh uh charter with a vision, a mission, key measurables. Are we coming back and telling your citizens this is what your charter does for you on a regular basis? How are we keeping ourselves and the government and the structure and the management between the city council, the city administration, the city manager, the city clerk, the fire office? How are we connecting that governance in an accountable transparent way?

I appreciate those thoughts. Um that that is probably a grander idea um for what the charter currently does or could do. um in this process again it doesn't ideally it doesn't keep all those things from happening um but it doesn't and so at a minimum it can certainly do that and it and it makes sure that you know that the tools are there um you know in order to be able to do those things but um that would be a that the to to have the charter be a vision statement for the city I don't think it does that now and that would be that would be quite a separate exercise in order to to to to have it do that.

I mean to the extent and again I I'm I'm thinking currently your roles and functions are pretty generic and they probably ought to stay generic. Um but but the potentially there could be a um you know an additional role and function of the planning you know commission that says you know to encourage these things right uh um you know to make recommendations you know to the city council and planning and you're not on everything right you're we've got our lanes um you know on things that that encourage um you know the kinds of things that that you think ought to be encouraged. But I warn you when you're getting into policym right as opposed to um structure of government that that creates dynamic spaces in which the local entity can make can make choices for itself. When you go beyond that that end up you might end up in a political conflict. Right? If you're if you identify a vision that doesn't align with the council's vision currently, right? Or

I don't think it's my vision. I'm just saying the city has a vision. Yeah. A sision. But any I'm seeing but but I mean if if it's coming out of someone's it should be agnostic of city council. But I'm but I'm with you. I mean if it's if it's certain things right then it's not other things you know and if it's expressed in a certain way should we be good? Yeah. Should we find I mean those are like generic terms. I'm saying have a vision that's much more simple. You have a charter review committee that is tasked to come up with it. The six groups or your swim lanes are going to come up with it. Yeah. So for me that is policy setting in front of the city council. That's people get elected. Yeah.

Right. to capture the zeitgeist or vision right of the moment and their job is to in in in in their capacity is to come up with that. I don't think the charter document is the place that that resides at least the current functionality of the charter. Um I think you are conceiving of um city council retreat um vision making that then translates into what they tell council to do or tell their staff to do. Right.

So I hear you. It's a good it's a good concept. I just I don't see it at least in this charter project and in any charters I've seen you know what you're describing as manifesting in charter language. Got it. I only say that no project can happen without at the very basis what do you want to accomplish out of that project. Whatever the charter wants to accomplish is going to come out from the very basis of what you're trying. Yep. And I'm and I and I guess the way I would describe that putting it in much less visionary terms than than yours that are again wonky, you know, is maximizing local control.

Yes. Um and giving local government the the the the tools to translate whoseever vision is is in it into you know into rules. So finish your thought here, please. Yeah. But then I want to have to interrupt here. Yeah, please. No, I'm sorry. Are you finished? I am I'm absolutely done. So, commissioners, let's try and keep it to the specific topic about what the planning commission's input to the I I love your thoughts, everybody. And if you want to come to the charter commission meeting, I'll buy the donuts. I promise.

If I could, I would. But I do want to make sure. Will you write the RTC? Because Leslie's not gonna write my RTC. I don't even know what RTC means. So, Chair, can I just add one thing to what Commissioner Cherrew is saying? Um, a lot of the stuff you're talking about, the vision is in our general plan and that's our guiding policy document. Um, which also needs an update soon. So, you can actually interrelate and say the charter references the general. So, your local structure I'm not trying to the idea that's like that's that that is the tool. Thank you.

Um I I made it more pedestrian with the city council vision, but yeah, the in terms of the transportation and land use and and infrastructure and environmental friendliness and housing and all of that, that's in your general plan. That that I think is the city's that is the city's vision document. Thank you. Not the charter. Makes sense. And I just Leslie can go ahead and make sure that she'll get a general to do all the work because she has such great ideas. Trust me. But now we keep take it on. Can we keep it on to the subject?

For the boards and commissions. I do want to make sure under the charter of the planning commission where we have currently land use and zoning as the the key words to ensure whether it is through your general plan or whether it is through your zoning ordinance that we continue to build upon the role of the planning commission. Is that still in our swim link?

Yes, ma'am. to review environmental because this now the the the state has almost taken away the review of squa the notion of squa was tied to how your city's environment was impacted by a project we still have city resources that are then getting diluted or not even reviewed for water for air quality for so I don't know how to say it with beyond that the planning commission still has its goal role responsibility to review uh projects against environmental standards and I don't know if that environmental standards are in the general plan or in the zoning ordinance not that I've ever seen it but just giving that uh opportunity for us to insert it sustainability is it in our climate action plan great then reference it cross resin the resiliency in a major uh incident or in something that we have a major a power outage you know what is the resiliency plan for city of Santa Clair not that it is something that I want the charter to reference but I just want to know the planning commission's perview on those and uh infrastructure planning when we are talking about future uh uh proofing for a 5G or 10G whatever be the future state we are still a city that has a very I would say uh electrical gridbased um uh system that even our power poles are all overheads.

So I appreciate that without still within what we're talking about with the charter because that's the first.

Yeah. So I um some of the specifics are clearly beyond um but the idea um and I think Xander can help with the language now and evaluating projects. I hear you talking about evaluating uh um you know determining in connection with your your decisions um the um the project needs and impacts right that are that could be across a broad spectrum. And so I think I can see that as being a a general, you know, kind of duty within your your spectrum. Um, again, you'll talk about that more specifically as to whether or not that makes sense and and Xander and or I will, you know, will be here to help to see if that's if there's if there's language for that.

That's it. Thank you, J. You're welcome. All right. Anyone else? So, uh, one item I want to just, uh, in order,

he speaks last speaks best. All right. Um in the followup just more specifically um if we as individual commissioners want to go ahead and put in some idea like we come up tomorrow we have this brilliant idea shall we just send it to staff so that way staff has some obviously not to everybody else we don't want to do a violation of the Brown Act but the individual commissioners if they want additional questions or topics to be addressed at this future agenda item send it to staff ahead of time. That would be great because that gives everybody a heads up and gives them some time to actually consider it.

I'm sure Miss Xavier would love to receive those comments so that she could include them in the RTC that she'll be writing. I absolutely would love to receive those comments. So, please do send them to RTC. He got him to write the RTC. I will send them along. Yes. So I I assume that we have our own deadlines then and getting our draft ideas to Leslie within a fortnight so that she has an additional fortnight to finish it. You can't use this like I know that's why I use a barely need to get your comments to Lesie. Fourth width. Fourth with fourth with Okay. Yeah. Actually, I would say within a week.

Fortnite is actually one that I still like to use because when somebody says bi-weekly, what does that mean? Yeah. So, okay. There's there's there's one I actually vote for. Twice a month. I don't know. Means both. Exactly. So, okay. So, both. So, yeah. So, yeah. Go ahead. So, we'll send it to staff ahead of time, please. That would be very helpful. And then uh finally, Xander um we we I'm assuming we have to open this to public questions. Yes. No, you should ask if there's anyone. So, is there anybody I assume there's nobody here. So, is there anybody online that wants to We do not have any um hands raised online to make comments. All right. Anybody want to make a motion to close public hearing?

It's technically not a public hearing. We don't need to uh close. I like the technicality of this. All right. Uh then that's it for the study session. Thank you very much. Very good study session. Very well prepared. Thank you sir. And I would like to scratch your record. Transcript generated automatically. Compliment. Compliment. All right. Uh what is next on the calendar here?

We have reports of commission, board leaison, and committee announcements and other items. Mr. Chair, if I might, I'm going to take my leave of you and poke my head in to see if the other subcommittee that I was supposed to be staffing simultaneously is still talking. So, yeah. Thanks. Thanks all of you. appreciate thoughtfulness and the input and um uh I will be here at the next meeting or at least someone will be here um in addition to Xander to tag team represent our office. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for charing by the hour.

All right, announcements and other items. Did anyone go to the state of the valley address February 27th? Sorry. I did. You did any report up? Yes. Thank you. Beyond that actually nothing microphone stop micbody.

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't as informative as thought it was the first one that I attended was about three years ago uh just prior to the co deal. But I was really surprised. We had the Silicon Valley Power had two tables and only about four or five people were there and uh you know it was really let me put it to you there's nothing new that they said and I think one of our meetings is more informative than So our birth rates are still declining.

Yeah. I wish I can get my money back you know get our city the money back. Are our birth rates still declining? Are our jobs doing better?

Uh everything is like is all gung-ho. Our jobs are increasing like they say but there's not because in in reality only the healthc care services are increasing. uh 50% of the you know the same thing 50% of the populations are Asian compared to the way it used to be and you know the the minorities and the people at own homes that there are residents are about 50% of the homes single homes are owned you know something that is there if you just pick up the news or just Google stuff that all the facts were there nothing nothing really new solutions to the problems were presented there. So, it's actually more like, you know, like we're we're like a cheerleading type of a thing. It wasn't that much of a just it just I I was really disappointed. I you know, I'm sorry that the city had to pay, but I've even worse that Silicon Valley Power had two tables there. They had to pay for two tables. That's our money, too. Any other announcements, other items?

I just want to make say something else. Uh to tomorrow, I believe if we have a chance, anybody here uh the the uh proposal for the uh Mariani's development, they're going to be uh showing it at the uh at the fire station on Walsh. uh even if we just go there as just observers and just to see what kind of feedback the citizens are giving just as you know quiet like a little fly on the wall just to see what it's going I believe it's between six and seven is that correct

yeah I'm pretty sure it's at six it's on the city event calendar if you'd like I could send you a link to that it's at the um the fire museum at the fire training center but I can send you a link if you'd like but it is on the city event calendar. That's right on Walsh. Yeah, on Walsh. Yeah, it was a good idea just to go there and just to quietly sit there and listen, which be surprised. I did that when we had the one for the uh golf course. I was really surprised what the what the citizens were saying and so on. I didn't say anything. I just sat there and listened. believe it or not,

that that meeting is at 6 PM tomorrow and there is a Zoom option as well. And the video is posted um after the meeting if anyone wants to look at it after the meeting also.

All right. Um there's no more announcements or other items. Uh let's go on to commissioner travel and training reports requests to attend trainings. I sent all of you um a master list of upcoming conferences quite a while ago. We really don't have anything on that list that's coming up until uh next fiscal year, which is the California APA conference. But again, that does not mean you cannot attend trainings or use your budget to have a presentation made at a meeting. Leslie, do you have anything to add about that?

I do not. Okay. Right. Next item then, director of community development with reports. As far as the um planning commission budget, you're basically at approximately 16,000 dollars. And again, fiscal year does end June 30th. Thank you. upcoming agenda items. We'll have this position again. Les on on April Lesley walked away.

On April 8th, we'll have the El Camino Royale specific plan and an ordinance regarding Super Graphics and the building surrounding the stadium area during FIFA events. In addition, there will be a followup to tonight's study session. Thank you, Xander. Anything to add? Nothing to add. That's exactly correct. And sorry, I was trying to share my screen with your budget stuff. That's great. We are still on. Can I just ask uh did the Sutter application come in? It did. Yes. Okay. And is the Nvidia application in which one? Nvidia expansion. Yes, that is also in. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Question on the uh progress for the dinners. Now that the council said do it, are we going to do I've had no update on that.

But I will let you know as soon as I hear something. Um so council actions since your last meeting on February 11th. Um at the city council's meeting on February 24th, they did hear um the objective design standards that were added to the zoning code, which were approved unanimously, as well as the historic resources inventory update approved unanimously. And then finally, they also heard a reconsideration of the denial of the Subaru conditional use permit for the change in the trash enclosure. And um they did unanimously deny that. Again, that's all I have for you this evening.

So, just a reminder, sorry. Sorry. Was did planning commission approve and the city council denied? No, you denied and they appealed your denial. Um the council upheld that appeal and then the applicant asked for reconsideration of the denial and they to to be clear denied it. The first time it went to council they were unable to unable to make a number unable to make a decision which meant the underlying decision stood but then there was a motion to reconsider at the next meeting. The council voted yes we would like to reconsider that. it and held another public hearing at which point they did vote to uphold your decision to deny Subaru's request.

Thank you for the clarification. So nice to know that we're in such think. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Um, okay. So, any other council items? Good. That is it. Thank you. So, a motion to adjourn to April 8th. I move to move to adjourn. Second. Great. Thank you.