City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Let's call to order the special council meeting of February 24th, 2026 at 6:02 p.m. Uh, first, Council Member Cneros, do you have a statement that you'd like to make? My apologies. Let me get it up real quick.

No problem. Okay. Um, I am participating remotely in tonight's council meeting under the just cause provisions of the Ralph M. Brown Act included in California government code section 54953 83C1. There are no individuals 18 years of age or older present in the room at my remote location.

Thank you. Um this this city does not toler tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. This council meeting is considered a limited public forum which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by council. If a speaker comments is if a speaker's comments are not related to an agenda item, the presiding officer will rule that speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of a disagreement with the content of their speech. Location and online meeting details are available on the council agenda. Scan the QR code on the screen or click the language access and translation link on the council agenda to read and listen along in more than 60 different languages. Use the show captions button to view captions on Zoom. First, please join me in a salute to the flag. 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.

Next is roll call. City clerk, may we please have roll call. Mayor Klein, present. Vice Mayor Melinger, present. Council member Cisneros, present. Council member Sernie, present. Council member Cell present. Council member Chang present. Council member Lelay present. Seven present with council member Cneros participating via teleconference.

Thank you. Let's move to our general business. Our one item tonight is item 26-033 0333. Uh continued from February 10th, 2026. authorized the issuance of a service order for the Sunnyale Microransit Service with VIA Transportation doing business as no Nomad Transit LLC for the Sunnyale Microransit Service for $8.3 million. Authorize city manager to execute all agreements related to the operations of the Sunny Bell Microtransit Service and approve a budget modification number 14 in the amount of $5,96,000. Is there a staff report?

Yes, there is. So, I will be getting us started tonight and then handing it over for uh Lillian to give the actual presentation. But I wanted to do a quick intro. Uh my name is Angela Oeso. I'm the transportation and traffic manager here at the city of Sunnyale. And we are here tonight to do to achieve a couple different things. First of all, to provide you and the public with an update on the shuttle service. But uh the actions we need from council tonight to move forward is to accept the tersip grant the the large grant that we were able to successfully uh achieve. Approve the budget mod so that we can move forward and uh finally approve the draft service agreement with VIA uh who is our vendor and would be the service provider for the shuttle service. This will enable us to kick off our efforts to actually get VIA started uh and enable us to meet the September launch date per our work plan. I will also wanted to clarify a few things uh that we've been hearing questions and comments in the past few weeks about. uh for one that we are not at the current time proposing to join SV Hopper but instead to provide a similar service to SV Hopper but to prioritize our Sunnyvil community with the service for now. Uh there's a number we did we did evaluate joining SV Hopper and we're happy to go into more details about that but but roughly we found that it would require a number of various types of agreements with different entities lots of questions that that would need to be answered. It would take a lot more time. And finally we decided to as I mentioned prioritize the Sunnyvil community. We really want to get the data. How does the Sunnyville community want to need to how will they use this service? And this is really just a starting point. This is not this service from day one is what it's going to be the whole 5-year period. This is

just a starting point so that we can start to get data and see how will people actually use it. This is not a model. This is a real life set of data and we'll be able to adjust as we go along. I also wanted to clarify that the service area does under the current draft service agreement include Homestead High School, both Homestead and Free Fremont high schools. They will be able to pick up students at the south side of Homestead, even though technically it's outside of Sunnyville boundaries, but it is considered part of our service area. So, Homestead High School is covered. Uh similar situation with the Kaiser Homestead Lawrence location, the the medical centers there. Uh it's again right on the border so we can we can go a little bit outside to make sure that we can provide the Sunnyale community service to those locations. Uh I also want to mention that it does connect to the various existing transit services that are out there. It connects to VTA's vast countywide transit center uh services including the light rail and the buses that operate here in Sunnyale. It connects directly to SB Hopper at our Cal Train Station. It connects to Prairie Park rides at our Cal Train station and other locations within the city. And of course, it connects to Cal Train and any other existing services that are out there. This is really intended not to replace the services that are already out there, but to supplement to provide a first mile, last mile for those times and days and locations that are difficult for our current customers to to get service to and from. Again, this is just our starting point. I just want to reiterate that again because this is not a this is this is a real life pilot. We're going to kick it off. We're going to c gather data. We'll report back. We'll make adjustments where we see that there's more or less need. Uh and we'll be taking notes and taking comments along the whole process to find out are there places that maybe we want to consider adding that might be

within or without the Sunnyville boundary. Uh a lot of the ideas that we've heard so far are potentially possible. uh but we have to evaluate them and see how we can adjust the service. We need the data and this is like I said this is going to give us real data. This is not a model. This is not our projections. We kick it off and we'll have real data we can adjust to our community. So with that I'll stop talking and I'll introduce the team that we've got here tonight to uh present and to answer questions. First, I want to point out that virtually we have Joe Martin who is the project manager with VIA, the service provider. So, he is here in case you have any questions for VIA or or related to that. Uh, also virtually tonight we have Joshua Yamas who is one of our transportation planners here and he was a key part of obtaining this very significant tip grant. [snorts] Uh, we also have Eric Trujillo who's in Trudy's regular spot down at the end there. [laughter] and uh he recently you might recognize him from other projects uh he recently got promoted to a transportation planner here at the city of Sunnyville so that he could be the project manager for this this service. So he'll be the face and the main contact moving forward. Uh again next to me uh we have Dennis Ing who is our acting director of public works. And last but certainly not least is Lillian Sang our principal transportation planner engineering planner who will be giving the presentation. So, I will hand it over to Lillian.

Um, good evening, council members. Um, so tonight I'm going to present to you the Sunnyville Microransit Service. This is the agenda for tonight. I'm first I'm going to first go over the background of the program or and the grants information and then I'm going to talk about um the Sunnyville Microtransit Service, the next steps and staff recommendation. This is the timeline on things that took place since 2023. Um, in 2023, council sponsored, ranked, and funded study issue DPW23-06 to evaluate options for shuttle service or alternative transportation options serving high school students who live in North Sunnyville. At the January 9th um 2024 council meeting, members of the public requested council to direct staff to apply for grants to launch and implement a shuttle service. Council directed staff to identify potential grant opportunities. Then in March um 2024 um staff came back and provided information to council on potential shuttle options. C city council that night um authorized city manager to apply for microtransit grants with a 50% maximum local match to launch and operate a citywide microtransit service and directed staff to pause work on study issue DPW23-06. In July 2024, staff submitted a grant application to the California State Transportation Agency for the TR Transit Intercity and Rail Capital Program, also known as TUSIP Cycle 7 grant to implement a citywide shuttle service. And in October of 2024, staff was informed that we were successful um in our grant application and we will receive 4.179 million internship grants. Since October 2024 through um 2025 until now, staff has been working closely with

Calrans, the grants administrator on grant allocation and acceptance. At the September 30th, 2025 um council meeting, as part of the TURIP grant requirements, council adopted a resolution to authorize city manager to execute a master agreements and all grant related documents for state funded transportation projects. Um and at at this October 2025 um California Transportation Commission meeting, the CDC approved to allocate 4.17 million to Sunnyville to launch and operate the Sunnyville Transit Service. And tonight, um we're here to ask council to accept the TURP grant to allocate the required matching fund as well as to award the contract to the vendor via Transportation Inc. Next, I want to go over what was included and approved as part of our TURIP cycle 7 grants application. Again, TURIP stands for transit um intercity and rail capital program. And the grant was created to fund capital improvements to the public transit system with the goal of um reducing emission of greenhouse gas, expanding and improving transit service to increase um ridership, um in integrate the state's rail service, and improve transit safety. The funding we received is to launch and operate an ondemand citywide microtransit service for 5 years. The total project cost is 8.358 million um of which we receive 50% internship grant in the amount of 4.179 million and the city is required to provide a 50% matching fund. The grant will allow us to provide um to operate nine zero emission vehicles of which three of them will be wheelchair accessible vehicles and the rest of them will be equipped with bicycle mounting system. The number of vehicles deployed at any given time will be based on anticipated demand and might vary during the day. The project goal is to provide first mile last mile um service to

connect to transit and rail. And as part of the grant requirements, we are required to award the contract um to the operator by April of 26, 2026 with an anticipated service launch date of um September 2026. The figure on the right shows um the the citywide um service area in pink and which encompasses the entire city um limits and the hash area is the pure park rides service area which is a microtransit service that is currently um managed by VTA with the support of Sunnyville city staff and operated by VIA. What would our Sunnyville micro transit service look like? So, the first the service hours we are looking at would be um from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm Monday through Friday s and on Saturdays and Sunday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. The oneway fair will be um 350 per ride um with a discounted fair of $1.75 um for per trip for students, individuals with disabilities, low-income um riders, and seniors. An additional $1 fair applies to each additional um rider. notes that the rider will be reserving a seat in a vehicle instead of reserving a private vehicle and the ride may be shared with other users. Um the city is looking to hire VIA as the vendor and as mentioned earlier they are currently operating the pure park rides service. The citywide service um will also include the pure park rides service area which is in the northwest portion of Sunnyville. A citywide microtransit app will be developed similar to the pure park ride apps. And if a trip originates or ends within the pure park ride service area, user will see both microtransit service option in the app that they're using. Um whether it is the citywide microtransit app or the pure park rides app with the fair and the wait time information for both services so that they can choose which service to take to use.

If council were to accept the grant L allocate matching fund and award the vendor contract tonight, the next steps in in launching the citywide microtransit service would include branding and marketing. Our communications team will work closely with the vendor to develop branding concepts and marketing strategy in launching and implementing the service. The vendor will also um start purchasing vehicles and work closely with staff on service planning and app develop development followed by um testing and on boarding drivers. And lastly in September of this year will be the service launch date. Tonight, staff's recommendation to city council is alternative one. approved budget modification number 14 in the amount of 5 million 96,000 for the Sunnyville Microtransit Service of which 4.19 million comes from the choice of grant funds 917,000 um from the general from the general plan fund as the local match and authorize the issuance of service order for the Sunnyville microransit um with via transportation incuring businesses as Nomad Transit LLC for the Sunnyville mic micro transit service for 8.5 8.358 million or yeah 8.538.358 million [laughter] and authorize the city manager to execute all agreements related to the operation of the Sunnyville microtransit service. One thing to note that this local match amount of $917,000 will cover the first year of operation. Um the remainder of the local match will be appropriated as part of the fiscal year 2627 um budget budget cycle. Um, this concludes my presentation tonight. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Uh, we'll go to council questions. First up is Vice Mayor Millinger. Thank you very much, Miss Sang, and it's lovely to see you again. Um, okay. So, a number of questions that we've received from the public. Um, first, we've received a number of questions about access to Homestead, Kaiser, um, as well as destinations further south. But I would say that of those destinations, the closest ones to Sunnyville are Homestead High School, Kaiser. I believe you mentioned that Homestead would be one of the permissible destinations. Um, what about Kaiser Permanente? Would that be possible to include?

Yeah, as I mentioned at the in my little intro, Kaiser is right on the border as well, and so we would consider it very similar to Homestead High School, and we would be able to provide service to and from that Kaiser campus. Okay. Danza, I'm assuming, would be considered a bit too far a field. Yeah, it it would not be included in our day one service area. It could if we get enough requests and we get the data that shows that that need is there and we can shift the the ridership similar to how SB Hopper operates today where they have stops at Mountain View Cal Train Station and Sunnyale Cal Train Station, but they do not operate in general in those two cities. It it could be something very similar to that, but we want to have the data to see if that's a real demand.

How would we get that data? Through uh requests through uh we're working with VIA on how they can track if there are requests that they cannot fill. Uh if there are comments that re that they receive that we receive. As I mentioned, Eric is our project manager. So, he will be the point person on the city end to collect that data. Okay. Um we received some concerns about payment options. Um, part of the intended audience for this is high school students. High school students typically will not have a credit card. Um, would there be option something along the lines of kind of like a clipper card balance, put in, you know, you can put in 50 bucks and you can have or 20 bucks and you can have a balance that gets drawn down and refilled.

Yeah. So um we actually discussed this with um VIA and they said that in some of their services they do allow for cash payments as well as some other form of payments such as um voucher and they're also looking into um ways to in integrate clipper into their payment format. So we will be working closely with them to see how we can incorporate all the you know the various different type of payments into our platform.

Okay. Yeah. because I think it's going to be really important to make sure that students are actually able to access this. Um, we received some concerns since this is a shared ride program uh about, you know, uh, will minors be paired with adults? Um, is there anything, you know, that can be done to say sort of like, you know, if the a minor requests the ride, they will not be paired with an adult? So there's nothing set in our current service agreement that that states how that would operate. That's something again that we can adjust over time if if but the drivers are fully vetted by by VIA. They're trained by VIA and they are there as as you know

I don't want to say chaperones because that's not quite the right term but but they are there you know it's not a it's not a whimo it's not a driverless vehicle. There is a physical driver in each and every vehicle and they are trained and they are you know if there are any complaints about drivers not uh protecting uh sorry not drivers but uh riders um then they are there uh to be to to be available to deal with it. Yeah, understood.

Um do we have an estimate on the cost per ride? Um, I have heard some fairly substantial numbers in terms of what the cost per ride and city subsidy is in Certino for SV Hopper, but I don't have those numbers in front of me. I I've only heard secondhand. Do we have an estimate on like how much money we're going to be spending per ride on this? We city st we the city budget? Yes.

Um, I'm not sure if we have that number. I think I think that again we have to see how many rides we actually get. We we have the the 917,000 that we are asking uh for tonight as part of the action is to pay for the first year pilot the first year program. So it'll buy all the vehicles and the branding and and the drivers and all of that. Uh I think that once we start to get some writership data uh you know that th those expenses when they hire a driver for example they hire the driver to work a certain number of hours. Now, whether they're actually providing rides, paid rides, or they're sitting waiting to get called for a ride is is going to affect that that differential. So, as of right now, we we don't have any um projections on that. Uh I'm I'm going to I see Lillian looking. I don't know if if VIA has done any modeling of that, but again, I think that's another case where we just want to kick this off and see what what is going to happen. what is the what is the income from the the fairs going to be and how much are we actually spending on that and then ultimately after the five years we do our adjustments we hear from the community is it worthwhile or not and then ultimately we figure out what to do after the 5-year period

okay um I remember then when this was being discussed a major part of the rationale for this is the lack of safe transportation options to high school for students in North Sunnyville Um, and that is a problem created by the Fremont Union High School District and its bad decisions. Uh, considerably older bad decisions dating back about 45 years. But that is a problem they created. Um, at the time when this was being discussed, and yes, I'm editorializing. Um, we were discussing whether we there would be some mechanism by which the Fremont Union High School District might contribute to the operating expenses of this program considering again that it is largely in response to a problem they are responsible for. So, have we had discussions with FUHSD about this? Is there going to be any sort of contribution uh for high school students using this service from the FUHSD?

So, I I know that our city manager has been having conversations with the school district, but I'll I'll get us started to say that yes, we are we are talking to them. Uh we are also planning on having some of the metrics we get from VIA to include specifically how many users are using it to and from the high schools uh so that we can track what the school usage is. That's going to be one of our metrics. So Tim, I don't know if you want to add anything.

What Angela said is correct. And uh they they have been open to discussing that. Where we left it was let's much like the other responses. Let's kick it off. Let's track the data. Let's see how much actual usage to the schools is occurring and we can talk about financial um reimbursement. But they're not opposed to it. We just haven't talked about actual dollars yet.

Wonderful. All right. um if we wanted to adjust service hours. So, one of the things I'm noticing is that, you know, 9:00 p.m. may not be quite late enough for all extracurricular activities at the high school. Um 5:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, I could see a strong case being made for later service on Saturday nights, as you know, people are out on the town drinking and should not be driving home. Um, if we wanted to adjust service hours, would there be a mechanism for us to look at that?

Yes, we we anticipate that we'll be needing to adjust hours as we see the patterns start to evolve. Um, and so I think the mechanism is simply we staff talk to VIA, we work it out. We we have a a contract, well, we will have a contract with them. assuming that council approves it tonight, uh that that it's a set number of hours, a set number of dollars to provide the service. Now, how we adjust that as we see as we see fit, um that that will be changing. So, I think it's just if you hear that, if we get that from the community, if if people want us to provide later service, we would like to know specifically what times would be beneficial and we'll track that.

Understood. So members of the public who are watching this meeting, you know, please pay attention and chime in if you feel the service hours are not working for the use cases that we need to support. Um, I only have a couple more items. Um, one, we just had a discussion about the branding of the new CRM. Would it be possible as we discuss branding of the shuttle to consider whether there could be some alignment or common branding between those two? I'm going to have to lean on uh [laughter] folks from our city manager's office to answer that common branding in terms of the name

in ter or possibly we have a little cartoon character that is going to be presumably part of the CRM maybe that features I'm just I'm planting this as a bug as you know a suggestion to maybe you know branding works best when it's mutually reinforcing. Sure. point point taken and we'll we'll definitely build the branding in with our general city brand also. Okay.

Um we have received um a number of emails from members of the public that um feel like this program isn't exactly what they were expecting to see. Can I ask a little bit about the public outreach component that we did as part of this uh uh project development?

So, as Lillian walked through the timeline, you know, that explains kind of all of our touch points with the public predominantly through city council meetings like this. Uh, you know, we originally had that study issue to look at providing some sort of service, supplementary service for the two high schools. And when the idea of coming going after money for either tersip or through the EPA grant and the EPA grant we were unsuccessful with um when that came up the direction that we received from council was put the study issue on pause. Now the study issue would have included a study that did outreach included some of that that modeling and outreach and communication and needs assessment uh because the direction changed. We were instructed go get money let's make this happen. And so we got money, we got a lot of money [laughter] and we're making it happen. So that's a long way to say that there was no uh formal outreach process that we would have done say in the study issue and that we've done with other similar um uh larger transportation projects just due to the fact that we were trying to get this large amount of money and and get something working as soon as possible.

Yes. And I think that that's really worth emphasizing that the goal here and I remember hearing this very loudly and clearly from the public at the time was as soon as possible. Um which does there is a trade-off when doing that with public comment and public input. Um, last question. Um, if the city were of a mind to look at future collaboration with SV Hopper and other VIA cities, because my understanding is Militus and Palo Alto are both using VIA as a vendor for similar programs. Uh, don't quote me on that, but that is my understanding. Um, would there be, you know, what might be a good vehicle for that? Might that be a council priority project for a future year? I don't think we would need to formalize it to that extent. I think that that's something that um you know we'll we'll come back and we'll be providing you updates as we get metrics as as we see the wrership and if we have a lot of that comment coming to us that we want to be part of the greater Sunnyville uh I'm sorry SV Hopper system um then then that is certainly something that we could we could get direction from council. We've already been talking to Certino and Santa Clara. What would it take if uh and at this point in time again going back to your point that we were instructed and the community wanted us to do this as soon as possible? The amount of agreement and and coordination that it would take with the other cities who owns the brand, how do we prioritize Sunnyvale community? uh you know and then and then on top of that coordinating with the funding the grant funding agency before we even had the money uh awarded or obligated to us it just would have it would have pushed us out probably years and so we wanted to hold on that we we feel like you know we really want to see how is the Sunnyville

community going to use this service how do they want to use this service and how do we ensure that these nine vehicles are dedicated to the Sunnyvil community because if we were to join SV Hopper from day one, there's no guarantee that when our peak times happen, you know, likely their peak times are happening too. And there's no guarantee that our, for example, our high school students would get a vehicle in a reasonable in what they consider a reasonable amount of time, right? And so we wanted to see first off how do we need this service and then we can discuss if it makes sense to expand it beyond there.

Excellent. I think that makes a ton of sense and uh very interested to hear more questions from my colleagues. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next up is Council Member Cell.

Hi. Um I think this should be a happy occasion. How often do we get like a over $4 million grant and get service out? I mean, uh, so quickly. Um, so thank you for doing that. Thank you for all the work that put into getting this grant. Um, anyway, so I'll get on to my question. So, um it was mentioned that the Perry Park rides uh they did their first year and then they have one more year to go and then after that um then there's um Perry Park Rides needs to decide will they um will their um businesses fund Perry Park rides to continue or will they contribute to um uh this citywide shuttle? So, um, that has not been determined, but I was just wondering in this five-year that we're doing this pilot, you're going to look at, um, criteria to make it more successful, higher ridership. I was also wondering if you'll be looking at criteria and opportunities um for funding such as if Perry Park Rides wasn't um if Perry Park rides when it ends contributed to this then that would be the businesses contributing would be another funding source and then so along the way these five years there might be other opportunities like um Mafa Park they want to have their own um uh TMA A and so is there like synergy where they could contribute to this and then they could add to the writership and then they could also add to the financial sustainability. So um would that be possible in terms of your um in terms of this pilot to be looking at opportunities um for funding it long term that are what do you think?

Yeah, I I think those are some great ideas. That's not something that we've we've looked into that deeply quite yet because we're just we've been so focused on on getting this launched. Uh but the the Perry Park rides to kind of go back to your first question or your first part of the question. Um the the Perry Park specific plan business community is currently looking at developing a TMA, a transportation management association. I'm looking at Lillian to tell me if I'm in there. Thank you, Dennis. Um they're looking at developing that right now. And so at the end of the two-year pilot program, the the the shuttle service would move to the TMA to decide how to fund it. And and that is a good possibility that we haven't discussed with them yet to if they decide they they don't want to continue their their shuttle and they want to fund help fund our citywide shuttle. That's that's a great potential funding source. Um same thing with Moffett Park. I think those are some great ideas that we haven't we haven't gotten there yet, but I've noted them down. So we will we will continue to have those conversations.

Yeah. And then the many new businesses that are opening up like um like you know uh the um the um $4 billion that going into applied materials their complex and thousands of people will be coming in. Um you know if we had something that helped get their people to their sites would they contribute to this? So along those five years, that would be great if you kept open your ears open for opportunities. Um I see. And then um yeah, I do have concerns with uh adults riding with students because even though in the car there will be the driver, but then if adult gets out at the same time the student gets out and the driver drives away, then that um you know just like the student is there with this adult stranger. So I just um think that some thought should be put into that um for the safety of the children. Um okay the last thing I have is that um I was reading that um via um is able to share their data like some uh car services they don't share the data with the um they don't share the data with their customers in terms of like here we picked up these people and this geographical air area is where we picked up a lot of people over the years. So Sunnyvale, the data is available to Sunnyvale and then Sunnyvale in the future could give that data to VTA and say, "Hey, look here. This is a viable location for a fixed route." So, you know, Sunnyale, you know, there's hundreds and thousands of people, who knows, going to that area. And that would make a great place for a new

route. And so, um, is that have to be in an agreement that we get the data or is that already some understanding?

It's actually already included in the in the draft agreement. There's an there's a table that shows a bunch of the the metrics that we're planning on obtaining at the beginning. That's not to say that's the only metrics that we will get if we want to add and they have it. I think the important thing to note is that we will be able to have the data. we will have access to their database that we can we can query it ourselves. Uh but the important thing to note for the public is that that will be anonymized. We won't know that you know uh John Doe took a ride from here to here on this day and he does it every day at this time. You know we we won't know the individual people but we will know the destinations the the uh wait times all of that kind of stuff so that we can do exactly like you're saying. we can either improve our shuttle service or we can communicate to VTA, look, there's a huge need here. I think that's a really great point.

Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, as the VTA representative, I always ask them, um, how do you, you know, when people ask for more lines and they go, "Oh, it's a big long process to change our lines and we need to have like data." And so it'd be great if that data was available for that. Okay, that's all my questions. Thank you very much. I thought you did a really great introduction answering a lot of questions. So, thank you. Thank you, council member. Next up is council member Chang. Thank you for the presentation. I know I'm on the side. Um, I know we mentioned Homestead and Fremont, but is there any consideration given to Willox High School?

Um, no. We could though. Uh, I think that that's something that that I think Fremont and Homestead are the two main high schools that that we heard from the community before. Uh, I think it's probably just because it's in a different Willox is in a different school district, but we can certainly track that data and and look at where the boundary is there. Uh, I I think that's something that when we kick off with VIA and we can have some conversations about, hey, is that something we can look at getting closer or getting to Willox. So, I like that suggestion.

Yeah, thank you. It is in a different school district, but it's kind of the the east side of the city is a lot in Santa Clara Unified. Um, my follow-up question is it I mean the purpose of the TURIP grant is for first and last mile connection. So, is there any consideration for discounted fairs going specifically to train stations or transit locations?

I don't think we looked at that specifically. I think we we modeled the fair structure after SV Hopper's fair structure to be consistent in that way. Um that that is something that we could certainly talk to VIA about and see if this that's something they've done in other places and what that looks like, but it's it's not something that we have in our our day one service agreement as at this time. Okay. Thank you. And I think I have a couple questions for VIA. um for the app and the booking, what languages will it be available in?

Yeah, we um have the ability to translate the app into, you know, the the most commonly spoken languages in a in a given city and it is set by the um the native language on a writer's phone. So, if my phone were set to Spanish, the app would automatically translate to Spanish so that I don't have to go in and find the setting to to do that. I think what we'll do during as we kick off our launch process is make sure we hear from the city what the languages we need to support are um to make sure that we have have the app in in all of those languages.

Thank you. And my final question is if as we're looking into this if we could look into handheld clipper readers um they're relatively affordable but I think it would be good to be able to integrate with other fair structures. Thank you. Noted. Thank you. [laughter] Thank you, council member. Next up is council member Cisneros.

Hello everyone. Thank and thank you so much um Angela and the whole team. Um because I remember in 2023 this went from you know below the line to the number one priority. And I just want to take a moment upfront to congratulate um and share my appreciation for the members of the public who really challenged us to match our priorities along with this really important community need. And um I also appreciate the city for taking that feedback and running with it and coming back with something so concrete so soon as we know things happen so slowly in government. This is one of the times where it's like well relatively this is pretty pretty quick. So I'm I do think it is a a very this is a very um you know it's a special occasion and and a good thing. I do have a number of questions. Do we have a like you mentioned how long it takes uh to Colorado? So like a response time for lack of a better word. I'm sure there is a word. Do we have a metric or a goal for how long it takes from going to requesting a ride to getting into a shuttle? What expectation should the community have um for that time frame?

Um so the service planning um is expecting to have like an average of 15 minutes wait time um which is pretty similar to other services um in the in the area

and Okay. Yeah. Um definitely. Um my daughter actually takes the SV hopper all the time from the Sunny Cal Train station to Deansza. So I'm kind of familiar with what um somebody who uses that regularly can be up and as you mentioned it could actually be be longer because they're coming outside of their service area. So that and that's about on average like 20 25 minutes. So that's 15 sounds right. Um is there in so access plus time timeliness equals convenience which then equals wrership like h that relationship between how long it takes to use as we know with data about public transportation that has a huge effect on writership. Have we considered if it takes over a certain period of time, having that ride be free to that user to kind of offset that frustration piece? Even if it's a couple dollars, that just kind of feels better. Do you know?

Yeah, that that's not something we've specifically discussed, but we we certainly can consider it. Um that that again, we'll we'll look to VIA for their expertise on it as as provider in multiple places. Um so yeah, thank you. Great. Yeah. And like you mentioned, I really love that there are opportunities to reconvene, to adjust things, to hear feedback, and make this a program that really works for the residents of Sunnyville. How often are we going to do that in a public-f facing way?

Um so, um, VIA typically would push, um, survey through the app, um, about twice a year. Um and then at the same time um we will be working on a marketing campaign and at that point we can also um include some form of like public outreach and so forth and and implement outreach um to the public to obtain additional input. So that will be part of the um outreach planning. That's that makes a lot of sense to the twice a year. And would that also be twice a year coming back to council to talk to us about what was learned and um give us an opportunity to think about what we may want to uh adjust.

I don't think that we have a set schedule yet for how often we would come to council. I think I think we we on staff side and with the city manager and his office would need to discuss how it fits in with everything else. I know you guys have a busy calendar coming up and so um you know maybe at the first year or so we come in twice a year and then after that every year with with Perry Park rides I think uh what VTA is doing is reporting out once a year. Um so at least once a year we could provide something but I I think it's to be determined.

Okay. I think that makes a lot of sense doing a little more often within the first couple years because that's when we're going to be learning the most. um and and it probably adjusting the most and then after that, you know, coming back once a year because then the grant cycle ends and we're going to have to think about um what happens then, but we don't have to think about that today. So, we have would this be only via phone app or would there also be browser access? I'm I'm going to ask uh Joe Vet. Oh, yes.

The browser question, but I do want to mention that there will also be a phone number that people can call. So, if they don't have a cell phone or a computer or they're just more comfortable with the telephone, they can certainly call a ride that way. Um, I see Joe, uh, maybe you can answer about the browser question.

Yes, that's an excellent question. Um, yeah, I was going to jump in to also emphasize the phone part is definitely important. We think that's very the app is help is easy to use and and helpful uh for for all folks to use it. Um but but sometimes you know people might not have smartphone or be comfortable doing so. So we see a lot of bookings coming through the phone. We do have the ability to to deploy a web browser version of of a booking portal. That is not as often used I'd say when we do deploy it as a phone uh phone number or the app. So it's up to the city on on on whether you would like to make that available.

The phone sounds great and if you don't have a lot of exper you know there's not a lot of demand for the browser I hearing that there's that phone option totally resolves that um kind of concern because while you know I use apps I try to remember not everyone does for a variety of reasons. So that's great. Are people able to schedule rides ahead of time? And I think this would be for Joe. Yes. Um, okay. I was not sure if Angela wanted to answer that one first. No, no, please go ahead, Joe. Thanks. [laughter]

That's a great question. Um, technically it is possible. We can have writer pre-book rides. I would say typically we we recommend services like this are um on demand only. SV Hopper is on demand only. The reason we recommend that is that when people pre-book rides, there's a higher cancellation rate or no show rate. Um, which means we spend time having the driver to that location and then um uh people are less likely to be there. So, we can ultimately bring down the cost per ride and and increase efficiency if we have a truly on demand service. Um, but ultimately it is the city service so we can um we can make our recommendation and then implement what you all would like.

Really good points. And so I'll put that in the pile of things that we'll think about as we understand more about our writership and usage because that that kind of um that would need to be offset somehow. Um and and especially with um having only nine vehicles available in the city, I wouldn't want that to affect the um availability for other folks knowing that that's a fairly common occurrence. Um so who would be liable for any injuries in case of accidents behavior or anything from the driver or other passengers the city and via and that can kind of be a question for Joe and and uh city staff there to understand at at what point does li does legal liability start and and for um VIA and the city.

So, I'll I'll chime in and I'll ask our uh city attorney to chime in if she's got anything to add. But u we do as part of our contract with VIA, we they do have insurance requirements as part of that. So, some of that would be covered uh by them and their insurance, for example, just like you know, your personal car insurance if you get an offender bender, you know, that kind of coverage, I assume. Um uh I don't know Rebecca if you have anything to add about the city's liability on something like this. Um there are contractual provisions that protect the city. So um we would be covered um as um as Angela noted by insurance um if there was an accident.

Okay. Okay. And so just gen and I assume that that would be insurance for things like you know say there's misconduct from you know there's been expressed concern safety for minors. So let's say something happens in the family that minor decides actually um there's a pretty significant harassment incident. we would like to hold someone accountable for that. Um, you know, because they were using a city service or a publicly available service. That's just an example, but for I'm not there's accidents and there are things like that. Um, so there in indemnification provision in the contract. So they would, you know, if a driver committed some kind of um wrongful act that the city was sued for, we would look to um their employer to uh defend and indemnify the city for that.

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Um like to know those things before they become an issue and hopefully jinx it out of ever happening. Um, we we've mentioned Homestead and Kaiser as being de destinations that are technically outside of the city, but they're so close that it really doesn't account for that for much else. Um, is there a cost associated with an additional cost associated with going further a field? say, you know, Danza, I hear a lot of feedback about or El Camino Hospital. Um,

yes, there there would be an additional cost as as the the the original model that we we worked to get the TURIP grant was based on the Sunnyale City boundary. Um, but it's not to say that it's not achievable within the existing budget. We would have to look at are there times of day where maybe there's there's less service needed than we're providing less drivers needed, less vehicles. You know, we would look to shift service around to make those things happen. Uh but the caveat is that the farther outside of our boundaries we go, the potential for longer wait times increases. And so, you know, I'm assuming that there would be peak times that overlap. And so that may mean that that say if someone wants to get from downtown Sunnyville to um Fremont High School, that weight could be extended because all the vehicles are farther away. So that's that's a trade-off that we would discuss if if that need comes up.

I think that and thank you. I think that's a really important piece to remember as we start to think about these alter these um additional stops that when we're proposing you know having them de you know Danza it feels very natural that it there does there is a trade-off as well. So knowing that kind of really speaks to this factf finding let's collect the data and do this in a really um intentional way so that we know that we are not um placing resources you know allocating what we have um before we know how much um need there is um and that it will mean things it will mean things are less good for others. So, I think that we can all feel empathetic to that and have a little more I know I feel a little bit more patient knowing that. Um, and then one question. So, we have some of these vehicles are equipped to have um wheelchairs, but then there are also those who are traveling with small children. Now, I don't expect everyone to have a a car seat installed. That that's a whole operation that um you know, it feels like it takes a degree sometimes depending on the car seat. But um would it be possible to have booster seats available in the trunk as something that's easy to put down to make this more available to those traveling with small children more safely? That can kind of be a question for Joe.

Yeah, I I'd say um we have different policies in different services. In some cases we the policy is for um uh parents traveling with children to bring their car seat. In other cases the policy is you know to have a a a you know as you said a booster seat in the trunk. So that is not something we have currently planned for with the service. But I think as we kick off the launch processes we can discuss that with the Sunny Bell team. I'm going to explore that if that's a priority.

Great. I I think it would be a really nice thing to to have in the marketing like booster seats available, you know, two booster seats available in the car, you know, so you're you're go to the park and you can you can go have a day with your younger kids. Um I think that would be um something nice potentially, but I'll let you talk. Anyway, those are all my questions. Thank you very much all of you. This is exciting.

Thank you, council member. Uh next up is council member Shiny Boston. Thank you mayor. Thanks staff for excellent presentation and then uh bringing this to the almost uh close. Uh so [clears throat] I wanted to preface the uh my statements by saying that I did mentor a group of high school students to study the WTA options for Northern Sunnyale students to come to Fremont High and Homestead High which we presented to WDA chief and then Fremont High School uh district also. In fact, uh Fremont Union High School District as of yesterday, I was talking to the superintendent and they are working with VTA to give free passes. Right now, the passes are available for certain zip codes in northern Sunnyale area. And then so VTA is free for uh uh northern Sunnyale students. Having said that, this is my data. uh about 600 students are eligible for bus passes of which about 120 to 150 ride the bus. So there is a huge need for this. My guess is this may not fit that group coming to the school. But having said that uh this shuttle service might be useful going from school to home after school hours. So the I had mo some of my questions have been answered. I was interested in Kaiser and Homestead I I was also I I like what you said Angela about uh this being a starting point uh and then we can adjust the services. That was one of my Monday morning questions. I didn't

see any performance indicators or anything uh over the course of this contract. uh I looked at the service agreement. I'm not an attorney. But having said that, I didn't see any of those things. For example, uh we talk about average weight time. But having said that, maximum weight time is also very very important metric. For example, if it takes uh 1 hour or 2 hours for a 15 minutes ride, nobody will take that ride. So how are we even measuring the performance and then how are we evolding we are to uh that those standards. So there there are metrics they they may not necessarily be called performance indicators or have any kind of you know monetary uh attachment to to meeting them or not meeting them. But we do have uh reporting requirements to tip to CALR in order to to keep and continue to use the turip grant the $4 million. So there are metrics that we will be tracking and reporting to CALR. uh specifically they're interested in first mile last mile commuter connections to transit services. They're they're interested in that because that is that is really the goals of the tursip program. Uh so we do have that and then we also have a number of other metrics that we will be tracking. Eric will be meeting with the with Joe and and Joe's team regularly weekly bi-weekly looking at those metrics. we will have access to the database to do our own queries to look at the data ourselves and we will have things that we we want to make sure they're meeting the average weight times that they're meeting that and so when we have these ongoing coordinations with VIA and the VIA team if they're starting to to increase or slip on some of the metrics that we as a city have

determined are important then we will work with them to figure out how do we adjust that right maybe maybe during this peak time there's only five vehicles that they have drivers available for. Maybe we need to up that to six or seven. You know, there's there's different variables that we can play with. Um so we will be in constant communication with VIA about that and watching those performance metrics. So if there's anything specific that you feel is interested is of utmost importance that we make sure to track. Um you know, as I mentioned, there's a list in the the draft agreement that's attached to the RTC. We're definitely getting those. If there's anything in addition to that you would like us to also track regularly, we're we're happy to hear that and take note of that tonight.

Absolutely. Mine is uh related [clears throat] to uh commuters, the weight time and then average uh uh uh distance traveled and all those kind that's the metric anybody would be interested. I saw the metric uh the grant uh looks at which is the greenhouse gas uh uh reduction which is obvious we are using EV so hopefully it should be uh reportable uh but having said that you made an interesting point last mile first mile what happens in all our services very very few let's say 10% of the people go to transit whereas others 90% % use elsewhere. What happens to the grant then?

I'm sorry. Can you can you repeat the question? This grant is for first mile last right when we uh look at the data if we see that only 10% of the people are using for transit centers or back and forth. What happens to the grant then?

Understand? Okay. Uh so so we will be reporting that information to them and if you know I'm sure that once they get our progress reports and our reimbursement requests that they will have questions from time to time especially if they see numbers going down not up. Uh and so then at that time we will we will work with them and say okay you know here's what we're doing and then we the city we will probably look at our outreach focus you know look at how can we reach out to the commuters can we work with Calr and BTA to get flyers or ads inside their vehicles so that the CAL train riders and BTA riders are seeing hey there's this service so you know we'll we'll focus our outreach and our communications team is is very good at knowing how to get to the different parts of our community. So, we're we'll really work closely with them to change our our our outreach and our marketing to try to achieve that. Uh but to answer your question, I think as long as we show uh you know, dedicated efforts to increase those numbers, I do not think that the grant money would get taken away from us. I think that we just have to show our best faith efforts and do what we can to to maintain some sort of commuter service and commuter service level. Uh and if we do that then I think that you know that's our that's our good faith effort and they'll they'll we'll communicate that with CALR.

Thank you. And then uh by the way I also calculated the cost of rider ride. it comes to $24 per ride if it is 100,000 per ride per year. So that's a simple math but anyway and then average uh so this is and then I also looked at not only uh certino data palo alto data and then u uh uh milpitas milpitas is by another company not via paloto is via act uh doing business as nomad which is what our services will be and then uh Paulo Alto they also got uh they do two things which are very interesting. They do multi- monthly pass kind of a thing that is you can prepay monthly pass and then uh uh which is obviously discounted than $35 or 1.75 for students. uh that's one option and then also they get grant from Stanford and other places so that's another thing we may have to look at and then uh Milpetas gets grant from VTA so for their that's a uh that is to their uh sh uh commuter center so the question I have is to increase the to decrease the cost of rider cost per ride. Why can we market it? You mentioned some of the marketing ideas which I really like that is advertising on uh VTA or uh Cal Train saying this service is available can we what point

of time why are we waiting for to see the data why can't we just market it from day one so we will [laughter] short answer is we will so we've already got some meetings scheduled between our communications team and the VIA communications marketing branding team to kick those things off. We just need to have an executed contract before that work can actually begin. Okay. Yeah. Because more than thousand 100,000 rides bring will bring down the cost of rider uh ride per ride.

Council member, if I could also add, we're also uh we're not waiting until we uh launch the pro the program. Actually, we're we're looking at a at a draft uh horizon that's going to be hitting the um all of the households in the city. and we are putting a plug in for um the citywide shuttle. So, we uh just to reiterate that we are not waiting to launch it. We're trying to do as much as we can without having that that contract signed in the full detail programs, but we are working to build excitement about the um you know the shuttle opportunity and what's to come.

Okay. Thank you. And then just another uh the the question is since the grant is $4.179 million that is matched by the city that's what that's the number that's how we arrived at this number right yes and then you also mentioned about nine vehicles But nine vehicles may or may not be at any point of time. Is that correct? Or did I overread what you said or

that? No, that is correct because there'll be certain times of the day during the service hours where the demand is not equivalent to nine vehicles. And so we don't want to be paying nine drivers to just sit and wait. And so we will we will have the drivers and the vehicles available on a ratio that we expect. And again that's something that we'll we'll adjust as we see the peaks and valleys of the requests come in. Okay, that answers my next questions. Uh question in the draft service agreement you have some carryover for the next year, next month. That's that uh okay I was exactly [laughter] for under or overutilizing we can carry over. Yeah. Then the other question is there are some seven or eight holidays which might be the peak demand days for example independence day, Thanksgiving and all those things. How are we accommodating for increased demand especially people would like to go outside right?

Um so we are planning on having services on those days. Um um but then at the same time um Is it reduced? Yeah, it will be reduced hours but um the demand you know number of vehicles that will be deployed at that time again will be based on demand. So if we see there's like additional demand that is there then we could adjust our service. Okay. Okay. [clears throat] So basically uh the granular is ours right? You can't say half an hour I don't want or something.

Yeah. Yeah, the the granularity of of the day-to-day operations will be all will be changing as we go along. I think from for for our starting point. We're we're modeling our hours, our fairs, all of that after both SB Hopper, but also what the other transit agencies do. Using holidays as an example, you know, Cal Train and BTA typically have reduced service or reduced um trains or or buses out there or or or headways in between on holidays. And that's based on their actual data. So, we're starting kind of there using existing information. But if we see that, say, you know, the the day after Thanksgiving, you know, everybody wants to go shopping and there's a huge influx of people that want to come downtown Sunnyvale to to shop at our local businesses that we will alter that. We will we will adjust and make sure that that service is available for the times that are that are requested.

Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] And then uh regarding data uh I have seen certino's data uh I have seen I I I know it's all normal that is redacted in terms of we don't know who the rider is but it gives us a heat map of the destination not as a source destination may not be useful for bus services because yeah they if thousand people go to uh uh uh some place. It doesn't mean where they are coming from. It could be all over the city. In your data collection, are you thinking of getting the source data also where they are coming from?

When you say source data, do you mean like the origin and destination of the trips? Yes, exactly. Yes, definitely. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. And then regarding the service uh uh uh outcome or whatever metric or whatever we call that, I would like to see average weight time, maximum weight time, cancellation because of waiting too long and driver not showing up. How many cars on an average are uh we were servicing? Those are my questions for now. Thank you very much. Thanks for your work. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Uh, next up is Council Member Lei.

Um, thank you so much, Angela, and I want to thank you especially for front-loading us with all the information about the grant at the beginning of your presentation. It really helped me um reconceptualize how I was thinking about this program. Um because um to hear from you that this grant is really for that last mile um I think that goes a lot into explaining why we are not at this time hooking up with the SV hopper which I think is not exactly what the members of the public expected because I think there's various forms of microtransit and different programs have different goals. So in this goal, we were looking specifically at this grant as a first mile last mile solution, not as a bus replacement, not as a school bus replacement, though it's cover some of those gaps. If we were to express interest in the future um about this program changing it to something that is intended to reduce vehicle miles traveled, I think would that be something that we could talk about during the duration of this grant or is that a separate conversation? something that does l link up to SV Hopper to make that network.

I I think the short answer is it would have to be a a separate discussion. Um the the tersip grant requirements are such that you know that is their focus and to be quite frank to get a a grant this large for a service like this is quite unique and and you know Lillian and Joshua put a lot of effort into to achieving that. So it was a big it was a big lift and it was a big win. Um, I think that if we that's not to say that we couldn't do that and change the priorities, you know, as we go along, again, I'm I'm an engineer. I like my data like a lot of our community does. And so once we have the data and we really see the trends and and how people use it and get the comments, how do people want to use it that they can't uh under our current model, um, then we can look at other ways to fund it. I think that's that's probably the trickiest part is how do we fund a program like this? Yeah, I would be interested and maybe this isn't a conversation necessarily for our staff, but in general seeing how other like as as someone on the VTA PSAC or something that we can be talking about um how VTA manages this and other um cities and jurisdictions do because right now it seems like as a county we have a lot of patchwork solutions and a lot of them have different goals and just seeing how we can um how we can align and maybe that's not necessarily our job. Um, I do want and and I do want to thank you. This is this is a great grab. It's it's a it's a fantastic um it's a fantastic um grant and thank you for the hard work that you did there. Um let's see. Um yeah, so it it's intended to be something that covers first mile last mile services, but incidentally it covers some of the holes in the existing services. for example, the the high schools and um for getting to uh the Sunnyville Senior Center. A lot of people have um expressed concerns about that. Um I'm curious about several

things. First, um transportation to Katherine McDonald High School. That's a high school that parts the city um in the north side are zoned for, but that high school is significantly farther away. Is that something we can look at or talk about? We can look at it. I I'm not familiar with where that high school is. I apologize, but it's off anchor in San.

It's off sinker. Okay. Okay. Okay. But um but yes, I I think just like just like any other location outside of the city boundaries, it's something we can we can certainly look at and if that community reaches out to us and lets us know this is this is our need, we can we can bring that into our data. And when we when we decide if there's any adjustments, um, again, it it's going to come down to how to best allocate the resources that we have with our existing budget, existing number of vehicles, and all of that. If there's enough if there's enough demand for the Sunnyville community for the council to direct us to add that, then then we can certainly look into it. Um I think that um similarly to Will Cox, there is a um there is an existing school bus um for that for um these uh students. So it's probably not as high a priority to me personally as the one um to Fremont and Homestead. But again, there there's a bus there too. But um I will say um I do want to say that a bus a microtransit service is not a replacement for a school for a school bus. Um, and that's a little bit editorial, but true. Um, I also want to ask about how old you need to be to be on this shuttle unaccompanied. We'd had, um, advocacy from the south part of town, in particular, the folks who live around the Cumberland attendance area who want to go to Certino Middle. There used to be a VTA line, the 51H, that ran along there. Um, so these kids are middle schoolers, probably 12, 13. Would they be able to ride unaccompanied? Um so currently the program is set up such that um like similar to other program other services that VIA provide um um minors under 13 years old would need to be ride with would be would need to be accomp accompanied by an adult.

Okay. Um good to know. Um and then I was going to ask about George Maine but that's an elementary school. So you'd be even younger. Um and again that's a area of the city that um folks are zoned for but that has a school bus. Okay, that is the extent of my questions. My colleagues covered the rest. Thank you so much for your presentation and thank you for your hard work on this.

Thank you council member. Uh I have a few questions before council members get a second round. Uh first most of my questions have been have been asked but I and I appreciate you know this coming in front of us tonight and and the discussion that we've already had. Um, I'll have lots of comments later, but I did have some questions about the metrics. Um, so I was actually surprised and I can't remember when I signed up for Puri Park rides whether or not age of the writer was part of that data. And to me, that's a critical portion of the data. It's not listed here in the metrics table. um you know whether or not it's 13 to 18 18 you know I think that because when we when we talked about this initially you know we it was kind of fixing the high school issue fixing the some of the conceivable senior issues that that there you know they can't get to the senior center anymore now that VTA is has canceled that route and you know it's it was trying to fill those gaps from a microtransit standpoint but age to me is a critical component of that. Is that fine to get that or or you know is that for you for VIA to I

I think it's something that we probably could could definitely add in there somehow. I think that that we'll need to work with the city man city attorney's office to to determine the legality of how we ask that question and via probably has some experience with that as well. But I like your idea of maybe having ranges of ages and then you can opt out if you really want to. But but it but to me

that is an important part of the service because understanding whether or not we're serving let's say a high school population which in looking at at you know Certino's numbers that is a large portion of their writership but but we you know we we have a large business community and you know exactly the or you know origination and destination data will be very unique and and I think that will lead to a lot of further discussions when this comes. back to us but but the age group I think is is a critical portion of that. Um, other questions? So, we came up with, you know, to a certain degree we're not we're not attached to the SBH hopper service, but we've duplicated their cost structure. And I know that when we first discussed this um ultimately those fairs were let's say flexible meaning meaning it's normally 350 and $1.75. Um but conceivably it's like at high peak times the price would conceivably go up if you if all nine vans are being utilized. you know, your wait time goes up or or conceivably your cost goes up because, you know, one of those one of those two things or or to get, you know, there's there's things that we can do that if we have a lot more writership than than expected, conceivably we raise the cost, conceivably lower the cost. I saw that it was fixed in the contract. if we decide at a later date that it's really should be $4 and I know that you know Certino and Santa Clara I think have fixed what they've done but but it really should be a higher number or a lower number.

Just trying to get a better idea of what would be that process and is it going back and redoing the contract or do we have that flexibility? I think we have that flexibility and it would we would and I see Joe shaking his head. Yes. So that's a good sign. Um, I think that what it would require is not an entire contract redo, but we would just amend the contract. And so we would just amend. If we just wanted to change the pricing structure, we would just write an amendment. We, you know, if you authorize the city manager to sign agreements, he could, we could do it at staff level per your direction, what the pricing should be. Uh, and then it would just be an amendment. We would sign, they would sign, and it so it shall be.

Okay. And and I appreciate that. You know, to me that it's and it's really when we start getting this data and then figuring out how to best run this service, it becomes part of that program. You know, it's like we talked about uh the usage. It's like the the seven to seven is great and duplicating what other cities are doing. That being said, you know, during the fall for high school, you know, high, you know, high school football games is Friday night. It's like, okay, one night a week we will go till 9:00 p.m. or 10 p.m. And realizing that this is the need of of the community. Having that flexibility and figuring that out, you know, as we start getting that data becomes an important important portion important part of this this definition of what the service is and what we're trying to solve within a city. Uh we talked about hours of operations and we've covered all those questions. Thank you to my council members for

for covering a lot of this. Um that's all my questions for now. Uh let's go to council member cell.

Okay. And I'll be sort of quick. Um so um for the high school students, they will mostly be minors and so you know parents feel conscientious about their students and this service. So it might be nice to have like an orientation for parents and students so that they can ask their questions and then you'd get a sense of well they really this is really something that's really important to them. We'll look into it. So that would be good in terms of like who can be picked up when a minor is picked up. Um in that scenario where I said the stranger adult and the minor are dropped off at the same location. And then you um uh what is the background check for the drivers at VF?

I will have to excuse me. I'll have to ask Joe to to speak to that as they they would manage that process.

So we will go through we typically follow like the processes required by the FTA. So all of the processes we'll implement for but for background checking are aligned with what the FTA will require for for drivers. Um that includes checking safe driving history. So ensuring that um the driver, you know, has a a safe driving record and then also checking for any criminal um uh history and ensuring that there are no like felonies or misdemeanors on that driver's record. Um council member cell, I also wanted to comment earlier on your question about um safety and having like a a a minor riding with another um you know adult in the service. We have um security cameras in all of the services as well which both promote safe behavior because riders know they are being recorded um and also just provide an incident log in the event that there is any incident in a vehicle.

Yeah, I guess my concern comes if a minor is dropped off and then the adult is dropped off at the same location and then the car goes away and the minor is left with this stranger adult and they're like walking home. That's a concern I have. Um and um with like Uber and Lyft like you can like take that service and for another person to be outside of uh to be tracking you. Do you know about that service? Like there's a way to share your progress. I was just if that was available.

There is a way to like text in the app like a a loved one like I'm getting picked up by this vehicle at this time. Um so that is a feature in the app. We also something I was going to uh mention something brand new that we are doing predominantly across our paratransit services but we also have the ability to turn this on for parents is we have a caregiver app functionality where um a you know caregiver could actually be account such they can track and book on behalf of that uh that that that person they are providing care care for. So, this is commonly used for a paratransit use case, but also could be used um for a parent to track rides for a student.

Yeah. Or for for their child.

So, some of this information would be wonderful if you did an orientation for parents at the high school. Um both high schools. Absolutely. Three high schools or more. Okay. My last one is um when we got letters in support of this program, we got letters from the senior center, the downtown businesses, Sunnyval community services. Um uh maybe the hotels would be interested in uh getting people their uh their uh people to their businesses and the adult schools. So, I was just wondering in some way in this whole like leadup to the release if um there could be outreach to those communities because those communities were really interested and that might be a block that would be like good writership. So, um that's all I have. Thank you for um answering all our questions.

Thank you, council member. Council member Shiny Basan. Thank you, Mayor. Um this is a corner to corner service, right? not doortodoor service which means that there are fixed locations and fixed drop off locations. Is that correct? Kind of. [laughter] Okay.

So, it it's it's roughly doortodoor but uh similar to Perry Park rides, there will be designated areas. For example, if you wanted to come to or from city hall, likely the app would tell you to meet your driver in the pulloff area on Olive as opposed to at the intersection of Olive and Charles or something. So, it'll be close to your location if it's an area where it's safe for the car to pull over. And, you know, we we're as we work through the details with VIA, it's citywide. We have a lot of, you know, places where cars are not supposed to stop. We're going to have to help them build their city map of where those places are and are not. Um, so but but roughly it's an ondemand door-to-door service.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, those will be advertised on or shown on the app and then all over where you can go and then pick get picked up, right? Yes. So the next question is um [clears throat] how do you decide the number of cars at any point of time? I you mentioned that you can dynamically adjust. Who adjusts that? So I think I think that's getting into operational details that we haven't experienced yet. I think VIA has lots of experience with that and and so as we get the data I think that that we will be in constant communication and making those decisions together.

Got it. And then uh do we have any minimum trips uh for the first year? Uh what we are uh looking at for example I I know Certino had some 50,000 or something like that. Do we have any number in mind or uh I don't know if we have like are you talking about like a goal of number of trips we're trying to achieve yeah how do we know whether it's successful or not

I think that you know as part of the application for the turip via run they have their own models that they can they can figure out how they're the ones that figure out nine vehicles right and so u they they probably have some data in there and there may be some data in the application I'm not as familiar with that I'd have to go back and look, but we certainly do have metrics to track whether it's, you know, if we if we're having an appropriate number for our population, our city size. I see Lillian wants to add to that.

Yeah. So, um, as part of the grant application, um, there is some kind of like forecasting in terms of number of rides each year. Um so we do have like a rough estimates of okay in first year we anticipate there's going to be x number number of rides and and so for each year it's going to be like a slightly different because we anticipate that the first year writership may not be as high so we're going to we anticipate the writership will keep growing so the last year we anticipate the writership will be the highest okay thank you and then the last question is we didn't issue an RFP or anything right for this program

correct again going back to the get this uh you know hit hit the ground as soon as possible. Uh VIA was a known entity in the Bay Area. We we talked with them. We did we did talk to other neighboring agencies and and learned about the selection processes that they went through the pros and cons and so we they via was able to help us win the TURIP grant and so we are going forward with as a sole source. Okay. So it's good. Thank you. Council member, council member, I'm sorry. I think this was also contracted through a cooperative purchasing agreement. Sorry. Uh, this was a contract that was obtained through a cooperative purchasing agreement. So, it was procured by like a JPA, okay,

that does large government procurements for governments. It's a way a lot of smaller agencies get procurement done uh without having to have their own internal things uh services, but we also take advantage of those all the time. Okay, sounds good. Thank you very much. Thank you, council member. Next is Vice Mayor Melinger.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I did take a quick look at Google Maps on Katherine McDonald High School. It's got a VTA light rail station within about a half mile walk as well as nearby bus stops. Um I would say, you know, maybe we consider that if we get substantial requests given the VTA service, I would probably prefer not to start with that. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Chang. Thank you. I had a couple follow-up questions. Um, of the nine vehicles, there's three that are wheelchair accessible. So, will there always be one wheelchair accessible one in service?

Yes, there will always be at least one. Okay, great. And then for the non-app. So if people are booking a ride over the phone, will there be interpretation services or what are the main languages that will be provided separate from the app?

I'm I'm happy to answer this one. Uh there will be interpret or we will have uh uh dispatchers in m speaking multiple languages. If there is a um you know a language that our dispatch team does not speak, uh we actually have processes uh to call an interpreter services and have someone dialed in to take that phone call with one of our dispatchers on the line. So we will cover kind of the most uh uh spoken languages with our dispatcher team and then have interpreter services for any uh less common languages as well.

Great. Thank you. And for the the dispatcher phone line, is that the is that going to be the same line for customer service is if, for example, someone can't locate the vehicle or if it's really dark and they can't find it. Exactly. Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, that's all of council questions. Uh, I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing on this item. Please submit a speaker card to the city clerk. Raise your digital hand now or dial star9 on your telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first, followed by remote participants. Speakers will have three minutes to speak. I have several speaker cards. First up is Jessica J. followed by Bryce B. Hello everyone. I'm Jessica Kaye and I am a Sunnyville resident and a parent of a homestead student. I want to say thank you to everyone. Um, I had sent in a bunch of questions earlier today and a lot of them were answered tonight and I very much appreciate that. There are a couple of things I wanted to point out that um, one, I'm very excited about the fact that there could be other payment possibilities. I really really press that this is incredibly important. Um I asked my daughter how many of her friends have credit cards and she said almost none. So like it is it is a serious issue. Um and I see a lot of families in my neighborhood that live entirely through cash. Um that you just cannot depend only on credit cards with a lot of low-income families in this area. So I don't want us to limit who rides unnecessarily because of this. The next thing I wanted to mention is that Mountain View Cal Train maybe should be considered since this is a mile first mile last mile thing and

there are residents including myself who live closer to Mountain View Cal Train than they do to Sunnyville Cal Train and there are no buses that come in my direction at all from Mountain View. So, and there are trains that are limited stop to Mountain View that do not stop in Sunnyale. So, there are people who cannot take those more limited trains. At least there were Did it change? Okay. When I ran road cow train back in the day. Okay. Anyway, um it wasn't that long ago. Okay. Uh and then I really am happy to hear about the safety measures that um VIA has. This is incredibly important to tell families about. Um, and I also wanted to mention that with FUHSD, there has been an issue of providing a service but not telling anyone about it and then saying no one showed up. We don't need to provide this service. And I want to make sure that people know about this because it is a really big dang deal. VTA does not cover well enough for our students in I can't even say northern Sunnyale. I want to say there is no high school within the Sunnyale school district at all. That is a long distance for a lot of people to travel. The buses do not they fill up. You were uh one of the council members was talking about how many kids ride. We could have a lot more if there were more buses. My daughter has been left at the bus stop so many times and that's one of the main reasons that this shuttle is very important to me is these kids are stranded a lot of the time. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, just to interject real quick. Um, for benefit of the public, it used to be that not every Cal Train stopped in Sunnyale, but since electrification, all limited and express trains do stop at Sunnyvil Station. The downtown Sunnyvil station. Yes. Um, next up is Bryce B, followed by Paulina Z.

All right. Good evening, council. I'm Bryce Spiegel. I'm on the BPAC, but I'm here under my own capacity tonight. I just want to say that I love to see programs that uh reduce dependency on car car ownership. Uh, last mile transportation to and from the Cal Train station is going to be a very vital portion of this, probably a predominant portion of this. And I think that's pretty important. Um, I probably want to keep that in mind while doing this because like commute hours are going to like use up all of the cars through the whole city because everybody's going wanting to be going to and from the Cal Train station in the evening. Um, I think there's going to be a lot of demand there. Um, I want to add that I've tried using, so I live right near the Calrin station and I'm able to use Silicon Valley Hopper because it has the special stop at the Calin station. I want to add that it's been really difficult to use. It's I've not had a great experience using it. Every single time I've tried using it like five or six times I've had to wait 40 45 minutes for a ride. Um, I don't know why that is. Um, oftentimes I'll open the app up and it'll just tell me no drivers available without giving me the option to say find me one when there's available. I just have to keep opening it, closing the app, open it up again, close the app. Not a great experience. Um, so if that is going to be a problem, I would like to see if that could be improved. I know that's just on VIA's side. Um, the other thing I want to add is that or just with that driver availability is just like super important for this. Like if there's no drivers, this the experience suffers. Um, oftentimes with the weight that it's been, it's I've always I've just been like, why didn't I just bust and bike? Because like I wait 40 plus minutes, I could have already been there by the time I was picked up. Uh, and then it'll pick me up at the Cal Train station, take me to Mountain View to pick up someone else, and then take me to Certino, which is like not a great experience. Um, so the fact that it's going to stay within Sunny Pill will

probably help with that. Um, but it also now means that being at the Cal Train Station, there's going to be three different via apps that I will be able to get a ride from, and it's going to be a very confusing experience for people at the Cal Train Station. I can get a Perry Park ride. I can get a Silicon Valley Hopper ride. I can get whatever this new program will be all through three different apps. And it'd be really nice if that's going to be one cohesive experience, especially for all the people that are going to be coming into the city on that Cal Train wanting to do the last mile. Now they're going to have to decide which the three apps they get they have to use. Like two of them will get them to the Perry Park area, one of them will stay in Sunnyville, one of them will go out of Sunnyville. It's going to be very confusing. Um, and then I wanted to just add the idea that for the like with the integration with uh, Silicon Valley Hopper, I know we want to stay within Sunnyville and we have our budget from the the grant to do so. It maybe consider just integrating it all together and then having a search charge for leaving the city boundaries that is like the integration with this SV hopper like an extra couple dollars. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, next up is Pawina Z, followed by Zach K.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Pabina Sapata, and I'm speaking on behalf of Sunbe Community Services and our community leaders program. Every day we see how access to reliable uh transportation determines whether someone can get a school, work or medical care. Transportation is not just mobility. It is the foundation for stability and opportunity. At Santa Community Services, we serves families, seniors, students, workers who are uh who are doing everything they can to remain stable. For many of them, transportation is one of the most significant barriers that they face. When transit is unreliable and unaffordable, it affects employment, education, health, and long-term financial security. We support creating a shuttle system for Samuel. At the same time, the vision should extend beyond a city-only services. Residents lives do not stop at the city boundaries. They travel across neighboring cities and counties every day for employment, school, health care, and essential services. Our transportation system should reflect that reality. For this system to be effective, it should connect with existent transit services including SV Hopper and extrenon regional coordination. A well-designed shuttle should reflect real travel par p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p patterns and make movement between communities simple, affordable and real reliable accessibility and affordability must remain central to this effort. lowincome residents even a small additional cost for I'm sorry for lowincome residents even a small additional cost or extra transfer can become a barriers a system

that is easy to use and financially accessible will uh will have greater impact and a stronger long-term success a tled datainformed approach will also be important planning should consider writer patterns s community input, equity, equity, and financial sustainability. Transportation decision should align with how residents actually move throughout the region and whether the um and where the greatest needs exist. Transportation stability supports housing stability. It supports workforce participation. It supports education attainment and it strengthen uh strengthens overall quality of life. This is an opportunity to design a system that expands access, reflects regional travel, regional travel patterns and supports the resident who depend on it most. We respectfully encourage a shadow model that extren coordination, promotes a affordability and advances economy, mobility for our community. Thank you.

Thank you. And my last speaker card is Zach K. Oh, sorry. Pawina, come back for just a second. You have a question, council member cells. Yeah, there were questions about um how people would pay for the service like um is credit card convenient or what do you think um some of the clients that you serve would be would find best like would Clipper card or Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. um since not all of our clients they have access to credit cards but a lot of them do have Clipper cards and then Clipper cards you can use money to get the Kilipper card and put money in the Clipper. Yeah.

Okay. So that's that's good. Okay. Um and how would uh Sunnyville best like reach out to the community to show them about the service or how would your clients like become familiar and feel comfortable with it? What are your thoughts?

Okay. So, the way that we communicate with our clients, um, we send, uh, text messages to our clients. Every time that we're going to have an event or during, uh, food distribution, every Wednesday, we send reminders. Um, we also, uh, we make flyers and we put the flyers inside, uh, the the bags when they're coming during uh, food distribution. And also um like it's something that I personally I do. It's um I reach out um the uh outreach coordinators at the different schools and I share that information with them so they can share it with their families and the students.

Okay. So it seems like it would be good if um our staff like worked or contacted you and got ideas. Um yeah. Okay. Great. That would be great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And my last speaker card is Zach K. Okay, go ahead.

Congratulations on your grant. 4,260,200 in city fund expenditure split over five years, assuming you don't have any further help beyond your grant, is still 4,260,200 out the door. Come year six, what happens? Are you going to tell the people, "So sorry, we no longer have a 50% grant. We will have to curtail the city service. It will cost the city over 8 million split over those next five years." The final 2025 council meeting, you heard from your finance director that the low 70% of the city pending pension liability was funded. So what better way to display prudent fiscal restraint than create a new large entitlement? Maybe not a problem. You can go to the voters claiming you need to implement new taxes so you can keep spending. What if they say no? They don't want to pay it and like with them for you to live within your projected means. One can come up with all sorts of wonderful things the city could spend money on that would meaningfully improve a fraction of the population's life. Where will all the funding come from? The plan is already to draw down the budget stabilization fund to keep services in the pension payments going. No need to worry about the economy. One never sees in a staff report mention of the city's pending pension liability when it seeks expenditures from the council. So how much is the city's unfunded pension liability? Go on, ask, do your due diligence, then you vote. That was my last speaker card in the room. City clerk, are there any remote speakers wishing to speak? Question for staff.

Uh, very briefly, Mr. City Manager or staff, are the TURIP grants renewable?

They are not renewable. It's a one-time award. If we wanted to get additional TURIP money, we would have to reapply in a future cycle and and be in the mix just with with everyone else. Uh, one thing to note about the turs program in particular is that it would not pay to continue an existing service, but it would pay to expand on an existing service. So, for example, if we wanted to expand to a greater geographic area or we wanted to add more vehicles, then perhaps we would qualify for a future TURIP grant.

Understood. Thank you. Thank you. City clerk, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item? Yes, mayor. First up is Carrie H, followed by Stephen M. Carrie, you've been unmuted and you have three minutes to address the city council.

Good evening, chair and council members. I'm Carrie Haywood with the MA Park Business Group and here to state our support of staff recommendation of alternative one, including acceptance of the grant, approval of the budget modification and authorization of the Cirrus service agreement necessary to implement the Sunnyale Microransit Service. This action is an important step towards strengthening Sunnyville's overall transportation network and ensuring that our existed existing transit investments deliver their full value. First and last mile solutions are one of the most critical gaps in our transportation system. If people cannot easily get to and from transit stations, they typically default to driving. Microransit directly addresses that barrier. Um, I see this service will um help close the first and last mile gap to Sunny Belt Canal train station, making rail a more practical option, improve access to VTA's 522 corridor on El Camino Rial, reduce reliance on single occupant vehicles, lower demand for parking as well as support climate goals. Importantly, microtransit is flexible. that adaptability is essential as travel behavior continues to evolve. This investment is just not about adding a service. It's about strengthening the entire transportation network and making our existing transit investments work better. We look forward to working with the city as a system is designed, implemented, and adjusted. For these reasons, we encourage the council to improve and move forward with the Sunnyville Micro Transit Services. So, thank you for your leadership and your consideration.

Thank you. Next up is Stephen M, followed by Michael J. Stephen, you've been unmuted and you have three minutes to address the city council.

Hello. Good evening, council. Mayor, uh, thank you for your attention tonight. Um, I would really like to recognize this is a great opportunity to use grant money and I think transportation staff has done an outstanding job to uh get that money in place and get this in front of you. So, I'd say great go please go ahead with this. Uh, and then I think you heard tonight strongly about payments. I was just lucky enough to be in Japan for a month and there I was able to use a Suika card and that gave me an opportunity to go across multiple train systems all throughout Tokyo Metro and we need payment systems that do not require credit cards. So I just want to just further amplify the earlier comments. And lastly, as we look towards the future, if we could get statistics from the usage here and look at corridors in which larger shuttles could be utilized uh because this is going to be on a single or small number of passenger transport and we need to look at larger vehicle transport to give more opportunity for mode shift. Uh but great progress. Thank you very much. Good evening.

Thank you. Next up is Michael J. followed by Peggy SB. Michael, you've been unmuted and you have three minutes to address the city council. Can you hear? Yes, we can.

Uh good evening, council members and honorable mayor. Um Mike Johnson. I am speaking today on behalf of the uh Sunnybell Microer uh microtransit service. Uh, I have to date myself. Eight years I've been trying to [laughter] get something like this put together in our [snorts] in our community. So, I am I'm grateful to see that we've uh got close to the finish line. This service will support many different community needs including but not limited to our our residents, our students and afterchool programs. um seniors who may have um you know physical challenges, you know, medical diff uh issues that uh aren't able to do the things that they'd like to do. Having the opportunity to go out and meet with friends as a group and have lunch and dinner from senior centers. It will help our businesses and in the community. It will help our, you know, our technology companies being able to introduce their visitors to our downtown, to our businesses, to our outerlying businesses. It will support the many um students through through the year. it'll support the the uh community at large as well as I think which is you know very important is to invite new guests who visit the hotels and other communities to be able to have an accessible comfortable reliable service that provides um accessibility. So this is a winwinwin for so many different dimensions. I think that our community will benefit from it and while it might not be the endgame, it is definitely a major step in the right direction, you know. So, I would request that um the uh council will support um

what um the uh approval of budget modification number 14 and uh move forward with this program because there's a lot of benefit in that for many people. And I thank you and I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Next up is Peggy B. Peggy, you've been unmuted and you have three minutes to address the city council.

Uh, good evening, council and mayor. This is Peggy Shan Brewster. Um, I am a resident of North Sunnyville, founder of Sunnyville Equity and Education and the current president of the Sunnyville School Board. Um, but I am here speaking on my bill on my own behalf. Um, I want to thank you for all the work that has gone into getting to this point. Um, we started three years ago. Um, with just, uh, noting that there are some real areas of access in equity and we've come a long way. I I'm I'm proud to be at this point where we are. Um, I know that you received my email about how did we get to this point where we're not looking at the Tri City um, solution where we're connected into SV Hopper with Santa Clara um, part of Santa Clara as well as Certino and I have heard the answers and the questions and so I look forward to continue to work on um, integrating more. Our public transportation in the Bay Area is abysmal and we all know that and I I am proud of our city for being innovative and moving towards closing those gaps in access and we're now at least um closing those those first and last mile um areas of access and um I I just appreciate your work. I I know we've all gone through all the the many benefits and to whom to students to those who are not as um able to get around the mobility. Um and I just appreciate that Sunnyville is looking at social services in general. Um that we have care for the community and for our um citizens um for the residents in in the community. Um that's critical. I'm proud of us as a progressive city and um I do

hope that this is just the beginning that we continue to work together. Um I I know that there are issues about like funding. Where is that going to come from when the money runs out and and my mindset is that we won't run out of money. We'll find the money because there's people that are willing to partner and to work in community for the community. And I really appreciate all your work here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mayor, that was the phone. One moment. There's a question.

Yeah. Question, comment. Um, so, um, Honorable Peggy Booster, um, this program, uh, you had a large part of outreaching to the community. So, I want to thank you for that. you and Gail Verbino and Rod Sings uh reached out to many community members and talked about this and uh so I went to thank you for that and um I guess like I got your letter and um uh had several concerns and so I guess you've heard some answers. Um I guess uh where do you stand now? Are you like we this is as we said this is the beginning not the end. Is that

Yeah, it's the beginning, not the end. We we need to move forward. I mean, I think there are um a lot of areas where I feel like this is not what I was expecting and yet I do hear those questions being asked and I know that it'll be a continued conversation going forward. I feel like I have access to every single one of you all to to talk privately about this if if I need to raise additional concerns, but um I do appreciate that you're being responsive to the community. um not just me but to all the voices that are expressing the need for this access and um these services. It's um so much part of our ability to live in this city is to be able to get to the places that we want. So yeah, I appreciate you um addressing the concerns that I've raised and that the community has raised and and thank you for this beginning, not the end, the continued conversation going forward.

Okay, one last question. between now and the launch date in September. Um how best do you see like um the city reaching out to the parent community and the school district?

Um I think that the school districts can do a lot um in terms of getting information out to our communities. Um we as a community have a lot of resources. The city does really well with communication and then um we have all the many groups within the city um including CE and Liverpool Sunnyville. Um, and just the grassroots as I heard Paulina speak and you know they have different ways of also outreaching. So I think as long as there's clear communication I like to suggest really nice um easy to understand graphics um not not too heavy on the words and um just just stuff that we can push out and make sure people know about. Um and also areas where it's easy to give input um suggestions for you know how we can do better, how we can serve better um just iterations like that. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And just want to thank you again for the tremendous amount of outreach you did in 2014 on this effort. Thank you. Um thank you. That was our last speak. Yes, mayor. That was the last remote speaker for this agenda item. Okay. I'll go ahead and close the public comment and bring it back to council for questions. Uh question. Um if there's time for a motion. I Okay. Uh question. Uh Vice Mayor Melinger.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Um we received a comment regarding what happens when the TURP grant expires in what is it four years. Um, so I'm going to say that it is it would likely be very unpopular to kill the program in four years. Um, and I imagine that a future council would be very reluctant to do that. Um, with that in mind and with the understanding that TURIP can be used to expand but not sustain the service, have we budgeted as part of our 20-year budgeting process beyond that four-year window to maintain this service?

No. Okay. Um, well, I will admit that I find that concerning. Um, what I would like to ask as part of the upcoming budget is that we get some projections in terms of what the impact of that continued service will be on the BSF um, and options. Then we start considering options now for how we're going to be able to sustain that service.

U, we can we can definitely bring that back. Um, I think the only viable option for funding is to use the council service level set aside over the 20-year plan. So, you've appropriated currently $800,000 a year approximately to do the match for the 5-year period. Uh, you would have to then bump that to something around 1.6 to 2 million a year, which would uh use most of the council service level set aside if I recall correctly. Forgive me for asking. Mhm. Um, wait. Oh, so it is 4 million over four years, not 4 million. Five years. Okay. Is a much more digestible.

Sorry, Vice Mayor. I was Yeah, I I'll I'll just It's We're not talking budget today, but we will bring you options um for consideration in the budget process to fund a shuttle program at the current appropriation without a grant. That's one of the options. I apologize. I mixed the I know numbers. Sorry, you caught me caught me a little off guard also, so it took me a sec a second to process. Sorry about that. Thank you. Um, Council Member Le.

Um, thank you. I have a question and I'm curious. Um, first of all, I would like to express interest in expanding the service area to the Walmart in Santa Clara at the Marcato Center. um that's one of the um food service options on the north side of town that's just outside the city boundaries. And then secondly, I would like to ask um if there if there's a possibility of expanding um the age and maybe this is a question for the via planner if there's a a possibility of expanding the age downwards to 12 or 13 or if that's too much. It's currently 13 and above. Correct. Is that what Joe said?

Yes. That that could ride without um a parent accompanying them. Yes. Yes. I I think we'll have to coordinate with with VIA on on where that age limit comes from. It might have some legal implications. Um so we'll we'll coordinate with them on that. Uh, and then in regards to expanding, I think on day one we cannot commit to that, but we're keeping track of all of the locations we're hearing and we will we will track and and and look to add uh if and when we can. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Council member Cisneros.

Yes. Thank you. Um, I was wondering if VIA has ever done something similar to a New York new New Year's Eve safe rides program, which is that would be extended hours, right? You go in in there, but if that has been done before. Yes, thank you for the question. I'm I'm happy to answer that. Um, we have the flexibility to extend our service hours on a temporary basis pretty quickly and then push out communications to riders through the app if we do that.

A lot of our partners have done that. Um, we have a service in Torrance, California where they've done that around you know uh events at Sofi Stadium or or you know holidays. So that that is certainly possible. I think we would need to coordinate with the city staff to understand uh you know the budgeting and and confirm that the city is on board for making those changes but it is uh from an implementation perspective we can absolutely support uh those types of changes.

Okay, that's really cool to hear. Um I thought I had heard something about that. And then my question is uh so first I'll say I really agree that it's important that we figure out a way to accept Clipper just because that is since we are doing the first first mile last mile that is consistent with the goals of the program. Um [clears throat] and bringing into that there's an added layer of subsidy. So people who get lowcost passes or discounted passes free passes um those are all available. So, if we were to use a Clipper, we were accepting Clipper, would we be able to capture whether somebody was using a discounted card?

Yes, that's a great question. Actually, as part of our SV Hopper service, we eventually are planning to integrate with Clipper 2.0. Um, so by doing that integration for SV Hopper, that integration would be available for you all, which means we would be able to integrate with those Clipper discounts. Um the caveat there is uh we were we've been waiting until Clipper 2.0 has been rolled out in order to do that integration and I don't know if you all have followed the news that roll out has not gone extremely smoothly. So I think as the dust settles there and and um that uh that roll out is kind of completed in smooth fashion I think that's when we're planning to proceed with um with the the broader Clipper integration.

That's fantastic. I'm really excited um really excited to hear that. Um oh and all of this say you have your card, your transit card, your credit card, anything like would you be able to take a tap?

Yeah, I I think I I think I heard the question. So would you be able to like tap in the vehicles? Um I think we could explore having like a tap reader. I would say if um if we do the clipper card integration maybe that would make more sense instead of the tap reader but I think both of those are are good solutions.

Okay. Okay. That's very interesting. Thank you. And then um I I'll just go through a couple of comments cuz I was listening to my colleagues and um my baby's sick by the way. Her name is Hazel and she's she's now joined us because she knew I was here and wanted to be in the meeting. Um so, okay. Um I agree with the mayor that collecting age ranges is very important. That's that's critical data knowing who we serve, especially populations that can open us up to additional grant opportunities or even just as the city figuring out like, oh, this is a new this is a need of of this population. that information is really valuable and to figure that out. The caregiver parent location sharing concept is great. Um I mean expanding that to anyone, you know, we um hearing more and more about how dangerous ride shares are. Oh yeah. Uh dangerous ride sharing is for women especially and that's an important concept. So, and then for grants generally, you're typically considered more competitive when you have proof of concept. And I think that this is going to be a really great proof of concept, especially with the level of data we're collecting. I'll turn off my microphone now, but those were all my comments and questions for now. Anything else, Hazel?

No, [laughter] no, she's good. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Next is council member Shiny Bosan. Thank you. [clears throat and cough] I had apart from Tip Grant. going forward. Of course, we can't predict what kind of grants we might have, but there will be opportunities for other grants, right? Uh whether it's from partner companies or uh government agencies like that.

Uh I'm going to strongly recommend that council not count on grants to fund this in the future. Um that it will be a decision that the city needs to decide if we want to take this on as funding or not after this grant goes. Um, but I think with 5 years, we have plenty of time to to figure it out and we can put a placeholder in, which is uh a common practice that we have. Okay, sounds good. That was my question. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Uh,

oh, okay. Um, seeing no other questions, I'll take a point of personal privilege, which I don't normally do, and make the motion for this item. I move alternative number one, approve budget modification number 14 uh for the Sunnybell Microransit Service. Authorize the issuance of a service order for uh the Sunny Bell Microtransit Service with VIA and authorize the city manager to execute all agreements related to the operations of the Sunnyale Microransit Service. Uh council member cell

second. Thank you. Thank you for the second. Um, normally I don't make the motion, but for me, this has been a long time coming. Um, I'm just overjoyed that we're finally to this point to moving microtransit forward. You know, I was a little disappointed a few years ago when when we killed a study issue for a citywide shuttle in favor of a study for high school students. And to me, you know, the needs of our high school students is are critical, but we have needs all over the city. And and this the overall service, this was before I think SB Hopper started um in Certino and and in Santa Clara, but it was to me this this had a lot of value and and evaluating that from our from our um environmental goals as well as just a need within the community. So, so, uh, I was happy that that ultimately it took pushing our previous city manager, um, and bringing it to council to actually apply for this grant because he didn't feel that we were ever going to get it. So, I want to thank staff for for going through this process and and, you know, and council for supporting applying for these grants. You know, I think ma microtransit has a lot of value in our city as much as VTA is here and thank you council member cell for serving on that board there. That doesn't meet all the needs of our community. Uh so tonight's approval uh marks to me an exciting step forward uh for mobility. You know, it's it's for the seniors, for the youth, for those low-income and unhoused residents that that don't have access or have limited access to uh mobility options, vehicles, you know, all those who might not be

able to get to a car or other alternative public transportation, this will make a difference in their lives. And you know, I think this will be a boon for for both residents and our businesses. As much as I would have loved to have this as part of SV Hopper, uh I think getting our two neighbors to coordinate and negotiate would not have been an easy task of staff and and not that we shouldn't start those discussions for some time in the future. You know, as as residents have said, as our council have said, there's a lot of value with a a multi-ity approach. That being said, having our residents being able to get to additional public transportation within our city, maybe it's a two hop to get to where their final destination is, VTA's here, other, you know, other shuttles are here. Conceivably that that meets their needs. So, so I think this is just a single step as far as that's concerned. you know, microtransit helps fill those gaps that the bus systems, Cal Train, biking, walking just isn't able to do for everyone. You know, it supports uh residents that have ADA issues. And thank you, Council Member Chang, for for pointing out that that those, you know, those three uh vehicles of nine are critical for for certain of our residents that that yes, VTA Transit has a, you know, certain ADA compliance, but to have that ability within the city, I think really will make a difference, you know. Um, just as importantly, this program also just advances our our climate action and and equity goals. You know, this is this is to me a big first step. And I do have similar questions as a vice mayor as far as long-term funding, but that service

level set aside um is a portion of that. And this is step one. You know it's like once we have an opport you know this program has an opportunity to learn adapt and build the system once we start having real data you know we can once once we have that data we can go back to the high school the business districts the hotels um and and others for additional funds. conceivably they're already running shuttles and this will fill that gap that certain business is already doing. You know, this helps defer some of their costs conceivably and it and it shows that we're filling that need. And as much as uh we can't do everything in a city, we don't have funds to do everything, to me, I think this is a big first step. Uh ultimately, we also have the concept of of adjusting what those rates are. And as much as Certino and and and Santa Clara haven't yet, conceivably, you know, five years from now, it's $5 a ride or, you know, it is, you know, this is the city helping out in trying to meet our climate action goals. And and to me, this this might lead, you know, once we have the data, it might lead to a fixed route system. But it's getting that data, it's getting that pilot program going. And I appreciate, you know, finally when we applied for the grant, this has gone relatively quick as far as government goes and and so I just want to thank staff for that. You know, it it isn't easy to start a new program to start that uh pilot, but I'm just um really proud of where we are today. You know, I'm I think this is an investment in connectivity, sustainability, and just an opportunity for all of our Sunnyville residents. And I encourage

all of our council members to support this motion. Thank you very much. Next up is Council Member Cell. Um, so I think back to a time when uh this came to council and staff said there's these opportunities of these grants we can apply to. And so at that meeting, I felt like we got the most letters that I've seen in my three years on council in support of this. We got letters from the Chamber of Commerce. We got letters from the Mafetta Park Business Group. We got letters from Sunnyville Downtown Association, Sunnyville Community Services and um adult school, the Fremont Union High School District. And I just felt like that was a time when it started off with uh the students raising the concerns and Rod Stinks as a trustee raising the concern like you know if the students were in Cubertino that they could stay late at evening activities and take the shuttle home but since they're in Sunnyville they don't have that ability. So he was the first one to raise that issue and then along the way people joined with him like Peggy Brewster, Gail Rubino, Michael Johnson and others to reach out to more people to talk about this idea of not only being a high school shuttle but being a citywide shuttle. And I think that if we could do more of that when there's a problem, come together, galvanize the community, and put our best foot forward that um we could solve tremendous things like we've done here today. This is tremendous. A $4 million grant. It's the first try and back again. We have a wonderful staff that you know did this heavy lift and we also have like the

partnership with VIA um that they were there to help and work in partnerships but we were also there to work in partnership with them. So it's a two-way street. So, I just want to again thank staff um how like that was like in a year's time like apply for it and get it and council asking you to do it and changing gears and and staff um being so cooperative and so hardworking and so um excellent at what they do. So, um thank you for all that you do. Um, and I strongly support this and hope my colleagues also support it.

Thank you, council member. Next up is Vice Mayor Melinger.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I will be enthusiastically supporting this motion. Um, I want to I don't often draw on experience in tech when I'm speaking on the deis because I am not one of the people who say that government should be run like a business. It should not. It is not a business. It is not to turn a profit. It's there for the public interest. In this case, however, I do think there's a couple of bits of received wisdom from my day job that are worth considering. Um, and the biggest one is the concept of a minimum viable product, an MVP. And in tech, the minimum viable product, the idea is you get something out the door as quickly as you can and you start getting feedback on it. It is probably something stripped down. It probably does not have all the features that you want. It may have a few bugs. Probably does. Um, but the goal is to get it out the door and start getting input quickly so that you can then figure out exactly where you need to be spending your resources on improvement, right? Rather than saying this is the perfect vision that we think we need, building it, delivering it, and then finding out that it's not, you start with something small, and you let it grow over time. And I think that's the approach we're taking here. And I think that's going to prove really valuable. And I want to commend staff for how quickly they've moved on this because when we're talking about governmental terms here, this moved extraordinarily quickly. Um, this is very fast and we're gonna have implementation starting September. I'm extremely impressed and happy. Um, I do want to talk about a couple things. Um, as a North Sunnyvil resident, I and as a Sunnyvil resident, I have trust issues with some of our neighboring agencies and some of the agencies that serve this

area. um because I have seen in many different times and in many different ways the city of Sunnyale and North Sunnyvil in particular end up getting short shrift. Um, and so while I do understand that many members of the public were hoping that this could be joined with Silicon Valley Hopper, I am actually increasingly pretty convinced that it is a good thing that it wasn't to start with because my fear and my concern if we had done that would be that that would just be Sunnyvale pouring more resources into serve Certino and Santa Clara. and that, you know, with this as a Sunnyvil specific program, we know that every dollar we are spending is going to be on serving destinations in or adjacent to the city of Sunnyville. Um, and when we're talking again about a minimum viable product before we've had time to figure out how we would negotiate some sort of intercity cooperation agreement, which is something that would be complicated and take quite a bit of time. Um, I'm quite happy saying that our tax dollars that we are deploying on this are going to stay in the city of Sunnyale. Um, so I'll add that, you know, I do think it's worth considering the Walmart and the Marcato Center as a destination. I definitely want us to continue pushing Fremont Union High School District to assist in subsidizing student rides. Um, and I think long-term we should be thinking about uh regional funding mechanisms for a shuttle district for a shuttle such as a North County shuttle district. other ideas that may be worth considering there. Um because we do need to think about how we're going to fund this four years down the line. Um but for now, I think this is a really good start and I can't wait to take my first ride. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next up is Council Member Shinasan.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for the motion. Uh I will be enthusiastically supporting this motion. Um mayor pointed out all the points I had written down seniors unoused community school children the stool student students low-income family and then uh unhoused community is very very important they have the transportation insecurity lot of times I award that they cannot go to their medical appointments or some other uh uh some other uh destinations. So this is a very very critical service for them. And then [clears throat] one of the members of the public talked about the uh public transportation system options we have in Sunnyale. And then uh as we know we have three public transportation options. Buses on El Camino uh trains calrain and light rail. None of them are connected to one another. So you cannot uh reliably take one to go to another or uh use the other service. So this will fill that gap. And then I also uh think that there will be lot of opportunities apart from whatever we get after five years tip tip grant. There will be opportunities to work with our uh companies and then our employers, our restaurants, uh hotels as mayor pointed out this will augment their services and then uh improve their businesses. uh I'm uh confident that that will happen and then more importantly I am excited about the data collection and then with data uh as you know data is the king and then we need to we can come up with adjustment as uh our staff pointed out multiple times we can adjust

the service to whatever the level we want and then uh yeah this is a great start and then this this a critical need for all our uh uh [clears throat] underserved community as such and then uh this will be a very very good start. So I will be supporting this motion. Thank you. Thank you council member. Next up is council member Cisneros.

Yes. Thank you. Um, so much of how I feel has already been said, but I will never forget that goal setting where just about the entire gamut of community groups and various interests within the city came together to tell city council actually we are in alliance now. Uh we are in alliance and in agreement that this is something that will benefit everyone from seniors to business to the school community to um you know the sustainability advocates. It it just touched on so many pieces of what people care about in this city and how they experience it because how you move around a city is one of the most important ways that you experience and live somewhere. And we were asked very point blank, very directly to make that better. And so we said we said okay. And and staff has done an incredible job. And just because something is hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And and oftentimes and in this case makes it extra worth doing. And I'm very excited to see how this turn this goes from what we're looking at today which is something that is like okay well this works in other places to being something that is essentially Sunnyvale. And we have that flexibility today. And we have the ability to think about what this looks like um not just in terms of connecting and partnering with other cities but focusing on how are we going to partner with um different opportunities to not only fund but expand the reach of this in ways that we can't really imagine today but we have built that in. So, I will say in terms of partnerships, I to date it's not my understanding that Cubertino or

Santa Clara are particularly enthusiastic partners um to to bring us in and and that's okay. That might change, that might not. But regardless, we know that we can serve uh Sunnyville's residents. And I hope that this experience of um coming together and making this case, seeing it go from uh the you know cutting room floor to implementation within 3 years can give people the confidence to know that we are responsive to your desire to make your city a better place to live in in this way and that we will be responsive to your feedback on this program and that we are committed to providing a high quality uh service and we are very lucky to have uh the resources to pursue that money and also um look at ways that we can invest in uh highquality transportation. So, I'm going to enthusiastically vote yes for this and I I can't wait to hear what comes next. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member. Next up is Council Member Lei.

Thank you so much. I will be voting in support of this motion. Um I was one of those folks who stood in the old city hall to um advocate for this. And I said that I said this at the time from that podium. And I'll say it now from the day. One of the reasons that I entered public service is because a girl who went to my son's bus stop in elementary school would have to run to the bus stop to get to Fremont High School afterwards to get to the VTA. When she couldn't make it, she had to take an Uber. This is a girl who lived in Edwin Edwina Benner who already lived in low-income housing who couldn't afford that Uber. She ended up dropping out. She couldn't afford to continue her high school education. The transportation cost was too high. When I was knocking on doors, I met other people in this situation. It is so important to me that we pass this now that people who are in this situation can fulfill that promise of education, can get the things that they need. It is not only a high school problem. I'm aware of that. But it is very much a high school problem. And it is heartbreaking that this is something that happens in the Silicon Valley. I want to address something that has come up in our emails and acknowledge that transportation is a band-aid solution to infrastructure. It is true that this will help. It is also true that it would not help as much as a high school in North Sunnyville. It is true that this will help people get to grocery stores. It is true that it will not eliminate the problem of food deserts. This is something that we have to do. This is, as the vice mayor said, possibly the minimally viable product, but this will change lives and I am so eager to vote in support of this. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, next up is Council Member Chang.

Thank you to staff and I think this is a substantial step in improving mobility in our city. I take VTA frequently. I take the 56 and it's still a 17-minute walk. I have to cross Evelyn to get to Sunny Bell station and that's not feasible for a lot of people. And I know we talked a lot about downtown Sunny Bell Station, but this also opens it up for Lawrence Station, which is also in in Sunny Bell. And I think it's it's wise to be able to look at where areas are being requested and then do the analysis before we commit to all of them. Um, what we don't want is that service degradation degradation and then having people not use it because they're waiting 40 minutes, an hour before they're able to be picked up. So, I really like the way we're moving with this. And then I know we can't count on grants, but I would like in the future if staff can look at applying for a TFCA um, which is managed by BTA. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. And with that, city clerk, please conduct the vote. Mayor and council. Um just a reminder whenever we have uh at least one teleconference council member, we do a roll call vote. So for our roll call vote, first up, council member Sernne Austin, how do you vote? Yeah. Yes. Council member Chang, yes. Council member Cell, yes. Vice Mayor Melinger, yes. Mayor Klein, enthusiastically, yes. Council member Cneros, enthusiastically, yes. Council member Relay, just a normal yes. The motion carries 70.

Thank you very much. Thank you for everyone who is here tonight. This meeting is now adjourned at 8:28 p.m. Thank you all. Have a good evening.