City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Let's call the special council meeting board commission interviews of April 27th, 2026 at 5:37 p.m. Uh, the city does not tolerate destructive behavior in our meetings. This council meeting is considered a limited public form, which means the council can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the matter the agenda item being considered by council. If a speaker comments are not related to an agenda item, the presiding officer will rule that speaker out of order. 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 and or click the language access and translation link on the council agenda to read and listen along in more than 60 different languages to use the show captions button to view captions on Zoom. Uh city clerk, may we please have a roll call. Mayor Klein,

present. Vice Mayor Melinger. Council member Cneros, present. Council member Siobh. Council member S present. Council member Chang present. Council member Lelay present. Six present with Vice Mayor Melinger absent. That's an excused absence. Let's go ahead and move to our one item 26-00008 board of information interviews. Is there a staff report? Yes, mayor and council. This is David Carneahan, the city clerk. Tonight you're scheduled to conduct 20 interviews and 19 interviews tomorrow. Uh interview applications were due April 16th for this recruitment and you're considering applicants for all nine of your boards and commissions as part of the annual recruitment process. Uh at your May 19th meeting, you'll consider making appointments for these vacancies. Thank you.

I'll go ahead and open up public comment on this item. Members of the public wishing to address council, please submit a speaker card to the city clerk. Raise your digital hand now or dial star 9 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. Um speakers will have two minutes to speak. I see no speaker cards in the room. City clerk, are there any remote participants? No, mayor.

I will close public comment. Uh city clerk, uh we're ready for our first candidate. Hello again. Hello at all.

Welcome back, Amir. Uh I'll take a moment to explain the process. Each council member will have an opportunity to ask you a question. Uh the process, this process will be about 15 minutes. So keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. And first up is council member Cisneros.

Hello. Um, again, thank you very much uh for submitting your application and your interest in serving our city in this way and for your patience uh as we work hard to get it right to make sure that our public has access to all of our meetings. It's very important to us. So, my question is I saw from your application that you have a lot of experience in our parks in a variety of roles. uh and you're somebody who's clearly passionate about that, but that's the case for a lot of people. So, when we have issues come up about parks, it can evoke a lot of very strong feelings like artificial turf versus natural grass turf for instance, how we end up using the park. My question is as a commissioner, how would you navigate a situation where an issue is bringing up a lot of strong feelings on both sides and that's creating a contentious sort of environment? How would you navigate that to make sure that we as council get the best guidance possible to move forward?

Yeah. So I I think the the key here is uh to to have full transparency to the public uh across the whole process. So um we have a the city has a online portal so I think uh can be upfront notification about the topic coming up and I think the commissioner can help try to be tune in which topic can bring more emotions than usual and then be even more careful to be transparent we and publish uh put signs on on relevant facility. Let's say if we are going to have a change in Las Palmas part so people can put even physical because not everybody go to the city online and invite people to to join uh the the meeting the hearings and after the fact after uh having a decision uh of course the meeting minutes I saw uh already always published but maybe do can we can do the extra effort have a summary and kind of a slide and explaining what is done and why.

That's really helpful. Thank you so much for your answer. Thank you, council member. Next is council member Bas.

Thank you. Uh good that you are coaching soccer. I have to say that again. Uh in your response, what are what do you think are the principal issues for commission? You said I believe there is a room to give more attention to facility that addresses adult and older population. You gave the example of walking trails which are very very good. Any other thing you that comes to your mind apart from walking trails and other examples? Uh yeah so also uh since the application I talked to uh more uh people got some uh uh more feedback and thought about it more and I I think the question was also a bit related to the demographic change and I don't have the statistics but I got the feeling and also that we're getting older uh

not only us individual but the city is a bit getting older so we can tune up a bit and So one additional idea and again I would be give the caveat and to be humble that I don't know all the consideration but for example I live near Ortega park and uh it's really nice park in center of neighborhood uh it can be like a magnet place for people to do all kind of thing it is uh maybe there are some uh empty buildings there maybe it can be considered to license it to kind of a coffee shop. So then um people can hang around and also senior people it can be you know look to be outside and and and meet meet friend you know I don't know where the regulation can be all kind of obstacle but just an idea bach field also for a bit for more older population also some tuneup pickle ball is very popular recent years and we have a lot of tennis court Uh but maybe we can uh have more uh uh pickle ball courts. So,

okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, council member. Next is council member cell. Hi, thank you for interviewing and volunteering so much um in our parks. So, as you probably know, we have know limited resources in terms of land, in terms of money, and in terms of all that. Um but then we have like lots more people that want to use the park as you want to see and then we have sustainability um you know goals to meet. So given all those um how do you manage to come to a decision um when there's so many competing factors

in those in those situations.

Yeah. So like many in life data is important. Erh so first you you one need to have all as much information as possible. We talked about the demographic. So maybe you know I I believe the city has a information. So once I hope to be in the commission we can can have more easier access to data what happened between neighborhood and then what about the budget uh to to get some some real numbers. uh I think some activities can be even come uh I don't want to say for free but kind of a win-win without too much additional resources for the city. So back back to to the city to the park and suggestion uh maybe uh the city can initiate yoga open yoga classes. Erh, of course the the coach or the teacher, the trainee need to be paid, but it's not too much and maybe some people will be happy to do that either volunteer or or not volunteer like self-promotion, you know, you do it for the city then you you you know a lot of people so need to think sometimes uh out of the box.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Chang. Mayor, thanks for applying. if you could speak a little bit more about your um coaching experience, which parks you might have used or you know what kind of um facilities you might have utilized during that coaching period.

Oh yeah. So I coach I have I grew three kids here in Sunnyville and all of them so started with soccer AYSO and Sunnyville Alliance and I was coaching the recreational teams with all the kids. and we use uh all the facilities. So sometimes it was Otga Park, Panama Park, uh some some of the school, Cherry Chase and uh and and then later when my daughter joined competitive. So then I step back as as a coach. But then we played all um we we were moved from one park to another park according to all kind of considerations. So I'm familiar with all that and we used to have in Sunnyville Alliance this very nice complex that is not available anymore and we moved to Fair Far Rock. So, I've been I've been uh all around and I'm familiar with the grass versus the tarf and the back and forth around that. And uh

yeah, if you could just speak a little more about which parts you liked and where you think the parks can improve.

Uh okay, if we go to really to to this topic, I'm big fan of grass and I really don't like tough. That's my uh political identity in the matter. Uh now with the grass of course there is a challenge of a grass field need to be maintained to a certain level because if the grass field is not maintained it's not good. Uh I really like when we had Sunnyville Alliance has their own uh facility on the other side of Wolf and Birdland and I don't know that's another big topic. Sunnyville Alliance is a nice club also has a right name carries the name of the city and could it be resurrect? Can uh can the club get a a a fixed place that it will be like the center and then people will know uh to go there to look for a soccer club. Uh I think that can be very nice but I don't know whether I'm touching here all kind of other topic and challenge. Yeah. So I like when when they have this facility. I didn't like it as much as they were now mainly in ferox but not always in ferox and competing with many other activities and it's also tough. So I'm I'm less favoring that.

Thank you counc.

Hi. Um thank you so much for your time. Thank you for interviewing and thank you for the thoughtful responses that you submitted in the questionnaire. Um, a lot of people look at the parks and rec commission and they focus on that parks part and I think you did too, but I want to know more about your thoughts about the recreation side. You talked a little bit about your idea about city yoga classes and for your information, the city has the um the Sunnyville Youth Basketball League which functions in a very similar way to the way you were describing with volunteer coaches coaching teams. Um, what else do you know about the recreational side and do you have any thoughts or suggestions about um changing that? Yeah. So again circling back to uh the question about the Taylor's activity to the demographic. So uh also with event so I'm familiar with activities here like hands on the arts and similar activity but maybe now we can also provide some more activity for adults. I'm I really like going to wine and art festival Los Altos has for example. Uh we don't have something like that in Sunnyville. uh again maybe uh I don't know how difficult to organize that or maybe uh maybe something like that it it can be nice uh so you ask about other recreational

yeah ideas that you might have I I think the one you had about yoga was an interesting one um and I think that you were circling something a little bit with your um thoughts that we needed more programs for senior here. So, yeah, maybe you have ideas about that. But I'll let you off the hook. So, thank you. Um, so I'm blast. Uh, so first, we actually do have an art and wine, although we didn't have one was limited last year and is back for its 50th year at the beginning of this year. So, just to give you that, you know, we're partners, but actually the chamber runs that. But, uh, as far as parks are concerned, uh, your favorite park and why? Oh, from from a city standpoint.

So, I mentioned Ortega, which it's my home park, but uh but I think also uh objectively, I'm not objective, but maybe I think objectively uh I think overall this neighborhood that I live, the Stockmytega Park, it's quite big, like one one mile by one mile, and the park is in the center. So it really serves like a a good hub for for the entire neighborhood and also it's it's clean. It's it has a proper facilities. You can play basketball. You can play tennis. There is shade. So it's it's good atmosphere.

So we have a plan to renovate all of our parks over the next 20 years. What does Ortega Park need? I I I think I wrote it in the suggestion but not specifically to Ortega but I think it can be nice. I saw it some other cities how should I call it facility for doing exercise power exercise. So again tuning a little bit for the more adult. Okay. I think that can be nice. Okay. Fantastic. So thank you for going for for going through this process. Uh our final decision by council will be made on May 19th. Okay.

Uh you don't need to be there to to be chosen or anything. And then the city clerk will get back to you later in the week on what the final decision was. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Great seeing you. Thank you. And thanks for your patience. Yes. Very much so. Okay. Outside. Thank you. Good luck. City clerk. We're ready for our next applicant. Jeff. Thank you. Hey. Hi Jeff. Welcome. Thank you.

Um so thank you for applying. Um the so ultimately let me give you a quick overview of the process. You know each council member will have an a chance to ask you a question. We have about 15 minutes for this interview. So keep that in mind as you're going through the the answers. And first up is council member Shini Bas.

Hey Jeff, welcome. So in your uh I have actually two related two questions. You said uh in your application you were nominated as a chair and you felt you were underqualified but I thought you did a fantastic job when I was council on there but uh thanks a lot for serving on the sustainability commission. Uh the other thing you wrote was reappointing me would allow our momentum to continue uninterrupted and we can you have started translating into lasting meaning meaningful change. What are the changes you're looking?

One of the big things is the sustainability speaker series. I think we're trying to find a new way of um getting more public involved in that. So the the amount of attendance we've had has been going down um over the last few years. Uh I think before COVID we had a pretty high number and then once COVID hit and went virtual we had a really high number because a lot of people um were attending virtually and now that um the meetings are still virtual the attendance has been really low and I think it's because there's so many other virtual meetings happening and so we're trying to find a way of getting it back to being in public and um in person where people can attend and make it exciting for people where they want to attend these events and um in a public place too where people can walk by and see what's happening. So that's our that's our goal for the future of this and that's one of the things that I want to see that we can have sustainability be a bigger focus on people's minds in the area and um we can do that by being more exposed. That's that's the goal for sure.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next up is council member self. Hi. Thank you for interviewing continuing on. Um so you have a lot of experience from your professional work in sustainability and waste and all that. Um where you hear the gives us the heads up. The owl speaks. It quit. It's blinking at me. Does it have does it have a beak on that side? I'm just think why are we calling it home? on the plus side. I was able to hear you the whole time, but it sounds like the camera may have itself, too.

It's paused. Oh, so we're going to go very old school. Yeah, good old one camera. What is one camera? Well, the new camera. It's brand new in the box, but not as fancy. We won't get as nice of a view of everybody but we will as soon as you turn focus on you that will be just the room just the room like those 90s like skate rings. So we're give you just a moment to to switch to that camera and then we will likely want to adjust it a little bit. I like that you have a backup plan. That's

I know. It's me and I have to go through the No, we're not going. Okay. Thing is, we stopped at the beginning of Linda. So, we caught everything up until that point. Oh, here we're gonna we're going to fill the screen and then we're going to just Sorry, you're all seeing the the magic behind production. I think we should have to do that every once in a while to appreciate it. probably higher or Yeah, we're going to go I think higher and then down more.

We want I was going to try and get everybody, but if we just get Yeah, I could also go sit over there if that's better. Your sound set. So Oh, okay. Okay. It is what it is. Okay. Yeah. David, just do your best. This way. That's a little bit better. Yeah. of a circuit. Yes, this is better. I like sure we can make stand here and just hand back and forth. There you go. So, council members over here. When you exit, go that way. Please don't go this way. Okay. Otherwise, we'll be

otherwise you'll you'll trip on the backup plan. We need backup. Still going. We're still going. Oh, you have time. Okay, great. Okay. Um, yeah, thank you for interviewing. So, my question is, so in your um application, it says that um you want to focus on practical and resultsoriented to deliver real impacts. So, what is something that you saw that we achieved that in your previous like real impact? being like, "Wow, I'm glad we did that." Like,

great question. Um, I think that I'm still waiting to achieve some of those really impactful things. I think I look at what the commission has done in the past and I've been so impressed. I think back to Mari's statement that I stepped in and saw the chairs of the past or the commissions of the past and what they achieved and I was aruck in a way where um I mean Crystal Wickham was amazing and Bruce Payton were amazing chairs and um they achieved so much and so um I would love to see that we could achieve similar things that they achieved like I mean starting Silicon Valley clean energy was a huge step forward for them and um and the commission in general and so I' I'd love to see um our commission be able to find new ways of finding important things for our community. Um, I think achieving a lot of the goals and the gap is uh going to be a huge step forward. Um, for us, I think some of the the goals seem like big reaches and so if we can find a way of bridging that gap and getting closer to where we have to be, um, I'd be happy and feel like that was successful.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang. Thanks for reapplying and thanks for serving on the um sustainability mission. I'm curious to know, you know, you've been on it for four years now. What do you think has changed in the dynamic the past four years? What's really improved or uh you think that you can that can be improved on? I

think when I started the commission, um the meetings were very long and I feel like some of the times people wanted to hear themselves talk more than it being meaningful conversations. And I feel like over the past four years, we've gotten to a point where we're where our conversations are more on points and we're focused on what we're what our goal is. And um I hope to continue to improve on that where instead of just talking to talk, we're talking for meaningful action. Um, and um, I'm going to continue to to focus on that role as the chair to try to make sure we can keep the meetings as short as possible while sticking while still getting results out of it. So, that's the goal. Also, I mean, on that same topic, I rarely get an opportunity to talk to city council and find out um, what we what we could do better as a commission and what you're looking for from us. So, I'm always open to finding out what we can do to improve our commission to give you more information that can be helpful for you. Um, so, uh, that's one thing I think if there was opportunity maybe for us to talk to city council more often to get advice, I'd love to do that.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lang. Hi, thank you so much for reapplying. It's um, good to see people who are in the commission, know the work, and then want to continue. I think that says good things about us hopefully. Um, I'm my question is kind of the reverse of what you just said. I'm curious about your thoughts about now that you've been on the commission for a while, what do you think that city staff or council or just generally can be done um to help you guys on the commission? You h you are presiding over a large change in how we do um priority projects and how do you feel about that? Is that is that working out? What what do you think?

I think city staff has been amazing to work with. um they I couldn't ask for more from them. They've done everything to make my job as chair super easy and um I've been very very happy to work with all of the city staff. Um as far as going from study issues to priority projects, um it's been a pretty smooth transition for us. Um I think that we're we've been told to limit how much we present to the city council um during this time because of the transition. So, I don't think we got to fully see what the priority projects are going to turn out to be. Um, but I know we have lots of ideas on the commission of what things we'd like to put forth to the city council, but um, currently we've been asked to limit that because there's a huge backlog is my understanding. So, um, I think it's hard to say what the future is until we get more involved in that. But um yeah, I I think it's a great change um to and hopefully that get eliminates that backlog of study issues that never really got taken care of. So I'm looking forward to presenting one priority project a year or whatever that may be. And hopefully it it has a more meaningful change than submitting four uh study issues that we don't ever see.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm up next. And so first, thank you for being the chair. Thank you for your service on the commission. Um, you're always free to talk to any of the council members and I think that's one of the big things as far as priority projects. We're we're now kind of narrowing it down and we're still learning our new process, but you know, trying to get one agreed upon priority project from each commission. That being said, if there are more than one, you know, encourage your other commissioners to talk to council members because we can propose, you know, our our select group also. And so it's trying to figure out, you know, as we work on that backlog, what makes it through and what priorities are there. You know, I understand after the climate action playbook or first the climate action plan and then the playbook um and then going as far back as as Silicon Valley clean energy, it's harder and harder to find that lowhanging fruit to make a big change in the city. So, you know, I encourage you not to be discouraged that we're not thinking, you know, really big or or you know, it's like it's hard to make those big everchanging things. Um, focusing on the, you know, the small things, you know, it's like the food cycling, everything else. There's there's lots of positive change. Um, you talked about the sustainability speaker series and I agree it used to be um, very much in person and and now almost completely online which which reduces costs in some ways because you don't need the speaker you know some of the speaker fees were hotel room local and transportation and all that. So that that's reduced but I do think that there's value in that. um from a speaker series program. Uh what are you most positive for either this year or what you did last year? Um to see the top what type what type of topics do you want to see covered that

you think will attract more people to look at sustainability within the city?

One of the things that I'd love to see us talk about more is um resilience hubs in a way where climate change is happening whether we like it or not. And I know we can talk about reducing greenhouse gases in every single aspect, but climate change is already here. And I think one of the things that's concerning to me is that if a person has lots of money, they can adapt to climate change. They can put a bigger air conditioner in their house or they can if it floods, they can rebuild their, you know, whatever. They can make it work for them. Um, it's the lower income people that are going to be challenged with the the climate change. And I think having a understanding of how we handle those events that are going to happen in the future, whether it be a flood or um high heat or um o ocean rising, tides rising, sorry. Um how we can handle what we do to help the people that are going to need help in those situations. I think that's one of the focuses I think needs to happen. And I'm not I mean I'm currently the chair of sustainability commission and I don't even know the process of when there's an emergency in the city like that what would happen. I mean how do we get information to the people to tell them hey go to the library or these are the places you should go and so I think there having a a plan in place for notifying people and then where to go and having enough like resilience hubs within the city is one of the big things I think we could focus on in the sustainability speaker series but also in the sustainability commission. I appreciate. Thank you. And lastly is council member Cisneros.

Hi Jeff. It's uh great to see you. Thank you very much for reapplying and I'll say I'm the sustainability commission leazison right now and you do a really great job as chair. Well, thank you. I really um appreciated your leadership and I when you were talking about running those meetings so it stays on point and that everyone is heard but you're still moving through the agenda. We're very good at that.

Thank you. and and that's a hard thing to do as you find out when you're chair you're like wow I've needed to see that for a couple council meetings when I was vice mayor and it stopped um so I really uh appreciate that my question uh is what is the most memorable commission meeting that you've been a part of so far and why does that stick out to you as the meeting that that uh rises above the others in terms of what you'll take away from your first term Great question. Um, I would probably say it was my first budget commission meeting. I think it was mostly because I was not aware of the amount of time and effort the city puts into their budget at that point and I was very aruck again to to see the amount of different items that the city puts in there for, you know, 20 years budgeting out. And so, um, I definitely wasn't prepared for my first year of budget meeting. And, um, I all my fellow commissioners were overly prepared, I would say, where they had so much knowledge and everything. And I I learned a lot about, hey, I need to spend a long time reading over all these things in the future. And so, I think that's one of the meetings that really sticks out to me. Um, wow, I'm underprepared and I need to do better. And so, I think I've had a lot of those meetings where I've learned a lot and challenged myself to do better in the future. And so that's probably the biggest one that stands out to me.

I appreciate that uh that answer a lot. It's really vulnerable but also really important for people to remember and also um no nothing will actually prepare you for your first big budget meeting for when you were with the city I think. So um you're in good company company there and I um appreciate your leadership right now in the commission. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. So thank you for reapplying. uh council will be be making its final decision on May 19th and the city clerk will get uh get back to you later in that week with the final outcome. So, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Have a great evening. You too.

City clerk, we're ready for our next applicant. Our next applicant will be Annie and Annie over there. Good afternoon. Hi, Annie. Welcome. I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying. Um, you know, let me give a quick overview of the process. We have about 15 minutes for the interview. Every council member would get a chance to ask you a question. So, keep that in that how long your answers are and keep that time in in mind as you're going through. Um, and first up is council member S.

Um, hi Annie. Uh, thank you for interviewing. So, um, you have a a good background for this. So, what makes you passionate about this mission and what you envision you could achieve on it?

Yeah, of course, Council Member Cell. Um, I think that my background in community outreach and energy efficiency um will allow me to bring a unique perspective this to this commission. Um, I've been working uh on an energy efficiency product with Oracle Energy and Water and we're really involved with interviewing utility customers um and really targeting uh their most pressing concerns. Um, and I think I can bring these skills to our commission by um, really helping target the uh, energy and sustainability related needs that are um, the most relevant and feel the most urgent for Sunnyville residents. Um, helping get more people on board with sustainability even if it's outside of their regular wheelhouse.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chen. Thank you. So fine. Yes. Um I was curious if you could speak a little bit more about the studentr run organic farm that you uh managed.

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, Council Member Chang. I actually really love my time on that student farm. Um Regeneration Student Farm is Welsley Colleg's uh fully studentrun organic farm. Uh we manage an organic farm plot off campus and we regularly bring students over so they can get hands-on activity. um you know, growing vegetables and really getting more involved with sustainable food ways um where their food comes from, learning more about alternative methods of farming um that they might not have gotten that much exposure to. Um I've heard from a lot of students that, you know, they grew up in the city, they grew up in a highly developed urban area, and you know, they didn't really know where food came from. They didn't really know that you had to dig potatoes out of the ground, that kind of thing. Um and that kind of community outreach and educational initiatives that we provided uh were really helpful for them in just broadening their perspectives and getting them interested in sustainable food ways.

And was that funded by the school? Uh yes, it was as a student organization. We got funding through uh the college. Thank you. Next is council member. Thanks. I really appreciate what you just said. Um, I volunteered at my son's elementary school and a lot of the things that you you just talked about about kids who grew up in dense urban areas who don't really know where food comes from. It's really magical to see like a little kid say, "Oh, this is this is kale. I I don't hate it." So, that was really fun. Um, I am giving you a magic wand. You can now do anything sustainability related in the city. What is your priority? What do you want to do?

Oh my goodness. I'm going to say that uh I would put solar on all of the exposed parking lots. Um I guess it maybe just from my personal experiences. My family actually recently installed solar. Um I was um I had some experience researching the um inflation reduction act and the tax credits and I was able to help my parents uh get the tax credit to install solar on our home. And it's honestly been amazing. Um, I think just the savings as well as the, uh, reliability of it, um, we're able to have power consistently, um, even during blackouts during the summer months. Um, and I feel like having that available on a wider scale, uh, for municipal facilities, for small businesses, uh, for schools, uh, would just really take advantage of the great weather that we have in Sunnyvale and also help with the energy affordability issues that I know are top of mind for many residents right now.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm up next. Um, you talked a little bit about grassroots ecology. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because one of the things that we're doing in the long term for the city is extending the Stevens Creek Trail. So you have, you know, uh, a whole portion that's, let's say, somewhat underutilized, but but hasn't been really focused or or conceiving what could be done for the repairing wilderness.

Oh my goodness. Actually, I uh during my internship with Grassroots Ecology, I believe I was pulling ivy along Stevens Creek. So that's really exciting to hear that there's a project um working on that. Uh I think it was a really great first experience getting exposed to local environmental issues. We worked all across the Bay Area uh with public lands, with Midpen, uh and with local organizations on restoring habitat and really bringing these sort of neglected outdoor spaces back to uh a state where the community could get involved, could walk through and really feel the benefits of uh having an urban wildlife refuge. uh having um a sort of microcosm of the outdoors that was easily accessible to them. Um and I think yeah, it helped me get interested in improving outdoor access throughout the Bay Area and uh yeah, it's really exciting to hear that that's on the agenda for the Stevens Creek Trail.

Okay, thank you. Next up is Council Member Cisneros. Hello. Uh thank you and thank you so much for applying. Um I really appreciated seeing your policy background, your education background, women's college too. Me too. And so that's very exciting. Um it is a very good experience. And so

I this question is inspired by what you were talking about with your family recently installing solar which is exciting. Um and we know that in order to address climate change in any meaningful way, you need both policy change and behavior change. And then that's where things can kind of get difficult when you're talking about people changing their behavior, making big changes, sometimes investments to your home, etc. What are some ways that we can better talk to residents about the kind of programs we have in order to motivate and incentivize changing individual behavior to help us reach our goals?

Oh my goodness, thank you so much for asking this question. Actually in my most recent professional role um I worked on behavioral energy efficiency with OP power. So that was really our whole whole mo. Yeah. Really motivating utility customers uh to make sustainable choices around energy um around building decarbonization um but using specific language that really targeted their needs uh and targeted their concerns. Like for some segments of the population, you know, they already care about sustainability. um they're already willing to go the extra mile uh and take on the green option, but sustainable action, I feel like sustainable actions and always have a lot of other benefits besides just decarbonization. So, um we found that for other people it was really effective to talk in terms of energy affordability, having reliable access to electricity, you know, being able to be independent from uh the grid or uh save costs. um save that money and use it for things that matter to your family instead of sending it all to the local natural gas or electric company. Um and yeah, I think my experience with, you know, using different messaging to address different uh stakeholders, different members of the community uh will be really helpful in helping me uh engage with Sunnyville residents on the sustainability commission.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for that thorough answer. Thanks. Thank you. And lastly is council member Shinasa.

I I thanks for replying. I had a question. You mentioned that there is a conflicting uh what city needs or affordability from the community side of things. What are the some of the ideas to you also said that commission will be bridging these two uh needs or requirements priorities. What are some of the ideas with that? Yeah, actually I was looking through the city website and I think we already offer a lot a lot of programs um addressing affordability, addressing rebates for home decarbonization, really helping people make these efficient choices in a way that's cost-effective and affordable for them. So, through the commission, I'd be curious to learn more about if there's perhaps people who would do these actions but maybe don't know about the programs that we offer um or aren't able to apply, aren't able to navigate the process. Um, and how I envision bridging the gap is really finding these members of the community, uh, figuring out what the barriers are for them, um, and going forward with these actions, um, and finding ways that the city can help, maybe through education and outreach, uh, so that we can all work together and make Sunnydale a greener place.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, so that's last of the interview questions. Uh, thank you for going through the process tonight. Uh, council will be making its decision on Tuesday, May 19th. Um, you don't need to be present uh in order to be chosen. And later in the week, the city clerk will get back with you with her final results. So, all right. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much, everyone. I really appreciate your time. And we'll continue on since we're running a little bit late. Thank you. Thank you,

city clerk. We're ready for our next applicant, which will be Anal. Next up is here, but we're going to have a seat. Share there.

Hi, Anal. Welcome. I'm Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying. Let me give you a quick overview of the process. We have about 15 minutes for the interview. So, every council member will have a chance to ask you a question and take you the how long you're answering in mind as you're going through that uh within the 15 minutes. Okay.

Uh first up is council member Chen for applying. I thought your answers about um I guess integrating the different plays was really interesting. Um especially kind of with your background of being six sigma and all that but I was wondering if you could also speak a little bit more to about the sustainability hackathon and your involvement with that. Oh uh like my experience with the sustainability hackathon. Yeah. I don't know what that is. If you can tell a little bit more.

I think it would actually be pretty relevant. So in my grad school I took part in a couple of sustainability hackathons where it was mostly organized I think one of them was organized by one grid which is a utility in in the northeast. Um my grad school was at upstate New York. So one of the topics of conversation was to how do you enable um New York had pretty aggressive EV adoption goals which put a lot of stress on the grid uh as far as the load is concerned. Avant was looking for ideas and solutions on how um we can reduce the the peak load uh on the grid and so my project was actually on V2G charging. So you can use your EVs to charge as well as discharge to the grid and create an incentive program for the uh EV users so that they charge during off peak cars um and then discharge the grid back at the peak cars. and how can you create that sort of incentive program. Um it was we sort of developed an app had like point tracking systems memberships like you reached silver, gold, platinum and you would get like certain dollar amount you can see how much you saved. Um so that was the hackathon. We were a group of three and we we ended up winning that one.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Uh next up is Council Member Le.

Thank you. Um I agree with it what council member Cheng was saying about your um background in uh six sigma and what you were saying about actionability. The um sustainability commission as well as all of our other commissions and the council as well. It's just recently shifted from a framework where we could submit as many changes basically as we wanted to somewhere something called a pri priority project framework where each of us gets three and the commission gets one every year. that makes it hard for people to prioritize but easier to for staff so that they don't have to like work on 20 different things at once. So from that lens, what do you think is the big priority that u sustainability oriented priority that Sunny Bell should be focusing on?

Right. Um I went through the climate action plan uh and the playbook and I understand that um currently the biggest focus is building electrification and transportation because that is accounting for most of the emissions that currently persist.

So I do think that should be the focus. Um I think it'll be more around how we can enable to implement that uh along with community engagement at least based on my understanding. Um currently there are some um moritariums around building electrification but in the meantime I I still think that there are certain steps that can be taken to make sure that there is um some financial incentives that we can think about that we can put in place because um as we want to uh incentivize building electrification we also need to make sure that people have the financial capabilities to take that on. So while we wait for those uh monetariums to lift, we can in the meantime um work with the communities to make sure as well as SVCE to make sure that um how do we get the financial incentives in place be it on demand billing or uh you know creating a list of contractors that we can engage with and that are prevetted so that we remove all kind of frictions that um currently exist that sort of hampers the community to sort of uptake more of the electrification process. Um, so I think that would be my focus.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Um, I'm up next. Um, thank you for all your your background and your detailed um detailed application. you know, I I agree. Silicon Valley clean energy is so I'm chair for Silicon Valley clean energy right now and you know, h lots of different programs for decarbonizing for kind of moving the needle, you know, locally as well as kind of around California and funding uh those long-term contracts is really critical. You talked a little bit about your time on the environmental defense fund.

Yes. and what and and talking about kind of um giving the modeling analysis, but basically um trying to educate electives and others on the tradeoffs for different things. what you know talk a little bit more about your time there and and exactly you know one of the things that our commissions do is make recommendations to us trying to make those trade-offs and I'd love be interested to hear your concepts

yes so my EDF was a summer intern project I was working on creating uh fact sheets for Texas uh so this is located in Texas I was the Austin office um and they were looking into medium and heavy duty electric vehicles and what be what would be the was to sort of shift some of their fleet to EVs. Um especially around um if I can recall this correctly, it was mostly around um I think garbage trucks and a couple of other uh state related M mhvs that they wanted to transition and so they wanted to understand what be the what would be the cost, what would be the payback period and then how much emissions would it um sort of abate if they were to switch. And so my job was mostly to do like uh the greed modeling. So trying to figure out what the total cost of emissions would be, emissions reduction would be, what would be that upfront capital cost, what would be the payback period and sort of then create pretty simplified fact sheets that EDF then shared with TECQ uh the Texas uh emission for quality control. um so so that they can then use that for to further sort of uh advocate for switching to to medium and high heavy duty electric vehicles. So that's actually part of my day job. Um just to give you some background, I I work at energy resource management which is one of the sustainably firms and my business unit is focused on decarb strategy and implementation. I mostly focus on clean energy. So part of my job is to help corporates as well as higher educational institutes uh set targets uh put together strategies on how to uh decoup as well as procure clean energy and then actually go to procure clean energy. So it requires a lot of modeling but then it also has to translate into me sort of

uh sort of uh filtering it down to what really the key um um how do I phrase this what the key points are that we can put in front of se level uh executives so that they can then make decisions so it's a lot of filtering down into what the context is what they need to achieve what is the timeline what is the budget because that's all like eventually people care about uh implementation timeline, how much money does it require and when do we start seeing um the benefits of whatever we implement. So it's all about like doing a lot of analysis but then filtering it down to um impact.

Yeah, I I appreciate that and thank you for thank you for that work. Yeah. Next up is Council Member Cneros. Oh uh thank you so much for applying and it's been a pleasure to listen to you answer the questions so far. um kind of something came, you know, bubbled up for me hearing you talk about some of these things and this question about behavior change in terms of the work that we would do as a city around sustainability or anyone does because in order to build climate resiliency, we know that we need both policy level change, but we also need behavior change from individuals and that's almost harder than getting a legislator to change their mind. Mhm.

Um, and since this is something that you do, I wanted to give a specific example. So, are you familiar with Sunny Bail's food cycle program with the garbage cans and you put your green waste in. So, we have a way to process that in a really environmentally sustainable way at our at our plant in the city and we rolled that out to multif family apartments as well.

However, participation is lower because many reasons. You have a lot of options. I feel like I'm I think I'm the only one on my floor who does the most. And uh so besides your council member seeing you in the hallway and like well you throwing away your food scraps, right? That's not a good idea for always. But how would we approach that problem and get more participation in the food cycle program?

Yes, I I identify with that because I feel like I'm the only one in my building who does that as well. So, um, yeah, I do think that's a problem, especially with multif family family living situations. Um, honestly, I feel like a lot of times people care about sustainability, but they don't care about sustainability until they see the benefits of it. Um, especially at like individual levels. So for me it would be um a highlighting the incentives through peer-to-peer conversations or I do I do I have read that we're doing a lot of library sessions and SVC has a lot of rebate programs. I'm pretty sure we can have a few more rebate programs to tackle some of the other situations that we're seeing. But I do think like incentives matter to people if we do want to push people. And then the other thing would be to remove obstacles or frictions that's causing them to not do something like this. So I think with u with something like um using recycle um it can be a carrot and stick policy but u it's very difficult to also monitor. So I recognize that this can be like yeah it's it's it's difficult but I mean I I do think like at times you should just be engaging with a few people in the community and they can encourage their peers to to make a difference because I I feel like I can do a better job at just like putting it on like buildings WhatsApp group that hey can we just like be better about this. Um but it's it's all about I think like community level interaction and initiative.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for those good ideas. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Sheena Boston. I thanks for applying. Thank you.

I liked some of the sentences in your applications for your application. For example, uh the gap between ambition and action is rarely technical. I like that sentence. And then uh you also said good advisory work begins with understanding the audience. And then uh thanks for one of my questions was EDF. Thanks for answering that. But I have a different question. In your application you have said that I would aim to evaluate issues from multiple angles including environmental impact as community implications and feasibility and bring all these things together. Yeah.

Can you briefly explain what it is or give an example?

Yeah. So it's it's sort of like part of my job as well to manage stakeholder alignment. Um like I said I work with higher educational institutes or corporations which do have pretty like competing uh priorities because in a corporation you have the sustainability team but you also have the legal team, you have the finance team, the accounting team and everyone has different priorities. um the finance team wants things to cost less and have like price certainty whereas the sustainability team wants to make sure that the company can reduce as much as emissions as possible. So I think a lot of times the solutions that we recommend should be a balanced portfolio where you should be able to get everyone on board and make sure that um you get the buy in before you make the recommendation. uh so that once they have to move to approval it can be a swift process but also it it's sort of like once I think we've also seen at times when the project actually starts producing say for example if they procured a solar energy project and the project starts producing it does require interaction from a lot of different bodies within the organization as well so I mean for the smooth functioning of u like postp production as well it's just necessary to have everyone on the same page and I think I see that with higher education institutes as well. So you'll always be uh having stakeholders with different priorities just about like making sure that they listen to each other, get on the same page and then execute a solution.

Thank you. Thank you. And lastly is Council Member S. Hi. Hi. Thank you for um your work professionally and um what makes you passionate about this commission and therefore what is the most inspiring gift that you would bring to this commission?

Yes. Uh that's a great question. So I actually have always wanted to be involved in local government and more like civic engagement. Um I I moved to US six years ago, six years ago as a grad student and I feel like since then it's just been a lot of like getting through grad school, getting a job, kept moving. I think I finally feel like I have roots now in Sunnyale. Um so I wanted to take that opportunity to get more involved uh at the civic at the at the more grassroot level. I do think with my experience in sustainability I have a lot to offer um which can be beneficial for the city and for me also to see the impact directly which I feel like I don't get through but like through my job like I I see impact but it's like indirect because I'm helping my clients who then like pass it on. Um, so it's it's more about me being able to create like direct impact on the city. And to be very honest, I feel like it's also going to be a very like a huge learning opportunity for me. I I'm I know about decarb and I know about clean energy, but there's also so much more that happens at the at the grassroot level around like civic engagement, um, getting the community on board, um, climate resiliency, like a lot of things that's in the playbook which genuinely got me interested to apply. So, I think it's going to be a two-way street where I am going to offer all that I have u but also learn a lot from from the commission.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for going through the process this evening. Thank you. Uh council will be making its final decision on Tuesday, May 19th. Okay. You don't need to be at the meeting to to be selected and then the city clerk will get back with you later in the week with uh with the final decision. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Thank you for your time. Byebye. Thank you. We'll take one more applicant, city clerk, and then we'll take a quick recess over here.

Hi, Barnica. Hello. Welcome. Um, thank you for applying. I'm sending Mayor Larry Klein. Uh, let me give you a quick overview of of the process. So, we have about 15 minutes for the interview. Uh, every council member will have a chance to ask you a question. Uh, so keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. And first up is Council Member Le.

Hi, thank you so much for applying. It's always a treat to see young people applying for boards and commissions. And I really enjoyed reading your application. You have a lot of voice in here and I appreciate it. The cute fluffy rabbits and also the Starbucksish drinks. I feel that in my soul. Um, I too like creating Starbucksish drinks at home. Um, so you are you are young. You are passionate and I really appreciate that. What do you think that Sunnyville needs to do to achieve its climate goals?

Um, I think that one of the things they could do is maybe engage more with youth because I know that it's not that people don't care about sustainability or climate issues, but it's more so that they don't have um, sorry, enough resources around them or that they're not well educated enough or those resources aren't convenient or accessible for them. So, one of the goals that I would think that would be um wise to do is maybe make create more youth programs and programs around community um that could help them learn more about sustainability and hopefully make them more involved.

Could you be more specific? I mean, what specifically should the youth be doing? What what kind of programs? Um, one program that they could be doing is maybe like more about recycling because, um, there's like a lot of issue around single-use plastics. And especially in the younger generation with going out to Starbucks or boba or those kind of things, it's easy to think that it's just a quick one sip and throw away, but sometimes it may not be so evident that it ends up in the um, environment around us. And I think it would be important to like maybe show and um like show actual like how those plastics come back to you and how they end up in your food and like the air you breathe. And I think that if people see that directly through um like actual evidence then they would be more likely to recycle rather than like someone just telling them to do that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Uh I'm up next and and thank you for for the application and you're exactly right about single use plastics. you know, after advocating multiple times with our star with our Starbucks stores, they finally went to the recyclable lids within the last within the last 3 months, which I was really happy. It took a lot of background, but but um a lot of time in the background. Um, so you talked a little bit about, you know, neighborhood cleanups and and other things that that residents could be doing locally and I and I think that's a a very positive thing of trying to activate not just the youth but but each of our neighborhoods. Uh, what types of programs would you like to see done, you know, in parks or or around around different neighborhoods within the within the city to kind of focus on sustainability? Um, I think beach cleanups or park cleanups, what was, like you said earlier, were great because I think it's a super easy way for the community to come together and have fun while also cleaning up the environment. But another thing that they could do is maybe recycling like food waste or compost and learning that those things could actually go to benefit our environment instead of just ending up in the trash. And um I think just simple behaviors and practices here and there can make a big difference because if we're doing all these goals and setting all these um um actions to complete by a certain time I think community involvement is important because I think that they are the majority of um our help in getting there. So I think that some of those would be helpful especially with the younger generation if like um rainwater usage if we find here and there ways to salvage um things so they don't end up going to waste and help our community instead.

Okay. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Cisneros.

Hello. Uh, thank you so much for applying and I too I was at Homestead though when I went to high school, but I did drama there too and public speaking really does help with civic engagement throughout your life. So when I saw it, I was like, "Yeah, that's great. Good start." Uh so my question is about the sustainability speaker series that we do annually here and you know we have a series of different people come on talk about different issues that affect people's lives and maybe of interest to them and what you're talking about and interesting people and engaging with them on the level that they're at really inspired me to ask you if you have a if you could suggest to anyone to participate in the Sunny Bale Speaker Series uh why would you choose them? And let's just assume they they will say yes no matter who it is. And uh how would their voice add to the conversation at Sunnyville?

Um can I take a moment to think about that question?

I can. Thank you for asking. Um, I would choose my biology teacher this year because I think she has such um she's a great speaker overall. I think that even though I have that class seventh block, I'm always so interested in regular learn because of how good of a speaker she is. And I think she spends a lot of time outside of class doing um like nature activities like um park cleanups or beach cleanups. Um she likes going on runs and I think that um she actually inspired me to start running myself which I think was a great thing. Um, and I think she spends a lot of time outside with people and the nature. And I think that if she were to come here and like speak to people, she would do a great job um, of conveying the message about how important like nature time is and going outside. And I think if people realize how good it feels to be out and about in nature, they would like care more about protecting it. Yeah.

And and shout her out. What's her name? Miss Kim. Miss Kim. Yeah. Kayla Kim. Miss Kayla Kim. You're doing a great job. Miss Kayla Kim, if you're watching this, thank you so much for that answer. That's And that's uh like wow. That's that's actually a very getable hopefully a getable person for so I'll pass that along too. So thank you very much for that answer. It was thoughtful. Thank you. Next up is council member

machine and thanks for applying. It's really nice to see you know people applying for commissions. I'm also impressed you have already done two internship. Oh yes. Um I did one of them at Athlete HQ where I write like small Instagram blog posts about athlete related injuries. So um I know people don't have time to sit through and read a bunch of articles and like think about like oh what like how to treat them but I think that Instagram is like a main like social media app for so many people then I break down things there. And then the second internship was actually um from someone from the annual youth advisory uh Nila Nila um Pluto youth. Yeah. Um I got in through that at this like local um flourish shop. Yeah. Um and that was really nice. Yeah.

Thank you. Uh I have a question. You Thanks for answering mayor's question. That was one of my questions. Neighborhood cleanups. Uh but you also mentioned clear communication and outreach to different groups could help more people get involved. What are the some examples you can think of? um clear communication and outreach examples.

Yeah, I think one of them would be like what mayor said before like stores especially like Starbucks because um even if people do get involved stores are still mass-producing much plastic and things that could go into the environment and create waste. So, if we partnered with them and local um shops or stores that do use single-use plastics or like have waste that they could potentially give to the community to do something with it, um we could ask and partner with them and they could help us do something throughout that. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member S.

Um yeah, thank you for interviewing. Um you are a great communicator, so thank you. Keep building that. Um, so what makes you passionate about interviewing for this commission and what special gift do you bring to this commission?

Um, so when I first started out, I was like I was sitting in my bedroom and I was like, "Okay, like it's freshman year. I got to do something new." And I was scrolling through um Instagram posts and I found this one on this page about like signing up for a commission and I thought it would be great to have a youth perspective and show up. So, I look through and like I sign up and I spend a good amount of time on the application and I think I chose sustainability because I've been living in Sunnyville for about like 10 years now and um in California ever since I was like one. So, this place pretty much feels like home to me and I think that it would be so nice to see my community thrive and grow and if I had a part to do in that, it would be such a great honor. Um, and as for a special trait that I have, I think that I'm really eager to learn and contribute in however way I can. And I think that if I were to get chosen, I would start off by observing um my community and how these meetings work and how policies are made so I can have a better input of what I put um onto the table. Um and uh yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, Council Member Ch, thank you for applying and interest. Um, you mentioned in in policy improvements, uh, public transportation and electric cars, and I was curious as as your experience at Fremont High what public transportation has been like for you or for some of your classmates.

Yeah. Um, I usually walk or bike to school, but I have friends that take the public PTA bus and um, or carpool or just ride with their parents. And I think that like a lot of people like a lot of kids going to school that's more cars, that's more um gas production and um especially like gas production and prices going up. It's kind of like not efficient for everyone to be able to drive themselves to school or they're not familiar with biking paths. So I think if we had like a generalized system of maybe like I know Whimo cars are getting kind of popular recently. I'm not sure if they're electric. I don't think they are. But if we had like a system of transportation that was um uh eco-friendly and could provide a bunch of kids to school, I think that would be really beneficial for the students at Fremont High and elsewhere. Yeah,

thank you. I don't know if you want to speak about it, but we are launching our citywide shuttle later this year in September hopefully. That's exciting. Yeah, it is finally. Um so, thank you for going through the application process. Uh council will be making its final decision on Tuesday, May 19th. you don't need to be present to be chosen. And then the city clerk will get back with you later in the week with the final results. Thank you. Um can I ask a question real quick? Um I actually have a couple. So one of them is based off of my interview today, if you guys had any like tips or advice you could give to me for next time and are there any current or upcoming projects that the commission is looking forward to.

We're about to take a recess and I think we can corner you after this during the recess with some suggestions. Oh, that's lovely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, city clerk. Thanks for thanks for working with us. Thank you for going Youth advisory. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, city clerk. Let's go ahead take a 8 minute recess and come back at 6:55. Yeah.

Let's go ahead and reconvene and go to our next applicant, Cynthia Lee. Cynthia is here. I see over there. Thank you. Hi, Cynthia.

Hello. It's nice to meet you all.

Yes, I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying. Let me give you a quick overview of the process. Uh we have about 15 minutes uh to do the interview and every council member gets a chance to ask you a question. So keep that in mind as you're as you're answering those questions. Um I'm up first. So So first I just want to thank you for your work on the youth climate action group. you know, that that is one of the critical organizations that we that are that have seen grow locally and actually have a real voice uh around, you know, around our county, around the state at this point. So, so thank you for that. Um, and going through your application, you you laid out, you know, a very good plan of what you would like to see and kind of your background. Um, one of the things that you would would love to see is in going through Thank you for going through the climate action playbook and right here.

Fantastic. Um, you talked about investing in active transportation. Um, what as opposed to just general active transportation, what investments would you like to see that you would think would make a difference in Sunnyville?

Yeah. So, in active transportation, I think this would pertain a lot to allowing youth to transition to more active transportation modes such as biking, like getting the infrastructure as in safe bike lanes because that's one of the biggest barriers as well for me because my dad won't let me bike if it's going to be unsafe. Um, also like VTA, I actually helped pass the youth transit pass at the FHD district board level and it would be like a one-year pilot program at Fremont High School where everyone gets free youth transit passes for VTA buses to help like assimilate all these students into using public transportation in a very low barrier way that helps both VTA because of their low ridership and also students so they can get used to public transportation or active transportation in this sort.

Okay, good. That's VTA. Um, anything any other types of active transportation improvements that you'd like to see the city, city implement? Yeah. Um, I've actually seen that you implemented a ride share um thing for youth and a lot of like people that aren't necessarily very um well off economically. And I really respect that. I think that's very cool. and things such as that to break barriers for people that don't have like cars or access to um those sorts of transportation modes is something I'd love to see the city do. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Cisneras.

Hello. Thank you so much for applying. It was really great to review your application and see all the engagement that you've had in our community. And thank you for printing out climate action plan and having it with you. I don't any color. And so I don't think I've seen that in all the time interviews that I've done printing out right there. So that that's really cool. So I'll ask you a question about that since you all there.

So it can be a real challenge to regulate our targets. You know, you don't want to have too much to target because the state might have a higher one or it may not be enough to move the needle toward what we want. Do go too high. um we're not able to achieve it in a realistic way. So, as you're looking at the climate action plan, when we have um our playbook or the plays or like the objectives, do you think that we're on the right track with things like carbon emissions? And could you just give me some of the feedback, some feedback on

do you think our goal should be more ambitious in any of these areas? Uh, should we be pulling back maybe on something in order to make room?

I actually think because the climate action plan is a very like long-term like this is our overall game plan for the next couple years. I think all of these goals are very well thought out and they very directly target where greenhouse gas emissions actually come from which is combustion from a lot of transportation um and a lot of uh like building buildings. Uh so the first strategy would be clean electricity, decarbonizing buildings the second one and decarbonizing transportation and sustainable land use. Those three I think listed as the first like top priorities I think are very crucial to like moving the needle as you said on greenhouse gas emissions and the rest I think are also equally as important. For example, strategy five empowering our community. uh in my experience in like community organizing, it's very crucial that both like the citizens and the city are aligned on like where we're going. So, it's important for people to feel like they can do something and they will be doing something and also to know that the city is doing really great things at their city capacity to reduce um greenhouse gas emissions at a very systemic level.

I appreciate you pulling that that example up to go and apply to the other one. So, thank you very much for that answer. No worries. Thank you. Next up is council member Sheen Boss.

Thanks for all your work on not only youth climate action and other organizations also. And then you mentioned about the VDA youth uh transit pass. Uh that was one of the projects uh I was associated with. And then you mentioned about uh I your application has got lot of information. Thanks for that detailed uh responses. But one of the things you mentioned is increased community outreach for SVCE and Valley Water for awareness about home rebates. Uh I am kind of familiar with that but then I would like to uh hear your answer.

Yeah. Um so that was just like an example of what the city could do. I actually know from conversations with the environmental services department that rebates for heat pumps was like an ongoing project this year. I even tried to convince my parents to like get a heat pump. Uh so I think those are one of like the more tangible ways I would propose from like my knowledge of what's going on with different like organizations that can help with like the trans transportation um to more sustainable cities. So yeah.

Okay. One of the student projects I was associated was uh valley water land uh landscape conversion program rebate program. So that's very cool. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you council member S. Hi. So thank you for interviewing and being so involved in climate and the environment. Um, so what makes you passionate about applying for this commission role and what special gifts do you bring to this role?

Well, thank you for asking that question. I really like like the introspective ones. Um, I think the specific passion I would bring to the sustainability commission is my like theme of why I'm interested in sustainability, which is I think working in this sector has allowed people to be better for themselves because I get to let people choose better choices every day. And the fact like being in nature and being more sustainable ultimately pushes people to be the best version ofelves um is something I deeply resonate with. And I think like the perspective I would add to like this commission is that like empathy I have for allowing people to change because I recognize a lot of reasons why people can't necessarily be good for the environment is because the systems are stacked against them. And I'd love to be in this commission to be able to make that like systemic change so I can make it easier for people to choose better because I think from my experience working with anyone ever, friends, family, organizations is when given the chance, people want to be the best version of themselves and being in this commission would make that happen.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang. Thank you for applying and for your interest in work in the city. Um I my question is you know you mentioned you want to connect advocates with council members. I would say advocates know how to get a hold of us. How would you want to reach harder to reach populations that might not have the time to get involved or to keep up with what's going on?

Oh yeah. I like that question and I'm going to draw from from an example at my school our seat program site equity action team right now they're doing a lot of communication with a lot of kids from different countries that have immigrated with language barriers. So they're conducting like one-on-one interviews uh like getting someone with their native language to communicate with them about issues that pertain to them because oftentimes as you said their voices aren't usually heard. I'd love to try and conduct something like that because I know Sunnyville has a very diverse community of a lot of immigrants and combining like the fact that I know a lot of people who know a second language and being able to like connect with people that aren't native English speakers and make everyone feel like their voice is heard because I know advocates are very loud. I'm also an advocate, but I want to be able to allow other people to also advocate for themselves, especially in such an important sector such as sustainability that affects all of our health, all of our future.

Thank you. Thank you. And lastly is Council Member Le. Thank you so much for replying. It's always a treat to see youth involved. you got really passionate um at the at the council member cell's question when you're talking about systemic barriers and removing those for people who to be the best version of themselves. I want to give you the opportunity to talk more about that.

Yeah. So I think a lot of the systemic barriers uh for an example is I would say like oh you can drive less but how does that actually happen? We need to get to work. We need to get to school. We need to get to our jobs and make money. And how this would actually happen is for example um active transportation allowing the bike lanes infrastructures to actually be built through advocacy or collaborations with the city allowing people to have more access to bus passes um and making them uh at a discounted cost or free to students for example. And the systemic barriers that I'm addressing are the things that are very actively holding people back because in many cases to be sustainable is to spend more money or spend more time in a lot of cases and I think that's the wrong thing to focus on. I think that should be flipped completely and the sustainable choice should be the easiest choice.

Thank you. Thank you. So thank you for going through the process. Um the final decision by council will be made on Tuesday, May 19th 18th. Um and you don't need to be present to win. Uh the the city clerk will contact you later in the week with the final results. Um and thank you. Thank you for your passion as well as you know going through this and and all the work that you're doing with Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action. Thank you so much. I really appreciate all your time. Thank you.

Have a great evening. And Marian is next. City clerk, we're ready with for our next applicant. Your next applicant, Marian, is here. Okay. Good evening. Hi, Marian. Hi. Hi. I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Uh, thank you for applying. Uh, let me give a quick overview of the process. We have about 15 minutes for the interview and every council member will have a chance to ask you a question. So keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. Okay. And first up is council member Cisneros. Hello. Hi.

Hi. Thank you so much for applying. It's pleasure to meet you. And I noticed you have um a number of different commissions uh that you're applying for and you have planning is number one, right? Um, and so I want since I have the opportunity to ask how to kind of go about this interview, we typically see planning candidates have that as their first and only choice. Um, and you have parks as your second. So, how are you thinking about your rankings in terms of your interest? It's um the online process required me to say what is what would you like to do and I said planning and then the next question was if you can't get into that

do you want to do other things and I picked the next one and then what if you can't get into this one either so so I end up just picking you know uh those okay um that's really that's super helpful so I guess then you're looking for primarily you're for planning. Okay. So my question so may I ask whatever question to that

thank you. So the state has passed a lot of laws within the last several years especially that limit local control because of the housing crisis and and the the need for the state the state feels to um incentivize that and to help cities better incentivize housing production with within um on the local level. And this po can pose challenges and it also in difficulties and trouble communicating with residents when the city is more constrained. Are you familiar with some of the more recent housing legislation and how it has been impacting the planning process? Uh I'm not.

Okay. Um that would be something to look up. Thank you very much. Something something I guess I would learn if Yeah, absolutely. That would be that would be definitely something you'd learn. Right. That's the primary reason I wanted to apply. Uh I've lived in the city for more than 20 years. I wanted to learn more about how it works and I thought what's better than learning from the inside. So that's why. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Shinuasan. Hi. Thanks for applying. You have good very good interesting background.

Thank you and other universities. I'm focusing on uh heritage preservation commission for which you wrote uh storytelling in our history and then you say city should host field trips. Mhm.

What exactly you mean by that? Uh I have a 10-year-old uh who goes to school, you know, Sunnyville School, and um I've suggested to the school, I said, you know, there's a new city hall supposed to be a very uh uh you know, welldesigned uh green energy and everything. It's, you know, papers wrote about it. You know, I think kids going to school should come and visit the city hall and you know, they they have social studies and they learn about government and last week they're they were learning constitution. They each pick a amendment and trying to explain to the class and I just feel you also learn about the city you live in, you know, that'd be nice or you go to school at. Uh so I I think that the city should offer that kind of opportunity for kids who either you know live in the community or coming to school in the community so that they learn a little bit more about our heritage about our history and what the city has how does the city government work. I mean it's important to learn how the United States government work but I mean start from from the base right so that's what I thought

this might work better I think government local government so yeah thank you thank you uh next up is council member cell hi thank you for um interviewing and you have a lot of background in um many areas um so Um let's do another commission like uh for the personnel board commission um that deals with um there needs to be uh there's a personnel conflict and then they help um understand mitigate evaluate. So how does your background

your 30 years of working out what what would what special skills would you bring to that commission? uh people management skills I would say I manage work teams um not too big you know smaller teams or five six people larger teams you know 13 14 people and sometimes they don't always get along and even everyone on the team get along they might not get along with other departments uh our job is a crossf functional um function that we need to team with uh other departments

so there's some uh compromising and um communication so that because we need to all be on a very transparent and productive uh term to push forward. So all that is my everyday job. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next up is council member Chen. Thank you for applying for your interest. That was similar to my question too. I was wanting to know more. You know you mentioned the cross functional teams that you manage. So how have you dealt or handled with team conflicts or personnel issues? Um

um first of all I think open communication transparency um I don't think especially in what I've experienced whether uh in corporate or other uh settings people don't come out to make things difficult for you intentionally. They just have different perspectives, you know. It's like one room they looking from the other side and you looking from here, you see different things. I think once you put everything down, uh help I guess um each other see the other side um what's important for them and why they're asking these questions. Generally things get resolved. I have not run into something where uh people, you know, just decided to uh be mean. I've run into a couple people like that, but then I mean everybody knows they're mean. Um but even then you could somehow make it work, you know. Uh I I want to use an example. I work in a a job where uh I review all the contracts uh customer contracts. Uh my my team and I um we oversee all the sales contract with all of our customers. Uh sometimes the salespeople have different uh you know they're wired differently. They want to sell. They're willing to agree as long as it counts to revenue and you know get them paid commission. Um legal has certain uh requirements that they need to stand by. And I'm in finance and accounting. I need to make sure that you know in the end uh there's no accounting issues and it's going to be okay for the audit and um you know it's good for the company financially. So we don't always have the same interest. So we we just have to

negotiate. We we need to say here's the boundary. This is what I can do and I'll do my best to help you within this boundary. We cannot go out of that because then that would be you know uh not proper uh from a uh uh what do you say regulation perspective and they understand and and we try to be you know we're a service organization first and foremost and we want to make sure that they know our goal is to support them within reason within boundary and and uh it it has worked it has worked. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Council Member Lelay.

Thank you so much forifying. I appreciate your answers to each of these questions and thank you for giving us so many choices of things that you might want to do if you don't get the next one. I think that offers a us a lot of flexibility. Um, for your information, we do have tours of City Hall. My son took the tour in third grade and I think third grade is typically when they do um, local and California history. Um, who's the contact for that? Is it So um, you can contact me. You can contact Victoria to tell. Okay. Um, ultimately, we'll do a quick aside. Right now, right now, mainly, um, Cumberland, Lakewood, and Ellis Elementary Schools come here.

Um, but because of this, because of you bringing it up, I'm assuming your your child doesn't attend any of those three. She's at Sunnyville Christian. Okay. And so and so ultimately I I already said whether or not we could have like a Saturday where random third graders or or fourth graders or whatever could come to the city. Go ahead council member. Sorry. Yeah. So I it was I wanted you to know that because it's a great field trip. My my son really enjoyed it. Um

I wanted to ask about your planning commission um answers. one of the the answer um the greatest land use challenge is um you said the greatest land use challenge is the lack of it renovate repurposed existing land and buildings and I think what you're getting at here is the concept of infill development where we have all this stuff that's already built up and then there's little bits of land here and there that we can now build up with with housing with density with other things. Um, could you talk to me about what you um about what you think we need to be bringing into those parcels? Like what does Sunnyville need?

Um, I think first of all we need to uh as a I guess as a committee decide what kind of city Sunnyville wants to become,

right? Do we want to be uh people for the young families? I mean a city for the young families. do we want to attract you know who do we want to be in our city then we can decide what we can put in here uh when I answered that question what I had in mind uh was mostly all the you know along El Camino I know we have Al Camino beautifification project you know I've seen new things being built like the U Sutter health building actually near my neighborhood right now it's under construction the uh recovery center and along El Camino there are plenty of rundown uh houses or buildings and they don't look good and also they're generally like you know flat um shabby place I mean they could be I think repurposed whether is built into commercial or educational or um residential I think there's potential there because you know we are kind of bound by debate right it's not you know there's a lot more to to go in that direction and and so I think better use of what we have is what I was thinking.

Thank you. Thank you. Um I'm I'm last. Um so thank you for applying for different commissions. Um let me let's talk a little bit about personnel and your management um of people because this is one of the few commissions

um the personnel board where we don't really have any oversight. We don't have a liaison. We we basically um let you let that group um hear both sides of different issues and make decisions pretty much independently of council as opposed to kind of the rest of the commissions are giving recommendations to council. Um, from an operational standpoint, what was the say biggest issue you had to deal from a management standpoint?

If you can, you not not to divulge anything specifically, but but this is part of that, you know, that board's responsibility is is taking the information and making a final decision.

Yeah. From my own experience managing teams, um I feel the most important thing for me is to build trust. Um I am actually um in many people's views uh I have high uh demands for my team. Uh but yet I still have very uh cohesive uh you know team that bond very well and and people say you know oh you know the camaraderie we observe in your team is you know outstanding uh but you know how did you do that? Um, you know, when I first, for example, my previous company, when I first joined the company, uh, the CFO wanted me to lay off everyone and start all over because he wasn't happy.

And I spoke to everyone, uh, and I I talked to the CFO. I said, I suggest that we keep them. Let me try work with them first. Uh, because it's difficult. They know the business. they've been here for five, six, seven years.

Uh to have someone, you know, new all of them, you know, new team members. I mean, I'm new. I'm learning about the company. Then you have people who know even less than I do. Uh I said that's not going to work very well from my perspective. I said, "Let me try to work with them first." Um then I just, you know, I I did uh I told them we are going to work together. I actually did desk audit. I sat with them, each one of them, and I said, "Everything you do, if it takes you more than 15 minutes, if you do it more than once a month, tell me what it is and tell me how you do it. I want to see how you do it. And I also uh want to I want you to tell me who else on the team can do it. And what upstream dependency do you have? who else has to do something before you could do your your turn. And we made a long list and I've heard gossip uh that u they were uh telling other people that I was brutal uh at the time. Uh I said, you know, my new boss is brutal. Uh um and and and I I I kept telling them is please bear with me. I you know, it's going to work out something, you know, better. Uh I I said you know everything I say uh is because I know there's opportunity uh to collectively make some progress

and we could make it better. Um so we did that and then we found out that they were doing you know accounting involves checks and balances. the company had overall revenue, but there's a small piece of revenue that's below dollar uh high volume. They were still following the same process as if it's a multi-million dollar order. Well, then the multi-million order, you only have 40 of those, but then you have 2,000 of that. You can't use the same process. No wonder you're working all the time, you know? So, so we said, okay, let's cut that. uh let's use a different methodology you know either automate that or uh use a different approach batch process and and similarly so we were able to cut um a lot of their hours while doing more uh I think through that process they just believed in me more and they're willing to try more

at the end of that process did you have to lay off anybody no okay and actually the company announced acquisition of another company same size 10 days after I started. Um we actually were we were able to absorb all of the other companies work uh with only minimal headcount increase.

Okay. Uh so so then I think after going through that there's just a lot of camaraderie built because we went through everything together and we check with their you know what do you think you know you're spending too much time on this do you know of any other way you know does it have to be done this way uh you know you have to fire people and any of your time as management I did okay for cause for in operation for cause for Okay. Um, thank you. Um, so thanks for applying for going through this process. Uh, final decision by council will be made on Tuesday, May 19th.

You don't need to be present to be chosen and the city clerk will get back with you later in the week with the final results. Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Have a great evening. Thank you. You too. Thank you. and I'll reach out to uh about the school thing. My business card's out outside so you can just pop that up and I'll tell you Victoria's input. Thank you. Our next applicant is Emiline.

Your next applicant is here. Hi, my name is Emily. Hi Emily here. Welcome. Can I ask you who is watching this recording and where it is going to be communicated? So it's it is recorded and put onto our YouTube channel for anybody who wants to watch really the proceedings. Yes. Just like our council meeting. So this is a public council meeting that that anyone can anyone has a chance when when the techn is working and we've had some trouble tonight. Um, and everyone can watch at the end of the day. Interesting. Thanks for letting me know. Yes.

So, let me So, I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for being here. Um, let me take a moment to walk you through the process. So, each council member will have an opportunity to ask you a question. Um, the interview is scheduled to take about 15 minutes, so keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. And first up is Council Member Sheen Basan. Did I mess up? No, it's okay. I can That's right. That's right. Relax. Yes, that's right. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. Thank Sorry for the Hi, thanks for coming.

Thanks for your work on the work with environmental volunteers. I wanted to ask about that. Um and then also you are currently uh enrolled in third training program. How is it going? It's going well so far. So the third training I think we are at the fourth or third or fourth session. We have been learning a lot for sure. Okay. Uh getting ready for emergencies and hopefully um doing my best to uh be helpful in case I'm needed. Okay. uh for my neighbors. Okay.

Um and regarding my involvement with environmental volunteers, so perhaps you've heard about them. They're a nonprofit uh based in Palo Alto at the Eco Center and their mission is so inspiring as they do science education for kids at school.

Correct. They also train college students uh to be able to provide these trainings to over students and also to schools around them. Uh so uh I'm really into sustainability because uh I think it's a very important topic for our future. Um and so environmental volunteers um is basically uh helping create the next generation of environmental leaders

and I've been helping them in particular with their marketing since my background is in marketing. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Council Member S. Hi. Thank you for um interviewing and um volunteering with the youth. So um what makes you passionate about this commission and what is your uh supreo special skill that you bring to this mission?

Great questions. Um so why I'm interested in volunteering as a part of Sunnyville Sustainability Commission? So I uh as I said earlier I'm really um um passionate about sustainability and um so I've been working in digital marketing uh for 10 plus years so far and currently transitioning into the sustainability space uh in order to uh do more meaningful work um uh that could be uh that could do good for both people and the planet. And um after um getting involved in this space um as a part of my volunteering work with environmental volunteers but also supporting a global sustainability conference in Vietnam. Um I realized that it's a lot about how um initiatives are communicated and adopted by communities. Uh so after going to the San Francisco climate week last week actually this conclusion become became so clear the technology and all the innovations are here. It's about how we help communities adopt it and especially at the local level. Uh so I believe I could have a role in this um if I joined the sustainability uh commission to really u get involved in the local action and how all the policies and uh city initiatives are going to actually uh be implemented uh on the field.

And my superpower, I believe, is my ability to turn complex um topics into actionable uh items uh actionable um yeah in a way that um it happens. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Next up is council member Chang.

Thank you for applying and for your interest. your application was really interesting to read the different uh issues like new migration I've never really thought about before. Um but you know you've seen other cities and other countries. I was I was wondering how you felt Sunny well Sunny Bell does well in the environmental space and what we can improve on for sure. Uh so regarding the NES I wanted to say that it's very new to me too. Uh I heard about it from a friend uh quite randomly. Um and uh so regarding my uh multicultural background since I'm from France and I arrived in Sunville more than 10 years ago uh I actually uh saw um different ways of approaching uh energy climate and sustainability in general. Uh, and I'm very um um I find it very interesting to see for example how a city like Paris have so many bikes and it's really like um a part of uh people's everyday life to actually uh use bikes or um walk more. So, uh I find it extremely interesting to see how the U in the US context um uh a bit of culture and and I'm not too sure but people just behave differently, they live differently. So, this is extremely uh interesting to see because um if it if some things work in other places, it means it could work here. So, what could we do to uh actually um encourage people to do this

more? So, it's possible, but now um what can we do to uh make it happen? Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Le.

Thank you so much. I appreciate what you just said. And it's interesting from an outside perspective. Like, you get here and you're like, why is everyone driving a car? Right. It's very California. We invented the drive-thru. That's why In-N-Out is In and Out here. It's simultaneously a thing to be proud of and simultaneously a thing to be like why are we like this? So I just find it fascinating and thank you for bringing that up. Um I'm curious about this global sustainability conference in Vietnam. if you could talk about that if that means that there are a bunch of people coming into Vietnam to discuss the different things that are happening in there or if it's focused on Vietnam and the issues there and what you have learned if anything that you think should be brought back here that we can learn from.

Uh a great question. So let me give you a bit more context about this conference. Uh it's a very new conference. It will be the first time it will that it will happen. Uh so it's the sustain it's a sustainability circularity and biomass conference uh also known as SCB 2026 and it will happen in Vietnam in August for 4 days and uh uh it will focus specifically on forestry agriculture and biomass uh with a goal of bringing together uh scientists researchers, policy makers and industry leaders uh uh to create synergies around these topics um so that they can um support sustain sustainability globally um and so it's it's open to anyone. So it's not around Vietnam. So there are researchers from across Europe and the US who are going to attend. Uh so it's quite new. This space is quite new to me. So uh in terms of learning, I would say I I've learned a lot uh from a marketing and communication perspective since I'm helping them on marketing and PR.

Uh for sustainability itself, I didn't realize it was so new. I'll let you.

So, it's still new. However, what I really uh realize is that it I I think progress really comes from the collaboration between all uh these stakeholders in the ecosystem. So between like academia and the great research they're doing um and how to bring this re research to the market through uh the industry and how policy can actually help uh accelerate the process while also engaging the community because at the end um we serve communities uh and we need them also to engage with whatever solution we put on the market. So I would say one takeaway so far is that um advancement is much more complex and it comes really from um um synergies between um different stakeholders

including um uh the the policy side including the policy side and the governmental aspect of it.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um I'm up next and you talked a little bit about well you you read went through our climate action playbook and I just want to get what your takeaways were as far as you know and and we had a climate action plan and then we became then we set a playbook with the upcoming plays of what we would like to focus on. What do you see from a priority standpoint would make the difference from a climate action standpoint from our plays? So I did have a look at the climate action playbook and I have actually I have it open in front of me actually right now. Okay.

Uh so what stood out uh was the fact that this I I think the city of Sunnival has very clear goal clear goals and this playbook highlights very well the action plan because you see like the different goals and the actual targets and different actions. So I think it's structured very well in terms of content. What stood out to me is um uh this priority of basically transitioning to from f fossil fuel to electricity. Uh so this is true across the different aspects but with um uh highlight on building and transportation. So I believe this these are the two main axis.

Yeah. Um and I believe also that um the resource management is also a priority as well as resilience regarding climate change. Uh so where I think the main um the way we would have the most impact actually the the key thing would potentially be on how all these uh things you have plan uh get translated um uh at the resident level like um so there are a lot of things being done and planned but now how do we make sure it's going to actually be adopted by residents so I think efforts uh my focus a lot on how are all these things are received by residents so how they actually um get aware uh we're doing all these all these things then how they actually understand what's what what is what you would like to do and how after that they actually take action. So um a concrete example of this is um uh if we want to people to use less cars so we consume less energy overall even if it's electrical cars like how we how we're going to change people's behavior regarding using less cars but so they still need to get to some places right so what are the alternative

options to actually get people to stop using their cars and do whatever else they want to like walking, taking using more bikes like we mentioned earlier. So I think the yeah one of the main challenge will be adoption. Okay, thank you. And lastly is council member Cunes.

Hello. Thank you so much for interviewing and for all of your very interesting answers that you've given so far. Uh-huh. So, I want to talk about our policym process and kind of where the sustainability commission fits into that and get your thoughts um about how you'd handle something. So, we recently changed our policy proposal, our project proposal system to limit us what we are able to like give to staff basically so that they can the volume is lower. So that means every council member gets three per year new new project or policy proposals and each commission gets one. And so before you commission could do 15 if they wanted. So when you're so this is an opportunity for the sustainability commission to formally propose something for council to consider. What kind of criteria when you're trying to decide with your colleagues what to put forward as that one thing? What kind of criteria do you look for as being the your top priority project for a year?

Great question. So, there are definitely a lot of criteria to consider. Um, if I were to prioritize and this actually comes back to my background in tech, I would say impact. So what you want to do is to have a maximum impact with a minimum resources, right? Because resources are limited anyway. Um so what I think should be prioritized is anything that could reach the maximum people and have a maximum impact. Uh so in terms of sustainability, it could be so this would be based on each specific project I guess. Mhm.

Uh but yeah, so it could be KPIs like um how much of uh I'm not too sure but u it's a challenging question if I don't have examples for you but that's actually a very helpful answer to go in without like seeing the thing because it's just like how your mind is thinking about a problem. If we go back to the uh number of cars being used, so it could be how much cars we could uh not use if we do this

and get the number of cars we could get over because of that solution or things like that. But it needs to be quantified. It cannot be like randomly decided. And then I would actually list all the criteria by all and give a priority uh weight to each criteria. They're actually project management tools to decide you know or like um kind of scientifically what to do first. So I will have this kind of mindset like a datadriven mindset and also I believe it has to be also a bit subjective like you have to do something that makes sense. Mhm. Uh yeah,

that's really helpful. That's great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for for going through this process. Um you know, we will be making our final decision on Tuesday, May 19th. You don't need to be at that council meeting to be chosen. And then the city clerk will get back to you uh later in the week with our final decision. Perfect. I'm sure you'll make the right decision. and uh I'm very motivated uh to to be a part of this. So if I get the chance to be selected, I'm highly motivated and committed to help you the best way I can. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Thank you.

So Linda, um you're now with Mua. And then bye. Have a great night. And then Sopana isn't able to be here tonight. They're traveling is here and she has a nickname of Amy. Amy Amy. Nickname Amy. Thank you. Y Amy. Thank you. Hi Amy. I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for Nice to meet you.

Thank you for being here tonight. Let me give you a quick overview of the process. So, every council member will have a chance to ask you a question. We have about 15 minutes scheduled for for the interview, so keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. Um, and first up is Council Member Self. Hi, thank you for applying. Um, so what makes you passionate about applying for this commission? And what special skill do you bring to this? a special gift you bring to this commission.

Well, I am you may know that I am the founder of a nonprofit organization environmental and I have uh I'm very passionate about the our planet and our the future of the you know the climate. So that's lead me to open this foundation and this uh organization and uh I I have so many uh ideas and you know things that I can offer to the city so that they apply it and the next generation enjoy it. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh next up is council member Chang. Thank you for applying and your interest in serving on the commission. I was interested in you you described the Plem approach and how that might apply to a commission or a city like Sunny Bell.

Well, it applies to everything in the city. I mean, I'm walking in the streets. I have I see so many things can be changed easily and help our planet. It's so so many things. So approach is bringing nature back to the city while without disturbing the urban develop development. So that's that's very important that we live the way that we want to live without destroying the nature. So the plan is mainly is that

yeah do you have any examples of um nearby cities or or something that could be implemented here? Yes, I have many examples. Uh there have been many we have seen the rooftop garden years and years but is not applied everywhere. Uh when we build a building, we destroy the nature. We take off the nature from that part of that building is build on it. We want to have a plan. We want to have bring back the nature on the top of it. It's just need a little bit adjustment with the how we build the material we use so that they can tolerate the moisture there's soil the plants on the top of it then we will have the nature back. So when you fly over the city, you don't see the city, they see the nature. That's the main goal. We don't want the scars on the surface of our planet. That's the main thing. And and the examples are very I I when I walk in the street, I see many places they apply these kind of things. For example, today I was walking around my house and the the walkway there, pedestrian walkway is uh one of the houses put gravel which is less expensive, water absorbent. It doesn't let the storm water flooding happen. But a school is building close to my home and they put concrete all over the place. They don't need it. We don't need for pedestrian walkway concrete. Walking on the concrete as hard surface is bad for our body and bad for our nature and the climate.

So these are the many many small things can happen but make a big big impact and difference. Thank you. Thank you. And next up is council.

Hi. Thank you so much for applying. It's a treat to see someone so passionate about this and I did go to your website and looked at the plan and it it looks beautiful like to have rooftop gardens to have u nature and green spaces. I hope you when you were at city hall, I hope you took a moment to see we have some um some of this going on. Not I think to the degree that you have on your website, but I think it's pretty cool. Personally, um I wanted to ask you about this isn't in your application, but it's one of the things that the sustainability commission has historically been interested in and this council has, which is the transition from gas to electric appliances. One of the things that we deal with is that this is something that we want to do, but it's hard for people to do because of the financial barrier. What do you think are some of the steps that the city can take or that we can ask partners to take to make this easier for for uh homeowners and businesses or homeowners who have a like a building

who have gas like gas appliances like gas stoves gas stoves or gas heaters? Yes. And my uh my expertise is nothing to do with the you know with that kind of uh solution but for sure I can we can all brainstorm and bring something that would help but nothing at this moment I cannot say anything about that because I don't have any expertise on that field. Thank you.

Okay. I'm up next. So, so tell me a little bit about the nonprofit and you talked about um trying to and I'm So, tell me a little bit about your nonprofit first and then I have secretly a follow-up question. Is it is it all PL is it all basically just the Plem concept or

the PLM concept and beyond right now? I mean, and also the Plem outside the surface that I was talking about the sidewalks or something like that. Parking lots, the parking lots are on concrete. It doesn't have to be a swamp on concrete. It can be gravel because the car the speed of the car and the parking lots are not that big. So they can drive on the gravel and that divide the the space of the parking with trees. It make it cool. So there are so simple things like this. But answering your question about my nonprofit. Yes. My nonprofit started when I was traveling cross country and was looking down and I noticed I admiring the nature and then I noticed the city is like a scars on the surface of the you know on the earth and I said well the city should grow we can't stop them this is necessity but we can do something that keeping while uh saving the nature

okay

so that's the that's it's started My brain started to think about it and I found a solution which I called it ple the plem is not only for environment it's even for immediate uh benefit for everybody like when you build that house which I explain it in my website you you prevent it from wildfire you prevent it from earthquake from tornado es which are right now is big deal. right now is the other side of the country are burning in by fire and white fire can easily be stopped by the plan and is it is scientific and um scientific approved the wildfire in California recent it there's a picture on the news it shows all the building burned only one building that is like a flame is concrete create concrete on any surface that tolerates not inflammable,

right? And the window and the metal windows, it was untouched right

within that fire. So wildfire, earthquake, tornado, uh storm water flooding, all of this can be prevented. Plus, when it's covered with the soil and the plants, it save you energy because about 20 in soil give you perfect insulation. The temperature stays the year around the same 70 something like that. So that's excellent. Then you don't have cooling or heating system. Plus I based on my old experience the orientation of the sun which I bring it up in my website again give if the city when they give the subdividing the the lands they tell people okay you subdivide it subdivide it in a way that houses built will be facing south then in summer will be cool in winter it will warm So easy just using the sun orientation. So there are so many things I can help. Okay.

If I would choose. Yeah. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Next up is council member Ceros. Hello. Hello.

Thank you so much for applying for your interest in serving the city in this manner and for all of the really interesting answers that you've given to my colleagues questions. Um, you had answered I had looked down like three questions and then they all got them. But I I have another one here. Um, so serving on the commission sometimes means an issue will come before you and there will be a lot of passions on both sides of an issue and something that stood out to me in your application was that you would bring a collaborative mindset, an openness to diverse viewpoints. I want could you speak to us about a time where this came up in your work either at the nonprofit or in other parts of your life where you've really had to h like have that collaborative mindset and openness to different perspectives in order to reach a solution to a problem.

I can say from my childhood I always looking for solutions. I I love challenging situation and find a solution and it's not only for climate. I have done for other things. Um I have a patent with for earthquake long time ago. So is a is something in my I don't know in my gene or something that I am I want to to solve issues. That's my passion in general. I think this is this is the answer to your question or

was there a specific time where that where that happened and that it sticks out in your memory is like you really had to use collaborative thinking and look at all these different perspectives. No, it happens anytime. I can't I can't say specific, you know, that works. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. And lastly is Council Member Shining Basin. Thank you. Thanks for playing. I checked out your website. It's very very interesting. You are listed as philanthropist and uh inventor which is really cool. Yeah. And then I read about PLM and then it's very interesting concept.

I have a special question on from your application. You said, "I am especially motivated to support policies that not only reduce environmental impact but also improve public safety, energy conser energy efficiency and long-term resilience." Exact resilience for the community. Can you elaborate on that?

Yes. uh as I said I I wanted to have the policies that like a the policy for example the city pass so that encourage the people who are building parking lot the same as I told you before make it with gravel not with asphalt concrete not the hot and put trees so that it will be cool so that's the for the policies and then for the safety

as I said is for earthquake wildfire these are safety issue that will be uh coming with the plan and the energy I I said about the energy because of the you know the and also the sun orientation following sun orientation there are so many small very little very tiny many steps that we can make we can take and get the be happy for their future generation so that they can breathe oxygen not CO2. Okay. So that's all I I wanted to do.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you Amy. Thank you for going through the process tonight. Thank you. Uh council will be making its decision on Tuesday, May 19th. You don't need to be at that council member at that council meeting to to be selected and then the city clerk will get back with you later in the week with the final results. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And so is not here. Gay is here. So we'll do gay and then we'll take a recess. So we had a hand up thing. We don't like if you have a seat right over here. Your next applicant gay is here.

Hi. Hi Gay. Hi there. How are you? Doing well. Um thank you for applying. Thank you for going through the process tonight. Uh council members will have a chance to ask you a question. We have about 15 minutes for the interview. Uh so keep that in mind as you're going through those answers. But uh you know, thank you for thank you for being here. First up is council member Chang. Thank you for applying for your interest in serving on a commission. You mentioned um you know you had attended meetings in 2023 and then I ask you to speak up a little bit. I'm a little hard of hearing. I also have a very soft speaking voice.

Um you mentioned you had attended a couple sustainability commission meetings in 2023. Yes. And it's changed a lot in 2026 the work plan based on feedback. What are you most excited about in the 2026 work plan?

Um I I I have to speak from I guess my personal interest and that is um I'm very concerned about carbon emissions in whatever form they take. And so as I understand it, you will be updating your um uh climate action playbook. And so I'm really looking forward to whatever changes or opportunities come in reviewing that to go forward. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Lelay.

Thank you. Um I appreciate your answer to that question as well. I was also looking at that. It's not often that we get detailed answers about um commissions that you've watched in the past and have noticed a shift in. So, I really like that about your application that you've been paying attention for this long and noticing the shift. Um, one of the most recent shifts that we've done as a council and push to our boards and commissions is that everyone just gets a few things to focus on. Now, it's helping our staff prioritize so that we don't have give them like 15 different things to work on at once. And it means that each council member gets three projects, each board commission gets one project. It makes prioritization for staff easier, but it means that each board permission gets one thing. What are your priorities in deciding what thing should be prioritized? I realize that's a little bit circular, but what is that decision?

I'd like to give you a little background. I I assume you've seen um somewhat of my work history, but I I spent 27 years as environmental consultant. I've worked in oil fields, refineries, military bases, um, semiconductor facilities. My first job as a structural engineer was in an operating nuclear power plant.

I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have a strong sense through all of that of what contamination is. I've served as the environmental manager at three Title 5 facilities, which means they um emit high levels of toxic chemicals. Um uh and in those work instances I have seen the the staff employees casual attitudes towards um compliance and regulatory oversight. Um, in one instance, excuse me for the running long, but um,

in one instance, um, this was at a third party marine fuel terminal at in Martinez and they had a thermal oxidizer that would burn off emissions from the tanks and um, of course, you know, the air district was all over that and they had um, gauges and, you know, things to measure what was going on and the employees had turned the equipment off so that the emissions were being vented. The property was being sold. I was brought in as an interim manager and I went back through the system and I documented about nine months worth on a daily basis of this venting that was going on. Um, my first career, I'm from Pennsylvania and I have a a permanent teaching certificate in the state of Pennsylvania to teach mathematics. So, I I am mainly concerned about the knowledge, the understanding of the severity of the situation we are in. And I I don't know if there's time for um me to pass anything out. And um I do you have time for that or would you like

Oh so so maybe on the way out unless Yeah. Okay. What I wanted to say is um so I I've worked as an environmental consultant. I'm interested period. I I'm going to be

doing this reading and attending meetings regardless of anything that happens here. Um, and so my greatest concern is educating people about what's going on. Um, I have the habit of talking to people just very casually about, you know, what their interest in climate is. And I'm I've been told in social situations, nobody wants to talk about that. So my perspective on all of this is education. And if I could make any suggestion to you all, it would be make sure the public understand the situation we're in. What I was going to pass out is um last week um the Columbia Center, Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy put out a report last week and it said we need to step up our um reduction in carbon emissions by threefold. So my picture is California, you know, and we thank our legislators for giving us targets, but they gave us targets, right? And you guys are working to meet those targets. Meanwhile, the emissions levels are going up. So those targets aren't going to do what we think they're going to do because the the carbon is going up. Um, so on every occasion that I have, I try and inform my representatives. Um, um, Linda can attest to that as to the situation we're in. And, um, I know it's uncomfortable to talk about, but we've got to get to the point where the public understands the situation we're in. And you know, I hate to say the sky is falling, but I feel like if you give people the information,

they can make up their own mind if they want to put their head in the sand or not. But it seems to me that the public servants should make that information available because, you know, the I think people have the sense, oh, somebody's going to take care of that. And I guess that's you people here is going to take care of that. But but if we're not working together, I don't see how it could happen. Excuse me for laughing away. Thank you. Um I'm up next. Um and I agree, you know, education and is is critical at the end of the day. I did want to answer one thing from a CAP standpoint. You talk about that the CAP is mainly focused on people living and working in the city. From a transportation standpoint, we can really only affect, you know, we can we can look at vehicles vehicles map vehicle miles traveled, but we can only change those people that the people that are passing through the city. We can't control them at all. And so, so one of the things that we're doing this year is doing a citywide shuttle, an evening shuttle, you know, trying to get people out of their cars, active transportation, all that. So, so I appreciate, you know, that the concept of education as well as, you know, you looking at the the climate action playbook and and saying, well, it seems to be focused on this. That's because there's only, you know, we can only change the people who live here and work here at the end of the day. Uh, from from that standpoint, but looking at the climate action playbook, what do you think should be prioritized from plays? We have a lot of different plays over the next few years that we're focusing on and then picking up the next set of plays. What do you think is highest priority from lowering our commissions or lowering our emissions?

Thank you. Oh, after that? No. or or or what we're currently in either either after that or I understand the mind you're in because um it's not like there's a coal mine, you know, in Sunnyville that we could close, right?

Um and so with emissions going up that are not in our control, the only thing I I can come back to is education. people have got to understand and when I say that um I I have to go back to my bachelors in math and my graduate work in mathematics and say they need to look at the data. I know if you are aware of Yale's communication department, climate communication department, they say, "Oh, you know, don't people are upset with the data science. They don't want to hear the science." We we have to get to the point where they understand the data. It's not going to go away. So, um, yes, do what we can, but we can only do so much. Um, I will tell you I went to a Save the Bay meeting meeting last Friday night as part of climate week in San Francisco and you know we were talking about all the flooding and all the the planning that you guys are doing in order to address those concerns and I know that you're working with the county and there's a lot of stuff that I don't know that's going on. But um I don't know if the climate action um uh playbook addresses the flooding, but since I live in North Sunnyville, I will say my next priority would be the flooding. And um it's my understanding that Sunnyvil's uh planning level is for a three-foot flood and that the jurisdiction BCDC and maybe the county are looking at 6.6 and you guys haven't agreed yet. Um I'm not in on the details. I'm just repeating what I'm reading, but um those are two things that I think that you can work on. It would be good to do.

Thank you. Next up is Council Member Cisneros.

Great to meet you and thank you so much for being here and for all of your advocacy work both in this room and outside of this room and all the liinal spaces in between. um when we talk about city work, my question mayor asked my exact question basically and I kind of want to add on to that a little bit. So when we talk about communicating about climate science, something that people will tell you, you know, when you dig into it, well, you don't want to hear it. Well, why? It's like because there's doom everywhere. Like it's just bad news all the time. Like it feels like it is. And people have a protective instinct to themselves. How can we tap into that protective instinct that makes them want to not hear about this? So, when I think about that, it's like, do we need to pick a couple different things to really drill down on people with or do do we need to communicate in a certain way or what are those strategies to break through that initial resistance and that protective strategy like I can't hear about this. I'm overwhelmed with everything. you brought up another piece of paper that I will leave with you when I go. And that is that I mean I I I think about this stuff all the time. It's not just because I'm coming before you, but um this this concerns me greatly and people are putting their heads in their sands and I know families I have no family. I've lived alone for 30 years. So um I don't have hungry kids to feed and you know a career anymore. Um anyway, I decided that education requires engagement and so I wrote and have published on the website a calculator to calculate household um carbon emissions. So it takes into account, you could just take your PG bill, your heating, electricity, um what you spend on gasoline and air

travel. I did not include trains because I didn't think too many of us were using trains in Sunnyville, but um What do you think?

I I find um good reception to that. I give the cards out. I talk to people. It's something they can do when they go home. And I will say that um I recently attended the the um climate collective that FUHSD put on last Wednesday and um had a booth we where we demonstrated um the calculator and and people were really interested. It wasn't a large group, but and as I say, it's with a card is a takeaway they can do. And I think it appeals to people. Why, you know, when I talked to him, they're they're concerned. They don't know what to do. Um, so I for a while I um and have another card I'll give you uh on the Yale website. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It lists things you can do, things around the house, things at work, your travel, banking, you know, where you should banking so that the money doesn't end up in um the oil company's hands. Um so I started with that, you know, here's what you can do and and just further engaging them and and I, you know, I have wild dreams about VTA line. I don't know. I live on the VTA line and I see these ads all the time and what's wrong with us? How come we don't say, "Hey, have you reduced your carbon? Did you commute today with somebody?" You know, um I get a costume outside Trader Joe's in Safeway. You know, people want to talk about stuff. We could be setting up signs. I mean, reach out to these folks and they must be engaged. They're not going to buy it until they are brought into the program, if you will.

And thank you for describing ways in which that you've been successful in doing that. I really appreciate that work. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Shini Basa. Hi.

Hi. I see you volunteer at nocarbonfuel.org We know Rich very well. He's from the commission. Uh the you pointed out about the VMT. Is there any other sources you can think of? Any other carbon emission categories like uh uh uh fuel or energy and all those things which we can simultaneously look at apart from transportation to reduce our greenhouse gas emission. So we're we're talking Sunny Bale, right? Exactly.

Okay. And you're looking for other sources of carbon emissions. which is exactly what you need to do, right? Where's this stuff coming from? Right. Um there's no manufacturing here, right?

So I you know, I don't know what their usage is, but that might be an opportunity. There's another thing I've been thinking about is do you hold meetings with the sustainability officers from these businesses and talk to them about maybe they have ideas? I know people talk about food waste a lot. I saw a lecture recently um about a man actually from the east coast and he had a program in the school lunch um uh venues. I guess he he was in the process of buying refrigerators for each grade school and if somebody went through the line and I don't know if they get like a a standard lunch or something but there's something they don't eat like the milk or you know particularly things that are containerized they provided a refrigerator in the lunchroom and the kids could go and put their things in the refrigerator and so that food does not go to waste. So, you know, where that originates is, you know, down at Harris Farm with all the emissions that were created getting the food to the site. So, um I don't know if something like that is an opportunity here or not. Um I I I other than the transportation, I really don't know, but I I I just feel very strongly that people need to be encouraged to address this.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And lastly is council member cell. Hi. You mentioned that um one of your uh key concerns is uh North Sunnyville and the water rising. You wanted to do something to address that. What are your thoughts on that?

You know, I haven't attended any meetings there. the there um I guess it's a process been going on and if I understand the requirement correctly um you need to put together a plan by uh 2034. So, this is something that I guess is just starting. Um um there was a woman there from Sonteo County that was quite active and they're doing a lot of different things out there and also someone from Alamita. And so they're building, you know, like uh breakwaters and walls to keep the water out. Another thing that they're doing is kind of I I'm not a plants person, so my language isn't that technical, but they're kind of like um creating various levels of plants and that that could be used to slow the water down. And so it's like a terracing of the bay that slows the water down and then the plants absorb the water. Those are the things that we're talking about. As I say, I I'm not wellversed, but thank you. So, thank you for going through the process this evening. Um, well, you know, ultimately we'll be making our decision on Tuesday, May 19th. So, a few weeks away. You don't have to be at that council meeting to be selected and then the city clerk will get back with you later in the week with final results.

Thank you. Thank you. would love to. She Thank you for being here and and would love to pass the former teacher in me is dying to pass. Fantastic. Uh city clerk, let's go ahead and take a 9m minute recess and come back at 8:30. The next person to be here till 8:50, right? Yes. Are they here? Somebody

Let's go ahead and reconvene and council member Le next up your next applicant, Annette. See the middle over there? Hi Annette. Hi everyone. Welcome. Hello.

I'm Sungo Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying. Let me give you a quick overview of the process. Uh, every council member will have an a chance to ask you a question. Okay. Uh, you have about 15 minutes scheduled for the interview. So, keep that in mind as you're giving those answers. Okay. And first up is council member Le. Oh, sorry. Can we skip me? What was that? I'm sorry. Can we skip me? I missed my notes and they're out of order. Okay. Yeah.

Um, so I'm up next. Um, thank you for applying. So, you listed off multiple commissions that you're interested in in uh being in uh heritage first planning, housing, sustainability. Um are how did you choose that priority? You know, and you know, ultimately from a from a council standpoint, you know, we have a lot of different different applicants and different things. So, so what is your you know, what is your cause or or why you chose that order for for your application process?

Okay. So um I um mentioned in my um application that I have a background in architecture and um after um studying and working in the field for some time I found that uh my passion within architecture really um um is um closer to the historic preservation side of things.

Um but I know like within my field that um I basically touch all four of these um commissions to some degree. um because obviously architecture for um also for planning and then sustainability and then housing. Um so I just uh went um through the ones that were pretty relevant to my field, but then my priorities really ended up be more um the interests within architecture that were closer to my heart. So yes, um heritage preservation is my uh top uh preference. Um, and it was just like interesting reading about the um, history of Sunnyvil um, preparing for this interview.

Thank you. Um, next up is Council Member Cisneros. Thank you so much for this for submitting your application and for being interested in serving the city in this particular way um, through the commission. I think it's a really great step, especially with somebody of your background to consider loaning expertise in something that's very relevant. Um something that you mention specifically in your application is the issue around like the Dwayne village centers and ethnic grocery stores and housing development. That is a very

a lot of things run up against each other. And this is what we find when we're trying to cope with the the needs of the community that are very real and at the same time state housing law that is very real that can constrict what we are able to um deci what what we're able to say no to and what we can't say no to from the developer side. So when how how would somebody thoughtfully approach that situation when those like it's it's the law and like we feel constrained and then

but this is very a real need too and this is kind of at the center of what like planning or like historical preservation and in in a lot of context would be. So I'd like to hear how do you think about a problem where you have that intersection of competing um influences and competing objectives.

So this is something that happens in architecture all the time actually. Like this is um not the first project I've seen where um you get neighbors um complaining, hey what are you doing with this um housing um development? um you're going to um demo this um XYZ um um thing that made this part um why everybody likes this part of town. Um, so I think the first um order of business would be um one to um start talking to the neighbor, start researching the uh codes that could um support or damage your um project and then um really start to um keep collecting as much information as possible because sometimes um um like in the um planning commission meeting that I just uh sat in um The planning commission was kind of um um confused as to wait, there were these um uh waiverss that you were supposed to send to us, but we did not get them in time and now we're kind of just um um confused and put on the spot because we don't know how to react to something we didn't really have time to look into. And sometimes these things can't be helped. um like I know the state uh laws are also um trying to push something positive which in this case is more housing. So it really comes down to um getting all the information and figuring out your priorities and then um kind of really understanding the impact that the project's going to have on um whoever it's some going to affect and maybe even think about who it may affect that you would not think about the first time or on the spot. Excellent. Thank you so much for

answering that question. Of course. Thank you. Next up is council member Shina Vasan. Thanks for applying for multiple commissions. I was particularly interested in your response to the question. What are your thoughts on Sunnyale support for announced community? Mhm. you wrote uh once new housing and our affordable housing fees are paid more action can be done to let support be more concrete solutions. Uh can you elaborate on that please?

Oh yeah. So, um during um my time in school, I was uh part of this um off-campus um program in San Francisco. And um this was um a program headed by um two um architects. And um and um I think one of the biggest takeaways from that program is that um in order to ideally push down the rents, you're going to have to build more um housing because you're going to have people coming in to um live in the Bay Area and in um including Sunnyvil. Like this is a beautiful place. There's a lot of job opportunities. You're just going to have people coming in all the time. And um we're also um I guess um California is kind of behind on um building up housing to keep up with um the demand. So we're really just trying to um set things um straight and um do what should have done been done a long time ago.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Council Member S. Thank you for um interviewing and um you pointed out some areas of greatest concern. Um uh could you elaborate um how you would determine which project? There's so many project historical that you could choose from. How do you um pick out which project is the most important to preserve spend your time on? Okay. So, the projects that I would um prioritize would be ones that would um have the most um public uh interface. Um, in my resume, I put down um the um Orchard Heritage um park and the um museum expansion because um this is another case where you have um two sides trying to preserve different parts of um Sunnyvil's history, but even they're um um kind of uh conflicted as to how to move forward uh with it. And um I did uh end up watching one of the previous meetings um with uh the uh preservation architect kind of um explaining like potential um ways to uh try to um give some space for the museum to add that um expansion without um taking up too many of the um the orchard uh trees. And um and um I noticed that they were all like they seem like somewhat like like it seems like minimal like it's all like more compact so that it doesn't feel like um too many trees were being taken out. And the architect also kind of gave like different options uh

depending on which option um the um those sides would ultimately favor. And then also I did um know from that same um program I mentioned that um uh parking um requirements do end up kind of uh make um these um uh processes a little more complicated. So, um, ideally like if you could take out some of that parking, just just not too much of it because obviously people have to drive in to um help maintain or just to come visit, but just some of it so that um then there would be um less trees taken out. Um, and this is just an example. So, so yeah. So, public um in engagement and then um and use would be the top priority um also because um historic preservation is basically useless if like nobody really cares about it in the end.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang. Thank you for applying and for your interest. I was curious in your work and you know if you were on the commission how would you balance different needs for example some of the historic buildings might not be ad accessible.

Okay. Yeah. So this comes up quite a bit as well. So um in the case that happens um we would um look into the project to see okay um so we would need the if we need the ADA um um ex the accessibility option um I would assume it's needed to some degree because we want people to actually be able to go into the historic uh project and um get to know it regardless of um their um disabilities and backgrounds. Um and then I would um then see like uh what options do we have that are least disruptive to the um overall appearance and then I would just try to find a middle ground between something that um isn't too distracting but at the same time will um help um improve accessibility.

Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, Council Member Le.

Thank you. And I appreciate it in your application where you're talking about being able to walk to New Y Supermarket because that is itself a kind of local history, isn't it? It's one of the only Asian supermarkets on that part of town. And it's very interesting to me personally why it's there. It's not something that's in the historical preservation document. And maybe it should be like I want to know why there's a random Chinese grocery store on that north side of town. Anyway, so you're right in your historical context statement and I appreciate that you wrote that too about the little bipok representation and so that you know there is a existing council's um study issue that was proposed a few years ago to add more um to add more representation to that. Um I'm curious about your other thoughts about the um I think you mentioned the historical context statement and um on the same page it's listed the heritage resources inventory and why they are there. We have a lot of information about stuff going into the 70s and I'm curious about your thoughts as an architect about as time moves forward and as we move past the 70s and the 80s become history in the '9s. What do you think it do you think there's going to be things worth preserving there and how should we look at that?

Okay. So, so this one um funny enough I did um also find out sometime after I sent in my application that yes um there is that revision to that historical context. Um so that was like a pleasant surprise and um I did also kind of um uh watch that u meeting about that um um that revision and there were like questions that I think were also going to be applicable to your question like how do we look into something from the 70s and decides that if it's um worth keeping or not and I think some of The questions that came up were like, okay, say we have this site that ends up actually being a former um settlement for um BIPOC um workers,

but the existing structures no longer exist. um or they found a structure but it's it's kind of a um damaged um shed. How do we honor that? So, so if that's the case, so like if we do have that shed, best case scenario, we would um kind of look into it to see if um we could like have it as like a artifact or or like something that'd be um usable for the public. Maybe for a shed, not so much. So, it probably would turn into a artifact. And then maybe we would just uh design a um a um building like a mini um um center just to kind of um honor it. Um maybe put even put a playground so that um um families would um visit the site and then or even just um build a another um uh market or store and then maybe just try to encourage um some small bipok um business owner to uh use the building.

So it would be like just understanding like okay what's there and then how can we honor it? Um and um probably would be also something that the public could um use as well. Um cuz I know like sometimes um with museums sometimes it feels kind of static and then it may be a little harder to get some foot traffic in the area and I think um these days with um new development you want to encourage um some kind of foot traffic. Thank you. Thank you uh Annette. Thank you for going through the the process tonight. Um let me give you a quick overview of the next steps. So council will be making its final decision on Tuesday, May 19th.

Okay. Uh you don't have to be at that meeting to be chosen and then uh the city clerk will get back to you later in the week. Okay. With the final update on on what the results were. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for applying. Our next applicant will be Camille. and I'll go ahead and start unless others your next applicant. Camille is here. Hey everyone. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hello.

Um so I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for for applying. Uh let me give you a quick overview of the process. Uh we have about 15 minutes to go through uh the interviews. Every council member will have a chance to ask you a question. So keep that time in mind as you're going through that. And first up is Council Member Le.

Hi, thank you so much for applying and you have a lot of really detailed answers to these questions which really appreciate is this is a really competitive um slot. Sustainability is one of our most competitive I mean popular commissions that people tend to um apply to. So it's really great to see someone put a lot of thought into these questions. Um, so one of the recent changes to all our boards and commissions and also to council is that we're all limited in the number of proposals that we can set before staff. So it used to be that you could give them as many ideas as you want and staff would like come back with whether or not it's uh how much work it would take and then scope it out. But now um each board commission gets one. When you're deciding what the most important thing for the border commission to put forward before council to possibly make it into a change for the entire city, how do you weigh what's important? Like what factors will weigh into your decision?

Yeah. Um it's a great question. Thank you all for the opportunity to interview first and foremost. Um I appreciate the time this evening. Um I think I would really want to weigh resident priorities thinking of that I'm like speaking on behalf of everyone in my community. Um, and so I'd want to think of like something that I've spent a lot of time and effort making sure that it represents a diversity of opinion in the community. Um, and then also making sure that it represents like presenting it to a board that I I like I understand where they're coming from so I can get to the bottom of like presenting it well. Um, so I'm spending time like watching council meetings and like understanding like how things are usually like the questions that usually come up naturally from the from the group so I can be prepared and like communicate the the point from the resident perspective as clearly as possible to the committee would be really important. Um, but yeah, so doing the research on like what do residents actually want and and how I present it and then also what are them like how do I anticipate the questions so I'm communicating that clearly from the one proposal we get to present.

Thank you. Mhm. Thank you. Um I'm up next. Um you applied for several things, but let me let me focus on housing, human human services. And one of the things at our last council meeting, we you know, we talked about safe parking and you know, interim housing, tiny homes. Um, I'd love to hear your opinion on, you know, from a priority standpoint and and, you know, having a vulnerable community of unhoused, you know, trying to do whatever we can with dignity on wheels and other things is important.

What do you see as a bigger bang for the buck for what we're do, what what we will ultimately do from a council standpoint? Because, you know, this is the whole thing, limited resources and, you know, we can't do everything at once. But in in a in a case, you know, like safe parking for our, you know, oversized vehicles with cars versus interim housing, tiny homes for for transitional housing, what what do you think makes a bigger difference?

Yeah, it's hard to like assess from the bang for your buck perspective because I don't think that's the residents that are experiencing those services are really thinking about the cost of that product. They're thinking of how much it's saving their lives right in the moment. And so I'd want to spend more time asking the folks that receive those services like what would you prioritize and how do we make sure because I'm sure they would answer a myriad of things like maybe they want the transitional housing or maybe they want like a safer place to park because that's the resource they have. And so it might look like a a way to balance both and then like prioritizing like the safe space to make sure there's parking in one area because that's where they're going to park their car anyways. Um, and then balancing other priorities of like, well, we need to have transitional housing as well and how to communicate that resource clearly to the folks that are in prior like in need of that resource more.

Um, and so it maybe it's like balancing the bucks that we have because different residents in need of those of both of those resources need them and and if we have money to spend, then we should balance what they need in in time. So, I don't think it's my my like I I shouldn't have an opinion on it if I'm not experiencing that. like I want to prioritize what the folks that need that resource need and making sure that we're spending the money appropriately for the resident experience who's going to use that service. Okay. I I will say that as a commissioner, you know, it we can't you know, you'll get residents, you'll get the vulnerable community, and you'll have a variety of of opinions,

and it's not like we're we're going to say, well, we had 62% here and that, you know, and and ultimately your opinion is very important, and I understand your part of the job as commissions is to take in lots of input and then make recommendations to council. So, I'm not putting you on the spot, but but I just want to I just want to lay out that the position is the other half of that, too, of of trying of having your own opinion and taking in the input and then trying to make the best recommendation you can. Yeah. From from a position standpoint,

I suppose. Yes. And then my my homework would be to like do the do the research like do get the input so I can come into the next meeting be prepared to like say like this is what I know is going on in the community that looks like we need to prioritize parking more. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Next up is Council Member Cisneros.

Hello. Thank you so much for applying and seeking to serve the city in this way. It's very helpful and and you come with a and I I want to echo like your answers are detailed and and clearly very grounded in the community and wanting to do what's best um for them and do best by them rather through this work. Building off of the mayor's question with unhoused sponsoring, this is something that the city is actually fairly new at putting significant investment into and a lot of times we need to uh rely on outside dollars

in order to keep us make a program sustainable as we launch it because we don't want to launch something, we need to take it away and that creates a lot of um a lot of those difficult decisions. And so I wanted to hear from you. What are some of the things that you would look for and like if we were engaging with an outside partner and we were talking about forming a new partnership that came to your uh commission? Yeah. Um like either an organization or talking about the role of the county or anything like that. Are there because it seems like in your work you've done a lot of work with partnerships. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about how that expertise could be applied and as we evaluate these opportunities to uh expand our our work in this area.

Totally. Yeah. I think um organizations that understand their role and what like that like that this is my role in this space and I cannot meet all needs, right? And like so like someone that's seeking collaboration and understands like this is what I'm good at, this is not what I'm good at, right? Like this is what I need the city to be responsible for. This is what I can add to the city's efforts. Um, and then also understanding like what like like the budgetary like component of it, like how much is this actually going to cost and be upfront with that and then how to communicate clearly like when the budget is not going to plan. Um, because that always happens and being proactive about communicating that instead of sending an invoice that is like way over, it's like what are you doing? Um, and then I think also uh like some an organization that is being willing to pilot things like how do we start small and then expand um and then create like a work plan that shows that we're going to try it out see if it's working like have like kind of like a like a like a decision gate or something like a like a moment where it's like okay is this working? Do we want to keep moving forward? Great. Let's keep going. Right. Um, I think like organizations that are willing to pilot are really exciting and I think the city of Sunnyville is great at piloting things. So, I appreciate that effort.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe that's what I'm I'm thinking about Mayor Klein's question too that maybe it would be like can we pilot something somewhere and see if it if it's working before we go forward one way or the other with like a full send investment. Yeah. We're just not making a decision. I hear you. Yeah. Thank you. No problem. Okay. Uh, next up is Cath Shane Bas. Thanks for applying and then uh your responses are very very detailed.

Thanks a lot. Um, I wanted to ask uh a question on the response you gave for sustainability. But much before that you said what did you learn by watching and attending city council meeting? You seem to indicate that you would like more languages uh regarding preceding of the meetings. Is that how I read it? Is that correct? Yeah. Actually, we do translate in real time about 60 languages. Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah. You can scan the code and then

uh you can do that and then since that was an easy answer, I will go to the question. You say that you want to sorry you want to help and ensure sustainability policies that are not only environmentally effective but also responsive to health equity, climate vulnerability and needs of lowincome families, seniors, renters, immigrants. Can you elaborate on that, please? I'd be happy to. I was hoping I'd get to talk about it.

Yeah. Uh, I think the the climate action playbook is incredibly innovative and I commend the city of Sunnyville for putting that together and that its climate action goals are strategically written so that way they can be met well in advance of what the the state of California is putting together. Um, and it's also really cool to see that benchmark being met like well in advance of what the state is putting together. What I think would have been innovative as well is to have there be adaptation strategies tied to every mitigation strategy. So there's something that we can see tangibly happening in the community now that supports low-income v like the extremely vulnerable, right? That are low-income, our elders, our our young folks that are like under five that are like way more at risk and don't have time to wait for mitigation strategies to come into play or climate policy to come into play. Um the I know that I think it's task six is that the the engaging with residents. Yeah, that one is really great and I think that could be the umbrella to get the climate action plan or the climate action playbook implemented as well.

Um, and so I think there's just there's so many folks that don't have another 10 years, don't have another 50 years. And policy just takes longer than than a lot of tangible action like making sure everyone has a disaster prep kit in their home, everyone knows what to do and where to evacuate to if it's time to leave your home, right? Um, and so there's just a lot of health and equity things that I want to see also be implemented along with the climate policy that's going on in our community. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Next up is Council Member S. Hi. Um, thanks for great experience and as everyone said your detailed answers.

I'm so embarrassed of answers like great. Um so um for housing and human services commission um what would make you like really excited to be on that commission and what um special skills you have many skills what special skills might you bring to that

commission? Yeah. Wow. Um too many compliments. I don't like that. But I appreciate um reading through my responses and um yeah just listening to what I had to say. Um, I think what would make me excited about being a part of the housing uh commission is just that housing is this huge problem that needs a lot of diversity of thought to solve. And I like being a part of a team to solve it in my community would be really rewarding. Um, and so like that just being a part of it I think would be really special. Um, and I think my background working for an environmental justice nonprofit at the moment that also like initially got into that field from helping people solve housing problems because that's what residents were telling us they wanted help solving. Um, helps me kind of think about it from a health perspective and from like a household safety level perspective that is like this is sustainability, this is climate action and it is just making sure people are safe in their home every day. um that makes it really like tangible, practical, and um like there's synergy and like all I think I applied for all of the commissions like I'm I'm right there in that brain space all the time and I see them intersecting. So um yeah, it it would be rewarding. Any of these commissions it would be rewarding but the housing commission there's just such a big problem to solve and it takes a lot of different brains and I think I would add something to it because of where my brain comes at it from.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, lastly is Council Member Chang. Thank you for applying and um you know for your question you had or for your application you had mentioned the deep community engagement aspect of it and I'm wondering how you might tackle kind of the is the the challenge of people who might be struggling to make rent to fill out a survey or engage with the city and having to learn a lot of information um and being able to balance that.

Yeah, I don't think take telling them to fill out a survey is the way to do it. Um, I think like the city hosting like Earth Day or other like um like Dia desertos events like like hosting culturally relevant events where we are also circumstantially talking about climate action or other resources that we want to make sure the city is like is offering that are relevant to people that are coming to these events is really useful and supportive of like everyone be a part of it together. Um, so if the city can provide the funding to host something that's like culturally relevant to community members, like I don't know, a Cinco deo deayo barbecue or something. Um, and that is just a way to have conversations with residents while making food together, then that is meeting folks where they're at and providing like a safe space for them to learn more about city resources. um without it being like a formal survey or and but still getting the community feedback that you want and also distributing the resources that you want to distribute.

Yeah, there's a lot of ways and um the organization I work at does that where we try to like host something where we ask residents like what do you want to see in your community? They usually say disaster prep workshops and we say okay well while we're here like what else can we partner with the city to help distribute in this community? Is there any other like surveys that you want to distribute? We look over the survey and try to see if we can ask that like through a like tell me like with like um voting on your hand one through five like do you feel safer now that you went to this workshop or what other things do you want to have now that you know a little bit more about what what's available in your community stuff like that. So there's ways to I think if we are thinking about like how what would a resident want to experience and then just asking them what do you want to have in your community then that's how you get the deeper community engagement. they want to be here and they want to be a part of it and they're helping plan these things with us. So, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Camille, for for going through the process this evening. Uh, next steps, council will be making its decision on Tuesday, May 19th. You don't have to be at that meeting to be chosen. And then the city clerk will get back to you later in the week with final decision. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Cool. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Sorry it was hard to make eye contact with everyone, but I appreciate all of your time. Thank you. Thank you. And our we have no next applicant ready since we're ahead of schedule. Oh wow. So we will take Oh wait David's here. Sorry. Mayor Council, you actually have your 10:15 alpha is here. So So Nila

Nila is here. Yes. So give us 30 seconds so that we people can pull up their notes. Yep. And then we will move to our next.

Sounds good. I will. seat right over here.

Thank you. Hello. Welcome. Good to see you. Good to see you, too. Uh, let me give you a quick overview of the process that you've been through before. Um, we have about 15 minutes for the interview. Every council member has a chance to ask you a question, so keep that in mind as you're answering those questions. And first up is Council Member Cisneros.

Hello. It's good to see you again. I remember you um when you were doing your Chamber of Commerce internship and I remember they had you running around this whole city um talking to people. I thought what a great opportunity. You all must have just such a wealth of knowledge. And so my question you you applied for a lot of commissions and that's really helpful and amazing. So, I want to hear on each of the commissions that you decided to apply for, how did that whether speaking to people out in the Sunnyville community helped and and how and like how did that inform your decision to get more involved in that area?

Yeah, so I applied for housing and human services and arts commission. So, I think in terms of housing and human services, I've like talked to so many different people in Sunnyville that have different financial um positions they're in. So from like youth I've talked to and even like business owners um through my business I own I've talked to a lot of business owners struggling financially. So through that I wanted to be part of housing and human services. And then in terms of the art commission um I think Sunnyville has probably one of the most beautiful art. Um I've lived in like many different places across my life. So I think definitely like Sunnyville's art is definitely the best that I've seen. So I think if if I was appointed on the art commission I would prioritize getting the history of that art out there. So, even when I was like walking around all over Sunnyville, I was able to see there's art everywhere. Um, you know, whether you're in Sunnyville downtown, whether you're in city hall, there's so much art. So, I would definitely prioritize that if I was appointed in the commissions.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Shini Basing. Na disclosure, I work with her. She is part of youth advisory. Thanks for applying, NA. And then I will focus on arts commission. I really liked your response on the QR code next to the art. That's a really really great idea which you know you also mentioned there are obviously you talked about public art and then uh they do not know the history or the artist and other things. So what would this QR code lead to? Where would it lead?

Yeah. So art is one of those things where there's there's so much aspects of it, right? Um one person might look at a piece of art and think it's the most like dangerous thing they've seen and another person might look at the same piece of art and think it's the most happiest thing they've seen. So I was thinking by incorporating QR codes while scanning the art, you can kind of see what the artist was thinking. How did the artist get to the idea of the art they're looking at? So I was just thinking by incorporating these QR codes, we can share the art story more.

Okay. Who would develop that art story? So maybe people on Sunnyville Youth Advisory, uh there's so many volunteers that are interested in art. Like so many of my friends, whether it's like literary art or, you know, drawing art. So many people are interested in that history. Um even doing like the heritage preservation project with the youth advisory, I was able to see how many people are involved in Sunnyville art. So I think there's a lot of people willing to, you know, make these QR codes, um talk to the artists and, you know, get their message out there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Council Member S. Hi. Um, thank you for interviewing and all your involvement across many fields. So impressive.

Um, so what would make you like if you were on the arts commission, what would make you passionate about it and what of your many skills do you think would be the supreme like skill that you would like bring to that? Yeah, so I would definitely say like a youth perspective. Like I said before, there's so many ways someone can incorporate an art and I think having a youth on that commission can kind of show more perspectives in the art. Um, and then sorry, could you repeat the second part of your question? Um, what of your many skills do you think makes you a supreme candidate for that?

Yeah. Um, so I would say like the amount of youth I've worked with, um, you know, we can kind of see like youth struggle with like, you know, mental health and stuff like that. So, I would say having that idea of like working with so many youth, I think seeing that and incorporating that in the arts commission, that would probably be one of my strongest skills. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang. Hi, thanks for applying. Yeah.

On the for the Housing and Human Services Commission, I wanted to know how you might balance um competing priorities with limited funds and and how we might um prioritize various programs. Yeah. So, I would definitely prioritize um permanent housing services. So, of course, short-term housing is very important to so many Sunnyville residents. I think permanent housing is kind of it's a better like ideology. Like, if you think about this, if you are an unhoused resident and if you were on short-term housing, the thing you're going to be thinking about is what's the next place I'm going to live, right? In the next month, where where's my family going to stay? Am I going to have a roof over my head? if we're if Sunnyville um puts more funding in permanent housing, putting more residents in permanent housing, they're not worried about where they're going to stay next, they're worried about how they can get back up on their feet, how are they going to be able to support themselves in the long term. So, I think if I was appointed on the commission, I would definitely prioritize permanent housing.

Thank you. Thank you. And next up is Council Member Le. Thank you. And thank you for um your passion. It's clear that you're passionate about a lot of these topics and you have a a very impressive um breath of knowledge given given how young you are. This is really cool. Um, I wanted to ask about your pres uh, president of Lost in a Pone Club, a book and poetry club that explores literature addressing global and social issues such as racism, war, death, and peace. That sounds amazing. And then I also like um you answered later about the literature and performing arts which I think a lot of people when they think of the arts commission like obviously it's in the questionnaire but a lot of people when you just hear arts commission don't really think about that which is all a really long leadup to what is your favorite poem and why

my favorite poem that's it's a really hard question. Um there's this poem by Langston Hughes it's like it's called mother son or something like that. I don't I don't remember the name. I don't think the name's the most important image, but it talks about like the power a mother has to the son and how the son incorporates just like having one mother, just having a single parent and the power of even though there's not two parents in the household, that one parent is able to support the son in so many aspects and this son is now Langston Hughes. So I think that shows a lot of importance especially to so many mothers, single mothers that live in Sunnyvale. I'm reading the poem now. It is fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm I have the final questions. Um, from an art standpoint, I know you talked about adding more performing art and and other things of that nature, but from a visual art standpoint, do you have a favorite piece in the city and and why? Oh, these are all so hard questions. So much art I love. Um, I know when Council Shiny Boston gave us a tour, there's an interactive art right outside here and just seeing like how the phone works and how you can walk through it. I think that was so amazing. And I think that's what makes Sunnyville art so amazing. There's so many different ways that there's art. Like in every single floor of City Hall, there's so many different types of art. And I think that's just so cool. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you for going through the process. Uh council will be making its final decision on May 19th. You don't have to be there to be chosen. Uh and then of course the city clerk will give you an update later in the week what the final results were. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great evening. You too. Thanks for coming our way. Um, next up is Andy and he will be up for your next Andy is here. Chair over here. Yes. Very well. Good evening everyone. Andy,

I'm Senator Go Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for going through the process this evening. Of course. Um, give me give let me give you a quick overview. We have about 15 minutes for the interview and during that time all six council members will be able to ask you a question. Uh so keep that in mind as far as how long your answers are. Very well. And and first up is council member Sharina Boston. Hi. How are you? Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. You are working for Walt Cycle. Yes. Alongside Evelyn and Carol.

Yeah. Then that's great. Uh so one of the responses you gave was I believe in broad thorough self-studying on the matter of bicycling easily incorporating various other issues economy criminal justice and then societal equity. What is criminal justice there? Uh what can you give an example?

There's a film I don't quite remember by whom called biking while black. It simply refers to the matter that non-white people tend to be pulled over more for example when they're bicycling often for completely blame constitutional violations having to let's say provide burdens of proof that let's say they purchased the bicycle and they don't have the receipt on them then the police have confiscated a bicycle that's just one of many examples and this is another aspect of where it seems that both people in power and American society seem to have some sort of prejudice against bicyclists, not just from the criminal justice perspective, but I said my response other societal perspectives, even the modern day dating scene, for example. Um, that's really all I can think of. It's not just that, but there's a whole world beyond that. I'd like to defer to them for more details in a sense.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And next up is Council Member Cell. Yeah, thank you for applying and um uh you uh worked at the bike shop and so why do you are you passionate about applying for the um EPAC commission and um what unique special skills do you bring to that most above all else? It's sort of as a uh not only an extension, it's a huge broadening and sharpening, a mastering of all the uh skills and wants from high school and before I always bicycle to high school, right? And I knew what I was doing in terms of maintenance, but by applying to the Walt cycle, it sort of taught me not just the mechanical skills behind it, but also having many conversations with customers on a daily basis. It's sort of giving you insights as to where to look for more discussions on the equity brought by diverting from car- centric infrastructure. It also sort of gave me a sense to why people choose to bicycle or not to bicycle and what are they using it for. And I figured after 5 years of working there after speaking to many different people and trying out the whole thing myself. I have 6,000 km 3,600 miles on my ebike in the last two years and I still drive my Honda Accord on occasion. I more or less developed a sort of hands-on approach to this. A sort of you could call it really on the ground invested boots on the ground sort of experience with not just me but others as well.

Thank you. Of course. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang.

Thank you for applying. If you were on the commission, how would you balance the needs of um cyclists and pedestrian which sometimes might be a conflict in certain infrastructure projects? I'm afraid I do not have much experience on this matter regarding pedestrian versus cyclist. My main quote unquote specialty would be between uh honestly automobile traffic and this includes any motor vehicle like big trucks, buses including BTA buses and cyclists. Now, when it comes to the matter of pedestrian versus cyclists, I would just have to look into that more. I'm going to be honest. It's one thing I sort of overlooked for the longest time. And if there are many strong, let's say, expressed grievances and conflicts between pedestrian cyclists, I'm more than readily willing to hear it out because this is something if I've overlooked it, then it's on me to correct my own uh shortcomings, I suppose.

Thank you. If that answers your question. Yes. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Le. Thank you and thank you for refining. It's great to have someone who is very familiar with how people bike locally by working at Walt Cycles. I think that gives you a very unique lens. Of course. Um I want you're going for your application. My main reason for applying is to contribute to issue analysis issue analysis and help facilitate a better evaluation of relevant and irrelevant factors. That sounds like shade. Are you saying that there are irrelevant factors that are being discussed currently in BPAC and what do you think how do you think that can be improved? Not necessarily within BPAC itself.

I really do hold strong grievances against anything that I do disagree with and I want to do so in a respectful manner for practicality's purpose to make sure basically maximize EV expected value for as many people as possible. What I'm talking about are, for example, other stories about how other city councils are falling victim to, let's say, hearing um completely baseless arguments and not even looking behind it. The argument is basically a deck of cards. It's nothing, but they take it like it's a brick wall. For example, bike lanes will make it easy for shoplifterss to get away from the scene of the crime they shoplifted from. Like, that's completely basis argument as far as I'm hoping all we can agree on. And I'm just worried that, and like I said, I'm not trying to be condescending here, okay? I really just want stuff to be relevant. I don't want the discussion to be deliberately unproductive because someone wants to, as you say, heckle and del cause as many delays as possible. I'm I'm basically saying that's what I'm trying to avoid. And I would like to at least look out for that.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh I'm up next and thank you for you know working at SVBC uh bike mass tube patching um you I see with your work at at Waltz and SVBC um I would love to hear your opinion about ebikes because right now there there's lots of questions about you know the the legality at times of soupedup ebikes and and kind of conceivably legislation that might be coming down the road from a state level. I'd be interested to hear what your opinion is.

I'm very glad you asked the question, Mr. Klein. Um, as an ebike rider myself and seeing the various grievances and praises people have for the subject, the short answer is there is real ebike where it actually has an adjustable seat, has limited motor power, limited battery capacity, is meant to supplement a rer's mechanical motion. So already there is a federal and um California statute you know class 1 2 3 ebike 750 watt 20 m per hour etc. The problem is a lot of people, news media sometimes get this wrong too. And not to throw shade, but they are objectively wrong in my opinion. When they say ebike, when troublesome youth or other, let's just say troubling peoples cause trouble with sort of what they call ebikes, those are emotos. They're never actually going to pedal those. They're too heavy and it's basically not possible. They can't repel those. There's many people um with reputable reputations on YouTube, Instagram, etc. who've actually done the experience both science-wise and boots on the groundwise experimenting with all this and talking to people. But that's the long short of it. Emotos are the real risk because that's what sort of attracts them. And we actually see this type of demographic come into um Walt Cycle a lot and it's kind of a mess. It really cannot be conflated with ebikes. And I would only hope more people are willing to be open to hearing out the differences and hearing genuine commuters versus style points people.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And lastly is council member sis. Thank you so much for applying and uh for obvious passion for working bicycle I live down the street from. So it's and it's a great I think it's a lovely shop to have. um and a big benefit to the community. So, you get cyclists in telling you about their experiences all the time, I'm sure, and you have yourself. And I want to hear where in the city have we got it right with bike infrastructure and where is somewhere that you say you do that next that will have the biggest impact on people getting onto bicycles and using them? Well,

of course, I talk about this all the time when I come to city council meetings. I always emphasize, you know, there's very simple ways to get more people bicycle. I think the most effective way Seinell has done so far in getting people to bicycle is at very least by making sure Evelyn and what was the other street that has the good lanes. I'm blanking on the name right now, but at least very least Evelyn popular corridor. It's next, it goes along Cal Train Station, good west corridor. Um, at very least that's been effective. In terms of other measures that were super effective, the free uh bike rack program, actually a lot of businesses I talked to,

wait, yeah, I talked to them and I emailed them saying, "Hey, a lot of the let's say kids from Homestead High School, for example, FUSD, they ride their bikes everywhere." And by not only making Homestead Road, that's the other road, Homestead Road full-time bike lanes. And by other businesses being able to have bike racks installed for free, it basically has not only empowered more youth to be independent, it it basically makes us that anyone can forego vehicle trips and divert more to bicycle trips. In terms of what's been ineffective, and I have to leave the details to uh you know, Charlene Lou and uh Tim Voy, they're big spokespeople from um

or just outspoken people from SBC. the class 3B lane. It's um I see that all the time along let's say what's it Palm Avenue in Fremont, like that sort of area near Fremont High School. It's it just doesn't work. I I read through what Charlene has sent me in terms of why it works or why it doesn't work. I mean, I defer that to her for details. Excellent. Thank you so much for your answer. Thank you. And that's the last of the questions. So, thank you for going through the process tonight. Of course,

um council will be will be making its final decision on Tuesday, May 19th. You don't need to be at that meeting to be chosen. Uh and then the city clerk will get back to you uh later in the week with the final decision. Very well done. Thank you. You six take care now, right? I appreciate appreciate you coming. Of course. So, um our next applicant is Zohar. They are here and Elena is also here. So our next two

applicant Zar is here first.

Hi Zohar. Hi nice to meet you. I'm Sgo Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for for applying. Thank you for joining us tonight. Let me give you a quick overview of the process. We have about 15 minutes for the interview. Every council member will get a chance to ask you a question. So, keep that in mind as you're as you're answering those questions. And first up is council member S. Hi. Um yeah, thank you for your background. Architecture, landscape architecture. um what makes you passionate about EPAC commission and um what special skills do you bring to that unique to you? Yeah.

So um my background my professional background is related to this commission um closely. I mean I I'm an architect and I have a masters in landscape landscape architecture and I also um worked in urban plan planning and another thing is that I was uh involved in uh grassroots um um involvement like in community groups where I came from and these this involvement was uh this uh very closely related to this uh commission as well. I mean I created a group that um that tried to promote um public transportation as well as urbanism in my city. So when I moved here I was like maybe I can do this here as well and contribute in these issues um like I used to and um and help the city. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang. Thank you for applying. You noted in your application you regularly think about improving walkability. Do you have some examples of um places you've seen or looked at that you think that could be approved?

Um yes actually um one of the main things that I I believe it's a in uh it's a it's like a part of the structure of the bu of the city is uh the urban forest and the shade. And in some streets, I could see that the urban forest uh could could be better. The the plants could be the trees could be bigger. They could make more shade. There could be more trees. And then when you walk through these uh streets, you um the walkability is much better as well as um for bicyclist when they ride through these street, they also have a better um uh climate. And especially in a place like Sunnyville where there's almost uh there's sun almost all the time, the shade is very very important. So the urban forest is very important to me and I think that for the city as well and for it's not very difficult to make these streets uh be more like more shade and and and work better for the pedestrians and the bicycle uh riders.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Council Member Le. Hi, thank you so much for applying. Um, BPAC tends to be one of the boards commissions that we have that can be a little bit um, controversial at times. We have a lot of residents who are very passionate about things that sometimes conflict with the things that BPAC um, believes would bring things forward. It's important, of course, for all voices to be heard, but how would you navigate that tension? What are some of the ideas that you have? I I know I'm kind of like throwing this at you, but navigating the the uh the importance of the best way forward and the way that I guess addressing other people's concerns and making them feel heard.

Yeah. So actually I've been on both sides of this conflict because um I've been uh I was a resident who uh initiated a group that tried to promote public transportation and or urbanism urbanism and I was also a municipality. I worked at a municipality so I know the other side of this and I think from um my experience that the best way to do it is dialogue

and to share the concerns and listen to the residents and the people uh what they have to say because they use the city and they have a lot to say and it's important to listen to them. This can lead to better planning. So I believe a dialogue like the workshops that the city is already uh uh holding um it's very important when people feel part of the process and uh an engagement and involvement in the process then they tend to be less uh less uh resentful and there's less conflict. So dialogue is the key. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh I'm up next and let's kind of continue on that. So you talk a little bit about the East Channel and your being being active in that. So um first talking about that process and how you felt uh that it went and it's not complete yet but but conceivably as a as uh a BPAC missionary you would be giving input on that but you also wear the urban planner hat. So, so first kind of talk about that process and then from an urban planning standpoint, what you think about the East Channel Trail?

Yeah. So, I think that this trail is really important. Um, I think that it use it uses a natural trail in order to create uh a way a green way through the city for bicyclists and um pedestrians. Um I did I was both um was involved in the online survey.

Uh there they asked there were like uh places of conflict and you had to like say this is better than this and and state why why you chose this way and not that way. It was really interesting. I was like looking through the streets and I was also driving. I drove to uh through the specific places to see them and feel how they feel.

Right. Um sometimes I felt that maybe there's no um one solution that's like perfect. Sometimes like there's a problem or something an obstacle that you can't pass. You have to go around. Yeah. Um and in the workshop it was really cool because they opened the part of the trail that's usually closed and it was really nice. It was like ducks and water and you can feel the nature and you can feel the potential of this part of the trail and how this potential could potentially be the whole trail. I mean you can use it's also uh been um uh there's research about when you make like a a line through the city which is like a natural line then uh animals and plants tend to go like grow uh through this line and so you could really see it. It was really nice. I really enjoyed it

and um yeah and I'll be happy to do more things like this. And that was the first time we really focused on walk shops in different portions of that trail. We did a little bit in Stevens Creek Trail, but that was the the biggest effort. I think it the feedback I got from residents reflex what you got. So I appreciate that. Yeah, it was really fun. Thank you. And next up is council member Cneros. Hello. Hi.

Thank you so much for applying and bringing your multifaceted experience uh to this potential opportunity to work with the city. Really appreciate it. Um my question is where in the city have we got it right when it comes to cycle like um bikeability, walkability and then if you could wave a magic wand and like this is the thing that you do next. This is where you go next from where we are right now. What would we do for bikeability, walkability in anywhere in the city?

Well, actually I think that the best walkability is always in urban places like not in the suburbs of the city. So the north of the city is much more walkable and where you have stores and restaurants and also like um um heritage like preservation of buildings is also part of this because when you walk through a city that has history then it's always nice and more interesting and it gives you a sense of place. So, I believe that uh the M Murphy Street area is maybe the best and uh it's it's nice to learn what this area has and try to like uh copy it to different areas of the city.

I believe that was that was open to cars for the pandemic. Really? Yeah, it was. So, it's much better now. The community the community felt that way as well. So, thank you very much for your answer. Thank you. And lastly is Council Member Shin. Thank you. Actually, Murphy Street was birectional cars. So, think about that.

It was not just one direction. So, uh thanks a lot for participating in the east channel trail community outreach. That was very impressive. And then uh I also liked your responses on integrating uh rain gardens and then forest trees to keep uh not only bike lanes and then walk uh the walk lane walking and cycling routes cooler. It's very very nice to read that. The question I have is you said you are particularly interested in plans emphasize on safe routes to school and collaborative approach with the public. Uh can you elaborate on you can pick whatever the school you want and then can you elaborate on what are the improvements we can do there?

So h I think uh I have kids in three different schools. Okay. Yeah. I hope you would. That's hard, right?

Yeah. But actually, uh, two of my kids can walk to school, which is really nice. They can ride or walk to school. Uh, which is Certino Certino Middle School and Homestead High School. Um, which is excellent because I think that their way to school is really nice. It's green. It's mostly shaded. It could be a bit more shaded than that. Um, so yeah, I I would think about the way to school. Um, think that sometimes some of the um roads are really big and maybe they could use instead of like uh a four stop signs, maybe they could use uh traffic lights.

Yeah. Scramble that is all the four lights. Are you referring to Homestead High School? Um on Homestead actually we do have a a traffic light but uh on Mary and um Helena uh I think that maybe this junction could use a traffic light just from driving there and seeing that it's quite difficult to pass this junction and with the kids and the bicyclist the kids that ride bicycles to school it it can be a safety problem

uh that should be addressed. Um I do think that I I'm really lucky to have my kids to ride and walk to school and um two of them and um yeah actually I'm not sure how you answer my question. I think that uh the area of the school should be like looked at like a radius around the school and all the junction should junction should be checked to see maybe they should be they had traffic light and not uh for a stop signs or mostly it's okay just this Helena Mary area was a bit tough. Yeah. Thank you very much.

Thank you so thank you for going through the process tonight. Um, the next steps are council will be making its final decision on May 19th. You don't have to be at that meeting uh to be chosen and then the city clerk will get back to you later in the week with a final decision. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. You too. Thank you very much. Uh, our next applicant will be Elaine and Chelsea, you'll be up first. So members, your next stop Elena is here. Don't have to see right now.

Hi Elena. Hi. I'm Senator Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying uh for to be on our boards and commissions. Uh let me give you a quick overview of the process. So, we have about 15 minutes for the interview. Okay. And every council member will get a chance to ask you a question. So, just keep that in mind as you're going through those answers. And first up is Council Member Chen.

Hey, Lena. Thank you for applying and for your interest in the commission. And I really appreciate how detailed your your responses were um especially about the evaluation of the housing programs. I wanted to know more about kind of what brought you to your passion about housing and human services. Um so I'm a mother. I have two children. Um one is three and one is four months. Um so I have recently been on maternity leave. Um and I am also part of a parent support group called Los Madre which is a nonprofit and I um serve as president of the Santa Clara Sunnyville region. Um, and in that role, I have the opportunity to talk to over 200 families in our region. I, you know, coordinating social and educational events and also just providing support. And one of the common themes for me and for families in our region is that the cost of housing and the cost of child care really impact day-to-day decisions that people are making in their lives. Um, so that was kind of the foundation of, you know, I have I'm at this turning point in my life, um, where I want to get more involved and I am passionate about affordable housing and affordable child care and making sure that everyone in our community um, feels supported, especially the most vulnerable. And you know, when I was looking on the website for opportunities, the Housing and Human Services Commission really felt like it sat kind of at the intersection of um my interests uh and my my skills, my ability to um problem solve and balance resources, you know, those skills that I've honed through my career as an engineer.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Le.

Thank you. And I agree with Council Member Chang, your uh your uh your answers were so thorough like thorough in a way that I really don't expect someone coming on new to the commission to um have the ability to generate and retain and hold all that. It's it's a very important commission and it deals with a lot of stuff and I was just so impressed by the level of detail here. Um, one thing I do want to ask about is that the Sunnyville unhoused population, um, many of them are in vehicles and at the last city council meeting, we discussed safe parking and it's not, um, I don't think there is mention of that in here and I was wondering about your thoughts about that program. Um, so I didn't attend the last council meeting, but I read the meeting notes and my understanding is that the conclusion from the meeting was that safe parking is or at least the recommendation from staff was that financially it's not viable and the proposal was to move to a tiny home solution um supplemented with RV permitting

um and that you know there was some data from a a work that was done in Berkeley previously Um, and I found the data to be compelling. I like the tiny home solution um, as a way to provide a path to stability.

Um, I do worry that the RV permitting may have some of the same challenges as safe parking. Obviously, you don't have a large capital investment at the beginning to get it started, but I was surprised at the costs of the RV parking uh, the RV permitting solution. Um, so I, you know, obviously didn't hear all the dialogue and understand the full breakdown of that cost, but I I am interested to see if when, um, staff comes back if their analysis shows that that is a better financial solution than the safe park. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, thanks for your leadership in Los Mes. I had a good friend who she was very active in that many years ago and a great organization. you know, I think it makes a big difference. Um, especially for working parents and and all that. Um, let me continue with with what council member Lelay talked about. So, so from our council meeting, we basically said as much as staff was saying no safe parking um and only interrum, the problem of course is interrum was seemingly two to five years down the road. And for the sites that we selected, um, we basically said look at say parking in the short term

and interim parking in the long term. I'd be interested to see or hear your your opinion about, you know, the two the kind of the two efforts because both of them cost money and and from a city standpoint, we're limited in resources and, you know, at some point we will conceivably make the decision of either do one and then the other or just do one at a location. and and you know this is always the balance of resources that that you know councils make but based upon a commission standpoint making recommendations to council this would be conceivably something that we would want to hear your opinion on.

Yep. Um so let me start um kind of big picture and then walk through my my logical thinking. Um, so I think the first step in my kind of thinking process when I'm looking at what to fund is how does it align with the city goals and priorities as outlined in the housing element in the strategic plan and homelessness and in the consolidated plan. Um, safe parking is definitely part of the priority. I mean there's no question it's all over that document. Um so I I think from that perspective safe parking is clearly a priority. Uh and then the next step is to look at what services does a program or what results does a program provide because they're not all services. Um, but to look at the results of the program, who they're helping, how many people they help, cost per per household or resident um serviced, and to to balance those trade-offs. Um something like a safe parking um I would expect to need some upfront capital investment but less upfront capital investment than um the like a tiny home community. Um I believe the numbers for capital weren't included just the operating costs um for the for the tiny homes and even those seemed high. Um but again I am

no I am not an expert. I you know I am excited to be part of a commission and to have the dialogue with staff and have the dialogue with the commissioners um and to try to bring myself prepared to have to ask informed questions. U thank you. Thank you. And next up is council member Cisneros.

Hello. uh thank you so much for applying for bringing um your your particular experience uh to this opportunity uh to talk about serving the city in this way because I think it's it's incredibly important and I want to what what you were saying about child care costs and the bur and the tremendous financial burden often represents to families when we're talking about preventing homelessness even like these are the kind of costs that add up for families really quickly. I have a almost two-year-old so I'm very familiar with that that exact thing. So um my question is as we think about supporting more affordable child care is there any particular area of that we that we should be focusing on having more intervention on? So are we talking like that could be age group of children served because you could go from school age all the way down to infants.

Um what kind of in I mean always very low income but how would you how would the city prioritize engaging further in that space of um confronting affordability challenges? Um, so I again kind of walking through my thinking process. The the funds that are available for HHSC to provide recommendations on

um come from a couple different sources, but many of those sources already have um some constraints around how the funds can be utilized. like funds from HUD. Um you know for childare I specifically would be looking at like CDBG type funds. Um there is a 15% services cap. Um so that certainly limits how much you could allocate towards a service um based application but recently in the HHSC meetings we've seen um presentations from the boost upwards program. Um so they're leveraging the fact that they um create jobs to allow this um program to be classified um to leverage capital funds. Um and so I think that's a great way to um provide more services and oh I use the word services carefully but to provide um support for low-income residents who are having child care businesses in their homes and then also provide affordable child care for families in our region. So I I thought that was a very elegant solution. Um but certainly it's not the only one. And then in terms of how you how do you prioritize kind of the same approach in in line with the goals um of the city um and then also aligned with the restrictions on the funding and then how do we how many people are we serving and practically speaking there are a finite number of applicants and so that does constrain the space to some level.

Yes. because I I'm also thinking on just the service level the staffing requirements for different age groups lower can restrict the number of um families that can be served by any particular place too. So um that would be an element of that funding there to that that impact you know um tradeoff is an interesting one as well. So but that depends on the funding sources you said. So thank you very much for answering the questions. Lots to think about. Thank you council member. Next up is council member Sheen Basin.

Hello. I I'm really I was very interested in reading your application and then the hearing your responses. But one statement you make here, you didn't expect to stay here in Sunnyale.

Yes. And then now that your young children and the sensor community has felt since you haven't felt since college uh thanks for staying in sunny way uh the question wow yours is a big head I had uh not my question yet I liked all your uh the responses the different sources and then uh CDBG fund her fund and all those things. But you also mention about pit count. Yes.

Okay. And then you seem to indicate that the way Sunnyale does our pit count versus the county does there seems to be mismatch. Am I reading it correctly from your response or um let me let Can I read from this?

Yeah. And and I'll make a few clarifying remarks because when I was reading back my responses in preparation, there is a factual error on pit count because I do say in the essay the pit count trend is increasing and it is not in Sunnydale. If you look from 2019 to 2023 and 2025, it is decreasing. It gets a little bit low in 2022. So I'm not sure if that's what caused my confusion, but that was the one error that I found that really jumped. And then Sunnyale pit count also includes some of the shelter. Yes. Uh which can vary because those are from county.

But most importantly I uh the what I marked here is you say you say I believe useful insight can be derived by using the most recent bit counts as a scaling factor to map county numbers into city targets. Mhm. Uh this will allow Sunnyville to speak the same language as the county. Uh which I believe can improve efficacy when advocating for county partnership and support which is a very good statement but I want can you elaborate on that?

Sure. Um, so I wrote down some of the numbers, but I don't wish my my engineer is showing right. I wanted to compliment that your education background. Well,

see, it's a habit. So, the the county has a plan to end homelessness and they have clear metrics. Um, obviously for metrics that are percentages, those are easy to to compare. you know they say 30% reduction in inflow 20,000 people house and this is the 20 to 20 2020 to 2025 because I didn't see metrics in the recent draft u but the pit count was a way in my mind to try to scale okay this is homelessness at the county level when they're setting these metrics and to bring that down to to Sunnyale to say okay you know if we have 10,000 people I don't have the exact number But if we have, you know, close to 10,000 people at the county level and the Sunnyville scale of of homelessness is, you know, 480 something,

that gives us a sense of, you know, if they say 20,000 people housed, what should that mean for Sunnyvale roughly? So we can get a sense of um the scaling of our targets when we set goals in the strategic plan to end homelessness and also when we collaborate with the county and and participate in the continuum of care discussion. Very good. Just a clarification. This is what I have heard from county staff. The scaling what you say absolutely makes sense. But county works on needs basis which San Jose overtakes all the cities. Yeah.

So, thank you. Thank you for your response. Thank you. And lastly, council member S. Hi. Um, thank you for interviewing. Um, some of your concerns relate to um, child care, affordability of housing and homelessness. How do you think all those um, relate to housing and human services and why did you zoom in on that mission?

Sure. um housing and human services um focuses on recommendations for programs that address um housing stability. Um and then also services for vulnerable populations and that you know that includes um you know low-income families and uh but it's it's more than that. It's also, you know, um, residents with disabilities. This would be survivors of domestic violence. These are the most vulnerable people in our community. Um, so I think for me that resonates. You know, if you're if you're going to invest time and you're going to help someone and funding is finite and so you have to prioritize, it logically makes sense to prioritize the people who are most vulnerable. And one last question I always ask everyone. What um unique quality of you do you bring to this commission work?

Special superpower. Um I think I bring a balance of compassion which I think is critical to be successful in this role but also the the logical engineering mind. um you know looking at what are the priorities, what are the funds available um and evaluating programs with quantitative metrics and then you know my personal fixation really making sure that we're driving accountability with with clear follow-ups and you know at least talking about the timeline for those follow-ups and should that be more frequent than annually? Okay. Thank you,

Elena. Thank you for going through the process tonight. Uh council will be making its final decision on May 19th. You don't need to be at that meeting to be chosen. And so the city clerk will then get back to you uh later in the week with that final result. So, okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. Thanks. You too. Let's go ahead and take a 10-minute recessated and we're waiting for our next two applicants. Just two more. Yes. Yeah.

Go ahead and reconvene and we'll move to our next applicant. So Jim, your next applicant, Jim Davis is here. If you have a seat at that chair over there. Great. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Hi Jim, good to see you. Welcome to your interview. So, you know this process, but let me give a give it a quick overview. We have about 15 minutes for the interview and every council member will get a chance to ask you a question. And first up is council member Lei. Hi. Hi.

Thank you so much for reapplying. Um, one question I always like to ask people who are reapplying for commissions now that they've have a term under the belt, what they learned from the process and if there's anything that council or staff can do to better support the commission. I learned from the process that we haven't really done a tremendously good job of dealing with the housing needs of the people who need our assistance in housing. Uh when I started out on the commission, I made recommendation that we move our 15% uh delineation for housing that was supposed to be for low income to 20% and we haven't moved on that. I also recommended, you know, and passed by the commission

that we also increase the amount of money that we require of uh builders who are not going to build lowcost housing in their facilities uh to a higher degree because the amounts of money that they were paying the city was tremendously small. Uh we most recently you know and you heard me speak at the council meeting in regards to safe parking. Uh we talk about safe parking but we don't do anything about safe parking. The uh staff's recommendation was sort of slim in regards to uh ways to uh do something about that. Now we look at our our neighboring city, the city of Mountain View, city of Palo Alto, the city of Santa Clara, the city of Certino. They've all taken positions on safe uh safe parking long before us

and they have all the answers in regards to what is necessary and what needs to be done to be able to provide that and uh we haven't done that. Uh there has also been the ability. We had two two hotels out on Wedell that were empty for over two years. They were for sale and the city did nothing, you know, in regards to trying to find uh a way to accommodate those. You know, today you talk about the five rooms that we have in a hotel to house the unhoused

and there were over 48 rooms that were available for doing just that that particular purpose and we don't do it. Uh then we had a builder, God bless him, uh they were from uh the southeast that were going to come in and build 308 units up in the uh Mauet Park area and they've withdrawn. Uh so I'm I'm not seeing us being able to move in a direction uh where we can we can do things that will be helpful. and I want to continue to be that advocate, you know, to try to bring ideas and information to the council to try to overcome some of those problems.

Thank you.

Thank you. Uh thank you for being there at our last council meeting and you know ultimately you heard our decision as far as move forward with safe parking at two sites as well as looking at interim housing. I'd like to hear your opinion about that and then I have a subsequent question but let's start with that. Well, one of the things that has uh been brought to my attention in in conversations with my friends at the board of supervisors is that the process of eminent domain exists for cities and other municipalities to be able to use that to acquire properties at reasonable uh cost and at a reasonable fee uh for their properties. And we while that has been suggested, we've never taken advantage of that. Now, for instance, right now there's a property on Matilda just north of California, just south of uh uh Central Expressway. It's been vacant for over three years. There was a proposal to build a industrial complex there. We know that that's not going to happen because we already have too many industrial buildings that are empty. Uh we could easily use our eminent domain capabilities to acquire that property and that property would really do a lot for safe parking or tiny homes or for that whatever purpose we uh we could use. Now, a number of years ago, uh, we had the capability or we had the opportunity, uh, when Fry left their facility on our to be able to buy that 14 acre property. They had a building there that we could have immediately used for a variety of purposes in regards to housing the unhoused. We could have used the back of

the property for safe parking which would have been able to accommodate quite a large number of of vehicles and we could have immediately started building apartment complexes on the front of that property. Again, we didn't move in those directions. And I don't know uh why we didn't. I'm, you know, because I'm I like to think that I'm on the inside and and and have some oversight in regards to this, but uh we're not we're not moving in those kinds of directions. But those are the kind of things that I'd like to continue to bring forward to the council and, you know, share my share my ideas and and hopefully inspire the uh the council to do other things.

And so I'll just follow up on one of those. You talked about eminent domain and I don't know if my other council members were going to get this but I do want to talk about that for just a second. Um eminent domain is let's say a very big task to undertake. You were on the co you were on the council when when you know we we threatened JC Penneyy's owner for for taking over that land and they finally sold it. But that was because we had a full downtown specific plan to say we're going to take your land to build housing or whatever. I'm I have not seen that done anywhere in the county. I think that that would be a big legal stand from a legal standpoint. You know, it's one thing for BART to say the only way we can build, you know, the the station here is to take over your office building or whatever and shut you down. It's a whole other thing to say we're just going to build we we're picking this site for say parking or interim housing or whatever. And I'm a little I'm I'm surprised about that. um and just your take on on eminent domain is not a task undertaken easily and I'm just wondering

well I don't know why you're not aware of it but the city of San Jose has used eminent domain and they've used it for you know uh lowcost housing the city of Fremont has used it uh the city of Hayward has used it you know so it's not uh an impossible task But it is a way of being able to for the government to say, "Hey, listen. This is something that's really important to us and that we need to get done. Do it which is fair to the property owner, but also, you know, uh gives the city the ability to accomplish the goals that that we have set out for ourselves."

Okay. Okay. Thanks. Uh next up is Council Member Ceros. Hi, Jim. See you tonight. Um I actually don't have any questions for you. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll I'll let my colleagues give me a few minutes. I can write some down for you. Appreciate the Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Sheen Boston.

Can you write me those questions? See, I marked uh on your By the way, you we get only two pages of your application. So I don't I I had marked safe parking tiny homes affordable housing u which you have already answered so I don't have any questions. Thank you for your service. See how much time we're saving here. Exactly. This is

I'm glad that you know uh those are issues that were important to you and that are important. Uh I'm very pleased that uh our fellow cities have have done so much in regards to this in such an early state and can answer a lot of the questions that we should be asking. And you know it's it's not like we have to invent anything new to be able to uh accomplish those goals. you know, uh, as you you know, the the parking safe parking on Evelyn that the the city of, uh, Mountain View is going to give up, but they're going to expand in another area. You know, they they've had that for several years, and they have all the written information on what they did, what was needed, how to proceed with it, and all those things. Questions that we seemingly never asked. The only difference I see the big difference between Mountain View and Sunnyale is Mountain View owns quite a bit of land but Sunnyale does not. But I'm not making that as an excuse but because if you look at all the shoreline area including Google Plex is owned by Mountain View. So I am right now looking at their budget to see what is their lease fee. work. Um, but your point is very well taken and uh,

thanks for your services. It's been a pleasure. I've greatly enjoyed all the time that I've spent on the commission and I'm very proud of the, uh, my fellow members. Uh, they're all very smart, articulate, uh, well-balanced people that are doing a good job for the city of Sunnyale. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Council Member South. Um yes, we've served on that commission before, haven't we?

Yeah. Um what are you most proud of that you've done in these past your past term? Well, I I think the the two things that I'm most proud of is when I uh first came on the commission and I uh sort of authored the concept of uh through a uh through the policy of of doing the um increases in the uh lowcost housing for um the lowcost housing and increasing the the amount of money that builders were going to have to pay the city for not building uh any lowcost housing in their development. I think those are my two proudest achievements.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. And lastly, Council Member Chen,

thank you for serving on the commission and and you have a wealth of knowledge. Um but I wanted to touch on, you know, serving on a commission too is about attending the meetings as well and we reinstated you on September 30th. Sorry, I have a little bit of a hard sharing. Sorry. Sorry, I can speak louder. Um, really appreciate your your wealth of knowledge and service on the commission. Um, but serving on a commission is also about attending the meetings and we reinstated you on September 30th. And for this calendar year from January, you've missed three of the four past meetings with um at least two of them being unexcused. April meeting minutes haven't come out yet, so I haven't seen that. So, what are you doing to improve your attendance? Well, the April meeting, of course, I had the I scheduled for back surgery, you know, so that was excused. The other two meetings, you know, quite honestly, uh my day gets wrapped up in a variety of other things. And my evenings, uh I have uh I have a schedule where I go out in the backyard and I I sit and enjoy some music and and read the newspaper. And unfortunately uh and and quite honestly I've seen the meetings on my calendar earlier in a day but it has it just escapes my my mind.

Thank you. It's not that I don't want to attend or that you know uh that I don't feel that the meetings are important uh but you know uh it that's what I what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. That's all the questions. That's it. Yeah. Thank you, Jim, uh for reapplying and thank and going through the process again. Uh council will will be making it decision on May 19th and then the city clerk will get back to you. Of course, you know, you don't need to be there to be chosen. Uh and the city clerk will get back to you uh with the final results. Great. I appreciate your your time. Thank you very much. And thank you for working so late in the evening. My goodness.

20 people. Well, 19 people today and 19 people tomorrow. So, two very berry two very full meat. Well, that's great. It's good. I'm glad that we're getting that much interest from a variety of citizens that come down and be a part of our our city. Absolutely. Have a good night, folks. Thank you. I'm up next. Council members, your next applicant, Don Mason, is here. If you want to have a seat for that chair over there. Hi, everyone. Hi, Hi, Donna. I'm Sunnyville Mayor Larry Klein. Thank you for applying uh for for um which commissioner parks.

Parks and wrap. Thank you. Um let me give you a quick overview of the process. We have about 15 minutes. Although you're the last uh interviewee tonight, so you could go as long as you want. We don't want to get out of here all day.

But we have about 15 minutes. Uh, keep that in mind as you're as you're as you're answering our questions and so everyone gets a chance to ask you a question. Um, I'm up first and you were talking so thank you for applying for for the parks and recck commission. You're talking about being an advocate for for programs that serve everyone across ages, incomes, and abilities. Um, you know, and that is one of the goals that we're looking at. uh what do you see as the biggest lack right now for parks um art basically recreational uh facilities or programs that we're providing either from an age standpoint or ability standpoint

definitely so first of all it is an honor of I'm a current member of the board so I'm reapplying and I absolutely I love being a part of parks and rec I just as a lifelong sustainable resident it's just kind of my way of giving back especially given that as a child and even my children. Now, we we rely and use the parks and rec system a lot. So, in just thinking about um parks and wreck and what what is an area for improvement or just being able to to serve certain populations, I really do think that one thing that our our commission can work on is access of information. I feel that if you're not in the know, then you really don't know. And that's something that um I personally, it's always been my mission is to to go to different areas, different parts of the city. Um not just that, but also, you know, meeting with clergy, going to churches, places where people get their information, the library, and just really promoting our parks and recck system. And like I said, if you're in the know, and God bless us our city, we definitely have a lot of savvy residents, but we also have residents that don't really know what the city has to offer. um especially when it comes to subsidized um subsidized services, right? Um as I mentioned, as a child, we we relied on the parks heavily and um for a lot of residents, that's like this area, it's not cheap to buy. Um affordability is definitely something that is on everyone's minds and parks should be accessible to all and making sure that families know, for instance, about our free movies that we offer. And not just that, but I work with the the commission this year to see if we can move some of those movie locations to different parts of Sunnybell because again the access piece. Um if I live over in the Lakewood area, it's not going to be as easy for me, let's say, to get over to Ortega Park, just as an example. So it's really just um working on access, making sure that different parts of our city are available um not

just the neighborhood, but people all around the city. So that to me is is definitely a a focal point. and also making sure that families, especially the diverse families we have, single parent families or multi-generational families, they also know about what's going on. Um, promoting like for instance my kids, we love coming every May to the arts celebration, arts in the park. It's a free event for them to kind of get their hands dirty, for us to get out of the house, for them to be able to show off their creative side. And it's events like that, like I said, that are very subsidized. Making sure that um those in in our city that are not in the no become in the no. that's really been um a focus for me

and and thanks for for being on the commission and the only female commissioner which gives a different perspective than than some of the other commissioners.

Being a mom of of kids and just of other our our house is kind of the neighborhood house where the other kids come to. So it's it's a place where it's like all right we got to get out of this house. I go to the park and just and just taking taking kids of different abilities. And I love that our parks have like we have um magical bridges in sunny we just have different parks for different access and I and I love that and being able to be a bastion of um promoting that to different families of like okay yes you have a new neurody divergent child you don't need to leave our city you can go to such and such park oh you want um the water that comes up for your kids to run through okay you could go to Ortega you know whatever it may be and I just feel like not everyone knows about that and I just yeah, I pride myself of uh in just talking and being someone that's able to um provide information to the masses.

Thank you very much. Uh next up is Council Member Cisneros. Hello. Uh great to see you. Thank you so much for that response here and and just thank you for being such an enthusiastic ambassador for our park and being such a an approachable messenger to people to hear about these programs. It's very very valuable to the city. Thank you. My question is what is your most memorable meeting? I you have I mean that is quite I mean you have quite a bunch quite a selection to um

to go through in your mind but what would be the most memorable as you as you would leave your first term and enter your second term? That could mean like you learned something really important that you do or something.

So okay, would it be okay if I answer it with a tie? Yes, actually your case. Yeah, there's actually that two to come two that come to mind. Um, one was several meetings ago um where someone I I once worked with a long time ago when um she and I we went to the same public high school. We both attended Homestead High School. Sorry, this is a bit of a long-winded answer, but there there so there's some nostalgia there. She and I went to Homestead High School together. She's a brilliant woman. um she now has her own children and her children are in scouts and she brought them to a meeting to be able just to to become more civically engaged and just seeing someone that I just work with as kids like we were literally kids working at the local drugstore and to kind of come full circle and now to have her child at the meeting asking questions come up to the podium speak about something um my younger self my you know 16-year-old self could have never imagined that in high school you kind of just I never imagined that I would stay in this great city of ours. I only left to go to college and graduate school. Come back to the city, be able to to live in the city, have my children raised in the city, be on a commission, and then run into someone I worked with at my first job. And so, just kind of from just a personal life perspective that that was very it was it was moving because, you know, we were kids and we're just working at a drugstore and just learning about life and just learning about the real world. And now just for me to be civically engaged, for her now to have her child become civically engaged, it was nice. Um, second I would say was actually our previous meeting um or just the last meeting we had earlier this month. And the reason for that is we have not had such a large turnout as we had for that meeting. whether it was both in present in person and online. There's um so many people that wanted to talk about what's going on at Los Palmus Park, wanted to provide their input and just just being

able to be a person that could listen and just, you know, as vice chair, just make them feel comfortable, let them have their three minutes, whatever they had to say, they had every right to say it. Um it really made me understand why people want to be civically engaged. um really we're here to listen. and we're here to make recommendations based on our constituency and what they feel is most important and being in that in that position especially one where I just kind of looked around and I just I took it all in like wow this is a yes it's going to be a very long night and it's just this is what city like this is what civic engagement is all about is giving people a voice and and the the people that came bless them they were from all walks of life you had you had residents that have lived here for 40 50 years that had input on Los Palmus. You had others that are more new to the city that wanted to talk about the basketball courts and just the lifelong friendships they made through just playing ball on the courts and just being in that position to give everyone a voice and taking everyone's input into account. It's special. It's memorable. It's it's definitely memorable in that regard of just that's what we're here for is to make sure every voice is heard, you know, no matter no matter the subject.

Those are both very beautiful examples. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Shin Vasan. Hi. Hi Donna. Yeah. Nice seeing you again and then thanks for re reapplying. Thanks for your services. Of course. Uh thank you. Thank you for attending our meetings. Yeah. Thank you. Uh I liked you uh one of the sentences in your application that uh you are well connected uh with to sorry I am well man it's too late

I am very well connected to families living in different parts of city city ranging from Lakewood area to Sarah Park which is pretty impressive that that broad range and then uh the question I have is in your application you write you wrote programs that serve everyone across ages, income and abilities. Are we not doing this or how can we improve that?

Well, it's it's really I say that more to make sure that again as a lifelong resident of Sunnyville, I I want to see the city continue to grow and make sure that we remain inclusive. And so really my hope and my goal of being on Parks of Rec Commission is let allowing those from all different walks of life have their voice heard. Not just that, but reaching out to different parts of our city because you know the populations in Sarah Park, they do differ in some regard to those in Lakewood to those um in the area all around the city. And I've been very fortunate or my family has been very fortunate in the sense that our our children are very involved in different activities and as such it's taken us to different parts of the city. We don't just play baseball, let's say, at Sarah Park. You know, we've been involved in leagues that are in Lakewood. That, you know, and that that again is a different population, let's say, than um that of the Deans Park area, whatever it may be. And just being able to speak to different families and say, "Hey, did you know that we're having um for instance, like a Christmas holiday lunch or sorry, breakfast that you can come and meet with Santa?" And there's all these free activities that your kids can do. And so it's just it really is it's not necessarily that the city isn't doing enough, but making sure that we're amplifying what the city is doing. And then not just that, but hearing what others have to say and maybe figuring out how we can incorporate that. Um, also working at a school, we definitely have staff presentations throughout the year that talk about summer programming and I'm always want to, you know, quick to point out, oh, what schools have you reached out to in terms of getting more lifeguards and getting more counselors? because I know that a lot of these programs, they fill up and they fill up very quickly. And part of the reason why some of these summer programs fill up is just staffing. If there were more lifeguards, you could have more swim classes. And so, it's really talking to staff and saying, "Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?" Um, just because I am connected. I'm the only one on our commission that that's in education, you know? So, I do have a pipeline also to different

students that can then come and serve our city whether they live here or not. And that's definitely something I promote even at my own school is just when students are talking about a summer job, the first thing I say is, "Oh, have you looked at the city of Sunnyville? Have you looked at the city wherever you live?" They're always looking for camp counselors. We are always looking for lifeguards. And so it's just kind of again amplifying the needs of the city to to those around me or, you know, to the connections that I have. You mentioned movies in the park. I really like them. uh wherever it is I just go to that area that park it's very very to see so many people participating it's very impressive

oh it's great are you kidding me it's a great way for the parents to have a little break with other parents and then our kids are able to watch a movie and it's it's a safe place um when our kids were a little bit younger we used to go every weekend or sorry every week to Washington Park in the summer because there was some type of event whether it was a clown doing something or it was just a way to kind of get out of the house and just be able to socialize with our friends and meet new friends and it's it's just I want that for everyone and again this city I don't think I need to say this it's it's it is tough to live here in the sense that it's you know it's the cost of living here is not cheap and if you have resources like a park where families that may not have the the most space or the largest backyard are able to get out be with other others just why not? I mean, I feel honored that I've been able to do it thus far just because we do offer so much.

Yeah. Right. And it's it's something my family used ever since I was a little kid. We didn't, you know, we used Sunnyville Yeah. the Sunnyville parks in the summer and all the the camps, the city run camps. That was what was most accessible for us. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Cell. Hi. Hi. Um, nice to see you. Yeah, nice to see you. So in these uh in your last term, what are you most proud of that you've accomplished? Some issue that you followed or some

Definitely. I think one of the things I'm most proud of is learning. So when when an issue would come up um especially the turf issue that that seemed to be a kind of a hot item for us. Do you put in do you remain with um conventional grass or do you bring in artificial turf? And

again, I'm just a mere educator. That's I don't have a science background. It's not something I really understand. So, it was really I spent a lot of time, my own time, researching and figuring out, you know, what cost, health, all of that just so that when when different organizations or different people from nonprofits would come up and speak, I understood. I could not only could I feel what they wanted, but kind of understand the science behind it. And I think that that's important is to be well informed. Not just that, but I pick Jim Stark's brain often.

Um, just because he's so smart and he just understands so much of the science behind what we grow here and just just mowing the ground, just all of it. He understands it. And so he really is I'll go to him and just, you know, so kind of break this down to me or even when it comes to my own lawn, I'll go to him and just kind of break break this down because he just he just knows so much and it allows me to um better understand when an issue comes up, right? Um so it's definitely that it's just kind of trying to not just shoot from the heart but understand from the brain as well like okay, what is the what is the science behind it as much as I can on that? Yeah. Thank you. Next up is Council Member Chang.

Hi. Hi. Thank you for serving on the commission and and for your interest in reapplying. I wanted to know more about what has been your favorite project that has uh you've kind of been part of on the commission and what are you looking forward to most?

That's a great question. Um really I'd say one of my favorite projects is working with my fellow commissioners just in terms of figuring out what are the study issues that would be most effective to kind of pursue. Every year we rank the different study issues and sometimes there may be issues that are are not necessarily that's not the best form for them is to go through the study issue process simply because it is long, it is timely, it can be costly. Um so it really is just working with the others on my commission um to figure out okay how can we cast the widest net in terms of study issues and and also I am also proud of I may sometimes go in to something or or hear of a study issue with my own implicit bias and then hearing from the other commissioners and kind of their own life experience and and that of what they've taken from others that they've spoken too that okay maybe I need to shift as well. So it is definitely what I'd say I'm most proud of is just how these different study issues and things I've never really thought about you know for instance like more dog parks. I'm not a dog owner, but really kind of understanding, okay, how can this benefit parts of my city that I might not necessarily know about or I may already have had my own um opinions on prior to actually going and talking to different commissioners, going through the study issues with them, the ranking them with them, and just hearing what they've also heard from other commissioners. That's that's definitely for me is just that piece of it. Study issues and you know how how can we help as many residents as possible to be able to best use our parks to the best of its abilities, right? Um there's definitely things that I'm I'm very excited about. Um I know that there's some transitions going on with with Olsen or there with Olen Farms. there's some proposed transitions and we've we've received a lot of

feedback about that and from someone that's lived here for I don't want to date myself but many decades and I remember when there were a lot more parts farm just diff more fruit in our city and it it's just interesting to see what will come of that and just talking to different residents whether they've been here for 40 years or even four months and kind of what they want or what they would like to happen to that area. So, there are there are things um on the horizon that I'm very excited about. Definitely. Thank you.

Yeah. And also just on a very, you know, just seeing what's going to I know it's going to be beautiful, but I'm very curious to see um how they redesigned um our Sorry, why am I blanking right now? The community center. The community center. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the museum's also a hot button issue because it kind of it parallels with Olen and just they expand. But I'm very excited in the next month. It's my understanding that the community 7 Yeah. will be open. Oh, they didn't announce the date to us yet, but that's a grand opening. That's a good Yeah, they're supposed to tell. Yeah, I'm very I'm very I'm very excited. Someone Yeah, we use that that space often and to have it back. It would be great. And then lastly, Council Member Le. Hi.

Hi. I have the last question of the evening. I got to take my time. Sorry. Sometimes I talk fast. No, no, you're great. No, I I was making a joke. Um, thank you for your passion. It's really obvious that this is something that you care about deeply and I really love the level of depth and breath that you're able to articulate both in your interview and also in your application. It is fantastic to see a mom on this commission. As you said, you are the only one and the only woman. And I think that offers a really important lens. Like kids need different things. Little kids need different things. Big kids need different things. And the

degree to which that is understood by people who don't have full-time care of their children varies varies a lot. So, thank you for bringing a lens to this commission and thank you for reapplying. I'd like to ask people who reapply what they have learned from the commission u from their service on the commission now that they've had some time under their belt and also to ask if there's anything that either council or staff can do to better support the commission in your opinion. That's a great question. What have I learned? Um, one thing that is not necessarily that I've learned, but I definitely feel that it's been reaffirmed that everyone deserves a voice.

Everyone deserves a voice and that's something that I feel our commission, you know, as vice chair, um, just all of us in general, everyone deserves a voice and generally, I mean, we sometimes have residents that will wait a very long time just to be able to speak for three minutes. That's all they have is the three minutes. And during those three minutes, it's imperative that we give them our undivided attention to let them know that what they have to say is meaningful. Sometimes it can be a bit daunting for them to come come on, you know, come to the podium to be able, you know, it's it the setup's a little bit interesting in the sense that it's like the whole group of us in a line and they come up to a podium and it's just kind of like they speak and there's a timer going and it's just and you know and they've and you can tell a lot of times they've they've rehearsed what they want to say and they mean it from their soul that whatever the topic is whether it's it's more pickable, less pickable what whatever it is um you know what's going on with Los Palmus right now um whatever it may be you know pick the topic dour the point is is that um everyone deserves a voice um so that that's something that's definitely been reaffirmed um another thing that I've learned though is patience nothing happens overnight and it it's something that I've learned that needs to be conveyed to our residents that they feel so impassionate about something and it's just like it needs to happen right way. Even if you look at Los Palms right now, I mean, by the time I was just reading it, it's not until 2028 where it's all going to be said and done. So, it it's not nothing happens overnight. And I think when I came into this back in 2021, I really didn't understand that. I, you know, I didn't really understand city government or just the way a city works the way I do now. And, you know, study issues, for instance, it's not okay. Once um council members decide on the study issues, it's not as though it gets picked up right away. It's just

everything takes time. Even I'm so excited that hopefully, God willing, in the works, our library is going to be redesigned. And you know, I know that that's something on the horizon, but when I say horizon, that's like a while coming. So, I just that that's something um that I've really learned. And it's the gravity of that of just like nothing happens overnight and just playing the long game.

You know, I hope to God that my kids by the time they're in high school or or before they end high school, they'll be able to to go into that new library and and just be able to access everything. I think sometimes residents, myself included, feel like, okay, things are just everything goes boom boom boom. And it's not. A lot of even a lot of these parks renovations, when I talked to Jim Starks, they're like 10 years. It's it's a 10year process. they have we know everything that's going to happen for the city but it doesn't happen overnight. It's it's okay this is going to happen in the next year and then this year and you know Ortega is not set to to um you know kind of some of the road innovations for another 10 years and I just I never really understood that if that makes sense. That's definitely something. Um your other question part B of the question was what could city council do?

What can counselor staff do to better support a commission? Honestly, I I love I love the fact that we also always have a council member present. I I think that that's that's great. Um I'd say piggybacking off of that, if a council member is not could not be present, you know, for whatever reason, and I understand life gets in the way, my attendance is definitely not spotless. Um but it would be great if another coun if someone Yeah. another council member could come to their place just because just to be able to it's it's one thing to hear secondhand about the residents and how impassioned they are. It's another to actually see it and we you know we meet once a month and just and even the staff presentations I always learn something new. I always learn something about the budget. I mean, talking about things I just really didn't know about. Again, a lot of the budget issues and how the city of Sunny Bell creates the budget and how it's distributed and um where, you know, I know um mayor, you often talk about dine local and how important it is for us to dine local simply because or just shop locally just because those tax dollars, I mean, that that goes to our city and being able to fund. And again, you know, just I' I've learned, yes, you can read about this. Um, but when you're part of a actual commission, you just you you learn so much just by physically being present. And that's something I've definitely appreciated. And I'll be honest with you, with two little kids at home, a lot of my reading is not

it's not necessarily the type of reading it it's it's more revolves around them and schooling. And so just being able to to learn about government, I I just love it and I I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have been able to do it thus far. Calibration question. You said by the time your kids are in high school, how old are your kids? So my kids right now are um third grade and first grade. Okay. Thank you. So calibrating it should be from what I understand. That would be awesome.

Yeah, that's right. So they're I guess on the younger it's all relative. Yeah, we've used the parks ever since before they were born as when I was a kid and we definitely that's where we are many weekends and that's where a lot of their sports take place is we're using the the city facilities. So, I'm very grateful and I feel like a duty and it's I'll say this too. I want my kids to see that. I want them to know even when they're older and they're, you know, if they get married or when they have jobs, it's not enough just to work. You civic engagement is a responsibility and we should all be involved. And that's something it's one thing to tell your ch children that it's another to to model it.

And so, you know, there's some nights where my kids are like, "Mommy, can you just tuck me in?" You know, "Why do you have to go parks and rock?" And I explain to them. I'm like, "Because what we're doing is important." And it's just we all we live in the city. We all have to contribute to the city and so it is important to me. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for your enthusiasm. Thank you for your service. Of course. Thank you all. So, council will be making its final decision on May 19th. you don't need to be present to be appointed and the city clerk will get back to you later in the week with that final decision. Thank you. It's my understanding I'm the last of the evening so we are ahead of schedule. Thank you. Thank you. It's very nice to see you all. Have a good night. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that we will end our interviews for the day and adjourn the meeting at 10:50 p.m. Thank you everyone.