The regular meeting of the Belmont City Council and the Belmont Fire Protection District Board of Directors.

We're properly noticed in our meeting concurrently, and we are taking separate actions in each legal capacity.

So that roll call membership is identical for both bodies.

Thank you.

Alright.

It is, I forgot to mention it's February 24th, 2026.

We're in city council chambers, and our published agenda also has instructions for how to participate via Zoom and also streaming on our website.

Item number three, items before 7 o'clock.

We don't have any.

We did not have a study session or a closed session.

Item starting at 7 starts with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please rise if you're able.

I plan allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the following for which it stands on nation by the individual.

Alright, thank you.

Item five on the agenda is report from closed session.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

As you mentioned earlier, we had no closed session.

Right, thank you.

Item six, special presentations.

We have none.

We had a handful earlier this month.

Item seven, public comments and items not on the agenda.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the body on any city matter that is not on the agenda tonight.

The period for public comment at this point is limited to five minutes with three minutes per speaker.

So if you are joining us uh virtually or in um the chambers, please let us know uh by filling out comment card or raising your hand virtually if you have any comments for item seven, public comments on items not on the agenda.

Madam Clerk.

Uh, yes, this evening we have uh two slips in-house on this item, and I have a raised hand.

Okay, let's go ahead and take in house first, please.

Okay, and we will begin with Michael Stagnaro, followed by um Carline, um Giuliano Carlini, excuse me.

Mayor, City Council, uh, City Manager.

My name is Michael Stagnero, and I and my wife live in Area 3 on Carlmont Drive and Alameda de Las Polgas.

The corner of Carlmont Drive and Alameda is five lanes.

Two lanes north, two lanes south, and one lane turning either north or south at the T intersection.

This corner is an important junction for the city.

Carlmont High School is three blocks away.

The library is there with an adjoining park.

Also across the street is an outside mall with a full service grocery store.

With poor lighting at night, no hawk system at the intersection, and drivers not making a full stop, and at times driving through the intersection at speeds exceeding 15 miles per hour.

This intersection has become a danger zone for pedestrians.

As students make their way to and from Carlmont High School, and families make their way to and from the librarian park.

I insist that the city take a more concerted approach to addressing the pedestrian traffic needs at this intersection.

In 2016, the council adopted a resolution approving the Alameda de las Polgas San Carlos Avenue corridor study.

And according to the conceptual plans online, the city is to install a stoplight.

But as of 2023, there has been no update on the city's website for the completion of this project.

In fact, there is a disappointing statement about waiting for grant funding.

Now it is February 2026.

Three years since the last workshop presentation, and 10 years since the resolution.

And there's been no update on funding or completion.

Yet I have a solution.

There are two Hawk systems, one installed across from Immaculate Heart, and the one there's another one for further south on Alameda, but not at this intersection.

By installing a Hawk system, at least Belmont citizens who live in area three and travel through Area 3 will know that walking across the street will not be as dangerous as it is now.

If further proof is needed, I urge you to make your way down to the intersection when traffic is greatest.

The morning before school, after school, and between 5 p.m.

and 7 p.m.

I understand about the slow wheel of government.

I know my public comment is not an action item tonight, but I will be following subsequent council meetings, and when required, if by a lack of council effort or future action taken on this need, I will be back.

And when a hock system is installed and a stoplight has been installed, I will be back to thank the council for making the city a safer place for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Giuliano Carlini.

It was a really great seeing Councilman Relater Meryl earlier this morning, and good seeing y'all right now.

I mean, here tonight because oh God, I can't remember exactly six nine months ago.

Y'all, as part of a consent agenda, no public input, nothing to inform anyone.

Reopened up the Belmont Village Pacific Plan Street designs to add a hoc to extend the uh center left turn lane on uh southbound El Camino to eastbound Ralston.

You didn't even talk about it.

And you closed it all as part of the consent agenda.

I have asked repeatedly that we do something to make Ralston better.

The last PTSC round, I suggested that we remove some parking.

I've now over the past year been counting.

We have 10 cars that are part of the apartment buildings that are the primary and almost exclusive users of those parking spots.

We have 200 parking spaces in downtown Belmont within a two or three minute walk.

If y'all really feel the need to uh give those folks uh parking, uh, knock yourselves out, right?

There's a lot of space in the Twin Pines lot at night, there's a lot of space in the city council of uh at night, but to benefit ten people over at least a hundred cyclists every day, and potentially a thousand or more cyclists today, if only we would get proper cycling infrastructure to benefit ten people over a thousand, just doesn't make sense.

I sent you guys a video a little bit earlier.

You probably didn't get it yet because I just sent it an hour ago.

A gentleman that I spoke with, experienced cyclist, he cycles a lot.

He will not cycle on Ralston because it's dangerous.

I have dozens and dozens and dozens of these conversations.

So I'm really hoping that at some point soon you can expedite real traffic protection for cyclists with the urgency that you favored the hawk on hill and that extended lane.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is virtual, our shit Shwesta.

Give me just a moment to unmute you.

Hi, good evening.

Can you please hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Hi, dear respected mayor, uh mate, uh, vice mayor and uh Manga Norish and City Council uh members.

Good evening.

Uh thank you for this opportunity.

Uh I have I own two uh lots uh in Belmont, uh, and both are at RO2, uh my question here is to bring some attention and request uh regarding the certificate of compliance.

So as there is uh this requirement uh to get the certificate of compliance before getting the building uh like uh applying for the building permit.

My question here is uh the notice of merger is considered valid and official as a lot line adjustment by the county of uh San Mateo, County of Santa Clara, or even several cities within the San Mateo County uh itself.

So my question here or request is please kindly provide the reason why Belmont is not considering the notice of Moser as a sufficient requirement to provide the certificate of compliance for our lots, and our lots are uh already have a notice of uh merger, and uh another is like also if the requirements to provide certificate of compliance needs to be revisited or re-reviewed, I would kind of like to request.

Please uh have it review the process and requirements uh on providing uh the certificate of compliance.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Oh, we can build a small uh in order to square feed home, you know, as our two lot.

Uh thank you.

I'll give you.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, that is our final speaker.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Um, moving on then to item eight, which is council member announcements.

Uh, maybe looking to my left first.

Council members, any announcements?

Please.

Tomorrow night.

No, let's see.

Today's Wednesday, tomorrow night.

Okay.

Today's Tuesday.

Well, Thursday night, we are going to have a Martin Luther King poetry celebration reading.

It will be at Twin Pines Park in the cottages right there, and we invite everyone to come.

It's a delightful evening where our young people share their thoughts about peace and all that Martin Luther King has to uh said to the world.

Oh, I'm having trouble speaking tonight.

Anyway, come Thursday night.

It will be lovely.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Uh, yes.

Uh also on Thursday from four to six, uh, we're excited to welcome another new business to Belmont.

Uh shoot 360 is a dedicated basketball facility.

And we'll have a ribbon cutting at 4 p.m.

and they will have a DJ and food, and it seems like it'll be a fun time, and you can shoot some baskets if you want.

And so we're excited to welcome here.

Hopefully, you can join us for that as well.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lettermurlo.

Just uh shout out to vector control.

We heard from them a couple of uh council meetings ago.

Um, and they're awesome.

We called them, we were getting an uptick in mosquitoes at my house.

It was so easy.

I made an online appointment.

They came out, they checked everything, including the crawl space.

Um, and they they'll check for everything dampness, um, ants, uh critters, and it's all free.

And it they said, oh, you might have ants.

Here's how you check, and if you do, here's how you remediate.

It is all free.

So just give them a call, go online to smcmvcd.org or just search up San Mateo vector control.

It's a weird name, but if you're not sure if you're you're getting insects or pests, just call them.

Great, thank you.

Um, City of Belmont uh voices team and Carlmont High School ALS Club are teaming up with the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis network to host a donation drive for care packages supporting caregivers of ALS patients.

The drive runs until March 3rd, which is next week, and donations will be accepted at the Belmont Parks and Recreation Office and Belmont Library.

Uh, they're collecting unused items that bring rest, comfort, and wellness, including fuzzy socks, compression socks, stockings, warm compressors, blankets, coloring books, hand sanitizer, lotion, coffee mugs, and tumblers, coffee and tea.

Also, save the date for our egg hunts.

Our adapted egg venture hunt returns on Friday, April 3rd at 4 30 in the Twin Pines Park Meadow.

It's thoughtfully designed for individuals who have benefit from a sensory friendly experience while still enjoying all the egg hunting fun.

And then the traditional egg adventure hunt is hopping back to Twin Pines Park on Saturday, April 4th at 10 a.m.

for youth ages 3 to 10.

Families can look forward to thousands of hidden eggs, photos with our bunny, a fun photo booth, the chance to connect with our summer camp contractors and more.

And there's more information on both events and registration can be found on the parks and recreation website.

Just a plug for that.

Um the adventure hunts, both the uh sensory uh designed one and the traditional one are extremely popular.

We get more and more people every year.

Our staff is amazing and try to hide thousands of eggs.

It always breaks my heart when little little ones come late and don't find any eggs.

So if you can uh try to come on time.

All right, um, item nine is consent business.

So I just want to explain something about uh consent items.

These are considered routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion.

However, there's no separate discussion on these unless a city council member or staff want specific items to be removed, separate action or have questions.

Also, we do take public comment on the consent calendar.

So if any members of the public have any questions on any of these items, even if they have not been removed for separate discussion, we are more than happy to take public comment on that and uh do so.

So uh we currently have one, two, three, four, five items.

Uh if we have any resolutions and or ordinances, the city attorney will read the full title of that ordinance.

Um so again, I'll look to my left and see.

Do council members, any council members want to remove an item, or do you have questions or comments for clarification on any item?

Which uh which one council member?

Um item E, just a comment.

I don't need to pull it for a vote.

I just a comment on E.

Okay, and anyone questions on the side?

No.

Questions, comments?

Okay.

Uh comment on item 9E.

Sure.

Um so this is an item to um give the city staff uh additional budget to outsource plan checking services for building permits, plan checking and field inspection.

Um I don't know the company in question.

Uh the city's apparently had good uh luck with them.

This is something I've done, I've had to deal with in a number of other cities, and I've always just found that city staff have greater ability to kind of use some common common sense and apply some judgment to the process.

And this really isn't an issue in building new buildings.

If you're building a new building, the codes are pretty specific and cut and dry.

If you're renovating an existing building, particularly historic building, there are a lot of gray areas in the code, and the code even kind of says, well, the building official might be able to approve this if they feel like it, and it's it's it's much more of a kind of a negotiated process.

And the city staff people have a much better ability to do that.

The consultants don't really have any incentive to apply judgment.

I mean, they can only just kind of get in trouble for that.

Their job is to kind of stick to the letter of the code.

So this is just an observation.

I I the city needs this.

Construction activity has been so high that the city staff can't do all of this work by themselves.

Uh they have to have additional outside resources.

I just hope we have that process configured so that the if the com if there's a gray area that the consultant doesn't feel comfortable applying some judgment to that they talk to the city staff who does have the ability to apply that common sense kind of judgment.

That's all.

I'm I've I don't have any problem voting in favor of it.

It's just uh it's as far as process goes, I'm uh point is well taken whether in this area or any of public works where you use um uh outside help to to kind of meet our peaks in some of the specialized areas, but those are all conducted under the purview of the building official.

So he does he just doesn't pass them along, but he does review and he typically does a lot of conversation with designers and architect that are coming in in case there's some areas of gray and other issues that they need to uh kind of walk them through the requirements and what latitude we have in managing it.

So point well taken on and it does get kind of uh handled by our building official that way.

Great.

Thank you.

All right, um before we consider a motion, I just wanted to clarify that the uh public comment uh that we just heard is a consent items for both uh bodies.

So if anyone has public comment on the fire Belmont Fire Protection District consent calendar approval of minutes, that's the one um uh item on that calendar.

Uh public comment, please raise your virtual hand or please um let yourselves be known here in the chambers.

Um at this point we do not have any requests for speaking.

Okay, so let's go ahead first and um entertain a motion made just on the city council consent calendar, please.

To approve ordinance three.

Yeah.

We have an ordinance on the consent calendar tonight.

Okay, but don't we vote on it first?

Well, we read the title first.

Oh, okay.

Let's go ahead and do that.

So an ordinance of the city of Belmont admitting the conceptual development plan for Charles Armstrong School at 1405 Solana Drive to allow for expansion of the school.

Okay, thank you.

So we looks like we have motion.

Second.

The motion was from Pang Meganaris.

Yes.

And the second was from McCune.

Council um roll call, please.

Councilmember McCune.

Aye.

Pang Menganeris.

Hi.

Vladimirlow?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

Mayor Mates.

Yes.

This motion passes 5-0.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you very much.

We'll now consider the Belmont Fire Protection Fire Protection District Consent Calendar.

Item A is approval of minutes for November 25th, 2025.

Move to approve.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember McCune.

Hi.

Pang Menganeris.

Hi.

Laudamerlo.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

And Mayor Maids.

Yes.

And I'm sorry.

Those are directors and chair.

And this motion passes 5-0.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving along to item 10, which is our public hearings.

10A is 1301 Shoreway Road Commercial Development Project.

And we have three, we have four recommendations here tonight before us.

And staff is here to make a presentation.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Mates and honorable council members.

My name is Christopher Dalkumos.

I'm with Good City Company, and I'm the project planner for this project.

Joining me this evening is Danae Hall from Kimley Horn.

And Kimley Horn is the environmental consultant for the city that prepared the EIR.

So this evening we will be reviewing 1301 Shoreway Road and Office Life Science Projects on the east side of Belmont.

So part of this presentation will include the project background, which I'll cover.

Seek public comments, and then round out with council discussion.

So the project site is located on Shoreway Road, south of Ralston.

It consists of two office and or life science buildings, totaling 542,035 square feet.

There's also a nine-level parking garage, which supports the developments.

There's 1,626 vehicle parking spaces site-wide, which also includes 93 surface spaces, 201 total bicycle parking stalls, which includes both short and long-term parking, and a publicly accessible trail with amenities, including the sports court.

So this is an overview of the site plan.

So you could see, and we'll move to the next slide, but building one is oriented towards Shoreway Road.

And then to the east, we have the publicly accessible amenities that that public trail.

So building one is the top building to the right.

That's eight stories, 133 feet tall to the parapet at 270,000 square feet.

And as mentioned earlier, the primary frontage is along Shoreway Road.

So the bottom left of the slide is building two, which is seven stories, 117 feet tall, 271,583 square feet, a little bit wider of a footprint, and with primary frontage along SEM Lane.

The parking garage consists of nine levels.

Includes a solar array on the roof, with the primary frontage and access from Shoreway Road.

These publicly accessible amenities will be further discussed by the applicant.

They're also included as part of the community benefits package, which we'll get to later in the presentation.

But it includes a trail, approximately 850 feet long, exercise nodes, seating and picnic tables, 10 short-term bicycle parking stalls at the north end of the site where SEM Lane reaches Belmont Creek.

Six vehicle spaces, three at the top at the entrance, and then three down by the sports court and the sports court.

So the applicant is requesting the city council certification of the EIR, where the EIR helps to inform the decision that the council would make with regard to the project.

They're also requesting rezoning from regional commercial to planned unit development and a zoning map amendment and associated entitlements tied to the rezoning, such as the conceptual development plan and the detailed development plan.

Additionally, as noted earlier, as development agreement that the applicant is requesting to vest certain rights.

There's a conditional use permit, which is also tied to that overall conceptual development plan and detailed development plan.

The design review, grade and plan permit, and tree removal permit.

So in regards to the planned unit development, there's a number of related entitlements from the rezoning from regional commercial to planned unit development, the CDP, which is, or I'm sorry, the conceptual development plan, which is the site specific zoning for the site, the detailed development plan, which provides the specific architecture, landscape, civil plans that implement the CDP, and the conditional use permit, which enables the DDP.

The context for the applicant's request is to permit life science and research and development uses in addition to the regional commercial uses that are currently allowed.

Allowing life science and research and development provides the applicant with flexibility to respond to the market and attracting tenants to the area, particularly in this in the area of Belmont that promotes economic development.

Relatedly, it would allow taller buildings, wider driveway widths, a higher floor area ratio for the site, and then also allowing permitted uses on all floors.

This provides a little bit of a comparison between RC zoning and the proposed PD zoning.

So the current maximum allowed FAR is 1.8.

And the applicant would be seeking a 3.3 total, which consists of 1.8 for the commercial aspects of the project and 1.5 for the parking garage.

The maximum building height currently allowed within the RC is 50 feet, and so the applicant's requesting to increase that to 135 feet.

And then also these driveway widths down there at the bottom are spelled out in the mixed use and regional commercial districts.

They're specific to 20 feet and 24 feet, and the applicant has some 24 foot widths as part of their plan.

So turning now to the development agreement.

Staff presented a term sheet to city council on October 28th, 2025.

During that meeting, City Council discussed the terms and voiced general support for the project and the proposed benefits that the applicant will convey upon the city.

The proposed terms would be to invest entitlements for up to 10 years, lock-in development impact B amounts with the annual consumer price index adjustments for parks, traffic, and housing.

Include a 6.3 million dollar contribution.

This contribution would escalate to $7 million, should the applicant exercise years eight, nine, or 10 to $7 million.

The minimum contribution, there's a minimum contribution of 50% of the public art investment for citywide projects.

So that would be approximately $2.7 million dollars.

The remainder would be spent for arts on site.

We would also have to maintain outdoor public amenities and improvements along Belmont Creek.

That's the trail, the sports court, the exercise nodes, and related uh amenities.

It also includes labor requirements, including using a general contractor that is a union signatory, requiring the general contractor to make reasonable efforts to ensure at least 30% of the construction workforce are San Mateo County residents, and requiring the general contractor to make reasonable efforts to participate in apprenticeship programs.

Other elements that are being requested are design review.

And that includes impacts related to the site that are you know addressed through the conditions of approval, finding that the buildings are implementing objective design standards of the base uh zoning, which is regional commercial, brain plan and permit uh is also required for the import of 8,000 cubic yards of film, which supports the project's efforts uh to be resilient towards sea level rise, a true removal permit, which includes the removal of 157 trees, including 53 protected trees for which the applicant would plant 166 total trees on site.

Further analysis is also included in exhibit B to attachment three.

So comments received during this project.

There's been a number of opportunities for the public to participate uh in providing comment on the project from a study session with the planning commission uh to the environmental impact report review process.

Uh, but comments related to the EIR are included within the FEIR.

Staff also sent a notice to all property owners within 300 feet of the project site, uh and all parties were who provided comment provided written comments on the site on the project.

So that's uh including folks who commented during the EIR period.

Comments received there was one comment received via email that expressed support for the project, but commented on vehicle trips generated and requested to reduce parking.

So now I'll turn it over to my colleague Danae Hall, who will cover the environmental review aspect of the project.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Danae Hall with Kimley Horn.

We worked with city staff to prepare the CEQA document, the environmental impact report.

CEQA is a public disclosure law governed by the uh state guidelines and case law.

The EIR was prepared in accordance with those.

So tonight I'll give you an overview of the EIR process this project went through, what the EIR found, and how the EIR addressed the public comments.

Do you mind hitting next slide?

Thank you.

So the EIR evaluated a project consistent with the description that Chris provided earlier.

There's two buildings and a parking garage.

In terms of use the EIR evaluated that could either be an office or a life science use, and where those uses might differ in their impact levels, the EIR took the most conservative approach and made conservative assumptions.

The EIR found that there would be no impact or less than significant impact to all of these topic areas that you see on the screen.

And I'll take a minute to um recognize that no impact, less than significant impact, significant impact.

These are terms of art in CEQA, and they have very defined meanings.

And there would be several topic areas listed here that would have mitigation measures the EIR identified to reduce them to a less than significant level.

After the draft EIR was circulated and public comments were received, the final EIR was prepared.

The final EIR contains responses to every public comment that is received.

Any revisions to the draft EIR, so any strikeout or underline that are necessary to clarify text in the EIR, and a mitigation, monitoring, and reporting program.

These are all required elements of the final EIR.

The EIR received seven comments during the circulation period.

And largely these focused on sea level rise and biological resources.

The final EIR included topical responses that addressed these broadly as well as individual responses in detailed response to each comment from the public.

And this is an overview of the process that the project went through as required by CQA.

A notice of preparation was circulated back in June of 2024 in advance of the draft EIR being circulated for public review for 45 days in October of 2024.

The final EIR responding to all of the public comments was circulated in January of 2026.

And then the project was heard at Planning Commission where they made recommendations to you all.

And here we are tonight at City Council, where the project will be considered, and then there will be a second reading for the consideration of the zoning actions.

Thank you.

So with that, I will turn it over to the applicant for their presentation.

While I bring that up.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Rich Yang with uh Four Corners Properties representing the applicant.

Before I sort of jump into our team intros, I just wanted to take a quick second to thank city staff and all the hard work they've done in getting us to this point.

I think we all know.

Excuse me.

I think we all know that the process is never easy.

But I have to say, in the last 18 to 24 months, the process has been exactly the opposite.

Sorry, I'm kind of losing my voice.

Do you want to?

Yeah.

No, no, I just I've had this asthma.

Oh, okay.

I've been dealing with.

The process has been exactly the opposite.

It's been collaborative and transparent, and frankly, a breath of fresh air relative to some of our other experiences up and down the peninsula.

But with that, I'll I'll introduce our team.

So we have folks from DGA tonight with our building architects.

Gary, Karen, and Samuel.

Um we also have Mindy here, Romanowski with JSMF, our land use counsel, and I think we have uh Raquel with the She's just not visible, yes.

Okay, great.

Raquel with BKF, our civil engineer, as well as Kylie from Hexagon, transportation consultant.

And lastly, my business partner, Bruce Burkhardt.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Gary.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Gary Levis.

I'm a design principal at DGA Architects, and we are excited to be able to share this great development with you at 1301 Shoreway.

This presentation is an abridged version of the one which we presented to the planning commission just over a month ago, which we were delighted received uh, I think in Rotten Tomatoes terms, it's called universal uh approval.

So we'll go with that.

But there's no new content to this, and uh so we'll present this, and I'm gonna.

So you obviously know it's a prominent site.

It uh it faces proudly onto the Bay Shore 101 highway, and the creek sort of wanders from the north to the east, and then we got a fairly significant substation to the east, which is uh PGE land.

And so the key views next, not only from the freeway, but they're also significant from the intersection of shoreway and um sembling.

So that's definitely a corner that we want to celebrate and reinforces an entry to this significant project.

Next.

Wasn't expecting to see that one.

This is the right one.

This is actually the longer presentation, so I'll just skip through this.

Essentially, we went through a fairly exhaustive um analysis of all of the various easements, which give us a certain building area, and working within that uh development is comprised of two buildings, an eight-story building and a seven-story building, and a nine-story garage.

And what we've done in order to mitigate the visual and noise created by the PG and E substation is align the garage along that side of the site.

That freezes up to be able to locate the two buildings in kind of an L-shaped configuration, so it addresses that very important corner.

But what really is nice about this is you create that internal courtyard, which then presents itself and opens out onto the creek, almost the visual extension of the natural environment.

Next.

So Rich is going to go over the community benefits.

So over the last uh nine months we've worked hard with Kathy and her team in coming up with what we think is a very comprehensive community benefits package.

And they basically consist of kind of three buckets.

The first of which is a financial contribution, the second of which is a labor-related obligation, and the third consists of newly constructed public amenities.

So the financial contribution, as you can see, is uh a contribution by the developer of 6.3 million.

Uh that would uh escalate to seven million if the development happens after seven years.

Um, in addition, as Chris pointed out earlier, there is an art contribution which consists of one percent of the project building costs, of which a minimum of 50% would be a cash contribution to the city for its citywide art initiatives, and then the remainder will be spent on site.

The labor obligations relate to uh us having a GC that is a union signatory, excuse me.

Um, and that GC will make reasonable efforts to ensure that at least 30% of its workforce proje for the project will be local San Mateo County residents.

And lastly, um RGC will make reasonable efforts to participate in various apprenticeship programs.

The newly constructed public communities consists of a new trail along the Belmont Creek, seating and picnic areas, uh exercise stations, um, a bike repair station, and a renovated or reprogrammed uh sports court.

To make these amenities uh publicly accessible, we'll provide some public parking stalls, some bike stalls, as well as a new sidewalk along SEM Lane, and then to make the uh trailhead uh usable, we'll provide a new trailhead signage as well as wayfinding, which currently doesn't exist.

Um, and so with that I'll turn it over to SWA, who I failed to introduce, but they'll give you a visual summary of the amenities.

Thank you, Renee B.

Project Landscape Architect.

Um, in addition to uh the visual improvements along Shoreway and uh the improved uh public room along SEM, the project provides a significant uh public improvement along Belmont Creek itself.

Um, in addition to uh dealing with the engineering aspects of sea level rise, uh the project is contributing a series four node spaces, basically, respites along the trail, each with uh their own unique uh program and characteristic.

Uh the first is the uh kind of arrival node at the intersection of SEM and the Belmont Creek.

Uh, this is where there are three visitor parking spaces.

Uh, there will be signage for orientation.

Um, important to note this is the Belmont Creek Trail, which connects to the Bay Trail, but it's not the Bay Trail itself.

Um, so that you know will be sorted out.

There's also uh bicycle repair station and basically just a place to kind of launch your trip.

Um, the second node, this is a rendering of the first node.

The second node, um, we're calling kind of the nest space.

Um, there's some information um about the indigenous birds and the habitat and that sort of thing that hopefully will uh flourish at the improved creek trail.

Um there's also casual seating, some of it fixed, some of it movable, and just a place to kind of rest along along the trail itself.

Um, the third uh node does uh somewhat the same uh as uh the nesting space number two, although this one focuses more on plant life and uh kind of the rich ecology of not just the trail but the greater base system, there'll be uh educational signage and narrative and that sort of thing.

I think the interesting thing on this particular perspective is that there's not a distinction between outside the courtyard and visually inside the courtyard.

They're connected as kind of a single natural system, a single ecology coming together.

And I will say although we are removing 157 trees, most of those are in very poor condition.

Uh, 19 of them will be saved.

Um, they're the Arbutus, it's a native tree and good candidates, according to the horticulturalist.

Um, but we'll be providing a hundred and sixty-six new trees, and those trees will be mainly native adaptive species, something that'll help with the habitat and uh kind of future ecological development of the space.

The fourth node is uh an athletic quad worth noting that this court is existing on site and it's 100% on private property, but it's going to be opened to the bay trail.

Um, in addition to the multi-use court, there will be uh fixed uh exercise equipment and again places for people to kind of rest, hang out, do what they do at the sports courts.

Thank you.

So this is a before and after.

Uh this is what we have now, and and this is what we have to just flick between the two.

You can see just what a an amazing opportunity this is on this very very prominent site.

So let's talk a little bit about materials.

Uh, the building is predominantly constructed and it's enveloping glass and aluminum, and we've been very, very articulating the modules both horizontally and vertically.

It's a large building, so we really want to kind of create that nuance to break the building down visually, but very importantly on the bottom two levels, we've pushed the glass line back.

That does two things.

One is it allows some weather protection, but also it expresses the column, and you almost get this colonnade around the entry points, and then that soffit material, which you'll see when you look up, is a wood grain soffit.

So you get that warmth.

We think the combination of those things, the insect glass line, the colonnade, the softness of those natural materials really starts to create a very, very nice relationship with the ground plane.

So it's not a hard threshold, it's much more like the grounds being received as a positive thing when the join the the building.

Um to the garage.

Oh, you can just go back one.

Yeah, you can see on the top left there, we've used very similar in terms of scale perforated metal panels.

So that provides that sort of visual uh screen, but it still reads the same language as of the building, which we think ties the whole thing together.

So these next few renderings will just sort of walk around.

This is the view from the freeway, a bite being elevated.

You can see in this next view how we've cut away that corner there.

I talked very early about the intersection being an important corner.

You can see that express colonnade, and then we've broken the building down further still with balconies expressing circulation and really taking the mass of that building and giving it a really nice filigree of detail.

Next, this is a little bit of a close-up.

And just kind of walking around.

So this is the entry between the two buildings into that great courtyard.

You can see the vertical circulation of the garage beyond.

So it's it's it's very uh legible in terms of being able to find your way around the building.

Again, you can see how that scale breaks down, and then just an elevated view looking back from the creek into the courtyard, allowing nature to be part of this development, and then a close-up.

Almost seamless.

Next.

So uh we've created a modern flexible building.

Um it has this great uh vantage points from the freeway, but also it has this by definition this connection to the creek, which I think is really strong.

Ultimately, we want to create a signature, timeless piece of architecture, and something that really reflects um Belmont's progressive spirit, and that concludes our formal presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that will turn it over to the city council.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh, thank you to the applicants and all of the folks who made a presentation.

Um let's turn it to the council now for questions only at this time.

If we can save our comments for after we hear from public comment.

Uh any questions at the time at this time for the applicant or staff.

Yes, Councilmember Latimer.

Thank you so much for the presentations.

Um there's a lot of enthusiasm around the architecture in the presentation too.

That was nice to see.

Um it's a lot of parking, though, and it does put you over the FAR.

Um, I understand it's acting as a visual and auditory barrier.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your thinking for the number of spots?

Someone.

Um the amount of parking that's included is a common um parking ratio for projects of this size that are not immediately adjacent to transit.

So three parking spaces per thousand square feet is very common.

Um, as you know, we staff are always trying to make sure that we right size that parking.

So we always do think about that and work with the applicants.

Um, many applicants will tell us that they need a certain amount of parking for market feasibility.

So I would also encourage if you'd like to hear from the applicant to hear their explanation of their proposed parking, that might be useful as well.

That'd be great.

As uh as you can imagine, given the current market conditions, you know, we alight up possibility to deal with the project.

Uh Rich, I think yeah, if you could just make sure.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Thanks.

Um, and so uh having that parking really enables that flexibility.

And so we've developed projects up and down the peninsula where if you didn't have that magic kind of three per thousand, it you know it's it's a real hindrance to tenants.

Okay, thank you.

Um if I may add on to that, the project is of course also subject to our transportation demand management requirements as well as C CAGs, TDM requirements.

Thank you.

All right, any other questions at this time?

I just had a question, another question about parking because I know uh the public parking spaces.

I think you mentioned that there were six, but in one of the drawings along the trail, I saw a bunch more parking spaces.

Will the public be able to use that as well?

If I don't know if you want to pull up that one.

There are six designated uh public spaces.

Three at the entry node, and then three down at the sports courts.

Okay, yeah, one of the pictures had more seemed like it had more parking.

Yeah, there's that there is so that would be just designated for employees of the building, and they would need to have some kind of parking pass or yeah, it would be designated, yes.

Okay.

That's more inside the building footprint, so that parking is more publicly accessible.

I see.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's your only question.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh any other questions at this time?

No questions.

Also, along with the parking.

Will there be EV chargers for electric vehicles?

Do you have an idea of how many?

No, we don't yet.

There will be chargers.

Also, quote requirements, I don't know the ratios, but we have we have requirements that are code to uh require so many per spaces.

So yeah, they'll be required to meet the Calgary requirements in effect at the time of their building permit seminal.

Yeah, it'll be driven by Calgary as you mentioned.

So then I have a question about the beautiful pathways that you're going to be creating.

What what kind of access will the community have?

Will they have night will it be closed off at certain periods of time or will it be open all night long?

The trail is publicly accessible from the city's perspective.

I don't know if there are hours.

And then what about the athletic court?

Uh the athletic court will be publicly accessible during uh non-business hours, so during business hours because it's on private property, the priority will go to the tenants.

Okay, thank you.

But my understanding is there's not lighting, so it is not intended for nighttime use.

Okay.

And that's for both the basketball court and the path.

That's my understanding.

So in other words, the public would have access during the weekends and so forth for after hours during the summer.

Sorry, just so in case folks are watching or listening, can you just say that again?

Sorry.

Sorry, the uh sports court would be publicly uh publicly accessible during the weekends or after hours during business, for example, during the summer hours.

Okay, thank you very much.

Councilmember King.

Okay.

Uh great, thank you so much.

Uh let's see.

Let's go ahead and move to public comment.

We are now looking at uh agenda item 10A.

If you have public comment on this item, uh please fill out a comment card or raise your virtual hand.

Um, Madam Clerk, do we have uh public comment?

Both let's do written in-house and chamber.

Have we received written comment on this?

There was no written comment on this, and I have one speaker slip for Giuliano Carlini.

Okay, you know.

Hope I remember the microphone this time.

Uh I've already spoken to you about this in our prior iteration, but I'm gonna say the same thing.

At this scale, if we continue at this scale for the Biomed project for one twin dolphin, two hundred twin dolphin, and the rest of the projects in the HIA, Redwood City and Redwood Shores, and San Carlos, we are looking at 30,000 more cars at least.

This is a hundred thousand more car trips per day.

Congestion is already a mess during certain hours of the day.

This is simply not sustainable and unnecessary.

All of these sites, including this one, are within one mile of Caltrain and even closer to Ralston.

It's a five-minute bike ride, a seven middle sh seven minute shuttle ride, a 20-minute walk.

To hear that this is not near mass transit is laughable.

Any other country, any other city that I've been, this would be considered prime transit opportunity.

Indeed, this is a transit uh oriented development area for Belmont and for all of these cities.

Ten times as many car parking spaces as bike parking spaces.

That's upside down.

As I often tell you, yeah, I'm a cyclist.

But really, what I really care about is mass transit.

Make this a mass transit oriented development.

One mile from Caltrain, that should be the primary mode of commuting.

Require the developer, require the employers.

I'm not sure how it would work.

Require them to provide uh Caltrain go passes.

These provide access fairly inexpensively, $250 to $500 a year to every employee.

Require monthly passes by to SAMTRANs, right?

But the biggest thing that you need to do is restrict the parking.

200 parking spots.

Folks will have to take transit in some variety or another.

And the potential of this project, the precedent will be set so that the potential of so many other projects.

These are amazing projects.

The amenities is are great for the community.

Equally important, the tax revenues and the tax base will provide so much for our city.

But if you destroy it with congestion, that's all lost.

Please restrict this parking to a level that any other transit rich uh city in the world does.

We know it can be done.

Yeah, guys just gotta make you know the first step.

Thank y'all.

Thank you.

That'll be our final speaker.

All right.

If there are any other public comments, uh now's the time.

Otherwise, we're going to close the public hearing.

We'll go ahead and close the public hearing then and bring it back to the council for deliberation.

Um, how about would would you be interested as our architect of making your comments first?

Sure.

Councilmember, sure.

I think this is okay.

Um it's not in a residential neighborhood, it's not anywhere close to a residential neighborhood.

This is a this is an industrial part of the city.

Um, as was noted, next door is the PGE substation.

Right down the street is a solid waste transfer station.

The surrounding buildings are hotels and office buildings.

Um, so I think it's it's um the uh floor area ratio and the height and things of that nature are appropriate to this location.

Um I think one thing that helps visually if you look at the fenestration of the buildings from a distance, they look a little more like a four-story building than like an eight-story building.

Fenestration means windows for folks who lay out of the windows and mullions and the stuff on the exterior of the building.

Um, so I think it's I think it's okay.

Um, I um I can support um all of this, all right.

Thank you.

Anyone else want to make comments?

Councilmember Latimarlo?

Um, I think this is a good project.

I think it's a great location.

Um, I think it makes sense to grant the PD district and the R and D allowed uses to give flexibility.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Um I think we really we really want the business to be the businesses to come in and to be successful.

Um, I think the way you're splitting the public art requirement makes a lot of sense.

Um I did see I did look at the TDM plan um and on table 11 on that in that report.

I saw that um, you know, the point system is is really helpful to see lay it out like that.

Um that you didn't say yes to participate in the shuttle programs at all, but I c I'd like to encourage you to rethink that.

Um, or at least have some really good communication with your future tenants around it.

Um the first mile, last mile shuttle from our train station, as um our public commenter mentioned.

Um, the route actually goes right by there all ready.

So there's a real opportunity to do some more sustainable transportation.

If we can get cars off the road, let's do it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Pang Baganaris.

I did know what she says about the shuttle opportunities, and I also want to say that I'm excited by this project.

I love the interplay between the building and the buildings and nature.

I think it is gorgeous what you are presenting, what you have presented to us in my three years on council.

I think this is now this is my favorite project.

So kudos to your team.

I also want to say that I love hearing that you had a delightful experience with our staff because we love our staff and we know they are the best.

And when you just tell us that, you also had that experience, that just makes me exceptionally happy.

So thank you for that.

Uh there was a um oh, and the other thing that I'm also um very pleased about is to hear that your willingness and your intent to work closely with labor.

As you know, Belmont, we we support labor, we know they are vital and important part of our city, and to hear you say that you are going to be actively working with them makes me feel like even more so.

This is a wonderful project.

So thank you.

All right.

Vice Mayor.

Yes, uh, I agree with um everything that my colleagues have said.

I I do want to um thank the applicant for your um partnership uh with the city.

It sounds like it's been a great collaboration, and I think what was but was brought before us is a result of that uh incredible partnership with you listening to the city and what our needs are and desires are for the types of businesses that we want here in Belmont.

And I will just echo the thoughtfulness with um labor and the you know trying to make sure we have 30 percent uh San Mateo County workers is really important to us as well.

I will um echo again uh the shuttle services uh with you know commute.org, really encourage your uh businesses to use that.

I will also uh encourage you once we get the buildings going um to maybe you know talk to Caltrain and talk about maybe some go passes that you could probably provide to your employees because it is it is within a reasonable amount uh of distance to Caltrain.

But I do I do love this project.

I love um the sport court, the idea of the trail and connecting to the Bay Trail and really trying to bring in the best of what Belmont represents.

So thank you so much for that.

Great, thank you.

Thank you to my uh council colleagues for your thoughtful comments.

Um so I'd like to begin by thanking everyone who helped on this uh project and bringing it to this point.

It has been a handful of years, I think, since I I first met the team, and I know that it was a completely different climate at the time when we met.

Um, and so I want to thank you very much for staying engaged with the city during this uh challenging market and continuing to work with us in good faith to create a really great project.

And I know we were all disappointed.

You were one of many many projects on lists and pipe and the pipeline we had, and uh that all came to uh a halt, and it's it's great to hear that um that you enjoyed working with our city team as well.

Um I'd also like to thank our planning commission.

Um, I watched the planning commission meeting.

I know they had seen this project a couple times, we've also seen it a couple of times.

Um, I think what we have before us really reflects Belmont's long-term interest.

And I think the planning commission asked a lot of very thoughtful questions and had some great recommendations.

Um, so I want to acknowledge their hard work.

And um, you know, I I really like that this project um includes flexibility for the future.

Um, I think if you look back at eight to ten years from today, there's it's vastly different in um in the way office space, lab space, commuting, um, hard to believe eight to ten years ago we talked about self-driving cars like it was something that you know we couldn't imagine happening, that sort of thing, and now um it's it's all here.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

Obviously, um we would love to see construction start earlier, and I know I'm sure the team would as well, but given the fact that that's a lot of that is beyond my control, certainly beyond my control and the council's control.

Um, you know, just crossing our fingers that it it comes to fruition sooner than that.

Um, and so let's let's uh stay flexible and I really like the flexibility uh between lab and office space.

I'm especially pleased with the DA agreement, um, includes meaningful commitments and real community benefit, um the 6.3 million dollars, public art amenities on the site, and uh I also want to acknowledge our labor partners for staying engaged and the the team for working with our labor partners to ensure this agreement reflects strong workforce commitments and quality jobs.

Um so I think I just I look forward to um, regardless of the timing, see when this project moves forward, hopefully sooner than anticipated.

If not, and it goes to uh the eighth year, Belmont benefits from that as well, which I appreciate.

And again, appreciate our staff and the general that moon team and everyone for making this project uh go through Good City Company, all of all of the uh the players uh for making sure that this uh this project is as good as it is.

So looking forward to continuing to work with you in Belmont community is and um and I can definitely uh approve the project.

And um, through the mayor, if I may just add a little bit of um information related to the transportation and the parking.

Um there is a condition of approval on the project that if a transportation management association is formed in the area, then they would join it.

Um, and so we have had preliminary conversations at this point with Redwood City, and we're hoping over time to expand that to San Carlos as well, and someday when the time is right, to form a transportation management association that could capitalize on commute.org that could have increased shuttle service, and so that is something we are looking forward to in the future, and the applicant is aware of our expectation to participate in those conversations.

Um so we have had that discussion with them along the way.

And then I also wanted to point out transportation is an evolving world right now, as the mayor pointed out, things we couldn't have imagined only a few years ago.

And so I did want to point out that the way that the documents are written right now, staff could actually approve a reduction in parking of up to 10%.

So let's say five years from now they go into development and they realize that they don't need quite that much parking, we would be able to approve that slight reduction and kind of right size the parking to the project.

If there was ever a time when they said we really don't need that much parking, then we would need to go back through.

Do you know what I mean and approve that?

But we do have the discretion to approve that slight reduction when the time comes.

So I wanted you to be aware of kind of a more comprehensive um thinking that we've had about the transportation.

Yes, please.

So my best story about this is some years ago I worked in corporate real estate and facility planning for one of the big name tech companies.

This company had a campus that was one million square feet of buildings designed for 4,000 employees with 3,333 parking spaces, exactly three spaces per thousand, as is being discussed here.

This was 20 years ago.

Those ratios worked pretty well.

Um when they were really rolling, you still had to get there early to get a parking space.

If you got there a little late, you had trouble finding a space, but it was the ratios were close enough.

They sold that campus to a different big name tech company who put not 4,000 people in those buildings, they put 10,000 people in those buildings.

So, and they did everything imaginable to get people to uh commute by something other than one car, one person.

They ran their own fleet of buses, they gave people rail passes, they gave people bus passes, they subsidized people to carpool, and they probably did some other things that I've forgotten, but they did you know almost everything an employer could do.

It still wasn't enough parking.

And you know, some of this was carpooling.

You know, people were carpooling two or three to a car.

Three per thousand still was not enough parking in that situation.

I think it's an appropriate ratio here.

Um, my other observation is the people who are in a position to have the most effect on commuting like that, aren't the builders of the building, it's the tenants who move in.

The employers who occupy the building are the ones that are able to do things like uh rail passes, bus passes, carpool subsidies, those those kinds of things.

So I, you know, uh I I agree with the sentiment that, you know, whatever can be done to uh improve upon one person one car is a good thing.

Um I think for where we are in the process today, which is um approving this plan for a building, I I think this is okay, and as the process moves forward, I hope we we will have another bite at the apple when tenants were to occupy these spaces, and I think we may have more leverage at that point to say, hey, employer tenants, employers who are hiring people.

Now it's your turn to you know do some of those things.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

If there are no other comments from the council, uh we can go ahead and entertain a motion.

I can move approval.

Second roll call, please.

I'm sorry.

Um I just wanted to be clear on the actions tonight.

The actions are to introduce the ordinance, and then if you had any feedback on any of the resolutions.

So I'm sorry, I just want to make sure we didn't go over that in the earlier presentation.

No approval.

So no, okay.

Yeah, sorry.

I feel good about what was in there.

I have a motion from Councilmember Latimero seconded by Councilmember McCune.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember Latimerlow?

Yes.

Councilmember member McCune?

Aye.

Bang Manganaris.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Jordan?

Yes.

Mayor Mates?

Yes.

And this motion passes 5-0.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

Right.

Moving along to item 10B.

Approval of the disposition of city owned properties at 730 El Camino Real and 1000 O'Neill Avenue.

And we have two resolutions before us to consider.

Is this our city staff?

Oh, great.

There you are.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.

I'm here to present the following report on the potential disposition of three city-owned residential properties.

As a reminder, the city owns three residential properties, including 730 El Camino Real, a group home for developmentally disabled adults.

503 Crestview Ave, which is a six-bedroom intermediate care nursing home for developmentally and physically disabled residents.

Excuse me, and 1000 O'Neill Avenue, a duplex formally rented to moderate income residents, which is now vacant.

The city previously sold other residential properties, including two condos and one single family home.

The proceeds were used to fund new affordable housing.

As we have discussed previously in presentations, there are challenges posed by the city posed by posed to the city by owning these properties, including high operating expenses, limited rents, limited staff resources to manage the properties, including repairs and maintenance, potential liabilities if properties are not kept in good repair.

And I want to take a moment to summarize the prior council direction regarding the three properties, which includes council direction to explore the disposition of the properties in October of 2024.

Council action to declare the properties as exempt surplus land under the surplus lands act in February of 2025.

And in October of 2025, specific direction was provided for each property, which included taking actions necessary to transfer 730 Alcamina Real to Kinos, the current nonprofit operator, transferring 503 crestview AV to either the current for-profit operator or to a nonprofit for lease back to the current operator.

And lastly, direction to sell Emmett House for market value with proceeds used to fund new affordable housing.

And all actions include deed restrictions to preserve the assisting use or to protect historic character.

So the following is an overview of the current status of the properties.

For 730 El Camino Real, we've been able to negotiate the terms of transfer with Kinos and our bringing forward tonight.

Request to authorize the completion of the property transfer.

For Emmett House, staff has completed the work to move forward with the sale of the property.

Staff has selected a real estate broker after an RFP process.

We are seeking authorizations for the sale and for the city manager to execute all sale agreements.

For 503 Crestview Av, the property received a state grant to cover substantial renovations.

Staff is currently negotiating a transfer with the nonprofit Brilliant Corners.

And staff will bring back this item for city council approval later this spring.

So a 3343 report, 33433 report, also known as a reuse appraisal, is required when assets are purchased with redevelopment funds and are intended to be sold.

The reuse value is the value of the property with restrictions, and the market value is the value without restrictions sold at market rate.

Here is an overview of the 730 El Camino property, which we've brought to you before.

This is an existing group home.

The property's been operated since 1999 by Kinos.

This is this current housing arrangement enables developmentally disabled residents to live independently in the community.

The total monthly rent to the city is $1,500.

Deferred maintenance and repairs are estimated about $148,000.

And the appraised value is about $2.17 million.

The reuse appraisal value with restrictions is zero.

The following is a summary of actions and their significance for $730 El Camino Real.

The approval of the resolution will authorize the city manager to transfer the property to Kinos.

The reuse appraisal is required to be adopted at a public hearing.

The purchase and sale agreement will transfer the property to Kinos for one dollar.

The city will record a regulatory agreement restricting the use of the property for 55 years to a residential supported living group home for low-income individuals.

The appraisal, the reuse appraisal for 730 El Camino Real included some key findings.

The reuse value with restrictions for use and affordability is less than zero due to the economics of operating a group home with affordable rents for developmentally disabled residents.

The reuse appraisal included an analysis of the income, which included rents and subsidies from the regional center, as well as the expenses for running and staffing the property.

The analysis also took into account the future costs of repairs and maintenance.

And based on this overall analysis, there was a negative value indicated.

So the city will enter into a purchase and sale agreement to transfer the property to Kinos, and some of the key terms of that agreement include a dollar sales price, property sold as is, Kinos is to cover all the closing costs, we have a set due diligence period, and there are preconditions to transfer, including executing the regulatory agreement.

And we also have agreed that there's no brokers or broker fees in the transaction.

Sorry, I'm a little behind on my slides here.

So along with the purchase and sale agreement, there will be a regulatory agreement recorded on the 730 El Camino property, and some of the key components of that are requiring nonprofit ownership, limiting occupancy to congregate care or residential living facility, requiring that residents be income qualified with special needs, requiring affordable rents, placing in a 55 year restriction on the property, and requiring repayment of appraised value to the city if the property is sold at market rate prior to 55 years.

We also are allowing, if there is a sale in the future in the 55-year term, we're allowing the owner to deduct costs of major improvements in the event of a sale.

Here's an overview of the Emmett House, which I'm sure everyone is pretty familiar with.

Some key facts the original home was built in 1885.

It was originally located on Walston Avenue.

It was moved to its current location in 2008 and converted to duplex in 2011.

This was a rental property for moderate income residents until recently, but it's currently vacant.

And the deferred maintenance is estimated about $209,000.

Finally, the appraised value is estimated at $2.23 million.

So tonight for Emmett House, we are requesting the following.

Approval of the resolution that will authorize the city manager to hire a real estate broker to market and execute the sale of the property.

The reuse appraisal is required to be adopted at a public hearing.

Adoption of a replacement housing plan for two affordable units that will be lost when the property sold as a market rate property.

And deed restrictions to be put in place to preserve the historic character of the property.

Some key information from the Emmett House reuse appraisal includes the reuse appraisal notes the lack of restrictions for future use and affordability because there won't be any.

The reuse appraisal relies on the market appraisal, assuming the highest and best use as a residential duplex.

There will be a historic, I'm sorry, the historic preservation deed restriction is not anticipated to have a significant impact on the value of the property.

And the reuse appraisal estimated value at highest and best use is about 2.2 million.

While I appreciate that, so for O'Neill Avenue, the replacement housing plan is required due to the loss of two moderate income units.

The city is required to identify net new affordable units to offset the loss.

And we have designated 803 Bellingmount Avenue, the Rome Project, which is 125 unit, 100% affordable project, currently under construction as the replacement project.

I'm sorry.

The city issued an RFP for brokerage services in January 2026.

Prior experience with the sale of redevelopment agency funded and below market rate properties was preferred.

Experience with historical properties was desired.

The city received four proposals from local brokers.

After review, staff selected AMID investments based on their experience selling prior city-owned properties in 2023 and experience with historic properties.

Amit investments is charging a broker fee of 2.5% of the sales price for their services, and the city will need to pay all closing costs estimated to be roughly 6% of the sales price, including the broker fee.

So because Emmett House is designated as a historic landmark and the city's historic resources inventory in the general plan.

We want to protect the historic character and appearance of the property.

And that and therefore the city will record a deed restriction, which the buyer must agree to as a condition of sale.

The deed restriction mandates upkeep of the property in good condition, requires maintenance of the historic character of the facade, requires city approval to alter, relocate, or demolish the exterior of the landmark.

And these restrictions will run in perpetuity.

So for 730 El Camino Real staff requests that city council adopt a resolution which includes the following actions making certain findings under the public health and safety code section 3343 for disposition of public property located at 730 El Camero.

Secondly authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute a purchase and sale agreement and related documents to sell the property to Kinos for one dollar.

Approve the regulatory agreement restricting the use of the property to a residential supportive living group home for 55 years.

Staff requests that the city council adopt a resolution which includes the following actions for 1000 O'Neill Avenue making certain findings under public health and safety code section 3343 for disposition of public property located 1000 O'Neill Avenue adopt a replacement housing plan for the PLOS of the two affordable units.

Authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a real estate listing agreement with admit investments in the marketing and sale of 1000 O'Neill Avenue and finally authorizing the city manager to approve the sale of the property at market value including the negotiation and execution of all agreements and documents necessary to complete the sale of the property and that concludes my formal presentation.

Okay thank you so much Mr.

Lieberman appreciate it.

Council do we have any questions on let's just take them one at a time how about 730 El Camino any questions on on that item or in that particular address.

Yes.

I have the same question for the other property is this the last step for Kinos and for the other property that will happen here at City Council.

That is correct yes tonight we'll take all actions necessary to actually go ahead and transfer the property to Kynos.

Any other questions Vice Mayor any questions?

I just um just a clarification oh no I'm it's for the other property sorry.

Oh okay any questions on 730 El Camino where did the 55 years come from I think that was tied to the original source of the funding that purchased those assets.

So RDA, my understanding is that our lawyers advise us that to be consistent we want to have a 55 year restrictive term on that property to kind of mirror the redevelopment agency requirements.

Okay thank you.

Okay.

Any questions on 1000 Emmett or 1000 sorry no council member magnetic this is you know a historic home in Belmont and I that you there's that clause at in perpetuity it must the requirements the restrictions must be in place.

I'm wondering can a future city council overturn that in perpetuity requirement yeah I believe that if the city were to have a change of harder there were circumstances that would require or it'd be desirable for the city to remove those restrictions we could do that.

Scott will we'd have to go through a process there would be well we could do a the property owner can also make a request for change in case they want to do something down the road in affecting change to the building so there's always a process by which somebody can change those things.

Now I'm I'm not an expert on historic properties and I know there's folks here who are but um Scott I don't know if you can opine on what steps you need to take on a registered historic property.

It's not state registered, it's just it's city and local registered.

So there I mean there's a distinction there.

Yeah, and I think they also have to we have to go through a process if that were to happen in the future, and we should make clear there's no plans to do that now.

But they would have to go through a a process, although if I don't think it would trigger C it depends on what they what they wanted to do actually.

It depends on what they wanted to do.

But in perpetuity now for the next fifty-five years, I think is the deed goes with it, and if they wanted to do if somebody wanted to do something, they would have to it would trigger a whole process and the series of studies.

It couldn't be arbitrary.

So on if if for properties that are deemed historical under the city's um historical resources ordinance, so you'd have to go through a process under that ordinance to to change its status.

I don't think that that's happened since I've been here in 15 years of I was looking to see if Carlos is back there.

I think Carl's knows a little bit more about that than I do.

I do agree that there would be a potentially some CEQ issues around that as well, but that would be a decision that have to come from the council.

Um if the RDA law um i is involved and requires a certain uh period of restriction that can't be released by the city.

The uh approval agreement's really more around the form of the agreement, make sure that it's actually covering what it needs to cover.

Um to the extent that there might be uh latitude outside of that to change certain parameters that could be considered, but uh I think that's relatively unlikely.

Any other questions on 130?

I mean 1000.

O'Neill.

Yes, I just had a clarifying question on the replacement project.

I recognize that it's gonna go to the all-affordable project.

Does that just mean we put it in that bucket, but then the proceeds from the sale will just go into our affordable housing budget?

You correct the proceeds of the sale would go to our affordable housing fund, which could be used to support future uh 100% affordable housing projects or other affordable housing projects.

And we're just simply identifying a project that is like the receptor site or what if you will, the it's the receiving it's the project that's gonna satisfy the replacement requirement.

Okay.

And when we dispose of physical assets that were former housing successor agency properties, we're still required to comply with the RDA law in terms of how we use that money and if we're gonna uh loan it uh for instance to a development that they then uh agree to certain restrictions on on the property for a period of time and uh set out in the in the RDA law as a minimum for uh restrictions on uh terms of affordability and depth of affordability.

Yeah, to to just clear, I think your question was the two million doesn't go to that project, two million goes to the housing fund.

Uh you and its allocation goes to that project.

Right, thank you.

But what I was getting at is that that money stays stays colored as affordable housing money.

Thank you.

That's it.

Any other questions on 1000?

All right, great, thank you.

Um, okay.

So let's go ahead and open the public hearing for public comment.

This is 10B approval of the disposition of City Owned Properties 730 El Camino Real and 1000 O'Neill.

Madam Clerk, are there any public comments on this item?

I have one slip on this item, and it's Andy.

So Vice Mayor Pang.

Um, Council I'm Andy Frisch with the Kynos Women Training Center.

And here before, maybe a little bit sad that it'll be the last time I'm here on this issue.

Um just really um here to express gratitude um for the partnership for the past 26 years in um operating this property um for the benefit of seven residents of Belmont and the collaboration on keeping it affordable.

Um in a wonderful way for these residents and future residents for the next 55 years.

Um we're grateful for the partnership.

Uh this past weekend I was at the house uh celebrating um one of the residents there was retiring after he works at um Safeway at Ralston, retiring after 25 years or 27 years um at Safeway.

Looking forward to being a retired Belmont uh resident um and partaking in any uh the uh benefits of of that.

Um but the seven members of the House feel like um very loyal to the Belmont community.

They feel uh an identity with Belmont, and you you've shown uh just tremendous support and well welcomingness to them.

So thank you so much for that.

Um we look forward to being good stewards of the property.

Um we have a lot of uh building improvements to do that will just make it a better place for the residents there.

And uh just uh thank you to you and the special thank you uh to Toby and Kathy, wonderful staff to work with.

Um we're just grateful for the partnership and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Do we have any other comments on this item?

That is the final speech.

All right.

Well, move it back to council then for uh deliberation, closing the public hearing and public comment period.

Uh any council members with any thoughts like to share?

I I think this is fine.

We discussed these in the past, and people had a few minor, you know, kind of uh comments about the process, but those seem to have been addressed, so it looks all good to me.

Great, thank you.

Agreed.

Okay.

Let's do it.

I move approval.

Any other comments?

No, I'm good.

Okay.

Uh my I guess I also agree.

Like we should go ahead and uh move forward with this.

I would just like to say that uh I understand that you said AMID um has worked with historic properties before.

When it comes to the historic covenant, actually having done a few of my own, I do suggest that we use the uh studies that were all done when we move the uh building in 2011, and calling out the historic character defining features.

If the study doesn't already do that, which it should, not all of the features are historic character defining features, so it actually helps to call them out.

You know, I actually had one client who wanted in a bullet bullet point, but however, to to call them out best, that would make it easy for um the new owner to understand what are our historic historic character defining features and what are not, and just ensuring that maybe um you know a historian actually helps uh identify those and at least calls them out, or at least somebody with experience looks at those previous studies when they when you uh prepare the the D to go with it um the covenant to go with the deed.

And that's obviously for a 1,000 O'Neill.

So I think uh Councilmember Laudemerlo, did you want to move a book?

Let's move approval second.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember McCune.

Aye.

Pang Menganares?

Aye.

Laudamarlo?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan?

Yes, Mayor Mates.

Yes.

And this motion passes five-zero.

Thank you.

Great, thank you very much.

Item 11, general business.

Uh we have on the we will consider this item, which appears on both the city council agenda and the Belmont Fire Protection District agenda.

Staff has prepared one report for both bodies and will conduct one presentation and one public comment period and then take separate actions in each capacity.

Uh the first is the report on mid-year financial results as of December 31st, 2025.

All right, good evening, Mayor Maids.

Uh, Vice Mayor Jordan, members of the city council.

The item before you tonight is the fiscal year 2025 to 26 budget mid-year review.

Okay, so uh want to move to the executive summary.

Uh as you all are aware, we are dealing with the state takeaway of our property tax in lieu of VLF or what we call VLF for short.

Uh for the first time, as you all know, the state did not make us whole this year.

We only received two-thirds of what we were due.

Uh, and the funding going forward remains uncertain.

Uh, so this issue uh definitely uh is becoming more impactful.

I'll go over this in more detail in a later slide.

Uh the development pipeline uh continues to experience a slowdown.

Um most of our uh pipeline projects are not yet moving forward, and the ones that are um are mostly 100% affordable housing projects, which are obviously good to meet uh our housing obligations.

What did you guys do?

Uh but not good in the sense that uh they are exempt, for example, from paying property tax.

Uh that you know, obviously we won't get the revenue source to help offset the additional demand on city services.

What did you just do?

Sorry, technical difficulties.

That's okay.

Why don't we just wait a little bit just so we uh if there are folks watching on Zooms, just so we catch up and have at least your your correct slides up.

We can also take a recess if we need to uh take a recess.

Come back.

I'm not sure what he did.

I'm showing one line.

Yeah, I see that as well.

Does that make sense to maybe take a five minute recess?

We've lost two council members who need a bio break, so let's go ahead and five minutes, so maybe uh eight forty.

She was still sharing, I think at the same time.

Okay.

So you're stuck.

Hey, I mean, it's going to be a chime in any time because you know, it's a lot.

And you put this line right at the end.

So we're working on that.

Actually, that's just weird.

So, we're just reporting.

So you're seeing it side by side.

But I it's good.

We're not sharing off of that one, so we don't need to use that.

Did you take a look?

Alright, we are back from recess.

We took a brief five-minute recess.

We're back, item 11A, a report on our mid-year financial results as of December 31st.

Ms.

Castania, when can you just take it from the top?

Now that we've got your slides.

Thank you.

Of course.

Alright, so we're talking about uh the state takeaway of our VLF that I'll go over in more detail in a later slide.

We are experiencing a slowdown in our pipeline development as you're all aware.

Uh the uh projects that are moving forward are mostly 100% affordable housing projects, good to meet our housing obligations, obviously.

Uh, not good in the sense that uh they are exempt, say from property tax, which means we won't get that revenue source to um help offset the demand from uh on city services from these projects.

So the need to maintain city services and infrastructure remain.

Uh I'll go over financial results uh and forecast, and then uh council resolutions are requested for uh completion of the mid-year review.

Okay, so um moving on to financial results.

Okay, here's our general fund overview.

Um the fund balance is up at the midpoint mark of the fiscal year as of December 31st.

Now that's mainly because we received our property tax in December, plus that two-thirds of VLF reimbursement that we got earlier in the fiscal year.

Uh that VLF reimbursement was not something that we budgeted for.

Uh so that is why uh under revenues, uh, you're seeing where we noted that uh we are the estimates are uh 5% over budget or 4% over budget.

Uh, and that's mainly due to that 1.2 million VLF reimbursement.

It's one point one five VLF, 1.15 million.

I rounded it up.

Uh on the expenditure side, uh year-end estimates are contained within budget.

Uh that's mainly due to savings from uh staff vacancy and turnover.

Uh then looking at the local economy.

Uh we have uh uh indicators that are mixed.

TOT is down, uh, sales taxes up slightly.

Again, I'll go over those uh in more detail in a later slides.

Okay, but uh first let's look at the general fund expenditures.

Uh at the midpoint mark, um, our general fund expenditures are contained with all categories at or below the 50%.

Um, the general fund does support other funds via transfers that will be done at the end of the year.

Those major transfer are listed over on the right hand side.

They total about six million.

Okay, this table shows results by fund, uh, where revenue stand, where expenditure stand, and where ending balance stand uh as of December 31st.

So the general fund is the top box, the orange box revenues were at 15.2 million, expenditures at 16.1 million, leaving the fund balance at 33.6 million at the midpoint mark.

Now, most of the other funds listed here will require a general fund support as I mentioned in the previous slide.

Uh, you can see here that those funds, um, like storm drain, street maintenance, recreation, adrenal plan maintenance, uh, all have expenditures that are higher than revenues at the midpoint mark.

Uh so we'll take another look at the end of the fiscal year, determine what that amount of transfers that's needed.

Okay, now uh, looking at our major revenue sources, property taxes, our number one revenue source in the general fund, makes up about 40% of our total revenues.

So if you look at the TO bars to the right, our current year estimate, so that's the strike TO bar, that's about a million and a half higher than budget.

Again, that's because we didn't include the 1.2 million VLF payback in the original budget.

And so really the difference that you're seeing between the estimate and the budget is primarily due to that uh two-thirds of the LF payback that we received.

Here's sales tax are 1% Bradley Burns.

Again, looking at the TL bars to the right, our current year estimate are slightly higher than budget by about 150,000.

Uh that's mainly due to the auto industry uh showing stronger performance from some sustained higher prices, and also the searched spending that we saw before the expiration of the EV credits expired last September.

But if you kind of expand that view uh to the past say four to five years, uh what you're seeing there is that the sales tax has pretty much been flat and not really growing.

Um our sales test consultants are also seeing this, that's consumer spending is slowing down across sectors, especially you know, as um pressures, inflationary pressures uh continue to stick around.

Uh so long-term projections wise uh we are estimating a more um uh muted growth going forward.

Okay, so um one back, sorry.

Yeah, this is very similar.

Uh just measure I sales tax here.

That uh, as you know, became effective April 2017.

Again, year end estimates fairly close to budget.

If you look at the past four to five years, again, pretty flat, not much growth, and not much growth projected uh in the forecast.

Okay, hotel room tax uh or TOT, transient occupancy tax.

Uh Belmont Hotels mainly serve business travelers, and TOT is a major revenue source that is the most sensitive to economic conditions, as you can see from the huge fluctuations on the graph.

We had a TOT rate increase to 12% in 2019 and to 14% in 2023.

Uh but as you can see on the graph, uh TOT hasn't really grown all that much in spite of that rate increase.

This year, what we're seeing, if you look at the TO bars again, is that our current current year estimates are falling short from where we um had it originally budgeted by about 240,000.

Another hotel has closed.

So now out of the 10 hotels we have, uh two are not operating as hotels currently, with one potentially slated for development to a larger hotel.

So in the meantime, what that means for us is that that's taking away room stock, taking away from the inventory, and impacting collections in the meantime.

So this is something that we're keeping a close eye on.

We'll adjust our forecast accordingly, but for now we do need to adjust the current year estimate down for the current year.

Okay, capital improvement plan, CIP update.

Uh you can see here on the donut chart, most of the current year budget is funded towards uh streets and uh sewer projects.

Completed projects thus far in the current fiscal year, they're listed on the right-hand side.

Uh and on the sewer treatment side, we're uh continuing to have ongoing contributions to Silicon Valley Clean Water or SVCW.

That's funded by our sewer enterprise funds.

And uh one of the budget adjustments that uh uh we are requesting tonight is to use our sewer bond proceeds to fund our share of SVCW's planned CIP expenditures for the over the next three years.

Uh those proceeds are an eligible source.

Uh, it will give us a flexibility within our sewer fund while we uh continue to evaluate uh the long-term uh fiscal implications of uh SVCW's capital needs, their anticipated capital needs over the next uh five to ten years.

Okay, so moving on to um uh a topic that you are all very familiar uh about now, our VLF continues to be underfunded.

So again, VLF is a form of property tax uh that came about through the 2004 state budget compromise when the state permanently lowered our vehicle license fee, and in to replace that loss of revenues, they said they would replace it through ERAF and property taxes of non-basic aid school districts.

So since then, and what we've been seeing in uh the past few years is that as the number of non-basic aid school districts go down in our county, the amount of funding available uh also goes down, and that creates a shortfall.

Now, historically, the state would reimburse us, uh reimburse the county and its taxing entities, which includes us back on any VLF shortfalls.

We would have to wait two years for the reimbursement, uh, but we historically have gotten um our money back.

This year, for the first time, as you know, the state uh didn't fully reimburse us, they uh gave us back two-thirds uh of what we were owed.

So out of the 1.7 million that we were owed, we got 1.2 back.

Uh so this certainly places a lot of um uh uncertainty around uh what reimbursement, if any, uh we would get moving forward.

Uh future shortfalls, uh as you can see there, our 1.7 will grow to 1.8, and then that one uh and 1.8 million, by the way, that's about 40% of our uh 1% sales tax revenue.

Uh current year, we're looking at about a two and a half million shortfall, so that's over 50% of our sales tax revenue.

So just giving some context around it, right?

Like it's it's a major revenue source, half over half gone.

Um, and then beyond that in the forecast, we're looking at um 2.6 to 6 million shortfall annually.

That's uh obviously a significant chunk of change as a reminder, a fully funded VLF uh equates to about 15% of our general fund um total operations.

Uh obviously, City Manager Group uh has been in the forefront of discussions uh with the county and legislative delegates on uh uh legislative long-term fix.

This is something that uh we're monitoring very closely and um updating council along the way.

Um important to maybe add a little bit of uh color to this is that this is a significant issue for the county as a whole and all the cities we've been involved in in uh quite a bit of deliberative process with the state trying to make this right, and we're basically uh the couple of smaller counties, but but uh along with those counties, San Mato stands out as the basically uh one of the few counties that's being treated differently than rest of the state on the impact of this budget compromise that came about in 2004, and it's a significant issue for our uh kind of budgetary pressures.

You know, as a small city, we have very few leverages that that we can pull.

So we don't have the flexibility that that the state does and other things that they do in the way of uh moving dollars around, and so this becomes uh uh significant challenge for us for our operating uh budget and the quality of life and a lot of the issues that we uh fund this.

I think down the road we'll talk about some of those implications, whether it's our public safety, parks, uh, uh streets, all those things are funded through our general fund and those levers to us are very few and far in between trying to make up a significant hit like this in our operating budget uh the way the state has been playing it out the last couple of years especially as they kind of look at taking away local funds and so uh we're very focused on as you know the county and the cities have joined in uh suing the state on last year's budget impact and this year we're working again through the delegation and I think it's gonna be a quite a bit of uh challenge dealing uh with what the state is facing and trying to make sure that they make the their uh obligations to the county whole and that's gonna be a quite a bit of uh I think um struggle in in getting there but it's something that we're focused on and we're gonna put a lot of effort behind it to make sure that this this just doesn't get away from us it's it's a significant quality of life as far as this region is concerned and the type of services that that and the revenues that this county generates and and sends to the state and what we're getting back is basically the state's obligation to make us whole and that's been a has been an issue for us to make sure that's it's uh addressed as we move forward.

We could talk all day about VLF but I do want to also point out uh after the city manager's remarks that um if you look at the third bullet FY2627 and beyond um anything from a 2.5 to six million dollars shortfall annually that's not sustainable for our city and uh the city manager talks about things like quality of life um and that's also basic services that we continue to provide we should also say that our county the way it's set up a lot of the county services that we uh use in terms of some of our more volume vulnerable populations like uh the unhoused and things like that those all scroll up to services that are provided by the county which also will uh be part of this and they will also not be able to fund some of those types of things so it's it's a problem that's Belmont and the county and some of the things that we work together on won't be there anymore either so um and unfortunately it's not that far down the line um so it's something that we're talking about a lot and we just need to really uh this is very sobering the numbers that we're seeing and it's gonna be a definite fight um to get last last time we last year I think was the first year that we were not made whole um so not to be a uh pessimistic and a downer but I do think we need to uh as a leadership obviously support our city manager group um and uh but and we should also say that our representatives at the state level completely understand this and are fighting the good fight uh it just means it uh it it still just may wind up that we uh aren't aren't able to prevail so this is something to flag as I'm sure Director Casanita is thinking about all the time.

Yeah and uh in the next slide I'll show you uh kind of the best and worst case uh now this is without any assumed additional revenue sources and using average CPI increases in this forecast right so I want to make sure you know that it's like a static look of the best and worst case so green line shows best case when we would get a hundred percent of the uh payback on any you know VLF shortfall orange line there shows the worst case if we get zero percent um uh on any VLF shortfall we just get nothing um basically what that means is that we're depleting our reserves so we've been pretty prudent we've kind of have done uh I think just from a standpoint of level of service that we provide and number of staff that we have it's really just staff driven work and so uh our budgeting has been very prudent.

It's not that that we've been kind of out there uh adding staffing or staffing numbers have been the same since the 90s and so uh the challenge here is gonna be, and we've done I think great uh work and stewardship of of those dollars to provide the services we do, but if this kind of trend continues, and as much as we try to look at the values, you know, uh protecting the local revenues and and protecting and uh providing opportunities that we can enhance those revenues is that those state takeaways take their toll here.

So that that's really what this picture depicts.

All right, so uh next slide.

So I I'm sorry, Director, uh can you go back to that one?

I thought you were maybe gonna so the dashed line looks like it's going slightly up.

That's I just want to point out that's because as it goes up in years, we are going to be depleting that 33% target more.

That's why it looks like it's yeah, that dotted line is where our uh target reserve line is in moving in the forecast.

And so, you know, we put in average CPI increases on our operations, right?

On our expenditure, so as our over the years, as you know, the cost of operations go up because of CPI increases, that 33% reserve target will also slightly go up, right?

And so that dotted line is where you see the 30% reserve target to be.

And so what that orange line show us is that if we get zero percent payback on our VLF shortfall, you know, in the forecast by uh FY 32 will drop below the reserve target by FY 34 will go negative balance.

So that's kind of you know what what that forecast shows.

Thank you.

Okay, so we've seen this chart before.

We updated it with the latest data.

Uh how our general fund balance compares to our neighbors.

Uh Belmont's bar is in the middle.

Uh the dark blue, that's our general fund.

We ended uh the latest fiscal year at 34 million, and the orange is the measure I portion of it, that's 4 million.

That if you add the two together, that's 38 million.

Uh now we built on um our balance from last year.

Last year our combined total was 35 between the general fund and measure I.

So we've built on it.

It shows that we are making progress, you know, with our continu really continued diligence in containing our expenditures, building up our you know, revenues and our reserves.

Uh but as you can see, our neighbors are also doing the same thing.

So, you know, right now we're still um this is how we compare, and it's kind of the same picture as last year.

Uh the next slide shows uh how general fund revenue per house compare.

Uh you've also seen this before, similar to last year.

Uh we are again in the middle, similar to last year.

We um are uh uh remain the lowest.

The different colors of each bar uh represent the different uh revenue sources.

So for example, like the lowest part of it that's the darkest blue, that's uh property tax.

And so if you compare, you know, a collection and property tax to our neighbors, um, we are lower.

And you know, it for example, like in our composition is just different.

We don't have, for example, the commercial buildings that um other cities like a foster city would have.

So our collections in that those areas would just be lower.

And this is just you know, again, we replace it with the latest data to compare.

We did grow from last year, uh, but you know, it just shows that we still have work and progress to make.

Okay, so switching gears a little bit, I want to quickly talk about the investment policy update.

So the investment policy gets reviewed annually by city council, and this year uh we're proposing some clarifying some cleanup verbiage.

For example, uh we're putting in referencing language uh from government code sections uh 53600 uh when we uh uh talk about uh the investment standard, citing the government code, referencing Belmont City Code.

Uh purpose of this is just really to make the policy more consistent and to withstand the test of time.

Um and I want to be clear here, our investments are governed by California government code sections 53600.

That doesn't change.

The priority order um also doesn't change.

Uh that's governed by the government code is safety first, then liquidity, and then return on investment.

Uh that is all cited in the policy.

We also added reference to uh diversification and allowable investments, again, citing the government California code.

We did so um because you know, in the past few years with elevated interest rates, we've reached our allowable limit balance with LAFE, which is where we've been investing in.

So we surveyed other cities in the county.

Um all 12 cities who responded uh told us they all invest in LAFE, but many of them also um have portions of their portfolios externally managed by investment firms, and many of them also invest in um LGBS, which stand for local government investment pool.

So LGP is very similar to LAFE in terms of uh current yields, and um we can also internally manage that.

Uh it gives us actually more flexibility than LAVE because they have no minimum or maximum investment requirements.

So at this time, what staff is recommending is that we keep LAFE but that we diversify um uh into LGIPs, and all these again are allowable investment tools, other the California government code, and again, they're all cited in the policy.

Okay, so then next steps and recommendations.

Uh obviously we talk about you know a lot of key challenges that we're facing, so we just want to, you know, um uh put them up here on the slide.

Uh at the national stage, that's uh giving us obviously a lot of uncertainty uh politically and economically uh at the state level, it's giving us funding uncertainty as it relates to VLF.

Uh meanwhile, we do have deferred capital needs that we need to address with our aging facilities with storm and drainage infrastructure needs, and you know, how do we balance our capital and operating cost?

Uh we're also facing pressures on rising compliance cost, uh housing law implementations.

So all these have long-term um fiscal impacts that we need to address.

Uh but we also you know want to have the point here that our focus remains in continuing uh to be fiscally responsible and to continue to uh invest in essential services to Belmont.

Okay, so um as I just mentioned, we'll continue the community engagement to identify service priorities.

We currently have efforts underway to update our citywide fees and our development impact and INLU fees that will help us uh to ensure an appropriate level of cost recovery.

So those efforts are underway now that will help us continue our focus on um financial sustainability, which is a strategic uh focus area for council.

Okay, so the resolutions before you tonight um they include amending the operating budget and the capital budget, as well as um accepting and uh approving the annual investment policy.

So with that, happy to take any questions.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh council, any questions at this time for our finance director?

Yes.

One of the most informative slides to me that you've shown you've shown before is the slide comparing us to other cities.

Uh can you put put that one back up real quick?

The one about revenue or I mean about uh bar graph.

There we go.

There we go.

This okay.

And you know, in terms of just what's fair, it's like Belmont getting half of the money per household that some of our neighbors get is always seemed it's not right, it's unfair.

I I understand the property tax piece of that because of this weird math that goes back to Prop 13.

So we're there's nothing we can do about that.

Uh, we are stuck with that unless something really happens.

But if you look at the bars, the one other thing is the bar for miscellaneous, weirdly enough.

And when I go to the um footnotes, um you know that includes things like uh real estate transfer tax, which is not a popular thing to do, um, but if the VLF problem continues to exist and continues to accelerate, we might need to look at the miscellaneous category, some of the stuff in the miscellaneous category.

Uh obviously not right now, but if I were mining this data for a way to increase our revenue, I might be looking at the miscellaneous part of that graph.

Is that if well there are opportunities there, but the real estate transport tax is actually something that the general law cities can take benefit from.

That's a charter city provision that they can apply that.

And on top of it, there's actually right now there's an effort underway to limit that for Charter City and other cities, and so there's a potential November Jarvis proposition that's making the runs that's gonna limit that issue, and that was um I guess stopped last quarter on, but it's it is kind of gaining momentum again for possible qualification for for the measure.

But that's that's a big one, and unfortunately it's not something that general law cities can take advantage of.

But we are to your point, we are looking at all our level level levers, trying to kind of identify those areas and you know expanding the commercial base, looking at opportunities to like we uh council has taken action on on land use issues that we can hopefully uh take advantage of certain things with with the hotel development, other development that that would be conducive to generating uh the type of local uh revenues that we can we can benefit from.

But those are all the things that we constantly are thinking and and look at those opportunities where we can.

Okay, all right.

Uh so quick question number two on the TOT uh running under uh forecast budget.

Is any of that due to Oracle?

I mean, because a lot of our hotels are located over there by the Oracle campus, and I think they got a lot of business from Oracle business travel, and Oracle has vacated a lot of its property over there, so I'm sure that's one of the factors, right?

Because Belmont Hotels really serve business travelers in general, or you know, overfill from, you know, other cities when you know events or conferences are happening.

Uh so I'm sure that's part of it.

Um, we get reports on occupancy rates on average, you know, um uh daily rates, uh, not just Belmont, but like Belmont and surrounding areas, and um we're seeing some growth there, uh in the Belmont and surrounding areas.

So, you know, is not to say like there's just no growth, there is some, it's just there may be many factors happening at once, you know.

Oracle, as you pointed out, you know, the um change in how people travel or work is another one.

Um uh and you know, and also we have some room stock that are taken out of the inventory right now, right?

You know.

Maybe in you know 18-24 months, the picture could be different, right?

We could have an increase in our room stock at that time, but right now we don't have it, and so in the meantime, it's impacting us.

Um, and we have to adjust for that.

One thing it'll be interesting to see as far as that's concerned, a lot of it is business driven by not just Oracle but the whole Redwood Shores uh ecosystem and and what's happening there.

So, you know, although we've made some recoveries since since COVID, a lot of that is again it's business driven as you know, kind of the conventions, even in you know, the stuff that happens in San Francisco because of the overflow, we would have gotten some of that uh kind of occupancy.

What's interesting to see what happens here is actually once we get the January results, if the Super Bowl had any impacts because that rooms were were uh premium, and then depending on where people stayed, it'll be good to see if that had any effect on us and did we benefit from that, and then on top of that, if that's an indicator of of positive momentum, then given the number of other sports events that are scheduled between here and San Jose and Santa Clara, maybe we'll benefit from World Cup and other things coming up.

But that remains to be seen.

We've got to kind of see if that affects, you know, the the room night rates and and the occupancy rates, but that's something that we'll monitor as as the next few months uh evolve and see if that that makes a difference uh as far as that is this year's budget is concerned.

Okay, thanks.

Yes, please go ahead.

Um excuse my ignorance on this for the TOT, does that include anything for Airbnb?

Yeah, there are um uh Airbnb who you know report and pay into TOT is not um it's not a major composition, you know.

It's yeah, that's it's it doesn't make up a lot of total TOT collections.

Okay.

Actually, there was a state law that passed, so on the positive note is we should have a little bit more accountability on if there are TOTs that went under the radar based on the state law that just passed last year.

We should get better reporting and better uh monitoring of what's happening in the community as far as that's concerned.

Because they may have not just offered, hey, I'm doing this.

But there are other you know, there are other vehicles that might have happened again so yeah.

Okay, all right.

Any other questions for staff?

Okay.

Uh great.

Then we can go ahead and um open public comment.

Um, and at this moment I have uh one speaker slip.

Uh Dominic, is it Cron?

Hi, council.

Um, thank you for the time tonight.

I am probably one of your newest residents, uh, just became a homeowner here in um October.

And so for me, I'm a little bit surprised to see actually that property tax was down.

Um, but I would say uh, Grace, uh, my one request is for next year's planning cycle.

If you could please incorporate um whether an addendum to the staff report or as a separate report, um basically a mid-year summary of our overall financial numbers uh similar to what we have in our annual report.

I think seeing a larger composition would be extremely helpful, and rather than waiting for some of those uh just budget numbers going up and down uh in the mid-year report.

So I just want to ask for that, and then I will basically say I think one of the biggest areas that we could encourage to increase property taxes here over time is continue to keep the school systems great.

So one of the biggest reasons I moved here is a young person.

I want to be here, I want to raise a family here.

Um so continuing to keep school systems great will encourage um new people to move into the community, reset those property tax levels, and we'll continue to bring young people to this area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other public comment at this time?

That is our final speaker.

And did we receive any written public comment on this item?

Not on this, I don't know.

Okay, thank you so much.

So bringing it back to council for deliberation, um any council deliberation on or feedback on any of the findings and priorities for the development of the 2026-27 budget.

Can I just voice appreciation?

Um, for uh in general, but also for doing a survey as a survey of the practices and investment of neighboring cities.

I think that was a really amazing idea, and it's great that it yielded the new result of some investment in L Chips in addition to the lathe.

So that's awesome.

Thank you.

I, you know, I I was asking for questions and then forgot about myself.

So I do actually have a question, which is I didn't see anything about uh in the actual um investment policy.

Anything about um LGIP or is it did we not specify I see some yeah in the policy we um categorize that as an investment pool uh because like a lafe or an LGIT they're all investment pools so we moved LAF2 I think I saw that so that's right that's right so instead of specifically saying you know this one vehicle or that one vehicle they're all investment pools and so in the policy we just want to keep it consistent we want to keep them you know with the language of the um California government I see so we took out on 4.1 That's right okay okay thank you all right then we can go ahead and um entertain a motion first as our uh city as a city council so um adopting resolutions uh under the for the budget for the city move approval second roll call please council member McCune aye Pang Maganaris aye Ladimerlo yes Vice Mayor Jordan yes mayor mates yes motion passes five zero okay thank you and then we can entertain a motion as uh directors of the uh Belmont Fire Protection District so moved second second was Jordan Director McCune aye director Pang Menganeris aye director Ladimerlo?

Yes Vice Chair Jordan yes and Chairmates yes and this motion passes five zero thank you all right thank you very much thank you finance director moving on then to item 11b appointments to city council city commissions uh motion to appoint at least one resident to the planning commission at least two residents as voting members the park recreation and culture commission uh we have staff presentation by our city clerk so this is um as you said consideration for appointments to the planning commission and the parks and parks recreation and culture commission uh during the month of november 2025 through January 26th the city conducted open recruitment to fill the vacancies in both commissions um at this time there are up to three potential vacancies on the planning commission uh depending on whether the council elects to maintain a five or seven um uh member body uh there are also two voting member vacancies on the parks recreation and culture commission although two um non-voting youth oh along with two non-voting youth member positions um council conducted panel interviews um on all applicants or of all applicants earlier this month uh appointments this evening will establish the composition of each uh commission moving forward uh with a start um in March the recommended action is for council to appoint at least one residents to the planning commission and at least two to the vote as voting members to the park um commission and two youth non-voting members to the park and uh recreation culture commission and with that I will leave it up to you for your deliberation.

Okay thank you very much um you know I first just want to um level set a little bit so we did have a an evening where we interviewed um applicants for both the uh planning commission and parks and rec um including our youth commissioners uh for those council members who were not present we did uh record those that meeting and those interviews and uh council members who were unavailable were able to access that recording and then we did actually last week I believe had one planning commissioner applicant who had some we had some email issues and so we were able to go ahead and um interview that additional planning commissioner applicant, and again it was recorded for uh council members who weren't able to to join.

Um and then we did discuss the criteria as a body uh before after the um actually both meetings that we had interviewing our applicants and uh just to kind of reiterate um uh you know I think we talked a lot about it's not that different from some of the discussions we had last year.

We're looking for a diversity of perspectives that includes uh different ways of thinking uh along with strong connections to the Belmont community um representation across neighborhoods and demonstrated involvement in city life, and um, you know, at the same time looking at demonstrated skills, relevant experience, and then also some of the um ability to you know looking at the complement of commissioners that we currently have and trying to um ensure that we have the strongest commission available with um with you know that includes the the commissioners that we have that are currently seated.

Um so just our goal is to strengthen these commissions and uh ensure that we have thoughtful, respectful, and effective deliberation on behalf of the community, and um I guess I'll just pause here and see if any council members have any additional criteria that we talked about that we want to add to our thinking and I think that I missed.

Okay, all right.

So I think uh before we begin discussing actual appointments, it's worth I think briefly addressing the question uh whether we want a five or seven member um planning commission.

We can have five or seven members actually of both uh planning and parks and rec.

So I think it's it's helpful if we first discuss whether we would like five or seven.

There's currently six on the planning commission now.

Um we had seven, but uh we had a resignation, and then we currently have also seven uh members on the parks and rec commission.

Any thoughts on that?

I guess let's go.

Vice Mayor, sure.

Um, first of all, I want to thank everyone who applied.

It was um really uh a pleasure to get to meet everyone.

Um I think the willingness that we have so many residents um stepping forward to offer their time expertise and energy is something that um we should actually really be celebrating.

Uh serving on a commission is a meaningful commitment.

It requires time, preparation, collaboration, and genuine desire to serve our broader community, and the fact that we had so many qualified individuals willing to take that on, speaks volumes about the strength and character of our city and residents.

That being said, um, given that we have uh different options versus five or seven, I would suggest that we stick with seven commissioners for both planning and park and rec to provide an opportunity for our community to continue to be involved and engaged.

Okay.

Any other thoughts on five or the number of commissioners?

Councilmember?

Just in in principle, I like five better.

I think that's enough to get you know a diversity of opinion and experience and and background.

I think it's kind of a more efficient decision making body, but we've got a lot of really terrific candidates.

I you know, I wouldn't want to exclude people who want to serve um just because of that.

So I can I can support either either way, in a vacuum if we were starting from zero with nobody with no incumbents, I'd say five.

But um we're not so uh either way is okay with me.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Ladimerlow.

Um I I love seven, and even if we uh in any situation, I would always want seven.

Um I think having inclusivity and being able to get as many viewpoints uh on the table is absolutely worth the extra work or the extra time, um, and I also think it guards us against like having a resignation like we did.

We it builds in a little bit of cushion.

Um, but I I um support seven for sure, especially this year.

Anyone else?

I agree.

Okay, all right.

Sounds like uh we have some consensus with uh choosing seven appointment uh set uh to come to a total of seven on both our planning and uh parks and rec commissions.

So if we can look at our uh city clerks chart here, um we let's go ahead first, and it looks like it's uh planning commission if we want to go ahead.

And uh how about if every council member can um state uh your uh preference for uh appointment for the planning commission, which would be uh we're uh six now.

So it looks like I think we'd have we have basically opportunity for three appointments tonight.

Uh would anyone like to go first?

Sure, we can go.

Sure, okay, great, thank you.

Um everybody was uh qualified and really well prepared.

Uh so making these decisions are a little challenging, but uh my top three would be um Brent, Kieran, and Joanne.

Joanne.

Three.

Brent.

Yeah, we're just I'm just double checking Kieran and Joanne.

Just I want to make sure our clerk captures everything before we all right, thank you.

Who else would like to go?

Please.

Um for Planning Commission, uh we really had a lovely group of people.

Um Cherry first, I think she's a great as an architect, and I like that she called the commission the voice of fairness.

Um Joanne, um, she's got an incredibly detailed brain and we need it on there.

And then the last um choice was really difficult.

Um, but you know, I really like looking at who's on the commissions as both, you know, and looking at who's on the commissions and looking them at the commissions as both.

Wow, this sentence is hard.

Um looking at the parts of the commission, but also the whole of commission as you were talking about.

Um I think we have a really good number of architects and construction people up there, and I'm nervous about having too many folks that come from an architectural company as we might be unwittingly building in a bias.

So I think the ingredient we need for this group is someone with a community ambassador vibe.

Um and I think that's Heddle.

All right.

Anyone else?

Councilmember McHugh.

Yeah, as usual, everybody was qualified.

Um I I think based on the quality of the interviews more than anything else.

Um my three are Cherry Twig, uh Joanne Adamkowitz and Hedel Vasoveda.

Councilmember Peg Baganares.

Okay, what I my choices were Joanne, Cherry and Brent.

Okay, and uh for Planning Commission, I have Joanna.

Sorry, Joanne.

Uh Kieran.

And Brent.

I should just note uh that Hedel, we had spoken to and asked, she had put both on her application as well as uh indicated in the interview that she would also be interested in parks and recreation.

I thought she did a remarkable job at the interview, but I actually see her perfect for parks and recreation.

So just want to get that out there too.

Um trying to see if we have it looks like if there is a consensus on Joanne, uh Cherry and Brent.

Okay.

Okay.

Then um I'm assuming that we are appointing for three year terms.

Um that's a good assumption, but can you just for the public and everything just also just talk about what our our uh options are?

Scott, do you wanna talk to that?

If you can sort of look to the to the left there, you can see that the you can appoint for any uh period of time that you choose.

The advantage appointing for three years is that you stagger uh the total of the seven on the commission, so you're never having to appoint more than two or three uh per year.

And uh as you know, sometimes there's an ebb and flow in in uh candidates and availability of uh of people to uh um uh for the commission so um if you were to choose either one or two years you're gonna uh the next cycle you're gonna have five people up so something to consider so I think my my um and I remember we did this last year so if it's the the previous years 2025 we appointed for two year terms and I know we did that I know we we need to stagger um but I'm also thinking so we will have so we could ask still do actually two year terms because we will have people coming up next year in 2027 and then not again until 2020 it's it will still be staggered because we'll have two that will come up in 2028 and then is this the whole list?

So we'll have two that come up in 2028 and then we have two that are coming up in 2020 no we have yeah two coming up in 2027 oh Kramer and Majeski are 20 26 the end of this year.

So it is staggered.

So if we do if we do two years so I'm thinking since we did my sense and this is I'm interested to see what the entire council thinks but since we uh approved uh since we appointed two years last year I would go for two years again this year.

So for all three through the chair?

Yes.

Maybe I'm reading the chart wrong but wouldn't that mean we would have five people terming out at the same time yes who legit I think so yeah the two top two.

If we if we did three year terms we'd have two terming out then two terming out then three terming out I think if I that's correct.

That's correct if you do a two year term you'll have uh the the green seats and the purplish seats uh terming out all at the same time I see I see that the rationale for that um I can do one and three as the other way of doing it so I may have some options of how you want to do that.

Oh that's interesting actually that's interesting so we could do a one year that's an interesting point.

We could do a one year and a three year okay uh council members any any thoughts on that um do the chair yes I I think I think it was a point that you made maybe last year is that sometimes with newbies it's nice to give them an introductory period to get used to being on the council so I mean the commission so that's if we do one person getting one and two people getting three um I can I can see how that we kind of play into that.

Yeah we could do that or we could also consider for folks who are have already served to provide them with another year and then you know that's and then they can decide whether they want to stay on two at one and one right two at one and one at three I mean it also takes sometimes to be honest a full years to to get your to get your um bearings so I yes just in terms of having a relatively equal number of people terming out each year.

I mean maybe we could do one year term and two three year terms.

That would still keep it a little more equal each year in terms of the number that so if we did one one year term that means next year we'd be looking at three people and the year after that two people and the year after that two people but there's nothing says we have to do that it's just I'm afraid if we did five people all at once that would be right kind of no I definitely think that makes sense.

Or it also could be one person for two years do one two and three we could also just do all three I don't think we could do one two and three we could do one and two threes what about a half a year I'm not keen on the one year because it's so quick is quick.

Well maybe maybe one possibility would be to say we have two incumbents there who've shown they've got the ability to do the job.

Maybe those could be three year terms.

And the one new appointee um who has an excellent resume I mean it's perfect education and background um but hasn't served in the job maybe that could be the one year term.

I don't know I'm just or or a two year term.

It could I I like the a three year term a two year term for him as a new person.

So a three and a two that would balance us out as well.

Well so we have one three threes two three two threes and a two two threes and a two and that would take us that that would balance out the number of as close as we can get yeah can we get write it down that way.

Okay.

If we did so let me take the temperature of the full council for two threes and a two year term.

Yeah.

One head noding two head nods.

I could go for a three a two and a one I could go for a two three two threes and a one it's a long I mean I understand that people um you know um signed up for reappointment that's a long time also to be serving um so I just want to make sure I mean a a two year term I think is actually makes more sense and so I know we want to make sure that this is convenient for us but I'm also I want to be mindful also of um the the length of time that winds up being so we can also do two twos and a three we could do whatever we want yeah what council uh vice mayor I'm curious to hear what you're thinking um so just in listening to everyone talk about kind of getting up to speed I think if we are gonna do at least one three year term I think we give it to the new person uh and also being mindful of the two incumbents that were reappointing um serving an additional three years I think like you said madam mayor is kind of a long commitment so I I think if we're gonna do I would do Brent at three and the and then Joanne and Cherry at two I'm actually leaning toward that too and that's where I'm leaning.

It I mean the only problem is if you do two two year terms so you have four people terming out at the same time.

So it kind of throws off the right but to our point I mean I think look on some years we have very very few people who apply very few and um in those time in those cases I think there have been arguments and we have done this before.

I mean uh both Councilmember McCune and I have served on the planning commission it was five and we got a ton done but I do think there's nothing to say that if four people roll off and we either don't have the applicant pool that year to have us go.

You know what I mean it may not be as cumbersome as we we are thinking.

So I think I would prefer to seek sort of what winds up happening and as opposed to lengthening the time of terms just to kind of make this a little bit easier for us given the fact that we have that leeway from five to seven as well any thoughts?

I do not have strong feelings okay.

I think a number of those can work.

I mean we can it we can always make a midterm appointment if you know.

Yes, and we have done that many times things don't work out so I don't I I don't think it's I don't think any of these is necessarily wrong.

Okay.

Any other thoughts on that?

I'm swimming a little bit with all of the numbers that we discussed, but um I I felt okay about what Kathy said.

Okay.

In that case.

Okay.

So in that case, if you could just scooch over a little bit more, Madam Clerk, just to the little just okay.

So remind me, Vice Mayor, you said I said if we're gonna do three and two, I'd suggest we do Brent at three years and Joanne and Sherry at two.

Okay, that's fine with me.

I would agree with that.

And the reason for that would be then that would put Cherry and at the end of their terms they will have served for four years.

Right.

Which is uh a nice amount of time.

And they can continue on, but it also they could stop out at that time.

Okay.

All right.

Do we feel comfortable moving on to parks and rec?

Okay, so for parks and rec.

Uh we have we said uh two appointments we can make for the adult uh parks and rec and then the youth we have two as well.

Uh all right.

How about if we were constantly you might want to I think you brought up appointing Hitl possibly as an option?

So you might want to add that name.

Thank you for that, yes.

I think it's worth putting her name there because she had said she would do either.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

Who would like to start for their appointments?

Their choices.

Councilmember Q.

Um two choices.

Uh Bubby, the incumbent, uh who has done a great job and who interviewed extremely well, and uh Priya.

Okay, thank you.

Should we just go down the line?

That's number maybe.

So if we are adding hotel is paddle.

To um this list now, then my number one would be Bubby followed by Huddle.

Vice Mayor.

Uh same, Bubby and Hatel.

And Councilmember Vladimirla.

Uh Bubby's killing it, so bring them back.

And um I I really liked Priya.

I liked her experience in urban planning and climate expertise.

Uh Bubby without a doubt.

And Hattel, as I had mentioned.

Right, so it looks like we have a majority then under Bubby and Hattel or Hattel.

She will let us know how to pronounce her name correctly.

Um for this terms, let's get this sorted out before we move to the youth.

Again, remembering that we'll do our best to make it so that we don't have uh mass exit of people at the same time.

Um, you know, understanding that uh we do have some flexibility on the number of people, and also there's also so much we can control.

We've had folks step off for a number of reasons, move things like that too.

So some of this is is not really under our control.

But it does look like next year we will have three people uh who will be up for uh well three slots who that will be available.

Oh, no.

Uh isn't it Coonhead Lifeford and Emkin in 2027?

Yeah, but we and Hill are 2026, end of this year.

Right, yes.

They're at the end of this year, yeah.

I was looking, I was looking at uh at least a year, I I think we should at least appoint for a year.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Um for f please, following the same uh thought process with having two-year terms for current sitting people, then as we did with planning, then would it be Bubby for two years?

No, how is your and and what that and then the others for three years because that would take them up to 2028.

Oh, but no, not really, because we still end up with four.

So it looks like for um uh Craig Michaels, who's a a commissioner who's a long long-term commissioner who did not reapply, he was first appointed in 2024 as was Bobby.

So they ha they had two year terms already, sounds like right.

Uh I I think we can just do two.

I think two-year terms is fine.

Okay.

For the for both.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because remember, we have the option to go down to five if we needed to that year if we didn't have a lot of applicants for some reason.

I just I just remember in one of the previous times that we went through this.

We tried to kind of standardize and rationalize the terms so that each year we either have two or three rolling off.

Basically for continuity.

Uh we don't have to do that, you know.

Uh I mean, we could if we have five rolling off at once, we probably would pick more incumbents, you know.

I would guess then, well, and we like we said, uh we either that or we have the option to go to five.

If it turns out we just you don't have a a lot of um so what what are you saying though?

I I'm just can you scooch over again to the left?

I'm sorry.

What so are you saying that we will have five in 2028?

If if we appoint for two years?

Yeah.

That's what I'm reading.

That feels like a lot on the five people rolling off.

Yeah.

In fact, five people whose terms are ending at the same time.

That feels like a lot to me in one year.

How do I am I not saying this?

If we see what you're saying, you I almost read it backwards too.

Because the the periods are in March of the of the year following the there.

So when you see 2027 going into 28, it is uh the line is at the border between 27 and 28.

That's really March of 28, where you are right now, February, March of Twenty.

So we should give so if we gave these folks I see.

So we must have given in March of 2020.

Four.

Four is when we gave those people three years.

So actually we could do Michaels and uh I mean um sorry, we could do our the two people we did this year for three years.

Yes.

We're giving three three to the parks that were.

And then that would be a three renewal, no, uh two renewal in 2027, uh three renewal in 2028, and two renewal in 2029.

Right.

Yeah, I think it's clean that way.

Okay, so can I see head nods for three years for um Bubby and Hattel?

Looks like okay, all right.

Okay.

On to our youth.

Oh my goodness.

So, okay, thank you.

Yeah.

It's so hard.

The youth are so they're so good.

This is when I want to have a 17-person commission, right?

To put all of the kids on.

We had such strong candidates.

Um, so if you guys are listening, just know you've made our jobs really, really difficult.

And we would love to have you volunteer in other ways if you're not chosen.

So yeah, the youth voices um the YAC program is would be an amazing place if you're not already in it.

Um, but contact us if you want to get more involved.

Um, my number one person is Alison Wright.

Um, I liked her experience with managing newspaper and broadcasting.

Um, and she wants to do public sector work, so this will be good for her.

Um my second choice is Shavita, the student from Ralston Middle School in eighth grade.

I I think a middle schooler brings a different lens than a high schooler, and she handled herself beautifully in the um interview.

May I just make one clarification?

Sure, of course.

I just want to clarify for the rest of the council.

I don't know if the clerk told you, but in the staff report it said Gracie was uh an incumbent and she was not an incumbent.

So I don't know if that would have affected how you looked at things, but she is not, she is not currently on the commission.

She um I think she applied, she had applied and gone through the process last year and was not selected.

Um so that thank you.

That is an extremely important um thing to note.

Yes.

Can I also remind me?

I think we also determined at the last time go around that for our youth we were doing one year appointments only.

Yes because we want to rotate as many students in as possible.

That's correct.

Yeah, do you want to go ahead with yours?

Yes, Alison would be is my number one, and Ariel is my number two.

Okay.

Councilmember McKinnon.

Um Shavita is the youngest of the group by a lot, by two or three years.

But she interviewed so well.

I want to I want to pick her.

Um, you know, she's a you know, with you know, youngsters two or three years older than she was, but she held her own.

She just interviewed beautifully.

Uh so I would I would recommend Shavita or Ariel.

Uh Ariel also interviewed just extraordinarily well.

Thank you.

They all did.

I mean, but you know, gotta pick one.

Right.

Uh yes, so uh my number one um was Gracie, and in part, and I brought up that she wasn't an incumbent because she did she did continue to show interest even though she wasn't selected last year, she came back and she stayed involved, so she is uh my number one choice, and I agree everyone did such a wonderful job, it was such a struggle to determine the second person, and um, but my second person would be Ariel.

Okay, thank you.

Uh yeah, I said this during the interviews, but I think it's worth uh saying, and I I appreciate my colleagues also mentioning this.

We say this every year that the youth is the most um stressful to appoint.

Um we I am blown away by how amazing our um youth applicants are.

They are engaged, they are bright for to be honest, for many of them.

When when the question is asked, have you ever attended or watched a meeting previously?

Uh, several of the adults have said no.

Most all of the youth say yes, um, and they've done their homework.

They were very, very good.

We have a lot of opportunities for youth to get involved.

Um, we have had youth in the past do amazing things in our history room.

Uh there's yak, there's voices, there's uh opportunities with to interact with our seniors, and we are uh Belmont is turning 100 in a few months, and all year we have centennial opportunities to join in those facilities, including being ambassadors at um the uh the Belmont Community Foundation.

So lots and lots of ways for youth to get involved, and I really urge all of these uh folks who have applied to please continue to reach out and be active.

Um it will also continue to look great on your college application, commissions aren't the only thing the ways to get involved.

That said, um, I am uh my vote was for Ariel and Shavita.

Um and Shavita as an ex uh not only I think did she hold her own at the interview, I really like that she was already involved and had done some things uh with the community, even as an eighth grader, um, and she has already uh shown up in those spaces, so um so those those are my two recommendations.

Okay.

And that looks like then uh madam clerk, looks like we have what?

A majority for Shavita and and for REL.

And for Ariel, okay, great, and those are your one-year appointments, and then I will take a motion on solidifying these appointments.

Thank you.

And we did say just for for um some housekeeping, we did let the um applicants know that they could either watch tonight, and if they weren't available, there'll be immediate outreach to the city whether or not they were appointed.

Is that right?

We will reach out to them tomorrow.

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

And thank you very much again for all who applied.

Move approval.

Second.

Okay.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember McKinnon.

Aye.

Pang Meganares.

Hi.

Laud Merlo.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan?

Yes.

Mayor Mates.

Yes.

This motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And you know, before we should also go back and just make sure.

Was there public comment for this item?

10 11 B.

Let me just check my.

I don't have any slips and it does not look like I have any raised hands.

So okay, thank you.

I just want to thank everyone again who applied and please stay involved.

Right.

Moving on to 12 brief verbal reports from members and staff.

12A verbal report from council members on intergovernmental and subcommittee assignments.

Any um updates?

Councilmember Latimerlo?

I have two.

We talked about the concern and changes in federal programs that affect the money that we distribute to local needs because it's a state grant, but it's backfunded by federal money.

So we're getting nervous that there will not be money to distribute.

We had a presentation from the core agency, the North Fair Oaks Community Center.

It serves communities more south of us, but they have programs and that anybody in our county can become can enroll in, including citizenship classes.

So that's really cool.

And then I had commute.org.

Our ridership was up 10%.

13 of our 16 routes had increases in ridership numbers.

We're introducing a new subsidized van pool program for employers if they have folks who want to commute together from not a transportation hub.

So that's the new program.

And I love how much we talked about sustainable transportation today because we hosted our shift happens conference this morning.

And I was able to make some remarks at that.

And we had a large number of employers come to Stanford and then take Caltrian, and everybody was talking about how to make yours um commute more sustainable for employees.

Great, thank you very much.

Councilmember Pen McGinneris, you said you had a question.

I do have a question.

So on Thursday, I am supposed to attend the local policymakers group, and I'm unable to do that because I had the Martin Luther King Poetry and Essay contest.

And I'm wondering if anyone is able to take that meeting.

It is online with time.

I think for the L PMG, I think we have an actual.

I think on the alternate.

Oh, okay.

So you can I guess I'm doing that meeting then.

Should have maybe kept my mouth shut, but yeah, we would have found out.

We would have found out it was a program.

Okay, um, you can also work it out, but between the two of you or let staff uh the staff know if you can't come.

Not our staff, but the organization staff.

Okay, anyone else uh updates?

Okay.

Uh then on to 12B, our verbal part from our city manager.

Thank you.

I won't hold you up here much longer, but I do want to kind of as we talk about development and our development coordinator, uh, kind of bring through your attention that at two Davis Drive we had a new uh project application.

The details are on the website.

The project has more from being uh uh office commercial to residential, and they're just at the beginning of that process.

So uh if if you're interested, gonna check our website for information.

Also, do want to kind of recognize me earlier with the project 1301 that you approved.

That's a significant milestone for the city.

And uh congratulate the staff and council planning commission on the involvement in getting that project.

That's probably the largest commercial project uh in the city's history.

So well done.

That's the first one of the many, hopefully along the way here as you kind of implement the vision that that's been set.

Um also we have a virtual uh workshop coming up for climate action adoption plan, and that's uh scheduled for Thursday, February 26th from 7 to 8 30.

If you're interested, just go to our website.

The link for the meeting is there, and uh, we kind of welcome the opportunity to hear from the community on the community's priorities.

And in addition to I think events that you've outlined if you go to the website and our calendar of events the number of events are coming up in the next uh three or four weeks so if you have interest in uh kind of uh engaging and getting out in a bot uh there's a lot of activity that's being planned out and that's a good way to connect with the community and and just bring the kids out or yourselves or uh our adults have number of senior events that's been scheduled memory cafe and other things on the calendar so uh kind of encourage the community to look up our calendar of events and be involved thank you yes exactly thank you all right um item 13 matters of interest and clarification we have nothing on that item uh today so we will go ahead and move to item 14 which is adjournment and we're adjourned until our next regular meeting about the fire day