Is that thirty seconds, not really, right?

All right.

Let's go ahead and call to order.

This is the City of Belmont City Council regular meeting.

It is May twenty sixth, twenty twenty six in the city council chambers at City Hall One Twin Pines Lane in Belmont.

Members of the public may participate in person, by Zoom, or by phone.

In person speakers should submit a speaker slip to the clerk.

Virtual participants may use the raise hand feature, and phone participants may press star nine to request to speak.

Public comments are generally limited to three minutes unless otherwise determined by the chair, and written comments may also be emailed to the city clerk before the item is heard and will be included in the public record.

Detailed instructions of how to participate in this public meeting, as well as meeting protocols are included in the published agenda.

Council Member McCune.

This evening we have none.

All right, thank you.

And thank you to the Belmont Police Department Honor Guard for that Pledge of Allegiance.

Item five is report from closed session.

We have none this evening.

Item six is special presentations.

The first one is a proclamation observing National Mental Health Awareness Month.

I will go ahead and read that proclamation or portions of it.

And then we actually have someone to be uh who will be here recognizing uh accepting the proclamation.

Uh it recognizes May 2026 as mental health month, whereas this proclamation recognizes May 2026 as mental health month in Belmont to reduce stigma, encourage support, and promote wellness related to mental health and substance use conditions.

And whereas mental health challenges continue to affect individuals of all ages and backgrounds, in 2023, 13% of San Mateo County adults reported poor mental health for 14 or more days in the past month, and 42% sought professional help.

Additionally, San Mateo County youth in grade seven, nine, and eleven reported notable levels of social emotional distress and chronic sadness or hopelessness, underscoring the importance of awareness, prevention, and access to care.

And whereas while behavioral health conditions are common across all communities, inequities in access to care remain for people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, veterans, youth, and older adults.

And whereas the San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Office of Diversity and Equity, the Felton Institute Peninsula's Suicide Prevention Program, the Mayor's Mental Health Initiative, and Community Partners are organizing free events, advocacy opportunities, and awareness campaigns throughout the month.

Support.

Whereas the Belmont City Council wishes to increase public awareness of the signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use conditions, promote professional and self-help resources, and encourage self-care and community support.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Julia Mates, and on behalf of the City Council do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Mental Health Month in Belmont, and encourage all residents to help end stigma, support access to mental health resources, and honor our collective commitment to the well-being of current and future generations.

I know we're at the tail end of May, but obviously this type of awareness can extend throughout the year.

Absolutely, and we are most welcome to uh be recipients of this important proclamation.

So, good evening, honorable mayor, uh, vice mayor, and uh council members, of course, members of the uh public here, um, Belmont, uh, residents.

Uh, my name is Letty, uh, Letty Beto.

I serve on the Behavioral Health Commission.

Um, and I have the good pleasure of um, along with colleagues, uh, really just um collaborating uh on all uh just kind of uh keeping a close uh eye and uh just a collaborative spirit among um the counties, so uh just in terms of promoting uh wellness and recovery efforts.

Um, as uh mayor's you shared, uh we are grateful that uh we have collaborators here with the City of Belmont to uh acknowledge May as mental health month.

Um it's important to uh understand that uh there's great stigma uh with mental health, and it really mental health is health, mental health matters.

Uh and just as there's uh you know an emergency line for um any uh sort of police emergencies, uh, we know that is 911.

We want to make sure members of the public are aware that we certainly uh have also an emergency mental health crisis line, which is 988.

And we really are just uh here to, as I mentioned, promoting awareness.

Um, not sure if many are aware, but the the green lime green ribbon is to uh really support um mental health.

And uh it we are so grateful that it is observed uh across San Mateo County.

It is uh certainly uh something that is um really the month of May is just uh one special time of the year uh where we are honoring uh the importance of reducing uh the stigma, ensuring that there is uh you know, reduction of barriers to uh accessing important mental health supports.

Um personally speaking, why it's important for me as a mental health advocate uh before I uh chose to pursue it uh for a professional career.

Um I really found myself from you know childhood, uh, you know, college, uh even post-college being a first-time mom now.

Um happy to have a teenager, but really I I must say uh in all aspects of our lives, we certainly hit hardships, and it is important to prioritize our mental health.

Um, and so we're just so grateful that the city of Belmont is an important partner uh here in uh the community to really elevate the importance of mental health.

And um thing I want to leave you with, uh aside from some fun stickers for the community, uh, to please uh take one and maybe even share one.

Uh just want to mention two things.

I've already shared about the 988 uh mental health uh crisis line.

Uh we do have skilled um and trained uh professionals that are able to provide resources again.

If there's um they will determine uh the appropriate um attention that is needed and and when we get to also collaborate with law enforcement, if in fact that's um needed.

We want to also mention that uh there is a website.

I know we are towards the end of May, but we still have until Sunday, uh the 30th, 31st, excuse me, that we do have one other event, and it is occurring in uh it's a mental health open mic.

So we invite everyone here and please uh spread the word.

Um and you can find more details about that on the county health website, which is smchealth.org forward slash MHM for mental health month.

So I'll repeat that one last time, smc health.org forward slash MHM.

And in closing, thank you so much to the City of Belmont for recognizing May Mental Health Month.

We look forward to future partnerships.

Thank you so much again.

Uh we do have a proclamation if you'd like we can step down from the dais and take a photo if that's absolutely that would help to raise awareness.

Thank you, uh, thank you.

All right.

Moving on to item six B.

Proclamation Observing National Public Works Week and APWA Award Presentations.

I believe we have someone is going to be introducing this item before and before we read the proclamation.

Good evening, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members, city staff members, and members of the public.

My name is Alec Nicholas, and I'm here on behalf of the American Public Works Association, Silicon Valley Chapter, as the awards committee chair.

APWA is the largest and oldest organization dedicated to public works in North America.

Our Silicon Valley chapter represents the professionals who plan, design, build, and maintain the infrastructure our communities depend on in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Each year we hold an award ceremony to recognize outstanding projects and individuals across the region.

And this year, Belmont had a terrific showing at our awards gala that was held on May 8th.

We received over 60 individual and project of the year award applications combined this year.

And I'd like to briefly recognize the winners from Belmont today.

Despite an unexpected archaeological discovery that paused work for nearly a month, the team completed all in-channel work ahead of the regulatory deadline, and over 2,000 native plants are now establishing along the restored channel.

Additionally, Daniel Matthews received a project manager commendation for his leadership on that project.

What stood out was how Daniel handled the archaeological stoppage.

He became the central point of coordination among the Native American Heritage Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Consultants, and City Stakeholders, and still deliver the project on time and within budget.

For also this project, they maintained a clean site with zero public complaints throughout construction, which I know is very important.

And when the delay hit, they minimized standby costs through transparent pricing and strategic demobilization, then recovered the schedule to meet the deadline.

And lastly, we recognize Dustin Moore with this year's Merit Award for his fleet management work here in Belmont.

Over the past year, Dustin single-handedly maintained over 100 pieces of equipment while the senior mechanic position was vacant.

His ability to diagnose and complete complex repairs in-house has saved the city substantial resources to the point that Belmont is now exploring expansion of fleet services as a potential revenue generating program.

So congratulations to the project team, congratulations to Daniel, to Dustin, and to the Hanford ARC team.

Thank you, Council members, for this opportunity to recognize them this evening.

Great, thank you.

Whereas public work services, both visible and unseen, including transportation systems, storm drainage, water and sewer infrastructure, fleet operations, and facility maintenance are made possible through the dedicated efforts of engineers, operators, technicians, maintenance crews, and support staff who serve the community each day.

And whereas the City of Belmont proudly recognizes this year's American Public Works Association Award recipients and project partners, including Dustin Moore, Merit Award for Operations Maintenance Professional of the Year, the Belmont Creek Restoration Project, Project of the Year, Daniel Matthews, Project Manager Commendation, and Hanford Applied Restoration and Construction Contractor Commendation for the Belmont Creek Restoration Project.

And whereas the City of Belmont recognizes and appreciates the dedicated employees of the Belmont Public Works Department for their continued commitment to serving the community and maintaining the infrastructure and services that residents reply rely upon every day.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Julia Mates, Mayor of the City of Belmont, on behalf of the Belmont City Council, to hereby proclaim the week of May 17th through 23rd, 2026 as National Public Works Week in the City of Belmont, and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the important contributions of public works professionals whose service helps power and strengthen our community.

So thank you very much.

Congratulations to our entire public works department and the individuals who received the award.

So I'm wondering, do we have Daniel and Dustin with us?

The whole team.

Let's have a let's have a team proclamation photo.

It doesn't look like it happened if we don't put it on social media.

So let's all let's all come on up.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

It's a big crowd.

Okay, we didn't have a meeting turn.

Turn the slide a little bit.

We got them all.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

For those of you who haven't yet seen it, we actually, the city has a really cool video on the creek and the restoration.

It's on YouTube.

We're trying to get as many likes as we can.

So visit us on YouTube.

It's got grown footage and drone footage and everything.

All right.

Moving on to our last presentation of the evening.

Oh no, second to last is our proclamation observing Public Safety Week.

Uh, this is item 6C.

Um, and we have a proclamation recognizing National Public Safety Week, which was May 11th through 16th, but every every day is National Public Safety Day here in Belmont.

Um National Public Safety Week provides an opportunity to recognize the more than 800,000 law enforcement officers serving communities across the United States and to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, including the more than 2,000 24,775 officers whose names are engraved on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.

And whereas during the 30th annual candlelight vigil held on May 13th, 2026, 363 fallen officers were honored, including 109 officers killed in 2025 and 254 officers from prior years whose sacrifice has now been fully formally recognized.

And whereas May 15th is dedicated as Peace Officers Memorial Day, a day to honor fallen officers and their families, and to recognize the sacrifices made by law enforcement personnel in service to their communities.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Julia Mates, Mayor of the City of Belmont, on behalf of the Belmont City Council, to hereby proclaim May 11th through 16th, 2026 as National Public Safety Week in the City of Belmont and encourage all residents to recognize the dedicated service of the Belmont Police Department and law enforcement officers throughout the nation, and to remember with gratitude and respect those who gave their lives in the line of duty.

So, that probably and I will go ahead and ensure we will ensure that our chief gets this proclamation, and he'll be coming up in a little bit, so we'll have plenty plenty of time to take photographs.

Moving on to 6D police department awards and oath of office, presented by our police chief Ken Stenquist.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council.

Tonight is a special night for the department and the policing profession, as we swear in some new officers, and recognize a few others for their professionalism and dedication to the community in the department.

This time I'd like to begin with the swearing in portion of it.

I have to call a police officer Victor Alvarez.

A little bit about Victor.

Victor started with the police department in October of last year.

He grew up in San Mateo County and graduated from Peninsula High School.

He attended the College of San Mateo, where he focused on dentistry and worked in the medical field.

Victor recently graduated from the South Bay Regional Training Consortium Police Academy last month and is currently in the field training program.

Welcome, Victor.

Next up, I would call police officer Christopher Narton.

Chris started with the police department in August of 25.

He grew up in San Mateo County and graduated Sarah High School.

He's a graduate of Sack State University with a degree in criminal justice.

Chris recently graduated at the South Bay Police Academy as well and is making his way through the field training program.

Congratulations, Chris.

Next we call up police officer Joshua Gonzalez.

Josh Starr with the police department in October of 2025.

He was born and raised in San Mateo County and is a graduate of Server High School.

Josh is a graduate of Gonzaga University with a degree in business.

He also recently completed the South Bay Police Academy, is now moving towards the police through the FTO program as well.

Congratulations, Josh.

Thank you.

Last but certainly not least, Tea Gonzalez.

Started with the police department in March of this year.

She was born and raised in Santa Clara and is a graduate of St.

Francis High School.

Taya is a graduate of Grand Canyon University with a degree in criminal justice.

She recently completed our community service officer training program, is now working independently on her own, serving this uh community of Belmont.

Congratulations, Taylor.

At this time, I'd like to uh call up the loved ones for inviting me on their badge.

It doesn't count if you don't draw blood.

All right.

All right.

Uh you can clap.

This time I'd like to call up Madam Clerk to from the oath of office.

You guys, ladies can be seated.

If you would raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I state your names.

Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend.

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution and the State of California.

Against all enemies.

Against all enemies.

Foreign or domestic.

Foreign or domestic.

That I will bear true faith.

I will bear true faith.

And allegiance.

And allegiance.

To the Constitution of the United States.

But the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And that I take this obligation freely.

And then I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

For a purpose of evasion.

Or a purpose of evasion.

And that I will well.

And that I will well.

And faithfully discharge.

And faithfully discharge.

The duties upon which I am about to enter.

I'm about to enter.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

I face that one.

That's fine.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I would like to now transition to the next part of our presentation this evening, which will honor our employees who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the department and the community.

I will start with a volunteer of the year, Cindy Birch.

Could you come up, please?

Cindy joined the police department in November of 2022.

She has contributed to our department in so many ways, including assisting police staff in large events, complex weekly tasks in our records division, supporting our annual community police academy, and being available to assist in major incidents.

In addition to volunteering for our department, Cindy also serves as a member of our CERT team and read and is a Red Cross volunteer.

In September of 2025, Cindy was called to the scene of a large structure fire at an apartment complex to assist our department with finding emergency shelter for the residents who had been displaced.

Cindy responded in the middle of the night and used her training and resources successfully to locate shelter for the many victims.

Cindy is the ultimate team player who continues to serve the Belmont community, and we are proud to recognize Cindy as a 2025 volunteer of the year.

Next, I would like to call up professional staff employer of the year, David Asher.

David brings 27 years of dedicated service to the agency.

Having built his career as a community service officer before transitioning to his current role as a code enforcement officer in August of 2024.

In that time, he distinguished himself as one of the department's most valued and versatile members.

David is often the face of the department to residents and businesses navigating complex or sensitive items.

What sets him apart is his consistent ability to bring those issues to resolution cooperatively, working alongside city departments and community members to find practical solutions without the need to resort in citations or formal enforcement actions.

That approach reflects not just skill, but genuine commitment to the community he serves.

For his exceptional service, collaboration of spirit, collaborative spirit, and the meaningful impact he has on this community every day.

Alright.

Officer of the year.

I'd like to call up Troy Adams.

Troy was hired as a police officer for the City of Belmont in 2007 and is promoted to his current role as a sergeant in 2012.

In addition to his role as a patrol sergeant, Troy has had other essential responsibilities, including the volunteer program, coordinator, traffic sergeant.

However, his biggest endeavor would be the creation of the department's unmanned aerials aircraft system program, drones.

In 2025, he took on the task, which he required significant research regarding laws, operational efficiency, and other success and reviewing other successful programs.

He then assisted in developing effective policies, acquired necessary equipment, and formed a highly trained team of pilots.

Since its implementation in 2025, the UAS team has had hundreds of successful deployments.

We would like to thank Sergeant Adams for his professionalism and dedication to the department and the community and recognize him as a twenty twenty five Belmont Police Officer of the Year.

Madam Mayor, thank you, uh, for the opportunity this evening to share this uh these uh historical night, these events with our uh family within the police department, and just like to say thank you to the community and the uh and the people that were recognizing we can't do that without you and just make sure that we continue to stay behind each other and support each other as we move forward.

So thank you Madam Mayor and that concludes our presentation.

Thank you so much, Chief Before folks uh sit down uh just wanted to congratulate all of the uh tonight's honorees and newly sworn in um personnel as as you probably already know um our police department and our community are partners we have a really um unique um really nice situation where the community uh really respects and appreciates our police department because they work in partnership and so uh we are incredibly proud of that and we're incredibly proud of our department and I we think that you'll all strengthen that and you have strengthened it's done so much.

So um thank you all uh we have to go ahead and take a quick picture if you're okay um with a quick photograph uh and uh then we'll let you get back to work.

That's okay.

Oh do I just add on that?

Oh do you go ahead and just do that first I got one but thank you.

Gotta get this sent out here I can get everyone thank you.

All right.

Uh folks are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting we have the budget coming up on the agenda.

Um but if you're wanting to take a few minutes and exit we also understand so why don't we take just a few minutes break and be back at uh seven thirty five uh in order to let folks leave if if you don't uh want to stay in the world We back.

Okay.

Great.

Uh then we will thank you for that recess.

We will now move to item seven, which is public comments on items not on the agenda.

And um I will just remind everyone as a um just as a reminder, all speakers are expected to conduct themselves with civility and courtesy.

Comments should be directed to the council and focused on issues, not individuals.

Personal attacks, profanity, disruptions, or audience outbursts will not be tolerated.

The mayor may rule speakers out of order if comments are unrelated to the item or disruptive to the meeting, and anyone who will fully interrupts the proceedings may be removed so we can maintain a respectful and welcoming environment for all participants.

Madam Clerk, do we have any public comments on items not on the agenda this evening?

Uh not for tonight.

There's no public speakers online or in-house.

Alright, thank you.

Uh then we will move to item eight, which is council member announcements.

Do council members have any announcements at this time?

Uh Councilmember McHugh?

Councilmember Penguinaires?

I do.

Belmont Blasters will be hosting their summer concert series starting on June 14th, and they're looking for volunteers to help at the concert.

It's a fun way to spend the Sunday.

Go to the website, Google Belmont Blah Belmont Boosters.

Did I say Belmont Blasters?

My son played on that baseball team.

Sorry.

Google Belmont Boosters, and you'll get the link to sign up to volunteer.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor, any comments?

Uh, yeah, I just wanted to announce uh that Belmont will have our annual pride flag raising ceremony on June 2nd at 10 30 AM in front of City Hall.

So I hope all can make it as we come together and celebrate unity, inclusion, and community.

That's next Tuesday, June 2nd.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Um that's right.

And I think you may have not mentioned 10 30.

10 30.

Right.

Okay, awesome.

Uh and then for those of you who may have missed this year's State of the City presentation a few weeks ago, I'd encourage you to visit the city's website where the full recording is now available on the State of the City page.

And you can also find a short video there that provides uh valuable historic context and perspective on how our city has evolved and where we are today.

Both are well worth watching for anyone interested in our community's progress and future direction.

Uh we also had Belmont Public Works Week, I think last week, and we had uh an event in Twin Pines Park, and maybe I'll I'll wait for City Manager's update to let us know uh how that event went.

All right.

Moving on to item nine, consent calendar.

This uh these items are considered to be routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion without separate discussion on these items, unless a member or staff requests specific items to be removed for separate action, and the city attorney will read the title of ordinances to be adopted.

We have 10 uh items under the consent business.

Uh is there any item uh staff member or board member who would like to um remove any for separate action or have any questions or comments on any of them?

I just have a comment on 90.

D, and I have a comment on H.

So uh how about comment first on D?

Yes.

So this is a comment uh on the uh outreach and preliminary engineering services for the Ralston Avenue Corridor Improvements segment four project.

And I just wanted to highlight that uh segment four is the Alameda uh on Ralton Alameda up to Christian Drive.

And I just wanted to highlight that since it was pause that it's good that we're going back and you know having a fresh set of eyes to look at the corridor to really validate um what the needs are and what are the best modes of transportation and multimodal transportation in in the city.

So I I'm appreciative that we're going back to look at this last segment.

All right, thank you.

And uh while we're at D, I had a quick question.

It's um I know it's a more minimal part of the project, but um, it does mention uh in the plans um wayfinding, and I know we spent a lot of time in previously years talking about wayfinding.

Is that also part of this project?

Not necessarily this item, but this project this time, or no, it's just the design.

Well, the way finding project's already been approved, so actually work is underway, and we'll have more information for you kind of within the next couple of three uh uh months in the deployment of the wayfinding uh uh planned program and and where the installations are going to be.

So more information to to come in preparation for the centennial.

This is the year that you had last year, budgeted some funding to get the VA finding going.

All right, okay.

So preview there's some mock-ups already, so we're on our way.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Um I just had a comment about H, which is the Hallmark Crestview fire access gate uh MOU with the City of San Carlos.

Uh, I just really wanted to acknowledge how meaningful it is to see this project moving forward tonight.

Uh, after some of the devastating fires we saw in Los Angeles in 2025, I raised the importance of strengthening this emergency access with uh the then mayor of San Carlos, uh Sarah McDowell, and then later that year our council gave staff direction to move this work forward as part of our priority setting process.

Uh this upgraded Hallmark Crestview fire access gate will improve emergency vehicle access and evacuation capabilities between Belmont Heights and the Highland Park neighborhood of San Carlos by replacing the narrow existing gate with a safer 20 foot double access gate.

So uh just wanted to make sure that we were also recognizing um San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department, San Carlos and Redwood Woods City's fire department, our public work staff, and the Belmont Heights Civic Improvement Association for making this happen.

And I know uh they met several times on this.

It's a strong example of neighboring communities working together to improve public safety and resilience before the next emergency occurs.

So wanted to just highlight that um as something that's that's going to be happening.

Uh all right.

If uh if that's all, then we'll go to public comment.

Any public comment on no public comments online or in-house.

All right, uh bringing it back to the council for any last-minute uh comments, or we can entertain a motion.

Move approval.

Second.

Uh Madam Mayor, if I just might for I just want to point out that one of our items on here is at the end of Hallmark.

Uh drive.

Um, and if uh any member, oh, is that the one you're talking about?

H the the need to recuse themselves on.

I'm sorry.

The Hallmark Drive matter.

Yeah.

Oh, that's right.

I I'm sorry, I live within 500 feet of that, so uh, you second.

So recuse and maybe not take and take back your second.

Yes, right.

Yeah, I retract my second.

And I recuse myself from voting on item H.

Okay, I will second.

Roll call.

Um Councilmember Pangan Maganaris.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Jordan?

Yes.

Mayor May's?

Yes.

Uh motion passes three with one recused and one absent.

We use only one item.

Oh, sorry, pardon me, recused on item H.

Yes.

And uh the motion passes for.

Call calling, zero.

Oh, I vote yes except for recusing on item H.

Motion passes.

What do I think?

That's correct.

Okay, we'll start all over, pardon me for my learning curve here.

Okay, motion passes for with one recuse on item H and one absent.

Is that right?

Alright.

Thank you very much.

We'll move then to item 10, which is public hearings.

We do not have any public hearings this evening.

Item 11.

General Business Declaration of City Owned Properties as exempt surplus land.

That's item 11A.

Good evening, Mayor Maids and members of City Council.

I'm Toby Lieberman Housing and Economic Development Manager.

I don't have a PowerPoint presentation, but I do have a brief verbal report on this item for general business item A.

So just to give you some background as a reminder of what happened in the past on this particular property on February 25th, 2025, the city adopted resolution number 2025 18, finding the property located at 1000 O'Neill Avenue.

The Emmett House has surplus exempt land due to the fact that the property is less than one half acre, and it also meeting other criteria such as not being contiguous, contiguous, to state or local land used for open space or affordable housing, contiguous.

That resolution was later approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD.

In February of this year, the city council took all actions necessary to move forward with the sale of the property, including the authority to enter into a broker agreement and authorizing the city manager to execute all required agreements.

So as we've been working through the disposition process, it was discovered that resolution number 2025 18 had some errors that we wanted to address.

Although the legal description in the resolution was correct, the square footage noted in the background section was wrong.

Secondly, the parcel map attached to the resolution did not depict the entirety of the property.

But the resolution before you tonight corrects the square footage of the property and also provides an updated plat map.

These corrections do not alter the applicability of the exemption under the government code section 5421 F1B.

And the property continues to be continues to satisfy all requirements necessary to qualify as exempt surplus land under the surplus lands act.

To complete the surplus lands act process, the proposed resolution will be provided to HCD for approval to update the record prior to the disposition of the property.

Alright, thank you.

So uh just to clarify, we're adopting the resolution that is now has the corrections made uh and is in this and is in this part of this uh item.

Correct.

All right.

Uh any questions from staff, uh, sorry, from the council for staff.

Please go ahead.

I think just to beat it to death, this doesn't change the action that we previously did.

It just corrects some technical technical errors.

Right.

We just wanted to make sure the record was perfectly clear, uh, before we dispose of the property.

Um, and with the resolution is a plat that clearly defines the boundaries of the property and provides us the correct square footage.

So again, just clarifying cleaning it up for the record and prior disposition of the property.

And so this resolution supersedes the prior resolution, it's substantially the same except for some corrected information.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

Uh do we have public comment on this item?

No public comments online or in house.

Okay.

Um, I just wanted to double check uh does the resolution say it supersedes?

It does.

Um in the last recital.

Second to last section five, a last um item on page three.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Alright.

Uh, if there are no other comments from council, um we can go ahead and entertain a motion.

Move approval.

Second.

Motion passes.

Oh, sorry.

Pardon me.

It broke off.

Councilmember McHugh?

Aye.

Pang Meghanaris.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

Mayor Mains?

Yes.

Motion passes four with one absent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

11B is introduction of the proposed fiscal year 2026-27 budget.

And just a reminder that this is just a discussion and providing direction regarding the budget that we will be hearing about, and then a public hearing has been set for June 9, 2026 for the budget adoption.

Madam Mayor, well, Grace kind of sets up.

I'll provide some introductory comments and recognizing the team that built the budget tonight as well.

Preparing a budget is always a careful exercise in balancing competing demands and finite resources, as you know.

This year that work was harder than usual, and the results reflect the genuine skill and discipline by the team.

This budget also advances the council's strategic focus areas, expanding our work in the harbor industrial area, updating our fee structure so development pays its fair uh share, and investing in the organizational capacity that keeps Belmont running well.

That work has accomplished against the backdrop of uh real headwinds, as you uh all were aware.

The national economics picture is uncertain, uh inflation and other factors that that we have to uh manage, the federal funding uh concerns, as well as the state continuing to withhold vehicle license fee backfill that we've shared with you uh in multiple occasions now, which is obligated.

The state is obligated to pay, uh, but it's leaving Belmont facing a cumulative 2.4 million dollars shortfall that if on address grows to more than 30 million over the next decade decade, vehicle license fee backfill is not a subsidy, it is a reimbursement the state committed to make when it reduced fees uh years ago.

This is not a footnote, it's a serious fiscal challenge of the coming years, and Belmont will continue to press our county partners and state delegation for full restoration of these those funds by the governor and the state.

In the meantime, our finance team has constructed a budget that absorbs these blows without cutting services for this year through careful one-time savings, measured staffing decisions, and discipline prioritization.

Reserves are being drawn down modestly this year.

That is appropriate given the circumstances, but the long range forecast is clear.

This is not sustainable path if the state does not act and restore the funding, and the council needs to keep that uh in horizon uh in view.

With that said, Grace will kind of step through the the budget, the information uh in kind of a more in-depth uh uh review, as well as providing you with an opportunity to provide us with uh your feedback.

So, Grace, please take it away.

All right, give us one minute.

Thank you, City Manager Action.

Uh we are trying to pull out the presentation up right now, so just give us a moment.

And we'll kick things off.

Well, we work things out, I'll just go ahead and ask my usual request.

Um, once you're done with the presentation, would you be willing also to um put that on the uh online and we'll have it as part of the agenda for that?

Of course.

It is on our website.

Um it is linked in the staff report.

So once you um click on it, it should direct you uh to the presentation.

Oh, but it, but first we have to go through the go in the staff report under attachments.

There should be a link that goes to Belmont.gov slash um budget.

And in that page, uh you'll see a button for the proposed budget document.

Underneath that, there should be a link that has the presentation for tonight.

Okay.

Well, how about after we approve it?

Then maybe that will go on to the website with just a one stop with just a button that they can push for uh sure.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, that works.

Perfect.

All right.

Um good evening, uh Mayor Maids, Vice Mayor Jordan, uh, Councilmember Pang Mengenaris and Timmy Q.

Item before you tonight is the fiscal year 2026 to 27 budget introduction.

All right, so uh next slide, please.

Here are some of the items we'll be going over tonight.

Budget overview, long-term forecast, a five-year CIP plan.

Uh, then we move on to the departmental budgets and then next steps.

Okay, we'll move on to budget overview first.

Yeah, okay.

Uh here are uh budget process so far.

Uh in February, uh we had our mid-year budget review.

March we had the uh council strategic planning workshop.

In May, we had the measure I advisory committee meeting.

Uh tonight is the uh budget introduction to city council.

Uh and then in June, June 2nd, we have the planning commission to review the capital improvement plan uh for consistency with the general plan and uh BVSP.

Then June 3rd, we have the scheduled audit committee review.

Then we'll come back to City Council June 9th in the next meeting for um public hearing and budget adoption.

Okay, so uh just looking at our budget overall, uh some of the highlights, our budget continues to align with um cities adopted strategic focus area, continuing to meet community identified priorities, continuing with fiscal prudence and maintaining infrastructure funding.

Okay, some of the um fiscal priorities that I want to uh reiterate that's been uh reaffirmed through our strategic planning session.

Uh our work remained towards gaining local control over local revenue sources, um, addressing deferred maintenance and future capital needs and maximizing uh identifying uh new uh revenue sources and cost recovery strategies.

All right, so uh going down to the numbers, uh looking at the uh details and financials of our proposed budget.

Okay, so overall um the city operating budget is proposed at 67.1 million.

Uh the fire protection district is at 15.8 million for a total operating budget for 82.9 million, then our capital plan is proposed at 12 million between the city and the fire district, uh, all together for a total budget of 94.9 million.

Now on to FTEs or head count, our number of headcount reduces by one to 143.75.

Now that's through um taking away a vacant recreation specialist position, and then using that uh funding strategically to reclassify our existing recreation coordinator to a recreation coordinator too, in order to enhance and align our staffing um with operational needs.

Okay, so drilling down to the general fund.

Total resources or revenues are proposed at 35.3 million.

Total requirements or expenditures that's proposed at 36.1 million.

So you're seeing that expenditures are coming in higher than revenues.

So we have a gap, given you know the fiscal pressure we especially have from the state.

And so this year, each of our departments did a careful deep dive into their operating budgets and together came up with uh 300,000 in one-time savings, and that's mostly driven by delaying recruitments of a certain vacant positions.

So it helps us, it helps us to reduce the gap, but we still have a gap of the 0.5 million that you see there, which means that this will require us to uh draw on the general fund reserves to fill that gap in order to balance the budget.

And just to provide some context, what you see, oh sorry, back there.

Um this year, as you all know, for the first time, the state only reimburses two-thirds of our VLF backfill funding.

So this left us with a direct loss in a general fund of 600,000, and now adding to that next budget year, the state again has refused to put into their January and their May revised budget any payback on our VLF shortfall.

So our share of that is 1.8 million that we also didn't include into our budget for next year.

So all this just points to us needing to draw down on the reserves in the budget, which I'll go over in more detail in a later slide.

Okay, first taking a look at the overall general fund revenues.

At 40% now, VLF is a form of property tax, and for us, a fully funded VLF makes us makes up about 30% of our total property tax.

So again, just showing how important VLF is and the potential future impact.

So combined all the taxes, general fund taxes together, that's 70%, majority that goes into our general fund.

Okay, moving on to our expenditures, the other side, personnel cost, including salary, wages, and benefits, make up the majority about 60% with operating expenditures and transfer out to support other funds coming behind.

Okay, so now moving on to long-term forecasts and on to uh topic that we are all aware of now.

All right, here we go.

Um, as you all know, the state is continuing to exclude uh funding of outstanding obligations in property tax in lieu of VLF, or in short, what we call VLF.

So just as way of background as a reminder, again, VLF came from the 2004 budget compromise when the state permanently reduced our annual vehicle license fee in order to address their own budget deficit, and in exchange, the state guaranteed an in lieu of VLF payment for those lost revenues by using property tax from non-basic aid school districts in a county.

The state does backfill those non-basic a school districts, so uh they don't end up experiencing any loss, but what we are experiencing is that as the number of non-basic aid schools go down in the county, the bucket of available funding also goes down, and that results in a funding shortfall.

Now historically, you all are also aware the state will reimburse us back the any of the uh uh backfill funding two years out.

So for example, if there is a funding shortfall one year, the state has historically pay us back that funding, backfill that funding two years later.

So bad that we have to wait two years, but good that we got all our money back, right?

Um now the state uh in the past several years uh has been posturing, threatening us right to withhold that backfill, and for the first time that threat has now become a reality.

Uh uh this year we only got that two-third funding, so the one-third became a direct loss to us, and that's the point six million that you see there.

Next year, the state um has again refused to put in any VLF backfill into their budget, and so that would mean another 1.8 million to us.

So putting the two together, that's 2.4 million.

Um, just to give some context, what 2.4 million means, that's over half of our um local 1% sales tax, and our local 1% sales tax is our second largest uh uh tax revenue source in the general fund.

So just uh providing some context.

Now, if the state stops any of the shortfall reimbursements, as Avsham mentioned in his introductory remarks earlier, general fund impact, we're looking at a loss of over 30 million over 10 years.

Again, uh fully funded VLF is about 15% of our total general fund operations.

Okay, so graphically, what does this mean?

This is what our fund balance is projected to look like over the next 10 years.

Uh you see the green line there, that's the 33% reserve target that is in our policy.

What we want to target our general fund balance minimally at, and you're seeing that uh by fiscal year 2031 to 32, we will fall below that, assuming that scenario and projecting that the state does not fulfill their VLF funding obligations and not pay us back on any um VLF backfill.

Obviously, the county, the city councils, the city manager groups are hyper focused on the situation, along with our local and state legislators, so uh we'll monitor the situation closely and obviously inform council each step of the way.

Okay, so with the projected revenue loss in VLF, our projected revenue growth, which is what you see on this chart in the general fund, then gets cut back, right?

And so what we're seeing is that our um annual general fund revenue growth is projected at less than 2% annually.

What uh which is what you're seeing in that orange line there.

Now compare that with um Bay Area CPI growth, uh the last five year average is 3.6%, and that's the green line that you see there.

So now what does that mean?

Uh now you're seeing a structural gap there, right?

When our revenues are just not keeping pace with inflation.

So this now requires us to be um tight with our budget, which is why the cycle uh we have really done a deep dive and came up with a $300,000 one-time savings, uh, which is helping us fill some of the gap.

Uh, but again, want to know that it is uh not sustainable when costs continue to rise faster than um revenues, where cities like us have uh limited control over our uh revenue tools.

So in the meantime, um our efforts remain.

Uh we're continue to make really careful choices uh about every new spending commitment, um, and other effort that we're pushing forward with uh is to complete our comprehensive citywide fee study update that includes our development impact fees uh to make sure that new developments pay its their fair share and that we um uh uh maintain an appropriate cost recovery level.

We're in the middle of that effort now, and we'll plan to bring it uh to council for review in the next fiscal year.

Okay, so uh moving on to CIP or capital improvement plan.

Okay, the proposed fiscal uh 2026 to 27 CIP budget is at 12 million with a total of 53.1 million over the five years, and the next slide will show uh what it's uh um made up of majority of it is going towards uh sewer and storm projects, uh 50% is going towards that, and that includes funding towards um sewer and storm pipeline replacement program and funding towards the island parkway pump station rehab project.

Uh we also continue to invest significantly in our streets.

You see that with the second bar, 45% of that.

Uh, with pavement rehabilitation projects budgeted for the uh next year, and that has uh also a good source of contribution that are continuing to come from our measure I funding.

Okay, switching gears to look at Belmont Fire Protection District.

Here's an outlook on the projected balance.

Now the fire district is not impacted by VLF.

So we see that the balance doesn't get impacted at all.

Uh the green line there shows what we've uh set aside, plan to set aside each year as a capital reserve uh over the next five years.

All right, so with that, uh we can move on to the next portion of our presentation, uh, which is a presentation of highlights and initiatives from each department.

Yes, on the front end of the if you have any questions, this might be a good point, or we can get into the department uh presentations.

Any questions thus far?

I have a quick question.

Okay, Grace, do you happen?

I saw that I think what I saw on the slide was that BLT raised 1.4 million dollars.

Is that what that slide said?

The business license tax?

Yeah, the business license tax.

I'm just wondering how that, you know, it's we recently passed that.

I wonder how the um revenues have they increased as a result or yeah, so uh we're in the first years of implementation for that, um, and so in these first years of implementation, really taking a careful look uh with especially larger businesses to make sure that they're um report and reporting and paying their tax accurately.

So we do see in you know some years we'll collect a couple years' worth, and so um uh this year, for example, I expect us to see a spike, and that's because we're collecting from larger businesses not only for one year but over a two-year period as we are you know getting to review those businesses because last year data didn't pay, so because they're going through the review process, and now that we're at the tail end of that process and calculating what their accurate tax would look like for those, especially larger businesses, we're seeing that okay.

Now they're making payment, but in they're paying back for last year and they're paying this year.

So this current year we'll see uh a spike to our BLT.

Now, long term, what I um forecast is that the larger businesses will pay their uh fair share because our smaller businesses, we're seeing that they're paying less in this new modernized model versus the uh previous flat rate model.

Um, and so in the forecast years, I see a little little increase, so usually annually it's a 1.2 million in BLT.

Looking ahead, I'm thinking maybe looking like 1.5, 1.6, so a little bit, right?

Um, and that does help.

Now it all depends on business activity in Belmont, right?

It depends on those larger businesses what their business activity look like because our new model is based on gross receipts and based on business activity, and so that will uh obviously, you know, depend, and as we update this on an annual basis, we'll get more data and information.

Uh any other questions so far for staff.

Thank you.

All right, I have someone we get through it.

Okay, sure.

Me too.

Thank you.

All right, so uh with this, our first department is community development, and we have Laura Russell.

Thanks, good evening.

Yeah, Laura, Deputy Community Development Director.

Um, so as you know, a lot of our work falls within the economic development and housing strategic focus area.

Our funding sources come from affordable housing.

As you know, those are very specific funds for housing purposes.

Development services are the fees that we actually charge our applicants for the work that we do, the general fund and general plan maintenance, which pays for our advanced planning activity, advancing our general plan.

Our personal count is 12 FTE, and the total operating budget 7.6 million.

So you're very familiar with what we do, but it's nice to have an opportunity to hit on some highlights.

We do a lot of work in reviewing building permit applications, reviewing the plans and materials, and moving forward with the construction and inspection process.

As you know, we process a number of entitlements from very small to very large.

We have a very big range of what our planning staff does here in terms of entitlements.

We have the pleasure to work with business licenses and to help small businesses, which is something that our front counter staff really enjoy doing.

Obviously, we keep all of our records according to all the laws that we're required to.

We have the opportunity to work on a number of very complex development projects.

I'll mention a couple of those.

We're always working on our advanced planning initiatives.

You're familiar with our whole advanced planning work program.

Um highlights of that include things like the Harbor Area Industrial Area Specific Plan, and we're always doing ongoing implementation of the general plan itself, the housing element as you're aware of, and also the Belmont Village Specific Plan.

So some highlights of that work.

We've reviewed and facilitated a number of housing developments.

I've got some numbers for you, issued all of those permits.

We've issued the entitlement application for the large-scale 1301 Shoreway project, which we brought to you just a few months ago.

You'll remember that we adopted the corridor mixed use zoning district amendments.

We also prepared the framework for the RC district zoning amendments, and we've started that EIR process.

As I mentioned, still working on the HIA specific plan, we'll be back in front of you very shortly to get some more feedback on that so we can continue to bring that forward towards a full draft plan, getting ready to reach a really exciting milestone there.

You'll recall too that we had the adoption of the Charles Armstrong School entitlements, which raised a lot of interest of our community, and that's getting ready to go forward for their groundbreaking activities.

We're wrapping up our work on the safety element, and that's going to be back before the planning commission and the city council for consideration of adoption very shortly in the next month or so.

And we've also made significant impact, made significant progress on working on our climate action and adaptation plan.

Focusing specifically on the housing and economic development side, it's been another big year for housing.

And Belmont, as you well know.

And so we issued building permits for 268 new housing units.

Of those 236 units were affordable.

Capital A, you know, meeting the requirements for affordable housing in our RENA requirements.

We also entitled so did planning application approvals for affordable and market rate projects comprising 387 units.

You'll remember that we funded two 100% affordable housing projects.

And then we've also got two affordable projects that are getting ready to come online.

So later this calendar year, we expect two projects to finish at 803 Belmont Avenue and 900 El Camino Real.

We also continue to support our local housing service providers, really important nonprofits and on-the-ground service providers where our budget contribution is small, but our impact in the community is large.

And then turning to the economic development side, as you know, two cannabis retail businesses have opened on the southern part of El Camino Real, and we have continued to work on the HIA specific plan as we continue to consider annexation of that area.

So it's really a pleasure to provide these highlights to you, and I will turn it over to the next team.

Thank you.

Next up is parks and recreation director Kevin Kobayashi.

Good evening, Council.

Wanted to talk a little bit about some of the highlights that our program and department have done over the past year, and talk a little bit about some of our strategic and focus areas of quality of life and infrastructure and mobility.

You can see a list of some of our funding sources, athletic field maintenance and city trees, some of our facility management and rentals of those facilities, of course, the general fund, and then some of our park and rec donations and our recreation program, which is a huge part of our funding sources.

Talk a little bit about some of those programs if we get along in the presentation.

So our personnel count at 24.25, and I know Grace talked a little bit about one of the potential positions that's gonna be uh reallocated to a different uh title, and then our total operating budget of 11.3 million.

So some of the facilities and project management, so um addressing facilities as needed.

So we uh manage about 160,000 square feet of uh 160,000 square feet of facilities in the city, and coordinate library maintenance and improvements at the Belmont Community Library and schedule and rent facilities for city and private groups.

This is a big part of like kind of what we do in renting the facilities out to public.

One of the things that we also do for our facilities management is collaborating with other departments on city improvement projects, and then eventually we'll be doing a future implementation of asset management software.

Some of our recreation programs, delivering accessible, inclusive and age-friendly program services and special events.

We provide licensed child care services that are newly rebranded Belmont preschool program, pre-mont, excuse me, Belmont Preschool Community Center.

We provide our partner provide youth team services, our summer camps or Camp SOAR, our aquatics program and after school programs, the hideout with our youth advisory committee and our voices program.

We're going to have a presentation hopefully during the Parks and Rec month in July for our teen wellness retreat program, which is going to be receiving an award at the National Recreation Parks Association event in October.

So I'm excited to talk a little bit about that at a future meeting.

We do provide partner with the adult and senior programs, educational recreational opportunities.

We provide day trips and transportation to and from the center, and then we also have our lunch program that we provide.

Coordinating athletic field usage for sports groups at all of our city fields, and then also partnering with uh the Belmont Redwood Shores School District and some of the other college fields.

Yep.

Okay, so and then we maintain repair and repair 15 developed parks, 300 plus acres of open space, 14 athletic fields, and 5.6 acres of developed medians.

Some of the highlights for our parks and open space, manage new construction uh improvements and rehabilitation of city parks and playgrounds.

We are planning on uh implementing some of our pros plans.

So that pros is a parks recreation open space master plan, the recommendations that have put out in that um in that plan.

Excuse me, and then um we wanted to also continue community center conversations to awareness awareness that we need a new facility or that we are looking to build a new community center and some of the other services and activities that we uh have.

We manage our tree removal permitting in the city and coordinate volunteer and educational opportunities, support city departments on capital improvement projects, and then of course, coming up here in uh October our centennial event that we and the parks and recreation department are providing support for.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

All right, and with that, we have Chief Stanqist for police department.

Good evening, madam mayor, um, police department.

Um we are general mostly generally fund uh supported entity with over 90% of our money coming from the general fund.

Uh public safety grants and supplemental law enforcement represent a small portion of that.

However, we continue to be aggressive looking for supplemental grants that fit the needs of the agency and to move it forward.

Uh personnel counts, 45, and our total proposed budget is 18.6.

Our division, our uh budget is broken up into four entities law enforcement, administration, crime control, professional services, traffic, and community safety.

Each one is broken down as you can see.

Uh that really feeds to the top four, advancing public safety, communication, and technology, deepen community trust and engagement, strengthen community safety, and emergency preparedness, strengthen leadership, succession and stability.

Each four of our divisions continue to pull towards those goals and objectives that we sort of set as our strategic goals at the beginning of the year in March with all of you, and how we do that is through the four different divisions.

Uh our administration polls on how we strengthen our leadership, work on our succession planning with internally and externally different uh training and education uh opportunities.

We can coordinate our emergency preparedness, how we work with our our brothers in the fire department, brothers and sisters in the fire department, and how uh we can better uh coordinate large uh uh incidences.

Crime control is the day-to-day operations with from our uh police officers that handle calls for service day in and day out, also uh work on our community outreach as well, all pulling towards the same four objectives outlined earlier.

Then traffic and community safety continues to be one of our biggest um challenges as we continue to uh to provide the safe roadway for the city.

Um, but we continue to you know look at new and innovative ways if it's through grant funding and other ways to uh make that more successful.

But that is your CSOs, those are your traffic officers, those are people out there writing citations day in and day out, and then we do that by also our code enforcement as well.

And then last but certainly not least is our professional services division, and that's gonna be our dispatchers, our records clerks, the the actual uh nervous central nervous system of our agency who takes that call on the backside.

Um you call 911, that's the friendly voice uh on the back on the back, getting the services where they needed to go, and our records.

Time we dispatch calls for service, we securely store evidence, property, and evidence.

We've done that um throughout this year, and this budget proposal continues to enhance what we have while not main uh increasing our budget significantly outside of already predetermined uh labor issues, labor uh contract agreements.

So that is it.

All right, thank you.

Next up we have Public Works.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Edward Kwan, and I'm your public works director.

I'm excited to present today some highlights and initiatives from this past year from our public works department.

And since joining the city at the end of September, it's been incredible to see how much work we do in public works.

And we do this every day.

And I think that dedication really shows in the slides that I'm about to present to you.

To start off here, you can see our main strategic focus areas is on infrastructure and mobility.

We have a variety of different funding sources, a lot of which does help offset the general fund.

Our personal count is at 33, and our proposed budget operating budget is 13.9 million dollars.

Starting with stormwater and environmental compliance, this slide highlights stormwater projects completed at various stages, including the award-winning project of Twin Pines Park Belmont Creek Restoration Project, along with our project manager of the year, Daniel Matthews, as seen in these photos to the right.

Besides this behind the scenes, however, our operation team maintains critical infrastructure citywide, including more than 1,400 storm drain inlets, 327 full capture trash devices, and two pump stations.

This fiscal year alone, crews inspected over 20,000 lineal feet of storm pipeline and completed nearly 6,900 curb miles of street sweeping to help protect water quality and maintain compliance with the municipal regional permit.

For the sanitary sewer system, this slide represents photos of our crews using our city's combination sewer truck in the field.

We completed the Hiller lift station capacity enhancement project and continued major sewer rehabilitation work, including pipe bursting, trench replacement, as well as pipelining techniques.

Listed there is also San Juan Pump Station.

The design is completed.

We are hoping to get some good bid results tomorrow.

Inspected nearly 129,000 feet with CCTV equipment, and root foamed nearly 29,000 feet of sewer lines to help prevent blockages and overflows.

For transportation traffic operations, this photo shows highlights of our roadway rehabilitation work on Middle Road on the left and King Street on the right.

On the left, you can see excavating the existing asphalt prior to placing new asphalt, while the one on the right shows the roller compacting new asphalt.

Along the bottom, you'll see the citywide pavement condition map, and Belmont continues to maintain a pavement condition index of 71, which is considered a good condition.

And thanks again to this community for voting in Measure I, the local half cent sales tax to really help make this incredible improvement to our paving network.

Last year, staff rehabilitated 2.5 miles of roadway, installed 3088 curb ramps, sealed over 49,000 lineal feet of roadway cracks, repaired nearly 200 potholes, fabricated or replaced hundreds of traffic signs, and completed more than 2300 utility markings throughout the city to avoid cutting into them and damaging our system further.

This slide highlights one of our Earth Day outreach events where staff educated residents on why it's important to keep our city clean and prevent trash from entering our creeks and bay, as well as how to properly sort recycling, composting, and landfill waste.

Staff also coordinated cleanup events throughout the community and removed more than 510 tons of debris citywide.

In this slide, our land development team kept busy ensuring public improvements associated with development projects adhere to city standards.

Our inspection team issued nearly 700 public works permits and addressed over 90 tripping hazards, as exemplified with this before and after photo of a repaired sidewalk on Anita Avenue.

Our fleet team, led by Dustin Haw, Dustin Moore, only two of them, completed preventive maintenance on more than 100 vehicles and over 200 repair work orders while continuing to modernize our city fleet with safer and more reliable equipment.

Dustin's fine work has earned him as APWA's operation and maintenance professional of the year, as noted earlier today.

Overall, these accomplishments reflect the dedication, professionalism, and teamwork of public works, and I'm very proud of the work that they've done and that they will continue to do for the future Belmont community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Edric.

All right, next up we have administration, and uh you see on your slide there the different operations that we're grouping under administration, and uh so you see their admin services for HR and IT, Finance City Attorney and City Manager and City Clerk, and those are the funding sources.

I'm gonna start with administrative services.

We have a personnel count of nine.

We are small but mighty, and an operating budget of 4.8 million dollars.

And I'll let Finance City Attorney and City Manager cover their areas when they get there.

Next slide.

The first part of administrative services is human resources, and I always refer to this as the care and feeding of our most important assets in the city, our people.

We are very engaged in employee engagement and creating a great work culture where folks want to work, they can work productively, and they can learn and grow.

We have an outstanding workforce retention and recruiting process now, and you'll see that we're now refining all of our job descriptions to accurately reflect the work we do and the pride we take in the work that our employees do.

We've developed the BOLD program, and you've seen that kind of transition from our DEI program to BOLD, that's bridging opportunities, leadership, and distinction.

We meet on a regular basis as a bold committee, and we provide programming to departments.

We're very excited about our new program.

We're rolling out something called Bits and Bytes, and we're going to each department and each division and doing 15 and 20 minute training sessions along with food.

It's very successful.

We're expanding our know-engrow framework.

That's more of the old lunch and learn, although we're using that to do knowledge transfer to teach one another over a lunch about what we're doing and why we're doing it, and also to start building those bridges between departments.

In addition to that, we have a robust leadership and training program.

We do that in cooperation with the county as well as our neighboring cities, and then some internal training that we're doing on our own, both online and in person.

Additionally, we've got leadership academies that are rolling out.

If you're here tomorrow, you'll see our EOC full of our first round of leadership training for this summer season, as well as our lunch and learn with our city manager, our regional countywide training consortium, as well as our high school summer internship program, which I hope you'll all join us in July when they do their wrap-up.

On the IT side, IT is all about taking the infrastructure that we have and improving it.

So you'll see improvements to our website.

We'll be launching shortly.

Shortly means after the summer, and we test and train our chatbot.

We'll be implementing a new phone system that's modern.

We're introduct introducing the concept of a new ERP.

That's a new finance system.

That's a three to five-year project.

In addition to that, we're updating the community development systems downstairs for online permitting.

We're enhancing our security and we're very successful this morning in replacing our firewalls.

So we upgraded all of those.

We'll be working on document imaging systems, asset management systems, GIS modernization, as well as our AI policy and moving from a pilot program into something that's more robust.

So looking forward to continuing the good programs that we've done to the state.

All right.

So moving on to finance, some highlights and initiatives that you see there are financial statements and budget document.

They continue to receive recognition and awards at the state and federal level.

And like I mentioned earlier, we are pushing forward with our comprehensive citywide fee study update, including our development impact fees that will help us make sure that new developments pay their fair share and we maintain appropriate cost recovery levels.

We partner with Public Works earlier this year to evaluate and set the sewer service charges and rates that were introduced to City Council last month, with a public hearing that's scheduled for the next meeting.

We're continuing to support Measure I, Advisory Committee, the Audit Committee, and finally continuing our efforts, ongoing efforts to address our long-term fiscal sustainability.

And with that, I'll pass it on to our city manager to talk about the other operational divisions in administration, including city attorney and city manager, city clerk.

Thank you.

Well, as you know, the city attorney and city manager's office is really meant to be the hub, just uh implementing your policies, making ensuring that the operations of the city is in keeping with our uh goals and objectives, and uh to kind of preserve and provide sound policy uh analysis as well as defending the city's uh kind of legal uh parameters.

So the city attorney is actively busy managing a number of different fronts, and his jack of all trades and master of none, but he does his uh job really well in making sure that the organization is uh being uh conscious of uh risk and benefits of the decisions that that we make on a day-in-day out basis.

Next, uh I gotta cover really our our intent for our office, you know, both the city clerk and the CMO is connecting with our community, advancing the goals and objectives of the city and supporting our city and and uh your offices in implementing the policy goals that that you have.

Uh the clerk's office is important in the sense of they're the record keepers and election officials uh for the organization as well as uh kind of the point of uh contact for the constituents uh that need uh city services, guidance, and kind of get pointed to the right place.

So we appreciate the work that uh our our clerk's office does in a day in, day-out basis, just supporting internally the organization as well as awkwardly with uh with the community.

Next in essence, this is kind of uh a bit about what we do, what we've done.

Uh I again want to kind of uh reiterate my thanks to the staff and the great work that they've done really under some unusual.

I mean, we've kind of uh rode through COVID and the challenges that it had, but the last couple of years kind of just from standpoint of unpredictability of what's happening at the federal scene, what's happening with the state takeaways and the challenge and constantly uh kind of fighting.

It's not a great way of trying to budget when you have those uh valuables that we have to manage uh in uh kind of on an annual basis.

With that says this team kind of stands tall in delivering, I think a lot of great services to the community with the resources that we have.

They're innovative.

I think they're mindful of how we provide those services and the touch points with the community and meeting your objectives and goals, and ultimately it's your leadership and your vision that that helps us kind of guide through that process and the team uh uh you know from all of our staff up to the executive leadership team that that makes it all happen.

So, with that said, I I appreciate again the team that that really taught uh long and hard and and the proposals and innovation that they've brought forward, as you know that we are a lean organization, but a high-touch organization, and I think staff does that with uh great pride and service to the community and and public service kind of ingrained with the culture of the organization on what we do.

So I appreciate again the the collective effort here from your guidance to the staff's work in in making things happen on a daily basis.

Back to you.

Alright, so uh with that, uh those are the next steps you see on the slide.

Uh we'll have our audit committee review schedule for June 3rd, planning commission the day before June 2nd, and then June 9th, we come back to city council for the public hearing and budget adoption.

Uh without happy to take any questions.

All right, thank you so much for the presentation to our finance director and the entire team who made uh presentations this evening.

Uh just a reminder to the council that what's before us tonight is to discuss and provide direction regarding this proposed fiscal year 26-27 budget.

Uh we're not actually um adopting anything at this point, um, but providing some uh you know um remarks uh for uh the uh finance director to bring back uh when we do look at it again on June on June 9th.

Um so let's first take just questions.

I know we probably have a lot of comments, but let's just limit it to questions for staff at this point.

Um so let's start with our vice mayor.

Any questions on the uh I I guess my my questions are more sort of general because we I I know that uh the staff looked really hard and thank you for all the hard work you put in um to this presentation.

I know it was months of work, and we have uh not backfilling certain positions or delaying filling vacant positions to save to save some money.

Um but my question to staff is at least when I was uh initially looking at the community development slide that there's a lot of activity in all of the departments, but I've seen just throughout town there's a lot of building, there's a there's a lot of things going on, and I know you guys are working really hard to keep a balanced budget, but I you know I'm also cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of work to be done, and you know, in in celebration of mental health awareness month, we all have to make sure we take care of ourselves so uh that so it's kind of more of a general question in terms of you know delaying backfills and just making sure I know we need to be you know prudent, but I we also need to be realistic.

So I don't know if that was a comment more than a question, but okay, thank you.

Uh Councilmember McCune, any questions?

Yeah, I've got three or four questions.

Um it was a great presentation.

It was really logically organized, really easy to follow.

Uh, but and you may have answered some of these in the presentation, but um, so if this plan played out exactly as laid out on paper, what would be the total drawdown of our reserves for the year?

How much?

How much would the reserves draw down for the year?

For next budget year, if everything plays out exactly as you know, we have budgeted the revenues to come in and budgeted the expenditures to be spent.

Um VLF, no VLF, um, then it's after the one-time savings, then we're drawing uh 500,000 around 500,000 of general fund reserves.

Okay.

Uh question number two.

Um the um there was mention made of all of the new housing projects that have been going in, and a lot of that is great, but I think a lot of those are actually over time reducing our tax base.

Because I think a lot of those are not subject to property tax, and the property that they're occupying was formerly industrial or commercial property, not sure it was old, you know, probably been owned by the same people for a long time.

So they probably weren't paying a ton of property tax, and property X gets paid to the county, and the county keeps some of the division.

So we don't get all of the property tax, but some of that property tax comes back to us.

Have we taken a look at the effect over time of converting these properties from commercial and industrial to affordable housing?

We all support affordable housing, but there's an economic impact there.

Have we made any attempts to guesstimate what that might look like over time?

Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.

Um, on the hundred percent affordable housing developments, uh, you're right that those are property tax exempt, right?

And so um uh it does place some service demands on the city in uh providing service to uh those those added service population, but because they are 100% affordable uh housing development, there are exempt from uh property tax revenue.

And so um what that you know mean to us, and uh on the other hand, right?

They also play a really important role to our housing element, and so I don't want to um also uh be remiss um from from that as well.

So it's a very tight balance uh because there's also you know um a units or uh uh the housing element that we have to meet, and so it's a very tight balance in terms of okay.

Over the long run, have we taken a look at currently whether it's vacant, whether it's commercial industrial, what do we take in, you know, what would be our potential loss.

We haven't drilled down in those details of what those specific lots um what uh uh uh amount to be um it's it's a little bit tricky because with new pop service population, you could also say they bring in um uh some other tax revenues like sales tax, but then you know, offset by exp you know expenditures, the service demands that it places on the city.

So we can't just look at one without the other.

Um, so too long way to answer your question, like that deep analysis, the number side of it, um, we haven't looked at it just because like there's so many different factors that you know we can think of um and come up, you know, come up with my yeah.

If if I sense is there's not a huge financial impact today, but as this continues over time, at some point might you come.

Yeah, if I may.

I I think there are a couple of nuggets there.

Two, we're we're um nugget or two, but uh first is that there's there's obviously the issue that we're dealing with the state, the laws, the the the good policy of needing more housing, but also the economic aspects of, especially for smaller cities that don't have as many levers.

So we've kind of you have all done a good job of balancing those those issues.

But as as this goes on, and there are other issues that the state legislators are considering, which is kind of the impact fees that the things that development pays toward infrastructure through towards some of these services, those are the things that we are kind of concerned with.

If those get eroded away, then how do we balance those those different aspects of it as you're pointing out?

The service demand versus the the revenue generation.

One of the things actually that's in our work plan this year is the economic development update uh uh work plan, and part of that is gonna be kind of analyzing some of these issues of where the fiscal pressure points, what what is the kind of the work that that we have in the sense of our economic development activity between commercial development or residential uh projections, and how does that all kind of play into some of the other aspects Grace touched on?

There's other aspects of you have a larger population, there's there's other uh positive net gains in the way of activities in the city and and things that that can lead to.

And so those things need to be kind of deep dived.

It's it hasn't kind of at this superficial level, we've looked at it, but not to the degree of granulity as to what the long-term implication might be.

But that is part of this economic development work plan that we have for next year as well.

Okay, great.

Question number three.

Uh one thing that you hear a lot these days about from people in the community is increase in prices for a bunch of things, including gasoline.

And I, you know, a lot of what you pay for gasoline at the pump is tax, but I think it's a flat rate per gallon.

I don't think it's a percentage.

So I don't I don't think the increase in gas taxes either benefits us or hurts us.

Am I right about that?

We don't have control over the tax, the gas tax, obviously.

Portion of the gas tax that state charges comes back to us for a road improvement fund.

So that's actually what pays for fixing the potholes and and running our our street maintenance, and that's in the tune of a couple of three million dollars a year, I think we get from the gas tax portion.

But it's so much per gallon, right?

So it's right.

There's a there's an excise tax and then there's a sales tax on on the on the the kind of the purchase price, I believe, so that might be the valuable okay, the the sales tax portion where we can kind of get you some you know granularity if that's of interest.

But we definitely don't have any control over that tax tax portion of it.

That's all said by the state and the feds.

Okay.

And then I mean just general inflation.

I mean sales tax also doesn't come entirely back to us.

We get a piece of the sales tax that people pay.

So as much as everybody hates inflation, there might actually weirdly enough, through kind of the back door, there we might actually get a little more money in the city budget just thanks to general inflation.

Okay, fourth question.

I'm I'm almost at the end here.

Um there's a community group that is uh putting together a ballot measure for the community center, um, which uh will get voted on at some point.

If that passes, uh that'll be a fairly expensive facility, and it'll be you know, it'll it'll increase our operating expense to maintain it.

Have we plugged in any future year forecasts of the increased operating expense if the community center passes?

Probably not yet.

It will be built, it wouldn't be built for three or four years.

Right, that's not in this work plan, but there's definitely thoughts given about how that operates and and if that is to you know come to pass uh is part of the thought process of how that that center gets supported, kind of similar to what we've done with the library, right?

The library was was a CE CFD uh a committee uh financing district, and and so same thought process would be given as to how we structure the financing for the community center if that ever comes in front of us.

Okay, that's it.

All right, Councilmember Peng Meganaris, any questions on okay.

Um I have I have a few questions, um, and they relate, I think, maybe less so to this um next fiscal year's budget, but I think they are.

I mean, I I'm hoping that we can um talk about them because you know, um I'm so my first question is actually under the fiscal sustainability and structural deficit.

Um, so we're already using some of our reserves.

Granted, 500,000 isn't a ton, but we do have that one time savings of 300,000, and then it looks like the staff report indicates that reserves could fall below that 33% target of reserves by 2031, 32, which in reality is like really just around the corner.

Sounds like it's a long ways off, but it's not.

Um, so if at what point would the council um need to start making some, you know, structural budget adjustments or at one point, at what point I guess I'm what I'm wondering, wondering is with your expertise, like have we have we moder modeled multiple scenarios, like if we don't get VLF, then um, you know, what when do we, in other words, when do we as a council say, okay, we're dipping in too much, or at this point, this triggers us to make these uh changes?

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

Um, you know, we always look finance, we always look at the worst case, which is what we presented to you tonight, right?

Um, but you know, every year we also come back during the mid-year review.

Then we look at okay, what has the first six months of actuals come up to be, you know, how did our last year actually ended, uh, because you know, many times um uh actuals, what revenues actually come in, what expenditures we actually spent, um, that isn't going to be exactly what we budgeted for, right?

And so um uh now it could be worse, it could be better.

Uh what we presented today, what I uh uh want to always make a note of is what the worst case can be.

And so the worst case if we just don't get any backfill funding, then okay, our reserves are gonna start dropping pretty drastically.

And so that gives us a roadmap on okay, what do we need to focus on in the next short term, one to three years, and that's how we try to develop our budget too so that we can uh and during the council strategic planning sessions that we bring up those um uh sustainability initiatives, right?

And that's how we come to okay.

We haven't studied our comprehensive citywide fee study fees and update to it.

And so that's an effort we um uh consciously took on this year.

Um another one, you know, as action is mentioned earlier, the effort next year looking at our economic development, what areas have opportunities.

And so the forecast that we show you kind of give us this roadmap into a 10-year forecast to give us that lens in a worst-case scenario, so that we can now plan for in the next short term, one to three year, those type of finance fiscal initiatives that we can take on.

If I may add a couple of kind of other notes here, you're actually doing it as we we're going along right now, because uh I think to uh council member uh uh Jordan's comments.

The city has always taken a conservative view of how we staff and how we resource things because we can complement that with outside resources as the work demand requires it, and and we adjust as things uh transpire.

So part of our process has always been a baseline staffing model.

We're not uh per FTE that that uh we have in the city.

It's probably not comparable to some of our uh adjoining neighbors, but we do that kind of meticulously in the way how we uh budget and allocate our resources and how we manage our resources so we don't kind of mortgage the future too far.

Now there's basic services that you have laid out for us to provide, and and that's based on the parameters that that we present to you on annual basis.

Now, as Grace mentioned, we kind of have these quarterly touch points on how we're performing.

Uh, you know, part of the the process is is looking at our financials, look at our revenues and expenses and and trying to be really mindful of how we spend our resources.

We do the check-in mid-year, we bring those those aspects to you.

And so we rather want to get to your point, get in front of if we see kind of a huge cliff and then we're dropping off, we don't want to be right at the cliff and now we gotta cut back 20-30%.

And so part of this plan has been we've developed a plan that that's gonna mindful of three to five percent cut uh through some of these one-time uh uh kind of measures that we've taken or soft uh vacancy fields that we've done that we don't feel is going to be detrimental to the operation of the city, and we're not uh cutting or laying anybody off at this stage.

But as the budget goes and as our efforts, especially on the VLF front goes, we will be kind of monitoring those things and and make sure that we raise those concerns to you in a timely fashion so that we're not kind of in a budget crisis and say we're we're here and we're gonna cut X amount tomorrow.

So our our uh strategy has always been to be mindful on how we allocate our resources and and the service delivery, but at some point we gotta if we have to make those hard decisions, it's gotta be in in uh kind of mindful of what impacts are there on the service delivery part of it, and what impacts are on the organizational capacity to perform those services.

Right.

And I guess I guess my question is, and I understand what you're saying, is we're already making those decisions now, but I guess I'm also saying whether it's at the mid-year review or another time, I do think it's helpful for staff.

I mean, you folks are the experts, right, to bring us what you think, you know, like how much of the reserves are we dipping into again in not right now, but maybe in the future as you're outlining it, this roadmap where we have to actually look at, you know, and and I I think you've characterized it, uh, city manager exactly right.

We don't want to be on the precipice and then make have to make really difficult decisions.

We want to as much as we can predict those.

So um, so I think maybe just in the update, or when you know, my suggestion would be to being mindful of those types of things that we haven't in the last few years had to talk about because the mid-year review has been pretty, you know, it's print it's been pretty pro forma, it's not pro forma, but it's been pretty just but it may be that there's so many things in play right now that we we might need a little bit of guidance from staff in terms of um figuring out that roadmap.

Uh and then the other question I had was a little bit about um the investment in infrastructure and capital projects again with growing fiscal pressure.

Obviously, we definitely uh you know infrastructure is very important to our community, we've made that a priority, we've done great job, a great job, but at some point I just um we don't want to we had been in a position over a decade ago where we had deferred maintenance and we haven't done that.

Um, that's that's not been the issue.

We've made up for that.

Um but if things continue to worsen, again, how will we know when we should prioritize things?

So maybe I'm just the kind of person that like I just wanna, you know, I I just want to have a plan for when when we have to make those decisions, and so just being mindful of that.

Absolutely.

I think well, first of all, uh we gotta be mindful in a sense that we have different buckets, and so a lot of the infrastructure dollars are dedicated dollars, it's not something that would impact the general fund.

Our challenge is on the general fund side of the shop, and so as we lay our capital plan, uh, those plans are supported by other fund sources that we can transfer and use for general fund purposes.

So part of our budgeting is kind of these silos and buckets of dollars that have uh kind of their own enterprise, and we have to spend those dollars within that enterprise.

So when it does come to the point of and we've had a lot of infrastructure conversations is to the point of, you know, if we bring new things on, have we given good thought about what the long-term obligations are in staffing and ONM and those kind of things?

And so that that is always part of the the plan to introduce any kind of new facility and what that entails.

Uh the other aspects of it, we're mindful of deferrals because deferral has a kind of I think we we've seen it as a one to six to ten to fifteen time cost of replacement, and so it's a fine balance to say we're gonna cut or slow down something that's gonna cost us 15 times more in a couple of three years, and that's that's unfortunately was the whole we're trying to dig out of when we have those hundreds of millions of different maintenance, and we've made I think great start, you know, just based on timing and having a plan.

So our plan would be to basically in consultation with you where we see those those things developing to present you with options that are that are mindful of of those aspects and is mindful of the organization as well as the investments we make into the community's uh priorities.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Uh, any other questions at this time?

Uh, do we have public comment on this item?

No public comments in house or online.

No public comments, all right.

Uh then we will go and move back to council for any deliberation or final comments, recommendations to staff.

Councilmember Pang Meganaires?

Council Vice Mayor?

Uh, my only thought is in in terms of economic development, what can we do as your council people to kind of help continue to um let the larger community know that you know Belmont is a great place to in you know have a business Belmont is a great place to be is there anything we can do to help with the economic development what there's the existing I think we have a lot of resources online and and and we have folks that can kind of support uh businesses moving out and you've seen a nice renaissance of of smaller businesses and community serving businesses coming in in into town and that's I think it's twofold one is you're creating the climate by modernizing our business stacks by by kind of being involved and engaged in highlighting our business community and so we're doing a lot of uh kind of uh focus targeted initiatives to really kind of uh make Belmont a place of choice where we have you know we we're not gonna compete with with shopping malls in foster city or San Mateo but we have our own kind of uh vibe here and and we're focused on what does that mean and so your amplification your business comments your uh our contacts and and and just being ambassadors for the city and programs and kind of directing them to us to staff to opportunities that we can engage with as part of our our portfolio things that we constantly look at how do we support our business community and and our partnerships with the chamber and others to to support that.

So that's part of it but also we will again part of what part of our conversation during the strategic planning session was gonna update the plan that we have done about five six years ago now and it's time to modernize that and that was a different time and and different circumstances the the housing elements the business the type of business activity that we're having now and just the the fact that that the business climate is different.

I think it's a good time for us to have that in our work plan and get that process going.

So we have more community touch points on that aspect as well and and really kind of map this to better be future proof to what the next five years going to look like.

Great thank you.

Any comments no very good presentation looks like we're in a good place for where we are should looks like we're in a good place for where we should be at this stage of the game.

I I agree I um with my uh colleagues I think we are lucky to have such a dedicated skilled um really uh innovative uh staff on our finance team our finance director certainly but the entire team and then of course uh our city manager as well and um you know we have always uh that I've had been on the council uh been except for maybe a couple times we've always been in the black and um and I think that's a lot with just careful management and just creativity because uh we do have a really lean operation um and as you can see from all the presentations that were made um every department is running on a very lean budget we we um do a lot with a little and and that's something I'm very proud of but I think it's important to acknowledge that we may be entering a different chapter financially and um you know I don't want to be dramatic but I tend to while I think this this next year I appreciate the fact that it's worst case scenario because that's always what we should be thinking about.

But this is really going to be I think a very challenging financial future the VLF reimbursement is um not looking great I think they're setting our expectations um it looks like we will probably um if if we're not in the current budget um we we may not be in the May revise which means it's bad for the county it's bad for Belmont um and a lot of our services are also linked to the county so we just may be entering um a much more challenging financial climate that we've been in before um so I I think that while this budget I have no actual recommendations for you to bring back you know anything different um I think as long as you sort of keep in mind the um the sort of the trigger points or the things that I had mentioned about maybe not again about this budget, but just kind of going in the future as as things become more clear whether we're going to get the reimbursement or not, you know, all of the other things you mentioned, the BLT, all of that, but just where those trigger points might be so that we can continue to um you know set our city up for for future success despite the challenging times.

Um but with that I thank everyone, uh, especially Grace, but everyone who participated in this really important item.

Um, do you feel like you have everything you need from us?

Yes, thank you.

Uh really appreciate all the feedback and comments and points all well taken.

So thank you.

Great, thank you very much.

And also on to recognize the finance staff who um, you know, worked very, very hard behind the scenes and all of the individual departments who um really took a deep dive into their operating budgets this year.

So appreciate all of their efforts.

Great, great.

And uh just as an aside, I think um you know the county has been providing updates on VLF.

Our state delegation has been working very, very hard.

I've seen them in action up there in Sacramento, and uh we uh have actually champions who are not don't represent us, but who are also you know fighting for us um up in Sacramento as well.

So if folks want to learn more about that, the county has a lot more of the sort of the details about how that's going.

All right, well, thank you very much.

Then we will um move on to brief verbal reports from members and staff.

Verbal reports from council members on any intergovernment intergovernmental and subcommittee assignments, just one very quick thing.

Um Clean Energy, now known as West Light Energy, um, increased funding for one of their programs, which they call GovPV, which is uh local government buildings uh getting photovoltaic electrical systems so they've had this program for a while, but uh we increased um the funding for it.

So it's that's helping um install solar energy systems at places like Daily City City Hall and Redwood City, and uh so I think that's a good thing.

So there's um West Light Energy has a number of funding mechanisms available for individual homeowners and businesses and also local governments, great.

Um, I think we're all aware of those in Belmont.

I think our city manager is as well, but always good to remind us what's out there.

Uh Councilmember Pang Meganaris, did you have an update?

Sure.

Councilmember Lautamorlo and I went to a two by two by two with the BRSSD and the City of Redwood City, and just for the community to know that enrollment is going down in BRSSD, so they have established a district advisory committee on enrollment to pay attention to what might be done with our enrollment challenges.

The other thing is that countywide, there is a lot of thought and action being put around e-bike safety and children.

And so it's really an encouragement to parents that if you are considering purchasing a e-bike for your child that you make sure that your child is legally able to ride that bike.

No children under the uh 18 can ride class three motorbikes, many are, and so make sure that you understand what the legal ramifications are, as well as make sure you talk it through with your kids of what how to keep themselves safe when they are on e-bike so that we can avoid tragedies and deaths as a result of e-bikes.

And then that's my first announcement.

The other one is just like a pretty cool um update.

I attended the San Mateo County Emergency Medical Services, and they gave us meeting and they gave us two facts.

So 62% of cardiac arrests with shockable rhythm who receive CPR, AD, or CPR or AAD from our paramedics, our emergency services, they survive, and that's and that's nearly twice the state and national benchmarks.

So that's pretty cool here in San Mateo County.

And the other thing is that our paramedics response to stroke patients is 50% better than the nation as well.

So we're doing some really great things with our emergency medical services here in San Mateo County.

All right, thank you.

And a quick question who is going to sit on the subcommittee or the committee that you mentioned about um monitoring the uh enrollment.

We did not get into it.

It sounded like it was more an internal uh yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor, anything?

No.

Okay.

Um I have one actually from the San Mateo County Libraries JPA.

I'm the chair of that, and I don't get to talk about it that much.

Um, it's just it's a great um it's a great system we have here, but we did it's budget season, as you know.

So we're um all talking about the 26-27 budget.

Um for the San Mateo County Libraries, it is uh balanced, and uh if the total sources uh is 99.6 million dollars, and the budget is aligned with the library's 2025 2030 strategic plan, focuses on literacy, digital inclusion inclusion outreach, welcoming community spaces and stronger partnerships with member cities.

Um, not all of the cities in San Mateo County are part of the JPA.

Um quick major investments uh that we'll be seeing is modernizing a new East Palo Alto Library, a new makerspace at the San Carlos Library, a second library at post in Pescadero, privacy pods and technology upgrades.

There's a lot of uh requests to have meeting space, private meeting space, and some of the um libraries don't have that little conference rooms, uh Belmont does, but some doesn't, so they have these little privacy pods that they're gonna be putting and website accessibility improvements, and then um the budget also prioritizes digital literacy and emerging technologies, including exploration of artificial intelligence applications and expanded digital learning opportunities for residents.

The library visits are up nearly four percent uh year over year, and digital circulation has increased by 21%.

Um, and more than 163,000 people participated in library programs this fiscal year.

Uh so anyway, the JPA um it has really strong reserves in compliance with its fund balance policy, and it's actually um a great board to sit on because um they don't have some of the the issues that we're seeing across the board and some of our other boards that we are sitting is sitting on.

So um, so looks like our libraries are in a good place for the next uh foreseeable future.

And with that, we will move to our verbal part from our city manager.

Thank you.

Uh kind of social media and and public communication about our budget uh from basically tonight to uh the adoption.

So look forward to each day.

We'll post uh some nuggets of information about what what the budget is all about and and how that all plays into your decision making when that uh budget comes to you for adoption.

So that's that's a good way of trying to again uh uh engage the community and provide information in a timely fashion and kind of get away from the jargons and simple kind of uh budget and how we do things and how we balance things.

Uh additionally, I think I'm gonna recognize uh assembly member Papen and Senator uh Becker for their work in Sacramento, they're working hard on on a number of other uh uh delegation from San Mateo and Southern San Francisco counties on behalf of us in Sacramento for the VLF, and so hopefully that that fight, although we don't see uh what we had hoped for is some sort of a uh uh permanent solution to this problem, doesn't make for good budgeting exercise on our end, unfortunately, the way of state acts, but uh trying to at least see if we can mitigate the impacts for this year and look to the next administration for a permanent fix uh ultimately for this for this problem.

And so we'll continue kind of informing you how that goes.

That's it.

Uh we have uh a couple of things that are pending uh uh public comments and and engagement.

We were in front of you earlier on on some of the safety elements and other things, but the local hazard mitigation plan that we're doing in concert with our uh county partners and and our uh public safety uh partners uh that that plan is open for public comment until June 15th.

If you go to the city's website, you can have access to the uh especially the Belmont Annex draft and provide your feedback before the comment period closes on the 15th.

Kevin kind of mentioned some of the great accomplishments on their staff uh awards that they're being acknowledged for, so we'll bring that uh back in front of you later.

But congratulations to our parks and recreation team.

Um the other one is I think you kind of touched on it.

We actually have a couple of events earlier in the month.

One was the e-bike safety that was put together by our uh police department that was well received and well attended.

Our department, I don't want to put uh words in their mouth, but I believe they're uh given the success of that, they're gonna be looking at probably doing another one of those sessions when the school comes back in fall at the beginning of school.

So that that was I think uh a well done program they ran, and and I think we heard a lot of good feedback on that, and so we'll we'll continue kind of uh building on that and then trying to kind of be uh kind of uh an advocate of safe biking in the community as that uh rolls out.

Additionally, our public works team had a great uh celebration and engagement last week with a number of our partners, and it's always a good event in trying to, especially when you barbecue and provide food.

But uh there was a lot of good good engagement there.

I think uh great uh kudos to our team uh pulling that together and partners that joined us in being there as part of the event and open house and really working through some of the great things that that staff accomplishes and just all the cool toys and and everything else that they get to to work with.

So uh those are some touch points for the community over the last few weeks uh and uh we look forward to uh continuing this conversation at our next meeting uh as the budget goes.

So thank you.

Great, thank you for that.

And um, that's great to know that we will be also getting uh the word out about our budget.

Uh, I think that's a great idea to use social media and our comms um communications has been great with uh, you know, it's we really stepped it up.

So maybe that's a good way to explain to folks um wow what thing what's going on.

All right.

Uh item um 13 is matters of interest clarification.

We have nothing on the agenda for that item.

Uh so the next item is the adjournment, and we are adjourned until our next regular meeting on June 9th.