Sorry for the delay, everybody.

Welcome to the Tuesday, September 16th meeting of the Half Home Bay City Council.

I ask for a roll call, please.

Councilmember Johnson.

Councilmember Nagengast.

Council Member Penrose here.

Vice Mayor Reddick here.

Mayor Brownstone.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Make a motion to approve.

Oops, sorry.

Pledge of allegiance.

Can we all please stand for Pledge of Allegiance?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Can I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

All those against motion approved.

Thank you.

So next on the agenda, we're moving on to proclamations and presentations.

First, we're going to have a presentation from Midcoast Council.

Good evening, and as always, thanks for having me over.

I'm Scott from the Midcoast Community Council.

And first off, uh a little order of business I want to take care of.

I just wanted to from the MCC to the community apologize for having to postpone some agenda items from our meetings and council meeting due to illness and some caregiver issues that were going on.

But at our next meeting will be at full strength.

And we have two exciting agenda items to cover at that one.

So the first one is during that our next our next meeting on Wednesday is uh the planning meeting to discuss the parking issues associated with the surfers beach area and the new proposed parking area, the removal of parking along one.

And we hope to be able to invite all, not at this meeting, but plan to invite all the uh stakeholders, which include you guys at NHMB, Caltrans, the Harbor, the Coastal Commission, GCSD, and the county.

So that's going to be our planning meeting to try to get everybody together and do the best thing for the community.

The second item I want to talk about is I attended a two-day seminar down there at the fire station regarding the defensible space initiative given by Calfire.

And I'll be given a presentation on that at our next meeting.

It's and it's really all about keeping the embers produced from a fire storm from burning our houses to entering our houses or interacting with combustible material around the house.

So is we're gonna talk about zone zero and the things that I learned at that Calfire meeting.

And uh that's about it for my update.

Thank you.

You got any questions?

Any questions?

Council.

No questions.

Thanks very much.

Good to see you.

Okay, next um Jalisa will um have a presentation, a proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Council members, and community.

Uh thank you for joining us today as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

It is a time to celebrate and honor the cultures, histories, and contributions of the Hispanic and Latino uh Americans, whose ancestry can be traced back to Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

This celebration starts on September 15 to mark the Independence Day of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua in Costa Rica, followed by Mexico on the 16th, Chile on the 18th, and Belize on the 21st.

I'm going to go ahead and read the proclamation and afterwards I'll uh present our recipients.

Victor, I will be reading the proclamation in Spanish as well.

So the proclamation reads as follows.

Whereas from the early settlers of the New World to today's vibrant communities, Hispanics have profoundly shaped and enriched the fabric of American life.

And whereas the United States Congress officially designated the period from September 15 to October 15 as Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988, recognizing the lasting impact and invaluable contributions of Hispanic communities, and whereas Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the achievements of Americans with roots in Spain, Mexico, Central, and South America, and the Spanish speaking nations of the Caribbean, and whereas reaffirming that diversity is one of our country's greatest strengths, and uh we honor the leaders who have championed equal justice, driven progress and created pathways for future generations, and whereas September 15 was chosen to commemorate Independence Day anniversaries of five Latin American countries, and September 16th for Mexico's independence, and whereas this year's themes is collective heritage, honoring the past, inspiring the future, reminds us of the enduring legacy and promise of Hispanic communities across the nation.

And whereas the influence of Hispanic culture is deeply woven into states, customs, legal traditions, arts, and public life, and whereas Hispanic Americans have overcome great barriers to excel across sectors, playing a vital role in the growth and strength of the American government, business, agriculture, armed forces, commerce, education, the arts, science, sports, and whereas Hispanic Americans are one of the fastest growing communities in this country and represent 66.35 million or 19.5 of the US residents, 40% of California's population, which signifies the nation's largest Hispanic population and approximately 29% of the city of Halfman Bay.

Now, therefore, be it known that the City Council of Half Moon Bay declares September 15, 2025 to October 15, 2025 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the city of Half Moon Bay.

I will read it now in Spanish.

Apologies, it's long.

For 2025, we would like to present this proclamation to José Luis Aguirre from Caron, Rita Mancera from Puente, and Judith Guerrero from Coast I Hope.

These three individuals worked together to provide visibility to the often overlooked farm worker community.

Over the past year, they interviewed and photographed 40 farm workers, showcasing and honoring their stories, struggles, and invaluable contributions.

The photo exhibit, Harvesting Dreams, was a result of this vision and collaboration that many of us got to see on August 26th at the IDS Hall.

It is my honor to present this proclamation to José Luis, Rita, and Judith, and recognize their leadership, not only curating this exhibit, but championing equity and cultural recognition.

Now I have Rita and Caitlin from Coast I Hope.

Hi, everybody.

I didn't know we needed or we were gonna say something, but I'm really excited to see that Hafum Bay is uh celebrating uh Hispanic Heritage Month.

And I'm really honored that uh many people here in Cafoon Bay and from the South Coast came and saw the photo exhibit that we did in partnership with these other two great organizations.

Thank you so much, to the chair, I'd like to my next item.

Oh, great.

And our next item, Relise will present our farmworker housing study.

I'll actually like to introduce introduce Amanda Chang from Urban Habitat.

She's the force behind the farmworker study that uh we'll be hearing from tonight.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members.

Is the sound okay?

Great.

Um, so really appreciate being invited here today.

Um, on such a momentous occasion, uh, and to present some of our findings on the farmworker housing report that my organization did on behalf of the San Mateo Anti-Displacement Coalition, which is a group of about 15 organizations from Daly City to East Palo Alto who have come together to prevent displacement in our community.

Um I'm also from San Mateo County, and so we really want to work together to keep our communities whole and prevent displacement.

And we had a strategic retreat in 2024 to decide what our priorities would be for the coming year.

And one of the things that we had addressed previously was tenant protections and worked to uh put forward a tenant protection ordinance at the county level of San Mateo that ordinance failed to go through, and so we took a look back and decided okay, if this if the county is not interested in this, what could they be interested in?

What is the community interested in?

How can we put like marry those things together?

And so we got recommendations from Coast Side Hope and Puente de los Costa Sur to examine what farm workers' needs were specifically to improve those and improve the lives of farm workers on the coast.

So, with that in mind, we interviewed 22 farm workers on the coastside who share their experiences in the hopes of building a future where everyone can live in a dignified home.

And I'm going to speed through the rest of this presentation pretty quickly because you all have it in front of you and happy to answer questions, but I really want to make sure that my colleagues, so I have two farm workers here today with me who I would like to share their experiences.

So please bear with me as I speed through some of the information here.

But we uh had just a few uh key takeaways from farm workers who shared their experiences.

The first is that uh rents were too high for farm workers' incomes, even in subsidized housing such as Moonridge.

Um, here's a quote demonstrating one of our interviewees' experiences.

The second thing that farm workers shared was there was a lack of affordable housing, leaves them vulnerable to exploitative and hazardous living situations.

So, because there's not enough options, they find themselves living in overcrowded or uh pest infested or mold-ridden uh housing situations and feel like they can't afford to move out because of the lack of affordable housing.

And here is a quote to that effect as well from Half Moon Bay.

Um the third thing that we heard from farm workers is that they live in constant fear of unemployment, particularly in employee housing where their housing is tied to their employment, and they fear accidents at work, having to go on maternity leave, um, feeling they're unable to retire.

So there's a feeling that if they cannot work anymore, then they will also no longer be able to be housed.

And lastly, we heard that families have a particularly difficult time finding affordable housing due to housing discrimination uh from landlords or from employers.

Um this quote is very long, so you can please read it in your own time, but uh another quote to that effect from Moss Beach.

Uh, and then once we were done uh interviewing the farm workers, we started researching, you know, what are ways to support farm workers as they work towards better housing, more dignified housing.

The first is that there's a lot of great farm worker organizers and organizations that are doing work to help and improve the community, um, including and Pescadero fighting for clean water for the local high school through extending an existing water line.

So our first recommendation is to support farm worker organizing through funding and legislation to make sure that they're able to continue advocating for their needs.

The second is for policies and tenant protections that you know public bodies such as city councils or board of supervisors implement to ensure that they are tailored specifically to farm workers, such as including sublease situations where someone might not be the main tenant on a lease or have an informal lease or exchange their labor for their housing.

And so to make sure that those situations are also included when we're considering protections for tenants.

Right now, the code enforcement process is complaint driven, and so a complaint has to be filed before someone comes to inspect the home.

So a proactive rental inspection program would allow the code enforcement to check on the conditions and make sure that people are living in habitable situations.

Our fourth recommendation is to help advance community ownership models, to promote permanently affordable and dignified farm worker housing, homeownership is one of the ways to have stable housing, but that's very difficult for farm workers on their current income.

So to have organizations that can help them achieve partial homeownership through community ownership models is one way to help them achieve homeownership dreams.

And lastly, um to empower farm worker administrative bodies to help implement these recommendations.

There's also the farmworker health board.

So there are different farm worker administrative bodies that are working to uh sharpen recommendations for bodies such as this, and we believe by further empowering them, they can help make sure that any legislation that does pass really is tailored specifically to farm workers.

And for now, actually, I will pass it.

So Uriel is gonna provide his uh comments or his testimony, and then I'm gonna provide you with a site translation after he's finished.

I have many friends whose rent is too high, and in order to afford a place to live, they are forced to share small spaces with multiple people.

This community is beautiful, and we all share the same dream to have a stable home and raise our families here.

Thank you for your time and for listening.

But sincerely, this project of Vienna no existiera.

Necessitamos donde la renta no sea tan alta.

El cost of that is muy difficile for familias como la mia salir adelante.

Este is a lugar hermoso.

Gracias por su tiempo y por escucharme.

My name is Vicente.

I'm also a farm worker and resident of Half Moon Bay.

My story isn't in the report, Amanda shared either, but I want you to know that many of us in the community have struggled with high rent.

I'm lucky now to live in affordable housing.

But honestly, if that housing didn't exist, I don't know where my son and I would be living.

Rent here is just too expensive.

I'm here tonight to ask you to please keep fighting for more affordable housing.

We need homes where the rent isn't so high.

The cost of living makes it hard for families like mine to get by.

I want my son to grow up here and one day go to college.

This is a beautiful place, and we all want the chance to build a life here.

Thank you for your time and for listening.

Um and now if there are any questions, questions or comments from council.

Yeah, please.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing the study.

Um and thank both of the speakers tonight for sharing their story.

I I know it's very difficult in times when our city is suffering from financial difficulties, a structural deficit, um, makes it difficult to do just about anything, but I'm hoping that the work that we've put in up to this point has not been wasted, and then we can continue to move forward with our rental registry, and with our um minimum wage, and all of the measures that we've made to try to get affordable housing built in this city.

Um I think everyone deserves a home.

It's it's a human right, and we need to remember that even though it's difficult right now financially, it's very easy to get sidetracked and think well we've got other issues, but this is basic.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Uh I attended the exhibit, um, the art exhibit that you guys had, and I put the little earphones and listened, and the room was very energized.

It was excellent done.

I shared the photos on my Facebook.

I got a lot of people on the other side of the hill that are friends that took to those photos and lots of likes and a lot of understanding what was going on.

I think that kinds of things that we did or you guys did should continue on.

That day was special for those that went to it.

You saw those photos, they were amazing.

I got a chance to meet some of the farm workers that were there and took pictures with them.

I asked if it was okay, and it was a great it was a great event, and I thought that was a really good thing that you guys put on, and I want to say thank you.

Thank you.

Just a comment.

Uh, thank you to the farm workers for all the backbreaking work that you do every day to support the food that we enjoy here on the coastide.

Uh a lot of us would not do that work, you do that work, and you deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

Thank you again for all you do.

Thank you.

I agree with everything that's been said and often the public isn't always aware of what housing conditions look like, and when they are aware, they're um shocked and surprised, and I'm glad we have these opportunities to share people's stories, because these are folks who are part of our community.

And they work on our farms, also people who work in our stores, restaurants, and um very often live in very, very challenging conditions for their families and their children are in our schools.

So again, thank you for being here this evening, delivering the study, and we really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Great, thank you, and I I hope you take the time to read the report in full.

We have a policy report that has the policy recommendations as well as a report that is just the interviews, a summary of each of the interviews that we did with each of the 22 farm workers detailing their housing and immigration stories.

And we hope you take the time to read them and appreciate the beautiful art that went alongside them.

So I thank you again for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thanks again, Amanda.

Take care.

Can I ask?

Is that a report that is online or is that something you could say?

Okay.

Excellent.

Great.

Thank you.

Next item is Mayor's Announcements of Community Activities and Community Service.

Coming up, coming right up, is our end of the year party in Carter Park.

And that'll be a great event.

For those of you who haven't seen the new Carter Park, I think you'd be pleased.

It's going to be some great music.

And it's on October 5th from 12 noon to 5 o'clock.

Mr.

Mayor, the fourth.

So Saturday the 4th.

Yeah, check that.

Saturday the 4th.

I have Saturday here, but for some reason I have the 5th.

Thank you.

Stan corrected.

Saturday, October 4th.

Great.

So be there.

And I know the weather will cooperate with us.

Also, just advance notice.

Let me make sure I get the exact right dates.

Pumpkin Festival is coming up.

Is that the third weekend in October, I believe?

And that's October 18th and 19th.

So I want to make sure everyone knows.

October 18th and 19th is the pumpkin festival.

Highly recommend do all your shopping the Friday before.

So and always a great event here.

We're proud of it, and it'll be a pumpkin way off.

So I know it's hard to believe time's flying, and here we are at Pumpkin Festival again.

So anything else to add regarding that event?

No.

Okay, great.

Okay.

Oops.

Report out from our recent closed session.

Um two things.

We moved the start of our um performance review for our city manager to October 21st.

And the other item is that the council has voted to discharge our legal firm, shoot Mahali and Weinberger.

We're grateful for their years of service service with us.

And we'll be moving on to looking uh for another law firm.

That was carried on a 3-2 vote, that decision this evening, with myself and council member Penrose voting no.

Anything else?

Oh, and that will um so that we will be ending our services will cease with that firm with 90 days after the signing of our um notice of um discharge.

I think I got that all.

Okay, great, thank you.

Sorry, next item on our agenda is um our city manager's updates to council.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, we actually only have one update tonight.

Uh, the first item, the senior coastsiders' volunteer opportunities.

Uh senior co-siders had a conflict come up and were not able to attend.

Uh we'll see if they might make that same announcement in two weeks or three weeks at our next meeting.

So, our only um item is again, Julisa Costa to talk about um some work we've done with uh nonprofit abode related to the farm workers that were displaced by the shooting back in 2023.

Thank you, Matthew.

Um as you some of you may remember um after the farm worker sorry, after the shooting that occurred in 2023, uh the county stepped up to provide housing uh interim housing for the displaced farm workers.

Um after the those funds were uh expired, uh the city collaborated with a couple of her nonprofit and philanthropy agencies to secure funding, and city council also provided $300,000 uh for our affordable housing fund back in March 2024 to continue providing interim housing while Stone Pine Cove was being built.

Um that those funds um allowed us to provide interim housing through April 2025 this year, along with 464,000 dollars that we received from philanthropy.

Um we knew at that time um earlier at the beginning of this year that the funds were needed to be stretched a little bit more because the development wasn't going to be completed until sometime in the summer.

And we came back to you earlier this year in March and asked for another $300,000 from our affordable housing fund to continue providing housing support to our farm workers.

Um at the same time, staff indicated that we were also going to seek support from philanthropy again.

And I want to do a big shout out to my colleague and my partner in this endeavor, our um former housing coordinator Mike Noche.

Um we said to um engage with philanthropy and secure 225,000 from um Sobrato Foundation, Sabrata Philanthropies, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Um those 2225,000 allowed us not to touch any of the affordable housing funds that we have requested from you earlier this year.

So that is the big update that I have for you.

Um the $300,000 that we asked for back in March remain untouched in our affordable housing fund.

And all of the farm workers that were displaced from the shooting have already moved into Stone Pine.

Um some of them are here, and so you can um see that for yourselves.

Uh we just want to acknowledge our partners in this uh sobrato philanthropy, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Grove Foundation, the Latino Community Foundation, Sand Hill Foundation, and our partners who collaborated really closely to deliver this program and provided support and housing assistant um assistance abode services and Co-Sai Hope.

So any questions.

Thank you.

I have a question.

So how many at the Stone Pine have moved in and how many units do we have available still?

So far, from the displaced group, 12 families moved in.

Um those were the ones that opted to move into Stone Pine Cove, some opted not to move into Stone Pine Cove for other reasons.

Um that is from original group from displaced farm workers.

After those 12 families moved in, there is um another round of contract signing uh for six more families, and we hosted another community meeting for the next round of applicants that were eligible um earlier in August.

So because the process takes a little bit of time in in terms of turning in documentation and all of that and for the county to review, it takes a couple weeks for them to fully get approved and all the documents ready.

Uh, but we're hopeful um we're probably halfway full and maybe have about 20 something units available still that are probably in process of getting filled.

And I'll just if you don't mind, I'll just share.

They took all the applications and enclosed it.

I believe there were several hundred applications received.

So it's not that people can still apply.

The application periods closed and they're working through their list of priorities to continue to allow additional families in.

That makes sense.

I'm just saying that we have 20, let's just say roughly 20 units available, and we have people that need them.

We just have to sit and wait until it gets evaluated and goes through the process.

Well, again, the application period is closed.

It was oversubscribed by, you know, five times, 10 times from the applicant list.

The county is going through the process of screening people in, and they hope to have all of them occupied this fall.

So if if a person is not applied, they will have to wait until there's enough turnover to create an opportunity in the future.

Would that be all the 20 taken in this fall?

Yes, all-six actually.

It's total 46 units available for farm workers.

So right now we're about halfway full.

And they're the rest of them will probably be occupied by the fall.

Yeah.

Good news.

Thank you.

Yeah, quick.

I think we have one more question, Julisa from Vice Mayor.

Just a quick question.

So who's managing the process of filling the units?

Is it the county that's doing that?

It is a county who's doing that.

They're reviewing, like Matthew said, there's priorities that were set from the very beginning of the application opening.

Obviously, the displaced group from the shooting had priority number one.

Those displaced by the task force from the housing inspection from the county had priority number two, and then it was open to the general public for farm workers.

And so, based on that, based on need or being at risk of displacement was also priorities.

The counties evaluating said the different applications into different groups, and they're overseeing all that process in terms of eligibility, making sure they're farm workers, they're living in San Mateo County, all of that.

Thank you for that.

One last question.

So we had a few families in the Zimbela House, they're no longer at the Zimbela House where they retrofitted.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

There were households that were housed there that have transitioned into Stumpine Cove.

Correct.

Thank you, Julie.

So appreciate it.

Okay, we're next to move on to public forum.

Um some of you may or may not be familiar from public forum, but just to review for new new folks.

People can participate both in the room and online.

Each person has three minutes to speak.

We have a timer up here.

Um there'll be two warnings.

The first tone is means you have 30 seconds left, right?

So after two and a half minutes, you'll hear a tone.

And then 30 seconds later, you'll hear a second tone.

And at that second tone, that's it.

So your time will be up.

The other thing, um, it's a best practice.

We ask that people actually not applaud.

Um after someone speaks.

The reason for that is it can be sometimes, you know, people coming up for the first time, could be nervous, and it could be intimidating if people are applauding some people and others.

You know, it's not a contest, it's an opportunity for people to come up, participate in our democracy, have their say and not feel um uncomfortable and intimidated.

So we ask um that you not applaud.

Okay, with that, our first speaker tonight is uh council member Deborah Penrose.

I am speaking tonight as a citizen of Hakum Bay.

I am speaking out as an elected official and as an angry and frightened human being.

Donald Trump, left unchecked, is going to destroy everything that we hold dear in these United States.

He has already shown unequivocally that he has no respect for the rule of law, that he is willing to jail the folks that you vote into office, that he will never allow a question to be asked from a public official that may have the potential to put to the question his agenda.

And what will the consequences of your disobedience be?

He will federalize the National Guard.

We see it.

Usurping the power of your elected governor, he will call in the armed forces.

He is saying, be quiet, shut up, or if you defy me, I will come after you, hunt you down, and make you pay.

I know that my tone of voice and some of the words that I'm using tonight may seem extreme, but we do not have the luxury of mincing our words and pussyfooting around.

This is not a contest between Democrats and Republicans.

It's not a struggle between progressives and conservatives.

What we have now is a battle between what is lawful and what is criminal, between what is sane and what is crazy, between what is good and what is evil.

When democracy dies, be careful which side you're on.

If it's the wrong side, you and your children and your parents and your neighbors will lose your power, lose your right to choose, lose your right to speak out, and be in dire peril of losing your freedom and your life.

If you are an elected official, speak up now.

It's the time to protest.

It is critical that every elected official who swore to uphold the constitutions of the United States of America and of California show that they are willing to defend them.

If you live in the United States of America, please speak up.

All of our voices need to be heard.

Please protest against what you feel is wrong or dangerous.

Do not allow evil to triumph because you were afraid to speak.

Our next speaker is uh Jimmy Benjamin.

Thank you, and good evening, Jimmy Benjamin for 100 Pillar Citos Avenue.

Let me start by saying thank you, Councilmember Pembrose Ditto.

Um, uh people come frequently asking for something from you, or complaining about something that you did or they think you should have done.

I just thought I'd take a minute today to say thank you for something that you did at our last uh rendezvous, which was September the second, I know, because it was my wedding anniversary.

Um we enjoyed a little time together talking about the problem of uh the disturbance of fireworks here at Half Moon Bay, and um Captain Chichov was here as well, and uh I thought that uh Mayor Brownstone, you did a very nice, very artful job of emphasizing that there was a very significant fine, and uh City Attorney Ingberg did a very nice job of reminding the public it was a thousand dollar fine, and uh since that time it's been quiet.

Uh I've heard a couple of fireworks go off, but they've been much, much lower.

I'm hoping that we can continue to make people realize that it's a it's a nuisance, it's dangerous during fire season like we're having now, and it's profoundly uncivil.

Um, it's just another kind of incivility, like the ones perhaps modest compared to some of the ones that Councilmember Penrose mentioned.

But we are grateful for your support in overcoming that and hope that with your continued interest, we will get back to a level of reason about those things.

Um I did have an item on the agenda.

I won't speak to it now.

I put my thoughts in writing, so I will spare you another three minutes and give you back that gift of time.

But I am here if you want to speak to me about it.

I'll stick around and be glad to answer questions.

Thank you.

I'm glad you spoke up.

I uh I called the sheriff at quarter of two Sunday morning because somebody blew off 20 fireworks right in front of my home.

Nice.

Yes.

And they came out and retrieved the spent fireworks box and took that away.

But calling uh the sheriff's office was a really good idea, and I filed a formal report.

And uh I recommend all of you do that.

So there were two actually uh on Sunday morning.

Um it was quite noisy.

So yeah, it was about that distance away from your house to where we live near the SAM plant.

That makes sense, and I'm sorry that you endured it.

Um I hope that everyone will continue to be interested and and call.

I know there's been a lively next door discussion.

Um it is not the sound of freedom, it is the sound of irritation.

Thank you.

Jimmy, I want to say thank you for bringing that forward.

Also, and uh Redick, the same thing happened.

There's a follow-up on that.

Is when I called Chichoff, or I shouldn't say Chichoff, I actually texted him.

Um, but I called that number that Captain Chichoff gave us, the two numbers, and what happened was is I heard Zoya called also, and there was a numerous 10 other calls that came through, but it went to a busy signal, and nobody picked up the phone.

So I tried the other phone and it didn't work.

So I gave Chichov all the details of what happened.

He said there was a phone issue.

Eventually, the first number worked, and then somebody did call me back, but I thought it was too, it was a 10-minute delay before any grabbed the phone.

So when there is a problem that you can't get through to that you know non-emergency number, which I put on my phone and I randomly use it now just to make make a call, say something's not right, or somebody was in the middle of a meeting and sitting there on highway one.

I called and they went out and took care of it.

But if you're not getting through, make sure you talk to the dispatch and tell them how much time it took and tell them that it was busy because they said they've been having problems and are working on the phone system.

So don't give up.

Keep trying.

Yeah, thank you.

So the two two responses to that.

First, um, I've had quite a few members of the public ask me whether if that happens, they should call the emergency number.

Um, and I haven't, I don't know whether Captain Chi have Captain Chichon.

It was a non-emergency.

I labeled it in my phone.

He's it's a non-pro.

So there's somebody taking the phone, and you know, because it's not like somebody's dying, you're just putting a request that hey, something, and then they actually went out and fielded the issue, and that's the two numbers that we received at the last meeting.

And then second, when I went to the county website, I saw a different number, which I when I called, I was able to get through on that number.

And um, you know, we have a couple of numbers.

I didn't post that more broadly, but if people want to comment and they can't on those numbers, if you look on the county website, there was another number to call.

The thing is, we do have the higher, he took the idea that I threw out there.

It does state on the signs when you come into 92 and Highway One.

Uh fireworks are illegal, a thousand dollar fine.

So he took the idea and ran with it, and it's still posting to this day.

I'm sorry to hear that you had an issue, but we've got to stay on top of this because it is disruptive, it's after hours, you're in bed, you're sleeping, and all of a sudden, boom, and the dog's freaking out.

So we all have that same issues, and folks and I actually went out and looked to see because he Chichov gave us some clues.

Look for the plume of smoke.

Then you kind of know where it's happening.

So I gave him every detail that I could when I called that number.

I'll just share.

Please use the other numbers if you can't get through.

It is very appropriate to call 911.

It is you're reporting a crime.

That's totally appropriate.

So, thank you, Jimmy.

Thanks for the conversation on this.

Um, yeah, it is a crime.

And the reason it's a crime, it could cause great damage, especially in terms of fire.

Okay, thanks everybody.

Uh our next speaker is Harvey Warback.

Good evening, council.

Uh, I want to second everything that uh council member Penrose just said.

I think we have to speak out.

We're not speaking out, we're complicit.

Uh, the other thing that I wasn't expecting to say tonight, but I just learned.

Uh, Catherine Angberg and Shoot Mahalley would did wonderful work when I was on the council, and I'm grateful for everything they did.

And I'm sorry that they're apparently gonna go.

Uh but that's that's where I'm coming from.

I'm grateful to them.

I wanted to speak about two local matters uh that I think have somehow uh gotten under the radar, and we need to be aware of them.

Uh the first is uh we heard tonight about Spanish uh Heritage Month, and and then about uh farm worker housing.

It's time to do something about it, and the council can collaborate with Mercy Housing to get 555 Kelly built.

That is dignified housing for senior farm workers, it will have 40 units.

Um, and it's a way to make concrete that we really care about our senior farm workers and not just talk about giving them uh awards, but real uh housing that is dignified and worthy of their uh uh coming to live in them.

The other item that I don't want to lose is the momentum that we had about trying to get sewer and water on the coastide uh to be a more rational uh way of dealing with our environment, and that is to have a single special district that would encompass all three of the current uh agencies and include the local uh sewer um uh contracts to actually have a single unit a single way of dealing with uh water and sewer, and I think one of the advantages of doing that would be we'd finally be able to get recycled water, which would be a big boon for the coastide and for the environment, and we could stop the the horrible um bickering that has been going on the last eight years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Harry.

Our next speaker is Joaquin Jimenez.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Joaquin Jimenez.

Uh I've been the restaurant of the coast for over 38 years now, and I've seen the changes, I've seen the need of the of the coast, I've seen the neglect of the coast side.

We are missing a lot of things here in our community.

As you heard today, there was a study on the housing for the farm workers for low-income community.

This uh something that's been going on for uh for several years, you know.

Yes, or about the need of water running water at the school at the high school in Pescadero.

1993, I believe was the last year that uh water was actually drinkable in Pescadero.

There's a great need, and we are being neglected by the county.

Today, September 16th, I would like to announce that I'm gonna be running for County Supervisor District Three of Samateo County, and I want to represent the community of the coast side that has been neglected by Samateo County.

There's a great need.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joaquin.

Our next speaker is Chris Lynn Geet.

Actually, can you pass this down?

Can you pass these down?

Um over the summer, our advocacy and legislation committee has been grappling with how our immigrant community has been so adversely affected by the policies coming out of our national government.

And they have written you this letter.

And I would like to give a shout out to Rita, who is on our board.

Dear honorable members of the city council, we write to express our deep concern regarding the ongoing immigration enforcement actions in our state and region and to affirm our unwavering support for the immigrant community that are the backbone of our co-side economy and culture.

We stand firmly against the deportation tactics currently being employed by the U.S.

immigration and customs enforcement, particularly those that are predatory in nature and that spread fear among the people of our community.

We believe our shared prosperity depends on standing up for the values that make the coastide and San Mateo County and the communities within vibrant, inclusive, and a welcoming place to live and do business.

As such, we affirm the following principles: inclusiveness and support of all immigrants.

We support policies and practices that ensure dignity, respect, and opportunity for immigrants regardless of their status.

Recognition of our history.

Our co-side was built on the labor, talent, and tenacity of our immigrants.

That legacy continues to shape our community and our successes today.

Equal rights in the workplace.

We advocate for equal pay and treatment for all workers, regardless of their country of origin.

Condemnation of harmful enforcement practices.

We denounce the aggressive and fear-inducing tactics currently used by ICE, which threatens the families, disrupts local business, and undermines the trust of our institutions.

Acknowledgement of immigrant contributions.

Immigrants are vital to our agricultural, our service, our hospitality, all of the small business sectors, and their daily contributions are essential to our economy and the well-being of our community.

The Co-Side Chamber stands with the City Council and the Board of Supervisors in opposing the unjust deportation practices and in protecting the dignity and safety of all residents.

We work together to ensure that our communities remain a place where everyone has the opportunity to live, work, and thrive free from fear and discrimination.

Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to justice and inclusivity.

Sincerely, Nate Surdy, Advocacy and Legislation Committee, and on behalf of all Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kristin.

I don't think there's anyone online, right?

Correct.

No hands are raised.

Okay, thank you.

Concludes and closes our public forum for this evening.

We will now move on to our consent calendar, and I believe there's a request for one item to be pulled.

Is that right?

No, not pulled.

You just gave us got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Sure.

I uh move that we waive the reading of resolutions and ordinances that we approve the minutes of the September 2nd, 2025 special meeting.

That we approved the minutes of the September 2nd, 2025 regular meeting.

That we adopt a resolution adopting the updated records retention schedule for the City of Hack Moon Bay.

That we adopt a resolution directing staff to submit a grant application to the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, TA, for measures A and W highway program funds for 11,700,000 in grant funding from the TA with the with a $1,300,000 local match for the Highway 1 Main Street to Keyhoe Avenue project, authorizing the city manager or their designee to execute a funding agreement or memorandum of understanding and any amendments with the TA to encumber measures A and W highway program funds should the applications be successful committing to the completion of the project, including the required local funding contribution of 1,300,000 should the application be successful.

Certifying that any funds awarded by the TA will be used to supplement existing funds for program activities and will not replace existing funds or resources and authorize the city manager or their designate designate to take any other actions necessary to give effect to this resolution and execute applicable amendments that we accept the warrants list for the month of August 2025.

Second?

I'll second.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Councilmember Johnson?

Yes.

Councilmember Nagengast?

Yes.

Councilmember Penrose?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Radick?

Yes.

Mayor Brownstone.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Okay, no items under ordinances and public hearings this evening.

We'll now move on to resolutions and staff reports.

We'll begin with item 10A, financial report for the quarter, ends it on June 30th, 2025, and we'll have a staff report.

Thanks again.

All right, good afternoon, honorable uh Mr.

Mayor, Council, and members of the public.

Uh today I'm going to be presenting the financial reports.

Um we do these presentations quarterly, and this is for the fourth quarter uh fourth quarter that ended in June, which is also the end of our fiscal year.

Uh pretty high level summary, but the report in the agenda packet has uh more detail and analysis.

It should be noted, though, that every year every number you see here is unaudited.

So the city has a best practice uh we obtain an independent auditor every year to come and take a look at our financial books.

It's a pretty long process that starts in about May, it ends in about November.

And what the independent auditor does, they take a look, they verify the accuracy, the fairness of the numbers being presented and issue an opinion.

And then in December, we report to council what the final numbers are and then deliver the actual audited report.

Um the numbers here are the end of year, they just haven't been had that final bliss by that auditor.

Starting with revenues, uh transient occupancy tax.

We had budgeted 8.3 million, and we received about 9.6.

So we finished off uh much better than what we planned for and what we anticipated by about 1 million of a slide right after this to talk more about TOT in particular, but essentially TOT looks like for at least for last year, was better than what we budgeted for and what happened the previous year.

Property taxes, we budgeted uh $3.9 million.

We received uh 3.7 million.

So we came up short by about 170.

This is vehicle and loo fees.

Um, as council knows, there's a bit of a point of contention between the states and the county on these fees.

Uh the state has to explicitly fund these fees to us, and technically it's not guaranteed, but the past few years they've been making the cities whole, but they're still uh contention around it.

We did eventually get our allocation, but it came in after the end of the fiscal year.

So it's not reflected here, but um you'll see it in the first quarter first quarter of our current fiscal year.

Sales and use taxes.

Uh we budgeted 2.9 million, we received 3.6, uh, which is about 600k more than what we budgeted for.

Uh the gain here is twofold.

Uh our normal sales tax base was a bit better than what we planned for.

Um, but also measure R, our sales tax increase, uh, went into effect April 1st.

So we started to receive those funds.

Um, and of that 600k extra, um, 400 of that roughly is measure R.

Other revenues, we budgeted 5.6, we've received 6.4, which is about 800k more.

Um, this is mostly development uh fees, uh like building fees, uh, engineering planning fees, and then a portion is also for interest and investment income.

Overall, we received 23 million in revenues, um, about two and a half million more than what we budgeted for.

Again, with a big chunk of that coming from TOT.

So on the screen here is TOT.

Um, this chart is our revenues by the month.

The darker tail columns are this year, the gray columns are both what we budgeted for and also what um we received last year.

For budgeting purposes, we just always picked what we received in the prior year.

Um that's been our MO for the past few years.

As you can see for the past six months, um, our TOT numbers have been coming in better than what we expected and what we experienced from the prior year.

Um, it's a bit of positive news, um, though we still don't know this is going to be a long-term trend or this is just a moment in time.

Um, but it is encouraging to see that it's doing better.

On the expenditure side of things, we're going to come in under budget.

The table on the screen details the budget by department, and you can see that most are under budget.

Uh overall, we're going to be under budget by about 1.4 million.

Half of that is salary savings.

Uh, we've had uh vacancies throughout the year.

Some of them we filled, some of them we did not.

Um, but both in both scenarios that gave us an opportunity to save some cash.

Then the other half of those of the savings is just less spending overall, and that can be for a lot of different reasons that kind of just add up.

It could be uh foregoing a initiative or a project, or finding new ways to cut back on some things or rearrange um departmental budgets.

So between revenues and expenditures, you can see that um uh flushed out there's more cash that's been flushed out as far as we've uh have about two million in revenues more, and we came in under budget by a million, and so that's quite a that's a reasonable chunk of change that um uh that is gonna be uh that's that hasn't been incorporated into the budget.

Uh what that means is is that those monies that we weren't planning for that showed up anyways, uh they fall into our fund balances.

This slide here details what our fund balances are, um, what we budgeted for, what actually happened, and uh what it means going forward.

Uh the so the the table is um has a lot of numbers on the table, but for completeness, but just gonna go at a very high level.

The first column of numbers is what we budgeted for, and at the very bottom of that column, unassigned.

We had budgeted that we will have about 900K in unassigned funds.

The second column, the gray column, is what actually happened.

Our revenues were much more than what we anticipated, our expenditures were less, um, because of that are unassigned at June 30th this past June is about almost five million.

Now, it's important to note that while we were going through the budgeting process for this current fiscal year, we had already um put some of those unassigned funds to use.

So as it flows through all the way to today, as far as our budget and what it looks like going forward, that last column is our current budget that we're in.

We have reserves at 8.8, and we have um we estimated unassigned funds at 3.3 in June.

Uh this does provide a bit of an opportunity.

Um, 3.3 is a considerable amount of change.

Um council could decide to put that back into reserves.

Uh council could decide to uh let us sit.

Um, but it is there.

The default recommendation um from staff just to put it in reserves, but that is of course ultimately a council decision.

If the three million were to be put back into reserves, um the reserves would be almost close to fully funded, um, about four forty-nine percent.

So you looking even further ahead, what does this mean for the deficit?

So the last time we did a forecast was during the budgeting process, and the number that came out for uh next year, 26-27 was about three million of a gap.

Now that forecast was done back in spring, early spring, late March, early April, and um it did not have the data that we have today.

So things the the outlook has changed, um, has the potential to change.

There's some we have pending items that may change our financial outlook, the big one being TOT.

Uh having it be up by a million is um if that were to hold that would change how we decide going forward on things.

Um tax we uh forecasted or we built into our budget a pretty conservative number, so there's this potential for bandwidth there, and our fee study.

Um council recently approved uh increasing our fees to match our costs, and we built in a pretty low hours I was saying conservative number on that increase, and so there's bandwidth there.

Um the only question is we don't know how much and and if it's gonna hold, is into reference with TOT.

So we're in the a bit of a holding period right here, right now, with the I guess the uh big question being do our revenues pan out, or and if so, how much?

Ultimately, though, I think a deficit next year is still very likely.

Um, but depending on revenues, if they continue as they are, it may mean the difference between service level impacts or making more manageable adjustments.

Don't really know, but um I think mini year would be a critical time to review again.

So uh with that, I will happily take any questions.

Um, but the recommendation is as follows except the financial report for the quarter ended on June 30th, 2025.

Thank you, Ken.

Uh questions from council.

Yeah, please.

I don't have questions.

I have a just uh a comment.

Is that okay now?

Yeah.

Well, we may like to start with questions.

Does anyone have any clarifying questions?

Okay, yeah, go ahead.

I just I, you know, revenue is out of our control, right?

Unless we were up all night on Amazon, maybe that helps us get some more in here, but I think expenditures is something that's within our control.

And I want to acknowledge and commend staff for tightening the belt.

And I want the community to know that that it's it's uh it's a concerted effort, and I'm acknowledging staff has done that, and I hope moving forward, you know, we're gonna look at having the right staffing to be able to complete our services, and hopefully, it it also addresses the structural deficit.

But I I wanted to make sure, um, you know, it's recognized, and you know, we're not we still have this looming, and you're exactly right.

Mid year is gonna tell us more, we get another data point, and we gotta keep working, and hopefully we find the right balance to get us uh moving onward.

So I wanted to thank staff.

Any other comments?

Well, I um I agree with Paul.

I'm also hesitant to um shoot good news in the foot.

This is uh good news concerning um at least our revenue increases, um being under budget by 1.4 million, um having um 2.6 million um more in TOT and sales and use tax.

So, yeah, that's four million dollars to the plus side, and we'll see where we are and how that impacts our three million, the projected three million dollar deficit.

But um, I think that should also give some um yeah, a little more calmness to the process that we're not just hit it in a downward slope.

In fact, we're beginning to um look positive, but of course you can never predict what's around the corner.

So I'm glad that we can increase our reserves as well, potentially.

So um great.

Thanks for the great report, Ken.

Yeah, I think that's it.

On the property tax, can what was the reason why that was down four percent?

It's like 169,000.

You would think property tax property tax, you just pay it, right?

Yeah, it's um so year over year, like base property taxes like homeowners, that's up year over year.

Um, there's another section of property tax uh called vehicle fees or DMV fees when you meet your responsibility.

Okay, so we did cover that.

I'm sorry, you did.

Oh, it's okay.

So that was the reason on that.

Yeah, there's um disagreements, so it goes to the state, and then the state gives it to the county to the cities, and there is contention about who gets what, and it's a fight every year about it.

So that makes up that that difference.

And then on the legal fees, it was like 18% off.

What were you you were anticipating a certain what was the big jump, the 200,000 jump that what did what were we f was it the same plan thing or something or uh it's gonna be um litigation, just in general, just we didn't know about okay.

Uh and then on the city clerk communications on that one.

What was can you kind of run that by me?

What you budgeted because it was higher, and then it was actual.

What caused it to go down?

So, city clerk, we had a we have a vacancy city clerk or a we added one during the fiscal year, so that unfortunately is gonna be salary savings, and then also um city clerk in particular, we hold uh a bit of a so for elections, we don't know what our bill is gonna be, and sometimes it can be 100k, sometimes it can be 10k, but we hold it at 100k in the budget.

And then on public works, we budgeted, you know, a higher amount, and we're about four hundred and thirty six that we didn't use.

Well, is there projects that we didn't get done, or they're just so the participating more and didn't do it?

Yeah, so the uh public works uh their budgets are have to have don't have that much relation to CAPE in that way.

Um a big thing that uh public works hold is utilities.

Sometimes util more often than not, utilities is gonna be hard to track um supplies and I guess a little bit of salary savings there as well.

I don't know.

I'll have to get back to you on that.

And then on the sales taxes, because we were able to monitor the sales taxes.

I brought that for the city manager a long time ago, and you said we can't do that.

And then we got a report.

Uh at some point we were able to see the sales tax because we can't see individual sales taxes, we can see an overall.

And I hope to continue that so that we can see because that's how I gauge my business, and I was mentioning it to Matthews.

Like when my sales tax is up at six grand, I'm like, wow, we're doing pretty good, and it's down to 35.

I'm not selling as much.

So I I can base how good my business is doing based on my sales tax.

Are we going to continue doing that?

Can we hone in on that sales tax like we are?

Because that's up right now, and that's good.

When you say holding like um forecasting, well, you had a there was a forecast at some point that we could see that the sales tax had good jumped up four or six percent and had gone up, which is a good indicator that people are coming to the shops, they're spending money in the sales tax.

Yeah, but I think what he's sorry.

I'll stand about here.

I think what he's referring to was I believe our sales tax consultant provided us a report that we were actually able to share.

Uh because sales tax information is proprietary and uh only there's there's laws about who can't actually see those numbers, but there was a summary report, and and I think that's what you're asking.

Yeah, you'd like to be able to continue to see that.

That was an indicator that things were changing.

That was a good positive thing.

The answer is yes, we can continue to provide that.

I would highly recommend that.

And then the other thing would be to continue doing what we're doing as a community and and try and enhance the downtown and create, you know, as beautiful as we can to draw the people in, because we're seeing the numbers coming up, and if we can drive more people here and you know, that's what's gonna do it.

That's we're already seeing that keeping it clean, looking nice, maintaining it, those kinds of things.

We're I know we're short staff, but the the formula is there.

Whoops, okay.

Thanks so much, Ken.

That was great, really appreciate it.

Our next item, item ten B, is um the Opportunity Center of the Coast Side.

And we'll receive a staff report first.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, Council and Community.

My name's Karen Decker, economic and community vitality manager.

The polka dots between Julisa and me are an unplanned happy coincidence.

We've been together almost all day.

It's causing a lot of giggles.

Um, no PowerPoint this evening.

Um, there was a pretty thorough presentation at the September 2nd council meeting um on all things opportunity center.

Uh at that time you received an update from staff and from the service providers that operate the opportunity center.

Um, the opportunity center is a first of its kind service center.

It serves co-siders who are looking for a job, as well as small businesses and entrepreneurs.

It is funded through a two and a half million dollar grant from San Mateo County, and that grant and the providers and contracts that are funded through that grant are scheduled to sunset at the end of this month on September 30th.

Um the city has the current space until January 14th, at which time the lease expires.

And there are funding requests, uh irons in the fire to the US Senate, to San Mateo County, to philanthropic organizations.

And so given that staff is recommending that council fund the utilities and the janitorial services that would keep the lights on essentially and would allow for a longer runway to see if these potential funding opportunities can be realized.

Also, part of that recommendation is uh potential extension of those current service contracts just in terms of term, um, not uh in terms of any additional funding.

And uh it's staff believe that this will allow um additional runway to unlock potential revenue streams that could maybe keep these services on the coast.

I don't know if it would in its original form and at its location, but in some version.

Earlier it was mentioned that the city manager's office and our housing coordinator has engaged with philanthropy a lot in the last few years.

I've been with the city for eight years, and I can think of about at least six philanthropic entities in which we've been successful at getting grant funds.

And what I've observed is part of that secret sauce is a lot of times philanthropy or funders in general are looking around to see if there's any other skin in the game.

Um I will say that I feel that philanthropy in general is interested in the coast.

It has been acknowledged to me several times that we're considered a resource desert, that we are geographically isolated, and that it's hard for co-siders to navigate the transportation to take advantage of a lot of other services that the Bayside or Peninsula side enjoys.

Um they are aware that we are a town of 12,000 people, that we have limited reserves and um a modest budget.

Um, so all that to into account, I think that even a modest investment is a good faith effort that doesn't go unnoticed, but there's uh tremendous understanding in terms of the situation that we're in.

So, given all that, I'm happy to take any questions, um, field comments.

Questions, clarifying questions from counsel before we take public comment, clarifying questions.

I have a question.

Can we take the money that we're you're asking and honestly take it out of the um what was the category that was coming the money that was gonna be asked?

It's out of the unhoused or something, isn't that right?

Yeah, you know, there are there are a few different options.

Um, one could be the affordable housing fund.

In the September 2nd presentation, I had referenced some precedents out of the city of South San Francisco, and that was one of the funding sources they were taking advantage of, and they were their justification was that upward mobility and access to a living wage mitigates homelessness.

Um another suggestion could be there is a likely cost savings from CSFA, not from the provider contracts themselves, but there's a technical assistance allocation that would be well within this price point, and yet a third option is just the general fund.

So those were three potential streams that staff identified, and in the reports that this company did what was it, uh head and heart advisory, they actually state that in deep in the report how that upper mobility uh getting people off the streets helps in our economy because they won't be in the hospital, they won't be, you know, banging or whatever.

It gives you all the lists of what it can do.

So would that be something that the city is okay to do is pull it because of that because of the report kind of states that in this report?

Yeah, and through the mayor.

Um, back in I think 2019, the city actually adopted official um criteria for utilization of the affordable housing fund, and one of the criteria is homelessness prevention, and we believe this falls within that.

So that's a justifiable use of the affordable housing fund.

Is there clear language that it says that it does that?

Yes, okay.

All right, and then what if the scenario um July, what is it?

January 14th.

Do we have let's uh I think it's a great program.

I think it works, but it's tough to do when we're in a budget restraint.

That's the problem.

Let's be real.

But what I'm looking at is too, we put a lot of money into that building.

That's my wife's old place of office, right?

You're renting it from her old bosses.

And it looks immaculate.

It's amazing what you guys have done.

And there's a lot of time and money I could see put into that place, decorating it, the the chairs, everything in, you know, ADA approved, and all the only thing is it needs an elevator for upstairs if you want to do that.

But you guys didn't, I don't even think you're using upstairs.

I'm looking at how much money we put into that building.

And what are we gonna do?

Do we know what the costs are gonna be to clean it out?

So the city is the tenant.

Um, you know, we were given the grant from the county to organize and lead this pilot, obviously, the operation of it has taken place through the service providers in the chamber who manages on site.

Everything that's been invested into that came through that county grant.

And you're correct, you know.

Uh we were frugal and thoughtful.

Um I'll give an example.

Uh we needed to create some spaces for the different providers to have a little bit of privacy.

And uh we looked at building offices, building partitions, and Kristin from the chamber pointed us to these essentially giant Legos.

And those are not fixtures, those can be removed and repurposed somewhere else.

They've functioned very, very well.

Um there's a lot of that in the facility that can be repurposed somewhere else, and then there's a lot, yeah, that has to be left behind.

The kitchen was reconfigured to make it ADA compliant, some other work that was paid for by the landlord, and some that was paid for through the grant.

Um, at your last meeting, we brought forward uh a policy about disposing of um surplus items.

And part of that thinking was as this program winds down, will eventually, whether it's you know, in the next month or in December, or if funding comes through and this can continue over a longer term, maybe down the road.

At some point, we'll have to figure out what to do with all of the non-fixtures that are built to the building.

And um we'll come with some recommendations about what we think needs to happen, whether it gets sold, uh donated to nonprofits that continue to provide the service, whether the city can use some of this in our own programs.

So some of it will be kind of lost to or or gained by the landlord.

Um, others will um, you know, there'll be opportunities to reuse it uh to serve the community.

What about the cost and labor of taking you know disassembling and all that stuff?

Do we have the resources to use it?

Because we're already straining.

I think that'll be dependent on how it gets distributed.

Um so that'll all be part of a plan that uh we have until January 14th to figure out, and obviously it depends on how things play out over the next couple of months.

Uh is not saying I want to go that direction.

I'm one of those guys, I want to know where it starts, where it ends, and what ifs, and that's you know, I want it to be there, I want it to be thriving, I want people to use it.

But if the numbers aren't there and it's costing us money, then it's not something that's viable for our city.

So hopefully you can pull this off and get money and funding, but we also have to make sure that we have budgeting for dismantling.

Okay, um, we will now have um public comment.

Thank you, Karen.

Appreciate it.

Okay, we have two public.

Oh you know, maybe I'll go with the online here.

Sophia Lane.

Hello, everybody.

Um, Sophia Lane, thank you.

Um Mayor for mentioning uh and bringing me on here.

It's a pleasure to be here with you.

As all of you know, I served our community as a school board member for several years, and I uh before that served in various global roles in the biomedical industry.

Also, I served as a coastside recovery initiative task force member helping to formulate an economic development plan instead of recommendations coming out of the COVID pandemic.

Working alongside about 16 other incredibly talented and dedicated members, all local and all of whom cared and continue to care deeply about the coast side.

We remain committed to the plan and recommendations we helped develop.

They're perhaps more important now than ever.

You've seen the data, the legacy industries in uh the coastside ag and hospitality are, you know, continue to have challenges, and now we face new disruptions from various uh federal and other actions on health care, on environmental protections, on safety, and of course, on the economy.

We need to have new opportunities and new jobs that are higher demand, higher paying, and attractive to the next generation of workers and the workers of today.

The opportunity center of the coast side has been an incredible asset, and in a relatively short amount of time, they've had a real impact.

I was really impressed to see that uh valuation report uh that was mentioned earlier, um, has already been completed, and the results are very promising from that um first 15 or so months.

And uh you all know I've been in the seat of fact being to make hard choices about where to invest limited resources.

I totally get that.

Um but from my view, given the amount of money that's being questioned, uh this being proposed, um, this is not one of those hard choices.

Um, it's a very small but very wise investment of $10,000, which frankly, as you all know, in a $25 million budget is pretty much dust.

Um, that will allow staff to maintain the continuity of services until that next round of philanthropic funding uh comes through.

Um, and that small bridge is a larger, a bridge to a larger and very important opportunity to continue building a more vibrant and resilient economy and community in the months and years to come.

Again, as uh we can expect reasonably expect challenges to increase for for us all.

So I hope uh you can please help us keep this uh momentum moving forward, not going backwards, and just allow staff and our partners to continue this important work and provide that bridge to the uh next round of funding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sophia.

Our next our next speaker is Nancy Fontana.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Is that okay?

Um I'm not here to speak for or against the actual action of the $10,000 expenditure.

I'm trying, I'm trying to wrap my head around this entire thing.

Um the more of the funding, the money came from the county, but then you're talking about the city paying for stuff too.

Is there has the city spent much besides this proposed $10,000?

I I'm not very familiar with the, I've read the reports, but not, excuse me, I've read the staff reports, but not the detailed all the details of the the other reports.

Is there a total figure the city's spent on this at all?

We can answer that maybe when you're done.

When you're okay, yeah, there's things I just don't understand, and I did read the stuff, and I and so 10,000 doesn't sound like much of anything, but I'm trying to get the scope of this.

The only thing I have to say, um, I think it's serving, it's doing good things, and I do feel that it's important for uh the visitor center to have a presence on Main Street.

I'm I'm sort of questioning the amount of space that's been leased, and going forward, if it goes forward, um, a way to reduce the if you're gonna be dependent on philanthropic uh having such a big space, you could you could really reduce the space.

There's there's big rooms there that don't I don't see used that much.

And the library is very close and has rooms available, and I believe people can also use the rooms here.

So that would be a way to reduce costs going forward for a long term.

Because that's that's key.

That's storefront property, it's prime main street property.

And having uh classrooms and meeting rooms, it doesn't seem a good use of that type of commercial space.

So I don't as again I don't have that much.

Just I don't have an opinion about the $10,000.

I just would like to know the totals.

Thank you, thank you.

Um, we'll come back to that in a moment in terms of some of the numbers, but um, but yeah, a lot of that space is used for ongoing training, and there isn't always a lot of space in this town for you know large training sessions.

So our next speaker is Eric Vittel.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, council.

My name is Eric Vettel, and I'm the director of the Coast Side Venture Studio, the incubator.

I'm also a proud citizen of Hathlon Bay.

And I appreciate what you do as a council.

I value what you do, but I don't envy you.

Every decision filtered through a lens of fiscal responsibility.

It can't be easy.

At the risk of stating the obvious, voting against spending is often fiscally responsible.

A fiscally responsible thing to do.

But sometimes voting against spending can be fiscally irresponsible.

I think that literally turning off the electricity and water at the OCC four months early might actually be a case or an example of a fiscal irresponsibility.

We have businesses, startups, jobs moving here to participate in the next cohort.

They could have gone elsewhere, but they've committed to the incubator in Hafoon Bay.

We have public and private funding requests under consideration right now.

We are being watched.

This decision is being watched.

I understand that keeping the lights on at the OCC through January 14th is a difficult budget issue.

As the director of the incubator, we hope we want, and we aim to be part of the solution.

But I hope we can keep the lights on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

Matthew, did you just want to say a word around you know what's been the ongoing funding history for the center that uh Nancy Fontana had mentioned?

Yeah, yeah.

That's a great question.

Um, so as has been mentioned, the county um approached the city uh back in 2022, I believe, um, because South San Francisco had done something like this uh and kind of created a good model as part of COVID recovery, and they wanted to see this happen throughout other regions of San Mateo County.

The county opened up a similar center in the North Fair Oaks neighborhood, which is unincorporated but adjacent to Redwood City to kind of serve that area, and they asked the city if we could uh open and operate a similar center serving the entire coast side, and with that ask came a $2.5 million ARPA grant.

Uh, the attempt of that funding was to cover the operations and the services that would be provided, and a lot of work went into working with the service providers to do that.

Part of that funding included overhead for the city to offset our costs.

Uh, we have not spent any direct dollars into this project.

Our work has been at the staff level.

Uh, we believe to date that that um overhead contribution from the county has covered our staff time.

I've had I've gotten some questions about specific numbers.

We don't track our costs, our labor costs project by project.

That is something we could explore in the future for capital projects.

We certainly do.

For other projects, we have not in the past.

Um, but anecdotally, we don't believe, you know, there was a big investment of time up front at this point where it's operational, it's a minimal amount of city effort.

As been pointed out, um, as part of the window, I think there will be some cost directly to the city, at least from a staffing standpoint to wind things down as the grant expires at the end of this month, and we'll just have a little bit of reimbursement at the end of this month.

Um, so to date, no direct cost to the city going forward.

Obviously, there's the recommendation tonight to make a contribution and investment.

And uh it at the point that this center either closes down or relocates, there may be some cost to the city uh the staffing level to ensure that it winds down properly.

Um again, a small investment compared to what the county has contributed towards this project.

Great.

Um, we don't want public comment.

Yeah, we're done.

Oops.

Public comments on this item is closed.

Um so now we'll entertain comments or questions from staff council.

Yeah, I thought I'll start with a comment.

I think it's really important with these pass through grants that we track our staff time that's that's not covered by you know a grant overhead.

Um we want to be able to count that as an in-kind contribution for sure, but we also want to have an idea about you know, when we accept a pass-through grant, what is the cost to us in doing that?

We want to know that, you know, up front, and then we want to compare that to the actual you know, cost of staff time over time.

So I think tracking for these pass-through grants is is really important.

Um, one question I have is it seems to me that so the the pilot was a kind of a short pilot, but it seemed to me it would have been um probably beneficial to initiate the search for philanthropy early on.

It looks like we that wasn't started until maybe this this summer, and I'm just confused as to why we didn't like.

I mean, it seems to me we should have been on two tracks operating the pilot, but if wanting to make it sustainable, you know, looking for grants.

So I think we might have wanted to start that process earlier.

Um, you want to comment about that?

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to.

Um, certainly going into this, we knew that there was no guarantee that the county would continue funding it after the pilot period, and that there was no way the city would be the funder of a project like this going forward.

And so it was always on our minds.

As I mentioned, up front, there's a lot of effort that goes into just getting up and running and getting operational.

And certainly again, we we were having conversations, we were shopping at some of the service providers.

Um, we're already looking from the beginning for funding.

Uh we heard mentioned earlier uh we were able to obtain a grant to hire a third-party evaluator.

Part of shopping for sustainable funding is having data to support the outcomes, and and so it really ramped up is that report and obviously that report required data from the operations.

So agree that on projects like this, and and I think I shared last week or the last meeting, one of the lessons we've been learning about these pilot projects is being more thoughtful right up front that hey, do we even want to jump into a pilot knowing that there's no guarantee of sustainable funding, and if we don't have some really good leads, maybe we need to think about that in the upfront decision making.

But I I don't want you to think that staff or the service providers haven't been thinking about this all along.

It just really ramped up when we had the data and got confirmation from the county that they were not gonna be able to provide ongoing funding.

Um that's a good point.

Yeah, it was kind of a compressed period.

We did have the experience of the CARES program, so now we've had you know two, so we we do want to be you know careful in the future before you know taking anything on like this, especially when it's not like core mission sort of stuff, right?

It's kind of it's kind of um off book, if you will, you know.

So um, so it I think I asked this question in advance of the meeting, but say they get rejected for their grants, say middle of October.

So then what?

I mean, do we end up with an empty building for a few months or I think that's a possibility?

Um, you know, I think it'll depend on whether or not, you know, there's lots of irons in the fire, and of course, the search isn't over, the search will continue.

Um, I know that pavement is being pounded trying to find sustainable funding.

So I think it's something we've got to evaluate on an ongoing basis, and if we kind of reach that point where we've exhausted all of our opportunities, we will have to shift into just wind down and kind of cutting our losses and closing out the project.

And so to clarify, too, the $10,000 covers utilities, and what does that include exactly?

Is that like internet, Wi-Fi, all that stuff?

Internet, power, water, the janitorial services, supplies, you know, general supplies for the facility.

And again, that's a not to exceed $10,000.

If we wind down early, we won't spend all of that money.

So that's kind of worst case scenario.

But it doesn't include like uh cleaning out the building, or if we replace the car.

That's more just about operations.

And I want to be clear, um, in the contract, there was kind of a 12-month period where we'd be responsible for basically returning it to them like brand new.

Um that period expired, and so normal wear and tear is expected here.

Um we won't have to do as much.

It's more just removing our things from the building, and you know, the landlord will inherit a very nice space.

I think it's been well cared for, it's been well used, but well cared for over the last two and a half years as well.

And uh my last concern is I'm a little bit concerned about the chamber.

They're feeling uh it looks to me kind of like they're the orphan here.

Like what happens with the with the chamber, and where are they gonna go?

And you know, what are what is like the chamber board and everybody looking at in terms of making sure the chamber continues and isn't you know out of luck?

Um, I don't know if any thought has been given to the situation of the chamber of commerce, um, um I'm happy to let Crystalin respond to that as well, but certainly as part of the planning for the future and looking for funding sources, they're part of that that process.

Um and yeah, we obviously need them to maintain a quality home here on in our downtown and for that um California Visitors Center, and and we've had conversations, and I know it's something they're working on separately.

Yeah, I am concerned about losing that visitor center.

You know, I think that's we're a visitor-serving community, you know, we need that visitor center and a robust uh chamber of commerce.

I don't know, Chris Lynn.

Do you have anything to add there?

Or sorry.

We will still pay rent, we will still pay our portion of the Wi-Fi, we will still pay our portion of electricity.

So the 10,000 that you would be approving takes care of everybody else, but it does not take care of us.

Come September 30th, we lose 14,000 a month, and I most likely lose a valuable employee.

Ever since January, we have been told time and time again that we are not considered a part of the OCC, and we are not considered a part of the funding, and I have been trying really hard to cheerlead from the sidelines, and not bring forth the uncomfortable news that this has brought.

This has been really difficult.

I am sorry.

When you approved funding for the chamber to start a business development center, and we worked very well with the city in bringing that into fruition when the 2.5 million dollar grant was brought forward by the county.

We were very excited that that was gonna turbocharge this effort.

It has been an uphill climb, and we do not feel like we have been included in much of what is gone on, and I don't know what to do with that.

Because I don't want to see the OCC go with.

It hasn't seen it.

It does not include the chamber in everything that we've been told.

Thank you.

Do city manager, do we have anything for the chamber?

I mean, we have to think this through because we definitely need the chambers somewhere.

I mean, this is just becoming a mess.

This was not well planned out.

It's been delayed.

You guys got surveys here on how to, you know, reach out to these people and see how good it worked.

It wasn't done.

It's way too late.

This is so late.

It's ridiculous.

So I think Crystal's correct that some of the funding outreach that's been done is geared towards the service provision because that's what those funding sources provide.

There is a request to the county to help support the operational side of things, which would be maintaining the facility and the operations.

But not all funding sources can include that.

And so it really depends on what comes through.

I'd like Karen to add a little more information here, please.

Thanks.

That's terrible.

It's hard to hear that from such a long-standing partner.

I will say that the philanthropic and governmental asks that the city has been involved in, which is nearly all of them, has included the chamber.

It doesn't mean that it felt that way, but the actual numbers and documents submitted reflect operational costs that were provided by the chamber.

That's the Sobrato ask.

That's the county ask.

Um it's not necessarily the congressional earmark because that was South San Francisco lid and they don't get they're not administered by a chamber, but any effort that the city has been involved in to showcase the costs and the price point have been provided by the service providers out of that center, including the chamber.

A challenge is that the chamber is not a 501c3 status.

So if you get a sobrato or a CZI doing a tour of the opportunity center, they will more likely look at a job train or a renaissance because of the nature of who they fund.

They're not typically in the business of funding chambers.

That said, the city still included the chamber at the chamber's price point to try to keep the framework and the model going, and in recognition that the chamber has been a long-standing supporter and participant in the coastside recovery initiative as an executive oversight member, as a task force member, and the realization of those 14 recommendations.

They leaned in to a really interesting and credible opportunity, but a risk nonetheless, and all of them knew that this funding sunsets on September 30th, and these efforts have kept me and my staff up at night thinking how to sustain this incredible program, and the funding strategy meetings go back to January.

And we needed an adequate runway in order to ask funders for an investment that is substantiated by data.

We couldn't just take anecdotes, so I hope that rounds out some of the understanding.

I think that all the providers are doing what they can.

They've demonstrated that they each have their respective boards to the question earlier about, you know, will they just move out if they don't get the funding by October?

They're all in different situations.

One nonprofit has indicated that they have some reserves, that they're tightening their belts, that they're looking at dosage and staffing, and they're gonna do everything they can to have some version of what they offer on the coast because they've come too far to just pick up and go back to the peninsula.

Another is not as sure of that, but they're talking to another potential site that they could potentially co-locate with that they have synergy with, and the city is helping to broker that conversation.

So from a city staff perspective, we are doing everything that we can to support all the service providers, and most importantly, the services, because this was filling an unmet gap, and I believe that that gap is as true as ever, and it would be a shame to see any of them pick up and and not provide a service.

That's including the chamber, but that's also including American Energy Society and Renaissance and Job Train.

Thanks, Karen, for background clarification.

So I'm trying to understand this.

So the chamber pays their own rent there.

Is that how this works?

So the the chamber was brought in to um operate the center and be the point of contact for the center, and so the relationship between the city and the chamber for this project was that this would become the chamber headquarters.

They would pay a pro rata share because job train renaissance and the yincuator were brought in to provide a service.

The chamber is there to manage it, but they also are operating a chamber out of there.

So there's a prorated rent that they pay.

Um, but then we also contracted with them for the operation of the center and to staff the center, and that's what what Crystalin's referring to is that contract for services is going away with all the other contracts for services.

The ARPA funding that supported the staffing and the management of the site is going away.

Um, but we prepaid the rent through the ARPA funding through April or for through January of next year.

Part of that arrangement that was made at the beginning of this was that the chamber would pay uh their pro rata share of the rent.

I think uh, you can remind me it's like 3200 or 3600 with utilities is your portion of the chamber.

So then they break it up into sections and the total rent for the place.

I don't know, but each individual pays their share.

No, the the other service providers were brought in only to provide services, so they do not pay rent, they were contracted to come in and pay to provide services.

So the situation is different for the chamber than for the other three service providers because they're only there to provide that service.

They're not also operating a separate service line, which the chamber does as you know, as the chamber of commerce.

Right.

So is there a difference between closing September 30th or staying open till January?

Yeah, I'm trying to understand the chamber is there regardless to January, right?

So is is there different what's the difference?

Whether it shuts down, let's say it shuts down September 30th versus if it shuts down, and or there's a lights on or kept what happens, I know they need to the grant the the three other groups need the grants, which the chamber aren't and never were a part of, and I I sort of get that because not being uh nonprofit.

So I'm trying to.

What's the consequences?

I guess.

Whether it shuts to the chamber.

And maybe it's a chrysaline answer.

If it funding stops September 30th or January, but it sounds like is the chamber in the same boat either way.

Before I respond, I know Chris uh Karen stepped up to the mic.

So I want to give her an opportunity to.

Oh, thank you.

I I neglected to say something important, and then I will absolutely go back to your question.

What the city is asking for tonight in this 10,000 dollars to cover utilities and janitorial forgives the chamber's portion.

So the chamber is not expected to pay utilities uh going into the last quarter.

Um I conveyed this in an email to Kristalin and the Secretary of the board.

The rent is a different story, but the utilities that we're proposing tonight would be covered entirely.

So then going back to your question, Councilmember, um I I think the chamber is in the most unique situation because this is their permanent residence.

The other providers have other locations that they can return to or to close down their services here on the coast.

They can remain in the space till January 15th, no matter what happens.

I do think it becomes a challenge when it comes to utilities, and we would have to work through that with them.

But yeah, there I think their situation is different.

Right.

And all the three service providers, notwithstanding the chamber, are housed and headquartered over the hill.

They intentionally invested and expanded their footprint to serve the coast because we're considered a resource desert.

So they don't have a permanent office here.

They have offices, they have headquarters, but they're not stationed on the coast.

Yes, you're right.

And that makes it challenging, as you say, on the coast.

And I know even trying to get uh job training makes it hard.

A lot of folks have to go over the hill to get trained there.

And that's what makes it unique.

And I know the county that's part of the probably challenge with the county how to continue the funding.

What I don't want to have is collateral damage to the chamber because I'm trying to figure out the relationship here.

And um, you know, so I think what I heard, Chamber still pays rent, but they would uh the ability to fund something would at least pay the utilities through uh January 14th.

Otherwise, the chamber would have to be paid if we ended September 30th, the chamber would have to pay their utilities.

Correct.

That's how this works.

And obviously the cost of all that would go down significantly if everybody else vacated the premises.

Right, but I'm just trying to I don't want to uh burden.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

Um, so we still have in front of us, we can't solve all of this tonight.

We still I and I agree, and I I wanted to say something about the using affordable housing.

We have three sources that were mentioned, actually.

So is the affordable housing right?

Um general fund, but also um uh technical funding from the CFC SFA grants, which according to Karen is not a problem, right?

I just want to be sure that that's yeah, okay.

Um I would actually probably lean to that third option, is the technical funding from CSTA.

I don't, yeah.

Yeah.

It's just my feeling, you know, you said precedence was affordable housing fund, but that money is luckily some excess there.

Um that would be my uh recommendation, but interested in what others think uh, yeah.

I am really opposed to using the affordable housing fund.

Uh it's a very limited amount, and um I don't want to draw it down any more than we've already drawn it down.

So I'm I'm fine with going with either of the other two options.

I don't I don't support use of general fund or affordable housing fund, would have to be from the CSFA.

That's you know, I after the report on September 2nd, had a lot of conversations with uh various people about this, did my own analysis.

I went back to when the city manager was a deputy city manager in 2019 when he brought this item about the guidelines for affordable housing, and even went through, and then there was even an item later on to spend it, and my concern was, you know, when we were had the opportunity, we put general fund money into the affordable housing fund, which is you know fantastic.

But my point is we've been depleting it, and as mentioned, I I don't want to do that anymore.

I don't think uh and I still will call it I don't think the guidelines would allow this.

I still call this utilities, you know, and I think you know we can maybe have that discussion, how that brings us to uh to the actual what the affordable housing in my mind was set up to do.

But um, I'm it's an interesting uh conversation tonight that I didn't necessarily see totally coming.

I again I was being, you know, I was totally against affordable housing funds.

So if we move forward, I would look at that CSC FSA technical which that money was in that something we previously funded as part of the uh the when the nonprofits we look at having the money and how they work together.

So council's allowed that.

I would not it's already been taken from our general fund.

So technically it is general fund, but it's already been uh put aside.

So and I would not want to go after new general fund because again, I will still say I'm worried about our structural deficit.

So I would um look to using those funds.

Well, out of the gate, that's why I asked those questions like how how to how can the affordable housing fund work?

And that's why I brought that forward.

And I am definitely don't want to do the general fund.

I am in support with the CSFA program technical assistance.

That's how I would like it.

I don't want to be digging out of any other buckets other than that one.

Great.

Would someone like to make a motion?

Thank you, everybody.

Yeah, I'll make a motion.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to fund utilities and janitorial services at the opportunity center of the coastside through January 2026, in an amount not to exceed 10,000 dollars, and to be and to extend the professional service agreements with job train renaissance entrepreneurship center, the chamber of commerce and American Energy Society with a term ending January 15th, 2026.

And I'll add three, the funding for this ten thousand dollars to come from our CSFA fund technical funding.

I'll second.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Councilmember Johnson?

Yes, Councilmember Nagengast.

Yes.

Councilmember Penrose?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Reddick?

Yes.

Mayor Brownstone.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you, everybody.

Would you like a little break?

We were supposed to take a nine o'clock break and use a quick break, or well, where's everyone at?

Let's keep going.

You alright?

To keep going.

You all right?

You alright to keep going?

I like to check with everyone.

Everyone's entitled to a little break here.

Haven't taken one.

You okay over there on staff?

Yeah.

Okay.

I know I know we want to get out of here too.

Just balancing everything.

Okay.

Item 10 C community microgrid discussion.

And we'll have a staff report.

And here we just have to receive this report.

Okay, great.

Hey, Miles.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, members of the council, Mozilla Guinea, Public Works Director and City Engineer.

I am here to present the microgrid uh community microgrid um discussion tonight.

So just a little background.

What is the community microgrid?

Essentially, it's a locally controlled system for energy energy system.

So think about it as a mini um mini uh service provider within the small within the subset of a larger um uh system of uh power grid.

So multiple customers within a defined boundary, it's disconnected, it can be disconnected from a larger grid, um which they uh folks call island mode, uh, during certain outages, and it allows for the uh providing additional electricity to critical facilities and residents using in this case clean energy and storage uh capabilities.

I put an asterisk next next to residents because it's really about which um homes happen to be within that microgrid boundary that that is that is a uh very it's a physical boundary where um at some point you're not within that system.

Uh the key features for a microgrid.

Um essentially, we have solar panels right now.

Think about the library, for example.

You've got solar panels in that facility, but that is all on the back end of the meter, and then there's an interconnection where when we have additional power produced from those uh systems, it's fed back into the grid.

The difference is this is in front of that, so that's where the term front of the meter comes in.

These systems would be in front of the meter.

So essentially it would be tied in to the electrical grid without a metered connection to a property.

Um that is the biggest, that is the difference as far as where it's placed, where it ties into the overall system.

Um the design for this is to support um help support resilience for critical facilities, and in the context of the program we're talking about tonight, it's uh really tailored towards supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.

Um this again would uh this would operate in parallel um with the grid during normal conditions.

So another term that they utilize is sky blue sky mode.

So essentially you wouldn't see any difference.

If everything's working operationally fine, you wouldn't see any difference with that microgrid in the event of a power outage that whoever would whichever buildings are connected to that microgrid, they would be they would have amount uh certain amount of power for a defined period of time, which we'll get into a little bit more.

Um, and again, and this again um this is in um manage a partnership with PGE because they are in our center in our location the grid provider.

Um, and then there's other other entities involved, um, a community microgrid aggregator, so PC would be that in this case where they would um they could come in and support they have it, they have skin in the game essentially, um, as well as um other um other folks that are involved in the uh power production side.

So now we're going a little bit more into the specific program that we're talking about uh for this opportunity.

Um it's called the microgrid incentive program or MIP for short, it's an incentive-based program that's administered by uh for us PGE and it's overseen overseen by the uh California Public Utilities Commission.

This program statewide allow it is has 200 million dollars in funding.

Um they could their awards are dependent on um different, you know, different projects.

Uh essentially up to 14 million dollars in incentives for communities to develop these microgrids.

Uh there are certain smaller uh pots of money for smaller pieces like uh interconnection upgrades, up to a million, up to three million dollars for microgrid, some certain microgrid infrastructures.

They also do um to support applications, they actually provide um 25,000 as well for just application support.

Um, what's uh important to understand is what is the eligibility criteria associated with this uh grant opportunity.

Um we talked a little bit about disadvantaged and vulnerable communities, so I won't go through the list here, but I I put it up on the screen.

Um a lot of the similar things that you've seen in other grant opportunities are listed here, income levels, um you know, Cal environmental screen scores, they also want to target rural areas.

Then when we talk about the vulnerabilities to outages, that's the other piece to this.

So there's uh tier 2 or tier three high fire threat districts.

That's the map that's out of the CPUC's um GIS system you see on the right.

Um, frequency of PSPS outages if you're in a if you're in a high earthquake risk zone, or if there's generally a lower historical reliability of infrastructure.

Those are all things that are required to be eligible for this opportunity.

I wanted to give a little asterisk because as we talk about high fire hazard zones, this map does not look as familiar to us as what we've seen with the updated Calfire maps.

Um so I did I did a little bit of digging into that, and um the CPUC's map was developed in 2018, updated in 2021, the Calfire map, which is a little bit more detailed that uh for the fire hazards, that was started in 2022.

And so um going through some of the back and forth with CPU C and stakeholders, there are a lot of folks that are pressing for alignment with those.

So I would see I would foresee that to happen as the CPU C updates their maps moving forward.

Um I wanted to now we're gonna dive a little bit more into the site options and the scoring and evaluation considerations, which are important when we're considering what sites we should consider for a microgrid facility.

So on the left, I just have uh some scoring and evaluation considerations.

One thing that came to mind when discussing with PC uh the Peninsula Clean Energy PCE was that uh customer and community benefits are important.

So resilience for cons critical infrastructure uh facilities.

So think about markets, think about um community centers, think about schools, uh evacuation zones, meeting spaces, things of that nature would be considered a critical facility.

Um looking at equity impacts and of course services to disadvantaged communities, all things that would be um that would be that would help elevate scores for this competitive funding opportunity.

Then you look at some of the duration um the resiliency benefits.

Obviously, this is about uh decarbonization, that's also a big part of this because you can have um diesel and gasoline generators as backup power.

The whole point of this is to have clean resources as that backup source.

So when you size the system, the duration of that islanding, if you will.

So when system is operating in its by itself, there's no outside source feeding, the power, you know, how long will that last?

That those facilities.

It's kind of a combination of demand on your facilities, size of your PV system, the amount of battery backup storage, all those things will come into play.

It's um the minimum requirements, 24 hours in certain situations.

Um, you know, the longer you are, the longer you can go, the more score, the higher the score you would get for this particular grant program.

Um I talked a little bit about this, but the environmental benefit benefits.

So, what are the greenhouse gas reductions, um, you know, the renewable um energy source integration here, what emissions um compliance uh numbers are we meeting with with this microgrid technology um this concept.

And then with all of that, there's a benefit to cost ratio.

So the higher the resilience and and community value uh per program dollar, it's gonna score more favorably.

With that, there's three general areas, and this is where we want really want to have more of a dialogue and discussion with this council and any members of the public that are interested.

Are you know what areas should we be looking for?

So the three things that kind of came out at uh in in starting this conversation with PC and internal conversations, uh, our south end of town, Kenyonico, for example, has been hit uh more frequently with power outages with higher durations of those power outages.

Umyonico is not isolated in that.

There's folks in the ocean colony, uh Moonridge, um, all of those little pockets of neighborhoods in that area, they've all been impacted.

Um in a higher frequency and longer durations than the other other parts of town within within Half and Bay proper.

I know that there's on the North Coast side, Moss Beach, um, some parts of Algranona Moss Beach, Monterra, they've also seen it.

Uh seen it as well.

But um, again, for us, the focus is within the downtown, uh, the Half and Bay boundary.

The other P um the other um area that we were we were looking at, and this is um this is something that we've been in discussions with PCE.

As mentioned the staff report, we did have a meeting uh with them today, so this is kind of what we're going through right now.

Um, but there was also um several um, you know, the downtown area itself has a lot of um potential there because of the number of critical facilities um that are centrally um that are centrally located um in certain areas you could have a micro grid set up where you could get a couple of schools, um county buildings, uh community center, um, you know, potentially the library, so you have you know critical facilities that would be um that could be um eligible for that criteria and really help boost the scores.

And then one other concept that we're we were we threw up, we are you know pondering on is in the sewer authority mid-coast side wastewater treatment plant.

Obviously, that's a very high, you know, it's a it's a critical facility with a high risk for uh for issues during an extended outage.

They do have diesel generators, but there so there is a pretty significant uh decarbonization uh component that would come to doing a microgrid in that location.

Um but one of the drawbacks would be the limited free number of you know other critical facilities within that.

So when you're looking at it from a competitive uh grant perspective, that might not score as well.

Um I kind of skipped over that one on the downtown half moon bay.

Um again the south side, we the the number of uh uh impacted events where power was lost and the length of time was very high.

That is one of the main reasons why that was that's on the list.

But as far as what's considered a critical facility, it's on the lower end.

It's flipped in the downtown.

You have the critical facilities, but you don't have the duration and the frequency of the of the um of the power outages.

Yeah, you know, I just asked the power of a question.

Deborah, I'm sorry, would you mind turning on your mic so we can hear you?

Is there any reason why um it has to be divided this way in other words?

Couldn't we do a micro-grid system for the sewer authority mid-coast wastewater plant and include another a school for instance, the the high school, which is not that far away.

That's a great question.

I mean, those are the types of things that we were going through with PC, and as we continue to have these conversations, we'll need to do a little bit more digging.

Um, the locations of the utility lines themselves, they do create certain boundaries.

So, depending on where these facilities are being fed from, um, that'll be an important factor to consider.

The high school is within a relatively close proximity, but crossings of high the highway also um create additional costs that may reduce the overall score.

But these are all fantastic talking points where we will um we take note of and we will continue our conversations with PC.

So thanks for pointing that out.

File on there.

I mean, the sewer authority supports all of the critical facilities in town, right?

I mean, yeah, the whole the whole city of the Midcoast.

You know, it seems to me that's a fairly sound argument, is that they all depend on you know, everybody uses tour that's that's right.

See that's uh that's a universal truth.

Yeah.

Just a thought, you know.

No, I appreciate that.

These are these are great talking points.

And so as we continue these conversations with PC, we will, you know, we'll take this and anything else we talked about tonight um to the drawing board.

I I'm on their board, and I had one of the reps come by, he just wanted to kind of schmooze with me, and I brought him over to Nanos for Kava.

And he drove around to go see the EV stations so we can talk about that.

And then we I talked to him about this idea before that we got this email, and we drove to Kenyatta Cove and I told him this is one that's always down out on power, and so is Ocean Colony and Moonridge.

Thanks for bringing that up.

I didn't bring that up, but he looked, we looked at the property in front, and it's like you got this big vacant land, and you need some land, isn't it?

Uh solar panels and everything too, or is yes, so we talked about that, you know, depending on where you're gonna place it.

You could look at buildings and putting placing them on on certain buildings, especially depending on the age of the roof, um, and the you know, and and the visibility, uh the exposure to the sun.

Um, but yes, that that would be a big part of it.

So they have property in front of Kenyatta Cove.

So he was like kind of like, yeah, this could work, you know, and so and then a month later we get this email.

So things I've already talked to him about it on when I do the board meetings, and then had a meeting and a drive and visual, and then we get this email, and I was kind of excited.

Because here we are, one of the priorities that we're trying to resolve is Kenyonico Ocean Colony, but we have to fall into that category.

And I think highly that if we include Moonridge also, but that's county.

I don't know if that works.

So I don't you brought that up, but I don't know how that all works now because that's county.

It is a different jurisdiction.

Um, and so in that regard, we would it would it would be a little bit more complicated, but not impossible.

So again, we wanted to have these conversations to see really what makes the most sense.

Um, and the jurisdictional boundary is one factor.

It's also the system itself, you know, where the utility lines, what zones feed the different neighborhoods.

You may be across the street from a different zone.

You your feed might be coming from somewhere else, and those would be things that would be um would be additional cost to try to bring certain areas into a different zone.

So, but but again, it's all great for conversation as we develop our scope and application.

Just think of water and sewer, but consolidated.

That would be a major critical facility.

Jesus.

Um sometimes with uh grants, right, or scoring, you try to be creative.

You know, I'm just thinking all the pump stations in ocean colony, the uh number of maybe medical facilities in Kenyatta Hove that might you know, I don't know if there's any there, but uh, you know, there could be potentially, you know, just trying to think, because to me that's the part of town we're really trying to address, and you know what we could do to try and encourage you know to look that way.

The other thing though, be I would want to also look at how much commitment is there by city staff.

You know, that to me before you actually file it, I think it's important, especially right now, to understand, you know, what we have uh, you know, the work plan.

If you guys, you know, whoever's gonna manage it.

No, that's a good great point.

I I think I have only a couple more slides.

Let me oh I'll let me wrap it up.

And yeah, and then I um we can if I haven't answered it, we can definitely go back, um, have have a little bit more dialogue.

Um, just uh real quickly on the um this program project life cycle.

We're really in the first phase of this thing.

Um this is a 10-year effort for for this to see to go from start to finish.

Um you're talking about um just the app consultation and the application.

We are kind of getting to the end of the application prep period.

The application submittal would be the beginning of the stage two.

That's uh they're due on December 17th.

And you can see here there's gonna be a lot of conversations about studies, interconnection studies, looking at island studies, and then there's project implementation, environmental review, design, all those other components to it, and then uh you know, within five years, uh four to five years, you would see construction commencement, and then you're looking at operation, and then you're looking at the performance obligations.

So it's a it is not a quick turnaround, but it's something that will um it will require some some staff time.

Um, and so getting into the last slide, uh, where does Peninsula Clean Energy come in?

Um they are positioned to lead these MIP, these MIP projects.

So, you know, they're they would be our program lead.

They're obviously leading uh regional leader in driving these types of uh participation in clean energy and are very familiar with PGE's um inner inner workings as well as this microgrid incentive program.

So they would be leading this application process, um, you know, with support from city staff um on specific local needs and other project information.

So I think right now when we're talking about site design, understanding where the critical needs are, where the facilities could be, helping sub helping find some of the areas where we could put PV systems that are with available land or buildings that make sense, those would be things that we can certainly uh we would be supporting them on.

Um another piece I really wanted to understand was the system ownership and operations.

That's a huge uh consideration.

We are not in you know there are other jurisdictions like City of Palo Alto that have their own utility electrical utility um staff on hand we do not have that and so that was one thing that we I we we asked and they were very clear that whoever would own it in this case it would be PCE they would be responsible.

They did put the caveat that you know they could self-operate it or they could contract this out to a third party but again that's something that their board would have to review and uh approve um as they move forward with uh with the hopefully with the uh application that's approved and again and just the last piece I wanted to put it why this matters is because we want to make sure that we have we ensure a clear lead so that we can establish a streamlined application and and have a defined project delivery.

The only ONM responsibilities again we want to guarantee long-term resilience and success for this project if it gets chosen um we want to make sure that it's um that we can get those uh deliverable performance obligations um and the data we need um and um I obviously you know based on the past conversations um I'd like to hear more about the where it's where the council uh stands on this but we do see this as it as um aligning with certain investments in our community-wide decarbonization goals um as well as equity for some of our um disadvantaged communities and and vulnerable communities that's it's this is um we the recommendation is just to receive this report and we'd like to hear any additional feedback you may have we also have one public comment just can I can I make a quick comment just to add on um Ma's covered it really well and and on very little notice um this this got pulled together very quickly as information came out and we're also grateful to PCE for meeting with us and helping to get us ready for tonight.

You know given all the discussions we've had we made it really clear in meeting with them and and luckily they want to lead you know that the city would it'd be very unlikely we could financially contribute to a project that project like this and that our bandwidth is limited um they want to make a project go forward they want to see it have impacts on the community to demonstrate its value um there may be an opportunity for the city to support that with our limited resources they understand that if a project moves forward they will they will carry the burden on that so that's been made clear and um obviously there will be decision points along the way.

You answered my questions thank you.

So hi it's Jimmy Benjamin again um I've had solar on my roof since 2016 and um I'm a fan uh I you know I think all of the things I saw in this slide reinforced that this is a really appealing idea um there are you know having it in front of the meter um says that the voltages are going to be on the lines between you know whatever is is uh wherever you locate the power supply so that the candidates are the things that are on that line that can be broad and the topology of your system is going to have ramifications right that's significant.

The location where you're providing the service is not necessarily the same as the location where you're providing the charging and storing facilities and yeah I'm sure that PC and E is aware of this and I am keenly aware that our public works director our former public works director are keenly aware of this but uh batteries don't like water um and uh if you put batteries in a tsunami zone and when you have another alternative I'm not sure that's a good choice.

Now I'm not saying it's so hazardous that you should nix the whole idea I live right next to the SAM plant, and I have batteries in my garage.

I move them out to the front of my garage, but they're in my garage, and I could put them in a battery box.

But you know, as you're thinking about site placement, I make a powerful distinction between where you're going to locate the potential combustibles and where you want to provide uh the power.

Um also be aware, or I I would submit um that when the uh utility puts this in, for the battery to operate correctly, they're gonna be having to you know discharge and recharge, they can't just leave it at a fixed uh energy level.

So the the value proposition I saw in the presentation was about energy resilience.

PC and E, sorry, PCE has a different set of objectives.

Maybe they're locating power supplies to deliver in ways that support them, which is great, but when you're negotiating a plan, be aware of the benefits to them.

That's not in the picture right now.

The ramifications for other people that are not critical infrastructure facilities.

I'll just use myself as a selfish example, but it could be one of my neighbors.

Bear with me, please.

Um if the uh if the power is being provided to the SAM plant, it turns out that I'm in the same power block as the SAM plant.

So the voltage that makes them happy is gonna be seen by my meter.

I don't know if that means that I get power from the microgrid or not.

I have power during the day because my solar system will provide it.

But at night, is there some logical thing I have to add to my meter to say okay, you can get power, or something that has to be added to say no, you can't get power.

So the logistics of how interacts with non-critical resources.

There's a lot to think about there.

And I'm happy to participate in the conversation.

There are also other people in my neighborhood that have been in this industry for decades.

So let's be a resource to you and to PCE going forward and try to address these problems in a smart upfront way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jimmy, for the heads up.

Appreciate it.

So I've I gotta say PC is pretty impressive with the projects that I've been seeing on the board and how they're doing for low income and and apartment buildings.

It's it's it's pretty, and they're doing these big solar farms out in like Bakersfield.

I mean, they're huge.

Um their company is pretty impressive.

So I I'm I'm pretty excited.

You know, if we can get something going through this company and and qualify, but I also understand what you're saying, Jimmy, and in Maz.

Um I'm eventually gonna go this end of the month, I'm putting solar panel in on my house.

So I'm kind of getting new into this.

I'll be with Jimmy all excited, and eventually get a battery.

So it's new to me, but I think this is the wave to go, and I think if we can get something for Kenyatta Cove and the people that have been blacked out, which we all heard in the beginning of the year, we're upset this could be an alternative for us to come up with an idea.

Yeah, well, I like what Jimmy said, you know, um, always ask what's in it for them.

And also, um, you know, these are very fast-changing technologies, you know, and we're talking a 10-year project, and you know, just something we have to keep in the back of our minds, you know, like we had one issue with another provider with energy, if you remember, and uh kind of fill through and so you know that there's risks, you know.

You're four years in, you say, Oh my god, here's this other technology that it's much more efficient and smoother, you know.

It's just the nature of the beast.

So it's something um to keep in mind who stays in advance of that and who doesn't, but it's a great idea, you know, and um if we can keep the SAM sewerage running, that to me is such a top priority because it does affect everybody's well-being on the entire coast, actually, not just have fun base.

Anyway, great.

Um, we've ex anything else we've accepted um this report.

Thank you.

May I ask um one question?

Yeah, um, so um let me preface that with a comment first.

These systems, I didn't go into that detail.

These systems are expensive, obviously.

So adding the photovoltaic system and battery backups and doing the interconnection work um for a project maybe a quarter of the size of the downtown could be 10 million dollars.

Um so as you scale up, and you know, that was one question we asked was uh upfront.

How do is it possible to make their entire city boundary a microgrid?

Yes, it's possible, but you know, there's a cost to it.

So if um the reason, so if there's a ranking, I guess that was the question.

Where do you believe staff should talk to PC about focusing on?

If we're gonna have one uh micro-grid project, where does this council believe we should be focusing our efforts on?

Um the downtown obviously is highly uh eligible because of the criteria with the critical facilities.

The sample you can also make it, there was a lot of great arguments about how that would make a lot of sense and check a lot of boxes.

The south side town is a little bit more challenging because of the lack of quote unquote critical facilities, but obviously has the highest frequency of issues.

So is there any guidance that council can provide on where staff should really focus that effort on?

I guess I'm thinking that's the sewer authority.

But I would love to see it in some other critical facilities.

I I'd love to see if there's any way we could do a microgrid to include the high school and the sand plant.

The high school has solar panels in the parking lot.

We do, but those are back of meter, right?

So that's something we can talk about with um our professionals at PC that are putting the application together to get more understanding of whether that could be incorporated into it or not.

I I would I would imagine that the if it's in close proximity, there could be a workaround there to try to create a microgrid, including that infrastructure.

So what if we try to ask PCE and we give them the three scenarios sand plant high school and Kenyatta Cove and downtown or four?

Four.

And which one do you think would be more eligible for the grants?

Is basically what you're asking, right?

What fits the criteria?

Would they be able to guide us through that?

Uh uh they have.

Uh the unfortunately the criteria we have no discretion over, it comes from the state CPUC, PCE and PGE have to operate within that.

Um we will continue to make arguments based on where we prioritize, but really it's kind of uh upside-down equation.

The area that is the most competitive is the downtown.

The area that has, I think the greatest need is the south end, but not terribly competitive.

Maybe not competitive at all.

Um, if we could include the fire station, we might have one critical facility, but we don't, again, it has to be on the same feeder line.

So there's some analysis of PCE would have to do for us.

Um, you know, we will argue to the ends of the earth that we've got vulnerable populations down there, we have facilities that are critical to our economy and to our infrastructure here.

But when you're talking about state criteria, it just may not fly, and so that's gonna be less competitive.

And I think in the middle we have the same plant, which is a critical facility by definition.

Can we make bigger arguments?

And and so really what we're looking for is do we pursue where the most need is, or do we pursue where the most likelihood of actually getting the grant?

I I think if you looked at just the south end of town, I don't think it would compete well against Pescadero.

You know, but I was thinking, you know, we um CKEG uh applied to the federal government for a grant for a federal appropriation to back up all the traffic signals, you know, it's going to create a plan for emergency evacuations and link up, you know, the signal activity so that we could evacuate more smoothly.

To me, you know, the signals, especially in a situation where you have to evacuate, that's kind of a critical facility or facilities, right?

So if you could link downtown and the signals, or a sewer authority, and the the traffic signals, but I think if we could lump in, you know, the the signal backup, I think that's compelling.

Because I don't think we're gonna, I don't think the feds are gonna again another argument we would make.

I the criteria are pretty specific, and I don't remember traffic signals being included in that.

But again, I think it's worth the conversation.

Yeah.

We might maybe need to look at it by you know which kind of emergency impacts, you know.

Well, what if it's an earthquake?

What if it's a tsunami?

Fire, you know, and earthquakes um can kind of go together often.

And that's you know, we haven't hit been hit with an earthquake in quite a while that causes that much damage, but boy, if it does, is it better to have your sewers working?

Is it I mean there's a lot of, and I don't know, I don't have any of these answers.

I'm just saying in terms of trying to plan it out.

I I had a uh a mentor in government years ago talking about an issue, and and she kind of stopped herself and she says, I'm sorry, I'm using common sense here.

I think we make really great arguments here, but we're up against very strict criteria.

And so I think what we really need to know coming out of today's meeting is kind of the way I framed it.

Do we choose the area with the most need that is least competitive?

Do we choose the area with probably the least acute need?

Certainly a microgrid downtown could be beneficial, and it would be very competitive, or do we pick the one in the middle and try to just argue our way through it?

I think that's the feedback we need tonight.

But also you the criteria of what's most likely to win the grant, right?

So Sam without a doubt is an emergency type.

But it's one critical facility.

They score it based on having multiple, which is the downtown.

Downtown.

Isn't somebody on staff sleeping with somebody in the CPUC?

Not that I'm aware of.

They should be.

I don't know how to respond to the I I don't sleep at all.

I'm I'm just constantly awake.

Okay, can I get back to sewer?

Is there any way you can um say it relies on the whole coast?

I mean, it is one facility, sort of kind of, because it it is really part of multiple facilities.

Yeah, I think I think that's something we're gonna have to discuss with the the staff at PC and really get a better understanding because they they're also consulting with the PGE.

They have a rep at PGE that's helping the liaison that helps with this.

Specifically looking at the critical uh facilities and the scoring.

So, I think we should I think we can bring it up and right because I don't want to just do this.

Is me speaking, I don't want to just do something just because uh we can get money for that.

I mean, and I don't want to say downtown's not important, of course it is.

But we know that you know there's some other areas that really could use it.

I mean the downtown has uh it's pretty well connected and it has the ability to survive on its own if necessary for not forever, but good extended time where it's looking at what we just talked about, south end of town and uh the SAM plan.

I don't know.

I think the best uh I think the best thing for us moving forward as a staff is to have this conversation with PC, follow up with them, get them to communicate with PGE and then bring them back for a conversation before the deadline.

I mean, we have to, it's not a whole lot of time, but we have till December 17th for this application to go forward.

So once we get a better understanding of what is competitive and makes the most sense from a cost-benefit ratio perspective, then we can come to council with that information and then decide whether it's worth it.

I mean, that's that's the question.

Is it worth going after something that meets the criteria, even though the benefit may not be there?

Yeah.

The other the other piece I'll just share is if that's where we go, and uh thank you, Maz.

I think that probably is the best recommendation tonight.

Um, is part of what makes the downtown so competitive is the concentration of critical facilities.

Several of them are school district facilities.

Hatch, Cunha, proximity to the library, those things.

Um I have a meeting with the superintendent on Thursday.

We meet monthly, our meeting is this Thursday.

I'm gonna broach this with him and get his stance.

Are their solar panels already taking care of all their needs because they may be a bigger stakeholder in a downtown plan anyways?

We also probably need to talk to the county because obviously the health clinic falls into that critical facility where we would benefit is really our this this strip of land here community center, EOC, sheriff's substation.

Um the other thing that's interesting with the downtown, as we've talked about and and Jimmy pointed out, is some people may benefit from it just by proximity.

The downtown one when we saw the boundaries really doesn't extend to anybody else, but it would cover the event center, it would have covered this facility.

So again, in an emergency, it would keep the lights on in a lot of really critical facilities.

Um, but the point has been made, and I think we agree, this is an area that is not hit hard by power outages, and there's a lot of backups.

So I think what we're hearing, if if I may, is we've got a lot of good feedback.

We have time, as Maz said, we can go, we can shop this some more, talk through some of these scenarios.

We've gotten some great feedback, and we'll return before that deadline for some more direction if that's okay.

Sounds great.

Thank you.

Great.

Um before we wrap up, we a point of order.

If we go back to item 10a, the financial report, we were so excited about all the great news.

We didn't take a vote to accept that report.

If we could really quickly take care of that before we close the meeting, otherwise we'd have to take care of it later.

I make a motion that we accept the financial report for the quarter ended June 30th, 2025.

Second.

Uh roll call, please.

Councilmember Johnson.

Yes.

Councilmember Nagengast?

Yes.

Councilmember Penrose?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Reddick?

Yes.

Mayor Brownstone.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Great.

Any commission committee updates?

Any uh future discussion items?

Any city council reports?

Great.

This meeting is over.

Thank you, everybody.