Mountain View Human Relations Committee Meeting - November 7, 2025
Mountain View Human Relations Committee Meeting - November 7, 2025
Note: The transcript indicates the meeting was held on November 6, 2025, but the instruction specifies the date as November 7, 2025. This discrepancy is noted here for accuracy.
The Human Relations Committee (HRC) met with all members present: Chair Poiton, Vice Chair Chadwell, and members Lester, McDonald, Smith, Sylvester, and Webb. The meeting covered approval of minutes, an update on the Civic Participation Ad Hoc Committee, an informational presentation on Community for All programs supporting immigrants, and committee member reports. No action items were voted on besides minutes approval.
Consent Calendar
- The minutes from the September 4, 2025, regular meeting were approved unanimously (motion by Committee Member Lester, second by Committee Member Ida Rose, all in favor, no nays).
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were made in person or online.
Unfinished Business
- Vice Chair Chadwell reported on the Civic Participation Ad Hoc Committee. The committee has been meeting monthly since September. Two data collection methods are now being used: (1) a survey distributed to email lists to reach those without regular meetings, led by Chair Poiton and Vice Chair Chadwell; (2) interviews, led by Committee Member Sylvester. The committee plans to compile and analyze the data in December, with the goal of generating insights for city staff on community outreach and civic participation.
Discussion Items
- Informational Presentation on Community for All Programs – Deputy City Manager Kimberly Thomas presented an overview of federal immigration actions affecting local government, including reduced funding, sanctuary city funding risks, and restrictions on benefits. She highlighted the County of Santa Clara’s support: approximately $10 million to the immigrant community, with $8 million allocated to legal services, plus funding for the Rapid Response Network. City initiatives include the Community for All Grant Program ($100,000 total, $10,000 each to five organizations: Day Worker Center, Stand4, Community Services Agency, and others), the multicultural engagement program (translation in English, Spanish, Chinese), a multi-department working group, and a new homelessness prevention program (Pathways to Housing). A Community for All action plan is under development. In Q&A, committee members asked about: conditions on CDBG/Home grants (staff noted review by city attorney, unsure of current status), coordination for upcoming events like FIFA/Super Bowl (county-led effort, not city lead), potential bans on immigration enforcement in city buildings (not yet considered, but being looked at via the Immigrant Protection and Empowerment Network (IPEN)), grant demand (first round had less demand than expected, second phase launching January 2026), school coordination (city not directly engaged, but school districts are proactive), and ways to disseminate resources to the community (staff will share updates via email and website).
Key Outcomes
- Minutes approved.
- The Civic Participation Ad Hoc Committee continues data collection and plans to finalize analysis by December.
- The informational presentation was received; no action taken.
- Meeting adjourned to the next regular meeting on December 4, 2025, at 6:30 PM in the Plaza Conference Room and virtually.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good evening, everyone. Uh I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the November 6th 2025 Human Relations Committee. Uh like to let the public know that we have agenda copies available for the public, uh, should you choose to get one. Uh I'll now tell the principal management analyst to take it to my roll call. Thank you, Chair. Committee member Lester. Here. Committee member McDonald's. Committee member Smith here. Committee member Sylvester. Here. Committee member Webb. Here. Vice Chair Chadwell. Here and Chair Poiton. Here. Thank you. Moving on to item three, minutes approval. The minutes for September 4th, 2025. Regular meeting have been delivered to the committee members and posted on the city hall bulletin board. If there are no corrections or additions, a motion is in order to approve these minutes. So move. Second. Thank you. Got it. Committee member Lester and second by committee members Ida Rose. Um all in favor say aye. Okay. No nays. Motion carries. Moving on to item four oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda. Each speaker has up to three minutes to make their comments. State law prohibits the committee from acting on non-agenda items. For those attending the meeting via Zoom, please use the raise your hand function or press star nine on your phone to make a comment on any item not on the agenda. The committee will receive in-person comments first. Seeing none. Do we have any online? Seeing none. Okay. And we'll close item four. Moving on to unfinished business. No action will be taken on this item. Thank you, Chair. Um the Civic Ad hoc particip uh civic participation ad hoc committee has been meeting um I think at least once a month since September. Um and we kind of regrouped uh when we realized that our a lot of our schedules were um super busy and we wanted to find new or wanted to explore different opportunities of collecting data um on civic participation in the city of Mountain View. Um so Chair Poicon and I are going to be working on um distributing our questions that we developed in a survey format to various email lists. There are also some organizations and groups that do civically engage but don't have regular meetings. Um so we figured that using email distribution lists could help us reach folks that don't um meet regularly or perhaps um don't have the same opportunity to um get out in the community and interview with us and then committee member Sylvester has been taking the lead on continuing the original format that we were using, which is interview.
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