Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to the December 4th Human Relations Committee meeting.

Somebody open it for me.

I'll call this meeting to order.

Just a reminder that we have agendas in the front of the room as well as online for you all to access.

I will now ask the Principal Management Analyst to take attendance by roll call.

Thank you, Chair.

Committee Member Lester.

Here.

Committee Member McDonald.

Thank you.

Committee Member Smith.

Here.

committee member sylvester is absent committee member webb is absent vice chair chadwell here

and chair poikom here thank you moving on to item three minutes approval the minutes for the

november 6 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. Do I have a motion? We approve. Thank you. Second. All right. All those

in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. All the positions. Thank you. Moving along to item four,

oral communications. 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 9 on your phone

to make a comment on any item not on the agenda. The committee will now receive in-person comments.

Seeing none, any virtual.

Sorry, I was trying to prep a presentation.

there is no all right perfect moving along to item five unfinished business uh we'll talk about

the civic participation ad hoc committee the civic participation ad hoc committee

will present an oral update no action will be taken on this item perfect thank you so much

chair good evening everyone um the civic participation ad hoc committee is still

working on distributing our survey far and wide amongst mountain view residents getting feedback

on how the city can better reach them um and also um gathering information on positive experiences

they've had uh with the city and what has encouraged them in the past to specifically

participate if at all. I believe tomorrow we are meeting as an ad hoc committee to

take a look at the data that we've collected so far and then we're from there going to take the

data that we collected initially via interviews and I think find a way to measure it with this

data that we're getting from the surveys to eventually come back to the committee with that

information. And I'm very excited about seeing the results because hopefully it will inform

staff practices and how we do outreach with the community. So yeah, thank you to the committee

for all their hard work in putting the survey together and the city staff as well for helping

guide some of the conversations and the questions that we're asking the community.

and very excited to see what we come up with.

Thank you so much.

Any questions for the committee?

For the ad hoc committee?

What languages was the survey offered in?

English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

Yes.

And have you had a good showing of all languages so far?

Are we waiting for the data to come in?

I think that's a...

We can respond, committee member, with the number of responses we've received.

We've received on the questionnaire specifically, so this doesn't include interviews that the individual ad hoc committee members have done.

Zero responses in Mandarin Chinese, six responses in Spanish, and eight responses in English,

which is a decent response rate given that we're looking for in-depth feedback,

and they're open-ended questions, not multiple choice.

Cool. Thank you.

And just to add on to that too, on our survey, there is a name portion that you can insert.

It is optional.

The only reason we inserted it was just to make sure if there's an item that you would like city staff to address, they would want someone to follow up with.

So, yeah, but again, it's optional.

You don't have to fill it in if you don't want to.

Any other questions for the committee?

All right.

Seeing none, we'll move on to Know Your Rights Ad Hoc Committee.

The Know Your Rights Adhaw Committee will present an oral update.

No action will be taken on this time.

So, yeah, we just met yesterday.

It was a very awesome meeting.

We're going to be reaching out to key partners over the upcoming weeks to possibly meet all in unison about what this event would look like

and whether or not it would be better in person or virtually, depending on what the residents

are serving would be better served by, right?

And also, like, just being aware of the climate we're in.

So, yeah, we're hoping to complete these objectives or the event by the before the end of the

fiscal year.

So we'll be meeting regularly in order to accomplish that.

and I don't think I'm forgetting anything else.

Am I?

No.

Okay.

So I now open it up for questions from the committee,

if any.

All right.

Seeing none, we'll move to new business.

Item 6.1, Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County.

The committee will now receive a presentation

on this item from Mariana Javro,

manager of the Rapid Response Network

in the county of Santa Clara.

No action will be taken on this item.

Mariana.

Should I sit here?

Okay.

Hi, everyone.

So I was invited today

just to provide some kind of updates

so that you all also have

a better understanding of what Rapid Response Network is,

how we can help the Mountain Dew community,

and also what are we seeing on the ground

when it comes to ICE enforcement

and those threats to our community.

So I'll first run through what is rapid response,

and then I'll share a bit about what we're seeing

kind of in the day-to-day.

And if at any point there's just questions or anything,

let me know and we can pause before we move on because it will kind of be a lot. Sometimes it's

a little bit overwhelming when we talk about our work in rapid response so I'm used to that and we

could definitely pause. So first rapid response network in our county we serve the whole county

of Santa Clara. We do, we are funded by the county and we're also funded by the city of San Jose

and we do have some small but some private funds, but our main funders are the county and the city

of San Jose. Rapid Response Network currently is 10 non-profit organizations. I always like to start

off by kind of listing them. It's Catholic Charities, it's Step Forward Foundation, Human

Agenda, Caras, Amigos de Guadalupe, Pangea, Siren, Luna, PARS, and Asian Law Alliance. These are the

10 non-profit organizations that provide the Rapid Response Network services and are part of the

governing body for Rapid Response Network. We do have a collective governance structure, so there's

not one lead organization in rapid response or one lead person. It's a collective. We guide

strategy and make decisions together. So we also do have one directly impacted community group.

This is a group of organizers. They're from across the county. They're called Papeles para Todos.

They also form part of our steering committee is what we call it, so that we have impacted

community voices in the room, leading our work as well. So at a base overview, the Rapid Response

Network provides a 24-7 hotline, which is the yellow cards that I'm sure you guys have seen in

many spaces. And through that hotline, we provide our services. So that's the entry point to all of

our services. That includes rapid responders. Mountain View, we actually have, we like to say,

our best rapid responders. We do have an active group in Mountain View that is really quick at

responding. They're very quick at verifying and doing all of that work for us. And I'll share a

bit more about what the rapid responders do in a bit. But emergency and urgent legal services.

So whenever a Santa Clara County resident is detained, the mission of rapid response is

that if the family calls our hotline and reports that,

every single Santa Clara County resident will receive, at a minimum,

a consultation from an attorney those first 48 hours that they were detained by immigration.

The core goal is to, if there is bond that can be requested,

if there's a habeas motion that can be filed to get them out of detention,

our attorneys do that.

So the goal is to get Santa Clara County residents out of detention when possible and also to stop deportations that might be expedited.

Sometimes our immigrant community members are subject to expedited removal under various rules and an attorney can attempt to file a motion to stop that and to file some sort of relief for the person.

So those are the basic goals of our responses.

answer immediately to those calls so that no Santa Clara County resident falls through the

cracks and doesn't have immediate counsel for those immediate relief options. We don't take

on each case to represent them long-term. Immigration cases, especially in detention,

they can take months or even years. So someone might be detained for years, sorry, for months

and maybe up until a couple of years until their status is, you know, figured out.

So we don't commit to that because our whole model is emergency.

It's how can we stop the immediate deportation of someone to avoid the family being split immediately?

And how can we also, can we file something to get this person out of detention

so that they can be with their family while they determine their immigration status?

So that's the main goal of rapid response. And that's what we do through our emergency and urgent legal services.

When someone calls us that their loved one was taken that same day, our attorneys, we have attorneys on call that drop everything and immediately start representing that person in front of ICE.

so that's sort of the model that we run um for outreach and education we do know your rights

praises presentations in english and spanish we're working towards in january we're going to

start offering those presentations as well in tagalog um we'll have someone on full-time staff

to be able to do that um so we do those presentations as well we also know where every

response is very specific in the role that we play because we're attracting with immigration

every day and we are attracting with what is new and what is happening now. So there are

know your rights presentations that we provide. We know a lot of groups provide them as well,

but ours also include how can rapid response help you and what is happening today? Who is at risk

today? Because it changes every day. I mean, even with what we saw last week with the violence in

D.C., this week we've seen our Afghan community members being targeted, and we can quickly shift

and we can know what information to tell community for how to be safe. So that's what we do in our

outreach is we incorporate Know Your Rights and also what is happening now in our county,

because what's happening here is very different from what's happening in Chicago,

from what's happening even in San Francisco. It could look very different.

We also provide family support. So what that means is when a family goes through our legal services because their loved one was taken, we do have a case manager on staff full time who then is tasked with helping the family stabilize.

is getting them through social services that they may need,

whether it's applying for Medi-Cal now,

whether it's finding childcare, low-cost childcare,

when it's also helping the parent that has left

build a resume, find jobs.

And we do have emergency financial assistance

that we can provide to those families too.

What we've done in this last year is oftentimes the family member left behind was the caretaker.

So taking care of the children, not the one that was employed.

And they don't have access to the bank account for their partner because they were never added.

And the banks are very complicated and it takes a long time to figure that out.

So they don't have money to pay their rent.

So we've been able to provide emergency rental assistance to those families in that emergency situation. Now we know that there's HPS in our county, right? Those rental assistance programs to the county of Santa Clara.

We also help families apply through those programs for long-term assistance, knowing that the rapid response financial assistance is very limited because it is coming out of donations that we get.

So we do try to help them also get them through social service programs for long-term.

We also do accompaniment.

Accompaniment is once our responders are accompanying someone to their ICE check-in.

ICE check-ins are one of the main places that people are being detained.

So that way someone doesn't go alone.

And the goal is hopefully it will deter ICE to see that, hey, someone's waiting for this person.

So they might not be such an easy target.

And we, I mean, we do strongly think that that has worked in our favor because we've seen cases where the person should have been detained based on their demographic and their story.

but with one of our allies sitting with them they were let go so we we do think there's power and

I seen someone with them and these are allies you know it's usually you know our our folks that are

not impacted that are there we also accompany people to court dates immigration court hearings

and criminal court hearings.

This year so far, we've confirmed one instance

where ICE did detain someone

in the San Jose Hall of Justice

waiting for them after their hearing.

So we have started also offering that service

because we want to make sure

that people can be responsible

and go to what they need to go to

without fear that immigration

might be hanging around waiting for them.

So that is a basic overview of all the work that we do.

And I'll touch a bit more about like what we've actually been seeing.

But before we go there, I we always show this slide, like what does rapid response look like and solidarity and numbers?

Our team has trained in 2025, 4000, over 4000 people as responders.

not everyone ends up registering at the end of those trainings because they have children and

it's harder for them to commit because maybe they don't they're moving or they don't live here

anymore or they only work here and they might not have the time so not everyone ends up committing

so that's why we see a smaller number of currently registered but we do have 1,600

4,600 currently registered responders. Mountain View has a great response team. I don't think

we've ever had an alert in Mountain View where we're panicking, figuring out who's going to go

because our responders are quick to act. So it's one of the cities that we have the best response

We do have currently 13 active patrol teams. So with our responders, we have organized patrols where we know that across the country and even in California, home depots have been used to target laborers.

and ICE would just show up and start picking people up.

So we do have consistent patrols at all the Home Depots in Santa Clara County.

There's 13 of them.

And we have people patrolling them from like the earliest is 6 a.m. shift, 6 a.m.

And then the latest, I think, is like 4 p.m.

because that's when there's no more people around.

So we did start those patrols.

back in September and they're still active even though we haven't seen any raid we're still going

because we would rather be safe than sorry right and that is with our responders who have committed

to do that extra extra work. We have this year so far I've had to add a plus because today there

was a couple of arrests. So 170 residents plus have been detained and we've provided service to.

We know that not everyone detained will call rapid response. We know that people,

they might not know that we exist or they might not need our service because some people could

afford a private attorney. So they just go that route. So we know this number is not the whole

picture of how many people have been detained in our county. But it is, at least we're hoping it's

a significant snapshot of most of the people that have been detained. So that's that number.

And then we have worked, we have really focused on seeing what's happening across the country

and other cities. When raids are happening, they're happening in public spaces. They're

happening at a shopping center. They're happening in front of a, at a market, in front of a school.

They're happening in spaces. They're not really going into neighborhoods so much. They're going

into those public spaces because their intent is to go and do damage and leave. So we have focused

heavily on investing time to build relationships with businesses and schools. We've really focused

on areas that we know have larger immigrant communities. So East San Jose, for example,

is a big area that we know could be heavily impacted. And we have worked, we have provided

450 plus businesses and schools trainings. And along with the trainings, they have committed

to display rapid response cards, posters, know your rights cards at their businesses and schools.

So hopefully, probably not in these businesses near here, but if you're ever in an area that might be heavily impacted, hopefully you do see those cards.

Because that's one of the big goals is just getting the hotline information out so that people know who to call when they need the help.

I will say that compared to the beginning of the year, we get a lot more calls and people.

it's very clear to us that it has worked to the outreach since it does,

we do get more of those calls and more of those requests for help.

Like I said, our work is activated through the hotline.

So this is just like a little graphic that shows how it works.

A call comes into the hotline.

There's three scenarios that our team would be activated in.

And we also want to always remind people that don't call our hotline for general information.

Sometimes we get people calling and they think that they're talking to, I answered the call the other day and, oh, I would need help renewing my Medi-Cal.

I mean, here's somewhere else you can call.

You know, this is rapid response.

This is what we do.

We also always answer and we say this rapid response emergency line.

How can I help you to try to remind people this is emergency line?

So these are the scenarios in which we would actually be able to provide service.

And we hope people only call us for those things.

So reporting suspected ICE activity, and that's when our responders are activated.

Reporting detention of a resident, that's when the attorneys are activated.

And so is family support.

And then if someone has an upcoming ICE check-in or hearing, that's when accompaniment is activated.

So those are the pieces and those are the services that we provide, emphasizing that it starts with a call to the hotline. Call, not text. We don't review text consistently, so we could miss if someone's asking for something through a text.

A lot of people like to DM us on socials. We keep telling people stop, please, because we don't have staff to monitor those spaces 24-7.

But we do have staff to answer calls 24-7. So just consistently reminding people it's a call that needs to happen.

um and then this is just some like snapshots of ice activity that we've seen in our counties

thus far um in mountain view we haven't seen ice in our neighborhoods now we have we do know there

have been mountain view residents impacted have been detained but they've been detained either

at an ICE check-in or an immigration court hearing, not in front of their home, not in

their neighborhood. Really, the neighborhood and the home detentions have only occurred in San Jose.

And then we had one in Gilroy. But what it looks like is, like those cars, they pull someone over

as that person is leaving their home. These are usually pre-identified folks. So for some reason,

they were flagged by immigration to be detained. It could be because they had previous contact with

immigration. It's because maybe they had some contact with the criminal courts or because

they are currently applying for some immigration relief. So it could be a variety of reasons.

Fortunately, in our county, up until today, we've only had people detained who were targeted.

We haven't had collateral arrests, which means that ICE is looking for someone else and they happen to find X person, so they take them as well.

We haven't seen that, but we know that that could quickly change the way that it is happening in other cities.

And the way that immigration enforcement is currently working is they're putting all their efforts in one city at once, because right now the number of agents that they have for our whole region is not enough for them to do what they're doing in Chicago here.

They just don't have enough agents and they don't have enough space.

But, you know, once they bring in more agents from another city, the way that they're doing in other places, then they will have capacity and they will do it.

So that's kind of what we're preparing for. And also know that we have seen a lot more enforcement, even with their limited capacity, than we did under Biden's full administration. So they've still ramped up significantly. And we know that they're also supposed to be hiring a bunch of new agents starting January. So that could also change quickly for us.

But I mean, this is what it looks like targeted so far, covering their faces.

always I think

after January

is when we saw the shift from

that first foot on the top left

the little fort

is January

late January

early February they were still

unmasked they were

wearing things that actually said

like federal agent

or

one of them had ice in the front

but that was pre

February and then after February we saw a shift where not every single arrest their faces are

covered so face masks is is happening um those other photos um show those examples um the vests

are not clearly indicating that they're federal agents um one of the agents it's it's not zoomed

in enough but um one of the agents in the picture with the three with the faces covered his vest

just said police gang unit and that's so misleading because we know we have a gang unit

in all of our police departments and we know that they work undercover mostly

but his best just said police gang unit and he was immigration enforcement and that was an arrest

where they arrested a man who had his children present which is also very different in the past

immigration when they saw children with the individual that they were targeting they would

give the person a notice to appear to their office in a couple of days and not arrest them in front

of the children this year we've seen them arrest parents in front of their children um in that

specific um where that photo came from the children um were under five years old there

was three of them under five and they were alone with the agents for about an hour

and the agents were calling mom threatening to take them to social services if she didn't get

there quickly she was working in palo alto and this was san jose um and the agents just

sat there with the children with no one else watching them children mass men who we don't

know who they are right um and that's something that's so strikingly disturbing and different

from other administrations is the fact that this is now encouraged for them to do.

So that's an example of what that looks like now. When they go out and to arrest people,

they're not guiding vehicles that are marked. Their vehicles are unmarked. When we do see the

marked vans that have the federal government license plates is when they're transferring

people that were already arrested but that usually happens like in the back of a car gate

or somewhere it's not happening inside like neighborhoods so they're not coming into our

neighborhoods in their marked vans so that's another reason why it's hard to tell when it's

them at least the masks helps us know that this is them these are some other images just wanted

to show some other examples of what it's looking like some of the beautiful examples that they

need to be um i mean clearly the hyundai with the gray hyundai up there those two guys were not

even wearing vests they were just fully masked up and that to me looked really creepy and scary

let's not look like law enforcement um and they were detaining people um while dressed like that

um yeah just some examples of those um I'll share um well this one of the things we always tell

folks is when they're we get a lot of calls and it's undercover police and it's undercover

sheriffs um we've been building relationships with our police departments um Chief Penfield

has been a great person to be in contact with,

has been great at if we ever get a call

that sounds like it's probably police undercover,

we can quickly check with Chief Canfield,

for example, if he will confirm for us,

it's MVP, it's not immigration.

So we've been trying to build those relationships

so that we can minimize the number of alerts

we send out responders to,

knowing that most of the time

it is local law enforcement that is undercover and people just don't know what to look for.

We do a lot of community education to show them like what undercover local law enforcement looks

like compared to ICE. The two images on the left show our local that that was SJPD undercover

compared to ICE undercover.

What it looks like, clearly, for example,

the two gang unit vests are very different.

One has a star badge.

And our SJPD and all of our PDs,

when they're undercover,

they have a badge on them somewhere.

And if you ask them who they're with,

they will tell you.

And immigration will not.

They will refuse to answer questions.

They will cover their faces

and they will not have a badge on them.

So, we're working on providing that education so community know what to look for. And we also know that when we see law enforcement, our impact to community are just, they're not going to look for those signs. They're going to be afraid and they're going to leave. And they should do those steps, you know, leave if they're concerned.

um so that's what our responders are there for to help confirm and verify um and even

the two bottom pictures um the best spokes said police um however san jose police say san jose

police immigration um we haven't run into this and we don't think we ever will because that's

a whole other legal issue that they're going to run into.

But they don't claim cities on their vests.

So, for example, they will say police gang unit,

but it's not going to say San Jose police gang unit.

The way that sounds like police gang unit usually does say San Jose police.

So we're also giving that feedback to our local law enforcement

so that we encourage them to use vests that clearly see their city.

So that's another way for folks to tell who is who.

And then just some context for like, what is, what is, you know, the fear looking like? What is the need looking like? In its launch year, rapid response was created during the first Trump administration.

and that year 1,600 calls were received by the hotline. This year in the first nine months of

2025 it reached double the volume of those calls from the first administration so we know we're

dealing with a whole new threat because the way that things are being done this time around are

very different from the first administration was a lot of threats a lot of less mass enforcement

and now we're seeing more mass enforcement.

And even in June alone,

we received 968 calls in that month,

nearly a thousand calls in a single month.

June 2025 is when immigration began the raids

in the LA area.

That is when things started.

And clearly our community up here,

we weren't seeing it, but people were on edge.

People are still on edge

Whenever there's raids in our neighboring cities, neighboring states, people are on edge and they're just waiting for that to happen.

And they're calling our hotline more. They're reporting more local law enforcement.

They are asking more questions. And we also are seeing more detentions, more arrests.

just you know briefly I do want to highlight that our hotline is 24 7 I have picked up

at 3 a.m at 11 p.m so we are available 24 7 we do have dispatchers that are all bilingual

English and Spanish and we have a language interpretation line so when we do have callers

that only speak Vietnamese when we have callers that only speak Farsi we are able to still

communicate with them and we want to make sure that people know that that any language we will

respond to so that is something that we've really invested a lot of time and energy into this year

we also know that from all of the reports about suspected ICE activity in the first quarter of

this fiscal year which is July through the end of September so those three months we had 146

reports of suspected ICE activity to our hotline those that means we responded 146 times

only four percent was actually immigration so again people are on edge any law enforcement just

you know scares folks there's also a lot of misinformation on social media that we have to

combat every day pretty much where someone will post a rumor and then now we're getting a bunch

of calls and we show up to the location and there's nothing it's quiet we talk to the people

around there they have not seen anything all day so we're also trying to work on you know reminding

folks the dangers of social media anyone can post anything for views and it doesn't mean it's true

we had in July we had a really big rumor spread that supposedly immigration was going to do raids

in Willow Street in San Jose businesses which there's a lot of immigrant-owned businesses on

that street and someone started this rumor on social media it got traction and businesses closed

for like two three days our team was out there we were telling people like there's no presence right

now um we had to remind people that these are just rumors ice is not going to give anyone a heads up

or they're going to do a raid so when we see something online that raids are coming to

Mountain View in, you know, December 10th, whatever. I can put that up right now. It will

probably go viral within the community. And there's no actual, you know, that's, there's no

backing in that. Immigration is not going to give anyone a heads up when they do plan an operation

like that. And we keep reminding folks about that. And we also know there's just a lot of fear and

concern. So we're trying to combat that with a lot of outreach and education. And it was new for us

in this first quarter where we did recruit and train 145 responders to provide that

accompaniment that I mentioned. So we trained from our already trained responders to do a specific

task since we have over 1,600. So we have the people power to do it. We accompanied 18 Santa

of Clary County residents in their immigration processes

in the first quarter.

All of them were walked away.

No, no detention occurred.

And then these are a lot of high charts, sorry about that.

But for our legal response,

so we understand who's being targeted.

The nationality of people detained

in those first three months of our residents, 56% were Colombian, followed by Mexico and then

El Salvador, India, Vietnam, and some other countries. But 56% were from Colombia. Now,

that also tells us a lot about our immigrant community in our county. In the last five,

six years, we've seen an influx of asylum seekers. And the majority of those asylum seekers,

at least in our county, are Colombian nationals. And it's very clear that that is the makeup of

our community now, of who's at risk from this data. And because when you're an asylum seeker,

you're already in immigration's eye, because you're going through an immigration process.

So asylum is a process. Simply put, you're asking the country for asylum and you agree to be in the country with a work permit, with permission while that case is resolved by an immigration judge.

It does not mean you have legal status. It just means that you have been not officially paroled in, but you are awaiting a decision from an immigration judge.

Now, because Colombians make up the biggest group of folks that are in that proceeding, they just happen to be the biggest group of folks detained.

We know that a lot of people, I think the ISEP office is where people are required to check in. People that are in some sort of immigration proceeding are required to show that they're physically still here and complying with the rules to be here.

25% of the arrests in the first three months were at this office. These are people that are

complying. These are people that should not have been detained because they have been granted some

sort of permission to be here. Similarly, in that SF Immigration Courthouse, which is where all of

our Bay Area residents were in proceedings, there's only San Francisco courts, and then there's

another court in Stockton. I think Stockton has one, but most are San Francisco. 41% of the arrests

occurred at the courthouse. And what happens at the courthouse is someone is going in for their

asylum hearing and their first hearing, they're just presenting themselves to the judge to tell

the judge that they're still here and they're still applying. And what the government is doing

is the government is showing up as opposing counsel

and asking judges to end the cases before they even start

so that they could detain people.

Most of the judges have not allowed those motions.

They have not allowed them.

However, the government is then creating allegations

to justify detaining these people

while their case is still pending.

So essentially you're tricking people,

go to your immigration court hearing

because you have to,

and we're going to try to get your case thrown out

and we're going to detain you if we're not successful.

We're still going to detain you

while your court case is completed.

Now that could take weeks, it could take months,

but also when someone is detained,

it's then expedited so it's a strategy for the government to pressure people into accepting

deportation what we hear from community members all the time is they don't want to be in that

prison and it makes sense you don't want to be in a prison you're it's literally a prison

so the government is forcing people's hands to say to sign that auto deportation

So people are not even waiting until the end of their cases because they just don't want to be in a prison.

So it's a strategy for the government to pressure to break people.

It's a strategy to detain people and to deport them.

And it's one that is violating their right to their asylum hearings.

So that's sort of what we're seeing.

So the 41 and the 25 percent, that's where most of the arrests have occurred.

immigration courthouse the ice check-in office in san jose and also some of our residents do

check in at san francisco's office for whatever reason um so that makes up most of the arrests

so these are people that are in proceedings that should be allowed to be in the country

now 12 of the arrests in the first three months occurred outside people's homes meaning that ice

had an arrest warrant for them and waited for them outside their home.

So that's a very tiny number of people compared to everyone else that's been detained.

To highlight also, most of the residents that have been detained in the first three months

were from San Jose, 59%, followed by Sunnyvale being our second highest city

where people that were residing there were detained.

And then Gilroy and Santa Clara.

I think Mountain View is one of those smaller little bars.

Sunnyville is close enough.

Sunnyville is the second most impacted city.

And it also just depends on where our community is mostly migrating to, right?

And it's where people have settled in.

Yeah.

So that's some basic data. It's a lot of data.

That one's all the advice. Yeah.

So rapid responders, these are allies,

U.S. citizens that volunteer. They volunteer to whenever we get a call to the hotline,

we activate the specific group. We're not sending it to everyone.

everyone. We separate by region. For example, East San Jose is its own group because San Jose is huge.

Mountain View is its own group. Mountain View is small enough that people can get to point A to

point B quickly. So for example, if we get a call from Mountain View, we will send a message to the

Mountain View response group, and then they will let us know who's on their way, and we communicate

with them. The goal is to verify, observe, and report. So first verifying, is it immigration?

Is it not? Observing if it is immigration, what are they doing? Keep an eye on them.

Document, document, document. They continue to violate people's rights and it doesn't feel like

things are working, but as much as we can document and help with these lawsuits, then we're hoping

that it will eventually start working. And then also just reporting to the community to let them

know when there is like a widespread rumor or there is confirmed ICE arrests or activity. We do

post it on our social media accounts. Right now, that's sort of the only place that we're doing

that, social media. We are currently working on a text alert system that people will be able to

sign up for. And when we do have confirmed activity and presence, they will get that text.

The goal for that text system is mostly for raids. If raids start happening, we want to be able to

get the word out quickly. And then I kind of already walked through this, but just a graphic

on how it works community calls the hotline um our dispatch we use signal so they will send the

message through signal responders then let us know that they are available and on the way

and then we communicate with the responders um during the um during the the time of the alert

to get information and close it out.

So that is pretty much all for me.

I'm happy to answer questions as needed.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

Eric.

Give me a quick second, Joan.

I just have to recite this before I open it up to

committee member questions.

So seeing at the.

I open it to public comment, but seeing that there's no one present.

And is there anyone online?

Okay, perfect.

I now move it to committee member questions with Joan.

Okay.

Do we have any awareness of whether wards have been served to people

or are most of the arrests or detainments warrantless?

So the majority have been warrantless.

So for immigration, to detain someone,

well, now rules have changed with the Supreme Court's decision,

But usually they need a warrant for arrest that is given to them from the Department of Homeland Security.

But that only allows them to arrest someone in a public space.

So it doesn't give them permission to go into someone's home.

And in a public space, they can't use those warrants.

And it's as simple as they send a name to a supervisor and the supervisor sends it back to them signed.

So it's not like they're building an actual case or proving that the person is undocumented. It's a quick signature that they get from a supervisor.

There has been instances and concerns of moments when they're talking to a community member, they're approaching someone because of their appearance, they ask them for their name, and as soon as they get the name, they send it to their supervisor via message to then create a warrant in that moment.

So, I mean, the warrants don't really take a lot of work for them, and they don't prove anything except that they know the person's name.

Now, a warrant to go into someone's house and arrest them because of their status, those are very hard for immigration to get because the judge has to agree that this person presents some national security risk.

So we've seen those for like big drug, you know, cartel members, things like that, or terrorist groups in very rare locations. We have not seen any of those in our county thus far.

Yeah.

Yeah. So thank you very much for that presentation. I have several questions. So I'm thinking maybe I'll just ask one or two and then kind of give others a chance to go around.

My first question is, let's see here. Do you have any recommendations for resources for businesses? And what I mean by that is a small business that might want to be an ally.

Like, for example, I put some cards up at a coffee shop in downtown Mountain View that it's an independent shop.

The owner is is all into it. And just I know that the owner would appreciate some understanding.

Like, is there a way that if there was a raid happening nearby that we could declare like, hey, we're closed for a private function.

Now this is a private space and it's a lot harder for people to enter this private space.

I'm just wondering, do you have recommendations for further learning on that topic?

Yeah, for sure.

And when we do our outreach to businesses, that's kind of the strategy that we take is we start with those recommendations.

And so basically, first recommendation is for businesses to have clear signs before any ICE presence that designates that it's a private business.

that they can refuse service and entry to anyone.

So having those signs up, which most businesses usually do already,

and also designating if anyone's concerned about employees,

if there is like a kitchen area, if there's a break room,

putting private signs and signs that say like authorized personnel only.

Those signs, while immigration agents might still violate them,

At least there's clear documentation that they violated the private business space.

So that will help someone maybe out of detention if a judge agrees that the arrest was conducted illegally.

So those signs will be helpful if that happens.

Now, when it comes to businesses shutting their doors when they know that there's immigration enforcement happening nearby, they're in their right to do that.

You can shut your door and you can refuse entry to anyone.

And that's, you know, simple as a public space is only considered public when the door, you can easily access it without some sort of barrier.

So, for example, if an ICE agent can just pull the door and walk in, then it's a public space and they have some justification for why they entered.

Now, if a space is locked, clearly they can't enter. So they walk away and they're not allowed to enter.

So, yes, businesses can shut their doors and that's enough of a protection for clients and for employees when there is immigration enforcement nearby.

They don't have to justify it. They can just keep their door closed and we're closed for the day. Right.

It is important, though, to mention the risks. When someone is in a hot pursuit, we saw this happen.

One specific case that we use as an example happened in a medical plastic surgery office in I believe it was L.A. or one of those adjacent cities.

it was SoCal for sure um someone was being chased by immigration and they ran into the business

now the business employees blocked access from immigration and they struggled with immigration

the government then charged those employees with obstruction and those charges um they were able to

be they were reduced to like misdemeanors but they were first filed as felony charges um but they were

able to stick because um ice needs a warrant to enter a private space like a business when it's

closed um only if it's uh so they need a warrant generally a hot pursuit is an exception because

they're chasing someone and they see the person walk run into the business so a hot pursuit is an

exception for warrants. Warrants are not needed when there's a hot pursuit. So an agent has the

right to enter the business. So that's one of those like situations where if someone does run

into someone's business, they should know the risks. They might, they could be charged with

obstruction. And that's the only situation where it would be considered obstruction. Now, if ICE is

just walking by and trying to enter their business because they see people inside um and the business

doesn't open the door that's not obstruction because you're close period and i cannot say that

you know um it was a hard pursuit because there was no one specifically that they were chasing in

um so there is that exception which is a very unique and but it's all very possible if there's

the raid you know people might start running trying to run into businesses um as long as a

person's not already being chased by an officer then they can run in and you can shut the door

and that's fine but if an officer's behind them trying to arrest them then um there are risks for

the business owner or the employees okay so maybe walk in the line of being open to people coming in

but you don't say, hey, everybody get in here. We'll hide you from ice. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Because I mean, yeah, I mean, if you yell that out, that's not a good look. Yeah. So it's a,

it's a fine line of people that are around you come in, you know, welcome. We're going to close

the door. And, you know, not someone that's running away. It's going to be a hard decision.

and it's going to be in the moment, whoever is at the door, right?

But if you let that person in, then the agents are able to come in.

Thank you.

Did any other committee member have a question?

Did you have another one?

Yeah, I do.

So something that I'm curious about, and this might be too detailed for tonight,

But you mentioned the family support aspect of the RRN.

You have a full-time case manager.

Is it just one full-time case manager?

Okay, so I'm guessing it's a lot of kind of triaging situations.

Yeah, and I will say not all families opt in to that service.

Some families don't want the case management, but they might want some other resources.

And it's kind of like a one-off service.

Okay, because I guess then this might not be as relevant yet.

But I'm just wondering, I imagine a lot of that work is referral to other safety net services.

Like, hey, you live in San Jose.

Here's the local organizations that if you're not already in touch with, you should get in touch with.

I'm just wondering.

Have you had conversations about the impact of new strings attached from government funding for a lot of those local organizations?

um like the government having new rules for um like cdbg funding saying that if you're going to

have government funding then you have to check immigration status things like that that might be

a bit looking down the line a bit i'm just kind of curious like is that something that's

on your radar or just you're you know not there right now in terms of dealing with it

i will say that most of our referrals were actually to um county services not really

other organizations okay because um what people need in those moments are access to mental health

access to um rental assistance food benefits um so those are like the immediate needs that we help

people find and that's usually with the county it's usually with um a health clinic um and it's

It's not really, I think very few times we refer people to other social, to other nonprofits.

Maybe when it comes to the rental assistance county programs, because those are through nonprofits.

But then at the same time, those are county services that don't have those limitations, those restrictions.

Got it.

Okay.

I had three more small questions.

Is that okay, guys?

Go for it.

Okay.

One afterwards.

Go on.

Okay, really quick one, just kind of summarizing in general badges.

Star, good, shield, bad in terms of who you're trying to identify.

Star, local law enforcement.

Right, sorry, sorry.

I apologize.

Star, local law enforcement.

In terms of identifying.

Yeah, I apologize.

That was the wrong wording.

In terms of identifying who you're looking at.

Star, five star, a little five star is local law enforcement.

Our sheriffs and all of our PDs and highway patrol,

they use that star shape and say something different for each one but it's a star now um

federal all federal law enforcement officers use the badge that looks like a shield shield okay

like a shield with the eagle on top so the shape is a really like quick tell do i see a star if i

see a star then it's going to be our local law enforcement um and we know our sanctuary policy

so yeah should not be a risk to our immigrant community and that's really helpful they um i

focusing and outreach on identifying local law enforcement. Yeah, and we always tell folks like

local law enforcement, it's easier to identify is a local law enforcement versus is it, it's easier

to tell that it's local law enforcement because you can even ask them if you're someone who's in

a, you know, you're not vulnerable, you're, maybe you have status, you can ask a police officer,

like if they're undercover hey what agency you're with and most of our cops are um i think all of

them most of them are we'll we'll confirm we'll let you know they're all required to identify

themselves so they will identify themselves as mountain view police um they will show you a badge

if needed one thing that we tell responders always is tell you who they are ask them for a badge

if they're not wearing it visibly because we also don't want to run into situations where

immigration starts saying that there's san jose police oh um for example we haven't seen that at

all yet um but i don't know maybe one of them goes but rogue right um so if they're not wearing any

um if they're not wearing their vest if they're not wearing their badge on them which sometimes

they don't sometimes when they're prepping for an operation um or they're doing some kind of

undercover work, they're not wearing their badge visibly. But if you ask them, we have not

encountered any situation where they have declined to show us a badge. And if they don't have their

badge, they will show us their police ID card, which will say the police and the badge number

and everything. So it's another good practice is ask for a badge if you don't see one on them.

Got it. And then last one, I promise.

is you mentioned one of the things that the government would like people to do is take the

elective deportation option and like I've I've heard that advertised like on the radio station

which is incredibly depressing I'm just wondering has the RRN held people with legal advice who are

considering that option and I'm just kind of wondering has there been an uptick like what's

the trend there are people taking it i mean more more and more often that's the decision people

make so our attorneys are um dealing with you know they're providing the legal counsel they're

walking the family through these are your options this is what um you can pursue a lot of these

folks have relief that they are eligible for so they can fix their immigration status but once

they learn that it's going to take weeks, maybe months, maybe a year in detention and in the

conditions that they are in. A lot of these detention centers, they're not even sleeping

on beds. So people ultimately decide, I want to be deported. And our attorneys have helped people

with that process. Some people have also called us without being detained and they want to

self-deport before getting detained. So that's also advice that our attorneys have been able

to provide to people so that they can do it. Because also we want people, if they choose

that option, they need to speak with an attorney because if they have a pending immigration case

and they just leave without letting the country know, then they might risk becoming ineligible

in the future if they try to come back for an immigration relief. Thank you. Committee member

Smith. Two real quick. Are there other response groups in other counties or do you guys have

connections with them or are you guys pretty much individually for your counties? We do have a

regional group where we coordinate. There are rapid response networks for all Bay Area counties

and we're all generally the same a little different here and there I will say also depends on the

resources that we each have Santa Clara County we do have the most resources financially

so we do have the most robust rapid response we do offer I mean everything that I listed not all

other rapid response networks offer that they don't have the capacity so we do we do have

regional coordination. We have a signal thread where every day we're in communication of what's

happening in other places. Even just it's important for us to be in touch consistently with San

Francisco since the courthouse, immigration courthouses are there so that when our residents

are detained, they then refer them to us when they get the information that we don't. So we do have

regional coordination. We are also preparing regionally. If we do start seeing raids regionally,

it's the same way it happened in LA it hit LA and then it hit the smaller cities around so we

we know that that's the way it's going to be in our area as well so maybe they'll target

SF or Oakland first or maybe San Jose because of the Super Bowl right and then our other cities

will also be impacted so we are working on coordinating our efforts so that we have a

stronger response together if and when that happens uh the last one is is this not impersonating a

police officer as long as they don't put the city name on it because yeah because i was always told

i couldn't do that because it was against the law but if i can do this i'm like this opens options

for me i mean it's something that we struggle with every day because a lot of these things

are just flat out illegal okay okay we are like they are they are flat out illegal somehow they're

saying like i'm not saying a city so it's yeah and we also know that um attorney general is not

in the charge the department of justice is not going to um put a stop or charge immigration

agents um so um and we the where we haven't reached the point yet is our states our city

is going to do that so that's a whole other if the cities and states want to start doing that

it's going to open a count of words of like what is federal local who has authority where

but whenever there's an incident with any federal agent the way that it works with federal agencies

is they're taking the issue is taken to the department of justice okay and then so i don't

know, it just dropped recently, so I don't know if you'll know the answer to this one, but the state

just opened a complaint line or report line and that kind of stuff. And do you think that would

fall under something to report or under qualifications of illegal or bad behavior?

With the California Attorney General's office, rapid response networks have been meeting with

them for months. We've been giving them all the legal information up until the point of creating

this portal was to get community members to also start sending in things that we don't capture.

But we have, since the start of the year, been feeding information towards our free general. Now

the issue becomes when and how will they actually charge these agents? And there's a lot of, again,

And it's politics at the end of the day is, will our state, they're saying we have this portal now.

We've also been feeding them information for weeks, for months.

When will they actually do something?

And that's sort of what we're waiting for, right?

When will they actually take that step?

That will obviously kind of have a trickle effect on relationships with the federal, at the federal level, which, I mean, are not good anyway.

So they should just take the bullet.

Thank you. Any other questions for the committee?

Oh, committee member Lester.

Thank you for the great presentation. It's good to get regular updates on what this activity is looking like.

And I think one of the questions that I had actually relates to the public versus private spaces.

So the city of San Jose and Santa Clara County recently passed ordinances that are keeping immigration officers off of city and county owned.

I don't know if it's property or if it's specifically they can't enter those buildings, even though they are technically public spaces.

And I was just wondering, I was it does do the same rules apply if it were a business as it would a government building under those ordinances.

so government buildings um under those ordinances it should apply the same rules

um i mean we saw examples when they were in chicago where chicago pd was able to block access

from their you know police station to the officers they just wanted to use the restrooms

they were still able to deny access um now i think ultimately what becomes the question is

does everyone in the government county buildings and the San Jose buildings agree?

Because an exception to ICE entering a private space is if they have a warrant or if someone lets them in.

Someone with authority lets them in.

So if you have a security guard at the county building, let them in.

A security guard has authority in the building.

so ICE could walk in and they could justify because that person granted access to them

that's some of the complexities of when our governments pass certain ordinances

something that I always struggle with is it's great and also that's implying that everyone

that works for you agrees to follow this policy right some people have different politic views

some people um right so we we can't i mean a city and a county can't um force anyone to to follow

that um they might have faced consequences after the fact but it will be after the fact the fact

right um and then my second question was kind of relating i i guess with hundreds of thousands of

people coming here for FIFA or the Super Bowl. How is the Rapid Response Network preparing for

what will likely be if, I mean, it could be one day where there's like 150 million calls because

there's, you know, agents that are stationed outside these events. And it's a very, we're

working on practicing, preparing because inevitably there will be DHS agents. That's normal when it

comes to large scale events, DHS actually is the partner for the city of Santa Clara for the Levi's

stadium. So they've always had that relationship and there's always been DHS agents present at

Levi's stadium. Um, we actually, yesterday we had an alert in San Jose, um, DHS agents and the

sheriff's office we're training at the derrida station downtown now what we know is again dhs

will be present they're going to bring in more officers they will be at our stations that are

you know they will be in our spaces simply but now what we keep hearing and what we heard

yesterday when we were talking to those officers we're not here to do immigration enforcement

However, that can change.

You work for the Department of Homeland Security, so at the end of the day, you can do immigration

enforcement.

One of the things that we're going to have to figure out and we're still working on is

we're actually working, we're launching a campaign in January, starting January 1st,

educational campaign of what is DHS, because I think that will also just help people understand

better.

One of the comments that we received when we shared about the Derrida training that DHS

was created with the sheriff's office from community members was, isn't this violating

sanctuary policy?

And we have to remind people, sanctuary policy applies to immigration enforcement.

The DHS has different umbrellas.

It has TSA, which TSA is mainly going to be the one involved in the security for those

events.

and it has these other parts to it that they might assist with immigration enforcement but

that's not their principal objective so we're launching a campaign through our socials and

we're working with news stations in Spanish and English to do some segments starting January up

until the Super Bowl and even after the fact for the World Cup to try to educate community of what

to look for when to call rapper response don't call us if they're just walking around the stadium

call us after you see them trying to arrest someone because of their immigration status right

call us when that's happening but we know that we're probably going to get a lot of calls

of people just inside the stadium like oh they're here yes they will be there and so we're trying

to tell people they will um and call us when this happens and that's when we will respond

it's also conversations that we are having with the stadium um conversations about well can we

have space for responders to be in the stadium and also if they don't agree to it ultimately then

responders who's going to the world cup and if you while you're there enjoying yourself can you also

be our our eyes right um so it's it's going to be complicated it's going to be very heavy those

few months um and also december 5th just tomorrow they announce what countries

will be playing in what cities.

So tomorrow we're going to also have a better idea.

If we see mostly European countries,

we think the risk is going to be much less.

But if we see countries from Latin America,

from Africa or from Asia,

that's where we're going to have to really prepare.

And we're also working on once those come out tomorrow,

let's prepare ensuring that we have any posts

that we make in those days, in those months,

are in those languages as well.

Currently, our capacity is English and Spanish

for like our communications.

And we're working towards building

so that when the countries come out tomorrow,

if there's, you know,

if a,

I don't know the countries that play,

but like if Brazil plays,

we'll invest in Portuguese, right?

So that's some of the strategies

that we're thinking of.

It is going to be a lot of,

a lot it's gonna be a lot it's gonna be a busy year for our area for San Jose for all of our

cities um that are obviously gonna get people coming into our hotels people um coming into

our restaurants and such um but we um we'll do our best to focus focus on the immigration

enforcement and not necessarily on DHS agents just walking around the bus yeah thank you

Thank you for your presentation, Mariana.

Thank you again for the rapid response showing up for Dia de los Muertos.

We heard from a lot of community members how it was a stressful day, but seeing responders

there canvassing the area brought a lot of comfort and a sense of security for them,

knowing there was an agency out there for them.

Just a quick question. So within the network, is it only people who are at risk that can call the network or can any other resident call the network to report an eye sighting?

Anyone. Most of our reports about ice hitings come from non-impacted folks. Anyone can call. We only, obviously, we only limit service when it comes to the legal service. Like, that is for people that were detained within 72 hours and were detained by ice.

Sometimes we get calls from people whose loved ones were taken by local law enforcement, and we do just let them know it's immigration.

Really, public defenders are there.

That's the only moment when we would restrict.

And the caller calling in to report and ask for the help does not matter their status, does not matter who they are, as long as the person that they're speaking for is a Santa Clara County resident.

We do verify addresses because we also just don't have capacity to help people outside of our county.

So we do verify residents.

Perfect. And so thank you again also for differentiating between like an administrative warrant as well as a judicial warrant.

Are there things that you see?

We've just got to witness kind of a sample this year of what this administration can do and the harm it can cause.

to our communities. Are there other potential things that like the rapid response are preparing

for that we not only as a city, but as commissioners, committee members can start

sharing amongst the communities that we are connected with? One of the things that this

administration did quickly was expanded who is a priority for immigration enforcement and where

will they do immigration enforcement.

I think we all saw early in the year

where they removed the safe zone designations

for schools, for churches, hospitals.

We actually, El Camino's here in Mountain View.

We had earlier in the year,

a Sunnyvale resident being treated

in a Mountain View hospital, right?

And immigration blocking access to the family

and to the attorney.

now um actually meeting with them tomorrow the hospital um but one of the things that we're

consistently trying to learn from the hospital systems and also push them is if we and we've

seen already four hospitalizations this year and we will probably see more and more and more

um when i shows up with someone who has been harmed because of their arrest

will the hospitals give access to our attorneys will the hospital give access to the family

at the end of the day the person once they're in the hospital they are a patient so it's not the

same as if um someone who was in a jail is being brought in it's not the same um process this

person has just been picked up by immigration. They haven't even been processed by immigration.

So they're technically not in custody fully at that point. And that's when they're being brought

into the hospitals. So it's a larger conversation about will our healthcare systems allow people

the dignity of having their family with them, of having their lawyers with them? And I think that's

a much larger monster that we need to tackle. And it's something that we want to, we need help

pushing hospitals on. El Camino being one of them that did not do a good job the first time that

they had the incident. They did a pretty bad job. And recognizing that also some of these hospitals

are private systems, but at the end, hoping that our government entities can help push

these private entities right so that's one of them is we know that the hospitalizations will

just continue and um it's important for us to um have those conversations ahead of time of

what is your response going to be are you need to allow family you need to allow a lawyer

to speak with the client um and then also one of the things that we're consistently

seen is immigration is changing every day. Policies are changing every day.

And people's statuses are being revoked. TPS was ended for some countries earlier this year,

meaning people then became undocumented. We know that our Afghan community members are being

targeted now um we saw four we saw five people picked up monday um from afghanistan and um

newly targeted venezuelans as well we're on that list of undesirable trees with the president

so the also just helping the message of stay up to date on your status you can't emphasize it

enough to people is it is a responsibility that you need help with yourself to know has my status

ended because then then you will understand what risk you have and for example we had a resident

a san jose resident detained at the san jose airport she was inside waiting for her flight

and then agents approached her and took her she did not know that she had been granted a removal

order because she missed the court hearing she didn't know that the court hearing was pushed up

and she didn't know that she missed it now our messaging then becomes you need to check these

things you need to be up to date i didn't know was not an excuse especially when it comes to

immigration immigration court um there is portals where people can check that um and those are up

to date so um emphasizing greatly be up to date on your status that's one of the best things you

can do for yourself and then consulting with attorneys as often as possible we have seen an

uptick in fraud um attorney fraud um where people are scamming people and contacting them via

whatsapp um claiming to be attorneys and that people are paying them um so it's also really

important that people are aware that they need to be very careful with the attorneys that they speak

to and trust a Chinese that they can see, that they can be in front of, and that they can verify

their bar license. So I think those are the things that, you know, right now are most pressing with,

you know, also DACA being up in the Supreme Court soon with, I think that's another group that

we have we have concerns of if that status is terminated now you're opening up hundreds of

thousands of people more to be detained um and daca if you're not familiar with that program is

i mean these are our teachers these are our doctors these are um you know community members so

um it's very important to stay up to date as much as we can and with reliable information i

so often hear from people oh i saw on tiktok that this new law passed i'm like no

tiktok is not a reliable source so also what sources are we using right tiktok's not one of

them um those tiktok lawyers are not trustworthy um so um just yeah all that information i know

that's a lot but no no no thank you for sharing that and last question um is there anything so

So I think a lot of the themes that have been coming up through conversation has been like this impending actions that the administration is going to take and ways that cities or especially the rapid response network, the subs are taking in order to prepare themselves for that eventuality.

Is there anything that you would like, like local elected officials or even things that we can recommend to our local electeds on ways that they can support rapid response efforts or even our local residents themselves?

One of the things that right now we're going to start looking at is the county's budget has been hit.

cuts are

cuts are coming

and

99% of the rapid response budget

is the county of Santa Clara

we don't

there's you know we're very

concerned of will we have the same

level of funding and if we don't have

the same level of funding we're going

to have to cut back our services

and we're already

scraping through where every dollar

we're using as much as we can

and for example our 24-7 hotline we're not actually receiving the funding to sustain that

but we're making it work now if we lose funding we're gonna have to cut the 24-7 hotline we're

gonna maybe have to do a couple of hours it's not sustainable for us so one of the things that we're

going to begin our little advocacy project is we need cities to help and step in city of san jose

is the only city investing in rapid response.

City of Sunnyvale is the second most impacted.

There's zero investment.

And we're not talking about,

we don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars

from each city.

But if we get 50,000,

if we get 100,000 from each city,

then we're making up

for what we might lose from the county.

So that's one of the biggest things

is with all of the county's budget cuts,

we are very concerned about the sustainability of our efforts and we are looking at will cities

be the we need to meet with cities and see what investment they have in rapid response and

also looking at the need for local law enforcement, which I think Mountain View is in a good position

from conversations with Chief Canfield, but more outreach from local law enforcement to community.

We in San Jose, we have a huge problem with just their relationship with our local law enforcement

and community and that distrust is just there.

And that's just natural with community,

distrust of law enforcement.

Now what's going to happen if that grows and grows,

people are going to stop reporting crimes.

People are going to be more susceptible

to abuses and such.

So we really need our local law enforcement

to invest more time

in making meaningful connections with community.

And that's not just making little videos

with AI in Spanish, the way San Jose police did.

It's actually going out and talking to community,

meeting them where they're at.

So that's sort of what is definitely needed

and the city can help with.

But I will say that for rapid response,

getting the messaging out of our hotline,

be that being front and center of messaging,

it's something that we work with the county

to make sure that they're reminding people

to call the hotline, call the hotline,

call the hotline. As much as everyone can help get that messaging out there and those yellow cards,

that's the greatest help we can receive. Second to helping us develop.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mariana, for your presentation and your information. We truly

appreciate it. All right, y'all. So moving on to item seven, committee member staff, comments,

questions and committee member reports no discussion or action will be taken on any

questions raised by the committee at this time state law prohibits the committee from discussing

or acting on substantive non-agenda items would anyone like to make a comment

remember sylvester thank you very much um well tonight is actually my last night on hrc

sorry I'm just letting that comment the visual comments again after seven and a half years of

amazing projects and community impact and friendships and connection literally dozens

and dozens of people staff the community commissioners that have come and gone I call

them all friends now I'm moving on and I just want to just express my gratitude and share a

couple of thoughts here tonight with all of you, if I may. I've been very proud of the work the HRC

has done over these seven and a half years and before that, giving voice to our community members

who often don't have a voice or have less than a voice than they deserve. Some of the things I've

worked on that have been really impactful to me were multi-year, multi-year community-driven

project on the history of housing. I'm really proud of it, both for the impact it made in the

moment, but the fact that that research is still used by communities and cities, the research

itself, but also the model that we did has been copied in cities around the Bay Area.

So I'm very excited that that created a body of work that is reusable and impactful. I also

really love the work we did a few years ago, this time of year on the storytelling of our vehicle

residents and safe parking, back when safe parking was very, very nascent in this community.

Those storytelling essays actually helped Joe Smitty and get us funding at the county level.

So I was very proud of that.

But it was also an honor to hear people's story and step into their lives and get to take time with them and see them for who they are and get to share that out with our community.

I had people tell me after that project, you know, I thought those people, famous phrase, were X, right?

Bad people, lazy people, whatever.

And what you wrote changed my perspective.

And I see that they're just people like me raising kids and have dogs and trying to make a life.

So thank you for that.

So those are probably the two most impactful things I'll take with me forever.

But I'll miss all of you.

But I've already connected with all of you personally and in a million other community activities.

So I'll just wish you all the best in what you do going forward in HRC.

And remember, the most important part of HRC for its success is the community and friendships you build among each other.

So with that, thank you all for everything, the community, the discussions, all of it.

And to staff, thank you, Laurel and Michael, for all your hard work with us through Thick and Vin.

I'll miss you too.

Thank you so much, Committee Member Sylvester.

Would anyone like to say anything for Committee Member Sylvester?

I'll miss you.

Thank you.

but it wasn't very much warning.

Surprise.

I was in shock.

But yeah, it was really great working with you

on the civic participation committee.

And you brought a lot of years of community perspective

to this body.

And yeah, I really appreciate all the work

that you've done over the last seven and a half years.

And yeah, I wish you the best going forward.

I'll try to wrap up my part of that work.

And I really look forward to seeing what you do with it.

because that, I guess that would be my third most impactful or favorite project on HRC,

but I felt since I haven't quite finished my part, I can't quite count it yet.

So look forward to see what happens with that.

Yes, thank you, Iris.

It's sad to see you go, but, you know, I'm grateful for the years of service.

And I appreciate you kind of reflecting on the highlights of HRC.

And I want to thank you personally for being my connection to join the HRC.

I remember going to the History of Housing event.

I forget why I ended up going, but I just thought it would be neat.

And I was like, this is neat.

And I was like, I asked how I could get more involved.

And you said, oh, human relations commission.

And, you know, here I am.

So thank you for that.

I'm really honored I could bring you in.

Yeah.

And at least a couple others of you.

that are here tonight.

Actually, the housing project was what brought me into a...

Nice.

And I was able to fill in a lot of gaps.

True.

And Mike can wove a wonderful tapestry with this one's urging and help to make it a really wonderful experience

for people who had just moved into Mountain View,

as well as people who were born here and are my age,

and almost nobody is around my age.

So it really gave us a healthy and happy perspective

of what

Mountain View

has been and is

now.

Thank you for your contributions.

We're one of our big interviews.

Do you see?

Okay.

It's okay.

I'm not going.

Now I get to go to your house.

There's no limit of how many people can

bother you.

I have never stopped you. You know where I live.

So you haven't been over. So just come on over.

So thank you so much, committee member Sylvester, for seven awesome years under the HRC in the past.

You laid for many of the current and future members to onboard.

I remember when Council Member Rodmides was trying to get me into the HRC and I was being iffy about it.

And then you met me for lunch and taught me all the things that the HRC is capable of doing and more.

So I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart what you've brought to this committee,

the example you've laid out for all of us and the exemplary committee members you've always been.

so thank you so much thanks for taking that lunch with me oh my gosh um wow i miss you

don't miss me too much i'll be here i'll be everywhere she's gonna be another committee

right she'll be yes parks and rec but i'm still doing lots of stuff you'll see me

the tree lighting and they'll still be serving our community so you'll be here

I'm writing public comment every month.

Oh, I hadn't thought about that yet.

But yeah, I'll attend your meetings and bug you.

Careful what you wished for.

You said you missed me.

You'll come to our meetings with goodies.

I could. I should.

Any other comments from the committee?

Christmas tree lighting on Monday.

I don't know if Rose mentioned it, but the city's holiday, I forget the actual title of it,

but all the pretty lights turn on.

there's going to be santa claus i'll be there come hang out i'll be there i promise i'm gonna

try and get there early so my kid can get a good spot to meet santa claus oh he doesn't know who

he is but that's so uh one last thing uh so committee member lester and i uh went to the

youth advisory committee um this past month i want to say right uh it was yak it was interesting

to hear that it's like what can yak do for you and we're like yak it was an awesome group of

leaders honestly um so many things we shared with them were like our perspectives of being able

to do shared work uh amongst uh as committees especially as uh we're doing our know your rights

uh ad hoc committee work uh that's starting now and seeing what kind of uh fruitful uh endeavors

that we can all bring about through the uh through shared work so anything you'd like to add yeah no

it was it was really great and it was it was i mean i i don't remember in high school being super

inclined to be civically engaged locally so it was really inspiring to see 30 kids sitting around a

table and you know a couple of them leading a meeting taking minutes like understanding how

the civic process works um and then i think they we also gave them the opportunity to participate

in our civic participation survey, which I hope we'll see responses from them. And so I'm really

excited for the opportunity for cross collaboration and kind of creating that pathway to leadership,

starting at that young critical age, and also getting that youth perspective into the work

that we do as well. Because, you know, we try our best to represent as many voices as we can on here.

um and youth is one of those voices yeah thank you so much and with that i move us to item eight

adjournment adjourn to the next regular meeting of the human relations committee scheduled for

february 2026 at 6 30 p.m in the plaza conference room at mountain city hall virtually on zoom

thank you so much have a great evening

Thank you.