Thank you.

I'll call the meeting order at 9 a.m.

May 6th CPPC meeting.

This meeting is being conducted with a virtual component.

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yesterday were forwarded to the CPBC.

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will not be read during the meeting, but will be entered into the record for the meeting.

Recently, regional and local elected and appointed bodies have been subjected to disruptive racist verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments.

The City of Mountain View is fully committed to racial, religious, and cultural equity and justice as we strive to create a welcoming, safe and inclusive community for all.

This advisory body uh welcomes respectful and non-threatening public comments regarding matters over which the advisory body has jurisdiction.

Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to council code of conduct to the council code of conduct and the government code may be grounds for immediately terminating a speaker's comment period.

And I'll ask uh deputy city manager, Miss Thomas to take roll call, please.

Good morning.

Uh Chair Ramirez.

Here.

Councilmember Showwelder here.

Joining us virtually.

And Marilyn here.

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to item three approval of the September 30th, 2025 CPC minutes.

Does anyone have any comments or questions about the meeting minutes?

I have not seen any comments or questions, so we'll go to the non-existent public comment.

There are no members of the public.

Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes?

There's no one online.

Oh, there is someone no comments online.

Oh, okay.

Well, we do have public power.

We have staff.

Oh, okay.

No members of the public.

Okay.

Although the staff could also make public comment.

You're welcome.

No one has raised their hand.

Okay, thank you.

Um a motion is an order.

Second.

Thank you.

Um let's do a roll call vote.

I still uh chairman.

Yes.

Council member show welter.

Yes.

Mayor.

Yes.

Passes three zero.

Awesome.

Halfway.

Item four uh is 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.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for three minutes during the session.

State law prohibits the CPBC from acting on non-agendized items.

Any member of the public like to provide comment on an item that is not on the agenda.

We do not have members of the public.

That right?

Right.

Then we will close oral communications and move to discussion and action items.

5.1 proposed council policy A-13B, community engagement in public meetings.

Ms.

Thomas will present this item.

Uh yes, then I'll be presenting that along briefly at the outset.

In fact, the window right, our chief communications officer.

This is a policy that will be managed by our communications division.

At the outset, I wanted to flag if there are any questions you might have about the policy kind of mechanics and the various components that our communication team works on.

Lincoln would be best to be able to respond to that and then I'll carry on the rest of it for any adjustments or edits that they may associate with the policy.

Linka?

Yes, and as you'll see with the uh policy before you the draft policy that it memoralizes uh all the facets and ways that we conduct outreach to the community, especially to those who are from underrepresented populations.

Okay, I do have a question.

Are we to questions?

What we were doing at the outset is we were going to take questions specifically for Linka about the communication uh policy or strategies, um, because she is going to step back and go back to the EOC.

Uh and so we wanted to see if you had any specific questions associated with the communications program or any of the elements that are highlighted in the draft policy.

Yes, I did.

I have a question about the use of storyboards.

I didn't see that listed.

And that is a really important way to, and I might have missed it.

That's possible.

No, no.

And it's I just know that it's really important for uh neighborhood meetings.

Yeah.

And can you be more specific by what you mean by storyboards?

Because I want to make sure that what I think it means is what you are referencing.

Can you be a little more specific?

Yeah, it's those um they they're like uh realtor signs, kind of that are put up in um parks and uh corners and things um that just have little uh notices on them of all sorts of things, of public meetings and oh do they have another name?

Okay, uh it depends.

Um okay, but I understand what you're referencing.

Uh this in the policy, we have uh, as you'll see it's broad that it may include, but it's not uh exclusive of anything.

So we've highlighted a lot of different ways that we promote meetings, and one of those also includes uh something that the city clerk's office does as far as with posting meeting announcements outside city hall.

So that is one way, but I welcome the suggestion and I will take that back.

Uh, but it does not exclude us from doing that based on what is in the draft policy.

But thank you for your question.

Well, it's well, it's been the custom for many years to do it for all sorts of things, and it's very effective.

So I mean, you know, all the meetings related to the um parks and rec strategy plan were on it.

Um we often have surveys on it when there's a neighborhood meeting.

So it's just it's it's a long-standing custom and it is effective.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, we can certainly add it.

Yes, council member, we can certainly add it.

And you'll see that let's say for various neighborhood meetings, we'll use what we will call A frames that will have information or we'll have a frame.

All right.

Yes, and for our uh CNC neighborhood meetings, you'll see that we often use A frames that we'll place in the parks that are near where the neighborhood is uh meeting is taking place.

But thank you so much.

We will include it.

Yes, I just didn't know the name.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much, council member show Walter.

I have a couple.

Um I one of the things I'm I've grown sensitive to is even though council policies are designed to be uh updated more easily than ordinances, sometimes we forget and we don't update them, and you end up with things like broken rings or inconsistencies between practice and commitments.

Uh so I'm curious about like, is does it make sense to explicitly link to some of these um uh participation uh venues, and does it make sense to have uh commitments to certain certain frequencies?

Uh yeah, Chair, I uh with the policy that uh is broad, however, I think we can incorporate that because what something that we were trying to do with the policy is not have it committed for uh decades to come because as we all know, technology changes and how we communicate has been evolving so quickly because before I think 2007 there wasn't social media, and so we're trying to make the policy flexible enough that what are the different communication tools that are being used that they could be expanded or they can uh no longer be utilized.

But that's a we can incorporate that into the policy though, as far as if to check back in five years or have something.

Oh, what were you thinking of then?

Uh well, so for instance, I like the YouTube channel.

That's typically how I watch meetings.

It's easier than what I start, but YouTube may not always exist as YouTube for a few years ago.

X was Twitter, you know.

Um, so I I think we'll Twitter.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't do it.

But I think the question is the next item is around the challenge of keeping council policies updated.

Some of them haven't been for decades, and that's just because there are a lot of work to do.

This may not be the highest priority.

So does it make sense to say this is, you know, these are the links to like ask memory, supposed to be updated, right?

We can we could probably we could either two things.

We could either add a section in there that says this policy will be reviewed every three years or every two years, or at such time uh updates are necessary.

For example, if YouTube gets bought or changes, so we could add a little caveat there at the end of it, or if you specifically are thinking of wording, we could add, then we could do that too.

And here, Rama's just to add that you'll see on uh under item one public notice of participation in the second sentence that it does give us that flexibility in which it stated such efforts may include but are not limited to the following methods for providing notice of public meetings and encouraging public participation that are subject to modification as determined by the city.

So the key aspect of such efforts may include, but not limited to.

So it gives us that.

So if you want to be prescriptive, or say we'll update it or we'll look at it every few years, we could do that too.

Uh well, I'll uh go to the city attorney and then I'll have some ideas.

Good morning.

Um I had a suggestion.

We could easily incorporate language like I was looking at specifically the reference to the YouTube channel, and we could say the city's YouTube channel or other social media platform that becomes available in the future shall provide live streams.

We can definitely add language like that throughout the entire policy that says or other or as things become available, right?

And so if what you're looking for is sort of flexibility so that the policy itself doesn't become stale in the event that it doesn't get back to council, we can if you just provide direction, broad direction to work with the city attorney's office to incorporate um flexible language like that, or other things that become available, we can absolutely write that in.

This the Brown Act is very um deferential to cities for this particular policy, and so we would be happy to do that when we reviewed it.

I think the initial thought was what does the city have right now?

And so that's what we were writing in, but we can easily put that kind of flexible language in there if you wanted to give broad direction for us to do that.

I I think that makes sense.

The other idea I was thinking is having like a reference to an exhibit A or something that has the list of the current um venues or uh the media that we use, um, which maybe could be updated administrative.

So you don't have to go to the CPBC in council.

Either way, I think uh sort of figure out how to, but the the point is well taken that there's language that could be incorporated to help keep the policy ever green.

Uh so that that was my question.

Um any other questions, and then we'll go back to the presentation.

Yeah, which will be brief.

Thank you so much, Link.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

So just with a brief preamble to that, it was a Senate bill 707, kind of that amended the Brown Act on having this uh section to the code, which does require the cities to adopt a formal written policy, establishing the new requirements for the community engagement and public meetings, a very positive thing when we reviewed all of our outreach methods, both of our communications division as well as our as our city clerk's office, essentially all of those suggested components that were included in that bill, we were already doing or had a component that was very similar.

The statute uh essentially required that we adopt this policy by the support of the city council at a city council meeting no later than July 1 of 2026.

So that's why we have recommended this policy as well as a prior policy you have already adopted, which is for a separate component of this uh update to the Brown Act, and that was council policy in 13A.

So we're proposing this uh A13B, um, and it will all tie to the council meeting policy uh for the community uh to ensure that we are meeting the Brown Act requirements.

Uh that's really in summer is uh that's recommendation to the council that you adopt the policy recommending it to the city council, and we will take it to the city council uh by the end of session uh in June to ensure it's enforced by July 1 of 20.

Wonderful, thank you.

Any remaining questions?

Um in the community engagement actors number two, um, part C.

I like it a lot.

But in this might be a broader question, or it might be just like I like what it's doing.

Outreach to community advanced schools, nonprofit organizations, and progressive civic leadership.

Is that all just under the city's multicultural engagement program?

Or like is the multicultural engagement program bigger than I thought it was, or uh I but this is under the umbrella of communications overall.

It includes uh the components for NEP, which is our diversity outreach in multiple languages for the community, but also other components uh that the city does are various events and other meetings.

Uh, that does all go through our communications team.

Uh so that's what that is referencing.

Also, Link uh did not mention it, but there is a continual process every two years uh they look at updating their outreach plan.

Um so that's something that is consistently uh done by our communications team, ensure they're current.

Okay.

I guess the the concern I have is that like I like the call-out to that to the multicultural engagement program.

I just think that our outreach should be more than just the multicultural engagement program and the aspects that it mentions that it's for the multicultural engagement program, it's actually very good.

Yeah, but I just like is it all I'm not sure if I'm making any sense.

Yeah, I think I'm hearing that you would like to us to add some enhancements to this section of the policy, uh, to ensure that we're highlighting the city's overall efforts for engagement, not specifically solely focused on MEP.

Like I do like that there is an emphasis on there, but I like I want it like the outreach.

Like I said, that language of the outreach of community best school nonprofits, all of our outreach should be related to that, not just MEP, but I do like there's a call out to MEP.

Right, so I get what you're saying.

It's not that it's just only in the MEP section, that in general that we do outreach to nonprofits and advocacy groups, which we do.

You know, I think you all are aware of that, that various departments and for various agenda items we do that.

So I think we can just reframe that.

Maybe it's adding and we can talk about it, Kimberly, but maybe if you're just adding a separate letter that says um, you know, that staff will engage with local advocacy groups or local and regional advocacy groups, community nonprofits, um, other local government agency partners, and we can kind of figure out what the list should be so that it's all encompassing and not just under MAP.

So I get what you're saying.

We'll add that as a separate letter.

Any questions, council member Showelter?

No, I guess my only, well, yeah.

One question is about the addition that you've just made.

Um, I I do like that, but I would also want it to be as appropriate.

I mean, I don't think you needed to, you know, yeah.

So, and we could even put that language in there, you know, comma, as appropriate, uh, or as as needed or as necessary, um, so we can make sure that we write that in a word that makes sense.

Uh great.

Let's uh turn to the non-existent public comment.

Do we have any?

Okay.

Um then we'll return to the committee for uh deliberation.

Any comments, and then I'm gonna propose a motion that I think captures a lot of what we proved.

We may also want to add as appropriate group like live streams.

As much as I would love to have our council meeting live stream through Twitch, which would be amazing, um, but the as appropriate, whatever language comes to or like not just YouTube essentially, or whatever information that comes after it.

Um any remaining comments, Councilmember Show Walter.

Okay.

Uh well then uh for the sake of simplicity, I will move uh that the committee recommended uh that the city council approve council policy A-13B, community community engagement public meetings with the following additional direction.

Uh one uh for the city attorney's office to incorporate flexible language or uh consider listing uh the media websites and other uh communication channels in an uh attachment or exhibit that may be updated administratively to ensure that the policy remains green, and two, to add under section two community engagement efforts, a new uh sub-section that uh also includes engaging other governmental partners, community groups, and nonprofits as deemed appropriate by the city administration.

In addition to physical signage, and also to include council member Showalter's recommendation for physical signage to storyboards to help broaden our um outreach.

Thank you.

Uh any remaining questions or comments, um, if none, is that clear for staff?

And confirming what city attorney's office as well.

Yes.

Council members show up there.

Yes, yeah, Ramos.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

We will move on to 5.2 update on council priority to update council policies, legislative, contracts, templates, and other documents.

Thomas will present this item as well.

Yes, thank you.

And I also want to call out that I've got uh two wonderful interns that are at one that's on the uh Zoom with that as well as one that's here with me.

Uh, they helped us significantly in a lot of survey for this, and so uh we appreciate all of their assistance on this project as well.

Uh the fiscal year 25-27 council work plan, prioritized council policies, legislative contract templates and other documents, a review of these to check status uh and see what the uh current needs were to update those various items.

The city does have a large number of policies as well as legislative and contract templates and other documents.

Due to this volume and staff capacity, these have historically been updated on an as needed basis, uh, or in response to major changes in federal legislation or other uh newly adopted strategies.

This council priority has really provided the opportunity for staff to take a more comprehensive look at these policies uh as well as the various other documents and check in on status of where we're at.

We also developed a framework to provide for that analysis to begin to prioritize them and prioritize our work that will be done over time.

So for this, uh what we did is we provided a review of all the council policies.

Um we'll talk a little bit about more about that framework and what that feedback was.

And then we also uh looked at our legislative and contract templates, delved a little deeper to see what our status was there, and we looked at the various other documents that the city does, of which there are so many.

Um but what we looked at specifically was templates, uh graphic identity, those kinds of things associated with those documents.

So with that, um, I will highlight the latter two two components first, and then I'll talk more about the council policies because that's where I think we've got some depth of work that we still need to get to, but that's okay with the objections.

Great.

Sound good.

So summarizing for the legislative contract templates.

Uh, luckily on this uh this avenue and this component of the goal.

Um this is consistently updated, and we highlight for you in the memo that there has been a contract working group uh working through a number of issues, and they offered a number of recent recommendations that are being uh implemented to be to ensure that the contract uh processes are really improved, that they're streamlined, that everything works well for staff and the process is clear and understood.

In addition, they are updating various administrative policies at the city associated with that and deploying a new contract software system uh to ensure that everything is kept fully up to date uh for staff in that in that area.

So for this one, staff does not recommend further action on this as it is already being managed by a team, the contract software uh system as well, uh, will support them.

So pausing for any questions on that component.

I submitted some questions in advance about this.

Um I this is good work, um, but it it feels incomplete without having a full appreciation for the universe of templates out there, but I think from the city council's perspective, uh among the most important are those related to land use, right?

We see a lot of those, the conditions of approval I was particularly interested in because I am my understanding is for the past year or so.

I think we've been looking at updating the template for the conditions of approval, appreciating that state law.

It's changing rapidly.

Um, and there wasn't an update for that here.

Do you have an update for us?

We actually don't have an update in that specific policy.

So, what this content is coming from is more of a global nature.

I think I shared with you in email, that we certainly can follow up on that particular item.

And I think you've seen a draft of it.

Oh, so if I may.

Oh, yeah.

So I think I'm gonna manager talk to the community development director about this.

There's been, as you just noted, so many changes in state law that the template piece probably has been kind of low on the priority scale, but I don't know where they're at.

So I need to get a better handle on uh what they've done, but but honestly, with all of the policy issues and the development projects, I'm just not sure where they're at and um how they've prioritized or not okay in a template.

Uh I'm going to have a suggestion for a recommendation later.

Um, Councilmember Showalter, Baron Ramos, any questions on this section?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, I just wondered um when the contract department, I understood that the finance department and a committee is working on this, which sounds great.

But um, I know having been involved in government for many years that what we think is easy, other people might not think is easy.

So I just would hope that they are doing some beta testing with people outside of our organization to try out, you know, that know they're doing beta testing.

You know, some organizations, for instance, applying for a grant or applying for a contract, and um letting them go through it with them to see that is it easy or not.

Um, at the water district, we we really struggled with this, and we always came up short.

And so I would just urge that there's a little outside testing done.

I don't know that there is going to be outside testing of the software system, but your point is very valid in that as part of the contract working group, one of the key areas of feedback was how do we make this easier and more streamlined for the vendors, the nonprofits, the others that we work with.

And that absolutely was a lens that that contract working group was applying to the software, uh, the RFP and other uh other follow-up that they're doing on for the software.

So the software system itself is internal yeah that's different that's different yeah yes but definitely the lens that you're highlighting uh council member showalter was a part of the contract with good thank you any other questions and I guess we'll proceed to the next session and so uh the templates also the same component was really uh that is something where it is updated by the departments I just wanted to ensure that was was clear for everybody okay so I'm gonna go back and then I can do a little summary regarding where we got some great feedback from departments uh about our council policy and so because we do have 90 policies at the city of which some have not been updated since the 70s uh what we did is we wanted to get feedback from the departments that use these and really get their sense of you know is there any barrier is there any challenge is there language that you can see immediately on site needs updated and so we did a survey for a number of weeks with all of the departments took in and want a very helpful feedback and what we used that for is to allow us to begin to prioritize the policies that we will be looking at more deeply at a staff level uh we will look at those we will look at some that were also provided the email to us from the community development department I know you've uh raised uh a chair of some key follow-ups for the uh CDD our community development department and we do have a lot of good feedback from them they called out oh gosh I think it's six to eight policies um and so we will be working uh with each of the departments on the follow-up here what this is is the initial survey offering some baseline insights into where the policies are at and then what staff will need to do is do the more in depth analysis working with each of the departments on whether that uh change is warranted and what the nature of that change will look like there are also some policies that are flagged for potential uh removal um if that's warranted and so we will be looking at that as well and then I will also share that uh some of the ones that are uh older that were not flagged for potential consideration uh for uh removal uh we will look at those as well just given the nature of how long it's been since they've been touched um uh we believe that those warrant a look as well and so that will be our complement of work um over the next uh number of likely years as we work through all of these um some of them will be batched um and then brought to you at each of the inter uh each of the spring and fall meetings for the committee and what our goal is is to work through all of these changes to ensure we complete the full council goal over time um can I give you an update about the conditions of approval thank you camera um so CDD staff have been working on an update to the template for a while and um they've just identified the need to get it done and I think they're figuring out what needs to change for the template and so they've started with the planning conditions of approval they're progressing to the public works um and other COAs so staff don't have an estimated date for completion yet but they are working on it.

Fantastic news thank you.

Did you have any of the other thank you any questions before we go to the nautical public.

Yeah I'm I'm a little confused with what you want from us today.

What what do you want from us today?

Do you want specific are you just sharing this process or yes yes just letting you know that it's being worked on that it's underway that we're making changes we're making updates because the work plan item was really broad.

It was just kind of like look at you know templates that are outdated or look at things that need to change.

And so this was kind of a gut check with the committee to let you know the work is underway, that there are things that are being done.

And then we wanted to identify here's the things so far that we have identified.

So you can see it is quite a large volume um that we're working on and updating, and then um to council member Ramirez's question.

I think the COA is you know, that's also important.

It is it is underway.

So really it's just kind of receive and file, and then if you have any specific thoughts or direction, we're happy to receive that too from the committee.

Correct.

And it was requested by chair at our last meeting is just to really provide you with an update, ensure that this is moving forward, uh, ensure that this is being prioritized staff level, which it is.

Um, and that was what our our goal was through this item.

Oh, okay, that's great.

I spent a couple hours yesterday reading the policies and um going through uh, you know, making a few comments about them.

So um I uh I don't know if it's appropriate to share that stuff now or let's first go to the non-existent public comment and then are there still no members of the public?

Do they not like this committee?

This is the most important list.

Well, I did my due diligence.

We'll return to uh the committee for for uh additional comments and questions.

So council member showwater, are you still?

Yeah, I just I have about 10 things.

I'll go through them real quickly.

Um, and you know, we could talk later.

One table three, the the service organization funding.

Um, I uh I was glad to see you're looking at this, but I wondered how it relates to the neighborhood grants.

And um then in D13, the home loan program, uh I would like to see this secondary loan um provision uh removed for all eligible employees.

So that would be something to consider.

Um G4 Ringsdorf House seems like we could get rid of it or update it completely.

G6, um, update after uh R3, very appropriate.

G7, outdoor merchandise.

That was the one of the ones from the 70s.

Um yeah, I I think that uh after COVID, um this one is just completely out of date.

So I'm really glad to see where we're doing it.

And um uh I was thinking that um age four and h5, they are um uh one was H4 is plazas.

I think the list of what is a plaza might be extended.

There were some other park places I think we might want to add to that.

You probably thought of that, and and H5 is use of city facilities.

I actually thought these could probably be put in one.

Um, combined in one policy.

And then, but you know, that's just you you you look should look at it seven, um uh one athletic field use.

I know that this is not a short-term thing, but I think this may be an appropriate place to begin looking at the use of artificial turf.

Um, then H8, commercial use of city parks.

I wondered about food trucks.

I know that that that's come up a number of times with neighborhood get togethers and stuff, and we've given a special permit to them, but it it seems like they're just something that's kind of part of our culture now that wasn't a long time ago, and then um flying flags at half mass.

One of the things that always bugs me about flying flags at half mass is I never know.

I mean, unless it's one of the national things, I never know why.

So I'm wondering if there's some way we can inform the public.

You know, maybe we could put a lineup on the website or I I don't know what would be appropriate, but do you know what I mean?

That you you you'll see a flag at Half Mass and you'll think, huh, I wonder what happened.

And you don't know, so that that was one I thought, and then the park fee, the utilization of the park fee.

I I'm glad to see that we're working on that.

I know that um we have um we've been thinking about that a lot with respect to um the nexus issue and all that, and I wonder um if it's if it's legally possible uh for us to prioritize the use of the funds in park deficient parts of the community.

So that's something I would like to see evaluated.

And I know that's not simple, but um uh some places, as we know, like my neighborhood, we have lots of parks, and um uh thankfully, and we we love them, but there are other places that don't, and it seems like um remedying fixing that in balance is important.

So that's my list.

Oh, really?

Appreciate that very much.

We'll incorporate that into our analysis with the follow-up of the policies.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Um Council Member Schulter, I have a question for you.

Or are there any of those that you uh is that intended to be just sort of general comments for the staff to consider?

Is there something in there that you feel very strongly about that we may want to recommend to ourselves that we consider?

We do need to, as you know, and as city manager McCarthy, we have to follow up with the departments, do our deeper analysis of all of these, but the feedback.

I think these are a lot of policy matters come in before the council that I don't necessarily think just live in CPPC, like the these are flowing.

We're not gonna see all of them.

Some of them might go to council finance, we might go to all of them go to city council.

Correct.

But I mean, other policy documents, or strategy.

But I think you know, I I like all of council member Shelter's ideas, but if for instance, as an example, policy H4 and H5, you know, it suggested maybe combining those two.

Is that something you feel strongly enough about that we might recommend to a future CPBC that they consider combining those two, or is that is all everything that you share just sort of general.

I'm happy for for that one.

I'm happy for them to figure it out.

I mean, if it seems appropriate, that that I that's just my view looking at looking at it.

I I do think it would be appropriate.

I think the two that fall into policy that are kind of my opinions and I do feel strongly about, but I know that they might not necessarily be easy.

One is um under D13, the home loan program.

I um I'm really interested in having our employees live close, and we've made a lot of you know changes over the time I've been the council to to help that happen, and it hasn't been as um utilized very much.

So I'm always interested in in how we might um make that a little better.

So so looking through it, I thought the provision that um the non right now it says non-department, I mean it says department heads and above, can utilize that, and it wouldn't be considered a secondary loan for other people, it would be considered a secondary loan, which is um financially a problem.

So, so that's something I would and I know that there are financial implications to this, it's not an easy question, so that's one I I have.

Uh so may I uh can I provide some context for that?

Just so for awareness, so so this uh there are a number of updates coming to the finance committee at the end of this month, and the secondary loan piece has been updated because I think you all know it it has uh been a barrier um to how we're able to provide loans to staff.

So that piece has been updated.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah, and there are a number of updates.

The whole policy is being updated so that it can actually be used by more staff um in a way that will help them be able to potentially get into the market.

But I'll say the reason why folks have not used this is not the policy itself, it's because the average home price in Mountain View is now 2.8 million, and so we're trying to make it easier for people to use this.

But um, we do have a balance and a decent balance um in the home buyer fund, but we will be presenting this to the finance committee at the end of May.

But to your point about the secondary lien, we have addressed that.

There are some financial and fiduciary considerations with that, but we have addressed that.

Thank you.

I'm so glad to hear that, Kembra.

Okay, and then the other one that I think we're gonna need to bring up, um, which is not, I think, which is not within the purview of of this group really is is the use of artificial turf, and um that's an that kind of comes up in age seven because it talks about utilization, the the time frame that fields wet fields can be used.

Um, and uh, but and then I would think some of them might be pretty easy, you know, that we could do fairly fast, like the use of food trucks, the permitting for food trucks, that might not be too hard to do.

And then the other one I feel strongly about is um uh the uh and it sounds like we're you know, we're well on the way is is the the service organization funding.

I do think that's been a little confusing, and um, so uh I'm making that less con you know, it sounds like you're making that much less confusing, which is all to the good.

So those are my comments, thank you.

Um council member, I'd also like to provide some feedback on the um parks and rec strategic plan and the artificial turf issue.

So staff is preparing an off agenda memo for council of about this in particular, um, because this is a very uh hot button or controversial or strongly called feelings topic that um, you know, council will have to consider for the future uh as other fields are built.

So we are preparing an off agenda for you all.

I wanna say we're gonna have it to you this month, um, as I've been talking to community services director John Marchant about it.

So that may provide some context as council considers this in the future.

So I just wanted to tell you we are gonna let you know about some of the uh things that have happened related to this issue and just things that council may want to consider um beyond just the CPPC considering this policy.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Schulter.

I think what we've learned is ask and you shall receive.

It's already in the works.

Okay.

All right, yeah.

Uh any questions or comments?

So as we're tackling all these policies, are we looking at like this coming back to C and seeing some of these changes have been made?

Are we taking these like one at a time?

And then when they eventually go to these, are like are we waiting for some of these policies to get done before we actually look at them all together?

Because there are a bunch that are like further review, and I don't know how long further reviews gonna be, but there are things that are just conferred.

There's some that are minor changes.

Although I don't know why you have a a column for major change where there is no major changes, which I feel like is more of a psychological thing.

I probably would have marked all these.

I was shocked that's uh good, stuff's done moderate for a lot of things.

Do it to yourself.

It's a good thing you did not think.

Um but I think that's a that's a great question and a good point.

I think maybe what we need to think about is whether we do it in phases.

So it just we wouldn't want to only bring them all back at once because then you might be waiting for a long time.

So maybe we think about a phasing cadence and and we probably we need to look at not just, I mean, they're basically all moderate, but what does that mean?

Which are the ones that are the ones that are likely to be done sooner, you know, that's phase one, maybe phase two is so we you basically have short, medium and long term.

That's makes a little more sense.

Um, because if they're all moderate change, what does that mean with everything else going on in all the other projects?

And so we definitely would be bringing them back in batches at least twice a year.

Our recommendation was some of the uh the lower uh hanging fruits, if you will, with the minor changes that we address those first and work through over time.

The other key thing that we need to do is we'll confer with each of the departments on these, and so we'll work up a good schedule um associated with that of what will work well for them as well.

Like a good Californian, I measure things through time.

Like, you know, it's like how far the way is that?

It's 20 minutes away.

But so like I'm looking at some of these things like uh like G2 is like replace planning director with community development director.

That should probably be like five minutes.

And like I'm worried like I don't want to wait for like that.

I don't want to wait for like displacement policies for C D V G program and like hold off on that.

So like then the batching idea, but like having a better sense of like how long will this take?

Because I am also very optimistic with time.

Far more optimistic than a normal person is, um, to to understand like how long would this take?

And um if we are batching them, like are we batching things that are gonna take like two months long?

Are we looking at some things that are like a year long?

Are we um when uh yes and yes and it's a mix of all of those things.

But like some of these can be really quickly.

Some of these will be after Lucas shuffles off this mortal coil.

So staff's anticipation is it's bringing bringing a batch of of items uh both in the spring and for the fall meet the fall and the spring meetings and working through this until we've worked through the whole list and as City Manager McCarthy noted is you know certainly our staff have been optimistic uh that many of these will be of a moderate nature and that impact won't be uh uh as onerous as maybe a major change but it does take time to obviously work that through the process at a staff level uh get review by the city attorney's office and then of course get them packaged on for the uh CPPC agenda so all of these things will take time and I think that's why it will be measured in years not months but um but but really I think what is so helpful about this council goal is that it did allow us time and space um which is I think one of the main attempts uh around it was really to just have staff be able to focus on this um and uh raise it as an issue and then we were working for it.

Right that's all my questions.

I've got a few um comments I'll start with um a very short story I uh work at a city that has a council policy manual and one of my assignments is to try and update uh council policy six-14 guidelines for child care um it is a horrendously out of date policy um it references the the the general plan for the city I work for was adopted in 2011 it references the previous general plan like that's how old it is so like all of the links are broken it references things that can be you know uh boards and committees that don't exist um and it's a pain in the neck to get staff time and capacity even though it's horrendously broken and it leads to frustration at the staff level whenever they have to review a proposal for child care they're like well the zoning code says this and our policy says that the council policy says that right and it's there's um often uh inconsistent uh interpretation as a consequence um it's still hard to get you know planning staff to carve out the time to fix it um and that wasn't necessarily the inspiration for this it was you know looking through the policy manuals I'm glad council member showalter had the time to do recently that was actually very helpful to hear you go through a lot a lot of your ideas um but but like just sort of get going through this document and seeing well some of these you know we haven't looked at in decades right um but they're council policies uh and they are impactful right there there is some type of obligation to review them and then some additional work in interpreting them in you know the the light of a an entirely different legislative uh regulatory framework um and so I thought this would be a good opportunity to you know in in batches right understanding it'll take a lot of time to to update them or better yet to rescind the ones that are not helpful right I I think the the there is a kind of value in council policies but I soured on them a little bit because I feel like we actually update the municipal code more often even though it's hard we update the municipal code more often than we update our council policies.

So to the extent it makes sense to put some of these in the Municode.

There's a little bit more there's like an elevation or consciousness we think about more maybe that makes more sense than having an outdated council policy that ends up becoming a barrier for staff down the road or confusing to the public.

So I thank you for doing this.

I know it was um uh a big task um but I think this I don't have any specific comments on policies I trust the staff to uh make the recommendations that make the most sense the really the intent is to make your lives easier long after I've passed away because the parent is there.

Oh, I think and I guess the only other thing is you know, when you when you term out, you get this nice big old resolution saying all of the things that you've done.

First, no shopping cart abatement.

And then eviscerating the equipment replacement funds and then updating the council policy.

Those are the three things housing.

Okay.

You know, I'm not sure I did anything, but that's a conversation for the time.

Um, any remaining questions or comments?

I I was looking over my list, and there was one more I don't think I mentioned, and that was K9.

That's the golf course memberships.

Obviously, that's causing problems, and I know Parks and Rec is working on it, but maybe it's one that should be in the first trunk.

Well, whatever staff says works best, but clearly that's one that is very outdated.

But other than that, I kind of concur with what I concur with what um uh Chair Ramirez said.

Um, it is good to look over these before, and we don't want things that are in conflict with one another.

So um uh I I that leads me to the question of if as a council member we see one or I mean how do we initiate going forward after we do this?

How are we gonna initiate the update of one of these policies?

Is there a way that um, you know, I guess a council member could bring it up in item eight or staff could make a recommendation that it needs to be changed.

But I I would I would kind of like to see some very general language that says that um, you know, this is a process for bringing forward an error or or something that's out of date so we can get on it.

I I would you know leave you to come up with the language, but I think um uh it's not like there wasn't somebody in the staff that knew these things were too old.

There was so I'm sure there is very similar so typically it's when we have whatever the matter is or encounter, whatever it is where we need to look at the policy, and that's like oh, this policy has been for 10 years or 20 years, and now that we're being proactive, at least in looking at what's old, um, I think we can figure out how we might be able to flag these things, you know, and I'll just be really honest.

It's it's tough when the policies don't necessarily dictate the everyday, and so you're not necessarily consulting them, but I think you raise a good point in that we can think about how would a council member how will staff raise it and what might the cadence look like.

Um, so I think we can talk about that and think about what that um looks like.

I know that during my tenure, I've updated a lot of policies, and normally they've been flagged by whether it's come up in a committee meeting, a council committee meeting, our staff, or just something that we've had going on that we're like, oh, this is really outdated.

So it's it's just kind of uh more mundane, I guess that we're not so mired in them that um we're not seeing them all the time, but I like the thought of figuring out okay, how do we raise this?

You know, how do we look at them more regularly?

How can we get in a cadence?

Uh there's just a lot of them.

So we can think about that if that's the committee's direction.

Staff can think about how that might make sense to do.

No, I think that's a good idea.

And you don't want it to be something that's um, you know, that's a burden, just that it it provides a potential pathway.

Right.

Yeah.

Process.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, any remaining questions, comments, or questions, comments from staff there?

I'm trying to figure this out in like my framework of understanding of different things now that council member Ramirez mentioned it.

So like the the fact that uh like some policies, like some pieces of municipal code are updated more frequently than our policies, it kind of I view things like in three steps, and I never actually put the concept of policies into that.

So, like the highest step is like our charter, our charter, like it takes uh one council to approve and for our voters to approve, and that takes a long time.

So it's like it's like core, it's like the foundation of the house.

And then I kind of view ordinances as like the this is where the the the metaphor kind of just collapses on you because I don't know structures of houses, but like something more like the it's the frame and the the walls and stuff like that, um, is like the municipal code.

It requires council to vote on it, and then um, and and then the next level down is kind of view it because I I was on the RHC and we couldn't pass municipal code, but we could pass regulations and resolutions, and that was kind of like another kind of a thing where does policies fit in that because it's weird that policies kind of have to be approved by council but they're not like as strong as municipal codes no they're more for kind of either routine or either routine or sometimes discrete operations or processes so um just for example like the home buyer process you know you need council's approval for that and a lot of the policies it actually have administrative pieces embedded in it so that's where you know the Muni code piece I think I'd want to talk to Jennifer further about that um but I think you know the council policies have typically come up for like I said if you if you look at the topics there are certain ways we do business really is kind of how I think about the council policies and it's everything from like the performance evaluation process you know how you do that business as a council to as I mentioned the home buyer policy and all of these ones you see here you know how our flag play policy so they're not necessarily always uh related to like strict policy matters it's more how we do things how we do business so yeah I guess in the metaphor maybe it's the windows or the the curtains um framing yeah yeah and I guess like municipal codes I think you require like a second reading and stuff like that but is that really like the only like it feels like if if if policies are being actively used very essentially closely comparatively shouldn't it have more flexibility in like technically these are supposed to be flexible you know to where we try to write them more frequently or more on the fly you know by coming to the committee and then bringing them on consent um yeah what would it take for it to be the level of flexibility that we need to have it to be I think it is yeah you we have that it's just that we just don't always update all of them because there's so many that it's normally as we're encountered with a business issue or process that we're like oh this this policy is outdated or this needs to get done but we but the flexibility is there.

I've seen some policies that I've updated where it's like updated in 75 updated in 88 updated in 90 updated in 2000.

I mean so you'll see the cadence where it has been updated and it's morphed over time.

So we do have the flexibility I think it like I said earlier it's just more the policies don't necessarily dictate the day to day or the major policy work that we're working on.

So it's just I it's probably just less of a priority until it's the counter which is why this has been helpful you know to actually look at them and actually see where there's some some gaps and problems.

So but the flexibility is there.

And stuff does try to always write in the city attorney's office always gives us flexibility to weave that in like you saw with the communications policy they they want you to have that flexibility um while setting down the main major tenants policy that makes sense any other questions or not?

I mean I just think maybe if a policy's older than a council member with the over um council member any final questions comments no but I'm walking outside because I want to show you all the view of the item but oh I bet this is going to be beautiful.

Yeah really is um let's see this house has about eight doors but only one of them works easily which is why it took a while, but anyway.

Let's see uh this way.

This way.

You see?

Oh, wow.

This is the view.

It's really beautiful.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Lovely.

And there were, you know we we've seen foxes and we've seen deer and lots of birds.

Yeah.

And non-lovely.

It's really fun.

Yeah once you's it and making us jealousy.

I'm going to find the comfort room right now.

Yeah.

You can do though.

Yeah.

Okay.

With that, um, so I know there's no formal action, but I did want to um make some suggestions through Moji.

Um, first is uh in the next CPBC meeting.

Um, to I will move to for the next CPBC meeting.

Include an item that uh is sort of like a continuation of this, but just an informational, you know, quick update on the CDD community development department templates and the conditions of approval in particular.

Just an update.

And it could be, you know, still working on it, or you're some of the change.

Like I think the council is very interested in land use, and I think it'd be helpful just to get understanding the CDD portion of this work.

Um, the second would be um for this next item, um, just as uh I think this goes into sort of like the accountability for this work, um uh as an uh with the we always have an item council policy procedures agenda topics update routine item to include essentially this catchment that you've given us with that list.

Um it doesn't have to have all of the the detailed information, but basically um the the phasing cadence or like the the batches that staff is anticipating.

Yeah, yes, stats, right?

And it could be very high level, right?

We think this is 2028, or you know, if it's near term, you know, quarter for 2026.

So just a sense of as an ongoing update, uh, again, informational so the council can see, oh, you're making progress.

You know, thanks for doing that work, but I think that would be very helpful, especially for the new council, which is going to be completely clueless and will have no idea where the bathrooms are.

So I think that kind of ongoing accountability is valuable.

Um, and then the third idea would be this is more for me, but for staff to consider or to explore placing the council policy manual on the city website, because laser fee is a gateway to hell, and it's it's the worst thing that we have ever.

Um, it's always broken.

I could never get in, and finding things is a pain in the next.

So are we doing that?

And Legistar too, but it I just want to clarify that Legistar only allows a certain number of people to access it at any given time.

So usually when it looks broken, it's probably just that there's too many people viewing it.

That's probably not a good thing.

So it's that's why it's soft language.

We can figure out where to put it on the website.

That would be fantastic.

Especially some of these are like a lot of them people are not gonna use, you know, very frequently, but some of them like the gatekeeper policy is that's important, right?

Uh and a prospective gatekeeper applicant is gonna want to know what the council's looking for, it's in the council policy, and right now it's really really hard to find.

So um ideally the entire council policy manual over time over the course of you know the next couple of years would be fine, but maybe even just starting with like the what are the ones that are really public-facing, um, that would be I think very valuable.

So those those are the three um components of the motion I would like to make.

So again, in the next CPBC um agenda, include an informational item on the CDD templates and the conditions of approval in particular, just an update, the ongoing routine item attachment with the phasing cadence or the proposed batching for the council policies, and ideally, if there is one, you know, a rough estimate for the date of completion or when it will be brought to the CBBC and council, and then explore consider placing the council policy manual on the city website for ease of access for the public.

Is that any comments, questions?

All right, well, we'll we'll do the roll call though.

Okay, great.

Don't share Ramirez.

Yes, Councilmember Show Alder.

Yes, Mayor Ramos.

Yes, that passes that feedback and recommendation of business.

Thank you very much.

Um, and now the final item, council 5.3, council policy procedures agenda topics Update, deputy city manager Kimberly Thomas will present this informational item.

And uh yes, and so continuing along with that theme, uh we just made an amendment for this, but what will be coming before you for your fall meeting, which has already been scheduled for October 7th, is the City Volunteer Framework that will move with your services department that is working on that will be bringing that item forward.

Uh we'll also bring any policies that are ready as we go through the triage of the policies that we just discussed uh to you as well.

And then the routine item uh will include the amendments that you've just made uh to provide an ongoing status update of what that timeline looks like for the various policies that we are looking uh at.

And again, that'll be you know basic um uh preliminary estimate, uh, but that will be included as well.

So that is what you're looking forward to for the fall, and then perhaps there will be additional items of course for the spring.

Fantastic.

Any questions from the committee?

Any members of the public not wishing to speak?

Still not.

Um any final comments, I think that's it.

So uh we will um conclude this item and then move on to item six.

Committee staff, thank you very much.

Yeah, uh committee staff comments, questions, committee reports.

The next item is for committee staff comments questions and committee reports.

No action will be taken on questions raised by the CPBC at the time.

Do any CPC members, CPPC members or staff have comments or questions?

No, there was a lot of things that I would kind of thought to myself, like oh, that would be good for CPPC to take up, but I don't remember any of them.

I would say send an email to the city manager when you uh remember some of them.

Any uh from council member showwalter?

Just appreciate this having this be set up virtually so I can attend.

Yeah, thank you for for attending, even though you're in a very beautiful place and you know could be enjoying life.

Um, so uh thank things so but again, thanks to I know this is just council priority is is one of the more uh broad uh a lot of work is I guess what I'm trying to say, and I really appreciate the the staff for the work in reviewing all of the policies and that with the project.

So that's very exciting because you will probably never have another council member who will ask for this.

Um that's why I wanted to do it.

So um, and with that, um the meeting is adjourned at insert time a.m.

10 10 a.m.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That's my way, Pat.

See you later.

Okay, take care of there, Pat.

All right, um