Council Sustainability Committee Meeting - June 3, 2026: Decarbonization Analysis and Action Plan Progress
That's great.
So let's have a call to order.
This meeting is being conducted with a virtual component.
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And so item one.
Do we have any speaker cards?
Roll call.
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh, everybody's here.
Um chair show on here.
Member Clark or Member Hicks.
Yeah, great.
All right.
And then we have item three, which is approve the win uh the minutes.
Does anyone have any comments or questions about the meeting minutes?
Okay, now.
Thank you.
If um, would anyone like to move a motion to approve the minutes?
Second after public comment.
Yeah, I think we need to have public.
Okay.
Is there any would you like to make public comment on the minutes?
No, okay.
Anybody online?
Okay, so we can go ahead with the vote.
All those in favor of approving the minutes?
Aye.
Aye.
Okay, that passes unanimously.
Now we come to item four, oral communications.
Um, item four is oral communications from the public.
This portion of the meeting is reserved for people wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda.
Speakers are allowed to speak for on any topic for up to three minutes during this section.
State law prohibits the CSC from acting on non-agendized items.
Would any member of the public like to provide comment on an item that is not on the agenda?
Yes.
Welcome.
Thank you.
I'm going to speak about a lot of different numbers, and so I thought it'd be kind to put them on a piece of paper so you could see them as I was talking about.
Oh, so the last city council meeting, I commented on what I felt was a need for funding source to do wonderful things for sustainability.
And just in the last couple of days, I've come up with one.
So it is to say that the user utility tax, which has risen so rapidly the last few years, represents a windfall.
Money that people have paid in order to get electricity and gas in their homes and businesses have done the same.
The city has taken a 3% tax on all of that money, and as the price of gas and electricity have risen, the tax revenues have risen.
In the past, 4.8 million dollars a year for natural gas and electricity was the city's take, and it went to the general fund.
All that money is still going to the general fund.
And what I'm proposing is that the city take only 4.8 million for the general fund and return the rest via via incentives, other programs to people who electrify their vehicles or their homes.
The simple one pager that I handed out gives you the data about how much has been collected, the data about how much the price of electricity and natural gas have risen.
It gives you the data about how far you could go with 2.8 million dollars a year for incentives.
If the incentive amount were $2,000, you could do 1,414 incentives.
That's one incentive for 4% of the households every year.
Over 20 years, that would be one incentive for 80% of the households.
This is a significant amount of money.
And so, although this is not on the agenda and it's not in the current sustainability five-year plan, I hope it will become part of the plan and of the budget for the coming fiscal year.
Thank you very much.
Okay, um, is there anybody online?
Yeah, okay, all right.
Um we'll now close the oral communications item and move to the discussion action items.
And we have number five, new business, and five one is the decarbonization goal analysis.
This item will be presented by sustainability and resilience and division staff.
Ms.
Lee from the project.
Thank you, Chair Schulter.
I'm pleased to be joined this evening by Miss Lucky, program manager within the sustainability and resiliency division, as well as our colleagues from Cascadia Consulting Online.
They're available to answer any questions at the end of our presentation.
This evening we're here to be presenting the results of our decarbonization goal analysis.
This is the work that basically underscored the development of the draft list of actions to be included in our five-year decarbonization plan, as well as helped us to answer the question of whether or not staff would recommend accelerating the city's currently adopted 2045 decarbonization goal.
By way of brief background, council directed, well, I guess yes, council directed staff to answer this question.
Could we accelerate our decarbonization goal?
And what would it take to achieve that?
So part of that process involved understanding the impact of federal, state, and local actions on emissions projections, and then understanding what the uh kind of balance, if you will, of emissions left to the local level would be for various decarbonization years.
Um, a little bit more detail.
We've been in discussion about this decarbonization goal analysis for some time.
Um our first discussion after the contract Cascadia was approved was in June, where we were started to look at the assumptions and some of the local actions that staff were proposing for modeling.
So we couldn't model everything.
We wanted to winnow down to a list of approximately 10 local measures that we thought would have the highest potential for emissions reductions.
We also talked about some of the assumptions that were included in our first take on how to proceed with the analysis.
CSC asked that we reconsider our growth assumptions and asked for some additional analysis to be undertaken.
In November, we returned to the committee.
We reviewed the updated forecast based on the feedback from CSC, and we um sought approval, which was given from this committee to complete our list of local actions for modeling.
In December, we looked at the final list of local actions and also started to look at the draft of what would be in the five-year decarbonization plan based on this analysis.
And then in April, we looked at the final version of the draft list of five-year decarbonization action plans actions prior to the council study session, which occurred last Tuesday.
And now I'd like to hand it over to Miss Lucky.
She's going to tell us a little bit more about the analysis and its results.
Thank you, Miss Lee.
So the slide illustrates the three admissions scenarios that were evaluated.
With the first being the business as usual.
So this shows without any climate policy or interventions through the market, that our emissions would grow in Mountain View by 13% by 2045.
And that's largely due to population and employment growth, which we updated based on feedback from the CSC.
And then the next scenario, we looked at the adjusted business as usual.
So this includes existing regional and state policies.
As you know, we did look at some of the federal policies, but then they were rescinded or removed or delayed.
And so what we were left with from our business as usual is a 59% reduction in emissions as a result of state and regional action.
So that is really great news that there is still movement in this area from what we found in the analysis.
And then the third scenario is the local action scenario.
We were able to look at about nine local measures to see what their impacts would be on emissions by 2045.
And as we revealed late 2025, they were very small.
We modeled, we showed an analysis of five modeled actions and an additional four is being shown tonight as the total, and then we're still at about 7% below the business as usual with local action.
So in total, with the ABAU and the local action, we're able to reduce emissions 66% shown right now.
And that still leaves a significant gap to achieve by 2045.
Next slide.
So what's driving the emission reductions?
What we observed from the analysis is that a lot of the emission reductions are coming from regional and state, regional, state and market transformation, which is not necessarily inside the city's control.
And these are leading to substantial reductions.
So the top um four that are modeled were the EV market trends, and this did include the incentive.
So when we're looking at the EV market trends, it was basically the sales trends that we've been seeing over the last few years in Santa Clara County, which has been about 41%, and thinking that that is going to continue.
That was modeled when the IRA direct pay incentives for EVs were available.
So things could change, as we know and stated in the council meeting, fuel prices are also driving people into no pun intended into EVs.
Um, so that's still a positive signal.
And then we've got the Bay Area Air District Rules, which would prohibit the sale and installation of gas appliances, meaning natural gas water heaters and natural gas furnaces for space heating starting in 2027 for water heaters and later on for space heating.
And so that's another significant reduction of over 100,000 metric tons.
So it's quite significant.
We also have the state's SB 100 renewable energy portfolio standard.
That's another 50,000 and our low carbon fuel standard that is a state standard.
So with these top four and some additional state policies, we're at 59% reduction from our business as usual scenario.
Next slide.
Building electrification remains one of the most important decarbonation strategies identified in the analysis with and because of the Bay Area Air District rules that are proposed, we anticipate to see emissions reductions as a result of that.
And it's going to very much accelerate emission reductions for Mountain View, leading to a 92% reduction in building emissions by 2045.
The next slide.
However, the local actions can help accelerate emissions reduction so we can meet our 2045 goal.
It can help make sure the implementation is successful.
We looked at reach codes, electrification outreach and education through programs like the year of the water heater campaign, incentive programs like the city's current rebate for $2,000 for a water heater to replace your gas with the electric heat pump and permitting assistance.
We also looked at additional actions like time of sale.
Those did result in fewer emission reduction potentials.
And so what we're viewing that as kind of a contingency planning, but also kind of being mindful of you know which of these actions will give us the largest emission reductions with that is most feasible, maybe has a less complex administrative work around it.
But it still is an option.
So the key takeaway is that the local actions are they complement regional efforts and reduce emissions and reducing emissions at our higher priority.
Next slide.
This slide is intended to demonstrate kind of what happens if things change.
So what we're potentially seeing if the Bay Area Air District delays, weakens, or rescends the appliance rules that I just covered about gas furnaces and gas water heaters.
You know, with the air district rules, we don't see a lot of reductions with the REACH codes because it kind of supersedes it after a while.
Like you see the reductions with the reach code, and then it kind of fades away because the Bay Area or district rules really take over.
But without the air district regulations, reach codes really become a substantial emission reduction, local action where you see 30,000 tons reduced.
It still doesn't quite get to the 107,000 ton emission reduction that the Bay Area Air District rules would get to.
It covers about 29% of what the Bay Area district air district rules would have covered.
So our transportation emissions, they still remain pretty large, both now and in the future, is what our analysis found.
And it will represent about 63% of our core emissions in 2045.
And this is again where you've seen continued use of gasoline, commute patterns, you know, we're not certain about the EV adoption rates given the changes we've seen, um, and the potential reduction of incentives and regulations.
So it does remain at the greatest opportunity for local action in again providing whether it's like enabling infrastructure or other pathways to you know get people into EVs that make it more convenient and easy.
Slide.
One of the um greater insights from the analysis was when looking at all of the transportation local actions, expanding EV charging showed the greatest emission reductions compared to other actions like EV outreach and education is at 4,000 metric tons of reductions versus expanding multifamily EV charging at 22,000.
So that was a pretty strong indicator of spending some time and effort in trying to understand how charging and connecting people to charging can help get them into EVs and help them stay in EVs as well.
Next slide.
So the overall conclusions drawn from the analysis was to maintain our carbon neutrality goal.
Do you still have a significant gap that we're going to have to keep revisiting every five years and figure out how we can close that gap further and further and reevaluate what's going on in the market, what's going on in our broader policy context, and focus on our five-year planning horizon and adapt to our changing policy landscape?
So our next step is that staff will return with a final five-year privatization plan to the CSC and the city council this year.
So thank you so much.
We appreciated your guidance and collaboration throughout the CSC meetings and working toward finalizing this analysis.
I'm a team that helped develop this model is on standby on Zoom to help us answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you.
Can you offer incentives or financing?
And one of the reasons I'm thinking, there are many reasons I'm thinking about that, but one of them, the example would be uh what council member McAllister brought up at the last uh council meeting on this subject, which I thought was super important.
He was saying that we can't make people buy uh electric cars and electrify their buildings because it's too expensive, but when you look into it, it costs a bit to set up, but over time it actually from all the reading I've been doing costs less.
Um so that to me says financing.
That's what you do when you know you want a job that makes more money, but you need to go to college first.
You don't say, well, well, you might say college is too expensive, so I just want to do it, but typically, or you want to buy a house, but you don't have all the cash to put down.
Typically, in that sort of case, and these are much smaller cases than houses in college, you finance.
So, is there talk about financing in a big way?
Because I'm not hearing very much in the staff reports about that, or maybe I've glossed over it.
So tell me more.
Thank you for the question.
Um, we deliberately did not answer the question around how will we pay for all of this work.
This initial analysis was really like where are the emission reduction potentials.
And uh, same for the study session to council.
The focus was not really the funding side of the implementation.
It was just too soon to have that part of the discussion.
That being said, um, we have seen some movement in the financing space, and of course, there are incentives that are available both through the city through Silicon Valley Clean Energy and then regional incentives and at varying points, uh various points along the way.
There have been federal incentives as well.
So lots of stacking of incentives that have been available and continue to be available.
In terms of financing, we've seen the most progress from the utilities.
So onve financing is something that exists through PGE.
Silicon Valley Clean Energy also applied to be able to offer um on a pilot basis, uh on-veil financing for electrification measures.
So um, and then they collaborated with Peninsula Clean Energy.
Mountain View participated in the staff team that helped to issue an RFP for financing services.
So if not on bill financing, then could there be third-party financing alternatives that would be made available to SBCE and PCE customers?
The results of that RFP, I don't think that they selected a provider that essentially um rates were not competitive enough, um, but there is still the on-bill financing option, which is a good fit for many um customers.
PGA also offers a municipal um example of this as well, and we have had discussions with public works around whether we could take advantage of that for decarbonization efforts within the city as well.
Okay, that's all very interesting.
I understand separating the how we'll fund it from the what we'll do, but in many ways it seems like the questions are inseparable.
Like you could do much more if you had financing, or many people who would say like I've heard that people move on the average, maybe it's not true anymore, uh every five years.
So if something is going to pay you back in 10 or 15 or 20 years, you're not nobody's gonna do it.
They can't, or many people won't do it unless, so whether in terms of the list of things that we should work on, there's a big difference whether you can finance it or not.
We we do have um at a high level one thing that was included in the original list of uh local actions that we would add to our five-year plan, um, financing and funding, pursuing financing and funding opportunities.
So it wasn't like a specific dollar amount that we would secure X number of dollars, but that we would investigate kind of in the similar vein as um pursuing legislative opportunities through the creation of the local government climate alliance.
So that is included at the very high level to focus on that in the next five years, okay.
So I'll save the rest of my things for the queue.
Chris?
Just really broadly.
Trying to how everything fits together.
So we had our we had our sessions, we had our study session.
Uh we'll provide feedback on this tonight.
This will come back and we'll fall next to us and/or the council.
This is intended to we wanted to present the full analysis.
We've used the results of this analysis and included feedback from the committee.
We just wanted to come back with here's the final work, you know, just we can show our work if you will.
This doesn't require further action.
What will come back to both CSC and the council is the actual five-year decarbonization plan, which would be based on the work that is contained within this analysis.
Yeah.
And then are there any other like large items we're trying to tackle before the end of the year with respect to this committee's work?
The end of the fiscal year or the calendar.
The end of the calendar.
Um in the fall, we will be bringing um for a discussion on municipal decarbonization.
And because it's sort of the tandem piece to accompany the community-wide decarbonization approach.
Uh, we'll be diving deeper into the transportation emissions and EV charging.
We had been talking about having a discussion around that as we launched the multifamily um DV charging incentive program.
Those are the primary things, and then preparing to bring this five-year plan to council before the end of the year.
I just wanted to make sure I had all the PC.
Yes.
It's possible that we will have discussion about the zoning incentives related to decarbonization.
Um, although we don't know if going straight to council based on timelines really for when the codes need to be adopted, whether it goes through EPC and then to council or EPC CSC council, but it will be vetted.
Okay.
Well, I have a couple.
First of all, I just want to confirm this.
I mean, we've been talking about it a long time, and um uh first of all, one of the things that um we we talked about is how important getting EV chargers is at multifamily housing.
Now, my understanding is the reason for that is because we've actually been very successful at getting it in single family house.
So we don't need to work on that anymore in a sense, and there are some existing incentives, but multifamily housing is a barrier, and in addition to that, a uh a tremendous amount of our population lives in it, and we expect that percentage to be maintained or increase.
So it's both the barrier and the big percentage that it is for us.
So if we lived in a community that you know we had 200 people living in apartments, it wouldn't matter, but necessarily.
Right up, right?
Okay, so I just wanted to confirm that those are, you know, there isn't any other secret reason that um uh we should be aware of.
I think the the access, the level of access to EV charging is lower uh at multiple family, so less access and the fact that it represents a significant proportion of our housing.
50% of our units.
Yeah, it's huge.
And also just the controls.
I mean, the controls of the people who live there, the split incentives of it is is really yeah difficult.
Whereas in a single family home, you know, typically the owner, um, even if the owner doesn't, even if it's a rental, the rent the renter probably deals directly with the owner.
Whereas that's not the case for an apartment, they may the owner for being five levels or something from what I, you know.
Okay, all right, um, then the other thing I wanted to say is that um I'm really pleased to see the numbers here.
It seems like there weren't that many numbers in the report.
And um uh and did we get the presentation to us electronically?
Um the attachment had the numbers.
We did not send the PowerPoint uh in advance.
So can we get that after the attachment was uh included?
Was it included?
It was, yeah, okay, sorry.
I for some reason did not see that.
Anyway, this is a great PowerPoint, and I'm really pleased to see the numbers because I think for many of us that just makes it so much easier to understand, and um particularly to uh to talk to our residents about you know why we want to do this.
Um, you know, like why do you want to do a heat pump?
Not just because you're gonna save money, but you know, talking about how it's taking off the GHGs that a car would take off, for instance.
I mean, I think people really, you know, people really care about the magnitude of that.
So I'm gonna see that.
Okay, so then let's go, Sharon.
If I may, I wanted to just add that the model is built to be dynamic.
I think we saw in the last year how much our assumptions had to change because of everything kind of shifting beneath us.
So, for example, the model currently assumes full compliance with the air district rules, because all the air district has done has been sort of a straw poll um discussion around modifying the requirements or increasing the number of exemptions.
If they ultimately end up at 40% exemptions, we can adjust our model and say, well, what does 60% compliance look like instead of 100%?
We haven't adjusted it yet because no formal action has been taken by the air district, but um, same for EVs.
If we see the trend shifting, we can adjust the projection, maybe adoption maintains you know stays high or increases or decreases if gas prices decline, um, absent incentives, so we can make adjustments and report back to the committee and shift which which actions are pursued within the five-year plan.
That's good.
That's always the kind of goal of a computer model is that you can put in different parameters, but normally that doesn't happen for now it's like weekly.
We'll get to do that.
All right.
So I think with that, um, it's time to have public comment.
And um, let's see, uh Mr.
Farney would like to speak.
Yes, anybody else would like to be very welcome.
Hello, so six or nine months ago, um, Ms.
Lee told me that the most of the remaining emissions in 2045 would come from vehicles, and I could not understand why that was, but now looking at page five of table three and the goal analysis, I understand why.
It's because it says this analysis assumes that the EV sales rate of 41% of new cars being EVs will remain constant over time all the way up to 2045.
I would not make that assumption.
I suspect none of you would make that assumption either.
It also says there's minimal research regarding heavy-duty electric vehicle sales proportions, so the model estimates this metric reaches 10% by 2050, so zero to 10% in the next 25 years for heavy duty vehicles like the Kodiak and Tesla semi-trucks and other heavy duty vehicles.
So when the assumptions deviate that far from what I think reality is going to be, it's no wonder that you get to a conclusion that building emissions are the second worst of our problems.
I would maintain that building emissions are absolutely going to be the first worst of our problems in 2045, because so many different decisions have to be made by landlords who own buildings, tenants who occupy them, single family homeowners, um, all those appliances that need to be replaced are much heavier lift than getting people to decide that EVs, which have so many advantages even today, are not going to be the dominant form of motor vehicle in the future.
If we are still personally using motor vehicles, and if we're all in Waymo's and equivalents, though they will certainly be electric in the future, um so I would encourage you to take a much deeper dive personally to the questions, the to the assumptions that underlie this analysis and the analysis that comes next.
To the extent that I hope you will ask for a specific list of the assumptions year by year, and you know, the only reason that the uh emissions from cars go down is because at 41% a year every year, it does drive out a certain amount of the fossil fuel vehicles.
But in reality, as we get faster and faster charging, as we have electron stations replacing gas stations.
I mean, there are already cars in China that can charge in 12 minutes.
Um, and if you can charge in 12 minutes, why do you need a big battery that makes your car cost a lot of money?
Why don't you use a 35, 30 or 35 kilowatt hour battery that's cheap so that the vehicle's first cost were new, is much less, and you can know you can fill it up at any electron station anyway.
This that just it's not very forward.
In fact, the latest data in this page is from five quarters ago.
This is the work that we paid for a long time ago.
It's not been updated in any useful way.
And they are line.
Yes.
Um, very DT.
Oh.
Okay.
Of course.
Yeah, it's important.
Oh, yeah.
Later.
We can do it after.
We just need it so that we get your name right in the minutes.
Oh, okay.
So go ahead and keep it.
Katie and Patrick.
Hi.
Hi.
Um, I wanted to uh talk about the school district and um some thoughts I had about how we can better collaborate with the school community.
Um, I've got a daughter at Amy and I, um, and I've been hosting an Earth Club and teaching different like Earth classes and just really trying to understand how the school bureaucracy works to try to um activate the parent community.
And from what I can tell, there's about 4,000 houses in the parent community in the school district.
So there's 11 schools, and they account for probably about 15% of the emissions or the population.
And I've spoken to the school district, I went to their board meeting a couple of weeks ago, and from what I've been able to gather from our own principal and our own sustainability lead, which seems to be even a volunteer position or maybe a couple of hours like tacked on to the side of their job.
There's no consciousness about this, the impact of these 4,000 homes.
They're doing a lot of work on the campus specifically, because they can control that directly, but I don't think we even have a name for like what is this family community.
I'm just calling it the family community because I don't even know if we have a name for it.
But the school, this school community is very unique.
I don't think there's anything like it, that we have such an ability to potentially mobilize all these families.
I mean, most of us probably all have kids, and we know how involved the parents are.
So what I would like to see in some of the action plans is even like a line item for how we would know the marketing and the outreach and the incentives for how we would get out to these communities, and I don't think it can be done just through a single incentive or a top-down program.
We need to have more of a meta structure so that there is somebody in each school that's champion this.
Even if I do it as a volunteer, like I can't champion every single school and be in every school.
I only have a child in one.
Uh, and the sustainability manager whose job is to just maybe oversee like the recycling bin, they have like very minimal kind of impact in what they're doing, isn't enough to mobilize this, but to really think about you know, do we have somebody at each school that's going to take the lead that if you do want to say, like, hey, we're gonna do like an EV charger incentive program, or we're gonna have like heat pump week in the school, that they're gonna be that person who's gonna um champion that because we all know that teachers and everyone at schools are super busy, even if you did incentivize it, it wouldn't get enough traction unless there's somebody doing it, someone like me or someone there that somehow formalized in the school uh system.
So that's it for me.
Thanks.
Okay.
Can we have the very detail?
Maybe Rodadio.
Hello.
Um, much of the city's plan relies on the Bay Area Air District Rules 9496.
Um, Rule 96 was originally scheduled to start January of uh next year.
The uh Bay Area Air District Board is planning to revisit the decision in October of this year, I believe.
At the most recent Bay Area Air District Board meeting, staff presented recommendations that included postponing the implementation of Rule 9-6 by nine months from January next year to October, and including exemption process that would result in for low income situations and complicated slash costly installations that they estimated would rule out about 38% of the cases.
Of the 18 board members who gave feedback, only uh 10 supported staff's recommendations and eight board members did not support moving forward, but instead spoke in favor of some longer post indefinite postponement or wanted to make implementation voluntary.
Six members uh did not provide feedback.
Most I think were not there.
All four Santa Clara County representatives voted in favor of staff's recommendations.
Um I especially appreciated our vice mayor Clark's thoughtful comments about the importance of leaders taking action when it becomes clear that past decisions such as building a natural gas infrastructure need course correction.
Um in addition to the postponement and the exemptions and the uh sort of close situation on the board, there's also a risk that a lawsuit could delay the implementation.
So my asks are um these that staff update the goal analysis to reflect the nine-month delay and the expected 38% exemption rate.
Um please correct me if I've got that number wrong, but I thought it was 38% that um initially that staff start planning to implement um the um administrative updates they talked about, such as the REACH codes that um that they mentioned in this proposal um uh and not just to rely on the reach code moving forward.
Um third, that staff try to estimate um how our Mountain View exemption rate is likely to compare to the expected 38% overall exemption rate since we have such a high percentage of renters.
And um fourth, that our city council members send a note of support and appreciation to the St.
Clara County uh Bay Area Air District representatives, and ideally to um any uh, and then you know, uh I guess ideally also to any bad members who voted against moving forward with Rule 96 to um let them know that that we're in support of that.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Anyone else online?
Yeah, okay.
All right, so that can bring this back to council for um discussion, and um uh this is what kind of action is there for this that they're this is just random.
All right, that's right.
Okay, so who would like to go first?
Okay.
So I just wanted to say I really appreciated the report um and particularly the um graphic that showed the local versus the the non-local state and federal uh actions and what they contribute.
I thought was was really clear.
Um I guess the the thing that I found um uh the thing that I found uh one thing that I the main thing I wanted to comment on was that um that we're in said kind of what you said that uh that uh this is I'm glad to hear this model is built to be dynamic because even, you know, even since it was put together, I see changes.
Um, the big one that hit me, let me see what I had from the report was um EV market trends.
Um, and it was about the availability of federal EV tax incentives.
Um, you know, those going away.
And um, and that's that of course is is still true, but the change the dramatic change in gas prices recently um uh really affects, you know, uh makes it almost out of date, you know, since it was written, you know, because a quick online search tells me that geopolitical vulnerabilities like the Strait of Ormoes and depleted reserves and refining capacity restraints, etc.
Um, as a result of them, there may be sustained historically elevated gas prices for the foreseeable future.
So that changes some of the what you would predict in terms of uh EV adoption, um, and who knows how long that would last.
Also, EVs and and uh plug-in hybrid EVs may become much cheaper to run, uh, as well as I've read about some cities adopting um uh actions to address or to incentivize microcars and neighborhood electric vehicles along with other kinds of micro mobility, so not just scooters and so forth.
Um I guess there's one that's available uh called the wink for about $8,000 that's a fully covered car.
I'm looking into it for my children, so that's why I know about it.
Um, so I just feel like we may be able, maybe this relates to uh what Mr.
Carney said, but we may be able to speed up EV adoption, and I'm glad to hear that the model is built to be dynamic, but I would like to particularly keep our eye on eyes on that particular realm of things because I think that's something that we may um be able to speed up.
Um let's see, uh, and I would like to integrate that with our TDM actually, because I'm finding it a little too much stick and not enough carrot.
I think that people, particularly as a person who has had young children around, I think only carrots making your life more difficult is not the route that should be going.
I don't think we should make anybody's more difficult, but particularly um who have very difficult uh transportation schedules.
Um so that's one thing I wanted to keep our eyes on.
I also, as I hinted in my questions, I think that financing and for that matter incentives, because for both buildings and cars, for many people it's the initial price that puts them off.
And I think they don't often don't know that down the road, like I I said I thought council member McAllister's statements were extremely important because I think that's what most people are thinking.
It's just too expensive for me when it may actually save them.
So I want to make sure that that we're taking actions that allow people to capture the money it will save.
Um, I'm I'm uh reading Bill McKibben's book, Here Comes the Sun, which is a good book to read while all these sort of negative things are going on uh nationally, because it's all about the increasing cheapness of um things run by the sun.
And I feel like we could capture more of that in our five year books and be more positive around that.
Um, see if I had anything else.
Um, so I'm particularly uh interested in seeing eventually anything about uh financing or incentives because those are the two ways to cut the initial startup cost for these things.
And I think it's hard, as I said during the question, it's hard even to make predictions about what adoption will be.
If you don't know, you know, if we were going to give everybody very large incentives, the adoption numbers would be much higher, or if we had one-bill financing that was really easy to do for everyone.
So I guess that's another big thing I would like to work on even regionally.
Um, you know, there's no reason to hog it to ourselves.
Um, and I liked the idea that um Mr.
Carney brought up in terms of I don't know whether that would uh whether the um the uh UUT, not only for us, but for I mean, we must not be the only city experiencing that.
There must be other cities in the region, and it would be great if that would become, you know, a regular practice so that everyone will have incentives.
Um then uh and that also makes me think about what Mr.
Carney has brought up as well about the rising cost of gas.
It seems like that's something that we could talk about regionally, um, ways to work through that using financing and incentives to get as many people as possible off of the gap.
So I'm seeing all those work together as a package.
Um and I guess the last thing I'll say is that I guess I talked a little about political changes.
The other thing that this doesn't and can encompass, of course, is technical changes, which I think are you know are happening pretty rapidly.
So I look forward to our discussion on EV charging in um in rental units, and I think that's really important.
But if there's very fast charging, it may be something we end up not wanting to do with very fast charging to apply it's all over the place.
So I guess my come back to what I said in the beginning that um I'm glad the models to be dynamic because I think that's very important.
Um Chair, if I may just add a quick comment in response to um your observations.
One of the things that um I could have I could emphasize about the model is that it underscores a portion of what we plan to include in the five-year decarbonization plan, but not all of it.
We recognize that there are very important actions that we should pursue that we maybe can't model specific emissions reductions for, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do that.
So things like financing or regional solutions to incentives, um, in some cases, even short-term trends that we're seeing, like gas prices.
Maybe we can put that on a 20-year model, but we can track that and pursue that in discussion and look for opportunity within that.
So the model isn't meant to be um fully comprehensive.
We will certainly work on things that are not included, but it's just meant as one of the tools in identifying local action.
Okay, good to know.
Oh, I had a couple other comments I see.
Now, one is that in terms of schools, I I like uh what the the speaker said.
I know that when I had kids in elementary school, I mean, she's kind of right, your whole world is elementary school.
Those are the people, those are all your friends.
Um, uh, and no one else wants to talk to you because you're the kids.
Um I don't know if there's a way of so I think it is a good way to get outreach and education to families who basically don't go anywhere else.
Um, and maybe uh linking it with cool block in some way, having a school rule block, I don't know, something along those lines or some way of doing going like the neighborhood, the council neighborhood committee meetings, maybe going to school meetings.
I don't know, something along those lines.
I think she has a point.
Um we we do participate in school events when we're invited this year.
We hosted uh the city's earth day event and also went to one of the local schools' earthly events, and we had temporary heat pump water heater tattoos, temporary tattoos for children and stickers, and I think we had even um stuffed animals.
Oh no.
Coloring books, coloring books um related to our heat pump water heater program.
Um I know that I made my parents have a recyclers as a school child, because that was what was the thing in the 90s.
So certainly there's great power in children compelling their parents to do things so we certainly use this meetings um oh and I do think it would be good to send a note of appreciation for the um or or support as uh this adio suggested thank you we can work with Ms.
Gilmore the city did send the letter of support to the air districts um at the initial at the outset on the sessions related to implementation okay but if it's not going to come up again until October then we'll block the letters and we can resend and up to get the bike about the back.
Yeah.
So having it closer to the top would help at least would help um I see here you don't have to send me an individual thank you.
I got enough of both sides of that and a lot of water profane emails unfortunately.
But yeah I think with respect to the air district as was noted um you know we had some uh not everyone was present at that we don't necessarily know where everyone stands but um we had enough we had to move forward with the frameworks that need to be worked through on the exemptions pieces and all those things so um hopefully the coalition holds together we will see um the I think with respect to the model I mean I I look at this a from a really high level I think the time money and investment that we're putting in this model is hopefully it serves as a a baseline or a framework that we can update over time as you mentioned dynamic so that you know if if EV adoption rates don't match our assumptions we can adjust those if new technology changes and um you know individual EV chargers no longer make sense for whatever reason um or or the the macro political or economic environment as long as we can adapt fairly quickly um and update things I think that's the most important piece as opposed to what is what is on paper today because it it will change naturally um hopefully in a year or two um but yeah I think from my perspective we just want to make sure we have a good baseline and a good model that's adaptable over time so we don't have to go through this whole process every few years and whoever's uh this committee a few years from now will have a baseline to work from well um I too appreciate the report and analysis that was done and in particular I kept finding myself going back to that um that multicolored chart the um you know the big triangle made up of all those different pieces and thinking about um you know how it would be different if if the um the components of that changed and um uh I think you could really give like an hour long talk easily about what what is that what does that graph really say and um and maybe we should have an hour anyway but but I um uh I really appreciated that and the numbers um that were shared tonight because in particular I think that people want to understand the magnitude of what's you know what's what's happening or not and so I think um communicating that and finding various ways to communicate that is really important.
And it will change over time, like you say but um the other thing I think is really important is just keeping account, you know, of um like we have a reach code that we've um you know we've adopted and we can look and see how many people um put in electric appliances in their um homes for the last year or so when they didn't have to, they could have just wired for it, or how many didn't, you know, and and and uh sort of addressed accordingly.
So I think that kind of keeping tabs on um what how things really function is um is very important for moving forward.
Um and uh I also like the financing piece, I think that's important.
I know that Silicon Valley Clean Energy had a used EV car program for a while.
I have not heard about it in a few months, like six at least.
So I don't know if it's still existent, but that might I understood from some people I talked to who used it that you know you could buy a used car from that for like $10,000 if you get any big and um uh there is quite a turnover in these because a lot of people buy them with leases, so I think that's something to um you know to uh maybe talk up.
Um I also wanted to mention the um uh I also wanted to mention the idea of working with the schools.
Um we do have a volunteer uh one of the council wolf plan items for this year is is how we're gonna the city's gonna use volunteers, and this is an instance where how could we use volunteers.
I um I too was you know a soccer bomb uh for a while and very very inversed and um immersed in the whole uh PTA volunteering, et cetera, et cetera thing.
It's true, nobody else wants to talk to you because that's like that's very very good point.
But you get very close to those people that you do do it on day-to-day basis, but but um there are typically um, you know, there's a there's a core group of people at every school who steps up to help, and they always want to know what they can help with.
So I think that we, you know, we need to make it clear that this is something they could help with.
And um I would also say that the connection with PTAs, at least in the schools I was with, um, could be helpful, like going and speaking at a PTA meeting.
I mean, you don't get half the school there, you get maybe 30 parents, but those are 30 parents that are sort of the movers and shakers, and and if you can get things into their uh their packets that go home weekly, which we haven't had much luck in doing with the city, but you know it's things are better with the school districts than they have been, so perhaps it's a possibility, but they do have weekly packets or emails that go out.
I mean, when my kids were little, they were packed, but sure now they're emails or text.
So, you know, those are opportunities to um to do outreach, and we have just wonderful um graphics and things that are already put together.
I mean, right?
You all have really done a wonderful job of that.
So I think that's something that we could, you know, we can we could just try and and use a little, we could try and use a little different avenue and um for that.
So um I uh I'm looking forward to this, and um I also think that I just want to say I I really appreciate how um how resilience resilient the um the sustainability team has been.
You know, you have really gone through um a sea change um of policy over the last year and a half, and um uh you could have just been completely stymied by it, but you didn't you aren't and you have been.
And um I uh I just want every you know, I just want to mention that that's been noticed, and that's really appreciated.
So do you have wait one?
Yeah, and it's after that nice dramatic ending, very non-dramatic.
Um I just wanted to second your point about used EVs if that's some, because I think in addressing many people's uh ideas that EVs are too expensive.
I think that that's that it leasing, use DVs, and I think in particular in this area, a lot of people are selling, especially their Tesla.
Um, you know, a lot of people who bought EVs several years ago were people who were at the sort of had the money and wanted to try it out and and turn them over very quick.
So I think that that's a good thing to a good part of the outreach and education.
So I think that brings us to the end of item 5.1 and we can move on to 5.2, which is the sustainability action plan uh for progress up there.
And um, this item will be presented by sustainability and resilience division staff.
Miss Lee will commence the presentation.
Take it away.
I think you're sure Walker will just bring up the presentation, but um, I'll introduce the item, and I'm joined by Miss Anderson who will be walking you through our update.
Um great, thank you.
We can go to the next slide.
So sustainability action plan for where we'd like to just bring you up to speed as to where we are periodically.
Staff comes to this committee to give you a progress update.
Um, the sustainability action plans that the city has adopted over the years were really shaped by the uh environmental sustainability task forces.
There were two of them that included many members of the community uh leaders in sustainability um council appointed um task forces in 2008 and 2017.
Um, our most recent sustainability action plan was adopted in 2019, and it was significantly informed by the 2017 task force support.
Um that SAP included 81 actions and seven new staff positions.
Um, and over time the plan has been refined through discussions with this committee to focus on 57 high impact measures.
Okay, and I will hand it over to Ms.
Anderson to tell us where we are.
Thank you, Miss Lee.
Um Laura Anderson, sustainability analyst.
So um sustainability action plan four, which I'll just refer to as SAP for now, is nearly complete with 91% of actions either completed or ongoing.
Um many of these initiatives have moved beyond one-time projects and they're now embedded in ongoing city operations programs and decision-making processes.
So building electrification has accelerated through the adoption of reach codes, new policies and procedures for city facilities, and direct investments in upgrading municipal buildings.
Flee and transportation efforts have also expanded significantly, including growth in EV charging infrastructure, development of a municipal uh fleet electrification plan, and adoption of the Vision Zero Policy and Action Plan.
Um, beyond infrastructure, the SAP has supported a wide range of community programs and incentives that bring climate action into daily life.
Um this includes rebates, like for E-bikes, um, keep up water heaters, as well as outreach and education campaigns such as Electrify Mountain View, the year of the water heater, um cool block, and um other efforts focused on plant-based eating and heat resilience.
Um implementation of the plan has also helped the city leverage substantial external funding.
Um we've secured more than 30 million in grants to accelerate these actions.
Um a key example of this is the measure B application.
So the sustainability action plan funds actually paid to help support that application creation, and then um they result it resulted in 27 million dollars for pedestrian and bike improvements.
Um, that's and then there are other grants we've gone as well where we've been able to use SAP funds as match funding.
Um so finally, um SAP has um strengthened partnerships, innovation, and accountability systems.
So um we've been able to collaborate with organizations like SVCE, Google and Canopy, and um that has enabled us to have pilot projects and um test out energy technologies.
Um we've also been able to improve our greenhouse gas inventories and reporting tools, like our CDP questionnaire, which was formerly the carbon disclosure project.
And these are just some of the highlights.
You'll see in attachment one to the council report that there's a full, you know, action by action.
Next slide, please.
So due to the large scope of the plan, implementation of a small number of actions remains underway.
The urban forest plan has been reviewed by both the Parks and Recreation Commission and City Council, with council adoption anticipated in June 2026.
So this month.
And at the same time, the phase one of municipal carbonization decarbonization is actively being implemented, which includes electrification of city facilities, solar installations, fleet and equipment, transitions, and supporting infrastructure upgrades.
There are also two transportation initiatives that remain underway.
And the last one is the transportation demand management ordinance, which technically actually this was written before it was just recently adopted.
So that will apply to qualifying new development projects citywide.
So overall, most remaining actions are expected to be substantially complete by the end of the year.
And from then we'll move forward to the five-year plan.
So move to the next slide, please.
So the sustainability fund, which is the capital improvement project that was created with the adoption of SAP in 2019.
It currently has a balance of about $3.86 million.
About 1.9 million is allocated to current programs, projects, and staff, but there's roughly 2 million available for near-term high-impact decarbonization investments.
So this available funding reflects a combination of previously unallocated funds, unspunt balances from completed projects, and funds reallocated from projects that secured other funding sources.
Staff is proposing targeted investments that focus on near-term decarbonization.
So this includes 500,000 to expand the heat pump water heater rebates.
This is helping residents prepare for the upcoming Air District Zero NOX appliance standards that will, you know, hopefully begin in 2027.
Another 500,000 to expand the EV charging rebates for existing multifamily housing.
So this would build on the initial grant-funded launch that we're getting ready to launch the summer.
Another 200,000 would support continuation of the Mountain View community shuttle.
And 300,000 for EV charging infrastructure for city fleet.
So this is supporting the city's compliance with our greenhouse gas free fleet and equipment policy.
Lastly, we're proposing an additional 300 to 500,000 for solar and battery storage projects at Key City facilities.
So this includes City Hall, the library, and the Renksdorf Park Aquatic Center.
It's primarily to support soft costs associated with the projects, and it's not for the construction and design of it, but for unlike consultant services, permitting and staff administration.
These projects are anticipated to come through council for review at a public hearing in September.
Slide.
So looking ahead, staff will continue implementing the small number of SAP actions that remain underway with full plan closeout anticipated by July 2027.
So as the SAP wraps up, any remaining program funds will be redirected towards implementing the high priority actions identified in the five-year plan, helping ensure progress continues towards the city's climate goals.
So with that, I'll um conclude my presentation and pass it back to Miss Lee, but happy to take any questions.
I just wanted to add one clarification before we take questions.
The seven positions that were referenced early in the presentation were spread across departments in recognition that sustainability work really happens across the city.
So some were for our team, including my position, but others went into various departments across the city.
There were just two within our team.
I think you have a slide for that that you wanted to show.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much for your presentation.
And first we'll have council questions and then we'll have it.
Okay, quite some fine.
Just one the the um the actions that are still in progress that are planning to be completed by the end of the fiscal year.
The are any of those at risk of not being ready for the first cautionary bikes or anything that we should be aware of.
Yeah, so we coordinated this update across all of the departments involved, but we did not hear.
No, there were no concerns shared by any departments.
Everything seemed to be on track.
Okay.
I just didn't know of anything that was in the plan because the world has changed 2019 a little bit, unfortunately.
Okay, the most current update, the most recent change to the measures themselves within SAP was a little over a year ago.
So it's not quite as dated as the 2019 original.
I know it's been updated over time.
Just curious if anything was held over that were worried about.
Well, my question is really about you know, some of these things that have been completed, um, were they all communicated in staff reports?
Or I mean, like for instance, just even the second one, which was ongoing, um, talking about monitoring of bike and trail use.
Uh, seems like my memory, we maybe the trans and I'm not on a transportation, but um we get we get numbers on uh the seam's group trail use with the uh counts that are done for the North Bay Shore.
But I don't remember seeing any other uh counts of our bicycle use around the, you know, around the city.
Um has that we have to we don't anyway, we're you know, some of these questions about how how much are by food uh and for instance the um the e-bike.
We it looked like you know, our success rate, our success criteria was did we did we did we give the vouchers?
We did give them and that's great.
But do we have any after um uh and we don't necessarily have to have advisor, but we have it, um, after uh program surveys about how much do they use those?
Did they become a part of their personal transportation, or are they, you know, sitting in the closet in there?
I don't know.
Um, I don't know that we have the immediate answer to your first question regarding the bike counts that are citywide.
Um, we can reach out to public works to inquire about that.
Ms.
Anderson, I know we surveyed after the program.
Yeah, we did survey when the program completed the e-bike and we got um results from we asked people basically how often they were using.
Did it replace car trips, that sort of thing.
I don't have the results in front of me, but it was, you know, pretty promising numbers.
Um, but you know, we don't have further out the right after the program closed.
Um might be okay.
Worth reaching out to people again.
But it was enough for you to feel like we might want to do it again.
Because you're yeah, so that's um that's good.
Is it fair to say that there was more reference to the e-bikes being more of a primary source of transportation than maybe the population average?
So because it was an income qualified program, there was higher utilization because people truly needed these.
There were less for recreational purposes, and more for transportation needs.
Well, even if they just replace trips, right?
That's what really counts as replacing trips.
So I I'm not I wouldn't judge about the people, it's just the replacing trips.
Yes, yeah.
And on that, depending on what your trips are for.
Um I I don't, but I I'm just interested in, you know, we're putting a lot of money like you you mentioned the um the measure B grant.
That's that's you know, millions of dollars we put into bike um into bike infrastructure.
And I hear people kind of gripe from time to time that they don't see people using the bike trails.
And so I think it would be wonderful for us to kind of keep up with that.
And um, the only big exceptions to that are the Cedars Creek Trail and the Guadalupe Trail.
People um seem very convinced that those are a great use of city funds and people use them a lot, etc.
etc.
So that's just what I'm getting at is we, you know, we we want we want the um, we want the tasks that we need to um to produce GHG reductions, and we also want people to be able to perceive that they've made a difference, and that's kind of the difference.
So, anyway, no, I those are basically my questions relating to the um, and I really appreciate you getting all this information together.
I'm sure it took a long time, but I hope that it's very valuable in terms of you know, actually doing the job.
The other thing I would say, sorry for the interruption, is that it's actually been a critical way of building the collaboration across departments because these actions were quite as developed, you know, based in large part on the recommendations of the ESTF to really did address all parts of the that was the city organization and just the practice of monitoring and getting status updates and working with that cross-departmental team.
I'd say much more than we had back at the point of adoption that we have that kind of collaboration.
Yeah, that's great.
Okay, so now we have public comment.
Okay, do we have any public comment on the on virtual?
Yeah, Mary Daniel.
Good.
Good evening again, uh, Mary Dadio.
Um, I'm glad the city will continue to fund the city shuttle.
Um, I look forward to hearing the results of the EV Charger and Center's uh incentives for multifamily properties, and I look forward to the completion of electrification of the city's final 15% of the landscaping equipment.
Um I'll be glad not to smell the gas power leaf blowers anymore uh once once we get those out of here.
Um item B4.1 tells us that the city completed uh water heater upgrades at 18 facilities.
Um 30 of those were um at those 18 facilities.
Uh 30 uh units were replaced with heat pumps, but unfortunately, five were replaced with tankless gas water heaters.
So um five of the, you know, five heaters were gas, 30 were electric.
So that's 14% of the water heaters that stayed with natural gas.
So I'm very confident, very confident the city is very motive to electrify, and yet we were not 100% successful.
So I think this underscores the comments that Bruce Carney has made um earlier and in other uh forums about the focus that needs to be maintained on electrifying buildings.
Um it also helps underscore the importance of committing to end of natural gas flow in Mountain View by 2045.
So if we say, you know, if that's it, 2045 is it, um, it's gonna I think help provide just that little extra motivation um to make those tankless water heaters be heat pumps.
Um thank you.
Okay, thank you.
All right.
Um, can I make a name and um through call?
Hey, Patrick.
Uh I just wanted to mention this because it came up in the last school board meeting on the active transportation plan.
Um, they were discussing it and in the uh a recent city council meeting about data.
There is a device called a Tel RAM spelled T-E-L-R-A-A-M.
Uh it's only been around for a couple of years, it's sort of a recent invention.
That's why people might not have heard of it.
They're only about 200 and they're a little device and they can be stuck outside uh and Wi-Fi or data connected, and they will count all of the different um modalities of the people coming by.
So it will count the cars in real time, the bikes, uh, the walkers, and they're quite low cost, and they could potentially be purchased easily and stuck in some um, you know, uh key places.
Then you can get that data in real time and then feed it to the website, grab whatever you want to see, get a text message about it every day.
Um, and uh yeah, I just thought everyone should know.
Um, I think this problem of the data can be very easily solved.
Thanks.
Thank you.
All right, okay.
So you have one in the middle of that item.
This item as well was an informational item like this like to be here.
The committee of the armor, yeah.
Well, then we get to item six.
And we didn't make it.
Oh, we didn't make our comments.
Of course we didn't make our comments.
I only heard and it's only responding to what you said about um, I wasn't gonna make any comments, but I I actually think what you said about in your question about counting um bike lane use and other things.
I actually think that's important for some additional reasons.
I think it's good to look at um not only positive results, so you can tell people that the money we're spending is being spent in good ways, but also um, you know, maybe there's some places and some particular kinds of bike lanes, for example, that are highly used and some that are not.
It's kind of been an indicator of what we should be doing in the future.
So for example, I prefer biking on uh bike boulevards and neighborhood streets.
That's one of the comments I see people making about the kinds of um bike lanes we're doing now on El Camino and California that they would also like effort to be put into neighborhood streets.
So that's not so much a comment about that people are making so about whether to do bike lanes or not, but what type works out for people better?
And so I think I think that may be true with a lot of other things too.
You know, should we fund more electric scooters or neighborhood electric vehicles or e-bikes?
You know, I think we can um uh get not just uh how much are they used, but what what kinds of things are, you know, what's giving us the biggest bang for uh, yeah it's not too yeah, I think it's just piggyback on your comment.
The uh the this is probably more a transportation though, or CTC thing, but um, you know, any place that has this is gonna undercount because major intersections but any intersection with a traffic camera that is not storing data but if it's a high resolution camera um now with a simple piece of software that can tell us um bikes it could even get into is that an e-bike or not they can do models of vehicles and give you a pretty good idea of whether it's a fully electric vehicle hybrid you can do that with all the privacy protections imposed because our our traffic cameras today aren't capturing license plates the the ones controlling actual traffic movements and so you could get a lot of really valuable data there from major intersections or roadways that have the plates and then for some of the neighborhood streets and other things I don't know if there are places in the right of way as long as you uh as long as everyone understands that none of the data is actually being stored it's purely just counts and spitting out um you know what type of vehicle was where on at what time of day then you get a pretty good idea and you can install those on trails too there are a few cities that have done that um and I'm not sure that that's the right answer for us now but as we as we replace our um our adaptive traffic control systems like those having a higher kind of resolution camera that with a with enough software to not only control the traffic but to keep us basic counts about um you know how our road raiser and and trails and other things are being used um and I think there's sustainability piece to that too just kind of breakdown as one thing to look at vehicle registrations and those sorts of things it's another to actually look at how they're being used and where okay sorry about forgetting that I don't really I wonder if you I don't really have any um and the other thing is I do feel like as we've said many times you know reporting things out is uh you know the process that gets to that is of itself very valuable the interaction between departments is very valuable and um so you know it's it's an important part of the process um to to do that and we're really glad to be the ones to hear it.
Okay so then that brings us to um item six committee staff comments questions and committee report I do have a a request and see if anybody else has any comments or reports no no okay well um uh as all of you know the last couple of years we have um hosted a C-level rise meeting for elected officials for Santa Clara County and um at the last one uh we had kind of a for couple related to the Brown Act um because that led to nobody but me being a from the from Mountain View being able to go which was pretty ridiculous.
So um we've been asked to um or I've been to to continue this um custom and have another um sea level rise meeting this fall and I would like to avoid the issue of um the Brown Act and um a methodology to avoid that is to have a special meeting have this meeting of um elected officials of Santa Clara County be a special meeting of the council sustainability committee.
That would mean that both of you could come if you wanted to and other council members could come if they wanted to just listen but anyway it would get around the problem.
So um due to the uh sort of uh issues with um scheduling this we don't have a date schedule.
Nor normally it's in October or or November.
And that's probably gonna work out this year.
Um, it would be good to have uh this group move to um uh to have that special meeting.
So that's my request is that that we move to have a special meeting of the um of the uh the council sustainability committee as this.
And I see that um uh this Ramberg has a comment.
Uh yes, thank you so much for that idea and the sensitivity around how to enable better participation.
And um as it's not an agendized item, I think it wouldn't be so much a formal motion and vote, but you could kind of have a a straw poll indication of of interest for staff to come back at some point at that.
Okay, and that would allow us to move forward with that.
All right, so that's about our idea, then we'll do that.
So um what do people think about that?
I think that's fine as long as logistically, if a special meeting, like clearly we're not gonna be able to do remote.
So as long as we can, as long as that's okay with whatever new rules just came into effect in January.
Um, and then if it is a noticed meeting of the committee, you'll just have to pick a date where at least two of us up so we don't end up with that's true.
And it can happen, and then everyone can still gather and talk, but yeah, but then you're then you're right back in square one.
So that's a very good point.
Make sure at least two of us.
And um, and and uh the other thing that we sort of tossed around was the idea of making a special city council meeting, but that would mean we're tricky.
That would be trickier.
That would mean we'd have to have four people vetting.
And I thought that that we thought that that was too high a bar to set.
So going forward with this special.
I'm generally in favor, yeah.
Okay.
Sounds um, for the straw poll, straw poll and um, and uh, we'll work on schedule, yeah.
We'll just have to make sure everyone knows because you know, like this committee meeting.
If there were other council members here, they can come and listen, but they can't um participate.
Yeah, well, they might be able to speak as a member of the public.
It's a little dicey, but it I'm sure it will all be fun.
But but just whatever whatever verbiage we need to add, send it.
Okay, so it can kind of be forward with that.
And we'll work on it.
We don't have a date yet, we need to work on a date, and you're right, we do need to have at least two people on this committee.
You we can attend and um hopefully three and hopefully all of us in um uh that's that's great progress.
Thank you.
Okay, so there are there any other committee reports?
No, all right.
Okay, well, with that, I'm gonna adjourn this meeting at um 7 31.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you.
Yeah, but we love to go
Discussion Breakdown
Summary
Council Sustainability Committee Meeting - June 3, 2026
The meeting focused on two major agenda items: the presentation of the decarbonization goal analysis and an update on the Sustainability Action Plan (SAP) progress. Staff presented findings on emissions scenarios, discussed the impact of local versus state/regional actions, and proposed next steps. The committee also heard public comments on funding mechanisms, model assumptions, and community outreach.
Consent Calendar
- The minutes from the previous meeting were approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Bruce Carney (oral communications): Proposed using the utility user tax (UUT) windfall – the amount collected beyond a baseline of $4.8 million – to fund incentives for electrifying vehicles and homes. He distributed a handout showing that $2.8 million per year could fund 1,414 incentives at $2,000 each, reaching 4% of households annually.
- Katie (on decarbonization analysis): Noted that the model assumes the EV sales rate remains constant at 41% of new car sales, which she believes underestimates future adoption. She also expressed concern that heavy-duty EV sales are modeled at only 10% by 2050 and urged a deeper review of assumptions.
- Patrick (on decarbonization analysis and SAP): Urged collaboration with the school community (about 4,000 households) to mobilize families. Suggested a line item in the action plan for outreach and a champion at each school.
- Mary Daniel (via Zoom, on decarbonization analysis): Described the status of Bay Area Air District Rule 9-6, noting a proposed nine-month postponement and a 38% exemption rate. Asked staff to update the goal analysis to reflect these changes, plan for reach codes, estimate Mountain View’s exemption rate, and send letters of support to the Air District.
- Mary Daniel (on SAP): Expressed support for continued shuttle funding and multifamily EV charging incentives. Noted that while 30 water heaters in city facilities were replaced with heat pumps, five were replaced with tankless gas units (14%), underscoring the difficulty of full electrification and the need for a commitment to end natural gas flow by 2045.
- Patrick (on SAP): Suggested using Tel-RAAm devices (low-cost, Wi‑Fi connected counters) to collect real‑time multimodal traffic data (cars, bikes, pedestrians).
Discussion Items
5.1 Decarbonization Goal Analysis
- Staff Presentation (Ms. Lee & Miss Lucky): Presented three emissions scenarios: business as usual (13% increase by 2045), adjusted business as usual (59% reduction thanks to state/regional policies), and local action scenario (additional 7% reduction, total 66%). Key drivers of reductions: EV market trends (41% sales rate), Bay Area Air District rules (banning gas appliances starting 2027), state SB 100 renewable portfolio, and low‑carbon fuel standard. Local actions – reach codes, electrification outreach, incentives, permitting assistance – were modelled and found to be complementary but small compared to state/regional policies. If Air District rules are delayed or weakened, reach codes become more critical (30,000 tons reduction vs. 107,000 tons from the rules). Transportation emissions remain the largest sector (63% of core emissions in 2045). Expanding multifamily EV charging showed high potential (22,000 metric tons reduction). Staff recommended maintaining the 2045 carbon neutrality goal and revisiting every five years.
- Council Questions/Comments:
- Chair Schulter asked about financing options. Staff responded that the analysis did not address funding yet, but financing opportunities (on-bill financing through PG&E, Silicon Valley Clean Energy pilot, third-party RFP) are being explored. The five‑year plan will include a high‑level action to pursue financing and funding.
- Member Hicks confirmed that multifamily EV charging is a priority because 50% of housing units are multifamily and access to charging is lower. The model is designed to be dynamic to adjust to changing assumptions (e.g., Air District rule modifications, gas prices, EV adoption).
- Member Clark appreciated the clear graphics and stressed the importance of communicating magnitude of reductions to residents. She also supported outreach through schools and noted the value of used EV programs.
- Chair Schulter emphasized the need for financing and incentives to overcome upfront costs, referencing council member McAllister’s point that electrification saves money over time. Supported regional collaboration on UUT-based incentives and expressed interest in microcars and neighborhood electric vehicles.
- The committee broadly supported continued work on financing and dynamic modeling.
5.2 Sustainability Action Plan (SAP) Progress Update
- Staff Presentation (Ms. Lee & Ms. Anderson): SAP (adopted 2019) is 91% complete or ongoing. Highlights: 30+ million in grants secured ($27M from Measure B for bike/ped improvements), building electrification via reach codes, municipal fleet electrification, Vision Zero policy, e‑bike rebates, heat pump water heater campaigns, and Cool Block program. Remaining actions: urban forest plan (adoption expected June 2026), municipal decarbonization phase 1 (electrification of city facilities, solar, fleet), and two transportation initiatives (including recently adopted TDM ordinance). Remaining SAP fund balance: $3.86M, of which $2M is available. Staff proposed targeted investments: $500K for heat pump water heater rebates, $500K for multifamily EV charging rebates, $200K for community shuttle, $300K for city fleet EV charging infrastructure, and $300‑500K for solar/battery storage soft costs at City Hall, library, and Rengstorff Aquatic Center.
- Council Questions/Comments:
- Member Hicks asked if any remaining actions are at risk; staff confirmed no concerns from departments. Member Hicks also inquired about bike count data and post‑program surveys for e‑bikes. Staff noted that e‑bike program surveys showed promising trip replacement rates, but ongoing citywide bike counts are not routinely reported. Member Clark seconded the value of data on usage of different bike lane types to inform future investments.
- Chair Schulter praised the cross‑departmental collaboration fostered by the SAP tracking process.
- Member Hicks and others discussed using traffic cameras and other technology for multimodal counts (not storing data, only aggregate counts). Staff took note.
Key Outcomes
- No formal action was taken on the decarbonization goal analysis (informational item); staff will return with the final five‑year decarbonization plan later this year.
- SAP progress was received as informational; the proposed funding allocations will be brought forward for council approval at future hearings (e.g., solar/battery projects in September).
- Straw poll: Committee members expressed support for holding a special meeting of the Council Sustainability Committee (rather than a general council meeting) for a planned sea level rise discussion with Santa Clara County elected officials this fall. Staff will work on logistics and scheduling, ensuring at least two committee members can attend.
- No formal votes were taken on either discussion item; the meeting adjourned at 7:31 PM.
Meeting Transcript
That's great. So let's have a call to order. This meeting is being conducted with a virtual component. Anyone wishing to address the Council Sustainability Committee virtually may join the meeting on Zoom using the link or phone number and webinar ID shown on the screen. When I announce the item on which you wish to speak, click on the raise hand feature in Zoom or dial star nine on your phone. When I call your name to provide public comment, if you are participating via phone, please press star six and unmute yourself. And then for people in attendance, please fill out a speaker card, which you can find on the sign-in table to the left of the door. And so item one. Do we have any speaker cards? Roll call. Yeah. Okay. Oh, everybody's here. Um chair show on here. Member Clark or Member Hicks. Yeah, great. All right. And then we have item three, which is approve the win uh the minutes. Does anyone have any comments or questions about the meeting minutes? Okay, now. Thank you. If um, would anyone like to move a motion to approve the minutes? Second after public comment. Yeah, I think we need to have public. Okay. Is there any would you like to make public comment on the minutes? No, okay. Anybody online? Okay, so we can go ahead with the vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes? Aye. Aye. Okay, that passes unanimously. Now we come to item four, oral communications. Um, item four is oral communications from the public. This portion of the meeting is reserved for people wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak for on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the CSC from acting on non-agendized items. Would any member of the public like to provide comment on an item that is not on the agenda? Yes. Welcome. Thank you. I'm going to speak about a lot of different numbers, and so I thought it'd be kind to put them on a piece of paper so you could see them as I was talking about. Oh, so the last city council meeting, I commented on what I felt was a need for funding source to do wonderful things for sustainability. And just in the last couple of days, I've come up with one. So it is to say that the user utility tax, which has risen so rapidly the last few years, represents a windfall. Money that people have paid in order to get electricity and gas in their homes and businesses have done the same. The city has taken a 3% tax on all of that money, and as the price of gas and electricity have risen, the tax revenues have risen. In the past, 4.8 million dollars a year for natural gas and electricity was the city's take, and it went to the general fund. All that money is still going to the general fund.