All right, let's get started.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for our closed session.

City Attorney Lowe will make a closed session announcement.

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom.

Okay, everyone.

We are back from closed session.

Okay, so good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council, Shoreline Regional Park Community, and City of Mountain View Capital Improvements Financing Authority of June 9th, 2026.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Hicks here.

Councilmember Amirez?

Councilmember Show Alter.

Here, Vice Mayor Clark.

Wonderful.

City Attorney Love, do you have a closed session report?

No final action was taken in closed session this evening.

The city council will not take any action.

Public comment will occur after the presentation items.

If you would like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Pride month proclamation.

And Becca Pons from the Santa Clara County Office of LGBTQ affairs to accept this proclamation.

Would you all join me at the lectern?

All right.

The proclamation reads, whereas the city of Mountain View is committed to supporting dignity, equity, and visibility for all people in the community, and whereas Mountain View celebrates the history and diversity of our city's LGBTQIA plus community and promotes a society in which all residents can live free from discrimination and whereas the city will host its second citywide pride celebration called Together in Pride on June 20th, the event will feature a flag raising ceremony.

Other activities will include performances by artists, community booths, roaming, yeah, roaming entertainment, family fun zones, and a community art project.

And whereas flying the rainbow flag at City Hall throughout the month of June further symbolizes the city's celebration of diversity and support for the city's LGPTQIA plus residents.

Now, therefore I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of June as Pride Month and encourage all residents of Mountain View to celebrate the rich diversity of our community.

Saldi, would you like to say a few words?

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Sal De Serbin.

My pronoun is He Him, His.

I'm with the County Santa Clara Office of LGBT Affairs.

Thank you for being here as we celebrate Pride Month.

Pride is a beautiful reminder of the power of visibility and the strength of United Community.

It's a time to honor our past, celebrate our joy, and reaffirm our commitment to full equality.

But real support extends far beyond the flags and festivals.

It lives in our policies and resources.

If you or someone you love looking for support, advocacy, or community connection, I want to remind you about an incredible local resource, which is our office, Santa Clara County Office of LGBT Affairs.

Established as a historic first in the United States United States, this office acts as a dedicated champion for the health, safety, and well-being of the LGBTQ plus residents right here in Santa Clara County, including the city of Mountain View.

From connecting community members to affirming health care and housing to providing a cultural competency training, the office work to work tirelessly to make sure our county is a safe to call home.

Also, this June 12th, I want to invite you all.

Um we are turning a 10-year 10-year anniversary since the establishment in 2016.

Um it's happening on June 12 from 5 to 8 p.m.

at 70 West Heading in San Jose.

This June, let's celebrate let's celebrate our diversity and make sure no one walks their journey alone.

Check out the Office of LGBT affairs, stay connected and have a beautiful safe Pride Month.

Thank you.

For our next proclamation 3.2, Juneteenth proclamation, we are happy to be joined this evening by Jamal Williams, uh Kima Egg Boo, and um Jocelyn Dubin, co-chairs of the Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet of Silicon Valley to accept this proclamation.

Would you all join me at the lectern?

Hi.

Absolutely.

All right.

The proclamation reads: whereas President Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863, declaring slaves in the Confederate territory free, paving the way for the passage of the 13th Amendment, which formerly abolished slavery in the United States of America, and word about the signing of the Emancipation proclamation was delayed by some two to two and a half years to June 19th, 1865, in reaching authorities and African Americans in the South and Southwestern United States, and whereas this day has a special meeting and is called Juneteenth, combining the words June and 19th, and Juneteenth is an opportunity to acknowledge a period of our history that shaped and continues to influence our society today, a time to honor and pay respects for the sufferings of slavery, and whereas the City of Mountain View strives to be a community for all, which is to support its socioeconomic and cultural diversity, whereas the City of Mountain View recognizes the historical significance of the Juneteenth Day to the United States, supports the continued nationwide celebration of the Juneteenth Day to provide an opportunity for residents to learn more about the past and to understand better the experiences that have shaped the United States and recognizes that the observance of the end of slavery is part of the hist part of the history and heritage of the United States.

Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council, do hereby proclaim June 19th as Juneteenth Day in the city of Mountain View.

Would someone like to say a few words?

And um let me first say that I was given permission to speak by these two wonderful women.

This is not patriarchy or misogyny at play.

Yeah, that was one of the great things.

The Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet continues to work tirelessly on behalf of Black residents throughout the county as a coalition.

We give our time and dedicate our our our lives and our professions to make sure that we are advocating fighting for policy and building community that supports and uplifts the black community.

We recognize Juneteenth as our independence day.

Um who were enslaved, but also that's at the course for all underrepresented uh populations in this country, and we want to make sure we recognize that that that milestone.

We think about today, and we recognize that um there's a lot of uh a lot of our civil rights and liberties being under attack, and even at a as a reflective time such as this, we want to make sure that we're fighting against those that are continue to oppress and try to rewrite history.

The systems and protections that black people fought and died for are under renewed threat, and social progress that communities achieved not only for themselves but for countless others are continuing to be rolled back.

We've seen black folks continue to be um, uh, we've continued to lose black folks in this county, and we have continued to see um black women being attacked over this past year, and so I ask that when we think about how we choose to move forward with policy, that we not only observe Juneteenth as a historical time, but we recognize that it sets a course forward for us in our policy decisions and our choices with our funding and support for the community.

So thank you again for this proclamation, and we look forward to continue working with y'all in the future.

All right.

Would any member of the council like to say a few words?

Councilmember Show Walter.

Yeah, I really would like to say a few words about Juneteenth.

Um, growing up in the Capitol of Confederacy, I was um really uh educated about uh the civil war in a way that was just uh a fairy tale.

And in the last 30 years, there's been an incredible movement to um bring back the real history of what happened and share it with everyone so we can all learn about our past and think about the implications of it and move forward from there in an honest manner, and so it just really does my heart good to see this.

When I was a kid growing up, nobody ever talked about Juneteenth.

I don't think it became a very popular um uh holiday until the uh the last 20 25 years.

But it's a very welcome one, and particularly this year, as we celebrate our 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it's so appropriate that we remember the other parts of our history, all of them the good, the bad, the wonderful, the ugly, and um and think about the whole, and uh so I I just I just wanted to mention that this this when we talk about we the people, um, there were a lot of people included throughout our history that didn't get their story told.

And um, this is about telling a very important story and not letting it die.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Show Walter.

Any other comments from my colleagues?

Seeing none, uh, we will now take public comment for the presentation items.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

We will take in-person speakers first.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

Do we have any in-person speakers?

All right.

No in-person speakers.

We will now take virtual speakers.

All right, we have a virtual speaker.

Judy, can you unmute yourself?

Judy.

All right, seeing that there are no other uh public comments, we will end item three, but with just one reminder for your call to action, call to service, call to community.

On Saturday, June 20th, we're gonna have our Pride event.

So yay!

We're so excited.

So please come out for that.

Um and show uh support and celebrate our diversity in our community.

Um that will be at City, the City Hall Plaza, um, and it will begin at 11 a.m.

So, yay.

Now we'll move on to our consent calendar.

These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration.

If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following approval of the balance of the consent calendar.

If you would like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non-agenda items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Would any member of the council like to pull an item?

Seeing none.

Oh.

Okay.

We will now, do you want to speak now or do you want to speak after public comment?

Okay.

So would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to submit a comment on these items?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

If so, we will take in-person speakers first.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

This is for consent calendar.

Do we have any speakers?

No in-person speakers.

Alright, we will now take virtual speakers.

Uh Judy.

Yes, hello.

Um, can you hear me?

I got disconnected on my public comment.

We can hear you.

Okay, um, I I got disconnected on my public comment earlier.

Um, and I wish you would uh make uh disruption policy to cover the disruptions and virtual comments uh that is a state law by the beginning of July.

You need to do that because I would like to be able to speak on the um the last section where they were talking about the um the Black Pride Day and the gay pride day.

Um will you still let me speak about that?

No, this is no longer that item for this public comment, but thank you so much.

Okay, well, thank you.

And please work on that disruption policy because you cost me my speech tonight, and that is uh viewpoint discriminator.

Thank you.

Um next up, we have Albert Jeans.

Hi there.

Just a quick comment on 4.10, the acquisition of property uh to Bella.

Of course, that's a really great, you know, it's a great opportunity to add to the park.

There's a big difference between I think a two-acre park and a three acre, but I just wanted to point out as Mr.

Dean did in this email that the lot next to that at 965 to carabella, also appears to be available.

And if we could add that, you know, we could look at a four-acre part, which is a really decent size.

So, you know, it's pretty rare.

I think that the city can put together so many lots to make a decent sized part.

So I really hope the staff and the city council will move forward on that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Albert.

Um we will now bring this back to council.

Um for council action and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include the reading of the titles of the ordinance and resolution attached to the consent calendar items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.9.

Good luck with that.

Um, the city clerk will take row call as we have a council member participating remotely this evening.

Councilmember Schoalter.

All right, I guess I should have looked at how much I had to read.

No, that's okay.

I'm just kidding.

I I also want to make a couple comments on one.

Uh, you know, when we get to the end of the uh this sort of the sessions, we we have two more meetings in this session before we have our summer break.

There are always a lot of consent calendar items, and that's just kind of indicative of um of all the work that the city is doing, and they want to get things wrapped up enough so they have our um approval to get through the summer.

So there's always a spade of them.

I think the most I ever observed was 28 in one meeting.

That was that was that was definitely a record.

But so this time I think we have 11.

And next time I bet we'll have more, we'll see.

But anyway, um, it's it's interesting to note that three of them are second readings of ordinances or resolutions that we passed, which is also an indication of something that we've finished, we've completed, and that's that's a good thing.

And um, I I particularly wanted to I also want to mention 4.4.

That's the extension of our shelter emergency, and that allows us to continue our um our programs to assist the homeless.

It's very important in the social fiber of our community.

Um, on a very happy note, we are um putting more money into the heat pay heat pump rebate program.

It was so popular that we used up all the money.

And so by putting another $500,000 in, we'll be able to take $250 more heat pumps out of people's houses in Mountain View.

And the reason it's so important to take a heat pump out is because uh a water heater in a in a typical single family home uses about the same, I mean produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases as a car does, a family car.

So these reductions are very important, and it's it's something to be proud of.

Also, as uh Albert Jeans mentioned, 4.10.

We're purchasing some land that's going to allow for um uh an uh a park that's a little larger than three acres in this area.

That is definitely something to celebrate.

And and also um I just want to um to thank uh the the uh BPAC and James Cusamal, congratulate for being willing to step up and serve on the Santa Clara Transportation Authority by PED advisory board.

That's that's an important way to bring the Mountain View concepts to uh county uh county issues.

Okay, so with that, I'm gonna have to um probably have a few sips while I do this, but I'd like to move the uh the uh consent calendar.

Item 4.1 adopt an ordinance of the city council of the city of Mountain View, amending chapter 36.

Article 9, division 2, residential development below market rate housing program of the Mountain View City Code to modify the below market rate program and add section 30.40.32 governing graduated fee reduction for small projects and finding that these code amendments are not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Item 4.2, adopt an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, amending chapter 36 zoning of this the Mountain View City Council Code to authorize streamlined administrative approval of housing development projects that are statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuing to public resources code section 21080.66, and to make other minor modifications to Chapter 36 to align land uses in the recreation, I mean in the residential and commercial zones with state laws, and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under CEQA as recommended by the Environmental Planning Committee to be read in title only further reading waived.

Adopt an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, amending chapter 28 subdivisions and chapter 41, park land dedication or fees in lieu thereof of the Mountain View City Code to authorize streamlined administrative approval of housing development projects that are statutorically exempt from CEQA, pursuant to public resources code section 21080.66 and make other minor modifications to chapter 28 and 41 to achieve greater consistency with state laws for internal consistency within the city code and to align the city code with current permitting procedures and practices and finding that amendments are exempt from review under CEQA to be read in title only further reading waived.

Item 4.3 adopt an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, renewing approval of the Mountain View Police Department military equipment use policy, adopting updated military equipment use policy, and finding that this action is not subject to CEQA to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Item 4.4, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing the city manager or designee to execute fiscal years 2026-27 funding agreements with the community services agency of Mountain View, Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills for housing-related services and an amount not to exceed 177,000 dollars for a homeless prevention direct to financial assistance program and an amount not to exceed 150,000 to be read in title only, further reading waived.

And adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, amending resolution 18301 to extend the declaration of a shelter crisis in the City of Mountain View through June 30th, 2035 to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Item 4.5, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving a request to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for the allocation of fiscal year 2026-27 Transportation Development Act Article 3 Pedestrian Bicycle Project Funding to be read in title only further reading waived.

Item 4.6 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing the city manager or their designee to amend an agreement with Silicon Valley Clean Energy to increase funding for the heat pump water heater program by $500,000, resulting in a total not to exceed amount of a million dollars to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Item 4.7 adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View calling a general municipal election for the purpose of electing three members of the city council, requesting the Board of Supervisors to authorize the registrar of voters to contract for election services, authorizing the city clerk to contract with the county of Santa Clara pertaining to services to be performed by the county in connection with the general municipal election to be held on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026, and related actions to be read in title only, further reading waived, and adopt a resolution of the City of Mountain View, City Council of the City of Mountain View adopting a 200-word.

Wait a minute.

200 word maximum.

I've got to flip the page here, guys.

So sorry.

200 word maximum for a candidate statement of qualifications and charging each candidate for a fixed share of cost for the printing, handling, translating, and mailing for the general municipal election to be had on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 to be read in title only, further reading waived.

And last but not least, item 4.9.

Introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View amending Chapter 2, Article 8 of the Mountain View City Code to add section 2.86.25 governing the selection of arguments for city ballot measures and make other clarifying modifications to be read and title only, further reading waived, and set a second reading for June 23rd, 2026.

Great job.

All right.

So we have a motion by Councilmember Show Walter, seconded by Councilmember Hicks.

Uh City Clerk, will you mind taking the roll call vote?

Council Member Schelter.

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks?

Yes.

Councilmember Kamei?

Yes.

Council Member McAllister.

Yes.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark.

Yes.

Mayor Ramos.

Yes.

All right.

So that concludes consent calendar.

We will now move on to item five, oral communications.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city's council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during the section.

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

If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

And in recent weeks, the city along with few other neighboring elected decision-making 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 equ uh equal uh equity and justice as we strive to create a welcoming, safe, inclusive community for all.

The council recommend welcomes respectful, non-threatening public comments on matters within our jurisdiction.

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

So we will now move on to our public comment.

It looks like we have one, two, three, four, five people in the queue.

So we'll go for two minutes.

So would any member of the public uh joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit blue speaker cards to the city clerk.

We will take in-person speakers first.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Our first one is going to be Bruce Carney, followed by Kristen Anderson, followed by KBT, followed by Shawnee Kleinhouse.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Ms.

Glazer, would you please show the slide for public comment I submitted earlier?

Thank you very much.

I want to take just one minute of your time to make sure you are aware of the greenhouse gas emission report released earlier this year by Silicon Valley Clean Energy.

They prepare reports each year for all of their member agencies.

The clerk is showing the latest slide for Mountain View.

As you can see, emissions in 2024 were higher than uh in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

In fact, 5% higher.

Um, the reason for the increased emissions is that in 2024, Silicon Valley Clean Energy was unable to meet its goal of providing 100% carbon-free electricity.

I have been assured that SVCE returned to being carbon-free in 2025 and will strive to be carbon-free in the future.

But what happened in 2024 should serve as a reminder that we can't take it for granted that the electricity we consume will always be as clean as we hope it will be.

Thank you, Mr.

Carney.

Kristen Anderson, followed by KBT, followed by Shawnee Kleinhouse.

Good evening.

Thanks for hearing me.

Um, I just have two things I want to bring to your attention.

One of them is the City of Mountain View dog park over off of Shoreline by Shoreline, across from Shoreline Amplet Theater by, you know, by the golf course.

There's a dog park, has both for large dogs and separated for small dogs.

It is barren.

Um covered bench for someone to sit in, and then another one has like a second, or you know, it'll have some benches, but it's just plain, plain gravel type of you know, dirt, nothing for the dogs to do and run around or have fun with.

And so I would like to see you guys kind of spruce it up.

It's been this way for decades, as long as it's been there.

So it would be nice to have some fun.

Um added to it.

The other one is the issue on for Charleston entrance onto Southbound 101 highway.

There is right there, it's by the Costco.

And there's also an exit from Southbound 101 to Ringsdorf, and they are within 100 feet of each other.

There's also, in addition to that, there is the ringstorf entrance to 101 that's right after that.

And this clogs up 101 all the time, all day, you know, all day.

There's no give from that.

And I'm surprised, honestly, that there's not more accidents right there.

It's very hazardous.

And um, I would like to see when last year you guys closed that entrance from Charleston, and it just made the flow on Southbound 101 so much easier.

It's just, it was amazing.

So if there's a way that you guys could actually just close that entrance because there is the ringstorf one, and if you do need an additional, thank you.

All right.

Um, next we have KBT, followed by Shawnee Kleinhouse, followed by Alvin Kerr.

I'm with the coalition of community organizations called SOS, Safety Over Surveillance, and I want to commend the council and the Mountain View Police Chief for taking the groundbreaking step of canceling the flock AI enabled cameras to protect our citizens from outside surveillance by federal agencies like ICE and from violations to our Fourth Amendment rights, protecting us from warrantless searches and invasions of our privacy.

This is so incredibly important also for our immigrant community as well.

While other cities drag their feet, Mountain View leads the way by canceling these cameras.

I was overjoyed to see the cameras near my neighborhood removed and some other ones as I drive around.

In the last couple of weeks or so, I had thought from the February 24th meeting that there was going to be an official announcement to the public of when these cameras were going to be removed.

So I hope that that can be considered soon uh to be announced because I would love to see our city stand firm for the individual civil civil liberties and a safe surveillance-free zone for our city.

Additionally, I hope the council continues to reject the use of any AI enabled ARPR cameras from any company in the future because there is still so much evidence of increased misuse and abuse and lack of data protection.

So I hope we can continue to protect our citizens from overreach by the federal government by doing so.

Thank you again so much, Council, for canceling the contract.

Thank you, Shawnee Kleinhouse, followed by Alvin Kerr.

Good evening, Shani Kleinhouse with the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance.

I wanted to thank you for adopting the uh parks and recreation strategic plan.

The biodiversity anchors in the plan are really great to see, and thank you for that.

Um it's more than just a park feature, it really looks forward to integrating nature into the fabric of the city.

So it's really important to know that one, the plan does not require every new plant in every park to be native.

Not at all.

You only have to have one area or one tree or in a few trees that provide biodiversity value.

And by biodiversity value, I would take the California Native Society uh definition that talks about what are what is biodiversity and that's the web of life that co-evolved together.

Native plants that evolved along native insects, birds, and other wildlife, providing food, shelter, and ecological relationship all together.

So we're not talking about a lot of trees from a lot of places.

That's not biodiversity that's relevant to this landscape here.

So we really need to look at how do we bring a biodiversity anchor that has biodiversity value.

So a tree from Nevada or New York or Pennsylvania doesn't have that value here, and we need to remember that in the definitions and how you look at the uh next plan, which is gonna come next time, and I can't come and speak some here today.

Um, you know, there is a city in Sinitas that just adopted their native plant ordinance.

A hundred percent of all plants planted on city properties have to be native.

And in other projects that they permit 50%.

Not asking you to do that today, but I think keep in mind there's an importance to bringing back and supporting our local bio ecosystems and our local native plants.

These are our butterflies.

Thank you.

Next up we have Alvin Kura.

Mayor Ramos, Vice Mayor Clark, uh, council members, city staff, Chief Canfield, uh, Alvin Kerr Silvan Park Neighborhood.

Uh, just three quick things.

One, uh, thank you, Mayor Ramos, for the state of the city.

Um, I just I don't know if you've been told, but I wanted to mention it's really important that these things be sent on the internet so that those of us who can't be the at on site for those kinds of things are able to watch.

I'm very grateful.

Um, City Attorney Log, uh, congratulations.

I hope that it's something you're looking forward to, not just something you feel like you have to do.

So thank you.

And uh finally, uh particular manager, Chief Canville.

I'm an active person here at St.

Joseph Parish, and I wanted to thank you all for being supportive of the activities that we do just like this last weekend.

Especially if your support is your patience.

Um, I'm pretty sure my pastor appreciates it.

I'm I can tell you for sure that I do, and I yield back my time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will now take virtual speakers.

We have one virtual speaker, Judy.

Okay, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

All right.

Is this for uh non-agenda items?

It is for non-agenda items.

Okay, great.

Because uh it's within your purview to discuss this.

You give these special days for special groups like the gay group and the black group, so on.

Uh, you don't have the right to cut me off just because I'm white and I want something for my group.

Um, just recently the SPLC has um been under uh a lot of investigation and now um indictment or some kind of charges put on them for uh basically giving Jewish actors the assignments.

All right, okay, we're we're gonna stop that.

The council rep welcomes welcoming, um, respectful and non-threatening public comments on matters within our jurisdictions, comment deemed otherwise pursuant to the council code of conduct and the government code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period.

Thank you so much.

And we will now move forward uh to item six, the um public hearings.

So item 6.1 City of Mountain View Vacancies and Recruitment and Retention Efforts, government code section 3502.3 Human Resources Director Maxine Gillow will present the item.

If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Did I pronounce your name wrong?

I'm so sorry.

Maxine Gulow.

All right, and we are ready when you are.

Um, what we're doing to address it, and how we're investing in our workforce for the long term.

AB 2561 took effect January 1st, 2025, requiring public agencies to report vacancy and recruitment data at a public hearing at least once per fiscal year.

If any bargaining unit exceeds a 20% vacancy rate, a formal remediation plan is required.

Tonight's presentation fulfills that obligation, and I'm very pleased to report that no bargaining unit is in that territory.

Yes.

AV 2561 took um, sorry, but that so let's go into our four recognized labor organizations.

We have Eagles, SEIU, the Mountain View Professional Firefighters Local 1965, and the police officers association known as POA, representing nearly 640 positions that deliver essential services to our community every day.

At the time of this report, I'm very happy to say that we have four new hires scheduled to start by the end of the fiscal year, which improves the vacancy rate to 9.04%, which is below the national public sector benchmark of 10 to 11%.

And I wanna say that that is not a coincidence, it really reflects the years of deliberate sustained investment in our recruitment and retention efforts that the city has done.

Vacancies by a snapshot, so breaking it down by unit, public safety is performing really well, firefighters at 4.4%, and POA at 3.3%.

Our Eagles group is at 10.5%, and SEIU is at 14.54%.

Both are below the 20% threshold, requiring additional disclosure under the law, but both are numbers we take seriously and are actively working to bring that number down.

I'm happy to report that even since this report has been done.

So for our recruitment and retention efforts, our recruitment efforts really begin with a community for all approach where we recruit individuals who reflect Mountain View's diversity and values, prioritizing quality over speed.

Also, we are recruiting smarter.

We are expanding our use of NeoGov, which is our online applicant tracking system to reduce time to hire.

We offer a great competitive package, we have targeted hiring bonuses for hard to fill roles, and we continue to build from within our organization through succession planning, internal advancement pathways.

On the retention side, we provide paid parental leave, we offer hybrid work options, and we also provide mental health and wellness resources, and these are just a few of all the wonderful things that the City of Mount Mountain View provides to our employees to contribute to our retention efforts.

Also, I want to highlight that we continue to invest in our workforce.

Over the last decade, Mountain View has grown by 129 FTEs, and that's a 22% increase.

The fiscal year 2026-27 recommended budget, which comes on next, proposes 714.75 regular positions, and this is the highest in city history.

But I'd like to be clear about how we've gotten here.

That every position added has been tied to a specific service need, a funded budget line item, or a deliberate council decision.

This growth has been fiscally responsible and calibrated to what our budget can sustain, not adding, not simply adding headcount, and I believe that this is part of the fiscal prudence of Mountain View is what makes us so fiscally sound as an organization.

Through the last several years, the city has converted multiple temporary and limited period positions to permanent.

I will even say that in HR last year, we had a limited-term administrative assistant funded from limited term to regular, which really helps continue capacity in HR to support services such as recruitments.

All these great things, there's also some challenges.

They continue to remain one of the hardest to fill because the credential pipelines are long and everyone's competing in this market space.

Public safety hiring requires multiple step post-standards, and that can't be shortcut.

We're also planning proactively for some anticipated retirement waves in the next three to five years, and so we continue to build our investment in HR, such as hiring a limited-term recruitment analyst that the city council approved in mid-year, and she's actually training this on her first week so that she can continue to assist and support us in recruitments.

In summary, Mountain View continues to be below the national vacancy benchmark.

We continue to grow our permanent workforce responsibly and add and convert temporary roles to permanent positions.

And so this concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

We will now hear from Kevin Ho, analyst too and president of our Eagles Union.

Welcome.

Alright.

Good evening, Councilmembers.

First, we'd like to uh give appreciation to the city for their continued transparency and partnership as well as their commitment to strengthening recruitment and retention efforts.

So thank you.

However, with the passage of California Assembly Bill 339, we are asking the city to prioritize filling vacant full-time positions and to convert more hourly temporary and contract roles into permanent union positions.

AB 339 has made it clear how many positions remain vacant and how much work relies on temporary and contract staff.

Our goal moving forward is simple.

Transition these hourly contract and temporary roles into permanent positions to strengthen our workforce and better serve the people of Mountain View.

Doing so has many benefits for the city and its employees by allowing the city to retain institutional knowledge and increase accountability and oversight.

It promotes stability, and because uh permanent roles are stable, they strengthen workforce reliability and encourages commitment by supporting career growth and providing access to essential benefits like CalPERS and healthcare.

All these reasons and many more underscore the importance of making sure union jobs are done by union workers.

We support thoughtful, limited use of non-permanent staff when truly needed.

However, over reliance on temporary workers weakens long-term workforce capacity and union representation.

Thank you for your time, and we look forward to working together so we can build a more resilient invested city workforce.

Thank you.

Does any member of the council have any questions?

Seeing none.

Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

A timer will be displayed on the screen.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

Do we have any speakers in person?

We will now take virtual speakers.

Do we have any virtual speakers?

Seeing none, thank you.

I will now bring the item back for council deliberation.

Any deliberation?

It doesn't look like there's any motion.

So with that, go ahead, Councilmember Hicks.

Well, I'll just say, although I know this is a pro forma thing that we didn't put it on the agenda ourselves.

Uh I I find it quite useful actually to check in, and I found the written staff report and then the two, the two uh the report from the union and from you, Maxine.

Um, I find it helpful to go over these things every year and think about them and think about staffing.

So um, so thank you all for taking the time.

Any other comments from council?

Councilmember Show Walter.

Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see um how the number of staff has varied with the population.

Because although our staff numbers have gone up over the last 20 years, our population has gone up a lot, too.

And so, I mean, it's not.

It would just be interesting to see how that changes over time, how that's changed.

All right.

Go ahead, Councilmember Hicks.

Okay, and I'll add to that.

It would be it would be interesting taking the point of the um gentleman from Eagles who spoke.

It would be interesting also to see the uh temporary and part-time, how whether that has been uh constant over the past several decades or whether it has grown.

That would be an interesting thing to track as well.

Uh City Attorney Log.

When you're done deliberating, can I just uh recommend that you make a motion to receive and file the report just so that we can close out the minutes and it's clear.

All right, it looks like we have a motion by Vice Mayor Clark, seconded by Councilmember Hicks.

Go ahead, council of Vice Mayor Clark.

Yeah, the motion is what the city attorney said.

Can we get a roll call vote, City Clerk?

Thanks, Mayor Clark.

Yes, Councilmember Hicks, yes.

Councilmember Kamei, yes, Councilmember McAllister.

Yes, Councilmember Marius.

Yes.

Council Member Show Walter.

Yes.

Mayor Ramos?

Yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

Alright, and that concludes our public hearing.

We will now move on to item 6.2.

City Manager McCarthy will kick us off, and Finance and Administrative Services Director Derek Ramponi and Assistant Finance Administrative Director uh Grace Zing will present the item.

If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Let's go.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

I'm very pleased to be here before you tonight to present a structurally balanced budget.

And as the mayor said, I'm joined by our Finance and Administrative Services Director Derek Rampone and Assistant Director Grace Zang.

And I just wanted to highlight a couple things before we launch into the presentation.

And the first thing that I want to say is you all heard uh during the April budget workshop how this recommended budget before you this evening is focused on providing core city services, long-term service delivery.

There's a real concerted focus on uh putting funding and recommendations in those council priority areas, the strategic priorities and projects, and then obviously one thing that we really pride ourselves on is still uh trying to be the first at many things and innovating, doing things differently, and really uh doing these important projects for our community members.

So that is kind of the baseline for what we present to you this evening.

But one thing that I do want to underscore is the fact that our revenues, although stable, they are not growing as fast as what we have seen in the past, and so what that means is that we have a lot of bold initiatives, we have a lot of projects and priorities that uh council and the community are wanting us to do, and we are seeking to fund, and we just simply do not have all the money that we need to do all of these things.

So, coupled on top of that is this economic uncertainty that we all know that we're in right now, and we just really can't look uh that far ahead in our crystal wall right now to know what's gonna happen, certainly by the end of this year and into next year.

So, as with a lot of cities, we're very focused on our infrastructure, improving our streets and our roads and our facilities, but it doesn't stop at that.

We have a lot of important priorities related to affordable housing and sustainability and new parks, and also making investments in technology within the city organization because there's been a lot of things over the last several years, certainly since the pandemic and before, where uh we just need to upgrade our aging systems, and so that's something that we're really focused on as well.

So talking about our revenues not growing as fast as they should be and needing more money uh to do a lot of these really important projects.

We are looking at uh revenue measure in the November 2026 uh ballot, which the council will discuss at your June 23rd meeting, and really, this is to help meet uh those needs that our community has identified and also think about how we can build uh the mountain view of tomorrow together.

So you will see that phrase in a lot of the infrastructure projects.

Uh, we have uh try to talk about that, not just with community members, but uh with conversations that we're having individually with people, and then you'll also start seeing those signs around town so people can actually see the things that we're working on and they know that these dollars are being invested in this important work.

Um so I also want to talk about how this budget making strides towards improving our internal city operations.

Some of the things that uh council is highlighted both at the mid-year budget and in the April budget workshop are uh things like uh the reorganization of our transportation division, hiring uh and uh you all approving a new chief transportation officer position.

Um we have also expanded the weekend hours of our library and added more staffing and security.

We're prioritizing long-range planning, we're making investments in our objective design standards, which I know is a very important council priority project in parallel with updating the standard details for our roads and sidewalks and uh really looking at uh green street infrastructure.

So that's something that we'll really be focused on in the next budget cycle and beyond.

And then uh one of the other things I'll want to point out with this budget is we've made a very concerted focus to place a lot of resources on economic vitality and small business support.

So we've implemented a lot of different updates like small business zoning code updates, the business ambassador team we've created, uh we've launched the facade improvement program, and so in this budget, we also have recommended the creation of what's called a property-based improvement district or a PBID, uh, which will really help improve the downtown district.

Um, also more frequent cleaning of the parking garages downtown and also the actual Ped Mall, the Castro Street.

Um, so those are recommended in the budget as well, along with a brand new storefront activation program along the Ped Mall.

And I also want to say that we're really excited about investing in the summer of soccer, so really supporting those World Cup activities and uh helping activate um our businesses and bring people downtown, both spending money and eating downtown.

Um we've also made an investment in this budget in our public art and culture, and part of that is hiring or I guess you all approving a brand new public art administrator position for the first time, and we are in that hiring process right now this month.

Um, so that's very exciting.

And then we'll also be celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Center for Performing Arts this year.

So we're very excited to recommend funding towards that project.

And then lastly, before I turn it over to our finance director, really at the foundation of all that we do in this budget and in everything we do every day is our focus on being a community for all.

We've heard about it tonight, we've talked about it, and it really is our foundational uh principle in Mountain View, and our funding of our programs and initiatives, all the various events is really rooted in this belief that Mountain View is a city that serves a very diverse community, and that we are a welcoming, safe and inclusive place for everyone, not just to live, but to work and visit.

So that is also at the foundation of our budget.

So with that, I'll turn it over to our finance director, Mr.

Rampone, to walk you through some of the details in the budget.

All right.

Thank you, City Manager McCarthy.

Good evening, Mayor Ramos and Vice Mayor Clark, Council members, Derek Rampo and your Finance and Administrative Services Director.

Joining me this evening is Grace Sang, the assistant finance and administrative services director.

The item you have in front of you tonight is the public hearing for the fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget.

Here is a roadmap of the budget development process as you've seen before.

As you know, the process really begins in November with a kickoff memo distributed to departments.

Departments then prepare and submit their budget requests to the finance department around the December holiday timeframe.

In January, the budget team compiles and reviews those requests.

And in February, the budget team and the city manager meet with departments to discuss priorities and proposed funding.

Also in February, we provide the mid-year budget update to the city council.

On April 14th of this year, we provided the preliminary review of the fiscal year 2627 budget.

The recommended budget that you have before you this evening was actually published early this year on May 22nd.

And then here we are now at the public hearing for this recommended budget.

And then the next and final step in this process will occur on June 23rd when council considers adoption of the budget, and including in that will be the capital improvement program.

As we've discussed previously, the city has a long history of sound fiscal practices.

We consistently adopt structurally balanced budgets, aligning ongoing revenues with ongoing expenditures and using one-time funds for only one-time costs.

In recent years, strong revenue growth has generated operating balances that have allowed the city to make additional payments towards our long-term liabilities, such as paying down our pension obligation through CalPERS and fully funding our retiree health benefits.

The city also prioritizes maintaining healthy reserves to prepare for economic uncertainties.

These practices have helped support the city's triple A credit rating from standard and poor's, which is the highest possible rating, and this has helped reduce our borrowing costs as we saw last just last month when we issued our lease revenue bonds.

And finally, the city has received national recognition for excellence in budgeting, financial reporting, and procurement.

As we look at what's changed since our last uh touch point in April, we still have a lot of economic uncertainty.

It remains elevated, which makes revenue forecasting more challenging.

Growth continues but at a slower pace than previous years.

Inflation has actually shown some signs recently of re-accelerating, which have increased cost pressures for both residents and local governments.

Consumer confidence has softened as households grapple and face affordability challenges.

The labor market remains resilient but is showing signs of moderation recently, and interest rates are expected to remain higher for a longer period of time, which may affect development, investment, and economic activity.

Overall, staff continues to recommend a prudent and cautious fiscal approach while closely monitoring economic conditions and revenue trends.

As we turn to the local economy, the local economy continued to show signs of slowing, though growth does remain positive.

Revenue growth is expected to be modest in future years.

Unemployment remains low but is expected to rise slightly.

Sales tax has been impacted by business relocations and closures.

Affordability, as spoken about previously, remains a challenge for residents and businesses.

However, there have been some new employers that continue to locate in Mountain View, which will support the city's long-term economic vitality.

Overall, I would say the local economy remains resilient, but growth is really expected to be more moderate going forward.

Property tax is expected to grow at 2.9%, while sales taxes forecast to remain flat.

Lease revenues for the city have been projected with a 2% annual increase.

Expenditure increases are expected to grow faster than revenues, which creates an ongoing budget pressure.

Key risks for the forecast include inflation, the federal policies uncertainty, and the potential for an economic slowdown.

The forecast that we have prepared does not include or assume a recession.

So overall, the budget remains balanced, but there's definitely uncertainty and expect an expenditure growth that continues to require close monitoring.

Here's the recommended budget for fiscal year 26-27.

It's structurally balanced.

We have new ongoing staffing requests that are very limited and targeted.

The budget focuses on maintaining service levels and advancing council priorities.

Investments are also included to improve operations and support a lot of economic vitality.

The budget balances fiscal sustainability with strategic investments in city services and priorities.

Included in the recommended budget, as the city manager McCarthy previously indicated, are various continuous improvement efforts.

These recommendations focus on improving service delivery and operational effectiveness.

Key initiatives here include the transportation division reorganization, expanded library hours, and enhanced long-range planning.

Investments in public safety, health, and wellness, and technology improvements support employee effectiveness and community service.

Overall, the budget includes these targeted improvements that improve that strength in city operations and service delivery.

As we previously spoke about with economic vitality and small business support, this budget includes targeted investments to support small businesses, downtown activity, and economic vitality.

Funding supports grants, loans, business promotion, and storefront activation programs.

The budget also invests in public art and cultural programming, including a new public art administrator position and the MVCPA's 35th anniversary celebration.

These investments will support a vibrant economy, an active downtown, and a strong cultural community.

Now we turn to some of the recommended items in the budget for 26-27.

The recommended budget includes a limited number of targeted staffing changes.

These positions focus on legal services, planning, transportation, and public safety operations.

One GIS position is being converted from limited period to ongoing, and one of warehouse staffing position is being modestly increased to meet operational needs.

These position changes are strategic and focused on maintaining service levels and addressing key workload demands.

As we look toward building the Mountain View of Tomorrow, I'd like to take a moment to again highlight a new revenue source that's now available to the city.

This fiscal year 2526, Measure G is projected to generate over $5 million in revenue.

These funds will support the public safety building, parks and open space, affordable housing, and other community investments.

Measure G provides an important local funding source to help advance council priorities and invest in Mountain View's future.

So as we continue building the mountain view of tomorrow, we're asking the community to help shape our future priorities.

A community survey is now live to gather input on potential investments in public infrastructure, public safety, parks, affordable housing, among other things.

The survey results will help inform council discussions regarding a potential revenue measure.

And this survey is a good opportunity for residents to provide direct feedback on the services and investments that matter most to them.

Now we'll get into a little bit of an overview of the numbers in the actual recommended budget.

First, we'll turn to budgeted revenues.

This is citywide all funds, just over 520 million dollars.

As you can see in the pie chart, the general operating fund, enterprise funds, and the shoreline regional park community fund make up nearly 80% of the city's budgeted revenues with special revenue funds, capital project funds, internal service funds, and other general fund-related funds comprising the rest of the balance.

Switching to citywide expenditures, the fiscal year 26 27 recommended budget includes nearly $598 million in expenditures across all funds.

The general operating fund remains the largest component at 36% of total expenditures, followed by enterprise funds, special revenue funds, and the shoreline regional park community.

Together, these four fund categories account for over 80% of citywide expenditures.

Expenditures exceed revenues on a citywide basis because certain activities, such as capital projects and affordable housing loans are funded from accumulated fund resources and balances rather than current year revenues.

So you may notice that the total expenditures exceed revenues, but that's why.

Now turning to the general operating fund, which is the city's primary operating fund and supports core services.

Revenues in the general fund are expect operating fund are expected to increase by 11.9 million or approximately 6% compared to the fiscal year 25-26 adopted budget.

This represents a healthy revenue growth, particularly given the economic uncertainty and slower growth environment discussed earlier.

And this projected revenue growth will help support cities' service commitments and a structurally balanced budget.

This slide really highlights some of the major economically sensitive revenue sources and how they compare both to the current year's budget and current year's projections.

Property tax remains the city's largest and most stable revenue source.

It's expected to increase approximately 3% over current year estimates.

Utility users tax continues to face some pressure.

It's projected to be below budget assumptions, which really reflects changing consumer behavior and utility usage patterns.

Business license tax continues to perform well, while sales tax is projected to remain relatively flat as the local economic growth moderates.

It is important to note that comparing current year's adopted budget shows a 6% increase, but comparing to what we now expect to actually receive for this year, growth is a more modest 2.6% in the bottom right corner.

I wanted to give a little bit of context for how our major revenues are growing.

This chart really shows the historical growth rates of the city's major general operating fund tax revenues.

Revenue growth has generally been positive, but has definitely varied based on economic conditions.

The current year 25-26 and fiscal year next fiscal year projections are below historical averages, as you can see on the this chart, 2.8% and 1.5%.

This really reflects the more moderate growth assumptions that are included in our forecast.

Overall, we continue to project revenue growth, but definitely at a slower pace than the city has experienced in many prior years.

Now we'll turn to expenditures in the general operating fund.

They are expected to grow by 6.4% or 12.5 million dollars in fiscal year 26-27 when compared to the 25-26 adopted budget.

As you will recall a few slides ago, revenues are expected to increase by 6.1% or 11.9 million.

So you can see there is a slight gap where expenditures are definitely growing at a higher rate than revenues.

This slide shows the five-year forecast for the general operating fund.

As you can see, the 26-27 years is structurally balanced with the projected operating balance of 150,000.

However, looking ahead, you'll see the red numbers.

Those are modest deficits beginning in 27-28 as expenditure growth really starts to outpace revenue growth.

The forecast does return to a positive balance in 2030-31, but that's largely due to projected reductions in pension costs, which are very variable, which are variable and can really change.

So still focusing on the general operating fund.

This is the revenue by function or by type, with property taxes being the number one source, the largest source, and use of money and property being the second.

Use of money and property is investment earnings and lease revenues that the city receives as a landowner of numerous ground leases.

Having a higher percentage of revenue come from lease revenue is a rather unique situation, which the city has historically benefited from, especially during economic slowdowns.

Most cities usually have sales tax as their number two revenue source, but in Mountain View, it's actually our number four largest revenue in the general operating fund.

Approximately 217.7 million dollars.

These uh this chart shows how expenditures are distributed across major service areas, police and fire account for 46% of the general fund expenditures.

This is typical for California cities as public safety services must be staffed and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are generally funded through broad based city revenues rather than user fees.

As detailed in the recommended budget document, this slide summarizes the ongoing general operating fund recommendations for next fiscal year.

The non-discretionary items, it's about 1.5 million dollars, those are required cost increases to maintain current operations, such as you citywide utility costs, fleet maintenance, investments in technology, and the janitorial services contract, among other things.

There's 3.1 million in discretionary funding that supports the six ongoing position changes discussed earlier, as well as other high priority programs and services.

We also have limited period funding uh included in the 26-27 recommended budget.

These are one-time strategic investments.

The staff is proposing $7.9 million in limited period funding for fiscal year 26-27.

Uh those key investments really are staffing support, um, upcoming election costs, contract services for pro for various programs and grants, additional funding will support firefighter recruits attending the academy, and also some limit other limited period support for various departments, including consulting services to evaluate and improve some of the city's planning, permitting, and land use processes.

So at the April preliminary review, uh council did provide some direction regarding rights sizing council member travel and training budgets.

It should be noted that council budgets have not been adjusted in 10 years.

What's not in this recommended budget, but we will be including in the adopted budget is an increase to the per-term technology and office equipment allowance.

Um so that will be included.

That's per term for four years.

So we're gonna recommend increasing that from 3,800 to 5,000 total for the four years.

So I'd like to close with just next steps of the budget process.

We will return to the city council on June 23rd with any updates or modifications that are discussed tonight.

Um, including we will have the capital improvement program budgets.

In addition, we will be seeking approval of utility rates and other fees charged to customers, and we'll also have the GAN appropriations limit as a separate item for approval.

And with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Does any member of the council have questions?

Let's go.

Questions?

Question?

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just have a couple of quick ones.

First, thank you, Steph, for the presentation.

Uh nothing surprising because uh we've had many opportunities to provide input.

Um, I have a question for the fire chief.

I'm sorry to burden you, but this I hope will be easy.

Um I'm curious why um the fire protection performance measures uh use averages rather than uh median figures.

Good evening, council, honorable mayor, vice mayor, council members.

Brian Jones, uh currently serving as the fire chief for City of Mountain View.

Uh because our performance measures provided for a four-minute travel time, which is the most common uh measure that we don't meet due to traffic, road closures, other variables that are beyond our control.

Providing an average gives you a good example of where we most often meet, which is around five minutes and fifty-five seconds, which is very good for the city.

Answering your question on median, we we did in response to your question that you uh asked earlier this week.

Um, we our median for uh EMS incidents and small fires is four minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Um, or median travel times for building fires is four minutes and eleven seconds.

Uh as far as why we did average over median, uh it was just a staff decision at the time, but we're we are uh more than willing to provide both in the future.

Great, thank you very much.

Very helpful.

Um I think that's good for now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez.

Councilmember Scholter.

Yeah, I asked a couple of questions about um inspections, because when I um hear complaints from uh residents, it's often about things that are related to an inspection of one sort over another.

And so um I it was very helpful for uh you the staff to answer questions about specific kinds.

But yeah, why don't you come back up, Brian?

Because I was gonna ask about the code and um enforcements.

One of the one of the things I think that uh people have questions about is is how uh just kind of how a code enforcement um uh how a code enforcement procedure works.

You know, how do you hear about it and and when you when it comes in uh where does it usually go?

That kind of thing.

Um so to start in the city of Mountain View, we uh adopt the California fire code.

So that's our standard for our fire inspections.

Um we also have a municipal code uh item which has several uh Mountain View specific fire code adoptions that we've made.

Uh so our inspectors have several mandated inspections.

Uh the majority of those are what we call R2 occupancies, so those are multiple family occupancies, a lot of your apartment buildings, uh, residences that house four or more occupancies, four plexus as such.

Um, so all of those are mandated that we go to each year, as well as hospitals, schools, uh, and those types of facilities.

And then we have all of our permitted occupancies, uh occupancies that uh hold hazardous materials, restaurants, uh, assemblies where a large uh large people gather, um large amounts of people gather.

So all of those require annual inspections.

So we have an inspection list and a database.

We hit all of those uh inspections annually, and our inspectors go out.

Um they on their first inspection, they will note any violations.

Uh, the most common ones we come into are housekeeping, so a lot of clutter around, um, exits blocked, uh electrical boxes that are blocked by high piled storage, um, storage that is piled within 18 inches of a sprinkler head uh that would prevent the sprinkler head from dispersing adequately to put out a fire.

Those are the most common things that we see.

Also, exit lighting that is commonly uh out that we just asked to replace.

Our priority is always in fixing an issue and addressing an issue.

So we'll write up a notice of violation.

Uh we come back out 30 days later, and our focus is really on helping those uh property owners or um business owners address the issues.

Our ultimate goal is safety.

Um, and through if they don't address those uh on the first round, we usually go out one more time and really help them understand what the issue is uh and address the importance of it, why this is such an important issue.

Almost every fire code uh item that you'll run into is because they're a fire that had multiple fatalities.

Um you look back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, there was a huge fire problem in the United States.

We had a lot of uh large assembly fires or fires that occurred in assembly occupancies, a lot of nightclubs, hotels, um, multiple family dwellings, apartment fires, all of those fires that resulted in a lot of fatalities is what led to a lot of these fire code items.

So we stress the importance of those, and through that education campaign, a lot of people make those uh fixes right away.

Very rarely will somebody refuse to make a make a change when that happens, uh, then we go to an administrative hearing, and there's sometimes a fine involved with it.

But ultimately, our goal is always safety.

And basically, this year there weren't any of those.

So I understood reading the table properly.

Correct.

We well, I'd have to go back and review the performance measure, but we hit 100% of all the inspections.

Right, you hit 100% all the inspections.

Yes.

Well, one of the another reason I bring this up is that I think that um, you know, it's really important for us all to understand all the many layers of of um government and um kind of what we do and what what we do to keep us safe.

So without any complaints that anybody makes, all of these things get inspected by the city of Mountain View by a professional every year.

That's a just a very important service that um you know that we offer.

And so that's why I'm asking these questions to kind of bring it, you know, bring it forward.

Because I do think it's a very important service, and people should be aware that you know that we are really you know actively involved in promoting their safety.

And um, and I know that in previous times uh uh previous chief mentioned um the calls that the fire department gets, and the vast majority of them of course are are for medical, right?

And that you know, and he attributed it that to this very um extensive inspection program that that we have that means that the number of fires we have is is less than it might otherwise be.

Yep.

So Mountain View has always been very proactive in fire prevention since the early 80s.

It was one of the first cities to adopt a full city code uh fire sprinkler ordinance.

Um, and then I would also add in addition to those mandated uh inspections, the city and the fire department are very proactive in other events.

So, for example, for the Super Bowl event where we knew uh different uh assemblies were gonna have festivals or um events.

We went out and proactively worked with those business owners, offered an inspection, made sure that those uh assembly occupancies were safe.

We also do that uh we're at every shoreline concert uh doing pyrotechnic inspections, making sure all of the exits are clear throughout those concerts.

So we're very proactive in safety uh throughout the city, not only on our mandated inspections, but anywhere where we believe there's a safety hazard.

Thank you.

Okay, and then I have another question about um inspections, and that's probably related to public works or or um planning.

And I wanted to hear a little bit about the distinctions between the inspections that public works does and the planning department does in the construction uh of a of a project.

Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, council members, Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Um, one of the divisions within the community development department is the building division, and there are a number of inspectors we have on staff that go out and primarily focus on the private property components of developments, so things all the way from the underground utilities, uh, excavations, foundations, all the way up to the multiple levels of construction above grade.

Um I'll defer to the uh public works director to describe the scope of her team's inspections, but primarily those involve issues typically related in the public right-of-way, utilities connections, uh, street design, curb, stormwater, and so forth.

Okay, to make sure that that's all um produced uh properly and it will um function as built as designed.

That's correct.

So the building inspectors are there making sure that the field conditions and construction is occurring consistent with the approved plans, which have been reviewed for California building code compliance.

Similarly, the public works inspectors are making sure the public realm improvements are meeting city standard details and other standards for connections to the city infrastructure.

Thank you.

Okay.

Want to talk a little bit about public works uh inspections?

Educate us a little bit about that.

Always happy to talk public works.

I'm Jennifer Ng.

I'm the public works director here at the city of Mountain View.

Um as Christian described, when we do a inspection on a private development project, public works' realm is really related to everything that's in the public right-of-way.

So any sort of frontage improvements, those could include sidewalks, curb and gutter, uh the street itself, uh the street trees that are installed, the utilities that are in the street, those all fall under the realm of the public works inspector.

Um any sort of um I call it mitigation, uh, if we have to do anything to touch a traffic signal, etc.

That is also in the public right-of-way and falls under uh the public works uh domain.

As it relates to private development, CDD is really in the driver's seat with respect to that, and so the public works inspections fall um under the general umbrella of the um overall building permit, and so um my team in public works interfaces very closely with the building division and the building division's inspectors, so that at the end of the project everything is wrapped up nice and tidy, and everybody agrees that the project is ready to be um accepted as public improvements for the city to then take on maintenance.

And also just that things are built safely, you know, always.

That's your job to make sure that things are built safely, and and I think that's another thing.

I I, you know, I I try and stress when I talk to people is that you know we can't necessarily um control what is built here because um that has a lot to do with what developers want to build.

Um we can but we can make sure that it's designed well and we can certainly make sure that it's built safely, and that's really what all these inspections are about.

So that's why I wanted to bring this up because I think this you know this this um production of a safe uh city infrastructure is is just a major um function of uh a government service that we provide.

So thank you very much.

Those are my questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Schollwalter, Vice Mayor Clark.

It's just a clarification question on the um the the council budget changes for um travel training per term.

So I think with um with travel training, that's annual.

So I think and that's typically for either brand new council members because the fiscal year doesn't match our terms, um, typically your first and last year it's prorated to like 50 percent.

So that would that will that will be a natural probation that occurs in July.

Yes, that's correct.

And then um the per term are different because that's for the the um that is an annual.

So I'm just curious if you plan to in what comes back to us in a couple weeks, have a uh sort of a probation formula there that you'll just take care of or if you need direction from us tonight as to how to how to think through that.

Yeah, our plan was to do a probation based on the years left for the 5,000.

Okay, got it.

That's perfect.

Thanks.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark, Council Member Kamei.

Great, thank you.

Um, and apologies.

These questions came to me as we were sitting as I was sitting here, not ahead of time.

So apologies to staff.

Um so one of my questions is about the nursing pod at the library.

I know that that came forward because of community feedback.

Has staff heard about community feedback, for example, at our community center or anywhere else where council might be able to explore that.

I don't, I'm sorry, I don't know who to direct the question to.

Thank you.

Good evening, John Marchant, community services director.

Specific requests for that service at the community center.

We do not get that on a regular basis.

We have so many programs at the community center, and I know that's how it came about at the library.

I'm not sure if staff can look into if they're the cost on it and come back to council when this returns, and just would be curious if it I know that times are constraint, but if they're that could be possible.

Great, thank you.

Um, and then my second question, um, unfortunately came to came to mind because of news.

So today the the voice uh said that the vacancy office uh office vacancy rate, I think more specifically to downtown is over 30 percent.

But when we're talking about our budget, we were talking about how we've reduced um our vacancy rate.

I'm assuming that's um across uh our whole city, or maybe we can provide some clarity on those numbers or or what we're doing.

I'm uh you know, not to get into too many comments, but I know we've, as um the city manager mentioned, economic vitality has been of one of our pillars, and I just wanted to uh ask a question so we can provide clarity if necessary.

Thank you.

Sure.

So I think the story in the voice was highlighting um the vacancy rate that resulted from a single uh large uh tenant uh vacancy, uh and that resulted from a broader um corporate restructuring and acquisition that occurred.

So I'm not taking that as an indication of uh particularly challenging conditions in our downtown related to office vacancy.

There's a broader regional uh challenge with that as business continues to change uh post-COVID and reimagining um uh office work versus remote work and so forth.

And so um I think it's difficult to sort of uh draw a trend from that particular uh single vacancy.

We are continuing to pursue strategies across a range of activities to improve the conditions for for office vacant uh office occupancy in the downtown.

But overall, I would say, you know, what our budget is showing is that we've been tackling that and reducing overall office vacancy throughout the city.

And I think that uh distinction is important clarity, but that's how I read.

That's right, and we reported extensively on that in the economic vitality strategy update.

And so um I feel confident we're trending in the right direction across.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Kameh, I'd like to ask our library director to come up here just to provide uh further context about your question and the library's experience and the cost.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council.

Thank you for the question.

Tracy Gray, library director.

So the lactation pod at the library was installed in October.

And in the last uh update that we got statistics, so for about six months of use, you six months our usage has been about 140 uses, which is quite a lot compared to several other libraries who do have them in their um in their libraries.

So the cost would, there's some inspection components and public works uh that piece, but probably the cost ranges from 30 to 60,000.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilmember Kamei.

Council Member Hicks.

So first, just sort of a big picture question of clarity.

One of the things that jumped out to me was that they correct me if I'm wrong, is from because I'm saying this from memory is that the expenditures were over revenues, but then there's a little asterisk that says, um, that this is because of fund balance equity use.

And I was one, I thought maybe that jumped out at other people, and maybe you could give sort of a little more clarity on what all that means.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

So over the years, as fund balance, as revenues may have exceeded expenditures in years past, especially for a capital projects fund or other type of fund, not necessarily the general fund, but the other fund types, enterprise funds, same things.

As they build the reserves, we will use those in subsequent years, and so our expenditures will look like they're higher.

Well, they will be higher because we are using accumulated balances from prior years, basically.

Yeah, and I'm asking that because at quick glance, when you're thumbing through the report, it just looks like we're being really irresponsible.

Um, and I guess the other question, and I feel like I this is a big picture question too, and I feel like I should know the answer.

But when you talk about the process for developing the budget, you talk about asking the different departments what they need.

Do you also ask kind of uh as we're hitting somewhat harder times than we were when I was first on council?

Um, do you ask what maybe do you do what we do in our family of ask?

Like, are there some streaming services we don't need anymore?

You know, do you also ask, is there anything that's kind of built up that we don't need?

Because it seems like that's a good practice.

Yes, uh I think if you were if you were to ask the department heads, um they would tell you.

Yes, there are certainly discussion about uh whether it's requests that come in for maybe minor adjustments or things that may have been going on for a long time that may not necessarily be needed anymore.

Um, and the budget team has discussed uh the process for next year as well.

Um, and depending on how revenues come in, uh, we may need to ask that question even further.

Exactly.

That's where I was gonna go, but I won't need to say that in comments now.

Thank you.

All right, any other questions from council?

All right.

We will now move on to public comment.

Would any member of the public on the line like to provide public comment on this item?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

A timer will be displayed on the screen.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

We will take in-person public comment first.

So uh we will start with Bruce Carney, followed by Kristen Anderson.

Hello again, Mayor and Council.

Ms.

Glazer, would you put up these slides?

Thank you so much.

This first slide shows how the prices of residential electricity and natural gas have changed over the last six and a half years.

Both have increased by more than seven percent per year, but the price of electricity peaked two years ago and has since fallen.

Over the period shown, gas prices have risen faster than electricity.

Next slide, please.

This second slide shows how the rising cost of energy is increasing our city's revenue from its 3% tax on electricity and natural gas.

Tax receipts in the last three fiscal years were almost 50% higher than in the preceding years.

It's my opinion that the rising price of gas and electricity has created a windfall that should be returned to the community from which it came.

The windfall should be returned in ways that will help reduce future energy bills.

Next slide, please.

If windfall is defined as the portion of the energy tax revenue exceeding five million dollars per year, you can see how large the windfall has been.

The windfall is almost seven million dollars in just the last three years.

Future windfalls will be larger.

In fact, they are likely to be far larger, shockingly larger.

Next slide, please.

About a year ago, the California Public Utilities Commission hired PGE to produce a 30-year forecast of natural gas and electricity prices.

The report included two scenarios.

In scenario one, it was assumed that the use of natural gas would decline quickly.

This would leave fewer customers to cover the gas system's fixed costs.

Thus, price the price of gas would rise rapidly and continuously until the late 2040s.

In scenario two, the assumption was that a slower pace of decarbonization would lead to less cataclysmic increases in gas prices.

But even in scenario two, natural gas prices are projected to increase three times faster than electricity prices.

Many Mountain View families have seen the writing on the wall and replaced their gas water heaters, furnacers, furnaces, and other appliances with electric equivalents.

But most have not.

And those families need your help, especially families who are renters.

Final slide, please.

My first conclusion is that the last households to decarbonize will be burdened by shockingly high gas bills for years and years.

My second conclusion is that it would be prudent for the city to begin earmarking the windfall portion of its energy tax receipts for decarbonization incentives and investments while letting the rest flow to the general fund.

Finally, I would love to see the council add significantly to the coming year's sustainability budget.

In the words of Oliver Twist, please good council folk, I want more.

Thank you, Mr.

Carney.

Kristen Anderson.

Hello.

So I'm a resident at the Santiago Villa Mobile Home Park.

And we have approximately 358 homes there.

And so with your utility rates increase proposed, I would like to remind you that mobile home parks are you know lower income.

And your increase is or not the increase, but your proposal is $22.55 per month per household.

So with that, with 358 units, that's over $8,000 that you're going to be giving a month.

Over $96,000 for our uh per year for our park alone.

And this is to pay the someone to read the meter, and so and I guess to look at the lines once a year.

I feel like that needs to be addressed, that's too much for low income housing.

And so if you could just look at that and adjust that price accordingly, because I know that it was raised last year, and then I thought it was reduced.

Um so can you look into that?

Because that's just a lot.

I know it might not seem like a lot for some people, but just look into that rate increase, okay?

For utilities for the low-income people.

With the gas, I went all last winter not using my gas heater and using electric electric heaters just because of the price of gas.

Thank you.

Um we will now move on to virtual speakers.

Um we have um Judy back.

Um, I will say before we uh unmute you that um we are a very welcoming community here in Mountain View.

We are proud of our diversity.

We are a community for all, and we will not accept comments that will deviate from that.

So with that, we will go ahead and call upon you.

But keep in mind um we will mute you if this gets out of hand.

Yes, um, and uh and I am transcribing this, and you will hear from me, and nothing's gotten out of hand.

You have not allowed my viewpoint, and I think that's on full display, and you will have to account for that.

Um I'm going to say that as far as it goes with the other people who spoke, I approve the gas as well.

Um, and then I would say um, as a white person, I believe I have the right to express myself, and I think that the rates on these um on the financing of this money is uh, you know, by nature uh a Jewish um, and we're done here.

Um that ends our virtual public comments.

Um, we will now bring it back to council for deliberation.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we appreciate uh most of the public comments.

Um, but uh I have I've I guess I would I was sort of uh um becoming introspective earlier today because this this will be uh the final budget I have the opportunity to work on uh with um uh council members uh come in and Hicks and um it's also an uh an interesting day because I've had to contend with the budgets of two cities and you can guess which one was more satisfying to deal with.

Um but uh I'm I was sharing with the city manager earlier.

I I feel um very uh uh optimistic about the future of the city.

I feel like we're leaving uh the incoming council uh with a a remarkable set of um uh programs and uh and investments uh supporting many of the community priorities that we've heard over the years that we've worked together, um an exceptional staff, um some really strong uh uh bones, right?

A wonderful wonderful foundation to to work from, and many other cities can't say that.

Um we're also working on some things that may come up in the next council meeting that I think will strengthen the city's position.

Uh so I'm I'm uh I just want to share my gratitude to staff for uh uh having worked with me over the years to uh incorporate many of the the priorities I've been interested in um in collaboration with my colleagues.

Uh I I feel really good about the work that we've done.

Um I have just a few quick comments, so I'm gonna move to approve the staff recommendations with some very minor tweaks.

Um first uh I'm I'm grateful to the staff for the responses provided in advance in the meeting.

Um and in particular um FASDI's I'm guessing it's FASD's response to question three about thinking about um a different way of presenting the other local taxes or major revenues uh uh information and not for this budget, obviously, but in the future.

I think um some of this the the way it's been presented made sense when a lot of these types of revenue were comparatively trivial, right?

So the the previous version of the business license tax um and even the UUT uh, you know, the cannabis cat tax continues to be minor, right?

Um and then we also have taxes that are not included here for the reasons you've explained, but I think you know still merit some level of transparency, right?

The construction tax is minor, but I think something that is worth elevating to the community.

It exists, it generates revenue.

Here's how we use it, here's the projections over time.

Um but now the the real property transfer taxes is significant, and even though it's a volatile source of revenue, we are now using it for uh an ongoing purpose, right, for debt service.

And I think that also merits some level of transparency.

Um so I I don't want to be prescriptive in and how you choose to present that information information, but I do think I do think it will be increasingly valuable, particularly for the incoming council.

I think one of the things I've really appreciated about our budget presentations is the the budget is an educational document uh as much as it is a you know financial planning document.

Um I always learn a lot reading through it, even though it, you know, been monitoring the council for a long time and now I've had the privilege to serve for nearly eight years.

Uh every time I read through the budget, I learn something, and probably some of that is because I've forgotten over the the year, you know, uh what I recall uh reading from from you know previous previous budget cycles.

Um so I I'm I I'm grateful to you for for that that consideration.

Um I also don't want to provide explicit direction, but you know I've I've learned um recently about uh there there is value in presenting both in our performance measures averages as well as median figures.

So I'm I'm uh I appreciate the uh fire chief's uh responses to the questions earlier, and you know I'll leave it up to you.

If it makes sense to present both, we can learn something from each of those.

Um but uh I thought it was uh uh useful to to understand uh your perspective and in choosing the performance measures uh at as you have.

Um really the only thing I wanted to suggest or change uh was uh based on an experience that um uh I had at the recent uh civic leadership grad uh academy graduation I had the opportunity to attend uh with Mayor Ramos with Councilmember Kamei and Council Member Show Walter.

Uh and uh I you know I think many of us have been going for years and it's it's always uh um uh a wonderful experience hearing um the enthusiasm um and uh I guess the you know the excitement to continue to be engaged um from from the graduates of of both the Spanish and and Chinese leadership academies and uh as we were speaking with many of the graduates um I think what what I took away was uh there's a strong desire for uh for more uh opportunities to you know engage the city uh and in particular for things like mixers for uh graduates from previous academies or um uh some of the the the like uh cultural programming that that we've uh been doing um uh a lot of investment in in uh over the past several years that that we've been on the council uh the de los muertos the the um uh lunar new year festival I think those those were some of the the uh events that have come up repeatedly as uh desired uh uh well received enthusiastically by by our community uh so again I I don't necessarily want to prescribe exactly how um uh staff would like to do this but I think um uh you know a very modest increase to the multi multicultural engagement program um for something like um regular uh you know alumni mixers or uh expanding some of the existing events um to uh provide additional volunteer opportunities or something like that you know I'd welcome the input from from my colleagues but I'm I'm thinking based on the analysis that you provided us and the first two questions um you know in the realm of five to ten thousand dollars um and I you know I don't want to be specific about a figure because I I would be interested in staff's perspective on how best to to use that money um but uh I that's so I would move the staff recommendation with um the addition of some some amount recommended by staff between maybe five and ten thousand dollars um for uh additional multicultural engagement um program um events and activities uh and I think I'll I'll leave it at that thank you very much.

Thank you Councilmember Ramirez, Councilmember Show Walter.

Thank you.

Yeah I think having a little more extra money for that is a great idea um uh it could conceivable well staff can put it where they want to I could imagine it could also be part of community services we don't want to go into recreation program.

Um but uh I I just wanted to well thank thank all the staff having you know served in local government for many years um not not at not not as an employee at Mountain View but as as an employee of uh you know a local uh special agency I I know how much work goes into budgets and boy it's not just one or two people I mean we see one or two people up here you're I know you've devoted hours and hours and hours to this but you're not the only one I mean there have been people throughout we have we have over 700 employees and I I would um I would venture to say that probably at least a hundred of them and maybe a hundred and fifty of them have been actively involved in getting this budget together so you know um thank you all for working together to do that.

And um uh I I also want to talk about how a little bit about how you know budgets are kind of a story they're a story of how we're gonna spend our money and they're a story of what we value and what we care about.

And um uh and I think that one of the the parts of the story that I think are so important now is that we're really trying to focus on the things that we can control.

And um uh and uh we are um you know, we're we're working on affordable housing, things that we we can help get built, we're working on getting more parks for people, we're working on the inspections, they keep people safe.

Um, you know, those those are we're we're concentrating on what are the things we can control because we know that some of the insistence from other um from the federal system, it's just not what it was before.

And so we we have to stand um by ourselves, and we have to collaborate internally to do that, and um and I see that the staff is doing that, and I really I really appreciate it, and I hope you're having fun doing it, and and you're learning more about what each other's jobs are, and and that that can be you know really a great growth professional growth experience as well as and and it also saves money because if you know you find out by working together that um you can have one process that can meet a certain subject instead of having 10 of them.

Well, you've saved a lot of money, and that's that's a good thing.

So then I also wanted to talk about a little bit about revenue and how we are really working to get um some increases in our revenue.

Like we we fixed the minimum purchase agreement issue with our water bill that has amounted to upwards of three million dollars a year.

I mean, we have a that's not a lot in terms of our budget, but it all adds up.

So I think, and that goes into our water fund, which um we will need money in forever to maintain our infrastructure.

We have Measure G, which is uh uh bringing up new um money.

We've had the business licenses.

Um we did a new funding uh study to evaluate, I mean, a fee study.

We had did a new fee study to evaluate what was appropriate in terms of charging people fees for services that we provide, particularly with respect to development.

And some of those fees went up a lot, which was appropriate because they hadn't been changed.

I mean, some of them hadn't been touched in 20 years or so, so you know there's been a lot of inflation over that time, and then we are also working to bring um uh new businesses to our community.

One that um we're all looking forward to for many reasons will be the new Toyota dealership, which will open into stores in a few years, and I think that's that that will help our sales tax revenue go up.

So all of these things I you know do add together, and um I would also say that considering the um the windfall nature of the uh of the um UTT is is really an interesting idea because it in a sense it's sort of an internal collaboration between our desire to meet our climate goals, i.e.

reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the the less um uh you know the less gas is used, nothing gas is used, the less greenhouse gas emissions we produce, the closer we are to um to meeting our standards, and at the same time, while we um you know while we're gas gets more expensive, you know, we can utilize that money to help people do things that reduce their greenhouse gases locally, like getting a heat pump or buy an electric car or um uh other things that might help.

Plant lots of trees.

I mean, there are many things we've heard that that would be valuable.

So um I just I thought that was a really good suggestion.

And um, but mostly I just want to say thank you, and I appreciate the time and effort that's gone into this, and I also appreciate how you keep reorganizing this, and it keeps getting better.

And um, having been reading these for 10 years now, um, I I couldn't agree more with my colleague uh council member Ramirez, every time I read the budget, I learn um just a lot, like I don't know, 20 or 30 new facts about the city that I um I either had not known before or I had forgotten.

So um it's really good to have these all put together, and I particularly love these little vignettes on every department and what they're supposed to do and how many people they have, and you know, what the org chart, all of that information brought together, it really does provide a great story of you know how what's the organization of the city.

So anyway, thank you for all that work, and um, yes, I'm very happy to um be seconding this motion.

Thank you, Councilmember Schoalter, Councilmember Hicks.

Yes, I'd like to express my thanks as well.

I actually wasn't gonna speak, I was just gonna support the motion because for members of the public who don't come to every council meeting, we actually go over the budget multiple times, and we kind of hopefully make all our big changes.

I'm not gonna propose a big change now.

Um, all our big changes earlier.

Um and also I made my main comment, which was because we're not as flush as we have been in past years, that we're gonna have to, it's a good time to take a look and see if there are any things that uh have kind of grown unnecessary.

Um, but I made that comment already during questions.

Uh so I wasn't gonna say anything additionally, and then council member Ramirez uh talked about more money for cultural events, and I have to say, uh, and I agree I I will support that.

Um, and I've been to the the Lunar New Year and the Dia de los Muertos and enjoyed them a lot.

Um, and uh I just I I agree with you that can that staff can figure out how to uh use more money and make them better, but I do want to encourage good music because I have to say the music has been uneven from year to year.

There have been times when there have been really great bands, and that's to me that's that's what gets me out, so um, and a lot of other people.

So I want to encourage that that uh be taken under consideration.

And then lastly, I agree with uh what council member show Walter said about the uh U UT that it might be good to put it towards electrification and um you know, uh reducing uh people's carbon footprint in the future.

That's it.

Thank you, Councilmember Hicks, Councilmember Kamei.

Thanks, Mayor.

Okay.

So I just want to uh thank staff.

I um I look forward to reading the budget now.

Um, and I I think when we talk about building the mountain view of tomorrow, uh, council is able to um be forward thinking and to be creative and to do all these things because of staff.

Um, because you are working with us, not only is staff doing that, our community.

I feel like the way that we've been able to engage with our community has been much more robust.

Each year we improve, whether it's the budget in brief, or it's the video or other ways to demystify um honestly local government and what we are spending um city funds on.

I think that helps us tell the story of Mountain View, and so budgets are you know testament of our values and our greatest value is how we're a community for all.

And the everything in our budget helps showcase that, and it uh makes me feel very proud to be able to vote and support this budget, and hopefully, colleagues feel this way, and our community um feels that as well.

I think it's also um so timely that we're talking about recruitment and retention efforts and our budget, same night back to back, because I also feel like we've made a lot of progress as a city and as a council, and just to kind of give a couple like vignettes of how I've seen that when council member Hicks and Ramirez and I started our um budget for multicultural engagement, I think was like 0.5 FTE, and now it is this robust program.

We've been able to support expansion and create our Mandarin Chinese civic leadership program, and that's just one example of of what we've done, and I and as I reflect back on nearly eight years, there's so many instances where we're able to say that.

And those wins are all because of staff.

So I just think it's um really important for us to highlight.

Um other thing, and it'll be a seed I plant because I know better than to try to sneak something into the budget last minute.

Is uh the mayor's like, oh, you need a match.

Um, no, I I think that one of the things I've seen our city do, and this ties into the the recruitment and retention is how we have become an all-inclusive family friendly city.

Um, and we have done that in how we've approached paid leave, our commitment towards child care, how we're including it in one of our all-affordable housing projects.

I am it heartens me that we have seen such high usage of our nursing pod in our library just over a short amount of time of six months.

Um I feel a bit surprised that um because our aquatic center community center are right there, and I see so many families utilizing it that it hasn't come forward.

But I also remember when I was, you know, a new mother, how overwhelming and kind of shy you can become for making those kind of requests.

Um, you're and so I would just ask council to, you know, if maybe not this budget, but in future looking budgets, how we might be able to do that.

Rangstorf Park is so heavily utilized.

I'm sure you know thousands of people use it every day, especially we have Magical Bridge.

Um, providing that opportunity um would I think would be really great.

So I just want to plant that seat.

Thank you, Mirror.

Thank you, Councilmember Kamei.

I don't see anyone else in the queue, so I will use this time to thank staff for their amazing work in the budget.

Um, thank you to my colleagues for putting in all the the things that you want to put in our budget.

One thing I would also like to point out with our multicultural engagement program, I see throughout the state and our local um region, how uh all these councils want to talk about like we care about community engagement, and I'm sure there are several candidates for council here.

I'm just gonna be just like council member Ramirez, um, who who will who will say how much we care about community engagement, but this budget is one of those things where you show where where we invest in that community engagement and it has really paid dividends, not just with the multicultural engagement program with our neighborhood council neighborhoods committee grants.

There are a lot of things that our city does that that really not only says that we care about our community and having them having a voice, we invest in it, and we invest in the megaphone that they have for us.

So thank you to staff, thank you to my colleagues.

We are ready for a vote.

Uh city clerk.

Feel free to do the roll call vote.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Councilmember Scholter.

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks, yes, Councilmember Kamei.

Yes, Councilmember McAllister.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark?

Yes.

Council Ramos.

Yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Uh, we will now go into item seven, new business.

City attorney Jennifer Logue and assistant city attorney Francesca Serrano will present the item.

If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

And we will take a few minutes to shift around.

Thank you to all our department heads to uh make sure that they got funded.

Just in case.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, Francesca Serrano, Assistant City Attorney, here with City Attorney Logue to present the 2026 proposed ballot measure for the charter modernization.

I want to start with a little bit of background, how we got here, what the initial directive was for this first uh ballot initiative regarding the charter modernization.

Charter modernization was included in the 2025 to 2027 work plan item.

The plan is to have two separate ballot items, the first of which would be the 2026 proposed ballot measure.

This proposed ballot measure would include non-substantive and non-controversial updates.

The purpose of this first ballot measure is to modernize and clarify the city charter.

And it is very limited in scope to typographical errors, clarifying existing language, revising archaic terminology, improving internal consistency, and getting us aligned with charter and state law and current operational practices.

There was a February study session with the council in this issue.

And after the study session, council uh gave majority support to correct typographical errors, to replace gender specific terminology with gender neutral terminology, to clarify a reference to qualified elector to align with state law, to amend the deadline to fill a city council vacancy from 30 to 60 days, to remove the requirement that ordinances and resolutions be read or have their titles read prior to adoption.

To require a roll call vote on the adoption of ordinances and resolutions only when requested by a council member or required by law, to remove some outdated references to maintaining books and uh update that language, and make changes to Charter Section 900 to address requirements for boards and commissions, and then finally to clarify the requirement that stagger terms uh stagger terms for boards, commissions, and committees.

So we uh will go through the changes that we are proposing for the charter myself and city attorney loeb, and we will not be going through them in chronological order.

Instead, we'll start with the simplest changes and then go to the more complex changes.

So the first change is section 504 in regards to vacancies.

And currently the 30-day charter deadline to fill a city council vacancy creates a very constrained timeline, particularly when vacancies arrive unexpectedly.

And so this gives us a little bit more time when there are vacancies, particularly unexpected vacancies to fill them.

Again, at the study session, a majority of council indicated support for amending the charter in section 504 to extend this deadline.

Section 602, powers and duties.

This is one of the replacements to gender specific language into a gender neutral alternative.

And making these changes helps to modernize the charter, improves clarity and inclusivity, and ensures that the document reflects contemporary drafting standards.

And again, at the study session, this was another change that the majority of council supported.

Section 711, powers and duties of the city attorney.

This is another section wherein, and if you'll note it's just in uh subsection H, that we change his or her to their.

So again, that gender neutral language.

Section 1107, contracts for public works.

This was a very minimal change, and this was just uh an error.

Uh changing noting to nothing, if you'll see at the very last paragraph of section A.

Very straightforward.

Uh section 501 eligibility.

So this the term qualified elector that was referred to in this section did not actually exist in the California elections code.

So, in order to make very clear that we were referencing the California Elections Code and the term that they use as elector, we wanted to clarify.

And so this language clarifies, and where you see that there's additional changes, that's just to clean up and streamline language, nothing substantive.

Section 514, adoption of ordinances and resolutions.

Uh again, this was to streamline council meetings and align with current practice.

The substantive portion of the changes here remove the requirement that the title of the ordinances and resolutions be read in full, and again, the additional changes uh are just to clean up some of the language and streamline.

Um, and I will say that at the study session, this was enthusiastically indicated um as something that council supports.

Section 515 eyes and noes, uh, this streamlines the council meetings and aligns with current city practice.

It revises the current roll-calling voting requirement so that a roll call vote is required only if requested by a council member or required by law.

Again, this was a change that the majority of council indicated support for at the February study session.

Section 709, powers and duties of city clerk.

Um, this refers to what I referenced previously, some outdated language.

There was many references to keeping books, which is not something we do any longer.

And so this modernizes the charter while preserving the substance of the city clerk's duties and responsibilities.

And it's rewritten to make the language clearer and more concise.

And these changes were also supported by the majority of council during the February study session.

Section 1603, the construction of the charter.

So in addition to fixing the specific instances of gender-specific language, we also included this uh amendment to this section to address kind of a catch-all so that going forward, it we can indicate that we are our intention to use gender-neutral language.

Section 1702 definitions.

This was a section that at the study session, council directed staff to confer with the rental housing committee to determine whether it supported amending this chapter.

I'll refresh council's recollection.

The reason for amending this was that it was actually an incorrect citation to the code section.

However, because of where it falls in the charter and kind of how it can be controversial, council did want to get that input from the rental housing committee.

We did get that input, and they are in support of this amendment.

And I will hand it over to city attorney low.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members, Jennifer Logue.

Um, I'm gonna take you through the section 900 changes.

Um, if you recall, Section 900, um, at the study session, you were given three options for section 900.

This is a section that had the residency and qualified elector requirements for members of boards, commissions, and committees.

And the three options was one to maintain the status quo and require the residency and qualified electors for all boards, commissions, and committees.

Option two was a partial delegation where charter created bodies had to have the qualified elector and residency requirements while council created bodies did not.

And then the third option was full delegation to city council so that you could decide for everybody whether or not they needed to be a resident or qualified elector.

Unless the charter itself otherwise provides, and uh while granting city council authority to establish membership and qualifications for bodies created legislatively, and then you also supported making corresponding clarifying and conforming amendments to other sections within Article 9.

I will now take you through each section.

So Section 900 begins Article 9.

This is the one in where we are now implementing option two.

You can see clearly that at the top, in addition to the boards and commissions that are established by that article, the council is now authorized to create by ordinance or resolution additional boards, commissions, and committees as you deem necessary, and then any ordinance or resolution creating such body shall shall prescribe its functions, duties, powers, jurisdiction, membership qualifications, any other and any other terms or conditions council deems appropriate.

So now you are fully delegated the authority to establish those other bodies.

It maintains the requirement that members of board commissions and committees shall not hold paid offices or paid employment with the city during their term of employment.

And it also maintains the requirement that every member of a board commission or committee established by this article only shall be a qualified elector of the city.

And the reason why I put the word established by this article is to ensure that we are not impacting the requirements that are already set forth in the CSFRA with regard to their membership requirements.

So this qualified elector requirement is only going to apply to the boards and commissions and committee established by Article IX, which currently stand as the EPC or Environmental Planning Commission, the Parks and Recreation Committee, and the library board of trustees.

Those are the only three that are in Article 9, and those are the only three that will be affected by this qualified elector and residency requirement.

The CSFRA stands on its stands on its own terms.

Okay.

And then with regard to terms, I said unless otherwise provided in this charter, members of boards, commissions, and committees shall serve four terms.

That literally is only if every document relating to these boards, commissions, and committees is silent.

There is at least a term somewhere, but you in the next sentence you see that you have the power to establish the terms unless the terms are created in the charter.

That is once again to preserve what is in the CSFRA.

They do establish terms for their members, and so I didn't want to take away what was already existing in the CSFRA, but you otherwise have the authority to establish terms as you as you deem appropriate.

And then it also clarifies the staggered term assignment.

There was a requirement that staggered terms begin on January 1.

I clarified the language to establish the uh terms in accordance with the body's established appointment cycle because some of the bodies have different appointment cycles.

So this just provided a little bit more flexibility.

Section 904.

Again, I cleaned up some of the language adding boards, commissions, and committees.

Oh, in the third paragraph, we clarified some language.

It was very difficult to determine the vote requirement when there are vacancies on the body.

So we made it very clear that it's include excluding vacant positions, provided that the members then in office is not less than a quorum.

So as long as the body has a quorum, they can move forward, and now we know what their vote requirement is.

And so there was a lot of confusion over that.

So we've clarified that language.

Section 905, the major change that I made here is to clarify that a vacancy is not created simply because someone is no longer a qualified elector or a resident, unless that is a requirement of their membership.

So before a vacancy was automatically created when that happened, but now it's it aligns with the option two that you chose, and so now it does not automatically create a vacancy.

The other things that create a vacancy were existing already existed in this section, and all I've done is cleaned it up a bit, but it's the exact same requirements.

Okay.

So this is the language that will show up for voters of the proposed uh ballot measure.

Um and it includes a summary of all of the changes that we just went through.

And so this is our recommendation to the council.

In addition, we want to note that uh the resolution in section 13 uh allows for council to select and authorize up to three members of the body to file a written argument in favor of the proposed measure.

So any motion um on this matter should include adoption of not just the resolution, but also identify the members you select to file arguments in favor.

And so with that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Does any member of the council have questions?

Right, it took me a minute.

Um, hopefully simple questions.

Um section 902, the appointments and terms.

Um the affirmative vote of at least four council members.

Uh what if we only have a quorum of five and three?

Can it just be a simple majority instead of requiring four people to be affirmative in the affirmative?

If you it's slide 16 at the top, if that helps.

Yeah, um, if you if you want to change that, you can.

That was just the requirement that already existed in the charter, and so I did not change it.

Affirmative votes was it was it was always had to be four.

I just cleaned up the language.

So if you want to change that, that's fine.

I think it would be a rare occurrence.

I'm just thinking if we only have five members for whatever reason, a simple majority is three, then you have to basically have a supermajority to do something, but um, okay.

But it it sounds like it was that way before there were four at least four affirmative votes, and then four uh slide eighteen, section nine oh five, the there's no world where um I think this is another case where it's not necessarily any more restrictive than it was before, but if a vacancy occurs, you know, two months before the person's term would have expired, there's no requirement that we appoint someone on short notice for that two-month period.

We could do we still have the authority to just leave it vacant and fill the next or full term.

You do.

I don't think there's anything in your charter that requires you to fill a vacancy in any certain period of time.

Because I think I saw elsewhere in the charter it says until their successors are qualified, and or I guess maybe that's mostly elected officials, but that successors qualify.

That was the term that was in the four-year term, but that language has actually been scratched, and I just clarify the I didn't say until the successor is qualified, I just it was it didn't really have a purpose.

It was it's in the term section.

Um let's see, section.

I believe you don't spend a whole bunch of time, but anyway, okay.

So it used to say it re it said serve a four-year term until their respective successors are appointed and qualified, so it just says so it was a little bit weird.

Um they just serve as four-year term period, but then if they leave early, there's just a vacancy and it gets filled whenever you fill it.

So I just clarified their language that it's it's a four-year term, but clearly vacancies can be created by retirement or you know, resignations or other reasons, but then your charter has never had any deadline for you to fill those vacancies.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh councilmember Shell Walter.

Yeah, um, I have a uh question about uh section 900.

Um that's basically talked about on slide 14 and 15, and um the idea is uh of option two is that the city council gets to um set the qualifications for new committees, right?

Yes, for any legislatively created committees, so all the committees other than those that are by this charter.

Okay, so so um maybe it might be a little clearer if um on uh slide 15 in the second paragraph we inserted um established by this article uh after no members of any boards, commissions, or committees established by this article shall hold any uh paid office or paid employment because uh that is a qualification, and we would like to um give that authority to future councils to um to make that okay.

If you give me a moment, I actually prepared a backup slide so I can show if that is if this is what you're showing.

Yes, is that what you're I think that would be clearer, and um uh I can imagine that there might be a um for instance if we wanted to have a uh a committee sometime related to um the uh the way the sevens was working.

Um we, you know, the people who live there are, we would want some of them to uh to be city employees because that's who lives there.

So I I can imagine where that's the only one I came up with, but I can imagine where that would occur.

So I'd just like to leave it open.

That's it, thank you.

So I think that's fine.

I think we would just want us uh the motion maker if that is supported by a majority of council can just if it's if supported would need to make that motion for us to amend this.

Alright so since we're still in questions um does anyone else have any questions.

All right.

Moving on from questions we will now go to public comment would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on any item on the uh uh provide comment on this item if so please click the raise hand button and zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk we will take in-person speakers first each speaker will have three minutes do we have any speakers no speakers we will now take virtual speakers seeing none we will bring it back to council so um I will now bring the item back for council questions and deliberation please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report the city clerk will take a roll call vote as we have a council member participating remotely this evening next uh looks like we have a motion by council member Ramirez bring it home thank you mayor let's go home early tonight um yeah I will know we probably would have gone home five minutes earlier if Pat didn't have to read all of that stuff into the record during the consent calendar I move to approve uh thank you very much uh for for your work on uh the charter modernization I know it's been um uh something that we've talked about for for quite some time and um it it takes uh time and effort to just make time to figure out how we should modernize the the provisions of the charter and I've been grateful to uh the city attorney's office um which I'm sure worked in collaboration with the city manager's office and city clerk's office to uh come up with these uh recommendations so I'll move to approve uh the staff recommendations including uh adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View uh one calling a general municipal election and ordering consolidation with the statewide general election for the purpose of submitting to the voters a ballot measure to amend the city charter to modernize and clarify its provisions to authorizing members of the council to author an argument for the ballot measure and three directing the city attorney to prepare an impartial analysis uh and four authorizing the city clerk to contract with the county of Santa Clara for services to be performed in connection with the general municipal election to be held on Tuesday november third 2026 to be read in title only further reading wave just to clarify do we have to as part of the motion to determine which council members are um okay so we might need to think about that um I'm uh okay including council member showalters recommendation uh or suggestion noting that the council will retain the authority to determine the membership uh requirements by resolution and ordinance for legislatively creative uh bodies um I'm uh I'm happy to suggest and and we can sort of figure this out later but uh as a starting point um that um the mayor uh if you're comfortable the vice mayor uh and um yes well just just this is for the the arguments um and I'm happy to volunteer as that third person um uh be the the members of uh the council who are authorized to author an argument if someone else would like to work with us or you know replace one of us I'm totally comfortable with that too.

Thank you.

Thank you council member Ramirez.

It looks so he made the motion and seconded by council member Kame we also have uh Chris uh Vice Mayor Clark on the in the queue I just have two more questions sorry one is what is the practical impact of council member show walter's addition so it's um so it it has to do with commissions or committees shall uh the members of such um shall not hold any paid office or paid employment with the city during the time of their appointment um I I just I'm trying to figure out what the practical impact of it is because it does have one yes so the charter as currently written right now prohibits um any member of a board or commission from holding a paid office or paid employment so it's any board or commission um with and so I kept the original language with this modification made by council member or proposed by council member showalter you are now only saying that members of boards and commissions and committees established by article nine which is only the environmental planning commission the library board of trustees and the parks and rec body um cannot hold paid offices or uh paid employment with the city every other legislatively created body by you can allow employees paid employees or paid officers to be on those bodies or you can prohibit it in your ordinances and resolutions establishing those bodies to the extent that you are going to allow paid officers or employees to be on those there's obviously going to need to be some conflict of interest um assessments done because there are FPPC requirements and regulations governing incompatible offices and things like that so that is something that would need to be assessed as you are establishing those bodies if you carve this out for yourself when you're creating new bodies legislatively.

So with the proposed change the the the Article nine bodies still have that prohibition correct and then we can decide for everything else whether to allow it on a commission by commission basis or overall which I think we've done previously or we've at least had that debate at some point but um basically we have flexibility but we're not modifying the the the chapter nine or whatever article nine or whatever it is that's correct.

Okay.

And then just back to nine oh five um or um or whatever it was maybe it was nine oh two I think um I guess the uh the only reason I I recoil a bit from four votes is in my mind there's kind of three there's three things there's like six votes required I don't and I can't remember in the charter if it's six votes or if it's a percentage threshold but there's like urgency ordinances that require typically six votes.

There's appropriations that typically require five votes which I think is just a two thirds um it doesn't specify five and then most everything else that we can do is just simple majority and we have conflicts of interest in those present in voting and um I'm just trying to avoid creating arbitrary umeric thresholds any any more of those than are necessary even if they already existed um as opposed to just sticking with simple majority but maybe that's not the right thing to do I don't know does are urgency ordinances and appropriations a a fraction or a percentage or I can look it up but I don't recall I would have to pull up let me pull up the charter I don't know if urgency ordinances had a different vote requirement they have the ability to be adopted without a second reading but I it's possible that the vote requirement is the same um let me see might be called emergency ordinances I see a few different four-fifths.

I just see no ordinance or resolution shall be passed or become effective without receiving the affirmative votes of at least four members of council.

Okay.

So you even have it's there all over the place then.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, just ignore it.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Councilmember McAllister.

Yeah, could I get clarity on what uh Councilmember Schoalter is asking?

Because years ago on my first term of council, this came up before, and we discussed it that no employee could be, no city employee could be on a commission board because of conflict of interest.

And it was already talked about, and we kept that in the uh the law of the bylaws.

So it's could I just get some clarity on what she's asking again, please?

Certainly.

Currently, the charter prohibits um paid employees and paid officers from being on any board commission or committee.

With this change proposed by council member Show Walter, that prohibition would apply to only the um boards and commissions created by Article 9, which are currently the Environmental Planning Commission, the Library Board of Trustees, and the Parks and Recreation Commission.

So that prohibition would apply to those three only.

Every other board commission and committee that would be created by council by legislative action.

So you'd either be creating it by ordinance or resolution, the council would itself have the authority to decide whether or not to prohibit paid officers and employees from being members of those bodies.

So what it does is it gives council the right to decide for those legislatively created bodies, but for those that are created by the charter, the prohibition remains in place.

So my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that uh the purpose of Councilmember Show Walter's modification was in case there were cases, and you brought up the sevens, which is uh a portion of it is affordable housing for city employees.

If you wanted to make a board, you would have to have city employees on it because that's what that housing is for.

But do we not have other options for that?

Could we if we were going to make some sort of board for the sevens, couldn't couldn't it not be a Brown Act body?

Could it be some other sort of body?

So maybe the modification that council member show Walter is is talking about is not as important as it would seem.

And I I'm thinking I may agree with Councilmember McAllister that it's just easier to make sure, because council changes, you know, although this current council has talked about conflicts of interests, and we might any body we create, we might make sure that there are no their appropriate guardrails for that.

Future councils may not have had that conversation, and you might want it built into the law.

So I'm thinking maybe we I'm thinking what council member McAllister has said that maybe we should go back to um the way it was originally written.

Um, but there are other ways to address what council member show Walter was worried about, which is you know, what if there's some exceptional committee that we want employees to be on?

So any comments on that welcome.

City Attorney Lowe, do you have an answer to that?

Yeah, I think I can respond.

Um yes, you can create bodies administratively.

So if they're not legislatively created bodies, for instance, you have the deferred compensation committee.

That is all city employees with some investment advisors that is an administratively created body that is staffed by members of the union, by employees, because it's it's governing investment of our funds, right?

Our retirement funds.

And so that is a body that has employees on it and was is created administratively, so you could have bodies created administratively, which essentially would happen through the city manager's office, and you can create these bodies and employees can be can be on them.

Um you just run into the problem if it is a legislatively created body or directed a body directed by council.

So I'll say that's my preferred route.

And um, I I think there's I think administrative bodies are are great.

Everybody doesn't have to be a brown act.

They might be appropriate for other things, and I think we've used them for other things.

Anyway, that's my comment.

Thank you, Councilmember Hicks.

Vice Mayor Clark.

So I think I agree with you in principle, Councilmember Hicks and Councilmember McAllister.

The reason that I'm okay with Councilmember Show Walter's change is that my goal here is to have the charter be the charter should cover, it should be our constitution, it should cover the most basic fundamental things, and everything else should be left to the council because the charter is very difficult to change, and all sorts of other things like FPPC regulations and what constitutes, you know.

Does someone getting $250 from the city?

Are they treated the same as someone who's a full-time employee?

I think that should be reserved for us in our judgment.

And so I think what we could do is address the concerns around, you know, uh a paid employee being on a body, that can be a resolution that we pass that or rules that we have in place that we could put in place now, and future councils would be, you know, unless they make changes to it, would have that as the default.

Um I think putting I think having any sort of prohibition without any thresholds or anything like that on every single body that we create at the charter level, I think the charter is the wrong level to set that at.

I think we need to be able to respect the principle that I think everyone is, or especially Councilmember McAllister and Hicks have articulated, but not tie our hands to the extent where we actually have to go to the voters and ask permission to make a change for something like for a committee that we might want to create at some point in the future that may very well need to have an employee or two from the city on there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate the Vice Mayor's comments and I was gonna say essentially the same thing, but sometimes it's helpful to think in terms of example.

Um, and the example I I've I had been noodling over is do we want to prevent, you know, a high school student who happens to be a compensated lifeguard, right?

Paid by the city.

Do we want to prevent that high school student from serving on the youth advisory committee?

Like, is that really what we care about?

You have to pick.

You could only you have to either be on the youth advisory committee or be a lifeguard.

And I think that's the the kind of example where it gets into exactly what the vice mayor is suggesting, that by resolution or ordinance as we establish these committees.

Uh, we we at that level decide it's not appropriate for you know a city employee to to also serve on the spot.

Um, and I would imagine that's probably the case for most of the bodies that we create.

But there are some, and I think the youth advisory committee is a good example where the the conflict of interest is essentially non-existent, you know, and all we've done with this charter language is prevented that high school student who happens to be a lifeguard from serving on our youth advisory committee.

Um, you know, I I I'm I reflect sometimes on the vote we took a few years ago where uh it was a 4-3 vote.

We decided to retain the senior advisory committee.

Uh I uh supported dissolving it because I felt that it was appropriate to have that as a non-brown act body that staff can assemble seniors at our community to solicit input, and you know, I think they would have the flexibility to meet as they wanted whenever they wanted, but uh majority of the council uh disagreed with me and felt that it was appropriate for that to be a brown act body.

And um, you know, I I think that's something to to consider here, right?

Like, do we how how much do we want to shackle our brown act bodies?

Um so uh council member Hicks and Councilmember McAllister, I I understand uh your your philosophy and I I would support by resolution or ordinance generally not permitting city employees to serve on most of the legislative uh established bodies, but there might be some instances where it is appropriate.

Uh and I think that as the vice mayor suggested that flexibility might be valuable for the council to uh to benefit from.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez.

Councilmember McAllister.

So I'm um everybody's bringing up uh scenarios and uh so right now we have an appointment committee of three people, and so would they be, even though it's supposed to be ratified by the city council, or does it have to be ratified by the city council of everybody that with those three members appointing someone to a body and saying uh is there a situation where the three could do it without the whole consent of the council?

No, it requires four votes.

Okay.

And um, if I could just jump in real quick, John, it would also require that the establishing resolutions provide that that can happen, and currently you don't have that in any of your resolutions.

Okay.

What can happen with okay, again, that's what can happen without a resolution.

So right now, none of your resolutions allow for paid city employees to serve on any of your committees.

Well, that yeah, okay.

So that goes back to when we've had the discussion years ago.

It was yes, there's exceptions to all these things, but I remember the discussions that we had on back then was well, should we or shouldn't we?

And the path sounds like we're going down again that there could be potential conflicts.

Uh councilmember Ramirez's uh scenario is also rare, but you know, we do have other things, so um I appreciate everybody's input, but I I still feel that the clear-cut case is usually a little easier to work with.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember McAllister, Councilmember Hicks.

So there are things I feel strongly about and won't vote for, but this is not one of them.

So I won't be supporting it no matter which way it goes.

But um, but uh that said, isn't the youth advisor is the youth advisory commission currently uh a brown act group or not?

It currently is, but we have talked about making it not a brown act body for exactly the reason we're talking about the whole lifeguard thing, that and also because they like they've wanted to have meetings outside of the city boundaries and are prohibited from doing that right now.

Yeah, okay.

So thank you for the clarification.

All right.

Anyone else in the queue?

Councilmember McAllister, you still have your hand up.

Okay, I'll uh okay.

We bifurcate that just to uh or do you want to I would like to support the whole mo the motion, but except for the uh acceptance I'm not sure there's a technically feasible way to do that because we're we're placing the uh charter uh we're we're placing uh placing all of this on the ballot.

City attorney, any thoughts?

I think what one thing to consider council members to just state in the public record your your general support, and then with the object the specific objection, and then I think that's very clear for everyone how you feel about the balance of of the amendments.

I think that is probably the.

No, I was gonna say in respect to council member or mayor as for his persistent and encouraging to get this thing clean here deaf.

I will go along with his suggestion.

All right, seeing the queue empty.

Let's do a roll call vote.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Councilmember Kamei.

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks?

Yes.

Councilmember McAllister.

Yes, and my gratitude to Councilmember Romares for staying on top of this.

Councilmember Show Walter?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark.

Yes, Mayor Ramos?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

And now we are on item eight.

Council staff and committee reports.

Do we have any council staff and committee reports from any of my colleagues?

Anyone?

Councilmember Committee.

Great.

Sorry.

Sorry, Mayor.

I think that since the last time we met, we had the lot 12 ribbon cutting, now known as Corso.

Um yeah, we were all there.

Well, I'm just it's item eight, so I'm just reporting, right?

Um, but I can I don't know if I'm allowed to do it for all of us.

I don't know.

Is that in the the charter amendment, Lucas?

Um, and then um I attended the the Chinese um leadership academy graduation.

Thank you, Councilmember McAllister.

Um a couple of transportation deals.

VTA is actually gonna start working on the WISM station.

Uh it's taken a while after the CPU C approved it.

Now they're going to give us a guideline to take care of some of the whistles and bells.

So hopefully that will take those people.

Uh I also attended the VTA meeting board meeting where they discussed some money for Mountain View, and they also were talking about express lanes, um, and SR85.

I know Chris is eager to jump on the 85 corridor committee again, but they are thinking of trying to modify what was uh done about six years ago.

So we'll we have to keep tune on what they're planning to do with that.

Thank you, Councilmember McAllister.

Vice Mayor Clerk.

I just wanted to note that I um filled in for you, Mayor, while you were at the US Conference of Mayors, and I just wanted um, so I just wanted to uh we cut the ribbon at uh Lungo uh tie, which is at the Grant Road shopping center.

Um, and it was a great opportunity for me to scrape off some of the rust uh from and uh I was so rusty that I wanted to apologize to my colleagues that I cardinal rule number one when you're doing a ribbon cutting uh is to introduce your colleagues, and um I was so rusty that I failed to do that, and our chamber CEO had to do that right after me.

So I'm sorry for my colleagues that I'm so rusty that I didn't do, I didn't follow rule number one, but I have learned from that, and I will try not to be so rusty in the future.

This is why it's vice mayor, and then we build up again.

Uh Councilmember Show Walter.

Well, I attended a um afternoon workshop at BCDC on sediment.

We've heard me talk about sediment a lot, and this was pretty exciting because we are putting forth policies about uh changes in um the use of uh dredge material and um this is just an important step in it becoming California law, and that the reason that's important is because for sea level rise protection, there's sort of three basic things we got to do.

We have to um change our policies to allow the things that we need to build to protect us, like the restoration of Pond AW.

We need to we need to change those policies.

We're working on that, and um, we need to have the building products to do it, and one of the major building projects the building blocks is just dirt.

And where do we get that dirt?

Well, we get a lot of it from dredging, and we get a lot of it from construction sites.

That um instead of sending it to a landfill and paying for a tipping fee, they um they can take it for to a construction site, which which we did for Ponde A2W, and we're doing it now.

So, and then the third thing, of course, is we have to figure out how to pay for it.

That's that's a whole nother story.

But then I wanted to end on a happy note, uh exciting fun note is uh I had the pleasure of being at the um the first concert on the green, I mean a concert on the plaza for that we do every Friday night during the sort of the long hours of the uh of the year, and so there will be um music and dancing every Friday night from 6 to 7 30.

Thank you, Councilmember Show Walter.

Um, I will I've also went to the lot 12 Affordable Housing Groundbreaking and the Chinese Language Civic Leadership Academy on the on May 30th.

I presented the Oddfellows Lodge, their anniversary celebration with a little commendation.

They are celebrating I believe 150 years.

Um you have the Springer Trees Neighborhood Association Ice Cream Social that was on the 31st, and then the Monteloman Association annual meeting on January 3rd, and then I also went to the U.S.

conference of mayors this past week, and it was incredible experience.

I'm really so privileged to be a mayor, it's crazy.

Like every once in a while, I'm there and surrounded by all these mayors and being like, am I really here?

But um thank you so much.

There were really great panels, a lot of meeting other mayors, um, all different kinds of mayors.

Um, and and it was it was really quite an experience.

So with that, um we are on item nine, the adjournment.

The next city council meeting will be held on June 23rd, 2026.

This meeting is adjourned at 9 45.