1 30, so we're going to call today's meeting to order.

Welcome to the August 11th meeting of the Transportation Environment Committee.

And I want to just take the opportunity at the beginning of the meeting to thank Member Carl Sallas for his service for the last, was it five, six months on this committee as a member and valuable contributing member, and thank you.

We're we're proud that you, your last uh committee service is here with us today.

I am sure, thank you.

All right, let's start with roll call.

Councilmember Salas here.

COMPOS.

President.

Ortiz, present fully.

Chair Cohen.

Here.

Thank you.

All right.

Our major report today is our audit report on the access to and use of cities' traffic safety programs by traditionally marginalized communities.

I'll turn this over to Joe Royce.

Good afternoon, Joe Royce, City Auditor.

I'm here with Abella Obi, Brittany Harvey, and Maria Vay to present the audit of access and use of our traffic of traffic safety services.

Targeted outreach and other improvements can enhance equity and services.

Also in the box is John Ristow from the Department of Transportation.

The Department of Transportation and the Police Department provide key traffic safety programs and services, such as responding to traffic safety service requests, implementing a variety of safety projects, such as traffic calming projects in neighborhoods, pedestrian safety enhancements, and quick build projects, also provide traffic safety education and crossing guards, and lastly traffic enforcement.

Residents can access the services in different ways, such as through email, phone, or online requests.

In other cases, the departments prioritize service delivery in priority safety corridors when there are high incidents where there are high incidents of crashes or injuries.

The objective of this audit was to assess access to and use of traffic safety services by traditionally marginalized communities with a focus on services within the community safety city council focus area.

The genesis of the audit was direction from the mayor's March 2023 budget message to explore an audit of access and use of our most critical services by traditionally marginalized communities.

I propose to take that project on in a series of audits, and this is the second in that series.

The first was our audit on the access and use of neighborhood blight reduction programs, which was issued in December of last year and her at council in January of this year.

For this audit, the first finding was that equity priority communities received the same or higher level service in some traffic safety programs.

The audit used two different equity lenses to assess traffic safety service delivery and access and use of services.

The first was the San Jose Equity Atlas, which is a tool created by the city to help departments inform equity work that uses data to identify census tracts with higher proportions of people of color and lower household incomes.

We also use the Metropolitan Transportation Community Commissions or MTC's equity priority communities, which are census tracts with significant concentrations of underserved populations incorporating demographic factors such as race, income, English proficiency, disability status, and age.

We found that equity priority communities received a greater number of quick build safety quick build safety projects in comparison to other communities.

This has been in part because the Vision Zero quick build projects are generally targeted in priority safety corridors, many of which are in equity priority communities.

We also noted that requests for basic neighborhood traffic safety services were equally distributed across the city, and the Department of Transportation was more timely in closing out basic traffic safety requests in equity priority communities.

We also want to note that the Department of Transportation explicitly factors equity into project prioritization for some pedestrian safety enhancements and neighborhood traffic safety work.

Our second finding was that schools traffic safety programs could be more proactive in their outreach to engage more schools.

We found that school safety traffic traffic safety services are generally accessed by request, and both departments, uh Department of Transportation and the police department have faced challenges in reaching all elementary and middle schools for school safety programming.

We found that slightly fewer schools and equity priority communities were involved with the walk and roll program or had crossing guards than would be expected if participating schools were equally distributed.

We noted there are opportunities for better outreach and cross-departmental coordination to approve access and use of such services.

We had two recommendations, or we had recommendations uh for the departments to expand and coordinate on proactive targeted outreach and develop a process to better track and facilitate crossing guard requests between the departments.

We do want to note that outreach will help in expanding the reach of the programs, however, they still will require a school to request the service.

Also, even if a school requests crossing guards, they still need to be need to meet safety criteria to qualify, and then they may only be placed on a wait list until Crossing Guard staffing resources become available.

Our third finding, our last finding, is that translated and updated resources could enhance access to traffic safety services.

We found that the police department's public online traffic enforcement request form is only in English.

The Department of Transportation's traffic calming toolkit, which is a resource intended to provide information to the public on how to access traffic calming improvements for the neighborhoods is outdated and only in English.

And lastly, phone trees that residents are directed to for traffic safety or enforcement services are not always translated in all the languages identified in the city's language equity policy and guidelines.

So in this finding, we had recommendations for the police department to translate the online traffic enforcement request form.

Department of Transportation updating and translating its traffic safety resources, including the traffic talking toolkit.

And both departments should translate phone trees for accessing traffic safety services into the languages identified in the language equity policy guidelines.

Overall, we had eight recommendations.

We'd like to thank the Departments of Transportation and the Police Department for their time and insight, and I ask that you accept the report in cross-reference the August 26th City Council meeting.

We're happy to answer any questions, but first I'll turn it over to John for the administration's response.

Thank you, Joe.

John Ristow, Director of Transportation.

Fortunately, Chief Joseph couldn't be here, so I'll try to speak for him.

Thanking the audit department and staff for actually a really good process that we went through to provide information in terms of all the different services and programs and projects that both police department and DOT do in terms of equity analysis and implementation throughout the city.

The process was actually very informative, helped us to learn a lot about both departments as well, and thank you for the great report.

We're ready to implement all those recommendations that are included in the report.

Thank you, Joe.

Great.

Thank you so much for the for the uh report and thank you for the response.

Glad to hear that everyone's working together well on this and that we're ready to move some of these recommendations forward.

I think we have some public comment.

Let's move on to public comment.

Jordan, please make your way to the podium.

Hi, Jordan Moldow, District 3 speaking on behalf of myself for this item.

Thank you to the auditor for the report.

That was a really great read, and also thank you so much for your quick response to my email this morning.

A lot of good news in the report.

It's really good to hear that the equity priority communities are receiving services just as fast or faster than the rest of the city, and that they are receiving just as many services, if not more services than the rest of the city.

So that's all good to hear, and I appreciate the city auditor for letting me know that some of the questions I asked in my email are maybe out of scope for the audit report, but to the city council who is the policy-making body of the city, I think a natural next step would be to figure out okay, the equity priority communities are receiving at least equal services compared to the rest of the city.

Um, but are they receiving the right level of service in order to bring them back into balance with the rest of the city so that they are no longer underserved with regards to their uh traffic resources and the safety of their streets?

We know that equity priority communities have a lot more vision zero corridors that go through them, and a lot of the serious injuries and fatalities are members of this community, so it's not just important to make sure that they receive equal services, but to make sure that we are trending downwards.

And so those were some of the questions I was asking if it's possible for this body to get the answers to or to decide the answers to should we prov be providing services at a greater level?

Should we be tracking how close we're coming to achieving vision zero in equity priority areas and make sure that we're trending down over the right time frame.

Um, that's all more details in my email.

Thank you so much.

Back to the committee.

All right, thank you so much.

Uh back to the committee.

We'll start with Councilmember Ortiz.

Thank you so much.

Chair, I also want to thank City Auditor and our department uh head Mr.

Ristow for uh his his leadership and advocating for transportation safety across uh our great city.

Um, I want to thank you for um this very important audit, uh making sure that our various districts and vulnerable communities are able to access traffic safety infrastructure is extremely uh uh important, and I know it's an important um for Vice Mayor Foley uh uh as well.

Um I wanted to just ask, I was you know, combing through um the report, and I wasn't sure um where it was listed.

How are we essentially codifying or defining these equity priority areas?

Okay, I'm gonna defer to John because it's kind of built into the vision zero uh, we we use the cities guidance that's been developed for equity as well as uh Metropolitan Transportation Commission has identified communities of concern that we use, which is uh economic as well as uh demographic data.

So we use what's already been established as areas that that we'd need to be paying attention to.

We we were actually a little bit ahead of all this when we started to do our a lot of our safety work because the data led us there with a lot of crashes that were happening.

Yes, both vehicles and and other users of the system.

So we were following the data uh a number of years ago that led us to this as well, too.

So we built our programs around that.

Brandon that that makes total sense, you know.

Obviously, if we're looking at areas um that have lacked equitable resources, there's gonna be more traffic collisions because they lack the traffic uh safety um infrastructures.

Is there a just uh not you you guys don't have to have it now, but is there like a map that exists of the air of the these equity areas just for council reference?

Yes, there is, and I think Joe referenced it.

The the city has developed that map.

Okay, we use that all the departments actually use that for our guidance for equity implementation, whether it be budgeting or standard operating practice that we're trying to get to.

So we use that city information, maybe Joe could talk a little bit about more about that because that was part of the report.

Yeah, appendices uh appendix A and B in the report will give you an idea of where so appendix A will show the San Jose Equity Atlas, so the darker the uh the color in the map is the higher higher need communities, and then for the MTC is the appendix C, which is a uh a narrower set of census tracks, but it's same follows that same kind of color coding.

Yep.

Uh thank you for that.

And yet, as I as I assumed, it looks like it's um a lot of the areas are focused district five, district three, district seven, as we know a lot of the a lot of the issues are impacting those those residents.

One thing I I think, and I think um I could always trust Jordan to provide a public comment on a traffic um uh uh item.

Uh but I think it's important to note you know the difference between um equality and equity.

Um and definitely measuring the Department of Transportation's response to the various communities is one aspect um of this conversation, but it's it's really equality because we got to make sure that we are measuring you know the real reason why we're having you know these major traffic concerns in these districts, which is historic underinvestment in these neighborhoods and a lack of uh equitable distribution of uh safety infrastructure.

So I just I wanted to just point that out, um, and just we need to be mindful of you know the language we use and and be clear, like equal ac equal access to service is important.

We need to strive for that.

Um, but equity means that um each district is provided the amount of uh resources they need to be at an equal playing field, and um I don't know if we are there yet.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to Vice Mayor Foley.

Thank you.

Joe, thank you for the audit and uh John, thank you for your response.

This as uh Councilmember Ortiz said, it is a very important subject to me given my uh vision zero background, and I was actually uh pleasantly uh surprised and to see that we focused on our priority safety corridors, which is what we do in Vision Zero, and that most of them have received attention in our underserved communities, and and that's great.

But I agree there's always more that we can do.

Um we don't want to have more uh serious injuries or fatalities in one neighborhood than the other.

We need to always be updating our priority safety corridors and and taking a look at those, and I have confidence that our speed cameras and uh all the other technology we're gonna employ will help us reduce speeds and make our streets safer too.

So that part I was pleased with.

Uh um I want to talk a little bit about the outreach since that was one of the inequities that hasn't been resolved yet, and that is that some of there are there are a lot uh many schools in our underserved communities do not have walk and roll programs, and I know uh in my district I have a few, but they're all depend on parent volunteers, they all depend on the parents to to run them, to coordinate them, to ask for them, and then to work with our staff.

And in all of our schools, our schools have limited bandwidth to do the volunteer work that they need to do.

One to just provide the programs they need to uh as an enrichment for their schools, but then to do anything beyond that.

So what are we doing?

How will we be reaching out to these schools to us either assist them, notify them of the programs, help make it easy for them to be involved in the walk and roll.

The crossing guards are a totally different issue because that really relates to the uh intersection qualifying for crossing guards, and then we have to be mindful of how we're gonna get the word out to have those crossing, those intersections monitored and controlled by crossing guards, but specifically, how are we going to do the outreach for the walk and roll?

Very good question.

Thank you, John Risteau again, and um your first opening description is was very good, and it's actually part of the report is that uh what we identified, we try to contact and be engaged with every school, but you pointed out correctly that there are limited in in resources and or desire to put those uh it's a difficult thing to get a lot of uh volunteers to actually work with us on that.

We have about a third of the schools that we're working with, and we'd love to do more.

The report also identifies that there's a resource limitation on the city side as well, both the police department with crossing guards as well as our staff in walk and roll.

We've we're we're pretty full right now.

We'd like to take more on if we could, but we would also have to consider our resources as well.

So to answer your question, what we're gonna be doing is gonna we're gonna redo everything we've done before when we reach out to schools, going through uh the the um counties school department of education and school districts themselves and see if we can get connected that way as well as going directly to schools as well.

Part of the um effort that we do around schools, we created a new program that's not in uh it's not detailed as much out here, but following a terrible traffic fatality in District One, council directed us to actually get a school focused program where we actually contacted all 260 schools with a survey to try to understand what their traffic safety needs were.

We again didn't get a full hundred percent uh response on that, but we're continuing to work with every school to try to get them to talk to us about what is physical needs are in and around the school.

So it's not just uh walk and roll program, but it's actually making improvements of the roadway systems around.

I think that's going to pay off because we're gonna be engaging more schools as we go every year, we do more.

We actually do the work out in the field, and then they see what's happening.

They get more engaged.

So we have to redo it all again to try to get the walk and roll program more engaged in some of the schools, but it it it's a limitation probably on the school side more than us.

If I can add one other thing, and that's something that's been working with is the school city collaborative is another avenue to get you know a foot in the door with one of the schools that they've been it's newer within the last school.

Thank you, Joe.

I forgot about that one.

I was just gonna mention that.

So when we're reaching out to the schools, old school board member here, it's important to reach out to the parent club leader and the principal.

They're both very busy trying to manage whatever their job is, but together they might be able to create a program.

And don't forget our safe biking program either.

Some schools have programs where kids bring their bikes and after school, PD is there to show them how to ride safely, and it's uh sometimes motorcycle cops are there too.

So anything we can do to spread the word.

I was actually at a principal's coffee in my district on Friday, and uh I wasn't speaker, I just was there.

It's my neighborhood, so I thought I'd stop by, but afterwards, several parents had suggestions on how to make the streets safer for their kids, and we've done a lot in that particular neighborhood.

I don't know that we can do any more because those things come from my city funds, my transportation funds, and I've exhausted them for this fiscal year because I already know where I'm gonna spend the money, so I'll have to come out of 2627 budget, which will be my final budget, by the way.

Um, so anything that we can do or I can do to help with the schools, I'm happy to do so.

I I still speak, superintendent and I still speak uh principal and parent club, so uh be sure and reach out to us.

And I know there's one other council, a couple other council members who are school board members who'd uh be able to offer any advice.

And those, of course, the parent club leader changes all the time, and so does the principal change all the time.

So there's some background you have to do.

I would not go to the superintendent.

That's not that wouldn't be productive because they're too busy doing other things.

But I'd start with the specific school side.

Just my and thank you.

I'm really glad we're focusing on this issue and hope to see that we can get more schools in the walk and roll program.

All right.

Well, I when I when I make my comments after I'll I'll um differ a little bit with that superintendent comment, but because it depends on the district, probably.

But uh but anyway, let's go on to uh councilmember campus.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I want to uh continue the remarks from the vice mayor, but um want to begin by thanking Joe and your team for um this detailed audit and analysis.

Um I think especially uh issues around traffic safety and safety near our schools are are critical issues to um be well aware of what we're doing well and what could be improved.

So thank you for helping um put this before us and uh to John Risteau, thank you.

Um it's been great to see the city implementing progress on uh our vision zero and our active transportation plans, um, particularly in equity priority communities, which I know is um so important as my colleagues have um surfaced.

What this report shows us is that we do have some more work to do to ensure that our incredibly dynamic and fantastic teams at the walk and roll and the police uh school and safety and education unit reaches uh communities inequity areas.

I know that when I'm in my district and whether it's a dumpster day, the question around traffic safety always comes up, it is top of mind for residents throughout the city.

Um, but I but I do find that it's particularly in our equity priority communities where it's much more of a concern.

And so um, you know, with that, I do have a couple of questions for staff beginning with DOT.

Um in my experience, the safe routes to school programming uh, which has a lasting impact and brings community together, happens when parents and volunteers step up to support the walk and roll staff.

I know of a very successful case, which is the Tracy Elementary Bike Bus.

Um it's come along with pedestrian improvements, and it was an effort that was spearheaded by parents who who had the bandwidth to organize other parents and the broader community to ensure traffic safety in a very key corridor with elementary, middle, and high school around.

And so, you know, recognizing that when we have that that kind of community connection and involvement, it makes it easier on our staff.

Um, right now I'm trying to understand with our current walk and roll staff what uh capacity and resources do we currently have to engage with our diverse communities, including staff with language uh accessibility and relationships to uh neighborhood leaders that are um you know that have close ties to the schools and their communities.

Thank you, Councilmember John Risteau again.

Uh yeah, very good question.

And um I I think I in my earlier remarks I mentioned that we have capac we have some capacity to add more schools, not that many without adding some more staff and some some effort there.

One of the one of the the best programs that we have, but it takes a lot of work is our Viva Escuela, where we will select a number of schools every year and actually have a pre-school pre-period uh event on the streets.

We close the streets, and this is with the school coordinators as well as parents.

Police department is has a big role in that as well, and our parking compliance and then our walk and roll.

That probably gets the most attention of any event that we do.

We don't get to do enough of them.

We'd like to do more every year.

So that's where I think that both the vice mayor and your suggestions how how we can utilize you and your connections as well as those kinds of efforts and resources.

But those are kind of one-off events that take a lot of work.

It's the everyday thing, I think what you're talking about, and that's how we do that more.

We don't we don't have a we we don't have a lot of staff in our walk-and-roll program.

It's a pretty lean group of about five people or so.

So they cover a lot of ground.

We would need some more staff to actually, if we were in any way to cover the other two-thirds of the schools that are what we're not covering, but we're ready to do so because we do think it's a really important.

We actually in that program, we we actually physically meet, engage and teach directly, both um the parents, the school administrators, and most importantly, the students.

So the more of that we can do, I think it becomes a really really effective program.

It's just we're only about one-third of all the schools.

We'd love to have more, but um right now it's kind of a resource book for both schools and us.

And um what uh with the capacity that we have right now, how um well are we able to meet the diverse needs of our communities, right?

Our our um neighbors with different abilities, our neighbors who speak different languages.

Right, good another good question.

So as the report pointed out, we do have some work to do on our written and online materials to actually make sure they're in all languages, so that's a step one.

Step two, we do have uh the the city does have a very good multilingual requirement for all of our meetings and and effort.

We have um multilingual speakers on our in our uh staff that we we work with there, so we do cover that end of it, but uh probably that is more limited, so I won't say that we're perfect in that either, but those are the kinds of things that we reach out to any of the groups and student groups and uh PTAs to actually be able to get to each and every one of those.

So we do have speakers, we do have materials, we have probably some uh improvements we have to do, but it is a major part of what we try to do is get to communicate to directly to the students and parents because that's the way it happens.

Well, I I appreciate you acknowledging how the um community infrastructure piece is so critical because the one-off events are helpful, but we need community leaders working with city staff and um our community at large to really drive long-term um and lasting impacts, especially in this work and recognizing how critical it is at this um fundamental level for folks to understand traffic and pedestrian safety because it's about behavior, but it's also about infrastructure, and I think sometimes neighbors um don't pick up on those nuances, and these are really great opportunities, especially as we're thinking about long-term planning.

Um I know that MTC and ABAC is going to start their plan Bay Area 2060 plus next summer.

Um I know that their uh the general plan conversation is coming up, and so I'm really thinking about community engagement and outreach on issues like this that are so fundamental to the health and well-being of our city, and the earlier that we can get folks excited through things like Viva Calle that really promote, you know, bike and pedestrian safety in a way that is enjoyable and um uplifts our community, uh, it would be great to really think about the resources it's gonna take to do a better job than the job we're already doing.

We're doing a great job right now, but like you said, we could always do better, and I think really to engage all members of our community, um, it's it's something that's really important that for me that we keep talking about how we can improve um this level of service to our community.

I did have one more question for um SJPD regarding the student safety patrol and the student ballet programs, which um I I want to express my strong support for this because it's a program that not only enhances pedestrian safety, but it also provides a valuable opportunity for older students to develop leadership skills and serve as a positive role model for younger peers.

So with this in mind, what are the plans for expanding these programs to more schools in the equity areas if there's someone from PD or I don't think we have anybody from PD, so we'll take that down and make sure that they get back to you on that.

Okay.

Um, and as a follow-up to that, whether it would be possible to tap the young people in the San Jose Cadet program to inform them of this opportunity to stay involved with the city.

Um I think that's another uh key issue that I hear a lot in my neighborhood associations is how do we get more young people involved in the maintenance and the upkeep of neighborhood associations and you know commun community projects.

So it would be great to, you know, figure out how we can more in sync work with um making sure that all all our young people are connected to all the opportunities and programs that we have.

Um as I said, for me it's incredibly important that we create communities where every student, senior, and parent can comfortably um and safely cross our streets, and so I with that I'll move to the uh accept the report.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

We have a motion a second.

I'm gonna just ask if make a few comments and maybe follow up on a couple of things I was thinking about as we were seeing hearing the presentation.

First of all, thanks, Joe for spurring this conversation.

I know we've this conversation becomes broader than the audit was supposed to be.

The audit, of course, is about equity communities and how this, but we all, you know, several of us here don't have too many of those communities in our districts, but we obviously are interested in this issue when it comes to school safety and and traffic safety.

It affects all of us across the city.

So we often broaden the conversation.

Thank you, John, for engaging in that.

Um, there was a mention, and I remember from the last school site, the school city collaborative meeting that I attended back in the spring.

We there was a presentation at that meeting from the Rock Walk and Roll program, and there were superintendents engaged there.

I will say I think it is important that superintendents are engaged on this topic.

Um, they often uh hopefully will be able to figure out who in their district is the right person to be then the liaison to the program.

In addition to that, some school every district has a couple of schools I think that do this well, and then a bunch of schools that either don't participate or don't do it as well, and it requires a district level sort of sharing um sort of prioritization to make sure that those best practices are shared from school to school.

So I would um say that that engagement is important, but um about a you said about, and I remember from that meeting, about a third of our schools have a program.

Do we have and I think I remember it was actually that was a significant growth year on year.

Do you have that information about how much how it's increasing in terms of participation?

Uh I don't have it off the top of my head.

Let me see if Ann would know that.

Do you know Ann?

50% increase.

So I mean, so it's five zero, Jim.

Five zero.

Yeah, I remember it was a significant increase year over year.

So there is a concerted effort happening in the department in DOT to have this permeate more schools.

So I just want to at least give kudos on that.

A third sounds like a small number, but it is it is a really um a good there's been a good penetration um happening recently.

Um obviously the other thing I I'll use every opportunity I I have to remind DOT and others about the the chaos that's being caused by schools closing across the city.

Um so a lot of the things that we knew to be the case are not the same this year as they were last year.

Three in my district, I think some several in district five, I know schools that are closing either this year or next year, and then therefore traffic patterns are changing, and so whatever we had studied needs to be re-evaluated.

Um we're gonna have to re reach out to schools again because things are going to be different in terms of how people get to school.

And I will be sad about the school in my district that was the probably best participant in Viva Escuela, who was was our great walk and roll school, is actually closed starting this year.

So now hopefully they will be able to move that to some of the other schools.

But um, unfortunately, that also gives you some bandwidth to add the program elsewhere because of uh with school that closed.

But um we need to be mindful of of that in the next couple years, because I think we're gonna see some significant changes and in where impacts are in our communities.

Um the other thing I was oh, the other thing I was just gonna mention is in addition to the typical outreach approach, which is school by school, reaching out to principals, the engagement of council offices is important.

I think it was mentioned, um, you know, how you know we are sort of the face of of the community in terms of transit improvements.

I I think realistically, other than homelessness, the thing we hear about the most from residents is traffic safety concerns, questions, speeding, whether it's speeding or lack of crosswalks or or improvements and how pedestrians circulate.

So we are aware, but in on the flip side, we also are good conduits.

So it's probably a good idea, and I was just thinking about this as we were talking.

If we're having trouble, if you're having trouble hearing from certain schools from certain parts of the community, our office may be able to help with that.

And I certainly recommend to my colleagues who are on the council who maybe weren't as engaged with schools before that they think of schools as another place of community engagement as a council member.

I know we often say, well, school boards are that's their role, but we should get to know who are the principals, who are the players in our districts at the schools, and also have a a direct line of communication with them throughout the year to we can ask them to to avail themselves of these services that the city provides.

Um, so I'll just I'll I'll just leave it at that.

I think it's uh there's a lot of potential.

Go ahead, Jeff.

I just want to build on what you just said in the conversation earlier.

You know, the 50% increase.

So the challenges in reaching these schools, this is this was not news to departments.

And they've, you know, John mentioned what they've been doing.

Police department also created a new, you know, their safety through education encouragement res uh respect campaign.

We started in March of this year.

So they're trying, but you know, they recognize the challenges uh they've had challenges, they recognize the scope of their work in both departments isn't what they would want.

And so I just want to put that out there because they are trying and and they've tried multiple ways, and we our recommendations are really to kind of help them take that next step just to expand that reach even further, even with those resource limitations.

The you know, the as John said, they're the likelihood of having the resources to expand these programs to the 200 plus schools not involved is not likely realistic.

But I think the number was like 70 schools that are involved at this point is so it's a pretty good idea.

So, so hopefully the direct needs can help us kind of again expand that reach, especially in those priority equity priority communities.

Yeah, and actually another another avenue for engagement is to directly to school boards.

An opportunity.

You know, school districts are often looking for at their school board meetings, you know, hearing from having presentations from partners that are doing things, and so going to a school board meeting, and that's maybe another angle into a district.

Going to a school board meeting and saying here's what we do, here's what we're doing at the schools in your district, here's what we'd like to expand this to other schools in your district, and getting the board members engaged in helping you make those connections could also could also work.

So just so another possible suggestion.

Those are some great ideas, and I think we'll take you up on that.

I just wanted to fill in some more to that, as you remind me at every one of our one-on-ones that some of those schools we have some closures and have to rethink some of that.

So appreciate that.

We are trying to do that as Joe mentioned in the report as well.

There's an area that I also think it'd be great for city council or staff to get more involved, and that's our international walk to school day.

We're always looking for volunteers from council and mayor's office to actually visit, and we will set you up at the schools that are participating in that program.

And it's another great one that gets a lot of attention.

So we'll be looking to reach out to each and every council district again for those.

And yeah, it's just as Joe mentioned, we're trying to try to engage more, but I think I we just heard some really good suggestions of how to engage in different ways that we probably maybe need to investigate more for.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, thank you for giving some additional color to that.

And I uh it's a good reason to get up early in the morning to participate in these uh these walk and roll programs.

I um I'm looking forward to I have to schedule the two different crossings to be out with crossing guards this year, and I'm glad the police department is now engaging our offices in understanding how that works and actually shadowing the crossing guards in the morning.

So I know I'll be doing that twice in the next month or so.

Um, all right.

We have unless there's I don't see any other hands up.

So go ahead.

One clarifying question.

Does the motion I heard oh, does it also include a cross-reference?

We will make sure that the motion also includes cross referencing to the August 26th council meeting.

All right.

All right, motion is to accept the report and cross-reference to August 26th.

Let's vote.

All right, motion carries five-zero, and we thank you so much.

We are on to our next item.

Typically, we have heard review of um work plans for city commissions as consent items, but I specifically asked for these to come to us uh as agenda items today.

We had a short a you know, relatively short agenda, but I also thought that there was some opportunity to get a little bit a little bit of depth into how we these work plans are set and uh what we'd like to see from our commissions in the year ahead.

So we're gonna start with our review of the climate advisory commission work plan for the 25-26 year, and I'll turn this over to our um climate team, Julie.

Hi there.

I'm Julie Benavente.

I'm the deputy director for our climate smart Santa Jose division, which is now in the energy department.

I'm joined today.

Uh Zach Strike is here as our the assistant director from the energy department, and also I'm joined by Ann Ballas, who is our supervising environmental services specialist and our fantastic lead for the climate advisory commission today.

We're gonna share the climate advisory commission's annual report, and also uh the final and fiscal year for 24-25 as well as a preview into the work plan for this um current fiscal year.

And I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Ann to cover those items.

Thanks.

Good afternoon, everybody.

All right.

Uh today we're gonna start with an overview of the commission's role and then walk through some of their key highlights from this past year, and finally, we'll outline what's ahead for a fiscal year 2025 and 26.

Um, let's see.

The climate advisory commission was established in January 2024 by merging the Clean Energy Community Advisory Commission into a broader climate focused body.

Their core responsibility is advising on all aspects of the climate smart San Jose Plan, especially the city's goal to be carbon neutral by 2030 and to adapt to climate risks.

The commission also provides recommendations to the city council, and this committee weighs in on San Jose Clean Energy uh policies and programs and ensures community priorities are reflected in climate decisions.

They meet every other month and bring diverse expertise and perspectives to this work.

This past year, the commission reviewed updates to major climate initiatives, including Climate Smart San Jose semi-annual updates and San Jose Clean Energy Power Mix and Roadmap.

They were briefed on the climate adaptation and resilience plan and the climate smart plan update.

Commissioners also provided input through recommendation letters covering topics like legislative outlooks, development regulations, and environmental impacts.

Looking ahead, the fiscal year 2025-26 work plan includes a mix of briefings and actions aligned with major milestones.

Topics include San Jose clean energy rates, the building performance ordinance, legislative trends, and transportation updates.

And now I'll we'll take any questions.

Alright, thank you.

Do we have any public comment on this?

Jordan, please make your way to the podium.

Jordan Mold now.

For this item, I come to you representing the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee.

Your bicycle pedestrian advisory committee would like to submit the following comments on the Climate Advisory Committee fiscal year annual report.

The City of San Jose Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee affirms its strong support for the Climate Advisory Committee recommendations.

These key transportation and mobility initiatives directly align with our Climate Smart San Jose goals and our city's broader commitment to environmental sustainability, equity, and resilience.

We recognize and commend the efforts made through the Better Bike Plan 2025, Move San Jose, and the Emerging Mobility Action Plan, each of which serves as a cornerstone in our transition towards a low-carbon multimodal transportation system.

Together, these initiatives form a cohesive forward-thinking framework to reduce transportation emissions, the largest source of greenhouse gases in San Jose, while improving quality of life and expanding mobility options for all residents.

We encourage the city to fund these initiatives to meet our climate goals.

We support limiting the non-critical funding of single vehicle infrastructure in favor of public transit and multimodal infrastructure.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Alright, thank you.

I don't see any hands up, so I'm gonna just ask a couple questions.

First of all just a little uh additional context on this.

Um, this commission we just founded, just started over a little year and a half ago, so it's a somewhat new, but unlike some of the other commissions, it's not it's it's structured with membership that has technical expertise that is supposed to be there to help provide input to our decision making as a city, and so it's a little different than the sort of council district-based membership where they're bringing in concerns from their community.

They're supposed to also be people who are helpful to us as we make tough decisions as a council as to how we're going to achieve our 2030 goal.

So I wanted to the reason I wanted to have this conversation was just to ask the question about how we are making sure that the voices of this commission throughout this process of updating our climate smart plan and updating our reach codes and doing things that you know we all might have opinions on, but not necessarily expertise on how the voices of that commission will come through staff to our council as we address these goals.

Yeah, maybe I'll start and then Anne, if you have anything to add.

So I think there's a couple of ways that this happens.

One is just um through the memo process, the section that we have on commission um recommendations, because that has actually driven some different actions that have happened just based on, you know, we give them updates and then um we'll bring back that that recommendation in the memo so that the council can see that as well as you can see our response to those recommendations.

Um, another way that I know the uh our commission has been very active in submitting letters, uh requests and letters that uh I understand the city's processes that you would actually come through this committee to submit those letters, and so then this committee then has an opportunity to take action based on the in response to those letters as well.

So those are the two ways that I know of.

I think the only thing that I would add is that um for many of the major documents like the Climate Smart Plan update and the climate adaptation resilience plan.

Um we've generally prepped the commission by inviting members to come sort of introduce the update that we'll be providing and then reporting back at a later date with more of a decision-making point in time.

Okay, good.

That's that was gonna be my next question.

You know, as we as for example, the clean energy programs are developed or the a reach code.

It it seems to me that there's multi-there could be multiple points at which the commission it gives input to the process.

A typical commission would would have would have something brought from staff that has already been kind of baked and then comes for some final input or final tweaks.

Whereas in this case, it seems to me that early an early agenda item where you say here's what we're thinking as far as climate plans.

Hey, your experts, can you tell us what other what we might be missing, and then a second follow-up with that commission later with oh, we've we've taken your input and we've tweaked it in this way before it comes then to T and E and the council might actually take advantage of that expertise a little more.

So I'm just as we were looking as I was looking at the work plan.

I was just wondering, are there times in the process where this there can be multiple cracks at some of these policies?

Yeah, and I also I think the climate adaptation and resiliency plan is a really good um example of this, where we brought it early on to the um commission in last fiscal year to say here's the plan, here's the timing, here's our our outreach that we're planning.

Is there's anything missing like you said, and then um we are bringing it back again this fiscal year to say here's kind of what where it's developed.

Um obviously there's a lot of balancing that has to happen with initiatives depending on the timing, and also because this commission is um every other month, plus you have the timing of council memos, so there's definitely a lot of balancing that we have to do to figure out when we can bring it early enough.

But I think uh we've done a pretty good job of um being able to do that in the work plans, and we really think about that timing and being able to get in front, even if it's sometimes has to be a couple of months before we're bringing the council so not the up maybe an opportune time, but we are able to then say, okay, here's where we're at and get input in multiple places.

Okay, great.

I see that Council Rosales has requested to speak.

So Council Marcellus.

Thank you.

I just want to, of course, thanks for everything you do, and thanks for these reports.

I I wanted to make the comment.

Uh, I don't know if you went to the Jazz Fest on Friday night to hear Common.

Did anybody do that?

So you I don't know if you know this, but we uh we only have this is a little esoteric, but we only have single phase power at Chavez Park, and common requires three phase power.

So they had to run a generator for five hours during the comp before and after.

It takes 70 gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel to write there behind the stage running.

And and my bigger point is that there are so many food trucks, and in our parks, most of the events we have bring in generators because you can't access the panels very easy, and even at Chavez Park, that's not the kind of power we need.

And I think sometimes we overlook some of those smaller things because they're so distributed everywhere, but it makes a major impact on our climate, especially Burning Diesel in what is once to be a very, very clean city.

I just wanted to make that comment to be if you could consider that going forward, all of these point sources of diesel and gasoline.

Hundreds, probably thousands.

And I Zachary, I've been um terrorizing him in the background about that.

So he's aware of some of the issues in the parks, just accessing the panels, it's so expensive to access the panels that they have to get bringing generators.

And it's just a it's just a bit of low-hanging fruit that since we aren't counting, no one notices.

Just a comment.

Yeah, thank you for that input.

I um was there any anybody want to comment on that?

No, not at this point, but it was good input.

Thank you.

Um just one last thing I was gonna say.

I think it would also be helpful for us as a council as we start to as we hear on these policies to also.

I know we get letters from the commission, but commission participation at the council meetings, for example, or at this committee, um if maybe it's good feedback for them, I think, to let them know that we'd love to see somebody, you know, even here today telling us what they would like to see and on their work plan as we're uh talking about it at the committee meeting.

All right, is there a motion to accept the work plan?

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Let's vote.

All right, that motion carries five zero.

Thank you uh for being here.

Now we're going to see a brief presentation about the airport commission annual work plan.

Muki and Matthew are here.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Committee Chair Cohen and community members.

My name is Mookie Patel.

I'm the director of aviation.

Uh we too have a very short presentation today to go over our committee work plan for the airport advisory commission.

First slide, this is what we basically accomplished this last year, 20 FY24-25.

We had uh about four regular meetings.

We had one special meeting uh covering about eight different topics, everything from airport administration, marketing, air service, uh financial rates and charges, uh items that come to the commission that are noteworthy that actually have impact on uh strategic activities that are happening uh under my leadership.

So the airport connector was one of them, uh big capital projects that we've either delayed or put on hold.

We want them to be aware and engaging on these types of things, uh, moving our cell phone lot, various different activities, and so eight different activities or eight different uh key milestones that were accomplished this past year through those five meetings.

Our work plan typically focuses the goals focus on items that are important to the staff priorities.

Um it helps the commission understand the airport operations and how those functions uh inter parlay into our staff priorities.

Um the work plan also assists the commission carrying out in its advisory role and their responsibility.

So we want them to be good community advocates as they advise the airport team uh on different outcomes, and then they also uh definitely have uh input into uh how we develop different initiatives and how we we work as a team.

Uh we love to get their input on those kinds of things and and especially especially on how we allocate staff resources.

Oh, did I go too far?

So this coming year, our our work plan for FY2526 consists of four key meetings, and again, we will have special meetings if necessary.

Um this cadence that we've already worked with our commission on.

The first meeting here in August, which actually is tonight, uh we will walk them through our capital projects uh briefing.

So all of our capital projects have a mixture of airport operating cash, uh, grant funds.

Uh we'll walk them through the expenditures.

Uh it's really key for them to understand how disadvantaged business enterprise uh organizations work within the airport, especially on grant projects.

Um, and so we we like to share that information of how uh our capital projects actually go downstream into our community.

Um in November we'll talk about all the planning and the preparation for Super Bowl FIFA, and we'll give them a really solid marketing update.

Um, in February, uh it'll focus on air service.

Mark Keel is our air service development manager.

Um he typically has about 300 contacts throughout the year, either in-person meetings, online, on the phone with different airlines, and so we like to give our uh advisory commissioners kind of an update of where the industry is going in terms of seat capacity, passenger volumes, new airlines, or lack thereof.

Uh, as industry keeps consolidating.

Um so that'll happen in February, and then in May, um it's on the typical cadence of our budget process.

So as we take our uh rates and charges budget to the airlines, we also bring it uh to the advisory commission so they're aware of how our rates and charges are being the money's being spent.

We also do our airport concessions and disadvantaged business enterprise triannual goal setting, which is an FAA mandate.

Uh we also do the annual report and the work plan again for the following year.

So it's uh it's on a pretty good clip and it's on a pretty good consistent basis.

Um reoccurring items that generally come up either in the uh in my presentations or we will agendize them.

Um as things are going through the state assembly.

If there's rules, regulations, uh carbon emission rules, uh, you know, the folks up in Sacramento love to add different uh political challenges for the airport environment.

So we'll bring those things up.

Uh we'll talk about local noise ordinances and noise issues, um, and then other items that generally show up as uh items of interest for the community that will be coming to council, uh, sustainability updates on what we're doing with our sustainability plan, uh regulatory issues, uh, those types of issues.

And so that's how we've kind of engaged our airport advisory commission.

Um, and I'd be happy to take some questions.

All right, thank you.

I think we had at least one member of the public with a request to speak.

Oh, no public requests.

All right, thank you so much.

Um back to the committee.

Any comments?

Looks like we have no hands raised.

For approval.

All right, miss you all.

It's a great group.

If you haven't had a time to sit through a presentation on the uh noise complaints, then I'll I recourage you all to do that.

All right, we have a motion and a second, let's vote.

All right, that motion carries five-zero, and we will move on.

Thank you for coming and presenting, and we will move on to our um open forum.

We have two requests to speak.

Jordan and Ken.

Please make your way down to the podium, um I'm here to propose some changes to the five wounds urban village plan, which I think will um reduce the cost of the city and dramatically improve the safety of that area.

First, I recommend replacing traffic signals at East St.

at East Julian Street intersection with 28th Street and the US 101 on off ramps with modern roundabouts.

These roundabouts will reduce injury crashes by up to 70 percent, improve traffic flow, and lower long-term maintenance costs for the city.

I propose uh I also propose a Michigan left at 27th Street, where northbound drivers will be prohibited from turning left onto Julian.

Instead, they will use the roundabout at 28th street to complete the movement.

This eliminates high-risk turns, uh, left turns, conflicts, and simplifies intersection geometry.

Um, importantly, we recommend, I recommend replacing a traffic signal at 28th Street.

Um recommend placing a traffic signal at 28th Street, not 27th Street as in the current plans.

Um the 26th, the 26th street intersection is four-legged, better balanced and more suitable for signal coordination and pedestrian crossings.

The 27th Street intersection is three-legged and less efficient for signal phasing and safety.

Um I defined a core area within the urban village bounded by East Julian, the Five Wounds Trail, Five Wounds Lane, and Highway 101.

Within this core, we propose relocating the planned BART station towards the center of the property.

This improves pedestrian access, supports transit-oriented development, and activates uh the public domain.

Um to support circulation.

Uh I introduce a single lane connector road, forming a U-shaped uh U-shape with 28th Street as the fourth leg.

This road connects to roundabout.

Thank you, next speaker.

Thank you, Councilmember Salas, for your service and welcome to Council Member Electro Dios.

Um, for my main comments, um, I already gave these comments at rules back in June, but I wanted to repeat them for the sake of the rest of the committee.

Um, when I was looking at the committee work plans for this coming fiscal year, I noticed that there's a big difference between Teen TNE's work plan and the other major council commissions, which is that all the rest of them have agenda items that are called city council focus Area Status reports uh where they will receive presentations on outcome measures, performance measures, and major activities related to a particular city council focus area.

I believe that outcome measures and performance measures should be just as important for T and E as they are for the other three committees, so it's a shame not to see the same on the T and E work plan.

In the short term, I hope that maybe this can be remedied through the items that are already on the work plan.

You have a vision zero item coming up in October.

Perhaps in that agenda item, the staff can present on transportation related and vision zero adjacent aspects of the increasing community safety focus area and also on emergency service outcome measures.

And then in your Move San Jose plan annual report if staff could provide attachments that include the outcome measures that are related to vibrant downtown and affordable housing, since those two topics are deeply entwined with Move San Jose.

In the medium term, when council next revisits its focus areas, I hope that there can be a defined focus area that encompasses Vision Zero and is overseen by TNE, just like how the other committees also have at least one council focus area that they observe.

And perhaps we can find a way to have a more forward-looking climate-based council focus area in the future as well.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.