Please call the roll.

Salas?

Cohen?

Here.

Ortiz.

Mulcahy.

Duan.

Kendallus.

Casey.

Foley.

Mayhan.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Great turnout.

We don't normally get this many folks for closed session, but I I know why you're here, which is exciting.

We're gonna, we have one item to vote on, and uh that is item EC, which is the uh accepting of the the certification of the election results.

Before we do that, before we entertain a motion to do that, I did just once again want to thank Councilmember Sallas for stepping in, um, agreeing to serve in this capacity, and as our council appointed council member for about six months now, I think has just done a tremendous job of uh being very present and engaged in the community literally seven days a week, as all of us know, and um has done a tremendous job to restore trust and bring City Hall back out to the neighborhoods of District Three and kind of meet people where they are and give them faith again in local government.

So, Carl, I just really wanted to thank you for your service, and if you want to say anything, please feel free.

Six months, two days and two hours.

So just hey, you know, you've said an awful lot nice an awful lot of nice things about me, all of you have, and I just want you to know all the accolades go to you.

It is a privilege.

This has been a life experience for me.

I can't even begin to describe how it has affected my life, even at this late stage in my life.

It's uh I'm a different person, and I want to thank all of you, each one of you.

I wish I could hug you each, because it has just been an incredible privilege to work side by side with you, to watch you in action, and to understand how much work and how hard it is that you guys do.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Thanks again, Councilmember Sallas.

Uh so with that, would like to entertain a motion on item EC.

All right, don't all go at once.

Um okay, Tony, I'll let you decide who got the motion the second.

Uh, unless there's any comment, I don't see any hands up.

Let's vote.

There's a sign-in issue.

Sure.

Do you want to call the roll?

Um, yeah.

Kim?

Yes.

Campos?

Sallas?

Cohen?

Ortiz.

Aye.

Mulcahy?

Duan?

Yes.

Candles.

Yes.

Casey.

Foley.

Mayhan.

Aye.

Uh motion passes.

Good.

All right.

So election results are thereby recorded.

Certified.

We are on to, thank you all.

We're on to our swearing in of our incoming council member, Councilmember Tordillos.

Why don't we have Anthony come down?

Councilmember.

Please raise your right hand to repeat after me.

I state your name.

I, Anthony Tordillos.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

To support and defend.

To support and defend.

The Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And I will bear true faith and allegiance.

And I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And I take this obligation freely.

And I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

Or purpose of evasion.

Or purpose of evasion.

And I will well and faithfully discharge the duties.

Discharge the duties.

Upon which I'm about to enter.

Upon which I am about to enter.

Congratulations.

And I know we're all gonna be better for it.

So welcome.

We're excited to serve with you.

Counselor, if you want to say a few brief words, you're welcome to, and then unless we have public comment, we are going to adjourn to closed session, but feel free.

Awesome.

Welcome again.

Do we have any comment cards or anything else?

I have no cards.

No cards.

Okay, then we're going to adjourn to close session.

Thank you all for being here.

Have a great day.

All right.

Good afternoon and welcome to the first city council meeting of the new fiscal year.

I'm pleased to call to order this meeting of the Sales of City Council for the afternoon of August twelfth.

Tony, would you please call the role?

Come?

Campos?

Tordillas.

Here.

Cohen?

Here.

Ortiz.

Present.

Okay.

Here.

Duan?

Here.

Candles.

Here.

Casey.

Foley?

Here.

Mayhem.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Great.

Thank you.

Now, if you're able, please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Today's invocation by Father Andrew Wynne of Saint Maria Goretti Parish, and Councilmember Duan will tell us more.

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is my honor to introduce someone who has faithfully served our community for many years.

And then well, she said, well, every morning my dad would bang at the door and say, My God, are you done yet?

So I believe that God is everywhere, uh, even in our midst and not only today, but every meetings that we have here uh to bless us and to guide us.

And uh I have a friend priest who uh goes to the gym, but whenever he goes, he only watched TV only.

He doesn't uh do any exercise there.

So I I thank uh all the uh council members here for not only for the titles that you have, but for the works that you do, the good works that you do for our community.

And so I'd like to begin with a prayer today in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Uh we recall that God is love, as uh we hear in the gospel in the letter of Saint John, uh beloved.

Let us love one another because love is of God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

And we know also, he continues that we love because he first love us.

Dear Lord, God of love.

Thank you for loving us.

Thank you for having been with us, with our family, with our service.

We ask you to continue to enlighten our minds and guide our good works.

May our plans prompted by love begin and end with your blessings.

May our service for one another bear fruits in the lives of those whom we serve and the lives of our younger generations.

Thank you for being with us at this council meeting, and for our bless for blessing our loved ones as we serve the loved ones of our community.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Father.

We appreciate you being here today and offering up that beautiful prayer.

Thank you, Councilman Duan.

We'll now move on to our ceremonial items.

Councilmember Mulcahy, please join me at the podium, and we will recognize James Alan Lafferty.

Good afternoon, colleagues and community.

Today it is my profound honor to present a commendation to a man whose name is synonymous with excellence, integrity, and vision in aviation, James Allen Jim Lafferty.

For nearly six decades, Jim has been a force of innovation and leadership from winning national and international flying championships to pioneering business aviation sales in Silicon Valley to founding the San Jose Jet Center, which became the world-class gateway of our that our city deserved, and that legacy has blossomed for SJC.

Jim's impact goes far beyond the aircraft he sold or the businesses he built.

He has mentored generations of pilots and aviators, opening doors for students, young aviators, and dreamers from every background.

His commitment to fairness, mentorship, and community has left an indelible mark, not just on the aviation industry, but on the very soul of San Jose.

Jim's legacy is measured not only in miles flown, but in lives changed.

This afternoon we celebrate a lifetime of courage, service, and leadership.

Jim is joined by his wife Bunny and son Todd, who are here in the front row.

So on behalf of the city of San Jose, our mayor and my council colleagues, our SJC Director Patel, and several commissioners from the airport and colleagues that are here as well.

Please join me in congratulating Jim Lafferty, a true icon of aviation and our community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Come on, Sam Play.

I'd like to thank Mayor Mahhan.

Mayor Mayhan gave me a couple hours one day to talk aviation, and it was uh I think it was beneficial uh for both of us, but it was uh reassuring to me, uh somebody that had been in this area for quite some time that we have excellent government in San Jose.

And uh Councilman McCahy, uh, thank you so much for this.

Uh the rest of the people on the city council.

Uh nobody appreciates it more than me, believe me.

There are a couple things that I would like to say.

Um couple quickies.

There's two people here, very special to me, and John Leopelt is up in the about seventh row.

Um the Leopelt story goes on and on, so I won't get into that.

But my wife Bunny and Todd are uh are key part of what I have been.

Uh they and my two other sons put up with the 50, 60, 70 hour weeks that I put in endlessly.

Uh anyway.

Um there are three people that I want to mention.

Uh their names that ring in aviation and in industry here locally.

John Pyle was uh my uh mentor and person that helped me so much in business.

Uh he and the Al Wool had uh wool and pile.

Um they were an agricultural group, and John got into aviation and he drug me along with him.

Um the second was Jerry Shreve, who taught me more about flying than I ever thought I could learn uh and helped me uh significantly in my um competitive flying.

And then last but certainly not least, um, when we were responding to an RFP from the city of San Jose for an airport uh development.

Um I went to Bob Noyes, who was the man that came up with the microprocessor and the Silicon Valley part of it, and uh I told Bob about it, and he said uh if you'll build it, I'll write the check.

And uh little did he know what we were getting into, but um it led to a great friendship.

Uh I miss him dearly, but I thought it necessary to at least mention his name.

There are a couple things that I would like to direct to this to the city council that are uh I think important that have uh Matt Mahan knows what I'm gonna say right now, but I think it's important to bring it up in this chamber.

The South Bay Needs and Aviation uh asset advisory committee, and I would like to see the City Council take that on.

It uh is something that is gonna raise its ugly head in 2000 or in 2031 because of uh of known problems, but I think if we get proactive about it in this community, we can probably come up with a better solution than fighting it uh five or six years from now.

Um it's awfully important that we consider uh two assets, uh the Reed Hillview situation, and I think this plan that I proposed to Mayor May Mahan uh includes uh Reed Hillview, and and you might find this hard to believe, but I'm for closing it with uh some other conditions.

Uh but also the incorporation of the Moffett uh facility into our aviation uh network that would replace what's done at Reed Hillview.

Um the last thing I want to mention, and it's so important to me, is in the decision making process that all of you are involved in that you always remember the young people.

Uh John and Jill Leopelt.

Um I'm not gonna tell the whole story, but a young man came to me uh 11 years ago, I believe, and he said, Do you have a job for me this summer?

And I said, Owen, no, I do not.

But you will be my shadow for the rest of the summer, and it will be uh you will learn a lot from it.

Today he gets paid an enormous amount of money for doing what he does, and he's exemplary of our young people that advanced in aviation and and were reaching to new heights.

I won't bore you with any more of this.

I thank you so much for this award uh and the recognition uh and uh and especially to uh uh councilperson McKahie and to Matt Mahan.

Um they have uh and brought a new light on some issues that will hopefully be uh make our city better.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for everything you've done here in the community.

This on behalf of the council, we should get a photo of this accommodation for all life.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, let's do that here.

Maybe right here, we do.

If you want to jump in the middle here and then oh, let's have your family down here.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Do you want to get your family in there?

Sure.

Absolutely.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Great to see you again.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks.

Yeah, I'll take that one.

Yeah.

Special guy.

All right.

We're on to our next ceremonial item, and I'd like to invite Councilmember Condelas to come down and join me here at the podium.

We will recognize and proclaim Indian Independence Day.

Councilman Casey, too.

Sorry.

Thank you, Councilmember Casey for joining us.

Um okay.

So uh today we are proud uh to proclaim August 15th as India's independence day right here in the city of San Jose.

Um on August 15th uh in 1947 after nearly two centuries of British rule, uh India declared its independence.

This victory was not given, it was earned through courage, sacrifice, and the unshakable will of visionaries who dreamt of a free and united India.

Yeah, fill in right behind me.

Thank you.

Um India's independence day is more than a date in history, it is a celebration of unity and diversity of democracy and peace.

And the belief that people, when united, can shape their own destiny.

Here in San Jose, uh, we are blessed with a vibrant Indian American community, especially in my district, home to one of the largest Indo American populations in the city.

Your culture, your traditions, and your contributions enrich every corner of our city and inspire us all.

Uh just this past weekend, the Association of Indo Americans or AIA lit up downtown with a spectacular parade and flag raising.

Uh a true testament to a community uh pride and togetherness, and and you know, we're not done yet.

Uh in partnership with uh Councilmember George K George Casey, um, I invite everyone to join us this Friday at 5 30 p.m.

Uh, right here at your city hall for the official Indian flag raising.

Um, a moment to stand together and celebrate the spirit of independence.

Uh now it is now my pleasure to welcome uh Dr.

Romesh Kanda from the Association of Indo Americans uh before the mayor presents the proclamation to share a few words.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Honorable mayor, honorable city council members, and all the guests here.

My name is Ramesh Conda.

I represent Association of Indo-Americans, AIA, which is a coalition of uh over fifty different organizations in the Silicon Valley.

And our goal is to bring the community together through diversity and unity and through our programs.

What the council member just mentioned, Candales mentioned, we had a huge event in the downtown.

Uh all the 50 organizations, they brought their floats with the different colors and different themes, whatever they represent and what they believe in.

And we had uh almost 50 elected officials and uh Mayor Matt was there, uh council members uh Candeles, uh David Cohen and George Casey, and all of them were there.

We had a great celebration, and it's our honor and privilege to be here, and uh we thank the bottom of our hearts to all the San Jose community, including Mayor and the City Council.

Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity being part of this community.

We feel privileged and uh happy to be here.

Uh all of the leaders here, each of them represent different organizations, and they serve thousands of people uh within the community.

So I want to thank each of our team members who are able to join.

And uh, city leadership, thank you for recognizing.

Please give them a big round of applause to Mayor and City.

Thank you.

I think you guys have so honored to recognize Indian Independence Day and the contributions of the community.

So this proclamation is on behalf of the whole council.

Yes, thank you.

And if we all want to shift this way, we'll get a group more voting.

That's right.

Please, yeah, we want to do that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, no, no.

Yeah, we gotta get together.

Oh, great.

All right.

Good luck.

Yeah, it would be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good to see you guys.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Happy Independence Day.

Thank you.

Great to see you.

Thank you, May I?

All right.

Thank you, Councilmembers Candelas and Casey.

We're under our final ceremonial item.

I'll invite Councilmember Ortiz to come on down to the podium.

And we will recognize Stanley Cal Lee Sam.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Yes, please join us.

Today, alongside the mayor and the entire city council, I'm proud to honor Mr.

Stan Lee Kow Li Sum for his 16 years of creative leadership and outstanding contributions in social media and television for the Vietnamese community and the Bay Area and of course worldwide.

Stanley Kowli Sum graduated from Dai Hawk Van Lo Kwa University in Saigon, Vietnam in 1980.

He went on to write scripts and produce several well-received documentary films.

By the early 2000s, government censorship had intensified, prompting Stanley and a group of friends to begin planning their escape from Vietnam.

They successfully arrived in the United States later that same year.

In America, Stanley worked in a high-tech company and later continued his career in new script writing.

He joined Direct TV, initially working with Channel 2035, and currently contributing to Channels 2036 and 2037.

His steadfast commitment to delivering fair and accurate news has earned him the respect of his peers and the professional title of Secretary General of the Vietnamese Media Association of Northern California.

I'm honored to be joined by Mr.

Stanley Kauli Sam from Viet TV Direct TV Channels 2036 and 2037, who will be receiving today's commendation.

Yeah, uh thank you, everybody.

Um I could just uh I would like to say uh thank you uh Mayor Machmehan and then uh 10 for the uh Senate CD Council and then uh 10 to uh uh Mita uh Peter the author right uh five right uh and then Father Lita honor that and then uh you go to my son that he he wanted to say something to say something to what hey everybody I am so as my dad just said I am um my name is Quang and Stanley's son at uh I just came down from San Francisco on the bar to come out here and just attend my dad's special day too and uh I'm very grateful just to see how many people have come out to honor my dad for his contributions to the Vietnamese American community here in San Jose and honestly for me it's just uh it's just a regular day in life because I've known my dad for my whole life and to give some extra context I've grown up just in a house full of cameras in camp orders.

My dad's is a natural filmmaker and a storyteller, and oftentimes I grew up just seeing a camera being obnoxiously shoved in my face and my big butter space as well, like every single birthday, every time we receive an award for like something in third grade or middle school, graduation, college commencement.

And the reason I mentioned that is that that was something that I realized that was a gift to our family and to me personally, because at the end of this, I received just a very priceless gift of knowing my history and knowing my time here on Earth up until now, going from the time when I was a baby up until adulthood, seeing my existence and my life with my family and the love we created cherished and manifesting into a memorialized product of what would my identity as Kwang is up until the present.

And I see this happening in the very same existence with um the San Jose community as well.

Making sure that we just continue to learn and stay up to date with what is happening with the Venemus American community.

And I'm very proud of him.

So thank you all.

If the mayor would please uh present the recommendation.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And on behalf of the entire council, it's my honor to present this commendation.

Congratulations.

Thank you for your contributions.

Thank you all.

Why don't we get a photo of it from this way a little bit?

One, two, three.

All we are.

All right, we will have touncil.

We will need to recess for five minutes.

Thank you.

Tony, we'll take a recess.

Thank you.

Okay, if anyone's continuing to disrupt the meeting, they will be removed from the chamber.

We're gonna resume the meeting.

All right, once we have council members seated, we'll resume the meeting.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh we're gonna resume and we're on to orders of the day.

Does anyone on the council have any changes to the printed agenda?

I'm not aware of any requests.

Not seeing any hands, so we'll move on to the closed session report.

Nora, do we have a report out of closed session?

Uh we do not have a report out of closed session today, Mayor.

We will be bringing a couple uh matters to open session next week.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Nora.

Next is the consent calendar.

Are there any items council would like to pull from the consent calendar?

No, okay.

Do we have a motion?

Oh, I'm just holding on uh I wanted to see what an item I'm supposed to be pulling.

I want to pull the liaison's report for our uh retirement funds.

I just want to give uh that's two point six.

2.6.

Just a brief report.

So we'll we'll do that.

Let me see if anybody wanted to pull anything else.

I didn't see any other hands.

Okay.

Uh Vice Mayor, please.

2.6.

Thank you.

I sit on the uh as the council member representative to the federated employees retirement fund.

And I just wanted to report the last earnings were that were reported for two funds.

One is their pension fund had a year-to-date fiscal uh year-to-date um return of 8.79%.

What that uh is as of uh the end of June.

And the health care plan has a return of 10.18%.

So I just wanted to report those returns and show you that your investment staff for the retirement funds are doing quite well.

Thank you.

Thanks for that update.

That's great to hear.

I'll also go ahead and just pull item 2.7 for brief comment.

I've put forward a memo to appoint uh our newly elected and sworn in council member uh Tordillos to all of the seats held by Councilmember Sallas.

That'll be a stop gap for the rest of this year until we do a larger overhaul of committee assignments in the new year.

But for now, that's the plan, and I think Councilmore Tordillos is on board with that.

Uh, just wanted to call everyone's attention that uh to that item.

Okay, I don't believe we have any other comment.

Do we have a motion on the consent calendar?

Move for approval of the uh consent calendar.

Great, thank you.

Tony, did we have public comment on consent?

Yes, Betsy for item 2.12.

You have 3,959 residents who have no running water and no electricity.

Every complaint that you receive about them is proof of your failure to take responsibility for all of your constituents.

My brother can't afford enough food and water to survive.

He goes to sleep hungry most nights.

Finances to register his vehicle are a luxury that he does not have.

San Jose is one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S.

And your best plan is to destroy the lives of your most defenseless residents for a profit of $55,000.

I will never forget what you are doing to my brother, and I will never let God forget either.

I pray that you will be judged with the same brutal severity that you are using to punish your residents who need your help the most.

Aho, oh Mateo.

Okay.

Um back to council.

Okay, thank you, Tony.

Um coming back to the council.

I don't see any other hands.

Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay, thank you.

Next is Landy's consent, and I understand Councilman Cohen will pull item 10.1A.

Before he does that, I do just want to give Councilmember Tordillos the opportunity to uh offer a brief statement related to the Levine Act.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh last night as I was preparing for this hearing, I uh learned of a campaign contribution in excess of $500 from Case Swenson.

Uh I've since uh refunded uh the $200 in excess, uh so it will be participating in today's uh consideration.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks for flagging that and putting that on the record, and uh I'll turn to Councilman Cohen.

All right, thank you.

Um we saw this item as a council last year to approve the zoning of what is an important puzzle piece in the development of the Barriessa BART Urban Village, which is in the area around the Barriessa Bart station.

Um there are in addition to the main property where the flea market is, there are still some pockets of property that need that are crucial that we get developed.

And this Facino property, which is right across the street from the bar station across Barriessa Road, is an important piece of that.

We zoned it last year with some conditions that have to be changed.

One of those conditions um is a reconfiguration of the affordable housing piece.

And then there needs to be a configuration change potentially for the road on the site in order to accommodate an the interesting uh piece that I will describe.

Um there is a drainage ditch on the property that the state water board has declared is a wetland, and therefore we are responsible.

The development is responsible for replacing that wetland as part of this development.

There's been a lot of work being done by the developer and their team to try to find solutions and work with the water board on that.

Um, but at the current moment, the solution on the table is a is changing the park block configuration, which is block E in the development plan, and taking out some recreation space but putting as some what will be defined as wetland space on that property.

It requires removing a road, uh a small block uh block of road, piece of road on the property to accommodate a little bit larger space, and also requires a plan for how that property will be maintained in an ongoing basis.

The memo that I submitted uh talks about the current suggestions and and plans that developer has for how it could be maintained.

They've been working to try, they had been working to try to find alternative solutions for a long time.

Um in order for the city not to be on the hook for the cost of maintaining this wetland, uh they we will be working to create a uh CFD, a community finance district, commercial uh community finance district that will be paid by the properties on the site in order to have an ongoing source of revenue to pay for the maintenance of that property.

And the city staff, one of the items on the memo that I submitted has city staff conducting a study to determine how the what the size of the CFD should be in order to make sure that it will get uh funded adequately in perpetuity.

The management of that site uh under this current proposal would be up to the city to work out, but could be managed by a third party.

The city could hire a contractor, the city could also make it make an arrangement with the uh home the homeowners association for the properties on the site to be the responsible party for maintenance of the site.

Um the issue, of course, is that the water board, which is meeting uh in September to approve this plan, just under the nick of time for this development, would require that the wetland be replaced and built by one year after ground breaks, which means the project has to move forward fairly rapidly.

Um I think I'm gonna have some questions for some members of staff, maybe Matt Lesh, um maybe um uh John Cicerelli.

Um, I just because there's been some concerns from city staff, and I want to make sure that they're addressed as we move this forward.

I don't want, you know, I know that there's been concerns about how the city can can manage this property.

Um I don't know if anyone's here from PRNS to or or John Risto, do you want to?

Um really the question I had was more about the park piece, about the the recreation space, but we'll see.

Um, I the there's been some resistance from city staff.

I'm just gonna say it up front about this because there's been potentially we've been burned in the past for having to maintain some of these properties.

Um, in order to make sure that this is going to be managed correctly.

I'm gonna first ask the question.

Um, maybe you know the answer to this, Matt, I'm not sure.

When we collect a CFD, this we have that's a tax the city has to collect, and we have to be the property owner of record of that property in order to do that.

Is that correct?

I believe the last statement is correct.

Yes.

Okay.

So that's a CFD, yes.

Okay, so item number one in our memo, direct city staff to be the property owner of record for this property.

It doesn't necessarily mean the maintainer of the property, but it has to be the property owner of record in order to collect the CFD.

Um item number two in our memo, uh, I'm gonna suggest a an amendment to that.

So if I don't, if you have the memo in front of you, you can see it.

Tony, I have it written in writing to hand to you at the end, so you'll make sure you get my wording correctly.

But item number two, um we'll change it to add housing to the list of departments that will work with the development developer because the public works is taking the lead on this now in some ways.

So it'll say, or housing's taking the lead along with public works, it'll say housing, public works, and finance will work with the Facino Master Developer and add the words to study and then possibly form a community finance facility district to make sure that there's a study that happens and that we're not just moving forward without doing that study first.

So that's um one amendment I want to make to the memo.

I'm going to move.

Um what I really wanted to ask PRNS about is the timeline for being able to get those open space built.

Um given the state water board's requirement that this property that the weight land mitigation work is done in one year, the concern from the developer and others was that if we don't have a plan in place quickly enough and we don't come back to council with a park master plan quickly enough, that that could delay the requirement that the state will put on this property.

So the reason for some of the stuff things in this memo is to make sure that city that the city will be able to follow through and make sure the timeline is not missed.

And I kind of wanted to ask about that timeline for the park master plan.

But we'll I'll I'll follow up on that offline after this meeting, and unless unless Lee you can say anything about that.

Well, uh Matt, I don't know if you have an answer to that as you're helping you know in your public works capacity with that project.

Um I do believe we have a PR and S.

There we go, who can help kind of answer that?

And we've sent a text to John.

If we can't get you all the answers today, we can definitely follow up offline.

Okay.

To me, council members, if I could help, there's two issues with that we've been discussing.

Yes.

Is one is the wetland itself and what it means to manage that, because all of our districts where they have maintained operally the operations are maintained by DOT.

And so the staff expertise, we do not have in our inventory any wetlands in our inventory to maintain.

So we don't have expertise, we don't know what the knowledge we don't know what it we don't know.

And so that's why we need to study.

And so then also, so we don't know what we have to do to maintain that.

We have to figure out what do we how much money and do we need to generate to support that operation.

So there's two unknowns, what we need to do and how much it'll cost.

And so we that's what needs to be studied before it's it could be a yes in terms of do we understand and do we know what to do.

Now, we also with our partners in uh the water board, we know what they'll we'll find out what they say today about what we need to maintain.

There could be a different water board that says these things need to be maintained this way, and if we have a CFD financing mechanism that's organized and engineered around a existing maintenance plan, and they change the maintenance direction, and we don't have the CFD flexibility.

This is so it really is an uh a conundrum for us to try to figure out we don't have the expertise, we don't have the ability, and then also we don't know what it looks like going forward.

And so adding this mix to our repertoire of things to maintain is a real challenge.

Right.

Um that's why there's a lot that that's why the hesitance from staff to say, yes, we should take this on.

And when I spoke to the water board a couple weeks ago, they were sort of shocked that the city was taking this on when or considering taking it on.

The way they described it to us is the homeowners association would take this on.

And literally, as I discussed with them, they were kind of like, really?

Why?

And that was the conversation.

I'm like, great.

I had just spoken to them for the first time three weeks ago because it was with the developer, not with us.

And so that's why there are the two moving pieces how to finance and organize a CFD, because many of you know you have districts in your uh either maintenance or CFDs in your districts, and the financial challenges of making those things viable and making sure we get the numbers and the math right, and then do we have the know-how how to do it?

Those are the two conundrums of making sure that um our DOT staff had the ability to really maintain them appropriately to the expectations.

And just to that's a conundrum.

And I appreciate that, and I understand the the consternation and concerns.

Um, given given our objectives, and we've been pushing really hard as a city to try to build of housing, including affordable housing, and giving our objectives to do that.

I just want to make sure that everybody's prepared to do to be a little uncomfortable in this process as we move forward because this is somewhat new, and certainly none of us expected that this ditch was should have should have been treated as a uh wetland in the first place, but given the state requirement, we're kind of all treading new new water.

But number six in the memo that I've submitted does suggest that an alternative to any of these others is to assign the maintenance function on block E to the property owners of F and G.

That would be the homeowners association.

So the memo I hope provides the flexibility you need to say it could be DOT, it could be the parks department, or it could be um the property owners of buildings F and G, which which is who you are referring to when you say that the homeowners association.

So I'm hopeful that our memo provides the flexibility required.

I'm gonna add though the other amendment we talked about in the memo as well.

Um there is a discussion.

I know it's I consider it a hail marry at this point that there's some talk about whether or not the wetland can be moved off-site.

I know that the developer and their team have been working a long time and felt that there was no other alternative, but now there's some proposals from the city working with the state to try to find another site to do in where to the wetland can be developed.

I don't want to get in the details about how that would be easier to maintain than the one on site, but you know, I'll leave that up to you.

But um it may or may not come to fruition, but I would like to amend the memo as well to say to start with the recommendation on top of delete the pair the two the sentence on the top above the new numbered items and start with approved staff recommendation.

Unless the city is able to negotiate an alternative wetland mitigation plan with the regional water control quality control board, administration shall advance a process and bring forward to council any needed approvals to achieve the items one through six.

So it it provides the opportunity for city to um negotiate alternative plans, but if they can't be negotiated, then one through six must occur.

And that's what that's how the memo will read.

I will provide this in writing to the clerk, and I will make a motion to approve my memo with the amended opening and amended item number two.

Second thanks for laying all that out, council member and the clarification there.

Uh let me go to council member Kamei.

Um thank you so much.

Um having a little bit of experience with dealing with wetlands in in my past hats.

Um, it is very, very complicated.

It is also very expensive.

Uh so I'm glad that you're looking at it more closely.

Um and the question that I had is something that council member Cohen just said in terms of negotiating with the regional water quality control board.

Uh is it the city that's negotiating?

Is it the applicant who's negotiating?

Like who is negotiating moving the wetlands, which I think is going to be very difficult, but I'm just wondering.

So it'll have to be kind of a tripartite agreement, likely, because funding and resources would need to come from the development, which would then be offset from what would be done on site.

So the mitigation would not be there, but would be at another place.

So one if if we have an agreeable place that meets the water board's requirements, alleviates the burden at this place, and makes for something that the city can accept.

All three of us would sort of need to be in agreement.

And we've had very preliminary discussions.

I entertained them for the first time three weeks ago.

Yeah.

Sorry, I'll just add a fourth point to that answer, which is there's the fourth part of that is that it has to also make sure it doesn't add financial burden to the applicant who's you know has a cost structure for the project.

So that'll they'll have to be able to be agreeable to whatever arrangement is reached.

Yeah, I saw the timeline, and it's it's gonna be difficult to meet the timeline and get the water board to agree to moving it.

Um, you know, as um I know that the water district is always looking for you know opportunities to partner with wetlands.

Um, and I don't know if they have like a bank or something available that you can say, hey, you know, don't do it here, do it over there, make it bigger.

Um that might be a possibility, but there isn't enough time, I don't think.

Uh so you know, having it go the way it is, I think uh uh sounds reasonable to me.

Uh, but it is going to be pretty tricky because they're very, very uh difficult uh and um and very challenging.

The other thing that I would suggest um to um uh councilmember Cohen's memo is um he said it a couple of times.

I don't know that he meant it, but you know, direct staff.

We don't direct staff, we direct the city manager.

So I just want to air that out that we're directing the city manager and not the staff.

Um right, council member.

The memo says direct administration to do these things and that those things have to result in these outcomes.

Okay, okay.

As long I know, but the the words the words, so you know, I'm sloppier than my word.

We we hold we hold our city manager as the person.

Uh so I just wanted to clarify that.

So thank you very much.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Let's go to Councilmember Tordillos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think this is a great project, and I think obviously co-locating affordable housing near mass transit, obviously great for the city's climate goals and connecting future residents with you know mobility and access to economic opportunity.

Uh one bit of meta commentary I just wanted to provide based on something that I saw in the staff report is that like many 100% affordable housing projects.

I saw that this project is using state density bonus law to request a number of concessions and waivers.

I also just wanted to highlight that uh across the concessions uh there's concessions to city design standards that uh will reduce construction costs by nearly three million dollars and waivers that will allow the construction of about 78 units that otherwise wouldn't have been feasible.

So I think just given the ongoing challenges the city's facing with high construction costs in San Jose and the limited levers we have to directly control construction costs, would be great to see the city in the future evaluate other potential changes to design standards to help reduce costs and you know build more of the housing that we desperately need.

But excited to support this project.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Your experience on the planning commission is showing through.

Appreciate those comments.

Um I don't see any other hands.

We have a motion, we have not taken public comment yet because this was a land use consent item and on consent.

We take council uh discussion and and a motion first.

So Tony, do we have public comment?

Yes, Rigo Gayardo.

Wanna start as mayor and uh city council members.

My name is uh Rigo Gallardo, I'm a field member uh representative for the North Cal Carpers Union covering San Jose uh today.

I'm here this afternoon to talk about two three key components missing from the Berriessa project labor standards.

First, we need to make sure local apprentices are utilized on this development.

Young men and women pursuing a career in the construction industry deserve the opportunity to work here.

This is how we create pathways into good careers for our community and how we ensure this project benefits local families and not just developers.

Second, we we need to make sure construction workers have access to health care.

Our industry is dangerous, everyday workers face real risk on the job.

If they get hurt, they should be able to see a doctor without worrying about going into debt.

And finally, let's make sure workers are protected from wage theft and illegal cash pay, not just on this project, but all San Jose projects.

And an honest contractor who followed the rules shouldn't be undercut by bad actors who exploit workers.

By setting strong labor standards, we can ensure this project is built the right way with local workers with safe working conditions and with fair pay.

Thank you for your time.

Back to council.

Thank you, Tony.

All right, coming back to the council.

I don't see any other hands up.

Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right, we're on to our regular agenda.

Thank you to staff.

Uh we're on to item 3.1, report of the city manager.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I do not have a report today.

Okay, thank you, Jennifer.

On to item 3.3.

This is actions related to travel to Atlanta, Georgia for the September 2025 San Jose Chamber of Commerce annual study mission.

Um I'll just read a brief statement regarding council policy.

Council travel policy 9-5 provides that council may approve up to five of its elected members to travel as long as it does not result in cancellation of a council or council committee meeting due to lack of quorum.

So, with that note, I think we're all aware of that.

Um, let's go to council members and um actually I'm sorry, do we have any public comment first?

I have no cards.

Okay, coming back to the council.

Customer Duan, um, obviously the group memo had included you, but I think you have an update on your status.

Yes, Mayor, thank you.

First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing me to be on the group to to go on to the study.

But unfortunately, due to my father health, um, I like to pass this on to council member uh Casey or Councilmember uh Pamela Campose to able to go on this trip.

Unfortunately, I I will be stepping down.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thanks for the update.

Do we have council member Campos?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, Councilmember Duan, for uh expressing your um support of me joining this trip.

I have been very vocal on council about the opportunity ahead of us in 2026 and have been actively working with both city staff and community partners around bringing some of that energy, excitement, and activation to District 2.

I mean, we know that District 2 is the southern gateway into San Jose and uh therefore into our downtown core.

So I would just um like to let our colleagues know how beneficial I think being able to go on this trip and understanding how to best activate all of our city with 2026 events um and beyond.

So I just wanted to make that comment.

Thank you.

Thanks, counselor.

Councilman Casey.

Uh I'd also like to throw my hat in the ring, obviously.

Um, being a member of the CED, and uh in terms of my professional background and what I anticipated encountering and dealing with on the council in terms of bringing economic development to the city.

I think this trip would also benefit me and the council in terms of what we try to implement moving forward.

So I I'd like to, as I meant to throw my hat in the ring and excited that for the opportunity to go.

Thank you both for making your case.

I'll turn to uh Vice Mayor Foley.

Okay, well, this is not gonna be that easy to do, but uh Councilmember Duan, I understand the reason you need to uh withdraw, and I hope your dad is improving.

Uh I know how difficult that situation is, and you've chosen family over travel, and I think that's really important.

Um when I looked at this, I'm not going on this trip, so I don't have uh any vested interest one way or the other, but when I think of the uh trips that we do as a council, the one thing I look at what is it, how is it betting benefiting our overall population and how is it benefiting our tra our uh efforts to be where we're going.

This particular trip is a chamber of commerce trip, which means it's tends to be focused on economic development.

And given it is hot, it is looking at the uh entertainment zones and economic development of Atlanta.

I think sending someone from the CED committee, the community economic development committee makes sense.

Um councilmember Campos, I wish we could send one more, but given what this purpose of this meeting is, I would like to move um the memo and replace Councilmember Duan with Councilmember Casey.

Second.

All right.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, I think that's logical.

Let's go with Councilmember Kameh.

Thank you so much.

Um, like Vice Mayor Foley, I am not um uh going to be able to attend, although I I I did like I did want to, but I'm not able to.

I I I just want to comment that um you know uh I've heard a lot of good things about uh the Chamber of Commerce trips and and all of that, and I've always asked, well, what did you learn?

What did you learn?

And I will say that only the two other women, Councilmember Campos and Councilmember Foley, when they went on a trip, they actually reported back and had something to share.

So I just put that out there.

This is the third year.

I'm hoping that someone, whoever it is that gets to go, bring something back.

Tell us what did you learn.

I heard, oh, it's so good, it's so good.

I'm sorry I missed it, but share the information.

So that's one thing.

So whoever goes, bring it back.

And I tell you, you have two great samples of women who went out there and brought back information.

So there you go.

Um the other thing that I would say is that at some point it would be helpful to create as part of our policy a first come, first serve uh uh um uh sort of system so that we have those who are truly interested, get your stuff in order, get it in, and there we go.

We don't have any argument on that.

So those are just suggestions, but I think it's very important for the public.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

I will uh in his defense.

I'm pretty sure I heard Councilmember Cohen recently give a report as well at some point.

I it was not as good as their as their reports, but he did he did it's true.

I don't think the I don't think Councilmember Cohen provided a PowerPoint presentation.

We do have a space for uh travel reports, and so uh it is it is best practice when folks come back to if it's a group, have a designee um offer offer an update and a bit of a report out publicly.

So we will we should be sure to do that.

Um okay, let's go to councilmember Ortiz.

Yeah, for the record, I mean I'm not going, so I I technically don't have a stake in this uh this fight.

I just I just want to point out that you know, in a uh council majority, that's uh majority men, uh it seems like we're sending only men there, and that may be an issue we should be elevating the voices of our youth and our women on this council.

Thank you, council member.

All right, we'll go back around to Councilmember Campos.

Um thank you, Councilmember Ortice for uh uplifting that and uh councilmember Kamei also for your comments.

I I think it really speaks to the value of a study trip and um what we would expect our elected leaders to bring back to the community at the very least a report out.

Um, but also we I at least I aspire to actually see those lessons learned implemented into our city.

Um and so I'll wrap up my comments uh by just saying that it's unfortunate when um there is a decision made about you that you did not get to participate in that conversation, be in the room, be at the table.

Um and so that is what this memo is doing.

Um I didn't have a part uh an opportunity to be a part of um the deliberation on who would get to participate or not.

And so um for the future, I I do agree that there should be a more transparent uh policy around the decision making so that we can ensure equitable and diverse representation of our city in um these travel, this kind of travel.

So thank you.

Yeah, thanks for the comments.

Um I do I do think I just want to acknowledge I think the Brown Act does make it hard to ultimately decide this anywhere outside of this meeting.

Obviously, we're limited to a total of five individuals in a brown out group, so you can have two or three different or four different brown act groups, whatever it is.

You know, generally there's not a strict council policy, it's it's often been a combination of seniority, you're served on the council has often been a primary driver.

And then obviously, when there's subject matter relevance in this case, given the specific nature of this trip and what we're planning to go learn in Atlanta.

Uh, I certainly feel it's really important that we have our downtown council member there, um, which is why, at least in the group memo, I the the Brown Act group I was a part of um recommended uh Councilmember Tordillos be included, though he has the least seniority on the council, literally day one.

Um and um and I I do think I I mean ultimately it's it's it's hard, these are judgment calls, but I do think um CED is the committee where the follow-up from this trip is most likely to be discussed and framed up as as council items.

But you know, everybody can I mean we can all make different arguments.

I don't I don't think it's easy or that there's a great process for it.

Um but we've got a motion on the floor.

Uh so we've got another hand, we'll go to council or cohn.

I'll just weigh in and just as somebody who's gone on the last couple trips.

I just wanted to make a couple comments.

Sure.

And from that perspective, and I didn't go in my first year, it wasn't even something on my radar.

I was I was doing many so many new things that I didn't even think about going.

And it was the the good news at the time there wasn't as much competition.

There, you know, a handful of people wanted to go.

I guess the good news is this trip has become more and more valuable, and more and more people want to attend.

Um in my opinion, there's there's a lot of opportunity ahead for everyone who doesn't get a chance to attend to attend, and I hope everyone gets a chance.

And I'll say, you know, the the economic development and downtown development pieces are often always going to be on these trips.

So I just want us to be thoughtful about you know, saying, well, this is about a city, therefore the the two people who represent downtown will always be going, and the mayor will always go, therefore, there's really not as much opportunity for everyone else.

So I do want to just sort of think about that.

I don't necessarily think there's anything magical about these trips that the downtown has to always have their two people there.

Um I think the value of this trip is the greater value of this trip is the interaction with the members of the chamber who you don't otherwise spend as much time with, and those spending those three days of networking and other things actually to me was the great value, and the reason why I continually ever since I went the first time just two years ago, I've been wanting to continue to attend.

But I um I certainly don't want to be in the position of having to say, you know, who of the amongst the new council members should be the one to go.

Um everyone will get a value, but everyone hopefully will have an opportunity to attend a a couple to a few of these over the course of their tenure of their time here.

So that's why I just wanted to weigh in with that and just provide that perspective because I do think the trips are useful, but not necessarily for the re for the obvious reasons that we tend to use in our decision making process.

I think that's right.

I certainly hope to see a good diversity of folks.

I mean, this one does happen to be specific to downtown sports and entertainment districts, and is very specific to downtown, but I think your point is well taken.

And by the way, it was very valuable to hear from Councilmember Campos about her trip to Vienna recently.

And so I do I do think we need to make sure we're getting everybody these opportunities to go learn and report back.

Um so point well taken.

All right.

Well, now that we've uh talked through all that, Tony, we I don't see other hands, let's vote.

I thought we started with that.

Did we not?

Tony, did I not ask you for I thought I asked if there was public comments?

We did, and we didn't we did not.

Okay.

Okay.

I still have three votes.

There we go.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay.

Thanks.

We're on to item 3.4.

And uh we'll start with a, as I understand it, a brief verbal presentation from staff.

Good afternoon.

Mayor, council members, members of the public.

My name is Sarah Sarate.

I'm the director of the Office of Administration, Policy and Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by a few folks that are here to support any questions and answers.

We're bringing forward a recommendation to take position of opposition on Assembly Bill 339, authored by Assemblymember Ortega regarding noticing requirements for local public employee organizations.

This bill was introduced in January 2025, passed the Assembly in June of 2025, and is currently progressing through the Senate, being considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 18th, with a potential Senate floor vote shortly thereafter.

This legislation creates impractical barriers by requiring that public agencies give recognized employee organizations a minimum of 60 days written notice before issuing a request for proposals, requests for quotes, or renewing or extending a contract to perform services that are within the scope of work of the job classifications represented by the recognized employee organization.

Additionally, the bill provides the recognized employee organization with the right to meet and confer on each notice relating to the proposed decision to enter into a contract.

This bill applies broadly to nearly all contracts with some exemptions to public work contracts, but not purchase orders, and some exemptions for emergency and exigent circumstances, though the latter lack clear definition and would weaken emergency contract authority and may be contested and disputed.

An existing law already has certain notification requirements and a process for disputes at the public employment relations board.

But it is clear that its effect would be to make what is already considered a lengthy process even more bureaucratic by delaying procurement processes even further, thereby exposing the city to new and potentially significant workload increases, and possibly resulting in delays in service and project delivery.

This legislation is opposed by many, including the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, our own Santa Clara County, the California Chamber of Commerce, and numerous other cities, counties, and municipal organizations across the state, many of which authored a letter of opposition on July 30th, highlighting concerns about costs to local agencies, potential delays in services and projects, lack of definition of emergency and exigent circumstances, impacts to public works projects, as well as local community organizations.

Additionally, a number of nonprofits across the state, including our local Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, PATH, and the California Association of Nonprofits, authored a letter on August 8th, highlighting how this bill could lead to inefficiencies, higher long-term costs due to unnecessary contracting and administrative barriers that could delay the ability of nonprofits to serve communities in most need.

The city's finance department and Office of Employee Relations reviewed and evaluated the proposed bill and determined that if it were to become law, it could have a substantial impact on the city's procurement process timeline and could create staff capacity issues given the volume of procurements and contracts impacted.

It does include a policy position to oppose legislation that removes or limits local control and restricts decision making at the local level.

However, given the sensitive nature and potential scope of impact of this bill, staff is requesting the city council to take an official opposition action.

While we haven't directly opposed the bill with the author's office, we have been registering our concerns through the League of California Cities because the bill has a statewide implication, and our specific concerns are mirrored in their concerns.

Great.

Thank you, Sarah.

Let's start with public comment.

Come on down.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Krista Dellatori.

I am the representative for IFPT Local 21.

We represent over a thousand members or roughly a thousand members here at the City of San Jose.

Today we encourage you to vote no on item 3.4 and take a neutral stance on this assembly bill.

Contracting out is often sold as a cost-saving measure, but the reality is that is frequently that it frequently costs taxpayers more while delivering less.

Once work is awarded to private contractors, the city forfeits expertise and institutional knowledge of city operations that can only be provided by long-term employees.

When work is outsourced, the result is diminished accountability, lower service quality, and a workforce left demoralized and stretched thin.

Union involvement, it brings to light the true price of outsourcing from transition expenses to added oversight and inflated profit margins.

Those hidden costs only grow more over time through contract administration, change orders, and repeated competitive bidding.

In contrast, keeping services in-house preserves quality and safeguards public accountability and ensures that every public dollar goes towards delivering results for our residents.

So again, today we encourage you to vote no on item 3.4.

Our city dollars should be serve the public, not subsidize private profit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi, good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

On behalf of MEF Abseman Local 101, we're here today to ask you to vote no on item 3.4 and remain neutral on Assembly Bill 339.

The assembly bill is simple, it requires just 60 days' notice before the city contracts at work done by existing city job classifications.

It doesn't stop contracting and it has broad emergency exemptions so that urgent projects can move forward without delay.

Right now, the city of San Jose spends tens of millions or more on private contractors, oftentimes for the exact work our members already perform.

While hundreds of city positions sit vacant and we're told that there's no money to fill them.

Outsourcing typically costs more, reduces accountability, and lowers service quality for our residents.

This bill would give labor and management a real chance to sit down, explore alternatives, and find cost effective solutions before jobs are handed to outside entities.

That's good for taxpayers, that's good for workers, and that's good for public services on our community, and that is the purpose behind this assembly bill.

We urge you to vote no on opposing AB 3999 and keep the City of San Jose neutral.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members.

My name is Jack McGovern, political director of the South Bay Labor Council, and I'm here on behalf of the South Bay Labor Council.

We are asking you to vote no on item 3.4 and at a minimum adopt a neutral position on AB 339.

As we stated in our letter, AB 339 does not stop or delay contracting.

The 60-day notice is a planning step.

Once notice is given, the city can proceed with its normal procurement timeline.

The bill also includes broad emergency and exigent exemptions, so service delivery isn't impaired.

AB 339 applies only when services overlap duties of existing job classifications, not all service procurements.

If the city isn't already noticing affected unions when outsourcing bargaining unit work, that would conflict with current MMBA requirements.

Under MMBA per precedent, contracting out bargaining unit work already triggers bargaining duties.

The bill has been amended in response to feedback.

On July 15th, AB 339 expressly exempted most public works, and that language is in the current bill text.

Further author amendments are planned to exclude additional infrastructure-related service identified in the staff report.

We support the unions of policymakers who sent letters requesting that the City of San Jose reject the staff recommendation and support AB 339.

While we understand that a neutral position today preserves the city's flexibility while the bit while the bill continues to evolve, we hope that you will support the legislation and not take any action opposing the bill.

Thank you very much.

Back to council.

Thank you, Tony.

Thank you to our public commenters.

Come back to the council.

We'll start with Vice Mayor Foley.

Thank you, Mayor.

And uh thank you for the comments from the members of the public and thank you for the presentation from our staff.

Uh equally, thank you for frankly the heads up about this about AB 339 and the serious ramifications it has into our procurement process that already is a long process and adds a minimum of 60 days to a process that's already cumbersome.

And when we're being accused of things moving really slowly at the city, this makes it move even more slowly.

Not to say that meet and confer isn't important, meet and confer is important.

So Aram, I'd like to get a sense from you when we are looking at uh requesting an RFP or looking at an RFP for uh something that maybe our staff already does or contracting out.

How do we how do we look at that and how do you work with our bargaining units currently under the current process?

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Aram Kyumjan, I'm the director of human resources in the city manager's office of employee relations.

So whenever we identify any matter that would potentially infringe on the uh the scope of work that a particular bargaining unit does, uh the MMBA, as was mentioned, that's the that's the body of law that governs labor relations, requires a meet and confer process.

So in those instances, we do give notice and and an opportunity to meet, and occasionally there are disputes that are that do prolong the the situation, but but there's already a body of law that that uh governs or or covers that particular process.

Uh the the concern with this bill is the elongation of the notice requirement and and the delays as as uh director Sarate mentioned uh that it would bring into the process.

Okay, so uh we already uh you already uh implement uh meet and confer process if a bargaining unit is affected by the work that you're we're looking at doing.

Yes.

Okay.

So I wonder if um Maria, maybe it's you can walk through the procurement process now, because it's already a long cumbersome process.

Can you walk through the process now and the timelines and what this AB 339 would do to the timelines, how it would elongate it?

I think the short answer is it would be at least 60 days longer, and that's assuming that no one actually goes into a lengthy meet and confer process.

The procurement process in public agencies have to defend them.

Um it is by design a lengthy process because we are spending the public's money.

So it's designed to take time to really be thoughtful, transparent, open, fair.

Um, so it is a long process.

It it changes a lot.

You can do them in various ways.

An RFQ might be very quick because you're just asking for quotes.

An RFP can be a very lengthy process.

They can be up to 18 months or longer, and that is assuming that everything goes well, that the departments are ready with a well-thought-out scope of work, that you know, everyone has their evaluation committees set up so that we can post, allow the responders to bid in an organized timely fashion, but they do need time to prepare their responses, and then we evaluate.

So it can be very long, it can be relatively short, but this the safety here is that at least 60 days would be added to that process.

To a process that could be as much as 18 months already.

Yes.

That's really a bureaucratic mess, if you ask me.

Um, I I'm frustrated in AB 339 that our legislators, our assembly members from San Jose and the area all voted in support of it without really reaching out to us and and asking our input.

There's a lot of cities who have come out against this proposal.

You already mentioned the nonprofit groups that have come out against it, and I I have to favor local control and come down in favor of the city being able to maintain its local control over this issue.

Not and but we already have an opportunity for meet and confer, so I don't think this violates in any way our ability to uh negotiate with our bargaining units every opportunity that we need to.

So with that, I will move the staff recommendation to oppose A B 339.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

Do we have a second?

Thanks, Councilmember Mulcahy.

Uh let's go to Councilmember Ortiz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh also want to thank staff for their presentation.

Uh colleagues, I'm today I'm asking us to vote no on the staff recommendation to oppose AB 339 and instead take a neutral position.

I also ask that you think about the people behind our services and who make our city run.

These are public servants who deserve not just our gratitude, but a voice when decisions could move their work to outside contractors.

And you know, I've heard you know a lot of comments in regards to bureaucratic, you know, mess.

I would blame bureaucracy on management, not the unions and the staff that follow directions of what they've been told to implement.

A B 339 is about giving our city's employees fair notice.

Right now, the Myers Brown Act already says we have to notify and meet with unions when outsourcing their work, but it does not specify timing.

And having spoken to union representation, I'm not sure that our city does meet and confer every time uh a job is being outsourced.

Sitting a clear advance notice through A B 339 gives unions and employers the time to tackle challenges together.

Finding smart, affordable ways to deliver the high quality public services our community depends on.

Concerns can be addressed without taking an official stance against a bill.

Our staff representatives support.

In a letter from the South Bay Labor Council, they note that due to these concerns, the bill's author will remove the meet and confer requirement.

The bill would not create new obligations for employers to negotiate with unions.

It simply requires notice.

By remaining neutral, we keep the conversations open with workers, lawmakers, and community.

Rather than closing the door entirely.

This is approach affirms our commitment to fairness, collaboration, and respect for those who keep San Jose running every day.

And also the staff presentation didn't take into account as we bring in consultants.

A lot of them aren't aware of what's going on every day in our city.

They're not aware of the stakeholders they have to work with here at the city, and it costs a lot more time bringing these individuals up to date than it would be just to invest in our own local staff who are already aware of city processes.

That being said, I know that staff had a time to respond to some questions.

I wanted to see if uh John Tucker could come down from APSME and uh respond to a few.

Thank you, John.

I know we're calling you on the cuff.

I appreciate your willingness.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, yeah, no worries, no worries.

Can you talk a little bit about you know your own experience with the city's uh willingness to meet and confer as well as your members' experience with the outsourcing other jobs?

Yeah, well, uh as you heard, uh there there are existing laws that require the the city to to reach out to the labor the the bargaining units and and offer to meet and confer uh when uh a potential contracting out would uh affect working conditions of existing employees.

However, it would come as no surprise to many of you that there's a big gray area in between there.

There's often not a yes, this is a a black or white yes or no issue, right?

It's often a we're not sure if this technically fits into that that scope of that law.

So oftentimes in our experience, the city does not provide us that opportunity to meet and confer over that and does go ahead and move forward with the contracting out.

In fact, to the extent that we've had multiple unfair labor practices filed over it at PERB, which is a process that was outlied, and that's timely and costly for both parties.

Uh this process, on the other hand, would eliminate that.

It also allows us opportunity to identify uh cost savings.

We, for example, just in this last year asked just one department, the IT department, hey, what what contracts do you have out there currently that could be done uh in-house that could be done by by our staff if if we had the staff to do that, you know, uh and they identified I think it was three or four different contracts uh that they have uh totaling over four million dollars.

So that was an opportunity right there where we didn't have a chance to meet and confer over any of those.

Uh they were contracted out to the tune of four million dollars, and and that's work that could be being performed by city staff.

So that's one example, uh, but but that's what that process looks like from our perspective.

Wonderful.

I appreciate that.

That's a fine example of why we should be speaking to both sides of the aisle on any single issue, because I don't think one side has uh the entire truth.

So with that being said, I'm gonna move to do a sub-motion uh to instead adopt a neutral position on AB 339.

Right.

Thank you.

Substitute motion on the floor would be to reject the staff recommendation.

We still have hands up.

Let's go to council member commit.

Wait, I I didn't hear a second on that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Compos seconded.

Thank you.

Um I I thought I heard you say that uh on some procurements it takes up to 18 months.

Is that correct?

Did you say 18?

Councilmember, yes, that's correct.

It can't be a good idea.

I just want to make sure I just want to make sure I heard that correctly.

For very complicated ones.

Obviously, normally I think it's six to eight months.

Yeah, it can be.

So when it has to do with satisfying the Myers-Millius Act, uh, what is what is the time frame uh sort of on average that that um it takes, like by the time you give notice or know that you have to give notice and and all of that, just to kind of understand, because I thought the 18th month was like way, you know, I mean that's got to be an exceptional thing, but but I'm just curious as to uh what is the time given approximately when you give notice that you have to do a meet and confer there are no specific timelines designated in the law, so it it's right right.

I understand that.

I'm just I'm just I just want to understand what is our process in terms of how do we approach it.

We would normally try to give at least two weeks uh for a union to to respond whether they would like to meet or not.

In certain instances, uh there is no need to meet and confer if the union is in agreement with whatever is being proposed.

So in those instances, the time can be reduced to zero as opposed to sixty days.

Uh, in instances where there is a dispute and and the meet and confer process is is prolonged, then it could be weeks and potentially months, and and possibly even uh stop the initiative in its tracks.

Okay.

I I just think that it would be it would be great on those different instances that you know there'd be some consistency, and I think that although this bill is not anywhere near any kind of perfect bill, um, you know, it looks to me that it would want to create some consistency.

So um I know that the length of time perhaps is not what we want.

I'm just curious as to why didn't we oppose unless amended?

I mean, is it so bad that um you wouldn't want to do that?

Thank you, councilmember.

Um so I think at this point it's difficult to amend a bill where it's unclear what sector the problem exists in.

Um what's the if there's a problem with existing processes?

Uh it's a very broad bill, and so I think from our perspective, it would be beneficial if the author were to um take some time to better understand and tailor to the policy problem that they're they're trying to address.

Okay.

So I do understand how you know it's difficult when you're making the sausage, but um, you know, I uh my office tried to get some information, and the information that I received from the author uh conflicted with staff information.

So I think that um, you know, it sounds like from your opening remarks that we relied a lot on the uh legal cities, which is okay.

Uh maybe we relied on our lobbyists who encouraged us not to reach out to the this is what I've been told that that our lobbyists said don't reach out to the author.

I think that you know, when our own local, if it's not true we need to air that out.

Um when our own local representatives are voting in favor of this, I think it it's it it's sort of like is indicative of a disconnect, right?

And so I think that um however this thing happened to be here today, uh there needs to be some lessons learned, and I just want to air out what is and what is not, because I find that there's a bit of conflicting information that uh the public needs to be aware of.

I appreciate those.

Oh, yeah, please do want to clear the question.

But just one point of clarification.

Um typically we base our analysis of a bill on the neutral uh analysis that's provided by the legislative analysts' office because we understand that the author's office is gonna have a very particular perspective.

Um and I also just want to clarify that our state lobbyist has not advised us to not uh uh reach out to the author's office.

We for strategic reasons have been working through the league because it's a coalition of cities uh that have similar concerns as the city.

Also uh we don't have a because we haven't taken a formal position of opposition, um we are relaying general concerns through that body.

So I want to make sure we don't so going back to my original question in terms of um why did we not seek a position of oppose unless amended there we act we think the bill as written right now is not a good bill, and so there are no amendments that would make this a better bill.

Okay, thank you.

It's a scientific statement.

Thanks for that clarifying question and uh your response, sir.

Let's go to councilmember Condelas.

Thank you.

Thank you to staff um for for your uh report and um I look forward to that IGR report coming next month.

Um I saw it on the calendar.

So um, you know, let me begin by acknowledging just the the intent behind this legislation as as I as I read it from the committee staff.

Um AB 339 uh looks to uphold the principle that you know I and uh I'm sure a lot of our colleagues here deeply value, and that's that public employees and their representatives have transparency and more importantly, a voice uh when services traditionally performed in-house are in process of being contracted out.

Um outsourcing we we know affects job security, wage levels, benefits uh for our city city staff, um, and and something that that we have to take seriously.

And I I know this bill's intent is to try to level the playing field, if you will, ensuring that cities, counties, and special districts uh don't prioritize other things over the dignity of work and the rights of public employees, and and that principle is not lost on me.

Um as somebody who believes in protecting workers, I I deeply appreciate the effort to strengthen uh those standards and the accountability when public dollars are involved.

Um and at the same time, I hear the administration's concerns and recognize the realities that we face here at the local level.

Um AB 339 could have unintended consequences uh that make it hard for the city to operate, particularly in times of of specialized services that our workforce can't necessarily uh uh provide.

But I believe that the values of this bill are important, and I want to send a message that cities should be part of the solution.

Um I think uh uh contrary to staff been at the level, I think amendments um uh are are necessary or or or or helpful as part of this process, and we need a uh a better balance between labor protections and operational flexibility.

And and I want to encourage our IGR team to work directly with the author's office um to refine.

Um and and I just want to clarify in question.

Have we reached out to the assembly members' office?

I want to clarify directly.

Our IGR team.

I'm sorry, which assembly member?

Ortega's office?

The the author of the has our office directly, no.

Okay.

Um and then uh question have we reached out to our San Jose legislative delegation um on this bill?

Yes.

Um how long was that recently?

We've been communicating with our delegation throughout the summer.

Right.

Um because I mean summer recess was two, three weeks ago, and I I can't imagine um uh a world where you know uh where they don't hear our concerns and or they don't we don't relay our concerns to Dave or Senator Cortesi or Assemblymember Calra.

Um I mean we just got a letter of of support or opposition to the staff recommendation from Senator Cortez's office.

And so, you know, I I think to to the vice mayor's point, that communication I think it cuts both ways.

It's not just uh why why wouldn't they talk to us about a bill, but it's why why aren't we working or leaning on them to help change the face of this bill and or work through um through the process to try to get us something that doesn't necessarily hinder our ability to operate?

Um and and so you know I appreciate the the the substitute motion on the floor and and hope my colleagues consider this.

Um I think it's it's it's important to be able to to recognize that this the legislative process changes and a bill can change dramatically, not just from when it leaves the assembly to the Senate, but when it goes from committee to committee.

And a follow-up question our legislative guiding principles does it does this bill not give us the authority to take this the take a position on this bill.

I mean, I I know you mentioned general concerns, but you know, does it does it not give us the flexibility as staff to have some autonomy instead of having us as a council as a body deliberate this?

Yes, thank you for the question, Councilmember.

The legislative program does have a policy position around local control.

However, historically, we've brought items that are of sensitive nature to the city council to ensure that we are taking the right approach.

Got it.

Okay.

No, I I figured as much, but I you know I I think this is one of those things where you know I I heard um uh the county took a position on this bill uh uh a month ago, correct?

And um and and I I don't believe the the county took it up in in an open forum like this.

So um I I I I I appreciate us having this deliberation, us having the ability to weigh the pros and cons of this, but I'm a glass half full person, and I think we can work with the with the author's office, regardless of how uh you know the regardless of staff's opinion.

Uh that that's my belief and look look forward to hearing from the rest of my colleagues on this bill.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Let's go to Councilmember Cohen next.

Yeah, thank you.

First, I want to thank my colleagues for their thoughtful input on this bill.

Um I I agree with everything that Councilmember Ortiz said about uh the need to be uh transparent and cooperative with our labor partners.

I want to thank Councilmember um Kamei for her input and thoughtful and thoughts about um what different position that we can take on this bill.

And I you know, I I would was going to suggest the idea of opposing unless amendment to be more constructive.

I mean, our our our value after pat after having this conversation, and I understand some people are frustrated we didn't directly engage.

Now we didn't directly engage because staff did actually in this case say, look, there's gonna probably some differences of opinion.

We have some concerns, the league is expressing concerns of the city directly, but as since we haven't taken a position, we don't have the direction from this council to directly go to the author.

But this uh a vote today, which actually has some specifics in it about amendments that we want allows us and and authorizes staff to move forward with that negotiation directly.

So I would have I I take an in-between position on the two motions.

I I think imposed unless amended is the right thing.

I don't think that we should be neutral.

I don't think that helps us and make the bill better.

I also don't think that we should um necessarily oppose without being having some constructive language in there about why we oppose it.

So that's the that's the position I would take.

Um I'm gonna ask a question.

Uh and I know it's been asked before, but I think this is really really important.

So um there are different kinds of contracts that go out.

There's renewals of contracts we already have in place where we're trying to this year um, for example, just re renew a contract that's already being performed by an outside entity.

Would this bill require that all those also go through meet and go through this process?

We could argue that you know, for that kind of routine work that that isn't necessarily helpful to the city's process, and that particular bill should that particular kind of uh contract should be exempted from the process.

Um we have though we also have bills we have sometimes, and and we don't do this very often in my understanding, and we do I think have an obligation as a council to decide whether or not these are the kind of contracts we want.

But if we are going out and saying we're going to now take work that's currently done by employees and outsource to a third party, that requires a lot more thoughtfulness and a lot more time and a lot more input.

And as you mentioned, there's some requirements already for that, but not necessarily an enumerated timeline that that guarantees that that process happens in a way that's more constructive.

I certainly believe that when we're doing that kind of work, we should be more deliberative and and there should be some more enumerated process for that.

Um currently the law, just just repeating the question that's been asked several times.

Currently the law does require us but doesn't have a timeline for that.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

So there are some cases where there's some value in having some additional uh requirements, I believe personally, that there could be some value there.

There's also, for example, contracts where we're in a hurry or when we're doing something like we are with homelessness right now.

We open a new EIH and within the month or two we need to have a provider operating that EIH and a 60-day, if we were to say, well, before we can go out and hire an operator for the new EIH at Soroni, which we haven't even done this fall, we would have had to add 60 days to that timeline.

That could be very detrimental to the work that we're doing to address this problem in the city.

So I think this overall bill that that treats every type of contract the same way, except for some exemptions within public works, is not good for the city.

I do think there's some cases where it could be good for the city.

So my preference would be to work with the author after we as a council take a position of opposing unless amending to handle these cases that we can agree are the right cases for it to handle.

So I will vote against that motion, but I will ask for an amendment to the other motion once we get to that point and see whether we can get to that uh final result.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Appreciate those comments, and uh I'll also be voting against the substitute, but uh but appreciate where you're going with the follow-up conversation if we get to it.

Uh let's go to Councilmember Compost.

Um Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for the uh report.

I just had one um question about the timeline.

So why wouldn't the 60 days overlap with the current process?

Why I I keep hearing it's an additional 60 days.

So why is it really an additional 60 days, and there's no way that it could overlap with the current process.

It's a good question.

I think it's an additional because it would require notice to the unions before we post the RFP.

And usually by the time we're I think the departments could still work on their scope of work.

So some could probably be overlap, but I think overall, because of how the process is set up, it would be an addition to.

If I could just add, yes, it would be on top of and very specifically the written notice has to include the anticipated duration of the contract, the scope of work under the contract, the anticipated cost of the contract, and the draft solicitation if available, and if it's not yet drafted, any information that would normally be included in the solicitation, as well as a reason that the public agency believes the contract is necessary.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um I agree with uh as some of my colleagues have voiced the importance of transparency, um, how we are you know working to provide great services to our residents and our businesses, um, and and making sure that it doesn't come at a cost to our city employees, uh, which is why I believe that it's appropriate to remain neutral.

Um so those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Uh let's go to Councilmember Chordillos.

Thank you.

I'm sympathetic to the concerns raised by city workers about contracting out of city work and all that that entails.

Uh, that said, I also do believe that the city needs to be nimble as we approach these procurement processes.

And I'm concerned that you know the current language of the bill could be too vague, could have unintended consequences, as other members of you know the council have already mentioned.

Uh I appreciate Councilmember Cohen's statements about trying to move this in a constructive direction where we could have potentially a uh oppose unless amended framing so that we could try to guide this towards something more you know proactive in terms of shaping uh the legislation and how it might impact the city.

Sorry.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Appreciate that.

Um yeah, I would agree.

I think the current language of the bill is is sweeping and would present in practice really significant operational challenges for the city.

Um the principle of having employees engaged in procurement decisions sounds good, and there may be um moments, there may be certain contexts and and ways in which that makes sense.

But as written, this would require public agencies to provide um bargaining units with 60 days written notice before issuing a proposal, before issuing a request for a quote, uh extending a contract, it's extremely broad.

We're in a moment where we have low trust in government because of how slow and inefficient we are.

Our inability to execute quickly.

The last thing we need to do right now is add more process, more steps.

We have um we have extensive negotiations and union contracts over the quality of working conditions, benefits, compensation, and many other work rules at the city already.

But when we decide we need to go out for a quote or or tackle a pressing problem to add this much more process in such a broad swath of areas is extremely concerning to me.

I wonder if staff could just help us be a little more concrete on how this plays out in the real world.

Could you maybe give an example or two of when you think about our recent work to try to be nimble, to try to not take 18 months to just carry through a decision the council's made on homelessness, public safety, procurement is an area where, if anything, we need to cut our timelines in half, not add another 60 days.

But could you give a couple of concrete examples?

I think the one that stands out was the recent um attempt to deliver water to um Columbus Park, um the homeless um encampment.

It was quick.

We needed to turn off a spigot because of concerns for um water um quality.

And uh so we had to be fairly nimble, and even though we tried very hard under the procurement rules to be nimble, it was still about a six-month uh or six week process.

And so 60 days to that obviously would have made it almost impossible to comply with um what public works was trying to accomplish.

Okay, well, that's a pretty visceral reaction.

I mean, those are the that's an exact that's a good example, it's a concrete one.

Those are the kinds of stories that make people furious at local government, just to be clear.

We need to figure out how to certainly pay our workers fair, which I believe we do, have safe working conditions, good benefits, and on and on.

But at the end of the day, when we have challenges out in the real world that we need to respond to, we cannot have the unintended consequence of it taking weeks and months more than it already does, which frankly is often unacceptably slow, and our community feels that we see it.

Um I I can certainly all be voting against the substitute motion.

Uh while I will happily support if there is a friendly amendment to council member Cohen's point, I will support and oppose if amended.

I'd like to hear some articulation of what the amendments are people are looking for.

And while I appreciate some of the frustration raised around the process here, I do want to defend staff in not making an assumption.

Clearly, this is a uh we don't all agree.

I think it's appropriate that they brought this before us to discuss.

And I would just remind colleagues that if people believe that we should oppose but amend or support the reason we write memos is to lay out and articulate our rational arguments to try to persuade one another.

I know we're coming back from recess, but um I think staff actually has a very well articulated and reasonable reason for outright opposal, which would be my preference.

But if somebody wants to modify the staff recommendation, that's generally why we write memos is to lay that case out.

So um I just encourage us to do that in the future.

Um, I see that I've inspired more hands.

We have time.

I'm happy to go around on another round.

Um I would like to get a vote to a vote on the substitute motion quickly, but uh let me go to council member Ortiz.

I think it's clear that um our staff doesn't have a full grasp on what this policy actually does.

I think Karen just mentioned that this policy may have impeded the government's ability to have gotten the water bottles to our unhoused neighbors.

This policy only impacts the outsourcing of jobs done by city staff.

That contract would not have been impacted.

So I think it's really important that when staff sits in that box, that they don't spread spread misinformation or inaccurate information, because we have to make decisions based off of the responses you make to us.

Uh, and that can cloud our our judgment and decision making.

I just want to you know caution, you know, all these buzzwords innovation, being nimble, being able to move fast.

If we're doing those things and hurting the exact individuals in which we should be trying to protect, what that's innovation for whose sake, right?

That's not innovation that's helping our working class families here in the east side of San Jose.

And many times when we talk about innovation uh in a government setting, it usually means screwing over a working class public sector employee.

Thank you.

So point of information, I didn't hear anything about water bottles.

Could you just clarify what the work order was?

It was not water bottles, it was delivery of a truck um with water.

I think public works can speak more to that or even PRNS.

Great, yeah.

Yeah.

Um I can give another example there.

Sure.

Um, if you'd like to.

I trust that you adequately vetted your example there and have probably many more.

But yes, we can't.

We we do have others, um, for example, security guards around uh homeless sites that came up very quickly this summer.

Um we had a similar issue there.

You could argue that we could do that in-house as well.

So I apologize for the poor example before a council member.

Um, but that would have um dragged this out even more.

And I'm not really sure that we even, you know, if that's up and running yet, but it was another one where we had a very tight timeline um to get through.

Let me ask our assistant.

I just I just wanted to say, I mean, uh in June, when this was heard in front of Senate Committee on uh labor and public employment retirement, there were several questions by CSAC and the League of Cities for clarity around these specific things because they don't feel that the bill has this clarity.

And so one of the things that the chair asked was that the author rethink those things and come back.

So I do think there is an awful lot of confusion with the intent of the bill and communication from the author's office, which is you know why we're here today as well.

And so hopefully, as this kind of goes through the Senate side through appropriations, some of those things are addressed.

But there is a lot of gray area in this legislation.

Okay, let me turn to Councilmember Tordios.

Thank you.

You know, again, I do think that there are a lot of valid points being brought up uh about protecting public sector workers, about uh the dangers of outsourcing expertise uh that could in theory be built up in-house.

You know, earlier it was mentioned that there currently isn't any standardized timeline for meet and confer for contracting out of work that already exists within city bargaining units.

Uh city staff, there's nothing preventing us, I'm assuming, from establishing some sort of internal policy around a fixed timeline for meet and confer for this purpose.

Is that correct?

There would be no prohibition, but but um council member, if I may make a clarification.

These contracts don't just envision situations where we're taking a city employees' job and outsourcing it.

These may be contracts that pertain to very niche requirements.

So the IT contracts that John Tucker alluded to, some of those require uh capacity expansion in case of a cyber attack, for instance.

We will not need those contractors, hopefully ever during the year.

But if we need them, we need them within an hour, and we need to expand capacity in the next hour.

That's why some of these contracts exist.

Similarly, there may be IT experience where it's super niche and it may come up five, six times a year.

So we need to have somebody on contract that we can reach out to for that particular function, but but that particular function does not justify uh a year-round position, nor could we afford that.

Thank you for that clarification.

I guess I'm coming at this from a perspective of acknowledging you know the real goals that we're trying uh to protect city workers here.

Uh, and I think I'm you know, in a place where I prefer to see the city set up some internal policy rather than relying on a state law that is potentially over overly broad uh and could have those unintended consequences.

Thanks, Councilmember uh agreed.

Let's go to Councilmember Duan.

Thank you, Mayor.

We value our public employees and uh not only their their wages and their safety, but our taxpayer expect us to be efficient and effective.

And for example, in uh and on the water issues.

We're talking about deliver clean uncontaminated water to save lives.

And then Aram, you you you you made it very clear that it this is not replacing public employee jobs, but actually in an emergency, it's allow us to have that latitude to make that quick decision.

Am I correct?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Appreciate that.

Okay, we are going to vote on the substitute motion, which was from Councilmember Ortiz to oppose the staff recommendation.

Let's vote on that.

I guess I'm still out.

Okay, there we go.

Um motion fails eight to three.

Um, and I have the three yes votes as Ortiz, Candelas, and Campos.

All others voted no.

Okay.

Uh we now have the underlying motion, which is uh Vice Mayor Foley's motion.

I don't see any hands.

Do we have any hands?

Okay, Councilmember Cohen.

I guess uh I will try to suggest a few amendments, although I I I don't think I have an exhaustive list of amendments that would satisfy us.

And it of course this doesn't mean it has to be an exhaustive list.

We're proposing some amendments.

We're not necessarily saying that we support we're not necessarily going to be automatically switching to a support position, even if these are taken.

I think I think there's some uh amendments that we certainly would like to see in this bill if it were to move forward.

Um one would be to exempt such things like cybersecurity and other security contracts, because I think that we've we can agree that there's some very timely things that have to happen in those contracts and some need for outsourcing on those you know, some special skills, plus reasons why we don't want some of these activities to happen in-house when it comes to protecting our networks.

Um there are there are certain technical reasons why you need to have third-party contracts to to protect your uh security or cyber um security.

Secondly, I think exempting renewals of existing contracts would be important um in order to continue to you know operate, you know, some of the the things we already are doing in it um and I think that that would be a useful change.

I also don't have sp more specifics on this, but there was a mention about the lack of clarity in this bill.

Some people might say, well, the things you mentioned are already exempt, and some people by reading the bill don't know that.

So I think one of the amendments has to be providing more clarity on what is what this means and what is covered by it and what isn't.

So I would just suggest that we oppose unless amend and add those amendments to it.

Now other people can suggest other amendments if there's things that are also important in the bill, but those are the three I would suggest, and I'd ask for a friendly amendment to include unless amended with these three specifics.

Uh council member, I got two, I didn't get the third.

I got the cybersecurity and exempt renewals of existing.

The third was not was more just about providing an amendment that provides clarity in what kinds of kind and and I and I don't have enough information to necessarily know how to speak more specific on that one.

Obviously, I'm not providing the clarity that we're asking them to provide, but they are the bill writers.

So I I I mean I think that there's a we feel there's a lack of clarity, and we can't support it with that lack of clarity.

I guess that's really the point I'm trying to make that we would oppose as long as the there's a still a lack of clarity about what contracts would you know fall under this and which ones wouldn't.

And I and I agree, I'm following up on that because I think Lee mentioned that there were people on the committee who specifically raised that concern and hope it will be amended.

So I think we should just agree with that that there are concerns on the clarity about what applies and what doesn't.

I I agree that the clarity is vague, but uh getting clarification on the clarity uh would be helpful.

So I would agree to accept all of those as friendly amendments.

Um did you want to council member?

Yeah, if I could just add um one last point in regard to amendments.

So there have not been very many amendments, despite all of the voices that have raised a lot of practical concerns.

And um one of the biggest amendments that was taken was moving notification requirements from 120 days to 60 days.

So the 60-day notice is one of the main issues at hand and how broadly that is applied.

So I just want to clarify uh or just make clear that I haven't heard an amendment related to that time component, which will broadly apply regardless of some buckets of exemptions that we're gonna have to comply with, and that that will extend procurement timelines.

Um I had another point, but I think I've oh, and and I just wanted to to make a note of Senator Laird's comments in committee during the summer.

He did raise a number of concerns around classifications and the vagueness around the language that the issues that you're all raising.

And he did note that uh short of those issues being addressed, he would reserve a right to vote no later on.

Um so they have heard these concerns.

They've they've had discussions around them, and we still have not seen any amendments related to this.

Um, but we will we will definitely um relay the concerns.

Okay, thanks.

Do we have other recommended I or well anyway?

All right, we'll go to councilman come back.

So to Sarah's point, I will add the uh the amendment on the broadly applied 60 days.

I think that uh that is um can be very restrictive.

And uh, you know, obviously they've heard it before.

Uh, but I think as the third largest city in California, uh I think it matters, you know, in terms of us taking a position, whether they believe it or not.

I don't know.

I believe it.

So I would I would add that to the list in terms of this is important.

If you haven't heard it before, then hear it again, and you know, we would hold and oppose uh unless amended position on this in terms of working with them on the time frame.

Removing the 60 days is what you're saying.

Or or working with them on what what staff would think is a workable solution.

And that's why I asked earlier about how how how much time uh and maybe it's removal of that.

I don't know, but I would leave that to staff okay.

Staff, are you comfortable with having it left to staff?

Sure.

Okay, then I will accept that as a friendly amendment.

All right.

Okay, we'll go to councilmember Tordias.

Thank you.

On the topic of clarity, I would also recommend potentially more clarity on the emergency and exigence circumstances exemption.

Thanks.

Is that a motion?

Friendly amendment, yes.

I've got a few other concerns I'd add in, but I'll just do it on my own time.

Let's just get to a vote.

Okay, so we've got a bunch of friendly amendments.

We are opposing unless amended, even if amended, it's not clear that we are doing it anything else.

But Tony, let's vote.

Well, don't I have to I have secondary?

Oh, are you the seconder?

Are you okay with all those things?

Well, uh, not without a comment.

Well, I didn't put my light on.

You can even you can even re I sorry, I didn't see your light on.

Um you can yeah, comment and you you also should decide if you want to accept any of those.

Yeah, no, I I mean uh uh number one.

I think we gotta read out what you're actually I I didn't follow all of this.

I guess the fundamental question I have is our staff comes here um reckon recommending against it, and they know as well as anyone how this process works internally.

So, you know, my litmus test is uh, you know, things are gonna cost us time and money, which has been demonstrated that both you know that this will as a city and our ability to move quickly on many many things, even with you know the caveats to the list we're talking about, is just bad for our ability as a city to be productive and do the things we kind of want to do moving forward, right?

Every single council office, I can guarantee you the one-on-ones you have is probably complaining about how long it's taking to get something done in your very own district.

So, why we're working so hard to accommodate a bill that fundamentally doesn't support what all of us are arguing that we want to do for our districts.

So, could you read out for everyone what you've now accepted as possible um amendments to your motion, please?

That you're gonna need to convince me to second.

I'm not gonna convince you of anything.

I usually but uh perhaps Tony got the detail a little bit better, but I have an amendment exempting cybersecurity, exempted uh renewals of existing uh contracts, eliminating the lack of clarity, which is confusing in and of itself, and then the uh removal of the 60 days and emergency and exit gen.

Oh, and emergency yes.

So uh aren't we just saying no?

Yeah, we are that was the point.

That's the point.

So you can you can say no.

Say no, in which case we'll vote on the underlying motion.

Yeah, I'm not gonna accept the right the uh amendments.

Great motion on underlying motion is to oppose.

Let's vote motion passes 65 with no from Kamei Cohen Ortiz, Candelas, and Campos.

Thank you.

All right, thank you all.

Um to our next item.

We are on to item 3.5, public hearing for fiscal year 2526 sanitary sewer service and use charge and stormwater sewer service charge assessments to be placed on the Santa Clara County Secured Property Tax Roll.

Tony, do we have public comment on item 3.5?

I have no cards.

Okay, coming back to the council.

Do we have a motion on item 3.5?

Move approval.

Okay.

Great.

I don't see any other hands.

Let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you, Tony.

We're on item 3.6, public hearing for the fiscal year 2526 annual residential solid waste collection service charges to be placed on the 2526 Santa Clara County Secured Property Tax Roll.

Tony, do we have public comment on this item?

No, I do not.

Move approval.

Second.

Great.

Seeing no further requests, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Run item 3.7, fiscal year 2526 property tax levy for general obligation bonds.

Tony, do we have any public comment?

No, we don't.

Okay, coming back to the council.

Second.

Thank you.

No further requests.

Let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Run item 3.8 approval of the issuance of multifamily housing revenue refunding bonds and the loan of the proceeds thereof for the refinancing of the Law Moraga apartments development and approving other related documents.

Do we have public comment?

Yes, Christopher West, come on down.

Still here.

Actually, okay.

I think our previous item was so scintillating.

We scared them off.

Okay.

No comment then, no other comment cards.

Okay, then coming back to the council.

Do we have a motion on item 3.8?

Motion from Duan.

Second.

Tony, you can decide.

Um, okay, no other hands.

Let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right, we're on to open forum, which is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on city business that was not on today's agenda.

Tony, do we have any comment cards for open forum?

Yes, I have several cards.

Um, I'm gonna call all of the names.

I'm not sure how many people are still left.

Um, Tony, as you call all of the names, we will invite people to line up here at the stairwell.

Yes.

Okay.

So please line up in the stairwell.

Um your interpretation will be on a screen.

The council members, if somebody is speaking in another language, you go to screen two in order to view the captions.

Um, Lena, come on down.

Um the name it has I can't read it, so I'm gonna come back to that one.

ACOS name starts with S.

Melissa Ramirez, Kate Schroeder.

Go ahead and go up to the microphone.

Um, and then I'll come back to the last three.

Go ahead.

Uh hi, good afternoon.

I I just wanted to talk about our safety here in San Jose and how important it is that we understand who is law enforcement, that they are properly identified with uniforms, that we can distinguish them from a bounty hunter, from an ICE agent, from a private security guard, from a contracted armed guard service, that I know who my law enforcement is, and I know that they've taken an oath, that they've sworn in with the oath that that they are law enforcement because they understand what it takes to enforce laws, they have a respect for it, and they're willing to die for it.

And I don't want any private contractors protecting my safety, reporting and and observing because we we don't know what kind of morals they have.

And and I I need our local militia to be the SJPD.

They are equipped, they have the weapons, they have the military gear.

We gave them all of that.

A lot, it costs a lot of money.

And I I don't want anyone coming and and trampling on our our rights here.

And we have a good chance to stand up for our community if we have them.

But if we start pulling in people that don't have the resources that they have, I mean it only takes what's happening in other places to happen here, and I don't know what we would do if we had you know somebody who didn't have resources to all the gear that they have.

Um, on a second note, we obviously need education to the community on how to participate in the political arena and how to make your voice heard without getting in trouble.

And this is something that uh, you know, is being actually discouraged in the communities.

Don't go to city council and talk.

We'll do it for you.

We'll advocate for you.

No, no, no, just you you you don't know how okay?

No, they don't.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's your time.

The last three cards I have, one has the word Estrella on it, E S T R E L L A.

Um, one is anonymous, and the other one I can't quite read, but the word funny is on the card.

Okay.

Go ahead.

We'll invite the next person up.

Um hi folks, my name's Emma.

I'm a member of showing up for racial justice and a San Jose resident.

Um, I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention, as I'm sure folks are already aware, right?

Our hundreds of neighbors who are about to be violently evicted from their RVs, tents, and homes at Columbus Park in a few weeks.

It was pretty disappointing to hear how much you, Mayor Mayhan, seem to care about our unhoused neighbors' access to water when it comes to outsourcing city jobs, but not necessarily about their ability to actually stay in the homes that they've built over the past five, six years due to the city's lack of ability to provide permanent affordable housing.

So just really hoping, I know it's not an agendized item, but as we come up on the Sunday tow ordinance and also the Monday threatened sweep of Columbus Park, the city solutions are wholly inadequate.

We know this, as much PR as has been put forwards.

We know that ultimately this is going to be a sweep like any other, with folks losing all of their belongings, access to their pets, and I really believe that we can actually have a San Jose that's for all of us, a San Jose, where actually we can offer our neighbors permanent affordable housing that meets their needs or permanent safe parking options that they would actually willingly choose and not that they are forced to choose because the alternative is arrest or institutionalization under responsibility to shelter.

So I'm just really hoping that you know there's still a few days for folks to step up and take real leadership, and I'm really hoping that we can see some real leadership that includes stopping the sweep, allowing folks to stay and get resources, dumpsters, continue to have access to water in this community they've built together, as well as offer them again options that they would voluntarily choose for themselves, not um at the point of SJP D guns.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Kate Schroeder.

I'm a resident of D3 and a member of San Jose Sol Sense SJ Indivisible.

Congratulations, uh, Councilmember Tordills.

We look forward to working with you.

Um I'm asking here that the city postpone the Columbus Park sweeps until we actually have the housing and resources to help the people affected.

Um we are that, and that is unclear.

What happens to their belongings and shelters once you sweep them out with no safe space to house them?

Where do they go to get the wraparound services you mentioned at Friday's Town Hall?

Um we can easily work with the unhoused community to leave Columbus Park and move directly into safe space once we actually have a space safe space available to offer them.

Uh please reconsider the date on 818 and work with the community to help our neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon.

My name's Wendy Greenfield, and I'm here to ask you to please stop the plan sweeps of Columbus Park and offer needs-based housing to our unhoused neighbors.

And just to remind everyone, the old testament emphasizes the importance of treating others with kindness and respect.

The key verses in Leviticus say, love your neighbor as yourself.

Zachariah instructs us not to oppress the vulnerable, highlighting the call for compassion and justice in relationships.

The new testament, Matthew, says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I am assuming all of you, just like me, slept in a comfortable bed last night in your own house or apartment.

And that that is what we should be trying to get for those people who are sleeping in Columbus Park now, not to sweep them out and leave them with nothing.

We are all privileged.

We've eaten today before coming here.

We need to do everything in our power as moral and caring human beings to take care of those people and offer them viable alternatives.

Thank you so much.

Um Vicki, come on down.

Hello, Mayor and Council members.

Thank you for this moment to speak.

I just I know that each of you has a heart and a mind.

And I know that each of you knows that it is inhumane.

It is inhumane to sweep people from the only shelter and community they have when you're offering nothing to give them as an alternative.

I think that all of the housing options that we have online at the time are great.

And we need to have them in place and ready for people to move into when we plan to close the only homes of a thousand people.

So please think about your own humanity and theirs.

Thank you.

Back to council.

I think we may have one more constituent who wanted to speak.

Sir, did you have your okay?

I don't know if you submitted a comment card, but maybe it was one of those.

At the time, only expressways had bike lanes, then called shoulders.

Highway staff of the county has used the city's prohibition of pedestrians as a ruse to refuse to comply with BOS requirements for pedestrian safety.

For example, they killed multiple people by forcing them to step across train tracks and Monterey Highway rather than use the safest crossing, the existing bridge on Capital Expressway.

State law only authorized prohibiting pedestrians from freeways.

Highway staff claimed, quote, expressways are freeways, unquote.

I proved that to be a lie by forcing removal of pedestrians prohibited signs, which forced them to comply with safety requirements.

Please correct this injustice and discrimination against people not using cars by repealing the ordinance.

Thank you.

Back to council.

Okay.

Thank you, Tony.

Uh thank you, everyone.

We are adjourned.