The committee members and members of the public to please follow our code of conduct at meetings.

This includes only commenting on the specific agenda item and addressing the entire body.

Public speakers will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council members, or staff.

All members of the committee, staff, and the public are expected to refrain from abusive language, failure to comply with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct of this meeting, will result in the removal from the meeting.

This meeting of the neighborhood services and education committee will now come to order.

Can the clerk please call roll?

Complos.

Present.

Candelas.

Here.

Cohen, absent.

Vice Chair Duan absent.

Chair Ortiz.

Present.

You have a quorum.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And then looking at review work plan doesn't seem we have anything to review, so uh we will go to the consent calendar.

Uh there's only one item Library and Education Committee Commission annual report and work plan.

Do we have a motion?

So move.

Second.

All right.

We have a motion from Councilmember Condelis and seconded from Councilmember Campos and let's vote.

Public comment.

Oh, do we need public comment?

Yeah.

No public comment.

All right.

Let's vote.

That passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you.

Now we're going to uh item D, reports to committee.

Um, for the first item, it's beautify SJ Neighborhood Blight Reduction Status Report with a presentation from Olympia Williams, Paul Pereira, and Hilda Morales.

Good afternoon, Chair Ortiz and honorable council members.

I am Olimpia Williams, Deputy Director of the Community Services Division.

Joining me today are Paul Pereira, interim division manager for Beautify SJ and Hilda Morales, program manager overseeing our neighborhood blight reduction programs.

We're here to share the progress the beautify SJ team has made this past year in reducing blight, engaging with neighborhoods, and enhancing the beauty and livability of our city.

From removing graffiti and illegal dumping to partnering with residents and community groups, our work aims to create cleaner, safer, and more welcoming public spaces for all who live, work, and visit San Jose.

We are proud of what we've accomplished.

We know there is more to do, though.

We continue to refine our service delivery model, strengthen partnerships, and seek innovative approaches to keep San Jose's public spaces vibrant and free of blight.

With that, I turn the presentation over to Paul to walk you through this year's results and our vision for the future.

Thank you, Olympia.

Good afternoon.

Beautify San Jose uses a three Ease model to address blight and illegal dumping.

These three E's, education, eradication, and enforcement, serve as a holistic and effective way of addressing these complex issues.

Some of our 24-25 highlights are noted on the slide being presented.

After several years of focusing on eradication, we have shifted and placed a renewed emphasis on education and enforcement.

Some highlights to the education component of our three E's approach include the launch of an environmental stewardship strategy.

This program is at three schools in Council District 7, 3, and 8.

This program engaged over 970 youth at these three schools and provided more than 1,100 hours of volunteer service by the youth and their families.

This element of education proves to be a positive multiplier because we can educate our youth and then enroll them in volunteer service that almost always brings out an additional volunteer in the form of a parent, sibling, or caregiver.

Part of our education strategy also involves marketing and outreach.

Beautify San Jose launched a multilingual ad campaign to raise awareness and promote community engagement in bus shelter and on bus ads for 12 weeks.

A digital ad is currently running at Eastridge Mall that you see on the slide here.

Hilda will now speak to the eradication component of our strategy.

Thank you, Paul.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today I'd like to share some highlights of the second E, which is our eradication efforts.

On this slide, you'll see that the graffiti program removed just over 2.5 million squared of graffiti, which represents a 14.73% decrease from the previous fiscal year.

It is important to note that that 29% of the reported graffiti was on private property, a significant increase from 6% last year.

To help address this, we have continued our strong collaboration with our partners as well as provided resources to small business owners.

Of the 14 million pounds collected by the blight reduction programs, almost 10.5 million pounds were collected by the removing and preventing illegal dumping team or the rapid team.

This program addresses illegal dumping by responding to requests submitted by the public through the San Jose 311 app.

While the team's goal is to respond within five business days, the Rapid Team is currently responding in roughly three business days.

Removing blight from our communities would not be possible without the support of our amazing partners and volunteers who generously contribute their time.

Over the past fiscal year, volunteers in the neighborhood litter program contributed over $714,000 worth of volunteer time.

While the number of neighborhood volunteers remain similar to last year, challenges in obtaining MOUs with certain districts prevented us from entering some schools to conduct presentations.

We understand that to reach parents, caregivers, and guardians, we often need to start by engaging youth.

As a result, school presentations declined from 74 to 47 this past year.

In the upcoming year, we plan to establish new MOUs to address this and reach out to other stakeholders and community groups who may be interested in volunteer work.

Lastly, I'd like to highlight the work of our neighborhood beautification team, better known as a Dumpster Day program.

This program is one of our most popular programs as it gives community the ability to dispose of large bulky items in their neighborhood.

Over the past year, this team collaborated with council offices, neighborhood associations, and community groups to host 152 dumpster day events, collecting almost three million pounds of waste.

As of part of our blight reduction strategy, we plan to host dumpster days at fixed locations throughout the city moving forward.

So I apologize.

It was 155 dumpster days.

Thank you for your time, and I'll hand it back over to Paul.

Thank you, Hilda.

I'll now highlight the enforcement part of our 3E strategy.

To better align blight-related enforcement efforts, a blight enforcement working group was established last year.

This working group includes key internal departments, including parks and recreation neighborhood services, code enforcement, the city attorney's office, and the San Jose Police Department.

External partners include the district attorney's office and the California Highway Patrol.

The group is developing a recommendation to a key update of a municipal ordinance to allow for the impoundment of vehicles used in the commission of illegal dumping.

Beautify San Jose also operates 12 surveillance cameras in high volume illegal dumping hotspots.

This is both challenges and positive outcomes.

Connectivity problems primarily due to weak Wi-Fi, tree branches obstructing the camera's view, limited recording range, and vandalism have complicated maintenance.

But despite these challenges, the program has yielded several positive results.

Illegal dumping has decreased by an average of 32% in areas where cameras are installed.

The San Jose Police Department also arrested three prolific taggers in the 24-25 fiscal year.

And in 24-25, a new full-time position was added to review camera footage and then refer track and refer and track cases involving illegal dumping set sent to code enforcement.

Citations can be issued when video evidence captures both the act of dumping and a clearly identifiable violator, such as a license plate.

Warning notices are issued when evidence is less conclusive.

The city also continues to invest in physical deterrence through the Gate Clean Gateways pilot.

Landscaping improvements, including plants and boulders, have been installed at various entry points in downtown and areas east of downtown.

Beautify San Jose has also installed fencing, signage, and boulders in areas with high rates of illegal dumping and graffiti.

This is all part of a proactive and multi-layered strategy to combat illegal dumping and promote cleaner, safer, and more engaged neighborhoods.

And now I'll turn it back over to Olympia.

In closing, I want to extend my deepest thanks to our internal partner departments, our external interjurisdictional partners, and most importantly, our neighborhood associations.

These dedicated community members not only give their time and energy to improving the quality of life in their neighborhoods, but they also inspire all of us with their daily commitment to making San Jose a cleaner, safer, and more beautiful city.

Together through partnership, innovation, and community pride, we will continue to reduce blight, enhance our public spaces, and ensure San Jose remains a city we are all proud to call home.

With that, I'd like to say thank you, and we are available for questions.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much to staff for their great presentation and also their very important work.

I can say for sure that I'm emailing you guys a few times uh a week, and I I really appreciate your response and uh I love when I get um a success story.

So thank you so much for your work.

Let's see who we got here to provide uh uh council member Candellas.

Uh Councilmember Candellas.

Awesome.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, first of all, thank you.

Thank you for the report and the and the update.

Um, you know, this is one of those uh very visible uh city functions.

And what I mean by very visible is residents uh often complain to us, this is like one of the first things we hear, not just when we're knocking on doors, but when we're uh out serving um in office.

Um, and so uh I I appreciate the work that you do not just with the dumpster days, the education campaigns, specifically of Catherine Smith.

Um, I I had the opportunity to go and and see the the the byproduct of that.

Um, you know, the the students are very, very proud to say, you know, I recycle or I go and pick up garbage or I pick up this or I pick up that, and so that it's really really helpful.

And and so that education component of our three's approach is is critical.

And last year, I I don't remember us hitting that education piece as hard as we we did this year.

And so uh I see I see the effect, and it's and and and I think that's part of why we see the you know the the the not so high of an increase from the previous years is our education, and obviously it's gonna take time and it's not just one year, but I think that's that's the right approach coupled with the third E, uh, which we I don't think was very, very harped on last year, which was the enforcement.

Um, and I guess uh my question for staff is you know, considering we we we put funding in the budget this year in 2526 for um one-time support for those enhancements.

So what what what kind of enhancements can we see?

Are we looking at fines, more cameras?

Uh, you know, I uh maybe I I know the sensitivity of the locations of the cameras because we actually want to catch people, um, especially the bad actors, but maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

Definitely thank you for the question, council member.

So we have an interdepartmental um committee that also includes some of our external partners.

A couple things that we are looking at is additional cameras, so we could cover, you know, we have 12 cameras in 181 square miles city, because as you can imagine, it's not enough.

Partnering with SJPD to use use their automatic license plate reader cameras to see if that can also kind of expand our network of cameras.

Looking at some fixed site locations for dumpster days.

So, you know, we come into a neighborhood, then tend to leave.

If we can find some sites strategically throughout the city that says, hey, for the next six weeks, we're gonna be here every Saturday with 10 dumpsters to see if that can reduce, not just reduced illegal dumping, but also allow us to educate folks on how to use the free junk pickup program so that maybe they're not as reliant on just waiting for those dumpster days, which then leads to illegal dumping.

We're also working with code to see if there's an opportunity to bring back a part-time or think about a retiree rehire that could just focus on illegal dumping and graffiti because those are the two areas that we have the most that we're being most impacted in.

So it's a variety of strategies that we're looking at how best to use that 250,000 in funding that we received this year.

Perfect.

Um, and then uh I guess with regards to the the j the I think that's a great idea.

I think there was a pilot last year uh for like you know, doing it on a Friday or doing these these dumpster days at certain locations every Friday.

And I think I think that's you know, it takes time for the community to catch on.

I mean, for example, I've been doing my music in the square at at the village square for the past three three summers every Friday, and people are like, Oh, this is my first time.

I didn't know about it, no matter how much time and effort.

So, regardless, I think that's gonna be uh consistency and especially with the messaging is gonna be key.

Um, and and and I I would also I I I have a question with regards to um the you know the work, especially with graffiti on how we're working with PBCE on private property um and and the collaboration there and how we communicate uh with partnering departments because to the community, it doesn't matter if it's public or private property, they just see graffiti.

And so I know that's been one of those those um you know uh troublesome areas, but I'm curious from staff on how we how we intend to work on that and andor address that definitely.

So, as you've seen our graffiti declined on public property, but it did not decline on private property.

I think we become so efficient at getting it down on public property that taggers now shifted.

So, what we've done is we work specifically with our private property, um private property owners to say, here's strategies you can use to reduce graffiti, good lighting, growing uh, you know, bogam via alongside the building, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

But we've also provide free paint and we do courtesy abatements.

If there's anything around hate speech or gang graffiti, we will remove it for those private property owners because we don't want that to stay up there a long time.

But we also provide the paint that they need to remove it.

We're also working with code to see how we can use our code enforcement officers who are out there on a regular basis to help us educate folks that are being impacted by graffiti, but also to educate those who aren't being impacted by graffiti and illegal dumping at this time, so we can all work together.

What typically happens is someone's business is tagged and then another person in the community reports it, then we go out to um work, we go out to then work with them on strategies to prevent it and address it.

But we kind of want to turn that model around and see how we can get to people early to educate them so they know to either reach out to us if they need support or to implement strategies to just reduce it overall.

Yeah, uh yeah.

Thanks for that, Olympia.

And I what I'd like to add is on a parallel track, as as you all know, we're also in the process of re-engineering uh code enforcement.

Right.

And so, as we're doing that work, what we're doing is we're also reevaluating and assessing are there to Olympia's point, are there certain job scopes that we could kind of bleed into this work so then that way we we tap into economies of scale, we're leveraging existing staffing and we're connecting the dots more intently.

So I think more to come on that front.

Fantastic.

One thing I would like to do is is if you can go to slide six on the PowerPoint presentation, because I I I I want to make sure we don't gloss over this because I I think this was um a result of significant staff work and um and for the first time since I can remember uh uh we we had a 14.73 decrease in graffiti.

And you know, and we have on on on the one hand stepped up our enforcement efforts, you know, in coordination with SJPD and the the neighborhood blight enforcement team that we that we that meets regularly.

We we set up these things, and we we are seeing uh uh kind of residual uh kind of impact from that work coupled with to your point, council member, the additional educational work, right?

Like putting the word out around kind of community pride and and that kind of thing.

So staff is really honed in on that aspect of the work, and I just wanted to make sure we didn't gloss over it because this is a first.

Uh in the last 10 years, if you go back and look at the statistics, you will not see 14.773 decrease uh period.

It's all been on the uptick.

So that's fantastic.

Excellent, excellent point, Andrew.

And I think uh that's a testament to our our our staff's commitment to making sure that we're clean, literally cleaning our our community.

And so that's that's that's fantastic.

And and I I had a question, you know, I I think it's also important.

I education uh the for the education campaign at Easter, for example, on the beautified to try to educate.

You know, I think there's uh I I look forward to hearing back from from that report because you know, what I found is for example, Easterge Mall, we had um like pervasive dumping right outside of 24 hour fitness.

We kept hearing complaints and complaints, and um, and so the problem was the operators of the mall weren't as responsive, and so I think you know, it wasn't until like $500 fine was levied uh that we got their attention, and now all of a sudden they're actually cleaning.

And and so I think that enforcement is key, especially when education and our staff's due diligence on making sure we're we're telling folks like hey, go out there and and we see it and reporting and the communities involved.

But now it's also you know, we we can only do education to a point, and then sometimes it does take that you know, financial stick, if you will, to get them to fall in line.

So I I appreciate that.

And I hope that with the dumpster days, the targeted dumpster days, we don't see a drop in dumpster days for our offices, just saying I you know, love them.

Uh but uh no, I I appreciate the work and that I'll move uh approval of the staff recommendation for this item.

Second.

Thank you.

Uh council member for your very important recommendations.

Sorry, trying to remember how to utilize this uh this screen here.

Uh council member uh uh vice chair Bien duan.

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

The citizen in District 7 have have expressed their gratitude.

They see the district is getting cleaner.

And you know my office used quite a bit of those dumpster days as well.

And uh we continue to do that in order to reduce that amount of garbage and blights.

Um I do have a multiple questions uh for you.

Um one, how can we help you to communicate with either East Side Union High School District or the school district in order to get you guys more presentation into the school to educate the young kids?

Thank you for that question, Councilmember.

So if you have any direct connections that you can connect our team with at the school, we would be happy to take those because like I said, we used to be able to go onto the school campuses without those MOUs, but now we have to find the right person, discuss it with them to get an MOU established before we can start working with our youth.

I was just thinking um I could attend the the uh school board trustees and asked you know for their collaboration.

I can uh help with that.

Uh second question is uh even though it's not in my district, but on like 101, 280 and and the 680 on ramp from 101, a lot of times get quite a bit of graffiti up there, and that filter down to the neighborhood as well.

Um do you do you work with Caltran, including Pacific Union Railroad, especially right through Mulberry?

Uh it's just such an eye.

So I mean they painted the whole thing, not just one little tiny section, they painted the whole thing.

And along the freeway as well.

Yeah, thank you, Vice Chair.

Um, yeah, I and I understand the we we get a lot of calls and emails about the 101 and it's known as the Union Pacific uh railroad trestle.

Um the freeway graffiti, we have a uh interjurisdictional uh partnership with Caltrans, and we have a once-a-month coordination call with them, and outside of that, we have regular, we have a team of folks that regularly work with them.

The graffiti on the overpasses is a little tricky.

Um, and the railroad trestle is a perfect example.

It requires closing down freeway lanes uh because as you paint it over, the over spray from the paint can get on passing vehicles.

So we often have to do it at two or three in the morning, and it requires a freeway closure.

Um Caltrans then has to put out a request for CHP involvement.

Um so it's it's it's complicated and it's not something that we do that often just because of the impacts of closing down the freeway lanes.

Um we are planning on doing something major with Caltrans uh in the early part of next year.

Um, but aside from that, uh some spots Caltrans is able to take on where there's some easier overpasses.

The railroad bridge um close to Mayberry Road is going to be tackled uh in next winter um ahead of the Super Bowl, uh partly because of the cost and the the impacts to traffic.

Well, thank you.

And um, you know, we as 2026 come along, we're gonna have a lot of visitor, and I want to make sure that you know we we don't have all these graffiti that the first thing they enter is City of San Jose, and that's what they see, right?

Well, thank you.

Um couple more questions real quick.

Um, the grant-based program, how's that helping out our community?

Uh has it produced results that we want?

Do you know the grant base and the pilot program that we we have?

Yeah.

So in terms of our BSJ grants, they are an essential part of our blight reduction strategy.

So we have found that they've been very successful in our neighborhood groups.

First of all, maintaining their neighborhood associations, having that community and neighborhood infrastructure is critical to how we get things done here in the city of San Jose.

Also, a lot of our neighborhood associations through their BSJ grants take on cleanup, take on projects to clean up the neighborhood, take on projects to um paint out graffiti, um, etc.

Last year we did 77 awards in fiscal year 24, 25.

This year we're able to do 88, but I would like to highlight that we are getting more applications from neighborhood associates, associations and funding to be able to fund everyone.

So that is a challenge that we'll be dealing with in um throughout the future, and it's something that I know that I'm working closely with both Andrea and John and Angel to figure out how we could better fund all of those groups.

Thank you for that.

If I could add to that, sure.

Because I think there's a role of opportunity here.

Uh, you know, as Olympia was mentioning, you know, last year we gave out 321,000 in grants, and we had more applicants than than money, right?

And so I think it's a one, it's a awesome opportunity to to, you know, with a little bit of funding to engage a lot of neighborhood involvement, right?

The other thing that the team has been talking about is in addition to the beautification efforts, is also adding an additional emphasis on having these same neighborhood associations get the word out on SJ 311 and our free uh junk pickup uh because uh again, in the spirit of education and educating the communities, the more we get that word out, then the more that gets used.

And if that gets used, then that begins to decrease our our ultimate illegal dumping.

Um and so I I think there may be an opportunity here for us to to maybe take a look at opportunities to expand that pool of of funds to uh engage more neighborhood associations.

Uh thank you for that info.

I I know that I thought in District 7 we have uh two language barrier, which is Hispanic and Vietnamese, and a lot of the constituents don't understand that they can get that free junk pickup, right?

And so even on the dumpster day at uh 73, which is we should have one of those um ongoing uh pilot program where we put the dumpster there because the day of of the dumpster they that my office put together, people said I tell them you you can bring your stuff over.

They went and go ahead and dumped it right out in the corner of Capdoor Expressway and 7Tree versus driving it over because there's no consequences.

And and mind you, it was just not even less than a tenth of a mile that they've could have got it.

But all said and done, we we I think the education come in that hey, when you're moving out, you can just dial through, you know, I mean, do the 311 app and request for service.

And also um right on the corner of Loop and uh Loop Drive and Samuel.

Um I see them dump every single week, and and you guys are doing a great job of cleaning it up, but every week they would somebody would just come and dump there.

So I think if you can help by putting a sign there, you know, is illegal dumping it cost 10,000.

I I'll go buy a fake camera and stick on top of it, then maybe that'll help you know what a little blinking lights.

But it just been ongoing that same spot for years been ongoing, and if you can um help me out with that, I appreciate it.

And again, God bless you, thank you, and thank you, and thank you again for the incredible job.

Everybody recognize that the city is looking cleaner, less graffiti, less garbage, but we still got a long way to go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Duan.

Uh Councilmember Campos.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, staff for the report.

It definitely uh demonstrates the work that's been done, and like my colleague said, uh, we we really see it in the neighborhoods and in the community.

Um I had a couple of questions that um I wanted to better understand in working with the different jurisdictions.

Um is there an uh average time uh for each different partner?

Like does it vary from partner to partner?

And what lessons have you learned in working with different jurisdictions as well as pain points that we should be aware of uh to ensure a more expeditious process.

Um thank you, Councilmember.

Um as mentioned, we have an a uh interjurisdictional known as our interagency team uh that works with Caltrans, Valley Water, Union Pacific.

Um we we've learned we learned actually during the pandemic that if we um take care of things in San Jose, uh the the pain point becomes people moving over into another jurisdiction.

And then the the common analogy that people use is then we're playing the game of whack-a-mole.

Um the the challenge that we have, as you mentioned, as you highlighted, is that um the different jurisdictions do have different uh timelines for cleanup, and a lot of it is guided around uh the outreach requirement.

Um in particular, Caltrans was sued for the level of outreach that they pro uh that they provided.

And um they they provide a different um outreach schedule that uh we we follow, but because of that it's not the same that we follow.

Um we we follow what they do and we try to coordinate so that we are posting um the same day that they are, we are having the same activity at the same time, so we're not then as I said, playing whack-a-mole and um moving the uh the problem around as opposed to trying to take care of it and solve it together.

Um our interagency teams also, as I mentioned, include Valley Water, and they have a different uh schedule as well.

But what like I said, we have monthly coordination meetings and calls with each one of the different jurisdictions, including Santa Clara County.

We we probably have uh the strongest partnership with Santa Clara County, where um the county has a fee for service program.

We have a team that goes out to county um jurisdiction uh areas that are that touch on San Jose, and um we take care of uh a multitude of things, everything from graffiti to dumping to um encampments on those on for Santa Clara County, and uh we're able to build them back for that.

And um that's a model that we did during the pandemic and that we're still in place now.

Yeah, it thank you for that.

And you know, I I heard from a D2 resident not too long ago who has been lives around Kenoas Creek and has been working for the past two years on trying to get blight out of Kanoas Creek and bouncing around from uh different agencies, VTA, Caltrans, the city, the Valley Water, and so I'm I recognize that maybe as as a city as a government we have uh ability to move things a little bit faster, but for a resident in their neighborhood who who really wants to help clean up an area, I'm I'm thinking about how to also streamline the process for them so that it's not so cumbersome and having to bounce around from different agencies.

Um thank you for for some more context there.

And then uh thinking about um illegal dumping, are you tracking and measuring what kinds of items are top contributors or are you noticing that is it a lot of mattresses, appliances, furniture, like what what are the trends showing?

Um thank you for the question, Councilmember.

Yes, all of the above.

Um we collect about 8,000 mattresses a year, right?

We're part of the California Mattress Recycling Council, so when we have those mattresses, we are able to turn them in and basically get like a redemption fee for them.

So that is one of our revenue streams through the program.

We also work with the conservation court and goodwill as part of their job training program because they recycle those mattresses, but we find a significant amount of household couches, water heaters, stoves, refrigerators, um, toilets, complete home remodels, small projects, fencing, wire, metal, kind of everything.

What we like to tell people is that illegal dumping is really um coming from our housed residents.

It's someone buys something, they need to get rid of something, and they have found that I just put it out on the street and eventually someone will pick it up.

That's what we've been pushing really hard for the free junk pickup program, which has high utilization rate, but we know that we need to continue to work with folks to use that as their first option.

If that doesn't work, then how do you get to a dumpster day?

That doesn't work, we want the legal dumping program to kind of be the third thing that needs to come in because what we don't pick up will end up in a homeless encampment, and it takes it's 10 times more work to get something out of a homeless encampment.

So it's really educating our housed residents and businesses about how to appropriately dispose of unwanted things.

Have you thought about donating it to Goodwill if it's still usable?

Have you thought about donating it to a church?

Have you got on Facebook and use your free community group where you can get rid of items?

But using those things in the free junk pickup program prior to just sitting something out is our is what we've really been working with, our neighborhood associations, our youth, and any other business group that we work with to say please utilize those options to get rid of unwanted, bulky items.

Yeah, I I really appreciate that note.

I think realizing that it's housed residents who are contributing the most to this is significant, and I think about the education and the kind of behavioral change that it that would be needed, um, but also the opportunity there to maybe think creatively and um get people to find a uh solution that's more um based in in like the recycling economy.

Um I think right now uh especially the younger generations, right?

Thrifting is something that uh is is very popular, but things like Facebook Marketplace.

I I have a younger sister who doesn't even have a Facebook account, so um I think about like how how to create environments or spaces so that everyone can benefit from the the circular economy and um especially right now when we know with inflation um and and folks having um you know restrictions on their budget, the more that we can support this kind of um opportunity and partnership for neighbors to come together.

I I recognize in Sante they have a monthly bazaar, um and so neighbors can come out and have a flea market.

Um it's something that I'm interested in partnering with a school in District 2 on in partnership with our neighborhood association.

But I you know, I I think that there's a craving for this citywide.

I just recently stumbled upon an Instagram page called San Jose Swap, and it's like a clothes swapping that happens uh the second Sunday of every month, and then the fourth Sunday of every month they do a clothing repair.

So you know, one of the items that we approved in the consent was the um library work plan.

And I know right now the library is thinking about those creative spaces.

So I I'm just you know, advocating for thinking outside of the the box and thinking about the different partnerships and uh community engagement strategies that could really help maybe bolster some of this work that's already being done by neighbors of their own um volition and seeing how through grants through partnerships, um getting connected with their neighborhood association, might be able to further drive the impact of um these more grassroots community-based um pro recycling programs.

Um I guess just some some food for thought about what the cost of a community ambassador like that could look like because it's a it's a reoccurring theme in some of the meetings that um we've started having and thinking about long-term planning.

Um just there's definitely a need for something like back in the day with redevelopment agency, there was an ability for uh each district to have one or two city staff that were working on community projects and really tapped into what was happening in the in the neighborhoods.

So I'm you know, just curious about um how we can think about that for budgets and uh future opportunities.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, council member.

Um I I think those are great, great ideas and ones that we gotta really kind of lean in on it, and perhaps we could mirror some of this or or or connect some of this work with our other neighborhood engagement efforts.

You know, if you just take a look at two kind of facts, the the two things that kind of really jumped out at me in this report.

One, when you look at the baseline, when you look at the data from when we started collecting our baseline in 2122, this last year we collected 10 million pounds more than we did during that baseline, which tells me two things.

One, there's still a lot of illegal dumping and trash that we need to pick up, and two, that the team has really dialed in on our ability to collect that trash, right?

The second one is that when you look at uh mattress collections, uh when you look at that baseline, as Olympia mentioned, we picked up more than 8,000 this year.

That's 3,000 more mattresses than the baseline in 2122.

So the data is definitely going in the wrong direction.

The good news is that we've gotten better at picking it up, and it's kind of a blessing and a curse, right?

Because people say, oh, well, if I put it out here, the city will come get it.

But we got to really step up our education efforts and really lean into examples that such as the ones you just gave.

Like, how do we start working with the community to start looking at other you know, getting into the you you mentioned you did you say the thrift economy?

You you mentioned a certain term.

The recycling economy.

Recycling economy, yeah, recycling economy.

I I I think that's something that we gotta lean into uh if we're gonna really add here.

I think it all comes down to communications, um, marketing, that community outreach.

Uh if if the city of San Jose and our mattress program is the best place for folks to recycle their mattress, then I think everyone should know that, right?

I um don't don't second guess what how you're gonna get rid of your mattress, call the city and and you know, we'll earn some revenue and we'll help you out there.

So I think um really connecting and engaging with the community to make it simple and make it easy um to find these places so that they're not doing the alternative, which is dumping in their neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Campos um for your comments.

I I got a few comments and then we'll go back to um Vice Chair uh DeWan.

But I just also want to thank staff for preparing this detailed report.

I also want to thank Olympia for the great work she's done in our district and with our community, um, because as you know, uh beautification and addressing blight is a big priority for our district five office.

Um with that being said, I just do have a a few questions in regards to how we can potentially strengthen our our efforts.

I want to piggyback a little bit in reg uh in regards to vice chair's comments um on the East Side Union High School District, since I think that spans all four of our our our districts um actually.

Um so I know you I know that we don't necessarily do partnerships with school districts that we don't have MOUs with.

Is that really the barrier, or are we lacking resources and funding to expand our capacity?

So I would say the first is a barrier is we have to be able to get on campus and then council member, if you have like some extra dollars lying around that you want to give to us, we'd be happy to take them.

And then we look at the resources.

But I think for us, our first challenge is really getting back onto those school campuses because if we get youth engaged, we usually get their parents engaged and we have a larger impact that's more sustainable.

Okay, and and I just don't understand how I guess how did we get removed?

How did we not?

Like what did that look like?

Yeah, I guess.

Um we had for years been able to go onto school campuses as city employees, saying because we get background check through the city, many of our school districts informed us that that was no longer gonna be okay, that we'd have to establish agreements with those school districts and schools.

So we've been going through that process of establishing agreements and contracts.

We need to have those executed before we're able to go on to a school campus, and that's been right.

And it's not just the agreement, it's identifying the right person, having the school district agree to it, going through those meetings, and then starting to work on the agreement and then keeping it on track.

So any support we can get, we're always happy to um have that because it'll help us fast track that.

Sure.

No, I have I have some good actually.

I'm gonna be meeting with um trustee uh Chavez fairly soon.

So I'll be sure to um elevate that in our in our conversation.

And then I know that you guys also had like uh I can't remember the exact name.

I don't have the slide deck in front of me, but there's like a youth ambassadors group at some of those schools.

I think there was three schools that you had that in.

And is that does that have the capacity to you know expand?

Yeah, yes, council member.

The uh that's the environmental stewardship program, I believe that you're referencing.

And we actually do we do want to expand it, and staff is is ready to.

It's just um it the the challenge is getting into the schools.

Really?

With that, with that too as well, huh?

Okay.

Well, sounds like uh we need to get in there and get you guys some support.

So please member, what we'll also do is you know, we we're we also have the youth department alliance.

We have both superintendents, we have we have Glenn and Juan that that re that that are on that sit on there.

We'll use that form as well.

We also have uh a good number of superintendents that are part of our children youth services master plan work.

So we'll we'll we'll talk internally and then we'll also get on the school city collaborative uh agenda as well.

So we'll delve this in uh because you know, these are folks that we just gotta kind of reach out to and and uh and get ask for help, yeah.

Okay, great.

Sounds good.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, because education is extremely important.

Because I hear, you know, in in other, you know, countries, you know, the especially those that have um you know a lot less blight than ours, uh the education component is really embedded within um their educational institutions.

They're taught from a young age about the importance of not littering.

And and so I think if we begin to invest in that, you know, it's easier to you know raise kids properly than to go to individuals who have already set in their ways and unfortunately are are um stuck in these um negative practices.

Uh so next in regards to the illegal dumping warning notices, and I've actually seen um you know, had something like this similar happen to me during cleanups uh when I've found um you know trash and it has individuals, you know, home uh addresses on them.

It's obvious people are either taking trash from their home and going to the neighborhood park and dumping or going to the neighborhood street corner and dumping it.

I believe we we send um a warning notice uh to the homes when we do find this.

Could you share or do we have on hand?

If not, that's fine.

But could you share how many warning notices um were sent um since 2024?

I don't see anyone here from code, but that's something that we can follow up with you on, the number of warning notices sent.

Okay, for example, like our cases identified primarily through SJ 311 reports, resident emails, or proactive field monitor monitoring, it'd be good to look at that data and and see how it's um how we can aggregate it.

Um and then if for example, if we like I said, I've seen this in in the district.

If we find somebody's address, um, you know, I think I was just emailing you uh Olympia about Mount Pleasant Park and uh the person from PRNS said, Hey, look, this has this person's address um on and all the dumping and the garbages.

If we find that, how can we make sure it gets reported properly?

So if you find the addresses for someone, you can definitely send that to code for those particular reports.

If they find that it's stolen mail, then code kind of is the bridge between the city and the United States Postal Service as well.

Yeah, I guess that's the that's also um you know a concern is if the the mail was stolen or or something like that.

So okay, and then third, this is on the Healthy Places Index resource prioritization.

Um on pages four through five, you mentioned that beautiful ISJ now uses the California Healthy Places Index to guide an annual data review process and prioritize resources in high need communities.

That's great.

I'm really excited about that.

But could you provide a concrete example of what prioritization would look like in practice?

For instance, does it mean assigning more staff, increasing you know, proactive enforcements or you know, adding additional cleanups in those neighborhoods?

Councilmember, yes.

The um I'll give you an example for district five, one of the neighborhoods.

Um there's certain neighborhoods along um Story Road where um it does involve proactive pickups, but we're also working um actively with the environmental services department to then work with their vendor um to do certain neighborhoods um along Story Road.

Uh there's three different neighborhoods along Story Road, just in District Five that we're looking at um focusing more um services, uh proactive services through environmental services for the pickup for yeah for junk pickup in the in those neighborhoods.

Awesome.

Okay, no, that that's good.

That's good.

Uh thank you.

Thank you for that.

And then I guess my final question is I know that um, you know, we we talked about these camera, the camera programs as a deterrent for um for illegal dumping.

Um so and I know that we only have a few of them.

How could we possibly get more?

Can we do like a budget document?

If say if I want to, you know, I got like 10 places in district five where I need cameras.

Can I do like a budget document through through the next budget cycle to fund something like that?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

All right, I guess I'll do a cost estimate on that next uh next cycle.

And then and finally, a lot of these illegal dumping uh sites are usually right next to apartment buildings, and people are leaving their apartments, and I'm a renter, but people are leaving their apartments, and they're like, hey, I'm gonna dump my couch here, and then I'm gonna go somewhere.

Can we start holding these apart property owners accountable?

Because I've even heard people say, Oh, my property owner says I could dump right here as I as I leave, and that the city will just clean it up.

Yeah, that is something that we're working specifically with code on.

How do we get information out for those multi-family units to make sure that the property owners are educated about the um process of you can't just place things out on the sidewalk or street because you will receive a citation.

Second, we're also working with our environmental services department so they can do an assessment because some of those property, those those apartment complexes need larger dumpsters.

If you live in a multifamily unit, you can actually put those large bulky items in the dumpster, but they need to either increase service or get a larger dumpster.

So we're working with ESD on that.

Also, in addition to what Paul said is how do we go to these areas where we know we have these high rates of dumping a lot, usually closer to these multifamily units, and just proactively place dumpsters at sites so that people can you know get rid of those things appropriately.

So we're looking at it on all fronts.

Right.

Okay, good.

Because I mean I support new apartments, we we need housing, but um, for not being responsible partners, we gotta we gotta do something about that.

Okay, thank you.

Vice Chair DeWan.

Thank you.

I I just gotta I think like three weeks ago with the last dumpster day at the uh uh Vietnamese Heritage Garden.

There was a lot of refrigerator out there.

And my concern is is for the city employee.

Uh the dump truck didn't have a lift gate.

He was by himself, so I I felt bad.

So you know, I went out there and help them load up these refrigerator, and then you got to jump, climb up literally like you know, four and a half feet up and then jump back down, load up those things, sideways, and then we lift them up, you know, eight refrigerator, and then he had to come back another load.

And I'm just thinking this is uh he's a great employee.

He's about maybe a minute or two from being hurt, right?

And that would cost us a lot of money for disability or or workman comps and stuff like that.

And I think to prevent that a lift gate with a truck with a lift gate that would just help put the refrigerator on.

We lift it up and we slide it in.

It's a lot easier than just manhandle it and then jump up and shoving it up straight up, you know.

So I I just want to protect our employees.

Um they're out there working hard, you know, with with my staff and myself, and and I I want I don't want them to be injured.

Neither do we.

It is something that we are assessing.

We have several of our vehicles in the shop getting new lift gates, and we have some rentals that we're getting lift gates on at this time, but definitely it's something that we're conscious of about worker safety.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I think do we have any?

Did we have a motion?

All right, let's go to vote.

Thank you so much.

All right, the eyes have it.

Um that leaves us to open forum.

Do we have any uh comments from the public?

No public comment.

Okay, we are adjourned.