Hello, everyone.

I'm Council Member Peter Ortiz.

I'm chair of the NSE Committee, and we're going to go ahead and get started.

Before we begin, I want to remind the committee members and members of the public to follow

our code of conduct at meetings.

This includes only commenting on the specific agenda items before us and addressing the entire body, not us as individuals.

Public speakers will not engage in conversations 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 will result in the removal of the committee.

from the meeting this meeting of the neighborhood services and education

committee will now come to order can the clerk please call the roll

here

here and chair Ortiz here you have a quorum great thank you so much and then we are going

to go to item one from the consent calendar and I'm actually going to request the pulling

of item one senior commission and parks and recreation commission annual reports

and work plans just for a quick question to staff if I could get a second

awesome thank you so much so if staff member can please come down hello Andrea

afternoon awesome thank you so much for for being here Andrea wanted to ask and

we got some emails and some concerns in regards to the work plan the PRNS work

plan seems like a commissioner is concerned about it and so wanted to see

if you you had the opportunity to address some of those concerns thank you

for the question chair and to the NSC committee members the Parks and Rec

Commission follows the guidance from both council policy 0-4 as well as the

use of the city clerk's template which is used for the development of all the

boards and commissions work plans we go through a process where in the past and

I have checked in with other Commission staff usually it's developed by staff

and then it's taken to Commission for final adoption and it's usually

discussed over one meeting this last year PRNS decided to have three

different conversations one to prepare the Commission for the items to be

just that they would want to bring forward we had that discussion on

January 27th and then again on May 7th we had an input session where we wanted

to hear from commissioners on what their priority items would be for the

following year as well as sharing with them what the committee's priority

items were going to also be for the coming year because as you know most of

our commission items first our work plan is developed with your priorities and so we layer

that into our work plan and then we see what space and capacity we have to bring further items so we

received the commission priorities in may and then we brought back a staff recommended work plan on

august 20th and that work plan was passed nine to one with one seat vacant okay so that's good for

to know and I mainly ask this just for the record and so there's it's mainly

been one individual who's making these claims it's not something that we're

hearing from other individuals to my understanding yes that is the one person

who voted against the work plan okay all right well thank you so much

Andrea I really really appreciate it thank you for it's I don't know if any

of my colleagues have any other questions no great I'll entertain a

motion oh do you have questions okay I thought you moved it chair but if not I

don't mind moving approval of the consent calendar all right thank you so

much if we could please call the vote

I'll take a verbal vote compost Candela's Cohen Juan yes Ortiz yes that

Motion passes unanimously great and my apologies. Do we have any public comment on that item?

No public comment. Okay, thank you so much now. I'll pass it off to staff to introduce the next item. Thank you

Council members I'm Lee Wilcox

assistant city manager

and current executive sponsor for our council focus area reducing unsheltered homelessness and

Joining me this afternoon is Eric Sullivan, our Housing Director, and John Cicerelli, our Director of Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services.

We are extremely excited and pleased to share our status report for this focus area with you today.

I'm going to provide a brief snapshot of where we are, more importantly what we're learning, and how we're building long-term infrastructure to sustain the impact that we're making today.

this work reflects our city's commitment to both execution and adaptation where we're balancing

the urgency and immediate needs but also our long-term growth growth into system level thinking

here's a roadmap for today's discussion we'll walk through our implementation process share

key insights from the last six months that we've learned as a team and highlight where we're

we're prepared to head through the 26-27 budget cycle.

And as you'll see, we're working to turn learning into institutional capacity

so that we can begin to scale the work that we've done and endure it in the long run.

We're shifting from pilot thinking and pilot programs

into larger portfolio management and thinking around these areas.

Council Areas 2.0 is not just about projects and one-off things to start and then begin.

It's about organizational learning.

We can take this model, and as you've heard in some of your other committees,

this has been put into play around cleaning our neighborhoods, which you'll hear next.

It's also been put in place around increasing community safety and other needs.

So the council ever deems to want to take a council-focused area out and put something else in.

this infrastructure this way of learning and the training that we're doing as a team allows us to

do that it also allows us to clarify our strategy link impact and build shared infrastructure across

departments and sometimes more importantly with our partners execution is as learning is the core

philosophy here we're not just measuring output outputs but we're asking key important questions

as we begin this work, we're in the middle of this work,

and sometimes at the end of it,

we're asking questions of what are we seeing?

What's actually working here?

More importantly, what isn't working

and what needs to change?

And we're doing this iteratively,

sometimes on a weekly, if not monthly basis,

as opposed on an annual basis.

The iterative mindset echoes concepts

for performance management

and key critical adaptive leadership principles

where public policy schools across the United States are shifting curriculum to address the

very issues and how public employees learn and work together. Our use of logic model creates

clear lines between our goals, strategies, and the assumptions that we make as staff,

but also you as counsel. Each near-term goal has a success measure that allows us to test

what's effective and iterate accordingly.

The structure is central to both accountability and agility

and using this logic model not just as a plan

but to learn, course correct

and guide cross-departmental coordination

and measure accordingly.

Since September 30th, when council approved this,

we've built the infrastructure and long-term impact

to report back to you.

We've completed retrospective trainings across the city

launched our first dashboards and finalized logic models across all

council focus area this process has revealed where systems might possibly

be misaligned where data has been missing and more importantly where we

need deeper partnerships particularly with the county for essential that are

essential to our sustainability and work to problem-solve these issues

Reducing unsheltered homelessness remains one of our most complex and urgent challenges

across the United States.

As approved and directed by the Council, our long-term goal is to move towards functional

zero, which means actively managing an entire system from prevention to a permanent solution,

not just responding to individual crises.

To get there, we've identified four interlocking areas and a set of challenge initiatives that

align our shelter capacity our funding compliance across the entire system and

data while this team can point to many hard-fought wins in the last year this

is not about one-time wins it's about designing for throughput coordination

and evidence-based decision investments and with that to start us off I'm going

hand it off to Eric Sullivan. Thank You Lee. Eric Sullivan, Director of Housing

and I will go through the first one and two of our assessments here. My colleague

John Cicerelli will go through number three then I'll come back and wrap up

number four on data and forecasting. So first for number one as we think through

shelter capacity shelter system operations as we have mentioned before

we have grown this system rather tremendously over the years. Once our

last construction site Cerrone comes online early next year we will be at

just over 2150 beds across 22 sites across the city so we have built a

significantly large system and so now this creates significant opportunity to

look for ways to optimize the management of the system and to find savings

standardization and processes across this entire site. So what this first set

of shelter capacity and operations looks like is a challenge to look for ways to

best get to cost reductions and standardization, find ways to improve our

outreach and community engagement, to increase placements within shelter and

that includes building in elasticity within the system that will allow us to

respond to events and needs such as our upcoming events in 2026 weather events

that may occur emergencies that may arise the system is also has played a

role in responding to emergency concerns such as apartment fires so we built the

system with elasticity and flexibility we now need to move towards

optimization and cost effectiveness and then number two is on sustainable

funding so I'll give a quick overview here the goal here is how do we establish funding sources

beyond just city dollars where do we look at the inputs in our work around Cal aim and how do we

create that as a stable funding source and then three is John will kind of get into later in this

presentation around environmental compliance and I work around no return zones and then four how

we best data forecasting the existing demand based on the build-out of all the

shelter supply that we have brought forth and how do we ensure we're sizing

this system correctly based on available funds and cost effectiveness and so this

slide now gives sort of where we at in terms of status update on number one as

we've built out the majority of the 705 units that we brought online as stated in

memorandum the last site is Cerrone and we're working quickly with our partners

in Public Works and Matt Lesh to complete this site and bring it online

early next year number 1.2 we're looking at the standardized the shelter system

operations as I meant as I mentioned identifying cost savings where do we

find efficiencies and execution in both property management food security as

well as case management services which has a strong interplay into the work

that we do with the county in alignment around CalAIM execution. 1.3 then gets

into our work around placements and services part of the work we're going to

be doing around creating more alignment between our engagement system and a

system that can respond to emergencies events and issues that occur in daily

life and throughout the community. The last set of items here 2.1 and 2.2

to really speak to our work around sustainable funding specifically our work around Cal Lane

as we have made good progress in developing out the Cal Lane system including receiving a partial

award for technical assistance from the state this work will likely just take more time and

as we begin to implement the delivery of direct services to our sites in coordination with the

county and then build that out to a full CalAIM system we're going to look to

probably take a little more time than we had originally anticipated but are

confident we can get this back on track in throughout 2026 and so I'll speak to

then very quickly here some of the areas where we have made capacity as I had

mentioned really speaks to just the rapid expansion of the new sites as I

mentioned. The Columbus Park activation was very much synced to a lot of that

work as Lee had mentioned and then should have managing that expansion with

a lot of elasticity to it knowing that our motels as an example were brought

online very quickly to provide a very temporary stay to then transition

individuals into interim housing and then onto a PSH path and that alignment

of this system from motels, interim housing to permanent supportive housing as part of

the alignment work we're doing with the county.

As you see, one of the key insights out of this system speaks to how we have to continue

to align that work in the operations and execution of it.

Then two, and just to dig into a little more details around sustainable funding, as I mentioned,

part of it is really beginning to look at ways in which we can better build out our

HMIS system management and connecting that work with the county systems so

that as we're looking for placements of individuals who are unsheltered

throughout the city that alignment of the system is going to allow for that

person to land in a county bed or a city bed and be a part of that integrated

system that's delivering in towards more permanent housing as part of the

agreement recently struck with the county we're going to be looking to

who identified just about 180 permanent supportive housing units on an annual basis that city

individuals in the shelter system can transition to.

And part of that transition will be supported by the work that we do around services in CalAIM.

So each of these problem areas are interconnected.

So they have different end product deliverables.

They're a part of a global system, as Lee had mentioned, for delivery and service.

So John? Thanks Eric. So we've now established over 26 miles worth of no

encampment zones. Sorry, no encampment zones. We do have more coming. Some of the

lessons we learned, you know, in the beginning Eric just talked about the

housing production and how much has come online, but when we were first starting

particularly in the waterways those motels weren't open, other EIHs weren't

open, so all of that has since opened, but that also means that in the early

days those things weren't aligned right housing options and abatements and so we

saw a lot of movement a lot of shifts of encampments as a result of that we're

definitely better aligned a great example of that is Columbus now Columbus

Park the majority of people came inside from Columbus Park and that's the idea

because the system was ready for it we have a couple more EIH is coming online

so there'll be more capacity in the system coming up but that migration to

parts of the city has been a challenge people are showing up in places either

they haven't been before or we've not seen them there in a long time which is

causing us to have to spread out and in and react to those issues a great example

of this is north of the airport we have a known campment zone that runs all the

way along the Guadalupe River along the airport but after you get past 101 just

north of the airport there is no more known campment zone and that's where

encampments are so they're sitting just outside our zones in some cases not in

every case but we are seeing that happen now with the police department in their neighborhood quality

of life group and then eric bring on an outreach team there'll be better monitoring of this and

enforcement of things like good neighbor policies but also the no encampment zones to make sure

people aren't settling back down in them one of the things we learned was that in the first so

the so the report here has our first three months of the fiscal year during those three months we

had 125 re-encampments into no encampment zones but as we look deeper into the data what we found

is about two-thirds of those re-encampments happened in the first 30 days and then it finally

started to drop off and that's because people are testing whether or not we really mean it's a no

encampment zone and they need to be educated you can't just simply can't be here you can't re-encamp

right for a long time in the city we would clear encampments walk away and people would just re-encamp

what we just cleared so there's some getting used to that kind of a policy

that's the way we're seeing more encampments in the early part and fewer

encampments by the week by the time we get a little further along so just be

aware there's typically an adjustment period there when a no encampment zone

first goes in but we're aware of that and we focus on that and then going

forward of course we're going to be synchronized with housing

another good example of that will be coyote meadows so it's our last really

big encampment that we know of in the city

That's a lot of people, but as these new EIHs are coming on, Cerrone and Cherry, that's going to move people from motels.

It creates space in motels.

Then we'll be doing outreach into Coyote Meadows to start moving people into motels so that we don't just show up on one day and 200 people all of a sudden have to move.

So that's lining up.

And so the machine is starting to work the way it was designed.

It just took some time to get there.

So with that, I'll hand it back.

Okay.

And I'll wrap up the last section here on number four on data forecasting and modeling.

Part of this work, as we brought forth in the February study session, a review of all

the different data sources and points of count that we have throughout across the departments

in Department of Transportation and PRNS and housing and waterways and HMIS, city-county

systems, the point-in-time survey.

We're collecting a broader set of array, including work with the PD department as well, to collect

as much data as we can on the various different touch points that better understand and inform

our creation of a demand side of the analysis.

So we know how many people, as most accurately as we possibly can, are unsheltered, so we

can build out the shelter system appropriately that we can both afford, that we can maintain,

continue to provide a decent safe landing place indoors.

And so we'll continue to do that analysis with updated numbers on both the demand side

and the supply side of the equations to ensure we can provide all individuals who are unsheltered

a landing spot, as Lee mentioned, in achieving functional zero.

So part of the key insight of this work is really identifying how best to forecast that,

knowing there are going to always be data gaps, but where do we look for best ways to

mitigate those gaps in identifying the target number that we're solving for on a daily basis

and bringing that model forward and publishing it on our website so everyone in the public

can see the work and the progress that we have done across the various departments.

So now I'll turn it back over to Lee.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, John.

I did want to say the current community plan and homelessness, which is ending right now,

was actually adopted in March 2020 on the onset of us going into a global pandemic.

And Pillar 3, which is really a bulk of the conversations that we've had with you over the last few months,

our emergency shelter system, our emergency approach, was brand new.

And so we've talked about throughput today quite a bit.

We've talked to you about throughput in the entire system over the last few weeks.

I didn't want to go have this be unsaid today.

We can finally have that conversation because we finally have something in the middle

after the prevention system fails where we can house people and move them along,

you know, the continuum to a throughput.

We haven't had that as a city or a region forever.

The man responsible for a majority of that is Matt Lesh, the public works team.

that have built more shelter capacity than any large city in the U.S. in the last four years.

So I know Matt's in the audience. He's not part of this presentation, but that allows us now

to do what Eric has wanted to do and look at the whole system from tip to tail and how are we most

efficient. So while we've been very much focused on the expansion and get everything open by the

end of the year, which is what council directed, we now as a team have the opportunity to really

look at the whole system and find what is most effective what is most efficient and again that

is from tip to tail one of the things we'll be doing as a team is what we talk to you guys about

is retrospectives where we get a lot of people that are involved in this work in a room and we

talk about frontline staff all the way up to the three of us in the box and we talk about the

issues we're facing so part of that is something that you are all struggling with in your office

with constituents as well which is vehicle concerns so as a group we've finally now that

we have things opening up we as a team will have the ability to have our first retrospective next

week and really focus on vehicle concerns and how do we create a service delivery program

and programs within the city to address those things that you know i know all of you get so

many emails on that so that's where we'll be headed in addition to some of the stuff that

eric and john have just touched upon so as we move forward we will be in front of the full council

again um in the next few months did want to go over that it's probably priority setting will

probably either be at the very end of january or the beginning of february that is where we will

um i believe the mayor he still needs to go to rules committee with his memo on what priority

setting should be i would assume that we'll be going over some of these details where we're

headed with the team around the focus areas it'll also be an opportunity for all of you to discuss

directly with the mayor what your goals and priorities are going to be i know we've sort of

already kind of highlighted the budget situation this year will be challenging so as a team we will

be focused on the efficiencies and effectiveness of this work knowing that there's not a lot of new

dollars to put into it as we go through that process the mayor's march budget message will

come to you obviously in the month of march for you to vote on and then as a team through the

the normal budget process we'll be putting together budgets by department but also collectively

rolling up across this work to make sure our systems, the data gaps and kind of the funding

actually are aligned and make sense.

As opposed to this was a very untraditional year as you approved a new approach that we

could go forward, we were, you know, really adopting that in September.

This year we'll be adopting that, you know, the work in these work plans and the resources

behind them as part of the June budget through an MBA or as part of the proposed budget so

that we know as a team what our goals are and what you're directing us to do as we go

into summer and start completing that first start that important work and so with that

staff is available for any questions.

Thank you so much to staff for your presentation.

Do we have any public comment?

No public comment.

Okay.

so much City Clerk like to pass it over to Councilmember Campos for public for

council comments Thank You chair and of course thank you to staff for the

presentation and the work that our city departments are engaged in to address

the unsheltered homelessness in our city what I'm learning to appreciate about

the focus area 2.0 logic model is that we are encouraged to reflect upon our

programs and make progress and with the adoption of the June budget this

council gave considerable direction to staff and it's important that we're

understanding in real time the obstacles that you're all facing to achieve

program success so I do have several questions one thing that this report

revealed is that we are many beds short to ensure that we can provide shelter

for all who accept it and additionally we are seeing federal funding leaving our

community with fewer resources to prevent homelessness. So how are we

preparing to protect families from a first-time experience in homelessness?

Well I think thank you councilman for the question Sue. I think a lot of the

work and the investments that we continue to make around prevention as

Lee had mentioned captures a lot of how we invest in prevention in addition to

the work that we provide through eviction diversion and assistance those

are two programs that though eviction diversion is in a separate division

within the housing department it very much synchronizes with the work and the

investments we do around prevention and investing in the county system I would

just say too I think that is where throughput is really important because

that number of shelter beds and even the number of you know permanent supportive

housing units, you know, in some ways that's never going to be enough. We could always build more.

However, if we can make that system more effective and efficient, like to Eric's point, it does create

space. So when the prevention system or those safety net systems don't kick in soon enough and

someone does fall through the cracks, hopefully there is more capacity in the system so that we're

not diverting that. So I do think there's a bunch of strategies that we need to pursue.

I do think the safety net and the prevention system, especially now that we've, you know,

We have spent a lot of leadership capacity in this city,

kind of opening up that shelter system,

and a lot of Erics to figure out the operational models.

It is an area where this team needs to spend more

with the county and the nonprofit community

to really figure out how we fine tune some of that.

And I would imagine that's pretty central

to the community plan and homelessness planning

that'll start to take shape at the beginning of the year.

Thank you for that.

And in the budget message, we asked staff

to find a way to reduce shelter costs

and operations by 20 percent and this staff memo states that we're not on track to meet

this goal so can you share what the next steps are to better coordinate with the community

and county partners towards meeting this goal and tapping into CalAIM dollars?

So we have made progress in achieving our goal of 20 percent reductions and I'll talk

specifically about some of those areas. Number one was focusing on opportunities

for reductions in staff and site security costs. Part of the challenge of a system

of 22 sites throughout the city and numerous different providers is that

there wasn't a standardized way for getting to scale on security cost

operations as well as contracts. And so we've already completed an RFP process.

We've identified $1.3 million in cost savings through standardization of security operations.

The next item was food.

The food RFP just closed.

We are reviewing the bids at the moment.

Projected savings are right around the same of about a million.

We still have to complete the RFP and contracting process, but that is sort of a target savings,

reducing existing expenditures for food of just about $5.4 million a year across all sites,

down hopefully just about a million dollars there as well,

looking at different ways in which we both improve overall quality of food delivery

as well as understanding, based on sort of the responses we've received back from residents

and from our service providers of how do we best balance the amount of food that sort of gets tossed

away, doesn't get uneaten with total food service delivery and quality of that food. So we're looking

at that now as well. Number three is then looking at property maintenance. Part of the work that I've

done with our good partner Matt Lash in Public Works is identify what are those capital level

improvements that Public Works would execute on and what are those daily maintenance work that

So we'll be releasing that RFP in days as that has been finalized to receive professional

services for a single one or two contractors that are roll up through the inspections team

within the division of homelessness response so we can standardize the delivery of maintenance

services across the site as well as more effectively manage our capital improvement programs.

One of the areas that Matt Lush and I are now working on is as we have a system that has aged over the last four or five years, we're going to have likely some capital improvements we're going to need to invest in.

So where do we get more proactive on site preventative maintenance to stave off some of those larger costs?

Another area that we have been focused on is looking at our loads of case management across each different site.

with the onsite and execution of our CalAIM progress that will hopefully make much more gains

in the coming 2026 year, as well as direct site service delivery for both medical and behavioral

health services that is going to be starting up here in the next couple of weeks as a direct

service from the county to our sites. We're going to be looking at throttling down our total amount

of case managers per site delivery since we'll have more direct onsite services.

So the execution of each of those four key items, as well as other cost-saving measures

that we're beginning to explore, I feel confident we'll be able to hit that 20% target.

Okay.

If we were not able to meet the 20% reduction, what would it mean for our ongoing operations

cost?

So some of that 20 percent will be baked into the base budget.

So right now we're going through the base budget as well as forecasting.

So that could affect forecasting numbers.

However, we haven't actually counted on the full 20 percent moving forward.

Okay.

And then in September 30th council meeting, council gave direction to track and integrate

McKinney-Vento data into understanding our family homelessness.

What steps have been taken so far to implement that direction, and when do we expect to begin

seeing that information reflected in our reporting?

As mentioned during the September 30th amount, the McKinney-Vento data collection has been

a part of the global data collection we have already receiving.

The additional points of collection are being inserted into site criteria contracts and

and are then being rolled up into the monthly reporting that we receive from site services.

Once we're able to complete that initial clean set of data reporting, as we're working with

a couple of different contractors who are more struggling with some of this data collection,

we're ensuring that data collection and integrity.

We've set up a division led by Jerry Rutner to collect that data to verify its authenticity

and accuracy and we will look to hopefully begin reporting out in Q3, end of Q3 of next year.

Okay. And I also noticed that some sites appear to perform better than others. What do we

understand today about the reasons for those differences and how is that informing adjustments

in operations or support? Yes. So there are broad variations in site performance and that's part

Part of the challenges that we have as Cupid and I have been working on ways in which we

can best standardize our operations including the institution of what's referred to as an

admissions and continuing occupancy plan to look at ways to take and streamline all operations

across different sites.

Each site is a little differently composed, constructed, and developed, but there are

areas of standard operations that we need to install.

That work is going to begin going forward in January as we're looking to implement both

as we streamline data collection in tune with both the September memo regarding additional

data collection and going back to the June 2024 memo on site performance and management.

That streamlining of data is going to coalesce around the execution of standard procedures

across all different sites.

some of the variations of utilizations of the different sites from motels to interim housing

to safe parking, so making some adjustments within that standardization, but generally the

standardizing operating model is going to also call for and sync with the request for data.

Two, as we look at that standardization of operations and synchronizing that to our cost

saving measures, where do we ensure that as an example, the provision of site security

and equalizing the provision of that site security at the sites, what are the impacts

and adjustments around expectations of operational delivery that that is synchronized then as

just one example.

And then three, as we do that synchronization of data and operations for cost savings, the

third is then how do we ensure that as we're synchronizing with our other departments,

PRNS, PD, DOT, around the work we have to do around outreach, ensuring that that execution

of the outreach results in, as much as possible, as Lee had mentioned, a bed for someone to land

in. As we look forward to the Coyote Meadows cleaning in the spring, we want to make sure

we have sufficient capacity to absorb additional individuals providing beds. So that's going to

take the three areas of standardization of operational delivery I discussed. It will also

inquire that that outreach execution is coordinated with the county and is

coordinated with the work we do around the Department of Behavioral Health

Services to ensure we have as much capacity as possible for delivery where

a site is not able to effectively perform all of the contractors have been

duly noticed based on the memorandum that councilmember Ortiz pushed forward a

month ago of a lack of performance and where that deficiencies and performance

will need to be directly addressed through the appropriate administrative actions.

Thank you.

And I just have one question because I'd love to hear my colleagues weigh in as well.

The report notes coordination challenges that slow placements.

What specific improvements are being made to shorten the time it takes for residents

to move from interim settings into long-term housing?

So there are multiple areas of alignment that need to be improved that we have identified

in our work with the county. Number one is as we transition and align our systems, the county

shelter system, which is primarily congregate shelter versus the city shelter system, which is

primarily non-congregate shelter, we need to align those systems to ensure that the tools we have,

the Here4U hotline, HMIS, SV tracking system can speak to both systems so we can better identify

and more real-time bed availability to understanding so the bifurcation of our

system the county runs a parking programs the city runs safe parking

programs but we run them differently where is there opportunity for alignment

between safe parking distribution that equals into a shelter bed versus going

into kind of permanent supportive housing where do we figure out some of those

areas of differential and then three as we look at our utilization of the motel

system part of the initial charge that we bought forth when we shifted to

motels away from some of the other strategies originally proposed is where

do we look at acquisition and conversion opportunities so we're going through

that assessment as we completed two RP processes that allow us to hire the

professional consultants we need to do assessments on motels realize whether

or not there are good fits for acquisition and conversions into

single-room occupancy operations that provide more permanent supportive housing

placements so on the back end of this system for additional throughput on top

of the 180 target of PSH units provided by the agreement with the county we're

able to find additional capacity at that end and then that all speaks to again

building out a system of sufficient elasticity to allow for growth and

adjustments in various different areas within the system okay thank you for

answering all those questions thank you so much councilmember Campos

councilmember Condellos thank you chair yeah no thank you to Lee Eric and John

for your presentation you know I think this is I'm optimistic about us leaning

in as a as a city and shifting our approach especially with regards to

to continuous improvement and or our organizational learning.

I think this is one of those areas

that we hear a lot of from residents,

whether we have an expressway or a creek running

through our district or not.

And so I have a question.

My first question is regards to the sustainability

of the program and the funding area.

You know, Eric, I'm happy to hear about the cost reductions and savings made to date.

I mean, what does that look like with regards to, like, percentage or dollar amounts to date with the efficiency and restructuring of the contracts that you mentioned?

So to date, I can't speak to an exact number of cost savings because the last six months have very much been about build out, and that's what we've kind of really focused on.

But we have put into place, as I mentioned, the administrative work, the RFPs, the identification

of costs, the analysis, the data reviews.

So once we get this last site, Cerrone kind of opened up and running early next year,

we're going to be in a position to start executing those contract changes, those administrative

and operational changes.

With a totality, that 20%, I don't have a hard number on that yet.

I can come back to at our next report out for NSC what that total number is as we're going through that analysis.

Right.

And the reason I ask is, I mean, in the snapshot, that was, you know, the 20% target is off track, right?

But, I mean, if we're, like, on the way there, 5, 10, 20, 50, I don't know, it's in the presentation.

It would be helpful just as a barometer to see, hey, you know, how much do we have to lean in on?

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, you know, and I was going to say, not surprised that some of this isn't on track.

It's also a point about needing to be able to sequence some of the work.

You know, July 1, a budget passes.

It's not like 100% of that work plan goes into place.

It is about kind of, okay, these things need to get done first.

Let's get this started.

With what Eric's been able to do, at least getting the RFPs advanced while we're still opening stuff allows us to kind of tight that time frame.

but again until you know cherry starts accepting people next week cerrone is going to be by the

end of the year we'll have some idea through all the non-profits and kind of that conformity and

operational mix that needs to happen we're trying to squeeze it in before budget process starts so

we're doing less forecasting and trying to give the council actuals on what things will cost to

run next year got yeah no and that makes sense and you know part of you know part of the lift is is

you know, things outside of our control with regards to, you know, partnering and or better

integration or aligning with our partners in the county. But I think that's also maybe an area of

opportunity where we can lean in. And I mean, you mentioned, you know, the collaboration a couple

months back and to see how we can sync these systems for not just better outcomes, but also

efficiencies dollar efficiencies while residents may not care that I have no

say in the county budget they look at it there at their tax bill in its

entirety and so this is something that I know I'm paying attention to and and

something that I hope we can we can narrow narrow in on and see how we can

better paint a picture especially with with us back here you all are the

experts the second is John to some you talk about about those no encampment

zones and you mentioned something about expanding sites and I'm just curious as

is to obviously you know you you all are the boots on the ground what kind of

input we have given given you know the feedback that we hear from residents and

the concerns we hear at the neighborhood associations and and at the at the

neighborhood level to be able to shape and or provide that input to staff yeah

thanks for the question so the the way we work on the known cammon zones most of

them are along waterways so that's generally where you're going to see them and then around

any of the housing that's being built or is already built so rufferari to be at oro saroni cherry

all these things will have little zones around them to protect them those are primarily the

areas you're going to see it right and it makes sense um but you know specifically you know on a

point you made was you know we are seeing uh the ramifications of some of our engagement or

encampment abatement efforts spread out to areas outside of those those those

priorities if you will and so you know I just want to make sure that staff is

conscious to make sure that we're engaging you know for specifically my

office to be able to provide some input like hey you know while we we've been

focusing and coordinating very very well on a downtown or a specific part of our

city it's having negative effects in you know the mount pleasant neighborhood it's having negative

effects in the state's neighborhood different neighborhoods in the and throughout the city so

um you know we're having areas you know thompson creek runs right in the middle of my district

where people are camping camping and you know our our our staff is going repeatedly to try to abate

every pretty much on an every monthly basis and so um curious as to if it makes sense considering

certain areas that are hot spots or troublesome as an effect of the work that we're doing in other

parts of our city that aren't directly adjacent to the priority areas? Yes, we absolutely do. And

we do a lot of community meetings, as all of you know. We show up to some of yours as well.

And we hear about these things, and then we start looking into them to the degree that

they've become a continuous problem. They may be advanced for an own campus zone. You mentioned

in the estate, the riparian corridor along that side

will become a known encampment zone

because we're just not able to stop people,

so it now needs extra enforcement.

There are a few other places like that

where we start looking at them.

I know you mentioned Thompson Creek.

That's a particularly weird one

because of the jurisdictional issues,

but we understand that's a problem for sure.

So yes, we do look at that.

We do take that into account.

We also have to take into account our capacity

to patrol and enforce the areas.

And enforce, absolutely.

The more and more they are, the harder and harder it gets

to kind of keep our arms around it.

Yeah, and I would just say in the spirit of something

that I think we thought we knew the answer to as a team,

but I don't think we understood the scope

or the gravity of it, this year,

especially with the waterways around encampment management

with the state mandate, so much of our time

was focused on waterways, and you've seen those numbers.

The other one was really around larger scale abatements

and these encampments where they just grew so large,

And I think as a team, we understood those are going to require additional resources, the time that it takes to do the outreach, you know, the number of staff would be involved.

I think what we underestimated it, though, it was quite a bit larger, you know, hence really trying to delay Columbus and align it with housing.

It was also around just allowing our outreach workers to spend five times the amount of time out there.

So, you know, as we go through Coyote Meadows, that should be one of the last larger encampments that we'll be dealing with.

And I would hope, you know, all things being equal, which won't be because of the budget situation, we'll have to kind of refine it and look at capacity.

But that capacity around waterways and some of the larger encampments could, you know, help us kind of prioritize more of these community things.

And honestly, those, I don't want to say complaints, but you guys asking those questions, it also really helps, you know, PD on the NCOL side of where we distribute resources.

So that's kind of missing data that's really helpful to get from you guys on how we tackle those individual things.

But I would think there should be additional capacity for some of those things, all things being equal.

No, awesome.

No, thank you, Lee.

And that's helpful.

The last comment or question I want to talk about is, you know, we've done probably the most in the state, I would argue, with regards to scaling our interim housing units.

And so now I'd like to see and or I'm curious what staff's take is on addressing and or curbing the flow of folks actually becoming homeless and the prevention piece.

And yes, when it fails, and that's something that you all talked about today is when the prevention system fails, we are there to react.

But curious is, you know, since we're in a new look of organizational learning and revamping and iterating,

are we thinking about integrating a metric or a problem area directly tied to the prevention piece

and or curbing the flow of folks entering homelessness?

Is that something we're looking at?

So, you know, I don't know if I could answer are we thinking of a metric or a measure

because it is, you know, like a shared accountability framework, and the county relies so much on it.

So I'll let Eric jump into that because he's closer to it.

I will say the, you know, the safety net systems that the county has,

as well as the prevention system overall that we're a part of,

it has the greatest potential to help the throughput model and to actually, you know,

someone shouldn't be homeless for one hour, let alone a few weeks.

So it has the greatest potential.

It also, unfortunately, is one of the greatest threats because a lack of health care and a lack of safety net systems, which our county is facing because of federal cuts, and quite frankly, we are as well, is significantly at risk.

so I would think this team as we come forward to you especially through the budget processes we

say hey we we need more leadership capacity and time on these problems you will start seeing more

of those kind of problem problem statements showing up especially as we you know try and

work our own efficiency effectiveness just giving ourselves time and space with the county to kind

of have those conversations is going to be really important no I appreciate that and that I don't

expect you to give me a metric to how we're going to solve the the the rate of

people entering homelessness and or and or the ratio that we always talk about

but but I guess it's it's the thought leadership and the thought partnership

to be able to help us you know move the needle specifically with that one all

right that being said I'll move acceptance of the staff report and

appreciate staffs responses to my questions great thank you so much

councilmember for your comments vice chair dewan thank you chair well thank

you team for reducing the amount of unsheltered residents I think that from

our resident here in the city of San Jose and our businesses see the changes

and not only that you obey, but you offer shelter,

and I think that's important.

What concerns me is that the HMIS system

or the data collecting is not coming together.

If we don't have the data that we need,

then how can we create a metric to solve it?

And I know it's on page 10 on the presentation,

that particular data pro forecasting and infrastructure is at risk can you give

me a timeline when we can at least fix that or collaborate with our county

partnership yes thank you customer so the reason why we've labeled this at

risk is because of the high frequency of interaction and collaboration with the

county the county controls HMIS system so as we're looking to make improvements

to bring more modules within that system and source the data from HMIS into our

other data sources that we're collecting so we can get to that leverage review as

I had mentioned you know the counts that we get from the various city departments

the data we're sourcing from both the point-in-time survey from our depopulating

sort of duplicate records within HMIS and the other work that we do all of

that analysis is just gonna take just more collaboration more time so part of

the work as Lee had mentioned that as we're talking through and working with

the county on the various other aspects that engage in the prevention system

though not directly health security food security all the other work the county

does creating and identifying those different sources of data bringing that

into execution I'm confident we can get through a lot of sort of the hard work

that needs to get done within this space as well as agreements around data

sharing and ensuring privacy with all the data that we're collecting as we're

aligning our shelter system I'm confident we can make significant

progress with that towards the beginning of next calendar year so that way we can

be in the best position possible as we're beginning to stress test how our

formula for best projecting out unsheltered homelessness is as accurate

as possible so the at-risk category is really just a reflection and acknowledgement

of just the challenges and the timing it takes to sync up two levels of

government in order to best execute this work so I'm confident we can get it back

on track towards the beginning of next year. Thank you. The second question I

have for you is still on that slide on page 10, the unsustainable funding and

talk about CalAIMs, billing and eligible services. Can you give me a little more

detail of what does it take for you to get back on track and what does it mean

if we're not on track and what is the at least a quantifiable number millions of dollars whatever

it is if we're not on track so I'll say globally and I'll take your last question first and then

go to your other two questions first the best projection of the revenue sourcing from a

accounting reimbursement model is at best about 20% per head cost assuming an

average per head cost on an annual basis a number we have yet to define because

that's part of the work we're doing you know response to the other question around

that HMIS sourcing what are the acuity levels across all individuals across all

22 sites and that acuity level correlation to the amount of case

management services the amount of service delivery needed for medical

behavioral health and quantifying that number right so we were doing that

calculation and analysis two as we think through and have experienced the path TA

assistance which is the state's technical execution program for building out a

Cal Lane reimbursable system what we have found in doing this work is two

challenges one is in building out our own sort of hub system within the city

that also synchronizes connects with works with kind of the county hub we

have to make additional operational changes within our sites that's part of

the operational work that we're doing a reference in response to councilmember

Campos's question and two we have to identify what is going to be the city's

capacity within our current budget constraints as Lee had mentioned to

bring on the appropriate staff that's needed to execute this so there's sort

of revenue generation and then according expense generation and we need to make

sure that net Delta between the two is to a total benefit cost reduction within

the shelter system so that is part of the just the lengthy work that is required

to best understand how Colleen builds out how it's implemented how it reshapes

some of our delivery within the system and then the bridges on many different

fronts of coordination with the county. And so as we, as Lee and I are on just monthly calls now

with county leadership to frame up to various deliverables, check on progress, and work through

some of those technical pieces that then become sort of executive level decisions we have to make

around resource allocation and, you know, the political, the operational, the administrative

kind of concerns of this execution I'm confident that as we're working through

each of these technical pieces through our partnership with the county through

reconciliations within the system and the opportunity we're gonna get next

year and you know holding off any additional build outs and being able to

optimize this system that we're gonna be in a better place to get this on track

to look at to be able to achieve the kind of the beginnings parts of

receiving those benefits but the system is complex we're stepping into the

healthcare administration light effectively in order to capture that

revenue stream and so there's a lot of other requirements that go into it and

building out this system that are just going to take a little more much more

time than we originally thought thank you as we build out the rest of the beds

that or the shelter that we have at the end of this year the estimation of our

unsheltered residents about six thousand plus or minus I I don't know I just know

this would you agree that what we're doing now is unsustainable as a whole

No. I think what the city has done is build a shelter system that is responsibly sized, and it is a system that can be sustained so long as we're able to effectively execute on the alternative revenue streams, on the stability of funding, on the cost reductions to get to system optimization and efficiency of delivery.

And once we're able to achieve those goals, this is a system, at least in my view from the department view, and I'll ask Lee to jump in here as well, that can be sustained and that can provide a sufficient additional safety net for those who are not captured by the prevention system, for those who are going to be subject to extreme cost increases by the changes at the federal level and federal changes in policy that we have yet to see.

and we can at the same time continue to build out more of those permanent solutions

while we're providing an immediate safety net through this interim housing system.

As you stated very clearly that the revenue, we're actually an expenditure.

We're not a revenue procuring because when you build these shelters with all the services,

as an expenditure. So I don't know where the revenue buildings come in. Secondly, we barely

meet the demand of the unsheltered residents that we have. The number is way above what we can

build or sustain. So I don't see how it can be sustainable as we continue to expenditure,

year, even though we are already in a deficit last year, a large deficit, and this year

we're going to be even more deficit, including the county, how can we say that we are going

to be sustainable?

And please answer that, and then my time is up.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I would just say, I mean, I agree with Eric's answer, and I think looking this year, refining

operations allows us to take an additional look at the sustainability of funding.

I would say I think what we've done too is, you know, there are other cities that have

built, just built more low barrier shelter.

Often people get stuck in that system for a very long time and never are able to exit

it because the services, the support, the links back to family aren't there.

So we do have a model where we with the county and our partners go heavy on the service

But that allows them to go through the system

So, you know, hopefully we're never in a situation where if we have 6,000 people on the streets

we're building 6,000 tiny homes because

There are other places that those people ultimately want to get that we want to get those people to

So I do think it's about throughput, but also I think that's why we're saying we also need you know to

Councilmember accomplices point we really need to double down after the expansion of the system with the county and partners on the prevention system

because right now

What would be unsustainable is for us to add another 2200 units of

EIH capacity that would be unsustainable for our city and quite frankly would make the system that Eric and team of development

Developed, you know not as efficient as it should be we should be focused more on

on the people that come into those emergency facilities,

giving them the resources they need to move along that continuum,

not stay in those places.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I appreciate everybody's comments.

I think about two years ago, I was kind of raising those points

in regards to my concerns regarding the ongoing funding needed

for these shelters and the sustainability that was kind of my argument that I used for maintaining our

funding for permanent supportive housing because once we build these shelters it's going to acquire

ongoing funding for maintenance and rehabilitation and then all the services and staffing and so but

you know since we've gone that way and that's where we're going I'm you know I think

with your leadership, Eric.

But yeah, I share the concerns.

I don't want to get to a place where we're having to close down, you know,

knock on wood libraries or community centers in order to continue to fund these programs,

as important as they are, because they are important,

but it kind of, it almost pits like unhoused community against the working poor community

who also need those services.

So it's a tough conversation.

But I just want to thank you staff for the depth of work that went into this update,

as well as the learning mindset you're modeling through the Focus Area 2.0 framework.

I just want to recognize all the teams across the housing spectrum, whether it's PRNS,

City Manager's Office, and of course our county partners who are carrying out this incredibly

difficult work every day, regardless of how hard it is.

That said, I do just have some questions.

My colleagues already answered a few or asked a few of the questions that I had written down,

but I have a few in regards to some specific items.

I was definitely a critic of responsibility to shelter when it was proposed

and when it came to council, but I also recognize the need of having tools

that help us reach residents who genuinely need services but face barriers to saying yes

or accepting those services.

And for an example, in my district,

there's a gentleman on Alum Rock

who I've tried to communicate with, unfortunately,

you know, for, I'm sure, it's health-related reasons.

We're not able to communicate with him.

And I think we've tried to get him help several times,

and they just end up right back on Alum Rock the next day.

And so I've just, you know, I'm trying to keep an open mind

with this responsibility to shelter policy,

even though I voted no, but how it may function in practice.

With that in mind, is there any update on how this policy may have been used so far?

Are we issuing warnings?

Is there any notifications being provided to members of the unhoused community?

So as an update to the Code of Conduct for encampments,

we have the NQOL team is a big part of that.

So Captain Donahue is here, and Chief Paul Joseph,

and the NQOL team has been doing a lot of that work as that was quickly established.

They will provide a critical support around the work we did around the Columbus Park clearing.

On the housing department side, we have now just selected the team for the enhanced engagement part of that outreach.

So they will be gearing up and starting that operation synchronized to John Cicerelli's team on the abatement side of this

so we can ensure we're having both that outreach and engagement piece as they can foretell sort of the beds coming open, as I have discussed,

and where those experiences are with individuals who may not be in a best position from a health standpoint to comply with our requirements around code of conduct for encampment.

then John's team the end call team will then play a role with the expectation here being we do a lot of that

Enhance engagement

First and then identify what are some potential solutions?

So and calls up and running the housing department engagement team that'll be up and running in January and we're continuing to operate

Institute, okay, that's so TBD essentially, but you provided the timeline

I appreciate you giving us an idea and I look forward to hearing even though I'm critical and I don't know

necessarily how it's going to function but still interested in you know the

outcomes and in regards in regards to this are we doing you know and I know

that a lot of these things you know come down to like judges and in regards to

the county side especially members of the unhoused who may have been committing

minor crimes you know I know we talked Eric in in Alamrock Village we had

somebody who assaulted an individual and then was out on the street the next day

and then it took several several different crimes for this individual to

commit in order to finally be in jail and I recognize this represents a

specific part of the unhoused not every unhoused individual is doing these type

of crimes yet unfortunately those are the ones that give the community a bad a

bad rap are there other conversations we're having with the county on

solutions for this and because I just you know right now for example I have

like a city being built on the Capitol Expressway freeway entrance and exit and

there's like five different encampments right there I know District 7 struggles

with things like this as well and the majority of those individuals are people

who have refused housing and so what can we do to start addressing these this

specific population sure and I think the conversation is probably taking place

in two areas with the county so part of the increasing community safety

especially the work that Jennifer Shembury and Paul Joseph have been leading around,

kind of the repeat offenders.

That obviously shows up in this work as well,

and trying to work with the DA's office, the county, and the judges on,

quite frankly, getting judges more information before they make decisions.

They actually don't see a full sheet of offenses at times.

So there is work happening there around actual offenses.

And I would say, especially the NCOL unit, when they are going out,

if there's warrants out, they can have those conversations with the individuals.

say a lot of the conversations that we've had in this body of work with the county is more around

you know it's around less about who is unwilling to accept the shelter because they don't want it

it's more around the individuals that are having a hard time making a decision because they just

need additional help and so what are those avenues with the county if it's not they're unwilling to

accept a shelter bed is there another avenue at the county or is there another program and

quite frankly we've been kind of lobbying the county is where they go through budget problems

of keeping those some some of those avenues open like mission street recovery or something else

so that we can help that individual obviously make the decision for themselves to accept shelter

I appreciate that you know these these things get difficult because as as was mentioned by

my colleague all these programs cost money and I don't think there's ever going to be a perfect

program you know it's just it's just it's just very hard and so the

conversation is tough and I want to be willing to adjust for every single

individual but I don't think we're gonna be able to have boutique solutions for

every member of the house I mean in my in my district we got families living

three families to a home and that's not the ideal situation but we understand

you know that that's how specifically the Latino and immigrant community has

been able to survive in this area and so it just gets frustrating for me. Thank you for that answer.

I appreciate also the attention on the Columbus Park abatement and the lessons that we've learned

from it even though I have seen an influx in RVs in my district but I know many of the

individuals were placed into temporary motel accommodations but my understanding is that

those placements may be ending very soon at least my understanding. Do I have a plan to make sure

that these individuals who we've finally been able to help get some shelter don't end up back on the

streets yes so the plan you know as I mentioned prior was for the motels to be a very temporary

landing space to get sorted and settled and to transition them into the interim housing that we

have coming on open and so all 100% of those individuals are going to be offered best to

move into the interim housing system which then syncs them up with our work with the county to

put them on the permanent supportive housing path.

And that's part of the design of the system,

is that the motels are very flexible, temporary stay,

transition into interim housing,

as we ensure that anyone coming into that motel system

finds an exact kind of placement

within the interim housing system.

Great, thank you.

Appreciate that, I'm glad that there's a plan,

I just wanted to make sure I asked that on the record.

Thank you for the thorough presentation.

Clearly you guys have been dedicating a lot of time,

lot of staff effort a lot of funds to this issue and so look forward to the

ongoing discussion thank you let's call for the vote yep that was a long item

thank you that motion passes unanimously thank you so much let's go to item two

City Council focus area status report cleaning up our neighborhoods

all right I'll go ahead and kick this one off as our team enters the box angel

Rios deputy city manager and under this item we'll be presenting to you today on

the cleaning up our neighborhoods focus area joining us in the box today our

PRNES director John Cicerelli code enforcement deputy director Rachel

Roberts environmental services division deputy director Valerie Osmond deputy

chief Brandon Sanchez and captain Steve Donahue and assistant to the city

manager Peter Hamilton our overall goal for this focus area is that San Jose

residents can enjoy a city with clean public spaces and well-maintained

private property we measure our progress towards this goal through our quarterly

neighborhood survey of San Jose residents we ask residents about their

perceptions of the city as a whole their neighborhood in downtown the graph the

graph on the bottom right shows the percent of residents who rate each of

these categories as clean or very clean we've seen notable progress over the

past two years in quarter one of 2324 33 percent of residents rated their

neighborhood as clean or very clean well as of September of this year the same

measure stands at 48 percent similarly 67 percent rated the city as clean or

very clean in quarter one 23 24 while it stands at 73 today so you can see some significant uh

progress there and we believe this progress reflects some of the budget investments and

focused efforts we've pursued over the past two years the three problem areas and associated goals

we'll see on the subsequent slides are intended to continue this progress so we'll start with our

first problem area first folks area our first problem area concern concerns blight on private

property in addressing this problem code enforcement faces a number of challenges

including increasing case volumes expanding scope and static staffing for general funded positions

the graph on the left shows the increase in code enforcement cases volume over time we want to

build on the operational assessment we completed last fiscal year to address these challenges

A number of our efforts focus on increasing the efficiency of code enforcement's operation

so that we can move cases out of the pre-investigation and investigation phases

and into the enforcement phases more efficiently.

The chart at right shows a number of cases at each stage of enforcement.

And so with that, I'll turn it over to Rachel Roberts to tell us more about code enforcement's goals.

Rachel.

Thank you, Angel.

So our first goal, 1.1, we have the Chronic Offender Resolution and Enforcement, otherwise

known as CORE, pilot program.

This pilot program is intended to expedite enforcement against properties with a history

of chronic or significant repeated violations so that we can bring them into compliance

more quickly and sustain that compliance over time.

Staff began work to implement this pilot in October of this year, and we expect to be

evaluating and addressing cases under this pilot framework beginning in January.

Goal 1.2 is the implementation of the escalating enforcement policy. Staff revised this existing

policy and we provided training to staff on the revised policy in September. The updated policy

standardizes compliance timelines and sets clear expectations for each enforcement step,

including issuance of enforcement actions, responsible party compliance, and staff follow-up

to ensure that greater consistency, efficiency, and timely case resolution.

The next step is to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach,

and our early results so far show that cases are progressing more efficiently

when we look at data today compared to Q1 of the previous year.

Our third goal is implementing Phase 1 of our new case management system codex.

Due to the age of the current system, staff has encountered additional challenges that

have affected the project timeline, including data issues requiring extensive cleanup and

a more labor-intensive requirement gathering process than originally anticipated.

To address these issues, we are working with the vendor to update the project scope and

timeline.

have added our project manager to the operational assessment scrum team to improve our focus

and adherence and have created a RACI matrix to expedite decision making and streamline

tasks. Staff will be providing a more comprehensive update on this implementation at our code

annual report to NSC in April of next year. Next slide. Thank you. So our fourth goal

is to complete the work already underway related to fines.

Following the council direction and approval in August

to raise the maximum administrative remedy fine

to $20,000 per day with a $500,000 maximum,

we are now focused on completing a fine study

to evaluate our citation schedule of fines,

which covers our transient type violations

such as blight, solid waste, or illegal dumping or graffiti.

We've contracted with GuideHouse

and we've kicked off the study just this last month.

And due to the time required, however, to secure the funding for that contract

and the additional staff work that will follow once we receive the consultant report,

the timeline to return to council with recommended amendments has shifted from February to May.

Lastly, we continue our efforts downtown to bring chronically vacant and blighted properties into compliance.

This fiscal year we've continued the downtown enhanced vacant building and storefront working

group using a coordinated multi-department approach to address these properties more

effectively.

We also began participating in the mayor's monthly downtown safety and security committee

and through these partnerships the scope of the working group has expanded beyond just

vacant buildings and storefronts to include late night activity, unlicensed smoke shops,

and other emerging downtown issues.

These partnerships have enabled faster enforcement actions, stronger evidence gathering, quicker

decision making, and timely litigation when necessary.

Back to you, Angel.

All right.

Thank you, Rachel.

And so our second problem area concerns graffiti.

While we have an effective service for removing graffiti, the volume of graffiti we remove

is high.

We'd like to prevent graffiti from happening in the first place so we don't have to remove

it.

on the left shows the volume of graffiti removed each year since 2014-2015 notably we saw dip in

2024-2025 as you can see in the graph on the left q1 2526 tracking slightly below the q1 24 25

while this decline is encouraging it's important to note that these statistics capture graffiti

on public property not private property so we will need to continue to be vigilant on private

property graffiti i'll turn it over to deputy chief sanchez to talk about our graffiti enforcement

efforts good afternoon council members members of the committee staff and the public i'm deputy

chief brandon sanchez in charge of our bureau of field operations as you may know we've assigned

two officers to our gang investigations unit to investigate graffiti over the last eight

months from February through July and then September through present. The total number

of graffiti cases initiated by detectives have been 204. Total arrests authored by them,

arrest warrants, social media warrants, residential have been 249 with total arrests made 33.

We've assigned the two detectives to focus mainly on gang graffiti due to the potential

for violent encounters to occur as a result of them.

The intelligence gained from the gang motivated vandalism, specifically around net banging.

Arrests have proven very helpful in solving other gang investigation cases and have really

helped the detectives solve a lot of these crimes.

Most of the suspects arrested for gang graffiti were also arrested for possession of firearms

as well those are some of the highlights for getting graffiti

right and I will note that when you look at that dipping graffiti that's the

first dip we have seen since the inception of our graffiti removal

program citywide so I think we're starting to see some some results on

both you know with increased enforcement efforts as well as additional education

public education and community education efforts through neighborhood

associations that the staff is doing so we're starting to see some some shift in that area

um our final problem area is illegal dumping we collected over 5,000 tons of illegal dumping in

last fiscal year and the amount we've collected has increased steadily over the past four years

as you can see on the chart on the left the chart on the right well as you can see on the chart on

the left the chart on the right shows that illegal dumping collected in quarter one of this year is

tracking at roughly the same rate as quarter one of last fiscal year removing

this volume of waste from our streets is a real achievement and likely helped

contribute to our improving cleanliness perceptions but like graffiti we would

prefer to avoid the illegal dumping in the first place and see the amount of

legal dumping we collect decrease so I'll turn it over to John Cicerelli to talk

more about how we plan on achieving this goal

Thanks Angel. So this first goal 3.1 is it is the coordinated strategy of

enforcement and so I'm pleased to let you know that we have a coordinated

strategy now that is working that is with our police department and our

friends in code enforcement. We ourselves in PRNS have a staff member that

monitors our cameras that we've put in our hot spots where we're looking for

that illegal dumping. When we view video where we think we might have a case we

refer that over we've made 73 referrals over to code enforcement of those 18

have resulted in warnings 17 have resulted in citations about a quarter

really didn't have enough evidence to pursue so we'll work through that an

example of that is we had an illegal dumper that on one of our our cameras

couldn't quite figure out who it was but they went in a direction and we reached

out to our friends in police department said hey your automatic license plate

reader could they catch this can they see anything and sure enough they were

to pick them up on a few different cameras and we were able to get that person too.

So just using the rest of the system, not just our system, to help us.

For example, another step that we're looking at is talking with our friends in DOT.

They have a lot of cameras on the streets as well.

Can those be helpful in any way, again, to coordinate enforcement around illegal and

dumping?

Next slide.

just got the okay and then uh this one is about uh this next one three points wait we skipped one

go back there we go uh item 3.2 so illegal dumping education strategies so this one is also on track

we've doubled our number of presentations to neighbor associations and leadership groups

in schools we serve we educated about 2800 more than 2800 youth through that

program so far looking ahead one of the areas we really want to target in the

second half of this year is is neighborhoods where we have high levels

of illegal dumping around the neighborhood or where we have sort of

high move in high move out places those spaces tend to create a lot of dumping

you know angel likes to bring up like the college we know a certain time of

or we're just going to get a bunch of dumping around the college as kids are moving out.

I should say young people.

So that'll be a focus.

And then, of course, we've also got a marketing campaign coming up

where we're going to try to encourage people to use our free junk service more.

We want to make sure people are aware of it and are using it.

Use your dumpster days more.

You know, you can wait for those things, et cetera.

So we're going to try to encourage people to use the things that are there more effectively

rather than dumping things in the neighborhood.

And then I think 3.3.

Good afternoon.

Valerie Osmond, Environmental Services,

Deputy Director of Integrated Waste Management.

So related to what John just mentioned

about our junk pickup program,

we have great participation from our single-family residents.

This first part of this year,

we have spent more time with our multifamily junk pickup hauler,

green team they're a great partner of ours and really delved into doing some outreach with our

multi-family property managers and tenants to make sure that they know that they also have access to

this unlimited no-cost program so we've seen some big successes in the first quarter of of this

fiscal year and i've seen an increase in participation and a significant increase in the

tonnage so about 26 increase in tons so we're hoping to get more of that multi-family

junk pickup material diverted and going in the right direction and not ending up as illegal dumping.

Back to me. So 3.4, this is about budget proposals, particularly related to trash disposals.

We've talked in the past, you know, we're picking up so much trash and debris that we're struggling sometimes to haul it.

So we have done an assessment of this.

I will remind you where we're going, you know,

this is going to be a budget proposal.

We're at the beginning of the budget process right now,

but as you all know, this is not going to be

an easy budget year.

But we have done an assessment.

We have looked at the hauling, and we've identified what we think

are some potential efficiencies there

around our corporation yards, including the utilization

of in-house staff versus contractors in some cases,

because in some cases vendors, you know, they're paying $115 to $120 a ton.

We can pay as low as $20 a ton because of our agreements through ESD

and our actual trash haulers.

We have a reduced rate.

So once you add in labor, it starts to get to,

it may be less expensive for staff to do it.

So we'll hear more about that as we get into the proposals in March.

And as John mentioned, in addition to code enforcement providing support for issuing citations

for illegal dumping as a result of the Beautify SJ referrals, we also had efforts going forward

related to our shopping cart or abandoned shopping carts in the city.

So we completed a pilot program to proactively collect abandoned shopping carts.

It ran from August 14th through November 14th of this year.

We collected 734 carts across the two pilot areas.

This was really instrumental in allowing staff to test out a proactive model

as well as identify challenges internally across departments

and gather lessons learned to inform a potential permanent service model.

So staff will be presenting more detail on the pilot outcomes at City Council next week.

and hoping to share our next steps

and continue the conversation.

All right, and so in terms of what's next,

you know, we'll be moving forward

through the fiscal year 26-27 budget process.

And as you saw during the last presentation,

you know, we'll be following the timeline

that was presented then,

and it's on the screen here today.

So with that, that concludes our presentation,

and we're available for questions.

Thank you so much.

Would you like to open it up for public comment?

Yes, we have one card for Christian Greco.

Please make your way down to the podium.

You will have two minutes to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Association west of Santana Row.

What you see there is a photograph that was taken in front of the Cypress Community Center.

It's a perfect example of the type of illegal dumping that can

happen at Cypress and does happen.

What you're looking at is a small box lined with a thin plastic bag

that somebody changed their oil into and then dumped in front of the Cypress Community Center.

I've got this kind of sign.

I've got four of these from the Cal Recycle Program that I'd like to get one of these placed.

But one of the problems that we have in our neighborhood is illegal dumping.

Primarily our observation is that it would be coming

from the high-density housing that's immediately north of Cyprus.

We've tried to work with other through the city to get some of these things resolved,

but I believe a real partnership, a collaboration with the city is in order to help us.

The citizens are the backbone of the community.

We're the city's greatest asset, and if the city offices,

I'm kind of hoping that Mr. Rios can, because this is right in the neighborhood cleanup wheelhouse,

that he can at least talk with us,

and there's ways the city manager's office can collaborate with us

to help solve some of these problems as a model in a neighborhood

that can then be taken to other council districts.

I'm hoping that the city policy 0-40,

the demonstration partnership policy, can apply here

using innovative and creative methods,

especially that we are in the dead center of the innovation zone that the

city declared some five or six years ago and has brought absolutely no innovation

thank you that's your time back to the committee thank you so much to our public

speakers absolutely I experienced that same concern in my district is several

apartments what had to work directly hands-on with code enforcement and

beautify sj in order to you know contact property owners and make sure

that they make sure their their tenants don't continue to dump I will now go to

count committee for comments starting with councilmember compels

Thank You chair and thank you again to staff for this presentation I was very

pleased to read in the staff memo that we're making significant process year

over year picking up junk at multifamily residences of course there is room for

improvement and in district 2 we have several neighborhoods with illegal

dumping issues near apartment complex is I want to thank staff for working with

my team to get some of those cameras into the roundtable neighborhood because

it really makes a difference to ensure that all our community members have

access to junk pickup services, mediation, and I believe that the junk pickup service

is one of the city's best and highly rated services.

So really we're all here to make sure that every community member has access to those

services.

I do have just a few questions that I wanted to better understand what issues we're facing.

So can you share some of the challenges that haulers face when they're performing a junk pickup at a multifamily housing complex?

Thank you for your question, Councilmember Campos.

The haulers aren't necessarily facing any challenges.

We have one multifamily junk pickup hauler, and that's Green Team, and they collect those scheduled appointments without any problem.

What we had seen was just a lack of participation.

There just has not been any sort of increase in participation,

even when we made the program free and unlimited about almost a decade ago.

So we've been doing some increased engagement with them.

The green team has been out meeting with property managers.

We've been targeting some areas that Beautify San Jose has provided to us

as being sort of the priority areas where they've seen a lot more illegal dumping

that is adjacent to multifamily dwellings.

and we've increased that engagement there.

So Green Team has done some more clean-out events

that are a little bit larger than just scheduled smaller items.

Some of the challenges that the properties face themselves

is that they may have some lack of storage area or setup area,

and sometimes those individual piles of items

just attract more and more items,

so that can become its own sort of illegal dumping pile within their community.

But those are some of the main concerns.

And you mentioned engagement can be a challenge.

So what learnings have we identified that are going to help us adjust how we're engaging with neighbors?

With the multifamilies in particular?

With multifamilies, but just in general, if engagement is a general issue,

what are we learning, what are we doing differently?

Sure. So we've sent out a residential garbage and recycling guide.

That was in August of 2024 to all multifamily tenants and all single family residences.

So that's helped. That provides overall program information, including free oil collection.

but for the junk pickup in particular there's a lot of postcards and a lot of different tactics

that we do for junk pickup with multifamily it seems to need that a little bit of an extra

property manager discussion to kind of plan out where to put things and figure out what the

challenges are for each different type of multifamily complex since they're all so unique

okay um councilmember can i just add something valerie um kind of went over really quickly but

you know since the last council meeting we got a lot of input uh from this council around really

needing to step up our outreach to multifamily unit housing um and so that marketing has resulted

in a 66 percent increase this year over the last year and i think that's real significant so i

think he is I don't think she's giving herself enough credit there so I just

wanted to point that out because a 66% jump over last year is pretty

significant and it's attributed to the marketing and outreach that they were

doing which was different this time around it's amazing to hear this might

be difficult to answer but I'm curious if you have any information about the

neighbors who aren't leveraging this surf this service more often is

accessibility an obstacle or what might we know if we know anything about the

folks who aren't using the services?

Accessibility should not be a concern.

They should all have access to that same service.

I think it's just making it, making sure that they know it's available and that it is a

benefit to their tenants.

Really, I think it's a big plus for any tenants considering the level of move in and move out

you see in multifamily.

Okay.

Thank you.

question you know we are highly aware of the jurisdictional boundaries when it

comes to these responsibilities sometimes our residents don't have the

same maps in front of them and so how is the city collaborating with key partners

such as Caltrans and Union Pacific around these issues

So with respect to illegal dumping on their properties is what you're meaning?

Yeah.

So we have an agreement with Caltrans where we can do things like abate and clean up abatements

off their property.

Dumping gets a little more tricky.

That's part of, is it part of the VTA agreement as well?

Yeah.

So we do have some ability to get reimbursed for it.

But these are great targets, as you know.

They're typically kind of vacant areas.

They're a little off to the side, so they make pretty good targets.

So we do coordinate.

I don't know if there's more you want to add to that, Olympia, in terms of their work with us.

But it tends to be more around homeless issues than it is just specifically illegal dumping.

But both of those things are happening in the same place.

And would graffiti also fall under that agreement?

Yes, to a lesser degree.

Some of the harder parts are like bridges and things like that.

But yes, we could clean graffiti in those situations as well.

Okay.

Well, as you know, Monterey Corridor is one of the biggest intersections in my district.

We have a lot of Union Pacific land jurisdiction.

And so these are some of the issues that come up frequently.

And I'm grateful to staff's commitment to cleaning up our neighborhoods.

you know the the fact that we are out in the community doing outreach educating

our neighbors about these important programs and especially bringing our

schools into the the work I was really excited when I saw Stipe Elementary

participating in beautify SG's environmental school stewardship program

I think it's really important that we continue to develop civic pride at an

early age educating our students on how they can help keep our streets clean and

our waterways free of litter and debris. I know it's it's really important that

we have their buy-in as well because sometimes our youngest learners are

educating their parents and their families about the resources available

and I think we can all agree that that self-agency that pride of your

neighborhood of your community leads to far greater outcomes beyond just blight

less blight in the communities so again appreciate all the work you do and those

are all my comments thank you thank you so much councilmember going to

councilmember Condellas thank you chair I appreciate staff's report especially

around the work done as Angel mentioned with regards to the multifamily

residents in the in the illegal dumping under the junk junk pickup program

there so much appreciated I guess my question that I have is is more geared

towards you know for for a while we had the the 3e approach right where we had

you know the where we can all agree that our enforcement piece wasn't

necessarily there we had the eradication piece which clearly we're very good at

and not just because I do the dumpster days every month,

but the data shows we're out there.

And then the third piece, I guess,

specifically is the education piece.

And, you know, I guess my question goes to the point of

how are we leaning in on the education piece?

Yes, we're stepping up on the enforcement piece,

but how are we also leaning in on the education piece

so we're actually curbing the amount of people

who are illegally dumping?

Obviously, it's not the kids that are doing it

that are going and dumping,

but how are we educating, let's say, the contractors

or let's say folks in our community

that otherwise would not necessarily get that information

if they have no kids in the community?

well speaking for beautify our focus tends to be the neighborhood associations and their

leadership groups and the schools we don't have a specific program for people that do

junk hauling and those kind of things thus far i don't know valerie if there's any work you guys

working on thanks john not with the unauthorized non-exclusive

haulers. So we do have

non-exclusive

authorized haulers

that are bound

by certain parameters

and

they're not supposed to be dumping illegally

they're supposed to be taking that material

to an authorized facility and

providing the city with

information and data on what

they're doing with that material that they're picking up.

The challenge is definitely those ones

that are not part of our non-exclusive holler franchise group.

And those are, I think, more difficult to engage with.

A lot of them are kind of flight by night.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Council Member, I could also chime in here.

So there's two ordinances in the Muni Code

that really guide enforcement around illegal dumping.

What we have found, though, is that although we have those two ordinances in the Muni Code,

They're written in a way that really make it difficult to to enforce and implement

So one of the things that we're doing is we we've we have an interdepartment team that involved that also includes the city attorney's office

And we're looking at revising and modifying that current ordinance to one give us give us better teeth

Around enforcement making it easier to administer fines

But we also know that we don't just want to enforce our way out of this either, right?

I mean that definitely is going to kind of move the needle to a certain point

to your preliminary, to your initial point on education.

We're really stepping up the educational piece.

So for example, Olympia and her team have developed

and in coordination with the neighborhood associations,

outreach to elementary and middle school

and high schools around civic pride,

as Council Member Comples was mentioning,

and really emphasizing that.

The other thing that we've done is on the enforcement side,

we've actually extended that E.

We used to call it just enforcement.

now we call it enforcement and diversion and education.

And so the diversion is, for example,

we've been pretty successful with PD's lead

in making quite a few arrests of graffiti taggers.

What we've done is we've, in coordination with the courts,

have worked around having them come out

and do community education programs to younger folks

around kind of what not to do.

And they're able to kind of talk about,

hey, look, you know, you have a talent, but, you know.

And so you'll see some of these folks at some of the local community events taking place.

So this is something that's evolving.

We don't have it completely delved in yet, but we definitely are pivoting away from just eradication only.

And really, you know, we've leaned heavily into enforcement.

And now on the horizon here is really beefing up our education piece.

No, I love that.

Thank you, Angel.

That's great.

Then that's, I guess, the point that I wanted to lean in with regards to, you know, making sure that we're also educating and doing what we can to stop the flow of whether it's graffiti or illegal dumping.

And then I guess my last question is just generally to the 73 illegal dumping cases with sufficient evidence.

What kind of characteristics and or variables did we see from these people?

Were they, the people that were illegally dumping, were they from San Jose?

Were they out of the area?

Were they contractors?

Were they unlicensed contractors?

Do we have, generally speaking, what kind of information of the folks we actually caught doing this?

Because we all wonder, who's doing the illegal dumping?

It's not my neighbors, I hope.

But, you know, does that make sense?

Yes, thank you, Council Member.

So I don't have that information available right now.

I do know, however, that part of why code enforcement is doing the enforcement is because you have to have very, well,

special clearance to actually run license plates and pull that information out of the DOJ database

and we can't really share that information so to the extent I'd be able to tell you I

might be able to speak in generalities but I don't actually have the data right now so

but if I mean if you if once the you know if it gets to a point where we we are bringing a case

forward that information obviously becomes public doesn't it well if it went to court but yeah I

I mean, I could probably provide you kind of general information about if we're seeing a majority are from outside the city limits or, you know, we see a concentration in this part of the city.

We could probably provide that type of information.

I mean, because ultimately the reason we'd want to know is so we can help shape our education piece to see who we have to educate, right?

And so if we can extrapolate information.

Angel, do you want to speak to that point?

well you know i know rachel's kind of trading a fine line because there's a lot of regulatory

i i will say this because i i i've i look at these reports we're talking about contractors

subcontractors and folks that advertise on next door and other places to say hey i'll i'll i'll

dump all that for 100 bucks and we know that you can't even pay that wouldn't even be a hundred

dollars that if you took it to a dump so we're monitoring those things and those are some things

that we're going to be cracking down on i know uh rachel's trading the fine line there because

because she's subject to some regulations.

So I'll just speak in generalities,

just based on the reports that I've seen.

Thank you, I appreciate that, that's helpful.

And you know, this is something that I'm,

you know, that as somebody who, you know,

forget the elected piece,

when I'm walking in my neighborhood,

or the trail and I see stuff that's illegally dumped,

I get so angry.

And I know my neighbors feel the same way

because they reach out to me,

putting my elected hat back on,

reach out to me as as as their representative and so this is good news on this on this report and i

appreciate the work staff's doing on on on the front thank you thank you councilmember condellis

vice chair duan thank you chair thank you for keeping up with this uh keeping our neighborhood

clean and but also I share the same segment with my colleagues is that these illegal dumping is

is getting out of continue to be out of hands if you were to quantify the amount of money that we

spent on picking up uh you know the garbage from illegal dumping meaning staff time vehicle

maintenance the cost and so on per year what would that number be just on the

legal dumping side alone just that one line item it's five million dollars on

the on the clean our neighborhood side of the house it's an additional five

million dollars when you look at it in terms of the creeks and waterways but

for that one line item five million dollars so it's cost us about five

million dollars per year. I would imagine if we took some of that money and we

spent on, you know, well back to code enforcement or convict some of these

illegal dumpers, it probably saved us quite a bit of money in the end because

it's, I would imagine it's the same person. Most of the time they'll do the

same thing and the reason I say that is I you know around my neighborhood

recently I've asked to you know to install a couple of sign illegal

dumping how much it costs and so on and and it curbs some of it but certainly I

see it picked up again and I went out there and I put on a pair of gloves and

some boots and I went through the garbage and and sure enough it's it's a

house not even a block away. And so I go, okay, we'll see, you know, we'll wait a few weeks. And

sure enough, the next week and the week after that, it's the same people. So I finally went

over that house and I said, hey, by the way, you know, we have the neighbors' complaints about

people dumping here. And for the last few weeks, I happened to be your council member, and I

I picked out and looked in the garbage and it actually have your address and your mailing

and your boxes with your address on it.

And so the person said, well, people probably stole my garbage and just took it out there.

But in the end, I walked the owner of that house over to the dump site and said, look,

I just want you to clean this up and not do it again.

And I took pictures and I kept it just in case it didn't clean up.

And sure enough, since then, that spot is clean.

And I know it's the same person.

But I think it's come down to some type of visual affirmation saying that you're the one.

We can attach a fine or not.

But just to let them know it's not okay.

because the neighbor that he dumped the garbage behind

is so fed up that all the flies

and the stinkiness of the garbage out there,

they can't even go out to the backyard.

And it's impede upon all of our lives.

And I think that if we can just put some of that money

into either enforcement or conviction

of these illegal dumpers anyway that's enough of my I'll get off my soapbox but

I just want to say you know we all do the best that we can but we can always

have a lot of room for improvement thank you thank you vice chair before we vote

just want to give some comments want to thank staff for their thoughtful update

and for the work going into this very crucial initiative I'm excited that's an

understatement I am extremely excited about the launch of the chronic offender

resolution and enforcement pilot for years our residents in East San Jose

have lived with the impacts from chronic blight caused by absentee property

owners the same ones we're talking about who repeatedly ignore their

responsibilities to keep their neighborhoods clean I believe this pilot

is the exact kind of escalated level of enforcement and accountability approach

that our neighborhoods have been asking for so really really excited for that earlier this year

as you know I pushed for increased fines and stronger enforcement tools for repeat violators

and that work came directly from my experience speaking to residents who are near some of these

derelict properties whether it's illegal dump dumping hot spots or you know small businesses

that refuse to maintain their their sites and so seeing this pilot move

forward where cases are identified early escalated faster and resolved more

effectively gives me hope that we are on the right track with that said I do have

a few questions can you walk us through the criteria staff is using to determine

which chronic offenders are brought into the pilot and whether those

selections are being distributed evenly or or being distributed in areas that

have the greatest need thank you for the question so we're planning to prioritize

or target new incoming cases so that can be anywhere in the city when they come

in they're going to be evaluated based on the criteria so the criteria would be

that they've had more than one case in the last three years for a certain set of violations that

we're focusing on. It could also be a property owner that has had cases with violations on

multiple properties that they own. So our support staff that does the intake will review these cases

for that criteria. It'll go to a supervisor who's going to affirm their assessment. That way we're

making sure we're catching the the cases we want to run through this program and then they will um

they will be sent a letter um right out of the gate letting them know that they're part of this

program they'll get 30 days we'll go out and do the inspection if they're in violation they'll

get 30 days to comply a flat 30 days and if they're not in compliance we move immediately to

legal action or compliance order whichever is appropriate and they will also be notified that

that they will now be in the chronic offender resolution enforcement program for two years

and they would have to demonstrate compliance before they can come out of that program for

12 months or more.

So it's a much more, a higher level, a higher threshold that they're being held to compared

to other cases and counterparts.

Great.

Thank you for answering that question.

For these chronic offenders who've had multiple notices of violations, do we expect to see

improvements in these type of cases based on the pilot?

And how fast do we expect to see some of them?

Well, there will still be a process that will require steps, and depending on the path

it goes down, and if it goes down a compliance order path, we'll still have to go to the

board to assess fines and penalties.

or goes through the legal action path,

we'll still need to go to court and do all those things.

But yes, we do expect, I think two things are really critical,

is one, getting that compliance more quickly,

hoping that they're more motivated to bring it into compliance,

and then once we get compliance, maintaining that over time

is kind of the two main goals.

Great. Thank you.

And also, you know, this is a pilot,

so it's not going to be permanent.

and so what what are we hoping that this pilot proves and how may this change the

way we do business as usual whether that's code enforcement or beautify sj

and what sort of resources may we need in order to actually scale this because

I know thinking about you know these derelict property owners or individuals

who are you know chronic offenders we could fill this program in my district

growing District 7 easily. So how do we really make it so that we can see

widespread results? Yeah so I think it's going to be really important that we're

learning from the pilot and doing that analysis as we go I think some of the

things right now it's going to be absorbed by the entire general code team

so we're trying we'll be looking at is this something that can be absorbed or

do we actually and are we making the traction that we intended to or is this

something that will have to be resourced separately because it does require that added level of time

and attention. It will also impact the city attorney's office because of the efforts that

we've been really, you know, the goals we've been working towards and pushing towards over the past

year, year and a half. They, our attorney that used to do transaction and litigation for us,

they've now added a litigating attorney to support code and a backup transactional attorney to

support code because we're pushing and moving so many things through our process and over

to the attorney's office.

So I do expect that to also impact them.

Everybody sitting here with me today also helps code enforcement.

So it could have some impacts to other partners as well.

But that's exactly what we're going to be doing through the pilot is trying to understand

is it achieving the outcomes we're seeking?

What is the impact to staff?

And what are the resources will be needed to continue this work for?

And are there any changes we need to make to make sure we're meeting our goal?

Great.

And sorry if you repeated this, but how long is the pilot,

and when may we, like, start learning about some of the results?

Yeah.

So we think, you know, we need to run it at least six months to see some real results,

but we are planning to provide a status report as part of our annual report to this committee in April,

just so you kind of have a gauge of how we're tracking so far.

Wonderful.

I also want to remind us that we're also completing an operational assessment, right?

And so this pilot will also help inform that product, right?

Because we're looking at our entire service delivery model around code enforcement.

So if we begin to, you know, through this pilot, if we learn that there are certain patterns,

there are certain profiles, there are certain that requires a certain level of maybe a strike team

or whatever it is, that will help inform our ultimate service delivery model for code enforcement,

which is under review right now.

So I just wanted to note that for the record.

Great, appreciate that.

Thank you, Angel.

Thank you, Rachel.

Thank you to our staff, everyone who has fingerprints

on this very important pilot.

I think this is a great step in the right direction.

Our residents are counting on this.

So I look forward to seeing some early results

from this pilot and next steps.

Thank you so much.

Let's do the vote.

Did we have a motion for this?

Oh, we haven't had a motion.

accept the report that motion passes unanimously awesome thank you so much

that brings us to item number three parks and recreations master plan and

community impact report

all right good afternoon John Cicerelli director parks recreation neighborhood services again we

have our report on our community impact report as well as our master plan report that we're

combining together we are aware you know we're going a little long in this meeting so we'll try

to get through the presentation quickly with me is Amanda Rodriguez our public

information manager man you want to take it away thank you John as John mentioned

in the interest of time I'm going to focus the presentation on just a couple

of slides today but you have all of the information in your packet and if you

have any questions we're happy to answer them so today you're going to receive

three important updates from the department an update on our work related

to a potential 2026 ballot measure to fund park maintenance,

an update on a new master plan to identify a more equitable way

to spend park fees, and you have a copy of our 2025

community impact report, which provides an overview

of our department's impact and also satisfies council policy

1-21 to report on the department's cost recovery.

Sorry, while I skip forward a couple slides.

Okay, so parks are funded in several different ways, including construction and conveyance

taxes and development impact fees.

Each of these support the development of new parks or major renovations in parks.

While CNC can support a small amount of maintenance, development fees cannot be used for maintenance.

The general fund supports park maintenance and operations, and of course the department

leverages grants, gifts, and partnerships to supplement some of our costs.

The department received council direction to explore new funding mechanisms for park

maintenance because, as you all know, the general fund is subject to economic fluctuations

and once budget cuts are made, it's hard to recover and build back those resources.

In addition, if day-to-day park maintenance isn't met, it can lead to higher costs as

deferred maintenance can get worse.

At its peak in 2003, there were nearly 230 employees taking care of almost 1,500 acres

of developed parkland.

By 2025, there are now about 180 employees taking care of 1,800 acres of parkland.

This represents a 19% reduction in staffing alongside a 22% increase in acreage.

To help build this gap, the department has brought on contract resources to provide the equivalent of 12 FTEs and custodial services for restrooms and to maintain 150 acres of pocket parks.

And while these contracts offer necessary support that the department needs to upkeep parks, they still represent a 14% reduction in staffing alongside a 12% increase in acreage over the last two years.

In addition, contracts require adequate sustained funding to keep pace with park needs and the community's expectations for their parks.

To further illustrate the challenge for park maintenance, here's a chart comparing San Jose's investments in park maintenance with those of the 15 most populous cities in California.

On this list, San Jose ranks 15th at $37 per resident, and these costs for each city are inclusive of contract resources to help meet the needs of communities.

In September, we surveyed over 1,000 voters in San Jose about park maintenance and funding.

In this survey, we learned that 75% of voters agree that there is a need for more funding for park maintenance.

and that 72% of voters support investments going to neighborhoods that need it most

versus going to the park next to their house.

When asked conceptually about a $0.02 per square foot parcel tax,

so not specific ballot language, but whether they support the concept of a parcel tax,

that support drops down to 54%.

A parcel tax needs 66.6% to pass on a ballot,

But what's most interesting about the survey is that 21% of voters who responded undecided on this question is the fact that it was 21% of voters who responded undecided on this question.

That number is usually closer to about 10% when you're polling on ballot measures, which means there could be an opportunity to engage the 21% of undecided voters on a parcel tax or another type of tax for park maintenance.

So, we've been exploring a parcel tax to fund park maintenance for several years now, and this year we're looking into the potential of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax to fund park maintenance and recreation scholarships.

The potential of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax, or SSB for short, is hopeful because anecdotally the community has been more receptive to this in our outreach over the last several months, meaning that the 21% of undecided voters referenced on the previous slide could be more interested in supporting SSB, especially because this type of tax provides more choice than something people feel is being forced on a property tax bill.

In other words, people can choose whether or not they pay this tax by drinking or not drinking sugary beverages.

The County of Santa Clara's Public Health Department reached out to our department earlier this year with data that shows an SSB tax in San Jose could reduce childhood obesity and chronic diseases associated with sugary drinks.

In addition to the health care savings the county could see, the City of San Jose could generate additional revenue to fund park maintenance and scholarships that support healthy communities.

Passing an SSB tax in San Jose is not without its challenges.

Just last fall, voters in Santa Cruz voted to pass a SSB tax last fall, but the city is being sued right now.

So we're monitoring that lawsuit with our colleagues in the city attorney's office, and their first court date is expected in March 2026, so a lot more to come on this.

Additional funding for park maintenance would increase the investment per resident.

A two-cent per ounce tax on a sugar-sweetened beverage is estimated to generate approximately $27 million per year in the city of San Jose, or about $65 per.

So that would bring our total investment in park maintenance per resident up to $65 per resident.

A one cent per square foot parcel tax would generate $37 million per year, bringing that investment up to $75 per resident.

And a two cent per square foot parcel tax could generate $74 million per year, or bringing that total up to $113 per resident.

Of course, these are just estimates and a lot more to come on this.

So we're engaging the community to one celebrate the pride that they have in their parks because people love their parks in San Jose

But also to educate neighborhoods about our resource challenges and how parks would improve with additional funding for maintenance

This includes getting feedback on any potential spending plans for additional revenue that is brought in by a potential measure

This the next neighborhood forum is happening Saturday

January 31st at the Southside Community Center from 9 to 11 a.m. you are all

invited to join the discussion where we'd be talking about potential spending

plans and how we could improve parks together with our residents and then

additional polling is necessary and if any revenue option is viable the

administration will bring forward recommendations during the budget

process. The next update is related to the creation of a new park and recreation master plan.

We received council direction to revise how park fees are distributed in San Jose.

The current model is creating major inequities because areas with more residential development

receive more fees, leading to more funding to support new parks and update amenities.

Over the past 10 years, District 6 has generated over $53 million in park fees,

and District 3 has generated over $80 million, while all other districts have only generated $1 to $7 million.

To address this and change policy, we will create a new master plan.

The master plan will accomplish many things for the department, but most importantly,

we'll be engaging the community on the most equitable way to distribute park fees in San Jose.

This will be a two-year process, and we really look forward to working with your offices

and residents in the community to advance this work.

And finally, we're excited to share the 2025 Community Impact Report with you.

I do have hard copies to hear today that I can pass out.

In addition to just a collection of stories and photos from the past fiscal year

that demonstrates our impact on the community,

this report also satisfies the requirement to report on the department's cost recovery.

It also provides an annual update on our Activate SJ strategic plan.

And with that, John and I can take any questions.

Great. Thank you so much for your presentation.

I wanted to open up for any public comment we have one speaker card for Chris G and Greco

please make your way down to the podium you will have two minutes to speak thank you

I don't see anyone making their way down back to the committee all right thank you so much

we'll start with councilmember Condellas thank you for the for the report and you know parks is

is something that, you know, obviously is something near and dear to my heart and something

I always talk about in this committee. I did want to, before I actually get into my points,

I wanted to actually uplift one of the items on the last slide that you glossed over, but

I think is really important, is the volunteer hours. And, you know, this past weekend, this

Sunday, I did one of the VMU. I participated in a volunteer management unit activation

and clean up at a park, and, you know, we all, like all of us, we participate every weekend.

But it's important for residents out there to realize and know that the cumulative effort

amounts to 130,000 hours that volunteers have put in at a value of $5.2 million.

dollars and so you know that's the quantifiable data point that we can point to and I'm not

talking about you know what the the unquantifiable of neighbors seeing neighbors beautify their own

park and and the community pride that it builds so kudos to the parks team and the park maintenance

team for for their work in this department you know I will say John every time we meet I bring

up parks maintenance and that's one of those reoccurring things that you know you and I both

agree on and and the you know quite frankly it's it's the the embarrassing fact that per capita

we are spending you know an embarrassing amount and so you know but glass half full by nature

that's who I am and that's what I do one of my one of my residents recently told me well Domingo

somebody has to be the most efficient. So I guess that's an opportunity for us, given the resource

constraints that we have. But I want to challenge staff to think creatively, especially as we are

exploring potential funding revenues or funding mechanisms to see how we can not be embarrassing

in the amount of money we're putting into our parks maintenance system. And curious as to why

we aren't exploring or aren't seeing anything to like raising taxes on like corporations or like

a big business tax. Not small business, like the big business stuff. There was a recent PPIC poll

that showed a 60% support amongst Californians that happened last month in support of this.

And I'm sure if the funding is dedicated and or there is a direct nexus to it going towards improving the conditions of our parks and subsequently the livelihood of folks who work at these companies that we want to, you know, attract here.

I'm sure staff is creative enough to be able to show the nexus there.

But I just, you know, the beverage, the sweetened beverage tax, great.

That's an opportunity.

But it's also regressive, especially amongst, you know, historically disadvantaged communities who largely, you know, have, you know, the Latino health assessment told us that we have worse health outcomes, especially with regards to diabetes and health issues.

but it's because we are big consumers of, you know, the Pepsis and the Coca-Colas with our pan dulce.

And so I'm optimistic to see how we can lower those negative health outcomes

or increase our positive health outcomes.

But the sales taxes, I know folks are getting hammered with sales taxes right now,

and there's a lot of uneasiness around the regressive nature that is a sales tax.

So throwing that out there for staff to evaluate and to ponder.

And then the last thing I'll talk about is I am really, really excited about this education campaign.

Aside from going and doing, like, you know, these workshops and the community engagement,

I think we should also be very, very prescriptive into the key stakeholder groups that we're engaging,

the chambers, that we're engaging the unions, so the workforce, we're engaging the environmental

groups, we're engaging all these different buckets of key stakeholder groups that all

have buy-in to the idea that we want better parks.

And so in addition to a broader public campaign, I think we also have to have a concerted effort

to identify these key stakeholder groups, because ultimately, whatever package we put

together to be able to sell to residents uh we're going to need a robust coalition of people a

coalition of the willing you know to to use that phrase of folks who would be supportive of of of

of this measure so um i appreciate the work and and um uh and yeah uh with that i'll move acceptance

of the staff report second all right thank you councilmember appreciate your comments uh vice

chair Dwan thank you very much I know it's a it's it's a daunting task to take

on over 200 parks plus the regional and then 10 regional and then 65 miles of

trails how many parks do we have what you call public and private collaboration

out of those numbers thanks for the question council member I don't have the

number off top my head but it's a small number we call them a popos right or

publicly operated and privately owned and publicly open but the but it's it's

usually in association with a development so a development that has to

pay park fees but they want it to be part of their development but they still

have to have a public amenity and so that's typically where we see those

happen so it's not very common most of the parks you're going to see in the in

the community are not that on downtown Cesar Chavez Park I believe Jay Paul is

sponsoring of beautifying that particular park I would imagine there

There's many other large companies like J-Paul or Cisco would be more than happy to adopt the park.

But I think we need to sell ourselves and why we need this partnership.

But I don't think we haven't really done a great job at selling why they need to be part of the community.

And I think when we do, we'll find out there's a lot of companies out there willing to lend a hand and be our partner.

And I'm hoping that you will find some way to, or someone within your department that is passionate about our parks and just make phone calls.

I think that would pay us dividends.

Secondly, I believe in this, the equity formulation.

We look at District 6 is $55 million and District 3 is $88.

I think it should go into a pot because it doesn't matter what park you go to,

it's a pride of San Jose.

It doesn't have to be just downtown.

For example, in District 7, there are about 4 million visitors a year.

And a lot of people get a little disappointed because some of these park, but I know that

we're working awfully hard to get the Japanese Friendship Garden back to where it is.

It's an iconic spot right here in the city of San Jose in District 7.

But we need to have that equity to make sure that we spread the wealth,

making sure that every single park,

because every single citizen out there paying the same tax, right?

We should deserve to have the same clean, vibrant, safe park that our community deserve.

And I know that I'm glad that you guys did the polling to see how the resident feel about, you know, that two cents or one cent partial.

And I'm hoping that when the time come, when we ask our homeowner to support us, we better give them the reason why.

we better give them the vision when we get that funding how it's going to look

like and and I you know I just want to say thank you and I know it's extremely

difficult with all the parks and and and the 65 miles of trail but I know that

you guys are doing a really good job so thank you

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Councilmember Cohn.

Thank you.

I want to start by just thanking your team for the work that they do with limited staffing

and limited resources.

I just received an email today from your Deputy Director with a list of specific responses

to concerns I have in parks in my district.

I know that they are trying really hard to keep the parks maintained with the limited

resources that we give them to do so.

that's the first thing I want to call out and before councilmember Dewan comes

for our developer tax money I know I'm just obviously obviously there's

probably a redistribution that that needs to happen I will just you know I'm

hopeful that obviously now the developments happen history for that our

number is going to go up as well there probably should be some sharing but we

also know that there's certain parcels around the city that as development

happens need to be built into parks. The idea is with a lot of new development

there needs to be more open space and I'll always point out that with North

San Jose with the number of residents the amount of park land per number of

residents is still pretty small and we also have that 30 acres at Agnews that

is kind of sitting and we're waiting to develop. So just you know want to keep

that in mind. I'm as a glass half empty kind of person I mean a glass half full

kind of person today. At least today I'll be a glass half full-blown person. It looks

like in your poll it was about 25 percent disapproval on the idea of a tax. So while

it says 54 percent, the fact that there's 21 percent under five-sided means it's only

25 percent opposed. That's actually a fairly good starting point for a parcel tax measure.

But I just wanted to ask a question about how that was framed. I think people are confused

when they hear one cent, two cent per square foot.

And so was the, did the poll ask questions

and explain exactly what that would mean

to the average resident?

A person with a 2,000 square foot home

at two cents a square foot is being asked

for $40 a year in a parcel tax.

So I mean, it was, were people asked the question

about a 30, $40 a year level,

or was it, did they have to do the math?

So they have to do the math in polling,

but part of our education right now is breaking that down and helping people do that math.

Because the one cent is a $20 a year commitment from residents, from property owners.

I mean, that's a, for the average, you know, an average home size in the city,

or probably most, many homes are smaller than 2,000 square feet.

So I just, the idea that 50% of the voters would say no to pay $20 a year

to have improved parks in their community surprises me if they really knew that number.

Yeah, the calculation that we're working on with residents is it's not the square footage of your home, but the square footage of your lot.

And the average lot size in San Jose is about 6,000 square feet.

Okay, so $60 a year for one cent.

Exactly, so $5 a month.

See, so I couldn't even do the math myself.

$10 a month for that two cent.

Okay, but still, I think it's important the $60 a year, you know, versus some nebulous numbers is worth pulling on something more specific maybe at some point.

But I am encouraged, and even that one cent number gives us a significant boost on our current funding levels and might be worth pursuing.

Even that we had 25% opposition at a two cent level, one cent may be something that's doable.

And I, you know, find parcel taxes to be often a fairer and cost-effective way to do things

as opposed to going after sales taxes one time after another.

As pointed out, sales taxes are not the fairest approach in many cases.

So anyway, I want to thank you for continuing to pursue it.

I hope that we'll be able to get there on that approach in the near future.

Great. Thank you.

oh can I just make a quick comment yes because it came up both from council

Mordone and Cohen in the polling we also asked them this is to the

redistribution model we also asked them do you do you have to have that

investment only incur in your park or are you okay if it went to the parks with

the most need and overwhelmingly they said to the most need right so that

redistribution model showed up in the polling as we're okay with that so just

want to let you know but the question was parks with the most need not

necessarily communities with the most need right yeah yeah we're talking about

specific so a park that has a major need or something like that yeah that's the

way we would envision the master plan is it essentially is a rating system where

you can prioritize okay this is the park that is in the worst condition has the

most problems needs the most investment you start there okay I mean I would

imagine that of course there's probably many people who think yes of course

because the one down the street for me is the one with the most need well we

asked them to compare theirs to it being distributed somewhere else so we were

asking all right thank you all right thank you so much to my colleagues for

their comments I also want to thank staff for the thoughtful update and just

your ongoing work on the master plan and the community impact report I just want

to begin by recognizing what our parks teams continue to do and accomplish

under incredibly challenging conditions our staff are doing a lot with a very

little and their commitment to keeping our parks functioning deserves real

appreciation I'm also glad to see us moving towards solutions that

acknowledge the disparities in our park system and begin addressing them at a

city level one thing I especially value in this report is the explicit

acknowledgement that our current structure in which park investments

follow development has created deep inequities for parts of the city like

East San Jose where we have also a high usage of the parks as the memo shows

neighborhoods with little new resident residential construction have received

far fewer dollars while high growth areas receive the overwhelming share of

fees and I want to be clear I absolutely want every district including district

three and six to have beautiful high quality parks every family deserves that

but the disparities laid out in this report are staggering and when we look

at how park fees have been collected and distributed over the past decade the

disparities are clear council district 5 East San Jose has generated just 1.9

million in park fees over the last 10 year period in contrast to other

districts on the chart it's not just a gap it's a it's a canyon and that's why

I'm encouraged to see the master plan moving forward I know this stemmed from

a memo that my colleagues councilmember Candela's former councilmember Jimenez

and I authored for the 2024 mayor's March budget message and our goal was

straightforward to begin correcting long-standing structural inequities

and ensure that all neighborhoods regardless of development patterns

receive the park investments that they deserve and now with this master plan we

will finally have a legal foundation to update policy and redistribute park

resources based on need not just where development happens and looking ahead I

I am especially excited to learn more about the potential park revenue measure or a potential sugar-sweetened beverage excise tax or a tax the corporation's tax.

Don't tempt me with a good time.

This is all something our city desperately needs.

With staggering maintenance backlog and a system that has far outgrown its funding, dedicated revenue isn't just helpful.

It's actually essential.

And so a 2026 ballot measure could finally give us a long-term stable funding required

to reverse decades of underinvestment and truly sustain our parks for the future.

So I look forward to this conversation.

I definitely look forward to the budget process,

and I'm going to be laser-focused on this topic as this moves forward.

Did we have a motion yet?

We did? Okay.

Let's move forward with the vote.

That motion passes unanimously.

Awesome.

Great.

Two more very important items everyone.

That now leads us to item four, park impact ordinance and parkland dedication ordinance

fees and capital improvement program annual report.

All right.

Check this out.

Mm hmm.

Ooh.

Ah.

So we're going to get started on this presentation.

John just kind of needed a bio break.

My name is Raymond Costantino, and I am the Deputy Director

over the capital division, and I'm here joined by my teammates, Sarah Sellers, the division

manager, and Pam Velasco, our program manager over the capital budget.

I have a condensed and shortened presentation due to time constraints, so I'll be skipping

a few slides in the presentation.

So today I'll be providing a brief presentation on the annual report for the park impact fee

ordinance and the park parkland dedication ordinance also known as the PDO and PIO or the

park trust fund for fiscal year 2026 through 2030 the annual report on the PDO PIO

fee collections informs the NSC and the community regarding developer related revenue fees

and informs the committee

and the community regarding developer-related revenue fee collections.

This is an abbreviated version of the report,

so I'll be jumping over a few slides, as I mentioned.

Here's the next slide.

The department oversees $423 million

and funded projects over the CIP's five-year period

from 2026 through 2030 to plan, design,

rehabilitate and construct new parks, trails, community centers, and other recreational facilities.

This report provides an overview and update on the key capital improvement projects funded by these fees,

which were completed in fiscal year 2425, as well as those advancing forward into construction in fiscal year 2526.

This staff report on the CIP provides an overview and status of funding sources for capital projects,

including internal sources like the PDOPIO, construction and conveyance tax known as CNC

and Measure P as well as external sources including grants and local, state, federal

level and then FEMA as well as Cal OES reimbursements.

In our current five-year capital improvement program for fiscal year 26 through 30, we

had approximately 180 active park projects that totaled $423 million for the five-year

period. This includes parks, trails, community center projects. A snapshot of some of the

last year's projects includes five playground renovations, including one all-inclusive playground,

one new dog park, seven pickleball courts, approximately 12 new acres of newly developed

park land, 1.9 miles of paved trails.

Also, at community centers, this work includes three HVAC replacements, five restroom renovations,

as well as the Camden Community Center installation of the Emergency Operations Center, and general

enhancements at the Alma Community Center.

In regards to the PDOPIO revenue, which we are required to report annually based on state

legislation called the Mitigation Fee Act, last fiscal year, 24-25, we collected $4.9

million in PDOPIO fees, plus an additional $4.9 million in interest from the fund for

a total of $9.8 million.

This slide also shows what was collected in prior fiscal years.

In fiscal year 23-24, we collected $21.9 million, and in fiscal year 22-23, we collected $15.4 million.

This drop in revenue is consistent with the downturn in the residential housing market that we have all witnessed,

which is how the PDOPIO fees are generated.

and another source another large source of funding for park capital projects and maintenance

is the construction and conveyance tax which consists of two types of revenue generated by

by the city one is construction tax levied on most types of construction projects and the second

is a conveyance tax levied on real estate sales. Of the CNC tax, 64% is dedicated towards PRNS.

In fiscal year 24-25, we received $39 million in actual revenue compared to the initial $43

million that was adopted, or rather projected earlier on. In comparison to prior years,

the actuals show a slight uptick. However, when comparing it with adopted projections,

which shows staff's conservative approach to forecasting revenue due to fluctuating and unpredictable real estate sales and construction activity.

If you take a wide lens view comparing to prior years, CNC revenues have dropped since 2021 when we collected the high of $64.5 million in CNC revenues.

So today's actuals of $39 million are quite a drop in CNC revenues.

As I mentioned, this is a brief presentation, and these are the central points of the staff memo.

This concludes my presentation.

If you have any specific questions on the memo, staff is here to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Shall we open it up for public comment?

We have one card for Chris Giangreco.

Please make your way down to the podium.

You will have two minutes to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I apologize for not making it down here at the last agenda item I was up talking with

the deputy chief of police on an important matter but what you have here is a package

that is the Winchester Orchard Neighborhood Association's formal request to the city that

they do everything they can basically to correct the urban village boundary

disparity that exists with the new Winchester Orchard Park. I'm not, sir I'm

not, is this related to the item we're discussing today? From a park standpoint

I believe so. Maybe we wait till open forum for this comment. You'd prefer that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because we can only take comments directly related to the item but there's

an open forum opportunity at the end of the meeting. There's an open forum

opportunity at the end of the meeting thank you and we'll make sure that we

hear your comments sir thank you okay thank you so much wanted to open up to

my colleagues if anybody has any questions I'll move to accept the report

great thank you so much I do just have a quick question this is you know

something I just thought about I know that a lot of our conversations in

regards to incentives for development has been focused on waiving or reducing park impact

fees. Has the department looked at potentially deferring impact fees and how that may impact

some of the projects you guys work on?

Sure. On a case-by-case basis, we do do that.

Oh, on a case-by-case basis?

Yeah.

What if we did-

It's often at the request of the developer.

Sure. If the developer brings it up and we see it as a hardship, we'll work with them to do that kind of stuff.

Okay.

What if that was our approach to development? Would that cause a lot of hardship for the work that you guys do?

What if that was like our standard approach to development, to defer it?

I'm sorry. It wouldn't hurt from the standpoint of collecting revenue, although over time, obviously, money loses value.

in addition one of the things that can cause is if the development isn't also

going to deliver a park with it then we would have to wait until the development

is finished and people are moving in and then build a park and so it creates

problems in fact your colleagues sitting to your left Councilmember Cohen can

tell you how this goes it does not go well sometimes where now a whole

development's been built everybody's moved in and everybody stares at a patch

of dirt for two or three or four years saying why isn't my park being built

why is my park being built because the development process once we get the money now we can start

design now we can start all these other things which just takes a lot of time as you know capital

projects do so it has some of that risk in it we try to mitigate for that risk but but we do try to

cooperate with them when we can to help them have it on the back end instead of earlier in the process

okay great i'll take that conversation offline thank you thank you so much we'll move for the vote

That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Now we're going to go to item number five,

Animal Care and Services Annual Report.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

we're happy to wrap up a very long meeting for you with some very interesting information about

animal care and services I think this is an interesting juxtaposition and book ending the

beginning of the meeting and the end of the meeting with our unhoused at the beginning and

our animals that don't have homes right now and our work with them at the same time so with me

is Monica Wiley our new deputy director of animal care and services six weeks six weeks

So plus or minus six weeks.

And then I have Kiska Icard and Dr. Elizabeth Cather,

both from the shelter and the medical side of the operation.

So we'll walk through our slides,

and I'm happy to take any of your questions.

Good afternoon.

As we want to start with our animals,

And here's just a snapshot of some of our animal success stories.

A couple of them I'll point out is Mu Dang.

And he was this very deformed pit bull, Frenchie, who knows,

that somebody was filling up their truck at a service station,

and they came out, and Mu Dang happened to be in the back of his truck.

and he could not walk and actually needed this stroller to be able to be carted around in.

And he came to a lot of our off-site community events

and actually ended up getting adopted by a family that had had wheelchair dogs before.

And another animal success story I'd like to point out is Lily,

and she is that great Dane puppy with the super long legs

and was placed into foster care with somebody that really did a lot of socialization,

knowing that she was going to grow to be over 100 pounds,

and was adopted by her foster family.

And she has also obtained her Canine Good Citizen Certificate,

and they hope to use her as a therapy dog in the future.

here is a high level overview of our shelter activities and so we adopted out over 4,600

animals last fiscal year adopt fostered out nearly 3,000 animals as well as reunited 1141 strays

pets with their families and we're very proud that we have a 43 percent redemption rate for

all of our dogs so out of all the dogs that come to us and brought into by good samaritans or found

in the field 43 percent of them will be reunited with their owners so that's a very significant

metric unfortunately for cats it's a very low percentage which is why we try to encourage people

that find cats to look in their neighborhood because odds are the cats are not too far away from home.

I'll pass it on to Dr. Kather.

These are just some of the highlights of surgeries that happen five days a week at the San Jose Animal Shelter.

You can see in the top right, that's part of our trap neuter release program,

which we are operating two days a week.

we book out 35 and because of the nature of TNR we get sometimes 35 sometimes a bonus 38

sometimes 20 but they are all in humane traps brought in in the morning sterilized ear tipped

vaccinated microchipped and picked up the next day for the person to recover and then release

back to the colony the next day that dog the x-ray on the bottom believe it or not that is

actually a big stone in that dog's bladder. So the dog came in with bloody urine, took the x-ray,

and were shocked that the stone was almost the entire size of the bladder. One of the part-time

vets hadn't done a cystotomy yet, so she was very excited about this teaching, learnable

opportunity for surgery. The stone was successfully removed, the dog recovered, and eventually got

adopted.

And this chart indicates our numbers of calls for services that our field unit has experienced

the last fiscal year.

And so we are seeing an increase after a two-year drop in the number of calls for service of

the community.

And so we've received another about 2,000 additional calls this year versus fiscal year

23-24.

And that is, even though that we had one less contract city, we did not have Los Gatos for

this year, but we're still seeing an increase in people calling us and asking for help and

assistance from our field services team.

One thing we're noting and tracking, because of the amount of activity that was noted in

the first presentation about the movement of homeless individuals in our

community where there's a hypothesis that a lot of these are result of the

animals with homeless moving with them and so we're tracking and we're seeing

how many more interactions with police activity that we're having to support on

police calls and so forth for these different things and tracking this into

this year to see if we can find those metrics and see if we can address those

things and we're have some things in the works right now to try to address some

of those items

So for last fiscal year, our animal intake decreased by approximately 8%, and that was a strategic shift for animal care and services to better operate within our capacity for care.

in June on June 27th of 2024 we had 822 animals in our residence and last this past June 27th

2025 we had 408 so that's half the number of animals in our shelter and we did this through

a lot of community engagement and I'll talk a little bit about our kitten

decrease in the next slide, but I just wanted to assure everybody that the shelter is in a much

better state in terms of our capacity for care, more space for the animals, less stress for them,

and that is us working really hard at our intake unit and ensuring that the shelter is the right

place for that animal. If they have another potential place that they can go to, we're giving

resources and really embracing this current philosophy in animal welfare, which is right

place, right time, and right outcome, and making sure that the shelter is absolutely the right

place for the animal at that given time.

So now this is the animal intake by age.

So in our overall intake we had a 2% decrease for total cats, but actually that increase

is all attributed to less kittens coming in our shelter.

was actually a small increase in adult cat intake our total increasing

decrease in kitten intake is about six percent and last spring we really

launched a large-scale community engagement campaign explaining that mom

knows best if they're finding if community finds a little bottle little

kittens that may have just been born odds are moms in the area and that they can watch for mom

and attempt to reunite them because the kitten's best chance at survival is if they can be cared

for by mom and also the number of puppies that we have continues to increase and so we're close to

a five-year high on the number of puppies that are coming to us.

So although overall the dog numbers have decreased, the numbers of puppies coming into us have

increased, and we can surmise that that is attributed to a lack of affordable spade-neuter

services for dogs in the community.

For our animal outcomes, we have worked, like I said, very strategically over the last year

to try to ensure that animals have what they need.

Our live release rate for 24-25 was 89% overall.

We have a 95% live release rate for dogs, an 86% live release rate for cats,

and a 94% live release rate for small animals.

So we're really, we want to continue to work to get that number as high as possible,

but 89% live release rate.

We're pleased to see that that number is rising.

And this shows the outcome by type,

all the different pathways that animals make it out of the shelter.

And as you can see for adoptions,

adoptions continue to be a very robust, positive outcome for our animals.

and that is wonderful because these animals are out in our community.

They're spayed and neutered.

They're wonderful ambassadors for all the different types of animals

and breeds that we get into the shelter,

and we're really happy when an animal comes to us

and makes it back out into our community.

And this is an example of the variety of community support

that we receive. So up in the top left hand corner you'll see a little paper bag and it says

unweaned. So when we began our community engagement campaign with attempting to reduce the number of

kittens that without their mothers that were coming into the shelter we also created some

other ways that people could help in addition to fostering and one of those was that helping us to

make some kitten care packages so a Girl Scout troop made 50 of these bags and delivered them

to us and it had all of the supplies that were necessary to help somebody to care for kittens

for about a week's period of time. Over in the top right corner where it says student favorites

Los Altos High School, their art teacher assisted with a project and these students took some

of our long-term animals that we had promoted on the website and created these really beautiful,

unique pieces of art. And so if you come to the shelter, you can actually see those displayed

proudly around the shelter. And then right below that, you'll see a lot of food. We

We collaborated with Chewy, the pet supply company, and they donated, I think it was 15 pallets of food and supplies to San Jose Animal Care and Services.

And those supplies and food were restricted for community use specifically.

So we delivered some of the food to the EIHs.

We worked with some of our partner organizations to provide this food directly and supplies into the hands of the community.

So we were really happy to see that and to see the community get a boost for their pets.

These are some of the facilities improvements that we did over the past year.

And it's a little bit dark, but on the right where it says courtyard individual heating and cooling units,

we have these four cat rooms that sit outdoors and they it's difficult for us to regulate the

temperature as we do in the shelter so we installed these individual heating and cooling units but

there's a kitty perched on top there so she found that to be quite the space for her and it's

wonderful that we can have consistency in air temperature when it's in the winter months and

in the summer months as well. We also have a new electric vehicle and charging station

as now part of our fleet as our crown Victoria is getting up there in age as much as I love her.

I don't know how much more life that she has in her. As well as installing energy-efficient LED

lights, it has made such a difference not only in how much energy we're consuming but also just

they're much brighter for our spaces.

And also all of the kennels now have these covers on them.

And that was a big project because when you have over 170 kennels that have two sides to them,

these were all constructed in-house with our public work facilities team.

and this really is a big safety issue to ensure that dogs are not hopping out.

And it did happen where you would walk through the kennels and see a dog perched up on a kennel.

So it's really happy that we were able to complete this project.

Some of our other systems improvements is for our foster parents.

They now have the ability to schedule their own foster appointments for spay-neuter surgeries,

for vaccines and with over 3,000 animals in foster care on an annual basis you can imagine

how much assistance this has been to launch this that they can look at their own calendars and

schedule the appointments with what works for them. We've also begun reporting our average

length of stay for the past year on the website so that people can have more information about

how long we can expect any cat, dog, or small animal coming to us,

what their average time for them to be with us at the shelter.

And we also implemented these volunteer visual aids.

So it's, I'll just go through them really quickly, dog walking, cat socializing, laundry tasks,

kitten nursery, and dish duty.

And so these are some really nice visual infographics that make it very easy how-to and to follow for volunteers

and all of the ways that they help the shelter and the animals that we have with us.

And thank you to all of our volunteers.

And just a sampling of some of our community engagement efforts.

We had a Christmas tree at Christmas in the park, along with our pop-up that we had last year on San Carlos and Third Street.

And we have also been invited and taken animals out for bark in the ballpark with Santa Clara University,

as well as the Pucks and Paws events with the San Jose Barracudas and also participating in our city's health and wellness fairs.

And a couple of other notable community engagement is working with the San Jose Barracudas.

Last year we were actually featured as their calendar shelter, and our shelter pets were

in their calendar for this year.

Jamba Juice has been very kind to us and will bring over a box of smoothies for our staff

and volunteers, which always gives us a nice boost.

And also a nice mention for Coffee Companions.

Kevin Johnson, the founder of Coffee Companions, takes some of our long-term dogs out for really

long hikes, creates these wonderful videos, and he also comes and provides coffee for

some of our events and really helping to increase the visibility of some of our special needs dogs.

Okay, so a lot of that is looking back at some of the last year's things.

We have some things going on now that people have asked about,

and so though it's not directly in the annual report, it's a part of that that we talked about as well,

and so here we're talking about some of our TNR and owned animals.

so currently as of three weeks ago we had to switch days around so we are now providing

tnr services on mondays and on thursdays we just launched about a month ago low-cost surgery for

owned dogs. Our target with the soft launch is 10. It's been going quite smoothly. We're providing

spay-neuter microchip vaccines, getting them licensed if they're due for rabies

with discharge instructions. And then just recently, two weeks ago, we were able to add on

five owned cat appointments on our Thursday TNR days. So they're checked in in a similar way,

sign the waivers, and so we've been securing those.

And today was actually our second owned cat day, and we got all five that showed up.

They were big tomcats that I'm sure the owners are happy that are now neutered.

We have been trying to partner with the EIH when we started launching the owned-to-dog days

just to facilitate, while they're in these interim housings, to provide spay-neuter services.

We put a pause on that just because there's more organization that has to happen, but it's been working well.

So sort of December has been our pilot, working out the kinks.

And in January, we'll revisit not only the fee structure, but targeted areas of where we want to really reach out to provide the owned dog span-neuter services.

One of the focuses, the reason why the EIHs are important is there are animals in our

care of our housing department right now, and we have, you see there's 700 beds that

will be in that will be built this year.

As of right now, there's about 300 to 350 animals in our EIH complexes right now, and

so getting to those services and getting them is part of the key to getting them on to that

continuum of care that Eric Sullivan needs to do.

So we need to help them in that piece.

That's one of the reasons why it's a real focus.

In 2026, my goal is to have all animals altered that are in our EIHs by the end of the year,

and so it's a big lift.

The eye chart that no one can read and barely understand.

The audit, which everyone is very anxious about and curious about our performance on

it you'll note in the bottom left this is this is the status as of September 10th

and so I'll help translate a little bit in terms of what what the auditor views

in terms of our performance and I'll go through things in just a minute things

are not implemented until the auditor accepts what we've submitted to them so

just because we submitted it to them doesn't mean it's implemented and they

do that twice a year you've got the first one that happened in July August

time frame you have another report coming out in March and so we will not

have any more quote-unquote moved to implemented until the March report from

the auditor. We don't deem them as implemented, the auditor does. We submit

the things in and they wait for their review and then their report to you in

March that they're implemented. And so they're the adjudicating whether any of

these things are done. So you have all this IMP and PI, so partially implemented,

implemented, not implemented. So not implemented doesn't mean nothing's been

done, it just means nothing's even been worked or shown to the auditors yet. And

So they're not even tracking that we've given them any work at the time of this report.

Now, in the FR, it means we've submitted it to them.

They said we've given them what they want.

But if you look at like 20, there's A, B, C, and D.

We've submitted three of them.

They won't consider 20 implemented until all four are done.

So it's a little bit of an eye to help explain.

So in March, three of the areas were due.

All of them were submitted.

All of them were implemented in March.

in June we had a bunch more that were due that were submitted they were and then so you know but

not all implemented because the FR is meaning the entire element we thought was a little bit longer

so if you look at like 36 a was submitted to them they accepted that it was complete but b was not

submitted to them so they but they've seen some work on it so that 36 is not listed as implemented

so that's why you'll see what things are done and what things aren't done and so this is kind of how

we're explaining it. So now, what's due in December? A boatload of work. So we have about 21 of them

that are already ready to go packaged, ready to be submitted, and four that we're working on final

touches. That means by December 31st, we will have submitted to the auditor everything on this list

to review. In January, they'll be back and forth and back and forth with them until it's all

noodled, until it's exactly what they want. Once they accept the element that we have,

both this will get updated

and the website that we put up

that has all of the things that the auditors

have accepted, those will

be put on there after the auditor

accepts them, not because we put them up there

early, they might not like what we have there in terms of

answering what they recommended, doesn't answer

the question, isn't exactly right, doesn't give enough

detail, all of that will be implemented

and shared with them and will put on our website

once the auditor accepts them

we expect most of that to happen in

February-ish time frame in terms of

the update upload there but the auditor will report to council in March and then

it's that time that they'll tell you that they've accepted our stuff and it's

been moved to implemented I hope that makes sense but yeah a boatload of work

we're really close as of today we have about 21 of the items packaged ready to

go we have about four more that we're noodling on that we're pushing through

in terms of how we're wording it what we're packaging with it it will all be

submitted to the auditor by December 31st. No one's done this before. Looking

forward, one of the things I'm really glad about with Monica being here, she

gets fresh eyes on how we're doing, what's going on, she looks at the audit,

looks at our staff and so forth, and she gets this handed to her that this is your

work plan and the audit and so forth, but then again she has her opinions about

how things are going and she'll have ways to set that forward, so Monica please

Please take this away.

Thank you.

And it's good to see such a passionate group of people here.

So thank you.

And we all love animals.

And animal people are passionate people.

So definitely recognize that.

I do want to say that my first six weeks have been very busy.

I've been trying to meet with as many folks as possible, as well as work on the audit

and figure out the operational needs of the shelter as outlined and what I've observed.

I will say this is a very, very dedicated team that we do have on staff as well as the volunteer side,

and I am proud to be a part of it, and I am up to the challenge

because I know a lot of the community of San Jose wants better,

and we want to be there and provide the care for each other as well as for the animals

and keep San Jose a safe community and a welcoming community for the pets and their people.

That being said, in addition to everything on the audit, which actually highlights most of these items,

we're really looking at the community moving forward as part of part of the safety net because

we already know that the shelter isn't an island and we can't do it all by ourselves so there are

some systemic issues I think partially related to one that was addressed earlier with the housing

issue and so let's just make keep in mind that we're looking at the big picture and to have the

community involved as far as as to Kiska's point there there's what's called the four R's

right place right time right care which is definitely part of that capacity for care

and the right outcome for the animals in our community so that is definitely on the radar

and I'm aware of the best practices and all that and how to get us there with our protocols

So on here we see capacity management, which is capacity for care, C4C,

or any of those acronyms that are thrown about.

And we're definitely looking at that as part of the audit.

It's important to us too because, yes, we want the animals to have the best care that we can provide.

We want their needs to be met.

And the shelter is, by design, a temporary safe place for pets in need.

Shelters, and not our shelter for sure, if it's a shelter, again, is a safe place, temporary safe place.

Two weeks, anything above two weeks or longer than two weeks is usually considered long term.

long term and shelters aren't typically designed to keep animals that long because it's not

necessarily what's best for the animal so we are looking at that we're doing our enrichment

and we we do want to get them placed safely in good in in good condition healthy and in the

community and we also need support because the in inflow the intake now to to look at that

Last week, I think in two days, we had 42 dogs and puppies come through our doors.

42 in two days.

That's quadruple the amount we would get on a given regular day.

And so what do we do?

How do we balance that?

Why are they coming into us?

So we need to take a look at, you know, the whys.

And quite often I mention it's a systemic issue.

Is it because those breeds aren't allowed?

I'm new to the area love the area but when I was looking for my my rental location I wanted to find

one without breed restrictions I looked at I didn't physically look at 400 plus properties

but those popped up for me and I found three that might work so I'm just throwing that out there and

I know I already spoke to council member Ortiz about that a little bit that that's another thing

And that's a community thing.

What can we do?

The kitten piece, right, do we leave them?

We don't know if the mom's coming back.

We don't know yet, so we monitor.

That's best practices.

You know, check and see if the mom comes back.

Unless you actually, I think the words they use are,

unless you saw the mom get killed, leave them and monitor for 24 hours.

They tend to have a better outcome when they can be with their mom.

So that is part of that campaign.

Kiska mentioned last year and we'll be continuing that because that is the best place for them.

Also our training, that's part of our getting our SOPs, the best practices.

What does UC Davis say?

I've worked with Dr. Hurley, Dr. Levy, Dr. Delaney.

I've worked with all of them before.

So I feel comfortable that ASC, ACS, excuse me, is on the right track

and it would be great to have the time to implement all these practices, right?

So I know we have the audit and we're rewriting everything

and redoing all these amazing things.

The team's up to it.

We just need a little moment to breathe so that we can do our trainings

and move forward and elevate the care of the shelter animals

and the engagement in the community.

So that's all I have to do.

and again I'm up to the challenge I have seen this before I've done this before and when I saw

this opportunity I I was thrilled to participate because I I know it can be done and again with

the passionate animal advocates we have we can work together to make it happen and support each

other and do what's best for San Jose, the people and the pets in our community.

So that was my piece.

Thank you.

We'll stop with more animal pictures, all of our great social media work that's listing

all the people we put out about all the animals we have, and we're ready for your questions.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate this presentation and the work that's been done by our ACS staff.

Now I'd like to open it up for public comment.

but due to the large amount of cards we've received,

we will be limiting public comment to one minute.

Thank you.

Yes, we have 17 speaker cards.

Can the first group of speakers please line up

on the steps in front of the podium?

We have Mike Wagner, Fatima, Kathy, Rebecca,

Alexandra, Ann, Anna Spear, and Anna with two Ns.

You will each have one minute to speak.

timer is going to be projected above thank you

good afternoon my name is mike wagner last year at this time the committee accepted an

annual report that didn't even bother to include the average length of stay one of the most

important metrics for a high volume shelter and staff omitted it this year we see a claim

of a live release rate for cats of 86 percent.

I've calculated that number.

It's live outcomes divided by total outcomes,

and it looks like staff has gone against the wishes of the auditor

and the audit, page 60, which says stop taking a shelter service called TNR

and using it in your intake and outcomes.

On page 4, they say they've aligned themselves with the audit,

and they're no longer counting it as intake,

but they're counting it in return to field,

which is a live outcome.

How do we know that?

Because Dr. Cather sent a directive,

an order to her staff on December 26th of last year

saying outcome TNR always RTF.

That's how you inflate the live release rate.

The real live release rate is 81%, give or take it.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Fatima, long-time foster service.

For past year, you have received many photos

and first-hand reports demonstrating mismanagement

of the shelter, yet despite meeting after meeting,

you see the same results.

Over here, the current management team has failed us numerous time,

and I want to ask you guys to please listen to us,

all of our fosters over here and understand that we, as fosters, see firsthand of what

we do and what we see is different from what the reports are coming in.

It is not the same at all.

The management has failed numerous times for the past four years.

And I personally have emailed you guys pictures, evidence, documentations, and it's just a

big failure that they sit here and say everything is good and it is not and i want you guys please

please listen to us who take

thank you next speaker

i volunteered with dogs at both san jose animal center as well as humane society in milpitas the

The difference is night and day.

I urge you to visit the Humane Society yourself sometime

to see the difference.

I have two suggestions.

Number one, soundproof the dog pens completely.

That's what they do at Humane.

Due to the intense noise, the dogs are stressed,

and potential adopters see agitated, barking dogs,

which slows adoptions.

Number two, allow volunteers easy access

to enter and exit through the back of the dog rooms

for dog walks and cleaning.

It's not safe for visitors or the dogs

to force them out into the public areas for walks.

I've emailed, I will be emailing you pictures

and a little more explanation, and I will also send videos.

And I've put something in the written record.

Yes, this will cost money, but our area has some

of the wealthiest and most innovative corporations here.

There is no .

Thank you.

Next speaker.

My name is Ann DeShane.

I'm a resident of Willow Glen.

I have been coming here for almost two years to try

and get change at the San Jose Animal Care Center.

I was hopeful that positive change is happening when I saw

that two dogs that were on the euthanasia list had been reassessed

and are now up for adoption.

That is wonderful.

But unfortunately, there's still other areas

that the shelter .

Please press the button again.

Okay, the mic's on.

There are still people, I'm still seeing people on next door stating

that when they bring in stray dogs they're told they cannot accept them.

The public still does not have a way to find lost pets

because the shelter is not taking lost dog reports.

The medical care is still having issues.

I want to talk about Betty who was up on the picture.

She was a Persian cat that was found by a man who took her to the shelter.

She needed to be spayed and also have a mast cell tumor removed.

During her spay surgery, she aspirated and had complications,

which Persian cats are prone to have.

Two days later, Betty was put under again to have the mast cell tumor removed,

again aspirated, but this time she cannot be revived and died.

Why did she need the second surgery so close to the first?

With over 30 years of nursing experience, I know she cannot have recovered.

Thank you, that's your time next speaker

And committee members good afternoon

I'm a San Jose resident here to speak for animals with no voice

It has been a year since the audit and I am outraged

Despite an over 17 million dollar budget our shelters still deals with terrible overcrowding and no proper that care

New leaders and more money didn't fix the core problem.

The suffering has not stopped.

We demand this committee commit to five actions now for accountability.

One, open books, provide a full public audit of the entire $17.5 million budget.

Two, get real experts, establish an independent oversight board with certified vets and proven

rescue partners.

Three, sign contracts, create formal enforceable MOUs

with rescue groups, no more handshakes.

Four, stop the secrecy, mandate monthly public reports

on intakes, outcomes, and staffing.

Five, fund the care, fully staff and fund the shelter for...

Thank you, that's your time.

Next group of speakers to make their way down.

Elena Gaffney, Valentina please wait, Lynn Ramirez, Dinah Hayes, and Courtney Farrow.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Rebecca Davis Matthews.

I'm from Sustain Our Shelters.

Mr. Lesh previously committed to forming a community action committee made up of seven community members

who would meet with him regularly.

Much time has passed.

The committee still does not exist.

In a recent meeting I had with Mr. Lesh and Ms. Wiley, he stated the committee would not

be happening.

Instead, he has been meeting only with selected rescues and TNR volunteers, which is not what

he committed to.

I am asking this council committee to direct him to form the committee as promised, ensuring

it includes a true cross-section of the animal advocacy community.

I also ask you to consider moving San Jose Animal Care and Services back to Parks, Recreation,

and Neighborhood Services, where it was originally starting when the shelter opened in 2024 and

where it logically belongs.

Finally, please request a financial audit

of the Guardian Angel Program and SJACs.

Since nearly $700,000 in donations were collected

during the previous fiscal year

without detailed public expenditure records,

only a small fraction has been accounted for.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon.

My name is Anna and I am deeply concerned

about animal services, lack of oversight, and accountability.

I reported severe ethics violations to Director Loesch,

Deputy Director Wiley, and Animal Control Captain Jenkins.

These violations include Animal Control Officer Jack Hugh Fisher

gifting stolen animals to shelter volunteer Leslie Romo, retaliation,

a warrantless search and seizure outside of jurisdiction,

and ethics violations to numerous dinners.

I provided details, detailed and verifiable evidence,

and they have failed to take any disciplinary action

and will no longer respond to me, using an ongoing investigation

as a shield to dodge accountability.

It doesn't matter what task the shelter employee

or its associates are working on, they are responsible

for their misconduct and must be held accountable

for their transgressions.

Animal services can't succeed while leadership enables

and participates in corruption.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi.

Anna Spear.

I'm looking forward to working with you

and you have a big job ahead of you.

I am a neonate bottle feeder, have done it for years.

Last year before kitten season, I've actually bottle fed over 500 kittens.

Last year before kitten season, I went in, offered to do the training as I had in past years.

I was told thank you but no thank you because I was not currently fostering for the shelter.

I was not fostering for the shelter because there was a lot of things that were not going well.

I'm not going to go into specifics here, but there was a lot that needed to be done.

Since then, a lot of kittens were not being cared for correctly because there was a one-size-fits-all program that was implemented.

You can't fit kittens into a one-size-fits-all for little tiny babies.

And fosters were not being given the correct...

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Courtney, and I worked at SJAX until June.

I witnessed many of the shelter's systemic failures firsthand. In May, I found a dog named Lola in the medical area only because an IV machine was beeping.

Medical staff had gone home hours earlier, leaving her unattended with a leash tightly wrapped around her neck and an IV line wrapped around her body.

I did everything I could to save her despite having no medical training as an ACA1 and immediately contacted management.

No one responded.

The public statement released afterwards was misleading

and resulted in members of the community blaming me,

leading to online harassment and even literal death threats.

But the larger issue is this.

Lola's death was not a freak accident.

It was the result of a shelter with no written procedures,

no real training beyond shadowing other untrained staff,

and no accountability.

Audit recommendation number 14 requests written protocols and proper training.

Yet seven months later, this still has not been implemented.

These issues are structural and they will continue without meaningful leadership change.

Please reject Matt Lash's memo, conduct a full financial audit, and transfer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the last group, just wait one moment.

The last group got to call down, Janine Sullivan.

It looks like Christina Callahan, I believe.

Lori Landis.

Rosario, last name with a C.

Chris Giangreco, and Christina Banajera. And that's all the cards I have. If you did not hear your name,

please make your way down. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Linda. A few weeks ago, I found a injured dog in San Jose who had been hit

by a car. I rushed him to MedVet and Campbell, and thanks to their care, he survived, but it was only

because of the one-time exception. Under the San Jose Animal Care Center, recent policy change,

Medved is no longer allowed to accept stray or found animals for emergency care

when the shelter is closed unless the finder pays out of pocket.

Instead, residents are told to call the non-emergency police line or 911.

That experience made something very clear.

This policy has created a dangerous gap in care and that dog was lucky.

He was microchipped and reunited with his family, but many animals won't be so fortunate.

Since October, if you find an injured, sick, or underage animal after hours, your only option is to call the police and pay your bill yourself.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you all for your time and appreciate your support in listening to everybody here today.

My name is Dinah. I am a foster, an advocate, and on the front line of the annual animal overpopulation crisis here in the city of San Jose.

I do trap, neuter, return across every district in the city. I help your constituents on a regular basis.

San Jose cannot reduce animal homelessness without a prevention-focused strategy.

While the ACS annual report highlights adoptions and intake reductions, it leaves out the most essential context,

How many healthy animals are turned away?

Why so many arrive sick or injured?

How many requests for help go unanswered?

And whether our resources are addressing root causes

or simply reacting to emergencies.

Prevention must be the priority.

That includes reopening the TNR request list.

Even with long wait times, tracking demand is essential.

Without data, we cannot make strategic decisions.

A closed list hides the need.

a wait list. Thank you that's your time. Next speaker. Good afternoon chair and council members.

I'm here today to beg you to help the animals at the San Jose Animal Shelter on Monterey Road.

The shelter is overwhelmed. Dogs are being turned away because there is no space and more animals

are being euthanized simply because there is nowhere for them to go. It is heartbreaking,

and it is preventable. When the city ended the low-cost spay and neuter program about five years

ago, the non-stop flow of dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens became unmanageable. Staff and volunteers

are doing everything they can, but they cannot keep up. Without affordable spay and neuter

services, the overcrowding will never stop. I'm asking you to bring that program back.

It's the only real way to reduce intake and give these animals a chance at life. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello. My name is Valentina Martinczyk. I volunteered at the shelter for six years. I

know that by speaking today I'm likely losing any remaining chance of ever being

allowed to volunteer again at the shelter because this shelter is managed

through retaliation, bullying and harassment. Today I'm talking about

volunteers not animals. San Jose animal shelter shows very little respect for

the volunteers who are essentially running their own program. They're doing

roughly 90% of work that should be handled by the volunteer coordinator

coordinator, a position currently held by Alain Rodriguez which makes 85,000 a

year. When volunteers pick up because they are frustrated and want things to

improve, they are punished or pushed out without any explanation. There are many

cases of bullying and intimidation, but people are afraid to

speak up in the 21st century in the country with free that's your time thank

you next speaker hello I'm Eliana Gaffney I'm from a local San Jose based

rescue group Matlish told me about a year ago about multiple groups outreach

and he was frustrated. In response I submitted a proposal for public

commission. A year passed, no commission ever formed. Instead we still see

selective closed-door conversations with small groups that we don't even know

who they are and San Jose dog rescues are excluded even from pilots penetrated

discussions. Meanwhile critical questions are unanswered. Why is animal services

under public works a building group where is the spainuter budget going why were offers of high

volume spainter providers rejected by the city i believe it was the city's attorney's office

why has intake and spainter collapsed while being presented as progress they skipped in

their report data from 2008. thank you that's your time next speaker

Hi, I'm Christina.

I'm a dog volunteer, and I'm just here today because I feel like the city continues to

fund the crisis instead of solutions that would actually fix it.

We live in San Jose, and according to the California legislation AB 240 analysis and

San Francisco ASPCA you need about two thousand dollars per animal to you know spay and neuter

them to house them feed them field services and currently I calculated we have over 18,000 entries

for fiscal year 24 to 25 2,000 are repeat entries but those are still entries into the shelter so

I don't know where you got the 12,000 number from love to talk about it but that means we're only

spending about nine hundred and sixty dollars on each animal so I believe that

they're struggling and the shelter needs help and I feel like they're doing

everything that they can but at the end of the day they need more resources from

the city. Thank you that's your time. Next speaker. Hi my name is Christina

Banerjee and I would like to volunteer with the approval and onboarding process

for the volunteers.

Hello my name is Ginny and Sullivan I'm a Kitton Foster volunteer. Please don't

stop asking for accountability and progress now that it's been over a year

since the audit was completed.

There continues to be poor communication and protocols,

lack of proactive outreach and relationship building to fosters, rescues, and others.

Currently, there are hundreds of voluntary applications that go unanswered.

Many of the public have been trying to help and are not being addressed.

Numerous cats in back rooms have been not actively promoted to rescue or foster.

Things are slipping through the cracks and continue to happen.

The current management team and shelter coordinators have been given recommendations

from a number of stakeholders over the last year and beyond.

This is well documented.

Earlier this year, after hearing no outreach

from the division manager, volunteer coordinator,

and foster coordinator, fellow foster Fatima Lubinsky

and I called for a meeting to discuss concerns

and demand a call for action.

After repeated and documented attempts,

the same management team has refused or obstructed many

of the simplest of efforts to make improvements.

We often have been missed.

Thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker.

Thank you. That's your time. Next speaker.

My name is Rosario Concilio, Mr. Chairman, esteemed council members.

I'd like to put things in perspective here.

Not that long ago, we were doing an intake of 17,000 animals per annum at the shelter.

We had liver release rates over 90%.

TNR, we were doing 160 felines a week.

a week. Now what have we got? 12,000 animals per annum, no TNR, live release rates. We don't even

make no kill status. Clearly there has to be a change here. All right. There needs to be some

major surgery. I think the first step is to get SJAX the hell out of public works. All right.

I think I think they should be I think they should be a direct report to the

assistance mr. Rios Angel Rios I think that's the only way we're gonna get

something done here thank you very much thank you next speaker I'm not very well

versed in this issue I've got plenty of other things that I deal with on behalf

of my community we have some seriously dedicated community members in our

neighborhood that estimate that they've TNR'd over 300 cats over the last five

years which is a big impact they've told me about some of the problems that

they've experienced with the shelter one of them being from what I understand

they have trouble scheduling TNR's because the place isn't properly staffed

And my response is if if the place isn't properly staffed and those those

those

staffing levels are funded. Why doesn't the city?

Take that funding for those unemployed positions and contract with

Veterinary services to keep the TNRs flowing. I mean, that's just

basic

Pretty basic solution. Thank you. Thank you. That's your time next speaker

back to count back to nse all right thank you so much no worries at all uh i want to thank everyone

for their comments really appreciate everybody's passion as well as thank staff for their

presentation we can please start with uh councilmember compost

thank you chair and um really appreciate everyone who came out to speak on this issue i do

have some questions prepared for staff that I want to get to but I know that this is an issue that

my colleagues as well as I have continuously heard as a main concern from our community

and so you know we welcome you Monica to our city and we look forward to your leadership

at our animal shelter so my first couple of questions are for you Monica can you share with

us what is your first impression of the team at the animal shelter?

Thank you. From my six weeks here and actually from the first day and when I was doing my recon

to visiting San Jose, I did see and I do see a very dedicated staff that works very hard

and wants to do best by the animals in the community.

So I know that with our new protocols and procedures

and getting our training implemented and all these steps we're taking,

I know that they want to make those moves, and I trust that they will,

and I'm here to help them do that.

And, of course, we'll just need your support

in allowing us to make these changes and make it happen.

So a great dedicated team, and there is a lot of compassion fatigue that goes on in this industry.

There's a lot of emotional support that can be needed for the folks doing this work,

and just I'm here to, again, support that and recognize that and help them have the tools to do their jobs,

and we just want to be able to do our work and make it better.

So I'm very optimistic, and that's why I'm here.

Thank you.

And you've been here six weeks.

So what are the top priorities for you in your first 100 days in the new role?

I have been meeting with groups and individuals as much as I can with the schedule and again,

allowing time to implement some changes and rewrite some protocols and do some training.

So balancing that.

So again, I want to meet with folks.

I have meetings on Saturday this week as well as other days this week.

So opening the door, hearing the concerns, helping find solutions.

I love that some solutions have been presented today as well because I love to hear those.

And so in addition to that, getting the staff the support they need, like I mentioned,

identifying what tools we may need to put in place, what's almost there.

In addition to the audit, definitely the audit focus, which does check a lot of those boxes.

so I think those for the for the first 90 days and obviously making sure we're elevating the

care for the animals is the crux of everything. Thank you I'm glad to hear that you're already

engaged in reaching out to the community hearing their concerns learning from them how how we can

improve at the animal shelter and clearly we have neighbors community members community leaders who

care deeply about the health and safety of the animals at the animal shelter. So

what is your plan for community engagement given what you've heard tonight?

So continued community engagement of course still doing more meetings still listening

hearing more suggestions getting to know everyone that's involved and at the bottom line is we're

all on the same team. We all want what's best for the animals and we want to provide that.

So I definitely want to continue in that area. Once again, the shelter is designed to be a

temporary safe haven. So how can we mitigate any stress caused by the animals for being there? How

can we keep them in their homes where they already have a home rather than trying to rehome them?

and also in doing that there are some other areas where we can collaborate more not just with rescue

groups but with other organizations because once again the situation with the animals

in our communities is just a symptom of some other things going on so I think there's a lot

more collaboration we can do for big picture outcomes and making San Jose an even better

place to live. Thank you for that. Matt, this question might be for you or whatever staff

can best field this, but with a $17.5 million annual budget at the animal shelter, can you tell

us where that funding is going? Sure. So I appreciate this and I appreciate the question.

I appreciate everyone's interest in this.

$17 million is a lot of money that we're trusted with for this service.

Public Works has, as you know, a very large department,

which our operating budget is like $230 million.

This is about 17 and a half of it.

Since we are a service industry in animal care and services,

most of that goes to both the staff that does their work

and our vendors that provide that service.

So since it's a service industry,

It's all in the people that are providing the service.

Now, because they're animals, we have to have food and supplies and so forth,

so it's a bigger portion of that than normal in just a service industry is in those kinds of supplies.

So, for example, you know, there's a lot of conversation about we went from like 15.9 or whatever it was to 17.5 this year.

First of all, this is welcome, and if you look at it daily, it's a $48,000 run per day,

about $2,000 an hour to run when we have about five to 600 animals in the building at any given

time during the peak season, and another 500 animals that we're responsible for and foster.

And so it's a very large responsibility, and so look in terms of our burn rate.

That change, that increase, if you look at it, about 1.2 million of the 15 million that increased

was all in kind of truing up this ongoing cost. A third of it was in COLAs and salaries and

benefits of staff. Another third of it was attributed for the animal health technicians

that were added during annual report, a different time of season than it was normally, so attributing

to that. The rest of that was in base things like increased cost or inflation for food

or services or other things we needed to purchase. That was 1.2 million of the 1.6 that it increased.

So of the 17 million, about 14 million is just in the staff. And the other 3 million is for

non-personal services for like food and vendors and our contract support so it's it's a service

industry like all service industry it's all in the people this is a little different with animal

care and services because we have food and certain things material that we need to provide to the

animals or to care for the animals like leashes and things like that and so it's it's pretty easy

breakdown it's all pretty transparent in terms of where the costs go and so i hope that helps

Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that transparency, and I do appreciate staff's commitment to producing an info memo at the beginning of next year to report out the results of the audit implementation work through the end of this calendar year.

Can staff please remind the committee when the next audit report status update will be provided to NSE?