All right.

All right, good afternoon.

Welcome.

Like to call to order this meeting of the San Jose City Council for the afternoon of March third.

Tony, would you please call the roll?

Kimmy.

Present.

Tordios.

Here.

Cohen.

Here.

Ortiz.

Present.

Mulcahi.

Here.

Candellas.

Here.

Casey.

Here.

Fully.

Here.

Mayhem.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome.

If you are able, please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the fire of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Thank you.

Today's invocation will be provided by the Rainbow Women's Chorus, and Council Member Tordillos will tell us more.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, in a few short minutes, my colleagues will be presenting a proclamation celebrating women's history month.

And so I couldn't think of a better group to kick off our first invocation of the month than the rainbow women's chorus.

A treble choir that welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds who come together united by their love of singing.

The rainbow women's chorus' mission is to work together to develop musical excellence and an atmosphere of mutual respect and support.

And they sing to enhance the esteem of all women to celebrate diversity and to touch people's hearts and lives.

So without further ado, uh please join me in welcoming the Rainbow Women's Chorus.

Never join me back.

We're gonna work for change together.

Work for change together.

Work for change together.

Work for change together.

Turning back.

Never journey, never returning by.

We're gonna keep on moving folders.

Keep on moving forward.

Keep on moving forward.

Never turning back.

Never turning back.

Never turning back.

Never turning bell.

Wow, that was so beautiful.

Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

What a great way to start off our meeting.

Thank you again.

And that was the Rainbow Women's Chorus.

Thank you, Councilmember Tordillas, for today's invitation.

All right, we're on to our ceremonial items.

Council members Kameh and Campos, Vice Mayor Foley, and City Manager McGuire and City Attorney Susannah Akala Wood, City Clerk Tony Tabor.

If you would all join me at the podium, we're going to recognize and proclaim March as Women's History Month.

And if we could have all the ladies representing our departments and offices come down as well, that'd be great.

Today is very special.

We have someone from every department in the city of San Jose representative.

Today we gather to celebrate Women's History Month, a time to recognize the incredible contributions of women that women have made to our society.

From Trailblazing Pioneers like Mayor Janet Gray Hayes and Mayor Susan Hammer, who are figures of leadership and inspiration in the city of San Jose, and women across all of our departments who have a vital role in our community.

Let us recognize the importance of women in our society.

Women have played a vital role role in shaping our world.

Let us celebrate grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends.

As we celebrate the progress we've made, we also acknowledge the challenges that still lie ahead.

As women, we must continue to support each other, lift each other up, and create a world where women can thrive, reach their full potential, and be happy and successful.

And now I'd like to ask our city manager Jennifer McGuire to say a few words before our mayor uh presents the proclamation.

Thank you, Councilmember Kamei.

Um, good afternoon, everybody.

Um Women's History Month celebrates women who have shaped our lives, strengthened our sense of belonging, and inspired many generations through their trail-basing spirit, leadership, and courage.

I am so proud to work alongside so many women who serve today and who have previously served our city in many classifications in our organization, from staff specialists to firefighters to police officers to engineers to analysts and so many more.

Behind me are women who are representing all of the amazing and hardworking women of our city from all of our departments and offices.

So that's pretty amazing.

These ladies have been working uh in our city from as little as three years to some of them almost 30 years in our organization.

These women are being recognized for leading with compassion, inspiring innovation, and for their commitment to the community.

I had the privilege of sitting around the table at a luncheon today celebrating the work that they do for our city with Councilmember Kamei, Vice Mayor Foley, and Councilmember Campos.

I also want to thank and acknowledge our my appointee partners, uh City Attorney Susanna Alcala Wood and City Clerk Tony Tabor for your partnership throughout the last many years and a very new one with our new city attorney, but I appreciate both of you very, very, very much.

Thank you very much, and let's celebrate women.

Thank you.

Proclamation on behalf of the whole city council proclaiming women's history month.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sideways, everybody's sideways.

Sorry, good morning.

Perfect.

Oh making me cry.

We love the hearts.

I love the hearts.

And then I never see you.

Thanks for your great work.

I know.

All right.

Have a great afternoon, everyone who's exiting the chambers.

Thank you for being here, especially the awesome hearts in the audience.

Now it's my pleasure to invite Councilmember Campos to join me at the podium where we will recognize and proclaim March as Youth Arts Month.

Council Member.

Good afternoon.

And thank you to my council colleagues as well as the arts advocates who are here today.

Yes, this proclamation forward as it combines two areas I care deeply about, the arts and our youth.

And I'm especially proud about the community leader we have with us today who can speak from personal experience about how critical this intersection is for our community.

Art gives our youth new tools to see the world differently, especially at a time when it is critical for their self-discovery and personal development.

When our young people get involved in the arts, our community is all the better for it.

After all, who here hasn't hung up a young child's drawing on their fridge or been to a school recital, play or performance.

Art brings our community together.

To all the art leaders who show up for our youth, thank you.

Thank you for inspiring our future leaders to be creative, critical thinkers who are unafraid to be their whole authentic selves.

Your work is felt, seen, and deeply appreciated by us all.

And now I'd like to invite Joy Murieta, executive director of Kids in Common to share her remarks with us before the mayor and I present the proclamation recognizing March as Youth Arts Month in the City of San Jose.

Thank you, Councilmember Campos.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Joy Murieta, and I serve as the executive director of Kids in Common here in Santa Clara County.

And in this role, I work alongside partners across our region to strengthen systems that support youth well-being, opportunity, and equity.

Before joining Kids in Common, I spent over a decade leading an organization dedicated to expanding access to the arts for young people.

Both experiences have shown me that the arts are not just enrichment.

They are essential to helping young people feel safe, connected, and supported.

So thank you everyone for joining us in San Jose as we celebrate the youth and arts.

This proclamation reminds us that when we would support the arts, we're supporting something so much deeper than creativity.

We're supporting youth well-being and the long-term health of our community.

Today's young people are facing real pressures and they need spaces where they can express themselves, connect with others, and feel a sense of belonging.

The arts provide exactly those emotions or those spaces where young people can create, perform, write, and explore new ideas.

And when they do so, they gain healthy ways to process emotions, manage stress, and build resilience.

They develop confidence, communication skills, and stronger relationships with peers and caring adults, all of which are critical in protective factors for behavioral health.

The arts help people, young people feel seen and valued.

When youth feel connected and supported, they make healthier choices, they build stronger identities, and they experience greater emotional well-being.

And for our community, this matters.

A city that invests in youth is a city that's investing in prevention, healing, and opportunity.

It is a city strengthening the relationships and sense of belonging that make neighborhoods safer, healthier, and more connected.

San Jose and the county have long recognized the importance of supporting youth, not just academically, but socially and emotionally.

Since 1957, City Team San Jose has strengthened Santa Clara County by providing meals, shelter, recovery services, and workforce pathways that help our most vulnerable neighbors move from crisis to stability.

And then District Five, City Team at Mayfra, has been doing that work for now over 40 years.

What began as youth outreach, focused on mentorship, educational support, and positive engagement for young people, grew into something even larger, a trusted community anchor.

From hosting summer camps that have gave hundreds of youth life-changing experiences to repairing bikes for local neighborhood kids to organizing neighborhood cleanups.

City Team has always shown up in the East Side fully with their heart.

And now, through their Vital Connections program, City Team strengthens entire families, addressing emotional, spiritual, vocational, and practical needs.

Here in Mayfair alone, the pantry supports families 4,100 times and served 616 unique households.

Across all locations, more than 2.5 million pounds of food were distributed last year.

And that is not just service.

That is sustained commitment to dignity and sustainability.

We are very grateful to the City of San Jose Councilman for valuing over 30 continuous years in the Mayfair community.

And most significantly, many of the people who once received support are now leaders who share hope with others, impacting the community in spiritual, emotional, and academic ways.

We're on to orders of the day.

Great.

I have no cards for this.

Okay, coming back to the council.

I'm not seeing any hands, so let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Mayor.

I do not have a report today.

Thank you, Jennifer.

We're on to item three point three.

My apologies.

So good afternoon.

I'm Joe Royce City Auditor.

I'm here with Bellet Obi and Hoad Heider to present our audit of sewer rates, reviewing rate model assumptions and developing reserve policies that would improve the rate setting process.

Also in the boxes, Jeff Prowinzano, the Director of Environmental Services Department.

The city sets sewer rates to recover the costs of providing sanitary sewer and wastewater treatment services to residents and businesses.

ESD sets the rates based on the overall volume of a customer's wastewater and the concentration of pollutants of the wastewater.

The concentration of pollutants is also referred to as the strength of the wastewater.

All customers pay the same unit rate for each wastewater component that ESD or Environmental Service Department treats.

How a customer is billed, however, depends on the type of residence or business and the assumed or actual volume and strength of their wastewater.

The objective of this audit was to assess the city's process for setting sewer rates.

We had three findings.

So we have recommendations to ensure it's a rate model assumptions reflect current conditions.

ESD should study assumptions in the rate model and update as necessary.

Update procedures around when assumptions should be reviewed, and consider implementing a software solution for rate calculations.

Second finding was that ESD should develop formal reserve policies.

ESD maintains reserves in the sewer service and use chart fund for operations and capital projects.

So to improve transparency, recommended recommended ESD document procedures for sampling decisions and notifying users of changes as appropriate and updating the sewer rate webpage to and add clear rate setting explanations.

Report has six recommendations.

I have no comments for this item.

Okay.

Move acceptance of the report.

Second.

Okay.

Let's see another hands.

Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay.

Thank you all.

The item 3.4 reasonable accommodation process and personal property impound handling.

We have a staff presentation.

So we'll give everybody a moment.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

My name is John Cicerelli.

I'm the director of parks recreation neighborhood services.

With me today, Deputy Director Olympia Williams.

Next to her, Director Zumaciel from the Office of Racial Equity, Racial and Social Equity, I should say, as well as uh senior attorney.

Senior attorney.

Senior senior deputy attorney, Johnny Fan.

We're here to talk to you today about uh revisions to the existing property impound process as well as a review of uh our accommodations process.

The accommodations process is ahead of an abatement where we have a uh process that we developed last year to ensure anybody who needs an accommodation uh can reach out to us and we can try to make that accommodation happen.

Um with respect to accommodations, uh well, with both.

We're responding here to uh former council direction to provide review of the accommodation process and training if needed, as well as a review of the property impound process as well as training if needed.

Um, in this case, we are uh actually recommending some revisions to the storage procedure.

Who is that?

Okay.

So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to uh Zulna, and she's gonna talk about uh her findings.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council, Sulma Mastiel, director of the city manager's office of racial and social equity.

Um happy to be here today.

This is by way of the council directive where the city manager's office of racial and social equity uh was directed to conduct a review of the current reasonable accommodation protocols and training materials.

And the review included uh multifaceted, which is the multiple meetings with housing and parks recreation and neighborhood services.

We also did desk review of documents and uh recently a field observation.

The review confirmed that the city's existing process meets legal requirements, but identified targeted operational improvements to enhance consistency and transparency.

Around the data collection and reporting, we we noticed that while departments are generally following established procedures.

Current tracking methods are decentralized and do not fully capture accommodation activity, particularly short-term or informal accommodations that are granted in the field.

So some accommodations can happen at that very moment.

They're just not all documented.

Additionally, we believe that reasonable accommodations process for encampment engagements should be clearly defined and transparent.

And to address this, we recommend that the disability affairs officer work directly with the housing department, public works, parks, and rec to clearly define the process and ensure all data tracking and reporting is centralized.

We also believe that it would be important for the disability affairs officer and members of our team in the Office of Racial and Social Equity to continue to work with Parks and Rec to review existing documentation used by Beautify San Jose during abatements, where reasonable accommodations can be included and routed to housing for data reporting.

The third area that we looked at, which was around the outreach and communications.

So this is simply informing.

Standard forms exist, but there are limited plain language materials explaining how to request an accommodation.

Uh the memorandum identifies the need for clearer accessible public-facing guidance.

So we currently are working with departments to develop a simplified multilingual fact sheet explaining eligibility, examples of accommodations, how to request one, and what to expect in the process.

In the area around training, staff have already received reasonable accommodation training, but moving forward, we will support departments in updating training materials and protocols to better account for both visible and invisible disabilities and address ableism as it relates to abatement and housing processes to ensure services are equitable and accessible.

We also want to support departments in formalizing onboarding and refresher trainings and embedding accommodation guidelines, guidance into all operational trainings.

This ensures accommodations are not treated as separate processes, but integrated into standard field operations.

So in closing, I just want to thank Parks and Rack Housing and the City Attorney staff members for their collaboration.

We as the Office of Racial and Social Equity look forward to continuing our work together as we focus on strengthening implementation, documentation, and communication to our in-house disabled community members.

Okay.

Next, we're going to talk about uh personal impound.

Um but first I'm gonna play a quick video, just a couple minutes to set a little context as we talk about changes we make and why.

Okay, so this video is actually of a recent encampment abatement we did just south of here near Willow along the Guadalupe.

You can see a tent there.

You see some items in the foreground storage, gas tank, gas cans.

You'll see a few of those.

Um you can see lots of bike parts.

Obviously, there's a fair amount of debris um that's laying around.

Uh this particular campsite had uh had a uh quite an interest in storage containers, so you'll see a lot of those here.

You'll see things like suitcases, um, mostly empty, um, you know, more oil, uh, more gas.

Um, you can see um as we look through this and and try to imagine how difficult it is for our staff as we're working through something like this to try to decide well, okay, is there a pair of eyeglasses down under that somewhere?

Um, which is something we would want to preserve, certainly if we found it.

Um, but it gets pretty difficult to go through all this stuff.

And when we see all these gas cans, you know, we won't store hazardous materials and things like that.

We don't do that uh as a practice if there was gas in them.

Um you can see there's furniture in in some of this video.

There was a large couch just earlier that I didn't highlight.

There's also a pretty good sized bureau.

All of these are sitting outside and in exposed to the elements.

Um we're gonna talk about bulky things like couches and and uh bureaus and things like that.

Uh you can see the staff is sort of working through and just trying to assess more or less where we're gonna start.

You just saw a little grill there.

If that was in good shape, that's something we could hang on to.

Um again, more storage, more items just piled up and then trash.

Um, you know, different things are bagged up, um, different things may be boxed up.

Um, again, more bike parts.

You'll notice there was more than one encampment here.

In particular, there's one that was quite a bit bigger.

And when I say encampment, I mean more than one tent.

There was a tent there that was clearly bigger than the 12 by 12.

You could see again more bike parts and so on.

So I think you get the flavor.

Um, that uh when we're in here, um, it's hard to figure out what is exactly going on.

Now there are there are encampments and tents where people are there and um we they've got everything kind of in their tent and they're they're kind of got it all well kept, but I'll tell you, usually on by the time we get there on their morning abatement, they've left.

Um, they're they've not listened to our guidance, they've not heard our uh conversations and our postings about hey, we want you to remove your stuff before we get to the abatement.

Um, and that's an important piece of context to set here uh as we get into these next slides, which is that you know there's there's a lot of comments about you know signing to release your property or asking us to keep your property.

The only time that we're taking personal property that we think is valuable and needs to be protected is when the person isn't there, right?

So there isn't someone there to say, that's mine, I'm taking it.

So we have to have a process then that's fair enough that says, okay, we'll protect this because it's important.

Um, but we can only hold on to those things for so much time.

And our expectation and the conversations we're having and the postings that we're putting up are all saying remove your personal belongings, remove your personal belongings before the abatement.

Um the constitutional rights of those individuals to their property.

So what you'll notice as I'm walking through this really the focus is on that 12 by 12.

We've talked about it before many times in council.

We want people to be at a 12 by 12 space.

That's really where we want to focus our efforts on protecting your personal property.

As you can see in an encampment like this, and that is not a particularly unusual site, um, that is very difficult to do when it's all strewn about like that and intermixed with things that are clearly not that valuable and they they're not working or they're covered in dirt or biohazards or things like that.

So sorting through that's problematic.

And so really what we're trying to do is get people to focus down on what's inside your tent.

But no matter what, we when we get there, we're going to be documenting everything that's outside, as well as making sure if we run across something that's an indispensable life necessity, like glasses or a cane or something like that, we will certainly try to store it.

But it's not always possible for us to even see these things when it's all piled up like this.

So I'm just giving some context.

An RV or a car or anything like that.

That's subject to a whole different set of the vehicle code, and it's already got its own process.

So that what we're talking about is when this is on the street, you know, on the side of the trail or in the in the woods or wherever, and it's an encampment, not a vehicle itself.

Now, that doesn't mean we can't do anything about the stuff that's surrounding a vehicle or an RV.

That's on the street and on the sidewalk.

We do go through that stuff.

Um just to I've talked about sort of the purpose and why we're here and that we're protecting constitutional rights.

I do want to point out that one of our um, we're not only asking first that you approve uh our report back to you, but also that uh you delegate the back to the city manager, the authority to update this policy as uh as it uh changes because if you've been around for a little bit, you know that uh the court system and the legal system is still wrestling with this this issue, not just this issue, but many things around homelessness and living outside.

There's a lot of case law that you have to go through, but there's not a lot of like law that's just written about it.

So it tends to be case law actions, and so sorting through that's problematic, and when it when it happens, then we have to be able to adjust.

Um so here's some highlights of things that uh uh that we've changed or revised.

We've certainly uh clarified a lot of different uh storage presumptions, talk we talk about things like what's bulk personal property, and I'll talk about it in a second, um, but also the kind of things, and I'll give you some examples that we're really looking for when we're doing an abatement.

So any kind of government ID is important, medications.

I talked about glasses, if the tent is in good shape, an operable bike, and that in that video you saw a lot of bike parts.

But if it was a fully assembled bike that worked, we'd store that.

But mostly what we see are bike parts.

Um, medical equipment I mentioned, photos, for example, that are sitting in the tent or something like that.

These are the kind of things and more that that we would seek to store.

Um, things we wouldn't would be things that are that are either biohazards or covered in biohazards, um, just stuff that's trash, and we define what we call trash in this in this procedure.

Um, things that are perishable, we don't store food.

Um, it rots pretty quickly and creates a lot of problems.

Um, hazardous materials.

I pointed out some of the gas cans, but we also see a lot of things like propane tanks and stuff like that.

Uh we also see has uh uh contraband and those sorts of things would be turned over to the police and disposed of appropriately and so on.

With respect to bulk personal property, um we we created a definition that basically says we'll store anything that we don't consider bulk that can fit into any a 60 gallon drug that can be covered.

That's just regular storage.

Anything bigger than that, we're considering bulk storage.

So in that video, you noticed there were uh there was a very big couch, it's longer than this thing I'm sitting at here.

That's not something we would end up storing.

That one was standing up out in the dirt, and uh it's it wasn't in in the condition to store.

Um we also uh don't want to make we don't want to uh we're we when we see couches for the most part, they're not in very good shape out there.

So we don't we don't anticipate having to store a lot of huge items, but there are some bigger things that may come up and that are in of good enough condition and aren't broken or things like that that we could store.

You know, another thing in there I saw you'll you would see in the video if you go back and look at it, there was two or three sort of mini to medium refrigerators, not the kind that you the big size you'd have in your in your uh kitchen, but maybe something you might have in a dorm or an office, the smaller size.

If that was working and and all that, then we could pick that up and store it, and it wasn't damaged.

But uh oftentimes they're not working.

These things tend to be sourced for scrap.

So you're trying to strip some things out of them, make make sell them back to uh recyclers and get some money.

Um speaking of storage, we are updating some of the time frames.

So currently, right now we store for 90 days.

We are recommending we dial that back to 30 days, and that is in part at least because we're expanding the definition of what we're gonna store.

Um we are currently still in the process of looking for more storage space.

But as I said, a lot of the bigger stuff isn't in very good shape to begin with to qualify for storage, but certainly there could be or would be, including like a fully assembled bike.

And for those bulk storage items, we're planning to go to 14 days instead of 30 days.

Now I want to point out in both of these cases, these are minimum storage dates.

So let's say we picked up some storage items from Olympia's encampment, but Olympia wasn't there that day.

So we have Olympia stuff stored.

We haven't heard from Olympia, and about a week later, somebody calls.

Let's say it's an advocate or a caseworker or a friend and says, Hey, I know you were here and you took Olympia's X, Y, and Z, but she's been in the hospital.

You know, she hasn't gotten out yet.

We are happy to hold on to things longer for that.

That's not that's not really the issue.

The issue is turning these things over.

What our experience thus far has been is that it's it's single digits in terms of percentages of people that come to reclaim stuff that we've picked up and stored.

Now, since we're sort of broadening that net now, maybe that'll that will pick up and we'll learn more about that and and see if maybe there's more of that happening.

Um I will also add that just like UPS, we deliver.

So if your store, if something of yours is stored with us, you call us, we will be in touch with you within 72 hours.

We will not dispose of anything without checking our storage lines before disposing to make sure we didn't get a last minute call.

We will respond to you within 72 hours, and then we will arrange to bring your property to you at a location time of your choosing within the city, obviously, within reason.

Um so it's we're trying to make it as convenient as we can, uh, understanding that we're kind of in a uh disorganized and chaotic system that we're trying to bring organization to, which leads me to the documentation.

In the documentation, um, we will increase the amount of photographs we take and the amount of video we take.

We had some uh uh electronic storage issues, and we're so we were trying to limit the amount we do so many abatements and take so many photos and videos that we were challenging our ability to store this.

So we've resolved that issue.

And so we have a protocol, there'll be a full video outside and inside, um, much like what you just saw here, where where it's just someone walking across the whole thing and sort of getting that macro view and then really dialing in, especially when we see personal storage, or if we see something that might usually qualify for personal storage, but let's say it had feces all over it, we're saying, well, we're not gonna store it, but we're gonna photograph it and we're gonna say, okay, we saw this, we know it was there, and here's why we didn't store this, right?

So again, we have that information that we can share, and then the training.

And uh Zulma mentioned this uh on on uh the accommodation side, but also on the uh property impound side.

Um, you have to be trained before you can do any of this work in the field, and that includes all of our vendors or the conservation corps, anybody that's gonna work with us to do this, they would have to be trained.

We require two times a year refresher training.

So if you're new, you got to train first before you can get in the field, but you'll get a training later in the year again.

Um then uh that training is designed to sort of I would say evolve with the conditions and things that are going on out there.

This already already the way we do things isn't the same way we did them just three years ago.

So again, I want to emphasize this is an evolving area, and we're just trying to kind of keep up and make sure that we can uh ensure that A, we're keeping the city clean, we're not allowing any kind of a health crisis uh to develop, but also that if we pick up someone's personal belongings, we want to get them back to them.

We don't we don't have an interest in keeping them, and we're not trying to keep them from them.

Um so uh we talked about the encampment, this would have been where the video was.

You can see a few more pictures there though of just kind of kind of what we're we're engaged in and and how difficult it is uh sometimes.

I think we go to that last one.

Um, and then uh just a note here at the end.

You know, we have as everybody's aware, we have our our budget uh uh headwinds, if you will.

Um we always we always have those, it seems, uh, and so staff resources are always something to worry about.

I know the city managers talked with the council previously about optimizing certain programs and what can be refined.

BSJ is one of those.

Through that process, we've not traditionally had someone just assigned uh to answer the phone line uh for personal property storage.

It's a secondary duty.

Um this will allow us to actually assign that that work and make sure it's given the attention it needs so we can meet our our uh target of within 72 hours, we're in touch with you and re arranging to get your uh property back.

Um and we will also, as I mentioned, uh greatly improve our documentation.

It's not that we weren't doing it, if we just weren't doing enough, we should do more.

That is also part of the training and how to do that and how to properly do that.

Um and as I mentioned, we're working right now, and in fact, I think we have a line on a place potentially uh that we could use to do the personal storage.

Some people ask why we don't um have why do we don't give out locations of where we store things.

We did do that in the past, and it uh unfortunately, then uh it would get broken into, and people would steal things out of there.

Um we have that problem across our system with other things uh as it is.

Um it can be just our equipment for maintaining parks um can get broken into and stolen.

So we want to be careful not to really broadcast it.

That's why we focus on we'll deliver to you so that we don't have to worry about that.

And actually, it's very it's more convenient anyways.

Most folks in these encampments don't have transportation of their own.

Um so they would either have to get someone to take them there or pay for transportation to get there somehow.

This way it gets it right to you.

Um so with that again, I'll just repeat by asking that you approve the revised personal property impound standard operating procedure um and uh delegate authority to the city manager or designee to administratively admin that procedure in coordination with our city attorney's office.

And with that, we're ready for any questions or comments.

Great.

Thank you all very much.

Appreciate all of your hard work out in the field and this update.

Tony, do we have a public comment?

Yes, I have about five cards.

Um so when I call you, you do not have to come down in the order that you're called.

Um first person microphone, go ahead and speak.

I have Brian Darby, John Betts, Batman, Amanda, and Sandy Perry come on down.

Um I know that's quite a bit of work, and um I'm pretty good at AI and offering my uh services free if people want help setting up maybe a better way to monitor on it and feedback to people who are trying to get their items back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Sandy Perry.

I'm speaking today for the Unhouse Response Group, and we're supporting the letter that was put into all of you by the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and the real coalition uh calling for changes and the reason reasonable accommodation in the property impoundment standard operating procedures.

Only eight percent of the RAs were approved, and only six percent of the impounded property was recovered by the owners.

The current system isn't working.

Um the least we can do is establish minimal procedures to protect constitutional rights, civil rights, and human rights of the poorest people in San Jose.

The uh we support a civilian review board to oversee both the RA process and the uh property standard operating procedure when this property operating procedure was first established, and I think it was back around 2010 or 2015, uh, we were called in a bunch of advocates and a bunch of people actually from encampments were called in to give input and to help develop that process.

Uh, that doesn't seem to be happening anymore.

Um we also support what was raised in the law foundation letter, that we have to stop the practices of sweeps with no prior outreach ahead of time.

Um I don't know if that's something that's going to be abandoned from now on by the city council after uh the work at Columbus Park.

I know there's promises that are being made about the jungle, but um there's still a lot of people out there and a lot of cases and a lot of danger of people that are going to end up being swept with no outreach, no opportunity to get into shelter, no opportunity to get into housing.

Joint venture Silicon Valley uh pointed out that we are the richest area in the history of in human history, and uh we also have the largest disparity and wealth of any era area in humanity.

Thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker.

Uh uh, my name is John Betts, and I'm with the uh uh SO group called SOS survivors of the street.

I support what Sandy was saying very much, uh support what the unhouse response group letter and all that they have been recommending.

Uh support what the unhoused response group letter and all that they have been recommending.

I um yeah, I stand in the same way that sweeping is and has been very destructive to the people that's targeted at and unconstitutional.

So even though it's nice of you to be trying to treat people's belongings better and maybe finally have a good way of really keeping track of people's belongings and having them actually get it back in a proper fashion or have it happen at all.

It still doesn't remove the fact that sweeping itself is very destructive and really is a sh a terrible, tragic thing that you have been continuing to do to the victims of your sweeps.

So yeah, it's good that you're trying to finally make some kind of accommodations with this horrible situation of um people's stuff supposedly being saved for them to have later, but generally all you ever hear is hardly anybody ever got any of their stuff back.

And I have witnessed sometimes the people doing the sweeps, someone would say, Oh, aren't you saving these people's belongings?

And they say, Oh, oh no, I never heard of anything like that.

I've witnessed that kind of conversation myself.

So well, good luck with trying to implement something a lot more constitutional and humane.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Also, Emma and Mary, come on down.

Hello, my name is Amanda Cole.

I'm also from SOS, survivors of the street, and I have survived the street, living in vehicles and shelters for 10 years until eight years ago when I joined the street team and they helped me get housing.

Um my question is whose grandma will we sweep today?

Uh and whose RV will we take away, which is their uh their home, their security.

And uh the tow companies don't actually have a good way to even process those homes that they take away.

And what is the justification for the sweeping?

Uh uh I'm not clear on it's it seems like it's causing a huge amount of work to be to sweeping and so many sweeps happening, as was talked about.

A good solution is to stop the sweeping.

That would eliminate the need for all of this uh new figuring out.

And uh and the storage spaces are limited, so instead of just trying to find viable alternatives to sweeping, which would be housing people and supportive permanent housing and non-commodifying housing.

Uh I might asks would be R to join the Thursday lunches that are on the 17th floor to talk about uh the olive pilot program and the beautified San Jose to meet with us because we have a lot of ideas.

We know 10,000 very motivated people to find their own housing.

Open a navigation center, open a free restaurant, there's lots of vacant buildings.

Uh farming hope has a vocational program for training people to be in the culinary business.

Um I think the street team uh that got disbanded was a shame, and I hopefully it's built up and thank you.

That's your time even stronger.

Next speaker.

So I feel like we do this song and dance every six to twelve months.

And I'm sick as hell right now, so I'm gonna keep this brief.

Um I really appreciate the efforts from staff to try and make up for the shortcomings of the past with this policy.

I want to support what my previous speakers have also said, where we need those policies in place as well.

Um but on top of all of that, I think what everyone really is looking for here is accountability.

Accountability is thrown around all the time when we're talking about people living on the street, but not ever considered when we're talking about when policy is not executed correctly.

I've been at I don't know how many sweeps now, um, trying to help support people when they're getting their belongings taken from them, when they're going through this very traumatic experience, and oftentimes these policies that we have, previous policies, current policy, they're not respected by the people who are you know conducting these sweeps.

I think what I would like to see on top of everything that staff has recommended is some sort of accountability process when things go wrong, when there is mistreatment of people with a disability, when there is a mistreatment of somebody who has had a um important item taken from them and they can't get it back.

Accountability goes both ways here.

It's not it's not a one-way street.

And I'll oftentimes I'll find that the people who are struggling to manage their belongings are the same people who need those accommodations.

And what I think we really need to do is have some sort of an accountability process for when things go wrong, on top of being more supportive and more understanding of the people and their situation.

Thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker, I'd also like to call down Sean.

Hey everyone, this is Emma from Surge.

Um, I'm here today to uplift the recommendations from the Law Foundation, Real Coalition, and the Urge and Grace Letters.

Um, and I also just want to share that again, really appreciate the work from staff to improve these policies, and I also remain concerned about the theory versus the practice.

Um, what we saw at Columbus Park was every day, dozens and dozens of people not being given any opportunity to indicate which personal belongings they wanted to keep, which personal belongings were important to them, literally just being if they weren't there, all of their stuff in the dump immediately, if they were there, being told, okay, you can take two trash bags of belongings and everything else is going in the dump.

The only person over the entire sweep of Columbus who I saw be able to keep their personal belongings or regain access to them.

It was because they were brutally arrested, and I believe there was probably some sort of awareness that there could be legal action involved.

And that was the only person who I or any advocate I know saw their belongings stored during that sweep.

Um, so just to say the practice and the actual impact on people's lives is very important.

Um, and for that reason, I really want to uplift all the recommendations made in those letters and also um just really ask that um the full policy be made available and for input and consultation from the actual people with lived experience from currently and formerly unhoused folks, that the implementation the sweeps be delayed until there can be actually like finally revised policy with input from the folks with lived experience.

Obviously, the housing outreach is essential and needs to continue, but we should not be sweeping folks when these policies are just barely being revised and we don't have accountability mechanisms.

We need like a civilian review board, right?

This should not be all just under the city manager who again, like I'm sure will work very hard on implementing the policy, but has not lived through a sweep.

And if the sweeps have to go forward in April and on the current schedules, then just really hope that you all will be out there with us to see what people are having to go through every day.

Um thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

I'm Mary Itsoff.

Um I'm here with Serg, show up for racial justice.

I'm gonna be really brief.

Um this policy, it doesn't appear to have um an adequate notice system for people to be ready before the sweep.

And at the time of the sweep, it doesn't sound like there's that much that's allowed either.

And um I don't know if there's any way to actually help people to accomplish dealing with their belongings.

I uh I would love to see that.

Um, but probably isn't gonna happen anytime soon.

Um, and I I have some concern about the city manager's office having so much um responsibility here.

Um I'm not sure where the oversight would come from.

Um, but I would like to see that.

And I I'd like to see some reflection and to come back with a better policy.

Thank you, next speaker.

How many small claims cases has the city settled in 2025 or ongoing for lost property?

Today I'm asking for well thought-out policies for both RA and property prior to initiating the sweeps of the jungle and Olyndir to very different camps with very different needs.

That the council agrees to create an independent civilian oversight board to not only assist with this, but to also continue with issues that arise with RA and the property process, that the council agrees to come back with a more fleshed out RA policy, that no policy be left to the city manager, council and the oversight committee should approve changes, that the council insist Google translate not be used for VSPAT or intake, but rather fully bilingual staff always be on hand and other people in camps not be asked to translate, that the council direct the NyQuil team to not interfere with camps that are being swept.

This means not harass, increase arrest, or intimidate people who the city is trying to shelter.

These actions create fear, panic, and do not increase cooperation.

The differences between the two camps, one camp needs extreme outreach because they are primarily monolingual, and the other camp needs outreach because they are primarily LGBTQ.

Lastly, that the mayor stopped falsely reporting that everyone from these camps is going to Sroni, which is against the housing throughput model.

Just as people weren't provided bus passes upon being shipped to Ruferari and Bernal, many people are unwilling to find themselves stranded essentially in Milpitas, which is also not a by Spanish bilingual community.

People do not want to be shipped to an area where they have no community.

This is something that is for your department, and that's where I think you could be crucial.

Thank you very much for your time, and I appreciate you not looking at me every time.

Thank you, next speaker.

My name is Obadiah.

I'm a resident here since 2008.

I came from Nigeria, and unfortunately, I'm homeless now.

I've been working for 15 years until this year.

A year ago, I became homeless, and the situation has not become easy all up to now.

So I'm working to make sure my situation is better.

However, I wrote something here to present to the council.

I want to speak directly to the heart of service workers that uh in this city.

Um not choose this work and say that the work is easy.

The work is not easy, and I want to appreciate every single person that work in the council and work in the field with the homeless people.

I really appreciate it.

Uh however, there are things that I know that have been going on in the street and in the homeless homeless uh uh spaces that are actually really hurting the homeless instead of making the homeless become better in the future.

So um I want to read this, and if you give me a little bit of time because of my accent and I'm a little bit nervous here, this is my first time to be here.

So um they start because they care.

The people that work in service, everybody cares.

That's why we start working in service.

And because we care or you care about people, please don't forget about the reason why you start working in service to serve people, because people are more important than the things, even that we we uh we have we are losing.

I think I've lost more while I'm homeless than when I'm uh had my place.

I'm sorry that your time back to council.

Thank you.

And sir, if you have a write-up, you are welcome to leave it with the clerk to distribute to the council.

Thank you.

Um back to the council, we will start with council member campus.

Thank you, Mayor, and I want to begin um by thanking staff for uh today's presentation.

Um thank you to the Office of Racial and Social Justice and Equity, the Housing Department, and uh PRNS for preparing today's um item.

We know that this is meaningful and important work in our city, and I appreciate the steps that staff are taking to strengthen training, documentation, and coordination to improve these processes.

It's clear that this is an ongoing process that will continue to evolve and hopefully improve over time.

Um, I do have a few questions.

So the first is as centralized tracking is implemented, how will council be able to evaluate patterns and outcomes over time to ensure that our policy and funding decisions are based on accurate and complete information?

Thank you, council member.

Um I think probably the simplest way is incorporating some of these metrics and details about how it's going.

You know, we have we come through NSE committee twice a year on the focus area around homelessness, and so it seems like this would make sense to be there.

And then I think if the if the committee thought, well, something rises to the level of council, you know, they could make that recommendation.

Thank you, John.

Um we also heard in public comment the importance of incorporating lived experience into how these policies are implemented, and I agree that lived experience can strengthen how systems function in practice, particularly as this work continues to evolve.

So as we move forward on implementation, what mechanism will the city use to incorporate lived experience into ongoing process improvements?

Uh it's a good question.

We don't have a specific process set up for that.

Um we are in the encampments though, every day, everywhere, talking to people living outdoors.

We have people that work for us doing this work that have their own lived experience with this.

Um so we hear directly from the individuals who are being abated or having struggles with the storage or concerns about how to get it.

So I feel like we have a very direct line.

Um, you know, remember we do a whole bunch of lines of service.

We're not just there abating, we're there in particular uh on a weekly or biweekly basis to pick up trash from you.

Um, and those are conversations that you're having in those moments over and over and over again, getting no.

So I do feel like we have a pulse on what people's primary concerns are.

Can we answer every concern?

Or, you know, sometimes people are suggesting, well, there needs to be appeals processes or uh longer storage periods or more things you should store.

You know, that's that's all policy conversations about sort of how far do you push the line one way or the other.

You know, we talked about some of our resource constraints and and capacity, that's part of the consideration as well, along with, of course, first and foremost, ensuring we're protecting those legal rights.

That's what this is primarily about, um, so that people can retrieve their property and are treated correctly.

This is all, by the way, in the noticing as well.

Um so I feel like we have that line.

I don't know that we need to set up one.

I know there used to be one years ago.

I can't remember some years ago it just stopped me, it was the pandemic that kind of uh might have ended it like so many other things.

Um, you know, I'm certain I could have a conversation with the director of housing about whether or not they want to stand up some kind of a uh process or group um to work with, but we don't currently have one.

Thank you for that answer, John.

Um note I took from the public comment that really stood out to me was um how the importance of bilingualism and making sure that we are communicating effectively, especially that human to human uh translation uh as much as possible.

So I just wanted to call that out from the public comment.

And um you also mentioned during the presentation um around personal property, standard operating procedure not applying to vehicle tow situations, and so from a systems perspective, I want to better understand how these policies interact when a vehicle or RB is towed.

How is personal property inside that vehicle classified and documented?

And is there any procedural bridge between the towing authority and personal property protections?

So there's really two things we're looking at when we when we have a vehicle that is being towed.

And I mentioned this a little bit in the presentation.

The first part is what's outside the vehicle.

That's what we concern ourselves with on the beautify team.

Uh once the vehicle is towed, it goes into an impound process.

So there are very specific laws, and I can't recite them for you here, that dictate how that property is to be handled, and it's a whole separate system from what we do, and it's related to the tow operator and their business practices.

I don't know if anything you want to clarify on that.

No.

Okay.

So they're kind of two separate things.

That's why I didn't get too into the what's inside a vehicle.

It's just treated very differently.

And in fact, in most cases, what's the point even taking the personal stuff out of the vehicle?

Might as well leave it in there.

It's secure rather than now we're gonna take it out and create a whole new system and process for that.

It just I don't think it makes a lot of sense that way either.

I I was just gonna jump in on and say, yes, the the materials inside the vehicle are held to a different standard within state law.

We have found that is more beneficial for the individuals to leave those items in the car because they are allowed additional access and protection when it's there.

So we've kept that as a status quote for now, but it'll be something that we continue to review as we continue with the work.

Okay, thank you.

I have just one more question.

Um for review processes to be meaningful, timing matters.

So can staff please clarify what review or appeal processes are available and at what stage they occur if there is an individual who disagrees with either a reasonable accommodation determination or a personal property classification decision.

Uh I'll start on the personal property.

We we don't have an appeals process for that.

You know, I mentioned as part of what we wrote in the language, for example, that the time frame for which we hold it is qualified by saying it's at a minimum of that amount.

You know, we're flexible, have been.

This is not new for us, you know, people get in go to the hospital or uh sometimes go to jail, things like that, and things happen, we get that.

Um again, most of the time when we're doing abatement, people are either when we arrive, they're either finishing up grabbing whatever personal stuff they're gonna take and they've left, or they've already left, right?

This is really focusing on the people who aren't there, their stuff.

Um, and it's and it's it's narrow in that way.

If you're there, we're gonna say take whatever you want to take with you, everything else we're gonna dispose of.

So we tell them right there, just take it.

Um, and one of the things we've done to make that a little easier, so uh our current process is on the day of abatement.

We've been noticing for who knows how long, and and we know that you know that we're coming on this date and that we're gonna abate.

So if you're still there and you haven't started it, we don't actually give you a ton of time because we've been working and telling you all along.

Um this is what was going on in Columbus.

There's nobody that can convince me that the people living in Columbus Park did not know that there was an abatement coming.

We were meticulous about posting and talking and creating lists and lists and names and everything.

Um any big abatement is that way.

Um and large abatements, we would we would in in as part of this policy, we would not uh abate uh inside of 72 hours just because of the complexity of it.

Most abatements though get 72 hours.

There are a few abatements, so if you just popped up on the street, we're gonna you can't be in the street, right?

We have our setbacks.

If you were right next to a school within the setback, you're gonna get abated immediately.

But typically in those cases, you just take your stuff with you and go.

That's what we're trying to accomplish, and that's generally what happens.

And generally what's left behind is not uh high quality material.

We don't have a process for you to say uh you shouldn't have taken my other than obviously you could go to the court and make a claim, but we don't have any kind of internal process or appeals process, and I'm not even sure what it would be for with respect to us taking personal property when the person is not there.

And then Zoom up probably on the accommodations.

Um you know, we have not been steeped into the accommodation reasonable accommodations process, but from our review, there are established grievance procedures and they're no doubt on the public's public works web page, um, which does say that within 15 calendar days there needs to be a response.

Um having said that, we also recognize that you know that one of the recommendations that we're making is that we have to make this process in a way that's um accessible so that it is standard plain language, that it's multilingual, and so people understand what the process is without having to go to different places in the city.

Think thank you for those responses.

Um I am going to move that we accept the staff recommendation and um request that staff return to NSC, the neighborhood services and education commit committee, um, where in June we'll have the city council focus area status report on reducing unsheltered homelessness.

And as John mentioned, that might be a good opportunity for an implementation update.

So that is um part of my motion to accept the staff recommendation and then request an implementation update at the June NSE meeting.

Second, thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Councilman Kamet.

Uh thank you for um the presentation and report and and I want to thank everyone who is involved in uh in this situation.

Uh you know, I want to lift up something and and I'm sorry that he left uh the you know just recently, you know, we received the information of what um and I hope I pronounce his name correctly.

Obadiah said uh that no one signs up for this work because it's easy.

Um and it's true.

People care.

And um, and I think that we've gone through a whole iterative process, you know, what we were doing last year or the year before uh is different.

I wanted to know um what is the ratio of staff versus contractors, because one of the things that has been uh brought to my attention is uh some of the inconsistency in training.

Uh I know that um there was sort of a mix of you know, staff doing some of the work, contractors doing some of the work.

So I'm curious because the comp the the largest complaint that I have received is the inconsistency, and I think when you have that, um you know, it becomes problematic.

Thank you, council member.

So at the beginning, um it's about a one-to-one ratio of vendor personnel to our own personnel, but our personnel lead every abatement.

So we're in charge of the situation, we're directing their work.

Um there's also um I mentioned earlier the uh the process of optimizing beautify.

Through that process, we will become less reliant on vendors.

So that ratio is going to change and it will be more city staff than vendors out there going forward, says we're in we're expecting to do fewer abatements going forward than the last year that went by.

So as we're in we're expecting to do fewer abatements going forward than the last year that went by.

Okay, that's great because I think that you know, the more that we can be uh more consistent.

Um I think that you know you mentioned in the report that we're gonna you know do training over and you know a period of time and have to retrain and all that kind of stuff, which is great.

But you know, if uh you're constantly uh do not have control over who are the contractors uh staff, uh you know, I mean their training may not be quite the same as ours.

So I I'll I think that we ought to keep that in mind.

Um and then you know, I know that um uh you know, in terms of uh I mentioned it being an iterative process, and I'm glad it will be coming to NEC because we do want to improve, we do want to make things uh better.

So um I'm I'm really thrilled about that.

So thank you very much.

Thanks, council member, council.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to PRNS and beautify SJ.

And thank you for all the speaker.

Uh my question is when you run across a unsheltered residents who have mental illness and unable to make the decision to what to bring with him or her.

How do you deal with that?

I missed the last part.

What to bring what?

To bring their belonging, right?

They're they they have mental illness, and so they're undecisive on what is important, what is not, in order to bring with them, right?

Yeah, it's it would be an unusual situation.

Again, if they're there, we're saying, okay, take what's yours and you have to take it.

Uh we do actually have, you know, if if we find that person is in crisis, we'd actually have therapeutic specialists that work with this team and they're designed for situations like this to kind of come in, calm down, okay.

John, let's walk through this.

We have to help you collect your stuff.

Now, in that situation, our abatement staff's gonna probably go around that person, do other work, let that person work their magic with this individual and try to help them get to a decision.

Sometimes they can find a case manager and get a hold of them and and get help, things like that.

But typically people aren't there to begin with to even have that conversation.

Okay.

And thank you for that answer.

What about a situation where you have a mother with two young kids?

And you know, kids sometimes they're they run around and they finally decide, okay.

Well, I want to bring this and that.

How do you allot um a accommodation accommodation regarding timeline and and what how much they can bring and how much into storage?

So the accommodation process, which is done by housing department, um, you know, is well coordinated with what we do in terms of abatement.

That is all we're what we're trying to do is assess that before the abatement in the first place.

And we learned this starting last summer.

This is when this new process of accommodation started, and we developed a process to make sure we were helping people get whatever accommodation that we could provide for them.

Um and that's meant to be done before we get there for the abatement.

So we work really hard at that.

So we really at the time of abatement, we don't really run into that issue.

Those people would have already been offered a way out, probably, particularly in the bigger encampments.

Now, outreach isn't with us at every abatement.

I want to be clear about that.

Typically they're around the bigger abatements.

So we have a big one coming up in your district that you're familiar with.

There'll be outreach all over that four weeks and a couple months, right?

It's already happening now, and we won't even get there till April.

So that's all meant to be done ahead of time.

Now, if it happens on the day of and somebody just springs it on and say, Oh, we didn't think you needed this accommodation, we'll pause on that person.

Okay, what needs to be done, call somebody and who needs to help?

Let's see what we can figure out for you.

Is it just you need help moving your stuff from A to B?

Um, you know, even if you're even if you're saying yes to housing, you might need help just moving your stuff into the housing because you're not capable.

We can figure those things out uh at the time.

So we're able to be nimble like that.

It's not we're not just a machine that's just you know going down not stopping.

We you know, we take into account the circumstances at the moment in time.

Thank you.

And regarding their storage, what are the percentage of people actually retrieve their belonging after storage, you know, the minimum dates and so on?

It's less than 10%, council member.

Um so when we come back to NSE uh in June, we'll see has it changed um from that.

So we'll be able to show you some historic data, and then since March, you know, what's what's changed?

Because assuming this is approved by council, we'll be quickly updating all of our posting notices and everything to talk about what's the process, who do you call, what can you expect, you know, where do you go for these kind of things?

So all that'll be pretty quickly updated so that people are uh understanding sort of what their rights are and how to get in touch with us if you're missing something.

Um that's how we do it.

Well, thank you very much.

I know it's not a perfect process, but we we can always improve and and try to make people's lives a little bit easier as a transition to either emergency interim housing or permit and shelter.

Thank you again.

Thanks, council members.

Just as we close out, I'll just add my thanks to staff.

This is a really tough uh situation out on the streets for our homeless neighbors, of course, first and foremost.

Also city staff who I've visited many times in the field who are on the front lines providing trash pickup, outreach, um impromptu counseling, and um taking a lot of feedback and doing the really hard work of helping us manage our public spaces.

So I'm I'm grateful to our team.

Obviously, um, you know, the current processes we followed are legal and in many cases go far above and beyond what the law requires and what most other cities do, and yet we know in the spirit of continuous improvement that we can do better.

We've gotten feedback that people have been, you know, have questions or confused, want to um see us do even better, and that's the spirit of this update is staff really reflecting and thinking about how can we ensure it's as accessible as it can be in different languages, give people as much time and do our very best to store things and get them back to folks if they're not there at the time of abatement.

So I just I appreciate staff continuing to bring forward improvements and acknowledge that we can always do better.

I think that's always true across all of our departments, all of our service lines, but I just wanted to acknowledge the really difficult work uh but important work people are doing out there, and and thank you uh for this update and continuing to do that work.

Tony, let's vote on the motion from Councilmember Campus.

Motion passes unanimously okay, great.

Thank you all very much.

We are on to item 3.5.

This is the committee oversight committee annual report on measure T.

We will um hear an update on allocations for fiscal year 2425.

We have a staff presentation.

So we'll turn it over to Matt Lesh, Director of Public Works, when he and the team are ready.

Good afternoon, council and mayor.

I appreciate the time.

We are here to present um the citizen oversight committee for the measure T, and with us are some of our committee members to present on the topic of measure T and how we performed last year uh with their audit.

And so they're gonna present on behalf.

We have some members they'll introduce as they speak, um, and we'll get going here.

So back one too far.

Uh good afternoon, uh Mr.

Mayor, members of the city council.

My name is Nick Cochran.

I am a 40-year resident of district six, and the current chair of the uh community oversight committee, and to my right are uh Gary Cunningham from District One and Shroudie Chandiscar from District 9, uh representing district nine, and uh they were both former chairs, and the three of us will be happy to answer any questions that you might have once we complete our very brief overview.

Uh as Matt indicated, this report uh which we deliver annually to the city council uh is as of the fiscal year end of June 30, 2025.

Um the full report, our full report, which is quite detailed, was delivered to you folks uh about three weeks ago.

And what I'm gonna do is highlight just a very few salient key points that I think uh uh you should all be aware of that uh resulted in our findings.

So, Matt, if you can is it just hit the one?

Okay.

So, no, no.

No, that's fine.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Next one, the one that you had.

Sorry, I didn't see that one up there.

Next one.

Okay, so this bond measure uh was passed in 2018, called for $650 million primarily for infrastructure, disaster preparedness, and public safety.

We uh issued uh 444, excuse me, 440 million dollars worth of bonds in 2019 and 2021.

And uh the remaining 209 million was actually issued in July of 2025, which will find its way into our report next year, and that will wrap up all of the issuance for measure T.

We are probably two-thirds to three quarters of the way through spending for this uh whole entire program.

And uh next slide, please.

This is a summary, there's considerably more detail interannual report, but shows year by year what the city has spent, and this is these are audited numbers and reviewed by uh our committee every year, showing what has been spent in the various categories of traffic, public safety, storm sewer, municipal improvements, parks and community, and through the end of last June, we had spent 455 million dollars, 80 percent of which is represented by traffic and public safety.

The remainder of my comments are really going to focus on those two areas.

Next slide, please.

You know, I've been a taxpaying citizen here in San Jose for a long, long time, and I'm very proud to say that this slide brings a lot of joy to my heart because I don't think any of us, including you who are elected to do this, can say this very often.

We have paved considerably more miles with less money than was originally planned.

The original plan called for 420 miles, and uh with roughly half the money, and we have exceeded that already, and with the next couple of years before these funds are exhausted, we will probably see outperformance on the neighborhood of 30 or 40 percent.

And as the last bullet point uh points out, uh states this outperformance has been achieved through operational efficiencies and leveraging other funding sources.

I want to acknowledge DPW's role and DOT's role in getting us across the goal line ahead of plan and with less money being spent to get there.

I mean, this is just a wonderful thing to be able to.

Normally you probably hear, well, we got close, but we're a little behind the eight ball.

We're ahead of the game, and that's that's quite that's quite good.

Next slide, please.

The other uh one-third of the measure T funds uh are dedicated or have been dedicated to public safety projects, uh 10 of which were originally scoped, three have been completed as indicated there in the first bullet point, four are currently under construction and are expected to be completed utilizing currently allocated measure T funds.

In other words, they've been budgeted for and reserves have been allocated, the contracts have been issued, there's enough money to get these things done and across the goal line within the allocated uh dollars.

The third bullet point, there are three items, the 911 call center upgrades, which was recently awarded, fire station 36 and the police admin building upgrades that are still in the design phase, and there is as that uh third bullet point points out 14.5 million in unallocated reserves still available.

That's that is unencumbered or unallocated funds from Measure T that will probably in all likelihood be allocated in some percentage to these three items to get them done.

And fire station 23 uh was put in there because that is a land-only component right now.

Uh the acquisition of that land is currently pending.

In our discussions at our uh meeting uh in early January, one of the things that we were concerned about was we've got three projects which are in design phase.

We had original allocations, which what we've seen in the public safety area is we end up short.

We typically end up short in the allocated amount versus original budget or projection.

When this whole program was put together, the city council and all the people involved in this had enough foresight to reserve a fair amount of money.

I think it was something on the order of 75 million dollars for reserve against exactly this sort of thing.

Inflation, error, misjudgment, miscalculation, whatever.

And a lot of moving parts have gone along to to make all this work.

Our concern is with three projects still pending uh the 14 and a half million may or may not be enough.

We don't know.

We don't know, neither does DPW because the contracts haven't been put out, the final design specs haven't been made available.

DPW has indicated that these projects uh will not proceed if insufficient funds are available.

However, if you'll turn to the very last slide, it's our feeling that City Council would be prudent to establish a rank ordered priority of those three remaining projects in case this whole thing kind of runs off the rails and we're woefully short of available money.

I don't know, you know, whether that that's a realistic assumption or not or concern, but it is something that we want to let you know that that's uppermost on our mind.

And the other recommendation is again we've got a number of unfilled seats, and we would encourage uh city council.

I think most of these are citywide seats other than D 10 that need to be filled.

So whoever is responsible up there or in your staff or whatever would be helpful to get them because sometimes with a smaller number we have problems making quorums for meetings.

So that's all I have to say, and um the three of us are here to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Great.

Thank you, Nick, and um all of our oversight committee members, Matt.

Uh really impressed with how much impact we've had on Measure T road paving in particular has been just uh incredible.

But um Yeah, I'm excited by the progress and appreciate.

I think the citizen oversight role has been critical in building trust and helping us make sure we're using the dollars as effectively as we can.

So you know it's it's been an incredible learning experience for those of us that are just common citizens to figure out how all this works and putting this all together in the last, I think all of us, I know Gary and I have been on since the inception, and I think Shrody came on shortly thereafter.

So there's uh a lot of benefit to having some people that have been here for a while.

We're not stumbling around in the dark.

And I also want to just add my personal thanks to both Sal Kumar and Christy No.

Uh, both uh Sal is the uh deputy director of the DPW and Christy is a senior analyst.

Their their liaison, their effectiveness, their liaison effectiveness with the COC is is uh terrific, absolutely terrific.

Great.

That's all that's excellent.

Thanks for writing that note.

Um, Shroudy Gary, Nick, thank you for your leadership on the oversight committee.

We really appreciate it.

Uh, we're gonna turn to public comment before we continue.

Tony, do we have public comment?

Yes, Brian Darby, come on down.

I read through the report, and I did want to say thank you.

Very well done.

And I would just like on the emergency response or emergency planning.

I would I haven't seen any kind of incorporation of amateur radio.

When everything else breaks, amateur radio still works.

So I would really suggest you look into that.

Um two-meter, ten meter, something, even I hate to say it, but even CBs.

If the networks go down, if the power goes out, a lot of these things may be the only type of communication you can have.

Thank you.

Back to council.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll uh turn to Councilor Kameh first.

Yes, thank you so much uh for the report and presentation.

I really want to thank the committee for um, you know, uh uh working working all of these years to um really uh make these things possible and uh and watching um the dollars.

I'm so excited to hear about the paving because you know being ahead of the game is something uh we don't hear too much about.

So I'm gonna have a little story in my newsletter about that, because this year we're fortunate in district one to be the next sort of like big chunk to be able to have a lot of the paving done.

So I'm very, very excited about that.

We're gonna see a lot of activity this year in District One.

Thank you, Gary.

And um, and uh and it's good for the the community to know uh where we are on this.

So I really really appreciate it.

I I want to thank you so much for your time and and efforts in in making all of this possible in collaboration with uh with our staff.

So and I'd like to thank staff as well, uh you know, being able to to get all this stuff done on top of everything else, right?

Uh so with that, I would like to move acceptance of the Measure T community oversight uh committee annual report.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work you do serving on the Measure T Citizens Oversight Uh Committee.

Nick, when you first started talking about the miles that we had paved and the how many years you had been a resident in in the district six area.

I thought you were gonna say this is the first time I've had my streets paved in 40 years that I've been in my house.

I I thought I'd leave that out.

Yeah, because a lot of our residents feel that and remember that and remember the last time they had their streets paved.

They'll all tell you when is my street going to be paved.

So I'm really excited to council member Kamei's point to see that the target was 420 miles, but we've actually paved 516 miles.

That's incredible.

With another 163 yet to come.

Which is fabulous.

Our residents love this.

This is something they can turn to and say, yes, the city is actually doing something for me.

It's it's really wonderful, and and I too now have something to add in my into my newsletter about measure tea, so it's really exciting.

It's a win for the taxpayers, it's a win for the resident.

It's uh it's it's a win for it's a win for everybody, everybody.

It absolutely is.

And I know you have a lot of vacancies, so are there times that you are not able to establish a quorum?

I've had some tight ones.

We we've had we've had we've gotten through by the you know the hair of our chinny chin chin from from meeting to meeting.

I mean, we're somebody gets stuck in traffic and we can't start till they get.

I mean, you know, it's one of those, it's it's close.

It's close.

I see that the three three of the vacancies are city or four city, are there city staff positions, the citywide public safety, citywide environmental issues, those these are members of the public who have these specialties?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh and then District 10, not to call you out, but district 10, you have a vacancy over there.

I I know what that is like with the senior commission and all of that.

So I I uh appreciate your comment on the about the rank ordered priorities too as we go into the budget process and the difficulties with the things that we need to prioritize with the budget.

I think it's worth a conversation at the city to prioritize the three remaining the big three remaining items the call center, the fire station 36, and then the uh police admin uh building upgrade.

So I thank you for bringing that to our attention, and maybe someone in the uh PISFIS committee can prioritize those and figure out how they're coming back because that comes through them, I believe.

But or Matt, do you have an idea?

Yeah, 911 has already been awarded, and so I get what they're requesting is stack ranking the three of those in what order you would recommend if you so desire.

Um for awareness, we're through design pretty well on 36.

That'll be going out to bid later this year.

We're gonna have a measure T update for like the current fiscal year stuff in a couple of weeks here at Council for you to read that'll be uh inundating you with more information about the project statuses.

Um and so the the way they're listed there is fine, and we're certainly marching down that direction anyways.

Okay, great.

I don't know you need to take further action, but if you so desire, it's your call.

I I don't think I'm prepared to make that recommendation right now, but I really I thank you for bringing it to our attention and I thank you for serving on the Measure T task force and Matt for the work you're doing.

Thank you.

If I can just add uh the the reason for suggesting rank ordering is is our my personal big fear is the the bridge to nowhere, in other words, the three projects that are half finished rather than two done and one excuse me, one delayed.

That that's my big fear.

I have a lot of faith and trust in working with DPW and seeing how they operate for the last five or six years.

I don't think that's likely to happen, but you know, you hear about that all the time, and it's and it just that would really annoy me to put it mildly.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

Let's go to Councilmember Dorn.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the community oversight members and um or public works department.

It was great news to hear that you know we paid more miles.

I do have a couple of questions for you.

So there is approximately 206 million dollars left.

And out of those, my understanding is the three prioritization is nine 911, call center, fire station 36, and police administration building.

What is the cost breakout per item there?

Do you know?

So we're gonna have the report in three weeks at the tw on the 24th of this month, and we'll have finer details to share there.

911's already taken care of because it's already been awarded.

Um we're at about 16 million for uh fire station 36, or maybe it's 20 million.

I'm I'm coming the numbers off the top of my head.

The police administration building is a variety of projects and efforts that we're deciding amongst and where we're gonna spend those monies there.

And so there'll be some details in the memo on the 24th.

And so we've allocated what we believe is all of the money that's um allocated the 200 million that's listed, that includes paving and the remainder of the projects that have yet to be um let out.

That's the expended money that's remaining.

Some of it's already been allocated, though, to be spent.

Yeah, I know that the grand jury study in 2016 was uh to include station 36 in there.

And are we at the final stage?

Are we completely um done with the design and and planning for station 36?

No, it's not done with the design.

We're not letting it out yet, it'll be out let out later this year.

Okay, so we're anticipating it be complete by the end of this year.

No, it will be let out to bid later this year is the 2027 completion.

As will the report that we'll have out on the 24th, we'll have all those details.

Okay, and I just wonder why it took so long, even though the the uh predicament that station 32, 37, 32, and 36 was in the plan for the last how many 10 years.

Why did it take so long to get it out to the RFP?

Well, one, we had to get access to the land, then CQ needed to happen.

The design needed to be completed.

The design is being wrapped up.

We'll put it out to contract as soon as the design is done.

So it's more just order of operations.

We had the two other stations that were building 32 and 8 currently, those are already in construction, so 36 is the next one.

Well, I'm afraid that if we stretch out the timeline, the costs will rise, and then those you know, I don't want to see station 36 on a whole pattern.

It's not on hold pattern.

Okay.

I'll hold you to that.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I look forward to it.

All right, thanks, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember Cohn.

Thank you, and thanks for the overview and for the great work on managing measure T.

I'll just um you know my frustration, which is the last thing on the list.

There's the three projects that are remaining, but State Fire Station 23 doesn't have a uh a clear path forward.

Um I am uh pleased to see that we're we got the resources to buy the land and that we now have identified the land and are moving forward with that purchase.

Um Matt, do we have any uh thoughts about what the next step will be at that point and what the timeline might look like and where funding might come from to actually do the work so to do the work for construction?

Yeah, I mean to me.

That's not that's not been identified, so I'll just put that we we don't we have not identified the construction money.

We we don't even think we have a clear path to the design money, which is another two million dollars.

And so um we believe there's a path to the property, and uh there'll be a council action fairly soon that we'll be bringing it for you in terms of how the how that land acquisition will be proceeding.

Okay, yeah, I mean I figured that was the answer, but I just wanted to continue to elevate that project as well.

It is very important to us, and it's important to the fire fire services.

Right, okay, thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

And once again, just want to thank uh our citizen oversight committee members for your diligence and great work, Matt.

You and the team, and I know coordination with other departments like DOT have just done a tremendous job of deploying these dollars and building public trust.

So thank you for the good work.

Yeah, I'd be remiss.

Just Department of Transportation has been crushing it on the paving, really.

They've been really innovative in terms of the procedures, the way they've done it, multi-year contracts and the way they've packaged things together.

Uh really is I mean, we've gotten to a lucky market that has nothing to do with it.

That's a lot of skill on DOT's part.

They've done a really great job, and it should be remiss not to put a lot of praise of the trend paving on them.

So I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Thanks for noting that.

Appreciate it.

Okay, Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you all.

We're on to item 6.1, climate adaptation and resilience plan.

And we do have a staff presentation.

Good afternoon.

I'm Laurie Mitchell, the director of the energy department, and very pleased today to be joined by Julie Benabente.

She's our deputy director of our climate smart and Michael Gonzalez, who is our program manager in ESD, as well as Jeff Provenzana, the director of EST.

This item is our climate adaptation and resilience plan.

It's a new plan that the staff has worked on for the last few years, and we're very excited to present it to City Council today.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Julie.

Good afternoon.

Today we're going to cover some background on the project, a vulnerability assessment that we were completed as part of the project, the framework and measures, engagement and input, as well as next steps and our recommendation.

In 2018, the city adopted the Climate Smart San Jose Plan, which focuses on reducing our community-wide greenhouse gas emissions.

And the Climate Smart Plan noted that climate adaptation resiliency planning should be completed since San Jose, even with increased greenhouse gas reduction efforts, is likely to encounter, and we have seen is encountering increasing climate change impacts like droughts, wildfires, changing weather, and sea level rise.

In late 2023, the city received a $650,000 state grant, which has allowed us to begin this effort and complete this effort.

While the city's climate smart plan addresses strategies to reduce or mitigate emissions and slows climate change, as I've mentioned, and the city's emergency management plans outline actions for responding to immediate hazards, including climate-related and non-climate related disasters.

The climate adaptation and resilience plan identifies measures and strategies to reduce the impact of climate change, addressing the questions of how we can better prepare and adapt to climate risks.

Part of the technical analysis included the city working with its technical consultant, Ramian Associates, to prepare a stand of state climate vulnerability assessment.

The vulnerability assessment is a high-level analysis of how projected climate hazards may affect the city's populations, buildings, critical facilities, utility infrastructure, and transportation systems for the purpose of informing the prioritization and development of adaptation strategies and measures that are included in the plan.

The vulnerability assessment evaluates five major climate hazards that are already occurring or projected to intensify in San Jose, which includes flooding and more extreme and severe drought, wild fire smoke and events, sea level rise and storm surge, and more frequent extreme heat waves.

It drew from a combination of quantitative and qualitative data sources to identify vulnerability ratings for assets and populations, including the existing Silicon Valley 2.0 climate change preparedness tool, uh federal emergency management agency maps, adapting to rising tides, sea level rise data, and local and regional planning documents, including the Santa Clara County multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan and City of San Jose Annex.

Key findings for San Jose indicate that flooding is the most most impactful hazard to infrastructure and populations in the city, followed by extreme heat and sea level rise.

Extreme heat's greatest impact is to health and safety of residents.

Sea level rise and storm surge pose increasing long-term risks, but are geographically limited to northern portions of the city.

Wildfire risk is present within city limits, but geographically limited as well, and wildfire smoke from regional fire activity is a more impactful hazard.

Vulnerable vulnerable populations, which may include low-income mobile home residents, individuals with sensitivities are disproportionately impacted by extreme heat, air quality, and flooding.

The assessment concluded that the adaptation plan strategies should focus on facility assessments, infrastructure upgrades, community engagement, and resilience measures tailored to vulnerabilities.

The plan framework subsequently identified four measure categories, which are pictured here to structure the plan.

Knowledge, governance and policy, structural and communications.

The plan also focused on measures that were within the city's direct control to implement, integrate with related city plans and policies, address infrastructural community and ecosystem impacts from climate-related hazards, and address inequalities and reduce climate related impacts to vulnerable communities.

The CARP includes 19 measures, each supported by one or more implementation strategies with for a total of 62 strategies.

The knowledge category includes measures around data and studies, the governance and policy category includes measures around stakeholder engagement, design standards, and planning.

The structural category includes measures around infrastructure improvement.

The communications category includes measures around effective and enhanced information sharing with the community.

The plan was informed, reviewed, and finalized through an extensive stakeholder engagement processes shown here, which includes interviews, presentations, a survey, tabling events, and small group meetings.

Throughout the climate adaptation and resilience plan development process, city staff conducted bi-monthly climate-ready working group meetings, which included representatives from six city departments that are listed here.

And also included the project's community-based organization lead partners, uh Spur and Bally of Water.

To support the CARP measure implementation, city staff will continue currently funded work activities, including steps to make Roseville Community Center into a climate resilience resiliency hub, sub-regional shoreline adaptation planning, reducing water demand and andor increase non-potable water sources, and a technical assistance program workshop plan for this March to advise the city on equity-centered best practices pertaining to CARP implementation.

Additional implementation efforts will occur over time as the city acquires funding.

Our recommendation is that City Council adopt the climate adaptation and resilience plan and approve the incorporation of the climate adaptation and resilience plan into our annual climate smart updates.

And we'll open for questions.

Great.

Thank you for the report.

Appreciate it.

Tony, do we have public comment?

Lena.

Come on down.

All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Lena Drape, and I'm with the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority.

I'm pleased to share the Open Space Authority's support for the city's climate adaptation and resilience plan.

We specifically want to thank staff, including Lori, Julie, and analyst Hannah Greenberg, for their effort to gather and implement feedback from partners, including the Open Space Authority, who already play a central role in this work.

The CARP provides a tremendous opportunity to leverage public investments by further integrating nature-based solutions into the city's climate adaptation and resilience planning.

As identified by the council adopted natural and working land element, our city's open spaces and agricultural lands are not just nice to have.

They are not just undeveloped lands waiting for development.

These lands sequester carbon, grow our food, provide clean drinking water, protect us from floods and wildfire.

Without them, including what when they are paved over, we cannot be resilient.

So thank you again to staff for their work to integrate what we already know through science and data into our city's actual climate adaptation and resilience plans.

Thank you.

Back to council.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, coming back to the council, Councilman Dwan.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say thank you very much for all your hard work and accomplishment.

And I just want to move to accept the climate adaptation and resilience plan.

Sorry, my mic went off there.

Great.

Any other questions or comments?

Not seeing any.

Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously with fully absent.

Yeah, that might be fully.

Possibly.

Foy, did you want to vote?

That's a yes.

Thumbs up.

Motion passes unit.

All right.

Thank you to staff for the report.

Thank you all.

That was our last agendized item.

We're on to open forum, which is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on any items not on today's agenda.

Tony, do we have open forum?

Yes, I have four cards.

Jim, come on down, Brian, Obadiah, and Jose.

All right.

Brian, you're welcome to begin.

I only see one speaker, Tony, but we'll let Brian go first.

Okay.

Um I've said this a bunch of times, and I'm going to try to say it again.

I sent each of you a copy.

I I think there's one thing we can do that doesn't cost very much money.

Other states do it.

Our state does it, a lot of cities do it.

Um the thing I sent you in this, I'm gonna leave with the clerk, is a day of recognition for people who are victims of crime.

And it doesn't, I mean it obviously a real serious crimes like you know, violence or robbery or something.

They may hit the headlines and then it fades off.

The people are still left there.

And there I read on next door and a bunch of other places where people they lose their cars, they lose their um tools, they lose uh their houses broken into.

The one thing that's consistent is a lot of them do not feel supported.

They're told do not fill out reports, or because nobody's gonna do anything about it, there's not enough police, there's not, and it's not an accusation against anybody.

This day would just simply have a day where there's a lot of other people groups that are recognized.

This is something that crosses every single demographic.

So I would appreciate it if somebody could please look into it, maybe make it an agenda item at one time.

Thank you.

Back to council.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, everybody, we're adjourned.

Have a wonderful afternoon,