Okay, we are going to call today's meeting to order at two o'clock.

And we'll start with roll call, please.

Candeles.

Here.

Duan.

Here.

Fully.

Here.

Come here.

Here.

Cohen.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right.

We don't have a meeting next week, so we'll start do our first review of the agenda for the April 7th council meeting, which has a 9 30 closed session, 1 30 open session, and consent starts on page five.

Ends on page six.

In section three, we have uh government AI coalition creation as a nonprofit.

Section six, Willow Rock Long Duration Energy Storage Agreement, San Diego Community Power Resource Adequacy Trade.

And in section eight, establishment of the Story Road Business Improvement District, and actions for related to a loan commitment for VTA Capital Station and Second Amendment to the annual action plan.

Do we have any public comment?

No public comment.

Okay.

Back to the committee.

Second.

Okay.

We have a motion and a second.

I don't see any comments, so we'll vote.

And that motion carries five zero consent.

We have seven items on our consent agenda.

Is there any public comment on consent?

No public comment.

Okay.

Approval second.

All right, let's vote on consent.

And that motion carries five zero.

So now we're on to our action items for today.

We have a memo uh related to initiating our um process regarding public assets named for Cesar Chavez.

Um, Councilmember Tees, you want to kick that off.

Thank you, Chair Cohen and the Honorable Rules Committee.

I want to start by acknowledging that what has come to light about Cesar Chavez is deeply painful and disturbing.

As someone whose advocacy and political foundation were shaped uh by looking up to the farm worker movement.

This feels very personal.

And I know that the same sense of hurt extends to many across our community.

At the center of this conversation must be survivors.

Our responsibility is to ensure that accountability, dignity, and healing guide how we move forward.

That means creating space where survivors, especially those harmed by people in positions of power, can come forward without fear or shame and know that they will be heard.

It also means being clear that no legacy is more important than truth.

And no individual is about above accountability.

This is about taking a responsible first step.

It does not predetermine, I want to be clear, it doesn't predetermine any outcome.

Rather, it directs staff to inventory all public assets bearing Cesar Chavez's name and to bring back a community-driven process to evaluate them.

That process is critical.

While this is a difficult moment, it can also be an opportunity to lift up the broader legacy of the farm worker movement, particularly the women and organizers whose contributions have too often gone unrecognized, and to acknowledge that movements are always bigger than one individual.

For those reasons, I respectfully ask for your support to move this item forward.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

We will start with public comment.

No public comment.

Oh, no public comment.

All right, back to the committee, and we'll start with Councilmember Candeles.

Uh thank you, Chair.

I I just wanted to quickly acknowledge uh my council colleagues for their for their leadership on this item and and uh for their collaborative nature nature of what we're proposing.

Uh you know, obviously, this is an opportunity to uh fully recognize the the farm worker movements uh and uplift those those contributions whose uh who were were critical to the to its success, and obviously the movement was more um than just a single individual.

And as we uh rename our public spaces, I want to emphasize the importance of community involvement uh throughout this process, and obviously there are many uh community organizations in the city that uh have to help contribute contribute to the values that we uh as a city uh want to uphold uh you know, organizations like La Rasa Historical Society, the African American Community Services Agency, uh the NAACP, La Rasa Roundtable, Lead Filipino, just to name a few of the organizations that we should be including as part of these organ uh these conversations, and you know, I look forward to hearing from staff on how we can uh move forward in uh an expedited manner and uh move forward uh with with today's action and urge an eye support as well.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Dewan.

Thank you to my colleagues to to bring this issues forward, even though it's very painful for many of our farm workers, and I think not only the farm workers, but also to make sure our victims are being recognized and the recovery that would take maybe years or even lifetime, and I think it's important that we always make sure we have our victims um in the back of our uh mine and in front of our hearts.

Thank you.

Okay, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh normally we would put something like this forward to uh uh workload analysis, but I don't really think that's necessary given the uh need to really push this forward as quickly as possible.

Um is that correctly?

Can you give us an idea of where the work is at this point and whether that's necessary?

I don't believe it's necessary.

No, uh city manager initiated some of this work last week um after the news, so we can kind of categorize it as work underway.

And so we'll be working on several of these work streams in parallel and coming back to council pretty soon.

Uh that's great.

Uh I'm I'm happy to hear that we're able to do this work without the analysis.

And I'd just like to echo my colleagues' uh comments that really the renaming shouldn't be SWIFT, it should be thought, thoughtful, and methodical, and we should reach out as far as we can to find input to get input on appropriate names for these numerous buildings, streets, etc.

etc.

So I'm thank you thank you to my colleagues for bringing this forward.

I look forward to the full council discussion.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Kamehameha.

Do you need a motion to move it forward?

Yes.

Oh, I'll I'll move approval of that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh we have a motion in three seconds.

I I uh um just appreciate my colleagues for moving swiftly, but um proposing a deliberative process that will uh help us move forward in uh in a way that's thoughtful for our city.

Um so with that, I let's vote.

All right, motion carries five zero.

Thank you so much.

We're on to uh second action item, which is a uh memo to clarify from the um meeting on the lower income voucher and equity program that we discussed at a council meeting a few weeks ago.

Uh after getting the report back from the attorney's office, a few of us signed on to a memo.

Um it had been discussed that a set aside that had been proposed by councilmember casey was not advisable, but that having a preference that allows officers in the police department who would qualify for this to uh move to the front of the line, but would not set aside units and would allow the units to be um to be rented by anybody who qualifies through that low-income voucher and equity program.

So, with that, we'll go to public comment.

Huascar Castro, please go ahead and make your way to the podium.

Good afternoon, Council.

Huascar Castro Working Partnerships, we'd like to express our support um for this memo before you today, authored by Council Members Casey, Cohen, Ortiz, and Candelas.

Um in general, we've been really supportive and appreciative of the innovative approach towards addressing financing solutions that staff presented when this item first came before you all.

Um, and we'd like to um really thank council member casey for um taking the original recommendation of looking at how we can provide preference for public safety workers.

Uh, we know that this crisis is affecting many, and that we have many members of workforce that are having long commutes just to get into the cities that they serve and work, having the opportunity to create opportunities for housing within new projects uh and using innovative tools to address our current feasibility hurdles are are just some principles that we're very supportive of.

So we're thankful of the previous recommendation and this discussion at last council and look forward to further discussion on how to address um potential hurdles on the on the fair housing side.

Um that's more of a legal uh barrier on figuring out how to make these preferences work.

We've seen the city address this in previous um preference ordinance discussions, and so um we look forward to um seeing that and uh just want to express our support um for this work in this um issue here.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Okay, thank you.

Uh looks like council member Duan is first on this one.

Thank you, Chair.

As on um February 24th, there was uh memorandum that Councilmember Casey and and um Ortiz and Candales have put out.

And I I just want to make a friendly amendment to expand the scope to include the San Jose Fire Department and teachers on on that particular revised um amended.

Well, we don't have a motion yet to make a friend of the amendment to, but once we do, I would say that the time to have that conversation will be in front of the whole council.

This is just to agendize it, and then we'll the discussion about what scope it will take will occur at the council meeting on April 7th when it gets placed on the agenda.

So I presume the right approach would be to submit a memo ahead of that meeting and then have us to discuss the scope of the uh proposal at the April 7th meeting.

Okay, in that case, then I'll move to approve the uh the item.

Second, all right.

We have a motion and a second.

I see council member Kame.

Thank you.

Um I guess I have a question for our attorney in terms of uh uh looking at uh preference of 50 units uh for uh specifically the the uh the police department.

Um I'm wondering, I'm wondering when this first came up, um the preferences were sort of public sector, public you know, it wasn't it wasn't um sort of a little bit broad, like this is very specific to the police department.

Uh it was mentioned public safety.

That would include something like the the fire department or other public safety uh persons.

Uh but because it was set at uh a public employee, um I'm just wondering is there a possibility of even saying City of San Jose employees?

Because the thing is that if you open it up to uh you know any public employee, then um I'm just wondering is is that is is could a preference be made for city of San Jose employees.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Kevin Fisher, assistant city attorney.

Uh yes, there I you know, we would want to see the specific proposal that you know if if that's proposed at the when this comes to the full council.

Yes.

But generally, um, as long as the preference is not directed or excludes a protected class, typically generally uh that that preference would would would likely be would likely pass mustard and would would be defensible.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, and just to clarify, when we when we um did took this item up in February at the council meeting, I think we already had a preference for San Jose employees, although all public employees would qualify if there were units remaining.

This is a out of the 200 or so units would say that up to 50 could go first to police up police department personnel if they um qualify.

All right, Vice Mayor Foley.

I I support this going through to council to have another discussion about it, but I'm going to object again that we set aside 50 units for a particular classification of employee.

All of our employees deserve access to this affordable housing project, whether they are clerks in this office.

I as um I understand the interpretation of fair housing.

I look at it a little a little bit different.

That the occupation is not a protected class, the individual is the protected class.

So I'm still concerned about a woman who applies for the job, which is a or the unit, which is a protected class, doesn't get it over a man who because he is a police officer.

So I'm just I I'm going to vote and approve that it go forward to council, but I'm still very concerned about the fair housing issue.

Not uh this is all for all of our employees uh not one specific targeted group.

Everybody deserves to live in to in these units who work for the city of San Jose.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kamei, did you want to win again?

I just I just I I just want to say I agree with Pam.

All right, thank you.

Well, we will we're voting to move this forward to council, and we'll hear obviously an interesting discussion on April 7th.

All right.

Motion carries five zero.

And so now we're on to open forum.

Member of the public who indicated D one D nine on the speaker card, please go ahead and make your way to the podium.

Is it on?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

I get two minutes today.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I addressed the I'm sorry.

Now what do we got going on here?

We got uh Easter week coming up.

Uh we just celebrated St.

Joseph's Day, Patrick St.

City.

I heard nothing about it.

Whatever.

St.

Patrick's Day was fun.

It's also when it's also the month of women.

And uh I'm here today to in the in the remembrance of a woman who was murdered seven years ago.

You may know her name.

Some of you may know, may not know.

Bambi Larson was murdered seven years ago.

And it uh it still haunts me.

Uh some people called it a tragedy.

It wasn't a murder, she wasn't tragedied.

She was somebody who lived about a mile from me.

I never met her, but her and I had very parallel lives, living almost the exact same home.

Come to find out she's good friends with uh a friend of mine we didn't even know.

Um walked their dog with her every day, and uh my family ended up having to sell the home after she was murdered.

Um it's also not a bump in the road, which it was also mentioned uh when it when it happened.

Uh things were not handled very well by the city.

I'm not gonna get into that.

I only have so many minutes, but I'm just here in a remembrance of Bambi Larson, and I would hope that everyone right now could take a moment of silence to remember her if you know about what happened or not for her and and her family.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Okay, thank you.

We are adjourned at 217 P.M.