Okay, it's two o'clock.

So we're going to call the April first meeting of rules and government open government committee to order.

So let's start with roll call, please.

Candelas.

Here.

One.

Here.

Foley.

Here.

Come here absent.

Cohen.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

And we will start by reviewing the final review of our council meeting agenda for next Tuesday, April 7th, with a 9 30 closed session and a 1 30 regular session.

We have consent starting on page four.

Continuing on pages five, six, seven, eight.

Nine.

Section three, we have the uh establishment of the governing AI coalition.

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

Section eight, Story Road Business Improvement District, and a loan commitment for VTA's Capital Station Affordable Housing Development.

Also second amendment to the annual action plan for 2526 and lower income voucher and equity program amendment.

Do we have any members of the public?

No public comments.

Okay, back to the committee.

Sorry.

All right, it's been moved and seconded, so we'll vote.

Okay.

Motion carries 40.

And now we do our first review of the council agenda for Tuesday, April 14th.

With a 9 30, 13 closed and open session, the cancellation of the evening session.

Section three, we have issuance of taxes at multifamily housing bonds.

In section five, we have transportation priorities for VTA under SB63.

Section six, consultant agreement with Brown and Caldwell.

Section eight, we have an agreement with Santa Clara County Housing Authority.

No, that's not a land use consent item.

I guess that's the if proposed item where's 10.1.

Oh 10.1 is on the later in the agenda.

Oh down here.

Yes, there's one item on land use consent.

And after that, we will hear the housing authority item followed by eight along with 8.1.

All right.

No public comment.

No public comment.

Back to the committee.

Any questions or comments?

We have a motion and a second, so we'll vote.

Motion carries four zero.

Got a little confused by all that end of the agenda.

All right.

Consent.

We have four items on consent today.

We have public comment on consent.

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

Good afternoon.

I hope everybody's doing okay.

Um I would like to uh bring up there's one thing about consent used to be when um rules was run down the hall.

Consent the um letters to the uh public record was separate on the agenda that got combined.

So I was thinking I know we want to be more efficient, but I've sent several dozen emails.

I don't expect people to respond to all of them, but I'm just thinking when you don't get any response other than like thank you for contacting us.

We'll get back to you in 72 hours, which is usually it has been like a month ago.

And I know people are busy, but I was just thinking instead of just coming up and complaining.

Why not offer an answer?

I sent everybody an email again about using AI to actually harvest the non um private information for um from each email, forming it out, and a response at least so somebody could say like we got something back.

I mean, I've written President Trump a whole bunch of times.

Every single time I've got something back, I know he doesn't read it.

I don't think anybody in his staff reads it, probably doesn't even go anywhere near the White House.

But at least it makes us feel like we're making a connection.

I just think that's important.

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Thank you.

So do we have a motion on consent?

Move approval.

Second.

All right, there's a motion and a second.

Did you want to pull something on consent?

No, I was just made it was going to make a comment, but uh you didn't see it.

Oh all right, all right, let's vote.

Okay.

Motion carries four zero.

Now we're on to the two action items.

These are both items that were sent for workload analysis and are coming back.

We've heard them before.

So we'll start with um item one, our emergency interim housing siting policy.

Any comments from the workload analysis?

It's green lit.

Yeah, only that it's a green light.

Uh this can proceed um under existing staff capacity in the housing department.

Okay, great.

Do we have any public comment on this item?

No public comment.

Okay, back to the committee.

Any for approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Do we have any requests to speak?

If not, we'll vote.

Motion carries four zero.

Thank you so much.

And now our second item.

This is the um al fresco 2.0 again, workload analysis, green light.

All right, no issues.

Public comment on this one.

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

Hi, Jordan Moldale District 3.

I just wanted to speak in strong support of the Alfresco program.

Uh I just got back from a week-long vacation in San Francisco with my two dogs.

Can't eat inside, but you can eat outside.

And uh in San Francisco, you know, basically every restaurant district has a you know, at least a few restaurants with outdoor dining available.

It's really nice, really comfortable.

Uh, it would be great to see more of that in San Jose.

Um the memo didn't make mention of parklets at all.

So I don't, I'm unclear to me whether this policy is about dining on the sidewalk or just dining anywhere outside in the public right of way.

Um, with regard to parklets specifically, again, I'm in support of them.

I remember after the pandemic when some of the parklets started getting removed.

One of the barriers I remember a business uh owner telling me about was the cost of having to rent these like uh cinder blocks to protect the parklet from cars.

Um I don't know much detail about that.

That's just something I remember being told about that that was a requirement and a cost.

And I hope we would if if parklets is included in the scope of this plan, I hope we would consider removing expensive requirements like that.

Uh there were no cinder blocks that I saw in San Francisco, just like reflective polls in front of the parklets, um, so that you know cars would see them at night.

Um I saw in the uh memo the phrase um by right.

Uh, when we study the other municipalities that do this, I just want to see do they also do this by right?

Uh I could imagine potential uh unforeseen consequences doing that.

Uh so maybe just see is that uh uh does that work well in other cities or should we do it in a slightly different way?

Thank you.

Back to the committee.

Okay, thank you for public comment.

We'll turn to Vice Mayor Foley first.

Thank you.

I'm I'm happy to see this going forward, but I'm concerned that it doesn't allow small businesses in other the parts of the city that are not in the downtown, not urban villages and not in business improvement districts, that they don't have the ability to have the parklets or the outside dining that others do.

So I hope that when it comes forward, we'll be able to take that into consideration as well, because all of our businesses who have the physical capability should be able to have this opportunity to expand their business and have business outdoors.

So I I'm just just a concern that it very limiting to a certain areas and doesn't speak to my district nine.

Sounds like a uh good topic for a memo on the it sounds well.

I may be setting it up for a memo, so we'll just see.

Uh so with that I will move approval.

All right, I don't see any other hands, so let's vote.

Okay.

That motion carries four zero, and we will conclude with open forum.

Brian.

I'm here again to bring up the idea that I think would be very good for the city is a day of recognition for crime victims of all kinds.

I think um one thing that puts these people in a group is that they feel violated.

Now, granted, there's a big difference between violent crime and somebody who had uh their car broken into, but the sense of losing your connection with safety environment stuff, it does affect you.

I've been mugged several times, had a gun pulled on me, a knife, had my life threatened a few times, and um it does affect you.

You know, it probably shouldn't.

I don't know if that makes me a coward or not, but it does affect me.

Um I still go out and stuff.

Um, but there are people who've gone through a lot worse.

And I would recommend please.

Um there's an email.

I also included um organizations that deal with specific areas of crime victims, because you uh one of the people on the committees mentioned that they want to have um local organizations that will sponsor this, that makes sense to me.

The other thing is uh the next round of cuts that's coming will affect people with disabilities, people with developmental disabilities, people with mental health issues.

And um, I've been in this field since 19.

I was in special ed as a student through the 60s and started working with people with disabilities in 1980, and I still haven't stopped.

So I think I have some collective memory.

People do lose their housing, people do go on the street, and people do die a lot more than you think.

Almost rival the people who are in convalescent hospitals.

And that death rates in some of those places that have worked out of come on, come back to work after uh uh maybe two days off and lost half your students.

Now that affects a person, but it means it's the people who've gone through it and the families.

So I'm just bringing that to your attention.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Jordan.

Sorry.

Jordan Moldale District Three.

Um a few weeks ago there was a presentation here.

I wasn't here, but I watched it online uh about the rules for the standing committees and how they you know refer policy or request um you know staff work.

Um and I understand it was just a statement of this is what the existing policy is, but it seemed a little weird to me where policy recommendations can be referred directly to council, but staff work recommendations have to go through rules, which seems like an extended process.

Um, and it reminded me of when we sunset the Vision Zero Task Force.

We said one of the reasons for doing that was because TNE has power to refer things to council to be able to take certain actions that we might want to make.

So the the presentation sort of uh seemed at odds with what I thought was the case, which is that the teeny committee could refer things through council.

It seems to me that standing committees are supposed to be subject matter experts in their field, and if they you know have a proposal that they want to bring through to staff, it seems like it would make sense that they could you know refer that directly to city council rather than going through a roundabout process of going to rules first.

And so I understand that that was a statement of what the existing rules are, uh, but I wonder if there should be some sort of change where if the if a teeny committee or different standing committee is hearing an item on a specific topic that they have knowledge of and they have an idea of hey, maybe we should have staff do X instead of Y, that they could then you know refer that directly to council for consideration rather than having to go through a roundabout process through rules.

Um and you know, maybe the standing committee can request those workload analyses that would go through council with the referral.

So just something to consider um is whether that should be a potential rule change to maybe streamline that and make the standing committees be able to back to the committee.

All right.

Well, thank you, everyone.

We are adjourned at 2.14 p.m.