All right, good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome.

I'd like to call to me to order this meeting of the San Jose City Council for the afternoon of April twenty first.

Tony, would you please call the role?

Kame.

Campos.

Present Tordillos.

Here.

Coen.

Here.

Ortiz.

Present.

Mokey.

Here.

Duan.

Here.

Candeles.

Here.

Foley.

Here.

Mayhem.

Here.

Casey.

You have a corn.

Great.

Thank you.

Now, if you're able, please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

One nation under God.

Indivisible with liberty and justice role.

Thank you.

Today's invocation will be provided by the Piedmont Middle School Choir, and Councilmember Cohen will tell us more.

Yes.

Well, as you know, I like to highlight the music program in the Barriessa Union School District.

And we've done our instrumental performance, but this we also have an amazing.

The other half of our music program is an amazing choir program, award-winning choir.

And whenever we need performances in our area, Celeste Wilson and her class are always willing to oblige, so I'm happy to have invited them to come and join us today.

And I'll let um Miss Wilson take it from here.

And I want to share about how Miss Wilson has helped me in my choir journey.

Thanks to Miss Wilson, I discovered a passion for music, which I never knew I had back in elementary school.

Now, singing with my classmates has become one of the best moments of my day.

Because I love singing, I chose both advanced choir and performing arts for my electives to make it all fit in my schedule.

But honestly, I don't mind at all because of the passion on singing, and it's completely worth it.

Hi, my name is Victoria Pipe, and Far makes me feel independent and safe to try new things.

I've come out of my set my shell so much since sixth grade, and also improved my self-esteem by discovering new opportunities like solos, being a leader in class, and so many more things.

Hi, my name is London New Wynn.

Singing a solo makes me feel brave.

And it's just a great community to be part of hi, my name is Alia Asper.

Um my favorite memory of choir is when my first performance in sixth grade.

And I met so many wonderful and amazing people because of her choir and her like helpfulness to make me a better person.

I got peace a river.

I've got a river.

I've got a river in my soul.

I've got these sliver.

I've got a river.

I've got a river in my soul.

I've got an ocean.

I've got love.

I've got love and ocean in my soul.

I've got notion.

I've got an ocean.

I've got my ocean in my soul.

I've got joy.

Joy like a fountain of God's joy.

Joy like a fountain.

I've got to joy like a fountain in my soul.

I've got a joy like a fountain.

I've got a joy like a fountain.

I've got a joy a fountain in my soul.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you for providing our invitation.

That was beautiful.

Piedmont Middle School Choir.

Everyone, thank you again.

Great way to start our meeting.

We're on to our ceremonial items.

Councilmember Cohen and Councilor Kamei.

If you would join me at the podium, we will recognize and proclaim April 22nd as Earth Day.

Today we recognize and celebrate Earth Day and reaffirm our shared responsibility to protect the environment here in San Jose and beyond.

Jeff Provin Provenzano, Director of Environmental Services, and Mani Bucala, who is uh going to a member of the um the our youth member of the climate commission here in San Jose.

The first Earth Day on April 22nd, 1970 brought millions of Americans together to raise awareness and advocate for a healthier planet, helping elevate environmental protection to a national priority and sparking the creation of the environmental protection agency.

I am proud of the city of San Jose's programs and services across our departments that protect our environment, improve public health, and educate our community about environmental stewardship.

From wastewater reduction and watershed protection in the environmental services department to our transportation department, making the streets safer and more pedestrian friendly to our public works department and making City Hall the first in the nation to achieve lead platinum certification for an existing building.

This work touches every neighborhood and every resident.

And just a little local plug.

Tomorrow on Earth Day in District 4, Penitentiary Creek Park, we'll be planting three trees and having a ceremony to recognize a thousand trees that we planted in District 4 since Earth Day 2022.

Today with Council Member Kameh and City Council, I'm pleased to invite Mani Bukala, student leader with Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action to accept this year's proclamation.

Mani is a junior in high school from Council District 3, youth director and San Jose team co-lead for the student-led nonprofit Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action and serves on the City of San Jose's climate advisory commission.

He has been a climate advocate for the past five years, pushing for strong climate action that we need at the local level.

Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action is a youth-led nonprofit that empowers teens and young adults to combat climate change with impactful interdisciplinary policy and education initiatives.

They were recently awarded a zero waste innovations grant from the City of San Jose for a new campaign that's focusing on waste prevention at the source, starting with one of its most common and overlooked contributors to landfill, single use cups.

Through this initiative's through this initiative, Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action will promote reusable alternatives, support community and business engagement, and advance practical, scalable solutions that align with San Jose's zero waste goals.

Now here's Mani.

Thank you very much to the mayor and city council on behalf of dozens of climate advocates and especially young people who weren't able to be here today.

Thank you for this proclamation and for the commitment that it shows to meeting today's environmental crises with urgency.

I'd like to get this a little bit of grounding about why we are here at this moment.

My climate journey, like those of so many other people of all ages here in the Bay Area, began in 2019 and it accelerated in 2020.

In 2019, the youth-led Fridays for Future movement awakened us to the outrageous global inaction on climate change.

And the next year, the crisis struck closer to home with some of California's worst wildfires in our history searing into our memories, Orange Sky Day.

Dozens of lives have been lost directly here in California due to wildfires, in addition to uncountable others due to smoke, extreme heat, and other impacts.

And the now annual air pollution from wild fire smoke has harmed the health of us all.

So this story highlights a crucial truth, which is that climate change isn't a distant or theoretical abstract problem.

It is an immediate and local crisis in our community's health and safety.

It demands concerted efforts at all levels of society and of government.

And unfortunately, the Trump administration now has taken a wrecking ball to our nation's climate action, along with so much else.

But climate change does not wait.

Not for federal administrations, not for budget cycles, and not for an easier or more convenient moment.

And 2019 was also a landmark year for our local response, which has continued to the present here in downtown and San Jose downtown in particular.

But we understand that climate action begins in our own communities and local governments, and there's an enormous amount left to do.

There are only three more Earth Days left until the year 2030 when we have pledged to reach carbon neutrality.

So we understand that we need to move faster.

We have picked many of the low-hanging fruits, and we need to accelerate our efforts, all of us in this together.

We face major challenges both in resolving our contributions to climate change and in adapting to its effects that are happening now.

And we need leadership from City Hall and all levels of local government to make this happen.

So that's what I want us to take away from this Earth Day.

It is a tangible and immediate call to action to take the necessary steps to protect a livable present and future for young people today and those of all generations here in our San Jose community.

But most importantly, I want us to remember what is so wonderful about this holiday.

It's about people coming together, not only to fight today's environmental harms, but also to envision and to build a more beautiful future together, one where everyone, where no one suffers from air pollution, from polluted air, where everyone has access to safe streets and affordable transportation and housing, and where our communities are healthy, vibrant, and thriving.

This future is within our reach.

And I want us all to remember that the path to building it, to reaching it, goes through climate action.

Thank you very much to the city council and to city staff for working tirelessly on climate initiatives at our local level, the city council for providing the direction and resources to do so.

And happy Earth Day.

Councilor Candelas, if you'll join me at the podium, we will recognize and proclaim April 20th to 24th as National Youth Violence Prevention Week.

And I'll invite our guests to come on down as well.

Thank you.

And I'll also invite any of uh my colleagues who wish to join me to commemorate this occasion as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Um today, the City of San Jose is proud uh to proclaim April 18th through the 25th as national youth violence prevention week.

Uh Youth Violence Prevention Week is a coordinated citywide initiative designed to support our youth, strengthen partnerships, and advance community-based violence prevention strategies.

As you can see from behind us, we have a coalition of people who are dedicated to doing just that.

And uh this week, the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance is collaborating with local schools and partners to deliver eight days of school-based youth activations and community engagement events.

As a matter of fact, today uh they hosted the Oakland ceasefire and the Department of Violence Prevention uh right here at City Hall to discuss proven public health strategies for reducing violence and strengthening community police relationships.

Um and so that's that's why it is especially meaningful uh to present today's proclamation to uh Cora Tomolinas, a a champion, a San Jose champion for lifelong uh devotion uh to quite literally saving lives.

And so uh her legacy began here in the city of San Jose uh in the early 1990s as a founding catalyst of the mayor's uh gang prevention task force, where she helped build a national model for youth intervention that balances compassion with accountability.

Her work was so impactful uh that the White House recognized her as a champion for change for youth violence prevention.

Um the fruit of Cora's long-standing advocacy can be seen in the rapid expansion of different citywide initiatives.

Uh, two years ago, um I championed uh expanding opportunities for youth, uh specifically in my district, uh, which ultimately created a Saturday Night Lights program.

Um, and thanks to different community partners, the earthquakes, our police department, the school district, uh, we have been able to grow this program not just for my district to eight sites citywide.

Um, and this past weekend we kicked off our second year of bringing uh footsal to middle school and high school students.

Uh, this is something that it makes me incredibly proud because uh sports has had a big impact on my life, and um I get an opportunity, and a lot of our community partners get to bring that to families and uh being there on Friday and Saturday nights, seeing how active the kids are, the competition, and that energy is something that gives me hope for our future.

And um, you know, violence prevention is truly um a daily, weekly, uh monthly commitment to uh our families.

Uh, I'm proud that our city initiatives go beyond uh recreation.

They are about building trust, confidence in our youth and showing them that this city is invested in their future.

Um, so uh without further ado, I'd like to welcome Cora to share a few words.

Uh you got a whole entourage behind you, Cora.

Take it on.

Are you sure you want me to you want to give me this microphone?

Okay.

Coming here today is like coming back home.

And it's pretty emotional for me.

I haunted these halls for your children.

So first of all, let me say to the youth that are here how very proud we are of you, and if you are here, you can pat yourself because you are engaged, you are a part, a vital part of this community.

You are the pillar of all the programs for violence for the prevention of violence in youth and the whole community.

So let me first of all that was just part one.

First of all, let me thank Council Member Candellas and the whole city council for inviting me to come and be able to speak, to speak to you mainly to thank you for all your efforts for your dedication and commitment to our children and families, their safety, and especially to the prevention of violence committed against our young people.

Thank you for supporting the programs, and we have so many programs.

Thank you for supporting them.

I think maybe uh sometimes it behooves us to remind the city council that you do have a covenant with the community, you do have a mandate from years back that violence cannot be prevented by just arresting everybody.

You need a whole gamut of programs from intervention to yes, enforcement, but you also need that part, that last part, that aftercare for those who make mistakes.

It was the community realizing that both the perpetrator and the victim are all ours, they are all our children, and violence cannot be prevented by just enforcement.

Rather, I think we should remember, or at least I remember that a hug usually does a lot more than being giving corporal punishments.

So I say to everyone and to the city council today, please let us remember that hate is only defeated by love, and that love that love, that love is for everyone, but especially for the children.

So when you go home tonight, don't let the pain that's happening nowadays, the crime leave them out, leave them out.

Do not let the children feel the pain too long for want of a hug.

Thank you for listening.

Mayor, will you please present the uh proclamation?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you for your inspiring words.

I think we have a second.

Yeah, we can give it to the S want to take it.

Yeah, I got you.

First, and then we're going to call it out.

Okay.

Okay.

One, two, and three.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Cora.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for honoring so much.

Thank you so much.

All right.

And last but not least, Councilmember Mulcahy.

I see you're already here.

Let's recognize Spire Autism.

Uh, thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just wanna say how proud I am that San Jose for the first time has stepped forward to recognize April as Autism Awareness Month.

And I'll recognize my colleague Pamela Campos, who last week recognized another organization in our dist in our in our city doing great work in this community.

So it's an honor to be here today to recognize a powerful force for good in our community.

Martin Slingstad and Spire Autism.

Martin's story is one of resilience and purpose.

As an autistic individual pursuing a degree in speech pathology, and graduation is just around the corner, I think.

Martin has turned his lived experience into action, supporting others, educating communities, and advocating for greater understanding.

Through his work and his book, Chatterbox, he has helped many families feel seen and supported.

Through Spire Autism, Martin and his mother Stella have created something truly impactful.

Their mission goes beyond awareness.

It's about acceptance, inclusion, and equipping our community with the tools to better serve individuals on the spectrum.

Whether it's training first responders, creating sensory friendly spaces, or speaking with educators and families, their work is making a real difference.

Here in San Jose, we've seen that impact through efforts like observing autism awareness and acceptance month and expanding exclusive spaces across our city.

Their vision is clear.

A community where individuals with autism are embraced and supported to thrive.

On behalf of the city of San Jose, I want to thank Martin, Stella, and Spire Autism for their leadership, their courage, and their commitment to building a more inclusive future.

Congratulations and thank you for all that you do.

Now I'd like to invite Martin to say a few words, and then the mayor will present the commendations.

Martin.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Wow.

Hello, everyone.

First, I'd like to thank Mayor Mahan, Councilmember Mokee, and City staff.

It's unbelievable.

You know, I could not have done this without God by my side.

Truly, I would not be standing here today without his grace.

And what a month it has been.

If I had to describe advocacy in one word, it would be difficult.

It is a journey filled with highs and lows with moments of hope and moments of doubt.

Before I became an advocate, I often wondered whether people would listen or hear me.

But after releasing my book and receiving meaningful feedback, I knew this was the path I was meant to take, despite the roadblocks and the battles with self-doubt.

During my first overseas speaking engagement in Dubai, this one moment has stayed with me ever since.

After I shared my speech, an autistic adult who speaks only by singing raised his hand.

Expressing his hope that the gap between parents, their children, and society would be bridged.

I was stunned.

It was one of the most moving and beautiful moments I have ever experienced.

Then later, while speaking to a club at UC Berkeley, one of the members came up to me and said they felt more comfortable sharing about their autism with peers and co-workers after hearing my message.

And now here we are as I receive a commendation from my city.

Meeting so many people along my journey has been uplifting from her excellency in Dubai to former New York Mayor Eric Adams, to our very own Mayor Matt Mahan, Councilmember Mulcahy, Senator Dave Cortez, Assemblymember Ash Carla, and others.

This has truly been a wonderful journey.

Meeting so many others like me in Columbus, Seattle, Portland, New York, New Jersey, and many more in the future.

I look forward to continuing this work with courage and commitment for those who do not yet have a voice.

Thank you.

I appreciate your being an advocate.

Oh, that's cool.

If we move this way, we'll get the flags in the background.

Come over here, Laura.

Are you overheading here?

Good.

You must be so proud.

I am here again.

Thank you.

I think we're out of time.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here.

It's great to have you all here at this call.

Thanks for the work you're doing.

Thank you, Matt.

All right.

Thank you, colleagues, for those inspiring ceremonial items.

We're on to orders of the day.

I don't believe there were any requested changes to the printed agenda.

Just checking here, seeing none, we will move on to the closed session report.

And the mayor there was no closed session this week.

There we go.

No closed session this week.

Thank you, Susanna.

Let's go on to consent.

I understand Councilman Condelas would like to pull item 2.13, Councilmore Kame, item 2.18.

Are there any other requests?

Okay.

We'll just go in order.

Uh Councilmember Recondales, we'll start with you.

Um thank you.

Um, I I just, you know, I'm really excited for this uh microtransit service to come to a reality for our residents in East San Jose.

And you know, Ballante or shorthand for forward in Spanish is a long time coming and represents a major step towards transit equity and opportunity in our city.

I you know, uh while we've recently seen major progress on uh long overdue transit investments, including the Eastern Chabar Regional Connector Project that is continuing to move along, you know, uh you know there are some challenges uh that you know BTA uh and those of us on the council who s who represent the city on BTA uh still needs to work through.

I think it's important to uplift this program as a uh meaningful way to enhance our uh families' ability to get to and from work, school, doctor's appointments, uh grocery stores or or what have you.

And you know, with that being said, I I I did have uh uh a couple questions for staff.

Um so John, while you make make your way down here, you know, uh I know we don't have an official launch date uh for Palanti yet, but um when will our residents begin to know that this service is coming uh for for our community and what's the launch strategy.

Thank you, Councilmember John Risto, Director of Transportation.

Yes, we're excited to get this service going too.

We've got still got a lot of work uh after the hopefully the approval today to actually uh get the vendor contractor and vehicles all set up and then do a lot of outreach.

So we're looking at towards the end of this calendar year.

Okay, great.

And then um uh just I I just want to make sure that uh the outreach plan for our residents, considering it's a it's a limited program, it's a time-limited program, um, that we are um surgical in our approach of how we're engaging our community and making sure it's multilingual, making sure that we're that staff is is doing everything they can to make sure our residents know that this microtransit service is available.

Thank you again, and yes, that's exactly what we're doing.

We've actually done quite a bit of work to develop this with the community, and then once we get the chance to actually start launching, we're gonna be using a lot of uh community-based organizations to help us with that, both in focus groups, outreach, their own materials that are gonna be needed really to have the people know about this service, and also then be able to use it.

So we're looking forward to this is really a service that fills that gap between what VTA doesn't do now, used to do, but VTA's funding it.

So we're really we're glad that we're able to get those grants for that.

So perfect, thank you, John.

And then uh lastly, you know, making sure that uh we're emphasizing underlining emphasize, you know, making it in uh uh crystal clear that our outreach needs to be in Spanish, Vietnamese, uh, digital, physical, the hotline.

If somebody calls, like I want to make sure that we are dotting our eyes and crossing on T.

So if if we have an issue, way more than I can even describe here.

All right, thank you.

Thank you so much.

And and and uh yeah, that's all I had.

Mayor, uh, thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Council Ortiz, did you want to comment on the same item?

Yes, thank you so much, Mayor.

Um, thank you, colleague, for pulling this item.

I want to just thank staff for bringing this forward and for the work that's gone into designing this pilot.

This vision for this project began about three years ago through conversations with ESAN Jose leaders and advocates, including former VTA chair and then county supervisor Cindy Chavez, uh, Councilmember uh Condelas, and then community leaders from the Mayfair, Casel, Plateau Royal, Welch Park, and Ocala neighborhoods.

I just want to thank staff and those community leaders for bringing all this work forward and just all the effort gone in uh to this pilot.

Um, this item is about launching an on-demand community-based microtransit service in East San Jose.

Flexible and designed to meet people where they are.

It's meant to fill the gaps in our in our existing system, especially for residents who can't easily access traditional transit or are traveling to areas that aren't well served by our current transit system.

And that's what exactly why projects like this one matter.

We know that East San Jose is one of the most transit-reliant parts of our city, but it's also an area that hasn't always seen the level of investment in transit infrastructure needed to meet the needs of our working families.

This kind of investment helps close that first and last mile gap, making it easier for seniors, workers, and young people to get to their jobs, schools, and essential services.

Now I saw I experienced that last mile gap and lack of access to um uh alternative transit during the uh Viva Calle uh event over the weekend, um, where I couldn't I couldn't rent any uh rental bikes uh throughout the um whole uh uh pathway.

And so I realized wow, we really need to do better on the east side, making sure that we have these scooters and bikes that are available for the rest of our our residents.

It's also about something bigger, making sure that as we invest in transportation, we're doing it in a way that is equitable, community-driven, and responsive to actual need.

I'm supportive of this pilot.

Uh, I want to thank uh Councilmember Candelas and everyone else who worked on this, of course, our staff for bringing this forward.

Thank you.

And do we have to move this item?

We'll take the calendar as a whole, I think.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate the comments and uh agree.

This is a great innovation, and glad we're investing in it with our partners at VTA.

We'll go now to item 218, Councilmember Kameh.

Thank you so much.

Uh I want to begin by thanking uh Vice Mayor Foley, Councilmember Campos for their thoughtful partnership in bringing this resolution forward, and to Councilmember Candelas for your support in recognizing the importance of this effort.

The farm worker movement is a defining part of our region's history and identity.

It was built through the collective action of workers, families, and communities who organize to demand dignity, fair wages, and safe working conditions.

This resolution aligns the city of San Jose with the state of California's recognition on March 31st as farm workers' day and provides an opportunity for the city to formally honor the generations of farm workers whose labor and leadership have created lasting change in our region and across the state.

By moving this resolution forward, we affirm the City of San Jose's commitment to equity, dignity, and inclusion, and we take an important step in ensuring that the legacy and contributions of farm workers are recognized, not just today, but as an enduring part of our shared civic history.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues for their support and partnership on this item.

I'd like to move the entire consent calendar.

Second.

Great, thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

I'd like to thank my fellow female colleagues who co-authored this memorandum with me, Council Members Kamei and Campos.

But I know that all the rest of the council members will be supportive of this item as well.

There's been a lot said about Cesar Chavez and the horrifying allegations that have come to light regarding his conduct.

But this resolution is not about him.

This resolution is about recognizing March 31st and honoring labor organizing, farm worker rights, and those who helped advance dignity for thousands of workers.

Women and families were foundational to this movement and played a critical role in its advancement.

However, as women, my co-authors and I know that all too often the contributions of women are overlooked, not only by their contemporaries, but also by history.

This resolution seeks to right that wrong by centering the women and families of the farm workers movement while also taking the lead of the state by renaming the holiday to Farm Workers' Day.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmore Condelas.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to my colleagues on this item.

I had a question for the administration on a couple weeks ago.

The mayor, Councilmember Tordillos, uh Ortiz in Campos, I believe, and I uh brought forward a uh brought forth the memo on the renaming of city facilities.

Could staff provide an update on that and see where we're at with this?

Absolutely.

Staff has completed uh the first inventory analysis of all the assets within the city with that name.

Um PRNS, City Manager's Office, as well as some of the offices within the manager's office are now coordinating on next steps around a community engagement process for the rules committee direction.

So our hope is to release an info memo in the next few weeks outlining what that process will look like.

Um, it'll be a little bit different for some of the parks per municipal code and the charter.

Park renaming has some additional steps.

So we are targeting the parks commission in August, um, right after the holiday right after the uh July recess, and so that would be forthcoming some of the park renaming in September to the full council.

Uh great, thank you.

I look forward to that info memo and and to ensuring that uh a robust list of community partners and um uh community engagement is specified in that.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Tony, let's vote.

Wait, I'm sorry, we haven't had public comment, have we?

I have no cards at the second.

We did have a motion and a second, but we did not have public comment.

Do we have any?

No, we have no cards.

Okay, then we can vote motion passes unanimously.

Great, thank you.

Okay, item 3.1 report of the city manager.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

I do have a report today.

Um, as we all may know, April is earthquake preparedness month, is an important reminder for all of us in San Jose as our city sits on or near several active fault lines, including the San Andreas, Hayward, and Calaveras Faults.

One of the many responsibilities of the public safety city service area is to build resilient communities that are ready to respond to emergencies.

The city manager's office of emergency management plays a key role in keeping San Jose safe, prepared, and ready every day.

Through ongoing efforts, that office provides clear and practical preparedness education to help residents get ready for emergencies like earthquakes and fires.

At the same time, the team continues to strengthen partnerships across city departments and regional partner agencies to ensure a coordinated response when it matters most, with an emphasis on our most vulnerable communities.

We know that preparing for emergencies takes our whole community.

That is why for the month of April, the city manager's Office of Communications launched a campaign to provide residents and businesses with practical tips to prepare for an earthquake.

Last year's earthquake campaign successfully increased signups to alert SCC by over 3% in underregistered neighborhoods of San Jose.

Thus, we are employing similar tactics this year, including a social media series titled The 30 Tips in 30 Days.

We encourage you to reshare these posts across your platforms to help expand their reach.

A multilingual brochure was also mailed to four zip codes, 95111, 95116, 95117, and 95122 with registration rates of less than 5% for alert SCC.

The brochure will also be distributed at outreach events such as V VECIA we just had, Viva Escala, and Music in the Park.

In San Jose, earthquake preparedness is an integral part of our comprehensive emergency planning efforts.

As we prepare for major events that bring visitors and economic activity to our city, we also strengthen how we coordinate across agencies and focus on reducing risks.

These efforts help ensure we are ready to respond no matter what the situation.

Building on lessons learned from past major events like the Super Vol and March Madness, the Office of Emergency Management has led an afteraction reviews with city staff and regional partners to improve coordination, strengthen communication, and refine emergency response plans.

This work is already shaping how the city prepares for the FIFA World Cup and the variety of FANFEST events scheduled to take place around match days.

We are actively working with the City of Santa Clara and the County of Santa Clara to enhance regional coordination and deliver timely, proactive emergency messaging for both residents and visitors.

I would like to thank Ray Reardon, Director of the City Manager's Office of Emergency Management, and Carolina Camarena, director of the City Manager's Office of Communications, along with their teams.

Their leadership helps prepare our staff, residents, and businesses for emergencies.

I truly believe that when we work together, we build a stronger, more resilient San Jose.

But before I finish, I wanted to extend a special congratulations today to our own Ray Reardon.

We just learned he is receiving the California Emergency Services Association's Presidents Award in recognition of his strong leadership and commitment to advancing emergency management through his work as a chair of the association's legislative affairs committee.

I want you all to know that 2026 marks 40 years for Ray in this profession, and he's contributed so much to not only San Jose but the emergency management community at large.

Thank you again, Ray.

Would you please stand so we can give you some applause for that?

And that concludes my report.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, Ray.

We will go on to item 3.3 review of the retirement plan's pension and post-employment health care plan actuarial valuations as of June 30th, 2025.

We have a staff presentation.

What is ready to do?

Thank you.

I would think we learned ready yesterday.

That's a very spring situation.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council members, uh John Flynn, Director of Retirement Services.

With me today is Bill Hallmark, the retirement board's actuarial consultant from Chiron.

The actual reports before you today cover the pension and post-employment benefits or OPEB plans as of June 30th, 2025.

These reports were prepared by the board's actuarial consultant, Chiron, and were developed in accordance with generally accepted actuarial principles and practices consistent with the code of professional conduct and the applicable actuarial standards of practice.

The funded ratio on the actuarial value basis increased for both retirement systems.

The improvement was driven primarily by growth in the actual value of assets.

That increase reflects the asset smoothing methodology where the investment gains are recognized over five years.

While actuarial liabilities also increased, the actuar the asset values increased at a greater rate, which resulted in improved funded ratios for both plans.

The chart shows in total pension and asset assets were approximately $8.76 billion with about $2.91 billion in unfunded actuarial liability for a combined pension funded ratio of $55.1%, which is three percentage points higher than last year.

For OPEB, the funded ratio shown is 55.2 percent.

And I'd like to note that the OPEB figures relate only to the explicit subsidy.

This is 2.7 percentage points higher than last year.

Total annual contributions across all stakeholders increased to 632.1 million dollars.

The largest component is the city's contribution towards the unfunded actuarial liability and interest at 336.4 million.

The city's normal cost increased to 121.6 million, representing the annual cost of benefits earned in that year.

Member contributions also increased to $84 million, which is largely attributed to ongoing workforce turnover as Tier 1 members replace or replaced by Tier 2 members who are responsible for a larger share of the normal and administrative costs.

The slide also reflects the system now serves 16,042 members and beneficiaries, an increase of 237 members or about 1.5% over the prior year.

This short this chart shows projected city contributions over the next 20 years.

As with all projections, it's important to remember that the model assumes that actual and economic assumptions are realized exactly as projected.

This year is earlier than projected last year by one year.

2028 is followed by a gradual decline of contributions for more than a decade.

While you will also notice a more significant drop between 2040 and 2041.

For slide five, I will turn it over to Bill to walk through the sources of change in the pension unfunded actuarial liabilities over time.

So this slide uh shows the police and fire system on the left and the federated system on the right.

Uh bars going up are increases in the unfunded liability, uh, not what we want.

Bars going down are good, uh, those are paying down the unfunded liability.

Uh you can see in the 2007 to 10 period, which is the first bar, that's where the systems incurred a substantial portion of their unfunded liability, primarily due to the investment losses in the Great Recession.

For the police and fire plan, that was almost 1.3 billion uh in unfunded liability during that time period, and for federated, it was about 0.8 billion.

That period was followed by the 2010 to 2015 period, where we made significant changes to our assumptions, which are shown in the purple bars, and those largely drove increases in the liability.

Some of that was offset by investment gains or other gains during that period.

In the period from 2015 to 2020, uh, we continued to make assumption changes as we brought the discount rate down.

Uh at the beginning of this period, the police and fire plan assumed an 8% return, and the federated plan assumed eight and a quarter.

Both plans are now down to six and five eighths as their assumed returns.

And so that increases the cost because we're relying less on investment returns.

Um during that period, we also sustained some further investment losses.

But during the last five years, the investment returns have been higher than our assumption.

So the gold bars are below the line, paying off the unfunded liability, and we have raised contributions up to a level so that the contributions are really paying down a significant part of the unfunded liability.

So we know that hits the city's budget, uh, but that uh has been a significant contributor to bringing down these uh liabilities, unfunded liabilities, and to the projections of eventually reducing the contributions.

Thank you, Bill.

Um take questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

Good to see the progress.

Why don't we start with any public comment?

I have no cards because I have to the council.

We'll start with the vice mayor.

Thank you.

You knew I'd ask you I'd be here, John.

Thank you, John and Bill, for your presentation.

I have served as the council liaison to one of the uh pension boards for for as long as I've been on council, both the police and fire and now federated and council member Casey joins me on the police and fire board.

Every year when it comes to budget season, I bring up unfunded liabilities, so it's timely that you're here before we get further into the budget.

The city's contribution to pay down the unfunded actuarial liability in the next fiscal year is over 300 million.

That's equivalent to about five times the upcoming budget shortfall.

The unfunded actual liability or UAL as we recall it as we call it, represents a shortfall in our pension plan that was a result of previous poor financial decisions and poor market performance long before this council came into office.

However, this council and future councils must make payments to pay down the UAL.

The pensions are promises that we as city made to our employees, and paying down this shortfall so that we can fulfill those promises is not optional.

At the same time, we should be honest that this is over 300 million from the general fund that could otherwise be paying for improved services for our residents.

This highlights why fiscal responsibility is so important.

Unfortunately, previous decisions around budgets, pension benefits, and actuarial assumptions were less than prudent, resulting in our residents today paying for the mistakes of the past, and I mean long ago past.

As we approach the upcoming budget, I think we should keep this in mind.

We don't want to saddle future generations and future councils with the massive obligations we find ourselves with, even though we see the turn the corner turning, it doesn't happen for several years, and it won't happen while many of us are still in office.

We should strive for a structurally sustainable city budget that sets up future councils to be able to expand services rather than contract.

I'm proud that we are finally on track to fully close the UAL for both the federated and police and fire plans, which will significantly improve the health of the general fund.

This should be a lesson.

We must keep our eye on the ball with the UAL to ensure it doesn't get out of control again.

And more broadly, we must not overcommit ourselves financially now, as it could have significant consequences down the road.

I move approval of the item.

Second.

I do have one question for you regarding the federated uh numbers.

The staff member shows that the federated OPEB, and and for the record, maybe you could say what OPEB stands for, increased rather than decreased.

I understand the actual math behind liabilities, increasing more than assets.

However, I'm wondering if you might have more insight into the underlying factors that contributed to the UAL increase.

So OPEB stands for other post-employment benefits.

It's uh largely retiree medical uh benefits here.

And what uh drove our increases this last year were significant increases in health care costs.

So some of the uh Medicare Advantage programs had premium increases over 30 percent.

And so that directly impacts uh the city's costs of providing those benefits.

Thank you.

I I appreciate that explanation.

That's that's all I have.

Thank you.

Great, thanks, Vice Mayor.

Appreciate you being a voice for fiscal restraint.

Um hopefully we learn the lesson going forward and don't create new burdens for future generations like the one that we're we're now facing.

Uh, but making progress on.

So thank you for your good work and uh appreciate the update.

Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you.

All right, we are on to item 3.4 data centers and PGE partnership status report.

We'll turn it over to Manuel and the team for a staff presentation in just a moment.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council, Manuel Pineda, Deputy City Manager.

Pleasure to be here this afternoon uh with me, of course.

Of course, I got three people that you know Erica, Jeff, and Chris in the back seat and Karen with PGE, who's going to be reviewing some PGE items for us, and it's also going to be available for any questions associated with that.

Before we start the discussion, just wanted to kind of frame the discussion for today and just start out by kind of focusing on kind of what we're doing and we're not doing.

And I just want to make note, and uh this is an informational report that you have in front of you.

Um today, you're not approving any projects related to any city land use decisions or any PGE and Kaiso perspectives.

All those projects will go through their own process for PG ⁇ E and Kaisel.

They'll go through their approval process and CQA process that they're required to do.

And of course, for any city land use projects, whether they're data center, industrial, commercial, manufacturing, they'll go through that process, including community outreach and CEQA.

The reason we're here today, though, is because we have done a lot of work over the last year.

And as you know, electricity is a key factor in developing in California, and we've done a lot of work to try to set San Jose as a good location for future development consideration.

We're going to be talking about our large load customers today, and Erica's gonna get into details what that is.

And of course, as we move forward with possible land use decisions, there will be a balance between the environmental analysis that we have to do, the economic development, which we know there's economic benefits associated with large load projects, and of course, making sure that we have the infrastructure in place, and we've been working both with PGE and LS Power as those projects move forward.

So with that, I'll pass it over to Erica.

Thank you, Manuel.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members, and members of the public.

Erica Grafo, assistant to the city manager, and large load energy customer development lead in the city manager's Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs.

As a reminder, last during last March special council meeting, the City Council directed the administration to negotiate a formal implementation agreement with PGE while also preserving the city's ability to revisit other options if PGE did not perform.

That agreement was executed in July of 2025.

It sets clear rules, dedicated staffing, and enforceable performance measures to speed electrical infrastructure delivery for large energy users.

It also reflects the city council's direction to support large energy customers, projects requiring 10 20 megawatts or more because of their significant impact on economic activity and city revenue.

Since June of 2025, our focus has been built on has been building the people, process, and technology needed to move this opportunity forward.

We created a cross-departmental data center development team with staff from planning, building, fire, public works, energy, water supply, and the Office of Economic Development.

This team oversees large energy projects in the city's development pipeline.

We also added two positions to work with developers and facilitate permitting for large energy projects.

The team tracks projects from early planning through construction and meets regularly with developers to maintain a coordinated citywide approach.

To reiterate, all of these projects will be considered individually through their entitlement and permitting processes, which include public hearings.

While there is special attention on facilitating these projects, they are not being expedited or skipping steps in the process.

Under the implementation agreement, the city staff meet with PGE every two weeks to review substation upgrades, transmission planning, and project-specific energization timelines.

This coordination helps reduce uncertainty, identify risks earlier, and better align city permitting and development timelines with PGE's planning and construction schedule.

The team also monitors PGE performance.

Each quarter, projects are formally scored against the milestones established in the agreement.

As of today, two projects have been energized, and the remaining 10 projects are slated to be energized by 2030.

In addition to these 12, there's interest from developers in adding another six projects to the agreement.

As the city continues to improve infrastructure readiness and attract large energy users, it is important to be clear about both the benefits and concerns associated with data centers.

Large data centers represent a significant fiscal opportunity for San Jose, particularly through property and utility tax.

Because they consume large amounts of electricity, they generate stable, predictable revenue that supports the general fund.

For example, a 50 to 99 megawatt data center, once fully ramped up, could generate roughly three to seven million dollars annually in revenue for city services.

Unlike many other forms of development, data centers add little traffic and require limited ongoing public services once operational.

Keeping these projects in San Jose allows the city to capture more of the financial benefit of the digital economy while building on existing infrastructure investments.

I'll turn it over to Chris Burton to speak about our environmental review process.

Thanks, Erica.

As with any private development project, data centers go through a thorough environmental review in conjunction with uh CECRA as part of the city's permitting process.

Separately, the backup generators often associated with these projects are also subject to Bay Area air district permitting and the operating limits that they impose.

Through our process, we look at a project's full environmental footprint, including air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, utilities, hazards, noise, and infrastructure, to identify and disclose any potential impacts.

For each of these projects, that review is supported by a detailed technical uh studies that are completed by consultants, uh, typically on things like air quality, energy use, and noise.

It's important to note that as uh a project passes a threshold of 50 megawatts that the environmental review then shifts to the California Energy Commission, but the city remains uh aware of and a participant in that process as they move through, and then we will often tear off of that environmental clearance as we do our own land use approvals.

With that, I'll pass it back.

All right.

Thank you.

Continuing with the uh environmental theme, uh water supply.

Uh on the table on the right, um, lists the thresholds for win, a data center, and coming through the planning phase is required to do not only the environmental review, but a water supply assessment.

The water supply assessment will identify how much water is intended to be used and where that water is going to come from.

We have two types of water supply here, primarily, one is recycled water, the other is potable.

There's a strong interest in the data center uh development community to utilize recycled water when it's available.

Uh sort of primary source of water supply that we've seen so far, with potable water being a backup or the only option if they're too far away from the recycled water system.

Potable water supplies here are uh very healthy from a water supply perspective.

Um most of the water comes from our groundwater table of all the data centers that we have lined up in development now or the planning phase now, they'll account for less than 3% of our total San Jose water usage.

So very small.

Uh the bigger um concern uh is uh and challenge as we work with data centers is um how much water they're gonna use at any moment in time is if there's an impact on the neighbors around them.

So we work with the data centers, data center uh developers in the very early phases of planning to identify improvements in water systems, such as larger pipelines, bigger reservoirs, on-site storage, on-site groundwater wells.

Um, then we provide a range of options that they can invest in to ensure that they have the water supply that they need at the same time that they're not impacting the neighbors around them.

Okay.

Um I wanted to talk about our proposed electric rule 30.

Um, we filed this with the commission.

This is the California Public Utilities Commission on November 24th, 2024.

Um, and the reason we did that is uh typically utilities have distribution rules essentially that dictate uh what the cost differences are, what types of upgrades a customer needs to make.

But typically we they don't have uh a transmission one because you can serve up to 20 megawatts, sometimes more off of distribution.

And uh we started seeing so many large data centers and as well as EVs, uh, some manufacturing and uh healthcare uh biomedical industries wanting to connect at transmission, and that necessitated uh a lot of discussion negotiations that were taking a long time and was slowing down the process.

So we filed what we put together as a uh a rule for transmission interconnected entities.

This is not for data centers alone.

This is for anyone who wants to connect to PGE's transmission system.

And we put in some cost constraints in in Rule 30 that lays out what customers are responsible for, what we're responsible for, um, what types of minimum demand charges would be uh levied on them.

And I wanted to walk through this slide.

We have four types of upgrades on our system.

Type one is where you connect the customer, the individual customer, it's the line connecting the customer from their substation to a PGE asset, which could be a substation or could be a switching station.

Type two are the upgrades we need to make to either a switching station or the substation.

A substation typically knocks power up or down, a switching station's like a protection system that'll like open up a switch like it does in your house and cut off power in case there's something that goes wrong.

And then a type three is connecting that switching station or substation to the broader network transmission.

So the KISO system, the California independent system operator is connected throughout California and then outside of California as well.

So that's the broader system that that type 3 connects the customer to.

And what we did in Rule 30 is we said the individual customer that wants to connect to the grid should pay up front for types one, two, and three.

And they would be refunded once they come online and generate revenue.

And so, for example, if a data center says, hey, I want to be, you know, with like 100 megawatts, so we do the upgrades, they pay for them, and they only ever get up to 20 megawatts and do not generate enough revenue to cover the cost, we would not refund them, which means it would never go into customers' rates.

So it's a cost protection mechanism that we have in there.

For type four upgrades, this is the broader network.

We think PGE as a whole should upfront fund those, and that should go into rates because that benefits all entities that are connected to the KISO grid.

We also added some additional protections, including a 15-year minimum contract fee, exit fees if someone were to cancel their project and move out of state, um, as well as a minimum demand charge of 75%.

So if you're a data center and you say I want to, or EV or anything else, and you say you want to be online and you want to uh you know, you know, you want 30 megawatts, you need to pay at least a minimum demand charge equivalent to 75% of that 30 megawatts.

It's essentially have make sure that customers have some skin in the game and the costs are recovered appropriately.

Back to you, Erica.

Thank you, Karen.

Zooming out, we wanted to tell you about some of the major transmission upgrades that are planned between 2028 and 2034, building out more than 2,000 megawatts of planned regional capacity.

Um, first, as Karen mentioned, KAISO is the California independent systems operator.

They are a state agency that oversees the state's electric transmission grid.

Um I want to give a bit of an analogy here to help.

So you can think of the transmission grid as freeways.

Um they have lots of lanes to move lots of electrons all over the state.

Um these transmission lanes can compare to the smaller distribution lines uh that PGE maintains in your neighborhood.

You can think of those as like the residential roads that are bringing the electrons to your doorstep.

So back to the map here.

The yellow lines that you see here are two KISO projects that are expected to begin construction this summer and will be in service in 2028.

Uh, these are being built by LS Power.

There are two additional high voltage lines planned.

The one in blue at the top will connect the two yellow transmission lines, and that one will come online in 2030 time frame.

We recently learned that this project has been awarded to LS Power to build.

And then a fourth line is slated to come from Central Valley into South San Jose around 2034.

This Metcalf to Manning project is also expected to improve access to renewable energy from the Central Valley.

Overall, this reflects a significant regional grid expansion that can help support future electrification growth in San Jose.

The March 2025 Council Action and the subsequent implementation agreement with PGE created a more structured and accountable framework for advancing electric infrastructure delivery in San Jose.

That framework is intended to support large-scale development, protect the city's fiscal interests, and hold PGE accountable for performance.

This partnership is especially important given San Jose's strategic position in the regional transmission grid.

Large energy customers can generate significant city revenue, and when data centers are built in San Jose, they are generally built and operated more cleanly than in other states.

I also want to note that the city is actively tracking proposed state legislation related to data centers and potential impacts on development, energy use, and local policy considerations.

I will turn it back to Menwell to close.

Yeah, and just excuse me, just wanted to do a few closing comments.

And first, I do want to acknowledge we received a lot of public comment on this informational update.

And wanna emphasize once again, and I know the team has already that today we're not approving any projects, any future projects will have to go through the appropriate CEQA, appropriate outreach, and everything else that's required as part of that.

Before I go, I do want to note two things that uh over the last year, the team and the team includes people in this table, but as well as many other people have been working really, really hard to really get us to this point today where we are developing this infrastructure that's gonna create and give San Jose so many opportunities.

Uh, and I really just want to acknowledge because it's been nonstop effort from our end and working with PG ⁇ E as well, that's what our regional partners to get to this point.

Um, you know, I was just talking to Chris before this meeting, and as we're looking at San Jose, I think Chris, you've been there for about 25 years, I've been around for about 29 years.

Um, there's some opportunities here for San Jose that we haven't seen in the past to be competitive uh with our neighbors in a way that maybe we weren't as competitive for uh manufacturing commercial, industrial development.

Uh, that's pretty exciting.

Uh it's not just about data centers, it's about every possible development opportunities that we can fit into our uh in the city that makes sense that's gonna work, that's gonna go through the process and figure out uh how all those pieces fit together.

But the work that's been that's been happening is giving us that opportunity, and like I said, be more competitive than I think we ever been in the past.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you for the status report and all of the progress, and I agree.

It's exciting that we're in a position to compete for economic development and jobs and tax base in a way that we have not always been.

Uh Tony, I understand we have comment cards.

Why don't we move now to public comment?

Okay, Rosemary Grantham.

Okay, let me start.

Sorry, it's been a while.

Um I'm gonna call about five names to start.

You're gonna line up first person to the microphone, start speaking.

You do not have to speak in the order that you're called.

Um, so I'm gonna start with Rosemary Grantham, Chad Johnston, Lisa Charpentier, Manny Bikelli, and F.

Lee.

Again, you come down in no particular order.

Hi, folks.

We don't want more data centers.

Like these companies will say, like, oh, the cooling system is uh, you know, we're only gonna use recycled water, you know, when available.

That when available is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

If you all don't have a guarantee that you can that you can absolutely use required, like a recycled water over the potable water that we all need, right?

I mean, this is California.

We are known for having droughts.

Water is a precious resource.

So yeah, and of course, you got these expensive facilities that uh have expensive cooling systems, and you're not gonna wanna put water with impurities in those expensive systems to cool the data centers.

You're gonna need clean, pure potable water.

So, I mean, let's face it, we're in a time where we're in the beginning stages of an energy crisis due to the um president's illegal war in Iran.

We're already paying like what, like five, five dollars a gallon for gas, at least at this point.

And we know that data centers in other parts of the country have dramatically increased the costs of utilities for normal everyday people, and that that always that always hits hardest on folks that have the least amount of power and the least amount of resources.

So we also know that frequently these data centers will result in polluting our resources.

And you know, item 1.1 was about recognize an Earth Day.

Feels pretty weird.

We already have 23 super fund sites within the borders of Santa Clara County.

Thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon.

My name is Lisa Chapontier, and I'm a district three uh resident and a member of the California Donut Economics Coalition and mothers out front.

And I wanted to thank you for the status report.

But I think that it's very important that while you are giving this information in this report to our council members and to the city, it's hugely important to involve the community as well, because the community has grave concerns about this, and this is going to affect our quality of life in a large way.

And before we can be prepared to go ahead with moving forward with data centers, we need to develop a process by which we can find them acceptable and not just acceptable to bringing in money to the city, but acceptable to the residents' quality of life.

It's so important because this is going against if it's done wrong, it's going against our climate goals.

It can be polluting to our water, it can increase the temperature in our cities, it can increase the noise in our cities, and it also takes resources that could go to other companies or other ways to bring in money and um good jobs and good um ways to bring in money into the community.

So it's really important that we involve the community in this discussion in a large way.

Not everybody can come down here when they're working and be able to give their comments.

And so we need to be able to do that, prepare ahead of time, and we be the community be the ones driving this community uh this conversation, not the those who want to build the data centers.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

I'd also like to call Dee Houston Dash Leeds and Frank Austin to come on down.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mani Bakala, and I'm a high school student from District 3 and co-lead of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action's San Jose team.

Data centers are not an exception.

They, like every other development, should be a net benefit to our city.

And unless serious reforms are made, they seem like they very well may not be.

If they raise households, you electricity bills as they already have in other parts of the country, they do not support our residents.

If they increase our reliance on electricity from polluting and increasingly expensive fossil fuels, they do not improve our city.

And if they destroy Bayland habitats that are crucial not only to sort of the survival of endangered species, but also to our resilience in the face of rising sea levels, they do not help San Jose.

And if the diesel generators or other infrastructure add dangerous air pollution to already overburdened neighborhoods, they do not serve our communities.

Please take all available steps to ensure that all new data centers pay their way fully and do not raise utility bills in any way.

Do not increase our burning of fossil fuels, do not pave oversensitive habitats, do not pollute our air.

We must learn from the long history of environmental injustice.

Communities must have full transparency, outreach, and debate about these projects with the potential to so significantly impact our city.

It is far, far more important that technological developments in our city happen well than that they happen quickly.

When we need to slow down, we may need to slow down a bit to make sure that we get this right.

So let's do it.

We can see around us that the nation around the nation that communities of all political stripes are waking up to the dangers of reckless data center development.

Please listen to the public and make sure that these concerns are addressed before moving forward.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, next speaker.

Sorry, testing.

Hello, my name is F.

Lee I am a resident of San Jose.

And everyone has made pretty good points.

Um and I would like to reiterate that tomorrow is Earth Day, and we only have one planet.

We have just witnessed the success of NASA's Artemis mission, and we are learning more than ever how important it is to take things more slowly.

I understand as humans, we are very conscious of our lifespans, and we want to do things quickly.

We want to be the economic powerhouse, but if we do not set the example for the people, then others who might want to follow our footsteps might go downward rather than upward.

If we do not learn to work with what we have here with nation, with sorry with nature, then if we just keep building on top of it, then how are we going to deconstruct that?

More funds will go we'll be going towards that.

And I wonder if the funds that are going towards this kind of construction could go towards somewhere else first.

If we could take the time to consider social services and other other services that I'm sorry, I believe everyone has made a good point.

And I think I will end it here, but thank you for your time.

Thank you for putting together the presentation.

I know that's um you know that's still stressful.

Um, and thank you to everyone else in the audience for coming out here to speak on this topic.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

I would like to remind for those of you who aren't used to coming to our meetings that um we ask you not to applause, so we you guys make sure you can hear me call other names and you can hear people speak.

We do suggest if you would like to show your support, you do it in a visible way.

We like jazz hands.

You could go thumbs up, um, some other um visible way to show support rather than a noisy way so we can make sure we hear what people are saying and people can hear their names called.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor Mahan and Council members.

Uh, my name is Frank Austin.

I'm the assistant business manager for UA Local 393.

We represent over 3100 members of the plumbing, pipe fitting, and HVAC industries.

Many of our members and their families live right here in San Jose.

I'm here to speak in support of the status report and commend the city's efforts to create the infrastructure needed to generate data center and other large energy development here in the great city of San Jose.

Not only do these customers and the projects that go along with them generate significant general fund revenue for the city, they also create high quality construction and permanent jobs while typically requiring fewer ongoing city services than the revenue they create.

It should be understood that the need for data centers is not going to go away anytime soon, and I would like to applaud the vision of Mayor Mayhan and the city council to recognize the importance of doing everything that they can to ensure that those projects are able to be built right here in our community, ensuring that San Jose stays at the forefront of the economic and even global development.

In Santa Clara, we built close to over a dozen data centers without major incident of workers or residents.

Those were all built with skilled and trained workers.

They were not only built, but they were also designed by our contractors in house engineering for mechanical, electrical, and fire sprinklers.

Our contractors build what they design, and these designs have been used across the country.

Today I ask that you support uh and accept the status report as delivered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

I'd also like to call um Edmundo Escargega, Brian Porz, and Oliver to come on down.

Go ahead.

Well, I I'm just wondering how this large amount of data is going to affect humanity.

I'm wondering if you take that into consideration.

And I've got the opportunity to vote for the mayor and vice mayor, and I appreciate all your work here.

Um I've lived in San Jose for generations, and as a child, I would play in the creeks in the cherry orchards, and my parents would pick fruit during the summer.

And slowly but surely our natural environment has been taken away from us.

And now I have a small backyard garden that on some days I'm not even allowed to water because of the drought.

And so I'm trying to comprehend why we would give all our precious water that means life to us, to data centers, okay.

And as we stand together on Earth Day, I hope that you find it in your conscience, because I have seen big corporations move here in the past and pollute our groundwater and then leave the mess for us to clean up.

So I hope that you're considering the cleanup that these data centers will leave us with.

And I've seen the list of chemicals they use in the process of their huge computers, including the PFAS, the never-ending chemicals.

And I'm very concerned about that getting into our groundwater.

So I want to thank you all for your work and please uh protect your community.

This will be your legacy of the future.

And I know a lot of communities are standing.

Thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Dasha Leeds.

I'm a D3 resident and conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Blumer Prieta chapter.

You have not given San Jose residents a seat at the table.

Where is the voice for community engagement on this council?

San Jose should pause its plans to ensure that residents have the right to community engagement about all 34 data center plans in your development pipeline.

Go out into the neighborhoods that are going to be affected and conduct extensive multilingual outreach first.

These council meetings are not accessible for working people.

Alvisa residents have not been meaningfully engaged, and yet you've already authorized the city manager to negotiate and execute a development agreement to build data centers and open space near the community.

You continue with your plans.

Meanwhile, PG ⁇ E is paying you to do extensive outreach with the data center companies.

The public never saw the final agreement with PGE until it was executed in private.

Disclose the environmental, public health, and financial risks, and give residents the opportunity to shape the decisions that affect them.

Our communities deserve the right to know, and we deserve the right to say no.

I ask again where is the voice for community engagement on this council.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

I'd also like to call Sean, Alexander Knofzinger, Serena, and Mileen.

Come on down.

Hello, my name's Oliver.

I was born in this county, and the health and well-being of everyone who lives here is important to me.

The first thing I want to say is that I think it's important to make clear exactly what these AI data centers even are.

A traditional data center is called upon when you do something like a Google search.

An AI data center consumes anywhere up to 15 times as much energy as that.

What we're really talking about here is a network of AI supercomputers.

There is no end in sight to the foreseeable energy consumption these projects will demand.

And the system of carbon credits and water credits is supposed to offset the energy consumption by paying off other companies that consume less.

Members of the council.

Would it be fair if I were to pollute in your own backyards and then pay somebody in a separate county to clean up their backyard?

And if that if that doesn't sound fair to you, then why would you treat us, the people of the city the same way?

Some of us may want these companies to build here, and I think many of us do not.

But none of us need these companies to build here.

So I would remind the council not to forget what the people of the city actually need.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

Uh, thank you for your time and for your attention today.

My name is Mundo Escarcega.

I'm a lifelong resident of San Jose.

Thank you.

I've worked here and in the surrounding areas for my entire life, and much of my family still lives here and works here too.

Uh, I'm here to ask ask each of you to join me and support the present and future workforce of our city.

Growing up here, I've watched how San Jose has grown and continues to evolve into the great city that it is today.

But as we all know, the cost of gas and consumables is way up with electricity more than doubling in this just the last few years.

Having data centers will increase access to more affordable electricity and stimulate our economy.

I ask that you support our community with the which the mut with the much needed increase of electricity and the building of data centers in San Jose.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi, good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

My name is Brian Pores, and I am also with UA Local 393, representing over 3100 plumbers, pipe fitters, welders, and HVAC service technicians who are local.

And uh I'm very proud of my skilled and trained status.

And uh the 10,000 hours I spent during my apprenticeship.

Um sure that these get built safely and protect this community.

And um I am honored to take that training into the future and continue to build these safe safely.

And uh being born and raised in San Jose and raising a family here.

This is very important to me, both as far as safety and as far as progress.

So uh I look more we've been building and maintaining these for decades, and we look forward to decades more.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, next speaker.

The implementation of these AI dentists data centers in San Jose is an immoral and irresponsible undertaking.

It's helping those who don't who need it's helping those who need it the least and hurting those who are most in need.

You want to 3X our city's energy consumption, siphon millions of gallons of precious water, use our land and our money to create these clamorous facilities that fuel fuel artificial intelligence.

The same AI that's being used by ICE to kidnap US citizens, the same AI that's being used to spy on American people, and the same AI that's being used to commit genocide in the Middle East.

Over the past several years, we've witnessed the testimony of those who live by AI data centers in America.

Their health, air, water, and soil were all negatively impacted.

Matt, you're from Watsonville, where the families are dealing with chronic disease and health issues due to mass use of pesticides and other poisonous additives of additives of food.

One would think that a mayor from that background wouldn't be enthusiastic about poisoning the air, soil, and water of the city he serves.

The people of San Jose believe that family comes first.

We don't want these AI data centers poisoning our water, poisoning our air, misusing and misusing and poisoning our water, and raising the price of our electric bill.

We won't pay for these facilities that are displacing us and taking our jobs.

You all need to venture to the depths of your hearts and make the right decision.

Thank you, next speaker.

I'd also like to call Gigi, Joe, and Isaac.

Come on down.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am a student here in San Jose from just a few roads down.

My concern with the building of data centers is the environmental impacts that it will have, including a potential decreased access to potable water and the release of pollutants into the air.

Air quality is one of my main concerns as a native Californian.

During wildfire season, the air quality already drops due to smoke from said wildfires.

An increase of pollutants in the air released by data centers will only add fuel to this metaphorical fire.

According to TIE magazine, data centers in Memphis, Tennessee have already caused a significant decrease in air quality, with the average concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air increasing by three percent.

The city currently claims that recycled water will also be prioritized in these data centers.

When does the option of recycled water become obsolete?

How will non-compliance be acted on accordingly?

After all, California is already a drought prone state.

Potable water will become less available for the living and breathing residents of San Jose when large data centers turn to freshwater.

When decisions like this will affect the well-being of all residents of the city, the impact should be more well studied.

In California, we are already facing a housing crisis, a weak job market, and the prices of everything has already gone up.

I feel like these resources to build these data centers could be redirected elsewhere.

I want to be certain that I can continue to grow up here in San Jose, where my access to fresh water and clean air is not affected.

I understand that San Jose is a city of technological advancement, but it should not be at the cost of our collective health.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Serena.

Um I'm a resident of District 6 and a biologist and a volunteer in the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance Environmental Action Committee.

Um I wanted to talk about the impact uh to wildlife and the environment from the data centers.

Um the location of the potential data center at Elviso is directly next to one of the last remaining populations for the Western Burrowing Owl.

And they've nearly been extirpated from the Bay Area by development of their habitat.

Through the work of many partners and volunteers, including myself, we have supported this population from a low of 10 owls to now over a hundred.

And the council has demonstrated the importance of protecting wildlife by conserving Coyote Valley and co-locating the LS Power High Voltage Converter directly next to the Metcalf station.

Um there is precedent.

Um and uh the this data center will in Alviso and all these 36 other ones that I didn't know about um will directly endanger the owls and the success that we have made in supporting and rehabilitating this population.

Um also is at sea level and our rest rate, and say literally floods every year.

Um, according to projections of sea level rise for a high warming scenario, we have 6.6 feet of sea level rise by uh 2,100.

And my nephew is probably gonna be alive during that time.

Um this area where many of these data centers north of 237 will regularly flood.

So our shoreline can either protect humans and the habitat from rising seas and increase flooding, or it can be a strip mall.

So I ask the council to pause any plans and invoke a moratorium on data centers until the full impacts of the environment and the community and San Jose rape players are fully disclosed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

My name is Alexander.

I study digital media art at San Jose State University.

I'm additionally a member of the San Jose Students for a Democratic Society, uh San Jose State branch.

I appreciate the update to the PGE from PGE on large-scale power users, and I additionally appreciate the city's consideration of water usage, power usage, air, noise, and heat pollution.

Evidently, public outcry is high for these data center constructions, and opinion is divided.

My main concern is that tech and power companies have proven over and over that they confront the cost of fines and settlements for disregarding regulations as a cost of business and continue functioning the same way.

Environmental protections are useless if this is the case.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker, um, Sandy Perry and Tiffany T.

Come on down.

Hello, my name is Isaac.

Uh, I live in District 2.

Uh my notes are a bit rough right now because I only learned about this last night through Instagram.

This information has not been uh sufficiently conveyed to the public.

Um we have a severe lack of studies on the environmental impact that is going to be uh affecting our communities by these data centers.

Uh however, we do know that cities like uh Memphis, Tennessee have experienced increased uh asthma rates in the youth living near these data centers.

We also know that um sorry about that.

Um there's been also documentation that runoff from these data centers uh affect drinkable water and people in their houses cannot use their uh drinkable water, they have to buy water from the store.

Uh let's see.

Mentioned today that uh you said that there was a limited uh once the once the data centers were made operational, there would be limited server or limited public services required to maintain operations.

There is no promise there for sustainable employment, especially given the pattern of downsizing that we have seen across so many industries.

Uh I do not want our potable water, our drinkable water, to be even considered for the use of a machine when we are still in a water shortage in California.

Uh I also do want to thank uh some of our council members, including uh Campos and Ortiz who have spoken out against these data centers, and I hope that other council members will also do the same.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hello.

Um I do have to admit, although I've done a lot of public speaking, my heart is pounding and I am shaky.

Um and it's not because I'm scared, it's because I'm terrified that you will not hear what we have to say.

And for that reason, I want you all to look at me when I'm speaking and not down at your phones or talking to each other.

I want you to listen to us.

I'm a recent graduate of San Jose State.

I was born and raised um here in San Jose, and I work at a local high school.

I work with the youth, and I just want to tell you what the youth is talking about right now.

The youth does not trust you.

Their youth does not trust in their future because they see that you're putting money over their needs.

Um, they joke about the water wars coming in the future.

We've seen how data centers have affected the water in other communities.

Sir, can you please look up at me when I'm speaking?

Because this might be just another meeting to you, but this is our youth's future that we are talking about.

I don't really mind if San Jose can make more money.

But if we're going to value competitiveness over the drinking water of our future, I think that's absolutely ridiculous.

I think it's ridiculous how we can all sit here and not everybody can attend because we have to go to our jobs.

I heard people online saying I want to be there.

There's no online commentary for this hearing, and I understand.

But you need to center the future for the children.

They are they talk about it every day.

They do not trust in their future.

They've almost given up, but it's not too late to change.

We do not have to do this.

We do not have to do this.

The future is not set in stone.

We can make protections for our future, and I really implore all of you.

I am humbly begging you, begging you to consider the water.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, I'd also like to call Shawn Chen Jiang and Drew Siegler to come on down.

You all heard what happened to Sam Altman.

You probably heard what happened to Ron Gibson in Indianapolis on the 7th.

I assume you don't want this to happen to you.

So tread lightly and do the right thing and don't compel San Jose to make drastic decisions.

Not because you're good people because you're not.

But because it's better to lose your career than to lose your home to a fire or worse.

I promise you that action will have exponentially larger reaction.

How the day you deserve.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hi, I'm a concerned citizen residing in District 19.

Earlier, you had a wonderful youth activist speaking about the importance of protecting the future and highlighting the environmental crisis.

I'm a confused, uh, I am confused as a member of the community as to how opening up data centers protects our future, as well as as they are well known to affect the environment, particularly water usage.

You mentioned earlier that recycled water will be used when available, but the wording gives me precedence that the there is a possibility to use mostly clean water that could otherwise go towards the community.

Are you absolutely sure that these particular data centers won't affect our drinking water, amongst other environmental factors?

So far, the benefits shown have been economical and having a competitive edge.

But I am unsure that outweighs the risk to our quality of life, that these centers have been shown to impact, and that this status report hasn't been able to address our concerns considering the amount of people who have voiced their opinions so far.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm Sandy Perry.

I'm a D3 resident, and I usually stick to housing and homelessness issues.

But this city manager memo and the entire process is so wrong-headed, backward, and unacceptable.

I have to speak out about it.

And I will point out that data centers will have an impact on housing because they're gonna drive up land and housing prices and rents.

First, let's be clear the council must reject this status report.

It must enact a moratorium on new data centers, and it must begin a robust public process around the whole question of trying to bring 34 data centers into San Jose.

The memos based on the lie that data centers create high quality jobs when everyone knows they're only empty warehouses full of computer equipment.

There's a reason why they won't have a uh traffic impact, and the reason is because nobody's working in them.

Uh and even aside from issues like surveillance and military uses, the um there's no guarantee that AI will even succeed.

And it may even end up, we may end up with huge data centers and a bunch of bankrupt tech companies unable to pay for their peach, unable to pay their PG and E bills, much less pay taxes.

And even if it succeeds, there's no guarantee that AI will not end up eliminating millions of jobs and destroying our economy, not building it up.

Uh, a few years back, uh, we had a process around the Google development.

There was rigorous public debate.

There was a stakeholder advisory committee that met every single month, and a lot of back and forth public involvement, and even then that didn't turn out so well.

San Jose can do no less this time around, and uh, we need an economic plan that's based on meeting human needs, not enriching the tech billionaires.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

I have called all of the cards that had names, so if you did not hear your name, please go ahead and line up.

Hello, everybody, thank you for your time.

Um, I just want to give a shout out to uh district member or council member Campos.

I voted for you, thank you for doing your job.

And uh Councilmember Ortiz, my parents voted for you, and I see you in the community.

Thank you for your work you do.

Um I'm a lifelong San Jose resident.

I work in tech, I grew up here, and I'm lucky enough to have bought a home in the past few years.

When I saw in that report, um, there's some data going around.

There's a Google drive with a lot of information about what's happening here, went through and read all of it.

I was shocked to see that there is a proposed backup center that's going to be built near my home that I bought.

It's 10 minutes away.

We live in a beautiful part of San Jose, South San Jose.

There's bald eagles flying through the air there.

I don't want that area to be potentially destroyed by the impact of uh backup generator.

There's so many impacts people have talked about better than I have.

There's biologists that have spoken, students who are experts in these fields.

I'm just a community member.

But when I see that PGE is involved with this, I don't have a good feeling about it.

We all know what's happened in Burling game.

We know what they did there.

We know their involvement with the fires.

These will create some jobs.

However, the jobs that I think they'll create will be involved in building them.

And after that, they'll lie empty, as a man who just spoke before me said.

As somebody who has been laid off in the tech industry, I just don't see a viable future that these data centers will create.

We've been through so much these past few years.

I think that's all what we're asking for.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, next speaker.

Uh hi everyone.

My name is Chen.

Um a little nerve-wracking being up here, but um I am a homeowner in South San Jose, uh District 2.

Shout out to council member uh campus.

And um it is my first time here uh to be a part of this, and I am representing so many others who could not make it today because it is a work day, it is Tuesday in the middle of the day.

They wanted to take time off.

It was um such short notice.

Um I would like to be clear.

I oppose the building of these unprecedented 2,000 megawatt data centers without a much more robust third-party research and audits and a lot more public input.

I think that message has come across loud and clear today from the people who are here.

We are impassioned about this.

This is happening in our backyard.

Last week, my neighbor texted me a photo of a bald ego.

I live right across from Metcalf Park.

Did you know we had bald eagles in San Jose?

Pretty cool, right?

That bald eagle, which I've hopefully uh not the only one, but I've also seen bald eagles on that trail, is 10 minutes away from a proposed data center.

Literally, this is the symbol of America.

This bald ego is going to be affected by these data centers.

And we need to show that it's going to be safe for them and us and our children and our families to live and continue to live in San Jose.

Data centers unfortunately have a track record of environmental damage and higher utilities for everyone involved.

I implore everyone here sitting today, he's sitting here today to align with your community members, prioritize transparency and public accountability, not vague promises of economic growth.

Please do it for your neighbors, your San Jose, and the bald eagles.

Literally America.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Pranitha.

Um, I was born and raised in Santa Clara County.

Uh many of my friends and family still live here.

And many of them are starting families or continue to raise the are continuing to raise the children that they do have.

Um, in regards to the production of data centers, it's a great concern to me that the city could be prioritizing the technology industry over prioritizing the health and financial well-being of the people in Santa Clara County.

Uh, we still do not know the potential health hazards and environmental issues that may develop as a result of building out these data centers.

Especially at this scale, we would also need to understand the equivalent amount of energy usage and the potential effects on our water supply.

It does not appear that we will be able to use recycled water anytime soon.

So, exactly how much water will be used.

And also, if any part of this increased usage is falling onto residents, I believe the community should not be forced to pay if that amount is greater than any estimate that PGE provides during an initial planning for any individual data center.

The city and PGE need to provide these numbers, and more importantly, allow the public to scrutinize them so that we all understand and agree that what the potential risks are.

It is my sincere hope that we do not move forward these with these data centers for the sake of everyone in our community.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hello, everybody.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Drew Siegler.

I'm a member of Showing for Racial Justice Santa Clara County.

Um I don't have anything prepared for this, but it's just one of these things where it's like it's like folks get hypnotized.

Just absolutely like it's like they get dollar signs in their eyes.

It's like, we're gonna get seven million dollars.

Well, you know, according to PGE, which you know, trusting PGE is you know, those those guys, those guys are are you know, just stand up, you know, they do a bang up job of their reports and their safety and everything like that.

I mean, like, you know, yeah, paradise.

Ask us the people of paradise.

They they they they love PGE.

So um, you know, just think of the quality of life.

I mean, they all just the the water usage alone is absurd.

And you know, like I, you know, what I know people that ration their showers, you know.

I I like I I turn the water off when I'm studsing up, you know, like like you know, water is a precious commodity, like as Mark Twain called it, you know, uh whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting in California.

And uh, you know, we we we've got this valuable resource that we've got not enough of just for our own daily use.

And we're gonna throw y'all use it to you know keep you know, it's a cool data center.

I mean, it's just ridiculous.

So referred to four data centers, excuse me.

Um, so really just consider the impact on the quality of life and the fact that the people that you're dealing with are um it's just not so trustworthy.

Yeah, PG ⁇ A.

Anyway, take care.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi, I'm Luis Salas, District 7.

It'll be nice to know that you have to fill out a card before you come up here.

This is my first meeting, and there's no one explaining that, but I'm opposed to AI data centers.

Um it uses a lot of resources and it pollutes the surrounding area and environment.

And I just wanted to share one of my favorite quotes of Earth Day.

I think all of you should watch the Lorax because it feels like some of you have him.

Only when the last tree has died, the last river's been poisoned, and the last fish have been caught where we realized we cannot eat money.

Thank you.

Back to council.

Thanks, Tony.

Thank you to all of our public commenters coming back to the council.

We'll start with council member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, first off, I just want to thank staff for bringing forward this report.

Uh of course, um, both I want to thank PG and E, everyone speaking in support and in opposition uh to data centers.

It's very important that we have as much community input um as possible.

And you know, as council members, we need as much information as possible.

And I think that was uh part of why we had this conversation today.

And so uh I'm I'm glad that we've able to have a dialogue here.

Uh I want to start by acknowledging that data centers could play an important role in addressing our budget deficit at a time when we're facing difficult financial decisions.

The ability to generate new stable revenue and potentially avoid cuts to critical city services is something we have to take seriously and evaluate thoughtfully.

You know, we do have a very serious budget shortfall.

Um, and I don't think well cities don't make money.

No decisions are being made to make money, but we do have libraries to keep open.

We do have community centers to keep open.

We do have intervention programs.

We just had gave a commendation um for youth intervention.

All those services cost money.

Um, and unfortunately, we are gonna have to make some tough decisions uh this budget cycle, and that's front and center, I know, for all of my colleagues.

At the same time, uh, I want to acknowledge that many of our residents are bringing real and legitimate concerns to this conversation.

Our community has seen the impacts that large load facilities like these can have on neighborhoods across the country, whether that's pressure on energy costs, environmental impacts, or strain on local resources.

These residents have legitimate concerns and deserve to understand how we are handling and addressing these impacts here in San Jose.

Um it's their right as residents.

Um so with that in mind, I do have a few questions that I'm hoping staff can clarify in regards to our approach.

Um, and to speak to some of the concerns we're having, uh we're hearing from our our residents.

I just wanted to confirm uh today's item, it's it's a gen, it was agendized based off my previous request for a study session, correct?

Oh okay.

So the answer is yes.

Yeah, it was uh as part of the TNE commission.

There's a request uh that was made to bring an item to council for discussion.

Uh there was a follow-up that we were gonna have it as part of an agenda item.

So does this is why we're back here so my request for a study session.

You know, and I was hoping for a more robust conversation that would keep put our our residents um at more of a ease.

But to be honest with you, I think public comment was longer than the whole presentation.

Um and that's to my colleagues, that's it's an example of why I bring so many memos to the rules committee.

Um, because if I'm not specific with my asks, I usually don't get I have my have my expectations uh uh met.

And so I just want to I want to flag that I was I was hoping to have a robust conversation to talk about what's what's happening in other states, why are we seeing that level of pollution in other states and what we are doing in other in order to avoid that?

Because from our conversations, we are doing things.

Um I just don't feel like um we've gotten to that full length that the const our constituents would like to see, and I would like to raise that um as as a part of feedback.

You know, we've seen in other parts of the country that large load data centers have put upward pressure on energy rates in the areas where they've been built.

And so, what makes our situation different?

And what steps are being taken to prevent that?

What we're seeing in other areas, I think Memphis was mentioned uh in regards to environmental impacts.

What steps are we taking to prevent that from happening here?

Yeah, Customer Vertice, I think I've heard two two questions, and that one was what's related to environmental impacts, and the other one was related to rates.

So myself and and Karen will take the rate question and with two different perspectives on it, and I'll pass it over to Chris to just talk about um CQA and the process that you have to go through in California as part of the environmental analysis.

So I'll start.

And uh and as many of the council members know, previous to coming to San Jose, I I ran Silicon Valley Power, chief electrical utility officer in Santa Clara.

Um in Santa Clara, there are currently 60 data centers and is currently expanding their doubling the size of the utility, probably gonna be at 70 to 75 data centers.

Just to give you a perspective on that, currently we have about 20 data centers in San Jose.

Uh they're about 18 square miles for about 180 square miles.

So we have a neighbor to the west that's a good example of kind of data center development.

Just say that because certainly I read all the articles uh about the rest of the US and kind of what's happening there.

And um, I don't think you can just pick and choose without getting into all the details of each one.

Uh if you look at other states, in many cases, what's occurring that the data centers are coming in and they're becoming the largest user by far, both from an energy perspective and a water perspective.

And that puts different um press points on both rates and water use and environmental use.

Um when we look at California, because we have limitations on the size of the data centers.

We also have CEQA that we're required to do that, other states don't have, and we also have already a large infrastructure for energy load.

Um, we have capacity that depending on what example you look at, it might not be applicable.

Uh specifically for San Jose and cost, I'll pass it over to Cari, but she did go through rule 30 at length and talked about the capital costs associated with it.

But uh pass it over to add any more details.

Sure.

Um so rule 30, as I mentioned, is still uh pending before the California Public Utilities Commission, where we've said that the types one to three costs that the customers pay for up front, we would not put those in rates until the data center comes online or EV or whoever it is, or you know, medical facility comes online and is actually generating revenue that warrants us returning their money and putting it into the uh into rates.

Um so rule 30 is not about rates, it's just about who pays up front and what are the requirements.

The California Public Utilities Commission also uh in early April launched an OIR order instituting rulemaking uh where they're asking um all three investor-owned utilities to come and talk about various rates, also uh large load rates being one of them.

So they will be examining those to see, like for example, if you have you know 10 million dollars uh that are network upgrades, how do you split those up amongst commercial, industrial, residential?

How will those rates be set?

That will be an upcoming uh proceeding in front of the California Public Utilities Commission.

So nothing's finalized yet.

We haven't necessarily no, it's not finalized.

I mean, currently we do have a B20 transmission rate.

So if a data center comes online tomorrow or an EV entity or whatever comes online, they we did they do have rates and that that they pay, but um the uh our interveners within the at the California Public Utilities Commission said, hey, let's look at this deep more deeply.

We agreed.

Um, and the commission is launching an OIR.

All right, and I just want to, you know, we have we'll have a lot of residents that maybe may not be experts in data center or data center lingo.

Well, can there be a situation in which our ratepayers are are ending up on the hook for paying for increased rates due to the level of infrastructure being planned here in San Jose for data centers?

What we're trying to do is actually reduce rates, not even have it be break even actually reducing.

We're trying, but is there a situation where that may not be the case and it it is an impact to rate?

I don't think so because the network upgrades, those those actually benefit everyone, the type four upgrades.

But the types one to three, we would not put those into rates until uh they generate enough revenue to warrant it.

Okay, thank you.

Um a few more questions.

Can staff walk us through how we plan to engage residents who live near these data center projects?

Yeah, and I'll um pass it over to Chris to answer both the environmental question as well as the community outreach question.

Thank you, council member.

So um, as with any private land use approval, um, you know, data centers go through uh permitting authority.

Um if they're in our industrial districts, which is where we expect uh most of these to be located, um they'll go through a special use permit process, and as a discretionary permit, they'll be subject to CECRA.

So on the part of public outreach and public noticing, with any sort of major project that we see like this, we'll hold a community meeting and we'll notice residents uh and community members in surrounding areas.

We often work closely with the council district that those projects are located in.

Um and then as we go through the process, there are you know multiple points at which we'll try and engage the community.

Ultimately, it will come to a public hearing before a decision maker, um, and that'll be the point at which um uh you know we'll also take public record uh public comment on the record.

Now, depending on what that process looks like and depending on the environmental path that it takes through CECRA, that might be at a director's hearing, right?

Which is a typical sort of staff level hearing.

If there's an EIR with impacts associated with the project, that might make it all the way to city council, which we've seen with some of the bigger projects.

Um as it relates to that process, I think, you know, without speculating too much on what's going on in other communities, I think the safeguard of CECRA is an important thing to bear in mind.

So we do do rigorous analysis with all development projects, but especially those that present opportunities that could have negative impacts on the environment.

And CEQA is really about analysis and disclosure of impacts.

So we always approach that with uh looking for opportunities to mitigate any potential impacts related to development.

And if there's nothing you can do to mitigate that impact, it goes through that full process and comes before city council, which is where you would make a determination as to whether or not you know the project outweighs those impacts.

So you know, we do have a very rigorous process.

It's backed by you know a lot of uh very technical um consultants that prepare reports and analysis based on that.

Um and it does have very uh transparent opportunities for the public to comment throughout.

All right.

Uh mayor have two more questions, or did you want to go for other others first?

Uh if it's okay with you, I'll circle back to you.

Okay, so thanks for the check and appreciate it.

Closing closing comments before I come back.

I just want to just uh um I guess elaborate on my position.

I'm not against 100% any new data centers.

I just want to make sure that if we are moving forward with data centers, it's done right and that there is an impact uh on our residents.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think there are very reasonable questions to ask, important for all of us to understand, as well as members of the community who understandably have questions and doubts.

Um thank you.

So let's turn now to Councilmember Condelas.

Uh thank you.

Uh, you know, I I just want to begin my talking points by by thanking everybody uh who came out to voice your concerns, questions, and and uh a lot of you for the first time.

Um and and I think um, you know, as as somebody who sits up here, we come here every Tuesday.

It's it's it's nice to see more of our residents get engaged on issues, and you know, we understand it's a difficult time.

One o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, uh we get it, I get it, I understand it.

But uh, but either way, um it's valued and and and and I and I do along with my colleagues, we do hear you.

And so um, you know, it's it's again important to underline uh that there is no particular project that we're actually voting on today.

Um that that's important.

It's a this is this is a good opportunity to have this public dialogue on some of the concerns we heard, and and that is you know, the the quintessential question on balance.

Uh you know, moving forward on opportunities for revenue generation without raising taxes, which uh hurts a lot of our most vulnerable residents, uh, but against balancing um you know potential unintended consequences and or how do we mitigate these impacts to our to our our community.

Um, you know, I I guess the first the first thing that I want to flag for staff is something that I heard repeatedly, and that's uh pertaining to uh water usage.

Uh I sit on um the Santa Clara Valley Water Commission on behalf of the council, and you know, in a former life I did government affairs for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

So water reliability in the water world is something I know well.

Um and and I I just want to also particularly emphasize emphasize um, you know, yes, it is a uh a scarce resource that's uh pushing our our state into uh an ever increasing cycle of droughts.

Um and it's uh becoming more expensive year after year because of that scarcity.

Um and so uh we have to act with special diligence on this is in respects to our the fresh water supply and the groundwater supply of where we're whatever kind of water we're providing these these applicants or these these data centers that we're looking to bring online.

Um and so you know I I saw the attachment in the memorandum on uh taking the steps to urge data centers to use recycled water, but I'm curious from staff's perspective perspective is how can we strengthen these requirements as a city?

Um, you know, uh any feedback that would be appreciated.

Uh thank you.

Thank you for the question, uh Councilmember.

Um it uh it really it's a policy question.

Right now, it uh is recommendations when we work with the data centers when they come in on a range of uh water options um and energy, water and energy are uh they go hand in hand.

Uh more energy, less water, less energy, more water.

Um, and that and the type of infrastructure that each particular one uh has to put in.

When we meet with the data center developers of certain ones, they um they're very particular.

It varies to them on the exact location, uh what resources are around, the infrastructure they have to put in, and that's what they're they're very early in the planning stages.

They're looking at is it viable to build here, or if there's no water nearby, you know, how much energy is nearby and how that how that that all comes together.

Um but from a perspective of do we want to require a certain type of water usage?

That simply is a policy question for council.

Yeah, well, I mean, one of one of the requirements is uh uh is requiring the use of recycled water where where we see feasible.

Um that is that is in the in the document.

And um, you know, I obviously uh not not put the purple five pipe infrastructure doesn't go throughout our our city.

I mean, it comes into my district, and we do have industrial and commercial land that could be potentially identified without uh overly imposing uh these infrastructure costs, obviously, that would be borne by an applicant.

So I guess uh I would I would recommend that uh to the extent feasible that staff is actually prioritizing um you know having conversations with with folks in areas that um you know uh have purple pipe and recycled water nearby.

It would make common sense to um uh to to uh prioritize them and and ensure that they're ready to go with recycled water nearby.

Um and if if you want to share thoughts, Manuel, you look like you're ready to do that.

Yeah, just some some thoughts.

So starly, I think as projects go forward, those are conversations we're already having with the data centers, and uh obviously they want to be as as cost efficient as possible as well, and putable water is more expensive than recycled water, so they want to take advantage of those opportunities.

So let me assure you that the team is already having those conversations with the data center, but based on the feedback today, we'll continue to emphasize it as future projects come along.

Yeah, and then the a question on the water demand project analysis.

Um it's the the uh that analysis is required for any project with over 500 dwelling unit uh of demand.

How many how many MGD or acre feet of water is that?

I'd have to get back with the exact number, um, but a uh usually dwelling unit can fit multiple people, so that'd be about a million gallons of water.

Uh the math, about a million gallons.

Okay.

Um okay, all right.

So it would be about 73 million gallons annually if it's anywhere between what uh 100 to 200,000 gallons per day on on a 500 unit uh property, right?

That's that's what the minimum is, right?

I'd have to get back to you on the exact math, but what we're seeing right now from uh the data center proposals coming in is they're around 500 gallons per minute as a usage.

Okay.

Um yeah, so that that that is all the more reason of of why um you know I think it's important to emphasize as much recycled water as we can.

Um I I hear from other commissioners, other council members in other cities when we when I go to these water commission meetings, like, hey, you know, how how is the uh demand on water rates gonna be affected by you know all these new data centers that San Jose is bringing on board, and and I just want to be able to ensure folks that yes, the water supply question is one thing, um, but also the fact that we are doing our due diligence as part of the review process that uh we are pushing and and using recycled water to the to the best that we can and and or you know being a little bit more stringent about it.

Um I guess the next and then the next question ties into that uh community outreach question, and what kind of outreach has been done outside of the development review and public notice process that typically happens per project.

Are we doing any like FAQs or is there any public awareness information?

Because I I heard a lot of questions and comments from from folks, and and I I just want to make sure that we you know we have to be rooted in fact and something that we all can agree on.

And so I'm wondering what the administration's perspective is uh on this.

Yeah, so so we do have um websites within the city that talk about kind of the work we're doing, what we're doing from electrical infrastructure perspective and uh additional information regards to large low customers and data centers from a pure outreach perspective.

Uh, we're really focused as projects come along because each individual project is pretty unique.

It would be hard to say we are going to do a outreach uh meeting for data centers, considering that we have um I believe 20,000 acres of commercial and industrial land, right?

And a proposal in North San Jose, um in what part of North San Jose would be very different than a proposal in Edenvale, as an example.

So each individual project has to be analyzed individually.

We have to do the CEQA, we have to figure out what the water requirements will be.

Is it going to be recycled, portable, air-cooled, what those options will be, and then what the power needs are.

In some cases, there was existing capacity for projects, in some cases, very large infrastructure electrical projects have to be built to be able to accommodate them.

So our focus is as projects come along, being able to that our outreach because they are pretty individual to each one, and we can't do, you know, we we're 180 square miles, right?

Uh depending on where the data center proposal is, um, he's gonna have uh different different items to consider.

Yeah, I I would just encourage uh staff to think about yes, having an FAQ and having an informational website that's linked to the technical documents that are submitted, absolutely, but a lot of it is very technical and very jargony and very heavy.

And somebody with with with a master's degree that I I look at and I'm like, what are what are we trying to say?

And so I would hope that we're trying to put put things into tangible, like things that we that folks that that are our community can digest and actually you know process.

Um and and and I I I just I hope we lean into that, and even even if it's a couple town hall town halls on, you know, this is what this is what the city's perspective, and this is what our approach is, and to let folks know that yes, we as as policymakers have concerns around our water supply.

We have concerns around the impact to the ratepayers.

We have concerns on you know, environmental uh uh concerns to our community.

And so I would just urge the administration to to think about that and how we uh moving forward, how we do that and articulate it in the next steps for our residents.

Thank you.

Thanks, council member.

Let's go to council cohn.

Yeah, thank you.

And thank you for bringing the um report to us.

This this was was asked for just a summary of what our current knowledge is about the impacts and relations and things, and and obviously that this there's no action today to approve or deny any project.

There's no proposal for any new project that comes with this.

This is just a general update, and I hope that we continue to have these updates regularly because this is clearly a topic of interest to us and to the public, and I think the more information we have the better.

I'm gonna start actually by comment by by commenting on piggybacking on what council mayor candels was talking about related to public outreach.

We we have a data center proposal in Alviso, not on the on the wastewater land, so we're not even not even at the time yet where that project could even be considered for outreach.

There was a well, all we did as a council was provide was was offer somebody the opportunity to come forward with a proposal that would then have to go through the rigorous outreach project project process.

But Google does have land that they were they already have development and they're they're doing outreach right now on a data center proposal, and I just wanted to make it very clear to the public because we have a community meeting in mid-June, and notice has gone out by mail to every resident within a distance of that project, and it's the typical robust uh community outreach that's occurring, and this will occur for any project that comes forward, so that we get feedback from the residents of that community before anything comes to council or before any decisions made on that project.

So I just it's a real example of a project that's being proposed and that is going through that outreach.

So there's been no proposal here in this report that I've seen to eliminate the outreach process just to bypass anything.

Clearly, we've heard that the the environmental impact report process the CEQA process will happen for every one of these projects.

We also, if they're large enough, have the requirement that they do a water report as well.

So all these things would happen for every individual project.

Today's was more of an aggregate report of how these things in general impact the infrastructure.

I want to ask a question about the rates, and as a because there's a very legitimate concern the public has, and it's real because it's happened in other places, that the result of these large projects is that rates go up.

And I know you know, Manuel, you have experience obviously in Santa Clara where there's 60 plus data centers.

Is there any evidence that rates in the the way we do these projects in this area that rates have been going up as a result of them?

Yeah, and you know, once again, um base it on my experience, which is right next door, and it's not another part of the country which functions very differently.

Because of my experience, and just to give perspective for everybody, Santa Clara has a their load, their electric load is 65% data center.

And that's going to continue to increase.

Uh it's probably they're gonna go from about 60 data centers.

My guess would be as the plan gets implemented and completed in 2028, probably go to 70 or 75 data centers within their 18 square miles.

Uh the experience we had there is because we had such large load customers, uh, and we could sell so much power to them uh that actually helped us manage the cost of the residents because those large load customers would buy power without require a lot of power without requiring uh as much service as say a residential neighborhood would.

Uh, just to give you an example, this is the example I used to use, one fifty megawatt data center that was served by a transmission line in a substation was the equivalent of every residential service in Santa Clara.

So all those thousands of poles, wires, trans, you know, uh transformers that I had to maintain and operate were the equivalent to one transmission line, and I would sell the same amount of power that so it really was a way for us to manage cost whenever we added those large load customers.

And I I will note that uh although they have been price increases over the last few years in in California for power, uh, there's a natural gas crisis that's happened a few years ago and everything else.

Because we had those large loads when I was working there at the time, we were still able to manage costs.

And um at 65% data center, uh, Silicon Valley Power still has the lowest rates of any utility in all of California for residential customers that has more than 10,000 customers.

So being able to sell more, being able to spread all those capital costs across those large customers, being able to have large customers that could be served with minimal OM regularly helped us actually lower the rates and keep those residential rates lower.

Obviously, PGE is going through a transition right now, adding large load customers, and I think that's what you're hearing from them that their expectation is that that theory will also apply as PGE grows their load and has large load customers who are buying power with without as much infrastructure.

Okay, thank you for the answer.

Um you made a comment, I think, in answer to I think it was Councilmember Ortiz's question when you mentioned the the fact that we have a limit to the size of data centers in California.

I think it's important to also explain that data centers in California are maxed out at 99 megawatts, whereas in other parts of the country they're building them in hundreds of megawatts and gigawatts even.

In fact, I've had conversations with data center companies who say, I wish California let us build bigger.

We actually limit the size of data centers here.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that that's correct, Councilmember McCoen.

Uh, and I appreciate the the question because I think when we when we think of data centers, in my mind, data center built in San Jose looks and feels very different than a data center built in other parts of the country.

Um, and I you know, I I really empathize with the comments made today.

Um, I think there are real concerns happening with these thousand megawatt data centers in other parts of the country.

Um, and San Jose's data centers, like you said, we're not seeing them more than 100.

So it's a tenth the size, and as a result, the impact of those are going to be a lot less.

Um so, yes, in California, the California Energy Commission uh has a small power plant exemption process that regulates backup generators, and essentially means that if they have this this process for between 50 and 99, beyond 99, you're regulated as a power plant.

And most data centers don't want to be regulated as a power plant.

Um and so there's this artificial threshold that that really limits the size.

And so many of the data centers that we see in our pipeline are are, you know, there's a handful that's 99, but a lot of them are at 49, you know, in and there's a range.

And then the last question I'm going to ask is about the data center being built right now in Elviso next to Los Esteros by Microsoft.

That project is using 100% recycled water.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Yes, that's correct.

Right.

That's what, and so obviously, in certain parts of the city where we have a recycled water infrastructure, we have been insisting, and I hope that we will, and I I certainly will be continuing to insist that we use 100% recycled water on all those projects.

With that, I'm going to move that we, as a council, accept the status report today.

Great.

Thank you.

Second from Condelas.

Let's go now to Councilmember Campos.

Uh thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for bringing this status report to council.

I also want to thank the community members who showed up to speak on this item today.

The infrastructure that exists in our city and that is planned for construction in our city matters tremendously to our residents and to our neighbors.

And so I just want to start off by sharing uh a cautionary tale.

Because it our own history validates the concerns that we heard today.

Yesterday, while participating in an environmental justice workshop, I learned that in the early 1980s, Fairchild was one of several Silicon Valley tech companies that was involved in a lawsuit brought on by residents of Los Paseos neighborhood in South San Jose.

And in 1981, investigations discovered that an underground storage tank containing waste solvents had failed, releasing chemicals into the ground, and a public drinking water supply well that was located approximately 1,800 feet down gradient from the site was impacted by the contamination, designating the area a superfund site in 1988.

And I recognize that the technology is different.

But in San Jose, we are known for innovation, right?

It innovation is exciting and it's what our region is known for, but wisdom is knowing that we are on no one's timeline but our own.

And so as we adapt to new technologies with the potential to change our environment, this process cannot move forward without more robust public input and uh community outreach.

Because as we move into the future, we cannot brush off our history.

We must learn from these lessons, and we must do better.

And so my colleagues have already asked a lot of the questions that I was gonna ask.

I just have a couple remaining.

The first is um with several environmental risks that have been identified, including air quality, water, energy, and habitat impacts.

How is the city approaching and mitigating these risks?

And are there other risks that uh we should be thinking about or considering yeah?

So, council member, obviously we look at the individual uh circumstances of any individual project and go through that uh typical SQL process.

So there's a checklist for all the different categories that we assess under CECRA.

Um, and to the extent that a risk uh or an impact can be mitigated, um, that's identified relative to a specific project, um, that's required as a part of the project.

Now, to the extent that there are impacts that we cannot mitigate to a reasonable level, um then that pushes us into a different approval process that requires uh an EIR, which uh includes a considerable amount more disclosure and more public outreach, um, and then ultimately would come to the city council for uh you know the statement of overriding uh consideration if that's the path the council wanted to go in.

So um it's built into that process naturally that we're sort of assessing those risks as these projects come in and exploring all feasible mitigations as a part of that process.

Thank you, Chris, for that.

Um, and I know we were hearing some uh discussion earlier about water use, and so is staff able to estimate the cumulative energy demand, water use, and land use footprint of the data center projects and how does the energy demand compare to the current energy demand of San Jose?

So, yeah, so so I can speak to the energy demand, and I'll pass it over to Jeff with regards to water usage.

So there's a couple of clarifications I do I do want to make because when we talk about uh data centers, we talk about the peak load associated with the 99 megawatts, uh 50 megawatts, which is typically what we see in the Bay Area is typically what I saw in Santa Clara as well.

That that's their peak demand.

That demand's gonna vary through although it's pretty flat for data center, it does vary throughout the day depending on kind of what the weather conditions are and how things are functioning.

Currently, San Jose has about a 1,000 megawatt peak.

And as we add projects, that peaks gonna add to those.

So a 50 megawatt right will get us to 1,050, 99 megawatts get us to 1,099.

There's questions about how much of that power data center will actually use, right?

If you have capacity for 99 megawatts, it doesn't necessarily mean they will use all 99 historically, uh, prior to the newer ones.

One clarification I want to make is because we keep using the 2000 number, which is a good number to have.

That's really a capacity number that's being developed.

Um for capacity in the South Bay.

And San Jose is at the forefront of trying to figure out how we become the most competitive with that.

That is not committed to San Jose in any way.

Uh our other neighbors could use that power.

So I cannot tell you that it's gonna be 2,000 megawatts in San Jose and it's gonna triple.

It's really gonna depend on how many projects come into the city, how many projects go through the approval process, and how many projects get approved.

Parallel to that, I'm aware that other cities are pursuing similar type development.

And they have the opportunity to also use some of that capacity that's being created, but those projects we described.

So we don't have a final number.

When we say up, that's what we say up to 2,000, because that's the kind of capacities being created for the South Bay, but that is not committed to San Jose.

So we'll have to figure out it really will depend on what projects get approved and when they get approved, and what all the other cities around us decide to do as part of their development process.

Okay, thank you, Manuel.

Um appreciate those responses, and um I'll wrap up my comments with this um statement because protecting our community is a city priority.

And having our chambers full of residents is exactly how we know that our strength is truly local.

So I hope that everyone here today remains connected to city council because every week we're in here making important decisions, and civic participation is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy.

The city of San Jose does want to empower every resident, regardless of their background, to get involved in local government and have their voice heard.

So I'm going to plug the City of San Jose Civic Masterclass.

If you all haven't heard of it or um checked it out online, I highly encourage you to visit our website.

It is available in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

It is a course that is at your own pace.

It tells you how to show up to city council meetings, how to make sure your voice is heard, talks about the process of public comment, why um you fill out the card and why right now it's not available online, because we do want this to be a fair, open and transparent process for our community.

So again, it is called the City of San Jose's Civic Master Class, and I encourage folks who are ready to stay engaged to sign up and take that course at your own pace.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Appreciate that PSA.

Let's go to Councilmember Tordillos.

Thank you, Mayor, and want to thank uh staff for the presentation as well as all of the members of the public who wrote in to provide public comment and came out to see council today.

Uh my first question was really elevating something that I think uh you just kind of alluded to in response to uh my colleague uh council member Campos.

Uh, but it's about the fact that in the presentation, I think there's really like multiple work streams that are somewhat independent.

Uh, there's the notion of this new transmission line capacity that's bringing the new uh two gigawatts of capacity to the greater San Jose area, and then separately there's the city's initiatives to try to support uh you know, drawing some of these operators and developers into the city to leverage that power to build data centers in San Jose.

Uh so want to just touch base, make sure that that's correct, and then also say that even if the city does not move forward with its attempts to draw some of these providers into the area, that would do nothing to prevent other neighboring cities from leveraging that new power capacity.

Is that correct?

That's 100% correct.

Thank you.

Uh, so I think what that makes clear to me is that this is not really a question about whether there are new data centers in the South Bay.

It's a question about whether San Jose gets any benefits economically from the new data center interest in the South Bay with this new power capacity that's coming online.

I think residents raised some very real concerns based on the way that we've seen data center construction play out in other parts of the country.

I think it is not hard to look across some of our neighboring states and see the wrong way to go about building these sorts of facilities.

Uh, but I think staff has done a good job of explaining the ways that the city's approach is already very different from some of the worst examples that we've seen across the country.

Uh staff already explained that the data centers proposed for San Jose would be either a tenth or a twentieth of the size of some of the largest data centers that we see elsewhere.

Um they would also be powered much more cleanly.

Uh, public comment uh repeatedly referred to some of the air quality impacts, health impacts that we've seen from uh the Memphis data centers in particular.

My understanding is that all of those uh data centers are powered by essentially just large natural gas burning plants, which is not how they would be powered locally.

Uh, and to Council Member Cohen's point that he's reiterated before, by the city having an active role here, we can help to guide the development process towards more sustainable uh development practices that ensure that we protect against some of those negative health consequences.

Uh there was also this notion from some of the public comment that we should be focusing on investing in our children's future as opposed to just chasing money.

I think the difficult question here is that investing in our residents' future requires money.

If we want to invest in youth services, if we want to invest in our libraries and our community centers in broadening social services, those are things that all cost money.

Uh and as Councilmember Ortiz noted, you know, we are facing a significant budget deficit.

Uh, in the coming weeks, we will get the first look at the city manager's proposed budget where we start to see some of the really difficult trade-offs that we're going to have to make in the months ahead in terms of how we close a 56 million dollar uh budget deficit while minimizing the impacts to our employees and our residents in terms of critical services as much as possible.

And I think data centers are one approach.

They're not the only approach, but they are an approach to generate additional revenue to address those structural budget shortfalls so that we have the revenue available to invest in high quality services for our residents and in the process have the opportunity to generate some good paying union construction and maintenance jobs, as some of the members of the trades who came out to spoke attested to.

Uh finally, I wanted to address a couple specific questions and comments based on some of the feedback that we got from residents today.

Uh, the first one is for Tony.

There was a notion that uh these meetings are not accessible, which I agree with, uh, and pointing to the lack of remote participation and remote public comment.

Uh, my understanding is that remote participation and public comment will be coming back this summer.

Is that correct?

Correct.

That is, I think long overdue.

It is something that we've been hoping to see, you know, all the way back from my time on the planning commission to make these meetings more accessible to our residents.

So I'm glad to hear that that will be moving forward.

Uh next real concern that I had was around some of the questions and concerns raised by residents about potential impacts down the line on rates for non-data center customers.

I appreciated the slide that uh staff shared about the different types of infrastructure investments that would be made to facilitate these sorts of developments and growth in the overall grid, and how three of those four would specifically be set aside as things uh that any new data center developer would be on the hook for paying as opposed to residents.

That still does give me some pause, just because I think, as some folks in the audience uh you know attested, I think there's a lack of trust with the rate setting process.

Uh, we've seen it in previous years, rates continue to go up.

Uh so my question was really about this tentative rule 30 and what enforcement mechanisms might actually exist.

I know it's a draft rule, uh, but if you could speak a little bit to the enforcement to ensure that down the line, uh, you know, rates don't go up ostensibly in that type four category uh of transmission network upgrades that might have any underlying sources uh from data center construction.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um so let me just start by saying the CAISO, which is the California independent system operator, annually does a what would they call the TPP transmission plan that they put out on an annual basis?

And uh the one that they just put out recently shows that data centers account for about 18% of the load growth in the CAISO controlled grid in California.

In PGE's service territory, there are about 38% of the load growth.

Um so it's a little bit bigger in our service territory than the other utilities, but the majority of the load growth is due to building electrification, which many cities have plans to do, EVs, climate change, and general load growth.

And there's federal precedent, uh, FERC has ruled on this as well as uh various courts that any upgrades you make to the bulk system benefits everyone.

So, for example, um it's called essentially the CAISO TAC, the transmission access charge.

So the lines that um you saw on some of the slides where it showed LS Power is you know, putting lines here in the South Bay, Southern California entities will actually pay for 60% of those costs.

So the way the TAC is split, all like SVP pays for it, PG ⁇ E pays for it, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric.

And the way it's roughly split is 40% PGE, 40% SCE, 20% San Diego.

And the other utilities are very small, so I'm just giving you a rough estimates here.

Um so it's vice versa.

If something is actually built in Southern California that benefits the broader grid, we in Northern California also pay for that.

Um that those costs that are above the 200 KV are split up that way.

But uh we anticipate on Rule 30, which again it's about who pays up front, it's not about rates.

Um that will we believe in Q3 will have the final decision from the commission, maybe in Q4.

Um, and then we're just starting the proceeding on rates at the commission with the OIR and anticipate that going.

I mean, it can depend, maybe a year, maybe two years until that is resolved at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Thank you for that detailed explanation.

I think part of my concern here is just that the rate setting process is so opaque, you know, obviously to us on the dais here, but also to all of our community members.

Uh so my hope is just that as the final form of Rule 30 kind of comes into clear focus, that uh you all, our IGR team can really uh make sure that we are doing everything we can to advocate for a rule on behalf of our residents that has as much enforcement as possible to make sure that they don't end up bearing any of the costs of this new development.

Uh my final comment here uh is just related to uh one of the recent projects that we reviewed last year with Prologis.

Uh, I think that that one points towards a positive example of how these things might play out in the future.

I appreciated the fact that as part of that agreement, uh, thanks to the memo from Council Member Cohen, uh, there was the direction for Prologists to proactively pursue community benefits and workforce development agreements as part of their exclusive negotiating agreement.

I think that can hopefully be a pathway towards making sure that as these uh data centers come into our community, uh, that they have to engage with residents and that there is a clear way to demonstrate value to our residents, uh both in terms of uh the good construction jobs that we can create, but also in terms of other community benefits that will benefit everyone in our community.

So thank you.

Thanks, Councilor.

Appreciate all those questions and comments, very well said.

Um, did you want to interject something or were you good?

I I just wanted to do one quick note uh about rates because I think it is it's important.

It's something you mentioned earlier in the conversation that uh from a PGA perspective, you know, they are taking the right approach, and I think you know, it has shown in the area that having larger customers does benefit.

Uh I do want to note, as you said earlier, that whether those data centers happen in San Jose or they happen, I'm gonna throw out city names, even though I don't know anything.

They happen in Milpitas, Hayward, or Fremont, those rate concerns still apply.

So it's not just applicable to projects happening in San Jose, it's projects happening in PG ⁇ A territory.

So we just have to be aware of that that's part of the decision making process.

It's not like we say no to data centers in San Jose, and those concerns go away.

So we got to make sure we continue to work with PGE and uh following up what they're doing to make sure we're protecting the rate pairs.

That's a great point.

Thank you.

Uh Councilor Kameh.

Uh thank you very much, and uh thank you for the update.

And you know, I want to emphasize that this is an update.

And uh as has been mentioned from my colleagues, I hope that you continue not just through TE, but keeping the entire uh council and mayor uh informed about this.

This is something that we know is is coming, and we certainly want to be prepared uh on it.

I also want to thank all the community members who came out to speak.

Uh, these decisions are important.

They're not just for today, but they're also for the future.

Um, you know, I was wondering about um uh you know requiring the I know that there's no project today, but as projects come in, uh project level EIR type analysis would be done for each data center, correct?

Uh there would be CQ analysis for each of them, depending on the impacts related, it may be either uh a negative declaration, a mitigated negative declaration or an EIR.

Okay.

So I think that um there's uh uh some uncertainty as to whether or not it's gonna be a full EIR analysis.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Well, it's typically on a case-by-case basis.

Um, so depending on the scale of the project and the impacts related to it.

Um so yes, there's a I think there's just multiple paths through CECRA.

They all require some amount of disclosure and outreach.

Um, but the final determination is made through that process on an individual case-by-case basis.

I guess I would uh I would ask that as these updates come to us, that that's something that we keep an eye on and whether or not it would be appropriate to also have conditions of approval as they come through and uh and see uh you know, in terms of what concerns uh either the community has, other people have, we have, uh, as something that uh to keep in mind.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember.

We'll go now to Councilmember DeWan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for um the update.

I just have a couple of questions.

I I know that a lot of these data centers use a large amount of water, but I know that the newer data center used what you call closed loop system that doesn't require water.

Can we straighten our policies in order to require that type of system?

So therefore, we're not wasting the the valuable resource of water that we have here.

Yeah, I I would say we are um, you know, the interesting thing about kind of what we're presenting today is this is just the starting point of the work we're doing, and like I said, I'm very proud of the staff and the team and what we've done over the last year to get us ready.

I think we are still early in the process.

When you compare us even to say Santa Clara, who are up to 60 data centers already, to start setting policy and dictating specifically what might be best for each one.

I think we need to work with each one individually, which is kind of the way I have done it in the past, whether it's recycled water, portable water, closed sloop systems, uh whatever that might be.

We probably need to take just take a step back for now and let us continue down the path to see what the best options will be.

We're still very early on.

I think we're set up to have options in the future, so we're competitive, but we're not quite there yet where we should be dictating exactly how each data center should be built.

Well, thank you uh for the answer.

You know, as a the consumption of electricity for from our residents and businesses continue to rise.

And I know we with the trend new transmission line and commitment from PGE and LS power is two gigabyte.

Have we predicted in the future?

How many data centers can we sustain?

And can our infrastructure and our environment can sustainably support.

No, we have not studied you know what 2,000 megawatts of data centers would be.

Uh, I think I go back to my earlier answer that at this point it would be premature for us to fully know exactly how many data centers will be built in the city.

Um there's no commitment to San Jose that that capacity is committed to San Jose.

That capacity can go to any city that can have access to it in the South Bay and can build their own projects.

So it really is going to depend how many data centers we can build, and we want to build based, of course, on policy, right?

Kind of what makes sense from a policy perspective, but also um how they get through the development process and how other projects in the South Bay are also moving to the development process because we're not the only ones who are going to take advantage of that power capacity.

Um, like I said, we are currently the city has about approximately 20 data centers right now.

Uh we have about you know 30 uh 20,000 uh acres of uh commercial and industrial development sites, so there's a lot of opportunities, but we have to start the process.

Once again, I think we're beginning, you know, it's not like Santa Clara that's been building data centers since the 90s, that's why they're up to 60.

Uh we're starting that process now.

Well, thank you.

And I I would hope that we we do some type of study to you know predict ahead, and and that's they'll give you uh some type of indication how many and and how much power that we'll be using.

Um I I hear our our speaker wanted multiple concerns about nitrozoxi.

Can you tell me a little bit more why the data center producting nitrous oxide or so I think you may be referring to the nitrous oxide that's coming from the backup generators?

Um so data centers have backup generators in case the grid goes down.

Uh, generally speaking, those those backup generators are run for maybe one or two hours a month for maintenance.

Um they're they're not used very often.

And in any of that backup generation, um, those are all regulated by the Air Bay Area Air District.

Um, those backup generators, all of their emissions are highly, highly regulated.

Um and in the Bay Area Air District monitors that so what I'm hearing is it's only when there is an emergency shutdown and there's no power to the data center, then the backup generator will run.

They they also, Erica said they also do have monthly testing as well, but that testing is limited by their air district, and they can only run it a certain number of hours a year.

And typically they actually run it less than that because once again they want to be cost effective, so they run it the least amount of time to make sure that the system is effective.

Um, I will say that most large data centers typically because they're served by uh transmission lines, and they're usually have multiple connection points.

Uh, they don't usually go down very often because transmission lines tend to be have higher reliability than distribution lines.

Thank you.

And and as a former fire captain, I I know that majority of our fire station have a you know the backup generator, and it's very stringent.

Um, you know, following the guideline of the EPA and the environment and so on.

And and so I I do understand it.

Thank you for um answering the question.

I yield my time.

Thanks, council member.

Okay, I don't see additional hands.

I just want to thank staff again for the status report.

Uh it's clear to me that uh on the one hand facilitating large load customers, which can be data centers, can be manufacturing, other large load users of all of this power that is coming to the South Bay grid, whether San Jose uses it or not, um, on our existing underutilized land that's been zoned for employment is a potentially very good thing for our city in terms of jobs, tax-based revenues that can be used for after-school programs, longer library hours, better infrastructure maintenance, all of the things that we want.

At the same time, as I think folks heard from every member of the council who spoke, and I really appreciate my colleagues' great questions.

We are cognizant of the uh reality that economic development comes with impacts.

And I would say that we uh, in my view, do a better job in California generally and in San Jose specifically to think ahead about what those impacts might be and how to mitigate them.

And I would just remind folks that uh should we simply say no and push investment in growth and innovation else elsewhere, it is far less likely it will be managed as carefully as we will in San Jose.

So we absolutely need to ask the tough questions and be very thoughtful and incentivize the highest standards around emission low emission energy, ultimately, hopefully GHG free energy completely.

We've pushed the envelope there and been a leader, um, closed water systems and and ways of reducing water impacts and shape this growth to be as good for the environment and people as possible.

But simply saying no sadly means it will just happen in a neighboring city or even worse, in a in a state or another place uh that really doesn't have our high standards for environmental quality.

So I appreciate that we're taking a thoughtful, balanced approach and really um trying to find ways to manage growth responsibly.

Uh thank you again to my colleagues for all the great questions.

We did have a motion from Councilman McCohen and Tony.

I think we're ready to vote.

Okay.

Okay, that passed unanimously.

Thank you all.

We are on to our next item.

Thank you to the city team.

We will go on now to item 3.5, and we have a brief staff presentation.

So Matt Lesh, whenever you're ready, take it away.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

I'm Matt Lesh, I'm the director of public works.

Uh today we have a brief presentation just to kind of level up what's in front of you today.

I am bringing you a revision to council policy 3.3, the city's living wage policy.

So a quick background the city's living wage was policy was created in about 1999, 1998, um, and then was modified several times uh throughout the years, multiple revisions, clarifying what the intent was, some liquidated damage and labor peace items.

And in 2008, the airport adopted its own living wage ordinance that's in the municipal code.

Um in 2010, the airport living wage amended theirs to adjust the methodology of increase or change to align to the consumer price index.

The current living wage methodology.

So one of the challenges and the reason why I'm here is the administration of this policy has become a bit challenging in the recent years, and this is the purpose of my recommendation that you'll see at the end is to ease that administration of this policy.

Um in 1998, uh council told us to look at the federal poverty income rate of a family of three, apply some geographic assessment factor without any detail of what that would be, and then it would generate the San Jose's living wage rate.

Historically, that living wage rate we'd get from a vendor, and it was very consistent over the first 20 years or so, and then it started to change around 2019-2020.

Every uh was very busy doing things around COVID.

Um, and we started digging into it in the last couple of years, and it really the change of methodology became really not understandable and unclear to all of us.

And so we wanted to make it clear and make it transparent.

So we studied a little bit what's going on in other jurisdictions just to see what is uh going on in other areas.

There's about 21 counties and cities that have some sort of living wage type thing.

They're not all exactly the same.

We attached them all as uh an attachment to our memo, so they're all listed there with how we got those references and what they're exactly included.

They're not exactly apples per apples, but they're very very similar in sort in their sorts.

Um, San Jose is the highest at 26.73, uh 2673 this year, and then Vitura's a lowest at about 1543.

All city counties uh besides using uh consumer price index.

Um the use one some of them use uh CPIU and some of them use CPIW, and I know there's been a little bit of conversation.

So, what's the difference between those two?

The CPIU does provide geographic uh specific CPIs.

Um it was it's about 50 years old, it represents a um a very broad swath of uh the residents, and it's most commonly used measure, and it's the one used in the city most broadly than everything else.

CPIW, it's about over a hundred years old.

It's uh as a smaller subset of the uh city, and it's one used sorry, of the country and is used for the Social Security COLAS.

Um of those 21 cities that I was referencing in this prior slide.

Um, if I can get the slides to go back, of the 21 cities, a little more than half use CPIU, some and the and a little less than half uh use CPIW.

Um so just to get to the punchline.

Our recommendation is again for the purposes for administrative ease is to use the same methodology that is that is used in the airport living wage policy, which is a CPIU.

Um, and though that would be effective uh as of July 1st, and that's effective on the current rate of 2673.

And that's staff recommendation to end our presentation.

I'm ready for your questions.

All right, thank you.

Go to public comment first if we have 10 cards, so I'm gonna call you.

Um you don't have to come up in the same order that you're called.

Uh, but when you hear your name, go ahead and make your way down.

Louise Auerhan, Mark Maloof, Sarah Julian, Daya Kunkun, Martha Adame.

And then I'll call more names.

Um go ahead, come up.

I'll call more names as you come down.

All right, good afternoon, council members, Mayor Louise Aurahan with working partnerships.

The living wage was one of the first issues that working partnerships took up way back when we were founded.

It was that and universal health care for children.

And that was because those were the top priorities for community members to keep San Jose a livable city and to try to steer us towards a future, not of mass inequality and displacement, but of shared prosperity and inclusion.

It's almost three decades later, a lot has changed, but the need for a livable wage and for responsible and culturally competent city services, an inclusive and equitable city where our kids can grow up and families can stay.

We need that more than ever.

The San Jose living wage is one small but important piece of that puzzle.

It's raised the floor for a generation of contract workers and private companies.

Uh fair pay in government contracting is also essential to pay equity.

As you might know, government employment and government contracting is one of the largest industries for workers of color, for women of color in particular.

So setting fair wages here reduces the gender and racial pay gap.

But with all that history, it's true, the San Jose living wage does need to be updated.

And so I thank city staff, uh, Matt Loche and the council for bringing this item forward.

We support the move to use the Bay Area CPI.

However, this fix was needed several years ago.

And we actually raised this issue first in July 2024, and again more urgently last July.

And that delay means that workers paid the living wage, have now gone 10 months with a zero increase, and we'll end up missing a full year.

If that missing year is not accounted for, workers will end up with a permanently lower baseline going forward.

That's why I urge you to support the memo from council members Candelas, Gampos, Ortiz, and Casey to include a catch-up adjustment.

And for the future, urge you also to look at the airport living wage so those workers can reach parity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mark Malouf.

I'm a business agent with Teamsters Local 665, which represents parking workers in the city-owned garages here in San Jose.

The city's living wage policy is intended to ensure that employees working under city contracts receive fair compensation that keeps pace with the high cost of living in our area.

However, the application of the current methodology for fiscal year 2025 through 26 resulted in no increase to the living wage, and the res in the resulting adjustment was set at zero dollars.

This resulted in the lowest paid workers on city contracts not receiving any cost of living adjustment, despite continued increases in the already astronomical cost of housing, food, transportation, and other basic necessities across the region.

In addition, the previous annual increases amounted to a dollar total over the past three years, which is unacceptable for any city, let alone one as expensive to live in as San Jose.

In light of this, the proposed update seeks to restore the intended function of the living wage adjustment by incorporating a one-time catch-up mechanism.

By applying the catch-up adjustment, the city can more accurately reflect the cumulative changes in the cost of living while maintaining a prospective only approach that avoids administrative and fiscal complexities associated with retroactive pay adjustments.

Finally, if the Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to discon discontinues publication of the Bay Area CPIU, staff will return to City Council with the proposed substitute, including analysis of the likely impact of that substitute on annual wage adjustment amounts.

Therefore, we ask you to please consider the catch-up adjustment for the San Jose Living Wage Ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Marcelina Cruz, come on down and David Rodriguez.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Sarah Julian with Unite Here Local 19.

I am proud to represent San Jose workers, including about 500 workers at the San Jose Mineta Airport.

We want to thank the council and the staff for all of your hard work in ensuring that the city living wage has an accurate cost of living adjustment.

And we push to ensure that the city living wage matches the reality in San Jose.

We want to note that the San Jose Airport Living Wage is currently more than six dollars lower per hour than the city living wage.

Airport workers are the frontline ambassadors for the city and are often the first and the last people that visitors interact with during a trip to San Jose.

These workers provide services as retailers, food and beverage attendants, security officers, parking lot attendants, shuttle bus drivers, rental car agency staff, and janitors, to name a few occupations that fall under the airport living wage ordinance.

Workers under both living wage ordinances should be able to afford to live and work in San Jose.

However, the current disparity between the two risks San Jose having a second class living wage and treating airport workers as second-class citizens.

We recognize that there are structural problems at the airport, and we would like to be part of a long-term effort to fix them.

We ask the council and staff to direct attention to the airport living wage to reach and maintain wage parity with the San Jose City Living Wage.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

And me and my husband, um, we paid $3,500 per month for rent.

Plus my very expensive utility bills.

I feel so frustrated because I got a feeling um the HMS airport employees we are not important.

Increasing the living wage at the airport too much, the city living wage will help give experienced workers at the airport.

It is important that San Jose fairly compensate and retain experienced workers who serve a frontline ambassadors for the city and its airport.

I ask that you please align the living wage at the airport with the city living wage.

Appreciate all your time, guys.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker, um Aura Giron, come on down, Drew Siegler and Vanessa Tapia.

My name is David Rodriguez, business agent for Teamsters Local 350.

We represent over 500 members that service your communities.

The city's living wage policy is intended to ensure workers on city contracts receive fair wages that reflect the rising cost of living.

However, the fiscal year of 25-2026, the adjustment was set to zero dollars, meaning that these workers saw no increases despite continued spikes in housing, food, and transportation costs.

Additionally, the total increases over the past three years have been minimal and do not reflect the reality of living in San Jose.

We respectfully urge the city to adopt the proposed catch-up adjustment to better reflect actual cost of living increases while maintaining a forward-looking approach.

Thank you for for your consideration.

Thank you, next speaker.

Good afternoon.

My name is Marcelina Cruz.

I have work at the San Jose Airport for 22 years.

After 22 years, I'm only making 20 dollars per hour.

Covert employees at the airport should not be subject to a second class living wage.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hello, good afternoon.

Mayor and council members.

My name is Dea Kuncun, and I'm here with Unite Here Local 19.

First off, I want to commend the council and its staff for its reflective adjustments to the city living wage and urge the council to ensure there's a catch-up adjustment and accountability and transparency throughout this process.

These changes reflect what I know is true about our city, that we want to be a place where all workers can afford to live and contribute to the vibrant diversity of San Jose.

We now urge you to look to the improvements necessary with the San Jose Airport Living Wage to make sure that these workers are not treated like second-class city workers.

Workers who are providing the same services under the city living wage are getting paid six dollars more than those who are servicing the San Jose Airport.

This disparity poses a serious threat to retaining experienced workers at the airport, and it can risk contributing to a downward economic spiral at the airport.

Neighboring cities, Oakland and San Francisco, have the exact same living wage calculation for both city and airport workers.

And this makes sense.

Workers living and working in their city face the exact same rising costs of living.

Furthermore, we recognize that there are structural problems at the airport, and we would like to be part of the long-term effort to resolve those problems.

We ask the city council and city staff to adjust the airport living wage ordinance to reach and maintain wage parity with the city living wage, and we're happy to offer assistance to the city staff, including research.

Thank you, and thank you for your time.

Thank you, next speaker.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members.

My name is Vanessa Tapia, and I'm an organizer with the South Bay Labor Council, representing over a hundred thousand workers and their families.

And we urge you to support the memo from council members Candelas Campos, Ortiz, and Casey.

Right now, the civ the San Jose living wage is falling behind.

Since 2020, the cost of living in our region has increased by over 20%.

But the living wage has only gone up about 15%.

That gap has real consequences for workers providing vital city services who are already struggling to afford basic needs.

And then in July 2025, the city got excuse me.

The city got worse.

The city set the cost of living adjustment to zero.

A zero increase in the middle of an affordability crisis is just absolutely unacceptable.

We appreciate the city's effort to fix the formula going forward by using the Bay Area CPI, which is an important step.

But keeping the zero increase in place creates a permanently lower wage baseline and continues to penalize workers who already lost nearly a year of pay.

We cannot allow that loss to become the new normal.

So we urge you to support a catch-up adjustment to restore the living wage baseline for 2026 and beyond.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Good afternoon again.

My name is Drew Siegler.

I'm with showing up for racial justice Santa Clara County, and I'm a district three uh resident.

And uh I'm just speaking in solidarity with the workers.

Um please support the memo from Candeles Campos or Tiaz and Casey.

Um you know, like this this city is next to impossible to live in on when you're not earning enough.

And so just meet the baseline, you know, meet meet the align it with the um with the rest of the city living wage.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Buenas tardes, mi nombre Saura Hiro.

Me nombra, yes, but aside in Duran.

Good afternoon.

My name is Aura Hiron.

I'm a resident of San Jose, and I work for three years at the San Jose Airport.

For me, it's important to have a living wage because I'm dealing with the same affordability crisis as other workers in the city of San Jose.

Let's pido que por favor igualing el salario digno in el aeropuerto con el salario digno de la ciudad.

So I asked, please, that you align the living wage at the airport with the living wage for San Jose City.

Gracias, yes.

Back to council.

All right, thank you to all of our public speakers.

Coming back to the council.

We'll go to Council of Condelas.

Oh, I believe there's somebody who I would on, I think we had someone we forgot someone.

Who was uh unintentionally skipped?

Sir, come on down.

Yes.

I don't know if you submitted a comment card or not, but we'll go ahead and quickly take your public comment.

Yeah.

Okay, we must have missed it.

Come on down.

Go ahead, sir.

Well, thank you.

No problem.

And and tell Emily I finally got down here.

Okay, great.

James, are you here to talk about a mobile home?

Are you here to talk about illegally parked motor mobile homes?

Because that's open forum.

Oh, I do see the wrong one.

Yeah.

We're still on the living wage item.

Did you want to talk about living wage or the mobile home?

No.

Yeah, so you would be able to conform forum.

I'm leaving.

All right, no problem.

I mean just going up the we'll let you know when it's open for them.

We're getting there.

All right.

Glad we cleared that up, Councilman Candelas.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you, everybody who came out to speak on this item.

Uh, I'd I'd also want to uh thank my colleagues, um uh council members compo, Zortiz, and Casey as well as the mayor uh for for their collaboration on this, and then uh obviously uh Director Lesh uh for your uh work and your team's work, uh not just informing us, but help helping us craft um uh a memorandum uh along with uh you know folks, you know, our key stakeholder group uh key stakeholder groups like working partnerships.

Um, you know, I want to make this point very clear.

Uh, you know, this proposal uh will have minimal impact on our city's uh budget, our largest service contracts like janitorial and security workers are already paying well above the proposed living wage uh rates, and uh thus uh they will not be impacted and more importantly, living wage policies already apply primarily to certain service contracts above that threshold, uh meaning that impacts uh are targeted and not system-wide.

Uh, I think the most substantial aspect of this policy is making sure that we are uh raising the floor for our lowest paid workers, many of whom are struggling in one of the highest highest costs of living regions in the entire country, and even with uh the the recent increases, wages often lag behind uh the true cost of living in Silicon Valley, where incremental wage gains still translate to uh modest annual increases.

Uh, you know, the living wage policies are intended uh to ensure that full-time work provides a basic level of economic stability and and and dignity, quite frankly.

And you know, uh the uh the the memo that we wrote was uh you know uh intended to respect current agreements and avoid uh disruption to ongoing service or contract.

So that was pivotal.

And just a quick question for for for Matt uh for the director is uh, you know, maybe we touch on a little bit about what happened over the last few years uh that made our uh methodology uh a little murky.

So as I said in the presentation, though very briefly, uh the vendor that we use to help set us that geographic assessment factor had been very consistent over several decades, decided to change their uh formula for generating that geographic assessment factor that didn't make it so that something we can really understand or even line up to hit history, and so we had tried to validate it multiple ways, and even with their assessment factor and looking at different rates of housing and so forth, what looking at our housing department's data.

Um we did not come up with the federal poverty rate plus that geographic assessment factor to go above the current set rate, and so there is no direction in the policy to lower it, so we didn't lower it, but history shows us uh three or other times in the history of this policy, they just kept it flat and didn't raise it.

And so it's not staff isn't really given any judgment in terms of how that policy was set up.

So the the uh vendor that we had used, and so we'd like to no longer use them, we'd like to use the CPI, and so uh we just hadn't found a consistency in that through thread for the last 25 years.

Thank you.

And then you know that's that's the perfect setup for the second recommendation or memorandum, which um should the Bureau of Labor Statistics cease to publish that Bay Area CPIU CPIUM that staff um will inform the council via information memorandum and give us all the information needed to to be able to act and and uh and uh uh inform our administration on what what we do next.

So uh that being said, uh thank you again, uh Director Lash.

And uh with that I'll I'll move the memo uh authored uh by council members composer T's Casey and myself.

Great.

Thanks, Councilmember.

Uh Vice Mayor Thank you.

Thank you, Matt, for the presentation.

I'm sorry I went to the back room, but I appreciate the briefing that you gave to me earlier and uh appreciate the the thoughtfulness in bringing this forward.

This update really brings clarity to uh and consistency to how we can't how we calculate the annual living wage.

We've had this formula that is confusing and complicated, and the airport uses a different formula that we are uh proposed to adopt in this and in the in the memo.

I think this is a clear way of creating uniformity, doesn't create uniformity in the doll in the fees that are paid or the hourly wages that are paid at the airport.

That's a different discussion.

This is how uh we it relates to the contracts here at the city and um and how you're going to increase those wages on an annual basis going forward.

So I I support that.

I support the memo.

I uh appreciate my colleagues for their thoughtfulness in the memo and considering the impact of zero wage increase last time around and able to do sort of a true up, I think is is an excellent idea.

So can you tell me?

I I've heard that the impact of the true up is minimal.

Can you confirm what that might look like on a budgetary standpoint?

So what this does is it changes the wage rate of the workers that are within a contract.

It doesn't change the set contract amount.

The next time we would negotiate that contract, we would assume that that contract rate would be higher than the current rate just because they're using different uh underlying wage rates.

So the current rates, these current contracts that are rolling through, um, they would not be impacted, but the next negotiations will see them.

And we're talking about 70 cents or a dollar an hour, not talking um gigantic raises, and the largest number the largest contracts that we have are our janitorial contracts and our security guard contracts, and they aren't impacted by that because they're the rates that we've have with those vendors are far far higher than the even proposed living wage rate.

So even like the largest contracts, they're not impacted, and uh the ones that are smaller that in size, they'll be they'll be impacted but by several, maybe a dollar or so an hour uh in the next negotiation in future years.

So how will the memo affect current contract employees?

Well, effective July 1st, they'll have a new wage rate as the floor from which the that they have to pay the workers that are in those contracts.

But there's no back wages.

Correct.

That's correct.

That's what's proposed in the memo.

Okay.

So they'll just see it going forward July 15th.

Effective July 1st, they'd have a different wage rate, yes.

Regardless of what the con their contract says.

Correct.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That truly helps me.

I appreciate that.

And I completely support the memo and thank you for the c my colleagues for their thoughtfulness.

Great.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

We'll go now to Councilmember DeWan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Director, for the uh presentation.

To the speaker up there, I I feel a shame that you work 20 years and your wage is only $20 an hour.

Anyway, the city of San Jose is one of the most expensive places that you know live here in the country.

For many of our residents, the homeownership is out of reach, and too many family or live in paycheck to paycheck.

Our contract workers deserve a fair livable wage.

There should be no debate about that.

These are the custodian or janitorial who take care of our buildings, the security officer who keep our facilities safe, and the tow operator who keep our street clean and moving.

They do essential work that keep our city running every single day.

And often they don't they don't get recognized for it.

Many of these workers are immigrant and they have the responsibility to, and we we have the responsibility to advocate for them.

Last year, these contract workers didn't receive their living wage adjustment raise.

Yes, you know the cost of living continue to rise.

That's a gap we cannot ignore.

We must do better, and to start with action like this, ensuring our policy protects workers and uphold dignity regardless of their job titles.

I urge my colleague to move forward with this resolution and continue working towards a system that truly supports the people who keep San Jose running.

Thank you, and I yield my time.

Thanks, Councilmember.

We'll go now to Councilmember Ortiz.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I also want to thank uh Matt Lush for last week's briefing on this very important item and for his team's thoughtful approach to addressing the inconsistencies in our previous methodology.

And of course, all the uh worker advocates, union members who are here today sharing your lived experience and the need for um worker support by this council.

At its core, this conversation is about creating a more consistent and understandable approach to adjusting our living wage year over year.

When we rely on clear, transparent metrics such as CPI, we give workers, employers, and the public a predictable system that accurately reflects the cost of living in our region.

Well, we saw this past year where our living wage didn't increase at all, underscores why this matters.

Under the current methodology, the adjustment came out to zero, meaning some of the most lowest paid workers on city contracts saw no increase, even as costs continue to rise across the board.

That's not the intent of this policy, and it's not an outcome we should be comfortable with.

That's why I want to express my support for the memo that I've signed on to with council members Candelas, Campos, and Casey.

Uh it builds on this effort by ensuring that as we transition to a more reliable methodology.

We don't leave workers behind.

By incorporating a one-time catch-up adjustment, we're acknowledging that gap and ensuring the policy delivers on its promise.

To me, this is about fairness and follow-through.

If we're going to modernize how we calculate these increases, we also have a responsibility to make sure workers actually receive the benefits that uh change.

I just want to thank our um staff or our workers who are contractors at the airport before I was a council member.

A couple years before I was a council member, I was actually a union organizer that helped organize workers at both the airport and at City Hall.

And I had the opportunity to sit down with many of these contract workers, discuss uh kind of their uh their shortcomings on the job, whether that's um protections, worker benefits, or rate of pay, and I definitely support making sure that um what is provided to city hall contractors are also provided to contractors at the airport and look forward to future discussions.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, council member.

All right, I don't see any other hands.

Uh appreciate the memo, the work from Director Matt Lush and our public works department.

And with that, I think we're ready to vote motion passes unanimously.

Motion passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, we are on to item 5.1.

This is Connect North San Jose Multimodal Transportation Improvement Plan.

Turn it over to John and the team.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

John Russo, Director of Transportation.

With me today is Ramses Padu Division Manager and Peter Rice, our project manager for this plan.

And we're going to try to jump right into the presentation as soon as Pete's ready.

Go ahead, Pete.

All right, thank you, John.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

I appreciate this opportunity to be here to share Connect North San Jose with you all.

This is our North San Jose Multimodal Transportation Improvement Plan, or MTIP.

It's our fourth M tip that we've brought before council for adoption.

Today I'm going to walk you through what the plan is, what we've heard from the community and the improvements that we're recommending.

So at its core, this effort is about identifying the transportation improvements that we need in North San Jose that align with community priorities and help us meet our safety and climate goals.

At the same time, we're expecting significant growth in this area, which makes these changes necessary and also gives us an opportunity to shape how the transportation system evolves.

So that leads directly to our vision statement for the plan.

We envision a safe, equitable, and climate friendly transportation network that connects communities within North San Jose and better links it to the rest of the city and region while supporting economic vitality.

To help translate that vision into action, we focused on three goals for this plan access for all, 20 minute neighborhoods, and reducing driving.

These goals are grounded in Move San Jose, which is our adopted citywide transportation plan.

And they reflect what we heard early on from the community about what matters most, namely safe, convenient access to everyday destinations, and real transportation options beyond driving.

And across all of this, everything we're recommending is guided by the city's uh two core goals, improving transportation safety, and advancing uh our climate goals.

So we spent a lot of time making sure this plan reflects what people actually experience on the ground in North San Jose.

That included engaging over 700 community members through workshops, pop-ups, surveys, and stakeholder interviews, all in multiple languages.

And importantly, that input didn't just get collected, it directly shaped the recommendations you'll see in the plan.

So a few themes came through clearly in our outreach.

People want faster, more reliable transit, they want safer walking conditions and better bike connections, especially east-west connections across major barriers.

They want better access to everyday destinations and more places to go, like grocery stores, gathering spaces, um, and other community amenities.

And overall, people want real reliable uh transportation options so they have choices in how they get around.

So, in response to those themes, the plan recommends 29 projects, including eight larger transformative big moves.

Together, these projects improve transit, make walking, bike and biking safer, they strengthen local connections, and improve regional access into and out of North San Jose.

These are the uh priority projects that rose to the top based on what we heard from the community and where we think we can make the biggest impact.

So, first we have the North First Street Transit Priority Project.

This focuses on improving speed and reliability of uh light rail along North First, while also making it safer and easier for people to access the stations as well as making it more comfortable for people walking and biking along North First.

Next, we have the slow streets and Paseo Network.

This idea focuses on breaking up the large blocks by adding new local streets and pedestrian connections over time as the area redevelops.

This will make it uh easier and more direct to walk and bike between destinations.

Next, we have the Montague First Street Grade Separation.

Uh, this project addresses one of the biggest bottlenecks in the transit system by reducing delays at Montague and First.

We aim to improve travel time and reliability for light rail as well as for the vehicles on both corridors.

Then we have the Zenker Road bicycle and pedestrian connection project.

This will improve a key north south corridor by making Zanker uh safer and more accessible for people walking and biking all while might maintaining its role in supporting vehicular travel.

And then finally, we have the Sharcot Avenue bicycle priority project and the 880 overcrossing project.

These two strengthen uh a critical east-west connection by upgrading Sharcot for safer biking and adding a new crossing over 880, making it much easier for people to travel uh across one of the area's biggest barriers.

So, what's next?

Uh looking ahead, this plan positions the city to move from planning into implementation.

That includes pursuing grant funding to design and build projects, coordinating with private development as the area grows, continuing to work with our regional partners like VTA and Caltrans, and advancing our big moves into implementable projects.

Altogether gives us a clear roadmap for how to move forward.

Thank you again for your time.

Happy to take questions and comments.

Thank you.

Sorry, just making a quick switch over here.

Uh, do we have any public members of the public who wish to speak on this topic?

No public comment.

Oops.

Then do we have any colleagues who wish to speak?

No.

Is there a motion then?

I wanted to I don't see your hand.

Council member Collins.

Okay, Colin.

Speaker.

Yes, I did I disconnect you?

I'm sorry.

You reset everything.

I'm so sorry.

Uh I I want to I want to thank you.

I mean, obviously, this is important project for North San Jose, and we've been years in the making, and while there's no public comment tonight, there's been a lot of public outreach, events after event after event over the years to try to get input about what's important to the residents there.

And I'm glad to see some of the things that we've been talking about on this list.

Obviously, the two big lift projects are an overcrossing for light rail.

I'm glad it's made the list.

I remember when we right at the beginning of my time on council that I I was redirecting that we'll talk about Charcot in a second, but the Charcot overcrossing and said the more important thing is to get a light rail grade separation.

It actually was the conversation when we were settling the lawsuit with Santa San Jose with um with Santa Clara County over North San Jose.

They had thought in their infinite wisdom that there should be a flyover at Trimble and Montague, but it's far more effective to improve North San Jose to get grade separation at first in Montague.

And so I'm glad that's on the list, and I hope that we'll be able to figure out how to get that funded because to me that's really important.

Getting more people on light rail in North San Jose is should be a goal.

There's a lot more housing getting built, a lot of jobs up there, but it takes twice as long to get there by light rail as it does to drive when you come from downtown, and that's a problem.

So we need to fix that.

Um by the way, just to to comment on the Trimble Montague thing.

I drive that ever all the time, and I will say there's no backup at Trimble and Montague.

The backups are at McCarthy and First Street, and it traffic moves smoothly through Trimble.

So the fact that the county held out so long for that interchange just shows that they weren't even looking at their own expressway very much.

Um I also want to make it clear that and actually I I think only um Vice Mayor and I would have would have uh trauma over the mentioning of a Charcot overcrossing because nobody else was here on this council when we went through the back and forth on that.

Um I'm very proud of the fact that when I joined the council, we I I got eventually got the agreement of the council to undo a previously approved project there.

I see this on the list, but I'm I know what you're talking about now is a bike pedestrian overcrossing over 880 at Sharcot.

Is that correct?

Yes, and that would be great to do that and get a good bike connection, but not have a road dumping off next to Orchard School and in uh North San Jose.

So thank you, and I'm gonna move approval of the um staff recommendation.

I have a little PTSD over that conversation, but was glad when you came onto council that we could overturn a previous council's decision.

I was I voted no the first time, and I voted with you the second time around.

So I'm glad to see it come to fruition, actually.

Councilmember Mulcahy.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to recognize the great work on this and you know, district six benefits, sort of as it swoops down in and around the airport, and just having spent a week on a learning journey with the folks at reimagining the Civic Commons.

Um the fact that we're integrating other ways to sort of establish you know bike lanes and pedestrian corridors with greening our community and with all due respect, not just pylons and paint.

And it just the more we can do that, I think you know, the the better off we will be in the long run.

Um because it really is a um intentional way to um you know improve our environment and also improve our uh pathways for people and bikes.

So I just want to recognize the great work and look forward to implementation of this as we as we move forward.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Tordillos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Also, just wanted to thank staff for all of the work on this.

Uh, particularly excited by some of the uh improvements proposed for North First Street with the transit uh priority corridor as well as the light rail grade separations.

It always frustrates me when I'm traveling that way, and I see light rails just stopped in traffic, waiting to move forward.

I think over time these will really be important uh investments to both connect people in downtown up to a lot of the job centers that are developing up in North San Jose, as well as collecting uh connecting a lot of the residential capacity that we anticipate in North San Jose to all of the amenities that we have downtown.

Uh so very excited about this work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing no other hands, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously with all present and um Mayor Mahan is absent.

Great, thank you.

Next is item 8.1 establishment of the East Village Business Improvement District.

Do we have a presentation?

No?

Okay.

Then is there any public comment?

I have no cards for this item.

Okay, Councilmember Tordillos.

Continue to be very excited by the potential uh of the East Village Business Improvement General District to generate some funds to invest in beautification and marketing for this important business corridor.

Uh so with that, I will move uh approval.

I have a motion and a second.

Is there any comment?

No.

Changed your mind.

Okay, then let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Okay, moving to the last item of the formal agenda, provo item 8.2, providing access and transforming health capacity and infrastructure transition expansion and development, intergovernmental transfer grant funding for California advancing and innovative medical readiness and implementation.

That's a mouthful, but that gave you enough time to get down to the box.

Thank you, uh Councilmember.

So I'll go through a brief presentation regarding our implementation plan of the CalAim grant that we had received as a partial grant, the matching funds we're going to provide, and how we're intending to build out the administrative infrastructure to receive these eventual reimbursements, beginning at just three sites, and then building it out system-wide.

So, first, very quickly, so CalAM is just it's Medicaid.

It is just a reimbursable for how the state of California provides these services to our lows of income residents, particularly those who are unsheltered, and how we're going to be building that into our delivery of service system throughout the entire 22 sites within our city shelter system.

And this reflects the continuing work that we do around our focus area for reducing unsheltered homelessness, as it'll be an additional revenue stream for service reimbursement.

Overall, what the past sided grant presents is an opportunity for us to pilot out the administrative framework for how these reimbursements will work.

Our three targeted sites will include Soroni, which is our most recent site that we opened, followed by Cherry and Evans Lane.

The goal is to build out this administrative framework so we can test run what Cal AIM reimbursements for both our housing navigation and housing services side as well as what's called our ECM or direct emergency count billable will provide, which is the services for medical and behavioral health that we'll be providing to residents at the site, and then receiving according reimbursements.

So the quick overview of the grants, what we're asking for authorization today is the 1.3 million that we received from the state grant, the matching funds that we'll be providing for a total funding of 2.6 million to help support this administrative build out.

The timeline is the next over the next 12 to 18 months.

We'll begin to work with our service provider partners as well as a number of other uh technical assistance consultants as and the county to build out this administrative framework.

What we're doing is effectively medical billing and coding.

We're providing a service, we're billing that back to Medicaid.

That's effectively in a very simplified form, what this program is and how we would look to launch the site.

The intended outcomes for this is to first build out an effective system that is efficiently run as well as effectively run under our healthcare systems provided within the county.

Then, two, look at ways in which we can optimize this to set up a scalable model that can grow to all shelter sites.

And then lastly, once that framework is in place, we will then look to set up year one targets for rolling out this uh program throughout the entire system with an anticipated revenue sources that we're working through some financial modeling now as to how much minus expenses net revenue will be able to receive within the system.

And so this grant is just basically providing that opportunity to fully explore under the council direction as committed to within the focus areas to build up our Cal Lane framework.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation.

Do we have any members of the public who wish to speak on this topic?

I have no cards for this item.

Okay, very good.

I'll move back to council then.

Councilmember Campos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, and thank you, Eric, for the presentation.

I just have one um quick question for clarification.

The report indicates that these city-owned uh emergency interim housing sites will use the county's coordinated entry system.

So, does this mean that residents from other cities outside of San Jose are going to be placed in the EIHs?

So the build out and an agreement with the county as we look to synchronize the shelter system is to continue to prioritize San Jose residents.

Could there be occurrences where there are non-San Jose residents within the system for those identified beds?

That is a probability, but given that San Jose residents typically make up over 70% of the current here for you hotline wait list, that probability is relatively small.

Thank you for that.

I agree.

I think it's sometimes a little known fact that a lot of people who uh are experiencing homelessness in our city and our county um are living in the zip codes within our city and our county prior to that experience of homelessness.

And so I appreciate the confirmation that we are prioritizing San Jose residents at all opportunities and acknowledging that there is a slight chance, though very limited, um, that we might not get people from San Jose.

I know this council is um really looking for all opportunities to make sure that our our residents and particularly our um for myself and some of my colleagues agree with me that our youngest residents um trying to stabilize them in our city.

So thank you.

Councilmember Candelas.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um Eric, thank you for your presentation and uh your work on this with regards to the the Calium system.

I guess you know, obviously this work is complex, but one that's necessary in achieving the uh long-term financial viability of our of our shelter system.

And so, you know, in the long run, how much do you think we stand to save on our overall shelter costs through this implementation and direct like city dollars?

So we are going through the financial modeling for that now.

What I mentioned is that I've shared uh with many of you during our one-on-one meetings.

This is not provide an enormous stream of revenue, but it provides a significant stream of potential revenue based on the build-out of it.

What we're looking at now, it's somewhere between, I guess, seven to nine million a year.

Again, it very much depends on what is the how many high users of the system there are, enrollment within the system.

So there are a lot of variables within this build-out, and that's part of the work of this pilot is to better refine how do we efficiently ensure we enroll 100% of everyone who's in the bed at any given time.

How do we then ensure that their access to services were properly medical billing encoding that so we can receive the reimbursements?

So it's a lot of administrative work.

Again, it's not a large stream, but it's a significant stream that can potentially look to reduce some of our existing shelter costs.

No, totally.

And and you know, uh this also takes you know, city city investment as well, upfront funding, and but you know, seven to nine million dollars per year is seven to nine million dollars that can go towards libraries, um uh prevention programs, police officers, firefighters, etc.

You name it.

So um I I appreciate I appreciate your work on this, and you know, I I think this is uh obviously part of the broader conversation as council member compos mentioned, you know, collaborating with our partner government agencies like the county and the state um as and and and how we as a city uh play a role in our overall um housing continuum of care, if you will.

And and and I I appreciate your work on this and uh look forward to to seeing um uh this this program uh fully fully up and implemented.

Uh that uh I don't think anybody's moved this item, so with that I'll move approval of the staff recommendation on this item.

Thank you.

I have a motion and a second.

Councilmember Mulcahy.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Eric, thank you so much.

You continue to bring um efficient opportunities to us, and and thank you for that.

Um I'm curious how the three pilot sites were determined.

If I missed it in the report, I apologize.

But if you could articulate the three sites in particular, yes, so the three sites were picked based on three general factors.

One is what is the potential needs of the existing residents at the site, where are they effectively on the VI Spadat scale?

So they i.e.

they're going to be highly eligible to enroll.

Two is existing providers, so home first operates uh those two sites.

They have experience with doing an ECM Medicaid bill out, so they were also a good candidate uh for this, and then three, looking at where the locations within the sites are there for the administration of these services and for building out some of that administrative capacity.

Some of this is actually putting some FTEs into locations to build out this medical building.

So those three factors were the primary considerations for the selection of these three.

That's not to say there are other sites that didn't meet this criteria.

However, we just chose these three sites because they're of significant size to show whether or not you know our revenue projection models are going to be met given the just the size of these three sites.

So in the case of Evans Lane, more family kind of driven.

Um does that did that come into play as well, the the different um uh folks that are being serviced at these different sites?

So Evans Lane as a family site just presented a new opportunity to sort of look at this from a different perspective and not just an individual service to deliverably, would where we can also capture some uh youth who are at the site.

In addition, Path, who is a service provider there, has had some exposure to this work in their work in LA.

So we're effectively testing two different service providers and what the build outs are so we can get a comparable test run regarding the administrative build out.

What are some efficiencies and effectiveness we need to look at as we do a multi-provider system across the entire shelter system?

Got it.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

And then since it is a pilot, um, what is your expectation of how much how much time you'll need in order to sort of you know uh give us a report back?

Hey, this is how it's working, this is what we're thinking about for further rollout.

What's your timing?

I hope that by the end of the first 12 months we will have a good sense regarding how effective this is in building out the administrative framework.

Two, are we able to achieve our revenue projections that were originally built into the model?

And then three, based on those revenue projections and administrative modeling, what rollout at the different sites will look like on a time schedule.

So we're gonna learn a lot from this pilot.

I will also just asterisk this that we could also learn that maybe this isn't as effective as we thought it was as we kind of go through this.

I don't foresee that happening, but anything is possible as you're going through a piloting side as we're dipping way into sort of direct service delivery around health care provision and medical billy and coding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing no other hands raised, Tony, let's vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Now we move into uh open forum.

Tony, how many comment cards do we have?

Oh, I didn't count.

I think it's 10.

I'm sorry, 10.

Okay, thank you.

12, 13, 15.

Actually, it's 15.

Um, when I call your name, please um come down.

First person the microphone, go ahead and start speaking.

The others line up behind.

I'll call about five names at a time, and then I keep an eye on this little mirror and continue to add names as the line gets smaller.

Um, James, Greg, I think it's Greg.

James, you came down already, so um Amon Gormley, Drew Siegler, Shanti Thomas, and Kim Gupdull.

Come on down.

Yes.

Thank you for listening to me.

My name is Jim Gray.

I live on Akron Way.

So everybody knows it's a narrow street except 311.

And the motor home that parks in front of my house is a one foot into the emergency lane.

And it's been there for three months.

And I'm tired of it.

And I tried last time.

I was here uh not last, but the time before, and got this started.

The uh code, San Jose Code 1136 050, says there has to be 10 feet from the center of the road to the edge of the road, and that is the emergency lane.

And that is not to be parked on, and this is maybe a small little deal because the motorhomes only parked one foot onto the emergency lane, so maybe we shouldn't worry about it, except if there's a wreck and somebody in that motor home gets hurt.

I think it's gonna be the city of San Jose that pays the bills, and for me, I want to be able to have an ambulance come to my house when on Saturday when all of the cars are parked and there's no room.

I want to be safe too.

So that is my bitch.

Thank you, Council Lady.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hi, Council Ban Members.

I'm my name is Shantae Thomas.

I'm from the jungle.

Why don't y'all build tiny homes at the jungle and stop taking it away from the jungle?

That's what we live, that's what we love.

Can you leave us there?

That's all I want to know.

Thank you, next speaker.

I might also like to call a Zazel Holmquist, Batman, and Rachel Mean, Mina.

Come on down.

My name is Drew Siegler.

I'm from Surge Santa Clara County.

I'm a resident of D3.

And uh we have uh a bunch of people here today for open forum that are currently being swept in the jungle, and I hope you really listen to what they have to say and take heart and and take action what they're calling for.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hi, I'm Kim Guptill, and I'm a resident of D6, and I am a member of showing up for racial justice, and we are here to simply ask the mayor and the city council to keep their promises.

Um I would say more strongly we demand that the city leaders stop swooping humans from their places of refuge, like so much garbage.

That's how they're being treated.

You know the demand.

Pause the sweeps until folks have received written notification that's been confirmed of their status and in their spoken language.

I'm sure you've seen this, so that they can plan accordingly.

It's just kind of basic human decency.

I think you guys understand that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hello, good evening, City Council members.

My name is Azazel Homequist.

I'm a member of Surgeon and resident of District 6 in San Jose.

Please pause the abatement at the jungle camp until everyone is adequately placed.

Meaning tiny homes or motels are up to code and safe with access to bus passes, transportation costs are unavailable and will trap residents at Saroni.

Path is not able to reach everyone, and more time is needed.

Not everyone has been helped.

The agreement for housing is unreasonable, also.

If a person is suffering from systemic abuse and is met with the kind of terms the city is asking, is is unreasonable and it is doomed to fail.

Back to the drawing board, please.

I have lived unhoused experience.

Six months interim housing is nowhere near enough time to heal to get on track.

Multiple resources are needed.

We need whole person care and the need for resources that are adequate, they're adequate and needs the needs to be addressed in the very near future.

There are also many different aspects to being unhoused.

Medication issues for mental health.

That takes time to address trauma.

CPTSD is very different than PTSD, and we're dealing with people with CPTSD.

Addiction is not viewed correctly.

Addiction is the disease.

It is something that we choose to do to avoid the emotional distress.

It is not something we are trying to have fun.

And the lack of equal education and information.

Homelessness is an institution, it needs to be treated differently than it is being treated currently.

When I first got housed after being homeless, I slept on the balcony of my apartment that I got from the YWCA from June until until November because my brain could not adjust.

Please take these into consider these into consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

So accountability is a term that we hear thrown around all the time when we're discussing homelessness in San Jose.

I believe that accountability is a two-way street.

I believe that if you want to hold someone accountable, you are equally accountable to that person.

I have noticed a severe lack of accountability on the part of the city of San Jose when it comes to the jungle encampment suite.

Over 109 people signed up for housing and city services.

They went through the proper channels, they did everything they were supposed to do.

And many people are now finding that they're gonna be denied aid.

An individual who was on the list for housing had all of their belongings taken from them and destroyed because your contractors refused to check the list for her name.

If you don't understand, the process is if you've signed up for housing, you get to stay where you are until you get picked up and brought to your location.

That did not happen, and that has not been happening.

People are doing their best to cooperate with your demands.

I say demands very intentionally.

People are doing their part.

They are owning their accountability.

You are failing them.

I am demanding that you stop sweeping people without first housing them.

I demand that you hold yourselves accountable, or you will be held accountable.

Thank you, next speaker.

Um Philomena, come on down and Jasmine Barry.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Rachel Mino.

I am the acting directing attorney of the health program with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.

I am also a San Jose resident and a member of District 6.

I'm here on behalf of the Law Foundation and in support of organizations and jungle residents who are requesting a temporary but immediate halt to the encampment sweep.

I have been on site at the jungle multiple days over the last two weeks, and I have witnessed the actual harm the sweep is having on humans.

Many jungle residents have requested but not received necessary accommodations to allow them to move safely.

And I'll repeat that.

Some folks have housing, but many other folks who are living at the jungle have been placed on a waiting list for here for you or have been sent to junk to Tent City.

This is not housing.

This does not comply with the promises the city has made to house residents of the jungle.

This is an inappropriate stop gap.

This is not actual housing.

Moreover, certain jungle residents are being moved, as you may know, to Serone, which is not ready to house folks.

For example, we've heard reports from Cerone directly that their electrical panels are not sufficiently prepared to house multiple residents.

These issues, as well as many others, need to be resolved before the sweep continues.

There's no reason why a halt temporarily I'm sorry, your time is up.

Next speaker, Angel Emma and Lori, come on down.

My name is Angel.

I was recently housed at Via del Oro Tiny Homes until I got incarcerated on January 24th for past legal matters.

Their policy, after 21 days of no physical contact with staff or away from the facility, you are considered to have abandoned and forfeited your spot at the tiny homes.

So I got out of jail on April 9th and went back to the Coyote Creek encampment, and there is a lot of people that are now wanting and ready to transition to the tents or tiny homes.

Physical, emotional, or mental health issues.

Should all be priority until we get everyone away from the water and allow us to transition into the community and be provided with services that protect people and guide us with this life-changing opportunity to be able to enter back into the community and become law-abiding citizens and future taxpayers.

And I was deeply affected in this and emotionally.

Hi, I'm Jasmine Barry, and I've been homeless for now 20 years in your guys' community.

Um in the jungle, no less.

Uh on and off.

Um stop.

Like it's it's and I also got housing too.

But what I what I was complaining on is basically whenever you house us, you have let's say, okay, the 109 people that that signed up, and then you have 168 units in Cerone.

And why couldn't we just house the whole hundred and nine and you know finish your guys' supposed goal of housing the community, right?

So it just numbers to me.

I think of numbers, 109, 168 units.

And then there was only there was another placement of 90 people that were not from the jungle, placed in Cerone, which didn't make sense to me.

And now we are lacking of 30, like 48, you guys, 48 people that uh haven't been housed.

So now I just want to know what's going on.

Why people are picky and choosy about who's going to be housed and who's not.

That's about it.

Next speaker, also be come on down, and homelessness is a policy choice.

Come on down.

Um, with that, I've called all cards.

If you did not hear your name, please come on down.

My name is Pedro Reyes.

I come from Mexico, but I I would I wanna I want to speak as part of this one because I want to make clear whatever I want, whatever I try to say.

May I forget clear because okay, this is Gometido.

I have been in the United States for 21 years.

I have not committed any crimes.

The crimes I have committed were only in transit.

I have nothing against the police for crimes.

They don't have to arrest or anything.

That's why I have the courage to confront them every time they go to Crick.

Because they arrive.

They arrive with a disgusting attitude, wanting to humiliate the people who are here, not me.

I feel that it isn't.

It is not right to become violent towards someone when they have done nothing wrong.

Simplemente respect them, so instead of coming to ask or check or saying we're going to check you and verify with other drugs.

I'm not interested here if I have drugs or not.

Just respect me.

If I'm bringing drugs, I'll tell you you understand.

I don't care if you give me 345 years in prison.

Because if I bring it up, it's because I'm going to take responsibility for the problem.

Do you understand me?

So honestly, God speaks to me.

No, no, I mean this.

This this thing right now.

But it's a very long, very extensive topic, and the truth is that everything he tells me comes true.

And I don't want anything, not a misfortune for cry, because I've been told many things I can do, and I have to do them.

He told me to tell them.

I walk in my house, you walk in my house.

That's what he told me.

I am sorry, but I don't know if it will cause any harm in the future.

But it's the reality because he said I'm his son.

So I'm practically the son of God and God is the creator of everything.

He owns everything.

I'm sorry, that's your time.

Next speaker.

Yeah, that's your time.

Next speaker.

I don't think it's been made clear, but there seems to be some inherent racism in this whole sweep.

And if you go from the beginning to the end, at the end, all the no reencampment signs are only written in English.

And this population clearly is not all English speakers.

So I just question why PRS makes it that way.

Even the signs on the day of that say you can't go past this point are all written in English.

All the signs along the trail that say, narrow caution, beware this you know, this uh the bridge gets shorter, all those things are written in English.

Why?

Especially in this area.

I'm just asking you.

That seems inherently racist.

And then during this whole process, you have people who weren't added to the list because their case manager said, Oh, you texted me in Spanish.

Yeah, I don't speak Spanish.

I didn't read that.

And that person didn't get added to the list.

There is inherent racism in this whole thing, and you guys really need to deal with that.

And that's why you need to pause.

It's another reason.

Um I also wanted to mention uh the there is no extra people over the hundred and nine.

These aren't new people who moved to the area because of the sweep.

As much as the mayor wants to dismiss them, they're long-term residents of the jungle.

They are people that were missed because they weren't there at night.

They weren't there on the weekends to sign them up.

The advocates were there on the weekends.

We were there at night, the law foundation was there.

Amigos de Guadalupe was there.

Path wasn't there.

So that's how they got missed.

Um, I also wanted to say, uh even if the folks at O Linder in the jungle who currently aren't on the list for Seroni are five percent or eight percent of the re remaining population, they should be allowed to remain where they are.

And I'm sure the mayor would back that up because if it's good enough for a mediocre white man, it's good enough for these folks.

Also, uh talk to everyone here after the meeting.

They're here.

Find solution.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hi, council.

Um, my name's Lori.

I am a 24-year resident of District Six.

Um I'm here personally, just trying to learn how to be a better community member.

And I believe that we must and can build a San Jose where everyone can thrive, and it requires everyone working together to do that.

Um I'm gonna read just a statement from a resident of the jungle who couldn't come here this afternoon.

I was just speaking with him a couple of hours ago, and he says this to my knowledge, I know the city offered people from down here at the creek tiny homes for the jungle, but now I've been informed that there are other people being housed.

If they have room, that's good.

But do you know what happened to the people that don't have a room from the jungle now?

They did promise that we were all going to at least be placed there, and that's not happening.

The city and the mayor need to keep their promises.

All talk and no walk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Sorry, I mean she is so nervous, so I have to speak for her.

We're all from the jungle.

We would like to know can we get more time to get out before y'all take us out of there?

We want like to have more time just to get out.

Not to go to Tennessee.

Not to go to Tent City to find our own apartments.

If we can't.

Next speaker.

Hey everyone.

Um, it's too bad Director Sullivan isn't here to hear this, but I'm glad that the council members and assistant manager Wilcox is.

What we're hearing from residents again and again as we're out in the jungle is one, right?

This is a systemic citywide issue.

Right now it's the jungle, but also people are getting swept all over the city, right?

This is an issue that communities citywide are facing.

Um, but again and again, when I've been talking to folks this week, what we're hearing is we're one community.

Why are some of us getting housed and some of us not?

Right.

Um, if people were, you know, pleasantly surprised to learn that city housing is prepared to offer up to 40 additional spaces to folks, but they haven't received that information directly from anyone with path or with the city.

Um, and those who have received that information directly have been told that the option is tent city, to which they have said, I already have a tent here, right?

I I would like to be moved from here into housing, like into a tiny home into something that is permanent, a little bit more permanent.

Um we spoke with I spoke personally with 12 people yesterday alone who we've been trying to get on the list since March and are still not successfully on the list, right?

And so folks really need answers tonight.

Um we would like if folks feel like we've been here before, it's because we have been, right?

Over the past three weeks.

Um, and because you know, it's good that we're getting a little bit more information commitment, admitting that there are folks who are left off the list, that's big, right?

But we still residents still need answers.

The folks behind me still need answers, and so we really would like city council and staff to meet with them tonight to explain them exactly how you plan to keep your promise to house everyone and how you can work with us to ensure that everyone gets to stay in place until they get a true tiny home placement.

Um thank you.

Next speaker.

I just want to follow up and uh uh reiterate because one of my one of the residents did not get extra time in order to fully uh elaborate on this and to emphasize it for herself.

But essentially there are people who have been swept, they these people still live by the water, they live by the creeks, and these folks also deserve housing, they deserve a place to go.

And you know, where we have folks from the jungle here, and we're we're talking a lot about how people are missed from the jungle, and um it's just a friendly reminder that people are being missed everywhere.

There were entire, like there was an entire contract, separate nonprofits, several people working out in the jungle, and people were still missed because they were at work from nine to five, and path only showed up nine to twelve on Monday mornings.

So with that, I invite all of you guys to join us for a meeting.

And if you um I I know to some degree that like we've been here before, and uh it seems like it's the same story, and it's because nothing is changing.

And with every passing day, people's homes are getting removed, and there is uh a sense of urgency that inside of this room you cannot feel, but when you're out there and you see the dump trucks coming for people's homes, and then you see them completely ransack a home, and then the person comes maybe one or two hours later and they ask you what happened, and you have to tell them, well, uh what happened is that they took your home, and then they say that, well, I'm in the on the housing list, and it's like uh I'm not sure if like there's no way to confirm your status.

There is no way for them to have known that this was your home, there's no marking for that to be clear.

Thank you for taking the time to come and speak to us.

We are adjourned.