Meeting of the South San Francisco City Council.

Recording in progress.

And we'll begin with a roll call.

Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

Councilmember Flores.

Present.

Councilmember Nicholas present.

Vice Mayor Nogales.

Here.

Council Mayor Adiego.

Here.

Thank you.

And tonight we have a presentation.

And it's the San Francisco Peninsula will be presenting.

And the Director John Hazar is here.

So I've imposed upon him to step up and uh lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay.

You were covered for the thank you, Chair.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

To the Republic for God.

Indivisible with Liberty.

Actually, actually, I love the way the Vice Mayor protects his mayor from making mistakes.

Because it does happen occasionally.

Thank you, John.

So we still have the agenda review on the agenda.

Any changes?

There are no changes this evening, Mayor.

Okay, thank you, Ms.

David.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on.

Does the council have any conflicts to report tonight under the Levine Act disclosures?

There's not.

Seeing none, we'll move on to announcements from staff.

Mayor, we have two announcements this evening that the library director will share with us.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Adiego, Vice Mayor Nogales, City Council members.

I'm Valerie Summer Library Director, and I am pleased to invite you to two upcoming library programs.

The first featured program is a special appearance of Michael Threts, PBS Kids, resident librarian, and reading rainbow host.

Michael will be here in the first floor banquet room this Saturday, March 28th, starting at 11 a.m.

His theme is Finding Your Joy, and he will speak on his personal experiences and read from his new children's book.

After which staff will be hosting special crafting activities and stations.

This program is funded with San Mateo County Measure K funds, thanks to Supervisor Speer and the Stan Mikael County Board of Supervisors.

So our second program, film program, in celebration of Women's History Month and America 250 celebration of our core values and freedoms.

We will be screening the Hello Girls here in the City Council Chambers coming this coming Monday, March 30th, starting at 6 p.m.

The Hello Girls is a documentary about the 233 women during World War One sent to France as telephone operators as part of the war effort.

They connected over 26 million calls and were recognized by General John J.

Pershing for their service.

When they returned home, the U.S.

government told them they were never soldiers.

For 60 years they tried to get recognition.

And finally in 1977, with the help of Senator Barry Goldwater and Congresswoman Lindy Bog Lindsay Lindy Boggs, they won.

Unfortunately, many were deceased at that point.

We're also very happy to host directly after the 56-minute film, Monica Williams, Director of Cemeteries for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who will speak on local connections and history.

Eight hello girls are buried in coma, most of them in Holy Cross Cemetery.

This is quite an inspiring story, and I hope to see folks there.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Valerie.

Thank you for securing those two events.

They sound both very interesting.

Of course, I'm you know partial to one, but anyway.

Any other announcements?

Just those two?

Okay.

We can move along.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to presentation number one is a presentation from the San Francisco Peninsula on their strategic plan.

Good evening, Mayor Audiego, Vice Mayor Nogales, City Manager Snydman, members of council, city staff.

I'm John Hutar, President and CEO of the San Mateo County Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau.

And it is our pleasure to come before you.

Our advisory board member, uh Jim McGuire, uh well-known uh face to you all from the South San Francisco Conference Center, and Nova Maldonado, our chief advocacy officer uh at the CVB.

Next slide, please.

Uh just in brief.

Are you going to require them to stand during the whole presentation?

Well, they can uh we we wanted to show unity, but we have front of our seats.

They've got your back, John.

I mean they can relax and enjoy the presentation.

Uh please.

Sorry, but if things get tough, I've got reinforcements.

I have backup.

Uh so just a reminder our organization founded in in 1971.

Uh, we operate the county film commission office and manage the county's farm to table program as fresh as it gets.

In 2022, we we rebranded the region for marketing purposes referring to our area as the San Francisco Peninsula.

Uh we came before you in 2023 to form our new tourism marketing district, and in 2025, we assembled a board advisory council, developed the strategic plan, which we'll share with you uh this evening.

Next slide, please.

Uh, just uh a little bit of the marketing uh related to South San Francisco from our social media channel.

Uh the Sign Hill Trails are a hit with our visitors uh and uh coverage we got in the meetings today publication showing that beautiful staircase at the hangar uh as an attraction for meeting planners to have events and uh uh events to have while they have their meetings in the area.

Next slide, please.

Uh just some examples of our partnership with South San Francisco.

We uh love attending the bio conference, talking about our destination uh at large and supporting the city's efforts at that conference.

Um a quick picture from last week's uh annual tourism luncheon where uh staff and elected officials joined us.

And uh in February of this year, uh we had a great uh treatment by the conference center hosting our FIFA World Cup preparedness seminar at the conference center.

Next slide, please.

Uh you'll see that our board of directors is uh representative of all the cities uh where our tourism district uh exists.

I I pointed out the uh uh members here tonight.

And the next slide, please, is the board advisory council.

This was quite exciting, where we brought uh various uh disciplines of the community experts in education, in business, uh tech, government, hospitality, labor, attractions, venues, uh, and and community at large with Alicia Aguirre to challenge us as an organization on what we can do better to augment tourism and bring more visitors to our region.

And that brings us to the strategic plan.

Next slide, please.

Uh the first pillar is to support destination asset development, and there are uh three supporting uh initiatives.

Advocate for significant upgrades to the San Mateo County Event Center.

Uh something needs to be done there.

We don't have the answer, but we uh want to engage in that conversation, and we have analyze opportunities to develop additional tournament grade sports facilities throughout the peninsula.

Uh that's a big discussion, but uh the corporate visitors here Monday through Thursday, and we feel if we had adequate facilities uh that would help fill our weekends and our hotels.

And those two uh initiatives may cause us to have a need to develop a tourism master plan to give our cities guidance uh if they would want to make investments into tourism uh so we don't get six of one thing and zero of another that would be necessary.

Uh the next slide, please.

Uh the next pillar is endeavor to maximize the destination experience, uh analyze the opportunity to develop a destination event, uh, and we will share with you we have four food activations, food and beverage coming to the region uh later this year.

Uh we have a beautiful bay trail that has a few miles missing and many miles in various cities uh in disrepair.

Uh so we're we're drawing attention to that as we take this road show to the 14 cities.

And we feel there's a space where we can help augment the rich uh music and nightlife activity throughout the peninsula and using our AI friendly website to be the gathering point for all of that from Brisbane all the way down to uh East Palo Alto and from Pacifica to Pescadero.

Uh the next slide, please.

The uh third pillar is to continue to work on our our organization, leveraging our board advisory council, uh, and talking about tourism.

Uh last year we had the privilege of presenting tourism as a breakout at the progress seminar.

I can't tell you how many individuals came up to me and said, I had no idea there was a tourism board in San Mateo County.

Uh next slide, please.

Uh we are uh we have launched four major events.

Uh the first will be flavors of the peninsula, April 23rd through May 3rd.

The kickoff event will be on the 23rd at Camber in South San Francisco.

And we have uh events peppered uh North County, South End of the County, Coastside, Bayside, uh trying to uh cover the entire 480 square miles of our beautiful county.

Uh in the summer, July 26th, uh bringing an event called Heritage Fire.

This is an open flame cooking event by the same producers that that bring Pebble Beach uh Food and Wine Festival, South Beach uh Food and Wine Festival in Miami, uh bringing that to Coyote Point.

Uh and then a companion event by the same organization, A21 Whiskies of the World.

It's a uh whiskey edutainment uh as we smash words together, uh, education and sampling, and that will be at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company on Coastide.

And then our restaurant tours told us we need business in January.

The the merry-go-round was already spinning this year, so so the first taste flavors of the peninsula in April, and then we want to own uh this this countywide restaurant week, if you will, the last two weeks of each January going forward in perpetuity.

Uh since we uh are in uh South San Francisco, um we wanted to share uh next slide, please.

Uh a little beyond our our strategic plan, hotel performance.

Uh this is the month of February.

Uh the county saw a 28.1% lift in uh revenue per available room, and happy to report that the the Brisbane, South San Francisco, San Bruno, uh how we aggregate uh outperformed at 32 percent increase.

Uh so congratulations to our hotel operators and managers uh for doing a great job managing that.

Um we continue on the next slide, please, uh, to have a uh very beneficial connection with Expedia Online Travel Platform and for 2025 the Lion Share 23, just 23.1% of the revenue uh to South San Francisco hotels, so the strongest performance uh in South San Francisco.

And uh the next slide, please.

That concludes the the formal presentation.

Uh we appreciate the leadership you provide that makes the community vibrant uh and thus uh attractive to the visitors, and we remain at your disposal if there are any questions of our work or of any of the businesses represented here tonight.

Okay, thank thank you, John.

I've always been impressed with your ambition and uh what you are willing to undertake to um you know bring San Mateo County in line with its big sisters to the north and south as far as you know sharing with the public with tourists what we have to offer.

So thank you for your efforts.

Any any comments for John?

Or everybody's on board tonight, it looks so uh really quickly just um want to again celebrate not only what what's ahead, but also what the the support that you get.

I was, you know, like you mentioned, uh being able to uh be part of your luncheon, your annual luncheon last week, and it was remarkable as I was mentioning to you the way you uh integrate uh wonderful elements, and I know that's the work of many of the staff, the board, and everyone, but kudos to you for uh having that presence.

Um it it resonated throughout the the room of Ibraciousness and also the theme as you're always looking ahead, and that's what I like a visionary organization that's always looking ahead and what else we could do and thinking outside the box.

So congratulations to you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good evening, John.

Thank you.

Appreciate the the opportunity.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to presentation from the Commission on Equity and Public Safety.

Welcome, Mr.

Shinhouse.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, uh Devon Stenhouse, uh management analysts too, um, and liaison to our commission on uh equity and public safety, and it is my pleasure to uh ask that our chair and vice chair Carol Sanders and Stephen Yi uh come and present to you this evening.

Thank you, Devin.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor Daggio, Vice Mayor Nagales, City Council members, and members of the public.

Well I can change it myself.

I am uh Carol Sanders, as uh Devin said, the chair, current chair for the commission on equity and public safety.

With me is uh vice chair Stephen Yee.

Uh I am here to present our annual update and brief uh make it brief as well on the commission, on our commission.

The commission uh was established um and came from South City's Commission on Racial and Social Equity, which was a year-long initiative to identify issues of racial and social injustice, investigate their causes, and create systems for positive change and policies in policies and processes.

An action plan was created and approved in 2021, and the establishment of our commission was recommended and officially established in 2022.

Our lovely team uh commissioners, uh starting with myself again, Chair, Vice Chair Stephen Yee.

Um today we have uh Bianca Bedigins, Commissioner, she's here today.

She can stand up.

Thanks.

Ruby Harrison, uh Paul McClaudine Hobson Cord, Amanda Rodriguez, Anamari Rodriguez Vinzini, and uh we do have um though it says vacancy, we it is uh we're waiting for it, the confirm confirmation on the appointment.

Great.

We we welcome our our new uh member.

As the finding and municipal code, section 2.85090, the commission shall be an advisory body to the city manager and city council on matters relating to the community, equity and safety, applying an equity lens to community issues, and fostering a sense of safety.

Commission's role includes, but it's not limited to carrying out and as applicable, making recommendations to the city manager with respect to the following task diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, public safety and services, youth in the criminal justice system, liaisons for the community, community connections, police community relations, complaints, records review, data, and work plan.

And um, actually, if I may, just briefly uh for regards at least to the liaison aspects.

Uh just a brief shout out to Sergeant De Los Santos of South City Police.

Um as you likely know, he leads the uh LGBT uh law enforcement community lay you know, the ASA program that was that was in fact recognized last month uh for being uh for meeting six rigorous uh accreditation standards.

So that's that's really uh thrilling.

Why am I bringing that up?

We had the real great opportunity last year for him to present to us the program.

We got really into a robust conversation discussion, really trying to understand the purpose, uh, the value, the impact of the community.

Um so we're we're thrilled.

Uh so congrats to Scott Campbell, of course, Sergeant De Los Santos and South City Police.

Nice job.

Sir 2025 commission briefings and discussions that uh we were able to I went ahead.

Sorry.

In 2025, our commission um basically we we had presentations these organizations come and present to us.

Um was the annual military equipment report, officer involved shootings.

Um if you heard about those, uh we did have uh the chief come and explain the details and what happened, and um we we left as a commission feeling that uh there was there was equity and proper and properly um handle child care master plan, child care enrollment capacity, life moves, uh presented by Marlin Mandietta, program director of North San San Mateo County, and our age-friendly master plan.

Say something about that.

Okay.

So what did we what did we do in 2025?

In 2025, the commission actions were the following.

Um gather community input and feedback on city services, and I'm gonna let uh our vice chair talk some about that.

Sure, yeah.

Uh thank you, Carol.

Uh Diego, Vice Mayor Nogales, Council members, thank you again.

Um, and as we have this shared understanding and importance to really understand the community as best as possible, we we as a commission decide to really lean on that, uh, lean into that last year.

So about around May, uh, we wanted to see how can we actually do that, maybe perhaps with available resources as city had um, you know, uh that we could tap into, and very kind of the city to allow us to tap into uh at the time with uh what the flash vote city representative, the provider of uh surveys, um, and the person uh helped us out really on two things.

Number one, uh help us hone in on some key themes that we thought was really important to the community and and for us to really learn much more about in it and of itself.

And the second thing is to have him help us craft those actual questions, those surveys questions, so we can really pinpoint those understandings.

Uh and then from there in June, we launched our very first survey uh how and to get such sentiments from our community.

Uh when we got the results back uh in July, we started to really get together, um, you know, uh scrutinize, analyze, and and we came to a decision that we wanted to even understand more.

So, how?

Well, in August, we decided to show up and and conduct in-person interviews.

Uh, where?

Koturafest.

Uh, and some of you uh you saw we saw me like you know, you saw uh uh Ruby and some of you met our members, and we actually uh set up two uh two ways of doing so to speak to uh specifically to seek and speak with residents.

Uh we set up a spot in City Hall, uh it was the gallery at the time for the event, and we had another crew, Bianca was part of it, you know, flowing up and down Grand Avenue, having these conversations with residents.

And from these conversations, uh we got back together again, and um, and by the way, a shout out to Rich, thanks for helping us set up with the equipment and helping us move and stay situated in the in the mass of all the excitement.

And what we were excited about from the um our learnings came out to be three things, uh three three um three points.

Number one, overwhelmingly satisfyingly belongingness.

Um it was a great uh common sentiment that there's a great sense of belongingness in the community.

Uh yeah, whether it's like brand new to the uh city, like with a few months old into the city being a resident to long timers.

That was very consistent.

And oh, and just to clarify the surveys and and in conjunction and a follow-up to the surveys, what we the themes, just to clarify, we're essentially focusing on trust, um, safety, uh, belongingness, as well as programs.

Uh and on that, the second point, if I may, uh, is about the programs.

Uh, sure, there were comments about the you know, some uh about the accessibility to some programs, some were more challenging than others, and things like that.

That said, in terms of the programs themselves, very an overwhelming uh consensus, great programs, highly appreciated, highly valued.

As far as the third thing, there was this understanding that came out of this as well uh about the opportunities for what to perhaps maybe amplify, enhance this awareness, this this uh this greater knowledge of all this, all these opportunities and resources and events and availabilities for our residents and our communities to really tap into and you know and enjoy more of and value more of experience more of, which inspired us further.

So, on that note, Carol.

Thank you, Steve.

So from that inspiration, as Steve mentioned, we come up with our 2026 goals.

So our goals um are as follows.

Um we're gonna to increase public awareness of the commission by building the relationship between the community advocates and the commission.

And two, want to explore if there are equity gaps in the city's communication to the public by reviewing data and analytics.

And I want to add um that one of the things that we're doing as commission and have done um is have um ad hoc committees, and so we kind of split up and have we're gonna want to have uh I think an action ad hoc committee as well.

Um Steve kind of was on the spearheaded the communication committee and data so that we can actually have more to present to you and be in the public more, more and more and more.

So that's what we want to bring to you and the public more and more and more.

So thank you.

Um questions.

Yeah, okay.

I think thank you, Ms.

Sanders and Mr.

Yi.

I um I'm impressed with the good and passionate work that you do uh on behalf of your commission.

And any comments?

Uh Mr.

Mayor, uh I just wanted to uh say thank you to our commission.

Uh I was commenting to Councilman Nicholas when you brought up the equity and social um committee.

Uh we served on that, and we had this vision of what it could be, and you are providing that vision.

I just want to say how proud I am to see the work that you are producing and how inclusive um you are, the work that you're doing.

And I just I I'm just so proud and happy to see this commission doing the work that we set forth.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

Like thank you.

I echo the same sentiments and also thank you for all the work that you have done, and uh looking forward to more.

Thank you.

You know, we have um great uh residents that serve in all of our commissions um and boards.

Um, but out of all the commissions, this commission is the one I'm most passionate and and and just so proud of, not only because it came from the community, it was asked by the community when it was born and and led and and listened by members of this council, but because you all don't wait to be told what to do.

You improvise and you get creative and you connect the dots, those important dots that the community needs you all to represent and advocate for.

And you know, many commissions do serve as a advisor bodies to this council, but um I just want to applaud your work.

The fact that you don't grab too much to do because you understand there's limited time, but you devote your time in ad hoc.

Like no one asked you to go out in the street during Kultura Fest and do all that you did, and that was magnificent because now we have data, right?

Now we have experiences heard from residents, like you said, long timers and new, and that's the quality of of the trust that we put on all of you as as uh serving in these bodies.

So I want to thank you.

I want to encourage you, you have our support.

Um, if there's any continuous way, thank you.

I mean, even the topics, the presentations are all very relevant uh to the current uh ecosystem that's happening in the real world right now.

So please uh continue to uh be on that great path you're in, and and and also with your fellow commissioners as well.

You all are doing wonderful work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, this is uh great work.

Um and you know, with what you did at Kultura Fest, I will I think you know, I'd love to see us continue to partner, right?

Because we have different cultural events throughout the year, and I want to see that partnership continue.

Um, and it definitely you know fulfills the mission of you know what this commission was meant to be when it was first formed.

So thank you so much uh for your service, and we're looking forward to to so much more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to council comments requests.

Who would like to uh lead off sure I I can lead off go ahead council.

It's it's been a quite couple of weeks um but I did have the opportunity to attend Senator Josh Becker's um I think he called it Java with Josh and he had went to Antigua uh last not this past Friday but the Friday before that and talking about a bunch of issues and um a lot of the legislation he has on the docket this year but also in previous years.

And if you notice um you look through it you'll you'll see that he touches so many issue areas from criminal justice reform to housing to climate to the wonkiest energy bills that you can dream of and and so much more and I just want to say I think we're very lucky to have uh Senator Josh Becker representing us here in South San Francisco.

Sure.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor good evening everyone just wanted to share two quick updates that are definitely kind of um out of the zone but are very important um resources for our community um this day and age as we know healthcare is under attack um healthcare resources and um medical and cutbacks and all of that and I know that there are families that oftentimes during flu season um and many other seasons for and a number of any other ailments uh look for primary care opportunities for medical services um wanted to remind our community that the San Mateo County Health Department um has their health van that comes to South San Francisco it's a high quality drop-in adult health clinic there is no appointment needed and it comes on Mondays uh from 10 a.m to 4 p.m right here at Maple Avenue and Miller Avenue parking lot um it's closed for lunch between 1 p.m and 130 p.m.

uh you can go there for urgent care primary care screenings vaccinations uh family planning etc um children on or 18 can only be served uh for TB tests et cetera but this is a great resource when folks say well where do I go for a shot or um you know first uh type of services primary care services this is wonderful in connection to that not only because this is for adults but I sit on the board uh for many years now of the Daily City Youth Health Center and I had the opportunity last week to celebrate the great rebranding uh many local elected officials uh local um uh community leaders from daily city and North County were invited um with what what is now now being named and rebranded as as youth point health and youth point health and the reason why it was rebranded from Daily City Youth Health Center to Youth Point Health is so that it could expand and cover and be inclusive of not just Daily City but South San Francisco and all the other North County jurisdictions.

It offers primary care exams for uh adolescents and youth under 18 immunizations reproductive health services um additional services such as uh mental health as well as peer and substance use and again I wanted to provide these resources because many times parents uh individuals don't know where to seek health I know we have Kaiser here but many folks say I don't have Kaiser well these are um for free services or even sliding scale services again for adults or uh for youth so very proud and congratulations to all the leaders there at Youth Point Health on this new chapter.

Lastly just wanted to share that um as many of us uh have been hearing there is uh um a potential uh regional transit measure that will be on the November ballot as part of that uh samtrams has issued um a little booklet of of sorts um including a link a QR code of what you would like to see um in terms of comments and and and and provide your feedback of potentially the 14 year five county sales tax measure that if it were to pass where would you like to see these benefit funds be applied to additional bus routes would you like improve bus shelters what would you like to see I think it's incumbent upon us since uh samtrans uh covers in services South San Francisco for the community to be able to provide their input at that level um if I could ask madam uh uh city manager we could perhaps share the link on our newsletter and whatnot so that uh residents are able to provide what that would look like um if future funding does come uh to San McCal Samateo County in terms of the Sam trans survey um also again just like my colleague mentioned very thankful to our state senator for selecting South San Francisco and um in District 5 to be able to come and partake it what was nice it wasn't just South San Francisco residents it was uh folks coming um all the way from Half Moon Bay actually uh to uh here and partake and have coffee with our state senator um as well as our neighbors um in San Bruno so it was a good time I'm very uh excited that we were able to uh have a great conversation about legislation that's not only uh going to be coming down the pipeline but also things that he has helped support South San Francisco such as uh the bill uh that we were able to successfully have uh the governor sign that will support the infrastructure um east of 101 in coming years uh through the community facilities district

So it was a good time.

I'm very uh excited that we were able to uh have a great conversation about legislation that's not only uh going to be coming down the pipeline, but also things that he has helped support South San Francisco, such as uh the bill uh that we were able to successfully have uh the governor sign that will support the infrastructure east of 101 in coming years uh through the community facilities district.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

So the last two weeks was a whirlwind of events, and I just want to highlight some of those that I have attended.

It's been more than a year since we started the um what's happening east of 101 and uh last uh Thursday Thursday right after our meeting, a program that this is a program that the former city manager Sharon Reynolds and I have been talking about so that we can inform our residents of the good that's happening in our backyard.

And last uh Thursday, two Thursdays, it was implemented by um Katie and Ernesto that we had um Dr.

Douglas uh Suckerman of Kaiser, who explained in layman's terms our heart structure, the common heart ailments and the symptoms that we have to look out for and the current treatments.

Everybody was really impressed by the presentation.

Uh after that, they said that they were now uh an official cardiologist.

However, uh, he was also very gracious in staying behind and asking all the questions, and there's a lot of positive feedback.

Thank you to Katie and uh Ernesto.

Um on the 20th of March, we had the screening here of Barbara Jordan, the documentary regarding the first black woman who was elected to Congress from the South, and her first defense of the Constitution during the Nixon um impeachment hearings that gained her national acclaim while battling Parkinson's disease.

I hope there had been more uh people who watched it because it was really wonderful to see um how she broke barriers for women and African Americans.

Um, and from March 15th to the 18th, I was in Washington, DC to attend the National League of Cities Congressional Summit, wherein it was emphasized, and we know this very well, that local governments are the ones that deliver.

We touch the people, we meet the needs of our residents.

And civility has to be restored, and regardless of political parties, we must unite with resource uh to achieve our goals and objectives.

I came back with resources for our city staffs and residents, and one that could directly impact is that I am carrying encouraging all of our grades, three to twelve students.

There is a national contest.

Um, you just have to simply respond to the prompt.

What does America mean to you?

And you can submit artwork or we can respond.

That line is all is coming up on March 30th.

The first 125 first place winners will be designated uh and their designated chaperones will travel uh and um will travel and free lodging to a historical or cultural site, and that's all expense paid.

125 secondplace winners will also receive 500 each.

On March 19th, I also attended the Gene Academy experience at Genentech with uh South San Francisco Unified School District staff.

And um it was really wonderful to see because this Gene Academy is a program by Genantec, which spares elementary school kids from our Title I schools with volunteer mentors at Genentech to learn science, math, reading, and more.

Kids are bust to Genantec uh once a week for the entire school year.

And because my daughter used to volunteer as a mentor there, um I have been touched by the children who talked about, you know, one boy told me that he never thought he could be a doctor, but now it seems like it's a possibility because of his attending Gene Academy.

So it really opens new horizons for our kids.

Then there was the Powered Breakfast uh hosted by Assembly Woman Diane Papen at Skyline uh College.

Many amazing women um were in attendance, and we heard the panel of women who were in the forefront of sustainability.

We had the CEO of Peninsula Clean Energy, Sean Marshall, uh Kate Garden, who is the CEO of uh California Forward, and Diane Gilmore.

It was really wonderful to see uh other women elected officials.

On March 21st, our parks and recreation held the annual Easter Bunny Photo Hop, and it was always successful.

And again, thank you for Veronica Ortiz and Gabriela Firpo, our reliable Parks and Reckon partners, really made this a very successful community event.

Last Monday, Mayor Adiego and I attended the Calwater and our fire department demonstration of the equipment funded by Culwater that could save four million gallons of water during our fire department's training programs, and it supports our city's efforts in unsustainability.

Yesterday, Mayor Adiega and I witnessed our police department's badge pinning, and congratulations to our new officers and our newly promoted officers.

I'm very pleased some that some of our new officers came directly from our explorer program.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I wanted to thank uh councilwoman Nicholas and the library uh for hosting um a woman's history month, the the documentary, The Inquisitor, uh, which was about civil rights icon Barbara Jordan.

Um it was really interesting to kind of learn about her history and her role uh in the Nixon impeachment trials.

Um I just really was just impressed with the information and just the work that she did.

I just wanted to thank Councilmember Nicholas for kind of uh seeing that event, and thank you to the library staff for having that documentary.

And as my colleagues mentioned, um, Senator Becker did host a uh a Java with Josh, as he called it, and I was uh happy to introduce them.

And I I asked staff if they can put together just a list of things that that the Senator has done with the city of South San Francisco, and it's really an impressive list that as um council member Flores mentioned.

He did directly impact South San Francisco why by introducing and then getting passed SB 390, which was the Melaroos Act loop fixing a loophole that allows to unlock uh the potential of transportation infrastructure financing in the East of 101.

Um with the Economic Advancement Center, he was able to secure about a million dollars in state grants to support uh economic mobility programs and operations.

Uh that was the largest grant that we've received so far uh to help fund the economic advancement center.

And something very close, I know to many of us here is is Ruby Bridges Day.

Um in 2017, a group of fifth graders at Martin Elementary uh wanted to make sure that the story of civil rights icon Ruby Bridges was recognized and remembered.

And it was Senator Becker who championed that effort in Sacramento, where he introduced uh uh that made November 14th, Ruby Bridges walk to school day across the entire state of California.

And of as of last November, this event has reached 46 states, 1400 schools, and over 343,000 participating students, and that's because of the work that our local students here and also because of Senator Becker.

So thank you to the Senator for coming to South San Francisco, and thank you for the partnership that he's had with our city.

That's all I have, Mr.

Mayor.

Very nice.

Council thank you for your reports.

I just wanted to mention um I wanted to give uh some note of appreciation to um our police chief Scott Campbell.

The program he had here yesterday was welcoming 10 new officers to our ranks and some promotions, and um it was very impressive, and it was done kind of in record time.

We were all appreciative of that.

And you know, uh Councilwoman uh Nicholas was most impressed with um the young men and the handsome man that you're hiring.

She made note of that to me.

So I mean that's that's that's a good thing.

I guess um her husband Ninar is away in the Philippines, so um, we'll all keep an eye on her.

Um, I think that uh I I also appreciate you giving us an update on your trip to DC with the National League of Cities.

It's important to share that with the community and with the council.

So with that, we can move on to uh the rest of the meeting.

Thank you, Mayor.

We will now move on to public comments, uh, recognizing that we did receive an e-comment from Annie Lowe that is in the record and available for the public.

We'll start with Cynthia Markopoulos.

Good evening.

After attending the special city council meeting on the 18th concerning the City Council handbook, preserving the official minutes of the city council meetings concerns me greatly.

Without reiterating what I said under public comment, I will remind the city council it is you who directs the elected city clerk how the record is preserved, preserved.

It is the elected city clerk who answers to the city council and the voters.

The action minutes format the elected city clerk is following has admitted the most important element of city government, the residents' concerns.

So the clerk's minutes going forward should include the name of the public speaker along with the topic topic, not for the clerk to paraphrase the comment.

That is not her job.

But so the topic would be searchable on the website by a word, a topic.

The videos must be retained as they have been, but it is important and essential that our city council meetings be archived and preserved as complete city clerk minutes, along with the video and audio recordings, because this is the history of our city.

So as you review the city council handbook, it is imperative.

So it is searchable on the website.

This is our archive, our history, and our city.

Thank you.

We'll move on to Sam Kikuti Mayor Adiago, board members of South San Francisco City Council and fellow citizens.

My name is Sam Ketcooting.

During the last meeting of the City Council on March 11th, I was present when Mayor Adiago presented Amy Lamb, a member of the South San Francisco School Board, an award for women's women's history month.

After the presentation, Amy Lamb mentioned the work that the South San Francisco Board or School Board is doing to provide equity for the children in the district.

Excuse me.

The school board is setting up these children to fail in the future when they become adults.

Thoughts ingrained in young children's heads, bind blind them to the realities of life as an adult.

As some of you know, in the election of November 2024, I ran for the school board against Battle Murray.

I lost.

But while I was a candidate for the people, the people who helped me out in my campaign found out some very interesting statistics.

And that Patty Murray has now our Juniper Serra Elementary and Skyline Elementary.

The CAA SSP, or the California assessment of student performance and progress.

Excuse me, cover all grades and subjects.

One statistic that was glaring to me was that in mathematics for third through fifth graders at Juniper Serra Elementary in 2011, 82% of the children met state standards.

A decade later at the same school, it was only 45%.

At Skyline Elementary, the results were not quite as bleak, but they were bad.

Testing in the same subject mathematics for the same grades, third through fifth.

The results in 2011 were 76%.

Decade later, in two 2021, 22, there were 58% of the students meeting state standards.

Each member of the city council has obviously won a political race.

A plain and advanced truth is that in every competition, be it a political race, job promotion, or virtually anything in life, there is a winner and a loser.

Drumming into the children's head from an early age, that they are all equal is a great disservice to the future adults of South San Francisco or wherever, wherever they may ultimately live.

I posed this question to her.

I asked, what would happen when in the future these children, now adults, are given an assignment by their supervisor at work, and they miss it up to a point that the supervisor either yells or demotes them, or if future adults choose the military and they're being bellowed at by drill sergeant, she told me they would fall apart.

Thank you.

Moving on to Leslie Fong.

Hi, I'm Leslie.

I think all of you know that I really truly love South City, and I'm showcasing it today because I really believe in all the department that helps this thing.

The city council, like James, Eddie, Mark A Diego, Martin Gallis and Flores, you guys doing the best you can for all your district, and I really appreciate that, because I know it's a hard task to do.

Also, we got police department, which is run by Scott Campbell.

I have gone to Auto Academy, the senior one I'm written right now, and I enjoy it.

I love to see all the new recruit on there and all the other people attending.

Fire department by Sampson.

He is in station 61, and he comes to the CERT class, which I'm involved in, and I'm a fountain too.

And so it means community emergency response team.

We helped the fire department and also police in case of emergency.

He does like my sticky rights as all of you guys do.

Candace Josh and George, the new one.

She is so dedicated and very positive and also passionate about restoring the sign here.

Please go see her because I was involved in restoring it.

We see rare species coming back to life.

The library, which is run by Valerie and Adam.

I have so much program that I attend that I enjoyed.

I really love it.

And I'm there like 100% attendance.

And I have gone to her for most of it was challenging to her.

Tech Tuesday by Monty, Kennedy, and Jessica.

They helped my computer, nobody could do, because of fact they're very knowledgeable.

Black History Month, London, Stevie, and Felicia.

I saw the movie.

We loved the popcorn.

She ate three, I ate one.

And the part regulation, the Easter ache hunt that took place, it was great.

I'm not a child, I don't have a child.

I'm single, as you all know, and I'm bearable.

But anyway, I'm not plugging myself.

But the thing is they had the band that you could create, and I did it because I never done it when I was a child.

I was working.

Then you also have Marjon every Wednesday.

Chinese style, Filipino style, American style.

Kids in adult craft, merited, Stacy, Asian Museum by Stacy.

I don't have to go there, but I want to go to Asian because it inspired me to do so.

Friends of the Library Book sale, which is coming out labeled.

I expect all you guys be there because it's very cheap.

Oh, wait, one more thing.

I said South San Francisco Fook Jam, Mark, classical people, and also everybody like you got style, you got city manager, you got Greg, you got Frank and Rosa, and also uh Devin.

You gotta congratulate them.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Okay, Leslie, you covered everybody, so we're good.

Let me see more, I can speak more.

Good evening, Council members.

Um acknowledgement that I'd arrived after the uh 318 City Council handbook handbook discussion on the controversial minutes component.

I reserved my comments until after I'd listened uh to the uh recording uh on that component.

Shockingly, I listened to the slippery chameleon-like language of our city clerk, Miss Rosa Acosta, who at one point said, I quote, I don't know why your numbers are so off, end quote.

You know, I listened to the confusion.

What page, what document, what revision, what version, what grammatical error?

And then she proceeded to tell us about a presentation Jasmine was going to perform, uh, so that when we talk about capturing what was said in the meetings and not using verbatim summary, Miss Acosta said, we have something called caption notes.

So if you click on the caption notes, that's the transcript of the meeting.

Now control F, Mr.

Coleman.

Search is not case sensitive.

Search is keyword sensitive, but no matter what combination or variation of keywords used that I used in the organic results, the only place I could find action minutes coming up in the transcripts, going back as far as 2009, three places, once in 2025 in September, once in February 20, February 27th this year, and the other one on March 11th.

Nowhere on the transcript could caption could action minutes be found.

So if the discussion about action minutes took place, where was that discussion?

What documents are you looking at?

Why is the quote final copy of the attached document to the November 8th, 2023 handbook, final document attached to the agenda for that meeting on in the this council chamber's agenda?

Why is that document, the final document different than the document that was presented by the clerk and the city attorney?

Why are those documents different?

The red line document that was presented on the 11th on on February 27th, 5th, 27th, whichever one, is different.

And that was on the consent agenda for them too.

Only for it was polled by Mr.

Nogales.

You are being deceived by these two people, and so is the entire public.

Thank you.

I had more, but I'll reserve it for the next go-around, including asking the clerk to resign and for you to fire Mr.

Woodruff.

Thank you.

Do we have any additional speakers in the audience?

That concludes our speakers, Mayor.

We will now move on to consent calendar.

Item number three is a proclamation for government finance professionals week.

Item number four is a motion to approve the minutes of March 11, 2026.

Item number five is a motion to approve the reappointment of one library board member and one parking place traffic advisory committee member.

Item six is a motion to receive the file and file the city's housing successor agency annual report for fiscal year 2024-25.

Item seven is a report regarding a resolution approving a side letter agreement, amending Article 4 of the memorandum of understanding between the city and ask me local 829.

Item 7A is a resolution.

Thank you, Rosa.

Um let's see.

Does any member of uh council wish to remove an item from consent?

Excellent.

There's not.

So we need a motion.

So moved.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Second.

And a second by Councilman Flores.

Roll call.

Councilmember Colman.

Yes.

Councilmember Nicholas.

Aye.

Mayor Adiego.

Yes.

Councilmember Flores.

Aye.

And Vice Mayor Nicolas.

Aye.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to public hearing item number eight is a report regarding a public hearing on the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts for the city of South San Francisco in calendar year 2025 in accordance with government code section 3502.3.

Good evening, Miss Lockhart.

I'll go ahead and open the public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor Adiego.

Good evening, Mayor Adiego, Vice Mayor Nogales and City Council members.

I'm Leah Lockhart, your human resources director.

Tonight I'll be providing an update on the city's vacancy recruitment and retention efforts.

Thank you for uh giving me this opportunity to speak.

I wanted to mention I'm also joined by our human resources manager Daryl Mickins and our recruitment analyst Don I Hans Smith, who uh were instrumental in putting this information together for us tonight.

Do I have a second?

I'm sorry.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

Sorry.

Um so just by way of uh introduction, the reason why we are having this public hearing tonight.

This was a new law in 2025 as of January 1st that requires all local government agencies to do a status update once a year every fiscal year on uh recruitment, retention, and vacancy status.

There are some other requirements on there, such as uh allowing our labor groups and uh employee organizations to do a presentation if they wish, and um also providing additional information if any of those employee organizations have a vacancy rate of more than 20 percent.

We do have one of those for the uh report that we have tonight for um the International Union of Operating Engineers, so I will provide more detail on that unit.

I did want to mention that the last time we did this report, it was in May of 2025.

We used a reporting period based on a fiscal year, although because we had to get it in by the end of the fiscal year, we we had to cut it off in April.

Um that was you know, kind of all of all of the agencies first uh go around with this new law, and um after um some consideration, we realized it would be better to shift that time frame to a calendar year.

That way we could get this report out earlier ahead of the budget process as well as um ahead of, you know, if we have contract negotiations that year, we're we're getting this information to you sooner rather than later.

So there's a bit of an overlap between the two periods, but moving forward, we will be January 1st to December 31st.

So I will jump right into our vacancy data, and I will not go through all of this in detail.

I just want to kind of explain what the data shows and point out a couple of points here.

Um so this shows each month our vacancy activity and um so starting with the beginning vacancies, uh, how many vacancies were created, and that could be by resident, you know, somebody resigning, it could be also somebody promoting, uh, which fills a vacancy and creates a vacancy at the same time.

Uh and then at the end, you have the remaining vacancies.

And the way we calculate the vacancy rate is remaining vacancies divided by the total number of budgeted FTEs.

So you can see that we um were pretty consistent over the year.

We're trying to get, you know, below that 10% mark.

Um as an average, we uh ended the year um on average at 9.7 percent, which is about what we reported back in May of 2025.

So um, so we we've we've kept up.

Um we haven't lost more staff, but uh we still have some work to go in bringing down our vacancy rate.

Um, one thing I do like to mention is uh sort of the downside of using a calendar year is that that's a popular time to retire at the end of December.

It's also not a popular time to start a brand new hire.

So we did have several new hires start in January after several retirements in December.

So uh in some ways that number might be a little bit elevated at the end of the year, but um it's it's a nice clean round numbers.

One thing uh I did also want to mention uh I mentioned in the staff report that at the beginning of the year we had 47 vacancies and 460.7 filled positions.

That was actually an error.

If you do the math, that's not correct.

Should have said 457.6.

So wanted to make that correction.

Um somebody who's better at math than than me.

That's why I don't work in finance.

So all right.

So uh just real briefly, we break this down by department, and this is all by fiscal year or by calendar year end.

Um caveat here is we have several departments that are very small, so even a single vacancy can really elevate that rate.

So I caution against trying to compare and contrast who's doing better, um, but it gives you kind of an insight into where our vacancies are in the organization.

Um, and you know, I will mention that our city manager's office had three.

That was like one of three days that we didn't have a permanent city manager.

We had retirement at the end of the year and brand new start at the beginning of the year.

So uh that is included in the count.

And then finally, we do have our vacancy rate by bargaining unit.

The two I wanted to mention, I will talk about the operating engineers union.

They represent our employees at the water quality control plant.

And they are they're all funded by the sewer enterprise fund.

They're not part of the general fund, but I will talk a little bit about them on the next slide and how we've brought that vacancy rate down.

I also wanted to mention that last year we had some discussion about the police officer hiring and their vacancy rate.

We did bring that down a little bit.

It was eight last year, it's now down to six.

But we are continuing to see more retirements, and you know, it is as was mentioned last year that uh bringing somebody on board.

There is at least a year where they go to the police academy, they start their FTO program.

So it's really important that we have that continuous hiring process.

And I think particularly our police department and their staff have been working very hard on recruiting and getting people on board.

So coming back to the operating engineers unit, so their vacancy rate was 23.5, which is above the 20% threshold.

So I did provide the additional information that was required and spoke to their representatives about it.

We did have uh eight vacancies at the end of the calendar year.

Um we did have two retirements at the end of the calendar year, and three new hires start in January.

Um we also have another pending new hire and two recruitments in progress that should be coming to a close fairly soon.

So as of today, our unofficial outside of this report, we're looking at about a 14% vacancy rate.

So we're we're definitely bringing that number down.

Um average number of days to complete the hiring process.

That is 182.

That is from the date that we post the vacance the job announcement to the date that the new employee starts.

Um, it is a little bit longer than we typically see in the public sector because we have several steps in our personnel rules to ensure a merit-based testing process prior to uh the departmental level interviews as well as a background thorough background process and medical exams.

So it does take a while to get that person on board, but we are looking at ways that we can you know streamline that process and get people in in the door quicker.

Um we did have uh labor negotiations last year with all of our bargaining units.

So this was one of the units that we did develop a new agreement with, and we did do several adjustments to compensation.

Um there was a 4% increase last year and another one coming up this year, as well as improving some of those other incentives and benefits that they have based on what their priorities were and what matched the city's interests as well.

So we feel like we're in better shape.

Um we're we're getting there with that group, and uh I think they have lots of applicants, so we're um we're not too concerned, but we want to keep that number down.

Okay, and then just a little bit more here.

Uh, this is just our total numbers in terms of recruitments, new hires, 20 promotions.

We always like to see those numbers coming up.

Um, and again, we uh did a lot of work last year was a big focus on our uh labor contracts.

Um we have expanded our advertising efforts, doing um some more targeted advertisements on LinkedIn and other areas.

Um our departments, um particularly our police and fire departments are very active in going to career fairs to police academy and recruiting one-on-one in person there.

Um, and then we have uh implemented a better, faster onboarding process so that people aren't bogged down in paperwork when they walk in the door.

And then lastly, I want to talk about our retention, and that is um our our turnover rate.

So you can see uh that number had been fairly high after COVID and was a concern for us that is slowing down.

So we're now uh for this calendar year, and you can see the last two years were switched to calendar year.

Uh we had a 7.2 percent turnover rate that is um voluntary resignations or retirements divided by the total number of employees for the year.

And then coming up, we have uh next year will be another uh opportunity for labor negotiations.

Uh we are uh we did agree with our bargaining units to have a total compensation study, so that will be coming up in the fall, and we're continuing work on our employee engagement program, and we'll be uh implementing a new survey because it's been now almost three years since our first survey, and we're working through some of those activities that I've listed here in uh improving cross-departmental communication as well as leadership communication across departments.

And with that, I think uh I open it up to your questions.

Thank you.

Um, do we have any questions for Director Lockhart?

Oh, we're gonna get off easy.

Yeah.

So I I have one suggestion.

Um, when you said, you know, with the advertising, you use electronic billboards, more than just the one at this site.

Um we have, so we use the one at this site.

Um we we do have, I believe.

I want to get this right.

I think it was our fire department when we were hiring.

We used some of the free space that we got on the new billboards.

The one on one.

Yeah, the one on one to one.

What is it like a quarter million cars a day?

Because there's a certain amount of space that the city gets.

So I know we use that at least once.

Good to hear.

Yeah.

Well, traffic in the freeway, so the chance to read the uh you were talking about the 148 calendar days, and as you said, it's a seems a little long.

And I was I kind of want to just touch upon the streamlining process like you're talking about.

Can you just expand a little bit in terms of the Yeah?

Um, so one of the things we've really put a focus on, and I know my staff have done a lot of work on this, is trying to get um, you know, it's a time-intensive process.

So we try to plan in advance and make sure we get dates set, we get panel members' tests scheduled in advance, and that way, you know, there's no delay in getting those things together.

Um, you know, we're we're there's a certain amount of time that you need to allow for people to apply.

You know, you don't wanna give them a few days, you give them a few weeks, and then there's time to give them notice that yes, you're invited to the testing process.

So there's a few things that we you know we don't want to crunch on, but we don't wanna have a delay on our end where it's not necessary.

Um sometimes, you know, it really depends on the situation.

Uh, you know, department management gets busy, they don't they're not ready to interview right away, or they aren't ready to make a decision or have a second round of interviews.

So we're trying to just work with um management to you know kind of plan those steps in advance after they get through the testing process, make sure that you know we're following up as soon as possible and getting them in for their their final interviews.

I'm also looking at it in terms of if you know people are retiring, you can kind of calendar set in terms of planning is what I was looking at too.

Yes.

And we do uh when we get a requisition, all we need to know is that that person has confirmed their notice that they're gonna retire.

So you know, if they're sometimes it's we get six months in advance, which is great.

Uh sometimes it's hopefully not, but sometimes it's the same day, you know.

Um, so we don't know, but we do uh encourage people to submit their request early.

Um, you know, we've we've expanded our staff a little bit, and this has been a few years now, but um, to to make sure that we can handle the volume when it comes.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you, Director.

Um Rosa, do we have any public comments on this item?

No public comments, Mayor.

And it should be safe to close the public hearing.

So we'll go ahead and do that.

And we've received the report, so we can move along to the next business.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Moving on to administrative business item number nine is a report regarding a resolution approving the acceptance of additional grant funds from the San Mateo County Aging and Adult Services Division in the amount of $13,123 for the parks and recreation departments adult daycare and congregate nutrition programs and amending the parks and recreation department fiscal year 2025-26 operating budget pursuant to budget amendment number 26.058.

Item 9A is a resolution.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

My name is Angela Duldulau.

I'm the deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department.

And tonight I'm pleased to present to you on a follow-up item to the older Americans Act grant acceptance approved by council at your October 22nd, 2025 meeting.

So tonight I'm requesting authorization to accept an additional $13,123 in funding from the San Mateo County Aging and Adult Services Division.

This funding was made possible by two one-time allocations.

About 10,000 of that is from the California Department of Aging to support the adult daycare program.

And about another 2700 is from the San Mateo County General Fund to expand the congregate nutrition program by an additional 520 meals.

As part of this, uh as part of acceptance of this grant, I would like to share appreciation for our long-standing partnership with the San Mateo County Aging and Adult Services in awarding this grant to us and making critical programs like adult day care and congregate nutrition available to and accessible to our South San Francisco residents.

The adult day care program at the Roberta Serie Teglia Center has been in operation since 1986, and it provides structured therapeutic activities for frail or impaired older adults, including those who have been impacted by stroke, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

It includes a daily lunch as well as transportation, which can also be covered by the grant if needed by families.

And it's a safe and supportive environment that helps clients remain in their homes.

And another important aspect is that it provides much needed respite and support for the caregivers of these individuals.

It's every Tuesday and Thursday from 1230 to 2.

And it's catered by our local business Moon Chef.

Last year we served nearly 8,000 meals with this grant.

And so what participants get is a nutritious hot meal.

So we often invite speakers to speak on a different number of different health and wellness topics that could be of interest to seniors.

We also have fun.

So you know, a lot of variety for people who come to have lunch with us.

This is the last year of this grant cycle.

The county just released an RFP for the next three-year cycle.

I hope you'll see me soon for acceptance of that three-year grant.

And yeah, we look forward to our continued partnership in offering these really valuable programs to the community.

So in closing tonight, I'm just seeking your approval for additional grant funds from the county.

Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Director.

Um, thank you for this report, and I really like that you always seek grants.

Um I just had another unsolicited uh feedback regarding our nutritional program.

Um I just couldn't have the heart to tell Daisy Lee earlier today.

Uh, I was told that it was boring.

Someone told me that, so maybe we can just have an assessment.

Uh maybe uh ask our participants who take the Tuesday and Thursday, they even tell me to come and taste it for myself.

So maybe we can change some of the menus.

The food is boring, just to clarify.

The food.

Yeah, the food is boring.

Yeah, the food.

The food is boring.

That too, or not, yeah.

So they said someone told me that it's so repetitive.

Someone told me that, and this is unsolicited, so uh I thought I should just relay this because it just reminded me of what they told me.

Someone told me it's repetitive, someone told me that it doesn't taste anything, it's tasteless.

So maybe uh we can take a look if the other people there too, who's uh you know, taking this taking advantage of this uh nutritional program to have the same.

I I don't know if this uh handful of people who told me their feedback had the same feedback.

You should investigate.

I think you'll probably have to pay the six dollars.

Yeah, I will try to go in and taste it for myself.

I may um I will note that this food does have to meet certain dietary restrictions set forth by the county, and so it may not have as much salt as some people want, or as much, you know, flavoring is perhaps some some folks may be more accustomed to exhausting.

I noted that that was that was the requirement here, but maybe it's repetitive is so I I don't know what's the menu that we serve.

Is it always repeating the same thing?

Um I I I do know that Moonshef has been receptive to feedback.

Like I think you know, we've heard some people don't like fish or you know, too much fish or too much of one-style dish.

So we do try to mix it up, but I we could certainly share some feedback and maybe have them.

Yeah, get the try different dishes back from from other people because I have heard now from five different people.

Okay, yes.

Yes, we can do that.

Tough audience it is.

I mean, and plus we know that we can police everybody, but you know, maybe we can just try at least getting feedback so that we know that we really looked into it.

Yes.

Councilman Flora suggested that we load it up with Tabasco sauce.

So that's Bill Chase.

I was just gonna say that if we do a survey, let's uh make sure we do it in different languages too, because I know there's some wide variety of folks that go over there.

And also some thracha sauce as well.

Condiment table on the site.

God.

So um with that, let's see, we need uh a resolution approving this uh report this uh money.

Of course, I move it.

It's it's free money.

Yes, it is.

Vice Mayor Nogales?

Yes.

Councilmember Colman.

Yes.

Mayor Adiego?

Yes.

Councilmember Nicholas?

Aye.

Councilmember Flores.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we move on to item number 10 is a report regarding a resolution awarding a construction agreement to beam construction incorporated of San Francisco, California for the Orange Memorial Park restroom renovation project in an amount not to exceed 258,587 dollars.

Item 10A is a resolution.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

My name's Joshua Richardson.

I'm your parks division manager, and I'm bringing before you tonight uh brief presentation about uh accepting an award.

We're seeking approval to award contract to beam construction with San Francisco to renovate our restrooms on Memorial Drive at Orange Memorial Park.

Um so we'll just dive right in.

Uh these restrooms were built in 2001.

They've seen no major renovations since that time.

Um materials there have you know absorbed uh odors and other things, and can no longer be cleaned to uh standard that is acceptable despite staff's best efforts.

We do clean the restrooms multiple times a day and do monthly deep cleanings where we pressure wash soak and chemicals um in all of our in all of our park bathrooms, but uh to no avail.

So uh we've gone out to bid for a new project, and I briefly mentioned what we will be doing in that project, which is removing basically all interior finishes, gutting the entire bathroom.

Uh no more tile, nothing like that, no amenities, everything will be removed, and we'll be replacing that with uh high durability epoxy flooring, FRP panels, which are a plastic panel that that line the walls, and um everything will have a touchless feature, so it'll be censored so there'll be no more really mechanical parts that are easily broken by uh vandals, and there'll be enhanced lighting in the restrooms as well as passive and active ventilation to help keep the space aired out a bit better.

Um of the things I wanted to talk about was how much use this restroom is actually seeing these days.

Um as as you were all aware, in 2023 we opened the new synthetic sports field.

Um this chart shows our peak usage.

You'll see July 2023.

We opened that ball field in October of 2023, and you will see that spike is right around in that time.

Um obviously in the years of 2021-2022, um things were closed down for construction with the Cistern Project and the uh subsequent ball field building, but prior to that um in 2019, you can see we averaged about 8,000 roughly in like peak season, and now and that's per month.

This is monthly visits, and now since the sports field's been open, our lowest monthly average is about 8,000 people, um ranging up to just under 30,000 people a month.

Um I want to I want to specify that that is only visits to the ball field itself.

When I ran these metrics, it's this was not the entire of Orange Park.

This did not include the the picnic quadrant or anything.

This is specifically just the sports field.

So the actual number of people visiting that park and using that restroom is larger than what you see here, but this is specific to the ball field, which is our highest use of that restroom, but that restroom also serves the picnic sites and the uh eucalyptus shelter.

Um so just a quick highlight on the bid process.

We issued it in January 2028, it was open for four weeks.

We received eight bids but had to disqualify one from uh Smelly Mel's plumbing because they did not sign their bid bond.

Um so there were seven eligible bids, and beam construction was identified as the lowest responsive bidder, and they fell within the engineer's estimate for this project.

Um I just want to touch on funding really quickly.

So there this funding is a cobbling together of uh two different funding sources.

So uh the parks division the parks department has been working with ECD, um, specifically Alvina Condon and um director Sealander uh to appropriate CDBG CV money, which is COVID funds that are community development block grant funded um that are used specifically for projects like this that have and that money has an expiration date of June 2026, and as we've been designing and working with our consultants to get everything up to up to bid package, um we were making sure that we were meeting those federal requirements and making sure that that money would be appropriately spent, and that money is mostly focused on increasing hygiene in public spaces um through various ways.

So the touchless sensors, things like that.

Um we are also using uh city funding of eight hundred eighty thousand three hundred and fifty-five dollars that was previously allocated to improvements in these restrooms in fiscal year 2022-23.

At that time I had gone and received multiple bids, but uh the the amount of money we had was not sufficient to achieve that, so that's why there's a little bit of delay between the allocation of this money and and that and and today um we were basically I received bids, realized we had to go out to design and and get a better bid package put together and um and seek that kind of gap funding, which fortunately the uh CDBG C V funds will provide.

Um and that brings our and so with the bid that we received from Beam and a 15% contingency, we're looking at 258,000 eight five hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars to uh do the entire entire restroom project and um dependent on council approval.

Uh we will start getting into contracts as soon as possible and get that open.

And I'd like to just highlight that this is a really great year for the synergy of actually getting this restroom done because we do have concert in the park coming up, which will be bigger than ever.

And um we're we're we're hosting more and more events in the park as that ball field grows, and it's it's just time.

So um I'm also painting the eucalyptus shelter very shortly, so there'll be many improvements happening to that side of the park, um, and like the meadow area, which has not received as much attention as of late.

So thank you.

Any uh questions for Mr.

Richardson?

Yes.

Thank you, Josh, for the presentation.

Um I'm really impressive with the with the uh data points on that.

Uh what point would you advise is council enough is enough.

We can't, we need another uh start thinking about another uh bathroom structure because of the usage.

Uh it's just continues to grow.

Yeah, that's a really hard question to answer right now.

I would like to get back to you after this bathroom gets remodeled and people um are more willing to use it.

Um it's current state, you know, we we receive complaints all the time.

I know our assistant city manager has has dealt with a certain individual that I've spoken with many times.

Um so you know, I think we're getting close, but we did build an extra restroom when we when we built the ball field.

Um it's a it's a single use family style restroom, but um that did alleviate some of that pressure.

But uh I'm I'm I think we have adequate space right now.

I just I just want to see how it pans out after they get improved.

Makes sense.

Thank you.

Yeah, and that's what I was about to ask you, Josh.

So this figures that you showed us the usage for that bathroom.

This is already while the other bathrooms are open.

Correct.

Bathrooms by the uh stand correct, yeah.

So um, and just to clarify, that that usage chart was not of the restroom itself, it's of the ball field.

So who's using that restroom?

There's not 30,000 people a month using that restroom.

If if that was the case, I would be asking to build an entire apartment complex worth of restrooms.

Yeah, no, but uh obviously with that with that peak of peak use from 8,000 to 30,000 a month, you're going to be inherently you're gonna get more restroom users.

And so meanwhile, we you will be asking people, so there should be signs then that they should use the one for the snack uh what you call that.

Yeah, so during construction, uh we'll we'll have that one open full time, which usually it's it's opened with the ball field, um, but we'll have that one open full time for park users, and we'll have supplemental uh ADA compliant uh porta potties basically dropped at the site so they can they they'll have multiple options.

Yeah, and especially because you know coming up our picnic season and all so yeah, we don't we don't want to we want to avoid the conflict between picnic season and ball field users all trying to get into a single use single occupancy restroom.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

Uh quick question.

So um it's great that the ball field is seeing more youth, but I'm I'm wondering are you seeing lines out the bathroom?

Like when there are events?

Uh not I think there need for I've not I've not noticed any lines and I've not heard complaints about people waiting.

Um it's it's that and that's why I say I'm interested in the capacity to to Councilmember Flores' question, but uh it's it's more complaints, it's not capacity, it's more just the conditions at this point that we hear about.

So once they're nicer, we may hear more, but um they are large restrooms, so I think we'll have adequate capacity, but again, it it it's too soon to tell.

Right, thank you.

Okay, thank you for uh for the report and uh you know while this is a fair amount of money, a quarter million dollars.

Um, you know, we we now are all educated on what it takes to build a new uh restroom uh of a smaller size.

So this is a great investment to preserve what we have.

Not have to build new.

So with that, we need uh a motion on this from um restroom specialist.

Sure.

Uh I'll make a motion.

I'll second move.

Motion and a second and roll call.

Mayor Diego?

Yes.

Councilmember Colman?

Yes.

Councilmember Flores.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Nicolas?

Yes.

Councilmember Nicholas.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

Moving on to item number 11 is a report regarding the 2025 general plan and housing element annual progress reports.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, Billy Gross with the planning division.

Uh here to present again for uh annual progress reports for the general plan and housing element.

Next slide.

Oh, there's like where's the clicker.

All right.

So for this item, I will provide an update on general plan implementation for 2025, including consistency with state requirements, an update on status of policies and actions implementation and general plan amendments, and then Stephanie Stan Scangos will provide the update on implementation of the housing element.

So the general plan is now three and a half years old as it was adopted in fall of 2022.

So this is the third time we've come to you to talk through uh implementation.

There was two state statutory requirements that were passed in 2025, only one of those that required immediate action, which is SB 1425, requires open space elements to be updated to address a couple of different things.

Um because our general plan was adopted so recently, we actually believe that it meets um the requirements for addressing equal access to open space for all residents and climate resilience, but we are working on some minor amendments related to the rewilding opportunities language.

Uh we also will try to do a more detailed look at that uh with the park and rec master plan update that potentially could start later this year.

There were two general plan amendments that were adopted in 2025.

Uh the land use element was amended to reflect the new land use designation maps for the infinite 131 life science campus, and then the circulation element was amended to change maps to reflect Gen Intex acquisition of public roads within their campus boundaries.

This chart displays the date each required element was last updated, reflecting the 2025 amendments.

Are the detailed general plan implementation tables showing the current status of each of the 764 policies and actions within the general plan?

Items highlighted in yellow indicate an updated entry from last year.

The majority of these are in the notes column on the far right with descriptions of work that was done in 2025.

The other yellow highlights typically indicate a change in status or the time frame.

Finally, this chart indicates implementation status by elements.

Uh overall since the first year of reporting after adoption in 2022.

Items that are considered complete or ongoing have increased from 51% to 58%.

Items considered underway have increased from 17% to 20%, and items with no action have decreased from 33% to 22%.

So all just showing that we are moving forward every year in checking boxes of all the implementation actions.

Thank you, Billy.

Good evening.

So this evening I will be going over the housing element annual progress report for the 2025 calendar year.

Just a quick little refresher.

A housing element is one of the seven state mandated elements of the general plan.

Unlike the other elements of a general plan, the housing element must be updated by deadlines set by the state.

And the housing element becomes the blueprint for future housing development in the city and includes goals, policies, and programs that will direct residential decision making.

The city adopted a new housing element in January of 23, and the Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD certified the housing element in November of 23.

This housing element covers a planning cycle running from January 31st, 23 through January 31st, 2031.

Let's talk a little bit about RENA.

The housing element process begins with the state setting a region's regional housing needs allocation or RENA.

This is the estimated number of housing units that will be needed over an eight-year planning cycle to assist with regional growth trends.

But the city is required to ensure it is possible to build these units through appropriate zoning standards and policies.

New units are counted towards RENA at the time of building permit issuance, and these include all residential types, single family dwellings, accessory dwelling units, and multifamily residential units.

Very low, low, moderate, and above moderate.

Very low is 30 to 50 percent AMI, low is between 50 to 80 percent, moderate falls between 80 to 120 percent, and above moderate is more than 120 percent AMI.

So moving on to our numbers for 2025.

Um the city is reporting building permit issuance for a total of 593 new residential units.

These include two single-family homes, 543 multifamily units, which are part of the seven South Linden Avenue project, and 48 accessory dwelling units.

Again, these new units that receive building permit issuance, that's when they're counted towards the arena allocation.

Just to note, in addition to the new units that have been issued a building permit, a total of 97 units were finaled or issued a certificate of compliance this in the 2025 calendar year.

That includes three single family homes, nine small multifamily units, which are units located within two to four unit structures, 56 multifamily units, which are for the Baden Station project, as well as the 889 McLellan residential project, and 29 ADUs.

A snapshot of hopefully um further down the road.

Um, the city approved planning entitlements for 232 new residential units.

These consist of 76 single family homes, 70 of which are the town home project, the the gateway town home project on railroad that was recently approved, um, 12 small multifamily units, and then 144 multifamily units for 5052 Linden Avenue that were approved by the city under SB 2011, and those two projects are 100% affordable.

So this is the third year of our eight-year reporting cycle for RENA cycle six.

So a total of 770 units out of 3,000 956 units.

And I apologize, that slide is incorrect.

The 80.5% represents oh no, that is correct.

That there's 3,186 additional units that need to be met.

For low housing category, the city has issued building permits for 21.7% for moderate 12.1%.

And lastly, for the above moderate housing category, the city has issued building permits for 27.1% of the expected units.

Most of the programs included in the housing element are implemented and monitored on an ongoing basis.

However, some programs do have deliverable dates throughout the housing element cycle.

For the 2025 calendar year, a total of seven programs were completed during the reporting year.

These include through the acceptance of an anti-displacement roadmap by council in November.

This concludes staff's presentation.

Billy and myself are both available for any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie.

Any questions for both?

I have a quick question, Mr.

Mayor.

Yeah.

So I'll just go kind of straight to in terms of what's in our pipeline.

We look at it, will we hit our arena numbers with these individual categories?

Because we still have the PUC project, potentially the LSB.

Obviously, those numbers don't count yet, but that's in our pipeline.

So when we look at in totality, will we hit each individual category?

I think a good estimate would say that we would be able to meet our above moderate category.

In terms of the very low, low and moderate categories, we would probably have to see some additional projects, residential projects made up of 100% affordable housing.

Okay.

Thank you.

I do not have a ball over for you.

So PUC's 800, right?

I would say hi.

Good evening.

I'm Adina Friedman, Chief Planner.

High level bar ballpark, I would say a thousand to twelve hundred entitled but not pulled permits.

I could definitely pull together, you know, solid numbers, but I feel like that's ballpark.

Okay.

And um I know it's a tough market right now, but maybe you could give a little summary about you know why are I guess there's two things, right?

Like why are some developers unable to find financing to where they can actually pull permits, and I guess the second question is how come we're not seeing new applications?

Sure.

Um I will defer the financing question to um our economic and community developer Nell Sealander.

Um, in terms of new applications, we are seeing some at a much slower rate, and we're also seeing applications that are moving through the process a little bit more slowly than typical.

Whereas a few years ago, I'm sure you know, um, council remembers they would be moving at pretty lightning speed.

You know, folks would have financing, so they would come in and it was just like a race to entitlements, and then they would submit for building permits almost immediately, and we're just not seeing that anymore.

So, in um the planning division, we definitely have projects that are moving through the entitlement process, including some large projects.

Um, there's a residential development, uh 101 Utah, which would be the first development for East of 101, which is pretty exciting that just went to the design review board last week.

Um, so that's really promising.

How many homes are there?

Close to 300 for in that in that one development.

So that's pretty um, you know, that's good news, and we have a few other projects that are moving through the pipeline, but they are just moving much more slowly.

Um, those that's you know, we have a couple others that have are somewhat sizable, but that's that's the one big one that we have moving through.

So, Nell.

Nell, can you um please answer the question about financing?

Nell C Lander Economic and Community Development Director.

Um, what we're seeing is that there is a lot of interest in South San Francisco.

There are two big entitled housing projects, one on Huntington and one on Airport, Fordy Airport, um, that are both on the market right now, and we get frequent phone calls about them and um follow-ups.

How are we pricing those below market rate housing units in that project?

And really a lot of strong interest from the development community and um buying those projects and then developing them in in short order.

That is our hope.

Um, but it is still quite difficult to finance uh even just a market rate project here in South San Francisco and the Bay Area generally.

So there's a lot of interest in the community, but um, we hope to see a few projects moving forward in the next 12 months.

Great, thank you.

Um, and then just another thing.

I know in the past we've we've received comments from individuals who want to see more for own housing, and I you know, while talking to some folks here and there who you know do do development um or you know, do policy work in Sacramento, they say that the what really is the issue is the condo defect law.

Um, and what I heard is that there are maybe one or two bills that are looking to address that condo defect law uh this year.

Uh in addition to that, the state potentially could pass a law that says um you know, if we permit, I think for every unit we would get 10,000 from the state to cities, and there's another bill that would um basically create a new designation for cities, similar to the pro housing designation, but not just rewarding policy but rewarding units that are actually getting built, right?

I believe on once the certificate of occupancy is is given out.

Um so I'd like for us to just um keep a rest of those bills and just make sure that yes, we are passing these lovely policies, but if there's more that we can do, right to set us up to really take advantage of the bills that are being passed.

I think um I'd love to hear from staff on on how we can best support that as well.

Anyone else?

All right.

Thank you for the uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just wanted to um piggyback on on my colleague here.

Um, our assembly member is moving forward if you want to write these and and follow up on them.

AB2296.

I know that we have not had issues with actually submitting our housing element, but this would potentially it's a Cal City sponsored one, uh, extending um allowing jurisdictions to start the process six months earlier than when it's actually due, and uh providing even additional uh technical assistance.

Uh AB 1567 by Assemblymember TA gives uh local jurisdictions even credit for um senior uh uh housing up to 15 percent of those and SB 417 by uh Senator Cabaldon uh would create a 10 billion housing bond to finance affordable rental housing and home ownership programs.

Um track some of those uh I think in our alignment with some of this conversation.

Thank you.

We uh just want to uh note we do need council to uh take action on this to accept the general plan and housing element annual progress reports and authorize transmittal to the respective state agencies.

I'll make that motion.

Motion on the floor, Councilman Colin Councilmember Flores?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Nicholas?

Yes, Councilmember Coleman?

Yes, Councilmember Nicholas.

Mayor Andie.

Yes.

Thank you.

Gentle reminder, Mr.

Item number 12 is a report regarding request for policy advocacy, including letters of support or opposition for state and federal legislation.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Uh Megan Woolley Osdall, Deputy City Manager.

Uh, the talk of bills is a nice segue into this item, so thank you.

Um, as Rosa just mentioned this evening, I'm presenting a report regarding uh requests for policy advocacy, including letters of support for state and federal legislation.

So our staff recommendation is that the council direct us to develop a legislative platform which would grant the mayor the authority to sign documents to implement this platform.

Uh this could serve as the official guide for staff to engage in policy work that aligns with the city's position on state and federal legislation.

If the council is interested in this, we can return with a draft platform at an upcoming council meeting.

So as background staff receives requests to provide letters of support on different uh state legislation, mostly state legislation from individual council members, outside agencies, and nonprofits.

Uh, yet currently we lack a formal process for evaluating and responding to these requests.

Specifically for this work, we want to ensure that the policy advocacy, especially the letters of support, reflect the collective council position rather than the interest of maybe one member.

So tonight we're seeking your direction on how to manage this.

So for uh just background or how other cities go about it.

Um cities choose to spend no resources on policy advocacy, while others dedicate a lot of time and funding to hire full-time staff or to hire uh lobbyists.

Um, as you know, council does have the full discretion to determine how the city engages in advocacy at the state and federal levels.

Um I think you know this as well, but just as a reminder, in South San Francisco, currently the city retains Townsend public affairs as our state lobbyists.

So here is a list of common approaches for the council's consideration, and these are shared in our staff report.

Um I won't read them out, but we're happy to go uh into detail if you have any questions about the options.

So staff's time is the primary cost for preparing the legislative platform and um any letters of support.

Um and also we can use Townsend as a resource to assist with the preparation of a draft legislative platform.

So this is just to remind you of our recommendation, and uh with that, I will close it out and say staff is available for questions.

So thank you.

Mr.

Mayor.

I do.

So I think the one issue I have about giving the authority to the mayor, is there's been times we've had robust conversations, and not we haven't agreed sometimes.

So I guess my my issue is let's say it's three to two, and the majority says it'll be support the measure.

But that particular mayor is against the issue, and now he has he or she has to sign the letter.

I don't know if I feel comfortable with that.

That's kind of an issue that I think we need to flesh out a little bit more.

I understand obviously if it's all of us agree, that's one thing, but if we don't agree and we're not unanimously supporting it, I don't feel comfortable putting that on the mayor if the mayor has expressed disagreement with the issue.

Um I do believe that Townsend should be more involved.

So that's that's why we hired them, uh, you know.

So I think that relieves stress from staff to have them kind of do more of the work.

Um, but that was kind of my main issue is that if there's disagreement amongst us, I don't think it's fair to put that on the mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um colleagues, let me give you a little bit of context on what this looks like.

Um I sit on two, I chair the legislative committee for the Latino Caucus for Cal Cities, and I'm on the legislative committee for CCAG, and we're all very familiar with CCAG.

CCAG actually develops uh a bi-yearly uh platform to what Megan was alluding to.

I share this with the city manager and the team, um, and it's all themed, it's all thought topics, and I thought that would be a great way.

Instead of, I mean, there's over 1800 bills that move through the legislative cycle.

We all can't keep up, right?

Um, there's some bills that are very pertinent to South City that perhaps Townsend is not, I mean, Townsend has a lot of other clients, right?

We could only tell them, hey, monitor this one or watch this other one.

So this was in an essence uh a way that we could streamline these conversations as it was uh illustrated in the previous agenda item.

Many of us are touching the legislation or hearing about legislation in our different committees, transportation, housing, uh, etc.

And I think it behooves this council to enter it now into a more mature stage of uh really understanding the need for this, right?

Just like how we have a harbor uh district liaison committee and a school district liaison committee.

I think it's important and incumbent now.

Um we're at the table and in VLF is a proven example that if we're not at the table, people are taking advantage of us.

Um for us to establish a council subcommittee.

Um I'm very supportive of this because we could all rotate through it.

Um sometimes the year as mayor, as I've had experience there, you're very busy with other things that you're not necessarily tracking every single thing that comes across your inbox, but we could all rotate and know that that year that we're in the council subcommittee on legislative matters, we're working with staff, we're working with Townsend, and we're watching, right?

We're monitoring.

We have the best interest of our city, both at the national level, like council member Nicholas was uh uh alluding to her participation earlier.

Um, and I think this also kind of uh brings it so that we take away the staff time because it's it's something to be tossing out assembly bill and senate bill numbers, but you all are like now what do I do with this, right?

Like, but if the subcommittee can maybe work with the platform or a dock it and then bring it to the rest of the council, um, and we say this was reviewed, just like also the the finance subcommittee, right?

You look at things, best interest of the city, say yay or nay, and we move forward in uh in a very structured way that allows transparency and accountability, uh, but most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to represent uh South San Francisco at the legislative uh uh level.

Um, there are a lot of bills, uh I will tell you that uh that we're touching that that affect us locally here, right?

Um, not just I would say, I mean, everything from e-bike to to homelessness to other issues in regarding um uh accountability, transparent and the way that we operate.

So I think uh where I'm landing uh landing, and I appreciate staff always uh putting out uh different options.

I'm landing a little bit between one and four, um, a combination of that.

Again, we don't have to just choose one here.

Uh so that uh again, it's a shared decision authority between this council between two members, the public could also attend these subcommittee meetings.

Should you choose to and be informed as well.

Can I add something else?

So I think the other thing I was worried about, again we go back to the the option of the three to two the two members who voted no.

If if the mayor signs it, it it it basically alludes that the full council isn't supportive of the measure.

And I don't think that reflects potentially the conversation that happened on the dais.

And so I think that's what I'm a little concerned about as well.

So I'll I'll just say um I said that's always been my position is like if you once in a letter and and you want to do on your own, put your name on it, don't put my name on it.

If four of you agree on a policy and I don't, I'm okay with you four sending a letter, don't put my name on it.

Yeah, and and that's um, but but I I also agree with uh council member floors where I think we can do legislative platform and maybe that helps streamline um particular bills that we you know we know we we want to see in in in Sacramento and and thus we can um you have our city take such positions.

Um I'm also like number two, and I just feel like you know, we you may it might be C CAG, it might be Cal Cities, it might be Peninsic Lee Energy.

Oftentimes they ask for layers of support and they don't give us much time, they just ask for it because they want to get it before a particular committee meeting, and maybe you have two days' notice, and we can't you know schedule a special meeting.

I want to be able to move quickly, and we don't need to send a letter with every single one of our signatures.

I think um I would be okay with number two if you know a letter can be drafted and it just has one of our names on it, right?

I think um each of us you know has a first amendment and yeah and can use it to advocate for what bills that we see fit.

I think number two would help alleviate some of the issues that uh that I brought up potentially.

If that is only the I mean, are our interests so different from the other cities in California that we we can't um you know, we hang our hat with Cal Cities that I mean do we have to duplicate their efforts?

There's times why I don't agree with Cal Cities' recommendations.

There's also time where Cal Cities asks the cities for a letter of support to a bill that they're no, that's what I'm suggesting that they lead.

I mean, it's kind of a natural situation.

I don't know what you disagree with, you know.

And mayor, may I also clarify and amplify one of the prior comments that the requests are not just coming through Cal Cities.

So it can be our own staff, it can be another government agency, such as Peninsula Clean Energy or that type of thing.

So the requests come from all over the place.

Like I'll give you an example.

I think at one point Cal Cities they were opposed to SB 79.

I'm supportive of SB 79.

79 is the upzoning.

And you know, they were right, right, you know, very vocal about opposition letters, and I would not be supportive of that.

Well, there's nuanced stuff that we could look at.

Right.

I guess that's the conversation like is okay, if individuals disagree, how do we like how do we fix that?

And I think number two is is kind of the the answer that if you're I I just think we can't just say, well, Townsend, because Townsend needs direction, and they're not gonna take direction from five council members, they're gonna take direction from staff, and that's gonna again use up staff resources.

I'm looking at Megan be on the phone every week with Townsend and saying, oh, and uh Councilmember Nogales wants this one in council, you know, that sort of deal, and then also the coordination of letters back and forth and signing and getting it, and I I don't see them as providing that service to us.

I mean, I think where we are strong with Townsend is what they did last year.

They prepped us for uh committee meetings, they delivered us, they met us, they got us on the bills with the senator.

That was excellent um uh work that they did.

But this, I I feel like this we could clean up streamline and not add additional burdens to staff.

And I'll just say, you know, in the past I've drafted my own letters, and I just submit it to the legislature, right?

So I mean it's no, I think we can do that.

I appreciate that enthusiasm.

At the same time, I'm not sure how much that letter move to dial Calts.

Sorry, and one more point, Mr.

Mayor.

To you when that happens, that you only write one letter or it's three or two council members, it doesn't bring the same weight, the same effect, right?

Right.

So why do you do the letter then if you have disagreement amongst the council?

Like you're saying it doesn't have the same weight, so why would you even submit the letter when the council is split?

I think if you if you want to do three individual, you want to do three council members together submit a letter, that's one thing.

Yeah.

I I think I think there's a way to move forward.

I think we just need to flush it out.

Yeah, I think we're we're getting stuck on the um off scenarios because like what Mark said, it's doesn't happen all the time, right?

And those times that we are not in agreement for a particular bill, we have the city manager that can poll and and figure out a way that says we'll pass on this one or watch it, but bring it back to council later if there is urgent action on something.

But there are really other great opportunities and bills that we should be supporting, right?

Um or um uh letting letting Cal Cities that we are we are um supporting.

In fact, one of them just uh it will I'm I'm brought to remember a bill about a mural and and and parks and rec provided support last year on that.

Cal cities was providing where it was requiring every individual, every vendor that wanted to create a mural uh to have all these licenses and extensive experience and whatnot.

And we are gonna have a mural at Linden Park, and we got involved.

That was very pertinent to what we were involved in, and the bill passed.

So um I I just think that we could create something where we continue on a path where most of the uh uh bills this council would would support, right?

Or uh the city manager could provide us a list of bills that she's considering again, but base it on the platform.

That's why I want to ground us into the platform.

If we all agree this legislative platform is where we're at, then we don't have to disagree.

Right.

Every each one, yeah.

Right.

So that's the first step.

I'm happy to try it out.

Legislative, yeah.

And and I feel like um, yeah, I talked with the art city manager earlier this week, and I think there's a difference between just putting your name on something and versus you know what you're saying, like actually moving a needle, which is setting up meetings with legislators, going to Sacramento, not just sending a letter, but you know, speaking during the committee meeting.

And maybe that is more so we need three votes to direct staff and uh towns then to do more um more work in that side.

So if if uh it sounds like there's general acceptance of the idea of having a legislative platform, is that enough for tonight?

No.

I usually say that I would really prefer a motion that's very clear.

What I'm hearing, what I think might be a consensus, um, is to um bring back a legislative platform for you all to consider.

Once that has been adopted, um we would be able to um make evaluations on on what type of advocacy we would want to undertake based on that platform with the modification that the delegation is to the city manager instead of the mayor to sign letters.

Um, but being clear it's you know on behalf of the city council or or some something to that effect.

Um, and we would then continue to do the good staff work where if something if we can't figure out from the legislative platform where the council might want to be, those are the unique individual ones that we would bring back to council.

But it would be rare that we would do that.

Hopefully, yeah.

Is am I hearing things correctly?

Does anybody want to try and make a motion out of that?

What's that?

Do you need a motion?

Uh because it's a report.

I'm just trying to make sure that we thought we've got it right.

Back to us.

We will have to absolutely come back to you all with a legislative platform.

So I think the motion that I would be um that I think I'm hearing is um direct staff to create um a draft legislative platform with the modification that the city manager would be authorized to sign letters implementing that platform and making other decisions as necessary uh to implement it.

Yeah, we were all nodding yes when you were speaking.

So moved.

Thank you.

We don't need a motion.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Motion dies.

Next item.

Items from council committee reports and announcements.

Any other reports, announcements, anything on your mind, Councilman Coleman.

No?

Okay.

So um I actually just wanted to share with the council because I neglected to on the front end of the meeting that um at the liaison meeting uh today there was a great amount of discussion about all the efforts that the public works is doing in regards to safety around school sites.

And I was really most impressed with you and June's team.

So um just know that um Angel and what's Angel's last name again.

I'm sorry.

Torres Angel Torres, and who else was at the time?

Jeff Chow and Johnny Wilson.

Johnny Wilson.

They were excellent, and I should have remembered all their names, but you know, I'm getting to that point.

Um but I was very proud of uh you and Jun's team today and what they've been accomplishing, and and hopefully district will be even more um involved.

Intricacies of making those things happen.

Yeah, we're hoping.

We are hoping.

Okay, with that, um no further items, and we have to announce the closed session items.

Yes.

I don't excuse me.

Is vacant city property located at 356 Grand Avenue?

APN number 012-312-300.

Agency negotiators, Ernesto Luceto, economic development manager, and Nell Sealander, Economic and Community Development Director.

Negotiating Party is Ben Trey Group under negotiation price and terms.

Item 14 is conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8 property 901 Civic Campus Way, third floor.

City negotiators, Han Chin Want, management analyst too, Greg Mediati, Parks and Recreation Director, Valerie Summer, Library Director, Angela Duldao Parks and Recreation Deputy Director, Adam El Schos Library Assistant Director, Nesto Luceto Economic and Community Development Manager, Prax Duarte Facilities Manager, negotiating parties, Mana MV Corporation doing business as Morning Vibes Cafe under negotiation price and terms.

Okay, thank you, Rosa.

The council will now enter a closed session.