I don't even realize the next May, aren't we?

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

So I'd like to call this meeting of the South San Francisco.

Of the South San Francisco City Council for Wednesday, June the 10th to order, and we'll begin with a roll call.

Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

Council Member Flores.

Present.

Councilmember Nicholas.

Present.

Vice Mayor Nogales.

Mayor Adiego.

Here.

Thank you.

And I've invited Nels D.

Lander, who is with the Northern California Carpenters Union, the local rep here in San Mateo County, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening.

The United States of America and to the Republic.

One nation undergo indivisible.

And you know, South San Francisco is a very tight town, and um if you go back a few years, uh Mr.

D.

Lander's grandmother was working in City Hall, and um they remain involved in South San Francisco.

So we like to celebrate that in South San Francisco.

So let's move ahead with um Rosa, the next item.

Thank you, Mayor.

We're moving on to Living Act Disclosures.

Does the council have any conflicts to report tonight?

It would appear not.

Thank you.

Moving on to announcements from staff.

So we're gonna invite Devin Stenhouse, who has a couple of announcements tonight.

I do.

I do.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, and the public.

My name is Devin Stenhouse, and I am the management analyst too for the city manager's office of the city of South San Francisco.

I have two announcements this evening.

To celebrate the country's semi-quincentennial, the city of South San Francisco is hosting a community-wide parade and picnic on the 4th of July.

We encourage the entire South City community to come view the parade, which will begin at 10 a.m.

at Orange Memorial Park, go up Orange Avenue and end on Grand Avenue at City Hall.

Nonprofits, organizations, and businesses are welcome to join council members and other electeds and the Padrinos and Golden State Rods Car Clubs in the parade.

Please scan the QR or visit SSFCA.gov to submit a request to uh join the parade by Friday, June 19th.

After the parade, the celebration will continue on Grand Avenue, which will be kicked off by the U.S.

Air Force's Civil Air Patrol Color Guard and followed by a fun community picnic which will include live music, a pet costume contest, car show, free hot dogs, family fun activities including a jump house, opportunities to support downtown businesses, and so much more.

Again, please scan the QR or go to SSFA.gov for more information and tell us you're coming via Event Bright.

Also, in celebration of the country's 250th anniversary, South City is looking for artists of all ages to design two new stickers for the November election.

We're looking for artists 18 years and older to design an I voted in SSF sticker as well as artists 17 years and younger to design a future SSF voter sticker.

The deadline to submit is going to be July 24th.

And later this year, the public will vote on their favorite entry from each category, and winners will see their stickers distributed throughout the month of October until the November election.

Again, please go to SSFCA.gov or scan the QR for more information.

Thank you so much.

Devin, uh thank you for the update on those events, especially the July 4th event in South San Francisco Grand Avenue.

Um I learned some uh that is coming along.

Better than we had hoped.

And um, you know, we are we are joining um other communities like Redwood City that have had Fourth of July parades for decades.

So um I'm glad to see we're getting a nice response from the community and from uh some other entities.

So and uh next item.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to presentations, item number one is a presentation celebrating June as LGBTQIA plus Pride Month.

So on June the first, um I was joined by um Councilman James Coleman, and uh on that day, I think Floor Nicholas was there with us, and uh collectively we raised the Pride flag, and we went a little bit retro because I'm I'm the old mayor, and um I remember the original Pride flag, which I found to be um more colorful and festive and uh I like the way that looks.

So it's uh flying with all the red, white, and blue bunting on City Hall, and I don't think City Hall has ever looked more colorful.

So, James, um, if you would like to do the presentation for Pride Month.

Sure, thank you.

Thank you so much for his honor.

Uh Mr.

Mayor uh Pride Month is a time to recall the trials of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender queer and questioning intersex and asexual or LGBTQIA plus community, some call it the alphabet mafia, uh, which has endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought and continue to fight for full equality.

Uh during this month, I you know, as a member of the LGBTQ plus community, I reflect on uh the state that our country is in.

I think about how our community is from some people not seen as people but seen as political talking points to win elections.

And then I look at the data that our community faces, specifically the trans community, where 50% of our trans youth contemplate suicide.

And so, for so many in our community, this is a matter of life and death.

But here in in South San Francisco, we're not going to accept that.

We are going to make sure that our community is inclusive and welcoming of everyone, no matter who they love, and no matter how they identify.

With events and activities that promote inclusivity, educate the public, and celebrate the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities.

And with that said, I is my honor uh to present this proclamation to Mr.

Jim McGuire, who is uh a big force in South San Francisco and currently leading the South San Francisco Conference Center.

Thank you very much.

Well, this is uh this is excellent.

Thank you very much.

Your remarks are very touching, and uh they really really mean a lot.

South San Francisco, I think we're all very lucky to have such a diverse city and open and welcoming to everybody, and this is really really appreciated by the entire community.

So thank you so very, very much.

So is this in lieu of my budget presentation then?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to item number two is a proclamation celebrating July as Parks and Recreation Month.

So the second presentation is actually a month early, and this is at the behest of the vice mayor.

So I'm just gonna turn it over to him and let him explain why we're celebrating July as Park and Recreation Month on June the 10th.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

As I I was happy to call the mayor to ask this request because the chair, the current chair of the Park and Park and Rec Commission is Christy Camacho.

And uh she's this is her last year serving on the commission.

And I when you think of the Park and Rec Commission, you Christy Camacho's name's kind of kind of part of that kind of lore.

And unfortunately, she won't be here next month if we were going to do it next month.

And it only makes sense that she receives this proclamation, even though it's a month early.

But we're happy to present this proclamation recognizing the month of July and June, Parks and Recreation Month, and celebrate the incredible role of our parks and programs and recreational staff.

A play in making South San Francisco such a vibrant and welcome community.

Our parks and recreation are more much more than just playgrounds and ball fields.

There are places where families can gather, children can learn and grow, neighbors connect, and where lifelong memories are made.

Here in South San Francisco, we're fortunate to have an outstanding parks and recreation department that works year-round to create programs and maintain spaces that are rich the quality of life for everyone from our beautiful parks, our trails to this beautiful community center.

Their work helps strengthen the fabric of our city.

So I encourage everyone to go outside, visit one of our parks and participate in a community program and take advantage of our city, what they have to offer in our parks and recreation community programs.

With that, I ask Chrissy Camacho to come up and accept this proclamation.

Good evening, and thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the City Council for this proclamation recognizing July as Parks and Recreation Month in South San Francisco.

And thank you especially for accommodating me being here tonight to accept.

And yes, we will be traveling for July for a well-deserved break.

For those of you who don't know, my name is Christy Camacho, and I am one of the proud people who grew up here in South City.

And I'm so honored, I'm so emotional.

We've had a really emotional week.

This is my 12th and my final year due to term limits.

I would stay probably forever if I could, but it's important to give other people opportunities to um you know give their voice and be advocates for the wonderful things in parks and recreation.

But I am so honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department and the Parks and Recreation Commission.

This proclamation celebrates the many, many ways that our parks recreation programs and community events bring people together to create lasting memories and strengthen the sense of community that makes our city South San Francisco feel like home.

Parks and recreation encourages healthy and active lifestyles.

It provides opportunities to learn and grow and try new things, it offers spaces where families, friends, and neighbors can connect from youth sports to summer camps to senior programming, cultural celebrations, trails, open spaces, and our programs and facilities like our LPR building.

It really enriches the quality of life for everyone of all ages that lives here.

And we're so so lucky.

None of this would be possible without the dedicated staff, commissioners, volunteers, community partners, you all, City Council, and the residents who support and participate in our programs and in our buildings and in our parks and spaces, helping strengthen our community every day.

So this coming month, in three weeks, not a whole month, it's only three weeks away.

With a variety of free community activities, encouraging residents to get outside, be act be active with each other.

The celebrations include our annual field day in July.

So you get to be active in all lights, all various physical capacities.

We have movie in the park, and there's a poll, I think, where you get to vote on the movies.

So please participate in that, along with other opportunities for families, friends, and neighbors to gather.

So we invite everyone to join us through throughout the month of July to take advantage.

And thank you again for this recognition and your continued support.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner Camacho.

I just get to say that a few more times, I guess.

And we can oh, actually, now let me turn to the city attorney because we have a special city council meeting.

And in all the time I've served, Sky, I've never really understood it just seems very clumsy, but I think I'm supposed to recess this meeting and open another meeting.

For the closed session, uh, we will just take all the city clerk will just read all the closed session items together, and we will and council can adjourn to closed session for all of the.

So I don't have to leave this meeting to accomplish that.

Correct.

So see, it changed again.

So I well, in this case, why we have a city attorney apparently.

Exactly.

Okay.

Gotta keep myself in business.

All right, thank you.

So let's let's uh Rosa, let's move along with the next.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to Council Commons request honoring the life of requests.

And why don't we turn to uh Councilman Flores tonight?

Let him lead off.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I wanted to start off by recognizing something that you probably have seen in the paper.

Maybe it did not get a lot of uh tension, uh, but this past Saturday, uh the Samateo County Sheriff's Office held a gun uh by back buyback event here in South San Francisco.

I'm happy to report that nearly 200 firearms were turned in uh during this event.

Uh and it was um uh anonymous gun buyback, but it was um I think it was now um the third or maybe fourth time that it's been done in the last most recent years.

Um, of course, all the firearms are collected, processed, and then destroyed.

Um, nearly 200, and that's significant.

Uh this is uh funded by the county of San Mateo, uh, of course, the Board of Supervisors uh through Measure K.

Um, and really want to recognize uh for doing this.

Uh I want to thank Sheriff Bender, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office for allowing us to partner with them on this ongoing sponsorship for these backs, as well as our law enforcement agencies, our South San Francisco PD, Brisbane, Daily City, San Bruno, who assisted during this event.

I was very fortunate, very excited.

I always get um really uh uh higher level of of uh happiness when we get to do groundbreakings with our youth, with our little ones, and this time it was preschoolers, and we did this last uh yesterday up in Westboro Park uh to do the groundbreaking of the new South San Francisco preschool uh that will have spaces to for up to a hundred uh little souls that will be educated there in that part of town.

I want to congratulate uh my colleague, the vice mayor for championing and spearheading this for many years.

Um, and this will be a benefit to our entire community, um, impacting all and for many years to come.

I want to thank staff who have been diligent in being able to uh carry out and deliver this, and we look forward to uh next year when we actually get to do uh the ribbon cutting.

Lastly, I want to finish off with a very humbling personal uh note to share with you all.

I was honored um to have received a distinguished public service award uh last month uh of in May from the Bay Area Latino Elected and Appointed Officials organization.

These are elected and Latino uh electeds from school boards to councils to board of supervisors throughout the uh nine Bay Area County region.

Uh it was held at their annual uh meeting in Napa last month, and I want to thank the board members uh and those in the selection committee for recognizing not necessarily uh myself, but really the work that we are doing here, championing as a council in South San Francisco in the region and also in San Mateo County, and encouraging those uh that are watching and listening that are of Latino heritage or Latino themselves to seek um uh elected office and to be able to give of their time in public service.

So very humbled to have received that recognition.

Uh, that is all I have.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Okay, thank you, Councilman.

And we'll turn to um councilwoman, Florida Nicholas.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, the month of May was capped by uh Pancake Breakfast held at the Telia Community Center, hosted by our South San Francisco Police Officers Association.

There was an impressive showing of our police officers uh cooking, uh making the breakfast.

Uh uh and uh thank you also to the Garberinos, Elaine and Rich for making sure that donations are being given every year for this event.

Um, then we also had for June 1st, like the mayor and um council member Coleman said, we had the bright flag racing, which is uh, as we know, it's a testament to the inclusivity of our city.

June 4th, we said the final goodbye to Betty Batalia, who is a long time also Parks and Rec um Commissioner.

And the Saturday that uh council member Flores mentioned, um, it was supposed to start at 10.

I went over there at 10 o'clock to just see how many had been given back.

Uh the guy by back.

Uh it was at 10 o'clock.

There was already 42 guns, and they said they started early because there was a long line, and two were assault rivals.

So I'm glad to know that the whole number is 200.

So thank you for our police officers who are there, and uh also the sheriff uh office.

Also, I would like to say kudos to our Capitol Project's team and the parks and recreation staff for the two events that's that uh back to back, the Dundee Park Ribbon Cuddy and the Westboro Preschool groundbreaking.

And also, I would like to request that we join this meeting in memory of Pat Gakoscos, a distinguished Filipino American public servant and founder of the Union City Friends Subsister Cities.

She was the first Filipino elected to the Union City Council in 2010, re-elected in 2014 and 2018.

She left behind a lasting legacy of service, compassion, and community leadership.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Flor.

Um, the Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um, I was gone for a week because I was in a vacation, but before I left, I did swing by Dundee Park as they were kind of finishing uh the last touches, and I did text uh Councilman Coleman.

I thought um how it look amazing, and I congratulated him and then his community in the district because I did see the video and I saw the kids playing, and that was really what it's all about.

And uh when I got back, I got to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new child care center in Westboro.

And uh as I joked, it's it's taken us eight years to get to that point, and a lot of ways it was kind of my third child.

I didn't tell Amy about it.

But it really is a celebration, and for all of us in the community because to see something that you imagine and you work with the amazing staff that you have here and your amazing colleagues to accomplish something so phenomenal and amazing that it's gonna have an impact on generations to come.

They won't remember us in terms of how we got there, but the kids will enjoy this beautiful new state of the art center.

And that's what I'll enjoy and remember.

And hopefully, when my kids are older and they have kids, they'll be able to go into that center.

Hopefully the wait list will be gone by then.

But then I'll be able to have a smile on my face and say, you know, grandpa had a little help in that.

So I just wanted to say thank you to our amazing staff and my friends and colleagues here for getting to this point.

I can't wait.

We get to cut the ribbon next year.

And you have to come back.

It's a wonderful thought.

Um how to hand in that.

Kind of a sobering moment, isn't it?

It is, it is.

Okay.

Next is um councilman James Coleman.

Yes, thank you.

Um, first I'd like to um, you know, the election results have not been certified, but I do want to congratulate one of our very own, a South San Francisco resident, Hector Camacho, who is also uh one of our library board trustees for being uh as of today, 8,000 votes ahead in his um race to be this the San Mateo County Superintendent of Schools, uh which is an incredibly important education seat uh that affects all of our kids, and um how lucky we are to have a leader like Hector Camacho, someone that I believe many of us um have had the pleasure of working with uh to be in that seat.

So big congratulations to Hector Camacho um and also to his family for enduring election season.

Um next, uh, you know, thank you so much to uh Councilmember Mark Nagales um for your congratulations on on a Dundee Park uh opening.

Um that was an incredible event.

It also just so happened to be my birthday, and what better way to spend a birthday than to celebrate with your community um and with opening up uh new public spaces for all of us to enjoy.

Um, and I have been receiving messages from other neighbors saying how they you know are walking their dogs down the street and they see kids playing.

And I think about how here in South San Francisco, I want this this community to be the best community to raise a family.

Maybe we can change the hill.

You know, when we have another idea to change the hills letters or paint them a different color, it can be South San Francisco, the best place to raise a family.

Um, but just seeing how the kids had and the families had a part in planning it, right?

Our our staff are incredible.

They had community meetings, and we actually had the kids play stickers and and say which design that they liked, and uh I think the kids really appreciated it.

Um, when they saw it come to fruition, and um construction only took five or six months, and so having it come together so quickly, uh I just want to give a big shout out to city staff who was able to make that happen.

Um, next, I want to congratulate council member uh or sorry, vice mayor Mark Nagolith on the Westboro uh preschool groundbreaking.

Um, what an incredible event.

Um, and you know, we also involved the the preschoolers who had little plastic shovels and they played in the dirt for for a few seconds.

Um, but what an incredible event because that will nearly double the amount of preschool spaces that we have in the city, that another 100 spots for our families.

And I think about the stories that we hear so often within our community, the ones of putting your unborn child on the wait list because the wait list is around three or four years long, and you want to have uh your your affordable child care spot, and sometimes those spots go to the second sibling because your firstborn aged out of the wait list.

Um, and what an incredible facility that will be when it is done, and to the South City community.

If you're thinking about having kids, might not might now might be a good time.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilman.

Um, I also wanted to um uh congratulate uh Councilman Coleman and the effort put into that Dundee Park.

You know, it's a neighborhood that probably goes back to the 50s, and I know the park had been refreshed, you know, since that time, but sometimes it looked like it was in the 50s.

So now it um it's amazing how much um Greg Mediati and his staff, the park and rec was able to put into that little space because it really does have a lot of elements that will draw people to it.

And what was most remarkable, as soon as I drove into the neighborhood, I noticed a lot of people walking on the street, and they were all making their way to that park.

So it's it's a very um uh it's just a great element for that uh neighborhood to have it um reinvigorated.

So special congratulations.

Um I wanted to keep these comments brief so we can move along.

We have a lot of visitors in the audience that probably want to speak to us, and we're ready to listen.

But I just wanted to share with you, you know, quite often in South San Francisco we speak endlessly about biotech companies.

But there are some other companies in South San Francisco, and there's a remarkable company that's been here for I think four years, and uh the city manager and I were invited out to Stripe.

Most of the council people have visited there.

This was my first opportunity, and Stripe is a financial tech company, and so what they do is they do basically all the back office work for businesses, whether it's a small restaurant or it's Uber, they take care of uh, I didn't understand all of it, but basically, um accounts payable, accounts receivable and and money processing.

Um there's about a thousand people working out there in in just a spectacular building.

Um, the background of that, there were two young men who came to America from Ireland, and they had an idea and they put their idea together.

And by the time they arrived in South San Francisco, Stripe was worth, oh, they let me back up.

These men are still in their 30s.

Um, by the time they arrived to South San Francisco, and they left San Francisco because the business environment was more conducive to what they wanted to accomplish.

Anyway, by the time they arrived, they were worth 98 billion dollars.

After four years, their valuation is now listed 159 billion.

So good things happen in South San Francisco, and it was just great to see that operation and you know, a whole different type of business that's um flourishing in South San Francisco.

So um that that completes my report uh for this evening, and we'll just um move along to the next item, which is kind of the most important.

Thank you, Mayor.

Moving on to public comments at this time.

We have Sam Kikuti.

Good evening, Sam.

All right, Mayor Adiago, board members of the South San Francisco City Council, and fellow citizens.

My name is Sam Katkoone.

This week I would like to use my three minutes for public comment to comment on the joke of a system that California uses to count votes.

California politicians are surprised when President Trump, among others, accused the Democrats of cheating.

Every state counts their statewide votes, mostly overnight.

It's Italy, which has a larger population and voter registration in California, count their votes overnight.

Same parameters are true of Spain, and they count their votes overnight.

As far as vote counting goes, California is on par, if not below a third world country when it comes to counting votes.

I have heard that California is not allowed to count mail-in ballots prior to election day.

I have also read that an estimated 80% of California Californians vote using their mail-in ballot.

A mail-in ballot was initially intended for use by military personnel overseas and American expatriates.

How did it morph into such a fiasco that 80% of mostly able-bodied people in California are too lazy to get off their couch and walk themselves down to a local polling place to vote in person?

It is possible, or is it possible that the home of Silicon Valley, with some of the brightest technical minds in the world, can't figure out a solution to an issue that has made California a laughing stock in the world.

Something has to be done to correct a fiasco like what happened in Los Angeles this past election cycle.

Neither Rahman, Nitya Rahman, was behind Spencer Pratt in third place, trailing by eight percentage points.

Lo and behold, a week after Raman is leading Pratt, having gained 43,000 votes.

Curiously, the LA homeless population is 43,695.

What a coincidence.

A California woman was recently arrested for paying those on Skid Row and the homeless in LA to register to vote.

Since those on Skidrow and the homeless don't have a home address, this kind hearted woman put her former LA address on the registration form.

I propose a simple solution.

A voter drop box should be placed in all California cemeteries.

This way, one of the largest voting blocks of the Democrats, the permanent residents of these cemeteries can have a place to drop off their votes.

I'm certain this will expedite the counting process.

Thank you.

Good night, Sam.

Thank you.

Moving on to Corey David.

I can't say I wasn't thrilled or surprised by the recent revisit.

Excuse me, I got the wrong one.

Let's give um Mr.

David a chance to recoup.

And who's next on the list?

Cynthia Markopolis.

Good evening.

On the agenda tonight is a review of the public employee Scott Woodruff's performance.

Public employee, even though he is an hourly hired contracted employee, he's billing the taxpayers for doing the elected city clerk's job as well.

He is a contracted, not public employee.

However, maybe he should run for city clerk in the upcoming election because he surely is doing the elected city clerk's job and charging the good residents of South San Francisco exorbitant extra fees for his extra job, that being city clerk.

Speaking of which, we asked for the following public record officially, the billing history for legal services provided to the city of South San Francisco pertaining to all public records requests from December 2022 to the present.

And so far there are nine extensions.

This is not transparency and even ethical for the contracted city attorney to review public records specifically related to him.

Also up for reelection is the city treasurer Frank Riso, who ignores residents' emails and also formal public records requests.

In 1978, the voters passed proposition P to acquire the municipal services building, and were taxed on their real property, five cents per 100 assessed property value.

We contacted first the county assessor's office and elections department both told us to contact the city of South San Francisco, and our city's clerk's office told us no responsive records, contact the county.

What a runaround.

We have published a factual video of this on our YouTube channel, SSF Citizens Coalition that outlines this, and I invite residents to view it.

What is the accounting for this property tax that supposedly lasted 20 years?

Is it still being collected?

The MSB cost 1.39 million dollars.

How much was collected?

Did this ballot measure ever get officially retired?

Both the city clerk and the city treasurer should be replaced for failure to perform their jobs, and Skye Woodruff might consider running for both offices because he and his new law firm are doing a fantastic job managing both and concealing the public's right to know.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

David.

You should know better than give me a second chance.

It's only after viewing the last council meeting, I feel I need to share some bad news with you.

It would seem certain species of crocodiles are endangered, and it only follows that crocodile tears will be in short supply.

Well, budget problems in South San Francisco received a temporary reprieve, problems willom large in the future.

Cue the crocodile tears about the approaching crisis and the need to address messaging to the residents.

How to accomplish this?

Hope for better resident attendance at meetings.

Improvements to our Highway 101 electronic billboard, alerting South San Francisco residents about state vehicle license fees that are being withheld.

We are told that this is the state's problem, but it sounds more like our problem.

Bottom line, it's time to circle the resident taxpayers' wagons so we can all receive the message that we will be asked to share in the pain in the form of additional revenues.

Remember, these are the same residents who are ignored when they ask their quality of life needs to be addressed.

What are the threatened consequences?

Should the residents ignore your budget bailout requests?

Cancellation of concert in the park, cutbacks in city services and maintenance, and my favorite: no more attendance at biotech conferences.

Someone alert the hospitality industry so that they can find other bookings for their luxury hotels, restaurant gourmet meals, and airfares.

As South San Francisco services hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, maybe someone can explain to us just how these industries contribute to our budget needs, our capital projects, and our quality of life.

Will the residents even notice should this new business never materialize?

No question the South San Francisco budget will find itself in dire straits, but as you work to create a contingency plan, we suggest you focus on operational cuts, not new revenue.

Time to pare down the multi-layered executive jobs program, no more right side contractors who do work that should be done in-house, eliminate perks by buying your own food and coffee, and live within your means as the residents have lived, learned to live within theirs.

We've seen how you waste taxpayer money, and we are not pleased.

As I began with bad news, I'll end with good news.

While you have questioned your own messaging, it is not a complete failure.

One message you have successfully shared with the residents throughout the years is that we are not in this together.

Should we find the funding to fill our indoor outdoor $60 million, finance cement ponds?

Forget doing cannonballs, cannonballs, you better learn to tread water.

Thank you, Corey.

Thank you.

Nels D.

Lander.

Good evening, Council, members, and the city staff.

My name is Nels Delander, and I'm a representative of Carber's Lego 217, and I'm also lifelong resident in South San Francisco.

My mother attended South City High School.

My father attended El Camino High School as a DI.

And my grandmother worked here right in the city hall as a finance department.

South San Francisco has always been home to my family.

It's a great place to live, and it's also a great place to work.

As a construction worker, our goals are simple to support policies that protect all construction workers and ensure fairness across the board.

Pre-qualification does exactly that by promoting skilled, responsible workforce and ensuring projects are completed by qualified responsible contractors.

We also welcome the opportunity to be part of the process for the city considers one of the deliverers that boasts the best overall value to the South San Francisco.

With that in mind, we respectfully urge the city council to adopt pre-qualification language.

That benefits everyone.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

D.

Lander.

And if I could ask, I'd like to introduce Rick Bonia.

If you would stand, I'd like to introduce Rick because Rick is uh was a colleague of ours for many years.

Rick is a former councilman and mayor of the city of San Mateo, and he was kind of a breath of fresh air, a bit of a disturber on the San Mateo City Council, and it's just good to see him out tonight in South San Francisco.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

It's great to be here.

I grew up in San Bruno.

I hung out in South City a lot.

Before there was Westboro, Monty Birdie, any of that stuff.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, we're of the same age.

I remember that.

Thank you, Rick.

Moving on to Harvey.

Hey, good evening.

My name's Harvey McCurren.

I'm a representative of the North Coast States Carpenters Union, representing workers from Bakersfield all the way up to the Canadian border and obviously members right here in South San Francisco.

The reason me and uh I'd say an impressive number of uh my uh union sisters and brothers are here tonight, you know, after a long day of work, is to promote a very simple approach to lifting standards for all construction workers performing city public works, and in short, this is by adding uh stronger health care and apprenticeship requirements to city requirements for public works contractors, and that's it.

No complicated negotiations, no back and forth between multiple different parties, just a simple small raising of standards to add to the prevailing rope wager requirement that already exists.

I believe that from meetings with multiple city representatives, both elected and uh technical staff, that this uh approach is welcomed and its simplicity in terms of city administration bandwidth would likely be welcomed, and that its philosophy of inclusivity is understood and appreciated.

And I say inclusivity, and I appreciate the words of councilmember Coleman earlier tonight on that topic, because this is also an inclusive initiative.

This is the standards we're promoting would lift up all construction workers, not just carpenters, but any hard-working South San Franciscan that gets up in the morning and picks up their tools and gets to work to build the city.

So that's the philosophy of our union.

It's to look out for all workers, both our members and those that might not be members today that but that maybe we'll have the privilege to uh represent one day.

And uh the bottom line is we want strong standards, including uh health care requirements on public works projects, and we welcome ultimately uh the best approach that you feel um is the way to achieve that for all construction workers in the city.

But uh we believe that our prequal is the simplest approach, the least cumbersome for the city, and we ask you to engage with us and consider it.

We're happy to meet and uh explain it some more.

Thanks.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our register speaker.

Do we have anyone else in the room that would like to speak?

Seeing none.

Okay, so um, before we move on, let me just thank uh the members of the Northern California Carpenters Union for joining us in mass tonight.

Um it's so impressive to see this group and uh we will be in conversation with you on this topic shortly.

Next item.

Thank you.

Mayor, moving on to consent calendar.

So, yes, an extensive consent calendar that we no longer read.

Um, does anyone have a comment or question on those items through item 15?

Number nine.

Number nine, okay.

Anyone else?

So let's um, let's go ahead and um see what's on the councilman's mind with number nine.

Great.

Uh just coming up for staff.

Johnny?

Is Mr.

Wilson here?

Well, Johnny comes up.

I will read item number nine for the record.

Uh is a report regarding a resolution amending resolution number 47-2026 authorizing the submittal of an application to the California Transportation Commission for cycle eight, active transportation program funding, and similar grant applications requiring no more than 7,500,000 in local match funds for the South City Active Connections to Jobs and the Bay Project.

Item 9A is a resolution.

Thank you, Johnny Wilson.

I know, I know that Mr.

Wilson would have been disappointed if he didn't have an opportunity at the mic.

So thank you, Councilman, for calling up number nine.

Go ahead, John.

Thank you.

Just my question.

Um thank you, John, for coming up.

I want to pull it from consensus.

Uh, noting that the local match nearly doubled uh from 3.8 million to 7.5 million.

I I truly believe that that needs uh a public uh clarification or explanation with more context.

Yeah, uh thank you, Councilmember Flores.

Uh Johnny Wilson, I'm a senior engineer uh for our public works department.

Um when we put together these grant applications, we um, you know, refine them as we continue with our engagement and outreach.

And um, you know, we we did that with an extensive kind of outreach program where we surveyed people around the Caltrain station and other members of the community.

We get that feedback and then we we update exactly what we're asking for, and uh then we evaluate how that grant how we think it's gonna score.

One of the things that we look at is um our match um the amount of money we're chipping into the grant, and we do that under the advice of um our expert consultants that are applying for these grants for other jurisdictions as well, and um they're saying that you know this is kind of a large ask from this program.

It's um $35 million, and um, in order to get the maximum points possible that we should put, you know, increase our match amount.

Now I asked how much how many more points is this gonna get us, and they said, Well, it's just gonna get us two more points out of a hundred.

So you you might say, well, that doesn't seem like we're kind of getting a lot, we're doubling our amount, and and so it's really just kind of like a um whether or not we're increasing our likelihood of getting this grant enough that it's that it's worth it.

I will say, given the fact that we do have adequate fund reserves in the the fund that's that's providing this, uh east of one-on-one traffic impact fees, and the improvements are gonna uh really well align with uh response we got from the community.

Um the advice is that that yeah, it is it is recommended that we increase our match amount just to get those extra two points because it could mean that they say that we're not necessarily on the border between where they expect we would win or lose, um, but every point counts.

Thank you.

You anticipated two of the follow-up questions that I was gonna have.

Can you I just always like to be clear with the public that this is not coming out of general fund, but this is a particular uh traffic impact uh fee fund East of 101.

Do you know what the balance is?

You said that there's it's a healthy amount that stays in that fund.

Yeah, the balance uh right now uh I'd be guessing it's at least 10 million, um, it might be 16.

But it's comfortable enough that we're not deplenishing completely.

Yeah, and in fact, um even with this grant application, our five-year plan, we um we we don't anticipate spending down that chart balance for three years.

Okay, appreciate that.

Thank you for the context.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, um, doesn't look like there were any other items or questions, so we can go ahead and entertain a motion on the consent calendar.

So moved motion on the floor, second, second by a councilwoman Nicholas and a roll call vote on consent.

Councilmember Nicholas, aye.

Councilmember Coleman?

Yes, Councilmember Flores?

Yes, Mayor An Diego, yes, and Vice Mayor Nicolas.

Yes, thank you.

Notion carries moving on to public hearing.

Item number 16 is a report regarding a resolution approving the report of stormwater management service charges, approving the stormwater management service charges for fiscal year 2026-27, and directing the collection of stormwater management service charges on the official tax assessment roll.

Item 16A is a resolution.

Okay, it's that time of the year where we get to hear from Brian Schumacher.

If otherwise normally we have to travel out to his operation by the bay to get a little of his time.

So I'd like to uh open this uh public hearing.

And um my first question is, um, where's your environmental compliance supervisor, Andrew?

Thank you.

And all I want you to do is let him know that the mayor asks where was he?

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

But I only get to see him if I go out on a cleanup, okay.

Yeah, he's on a well-earned vacation.

Okay.

All right.

Go ahead, Brian.

All right, thank you so much.

Well, good evening to you, Mr.

Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council members.

Very good to see you.

Brian Schumacher, the plant superintendent.

Before you this evening in the public hearing is going to be the annual adoption of our stormwater fees.

Uh, just a quick presentation background.

We're gonna be talking about um what the regulatory background of the stormwater fees are, um, some of the programs and our efforts, um, what the process to amend these stormwater fees looks like, and then we'll conclude with our council questions and discussion.

So, regarding regulatory background, um, it's really governed by the Clean Water Act that started in 1977, fully um governed in 1987 by the Water Quality Control Act, and then later rolled out into our national pollution discharge elimination systems as stormwater regulations through the state water resources control board, and ended up in our final uh municipal regional permit that governs all the stormwater regulations in San Mateo County and the state uh from night from 2022 was the last revision.

Some of the uh municipal regional permit efforts uh won't read them all, but mostly um gonna be around trash loading, uh metals reduction, PCB control, uh, a significant amount of public outreach, um, control of our illicit discharges, and industrial and commercial site control inspections and regulation.

Some of the responsibilities that the stormwater fund supports, uh, annual stormwater reporting, all of the educational and outreach materials for our stormwater programs, all of the um training and workshops for the community to educate them about the impact of the stormwater and differences between stormwater and sewer.

Some of our specific city programs, uh again, many inspections, uh both of commercial and industrial construction sites, uh significant outreach activities and maintenance activities of storm drain systems, particularly our full trash capture devices.

Some of the accomplishments that I'd like to mention for the fiscal year, um had some complaint responses to care of those, many of the creek cleanups and the public outreach events.

Uh, we are at the farmers market again doing uh outreach for the community and spreading the good word.

So this current stormwater fee, it's uh quite old, it's from 1993.

Uh, was adopted at the time to cover the cost.

It was equitable at the time, but 30 years later, as we know, the cost to fund the stormwater program is increasing and the fee is staying the same.

Um, so it's therefore uh subsidized by the general fund into the stormwater fund.

Talked about this uh last year as I get to my last slide that the amendment process um there is a little bit of hope on the horizon to potentially uh realign the fees with what is needed to sustain the stormwater fund um with the uh passing of Senate bill two thirty one in two thousand seventeen it may lead a pathway to some cities or our cities and counties to be able to um increase the stormwater fees to match the cost of service still in the courts um and are looking at the validity of uh SB 231.

So we'll we'll keep you updated uh last slide and I'd like to uh follow up on any questions and discussions from the council please let's see what you've generated Brian um any questions for some of us this is old news uh sounds very familiar anyone have a question for Brian okay if if not um we just need a uh a resolution well let me let me uh if we have no questions let me close the public hearing and we need a resolution on the table and I will add to the record mayor no public speakers for the item thank you I'll make that motion motion and I'll second and a second thank you Vice Mayor Nagales yes mayor and Diego yes council member Nicholas Council Member Flores and Councilmember Coleman yes okay that's one down Brian rates.

Item number 17 is a report regarding a resolution establishing sewer service rates for the fiscal year 2026 27 amending the master fee schedule to include the fiscal year 2026-27 sewer service rates and adopting the report of annual sewer rentals charges for fiscal year 2026 27 item 17a is a resolution okay we'll go ahead and open the public hearing and we'll hear from Brian Schumacher plant superintendent thank you again Mr.

Mayor Brian Schumacher uh talking about sewer rates again this evening for this year uh moving into our final year of our five year rate cycle so just a quick presentation overview we'll be talking about some of the fund background uh what the sewer rate plan looked like for the last four years and our final fifth year some of the investments we're making in the infrastructure and we'll finish up with some questions from our city council.

So what do they fund our sewage our sewage fees fund not only the plant that falls under the responsibility of my dedicated team but all of the collection system that's beneath us and all of the major sewage pump stations that are out in town conveying the wastewater to the wastewater plant all supported from the sewer fund.

Wastewater treatment plant built in 1952 lower left corner shows a picture of the original plant that's near and dear to us and in the upper right corner shows our current facility as of our latest plant upgrade like to note that the plant is co-owned with San Marino about 25% of ownership and cost share for all of capital improvement projects and OM and maintenance.

Moving into our current sewer rate plan again we're in the fifth year first year was a two percent increase three years cost basically a CPI increase for the remaining years of three percent staff is recommending a three percent increase this year to support the funds that staff and the team are doing to keep rates low uh during our last plant upgrade we're very very fortunate to be able to get into a low interest clean water state revolving funds uh loan uh of which four million was forgiven because of some of the innovative projects that were included in the upgrade mostly green infrastructure and energy efficiency programs so that brought the loan down by four million in forgiveness also like to note that the impact fee paid by developers also offset the loan amount by almost 17 million dollars how do we compare to San Mateo County quite well we're still on the lower bracket probably fifth I think we're out we're at now just under $70 a month compared to uh the rest of Sam Teo County what are we doing as we move into the future?

A couple of highlights.

The big talk of the Bay Area is nutrient removal.

Happy to report that staff and the team working with um some biological consultants were able to stress test the plant during the summer of last year and currently meet our temporary interim limit or intern limit, and we're likely going to meet our 2030 limit, very few modifications to the plant, mainly just because of good planning and utilizing the extra capacity that we had.

So good news there, but we will be doing some pilot studies and tests to actually get permanent infrastructure in so that it's no longer just a test.

It could be an everyday treatment of wastewater to remove the nutrients that are responsible in part for some of the algae blooms in San Francisco Bay.

Some sea level rise projects.

One of our major pump stations as well as a plant is going to be receiving a seawall co-funded by the Army Corps for through the federal dollars.

Happy to report on that.

We're also uh finishing up some master planning around the sewer infrastructure, uh, sewer collection infrastructure, the pumps station infrastructure, and the plant as we move into our next five-year forecast as for what our main treatment plant future investments for in the infrastructure are going to look like as well as the collection system.

So as I move into the last slide, just want to say that it's all worth it.

Just looking from 1955 to the loadings of the pollutants into the San Francisco Bay are quite high.

You know, up 1975 was probably our peak at just under 250 pounds of pollutants going into San Francisco Bay.

And because of collection systems and the maintenance of pump stations, the building of pump stations and wastewater treatment plants and operation of those over the decades, we've been able to really significantly reduce the pollutants that are going into San Francisco Bay.

So with that, I will open it up for questions and discussion from the council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Schumacher.

Any questions on uh what's happening out of the plant?

Mr.

Mayor.

Uh Mr.

Schumacher, thank you for the presentation.

I just want to say thank you for for just the good planning and kind of staying ahead in terms of the maintenance and the repairs.

I've seen in some where some cities they've kind of defer their their repairs, and then it gets to a point where they actually have to increase the rates so much just to keep up with the maintenance and the repairs.

Uh so I'm glad that you were kind of thinking ahead in terms of helping the costs you might say in terms of the sticker shock in terms of repairs.

The one the one question I I did want to ask is, you know, we do have this low income sewer rebate program.

I just wonder if you can just talk about that because whenever we increase rates, I always want to make sure that we inform our residents that there are programs there available for those who might need some financial assistance.

Sure.

Thanks, Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

So the lower sewer income program is connected to anyone who is paying a property tax that qualifies for uh any type of assistance through PGE, for example, or California Water Service.

Any of those assistance programs that are individual or a family qualifies for, please come in and talk to our folks at the public works department.

They're happy to fill out the paperwork and get them their rebate.

Um still a little bit undersubscribed.

I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but there is capacity for additional um rebates for those that need it.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

That's all I have, Sir Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh just to be on your back, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, when when would the rates usually kick in?

When would um residents start seeing it?

So the residents will start seeing the new rate this next property tax cycle.

Okay, because I'm thinking if we could help promote and advertise through our social media and all of this, right, so that we could time it so that in case people do see this increase, they could then be directed to the to the rebate program too.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I just wanted to uh point out when when um Mr.

Schumacher was making reference to you know the pollutant load in San Francisco Bay back in the 50s, you know, when when Laura and I were standing at the stripe property looking at the bay, the magnificence of the bay from that view, and remembering what it was from that view in the 50s and 60s, because I was there.

Um, and and that was where our municipal dump was, and adjacent to it was a chemical plant that would put some of their effluent directly into the bay.

Um, and now it's turned around so much in one lifetime that it's it's the desirable portion of South San Francisco.

It's what allows companies like Stripe to um to bring some people into their organization because they're part of that that wonderful uh environment.

So it's um for your efforts, Brian, to keeping it clean.

Thank you on behalf of Iowa City.

We'll spread the spread.

Thank you.

And then do we have any um public comments on this one, Rosa?

No public comments.

Okay, so it's safe to uh close close the public hearing, and we'll go.

I think we do have a public comment.

Oh, good.

Yes, if you'd like, definitely, yeah.

Oh, you were saying uh, come up, yeah.

Come up to the mic so we get all this on the record.

Hi.

Um you know you do have the cleaning every Tuesday, but they're only doing it in the middle of the street, and all the dirt and the trees are going in to drain.

Yeah, what can we do?

Yeah, well, some communities um do have um uh days of the week where you have to be off one side of the street.

So I'm gonna encourage my colleagues to uh entertain that idea as soon as I'm off the council.

No, I live in uh Winston Manor, and they do come, but it's just in the middle of the street, and I it hurts it breaks my heart.

It is unfortunate.

Okay.

Any of the other members of the public would like to uh weigh in on any element of keeping it clean.

All right.

Let's go ahead and uh we've closed the public hearing now, and we'll have a um uh motion.

So moved.

Thank you, Floor.

And a second I'll second.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, and roll call.

Mayor Adiego, yes.

Council Member Coleman, yes, Councilmember Flores.

I Vice Mayor Nogales?

Yes.

And Councilmember Nicholas.

Aye.

Thank you.

Council.

Thank you, Mr.

Schumacher.

Moving on to administrative business is item number eighteen, a report regarding a resolution approving the South San Francisco Conference Center Authority fiscal year 2026-27 budget.

Item 18A is a resolution.

Welcome, Mr.

McGuire and staff.

And in case that we had you up early for a presentation, in case this doesn't go well.

Thank you very much.

I'm surprised I had to come back.

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

I am Jim McGuire, the CEO and executive director for the South San Francisco Conference Center.

On behalf of the Conference Center Authority Board, I am pleased to present our fiscal year 2026-2027 budget this evening.

Joining me tonight are former mayor and current authority vice chair, Richard Garbarino, our director of operations Cameron Fuji, and our Chief Financial Officer Katie Leong.

As you know, the conference center is a public entity and is required to generate sufficient revenues to cover its operating expenses without reliance on subsidies from the general fund.

During this past year, our team has once again exceeded net income projections.

Our budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 anticipated a surplus of 126,000.

However, we expect to finish this year with a positive result of approximately 288,000.

This performance is a direct result of strong sales activities, disciplined expense management, and additional interest earnings with our reserve account.

This past year, the conference center hosted over 115 events, with 63% representing repeat business and 30%, 37% with new business.

These events brought in more than 37,000 attendees and generated over 2,166 trackable hotel room nights for our hotel community, reflecting a modest 5.8% decrease in room nights compared to last year.

With the total number of events slightly lower than previous last year, this year's events were larger, multi-day, multi-day programs that drove increased revenues across all of our departments.

The conference center continues to host a diverse mix of events across a wide range of industries, including technology, AI, health care, biotechnology, corporate and city functions, social events, training associations, trade shows and exposed, celebrations of life and nonprofit organizations.

This translates into a market mix of 42% corporate business, 18% association and nonprofit, 17% government business, and 23% Smurf business.

As we are all aware, the Bay Area's tourism economy continues a gradual recovery.

This is evident in both transient occupancy tax and conference center tax performance, which, while still below prepandemic levels, continues to show encouraging upward trends.

According to San Francisco Travel, the region is making steady progress, which is very good.

South San Francisco hotels largely benchmark their performance against the success of San Francisco and Moscone Center.

Currently, San Francisco has recovered approximately 75% of its tourism economy, with visitor spending reaching 14.2 billion dollars in 2025.

However, international travel to the Bay Area remains a significant challenge.

The return of international visitors, including meaning planners and large-scale conferences, has been slower than anticipated.

Many international planners are now far more selective of choosing their destinations, and the United States is no longer viewed as the automatic default choice once it was prior to the pandemic.

According to Visit California, travel related spending in San Mateo County reached 4.7 billion dollars in 2025, representing a 3-4% increase over 2024.

San Mateo County once again outperformed California and national hotel occupancy levels, demonstrating strong and sustained demand for Bay Area visitation.

The national occupancy average is 64%, and we were 73% in San Mateo County.

This strength is largely driven by our proximity to San Francisco International Airport, as well as continued presence of biotech and technology industries along the peninsula corridor.

However, while occupancy remains strong, San Mateo has experienced a little bit slower growth and average daily rate.

A closer look at South San Francisco hotels shows occupancy at approximately 67% in 2025, with future occupancy projected around 70%.

And this aligns directly with the city's TOT as well as our conference center tax.

These figures are encouraging for San Mateo County.

San Mateo County currently has 15,000 hotel rooms, and 3300 of those rooms are right here in South San Francisco amongst our 28 hotels.

Looking ahead for fiscal year 2026-2027, the U.S.

conference and meetings outlook is expected to remain flat or maybe a modest growth compared to the current fiscal year.

Convention planners continue to be highly budget conscious with a strong emphasis on cost control.

Taking all these factors into consideration, the Conference Center's 2026-2027 fiscal year budget reflects just a modest increase in revenues by $63,000.

Accordingly, the conference center tax, based on the projected South San Francisco hotel occupancy, was budgeted at 67% for the fiscal year, and we are going to close the year at 67%.

So pretty good forecasting.

With valuable input from all of our hotel partners, the fiscal 26 27 year budget reflects a projected occupancy of 70% occupancy for conference center tax.

Returning to the conference center's ongoing efforts to strengthen and maintain our relationships with our hotel partners, we continue to host our quarterly hotel partner meetings.

Several of you city council members and city departments department heads have participated in these meetings, and thank you, Councilmember Merrill Flores for always uh your continued engagement and support with them.

These meetings provide a valuable forum where we invite industry experts and members of our local police department to serve as guest speakers, creating an opportunity for open communication and collaboration.

We also invite each of our hotel partners to showcase their properties at these meetings so we all know about the hotels.

I would like to recognize and thank our police department for the consistent support and active participation in these meetings and throughout the year, as well as our ongoing partnership with the conference center.

We consider our police department as part of our team.

Chief Campbell, thank you always for your support.

Other sales highlights of the conference center include hosting client luncheons in Sacramento for targeted and top meeting planners within the government and association markets, partnering with the San Francisco Peninsula for the San Mateo County, San Mateo County Hotels for IMAX in Las Vegas, which is the world's largest and most influential trade show for global meetings and events.

Participating in various trade shows across the country, showcasing the city of South San Francisco and the Conference Center, and we are expanding our sales and marketing efforts into Silicon Valley to further capture opportunities within the AI and broader technology sectors with digital ads and related blog posts on our website.

Speaking of our website, the performance is up 35% and produced 240 leads for us, and the sales team converted 8% of those leads, which is pretty good.

The South San Francisco Conference Center was recently featured in a three-page spread in the San Francisco Business Times, highlighting our city's thriving innovation sector and the vital role that the conference center plays in supporting that continued evolution.

In fact, our marketing message has long been clear where innovation gathers.

And today we are proud to bring that message to life.

So regarding innovation, most of you have met ARIA.

ARIA is our life-size human-like AI hologram and our latest knot to innovation who lives in our lobby.

Aria is an interact interactive digital assistant who welcomes guests, answers questions in real time, and enhances the overall visitor experience.

She can guide attendees to meeting rooms, provide event agendas, share information about the conference center, and highlight our valued hotel partners, local restaurants in the city of South San Francisco.

We have programmed ARIA to only provide information on South San Francisco hotels, restaurants, and small businesses.

Aria can understand and speak to you in 50 different languages.

Aria makes it fun too.

Guests can take selfies with ARIA, who creates a customized animated digital photo complete with a conference center branding in the picture of Sign Hill in the background.

And it's delivered instantly via a QR code and ready to share.

Even more exciting, ARIA is fully customizable for us to sell to our clients.

Our clients can tailor here or tailor here to their specific needs and even create a hologram of their CEO, welcoming attendees to the conference center, personally welcoming them and direct attendees to the meeting space and review agendas.

Aria is not here to replace people.

She is here to enhance the guest experience, support our clients, and elevate our marketing efforts in a truly unique way.

We are very proud to introduce ARIA as the first AI hologram in the city of South San Francisco and also at any convention or conference venue.

We welcome everybody to stop by and meet ARIA.

If you haven't already, she has improved a lot since she moved in about a month ago.

Regarding operations, the physical structure of our building remains in outstanding condition and essential preventative maintenance programs remain in place.

In order to keep our building in such shape, we must continue to address necessary capital projects.

This year's capital improvement budget entails funds for six projects that include a new HVAC unit for the Oyster Point Room, laptops for staff with cloud migration, the replacement of carpeting and all of our meeting spaces, which includes the grand ballroom, Baden Room, and the Oyster Point Room.

The carpet's 11 years old already, and paint the interior of all the meeting space, replace the fabric on the air walls, and resurface the roof above the warehouse.

This fiscal year's completed capital projects included the addition of an ADA accessible ramp to the front entrance to further improving accessibility.

We also modernize the building's fire system with installation of new smoke detectors, replaced the kitchen's original dishwasher, and paid tribute to the city of South San Francisco by adding custom murals of Sign Hill throughout the conference center.

In support of our sustainability initiatives, we also installed touchless hydration stations that track the number of plastic bottles saved, helping reduce single-use plastic waste while enhancing convenience for guests and staff.

Current projects that we are finishing up are the automatic sunshades for our sunny lobby and the upgrade of our administrative offices, which are also original.

The conference center remains dedicated to advancing sustainability initiatives.

Along with the hydration stations that I referenced earlier, we are collaborating with Rise South City as a designated site for an air quality monitoring device to help assess environmental conditions in the surrounding area of the conference center.

We are also committed not only to hosting successful events for our clients in our community, but we are also committed to active community involvement on multiple levels.

For example, Cameron Fuji, our director of operations, recently completed the Citizens Academy and is striving to be participating in the San Mateo County Leadership Corps program.

Our operations manager Jeff Leewog and our executive assistant Priscilla Chin have completed the South San Francisco Police Department's Community Academy.

We also proudly sponsor a local high school student through the Chamber of Commerce's scholarship program.

We utilize talents of our local high school students for events, and I've had the opportunity to serve as a hospitality expert on the panel for visit Walnut Creeks hospitality human trafficking program.

And I also served on the author on the advisory board for the San Francisco Peninsula.

We also participated in bio last year with the city and we will be participating again.

And we have already reached out to hundreds of qualified meeting planners from last year to visit us in the booth again this year.

The conference center's expenditure budget requests reflects a continuation budget and funds have been moderately increased in administrative and general operations and services due to more business coming into the building and the ever-growing inflation factor, including contract labor, the current administration's direction that affects travel and the rising costs of daily living expenses and other uncertainties.

Equally important to our success is our dedicated team.

The conference center staff is comprised of highly skilled, hardworking, and talented professionals who consistently with their commitment are critical to our operation.

Staff retention has remained strong and recognizing its important, a modest cost of living increase is built into the fiscal year 2627 budget along with funding to support ongoing professional development for the team.

The fiscal year 2627 budget includes a total revenue projection of 5,748,773, and a total expenditure request of $3,600,819.

Also included in the fiscal year 26-27 budget is a capital project request of 455,000 for the projects that I previously mentioned.

Bless you I am very pleased to report that we were able to grow our reserve fund balance to a record high of almost five million dollars.

This balance indicates that the conference center can operate and pay its expenses without general fund subsidies.

The fiscal year 2026-27 budget reflects a positive net income of 141,490, which is a slight improvement from last fiscal fiscal year's budget.

I would like to thank the budget subcommittee, which included Mayor A Diego for recommending the budget to the conference center authority.

The conference center authority board approved the fiscal year 26-27 budget at the regular meeting on June 1st, 2026.

They recommend the budget to the city council for your review and approval.

And if I may answer any questions about the upcoming fiscal year, I'd be more than happy to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jim.

And um, of course, we are a little disappointed that um Arya could not be in attendance with you this evening, but let her know there's an open invitation if you know.

I will tell her what language would you like that spoken in.

So let's uh let's see if we have any questions for you or comments.

Councilman Flores.

Uh thank you, Jim, and and the team, the staff and the committee and everyone who serves on it.

Um I really appreciate uh the creativeness behind your capital improvement projects.

That speaks to also why the revenue is coming in, right?

Because you are keeping it fresh, you're keeping it modern, you're keeping it innovative, and it it brings clients and customers back, and that's something that in any facility needs to be done.

And you're very methodical, you're very uh priority driven also, and not just you know, repairing all at once, but really understanding what the top needs and for that I I really appreciate it because you're you're showing care and in a very you know dated uh building as well.

So thank you for for being that.

We're all so thrilled um for what you're doing in innovation, and I'm sure uh labor folks are also happy that she's not replacing any human jobs, too.

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Flores.

Councilman Goldman.

Uh I'll be brief.

Um, you know, when Jim McGuire inherited his position, it was not an easy time uh to do so, as it was, you know, still um we were still experiencing the brunt of the COVID pandemic and and um the downturn in in travel and and conferences, um, but to see uh you really transform uh the conference center authority and to be in in the black and in the green is is something that I think we all should be very proud of.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for uh your work in keeping the conference center uh authority alive and and well and really serving the community um as I know you it's not just business events that occur there, it's also there are community events, there are weddings, there are parties, there are uh nonprofit gatherings there, and um that is really bringing together uh many aspects and and many sides of our shared community.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your comments, Councilman Coleman.

Thank you.

Uh Jim, I just want to say thank you to you and your team.

It's really a vast improvement over the years since you've taken over.

I just wanted to say every time I go there, I'm always wowed when I go into an event.

That's great.

And Arya, as we the name of the way I went like, what is this?

You know, it's innovating it's like you're always bringing something new, and I think that's what attracts a lot of people to come back to the conference center.

So I just want to say thank you for your your leadership and thank you to your amazing team.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We appreciate that very much.

Councilwoman.

Of course, the Conference Center is very close to my heart.

They spent 16 years uh spite of the authority board then.

So therefore, Jim, thank you for all your efforts and especially making it very relevant and the sustainability efforts.

I think it will move us towards the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Flora.

Appreciate it.

And Jim, I've known you for quite some time.

I remember how you conducted yourself at the Grosvenor and ran that um business up and up.

I mean, um, time you left.

I think it was somehow the premier hotel in South San Francisco, and now the the leadership you're showing at the conference center is just simply masterful.

So, thank you.

Thank you for staying with South San Francisco.

I appreciate it, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you for your comments.

So let's see if we can get a resolution out of this council for Mr.

So moved.

Second, we should go approved.

Second, second roll call.

I had two seconds.

Is it council member for us?

Sure.

Vice Mayor Nagales.

Yes.

Councilmember Coleman?

Yes.

Councilmember Nicholas.

Aye.

Council Member Flores.

Aye.

Mayor Andiego.

Yes.

There you are.

Thank you so much.

And again, thank you for the proclamation.

Coleman.

Councilman Coleman, not Coleman.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Done.

Thank you.

See you in San Diego, Joe.

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Given the approval of item number 18, we will not be reading item number 19 as it was an interim funding for the South San Francisco Conference Center.

We will now move on to item number 20, which is a report regarding the City of South San Francisco operating budget for fiscal year 2026-27 and approving the GAN appropriation limit.

Item 28 is the resolution.

Good evening, Ms.

Donnelly.

Good evening.

That's a big moment.

Thank you for having me, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, city staff, and members of the public.

I'm Christy Donnelly, the Finance Director, and I am excited to bring forward to this what I hope will be a pretty straightforward presentation on the budget adoption.

So this is just a quick recap of what we discussed last meeting on May 27th.

If they if you or anyone in the public would like to see details on that, that is all available on our on the council of the recordings.

Quick recap 156.9 in revenues, 162.4 in expenditures, leaving us with a 5.5 million dollar operating gap, which we are going to be covering by the use of available unassigned fund balance.

That is going to use some of our reserve, but it will keep well within policy of our reserve.

Looking at our general fund balance components, this is just a quick graphic of all of our unassigned fund balance and our committed and restricted.

Moving on to the updates and the questions that were presented at our last meeting.

That uses pretty much the rest of it, the budget that we had as far as so if anything in the next five or six months comes up that needs to be addressed, we will have to come back to council at that point.

But for right now, it looks like we have that funding.

Um I believe that the city manager answered the question regarding the DEI function that was integrated into the management analyst two role in our last meeting, but we did call that out in the staff report.

And the parking fund, we are reviewing options for addressing the deficit in that, but there are re um reserves sufficient to be able to cover that for the time being.

It is best viewed online with our digital budget book, and because you can scroll it, you can zoom in and so forth.

The main thing to show is that this year, this coming fiscal year 26-27, we're looking at about 5.5 million, as we've said.

That is going to increase that deficit will increase as we lose VLF funding, and as our CalPERS UAL payments increase.

So we've got both of those things happening at the same time, which takes away from our reserves, which then decreases our cash position, which then decreases our investment earnings.

So we are looking at a solution for things that we can do to address this, and that is something that we've talked about at being strategic and mindful of these upcoming years and what we need to do if there is no BLF resolution.

Also on tonight's um staff report and resolution is again appropriations limit.

This is uh annual ceiling on appropriations.

We've got up there on the slide the factors that were involved this year in calculating that.

Bottom line is that we are under the limit and we have quite a bit of cushion there.

So tonight we would ask that council adopt the res the budget for fiscal year 26 27 and establish a spending authority beginning in July 1st.

That you would approve the GAN limit as well, and there's a resolution for that, and that we would begin then the process of implementing the adopted budget and continuing to monitor as we move forward through through the year.

And that is my presentation.

I welcome any questions or discussion.

Okay, let's see if we have any questions or comments for the director.

Um very pensive there.

Any questions?

Okay, I guess everyone's just oh, thank you.

Um just want to address uh thank you for staff, city manager, and Miss Donnelly for addressing uh the follow-up questions.

I feel very confident and very safe about your responses and the follow-up.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

So with that, we're looking for a motion to approve the operating budget and approving the GAN appropriation limit.

Motion from Councilman Coleman.

So moved.

All second, second from the vice mayor.

Oh, do we have a public comment on this?

No public comments, Mayor.

Okay.

So let's go ahead with the roll call.

Councilmember Coleman.

Yes.

Councilmember Flores.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Nagawis?

Yes.

Mayor Andiego?

Yes.

And Councilmember Nicholas.

Hi.

Congratulations.

Moving on to item number 21.

Is a report regarding a resolution approving the proposed capital improvement program for fiscal year 2020 2026-27.

Item 21A and 21B are the resolutions.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers.

My name is Matt Rubel, your principal engineer.

Uh, before you this evening, we're doing a presentation on the final fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program for your consideration and approval.

In the interest of time, I'll be sharing an abbreviated version of the similar presentation we provided last month.

But if there's any detailed questions or conversation we would like to have, please stop me at any time and we can discuss.

The capital improvement program outlines major capital expenditure infrastructure improvements throughout the city.

The CIP includes 150 projects consisting of 15 new projects and 135 continuing projects across six infrastructure categories.

The chart and the slide before you illustrates the 31 projects included in this year's funding request.

The CIP is funded through a variety of sources, including grants, development impact fees, enterprise funds, bond proceeds, etc.

Through the annual CIP review process, staff has identified approximately 12.3 million in available funds that uh can be made free through closures, reprogramming of projects, funding source modifications, or deallocations.

One of the resolutions before you tonight will be to approve that item.

The second is the overall proposed fiscal year 26 27 CIP includes approximately 19.3 million in new appropriations to support the city's ongoing investment in critical infrastructure and community facilities.

Now as part of that, we have five parks projects as kind of illustrated by these photos, five public facilities projects, one sanitary sewer project, one storm drain project, seven street projects, and 12 traffic projects.

As a reminder, we have a five-year projection as included in the budget, which shows the anticipated needs in the out years that is not included in tonight's budget approval, but that would be totaling 144 million dollars worth of identified uh project needs.

So I request for council to approve two resolutions tonight.

One for the uh adoption of the CIP and its budget, and one to approve a resolution for the closure of the CIP projects and the uh corresponding budget amendment.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, let's see if we have uh some questions for you to entertain.

Anyone?

No, we discussed it in pretty lengthy last time.

So okay.

So I guess we did do a good job in the run-up to this.

And um, do we have any uh public comments on this item?

No public comments, Mayor.

Okay, thank you, Rosa.

So um, do we have to do separate motions for this?

Let's go ahead and do you can if you want to, but you can.

I would like to, okay.

Okay, yes.

So two separate motions.

Um, we'll do uh one on the uh on the budget itself, approving the fiscal year 26-27 CIP.

So moved okay.

A motion on the floor.

Well second.

Second by the vice mayor, roll call.

Mayor Adiego.

Yes, Vice Mayor Nagales.

Yes, Councilmember Flores.

Yes.

Councilmember Nicholas?

Aye.

Councilmember Coleman.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, and now we're looking to approve closure of select capital improvement projects.

A motion.

I'll make that motion.

Okay, a motion.

I'll second, and a second by councilman Coleman.

Roll call.

Councilmember Flores?

Yes.

Mayor Adiego?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Nagales?

Yes.

Councilmember Coleman?

Yes.

And Council Member Nicholas.

Aye.

Thank you.

We now move on to item number 22, which is a report to council on the status of the memorandum of understanding for school year 2025-26 and a resolution requesting approval of the update to the memorandum of understanding for school year 2026-27 between the city of South San Francisco and the South San Francisco Unified School District.

Item 22A is a resolution.

Welcome, Lieutenant Murphy.

I'm certain that you thought it was going to be a lot later before you were up on item 22, but uh we're just moving along this evening.

I am pleasantly surprised.

Uh good evening, Mayor Adiego, Vice Mayor Nicolas, and City Council members.

Um, I am Lieutenant Fromita Murphy presenting a report to council on the school liaison officer report for the school year 2025 and 2026, and the status of the memorandum of understanding for the upcoming school year of 2026-2027.

Uh, before I begin, I want to thank Superintendent Dr.

Sean Terra Moore uh for our ongoing partnership and thank director of student services from the school district, Ryan Seabers.

Uh, thanking him for being here tonight, and for his partnership.

Uh, the report you're about to receive will provide information on school incidents and mental health statistics involving the SLO program, the school staff survey initiated by the school district on the SLO program interactions, PD sponsored youth programs, partnerships and improvements, and ongoing training and development for the SLO program.

Uh, it should be noted the Board of Trust, the Board of School Board of Trustees meeting um to go over the annual report in MLU was scheduled for June 25th of 2026.

So there are no anticipated changes to the MLU from the school district or from the school board.

Um, and at this conclusion of this report, I'll be seeking council approval to adopt the resolution for the updated MOU agreement for the school year 2026 and 2027.

So, getting into it, for those of you who don't know, we have 15 school sites in our school district.

Um, 12 are within our city jurisdiction, with three elementary schools, uh, two in Daily City and one in San Bruno's city's jurisdiction.

There are three elementary schools, Juniper Serra, Skyline, and Monteverdi.

On the chart on the left is title police contacts.

It's a pie chart showing the amount of police contacts at high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools.

As you can see, the majority of our police contacts are with the high schools, then elementary schools, and lastly the middle schools.

The total amount of police contacts with the police departments, our stats show around 194 stats.

The school districts is 108 with our police department.

The total contacts per the district office are on par with what where it was last school year at 110, with an increase in school site-initiated police contacts from 64 to 79.

So basically the schools are calling us more often for various reasons.

And just to explain, there is a known disparity.

We're very familiar that there will be differences between our numbers and the school district numbers, mainly dependent on the way that the information is compiled.

So the school district collects data and defines contacts as anything from a police investigation, risk assessments, off campus issues, threats of harm or conflicts, fights, anticipated school visits for school programs, and consultations with our SLO.

These are collected from individual staff members and school administrators who add to a shared document throughout the school year.

For the police department, we collect this information through our record management system.

It's locked by types of calls and from which location they're coming from, and also tracked by our school resource officer.

We collect the data and defining police contacts as reported crimes, requesting police involvement, requests for counseling, follow-up investigations, adopt a schools, yes program visits, traffic monitoring, secure campus requests, and positive police interactions.

You may also notice that there is a sliver of an orange section there.

That's to quantify how many on-campus arrests were made, and we had one for the whole school year.

That was an incident that occurred off-school campus, but the student was arrested on campus due to safety concerns, and this happened at South San Francisco High School.

The chart on the right identifies and quantifies what group initiated police contact at the school campuses.

You see four groups.

They are broken down into school initiated, which is the largest group at 60% of initiated contacts, that's the most common.

Then we have parent initiated, that's typically surrounding an investigation or the parent wants police involvement.

And then police initiated, which is uh 13% also, typically an investigation or a follow-up, to something that has occurred on or off campus.

And the last category is student or other, and that's typically a risk assessment for a student for various reasons, such as uh CPS or a statement of self-harm.

On this slide, we have mental health statistics where police were involved to include our mental health clinician.

Um, as you can see, not all 15 schools are listed.

I've only quantified those that had mental health or welfare checks initiated for a police contact and or for our mental health clinician.

Uh, that's South San Francisco High School, El Camino, Baden, Parkway, Westboro, and Martin Elementary.

Uh, there were, sorry, go ahead.

Um, can we thank you?

Can we go back to the last slide?

So, um, you know, it's remarkable that of all those contacts, there was only one arrest that had to occur on school property, and and that's something I think generally we would try to avoid because of the upsetting nature of it and and such.

But in this case, you mentioned for safety reasons it was best to do that.

Can you elaborate without violating?

Yeah, it was a domestic violence-related call.

Okay, and just increased exposure.

All right, okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

Uh, so continuing, we did have 12 contacts that were mental health related or welfare checks on students, um, either for self-harm or or ideations towards others.

Um the mental health clinician and/or an officer evaluate the student, provided resources and counseling.

Out of those 12 contacts, 10 were actual mental health commitments where they had to seek further treatment off-campus.

Um, one was resulted in a CPS case referral, and one was provided counseling and left uh with family and further resources.

Uh, this is different from last school year, slightly.

Our mental health clinician was involved in 11 of these incidents, where eight of them resulted in a mental health commitment.

And just for information, I think a lot of this has to do with the school's efforts also.

They have embedded mental health professionals from YSB and YMCA on top of their academic school counselors, and they're still building their in house wellness counselors to better support students, especially those in Title I with more resources and best practices.

Per the MOU, the school district is required to conduct a student and staff survey in relation to our SLO program.

These surveys are sent to those categories of folks that had involvement with our SLO.

So it's not the entire school district.

For students, these surveys are sent to parents, requesting they fill out or give approval for the students to participate in the survey, so that is also a barrier sometimes.

So the school district totaled 58 contacts with our SLO for consultation or assistance, and received a total of 29 responses, which is about the same as last year's total, which was around 31.

On the left, you'll see a pie chart, and it delineates each category's completion of this survey.

The survey makeup is school staff members making up about 41% of the survey.

Students make up 38% of the responses, and school administrators make up 21 of the responses.

On the right, you'll see a breakdown of those responses on feeling safe at school with SLO on campuses.

One, feeling very unsafe to five feeling very safe.

We had one that said they did not feel safe at all with the school liaison on campus, that is the same as it was last year.

Took up about a 3.4% of the responses.

Last year we had around 70% that was uh felt safe or very safe with our school liaison officer.

This year it's gone up to over 85%, feeling safe or very safe.

Overall, sorry, go ahead.

If I may, Mr.

McPlease.

Um, how do we feel these surveys?

Um I can touch on it and then we'll have Brian Sebers come up, but they send them out to anyone who had school liaison officer contacts, whether it be through consultation or an assistance, and that's through school staff members, school site administrators, or students.

For students, there is one more hurdle they have to overcome, is which through the parent.

They send it to the parent and say, Can your child participate in this survey?

And then we gotta make sure they complete it.

Um, so although we do have 38% of those were made up by students, the majority was done by school staff members to say that they either appreciate the help or had some constructive criticism to our feedback.

Um the majority was positive.

Right, thank you.

Okay.

Um, so overall, based on the survey and the SLO's perceptions of his contacts and interactions, it seems there's a feeling of safety with the SLO on campus.

The feedback was positive and constructive, appreciating our SLO's assistance in many incidents.

The overall requests for improvement were centered around more involvement with educational and recreational contacts, such as like can we have them at back to school night?

Uh, what about recess or educational classes?

Um, and these areas have been addressed where the SLO can mitigate as much as he can.

He has participated in the school back to school night, obviously, can't make all of them, they occur at the same time.

He participated in our parent educational series at South City High School, participated in career days at all middle schools, and uh teaches the yes program, where he also then stays and has lunch with the kids or um does recess basketball with them.

I just wanted to share some photos of the officers interacting with the students in the classrooms.

This is a lot around our yes program and graduation from that program.

And then I'd also like to just read one response that I felt kind of summed up the survey.

The school liaison officers program has been a positive presence on our campus.

Our officers consistently build respectful and supportive relationships with students, staff, and families.

They are approachable, professional, and take the time to engage with students in meaningful ways, which helps build trust and creates a greater sense of safety on campus.

Their positive interactions with families and willingness to collaborate with school staff have also strengthened communication and community relationships.

Throughout the school year, we as a police department, we sponsor a lot of programs and through partnerships with the Park and Rack School District, DA's office.

We have participated in Red Ribbon Week, Special Olympics events at Westboro Middle School, Trunker Treat at Ponderosa, training with the schools on big five protocols, conducted traffic, safety, and enforcement, especially for the first day of school, which is always hectic.

Provided parent student educational series at South San Francisco High School and Career Affairs at all grade levels.

One of the biggest programs we continue to teach in the elementary schools with support from the school district is the yes or youth enrichment series to fifth graders.

And this just prepares them to for middle school and the types of decisions they may have to face.

Some of our new improvements have been identifying an increase in sexual assault reports from last year.

So I we'd implemented our DA to come and do juvenile sexual assault protocol trainings.

That's been helpful in getting everybody on the same page and lessening any sort of traumatic mishaps and investigations for victims.

We have also been working towards implementing the 911 for kids.

And that's something that was brought up last year, and I confirmed with Mr.

Siebers that we definitely want to roll that out for the 2026 and 2027 school year.

What's great about that program is it's education-based.

It's not only education-based, but it also builds a rapport with the younger children on how to call for help and that police officers are their friends.

We have also implemented a new program in lieu of the every 15 minutes program, which was inaugural year was last year with El Camino High School.

Around 250 seniors received that training or information through an assembly and then interactive, interactive type of learning stations.

So this year they have done it at both schools for sober prom.

So the week leading up to prom, they hit both high schools, seniors over 500 students, collaborated with MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and also the student body student-body leadership.

We continue to try to make this a component of self-accountability and responsibility with the student leadership and school staff.

We're challenging students to think about decision making and asking all students to make a pledge against impaired driving.

And the program seems to be well received by the schools, students, and school staff members, and we continue to seek ways to grow its impact each year.

Some other areas we've improved has been our communication and collaboration with the school district to the community.

We each used to kind of conduct our own press release, and one would push out and the other one push out.

This time we we work collectively with them and trying to prepare a clear message for the community so they're not confused by any information, and we continue to build that rapport with the school district.

This year, the SLO officer has also contacted school sites, mainly middle school and high schools in identifying e-bikes on campus.

That's been a big uh safety measure on our part, trying to provide education to the students and parents.

Some goals for improvement into the next school year would be to collaborate with the schools in increasing educational parent involvement and interaction, maybe offering these series or educational series through virtual.

A lot of parents are very busy and can't make those evening meetings.

Presenting QR codes with parent handouts at back to school night for topics such as e-bike safety or directing them to our website for reference information.

Our SLO officer is also looking to provide a short educational video for students explaining the laws and the dangers of e-bikes that they may be able to implement at the beginning of the school year.

Just to hit every kid that deserves a bite did happen in 2025, but that was the last school year, so that's the program that's transitioning, and we did not do it in 25-26.

We also understand the importance of ongoing training and development for our school liaison officers, continual.

So we send our school resource officers to a week-long school resource training.

This is where they learn to focus on establishing rapport and a foundation of trust with students and adults on campus, classroom management, juvenile laws, presentation of information to youth, availability, availability of resources and creating a true mentor.

Our current school liaison officer is also a principal policing instructor.

It facilitates discussions and implicit bias, procedural justice, and collaborative problem solving.

That's important for students who may feel like they don't have a voice, and just understanding the why of things happening.

And all our officers are CIT trained or critical incident trained.

And that's helping with uh those in crisis, people with disabilities recognizing implicit bias and understanding local resources.

It occurs within the county with the San Mateo County Office of Education and School Administrators to be on the same page.

I don't know where my last slide went.

There it is.

So the police department's requesting and recommends council to adopt the resolution for the updated memorandum of understanding agreement for school year 2627.

And that concludes my presentation, and I'm open to any comments, questions, or let's see if we can meet your expectations.

Yes.

Please, Council.

Thank you very much, Lieutenant, for the great presentation.

I just have a question.

Considering the resources we spend on this, and also with the school, why are we just doing this for an annual renewal?

Why can't be a multi-year?

That's just what's in the MOU, but I think that's also what the school board wants to seek.

And with it being that since it started in 2023, we have seen in positive growth through the MOU, and I think that we are getting to that stage.

We would like to do a multi-uh review.

Versus an annual review.

Yeah, because in the initial one, I understand it can be because we still have to adjust and you know fine-tune.

But maybe it's time to make it a multi-year MOVE.

Agreed.

Definitely work towards that.

Thanks.

So I will say while we can potentially maybe we do it every two years or every three years.

I do appreciate the data that is presented to the city council.

So maybe we can continue to be provided with annual data on these statistics so that we can be informed on you know what's happening with in our schools and if there's any ways we can improve that relationship.

Yeah, definitely the data is collected annually no matter what.

So thank you.

Thank you, Lieutenant Murphy, and the entire team for putting this together.

Um this really speaks to the volume of work uh that all teams thinking back almost seven years ago when this first very intense labor of love started, and now to see uh the success and be able to track data and and be able to see it.

I would welcome um, and I'm I'm very you know uh supportive and I'm voting yes on this renewal, but I also wanted to keep um some questions.

I wanted to uh emphasize to maybe include the year over year trends, right?

I I see the one rest, but I want to see how it compares to when we started, right?

To Flora's point of seeing how long we've come.

Um, so if we could continue to incorporate on that, um the survey uh is positive, extremely positive.

But we're 86% just the pool, the sample size.

If we could engage perhaps those individual staff, I don't know at in-service meetings and maybe create different mechanisms to engage those students.

Maybe some don't even want to relive anything about the incident, but maybe others, you know, maybe create a raffle if you fill out, you know, or make it easier for them QR codes that sort of just to improve response so it could solidify and strengthen the response rate.

Um also um I want to end on this, and you know, this is this is something that we need to start thinking about.

I appreciate the fact that we're thinking about maybe multi-year whatnot, but it also brings me back to um one of the items that we have identified potentially as a complete uh reduction or evaporation or non-existent if VLF continues to exist, is this exact program.

And that uh hurts me uh to even think that we would be at that level because it would set us back not even years, maybe decades of this tremendous progress.

Um, and this is something that I've been thinking about, right?

I mean, it is it is something real, and I want to, you know, kind of start thinking about in other jurisdictions.

Um, you know, uh, others have looked at a dedicated fund, right?

Um, maybe a grant or maybe even um school district cost-sharing agreements.

Um, we cannot let this just evaporate, right?

And and at the same time we cannot ignore VLF.

Maybe there's something that in uh the liaison committee we start maybe not this year since we're there, but as we enter next year, we cannot just eliminate this program.

We gotta start um really uh coming to the table as partners as collaborators with my colleagues on the school board as well and really uh to try to prevent this um from yeah evaporating right because this this this almost is I would say a model uh MOU um uh as compared to many other school districts that have completely eliminated right and didn't even bother to do the the hard work that we put in so I'd like to um start thinking about that my colleagues as well uh formalizing cost sharing agreements um with other uh potential partners as well but thank you thank you for this and uh appreciate uh all the information of course mayor um I agree with councilmember the council mayor though it'd be nice to see kind of the year to year trends to kind of see where we where we are um I maybe uh a point of clarification in terms of some of the data so for the let me go back to it sorry the school staff student survey so I just want to clarify so in order to participate in the survey there had to be some sort of touch point with the SRO is that is that correct yes and then for the student the parents have to give approval for it.

Yeah, yeah just uh in keeping with the MOU so section 10 yeah um is specifically identifies uh administrators uh students and school staff members who have had uh contact or involvement with the SLO um in whatever way it doesn't say in in how you would interact but some interaction has taken place and so we just we were sensitive to the fact that uh parents might not want uh direct contact about filling out a survey regarding law enforcement without their knowledge so we just as a courtesy send it through them to the students uh just to honor their authority right yeah and then there was a a point there where you were talking about data collection and how both the school district and the PD have kind of two different kind of data collection sets.

Did I get correctly yes and why is that and why haven't we kind of collaborated to make it more streamlined in terms of making sure the data is kind of the same.

Yeah they so police obviously have access to a system uh which grounds their entire operation which is uh both their dispatch system but also their records management is quite robust uh we have a student information system uh and then we have our own record keeping through our school administrators so what we're doing is we're entering into a log um any contacts that are made by our school staff uh through our school administrators as the main point of contact to be able to keep that data so there's a bit of manual entry to it we do we just unfortunately don't have uh you know enough staff to be dedicated specifically to records uh management of this type but it's I'm assuming that information is correct when at some at some point when you enter the data okay right so that and it's and what we consider a contact uh may be different than than in rare records because we're saying hey you make a phone call you receive a phone call it could just be somebody checking in or answering our question that's a contact we want to make sure we know in every case what that was about so then we delineate you know is that associated with the school lee as an officer uh at what site did that occur what was the reason what's the outcome is there a case number associated and then we do student demographics based on that as well uh and keep that student data grade level um uh ethnicity uh special education homeless foster use.

So there's different things that we keep uh the reason I bring it up is I'm glad that you kind of clarified in terms of the kind of the different data collections because I yeah I understand why you would ask the question, do you feel safe at school when you have contact with the SRO um but feeling safe at school can mean differently, mean something different for a student.

And I'm wondering if that data is being collected by the school district in terms of how students are feeling within going to school.

Do they feel like they're safe at school?

So the qu the the specific questions that we ask are, and I'll tell you tell you right now.

So we ask the baseline question, do you feel safe at school?

Yeah.

Because we don't make sure, you know, hey, are we are we dealing with uh a response that is then skewed?

And so their general perception about school or difficulties they may be having, bleeding into their perception, right?

About uh a police contact.

So then we say, uh, how do you view the police school liaison officers when they visit the school campus?

Then we ask, do you believe school liaison officers have a positive impact on the culture and climate of the school?

Uh and so then that and then that leads into the open-ended uh question of soliciting responses.

Um, for example, what uh Lieutenant Murphy just shared.

So those are yeah, those are the primary questions that we ask.

Okay, and um I appreciate thank you.

And I I'll just say this uh finishing up.

I think we went through like 13 14 different versions of the MOU.

And that really speaks to kind of the hard work that we put together along with our PD in the school district to really try to to get this right, and we continue to evolve in a sense because we know that issues come along, and I just really want to appreciate and say thank you for the collaboration that we've had with the school district.

Sixteen versions, sixteen versions.

There you go.

We're at sixteen.

Yeah.

And so I think that just shows to what um Councilman of Florida was talking about, how we continue to improve in terms of the relationship.

So it's indeed, yeah.

Uh may I make just a general uh complimentary comment here?

I hope.

Uh so uh in in my many years in the district, so in this position, I've been with the district for 17 years.

I've worked obviously where we're working with Chief Campbell, uh Chief has a party before him, Chief Masoni before him, and in all of the cases, uh I don't know how they do the selection process for who becomes a school liaison officer.

Um, but they are the absolute best.

They're the best officers uh possible that they could put in these positions, and a testament to that fact is if you look at their current leadership right now, who was just speaking moments ago, uh, Lieutenant Murphy, and then we have Captain Plank in the back here as well, uh, both having been former uh SLOs.

Uh, we had a recent issue at uh Spruce Elementary School, we had uh a response that was necessary.

We had multiple officers that were at that school, and every name that I heard was a former school liaison officer, and there's nothing more comforting than knowing that all of these former liaison officers are still a part of the force and um are well within uh helping out and and you know furthering the organization.

Um so we we have enjoyed the support uh of the police department.

We appreciate uh Chief Campbell's uh dedication to continuing to assist us in that regard.

And I will say, and I and I know that you were alluding to this moments ago about um the continuation potentially of this program or possibly not.

I would say that we rely heavily on someone who understands the nuances of school issues, very unlike um issues that are outside in the community.

Um there are times when school administrators just need a little assistance and direction that might help save a call through the regular dispatch system.

So in quantifying perhaps the uh the maybe the financial benefit, I would say, is was their time being saved where otherwise they might be, you know, calling through the regular system, or officers that are assigned to other beats might have to come in and address something, whereas the school liaison officer clearly knows how to handle these issues and is able to route them to the proper channels.

So that that has been of immense uh uh benefit to us.

We we deeply appreciate uh everything that they've done for us.

Thank you, thank you, yeah.

And thank you for the observation about the officers that have served in that capacity, um, and and the the depth of that in the department.

I think that you know, recalling the conversations during those 16 iterations, and um and that they were in it was an intense moment, but but the fruit of that labor uh is demonstrated here, is something that I think we can all be proud of, and I think it's important to continue to uh share it with the community, and I don't have a problem with annual basis um when these are the kind of numbers that we get to uh broadcast to the community.

Um, we should all be very proud of where we find ourselves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did we have any uh public comment on this item, Rosa?

No public comment, Mayor.

Okay, and um, see, so we need uh resign the resolution on the MOU.

So moved.

Second, and roll call.

Vice Mayor Nagales?

Yes, Councilmember Nicholas.

Aye, Councilmember Coleman.

Yes, Councilmember Flores?

Yes, Mayor Antigo.

Yes, thank you, Lieutenant.

Thank you, Mayor, and Vice Mayor and C Council Member.

Moving on to items from council committee reports and announcements.

Anyone, we were now so long.

We will now move on to closed session.

Item number 23.

It's conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section five four nine five seven point six, agency designated representatives, Laura Snyman, City Manager, Rich Lee, Assistant City Manager, Leah Lockhart, Human Resources Director, Employee Organizations, Teamsters, Local 856, mid-management unit.

Item 24 is a public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code section 54957, title city manager.

Item number 25 is a conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6.

Agency designated representatives, Mark Diego Mayor, and Skye Woodworth City Attorney, unrepresented employee city manager.

Item number 26 is a public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code section 54957, title city attorney.

And you want me to read this special moving on to our items on special city council agenda.

Item number one is a conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D1.

Name of case, County of San Mateo, ETAL versus State of California, County of San Francisco Superior Court case number CPF-25-519270.

Thank you, Rosa.

And now we'll go into closed session.

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