[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] chill [Music] he [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] he [Music] n [Music] oh one and welcome it's my pleasure to call to order this San Jose City council meeting for the afternoon of February 27th may we please have the roll call himz present Torres pres Cohen here Ortiz present Davis dwan pres Candelas here Foley here batra present K here Mayan here we have a quum gre
at thank you very much now if you're able please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stand indivisible andice today's invocation will be given by John Juan Vu former Global Interfaith prayer chair at PayPal and council member Jimenez will tell us more yeah thank you mayor uh good afternoon everyone today we have John Juan Vu who's going to be giving the invocation John's motto in life is to find ways to give back his gifts of time
Talent treasure and testimony both professionally personally and spiritually in addition to being a product manager manager at PayPal John volunteers for the PayPal believe and Interfaith employee Resource Group as a former Global Interfaith prayer chair John organized events to not only help his colleagues and leaders pray more but to ref ref each other's person's each person's faith and worldview to guide their morals and values on how they as a company treat their colleagues their products an
d most importantly their customers John resides in district 6 with his husband and is involved in the community as a lay minister of the dicese of San Jose and an lgbtq plus Advisory Board member of the San Jose police department appointed by Chief Tony Mata John's biggest accomplishments in life is being alive which I think we all share and sharing his stories to Elevate others so John please thank you so before we start I've given all of you a document of the Interfaith invocation for today an
d for those who are here there's also copies back there too fasting let's start talking about that quickly fasting is abstaining from something as a devout Catholic as you may know during the time of Lent many people give up something abstain from something if you're a little child most times we ask people to give up chocolate or if you're an adult give up social media but for me and for many people fasting is a beautiful thing for all faiths is to encourage you to abstain from something so you
can be transformed later on I want to say that for our Muslim brothers sisters and siblings during Ramadan they abstain from so much including food and water why because they want to remember the people around the world who do not have food clean water or the beautiful rights that the city of San Jose has offer to all the citizens including me in front of you and I will press this awesome button here oh it's so beautiful I'm asking all of you if you feel comfortable to read with me these little
lines are the things I encourage not only the city council but the whole entire citizens of San Jose to fast fromont and feast on so if you would like and you're not required to repeat with me fast from discouragement Feast onto hope fast from worry Feast onto trust fast from suspicion Feast onto truth fast from differences Feast onto Oneness fast from guilt Feast onto Freedom Fast from hostility Feast onto kindness fast from stress Feast onto self-care fast from discontent Feast onto gratitude
fast from pessimism Feast onto optimism fast from being in control Feast onto letting go fast from bitterness Feast onto forgiveness fast from apathy Feast on enthusiasm M fast from selfish selfishness Feast unto selflessness fast from complaining Feast onto appreciation fast from idle gossip Feast onto quiet silence fast from thoughts of illness Feast onto healing power fast from words that pollute Feast onto words that purify fast from withholding anger Feast onto sharing our feelings fast fro
m bad habits Feast onto healthy productive habits fast from judging others Feast unto understanding ourselves and others fast from isolation Feast onto time with those who love us fast from social media Feast onto meaningful relationships fast from Darkness around us Feast unto the light within us fast from being so busy Feast onto time with prayer and lastly fast from issues that overwhelm us Feast onto prayerful trusts I want to say thank you to all of you for taking the time to pray with me o
n this invocation and I hope that all of you including the cities of uh the citizens of San Jose will find ways to fast for to hopefully be transformed into someone better thank you thank you John we're now on to ceremonial items councilman Candelas if you join me at the podium we will recognize Mary Escobar all right so today I have the privilege of recognizing an exemplary Community leader in my district Mary Escobar who joined right next to me as a health clerk at George V Lea Middle School M
ary has supported our youth working to preserve not just the health of students but also fostering a caring environment at Lea uh where students can feel more comfortable and healthier her welcoming and empathetic attitude extends to Mary's additional work outside of school hours uh for the past 13 years the annual warm for winter coat drive has helped keep our vulnerable community members warm during the harsh winter months and every year she's led to the collection of at least 1,000 coats uh b
ut in two 2023 Mary brought the whole Community together for this project by partnering with my office all the schools within the Evergreen School District as well as a local nonprofit opening doors Mary's hard work and persistent effort paid off as we were able to collect a record-breaking number of coats just over 2,300 um every single coat jacket and sweater was able to go to our local nonprofit partner uh to provide to those who need it so true Community requires uh us to uplift one another
and Mary is the personification of this um thank you Mary uh for dedicating your time your energy uh and to making District 8 um a better and safer and warmer place for everybody so uh before I invite the mayor to present the Commendation i' I'd love to offer you an opportunity to say a few words hi y'all um my biggest thanks to my husband Dominic for delivering truckloads of coats and for allowing the yearly invasion of them to take over his garage thank you to my daughter Mela and my son James
for your love and support thanks to my mentor of many years Chris quick RN who inspires me with her kindness and altruism to council me member candelis and his crew sashan and Catalina who brought so much fun to the kickoff and whose partnership made it possible to collect over 2,000 codes Verve and thank you for tiisha and Cindy for showing me the love now I'll invite the mayor to present the commodation [Applause] I'd like to invite council member Cohen on up and Lori and the San Jose clean e
nergy team if you all want to come on down going to be recognizing Lori Mitchell and the San Jose clean energy team as they head to their fifth year anniversary as a program here as an apartment here at the city of San Jose congratulations down this team has grown bigger than I remember when we got started look at this impressive hi everybody welcome we got the whole team here all right excellent today we are recognizing the amazing San Jose clean energy team on the occasion of their fiveyear an
niversary congratulations on five years of service to our community I'm so impressed with the growth and impact of the San Jose clean energy program I'm joined by my colleague council member David Cohen who himself has been a great Champion for the environment and has advocated for causes like increasing our City's tree canopy increasing access to electric vehicles and charging and so many other initiatives to help reduce our environmental impact and preserve our environment for future Generatio
ns San Jose's San Jose clean Energy's Roots started way back in 2010 when a group of passionate Community Advocates came to the city council and asked the council at the time to consider forming a Community Choice aggregation program and in 2017 so it took a bit of work and persuasion obviously but in 2017 the city council unanimously voted to create San Jose clean energy and of course that Community aggregation model allows us to pull our purchasing power as a community as residents and busines
ses and make decisions about how we use those dollars to prioritize cleaner sources of energy and promote Innovation San Jose clean energy helps our city fill an important promise to every resident keeping costs as affordable as possible while spurring economic prosperity and helping us reach our climate smart goals we have one of the cleanest mixes of power of any major city in the US and are on track to be carbon neutral by 2030 I've been impressed by how the team and the Department's leadersh
ip thoughtfully balance economic growth and and affordability with making sure our neighbors are getting the support they need with programs like SJ cares and the emergency Bill relief pilot we appreciate their transparency and working with the public various organizations and city offices to serve our community and explain what are often complex and Technical policy decisions so before we present this Commendation on behalf of the council I'd like to ask San clean energy director Lori Mitchell
to say a few words Lori thank you mayor and council member Cohen um yeah I'm so proud to have led this team over the last five years as the mayor said we are one of the nation's largest renewable energy providers um and we've accomplished that in just five years so while we've also maintained a really high customer participation rate over 97% of the city is in our program so only 3% have opted out our rates are 8% lower than PG right now and we're 60% renewable energy and if you think about what
the emissions um reduction goals are you know we have reduced over 5 million metric tons of carbon over the last five years and that's equivalent to taking a million cars off the road so I really want to thank my whole team here um without their amazing work and dedication we wouldn't have been been able to achieve all these goals and really thank the mayor and the council for all their support over the years awesome you guys for service to the city apprciate you're having a huge impact getbody
we're gonna have to all sze in team everybody in [Music] good okay we are on to orders of the day I'm going to turn to assistant city manager Lee Willcox first I believe the administration may want to defer one item said yes we'd like to defer item 3.4 uh the amendments to title 12 gifs ordinance we have staff out six so they're unavailable to present or answer questions okay sounds good we need a motion for that is that right do we have a motion second was that a motion Council M Torres okay a
nd a second Council M dwan and that again just for the record is to defer item 3.4 until we have staff available to do the presentation any other changes to the printed agenda anyone would like to propose okay let's go to public comment and then we will vote on orders of the day no public comment okay let's vote motion passes great thank you we're on to the Clos session report thank you mayor uh we have a report out of close session today the city council has unanimously approved uh in Clos sess
ion it'll be coming to uh Open session next week the filing or the joining of an amus brief that's uh also being filed by the gord's Law Center and the Brady Center to prevent gun violence in the city of Chicago versus West Fourth Sports Inc case it is is uh venued in the appell at court of Illinois First Judicial District case number 1-23-1 1908 and the uh it is an appeal from a Circuit Court of Cook County Illinois decision um against the city of Chicago that was bringing an action against a u
h licensed uh gun business that was not following Federal protocols to determine whether or not gun purchases were being made um as straw purchases and Chicago's been able to link uh gun sales at this store in Indiana to gun violence in Chicago and uh the city of San Jose has um its own ordinance and uh efforts to control straw purchases and has an interest um similar to that of the city of Chicago and we are therefore um recommending commending that the uh Council join the amus brief we'll have
that in Open session next week thank you that'll come to open session next week great thank you Norah appreciate that okay we're on to the consent calendar are there any items Council would like to pull I believe council member botra would like to pull item 2.10 is that correct any others that's just for comment I assume for comments okay great anyone else okay councilor vatra 2.10 okay thank you mayor for letting me pull a gem hidden in this consent calendar okay uh the Hidden Gem is a project
which was first approved as a part of the fiscal year 2019 2020 it's an allinclusive playground at Almaden Lake okay which happens to be in District 10 okay this renovation will transform an existing 20229 square feet playground into an allinclusive playground for all ages all abilities and for all residents the community will get to use this park all inclusive Park in February 2025 the work on the construction is going to expect it to start in may 2024 even though the project was approved in t
he fiscal year 2019 2020 because of the pandemic and other reasons it has been pushed out this is an example of a project which is being funded by the city by the county and many generous organizations 6712 50 will be given to us for this project by the Santa Clara County under the vision of Jo sman who saw the allinclusive parks to be available in city of or in the county of Santa Clara almadan Valley Rotary Club has given 162,000 and other organizations like almadan senior association kavanas
club Knight Foundation almadan super Lions Club West Valley Federated Women's Club so this is a combination of work by the city staff City money County money and by the generous donations of our aristic organization so it will be a park made by all for all so I want to thank everybody who has worked on it and we will all enjoy it together look forward to seeing everybody coming in May 2025 and probably on 4th of July when we celebrate our 4th of July celebration in this park everybody is invited
right now by the council member district 10 thank you mayor for giving me the opportunity to tell this story absolutely thanks council member and I'll just add a few thank yous I I appreciate you continuing to Champion this project and how how much progress has been made over the last year also want to thank our former colleague councelor cus who helped get this into the budget and and initiated the the project and of course as you mentioned County of Santa Clara who's matching a contribution f
rom the city very generously it's a great partnership we're doing these all inclusive play Gardens and some of our most significant parks in the city that are used by residents from across the South Bay also want to just thank aladen rotary Women's Club Lions Club Kanas and all the different Community groups who have come together to raise quite a bit of money from the community as well so I appreciate you highlighting that great Community effort I also saw Council torres's hand go up did you ha
ve an item from consent you wanted to pull or do you want to comment on the all inclusive play I have a a question please yes I see John here John um I just want to ask a quick question congratulations on the multiple facets of of funding by the way uh this uh Park is being also funded through general fund Capital Improvement funds parked impact impact fees John Celli director parks recreation Neighborhood Services yes these are capital funds which can be a mix of trust funds construction convey
ance taxes those sorts of things okay great not not general fund not through the general fund great maintenance of it will be general fund of course yes great thank you that was all the questions I have thank you I make a move move the motion to accept the consent calendar great we have a motion to accept the consent calendar as a whole second great second from Tes thank you uh let's go to public comment no public comment okay let's vote motion passes great thank you okay we're on to the land us
e consent we have item 10.1 a and 10.1 B members of the council want to pull either item or make a motion do we have a motion on land consent second thank you motion for Council Mena second from Foley let's go to public comment no public comment okay let's vote motion passes great thank you okay we're on to item 3.1 report of the city manager thank you mayor I have no report today all right thank you Jennifer we are on to item 3.3 annual report on measure T the uh disaster preparedness Public Sa
fety and infrastructure General obligation Bond program proceeds and allocations for fiscal year 2223 we have a brief staff presentation and we have our oversight committee here it looks like I met all right welcome everyone feel free to grab a seat and Matt and shudy as soon as you're ready feel free to jump in good afternoon I'm Matt lash director of Public Works and with me are three members of our citizens oversight committee for measure T so what this is is a presentation of last fiscal Yea
r's audit report and their findings of the from the committee and on the measure te performance up to date of last June 2023 of note we'll be back next month to talk about current status of projects and where they're going as of right now we'll come back next march for all this coming March in one month we'll be here with all the details about all the projects that you'll be asking about uh and have interest about going forward okay good afternoon Mr Mayor um city council members and staff my na
me is shuy uh from San Jose District 9 UM as a chair for the San Jose Community overnight oversight committee uh for this year I would like to present um our annual report for the fiscal year 2022 23 um before I begin I just a quick shout out um to my ad hoc committee members Vice chair Nick Cochran um district one Committee Member and ex-chair Gary Cunningham um uh J J shr Wason who's probably on the call um from uh District Six uh and the rest of the COC staff and also the DPW staff uh who hav
e really helped us in producing the report and also making sure the oversight process is run very smoothly um our detailed annual report was shared with the Council on February 5th 2024 this month and uh which includes all our observations uh for the fiscal year ending in June 30th um 2023 um also um as for a recommendation from the previous year um there was a some my annual report that the DPW staff shared in September of 2023 um uh we would for uh regarding our conclusions all the COC members
have reviewed um the expenditures U and also along with the auditor's report and we would like to confirm that all of the uh spending was within the authorized measure te categories and also expended on a timely basis um to retain the tax exempt status next slide please um this table here um I mean just as a recap shows the measure te funding was a water approved fund of 650 million out of which um two bonds have been issued and so far 44.4 million have been issued today with a remaining Bond o
f two 29.6 million um and um yeah this is just a summary of what the measure te spending so far has been next slide please okay thank you um this detailed table here really shows our funding uh are spending the audited use of funds by your by program category um the total so far for the four years have been 26.7 million uh from 2019 to 2023 fiscal years and last year our spending was 60.3 Million I would like to um highlight here majority has of our funding has been spent on the program category
traffic which is primarily our city streets um repairs and resurfacing um but you know so far um the original for the measure te was 420 m out of which uh the do has made significant progress in completing 400 miles as of last um sorry November 2023 they have completed close to 400 miles but um however the COC would like to um is unable to draw more conclusions because we the the city reer uh surfacing program uh also includes funds from other um measures like the measure b um so we are not abl
e to entirely the whole budget of the 300 million was spent accordingly to um asorted the original plan next slide please thank you so moving on to our general observations and comments um our first big concern is the cons continued low rate of spending uh versus planed spending um as the previous table highlighted that from 2019 to 2023 only 59.2% of the 440 million have been spent and the bond indenture really requires that 85% of the proceeds need to be spent within the three years of isuranc
e to qualify for the tax exempt status um so which means from um 13 135.4 million needs to really be spent between the July 2023 and the 2024 uh fiscal years um to our to get the tax exm status so the first ran that was issued has met the tax exempt status but the second trench that was in introduced um issued in 2021 still hasn't so this is one of our major concerns that has been communicated ated to the DPW staff um also any further delays or deferrals uh will continue to uh put the measure te
projects at a risk of cost overruns and inflation um this has been the Our concern with the low rate of spending um our second big concern is the public safety projects uh are at a considerable financial and budgetary risk um this includes several big projects within the city uh which are important but as of now we have uh completely overrun the Public saity Reserve when we started off it was close to three 36 million and now we are left with only 6 million if you move to the next slide please
um these are all the Public Safety projects that are currently in the design or the scoping phase um which have already have a huge Delta that we have used from the public safety reserves and um you know as you can see all of these are very critical infrastructure projects uh for our city okay moving on um so um based on the previous slides we have two specific recommendation number one we would like to see a priority for these Public Safety projects um to ensure that you know now now that we ha
ve completely you know not so much reserves wed and we are still in the very early phases of these projects we would like to see um titer budget process make sure um these projects are managed uh and and and assigned the priority so that we are not surprised by any other uh new Corrections and make sure the spending is handled well and our second recommendation is to fill our COC SE seats as of now we have district 7 district 10 City byde labor and uh Finance and Accounting open uh I we just hea
rd that um council member batra is full almost ready to fill the district 10 seat so we're very happy for that uh the district 7 seat has been open for a very long time and um you know we would really like this to be filled um as soon as possible uh so that we can have effective meetings because we previously we've had to cancel meetings without having a quorum and uh I'm sure this is a fair representation from all our districts so thank you thank you for this opportunity and uh yeah any other q
uestions okay thank you great does that conclude the presentation I assume it does okay Matt you're good okay great well thank you for that uh report from the oversight committee shudy um Nick and Gary want to thank you and your colleagues for providing this really important oversight role we can't oversee everything ourselves which is why we rely on citizen Le commissions to help us keep an eye on everything ask those questions and produce this kind of analysis definitely an insightful report I
appreciate your service to the community so thank you for putting in the time and noted that we have some open seats we need to work on filling so I just made a note to myself to work on that uh we're going to go to public comment and then we'll come back for Council deliberation no public comment okay we're back to council deliberation thank you okay we're moving right along here let me turn to colleagues as I do that I'll just I'll add the recognition to the transportation department overall
think we're doing a really good job of getting out there and through that backlog of under maintained roads clearly the report raises some other areas where uh maybe we can accelerate efforts but let me let me go to colleagues first I see councilor batra who I know as if I remember correctly served on this commission is that right all right council member let's see those tough questions yeah so I I resigned from that commission after getting appointed as a council member so I was there for 3 yea
rs uh so I had the real the privilege to work with the people who are presenting today and I still miss them as a part of that committee so uh I I have provided the name of district 10 representative a very qualified very passionate person to serve on a public service so you will find hard to be a great colleague on that one so that's number one uh I do have a couple of questions the pages which show Public Safety projects at financial budget risk the numbers which are in paranis are they overru
n or they representing the underrun there the spending overrun oh right so that's how much we ate into the public safety reserves so so the biggest ones I see there's the police department dep training center and police department air support unit hanger 13 million and 9 million look like they are either the cost is going to be more or something is definite do we have the money within the buckets to shift or we are at the risk of not being able to do these two projects um I'd like to have um you
know Matt here from the DPW answer them but yeah as of now they have been you know they've been assigned from the reserves but please go ahead yes there's there is money in the reserves and so again this is the numbers as of June 30th 2023 not current dollars or the current Awards and those projects were awarded and those projects are under construction okay all right so so they're not at RIS those are not at risk for being done yes correct excellent okay yeah so based on my experience I think
I can say that the Public Works have done a great job of managing this number of projects in various categories and with $650 million you kept the projects within the scope of original scope and youve also kept them within the budget and you juggle money around from one place to the other to make sure that everything continues to happen and uh this $135 million which you need to spend uh before July 2024 M are you comfortable that you're going to be able to do that and not run the risk of having
the IRS issues so when we come back next in March next month we will display to you the project and our implementation schedule and the plans so again these are numbers as of June last year we've already expended some of them now as of this current date and we'll show you in March what exactly is going to happen with the rest of it okay great okay thank you very much for the alerting of the thing and and the uh proceeding the projects and keeping track of it thank you very much for your service
and thank you very much Public Works keeping everything on track uh this was a complex set of projects and uh many different areas so I appreciate all the great great work done by both the COC and the public works thank you mayor great I actually move make the motion to accept the report okay thank you have a motion of a second let me turn to council member Foley thank you thank you shudy for that presentation um and thank you to public works for the the work and particularly the co cooc for ov
erseeing how the dollars are spent and that they're spent in accordance with the Bond measure that was passed by our voters Matt you answered the question but I wasn't clear about it you said we're going to talk about it in March but I'm wondering if we could talk about it briefly without going into specifics are you saying that the dollars that we need to spend by June 30th we will be able to yes okay that's what I wanted to hear and if we aren't what is the risk you said yes but what's the dow
nside if something happens and we can't so the question would be is so um I'll have to ask Finance to talk about the bond issues and so that what the what are risk if we are unable to at any point rearrange any money to towards projects that are implementable um and so we have a slate of projects that are on that are on track um and do we have any flexibility around those allocations to move things forward or not and so I see someone from Finance who's going to tell us exactly what happens if at
all we can't rearrange enough and meet that Bond expenditure but you're confident that we can I'm just I just want to understand the risk if if something happens sure um thank you council member fly my name is Chena I'm the deputy director of Finance for Deb and treasury so IRS has very strict spending rules for tax exempt bomb proceeds um uh the the COC member uh Committee Member I have talked about uh IRS requires us to spend uh 85% of the tax exemp Bond proceeds within three years of issuran
ce um so we're running up to some Pro issues with the 2021 Bond proceeds um some of the bond are sold as tax exempt we have not reached the 85% Mark we have been diligently monitoring the bond spending within the city we are documenting um all the city's project Pro process U creating internal memo files for the city um to be prepared if the IRS would audit us um there is no definitive conclusion whether we the city will lose the tax exempt status for those bonds but we are documenting all the p
rocess to be able to explain to IRS so should they come to the city for not it okay thank you I appreciate that that's good information and I look forward to the report next month four weeks thank you that's it for me thank you right thank you thanks council member appreciate the question vice mayor KEH don't go away yet so so um first of all I want to thank the committee for all your wonderful work and and time in in doing this and bringing it to our attention you know I was I was wondering whe
n we're talking about spending uh is spending like like in like invoices and money out the door or is allocated and appropriated sufficient when we talk about spending we're talking about money being paid out paid out the door okay expenditure incurred okay so it sounds like we have a situation where there's a high uh probability that we will be okay and spend it before our time frame the other thing that I I was wondering was is there a way that you know through our planning we we can avoid thi
s because this has sort of been accumulating over time and uh I just think that in terms of looking at our planning and all of that we still have a chunk of bonds that has not been issued so that when we're going to do that we can kind of like lay things out a little bit so that we're not in this situation sure good assessment um vice mayor K yes uh Finance is working with the Departments including Public Works closely and to determine this timing of the bond issuance originally we had a plan to
issue additional G geod this year um we have assessed all the project spending determined this year we don't really need the money uh to issue uh so we are going to reassess all the project spending next next year meaning January 2025 to deter to determine whether we will issue additional geod uh in 2025 so we are really watching the project spending closely TR to time the project the bond issuance to coincide with the construction uh progress yeah and and and lastly you know and just I know th
is is sort of like uh hindsight is 2020 but you know how how did we even get to this was it during the covid season or I'm just wondering how we got behind in the spending well I think there's been several things that have gone on some of the project projects when we've gone out to bid we've had to rebid them and so schedules have gotten changed um on that some of it was AC acquisition to design and so since I've taken over it directorates kind of get everything reconed and get the plan organize
d and get things implemented and so you'll see things we've already implemented already again this what's sort of tricky about this report is you see things as they were in June as they are now and as you've seen we've me issued Awards to several projects already that will consume some of the money the key thing for her is that we spend it and so not just issue the project and award the project but actually get things built in invoices paid and so you'll see those things tracking as well okay so
we have a good plan we're hoping to execute on the plan and but Hope's not a strategy or a plan right thank you thank you so much thank you vice mayor council m d thank you the report and thank you for the great work um only got one question if we lose the tax exempt what is the approximate cost it's going to cost the city sorry could you repeat your question there's been accur in couldn't here right so so if we lose the tax exempt meaning we're going to have to pay taxes um how much would that
be it's a bond holder so I couldn't get the last few words of yours so if the IRS will assess the cities that Bond exempt status and determine that bonds need to be uh will lose the tax exempt status to become taxable there will be a huge impact to the market because all the bump holders uh they have not paid any income tax for the uh for the interest payment they have received and they will be on the on be liable to paying all the back income tax and also their City could potentially be risk t
o to receive some penalties from IRS that's hope it's not going to happen to the city and that's why we're making every effort to documenting the city's good faith effort effort to monitor the project trying to do our best to spend the bond proceeds within the reasonable amount of time so both Bond holders and the city will be liable for taxes potentially yeah potential taxes yeah well let's say we we lost the exemption what are the percent of taxes would that be for both the bond holders and an
d the city the tax rate per yeah tax rate the tax rate will be for Bond holders it will be become um be like depending on your income tax bracket uh the city is not tax taxable organization where tax exempt Municipal Corporation were not liable to pay income taxes but we will get some penalties and then they are also some hidden risk towards that if the city loses tax exam status it will cause some loss of confidence in the market and in the future could the city could risk uh some um access to
the Capital Market we are a large city and we always need a capital Improvement needs we want to be able to have access to the Capital Market to be able to raise debt um and I want the entire Council to be fully assured the city staff is work working making every effort to document our process and improve improving our uh project uh you know uh progress and then try to spend the money as soon as we can I have full confidence in our staff to do so thank you thanks council member appreciate that u
h Council menz yeah thank you just uh had a few simple questions related to slide six and uh if you look at the slide it you know it's titled the public safety projects financial budget risk and then goes through measure T projects project location that's the first question that I had is obviously some are listed as district 7 some are listed as CW I'm trying to understand specifically the police training center I was thinking it says Citywide City Citywide oh oh I understand that that the impli
cations are Citywide is oh I I get it I get it okay and then I was going to ask what I don't know if it's reallocated or relocated that's next to the Police Department Training Center is that what is that in reference to so we're moving it from remember some of the work is being done at substation now it's being built I get it okay okay I was I was when I saw that I was like are we moving things around and then I didn't see the council just so anyways I was that was a little concerned for a mome
nt but cool thank you appreciate it great thanks council member okay um appreciate my colleagues questions yeah I was also going to ask some questions about our ability to spend down but it sounds like best thing to do is wait four weeks get the update in March and we'll see where staff thinks we are uh so appreciate that thank you for the report very helpful to hear from the oversight committee I don't see any other hands we do have a motion on the floor to AC accept the report so let's go we w
e already asked for public comment we did okay we're ready to vote motion passes great thank you all right thank you all again we are on to let's see here we have deferred under orders of the day we deferred item 3.4 so we are on to item 3.5 request for a revolving door waiver just an introduction mayor I believe yes go ahead the city's revolving door ordinance applies when a former employee goes to work for an entity that may come before the city council in general the former employee is prohib
ited for one year from coming before the city council Council committees City boards or Commissioners or city staff to Lobby or represent another entity the council can wave the prohibition if it determines that it is in the city's best interest to allow the former employee to come before the council and its various officials Magdalena carasco is here and has submitted a letter requesting a waiver she was employed as the district three chief of staff for three months and her one-year evolving do
or period will end in April 1st 2024 the rules committee has forwarded this request to the council for consideration the council can approve or deny the revolving door waiver request and if the council determines that it is in the city's best interest and consistent with the purposes of the revolving door ordinance to Grant a waiver it will need to adopt the findings on page three of the staff memo great thank you and just process-wise do we hear from the applicant or do we just go straight to p
ublic comment yes magdal carasco is going to make her way to the podium great former Council carasco welcome it's good to see you good afternoon everybody nice to see you all uh mayor vice mayor and former colleagues um I I have to apologize in advance uh the committee members from the rules committee already heard my speech but I thought it was so good so I'm keeping it as is so apologies um I'm here to request a waiver to the city's revolving door ordinance so that I may continue doing the wor
k that I love and that I'm so deeply passionate about uh this is work that I also believe is of great benefit to the entire community of the city of San Jose uh at Latino education advancement Foundation otherwise known as leaf and eii which is the Eide education ini initiative we're launching an informative campaign that sheds light on the disparities in education funding particularly in the areas such as e San Jose Franklin McKinley School District um Oak Grove and San Unified School District
the lack of adequate funding results in the scarcity of resources and support for our kiddos creating a detrimental domino effect that hinders our students preparedness and success for higher education and I'm sure you've seen them but the statistics are worth mentioning they're alarming only 17% of our kiddos who attend Community College end up transferring to fouryear and even when they transfer to fouryear the graduation rates are dismal at best moreover every single year approximately 4,000
students from San Jose Unified School District and East Side un uh Union High School District graduate into minimum paying jobs that means that these students are just not prepared uh to take on life's challenges or to live in Silicon Valley for that matter Leaf is dedicated to supporting our students through various initiatives including academic meeting academic requirements and ongoing support in college we Empower parents through 31 workshops that we uh produce every single year to a tune of
almost 1,200 parents a year that are being trained uh we've given about a million dollar in scholarship funds $50,000 in emergency funds especially during the pandemic our efforts have yielded a promising result with our students maintaining an impressive 91% persistence rate in college that means that those kiddos who do make it into the four-year and into Community College uh approximately 91% of those kiddos are actually staying and graduating it's impressive this success underscores the inv
aluable impact of our work in shaping the future of our youth I'm committed to continuing uh to add I hope value to this conversation uh I'm definitely committed to our students in the city of santose especially those who who really are in need of support I hope that you'll consider my request thank you great thank you former councelor carasco great to see you when don't we go to public comment no other public comment back to council great we'll come back to the council then thank you Council To
res yes it is my honor to move and approve item 3.5 as council member rasco was my former boss so all right we have a second from council member Foley thank you both uh council batra do you have a comment or question no I have a comment uh I think our employee is going towards advancing the education and we are always supportive of making the education of the Next Generation to be the key item because our future lies on them so I'm very supportive of this move to make that exemption be given and
Har be a to carry on the work she is so dearly loves to carry and the city needs to be carried thank you all right thank you for those comments council member not seen any other hands let's vote motion passes all right excellent we are on to item 4.1 this is our 911 event data analysis report and we'll begin with a staff presentation good afternoon uh my name is Peter Hamilton I'm an assistant to the city manager in the city manager's office and I'm joined today in the Box for the presentation
by uh Deputy uh Chief Brian shab and we're here today to present to you on the 911 event data analysis report and this report uh or originates with the mayor's March budget message from last year uh which uh as approved by the council directed the city manager to identify types of 911 events that could be responded to with a resource other than police officers uh so that is the that is the question we attempt to answer with this report what categories of 911 events can receive an alternate respo
nse and a few words about uh kind of the goal and the the methodology of this project so start with the question well why would we want to send someone other than police uh staff to an event and we really came up with two two benefits first uh you know our police officers are very good at what they do but there are some circumstances where where there may be civilian personnel with different types of training that can serve uh that can serve the public better in certain circumstances for example
somebody experiencing a mental health event um a clinician who's trained to help somebody in that situation may provide better service to the public so that's one advantage and the other Advantage if there are events that really or officers are not needed uh or uh if we can respond with another service or um you know that potentially could free up officer time which is very valuable and would be of benefit to the city so those are the benefits and the the approach we took with this uh report is
really really two axes of analysis one we looked at uh police event data for the years of 21 2022 and uh 9 months of 23 uh and uh we also uh interviewed other jurisdictions uh throughout the country in California throughout the country that are implementing uh this type of alternate service and we just say here that in especially in the data analysis the police department put a lot of work into helping us produce the data understand it and really think through the policy implications so we real
ly greatly appreciate their partnership on this project and with that I'll turn it over to deputy chief shab to say a few words thank you Peter good afternoon Mr Mayor Madame vice mayor and members of the council Brian chab deputy chief uh and executive officer for the police department before we proceed much further in the presentation I wanted to take a moment to affirm the Department's commitment to this process and in particular this project it's always been and will continue to always be th
e priority for the Department to deliver the very best Services as possible to the residents of San Jose understanding that sometimes the nature of that service must evolve with the needs of our residents the matter of who provides that service uh is not a matter of politics or rhetoric but simply a matter of putting round pegs and round holes while we believe there is an opportunity for alternate responses and select cases from organizations with specialized skills that would not only provide m
ore pragmatic service but at the same time ease the burden on an already uh overburdened police department it's crucial to recognize the Department's commitment to continuing its role as a primary responder for calls involving Public Safety we appreciate the Council and city manager Direction and collaboration with the Department in this process and we look forward to the continued work thank you all right so now we'll run through just some highlevel conclusions uh from from this analysis uh and
first a few definitions when we say alternate response what that means is the response to um a 911 event with just civilians so civilian in response no police officers going out to the scene when we say co-response that means a response with both civilians and a police officer right so given the nature of the circumstance given safety considerations uh one response may be appropriate you know dep depending on the circumstance and in the report just to kind of set the set the context we go throu
gh what the city and the county are currently doing in the in the realm of Co response and Alternate response and that's what this Matrix shows the first two rows at the top show the city and county partnership on co-response per and imcat where we send out officers and clinicians uh to events where uh and individuals in Mental Health crisis uh then under County Services the 988 crisis hotline it's a call center staffed by counselors where people um in distress can call in and receive assistance
over the phone and 988 can also refer to the County's four field teams that can respond to people out in the field and those are the last four rows the mobile crisis response team it's a team of uh licensed clinicians which um uh can uh help can respond to higher Acuity uh mental health events people in a mental health crisis mrss is the same but focus more on Children and Youth uh trust uh is staffed by an EMT Crisis Intervention specialist and a peer support specialist it's for lower Acuity m
ental health events uh and then the iHot team is really the follow-up team uh it uh can people identified through the other teams or people who are high frequency users or Emergency Services it can follow up and try to connect them with services so that's what we're currently doing and as we looked at uh is we looked at the data to see what categories of calls may be appropriate there are a few different variables we have in the data that help us in the analysis uh one is event type every uh eve
nt in the police department's cat is assigned a type depending you know whether it's an assault or a homicide or a disturbance what have you so we can look at event types the police department is also recently implemented flags for events uh to indicate unhoused or mental health involvement so at the end of the event uh the officer will essentially just check a box saying uh whether there was an unhoused or an individual mental he illness involved in the event and those two sent on top of each o
ther so it can each each event would have an event type and it may also have a flag so we can look at both of those and finally uh when call when events come into the call center they are assigned a priority level to indicate the level of risk and emergency so one or two are your imminent risk uh um or crime in progress or recently or crime recently committed that's an emergency event three and four are lower risk events and five or six are events initi by the officer out in the field so using u
sing those variables we came up with this list of uh event categories to study uh uh nine we studied nine categories in all the first three there in blue mental health unhoused and substance abuse these are uh events involving individuals who really could use some Specialized Care from a civilian and I and looking at our current Services looking at other programs around the country these are really the bread and butter of an alternate response this is um you know uh quite well can be quite depen
ding on the circumstance can be quite well suited uh for a civilian response uh uh the and note that there's disability there down at the bottom we didn't we're not quite to the place with the police data where we can analyze uh disability data so we didn't analyze this part of the report but it's quite common for these kind of services to respond out to people who may have developmental disabilities IM being crisis so we just noted that in the report is something we should consider even though
we didn't have data uh and then the ones in yellow there those are event types that are we find are often associated with a mental health or unhoused flag uh welfare check when you're going out to somebody's worried somebody may not be all right maybe they're sitting on the sidewalk somebody's worried about them send somebody out to check on their wellbeing um uh so we find that mental health events UNH House events commonly get categorized and these event types and these May places to look fina
lly uh parking uh we already have a wellb built out uh alternate response for parking we have um parking enforcement officers we have csos but we found in the the analysis that we are still sending officers out uh part of the time and identified that the the vehicle concerns feature that's coming to 311 may be a good opportunity to reduce the number coming in number of calls coming in to 911 non-emergency for parking finally two categories where we uh we don't recommend proceeding with alternate
response first domestic violence uh just based on the the potential criminality the the the risk inherent in this event type we have we didn't find any jurisdiction that sent out civilians without police officers to a domestic violence event so we don't recommend doing that uh but there are some examples of cities that send out civilians along with officers to support survivors so that that is that is a service model that uh we could consider uh vehicle stops there are lots of obstacles primari
ly California law prohibit civilians from making vehicle stops they're also logistical and safety issues so we can there's we can continue to follow State legislation on this issue but don't recommend moving forward now and a summary of the the data analysis uh so the pie chart on the left there uh shows in the the colored categories are the ones we believe may be appropriate for uh alternate response and worth noting that the the small slice right up at the top is our current MCAT response so a
bout 4% of all calls uh and uh the the colored slices is there where we think um they uh they they may be opportunities or about 27% of all of all calls uh and then the pie chart on the left uh we we pull we use the priority levels to pull out all of the priority 1 and two calls and all the priority five and six calls where priority three and four are the lower risk calls that may be the best opportunity in the in the short run for a civilian response and so um that that's we show the colored ca
tegories there just just the priority three and four calls and that's about 9% of all calls uh but still almost 20,000 calls so even though it's smaller there are still tens of thousands of calls that we might consider just some other data highlights uh the pie chart on the left shows all of the the proportion of events that are flagged as mental health that are also flagged as unhoused so you can see of events that are flagged as mental health 47% are flagged as unhoused so really significant o
verlap in those two categories and the the table on the right is showing the top 10 event types for mental health flags and this kind of shows our thinking behind the disturbance trespassing uh welfare check suspicious circumstances categories because all of those appear uh appear in the top 10 here for mental health Flags finally we had we had we have 11 findings uh the F the first two really speak to next steps uh because the county already has a uh fairly complete Suite of services available
in their in their field response teams and we already have a co-response partnership with them we believe that the next step would be a concerted effort to deter to um come up with a a plan for which calls uh we might begin turning over and then think through what teams would need to from the county would need to we want to respond to to those what the capacity and resource considerations would be uh so if the council desires us to to move forward with this work that's that's what we would recom
mend uh findings three and four really have to do with how calls are transferred back and forth between 911 and 988 or from 911 directly to one of this County's field teams which obviously to the extent we increased um uh partnership with the county thinking through that transfer process would be important uh and the rest of them really have to do with the categories I've already discussed just note that finding five has to do with disability even though we didn't have data we still think it's w
orth considering and then all of the rest of the findings are uh by category as I've already discussed so that concludes our presentation great thank you for that analysis you know I put this uh suggested this direction in the budget message last year and appreciate all of my colleagues supporting it because I I do think there's a real opportunity for us to partner more closely with the county to both better serve vulnerable residents dealing with behavioral health challenges being unhoused um o
ther vulnerabilities where law enforcement's unlikely to be able to provide adequate service levels and then also free up our very thinly staff department to go focus on where our office officers can have the greatest impact in keeping the community safe and I appreciate that you kind of highlighted that purpose at the top of the presentation uh certainly agree with the findings and the real need to partner more closely with the county who as we all know really has the primary responsibility for
the uh Public Health mental health systems and um providing some of that social safety net and social services so the more that we can partner and leverage each other's strengths and funding streams and jurisdiction the greater we're going to be able to serve our commun community and every everyone in our community we'll come back for Council deliberation in just a moment believe we have number of comment cards so why don't we get to public comment yes we have a couple of uh public commenters a
s I call your name please make your way to the podium and when you get to the podium please State your first name so we could Mark that you've already spoken Jordan Emily Lanny Michaela and Mike thank you Council my name is Mike this is Andrew's story some years ago while battling untreated mental illness I lost my job my family and my home I broke down sobbing when a doctor asked me how I was doing medical staff called EMTs to get me to psychiatric treatment and requested no police presence as
I was complying I had committed no crime yet the police still came and cuffed me to a stretcher to be taken to jail thankfully while police argued with staff the EMTs put me in an ambulance and took me to the hospital the trip opened doors for me to get mental health treatment connect with social workers and take take my life back step by step if I had gone to jail I would not have received the care I needed and the trauma would have closed that door had I gone to jail I don't think I'd be alive
today we must stop criminalizing mental health and destroy the stigma why send cops when there are medical and mental health professionals dedicated to helping just as there is no room for police presence in physical health there is none in mental health this is Andrew's story this could be our story thank you this is the story about how big go t Jong was killed on July 13th 2003 big go t jong a young mother of two with mental health problems the police knew about at the time was running errati
cally down the street her youngest son who was 2 years old was unsupervised so the neighbors called the police for help when the police arrived they had made no attempt to deescalate the situation instead it only took seconds to shoot and kill her despite the fact that nine previous encounters with her made it clear that she had issues a police officer deemed that this 98b Vietnamese woman holding a vegetable peeler a threat and took her life when what she needed most was a trained mental health
professional to deescalate the situation the lack of proper resources for those experiencing Mental Health crisis has ensured that families like big gos will now never know what could have happened when if their lives had been saved Instead This was BIG Story this could have been our stories thank you Lonnie Ballard according to the Mercury News between 2014 and 2021 20 out of 25 people killed by police were classified as mentally ill or intoxicated between 2014 and 2021 The Merc documented tha
t over 70% of those seriously injured and killed by San Jose police were were impaired by either mental illness or substance abuse since San Jose be began training police in chist this intervention the number of people harmed by police while impaired by mental illness or substance substance abuse has actually increased in almost 25% of the confrontations police officers initiated the encounter mostly for minor infractions other times they spotted or were called to help someone acting erratically
when the incident spiraled out out of control these St statistics all point to the fact that police even with extra Mental Health crisis training are not the right responders trust are the right responders for the thousands of interactions that 9911 event analysis identified for diversion to alternate response thank you calling the next batch of speakers please make your way to the podium Lori Andrew and cind this could have been big story if trust existed in 2003 Vick's neighbors would have ca
lled and could have called even if they spoke only Vietnamese the trust program has people on staff who speak Spanish and Vietnamese and have trans and has has a translation line with the capacity for translating over 40 languages everyone should have an opportunity to be heard helped and healed no one in need should ever lose their life due to a language or communication barrier if the trust team could have responded back in 2003 they would have talked with Bick and her neighbors and family the
trust teams which include a mental health professional a peer supporter and a first aid responder are trained to Center the client and their loved ones maybe if trust had existed in 2003 big gal would still be alive maybe her daughter would still have her mom this could have been Biga story and it could be ours as well Jordan moldow District 3 first of all please fund more trust teams second of all the report analyzes vehicle stops but makes no recommendations because it says that alternate res
ponses aren't allowed I think that's not good enough I think there needs to be a little more digging into that um to the extent possible possible the police force should be able to use automated enforcement or other forms of no contact enforcement if necessary um to the extent that that is currently legal under California law to the extent that it isn't I think it could be beneficial for the city council to direct the igr team to try to you know talk to legislator in Sacramento and make more for
ms of automated enforcement legal and more forms of no contact enforcement legal um and also there's no data about breakdowns about the no report section that's by far the largest and there's no data about well why did they initiate the traffic stop in the first place and I think if we had a breakdown like that that might lead to uh more discussion of okay there's these things that usually don't go anywhere so don't bother responding to those kinds of things um in other categories so this a big
section of data was about suspicious calls um whether a person is acting suspicious is very um you know personto person subjective and so I don't think there should be police responses for suspicious calls unless there's something more substantial to that so I think that's another big Avenue where there's a missing recommendation for possible alternative responses um in general no report um is a very big um area of how these events end up uh ending up and so there needs to be more digging into h
ow do we just stop 911 for responding to those in the first place finally 311 needs to be much more ubiquitous and easy to use so that people use that when it's relevant instead of 911 afternoon my name is Cindy uh and this is Eric is AUM and this is Eric Story a young name Eric came to the Welcome Center at Secret Heart Community Service and told the and told them that he was thinking about suicide and wanted to transport to the mental he orgin care secret heart for liability reasons we cannot
transfer any member so the worker call 911 and ask for emergency services again Ask for emergency services the worker make sure emphasize that Eric was calm he was not in danger to himself to others specifically say we do not need police presence just an ambulance to take him to the mental health orgin care instead of an ambulance six armed art officers show up how many six one of the six officers began activly provoking Eric and to get rles with him instead of showing compassion EMP empathy he
was provoking him he needed support one of the most experienced Secret Heart staff member had to put aside all the police officers and ask him to stop his coworker to to escalate instead of escalating the situation which luckily he was willing able to do eventually thanks to this intervention every was handcuffed and put back into the squat car without any police violence we hope he was taken to the mental health facility but we have no way of knowing this is Eric's stories and this could be our
story thank you calling the next batch Mary Kim and Susan Andrew Zigler District 3 trust has proven successful in deescalate Behavioral Health crisis their field teams are trained to focus on prevention and to Center the client and their loved ones they aim to resolve the crisis and or transport people to Services roughly two-thirds of the calls are resolved over the phone if the situation requires the call center will dispatch the trust truck between January and March 2023 only five out of 578
trust calls resulted in police presence again only five out of 578 trust calls resulted in police presence the 911 events report makes clear that there are tens of thousands of police interactions each year that can and should be diverted to more appropriate responders we already have the appropriate responders for Behavioral Health crisis and substance abuse crisis and that's trust the city just needs to help expand to meet the demand identified in the 911 events report thank you I'm Lori earl
ier you heard Mike share Andrew's story uh the actual story that happened to Andrew when he medical staff called EMTs and police showed up with them thankfully the EMTs were able to get him to care this could have been Andrew's story if trust existed when Andrew had a crisis there would have been no need to say don't send the police and the police would not come Andrew would have avoided the additional trauma of a large police presence he would have been calmed down by professionals and peers wi
thout guns without handcuffs without physicality and without the threat of incarceration for his illness Mental Health Care should not be left up to chance Andrew was lucky that the medical staff vigorously defended him and that the EMTs took charge and put him in the ambulance with trust Andrew would have experienced the care he needed without being pushed further into crisis he wouldn't have the ongoing Trauma from that day waking up in cold sweats thinking what if it had gone the other way th
is could be Andrew's story and it could be ours as well hello I'm Mary a national survey of sheriffs and police departments found that 20% of total law enforcement staff time was used to respond to and transport individuals with mental illness in 2017 makes no sense sending the right responder to behavioral health situations instead will save money because using police is much more costly in both money and and harm in fact civilian crisis response is the optimal response for Behavioral crisis da
ta from Los Angeles County show that over time co-responder teams with with police are significantly more costly while not as effective as civilian teams that are comprised of a behavioral health clinician and a peer support specialist that is the trust model National guidelines for Behavioral Health crisis response also recommend that mobile crisis team should incorporate peers but avoid law enforcement accompaniment so trust is in line with Federal best practices trust is already up and runnin
g and working and the city of San Jose should follow through on the 2022 recommendation from the community-led reimagining public safety process to fund an additional field team for San Jose calling the next batch Shiloh Deb and Sandra good afternoon my name is Kim and if trust existed back when Eric came to the Welcome Center at Sacred Heart community service if trust had responded to Eric instead of the police maybe we'd know the end of his story maybe we would know that he's okay now Andrew's
story bick's story and Eric's story could and should have ended differently and each of their stories could be your story or the story of someone you love it could be my story it could be the story of any one of us and the story especially of our neighbors who are most vulnerable to police violence you can change the story you're exactly the people you can change lives together we can make new stories for all of us please fund trust trust is is Public Safety and trust is a safe path to help for
all of us thank you good afternoon city council members and mayor my name is Susan price and um two-thirds of all the calls to trust uh were from San Jose now I've heard recently that someone was saying that there San Jose now has a trust team that is not really true it's the West San Jose which really means West County because it's not exclusively San Jose San Jose needs its own dedicated trust team because I mean the east side and south are not really adequately covered um now each Trust Fiel
d team costs about 1.9 million that could be shared with the county but the city should probably be contributing something and the money that is saved by not sending out police officers to these calls uh is considerable and could be used to fund another trust team um also the and the city manager report does say that alternative team tream teams could be sent to mental health calls and to um homeless calls is that report revealed today um now the other thing is this the city San Jose has M mobil
e let's see what are they're called mobile crisis team assessment MCAT teams in in the police department in which uh it's they're called co-response teams a police officer goes to the mental health person well the um the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services administration's National guidelines say that these teams are not cost effective and they're not that effective uh you want to cut costs don't have don't call the the cat team um and sometimes if there's a police officer there they're n
ot trained for this work call the people who are trained for this work and that's mental health professionals and and appears thank you next speaker good afternoon my name is Shiloh Ballard resident of D6 um first I want to thank staff and the city manager's office for putting together a really wonderful process for this um and I know you all get lots of reports but this one's really worth reading if you haven't read it yourself if you had staff read it and advise you um read it it's really good
um okay so I wanted to make three points one is uh the findings are great oh also just want to say yes to everything that's been said here already um the findings are great uh directing staff to come back with a work plan um is important and I just want to emphasize you know the Rip's recommendations came out in 2022 I think and we're still here discussing how to move forward so really really important to have a timeline associated with that plan and hopefully there are some near-term changes t
hat can be made in like a three-month time frame or a six-month time frame while staff is figuring out what is the plan what are the priorities so that's one thing timeline super important and let's get some stuff um back here really quick another thing I wanted to say is none of this happens without funding and you know we can continue to find efficiencies in the budget but we need to increase revenues and I know I I believe the city polls on a regular basis or maybe once a year can we have som
e questions included in your regular poll that test some Revenue raising measures in particular around businesses I'm hoping one of you might include that in the in the recommend ation or the the motion that goes forward the last thing I wanted to say is it's so important to just reduce the number of calls that are coming in and things like automated speed enforcement and vision zero these are alternatives that make it so that we don't even have a call to direct in a different way the call just
doesn't exist so please continue to fund Vision zero and please put a great budget together for the automated speed and forth hi I'm Deb St Julian and I live in District 2 now I got re we're flexible um so I love what Shiloh said but and I love what a lot of people said but I love data um my work life was science-based and I love better solutions to difficult problems and I love I learned this from some people in my life I love the right tool for the right job and the 911 report clearly indicate
s as your staff concludes and it was a great report that those that there are tens of thousands of 911 calls that could be more effectively responded to by Al alternative non-p police response teams and your report that this report and all the stories that have been shared today and those stories many of those came from Serge's Partners all those stories and the data wow what a great Confluence support our partners asks that the city of San Jose prioritize funding an additional trust truck we kn
ow trust works like how great to have something we know that works we know this is the right thing to do data supports it common sense supports it our hearts and our compassionate response to these stories supported and I like what Kim said you have the power to do this that's it's hard being a leader right you have responsibility you have power so we hope you make the community safe for all because we know that the people that the stories that come forward the people that do get hit the hardest
by negative encounters are our brothers thank you next speaker good afternoon my name is Sandra Asher I'm a longtime resident with lived experience with Mental Health crisis I'm a member of the real Coalition Public Safety work group a member of the reimagining public safety work group and a member of the San Jose Trust just Community Advisory Board I'd like you to imagine there's a fire in your house who would you like to show up I bet it's a fireman who has experience fighting fires now imagi
ne someone you care about is having a mental health disability or an addiction crisis imagine they have other disabilities on top of that on the worst day of their life and possibly yours who would you imagine coming to help them I bet it would be a mental health professional or a peer who has similar experience or maybe a medical responder the 911 report that the staff put together makes clear Behavioral Health is one of several large categories that police interactions could be diverted to mor
e appropriate responses currently 75% of the calls coming into trust are for San Jose but we have one team the West Valley team it supports Mont Serino Los scos Saratoga it does not support the high impact zip codes in San Jose that drive the bulk of the calls to trust the current data shows there are thousands of calls that will be diverted to trust that exceed current capacity and currently it can take 30 40 minutes for a trust team to show up how would you feel if that was an ambulance would
that be okay with you so it's common sense that we move this report forward that we establish a quick timeline to make change in people's lives and that you support the memo I'm so appreciative of especially uplifting the support of our thank you back to council great thank you thank you to everybody uh from the public who came out to speak on this issue we're going to come back to the council for discussion and a motion and we will start start with council member Ortiz thank you mayor and I I a
ppreciate you providing the initial Direction on this very important um topic um of course I want to thank staff for your work on this um very important work and an enlightening report I agree uh from the commenter earlier it was a great it was a great uh Report with good information um you know I think to me personally growing up in East San Jose I understand that Public Safety is complex and I think traditionally we have put all of our eggs in one basket right but public safeties includes Traf
fic Safety as we heard regarding vision zero um it includes of course supporting our First Responders our men and women who put their life on the line every day to be out there in our districts um but it also could look at exploring um alternative Solutions because we need to have you know these multiple Tools in in our toolbx and I and as we have these conversations around Public Safety uh and the needs of our residents I think alternative response models need to be an essential part uh uh of t
his of this conversation and it's clear we can do so much more to connect our residents with uh alternate response programs that exist both at the city and at the County uh as the report said expanding this the capacity of programs such as trust uh amcat and other programs to meet the needs of San Jose residents will require more dedicated coordination with the county the report also identified some key opportunities for expansion that other jurisdictions have found success with that's co-respon
se models to domestic violence calls alternative response for welfare checks alternative response models for incidents involving an individual with a disability and a broader public health approach uh of course to mental health related um events I believe it's a it's important that we not let this end as just a report and move forward um with action and and that's why uh my Council colleagues council member Torres and Jimenez and I believe the most sensible Next Step uh is for staff to create a
work plan to enhance coordination with the county and explore expansion of alternate and co-response models in areas where they could be most effective in the community um so I do have one initial question I saw the memo from council member uh batra in regards to a request for uh a report back to pis is the staff okay with that uh yes absolutely we can do that okay great good to hear um and then there was another request from I think a crowd uh Shiloh um who had mentioned uh exploring potential
funding mechanisms is that something that our staff have uh explored so we regularly whether it's through the quarterly reporting um focus areas or we've gone out in the past around storm sewer fees or or anything else that's pertinent we do test just funding mechanisms in General trying to point them to some of our more highest and best needs so we've done that in the past and continue to do that um we can definitely add language here I would just say as I've said over the past it it's uh a ver
y uphill battle around funding mechanisms for the near future okay know that that makes sense and I do understand I'm always talking to you about the park Bond and everything else we need funding for it's I know the need is there trust me we definitely do so we continue to kind of test the waters I I would say I just very much do appreciate the the direction and your and your memo and as well as council member batra um and the flexibility because I think this report kind of leads us to the concl
usion which is in our findings what we already stated and I think what we've talked about in our Focus areas is we need time with the county right whether it's trust Pur MCAT or any of the other programs it's really around uh us as a city understanding what the County Behavioral Health is doing what they offerings are doing um even of the existing resources in that trust team does it need redeployment to more higher need areas and then how do we help kind of expand 988 which is a brand new servi
ce that's been rolling out because obviously the need is there and the data has pointed us so very much appreciate the direction from from the council members who wrote memorandums to give us that space um and time to work with the county because we do think it's an Endeavor that's needed great no thank thank you uh so much Lee and I just want to um be clear I I think the city can do both chew uh walk and chew bubble gum we need to one be dedicated to make sure that our um first responder and an
d police force is fully staffed while also acknowledging that you know there are alternative Solutions and let's make sure that we are investing in those um as well so with that I'd like to uh motion both council member Tes AMZ and my uh memo including uh council member Bas I don't know who second did it but thank you great thanks council member yeah I also wasn't sounded like a tie over here I'll let I'll let the clerk to break the tie okay thank you council member appreciate the motion let's g
o to council member batra thank you to all the residents who came and made the point about that it is time for us the city of San Jose to evolve our response system to the current needs of the city because the society keeps changing our responses need to be accordingly modernized changed alternative response whatever the term you want to use it is time to make sure that our response system is appropriate for the type of problems our society is facing and I believe this report is the type of repo
rt we needed to be able to make that decision that what is appropriate the responses it is great that we show show that we can have cost savings from the police not having to go to this to me I don't need that because our police force we know that is overworked they have to do so much over time and we still do not have them available all the time where we need them because the mayor has told you many many times that the city the size of Sen Jose is so low in term of number of police officers we
have that even if we take a lot of the work away from them we still need more officers for providing the safety which you need so I am all supportive of the fact that we should have alternate response the things which have been defined in this report alternate and corresponds and we don't need to worry about that our police officers would be saving some money from there they got more than enough work in the near future so we don't have to be addressing that issue we need to have the right respon
se for the right reasons to provide our people the safety mental health has been recognized as a big problem you have seen in prop one people are asking you for the money to address the pro mental health whether you agree with that prop or not is same material the only reason I'm quoting is that you're seeing recognition of this problem being seen at different places that's the only purpose we bringing that I'm not proposing you do one way or the other so I want to make use of this report and I
like even when I did the briefing my question was this is such a good report making such good recommendations when do I grab on to it so that the residents can see a change happened as a result of this report and our community Serv better that's the reason I wrote the memo to put a timeline on it that we want to get this thing back with the appropriate recommendation for how do we staff it how do we work with the county how do we put additional resources in how much are those resources are and w
hen are we capable of doing this so I totally support this move the council member OES you did include my recommendation in the mem okay so I'll be supporting that motion and the members and I want to see this thing happen yesterday not not next year not a year after so please help us get there the soon as possible okay thank you great thank you councelor Council Torres great thank you good afternoon uh and thank you for our community for coming out today uh you keep pushing us to do the work an
d so here we are and also staff for for for the report for me we know that um I for me domestic violence is really near and dear to my heart and we know that domestic violence calls can be dangerous and that's why I strongly believe we need a Co coordinated approach our last police officer harmed in the line of duty was because of a demestic violence dispute we saw tragedy in Minneapolis where three First Responders a police officer a firefighter an EMT were killed in a domestic violence dispute
at the heart of our approach to addressing domestic violence lies the commitment to collaboration and partnership too much is at stake we recognize that domestic violence calls often originate from concerned neighbors or bystanders highlighting the critical need for a co-coordinated response by working hand inand with law enforcement partner organizations they stand ready to provide immediate and comprehensive support to victims in crisis as an individual who is lgbtq and who has helped my frie
nds classmates co-workers deal with issu issues of domestic domestic violence we know that intimate partner violence Knows No Boundaries and that is why I hope my colleagues pass the memo written by myself council member Ortiz council member himz and of course um supporting council member batra's uh memo because we need action thank you so much great thank you Council Council dwan thank you mayor thank you staff and thank you to the San Police Department for your extreme dedication for our commu
nity and I believe that we can use every single tools that we can get um by diversifying in order to help our mental illness and substant abuse um resident out there I have a few question for you how does a dispatcher know how to geared the call towards a PD or is it to a 988 or trust or per for that matter thank you for the question council member so the the initial triage of any 911 call is done by the call Taker and the first thing that the call taker will look at is there a threat to Public
Safety immediately if the answer to that is yes then it's automatically routed for police dispatch immediate police dispatch if during the assessment of that call it's deemed that there's no immediate threat or no immediate need for police to respond it's more of a resource-based call than than it can be transferred to 988 thank you now let's say there was a per co-response out there and it was deemed at first it was unnecessary for for um a police off officer to be present but then the escalati
on now what is the protocol and how long would it take a police officer to arrive on scene obviously um the nearest uh police officer would be dispatched to it sure again thank you it's a it's a difficult question to give a straight answer on because there's a lot of variabilities in there um what I would say first and for most so and just for clarification sake per is a co-responder model so that is an officer with the clinician so the officer would would be there with the clinician immediately
and so in that case the officer would just call on the radio and request additional assistance I think the question I'm guessing the question that you asking is more related around if there was a an alternative non- co-responder response like trust um and that really all depends on the circumstances that are that are happening happening right there and what's happening right then in the city if the situation had escalated to where someone's life was in danger right now um that would get classif
ied as what we call a priority One Call and it would be dispatched via GP our GPS CAD system and they would send the two closest available officers immediately thank you and I'd like to know why is only operation especially the per four days at a week per week and it's at 11 hours per day well um that's the the plan schedule we're currently not deploying a per model right now um we are waiting for the county to hire uh a clinici to partner with our officer um and so we only have one team slotted
but it's currently not filled thank you and I definitely will um support u a vote Yes U from the motion from council member Ortiz Tores heenez and council member batra memo thank you great thanks council member vice mayor KEH thank you and and thank you so much for the report I tell you for someone who really likes data I really appreciated all of the information and I know some of the information had been you know sort of a portion but my hope is that we're uh in the future going to be able to
uh have a Baseline and continue to track I always believe that data informs decision making and we can take a look at um some of this again so I don't know if it's in the work plan or whatever but I would really uh encourage and urge you to continue that that data Gathering I too am a little bit sort of uh not concerned but but I found it uh interesting that no report required that was a really huge number and so I think that digging into uh some of that might be useful to know you know under w
hat circumstances or what have you because that was 64% so I just kind of thought that using the information that has been established and yet you know kind of like digging deeper will help us in the you know next year when we're looking at this I do know that there are multiple ways of um of efforts that have um been presented here the current co- response which I think the per needs a little help um and uh the current alternative response today we've heard a lot about trust but we know that th
e county has other programs as well I would like to see any of these programs that are appropriate to the situation be applied I don't know how that works with the county but uh it's certainly something that I think is worth uh exploring um and it seems to me that um the movement towards getting uh alternative responses uh gives us better outcomes so to me it's really really worth the investment but I also feel that we we need to continue uh to improve and and sort of have that continuous Improv
ement Loop to be able to get to where we want where we want to be right which is having the correct response for the situation that arises so I want to thank you so much for the report you know we get a lot of reports this is one of the more outstanding reports but I but I also think that uh we could um we could certainly continue to learn as we move along in trying to solve this very very big problem that we're seeing that's increasing so uh thank you so much for that and I too will be supporti
ng the motion great thanks vice mayor appreciate that Council Foley thank you this uh just to Echo my colleagues that this really is an important report and thank you to your to the staff for your thoughtful presentation and thank you for the community for weighing in in on your support for one particular aspect of this report the trust the trust program this has been a long time incoming the reimagine public safety and the real Coalition met and made recommendations what seems like forever ago
and so it's nice to see this report come through and have recommendations come through that that will then develop into a work plan um but I have a question for you I guess Lee um I didn't hear a timeline and I I heard you say you wanted the grace to have time to put it together but I'm feeling a sense of urgency so I don't want to see this come back in two years what's a realistic timeline that you think you can come back with a thoughtful work plan including timelines on when this can be some
of these things recommendations can be impl mened any thank you for the question um I was going to suggest fall um and I say that because I think um what we're able to put towards this will be telling in our budget process and same with the county I will say um in a pis fiz last week and in one of our two meetings that we had last week um with the county we were able to go over this and so one of the things that the county is waiting for us is to do this same presentation with them and starting
to dive in on that section of calls and really understand what the most critical need is so we do expect to do that relatively soon with the county to take part um take advantage of of where they are on their budget cycle although I know their budget picture is um tight as well um but I think once we get through that it was my hope that we would come forward in early fall that thank you that that's a realistic timeline to me as well that makes sense given where we are in the budget process and a
nd that a lot of these recommendations do require the coordination with the social service programs available through the county so I I appreciate that timeline i' I'd love to see it course closer to the beginning of September or fall then closer to the winter time but I I understand the timing that is involved we're in budget process as well we all know how important Public Safety is and and S some having the appropriate response to 911 calls is really important whether it's a sworn officer a C
ommunity Service Officer a program like trust per uh social workers civilians whatever it is it should be appropriate for for the situation not putting anyone at risk in in the response I want to thank my colleagues for their thoughtful memo memos and uh we'll support them and really look forward to this moving forward and seeing a robust work plan that we can finally Implement and take some of the work away from the sworn officers so they can focus on uh fighting crime in a different way and th
e other things that they need to be doing instead of some of the things they're being asked to do right now and that doesn't diminish the work they're doing right right now it's we have such limited resources we just need to use them effectively and I would be remiss if I didn't uh Echo Shiloh Ballard's comments about Vision zero that there are some things we can do to reduce the need for officers in our speed our speed cameras and the technology available there so we need to fully fund Vision z
ero I'm just going to say it um and and with that I uh completely support the motion and the memos thank you great thank you Council M appreciate that I don't see any other hands from the council I'll just reiterate my thanks think it was excellent report appreciate all the comments from colleagues and the motion on the floor um I understand part of the direction will allow us to go have deeper conversations with our counterparts of the county which I think is a obviously is the findings in the
report show critical Next Step uh Curious what at this point we know about and Lee I don't know if you can speak to this but as we enter into this budget cycle the County's intentions around uh increasing Staffing and service levels for 988 for example I know we're starting to see call volume increase which is a good thing we're making sure the community is aware of that resource which is an alternative uh alternative response model I also know that a major barrier for us has been the ability to
hire and field clinicians last year in the budget message and again colleagues supported the this uh suggestion that I put forward we funded a clinician for a per team that as I understand it is has uh remained vacant this year and I think there are some other key vacancies when we're trying to do this co-response or alternative response model where we're really relying on trained medical professionals so I know we'll be doing further analysis and conversations assuming this direction passes bu
t what's the current status just based on conversations we've had in recent months sure I'll answer that in two parts um and not being at the county I I don't know uh how they're currently going around putting their budget together but at a staff level it's been communicated to us that this in addition to the health and hospital system is one of its priorities through the budget process to really either maintain or add capacity and obviously they have a a large projected hole in their budget um
but it does seem to be a priority for expanding and at least streamlining some of this and I would say our our PD comms folks are here and have been working great with the 988 folks to get to those efficiencies but I would expect hopeful uh capacity uh to grow in the near term and that would say you know the um the per team has been a frustration for us um and actually the the county has been really open and honest with us um not too different than when we did the focus areas with you across the
state and Bay Area everyone wants homeless behavioral health and safety addressed so that that field that they're trying to hire from has been very difficult so to my understanding they've gone out to if not three times unsuccessfully but it is our intent to to roll that money over and you know the per team is one of the most intense service level responses and then trust all the way at the bottom is one of the um most um say lowest level of intervention and then there's things in between so I
think having some space to go through the data with the county too and figure out I mean we made the investment in the per team but is it really the per team that we need to be investing in or should the county be looking at at other things so that's the what we'll be doing kind of understanding the data and making those decisions yeah good I think that's really important for us to do I think we're all committed to funding smart targeted alternative responses and continuing to support our law en
forcement officers and the important work they do to keep the community safe we need both um okay thank you thank you for that I don't see any other hands I think we're ready to vote motion passes great thank you all very much right we are on to item 7.1 education and digital literacy annual report we will invite Jill and the team down for presentation welcome good afternoon uh mayor and members of council I'm Jill Bourne City librarian um I'm here today with my colleagues uh from the library fr
om Parks Recreation Neighborhood Services also um the office of economic development and we are pleased to be providing you with an update on the highlights of our work in support of education and skill building over the last year see can I have thank you so for a bit of background fastest slide ever in May of 2018 the the city council approved the education and digital literacy strategy as recommended by staff and a wide network of school and Community Club collaborators to ensure that the city
's investments in learning and education to our residents would be aligned with intended outcomes and defined educational goals to divide up the large spectrum of education and learning the edl proposed a structure that we still use today focusing on educational attainment areas or planks as we call them each plank reflects major phases or proven milestones in an educational Journey from Early Education ensuring that all children are ready to learn by kindergarten through expanded learning to su
pport grade level attainment to College and Career Readiness which has evolved to Pathways for Meaningful employment and digital literacy started as a focused skill building but in 20120 took on a life of its own with the whole other pandemic related digital inclusion strategy city council adopted the first ever uh education policy in San Jose in February of 2020 the policy acknowledges that the city does not operate our many schools and school districts but we have a strong commitment to the ed
ucational achievement of our students as indicators of future individual family and Community success the edl strategy proposed an approach that emphasized the principles of equity opportunity quality and accountability to our residents using tools such as the equity index which is shown here just as an example staff is able to use geolocated demographic data and program information to focus program opportunities and access where most needed to ensure quality program quality standards were devel
oped by cross- sector teams of experts in each program plank area with logic models and assessment tools finally other key components of the strategy is reporting on program outcomes with the goal of understanding impact for residents and areas for future growth and how to direct the city's finite resources there we go um and now a moment on the quality improvement process very simply a robust set of principles is developed that address all aspects of program quality from social emotional to lea
rning and academics each set of Standards is adopted by city council then implementation begins with an initial assessment ment of each individual program and the development of improvement plans as participants interact with the program their experiences also become part of program evaluation and Reporting and as a process we use program evaluation and program assessments to make changes to programs to adapt to needs continue to assess improve evaluate and on a and on in a continuous cyle on Ja
nuary 18th 2024 staff presented an annual update to the neighborhood services and education committee we were very appreciative of the interest and detailed questions that discussion did illustrate to us the need to provide specific updates about some of the key um education digital literacy programs which I hope we can accomplish today first of all it may be assumed at this point did I skip a slide sorry there it is sorry we're going too fast I'm gonna just keep talking I know it may be assumed
but I wanted to explicitly call out the fact that we have vast and deep levels of partnership not only across City departments but also with local community- based organizations schools and districts business and philanthropic supporters consultants and other educational providers partnership is a fundamental aspect of this work building communities of practice and Collective impact with intentionality toward shared goals we could actually fill another couple of slides with all the school distr
icts individual schools and other organizations with whom we are partnering I think where the slides got screwed up so yeah it's going forward can you go back to one more there we go they just got switched so um we wanted to clarify by the planks um in your packet from Neighborhood Services and education committee it includes about 70 pages of detailed information about programs but to help clarify this SL this slide show shows the quality status per plank you'll see that the city council adopti
on of formal quality standards Frameworks for each plank occurred in 2019 and excuse me 2020 quality standard implementation processes are now underway with 17 of 19 Early Education programs nine of 10 expanded learning programs and 12 of the 26 col College Pathways program Citywide most programs are currently raging from at standard to Prof efficient or Advanced programs that are emerging are typically new to the process and I'm going to walk through more in a minute program assessment and eval
uation is completed through a variety of methods including formal studies participant surveys and school data sharing okay so now for a speed round we're going to highlight some of the um Key Programs in each education plank area in Early Education I'm really glad that I am talking because I get to toot the horn of prns who undertook a transformation of the traditional Recreation preschool program although license exempt this program began a rigorous process of introducing quality standards comp
leting Assessments in 2022 and 2023 and achieving a current rating of at standard on the way to proficient Child Learning and environmental assessments are conducted throughout the program and delay data collected includes zip code and student demographic information the classic library early literacy program known as story time has also evolved into nine modes such as four that are stage specific bilingual in several languages inclusive for developmental differences Family Programs and music in
movement I also wanted to call out a special series called read to succeed story times that were presented in partnership with our very own San Jose police department yes Chief Ma and his team read stories a storytime programs are largely assessed through caregiver surveys and many aspects of the program and their influence on their young attendees camp San Jose Jr is an expansion of the classic camp San Jose that staff developed to meet Community need for summer care specifically for younger r
esidents here are Littlest residents are introduced to fund and creative activities and socialization this is an example of a program that is entering the quality improvement cycle because staff recognizes its importance as a School Readiness experience moving on to expanded learning plank San Jose learns is a program that expands the school day with high dosage learning support on school sites for primary grades it is an example of program that features a high degree of formal external evaluati
on and clear reporting on academic outcomes through data sharing agreements with participating schools San Jose tutoring matters is a new pilot expansion program to provide one-on-one tutoring to students grades 6 to 12 similar to SJ learns an external evaluation will be conducted and the program is projected to grow to this year to reach 1500 students 27 Rock and 1 a programs are two Hallmarks of the prns programs that support working families during the school year these programs are assessed
according to a robust observation tool with 52 metrics aligned to the California quality standards for expanded learning programs moving to the College and Career plank Pathways plank the career Online High School continued through the pandemic as an online path to a fully accredited High School to plan with 174 graduates to date San Jose's 73% graduation rate is the highest in the state graduates also receive a career certificate in fields such as office management Commercial Driving Child Care
and others the family friend and neighbor caregiver support network provided more than 3,300 professional development hours and many related supports to caregivers known as ffns which also influences the quality of early learning experiences for the young children in their care the program is assessed by a quality standards tool as well as participant reporting through surveys and completion of coursework and certifications and next the resilience core learning paway participants have received
a living wage for 59,000 Collective hours worked at six host organizations assisting 65 00 school children with learning recovery support of those completing the program many returned to college and 39% received postprogram employment at the end of their last um Academic Year session San Jose works also operated at an advanced quality level reporting significant participant Workforce skill development and an impressive 94% summer intern program completion rate and now a more recent development i
n the College and Career plank was a direction from Neighborhood Services and education committee to expand this plank to include Citywide Services um with a goal of maximizing All City programs towards meaningful employment this year Human Resources the fire department housing and Public Works are all joining the library and press in this work and finally the in digital literacy the coding 5K computer science program started as coding programs and is involving to meet new and future technology
learning needs of our local students in addition to Quality assessment data is gathered largely from participant surveys and demographic information and our SJ Access program council is very familiar with which provides access to facilitate learning working in close partnership with schools and collecting data through user surveys unique uses and census data okay so now each of these programs could probably and does fill a whole report and each with specific findings regarding quality growth pla
ns as well as a wealth of other data points with all the data collected staff are working on a dashboard for capturing and visualizing program impacts at the neighborhood district and City level so um one simple data point collected across all programs actually two simple data points were participation or attendance in programs and the location ZIP code or census tract of the program this visualization shows a density map of program access and attendance Citywide in the programs that are listed
to the left um if it's if you had it live you can actually toggle the different programs and see but what's interesting this is purely as an example um it does show the density of programs and attendance um across our city and um we're as I said we're working on building out more of the data dashboard and concise reporting for each of the programs but was also exciting for us at this point in the program having um implemented so much of the quality standards and um done data collection is that t
he education strategy directly aligns with broader efforts to build out a comprehensive plan which would include um would should address needs Beyond education which would use these programs as entry points into Pathways that connect to other systems of support facilitate residents through systems to ensure a seamless experience to further link educational outcome data to related goals for employment wellness and safety and to align the city and county with other partners and overall to expand o
ur Collective impact even further so the next steps for the education digital literacy work is um continuous quality improvement process completing the development of the reporting dashboard for existing education programs as well as um the next phase of our College and Career Pathways project which um includes significant direct youth leadership and continuing to participate and align with the development of a children and youth services master plan so before I conclude I wanted to just address
a couple well one additional question from the neighborhood services and education committee that I couldn't fit into the presentation so um while some programs can expand capacity by leveraging existing resources there are a few notably that always experience weight lists or demand that exceed the current resources and I believe uh coun Ortiz asked us this question so one is SJ learns always has more schools applying for it than the city can match so that's a matching grant program and we have
schools that really want to work with us on that rock and ases and Camp Jose camp San Jose programs consistently have weight lists and um they were able to fill a gap in scholarships last year through onetime funds which um are not you know currently budgeted for the next year so that's a concern the SJ Works program consistently has two to 300 youth on a wait list for the subsidized program and the family friend and neighbor program currently has an 80 caregiver weight list for that program so
those were four that um that answered question so thank you all for the time today and uh the whole team is here to answer any questions you have great thank you for that very comprehensive overview of all the incredible programming our library and other departments and partners are putting on here in our city uh let's go to public comment first we have one Don please go ahead and make your way to the podium good afternoon mayor and council members um I just want to amplify the great work that
you've already heard from Jill when this Council um body approved the education and digital literacy strategy in 2018 you really set something in motion that is seen by our peers Across the Nation as something remarkable and incredible and it you're seeing the results come through now the work that you started isn't a quick thing it's going to take time to do and as you see there are a lot of programs that have started the assessments that will continue to do them and refine and revise and impro
ve and that kind of work will continue and your continued investment in that is what's going to help make the whole city rise up I do want to just mention that um there are a growing number of us peer organizations who support public public libraries Across the Nation who we gather together um next meeting is in June in DC and this program specifically the edl is something that has got so much attractive attention from op peers whether it's Chicago or Seattle or DC or Pensacola um they are looki
ng to us to San Jose to be able to do some of the things that they can then take back to their own cities so as much as you're investing in helping raise up all of San Jose residents please know that the good work here is going to be seen and is going to be replicated elsewhere as well thank you back to council great thank you very much okay let's go to council Torres first great uh thank you so much uh for your presentation and uh you know thank you so much for for taking our input at uh nsec s
o these committees are are extremely important uh so thank you so much for breaking down ZIP codes in many of these reports but I also want to thank our our library staff for the important literacy programs that we have in our libraries I think it's you know I I grew up in a neighborhood where we didn't have a library and we finally did and it was a you know game changer for the neighborhood um I do have a couple questions and I have a chicken scratch so sorry if uh if I can't find my question b
ut another comment that I did have is um I'm very I'm really glad to know that we are we are actually creating a career pipeline not only for our own City because we all know that folks who uh did the resiliency program are now working for our City or San Jose works are now working for our city so we're creating a a real solid uh career pipeline right I I believe that it's our moral responsibility to create that that we need to create a cradle to Career to Career pipeline here in the city of San
Jose especially for our most atrisk youth in our most atrisk zip codes and so the the the question I I did have and I found it is um we we are very thankful that uh coding 5K is a program within itself right so I'm glad that there's funding for years for that through a I believe a private donation yeah it's mostly philanthropic leveraging our existing City staff okay awesome so with that how because I noticed that a lot of folks in the zip codes that I represent and council member Ortiz represe
nts and council member dwan represents and even parts of council member Candelas represents uh they we still don't have participation enough participation from those from the youth in in that in those districts or those zip codes I should say and so how can we how can we uh tie this program with either San Jose Y or our school City collaborative thank you for the question council member um I I think that uh as you articulated coding 5K really was our first big coding initiative um computer scien
ce initiative that we started pre pandemic and so now it really is a time for reframing that and looking at Partners who are doing similar work but also looking at our um our school Partners now that the schools are implementing a um a Common Core Curriculum around computer science and um our Office of Education is is also involved in that the the school City collaborative you know has already articulated that digital inclusion or digital literacy is a priority and has been for several years as
we develop our work plan for this year that um working together to revise our coding 5K program in alignment with what the schools need could actually be a work plan item for the school City collaborative yeah great and I I think it's it I think it's extremely important that when we talk about again when we talk about prevention uh right San Jose Y is is that program to do so and so so we we need to continue to make sure that we're working with our school districts I actually I didn't see I know
that there was a lot of logos but I scanned them really quickly I didn't see San Jose Unified I'm hoping as an alum for San Jose Unified I'm hoping they're on there yeah that's why I tried to make a comment that we could probably have had two more slides full of every school district okay yeah okay great and every school great um and uh again I think that we we just just need to tighten it up and and work make sure that we're working with with San Jose yeah especially as we know that we you kno
w a lot of us represent uh our council districts where we are seeing an increase in gang participation or gang uh involvement uh and so that's the prevention part right but not only that right we continue to hear that you know Google's going to come in and that Hightech is not going to leave Silicon Valley and our our Engineers need to look like our community as well so with that I move to approve 7.1 great second from the vice mayor council bachra thank you for that detailed report I just got o
ne question is is any of our programs include playing with the musical instruments or providing them any musical opportunity unities because I see there's a lot of emphasis on cultural enrichment and I've been asked in the community is there a library equivalent of music library okay okay so I don't know what it is going to look like but I'm working with some of the community members to figure out a musical Library equivalent of the books library okay so is there any component here yes so I'll j
ust uh start answering the question by uh pointing out that our one of our storytime types is actually called music and movement and it embeds music in the process of pre-literacy and enjoying Story Time shared together and I'll hand it over to Hal spangenberg from prns to discuss some of the other programs okay thank you uh house manager division manager for prns um our department uh does contract out with a variety of vendors uh to offer what we call Leisure classes and we do have a category o
f music along with Dance Arts uh but we do have guitar lessons piano lessons and music classes that we offer throughout uh our community and our community centers Leisure classes are typically offered in sessions so depending on the season it can be between a six to 8 to 10 week class all right I'd like to get together with you to get more details and be able to work on giving it probably a little deeper shape to it because I do have some enthusiasts who want to see this more of in the city of S
an Jose and uh I'll be obviously supporting the motion uh great work and uh continue moving in the direction you're moving thank you thanks Council M vice mayor come thank you thank you it's not going to work oh now it works I just wanted to say thank you so much to the library staff but also to the prns staff that really works so hard day in and day out to bring these programs uh to our community and uh every year you know it gets better and better and better and people want to more and more an
d more so I do know that they're very popular I do know that um there's a tremendous need for it uh and I just wanted to recogn ize your work because you know it's um sometimes a little bit complex and I know that you're always trying to leverage those limited dollars and uh you know I think um we need to say you know more than just good job this is great this is really great so continue the good work and again thank you so much thanks vice mayor and I'll Echo that thanks that gratitude for all
the great work you all do serving our community uh particularly our children young people who are looking for opportunity U I had a couple quick questions one is uh you heard just in January FCC is is planning to wind down the affordable connectivity plan I know we've done a lot of work to connect folks to broadband we've so I understand it uh your report indicated we've signed up just over half of eligible households for that program with that going away what what does that mean for families wh
o we need to get connected to broadband yes thank you for that question so we're working closely with our telecommunications Partners to understand what other options are available um so that we can prepare a report out and we would love to work with all your offices to make sure to share that information um but also there is still work being done by the um FCC and others to identify a replacement program for the ACP so we're all kind of watching that there there could be a significant gap of ti
me between the time when the ACP winds down which is next month and the you know the time when they're able to stand up a new program so we're tracking the the the policymaking and the opportunities and we're going to be coming forward with a number of options hopefully to provide to our community um and and also options for what what would it look like if the city was to support some of that um currently we as I as I noted on the slides the city funds a collection of hotspots that are circulate
d through the libraries we started that process during the pandemic and always knew that it is not a long-term solution perhaps there is a better way to direct you know that those uh resources to something that might be more sustainable and that's that's going of all the things that we're looking at right now great and sorry I missed it what did you say the timing was sorry when did you say the timing me was it's supposed to wind down next month in March sorry I meant your an your evaluation of
kind of our forward looking strategy when would that come back to council yeah oh so we we haven't uh calendared anything at Council we were going to prepare um some opportunities to review for our city manager and then possibly briefings for the council and mayor okay sounds good thanks for investigating that I was concerned to hear about that program going away um I think you highlighted this as well I'm I'm very interested in the high dosage tutoring and what we're learning and the scalabilit
y of that uh council member Ortiz and I just heard at the um Youth Empowerment Alliance last week about our at risk youth who as we all know particularly on our East Side Right used to be a public school teacher we already have a lot of young people who are a year or two behind grade level then with the pandemic and remote learning which did not work equally well for everyone we then added another year or two to which students were behind so now we have some real challenges with kids who no long
er believe in their ability to achieve in the classroom and so they're going off and finding other ways to try to find belonging and find income because they're just hope they feel hopelessly behind so it seems to me that a critical question for us to ask ourselves as a community in this moment is what we can do to intervene coming I mean we're on the other side of this pandemic we have a lot of kids who are further behind than they've ever been and so I you know I'm hoping that this is a scalab
le program that that can close that Gap but it didn't look like we had data from last year so what's the when do we get a better analysis um I believe the analysis is expected this spring 2024 so that's good I can check on the exact timing it was an analysis of a pilot program um with 111 students those same um organizations put in proposals for year for a one full year which is an expansion to 1500 students at those locations so I think what we what we could do and should do is look at ways to
connect the youth in the Youth Empowerment Alliance to see if there are opportunities for um for this type of program um we know from our data of our SJ learns program that is it's been highly successful when targeted to to learning at grade level in reading and Mathematics which is a major indicator for third grade students right this is the first time we're doing ages 6 to 12 but they are uh it is one-on-one tutoring the the organizations that were selected are all experienced and well known i
n the space so I mean I think we have a reason to believe that there will be good outcomes um but we so we could do an immediate connection for some students and then we could look at the results when the um first pilot assessment comes back and look at further scaling one of the things we also want to look at is that we we had only three organizations apply for the grants and so we want to even though you know we do make it available to all of our districts we have many you know we have seven c
urrent districts involved in SJ learns I think this was just a new model and so maybe we'll we'll do some learning by talking with partners and schools about how um how we might tweak it to make it available to more people and more organization yeah that sounds great I be really interested more about that and that actually Segways perfectly to my last comment which is likely to be a very unpopular comment um I I think as we look at the range of programs Each of which are um seem like amazing pro
grams I think we need to really think about scale all be as much as I'm in love with the idea of targeted high dosage tutoring helping kids get on grade level and build confidence and be successful if that program can only operate on the scale of a 100 kids and M not with all the overhead costs with the opportunity cost it may not be the right business for the city to be in if we can do that on the scale of thousands of students maybe it is and I think we need to we need to just keep in the back
of our heads as we come back around for another cycle of evaluation all these programs we need to ask ourselves in a city of a million people with the level of need that's out there how many lives were able to touch and I and I don't want to devalue the power of a program that helps one kid but I also think we've limited resources there's the overhead and bandwidth for City staff there's all those costs that uh end up being tax dollars flowing to us managing things here versus direct impact out
in the field and so I just want to constantly encourage us to be thinking about scalable models and how do we get to that order of magnitude of helping thousands of people uh rather than spreading ourselves across what could be dozens of programs helping very small numbers with very high overhead costs I just I think we also have to think about how to maximize the the impact we're having for a community where there's a lot of need it's the same point I've made on homelessness uh you know we've
got some great solutions for the lucky few but as long as we've got 4,000 people living in tense we got to think about scale so I just I'll just make that point here as well not again to devalue any of the incredible work here I think every one of these programs is very well conceived clearly well managed I've had the opportunity to come out to a number of them and witness uh the power but uh I think we have to keep pushing ourselves to think about scale and focus to maximize our impact okay uh
great questions comments from colleagues thank you again for the report I don't see any other hands so let's vote mayor we need a second of the motion and she stepped out oh we can't vote without the second of the motion is that a rule parliamentarian here to council Foley is that true all right here we go Vice mayor's back okay all right thank you all very much we are on to our last agendized item here 7.2 Raging Waters lease agreement this is exciting we have a staff presentation good afternoo
n mayor and city council John CI director parks recreation Neighborhood Services glad you saved the best for last today um this is a great new story um you know La at the end of last summer we were all surprised by the news that our operator at raging waters was leaving town um we were very worried that we would not be able to operate this summer and so before you today is our best best effort to make sure that we do operate this summer um and then also talk a bit about the future to my left avo
t Tom deputy director of The Parks division to his left Shannon Heimer our division manager in the Parks Division and to her left Dominic PBA also a park manager in the Parks division um together we've worked over the last few months uh to uh secure a provider uh representatives of their organization are here in the audience today from California dreaming I believe they'll make some statements under public comment U but also would be available if you had specific questions for them uh that we mi
ght not be able to answer ourselves so we're going to walk through the details of that um in a PowerPoint but before we do that I do want to give a special thank you to Shannon and Dominique who've really done the heavy lifting here this was a big problem that landed in our lap completely unexpectedly uh and they had to drop a lot of other things to make this happen and we're very proud to be able to be here today and give this this option to you as a city Council so with that we'll start the pr
esentation thank you John good afternoon mayor and City Council Members I'm AIO Tom deputy director of parks Raging Waters is a city-owned water park located at Lake Cunningham and East San Jose with 14 water rides Cabanas concessions gift shop and Amphitheater event space it opened in 1985 as the largest water park in Northern California with a 20-year lease that was amended and restated several times over the next two decades and extended into a 40-year lease scheduled to expire in March 2025
when the park added significant Capital Improvements like the wave pool and pirate ship play structure like many others who grew up in San Jose in and around San Jose I spent many days in my childhood at raging waters for school trips CB Scout trips birthday parties and fun with friends and family we didn't mind the trip from out of town into Lake hunningham because Raging Waters was a destination that we all looked forward to visiting it was part of growing up here true story I also learned the
value of sunscreen at raging waters a lesson I will never forget and I have the freckles to prove it now as staff the connection to the park has taken on a professional lens as John said we we staff were disappointed to learn on September 5th that the prior operator Palace entertainment intended to terminate its lease on September 30th 18 months early by doing that Palace entertainment breached its agreement with the city and we have since communicated with Palace entertainment about its obliga
tion including site conditions that need to be addressed even before that in anticipation of the end of the 40-year lease we had already begun working on the RFP for the future of Raging Waters when the prior operator left we pivoted to find a short-term solution to ensure the city's assets would be secured and maintained and Dominic will explain what we did hello mayor and Council thank you so much for having me today my name is Dominique PBA I'm the parks manager with the destination events an
d sports unit team um and I oversee the Raging Waters lease um the lease for the city golf courses an Evolutions lease at Emma Farm Park among other programs and staff um under the terms of the current contract the city manager has the authority to reassign the remaining lease the city H can assign the lease agreement to an organization that meets required qualifications six companies expressed interest in opening or I'm sorry operating Raging Waters in the weeks after the closure now announceme
nt so staff implemented a structured process to select an asse from these interested parties within an abbreviated timeline so the park could reopen this summer five organizations submitted their qualifications and we determined that four of the five submissions demonstrated meeting required qualifications staff invited company's meeting required qualifications to a tour of the facility and submit proposals for reopening three of them submitted proposals however one was only interested in a long
-term lease the final two were interviewed and staff selected California Dream and entertainment Incorporated for the lease assignment the staff of California Dream and entertainment Incorporated have over 40 years of experience in the industry they are currently redeveloping the former Raging Waters in Sacramento Additionally the team has worked with Disney Universal Studios SeaWorld notsy farm and the Raging Waters Los Angeles in San Deus their proposal for a reopening in summer of 2024 includ
es temporary structures food trucks Partners like Chuck-E-Cheese a wine Garden addition and an increased rent of 6% of sales pending um now I'll talk a little bit about the lease Amendment terms pending approval today staff and asse will finalize and execute an assignment an assumption agreement of the palace entertainment lease with the same terms and conditions however based on the ass's proposal we are recommending that we amend the agreement and extend the term for 6 months so the 2025 summe
r is included and add an option at the city's Soul discretion to extend for another 6 months until March of 2026 additionally rent payments to the city would be 6% of gross receipts as proposed by California dreaman up from 5.5% current lastly if California dreamman is not selected for the long-term RFP they would be reimbursed for up to 3,400 50,000 for startup costs and needed Capital repairs with expenses subject to City staff approval the future RFP for long-term operations will include a re
quirement for the selected operator to reimburse the asse up to 3,450 th000 from the selected operator's own funds if California dreamman is not selected I will now pass it to Shannon to talk about the process to identify a long-term operator for Raging Waters thank you thanks Dominique good afternoon mayor and city council I'm Shannon Heimer division manager over Parks destination events and sports including Happy Hollow park and zoo Emma Farm Park Family Camp placemaking Park Rangers and our S
ports field reservations and Facilities since March 2023 we have been researching and planning for the long-term request for proposal or RFP to address the lease at Raging Waters and to look for look at recreational opportunities at Lake Cunningham Regional Park a facility like Raging Waters is not often available for bidding and with Great America slated to close within a decade we are approaching a generational opportunity to revitalize the city's water park and consider potential expansion of
Raging Waters or the least grounds to include the Marina Lake undeveloped areas and even potentially the action sports park to include the action sports park prns would need to complete a business case analysis in accordance with Council policy Z -41 on Service delivery evaluation because the facility has more than four FTE that might be affected if there are Service delivery changes and the decision to Purser changes would be presented for the city council's approval prior to including the act
ion sports park in the RFP the RFP we have begun drafting is centered on The Guiding principles of activate SJ the 20-year strategic plan for prns stewardship nature equity and access identity and public life the RFP is looking for a long-term operator for Raging Waters and potentially other areas of Lake hunningham Regional Park providing increased Revenue to the city without additional operating cost a long-term lease should include significant capital investment in Raging Waters and potential
ly other areas of Lake Cunningham as interested parties have already expressed a willingness to invest 20 million or more in a long-term deal the RFP will seek a contribution toward Sol solving the lake water quality challenge working towards creating a future for Lake Sports which could even be part of the operation of Raging Waters finally the long-term RFP would strive for providing the community highquality safe and affordable experiences that would encourage socialization and engagement and
would reestablish Lake hunningham as a destination that draws San Jose residents and visitors alike while raising identity and pro raising the identity and profile of East San Jose the RFP is scheduled to be released by late spring 2024 and evaluated through the Summer Staff expects to return to the city council in late 2024 or early 2025 to award the RFP and transition to a new operator in 2025 after negotiating an executing lease agreements before we close I want to take a moment to thank our
colleagues in the city manager's office of Economic Development and cultural Affairs City attorneys office and finance department who have supported efforts for this lease assignment and been thought partners for the rfp's development including Thomas Harris Kevin ice Andrew Malik Cameron day Johnny fan Miguel Bernell Vicky Davis and Albi udam with that we recommend adopting a resolution authorizing the city manager or her design to negotiate and execute an assignment and an amendment of the gr
ound lease as stated in the memo and provide feedback on The Guiding principles of the RFP staff is developing and now we are available for questions and feedback thank you great thank you so much you know John said it I I just really want to reiterate the gratitude for the speed at which you all pivoted to meet this community need we are not exactly known for our uh agility and speed in government but the fact that after you know Council uh was was made aware of Palace backing out and we all we
re concerned you guys just jumped in and figured out how to make it happen so we're really really grateful I'm sure my colleagues will Echo those sentiments um and obious to your point I think most of us who grew up in the region have fond memories of going to ran Waters as a kid my life lesson was don't linger at the bottom of the big slide or you will you will get crushed um okay so we're g to come back for uh Council discussion do we have any public comments we have SP four speaker cards I sa
y call her name please go ahead and make your way to the podium Steven Thomas lesie and Jordan good afternoon my name is Steve duner I'm the CEO of California Dream and entertainment standing behind me is Thomas lockel the guy who originally designed and built Raging Waters 40 years ago Tom and I have known each other more years than either one of us will admit and uh we've worked together on Raging Waters Parks elsewhere in California when I was made aware that the park had been closed I immedi
ately contacted Dominique and said look we've done the same thing in Sacramento what can we do here and Tom and I decided to lock hips and come into this together to not only reopen the park but hopefully on a long-term basis make it a real destination for the whole valley so thank you for your time I'm grateful to be here looking forward to working with you in the next two years and hopefully 20 or 30 more thank you my name is Thomas leld I was the original leie that uh developed Raging Waters
so to me this is a real homecoming and I want to thank the city to begin with to actually have given me the opportunity over 40 years ago to come and develop this park because it was my first and then I went on to develop you know five other other parks that I operated throughout the world and sold hundreds of attractions that I've also developed but I really want to let you know there's a magnificent opportunity with Lake Cunningham as a regional park and not only that it's regional we can make
it a destination for worldwide you know call it recreational opportunity for families kids and what I Envision is is sporting Elements which you know is is a real driver for health and and well-being for the community so I look forward very much toh come back and bring this to life thank you hi Jordan moldow District 3 um I'm supportive of this project and I'm supportive of the uh memorandum put forward by council member candelis and Ortiz um their memo talks about employment access for the loc
al community and financial access for the local community um and I also wanted to talk about physical access for the local community um you know the people who are visiting Lake Cunningham or the local community members who will eventually be employed at raging waters might want to get there by walking or by biking or scooter or whatever um and right now I'd say it's not super easy to get there um you know it's surrounded by Capital Expressway and Tully which have a lot of cars on them not super
safe um so I'd encourage um you know the new lease holder and the city staff to think about physical access while we're revitalizing the the two parks um I think there's from the official map of the lake it looks like there's a single pedestrian ENT entrance at the corner of white and Cunningham a um but it's a huge park it seems like you could put many more pedestrian entrances with uh bridges over the river so that pedestrians could access them from multiple sides um the two driveway entrance
s to the park right now do not have sidewalks the sidewalks just end as the driveway starts so maybe also think about rebuilding the sidewalk into the park um also if you want to walk around the entire Lake when you get to Raging Waters you kind of have to walk through the parking lot um so maybe the new uh people running Lake hunningham can think about building some sort of pedestrian walkway that connects the whole circumference of the lake thank you surrender hi everyone uh years ago I used t
o work at India motorcycle um for the CFO and he told me a story about a young girl that was gang raped at raging waters um as you know I see all children as my own children so please make sure that safety is a priority for all of them I know everyone loves to have fun um but around fun things happen and so that's all I ask thank you back to council okay thank you um I'm going to turn to my colleague Council M candelis who I know was as as are more relieved than any of us that we're able to salv
age this summer at raging waters council member thank you um I I want to start off by thanking PS staff I know that when the the first the news first broke um about the previous operator leaving abruptly uh we had several conversations um and you understood my urgency with regard to finding an operator to assume operations uh by by the summer uh but not for me for but for our families in East San Jose and Beyond and um for that I'm I'm truly appreciative um and and for your commitment for for ou
r community uh Raging Waters is a regional landmark and we all recognize that uh today is important for our city because of our efforts in finding a new operator but it's not just about securing an operator it's about safeguarding a Beloved Community Asset Set uh and ensuring it continues for generations to come um you know over the the last few months I've heard from many residents about the park and a lot of them uh wrote emails um uh they were a little sad that they couldn't come in person bu
t alas that's a topic for a different day um today we breathe new new life into this destination and hopefully in the new in the near future unlock its full potential uh Beyond providing a source of recreation for our community the park uh serves as a catalyst uh for economic growth uh attracting visitors to the area supporting our small businesses and generating revenue for our city um it also serves as a hub for bringing families together uh friends neighbors where we have an opportunity to cr
eate lasting memories right Obi or as the mayor mentioned um and and it's it's a it creates a s sense of belonging council member ores and I drafted a a memorandum that does a few things uh one it strengthens our agreement um and ensures that we are protecting the City by reducing the risk um for whatever reason of a breach of of agreement a breach of contract um and second it makes it's makur that Raging Waters is part of the RFP process for how we're reimagining um provides local jobs for our
students um and our and our folks immediately adjacent to Raging Waters in Lake Cunningham because I we all know how important that is um I want to thank the PRS staff and the City attorney for helping us with memo and and helping us um craft craft something that's that's reasonable that could potentially be implemented as part of the part of the RFP process um I am excited to see the results of that process we all know how important improving the water quality uh means not just to me um but to
our to our neighborhoods and I look forward to tapping the potential of the private sector um as part of this uh to help accelerate the problem and into a potential private public partnership a pie 3 if you will um in in activating the marina the skate park and other amenities we have at Lake hunningham um thank you lastly to California dreaman for stepping up and uh and filling that that that Gap I look forward to attending Raging Waters with my nephews this summer um with that I'd like to move
the memorandum drafted by council member Ortiz and myself second great thank you I'll be supporting the memo council member Ortiz thank you uh mayor I want to start my comments by sharing my thanks with um our staff at prns who worked diligently as soon as we learned that the current operator Palace entertainment no longer had intention to continue operating the park I appreciate the quick mobilization by staff to ensure that there's no lapse in enjoyment for our families especially those of Ea
n Jose who rely on the water park for summertime entertainment ring Waters is a cherished place for many residents including my myself of course for Generations it's been a hub of fun and learning where residents held their first jobs folks learned how to swim schools enjoyed their end of the year field trips families have made unforget Unforgettable memories and if you're anything like two of my staff members you may have almost drowned in the wave pool but uh it's no wonder why the the water p
ark holds such a special place in the hearts of so many people and it's fiercely guarded by residents of East San Jose to that end I hope that both me and council member Candelas can count on our colleague support to strengthen the bond between the water park and our community our joint memo aims to achieve this through local hire as well as providing affordable access to Residents who otherwise lack the opportunity to enjoy the amenity and finally it moves to protect the city's finances ensurin
g that our pockets aren't hurt if the new operator decides to pull their contractual obligation which I understand that's not the intent but before I end my comments let me add my thanks to the leadership of council member candelis and uh both our prns Capital team and igr team who worked to secure 1.5 million in last year's budget cycle that will go towards the restoration of Lake Cunningham as we continue to work towards the Park's restoration our shared focus should be ensuring that it become
s safe and and an enjoyable place for everyone in our city and throughout the community and key to this is the continued operation of course of Raging Waters thank you and I look forward to the vote great thanks council member appreciate those comments council member dwan thank you mayor uh thank you staff U especially pz are putting this whole project together and I appreciate that council member candales and and Ortiz have have Shore up um to make sure that if our operator decide to end Del Le
for some reason um I do have a couple of question now I know that there was six different vendors that was willing to bid on the on the long-term project why did we go with the shortterm versus the long-term project because I know that with the long-term project there's you know the the winner would probably put in 20 to $30 million in in infrastructure Improvement uh with this short term we're in the hook for three well three and a half million approximately uh to reimburse thank you council m
ember um the real impetus is to be open this summer um and if we were to do the long-term RFP there was no way we were opening this summer and one of the things any any of the water park folks will tell you that operate these if you leave that water park sitting unoperated for a year to it's going to be a real hard thing to open so it was critical for us in our mind in in terms of preserving the infrastructure that's there there is a lot of improvements needed there's a lot of work that needs to
be done um and thankfully California dreaman has stepped up to do that so they'll be involved I'm sure in the long-term process as well U but if we wanted to be open this summer this was really the only way thank you and is there a concern that the $35 million will be paid by or reimbursed by the long-term contract RFP down the line and if so does that prevent a lot of bidder to jump in because right off the bat there and they're hook for $3 and5 million yeah we don't we don't believe that will
be a barrier um and we did talk with other uh potential operators they all had a similar sort of take that hey if we're going to invest a lot of money in a very short period of time and we don't have this long-term stability then then we're putting up a lot of money and walking away that's not fair to us and we agree so that would be built into the RFP so anybody who's going to bid on the RFP will know going in that there's this potential liability sitting there if uh California Dream is not um
is not awarded that said all that we've talked to say the same thing California Dreaming they see a really big opportunity here uh they they see it in different ways and different things and that's what's going to be kind of exciting about the RFP process because we'll get different ideas we think um but everybody sees the potential here and they're all willing to put additional investment into it if they're in the long-term deal well thank you I guess I got a few months to work out just get my
body in shape to get out there and have fun thanks not even going to comment Council for fully flooor is yours yeah I'm not going to comment either um so ju first thank you to California dreaman for I love that name c uh for coming forward with uh an option or lease agreement for six months and then a extension for another six months that's a uh really putting a stake in the ground that you're committed to this project and uh wanted to succeed and move forward and thank you to staff as well for
moving so quickly because the risk of not having that Park functioning is greater than um than leaving it not work and then come back three or four years the amount of infrastructure and cost that we'd have to put into bring it back up to usability is would be tremendous so I I appreciate that that but I do have a a question about the the the reimbursement if you will so just so I understand so if California dreaman has a six-month lease for this year we can renew it for another six months at t
he city's option I'm sure they would hope that we do that I'm sure I don't I I'm assuming we're going to do that and but if during the RFP process so when are we going to put out the RFP process and will it include a refund or credit to the city of 3.4 million or whatever to the city if Dre California dreaman is not the successful bidder in the RFP so a couple points there um a it's not a six-month extension um this the they're assuming an existing contract that goes until March of next year the
n we're adding six months onto that in the event we need that summer right we didn't want to be back here in February next year saying oh shoot we need we need more time for the summer maybe something went size way was RFP or whatever and then we have another six months that we could extend beyond that at our option and that's mainly to be certain all the negotiation happens all the council conversations have happened and everything's approved and we can also get the operator in there you know i
f it isn't California dreaman they obviously have to mobilize California Dream would have to demobilize so that all that takes time and effort um our my vision was that they would pay California Dreaming directly rather than pay the city and then we turn around and pay California Dreaming and it's important to recognize in the in the the agreement we're saying up to 3.45 million on the projects we agree as City staff are eligible and qualify and there are plenty of them to do believe there's mor
e than $3 and5 million of work that needs to be done there but this is what it's going to take to get our get things open and things in a place where people are really going to have an enjoyable experience so that's how we would Envision that that would be in the RFP so anybody who would bid on that would know going in if California Dream doesn't get it I'm going to owe them money on the on the front end got it okay that's that's really helpful so we approved this contract today what is Californ
ia draman's timeline for opening up the park we will open on time this year which is I believe Memorial Day weekend that's the target but uh we'll probably have that contract signed before the week is done if you approve it that's exciting I look forward to supporting it thank you California Dream and thank you to staff too great thanks council member once again thanks to City staff uh in particular Shannon Dominique for for bringing this home in a timely fashion thank you to California Dream lo
ok forward to working with you all I think we're ready to vote okay motion passes okay great congratulations thank you all okay we're on to open Forum which is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on City business that was not on today's agenda do we have any cards no public comment okay thank you all we're [Music] [Music] [Music] adjourned
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