I will be proud to call to order the meeting of August. Well, the special meeting of August 22nd, 2024. Can we get a roll call? Council member Brown. Here. Council member Dom Kowski? Here. Council member Gold? Here. Council member Shaw? Here. And vice mayor. Here. Here. All is absent. Before we go, Jean, is there a point at which we're supposed to acknowledge where Chris is at and have the council take an action. Yes. So it's now that. Yes. Now is the time. It's my understanding that council member Shah has a contagious illness, which prevents him from participating in person. And so he would request the emergency exception for attendance. And that requires the council to vote to okay that. So do you want me to request a special dispensation because I have COVID. When you say I have a communicable disease, that starts the mind wandering. Sorry, didn't want to disclose your health issue. So Jean, we need a motion to... Okay. Correct. Do we have a motion to allow Councilmember Shaw to attend the meeting remotely? Pacific is communicable disease. Per his disease. Yes. So moved. Second. Councilmember Brown. Yes. Councilmember Dom Kowski. Councilmember Gold. Yes. Councilmember Shaw. Yes. And Vice Mayor Floyd. Yes. And I, Jean, I'm from member Gold, I'm from member Shaw, yes, and vice mayor for it. Yes, and I, Jean, I think I should probably say that I am also attending remotely. I had the agenda posted for the required time and there is no one else in the room with me for the meeting. Thank you. Although, let me just say this, which is my eighth grade humanities class is watching this. This morning is part of our civic education project. Too late. is watching this. This morning is part of our civic education project. So please watch your language. Good to know. All right. Can I get councilmember Dom Kowski to lead us in the Pledge of Legends? Absolutely. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and America to the Republic, which is one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to the public comment portion. We're soon to government code section 5495 4.3a. Persons wishing to address the council on non agendas items that are within the jurisdiction of the town. I invite to do so. Please note, however, the council is not able to undertake extended discussion or to act on non agendas items. Such items can be referred to staff or appropriate action, which may include placement on a future agenda. This communication period is limited to five persons, three minutes each. Anyone who is wishing to be heard on something not on today's agenda is welcome to do so now. Not seeing any hands in the Zoom room, assuming there is no one in the building for non agendized items. Okay, moving on to new business, we have one item today, three resolutions of the town council of the town of what's that acknowledging that only one candidate was nominated from each of the three districts from which elections are scheduled to be held on November 5th, 2024, and appointing those candidates in lieu of holding the scheduled elections. And I assume I am turning this to Kevin. Yes, thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor and Council. So thanks for making time this morning, everyone. As we said on the staff reporting in a notice, we're bound by election law to inform both both publicly and also inform the governing body, the council, when we have an election after the nomination period where there is one or no candidates for or open seats. And so the situation that we are confronted with is we have one candidate nominated successfully filed papers for each of the four districts that are up for election in November. And I'm presented to the government code that Council may. It does not not direct this meeting, but it does provide the opportunity to do it. And we had a couple of people interested in holding it. And the Council can take at this point one of two actions given that you have nominees for each of these seats. The first option is to take no action today on resolutions in your packet and proceed with the election in November. One of the things that that would provide for is the right in period candidate period for right in candidates, candidacies, which as we know the the staff report, and as one of our sitting members is aware, well, I'll measure all aware, we have had in the history of town, of the town, at least two times when a right in candidate was elected. So that's not, it's more than an academic point in Woodside. The alternative to that would be that the council by, by, there are a new packet, packet three resolutions one for each of the district elections. So the council could buy and you would need four votes to do this, but you could or go the election and appoint the nominee to that seat and they would take office in December as they would had they been elected in November. I think that that's I some other just information in the background that we provided one of course was the fact of the writings and and canton the election obviously for goes that option. The other the cost of the last election and we anticipate the cost of this election would be around $15,000. It's not known to us exactly because it's an allocation of all the elections that the county runs all around the county. So, but I would expect it to fall in that same range as well. If the election could go forward. I think I've covered everything if there are any questions. Let me know. Any questions for staff. Gina has something to add. Yeah, two quick ones. I'm sorry, I just wanted to add one thing if I could and I wanted to explain why we have three resolutions before you instead and there's always a question of whether or not an incumbent can vote on an issue that would affect their own election. The FPPC has indicated the answer to that is yes, that government, excuse me, elections code 10229 specifically allows for all council members to participate. Having said that, council member Gold, who is present, can make a decision if he chooses to do so to recuse. And we see throughout the state, sometimes people participate, sometimes they don't. There's no requirement to recuse, but that is why we've provided three separate resolutions, just in case he chooses to recuse on the resolution regarding his seat. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Yes. What is the last date of writing candidate can participate in the election? Is the day of the election? Is that no, there's a shutting off shutoff time. There's a window and it begins. Yeah, we do have it here. So a writing candidate has to follow their prescribed rules in the election codes in the election code as well. So a write in candidates qualify needs to follow a process. But that that write in window begins September 9th and it closes October 22nd. So it's, I mean, I think somebody can write a name on a ballot. But in terms of a candidate qualifying and being duly elected, they would follow the election code. Okay. Thank you. Maybe I could ask Jeanne this question. I just wanted to confirm something or press might very well know given his experience. I was always under the impression that a in candidate has to be qualified. That is that you can write an A name you want as Kevin said, but they won't, even if they get a majority of the votes, if they're not qualified, they won't be elected. You have to actually be qualified. And I think agree to be accepted or to accept the position if you win. Jean, is that correct? It's my understanding that a right in candidate would need to comply with the forms that the town clerk is required to provide to them. If they want to be a writing candidate, yes. Thank you. Yep. That's my workshop. Yeah, so that's correct. I mean, you have to go pull the papers. You still have to get the signatures from 20 residents in your district. I was fortunate when I did it. We weren't by district at that point. And you're expected to follow all the same rules that people who have qualified for the ballot are on there. I think the only real difference is that your name is not on the ballot, but all of the marketing legal stuff you still have to follow. And then can I ask a question? That's why I actually throw my hand up. Please. So just thinking about what you need to get done today, how many votes do you need to do this? Is it a majority or we need four? 84. That was it. Okay. Councilmember Dumpkowski, any questions? Thank you. Thanks, Mayor Perotem. Has anyone thus far come to town hall or inquired staff about what would be involved in a right in candidacy? Has any interest been shown? Yes. No, I have not received any. Okay. Um, and I guess the only other question I have is, you know, one of the reasons that was given in the staff report for holding elections is that some people may prefer to be elected rather than appointed, um, has any candidate come to staff or town and ask us to suspend money so that they may be elected rather than appoint it? No. Okay. Thank you. I got one more question then. If. That. Please. Yeah. Okay. Is each candidate going to still submit their 300 word on description of their candidates? Are there the qualifications? So those were already due and two of the candidates did submit statements. One did not. One did not. Is that a requirement? It's not a requirement. It's optional. But then, is the question or would those still be published in the? Yeah, there will still be published. In other words, we have at least one candidate that most people don't are not familiar with because they haven't been serving on the council. And I'm wondering if there's going to be a statement written statement that the community can see when they go to the voting box. If it's optional, but if the town council chooses to move forward with the election, all of the paperwork that was submitted will still, it will be the same. So yes, the candidate statements would be in the, if we don't go forward, if you don't go forward, no, they're not, they're not. If you appoint, they're not. Well, let's a quick question. Could we, if we do appoint, could we still publish? Well, I guess my first question, who has submitted candidate statements? A lot of the tell us. Jennifer Wall and Hassan Abraj. Okay. And then if we do appoint, could we put those two statements up on the town website? I believe we can. Okay. Thank you. Any other question? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Another question for Jean. So it requires four votes to approve each of these three resolutions. So if they fail to get four votes, that means we're having the election. That's correct. Yeah. Any other questions from staff? Sorry, for staff. Okay, seeing none, we'll open it go to the public. Seeing none, we'll open it up to public comments. Anyone in the room wish to address the council? Please come forward. Hi, my name is Sassana Barish. I'm running for town council for district five. I wanted to come and share my thoughts on this. So my initial thought was that as somebody who's physically conservative generally, why waste the money if only three people are running for three spots, it doesn't, doesn't really make sense to spend $15,000. But thinking about it further, talking to other people, neighbors, people in my district, there's another issue that I think specifically is related to me, doesn't so much affect Paul or Jen, the mayor, but nobody knows me. I think except for my neighbors and people, I've lived here almost four years and I believe I would make a good town council member, but not everyone knows me. And so to the extent people get to know me and they decide that they don't believe I would be, I think it's important that they have the option to be able to find another candidate and to have a right in. And I think just it sets a precedent and there's a risk that somebody runs and is unopposed and happens to be the only person who submitted documentation on time and then you know people go and find out more about them and maybe they have a Confederate flag waving in their front yard and they're you know have extreme political views and and when people get to know them they say this is not the right person but you know it's too late. They've already been selected and they're going to be on the town council for the next four years. So personally, that's just my thoughts. And but I would respect whichever way everyone votes. Thank you. Thank you. No one in the Zoom room with their hands up is there anyone else in the council chambers. There's nobody else in council chambers. Okay. Then we will turn it to council deliberations and maybe we'll start with councilmember gold because he's to my left today. Thank you. I'd like first I wanted to thank Asan for bringing to run for election. It's a, you really don't know what you're getting into till you're on this side of the table and people are yelling at you from the other side but I appreciate volunteering to do this. So thank you for that. I just wanted to make two points, and I'll try to make them quickly, as a departure from my usual. One, I wanted to echo what Hassan said, and that is, I think there is an immense difference between an appointment and an elected official. I think there's a certain connotation, there's a power you're there with the consent of the voters and not just the appointment of, you know, or five elected officials. And I think that that's a big, big difference. And I think that it's important because it really relates a seriousness of validity and a defensibility to sitting on the side of the table. You're here with the consent of the people and not just you were appointed. And I know I've said this before about other issues. I consider it a point of pride that I was elected. Obviously by larger margins than my colleagues. I always like to point that out. But in all seriousness, I think that we don't have elections very often and we serve for four years. And it's nice to at least at one moment in time expose yourself to the voters and allow them to weigh in and do it. The second reason I wanted to mention is the cost issue. And yes, it's between 10 and $15,000 I think it's varied over the years. That represents one 20th of 1% of our town's budget. We likely spend more money on goodwill for employees and council members than that. And so I think that, you know, we always talk, you know, lately there's a lot of talk about democracy and elections and I think this is just one of those issues where I think that folks deserve the ability to weigh in and even though we're running unopposed Let them cast their votes or not cast their votes and I and I think that Given the contention that we've experienced especially over the last year or so with the housing element This is we shouldn't be appointing people if there's an election that's there And so I will always err on that side. And I hope that I'll be voting against these resolutions so that we can have the election for all three people. And by the way, I won't be recusing. Thank you. Thank you for that. Let's go to Council Member Shaw. Yep, sorry, copy what's not my mouth will call it a fault. But it's going to be next up there. Yeah, so there's two sides to this thing. And I think Paul touched on both of them. You know, having been the guy that ran a ride in campaign. It was very different. It was a pretty contentious time in Woodside town politics. That being said, you know, there is something to be said for going through the process and grinding it out and going through the scrutiny of the public, not knowing if anybody's going to throw their hat in the ring between now and October. I don't remember the exact date. Sorry. But it could happen, right? And that's, you know, it's a pretty tall mountain decline. So I tend to lean on the side of democracy if you want to play it that way. I think when we do a point people, you know, I think it cheapens the seat. I was going to make a civil war reference and talk about three-fifths and things like that, but Ned, you asked me not to do things like that. So you was only going to be for council member goal. I'll tell you what, right after this meeting, I'm talking to those students so fire away. Is that ever you need to say? But I also think the fiduciary side of it's important. I mean, I know it's in the grand scheme of our budget. It's not a huge number, but it is a number, right? And there will be people that sat there and said, you ran a stupid election when you didn't have to, and you blew $15,000 of our taxpayer dollars. But I would also question spending $11,000 on a consultant to help perfectly able people do long-range planning. I also tried to raise the issue about spending 300,000 dollars on sidewalks. Now that's health and safety versus other things. So I just want to fully recognize that, you know, we're spending 15 grand if we vote to do this. And that number doesn't change whether we appoint one and elect two or however we do it, right? Once we decide to hold an election for one it's pretty much the same cost for all three so. I'm interested in hearing what everybody else has to say. Thank you councilmember Shaw will move on to the Councilmember Brown. Yeah, frankly, I was very impressed with the SON said, this willingness to object himself to do an election instead of just taking an appointment. It says a lot to me about not only SON, but I think the process itself is important. I think the public should know where they're voting for. And they do know Jen, they do know Paul, they don't know Hassan. If we don't go through, I'm kind of an election, they won't find out enough about him until he's sitting up here with us. So I would be and with Paul that I think we should go forward with the election. Thank you. Councilmember Dumbkowski. Well, I think for reasons of civic discourse in Mr. Fluid's eighth grade civics class, I will I'm going to voice the dissenting opinion so you guys have something to talk about. I appreciate it. Yeah. So this is not an absolute situation. Like a lot of things, it is about a reasonable process, a relative decision. And I will admit that I'm probably more focused on the budget than the average person. I serve on the audit committee with Council Member Gold. I'm in the finance world. And I'm not flippant about tax dollars, whether it's $100 or $1 million. It's still taxpayer money. We are charged as prudent fiduciaries with the implementation of those dollars. We do have a limited budget as we know. So there are a lot of lenses to look at this issue on. We've heard about, you know, we're going to defend democracy as one of those lenses. But when you have a situation where. Town of Woodside's been around for almost 70 years. We run on average three and a half elections a year when we had a seven person council every two years. That's 122 elections. years, we run on average three and a half elections a year when we had a seven-person council every two years. That's 122 elections. We've had two right-in candidacies. So there's a 98 to 99 percent outcome, if you will. If you want to run an election, probably the worst way to run an election is as a right in Canada with your name not on the ballot. It doesn't say a lot about your thought process. Now, sometimes there's a very polarizing situation and a wonderful candidate that can spearhead a new movement in town. And that's what happened with Councilmember Shaw. But I guess I look at this and I, you know, it's a bit of a foregone conclusion is my issue. So it's not, I get it. It's not absolute. But from a relative point of view, if I came to you and I said, hey, here's $15,000. Give me $15,000. This is a new investment opportunity. Well, what's the outcome? Well, 99% of the time it's zero. Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't wanna do that. Well, then what happens? I'm a gambler. What about that? 1%? Well, 1% of the time, there's a secondary process where it's a coin flip where it still might be zero. I don't think that that passes the reasonable man test they say, Putin person test in this environment. So I guess when I look at it, it doesn't, you know, if I said give me your $15,000 for this investment, you might make a very different decision than if you're spending the treasury of woodside for the sake of democracy in an environment where we have three uncontested elections where it takes us 18 to 24 months to appoint people to the ASRB just to have a full committee where I mean, I think we are hearing a little bit about where we should maybe be investing or not investing from the people themselves because there is a lack of interest. It is a sad state of democracy and woodside at the current time that we have three uncontested elections. There is nothing better for democracy than contested elections. There is nothing better than being out and being engaged with the people and hearing what they have to say and remembering who we work for. So I don't think this is a good use of money. And so I will vote. I it was very clear that I'm going to be the dissenting opinion. And I will look to get an update from Mr. Fluitt on what his eighth grade class had to say about that. Thank you. And yeah, I, you know, three days ago, I, I've been kind of torn about this. I first looked at it, it seemed like I'm a no brainer. We could say 15, maybe more thousand dollars. And I also looked at it in terms of timing and opportunity. And I thought, well, some months ago we voted to have an election. If you didn't know this was an election year, you've been living under a. So I think anyone had plenty of notice that there was going to be some election this year. And at least for my district, folks had initial additional five days to file papers if they wanted to. So I thought, you know, there's been plenty of opportunity for those who are interested to come forward. And run for office and this money is probably not very well spent. But, you know, I actually had my mind changed during this meeting over the last 10, 15 minutes. Yeah, I think I think having an election is important as someone who got the largest margin among the town council members in an election. It does make me take my job more seriously to know that my name was on a ballot. People saw it, people filled in those bubbles. And because they chose me, I'm accepting a, I think a greater degree of responsibility for this job, knowing that they had to make that choice. And I can't remember maybe it was Council Member Gold, maybe Shaw, even choosing not to vote is still a choice. So someone might see these three names and say, I don't like any of these people. Or I like to, and I don't like one. Giving people that opportunity to say no by not filling in any bubble is still giving them some kind of choice. And you know, I think for council member gold, council member wall and Hassan it. might having an election will make them go out into the public and introduce themselves and get people to know who they are. And I do think it makes them more responsive to the public. I think we're more likely come November to have people say, why does this ballot not have any woodside people on it? Then we will get people saying, I spent $15,000. I can already imagine the emails come, the first week of November saying, hey, I see the president, I see this, I see that, where are our electives, our local electives, and if I respond and say, oh, that's already been done, don't worry about it, I could see people being very upset about that, because given the number of people who are in the room and online, I think most people just assume this is going to happen. And so I kind of want to meet those expectations. And yeah, I think it's important that we have our town council officials elected by the public, even if I wouldn't say it's not a poor-gone conclusion that these three will prevail, but even though it may on the surface not make a lot of financial sense, I think it's still very important for the public to be able to say yes or no to each of these people. Even if the no is simply choosing not to vote for that individual. So I'm inclined to go forward with having an election in November. But I do see cuts and member Shaw's hand up. Yeah, no, I appreciate that, Ned, you kind of spurred a question. If it's all right, I'm gonna ask Jean. I think I know the answer, but it leads to the larger conversation, which is if we chose to appoint, and at some point between now and the deadline for writing, somebody showed up and says, no, I wanna write in, is it well too bad? I'm assuming that the board is not going to be able to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board is not going to be able to see the board that's correct. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Shaw. Any other comments? Deliberation questions from council? I think I just like this is councilmember of council. Just like to acknowledge that when faced with the same situation the good fiduciaries of Atherton, the city council of Atherton voted unanimously to a point, not waste taxpayer dollars in this way. And I just, I want to acknowledge our colleagues there in my mind, being wonderful watchdogs of their towns, treasuring. Thank you for that. And I saw that R calls well and I appreciate that comment. And let me just again emphasize, I was definitely torn about this issue this year. Any other comments, questions or deliberation from council? I see council member Shah rubbing his chin like. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just kind of going ahead, please going on the whole thing. No, I mean, again, if having gone through the process, I think it kind of makes me the standard bearer. But I also want to echo what council member Dom Kowski said. It's a pretty sad state affairs that half of the current council or 60% of the incoming class next year, you know, ran unopposed. I think, you know, we, you know, over the last couple of years, everybody that's on the call or in the room there, we've heard from the citizens about a lot of stuff. And most of the times it wasn't like you guys are the best. Other than Paul, Paul, your numero uno. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, but the rest of us have taken it on the chin. Anyways, I thought there was a point. There's not. It must be my communicable disease. Mr. Mayor. You were as articulate as ever. yes, go ahead, Kevin. One quick one other point that I just, you know, to just echo what councilmember Shaw just said, everybody, I mean, I think actually Ned said this and that is that it's inescapable that this is an election year you've been living under Iraq. If you don't know that every citizen in Woodside who sat in this room with their pitch forks and torches had a chance to go visit Melissa and take out those election papers and fill out what seems to be a couple of hundred pages of documents and your financial disclosure and everything else. And they didn't do that. I did, gendered, assaulted and you know I think that I'm not going to apologize for running on the I've I've asked more than 20 people to please run for for my seat and they gave me as as I know many of the councilmen my fellow councilmembers know I got a very fast no no one even said let me about it, which would be the polite thing to do. But they said was no. They said no before I even finished the question. And so I'm willing to sit here and do it. I've got other things I'd rather do to be perfectly frank. And as you well know, we took the time and the effort to do it. We'll stand for the election, and that's just fine. I'm willing to do that. But I think that, yeah, it's a sad state of affairs when other people, they're so vocal about opposing us and think that we're not doing a great job, and they can't take the time to opt for election. So maybe that'll change in the future, but for now, hey, that's the state of affairs. And, you know, I'm running on an oppose, but that's okay. I'll stand for election willingly and proudly. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for that. Any final comments from council? Okay, saying no. So this is, you know, a motion to a firmly appoint. So I guess just to procedurally have to ask if there is a motion to firmly appoint. So I guess just to procedurally have to ask if there's a motion to appoint any of the three members. Yeah, given the number of votes needed, it's very clear through deliberation that there would be no ability to pass this motion. So no, no for my end. Okay. Dean, do we need, looking without a motion, is there anything else procedurally we need to do to kind of close out this issue? No, if you do not adopt the resolutions, then we will automatically move to an election. Okay, no magic words that I have to say. I guess you could just indicate that there was no motion made on any of the three resolutions. Okay, so seeing no motion made on the three resolutions, I believe that closes this agenda item and this meeting unless our Communication town manager has anything else he needs to inform us about I do not Do you want communications? Communications are not agendas. I don't think they are they are yeah Yeah, there is yeah, sorry. Yeah, they are so any council member communications. No None for me Okay, no council member communications nothing else from the staff. I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you, everyone, for doing this a Thursday morning. Yeah, I appreciate it. Go ahead. I appreciate you getting together. My dad, Thursday morning on a holiday for the council day. Yes, while we were. Thank you, Mayor Fluitt. Nice job. Thank you, guys. And we will see you next month. All right, bye-bye. Thank you.