Recording in progress All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome back from our recess. This is the East Pawl to City Council regular session. It is Tuesday, September 3rd, the time is 6.31. James, can we get a roll call? Absolutely. Mayor Lopez. Here. Vice Mayor Barragan will join us shortly, but she is currently absent. Council Member Abriko. Here. Council member Abriko here. Council member Gose. Here. And Council member Romero. Present. You have a core mayor. No much, James. All right. I'm moving on to approve the agenda, barring any objections. I'm happy to entertain a motion to approve the agenda. As we move in second, it all is in favor. Please vote with a regarding item 3.1. So perhaps we will wait to pass that one only because I'm not sure the full roster folks are here yet. But once I see Tiffany and the family, I'll be sure to return to that item if that's all right with everyone else. Other than that, are there any other items my colleagues like to pull off for discussion regarding the consent calendar? Oh, James, would you mind also reminding us of the translation services we have for this evening? Yes. So if you would like to listen to the Spanish portions of this meeting usually at around public comment, please use interpretation feature located at the bottom of your screen by clicking on the globe icon and selecting English as your language of the preferred, I will interpret this disponible. Thank you, gracias. Thank you, James. All right. Martha, vice mayor, I was just sharing with the group if there are any items that we'd like to pull off for discussion 3.1, the family of mamades on the way. So we're going to wait to pull that one. But are there any other items that my colleagues would like to pull off for discussion? Cool. other items that my colleagues would like to pull out for discussion. Go. Okay, 3.11, any other items? All right. Then I make a motion to approve items from 3.2 to 3.10 as well as 3.12 and then we'll bring back items 3.11 and 3.1. I'll second a motion. as well as 3.12 and then we'll bring back items 3.11 and 3.1. I'll second a motion. Has moved in second. All those in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I. Thank you. Councilor Romero, Item 3.11, fiscal year, strategic priorities update. So I just have a few comments on this. Again, my preference would actually be to be able to go through it as a council, but we have it now and we can do that. So on page 64 item number six which is, let's see, work plan. This priority is, this is a promoting housing economic development and work first development. Item six is revisit the Westside plan. And it's couched in staff are focused on updating the development code and will bring forward a separate item if needed to specifically address Westside area plan. I don't think it is staff who requested that this be put on as an item that we needed to address it was council. And so I don't think it is staff who requested that this be put on as an item that we needed to address it was council. And so I don't think it is within staff's prerogative to say if we think it's necessary it should come before us. Rather we've asked to have this come before us and talk about it. I think there are a number of items that we've talked about that probably need to get addressed so I'm just concerned that this may never make it to the light of day at council because Somehow staff is gonna say it's not needed Mara spot please So this report was the fiscal year 2324 Work plan and the West Side Area plan was captured as a new project for the current fiscal year. So on page, I see it on page 65, where we at. Revisit the, yeah, so it was delayed, but on a new work plan, it shows up as a, its own specific project. So this was capturing fiscal year 2324 that ended June 30, 2024. The new work plan beginning July 1, it's captured there. So you'll receive a new update on a current fiscal year's plan that goes from July 1 through September. So that's where this project will be captured. So is there something on page 65 that also addresses this or that was no 65 number? Well, my number might be different. We're as on a policy. Okay. Yeah, but I think there was an amendment to the to the yeah, so so that throws off the pad in it. Okay. But the issue is that this was what happened between last fiscal year, but the new fiscal year it shows up and it's okay thank you. Let's see I'm paid 66 which is probably your paid 67. Number eight, is that just a redundant, I mean is it just a spurious design the East Bayshire sidewalk improvement with grant funds? Because that already appears previously. Recording stopped. It appears it's 3.1. So is there a reason it shows up twice? Recording in progress. Yeah, so this was, and these are all cleaned up in the new in the 2024. Yeah, but it showed up twice kind of it was always shown up as twice. Now we've since merged it. Okay, but this is also like on tonight's council agenda, we're asking for gran approval. I think it's item 3.2 and it's related to this project. So this product is definitely making progress. Okay, Thank you. Let me see here. This specifically, and this is my last, this is my last one. So that developed the water infrastructure finance in plan. So in 2025, there's no date here. So you're saying the 20, but if we had the 2024 2025 plan, that would actually have a date on the water infrastructure financing plan since that's so critically important. Recording stopped. It's kind of on the critical path of trying to get federal funding including, including WIFI funds. Yes, so on what pages? I'm sorry, this is page 71 for you and 72 for me. I guess so, yes. So if you're referring to 2.4 or what? No, I'm referring to three, develop a water infrastructure financing plan. Yes, so that project is one that we were not able to make Progress on using the $800,000 in funds that the city received however we will make progress on that in the current fiscal year It remains on a work plan 2024 2025 the current fiscal year yes 2425 2425. 2425. Okay, thank you. Those are my only comments. So I would move approval. Wait a second. Have we done approval of the entire consent calendar yet? I mean, absent those items. We already did that. We already did that. We've done everyone in the month. So I would move approval of fiscal year 2023-2024 City Council's strategic priorities final status update. Second. Been moving second. All is in favor. Please vote with a sign of aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Thank Councilor Methamato for your diligence. As always, we're moving on to item 3.1, proclamation honoring Mama D. It's hard for me to sit here and sum up what a tremendous force of nature this woman has been for our community, but I am accompanied not only by my colleagues here, but by the family. For the public, for those listening, tuning in, we had last week, we had a week-long celebration of life, remembrance honoring of a woman who did so much for not just the Pacifica community but for the Latino community, the African-American community, all the communities that call this place home. And so I'm happy to give some remarks, but I think as the family knows themselves, we spent the entire week celebrating your mother, celebrating your wife. And I don't want to spend too much time myself. I want to give opportunity for the family and for the public on the record to share anything they want to deliver about what a force of nature this woman was and how she's going to continue to inspire us to do right by our community, our North Star for years to come. But before that, Council members, would you like to share some words? Would you like me to open it up to the public? I'm open up either way, maybe once a prepare, take some time to think about what you like to say. What is your pleasure, council? Okay. Okay. Let's go ahead and start. James, let's go ahead and see for those listening virtually, you can also I'm happy to open it up to folks in the zoom world if they want to give remarks. James, how many speakers do we have raised hands so far? At this moment, there are no speakers, but if anybody here in this room would like to speak, I just asked that you please fill out a speaker slip that are located right here to your right. But currently there are no speakers online. Okay. So yeah, let's go ahead and start with with Tunde and then for folks who are hoping to speak just so that way we can have it on the record. You know, when people look at this meeting for years to come, they'll see all the folks who stood up and spoke about Mama D. So if you wouldn't mind just filling that out for our purposes, that'd help us a lot. And I'm sure James would appreciate it as he's doing his minutes report. But yeah. So with that, go ahead and start with Tune Day. To the Mayor to the Vice Mayor to the Council members, legendary Council members to the staff. I'm not going to be a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a person who is a I still feel like I'm knocking on the door of greatness, you know, to be welcomed in. And I've received just countless warm welcomes and invitations from this community that has helped raise my family, et cetera. But there are giants that top that list of people who embody how I see this community. A trailblazing community that around the region is a symbol of generosity and a symbol of vision and a symbol of commitment. People who will go the miles to fight for was right. People are full of courage and Mama D embodies that. That's what this community means to me and Mama D embodies that. Mama D on a personal level, vouched for me, welcomed me in, allowed me to call her family, my family. And I got a chance to see up close what it looks like for someone who believes that it does take a village to raise somebody. It does mean that my house is your house, that my opportunities are your opportunities. I've seen her selflessly give. And to her family members that are here, I wanna thank you publicly for sharing your mother and sharing your wife. And please know that my prayers are with you all, that you'll receive two, five, 10, 20, a hundred times fold back what you allow Mama D and your family to be to us. In closing, I just want to say this that I've had a great opportunity to go to many historical places across the country and the plaques and the ways in which people have commemorated and memorialized, giants and historical moments I've witnessed. And I'm glad that the council is thinking about how do we recognize people like Mama D. There are many that have gone on that, you know, have that impact and that root and many that are many here. And I beg the council to think about how ways we can memorialize people like her, people who use her house's program sites, her living room as meeting spaces, her car as a way to give. So thank you for doing that and rest in peace, Mama D. Thank you. Are there any more speakers? If you can please bring your speaker slips up. If you'd like to speak, you can play some here. Thank you. Good evening Tiffany Leila. One long e howtals 012. August Avenue. He's also. Good evening honorable mayor city council members and the wonderful community of East ball also. I stand before you today with immense gratitude in my heart on behalf of my family and myself. I want to extend our deepest thank you to each and every one of you for recognizing and celebrating momedy on all this time. My mother and momedy was a beacon of love, strength and resilience. Is she dedicated her life to this community? And seeing the city on her legacy in such a meaningful way is triply overwhelming. It is a testament to the impact that she made on our lives. And all the lives she touched. Eastball also was her home, and she put her heart and soul in making it a better place for all of us, whether she was mentoring the youth, organizing community events, or simply offering a listening ear. Mamadi believed in the power of unity and the importance of uplifting on another. She always said to me that we rise by lifting up others and that her spirit lives on in each of you. And I take that whole heartedly. So to the city leaders and the officials who made the city this day possible. Thank you for ensuring that the contributions will never be forgotten. There's a not only honors their memory, but also inspires us to continue the work started to carry forward her vision of a community bound by love respect and mutual support. So the community members all around the world and locally who joined us in celebrating momedy. Your presence, your stories and your shared memories have brought us comfort in some sort of joy. It reminds us that while she may no longer be here physically with us, her spirit and her love for this city will never go unforgivable and will always remain. In closing, I want to say that this recognition is not just a celebration of mom of these life, but also a reminder of the power we have when we come together as a community. Let us continue to build on the foundation she laid and let Momma Dee be a day of unity, compassion, and service for years to come. Thank you, East Paul also, from the bottom of our hearts. Your kindness and acknowledgement means the world to us. Thank you, Mayor Lopez, City Council Member Gose, Council Member Romero, Council Member Martha and Maria Bonabrico. Each of you attending and city manager got in. Each of you attending the service in any part was so meaningful for each of us. I thank you, I thank you, and I thank you from our community to yours and all of us. My father is heartbroken and we're going to try our best to make amends, but mom of these life was just too great. So thank you so much and we look forward for next year, which is going to be a huge celebration. So if I call on you for support, let's do this and make this a beautiful day for Momodete today. August 10th, Momodete. Next speaker, Tonga Victoria, followed by Shano Hila and Mike. Good evening, Mayor Vice Mayor Councilmembers. I just wanted to come up here. I wasn't able to share any remarks at the funeral services or the celebration of life. And I thought, because it's on record and we are able to look at this for years to come, that I wanted to share an experience, really the experience, three days before Mama Di Bumst. We took 30 kids from East Paul, North York, and we took them up for the fourth cohort of take the mic, which is our summer camp experience, summer enrichment for peninsula area youth. And we took them up to hit and vella, which is just lost all those hills. And it was such a perfect camp week. And the kids were just incredibly well behaved. And the leaders were well-deared. And Tiffany, you know, we were kitchen crew, even though I'm not a cook, but we were kitchen crew and we were prepping for all the meals. And I just remember telling Tiff, I was like, this is way too perfect. And I'm thinking back and knowing that mom and D was in the hospital the whole entire time. And just knowing that she was still advocating for us, praying for us, even though she was on the last moments of her life. It's the only thing that I could explain, how perfect of a summer camp experience. And we wrapped up Friday and 24 hours later she had passed. And I remember the first cohort experience we had in 2022. And I remember we were going through the humanitarian relief and had reached just massive exposure and coverage. And I remember her telling me, I got you, we're going gonna do this together. And even though she's not with me or with us, I know that her spirit leads and guides us. And I want to leave this and I want to say this on record that mom of the everything we do for you in this moment on is in your honor. And we love you so much and I can only pray that we carry on the legacy that you set forth for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Sean O'Hila followed byuaylangi. Currently at 2012, Polgis Avenue, East Polo Alto, in a resident mostly entire of my life here for our beloved Fisi Malawata, Afonani and Degre Ouhila-Muaylangi. I just want to say thank you to the city of East Polo Alto. Also thank you to the city of or the county of San Matel. If you don't know those and I'll say it on record, East Palo Alto was treated like a stepchild, higher to all the services that were received in the county. With that being said, there were people like Mom and I want to move in a week. Moons on. Wonderful, but that sacrifices souls to come in placement of re-borted and community activation. Mama D was one of them. We have a council in front of us. And to play, I'm happy to celebrate, Afloneas Day, and I'm also heartbroken, because at the end of the day, we have a saying in the tongue and language. We don't want to allow Nauwe, meaning like, we don't want to talk about who's here, who's about it, who's talking about Cloud. That the end of the day for Apollonia, Fili Malawata, Fana Nana, Gray, this room should be filled from here to the Dunbarton Bridge. I would be remiss to say that the City Council, we can shut this calendar to allow people to properly say what they feel about out of Romania. Being in that, next up after me is the most heartbroken person that has sacrificed his entire life to be here for all the things that we need. We never regret a day that we live in East Bowel also, because at the end of the day, it was everything for the community and for the people who deserved it, not about just race. We're talking about people who deserved it. I want to thank you all. I would like for you guys to think about how many more people would like to testify in accordance to how she's made a change in this community as well. And with that I say thank you for all the things that you guys have done, not just Abelone and D. Mama D. Gray who will be my long you but all our ancestors moving here forward with that I say thank you. Thank you next speaker Mike. All by Sanito Hula. Good evening mayor and council. You know, I've become a two city council meeting since Warner Coaches and office and I remember my mom dragging him here. I was like, now I might rather be at a basketball game. We're doing something different. But that's how my the transition and I remember images of us cleaning areas in East Palo Alto for no money. And after that, I also remember marching with people like Bill Vines and Robert Hoover and people like Ed Bex and that's the last speaker talked about. It was a collective. I know with his mama, D-Day, August 10th. And the census for the record I want to share to the city of East Paul Alto, alto residents to first love your mother and your family and then it goes out there to you know in the Pacific Islander it's, it's the family, then it's the church, then it's the community. So somewhere along the lines, all those lines got blurry over the years. We don't know the difference between church and state and maybe there is no difference, they all work together. But I do wanna thank this city, Ms. Palo Alto, over the years, from all its council members, all its workers, all the work we've worked together. I think a couple of years ago, the only thing that I asked was that we, inclusivity was one of the things. And one thing that Mama D did wrapped us up, for our family day, all the flags were represented. Latino, African American, Pacific Islanders, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. And that, if you wanna summarize her life, it was about that, it you want to summarize her life, this is about that. It's about unity. And so I just want to pass that forward to the next generation. Thank you all. Have a good night. Thank you. Next speaker, Sunita Ocula. Good evening. It may or it is a council and city manager of your stuff. I like to say thank you. We are attending my wife's funeral. It means a lot. But if I wanted to say something about her life, and me as a husband for 55 years, I tell you, life is not worth living when she is not with me. But now coming here today, we need, because she do things unbelievable. We only have two bedrooms. She invites the family, not invite the family, they come homeless outside and call and she tell them come in. And the words she said, we only have two bedrooms here, but we have a room in our heart. So they have to sleep in the living room. So many people and she makes it so there will be a platform for her to move the county and the shelter so they hurry up and move this family to a better living place. I am lost. But I thank you very much for you. Rubin the Bricka we've been here for this long and Carlos Romero remember when we started the farmer's market with Diane Lagoon in 84, but it's a memory that I don't want it to last. And I don't want to lose my strength because it's gone. She usually come here and hustle with the city council about any issue with the building. You know, when Ron Scott was inspecting, Ron Scott said, okay, just throw me something then I'll approve it. But now it's harder. So now I'm glad that we are easing on housing and easing on building, not to the point that we're gonna break the rule, but the point they are complying. The corner of Bay and focus the church, Mama Lee push. And if you didn't know the man stood up, Mama Lee told the architect, I give you two weeks only to get this man aboo only one week and two days they approve it but because they play around with it because they know they they by the hour but the thing is from my heart I think I'm going to wear my my shoes outside my shoes so in that way I to do whatever I wanted to do. Thank you very much. We also wanted to say that we love the coach Carlos Romero and Tony Lovis. Mike, they're welcome. Lisa, you know, you're my mom's sweetheart. Antonio, thank you for everything. Carlos, thank you for visiting. We have an aprica. God bless you all. Melanguages from the beginning right on thank you and that was our last speaker for tonight if anyone would like to speak feel free but I'll turn it to my colleagues it's difficult hearing such emotional power for remarks from Papa D. I mean Papa I mean Papa D Papa D. Papa D. We're gonna have to make a we're gonna have to pass a a proclamation on that alone get that legally changed. But all jokes aside, Council members, would you like to vice mayor want you to start us off? Yes, so I you know I there's so many people in your life that come and go. I'm feeling a little emotional because we also lost someone in our church community just yesterday and anyways. But just speaking of Mama D, I just wanted to share that I, the very first time I remember seeing her and Mr. Center was when I was in high school and it actually brings, I mean I always remember that experience because as her son was saying she was very inclusive and so I felt that when we would have the international day at Memo Adderton, I felt that we were always represented by Mr. Center. And I think I mentioned it to him when I saw him not too long ago that I remember when he went to the fire dance. It was such a big hit. And so every time we had international, the international assemblies at our high school, it's like, well, East Palatos being represented because Mr. Center was there with his group performing and everyone, I mean, they would just get up and just applaud and it was like a big encore. And so I just wanted to say thank you because it's something that still is dear to my heart. And so I just wanted to say thank you. And I think your shoes are just as big as well to fill Mr. Center. So you're right up there with Mama D. So anyways, thank you for sharing her with us. And you know, it's it's great to have pillars like this in our community that include everyone that they embrace everyone. It doesn't matter what walk of life you're in or where you're coming from, they just see who you are. So I mean, that's a very big legacy that I'm sure that the family will continue in her honor. So thank you. Thank you, Vice-Man. Customers? I'll go. I never called Mama D. Mama D. I met go. You know, I never called Mama D Mama D. I met Guy 37 38 years ago Um, and I'll say parenthetically when my mother died Um, I heard her calling out to me Carlos, Carlos. I can say here today that when Mama D died, I heard her calling my name out Carlos, Carlos, as she would say. Like my mother, both looking after me and chastising me and egging me on, it's real loss, but I think the last thing I'll say is that many of our initiatives and measures in East Palo Alto have been supported by Mamadhi, have been supported by the Surrounder community. And one that we have on the ballot now is measure JJ. And actually she is and was one of the proponents, as well as one of the circulators of the petition and one of the signers of the argument. What is interesting here is that as she was lying sick and bed, and we needed her signature. She did not fail. She signed the document on Thursday and I requested her signature but said if she can't do it please it's fine we'll figure something out. As one of her last political acts and probably acts of love for the city of East Palo Alto, she went ahead and signed that document. She was in the hospital. She was in her bed. It is indeed a testament to, I think, her love for this community. And certainly for stamina. She got ahead and done that well above and beyond. You know, what she needed to do and certainly, um, as I called my mother, mama, certainly now I call mom, a D who actually reached out to me after her death. And I could hear her calling me Carlos Carlos. We love you Mama D. You'll always be with us in center. You don't have to feel big shoes because you have big shoes my friend You've been around for a while You've worked on a number of churches that if you've gotten established and We're here for you. We always will be so please, I'm sure Mama D would want you to carry on the wonderful and exuberant work that you and your family have done any support. Thank you all. Thank you very much, Carlos. I see my colleague, customer, go share. Thank you. Now the Bible says, and Psalms 30 and 5, weeping, man, doer for a night. But joy comes in the morning. We are still in the night. We're we're all mourning the loss of a great soldier. I thank the family for sharing, not only sharing because you gave her to us when you needed she gave to us. You know before becoming a council member you didn't do this without going to sit at Mama Dees feet and at least talking she needed to understand where you were coming from. So on Hazelwood, when you're on Hazelwood, I remember sitting in the living room with Mamadi. When you moved to Daphne, Mamadi would command you or command you to come to her and you would have to come and sit and listen and learn and support. Truly, we've lost a huge proponent for this community, because Mama D was colorblind. She didn't care about anything other than being community fighting for the underdog. Mama D was going to fight for the underdog. And she loved my little baby. She used to always say, where's that little boy? So in memory, I remember her when we had the parade and they were we were walking down for them and she had Camden, where's camden, camden walked with mama D. There will forever be a hole in my heart is when I heard learn the news. Still today, I can't believe she's gone because there was still a lot of work to be done. There was a lot that she had planned to do. So when you're planning your life and you're giving, feels really unfair that you're taking away. But I look at Tiffany and Shana Papa, sent to I know the work will continue. Because you are your mother, you know the vision. And we will not perish. These I know you know to keep how to keep things going. I wanna be supportive and to keep her vision going. Not just the day, what else can we do? Because we need more momadies in this community where you care about your neighbor and not just your family and the community in general. One other thing happened during the memorial service when we were at the house on Wednesday, and you give out the comforters, the blankets. So, when the camp, I didn't know that that was gonna happen. And you lay them out randomly. But when you laid out the comforter from me, it was the image of my sign, my art sign. It was pink with white trim. And I felt like, mama D was just saying to me, you're gonna be okay. So I went and I was like, this is unbelievable that randomly, that is the the comfort I would have gotten on the day if that we were just celebrating her life. So I say to you also, Sean, I left you a message because what happens, you are such a strong family, you were on the front line the whole time, making sure that we celebrate it and we remembered and we did what we needed to do to honor her, but you didn't take time for yourself. And I am praying for you and I wanna make sure that we create an avenue for you to grieve and know that you will not be alone. So if you're in your grieving parent, when it gets quiet, that's when you start thinking and you'll start grieving, but you'll be alone. Just know that you don't have to be alone. You can pick up the phone and say, I just need somebody to listen to me. I love you. Let's continue the work. Papa Senta, we love you. We are here for you. You are not alone. You walk in those shoes and your shoes and we're gonna be here to uplift you and support you as well. God bless you. Thank you very much for those words, Councilwoman, we'll share. Oh, Councilman Ivoryka, yes. Thank you. Thank you. And once again, my condolences to the family and all the friends. And I very much enjoyed being at the church and hearing so many stories about the color D. In Spanish, many years ago, I used to call it prima sometimes, which is in Mexican cultures a way to sort of bring in somebody into the family. It means cousin, like eight. Yeah, we've been cousins, I just hadn't met you, but, you know, I want to share a few brief stories because that's a way for me to remember. So I clearly remember meeting Dean Center in around 1984, I think. And in particular, we met and you might say action, which when I think of a D was like a force of nature, a woman in action, centered too in a more quiet way, but definitely a very serious business, but also a sense of humor and a celebration of culture. We met at the middle school at the time, was having a lot of problems, a lot of violence, a lot of fights. Frankly, the administration didn't know how to deal with it. And so, Bob Hoover, D&I used to walk the halls as volunteers. We just said, we need to go in there. If they can't handle this, we're going to handle it. In a good way, ensure enough, between the three of us, we probably knew every kid. I know you're going to go to Bamban, see? And then D, so we sort of cover all the basis. And the kids so as working together, and just that fact may, you know, had a calming effect in a certain way. And it kind of showed the administrators and the teachers, yeah, you know, they're sponsored with the kids, but they're just kids. They just need help. They need to be heard. They need to be interacted with, which is, I think, what's deep has done in our community, especially with younger kids. And by the way, we still need a lot of work in that area. But so that was one context, you know, education. The other thing that stood out that we had in common, it was our belief, which I still have. And as I've gotten some, I would say, well, we had in common is when you educate children, you must be culturally and linguistically sensitive to them. That's true for every human child around the world. And to be very honest, because I tend to be very honest with D and she was honest with me. Often we don't do a good enough job with her. Even today, I'd say that. And she would agree with me if she was here. Are our institutions doing a good job in that? No, they're not. They're doing some, but they're not. It doesn't matter who's running them. So I really appreciate that part about celebrating your culture and the culture that we're acquiring this. Why? We're immigrants. I'm an immigrant. I'm a teenage immigrant. And so we understood that. We didn't have to talk about it too much. Well, we have to go through the misunderstandings that people have, the issues that are often not addressed. And so, like I said, that was like a really strong bond because so it was education, immigration at the time and Carlos remembers because he was a volunteer too in 1986. If you remember, there was, well, so many of you are so young, you don't remember how to tell you. In 1986, there was a national, you know, immigration, comprehensive reform act that made it possible for so many people to become legal residents. And so in the Latino community, we set up a program practically free. And I remember inviting Center and D and other immigrants, whoever they were, come by, take advantage of this because, yes, we are immigrants, but we're also citizens, as far as some concern. And we have to, this is an opportunity to deal with this whole legal stuff, right? So that was another, you know, program. So again, you know, yeah, your family has been all over the place, and it's good because when we're immigrants, that's what happens. You do any kind of job here, you do any kind of job there, you got an issue, you guys should all over the place. And you appreciate when people come together or when the native people say, yeah, that's true. We're gonna help you. We're gonna work together because we have something to offer to. We have something to offer. And we've shown that. So I kind of remember that story as those others, you know, but immigration, the education, housing, it's another one. There was a period of time that we used to meet at your house for the East Palo Alto Council of Tenants. There was more active during that time, but we had, it was the organization that we funded in the early 80s to stand up for tenants' rights to promote anti-displacement to do that. And, you know, so housing activists from way back, and as Carlos mentioned, you know, here she is still signing something for the voters to understand that displacement continues and that we must help people because there is a whole group of people that are just one check away from being homeless if they can't pay the rent. So, you know, that was another period. And then the last thing I'll say is politics. So, since, you know, we're up here we're all politics. I feel everybody's a politician, whether you know it or not, because we have to do with power issues. That's what politics is. Power. Who's got the power to do what? How are they going to use the power? And so in that area, I remember going again to the and center when there was an opening for the school board because I served on the Revival School Board for about 12 years. And there was an opening. And I felt at the time, I was the only Latino there. I felt there should be a Pacific Islander. And I went to them not to say you should run. It's not my decision. I said, if you find someone in your community who was willing to apply, you got my vote and maybe we'll get enough votes. So they came back and said they proposed Chester Palace. And when we took the first vote, there were only four of us because there was a vacancy, everybody had their own candidate. So we had no agreement. We did a second round. Still, everybody held onto their candidate. You know, that's politics. But then I requested the chair that we have an opportunity to explain why we were proposing people. So I'm not trying to take credit, but I was the one who said, is better to have everyone around the table because that's how we can solve problems. If people are excluded, then it's much harder. So we took another run. Eventually we got three or four votes, and that's how Chester got on that. And I worked with Chester on bilingual education, multilingual education. And we stood up to the powers that be who insist still to this day that we have to fight over one language, English. I believe every child can learn another language and if they already know we should support them and again we agree on all those things. But espolitics go, I have to tell you because later did I had not a difference, we were still working together in different ways. But being on the school board, that became a very hard issue. Probably the biggest fight after incorporation. And in 2002, I lost. Because I didn't have enough money. I could have won, but I didn't have $10,000, $20,000. And one of the issues had to do. I was recruiting teachers from Mexico. And I advocated, go recruit teachers in Tonga in Samoa. Don't tell me that there are people who can't educate the children in their language and help them in English. Well, you know, some people didn't like that. And somehow D got cut up and I saw her name on a flyer that was not supporting me. So I had to go, hey, D, you know, that hurts me. But you know what? I understand the politics. Let me take the brunt. I'll take the brunt because I chose to be there. And if I lose, so be it. But you keep fighting for language and culture and good education, okay? So, you know, after that, in a way, we sort of, you know, politics is like that. Temporary alliances, some people felt like, hey, you know, that Ruben and Breka, he wants to divide the country. And we don't need them. They get them out of there. So they got me out of there. But I came back to years later on the council and I'm still here. And I'm not a continued for fighting for those issues that the Fundament I met her and center were fighting for so center keep it up man. I'll never forget just how How strong I felt With those kids being there is like we can do it and we got to keep doing thank you very much Sorry if I took too much time, but but I'll see you I think we're more, female center. No, thank you, Councilman Arigat. And I think I keep thinking about it, takes the village and just for the record, Councilman Arigat, that the 86 laws, the reason my dad became a citizen. So, so thank you for what you did in your generation to make it so that my dad could, could have an opportunity in this country in these polls specifically. I don't want to hash everything I said last week to you guys, but I just want to underscore like, I'll never forget those days that feel like just one giant week. It doesn't feel like one day went to the other way. It just was one collective moment of loss. I was telling my de selat at the, I think the second, the first day of the proceedings, I feel like any minute, my mother, they's gonna come out of that house and laugh at us. I was like, why y'all guys crying about? You know what I'm saying? I was just changing her something because that's how much of a spirit that she had. And I remember on, there's things you know you never, you know those things you just know you never forget and they happen at that moment. Like going up to the, and I don't mean to be so descriptive forgive me, but going up to the casket and daughter saying, you know, you were like a son to Mama D. I think I've watched the dreams of a city like a thousand times. So I've seen Ruben a thousand times. I've seen your mom back in the day, OG talking about these four kids selling drugs on the corner, going up to them and saying, what you doing? I said, well, you're blocking my view of the window. Just walking up to some dude selling product didn't know him and it turns out they're her students And it turns out they're trying to get go to school But they don't know how to go to school and that was my impression of mama D even before I met her a fierceless war a fear a fierce warrior Somebody who took no BS Somebody who advocated for everybody no matter what color you were and who who who wrapped their her arms around you. You know, and I'll never forget our adventures, Tiffany and Shana and Papa Senta going to Anaheim when the volcanic explosion occurred. And we went there from Tonga with love and celebrating and trying to bring resources to the island. And I just think there's so many things that Mama Dee will leave us as a legacy. But I think one that I'm constantly thinking about is even in the most bitter of moments of tragedy, is the opportunity to find ways to love each other stronger and to stick up for another strongly. And I also said this on Friday at the celebration, I forget who it was because we're all dancing and I feel like we're just collectively mourning. But if I had to be very frank, I truly believe the Pacific Under community, Mama D, that's the glue of this city. You think about all the cultures of us, the who we are. How do we stick together? How do we stay united on the front? It's the few folks like Mama D and you, Papa D, who kept us with a moral compass, who kept us honest, who kept us with our integrity. And I'll just close by saying that earlier, you and I spoke, you said you talked about seeds and you talked about how when we do this work, whether it's measure HH, whether it's measure JJ, the custom of the metal said, you don't, you hope to get 100% of people, but you may not get them that day. It made five years, seven years, 20 years, for those seeds that are fruit. And I just think about all the seeds that are gonna bear fruit for generations to come because of Mama D, regardless of nationality or race or culture, because that's the kind of example she said, whether she was shown up for the sex trafficking work we did, whether she was shown up for the juvenile justice, the kids behind bars, those youth who don't have an advocate, who are condemned, she will continue to inspire me. I will always feel almost like an imposter, thinking of the kind of legacy she said, how can we fill that kind of that legacy? So I hope that our leadership, my leadership, can amount to half of what she stood for. And I wanna echo what my colleague, Councilman Gocher said about, you know, Tiffany Shawna, Papa, we're gonna continue to call you as many times whatever you need, as a Niko, as a son, as a neighbor, I'm through doors down from your tip, I got you, whether it's wearing this hat, whether it's just being a resident, but it's important to know that that's the kind of, that's the kind of figure your mom is, was and will be for somebody who said, we will continue to be stronger together and continue to love each other more strongly because that's the kind of city we are. And she's one of the Mount Rushmore figures who made the dreams of the, who made the city what it is. So just again, thank you for sharing her with us, Papa. Thank you for everyone attending tonight. I hear you, Shana, about how can we continue to lift up? Mama, these legacy, this will be the first of many. I'm sure many my colleagues here will agree to continue to support the work of Adam Atanghi to continue to support the work of unity. It's only begun. So I hope you don't take this as the last impression. It really isn't. We're gonna continue to find ways of honoring her and living her legacy for all the years to come. With that, are there any speakers, James, or anyone else who'd like to say some words before we close this out. Sure, well, that'll be our last speaker. Good afternoon, city of East Palo Alto and council members. I just wanted to be able to since we're on the record, speak about my experience with Mama D. I actually didn't know her very long. I probably knew her, maybe the least amount everybody in here, but just as all with us could speak for, her impact on me has been monstrosse like it's been huge. I can't even think of a word. It's as big as our whole family. The impact that she had on me as a leader, on me as a person, especially, you know, my recent joining in the work of Anna Montongue and really understanding what it means to be a servant leader. I faced a lot of anxiety and kind of overthinking when it came to the fact that I'm a black man working in a Polynesian organization, right? And Mama D was one person that no matter what, she reminded me that I'm special to be doing this. And it doesn't matter the color of my skin, but it's the color of my heart that has this work. And the fact that she sat with me in the morning, she made me traditional breakfasts. We talked about this when I was at the office for her to leave that impact on me in such a short amount of time just goes to show the amount of power that Mama D had in her spirit, in her heart, in her work. And the only thing that I can do to to even show my gratitude of what she's done for me is to continue to allow her to reflect in my work. So Mama D, I thank you for everything that you've done. I remember everything that you said to me and just know that we will continue to have you live and what we do. Thank you. Thank you. I think that's a fitting conclusion or at least last speaker for this evening. There will be more celebrations, more work to be done, more Mama D days from the city and the county going to be doing the same thing. There will be more celebrations, more work to be done, more mama D days from the city and the county, which also celebrate her. With that, I'm happy to obtain a motion to approve this item. So much second has moved the second and all those in favor of please vote with a sign of I. I thank you so much, everybody. You're welcome to stay. Thank you so much everybody. You're welcome to stay. We're going to continue to do the work of Mama D, but also feel free if you got other issues. Okay. We'll just take a minute recess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you a question. Yes, yes. I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you a question. Yes. I want to ask you a question. Yes. I have my hanging in front of my house. Oh. I want to ask you a question. I want to ask I'm sorry. You're not going to be able to get it. You're not going to be able to get it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very happy to see you again. Yeah, I was very You didn't go to Emma Young. I did, I didn't know what. That's what I said. You didn't know what I said. Yes, I remember that every time I made that it was the National Celebration. Yeah, I mean, if you would ever present it to me. I'm a Dean, starting at Woodside, 1990, with Bill White. Bill White, what can we do to silence people? Yeah, we have to live in the national night. We have to live in the national night. And the mission? Yeah, very good. Sidebargant, you're with night. Well, there is a student here. You can go to the room. And... Yeah, right. You were looking to the side. You were looking to the side. Yeah, right. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm not sure I would have been able to do that. Yeah. I don't think so. Can you? Okay. Okay. Okay. So, thank you. you you you you I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. All right, everybody. We are back. We need to collect our thoughts, collect our breath, and continue to do the work as Mom and Dee, as Consumbo de Metal said, Chastize us to do. So we continue. Item number four, closed session, there aren we continue. Item number four closed session. There are none. Item five public comment. This is an opportunity from members of the public to speak on items not on the agenda. So if you're here to speak about the Community College district or the excuse me. All the other items on policy and action. Measure a change senior advisory. See the managed city attorney, please wait for those items to come up. Otherwise, James, do we have any speakers for public comment? Not at this time here. Going once, going twice. All right. We're moving on to item six, informational reports. There aren't none. Item number seven, special. Yeah, it could be from some for like for agencies and nonprofits or different organizations outside. Yeah. No information reports, no special presentations. Eight, I guess looking at our city attorney, a joint, a journey city council regular meeting to the joint successor agency board special meeting. I just say we adjourn this city council meeting. Okay. So we'll adjourn this regular meeting and move on to the joint successor agency board special meeting. Q item number nine, joint successor. Welcome everybody to the successor agency board special meeting. We're now an item 9.1 approval of the San Mateo County Community College District Obligation City Manager gains who will be presenting this item. Good evening mayor. Finance director of Tommel O'Coo will be leading this presentation. Hey, thank you, Melbourne. And good evening mayor council members and members of public. This is Tommelu, Finance Director. So I don't have presentation today, but I'm going to provide a brief summary of this item. So this is an annual process. So we are asking council to approve a resolution, also adding the payment of 97,47 contractual obligations to some of the county community college district for the fiscal year 2425. The obligation is based on a prior agreement related to the formal university's core-beat development area. So basically the makehold provision in the agreement requires that the district is compensated for an amount equal to the district's proportionate share of the tax agreement within the former RDA area. So for this item there's no direct fiscal impact to the city because the pro-B tax informal RDA is managed by the county. So approval of the resolution will allow the county to distribute the funds to the cottage district as required. So with that I'm going to return the mic to the mayor and I'm happy to take any questions or comments. Thank you, Tomo. You heard it from our finance director himself. No direct fiscal impact to the successor agency, but council members, do we have any questions, comments regarding 9.1? I just, I want, Tomo, what is meant by residual tax payments. Obviously that's in our favor in the sense that it reduces tax within the former R.D. area is collected in a separate fund. And after making the past through payments and then ROPS payments, the left over is called Regional Tax payment to the tax entities. So after making all the obligation payments, the leftover money is considered a residual of the tax within the formal RDA. I see. So there wasn't enough residual tax available to pay off this obligation. That's why we're then covering this other $97,000 for two years. Yes, for that district question. Right. Yeah, for that district person. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions, customer? No, I'm done. Thanks. Other council members, questions on 9.1 pass through obligation. Fairly perfunctory. If not, James, you want to see if anyone from members of the public would like to comment on this item? I've seen them at this time here. All right. Well, I have no questions personally. If there are no questions, I'm happy to entertain a motion to approve the item. I'll move approval of this resolution in the packet for this contractual pass through relegation payment to this San Mateo County Community College District. All right, it's been moving in second. It all is in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I. All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Tomo. Appreciate that I'm sure the Community College District appreciates that. Moving on to items. I guess item 10, I now adjourn the joint successor agency board special meeting and we now reconvene to the city council regular meeting item 11 public hearings are not item 12 policy and action city manager salary increase and second contract amendment. I see manager gains will be presenting this. Okay. Do you know our human resources manager on a tour is here. Yes, good. We may honorable council members. This item is to authorize an amendment of the employment agreement between Melbourne gains for the position of city manager with the city of East Polo Alto. The amendment will implement a single 3% cost of living adjustment and to address 7% compaction issues. His total and final compensation under this amendment will become 267,424 dollars with 27 cents annually. 57 cents annually, I apologize. Effect of May 26, 2024. No other terms of his employment agreement would change. Staff is requesting that the I apologize. Effect of May 26, 2024. No other terms of his employment agreement would change. Staff is requesting that the mayor be the mayor authorize to execute that employment agreement amendment. All right, thank you Anna. Council members, any questions, comments regarding item 12.1? Oh, I just want to make a comment. Yeah, thank you for the report. Just for the public, this is the result of the council and city manager having had some negotiations. So now we have to approve it in open session. Yes, for that. Appreciate that clarification. Council Memberika others. Through the chair I just want to say we are very lucky unfortunate to have a city manager that's from the community of the community and by the community so I appreciate all that you're doing because when you are here every decision that you make you're impacted by it. So thank you for your leadership. We just look forward to seeing you continue to grow here in the city. And the in the in the words of our community leader, Quartz Skinner, you've got skin in the game. So that that all that always counts beyond the resume, which you also have obviously. Oh, I know that we can't make this change now. And just one thing we should consider, I think the city manager is the only one that does not continue to get the 3% COLA. So during when you're negotiating the next time thinking about making sure that we're protecting everyone, he just received it for one time. Cost of living effects., including our executive staff. Yeah, we one of those big. Well, all right, well, maybe the truck is echoing your your comments, Lisa. But other than that, I think, oh, James, can we, is there any members of the public who likes comment on this? I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you're going to have a vote. I'm not sure if you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Anna. I have a feeling you're up next again, but we'll see item 12.2 city attorney salary increase and second contract amendment. I will not make this a mistake again. Anna would offer us. Thank you. This item is to authorize an amendment of the employment agreement between John D. Lay for the position of city Attorney with the City of East Polo. The amendment will implement two 3% cost of living adjustments. His total and final compensation under this amendment will become 247,179 dollars with two cents effective May 26, 2024 and then 254,594 and 39 cents annually effect of July 6, 2025. No other item, no other terms of his employment agreement would change. Staff is requesting that the mayor authorize to execute, execute, set employment agreement amendment. I'm happy to authorize, but I want to first go to my council. Because make sure we get all approval. I'm happy to authorize but I want to first go to my council. Make sure we get all approval. Council members, again, salary increase for our city attorney for this for the public's pleasure and knowledge. The city attorney and the city manager are the one of the two, the two positions that we actually, you know, select. So these are important positions and we feel that they're both doing a great job and so we want to make sure that they are adequately made, you know, made whole as the work they do. Council members, any questions, any comments, any feedback? Council member Arroyo? Again, I just want to say I feel good, but the fact that I think the city manager and the city attorney work together pretty well, which I think for the council, it's very important for the public to have, because they are only two employees. And anyway, so I'm happy to see that. And keep doing that because I think that really serves the city well. Thank you They've got great chemistry if I may say great coordination and cooperation. So um James anyone want to speak about city attorney salary increased? No, not this time Mayor Maybe we'll get some emails after um all right uh Council members once again. I'm happy to enter to motion for 12.2. So moved. It has been moved in a second. It by my right and left. All those in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Item 12.3, we're making great headways, everybody. Senior Advisory Committee appointments, I yes, the long awaited Senior Advisory Committee appointments. Melvin, who will be tackling this item for us? That would be, give them City Clerk James Colleen. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. So tonight we will be, we'll be appointing two members for the senior advisory committee. So we've had this recruitment open in the past, but we also received two new applications. So they are here tonight. And so the it's usually customary for me to provide a ballot and then for the council to fill out your top votes. But since there's only two seats and two applicants, yeah, we would just like to hear both of them and have some of them. So move, I, but the stakes are still high. We wanna hear what court that's doing. Absolutely. So without further ado, Mr. Court Skinner, if you can please come up and provide your Make this case to be appointed Now it's there. Well, I've been attending this senior advisory committee meetings for a while when I remember. But for a while, I was also in the public works and transportation commission, so I couldn't officially be a member of the committee. However, that is no longer the case. So now I can be officially a member. And I jotted down a few things that I think are important that the committee should take on. One of them is safety. In particular, we wanna make sure that every senior in the city is ready to take action that should there be any emergency requiring action. And as the climate continues to get worse and worse, some of them should be on the CCCT which I think they are participating in you know how we're going to fix that. But we want to be ready for earthquakes, storms, floods, whatever will be for all the city. I think it's time for the Senior Center to have an upgrade. I would like to see at least 300 people that actively use the senior center for various and secondary activities that need to be done. Among those are having fun, interacting with other residents in particular with the students and children. While I was working for the Oxford Bay Academy, we had a situation where we had some of the students come over and sit with the seniors at the senior center and get them email accounts, show them how to use word and other computer operation things. And it was a real pleasure to watch the interaction between those kids and those seniors, even including Mr. Chang. Then there's, as people keep reminding me now that I'm in my 80s. You know, we're gonna eat right, we're gonna exercise right. And we're gonna play right. So, you know, there's a lot of things we can do. I mean, one of my first activities, you know, with the senior advisor committee was the senior, the senior prom. And I will say, as having worked for the Creative Montessori Learning Center for the last two years, every day I go over there and see all the little kids. Seniors need to do that. Those little kids, they're very enthusiastic and they say, hi, Mr. Skinner. And, hi, Mr. Skinner. It's truly something that kind of keeps you going. So, so, eat right, work right, have fun. We're going to do more of that. Thank you. Thank you. You're supposed to ask me questions or interview me or anything? No? Okay. I feel like you're going to get, you got some luck on your side this evening. You left the speech list, Quart. James, do we have DDSS as well? Yes, Miss Maria DDSS for Nundis. She would like to. Present. Well, I'm going to speak Spanish for you. Hola. Buenos. Absolutely. Bueno, ¿qué es más? Sí. Sí. Pero no muy cerca, porque sí. Sí me puede permitir. But I'm not very close because I'm okay. If you can allow me, if you can, I'll change the channel to make the translation in Spanish. But if you can allow the interpreter maybe like a few seconds so that you can speak in sentences. Yes, in sentences. I've made the chance to translate in English. I understand. I understand. Okay. Well, thank you for having me present. Yes. I thank you for being in Spanish. The reason why I want to be part of the La razón por la que quiero separarte del Advice or Ivor Comiri. ¿Por qué no hay nadie en español? Yo conocí el programa casualmente. and especially in the spaces, in the schools, in the schools, and there was no... I said, oh, I need, and I want all my friends and friends to talk in Spanish here. Enjoy what there are for us. And that was the reason I was motivated to be present. And being part of the Dyson Ivor to be able to give ideas with, Con la experiencia primero quiero aprender lo que hay. I maiana es una muy buena oportunidad porque hay una reunión en la y de la mm-hmm y los adultes más adultos mayores vamos a estar ahí. And the adults, adults, mayors, let's go to the beach. So if you have questions or there is something that you are going to see that I do not know because I am new and I am 0. The only thing that is What is it? In Happy to be here. And happy to be with the community and with the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you. No, I don't have any questions for Teresa. I think we have a great roster. No, I happen to entertain a motion to approve in one fell soup everybody. I'll second it. Oh, I have to say, sorry. I have to make a motion. Okay. So you say more. Okay. So, um, oh, so moved. Sorry. Second before, before sorry before we do the vote we did receive a public comment request for the Adrian Bryant online. The one time forgot to forgot. So Miss Adrian Bryant. Yes. Yes. Thank you and thank you so much James for checking the gallery. I have this same outstanding question. I think I do understand now. So I'm just going to say something that I hope that will be done if it hasn't been done already. That this advisory group receives the same training as the other three groups, Brown Act, Public Records Act, I forget what the third thing is. So that they can get the, you know, I think it's very valuable for people to learn to stuff. And also it keeps the city, you know, and compliance with these statutes. And maybe next time I will apply. Thank you, that's all. Oh, and if someone can answer my question, maybe attorney lays there that could, you know, maybe just give me a little information that yes and he they've received that training. Thank you. That's all. Looking to our city manager city attorney. Yes, the senior advisory committee as a brown act body does receive the same training as the other boards and commissions are city clerk and our city attorney team provides those trainings to use group. And as I understand, Mr. Skinner is also well versed in the brunette as well. So you got back up right there on the Mr. Skinner. And thank you, Ms. Bryant, for your comment as well. All right. Any other comments? Colleen? Not this time here. All right. We have a motion on the floor has been moved in seconded. All in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I. I. Yes. Yeah. Just make a yeah. So I just wanted to say. Well, first of all, I think it's great to have two people who have been around for a long time. I know that is, I said that she's new, but I met that is a long time ago when she was doing community work and in health and various social services in the community. And of course, court skiner has been doing a lot of different things, including having served before, I think, and the vice-president council. But as Teresa mentioned, I want to say just briefly, this past year, kind of often on, but my colleague, Lisa and I have sat in in some of the meetings that are sort of joint planning and updating meetings between, that include city staff, include the Senior Center Inc. And also members of the advisory committee in order to improve the coordination of the services and do that. So I think, I think this is the pandemic ended. A lot of progress has been made. So I just want to say that. Oh, before I forget, I think Marta's mom also, for many years until she retired, used to take middle school kids, along with the teacher to the senior center. And I know that Ms. Grant asked me one time, I said, well, you know she retired, but maybe Marta will bring some of her students, continue the tradition or some other teachers, but it's so those are always good things. You know, so I just want to mention that it's yeah, it's good to see that and I'm sure more things will happen. So thank you. I just want to also say thank you for mentioning that because the age for the friendly cities are really important and as we're thinking about the senior advisory committee, there's a senior prom that's scheduled for what's the date again? September September 20th. We want to make sure that we're supporting our seniors and I know that there's a lot of planning and outings that are going on. So really excited for all the work that's happening with with that as well. Well, thank you both for applying. Thank you. So let's start this position. So that is the position that I saw and I really look forward to you guys continuing to elevate and amplify the work of the senior center working with Maurice working with the staff. Tixie village so thank you so much guys and looking forward to the work. Okay, moving on to item 12.4. We're almost there everybody. 12.4 measure HH pilot workforce development Program updates and contract extension recommendations. City Manager Gaines will be presenting this item tonight. This item will be presented by our housing and economic development manager, Karin Kamacho, as well as our community and economic development department director, Amy Chan. Thank you, Ms. Kamacho. Thank you so much and good evening, Council. I'm sorry my camera isn't working right now, but hopefully everyone can hear me clearly. Again, got in Gammacho, has an economic development manager. Tonight I'm presenting on the measure a CHPilot workforce development program update. So let me share my slides before I forget. Great. my slides before I forget. So the goal of tonight's presentation is threefold. One, to provide a status update on the Measure HH Pilot Workforce Development Program outcomes for the near entirety of the program from March of last year to early August. And tonight you all will hear updates from the three organizations as well, where here joining us virtually and in person. The second is to request an additional allocation of measure HH funds for up to an additional 10 students per program who will be expected to complete their programs and trainings by May of next year in the next nine months. And staff is also requesting modified contract terms such that the payment schedule best fits the organization's how their programs run, which can include a 60% of the funds upon an initial enrollment and 40% of funds upon completion, and three to request City Council input on the final program evaluation by informing change. Council should anticipate a final program evaluation by informing change in spring or summer of next year, as well as for their input, receive input on the criteria or tool for evaluating which outcomes from the third party evaluation firm informing change by the end of that contract, which would also be summer of next year. Okay. So this is the agenda for tonight's meeting. I'm going to provide a background on this program. You all received an update in March. So hopefully none of this is new. And you also hear presentations from the three organizations. We'll then transition into presentation by informing change and conclude with the timeline and next steps. So what is measure HH? It's a parcel text on certain commercial office buildings and the city. And it helps fund new affordable housing and job opportunities in the STEM and building trades. Council had provided direction in 2021 and 2022, so this program has been running for a while now to award organizations with experience and implementing innovative training programs and building trades, targeting living wage jobs, which is considered a minimum of $28 an hour, and making the program inclusive by helping pay for support services such as childcare, transportation, food, et cetera. So the highlight workforce development program, I'll be referring to it as the pilot phase one and it's also referred to as such in your staff reports. Council appropriated 775,000 and measure HHFUNs for an 18 month pilot with a goal to also evaluate, learn and refine the programs and reassess what those goals and priorities are, what are those deliverables, and also what are the performance metrics that we're looking for the organizations. So a few quick summary on the preliminary outcomes. You received a recap of the agreement terms again in March of this year. So I won't go over this in too much detail but just wanted to remind you what are some of those goals and aspirations that you all set out early on. And I do want to highlight again that the contract started in March of 2023 set to end in August of 2024, or until the end of the agreement. And the agreements had set a clause that allowed for a six-month extension for completion of the programs of the organization's requested it upon city manager approval. And two organizations have sought the six-month extensions to February of next year, so that remaining students can finish their training programs. And these organizations are job-trained and live in peace. Street code academy has chosen not to extend it. It's agreement, and they can go into a little bit more detail on that during their presentation. And you all should have seen now four quarterly reports from the months of March 2023 to March of this year, which are available on the city website, also for public viewing. And these quarterly reports, the final quarterly reports for the months of April to August are due by September 30th. And tonight's presentation provides preliminary outcomes summarized in your staff reports and also attachment eight. So pilot phase one, here's a quick summary of the career programs with the three organizations, job trains, recode academy and live in peace, each having a goal of 28 East Pawl to participants and the city council allocation. So program and in really outcomes, all programs combined have been able to achieve participation by Black African American Latinx and Pacific Islander, White and mixed race ethnicity individuals. All programs have also accomplished or nearly accomplished their enrollment goal of the 20 students per program. And I do want to note that we are seeing an increase in women participating, which was a topic in March of this year, as well as a wider mix of participation in terms of race and ethnicity and level of education. All the data for job training here was from the March 2024 report, and you'll see more updates on this as well in the September 30th report that we expect. So, okay, completion rates, 12 out of 21 students that have enrolled in the Living Peace Training Programs have completed their respective programs. So that's a 13% increase since March and that's also one of the reasons why they're requesting an extension so that the remaining students are able to achieve completion of their programs. For job training, 12 out of 15 students have completed the project build program a 13% increase in March. 3 out of 7 students have completed the building maintenance program a 10% increase in March and 13 out of 18 students have completed the IT careers program a 20% increase in March. For an overall completion rate of about 70%. And students in the street code academy training program are track differently given that each training program takes about eight months or longer. So students are tracked based on their enrollment in the street code uh street code academy program and then upon the enrollment and the certification program. So based on this data, 17 out of the 19 students or 89% had to have advanced to enrolling in their certification programs. And ultimately the goal of 85% course completion is an aspirational goal that also impacts the disbursement of funds since the funds are linked to each participant enrollment and completion in the training course. For performance metrics regarding job placements, the goal is 75% of enrollees to be placed in a job within the three months of completing their training program. For live in peace, they reported 10 out of 12 students or 83% having completed their programs and working full time in STEM and building trades fields. And 20% increase in March, while two students are actively working on pursuing their careers. For job training, 19 out of 34 job training students who provided job placement information have found placements, a 20% increase since March, while nine are actively seeking a job and one is staying in their current job. And for street code academy, none of the students have received placements or one of the students For the starting wage and living wage outcomes, all proposals prioritize training or apprenticeship programs. And the organizations are committing to striving to have their program and release reach or exceed the living wage within 36 months of completing their training course. So this is very preliminary data. We're hopefully collect a little bit more later. And the third party evaluator informing change will hopefully help us figure out how to evaluate this aspect. I live in peace students who have completed the training programs have been hired at starting wages ranging from $22 to $38 an hour. And for job training, the range is $20 to $27.5 an hour. And there's no reportable data yet from street code academy. These are the expenditures to date. This is from April, which was the last time we received invoices from the organizations. Just wanted to demonstrate how majority of the funds have been expense. There's a few funds remaining for the remaining students that are to complete their training programs. So now I'm going to open it up for presentations from our three organizations, Job Train, Live in Peace, and Street Code Academy. We have their slides here. And so I just asked that our presenters raise their hand when their term time comes so that they can be promoted as panelists if they're joining virtually and if they're joining in person to walk up to the podium. I know we didn't have any speakers or public comment. There's a woman here in the audience who'd like to make a public comment is out there. That's right with the council. If you can just make a quick two minute. Okay, that way you guys can prepare your remarks for the five minutes, but I wanna let Rita have an opportunity to say her piece and then that way she should have to wait longer. So thank you. So those of you who just a probably coming for the evening. Hi, I wanted to cover a few things. I actually ended up writing a really long list. If you could please have lawyers at library, that's really helpful for the general public here. There is Klespa and there's also Stanford Law students. But Klespa, even though they promised certain things, they really less in number when I've had to interact with them and when others had to interact with them, they said that they would do certain things, but then when time came, they said there was no staffing. So if we could get help from the City Council for a class power stepping up for various areas, for housing, for domestic violence, family law, etc. When I say housing, I meant more like rental. Stanford Law School, if we could get more help and maybe lawyers at library, if they could come here to the library across, that would be also helpful. So some things which affect us, tech workers of Silicon Valley, if we could have more San Mateo family court hours, which can be increased. If the city council can help even write to the state government to increase the court hours and also the administration of the family court itself. There are certain domestic violence officers close by. There is Kora, but unfortunately, some of us don't have enough representation like Indians and some of the islanders who live in San Mateo County. So I know Lisa has been very helpful because you've worked with, even love never fails us and other organizations, but I think we need more representation in the staffing so that it's easier for us to overcome the culture barrier. And then if we can have more homeless shelters, I know there's life moves and other things, but there is a need, especially for victims of DV to have more shelters. She made an excellent presentation just now, the lady I didn't catch her name, but love never fails us also has a ITBiz program, which perhaps even others in the city council. If they can increase the number of slots as well for the training, that is love never fails us. Coming back to the representation in the DV offices, I don't know if NAACP or anyone can be contacted to help out more. Because Kora has been good in San Mateo County but they do have some not good reviews on Yelp. I think some of us are actually approaching them or my co-workers. I've lived around here for almost 30 years. So I actually know people who approach them or who've written their negative reviews. We're not getting enough help. They just assume that you know tech workers that we only get help elsewhere but we're not. We're having no way to turn to. One thing, please the two minutes are up. So if you can please recommend. Thank you. Can I get a couple more minutes? Is that okay? He do. He is one more minute. Yes. So the library here is really good. But One more minute? Yes, one more minute. Okay. So the library here is really good, but if we would like to request for more domestic violence training at the library for various folks and then hotspot rentals to increase as well. And then laptops which have the inbuilt hotspot if that can be increased. Some of the keyboards here are stuck. I do keep writing the librarian, some of them are not very proactive to replace them. And thank you, thank you for everything. Thank you, Rita. Thank you for all your feedback to us. All right, sorry about that. I Karen didn't mean to interrupt the flow, but hopefully that gave time for our three organizations to prepare. So who will be up first? Yes. So up first we have a presentation by Street Code Academy. Sorry. Job train. Sorry. What the? Sorry. Actually, Street Code Academy. This is it. train. Sorry. Sorry. Actually, St. Coda kind of. I think last time it was job train and we switched the order. So keep you guys on your toes. St. Coda. Yes. So are you sharing slides here? Yes Thank you so much. So I'll just say greetings to keep us moving. I'm again to you Mayor Lopez Vice-Morning body gone the other giants on the council council member Gorshade Councilmember Romero on customer Breaker to the honorable mr. Gaines congrats today To miss Karen to the EPA staffs are our beautiful community Just wanted to say thank you I'm not seeing the slides yet. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me share a different, um, the keyboard is disconnected. That way you know, really it's not just the library's keyboards. This is elective improvements, what we'll make. We need our IT, uh, level of fails, IT program. We need a ITA, 11 of the fails, IT program. We need it. John Trin, IT program. Yeah. Tunday, you need to get one of your staffers to come here and help us out. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, we'll help us out. So I just wanted to first thank the community, thank the council for their leadership. My name is Ola Tune, I'm a CEO, I'm the lead servant of street court academy. My colleague, Juanita Crop, who's on, we're talking about our newest program, it's the work innovation program. Next slide. So some background and context. We started 2014, we were a program of living piece, then we became an independent organization. I'll do a minute just kind of overview of what we do, what we do. And the goal was to bridge digital divide as a way to achieve economic justice. It was a way to close the wealth gap. Next slide. So we've been around 10 years. We've been serving the community in the region. And we came up with this model, right, to close this gap. We said we got to build mindset skills access. Mind sets to see yourself in that field, skills to prepare yourself for the job and then access to actually have the real opportunities and meet the people to do it. Next slide. So we're community based and we're family centered. The this program is HH allowed us to do something different because normally we focus on top of funnel. We focus on exciting the community about what's possible, providing opportunities where that's young kids, creating original apps or whether that's community retirees, figuring out how to enter the field as a family. Next slide, that's the top of the slide. And so we serve a lot of students. We want to reach 100% of East Palo Alto. So we serve a lot of students in this broad, you can go to the next slide, this broad idea. And so we've tried to grow every year because we've tried to serve more and more next slide. But this game, we've had some, we haven't had a lot of folks enter the innovation economy because of the difficulty. We have had some students like Max who got introduced to us and now is studying computer science at Berkeley. But this opportunity gave us a chance next slide to think about how do we systematize that bottom of the funnel, that final connection and so very, very happy that we had the opportunity and why need to figure this out and we learned just one thing before why need to comes on just this one idea of this gap between next slide, this gap between our community and these innovation opportunities, it's a lot, right? Entry level could be one thing, but to really give us the fullness of the innovation feel, like we wanted, there were a lot of factors to consider, some of which was in the HH grant, but many challenges that we had that just limited, that we're finally having to figure out how to make this program a real success. So I need to talk about the details of that. Thank you all. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for this opportunity to share out about our Work Innovation Program. Next slide. So the Work Innovation Program is our pilot model of a Work development program that incorporated CTE standards and elements to it. And we were implementing it in terms of providing the services that were needed for 20 East Palo Alto residents to take advantage of the opportunity to get introduced to tech careers and tech jobs and also take a class at St. Cove to get some skills, learn how skills are acquired. And then they moved into after a quarter of that, they moved into preparing for the certification. And so time was spent on that. When they got into the certification, many of the programs had a sort of minimum of three to eight months of completion. And they went in with the caveat that the programs were didn't require any background or previous experience. And so many of them started the programs but weren't able to make much progress. So, but we did get 26 students who completed the street code classes. 19 of them did move into the certification programs. And more recently, our numbers of females in the program did bump up from 50% to 53%, which is a good number. I've been around usually. It always stayed around 46%. So 53% is a good number. The career pathways that were chosen or students moved into were cybersecurity, data analytics, UX design, and most of them moved into IT support. It was one of the topics that were easier for most people to move into. Okay. Next slide, please. Okay. So in terms of the program successes, we provided everything that Street Code has available for students to get exposed to tech, whether you're looking at careers, companies, or jobs. And so we were able to do career exploration and provided mentoring and support to the students in terms of professional development and all of that. Some of our successes that we had, we did have one of our students who had better, had some postgraduate, where I was able to complete the UX design certificate. And then we had others who were able to get a little bit of work experience and opportunities like that through the activities that we provide at street code. Street code also provided pop ups and huddle ups and we also had exposureships. And so our career exploration allowed some of the students to either go to a company site or do it via Zoom, get a tour of the campus if that was possible. So those were some of the activities that had the greatest success. The students really appreciated that. Next slide. Some of the challenges were, and these were things over time as I work with the students and found out a little bit more about their background over time. And so one of the biggest things that stood out to me were the issues around the tech language proficiency because people were actually looking at careers that were new to them. They were already in maybe a different profession, but they wanted to consider upscaling or re-scaling. And so the new careers have a lot of language proficiency that's required. We had people who were struggling with home insecurities. Some of them had, we had people who caught COVID and were out for quite a while and a couple of people ended up in the hospital. So we had a lot of life challenges going on at the same time, which impacted their ability to either come to class or continue to participate in the program. Some were challenged by the fact that they may not have had a high school diploma or a GED, or that they were using old technology at home. And that as we worked through the different certificates, some of them required setup for some of the training and learning. And then one of the major pieces was the need for work experience as well as a certificate. So certificates are good. It usually takes you a couple to get to a point where you're really considered viable for some positions. But you also need at least two years of work experience. Even if it wasn't full time, it could be part time, but you do need that as well. And that was one of the challenges that we had. Next slide. So based on the data and determining best practices, these are some of the recommendations that we're putting forward. So under education, one of the things as someone who spent a career setting up labs and organizing learning environments for students, the role of Ed Tech becomes very important in this process so that we figure out how to help our students get the setting up a learning environment in their home. We should teach some of the professional skills classes like regular classes for our students, so that they can get a chance to get some lab as well as lecture in terms of the activities. And since StreetCode's primary goal is UX design to actually make that one of those professional skills, so courses that we do. We're gonna tailor communications with our students a little bit more because we were not collecting a lot of demographic data on them just the basics that we're asked for in the grant, but we do need more data from the students and to also interview them to make sure that we're matching them up with the right kind of certificates. Collaboration, this is one of the things I was excited about early on was the fact that job training, living piece and street code represent three different types of workforce development programs and that together the three could develop a bigger city wide kind of programming where we would have a referral system in place so that we could help students with the resources that they they would need. Next slide please. And so that's the basics of the recommendations. I also wanted to have a personal thank you to the city council, the city of East Palo Alto, and the Ravenswood City School District. I'm a longtime resident of Bell Haven, grew up in Bell Haven, and as a result was impacted by the educational systems in East Palo Alto and so from Ravenswood to Ravenswood High School to Nairobi College to foothill even though it's not in East Palo Alto but a lot of people go there. One East Palo Alto, but a lot of people go there. One East Palo Alto, because I've been involved with the sponsored employment program for over a decade, providing tech training to that particular program. And this year we did a whip session with them. And then ultimately street code for the work that they're doing and actually trying to fill a niche that's not being met in a structured way. So I do want to thank everyone for all that the city has done over its its 40 plus years as a city and all of the nonprofits and everyone, because from my point of view, East Palo Alto has one of the best CTE types of environment for workforce development. So I do want to thank you for that. And next slide. And so for both Tunday and I, I would like to say thank you very much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for the day. Council, we now have a presentation from live in peace. I believe we have Heather here in person. We'll be presenting. Indeed do. Take it away Heather. Hello Mayor and to the council members. We appreciate and staff and community. So we're glad to super glad to be here. I will say that our Melvisha who used to run theAT program has been picked off by a FITIL and she's now doing this for FITIL so we're really excited about that because it helps us long run. It doesn't help us necessarily short run. So we can skip this about who live in pieces. But so the GAT program, you know, really was designed after we had this, the swag grant from the county. And we started working with the 80 least likely to graduate from high school. And as we, these students began to put the heroic efforts into graduating from high school, they weren't really moving forward outside of high school. They weren't really prepared for college. And they weren't really moving forward outside of high school. They weren't really prepared for college and they weren't and weren't prepared for trades. We'll just say that. So the gap program is considered growth and purpose and we really look at an individual way to help people find the vision for their life and then really access it. Because we know that when you're doing something that you like and you're interested in and it kind of fits your personality and your humanity, you end up doing a better job and you kind of learn how to climb that ladder. So that's really what we're about. Just like some of the stats, I think we've all talked about these, but the 47% of college students from our communities like ours drop out within the first year. And that's largely because of what we're telling you. A lot of our students are not prepared to successfully move through college. The other thing is trades, we're making, you know, the difference is 61,000 to 24,000. So it's a great starting to living wage. And then there's this huge need because people are retiring from the trades. And so there's a real big need for that. And the other thing is that we didn't put up there, but it's kind of a good a voice club. And so it's hard to get in and it's hard for our communities to get in. And so we know there's a lot of work to be done with that. So for us, I think you can go pass on. What I think what we are most excited about is that we had 21 students that went through our in our program, 12 graduated, went graduated. And we have a starting range from $21 to $38. And we feel great about that. We feel like that is right on par with what we committed and what we believe is needed for young people to kind of create a living wage and honestly stay here. That's our big goal is that students could stay here in this community and live out their lives and raise them, have families and raise their families in our community. So out of the, we still have six that are still in their classes and in their programs and are on track to graduate. And the three that did drop, two of them moved out of state because they couldn't afford the housing here and one went to the arms forces. So overall, I feel like the way we're choosing the students in this program have been very successful. We've been able to tag like, who is going to actually complete. I think Melvish had did a phenomenal job of really addressing one of the key things that live in Pistez is we address the barriers and we remove them. And so, or with them, we don't personally remove them, but we work together to remove the barriers. And that could be anywhere from not having transportation, not having technology, not having childcare. We have two dads that have gone back into the workforce. One was making a security guard, making like $22 an hour. And he was watching his kids so he couldn't go and get any other work. And now he's joined a union and because we were able to kind of remove the childcare barriers. So we were really excited about this opportunity. We're so grateful. It's so good to be in partnership with our city and feel like, you know, we're doing this together and I will tell you your staff on this team is amazing. They have been so helpful. And I think really that we're moving in the way that we said we would. And I don't know if we have an excited. I think the, oh, I think there's some other exciting things that we've been able to do with the local trades, local small companies like the Tayus, when electric electrician. So they're now taking... So one of the problems, I think everybody's going to street code set it, I think job chain, is like we've gotten several people, they're green card and they're e-card, card and their e-card for their electricians. Well, we also partnered with some very large electrician companies, but they really want that in between, they don't wanna be those in between people. So we're working with the local electricians, the local plumbers, the local people to you. They give them their initial experience. And that's been a really great success. And we're really excited about what that's going to happen. And I don't think we could have done that without this grant at all. Yeah, I think what else we're looking for, I just want to keep pushing like, how do we think about housing, come with everybody from, you know, live in peace or street code or job chain that are in these workforce development? How do we like prioritize them in these upcoming housing that's happening so that we don't just gainfully employ people and then they move out because they can't afford it here. So I think really us together thinking about how to unify these thoughts might make it even more successful. Thank you so much Heather and to your team as well that worked on this. We're now going to pass it on to our next presenter, Job Train. Before we do that, I see my colleague Councilman Goshet would like to make a comment. I'm just looking over a Valerie and Melvin need to make sure that people understand that I am the board chair for live in peace. So before we make any determinations, please let me know if I need to recuse myself or what's necessary for that. Thank you. And just as a reminder, the resolutions are separated so that you can vote separately for the live and peace. Peace. Yeah, so I was just going to mention what Karin mentioned that there is in a recommendation adopting resolutions, there is item 3c is in regards to live and peace so you can recuse yourself from that. Great thank you all now pass it to Quenny. Last but not least. All right. Oh wow. Good evening Mayor and Council members. Look name is Phun A. Price Butler. So I'm the director of the career training and education programs at job training. Next week will mark three years for me at job training and a year and a half in the director role. I will say just quickly off topic, but important I wanted to say is I met Mama D one time and it only took one time so I share the sentiments and echo my condoses to the members of the community and just her spirit and was thankful that I got to this work. And also as I continue to grow in this role and in this community is being able to have this grant that connects us to the students that are locally here. We're very excited of the growth and the impact that we've been able to make in our construction and our building maintenance HVAC and also our IT programs. Being able to have building maintenance in HVAC back online has been exciting. We're in our second cohort and it's probably one of our most popular program which has been hard to compete with our medical assistant program over the years because that's really what job chain has been known for in the last several years. So this graphic will show you where we are as far as total enrollment. So we're so excited to be able to recognize that we have met our enrollment goals. It does not mean that we still have challenges which we'll speak to in a few moments but we're happy to see that there's a diversity of what the local residents are interested in and that it's a good mix between the trades and also the tech jobs, whether it be our entry-level ITSS courses or our advanced courses. The reds signifies the students who did not complete the classes and we can talk about that just in a moment. I will say the bar graph with the yellow are the students who are still in the courses so we still have some movement and again I want to thank the council for considering and approving our extension. We'll be able to address students who are still within the courses. Next slide. All right, so again, we have our placement data. So these are the students who have moved through the course and have completed. So I also like to point out as of this afternoon, we actually have 17 placements. So it's exciting news. We're about $17 for those students who have secured employment and reported that back to us. We do recognize that it does sometimes take about 90 days for students to secure employment. Sometimes that is just them, the students pivoting to, you know, moving from the classroom to the job search component. We've actually seen some students actually balancing multiple interviews and job offers and deciding which opportunity to take, but also seeing a little bit of students being a little bit stagnant from moving from the classroom, being able to get support. You're doing those 11 or 12 weeks and then figuring out how to now move into the realm of being able to move into full employment and understanding how to get into and from work. So we have started to figure out how to help them with job searching and then job placement strategies and make sure they have clipper cards and know how to navigate whether ideal work area are, but we're pretty excited about the placement, and we'll continue to coach them and work with them on their placement. So certainly their opportunities and barriers for all of our students. Definitely, I would say we're gonna be using the additional funding that the council has provided us with re-engaging the students who dropped out. And when we say drop, we mean the students who enroll with us and drop within the first two weeks. So for the council's edification, that means that job change did not charge the council for those. Those means that the students, again, enroll from the first to the second week within the grant period or the student of the classroom time frame. And for a variety of reasons, which I'll show you in another slide decided that they didn't want to pursue the training at that time. So we're going to re-engage and determine if for whatever reason they dropped out or decided not to pursue, can we support them with re-joining our training program and help them with identifying a solution for that barrier or maybe it was just not the right time at that time. So we have about 11 students who are going to focus on a strategy that are local to the area. We're also going to work on making sure that students know about our strategies for those who are just as involved. Sometimes when students see or clients' perspective, clients see our flyers and they know that there could be barriers to employment because of justice involvement. They may not be taking the appropriate steps to understand what's on their record what the current laws are, what employees are allowed to ask. So we're trying to do smaller workshops with students to make sure they can understand how to get the Klespa. We heard a woman talking about that earlier, making sure they know how to look at their record, understanding how they can do expungement. I'll be speaking at a re-engagement fair in San Francisco in about two weeks. So we want to make sure, again, students know how to access that information and they can work towards allowing that to be a barrier and can be informed so they don't get discouraged and not apply for job training or any other training programs that might allow them to pursue a career of their choice. And then also ensuring that they understand how to connect with us for their training for soft skills, making sure they know once they move through our training program or other training programs, I'd be able to tackle those jobs. We recognize being in COVID, being isolated has hurt some folks' communication skills, and we want to make sure that there's plenty of practice that people know how to, again, connect with people face to face virtually in other different ways. And that is an area of opportunity that we have found for our students whether they are in our construction class or even in our IT class. So that's something that we are creating across the board for our programs. Another area of opportunity for us is understanding that a lot of students are not accessing their driver's license. Some of it is related to fines and fees with some students are just not understanding that they don't have their driver's license. They can't get job. And this is especially important for jobs like construction and also for our building maintenance and HBAC. Even if they don't have a car, or don't plan on driving or don't own a car, students who don't have a driving license or not being considered positions because in some of those roles, the companies will allow them to access the company vehicle and we're recognizing that some students, again, are just not accessing cars or trying to obtain their driver's license because they think that Uber or these ride shares will be the way to go or not realizing that it's a hurdle for them come time for application. So we're trying to educate them on the process, make sure they know how to navigate the DMV which can be a challenge as well. And then working with our impact team, understanding the impact of the labor market for IT and construction. We have some grants and some data that is being shared from tipping point. So what does that look like for our IT jobs? It can tell us down to the zip code, the credentials, the different skills, the desirable skills, who's hiring. It can even tell us the amount of construction careers. I think the last time I saw a two-day, we were both in Austin. You could see the amount of construction work that was happening in that community. And we would like to know what's happening in the peninsula so students don't have to move out of the area or we can help usher them into the area where those construction opportunities are happening because it is having an impact on our enrollment goals and recruitment strategies for our project bill class. Digital literacy is also another area that we're recognizing that students are challenged with while we are offering virtual reality in some of our classes, some of our students are struggling with even operating a computer or even having access to a computer. Some parents access their students or their children's laptops in the pandemic because it was easy and accessible. A lot of people do not have access to a computer. There's no funding in a lot of places now for a computer, going to a library may not be conducive or feasible. So we want to make sure that's not only do our students know how to access the computer, but Where we can use things like everyone on Meta has also donated a bunch of laptops to us or we're trying to make sure that our students can own and operate a laptop So not only can they use it for class, but they can also use it to access it so they can do Job search and have that that tool for them as they proceed through their process. And then another barrier for us is equipment. So having built a maintenance HVAC construction on one side of the building is a tight squeeze for us while we are in the plans of course of creating a new center in these Palo Alto. Having that space is tight. We're trying to secure or receiving equipment from different funders and securing them on the funding that we have already, but it's a tight squeeze. So that is an opportunity where we're trying to use all the space that we have at job training. So it's a little tight. Funding is obviously always a challenge. And then also logistics because now we're having to figure out what classes to have in person. And right now we're actually having a bit of a COVID little scared because we have a lot of people in person. And we had to kind of do a deep clean. So just best practices, how to move people in and out of the building. So we're all safe, and that we can still move people through the classes quickly so they can go to the next place. Going through this, this is again, a breakdown of the drop. So this is, I'm talking about what the people are for a variety of reasons. Why people leave our classes, change of heart, couldn't achieve the classroom requirements, emphasis, family distress, financial distress, no show on the first day. So again, it's nice that we have this information because it helps us when we use our strategies to try to figure out how we can re-engage the student. So these are the things that we're gonna, these are the reasons that we're gonna use to try to combat why student student may have left us. And I'll jump to the last slide, which I think is a pretty cool slide. This is Cory. Cory is a local East Palo Alto resident, as you see by the pool hat that he has on his head. Cory graduated in our last building maintenance HVAC class. He is a now employed with Graystar at a local commercial property in Menlo Park earning $24 an hour. He had another job offer with Mid-Pin, a few weeks prior to that and now has transitioned to Graystar. I'm pretty excited for you dropping by our offices all the time and is really not only this, he's a talented photographer and is, he's Palo Alto through and through. We have two other students that were accepted into a local union through our building maintenance and HVAC class. That's a new partnership that we've just identified through our instructor's hard work. Two other students that were accepted into the local 217 with the work of our instructor Marty who we're working on a local project in East Palo Alto. So I'm so pretty excited about that. And then lastly, we have a new director at our child development center who has created new opportunities. So we have capacity in our CDC for local residents and also for our students and clients. So we're pretty excited about being able to again welcome welcome local residents, students and community members to be able to take advantage of all the different opportunities that job train has. So I want to thank you guys and to say appreciation for the support and the extension that you guys were able to provide us. Thank you so much, Quenny. So we have our presenters here tonight. If you'd like to ask questions at the end or we can also open up for any clarifying questions before we proceed to next part of the presentation. Sure, why don't we start clarifying questions? Council members, any, I know there's a lot of information thrown out of us, but any requests for clarification from any of our three organizations, some of the statistics they provided reasons for dropping out, etc. So we can proceed to the next part, which is the recommendation for additional funding allocation. So in order to give the three organizations the opportunity to continue their programming, we are asking and recommending that council allocate an additional 366,418 dollars and measure HH fund for 10 additional students per program who would be expected to complete their training within a shorter time frame of nine months until next year. And this table is table four in your staff report to summarize is what the funding allocation would be for each organization. So while there's still an outstanding funds to be dispersed under the existing program, the release of those remaining funds will be primarily dependent on the current students that will be completing their programs. So this additional allocation will be for 10 additional students. And in the meantime, we'll have the opportunity to have informing change, which is the third party evaluator who will be presenting shortly after this, to have the opportunity to observe the classrooms and provide more insightful input on how things are going in this pilot. And this is also the recommendation for change in contract terms. We did a staff did receive input from the organizations that receiving only half of the funds upon initial norm it didn't really cover the staff and administrative costs. So that's why they're asking for variation of payment schedule to best fit for each contract. And while this change in percentage will allow for more funds to be dispersed at the beginning, it doesn't compromise the objective of ensuring that students successfully complete their programs. So this is now transitioning into the third party evaluation firm, which is the third part of your staff reports. In March of this year, Council did direct staff to issue an RFP. We issued it in May, and the informing change has started the work just last month with a kickoff meeting with staff and also with our contractors and organizations. And they're going to be focusing on three key goals, which are now outcomes assessment, assessing the performance of the organizations during the pilot program improvements. I think this is a key aspect that we're trying to get feedback on which is what are some of the modifications and improvements we can do in our program to increase our workforce development efficacy, our accessibility, our outcomes, based on the reports that have been submitted by our partner organizations and comparisons with other programs, workforce development programs. And finally, criteria development, specifically for evaluating future wage outcomes. So now we have a presentation by Evan Gattosi from Informing Change who will provide you a brief introduction on what it what they're anticipating to be their work and I know it's been the long night hopefully this presentation will be short and sweet. We'll see what brief means Evan thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Karin. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Like Karin said, we'll keep this short and sweet. My name is Evan Gittosia. I'm a senior associate at Informing Change. We are strategic learning and evaluation firm and we are based out of a neighboring city of Oakland, California. I'll be co-leading this project with a few of my colleagues at Informing Change. Cut and we can go to the next slide. As Goddain said already, the goals of our evaluation are really to document progress of the pilot program so far to identify suggestions for ongoing improvement and to develop a tool for criterion for evaluating future wage outcomes and impacts. That second purpose is really important because we know that the impact of long-term earning will take more than 12 months to manifest. And we want to find a way to document and demonstrate that effectively. Next slide will show you a little bit more of our entire team here. I'll be joined by Michael Arnold, who is one of our partners and co-executive director, will be co-leading the project along with Auntie Chomsky and Rebecca Bloom, will also be joined by a research assistant. I wanna share a high level overview of our approach to this work, which you at the City Council, I believe, approved in our proposal just a month or two ago. We're already into to the first phase, the project initiation where we've gotten to launch with the city staff as well as all of the partners. We'll be conducting a few exploratory interviews to learn more about the programming. And at the end of that phase, at the end of October, we will culminate with a final evaluation plan. That evaluation plan will serve as a guide for the remainder of this project. Second, we'll move into a research and analysis. And currently, that data collection includes interviews with participants, with the students themselves, to share about their personal experiences, more about their successes, more about their challenges. We'll also conduct a landscape scan of programs with similar approaches and intended outcomes really to help with benchmarking. And of course, we'll be reviewing the quarterly reports more deeply that partners and city staff have prepared. This phase should be completed by February of 2025. Once that ends, we will launch right into sense making and reporting. That's our third phase. We will seek, once we have initial evaluation results, we will seek input from our city staff representatives and from other representatives on those initial evaluation results. This is a crucial step because it helps deepen and can bring greater context to the findings that we are surfacing. We'll deliver that final evaluation report as Karin said earlier on in the spring or summer of 2025 at earliest, April 2025. We're also assessing the most strategic point to bring you the council back into this process. It could be during the sense-making session, It could also be during that draft reporting period. Here we've got a timeline that a higher level overview of exactly when each of those phases will be occurring. The final phase of the work once that final report is we'll then be turning to that wage and outcome criteria tool development, which we will pursue in the April to July timeline and have that wrapped up in finalized in the summer when our contract ends. If it's approved, we also hope to shadow some of the job training programming in the fall. Finally, our last slide, Karin. If there is time right now, we have questions for you at the City Council. We really are looking for what information you are hoping to learn through the evaluation. Now that you've seen so many reports from each of the programs, now that you've gotten this update today, what more are you hoping to learn through the evaluation to inform your decisions about the future of the pilot workforce development program? How do you find success of this pilot workforce development program? And what does a successful evaluation process look like to you? Karin, is that something that we have time to take a few minutes to answer some of these questions? All different to our mayor on that. Like this is important, particularly as this is going to be something that's going to be launched for the for this subsequent council. So I do think it's in terms of timing, Karen, is this a good for in terms of the presentation? We can Yes, this is a good time to discuss these questions. Council members, we have a great consultant here that's going to help us to get a sense of how successful, how effective these three organizations in tandem with each other are doing. So let's take the first question. What information we hope in a learn through the evaluation of informing change? Yes, yeah, to inform our decisions for this pilot workforce program. Any initial thoughts? Well, we're hoping to learn? Yeah, and then then I have those. I have a request in addition to these three questions. So maybe I'll start with that. I think that and I don't know where it is in the timeline, but I think before the actual work on the field begins, I think it's important to bring back to the council, what the specific evaluation plan is. I'm just remember a little bit, I think, when we had the polling done for, you know, potentially a bond measure and stuff. We didn't somehow that got skipped and the council did not have a chance to review the actual questions and the things that were done. So as a former evaluator, I used to do this kind of work in education. You know, there, there's always some, in this case, I think it is important for the City Council to just review that before it goes out into the data collection, just to confirm, reaffirm that we're on the same page. So if you maybe could identify when that could take place tentatively or... What I can share now is that we will begin developing that evaluation plan in the coming weeks. And our ultimate goal is to have a final draft or the version finalized by the end of October. So maybe offline I can work with Kotlin to identify which city council meeting will be most strategic where will be most prepared to share a draft with you. Okay, yeah, someday like I said not, yeah, I would refer that. I think this is an initial way to get some of our thoughts now, but I'd like to see that part before. OK. Excellent. Thank you. And then, you know, I think some of the, well, probably all the presenters already, I think, kind of identify some things that barriers, for example, the barriers. And what I think is barriers, a lot of the barriers were more like individual people having certain barriers, you know, that, what challenges they encounter in their daily life. I like to see if it's possible to collect some information and what I would call maybe structural barriers that are really outside of the individual's control, even if we provide childcare for somebody like is there a problem with childcare around? You know, when we look at housing, so we had been able to identify, but and I think somebody also pointed out kind of the maybe job train or I forget, but I think that they did pretty good for me in identifying already some of those things that are barriers that are either at the individual level locally or in the region because whether it's the job market trends, even the, what is the average wage for example, I'd be curious to find out if we know that, you know, because we talk about living wage and we talk minimum wage and other wages. And like, what are the employers doing around here? Because it may not be in the long run or it may not be, I would say, it may be in, we're all for living ways, but how realistic is that going to be if the barriers are really outside of our control and it's really the employers that are controlling that. And the reason I'm raising some of these issues that are a little more outside is because I think, I think the city council is in a position down the line to also address some policy issues that are not just local issues but policy issues in the surrounding areas and this would be very helpful. Yeah, so this kind of area of barriers in different ways. One small part under that barrier that still interests me is to find out what's going on with, and so now I'm just gonna, I would not say I'm speaking as an immigrant, and the immigrant community, no matter where they came from in the world, or what language they speak, tends to be left out of these projects. And I've mentioned several times, there is a way to address that, doing what used to be called a thing is still called content ESL. So, you know, here's some people who are not quite fluent in English, but they want to get into these programs. Well, right now I think it's more like an internal barrier that we have created. That's already there unless we break it down, but maybe having a few people who could be included in these programs and who are learning English, but they're able to handle what I call ESL content, not ESL by itself. So they could learn technology, language, they could learn all those things. In fact, some of the immigrant community, they've already done some of these jobs in their countries. Right? So it's not even a question of them not knowing that, but right now I see that as a societal barrier and it filters down even to our program, I think. So any information we could find out about, you know, what's going what's going on there and how we could break those barriers and in the next cohort be able to include them more. Thank you. Thank you, Cosmo Verica. I'm hearing language, you know, imposter syndrome for immigrants of accessing these jobs and making sure that we're capturing everybody equitably, which is really the DNA of the city. Other council members, what are we hoping to learn? We talked a little bit about the barriers. I think that goes into the second question a bit about what we define a success as reducing and mitigating those barriers to the extent that we can and no job train highlighted a few of those as well as live in peace. Other council members want to? Yes, Councilman Goshton. Yeah, through the chair, thank you for this report. As we look at these questions, I wish I had a little bit more time to consider these questions as they are before me. But seeing as this is some of the work that I do in my date time, what are the jobs of the future? Where are those jobs growing to make sure that we're in alignment with the work that we're doing? That's something that's going to be important. One comment that I will make is for computer science skills. We need to be supporting Mark Burman's bill. It is AB 2097, which ensures that every student in high school will have access to computer science classes right now. It's in the suspense file. We're hoping that the governor will approve it, but that's something that's gonna make a difference because as I hear tonight, some of our students and our community members are just learning computer science later on in life. How can we make sure that we're exposing them to these opportunities early? And I know street code does a really good job of that as well from working with little kids all the way through. But yeah, you know, as we think about these programs, we're so grateful for the three groups that are stepped up to participate in the pilot program. But yeah, we want to make sure that this is going to be successful and sustainable as well. The councilman also appreciate you shouting out our regional policymakers and and I also just want to say for the record, I also don't think it's just these three organizations cross to bear. These are systemic issues of not getting access to certain jobs. We're trying to make a dent set a precedent, create an example that can create some momentum. But I think it's important that as we pilot this program that we give that latitude and bandwidth for us to troubleshoot together. How do we tackle some of those issues that you highlighted? I think for me success is capturing folks early. When you dealing with somebody who's in their late 20s and has a whole sort of barrier, that's going to be a lot more cemented and tackled than someone who's younger who may not have a record or all kinds of institutional barriers. Getting folks So getting folks early and impressionable, kind of like with the William sisters of the tennis, right? You got to start early to really set that example and get people excited about, you know, can they see themselves in the trades? Can they see themselves as an engineer? Can they compete in the long shadow of tech layoffs? I think that's gonna be important. How do we make sure that our folks in this economy, in this digital age that's eviscerating the tech market, just thinking of street code. How do we make sure that our residents get prioritized? And I know I'm jumping a little bit on myself, so I'm happy to also hear from the vice mayor of my council member, Metal. But those are sort of my piggybacking up the council. My councilman goes share. So vice mayor. So I did have a question. I do apologize ahead of time if I did miss it somewhere, but in terms of like you were saying defining success, is there a way that like you were saying we could catch these individuals early on? I know that sometimes, you know, school is not a thing for everyone, and we have a lot of students that unfortunately drop out their second third year of high school. Is there a way, is there some kind of communication, some kind of outreach that, you know, we could do to capture those young minds that are probably not so into like the books, but actually more hands-on and steering them more into those trade programs. Yeah, and I know that Heather, I'm sure, is jumping from receipt that the work that they're doing with the county, with Gap and Swag. I don't know if you want to speak a little bit Heather for a moment, but you know, expanding that because I'm sure that that's just only tapping the surface, right? I don't know if there's like some kind of referral system or if you go out and look for those students for how I don't know how it works. So I just want a little bit more clarification, please. All right. Well, this isn't. Yes, we do actually have a referral system. We look at 10th graders in the second semester in the Sequoia School District, the East Palo Alto, Bell Haven. And we also work with Adverturn, East Palo Alto, and the part police to look who's getting cited or picked up. And so those are all indicators of dropouts. And then we are they are referred to our program. Through the chair if I may add we've had conversations with our partner organizations talking about wanting to collaborate more together and sharing resources. So I think you know being able to maybe all organizations go out to schools or do events together I think would be a really great opportunity. So that's something that we can look into for the next pilot or, you know, continuation. I think we ought to give it our collaborative where the city already. So definitely, Councilman Gushan. And I would just also add, um, living piece does a good thing on Wednesday nights where you have family nights, bringing people in with different careers. Often you can't be what you can't see. So if we're not exposing our children, our youth, our community to these different opportunities, how do they know what's possible? And then you put it in front of them later in life, it can be difficult but not impossible. So making sure that we're exposing community members, children, youth to all of the array of occupations that are available. And on that note, Councilwoman, you know, when I think about the last speaker, Qanay, and in job training, right, those doesn't so dropouts, you know, can they can live in peace cast in that if they're dropping out. Maybe that's maybe they, we pivot with another organization, right? If we already have infrastructure where we're getting kids or something through the cracks, you know, let's not reinvent the wheel. And so I think making sure we're combining resources to the extent that this next round of funding should my colleagues agree to it, can encourage and empower organizations to build capacity to reach out to each other laterally. You know, again, not to exhaust resource. And just if we're already doing that work that Lisa highlighted that Martha also mentioned, I think there's a recipe for success right there. And while I'm just speaking for a moment, just to move on top number two, you know, for me, the finding success, it's great that we're getting our residents to those jobs, but looking at the long term, do they stay in those jobs? Are they having struggles in there? Everything from imposter syndrome to, are they stuck in that ladder? How can we make sure that in those three years, the goal of that $34 an hour is attainable, is it attainable? So on a longitudinal perspective, keeping track of those who have been successful. And how do we, you know, get a sense of replicating that for other other applicants? I think that's important because if it's going to be sustainable, you know, it's great if they get the job, but are they keeping it? Are they moving out of state? Is it, you know, Is there other needs that they have? So I think just the informed change consultant, if we can reach out to those folks and get a sense of what they need, would be also critical in my opinion. Yeah, I wanted to piggyback right on that to find your success. How do you define success? I don't know if currently like you were saying, there is, I don't know if you would call it necessarily a shadow that continues like shadowing their success, maybe that could be another component perhaps added to this part of the evaluation, like do a quick check-in, well how are you in five years or maybe even 10 years. And I think that when you continue having those tides with those graduates, then they can come back perhaps and even be like, you know, speakers or share their testimonies or mentors. Because I think that's a very powerful thing. And, you know, like Lisa was saying, just to see somebody from your community making it. I think that's very powerful and it speaks volumes. Seeing that he's called at a trade site, you know, outside our city, proudly representing in how that can really make an impression to somebody who didn't see themselves in it, absolutely. I saw a Qanase hand up. out of the way that we're going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to can map and connect with students over the five years. So typically it's one year after graduation, how do we track, not only their first job, but whatever the other measurable skills gains that they connect with and how they grow, right? So what they look like in advancement and we're also implementing a mobility mentor model in the coming months. So we are looking to be able to work with graduates in a five year range to get them to this economic, this freedom model. And those students will opt in or graduates would opt into that, but that is something that we are already plying out and trying to work with impact employers to be able to connect to have these characteristics of upper mobility, tuition, flexibility, workplace excellence and being able to identify our students to be able to go into these impact employers to be able to grow. So that's something that we're working on in fair and not how to leverage with the staff that we have. So students can have that trajectory. So for sure. Thank you. And so we'll just add then, I think just trying to synthesis our conversation. Another criteria on for number two, I think defining success is how collaborative in this next juncture organizations can be to really make sure that they're providing that safety net. If a live and peace applicant maybe feels, you know, that maybe the resource for job trainers more suited for them, you know, having that knowledge, having those, you know, huddles, those huddles in street code or the Wednesday nights, at least some mention it for live and peace. I think that'll be important. So looking at our staff, making sure you have enough information, Council Member O'Malley. Yeah, so I have a number. And by the way, I do thank staff for including these questions in the staff report because it gave me a chance to actually jot down seven or eight different questions I have. So in terms of what we hope to learn and let me just remind the evaluators as well as the public that measure HH came out of a lack of interest in a so-called inability of tech companies in particular Amazon and not Amazon their logistics side their PhDs and their other quants who were working here in East Pallowalt and 200,000 square feet of a building that we built, they're supposed an inability to not be able to find folks in East Pallowalt to hire and they're asking to be exempted or I shouldn't say exempted, but create a safe harbor for them related to our first source hiring program. What we wanted to do with HH was try to figure out if there were pathways where we could create these career ladders for folks in tech. What I'm seeing here, and this is I think one of the questions that I will have for the evaluators, is look, I think folks know how to do some of the building trade stuff. I think the building trades are good actually. There's tip and top, those all work. I really wanted to collaborate with them, but they were interested, but where we really have a problem is I think understanding how we can create these career ladders and these paths for folks in tech. Biotech would be great, but at this point, we don't have that. I mean, I would really want the evaluators to one, you're talking about benchmarking and landscaping this world. I want to know what the hell is working out there and compare these programs that we have to them. I mean, you know, the tragically bitwise blew up completely. And Fresno, I actually thought at the time that we were reviewing this, that maybe bitwise could be a program didn't work. There were other internal issues. But really understanding, I'd like to understand a lot better whether or not there is a possibility of creating these career, you know, significant career paths in the tech area, STEM, let's say, um, that, you know, would actually get people into those career paths. And if it is not possible, right, if we actually think there are these huge barriers that we cannot overcome, then we probably needs revised measure H8. And that means taking it back to the public, right? Because it was passed by the voters. So I think it's really important for us to understand, and it's a little early now, right now. But it's really important for us to look at those trends. Again, you talk about benchmarking. Is it Evan? I'm sorry, who the Evan yeah yeah you talk about benchmarking in your proposal that you submitted to us I have it before me right and I think that is going to be important. How do these programs stack up against other programs that are operating in other places. Again, I would like to understand better whether these programs are indeed creating a career pathway for someone to go up the ladder to increase his or her ability to have a higher wage. So I know there's a concentration in these proposals on just the overall, I guess it's the wages that people are getting today. But for me, the issue is not the wage you will get today, whether it's $24 an hour, $35 or $36 an hour as an apprentice. But where did these career ladders take you? Because honestly 36 dollars an hour is not a living wage in the Bay Area, right? I mean, if you're a journeyman making 60 bucks an hour, your wife probably asked him, or your husband asked to make another 60 bucks an hour, but clearly we want folks to be in a career ladder. And, you know, are these programs doing that? I think the retention and coordination, the continuation piece is important and to the extent that giving an extra nine months for these programs allows the evaluators to do tracking of the first cohort over that, you know, additional nine month period. They've graduated. What are they doing? Did they decide to continue in the area? I mean, right now, I don't think we have that information to be great if we could do it over longer period of time. But the fact that we're adding nine months, there's a new cohort, the first cohort, where are they also in nine months? So to the extent that that is able to be captured within your analysis, I think that'd be helpful. See, I mentioned the landscape piece. And this is kind of for street code and job train. I mean, I would love for this, for the evaluators. And this is not the pick on street code and job train, but you guys are doing, I think, the most difficult work here, which is trying to pick a train people in a tech field, right? Is realistically, right, is realistically and the two programs that are presented here, the job train and the street code one, actually move people into a permanent position that would allow them to continue on in that career trajectory. Or what is missing that would get them there? And by the way, we cannot spend measure HH money on what are known as soft skills. We cannot. Right. I mean, that's the way we wrote this thing. Right. So, um, I think if there's a big soft skill issue here, that we figure out how we get around it with some other means, or you know, this evaluation needs to tell us guess what you have a huge soft skills problem here. And you can't overcome it, you know, unless you throw a bunch of money at it. And if that's the case, then I think we have again, have to look at it. And if that's the case, then I think we, again, have to look at, was HH written in the correct way because we didn't understand the barriers at the time. So, you know, Evan, you can look at the history of HH. There are plenty of folks in the community who worked on that who actually helped write it. I being one of those, but other folks who are not up here, we have some very strong views about what HH should be doing in terms of moving folks up in those tech fields. So I think those are some of my thoughts related to the evaluation, at least what we're hoping to learn from the evaluation piece. As far as defining success, I would actually hope to a certain extent that the evaluators to kind of help us in that. I mean, for me, truly, success and security got into the second question. I mean, to me, success would be someone who is well on their way to climbing. Again, I use this term career ladder because there are many of us who talked about that during the campaign and when we were writing the ordinance, right, is our people actually going to be able to continue increasing their wages within the career that they have been launched into through this program. I will say one thing that I've said all along. We originally were only going to make this money available for tech. There was a council member who actually said, well, I'll give you my vote if you decide to actually add the building trades, which is probably a smart idea because I think on the building trades we might be more effective than, you know, we're gonna be on the tech side. But again, I really do want you, the evaluators to look as deeply as possible into the tech side to see what, if anything, we need the retool. And by the way, it's going to be really hard to pass this again at the city council level, at the city level, which I'm not really looking forward to. But if it needs to be changed to make it be more effective, then I think we need to know that earlier than later. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Um, because everybody got a it at that. Thank you. Um, because everybody could have a, no, yeah, I didn't get a chance to come in on this success part. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, along similar lines of customer role metal, I think looking at the intent and the context of when HH emerged. You know, very briefly, I was flashing back at the several visits that Jesse Jackson made into the valley. Now it's been, you know, 15 years. And his whole thing was really putting a mirror to all the high-tech companies saying, you need to have a diverse workforce. It was one of the very few, I think, national leaders who was willing to confront the industry in a good way and to say, you know, this is how we may progress in America. You have to diversify. You have to include as many people who are not there now. And unfortunately, I think he would agree that the tech industry is still not made enough progress. So that was the context. You know, now here we are almost like a case study waiting to happen because we're surrounded by all these tech companies. We happen to be mostly a minority community, mostly moderate low income, exactly like why aren't more of our people getting in there, period. That's the question to me, even today. So in that context, it's how we got to age age, which is, you know what, maybe we can do something here. We can do something that probably the executives of high tech could do in one meeting if they wanted to. So, you know, we're just going to increase the number of women. We're going to increase the number of minorities. We're going to set up programs. We're going to make it happen. But they haven't. Some have made more progress than others, I think. And to give you one example, it was actually East Palo Alto that influenced Facebook at the time to institute a high school summer little internship program, which now is touted all over the place. I've went to some of the graduations. I give them credit for doing it, but it was our idea. It was we who said, you know, it's nice that you're here in some ways because there may be more jobs. You're going to give money to nonprofits and all that is good. But just like we've been talking, you know, a change is about sort of can we impact the system in a way that offers opportunities inside high tech. And now, you know, I haven't checked. I'm sure they're doing some evaluation and maybe you've been involved in that, Evan, I don't know. But I am sure that their high school little summer program has grown so much and some of those young people are probably working in the high-tech industry. All right. And that to me is an example of working from the inside. And they need to do more of that. And I feel that our HH experiment here is really about that. How can we somehow create a career ladder, at least a blueprint, we are going to need, we need the help of these companies. Because, you know, and so I also would be interested to me a successful HH would be that we find a way, a formula where we work together with them and they work with us to create that ongoing sort of pathway or whatever. I mean, I'm sure that some of them, maybe all of them were very upset that these spell-out-of-voters enacted attacks, you know. But it was the people who decided, and hopefully they forgiven us, and they're willing to work with us to say we want to help you, because there is no way we can do it by ourselves. And we would, Councilor Remember, if at some point it looks like this is a tough nut to crack, then we should not live in a delusional world and make our people believe that we're actually doing something when we're not. So I think, you know, studying the landscape around us and the barriers that are, that the programs are, you know, I'm sure they scratch their head all the time. How could we do better? How could we break this? How could we do better? How could we break this? How could we break that? Some of that is beyond our control, even beyond our control, but hopefully some people, what those levels would understand and be concerned and congratulate these Palato for doing what we're trying to do. And so that's one area I think that I don't expect the programs to be able to do that by themselves. There's no way. But US and evaluator at things should find well, what other bear that's what I refer to structural barriers They're beyond just the thing every day life which are various But these are the real big areas that we decided we're going to take them on somehow. And yeah, I agree that having included the building trace was good because in some ways it's more tangible and perhaps easier to succeed there. I don't know. But it's really the tech industry that I think we were aiming for. And that was really a very last minute thing, which is good. I supported that. So, you know, I would consider HH to be successful in addition to something like that is that it is an equitable program and equitable, you know, last time we noticed that the number of women was very low, I think, in many ways. Well, it shouldn't be that. I'm not going to, I think now it hasn't proved, but that to me was like,, a successful is being equitable. I was pointing out about the immigrants, the non-English speakers, to me, that's an issue of equity too. Because if they get left out, I don't think it's successful, in my opinion. And so looking at that too. And then having a mix of students, it looks to me that, having a mix of students is one way maybe to be successful with some are high school students, some are, you know, they left school, some are already older. And because we don't want to concentrate a thing in any one group by itself. And some already have some additional skills, which perhaps some of them could enter the high techies more easily. They just need other stuff. And some may not have a lot of skills. So I think that is what our community represents. We have a mixture of skills. And some are very low, some are in the middle, some are already high, but they just haven't been hardness in some ways to enter that career ladder. So, anyways, those are some thoughts on success, both the programs that people but it has broader context to me. It's very important. Thank you. Yeah. So you want to say first? Yeah. I'll just say real quick. So I would feel comfortable saying can't if we didn't live in the middle of Silicon Valley. But the fact that we're in the backyard of meta or Google and giving this a couple of years and then saying, well, if it works, it doesn't. Well, if it works, it doesn't, well, if Jesse Jackson came 20 plus years ago and was talking about this, like, this is going to be long-term struggle. So I think for me, you know, kind of taking what comes up, I would be like, I said, you know, can we dedicate this next round of funding if live in peace already has relationships with Meta? If, uh, with street code has relationship with Intuit, can we have hard asks of those organizations to say, can you accept five students, six students? I know from anecdotally, you know, when I meet interns that Meta has these intern programs, I see when we FCE, half of those kids went through the program. So I think to your point, Ruben, there are successful models. And to the extent that these organizations can wrap their arms around them and really insist on creating that funnel, I think if the intent of measure as I understand my colleagues correctly is to emphasize tech, then I think that we're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't really push forward and trying that. So that's the first thing, maybe making that specific ask of, how do we create those feeder programs, those pipelines? Number one, number two, in the event years down the road, if we're still not really diversifying in the level, Ken, Evan and the consultant team give us some policy recommendations? How do we move pivot so that 20 years down the road, we're not having this conversation again. How do we reformulate it? Because again, I just respectfully, I think it'd be a disservice to the residents, to our young people, if we just said, well, we can't. I think that the city with its dreammaking, with its self-determination, I think we can crack the nut a little bit, even if it's little by little. Lisa, my apologies. So I appreciate all the conversations. I think I'm the one that sitting here with workforce development experience within my day job. I work within the innovation economy itself. And I know firsthand what DEI looks like and what we continue to try to do, experience within my day job. I work within the innovation economy itself and I know firsthand what DEI looks like and what we continue to try to do to strive to make a difference. First of all, we need to make sure our students show up ready for these jobs. And they have to feel like they belong when they get there. Without inclusion, we're creating a revolving door. They come in, they don't see themselves, they don't feel comfortable and they leave. Not everybody is going to go to college and get a degree. So manufacturing in those careers that make it possible for those individuals who are not going to get a degree is important to this community and any other community. I know that there are programs like K-16, where the government has put money into our community colleges to help people get jobs. There are opportunities out there and I don't believe I'm ready to give up on this program. It is a program that can work. I remember study.com coming in this room and giving 25 free bachelor's degrees to the city of East Palo Alto. There are programs like that that still exists that is making a difference. We have to make sure our students are ready to participate in these programs and take advantage of them. So, manufacturing does work. Tip programs, they work. These labor jobs work. It allows people to stay within the community but let's also continue to work to make sure that the jobs that are within the tech industry are available. And in order to do some of that, it is working with tech industry to remove the paper ceiling for some of these jobs. Some of these jobs that require a degree should not require a degree or they don't necessarily have to require a degree. And that's I'm not saying that East Palo Alto is going to do it alone. This is something that the Silicon Valley leadership group we're working on to make a difference. How do we remove those those opportunities and create better better opportunities for everyone? So as you continue to work on it again Evan this is something that I'm doing in my day to day job. If we can collaborate and connect, I can tell you some of the things that we're working on within the leadership group to continue to make a difference. But diversifying the talent pipeline within Silicon Valley doesn't just, it's not just something that is impacting East Palo Alto, it is around the, in a lot of different areas. We're also trying to work with HBCUs and our colleges to make sure that internships are possible. There are opportunities where our students don't always know that they need an internship and they don't have access to those internships. And those internships can lead to jobs. So again, Evan, I thank you for your report. I know that we can make this work or we should definitely look at it and see what we can do to make a difference. And let's lean on the other people that are actually doing the work right now to see how we can learn from them. Just to thank you, Councilmember, just one small thing in terms of success. And forgive me if I'm singling out the job chain for a moment. And this is something that's systemic. 0% of women in trades in the job train, we gotta try to get 5, 10, 50. And this is not just again job chains across the bear. I remember there was a big union center in Pleasanton. I was just thinking, is that you were there as well? Yeah, and I remember then Mayor Giselle Hill was like, so where are the ladies? Where are the women? And so this is something that's really entrenched, the Good Old Boys Club, one speaker said. So can we make sure that that gender parity, or at least inching towards some progress? I think that's important. What are some recruitment programs? You can't be what you can't see. Who are the folks who are helping to break those glass ceilings? I think Evan, I would task, if my council would have agreed to make sure that we put that diversity in as part of the success for the measure. It changed particularly with the trades. Yeah, that was the only thing I was going to mention before I forgot. Yeah, so there you go. Tip program. San Francisco. Looking to Karen, looking to step to Evan, do you feel like you have enough information for the questions? Yes, thank you also very much. We have a comment. Okay. Yeah. So I wanted to conclude before we open it up for public comment unless if I may. Yeah. I just need a few minutes sir. Thank you so much Evan. So just moving on and just wanted to conclude with next steps. Again, one of the recommendations is to allocate additional funding. So there's two resolutions before you. And there were, would be quarterly reports continuing through both the pilot phase one for those that will have received the extension, as well as the pilot phase two should council approve that. And so I just wanted to conclude with that and I also wanted to just highlight that one of the things that I heard tonight was one continuing and evaluation beyond, you know, the period that we have with informing change. So we can staff can definitely bring that back to Council for proposal. And two, in terms of success, I think our organizations, if you see in their quarterly reports, have talked about some of the partnerships. They've already started doing, but we haven't necessarily been tracking that precisely, so that's something that we can do moving forward. So thank you. And I would also just add in terms of the barriers identifying, increasing for women and gender, as well as council member, I mentioned immigrants, making sure that those barriers are addressed, I think the council discussed. Okay, so at this point, looking at James, do we have any speakers for public comment for this item? Yes. First speaker, Ravniel Chuthery, and followed by Adrian and Bryson Washington online. A good evening members of the East Malta City Council. I just wanted to speak a little bit more about how we're evaluating success. I feel like a lot of the discussion was about wages and economic, but I feel like it's also important to recognize that East Malta is a socio-economically disadvantaged community, so we should look at the intersectionality of that. So I feel like it's also important when we follow up with these individuals, we're looking at how satisfied they are with their jobs, if they're able to access mobility, what steps they have, apart from that, what benefits are they receiving. I also feel like it's important to look at their mental health, because we've discussed things like there are family issues and there are the reasons why they're dropping out from these programs. So we should also follow through on that and see how are they coping with these issues in these new jobs and whether these jobs are helping them mitigate those stressors at home. I feel like it's important to track the mental health aspect of this too because it might play a role into whether or not they're staying in these roles or whether or not they're choosing to pursue other opportunities. And I feel like it's important to take a look at that. And the reason why I'm emphasizing that is I personally study psychology at UC Merced, so that's something that's always been important to me, is seeing how mental health is not always taken account for and how a lot of these issues are interconnected and if we wanna empower people we need to ensure that when they're taking on these new roles that they are addressing the mental health that they are addressing imposter syndrome because those all they are all to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker, Adrian Adrian followed by Bryce in Washington. Good evening and I'm going to ask that you extend me more time, James, and Mayor Lopez, because as you guys know, this is one of the items I always show up for. So first of all, I want to commend Ms. Kamacho, a very, very thorough report. It was so great to see all of the highlights of prior quarterly reports. I've read, I might have missed a couple, and obviously I don't remember them all, so that was great to just have everything and one document for future reference. So thank you so much Ms. Kamacho for that. And again, as I mentioned, as someone who worked on measure HH and participated in various aspects of this, the training and jobs portion of the measure. As you know, I remain very interested. So I see some good outcomes. However, I'm looking at the program costs versus the number of participants obtaining livable wages, jobs paying livable wages. And I don't want to get away from that because I do believe that was part of the ballot measure. And I'm concerned with that, especially with the RBD, a source of funding being in flux and also with a minimum wage on the ballot for the entire state. And some of these great, I would say, achievements are kind of like, you know, right there with the minimum wage will is going to be. So I also want to piggyback and wanted to quote in the report. I'm so glad to see the job train is or was at some point collaborating with the other two. I'd like to see what I and other founding members of the Carrera Center technical advisor committee tried to champion work with others Already doing to work you don't have to reinvent the wheel and These two organizations were the ones we suggested so I'm so glad to see that that collaboration is going on, but I would also like to see the Career Center utilize these programs and learn from this pilot program to kind of expand what they're doing over there. So also for the work experience Ms. Juanita mentioned that was a barrier to employment. The small business community is a great place to gain that experience. Get your certificate that a lot of people want you to have on the job experience. So that would be a great thing. And I know that live in peace apart of their report with them thinking outside of the box, mentioned some sort of collaboration with Renaissance. I'd say reach out to HDL and get you a copy of the business license holders in the city and reach out to them for people who have those skills to get some practical work experience. So I look forward to the assessment of programs and how participants are fearing in the future. I really do think that the interviews with the participants, the tech job outlook, and the wage review, I think that there are a very big key part of the evaluation, in my opinion. And so I'm glad to see them as on priorities. And lastly, I'd like to say I love the idea that Mayor Lopez had of creating policies or we should be supporting and voting for policies that support these endeavors. If we don't, our citizens are going to be left behind. That's all I have to say. Thank you for giving me the extra time. Good night. Thank you. Next speaker, Bryson Washington. Hi, guys. Go ahead. Apologies. I, um, I muted you. Okay. Um, there you go. Okay. Can you please turn off your other device? I see you're connected twice. That's probably what's causing the feedback. There you go. Okay. Can you? Yes. Yes. I want to talk about my participation in the street code work innovation program. Specifically, I've been a part of the UX design course and that's been something that's been very helpful for me in terms of my career pathway. I'm a photographer and videographer but I also wanted to figure out ways to extend that and enhance my skill set. It's very hard for me to stay on a schedule course. I guess that's been like my biggest barrier. It's just staying being more consistent with finishing my courses. I've completed more than half of the courses, but just with life and things come in, come in at me in general. But Street Code has definitely gave us that grace to be able to finish, you know, kind of on our own time and be able to give us, give me hope specifically to take that next step in my career. Specifically, what has been a lot of value for me is the exposureships. We went to a Nike exposureship and I attended a EA Exposure Ship. That gave me a lot of insight and also hope with speaking with some of the workers that work at EA just to give me more advice and also show that I also can be a part of that team. You know, just speaking with some of the other people working at EA and just telling them what I do, no, they tell me that I will be a great fit working at those type of companies with the things that I'm already doing. So joining this program has definitely helped me with being able to continue with my career. And then also with when COVID had hit a few years ago and not having a job that I can still continue to do while working at home, Streetcode has gave me that hope. If I finished this, once I finished this certificate and able to follow through, I know that it's something that I have as a backup to be able to still work from home and have something behind me, not just my photography, but also something that I can join in tech. But that's it. And thank you. Thank you. Those are last speaker. And I think a very fitting last speaker, council members, any final questions we have a recommendation from the staff to a lot in additional amount of funding, but do we have any additional? You know, there was a third question, which was what does a successful evaluation look like? And I just wanted to share this. I hope Evan is still on there. I mean, for me, it would be, I would want that evaluation to be able to inform in a significant way our next round of funding. So are we doing it right or are we doing it wrong? I think that would be helpful. And secondly, I also would like it to help to suggest potential changes to programs, to the program that may have been identified by either the barriers or by benchmarking this stuff, right? And perhaps there are ways to improve these programs. We don't we fund all all these programs next time. But you know there are other programs through this benchmarking process that you know we may want to try to solicit to get. So those are kind of two of the successful I mean for me how successful evaluation would look like at the end how we could use it. Thanks. Thank you. Hope, Steph got that. Any? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Number three, I would. It's already there, but I think making sure that there's a good, a good balance between the sort of quantitative evaluation of looking at numbers and figures and all that, which which is important but also a qualitative approach of and I know it did mention some interviews and things but I think the more we hear directly from from people you know in a reflective way about what's going on and what the experience that that would be important so any final final, thank you, Council Member, if you have any final other caveats or comments, otherwise I think at this stage, I think it's important to give them alas, as we say in Spanish, and give them the support to continue to do good work. Looking at the specific resolution, AB, C and D, looking at my city attorney, I know Councilman Goshear mentioned the conflict of interest for number C could we do a B and D and then approve C separately? You can do them in the order that they're there or you can do C last either way All right, so I'm happy to entertain a motion for would it be 12.4 but it's 3a is that's the correct? Okay, happy to entertain a motion for 12.4 but resolution for 3a, property additional funds amount of 366,000 dollars for an 18 from the measure HH fund to fund contract extensions for this HH pilot workforce program. So move. Second. Moving in seconds. My left and right. All those in favor. Please vote with a sign of I. I. Yes. Okay. Moving on to I'm also have an entertain emotion for three B authorizing city management and negotiate and execute a second amendment and to the licensing grants agreements in the form approved by the City Attorney to increase the not-to-excite amounts of job training for an additional $110,000, $800,000. For a 20-in additional East Paul to residents and with street code accounting for an additional $118,000, $350,000 for a 10-additional residents to provide job training, placement services, support services to extend each of the contract terms from additional 9 months until May 30th 2025. Second. Moving in second. All is in favor. Please vote with a sign of I. I. All right. I'm happy to attain a motion for item three for for 12.4 resolution three C. This will authorize City of Management and negotiate an agreement with live and peace. I just have a question for staff on this one. Why is it a third amendment and the other two are second amendment. Thank you, Councilmember Dramato. So for the other two organizations, for live and piece they asked for a change in the career paths that was authorized. And then the next amendment was the contract extension. So job, train and live and piece got the contract extensions for six months for the original 20 students. Sorry, Slay. Is that is it's a move in the second, right? No? Okay. So I'm happy to entertain a motion for three C. So move. Second. Okay, moving second, it should we do a roll call just to make it clear or could we just go ahead and do one swoop? Okay. All right. I'm checking.'ll always in favor of please vote with sign of I. I. Yes. Excuse me, who made the motion? I, okay. Romano made the motion. He is hard later than I seconded. It was a Romano and, hmm. And we have to find that doesn't consider project with Sequa. Does the university turn? Okay. I make a motion. This isn't consider a sequel issue. This is for because it's 3D. Some of them. Second. Second. I'm signing by. I. I. I. Thank you so much, council. I just said thank you so much, Council. I just said thank you so much. Thank you, Karen. The lights are going out, so we have to kick that soon. So 13 council members, any reports for the public? I do really quick. Vice mayor go ahead. So I'm happy to report that last month we lend $246,000 to the Montessori because they were in dire needs of funds. They were so waiting for their state funding. And so I believe that this week, correct me from wrong well then, you guys already got the the repayment of the loan. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for supporting them. And they were really happy and thrilled. They did have to close for a brief period of time but they were up and running again so thank you so much for your support. Melvin did you want to say anything further? No, you are correct, Vice Mayor. We received the repayment last Friday and full. So we loaned a total of $246,000 as you said, and they paid it back last Friday. So, good, it's wonderful. And for the record, the Vice Mayor and I went, visited last week at CubeChark. Two weeks ago, and those babies sure are cute. And so the work that we're doing, certainly is transforming lives up to the lowest, littlest levels. So, all right. Thank you. Other council members? Oh, yes. Oh, this isn't a council report, but I realized that our agenda does not allow kind of staff updates or city manager updates. Hen, Hen. But I would like to for the benefit of the public and any council member who has not got the chance to meet Ms. Sherry Clema. She joined our team on August 22nd as the Assistant City Manager. After we conducted a national search for an Assistant City Manager, and Sherry comes hitting the ground running, helping me out tremendously already. She is taking over as the department head for the City Manager's office, meaning that she oversees all of our divisions, community services, HR, and IT, as well as serving as my number two, so kind of chief operating officer. So Sherry's coming to us most recently from Oxnard, California, where she oversaw finance and HR and IT. So she's great asset to the team and let's welcome Sherry Klemah. Welcome Sherry. Would you like to give a few remarks or anything brief? Thanks I'm just really eager to work with you all. I'm really eager to work with you all. It's been such a warm welcome, both from the community members, the council members, the staff. I'm very excited. This is obviously a community with a lot of heart and a lot of energy and I look forward to it. Excellent. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome. Yes, welcome. All right. Thank you, Melvin, for that hand- that hint. We'll keep that in mind. I Council America. Do you want to scroll? So actually I was gonna follow up on what Melvin said because you know the item we have that's information or reports. I think it was me and Lisa was mayor and she was vice mayor but we suggested some changes to the agenda. And even though it doesn't say there, but information or reports includes staff, you know, because sometimes they are specific requests to have some group or somebody make a report, but it also included anything from the staff. So yeah, that was before your time in your position, but I just remember that, right? So if you, we can go back and check, but that is what the intent of that was. And there's times when there may not be anything, but that is an opportunity there. So, okay, so now you are like a six council member. So, great, okay. So now you are like a six council member. Great. 14. No, I just want to make an announcement that some people from the library and some of the members of the committee, Latino and others have been working on putting together calendar for the Latino culture and history month. And so here's some initial events that are going on. And if you know of any other ones, Elvira Macias is helping us to put together, update the calendar. The, the, on the 15th in collaboration with the EPA Center, arts still be a kind of a repeat of last year where we present a calendar and any organization does doing anything for that month can briefly, you know, say what they're doing, but we also do a, was traditionally known in Mexico as the shout for freedom, Grito, kicking off the, in this case, the month also for other countries in Latin America that in the 1800s were pushing for independent. So everyone is welcome. It's from two to four, not too long of a program. And it'll be at the EPA Center on Sunday the 15th, which is the actual day. I love it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a D, meaning a joint. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you