you you you you you you I'm going to go ahead and see the building. Absolutely. Mayor Lopez here. Vice Mayor of Oregon here. Council member Goche here. Council member Romero. Present. And Council member Brica will be absent tonight, but you do have a corner mayor. All right, excellent. I'm going ahead and want to move on to item number two, approve the agenda. I'm happening to maintain a motion by my colleagues today. So move is second. Second has moved in second. All those in favor, please vote with a sign of I. I. Yes. Excellent. James, before I move further, do you want to remind people of the translation services we have this evening? Sure thing. So if you would like to listen to the Spanish portions of this meeting usually at public comment, please use interpretation feature located at the bottom of your screen by clicking the globe icon and selecting English as your preferred language. will be interpreters available to translate. Si us Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that reminder to our public that we are bilingual in this evening. Number three, approve the consent calendar. Council members, are there any items you'd like to pull off for further discussion? I'd like to pull three point four, please. Three point four, any others? Going once, going twice. All right. James, do you want to see if there's any public comment for items 3.1 to 3.3 again It's only for the items on the consent calendar 3.1 to 3.3 Seeing none mayor. Okay, so why don't we go ahead and make Approved those sensitively and then move on to customer or metals 3.4. So I'm happy to entertain a motion I'll move approval of the consent calendar apps metals 3.4. So I'm happy to entertain a motion. I'll move approval of the consent calendar, absent 3.4. Second. Seconded. All of those in favor, please vote for the sign of pi. Hi. Hi. Yes. Thank you. Customer of the metal 3.4 trash capture devices. It's a relatively simple question about the the provenance of the 2.25 million dollars. Kind of went when did we apply for that and and yet can you just explain a little bit more about I assume that's Capital funds and planning funds but it's good somebody give me some background on that funding. Does City of Manager gains anyone in the staff would like to? I'm so maybe see, hums on the line. Yeah, hums us online and he'll be joining as a panelist shortly. Hello, Mr. Jove. Thank you. Hello, Mr. Javid. There we go. Thank you, James. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, members of the City Council. Humsajavid Public Works Director. Thanks for the question regarding the trash capture device project. So yes, this particular project, the funding that we've received for this project was actually coordinated by CKAC. It's a joint project between the city and CalTrans. And we're also working with Menlo Park on the project completion. Essentially what the project includes is a combination of design as well as construction. So as you may know, the as is written the staff report as well, there's a requirement for the cities this isn't a trash capture device at our outlet for a pump station. This is more along the creek and some other stuff. Is that correct? No, this is actually an underground, it's an underground trash capture device. So it's actually within the, within the pipe system. So as you know, you have trash coming in within the pipes itself. It captures it. So what it requires is a like an annual maintenance so that we can go in and extract the trash out, but it's all underground. Okay. And it's a joint project with those couple of cities, right? You said? Yeah. Well, right now it's East Paul Alto and CalTrans because both of these agencies, both our city as well as CalTrans, we contribute within this drainage area. So basically, we look at a large drainage area and we have to capture any trash within that drainage area. There's also a drainage area in Menlo Park that drains to the specific outlet. So we're trying to work with them to see if they will also contribute in the project, at least in the project maintenance long term. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Those are my only questions. I'm ready to move the item unless anyone else has other questions. James, any questions to the public regarding our trash lens for trash capture? Seeing no mayor. All right. I'd be to entertain them. Councilor Starr. Like to make a comment. So I just want to thank you for moving this along. And I'm glad that this is worked with C.K.G. I represented the board of the council on with C.K.G. And I know a long time ago we started working on trash capture, starting with the storm drain. So this is going to be good. And we will follow up with Sean Sharpen tier who is now leading CKIG so he understands our city just as well. Phil, thank you. Thank you. That being said, I'm happy to entertain a motion then to approve 3.4. Yeah, I was moving approval. Just need a second, I think. Okay. Second. I thought you said you need a second. I need a second. Oh, as you know, as a CCL and the motion. Yes. Has it moved in second? It always in favor of please vote the sign of I. I. Yes. Thank you very much, everyone. I also realized that in the motion, we should have include. Well, I guess you, Guzmero metal. You did include 3.56 and 7. So they remind me, I think we're working with them. We want to check. So I see the attorney did the, John, did the motion that the council metal made that covered the rest of the items, correct? That's what I heard, yeah. Okay. All right. Just checking my, my first motion. Yeah. Yeah. Just checking. Okay. public. Sorry. Item number five. Public comment. This is an opportunity for those in the public who'd like to make a comment regarding items not on the agenda. Now is your opportunity. If you'd like to just go ahead and let our city clerk know, fill out a speaker card and that's pretty much it. So if you have any comments. And while we're team that up, James, do you have any folks online who'd like to make comment? I've seen none here. Okay. Yeah, we got one one comment. Okay. Yes, just a name. Skip the gyms. All right, and just go ahead and press that button there you see on the lectern and when it's read it's already. Already, my name is Alexandra Lopez. I'm currently a resident of EPA. I moved about a year ago here. I did spend a lot of my time here during my teen years as well. But for the most part, I did live in St. Carlos. I grew up in a city that was very safe for children to or just anyone to walk, whether that was to the corner or down the street, whatever they wanted to do. city that was very safe for children to or just anyone to walk whether that was to the corner or you know down the street whatever they wanted. The year that I have been here living myself I have encountered a couple of things when it comes to like the roadways and I do want to, the reason I came here is to make sure that I'm telling you guys that maybe we should put more like speed bumps or more butt dots or more roundabouts around the city just because that is a huge problem. If you guys want to hear about my own personal experience, I had gotten a car crashed into because someone was doing donuts. But it wasn't just that. It was more so the fact that it's concerning when it comes to children writing along or because I always see children on their bikes or just walking to the store. And it does concern me that they are speeding down the highway or down the roads. And also another concern of mine was parking. A lot of people don't have enough parking for where they're living. And just creating maybe something more accessible or creating limitations like no parking from this time to this time or two hour parking or To our parking till 7 something like that just to create more flow when it comes to parking and I do also know that a lot of people do leave like their cars In the street for months on end, which can cause again, like congestion. So those were the topics that I wanted to bring up. So yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other speakers, James? That was the only speaker slip I received. Not sure if there's anybody else. Seeing none mayor. All right, Mr. Mayor. We're going to wait if any of you out there want to serve on the Public Works and Transportation Commission. We will be taking applications in April. So please feel free to apply. Definitely. And that's our way to have a direct channel to the City Council. You know, we take that feedback seriously and it's a way of reviewing all the different projects that the city has. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if you're seriously and we're in the works and doing some pilot programs, but it's always great to hear directly from the residents. So all right, if there are no further comments, I'm gonna move on to item number six. If you're... Sure, just another comment on that. Just encourage you, Ms. Lopez, who share kind of specifics if you have particular intersections that you were concerned about. Cause right now your feedback was taken, but we don't know exactly kind of where you're looking at. So if you've shared your information with the clerk, we'll send you an email or give you a call to ask some specific questions. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that, Mr. Gaines. And while we have you, we are on item six information reports and I understand that you have a report to share with the council. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Melbourne Gay and City Manager slash East Powell also, Sanitary District General Manager, as of today. And Dolan, thank you. I did wanna take today since today is the day that East Powell also, Sanitary District is officially a subsidiary of the city, I wanted to take some time to remind the public of how we got to this point, as well as lay, set kind of a plan of action for and let people know kind of where we're going now. So as many of you know, San Mateo Lafko finalized the establishment of East Pawl, Sanitary District as a subsidiary district of the city on September 15th, 2024, that followed a two plus year process of public hearings to consider the city's application to establish EPA SD as a subsidiary district. The process began with Lafko's approval of a municipal service review, which included public hearings and a recommendation to establish the sanitary district as a city subsidiary. Lafco's approval highlighted the need for improved governance, transparency, and operational improvements to meet the city's growth and sustainability goals. As a subsidiary district, basically that ultimately means that instead of the former East Palatol Sanitario District Board, the East Palatol City Council is now the governing board for the Sanitario District. It also means that all assets, liabilities, and finances of the district still are the districts, but they're under governance of the city. Sanitary district funds remain isolated from city funds. An anticipation of Lafko approving the city's application to make the sanitary district a subsidiary, the city contracted with West Bay sanitary district and prior on the red engineering to assist in prioritizing the SOAR maintenance and repairs, as well as doing the day-to-day operations of the Sanitary District. Today, along with bills like my entire team, people from finance department, people from the Public Works department, people from HR and IT, as well as the general manager and lead operators at West Bay went to the sanitary district and met with EPA SD's contract employees to discuss how the sanitary district would be operated from this day forward. Currently EPA SD has 10 contract employees and a general manager. The general manager is currently on leave, so we spoke with has 10 contract employees and a general manager. The general manager is currently on leave, so we spoke with their 10 contract employees today. Three of them are in administrative positions and they're hired through a temp agency called Apple One. Five people are the field operators who clear the sewer lines and respond to the spills and things of that matter. They're also hired through a temp agency called 40-hour staffing. And they also have an IT contractor who has a direct contract with the district. And they have an accountant who has a direct contract with the district. So with those 10 people today, we discussed potential for future employment opportunities either with the West Bay Sanitary District or the city. That's still to be determined. We're figuring out who does what and what the organizational needs will be. But we will be bringing something forward to the governing body of the Sanitary District eventually with some recommendations. We discussed kind of existing active work. What's going on right now? What needs to continue going? We discussed hotspots active work. What's going on right now? What needs to continue going? We discussed hotspots within a source system. What are the areas that need to be frequently cleaned or To maintain the source system properly without it overflowing? We also discussed budget finances as well as the cities intentions to audit their budget and finances And additionally with them we are, it's always been clear that we were switched from the existing EPA SD contractors who work in a field to West Bay, but there is a period where those folks will still be working under the city's leadership and West Bay's general guidance, but eventually we'll be switching to 100% West Bay and those people have an opportunity to apply for jobs with West Bay. The in office staff also might have opportunities to potentially join the city depending on how we restructured the organization. Day one, we walked in, I think we still have a whole lot to learn and there's a lot of work to do, but I wanted to set the tone now and just establish that, there are gonna be some changes coming to that district. We're auditing the organization's finances, as I mentioned earlier, we're auditing the source system operations and maintenance as well as the long-term planning. And we're going to do things potentially a little differently. We're going to be forthcoming about any spills and report those spills to the state regulatory agency. So they might see that since East Palo Alto took over, there are more spills, or what it really is, is there more reported spills. We acquired the system and the state that it is and currently, and we intend to have a road map for fixing it, but while we're on that path to fixing it, stuff might break. But we have good partners. We were working with West Bay as well as some other consultants who do this and do it well in this region. So we're excited about the changes to come. Ultimately, we're going to restructure the organization to ensure that staffing meets California labor standards, as well as as a city subsidiary and you all authorizing me to be the you know the general manager or my design. It's going to follow the standards that we have for the city of East Palo, to organizational labor standards as well. So we will be changing things. And just so you know kind of the future priorities that we'll be bringing forward to this governing body are developing a spill emergency response plan, updating the source system management plan and insurance compliance with state water discharge requirements. Today I wrote letters to all the regulatory agencies letting them know of the governance change and letting them know of our new structure as well as our intentions to update the spill emergency response plan, source system management plan, and the master plan to ensure that EPST operates and compliance with all state regulatory requirements. We will on October 15th have the first board meeting with you all acting as the governing board. It'll likely be you adjourning a city council meeting or potentially starting as a sanitary district meeting. I'll work with the mayor and vice mayor on that but an agenda item in items on that day will focus on sore maintenance financial and administrative matters as well as our long-term operational planning. Not to forget there have been a lot of people asking about connection fees that's something that we want to be sober-minded about and make sure that we have the accurate information. So I'm asking those who are chomping at the bit to have connection fees that give us a little time to figure out things and make sure we can do them right. With that all can include this brief update and open up to any questions you want me to have. Very auspicious day for the city council members any comments questions I thought that our report was very comprehensive and yes, customer. Yeah, I don't have any questions and in just I said condolences but really I'm this is a actually momentous day for the city. It's 43 years 42 years in, and this council got it done. You and the previous city manager were on this on top of this, at the very beginning, and it's really essential not to mention our council as well as outside council. So this is a lot of work in the long run, even in the short run. It's going to mean integrated government and better government. But I just wanted to say to the city manager that we should not be pennywise and pound foolish if you need any type of additional authority to bring on other folks to write the ship. Because that's what we're talking about. Do not be shy, do not be bashful. We have to do that for the provision of a service to this, to our residents that they deserve and that they deserve an upgraded service. And if it means we have to fair it through and hire other folks to help us do this in a timely fashion, we do it. So don't be bashful if you need more consultants on board. Let's do it. Thank you. Councilman Goshear. No, I want to say thank you to everyone involved. Oh, did I step over? No, I want to say thank you to everyone involved. I know it took a lot of work to get to where we are today. Melvin, your leadership really shines through here. We know that this is a lot for you to do all on your own. So I'm going to echo what you've heard from Council Member Romero. We want you to have what you need so that you can get the work done. It's you can't run to organizations by yourself. You can if you don't sleep, but you need to rest and spend time with your family. Then I know I'm grateful for hearing about the report and the work that you're doing with the sanitary district, you know, the individuals who have worked as contractors for the sanitary district, we want to make sure that they know they have an opportunity for jobs. So getting in front of them and letting, if they, whatever training they need or additional training that they need so that they can keep their jobs, it's important because many of them are residents and they reside here in East Pellow Alto and we're always talking about how we can create those jobs for them. So again, I'm going to be able to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of you know, Councilor Mabrikaya, I know he's not here physically present, but I know that there has been something that has been an issue since he's been on council. So certainly to have it culminated under your leadership, Mr. Gaines, it's great to see and our work's cut out for us. But again, if anything, you need to get further support. I'm all on board. And also for the work I want to lift up my predecessor, Mr. Moody, I understand that when the city in the previous tenure was looking at petitioning to Lafko, he was spearheading this initiative alongside my council member. So I wonder if I could also state my appreciation for previous leadership that got us here. That's about it on my end. Anything else other than that? It's just continued to keep us up. And I also appreciate the transparency in which you're setting the tone you know We we don't know the state of those pipes, you know We we now this is our first day doing it and so we don't know what to expect and so Want to make sure that we're continuing to dialogue with the community and of course It's always about the ratepayers and the residents and how they can have the best Quality service as well as projecting for future development housing economic booms and that. So we're preparing for the future and so I'm really looking forward to the work that this this body will do. I just want to echo what everyone else has had. So I know that we have a very capable team. So you know, do feel free to do with the other council members have suggested and thank you you for your hard work and for also giving us some time, some of your time with your family. I know that it's really hard. I appreciate that. Thank you. Here here. If there's no, are there any, just looking at our city attorney. Do we give comments for special presentations as well or informal information reports? You can But we don't normally do that Are there any members of the public who'd like to say anything? Is this about the sanitary is about about the sanitary dishes public comment? Sure Okay, yes, oh awesome. Okay. Well, congratulations on your initiative. I Wanted to ask, speaking about having contractors help, you know, with some of these projects, as a contractor, how can we sign up for, you know, to help out with public works, as far as like sewer maintenance and things like that. So for our, we do everything through requests for proposals. So when we contracted with West Bay as well as with Fire on the Red Rettler Engineering, that was the result of a request for proposals that the city released and they were people or agencies that bid on that. We do have a request for proposals webpage as well as an ability to email people potential requests for proposals. So if you'd like us to add you to kind of our contact list, please share your contact information with our city clerk and we can do that. You're welcome. Thank you. If there are no further comments, I will go ahead and close this item as well. Thank you, Melvin, for the report. Item number seven, special presentations. There are none. Item number eight, public hearings. There are none as well. Okay. Item number nine, policy and action. This is the residential rental property registry. City manager, who will be presenting this item? Our community and economic development director, Amy Chen, and our housing and economic development manager, Garin Camacho, are all online for this. Excellent. Hello, City Council. Thank you, Mayor and City Manager. My name's Amy Chen. I'm the community and economic development Director. I'm joined by Natasha Rayburn as well, Program and Administrator of the Rent Stabilization Program. I think she's in the room with you and Karen and I are online with this presentation. So let me share screen. Sorry about that. Okay. So a little bit of background and for our agenda this evening. Our team was asked to bring back the selection for Council consideration. We received direction last fiscal year and budgeted 150,000 to establish a rent registry for both rents, stabilize units and market rate rental units throughout the city. This item was also added to our council priorities list for last year and staff last presented an update on March 19th of this year. Staff at that March 19th meeting had discussed the need for potentially enacting an umbrella ordinance that covers all of our residential programs that includes our just cause ordinance, our rent stabilization ordinance, and also more recently measure L. As staff embarked in looking at rent registries in the surrounding region but also nationwide, we came across some good examples and also developed a request for proposals. We then developed that request for proposals and released it on June 28th. And we're going to go through the process of explaining the selected consultant here today. So again, back in March, we went into detail about the purpose of a rent registry. And so I won't read through these key items that we went through. But I wanted to note them again just to restate that we're not starting from step zero. Under the rent stabilization and just cause ordinance, if the full name is the just cause or eviction ordinance of 2010, made it so that landlords were required to properly register their rental properties with the city. The existing database, though, is antiquated. It was developed by the city of Redwood City, who provides our IT services and the developer of the database has since retired. And so that database that includes the rents, stabilized units has a good tracking of those units, but there is a manual process. And we think that we could be more efficient by upgrading to this new system. Additionally, the city has had many other local laws, like I mentioned, measure L, which requires landlords of rental units, which include single-family homes to pay a gross receipts tax on rental revenue. But we also have other areas of concern around rental properties, and that includes code enforcement, as well as tracking our below market rate units. And so we think with this expanded database that can encompass all rental units, could really help us in tracking the compliance of these local laws and help us in the monitoring process. Thus a replacement and expansion of the database was necessary and desirable. And so we are going to keep these four key purposes of a rent registry in mind as we developed the system with our selected vendor. So our selected vendor that we decided to pick in our procurement process was tolemie. They brought to us a great proposal that first originally had three pricing options. During the interviews and the follow-up that we had with tolemie after that, determined that actually options two and three, which were of lesser costs, but did not adequately address the scope and the needs that the city was seeking through this project. So they were removed from consideration. one-time cost to set up and implement the database process within the first year. And told me understanding that we had a budget already planned of 150,000, were gracious enough to remove that one-time cost from their proposal. And we're willing to move forward with estimate you see on the screen. So we asked the proposers to respond with a per unit cost so that that breakdown could eventually be passed on to landlords and to to registrants. With the estimate of about 7,000 residential units in our community, we think that that would max out at 140,000 per registrant or sorry in total for all registrants if at $20 per unit. We did include some buffer with outreach and mailing costs because we think that is essential in this process. And so with 147,000 per year, give or take that we could have more units, more registrants that come out of the process. Toilame has a unique software system. One part of it is called slate and the other part is called building blocks, but essentially it would help us discover new units that actually are required to register their units. And that is things like where a rental that may have been owner occupied is now being rented out. And so we want to make sure to cover the full breadth of rental units that could be in the city of East Palo Alto. So we wanted to make sure to have the full not to exceed amount of 150,000 for Toulimi's contract. This would be an annual contract, meaning that in the first year, that would include all of the setup. And then we would come back each year annually during the budget process, essentially renewing the budget, but continuing the contract with Toulimi. Let me actually move on to the next slide where it describes the timeline and the steps that we would like to take on the implementation of the TOLIME project and that is assuming that we would execute the contract within the next month. We've broken it down into segments. So we would like to focus our attention on the existing registry database, which is the rent stabilized units, focusing on that within the first quarter of 2025. So in the new year. And then doing a test run and initial initial outreach on that draft, launching into the RIT stabilized units, making sure that that portion works before we then launch into the citywide effort of the remaining rental units in the community with an ultimate goal of having the registry live for all registrants by January 1st of 2026. Going back to then the contract terms, that means that we would like to utilize the first year for setup and then have two years for implementation thereafter. So it's a total of a three year agreement but also would like to include two one year extensions that could be approved by the city manager. We understand that the council would like to have periodic updates on how the rent registry is going and would come back with a update within the first year. I think as the registry is up and running and we have figured out the automatic updates, usually keeping the registration deadline to the next January 1st of the following year, and then the approval of the budget in subsequent budget hearings. If of course there is any concerns or need to return a council sooner, we can schedule that at any given Tuesday that we have a council meeting agendized as well. So at this time, the key ask that we're asking for is approval of Toulame's contract for a three-year start. And then, as I mentioned, the budget has already been allocated towards this effort, but knowing that in an upcoming budget cycle, we'll be asking 450,000 again for subsequent years through the rest of this contract. And so with that, I will pause for any questions that the council may have. Thank you very much, Amy, for the report. Certainly, we know that our existing databases antiquated. So this is long overdue. This council has expressed support for this. So I'm glad to see this back. I only have two comments, but I'm going to defer to my colleagues first. Do we have any questions regarding this rent registry and the contract with TOLA me, which seems to have extensive experience working with their municipalities on exactly this. I just had a question. Sorry, it was a lot of information. Is there a sense that when we are going to go back and reevaluate how well the company is serving us, if so, like what would be the deadline or the the sunset date? Yeah, I believe it would be important to come back within the first year of implementation. So let me put up the slide deck one more time to show you the expected timeline that we would have. And so sorry about the background noise. So assuming that we could execute the contract with Tolemie within the next month, I think actually knowing that they have a lot of experience with other cities as well. I mentioned in the staff report nearby with half moon bay and monoray that they've already started implementation with those cities. So we're going to be definitely learning a lot from our neighboring communities. communities, but also we've already sent them the contract terms and so they're expecting to provide things like certificates of insurance and follow through with the contract as soon as we can approve this item. But walking through this timeline, we'd be looking at internal implementation with TOLAMI in the remainder of this year into the first quarter of 2025, a first draft of the rent registry and initial outreach, a launch of the rent stabilization portion by the middle of next year, and then looking at the citywide launch towards the end of 2025. So that all registrations would be due by January 1st. And so I think somewhere in the middle of 2025 does make sense to come back to council. I don't know if it would make sense to actually have like a live demo or a showcase of what the database can do. But also, I think we'll be having a lot of public outreach that we will also conduct separately. And so giving an update to council on the progress of our public outreach, I think will be important. But yeah, no specific date yet set, but I think partway through near the end of our first year of implementation would make sense. Yeah, I've made it interested to see the live demo. If that's something that we could arrange, that would be great. Great, we'll make that happen. Council members, any, yes, Council member, go share. Yeah, I just, when it's, I see Natasha sitting over there and we're so glad you're here at the meeting. This is going to potentially help the state was your portion of the work as well, but just love to hear from you of your excitement. What is it going to do for you? That's important. Absolutely. I can say that myself and Abyssin Moreno, who also works in rent stabilization, were very excited seeing the presentation. I myself had kind of filmed video for the vendors to try and make a demo of what they do with the community and the rent stabilization program. I think this is also potentially going to open up to find additional units that might be under the RSO that we are not aware of. So there'll be additional tenants that may be getting protection where they weren't previously. So. Yeah, again, we're excited for this. We're looking forward to your updated reports at some point just showing how well or how this has improved your ability to do your work in your department. So exciting. Ditto. Councilor Metta, do you have any questions or comments on this item? Okay, sure, sure. I just have two comments and they're not really questions. It's just more extensions of support. I know that you're going to return to council and presumably it'll be after our tenure. But I just want to say, you, given, actually similar to the EPA as D, like we don't know what the unknown is, we don't know the extent of the problem. So we shouldn't limit the resources your team needs for us to identify those missing artists. So I think 150 makes sense, but if we find that it's something that is more extensive or you need more resource, I think we should be open to exploring further support. And on that note, on the next steps, I know that the staff report says that outreach and coordination are going to be extremely important. I know we pretty much try to up our measure of funds, but there might be something to consider as far as getting our nonprofits or getting our different organizations or getting community members to just do that outreach, right? At the end of the day, we can't be everywhere as a city council and we're only as effective as people are aware of this program or, excuse me, of this registry. And so I think that we should seriously consider also financing and funding groups to go out and do what they do best, which is go to our tenants, let them know about this registry, similarly reach out to landlords, mom and pops, as well as our bigger landlords and just let them know, hey, here's what we're doing, here's what we're trying to accomplish, we're all on this together. And so again, just I think that it's important that we really perhaps staff can look into what are some next steps regarding outreach, right? Because Natasha, you can't be everywhere. You got an office upstairs, you're tackling the system we have already. So let's give you more troops if you will to go after a community which frankly doesn't avail themselves enough. You know, tenants aren't going to go out and say, hey, RSO or not. So I think we need to do more to get to those folks. If there's no other questions, come to my room. Are you ready to? Yes, thank you. So a few thoughts, and actually I did spend probably way too much of the past just time earlier today, talking on the phone about the proposal. But so the $150,000 assumes this 7,000 unit number, but realistically, we probably have less than 3,000 multi-family units. And if our analysis, the city's analysis, the corroborated, my analysis is right, we have maybe 1600 single-family homes that are being rented, roughly speaking, right, about 1400 owned by outside investors and the other 200 owned by, actually it's 160 owned by his Pawel author folks. So that really brings us to a number that's probably closer to 4,500. Right? Yeah, that number is consistent with what we reported in our housing element, which were 20, 20 figures. Right. Yeah. So the contract is not to exceed 150 or it's a 150 for that first year and then afterwards. The reason I'm asking this is because the way they calculated the contract was 7,000 units times $20, right? That's how they got to, I thought how they got to this contract, which brings us to the 140 plus, you know, the setup, maybe some set up fees, they're not charging us. But so I'm just trying to understand what happens if the ultimate number is that 4500 unit number of rental units, then does the contract drop? Yeah, thank you Council Member Romero for that question. So it is a not to exceed amount. And so if the registration is less than that, it would just scale down to that number. And that's why we actually had the proposers offer a per unit cost so that envelope could fluctuate depending on how many people we discover need to register for the database. And then that number can also be scaled from year to year as well because things change, you know rentals come off the market and we would still have registration of the unit because, but I think it's important is that we are seeking out a way to understand what the rental market is in our community, and that was ultimately one of the goals of our rent registry was to not only follow through with compliance on rent stabilization and are just cause ordinance, but also how the data can be used to help us better our housing policies. And so that is also another component that told me really shined at doing for other cities. The example that I showed on the screen earlier was with the city of Boston and that was using their building blocks mapping tool. And so being able to actually create maps and images that we can then use towards our policy development and programs. And also,, if I may just note that we do have the proposal in the attendee list and so if you do have any questions specifically about the technology, we have the representative from Toulimi on the line. Thank you. The follow-up question, what's in the follow-up question, but a separate question related to what Tommy will provide. I think your six bullet points says calculate and collect fees and fines. That is a calculation of fees and fines related to the rent registration fee or is that inclusive of the measure L to and a half percent gross receipts tax on residential rents? So the toll and e system allows us to collect any fees or fines that we need as a part of the ordinances that we need to maintain. So there is a way to collect not only the registration fee, but also set up a an account that we can also collect the fees and fines through. So what we're doing right now is through a very manual process where checks are mailed in to our team and processing that has been cumbersome and sometimes difficult if the incorrect amount was sent or needs to be sent back. So this is creating an online system to be able to pay on that back end. I think at this time the Measure L Roast Receipts Tax is collected already separately and so we wouldn't want to change that process unless there is a need to improve that and link that in with the rent registry database. So it would be more around if there wasn't compliance with our rent registry and we had imposed a fee for registering late, for example. So then. So it's just to confirm that it is only for the collection of the rent registry fee, whatever that's going to be $20 or as well decide it's going to be. Correct. And any penalties that might be related to that. Yeah. But there is a possibility of expanding it. You know, one of the underlying components is connecting in with our finance software and and tolemie has worked with other cities using things like strike but counts, which then can be set up so that we can manage the fees coming in for multiple for multiple requirements. But tracking if those fees have been paid is also built into the database for that efficiency. Yeah, and to the extent that it's possible to only have one contractor doing this, given that right now we're using, I'm sorry, what's the name of the firm that we're using to? HDL. HDL. HDL, right? So all the better, but again, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get this thing functional. Maybe it does make sense. If this could be the one portal that receives it all, that'd be great. But again, we'll do that later. So the last bullet point of what told me will do is mitigate historic data from the RSP database into toldamy. And I think this is so incredibly important. And this is where I concur with the mayor and certainly look to the city manager to say, I think we should really spend the time and if needed additional money to port the data that we have in Redwood City over to one system, because it would really be clumsy and probably almost unruly for staff to be querying Redwood City for data. They probably will not have a contract with us in the future on an hourly basis. It's a proprietary system, which as we all know, things get lost lost people leave. So I think that should be high priority and with any luck, you know, staff can report back to us how that is going. And if it's not going well, we should really then throw some more brain power and possibly even capital into that, into migrating the data, which is decades of data. But I don't know how long we can do it. I think, I think Redwood City's probably been doing this for, I don't know, 12, 13 years maybe. So in a minimum, we could get that data because I think that is valuable. Let me see upcoming years, budgets. Yeah. Well, I guess we can talk about the registration fee in the future once we actually know what it costs. And then I think that my last. I have one other question here. Forgive me. For 15. Just curious. Oh, no, go ahead, please. No, it was a, it was telling me based off the philosopher. I wonder about the name, telling me mathematician. Ah, yeah, he was Greek. There you go. Um, so, but it was with a P, remember, remember it's PT, right? Yeah. Because when I was a kid, I was like, how do you pronounce that? Yeah. Greek mathematician. Um, okay, I pronounce that? Yeah. Greek mathematician. Okay, I think I'm done. But anyway, I'm glad this is moving forward and look forward to seeing your progress. And I guess we won't see a full implementation then until you're saying January of 2026, correct, which is the next, after this year, it'll be the next time that we actually collect rent registration fees for the RSO, correct? Yeah, so we will continue. Thank you for that question, Councilmember. I think we will need to collect another cycle of rent stabilization registration fees. And so all of 2025 will be focusing on that transition, but the RSP fees and Natasha correct me if I'm wrong, but we'll be, we'll start the collection in November. And so essentially we won't be ready schedule that we phase in the transition to your earlier point, which I think was great, focusing on the historical data and making sure that that's migrated first, so that we have the strong stability of the data from RSP already in the TOLIME system, test it, make PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, the PSTC, rental units, whether they're RSP or non-RSP units. Right. And actually, I think I was wrong. So according to the task, I'm looking at your timeline. According to the tasks, the initial launch of the first draft of the rent registry database initial outreach is at the end of the second quarter of 2025. So that would be second quarter ends in December. So that would be essentially starting at the end of 2025. We are going to start with the rent registry piece of the database. So we're starting a little earlier with that, correct? Second quarter of 2025 is ends in July. June 30th. Wait, second court, wait, we're both confused. Wait, the second quarter of 2025, since we start in July, would be end of December. No? It depends on if it's calendar or fiscal year. Yeah, sorry, let me clarify. Okay. I did this, it used calendar year. These are calendar year. Calendar year. So yeah, sorry. Let me clarify. Okay. I did this. It uses calendar year calendar. Okay. Fine. All right. I stand corrected. All right. Thank you. But it will start earlier than my point was I guess that it will start earlier than the RSP piece. Okay. And I stand corrected. Okay. Thank you. Calendar year. All right. Thanks a lot. everyone for doing this. I know it has been a priority as the mayor said for a couple of years now. Thanks. Indeed. We're on the move as we say. All right. We are now. Let me go ahead and open up to public comment. Again, this is about our rental registry. So if there's any members of the public who'd like to comment on this item. Speak now for Roger P's James anybody online? Seeing none. Not maybe on this. All right. Well, in that case, I'm happy to entertain a motion adopting resolution 9.1. Second. Sorry. Do I need to say so moved? Sorry, so moved. Second, it has been moved in seconded. All those in favor, please vote with a sign of I. Yes. Great job, everybody. Grinch up Amy, Natasha, Melvin, at all. I'm looking forward to seeing how this important registry continues to develop. And thank you to our to to to me with a T not a P that will be helping us out. Okay, final item for the evening, item 9.2, strategic priorities and work plan RFP. We continue to look towards the future in this great city. So Mr. Gaines, what do you have to show for us this evening? Good evening, Mayor of this item will be led by our Assistant City Manager, Sherry Klima, who's joining us virtually. Hi, good evening, Hon Honorable Mayor Vice Mayor and Council members. Can you hear me? So we met we can I mean yep. Wonderful thank you. Let me see if I know how to share my screen. Sorry I'm not super tech savvy. Can you all see that presentation? Yes. Okay. Yeah, we can see it. Wonderful. Thank you. So this evening's, this items related to strategic priorities and a work plan RFP, which we are asking for your feedback as to whether the strategic priority should be for four or six years. And then we're also requesting that you adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue an RFP for the East Palo Alto strategic plan and work plan, which will come return to Council for award and then also finding the proposed action does not constitute a project within the meaning of CEQA. So the city does have a long standing practice of holding annual priority setting sessions. I know some of you have been, or all of you have been very active in those processes. And these priorities shape the two-year work plans. The work plans are the projects and the programs that the staff actually focuses on. And thus, the priority is also shape the budget. So really this is the sort of underpinning of everything that we do in the city in terms of you, spelling out for us what are the priorities of the city council and where we should focus our staff, on April 18, 2023, and your council adopted seven priorities for fiscal year 2324 as well as 2425. And those are listed on the slide. I'm sure they're very familiar to you. And so this time we'd like to go out for an RFP. Again, we want to set go through a process where consultant works with you all with the community with the staff to set these priorities, either for four years or six years at your discretion. And then the consultant would work with us on the first two year plan and have the city would have the option to bring that consultant back to work on future two year plans. The only change or way in which we're proposing to build on past practice, is that this time staff is proposing a more robust community, city council, and staff engagement process. So this quote was actually put into the RFP document, which is attached in your binders, or in your binders, I guess. And the priority setting must include significant community engagement, including ensuring different sectors of the community are involved in providing feedback. The selected consultant must engage East Palo Alto's multicultural community, offers such opportunities in various languages and reach out to different age groups. And then we kind of list various ways that the consultant might choose to do that. But we really envision a very robust process where multiple sectors of the community are involved in providing a lot of data to you all, this robust community engagement would begin, probably until mid-February. There is a council retreat and planning session in January or February, which would sort of have the initial steps of this process but you wouldn't be making the final decisions quite yet. The consultant would be synthesizing what they heard in the planning session, but mostly what they heard in the community engagement, their interviews with staff, their interviews, or various forums with members of the community. And they'd be synthesizing this feedback for a way that's really valuable to you all so that you could really understand what different folks are saying and how they're agreeing or disagreeing where there's consensus where there isn't. Then in March the council would hold a priority setting workshop to draft the vision statement and assess some possible strategic priorities and make some determinations. Following that, each department would prepare a list of projects or programs related to these priorities in April and then counsel in May, which not coincidentally, dovetails right into our budget, would determine a work plan for the first two years. So looking at the projects that the department's listed, saying, yeah, these are our priorities, which were determined in March. And in the first two years, we want you to focus on the following projects or programs. Always, of course, having the option to add to that list if there are ideas that you all or the residents come up with, we're eager to hear them. And then the budget that you all adopt this spring would also reflect. So this is going to be a tight timeline, but it's intentionally framed to kind of all work in connection. And so the budget that you all adopt would fund those projects and programs that you really want us to focus on. Also, if you give us funding for consultants, if you determine that we are given more FTEs, all of that would align with your strategic priorities and with the first two-year work plan. So this just details, I don't know how in detail you want me to go to, but how we're sort of proposing to score this RFP. We're looking at the experience of the consultant and its relevant qualifications. We want a demonstrated, I'm sorry, a well thought out comprehensive approach to the project. We want them to demonstrate an understanding of our objectives and to have something that, you know, proposal that is responsive to our specific needs. And then we want to consider, although it's not determinative, but to consider the fees and cost proposal. And so there's a lot of different ways that consultants could approach this project. We're really eager to hear from different folks on from different companies, different vendors, on how they would take this and how they would tailor this to our community. So again, there's two parts to this recommendation. I'm eager to answer your questions but also the first part of the recommendation is we really want to hear from you whether the strategic priorities should be four or six years long. The projects and programs, as you know, take sometimes many years to build, to implement or to secure. And so that sort of lends itself better to a six year program. However, we are unsure how often the community should be re-engaged in this discussion. And we're sensitive to the onboarding of new council members and the need for them to have input also. And so we are eager to hear whether you think four or six years or some other timeline is appropriate for the duration of these strategic priorities. And then secondly, we would request a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue the RFP. And also finding that the proposed action does not constitute a project within the meaning of CEQA pursuant to guideline section 15378B4 and 5. Thank you, and I'm available for any questions, comments, or feedback you may have. Thank you very much, Sherry, for the excellent presentation. I also appreciated the graphics on a side note. Melvin, I know this has been something that's also been important to you. Do you wanna just say a few, a couple of words about, you know, obviously shearing your vision as to the need for this, the impetus for this. Don't mean to put you on the spot, but give an opportunity to kind of share your thoughts on that. Sure. Thank you, Mayor. I think, and I mean, as Sherry pointed out, this council has for a long time now established council priorities. And it's done a good job of doing that. And I am always looking to refine that process. And really to set a clear expectation starting with the council providing direction of the priorities are for the work that the city will undertake in any given year. One addition or enhancement to that process that I believe will be doing greater community engagement. As you all know, we typically have a strategic priority retreat and some people show up. And then some and during the public meetings that we have to adopt that plan, some people show up. What this is attempting to do is to engage a consultant to help us do more robust engagement. Help us to do some surveys, do some focus groups and provide the council with more input. So as you're prioritizing things and then from the the results of that high level priorities, the work plans, the city adopts, we can say this is what we heard from our residents. This is what we heard from each other and that's why we're prioritizing things this way. And for the public's benefit, the need to prioritize is we have limited resources. We can only do so much. Therefore, to be effective, we have to be strategic about what we do and when so that we can do some things really well. Well said, I like it. I like the idea of council members. Any any further questions, comments. This is an enhancement of what we do. And really, I think the the bulk of what I heard tonight from Sherri and Melvin was the need for increasing our community engagement to understand as we're rolling on our our vision for the city what the what do folks in our diverse community want need we heard tonight about speed bumps street safety right those kinds of feedback throughout the year as we carve out our process as a council but do you have any questions regarding this particular RFP that our city management is poised to put out? Yeah. So let me start. I don't have questions on the RFP because I don't think the RFP belongs in this document at this point. I think it would be I think it's important for the council to have this discussion about how it's strategic planning processes working. And what are the various options? You could do a two year or a four year or a six year. We could go back to a one year. We could do this on a calendar year basis. Which we've been doing in the past. We could do this on a fiscal year basis. I think that's the conversation we should be having here today, or perhaps at the next meeting and not roll out the strategic priorities. I guess fully baked RFP when the council really hasn't had. It hasn't been introduced to this concept and hasn't in a self-credeaking way. Thought about the process we've been engaging in for the last 10 years. Perhaps this is the right way to go. I just don't think that at this point I'm ready to vote to move forward with a request for proposals for the Strategic Priorities Plan, because I just don't think we've had a full enough capacious discussion that addresses how we think things are going. The other thing I'll say about the process is I am a little leery to leave the, I guess, the community sentiment part, the synthesis of that to an outside consultant, whether they or them, whomever, are good, I think there's always a filtration process that occurs. And I think the council should be deeply involved in it. I mean, that's why we are on council. And, you know, it's to be both the sounding board as well as the punching bag sometimes for community concerns. So I, yeah, I'm not quite sure that I'm totally supportive having a consultant, not that I'm ready to vote in the RFP, but having all of that synthesizing being done by consultants who may or may not, and they will filter through their own eyes and thoughts with the community may be saying. So those are my initial thoughts. Thanks. Vice mayor. Well, for my understanding is that when you have a consultant, they tend to set aside any, I don't know, I think they just come in with an outside lens like you're saying, but I feel like they also provide an unbiased perhaps perspective and kind of serve as a mediation sometimes with the community and the council when it comes to heart topics. So I mean, I see the value in having a consultant for that reason because I feel that it's another pair of eyes at sometimes when you have an outside or looking inside, they can have another perspective that perhaps we're missing because we're so, I don't know. I just think it's, I personally think it's, it's recommended and I think it's a good idea just just to have an outsider's point of view because sometimes we don't see certain things that they can point out and and give us another point of view, another perspective. I mean, I've seen it work in the past and also in my regular job, my day job as a teacher and so I think it's very valuable to have a consultant just come in and shed in some new light and perspective. Sure. Sure. Hearing from Casemotor Metal, if I can understand correctly, a leering-ness to use your words about bringing outside I was like in sales which made infiltrate. No, no, no, no, the leariness is more, you know, to take action on this today without actually having the internal discussion about what is wrong and what isn't. We're providing a solution to an issue that I think this council has not discussed yet. And it may very well be needed, whether it's an outside consultant or not, but I just I think we're taking a we're moving a few steps ahead of us. Just so I can understand that perspective. Would a study session like having that kind of I guess internal audit or internal review of like how well we're doing. Would that be something where like we have a steady session or I'm just trying to understand like, what would that format be in your opinion? What would it be something that would kind of make you feel more comfortable regarding, you know, moving forward? Not being, you said you're not, not ready for a discussion like this. So what would that kind of format you think would, uh, I guess this could have been put on as a policy and action item, but a policy and action item that says, yes, um, here are some proposals to rework your strategic planning process. As a city manager, I've been in another cities. They work differently. Let's discuss these and then from that say, uh, maybe we have one more meeting to discuss this or we say yes, yeah, there's some options. We want to pick option, you know, B or we want to look at option A and B could you come back with some more information that kind of fills that concept out that that would have been been my preference on this issue than to move forward specifically with an RFP at this point. Um, I call Mr. Everybody because I hear Councilman go share. You have any thoughts on this? No, I hear it and I know it is important that we move forward. I would like to have more information and probably just sitting down to understand where we're moving. I love the idea of engaging more public, getting public involved. I know that by the end of the year, you know, this council will be very different and I appreciate the fact that new council members will be able to weigh in on this work as well because that's going to be so important since they're sitting there. I'm just trying to understand the importance or the significance of four. Because right now we do two years, like we're planning for two years. The significance of between four and six. So to your question, Council Member Gose, it's the overarching priority. So right now this council currently has seven priorities. And if you were to look at those seven priorities over the last 10 years, they've been very similar. So a lot of communities will have kind of those overarching goals being multiple years for two reasons. One, because they're broad and they're kind of big picture and there's a lot of kind of smaller projects and objectives that help fulfill those kind of high level priorities. And it's in it takes longer. So it being four years versus two years just acknowledging that it takes longer to accomplish or make really weighty progress toward these big picture priorities. But the two-year work plan of the projects to fulfill those goals were still proposing to maintain as two years. The net difference is really if we're doing a more robust community engagement process, engaging a consultant to engage the community in those efforts that we do that at some duration, whether that be four years or six years, we're open to that from the council to determine. And I just also want to, I wanted to respond to councilmember Romero's concern. While we have not discussed this per se, the real change here that we're asking in releasing this RFP is, do you buy into the idea of bringing a consultant to come in? The real modification being we desire to do more robust community engagement, and we need a consultant to help us do that. They will synthesize but they also will have to present that to the council similar to me presenting recommendations you take what you want you spit out what you don't you still have the authority to say that you don't agree and a say, well, I heard that input but I don't necessarily think that that or and you also have the ability to inform the outreach Proposed processes that a consultant may or may not do they might say that we want to do focus groups and you might say, okay These are the groups. I think you should have focus groups with working as a subcommittee potentially or you might say These are the types of questions that we think you should have Those are all ways that this council would still have the ability to provide feedback and steer the types of engagement that we do. And yet still, whatever a consultant proposes, we don't know at this point. They might come with 10 different potential strategic planning processes that you guys are two still you got to move around a little bit so that's that we still have those opportunities. That's what we're supposed to do. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. It worked. got to fix this. Fix what? And so, uh, Mr. Francois, you have to be more active out there. You can't be taken naps. That's why the life don't put them on blessed. Maybe we can do dance breaks in between different items. Just to do our stretch breaks. Yeah, but it's not this, this is not asking you to agree to a specific process kind of the net thing is we're going to get proposals and they may or may not Change kind of the their their approach that we are outlining. We're allowing the potential vendors to Like this is how we do should plan. It's what we think you should do And they're going to talk to our team. And our team, we're going to say, well, that's not something we think we can fight. Again, the council may choose to have a subcommittee. Maybe that's something you want to do tonight as well as it authorizes us to really sit in an appointed subcommittee. Although we could potentially have three new council members on a wait on that. But there are still multiple opportunities for you to provide input and shape this. My desire to do this RFP now, as I sure you said, we're trying to align this with our budget process, releasing an RFP, entering an agreement with the vendor that all takes time in order for us to be ready to do the engagement in December and January. We need to release this RFP now. I mean, I'm sorry, Councilman Goshe, did you have any follow-up? I just want to say thank you. I do understand the need to work with consultants. I mean, staff doesn't have the capacity at this point to do this, so bring it on consultants. But I do also hear my colleague saying that the council should weigh in. So we're looking, I'm looking forward to this. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. Look, we're the policymakers, but we're elected by the community. And obviously it's not a one to one, but whatever folks are saying about what they want, I'll speak personally, I'm gonna weigh that in my deliberation. Folks are saying public safety, housing, right? And the reality is you're right. When we do these retreats, maybe 10 people, maybe 20, I mean, it's great for the folks who show up, but there's a lot of gaps. And I always think it'll only help us figure out, particularly as the city's embarking on big projects, the EPSD, the RBD. I mean, some pretty transformational things in our community. We want to know how residents feel about it. Both folks who've been here for a long time and then folks who've been here are returning to us. And so I think that whatever gets us to crystallize those thoughts can only put us in a good position as a city. So I think that the spirit of this I agree with and I'm open to the RFP, but of course, if we want to figure out a way where we're all comfortable, we're also missing Mr. Abrika, we love to get his perspective on this. We have a couple more bites at the out before this council ends. I'm certainly happy to work with the vice mayor. I should agree to try to bring it back in a way that everyone's an agreement. But I personally am an agreement or would be happy to have this move forward as far as the timing, maybe four years only because, you know, when you look at COVID in the pandemic, I mean, I think to me the take home message is so much is up in the air, the market, the appetite for how, I mean, and I think it's important that not just from the political side, but just how things are shaping and changing in the community, bringing it back sooner rather than later. And plus, because I think folks might think we're trying to hide something or we forgot, it's always good to kind of remind people what our progress is on initiative. So I think the shorter the better, or the four years. And I also want to appreciate the same manager bringing this because I do think it makes sense logically that two years is a great time period, but there are those projects that will take longer. And so how do we have a short, almost like career is a short term midterm and a long term. I think it's important to have different time, time frames when we're looking depending on the kinds of projects or issues we're looking at as a city. So those are my thoughts regarding this advice, did you want to add anything? No, I was just thinking about it, but I do agree as well that two years is probably too short. I think that four years for me would be like a good indicator putting myself not on the shoes of the resident, okay, are we seeing progress? Okay, yes, we are, because we don't know the variables, I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm a good number and it's kind of like meeting the city where we're at and I think the four years will actually create that little if you will, little buffer kind of time frame that we need sometimes to get things lifted off the ground. And priorities change. I mean, you know, not just from the council composition, but just, you know, we as the city, what do we identify? Our resources are limited. And I think having a mechanism whereby we can check in with each other that the staff can check in with us, particularly as it comes to here's who we're hearing from the community, I think that's important. And frankly, I should say. So, again, just wanted to echo that. Before we deliberate on this, James, I want to open up for public comment. Are there any members of the public who'd like to comment on this item for 9.2 regarding the strategic priorities and work plan RFP? Mr. Francois believe. Council I hear what you're saying I look at your proposals. I think you should maybe get some consultants. Some that you can tell are talking to you from the heart. Not if you choose one next door, say for us, and he calls, he calls me, just like you say, what do you think I should say? You need to get somebody that really cares. Maybe even like some of the students at Stanford or any other colleges, say, what do you think about this? They may come with a different idea. Or even ex, some of the people who knew people, we have Ukrainians here, we got Indians here, we got Fiji and Sere, we got Latinos from all over the country, all over the planet coming here, we have Africans here who are improving on Africa. And I was going to take it to a paper, but this I'm telling you, that's that. But this is one thing I want you guys to do. I hope the vice mayor hears it or the city manager is that Roundup has got to stop here. You've got to stop people from using Roundup. This water thing I've been involved in since 2005. I don't care what you say about your ground pump. The only thing you need is one person to get cancer and you go to court and they find on it with Roundup involved, you will lose. You don't have enough to fight that soko local. I think the soko love law firm That's very big if they can get 10 billion dollars. They can rip this city apart Roundup mental park has a something on the books that says no roundup You know we have groundwater here if somebody gets sick It's all your fault. It is your fault. Somebody gets sick is your fault because you know round the bus here, you know law who the lawsuit was bought and then people wanted. Now if somebody gets sick, what are you gonna say? Well, we thought it's no good. Mr. Francois, and I don't mean to step in front of the mayor, but you're off tap topic a little bit. We can make sure that the city the city manager is aware of it and staff will follow up. I know you're talking about. We control roundup and how it causes cancer. We want to prevent that from happening. Perhaps that's something that we can bring back at a later time as well. Okay, so I would just want to bring it in. Bring it up. Appreciate it. But otherwise everything is fine. Four years, like you said. Thank you, Mr. Francois. Thank you for your, no, you're fine. I, that was gonna be quick. Okay, all right. Council, we're back. What is our pleasure? if my colleagues need a little more time to sit with it, we're missing a fifth, I'm happy with that, but I think really the heart of this is just giving us enough runway to time it with our budget. So I would rather wait till council member Abadiqa gets back from the inauguration of the Mexican president because he was invited to go to that. So quite a serious in Mexico City. And I want to make clear, I'm not necessarily today opposed to a consultant. I just think that that is not the conversation we should be having here today. The conversation should be, well, how do we want to do strategic planning? Not all cities do it this way. And there are some other options. So I just think it was, this was too directive at this point for me to be able to vote on it. So if we could bring this back and perhaps, you know, even have an alternative model or two. And I think ask us, how do we think this, this, you know, biannual process is going, um, would be helpful anyway. So I, my, my preference would be if council members agreed that we spend this perhaps to the next meeting or meeting thereafter. Sure. I'm looking at our city manager and then I'll get, go to my council member, go share. I just want to offer that if we release this RFP, we, we still come back to the council to award an RFP. And if you all say we don't like what you're presenting, then we don't award an RFP to anyone. We do the process we've done for the last year that I've been here. And there's no change. Like we can, yeah, this is me just asking authorization authorization to release this RFP or timing reasons and two weeks will have missing council members as well. And then there's another two weeks and so I will be completely fine and defer to the council if they say we don't agree with any of these proposals, but I just like the ability to release it. And we will definitely be coming back to this council, and you all have the ability to appoint a subcommittee and shape it as you see fit. But for me, just timing-wise, trying to manage work and get things that I'd ask you to give me the opportunity to release the RFP and to at the point in time where we're trying to make an award, you all can say, no, let's do what we've done. Yeah. Councilor McGociate, would you like to say something? I don't, Councilor Madame, but I would like to also. Yeah, again, you know, the issue I have here is one. This is a very directive RFP, right? I mean, it literally sets particular benchmarks. It sets dates where certain things are going to happen. And it literally, you know, Council will determine the work plan for the first year by May of next year. It completely changes what we've done over the last several years or nothing wrong with that. Perhaps what should happen is this should actually be a 26, 27 piece where we wind up not issuing this RFP, having this discussion, there's going to be a new council for three new people. And that moves forward that way. You know, it gets postponed for a year. Again, I don't think at this point issuing this RFP has given the council the opportunity to look at other options to do its strategic planning. We continue with the strategic planning for this next year as we normally do and then move this forward. This to me seems a bit precipitous. That's all. Sure. I appreciate the respect. Sorry, Councillor Mugoshaire. No, and I just want to just, I'm looking at the city manager, a one meeting with that be harmful. I know this is important. Listen, I know that you're doing a lot of work. And we want to give you all the resources that you need. And I applaud you for being innovative and bringing something different to this council so that we're not doing the same thing year after year. Timing-wise, tell me does one meeting harm the process? To an extent it does as we're trying to. So the reason why it's so prescriptive with what the time lines is what we're really working toward is budget adoption and trying to align the priorities with the budget adoption whereby the things that we include in a budget are funding the major priorities. That's why we're have those kind of benchmark dates. And that delaying this until October 15th means that we release their RFP, October 18th means that we may or may not be able to kind of close it before December 3rd. And then we switch councils on December 17th. So it's, I mean, the Assistant City Manager, Sherry and I, we're talking about, do we go now? And we kind of pushed this up to October 1st, this meeting for that reason, but it's up to you all. No, I appreciate your comments. I'm trying to understand the urgency and moving this forward. And again, as I stated, you're thinking differently. And you want to make sure that the budget is in line. But what I'm also hearing from my council member is that the council wants to be involved in the process. You're saying the process will come back to the to the council when it's when after you've released the you're going to release the RFP will get information the council will be able to look at it then and take it into consideration what's needed. I would just say I'm looking at council member Romero would be helpful for you to have a committee to work with staff on this to get him get this moving for him. So again, the issue for me is not the release of the requests for proposals. It's the process that we've used so far to get to a point where we're releasing a request for proposals. We haven't had that discussion, right? This is a matter of fact today, we've been discussing this particular approach to address the issues of changing priorities, but no other. So I don't think that the council has been allowed to have a deliberative session on how it wants to proceed with this. And for the city manager to put out his best arguments as to why this is the most effective and efficient way to move forward. Well, I think we, sorry, with all due respect, I like to jump in. Because I also want us to finish early. I need to head out early because I need to be early at my other job tomorrow. I feel that we are having that discussion right now. And I feel that we have heard some of the what are the options? Well, I will he has given us some of the options right now about releasing the RFP and perhaps having that subcommittee to come back and look at about the RFP. What I'm saying is options about how we approach strategic priorities and the RFP is one option, but there aren't others, which is well. You continue doing what you're doing today. Perhaps you don't do the RFP. You just have a consultant that works with, you know, creating the box in which the planning can happen. I don't know. So, but I'm saying this is just one kind of monofocus approach. And then I also want to take, yeah, that she's, that she's had her hand. Sorry, sorry, I was going to get to your promise. That's okay. Go ahead. That's okay. I just wanted to offer, if it's helpful. First of all, releasing the RFP, these types of RFPs, we, if we want to get some good proposals out there, we need to really have it out there for a month. We can't release an RFP and ask for a short turnaround. We're just not going to get quality work. So what I would like to suggest and hearing the each other. So we will have, those will be a lot of options. First of all, second of all, there will be the options as the city manager has already said for you all to reject and not award and to continue with the process that staff has done. And I'm going to say and not award and to continue with the process that staff has done or that staff completes in the past. Sorry, I'm getting a four-year-old yelling at me. So you will have those options as well, the option for us to continue without the consultant. And then thirdly, if you choose to award or if you don't choose to award in December, you will also have the option to give us more feedback as to portions of the consultant's proposal that you like or don't like that we're not necessarily locked in. We will be contractually locked in. If you award a contract to them, but we won't be locked in, you will be able to participate in that process still. It's not going to be as locked in as perhaps RFP appears. I hope that might address some of your concerns. The other concern, council member, that you mentioned about the filtering by the consultant, as perhaps the RFP appears. I hope that might address some of your concerns. The other concern council member that you mentioned about the filtering by the consultant, I'm sure they will be able to make the raw data available to you all too. And that way you can see their filter if that's valuable to you, but you can also see the raw data and filter it, however, is valuable to you? Well, again, I mean, I'm I'm happy to support this. I think that this is just one more clarification. I'm not saying this is. I don't think this is what you were saying, Council member Romero. However, this is not the first time that I've brought up this idea of doing a longer term strategic plan. In fact, this one of the projects that you all adopted in your current year priorities, that's new project under the City Manager's office is to conduct the process to develop a five to 10 year strategic plan. We discussed that during your last strategic plan session. So just want to be clear this isn't the first time I'm bringing this and then also just want to affirm that there's plenty of time to shape what the process looks like. We're just trying to receive those proposals and we can at worst throw them all out and do what we did with But the caveat that Mr. Larson is retired, retired now, we have to find somebody new for this year. You know, look, if this RFP, we're an RFP that called for consultants to lay out for us various options to do the strategic plan or strategic priorities and perhaps even do some sort of landscape analysis of how does Puddle out to do it? They're much bigger than we are. Let's say how does Brisbane do it? How does Albany do it? That I think I would be completely willing to go for. But I'm sorry, but I've read a lot of RFPs in my life, and this one is very prescriptive. It's very prescriptive. We know where it's going. And if we would get that type of information and data from this RFP grade, but we're not going to, because it moves us in a direction of a four year or six year plan moving all their discussions now to, you know, may coincide with the budget, which is not bad. So that's all, I just think this is directive. Moving us to a point that doesn't allow us to analyze other options itself. And I don't feel comfortable going back and forth so this will be my last, but this process, kind of the way to this proposal is when you talk about what other communities, we are uniquely East Palo Alto. However, longer term strategic planning processes are kind of the best practices in local government these days. I let a process similar to this with a firm and mountain view who's done us process similar to this in Alameda, who's done a process similar to this in Pacifica and a lot of other cities. So this is one of the best practices, but best practices matches this is East Palo Alto. I want our process to be an East-Pelital process. And I want you all to want the process. What I envision the kind of a net change is we are getting a lot more being intentional about community engagement, being intentional about conversations beyond people having two minutes to make a public comment, doing some surveying, doing some focus groups. That's the real change. The other prescriptive matters are really based off of us attempting to align the data input with our budget process, which is similar to what we do with the general thing. We have the meeting up front, but when we have finally adopted that's because we've gone through the budget process. So the prescriptiveness is alignment with our existing budget process. I just wanted to say that I really like the fact that if we were to move forward, and then like you said, maybe we can have a say in how we want to shape it or how we want it to look, I really like the fact that we would have more community involvement and outreach because I feel that that would open an avenue for a lot of folks that actually come and directly speak to you and then you could redirect them and say, hey, we're going to have this community focus. You should come. You should say your piece or whatever you think that we should be doing. So I think that does allow to have more community involvement, which I think is something that I see our cities working on, and having more positive outreach to our community. So I value that because I think that I'm not the only one up here, and I don't mean to offend anybody by saying that. But it's like, I like to hear what other folks have to say because I feel that in the multitude of a lot of heads put together, you can come to a sound solution to some of the problems that we have or challenges that we have in our city. So I personally value that. Right. So question, John, I have been, so out out of a an abundance of consideration to my colleague, Mr. Romero, is there a way that we can because I know similarly with the banner hanger policy, you did the language in such a way where we can remember you can revisit the, revisit the policy that we want to tweak it. We can do so. So in other words, what we have here is, and as ironclad as it looks like, that we can tailor it and so forth to the concerns or preoccupations of any of us, council members. Yeah, I guess we could try and do something like that. I just don't know if there's something fundamentally. I think Sherry perhaps can talk a little bit more about this fundamentally about staff's recommendation and the way the RFP is framed that might make it fundamentally difficult. The way I view kind of the debate going on is what is the scope of the RFP? If the RFP is as Councilmember Romero has stated that it really kind of leads us in a direction that we kind of know and that it really limits the field of what this Council priorities process was to look like. Then that might be a little bit sort of difficult to do, but I guess it depends on what staff feels like. The RRP currently says. Got it. I know that part of the conversation we had tonight was potentially electing or appointing a subcommittee. Perhaps to sway the concerns of my colleagues, we had tonight was potentially electing or appointing a subcommittee and perhaps to suede the concerns of my colleagues. We can also in a motion at a third piece which is to have a subcommittee that we appoint to help steer and provide guidance because again, I think none of this is I think a gacha or a kind of a critique of the council. It's just an enhancement of how we operate things, similar to how we're improving the senatorial district, how do we make sure that we're continuing to improve our, the way we do our work as a city. So perhaps if my colleagues would be open to it, that way we just ensure that it brings as many voices on board to this. So what I'm saying today, what I'm saying is I think it might be be who was to have a motion or do a motion where we do one point we do The provide feedback job resolution But then a third one where we let where we have a subcommittee that we can choose To be anyone in council mr. Brickham, mr. Merrill whomever To again just ensure that this document this RFP is flexible enough to really address any concerns, but it does the work of, I think, the heart of it is community engagement. Does that sound like something that we're... That sounds reasonable. Really quickly, sorry, Councillor Amaraga on. In looking at the gender recommendation, I think it's probably something you can do so long as Councillor Romero feels comfortable providing all direction needed so that the RFP is broad enough to sort of suit his needs and whether or not staff feels that they have sufficient direction on how to proceed. I think you probably can do that. And again, I'm not trying to broad it is. Be so aggressive on this. I'm hearing what the staff is saying and that the timing of it makes sense to do it now. I mean, of course we could call a meeting on December 16th, and then, you know, to have enough time. But I think for all of our sakes, we want to try to do it during our regular meetings. But would that be something that this body's open to? Otherwise, I'm happy to make the motion. Just look, the release date is day after tomorrow. There's no time to tweak this. So I don't know. Again, and I'm not that comfortable with making this decision without Councilman Robert Ecke, who actually with the vice mayor will for sure be on this council next year. Three of us may be completely gone. Yeah. Yeah. So. Look, I am trying to get to a yes or what we can do. I want to make sure that we're supporting our city manager. He's he is doing a lot right now. Staff is doing a lot. They've brought on the sanitary district trying to manage that and too. He can get um um um um um the support there. Trying to figure out where where we land, where this will not and, and P the progress of the work that he's trying to, to bring about in the changes. I do understand the community engagement. I don't wanna be locked into a corner also. So if there is language that will get us where we need to go, I'm trying to get to a yes for you so that the work can move forward. I appreciate you bringing it to us. What does that look like? Is that a subcommittee? But if you're releasing an RFP in two days, does that give council an opportunity to comment? Sorry, but you all have the opportunity to make modifications right? I was going to just say that and give me direct perhaps if there's something you don't modify modify my motion should the vice mayor group it again this is just on the fly here but would like next Wednesday be still good timing looking at our city manager like a week from there's Ruben return if we want to hear his comments councilmember abrica will be here October 15 at the next meeting and uh vice mayor bargaon 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. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, not to be nitpicking, but trying to use my equitable voice here, if we're trying to listen to Council or metals suggestions, I would also like to have my voice heard when the new proposal comes, because I think that's equitable for everybody here on Council. So then we're looking to get there tonight. Well, if we just go ahead and make the the the determination without Councilmember Abrika. I'm just go ahead and make the the the determination without Councilmember Abrika. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get to the point where we can move this forward and we're not here till 10 o'clock talking about the same item. Because the challenge is one of us won't be here at 15th and then the next meeting we have we canceled. we don't have the meeting. So you know for me like look I think if we go ahead and let's you said Abrika comes Friday like to the States. Oh, it's back here Thursday. Okay, so just moving it to Wednesday, let's say the RFP release. Would that be sufficient time for you still to be able to properly have enough time to release it and get good feedback or proposals. Yes, however, I'd like your direction on MI to have a subcommittee of council members who tell me to make modifications to the RFP and then I release it without the other council members weighing in on that or what is the desire of the council? If I were to meet with a ticket council member, Abrika and somebody else, what is the council's direction? I have the authority to release what that person says. I think that... I trust it. Yeah, I mean, again, we just want to make sure that look, we don't have all five. We're trying to make sure everybody's voice is heard. I'm comfortable that whatever subcommittee that may be, if they give you guidance and direction on what you want to do with the RFP, I'm uncomfortable with that. Again, just to really make sure that we're all above the table here and we just want to give you enough runway and the staff to enhance the community feedback to what we do. So I'm comfortable with that suggestion and I incorporate that in my motion. I think I've already given you my direction on what I think this RFP should be. It should not be a directive RFP. It should be an RFP that asks consultants then to provide us with various options that we can use to develop strategic priorities in a different way. That would be my suggestion as a completely different RFP from the prescriptive one that is in our packet. That's my suggestion. That's my suggestion. It's only my. And in my, not said I wasn't going to go back and forth, but it's not my jobs that go back and forth with my council members, but that's a difference from what we're trying to. If there's, if what this council desires is for us to release an RFP for different strategic planning approaches. That is 100% fine, but that was not what I set out to do. I sought out to enhance our strategic planning process by doing greater community engagement. That could include modifications to the process, but as the process that is prescribed in this, it's pretty similar, the net difference is it allows for additional community engagement and sets time lanes for us to be able to marry that community engagement with our budget process and give the council enough time to consider that community engagement before they make their final decisions on what priorities they will have. Now, the consultants may say, I prescribe that we do one community engagement session because I prescribe that we go and survey everybody as prescribed that we go to the retail center and interview people. There's all types of ways that they can prescribe to do this and the council can say, you disagree with that. You still have the ability to approve or reject a potential process that they proposed. Yes, it is prescriptive on the dates, but it's primarily to align it with getting community engagement on a timeline that allows us to adopt the budget with council considering. Gotcha. Look, I mean, why don't we just... I think again, the point of this RFP is to get to time with the budget and the upcoming year and to allow this body to have that commute feedback. And I'm sure that the RFPs will have a diverse set or the folks to come back, a diverse set of responses. And then it's up to us. Or that I would want to actually go with any of them if at all. So I again, I'm comfortable with with with this. Perhaps it makes sense to just go ahead and do do not roll call one by one and see if we have the if we have three if we if we do great, if not, then when we will come back on on the next meeting. Okay, so why don't we try that? Through the chair, I'd like to make a motion. I, there's no motion. I'll take my one-way motion. I made a motion with with Vice Mayor Butter. Oh, I didn't hear that. There was a second. Yeah, she said I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. Well, actually, yeah, I could do a substitute motion, but let's not do a substitute motion. Let's just vote on it. All right. Yeah, my substitute motion was to wait to at least get the input from Council Member Abarika on this approach. We know that the vice mayor is supportive of this approach. I'm sorry, she's not going to be here at the next meeting, but I think it would be helpful to do that. That would be the 15th, I think, is when we'd be meeting. So that would be my substitute motion. However, I would like to interject that you can have, if well, if he has a word, I have the word to wait. Sorry, but there's so much. So if there's no second, then it just dies. It failed. So I don't know if there's a second. OK, there's no second. And if. OK, all right, let's just do the vote. And if we get it, if not, then we'll just we'll try again. OK, we're lopis. Yes. First, remember, yes. We'll try again, okay? Mayor Lopez? Yes. Vice Mayor Barraga? Yes. Council Member Gose? I will support this, yes. And Council Member Barraga? Motion carries. We have now earned our dinner for this evening, everybody. It has been a robust discussion, and certainly we'll make sure to do as much we can to communicate with Council Member Abrica, although I'm sure he's having a great time in Mexico right now, assuring the new president. Council reports, Council members, anything to any upcoming events, things to look out for and exciting things that the good folks in this this audience should know about. or a climate event that I'm on a panel for October 8th, I will get that information to James and Melvin to share with the community. Don't have anything. See you guys at 15. The time is 8.27. Have a great night everyone. Thank you. Nice. Good. Thank you. I'm going to get the people to find the place.