Recording in progress I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. the and I would like to call this meeting to order. City clerk, James, can you please help us with the roll call? Absolutely. Mayor Borraghan. Here. Vice Mayor Dynan. Here. Council Member Abriko. Here. Council Member Lincoln. Here. And Council Member Abriko. Here. Here. And Council Member Abran. Here. Council Member Brica. Here. Council Member Lincoln. Here. And Council Member Romero. Present. You have a corner, Mayor. Hey, thank you. Can you please provide us with the instructions for our translation services before we get started with the meeting? Absolutely. So if you would like to hear this together in Spanish. For favor use the way of interpretation localized under the screen, presionando el icono del globito y escogiendo español como su lenguaje preferido. If you would like to listen to the Spanish portions of this meeting usually at around public comment, please use the interpretation feature by clicking on the globe icon and selecting English as your preferred language. Thank you, gracias. Thank you, chains. At this point, we will be moving forward to item number two, approval of the agenda. Would anyone like to approve? I'll move approval. OK. A second. OK. Okay. Okay. So it's been moved and properly second. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Yes. Aye. Okay. So I, this item passes. We will now be moving on to item number three, which is the approval of the consent calendar. I don't know at this moment if we have anyone that would like to pull anything from the consent calendar. I see none. So I guess we will see if there's any public comments on the consent calendar. Do you see any James? Seeing none, Mayor. Okay, perfect. So then I guess we would. I move approval, Madam Mayor. Okay, thank you. I second. So with that, all in favor, please say aye. Yes. Yes. that all in favor please say aye. Yes, yes. Aye. So then we will be moving on to item number four. There will be no closed session tonight. Moving on to item five. Do we have any public comment at this time? Yes, I did receive one speaker slip from Oracio Barrera. Mr. Oracio can come up. Hi, good night everybody. So my name is Uracio Barrera. And I come to this Council meeting to talk about the situation in the MOK Park, all the bandalais that are happening over there, the damage, the buildings, and the field I'm representing Revis Good Union Soccer Organization. organization does a bigger soccer organization and needs Palo Alto and we use the field over there. And I saw you guys know all the bandalized, all the destruction that they did in the field. And we haven't seen any, any reparation from the, from the city and also the underlies of the building. I haven't seen anything in there. So I'm every day, most of the time, every day, I'm on the field, fixing the field, painting the buildings, painting the bathrooms, trying to go down. Now, bad people come and do it, but I don't see any work get down for the city. And also, at the same time, I want to ask the city, how can the city help our organization? Because I'm representing like 300 kids, 300 families from East Palo Alto. That right now signs the field is damaged and there's no lights in the fields. So I got all the kids just sitting at home and I do nothing because we don't have all their space where we can practice or keep the kids out of the house. And that's it. Thank you. Next speaker, Gail Wilkerson. Good evening. As you guys know, this is the first of the year, it's tax season. I just want to let you know that Dixon's tax service is going to be opening up. So I also want you to know is that when you destroyed whiskey Gulch, you destroyed not you. Don't be looking at me like that. 20 years ago, you were supposed to replace it and you have it. I cannot find a office in my own hometown. Okay, and that's wrong. And I'm gonna be racking on you guys until you do it. Also PR reports. I have been looking for PR report for two years. Okay. Now, if you not have it automated and use have it in boxes. I'll be wanting to sit down and go through all the boxes I have to catch up on everybody else's business anyway. I'll go through through the boxes. It's been two years and AI sent me the hook up where I can sue you. Okay. Give me my PR report. Thank you. And that was last speaker for public comment. Thank you. We don't have any online as well. Okay. All right. I believe we do have one online from Gavi. Okay. Yes, I got it. Yes, hello. Hi, can you guys hear me? Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for your time, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you for your hard work doing all this this late. Let's get to the point. My public comment is about the parking situation. I live here in East Paul Lotto, been a member for East Paul Lotto for over 30 years. And in April of last year, my car was hit on a Monday by what I assumed was the garbage truck company and two months later in June I get hit again. I'm following parking restrictions just like you guys have mentioned and Nobody is taking liability for the damages on my car and I'm following directions with you guys and Literally the day after new years. I Get three parking tickets because we were parked on the sidewalk, but we're trying to avoid getting hit because nobody is paying for the damages or taking responsibility for what's going on in the parking. And I am not one, but many families have been affected by this parking. So I just want to know what is going to happen, especially because these rules are being applied across East Polo Walta and these streets are not meant to be parked in that way. So how can we advocate or how can we come together to make certain streets that are wider available to park the way you guys are mentioning, but I have to pay these funds and living in these times are not cheap. And so I'm going to advocate for all the members of the follow-alta for this parking situation to be fixed. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That was our only speaker for Zoom. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have apologies. Yeah, one more. Hello, if you can please unmute yourself. Miss Ramos, if you can please unmute yourself. Yes, my name is Teresa Prado. a mode of interpretation. Okay. Okay, you can continue. Yes, I am affected by the gulden project. Because they are asking me for documents from the newspapers. They said that they had to deliver only the bullet for a few documents from the news in the paper. It says that it should only deliver the bullet for a little less than 18 years. I have a three-year-old child and I can say. I'm sorry, I can interrupt. Here is an interpreter. Please can I talk to you in short terms so that he can do the interpretation? Thank you. So that he can do the interpretation. Thank you. Okay. I'll be sure. Continue. And they said that the children, the least 18 years, they only had to deliver the ball of birth. But now they're saying that I have to deliver a paper that has the name of the children and the direction of the children and paper that is from the children who have the 2013 I said that I have a paper that has already been sent from gas or from the light or something from the phone to the children's names and office. I have nothing to do with the children's office because they are minor and adults. I don't have anything to do with the children's office. I don't have anything to do with the children's office. I don't have anything to do with the children's office. I don't have anything to do with the children's office. I don't have anything to do with the children's office. I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more about the way I'm going to be a little bit more And And I want to know what can I do? So they are still respecting what they themselves did there as a rule. Yeah, two things just so respond. One we'd like to get Miss Ramo's contact information and we can have our rent stabilization staff reach out to her, but then also let her know that tomorrow there will be a rent stabilization board meeting where she can come and speak to the staff there in a board. I'm interested in that, but I ask for your favor, Maricela Ramos if he could connect to his phone to be able to speak. So, you can send us your contact information to my email at city clerk at city of epa.org and I will also open a meeting of the stabilization of the morning so that you can assist and give your opinion there too because the And the electronic race is City Clerk. C-I-T-I-G-G-C-L-E-R-K. A-R-O-V-E-P-A-N-O-C-A-C-I-T-I-G-G-O-F-E-P-E-P-U-N-O-G. I talked to the city and the city told me that they didn't care about the rules of them. or And it can also be written to my number. It's 650-3009148. And there I can call. Thank you. Thank you. That was our last speaker. OK, thank you. Do we have any informational reports at this time? No, right? Okay. Any special presentations? Okay, so moving on to item eight. We're going to adjourn the City Council regular meeting to the East Pole Autosanitary District Board meeting. Do I have to state the time that we're ending or no? Okay. So I will be handing it over to yes vice mayor Dynan chair Dynan. Thank you mayor bergen. I guess now we'll start the meeting of the sanitary district meeting at 6.47 p.m. First item on the East Powell also sanitary district board agenda is item 9.1, East Powell also sanitary district advisory committee scope and regular meeting schedule. City Manager Gaines, who will be presenting this item? Good evening, President Dynan. That will be, this item should be presented by Board Secretary James Collin. Good evening, members of the go to the meeting. Good evening. Members of the council of the board. Tonight I'm presenting the item regarding the scope and regular meeting schedule for the East Pulse of the sanitary district advisory committee. So to provide some context on November 10, 2022, the city submitted a proposal to Sam the San Mateo local area formation commission Lafko to establish the East Paul to sanitary district or PISD as a subsidiary District of the city of East Paul Walton On November 15th Lafko unanimously approved the city's application over an alternative proposal submitted by the EPSD. This approval was documented in Lafko Resolution 1312, which included a very specific conditions. One of these conditions is condition 6, which requires the city to create an advisory committee within 90 days of the issuance of the certificate of completion. This committee must include a seat for a resident from Melopark, from the Melopark portion of the EPA SD service area. And to meet this requirement, the East Baltimore's collaborate with Melopark. On July 16th, this council approved the plan for the advisory committee and directed staff to return with the resolution establishing the committee once it's a certificate of completion was issued. The certificate of completion was officially recorded on September 17th. So the proposed EPSD committee will serve as a subordinate body to the EPSD board. And it will do the following. It will provide advice on administrative and financial matters. It will review and provide input on annual budgets and capital improvement planning. And it will advise on service rates. And feel free to, if you believe there should be additions to this scope, please let me know. The committee will consist of five members and one alternate. All members must reside within the EPSD boundaries, and must be at least 18 years old. And the city of Menlo Park has already appointed one member to the first seat. So Ms. Diane Otterby will be the first member for the Menlo Park seat. And then the city council of East Paul will point four members and one alternate tonight. So the members will serve staggered three year terms and the initial terms have been adjusted to ensure that the city of Menlo Park is a member of the city of Menlo Park and the city council of East Paul to appoint four members and one alternate tonight. So the members will serve staggered three year terms and the initial terms have been adjusted to ensure the continuity. And this is outlined in table one in your packet. So the advisory committee will meet on a bi-monthly basis on the first Wednesday of even months at 6.30 pm and additional meetings may be scheduled as needed. I know, welcome any comments or questions or suggestions from the board. Through the chair, just to buy even even months you mean I guess like February is number two. Correct. Okay, just a cloud. So the first meeting would be in February and Coffin. Oh correct. Thank you. One question that was raised. I don't know if it's appropriate for me to bring this up now. There was compensation for the former East Pellalto Sanitary District Board. Was there any thoughts on that from staff on whether these would be paid positions or not? I know the Public Works Commission for instance is a not paid position. Through the chair, I'm not familiar with. EPA SD advisory committee. I think they had a rate advisory board, which is other members of the council might be familiar with. And I'm not sure if they were paid or not. I know that their board was paid and. You are now their board and we'll be dealing with whether or not by compensation for board members at our next board meeting. However, whether or not this advisory committee is paid is something that we have not discussed and that's something that we could explore if this body was interested in that. Through the mayor, we don't compensate with the exception, I think exception of the rent stabilization board because it has its own particular funding. And then of course the planning commission for another reason. I don't think it makes any sense to compensate this board at all. One only meets six times a year. I think the Sanctuary District had been profligate with its money, basically paying a fair amount of money to advisory bodies that didn't do much. So I would say that it's our fiduciary responsibility to try to conserve this money as much as possible. And so to the extent that we would not move forward with, or at least my feeling is that we should not move forward with compensation on this board. But again, that's not an item there's before us today, but I'm just expressing my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Chair, I was looking at the mayor and that's the president. So Mr. President, thank you. No, I agree. I agree with what council member or in this case board member, Ramero had to say. I mean, I think it's lovely as it would be to go to Palm Springs or San Diego or Austin, Texas on a business trip for the sanitary district. I think we can probably tamp down on travel and expenses like that as well. Anyway, I was just, I know it had been brought up. I don't know if that was the appropriate time to bring a question up, but I, you know, this is all new for us. And so I wanted to raise it if it's going to come up at another point in a more appropriate decision making time then. That's also good enough so we did not intend as a staff to bring forth that item however if the board would like us to bring forth an item to discuss compensation for this committee we would do that at a future meeting. I was just honestly wondering if there had been any thought on that, but I'm not advocating for it. So thank you. Okay. Um, we discussed the item. Are there any other comments from board members of the sanitary district? You know, I just, I think it'd be important. It's for going to be interviewing and to ask the city manager. If it's a city attorney, if you could maybe expound a little bit on the You know, I just I think it'd be important since we're going to be interviewing and to ask the city manager if As you may see attorney forgive me if you could maybe expound a little bit on the Arm subordinate to This body because I want to make sure that everybody was moving forward understands the scope Of what they're going to do so that they're not thinking that oh, I'm signing on to basically allocate all this money or whatever, or stop service. So if you could maybe just quickly do so, thank you. Sure. And this kind of goes to the form 700 question. But the subordinate body that the board is actually appointing now is just what it sounds like. They provide recommendations. They don't make final decisions. Anything that they consider will ultimately come back to the board for final decision making. So with that in mind, you can start the process for interviewing. I can make a comment on that. Having recently come off the Public Works and Transportation Commission, I think a board like this has an opportunity to do a deep dive on issues that we have a lot in front of us and the sole function of this board will be the sanitary district. And there may be something around lateral lines or something around some very specific that no city council member would have the time or necessary inclination to spend hours doing research and talking to people finding out how city other cities do it. You'd be empowered to do that and share that information with us and really help the city move forward. So I know that we have an excellent public works and transportation commission some members who are actually applying for the sanitary board and several of the people on the public works and transportation commission have really helped the city move forward. You know, Chris Kyle, for instance, got bike racks installed something that maybe city council members wouldn't be so inclined to have the time to do. But one individual can make a big difference and I hope that this board will be able to help educate us and move issues forward for the city in a way that we're making the right decisions on that. So with that, why don't we start the interview process? Through the chair, this is actually, there's two separate items. This item is for the board to approve the advisory Committee's scope in regular meeting schedule. So you should take any public comment that there may be, and then vote on whether or not to adopt a resolution. I'd be ready to make that motion, just with one perhaps, caveat or question to staff. I'm a little leery of having advisory committees have broad scopes that actually allow them to direct staff to do a particular type of research. I think that actually falls within this body and certainly our staff. So I mean, I'm fine with what the president said, but understanding that the expenditure of consultant time and what have you by this advisory body should be something that either is not permitted or it comes to the city manager or the council before that moves forward. Cause I would really hate to have, the staff having to, oh, now we're gonna hire another engineering firm, right, to do X-Wire Z. So I just want to make sure that we're being patent-ly clear. So people don't feel that their charge is somehow expanded because they have the authority of the person. So that's all. It's right. I'm ready to make that. Motion. Could I make one additional observation, I think. It's customary for the City Attorney's Office in combination, I think, with a City Manager to, you know, do some training. I don't know if it's done over a year. It probably should be, if not. And so, this being a new body, I think, I would assume that there will be some kind of training on a variety of things. And that could include even taking questions from whoever gets appointed about the issues that we have raised here. ultimately, you know, if the board or the council acting as the board needs to make some determination on the boundaries and parameters of their authority, it will be very important, I think, because especially when you have something new, everybody has a different idea of what it might be. And so, anyway, I think that in the context of doing a training and the Brown Act, et cetera, all those things that there could be some presentation and discussion and dialogue with the members themselves. So I just want to suggest you. Thank you. To the church, just really quickly. That sounds like something we certainly can do in the first meeting and it would be It would be the subject of the first meeting and that would buy the council additional time if you wanted to be more specific about what you Think their charges whether it's a work plan or something like that That makes sense Unless there's any other comments from Councilmember Lincoln or Berrigan? Yeah, I just have a question. This when it comes to compensation, since this is the sanitary district, that's a subsidiary of the city. Wouldn't that come from sanitary district funds? Or if we were to compensate the advisory committee members? Yes, member Lincoln, you're currently acting as the sanitary district board and this advisory body would be through the sanitary district. So any cost associated with the advisory body would be paid for by the sanitary district. So any cost associated with the advisory body would be paid for by the sanitary district. Okay. Yeah. I'm interested in just getting some feedback from whoever we select on this advisory board. When it comes to compensation stuff, so I'm just interested in hearing what they have to say. Yeah. I was just, I was just going to ask the same question, but he beat me to it. I think compensation is a real issue and especially if you have children and need to have child care for to attend a meeting. But again, we can punt that to a further meeting because we're not going to make a decision on that tonight. Are there any public comments on this? As we do have one on Zoom from Mr. Jeff Page. A high, this is Jeff Page with Ravenswood Shores Business District. You know, we represent about 70% of the land and ownership of the area, which is obviously going to be significantly impacted by the capital improvement plan for the East Powell, the sanitary district. I appreciate the need to quickly establish this advisory committee. This is part of your conditions of approval. However, as this advisory committee goes forward, I hope you will consider that in addition to residents as being members of this advisory committee, that landowners or landowners representatives also are considered. These groups are also stakeholders and they may have at certain application times, they may have certain expertise and experience that would be valuable to the committee. Obviously, the council would be under no obligation to appoint any of these applicants from this group. But by expanding the pool of applicants, the council at least would have the option to consider these applicants and to improve the conditions of the, excuse me, conditions of the advisory committee. Thank you for this consideration going forward. Thank you. We also have another speaker on Zoom from is Adrian Brian. Thanks good evening Adrian Brian. I had a clarifying question and maybe a suggestion regarding whether or not those who are going to be sitting on this advisory body are also going to be permitted to serve on other advisory bodies. I would caution that. I think there's a lot to be done and a focus just on this matter would be appendages I think. Also maybe following the same parameters as the public works and transportation commission where they're not allowed to serve on additional advisory bodies. That's all. Thank you. And I would like that question answered. And if it has not been clarified, maybe at a future date, I guess Thank you If I can start with the answering that question and if city attorney john lake can help me out on the second part We so the public works and transportation commission if you serve on the public works and transportation commission According to our ordinance you cannot serve on any other board or Commission and so that is actually currently the only Board or commission that has that stipulation the rest of the boards and commissions actually do not include that in our ordinance and so I don't know if Mr. Lake and shed some light on the current EPSD board or any plans to add that into that board. So you're correct that the public works in transmission has a hard rule and I think Ms. Brian also mentioned that as well as to Any other boards and commissions that they might serve on that's kind of a case-by-case There's a ruling common law that essentially says that you can't serve two bosses And so if your roles are divergent and they're different and they can conflict in some way then it's best that you do not Serve both but those are done on a case-by-case basis. Thank you, and that was our last speaker. Okay, thank you. Would someone like to make a motion? I already had. Second. We'll approve what we have before. Right. Can we get a vote on favor? Yes. I. I. Yes. It's been moved and properly second and this item passes. Moving on to item 9.2 in the East Pell Office of Sanitary District Advisory committee. This is appointments. City manager gains who will be presenting this item. Secretary Colleen will continue. Good evening again, board members. Tonight we will be conducting the appointment process for the open seats on the East Powell to the sanitary district advisory committee. So this item involves a selection of four regular members and one alternate member. the application. So this item involves a selection of four regular members and one alternate member. The following seats are open for appointment. Yes, so the four members and four regular and one alternate. And so to ensure a fair and efficient, transparent selection process, the following steps will be taken. The council will review the applications, which have been attached to this packet. So we have a couple of different the following steps will be taken. The council will review the applications, which have been attached to this packet. We will distribute voting forms to the city council members. And Lucero will be helping me out with that. The applicants will be interviewed by the council. And the following the interviews, the council will vote by ballot to appoint members. I do want to, and I believe we have a lot of people by the council and the following the interviews the council will vote by ballot to appoint members. I do want to and I believe we briefly touched on this during our public comment, but if you're currently serving on the Public Works and Transportation Commission and are applying for a seat on the EPA SD Advisory Committee. Please be aware that you cannot serve on both commissions. So if you are appointed to the EPA SD Advisory Committee, you will be required to resign from the PWTC prior to serving on that committee. So if you're selected, we're gonna have to actually have you make a choice at the next item and because we won't be actually able to revisit the item. So once the votes are tallied, all announce the appointees for the regular four seats and the alternative seat. Thank you and let's begin with the interviews. So first applicant, Grace Popple, if you can please come up. Grace, before you start, James, what's the process here? How long will they have to make a statement? Is there a time limit or? Yes. So given the smaller list, I think two minutes is appropriate for each applicant? Why don't we say three, just because two minutes gets hard to sometimes get everything? Thank you, really. Thank you. Thank you. President and board, I'm Grace Poppel, East Palo Alto resident and homeowner. After many of us together made the case for change to Lathco, many of us were there and speaking at that meeting. You now have control of the East Palo Alto Sanitary District, how it operates, and as well as so many other aspects of life in East Palo Alto that you also need to tackle with your other hats on. The advisory committee, your point, needs to support the people of the Sanitary District and your decision-making with an undistracted focus on our sanitary system and how it's being run. The people of East Palo Alto and Menlo Park need to be confident that the committee will, through its advice to you, hold public works accountable in its managing of the sewer system through our chosen contractors for now, West Bay. We need to ensure separability of the accounting of assets, investments, charges and revenues for EPA Sanitary District from the West Bay Sanitary District. In the near term, we may also face challenges related to getting information from the old management and books. What I bring is expertise in forming new organisations with healthy team dynamics, identifying critical business metrics, analyzing reports and asking good questions to bring transparency to the discussion. I'm also experienced in vendor management through contracts and relationships. I think you know, from what you've seen of me already, that I have a passion for detail and I'm eager to digest, find, and share insights from staff reports and other sources. I believe I have the technical and interpersonal skills to do this well. I think I can add most value in the formation period of this new committee. Once we've established norms for how we work, I can happily hand over to successes for the long-term work of sustaining our efforts. Thus, I'm hoping you will appoint me to one of the shorter-term slots, I think slot four. I look forward to learning much more about our city and how it operates from the other members you appoint to the committee and from the work we do together. Thank you for being thoughtful about putting together a healthfully diverse and effective committee. If it includes me, I will do my best to serve it well. Thank you. Are there any questions for Grace Poppall from City Council members? Yeah, I have a question. So I saw your application and I think you are you were concerned about form 700. Yes, I've subsequently received reassurance from the city offices that form 700 is not required since this is not a decision making body. Okay. So that solves my question that I had there. Okay. My question is why are you concerned about Form 700? Form 700 would require that I provide the names and addresses of all my roommates who live with me onto the public record. And that's not something my roommates are willing to have happen. And so if it were required, I would not be able to stand for this position. Okay. Just because of your roommates, they have to be on Form 700 or why they would have to be on Form 700 because I'm the owner of the property and therefore they're my tenants according to Form 700 rules. Okay. That's all one question. Yeah. I have a question. Have you attended any meetings related to the East Palo Alto Sanitary District or on Zoom or in person or both? Only on Zoom if we exclude the Lafko discussion which was in person here in this space but the other meetings I attended were on Zoom. I attended a meeting of the financial committee of the East Palo Alto Sanitra District, as well as an overall district meeting. So I was able to get a sense of the tone and the dynamics, which were of a concern to me at the time. And I'm hoping we'd be able to set up some dynamics that would be different from that in our advisory efforts. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, Go ahead. Yeah, thank you for your interest in serving the city. You kind of covered some things that I'm going to ask you about if you could just briefly. Tell us what you see as the. Positive things of now the sanitary district being part of an integral part of the city government and also a specific challenge that you see in this transition. I didn't hear every word of what you just asked. Yeah, I was saying that you did cover already some things that I'm my question refers to, but if you could briefly state what you think is a positive thing, the fact that the district is now under the jurisdiction of the city, but also a particular challenge that you see in this transition period. So I think a key reason why the Lafko process was utilized to bring the district under the auspices of the city was the difficulty in coordinating for new development projects that would come before the city, and which the city was in support of, and to try to get coordination through the permit process with the sanitary district and the rest of all the city departments involved in planning and building. And so clearly it's a massive opportunity. Now public works will be keenly involved in what's happening to be able to absolutely streamline that permitting process and have a set of decisions through decision makers that are also the East Palo Alto City Council, as well as the Sanitri district board, to get alignment on their priorities and be able to execute effectively. I think that's certainly an opportunity. I also think we have an opportunity for far greater transparency. When I first attended meetings of the East Panoray to San atry district board as was, there were no published rate cards for sanitary services. There was nothing on the website. There were no meeting minutes I could find on the website of any sort. So another opportunity is to have full transparency, not only about the sanitary boards discussions which you have, but also of those of the advisory committee too, and really professional and appropriate communications and discussions between the various entities that are needed here. So that's I think a lot of positive opportunity that we can simply do things right, and the challenges I think I don't know enough at this point, looking from the outside, but I think given what has occurred over the last few months, it's quite likely that we have an incomplete set of materials as to what has been happening in the prior sanitary district and its management and operations and that may cause some unexpected outcomes when the real facts are discovered that we will have to figure out how we react to. I don't know if that's true, but it seems possible. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Grace. Oh, wait, is it Martha Berrigan has a question? Yeah, I mean, just a quick question. And there's nothing wrong with it. I was just curious as to why you're interested with the in serving in seat four or two, which is a shorter term. Because I am particularly interest because this is a new committee. And that's been an experience I've had before is of setting up something new. I think that's where my skills will most be applied. I'm not somebody who's a terrible person who is a terrible person. committee and that's been an experience I've had before as of setting up something new. I think that's where my skills will most be applied. I'm not somebody who's attempting to build a career in local government. I'd like to be able to help out the city at this time setting up something new with a different tone than existed in this area before. And I think if we can do that well over the next two years, things will be in good shape to be able to be sustainable for a number of people to come through and be diverse over time. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Okay. Be further questions. Thank you, Grace. Thank you. On to the next candidate. Thank you. Is Gil Wilkerson? Hello. Correction. My name is Gil Wilkerson Dixon. Last name, Dixon. A lot of people that found out, knewkerson Dixon. Last name Dixon, a lot of people that found out knew me by Dixon, okay, and Change horses in the middle of the river didn't work out at election time I'm a lifelong resident of East Palo Alto. I have a deep understanding of our community history It challenges and it's potential. I am a real estate professional and tax-prepare and hopes to restatling my business this season. Because of my background, I don't play. I also, and that sometimes is misconstrued as being confrontational, hard. They just don't understand business. I have over 40 years of experience in finance, business, community engagement. As a lifelong resident, I have been in just about every house in East Pallow Alto, I have a passion about ensuring that the sanitary district operates eventually and effectively for the benefit of all East Pallow Alto residents. Somebody made the statement and said that the advisory board did not do anything. And I don't know about the regular board, but I know they went on a lot of trips. We concentrate on that. We scrutinize, we listen. I learn more than I thought I would about meters and I had to learn a whole new scale. I am committed to East Palo Alto, transparency and accountability. I will advocate for open and transferred transparent communication between the sanitary district, the council and the community. Community is very important. I believe that the residents have a right to understand how their rates and determine and how their money is being used. Fair equitable rates. I will work to ensure that rates are fair, equitable, and affordable for all residents. I will advocate for rate structures that reflect the needs of the community and avoid placing an undue burden on low income residents, people on fixed incomes, and this doesn't just count anyone in the middle class because whether you know that or not, and East Palo Alto, three quarters of the citizens were middle class, even through that myrtle capital thing. Three quarters, I know I did their taxes. There are a lot of programs out there for everyone in different situations. You just have to know what you're doing and stop playing with people's lives. I'm familiar with programs such as grants and unlike whatever else is available out there because I've gotten them for people. I will advocate for continuing improvement. You can wrap it up. I think there was a three minutes work. You hit the three minutes scale. Oh three minutes. And that's what it's. You hit three minutes, scale. Oh, three minutes. Okay. Thank you. I will after you engage with residents, community groups to gather input and ensure your their concerns are heard. I have noticed a need for better engagement between the board and citizens. I am eager to serve the Palato community, Palato community, Palato community, to the responsible effective management of the sanitary district. My skills, experience. Mr. Permanous Wilkerson. I know what the hell I'm going to want is why I'm here. Because I can hit the ground running. I've been there, done that. Okay. Thank you, Gil. Thank you, appreciate it. Does anyone have on the board have any questions for Gil Wilkerson? Dickson. I have the same question. You know briefly what you see is the positive and the sanitary district being now part of the city government and also and he thought some immediate challenges in the transition. Okay, good. I didn't get to that part. Before I came here, I spoke to my brother and he had just today they came out, what Bay came out, and he was impressed. And my brother is heart-impressed. He had nothing but praise for them. And that gave me a more of a uplift of being on their side and approving of what was done. And I'm letting all that water go up underneath the bridge. I'm ready to go forward. It's what I want for East Palo Alto. I want the quality of life for everyone. And but I wanted to be on a fair basis. Now the challenges, when I saw those pictures, I was here when West Bay had the presentation. I was shocked. It just showed me how we were bamboozled by that former guy. And it hurts. It really hurt me to find out that I was being, I was following that type of person. And I want the best for East Palo Alto. And I want it at a fair and just rate. Does that make sense? Thank you. Any additional questions for Miss Wilkerson Dixon? And I say something else. I like to say the last time I wasn't appointed to the Red Board, I was told it was because of my age. And I like to know one person here, we're the same age. And then I have another one who's nipping at my heels. All age is nothing but a number. I paid a lot for my education. I know what the hell I'm doing. I know we follow out, too. Thank you. Don't be afraid, Carlos, I have a question. Thank you, Gail. And. No, I'm a question. Thank you, Gail. And- No, I'm fine. Moving on. Yes, so next applicant, Mr. Larry Moody, which he will be connecting on Zoom. So Mr. Larry Moody, if you can please unmute yourself. Good evening Council can you hear me? Yes. Okay good evening thank you for your service to the community. I am out of the area I'm attending event, so thank you for allowing me to come through in this manner. So the first question was to provide a brief overview of why you believe you are a good fit for the position. I think everyone has a copy of my application in front of you, but for the public, I will say, my first elected role was as the director of the East Pawl Alto Santerity District in 2003. And upon coming on board during that time, we walked into a buzz solve situation. There was a hotel that was being developed, which is now in the four seasons hotel. And the hotel was under stress from the sanitary district, because the sanitary district raised their connection fees by 36.5% in February of 2000. And then again by 59% in August of 2002. Now many of us who have been here long enough can remember there being a big gap in at the intersection of Downa Ho and University, where the four seasons have stopped their development of the project and turned around and sued the city of East Fowl also. The city in turn said, sued a sanitary district but don't sue the city, and we will relieve you of four years of your community benefit obligations to the city. Now that was four years of TOT tax money that the city lost at that time. I think it leveled out at about $8 million. So in 2018, I was instrumental in leading the council to revisit through the lab co process to dissolve the district into the city service division. I was involved in every aspect of the process, including public engagement, including two by two public meetings with representatives of the city and district. I was involved all the way to the finish line. Not only will I bring institutional knowledge but I will be a member who will attend meetings and participate for the good of the city. The question was share the goals and visions for serving on the committee commission. My goal for any community advisory commission is to address and clarify any issues related to the community's concern and impact on operations that may impact the residents or may occur to the public. The Commission can submit recommendations for consideration on the organizational policies and activities. Mr. Murthy, if you can please wrap up your last point of the three minute. I am. I will. Thank you. And am. I welcome. Thank you. And now, activity to the end of this case. The city of East Paul Alto Sanitary District. This is the key point I want to make. We are here only to assist the city council and city manager with their deliberation. To make recommendations as an advisory committee represent in the community. Thank you. Thank you, Larry Moody. Are there any questions from the board? I have a question. Mr. Larry Moody. So you served on the East Pole at the San Terry District. You're all on the City Council. And I believe you were also on the Intergovernmental Committee that stopped having meetings with the San Terry District. But you also said that you were supportive and instrumental of instituting or pushing the laugh co- proposal to make the San Terry district a subsid area of the city. My question for you is why did they're stop being intergovernmental meetings? And if you are on this board, how will you be able to collaborate there's a lot of people that are not going to be there. They're stopped being inter governmental meetings. And if you are on this board, how will you be able to collaborate and provide directions given the history between the sanitary district and the city before this lab coat process has started. So how do you think you know, and provide direction to the City Council given that history. Sorry, Mr. Moody. If you can repeat that your your cell service is a little spotty. Okay. We can hear you though now. Okay. Can you do that better? A little bit. Yes. Okay, so the reason why the intergovernmental committee stepped away from the Canter-Sanitary District, which was my first time, Councilwoman Donna Ruff referred, was because the Santerity was calling meetings, right, for the benefit of those who are in attendance. They were calling meetings, right, one agenda, buzzard is for the discussion. It will never action or get it. We try to convey to them that it was important for them to work with our staff, put together a agenda that we're meaningful and a good use of our time. We found ourselves themselves realized that it was in the governmental meetings. And when we offered them an opportunity to come to the city to present in front of the full council and to the public, they declined. And so that was the end of the Indigrumental Committee, but I never left the table engaging and engaging with the sanitary district when we first got involved with Lafko I was instrumental with the other council members and making sure that we had Those conversations internally and we created these two by two meetings But then we opened them up to the public so that the public can be involved in here. I think the thing that you certainly need to understand about me, my service to the community, is that it's really service to the community. I want to be a part of this, this, this, this, this, uh, LACCO advisory group because I Because of historical knowledge, right? And I think that knowledge will be beneficial in the first one to three years as this commission conveys I will be a person that will be Attending the meetings I will have input and I would actually be able to highlight and celebrate some of the good practices that we see from West Bay that we didn't see from the former Santerbury district. Right, thank you, Mr. Moody. I don't have any questions. I know Larry very well and you know, there's a lot of excellent applicants on the list of people, but you know, it's impressive to see the level of service and understanding of the sanitary district that Larry brings to this. But I don't have any questions. Are there any? So my same question. So Mr. Moody, if you could briefly tell us what you see as the positive thing and the district being part of the city and also a specific or particular challenge in this transition period. Thank you. Council Member Abraka, I really think that this is the something that the city really needs to get excited about as we begin thinking about our future, certainly in 2025. We have great partnership with West Bay. They are a leader in the industry. They're going to make sure that our ratepayers and residents receive the best professional care and service that we've been lacking. And I think we all know that we've been lacking for decades. Now, I think they're going to bring us up to speed. The other thing I think is going to bring confidence to the development community, to re-engage with East Paul Auto and those who were pushed aside and overlooked by the previous organization. Now can see that there's a brighter day that East Paul Auto is a city that they can reconvene and reconsider investing into. We need development and we don't need an attitude of defiance against those who want to participate with us. I think this is a great opportunity. One of the things I do think that we need to work with West Bay is to make sure East Paul Auto residents who have participated in the San Terry District as employers in the maintenance division have a fair shot at the training and getting the certification they need so that this could be a part of their career path as well. Thank you, Mr. Moody. With that, we'll move on to the next candidate, Tonga Victoria. Hello. OK. Good evening, President and EPA City Council. Happy New Year's first of all, and congratulations on your new appointments. My name is Tonga Victoria, born and raised here in East Palwaltto. And for the last 10 years, I've been serving our community in many different ways, but really in the youth space. I've served this year, makes 10 years of service to my community. I've served either in partnership or in direct service with every youth-based nonprofit in East Palo Alto. And I got to be honest, I don't have a science degree in water treatment or I'm not a home owner. I'm a second-generation renter, but one thing that I have, and I think has been tested over time, is a love for my community. And just to kind of fast forward to the second part of the interview is kind of what lies ahead of us. Adopt Larry Moody's sentiment around excitement and enthusiasm for this new chapter. I think we have two set goals for where we are at. As kind of the grassroots phase, given that the sanitary district is a new addition to our city council is one to equip our board members with solid and efficient R&D to make proper decision-making with our residents at the core of every decision. And then secondly, and I would even say even more importantly, is to gain back the trust of our community. I have not attended any sanitary district meeting, but I didn't have to when the sanitary district is the punchline of every joke in our community. I think that just kind of sets the landscape of what has been happening over the course of the past three years. And I really want to change that. I really believe that if we can involve and engage our community in this process, I bring forth special set of skills and communication. I've been doing that for the past couple of years for the city, for our community. And so although I'm not an engineer, I don't have a science background, but that's definitely something that I believe that I uniquely bring to the table. So thank you. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Tonga Victoria? I appreciate your willingness to serve, and I know you ran for the school board and you know you're involved in the community and various nonprofits. My question for you is what are your thoughts on outsourcing operations of the Santerity District to outside organizations that have kind of no accountability to us beyond just you know, um, doing day-to-day operations. Sorry, what was the, could you rephrase? What do you thoughts on outside? What are your thoughts on outsourcing, um, day-to-day operations, um, of the San Terry District? No. Okay. Those are my thoughts. Okay. We got this. We can do this. It might take a couple of years, but we build up the proper infrastructure. I think we can handle our own day-to-day operations. Okay. And one more question I have is, um, you mentioned that the San Tragistic was a punchline of every joke. What jokes did you hear about that? Don't make make me say that Lincoln. Okay. That's our all my questions. I'm at the same question or did you have one? Do you have a question? But please, no, I saw you applied for public works and transportation as well as the sanitary district. Do you have any preference for either board or any thoughts on that? Public works being roads and parks and all sorts of other stuff. Also public works does include parks. I thought that was another division. It touches on parks, but that's... Public works maintains our parks right now, but yeah, that's a part of it. You know, it does things like the roundabouts and parking permit programs and things like that. I mean, there are so many different issues in public works alone that I would say very passionate about. I grew up on Oak Eve Street, so the parking is insane on that side. But just where the sanitary district is, the grassroots level, R&D, I think I bring forth a certain skill set that would get me very passionate about getting this off the ground. Okay, that was my question. I think Council Member Breef. I'll repeat my question if the thing heard it, but briefly what you see as a positive in this change and also any particular challenge or that you see in this transition period. Well, I think the positive change is now that it is in the purview of the city council. I think everyone's eyes are on the city council in order to do what is right in a process that is honest and full of integrity. So I think that's positive. What was the second part? Any challenges you see in this transition. And then I think it serves as a challenge to us. is because there are so many eyes on this particular board. There's a lot of accountability that is expected from us. And so that's definitely something that I would want to meet. Thank you. Moving on, the next candidate is Rob Neal and Chamtery? So, Mr. Rob Neal, actually, I'm not sure if you all received his email, but he did mention that he had a medical procedure that inhibited him from speaking. And so please let me know if you didn't receive the email I did see that the council was copied on the email But if you didn't please let me know and I can send it to you now so you can take a look at it for your consideration but Mr Okay, that's why it was online Yeah, so I will promote him as a panelist and maybe if you would like to chat in the chat box. He's more than welcome to, but I'm not sure if he'll be able to speak tonight. Ravneel, are you? are you... I see he's connected. Why don't we move on to the next candidate, Anthony Smith? Does Anthony Smith here online? Anthony Smith? I do not see Anthony Smith. I believe the next candidate would be Stephanie Griffin, who I do see in the audience. Actually, I do see that Mr. Ravniel said that he can use a chat to answer any questions. I'm not sure if you have any questions for him or. I don't have any questions, but either. I got a chance to read his emails, I'm fine with that. Thank you. So I guess miss miss Griffin if you can please. Thank you. Good evening, Council. Thank you so much for getting my application and reading it. I'm applying to be on the advisory committee. I am on the public works committee since May, but when I found out about the East Palo Alto sanitary district of advisory committee, I was quite ecstatic about it. So I feel that I am a good fit because I am a lifelong resident of East Palo Alto, and I have witnessed the significant transformation that have occurred within our city. I take pride in my community, and I am dedicated to making a positive contribution. Also, I feel that I would be a good fit due to my decade of experience as an employee of EPA SD. I understand how district business should be conducted when you are public entity providing public services. And one of my goals and visions is to ensure that the needs of both residents and businesses are addressed in a coordinated manner for the benefit of all stakeholders. It is important that the sanitary district works to ensure the city's infrastructure is fit for the future. Thank you so much. Thank you, Stephanie. Does anyone have questions for Stephanie Griffin? I guess I didn't pick that up in the application. What position could you hold with the sanitary district? So I started off as accounting assistant, then HR generalist. Thank you. You're welcome. Well, I given the scope and the objectives of the advisor committee, which includes administrative financial matters and looking at budgets and capital improvement planning and service rates. Where do you see yourself fitting in in terms of providing advice given that you're not going to be able to do that. which includes administrative financial matters and looking at budgets and capital improvement planning and service rates, where do you see yourself fitting in in terms of providing advice given that you've previously worked at the sanitary district? Well, me providing advice and my expertise is definitely making sure that the budget is understandable to the residents, to the rate payers. Because my experience is just everything is lumped into one account and it's not explained what is actually being spent and being able to understand all of the different line items that you see in the district being part of the city now and also any particular challenge that you Can see in this transitional period so the positive now is That the city finally became responsible party for the sanitary district because just all of the misinformation and the community not understanding, you know, that the sanitary district is a separate entity and thinking that the city runs the sanitary district is a separate entity and thinking that the city runs the sanitary district. Now the city is a subsidiary. Well, the sanitary district is a subsidiary of the city, which that's like a total positive because now the community can be more engaged, understand the services that the sanitary district offers and just feel more inclined to, you know, ask questions, not just think something's gonna happen. And what was the next question, I'm sorry. Yeah, it was any, you was any challenge during this transition. Challenges. Obviously, I don't think there's any challenges because Lafko, they took the step and they finally the state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's state's because the city now is in charge. But there's no further questions. Thank you very much and we'll move on to the next candidate, Mario Mendoza. Mario is online. Yeah, Mr. Mendoza is on the Zoom. So I just promoted him. So can you guys hear me? Yes. All right. Sorry I couldn't be there in person. Got surgery on my shoulder last week. So I'm here on Zoom. Ha. How's everyone doing? Council, how's everybody doing tonight? Very good. Thank you. All right. So yeah, the reason I applied for the position to be part of the EPA SD is because I used to be a former employee with West Bay sanitary and I know how professional they are, hardworking folks there and when I found out that the city was going to allow them to take care of the rest of East Pell Autos, I was very happy because I know we're going to be in good hands. When I used to work for West Bay, we used to maintain, at the time, West Bay was in charge of a lot of area of, in the village and some parts of the mid. And if folks could see the conditions those pipes are, it's a miracle that we haven't had or I'm sure there's been overflows, but from what I understand a lot of them weren't reported. But you know, just I think me being part of the team being a long time East Pawl to resident. I think I would have a lot to say about, you know, what could benefit the community. What I currently do right now, I am the athletic director at a CCRMS, the middle school. I also help out with the EPA T-Ball and I run Camp Doze in the community. So I'm a person who's very, very involved. I love my neighborhood and I'm just trying to go back in any way that I can. Council, do you guys have any questions for me? Okay, thank you, Mario. Are there any any questions for Mr. Mendoza? I, yes, Mr. Mendoza, when did you last work 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 was a maintenance so I would uh yeah maintain all the sewer lines I'll do a lot of on call but yeah I was a maintenance worker for them. All right great thank you. Yep. So yeah so my two questions one is the positive that you see now the district being as subsidiary of the city and then any particular challenge that you see in this transitional period. I know a lot of the residents are upset because obviously the costs went up for our sanitary or sewer charge. But I mean once they get to know Sergio and all the workers there and how professional they are, I think the residents are going to be very, very satisfied with the services West Bay provides. I think the only challenge is for West Bay to just get out there and really get to know the community more. Because they already know, you know, being in some parts of the community already, they already know some of the residents here. But it'll be nice for the rest of the community to get to know them. And I think just the biggest challenge is gonna be For people to just know who West Bay really is I have a question So I don't think their rates have been raised yet, but I want to know your thoughts on funding new development in East Palo Alto and who should pay for upgrading the sewers to Support the man either new development that's being planned I think that the cost Should be either split or a certain percentage should be either split or a certain percentage should be paid by the city, a percentage by the residents and then the business or whoever's trying to develop. I know it's very, very expensive to put new pipelines on the street. But I think to make it reasonable and fair, just find a certain percentage where everybody could agree on and kinda split up the cost a little bit, so it's not heavy on one party or the other. Okay, thank you. Unless there's any further questions, moving on to the board. I moved to East Palto about a year ago. I have great lunch on my time here, meeting my neighbors and various people. When I mean my wife tick walks on the trail, I have spent the lion share of my 15-year software engineering career basically cleaning up and fixing messes that people have created and have spent a lot of time basically creating consistency and stability in things I work in. And from my own experiences interacting with the East Paltrow Sanctuary District, I can say that that definitely is not something that they do well. Having needed to get a permit from them, they told me that my residence had not paid sewer taxes in ever and presented me with the tax bill for a boat that I did not own, obviously did not have sewers associated with it and then sent me back to public works to get, you know, a letter and understand what has happened in these Paul to Sanders strict and improve it for the future of his Paul to. Thank you. Okay, thank you Nathan. Does anyone have any questions? Well, you've heard my question. But what you see is that positive in this change and then any particular challenge you see in the transition period. I think the core positive is that, you know, small institutions are more subject to, you know, informalities and to, you know, irregular habits and that by making these policies, and the specific city area of the city, you essentially constrain it with the bureaucratic structure of the city. You know, we have this fine staff here, the clerk, the city lawyer, all of that, which will benefit the overall running of the district. In terms of challenges, I mean, getting over this hump is probably going to be an extensive challenge from my understanding of how the district was run. There was not a large staff. The board sort of did what they wanted and that there's going to be a lot to unwind and move forward in the future. I have a question. What? I have a question. What did you have done that you needed a sanitary permit and then how would you have imagined it to have been a better, like if it had been done? Honestly, we had the perfect sanitary district. How would have that looked if doing what you needed to get done? I mean, if the sanitary district, when you were working with it, was perfect, what would be your expectations for that? Me and my wife bought a house in East Waldo and we were remodeling it. We were not increasing the scroll footage. In fact, we were removing illegally constructed bathrooms down to the point at which it was originally permitted to. And that process involved me needing to physically go to the standard data strict and shake the director's hand and be presented with papers and he went over our plans in front of me and basically created a whole process to go through, told me numbers to write on checks, and there wasn't a lot of formalities to it. Given the scope of the work we were doing, I mean, it should have effectively been a stamp, you know, the Santerge district does not concern itself if you are decreasing the number of kitchens or bathrooms in your home or the square footage and that that was just a incredibly arduous process in the longest part of the actual interactions with the various districts in the city. Thank you. So I'm sorry I didn't catch what your profession was and I'm I appreciate your willingness to serve first and foremost But what do you do for a living and how do you feel that you can best? You know Serve the community in terms of addressing the scope of this advisor committee, you know, whether it's administrative budgeting, planning, how do you feel that you can fit in? So I'm a software engineer. I did spend a few years when I was unsure if I wanted to be a software engineer as a project manager. I have worked in budgets and engineering process and unwinding sort of things that were done incorrectly where I've worked. I'm sorry, what's the second portion of your question? How do you feel you can best start with the community and in terms of the scope of this advisory board. So I do want to serve my community. Question to me is to what I can do. Most of my skills lie in sort of engineering process and in a mistrored and dealing with numbers and how things all fit together. And I do feel that foreign advisory committee that's primarily concerning itself with the financials and the forward-looking you know planning and capital budgets of the district that I would be an asset to that you know more so than otherwise I could serve the community. Thank you Nathan. Thank you. Moving on to the board of Louis Verges. Good evening. Council and staff. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come before you this evening to express my desire to be considered as a member of the new EPA Sanitary District Advisory. To be a member of the new EPA Sanitary District Advisory Committee, first and foremost, I would like to state that I thoroughly understand the significance of a subordinate group at this time in our organizational process. And it's important to just share that I feel that I can adequately serve in that capacity for a number of reasons. It's fair to just start by saying, I've been the chief and I've been an Indian. And I know how to serve in whatever capacity that I am needed. But specifically today I'm applying for a seat on the advisory committee because I believe that I am uniquely poised to serve as an engaged member of this abort and body. Based on my professional background, my years of experience in business, and my commitment to civic responsibility. During the past 12 years, I have served as a volunteer for the Community Safety Team, the Climate Resiliency Team, and for the past five years, I have served as chair and as a member of the Public Works and Transportation Commission. Those experiences have provided me with hands-on experience in advising the City Council, government, staff, and others on complex and weighty matters. This coupled with my professional background, which hinges on over three decades of experience and business operations, logistics, marketing and financing in the high tech industry. It should be noted that in that capacity, I have dealt with very small budgets and budgets that have gone into the multi-billions of dollars. So it doesn't matter how many zeros are behind the numbers. It's all math to me. I'm able to work in concert with vendors and other stakeholders because in those capacities, I negotiate it contracts and things of that nature with vendors, with suppliers and things of that nature. So none of that is strange to me when it comes to outsourcing and utilizing services that are in house. I am acquainted with the history of the EPA sanitary district, the Lafko decision, and publicly supported the city's quest to assume the East Palo Alto sanitary district. On a more intimate level, I have attended several of the East Palo Alto sanitary board members at meetings and have met with members of the previous administration in an effort to bring much need of clarification and transparency to available services. It is my hope to be able to serve as a catalyst in undergirding the efforts of the East Palo Alto sanitary district governing body by aiding and emerging of the East Palo Alto sanitary district into the city's operations seamlessly while building the community's trust and support. And it is for those reasons that I asked that I'd be considered. Thank you. Are there any questions for Pastor Eduardo's Verges? Just other than you would you would prefer to serve on this body than on public works and I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good hands. Much like Mrs. Poppa who spoke, I too think I have something extra to add to the formation of what we're trying to get off the ground. I'm accustomed to development and new development and helping with processes and procedures that can streamline things. So it is for that reason that I give up my beloved seat if selected on the Public Works and Transportation Commission. I have a question. So pretty much you know the scope of the advisory committee is to provide advice on administrative and financial matters, annual budgets, capital improvement and service rates. How do you feel that you can best provide advice on any of those areas and what are your thoughts on how we address the issues in the RBD in terms of the sewage and how we could provide services to for all the development that's being planned. Well, I think it's imperative that the advisory board be skilled in negotiations and understanding of the rates and what contributes to the rates. I could not stand here and pretend that I could make a recommendation without sufficient data. In order to do what I do, I analyze data much like you, a data person, right? So I have to look at the data, I look at the budget, I look at the needs, I look at and assess the situation before I could make a recommendation to make one, to make one without doing that as premature in my opinion. I have one question. I know one of the issues we have in East Palo Alto are lateral lines. These are the lines connecting homes to the main sewer lines. And our sewer system is aging, but also the lateral lines are aging. Do you have any experience with getting lateral lines replaced and if you have any thoughts on that and how because I think one of the things the sanitary district does is finance, homeowners finance lateral lines. If you had any thoughts on how we could improve that system, you know, if that's not asking too much, I mean, I can ask you another question if you did- It's not asking too much. As a matter of fact, I have some personal firsthand experience with having my lateral replace, which brings to mind a larger concern. My responsibility was from my home to the Y line in the street, right, to the main lines. I'm replacing a lateral with new and improved materials and everything, but it's connected to something that's inferior. That's a problem. So I got to see firsthand the condition of the main line that's going down our street in particular. And that's a big problem that will have to address at some point and it's bigger than I can do but I can definitely you know provide advice and look into it but more so than that let me just share this real quick. I was meeting with the fire departments a month ago and they were talking about how they're literally fearful sometimes to come into the city of East Palo Alto knowing the condition of our pipes, knowing that they can put water pressure on a pipe to a degree that they're concerned that it could potentially burst. That's a problem that we need to address. But the beauty is this, we are addressing it. It may not have been addressed to the length that it needed to be prior, but I believe with the city acquiring acquisition and making the East Palo Arts Society district a subsidiary of the city that it will have more care, custody, and control over those improvements as we move forward together. Thank you. Are there any additional questions or? No, you partly answered, but you know, my two questions on the positive side of the district being part of the city and then any particular challenge you see in this transition period. The positive side and a word is consolidation. To be efficient and proficient as a city we need to have control over all the entities that affect our growth and how we move forward. So by the city making this East Palo Alto sanitary district of subsidiary, it will provide that oversight that is needed to make sure that we all move in the same direction, at the same speed. So that's a very positive motive for me. The negative for the challenge will be that most of us in this room don't have a lot of experience with the sanitary district. That's just a fact. But that's also the beauty of recognizing that because we have the wear with awe to gain and pool what we need. People like Mr. Moody who have been involved with things that can give history and things of that nature and others and also with the city bringing on someone like a West Bay. We can glean from them what we need to know how we need to move forward with them also. So I think that that can be a challenge, but it will be a time process. It will be a time process. It will be a process. So we're not going to get instantaneous relief, but we can definitely put together a plan that can take us to our desired goals. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, if the council can please fill out your tally sheet by selecting the four regular full term seats. So please select the four seats that you would like to elect. Just one question. Since there are two years and four years. We need to specify that too when we select people. Yes. Or that is a good question. Once we select the members, I can we can vote on which seat they belong to. All right. Okay. Thank you. We're voting for four, but not city alternate. So we just pick four and then what's the FT for? And that's that'll be my full tally. Okay. Yeah. And then after this, we will vote for the votes. I'd just like to thank everybody who showed up in the play. There's a lot of excellent candidates. And I'm sure we are limited to just having four folks on the board plus, or the commission, plus one alternate. So there's a lot of excellent folks applying. And if you don't get on this time, I hope you'll consider applying in the future for other commissions. Thank you. And so I will actually read out each council members vote. So starting with Council member Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln voted for Gail Wolkerson,a Victoria, Mario Mendoza, and Duborra Lewis Vs. Oh, apologies, Vice President. Barragan. President Dynan voted for Grace Popple, Larry Moody, Nathan Moukehi and DeBoard Lewis Verges and Council Member Abrika, sorry Board Member Abrika, voted for Grace Popple, Tonga Victoria, Stephanie Griffin, and Mario Mendoza. And board member, Romero, voted for Grace Popple, Larry Moody, Mario Mendoza and Dubor Lewis Virges. And so the tallies are... So the first appointments are Grace Pople with four votes, Mario Mendoza with four votes and Duborra Lewis Virges with four votes and the remaining seat there is a tie between Stephanie Griffin, Tonga Victoria and Larry Moody and so we will actually initiate round two and so if you if the council complies or the board complete select out of Larry Moody, Tonga Victoria and Stephanie Griffin and we will tell you those votes as well. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. After telling, so Council Member Romero voted for Larry Moody. President Dynan voted for Larry Moody. Vice President Baragon voted for Tonga Victoria. Board Member Lincoln voted for Stephanie Griffin. Board Member Abrika voted for Stephanie Griffin and Board Member, a brief of what for Stephanie Griffin. So there is a tie another tie between Larry Moody and Stephanie Griffin. And so if the council can please tell your votes once more. This is just between Larry and Stephanie. Correct. Larry and Stephanie. Correct. Larry and Stephanie. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go read the votes out loud. Board Member Romero voted for Stephanie Griffin. Board Member Lincoln voted for Stephanie Griffin. Oh apologies. Somebody put their... Yes, you did. I think somebody accidentally put their checkmark in the wrong spot, but somebody voted for Stephanie Griffin. Board member, Link, Board Member Lincoln voted for Stephanie Griffin, Board Member Romerovoto for Larry Moody, President Dynand voted for Larry Moody, and Board Member Brika voted for Stephanie Griffin, so Stephanie Griffin gets the seat. And so at this point, I'm going to actually ask the applicants if they prefer one seat or their other. Currently there are two seats. So there are two seats that end in 20, sorry, 2028. Sorry, apologies. The initial term will end in, sorry, yeah, 2028. And then there's, there are two seats that end in 2027. And so I'm gonna ask if there is anybody who has a particular, I know Miss Pople wanted shorter term for 2027. Is there anybody else that has a preference? Yeah. Okay. With that, um, can I see the. Here. So with that, um, I will ask the council if we can vote for each seat. So starting with Ms. Grace Pople, if the council wishes to vote for her to be on the shorter term seat, which is for seat number four, that ends in 2027. If you can do a roll, sorry, on favor. Hi. I'm motion passes unanimous like congratulations. So congratulations, Miss Poppill. You will serve on the fourth seat ending in 2027. And with. And then with Miss DeBora Lewis Virgis's request. If the council so wishes we can assign her to seat number two, which ends in 2028. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. I'm going to ask Mr. Mendoza if he has a preference. Mr. Mendoza, do you have a preference for both? Uh, for the longer term possible. Okay. So if the council wishes, he can be on the seat number three, which ends in 2028. All in favor? Hi. Yes. and the last seat number three, which ends in 2028. All in favor? Yes. Yes. The motion passes unanimously. And the last seat will go to Ms. Stephanie Griffin for seat number five, which is ends in 2027. So congratulations. We will will be selecting from the remaining seats, which are Gil Wilkerson, Larry Moody, Tonga Victoria, Rovnillo, Shadri, Anthony Smith, Nathan Mokahi, and yeah, those are the remaining seats. I think there's some names missing from this is not the updated roster. Maybe we can just recent these. Just Nathan. And then if you can add Nathan to your list, I think that's the one that was missing. Apologies. So board member Lincoln voted for Tonga Victoria. Board member Brica voted for Tonga Victoria. President Dynand voted for Gail Wilkerson. Uh-huh. Oh, apologies. No, you did Gail Wilkerson. Sorry, Gail, you're too valuable on public works. We're going to have four absences already. So correction, President Dynand voted for Larry Moody. Vice President Baragon voted for Tonga Victoria and board member, Romero voted for Larry Moody. And so with that, Tonga Victoria is elected for the Alternate seat and so congratulations. This seat ends in 2028 and is the alternate scene. So congratulations and thank you. All right, with that, we end the sanitary district portion of this meeting. And I will turn it back to Mayor Martha Barragan to continue, we'll adjourn the sanitary district and we will pass it back to Mayor Martha Berrigan. Well thank you very much. Thank you all for sticking around and for your little synopsis as to why you wanted to serve and for answering the questions. So we're reconvening to the City Council regular meeting. Do I need to say the time again? The time? No, okay. So with that, I don't know if we have any public hearing or any public comments at this time. We don't do public comments, right? Are doing. Yes, but we didn't receive any. Okay. So I guess we're moving on to policy and action. So we'll be moving on to item 12.1, which is more appointments of the Public Works Commission. So. Yeah, this will be by city clerk, James Colin. All right. Thank you. James has. He's on the spotlight tonight. Yes. Thank you. So good evening. Mayor and members of the council tonight we will be conducting a appointment the appointment process for the Public Works and Transportation Commission and just a little context behind why we're doing this tonight is the reason is because there are currently two vacancies on the Public Works and Transportation Commission seat one who was previously occupied by Commissioner Mark Dynan and so since he is now a council member, his seat is open and seat six, which was formerly occupied by Commissioner Martha Fambi Reid. She recently resigned. And so both of these seats are open. And then along with member, so seat number five as well is open, which was previously occupied by Ms. DeBora Lewis Virges and seat number three, which was previously occupied by Commissioner Griffin. And so we will actually be selecting four members tonight from this list. And so without further ado, we will We will start the interviews. So starting with Ms. Mariana Sumina. Yes, and so for clarification apologies. So seat number one, the term will expire in 2027. Seat number two will also expire in 2027. and we'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. We'll see you in the next year. Good evening, Councillor. Good evening, staff. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I'm not really experienced with micrathons and speaking in public, so I'll try to be short. My name is Miranda Svimina and I'm a resident of East Palo Alto. I've been in the area for the last 16 years. Before that, I was living all around the globe in a small city, in small town and in big capitals. So I've very experienced with transportation in Europe, here in Africa. So I know how it works based on my experience. And after long of traveling and living everywhere, I finally can call East Polo Alto home because it's a really diverse community and I love it. And right after we moved, we talked to the neighbors and they talked about the transportation and the public transportation. And I thought that probably I can bring my experience and point of view and be advisor and make it a little bit. Got it a different perspective on what is going on from the people who are living here for a long time because I was doing it in a different. I'm a business owner, small business owner. I do have two big rounds, one in economics, and I do have an MBA and another one in clinical psychology. I'm a volunteer. I was working as a volunteer and I had a crisis line and I'm currently volunteering in the well-e well center as a suicide and crisis counselor, no crisis lens well. So I think the diverse perspective and my ability to listen people will bring something to the community. So I would love to hear people and I would love to ask questions and I believe I can do it professionally trained for it. And getting all together and see what we can, if we need to change something, we can hear from the community. And then based on my economic background, I believe it could be data driven as well. Because definitely there is two parts. One what we want and one what we can afford. I think that's it pretty much. I'm ready for questions. Consolors? Rachel, yeah, this is such a big area. And definitely, I think the commissioners have always struggled with kind of what you said. You know, there's such a need and not enough resources and we're impacted in so many ways. But are there any things that you see as, you know, that could be improved in this whole area of public works and transportation that maybe are, you know, we don't have to wait forever. I mean, you know, we, yeah, so that's kind of just any thoughts you have on that. We all have ideas and definitely I do. But before I would have the better. Okay, the first thing, the Bay Area is suffering without public transportation, right? And for, let's say for Mount and View, they do have a small bus, which is actually very convenient for everyone. But I can't say let's do the small buses going around the city, because I'm not quite sure the city can afford it. But probably if we do have funds we can create some like three or three two lines which is actually going and it's walkable to the one particular place of the city. It's not going to be a lot of difference because it's not going to be five minutes like we're not immune right we can't afford it. But and it's not going to be a mountain view but we can start from the small two or three lines around the city that can bring people to culture, for example. So we can reduce this. Even with great, we are better than also in Matteo County in Carpooling. But still, we need to Carpool and for university, for example, it's in disaster in the morning. And for building more housing, it's going to be even more disaster. So we definitely need to think about it. Through the chair, you mentioned that you've lived around the world before coming to East Palo Alto. What's something you've seen in another country that you think would be a good idea that we should explore here, whether it's public transit or parks or any of the things that come under the scope of the public works department. What I love about this plata is we do have perfect parks. That was my first choice Why we actually came to the city and I look around and wow It's hard to consider us to Europe We didn't get this choice. We didn't choose right now in our century to driving cars I would love to see small rails everywhere, but again we do have constraint right the bar. I like Europe that providing a lot of lines for bikes. And this is actually really cool. Even in New Zealand that is really cold or then the people are actually biking versus snow and no one cares. So you drive your biking all the way to the store to the childcare. Most of the people don't have a car because they can afford it. And the most important part is parking and that's what we do have right now, they can afford it. And the most important part is parking. And that's what we do have right now, right? The parking. So if we will have this line, so biking lines, we probably can decrease the number of cars. But again, that depends how many funds do we have. It's easy to me for say,'s do let's build the roads but realistically. Thank you. What do you think are the biggest challenges in our community and how should we prioritize addressing them in terms of public works and transportation committee. I believe that the community is probably everywhere, but the NISP is particularly. Some people, and it's spoken, they're not coming to meetings. They do not know what is actually challenging. And everyone is kind of complaining, but because we're not, they're not publicly presented, we can't hear their opinion in the city's different. That's why we can hear the most vocal part of the city, but we can't hear the most silent part. And because the community is diverse, it's probably in a different part of the city's different loudness, I would say. That's why I started that I want to hear people I want to ask questions. I do have a question. It's selected to be in the public works transportation. How do you envision the outreach like you're saying to have more people, more residents attend these meetings? How would you go about doing that community outreach? First of all, I believe in mailing lists a lot and in social media. For example, we do not have, I mean we do have subreddit, but it's dead. No one is there. And on a Facebook page, thank you, console income, thank you, Mark. In one Facebook group we have 1,000 people, and another one probably about the same number. So people just don't know the meetings exist, because no one is going and check our website. It's much more easy to say my neighbor, like, you know, there is is a the group you can join so mailing list probably gonna help and social media definitely gonna help thank you thank you James can we move on to the next yes and so thank you. Just in the interest of time, we will be limiting each comment to two minutes. So about next applicant, Ms. Maria Bates. She's not here. We can go on to the next applicant. Isabel Lopez is smell. Good evening, Mayor Baraghan and members of the City Council. My name is Isabelle Lopez-Ismail. As an East Pole, I'll tell resident of nine years. In that short amount of time, I've been able to watch this city grow and develop. And I'm eager to contribute to that process now through service on the Public Works and Transportation Commission. During my time as an EPA resident, I have commuted both by car and by public transportation. So recently in my commute by car, I've noticed the impact that public works can have in my own neighborhood of university village. And I can already see the contribution through the addition of the temporary mini roundabout that it's had on safety and orderly transit and my daily walks. I feel safer walking through that intersection. I think it's safer for the children as they're walking to Castan, you elementary. And it's just a more orderly and smooth experience in car now. So, whereas when I first moved to the city in 2015, I did not yet own a car and I relied on buses to get to work. And during that time, I came to appreciate the importance of a safe and reliable public transportation system. You know, I recently noticed that there's been shielding added to the SAM trans bus stops. And I think that's a fantastic example of what we should be doing just to make commuting and quality of life better for all residents including those who need to rely on public transportation. In my work I have experience in policy analysis, in stakeholder engagement and communications. I am a senior research program manager at Stanford University and there I manage policy-focused research initiatives and communicate diverse findings to different audiences. I've also had the opportunity to contribute to a report commissioned by the state of Alabama. And in the chapter that I co-authored, we advised on how to develop the state economy through investment in outdoor recreation infrastructure. And I believe that this background will help me look into the opportunities that East Paul Doe has for public works and analyze our transportation challenges. On a personal level, I'm just very excited about the prospect of serving my community through service on this commission. My husband and I just bought our first home here in East Palo Alto. And I want to play a role in advising the City Council and to help our developer infrastructure infrastructure that will serve my family and others in the years to come. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't know if anyone has a question for Mrs. Isabel. Yeah, my, you know, my safe question I asked. So, and again, you know, to me, this is such a big area, such need. The city has made a lot of progress and there's still a long ways to go, primarily because of funds and all of that. But nevertheless, what do you see as some things that could be potentially done to improve in the area of transit? February was in transportation that are doable or have the potential to be accomplished without you know waiting a long long time. Thank you. So I think just continuing to invest in projects that make daily life easier for residents, you know, the bridge that's going to be a pedestrian walkway over 101 to make it easier for EPA residents to can you to Palo Alto and the rest of the peninsula. Making streets more walkable and keeping walking and kind of within East Palo Alto transportation and mine as we develop the Ravenswood Business District Plan. So both focusing on making commuting viable for all residents and making things more walkable for recreation purposes for residents as well. Yeah, I ask the same question that I asked Mariana, which is, are there ideas for public works that you've seen around the country, around the world, in your travels that you think that we could implement here in East Palo Alto, just things that would make sense, that you just, you know, ideas. Right. So in my work on the report in Alabama, one of the things that we saw a lot of cities develop was extending trails so that a large portion of the city was walkable. It's not necessarily something that someone would use in a commute, though it could be useful for neighborhood to neighborhood. And that also for like recreation and neighborly walks and socializing. And it could also play a role in beautifying the city as well. Thank you. We have any more questions for Isabel? I kind of had a little bit of a I wanted to touch a little bit in terms of the parks and recreation. I know that we don't currently have a department. But I know that, you know, the public works and transportation department touches a little bit in terms of helping maintain the parks, the parks in our city. So we had today, I'm sure you were here when you heard Mr. Orasio talk about the great need. If elected to be part of the commission, how would you put into use your expertise that you just shared about the research and the co-authoring of that chapter that you did in terms of recreation? How would you help maintain the park? So that actually, you know, he was saying, you have 300 families right now and their kids are just sitting at home right now when they could be out there practicing or doing something else. So how would you use your expertise and making that better? Right. So I think first just starts with like research and community engagement, talking to people in the neighborhood, people who may walk through those areas on the way to work. And then kind of on the more practical side, I do think a parks and recreation department is very important. I mean, we can always start small with the funds that we have. But there's so much opportunity. I know in the Ravenswood Business District Plan, there's, I saw some discussion of developing empty land next to Costano Elementary into pocket parks. And right now those areas are just kind of littered, and there's vans parked next to them. They're not really inviting for children to come and play in after school or maybe like have parents wait there to pick them up. So I think, you know, starting small in realistic steps, talking to the community and then keeping in mind the vision for how these can really serve as more than just a park, but as like a meeting space and a space for socialization and community building. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. I think council. I have one question. Lincoln had a question, sorry about that. Yeah, so what do you thoughts on parking and these call? So. So you know, parking is a big issue in Silicon Valley. We add jobs and we don't add the level of housing and associated parking that we need to go along with it. So this is something we're we've seen kind of get worse over time and it's going to get that way unless we kind of take some appropriate steps to manage that situation. So, you know, I'm in favor of the parking program, the permit parking programs that have been discussed. I mean, you know, definitely there's lots of room for community engagement and feedback, but I think we definitely need to start taking some steps in that direction. Thank you, Isabelle. Thank you. Thank you. Next applicant, Juan Rios. Juan Rios. If you're on Zoom, if you can please raise your hand. Juan Rios. Next applicant, Nuku. If you're on zoom, if you can please raise your hand for Nuku. Seeing no response, in that case, if the council wishes to vote, we can just vote with a roll call vote because there are currently four seats open and there are only, what was the two applicants that are present. Could I just make a motion that we approve of the two? I second. Really? Okay. I think do we need to do roll call for that? Okay. All in favor? Please say aye. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So congratulations. And. Um. Um. I'm going to do this. So she was the ultimate answer. John, all Larry would get the other. Mr Lee, what would you suggest in this case? Could you clarify what the issue is? I'm not sure. What is the issue? What is the question? So the currently Miss Tonga Victoria is asking if she can withdraw from her seat as an alternate member of the EPA SD Advisory Board, sorry committee, to be on the Public Works and Transportation Commission. And so I believe there was a tie between Ms. Tonga Victoria and Larry Moody. And so my suggestion would be to maybe vote on Larry Moody becoming the alternate and talk of Victoria becoming the third member of the Public Works and Transportation Commission. I'm not sure if- With the additional information that we are looking to fill for PWTC positions and we've only filled two thus far. Just the one question I was just discussing with the president of the sanitary district is that we would have to reconvene into the sanitary district to vote for I think for Mr. Moody. I'd be more than willing to make a motion as, you know, stipulated here, but I don't know if we can do it. I think we may have to reconvene as the sanitary district, right? To a point. You do because that's the appointment. Yeah. I think I mean, I think we get that done in like five minutes. The other question I had is that there are applicants for the, like Nathan is in still in the house and if there was interest in serving on the public works because we need people, would that be even legal or we have to fill in an application for that like right here to get appointed. He may not be interested because his wife is the vice chair of public works but I'm just throwing it out there because we could be date night going to public works. I have a question. Is it a requirement that people have to show up to vote on them because we do have six people here on this list? We did not include that as a requirement and so so if they are on if they provided an application, we can consider them. I mean, we have people present, you know, that didn't applications. So through the chair, I think in all fairness, although there are obviously we had a lot of good applicants for both. But and then there is this very specific request which it sounds like maybe could be taken up. On the other hand, I feel like in all fairness to everyone in the community, if we want to feel more of the public works and transportation commission, then we should open it up so that people know and those who had applied for it for the other one if they're interested they can apply. I mean, I don't, I think process wise is important to open it up for the public. Otherwise, it does look a little like, you know, we're just like, whoever shows up. And it doesn't mean that people are not qualified or they're not interested, but I'm concerned about the public process that is not seen as kind of, you know, just as here deciding. We'll give people an opportunity and if they're interested, fine, and if they're not, and fine. So that's my opinion on completely opening it up to appoint people. However, there was a specific request, which I understand I think if it could be handled tonight. But not the other ones. I'm not in support of that part. I just want to state my opinion. That makes sense. Yeah, I agree with Rupert and Abrika. I think we should be, we should do it properly and open it up and allow people to apply and consider them maybe in another meeting. I think that's the proper way to do it instead of doing something informally or just because someone's here, you know, so we should give everyone a fair opportunity who may have applied for the sanitary district, maybe they can get an opportunity to serve on this commission. So then what would be the directive then in terms of since Tonga Victoria did apply for both? be the directive then in terms of since Tonga Victoria did apply for both. Did. So what should we do in this case? You all may decide whether or not you will appoint her to the PWTC, at which case if appointed she would have to resign from the EPSD alternate position. And then you'd have to make a new appointment to that body at a future date. Yeah, I mean, I I think that's if we do that, that is honoring the process. I mean, because her name was on here, okay. So I'd be fine with that. Right, one person, correct, yeah, that makes sense. So, Tonga, would you like to come up and enter? Yeah, I was interviewed you one more time. Sorry about that, by the way. So yeah, I was sitting there and I was just, it was like the spirit was like you better get up there and state your cases to why this is something that you have passion for. So I didn't know that the Parks was a part of the Public Works Commission. I walk every day around the neighborhood. I lived my life on the west side of EPA on Okie Street. So I know that parking is a disaster. I live now in Bay and Clark and the light eat on the streets is could be better. I don't take my children to the parks in East Palo Alto. Two years ago, there was a shooting drive by. It makes me cry, because those were my nieces that were screaming on that video. The homeless encampments at Bell Street Park, I know that we cleared those up, but there's so much work to be done on our parks specifically, which I'm very, very passionate about, being a mother. The bridgeway from West Park to East Palo, they need cameras. We have our youth that get jumped when they walk from school back home to the West Side. And so many of them don't go to school. That impacts our truancy rates. And so all of these don't go to school. That impacts our truancy rates. And so all of these factors, I think is kind of what caused me to want to withdraw my name from the sanitary district. And kind of hearing from what Pastor Virgis said, is that the Public Works Commission is in good hands. And I know that I can learn a lot from them, special shout out to Oheela, who I told me to put in my application for both and so I would love to serve on that commission to learn and to contribute where where I can. Do you have any questions from any council members at this time? I'll move her appointment to the public works and planning commission. Tongue of Victoria's appointment to the public works and transportation commission. Second. Okay. All in favor of her being appointed to the Public Works and Transportation Commission. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So just a point of clarification if Miss Victoria can provide a sustainment on the record that she would like to resign from the EPA SD Advisory Committee just to formalize our appointment. I formally resign from the sanitary district as alternate. Thank you. Thank you. We're sad to see you go from the sanitary district, but congratulations on your appointment to the public works and transportation commission. Okay. Do we have any public comments at this time? Not at this time. I think there's one. Oh, do you have a public comment on this? Okay. Can you turn on your microphone? Sorry. Until waiting to the next time, why can't I feel one of those seats? Because I thought I had to wait. Cause I'm an alternate. Sometimes I don't get to vote. Ms. Wilkerson, Ms. Dixon. Wilkerson Dixon. Pick your choice. Citizen number one. That's right. Did you apply for the PWTC a regular seat this time? For this time? Yes. No, because my commission is up in May. And then Mr. Kyle, Chris told me, why don't I ask that I didn't even think about it. So the council just decided that if they would allow tongue to be appointed because she applied to both during a cycle. But I didn't apply. You did not. So therefore I have to wait and. We'll ask you to wait until we do a. When's the next time? I would say in the next month or so month. Yeah, it's seeing how many applications we receive. Okay, we'll be in deep taxes. I don't know, I might not come in. Here you call. and D taxes. I don't know, I might not comment. Give me a call. Thank you. We actually did receive one more speaker slip from Mr. Christopher Cal. Good evening mayor and council members and staff. I am Christopher Cal. I'm the chair of the Public Works and Transportation Commission. We urgently do need to fill another spot on our commission. In our last meeting, we barely made Quorum since we only had five out of seven spots for the last few months. So I just wanted to make a case for trying to fill its spot sooner rather than later. With regards to the, I remember Councillor M. Brilinkin had mentioned that there were other applicants tonight who just couldn't make it. And I'm not familiar with the application form, but if applicants were asked to answer questions, could a decision be made based on their responses? That's all I had to say, thank you. You know, I just want to say that I do think that both council member Lincoln, as well as council member, I would be go Wright, we should really be trying to respect the process. And so this is somewhat at hawks. So I would, you know, we should just go ahead and do it later. I would like to, sorry, to interrupt. I'd like to add that sometimes applicants don't show up because they don't want to serve on the board. And so we're a commission. against don't show up because they don't want to serve on the board. And so or commission and so that can be a possibility. And if we appoint them, it would be more beneficial if they can accept it at this point. So if they were on Zoom, it would be a little easier if they provided a statement like Mr. Rove Neal, you know, that might be an option, but otherwise, yeah, I agree. Thank you. So with that, I think we're going to go ahead and move on to our next policy and action item which is 12.1 or 12.2 sorry project we hope proposed use of 1798 Bay Road for a functional zero effort I don't know who would be doing the presentation at this time. Good evening Mayor Bar. That would be, yeah. But I will start with my presentation and then I'll give it to Pastor Baines to present on behalf of projects we hope if I can figure out how to enter a slideshow. I do not do this. Not a practice. You do not a sheriff. Good slide show. Hi, Richard. Hi, good evening. Where is that right there? Voice from God. Thank you. I'm trying to help. I don't know how to see it. It's like right here. Sherry Hill. I know you're welcome from the beginning. Oh yeah, let's go. Here we go. here we go. Good job. You're needing technical help, you know. I apologize for my technical incompetency. Mayor, vice mayor, members of the council wanted to kick off this presentation just by sharing a little bit of context. Back in November of 2024, Pastor Baines on behalf of Project We Hope, approached the city and certain city council members to discuss this effort to accomplish functional Z-Roll by establishing a transitional non-conquist shelter at 1798 Bay Road, commonly referred to as Tanklitch site by the city and the city property The facility would be used to provide temporary housing in a form of 12 modular units with a total of 48 beds and turned it to offer safe stable accommodations for homeless individuals as they transition to permanent housing solutions. Each resident will receive personalized case management, supports facilitate their progress toward long-term housing stability. And for today, this isn't staff has not made a recommendation. I wanted to provide an overview of what the effort would be as well as to identify some of the questions that staff would have were the city to enter an agreement with projects we hope allowing them to use the tanklage site. So today is just a request for direction. Related to the program structure, Pastor Baines, I don't want to steal your shine, but you told me that people would stay for four to six months in the transitional homes. They'd be required to adhere to program rules and sign a waiver of tenancy. I mean, if they don't have tenancy rights, if they stay there. And they'd also be participating in the county's homeless management information system. Related to land use zoning, the city has zoned the area of the Tankledge site as Bay Road Central. It's designed for mixed use. A shelter doesn't necessarily fit within that vision. However, it is allowed because it's a shelter and state laws allowed. Timeline, the city currently has allowed block construction to lease the tankage property for parking as they build the Calibri Commons for housing complex. And they should be done with that construction by August of this year. So projects we hope could potentially have control of the site from August of this year through February of 2020 2030. This council has discussed the potential of the East Palo Alto Police Department and locating at the Tankledge site. The current lease of 141 Dmitro Street, the police department currently occupies, goes through October of 2029. However, the city has two one year extension options that could take that, at least to 2031, with the caveat being that the current building isn't the greatest, and we do need to find better accommodations for our sworn person, our police personnel. If this site is to be used as a, for the transitional housing and the modular units, we would need to have grading done at it and they didn't have foundation for the structures, as well as potential utility work, depending on how products we hope decides to serve the homes with utilities, particularly wastewater and for showering and things of that matter. So they have two options to do that. They could continue to use their dignity on will setup where they have essentially mobile showers and toilets. Or the other option is to do full utility installation where they'd have to be connected to sewer and other utilities. We don't currently know the cost of that. Parking and access, if they have 48 beds, they would need 10 to 12 parking spaces, five for residents, three to five for staff, and potentially additional space for dignity on wheels. The construction costs are currently estimated at about 2.4 million two 2.0 four million dollars 1.44 million four modular units 30 thousand dollars of bed and $600,000 for site improvements. The annual operating costs are estimated at $2.1 million. When projects we hope and I discussed last time, the current status is they have not raised funds specifically for this effort. However, they have a few potential funding sources. Those do include the City of East Palo Alto, San Mateo County, private donors, as well as philanthropic foundations. At the point in time when this program would close, the real programs goal is to find long-term housing for each of the participants. And if at the time that this closes, they are unable to find long-term housing for each participant, they would work with other San Mateo County shelters to relocate program participants. Potential options include working with other faith-based organizations, looking at county-owned lands or projects we hope leasing other land in different places. To conclude, ultimately just asking for council direction on four things. One, is asking you to confirm that products we hope could potentially use the tanklage site from August of 2025 through February of 2030. To utility set up pretty provide. Well, please provide any direction you have on preferences or concerns related to potential utility setup. Again, we're just at the exploratory point now. But if this council has an opinion on whether or not that site be set up to be connected to sores and other things, this is a good time to inform staff of that. And three, funding support. Discuss any potential role the city could have and helping to support this project. And finally, if you have any input about the potential closure and relocation in 2030. Next steps is that we will address any feedback that the council provides today. And refine an agreement with projects we hope to bring back to this council for consideration. And then we'll collaborate with project We Hope on any funding and preparation. That concludes my presentation, and I would like Pastor Baines to elaborate on anything that he'd like. I need to do it. Okay. It's been a minute since I've actually come to the City Council meetings. I need to do it. Okay. It's been a minute since I've actually come to the City Council meetings. When I used to come the whole bench is we had chairs all the way back to the wall and we'd be here to one and two o'clock in the morning sometimes. But thank God it's shortened up. Thank God for a great professional staff as well. Thank you Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council. First and foremost, for those who do know me, or don't know me, I would say you know we have a history. My family has been in this community since 1962 and have a history of being more solution driven than problem-consumed. That's who we are about. We hope stands for we help other people excel. Samatel County has a vision of functional zero. Much like what we did in 2023 where we had zero homicides in the city where they said it couldn't be done. The city did that. In the faith community partnered with law enforcement and led that charge. There's been a history of our productivity and impact by starting cease fire that we co-authored and led, co-led that with at that time Chief Ron Davis. There's Measure C, which we got on the ballot where we ran around and then also lobbied our community to support Measure C. There's the RV Safe Parking Program. There's a night piece that we partnered with San Hill Christian Foundation in the faith community. There's all these track records of positive impact. And we see that this is another opportunity for the City of East Pellow Alto, along with various other strategic partners to make another positive impact and be the first city in San Mateo County, possibly even the Bay Area, to implement the program called Functional Zero that was not created by us, but was created by community solutions that won the MacArthur Award and has been implemented across the country in various ways. We feel we can implement that here in the city of East Palo Alto. Now much of our programs that we have implemented in our initiative that we have started, we have very little taxed the city of East Palo Alto. We've gotten outside resources through our 170 employees, most of them which are employed from East Palo Alto to the jobs program, to the rehabilitation program, to the cooking programs that we have started, we have employed because we are our second chance employer. Here is another opportunity for us to partner with you all. The point in time count says that it's 169 individuals that in 2022 have dropped down to about 90 but we still feel it's more like 180. My supervisor of the East Palo Alto site said that we housed 31 individuals over the last six months. While we may be asking for four years, we feel that we can do this in less than four years if we continue on with that same track record of getting people permanently housed and not temporarily housed. And so we're here tonight to ask you to support this type of program so that we can help our unhoused brothers and sisters. I know your councilman, Dana and Lincoln, you weren't here where your predecessors supported this. And so we're looking to you to see if you will give us that same support. I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Well, I'll start through the chair. You know, thank you for the context you created and the presentation of, I think, another good opportunity to do good in the community. So, do you know that the city and you, other people, your organizations, we go back a long ways. And I just had to share a little because I remember, I don't know if it was 15 years ago or been a while that the city was able to provide a small grant, just a very small grant, just so that you could fix up a little bit of the building so that people who were outside in the cold could have a place to be. So, definitely a lot of things have happened and stuff. But I did want to ask you just to paint a little bit of what you see as a potential timeline more in the short term. Just sort of what we are here now January and kind of what you see this year or this next few months. The concept things that you know you've been working on and I know our city manager already shared some of the. Issues will have to address but just kind of get an overview how you see it potentially developing? Well, we don't want to launch this program unless we can actually get the other partners to the table. But it first starts with our city. If our city says yes, we're willing to allow we hope to use the Tanklitch site, then we would go right back to those same partners that supported us in helping us purchase a $4.5 million building within the four month period. And so when we look at timelines, we're looking at the possibility of actually implementing our starting this process, it would take about six months after we received permits and got through that whole process through planning and through the building departments. Then we would look at recruiting and using our case managers. One of our lead case managers is right here who has been doing a fantastic job, and that is another than Brother Clyde Virges who leads our outreach case management efforts. We would then implement that our outreach case managers to go out and completely assess if there's been an increase in homelessness because I've seen a lot more campers and RVs and people sleeping in cars again as well as in certain areas of our city. We would assess that, come back and then look at, okay, if we're looking at 160 people, what do we feel that we can do to impact those 160 people? Now, the old saying of you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. That's true with our unhoused brothers and sisters. There are situations where they may refuse service. And that's just a reality of the world that we live in. But we have overwhelmingly a successful track record, even against much larger organizations in our peers peers in all five counties, excuse me, in three of the five counties that we work in. We have a proven track record of successfully getting people permanently housed in San Francisco County, Santa Clara County, and San Michele County. That timeline would be over, I think, about a two and a half not more than three year period but we like the contingency plan and so we asked for the fourth year just in case there's still some straitlers out there that we need to reach but in all truth because we just bought the front building we could use some of those beds for that fourth year. The other part I want to add is because I did co-found the police chaplaincy here over 20 years ago that I am, I have a batch, I have a uniform, I serve our law enforcement party, I would never, ever want to stop a police department from getting built on the site. So if we needed to shorten our lease on the police department, we would have no issue with doing that. Because I support law enforcement and have been doing it for 20 plus years, as many of you know. Does that respond? Yeah, thank you. Other questions that you may have of me? Yeah, I have a few questions. What alternative sites have you looked at other than the tank glitch that I have a lot of concerns about a. You know, if it's taking six months for foundation work, it's going to take time for utility hookups, a lot of planning and preparation. I frankly don't believe that when four years are done that we're going to be able to snap our fingers and remove a big, you know, was it 12 units? Yes. 12 modules. 12 modules. That we're going to be able to say, yeah, we can just snap our fingers and do this. I also have concerns that I think this is the only empty lot that the city owns or one of them. And that if we want to do this, let's do it right and let's find a site where you can build it and keep it there. So have you looked at alternative sites like church parking lots, which there are ample numbers in the city or alternative empty lots in the city where we could invest maybe the city puts a lot of money into this, but it's not going to be taken down in four years. successful of saying what I do things I get them done and I get them done in the timeline that I get them done. I don't know why you wouldn't think we would not be able to take down temporary structures in a short period of time. I'm not quite understanding where you coming from with that. If you're doing six months of foundation work preparation work utility hookup and then effectively you're having to take them down and it's gonna cost a lot of money and time to do that. It just seems to me that often what happens is you know possession is you know, nine tons of the laws they say and it's gonna be an established fact and the city has multiple competing needs and the Tankledge slide is slated for a police department. I don't know how you do foundation work and planning work and engineering work on a new police department when building one there is a homeless shelter there. I mean, it just seems very difficult for me to imagine. I mean, I'm not opposing the idea of a homeless shelter in East Pal Altum, what I'm saying is that we should probably find a better location for it, one that is more sustainable where you can build it and keep it up, because it seems like this is a pretty substantial investment. If you're gonna put a foundation down, or do utility hookups, you're gonna do all that. That takes time and money, and why not just do it once and keep it in place? Well, I am an in agreement with you of having a permanent location that is for sure and You Most of you may not know this because we have a donor that was going to give us $10 million to actually build a Affordable housing on that very site, but because we want to put it as the police department We said that site's not available When it comes to the, this is a temporary thing. And so the utilities that we're talking about doing is less than $600,000. If we went with that utilities option, the other option is that we use our Dignity Own Wills vehicles which we have used. We are the largest most comprehensive mobile hygiene provider in the country born here out of these Palo Alto. And so we can use that as a temporary part of the process. So we have our project manager, our construction manager is here who's already looked at the cost at this. We've had other people look at the site. So when I'm doing things, I'm not just throwing things up on the wall to see what they stick. We actually believe that we can accomplish what we said we can accomplish in the time frame. We said we can do it. Other locations like churches, they would not be able to hold the amount of structures that we're talking about. And it would actually be cost prohibitive where we would have to replicate that at each of those sites as opposed to just doing a temporary structure, temporary utilities are using dignity to own wheels at one particular site. This is the site that we were actually, were commended by the county and many others for developing the RV safe parking program, the first of its kind in the Bay Area, which we shared our best practices with other cities. And the City of East Palatose shined very greatly with that particular program. We feel that we can do the same thing with this temporary shelter. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I have been on council when you actually came and let us know about your program for the RVs. And I just wanted to reassure that, yes, in fact, past remains have been pretty good about what he proposes and the timing of the projects. And I feel that he has had that track record from what I've seen in the sharp period amount of time and I've been on this council. I think that we have established a good record as a city as well. So thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. change and want permanent housing, but I think that we have established a good record as a city as well. So thank you for your hard work. Madam Mayor, we all own the housing problem and we all own the unhoused problem. And we have a duty to act, I believe, and a duty to act expeditiously. You know, when it came to the Safe Parking Program and to dismantling that, that was done again in an efficient way, these buildings are not going to be on what are considered full foundations, right? These are temporary buildings, so it's not as if you're going into the ground doing slab-on-grade or stem wall foundations, right? It is different and you'll probably be doing this in a more temporary fashion. So I think this is doable within the time frame and we can obviously have a construction manager talk about it. I certainly have worked on some projects like this over my lifetime. But if you want to answer, you're already up. If you want to answer this question, it's fine. Have a funding and then a couple of other comments. But yeah, I'm sorry. We're good. My name's Don Lamp. I'm the construction manager for United Hope Builders and we hope we can have the site taken down in two weeks. So I can have a crane come in. The buildings would be removed in two days, foundations taken out, which are temporary foundations. I've already talked to the planning department in the city and the inspectors. All they care about is lateral strapping for the buildings for the earthquake. And so, yeah, they would be temporary foundations and easily removable. All right. Thank you. In terms of the configuration, we may have a couple. These are smaller units. Matter of fact, these remind me of the monsanita. It's Stanford for a long time. They said they were only going to have temporary, I think it was going to be a five six year student housing thing and we had these trailers that were there for about 30 years actually yeah eventually knocked them down and they built housing actually but they built a graduate school of business so that did that place um but I you know I remember the rooms well right they're not particularly large but I mean they're large enough for your student, whatever to have, you know, your bed, a desk, what have you. But I am a little concerned, we're talking about 48 units. Are they all basically units that would just be for a single individual because we, you know, have folks, we have some of the folks who are living in the creek, right, who are a couple, right? So how would we address that issue? Out there. Yeah, this is not a congregant shelter environment. These are 320 square foot modules, and each module then is divided by four. So you have a single room. So there is privacy there for the individuals. What was the other part of your question there? Or was there a thing? I think that was it. It's just so. So again, it's not and the report said that it's not congruent. It's not congruent. No, no, no. So this is addressing a piece of our homeless issue, but it's also, I believe and correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, one of the things that I'm attracted, makes me attracted to this is that when you provided your statistics, statistics around the first program, the Safe Parking Program, you were able to house a significant number of those folks who actually were living in substandard RVs in other places. And so my assumption is that you're going to try to replicate that model here. So people are there for four to six months because they're stabilizing their living situation correct. And then you want to place them. Is that can you confirm? That is correct. You know, we need to do another assessment, though, because as the young folks say, I like to keep in 100. And we wanna make sure that the target that we are trying to hit is accurate and that we have the necessary resources and tactical approach so that we have end up with the positive outcome that we all desire. And that is to help our unhoused brothers and sisters not die on the street like if they have been doing in all the counties in the Bay Area, but particularly not die in our community and help them with getting on a path to self-sufficiency through the case managers that we have successfully utilized and strategies that we've implemented that we've even shared with other shelters. And so that's our model. Our model is to get help people, our mission and vision is what the help people will become healthy, employed, and housed. And that's by using innovative solutions. And as it relates to funding, I know that my colleague, the county manager, has talked about, you know, function zero a lot. I know that there was some interest in potentially doing something here in these Palo Alto. So what sources, I mean, assuming that we would have to potentially find some money ourselves, and obviously we're gonna have to look at that over the next six months we decide to do this. But what sources outside of the city are you at this point. Thinking you could you could avail yourself up and and tell me where do you be at this point, 60, 70 percent. Like, wanting to do something like this? I know it's, unless you have a contract, you can't say, but can you at least share that with us? Well, when you give out percentages, there has to be a baseline to do that. I can say this that the county says that they believe that this is a good project and that they would get behind it and support it because it is the vision for the whole county. So I'm a tell to implement functional zero across the county. There are donors and foundations that we have just did a little bit of socialization about this because we can't move too far out in front until we get a commitment from our city. Once we have the commitment, then we can leverage off of that and then look at other resources. But I will say this that my callically, Ilyon and Rodriguez, they believe in Function Zero and they will support this. To what extent I cannot tell you what that dollar amount is, I can tell you what they've committed to other things, but not for this particular project until we get a little bit further down the road. And I think for me that's, I'm very supportive of this, but I certainly want to understand the financial impacts both to the city I want to understand, the operating costs, which you somewhat described here, but also the capital costs and where those might be coming from. Since I'm not sure the city can contribute on both sides, you know, we'll have to see what we can contribute, but certainly if I would love to be able to to spin this out some more with the help of the city and you all if I mean if we get that that direction then you know the last thing I know you have an East Bay Shore permanent housing program here and you can do that in my backyard by the way and without prejudicing myself I am actually very glad to see that your it's density in my neighborhood and I can't tell you I'm gonna very glad to see that your, it's density in my neighborhood. And I can't tell you I'm going to prove it or not, but it's an interesting project. And I believe all of our communities, all of our neighborhoods, have to take additional density, have to take that affordability. In this case, we're talking about, you know, the transitional housing that you're doing. So yes, I certainly welcome your vision. And I think this is what you're proposing here is part of the kind of process and program we need to put together, not just in these Palo Alto, but all across the state that really deals with folks who are far less fortunate than us who've been lucky enough have to be homeowners. So thank you. Thank you. I have an additional question to the construction manager. Could you describe the process of getting this built? How long is it going to take to build the modules? Where are they going to be built? What does the site prep look like? You mentioned foundation work, utility work. Could you describe what that's going to be and how much it's going to cost? Okay. I'm good for modules. In regards to the modules, many of you know that the county has already committed a million dollars to go towards building a steel modular housing factory through United Hope builders, which is our sister organization. Our goal was to be building it on 2020 Bay Road, but that didn't happen. But since then, another, and I can't say who they are because I signed the NDA, another opportunity has presented itself for us to revisit and build that steel modular housing factory here in East Palo Alto Which will create at least another 60 to 100 jobs where we can continue to hire our formerly incarcerated in our Formally unhoused brothers and sisters to answer your question specifically It will take roughly about 13 question specifically, it will take roughly about 13, about six months to have everything from conception, from the design concept, all the way to implementation of these units. Is that answering your question? No, could you go into more detail? Water sewer, electrical hookups. How much does each unit cost? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. the time costs, these units would then be able to be repurposed somewhere either within the city if there is an opportunity to present itself or outside of the city. So that's the cost per door for the still module use. So these are 12 units with four each and it's about $120,000 per like modular house, basically. Correct. Okay, that seems very low. So as far as site work goes, it would be minimal. There's already, all utilities are already on site. In fact, we have two, the people that are gonna produce our modules, we already have two of their homes on that side, the block construction is utilizing as office space right now. So utilities are already inside. Fire department equipment is already on site. So we're talking about temporary foundations and a little bit some grading and a little bit of trenching to move some, you know, we want to do solar and with a generator backup. We need to have electricity on site for certain things, but we're talking about very minimal site work. And you said that you could break this down in two weeks and the site would be ready for whatever comes next and was it. I can have the modules removed in two days and I can have foundations gone in two weeks and everything re-graded and ready for construction for a police department. Okay, this is probably not a question for you. Be more for city staff and planning, but how would having27 or you know get money to get plans and all that I mean how would this impact the ability to build a police department there? Good question. We don't have a plan To build a police department there currently. It's it's a site that is a potential place. In 2023, we were going to relocate the police department there and we looked at various different options for the existing tank for site and the city council decided to renew the lease at 141.1 meter one day found out that that was a possibility. Bullly acknowledging that 141.1 meter and a portable is that the police department is currently operating out is not a long-term solution. We're still searching for long-term solutions for the police department and Tankledge is the only site that we own so that it's still today the most likely site but we're still searching for alternative sites for a police department. Our lease at 141 to meter goes through October of 2029. And the next, I mean, my eyes are looking every day for other options, but if at the point in time that we would say tanklage is where we're going to move, we'd probably have that conversation in 2028, at which point we'd have had a quick time to let projects we hope know that, hey, we won't want this extended and you'd have to break down. So if you're asking how much time it would take for us to construct a police department, the most likely outcome would be that we would decide in 2028 that we want to move to Tankledge and then we'd probably extend the police department's existing lease for another year to allow us adequate time to construct the police department. And to add to your comment, Council and Dean, there are a few people that we've talked to that said that they would support helping to build a new city hall and even a police department, but obviously there's always strings attached, right? So that's something that is still a possibility, but that because I'm all for law enforcement. I'm all for having a new police department because we are currently in a dump shack over there at 141 Dmitre. It's deplorable. So we're pro new building. I had a quick question and I might have been answered already. So would you be leasing the land from the city or would you be borrowing it? Well, we would we would like to resume what we did before when we did the RV safe parking program. That's a good question. And just recreate the lease agreements that the city staff has put together in that you, the city council, obviously would have to approve. We are going to leverage all of our relationships to help bring this project into fruition. So it taxes the city of East Palo Alto, the lease. I know the condition of our city. I know our financial challenges. And so we have always been that type of partner to leverage off those who really want to do good work in a great community such as our East Palo Alto. One of the other questions I have is who would be using this? Like I know that the homeless problem is regional. It's not San Mateo County, it's Santa Cruz County. It's you know, I was talking to one guy who had been living in Santa Cruz until a few days before and he was just on the trail and we were chatting as they just came up here. It's a regional problem at Santa Clara County. Do you keep track of like where people are coming from? Are they referred by Santa Clara County or other cities like Redwood City? I imagine if you take money from the county, you are obligated to take anybody that they're recommending or sending our way. So are we getting people from Redwood City, San Mateo, other mental park, other places? Or... Yeah, the short answer is yes, there will be people coming, other people coming from outside of a city. Because the reality is it's paid a play. And if the county is giving us, let's say for instance, they gave us 50% of the money. Well, everyone, whether you're in this city or the city in Palo Alto and the different county, everyone goes through what they call the HMI S system, homeless management information system. And then they all are then going to, what's the, see yes coordinated entry system. That's what every county that receives federal funding in the United States. They have implemented that about nine, maybe ten years ago. And so everyone would be tracked that way and you would see what their origin really was. In order to be a resident of East Palo Alto, you would have to have been here. And this is any city for a minimum of 31 days, correct? 31 days. And so, you know, we know who our East Palo Alto folks are. We grew up with them. We know them quite well. And some of them are returning out of the system. And then others, we know have had challenges with mental health. And unfortunately, illegal use of narcotics and things in nature. But most of them are not on that. Most of them are people like you and me that have been displaced, that have been forced out. They're families that we all live with and know in our community, and they're living in their cars, and they're living in our RVs. And it's deplorable for the whole North Cal to be that way. In Silicon Valley, as we are, you know are the technological capital of the world, supposedly. And yet we have these pockets of poverty. So hopefully that answers your question. So people are coming from the region. I mean, I guess my concern is on one hand, you, I think we have a moral obligation to provide housing and shelter for people who need it. On the other hand, I don't want East Pell Alta to be the dumping ground for other regional cities where they say, well, East Pell Alta is the only one with moral fiber to handle this. So we're going to us, Redwood City, us, Menlo Park, we're going to send everybody over to East Pell Alta, because they're the only ones who care. So I think we have to be careful that way. I mean, long term, I'd like to look at things like SRRO housing. I lived in a YMCA for a year when I was in college and there were 40 units per floor and shared bathrooms and things like that. And it was just naturally affordable housing that you could get a lot of people housed. I'm kind of what you're describing but go up 14 floors and put a basement pool and a YMCA and then a bunch of housing, no parking requirements, parking minimums or anything like that. But obviously we're talking about something different. I would say that overall, I support this project but I just have real concerns about the location. And I have real concerns that were, once it's established like, well, this is a site for low-income housing. So we're not going to build a police station or some other use. The city is competing needs. I mean, we're not just a housing provider. We're also a city that has a police department. And hopefully, somebody will have a parks and wrecked departments and all these other things. But I guess my ask would be like I think we should really look for an alternative site. So if we set this thing up, there's not going to be any time pressure or you know the something happens with the hey, we got to do structural work on the police side. We got to kick you out two years early because it's going to take a while and whatever. And I do think looking for another site would be a really good move. So before we do anything, especially if it's going to take six months, at least take a couple months to look around and see if there would be an alternative site that something like this could keep going for 10 years if it needed to because I mean, it's a big investment to put down 12 little houses with utility hookups and electrical and plumbing and all that and so I think it would be a very You know important for us to look at alternative sites and You did to council member Rameros Point I think overall the city of youth politics look at densifying all neighborhoods and rezoning to allow for high density housing everywhere we just can't cram it and certain little, you know, places in your freeways it should be in every neighborhood. And that's how we're going to lower the price of housing overall. And it's also how we're going to address things like homelessness. But I mean, I think I've expressed my concerns. I mean, I do have, I don't know if it's magical thinking that you can get 48 beds for 1.44 million is the report. I mean, God bless if you can do it, but that seems like a really low number from, I mean, I'm not a housing expert or anything, but to get a small house with plumbing electricity and whatever for $120,000. I mean, if that's the way forward, then that's tremendous. So anyway, I think I've made my points. So for time's sake, and we do have other items on the agenda, I don't know if anybody else would like to comment. I just want to say that I'm definitely in support of continuing to explore an agreement for the following reasons. The timing in some ways is very important because the news keep reminding us that the unhoused population is actually increasing all over the country. And I don't think it's going to get better. And so what I've learned over the years, both with the RV even before, when we were trying to work with the encampments in the park, is that there are four agents, I'm going to call them four players that are key city government, some organizations or organizations in the community that take responsibility and then there are the funders, the people with money and we do have people around with lots of money but the first step has to be a commitment by city government and if there is no political will to say we're going to look into making something happen, the other things fall apart. And I think we have those elements in place. It's a matter of just going through the logistics, the planning. And I know that the onhoused population moves around, but guess what? If you remember, when we jointly worked on the RV, pretty soon, Mountain View says, hey, maybe we could do something. That's right. Even Palo Alto, I have to say, because they took him a long time. They had hundreds of our visas and didn't do anything. They said maybe we can do something. So yes, I don't care where people live. If they're unhoused, I think we have a responsibility to try to help. And hopefully our neighbors will also take that up. And I think they will. I think they will. I think they will. So I think we're on the right track, and I definitely would be in support of that, and totally understand the flexibility with the police, potential police. It's not a done deal, but I think anything like that could be, you know, we're all flexible. But we shouldn't wait. Things are going to get even worse. So thank you for, you know, bringing this to us. Thank you for your partnership on the RV Safe Parking Program because you got your hands 30 along with a few others. But you lay let the charge. So thank you for that. Yeah, thank you for all the work you're doing in the community. You know, on addressing homelessness and not only in these polls, but throughout, you know, the Bay Area. And I'm definitely in support of making beneficial use of the land. If it's just vacant, right now, you know, we're in the middle of a housing crisis. We see daily, there's more at RVs popping up around our community. Just a month or two ago, there was encampment over where near where I live. That went on fire because of its cold outside, they were having a barbecue and it went up in flames. It was a big issue, it was a newspaper. But we have a lot of homeless people living in the creeks and a lot of these encampments and obviously that needs to be addressed but we need to provide them with places to go and give them opportunities to get out of those situations. And so I think if we have a plan and we have the land and it's not being used, we need to make use of it. You know, until we get the police station and all that stuff might come later. But if we have a plan now and it's modular and it can be taken down, you know, I'm relatively quickly without any issues, I think we should make beneficial use of that. So that's just my thoughts. Thank you, Councilman. I just wanna make one last comment and then we'll go into a recommendation, but I was just thinking, my colleagues that speaks Spanish will relate to me when I was thinking about it and then Webster just said it. So it's not as perlice amdol. It's going to waste, right? When I was thinking about it and then Webster just said it so status but this yeah, I'm the It's going to waste right so I'm sure that also Pastor Bain and his team Exhaustively looked for other places or else they would not have come forth with this particular Vacant air a lot in mine. So I just wanted to say again thank you for all your hard work and I do believe that we do need to to follow through here I am speaking like a teacher. We want if we want to be treated with respect we need to treat others with respect and like I say the golden rule goes a long way. So if you see a brother that's in need, you should help them. And I think that our city is in the position right now. Like Mr. Lincoln said, it's just sitting there. There's nothing in it happening right now. Why not use it and make someone happy? Have someone have a warm place to lay their head that night. So with that, I don't know if anyone would like to go to public comment before we go into a recommendation. Yes. And I know you're supposed to not oversell anything, but to Councilman Dean's comment, there is one additional site that we are approaching a landowner to see if that can be an alternative site. The only reason why we have selected Tanklitch is because we've been there, we've already done that, we've already used it, and this is a temporary project. But we will look at that other site and get back to the city council as well. Thank you. With that do we have any public comment on this? Um. Yes. So we did receive one speaker slip. And if you can please, um, put your name on a speaker slip as well. It's on the table over there to the left. So the first speaker is Mr. Christopher Cow. I'm going to be back. I'm going to be back. Good evening again mayor vice mayor council members and city staff. My name is Chris cow. I think my main concern is about the financial, the financial responsibilities of the city in general. I have been to the site multiple times. Pastor beings in fact, did give me a tour in 2020 and of 2021 when I first moved here. And I've also been on the site with the builders from EPA Candue. And I think it's very generous. They opened it up for them to use as an office for the construction. I think, well, one question is, I do wonder if the the since this seems to be largely county funded project if that lot county on land of 1266 Speed Street the one you may recall is directly north of Marluit or King Junior Park might be a site they can make available I haven't heard any updates about a landswap the city was trying to do. So that's one potential idea. But regarding financials, I think what I've seen is that the city is renting the police department and the current building wherein as we know, I see that public works is currently using the other city-owned large site, the East Paul's library half of it for storage. And we have a lot of capital improvements projects coming down the line. And we know the library we want to start construction on within a few years. So one of my concerns is that once the library starts construction and as public works, which is on the commission I chair, has more projects, what we need to put all of that construction equipment and pipes somewhere. I'm not aware of any other lots right now that the city can use. And I just worry if we make this site available to borrow rent free or at a very lower rate. If the city might later on have to rent another site to put a lot of the pipes and equipment that are on the library side currently. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Mariana Sumina, followed by Gail Wilkerson Dixon. This is Boba Noda-Kamant. This is a question and I'm ready to share the microphone. I'm so in unit. So it's my understanding and I correct me if I'm wrong. Usually then a project is getting being approved by the city. That's usually like a sign and you're asking for everyone who is around if they do have any concerns on your project. That's, I mean, that's as a small business we're doing in Yutansk and Francisco. So if we are building something, we need to notify all neighbors and they're kind of can ask questions and raise concerns or I don't know support you or opposite you. Is it the procedure of the same for this project? Much like our RV safe parking program that we implemented about four years ago, we would use the same process, We would notify the neighbors around so that they can have public comment on that. So there's nothing any different that we would be doing this time that we haven't done in the before of following the process that the city has as well as the county. Thank you, Clayton. Thank you, Larry. It was the program. I'm I'm allowed that you actually would RV's from the streets. Really, thank you. My question was, usually it sometimes and someone is opposing and asking questions, you see the meeting supposed to be done a many hours ago and we're still here. So my concern and probably the question is not concern. How long will it take the whole process to notify neighbors to get their commands and what is the procedure? Because you already addressed that you will build in six months out of four years. So probably it will give you three year and a half to actually around the program, right? And then you will need some time for I'm not again, I don't know about permits, probably or something. But it's not my question. My question is about residents. Okay, so about residents, the process that the city has done is that they have to send it out ex-submodal square feet from where that project is being held. And it goes to all the residents and the residents then we set up a community meeting so that we can hear those that are for it, some of those that are against it, those that we followed with the city of East Palo Alto. And then when it comes to the building, we can only build in six months after we've received all the permits and their approvals from both the fire department as well as the city departments. So just saying that the rent will start actually after. Yeah, you can talk afterwards if you don't mind because we have two other items. Thank you. And I think that's enough for comments on this item. So I don't know if we would like to go ahead and create a motion for a recommendation as is or if we wanna make amendments to the recommendation. I think it's just asking for direction and I think we gave it. You did give direction through the chair. So I did ask kind of four questions. One was confirm use of tank list site for this project from August 2025 through February 2030. I've heard feedback on that from the majority of you that that's okay. I'm not clear on utility set up. I this is a question for Pastor Baines as well as for the council. I know that there is a sore hook up to the property, the big property, tankless height, and also know there's water. I'm not sure if the existing modular is that block construction is renting from project we hope have sore and water connected to them. And what additional effort it would take to connect sore and water to the additional modular units that would be provided because the question I was posing to this council was if you have any preference or direction on further utility installation versus them using dignity on wheels. I'm so asked for that clarification sir and then the council can chime in. So there is sewer, electrical, and water on site. And that can be utilized. It's not being overused by the two homes that we have on the side now. It's not being over, and it wouldn't be overutilized by the 48 beds that we want to add. We would like to, we're going to run into less utility issues if we use utilized dignity on wheels type trailers and we're able to do that. And so, and our EPA site, which is basically two doors down would provide food and everything like that. So we prefer the dignity on wheels that way we don't have to build a permanent restroom, which then we get into it's much more difficult to take down. You know, my two week timeline is based on removing modular units and temporary foundations. If we have to build a bathroom with showers and restrooms to accommodate 48 people, then we get into more structural issues. So our preference would be to use a dignity on wheels type trailer. Understood. So it wouldn't be sore in water to every modular unit would be. No, no. So the modular units are just bedrooms basically. So there's that shelter. Sorry. So they're not wet units. So there's no water or anything like that. That would be supplied by another unit, like Dignet on wheels type trailer, that would bring on. Understood. Thank you. So that settles the. And I think that's the right. And I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think that's the right and I think to use the property and this had to shut down as past or bans described they'd find alternative shelters for the artists bench to move to. All right, we're seeing some head shaking so I will take that as the direction and yeah. I would assume that would be in the contractual agreement we have with Pastor Baines. Right? Yes. Yeah. So you know he's he's kept would be in the contractual agreement we have with pastor bains, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, he's he's kept his word in the past. So we'll just, you know, staff would work it out and say, you know what? Sometime in 2029 or whenever it is or, you know, with the option to, you know, ask six months earlier or something like that, whatever. But you guys can work that out. Yes. With the feedback you all have given me, we have enough direction to work on contract with Pastor Bands. I would also ask that concurrent with all moving forward on this path that there also is alternative site selection because I do think that if there is an alternative site that a more permanent installation could be made, it would be better for everybody. And there's a lot of reasons to the tank flashlight to keep it you know free for other uses and if there was another side in the city that would work we should try to do that as well and maybe we'll you see we can do that that way. Thank you. I understand. Okay. I want to if I could ask a question Mayor With us looking at the alternative site which I for mention. We would want to have a timeline on a response then of a go no go only because of. We have multiple projects that we're considering. We just want a for4.5 billion contract with San Francisco, a $3 billion contract with the City of San Jose. And so it's not like there's not work for us to do. And so after we look and review alternative sites, we would like a timeline of hopefully that we can get relatively soon, following the normal process. We don't want anything to be skipped, do that. We're going to be able to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. We're going to be able to do that. That's all right. So that's your clarification. So you're looking at another site, and that's your preference, and then we would be... I mean, I'm in support of it now, but you're saying maybe if that works out, then that would be it. If not, you would let us know. Well, because Councilman Dean has asked for us to look for another site. Well, you know, he's only one vote. I'm not interested in that. So I mean, I don't, you know, we're giving direction, but if I or other council members, that's not a, I mean, fine, if you want to look for another site, but in my opinion, I'm willing to give direction, give direction, gave the four areas and issue the explanation on the utilities because I wasn't sure about that, but it do that but I mean well it's up to the mayor but I didn't hear the majority the council is saying we we should wait until you find out about the alternative site and if I'm wrong then I'm I'm misunderstood then I'm sorry you know we do that all the time among ourselves too but you know so I just maybe the mayor can clarify that point for us. We would prefer to use the tank list site and move on. Okay. Yes, that was my understanding as well. And perhaps when your lease is coming up maybe during that time, you could possibly look for another possible vacant lot that you could probably move that to and make it more as a permanent solution as a council member was saying. I mean, that's when I understood. There is a site and we are talking to that land on for a permanent support of housing, which then would just be the greatest thing for our unhoused brothers and sisters, but for now, we wanna make sure that we don't want anyone dying on our street and take this is the quickest way that we've assessed to date. Exactly. So I just wanted to clarify that at least. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I just see it as if you're going to invest in this, you'd be saving millions of dollars by not having to shut it down in four years and not have to redo the work over. And I do believe that there's going to be a hard deadline here and that this is not a permanent location for these. I just think that it would be, if I was doing a project like this, I might want to take a little bit extra time and get all the hookups and keep it there for the next 20 years, not the next four years. And so that's my concern. I mean, if this is in fact like you're going to be there for four years and then it's gone, sure, let's do it. But at the same time, I know once millions of dollars have been spent to prepare a site, have done it, you've got this established and then suddenly we're in a conflict in what, 2029, not that long far off the road and there's a need for the city to use the space and there's an established shelter there. And we're like, okay, what are we gonna do? So, but as a councilman, Abrika has said, I'm just put one voice on this council. And it's a temporary shelter. So I just wanna make sure I understand. One last comment. So majority of the costs are actually going to the modules themselves, correct? Say that again. Yes, so majority of the costs are actually going to the modules themselves correct sit it again a majority of the costs Go to the modules themselves not to site improvements That is correct. Yeah, so the modules can be relocated that is correct They are relocatable their temporary modules and we can put them wherever if there's another place in the city that we have Established we can put them there. Yes, so 600,000 is for the site improvements. That's correct. You know, those site improvements could benefit, you know, a police station down there, or something like that. We could take that into consideration. Yeah, that's for sure. Okay. Okay, do you think we have enough direction? Yes, thank you. I have enough direction. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Pastor Reigns, for sticking around for so long. So we're going to go ahead and move on to item 12.3, which is a measure HH Pilot Workforce Development Program, Street Code Academy Final Performance Report, and draft evaluation plan. Who would be presenting this? This item will be led by Hanson Homme, Deputy Manager of Special Projects. Thank you very much and may you remember the City Council. What we have before you was the item that's carried over from the November City Council meeting. But it have before you was the item that's carried over from the November City Council meeting. But it's a time to check on the status of the performance results for the street code academy. One of the pilot programs funded under a measure HH and is also the opportunity to review the proposed draft evaluation plan that the council also provided initial input on back in September. And we also received input from the council members who were appointed on the subcommittee to provide even further input. So the evaluation plan that will be presented tonight is based on both the full council input as well as input from the subcommittee members. What I like to do or like to suggest is breaking up the presentation into two parts. One is 2% the street code of academy final performance report for the 18 month pilot program which one need a craft from street code of academy will have a presentation and percent and then offer counsel, up between for counsel comments and then the second part of the presentation would be Ivan Gattucey from informing change will provide an outline of the valuation plan. The actual contract for street codecami is attachment number one in your gender report, their final performance report is attachment number one in your a general report, their final performance report is attachment number two and then attachment number three is the draft evaluation plan. Next slide. Okay. Let's see, we could uh this name which one do you skip? Okay, yeah, next yeah, that's the right slide. So just a quick overview of what measure HH pilot Well, do you skip? Okay, yeah, next, yeah, that's the right slide. So just a quick overview of what measure HH pilot programs about, I know most of the council members familiar with this, but as council knows, measure HH was approved by voters back in 2018 to fund workforce development, would focus on STEM and building trade sectors. And the measure HH also includes funding for affordable housing projects. As part after the measure was passed the city engaged the firm of Brightline consulting to provide recommendations to the city on how to craft a workforce development. Based on the input from this effort, the council did authorize releasing an RFP to recruit organizations to provide the Workforce Development Programs in early January 2022. And we received three proposals from Street Code Academy, Job Train, and Living Peace. In November, 2022, the council did authorize and turn to agreements with all three firms for an 18 month pilot program. A total of close to $800,000 was allocated for the program. And the programs are meant to cover not just job training and job placement, but support services that may be needed that are customized for the needs of the individual participants. Such as, you know, technology support, job counseling, just general counseling, basic needs such as transportation, food and childcare, English speaking skills. So depends on what the needs of the participants are. So it's a holistic approach to training and espalihuato residents. The program is limited to espalihuato residents also. So the pilot program extended from March 1, 2023 to August 31, 2024. And through our, during this process, all three organizations submitted quarterly performance reports, which are posted online, and we give them up to date as best as we can. The reason why we are only hearing from Street Code of Cami at this time is that they've completed their pilot program whereas job train and living piece still has some remaining funds left and the council last September of the six month extension for their pilot program. So we'll be hearing the final performance report for other two organizations, probably in March, because their six-month extension expires on that in a February. At the same time that September meeting, the council also approved some additional funds for all three organizations to continue the pilot program. And that extension is allows the program to be extended to May 30th, 2025. And that will be helpful because it will overlap with the evaluation process and informing change you'll be doing. So next slide. So it's just really real quick about street corner cam, and they'll certainly get more into the details, but they were allocated $236,700 to provide job training and support service for 20 East Palwaltrow residents. The funds, the phase one funds were allocated to 19 students who were enrolled in the St. Cosa Academy work innovation program. They've received certification and computer program skills which focus on coding and such as video game coding and other related skills. They provide it training, support services, exposureships or they're attempting to look place the students in apprenticeships and of course in-result, in-go is place them in a permanent job position. So as I mentioned before, they have submitted quarterly performance reports. What you have in the attachment is their last quarterly report, but it also represents the final report for the 18 month period where they summarize the results of their pilot program. So at this point rather than turn it over to Juanita, I'd like to maybe quickly cover the second part of the presentation so we don't need to break it up too much. But after we hear from Juanita, we'll hear from informing change who will then present their draft evaluation plan. When the program was authorized, the three contracts were authorized in November 2022. Council was also interested in at the end of the pilot program, bringing a third party consultant to really evaluate more deeply and on a unbiased basis. The results of the pilot program, the idea is that the pilot program is an initial program and we would be able to learn what worked, what didn't work, what can be improved. And are there any changes or there are certain professions that we should maybe emphasize more or others that we are missing the bowed on as far as potential employment opportunities. So the pilot program is meant to allow us to evaluate all of these things. So in July, on that slide, the city did issue a request for proposals and informing change was was approved to provide the valuation for the city of this pilot program. So since July, informing change has already proceeded on a lot of the work in August. They've interviewed the three pilot program organizations in September. As I mentioned before, they went to the Council and received preliminary comments on the evaluation plan. In October, the Council formed the subcommittee for the evaluation plan and tonight we'll need to ask the Council to find a replacement member since Mayor Lopez was formerly on this committee. So in October through November, they did also interview separately Mayor Lopez and Councilmember Brica who sits on this committee. Since those interviews from in the last several months, they've, what they're trying to do is schedule interviews with program participants to get feedback on the program. So those are being set up in cooperation with the three organizations. And she, informing change will also reach out to employers to really get their insights on the employment picture and what they're looking for in ways we can possibly improve the program. So it's a pretty comprehensive evaluation. They'll also be doing a landscape survey to compare what we've done with comparable programs. And Evan will certainly get into more details on that. So the elements of the evaluation plan for Evan will describe more, basically four key sections. There's the evaluation goals. It's the process and proposed timeline. The type of questions that will be asked, they tried to drill down into the effectiveness of the program. And then finally, there's several deliverables that will be provided in the process. So next slide. Next slide. Okay, so we have three recommendations for the council tonight. One is to receive the final performance report on the measure HH pilot workforce e-filement program. Secondly, to receive and accept the draft evaluation plan for the program. And then the third recommendation is to point a replacement committee, a council member to be on the committee. So with that, unless there's some questions, I can turn it over to Street Code Academy for their presentation. Okay, so with that, I like to introduce one unit of Crafcraf from Street Code Academy. Oh, I guess both of you will be speaking. So we'll pull up your presentation and you just can tell us when you want us to move to the next slide. So good evening Mayor and council members and Happy New Year. Congratulations to the newest council members and to the staff and especially the staff who've helped us over these last few years. Thank you and thank you for the support. I wanted to say a quick few words, a little bit of context of Streco, a little bit of a reintroduction. I'm sure many of you have heard some of this before, before why I need it goes into the details of our report. But in 1998 came here as a student, a Stanford came from a long history of both family and community. Civil rights and activism and community empowerment. And was really moved by plug-in. It was an organization that I was introduced to as a student and mentored there. In fact, I was with Mukhi today who's now working with us in Portland. But Saul plug- in was really convinced that there was a civil rights approach to technology education that was needed. And when Plugged in was gone and after years of knowing that there was a gap in that street code stepped in in 2014 with the help of living peace and other people in the community we've started this organization and now I've been serving for 10 years. And for 10 years, one of the many things that we've learned is that East Palato was really taught us is one, you know, we've got to start earlier. We started at Living Piece as a, you know, 16 to 24 year old program. And we knew we had to start earlier, so we did that. We knew we wanted to start earlier, so we did that. We knew we wanted to start a community-based approach, which meant it wasn't going to be just for one particular age group. We started working with all members of the community, so we worked with people from four years old, all the way to 94 years old. The last thing was that it was going to be more than just coding. We knew that everyone was going to be a coder. Having a holistic approach, we called HackUSA design to include coding, entrepreneurship, and design. It was gonna be a way to really make it an EPA-flavored program much like we observed with Plug-Din. Ms. Juanita has been working four decades with Plug-Din even before that in several of those areas. And so when Measure HH gave the opportunity for us to look at what a community-based family-centered program like StreetCode Academy could do in the workforce development space, we took it as an opportunity to learn, to learn how would our approach actually work to actually place people in jobs. We knew that by building curiosity, that by giving people skills, that by connecting them with industry, all of which we've done for 10 years, that there was going to be good things that happened. And we have a lot of case studies that show that is a formula for bringing people into jobs. But we wanted to kind of formulaize that and measure HHGAMES to chance to do that and do that as a pilot. And so our appeal is, you know, today is just one, say thank you for that opportunity to learn to kind of invite this, you know, this deeper evaluation plan that we have when the forming change. And then three, just kind of continue to kind of build what we have built with the city. This is the first time we've really gotten city support. And we want to partner. Many of you now, many of you have experience in this industry, we want to learn, we want to know. And so we appreciate that. And I'm very happy to introduce and the Carl Juanita, mentor of ours and a champion of this program. And we've learned a lot and hopefully some great things that you'll recognize. Ms. Juanita Craf. Thank you to the name. Good evening everyone. I've been working with street code academy for seven years and my primary role has been as a tech instructor. I come to the work after, let's say, 40 years of working with tech in the community college environment. So I came out of a foothill college, working in the CIS labs, supporting students, learning in all kinds of classes, because we covered all of the different departments that we're doing using computers at the time. I retired from my staff position as a computer lab supervisor. And that was because after about 24 years of working in the lab, I was supporting all of the equipment, the setup and environment that students needed for their particular classes that they were taking, whether it was in computer science, graphic design, or business, because we supported all of the different departments at Foothill. I also taught, I did teach within the department as well, part time as an adjunct faculty member teaching primarily introduction to computer science, but towards the end, I was also doing Linux training and teaching systems administration, network administration, and things of that sort. When I retired, I immediately started working part time for the Ravenswood City School District. I was asked to come in and do some teacher training. And I had done a little bit of foot hills through the crowd center for innovation, working with them, but I was hired to actually come in and provide some software training to the teachers in the district. And I did that for just a short period of time. It was grant funded and limited. I've worked in other types of tech jobs in other school districts and I also worked for an after-school program called Malsquad where we were teaching teachers how to teach students, how to take care of computer lab equipment and providing curriculum and training to mostly the teachers but also working in their different environment. And we were a statewide program. So we had at one point 140 schools throughout the state of California. So I come to street code with my background, mostly working with adults. And so unlike street code, which had started as a boot camp teaching coding and so forth, my background is basically to teach people whatever they needed to learn to use the computer, whether it's for their personal use or for the workplace. In addition to that, and during my time at Foothill, for their personal use or for the workplace. In addition to that, and during my time at Foothill, I was also in the department of workforce development. And so as my role of both staff and faculty participated in the development of some of the CTE type of training that was becoming more prevalent. The Karl Perkins funding moved from Vokeh to workforce development and so I was there for both parts of that and learned a lot about strategies for creating curriculum and how to teach people the tech skills that they needed for, as I said, either personal use or work use. So I brought that to street code as a tech x instructor. And basically while the parents were, oh I don't realize it was not near the mic, while the parents were waiting for their students to finish up their classes, we invited the parents in to learn how to use the technology better. And so we started getting in older adults and seniors. So when the opportunity for when I was hired as the work innovation program manager to develop a workforce training program, I basically used all of my previous training and all the different topics to develop strategies for helping families learn tech. So that included everyone from the grandmother who was taking care of the grandchildren, who needed to know how to work with school systems, as well as people who were working and wanted to learn how to use an application like Excel or something of that sort. So when I took on the position, the first thing I did was a lot of research to see what the original plan was on the, when street code applied for the grant, because I came on after the grant had been approved and so forth. I immediately added more certificates to the program. It was originally designed with the idea of working with Kinyata College in video game design and so forth. And when I came in, I looked at that program and realized that the adults we were going to get from the community did not match that particular set of programming. Because I realized it was a continuing ed programming which meant that the courses were offered in the summer only and then they led to an apprenticeship which was one of the goals of street code for students to get a chance to do an apprenticeship. That sequencing did not work. The people that we got in the program were community members. They were not tech savvy. They came from a lot of different industries. Is that me? Oh, something else. Okay. They came from a variety of industries and we started off talking about the different careers in tech and things that they could consider as options but found that their proficiency levels were not sufficient to go into a high coding or high tech level. And so realizing that I talked to the students about what tech skills could they gain that would actually improve their opportunities in whatever industry or job focus they were looking for. And so I started to look at the certificates that we had available to them so that they could earn a professional skills certificate. And those programs actually were more than one year to complete. As I looked at them, I kept looking at them and I kept thinking, well, that's about at foot heel, that would be two years of courses that a student would have to take to complete a certificate. And so if we're going to refer students to the community colleges, if we're going to encourage them to take the tech classes and produce documentation to validate their experiences and their learning, it takes more time than the period of this part of the program. So I realized it was going to have to be lifelong learning for them to get to a level where they might do some coding. But again, I found that the adults were not interested in game design. They were not interested in video gaming. And so we were able to offer them opportunities for things like data analytics, IT support. We had some digital marketing and so they were them with support and training to complete the different courses within that certificate program. So this made us did well for the first six months and then we started to see some of them kind of drop off a bit in terms of completing the certificate which is the goal for finishing the the WIP program. So we continued on and then as I got to the final report, we recognized that several of the students had completed at least one course and received a certificate for that course. And so we in recognizing that students could complete a course or more because some of them did do more than that. We've kind of shifted the program so that it's more about skills, then learning tech skills for the careers that they are already involved in. Well, Nita, yes. We have your PowerPoint up, so if you want us to, you know, if you want any any particular slides. Okay. You want us to show as you're, for finding your presentation, we're happy to advance to the site you want to refer to. Actually, the one you're on is good. That, that slide shows the recommendations that I've made after the final report. One of the things in the area of education is that I realized that students we needed to ensure that the students had the technology that they needed to complete the programs. They also needed more what we're calling ed tech training. They needed to build up their skills in terms of the use of the technology to learn new topics and learn additional skills. We have, let's see, let's see besides the ed tech. Yeah, the slide that you're looking at, on the left side, there's education. I'm sorry, I'm visually impaired, so I was hoping to do it without... Are there particular folks that So I was hoping to do it without. I think the main point is just summarizing at this point the results of your pilot program because your slides try to address that that would be. If I remember the first slide I think might be the one we could end on with is which is the summary of. And even I can't see that small. Right. But summary of how many of these. Oh, this is how many completed. Yeah, maybe this. I don't get that those numbers seem like the way it would be. Yeah, I was going to say that the and then I think I think one of the what's I recall in our discussion one of your slides at the end kind of had your conclusions and recommendations and we talked about some of the challenges you had and some thoughts on how the program could be improved because that would be beneficial for our evaluation consultant to here too. Yes. Some of the main thing, as I mentioned, has to do with the ed tech. Because students need to learn how to create a learning environment for themselves. We were expecting them to be able to complete the certificates in a self-paced manner, but found that many of them needed more intensive support. And so we needed to make sure they had, again, the technology and know the basic use of it for the kinds of activities they had to do as part of the training. So for example, I did complete some of this training myself and so I got a chance to look at how it was presented and the kinds of tools that were needed. And I found that one, the topics were kind of choppy in terms of they would jump from one topic to another topic, which can be challenging for someone that's new to technology. If they don't have the background information about that particular topic. They also use can we end with that with that point and then maybe we got questions that maybe yeah that would be wonderful yeah thank you for your presentation okay so at this point it's an opportunity for the council to provide comments or ask questions? Is there another presentation from the evaluators? Yeah, there will be. Yeah. So I'm just allowing opportunity. If you have specific questions about the street code Academy program, this is time. Or you can wait until Evan provides his presentation on the draft evaluation plan. Is the council prerogative? No, I just wanted to make a comment and thank you for your presentation because, and I know there will be more opportunities with the evaluator, you know, to do that because, so you know, I worked for about 12 years and research and evaluation in education and I've always stressed the need to do qualitative you know analyses as well as quantitative when it comes especially to pilot problems so you know I want to say that what need I you're I was I'm very intrigued by the way you were actually presenting things. It really gave me a sense of what's out there institutionally, what the students face, what you as teachers or facilitators are doing. That is the kind of thing that I'm particularly very interested in because obviously the numbers and all of that we do need to address that and those are important. But it's a pilot. I really want to understand. So I really like the way you presented that. So even though I know the slides are here and there, but to me as an evaluator, it reminds me of how valuable these kind of approach of pulling in things, because that's what's going on. And so for us to try to do a better job next time, I think that it'll be important to understand to, anyway. So I know the evaluators will have a chance still to interview people more, but I really appreciate what you did just now, because I got a glimpse of the barriers, because I think that the purpose of HH, I think for me, was always to understand not only the individual barriers that the students face, but the people doing the programs. And then what's out there that's creating barriers, like you mentioned, they really couldn't complete this because they had to take two years. They got to do the summer. They got those are institutional barriers that we may not be able to impact, but it's good to know what they are. So anyway, yeah, so I just want to make that comment. That I, and I know we'll have a chance with the evaluators to really understand that more, so that it can help us as we move through this, I think very promising thing. And last thing I was just thinking is that cause you had Bell Haven or are you an EPA or? I'm in Bell Haven, yeah. I was gonna say, you know, we should approach Mendelopark and say, why don't you throw in some money in the pot and we my bill to include people from Mendelopark which could be from Bell Haven. Why not? Very similar populations, right? We, my bill, include people from Menlo Park, which could be from Bell Haven. Why not? Very similar populations, right? Very similar barriers. And anyway, that's just for another conversation. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't want to say that Bell Haven is interested in this kind of programming for their adults because they want more, they consider it enrichment. But I actually volunteered for Edonetta Harris for 15 years maintaining their labs and supporting people that way. So thank you very much. I appreciate your comments. Yeah. To the chair, I just have a quick question. I think it's important to hear the evaluation as well. What is the profile of the students in terms of the chair, I just have a quick question. I think it's important to hear the evaluation as well. What is the profile of the students in terms of the age, the previous education level, you know, that were in this program? That varies. The age range was, the youngest person I had was 18. The oldest person I had was 67. The oldest person I had was 67. The median age was 37. So that was where the vocals of the students kind of fell age-wise. And this is about 20 students? Yes. Okay. And what about education level? It varied also. I had a few people who hadn't completed their graduation, high school graduation, or didn't have a GED. And then I had at least one person or two that were graduates. So again, the range from some college to... Graduates of college graduates or postgraduate? College. They were, I had one person that had, I believe, a master's. In what subject? Now that, I don't think I asked them that. We just asked what level of college they had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess I'm not an evaluator as Ruben is. So I'm still trying to fair it out. You know, the information that I need here to understand what is the next step in improving this. Now I know that the evaluators are going to help, but when I read this, it almost seems to me that the one and a half years is not long enough, right, that you need a longer period of time, particularly based on the skill set of some of the people that we're talking about. And of course, it's all over the place because your report says that your youngest person was like 20 and your oldest was 65. So I guess I'm going to ask you just a quick question if you could summarize. What do you think is the single most important takeaway for you all? Because I know you have several things here, but for you all from this one and a half year, well, in your case, do you guys go to two years or you guys went to one and a half years? I think it's one and a half years, but... It's the valuation was 18 months. 18 months, yeah. So is there one particular, if you could have gone back to the beginning, instead of what had changed one thing, as an example, what might that have been? For me, it would have been actually not having to be focused on them having to fit into a tech career. So one of the things I ask is, what does it mean to be in tech? Because oftentimes when people talk about it when they say in tech they're talking about are you working for a tech company? Okay, but I look at it from a little bit more expansive because almost every job, no matter what the industry is, requires some level of tech skills. And the issue is whether or not people would have ever career or industry they're in, are they acquiring the tech skills that would elevate them in their position. So for example, someone who may have been an administrative assistant, did they, had they learned Excel to the point that they could do database, and then train on database management or something like that. So there's a lot of tech. So my thing is, are you looking for a job with where you use tech? Are you looking for, like I've done contract as a tech person? So working for tech companies to me isn't always the best option, especially given the landscape of tech companies, but where people are already working, where they may have already, especially adults, where they've already spent 10 or 15 years in a particular industry, can they learn additional tech skills that would allow them to be elevated to more management or supervisory or levels like that. And so for me, I think about the community college, we're student-focused. So rather than trying to force the student to fit a certain model, we should ask them and look at their experiences and try to build on that. Look at what they have and then try to build on that. No, no, please go ahead. I know it's late and so I bless you. I'm not in tech. I'm not, I don't come from. I'm not in tech. I'm not, I don't come from this work from experience in tech. So I'm learning alongside everybody in this process. One way is that we've talked about the bridge from our community to tech. It's three things. Mindset, skills and access. You gotta be able to see it. You gotta want it. Oftentimes people don't even know what area of tech they might be able to pursue. So they have to have a mindset and orientation to that. Then you gotta clarify yourself with skills and then it's access. How do I get access to the people, to the networks, to the tools, to the finances, et cetera, to get into the innovation industry? Well, with WIP program, we always knew that was the case. We always knew a mindset, having someone, having someone like Juanita can be, is very approachable. So the mindset we've tried to address, the skills is important, right? Because we're talking about the certifications, but the thing I think that I would have changed, going back and moving forward, is the emphasis on community building, networking, people. So we did exposureships. You take a student, you bring them to a company for two hours. In those two hours, somebody who's a hiring person may fall in appreciation of somebody regardless of their skills. I like this person, this happens. I like this person. I wanna know more about this person. I want to consider this person for a job coming up, had nothing to do with their skills, had nothing to do with their particular mindset, had everything to do with the fact that I just made a personal connection with them. So if we could do more exposure to people in the industry, some of these are small businesses, they're not maybe not meta, maybe it's not Amazon. But you know, people who are saying, I like this person, I would hire them in as a contractor that might turn into a job. I'll bring them in for a small internship in the summer that might extend into something. It's the relationship building that I think we would, we need to focus more on the on the front end side moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Are we ready to proceed with the? Okay thank you. Thank you very much for your presence. I have a lot of more questions in comment but I'd really like to hear the evaluators. Sure, sure. So next we have the ESEON line, Evan Coutousi from Informing Change. And Evan will provide a presentation and an overview of the O's, the draft evaluation plan, which we hope the council will comment on and as needed, revised and finalized to move forward on the plan. So Evan, are you ready? Thank you, Hanson. Good evening, everyone. I am Evan Gethose from Informing Change. We are the East Pelow Outam Measure HH Strategic Learning and Evaluation Partner. You have the purpose of me being here tonight is to share what we're doing in the evaluation and to essentially get your questions and sign off on the evaluation plan. As Hanson mentioned, we've already gone through a number of steps to get input from City Council members. So we met with the subcommittee, including Council Member Ubrica, and former Mayor Lopez to get their input on the evaluation plan. So essentially the directions that we will take throughout the evaluation. All of the partners have been wonderful in partnering, even with us, as we planned these activities as we're working with them to identify people that have gone through the program that we can we can speak with as well. I do want to share just who our full project team is. It's not just me. There's a team of five of us at informing change. And I want to call out specifically Dr. Michael Arnold, who is a company owner and team co-lead along with me. Our evaluation goals, this is where we are starting to get into the content that has been shared with you in the draft evaluation plan in the agenda packet before the meeting. I want to provide a high level overview of what it is that we are looking to achieve through the evaluation. These goals have remained the same and consistent since the RFP for an evaluation firm and an evaluation partner was released. So our main goals are to understand the initial short-term outcomes related to supporting residents access to immobility in high-tech STEM sectors and building traits to inform pilot program improvements and to provide considerations for evaluating future wage outcomes. At the heart of the evaluation, we are focused on learning. Like Hansen said, what has gone well, what can be improved? There's a lot of learning that can happen from the partners themselves as well as the East Pelopelalto residents who have gone through the partners programs. We have four evaluation questions that we will be answering through all of our data collection and research activities. We have a question focused on outcomes, resources and implementation, field learning, and wage mobility. All of our evaluation activities will help inform these four evaluation questions, which will then inform the evaluation goals as well. Related to outcomes, we're really looking at what the initial outcomes of the pilot workforce development program have been. And really what supports and barriers drive and impede achieving those programmatic outcomes. Related to resources and implementation, we're going to be looking at how measure HH resources are being used to support local workforce development and also identify what are we learning about what it takes to implement and expand this work. Related to field learning, we'll answer the question, what can be learned from other programs similar to the measure HH Pilotwurst Development Program. And related to wage mobility, we'll be looking at what's important to consider in understanding the potential for longer term career and wage growth related to measure HH Pilotwurst Development Program. Now, I do want to remind us that we are in this 18 month pilot program. It's too soon to see long-term outcomes and that's why we are keeping things to the short term. What can be learned and what has happened so far? How can it be approved moving forward? What can we learn from similar programs that are similar to the measure HH pilot workforce development program in structure, in focus, etc. Now to answer these questions, we have five key methods and approaches that we will assume. First is our desk review and discovery. We're looking up data that the programs have provided through their quarterly reports, building those out a little further, and also doing programmatic research and learning from those programs. Second, we're conducting a field scan. We're looking at learnings from across the field that can be applied to measure HH and the pilot workforce development program, and also looking to other programs to see what types of benchmarks they are using as it relates to those funded through the measure HHPilot workforce development program. This kind of gets to what council member Rico was mentioning about really having those qualitative stories. We will be interviewing participants from each of the three programs funded through the workforce development program. We'll be looking to understand what their experience has been, what they have achieved through the program, what their barriers have been as it gone through the program, and really just their perspective on what has been working well and how things can be improved. Along with site visits to the programs, we'll also be conducting interviews with employers. We have a limited number of slots available for those interviews. It's a total of five. These are employers who are in the tech or in the trade sector, who are familiar with or partners of or familiar to the workforce development programs that are funded through the measure HH program. We are going to be consulting them about the conditions that they face in the industry. So the barriers, their future forecasting about what jobs they're going to be needing to fill in the future. And also really what it takes to be a good partner and to have strong private government and private company community based partnerships to really support the city of East Palo Alto. For our reporting, we're expecting that Support the City of East Palo Alto. For our reporting, we are expecting that by the end of February 28th, we will have an interim report to share with you, the council, as well as Hanson and the partner programs as well. This will be an interim summary, not the full report. Once you've received that summary, we'll want to get input to help put the findings into context. That will help us then by the end of April to actually finalize the report and have final evaluation findings. Then we'll turn to the wage considerations, which will produce for the council by the end of July, which is when our contract ends. That's the really high level overview. I think what is not, well, I didn't include in the presentation here is some of the specifics around which data points are of interest and which we will really be drilling down and looking into through this mixed methods evaluation. I'll pause there and make some time as you want for your questions and a Hanson, of course, to you if there's anything else that you want to add or if you want to like to take anything in a different direction. I don't have anything else to add so this is opportunity for counsel to ask questions and provide comments on the valuation plan. Thank you for your presentation. At this time do we have any questions or comments from the council? Yeah, I have some comments and questions. That's a delay the meeting too long. But professionally, I'm a technical recruiter. I've been doing it for about 30 years and I've placed tech people at jobs. And I'll say it's going to be hard to evaluate a program like this right now because we're in the worst tech economy for the last, you know, since 2001 or so. The .bomb, it's been absolutely terrible. It's a high, you know, anybody who would be coming out of this program is probably competing with somebody with a master's degree in computer science who used to work for Intuid or something. If that's a programmer or QA or really anybody, the market is flooded with unemployed tech people right now. And it's gonna be very, very hard to evaluate a program like this in this economy compared to like, even 2022 where it was red hot. You know, so there's that. Secondly, if you spend a minute in Google me, you'll see me quoted repeatedly in places like Bloomberg and Business Wire, talking about how coding academies don't work in producing permanent full time jobs for people. Now, what you're trying to do is a little bit different. It's not like trying to hire a software engineer for Google might be a tech support person, which I think is a better approach, but it's still going to be very challenging in this economy to produce, because there is so little demand Right now. I mean whether you're talking desktop support or You know AWS Administration or things like that which I think is probably an order of magnitude more complicated than what you're getting people certified for It's just a really brutal market in tech right now I Guess I didn't have a question, why are you going for certificates instead of college credit? One of the advantages if you are trying to build a career in tech, certificates are often useful if you've already got that baseline college degree. You know, if you have a degree in computer science, you want to go back for a UX certificate. On their own, I'm not sure they're really valuable or seen as valuable for for companies. So I guess I'm curious how you came to the idea of not doing like, you know, people getting college credit and maybe stirring them towards Deanza or foothill where you could transfer those to any of the UC schools or state schools pretty easily as opposed to certificates. So I mean, what the thinking was there. I wasn't around when this was passed, obviously, as a city council meeting. The issue is that, yeah, if you could go up to the microphone, that'd be great. Thank you. The issue has to do with the residents. They are working adults. Some of them had two jobs or more that they did to raise their families. And generally they did not have a lot of time for the amount of time that it takes to complete the certificates. Okay. And so they were basically allowed to do it. They were encouraged to do itself paste, but they didn't have time to go to college. Having worked in the community college, one of the things I understood working in CIS as I did, I was teaching students over a 10-week quarter a course. Much of what they were learning, they would not be using because much of it was just learning a lot of information, vocabulary, terminology, and support. With our community members, because of the stresses that they have with their families, most of them had children, most of them, as I said, worked multiple jobs, they were trying to do this in addition to maintaining their lifestyle. And the idea of going to college for many of them, like me, was kind of out of the question. So not everybody goes to college. Not everybody gets those degrees. And the issue with tech is that it doesn't necessarily require all of that. If they have the tools, they have the training, they can learn to use the technology for specific purposes. And the, for most of them, going back to school was, it's not, is a, what do you say, a non-starter? They weren't going to, they weren't going to do that because you're, you're actually learning more than what you might need on a job. And their thing was to get the skills that they needed to improve their particular work environment. Okay. I guess the other question is on table A, there's a job placement rate and again, I think this is complicated because the economy is terrible. Right. Yeah, I'm a recruiter I was talking to somebody I know who used to work for me, I said it wasn't working two years and when there's no jobs for recruiters, there's no jobs for software engineers because you know, that's what we do. And then you're just as a side point AI has made it much more complicated because right now artificial intelligence is making experienced engineers much more efficient in their use. And a lot of the grunt work that used to be done by folks coming with less education is now being done using AI tools and things like that. That's a whole separate conversation, but there's probably people in the audience who might know a lot more about that than me. But what I guess it says there's no participants are currently enrolled in apprenticeships, as certification is still in process for most. Is it just too early or to make any judgment on this? I mean, it is a fairly new program. Right. Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, it would take them two years to complete the certificate if we were at a community college. So at a community college, you're spending 18 to two years to complete one certificate, one career certificate as opposed to focusing on skills which could be a course or two and in terms of your resume if you have specialized training it can be a course it doesn't have be a career certificate, especially if you're not going into the career, but you need the tech skills that are offered in that. Yeah, I mean, if you're working at a hotel or something and you have the ability to do some database work, as a receptionist, you suddenly get paid 30 bucks an hour instead of 40. That's kind of what you're gearing for, right? Not so much somebody competing with somebody with a master's degree, but somebody with making an increase in skill to up level from, and we don't have enough data on that to say whether it's worked or not at this point. Okay. Yeah. Okay, that's basically all the comments I have. I know that Councilmember Lincoln is also in tech and may have some thoughts, but I'll leave it at that. I do want to say just to throw a thought at you, we would like to ask of you the opportunity to have you come and speak to our students as an exposure ship. So one of the things that in terms of the community is that people can't visualize what they don't see and in our community, tech people don't of color, don't necessarily stand out, okay? People didn't know, they know me more for line dancing than they do for tech, even though I spent more of my life doing tech. And so it's not something that we discuss, it doesn't come up unless people find out I do tech. So for us, not only having the companies and the people from the different tech companies that we are partners with, it would be also good for our community to see people in the community who are using tech and can talk to them about it. Okay, because we still are now, especially now with the changes with the issues around DEI and all of that in terms of what companies will support and so forth going forward. It would be great if the residents had a chance to talk with people who are, we need to mix those with lower skills with those at higher skills, so that they have conversations, so that one of the things I talked to people about is when I first started teaching, people didn't know anything about computers at all. I was teaching back in the mid-80s. Nowadays, even that grandmother that comes into the class, she may not know all the terms of the vocabulary, but she has a better sense of what is done on that computer because she's been watching her grandchildren use the computer. So there's a different perspective in terms of community members, what they understand, what they can engage in conversations about, and then what do they choose to learn as a skill to enhance their lives. So. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any more questions? We have one more item left. So I don't have really much of the questions or comments about saying, how are you guys? I mean, I think AI is pretty big right now. Using things like prompt engineering and like you can use AI to develop apps. It's like, you can speak to someone said that I want to develop an app to do this. How do I start? Are you guys leveraging those tools and teaching that in your programs? Yeah. I am, especially because I found it a useful tool for me getting into this work as a way for me to do a better research. And so one of the things I, again, talking about the students, using AI to teach them how they can learn. It's a learning tool. Right, yeah. And so, yes, I'm trying, we still have people that are kind of reluctant to jump right into it, but I'm trying to show them ways that they can use it and how I can help them with their training, with things in life, right? So yes, we are approaching AI, most of the products that Streetcode uses, AI is a feature. So everyone, you know, from the children to the adults all the way up are getting exposed to AI in some form. Yes. I think it just helped you move faster and get things done faster. So it makes you more efficient. No, we have, I'll put a shameless plug in with 2.1. Two years ago, we did something called a who's next tour. We did 11 cities across the nation. We launched it here in East Palo Alto at University Circle. The purpose of that tour was to introduce our community to AI tools often times made by people of color. Tools like Vizcom, that's created by Jordan, I forgot his last name, who at a San Francisco originally from Detroit, African American men who created this AI visual tool. So we used tools like that to introduce communities across the entire nation, launched it here in East Palo Alto. The shameless plug is starting in January 22nd and January 29th will begin courses here in East Piotr and New Sui Home and at Stanford University with free transportation, leaving from New Sui Home. All those courses, there's a culture and tech series, all those courses have AI embedded in them in some way. Storytelling and tech will use AI to be able to tell and memorialize your customs of your family and design and tech with UZI to build your own websites and music and tech with UZI to build original music, et cetera. Thank you so much for your presentation. Okay, thank you. Do you have anything else for us? At this point, if there's no more questions, I have some evaluation questions as part of the interview. The evaluation. Robbie does Ruben. Ruben, why don't you start? Well, just a couple of things. Yeah, based on some of the comments that have been made, I know that like on page 77, you know, you're understanding the field employer landscape. So I assume that that will be, I mean, I think this is a very important area to understand not only what's out there, but even this new technology or even the decline of the existing, I think, as Mark was saying, you know, I mean, right now there's tons of unemployment, we're not unemployment, a lot of people leaving that fuel or being laid off. So what else is happening? So I'm just assuming that that's what you mean by that, right? Kind of exploring the landscape as you put it to what is the what is the situation out there because I think that will be important for not only the council but providers to understand better. Exactly. And you want to confirm that that is that is one of it. Yeah. Yes. Then I had one coming on page 79 when, you know, in exploring the questions, all the questions that are listed there. And partly because the genesis of this back in time was really, you know, the disconnect between the high-tech world and the fact that not too many primarily say minorities and women are in it. And so we're trying to help with that. It's actually broader than that. But I, you know, when you say minorities on the unramping, yeah, the very first question actually. So you see that one at the top of 79. Yes, what supports honor amps for training opportunities currently exist for minorities within interviews, companies. So, you know, I would strongly suggest that in parentheses, maybe qualify the minorities because there are racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender minorities. And I think it's important to do that. Otherwise, which is this important, but otherwise people will go only to racial and ethnic minorities. That's my experience. And you think minorities. That's my experience. When you think minorities, that's the way this country has labeled us. There's the majority in the minority, based on skin color. But I think here for us to understand more in depth, I voiced the issue of language, but we have gender, we have other types. So yeah, I just wanna make sure that you capture that and may the best way it might be to actually include it in parentheses and let people speak on the ones that they know more about. Well, they're more consistent. I like that approach. And I feel it really represents well, the earlier conversations that we have had as we've been developing the evaluation plan. Right, but you know, I just want it once things are written down. In this case, I think you know People are gonna go by the default understanding. Unless you say could be this could be that could be whatever So would you include that? Yeah, we can make that change. Okay. And then the last thing I was thinking about was the, on the wage mobility, which it is kind of a hard topic in some ways, you know, to, I think, we're also trying to kind of, try to make it possible for people to earn more But what the employers pay is totally beyond our control I mean, let's try some concern. They should be paying all of them should be paying a lot more money especially to low wage workers but But it is important to try and understand it so I You may be doing this already, but I think it'd be interesting for us to have the information kind of like a table, a spreadsheet of sort of what are the wages now for these different jobs, including like what Anita was talking about, you know, people who are in certain, say, administrative jobs or what is it that people are being paid? Because otherwise it's going to be too abstract, too theoretical, too like, okay, you need to be paid $80 an hour to survive in the Silicon Valley. Okay, well, that's not very helpful. I mean, yeah, it's just rubs it in. But to actually see a table of what are the different jobs, what are the different jobs paying? Anyway, if you could do some research on that or anything that's and know the job training, maybe also, Tweet Code has become more knowledgeable in that area, it's like, when people get placed or people go, what are they paying? Some kind of table to give us an idea of what we're dealing with. We will do our best. Okay, that's thank you very much. Madam Mayor, if I may. So I just want to remind everyone, even though today's conversation was biased towards the tech piece, that HH focused on STEM and on building trades. And we, throughout the time that we were both developing and attempting to put together RFPs, or an RFP for potential, like the better term, you know, vendors or organizations that could implement what we wanted on the HH non-housing side. We had always, and I mentioned this before, Evan, but we had always talked about career ladders. So how do people move up in wage scale within a career so that they're kind of building upon the skill sets. And I think that the evaluation question wage mobility is a way of addressing it, but I'm not, and I think what I'm hearing from the presenter today, street code is something slightly different than the career ladder piece in a way. It's more like a skills improvement piece. So I just want to make sure that we don't. Well, and certainly when we compare the tech side to the building side, and I can think of actually green tech, which does involve a lot of manipulative stuff. It's not necessarily all cerebral. I can also think about electrification needs. Folks in those you know, those folks in those fields are making $152,000 a year. I mean, I know folks who are alignment, who are making $350 a year. So I wanna make sure that, well, I wanna know if it's possible to do a comparison between the two, so we have the STEM programs and we have the building programs. At this point, I think the only building programs that we have are, I know that's not true, living piece is doing some building of programs, as well as job training, right? So I would be interesting to compare those two in terms of just the career path piece is one stronger than the other. I think some of the points that have been made here by the vice mayor of vice mayor Dynan about where the market is today for folks who are in tech who have, you know, you know, BAs and masters and who have been working in the industry can't find jobs. So I would like to know if there's a possibility of at least looking at that comparison, because if there are greater paths through kind of the green tech, the electrification stuff, which is slightly related to tech, but also squarely in the building field, I'd like to know whether, indeed, maybe a pivot to that is where we should go, or perhaps we should look at more information about how that can actually help build people's wages and career paths. So, just that, is that some helpful kind of input into this? I see where you're going. And I do think that though that question fits very well into evaluation question one related to outcomes, what supports and barriers drive and impede progress toward achieving programmatic outcomes? So which, what are the types of jobs that are going to support the programmatic outcomes that you want to see for East Palo Alto residents? I think there is room in the evaluation that can help illuminate that to at least some extent. And that's already in there, even if it's not quite as explicit as you just named. Yeah, and I think on the field learning piece, like what can be learned from other programs similar to HH Pilot workforce development programs, I certainly hope that you're gonna be looking at some of the apprenticeship programs, whether it's tip know tip and top You know that exists in Santa Clara County and Santa Clara County and and San Mateo County or some of the other You know more trade related Programs that are out there that actually have some success So I know and I know the tech piece is is important And it was you know one of them one of those things that we initially wanted to focus on but I want to make sure that we're not giving sure a trift to the other side of the programs we want to fund. So thanks, Evan. Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you. I don't know if we action, but if I, if City Clerk had pulled the recommendations, there's basically three recommendations. It's not necessary to approve anything, but if the Council were like to basically accept the final performance report from Street Code of Cami, that doesn't necessarily mean you're endorsing it, but just to accept it. And then probably more formal is, you know, accept that the draft evaluation plan with the comments that were noted tonight by Council member of Breaka and Council member Romero and any other council members so that we can then revise and finalize the valuation plan and move forward. Okay. And then finally, the third recommendation is a point replacement for the committee. And just to let you know what we're thinking of is not gonna be a high need or commitment, but we would like to, before we bring the preliminary valuation plan back to the full council, is that an opportunity for the committee members to provide some input ahead of time. So we council member Abreka is currently on the committee. So if there's another council member that would like to be part of this committee, that'd be wonderful. I'm willing to stay on but I can also relinquish my seat if there's two other people. And one suggestion I did make when we had the interviews was that I think there is room to be able to, in addition to seeking some of the feedback or bounce enough of two council members that actually there could be also interviews of each council member separately just to get you know their own everybody's perspectives and everybody's experience and that thrown into the mix. So I think with that I I think there is value in having a subcommittee but but also making around with everybody on anything related to this. Which will definitely offer again for those council members I might like to meet one on one. As they think about the program, we'll find some more in-depth comments beyond tonight. Yeah. So I don't know if you could provide some direction as to how we could go ahead and appoint another member. I think just general consensus among them the council of who would want to volunteer you know beyond council member of Brica unless he would like to step down. I'd be interested in evaluating this, but it would also evaluate the living piece and the job train. Yeah, I'd be more than willing to throw my hand around and I've got a lot of thoughts about workforce development and these pallet of stuff. Okay, okay. So we got Council. Somebody else wanted to do it. That vice mayor Denon, the dinan, sorry. And Council member Brica, will you like to stay on? Okay, okay, we got the two members. So if there's informal motion to just accept the street code of Cammie performance report and move forward with the draft evaluation plan with the comments that Council provide it tonight to incorporate. There's also apologies there's also a public comment. Yes, I'm trying to get to after on zoom. He was done. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So do you want to take the public comment first? And then, okay. Miss Adrian Bryant.