Council Neighborhoods Committee
May 15, 2024

Transcription/ Notes CNC Meeting May 15, 2024
Grant Road Sylvan Area Neighborhood
Mayor Showalter: Alright, well, welcome to the May 15th meeting of the council Neighborhoods committee. I'd like to call this meeting to order, and we'll have a roll call.

Mayor Showalter: Alright. Also, I have kind of a cheerleader voice that I could use without the mic probably. But other people might need. So we're going to call this meeting to order. And the roll call is that I'm the Chair and council member Ramirez and council member Emily Ramos. And we would like to welcome all of you to this very special Mountain View tradition, which is to have a public forum every two years with kind of every area of the city. We've divided the city into six areas, and we have a meeting with people every other year to get your feedback and answer questions. Find out what is going well and what needs work. So that's why we're here. And many of you may have submitted questions online before the meeting and that is wonderful because that gives the staff an opportunity to do a little research on them.

But it's also fine to ask questions here. And if you would like to ask a question, please fill out a yellow card and staff will be passing out these yellow cards. If you raise your hand, they'll bring you one. And so we'll get it to the proper persons to answer your question. We have somebody here from every department at the city and I think that's pretty amazing. So that's really an opportunity for you to hear from our very expertise staff about what is going on and specifically to answer your questions in whatever subject we come up with. To keep this a little fun, I always keep a tab of who gets asked the most questions. So it's just for fun, but sometimes it's legal, sometimes it's transportation, sometimes it's parks. We will just see how it works out this year, this time.

There's a neighborhood update summarizing major neighborhood projects and city events that's been compiled and is available here . It's available on the website too. It's the 17 pager. Are there copies? There are copies here, right?
City Staff: Yes, there are copies on the seats.

Mayor Showalter: There are copies on the seats. So you obviously aren't going to read it. We'll get through the whole thing while the meeting i s going on, but it really is a wonderful compilation of what are the things that are going on in our area of town that the city's working on. Oh, and by the way, this is my neighborhood. I live in Waverly Park , just a block from C ooper Park. So , this is ve ry much my neighborhood, and many of you have known me for quite a while. It's great to see you. Then the rules of engagement. If you have questions or a follow- up to your question, please fill out one of the yellow cards, and we'll get to you as quickly a s we can. We'd like everybody to be kind and respectful of one another.

This is for inf ormation sharing, so it's not to have a philosophical bank debate, it's for information sharing. We can have a lot of fun with that. The meeting agenda is really just to have a presentation on cert. So, Robert Maitland will come up in just a minute and give that, and then we will move into the main event, which is answering all your questions. But before we get to that, we have a very important announcement by Ken. Would you like to co me up and make your announcement? Ken and his wife Cynthia, have been organizing Memorial Day for ten years.

Ken: yeah ten years. Hi, my name's Ken Newman. I'm president of the Mountain View Veterans Memorial Committee. I just want to announce that there will be a Memorial Day ceremony this year starting at 11 o'clock and running until 12. We got a nice lineup of speakers and interesting music this year, with a violin and a bagpipe. The mayor will give some opening remarks and just a short one-hour ceremony. It's at Eagle Park, right outside the Swim Center. Love to see you there.

Female: Okay, great. What's the date?
Ken: Oh, May 27th. Monday.

Female: Thank you.

Ken: Monday.

Mayor Showalter: : Okay. Alright, so another thing I wanted to share with you is that sometimes people ask a question that the staff doesn't know off the top of their head and they have to go back and do some research on that. When that happens, they will ask for your email or phone number so they can get back in touch with you. And staff will reach out to you in a few days with the answer. And

then another thing that happens is that this information will be compiled into the minutes, which you can go back and look at in the future if you would like that. Also, we really are sincerely interested in suggestions. You use the city services every day. And so if there are things that you particularly like, well of course we would love to hear that. Compliments are wonderful to get. But if there are some suggestions you have about how things might be done a little better, we'd love to hear that too. So with that, I am going to pass this on.

City Staff: Before that, can we do the minutes approval? Mayor Showalter: Ah, of course we can. Yes. So can I have a motion to approve the minutes? Councilmember Ramos: Move.

Councilmember Ramirez: Second.

Mayor Showalter: Are you all in favor? Alright, we got that done. Good. Another thing that's nice to have happen is to allow the other members of the Neighborhoods Committee to say a few words. So, council Member Ramirez, would you like to say hi?
Councilmember Ramirez: Thank you, chair and mayor, I'll be very brief. Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for our; I believe this is our first town hall-style meeting of the year, if I'm not mistaken.

Mayor Showalter: Yeah, that's right. As the mayor mentioned earlier, these meetings are truly unique.

I know of one other city that attempted to do this: the city of Palo Alto. About a decade ag o, I think they held two meetings, and then they gave up. S o I really commend the staff for their diligence and dedication to participating in three or four meetings each year, depending on the cycle, and being willing to answer your questions. So, thank you again for joining us.

Councilmember Ramos: Thank you, hi everyone. I'm council member Emily Ann Ramos. I'm glad you are all here. This is a great opportunity to ask any question you may have about the city because we have all our staff and department heads here. And it's a good opportunity for you to see how things are run and what your neighbors think and what your neighbors are concerned about and how the city is addressing those concerns. So, feel free to ask all the questions you want. If we run out of time or anything like that, I'm sure that the staff will get back to you on those specific questions. It's always

been a collaborative environment here in Mountain View, and I think that's why it was more successful here than maybe in some other cities. So, thank you all for coming. I'm excited to hear what your questions are.

Mayor Showalter: Okay. All right. So with that, Robert Maitland, Robert is our CERT director and it's always important to hear what you have to say.

Robert Maitland: Thanks Mayor. Alright, good evening. Like the Mayor said, my name's Robert Maitland. I'm the Office of Emergency Services Coordinator. I work for the City of Mountain View Fire Department. And I want to talk to you about our community emergency response team or CERT. Does anybody hear of CERT number? Yes. See if the newsletter. So with that said, CERT is a program from FEMA that has curriculum divided into nine different categories to help you the resident understand what to do after a major disaster or an emergency when help might not be coming for two, maybe three days. So if you remember back to Loma Prita and you think about how everybody was having a disaster, we only have so many resources.

So what did we do? We have to be relying upon ourselves. This past month in April, we just graduated an academy with two dozen of your neighbors that went through this program. And for many of them it was the first time any of them have ever held a fire extinguisher. You haven't held a fire extinguisher at the end of this program tonight, come grab a brochure, come talk to me. And then this weekend come and see our CERT program on Sunday, May 19th, supporting our City of Mountain View Fire Department's anniversary parade. We just turned 150 years old on April 3rd and we're going to have a big celebration in downtown. So this Sunday, from 12:30 to 1:30 down Castro Street, we' re going to have a very large parade with at least 50 vehicles and people walkin g. With that said, we've got a public safety expo. We're going to have recruitment event out there. And really, truly hope to see you Sunday and I also hope to see you in class. Thank you. Let that be my final thoughts that resonate in your head. So when you wake up Sunday, you're thinking parade. So please come see us downtown Mountain View, 12:30 to 1:30, big parade. Look forward to seeing you there.

Mayor Showalter: Okay, so now we will start with our questions. How are we going to do that? Is there a specific?

City Staff: Somebody can volunteer or we can volunteer them.

Mayor Showalter: Arn, this is Arn Andrews. He is an assistant city manager and this man holds so many figures in his head. If you have a question about Mountain View Finance, he's a good person to ask.

Assistant City Manager: And unfortunately you're not going to see any of that expertise tonight because I'm going to respond to a question for a department in the city manager's office that I don't oversee. So you're going to see me read from my phone. The question was, since we passed the RV parking lot, has the number of RVs parked on the street gone down? And it sounds lik e they were worried that the numbers wouldn't go down and would just get shifted elsewhere.

So here's a response for our staff in the city manager's office. We also have the human services department. The city conducts an annual street-by-street count of vehicles that appear to be in use for living purposes. Since 2017, the count of vehicles in the public right of way used for a living has ranged from between 200 and 300 vehicles, with recent counts showing a trending downward. I believe the packet actually has the graph that kind of shows that trend. And then they also asked me to say if folks are interested in more issues related to our unhoused population and how we're addressing it, you can go to the human services homeless webpage on the town's website. And there's a whole bunch of other information in addition to the graph that we shared with you tonight.

One of the questions we received from a walk-in was why are the lights around this school on 24/7? And I'm afraid that's goin g to be a district question. So I'll reach out to our partners in the district and see if we can get you an an swer for that. And then, Chief, I believe you took a photo of it; YOU sent it somewhere.

Chief: Yeah, this is the abandoned vehicle. Perhaps we can stage that one for a little bit later. I'm hoping to have an answer if we can just find a time.

Arn: Alright. To be continued on an abandoned vehicle question. Thank you.

City Staff: Good evening, everyone. Garvin Galam here, Senior Traffic Engineer, Public Works. Please address future improvements to Bryant and Truman Street around the high school to calm traffic.

Currently, students use Bryant Avenue as a race track exceeding 50 miles per hour since there are no crosswalks, no stop signs, and no traffic calming devices. So, the city addresses issues like this, such as speeding, using the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program or what we call NTMP. It was established to help residents work with city staff to provide traffic calming on local residential streets.

For the NTMP, residents can submit a petition for the areas where there is a concern. Staff will then obtain traffic counts to verify a speeding issue. Separately, outside the NTMP, staff can also collect data to perform stop sign warrants at the intersections along Truman Avenue, between Oak Avenue and Bryant Avenue. This is to verify if installing new stop signs along Truman Avenue is warranted.

With regards to the lack of crosswalks, there are existing crosswalks along Truman Avenue of Bryant Avenue; staff is also looking into adding an additional crosswalk in front of the school for students to have additional crossing. In the meantime, staff would also coordinate with our police department for more targeted enforcement around the school area. Thank you.

City Staff: Alright. Good evening. My name is Catherine Robertson. I'm an associate civil engineer who deals with the infrastructure section of the Public Works Department. I have two questions here.

They're very similar, so I'm going to read both questions, and then I'll give you my answer. So the first one was submitted ahead of time and that is the crosswalk at Dale Avenue and Heather Stone to get to the Stevens Creek Trail is very dangerous. Thousands of students and adults walk or bike over this crosswalk every day. Despite the recent addition of small reflectors in the road, many cars still do not slow down. It is a death trap waiting to happen. We do not want another student lost, like the one we had on Grant Road. Will the city take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of pedestrians and bikes? I.E flashing lights, speed bumps? Thank you very much.

The second question was, what is the status of the grant road pedestrian crossing, also the fiber optic project? So actually in your packet today on page 15, there is a written update for the Grant Road and Sleeper Avenue Intersection Improvement Project. Now this project is for Gra nt Road and Sleeper Avenue specifically, but we also added nine additional intersections throughout the city to receive pedestrian and bicycle enhancements such as what are called RFPBs or rectangular rapid flashing beacons. So those are the pedestrian activated signs that you see for flashing lights at the crosswalk.

So for the first question regarding to Dale Avenue and Heather Stone, that is one of the nine additional intersections that was identified to add to the grant sleeper project. So that is actually being phased for construction, and we want to get the Grant Road Sleeper Avenue improvements out as soon as possible. That's going to counsel for approval to go out to date end of June. And so we're hoping to award a construction contract in September. What that means , though, is we also have to then onboard the contractor, and there are long lead item materials, those pedestrian pol es, any signal poles, can take up to six months to obtain those items.

So, while we say construction's starting, you might not s ee us there initially; it's really getting the contractor onboard and ordering those materials. So you might not see us until 2025, or you might see us sooner because they could show up in two months. But to speak to the specific improvements you're going to see at Vail Headstone, we are installing holes that are the rectangular rapid flashing beacons. So, it's goin g to have the f lashing legs. It already does have a high visibility crosswalk, but we're going to actually split the signs to try and angle them for advanced warning because that's kind of on a curb there.

Now, at Grant Road and Sleeper Avenue, we're having much more ex tensive improvements there. We are doing green bike lane striking through the intersection. We're upgrading to all EDA-compliant curb ramps, and we're putting in a pedestrian hybrid beacon, which is different. It is a flashing red light. So, vehicles are r equired to come to a complete stop when it is activated. Also , there will be a blackout beacon that will prevent right turns from Sle eper Avenue onto Grant. There's also the blackout beacons preventing the right turn movement because normall y when you're s topping, if the traffic stops, the right hand's, like a great traffic stop, I'm going to go. No, this is for, we're going to tell you cannot turn rig ht when the signal is activated because we want the bicycle to go at that time and the pedestrians on both sides.

We're making all of those improvements. Additionally, we are putting in a rubber curb as an interim improvement to prevent left turns from Sleeper Avenue onto Grant Road. That is also one of the enhancements. That will be a temporary improvement to see how that affects traffic , which will be evaluated as we implement the project. So those two intersections, again, are having their des ign go to council at the end of June for approval. And then we'll hope to start construction in September.

Member of the public: So it'll be illegal?
City Staff: From Sleeper onto Grant, that is correct.

City Staff: Okay. Hello, I'm Tim Youngberg, Parks and Open Space Manager. Got one question so far tonight. Could someone please provide a status update on Cooper Park Dog Park potential relocation? At the meeting a few months ago on-site at the park, I thought that this had been resolved with the plan to simply remove the official dog park sign. Mountain View Business School district was and is fine with the solution, which required no action from the city to determine a new location for it. I was very surprised. Received the survey a few weeks ago saying that the Mountain View business school district needed the dog park move and asked me to choose between options for a new fence dog park area.

This much smaller fenced area is an unnecessary change based on what we agreed upon in March.

Anyway, if someone could share an updated explanation of what has changed since March, that would be amazing.

Thank you for all your time commitment to Mountain View. Much appreciated. Cheers. So, the public meeting you're referring to happened in December. It was on December 16th on, a Saturday. We went out and had a public meeting, inviting everyone from the neighborhood. At the meeting, the school offered to take the sign down. Now in taking the sign down, we've now created a no off leash dog park.

So, in taking the sign down, there was kind of a catch there that we no longer would allow it. So if somebody has come out like a Ranger or someone from PD to enforce the rules, your dog being off- leash is not allowed. So as part of the community efforts, we provided this option along with three other options.

That was the A, B and C that many of you have seen in your emails or in taking the survey. While there are many advocates at the December meeting who are in favor of an unfenced off-leash dog area at Cooper Park, we also hear from many residents who want a fenced-in option for the dog park. So, we're taking both sides of that. Conducting the survey provided our residents with many more opportunities for community input; we are still talking with the school district about options for the current off-leash area, including maintenance and possible fencing of the current location that is out

there. We're still talking with the school district. The survey will remain open until May. And so far, we've received almost 250 votes.

Once the survey is concluded, we will summarize the results and consider all options in the next steps.

We continue to keep the community updated through the project website. And that is collaborate.mountainview.gov. So at that website, you're not only going to get Cooper Dog Park information, you're going to get information about a pickleball study that we're doing right now. We've got information on the California Street Pilot program, information on Electrify Mountain View, and also the Parks and Rec strategic plan. So there's a lot of information on that website where the community can provide input and take different surveys.

Mayor Showalter: And would you like to explain a little bit about how the land is owned at Cooper Park?
City Staff: Yes. So, the dividing line is just outside of the outfield. So, once you get off the skinned infields at Cooper, that's kind of, and I don't know the streets that are on either side, but if you were to jump over the houses, there's kind of two streets that line up. If they were to drive through the houses, side streets go right in line. So, if you were standing in the infields, just as you walk out of the dirt into the grass, that's pretty much the dividing line for Mountain View is the school district back to what is this street? And then, on the other side, it goes back to I'm sorry, not this one. And then the other side is all of the city property.

Mayor Showalter: Yeah, thank you. I lived a block away from Cooper Park for many years and didn't realize that the city-owned only a small portion of it. So, I just want people to understand that.

Member of the Public: Who owns the other part?
Mayor Showalter: The school district.

City Staff: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Quinn Byer, and I am the acting assistant engineer.

And the question that I'm going to answer tonight is, what is the city plan strategy to get continuous sidewalk-like space down the full length of Sleeper Avenue? So, the city, there are two ways in the city that improvements, street improvements, such as sidewalks on partially or fully unimproved streets get these improvements done. And one of the first ways is with private development, such as a

residential, large residential subdivision. In those cases, the developer would be required to install the frontage improvements, the curb improvements along the frontage of the development. The other way, the other process that we have is an assessment district. This is a process that's initiated by the property owners.

At the request of the property owners, the city would manage, design and construct the project. However it is paid by the residence along the street that initiates the project. Sleeper is a good example of a street that is unimproved. I believe about 50% o f the sidewalk is there or so. It was constructed as part of the county and annexed to the city. And as with parts of the city like that, the sidewalk is missing. There are gaps where the sidewalk is missing. We hav en't received any requests for an assessment district to be formed on Sleeper. But if there is interest among the community , definitely please contact us. I can grab my card that I c an share with you. Please contact us and we can kind of talk you through the process. For the assessment district, it s tarts with a petition from the community. And I believe that if we get up to sixfold, we can share the process, but there's a process for it, and we can share that with you. And that would be a way of getting the si dewalk completed along the Sleeper Avenue.

Member of the public: Residents had to pay for it.

City Staff: It would be funded by the residents.

Member of the public: So in the past when people did a development on like a remodel or something, the resident would be required to put in the si dewalks. And I know a number of residents that were required to do that. So they've already paid for a sidewalk. Recently, we've had at least a couple, like at the end of Carr oll Avenue here in Sleeper, that whole corner was redeveloped, and they did not put any sidewalks in. And further down Sleeper also, there was a big development, a huge lot and no sidewalks were put in. So it seems like there's been a change in how the cities manage this and existing residents have paid for sidewalks to have them have to pay again to now get the sidewalks in fr ont of other houses that have been let off the hook. It seems like that's not a fair process.

City Staff: I'm Ed Arango, I'm the acting Public Works director. I understand your question. When you say something did change, I think you noticed something changed over the last few years. It's because it actually did. In past practice, what we would do is when development would come in, we would

consider the development of any type of substantial remodel to a single-family home. Our practice was to require that development to install sidewalks along the frontage, curb gutter, and improve the street, what you're seeing along some of the other homes. Through the review from the city attorney's office, as we were evaluating this, we got some pushback and they found that there wasn't a nexus, there wasn't a connection between the development doing it and the developed being a single-family home getting remodeled. There wasn't a direct connection with can we require that development to do frontage improvements along their street frontage like others.

And so it wasn't considered a nexus connection, which means that there isn't an impact that the development is creating that requires a sidewalk frontage that is consistent with the development requirements. So that got removed. So, there was a shift. We stopped doing that, I want to say probably six, seven years ago. And so, the new developments that come in had not, because the practice has changed on what is legally defensible for improvements for a single-family home. For a subdivision that changes. If you are subdividing land, then the city can require, and then there is an access here creating additional units. We can require financial improvements.

Member of the Public: Does an ADU count as an additional unit? City Staff: So I have my planning cohorts here and they are the planning experts on the ADU units and the recent laws regarding ADU and what split. And so they have exceptions to that. So I think I'm going to have one of the planners help with this answer.

City Staff: Yes. So thanks for the question. So the question is, would ADU be considered a new unit to have a new sidewalk?
Mayor Showalter: Go ahead and introduce yourself.

City Staff: My name's Kisha Pinar, Senior Planner with the planning division. And to answer your question, no, an ADU would not be considered a new unit that would require updating the sidewalk.

Mayor Showalter: Thank you. Alright. Well, as you can see, some of these questions are quite complicated. So appreciate everyone.

City Staff: Good evening, Brenda Sylvia, I'm the Assistant Director of Community Services and I got a question about Monarch Butterflies. What location in the city are you planning additional milk weed plantings. We know of one location by Questa Park. Are there others? Yes, we have volunteer pollinator habitats at Questa Park and Heritage Park, and we're currently working with a volunteer group to establish another pollinator habitat at Mariposa Park. In addition, we've also covered about a half an acre with pollinator plants out at Shoreline.

Member of the public: Thank you. Do you know where Shoreline? City Staff: We do, it's in the protected area, so it's not accessible and you can't see it from any of the trails. It's up on the Northeast Meadowlands.

City Staff: Yeah, Ed Arango, acting Public Works director for the Works Department. I have a question here that says what's happening with the Stevens Creek Trail extension? So that's a Public Works project. So, to get your bearings, the Stevens Creek Trail Extension Project is an extension project from the Dale Heather Stone intersection down to West Remington, which is a street in Sunnyvale. It's probably about three-quarters of a mile of a trail extension. It's a significant project. And it also introduces a crossing over 85. We have multiple funding sources for this one. We just recently entered into a grant funding agreement with VTA because we received some grant funding.

So that agreement just recently got signed, w hich is great. We got some grant funding. And then we're about to enter an agreement with Sunnyvale to also co ntribute the design becaus e the city's going t o be handling t he design on that one. And this one line s up with the Sunnyvale project that's taking .

They're starting from West Remington and going south. Our portion happens to be a little bit more challenging because of the proximity to the Highway 85. So that means Caltrans is involved, that means we need a Caltrans permit and review , and we're also moving some of their sound walls to accommodate this trail. So , it's a significantly more challenging p roject for us. But we are startin g design later this year. Once we s tart to design, we'll go through that process for about two to three years because, again, it's a larger project and requires Caltrans permit. And then we don't have construction funding identified yet. But that's going to be part of our process during design.

Mayor Showalter: Another question: Can you remind people about the amount of open space that will be opened up by that? There's a section on the other side of 85 that nobody can really get to.

City Staff: By like Remington?
Mayor Showalter: Yeah.

City Staff: So right now it, the trail extension, it's really not open to the public. It's closed. And there's no way to access from Remington all the way up to Dale Heather Stone. So this area is largely open space. It's sort of like, it looks like the Stevens Creek trail just south of El Camino Real, where you have sort of this open land, but it's not accessible to the public. So once the trail extension comes in, all of a sudden you have this trail, it's going to feel like open space just like the other side. So just south of El Camino Real that's going to feel like, it's going to be a trail and it's going to be much more open. The intent is not to channel or tunnel it because once you get back there, you realize and you have to get your boots on to kind of walk back there. But once the trail is in, you'll see that it's a lot of education.

Mayor Showalter: Thank you.

City Staff: Good evening. I'm Dawn Cameron. I'm the Acting Community Development Director. So the question is, I noticed a newly constructed home had all electric appliances and solar panels. I was told this was a city code requirement. Is that still the case in light of recent rulings about federal control of appliances? So, what this question is referring to is, in 2019 our city council adopted what we call reach codes as part of our building codes. The purpose of the reach codes was to reduce the city's reliance and our community's reliance on natural gas and the use of natural gas, which have been shown to be a substantial contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal Federal Government ruled that due to certain federal standards, local agencies cannot prohibit the use of natural gas appliance appliances in new construction because these reach codes apply to new construction and major renovations for virtually all land uses, including single- family homes.

Based on this, the city did suspend our enforcement of those aspects of the reach codes, the all - electric applian ce aspects of t he reach codes, on April 9th. However, the regulations regarding solar panels, parking, and chargers for electric vehicles are all still in place and are being fully enforced. In addition, the city is exploring new regulati ons to promote the use of electri c appliances and reduce

reliance on natural gas. We will be going to our city council in June with recommendations for a path forward of new regulations that could be put in place that will promote the use of electric appliances and eventually get us to the point where new development will be using all electric appliances once more. Thank you.

City Staff: Hi everyone. Mike Campfield, police chief. The first question is the passover from Arn and it's related to ABAS, which is our abandoned vehicle abatement system program. There was a specific vehicle that was referenced here, and there was an inquiry as to what was happening with that vehicle.

For everyone's knowledge, we do have an abandoned vehicle hotline, so you can call in abandoned vehicles. In this case, Mary Flores, our CSO, who is assigned to the ABAS program, has already ticketed the vehicle both for its expired registration and marked it to be potentially towed based on the abandoned vehicle protocol. It will take 10 days, but before there were two calls in and she did just let me know that before the second call had come in and already had a citation and had already been tagged. So there is a requirement that the vehicle is tagged. There's a period of time that has to wait.

And then that specific CSO will come back and check on the vehicle to see.

Member of the public: Do you have the number for the hotline? Mike: I do have the number for the hotline. It's 650-903-6358. But it's also online. The question is related to panhandling in El Camino, and there's a request for an ordinance to prohibit that panhandling, but also an inquiry about what's going on in El Camino related to the panhandling. So, I can tell you panhandling, if it creates a roadway hazard, is illegal. Panhandling in and of itself is not. So, if you are seeing folks who are walking in the road when cars are traveling and creating a hazard, please call us. We will respond. If it's a hazard that is absolutely one aspect. We can handle it from an enforcement perspective, but also depending on the needs of the person that's out there, really, the preference is to try to solve the larger problem. We have a phenomenal community outreach officer and neighborhood and event services unit that addresses needs of our community that are underserved.

And so we will work to figure out what we can do to best solve the problems for them and bridge services through relationships with CSA and other partners in the region. So please don't hesitate to call. That's absolutely something that we would respond to. And if it is a road hazard, a safety threat,

obviously it's a higher risk than if it's just an inquiry about services in general. Both will get a response.

But if you're worried about somebody being hurt, please reach out right away and let us know if they're dangerous. The next question was related to traffic enforcement in cited 18,000 tickets before the pandemic, and it says 60% fewer traffic tickets now, indicating that major collisions and accident rates are not down. So, how many people are in our traffic unit, and what is the traffic unit doing if they are not giving tickets?
So, our traffic unit has three officers right now. It's two officers and one sergeant. We do have more positions that aren't filled, but we're filling them. It takes a long time to get people trained through Investigation Traffic Collision School, and then through a Motor Traffic Academy. It's not an easy job to have. So it takes a while to get people up to speed and trained. But our traffic enforcement team does a number of things. They do write citations. They do DUI enforcement and investigation, and they also do traffic collision investigations. They are lengthy because of the amount of math, because of the realities of what is required for them and especially if there are injuries. So that takes time. It's not a quick process. And they have to be very thorough collision reports. They also are required to approve every collision report that comes through and make sure that they're accurately done.

It really does take an extra skill. So all of that unit is not just to write tickets, it really is to promote overall traffic enforcement or traffic safety in the community. But I do agree that part of changing the behavior of drivers is important, whether it's classes that they put on warnings or traffic citations and there is an increase. It's not because I've said I want more tickets written, but there is an increase in the number of citations that have been written in even the first quarter of this year. We're at about 4,800 parking and traffic citations, which is a significant increase. The year before in 2023, we were at 6,200 citations. And in the first quarter, at the end of April, we were at 4,801. So, it is a priority. It is not something that I take lightly. I noticed the significance of traffic safety in Mountain View, but i t is one of many duties that they have. I think I answered all of those.

Another question also associated with traffic concerns is auto insurance. It indicates that auto insurance rates are going up because there are so many accidents with uninsured motorists, and it wants to know if we are enforcing that law and how many times in 2023 there was a specific section for not having insurance issued a citation for. We issued citations for not being insured, but I can tell you that we don't know who is insured and who is not insured until either they've been pulled over or

there's a collision. So insurance doesn't show up on a DMV check. I can get behind a car and on a computer check and see if the registration is current and the tag on the car is current and that will pop up on my screen.

I can't check and see if their insurance, if the driver's insurance is correct, has to be done after an enforcement stop, and I can't check to see if it is. I don't have the legal authority nor do our officers, the legal authority to stop a car to see if the insurance is current. So, the citation numbers in 2023, we had 71 citations for uninsured risks. In 2024 through April that same first quarter we've had 40 so far.

So I think it does reflect in general an increase in our focus on traffic safety. But again, the goal is not writing tickets, but really creating overall traffic safety and community safety through that traffic unit.

And that's all for me.

City Staff: Good evening everyone. I'm Wayne Chen, the City's Housing Director. I have two questions here. The first one is that I live in affordable housing. Why do you allow properties to raise rent on affordable housing every year? I cannot get ahead if the price of living is increasing, but my wages aren't. The price of affordable housing isn't affordable for low-income earners. Offering homeless programs that pay rent for me isn't fixing the problem. So just in terms of a little bit of contact setting, there are different types of affordable housing that the city has. There's below-market-rate affordable housing, and those are affordable housing units that the market-rate developer incorporates as part of the market project. And those do hav e a rent cap and BMR rent increase cap at 3% a year. Another group of housing, which we often call naturally affordable housing, is our rent-stabilized rental housing units. And those have rent caps based on CPI. So the apartments that operate those units are allowed to look at the CPI each year. Staff will issue what is allowed each year, and there are rent caps for that.

What I am assuming that this question is responding to are the affordable housing developments that we might be working with a developer to produce a 100% affordable hous ing development. And those projects and those units set their affo rdability levels based on income limits that the st ate publishes.

And once those initial rents are set every year the state also publishes updates to those limits.

Typically, what an affordable housing developer does is take a look at what the changes in the income limits are from year to year and base the rent adjustments on those changes. Now, what we have seen over the last couple of years are higher changes in state income limits that are published. And that may be one of the reasons why we're hearing this comment in other venues as well. But it is based on those

income limits. One of the items that we are trying to explore is whether it's possible to have a different way of having those 100% affordable projects and have a different rent escalator each year. So, we'll have to do some more exploration about those and see if there might be a different way to set rent adjustments on those projects. But it is quite typical for affordable housing developers to just base it off those incoming changes each year.

The next question is, will the new shelter on Crestview Drive change our neighborhood? I take that this question is perhaps negatively impacting the community. So how many of you are familiar with the Crestview Hotel project? Most of you. Okay. For those of you who don't know the project, we are quite excited about the project. It's in partnership with a great developer and with the county to convert the Crestview Hotel at 901 East El Camino Real into permanent affordable housing. So, it would not be a shelter of any kind. It would be operated just like any residential development and in particular, a 100% affordable project. And we already have a couple of those projects along El Camino. Alta Housing has two projects, and this would be much like that.

So a couple of other facts about the project. There are 67 door units in the hotel right now , and it would be reduced down to 47. The reason for that is to help support families as well as transition-age youth to be stably housed in the project. So that's a great piece. There will also be services as needed for the households and the families who need it. So there will be that support to help the families in the household be successful in living there. There are a couple of amenities that the project will add that currently is not on site. A dog park, a dog area, as well as a open space play area to the extent that there are children there and younger children. So there will be a space there that they can enjoy. And there will be an onsite manager and an on-site manager's unit as well to help support the project.

City Staff: Hello everybody. Colin James, Recreation Manager. The question I have is regarding Pickleball Courts. So where do you plan to add additional courts in the city? Great question. So we're currently going through a feasibility design and construction project with the Consultant Verde Design.

We recently conducted an in-person community engagement meeting on April 8th at the community center and it was very well attended. We had over 75 people attend. And then back in February, we ran an online survey for three weeks. Currently the consultant is crunching that data for us and is targeting, presenting their findings and also some concept layouts to PRC on June 12th. And so to

follow along with this project, you can go to the website collaborate.mountainview.gov, and then also join us at that PRC meeting on June 12th. Thank you.

City Staff: Good evening everyone. Lorenzo Lopez, City Traffic Engineer. The first question was kind of answered before, but I'm going to go over it. Is there a proposal to make it illegal to make a left turn onto Grant from Sleeper? But the proposal with the Grant Sleeper project is to eliminate that left turn by creating a median, a temporary median to block the ability to make left turn. So it'll be illegal if you drive over the median, whatever barriers are in place.

Member of the public: People cannot turn left and go to Questa? City Staff: You either go to Cuesta and make a U-turn or you reroute yourself to the next signal. Hear her question? Okay. What are you doing about not increasing traffic on Grants? City Staff: Me too. From the time School starts, and again, when it closes, Grant is totally jammed. So we do recognize there are high volumes on Grant Road, just by the nature of where it is. It's one of the few north south corridors south of El Camino. And you almost need to get to Grant to get to one of the other corridors, you have to use Grant. So what we're doing is we have an adaptive signal system that is on grant, and we've had some failures. Certain parts have failed, but we've been replacing those regularly and we're constantly monitoring grants. We know it's a key corridor, we're constantly monitoring. And we're also looking at more state-of-the-art equipment to replace what's there now.

This system has been in place since 2012 and so replacing it parts here and there isn't going to work forever.

So we're, we're actively looking at also a replacement system to help the progression and please add disabled van accessible parking spaces on Castro Street, especially in the 442 Castro Street general area. For people like myself with mobility issues, it helps a lot as parking is already very limited in this general area. I've had a parking ticket there because parking further away was not an option. This week, someone yelled at me for taking what he considered extra space, but I needed it to exit my vehicle without falling and further injury myself. So, not an easy answer, but we will look into the possibility of adding a van accessible parking space and maybe not necessarily at that location. Have to take into account ADA requirements. We need to adhere to ADA requirements when anything new goes in.

So we will look at options potentially on the nearby street, which is California. I do want to mention that there is an existing lot on the opposite side behind the businesses across the street from this location. There's a city parking lot just behind those businesses that is accessible with kind of a breezeway. One more. On El Camino towards Palo Alto are pedestrian crossings with lights, which turns on after the pedestrians cross, the light flashes red for several moments, the car which has stopped at the red, what should the car do in response to the flashing? I'm glad you asked. This is exactly what's goin g to be installed at Gr ant Sleeper for cars on Grant Road.

The way it operates is it's dark until a pedestrian presses the button or a bike. This is designed for bikes and pedestrians. When you press the button, the light starts to flash and then it goes s olid. So this is the same system that's on El Camino. It's called a pedestrian hybrid beacon. Once it ends the solid red period, it starts to flash again. When it flashes red, it's just like an always flashing signal stop sign; stop and proceed with caution when there are no bikes and peds, obviously. So that's what you should do when it's flashing.

Member of the public: What's the goal of the flashing after the red? City Staff: You can't go straight from flashing to off. It has to transition to the off position. That's why.

City Staff: I've got a few questions. The first one is why is the city zoning El Camino and Craft Castro for homeless shelters? By transportation, there are no amenities such as affordable places to eat. So the city did recently adopt the housing element, which is a long-term vision of the city's housing goals for the next eight years. And the housing element includes programs and policies that cater to creating a variety of housing types. So one of those programs in the housing element actually identified the El Camino to permit emergency shelters. So city staff then amended the El Camino to do that program.

And that is just to support the unhoused population of Mountain View.

Okay, second question. Once again, the traffic on Sylvan Avenue has gotten too much. The slowing measures work for about one and a half years, adding 580 units of luxury temporary rentals on Evelyn only increase the problem. How can our neighborhood claim back Sylvan Avenue? Please stop development in this area until we fix existing issues for residents that live in the area. Traffic enforcement has been largely absent. So the city does review new development applications for

compliance with city regulations, and part of that review includes doing technical analysis to look at project impacts and ways to mitigate those impacts. So specifically the multimodal transportation analysis is an analysis that city staff conducts to look at circulation and transportation impacts. And as part of t hat analysis, it also includes certain measures to reduce those types of impacts. And if there are any other questions related to tra ffic citations PD is also availa ble to help answer any of those questions.

City Staff: If you're having concerns or complaints, please let us know. You can't over-communicate with us about areas where you're seeing problems in the community. If you're seeing problems, you can send us messages on social media, you can email the police department, you can call the police department, and all the above. And one of the things those traffic officers do is they go out and address traffic stops and areas that are anecdotally moving toward their problem areas. So they will come out, whether it's Cuesta or so, or wherever, they will come out and they'll do enforcement. The more detail really helps. So, if there's a time of day, a time of w eek when you're seeing the problem, please let us know. That'll help us allocate those resources.

Mayor Showalter: You want to share the non-emergency phone number? City Staff: Yes. 903-6728. We've had that change recently, 903-6728 is our non-Emergency Police Department number. But again, emails, social media, however you want to reach out to us, messages.

Also ask Mountain View works great. It's selected for traffic issues, those get siphoned directly to our traffic sergeant, and he is the one who does most of the hands-on movement of those resources. So, I would start with Ask Mountain View, but we'll take any calls.

Member of the public: What kind of turnaround onyou are expecting? We've got one in and we just haven't heard back.

City Staff: It depends on what the significance is. You should be notified quickly. Now, the turnaround on when somebody gets out, it depends on what the issue is. And often when we inquire, they've already gone out, they've written a bunch of tickets, they've done some enforcement, and they're not as great about circling back. So, I definitely want to make sure that they're using that portal to close the loop versus just deploy the folks. I'm happy. If you want to let me know they're offline or now

about that Ask Mountain View. Ask Mountain View system intentionally continues to ping the person until it's closed. And we'll send you a message once it's closed, so it's not easy to ignore.

Member of the public: Can you repeat that number again? City Staff: 903-6728.

Mayor Showalter: And I just wanted to share that because I'm a little hesitant to call 911. But I'm not hesitant to call the non-emergency number. So, I have it in my phone. I'm going to update it, thank you. And I think it's a good thing for us to have in our context because there are a lot of things that you think maybe aren't quite right, but that's not an emergency.

City Staff: If you're not sure which one to call if it's not weather related or about a power outage, please call us. Call 911. It's okay if you're not sure. If it feels like it's safety, the dispatchers will let you know if you've called the wrong line. Believe me, they'll put you on hold fast and grab the next 911 that's coming in. So if you're not sure, please don't be afraid to call. There are worse things than calling 911 and getting placed on hold. If I call in, I get placed on hold if they've got more calls coming in too.

City Staff: Hi, I’m Krisha, and onto my final question. Can the city work with the Habit Grill on Grant Road near El Camino Nob Hill to provide access to their food supply vendor? The 50-foot truck double parks in a traffic lane on Grant Road at Oak Lane first south of the Chevron station. I checked with Habit Grill, and they said their backroom doors to Oak Lane are blocked with restaurant supplies. In addition, an unhoused person in a van is currently parked on Oak Lane blocking parking for the 50-foot food supply truck. This truck delivers on weeknights after dark and is hard to see with the tailgate down. If parking and backdoor access can't be solved, perhaps the city could require or ask Havoc to ask their vendor to provide a smaller 20-foot truck that can go into the shopping center.

So, a few components of that question, and I do want to confirm that you are supposed to make access to the building. So, the Havoc should have their doors accessible to exit and enter. So typically shopping centers are conditioned to regulate hours of operation and location of delivery. So, to limit impacts on adjacent neighbors. So, we'll look further into that specific condition of approval for that site to make sure that access is maintained to the habit. As for outdoor storage, businesses are typically not permitted to have outdoor storage unless there's a specific special use permit on the site.

We can coordinate with our code enforcement to ensure that there's no use permit of that nature, and

that way they can store their materials indoors. And lastly, for the double -parking issue, it seems like this can be an item that could be, or this can be an i ssue that can be ticketed by PD, so that double parking issue can be enforced by PD. Thank you.

City Staff: The question is, will the Grant Road pedes trian crossing light be timed with lights at Eunice and Phyllis? I think you meant C uesta; if not, traffic could have to sto p frequently during pea k traffic times. The answer is yes. As part of the Grant Sleeper project , there will be traffic signal equipment, not only at Grant and Sleeper but also at Grant Cuesta and Grant Eunice, that will have the ability to communicate and be synchronized, that is, to minimize frequent stops, especially during the peak hours. Thank you.

Member of the public: Follow-up question. Since the senior engineer you were saying, will the software since it was 2012 be upgraded to be able to handle the flow of the new traffic and the new crossing there?
City Staff: As the City Traffic Engineer mentioned, we are looking into more state-of-the-art equipment and software for Grant Road, and we're continuously doing that to improve the flow along Grant Road.

Member of the public: And is it getting budgeted?
City Staff: Yes, for this project it is.

City Staff: : Hello again. And then I'll answer the question. Recently, a church membe r expressed concern over a police handling of app arently homeless person on Castro Street last week or the week before, although I tried to explain my very positive experience with MVPD being kind and caring. What training or response teams does MV PD use to address conflict of homeless, mentally ill or u nder the influence persons in public places or private places, h onestly? So, we do a number of thi ngs training.

First, we have all of our officers are CIT trained. At a minimum, they all go to CIT training. When they graduate the police academy, they go to crisis intervention training as well. And we refresh that training both in our kind of two -year annual cycle or biannual cycle of refreshing training, but also by sending folks to either a week-long or half week long training regularly.

And we embed that training into our other scenario-based training. So, we have annual training significantly in addition to what's required. And we work in CIT and de-escalation training into those scenarios. So, the way that those scenarios are, one if you will, is by utilizing all of the skills. As far as what resources or teams we use outside of the police department, we certainly use the Mobile Crisis Response Team, MCRT. It's a county program trust to some extent, but they don't respond with us.

They're a non-police responder, not a current responder model. So, we can make referrals to trust and they can go out and take a look. The city does have a relationship in a case manager specific, I think it's for North County Trust, which is Mountain View, Palo Alto, and a New Los Altos. And that's through the city manager's office Human Services Division oversees that.

But also we have that unit that I talked about before, our neighborhood and event services, which used to do a lot of things that related, the ice cream socials and neighborhood watch meetings. And they still do those things for the most part, but now they coordinate that community outreach officer in our behavioral services unit. So that officer McPherson, and her sergeant Scott Thomas. They go out hand in hand, and they meet with folks that are in need, figure out what they need and what resources are available to them, and try to figure out again how to solve those longer- term problems for folks.

They've done a phenomenal job of getting people into Home Key and other programs for resources. So really trying to solve problems.

I can tell you downtown is going to be a challenge because a transit center is close to it. So that's going to happen with folks that are coming in. There is a phenomenal service downtown, Hopes Corner provides food and shelter and things for homeless people during different times of the year. And then we have CSA that's not very far away. So , it's just the reality that the downtown is going to have issues related to ho melessness. And there are complex problems that don't have easy solutions and there's not one fit for each situation. So, we have a lot of skills and a lot of great people and we try to address these problems individually.

City Staff: Hi again, again, Ed Arango Public Works. So , the question that I received, is there a plan to fix potholes in Mountain View, especially on El Camino Real ? Is it that you've heard about El Camino Real? Conclusions are hig hly potholed and dangerous. So , there is a plan to fix the potholes in Mountain View and El Camino R eal. First, I'll start off just generally in Mountain View. We have an excellent street cruise division who go out and fix a lot of our potholes and make sure we maintain well

with the problems that we see for our paving condition. If you see a pothole, we do rely on you to tell us about it. There are a few methods you can do that. One is our Ask Mountain View system. Ask MV, we like to call it.

It's on, if you go to mountainview.gov, right on the front page, there's a big circle in the middle that says Ask MV. You click on that and then it'll allow you to submit a request or a comment for anything.

But there's a paving or street section. You say there's a pothole on the street, please come out and fix it. That actually gets trapped. It goes to an actual person; they receive it and then they dispatch crews to fix it. We also have an extensive paving program that we do for kind of larger paving efforts to maintain our payment condition. Again, if you see a street that's deteriorated, we have an evaluation process that we do. But then if you see something that you want to see addressed, please call us as well, ask Mountain View and then we can address it.

I forgot to talk about the phone number for the potholes or street groups. It's 650-903-6329. But if you just ask for Public Works, you just call the City of Mountain View, ask for Public Works potholes, they will put you in the right connection. El Camino Real. So, El El Camino Real is not a City Street. It's owned and operated by the California Department of Transportation, otherwise known as Caltrans. Caltran does have a plan to repave El El Camino Real. As part of their ongoing effort to repave El Camino Real they've established a paving project effectively for all of Mountain View and Palo Alto to repave. The great news is that project has started, if you've been on El Camino Real recently, you've probably seen the sidewalk, curb ramp work at the corners. They're doing all the concrete work first. They're going to come in and have their contractor replace all the concrete improvements that are needed, upgrade all the curve ramps.

That's your first order of work. Once they're done there, which is hopefully within the next two months, this summer, they will pave. We're super excited because this is one of the number one questions that we get in Mountain View. And this is our response. Again, it's a Caltrans facility. Caltrans has a contractor on board, and they'll be paving this summer. So that was one of the questions. I have another question that I might have one of my colleagues help with. But we received a suggestion from one of you, very detailed suggestions, really appreciate it. They focused on construction suggestions,

bicycle suggestions and sidewalks specifically on Carol and Sleeper. And I think I spoke to that earlier at the Carol and Sleeper intersection that's on Sleeper. Again, we changed our practice through advice from our city attorney's office on what can be enforced for frontage improvements.

So that's the first. So I'm kind of working my way backwards. I'm going to hand the bicycle portion off to my colleague Maria. Before I do, you had suggestions on construction, improving signage for construction when it's out there. Establishing a website for where construction is happening. We have a lot of construction happening in Mountain View as well as posting accurate signs for utility crews. So again I really appreciate these suggestions. I want to take this back with my team and identify how we can do this better. But again, you are a lot of our eyes and ears out there, so if you see that a construction sign is not correct, see something that you see that can be better. Again, ask Mountain View, call Public Works, the number I gave you, or just find us on our website. Email us and we will address it. We have a whole construction team that does inspection and construction management.

They have a lot of projects, and they can't be on the job site for every single day of every single minute.

So if you see something, please let us know and we'll get it addressed. Bicycles, I'm going to have Ria Lo handle this question.

City Staff: Okay. I'm Ria, Transportation Manager. So the question is, or comment is please either prohibit bicyclists from cycling on the sidewalk and in parks or make the city policy, which is that pedestrians have the right of ray more clearly marked through signage. Too often bicyclists come up quickly scaring me and my dog. They usually expect me to move out of the way for them, but I'm usually walking my dog and it's unsafe for us to walk on the road. One bicyclist even cursed at me because I didn't move out of the way for him when I was wearing EarPod while walking my dog in Cooper Park. So as mentioned in the comment, the city does have a bicycle ordinance. It was passed in 2018 and there was quite a process of community engagement.

It went to the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee and council. And so this was thinking about all the different types of cyclists that we have in the city, students and people with different abilities.

What the ordinance says is that bicyclists are allowed to ride on the sidewalks, but they need to

exercise due care and consideration for the circumstances and conditions, which means go slowly. And they also need to yield to pedestrians. And the exception is Castro Street. You're not allowed to ride on the sidewalk on Castro Street because there's high pedestrian foot traffic there. We appreciate the suggestion for safety education and this is something that we do actually include in our curriculum for Safe Routes to school which we're delivering to all of the public schools. And we've offered it to the private schools.

We haven't had any takers on the private schools yet, but it is one of the things that we do mention that you need to yield to pedestrians if you're riding on the sidewalk. So hopefully the students all know it. And then this year also we are embarking on a Vision Zero. We have a Vision Zero program in the city. So that's the goal of that is to eliminate fatal traffic collisions. And this year we're going to be rolling out a Vision Zero Marketing and Outreach campaign focusing on, like the first focus is the things that are most associated with fatal and severe injury collisions. So it will start off with a campaign to slow down. And that is also, it's going to include a lot of social media, some things targeting particular audiences and that sort of thing. And that work is funded from the Sustainability Action Plan which the city passed a few years ago. Also, our work on Safer Route to School is funded from BTAS Measure Education and Encouragement Program. Thank you.

City Staff: I am Andrews one of the assistant city managers, and it's actually a great question. The city manager's update handout lists many interrelated documents, all working to re-envision the urban environment. How will city integrate all these documents so they support each other and are actually implemented plans, general plan, climate resiliency, urban forestry, park and rec, etcetera? So this is a great question because this is at the core mission of one of the things the city manager's office does.

The city manager for Mountain View is responsible for all departments in the city and as such, she makes sure that there's integration and coordination among departments just for day-to-day operations.

But especially when it comes to longer vision plans and knowing that there are multiple longer vision plans happening at the same time, she makes sure that we work and coordinate together to identify where there could be synergies that we can leverage or at all. So identify where there could be contradictions between plans and figuring out how to resolve those contradictions. We're also very fortunate in Mountain View that we have incredibly professional staff directors on down throughout

the ranks that also know the importance of communication and coordination between departments.

So as much as I like to think the city manager's office is important, even if we weren't there, they'd be doing it at the department level as part of their jobs, just knowing how they need to integrate with each other. So thank you for the question.

Mayor Showalter: We always like to thank the people who serve on our advisory boards and committees who attend, and I neglected to do that at the beginning, so I wanted to make sure to do that before anyone else leaves. I'd like to thank Joan Bofski, she serves on the PSAP. Eric Hoisin, he serves on the HRC and John McAllister our former council member and mayor who serves on the performing arts. Well, we always need people on the Visual Arts committee too. But those committees really absorb a tremendous amount of information and provide great perspectives to the city about how we should move forward with things.

City Staff: Good evening everyone. My name is Lisa Alice. I am the Public Works Director and I oversee public services. Question received is, does the city have any plan to provide gray purple water supply for landscape irrigation to residential units south of 101? The last update we had stated that there was no plan. Please provide an update. So I'm excited to receive a question about our recycled water program. If you're no t familiar, all the waste water that's collected in the city is what is used to generate recycled water. So all of the city’s waste water, it flow s northward through the Nor th Bay Shore, and then it goes by pipes to the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control plant. It's there where the wastewater is treated. Some of it is discharged in the bay, some of it is further treated and it comes back to the city of Mountain View as recycled water.

And we use purple pipes to delineate recycled water. In 2022, the city did update our recycled water feasibility study, and that's available online. If you see me afterwards over the water resources table, if I get your email, I can send you a link to that study. But the study basically talks about expansion of the recycled water program. So right now, because the water is coming back from Palo Alto in the North Bayshore area, the concentration of recycled water pipes are in North Bayshore. The study that we did talks about completing the recycled water system in North Bayshore and then it talks about bringing the recycled water pipeline system south of 101, going towards East Westman.

So we do have plans to bring the recycled water pipes down to south of 101. What we need to have a more robust recycled water system is a recycled water reservoir, which we don't have any recycled water tanks in the city. We just rely on the pipes that feed us from Palo Alto. So it's really important for us to have a recycled water tank and some more piping in North Bay Shore before we expand south of 101. Furthermore, right now the state code only allows multi-family residential units to use recycled water for irrigation. It does not allow single family homes to use recycled water. I hope that gives you the answers you need. Thank you.

City Staff: Hello again, Tim Youngberg, Parks and Open Space Manager. I've got a statement here. The city should outright purchase or acquire the very long-term lease 50 years, the portion of Cooper Park that is owned by the school district. That includes the baseball, diamonds and Turf field, not including the preschool area. So we have been having ongoing discussions with the school district. We just had the JUA, joint use agreement redone, re-agreed upon. So with any new joint use agreement in place, we can include this in future discussions, including land use and the maintenance agreement. Thank you.

City Staff Hello again. Question that says what are you doing for law enforcement? What are you doing about nighttime theft occurring between 1:30 AM and 4:00 AM and specifically auto theft, auto burglary, catalytic converted theft and bicycle theft. And certainly property crime is a problem. And year over year over the last several years, we have seen increases in property crime. Our patrol teams, they do go look and search for crime that is afoot at night, but it happens at night a lot because it's hard to find. So we definitely use our crime analyst and a new person in the position, we had a vacancy for some time. She's phenomenal in creating some technological systems for our officers to have greater access wherein when crimes are occurring. And we're also looking at other forms of technology to help us interdict and help us investigate a crime that's afoot, especially when we can't personally.

But there are no easy answers. We also have a detective bureau that does investigations and follow up and tries not just to catch somebody doing something once, but really actively tries to research and figure out how many crimes they've committed. It takes a lot of work to search cell phone, data records and other data systems. But it's something that we do to try to get as many cases associated to

people that are committing crimes in Mountain View. Not something that every agency puts as much effort into. And it's something that I'm very proud that our detective does, but it takes a lot of work.

But we are always looking for better ways to address those significant problems. I had a better answer that there was a thing.

The other question is related to RV and vehicle parking. It says, I have called several times about the van and the RV to the right of Knob Hill and Marshall Center. He is parked right under the nose, no vehicle sign. The van and RV are full of trash. Does enforcement mean anything? The short answer, yes enforcement absolutely means something. We also try very hard to partner with people that are in vehicles and living in vehicles to figure out how to addr ess those issues an d problems. Certainly when people are responding and they are responding to services and working in concert with our community outreach offi cer and other resources in the community, the main goal is not to handle t hem with enforcement, b ut to find that bal ance. And there has always been an art or a science, but certainly enforcement is important. And if we have somebody who's parked in an area that they're not allowed to be parked in, enforcement is a tool and does need to be brought into the situation to be utilized. So we'll take a look at it. I'll see where that vehicle is parked, what the sig nage says. If it's moving, if it's exactly with the signup, I'm seeing a head shake, but I'll do some research.

Member of the public: Can I do a shout out for the police department? I was going down El Camino, I mean 101 today turning off on Shoreline and there was like 8 CHP cars driving down with the lights going. And when I looked at it, I go, wow, something's going on big. And the shout out is to the Mountain View Police. There was protestors over on Shoreline, there was protestors over at Google, there was police. Our police force was out in force making sure everything was safe. They were police over at Criton working in crossing guard. So I just want to shout out that you guys had your hands full today, but you guys were doing all the things to make us safe, walking, driving and all that stuff. And you were doing it great. That's all I can say is it was a nice job to see you everywhere.

City Staff: Thank you very much. Very, very busy week for our teams. Everything from an at-risk missing juvenile case that was a large search at night to the Google protest and the IO that's happening. I'll save it. The effort is always to make sure that we're protecting everybody's rights and supporting protesters rights as well as public safety. And those things are always a challenge. They're never easy. Thank you, sir.

City Staff: Hi again. Wayne Chen city's housing director. The question is, why does Mountain View do so much for affordable housing without similar commitments from Palo Alto, Los Altos, Sunnyvale? I have a few data points to help provide some context for this question, which is a good question. So right now in the city the re are about 1700 affordable ho using units and there are about 40,000 total affordable housing units. We have about 1300 units i n the pipeline. We have nine active projects, and they will serve a range of income levels and special needs. We just had an informal housing month proclamation last night, a council, and one of the statistics that was included in the proclamation based on the most recent American Community Survey from the US census. Just in Mountain View putting aside the regional question. In Mountain View alone, there are 10, 000 households that are considered to be cost burdened.

Meaning paying 30% or more of their income on housing and 5,000 households who are considered severely cost burdened. So paying 50% or more of their income on housing. So we have 4% of the total housing stock being affordable. We have 16% of our population who have likeness some affordable housing needs. So even if we set aside what the other cities may or may not be doing, we have existing needs in the community that needs some support. Part of that is also to help support local businesses, especially retail and other types of shops that do employ a range of workers. So we do see an economic development component to that as well.

Right before I came to this meeting, actually the very last email that I sent was the housing manager of the city of Santa Clara saying, hey, ho w can we find out more about your state parking program? Our city council wants to learn more, and is really wanting to learn. And so we responded to that. What I could offer is that myself and our housing team, our afforda ble housing manager, Julie Barnar d, are back are often in spaces whether one -on-one with cities or in a regional setting where we're surrounded by dedicated staff in the other cities. And folks are trying to do a lot of work. And over the past year, you may know that the housing depar tment is newly formed, but as a result of that move, we are getting a lot of inquiries from other cities.

Tell us how you're staffing up what are your resources, what are the programs that you're looking at? And in many ways we can see that the work that we're doing here as helping support what other cities are doing. So I think that there is a lot of work going on. There are several regional efforts that we are going to be involved in. And the approach that we're trying to take is how do we address the needs that exist in Mountain View already while helping to contribute to the regional need as well as helping other cities to do so as well. And I think the high level here too is that we've had a great city council.

We've been very strong on affordable housing, and so that helps make our work easier.

Member of the public: You didn't answer the question.

Wayne: I think the point is that because our regional partners are not doing their share, the bur den is more on Mountain View to meet the needs th at you just addressed. It's not about like what you're doing. You're doing a great job, what you have. But if your partners are not doing their share, then the burden becomes, we're shouldering the main burden of other cities, of other cities.

Member of the public: Okay, Sunnyvale suggests to their people to come to Mountain View.

Mayor Showalter: I'd like to talk to you a little bit about that. We have re ally worked hard to have affordable housing and a lso to have rules for our affordable housing. So our affordable housing is to help Mountain View residents. So to get into the affordable housing, you have to fill out this horribly long form that explains where you grew up, where you live, where your kids go to school, where you work, all of those things. So we give preference. It's very, very stron g preference to people who are Mountain View connected. They have a job here, their kids go to school here, thi s is where they lost their housing. That's how we really focus on what are our needs.

Now, there are some times when we get funding from another source that has rules that say we have to consider the possibility of taking people from elsewhere. And when that happens, we have the list and we follow the rules of the list. But when we have the choice, we the city council over the last 10 years has basically said we prefer to have Mountain View get a preference because we feel like we're responsible, more responsible for the people in our community than in other communities. But I guess the thing that I keep coming back to is just because the guy over there isn't behaving doesn't mean I'm not supposed to. And that's really how I deal with this. I mean, we have a commitment. I personally have a commitment and many people in the community to help the people in our community.

And so that's what we're trying to do. And we have tried to be kind of a shining star and we talk a lot to other colleagues on other city councils about how we do this. And some of them, like Wayne is sharing, come to us for help and assistance, and we give it to them. And that's great. I mean, Los Altos has actually done several projects recently, but I guess I just come back to, that's how we deal with it, is we have preferences for people who are Mountain View residents, and we think that's a good way to handle it. But we feel like this is important because it's the right thing to do. And so I just want to share.

City Staff: I don't want to get into a debate. It's the right thing to do. I agree. But there's a balance with the existing community as well. So through the mayor, while we can't compel our neighbors to take any action, the state of California certainly can and has and I'll give it as an example. The city of Palo Alto has yet to have its housing element approved and consequently it has completely lost land use control to the point where there is now help me with this one. There's a Builder's Remedy application on California Avenue that is literally a tower. I don't remember how many stories.

Member of the public: 17 stories.

Councilmember: 17 sto ries, so we can't do an ything about how Palo Alto is behaving. The State of California is taking pretty extraordinary action for a lo t of the bad actor cities that exist throughout t he region. And there will probably be more builders remedy applications in Palo Alto because the y are refusing to do what they need to do to get their housing element approved.

Mayor Showalter: And we do get rewarded when we do good things. We were one of the first cities to get our housing element approved in Santa Clara County. And also because of that and because of how progressive the housing element was, we are the only city in Santa Clara County that has the state's pro-housing designation, which has unlocked sources of funding for affordable housing for us. So those are the carrots and sticks and things get a little complicated sometimes when you talk to like other council members, because then they'll throw something, they're like, well, we're doing this more than your city and then we're doing this more. For example, Sunnyvale argues that they have a county shelter. I don't know what's happening to that county shelter right now since they don't have a vendor for it, but that's another issue. But they don't have any safe parking. So you're trying to like balance,

like what different programs are worth what, and some cities think certain programs are worth more than other programs. And then it's just trying to figure that kind of shenanigans.

City Staff: Ed Arango again in Public Works Departments. The question I received is, can you give an update on curved bike paths in the city, spec ifically California Avenue? So I'm interpreting c urb bike path as protected bike waves or protected bike lanes where you put a curb between the bike lane and the vehicle lane to give the bicycles a little more protection. And so I'll speak a little bit abo ut what's going on in the city and then I'll touc h on. And we do have a program to try to implement protected bike lanes, buffered bike lanes and just improve just the mobility for bicyclists across the board. Some recent projects that are coming up I figured I'd share these with you. We have the Middlefield Complete Streets Project, which is a long corridor where we're going to be introducing bike waves from Moffitt Boulevard to Bernardo.

These are protected bike lanes. We're also painting Middlefield from Moffitt to Ferguson. So I mentioned the painting program that we have. We have the opportunity to try to introduce additional active transportation improvements. So in this case, we're doing some pedestrian hybrid beacons. I think you might have heard some of the other staff talk about the flashing beacons. These are protective action beacons that are on El Camino, that will be on El Camino Real with the Caltrans project. And they've done Caltrans has done in other portions of El Camino Real. We're also introducing a new VTA, new crossing at the VTA bike rail tracks on Middlefield. This is near the Ellis intersection.

So that's one project. And that's coming to council at the end of the month to start the design of the project. We have the Miramonte Avenue paving project. It's another paving program project that we have. And as an element of that, we're doing protected bike lanes from Castro to Hans. And it's only on one side of the street. The entire corridor from Questa to Castro is being repaved from buffered bike lanes, but specifically just from that side on the school side, which is Grand Middle School, which is the east side of the street Castro to Hans protected by lanes there because we recognize that there's a lot of school kids that use the Castro Hans and then they use Normani as the main connection.

And so it's going to be a two-way so they don't even have to cross the street. It's going to be a great facility. We're improving Hans intersection with additional flushing Beacons, high protected intersection improvements, high visibly crosswalks, I could go on, but I'll stop there. And then the question was specifically about California. So California, we have an actual project on California. It's called the California Highway pilot project. That goes from Showers to Shoreline. And it's a project that's going to do a road diet. Right now it's two lanes in each direction along this corridor from Showers to Mariposa. There's no median. So we're going to be doing a road. That means we're taking two lanes in each direction and we're going to make one lane in each direction with a centered turning lane.

So effectively taking five lanes and turning them into three. But it's really four travel lanes, now one in each direction. And then from Mariposa to Shoreline, that there is a median there. And so there's no median turn lane. So that really is two lanes in each direction. It's going to turn into one lane in each direction. As part of that project, we're not doing curbs protected bikeways, but vertical elements of a natural curb. But we are considering these protected bikeways because we're putting in a parking protected bike lanes. So what this means is we've taken that extra lane that we've gotten rid of or we'll get rid of and introduce a parking protected bike lane. So it'll be a parking, it'll be a travel lane, it'll be the parking lane and then it'll be the bike lane and then the sidewalk.

So we're also introducing vertical elements. They're not curves, but they're delineators . You might see the whi te posts. We're doing a combination of white posts, some more robust green posts that are lowered in the groun d. We're doing some planner boxes as well. We're going to test the different elements to see how they work along this corridor. So that's Californ ia pilot and that's finishing design.

So at the end of this month, council is going to see the approval of the plans and specs and we're going to be asking the m to authorize us to start bidding the project so we can start constructio n later this year. So we're excited about that project. Other elements of California pilot is we're introducing three new midblock crossings and high visibility crosswalks throughout the corridor, going again, Showers to Shoreline and other active transportation fronts. So stay tuned for that later this year.

Member of the public: I'd like to comment regarding that. I ride my bike a lot, and I have found that when we have those types, like in front of Graham, if the streets are not swept, it's a dangerous place to ride your bike.

City Staff: Thank you for the comment. I appreciate that we have recognized that we need to keep those areas clean and because they're narrow, it's going to be special device that needs to get in there or manual or just additional effort. But we got it. Thank you.

City Staff: Evening. My name is John Lang. I'm the Economic Vitality Manager. The question here is, is the gopher trapping business who parks many cars along Grant and various side streets operating legally? It's a nice one. So this discussion is a little bit hard to answer with the information at hand. So in terms of operating legally or illegally, the things we would need to look at would be, do they have an active business license? And without a name, it's a little hard to identify. We do have a registered gopher business in Mountain View, but they are referenced as a San Jose based business, so we need a little bit more information. So happy to talk with the individual that raised the question to get a little bit more information. The other aspect we would need to look into is where they physically operate.

They're operating out of their home. They do have to comply with home occupation rules that the city has. And that could be whether that's registered legally or not, is something we need to look into. And then as it relates to parking, as it's been discussed by our police chief, our public works teammates and our planning teammates, anything parking on the street is really an enforcement issue that is typically handled by our police department. So if they're moving vehicles around or not moving their vehicles, it's really an enforcement issue that's handled by our police. But happy to talk to the individual, get a little more information. See if I can answer the question more specifically around the legality of it.

Mayor Showalter: Well, I think that it seems like that has brought us to the end of our questions. And I want to thank you all for coming and being so attentive and asking good questions and some good follow-up questions. And I understand that we need to be out of this space in about five minutes. So we rent it from the school district and they set the rules for this space. It's not a city space, so we need to be out of here in five minutes. But that does give you a short amount of time. If you would like to ask questions directly of our staff or visit the recycling and zero waste and the water resources tables.

They have lots of useful brochures. And also I would like to say thank you to Mike Canfields, Chief of

Police. He answered the most questions, at least by my count 9, a closed second, however, with Ed Arango. Also again I want to thank the staff for coming out this evening to hea r from community members and share your expertise with everyone. We all really appreciate it. Meeting is adjourned.