CERT Presentation
Good evening, everyone.
I am Robert Maitland, your City of Mountain View Office of Emergency Services Coordinator, and tonight I want to talk to you about a very fun program we offer called the Community Emergency Response Team or CERT. And I know I see at least one CERT graduate here. Do I have any other CERT graduates here? Yes. So, with that said, the program is designed to better help prepare our residents and members of the community to be better prepared for a disaster or an emergency or any kind of event where a day or two or three goes by. And you have to be responsible for yourself and your family. So, have you talked to your family about emergency plans? Have you talked to your family about disaster kits and being ready for the next earthquake or flood or inclement weather event because I can help you do that. The program is 20 hours, and we talk about basic preparedness. We talk about basic medical skills. We have a class about disaster psychology, how to overcome these disasters, and we have a culminating activity at Fire Station 4 where we put you through the tower. We learn how to use a fire extinguisher.
Well, this is a good opportunity to come and learn how to use a fire extinguisher and have that confidence. So, when you need to use it, it's already there. So, with that said, I have some brochures.
Please come and see me afterward and I'll help you get registered for that class we've got coming up this October or early next spring. Thank you.
Presentation
Good evening. I'm Dawn Cameron, Assistant City Manager, Acting Community Development Director, and I am here tonight to just talk to you about a very important item that the city council will be considering on June 25 th, it's really important to building the future of Mountain View. So, we're very proud of the City of Mountain View that we feel we provide exceptional infrastructure and programs and services and facilities for our community . However, we do have some very serious unmet and unfunded needs for the future of our city . And on the screen behind me right now are some examples of what we've already identified.
So, for instance, what you'll see here is that we need a new public safety building, very important for housing , our police services, and our fire administrative services . But this is also, where we have our 911 dispatch center and our emergency operation center in case of an emergency . We have two fire stations that are over 60 years old and in need of rebuilding and major modernization. We are looking at needs for adapting to climate change and climate change mitigations in our city. We need parks, we need more affordable housing . And in fact, this $50 million you see here is just what we need for housing we already have planned and are in the pipeline.
We know more is going to be needed . We also have grade separation projects . And I know there's been interest about the rainstorm grade separation project, which is right next to us basically. And we're showing up on the screen a $45 million need. We already have a lot of money built up for this project, but it's expensive and we still have at least this
$45 million gap to be able to deliver this project. These are just some examples of the infrastructure needs that we have in our city to achieve our community priorities and build our Mountain View for tomorrow.
So, in looking at a lot of this, what we've been doing is engaging our community discussion about our needs . So, the first piece to understand our community's priorities, we've been conducting a survey of what infrastructure and community benefits are of most interest to you. And one of the first parts of that is we did conduct a statistically valid survey of our community and we presented those results to our City Council last month. And you can see the results up here on the screen where our community did inform us of some of the key needs that they feel are very important to our city. You can see key ones listed here includ ing our emergency services, our 911, proper maintenance of our streets, safe streets, bicycle, and pedestrian improvements, and affordable housing. These are all of interest to our community and a desire to see us build for our city. But we're not yet done with hearing from our community about these needs. So in the back of the room we have these brochures, "Join the conversation, Mountain View Community Safety," and you can see up here on the screen and in the brochures there is a Q R code where you can scan and do an online survey to tell us what you think are the most important priorities that their city is facing or you could choose to fill out tonight a tear off survey that's on the brochure and let us know . This is very important because our City Council on June 25th is going to consider placing a revenue measure on the November 2024 ballot to help raise more money for the city to help deliver improvements like this. The revenue measure the City Council is considering is a property transfer tax on any property that sells over $5 million, and so that's very important . This just occurs when somebody sells property, they pay this one-time transfer tax . And again, the threshold is this would be applied to property transactions over $5 million. So, it is important to us to, for you to engage, to tell us what you think is important . We will be sharing that with the council on June 25th as they make this very important decision for the future of our community.
Questions submitted and responses
Juan Diaz: Good evening. Juan Diaz. I serve as the Fire Chief. So, the first question is, is it true that the ambulances and fire trucks are only arriving within four minutes standard of 30% of the time? I can only speak on the Fire Department units . Currently, the Fire Department does not have an ambulance . It is accurate that on our last annual report we provided to the city, the fire department response times has been greater than in years past. So, we have a goal of arriving from the time the firefighters get the call at the fire station to arriving at the location of the emergency within four minutes. And we are only doing that now 30% of the time.
Question: has anyone died because the ambulance and the truck in are stuck in traffic the majority of the time? We do have data on our patient's outcomes. And to my knowledge, without looking at the information this evening, I don't have access to it right now . During the past year, I am not aware that anyone has died as a result of a fire engine being delayed on response times. I would like to add the following though, that while we have a goal of four minutes, just last month, our average response time was five minutes and 12 seconds.
So, the picture got painted that the Fire Department is taking too long, and four minutes is right about where we want to be but there are times that we go beyond that. Between 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM is our busiest time . Typically these are vehicle accidents, alarm soundings. And when we have these calls happening, we get simultaneous calls . We get more calls happening through the same window of time, and that's when we're experiencing longer response times . because for example, the fire individuals down the street from here, if they're on a call and then we get a call in this area, the fire agent has to travel all across town or from the downtown area to serve this neighborhood.
So, while it looks like it's really bad, it really isn't. What I focus on patient outcome, in terms of when we arrive at your house, are we able to establish the medical procedures to make sure that when you get transported to the hospital by the private county ambulance, that we provide the advanced medical care to sustain that life . And we have an excellent patient survival rate in the City of Mountain View.
Very unique to our city I want to point out that we have five fire stations in 12 square miles . Most of the cities in this valley in 12 square miles only have two to three fire stations, so you have excellent service in this community.
Question: The question continues, or the other question is, more building, more housing cause ambulance to be further delay?
I'm assuming that this whoever asked this question that if you add more housing, you're going to have more people living in the housing . And so yes, as we build more housing, there'll be more calls for service . However, that doesn't necessarily translate in the fire department that we're going to be delaying responses . We are taking measures on our deployment of resources to make sure that we put as many units available to be able to respond to calls during the peak hours of service . And one item that occurred at the city council on Tuesday was, the City Council accepted my recommendation to add more staffing to our rescue company by putting a captain in that apparatus, which in the past we only had two people.
And I'm know I'm getting into the details in the weeds, but only having two people, that fire engine, that rescue company was not allowed or permitted to respond by itself . It always had to have another company come . So now by putting a captain on that company, it's going to increase our capacity because they're going to be able to respond by themselves. They're not going to have to have another parent company come with them.
So, that's going to add bandwidth to our unit availability.
And then the last piece here says - the budget document says that they're late because we have too much people growth.
The budget document talks about multiple factors where we're late and which I talked now in one of them is multi -unit responses, multi-call for services at the same time . Like we're getting 911 calls happening multiple times at the same time. That is the primary reason why we see the delay if it is not just attributed to additional housing . Thank you very much.
Question: Thank you very much . Hi everybody. I'm Mike Canfield, your Police Chief. Happy to be here . I love these meetings, and some of these are multi-part questions. Let me start with the first one , it says, I read about parking in
Mountain View, and I'd like to know how many traffic tickets were issued in 2019 and in 2023 . And does the traffic focus on parking or is there any dedicated units for parking and monitoring the two-hour limits downtown? There's a couple that are kind of related, so I'm going to go over them and then cover the whole issue together.
Another question along that is the same theme is, that I heard from a neighbor, the number of traffic citations issued went down from 18,000 to 9,000 in the last few years . Is this true? If this is true, why does the Police Chief think this happened? Car crashes have not gone down, did we have fewer traffic officers? I am very worried because my son was hit by a distracted driver who was uninsured.
So, the reality is that traffic enforcement citations did reduce predominantly, the numbers dropped during the pandemic and have slowly been increasing. But I can tell you that traffic safety is very important to me and very important to the City. We focus on both enforcement, education and engineering, and we partner with engineering as you'll hear later tonight to address these issues really holistically. Enforcement is a very important part of traffic safety, and it has been a focus of mine with the department since I took over about a year ago . And so, just for reference, if we had, I think it was a little over 4,000 tickets the year that I came in, in 2023 this quarter we're projected probably to write about 19,000 tickets based on our Q1 numbers, which were I think 4,200. To be clear, that's not the goal.
The goal is compliance and people driving better . I'd be happy if we wrote zero tickets, but I do want to see traffic collisions decrease and that overall sense of safety on the roadways increase . And certainly there were some bad behaviors that were established, I think during covid and different driving patterns that are going to take a little bit of time to impact.
Related to traffic collision numbers, we have seen some decreases over the last five or six years.
But to the question; in 2022, we had 160 injury accidents, in '23, we had 184, and we had 56 in Q1 of this year . So, it does look like there are more injury accidents, not dramatically higher, but certainly more injury accidents . But it also speaks to the fact that the citation numbers are up, but those injury accident numbers are not necessarily down.
So, although there is a correlation, it's not as easy to always say what the source is, and all injury accidents are also not the same. It is a significant issue and it's something that we focus on at the department . We don't have a reduced number of traffic enforcement officers. We have three in our traffic unit. We have a sergeant and two officers. We have a community services officer who focuses more on parking issues. And we have four police assistants. Police assistants are not full-time positions, so that number can increase and decrease.
That downtown enforcement that was asked about related to two-hour parking, predominantly that's enforced by our police assistance and by our community services officers, but anyone can enforce it . But generally speaking, our uniformed officers don't go into a parking lot, check the numbers, and then come back in two hours to see if it's changed.
If they're doing traffic enforcement, it's either a flag violation like a fire lane or a handicapped park, or they've been called to that in general, that doesn't mean that's the only time they can do it, but that's more common.
Question: We spent $55 million on police salaries, break down this time by overtime versus regular salaries . And whether overtime has been going up in the last three years . Has overtime ever been audited by an independent auditor outside of the city?
So quickly just for an understanding; our salary and benefits, salaries, about half of the benefits or about half of the total number, but I'll lump those together . But also understand that sometimes and almost always actually when our overtime rates go up, it's because we have lower staffing rates . It's not ideal, but it is cheaper to have more overtime than to have more salary . So, there are greater salary savings associated to having higher overtime . That's not the goal of the department nor the city, but if you see higher overtime, it doesn't mean that the City is actually spending more money. Almost certainly it means that it is spending less.
Additionally, when we look at overtime for the city, we need to consider the amphitheater, and although there's overtime money spent, much of that money in the case of the amphitheater is reimbursed . All of it in fact, plus administrative fees are reimbursed for that over time.
And I'll get fiscal years, they asked for calendar years, but fiscal years - so '21 - '22, we had a budget of 42.6 million, and there was about 3.3 million in overtime . In '22 - '23, there was a budget of 44.6 for salary and benefits with an overtime budget of 3.7 for overtime spent . And in this year, there are two more pay periods, but pretty much in this fiscal year, 46.6 million, with an overtime of 4.1. So 4.1 is a little bit higher, but we had additional training to make up for some difficulties based on covid and classes not being available and some limited money from one time money that came into their department to address those training needs . Training requires backfilling and overtime, so there are some overtime numbers associated to that, but it also reflects that overall staffing numbers and a slight dip in that staffing members. So there's actually more salary savings this year than previous years, even though these overtime numbers have gone up. I hope that answers the question.
The outside auditor - so we do present our budget to the Public Safety Advisory Board . The budget is online, I think it was 655 pages, so there's at length detail about the police department's budget online . The budget is reviewed and our finances go through the finances and administrative division for the city services division. Also, that budget is approved by City Council.
It is very much accessible and readable, but to the best of my knowledge, we haven't had an outside agency come in and audit our department's overtime budget specifically.
Question: Why does the city think it's safe for panhandling to happen in the median of a six-lane road while a panhandler is on a tilted sidewalk one foot wide? Why has the city not passed a narrow law like Sunnyvale to move the panhandling to the sidewalk?
I understand that panhandling is a protected speech thing, however, we don't allow panhandling on the 101 or other places for safety reasons. So, it is protected speech and it is a challenging area . I can tell you that that item isn't on the City Council work plan. However, we do very much address panhandling needs, and we want to hear if you're seeing
panhandlers that are either unsafe or if you believe that the person needs services . So, they're kind of two different approaches.
If the person needs services, we have a very dedicated unit that looks at addressing those issues holistically . Our neighborhood event services as a community outreach officer that will go out, look to bridge services like through CSA in the city or some of the other government agency or non -government agencies, community-based organizations that specialize in that work. She'll literally take them to transitional housing, bring case servers to them, help those people get services that will address the underlying solution and solve the problem as a whole.
If the issue is unsafe, that's completely different. And we certainly can issue citations or make an enforcement effort to persuade the person not to be in an unsafe location. So, there's nothing that allows them to be in an unsafe place.
Right now, the law's pretty clear if they're obstructing a roadway so the vehicles can't get through, that's dangerous and they can be issued a citation, but it is protected speech if they're just in the middle of the median.
I think generally you see them at the very end of the island at El Camino and Grant, for example, or Shoreline in El Camino. Those locations in and of themselves are not unsafe.
I will also say that there's some real significant challenges to prosecuting those type of ordinances . They don't tend to have neither any jury appeal, nor any district attorney's support that there is very cumbersome to go through a kind of city ordinance perspective. It doesn't tend to get the same result that it would a different type.
Question regarding traffic and law breaking.
So, traffic, you know, like we talked about, traffic enforcement is very important to us . If you are seeing traffic issues, please let us know.
And if it's not something you're seeing at the exact time, feel free to jump on to "Ask Mountain View" and submit a notification to us and say, you know, in my neighborhood during these hours, I'm seeing red light violators.
For example, we had one recently at, at Sylvan and Moore Park . During the business hour, during commute hours, people are running the stop signs regularly. When I have those kind of details, it makes it a lot easier for us to allocate resources out, so please let us know.
We are data-driven, but we're not exclusively data-driven with our deployment traffic resources . We very much are listening to what's concerning, what people are hearing, and we also allocate those traffic officers, those motorcycle officers who can get around town a lot in here.
They go out a lot of time based on traffic law-breaking. Yeah, please let us know if you see law breaking . If it's concerning to you, then it is concerning to us too.
And public safety is - law enforcement isn't the only thing we do with public safety, but it is a significant portion of the work that we do, and it is very important to have a safe community and a sense of safety . So please, don't hesitate to reach out to the police department and call us if you think it's dangerous and somebody's likely to be hurt or it's a crime
that's afoot, that's significant, call 911. And if not, you can reach out to us if it's still emerging or happening, by all means, reach out to us through our non -emergency phone number which is (650) 903 -6344. I can give it to you later also, and let us know what you're seeing. We can dispatch someone out to that scene. Those are the same dispatchers if you were to call 911, but we have a limited number of 911 lines, so non -emergencies are best. But if you're not sure, call 911 . Believe me, if the dispatchers think it's not an emergency, they'll tell you to hold, they'll bump you immediately over to the other line. They'll triage whatever's coming in on a 911 call . If it's a fire call, an emergency, a medical aid, they'll pause you, they'll take care of that and they'll come back to you . So that's how they handle it. Even when I call in, they do the exact same thing; they just put you on pause, take care of the real problem, the biggest problem, and then come back to the others. If you have any others, please don't hesitate to put it out.
Question: Hi, I'm Quinn Byer, Acting Assistant Public Works Director/City Engineer, and I've got a couple of questions that I'll get started on . The first one is, direct pedestrian access from Rengstorff Park and the San Antonio train station between Ortega Avenue and Leland Avenue is currently poor, requiring an extensive detour to California Street. What plans, if any, are there to improve this access? There is currently a private locked gate allowing pedestrian access between the town court development and Leland Avenue . Are there any plans to make this gate publicly accessible or to supplement it with an alternative public right way? So, thank you for this question. This is an issue that the city has been aware of for quite some time . We understand the importance of having a more direct connection from Rengstorff Park out to the train station, and we have looked into options to address this connectivity.
The specific connection that's mentioned from Leland was originally approved as part of the older town circle development. And it was around 2010 that the HOA made the decision to install a security gate on private property .
The city had hoped to keep that connection open, but unfortunately, there are no public access easements through the town circle development that would allow for members of the public to cut through the town circle development . So, when the adjacent properties developed, the developer Lennar is to be working with the developer to obtain public access easements through the privately maintained streets connecting from Moore Park to the end of that development .
So, those streets, we have public access easements all the way to the rear of the development and all along the backside of the development. The plan is as the city is, we're actively monitoring the real estate market to look for opportunities to obtain a piece of property that connects to the backside of the Mora development to provide that access, that connectivity from the Mora site through to Leland Avenue . So timing, it's hard to say . It's where we are looking and when the opportunity arises, we will look to acquire the property to make that connection from Leland Avenue over Ortega.
Question: And then the second one that I have what are the timelines for completion of the Caltrain electrification project and when can we look forward to the switchover from diesel locomotives to electric? So, good news, it's coming very soon . Caltrain is expecting to commence services in September . It's coming this September. We're told September 21st, so we're very excited. It's been a long time coming, so thank you.
Question: My name is David Printy. I'm with the Department of Public Works and I'm the Principal Project Manager of the Parks and Buildings section of the engineering wing of that department . I have a multi -part question, but I'll just read the whole thing and then proceed . It says, please clarify the timelines for completion of the various projects now ongoing at Rengstorff Park, including the Aquatic Center and the all-access playground. Are there additional plans for facilities at the park? What impacts would these have on the open space areas of the park? So, completion of the Rengstorff Aquatics Center is anticipated this summer . The precise date of the opening to the public is dependent on successful system startup as well as final clearance and inspections by multiple agencies . The public can get automated information by signing up for the Mountain View Aquatics program e-newsletter for the latest aquatics program info, including when the new pool opening date is officially announced. I won't read the address here, but it's on the Community Services Department aquatics website. And they also have the other aquatics information such as the Eagle Pool programming information. All Electric Pool is a pioneer in recreational aquatics, and once open it will be a landmark facility for all to enjoy.
Referencing the other projects in the park that are ongoing now; we have the Magical Bridge all -inclusive playground, as well as the Rengstorff Park maintenance and tennis building replacements. They are both under construction and are anticipated to be completed later this coming Fall . Once these three major park improvement projects are complete, there are no major park-related capital improvements planned that will involve impacts to open space at the park.
There is however one current transportation related project that will have impacts to the open areas near the corner of Rengstorff as this project w ill introduce great changes, retaining walls and pedest rian ramps . This project is the Rengstorff separation project that I think it was previously referred to.
Question: Evening everyone. My name is Phillip Brennan. I'm a Senior Planner with the Planning Division in the City.
The question submitted states, the Walmart parking lot is a pedestrian and bike nightmare with cars, bikes, and people often coming into conflict with one another . Are there any plans to improve car, bike , and pedestrian separation for convenience and safety?
So, we're talking about bike and pedestrian conflicts within the parking lot at Walmart, and so we're talking about private property. Unfortunately, the city doesn't have much control over the current design of the parking lot on private property. Absent of Walmart submitting a development application where we could then encourage and help them design a safer parking lot circulation design, unfortunately, we can't mandate that they make changes until they submit some form of a development application. As of right now, they don't have any permit applications on file with the city.
Thank you.
Question: Evening everyone . My name is Joy Pipkin, Senior Civil Engineer in Public Works . My card has two questions. The first one is, what is the status of Rengstorff Caltrain Under Crossing Plan? I believe this question is asking about the Rengstorff Avenue grade separation project, which is currently in the final design and right-of-way acquisition phase . This phase is anticipated for completion early 2026, which could be
followed shortly by construction . Our Assistant City Manager mentioned earlier that we do have a shortfall for the construction phase of Rengstorff. Staff is hoping to reduce this by pursuing federal opportunities.
Second part of the question , is this seen as an opportunity to address improved pedestrian access between the San Antonio train station and Rengstorff Park and the Cross Central Expressway? Although the project does not address direct access to the San Antonio train station, the project will depress the intersection of Central Expressway and Rengstorff Avenue while maintaining the Caltrain tracks of this existing elevation. Rengstorff will go underneath the Caltrain tracks, and by doing this, this will improve the access between the North and South sides of Central Expressway to improve the access to Rengstorff Park and the amenities that our park offers. And the project will also include a parallel structure for bikes and pets that will maintain that connectivity between the East and West sides of Rengstorff Avenue, and I think that completes it.
Question: Good evening . I'm Robert Gonzalez . I'm the Principal Civil Engineer in the Civil Infrastructure Group .
Adding to Joy's comment, we do have a poster board in the back if you want more information on Rengstorff Avenue, a great separation. My question is in the form of a statement, fill the potholes on El Camino.
So, I have some good news. Caltrans, the State Department of Transportation owns and operates El Camino, and they have awarded a construction contract for paving maintenance in Mountain View, and construction is currently underway. So, the construction has started in Palo Alto with curb ramp improvements . You've probably seen them move down the quarter to our fine city already. We have a lot of concrete work to do prior to maintenance. A lot of the curb ramps are getting done now in advance of the paving, so the construction has started in Palo Alto . The construction phase is expected to continue until approximately the end of this month , and then we'll start seeing them ramp up for paving over the summer . The city's contribution to this project is supported by grant funding from BTAS 2016 measure, bike and pedestrian program.
Question: And then my second question - Some information regarding the California Street redesign have suggested that the changes might be temporary . Please clarify whether these changes are permanent or could be reversed . If reversible, what criteria would be used to make that determination ? So that's correct. The project was developed as a pilot program.
So, the improvements along California, let me go back and explain for those folks who are aren't familiar. So it is, we're proposing a road dive, which we'll move from four lanes down to three lanes. So that'll be rather than two lanes in each direction, it'll be one lane in each direction with a center double left turn lane . We'll have protected intersection elements and parking-protected bike lanes, and we can provide more information on that . We do have a project webpage at mountainview.gov . We can point you there. The project is intended to be a pilot, and so there will be evaluator elements after it's constructed, and the intent is to make those temporary improvements permanent down the way after the evaluation process . Let me explain a little bit about the criteria we talked about so that our bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee considered and recommended the following criteria in April of this year to evaluate the success of the project. So, bike counts, vehicle counts, vehicle speed, pedestrian c ounts, jaywalking counts, and
collision data. S,o to go into a little bit more background on that . In 2015, we started a study on this and one of the direct feedback we got from the community was that speeding on California was really a big issue for the community .
And so a lot of these are looking specifically at about evaluating safety on the corridor. Like the vehicle counts and like the vehicle speed. So, the pilot elements, we expect that to be in place for at least a year. It could be much longer while we gather that information and evaluate post construction data. Thank you.
Question: Hello everyone. I'm Rebecca Shapiro . I'm a Deputy Zoning Administrator in the Planning Division of our Community Development Department. We received a question tonight asking for status information on the projects at the corner of San Antonio Road and California Street.
There are two projects that are listed in the development update that occurred at that intersection. I'll talk about 334 San Antonio first. That site actually had a market rate development approved by the city council a couple years . That prior project is being superseded by a new development that's currently under review right now . The new project, which I believe was submitted earlier this year, is a 100% affordable rental housing project . 99 units, one manager's unit, so a hundred units total. That project, as I said, is still under review right now . Council public hearing timings is always a little bit of a juggling act between sort of technical requirements that we have as far as procedures are concerned and agenda availability. However, based on recent conversations with the project planner, I believe we are looking ahead and trying to wrap up that review before the end of this year.
The other project at the opposite corner across San Antonio Road from 334 San Antonio is the 365 405 San Antonio Road and 2585 to 2595 California Street Project . That proposed development is a 180,000-square foot plus or minus commercial office building with ground-floor retail. It is sort of the last accumulation of parcels comprising the village at San Antonio Developments . This is an older project that also is proposing to utilize 150,000 square feet of LASD, that's the San Antonio School district transfer of development rights square footage. They're proposing to buy from the school district 100,000 square feet of development potential . And that project went to the Environmental Planning Commission actually, I think it was April of 2022, and then was put on hold as the office market tanked in the Bay Area and nationwide as a result of the Covid Pandemic.
But earlier this year, the applicants did indicate that they would like the city to continue processing of that application .
So given the amount of time between that you can see the recommendation and now we're going through the project to make sure that we're flagging any changing regulations that we need to make sure we're addressing in project conditions of approval and things like that. We are looking ahead to trying to schedule that City Council public hearing for that project as well, exact dates are TBD, but possibly before the end of the year. Thank you.
Question: Good evening, everyone. I'm Wayne Chen, your Housing Director. I have a few pre-submitted questions and a couple of questions submitted this evening . The first one is, why does the housing department have budget goals oriented towards making themselves busier ? Shouldn't it be the opposite ? Shouldn't the department be setting goals to reduce the burden on the government ? Maybe 5,000 people don't need to be connected to the staff each year, what are you doing to reduce the impact? Thank you in advance for your responses.
And so, the city's budget document does include goals of each department, and just taking a look at the items that are under the housing department for next year . Basically, all of them are responding to the C ity Council, housing priorities, advancing the department's mission, advancing and meeting state housing requirements, including our certified housing element that some of you may be familiar with. There's a long list of programs and requirements and trying to meet our regional housing need, and then federal requirements as well. The City is a direct recipient of federal housing funds and community development funds, as a result, we have requirements of developing annual action plans and funding programs and projects to invest those funds to meet both community needs as well as meeting objectives .
And so we have many programs that we are both required to implement and also to respond to ongoing needs that we envision will be here for quite a while.
Question: we are spending $2 million on rent control . Is this true? How many apartments does this $2 million cover ? How many families? It seems like a lot. In 2022 we did not spend any money on that.
The City's Rent Stabilization program also known as the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act was a voter initiative. It was passed by the voters in 2016, and since that time, there has been a budget associated with implementing the program . We have a rental housing committee who is the policymaking body who oversees, the implementation of that program . They set policies create regulations and procedures, but they also set the budget and also the annual fees that go along with it. That program is a 100% cost recovery program, which means that the funding and the budget to pay for the operations is covered by a per-unit fee that the landlords pay . There are approximately 14,500 apartment rental units that are covered under that program . So, depending on the vacancy rates there would be up to 14,500 families would be living in those units.
Question: why are we spending $125,000 to design a website for just the housing department ? Doesn't the current website work? Seems to work just fine given the thousands of residents using it . We have phone numbers, workshops, flyers, so many things already. Palo Altos is a simple page.
This is somewhat connected to the first question that we do have a wide variety of programs . We have programs to try to increase the supply of housing to respond to tenant displacement, implementing again, our state of housing requirements and our federal requirements . We have various tenant-landlord programs such as our Mountain View Mediation Center, our Housing He lp Center, and so there are a lot of programs and a lot of information . One of the pieces that we've seen and we've heard is how can we make the information more easily understandable, maybe organize it a little bit better, make the information easier to find.
One of the other pieces is for us to evaluate incorporating infographics, very visually easy-to-understand information dashboards; this could help respond to frequently asked questions . And so staff maybe could free up some time if we have all that information more readily available on our website.
Question: The next question is California Civil Code 1941.3 requires a landlord to install and maintain an operable deadbolt log on each main screen entry door of a dwelling unit . There's a deadbolt that cannot be engaged from the
outside Satisfied California Civil Code 1941.31 . And if not, how can we compel my landlord' to install proper deadbolts so I can have deadbolt security when leaving home? For the first part of the question, what we'll do is, we'll take this back and check with our building division just so we understand the code and can provide an appropriate correct response . The second part in terms of perhaps compelling your landlord to be able to install a certain type of deadbolt, what I would recommend is perhaps after this meeting we can connect and I can refer you to our rent civilization division . They operate the housing help center, and so they can direct you with resources . We also have a Mountain View mediation program . And the Mountain View Mediation program is a free program available for really anyone in the city for tenants and landlords . And it's a way to maybe resolve issues or have a form in which some of these questions could be facilitated by the mediation program.
So, that could be a resource that may be able to help you achieve what you're looking for in terms of enhanced security measures.
Question: This is a two-part question. I'll start with the second part first . What is Mountain View doing to address the lack of housing?
So maybe I'll just touch briefly on the efforts for affordable housing and then just comment briefly on the market rate side. So right now , in Mountain View, we have about 1700 affordable housing units . About 1500 of those units are what we call 100% affordable projects . Those are typically developed by nonprofit developers . The entire project, they're affordable except for maybe a manager's unit, and we're looking to significantly increase that supply . So right now we have nine active, 100% affordable projects in the pipeline . We have three more on the horizon in a few years hopefully. And once those are built, we envision that they will add at least 1300 additional units, so almost doubling the the supply there.
We also work closely with our planning colleagues in terms of market rate development and market rate developers do have a requirement to include affordable units integrated as part of the market rate development . So, there's usually a 15% requirement, and townhomes have a 25% requirement, so that's one way that we are looking to achieve more affordable housing, and that would go along with market-rate projects.
Assistant City Manager and Acting Community Development Director, Cameron, mentioned that there is also a funding gap that we're projecting . So, one of the things that we will have to do to achieve those units is to find the funding. So, there are various things that we're looking at and tracking, including possibly a local revenue measure, but also looking at external partnerships, looking to apply for grants when we can et cetera. Just touching briefly on the market rate side, that's something that's up to the market to develop.
Comment: What the city and cities really need to do is try to make development maybe easier.
There are housing element items that we're looking at to look at streamlining processe and ensure that we have a housing sites inventory so that if a developer wants to develop housing, they can take a look at the inventory and maybe look at some of our priority areas of opportunities to develop . So, on the marketing side it is really to look at
implementing our housing element programs to facilitate market-rate development. And as a result, that will also bring ideally more affordable units . Although the market is has been challenging with interest rates and the cost of development, we do still see a lot of projects coming in. We also do have a pipeline of several projects with BMR units and that's actually been a pretty robust pipeline. We will need to see if they continue to build, but right now we do have a pretty robust pipeline as well.
Question: Good evening. My name is John Lang . I'm the Economic Vitality Manager . I have two questions that were pre-submitted, both dealing with retail, so I'm going to read them both and then kind of combine the answer because there is a lot of interplay here. So, the city granted that dense housing permits to apartment developers on the condition they include ground-floor retail space. In practice, building owners have reneged on their commitment by asking well over market rent. You know this because of the high vacancy rate . By definition, the market rent is a rent that would result in most spaces being leased . This makes our dense neighborhoods suffer from car dependence because many basic categories aren't available in walking distance . Why won't the council charge a vacancy tax for vacant retail spaces in our multi-use developments? And then the second question was, there's been a lot of high-density mixed-use development in our neighborhood . While the housing demand is high, the first four commercial spaces have been slowed to be lease, and many of them have remained vacant for years . What is the city doing to encourage landlords to lease out the storefronts and encourage the establishment of local small businesses in them? So, I'm going to combine these and I will answer kind of very directly both of these questions, but then I also want to provide the opportunity to give a little more background and just general information about the dynamics of retail and leasing that folks may not know.
So as it relates to what are we doing ? I can tell you definitively many of these new mixed-use developments do have broker teams that are actively marketing these properties . My colleagues and I were at a retail conference earlier this year, and representatives from Lansky Village at San Antonio were all marketing their properties to retailers. The retail market is changing. It has changed quite significantly through the pandemic. Some of that is both the requirements of what people want in space, but also who's looking for space. So, that's something to just be mindful.
What are we doing about that ? The city team continues to be very proactive in marketing on top of what the broker teams are doing for each of these developments, marketing these sites, and promoting these sites . In fact, we have a broker breakfast next Thursday morning where we'll be talking about the opportunities that exist in Mountain View for businesses to find space. In addition to that, the City Council recently adopted the economic vitality strategy.
This is a five to 10-year document that is small business focused, and it has 164 action items, a very big ambitious work program in front of us. A big part of that work program is looking to create tools and opportunities to address some of these issues that have been identified . Related to that, as part of the Economic Vitality Strategy, the Council did specifically ask staff to explore a commercial vacancy tax. We did do some benchmarking around vacancy tax, and the results are very much mixed in terms of actually moving the needle.
And I will spend a little bit of time in just a few minutes talking about the challenges of vacancy.
But in essence, it is part of a work plan to go explore. It is not considered an immediate priority to go explore. So this is something we've been asked to look at and we'll continue to evaluate and come up with a program for council's consideration, but it's not an immediate focus of our efforts. And I think we're trying to take the carrot approach versus the stick approach.
A few things I would like to share in case you aren't aware . There are a few, as my colleagues have talked about , different activities and permits that have been pulled. So, some of the new tenants that are coming into the general area, Craftsmen and Wolves, Movement Gyms, Tofu House, and Sola Salons is now open . AOPs Academy, Slice House is now, Open Zero Inn, Skin Laundry, and Ben's Bark Place are now open.
We also are anticipating another retailer submitting for permits at Village in San Antonio . So, there are efforts to certainly occupy the vacant space and we're doing our own efforts in trying to support filling those spaces.
In addition to our efforts in marketing spaces, one of the things the Economic Vitality Strategy looks to do, and this is in partnership with our colleagues in community development, is working with our planning teammates to explore the different uses in areas . For instance, in our downtown, we are going to be coming back for council consideration to make augmentations to the use table because once again, the environment for retailers has changed. So, where we can streamline, as Housing Director Chen mentioned, in the world of housing, we are looking for those opportunities to create synergies for retail commercial development.
Some general words about kind of the retail market . So, the broader neighborhood, the broader San Antonio neighborhood from San Antonio, all the way to El Monte, El Camino to California, that area has seen over the last six years, 120,000 new square feet of retail . That is a lot of retail space that has come online that is a little bit of a challenge. Please keep in mind, Mountain View shares a retail trade area with Los Altos, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale . So, a lot of the different franchise businesses that are out there have radius restrictions . So, if you're in one community, depending on how far you are to a location, you may not be able to cite an existing business . That is something that is very real in the world of retail, is there are radius restrictions.
As it relates to a lot of these new developments, depending how they were funded; please keep in mind a lot of these developments have mortgage covenants, which basically restrict the amount of lease rate they will charge to a retailer .
They can't go below that because it's written into the covenants on how they develop the project . So, sometimes there's just inflexibility there so there may be a deal to happen, but they can't go any lower because of those covenants.
I think the other thing to note there was a reference to lease rates. So, lease rates in the general area that I mentioned are actually down to 2018, 2019 lease rates . They peaked at 2021 and they've been slowly decreasing . So, the idea of a market clearing price, the rates are actually going down, not up, that should also help with the change over.
And then I think the other thing is just to be mindful about retail is, inciting retail is very fickle . People have very unique needs and wants. Some of it's driven by parking. Are people going to be able to park in front of my location ? If
not, I'm not going to go into that location . Does that location have the ability to do drive up ? Yes or no ? All these things play factors in the world of retail.
In addition, it has to do with the size of the space or the configuration of the space . If it's a narrow frontage, but very deep, that's going to restrict the types of users in that space . Two other things I wanted to comment on is - the other secret about retail is, if you're a small business or a small retailer, your cost to improve that space aren't borne by the owner and developer; they're borne by you. So, a big retailer can come in and say, "Developer, you're paying for all the improvements because I'm going to attract people into this development." Who carries and shoulders the weight of most of those costs are the smaller retailers. So, a developer can amortize those improvements, so you may need to put a hundred thousand dollars of improvements into a building to occupy it, and you can spread that over so many years .
The developer has to look at, how they going to get that money back. And that also plays a factor in lease negotiations.
These are the spaces we try to help improve . I'll give you one other example we're doing is, we are working with a retail firm to do popup retail . This is a way to try , and temporarily activate space with some nascent or very small retailers. The idea is, can we grow them into some of our vacant spaces ? We'll be launching this program during the summer, and then I address the commercial vacancy tax . It is part of our work program, but it is not something we're going to be looking to implement. Thank you very much.
Question: Hello. I'm Ed Arango. I'm the Acting Public Works Director. And switching gears a little bit here, probably my questions related to the pedestrian and bicycle mobility access . So, the question that we received is, pedestrian and bike access to Del Medio Avenue, Front Showers Drive at the San Antonio Train Station is possible but awkward at best, requiring transit through an apartment complex parking lot or transit through Stanford Electric or Power Lumber property. Are there any plans to improve this corridor? So again, so people get location based. It's San Antonio Train Station as you're heading towards Palo Alto or westerly.
Did I get that right ? Showers, you go under San Antonio Road and that turned into a cul -de-sac, and then there's properties. And on the other side of those properties is Del Medio Avenue, and that's where the connectivity gap is. So, we're aware of this access gap . It was noted in the 2014 pedestrian master plan as a missing link . This gap was also commented on by the public as part of the current process in developing the Active Transportation Plan . If you haven't heard about the Active Transportation Plan; it's a plan that we are currently developing to combine the pedestrian master plan and the bike transportation plan, updating those and further building on these to really support walking and biking in the city. Because the gap was noted in the pedestrian master plan and through the Active Transportation Plan process, it is on our radar . It'll be reflected in the Active Transportation Plan . I do need to note that this connection would be looking on private property, so the city can't do this alone. We would need and be looking for when one of the properties redevelops along Del Medio Avenue and then work with the developer at that time . So, to answer the question - while there's no current plans, we are looking for opportunities. And if you understand in staying connected with the Active Transportation Plan, we like to call it the ATP, all you need to do is search your favorite search engine and Mountain View, type in Mountain View ATP or Mountain View Active Transportation Plan, and it pops right up.
So, you can subscribe to our subscriber list to be notified for any future activity on that brand. Okay, thank you.
Question : Good evening everyone. Tim Youngberg, Parks and Open Space Manager . One question tonight, does the City have plans to update the amenities at Klein Park?
The Trellis has limited functionality and the grassy area is not level . This space could work much better for the community with more up-to-date features. So there are no plans at this time to update the amenities, but there may be recommendations or even opportunities identified through the Parks and Rec Strategic Plan . The Parks Rec Strategic Plan is currently being run . If you'd like to participate or find more information about it, please visit imaginemvparks.com Thank you.
Question: Hello again, everybody. Mike Canfield, Police Chief. My question is, could the Police Chief or Public Works help us understand why we need to spend $15 million for a gun range downtown? Well, the downtown reason is because it would be attached to the new public safety, proposed public safety building.
But why a gun range and why $15 million are almost two different questions . Everything construction-related is very expensive. So, to have a functional range, it has to be a certain size, has to be usable to meet needs, thus the size and thus the unfortunate costs.
But why do we need a gun range? Obviously, all our officers carry firearms all of the time. They have firearms on their person, they have firearms in their vehicles, and less lethal systems that don't shoot bullets, but shoot projectiles in their vehicles as well. And they have those - you have them with officers 24/7 all the time 365 days a year. Those weapons require a lot of training. They are perishable skills, and also not just to meet the minimum qualifications, but to have the high expectations that I have of our police department that our council has, that our City Manager's office have, and that our community have . We have to train realistically . We have to train complex scenarios that aren't stagnant and involve either a lethal weapon or a less-lethal weapon or communication and de-escalation. But we have to create and design scenarios in which we have alternates, so the officer going into that training doesn't already know the outcome .
And we really want to base that on a system that creates the ability and the skillset in our officers to deescalate situations, but to be able to handle a situation, whatever that threat level needs to be.
We have a fantastic track record, and I'm very proud of the police department and its use of force and its lack of need to use lethal force. That didn't happen by accident. It's a lot of training. But I'll tell you, training is very hard to find for a gun range.
Santa Clara Police Department was our primary vendor, if you will, for their gun range . And they had a close by gun range that's underground that's built in the sixties, and they would allow us to rent it for a reasonable cost recovery for them. They have shut that down for every police department . Nobody is allowed to use that range . We predominantly used the Santa Clara County Sheriff's range in South San Jose that currently is available.
But not that long ago, that range was not available to outside vendors because they had someone hurt their hand when they were there and they were assessing if they wanted to let anybody in or not. That was almost two years where we could not use that range, so there are not a lot of viable options.
And I could envision in the next five to 10 years or less, those ranges regionally not being accessible. There are already very few, and our officers having to go like so many others to San Benito County or somewhere very, very far away and we're just not going to be able to do the level of training that we need to be able to do if we can't have access to that range. Also, quite frankly, if I want to recruit a broad range of people into policing, and I think there's a lot of value for the community and to the police department for that, I'm not going to find people who already know how to shoot, and that is going to create challenges, especially for people who have smaller hands in the police academy.
And that is a pain point where we lose applicants that have gotten all the way through the police academy to the very end, and they fail out on that firearms qualification . That hurts us as a city and as a police department, and it limits the number and the type of people who might otherwise pass that training and we'd be able to onboard . Agencies that have ranges, they take those folks in, when they identify an issue or if they think it may become an issue and they train them a lot so that they can pass that training. That's something we do perhaps with the vehicle driving or some other issues in the academy. But we don't have that ability right now without a gun range, and that's a real problem.
Recruiting in policing is a real problem . It's not a Mountain View problem, it is a policing problem . And this is absolutely one aspect that addresses that really real significant issue. Given that there are so few agencies that have gun ranges and how hard they are to have, there is also a cost recovery component. $15 million is a lot of money, but being able to have a functional range where we can do this training, we can rent that range out at market rate to neighboring agencies. Palo Alto is building a public safety building. I think it's coming close to being completed because they were also in a very small and aged building . They did not end up requesting, they did not end up getting a firearms range .
They're going to be looking for a firearms range . There are many agencies that we'll be looking to, and there are opportunities for cost recovery associated to that.
Lastly, we used to have a gun range . It was a long time ago, but we used to have a law enforcement specific - firearm specific firearms range in the Bayshore area, and that served the needs of the police department for many decades.
And for a number of reasons, it was before my time, we moved away from having that out there, but that need is still very much there and it will not go away no matter what. I really truly believe that this is essential for us to be able to do our job. I'm happy to talk about the public safety building afterwards or the gun range. If anybody would like to talk to me, I'll be here. Thank you.
Question: Good evening. David Printy, Principal Project Manager of Public Works. I have a bit of a follow up question regarding the Rengstorff pool . It says, why was the Rengstorff pool opening delayed ? My daughter's swim class was moved.
Yes, this was an unfortunate outcome of what has been I think a five-year project for me and my staff, and so we are currently in the end stages of bringing the facility online . It has been noted in several staff reports, one of the first all electric pools in California. I can't speak for the nation, but I can certainly say that it is a pioneering project, and with that comes certain technical challenges, and this one is of course no different. We are in the process of working through some technical issues and some code compliance matters with the Santa Clara Department of Health, which we expect to resolve, but we cannot at this time give a definitive answer as to the date of opening . And so, we're as I mentioned earlier, the community services department does have an aquatics page with an e -newsletter that once you sign up, I guarantee you they will emailing you email about aquatics once it is open. Thank you.
Question: Good evening everyone. I'm Lorenzo Lopez, City Traffic Engineer. And I have one question, which is very odd, not the question, just normally I have a lot more . There are often delivery trucks, moving vans and cars parked on San Antonio in front of the Dean apartments. They're blocking the bike lane and dangerously taking up part of the right lane on San Antonio. If traveling from California toward El Camino. I commute past here and see it every day almost, and I have to move over . Can the city ask the apartments to disallow stopping on this busy street ? It seems they must have planned a proper safe drop-off area somewhere else.
The answer is yes . As part of the project development, there was a loading dock that was built with the project that's accessible from Miller . Not that everybody uses it, obviously . So, what we can do, we recently installed no parking bike lane signs along the frontage on San Antonio, so that happened just in April, a couple months ago . We'll work with the property manager to remind the deliveries that they should be either accessing from Miller or from Fayette because there's an access to the Dean from Fayette as well . We'll work with police to do enforcement out there, some targeted enforcement for any violators that are parking in the bike lane loading . And then if you see anything, call the non-emergency police number, which I'll give it to you now . It's on the website and we can repeat it after the meeting, 650-903-6344. Thank you.
Question: Good evening everybody. Russ Hansen, Urban Forest Manager with the City. One question that I received this evening was, I saw we only planted 80 trees versus our goal of over 300 because we didn't have enough staff . Can we outsource that? Isn't it just digging a hole and putting a tree in the ground plus maintenance for a few months? So, you know, first and foremost, I wish it were that simple in a lot of cases . It's unfortunate we didn't hit our goal last year. Bottom line is, we're going to do some improvements this year to focus on getting some more trees into the ground. When it comes to planting, as I said, it's really a lot more complicated than that . We have to identify the location that we're going to be locating the tree . It doesn't always go back where another tree was . There are always conflicts. We've got to look at utilities. We've got to look at other things that may inhibit or conflict with that tree as it grows and matures. All kinds of other different things. We've got to work with the property owners, typically, in a lot of cases we have to coordinate with them and find a species that they're happy with.
And then as well on the maintenance, not just a couple months. Typically, when we plant a new tree, it takes about two to three summers to get that through the watering cycle . Because we have seasonal rains only, summers are really,
really difficult on our new trees . So bottom line is, typically from about April or May until October, there's a lot of watering that needs to take place . So ultimately, we got to coordinate that with the property owners or find another opportunity to keep those trees watered. So in terms of outsourcing it to kind of answer that portion of the question; absolutely there are some things that we can do . We currently do work with a tree contractor to plant some of those trees. The other thing we've done is we've got a non -profit group that we work with called Canopy they are very, very big in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos area do a lot of tree plantings, big on community engagement . So we've had an agreement with them for the last couple of years. We are expanding that agreement this year, talking them - last year they were only responsible by agreement to get us about 10 trees because we're just kind of getting this started with them, we only had a requirement for 10 . This year we're hoping to get at least 60, maybe as many as a hundred trees done through them as well. The real benefit through that is, is that they work with the homeowners . They coordinate that stewarding or that maintenance for the two or three years . They stay in touch with those owners and make sure that the trees are surviving . So again, lots of opportunities for kind of to expand that, to outsource these services. We are absolutely looking at that and hopefully this year we get to at least 300, maybe as many as four or 500 will be a kind of our informal goal that we're shooting for. Thank you.
Question: Colin James, Recreation Manager . So, the question is the pickleball proposal in Cuesta Park will be noisy .
We have lots of parking lots, why not use one of those? Perfect timing for this question. So, to make sure everybody's caught up; we are currently in the process of a pickleball court preliminary study, design , and construction project . The consultant for the design considered many things including existing infrastructure. And then of course, since we're talking about pickleball, noise , and noise mitigation before they made their recommendation to Parks and Rec Commission . So, Cuesta Park was highlighted specifically because the location near the tennis courts by the large parking structure by El Camino Hospital is far away from housing. Last night at the Parks and Recreation Commission, they recommended that staff and the consultant review if there are any already paved areas within Mountain View that could be used for new dedicated pickleball courts . So, if you'd like to follow along with the project, please follow at https://collaborate.mountainview.gov/pickleballstudy .
Again, https://collaborate.mountainview.gov/pickleballstudy Thanks.
Question: Good evening. Brenda Sylvia, Assistant Community Services Director. I got a question. The city committed funding to the purchase of a portion of the San Antonio Shopping Center by Los Alto School District for a new school site, as well as a community park to serve our area that was in 2009, that was supposed to serve our area in 2019. What is the city doing to expedite the construction of a much-needed open space? And what is the anticipated timeline for the new park to be completed?
The redevelopment of the Los Alto School District -owned parcel for a new school and new city park is still moving forward. The design of the school site was delayed as the school district focused on Covid . City staff and LASD representatives have been working together over the last year to finalize the park location, the school site plan, particularly the joint use, of open space on the school district site. LASD recently released their environmental impact
report for the school site, and we're working on updating some agreements, joint use agreements between the City and the school district that addresses the timing of the land transfer . Once the land is dedicated to the City for the park, design will take about 12 to 14 months, followed by about a year and a half to two years for construction.
And since I'm up here, I'm going to take the opportunity to plug the City-Wide Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan, which actually the community engagement just launched yesterday. I provided some flyers back there, which has a QR code and the project website, which will tell you all the engagement opportunities, list them there, talks about the project a little bit, and allows you to communicate with each other, post your ideas and post your pictures . So, please grab flyer, take that with you and check it out and get involved. Thank you.
Question: Hello again. I'm Wayne Chen, Housing Director. I apologize I'm not able to maybe make out all the words on this, so if you'll allow me to paraphrase, I believe the question is, I live in an older condo complex that is our code, can I expect it to be torn down and when would I be notified? This situation is not something that the City really sees or maybe have seen recently, and so, that might be something that we look at and look into a little bit further . But just to offer some thoughts . Older buildings, there's a distinction between if this were an apartment and you are a tenant versus a condo in which you are an owner of the condo unit, typically you would have some shared ownership to the common area . And so probably one place to look in terms of maintaining the property is to assuming you have HOA, is to take a look at the HOA and any CC &R requirements for upkeeping the property and how the HOA dues are being collected and spent to maintain the property . If there are provisions for special assessments to make sure that the property is maintained and kept up to code. In terms of perhaps a situation where the property truly is at the end of its useful life or maybe near the end of the useful life, what we've seen or have heard is in terms of kind of practical options is an owner might decide to sell the unit and just find another housing opportunity. If it were a redevelopment opportunity and a developer wanted to come in and thought it was an opportunity because it was an older building; I believe that would be a rather lengthier process by which they are trying to purchase all the units from all the condo owners . And so, we don't think that there's some version where you would just suddenly get a notice that you would have to vacate your unit because it's a condo project . There would be opportunities for engagement and understanding the ways of moving forward with your HOA . And then if an external developer wanted to come in, there would probably be an extensive process, and then we have to be working with each of the owners of the units . So hopefully that helps, and I'll be around after if you'd like to talk a little bit more if I maybe misread or have misunderstood the question. Thank you.
Question: Good evening again . Dawn Cameron, Assistant City Manager, Acting Community Development Director .
So, the first question is, has the finance department determined the additional costs the City will invite because of the community workforce agreement ? If so, how much more, for example, 5% more ? If it has not determined the extra cost, please explain an opinion on whether the city should expect construction to be more expensive because of union labor.
So, just to give a little context for this question; a community workforce agreement, also known as a project labor agreement is pre-hire agreement with labor organizations for the City public works projects. And in fact, these project labor agreements, community workforce agreements are widely used and have been used for decades by many, many jurisdictions. San Jose has one that covers nearly all projects, Valley Water, Valley Transportation Authorities - we have other local cities that have done them for individual projects . School districts use them and jurisdictions use them because they do provide a lot of benefits for the bill to deliver our public works construction projects . And this question's being raised because just last month our city council approved a community workforce agreement for five of our upcoming capital public works projects . These are projects that are more complicated, much more expensive and larger, and they use many different specialized trade groups and crafts to be able to do the construction project.
So, what are these benefits that I'm talking about? First off one of the key benefits is they guarantee what's called Labor Peace during construction of a project . There won't be any work stoppages, there won't be any striking that there's a resolution provisions in the agreement for how disputes get resolved without stopping work , and this can be a major savings for a project to avoid disruptions that could occur should an issue arise during construction. The other piece is a major benefit for our community is built into this is certain requirements to use apprenticeships and pre -apprenticeship programs with targeted hiring percentages to really focus on workforce development for our own community . So built into this would be that they would be required to look for Mountain View residents or neighboring cities if they can't find enough applicants in Mountain View to focus on apprenticeships and building up their skills, which creates future job opportunities for them. So, that's a community benefit the City will receive from this.
Question: So the question was will this cost us more? Generally, no . For one thing to be aware of, many of the construction projects we already left when we put them out to bid . It's already union labor and union firms that are winning the bid, so that's already showing they're very competitive when they bid for projects because we award to the lowest responsible responsive bidder . But the other piece is, per state law, any contractor that works on a city public works project must pay prevailing wage whether they're using union labor or not . And prevailing wage is the same as union wages. So, this does not necessarily mean our approach is going to cost more, but it does have potential benefits for delivering our projects.
Question: The second question, last year the city gave away $600,000 to support workforce development. Are there any concrete numbers on how this helped ? I'm not talking about how many people took a webinar . How do we know $60,000 to the day worker center for gardening, tech, and bicycle repair training led to better outcomes? How many day workers actually attended those programs?
I'll have to say that we do not have this information immediately on hand for you today because it's asking for some very specific numbers. I know we've seen some positive outcomes. So what we're going to do is, this is an example one where we'll prepare a written response and make it available on our website for you. Give us a few days to get it placed on the website. Thank you.