Office of the City Manager
DATE: November 6, 2025
TO: Council Neighborhoods Committee
FROM: Parneet Dhindsa, Human Services Manager
Laurel James, Principal Management Analyst
VIA: Audrey D. Seymour, Assistant City Manager
SUBJECT: 2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review
RECOMMENDATION
1. Receive a summary of the 2025 neighborhood meetings and the Fiscal Year 2025 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program.
2. Provide feedback on the 2025 neighborhood meetings and Fiscal Year 2025 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program for consideration in developing the 2026 Council Neighborhood Committee Work Plan and Fiscal Year 2026 -27 Neighborhood Grant Program Guidelines.
3. Preview and provide input on the Council Neighborhood Committee meetings for calendar year 2026.
BACKGROUND
The Council Neighborhoods Committee (CNC or Committee) oversees annual neighborhood meetings and the Neighborhood Grant Program. These are long -standing community programs that receive positive feedback from meeting attendees and participating neighborhood groups.
This report is a final review of the neighborhood meetings held in the 2025 calendar year and the Fiscal Year 2025 -26 (FY 25 -26) grant program cycle. At the November 6, 2025, meeting, the Committee will have the opportunity to review the activities and outcomes of these programs and discuss potential changes for implementation in the following program cycle.
NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS
The C ommittee holds regular neighborhood meetings in seven areas of the City (six geographically defined areas and one specific to mobile home park residents). Each location hosts a meeting every two years.
2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review November 6, 2025
In 2025, the Committee held three neighborhood meetings, as shown in Table 1. Approximately 131 community members attended the meetings in total. (Table 1) On average, twenty or more City staff members participated in the meetings. Community members submitted 119 questions before and during the meetings.
Table 1: 2025 Neighborhood Meeting Attendance
Date Neighborhood Area Attendance
May 29 Moffett/Whisman 68
June 12 Central 22
September 11 Springer/Cuesta/Phyllis 41
Total 131
At each meeting, staff distributed a one -question survey to attendees asking how they learned about the neighborhood meeting. Staff will continue collecting this data through one complete cycle of neighborhood meetings to evaluate the effectiveness of various outreach channels.
FY 25-26 NEIGHBORHOOD GRANT PROGRAM
The Neighborhood grant program provides financial support for neighborhood groups to carry out programs and activities that encourage participation, strengthen neighborhood relationships, and improve neighborhood conditions. These neighborhood groups are self - determined and formed without City involvement. There is no formal process for establishing a group. Formal and informal groups can receive funding per the grant guidelines as long as their proposal builds community and enhances the neighborhood.
Examples of eligible activities include block parties, holiday celebrations, and other social events.
Many neighborhood groups also use grant funds for newsletters, website domain fees, and Zoom subscriptions.
The FY 25-26 application period was open from March 1 through March 31, 2025. The April 17,
2025, grant program funding recommendations memo c omprehensively summarized staff outreach efforts, applications, and activities.
At its February 27, 2025 , meeting, the Committee approved the FY 25 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program G uidelines with several changes to eligibility requirements and funding awards. T he changes and outcomes in the FY 25-26 grant cycle were as follows:
• Require groups to specify their geographic location.
Citywide or general groups not tied to a specific location or neighborhood are not eligible for grant program funds. In the FY 25 -26 application, applicants were required to indicate the 2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review November 6, 2025
particular area of the City that their program would serve on a map . All the F Y 25-26 applicants identified specific service areas, eliminating applications that would not have been eligible for funding due to this requirement. This modification allowed for a visible distinction in the distribution of Grant Program funds for neighborhoods/geographic areas throughout the city, as shown in the map in Attachment 2.
• Clearly state that “special interest” groups are not eligible for funding.
Per the Committee's direction in previous grant cycles, the guidelines were updated to state that “special interest” groups —e.g., those focused on sports or the arts —are not eligible applicants for the program. In the FY 25 -26 grant cycle, staff received no applications from interest groups.
• Allow groups with overlapping boundaries.
As shown on the map (Attachment 2), five areas in Mountain View are served by more than one FY 25 -26 grant recipient group. Each recipient’s activity varies in scope and intended audience, except for the Community in Action Team and Spanish -Speaking Ambassadors of Mountain View. The overlapping groups and activities are summarized in Table 1 below.
Table 2: Areas with Multiple Grant Recipients
Area Recipient Group Activities
1 Waverly Park Chinese Group Mid-autumn festival
Cooper Park Neighborhood Association Halloween/Diwali, holiday toy collection box decorating, block
party
2 Waverly Park Chinese Group Mid-autumn festival
Dutch Haven Neighborhood Block party
3 Cuesta Park Neighborhood Association Ice cream social, coffee klatches, meet the
police/summer concert series.
Cuesta Park Neighborhood Let Grow Play Club Play club meetups for kids and caretakers
4 Shoreline West Association of Neighbors Block parties, ice cream social, holiday event, track pickup,
website/Zoom
Spanish-Speaking Ambassadors of Mountain View1 Christmas Around the World 5 Community in Action Team Posada Navidena / "Christmas Posada"
Spanish-Speaking Ambassadors of Mountain View1 Christmas Around the World
1 Spanish-Speaking Ambassadors of Mountain View’s self-drawn boundary overlaps with the self-drawn boundaries of two other groups.
2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review November 6, 2025
If Committee members are concerned about the potential for similar activities in overlapping geographic areas in future grant cycles, the Fiscal Year 2026 -27 (FY 26 -27) Grant Program Guidelines can include a revision allowing overlapping groups to receive funding if their projects differ substantially. This revision would align with industry grantmaking strategies; most funders do not award grants to multiple recipients engaged in the same activity in a geographic area.
• Remove the “new group bonus” of $100 and offer pilot funding for new groups.
The Committee eliminated the $100 “new group bonus” for first- time applicants and instituted a pilot program to encourage the formation of new groups to apply for grant funding. The pilot involved budgeting an additional $7,500 to fund first- time applicants and/or newly formed groups without reducing the funding for existing groups to avoid placing existing and new groups into competition. Of the total available pilot funding of $7,500 in FY 25-26, $3,883 was awarded to three first-time applicants and/or newly formed groups. Of the $50,000 ongoing program budget, $41,847 was awarded to returning applicants.
At the April 17, 2025 , meeting, the Committee approved staff’s recommendation to fund 24 of the 25 applicants for a total amount of $45,730 for the Fiscal Year 25 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program. A summary of the Grant Program recipients, along with the specified activity and award amounts, is available in Attachment 1.
During the FY 25 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program cycle, s taff received feedback from the Committee and community members on the following topics:
• Establishing a neighborhood group contact list.
At the April 17, 2025, CNC meeting, members of the public and Committee members noted that a list with contact information for each neighborhood group would be useful. The City does not maintain a comprehensive or regularly updated list of neighborhood groups, which are not formally established or authorized by the City , except for the email addresses provided by grantees for the grantmaking process. The City does not have permission to share this contact information with members of the public. For the FY 2 6-27 Neighborhood Grant Program cycle, staff will include an optional section of the application in which applicants may provide the contact information of their neighborhood group and consent to distribute it to other neighborhood groups. The list will not be updated between grant application cycles.
• Flexibility related to grant projects.
Before executing the FY 25-26 grant agreements, staff received requests from several grant recipients to use their funding for activities that differed from those approved by the Committee. Some groups’ focuses changed between the application approval and the execution of grant agreements. Other groups realized that they had not accurately estimated event costs. Under the current grant guidelines and approval process, staff has no authority to approve changes to the grant activities approved by the CNC, regardless of their similarity 2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review November 6, 2025
to the approved activity. For example, if the Committee specifically approves an ice cream social event, changing the event to a chili cook -off would render the activity ineligible for reimbursement. If the Committee prefers to incorporate more fl exibility into future grant cycles, it could be achieved by approving activities by activity category instead of specific description or by granting staff administrative authority to approve changes to grant activities as long as the activity is still eligible under the grant program.
Staff will continue to review the guidelines and grant process , using feedback from internal and external partners, to recommend potential changes to the FY 26 -27 Neighborhood Grant Program in preparation for the February 2026 CNC meeting.
Committee Questions:
• Should the FY 25 -26 changes to the Grant Program Guidelines, including the $7,500 pilot allocation set aside for new groups, continue in FY 26-27? • Does the Committee have feedback on flexibility around grant projects? • Would the Committee like to provide input on other aspects of the Neighborhood Grant Program for consideration in the FY 26-27 grant cycle?
TENTATIVE 2026 COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES
In 2026, meetings will be held for the four remaining neighborhood areas: Grant Road/Sylvan Park, San Antonio/Rengstorff/Del Medio, Monta Loma/Farley/Rock Street, and Mobile Home Parks.
A preview of the proposed schedule is provided below in Table 3. The meeting schedule will be finalized at the first Committee meeting of the year as part of the discussion and approval of the 2026 CNC work plan ( planned for Febr uary 2026). Once the Mayor has made appointments to the CNC, staff will contact the Committee members to schedule the February meeting and select dates for the 2026 calendar.
Table 3: Tentative 2026 CNC Schedule
Activity Date
Committee Work Plan Meeting February 2026
Grant Application Period March 2026
Committee Grants Approval Meeting April 2026
Networking Reception2 April 2026
Neighborhood Meeting: Grant Road/Sylvan Park May 2026
2 Beginning in 2023, the networking reception has been held separately from the CNC meeting at which grants are approved to ensure that the networking event does not interfere with, influence, or appear to interfere with or influence the approval of the grant awards.
2025 Neighborhood Meetings and Neighborhood Grant Program Review November 6, 2025
Neighborhood Meeting: San Antonio/Rengstorff/Del Medio June 2026 Neighborhood Meeting: Monta Loma/Farley/Rock Street September 2026 Neighborhood Meeting: Mobile Home Parks October 2026
Committee Year-End Summary Meeting November/December 2026
NEXT STEPS
Staff will incorporate Committee input into the recommended FY 26 -27 Neighborhood Grant Program Application and Guidelines and work with Committee members to select meeting dates.
Both will be presented to the Committee for approval at its first meeting in 2026.
Attachments: 1. Fiscal Year 2025 -26 Neighborhood Grant Program Recipients and Award Amounts
2. Map of Fiscal Year 25-26 Neighborhood Grants Awarded