RULES COMMITTEE: 5/22/2024
Item: B.1
File ID: ROGC 24-594
TO: Honorable Mayor & FROM: Toni J. Taber, CMC
City Council City Clerk
SUBJECT: The Public Record DATE: May 22, 2024
May 9 – May 16, 2024
ITEMS FILED FOR THE PUBLIC RECORD
Letters from Boards, Commissions, and Committees
Letters from the Public
1. Letter from Julie Franzen, dated May 10, 2024, regarding: Ban City-Sponsored Travel to Israel.
2. Letter from Chad Brower, dated May 13, 2024, regarding: Please use deliberate civic feedback.
3. Letter from Blair Beeman, dated May 15, 2024, regarding: Blair Beekman…..A reply to RaOG, Public Record, May 1, 2024….SJ Broadband placement, and everyday persons, of the SJ community.
____________________________
Toni J. Taber, CMC
City Clerk
TJT/tt
[External Email]
FW: Ban City Sponsored Travel to Israel
City Clerk <[email protected]>
Fri 5/10/2024 7:48 AM
To:Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas <[email protected]> From: Julie Franzen
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2024 7:36 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Ban City-Sponsored Travel to Israel
San Jose City Clerk ,
My name is Julie Franzen, I live in Morgan hill and I’m in council district c. I try to find ways to stop one of the worst mass killings I witnessed in my entire life. I moved to Morgan Hill from Sweden 8 years ago. I wanna believe I live in an area where we stand up against genocide, where we don’t let something like this happen. Where a mass killing like this is not ignored!
I urge you to take action and ban city-authorized travel to Israel. In 2022, the City Council blocked then Mayor Sam Liccardo from traveling to Qatar due to concerns about that country's human rights record, yet said nothing when he made a taxpayer funded official trip to Israel in 2019. As Israel's extreme violations of human rights grow day by day, I ask that you act consistently and institute a policy ending official City travel to Israel.
Today, residents of San Jose are hurting, witnessing families and innocent civilians being killed by Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Over the past 100+ days, Israel has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, besieged educational, cultural, and medical institutions in Gaza, and committed countless human rights violations against the Palestinian people.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, these violations include the targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure, the intentional deprivation of food, water, and healthcare from the civilian population of Gaza, and the indefinite detention of Gazans without trial.
In 2019, the City Council rejected then Mayor Liccardo’s trip to Qatar based on a report by Amnesty International that Qatar had committed human rights abuses. Here is how Amnesty International described Israel’s human rights record before that country began its military invasion of Gaza:
5/13/24, 8 47 AM Mail Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas Outlook https //outlook office365 com/mail/rulescommitteeagenda@sanjoseca gov/inbox/id/AAQkADhhYzk3NTk1LTBmZDAtNDc4Yi1hN2Q0LTZjNmZjNTk5MT 1/2 Public Record: 1
This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. “Israel’s continuing oppressive and discriminatory system of governing Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) constituted a system of apartheid, and Israeli officials committed the crime of apartheid under international law.” The Amnesty International report further noted that Israel has “imposed arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement and closures that amounted to collective punishment” and employs “torture and other ill-treatment” against Palestinian detainees.
These are serious and ongoing human rights abuses that require our City to act consistently and institute a policy against official travel to Israel to avoid lending legitimacy to these unconscionable acts.
We cannot ignore the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We need to see concrete action from the San Jose City Council to pressure Israel as it carries out a genocide with the U.S.'s financial and diplomatic backing. I ask that you safeguard our city’s commitment to human rights just as you did in 2022. Ban city authorized travel to Israel now.
Julie Franzen
5/13/24, 8 47 AM Mail Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas Outlook https //outlook office365 com/mail/rulescommitteeagenda@sanjoseca gov/inbox/id/AAQkADhhYzk3NTk1LTBmZDAtNDc4Yi1hN2Q0LTZjNmZjNTk5MT 2/2 Fw: Please use deliberative civic feedback
Agendadesk <[email protected]>
Mon 5/13/2024 1:25 PM
To:Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas <[email protected]> Agenda Desk
City of San José | Office of the City Clerk
200 East Santa Clara St. – Tower 14th Fl.
San José, CA 95113-1905
Phone 408.535.1275| Fax 408.292.6207
[email protected]
From: TEPublicComment <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2024 1:08 PM
To: Agendadesk <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Please use deliberative civic feedback
Thank you, Chad Brower for your response.
Forwarding your email over to the Clerk’s Office for handling of your general public comment. @ Clerk’s Office –
The general public comment from Chad Brower is shown below (scroll down to bottom).
Thanks,
T&E Liaison
CONFIDENTIALITY: This email message (including attachments, if any) is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, then please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. -----Original Message-----
From: Chad Brower
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2024 12:33 PM
To: TEPublicComment <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Please use deliberative civic feedback
[External Email]
[You don't often get email from Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ]
Thanks for redirecting me. Which is the Clerk's Office email address? 5/13/24, 2 34 PM Mail Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas Outlook https //outlook office365 com/mail/rulescommitteeagenda@sanjoseca gov/inbox/id/AAQkADhhYzk3NTk1LTBmZDAtNDc4Yi1hN2Q0LTZjNmZjNTk5MT 1/3 Public Record: 2
------ Original Message ------
Received: 12:31 PM PDT, 05/13/2024
From: TEPublicComment <[email protected]>
To: Chad Brower
Subject: RE: Please use deliberative civic feedback
> Good afternoon, Chad Brower -
>
> This email address of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> is for public comments with regard to a current Transportation and Environment (T&E) Committee meeting.
>
> That being said, can you please provide us with the T&E committee meeting item description and number?
>
> Otherwise, all general comments go to our Clerk's Office. >
> Thank you,
>
> T&E Committee Liaison
>
> CONFIDENTIALITY: This email message (including attachments, if any) is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, then please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. -----Original Message-----
From: Chad Brower
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2024 12:11 PM
To: TEPublicComment <[email protected]>
Subject: Please use deliberative civic feedback
[External Email]
[You don't often get email from Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ]
To: San Jose Transportation and Environment Committee
Please ask for public comments via deliberative feedback tools like Consider.it and Converj.net When asking for public input on transportation systems, many city committees send out simple surveys, like Survey Monkey or similar. At best, some surveys are geographically displayed on a map. But the surveys lack the ability for participants to build on each others' suggestions, and have limited ability for city staff to help guide the feedback in useful directions.
When interacting with each other online, citizens can be surprisingly stupid.
But structured deliberative surveys make participants think about the reasons for their preferences, improving the quality of their reasoning and the usefulness of their answers. Furthermore, city staff can 5/13/24, 2 34 PM Mail Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas Outlook https //outlook office365 com/mail/rulescommitteeagenda@sanjoseca gov/inbox/id/AAQkADhhYzk3NTk1LTBmZDAtNDc4Yi1hN2Q0LTZjNmZjNTk5MT 2/3 participate in the deliberation on equal ground with the citizens, to correct assumptions and provide relevant data.
Other times, citizens interacting online can be surprisingly smart. Even when the city is soliciting comments about purely aesthetic proposals, there may be unexpected functional advantages & disadvantages. For example, a playground theme can affect accessibility, or a landscaping style can affect walkability and safety. Citizens are a great source of insight about how a city proposal will affect unanticipated use cases.
Here are a couple mock examples of online deliberative feedback:
* https://reddit.consider.it
* https://converj.net/example
Please either employ tools like this, or request that similar features be built into the current tools to which you are committed.
Thanks for your attention,
--Chad Brower
San Jose resident, contributor to Consider-it & Converj This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.
5/13/24, 2 34 PM Mail Rules and Open Government Committee Agendas Outlook https //outlook office365 com/mail/rulescommitteeagenda@sanjoseca gov/inbox/id/AAQkADhhYzk3NTk1LTBmZDAtNDc4Yi1hN2Q0LTZjNmZjNTk5MT 3/3 [External Email]
Blair Beekman.....A reply to RaOG, Public Record, May 1, 2024....SJ Broadband placement, and everyday persons, of the SJ community.
b. beekman
Wed 5/15/2024 3:30 PM
Dear San Jose city govt, SJ city council, and community, A thank you, for some interesting, recent letters, written by the people, of a local SJ neighborhood.
And then placed within, the Public Record, of the RaOG public meeting agenda, of May 1, 2024, by SJ city govt. staff.
This local sj neighborhood group, then spoke at public comment time, at the RaOG public meeting itself, on May 1, 2024. They have serious questions & concerns, about the possible future placement, of Broadband and 5G, in their local neighborhood. And that can include, Broadband & 5G, to be placed, very close, to their 2nd story, bedroom windows.
Councilperson Kamei, spoke with the neighborhood group, after the RaOG public meeting. She stated that, San Jose city govt, and herself, can be of some help, with their current questions & concerns. But that the majority of decision making, with local Broadband & 5G planning, placement, and installation, takes place, at the federal govt level.
And that from this, it is the federal govt, and its relationship, with Broadband companies, installers, etc, that is usually a final arbitrator, and has the last word of where new 5G & Broadband, will be placed, in local neighborhoods & communities.
Councilperson Kamei, also told local neighborhood persons to talk with local u.s. representative, Anna Eshoo, about this issue. Reps. Anna Eshoo, Ro Khanna, and Zoe Lofgren, are the local elected officials, of the San Jose area, at the federal level, that regularly talk with, fed govt agencies, broadband corporations, installers, etc.
5/15/24, 3 52 PM Mail City Clerk Outlook
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As all levels of govt, can sometimes be, a bit intimidating or indifferent, to better help out, with the community questions, of Broadband & 5G placement, in local u.s. neighborhoods I feel, San Jose City govt, has been trying to develop, how to have, an overall better role, function, and service, in day to day, San Jose community life. I feel, San Jose city govt, wants to make important efforts, to better learn, in how to listen, to community/neighborhood concerns. And for the people, of local San Jose neighborhoods, to simply not be hurt, or to suffer from ill health effects, in the placement of future 5G and Broadband, in local sj neighborhoods.
In the difficult era of COVID 19, the federal government began to roll out, ' a first wave', of new Broadband & 5G. But at this time, the federal government may be, a bit more distant & unknowing, in how to better negotiate & develop, local best practices, for the future of Broadband & 5G placement & installation. Everyday community persons, may be an important link, for local, state, and federal govt, to better understand, a ' do no harm' philosophy for the future, of local Broadband and 5G installation. As everyday community persons, simply need to be more included, in the future process, of planning & installation, of Broadband & 5G, in local neighborhoods.
I feel, in the planning, placement, and maintenance, of Broadband and 5G, for the future of local sj neighborhoods the federal, state and local govt, simply has to want to work towards, and to develop a more comprehensive, holistic approach, that can includes, transparency, good public health & safety, a respect for human rights & civil protections, and open, shared dialogue, with everyday persons of a community. And as part of, an overall philosophy, of good public oversight, and, ' a do no harm, in community decision making. ', in addressing the issues, of an open, democratic community future, that we all share.
To also offer, we should already have, enough data & information, on the effects, of Broadband Radio Frequency waves, (RF), and the human body, at close distances If future Broadband & 5G, wants to be placed or is already placed in the immediate vicinity, of 2nd or 3rd story, bedroom windows & living spaces this should allow for, an immediate & comprehensive, public review process whenever it may be asked for, by local community persons, or by govt itself.
In the ongoing relationship, between all levels of government, the everyday persons of a local community, and the ideals, of positive, open democracy there can always be ways, to work towards, important changes, compromises, and modifications, by all sides. This should also be the case, with current Broadband and 5G planning & installation goals, as well.
A good luck, to the current , sj neighborhood group, in their efforts, to very seriously question, all levels of govt, about the future of Broadband & 5G, wanting to be placed, in their local neighborhood. And, as there is RF technology, that may simply want to be placed, too close, to their 2nd story bedroom windows.
5/15/24, 3 52 PM Mail City Clerk Outlook
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I am hoping myself, and other interested persons, can offer, some good help & support, in their current efforts. I am hopeful, all parts of the SJ community, everyday persons, and all levels of govt, will want to be involved, with these Broadband & 5G placement questions. And will want to build upon, important earlier examples, from local SJ neighborhood groups, with similar Broadband & 5G questions & concerns.
As I am hopeful, at this time, that the combined efforts, of everyday community persons, of San Jose, and local, state, and federal government, all working together, and listening to each other can work towards, a more holistic thinking, in how to develop, better practices, of open participatory democracy, bridging the digital divide, and positive community sustainability, sincerely,
blair beekman
5/15/24, 3 52 PM Mail City Clerk Outlook
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