Outlook
FW: City Council Meeting - September 30, 2025 - Agenda Items 3.4 and 3.5 From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Tue 9/30/2025 8:35 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: Kyra Kazantzis <
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2025 8:28 AM
To: The Office of Mayor Matt Mahan <[email protected]>; District1 <[email protected]>; District2 <[email protected]>; District3 <[email protected]>; District4 < [email protected]>; District5 <[email protected]>; District 6 <[email protected]>; District7 < [email protected]>; District8 <[email protected]>; District9 <[email protected]>; District 10 <[email protected]>; Wilcox, Leland <Leland. [email protected]>; Maguire, Jennifer <[email protected]> Cc: Reed, Jim <[email protected]>; Fruen, Joseph <Joseph. [email protected]>; Arreola, Kiara <Kiara. [email protected]>; Ramirez, Lucas <lucas.ramirez@ sanjoseca.gov>; Gvatua, Alexander <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Nguyen, Lam <[email protected]>; Moreno, Brisa < Brisa. [email protected]>; [email protected]; Danino, Shawn <[email protected]>; Gomez, David <[email protected]>; Fleming, Jonathan <[email protected]>; Adera, Teddy <[email protected]>; Yamamoto, KiyomiH <[email protected]>; Nguyen, Lam <[email protected]>; Hughes, Scott <[email protected]>; Kylie Clark Gianella Ordonez Shannon Zhang ; City Clerk <[email protected]> Subject: City Council Meeting - September 30, 2025 - Agenda Items 3.4 and 3.5 [External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel Dear Mayor Mahan, Vice Mayor Foley, Members of the City Council and the City Manager:
On behalf of the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits (SVCN) and our 170+ nonprofit members, we respectfully submit comments on agenda items for your September 30, 2025, meeting.
SVCN advances the role, voice, and capacity of the nonprofit community in Santa Clara County so it can be a force for positive social change and support the creation of equitable, vibrant, and thriving communities. In this spirit, we offer our perspective to assist the Council in understanding the impact of City policies and initiatives on the nonprofit ecosystem and the communities we collectively serve.
Item 3.4 - City Council Focus Area Semi-Annual Status Report We appreciate the City's efforts to strengthen accountability and transparency through a new framework and dashboards.
However, it's surprising and disappointing that in the "data-driven" city, the new framework neglects a major objective of the City, articulated by voters in Measure I and incorporated into City ordinance, which is to advance equity. The proposed measures do not include meaningful equity indicators. While the dashboards reference workforce development, this is in the context of business-centric priorities only rather than community-oriented priorities. The City should be measuring well-being in our community, including specific goals like wealth-building, ability to manage unexpected income disruptions or health emergencies, and improvements in pay and wealth disparity - particularly in impacted communities like the Black community. If the dashboards and scorecards evaluated broader equity and quality-of-life measures, we would have transparency into whether San José is becoming a more just and livable city, especially for its lower-income residents.
Moreover, the proposed measures of priority to address homelessness omits important indicators. For example, whether the city is reducing evictions or displacement is not measured.
In another example, the only throughput measure to permanent housing among formerly unhoused residents is from safe parking to affordable housing (the target is 20%!). Related, the housing focus area scorecard doesn't grade the City's production of affordable housing (only overall housing production).
The framework also does not reflect measurements of the consequences of the City's new policies relating to arresting unhoused "trespassers" and encampment sweeps—or, perhaps more accurately, unintended consequences-such as increased instability, mental health impacts, loss of employment, loss of property, deeper homelessness, or arrest records and incarceration. Without these indicators, the City cannot fully evaluate whether its approaches are with its stated goals or ... its values. The community asked for this kind of report back during the budget hearings in May and June and we were reassured that the City would be assessing the activities and results of these policies. As our Mayor as pointed out, you can't manage what you can't measure.
We recommend strengthening the Focus Area framework by:
• Expanding homelessness metrics to capture the full consequences of enforcement actions and measure the City's prevention efforts (e.g. number of evictions, level of displacement, number of people housed in affordable housing including throughputs from City encampment sweeps).
• Incorporating equity indicators such as racial wealth gaps, cost of living, and affordability pressures across the Focus Areas. Explicitly aligning dashboard measures with the City's racial justice and equity commitments, affirmed by the voters in Measure I.
We also support Councilmember Campos's recommendation to integrate McKinney-Vento data to better track youth and family homelessness and to strengthen childcare infrastructure as part of the City's long-term equity strategy.
Item 3.5 - Ordinance Prohibiting Law Enforcement Officers from Concealing Their Identities in San José
The Immigrant Protection and Empowerment Network (IPEN) have worked in partnership with Councilmembers Ortiz, Kamei, Cohen, and Campos to bring this important ordinance forward.
SVCN and REAL Coalition strongly support it. If adopted, it would provide protections for San José residents that go beyond newly signed state legislation, ensuring transparency and accountability in law enforcement practices. We particularly support the requirement that SJPD report responses to federal immigration enforcement activity, as this will help maintain trust between immigrant communities and local government.
We also urge the Council to consider the following:
• Constitutional rights: Masking by law enforcement creates fear, undermines trust, and chips away at residents' ability to know who is sworn to protect them. • Community safety: Masks open the door to abuse, impersonation, and public confusion, putting immigrant communities at greater risk.
• Accountability: Without visible identification, it is nearly impossible to hold officers or agencies responsible for misconduct.
• Local leadership: San José has a proud legacy of protecting its residents; adopting this ordinance demonstrates bold leadership and a clear stand for the rights and safety of our community.
We appreciate the City's leadership in advancing policies that strengthen trust, equity, and safety in our community. SVCN and our nonprofit community value the opportunity to partner with the City in shaping systems that better serve residents-especially those most impacted by displacement, inequity, and exclusion. We look forward to continued collaboration with you to ensure San José is a place where all people can thrive.
Sincerely,
Kyra Kazantzis | CEO
Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits
svcn.org | Linkedin | Facebook
Pronouns: she/her/hers
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