City Council Meeting - August 24, 2026

Good evening. Evening everyone. I'm going to call to order the uh August 24th, 2026 meeting of the PaloAlto City Council. Madame Clerk, would you please call the role?

Of course. Council member Lowing

here.

Council member Rectal

here.

Council member Lou

here.

Mayor Vinker

here.

Council member Bert

here.

Council member Liths

here.

Vice Mayor Stone here for the record. All present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. So, we'll move first to item one, which is a special order of the day, which is to uh review applications and select candidates to interview for vacancy vacancies on the historic resources board. Madam clerk, did you have any introductory comments you'd like to make?

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Nicole Bissell, deputy city clerk. I'm joined by Mahani Aun city clerk and tonight we will be presenting the applications for the historic resources board extended recruitment. Included in the extended recruitment for the historic resources board is three full-term vacancies expiring on March 31st, 2029. As for a quick summary of our recruitment timeline, scheduled recruitment opened on January 13th and closed on February 18th with three applications received for the HRB. City Council reviewed applications in March and provided the clerk's office with direction to extend the HRB recruitment. During the time period of extended recruitment, we continued additional outreach and advertising efforts. One application was withdrawn and one new application was received, bringing us to three total applications for the HRB. At today's meeting, we are al ask asking council to review the current HRB applications with interviews and appointments tenatively scheduled on September 9th and 14th, respectively. Go back. This slide just provides a quick general refresher on council's current interview selection process, noting that per the current process, all candidates would be interviewed if there are six or fewer applications. And moving on to our applicants, as mentioned, we currently have three applications received for the HRB. Per the process on the previous slide, all three candidates would typically be invited to interview. However, it is at council discretion to authorize a different process if desired. Council may also provide direction on continuing HRB recruitment efforts if desired. However, as outlined in the staff report, further extending recruitment may not be sustainable and could result in a lack of quorum for the HRB. And I'll turn it back over to you, mayor.

All right. Well, thank you to the city clerk's office and thank you to those who have applied for the historic resources board. We appreciate that. Um, colleagues, I'm told that we don't necessarily need a motion uh that there that all of these applicants can proceed forward unless there are any objections. I've looked at them. They they seem solid uh for interview purposes. So, now would be the time to tell me if you have any reservations about whether at least one of them has the academic uh qualification or uh whether there are any that you believe we should not advance to interviews. Seeing no uh concerns, objections, or comments, um madame clerk, I think you have the uh go-ahhead from the green light from council to move forward with scheduling the HRB interviews.

Okay. Thank you, mayor. Uh we will move forward with scheduling. That date is tenatively scheduled for September 9th. So, we'll work on that.

Great. All right. Thank you. Well, we'll look forward to that on September 9th. Moving on to agenda changes, additions, and deletions. Mr. City Manager, are there any?

We uh Thank you, mayor. We just had one small change on your consent calendar, removal of item five, which will come back at a later date.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, now we're going to move on to in-person public comment for matters not on tonight's agenda. Madame Clerk, how many uh speakers uh do we have at this point? We have one group speaker um or speaking on behalf of a group of eight and then one individual speaker.

Okay, let's go ahead with the uh regular time amounts would that be three minutes and then for the group

um let's go with eight minutes.

Okay, our first speaker is Herb B.

Uh good evening. Uh recently uh the school board had a agenda uh where it discussed uh its opposition to an ICE facility, immigration custom enforcement facility in Gilroy and also had significant budget issues. uh when the Palo Alto Weekly uh posted a news story about it, it was just about the ICE facility and the public comments though were about the budget. Uh and it occurred to me that maybe uh that wasn't the only uh difference going on. And I'm not a member, I wrote a letter to the Weekly uh with full knowledge that they could post it online, but they did not. uh and I tried to uh put it in the Daily Post but the Deli Post has a policy of uh not uh printing things from other newspapers. Essentially, it appeared that the school boy may have been trying to focus people's attention on the ice facility in Gilroy instead of paying attention to the significant budget issues uh at the school board. Uh although the public felt differently based on their comments, uh the the weekly subsequently posted two news stories, one by the original reporter which was only about the budget and one by the San Jose Post uh uh uh paper uh which is only about the ice facility. It seemed to me there was one other item that might be considered. That is if people are spending all their time uh opposing uh a facility of immigration and custom enforcement uh in Gilroy. That doesn't mean there's not going to be such a facility. And I tried to think of where else it might go and it occurred to me one possibility would be the Stanford Stadium. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Raymond G. Oh no. Good afternoon. My name is Raymond Gones and I stand here representing eight community members that live here in Palato. We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity do ordain and establish. Those words were drafted through the lens of profound inequality. When the US Constitution was drafted in in 1787, it was presented as a document for we the people. But it was also built through compromises that protected the power, property, and economic interests of those who already held influence through enslaving Africans. The constitution promises of democracy existed alongside a system that in excluded enslaved people, women, indigen indigenous people, and many poor men from full political participation in equal rights. Enslaved people were counted for representation while being denied the right to vote, control their own lives, or claim their full humanity. The original system con concentrated political power largely in the hands of people who own property and in many cases other human beings. But the fabric of American democracy did not evolve on its own. It changed because ordinary people organized, resisted, voted, marched, worked, and demanded that the nation live up to it stated ideals. Labor tilled the soil, built communities, and sustained the nation. People denied freedom and representation refused to remain invisible. They resisted, organized, and fought for their humanity. Nearly 250 years have passed since the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all people are created equal. And more than 235 years have passed since the Constitution was signed over that time. The citizens of enslaved people, people whose ancestors were forced to build a nation designed to exclude them, have entered and led some of the highest institutions in the United States. The White House was built in part through the labor of enslaved people whose hands helped raise its walls while they lived in servitude, denied freedom, and forced to endur despair. Yet they resisted and generations later their descendants walk through those same halls as citizens, leaders, and ultimately as a first family. When Barack Obama became president, a house built in part by enslaved hands became a house filled with hope. A reminder that even institutions created amid inequality can transform when peoples organize, resist, and demand to be included. History has taught us something important. A government can use the language of equality while it policies still preserve inequality. A system can appear open while remaining accessible mainly to people who already have wealth, property, connections, housing security and influence. The challenge does not exist only in Washington DC. It exists here in Palo Alto as well. We as I represent the people are running for Palatoto council because we see a city that is not being properly cared for. The lens of inequality from which our nation has evolved has found ways to evolve with us. We do not have the same laws or the same forms of exclusion that existed in 1787. But we can still see the consequences of systemic inequality in our neighborhoods in our in our local government. When I walk out my front door, I see people who are once my neighbors now live gun unhoused across the street from places they once called home, waiting for people to arrive for help. As members of my as members of this community and through conversation with workers who travel in and out of the city, we hear the same message again and again. People want to live here, but they cannot afford to. They earn a workingclass wage and many feel that living in Palo is simply impossible. We applaud we applaud Palato for building affordable housing and for recognizing that we must address our systemic homelessness crisises. But we must be honest about what affordable means in Palato. Affordable to whom? Will the bartender attending the bar, the workers serving our food, the caregiver looking after our elders, the person cleaning our yards, the teacher supporting our children, or the workers keeping our city running be able to afford to live here? Or will affordable housing be available only to people who are already economically comfortable in one of the most expensive places in this country? Affordable housing cannot be just a label. It must be a real path to to stability for people who serve this community every day. We want a Palato where affordable housing is a springboard where workers can live near their jobs, raise their families, build savings, participate in civic life, and have a genuine chance to thrive here. We also hear from community members who want to change a chance to join these political circles but feel their voices will not be heard because they will because they are not wealthy, well-connected or ivy educated. I have listened to local coffee shops as residents describe their fear of speaking out against a genocide in Garza. People are afraid to speak because they care about humanity and see the world through the lens of love, compassion, and empathy and not hate, division, and destruction. Local government is where democracy becomes real. It is where decisions are made about who can afford to live here, where the people have housing, whose children can remain in our schools, whose voices are welcomed at city hall, and who is represented at this table. Palatoto has a seven member city council. Council member Julie Lot is currently the council's lone black member, and her decision not to seek re-election leaves one of those seats open. At a time when black residents and working-class families are increasingly being priced out of Palo Alto, the possible loss of black representation would be more than symbolic. It would be it would reflect a deeper pattern of systemic displacement. If our neighborhoods become less diverse while our governing institution also loses the voices of people most affected by displacement, then gentrification is not only changing where people live, it is changing who gets to shape Paloto's future. We cannot say that we hope that we value inclusion while allowing communities to disappear from both our neighborhoods and our city council. Ordinary people need representation. We are not career politicians. We are community organizers. We do not seek political power. We seek people power. I may be the one running for office, but I represent ordinary people who want every person to thrive and to have a real opportunity to live here in Palo Alto. We the people must mean more than the people who can afford to stay. It must mean every worker, every family, every longtime resident, every unhoused neighbor, every immigrant, every young person, every elder, every person who believes Palatoto can become a city where everyone has a voice and a place to call home. Whether or not we join you on this council, our ask is the same. Let us build a Palo that works for all its residents. Thank you. And that concludes public comment on items not on the agenda for in-person public comment.

All right. So, thank you to our public commenters. That closed public comment for general public comment.

No, it's closed, ma'am. It's too late.

Oh, for general for items not on the agenda.

Oh. Oh, okay. So, do do you have it, Madam Clerk? No, we closed

very first things that's on there and I put it in for the other speakers.

So, I did check the basket before we were go before we started and it is

I should have tapped you on the shoulder. I think I'm allowed to speak.

We close public comment after the first speaker speaks.

I'm allowed to speak.

Yeah. Not not unless it was in early and apparently it was not. So, we will welcome comments by email. We'll be here every week and we're happy to meet with you. Yeah. All right. So, I'm sorry. Those are just the rules. We have to be fair to everyone. We want to hear from everyone on the two topics. So,

okay.

No, I'd be happy to, but

let me just double check. So, madame clerk, when did you receive the

I couldn't be polite.

I checked the basket after the first speaker finishes finished speaking and your comment card was not in the basket.

Okay. I just got finished saying I could have tapped him on the shoulder and

but but if she checked it just wasn't there. So ma'am we thank you for coming and welcome you next time. All right so we need to move on to the next item. We have very busy agenda tonight and we look forward to hearing from you in the future. All right so um we are now moving on to council member questions, comments, announcements. Before I do, I do want to say thank you to all of you who went like this uh after the speech because we do encourage tonight um whatever uh you know you want to do that way, but we don't allow any audible comments in chambers whether it's a clap or a vocalization or or something. So just know that that's how we do because we want everyone's opinions to be expressed and no one to be intimidated. So, the silent thing that we can see is fine, but we won't have audible comments tonight. All right. So, with that, uh, colleagues, are there any council member comments this evening? Council member Bird, I go ahead. Take your time. Thank you. Um, so I I would just like to ask if we can have an update um perhaps at the uh next uh city manager comments at the upcoming meeting on um there were we received u a letter on concerns over um the operation at the home key project. Um and uh maybe we can uh have an update on whether those issues that were asserted are are um significant. And um and that's all I have at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I would just like to thank all of those who pitched in to make the state of the city event a great one last week. um it really reflected our one community theme. So, we appreciate all the residents and guests who attended. Really want to give a shout out to city staff uh who made it an extra effort in a new venue that was unfamiliar to run it for the first time as a formal public meeting and so thank you for that extra effort. The tech team at the school district was phenomenal and so we really appreciated them and the district for hosting. Reverend Koma Smith, the Mwakma Aloney tribal leaders, Miss Araniano and Ms. Dominguez, the vice mayor. Uh, and of course, uh, Lily Zang, our four-time Olympian and, uh, first American to bring home a medal in that sport, and six-time national champion who was nurtured right here in PaloAlto, who adjusted her schedule, flew back and performed uh, free of charge for us. And so, that's somebody who can make us proud. And, uh, and it was fun. So just thank you to everyone for that. Colleagues, if there's nothing more, we'll get right to it with our study session for this evening. All right. So we will move on to our semiannual city council discussion with the independent police auditor uh Mr. Janako.

Thank you, Mayor. Let me uh invite our independent police auditor uh to join us here at the table. I'll just uh take a moment to introduce the topic. As the council is well aware and for community's awareness, uh the city council has uh two times a year opportunity to meet with our independent police office auditor, the uh office of independent review. and uh this is to discuss trends in criminal criminal justice and policing policy training and related matters as well as recommendations made by OIR uh over the past uh several months. In addition uh this evening we are anticipating the followup to prior council uh discussion and interest in uh having a scope review for an audit related to automated license plate readers. And so with that, Mr. Janak, turn it over to your your team.

Thank you, Mr.

I think Mr. Connelly will start off the discussion.

Good evening, mayor and and council members. Steven Connley of O Group. Uh we're very happy to be with you as as the city manager indicated. Uh we are here tonight with with Mike Janako who has been uh working with the city of PaloAlto for for a number of years now. And we're joined for the first time tonight by another one of our colleagues, Teresa Magula. Uh she has been with us for for seven or eight years now, but this is her first project working with the city of Palo Alto. And we're very happy to have her um with us this evening. And we're certainly happy to be to be back with you and and looking forward to the discussion. As the city manager indicated, we have a couple of different um agenda items for for discussion. And the first one is our our usual standard uh just report out to you regarding our semianual public reports on the various categories of of um particular concern with regard to the department's internal review mechanisms. Uh so if we could have the next slide please. So, uh, our relationship with the city of PaloAlto goes back to 2007. Uh, and we have had some different iterations of that and different adjustments to the scope of work and to our our responsibilities along the way. But the the kind of the meat and potatoes, the core of our contributions to the city are are semianual reports. And what it basically does is is uh it's a an audit of of completed investigations, internal investigations that the department has has compiled. Uh we do it twice a year and basically get um the all of the the completed cases from the audit period and we have the chance to review those and then to provide summaries of the the cases and their outcomes and also have the opportunity to kind of weigh in on our sense of how the department handled these matters uh and make recommendations if we think that there could be some productive adjustments to department policy or protocol with regard are to these different areas. So, uh we have been to to um meet with you folks directly on a number of occasions. Our last appearance was in April of 2025. Our um first the f first part of our council u uh audit scope for for last year. In other words, it covered the first several months of 2025. and that was presented as a as a public report and and it was kind of a receive and file item for the council back in November of 2025 and we're here today to talk about the second half of of 2025 and the cases that uh we worked on in conjunction with that. The report I think was published in in uh June of this year and as always the the public reports give a much more detailed description of the the specific events and our recommendations. Uh and as always the transparency of the process is a big part of the the feature of it. All the reports are available online and we encourage the public to to um read those and and to provide us and and the council and the department with any feedback that that they consider warranted. Next slide, please. So, as I said before that we we usually divide the year up into part A and part B. In other words, the first several months and the second several months. Uh we're going to be focusing tonight on the the second half of our uh of our reporting cycle and the the total number of cases. As you can see in part B there, there were four different completed investigations into allegations of officer misconduct, five uses of force, four weapon pointing incidents. And so those are the the major categories that have been set out by your council as being the the um areas in which you have asked us to provide some additional scrutiny to the department's own processes. Next slide. So just in terms of uh an overview of the second report, again we don't conduct our own investigations. We actually get contacted a number of times a year by members of the public who have a concern about an issue. They've had a a a challenging encounter with the police or a concern has come to their attention. And one of the first things that we make try to make clear to them is that we don't do our own investigations into these matters. Instead, our role is to ensure that the department's process is as complete and thorough and legitimate as it can be. So we provide that outside scrutiny and that window of transparency. And if somebody does reach out to us directly, we are in contact with the department to help facilitate that investigative process and make sure that their complaint is heard and understood and addressed appropriately. In terms of the cases that were in the pool for this year's this um part of the year and in this cycle, two of the the cases were sustained. the department found that that the officers had in fact um violated one or more policies in conjunction with the allegations and then the other complaints within the the individual allegations were considered to be unfounded. As always, one of the things that we're looking at apart from the the particulars of each individual case and and I think there is value in in letting the public know here are the kinds of things that members of the public are bringing to the department's attention and also here are some of the things that the department is doing in terms of initiating its own investigations when it has reason to believe an officer has potentially violated policy. So, we look at at both of those categories. uh our our overall impression is is a favorable one in terms of the objectivity and the thoroughess with which the department handles each of these matters. We have access to all of the case file evidence that the department uses and we also have uh access to the memos that the department puts together in terms of of analyzing and compiling all the different evidence looking at the body wararm camera and reviewing the contents as as relevant in a in a given situation. And it is our sense that the department's process actually does have legitimacy that they do take these investigations, take these complaints and allegations of misconduct seriously and and handle them appropriately. The other piece of it and that's the bottom portion of of the the current slide here and this is I I would say one of the areas where we have seen the most progress in terms of our time with with PaloAlto is that the department has really begun to emphasize uh the holistic review of each one of these incidents and rather than just kind of focusing narrowly on the bottom line result of the specific policy violation or the specific complaint that is that issue. It's true with the use of force cases as well. We have encouraged the department to take each of these incidents as an opportunity to kind of look at it in a 360 degree way and see if even if there are aspects of the encounter that are not directly related to the complaint or directly related to policy, but that are potential room for officers to improve, adjust, try another option. We have for years been been encouraging the department to to treat the process as an opportunity to embrace those things and to look for ways to improve outside of the narrow parameters of the discipline process and we have seen a marketked improvement in that uh area over the last few years uh the department's willingness to do it and I think the fruits of that and we we are we're always careful to highlight it and discuss it when we see it because we really do think it is a positive thing. Next slide, please. There were five use of force incidents that we looked at. And just to provide a refresher for the the public, a few years ago, I think it was 19 uh excuse me, 2021, the department expanded our scope of work to add force cases for the first time. I mean, there are specific categories and the the the way that the scope of work specifically sets it out is that we are to look at each use of force incident that results in medical attention beyond mere clearance in the field. So, we looked at five cases that met that criteria. Three of the cases actually involved relatively minor injuries, but because the person went to the hospital to be looked at in conjunction with the incident that that became it fell under the umbrella of our scope and and we had a chance to look at it and see how the department handled it. Two of the injuries that we looked at in this cycle were more significant. There was a broken arm and that was actually the result of a a relatively standard and minor use of force. It was a resisted control hold that that in sort of an unfortunate accident ended up resulting in a broken arm of the subject. And the other case was a a fairly significant canine bite that resulted in significant injury to the subject and and that person was hospitalized in conjunction with that that arrest. As always, we break down each case and the the department's review of it. The department found each of these uses of force to be in policy. Uh we agreed with that, but as the report says, agreed with some but with some reservations and and so we kind of drill down into the concerns that we had and again those fuel the the recommendations that we have for the department and and we have found the department to be very willing to engage with those and and to be responsive to them. Next slide, please. Uh, one of the categories again that that was an expansion of our scope from the early days and that was a a request from your council had to do with our evaluation of all pointed firearm incidents involving the police. That's anytime that an officer points a gun at a subject in the course of a law enforcement encounter. The department, and this is a relatively new thing, the department is expected to document that. the officers have to take responsibility for it, write about that in their reports, explain the justification for it, and then that um force deployment and it is a type of force deployment is subject to a fairly comprehensive review by the department. This is the fourth or fifth year that we have been doing this. Uh and it was a little bit rocky at the beginning. I think it was a a big change for the department. And it took some getting used to, but they have really become um much more adept at the efficiency of making sure that they're capturing all of these incidents and that the review of them is is meaningful and productive in terms of the the u not only the justification of it and are the officers acting and and using that authority in a way that's consistent with their training, consistent with department expectations, but also looking at the totality of the vent of the event and looking for ways to to again potentially adjust or correct behavior. And sometimes they can be technical things, minor things, things that the subject would have no idea about, but that the department is flagging and and following up with as far as uh engaging with its own personnel. So that is certainly one of the positive things that we want to highlight. One of the things that we have uh that has been a little bit of a struggle uh is is the bodywn camera activation issue that has been for a few years now a a source of concern for us that there are times in which one or more officers do not have their body warn cameras activated in the context of a given event. We've talked to the department a lot about it. I know that it has been a point of emphasis for the department as well. They have some new equipment that they hope will uh help reduce some of the inadvertent uh issues that that officers were having, but it's something that we will continue to monitor going forward. Next slide, please. So in terms of our our recommendations for for this year's report, again, one of the hopefully added value aspects of our role here is not just to provide some transparency and some outside scrutiny into the department's handling of these events, but to take advantage of our familiarity with best practices and our experience to make recommendations about potential adjustments to department practice, policy, um, investigative protocols, etc. And I'll turn it back over to Mike to to talk about some of the recommendations in this most recent report.

Thank you, Steve. Um, so, uh, these are the the four probably major recommendations during this report cycle. Um, they're pretty straightforward. Um, interestingly enough, um, and I'm not sure it was this will be attributed just to the adjustments of the K9 protocol, but since, uh, this report, there has not been a deployment of a K9 bite, uh, over the past several months, which, uh, you know, ideally, you don't want a dog out there, uh, and unless absolutely necessary, um, using um, his his or her teeth to uh, to detain a subject because of the injuries that that could ensue. Um and so um we hope as Steve said that the bodywn camera equipment and upgrades uh will lead to more activation. Um and then we also would like to see um more robust in and fair objective intake interviews by supervisors which is how a complaint gets into the system. So those are our four recommendations from this past report. If we go to the next slide please. I'm now going to transition to the second piece that Mr. Shakott had talked about that that we are going to address um and that is a potential uh scope of the ALPR audit uh that you all have talked about. So, uh, in preparation for that, uh, we did develop, um, a list of ideas or topics or potential areas of inquiry that we could use to develop our audit. Uh, we have also uh, increased our resources. So the person on our team who is the most experienced in learning about ALPRs, identifying issues with regard to ALPRs and actually conducting already conducting audits of ALPR systems throughout the state of California is here with us this evening and that is Terresa Maggula. Teresa, if you could just introduce yourself and then talk about some of the audits you've already performed.

Thank you Mike and Steve and thank you for having me this evening. council. My name is Terresa Maggoula with OIR Group. Um, as Mike mentioned, our team has been actively engaged with issues related to automated license plate readers for several years, but obviously this has become a heightened topic of awareness um, both because of community trust and concerns um, as well as more information that's available about these systems um, that the public has become aware of. Um one of the factors that we've looked at um is and is the sort of the essential function of governance. Um obviously this council um as well as the police departments themselves um can choose to um internalize and and have strong governance within their own organizations and within their cities. And so we've looked at uh three very three different jurisdictions um in the past few months with relation to audits of ALPR systems and in particular around governance. Two of those are counties um Santa Cruz County and Santa Clara County. Both of those counties are what are defined as endusers. This means that those counties do not operate their own ALPR cameras, but they are users of the systems data. And so what we were looking for in those particular counties was the governance around the use of the data, the access to data and the best practices and policies surrounding that use and access. One of the features that we provided early on to our jurisdictions uh that we work with is some model best practice policies including language that aligns with the state law uh the two state laws that govern use of ALPR and data sharing within the state of California. Of a predominant importance in both of those is the concept of not sharing with federal agencies or agencies outside of the state of California. That of course has uh direct implications on some of the data sharing that was occurring uh with federal partners uh early on in the use of the flock system. And the other piece that we look at as well is whether individuals uh or agencies, excuse me, agencies are preventing data sharing for the purpose of any type of immigration enforcement, any type of gender affirming care, any type of individuals seeking medical care uh outside of the state or within the state borders. So those are the audits that we were conducting of those two end users. The one that is more relevant to the city of Palo Alto is the audit that we recently completed and presented to the city of Pasadena which is in Southern California. The city of Pasadena is a an owner and operator of their camera system. Um they have both cameras from uh Motorola as well as Flock. And so we took a look at the various issues surrounding the data and governance. Um, in particular, what we were looking at in the city of Pasadena was whether their own internal audits were effective and identifying the types of data information uh the sharing that was occurring um within the agency as well as with external partners uh in the state of California and to assess whether they were capturing any uh uses of data that may not align with state law. The other piece that we were assessing for the city of Pasadena was the placement of the cameras themselves. Um, and we were looking there for whether the cameras were placed in uh disproportionate uh with disproportionate rates in communities uh that may have been populated uh with higher persons of color. And so what we were looking at there was were they placed with the intent to overp police or over surveil those particular communities or were they placed there for uh operational law enforcement purposes. Uh and so those were the two main features. The city of Pasadena is also currently revising and revamping its ALPR policy and we are working with them on setting the appropriate guard rails as we did with both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. I think it's important to note that the purpose of these audits um is really to provide an independent and unbiased perspective on the data that is available. And so what we're looking at is what the system actually does. What are the actual functions of this system? What data is it producing, storing, and retaining? And for how long? We're looking at who can access the data, what kinds of controls exist, and whether those exist internal to an agency or from the vendor, and whether those controls actually work. So, is the agency able to identify any misuse of data or any data sharing that is outside of compliance with state law? and whether and where additional safeguards might be necessary. Whether that looks like uh safeguards with respect to policy and procedures or training or it looks like any safeguards that might be put into place with memorandas of understanding or with contracts directly. And so essentially our our audit scope is developing as we are working with various agencies. And so we're very pleased to have your input and insight into the scope of this particular audit um as we're developing it sort of here in real time.

Thank you Teresa. Um so this whole issue of automated license plate readers ALPR is the word that I will use as an acronym to try and shorten our presentation a bit. Um is something that has raised uh that has reached the national consciousness. I mean there is discussion about this issue and the competing concerns throughout the country. Uh in particular California because of the uh legislaturator's restrictions on sharing information with uh immigration uh customs enforcement and as well as concerns about sharing information for those who might want to use the information to restrict uh access to um reproductive care. uh the issue has has has become even more significant in this state. Um so you're seeing a lot of concerns, a lot of issues being raised up and down the cities uh in California and many of the cities that we work with as Teresa indicated. Um I think there's a lot of reasons for it. I think that there are some competing values here in which it's uncertain uh whether the potential efficacy in using this technology is outweighed by the concerns about increased surveillance of people uh who are driving around this area. Uh and those are competing in uh concerns that people would have potentially different views or opinions about. How important or how effic efficacious does this technology need to be to override the concerns potentially about uh increased surveillance of individuals who are driving to the grocery store? Um the there the issue has that that's kind of one of the basic issues, but it's become conflated uh and uh as a result of some other concerns that have come out as a result of that as a result of some potential missteps or actual missteps by the vendor. Uh and that is the concern about inappropriate data sharing with uh agencies that state law says you are not supposed to share this information with. uh as well as a as well as uh the concerns about are there enough internal controls. Does the vendor have enough external controls to ensure that the data that is collected will be collected for limited purposes that officers will not have access to information and use them in an appropriate ways uh and a whole other host of concerns. So this is a uh uh an area that is wide ranging and um the scope of work uh will hopefully try to identify this my vision uh but certainly we are here to hear from you all but one of our visions is one to make sure that we tell the story in PaloAlto which means how did we get here? What happened? How did this, you know, contract begin to exist? And how did it end up being a big surprise when um the city learned uh after months of the LPR cameras going that there were some concerns or issues with regard to inappropriate data sharing? How did that happen? And then most importantly, uh uh one of the things we want to talk about is now that it's happened, what level of trust do we have in the vendor? What level of trust could we have in internal controls, vendor controls to ensure that on a forwardgoing basis should the program continue whether or not uh there is enough confidence in those internal controls to ensure that the missteps of the past will not be repeated in the future. Um what we liked about the city's approach here is the fact that ordinarily in Pasadena, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara County, we were given a scope of work um and then we completed the task within the scope of work. But here the scope of work appears to be a living breathing document uh with input from elected officials. And what I what I particularly like and I think my teammates would agree with me about that is we're not going to write a report in an audit about what we think you want, but we will actually have the ability to hear from you what you want in this scope of work. So we're pleased to hear from you unless anyone on my team has any additional comments. I think we'll end at this point, but certainly available to uh talk with you about some of the issues and some of the potential tasks uh that would be, I think, important and helpful for you as you ultimately make your decision about what to do with ALPR programs in your city. So, thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. And we'll end at this point, but certainly available for discussion and questions.

All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Connelly, Mr. Janako, and Miss McGillo. particularly helpful to have you here tonight. Um, you know, as you've all heard, we have both our uh typical uh semiannual uh report um uh that the uh independent police auditor gave. Um we are proud here in PaloAlto to be one of only two cities in the county that have an independent police auditor twice a year reporting to council on the behavior of uh our police uh officers uh including as was mentioned um use of force and uh uh pointed uh firearms. So uh thank you for that. Uh but we also uh previously uh requested that this um that there be an audit of uh ALPR systems and uh so tonight uh it was agendaized as a study session because that's typically how we agendaize the IPA uh report and so we can give feedback on the uh scope of the audit and uh related questions. I mention that because this was not agendaized as a decision-making final uh decision tonight on what we do about this issue. That's obviously of great community concern, but we are concerned as well and want to hear from you. And so that's why we uh are grateful you're here and look forward to the conversation. Um so with that um you know this this audit hopefully will answer questions uh that we aren't in a position to decide tonight but obviously things like do we use ALPRs at all and if so do we use flock and etc etc. So um let me first open it to my colleagues to see if there are any clarifying questions that you have for uh our uh independent police auditor team. Um and then if not we will hear from the good folks here in our chambers through public comment. Council member Bert.

Thank you. So first I want to say that um I having reviewed your uh scope of work um I found it to be very comprehensive. Uh I was pleased at just how many aspects you intend to uh dive in on. And then uh I I was not aware when we uh asked you to take this on uh that you already have had um similar not identical um uh task for three other government agencies. So that's gives you a lot of foundation there. Um I I I found under the section six the the um vendor governance and platform evolution to be really important because this is an evolving area where we certainly have been concerned with um actions that have happened up until now. And a big question we have is how well um uh has the vendor uh addressed many of the concerns that we in the public have and and how well haven't they? Um but then um under section 8, one of your questions uh that you identified is whether uh this effectiveness and value, whether the um uh program contributes meaningfully to investigative outcomes. And I wanted to ask if that's going to be answered in a quantitative way. I know that you had wanted to uh distinguish between um uh uh uh where it was central versus it was supplemental. Uh but is are you in your discussions with our department will you be getting uh some form of quantitative data?

Thank you for that question, Council Member Bert. And it's my understanding that the Palo Alto Police Department is currently quantifying that type of data and we will be receiving that data from the department itself. Yes.

Great. And then under best practices and benchmarking, I didn't see anything referencing um alternative providers. I mean, we've had uh the city of Campbell who's taken uh one approach, Stanford University another. Um, is that something that would be in your scope of work or is that within what the department would be looking at

with alternative providers? Are you speaking of just different vendors that have the same solution or different types of solutions?

Different types of solutions as well as different vendors with might have uh better security that we're looking for. Yeah, I would say that we have the capacity to look at different vendors and the types of programs that other agencies are using. Um, as far as other types of solutions for the same exact sort of use case, I'd be more limited in in providing that kind of information.

Okay. Um, so for example, we we have we know locally that um the two I'm aware of are Stanford and and Campbell. Would you be looking at the the approaches that they're taking? Is that

We certainly could. Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Council member Lowing.

Yeah. To start, I just had uh one question. The item Too much paper here tonight. Oh yeah. Item three, bullet point two, whether currentus adequately define and limit access and use.

And my broad question there is whether this issue has any merit since someone can break the law. Maybe that's the way I would put it. So we have anou, you're supposed to act this way, but then the officer doesn't act that way. They actually break the law. Um, doesn't that mean there's automatically a a a data leakage there that gets in the way of thisou?

I mean, maybe I'm not phrasing it exactly.

No, I I think I understand what you're looking at.

I mean, there's like human factors that go into this that that can release the data as has happened by some officers around the country that not not here. I think with respect to theus what we're looking at is data sharing between different partner agencies and so we're really looking sort of a level up from the individual actor. Okay. When we're talking about the kinds of audits and internal policies that a department might have that's where we're looking at those act sort of the individual human factor the individual actors. And so what we're looking at in these systems as well is does the department internally have the sufficient safeguards and the the uh frequency of audits to be able to capture the individual actors and the access and and sort of the the searches that those individual actors are using.

Good. That directly uh addresses my question. Thank you.

And council member Long, if I could just be a little more specific, we're going to I think we would look at it two ways. One, as Theresa indicated, uh whether there are sufficient uh safeguards to identify officers or other personnel who inappropriately access the database for the wrong reasons, for personal reasons, but also to prevent that upstream from happening through training, guidance, and the kind of information to future officers about these are going to be our expectations, and you should be assured that if you violate uh the need to know and use it for personal interests that uh we're going to take appropriate action. So there's going to be need to be a training component as well.

Council member Leth.

Thank you, Mayor. Um Mr. Janako, Mr. Connelly, Miss Maggula, thank you very much for your presentation. I'm wondering if the benchmarking item could be augmented to include reference to how many municipalities in California have terminated flock contracts, covered cameras, and maybe a subset, how many in the Bay Area. Um, it'd be helpful for us to understand what is happening in our peer jurisdictions as we undergo this conversation here.

That is an excellent ad and we will certainly add that in. I think the other component would also if if I may be to take a look at the various jurisdictions that might just be end users of the system um that are not operating their cameras but that are still accessing the data. I think that's an important distinction to know whether an agency has access to the data even if they don't operate their own cameras.

Council member Rectal.

Okay. Thank you. Your scope has both internal access within PAPD using the data and also external the people that we share with the other departments. Are you going to be looking at all vendor access and our data is shared with the vendor and can we investigate how they use it and what kind of safeguards they have that they aren't misus using it.

And that's kind of in a black box which makes it hard for us because we have to trust what's going on in that black box. and should we be trusting what's going on in the back that that black box? So, is that something that you'll be doing in your scope?

Item six contemplates some of those vendor governance and and sort of the platform evolutions, but certainly it I agree with you. It is a black box. It's one that's difficult to get into. Um, and so it would really highly depend on the type of access that we're able to get uh at that level. So I don't want to overpromise and underdel but certainly it's an intention that we would take a look at some of the ways that uh the vendor is both protecting and potentially using the data that is going into the system.

And in your past audits have you looked into the vendor being able to look at their internal use um policies?

No, those were not part of the scope of work uh for the prior three audits that we've conducted. That would be a net new component here.

Okay. I think it would be useful. Thank you.

I agree. Thank you. So just following up on that point, um when we discussed this last time, um uh we talked about uh your bullet point three and or the third bullet point under item four, whether data deletion practices are automatic, verified, and consistently applied. And the question was also um could we check whether they audit that? So not just whether that's part of their practices but in you know are we auditing that the vendor is actually deleting. So have you seen that or is that something that is could be added to this uh scope of work?

Just for a point of clarification the particular item here is around uh the the police department's own data itself. And so when we're looking at whether the vendor is um deleting or retaining in a different way in a different system, I wouldn't be able to answer that. But the police department's own instance of its flock database is what we would be looking at here. I don't know if that quite

No, I understand your answer. I'm just want to I guess I would be curious if there's anybody out there who not only has the policies on their own servers of data deletion and all that, but there's some kind of auditing that there's actually compliance with those policies. That's a whole another level. and if there were any way to assess what you know what current practices are or could be or what success rate they've had on that because um you know it's one I have I have greater confidence in in in the folks that we see every day than than the vendors on that. Um okay and then my other question is um go back to my other question uh got so into that I may not remember. Just give me a moment here. Um well, let me just ask you generally, have you seen for however long you've been doing these audits um you know improvements in uh practices by vendors with respect to um you know trends improving uh controls usage and compliance and all of that like what have you observed? Yeah, that that has absolutely been the trend over time and and perhaps rightly so because they started on rather shaky grounds. Um but most recently, I believe it was last week um on the 13th um in particular, one vendor released a host of new functionality within the systems platforms. Um I could go through those but it's certainly something that the audit will be looking to ensure that uh both this department as well as the vendor is adhering to those new standards that they've applied um and that they've given to themselves. So we will be looking at those as well. But certainly over the course of the last almost a year um there has been a lot of transition in the particular platform and and the effectiveness of kind of that tool itself. Um, one of the most important things that came to light, of course, was that the feature called national lookup, which was allowing agencies outside of the state of California to view data from the state of California. Um, that was turned off for the state of California. So, thankfully that was captured. Um, unfortunately, it was something that was in violation of uh various contracts as well as state law. Um, but that has been turned off. Another feature that has uh recently come to light was terminating the access by national um what what are sometimes called fusion centers. There's one here in Northern California referred to as Nickrich and one in Southern California referred to as JRIK. These were agents agencies that were essentially looking at kind of the regional partnerships in collaboration with various federal task forces. those agencies had access to the database directly and were able to be users of that data. Those contracts were terminated and the access was turned off. In other words, the any any partner potentially at the federal level that was happened to be sitting in one of these regional centers can no longer access this department data um that's within the state of California. So that's a feature that was turned off recently. Um and then of course individual agencies are determining sort of how they want to adjust their governance and their data sharing. And so some agencies are saying we're only going to share with regional partners because that's what makes sense. We're only going to share with um you know agencies that have a ne a direct nexus to our agency. There are others that have determined we're only going to share with agencies that are committed to doing their own types of internal audits in the same way that we are. And this is sort of going back to theus um that we highlighted earlier that agencies are now taking more control and ownership of where their data goes and the data that they themselves access. So that's something that we're seeing agencies sort of realize we can control this for ourselves to be responsive both to the needs of our public as well as the direction and the concerns that our public is is having related to the surveillance technology.

Thank you. And finally, uh, would it be within the scope of something you could do to look at, um, vendors provisions or agreement to remedies for non-compliance because we had a non-compliance and as far as I can tell, there was no recompense for it. And so, the point isn't to get paid for a violation. The point is to deter the violation in the first place. And it's one thing to have high expectation of our own police department, but these entities are businesses.

Businesses operate on profits. Money is a deterrent. And if you have the appropriated liquid appropriate liquidated damages or other um things written into a contract, they're more likely to comply and self self enforce. So have is it within your scope to look at provisions like that and come back and tell us what has worked or not?

Yeah. So this is another one of the kinds of controls that's happening sort of in real time. So what we're seeing is agencies, especially large agencies like the LAPD in Southern California are really taking ownership of the contract language itself. And it is something that I think both both the city and counties as well as the vendor are cluing into. It is important that we have the right language and the appropriate language within our contract. And so it's a space that is evolving sort of as we're talking here tonight. Um and it is one that we're certainly willing to to report back. Whether or not it's effective or not, the window might be a little too short for us to be able to assess that. But we can certainly provide that kind of language and modifications um as other agencies have taken it on.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Stone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for this scope. I think it's an excellent starting point. I agree with the feedback already provided. One question, not quite sure if the scope gets to it, and I would kind of call it examining like pattern of life capabilities. Basically, like can this system either by itself or in combination with other databases tell us where a particular vehicle has traveled over time, how frequently it visits particular locations, or identifying recurring travel patterns or associations between vehicles? And if so, do our policies then distinguish between LPR uh to investigate a particular incident, for example, recovering a stolen vehicle um or using historical data to be able to reconstruct someone's movement over a longer period of of time. I mean, because for me, those are very different uses of technology. One is for a legitimate law enforcement purpose and the other is big brother. And does this so does the scope kind of cover that?

Yes. So it does in in a bit of a an roundabout way. And let me let me address that. What we're looking at is severalfold. One is are the uses for legitimate law enforcement purposes. So we'll be looking line item at the searches that are being done to determine whether those have a direct nexus to a legitimate law enforcement purpose. The other piece is retention. Uh and so retention windows would come into play when we're speaking about this kind of pattern of life. Is that the term pattern of life? Yeah.

Yeah. Um that you know we're trying to sort of reconstruct a person's history. If the retention window is limited to 30 days or even the vendor is now suggesting a 7-day limit on the window of retention of data. uh we'd be looking at how that retention policy impacts the ability to look at data sort of historically over time to be able to reconstruct someone's patterns. Um what we're seeing in the audits that we have conducted and in some national studies that have come out is that the predominant use of the system is for one-time cases, investigative purposes with a legitimate law enforcement basis. So there are very few uses that um we have been able to document and record where they're looking at a pattern of someone over time or doing what we might call a broad sweep. And so we'll be looking at that as well. So are the cases and the uses of the data for particular one-time investigative use or are they looking more for a broader sweep or a pattern um over time and we'll be be able to identify that as well in the course of the audit. So hopefully that answers it's sort of three parts to answer one question.

Yeah, that that's helpful. And I think a common theme here is it seems like both from the audit but also the limitations of the audit is we can to some degree control our own policies and what our own law enforcement can can access. harder to control downstream bad actors. And maybe that is we're giving that information to an agency that is authorized to use it, but then we can't control who is authorized or who has access to their in to their data when their data is gathered from our data. And we don't have any control over their their firewall, their internal systems. And so I guess even if we had a 7day window there, could that information be kind of seized within that limited window from others to then construct this pattern of life of of individuals um and then retained essentially forever. Is is that something that we can I mean do you know that answer now or is that something that could be understood? It's something that we could take a look at certainly, but it would be within the realm of kind of those retention periods and understanding um what this department is willing to do as well as what thoseus are requesting of other departments and agencies using the data downstream.

Okay. Yeah. Because there's all Yeah. There's all these unintended consequences that it's so challenging to be able to um to make a a decision ultimately like Mr. Janako said, balancing those is a a real challenge. Yes. Okay. Thank you,

Council Member Lou. Thank you. Uh I appreciate all my colleagues uh detailed questions. They really echo a lot of my concerns. But just for this round of questions, I want to clarify whether you will actually look at the raw logs of searches or whether you'll be more focused on the policies of the city.

So my colleagues didn't say this, but I love data. I will be looking at the raw logs. Um I will be doing an assessment of the logs. um Palo Alto is already uh far and beyond some of its uh regional partners as well as state partners and that they provide that data in a redacted manner on their public transparency site. Uh we through the nature of our agreement will be able to look at the raw logs

and so we'll look at the raw logs of both internal searches and searches from other cities. That is correct. And will we have any uh ability to judge whether maybe some of that data was used inappropriately for stalking or sort of individual purposes or is that kind of level of detail

uh not possible to reconstruct from the kind of analysis that you're planning on doing?

So to be completely transparent about it what we do is we will be looking at the raw data. So every search that's conducted both internally and of PaloAlto's data. What we're looking at when we do that is if there is what uh within the the search itself, each search has to have a legitimate a legitimate law enforcement nexus. That means that when an officer, whether it be within Peloto or elsewhere, accesses the data, they have to provide a case number and they have to provide a code for the type of crime that they are investigating. Now, could there be a bad apple somewhere that is making up case numbers and inputting them into the system because he or she is a bad actor? That is a use case that could possibly happen in the world. Um, we wouldn't be able to tell about that. Um, what we can do and what the audits can do is take a look at whether the case numbers are actual legitimate case numbers. That's something that the department will do internally uh through its own audits and we can check and verify that as well.

Okay. It seems like you do have some ability to actually sanity check though that you aren't using a case number from years ago or using case number that

doesn't need to have a vehicle involved. Do you actually uh so I heard sort of a no answer that you wouldn't necessarily be able to judge the appropriateness of searches but at least you'll be able to detect and spot check some sample in

correct

okay I think that correct because keep in mind we're talking and I'm not trying to to limit the scope at all but we're talking about millions and millions of of searches and it would almost be um

we would have to use some kind of tool that that we don't have at our disposal. as this group um to be able to assess that on that global scale.

Yes, certainly. I think just uh spot checking could be uh and sort of random spot checking can be useful in building trust uh among the broader community. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And so with that, let's go to our public comment. And so Madame Clerk, how many uh speakers do we have as of now? We have a total of 35 requests to speak and three of which are um there are three groups of seven. Okay, great. Uh, well, we're glad you're all here. We look forward to hearing you. What we will do is give uh one minute to each individual speaker and five minutes to each group. And uh the clerk generally announces who's next and who's right after that. So, you can be ready to approach the microphone when it's your turn. All right. So, please go ahead. Our first speaker is Carara S. speaking on behalf of a group of seven. Thank you, Madame Mayor and City Council. My name is Cara Silver. I'm a 20-year PaloAlto resident, a municipal attorney, and a member of safety over surveillance, a coalition of 14 groups opposing mass surveillance in the Bay Area. First, we want to thank PaloAlto for taking this important step of conducting a third-party audit. I remember when a small group of us showed up to the policy and services committee in March 2026 and requested the committee to cancel the flock contract. At that time, most people didn't even know what an ALPR was. Very few community members showed up to the meeting and most people had never even heard of flock. Now, can everyone who opposes ALPRs please stand up? Thank you all. You can sit down. Obviously, um, ALPR concerns are widespread. John Oliver ran an entire HBO episode on mass surveillance very recently, calling out flocks abuses in particular. The New York Times recently ran an article titled, "Flock cameras are dividing US cities." Here's what to know about them. Police officers in at least 12 states, including California, have been accused of misusing flock systems to stalk former partners and the like. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, Nick, of which PaloAlto is a member, allowed federal agencies to conduct 299 searches of San Francisco's flocked data in violation of California's data sharing laws. And this was just a couple of months ago. Closer to home, the San Monteo County Grand Jury just issued an audit calling for stricter ALPR oversight practices. And PaloAlto Weekly broke a news story and how the city's own data was shared with federal law enforcement agencies for over a year without the police department even knowing. Approximately 132 local agencies across the country have canceled flock contracts, including our neighbors Stanford University, Mountain View, City of Santa Cruz, and now most recently, Redwood City. 40 of those cons cancellations were in August of this year. Even the Los Angeles Police Department recently canceled their flock contract, citing privacy concerns. While concerns about flock cameras are increasing, so are concerns about overreaching authoritarian federal government. Recent reporting shows the federal government launched an expansive surveillance program in Minnesota against activists, labor unions, and community groups called Operation Puppet Master in response to statewide ICE protests. Mass surveillance is in mass surveillance in the wrong hands is no longer an abstract concern. With this context in mind, SOS PaloAlto is requesting a more robust audit scope as detailed in the letter sent to the council earlier today. In particular, we would like the audit to include some updates to the data sharing in section three. to include is PAPD approving in advance all search inquiries in compliance with the internal policy that it has. How does PAPD verify whether the reason for inquiry and case number is accurate before permitting search? How does PAPD determine which outside searches should be withheld under the CP and how much time is dedicated to this decision of um redaction? Warrants and subpoenas involving PaloAlto customer data. What are Flock's procedures for addressing them? When is Flock allowed to share data for legal purposes and with whom? How is PaloAlto notified when the sharing happens? Also some enhancements to section 8 effectiveness and value. Um we were surprised not to find a discussion of the number of false positives both internal and external uses. We would like to know the percentage of time an officer is is takes to verify ALPR information with cleats before taking enforcement action. Again, as required by local policy, information, including crime statistics and closure rates that helps the community assess whether the surveillance technology has been effective at achieving its identified purposes. Comparison of cases closed before and after implementation and specific amounts and types of closed cases attributed to FLO.

Your time is up.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tim M, followed by Brian E. Greetings, council. My name is Tim McKenzie and I'm with the Silicon Valley chapter of Democratic Socialist of America and the Safety Over Surve Surveillance Coalition. I'll start with two asks. Uh immediately cover the cameras while the audit is ongoing. It's a good natural experiment to be able to get some real data and add research into the false positives as part of the scope of the audit. A truly independent audit would consider the totality of evidence, including downsides, rather than trying to find ways to justify mass surveillance. We already got off to a rocky start when the initial plan was derailed by a clear conflict of interest with the first auditor. It does not bode well that Mr. Janako representing the new auditor was reported to say, "We want to make sure that value isn't overridden by lack of trust in the misuse of the data." That sounds an awful lot like conclusions have been drawn before any factf finding begins. We know Roseville Police Department reported a false positive rate greater than 70% and LAPD had a 1 in3 error rate. Studiously avoiding anything that might challenge the perceived value of these invasive cameras is negligent. But focusing on false positives makes it seem like there could be a safe way to use this tool, which is elucery. If your criteria for decision-making is whether something makes the job of the police easier, you are by definition building a police state or at the very least the infrastructure for one. While our democracy is under attack as we descend into fascism, is that really the pol policy decision you want to make? Do you want to pay a private for-profit company so they can harvest our data and train their AI model to sell to the federal government? Will Powo Alto keep giving up resident and visitor data so Peter Theo can get a return on investment in his attempts to destroy our democracy? I ask you to consider how you'd like to be viewed when history looks back on this moment. Will you be part of the decaying institutions that enabled the rise of fascism? Or will you be able to look with pride on making a decision in support of the community? If you are wondering how you would have acted in 1930s Germany, look to what you are doing now. Your decisions here are the answer to that question. The police chief has said automated license plate readers are an invaluable tool, but no tool is more valuable than the public trust. Everything in policing is downstream of that bedrock foundation. Startups move fast and break things and flock and ALPRs in general have broken the public trust. Our data was illegally searched tens of thousands of times by outofstate agencies. What we've seen is that at best we will capture abuses after the fact. We cannot prevent harms from occurring. that was just admitted by the auditors right here. The only safe data is no data. If you cannot protect it, do not collect it. At the very least, drop to 3 minutes of data retention like the state of New Hampshire. The problem isn't just one vendor. It is the technology itself. The very nature of automated license plate readers means that we are all constantly surveiled, constantly under suspicion. How can we be expected to reciprocate trust that is not extended to us? Trust is a two-way street, a mutual relationship. How many times do we have to fill these chambers to tell you that the trust is broken? How often do you do you speak to an empty gallery versus the full gallery that is right here? Please stop digging the hole deeper. Start building bridges to repair trust. Automated license plate readers violate our fourth amendment rights and do not make us safe. A Texas sheriff said the tool is not compatible with a free society when he took down the cameras. Paloalto sister city of Bloomington, Indiana canceled their contract. How can all these red cities and states see the light when supposedly progressive PaloAlto continues down the destructive path of issuing public trust? Make the right decision. Cancel the contract, cover the cameras, and never pursue any other vendors of this dangerous technology. Repair public trust, safety over surveillance. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian E

, followed Bri by Brian J.

Hello, my name is Brian Eaton. Thank you for holding this study session. Uh, I also wanted to ask is it if it's possible to have Penn go next because they are from Bloomington and they wanted to speak but it's getting late there. Um, so I've worked as an engineer in the tech industry for 25 years. Most of that time in security, privacy and user safety. I'm a member of the safety over surveillance coalition because of that experience. Uh, Flock and the federal government are wildly out of control. These cameras are dangerous to residents. I'm here to request that the city cover the Flock cameras. Uh, Flock and their CEO have a long history of lying to the public and their customers. They claim they've never been hacked, but they've left the cameras wide open to abuse for years. They claim they anonymize data, but they don't really. They claim they maintain audit logs, but they won't tell the city who really accessed the data. Flock lies constantly. It's obvious. In Los Altos, residents found evidence in the Flock transparency portal that their cameras had been searched by the federal government. And then when the city manager confronted Flock, Flock denied everything. Instead of admitting the mistake, Flock told the city that that was just a bug in the transparency portal. So Flock's willing to lie to city managers. In Leland, Colorado, they found that their cameras were being abused by ATF and ICE. And the chief of police confronted Flock. Chief Doran wrote later, and I quote, "In July of 2025, after the previous issue with ATF accessing Lovelin's Flock data, the LPD was assured by Flock that federal agencies no longer had access to our license plates readers, which we took at face value." This statement was also reiterated by the Flock CEO in a live interview with Nine News on July 30th, 2025, where he confirmed Flock had no federal contracts. Guess what? Flock did have federal contracts and they were providing data to ICE. So Flock is willing to lie to police chiefs. In Wisconsin, a Flock representative got up in front of the city council and said that Flock didn't create heat maps to track individual vehicles. The city council trusted Flock and they approved the contract. The very next day, the chief of police got proof that what Flock's reps had said during the council meeting wasn't true. So Flock is willing to lie to city councils. They're willing to lie to cops. Their CEO is willing to go on the evening news and lie directly to the camera. We would be naive to believe anything that Flock tells us during this audit. However, Flock is very honest about one thing. Their contract states clearly that they own the cameras, they own the raw footage, and that they will share it with whoever they want, whenever they want. Flock is run by Trumpup supporting fascists. They do not care about the contracts they've signed. They've built a nationwide surveillance network. And now it is being used to hunt down immigrants, hunt down protesters, and hunt down anyone that opposes the Trump administration. Just last week, news broke that DHS had infiltrated anti-Trump church groups to spy on them. The Trump administration has access to the entire flock network, including the Palo Alto cameras. The audit isn't going to slow them down one bit. I wish the city had more options here, but you don't. You can leave the cameras up and let Trump and his goons use them to destroy democracy. Or you can choose to fight back. You can cover the cameras. Mountain View saw this. They removed the cameras. Santa Clara County saw this choice. They banned city staff from operating the cameras. Stanford saw this choice. They covered the cameras. They had the sheriff deputies come and do it. That was nice. And Palo Alto's sister city, Bloomington, Indiana, they had this choice. They canceled their contract. They got rid of the cameras. So, I am here pleading with you as your neighbor. These cameras are dangerous to me. They are dangerous to my family. They are dangerous to everyone in this room. Please cover the cameras now. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian J, followed by Winter D. Good evening. My name is Brian Jones. I worked in Palo Alto for many years and I'm a systems engineer uh for about the last 25 years specializing in hardware systems with a strong data component. Uh the technical reality of data systems is that if you do not control the server, you do not control the data. We cannot be assured that the audit logs report all of the access to the data. Backdoor access does not necessarily come out in the logs that were provided by the company. Um, so the logs are only as good as our trust in that provider. No city policy can ensure vendor compliance. Whatever policy rules we make here don't apply to people in other states running their company. Furthermore, data breaches are inevitable as I'm sure you have personally experienced many times probably in the last month when you get those letters in the mail, right? If it does not happen, um if if that data breach, even if it doesn't happen, there's no guarantee that we will even know that it happened. The only way you know from those is is that your data has been breached is that you get those letters if it's in Flock's best interest.

What time is that?

Sorry.

Our next speaker is Winter D followed by Will O.

El Certo made big news last week when 70 days after its contract ended with Flock, it still hadn't removed its cameras or even shut them down. Flock hadn't. Flock knows more about how to manipulate its tech than we ever will. Flock's behavior and its black box um certainly will never engender trust in this community. Any speculation that flock lowers PaloAlto's crime rate is conjecture. Our crime statistics have been cyclical for decades, up and down, up and down in all crime categories, verifying our very low crime rate. Not only did flock endanger, it damaged our city. As a prior at a prior city council meeting, our mayor asked the city attorney if the city can recover damages for Flock's 2-year long breach of contract. I hope this audit is useful for that purpose.

Our next speaker is Will O followed by Annie G.

Good evening. My name is Will Oler. I serve on the Menlo Park housing commission, but tonight I'm here as a private citizen. I'm in Palo Alto tonight because my therapist works here. On my way here tonight, my location was recorded by multiple block cameras across several municipalities. Um, and that information will be available to most police officers in the state for the next 30 days. Um, it's invasive, it's creepy, it's unnecessary, and it didn't used to be this way. It shouldn't be this way. Um, if other municipalities are any indication, the deeper you look, the more problems you will find. And so I encourage you to look deep and then to do the right thing and to remove the cameras uh remove APRs from your policing approach entirely. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Annie G followed by KBT.

Good evening everybody. Was a constitution written for flock? I want to ask that question to you because you're responsible for making sure our constitution stays a constitution. And if you vote for flock, you are voting for fascism. Thank you. Our next speaker is KBT followed by Raymond G.

want you to know that I haven't been visiting Powo Alto for any reason in the last year other than to get you guys on board this cancellation boat. Just like in Mountain View, we're at the loading dock. It's time to sail away from mass surveillance, cover the cameras, cancel the contract. ALPRs like Flock serve up a massive catch of data for invisible DHS ice searches and to line rich billionaires pockets. City government trying to control the surveillance industry is like Ahab trying to catch his white whale Moby Dick. It will never work. It is untameable and is at great peril to us all. Prevent most crime by taking care of people, not spying on them. We need freedom over fascism, community over capitalism, safety over surveillance. All aboard the cancellation boat. Cover the cameras.

Our next speaker is Raymond G, followed by Renee R. Good evening. My name is Raymond Goens. I am the founder for the liberation and justice working group for Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America. I agree with all the prior speakers and I would like to yield my rest of my time in a moment of silence for the rights that will be violated by our citizens by these cameras. I ask that Palo Alto does not I ask that the council members that does not turn Palatoto into demolition man. For those that are old enough to watch that movie, you know what I'm talking about.

Our next speaker is Renee R, followed by Young. Hi, my name is Renee Rasheed. I'm here supporting safety over surveillance. I'm here urging city council to cover the flock cameras while the flock audit is conducted and to cancel the flock contract. I commend OIR and council's audit investigations into policies and comp compliance. I think you can improve policies and do research, add infinitum, but if you don't enforce any repercussions for violations, they are of no use. Flock business model does not generate enough profit by camera systems alone. The value is in the data, our data. It is time to take action against mass surveillance systems and I urge you to cancel Flock. Our next speaker is Young, followed by Henry E. Um, Flock claims that it only tracks license plates, not people, but it was reported that Flock was planning to incorporate people's data that is being bought and sold on the dark web. This is hacked data. They only backed off of this plan when the the news was leaked and that created a public uproar. Flock is currently the biggest villain in the ARP ALPR market because they have the most cameras out. But don't believe that other vendors would be better behaved. They all run on the same predatory business model of tracking people's movements and eventually all our activities. Um I urge that uh the council look at ig.org. That's the um website by the Institute of uh justice uh Institute for Justice. They have a database of um known abuses and um errors in um ALR systems. Um it's uh being updated all the time and for your due diligence you should know

your time is up.

Our next speaker is Henry E followed by Hamilton H.

What's covered can be uncovered. The cameras must be not only removed, we must have a contest in the public square to see who can do the best job with a sledgehammer of smashing them to smitherines. We don't need this expensive contract. We know the answer. We don't need this audit. The council has to vote tonight to remove the cameras and hold the contest and give a prize to the person who does the best job in disintegrating the cameras. We need improved public safety. That'll come from neighbors keeping an eye on neighbors. This was the premise of sociologist my colleague Jane Jacobs. Neighbors keeping an eye. Real window the movie showed that. And then from top down, the city of Helsinki in Finland has no pedestrian fatalities in the past year. 1.4 million. We've had several. We must change our way of organizing public safety.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Hamilton H followed by Gabrielle P.

I've sent you a letter requesting six additions to the audit scope. My biggest concern is that up to 200,000 searches every month of Palo Alto data, 99% of it from other jurisdictions, and most of those searches are not related to the specific crime. For example, CHP does about 40,000 searches. Why does a police officer have a right to see everywhere you've been in the last 30 days when pulling you over for a speeding ticket? Therefore, one of my requests is you review limiting outside agency searches as narrowly as practical to felony sex crimes and to find crimes of regional theft. With the flock architecture, it's on a shared server, which the government can and clearly wants illegal access to. As long as that architecture is in place, the chance of federal access covertly acting is high. That's why I'm also requesting you evaluate Janentech, which Stanford's using, which does not retain the data server, but on their local sheriff servers. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gabrielle P, followed by Penn B.

Hi, mayor and city council. Um, just to share a personal an anecdote. Uh I was raised in PaloAlto and um went to college in the Bay Area and I spent my childhood sleeping in the back of the chambers when my mom came to the city council to advocate for our community. Um so I have very strong memories of this location. Um so I don't have any facts or figures to add to all of the fantastic information that the other speakers have presented. Um, I am strongly opposed to ALPRs in our community and instead of voicing an yet another um opinion that you know I already have, I would like to share um how the book 1984 ends as a an example of what mass surveillance can do. Um, at the end of the story, the protagonist has been jailed uh due to his efforts to resist

the author.

Go ahead and finish your sentence.

Thank you.

Sentence

to to uh resist the authoritarian government and he did not um confess. He did not give up the names of his co-conspirators until they presented him with a cage full of hungry grats, if you remember the story. And the way he escaped his please finish your sentence. The way he escaped his fate was to ask them to do it to her, his most beloved person, and to have them kill her. So, not only did they control his actions, but they controlled his mind and his heart. So, we must stop that. Thank you. Our next speaker is Pen B.

Hello. Hello, I hope you can hear me. Hello from Bloomington. Uh, we are a small city with deeply Midwestern small town vibes. Uh, and our mayor stance on surveillance tech and her disrespect to our concerns has just sundered her reputation amongst friends and voters alike. It's a very sad tale and I do not believe this has to be the story of Palto. Your community has come here tonight telling you to mans that they fear for their rights, their safety, and their representation in these matters. Our council has repeatedly admonished our trust in them. Our mayor has immediately repeatedly admonished our trust in her has disrespected our concerns in our time. And this does not have to be the story for Palto. It is crucial that the council goes above and beyond to show that they are listening, that they respect the concerns of their people, and that they will be going above and beyond to protect the public safety and their interests. It is time to cover the cameras and take them down. Thank you. Our next speaker is Aram F.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin. Now let's take a look at the fourth amendment. Once we start to diminish the obligation to do to create or establish probable cause before we violate the Fourth Amendment, the the right to be free against illegal searches and seizures, the it becomes that much easier to diminish other constitutional rights, particularly when we have a fascist in the White House that doesn't follow the rule of law at any time. We have an obligation to do this. And let me tell you, with no disrespect to OIR, when you look at all the contracts, it's a cottage industry for them to do audits. They're going to come back and say, "We can do this just fine with appropriate guidelines." That's what they're going to tell you. No audit. Don't waste your money. No cameras. Smash them like Henry E said. Let's have a parade in the park smashing those bad boys now.

And that concludes public comment on study session item two.

All right. Well, thank you, Madam Clerk, for managing all of that and thanks to all of you for your comments. Uh we certainly do appreciate your your time and and thought sharing. Um I'll bring it back to the deas uh for additional comments, questions, any direction to uh staff and the auditors on the scope.

Council member Bert,

thank you. Uh first, um when do you anticipate your uh review to be complete and reported to the council?

Uh the goal, uh Council Member Bert, is to finish it within 90 days of the assignment, assuming all goes well.

Thank you. And we received written comments uh from both a whole bunch of public speakers. Uh several were uh very concrete um and some overlapping a series from SOS. I don't know if you were able to review those. Um others from uh Mr. Hitchings um and uh we don't have the opportunity tonight to go through each of those and really square them with the scope of work. Uh but I am interested in really the need to do that. I'm not I'm not clear in my own mind how those two things uh line up between your detailed scope that you already have and some of these other points including the false positive rates. Is that part of your current scope? Uh certainly it can and will be incorporated. Um, Council Member Bert, we have been advantaged by receiving information directly from advocates. Um, and uh, the initial questions that we uh, put put to you all were informed by that feedback. But we have additional feedback this evening which will also digest and potentially reform our scope. And this issue of being able to um narrow outside agency searches to higher level crimes or conversely um uh prohibit um searches after traffic stops and low-level uh crimes or infractions. Is that something that um one do you already know whether that is uh an option for us to uh adopt? uh council member Bird I believe that is uh an approach that uh other jurisdictions are currently considering. So that goes to a question that is not so much of the audit but of the council. Um are there interim measures that we would like to take before we have received the uh the independent audit and if so which ones? Council member Lou, thank you and uh thank you both to OIR and to the public for the comments. Um I found the written public comment from SOS and also Hamilton Hitchings uh like Council Member Bert um uh particularly relevant and I think worth including most of that scope. I think uh from reading those comments, it seemed like those questions were likely going to be answered anyways, but I think having uh more explicit scope covering those questions is useful for building community trust. Um, a couple of extensions that I would want to look into are uh based on the data we get about actual safety incidents, whether uh what the data would look like if we had shortened the retention window to 1 minute or 1 day. Um, uh to see yeah whether we can get 90% of the safety benefit with one minute retention for example. uh to the extent that we find a measurable safety benefit. Um I similarly would be interested in understanding if we uh did something like a Stanford approach and had our own data uh hosted on premises and therefore had much more limited or more deliberate sharing and maybe lost access to data from other agencies and other agencies lost data lost access to data from us. uh whether that would affect any of the safety outcomes or case studies that the uh department puts forward. Um uh yes um uh because I am very interested in Stanford's approach. Uh I think in the short term I'd be uh open to waiting the 90 days to get some actual data, but I think shortening the retention period uh is and restricting the crime list is a what I imagine baseline action that I would feel like is basically no regret moving forward. um while we figure out the larger picture about Flock versus other LPR providers,

Vice Mayor Stone,

thank you. Um agree, including recommendations from SOS, Mr. Hitchings are all great recommendations in this. Um, I would like to review specifically I want to make sure I review specifically addressing immigration in enforcement. And I know it talks about compliance with California law and essentially California law precludes that, but just to make sure that we're really doing a deeper dive um to make sure that searches performed on behalf of federal immigration authorities um to make sure that we're catching potential sorry potential searches that might be done on behalf not just directly because I know that again is more of the the challenge um to make sure that we're assessing whether our safeguards are beyond just mere merely kind of policy based but making sure that the system is actually configured to be able to prohibit that type of access and and sharing because again I think that's just another theme here is there's the policy and then there's the actual technological limitations on what we can um ensure another area I'd like to see strength ED is kind of the the accuracy and the false positives. Again, I don't I don't want to see just technical accuracy rates of the cameras. I really want to understand the consequences of when the system is is wrong. So, how many of these alerts have resulted in in traffic stops or other police encounters? How often was the underlying alert subsequently determined to be incorrect or or stale? And what is the real life consequences of that? I feel like every single day that I turn on the news or see social media or anything else, there are more and more stories of these type of interactions. And you can you can read a report and see data on all these false positives and and stops, but the impact on an individual experiencing that interaction with law enforcement when they've done nothing wrong is in can be incredibly terrifying and and lifealtering in in serious moments. And so want to really understand that. Um I also want to see the audit examine the surveillance implications of of camera placement. I think it kind of goes into that, but I'd really like to be able to see a map of where all these are are located and an analysis of what those cameras allow us to learn about people's movements. as I talked about, but before I I really do think there's a meaningful difference between cameras positioned primarily to identify vehicles entering or leaving to be able to capture kind of the original intent of of all this and and then those really tracking people's movements and being able to kind of reconstruct that. Um especially when we're talking about movement to sensitive locations such as schools, house of warships, medical facilities, reprotective health providers, political demonstrations, etc. I do think we need to strengthen the effectiveness section to to just better understand outcomes and and and again how many how much crime is this actually solving? never know preventing but to be able to really understand that that and yeah, I think those are the kind of the areas that I that I'd like to see this having a a deeper dive. I guess a a question. I don't know if this would then be for city manager or the or the chief of police as far as just the the ease of being able to turn off the cameras. Um is that a simple switch? Is that literally covering the the cameras? Um since you don't since it's not an action item, council cannot formally direct it this evening, but kind of curious what that what that process would look like. Thank you, uh, Vice Mayor. Perhaps this is a good time to ask our chief of police to comment maybe specifically on that question, but, uh, more broadly on, uh, what he's heard at this point.

Thank you, Chief Rice Schneider.

Thank you. Uh, James Rice, center, police chief. Uh, good evening, madame mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, and council. U, I don't know truthfully the answer to that, uh, as we've never had to do it previously. Um, I think that if we made that decision, I would assume that we would want to do it in a proactive way, in which case we would probably just take them down ourselves through public works, um, rather than wait for the vendor, uh, if for no other reason than if the vendor said it would take us a period of time to do it. If the council made that decision, I would assume you would want that to take effect immediately. So, we could affect that. Uh, they're all installed on existing city infrastructure, so I think we could accomplish that if that were the mission. Um, if I may, to the city manager's point, I did want to point out that uh, as this audit goes forward over the next 90 days, and frankly going back 90 days, uh, the department has been taking efforts to sort of attack lowhanging fruit where we could make improvements that we already had control over. So for example uh theus that we have with the individual agencies with whom we share uh we have actually revised thoseus to be more clear in terms of the expectations we have over our partners. Uh we have incorporated specifically a clause that also has them attesting at the uh executive level that their departments have a robust audit process of their own officer search behavior. So, uh, in addition to complying with California law, that they also have an audit process in place that's comparable to ours. And that was directly in response to some feedback we got from council here. Uh, the other thing that we are going to take advantage of is a feature that the auditor mentioned uh that did not exist until literally 10 days ago, which is the ability to limit the types of crimes for which outside agencies can search our data. So, uh, we have a meeting set this week to go over the full list of crimes that presently exist because, as you may know or may not, when an officer conducts a search, there's a drop- down menu with a finite list of crimes that they from which they must choose one as the basis for the search as well as a specific case number. Uh, up to now, we had no ability to restrict by type of case they were searching for. Now, we're going to take advantage of going in and identifying what I would imagine as low-level crimes and limiting the types of cases that would justify a search of our data. Uh, one last point, while we have been thoughtful in identifying regional partners which with whom we felt we had a nexus and crimes in PaloAlto may have a nexus and so we only partner with Northern California law enforcement, local law enforcement agencies. uh we are going to take a fresh look at that list and see if it's it if it's at all expansive or too expansive for our needs. One last point I wanted to make was on the reference to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center or Nick Rick. It's a fair observation to say that the city of PaloAlto is a member in the sense that we receive data from Nick Rick, that is intelligence bulletins from from Nick Rick, but we've never had an officer as a task force agent at Nick Rick and we've never had Nick Rick as anou agency. Other local law enforcement agencies in California had had partnerships with Nick Rick, but we did not. Can

I ask one followup question? I know I'm over o over over time. Uh glad to hear changes in in policy to require more more serious crimes for the for the search. But is that again more a policy safeguard or is there is there um actual kind of technical controls that would prohibit an officer in another in another agency being able to access if it is not a serious crime. So, as would as would be the case really with any police database, to be quite honest with you, if if you have a dishonest officer who's going to falsify a report number and deliberately indicate a different call, a different type of crime, um, then yes, uh, if someone could in theory do that, um, we would have, as was pointed out, a much easier way to identify those instances internally because we have access to the the detail. Um but uh the the reality of it is with externals uh to a certain extent there is there is a professional you know assumption that they're both complying with policy but also complying with California law that would pro prohibit the behavior. Well then sorry one more followup to to that. Are there any repercussions that you're aware of at a state law level that would prohibit an officer from making a a false request in another agency to be able to access that data? So at the very least it would be grounds for descertification under SB2 that was enacted a couple of years ago that allows for uh California peace officer standards and training which is a state regulatory agency over that provides licensing or certification that's required to be a police officer. Um that would be a basis for descertification which would mean they would no longer be able to be a police officer in the state of California. Okay. Thank you. Can't remember which of you rang in first. Uh, Council Member Lowing, I believe. Okay. Thanks. Um, I'm always interested in getting more data to make a decision uh particularly on a on a data issue, but um I I do have concerns that it sound like you weren't going to really be able to go too far on looking at alternative vendors. Is that correct? Or you are going to be able to we can certainly bring forward some of the alternative vendors that are available.

Okay. I didn't understand that before. That's why I wanted to throw that up. Um because my my concern is we, you know, get into this for 90 days, we learn a lot of stuff. But that same CEO is sitting there at that company. Uh and there's all kinds of uh handprints, footprints, fingerprints all over the place that the guy is just not trustworthy. So, I mean, that's fact. There was some of this discussion tonight. I read articles about that. So, um, that's part of the process here is under under what circumstances, if any, could we ever actually trust this guy while he's still there. So, um, that's a big barrier for me. Um, a big barrier. Uh, I just want to also just kind of point out that as you're doing your comparisons, I mean, you you know this stuff better than we do, but I know that all cities are not created equal. Um, Pasadena is not exactly the same as Palo Alto. Um and Pasadena and Palo Alto are way different than Stanford. So the decision for Stanford to drop it for XYZ reasons, it's just not relevant to the way that our department's going to use it. We want a broader, you know, across the bridge access. Uh I read that they just wanted like 60 seconds after somebody left the jurisdiction of Stanford campus, they wanted the the data to go away. So that's just not the use case that we're we're using. We're we're actually catching people that stole cars three days ago uh now stealing one in Walnut Creek and then we get reported on that. So that's the kind of I mean I'm paraphrasing here chief so you can improve that statement but that's just a different kind of use case. So we just have to be careful of which jurisdictions we're comparing to is is sort of my only point on that. Um so the question becomes do we invest in this literally money and 90 days uh and get back to saying that well we might want something else but it's not flock meaning should we in the interim whoever brought that up was it council member Burke should in the interim we be doing something else like jumping on new vendors right away or do we need this uh anyway to know what kind of vendors to go Go.

That's all.

Council member Li cuts.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to begin by reiterating that I'm not concerned with Paloto Police Department and I appreciate our independent auditors. I am concerned that Flock, whose leaders are aligned with the policies of the Trump administration, which now has a true 21st century weapon in their authoritarian authoritarianism arsenal, are on the rise, and I feel like the dictators of the 20th century would have given anything for this kind of surveillance technology. According to a KQED piece that ran just last week, here are a few examples of what is happening. Police in Texas hunted a woman who traveled out of state for an abortion. ICE agents asked local police in Illinois to track undocumented families. A police officer in Wisconsin used Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her partner. And right here in Oakland, a 62-year-old woman who was driving to her job at a nursing home was pulled over by police, guns drawn. Flock had connected her plates to a serious crime. She didn't know that her plates had been stolen and replaced with the ones associated with the crime. These scenarios have already happened. And we know that black or brown drivers are disproportionately likely to have an adverse outcome when pulled over by law enforcement. Our very own Riley Cook, reporter for the PaloAlto Weekly, who is in the back of the room, did a records request for these search audits that Flock and the Police Department maintain on our data. The records revealed that police departments from all over the country were searching Palo Alto's flock data without the permission of the city or the Palo Alto Police Department. To quote Miss Cook, they went above and beyond existing California law about not sharing with any outofstate or federal agencies. And what my reporting shows is that Flock was still able to bypass those without telling anybody. They didn't tell the police department. They didn't tell city officials. They just quietly rolled out this nationwide data sharing effort which completely went past Cal local and California regulations. I think city officials, she said, were really confident at first that they had enacted these protections, that they were protecting residents and heeding those surveillance concerns, and yet at the end of the day, the company still did what they wanted to do." End quote. So, for me, this is primarily not an audit question, even though audit is the subject of our study session. For me, it is a trust and governance question. Flock changed the capabilities of a surveillance system that PaloAlto entrusted to it and the city did not know it was happening.Uus are being violated. Misuses of data have happened elsewhere. As they say, if you can't protect it, don't collect it. I do not think it's smart to continue operating that system while we simultaneously investigate whether we can even trust it. The wolf is in the hen house and we're wondering if we need to build a better gate. Therefore, it is my hope that we seven will have the courage to join the growing list of municipalities around the nation and state that are refusing to let this authoritarian intrusion into our streets and into our private lives. A list that, as we've heard, includes Mountain View, Santa Cruz, Elserto, Stanford, Santa Clara County, and our sibling city, Bloomington, Indiana, among so many others. My fear is that a three-month audit is three more months of surveillance with consequences we can guess at but can't fully appreciate the effect of. I would rather direct staff to agendaize the termination of the flock contract and in the interim to council member Bert's point about things that might be done in the interim to take them down or cover the flock cameras as we await the longer term decision. Council member Rectal.

Yeah, as you can guess, we don't have a lot of faith in flock. They've had a lot of missteps and we don't know what they're doing behind the closed doors and that that really bothers us. And so comparing vendors, I think, is a high priority for us. But just not the vendors, but also the architecture. If you have uh if you're just switching to another vendor that controls the data, then you're just maybe in the same boat as opposed to if you control the server and you control the data, that seems to be a much more robust, but that also adds wrinkles to it because now you have to have it. And so I think we want want you to work with it and understand is this architecture look good on paper but it's not implementable at the city of Palo Alto. And the second thing is that we share our data with our neighboring cities and that's very valuable because they catch crimes that were committed pal ultimate they help each other right now they all do that through flock through that interface if we go our own route and go with Campbell go with Stanford uh we won't have that same data sharing and can we recreate that or are we just now on an island by ourselves and that's a really fundamental trade-off so I would want you to work with the police department understand what are their uses for their sharing how do we catch criminals for other cities and how do other cities catch criminals for us and how can we manage it and uh build it on the our IT system. So thank you

council member Leing thanks. So I'm wondering if we can somehow redirect this audit. It's not an action item for tonight. It's only a study session, but if there's some process that's appropriate to redirect the audit to emphasize uh new vendors uh as the first step and give a report out on that before you press on unless there's necessary stuff you need to do. I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. I'm just saying if we can get an early read on the alternatives.

Yeah. And maybe I'll just pick up here because I haven't chimed in because I was going kind of the same direction. Um, from what I'm hearing, it seems to be the sense of the council that we are unlikely to retain flock. We have not made that decision. It's not agendaized for that decision, but that's clearly where it seems to be leaning. Um, so the question is likely to be whether we want to retain any other ALPR and that, you know, aspects of that will factor into whether or not we do that. So I guess I mentioned that because I think the way this audit could be the most useful for us is to focus on an helping us answer that question. Um the reason um and so be before I go on and say more about my thought process, I do want to ask a question. I think it's to the chief. um if we were to agendaize um uh an a an action item on whether or not to cancel the flock contract within the next 90 days and if there were if that happened and if we were then to decide we were comfortable enough with another ALPR reader I don't know whether we will be is there a problem with having a break there that makes it harder to start up again or is that just irrelevant we just would start over in any that if I understand your your question correctly, Merittz, if we were to take down the flock cameras today and have another vendor up a month from now, is there a problem with that? I think the answer is that there wouldn't necessarily be a problem other than if we if we see the technology is a valuable crime fighting tool as well as a deterrent then the very public uh proclamation that the cameras are down effective immediately without with being coupled with uh new cameras are being placed immediately uh then there's a gap in that regard.

Okay. But that's something we could discuss uh if it were agendaized. But um yeah, in more detail. So, okay. Thank you. Yeah, I I guess the reason I'm uh still remain curious about other vendors despite grave concerns about the the the cameras generally um is just personal experience. We all can't help bring to these decisions and thoughts uh you know, our own uh lived experience. And on my block there were two homes where children live uh that were broken into. And it was a a ser a group that serily did this in neighborhoods around Palo Alto but in other cities. And in one of those homes the child was there home alone facing intruders. um they were ultimately uh apprehended through use of ALPR and so who knows how many other children were spared that traumatic experience and potentially you know worse than just uh trauma. So but maybe we could do it other ways. Maybe we could be just as safe or maybe we could curtail uh misuse possibilities enough we're comfortable with this. I I don't know. I would like to learn more but um that I think is is is so it's not about the tool so much as um instances like that. Um so I I guess um it would be interesting. We could do almost a a straw poll to see if there are interest in agendaizing but I think the city manager has something to say.

Yes, mayor. Thank you. Uh I would be remiss if not pointing out to the council that the scenario that chief uh suggested was that we take down the cameras now and we have a new vendor in a month. I think that latter is unlikely uh and uh to perhaps even an order of magnitude in terms of uh I would expect based on your discussion tonight that the conclusions of OIR's work will be very important for defining the product we seek. Uh and then there is the procurement process that would need to follow. So, you know, we routinely quote 6 months as the time frame with which it takes to complete a public procurement process and uh so we would certainly want to prioritize this. Uh but that should at least be the the starting point for setting expectations on the time it would take to identify a successor provider. Well, perhaps though uh if there's interest in agendaizing this item, we could at that point decide if uh we wanted to have it be effective upon procurement of a a later one or immediately or or whatever. Um but thank you for spelling out that timeline. Um, I would actually just be interested uh for colleagues to say how many would be interested in agendaizing just the the consideration of the the the FL contract itself.

So I guess um I'll let

you kind of figured out at the end

oh uh just agendaizing uh whether or not we would uh agenda the cancellation of the flock contract itself. I think that's where you were going. So I think I heard from you. Yes. Okay, I'm hearing it from that NDS. Then some other contemplations.

I'm sorry.

No, I'm saying agendaizing in the future.

Are you you

sorry? At the at the conclusion of the audit?

No, between now and then if there were time. I mean, our agendas are packed.

Yeah. And if we're able to agendaize it between then.

Okay. All right. All right. So, Council Member Bird.

Yeah. Um, so I am in favor of agendaizing an action item. Uh, I I uh really would caution the mayor on characterizing what the seven of us had indicated. I I did not hear the same consensus that you did. Um and under the action item, I would be interested in um other potential measures we may take while we await uh the audit and a final decision. Those might include uh further restrictions on on the um uh offense uh specific filters and other restrictions. It might include a disabling until we um uh take action on the autumn audit. Um or it might be a a full decision. Um, when we get that action item, I would like to at that time have um at least some preliminary information on alternatives so that we aren't starting that clock 90 days from now, but we would uh potentially start it much sooner. So, I would support an action item uh uh but I I would not support uh a narrow uh pre determination of what that might be. Yeah. No, that's fair. I did overstate it in terms of the labeling of it. Um but I think we have the same in intent in terms of what we would want to discuss. Um okay. Um I think we've given a fair amount of direction. City manager, do you need more?

Well, I think the question is really our ability to meet the information expectations that were set there and in particular both with OIR as well as uh the parallel staff work. Uh I think if if you're prepared to speak to that tonight, that would be fine. Otherwise, I think we have some work to do with OAR to identify when we would be able to bring that information back.

I'm just looking at OR to see if they're able to speak to that tonight. And if not we can uh yeah tenatively I think there's a way in which we could construct the audit where some of the issues that you want addressed sooner rather than later could be addressed. So if the question is for example, are there other other vendors there and what are the pros and cons of trying to engage with other vendors? That's a fairly discreet question that could be answered in less than 90 days. Um if it was, what other steps might the department consider to restrict access use um before an ultimate decision about whether or not to eliminate ALPRs entirely was made one that also could be done probably in more like 45 days instead of 90 days. So, yes, if uh council's interest is in carving out some discrete questions that you think are priorities um and important uh to evaluate how you respond sooner rather than later, we can do that.

Okay. Thank you. I think perhaps we can take this offline after staff contemplates it and in the agenda setting process, but with I believe what we're hearing is an interest in having something before 90 days that would talk about um the continuation you about the status of the flock contract and alternatives for action before 90 days and uh any information that you can pull together by then about alternate vendors. Does that capture that's a lot that's a lot and and we have a very busy agenda but I think that's

we have a very busy police department as well. So I think that uh we will take that feedback and see what we can come up with.

Okay. I appreciate that. Chief, did you anything you need to comment on that?

No, I think I understand. And I I I would just add that uh along with the other work we've been doing in parallel as the audit's been sort of in design uh I have been regularly meeting with my colleagues in the region to discuss what they're doing and I have obviously been tracking what's going on elsewhere in the state. Um I can offer at present that uh with the exception of Stanford who uh and the uh the historical from a few months ago example of Mountain View um in the county there's no one else that's in the process of moving away from flock or actively pursuing another uh another option. Um so we don't have any obvious partners other than perhaps Mountain View. uh if we were interested in collaborating with someone in the county.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lithcot. HS.

Thank you. Just wanted to clarify one additional thing as we were putting together the list of requests for what we'd like to see brought back with regard to this question of a discontinuation. Um as we analyze whether that is attractive to us, it would be helpful to know there's turning it off. As we've heard, there's also covering it. These are things we hear out in the news that other cities have done and it would be helpful to understand what does that cost, how quick is it, you know, do we have the materials to cover them or is that a procurement process and that's going to take months. Um so the details on that which will help us understand how quickly that could be uh affected would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh I see no further lights. So I think we've talked this over uh sufficiently tonight. Uh want to thank uh the uh OIR. Thanks the chief and staff and thanks to the public for uh helping us uh noodle through this one. Okay. So with that we will move on to our consent calendar. So Madame Clerk, do we have any public comment on the consent calendar? And I'll ask you if you would kindly keep your voices down as you so we can move on.

I know that's all right. I think she's still she's still sorting. So um

yes, it looks like we have uh two requests to speak on consent calendar items. Okay, give it just a minute. All right. Thank you. You have been a lovely and orderly uh audience, but we're going to need you to uh what are you trying to get?

Yeah, that's true. I can use the G. Turn up my Are you turning up my volume? How are we doing? Okay. All right. Thank you all for coming tonight. We need to move on. So, I'm just going to ask for a little silence in the chambers. Thank you. We want to hear our our next public commenters. All right, madame clerk. Do we have any public com you have we have two? I think you said

yes, we have two requests to speak. Our first speaker is city council s.

Thank you. City Council S, you should be able to unmute yourself and speak. Moving to our new next speaker, Aram F. Okay. I want to speak on item number I want to speak on item number eight again. I'm not comfortable with Ed Shicata. Um, and I'm not going to call him the drunken sailor tonight like I did last time on this item. That was disrespectful. Um, but listen, why how can we why can't the finance committee audit Chicago? Why does are we raising the limit on contracts that he can approve when we've had all of these consulting fees and he acted like the b the buck doesn't stop with him. Like, I don't know how that happened. Well, you damn well should have. You should have been paying attention to those millions of dollars worth of of consulting fees. Now you all want to charge uh the RV folks $15 a month to re reup each month when Chicago's throwing away tons and tons of money on useless consulting fees. You are the elected people in the city of PaloAlto that are responsible for keeping an eye on our budget. Not Educata. He's not an elected official. Okay. The man has way too much power. He wasn't listening tonight up to the flock folks. He was like saying, "Oh, you know, we're gonna we're gonna have to check. He wants flock." Okay? He wasn't paying attention to you or the the people of PaloAlto. How can you unilaterally give this man the trust to continue to approve millions and millions and millions of dollars and up the cap on that? It's irresponsible. Let your at least let your finance committee let you know those folks audit Educata. We got to reign that man in. I mean, come on. Please think about it at this point. We don't have an endless amount of money. We're more than a half a billion dollars in the hold of PERS. Okay? We don't have a balanced budget. That's a joke. You just put aside the, you know, the the PERS debt. That's all I've got to say tonight. But reign Chicago in, okay? Don't Don't let him just make the decisions for you. You're the elected officials. We elected you to oversee our budget. It's critical, folks. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lynn C.

Lind C, you should be able to unmute yourself and speak.

That concludes public comment on consent calendar items 3 through 4 and 6 through 8 as agenda item five was removed off of the agenda.

All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Um colleagues, do you have any no votes or requests to pull or recusals? And if not, may I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

Right. Thanks very much. I don't see any other lights on. So madam clerk, please call the role.

Just confirming that was council member Lou and council member Rectal.

Yes. Thank you.

Council member Liths.

Yes.

Council member Rectal.

Yes. Council member Lowing,

yes.

Council member Bert,

yes.

Mayor Vinker,

yes. Council member Lou,

yes.

Vice Stone,

yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you very much. And with that, we will move on to city manager comments.

Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Uh, let me ask city clerk for some assistance with a few slides. Thank you. Next slide, please. Just a few items we wanted to highlight for community awareness. Uh first off that our police uh public safety building is uh operational. In particular at this uh date that uh should members of the public need public counter support including obtaining uh police records uh or reports uh that uh they can now visit the public safety building at Forest uh Avenue location. In addition, uh as of uh this week, uh the police patrol division where our uh patrol officers will be rolling out of on a daily basis uh will also be from that building and uh so community members will see additional police activity in the Cal area. So nothing to be alarmed about. Uh this is their new home and I'm sure they will be welcomed. Uh do want to note that on September 2nd uh we will have uh the department's of police and fire honor guards uh raising a ceremonial flag just to mark uh the fully operational uh date of uh the uh building uh and community members are invited. Also note that our dispatch uh center uh transition and cut over uh is ongoing and will occur uh late September. Next slide please. Also want to flag for community awareness. Uh we've spoken a lot here of the city's partnership with the Jed Foundation uh a nationally recognized uh organization on suicide prevention in particular related to the youth and uh that the Jed have uh put out a uh initial findings uh report that is now posted on the city's website at pelala.gov/jed. Uh in addition the uh uh report itself and next steps will be discussed with the city's school liaison committee on September 1st. That is a new date. We had previously been carrying uh a date the week before uh for that meeting. Uh so do want to note for anyone tracking that uh topic that September 1st is the date for the city school leaison committee meeting. Next slide please. Also uh coming up uh really in advance of your next uh uh council meeting is the uh C training that's occurring starting on September 1st. This is our annual plug for community members to get involved with uh uh looking out for neighbors and being involved with our city emergency preparedness activities through community emergency response team training. Uh you are able to sign up uh for this training at our website pelaltto.gov. Uh it's noted here a three-week training and a variety of uh skills and uh uh connections uh to participate in uh really safeguarding and responding in the event of a major emergency. And also note that certain members who have pre previously been trained uh are invited to participate in this as well. Next slide, please. Then also a plug for other ways to get involved with the city. In this case, it's to serve on one of our boards, commissions, and committees that uh we have a recruitment ongoing with application deadline of September 2nd open on our human relations commission, parks and recreation commission, planning and transportation commission, public art commission, and the storm water oversight management committee. Again, uh information on this available at the city's website, palto.gov/bccrecruits. I'm sure our city clerk also would love to uh respond to any questions about this recruitment. Next slide, please. Then also upcoming uh we do have a city council meeting on September 9th, but given that this is just the following day on Thursday, September 10th, there will be a ribbon cutting along with uh tours of the horizontal levy project. Uh the uh uh community is more than welcome to participate in this. This is Thursday, September 10th at 11:00 a.m. location at the end of Embaradero Road, 2470 Embaradero Road, uh including both the ribbon cutting and community uh walk. And next slide, please. Then finally, want to review uh your upcoming agendas. Your next meeting is on September 9th. uh recognizing uh the Labor Day uh holiday on September 7th. Again, this is Wednesday, September 9th. It is an early start because you have scheduled a two-hour performance evaluations close session. Uh then we have uh a number of action items on that agenda. 470 Olive League of California Cities delegate de designation and an anticipated colleagues memo would note that we had previously been showing the study session on consultant management on that date but recognizing that's a heavy agenda we've moved that to October 5th. Uh also note that the following agendas on September 14th, you've got the uh proposed parking structure at 375 Hamilton Avenue, water revenue bonds, uh which will be your light reading for that agenda as it is the official statement for the issuance of uh financing and then a stream corridor uh protection ordinance uh changes. September 28th, a pre-screening for proposed development at 706 Kalper uh Street and then uh the grade separation direction related to alternatives that will advance to the next phase of design work. And then noted here upcoming uh agenda items on October 5th and beyond. I would flag that you have uh the work plans for the architectural review board, historic resources board, planning transportation commission, and utility advisory commission also scheduled in this October window. With that, mayor, back to you.

All right. And with that, uh we will

Can I add one thing? Uh, one thing that wasn't mentioned was the grade separation outreach meetings tomorrow night and Wednesday night uh at Mitchell Park Community Center 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. both nights.

Thank you. Previously covered uh so appreciate the reminder.

All right. Well, thank you. And with that, we will uh recess uh into our break and be back in 15 minutes. the meeting back to order. So, we need some order. Okay. All right. So, we're going to move on to action item nine, which relates to the Bueno Vista Mobile Home Park redevelopment. Uh, so I'll turn it to staff. And is that you, Deputy City Manager Cotton Gains?

Yes. Thank you, madame mayor and members of the city council. Chantel Cotton Gains, deputy city manager. I have a very brief presentation this evening about the item before you, as well as having Mr. uh Albert Yang on the line working on this item with me and members of the housing authority present this evening as well as someone from Santa Clair County Office of Supportive Housing to help with questions. So, very briefly going over this. Uh, nine years ago, the city and the county, oh, next slide. Thanks. Uh, the city and the county um joined with the housing authority to preserve affordable housing at Buenav Vista Mobile Home Park and the parties put together a triparty regulatory agreement which established the baseline of what the expectations are for the redevelopment that was happening there at that time. So on the slide that's in front of you, we summarized just the existing regulatory agreement, which is the one that was entered into in 2017, as well as the two new regulatory agreements that are before you this evening for adoption. So for the three key terms, as this um item has been discussed before, the affordability requirements have remained the same between this proposed regulatory agreement for parcels A and B compared to the existing regulatory agreement. The expiration date, the original amount was that it would expire in 75 years. And because the redevelopment has taken some time, as you recall, in 2024, there was a proposal before this council for a project and that was put on pause. And so, right now, the housing authority is moving forward with the utilities upgrade project. And that is the reason we're bringing the regulatory agreements to you this evening. We wanted to maintain that same 75- year time period from the time the work was done. And so the all parties have agreed that uh the 75 years would be the end of 2020 21101 which is really far away. And lastly, the total number of units. The original regulatory agreement required that we maintain a minimum of 100 residential units or mobile home spaces at the park. We brought an item to council in June of this year to do an official parcel split to approve that map. And so that is what created parcels A and parcel B. and the regulatory agreements that are before you today in total equal that 100 unit minimum. So for parcel B which is where the mobile homes are the minimum is 46 mobile home spaces and the housing authority believes they can probably go a little above that but they're at minimum doing 46. And then for the parcel A which would be the future depart apartment development it is uh maintaining a minimum of 54 residential units and that'll be delayed until implementation until 2033. All of the other terms of the agreements are pretty much the same from the existing triparty agreement and the two new regulatory agreements. Next slide. And so the recommendation to the city council this evening is authorizing the city manager to execute and make non-s substantive changes such as editing the recital or the APN's and legal descriptions to the new and amended regulatory agreements and related documents to facilitate the improvements of the Buav Vista mobile home park at 3980 El Camino. And just of note, if you looked at the attachments with the two new regulatory agreements, you will notice exhibit A with the description of the legal bounds of the two sites that it was similar in both regulatory agreements. And that's because we don't have the final language yet uh for those official legal descriptions of the parcels. And so that's one of the things that you'd be authorizing the city manager to update once we get that official legal language. But most importantly, we're really excited that the three parties work together to bring these recommended agreements to you this evening. And we are ready to answer questions and hopeful that this will be approved so we can continue to move forward with the housing authorities work and utilizing a large state grant that they have for the utilities upgrade work at the park. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager. Um, actually, I think I'll just go to public comment on this matter. Madame clerk, do we have uh people requesting to speak? We have three requests to speak on action item nine. Okay, our first speaker is Winter D.

Hi. Um, so I read over very carefully both of the uh uh regulatory agreements. Um, I didn't see a lot of problem with them, but there was one thing that wasn't in there. Now, I sent it to council. I don't know if all of you saw my short, blessedly short email. Um the it had been previously by I believe uh Vice Mayor uh Stone uh suggested that there be an internal waiting list for residents at Buenov Vista Mobile Home Park to be able to move into uh for instance a larger unit if it were to be made available rather than going immediately outside of the park looking for a completely new applicant from somewhere else in the county or wherever. And I think it would since this is going to be kind of set in stone once you approve this, it'll be the entire agreement. I want you to really think about that because uh and of course we're talking about if they would be qualified the within uh Buenov Vista, but I want you to seriously consider it. I think that kind of internal preference is really important. I don't know what happened to the larger PaloAlto preference that was also talked about in some length but I leave that to maybe you get more information and thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Herb B.

Uh my recollection was that the housing authority said that uh they did not have a viable project because uh of being unable to finance uh the apartment part of the the project. uh since this apparently is extending the the time for them to be able to do that. And I believe a ballot measure u statewide uh that state senator uh Scott Weiner has placed on for affordable housing. Uh he indicated that uh that funding could be used uh to uh change a mobile home park to a multiple family, you know, apartment uh dwelling and I believe also could be used to uh provide funding for uh the housing affordable housing on religious institutions you know where 25% of the uh land can be used for affordable housing. So, I was wondering uh how how this connects or changes uh the previous statements from the housing corporation that they didn't have a viable project because they couldn't have the funding for the the I guess it's parcel B for the apartments. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Henry E.

This all represents a small effort of palative to allow people of working class to continue to live in Palo Alto. My first concern is in moving people around that nobody loses their trailer, their residence, that their right to stay either in that where they are now or move to a better location where their trailer can be protected. So secondly, the amount of housing to be built apparently will not even start until 2033. Why so long? What's going on? It looks like another attempt to stall to stall. And also the scale of this. We must think on a much larger scale to build housing so that people of all class levels, working, middle, and upper class can live safely in Palo Alto. Everyone should have the right to live near where they work. That's how we solve all this car problem. We won't need cars if people could walk to work. So, it's all interrelated and the housing issue can be solved in the city by bringing together Stanford University that has the land, the business community that has the resources and Palo Alto city that has the zoning and other authorities. So at the same time that we must build housing to scale, we must also disassemble the billionaire's compounds and return them to single family housing units. We need equitable policy at all levels for this city. This project to save Vista is a small but necessary part of it. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Aram F.

Okay. So, I lived on Los Robos for I don't know 30 40 years and um you know um Guav Vista is a is a gem. I'm a little confused though because it it it seemed as though a few years back we were about to start the building process to build the apartments and then all of a sudden there was some disputes. Some tenants uh were unhappy about the size of the units they were being offered and so the county backed out. now and maybe somebody on the dis council member can explain to me. It looks like we're having the the the present tenants move out so that we can do the underlying utilities and they're going to move back and then correct me if I'm wrong going to have to move out a second time when they actually get to the building of the units. problem that I raised a few years back when I sent my oldest son over there to apply to be uh in a unit there. Uh they were it very uh adverse it appeared to him to having African-Americans be part of that uh project at Buenav Vista. As you all know, we've pushed out a lot of the the black community gentrification going on in Park Boulevard area. I've asked repeatedly as part of the reparations that PaloAlto owes to the black community to make sure that we preserve housing for underresourced black members of the of our our county. Uh we're down to 2%. Um, you folks have never even been willing to say the word reparations even though it's now in the vernacular in the state. There's some cities in the country that have moved on that. They all been lame, lame, lame on that. I don't understand that. So when we look at the project, I also want to make sure that yes, we keep the Hispanic population, the wonderful populations that's there, but open it up to some other people of color as well. That just seems to me to be an obvious. So, thank you much.

And that concludes public comment on action item nine.

All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Um, I just want to just start um by asking staff um uh M. Delen Bach's uh comments about um the families who are there that have grown through natural ways various ways and are uh may need uh an additional spot over time or something. I do remember there was a discussion um at least among some of us of an intent that existing expanding families could have first choice in any sort of new or vacated spots. Um while our goal was not to displace any residents, we we thought about giving them the opportunity to have a more appropriate amount of living space like current uh tenants before new tenants might come in. this may not well I what I'm asking is where if if we were to memorialize that where would be the right place to document that because I'm I don't know if the regulatory agreement is but could we somewhere somehow record that idea if in fact it's a consensus of our council.

So I I can take that answer. Um so I mean there there will be other documents that establish tenant selection policies um not necessarily ones that have to be recorded against you know against the world uh you know to give notice to the world. Um so those kind of policies could be embedded in those documents. I would say with that specific policy um we would need to look uh closely at fair housing implications um for for any policy like that before we implemented it.

Okay. Yeah, I just ask that we do that at the appropriate time. I think that's um an important part of of us uh maintaining this community uh in our midst. Um and then just uh while I have the mic,

madam mayor, we also have uh Flareity from the housing authority who can speak to how they work on some of the um related to that issue as well.

That'd be great. Would you be willing? Thank you.

Hi, council mayor, vice mayor. It's nice to be here tonight. um Flity Ward with the Still with the Santa Clair County Housing Authority. Um happy to be in front of you all tonight. And to speak to this specific issue, um and this is the same throughout the housing authorities portfolio. It doesn't just apply to Buista. When a family is in need of a larger unit, they are placed on what we call an internal eligibility list. So we have our our natural weight list that we manage, but then there's an internal eligibility list for people that need a larger home. And then when one becomes available, it is we refer to that list. Um, so you know, we're not displacing people from the park who can't uh, you know, be there anymore due to their family size. So that's the general policy throughout the agency.

Got it. And so that's that's what you do now as a matter of course. And

that's what we do now as a matter of course um throughout our entire portfolio.

Okay. Great. Good to know. Um,

because families do change.

Exactly. Exactly. And uh, so all right. Thank you. And then um could I ask her a followup while she's there?

Sure. Is that okay? Um just to follow up. Thank you, Mayor. Uh on Miss Dylan's other prong of her question about Palo Alto eligibility. Um we're of course very interested in low-income residents of our city being able to have priority, but we understand this is something that is being organized by the county and the housing authority. And so we know there are probably limitations on that as there are with our home key. Can you give us a sense of what whether any preference is given to a PaloAlto person, a person with Palo Alto ties when it comes to where they are on the wait list?

Yeah. Well, currently there is no, you know, we're not accepting new applicants to Buista only because we're getting ready for this um improvement. Um, if the city council is interested in exploring a local preference, I think that's something that, um, we can take into consideration and look at, you know, all applicable fair housing rules and regulations and funding programs. There's a lot of different things at Touch Point of Vista that we would need to ensure we're not running a foul of and get the necessary approvals. Um, but if that's something the city council would like us to look at with staff, we can.

I think I would. Thank you. Good to see you again.

Yeah, you too.

All right. Thank you. And then uh my other question for staff is whether they had any response uh to Mr. Borak's question.

His question specifically on the financing of the project. Okay. I will take part of this and then I will let Miss Ward provide the rest of it. So, the project that came before the council in 2024, uh, which was for the changes at the mobile home park in addition to the apartment building, that project, given all of the multiple aspects of it, the housing authority determined was not feasible to go forward with at that time. They did have a large grant that came from the state for about 25 million as an estimate. And that is the funding that they're using for this utilities upgrade project, which is what we're moving forward with right now. So, some of this work was included in that 2024 project, but they couldn't do the entire project given all the elements, but I'll let Miss Ward add on from there.

That was a great summary. Um, the total cost of the improvement project is about $30 million. So, the balance that is not paid through uh the more funds will be paid by the housing authority as well as we received a small grant through um ESU's office to electrify the park. So, we plan on using that in those efforts. and then the housing authority um providing the gap financing to get this project started and finished.

Great. Thank you. All right. Um colleagues, any further discussion or a motion?

Council member Bart.

Yes. Um I wanted to understand um better on in the 9-month interimm period where uh current residents are relocated. Not all are um being relocated within PaloAlto but they're all being accommodated. Um we had had previous discussion about students in PAUSD and um and my understanding is that there there's collaboration with PAUSD. I just want to understand better about the transportation of those students if they're um um residing outside of PaloAlto. What is that that uh transportation program?

Absolutely. So, Miss Ward can share the specifics, but I will share on her behalf before she gets up here. The housing authority did a pretty extensive search to find apartment units within PaloAlto. She can share the statistics, but they asked a lot of people and got a response from one. And so with that in mind, they went to as close as possible to PaloAlto, which is why you hear of some in Mountain View. And so Miss Flity can speak to how they plan to keep the Peloto students uh whole. Um let me give some background to to explain. We have been in kind of constant communication with the school district for the past almost year at this point, having regular check-ins with them. So letting them know about the timeline impacted families um so that we can on either side uh make sure we're gathering the appropriate data to prepare for impacts. Um so that has been open communication and has been really great. Um we are utilizing actually the same um transportation service the city of PaloAlto does to hire private transport. Um so similar to the number that folks can call in the city of PaloAlto if they want a a private ride somewhere um that service is also being made available to um Buen a Vista families while they are relocated to assist in getting their children to school. Um our relocation um our folks that are managing that on our behalf are regularly meeting with the residents to figure out what their um impacts might be uh and if they need to take advantage of that transportation option. Um, and then we're also reimbursing families can also get a reimbursement for mileage if they are traveling farther to get their children to school as well. Um, and then we plan on being in touch with the school district on whether there's any um issues with kids getting to school late or any impacts to their attendance as a result of this so we can help coordinate from our end with services and support the families to make sure their children can get to school.

So, are you referring to the Palo Alto link program?

Yes. Oh, but can staff comment on our windown of that program and how it aligns with this ninemonth period?

I will uh check with staff and loop right back. I don't I don't know that it's officially the link itself.

Oh, it's Sevilla. Is that the name of the

Yeah, same company but not our contract.

Yeah, it's a different contract. We're not using the city's contract. We're using a similar Yeah.

Okay. Uh, and I I do want to support um uh to the extent we can that PaloAlto local preference for additional spots um should they open up. And the um the staff report said a minimum of um 46 spots I think it was on um parcel B, right?

Yep.

And what do you anticipate is the likely full capacity? Uh we think it's around 56.

Oh, good.

Yeah. If we're able to create some efficiencies within the park. Um uh but it remains to be determined once we finish the infrastructure project. We have $5 million through the state of Calhoun to start a launch a voluntary home replacement program. So some of it will depend on who the final kind of spacing will depend on who participates in that program

because our our next item is our oversized vehicles which we're looking at a variety of measures to try to help um uh some of those uh families especially when they're they're um local families and uh very low income. Would would those additional 10 spots up to 10 spots um would they be uh need-based on on um uh being unhoused uh or uh income based? How would how would that work?

Yeah. Um it will be income based. So the regulatory agreement outlines the uh we call them like affordability buckets of each of the levels. So what happens is we analyze the current rent role against the required affordability set aides and then the spaces that become available are subject to where we need to fill buckets right if we need more certain income levels and then we would we would um you know take people off the weight list. So conceivably within the the local preference, we could include uh people in uh uh in RVs on uh currently on the street uh within a local preference depending on whether they qualify within those income buckets.

I would probably need to talk to our attorney about how like specific you can drill down on a local preference. I don't know the answer to that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, colleagues. Any other questions or comments or motions?

Council member Lou,

I'll echo the point about a uh local preference and um uh also echo the broader theme and point of uh potential space for RV residents. Uh and with that, I will move the staff recommendation as well. Thank you.

Second.

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Yeah, I just want to make sure that the um that local preference request is included in the motion.

I think that's a referral for staff to work with the housing authority on next steps there. Yeah, we just want to codify it as a referral

and we could just add an extra bullet point under the motion with uh just the word uh with a referral for uh local preferences.

Secondary referral to staff.

Yes. Do

you want to speak further to your motion or second?

To work with staff to to work with housing authority.

Referral to staff.

Staff to work with. Okay.

Referral to staff to work with housing authority for local preference. Yeah. Yeah, I I know there's more words smmithing we can do, but I think the point is

that covers it

clear enough. Um, so uh no other comments. Um, uh, glad that we can have utility improvements, electrification, a bunch of facility improvements. I think it's the right step and I think we really look forward to working productively with the housing authority and um uh getting the ball moving as quickly and clearly as possible. All right, great. Well, this has been a long time coming. I'm eager to see the next steps. And so with that, I will ask the clerk to call a role.

Council member Rectal.

Yes.

Council member Lads.

Yes. Vice Mayor Stone,

yes.

Mayor Vinker,

yes.

Council member Lou,

yes.

Council member Lowing,

yes.

Council member Bert,

yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you. This item will go to the county tomorrow for approval and then uh within a week, it'll go to the housing authorities board for approval as well.

Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you, Deputy City Manager. Thank you, Miss Ward. I also see some other colleagues up there. Um, so anyway, we appreciate this and look forward to seeing the next step happen. All right. And with that, we will move on to our next and last action item of the evening. Item 10, recommendation uh to launch two pilot OSB parking programs, etc. Um we'll give staff a second to shuffle. Okay. Um, all right. Well, this is one where uh we have had an ad hoc committee diligently working with staff and so to kick us off tonight, I'm going to turn to the chair of that ad hoc, Council Member Lowing.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. And I just want to begin by giving you giving you an overview of where we've been. Uh that includes the original direction from council. Uh brief view on our outreach and comment on what we learned. Uh then comment on the staff proposal both the content and the timing. Uh and then later after staff gives a presentation uh all three ad hoc committee members uh are going to speak individually from their own sort of personal point of view of uh where we are and what we each think uh we should do. Um so we all know that the large population of OSVs is a issue in cities around the country uh national, state, um and local. Uh that said, our jobs here, so we have to focus on what we can get done here. Uh we we know that the RV population, OSV RV, is made up of people in varied circumstances. We know that by talking with a lot of them. Um, some just simply can't afford to live here. Uh, but they have a job here. Uh, some have med medical or substance abuse problems. Um, some simply want to have free rent. Uh, some have a home elsewhere and, uh, stay here during the work week and sort of go home. Uh, some like the mobile lifestyle and and a lot of other different categories. Uh, it's not just one thing. So, the council asked us to address this issue with a sort of a two-pronged approach. And the first is toward leg what I call legitimate lowincome folks that just need a helping hand uh to get to permanent housing. And the second prong is the waves of OSVs that are really interfering with uh commercial businesses and in some cases residential areas. And this has been going on for a long time. Uh both of these problems are real, they're chronic, and they're high priority. So, as the ad hoc got going, we came up with a list of initiatives starting with how do we find new places for some of these vehicles to to park. At the time, the count was about 200 OSVs. Um sometimes that and that did not count sometimes the commute vehicles cuz some folks have a car to actually literally do their commute to a job. So but the OSV count was uh was about 200. So we did extensive I mean very extensive outreach to commercial uh developers, property owners and businesses in our city and beyond. um especially those that were empty, not least, and had empty parking lots looked like a great opportunity. Um secondly, we talked to faith communities. Uh a number of them had already allowed day use for um homeless in uh vehicles. We appealed to the county of Santa Clara for land uh including uh the very large uh fairgrounds that are only used sporadically throughout the year. Overall, this problem really needs a regional solution led by the county because the county's whole sort of reason for being is a safety net for those in need. And they understand that. They embrace that. but they'd just been slammed with budget cuts caused by uh federal cuts. And we were also very eager to have the 88 bed transitional housing at Homekey open uh so that we could use some of those units there for some of the OSV dwellers um particularly since it's in Palo Alto and we invested in it. And then we found out that when it opened, it was backlogged with units for residents that had previously been housed in hotels because of the late construction. So we ended up getting none of those beds of the 88 beds that are in Palo Alto. So the bottom line is that everything we reached out to try to do and all these initiatives did not work. None of them after all this time. And I mean we worked on it. Um there's one help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope help hope helpful footnote and that is that we now do have a a nibble from the county that they would like to work with us uh to get some safe parking but no details so that's still a stone that's not overturned the estimated count is now about 130 to 140 depending on the day you count uh and that is down from 200 due to the citations and towing um of course now we need to take further action to address the OSV population. Um, but I do want to salute the folks that worked on this in the uh in the city, the police department and public works around the firing line there, but a lot of folks in the city manager's office and and elsewhere and and legal. So, I've come on staff proposal. Uh, it's it's just time to come back to council now uh given what I just reported on and come up with an alternative proposal than than what we have. Um, so this particular proposal uh came from staff to be debated. The objective being direction, turn around, send it back to staff with direction on what council wants them to do. So the council ad hoc committee uh is three people and it's really part of a bigger ad hoc committee which is all the staff which is 10 to 12 folks that meet with us every time we meet including the city attorney, the city manager, um the director of uh of um public works and all of their staff. Uh you'll hear from the city attorney a little bit later tonight. Um, but I also want to point out that this actual proposal was not um created by the council of three people um uh nor was it reviewed by the council three people uh before it went out. So the staff report includes you know a lot of elements that were discussed by the full ad hoc um and also introduces some some new material uh such as the proposed rollout schedules that uh that we hadn't seen. Um, I think there are also some some items in the report that need clarification and I just want to take this moment now to give a couple of examples before we go to public comment. Uh, many folks have written us saying that the staff report in uh, pilot 2 of putting half the vehicles uh, on one side of the street actually makes them permanent. And that's not correct. There's no indication here uh, that those are going to be permanent. uh it was intended as a an option as a stop gap measure to remove half to remove not keep half of the OSVs to relieve half of the problem uh as soon as we can. Uh so there's no current recommendation to make that other half permanent and we can do whatever we want with that but that was the concept and the other side of the concept was to be equity uh uh amongst all the businesses there. There's also some concern on the street as expressed in the many emails that we got um that the streets targeted in the report are not comprehensive enough and we sort of quote left some out. Uh but that list is not fixed and is easily amendable you know one way or the other. So I just want to mention those before public comment. So the desired outcome tonight is simply uh direction to staff on what direction our seven folks want to go. Uh we can vote on proposal that's here. we can vote on new items. We can send stuff back to the ad hoc. Uh so that's the overview and uh we'll chat again back to the mayor.

All right. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to turn to staff and uh to the city manager.

Sure. Thank you uh mayor and members of council in particular the ad hoc uh committee. Uh as noted, ad hoc committee has spent extraordinary time uh working with staff as well as doing direct outreach uh as was noted with uh uh community members as well as our regional uh partners and those that we hope to become regional partners with. uh in particular just want to note uh that uh in wrestling with this topic the ad hoc committee has has clearly uh uh expressed uh the uh recognition of the difficulty of the issue and uh also wrestling with the lack of a permanent solution or even necessarily straightforward solutions given the complexity of the issue. Uh so as such uh what you'll hear from staff tonight uh is uh very specifically not intended to be a permanent solution um but is reflective of the incremental next steps uh to as uh chair Lowing pointed out restrict uh OSV parking while also providing capacity to meet identified needs. Uh we also expect that we'll be able to speak to uh some of the perhaps misunderstandings uh that we've heard in uh some of the uh comments received including uh experiences of other communities. So with that, let me ask our assistant city manager Melissa Mcdana uh to walk through our uh overview of the item tonight and look forward to your discussion.

Thank you. U Melissa Mcdana, assistant to the city manager. Uh as as you've heard already this evening, homelessness and vehicle habitation continue to present complex policy operational and community impacts in Palo Alto. Uh tonight's item presents recommendations to launch two coordinated pilots. We recognize these are not ideal solutions to this complex issue, but have found a way to address and reduce uh the impacts in our city. Next slide. since policy and services direction on a phased approach in August of last year through council creation of the ad hoc and the approval and launch of phase one in October of last year. We've continued to move this work forward. Um this January the ad hoc and staff engaged with the community at an openhouse followed by a council study session in February and an update report in June. Through phase one, we learned that focused cleaning, signage, enforcement, and service connections can improve conditions in specific locations. The proposed pilots developed and refined by the ad hoc apply those lessons through a more structured and measurable approach. Next slide. The city has created new ordinances to prohibit vanlording and to prohibit the parking of detached trailers and inoperable vehicles and public streets. Uh as part of phase one, there also have been increased enforcement efforts, added street sweeping and cleanings to 18 identified impacted streets, and explored approaches such as safe parking expansion and OSV buyback and storage programs. At the same time, the city continues to prioritize expansion of off- streetet safe parking. We know that a stable service connected setting can support participant well-being by reducing the uncertainty of frequent relocation and by improving access to housing navigation, case management, and health and mental health supports. The city has also engaged county officials to support a more unified regional response as Chair Lowing mentioned. And uh the city continues to invite commercial property owners to the table to discuss utilizing vacant lots as potential safe parking sites. Safe parking remains an important long-term strategy, but expansion is constrained by available land funding, site operations, and service needs. The pilots proposed this evening are intended to complement, not replace those efforts by providing near-term targeted options while the city continues pursuing additional off- streetet capacity. And finally, we we also in phase one have met and continue to meet regularly with other cities and jurisdictions to share information, problem solve, and look for ways to work together to address this complex issue. Next slide. The recommendations before you this evening are to launch two 12-month pilot programs and approve related ordinances, resolutions, and budget amendments. Together, these are intended to address a more structured to address ongoing neighborhood business, public health, and safety impacts while providing a more structured and humane response for people living in oversized vehicles. The pilots are a cost-effective way to test targeted parking management and service delivery before considering a broader citywide approach. The total pilot cost is estimated at approximately $823,000800. Staff would return to council in March and September 27 with status reports and recommendations regarding continuation, modification, expansion, or termination. Next slide. The first of the two pilots, the oversized vehicle parking permit pilot would create designated permit areas on the city managed side of Coyote Hill Road and on Embaradero Road near the wastewater treatment plant with capacity for approximately 37 oversized vehicles. Through negotiations with the county, we may be able to switch the Coyote Hill area to the county side. For Embaradero Road, we would deploy restriping to create space for permitted vehicles to park while retaining the bike lane. This pilot is not intended to serve every person living in an oversized vehicle. It is designed for individuals and families who are ready to work towards stable permanent housing and can benefit from a structured service connected setting during that transition. The path to permanent housing is often not linear and can take time. By providing a designated safer place to park, the pilot can help participants focus on working with staff, accessing needed services, and building the foundation for a successful transition to stable housing. Staff will also uh as part of this pilot communicate with adjacent businesses and property owners as well as current oversized vehicle dwellers as the sites are prepared and the program is implemented. An estimated firstear cost of $400,800. This pilot allows the city to test a targeted alternative to more costly off- streetet safe parking expansion which is as I mentioned constrained by availability and cost. Next slide. To be eligible to participate in the permit pilot, uh, oversized vehicle dwellers will need to meet a set of requirements to participate. These requirements establish clear expectations for safe and responsible participation while keeping participants housing focused. Participants will need to have a valid registration, active insurance, agree to sign a good neighbor agreement, agree to engage with outreach workers to receive support in transitioning into permanent housing, have connections to PaloAlto, be income eligible, and be able to pay a $15 per month permit fee. This modest permit fee is intended to support an administraable program while maintaining affordability for eligible households. Next slide.

While the permit pilot is directed at supporting those who are wanting to transition into permanent housing, the parking prohibition pilot is designed to help reduce the count of oversized vehicles on heavily impacted streets. This pilot would prohibit oversized vehicle parking on one side of identified streets for 6 months, then alternate to the other side for the next 6 months. All existing regulations, including 72-hour limits, phase one street sweeping restrictions, the van lording ban, and the ban on detached trailers would remain in effect. Passenger vehicles may continue parking on both sides year round. Staff will provide advanced notice and communicate directly with affected businesses, adjacent property owners, neighborhoods, and oversized vehicle dwellers. Feedback from residents and businesses along with calls for service, complaints, warnings, and citations will help us evaluate this pilot. An estimated firstear cost of $423,000. This this pilot provides a lowerc cost opportunity to test operational effectiveness and refine the approach before considering something broader. Next slide. On this slide, you can see all of the streets that will receive red tips as part of the second pilot. In blue are the street segments included in the alternating sides parking prohibition. We know this is not a perfect list. It is a preliminary list intended to address impacted non-residential street segments first identified in phase one and we will be rep uh refining it through confirming locations and uses as well as outreach to neighbors and property owners. Next slide. Um here you see a cost overview for the pilots. This is an updated cost table in the staff report. This table inadvertently omits that top row where it starts with the word site amenities. However, all of the totals in the table were correct in the staff report. We can refer back to this slide if there are questions relating to costs. Next slide. And I'd like to thank you. I know that was a lot of information uh spoken very quickly. And I would now like to seed the floor over to the city attorney for some legal context.

Yes. Uh thank you uh mayor, council members. So I'll just I just want to briefly address uh the current legal environment in which this discussion is taking place. So, I I think you're all aware that the Supreme Court's US Supreme Court's decision in Grants Pass um did change the landscape in this area and did limit the city's obligation to provide shelter really, you know, almost whenever it displaces an unsheltered resident. Um you know, that said, um there are still legal obligations uh that the city has when it is managing its unsheltered population. Um and and some of those obligations are the you know subject of current litigation in this district uh in the in the ninth circuit. Uh and so that litigation does create some uncertainty as to how uh the city manages the situation. And you know, while I don't and I don't necessarily agree with uh the theories that plaintiffs are advancing in these cases, I think it's my council should keep that uncertainty in in mind. And you know, one real risk is that the city winds up in a situation where it's the court and not necessarily this council or this community that decides how we uh regulate people living in vehicles in public spaces. And so that's I think something that you know you know our advice as staff is is we're mindful of that risk and mindful of avoiding it. Uh you know another thing I think to think about is that the results from the the steps that you took last year I think do show meaningful reduction in in impact of OSVs in the streets. And so I mean one thing to consider is whether you know additional incremental steps will continue to show that impact. Um that's not to foreclose you know any option that council could consider. I think it's just one of the many factors that you need to consider in addressing what I I think we all acknowledge is a really difficult problem.

All right. Thank you staff. Um, and with that, I'm going to bring it back to the deis. Um, but first to the ad hoc to see if you have any further comments and and the other members of the ad hoc have anything they'd like to say preliminarily and then the rest of us can

Well, yes. I think at this point we want to talk about the specific two pilots and give uh three different opinions on that. Not necessarily different, but three people speaking on it. Excuse me. So speaking first to what's called pilot one. Uh that's where we're creating um a structure um a game plan uh regulations and targeting that specifically to incomequalified folks so that we know that these are what I'll call legitimate uh folks that are not just hanging around town but are here for reasons that they can't afford it and so on. So I think the structure of that is good and I think the direction that that is there is is also good. Um because we have a lot of latitude including if they don't follow the rules, they're very quickly gone and that's totally in our control. So they have to be good neighbors. They have to not have stuff in the front, they have to take care of themselves in terms of the uh um um waste, getting rid of waste and all that stuff. And and we're in control of that. So there's a good control and most importantly they have to say yes I want to get into permanent housing. So these are transitional therefore these the original idea is the 37 units. Uh they're not going to be living in those 37 units for 5 years. They're going to be transitioning to housing. So that's the that's the goal. That's the intent and everybody signed up for the same thing. So I think that one is is is on point. By the way, none of these uh new units are in uh South Palo Alto. Uh so that was another concern that we got from some some residents in terms of where OSVS are right now. Um I think the schedule is uh for implementation is is sorry to say way off. We just have to do that a lot faster because we have this problem that's been festering for years and we have made good progress but it's not enough relative to where we need to be. So that has to be trimmed up. Um I think there's some details that have to be looked at. Is it a $15 fee or a $50 fee? You know, that could be chatted about. Um, I think we should be very specific about which kind of income folks that we're looking for. I mean, do we want to try to get to, you know, 80% AMI and under? Do we want to get that specific or not? But whatever it is, it may not have to be in the ordinance, but it should definitely be in the program so everybody knows that what we're what we're signing up for. Um, I think that's on point. And then, you know, this also is not fixed in stone that it's only going to be 37. uh if it works and we're getting good transition and andor we need more spaces um I think that could be easily ruled out. Now speaking about pilot number two once again uh that schedule is um too slow for initial roll out um and I don't think we actually need any more outreach to businesses. Um, if you want outreach, here it is, including the approximately 200 emails we got uh in the last uh week and a half. Um, I always stay up to speed on my on my city email. When I walked in here today, I had 75 more emails. So, we understand that this is touching nerves and we need to take action on that. Um, I think one of the things that it says in the success criteria for the pilot is that um we want to get fewer business complaints. Well, of course, but that's not really the criteria. Uh the criteria is is there a radical reduction in the number of OSVs that are not in uh the permitted parking area? But here's a really critical point. Right now, there aren't any ordinances that we have that can control incoming vehicles to our town or if we, for example, remove these whatever it's going to be 60 or 65 people in the impacted areas, uh there's no way we control spillover of those folks going to another neighborhood. Now, you could say that's okay because at least it's relieving the folks in the uh affected neighborhoods that have been suffering for years. Um, but if we're just moving it to another part of town, we haven't really fundamentally addressed the issue. Just moves moves the problem down the street. So, I think ultimately the only way to address this is to have all OSVs in permitted parking. So, we now have we're creating this permanent parking district one or whatever it's going to be what we just talked about in pilot one and that can that can roll out gradually as needed and as available but we could also do other we should do other uh parking programs to have OSVs otherwise they just can't park here. So, it's OSVs in a parking permit or else there's no parking. That puts a cap at the top and it keeps uh the spillage from happening. Signage for the law I think should be placed like a number of uh resident businesses have written in at the primary entrances to the city which is currently allowed by uh state law followed up by first time warning notices placed on the vehicle if they're in a parked illegally. Um we're not going to spend $4 million on sign signs around the the city. That really makes no sense to me. Um, and I think that's sufficient legal coverage through the entrance signs, the word of mouth, and warning notices on parking violators. I think this will be a well-known law in our city. Now, the issue is, can we find enough parking spots for the displaced folks even in this half side of the street that we're talking about in the impacted areas? And and there it comes down to sequencing and timing. But I think we need to move very fast to eliminate all that um illegal parking in the impacted areas. And the way to do that is to get to a broader concept of permitted parking. There are there are other options and I think other council members on the ad hoc will talk about that. Um one of them that's been discussed before is we could also um reduce the 72-hour rule and go down to 24 hours. um that's not going to be magical and wonderful for the police staff to be able to instantly cover that, but as a deterrent, it could tell people that if you come to town, you're going to be changing your position every day, not just every 3 days. Um so I would hope that that would be a a a deterrent. Um you know, we don't catch every speeder, but we have up speed limits uh as a deterrent. So that's another option. And uh at this point I'll pass it over to my next colleague. Yeah, we realize the city is frustrated. We're frustrated with OSVs. I mean, this is a really hard problem and our legal constraints make it even harder. And so we've been struggling to find uh what action should we be taking. Now phase one I thought was very successful. public works and PAPD really went through and we cleaned up there were streets that hadn't been swept there for 20 years. It was a long time and so uh that cleaned up the streets. It uh it ended up reducing the number the population but now what we're worried about is that we've reduced the number of RVs on our streets. Will someone come in and fill that vacuum? Will RVs from Redwood City if Belmont come down and start parking? and there's nothing that's capping the the population preventing from going back up to 220. That made us very nervous. And that's why we're looking at this second uh pilot where you do one side of the street. And by we we roughly will take half the RV parking spots in the city and get rid of them. And that's trying to keep that upper level from growing. We we don't want the RV population to grow. And I thought we think that's really critical. And we're not increasing parking at all. We're decreasing it. Half the parking spaces go away. And this is, as the council member Law said, this is not permanent. This is meant to be a stop gap just to protect us right now because right now there's a vacuum. We've reduced the RV population and that could change and we don't want we don't want it to change. Uh so uh so then what what's our next steps? what how can you know now that if we do implement this one side of the street we've temporarily protected the community but what's our long-term goal how can we get out of this well one thing we can do is right now um residential areas do not allow RV parking but there's some areas around town that technically aren't residential for example uh if you have a PC zone that's not considered residential so along Fabian there along like JCC, those are homes and they don't get the same protection that we get in other areas. Uh in North Ventura, there's mixed use. They don't get the same protection. Uh East Meadow, same story. There's a lot of areas where there's a lot of RVs and they really are residential and we don't give them the same protection that we give the rest of the community and that's just unfair and we need to address that and make a more uniform policy towards the residential areas. The second thing is in the commercial areas. There's some areas where the people who come have to park three, four blocks away just because there's so many RVs clogging up or customers coming to the to the businesses and they can't park. And so one possibility is that we do in the residential areas, we have residential parking permits. If you go around and get half the signatures, half the people sign the signature, then we institute a residential parking permit. So we could do the same thing in the businesses. half the businesses in an area sign the petition. We could have a business parking permit. And that means that anyone, say a customer comes, they can park two hours in front of your business. But anyone who's doing longerterm parking, they need a permit. And those permits are only issued through businesses in those areas. And so now that parking in that area would be there to serve the businesses, not to serve the RVs. And that would be one way to relatively quickly mitigate those parking impacts that the RVs are having in those neighborhoods. But in the long run, we still have these RVs and if we're just shuffling them around, as council member Lowing said, they're not solving the problem. and safe parking, whether it's down at Moffett we're looking at, or uh if we can expand other areas in the city and have more safe parking, and so we can transition these RVs off the street and into a place where they're not bothering us and we're not bothering them. We're not chasing them around the city, that they can they can uh have a more secure life on the street. That's good for everybody. And that's a challenge because we don't have a lot of spare uh space in the in the city. But that's something that we can strive for. That is as long as we can cap the RVs. We're not trying to recruit more people. We're trying to get rid of the RVs that are on on the street right now. That that's a very good option. And every time you get someone off the street and into sedable parking or safe parking, that takes pressure off those neighborhoods. And it also allows us from a legal constraint is we can have more constrained parking limitations. And so it helps everybody if we can find more safe parking. So I'll move it on. Julie, do you want to council member Ladines?

I think we're trying to share some overview thoughts here. We're not uh I have some specific questions for staff. I wonder are we going to we're going to get to our council or our council questions once I'm done then you'll open up to everybody else.

Yeah. And if you want to start and ask questions I would say go ahead because I was going to then let us all talk and then hear from Thank you.

Um well to add to what my colleagues on the ad hoc had said and it has been uh in my four years I have not ever been on a committee that has had this much work about it. Um, and I've been on a lot of committees that have had a lot of work. So, this has been intense. And as the city manager has said at the outset and has reminded us, this is we're we're attempting to do our part to address one of the most seemingly intractable issues of our time, which is the fact of homelessness and which in Peloto made 73% of our unhoused live in vehicles. So, um, there's no easy fix. Everybody's frustrated. This has been very hard. U we've heard about impacts from my colleagues and I want to say that this committee has also been deeply concerned about the quality of life lived by people who have no better choice than to live in their vehicles. Asterisk, some people have better choices. As council member Lowi said, some people have homes elsewhere. They're choosing to live in a vehicle here for reasons that make sense to them. But we know there is a percentage of the population who have no other shelter than that metal over their head, which is their car or their RV. And we are desperately concerned about the fact that our society has gotten to this point. And we know it's not our fault. We know that leaders across this region and residents and voters across this region and the nation have made choices for some time that have led to these macroeconomic conditions that are causing these impacts for businesses and residents and for the RV dwellers. Um I want to say that um I do have some questions um for staff. Um, so I I am excited that we have gotten to two pilots. Uh, we got a lot of feedback telling us why we should not be excited, that they are not correct. Um, we worked hard at this, but we are ready to hear your feedback and to make it better. Um, I want to be sure people understand because it was not in the in the packet and uh the presentation tonight for understandable reasons was quick that pilot number one, which is the Coyote Hill and the Embaradero pilot program, approximately 37 OSVS, offers folks the opportunity to come into the regulatory environment, come come in from the cold, come in from hiding and running, get a permit, give be given permission to park here or here and pay us a little bit of money and in exchange for that based on what the city's interests are, hygiene, trash, sewage, and what those humans needs are, hygiene, trash, sewage, we're going to have a portaotty, we're going to have a dumpster for the cost of $33,000 a year, which is a pretty good deal. Some may see these as amenities. We see it as a win-win. We need those things. They need those things. So, that's an example of what we're trying to offer both to meet our needs and also to make the permit pilot attractive to people who are currently parked elsewhere. Um, there is also a Margarit stop and a VTA stop near the Coyote Hill. I'm less familiar with the transportation nodes available uh near the Embaradero portion. But my point is in some ways Coyote Hill, out of sight, out of mind. We don't want to push people to the edge of society. People who are working multiple jobs, typically workingass or poor, if they can't get to a bus, if they can't get to a train, if they don't have a vehicle, if they can't get to their job. And so we've been trying to pay attention to that as well. Um my question for staff, the number of spots on Coyote we've said was 20 on our side on the part of Coyote that we own, but you said Miss Mcdana that it may be that we're going to swap with the county and use their portion of Coyote Hill. And if we are that far along in our conversations with them, my question is why are we not looking at both? because that could instantly perhaps double the number that we have there.

Yeah. Let me uh take the first uh shot at response and Miss Madonna and others may elaborate. Uh as was described, our original uh concept for this location has been to use the county segment primarily because that area has existing sidewalks and existing parking. And so for uh the uh purpose of uh providing an environment that is conducive to placing the vehicles for longer periods of time and placement of the services that you've described uh is preferable. The location under the city's jurisdiction uh does not have sidewalks and uh current would require a restriping from four lanes to two lanes in order to accommodate the proposed on street parking. uh that's the reason that the initial and proposed uh focus or priority would be on the county segment and we have had uh very recent uh uh communications with the county that have uh indicated a path forward for that. The other uh consideration has been the overall capacity to manage uh the case management and the services uh that would be required for the two sites or the total of 40 that has been uh described. If we were to expand it conceptually to the order of 60 as uh I think you're suggesting council member we would need to look at our ability to manage that uh as well as the associated resources required to do so. Um but again if that's an interest of the council uh then that would be a next step for us.

So you're saying 60 would be if we add the county portion plus the city portion plus embaradero that's 60

correct. Okay. That was my assumption as to what you were suggesting. if that's incorrect. And

yeah, no, so you're saying the county is approximately another 20.

I think it's 13 to

Okay. Okay. There.

It's okay.

It's in the ballpark. Thank you for that. Um, as we look for additional spots for permit parking, um, I have had the audacity to suggest that maybe the curb alongside the practice range of the golf course might work because there are no businesses abudding it. there's no customers who walk up and have to walk past and this and that and I have been told that that's a sacred cow in this city and it's a good thing I'm not running for re-election because I just said it. Um and sometimes it takes that kind of freedom to say those things and so I just said it maybe we ought to be considering embarcadero alongside the golf course. Um, I was also surprised by the six-month timeline for implementation, and it may be that we've said so many things at the most recent meeting, and I missed it, but um, I I echo Council Member Lowing's concern about that timeline for implementation, hoping it does not take until March to start this. Um, and with regard to pilot 2 and our concerns about um about that, we are deliberately trying to reduce the density of OSVs on those impacted streets by half by saying you may only be on one side, whereas right now you might be on both sides. We are reducing that density by half. And it's density that's the issue. It's not the lone RSV, the one OSV one, two, three, right? Unless you're objectly prejudiced against these people, you don't mind if there's one or two on your street, it's the it's the density. And so what we're trying to do is reduce the density on these impacted streets. And we will be paying attention to spillover and figuring out what to do about it once we see where that's happening. Um so that's it for me in terms of clarification and questions that I wanted to ask at the front end. Thank you.

All right. Well, I think uh I'm going to give the rest of us a chance to ask some questions, make a a few comments like like has gone before here. Um but then I want to get to all of you who are good enough to spend your time with us this evening and and hear public comment and then we'll come back and people can talk for however long it takes. Um, so I I did just want to ask um I did want to just uh follow up myself and first of all um I want to thank uh the ad hoc because I know you've spent a tremendous amount of time. I want to thank staff that spend a tremendous amount of time on this. Um, I agree this is probably the most intractable problem I've seen since I've been on uh council and uh it's something that we need to spend a lot of time and attention because obviously there is a lot of frustration um out there and uh but I I appreciate that the time you've spent and just wanted to let you know that. Um so I was intrigued. I I learned something tonight from council member Rectal. Um because we had understood that RVs were not allowed in residential areas, but there are these areas that are not technically residential because I was wondering why I kept hearing about them in front of residences. So, I do agree that finding a way to make that uniform is something um that we should work on. Um, we've talked the proposal also talks about not having them across from parks, not near corners or driveways. So, if we were to accomplish all of that, we really are talking about those uh primaril or primarily we're talking about those in front of businesses and around there. And my my question, so as as council member Lowing mentioned, there are variety of different reasons that people live in RVs. um if some RV dwellers are Palton who've fallen into homelessness for a variety of reasons and they're what I would consider the otherwise unhoused. In other words, other than the RVs, they would be unhoused. Um other RV dwellers are people who have a primary residence elsewhere and come here to work so that their RV is like a second home. And my question is, do we have a sense of sort of that split? what I would call the otherwise unhoused and those for whom this is a second home.

Uh thank you, mayor. I I don't believe we have that level of detail. Um we we just don't. I'm sorry. Because that to me is they're they're two slightly different problems we're trying to solve for. And so I'm wondering how much impact there would be by the respective solutions to those um because the um if you're an employer and you're employing people who drive in here to work and you don't pay them enough to live in a and live near here, then it would be interesting to have a conversation with them about providing parking spots on their property or paying into to a housing fund where there were housing vouchers or just other creative things to address that if we could figure out which RVs they were. So I guess my second question to staff would be if we don't know now, can you imagine a way that we could go and figure out figure that out shy of the permit parking program? I do suspect mayor that as has been described there is really a spectrum and even that maybe oversimplifying the the range of circumstances that we have uh and as such you know I think that the the best way to do what you're requesting would be to do some sort of survey of that and I don't know that we have the ability to do that in a way that's reliable other than you know again anecdotally that I think we we have all seen that there are apparently uh vehicles uh and and people that appear to fall into that category. So I suspect it would be more anecdotal than than being able to quantify it with any reliability.

Yeah. No, I appreciate that. It's just if we could discern um I think different legal standards apply to them too because they wouldn't um otherwise be unhoused or unsheltered. Um there it's just a way to uh deal separately with the the problem. So it's something that I would uh suggest we look a little more into. So those were a couple of questions. Um and uh I think I will stop with that those questions. I I just want to observe that if we it's different because we're when we deal with those who are otherwise unhoused, if they're separated from their vehicles, they could end up in parks, downtown areas, and parking garages. That is not a good solution. So, it's just different ramifications of our actions depending on the reasons that they're in the RVs in the first place. Yes.

Excuse me, mayor. I just I I do have a little bit of context I can provide for you. Um our out our outreach team has tried to get that level of detail, you know, knocking on uh the doors of RVs and developing relationships with folks, but they've not been able to get get that. So we we have tried. All right. Um

he already spoke.

Okay. Council member Lou,

thank you. just uh a few preliminary questions and I'll try to keep my time brief uh at this stage. Um so initially we were really uh looking at San Francisco and some of what they were doing with their permit uh program. I understand our permit program is quite different, but I'm wondering if you have any color uh or any anecdotes uh or data that we might not be able to easily get on just reading the local news about how the San Francisco permit program uh may be different or may be going.

Yeah. Um I I can try to answer that at least at a high level. Um I I mean I guess I will start by um you know not trying to avoid the question but just cautioning that sort of different different uh factors influence how programs are influenced implemented in different jurisdictions. Um the San Francisco program it is um a citywide permit program for OSVs. Um it suspends issuance of new permits. um you know if you cannot prove that you resided in a vehicle in San Francisco after a certain date um you know so that but that you know that suspension is coupled with uh you know significant connections to services uh you know buyback program you know other benefits that are intended to help people who are living on the streets um in vehicles get out of vehicles um you know so um you know I think it's quite an impressive program I One thing to keep in mind is San Francisco has a unique advantage and that that it's both a city and a county. So that makes it um you know there's less coordination with other agencies as far as directing resources to do like do do that. So you know it the city obviously has to work with Santa Clara County and anything that we're doing in the provision of social services.

Okay. Thank you. I think a sort of related question in trying to get to the mayor's point about um sort of serving the most need and uh trying to like clarify where the different problem uh or like sources of need are. Um, in the second pilot, did we consider having some elements of the first pilot, such as some uh permit or uh optin to accept housing? Um, that we have in the first pilot, but not the second pilot, because that seems like that could address some of those points that the mayor was making.

Not at this point. Uh at this point the second pilot's really simply a parking regulation and to uh add elements of a permit does then also require a level of uh screening and then management of how that screening would work. Uh so again depending on the direction council would like to provide uh we could certainly build that out. um but would want to uh then come back to council in terms of the resources required and and our ability to manage it. I um I would like to go back to uh council member Lith's question related to the management of the permit pilot to also point out that in that uh in that program we are expecting to need to bring on uh nonprofit partners similar to what we've done with our other uh uh homeless outreach and uh safe parking programs. And so we need to uh learn their capacity as well to be able to assist us uh with any of these programs. Okay. I think I uh uh with a little bit of time left have a last question about just uh the level of demand um and the sort of finality of the pilot streets. Uh it seems like the pilot streets have capacity for 116 or 125 uh spaces from the staff report. It seems like there are around 37 maybe 60 uh permit spaces available. Um, so it seems like there's still some extra capacity even if we only have one side and if we have 37 or 60 uh uh permitted spots compared to say a baseline of 130 odd RVs. Uh if we think that is the right baseline. Um, does that suggest that there's room to trim down or uh reduce the parking in front of residences from this list of second pilot streets or do we just have to have some buffer for the parking to work out math-wise? Like how does how do we think about those numbers? Well, first um in terms of just how to think about those numbers, it's really as estimates and and to a large extent ballpark estimates and and so from a staff perspective, we've been working within that ballpark and and I think it would be fair to uh also just acknowledge one of the big variables is uh that on the alternating side prohibitions that there are there's demand for other vehicles to park there as well. And so we would expect that there will be others in addition to OSV uh dwellers that will be using that parking. So again that that introduced just another variable uh for consideration and in how this ultimately will play out.

Okay.

And you you made a reference to residential areas and I'm not sure I I followed uh how that connected. Oh. Uh just responding to public comments about which uh uh streets in the second pilot maybe should be prioritized or should not be prioritized. Um

as being residential or close enough to uh yeah, I I would just uh acknowledge and agree that the current um prohibition for overnight uh OSV parking in residential areas is complex in its definition. So through this work, it has brought to light the value in simplifying that and making it uh uh more easily understood both by the public and to administer. Thank you,

Vice Mayor Stone.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, and big thanks to the OSV ad hoc for all the work that you've been that you've been doing. I know that's a that's a a big lift on a really challenging issue. Few few questions for for staff. Has have you prepared a a map with the proposed impacted streets in the in the in the pilot? How we how we labeling this in the second? Yeah, in the in the second pilot because I mean we have a we have a list of the streets. I would find it really beneficial to actually be able to see a map of the city of those portions highlighted because my big concern and we've been hearing um a a frustration from the community is that these these streets are being concentrated mostly in South PaloAlto and a general frustration amongst many in in South PaloAlto. I'm a South Palton my myself u that so oftent times the the the burden of so many of these kind of city programs has has shifted over towards South PaloAlto and I I understand some some kind of maybe limitations given for staff given prior council direction regarding trying to um avoid residential streets and I know there is more of that in in North Palto themselves so I can understand some of that But do we have kind of a visual representation of of that? And the staff also, do you agree or disagree about kind of the concentration of where these streets are?

Well, at this point, I believe that hasn't been prepared, but it really relatively easily can be prepared at a citywide level. I to be frank, the work has been done at a much more granular level. So, um, it's just really putting that together with a broader uh view. Uh as to the concern, I think once again it does relate to some ways the the application of this residential non or not uh definition in the current code and the limited uh way that that's defined by zoning uh as was pointed out areas that do not have the uh more straightforward residential zoning which I think does tend to uh exist in southern parts of town makes it uh less likely that that has been implemented over time. So that's another uh cleanup that could be done as part of our next steps. Yeah. And I think it would be helpful to be able to have asurances to know that it hasn't just been well it's it's more less challenging maybe in South Palto to find these streets. Um, but we've still done our due diligence to identify kind of in a more equitable approach across the city on where we are where we're identifying these streets.

If if I may, Vice Mayor, um, one of the ways that we ended up with these streets was through the policy and services back in August of last year and then the October meeting. And these were the impacted streets that we started to uh do the phase one portion of the phased approach on. So I think we just naturally moved to phase two on the streets we'd already started um making interventions on.

Okay. So still I guess not getting the types of insuranceances of kind of where the these are. I I again I understand the limitations here. Um, another qu So, another question because this has come up several times. I know this has been a common theme in prior council discussions is trying to cap these permits at a a particular point in time count or whatever legal way that we are able to to do that under current state law. I mean, what do we need in order to in order to be able to restrict OSV parking to only being permitted based on again kind of some type of of count?

Yeah. So, I I mean I do think that so there there is is the San Francisco example which has so far been successful. I I wouldn't say that there's, you know, sort of definitive law on that one way or the other. Uh but but you could definitely point to that example. I I'd say the one thing um that I you know I would point to that in cities that have been you know successful in implementing these programs is they do have um you know support um and resources made available to transition uh people out of OSVs. So it doesn't uh you know you're it looks like you're trying to solve the problem rather than than target people. Okay. I mean, okay. I guess helpful moving moving forward to really kind of better understand. I I mean, I know there's no direct road map to be able to get there because every community is different. But I I guess at this point I would have hoped for some more kind of developed um maybe theory and how we kind of how we achieve that. I I think a pilot is a good place to start. Um I'm sorry I'm going now off of off of questions so I will hold up until later. Thank you may

Yeah. And and I would just, you know, point out that that's something that that if if we got direction either from the ad hoc committee or council to move in that direction, we would look at much more more carefully. Um but that's those are just general observations that I have now.

Council member Bert. Um, so maybe I missed it, but I couldn't find the staff report. If um, so we have uh, currently 22 spots at Gang, 37 in the pilot, and maybe up to 50. Um, how many uh, approximately how many RV spots would be enabled by the um, the second half of the of the pilot? Um that's the alternating streets, sides of the street.

Uh Council Member Bert, uh this the second part of the pilot would actually disallow uh approximately half of the current spaces. So depending on the time of year, I I believe one half of the year it would be there'd be room if no one else was parking and only RVs were parking, there would be room for 116, I believe, is the the low number.

Okay. Um that's an important number. So, we've got 116 plus uh somewhere between uh 59 and 70 because I count the king as as accommodating RVs. Um and then um so that that takes us up, you know, to a pretty high number uh higher than what we have in RVs in our community today. And um so I I think that's an important reference point. Um the outreach that we had I I I read that we there was a focus group and um and I think that was Mountain View and Palo Alto um folks in a maybe was a countyled focus group.

Uh thank you Council Member Bert. Um I believe you're referring to there there was a regional convening led by uh Supervisor Abbe Koga and that involved uh any any city that wanted to participate. There were also some members of the business community there.

No, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to I'm trying to cite where I I read it. Uh but I thought I read that there was a focus group that um looked at uh a group of uh very low income RV dwellers and uh their circumstances. Um it was it wasn't a statistical sampling but a focus group. Uh I'll have to try to figure out where I read that. Well, there was a if I may, I I don't recall this being in the staff report, but I I do recall as part of the county community plan to end homelessness, there was a focus group in North County with RV dwellers. It was held at King Road. Um yeah, maybe

that's what I'm referring to. Yeah, it was in a previous report. Um but uh we don't have this long into this process we don't have any other data. Is that right? Because the focus group didn't seem representative. They were very important uh group I think because they were u uh really representative these that we want to focus on helping the most um uh families with children in in our schools and who worked here and and very low income. Um, so I think it was an important focus group, but I'm I'm really uh mystified that we don't have better data after all this time and um we have this outreach that's going on and and somehow it's not resulting in data collection. Um, and has there been a an outreach meeting with the affected business community? not since the uh release of the specifics of the pilot. Uh there was uh outreach more in general on the topic uh really over the course of the last few months.

There was outreach in what way?

We held a workshop that uh was a primary community workshop along with uh the ongoing uh individual stakeholder uh discussions that have happened. And then out of the anticipated participation in the uh the permitted pilot and the alternating streets pilot, do we have any sense of what portion of the RV dwellers will participate in either of those because it's can't force them to.

Thank you, Council Member Bert. It's been um as I'm sure you appreciate really difficult to speak about an item with members of the public before the item had come before council. So we we have asked our outreach team and our service providers um in a more broad way how how their clients would feel about something like this and whether they would participate. And we used that feedback and brought that feedback back to the ad hoc to help develop what is before you today. And that feedback was what?

Uh, thank you, council member. I I don't have all of that in front of me right now, but questions like what what fee amount would people be okay with? What minimum amenities would people be willing to accept a good neighbor agreement? Um,

things like that.

Okay, so that's different threshold levels. I'm kind of looking for did we get a a strong interest in participating

as uh Miss Mcdana pointed out this is with the service providers not with the potential uh permites as would be in the case here. Uh so we at this point really we're looking to the pilot as a way for us to assess that. uh this this represents the best combination of elements that uh uh based on the feedback we received felt that could be viable and really needs to be tested in real life. Okay. Um and the real life test is important. I I I'm nervous about spending so much money without having um a stronger sense of whether we're going to have an uptake. Uh I'm hopeful we will. Um, okay. Uh, I I'll leave it at that. Uh, I have some other questions and certainly many comments. Council member Lowing, your light was back on. Are you Are you good? Okay. Are you good? Well, for now, yes. Okay. Council member Lith,

could I just speak to Council Member Bert's question because I did take extensive notes in these meetings and um just searching my notes quickly. What I'm seeing is what made the pilot um more or less attractive was the extent to which there would be some kind of service for sewage uh pumpout that would be much more attractive uh to RV dwellers. And um that said um people did desire to participate in the pilot because the alternative is certainly not better. Um so it you know we we felt we had enough green light to you know that we would have uptake. Um but it is not to say that it's seen as you know a panacea. Okay. All right. So, with that, um, let's turn to public comment. Um, we have gotten, as Council Member Lowing said, a lot of emails. Uh, we appreciate those. It does help us think it through, as will your oral comments tonight. Uh, we have a lot of them, and we will sit here and listen to all of them. Um, one of the things that I would ask is just so that we can hear all the perspectives is that there just aren't any audible responses to them. No clapping, you know, cheering, any of that kind of thing. We'll just uh listen to everybody. Um, and um, with respect to um, well, actually, so, madam clerk, how are we doing on the numbers?

We have 49 individual speakers and three group speakers. Okay. All right. I think that necessitates uh for each of the three groups, we will have five minutes each and for each of the individuals that will be one minute each. And um the clerk will put up a list of your names. Many of you have been through this many times and many of you have not. Um and she'll call out your name and then the name of the following speaker so you can be ready to approach the uh lectern. All right. Thank you. Our first speaker is Barry K.

Good evening. I'm Barry Kates. I'm representing a large and growing number of the roughly 400 households that comprise the Ventura Neighborhood Association. It's true that we are not one of the postcard neighborhoods of PaloAlto. Our streets are more likely to be named after Mexican saints Margarita Fernando than English poets Cridge Tennyson. But we are proud of the racially, ethnically, and economically diverse community that we have built and we want to see it grow and flourish. Can I just ask, do any of you live in the Ventura neighborhood? I thought so because if you did, this stupid proposal would never have gotten out the front door.

Regarding the OSV issue, I believe that there has been a misunderstanding. For the better part of a decade, Venturans have been pleading with the city council to address the health, sanitation, safety, traffic, and livability issues associated with long-term OSV parking in our neighborhood. To be clear, we were asking you to remedy the situation, not to reinforce it. I'm not sure how this m miscommunication occurred since you have over the years received hundreds, probably thousands of letters, emails, text messages, telephone calls asking for your intervention. Like our friends in the equally underserved and overlooked East Meadow neighborhood, we are shocked, offended, and outraged by the proposed phase three. It's as if you have not heard one word of what we've been saying. Worse, you seem deliberately to have ignored and overruled it. For years, we have been providing you with documentation of the damage to our creeks, our pedestrian pathways, our bicycle routes, our drinking water, our homes, and our businesses, and have listed the specific streets where the blight is most acute. You have responded by taking that list and making those very streets the centerpiece of your proposal. Park Boulevard, the sole pedestrian corridor between Ventura and the California uh Avenue Commercial District. Olive and Ash, where residents have been threatened by OSV landlords and women are unwilling to leave their homes at night. Your solution? Move them to the other side of the street every 6 months. Are you kidding? Are you serious? Are you out of your minds? Joe Simidian, who I liked and respected, like to used to say, "Don't come to us with problems, come to us with solutions." With all due respect, I think Joe had it backwards. It is our responsibility as citizens to petition government for the redress of grievances. It is your responsibility to resolve them. Nevertheless, since you are apparently committed to long-term OSV parking on our residential streets, I would like to offer a constructive counter proposal. Invite them into your own damn neighborhoods.

I'm sorry, we can't do that. We can't get up. We can't have applause. We'll have to suspend. So, okay. I need no more applause. Thank you. All right. Move to the next speaker. Our next speaker is Rand T.

Oh man, I've got some data for you.

Okay, so I'm primarily here um representing five of 15 um second homers. Um I'm a 1.5 homer myself. Um my RV is my starter home. Um which I purchased because there were extensive layoffs at my company and I didn't know if I was going to want to put a down payment on an apartment. And so, uh, because I've saved so much on money on rent, I've purchased a property in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and I'm about three to five years away from building a house of my own. Um, basically, all right. Well, amendment E is going to backfire spectacularly because basically we're just going to all condense onto one side of the street, bumperto-bumper. The street swinging programs have been very good at eliminating the methheads with their piles of trash and and the people who don't actually work in the area. And that has reduced the East Meadow population to about 45 RVs. Um I counted while I was passing out flyers about this meeting. Um which is about half of the 95 RVs there were last year. And by implementing E, you're going to have a solid wall of RVs all around the circle again. Not just as it was in a year ago, but also in front of the housing, uh, which we don't like to park in front of housing because it's it's weird. But yeah, but we will have to take that space because we can't park on the other side of the street. And we're going to move all of our cars to the side that we can't park on. So, we're going to be constantly crossing the street with our groceries and everything that we're going to bring back and our laundry from the laundry mats causing more traffic. But, okay. So, about two homers or 1.5 homers like myself, I am here to work and I cannot if I did rent an apartment, I'd be living paycheck to paycheck. I'd have no retirement savings or a way to get on the property ladder. But if you were to require my employer who has a lot of parking lot acorage um to give me a spot, I would be parking behind my workplace because I also just want to bike to work and that that's an ideal commute. Don't even make it constant requirement. Just for the working weekdays or any days I'm required to be there, I can park on company property. It makes sense. Um yeah, it's there's no point in forcing everybody to one side of the street because um well density is the issue here and that is exactly what you'll be increasing is density. Now, there there are actual parking spaces on East Meadow Circle, which I haven't seen for a long time. And I'd like to keep it that way, honestly. And I'm sure the people who live on East Meadow Circle don't want a giant wall of RVs in front of their houses where usually there is just cars, except for one RV currently. But um yeah, basically amendment E is going to backfire spectacularly and put us right back where we were before street sweeping, which um I mean not right back because we'll still not have the methheads. So that's nice, but no, it's it's not going to work is the problem. And the increase of of traffic concerns with people crossing the street con constantly will be just an absolute nightmare. Now, there was a recent incident with um one of the concerned business members on East Meadow Circle um who has a personal hobby of writing down all of our license plates and then submitting it to the Palo Alto Police Department so we can move around in a circle and park where we were before. And he was followed by one of our residents to a local park and where he said somebody would eventually punch him in the face if he kept doing that sort of thing, which we as the AR RV community took very seriously and disciplined internally this person and made it very clear to him that that kind of threatening behavior is not welcome as RVers and especially not in the housing community. But he does need time. The the man walking around writing down people's license plates is threatening every single one of us on the circle. Every time he does this, he's wasting Palo Alto resources, sending the cops out to put all these pieces of paper out, and then nothing happens. It's his hobby. He's told me it's his hobby and that he doesn't want the children of there to attend PaloAlto Public Schools. So, what is the consequence for his threats against us?

Your time is up. Our next speaker is Jason R.

All right. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. Uh, I'm a Ventura resident. Uh, as is my wife. Uh, so I sent a much more detailed version of what I'm going to say in email yesterday, so you'll have that data. Um, I'm going to focus on four points. So, one is a deeper dive on the evidence that we already have. Uh, the second is the proposed pilots's experimental design. Uh the third is the cost and finally the city system these system that these decisions are going to inhabit. So first the evidence. So there's there's a really interesting study by Bob Marinaro um and if you if you take a look at that data it goes from October 2025 to mid July shows OSV counts going from 220 to 131 which is 40% reduction. I know the staff has another number. it's 191 down to 133 if I recall correctly. Um but then it's flat. So your intervention and now a ste a steady state baseline. Um so basically it looks like phase one's reduction has done what it's going to do. So that's one key piece. But the deeper piece is that what's really changing now is vehicle location, not how many. So uh the speculative spillage is very much in that data. So concretely the redistribution uh in Ventura is seen declining from 20 to 14 overall. So an overall decline but if you aggregate by geography so you take Park Sheridan and Lambert that's going from 13 to two uh whereas Ash portage olive and acacia rose from 6 to 10 peaking at 15. So that's going from 30% of the area total to 71% of the area total. So it's pretty cool uh to see that. So yeah, very clear that there is going to be spillage when when something happens vehicles go elsewhere. So number two is the experimental design and basically there are three key problems I'll focus on. First is uh what is exactly the benchmark. So we talked about the success criterion criterion being the uh lower number of OSVs but are we taking 220 as a benchmark 191 there was also a 181 in there. So what exactly are we starting with and what is success? Do we get to the 102 the 2023 point in time or where exactly are we? Problem two. Oh. Uh, we also that's important because we don't want to book phase one success as a success for the pilot. So, we have to keep those separate. Causal attribution is also really going to be a challenge for you when you're running two experiments at the same time. So, you've got two treatments, staggered starts, no comparison streets. Permit holders are essentially the well- behaved subset. So, it's the RV dwellers who will actually do a permit and go through that process. Um, a six-month flip. So, there's no replication and it's inseparable from season, construction, school, and traffic patterns and so on. And then problem three is that there's no published protocol. So there's no hypothesis, no comparison segments, no thresholds. Success is currently defined as business feedback, although uh I I know that it was stated as uh the number of OSVs. So I I really think that before committing 824,000 plus annual maintenance fees on which are going to likely rise, uh that the experiment experimental design should be really considered deeply. Third is the cost. I think we've already heard that spending buy is relocation not reduction. Uh and essentially I was going to reference Berkeley's buyback rate but I am about to run out of time. So fourth is the system. PaloAlto really needs a systems approach rather than peace meal approval. So projects along projects along El Camino have been approved with parking reductions waiverss and builder remedy density that assumed on street parking. So, I pulled up 3001 El Camino. Uh, and basically it says the proposed parking supply of 103 spaces is lower than both the city requirement of 198 uh spaces and estimated parking of 128. That's the first one I pulled up so I didn't have to look any further. And then we have the bike lanes which further remove parking. On top of that, this proposal is going to impact parking. So, you've got three things to account for. Uh, so I'm going to request

Your time is up.

Thank you. So just a request addressing those. Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Winter Deep.

Well, this is very hard. It's not surprising that it's hard. It's hard all over the country. Zillions of cities are dealing with something that approximates this. This is as you know systemic income equality in a very pure form and I do not envy you. I want to thank the ad hoc for their time and their work on this. It's a work in progress. I appreciate that. I couldn't help but think and it's so ironic that Buen a Vista was in here tonight. subject of Buen a Vista and how we saved Buen a Vista. It took a a lot of thinking, a lot of time. It took investment. The investment was okay. I want to remind you everyone that a a below market rate unit today costs around $1 million per unit. So when I hear the costs here,

your time is

I don't know exactly if they're right or wrong, but I do know they're not it's not astronomical. And one last thing, Palo Alto, our a basic value is we take care of each other and the most vulnerable included. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Leanne L.

Leanne. Oh. Oh. Was it Jean L. Moving to our next speaker, Anapu Anopi. Sorry, Anu Pab.

Hello. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. My name is Anupa. I'm living here in Palo Alto for the last 27 years. But it seems like yesterday that council member Rectal and Council Member Lavi were I working together on the housing element working group. Remember that we came up with, you know, lots of meetings, lots of discussions and came up with suitable sites for over 8,000 additional units of housing in PaloAlto. And throughout those meetings, I don't remember talking about RVs in this kind of scale. We talked about a couple of church parking lots with, you know, RV uh parking, but this this seems to have come out very suddenly, this this flood of RVs that we want to bring into Palo Alto. Um so my neighbor and I, you know, we measured the distance from our front door to the street. It's 26 ft. It's about from this microphone to the city emblem. Your time is up. Okay. Our next speaker is Herb B followed by Andrew N. The location of uh oversized vehicle parking depends upon uh the definitions of where it is prohibited. Uh uh you know residentially zoned areas uh public facility zoned areas and the equivalent area on the other side of the street. uh and they may also include your commercial uh zoning that allows residential as well. But what it omits is the large number of plan community zones. So, in in addition to any other direction you give to staff, I believe you should uh have them uh bring back an amendment to the definition of residential to include planned community zones uh where a majority of the development is residential and the equivalent and they would and the equivalent area on the other side of the street.

Your time is up. Our next speaker is Andrew N, followed by John M. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Drew and I'm here on behalf of PHC where we provide healthcare and outreach services to people experiencing homelessness in Palo Alto. PHC supports the city manager's proposal because while it isn't perfect, it recognizes that we cannot solve homelessness by pushing people experiencing homelessness into another city. These RV dwellers are not outsiders, they are Peloa residents. They are our patients, our neighbors, and members of this community. And the increasingly hostile rhetoric toward toward them concerns us. From a health dis uh perspective, displacement matters. Constantly forcing people to move disrupts their connections to medical care, behavioral health services, outreach, and case management. RB dwellers did not create the homelessness crisis. They are a result of it. So, thank you for considering an alternative to a full ban. Please go further. Treat these individuals and residents to be served, not not problems to be removed. We can address legitimate neighborhood concerns without abanding dignity and compassion. our community is paying attention not just to the decision you make tonight but to whether every Palo Alto resident is treated as though they actually belong here. Thank you.

Our next speaker is John M, followed by Melinda M.

Hello Mayor, uh, Vice Mayor, Council, thank you so much for wrestling with this very difficult problem and I want to give due respect to the ad hoc committee and I could not disagree more with their recommendations. I'm sorry to say instead of um creating a solution around helping the homeless or helping disadvantaged persons in RVs. You're going to change the character of different neighborhoods. One of the tenants that you were charged with and that you've you've expressed before is that there has to be a citywide impact and a citywide solution. When I watched Mr. Rectal and Mr. Stone discuss changes to potential changes to compounds in Crescent Park after one billionaire built a school there and so on. There was selective enforcement. I have some sympathy for my friends in Ventura as I do for my neighbors in East Meadow Circle who bears the burden here. Um compassion has no limits. It's a tough problem and we respect this but it should be a business that

the city follows. Thank you. Our next speaker is Melinda M, followed by Christian H. Uh,

thank you. Um, I'm concerned as I've heard from some council members about the lack of data. Um, and I learned about the San Francisco, they have a large vehicle database. I just wonder with all of the vehicles that are here now, where did they come from? Did they come from Redwood City, which I've seen, and other in other places? I guess I have a couple of other points. Employers, as we heard one speaker, should provide parking for their employees on their lots instead of this being the responsibility of the city. I don't see Stamford here represented when we know in the past that a lot of the RVs on El Camino were people who were either contract workers, Stamford students or Stamford employees that were parking there. Where is their part in this? And I don't I'm opposed to both of these programs because I don't think they solve your time problem. Our next speaker is Christian H followed by Francis W. Good evening, council members. My name is Christian Hodm. I'm with Pacific American Group. We've owned a commercial property on 844 East Charleston for 30 years. Uh we recently showed that building to a prospective tenant and received the following feedback from their agent. They loved the property but will not be submitting a proposal because of safety and health concerns associated with a near permanent line of RVs boarding bordering the property. Losing perspect uh prospective business along with the employment, economic activity, and tax revenue that business could have brought to the community is a major loss for the city of Palo Alto. We want to continue our long history of bringing good businesses to Palo Alto, but the RVs on the streets surrounding our property are making that increasingly difficult. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Francis W, followed by Danny W.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm here to comment on item 10, section E, which if adopted will restrict parking on East Meadow Circle. I'm a hardworking and law-abiding member of the Palo Alto community whose home is East Meadow Circle. I struggle with my mental health and I'm concerned that new parking restrictions could disrupt my life and displace me from my home. Furthermore, I know there are other hardworking community members who live on East Meadow Circle who would also be displaced by new parking restrictions. And I'm also concerned for their well-being. I humbly request that you decline to adopt new parking restrictions on East Meadow Circle. Thank you for your time and for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Our next speaker is Danny W, followed by Alejandro VC.

Good evening, council members. My name is Danny Whan. I work for the property manager at 844 East Charleston, whose rear employee parking lot is accessed from Fabian Way between San Antonio and East Charleston. Fabian Way was identified in the city's October 2025 staff report as one of the streets highly affected by oversized vehicles. Yet, it is excluded from the pilot program before you tonight. This isn't a hypothetical concern for us. On June 14th, someone living in an RV near our building trespassed onto our property and tampered with our fire suppression system to access water. We've since lost leasing prospects who cite the conditions on the street as a reason to look elsewhere. I've heard your comments tonight and I can respect the difficulty of solving the problem that the city faces. I too believe that a managed off- streetet parking solution is the best alternative and I encourage you to continue trying to arrange that solution. I am concerned, however, that the pilots would shuffle RVs around the city. I think any street emitted like Fabian Way will likely make be made worse off as displaced RV dwellers from the pilot areas will move to the streets left out of the program to find available space.

Your time is up.

Thank you for your attention.

Our next speaker is Alejandro V

C, followed by Henry E. Alejandro BC.

Moving to Henry E.

Just as we failed to get the cameras out tonight, we're going to fail to get the oversized vehicles out. But they must go. They do not comport with the ambiencece of Palo Alto, nor do they provide adequate living spaces for their residents. You're pushing them into socially isolated places. I'm a sociologist. Social ties are important to mental and physical health. So therefore, to find a temporary solution, we're smoothing the places where they can have a community. So Stanford must play a role. As was mentioned by a previous speaker, they've been pushed out by Stanford. So I said we invite the VAVS to with seniors and families to Oak Creek apartments where there's parking spaces available and we invite them to the uh Margarite parking lot where Stanford can provide space and if necessary to the police new police area stations where there's parking spaces that are underutilized. We must solve the problem as a community. We can't

Your time is up.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Anil H followed by David M.

Anil H. Moving to our

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Unil Hosker and I've been a resident of Powalta for 12 years. I'm here tonight because I strongly oppose allowing RVs to be used as long-term residents on our public streets. Over the past years, I personally witnessed the problems that can cause come with long-term RV parking. And I have seen trash and personal belongings accumulate around vehicles, parking spaces occupied for extended periods and situations that raise serious concerns about sanitation, safety, and visibility and the overall quality of our neighborhoods. This is not simple simply a parking issue. It is a question of what standards we want for our city and how our public streets should be used. Our streets are shared public spaces. They were not designed to function as a permanent residential area. And I believe that there is an important question that every council member should be considering. If other cities are unwilling to accept long-term RV parking on their streets, why should Pala residents be accepted?

Our next speaker is David M. followed by Garrison B.

I've already given each of you a letter. I've given it to the city attorney. I've given it to the uh city manager. I only have a minute. So, I'll be brief. I don't believe that the Brown Act notice was sufficient for pilot B. I believe that it would be prudent for council not to make any decision on pilot B at this hearing. You need to renotice as I've explained in the letter to inform the affected businesses of council's meeting on this subject. The amount of outreach to the business community rounds to zero. Nobody I've spoken with on the affected streets who are commercial businesses knew anything about this meeting. I was the first person to tell them. And Mr. Buren, Mr. Burrs, right there is who told me about it yesterday. The notice didn't say anything about pilot B. Thank you very much. And uh you're in the notice the cure and correct portion for 30 days. This was a demand letter on the Brown Act. You need you have 30 days to cure and correct and then you can have a decision. You can't make a decision today.

Our next speaker is Kirsten B followed by Candy T.

Good evening, council members. I know it's getting late. I'm going to try to be gusty in my response. Um I want to thank the ad hoc committee and the staff. You've worked very hard on this horribly difficult issue. Um I can see the passion and all sides here. I make two requests. Uh I'm a homeowner and a property owner in Peloto as well as a business owner. So I sort of have the hat-tick of reasons to be here. My first request is that you take the transit, commercial, and industrial piece out of this second pilot. Reason being is we've been overwhelmed with RVs now for better than 10 years. We feel we've done our part with the RVs being removed by your first phase. It has really allowed the neighborhood to breathe. We ask you let it continue to breathe. Let the program go in other parts of Palo Alto. Second qu request is we really did not get sufficient outreach from

your time is up.

So please please please come to us. Thank you. Our next speaker is Candy T, followed by Matt B.

Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight. Uh, I am a resident of V of the Ventura neighborhood and my comments tonight are my own. I do they do not represent my employer. We should approach homelessness with compassion but also with evidence and research including work by my UCSF colleague Dr. Margot Kushelle supports one fundamental principle and that is stable housing is the foundation for addressing homelessness, not prolonged residents in vehicles on public streets. Housing first programs demonstrate substantially greater long-term housing stability than OSVs do. Housing alone alone cannot solve every problem, but it allows and provides the foundation for which all other services can be rendered. We need to leverage county, state, and federal funding and partnerships as well as philanthropy to expand programs like HomeKey. Instead of putting money $800,000 towards that, we should be funding the home key program to get people off the streets and out of these OSVs.

Your time is up. Our next speaker is Matt B, followed by Scott A.

Good evening, council members. I've spoken here a few times on this matter. I'm also a resident of um South Palo Alto. Um running out of time already, but there's a few points that I would like to make. Um number one is in fact affordable permanent housing is the only solution to the unhoused. The studies again have shown that repeatedly. Um and again this particular uh proposal I oppose it completely because it's primarily focused on the residents and the streets of South Palo Alto. I really feel like we should consider other streets such as Sand Hill Road, Oregon Avenue, the feeder along Oregon Expressway as well as um Palo Alto Avenue, San Francisco Creek side is perfectly open as a onem stretch from Alma all the way to uh Middlefield Road. So I think that would be important to consider all these other areas that could also take on the housing. And plus, in my conversations tonight, I think we could just ask for volunteers who would like to have an RV in front of their house. Please raise your hands.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Scott A.

Hello, council. My name is Scott Anderson. I live on Olive Avenue. There's 17 kids that live on Olive Avenue. Two of them are my own. They're PhD or under. Uh they both bike to school. I work in 3D survey. So when I saw it, read in the news, um I thought why Olive? And so on Saturday night, I went to five streets, Shouter, two on Hale, Bryant, Cooleridge, and also Olive Avenue. I measured the width, uh the distance from the front door to the side of the street, and then how many cars were on the street. By every measure, Olive Avenue was the worst uh place. Um today at 3:30 when my son came home, um I counted how many cars were driving down the street. There's 90 per hour that were driving down the street doing doing an average of 50% were going faster than 25 and then 70% were not stopping at the uh stop sign. They're just turning right on a Ash. Ash, by the way, is uh smaller than uh Olive Avenue and the other streets are all 35. Um Ash is 20 uh 29. So I I suggest that uh uh strike Olive um and then engage with residents. When I met the guy on Hail at 10:30 at night after I explained what I was doing, he said, uh, you know, I asked, "Do you want to do you want RVs on your street?" He said, "No. Um, I don't want to." So, I suggest you engage with the the residents here. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eugen L followed by Jared L.

Uh, also an Olive Avenue resident. Um I I definitely agree with many different opinions in this room and I appreciate all the input um from all parties involved but I I I think all of Avenue was a mistake to be on this list. You guys all of know our North Ventura plight. Um, so hopefully you can at least ad omit the residential is my point is anybody with residential or non-adjacent residential I think should be admitted from any of these lists and offsite RV parks with proper hookups seems most appropriate rather than trying to keep these RVs in the city. Let's if you want to keep them, let's let's find a good spot for them. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jared L, followed by David A. Good evening. My name is Jared Lockhart. I grew up in PaloAlto on Olive Avenue. Um, it may not be zoned as residential. It's mixed, but it's a community. It's a neighborhood. We know these people. Some of these people have lived there for decades, like myself. So, please consider mixed use neighborhoods as being residential for this purpose. um more specific to your program, I strongly suggest you consider what your long what is your end point. We're talking about a pilot program that might last at least 12 months. When is it going to end? When is the program going to be finished? What is the end goal? Uh that's an important consideration for all of you so that this does not become PaloAlto's never- ending problem. Thank you.

Our next speaker is David A followed by Bill R.

Uh good evening. Um so on the slide 15 minutes ago, Olive Avenue was part of the 200 block, not 200400 block in the report. Is that correct? Is am I hallucinating or what? Um, so you need to do your homework and out make some outreach before you send out a report with such a halfass idea. Um, if you can't find somewhere to put these RVs other than Ventura, then you're not looking hard enough. There are plenty of places, city owned lots all over put them there. Take them off the residential areas and Ventura. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Bill R followed by Kareem A.

Uh good evening, Bill Ross. I'm challenging the categorical and statutory exemptions. It's well established that the personal views if quantified and based on sub substantial evidence and experience of adjacent land owners are relevant to establishing a physical impact on the environment. I would actually suggest that a limited environmental review consistent with appendix G addressing public services and public safety and population and housing under a constrained time limit would actually help define those that are actually homeless versus those that are not. So I think that the a structured environmental review on a limited basis should be would be beneficial rather than the exemptions. Now claimed

our next speaker is Kareem A followed by Liba P.

Good evening. Thank you all for your comments and your hard work in this matter. I live in Palo Alto as well as own an office building on commercial street and uh we've been suffering Mr. Burns spoke earlier. He's my business partner. We've been suffering in in the commercial street, industrial street area with RV parking for the last 10 years. I have pictures here. The it is the most horrendous thing that we have experienced. Thank you for cleaning it up recently. Please exclude this community. We have the right to be there. We pay taxes. We we our office space ha has uh devalued. We cannot have guests there. It is embarrassing. This is not the kind of community we want to work in. I beg you to please take that off the list. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Liba P followed by Vanessa C.

Thank you. So, my name's Leiba Pitman. I believe I'm the longestterm resident on Olive Avenue resident and owner. Um, I definitely have compassion for people living in their vehicles. Housing insecurity is real and people deserve dignity, services, and pathways toward stable housing. I'm asking you to exclude uh my street that I grew up on. Uh a parent and now a grandparent. And I'm also concerned with how you chose Olive. Why Olive? Um why weren't the residents consulted before you chose Olive? I know that um when Huelet Packard was going to build across the street, I was actually working for Huelet Packard at the time and they were very open to considering uh the neighborhood. They spoke to those of us that lived across the street before they uh built their building on the far side in consideration of residents. And when the owner of former Fries was going to build, they talked to me about building a garage in my backyard. So, I'm disappointed that no one contacted the residents on Olive and request that you not approve that. We I'm

Your so just Thank you.

Our next speaker is Vanessa C followed by Jen B.

Vanessa C. Moving to our next speaker, Jen B, followed by Larry G.

Good evening. Um, I'd first like to better understand how this outreach program worked. How did they speak out to ownership stakeholders? All of that communication. How was that distributed? We are a long-term owner and we had not had any direct communications for properties located on transport, commercial, or industrial. There was no communication. Um, with that being said, my main concern is security and safety of children. We had a daycare within that area with on commercial street. The tenant ended up moving out when the property was sold due to the safety concerns for these children. You have these high densities. You have large RVs. Children cannot see or running around. There's no control. Um, we have since had difficulties filling the space with another program of a preschool due to that concern. If we continue to have the high density, we will not be able to fulfill the community's need for a school and that needs to change. Thank you. Our next speaker is Larry G, followed by Jonathan B.

City Council mayor, thank you for your time. The issue of the unhoused is a very serious issue and I appreciate everyone's time working on this, but I implore you to vote no on this proposal tonight. If you look across the proposal, it's putting a disproportionate burden on a very few neighborhoods such as Ventura. And you look at the number in the streets and what you're hearing from people tonight and the questions you're getting. Clearly, people weren't consulted and there's huge impact on these small streets in this small neighborhood. And if you look at some of the segments right and the number of people impacted it's enormous. I think Gerstone you asked some of the questions about how was the heat map drawn up? How was this data driven? So I ask you to vote no on this because it really is a question of fiduciary duty. Your duty first and foremost are to the citizens of Palo Alto to provide the living that they um that they have created in this community. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jonathan B

, followed by an K.

Jonathan Brown, 23-year Ventura resident. The OSV parking permit pilot is a promising step, but the second proposed pilot would do nothing to mitigate negative impacts and would likely undermine the permit program while incurring substantial costs. Council member Rectal already noted the unfairness it shows towards Ventura, as does the large turnout tonight from our residential neighborhood. Parks, homes, preschools are all on streets who designated, and that's just wrong. Please heed Mayor Vinker's plea to re-examine the impact on our residences, parks, and families. Council should reject the second pilot. In line with council member Lowing's suggestion, we should move towards prohibiting all vehicle dwelling except in permitted areas. As Mr. Jensen noted, the court case that his predecessor mistakenly concluded would invalidate our 2013 vehicular habitation ban has been overturned by the US Supreme Court. I'm also an attorney. To answer council member Stone's question, there is nothing in state nor federal law preventing the city from enacting a ban on vehicle dwelling except for those provided under the permit program. Thank you.

Our next speaker is an K, followed by Bob M.

Thank you, council members. My name is an and I live in Southgate and own and operate our business in the Ventura neighborhood. and we've been doing this over 20 years now and I care deeply about the community I live in. I'm asking you to pause this program. I understand that there's state laws that are governing how PaloAlto addresses people living in vehicles before we approve the program. We need clear answers on these fundamental questions. What does the state law require? And what is PaloAlto choosing to do? Designating public streets for long RV habitation is a policy choice. Then the community deserves a meaningful voice before that choice is made, not afterwards. You don't approve the experiment and then ask the neighborhood what it thinks. We know from experience that relocating RVs doesn't solve the problem. Moving the problem is not solving the problem. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob M filed followed by Ryan J. Good evening, mayor, council, city manager. My name is Bob Marinero and I'm a 34 year resident of the Adobe Meadow neighborhood in South Palo Alto. From the barrage of emails that you have reached in recent months, you are well aware of the sentiment of of PaloAlto residents and businesses. Based on the vast majority of the content I have seen in email submissions and other comments heard in the community, the common thread is that the OSV phase 2 plan was illconceived. In due respect, the notion of legitimizing parking on 13 different streets in South Palo Alto is preposterous. Yet, I believe that a certain amount of safe parking can be expanded from the current 22 spaces at Gang Road and that a registration system would be beneficial for numerous reasons such as not attracting additional OSVs. However, OSVs should not and cannot be allowed on any residential streets or business corridors. I have seen a handful of very excellent alternative proposals and I believe that you should consider all part of them.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ryan J.

Good evening. Uh, thank you for your time, mayor and city council. Um, I'm speaking on behalf of we're a third generation family business. We started our business in PaloAlto back in the 60s. Um, I'm currently running this business and I can tell you that over the last 10 years, we have had the least friendly business climate in PaloAlto. The vacancies have gone through the roof to an all-time high. It's not just related. It's there's numerous reasons, but the RV problem is a major problem. I'm on the south side of California. I share the same concern. I hear a lot of residents speaking up. I'm speaking up on the business community. There's been zero outreach to us whatsoever. Phase 2 pilot has is if you draw it on a map, which I think would be great for all of us to see, we can see how everything is centered down on the southern end of of uh Palo Alto. I've heard the comment out of sight, out of mind. Does that seem applicable? Is that fair to the residents and the businesses of southern cal of southern Palo Alto? Why why don't we have phase two program here right on University?

So why are we choosing the south area? It's it's actually seeming like like we all feel that you guys are kicking down the can.

We strongly encourage you reconsider.

Our next speaker is Shazad D followed by Charlie W.

Shazad D. Moving to our next speaker, Charlie W. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, Charlie Widance, Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. We are deeply concerned about the compounding efforts of long-term OSV parking along Palo Alto's business corridors. We fully recognize that individuals living in these vehicles are members of our local workforce and community members for whom an RV represents essential shelter. At the same time, the current status quo has become unsustainable for local employers. Unmonitored, oversized vehicle parking creates serious operational and safety hazards. These vehicles consistently block sightelines, creating severe blind spots for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. They constrict narrow streets, making routine freight deliveries dangerous, and stripping away essential parking for customers and employees. combined with accumulating waste, unauthorized utility connections, affected businesses are reporting significant losses. PaloAlto small businesses cannot continue to operate under these conditions. We urge council to establish a structured oversized vehicle parking program that eliminates long-term parking for RVs in commercial districts. Thank you.

Our next speaker is David M, followed by Eric J.

Thank you for the time. Terrible time slot. I would I'm speaking on on behalf of a medical device business with a few hundred employees that's on LLC Court. We love Palo Alto. We love to be here, but I don't think that we can stay, especially if we bring back RVs parking on half of our street. We've had a lot of issues with them. The biggest issue is that we cannot access our facility. We can't bring visitors in. There's not enough parking for our our own employees. And the more RVs that we have, especially bringing back a half street full, the harder it will be for us. We've asked our neighbors if they have spare parking, they don't. So, this will be an impediment for us to grow, it'll mean that we'll have to leave Palo Alto, and we don't want to do that. I would also ask council to um really consider how when you say that you're going to enforce the turnover of 72-hour parking, how you'll do that. you've not been able to do that in the past because there was no funding to remove those RVs. I believe that will be the same case in this situation. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric J followed by Eddie K. Eric J. Moving to our next speaker, Eddie K. Hello, Edie Keading, former PaloAlto resident, current Mountain View resident. Mountain View has learned that safe parking is much superior to street parking for everyone. And if you can't find uh properties that are willing to lease to you uh for safe parking, then I hope you consider buying for safe parking. I think if it's something you had to do a parcel tax for, it would be a very popular uh supported raise to raise money for safe parking. And uh for employers, I hope there there are carrots you could offer too. You could offer if they allow um uh safe parking on their properties that um you could provide pump service and trash service and um I appreciate that you look at uh vehicle residents as members of PaloAlto. Thank you. Our next speaker is Gordon J followed by Star T.

Hello. Uh, good evening. Um, I think these are both good ideas worth experimenting with and uh managing or creating space for for uh oversized vehicles uh for the first one and then managing places where oversized vehicles are currently parked. I'm not sure why Olive A ended up on the on the list here. Uh current restrictions on olive prevent uh overnight parking for oversized vehicles on both sides of the street. Uh the residential side uh no oversize overnight and the commercial side no overnight at all. Uh so it is not true that uh that uh regularsized cars are allowed to park there overnight right now. Um uh so so like I said, I think I I support both of these uh proposals, but av seems like a a confusing street to add to this project.

Our next speaker is Star T

followed by S. Rose.

Thank you for uh all your hard work and for including case management in your program. I think that's extremely thoughtful. I want to entirely agree that Olive should never have been on this list. It's a strong community. It has a lot of cutth through traffic as Scott Anderson, oops, Scott A, um, denoted. Um, but most of all, I just want to say there have been so many excellent comments tonight by the community and I just want to encourage you to listen to them. Just fabulous. Our next speaker is S. Rose, followed by Bianca P.

Good evening. My name is uh Shawn Rose, and I'm going to talk out of both sides of my mouth briefly. Um I'm a 22 uh year resident of Lambert Avenue. On one hand, the second pilot in front of you tonight creates more stringent rules to be followed. May not read that way, but it does. We're hopeful there. The support we've received from the police uh over the last year has really made a difference and we need that to continue. Uh it's a success story. If you want to check it out, please do. The police are there all the time. If you haven't made your way over there, you got to go and check it out. I hear a lot of Olive Avenue justified. It's a residential street. So, there's a certain amount of questioning about how we're picking the streets. Lambert's a residential street. That's why we're allowed to be there. Um, our neighborhoods spend a lot of time self-reporting and self-governing. Uh, it's a burden on Ventura and a permanent remedy is long overd long overdue. Um, Lambert, as I said, it's residential. It's a residential street. Um,

your time is up.

We'd appreciate if you came and talked to us.

I think all of us just start tomorrow.

Your time is up. Our next speaker is

Thanks to Melissa and uh, Chief Ree Schneider. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Bianca P.

Bianca P. Moving to our next speaker, Joe W. Hey. Hello. I'd um just like to say that uh there's probably inevitably going to be inconveniences to people living in homes in PaloAlto and that's not something that we can shy away from. Um, I'd prefer if you burden us people living in homes rather than the homeless folks. Um, I say this as a resident of Ventura, we can deal with it. Um, as can the rest of Palo Alto. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Becky S. followed by Ron E.

Yeah, thank you for taking this up. I just want to align myself with just uh Olive Avenue should just not be on the list. Uh anyway, I just um I've been dealing with uh Sergeant Eric since July 1st, dealing with a couple of RVs outside my fence and also on Matadero. And there are several ways to look for signs of movement, including comparative comparing valve stem locations, um chalking the tires, and using other methodes methods such as placing a paper clip on the tire. If we find evidence of movement after the 72-hour period, we will not tow the vehicle. So anyway, these vehicles have not moved. They've gone like one block and then they come back and then the the Lexington on Matadero isn't moving at all. And I just I guess code enforcement is understaffed and there's no real will willpower. Like it's hard. I get it. But we have code enforcement. These laws are on the books and I mean I've just been playing this dance.

Your time is up

and I you know I just got this one five hours ago about how to check to see if the vehicle has

Your time is up. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ron E followed by Aram F.

Hello. On the sheet I'm number 47. So take a breath. It's almost over. Um, I'm not looking forward to having a portaotti outside outside of my business on the street. Um, I hope you understand the irony here. Uh, the city is taking my business taxes and then spending taxes to put a portaotti right in front of my front door. I'm not going to thank you for that. Okay. Um, I welcome the city to share the experience. I welcome you to put a portaotti right outside the front door for a while and share the aroma, I guess. Um, if you move the RVs back and forth, um, you're not going to be able to move the portaotty, so it's it's going to sit there. Um, you know, you really ought to think this one through.

Our next speaker is Aram F.

Okay. So, Robert Marinaro, um I I'll give you 200 bucks towards you rent for a week and then you come back and tell me how how you like having your window knocked on all and maybe then you wouldn't want a ban of all RVs in this city. Shame on you, man. Okay, so Justice Stanley Moss said the following in Toby versus the city of San Santa Ana. The city cannot solve its homeless problem simply by exiling a large number of its homeless citizens to neighboring loces. If you look as you go south down to Gilroy, the problem gets worse and worse and worse there. This is an intractable problem. You can't simply push these people down to the next town. That's not a neighborly thing. Okay? We're going to need a shuttle bus for the folks out there on Coyote and on Embaradero. I support the plan. It's not the best solution, but we got to live with it for now. Thank you very much, folks.

Our next speaker is Penny B, followed by City Council S.

Hello, Altos. Hello. Can I have my Palo Alto City Council should base its OSV policies on OSV use and need facts rather than stereotypes and gut feelings labeled as humanitarianism and moral obligation. Surveys and focus groups are not the best ways to obtain facts regarding the use characteristics of OSV users. observational studies can be designed to help obtain obtain these facts. Both of these OSB pilot programs are built on false premises, illconceived, uninforceable, and destined to further harm PaloAlto residents and business people. I urge you to vote no on both of them. Our next speaker is city council S. They are no longer on Zoom. Moving to our next speaker, Kevin C.

Thank you, Mayor V. Pinker and health. My name is Kevin Troy and I represent the new ownership of 3825 to 3875 Fabian Way. First and foremost, I'd like to acknowledge that this is a difficult situation and no solution will make everyone happy. As a property owner in Palo Alto, we have strong concerns regarding the proposal you have in front of you today. Primarily, I noted within our letter to you is the concern that OSB proposal is the first step towards a permanent solution that places OSB parking in commercial areas. Our group has significant concerns with this as we have had several conversations with tenants that OC parking trends towards safety and health concerns. Just like everyone has a right to a place they could proudly call home, everyone should also have a right to proudly call a place work. I'd like to note that Council Rectal's solution to provide commercial parking permit restricting parking to two hours is an idea that is moving towards a solution. Our ownership respectfully requests that the city council take the opportunity to continue to review this item and look for a solution. However, temporary that solves for all of our commercial tenants concerns.

Your time is up.

Our next speaker is Zohar G.

Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, I can hear myself. So, I have been in Pal 20 years. I live in the Ashland community across from east the east meta circle. I used to be able to walk around this meta circle. I I have not been able to walk around east meta circle for a long long time. But what I really want to tell you is this action and your plan is discriminatory against South Pal. Yes, our houses don't but they've still lost a lot of value just because of the RV situation. We've also lost walkability. We've lost uh clean air because of the RVs running their motors. And yet the rest of Palato especially on the north side is not affected. So this is discriminatory for the Ashon community. I'm sure there's other few communities but those are the ones that are most impacted and I just don't understand how you can just sleep at night doing it. Your time is up. Our next speaker is John M, followed by OKG. Your report identifies sanitation, debris, and improper disposal of human waste as existing problems associated with OSBs. But the report does not tell us how black water and gray water from those OS RVs or OSVs will actually be collected and disposed of. This is an obvious environmental issue. One site adjacent to the city's wastewater treatment plant and the other at Coyote Hill where Sanford has already raised wildfire and habitat concerns. The city proposes to rely on SQL categoral exemptions under sections 13015301 and 15304. However, I believe you need to address the unusual circumstances exception under section 15300.2C two feet and explain why concentrating residential RV, adding sanitation infrastructure, restriping the loads and modifying the sites creates no possibility of significant environmental effect. I ask you to defer approval of this uh until the city has completed publicly disclosed of waste water, storm water, solid waste water.

Your time is up and environmental analysis. Thank you. Our next speaker is OKG.

Hello. Am I on?

Yes.

Okay. So I I'm kind of really disappointed after listening and stay up and see this whole thing and I found out about staff which is reporting to city council having all this outreach and yet no data very little data or actual data collected on the number of vehicles duration of stays location complaints citation and impact surrounding on the neighborhood. I lived here for over 24 years. and I have to put up with a lot of inconsistency of how the law has been regulated around here especially with OSB. So it's really unfair to resident especially people living in south of Palo Alto and I urge that listening to all the businesses they're saying that there's no outreach to them. Please, we are losing tax dollars and the C revenue is kicking it these people out.

And that concludes public comment on action item 10.

All right. Well, thanks to all of our public commenters. Um, it's 11:12. Um, I would like to continue this conversation, but I want to ask my colleagues about their brothers, whether we can just power forward, whether you need a short break to go forward. Um, since we've been meeting since 5:30, I mean, like 5 minutes, or can we just go?

If we say go, it doesn't mean 2 a.m., right?

Just go for now, but see how we're doing.

All right.

I mean, I would go with that, but

Okay. Just want to make sure everyone's okay. Good. All right. Well, with that, I know I have additional questions and comments, but uh let me uh yield to my colleagues if anybody'd like to pick up the baton at this point. Council member Bart. So, first I want to re-emphasize that um making decisions like this without good data is really problematic and we've had a lot of time to um be able to um get that data. Uh I just don't think it's had the prioritization that it it uh needs. Um, I will say that I hearing from the public, I'm really wondering whether what we can address tonight or should address tonight is the phase one pilot and uh defer action on the phase 2 with maybe certain guidance on uh anything else that we want to u explore related to it. I will say that if we were to go forward with the phase two, um I I don't understand why Olive and Ash and for that matter Park Boulevard as a critical um a safe route to school and bikeway uh would have been included at all. Um, I also uh think that one of the we've got several issues, but safety is one and um RVs um parking right up to within 5 ft of a driveway is not adequate daylighting. That's what's in the proposal there. And I would support uh if we did go forward with uh phase 2 uh additional daylighting uh probably at least 10 ft. Um you know state law on on corners is now either 15 or 20 ft and that's not for RVs. That's anticipating a regular vehicle. I don't know how you could see coming out of a driveway with a a car or I mean excuse me an RV within 5 ft. I also think if we went forward with phase two, uh we should adopt a program like we did uh along El Camino with the uh businesses on the perpendicular streets allowing them to request um short-term parking whether it's 15 minutes or 2 hours or whatever for their uh business for essential needs for customers and the like coming and going. Um, one of the things that uh we really haven't discussed is um on the potential other sites and I don't is the question of whether uh Stanford should be providing any land. What is their proportionate share of this problem? To my knowledge, they have no RVs that are on their uh massive amount of land and a quasi municipality. um because we don't have data, we don't know exactly whose um what their share of responsibility might be. I don't assume it's a majority or anywhere near that, but I think they should be uh part of the solution on on um uh sites for parking. I uh on the phase one, I do support the two sides of Coyote. Um uh but I am very concerned about fire hazard in that area and um we had talked about tilling the land but uh we have this burnbot um technology now. But in any event a an approach that would uh really address the the fire hazard there would be a critical part of even that phase one. And um we we also in addition to not allowing the um uh if we went forward with phase 2, not allowing it on streets that are uh predominantly predominantly residential. Uh but um we we need to uh up update our residential definition so that uh plan uh PC zoning that is um includes residential would be uh categorized as residential. And then we really have a question too on whether we should extend the uh protections to uh immediately adjacent to residential area. should it be within 100 yards of residential that there's uh there are no um uh permitted RVs. So I think if we did a a combination of some of these measures, we would um further um prescribe the limited areas where RVs are um would be on an at least for the time being allowed, but expand this permit area because we have 22 slots at Ging, but we've seen in the last recent months when we got data, we're not getting the turnover at Ging that was anticipated. that was supposed to be transitional fullervice RV lots so that uh we're providing very expensive services along with a county and uh and it was to be able to transition those RV dwellers into permanent housing. It's not working like intended and we have to um re get that resolved and and uh really not have that be permanent RB dwelling uh but transitional. Um, so those are my thoughts uh at this point in time.

Council member Lowi.

Thank you. Um, I want to make a couple comments substantially directed at a lot of the public comments. Um, the overall direction as I said at the outtake of up uh outset of this meeting uh is from from council was to radically reduce the total number of OSPs in our town. And the other direction was we need to find some places for legitimately folks that legitimately need help. Pilot one does that exactly with a lot of controls. Pilot two doesn't do that as it's proposed and it doesn't do that for a number of reasons. But what we've heard from the public tonight is that the um suggestions that came in that staff report are not acceptable. that you not only don't want it on either side of the street, you don't want it on both sides of the street. You don't want it at all, which at this point in time I think is perfectly understandable. So what that presents to us on the second part of it is, as I said earlier, you know, the you folks have put up with this long enough, we just need to shut it down. Now, that creates that creates we don't want to get into too much detail on this, but that creates an incremental legal risk uh if we don't have other places where some folks could park. So, to me, getting getting on with item number one, pilot number one, in terms of approving that tonight, to me makes very good sense because we have to start on that and we want it to be on a faster schedule than it's on. And once we do that, the sooner we're going the sooner we do that, the sooner we're going to have actual places that people can get in there legitimately with their parking permit and those folks will be moving out of some of the areas that they're now in because we are creating new spaces of 35 to 50 new spaces. That's the important point there. But very quickly, I think we have to shut down the rest of it uh as we ramp up the the earlier part. And the only way to do that, as I've thought about it, is is with this permit program. So, um, I just want the public to understand that we are all together on the fact that we want OSVs to be basically not be gone because we want the ones here that are sort of quote deserving. And with respect to sort of data, I'm always a data guy, but we know that there are at least 35 people of the remaining 130, they're going to probably qualify for these units if they want them. So, I'm very comfortable saying that is the the pilot is just the pilot one is justified going forward. So, I just sort of wanted to cover that point. And if we get those to move there, then that that's a big chunk. If we extend gang, that's a big chunk. And if we get some of the 88 that are in Homekey, that's another chunk. So, we start to chip chip away at this thing with the existing resources. Thanks.

All right. Um, I just want to make a couple of uh points. Um, first, yeah, I just I residential should be residential. That's what I had thought wasa the case. That's why I was surprised as well to see uh any residential streets on this, especially the ones in Ventura that we've heard tonight are really problematic. Um I understand now that there's PC zones and PHC and various things, but I think we need to really make it uniform for all residents um uh in PaloAlto. So that's that to me should just be a uniform thing. Um the um the thing I mentioned about businesses before, I want to sort of clarify it and then uh key off of something Council Member Bert said. Um, you know, I'm using the word business, but there's a whole lot of different kinds. And so I it it's not quite right to lump them all to business uh into one term. What I'm thinking of is employees of large businesses like Google and Stanford Healthcare and Shoreline. When their employees are dwelling in front of smaller businesses on commerce and transport and industrial and park, it's almost like some businesses are subsidizing other businesses. And I don't that just doesn't make sense to me. So, you know, there are limits on what the city can ask and require of businesses. Um, but what I mentioned before, it would be great if they would step up and provide a portion of their own parking lot for their own employees. And I think, you know, Stanford could be a part of that, but there are others um that we could ask as well. I just don't know that we can demand it. But what we might be able to do if we could discern which RVs they were, which gets to my point earlier, that there could be some sort of um you know, if you were in that situation, uh if we we discerned that you were there, then your employer would have to pay into some sort of housing fund that could get you a voucher to get you uh off the street. um or they could provide a parking spot themselves, but we could try to work on that. But I think starting with Stanford may make sense. Um then um I'm curious because uh as uh to pick up on what council member Lowing was said saying if we're looking at um transitional like people transitioning in and out of these various categories. Um you mentioned earlier that you know we discovered Home Key was full because of the people who'd been in hotels but do we what I guess this is for staff. At what pace are we hoping we might have some openings? Cuz that's a transitional thing as well. So when and where and how might we expect there could be some openings over the course of the next six to 12 months.

Uh thank you Mayor Vinker. Um so the throughput for both Homekeing upon sort of the housing pipeline. And this evening we do have a representative from the Office of Supportive Housing. Um I I'm not certain if this is something she could speak to, but uh we can check.

Well, she's very welcome to. She she looks like looks like Yes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Hillary Armstrong. Excuse me. Uh deputy director with the Office of Supportive Housing. Um first just to clarify the folks who were housed at the home key PaloAlto started in a hotel program but were all unhoused PaloAltons. So the hotel program was like the launch of the home key program. I just wanted to be super clear on that. Um in terms of the throughput um we do see an average stay in shelter programs so such as the home paloto program of about 4.8 in eight months. When we look um at our data across the system, we are seeing um you know some need to encourage more movement through the system. And so our quality assurance standards for the continuum of care that apply across our entire countywide system um have 120day suggested length of stay. you know, when folks are working on a housing plan. Um, and it's contingent on the pipeline, they can get extensions to that, but in general looking at, you know, a stay of anywhere from 3 to 6 months where we're really trying to make sure that folks are getting through.

Okay. So, we can anticipate that over the course of the next 6, 9, 12 months, some number, we're not sure, of spaces will open up. So that would um hopefully be at least some outlet for people that we're trying to transition out of say the permit program were we to enact it. Is that am I thinking about it right?

Uh thank you Mayor Vinker. I I I would caution that it's become my understanding that folks in RVs are more likely to transition directly to uh an apartment rather than or to housing rather than to a transitional space. That that's not typically as attractive to them and and sometimes they they're able to transition more quickly in that fashion.

I see. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Well, with that, I'll turn to Vice Mayor Stone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, yeah, given the hour, I will be very concise. I I agree. I think the I think the first pilot is ready to move forward. That's kind of the original my original kind of vision of where this was all heading was really a permit program. love the I love the suggestion that we're going to incorporate services there. It is a very reasonable cost. I I think that is a win-win all around. I know ultimately it comes down to space and identifying additional locations, but it's a pilot program. So, I think let's get that started as quickly as possible. I agree with comments already. I think the second pilot is not ready to to go. I think that needs a lot of work. I think the uh the heat map I described earlier is is going to be really beneficial for me to ensure that we are equitably spreading these um these impacted streets around the community. I think more work can be done there. I I think absolutely the the ad hoc committee needs to be kind of brought into this discussion and be able to do that that deeper dive. Uh I also thought that there was general alignment on the council the last time that we didn't want to see this on residential and residential adjacent streets. So Ventura neighborhoods has greatly s surprised me. Uh I think one one thought I know it's just going to give us a couple of spaces but in the idea of equity and making sure that we are all taking on this burden. police department is is moving out right now. And I know on Brian Street is where we've traditionally parked several uh police vehicles, including our command uh including the command vehicle, which is definitely the size of a large OSV. I think that should be included in that future program. If it's good enough for other businesses to have OSVs in front of their businesses, it should be good enough for us at city hall to have uh to have our share as as well. Also, I think there are opportunities for us to be able to find additional locations um around the comm around the community, but I don't think we're there yet to authorize the um the second pilot program. And yeah, with that, I'll leave it there. Thank you,

Council Member Lou.

Thank you. Uh firstly, I'll just note that I appreciate the public comment. I live basically on Page Mill, though on the Mayfield side, so I'm a block away uh about from several of these suggested pilot sites. Um my wife and I uh were looking at child care in the Ventura area when uh directly adjacent to uh some of these sites. I get the concerns. I do get it. I think we do need to keep bike lanes clear and find balance uh throughout the city. I certainly don't think we should ban all RVs, though. And I think the uh uh uh first phase of the pilot is including on both sides of Coyote Hill um seems like a clear uh win and a clear benefit to both people who live in RVs and the broader community. Um the only thing I'll note about that first phase is that uh I'm not even sure if we really need to collect a $15 permit fee per month. I think the cost to collect that might be higher than the actual value of that. And uh to the extent that we sort of just want people to buy in and sort of have a stake that it's more of a symbolic cost, we already have uh a number of agreements, insurance requirements, things uh that are real hoops that they would need to jump through. So I don't think we really need a $15 fee um on that pilot for the first part. For the second part, uh I really do appreciate the work from staff and the ad hoc. It is really clearly well intention that by moving RVs that are already on these streets to one side that there might actually be less RV capacity. Uh however, I think if we actually do announce and publicize this program as such that uh the 116 to 125 spaces we've allocated uh for any given site could get quite dense. Um, uh, you know, no one knows in expectation exactly where it could land, but maybe, uh, if we end up with a 100 RVs sort of densely configured on one side of several streets, that that is maybe actually not preferable to the current state of about 130 RVs, but sort of slightly more spread. like uh I find it interesting that in this conversation we heard from some nonprofit community groups and some RV residents and uh certainly a lot of neighbors that actually weren't in favor of this second part of the pilot. And I don't think those groups necessarily agree on any of the other next steps, but at least um uh that sort of strange consensus does make me have second thoughts about this uh second part of the pilot. Uh uh um I'll echo the point that we can probably find spaces in North Pole Alto. Um there are uh areas in Sofa or uh right right by city hall like corners of that um maybe in Cena maybe parts maybe like a small parts in your fire station one where uh we can make that heat map less striking than it is right now which is uh quite concentrated in North Ventura in a couple parts uh and uh couple other parts of South Paul Alto. Um so yeah, uh hopefully that's useful context and I'm happy to support uh whatever motion um and consensus this we seem to be pointed to.

Council member Rectal.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, council member Lead Hayes was making a point that the reason these streets are on the list at all is because they were the most impacted by RVs. It's not like we chose them. The RVs chose them and we're trying to give them a relief valve and it's not appreciated apparently. So, I'm not going to push it, but uh the purpose was is to reduce the amount of RVs in those neighborhoods. Uh, I do really feel strongly though that we should um limit RV parking near residences even if those residences aren't in a traditional residential zone and also say within 100 yards of a residence. So, we don't want the right on the the poor people that are right on the transition zone get an RV right next to their house. I I think that that would be a reasonable approach. That's all.

Council member Liths.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you everybody for being here late. I'm yawning like a lion over here and some of you may be tired as well. Um glad to hear the support for pilot number one. I think um that's exciting. Um and have I took a lot of notes on all the comments that were made. I was really listening and I know my colleagues were as well in terms of your concerns. Um, I wanted to plus one the um notion or plus two or three by this point that we've got to engage business owners. The public speaker who yanked on his employee tag and said, "If you could get my employer to let me park in his lot, then I wouldn't have to park on the street in my RV." There you are. Um, Raleigh or something.

Okay. Um, I thought that was really compelling and it's hard for us to make that happen from here. We're going to have to figure out how to make that happen. But that's clearly an important sector here. The notion that we need to spend more time engaging with Stanford about what role they want to play in this, particularly as they're going out for their next general use permit in the community. This is a very ripe time to be talking with the largest land owner um about this seemingly intractable problem. Um, I do, Council Member Rectal already clarified what I was whispering to him, which was, um, we didn't go after Olive and Ash and Park or commercial, industrial, etc. These were the streets that had been identified as the most impacted that needed street sweeping and cleaning and whatnot. So we had that in mind as needing help and we were trying to reduce the amount of density of OSVs on those streets, not burden them any further. Um so I feel like that's a perception problem. It's very valid that you perceived it that way. Um but in terms of where we were coming from, that was certainly not our intent. I certainly share the concern about equity being a you know a lens through which we have to view all things and uh we definitely think that burdens ought to be shared in this city. So very much appreciate the push back there. The last thing that I want to say is I'm slightly concerned about the vigilanteism. I think that some RV dwellers are being followed and their activities are being recorded and somebody went around and put stickers on their vehicles saying this is illegal. You will be towed. And I asked our police chief, "Did you put these stickers on?" And he said, "No." And sometimes that kind of behavior can border on harassment. And uh it may also be vandalism. And so I just want to ask all of us like, let's not let this become an even bigger problem. Let's try to work together toward a solution that is going to work for everybody. And you know there have been comments about we're better than this and this is not who we are and all of this and you know we're many people on opposite sides of this issue and um I think we need more listening and we need to have the frustrations be heard and tempers cooled um because it's it's getting a little it's it's it's been ugly out there for some while as some of you have said and it's getting uglier in some ways and none of us want that. So we're going to work on this pilot. I think it sounds like there's support for pilot one that may be fulmenting over here and you know like let's root for it to be um useful and and yield data um and let's root for it to be successful at moving people to a place that is better for the you know those they're leaving behind and is better for them um as more housing gets built and more parking lots get identified um I I look forward to us being uh proud of solutions we were able to come up with together. I know we're not yet there, but I think that day will come.

Council member Bert,

I'm ready to make a motion if everybody

Yeah, I think I think that's a good idea. Yeah, I was scribbling one, but

I would move that uh we adopt uh staff recommendation one, which is the um the permit phase one pilot and that we give additional direction to staff in the following ways. Uh first that we um begin to uh provide uh red curb daylighting uh in the commercial areas that were uh identified for the phase 2 pilot. and uh that we evaluate a a 10- ft uh daylighting. Uh second that we uh staff come back with u uh appropriate um I guess ordinance changes to uh recognize that residential including uh PCs be treated in the same as residential uh uh zoning.

Some are also zoned mixed use too. So

okay PCs and mixed use. Yep. um that um any future consideration of a phase 2 pilot exclude streets that are um uh have significant residential components or a uh a bike boulevard or excuse me bike lane that would be Park, Olive, Lambert and I think Ash. Um and oh uh lastly that uh staff pursue uh data collection to have a better understanding of the demographics of our current RV population. I'll second that.

Okay. Uh I think I've spoken enough.

One question for the uh residential parking restrictions. Was that going forward or do you want to change that today?

Well, we we can't do it today. I think we have to ask staff to return with with uh revisions to our ordinance.

Correct. I I and uh depending on the complexity of those changes, we may want the ad hoc to weigh in on it, but I think it's relatively straightforward.

Yeah, I shouldn't say today. But were you did you How did you word that? Where's the wording?

Um I don't know. We'll see how M May Maha did. But I thought that I had um requested that staff return with um

I thought you said for future planning. Well, let's see what

we'll see. I think on the residential was it my intention was that that would be addressed either way.

Okay.

Question. Would you be interested in adding um a direction to staff to investigate with Stanford and other large employers? Um

yes

something

I'll make a so that would be fine is to um explore with major employers um uh their willingness to accommodate workers who reside in RVs their workers who reside in RVs on their sites. I will make a side note that uh in my 30 plus years of having a business uh two different times I had an employee who uh asked to be able to if they could reside uh on during the week on our parking lot and we were more than willing to because it added to security. We knew who that person was. They were eyes and ears on our property. So, I don't know if we can convince other employers to do that, but um we viewed it as beneficial.

Council member Low, I guess.

Yes. Um we need to add to I believe we need to add to that shortening of the current schedule of seven months to get to a pilot. Um well, the the first pilot was January 1st, right? So, that's that's basically four months. Is that correct?

Uh please please repeat the question, council member. when uh the the timing on the permitted pilot, when was that to take effect?

March.

March.

So, can we if we're not proceeding with a second pilot, can we move the We'd like, I think, to move the first pilot to January 1st.

Yeah,

I think staff will need to take a look at what we can do to accelerate that. And at the same time, we hear you

include in the motion to pursue a target date of January 1st.

Yeah, that's the direction.

Yeah.

And Council Member Bert, we'll need to add up the uh we'll have to change the budget appropriation um as part of this motion to ensure that the budget for the the phase the option one is in there and not for the option two.

Okay. Um so then in the language maybe this we could either put that the budget allocation in or uh simply say an accompanying uh uh uh uh uh budget allocations or if staff has better language I'm certainly welcome. Would you accept a friendly amendment related to pursuing future locations? Something like directing staff to continue to work with county, state, and federal partners on identifying additional land for safe parking.

Yes. And I your point makes me realize I did not include uh requesting staff to pursue both sides of Coyote. So, two things going to be a long motion, but it's late night, so we might as well make a long motion. Um, so Maha under um uh I guess we'll make another section that is um request staff to explore um or continue to pursue um the uh permitted pilot program on both sides of Coyote Hill Road. And second, uh, Council Member Lithcott Hayes, you have your preferred,

uh, direct staff to continue to seek safe parking solutions in collaboration with the county, the state, and federal partners.

Sure. We'll throw in the UN

and the UN.

Yeah.

We'd like the United Nations to come here and solve this for us, please.

Okay. public and private partners.

Maker secondary, are you good? Okay. Uh just if I could for clarification, I think I assume council member Leth is referring to other locations as well in addition to the

Yes.

Coyote Hill and Embark.

I am most definitely. I'm thinking about Moffett Field. I'm thinking about Yellows. The final thing is the golf course. The It's the um portion of Embarcadero, the north edge of Embarcadero, sort of between the waste treatment plant. Uh well on the airport and golf course side um

can we ask look at that?

I'm hesitant to do that. Um you know that's uh uh I I think that it it could be detrimental to the um to the the revenue of the uh of the city golf course there. So I'm hesitant to do that. But it's easy to roll out if the first part of it works.

Yeah. the down by the airport works. It's an easy ad.

I just hate for it to be lost as an idea. I know I'm not long for this world.

Well, um I would

I got the idea right.

Got it. But I it it strikes me that I I I would be uh willing to include u Vice Mayor Stone's suggestion that um that the um um west side of Bryant uh be pursued as um uh uh basically I don't know how we do it. I'm sorry. I am going to speak out loud before uh offering the uh amended language. Uh in the downtown we have our our u color zone parking and in order to allow RVs there, we'd have to not have color zone parking there. But I don't know how you'd restrict the parking to just RVs versus other vehicles that would park overnight there. So, uh, I let me just add to the motion for staff to explore any other sites that would be eligible for RV parking in um the greater downtown area. Just explore and that's all it is. Get on the radar. And would you be willing at the end of eight to say um federal and private partners because I want to make sure we're still you know keep our feelers out even though we've been turned down repeatedly.

Yeah.

Yeah. If we didn't I guess we didn't have that elsewhere and that would be

I don't think so.

Okay. And that would be fine.

Thank you.

Oh six.

Oh yeah that's the employers. Yeah.

Does six cover it in more detail? You know what? That's different because 60 is contemplating employers with going businesses with

Okay.

And to the clerk, there's a just a clerical thing on eight direct staff to continue to seek instead of see. You need a K on the end of that word.

Okay. Council member Lou,

uh, quick point about the $15 fee. I am a little bit concerned that a $15 fee per month would actually be a somewhat meaningful disincentive to participation in the first part of the pilot. I'm curious if staff has any perspective of uh how they feel if they feel strongly about that $15 fee and if there's no particularly strong feeling. did hear from staff earlier that they in the outreach that that was uh that formula was viewed as acceptable, but

we definitely heard feedback on this from um Sophie Piggman who is uh on staff and working in the outreach context and the feedback she got was that $15 was reasonable. We thought about going higher and we got some push back that higher was a deterrent, but $15 felt reasonable and also valuable for people to have a little bit of skin in the game.

Okay. I feel like they could still have skin in the game at zero, but uh don't feel extremely strongly about this point. uh council members. So there there was some back and forth for sure about uh what would be reasonable, what wouldn't. And there were some suggestions of much higher $50, others suggesting we just wave it entirely. And I think the the happy not so happy answer we came to was 15. Um with the understanding that perhaps uh you know, local nonprofits might be able to help folks if they needed need a little boost with that dollar amount. I think that's pretty nominal and it it it actually kind of in a nominal way requires some commitment from those uh dwellers. So,

and it'll be tested in the pilot. So, we can change it if it doesn't work.

Okay.

All right. I don't see any lights.

I I wanted to point out that part of the Sorry, almost there. Um the motion uh takes into account the work for the first pilot, but it doesn't bring in the subsequent budget amendments which were uh a combination of items three and four in the staff report.

Well, yes, that's what I had asked for staff to provide what wording would be.

Yes. So, I just want to make sure um the easiest way at 11452 might be to uh approve those budget amendments and subtract out whatever is related to the second pilot program if you're approving the first. But only if that's accurate.

Well,

and I think uh wording to that effect would be fine. I think we would also want to recognize that I believe as scoped it's a larger pilot one because we're now talking about both sides of Coyote Hall Road. So for the if allow us that general direction, you'll figure out the math.

I think that's that's it. So the general direction would be to the effect of uh and um the appropriate uh proportionate

appropriations

appropriation. Did the clerk get that? Sorry, it's getting so long. I can't I think madam clerk just let us know when you're

You can make it number 10 if you want to.

Probably doesn't fit on the page on the screen. We may have a new record on motion length.

I think so. Yeah, it won't fit on the screen even if the smaller font.

Okay. Keith, your lights's on your microphone but not here. Are you good? Okay. Just checking. All right. Staff, any any anything more? Deputy city manager.

No. Okay. All right. Well, Madam Clerk,

one word smithing thing. I'm sorry. Uh in number two, if we could just change the word from phase two pilot to pilot two or something because this whole part is phase two.

Thank you.

Okay. Pilot two.

No. Uh so new wording will simply be pilot two. Would that also be in the same case for number four?

Yes.

Okay.

But it's okay.

Yeah, she's got it. Okay. Okay. Any any more typos? Going once. Going twice. All right. Madam clerk, would you please call the role? Council member Liths,

yes. Mayor Vinker,

yes.

Council member Rectal,

yes.

Council member Bert,

yes.

Council member Lowing,

yes.

Vice Mayor Stone,

yes.

Council member Lou,

yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Well, thank you all very much. But you can't leave because we have our new public comment for matters not on the agenda on Zoom. But this does end this agenda item. And thank you to all who got us here. Okay, madame clerk, is there any um public general public comment via Zoom?

No hands are raised on Zoom.

All right, we did it. All right, thank you all. Stand. Nope. Oh,

there is one hand raised in

one hand raised. All right, let let's let's do it.

All right. Um our one speaker is Aram F. Okay, thank you very much. It's been a long night. Okay, so you know, the bulk of the folks here on council identify as being Democrats except for Julie um and George. Now, uh I see everybody else really uh right-wing Republicans in their their perspective. And one of the things that's that's concerning me is that even though there are folks on council who um claim to be transparent, it's not so. And we're seeing a movement among progressive Democrats that they are are prevailing in these elections across the country and they're beating Zionist candidates even when Apac is loading up tons of money to support these right-wing uh uh Zionist candidates. The the left is coming back and they're coming back in a strong way. But when I try to get information from a person who I know to be a Zionist, I don't have your support in trying to push that individual, okay, to be transparent, a weapons maker to boot, okay, he standing up and I guess not paying any attention, uh, as I might anticipate, but I've repeatedly made the offer to him to Yeah, he's going to walk out of the out of the meeting and and not listen. That that's good. Go ahead. you know, you you you take off if that's the way you want to treat the public. But I'm serious about wanting to know whether he got support from Apac, whether he's a dual citizen of Israel, and whether he's ever apologized for the weapons that the company that he works for makes that kill indisputably Palestinians on a regular basis. He's been there for 25 years plus. So that's that that's not just trying to be uh uh u you know provoking people or being provocative. It's something that the voters are entitled to know and we're going to be pushing more and more for this. Okay. Uh Ed's not a weapons maker. He may be a Zionist and and uh has walked off the dis. Well, good for him, too. You know, don't listen to the people uh that don't comport with your point of view. That's a real democratic perspective. Okay. Okay. A real First Amendment uh breath of fresh air. I'm being uh satirical here. Uh but you know, it's okay for you to speak out, Mr. Redhead, uh Mr. Transparent, and let me know. I'm willing to sit down with you. You know, you're a bigger and younger guy than me. You probably knock my ass out. I'll sit across from the table despite that. But we need to have this conversation because I'm not gonna quit on you, okay? I'm going to continue to expect that you speak on these issues. So, you can you can go home now. Thank you all. It's been a long meeting. Uh and we'll go from there.

That concludes public comment on re remote uh participants on the agenda.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. That concludes public comment. After meeting like this, we are ajourned.