So I think this is where typically the chair would call the meeting to order, but since we haven't necessarily gotten to that process, I'll step in for the immediate call to order.
But then, Marco, if you'll do roll call, please.
If you could all just state your name, and we'll just go down starting with Carol.
Okay. Carol.
So with this, what we would ask is that the committee have a little bit of discussion
among themselves. If you'd like to take public comment, you certainly are able to do so. But then
from that point forward, then you can bring it back for final deliberations. And then one of you
can make a motion to be able to elect a chair. If you'd like to do this as a slate, you could
also talk about the vice chair and secretary as well. But with that, we'll leave it to your
discussion.
Sorry, just to kind of introduce ourselves and where we live in town and maybe what
our top sort of wishes are for this committee are so that we can kind of
get to know each other a little bit.
I think that's a good idea.
Go ahead and start, Cheryl.
Oh, okay.
I'm Cheryl Evans.
I live up at very top at Page Mill and Moody Road where they intersect,
so not close in town. I am just telling you in advance that I will not accept the
chair of the committee because I am involved with Friends of the Hills and
as their chair of their steering committee. My greatest wish for this
group is that we involve residents and educate them on the housing element
because we're going to be facing some tough decisions and the more informed our residents are the more likely they are to understand the difficulties that we're facing and buy into the solutions.
How's that?
Sure.
I'm Bernardo Ferrari.
I've lived in Los Altos Hills all my life.
I am interested in being a worker bee and trying to help solve the issues relating to the housing element, but I do not believe I'm qualified to be chair of this committee.
Greg, yeah, do you want to?
Sure.
My name is Greg Leonard.
You can get the button.
Yeah, I am.
Oh, there we go.
Okay.
My name is Greg Leonard. I am a lifelong native of the Santa Clara Valley. Hard to be much more local.
St. Clairs, Bellarmine, Stanford, Stanford Law School. How's that for local?
And I just have, I have lived in Los Altos for 30 years.
And as I said the other night when we spoke at the City Council meeting, I'm here for the trees.
Hi,
I'm Kishnam Dastur.
I've been here only seven years, so relatively new to the community.
But I feel like the task is pretty straightforward.
Not as straightforward as we all think it is, but to kind of navigate the entire state
mandate while preserving the town, the rural character of this town, we need to really
We fiercely protect that while navigating through this housing committee.
I'm happy to be the vice chair and help many of these qualified people who are way more
qualified than me to be the chair, but I'm happy to step up as the vice chair and help
in however I can, whichever way I can.
I'm Lucille Glossman.
I think I'm a little different than the rest of you.
I'm here because I'm a little disturbed by how angry everyone has sounded and the
lawsuits and the disagreements and the dissent. I would like to see our
community pull together a little more than that. I don't know any of the other
eight people up here at least I didn't until last week and I hope that we end
up working together to find a good answer. I have the northmost property in
Los Altos Hills on basically at the intersection of Foothill and Old
page Mill Road so I'm way off in the corner.
Yeah, I'm Bridget Morgan. I have grown up on
the San Francisco Peninsula. I was raised in San Mateo and in the early 70s moved down here to
Los Altos Hills to an area which at that point was unincorporated. So I've lived in my home
for over 50 years, but have only been part of Los Altos Hills since 2007 when
my neighborhood was annexed because we wanted to put sewers in our four
streets and the only way that was possible was under California law. We
had to be incorporated. Anyway, since my area was incorporated, I've paid pretty
careful attention to Los Altos Hill's politics and governance just sort of an
interest of mine always has been from the time I was young politics and
government that is. I do not think I would make a good chair of the committee
not that I haven't held leadership roles in the past but at this stage in
In my volunteer life, I think I would be much better deployed as a really strong utility infielder
Staff I love digging into specific projects. I'm a good researcher
Fairly competent writer and
So that's and I think this whole
housing
housing element situation here in Los Altos Hills as well as housing statewide is a very
important topic. And I feel fortunate to be named to this committee and to be able to work
to help solve the problems that we face.
I'm Michael Grady. I live near Twin Oaks. I have been very active in trying to end
In the amendment of the housing element as originally drafted, there was a potential of
upwards of 450 units on a rastered arrow between the 280 underpass and Page Mill Road, which
neighbors and myself flagged as a grossly inappropriate concentration, which would have been a nightmare
in terms of emergency evacuation, traffic, all sorts of problems. I'm very
happy that the council finally cut back on the potential concentration. We're
still looking at Twin Oaks, the three lots that are zoned from multi-family,
have been zoned to enable upwards of a hundred units with density bonus.
And I think that the town, if you consider the mathematics of relying on pure private
development on private land in order to get the benefits of density bonus under the state
law, developers only have to include as little as 5% affordable units.
And currently based on our recent run rate of ADU units and what we're counting on
affordable, we have a – looks like a shortfall of about 49 affordable units.
And affordable is not people on food stamps and welfare, it's people making
decent salaries from the low end, very low income of $107,000 to over $200,000
for a family of four. But at 5% in order to get a short or to cover the
shortfall of 49 units or so, the town would have to rezone to enable 900 to 1,000 multi-family
units somewhere in town.
So I think the mathematics makes it very clear that we need to utilize some town-owned land
And where the town can dictate and work with a non-profit developer or if there's a for-profit
developer who can build it with land that the town provides for free, that's the way
to achieve the affordable.
I'm not lobbying to be chair, but I would serve.
Sue
Welch. My family's lived in Los
Elfos Hills for 38 years. I served in
the past 10 years on the Open Space
Committee and another 8 or 10 years on
the Pathways Committee. I really
appreciate and I'm interested in
protecting the natural resources in
town. I think they're important. They
will be what make our town look and
feel the way it does. I've been to
involved with the housing committee issues or the housing issues since probably mid 2024. I came in sort of late on the thing, but once I realized what was going on, I've been attending many meetings, many planning commission and council meetings and presented public comments at those meetings, paying attention to what's happening.
I would fully support Mike Grady being chairman of the committee.
I think it's really important that we have someone who is knowledgeable,
and there's no question that he's the most knowledgeable of all of us sitting here in this arc.
I understand that he may be traveling for a short time,
but a couple of weeks of his absence, I don't think would be a problem.
The committee has a lot of groundwork to get ourselves moving like a large train starting to run.
And frankly, you know, the town has dithered for some months before even appointing this committee.
So I think a few weeks urgency or a few weeks doesn't make a bit of difference.
So again, I would strongly, or I would nominate Mike Grady as chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Carol Gottlieb. I've been a resident of the town for 56 years. I grew up in the East Bay in a similar
environment. And we came to Los Altos Hills and I could once again have a horse.
And so my husband always said that we bought the property for the horse. But
I've been involved with the Pathway Committee for off and on for probably
10 years. I was on Planning Commission for 10 years. I have been an M now on
the Environmental Design and Protection Committee and the History Committee, and my mission would
be to try to keep the rural environment while satisfying the state mandates.
And this has to be done very carefully.
It's not only done by building, but it's done by looking at our objective design standards.
And this is something that I'm very concerned about,
that we get very strong, clear, objective design standards
for all the things that we have to get done.
And I am up to here, so I think if Mike wants to be chair,
that would be fine with me.
I
don't want to be chair.
One person wants to be vice chair.
And one person doesn't want to be vice chair.
I would not be a good speaker.
Microphone?
If you could repeat that statement.
Can we nominate Sue to be Secretary?
I served on the Pathways Committee with Sue Welch for eight years, and her minutes for the Pathways Committee were a thing of my...
I'm off the obsessive-compulsive disease medication now, so they won't be as good.
I guarantee it.
So then I'll make a motion for the slate of Michael Cushan-Sue.
Second.
Shall we take public comment?
Yeah, I would.
Anybody want to comment? Looks like not. Oh.
Turn on your.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm Jasmine Pombrough. I just wanted to thank all the members of this housing element committee.
You're taking on an awesome, very difficult, but very important task for our community.
I just wanted to stress on one point that Cheryl made community education is really important about the housing element.
I met so many residents who just have been talking about the housing element and they say just say no.
And so they don't understand so would be really helpful.
You know, people are really stressed about this so would be really important for education.
so thank you thank you so much
seeing no others shall we vote and no one on mine
either
okay so Carol Gottlieb Sue Welch yes Michael Grady I'll abstain yes
Richard Morgan yes well could you repeat your name though what I'm gonna seal
Thank you. And yes. Noted. I'm Kisham Dastur and I'll see yes too. Noted. In order for a yes.
Great
Leonard, yes.
Well congratulations. I
want to thank everybody up here with me for
volunteering your time. I know it's going to involve a lot of work going
forward and a lot of challenges, but thank you all. I'll do my best as Chair. I'm
going to, not having served on a public board before, asks sometimes for guidance
from Lucille, but what do we have? We have to choose. We have to choose our
regular meetings committees are typically once a month is that right regular
meetings typically and then obviously the committee can schedule other meetings
as appropriate so could could I just get clarity chair vice chair is vice chair
is Kush and Secretary Sue Welch. Sue Welch. Okay. Thank you.
I will throw out generally
Mondays and Tuesdays are best for me. I don't know what other constraints people have.
Monday's
Tuesdays work for me as well. Tuesdays are really bad for me. Mondays are okay. I have two other
meetings on Tuesday and I'm on a board that meets on Tuesday so I would prefer
if we didn't meet on Tuesday.
I'm more open either way I didn't comment on
time of day I thought I would narrow it down to day.
Or Tuesdays. Mondays are good.
Yes Monday is fine. Tuesday is fine.
I'm considering that all of the things we have to consider. I wonder if it's better to get off
running and start every other week instead of monthly to start out. What
was that Bernard? I'm
sorry. I was wondering if we could meet every other week instead of monthly to start off at
least until we feel like we have things kind of under control.
I'm going to be gone for the next three weeks, but I certainly don't have an objection to
the committee meeting in the interim.
Do we have a comment from the mayor?
I'm Roger, but he's just speaking as an individual.
One thing that we did on the Technology Committee, which I'm just going to share
with you that worked well for us as we had a regular meeting day and time on Wednesdays
from five to seven. But we also had an alternate meeting time. So we did the first week as our
regular meeting and third week as an alternate. And we found that to be pretty helpful in
case you needed more information, you need to reschedule that way. People already have
that time kind of blocked off. So just throwing that out as an idea, you might
I want to consider having your regular meeting on, say,
a Monday and then maybe week two, for example,
and have an alternate meeting on Monday in week four.
And that way, if you have an issue with scheduling
or you need more information, you have a time
that everybody already is aware of,
you don't have to make it easier to schedule.
Thank you.
I think, Bernard, you were proposing that we do twice a month anyway.
What are the rest of you?
Yes.
Okay.
I think we're going to agree.
How about?
Yeah, one other thing I would like the committee to understand is we also will have a planning commissioner that will be a liaison to this.
So one of the things is we want to be able to understand kind of some optionality for their schedule as well.
They'll be meeting on September 3rd to be able to make their selection.
So certainly if you guys have some options, then we will then present those to the Planning Commission
and then based on availability of the Planning Commissioners, they'll make their selection at that point.
So we'd just like to remind everybody that there is at least one other member that will need to be accounted for in this process.
What's his role?
Well, he or she has not been defined yet.
So they are the liaison.
So they will be offering insight and feedback
to the planning commission,
just like the chair will be offering feedback
from this committee to the planning commission as well.
And then also they're more advisory.
They've spent a lot of time with the housing element
and then the implementation programs to date.
so they would be able to offer another part of insight into the process above and beyond what staff
or the city attorney may offer. So they'll be at our meetings on a regular basis? That's correct.
Thank you Jay. Brigida, do you think Mondays would potentially work if we were to do say
first and third Mondays or second and fourth? That would probably be the least conflicting
of all the days Monday's yeah okay because on a Tuesdays between we've got
EDPC meetings this then depending on open space pathways things like that everything
is crazy so yeah thank you anybody have preference for evens for our odds first
and third or second and fourth so to that point chair we have currently on
on the first Monday of every month,
the finance and investment committee
that typically reserves council chambers
from four to six PM.
And then we do have some other committees
that are the fourth Monday.
And then we have the public art on the second Monday,
but that's in a different building.
So I believe you've got the second and third Mondays
available.
Or shall we talk about time of meeting?
I'm flexible. I'm retired.
Are you the only one who's still working? Actually it's the third Monday. I have
to go drop my daughter to college. So the third Monday won't work for me. Only
That's the only one. Every other Monday, any time works perfectly well.
What's your thought about meeting during the day and the mornings?
Yes, that works.
That works.
Sure.
All right. Well, anybody have preferences first and third versus second and fourth?
Fourth?
Sorry?
Is the fourth Monday?
The fourth Monday?
The 28th?
Yes.
No, I agree. No, so I'm saying it'll be either the first and third or the second and fourth.
Or we can do first and fourth too. No, first and third, fine. Second and fourth, fine.
First and third. Okay.
The first is the seventh, which is a Labor Day. So I'm fine meeting on that weekend if everybody's open.
I'll be in Europe. Sorry.
Do you want to do that or do you want to go, since it's Labor Day, do you want to go second
and fourth?
We could do second and fourth?
Maybe we should do second and fourth.
Sure.
We can do second and fourth.
The 14th and the 28th?
Correct.
That's for September.
And then...
That's for September?
Yeah.
And 12th and 26th of October.
Jay, can you fill me in on the process?
If we needed to schedule a special meeting and what we need to do.
Yeah, so regular meetings that we're talking about here will be agendized with a five-day notice with an agenda.
Anything related to a special meeting would be up to 72 hours in advance and still would require agenda to be posted to be able to discuss items for the committee.
And then we do have the city attorney online. So if there is any specifics, they're here for the later item. But if there were questions about notification for committee meetings, we can certainly call upon them.
Thank you.
I had a quick question. What can we have anybody join online?
So the meeting currently, as the agenda was posted today, does have online participation.
So right now we have three participants, our city manager, Cody Einfalt, and then one of our other planning commissioners.
And then let's see who else we've got.
One of our council members and another committee member.
So with that, we will pass over the role to the secretary to be able, with the help of the clerk to post agendas, to be able to make the agenda and its contents.
And then also that would include the management of Zoom and other accounts that are necessary to do the recreation of the meetings as well as minutes and other things like that that would come from the meeting.
Can I just ask a question?
If we're doing some kind of resident education, can we have that be a special meeting that occurs in the evening?
As noticed, is that?
That's correct, yeah.
And I think one of the things that the committee should understand is through this process the community development department did mention that there would be some additional resources that other committees don't have.
So we certainly understand that there may be needs for additional engagement.
So whether there's notices, things of that that need to go out,
then that would come from the community development budget as opposed to the standing committee budget,
which would be the $1,500 that you have to spend typically as a committee.
I think Lucille was asking about whether committee members can participate remotely.
Did I misunderstand?
I think that was my question.
Yeah, I think the question was, can the committee members join the meeting online?
So I think you'll remember the city attorney Steve Mattis mentioned that there are limited opportunities for remote participation.
And Claire, maybe if you have those particular regulations, I'll defer to you.
But if you don't have those available to you, then we can certainly provide that information at the next meeting.
Would you do that via email to all of us, or how would you do that?
We can.
Yes.
That would be great.
training on the BRADAC procedures and, you know, meeting attendance by remote meetings,
but also that there is a policy within the town that committees are able to utilize the
teleconference procedures, not more than two meetings a year.
That is a town policy, but we can provide some overview introduction about what the
available teleconference approaches are.
So if I understand correctly, we can participate because I thought I heard Steve Mattis say we needed to be sick or at some other location.
Well, some local location, right?
So, there is a teleconference, it's referred to as the traditional teleconference approach
under the Brown Act and that requires posting of agenda and...
Opening your remote location to the public. So there's one method. The other method that you
were just referencing is the what was referred to as AD 2449 or just cause and that's from
the COVID remote participation that has evolved to today. You need to have basically a reason
to participate and the reason includes health reasons. If you're sick, if you had to take
care of your family, if there is a health emergency, if there is, like, a traveling
on official business reasons, and that does not require posting at the remote
location, but it does require that a majority quorum be at a same location
within the town limits, and that location needs to be open to the public.
So there's just some differences in the approaches that you can utilize,
And then there's the town policy about how many remote attendances the committees and commissions, if not, the city council can utilize.
You've got to hit the button.
Yeah, I'm going to hit the button.
The button.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is that better?
Given that we're just getting started and Mike's going to be traveling, would it be acceptable for him to be able to attend that first meeting remotely so that we can get started and have him be there?
Or is that?
I'm asking for you.
We haven't talked about time and who knows where I'm going to be.
I'm going to be somewhere in France.
But I had just a clarification question.
Are there any particular formalities other than I'm sick at home, no doctor's note required?
Claire, do you want to respond?
Yeah, if you or if a committee member is wanting to utilize that approach, there are some limitations
about you have to keep your camera on and your audio on the whole time. If there's somebody in
the room with you who's over 18, you have to disclose that. You have to, at the start of
provide a general description of why you need to participate in this manner, so
those are the requirements for joining it that way.
All right, and when do you provide that general description? Just at the start of
the meeting that I'm participating remotely because I've got COVID or
whatever, or do you have to do that in advance?
So the statute provides it as early as possible, including at the start of the meeting.
I think the customary practice is to have the body, whoever's doing that as part of the body,
to say that at the start of the meeting so that the rest of the body and the public is aware.
Yes, as the secretary, I would ask that the town provide the committee written information about all of this
so that everyone understands clearly
and exactly what you can do, what you can't do.
I would appreciate that.
Thank you.
Also a note to Cheryl's point that Michael
can participate remotely as a member of the public
without actually, since we aren't voting on anything,
he can call in and be a member of the public.
He can't run the meeting, but you can still be there.
And then, Chair, if I may, through you
to the city attorney.
Claire, I may have been misremembering the notification for meetings for the agendas for both regular and special.
I think I was recalling the Planning Commission timing.
Could you maybe talk about committee timing?
So the meeting, the posting agenda is under state law.
It is 72 hours before a regular meeting and 24 hours before a special meeting.
But in town, our practices, the posting occurs much earlier.
Like Jay said, the regular meetings, Jenna has posted, well, in advance, five days at
least.
And for special meetings, I think that practice is also to post it the Friday before, so
that gives at least two or three days, but that's part of town's practice, but understay
all 72 and 24 hours for regular and special meetings.
And that's not business days, that's include weekends. So if we post on Friday, that suffices.
Is that right?
That's calendar days, yes.
Okay. I mean, I would encourage us to try and post a little bit sooner if we are able to,
but I want to make sure we're in compliance with the law too.
We
haven't talked about specific time in the morning. We just said in the morning, 10 o'clock.
Works.
Do we need to make formal resolutions to set times and days?
Do we have to wait till planning?
Claire, I believe a vote would be necessary for this.
Yes, I would advise you to make a motion and take both on the vote.
So, I move that we have our meetings at 10 o'clock on Monday mornings.
We have to wait for planning or what can we do that now?
Okay.
I just was going to add a little bit of FYIs as far as I looked at the town calendar.
We have a listening session for planning commission on September the 14th, but that doesn't
start till 6.
On the 4th, Mondays, the 28th of September and the 26th of October, we have two different
groups meeting both in Duxbury as well as here at Berkson Rec and Duxbury and Pathways here,
but that's at six o'clock in the evenings. So 10 in the morning should be fine. I don't think
there's a conflict with City Calendar from what I can tell, so yeah. Okay, I'll entertain a motion
for regular meetings second and fourth Mondays of the month at 10 a.m. for our regular meetings.
Second.
Shall we call a roll?
Yep.
Carol Gottlieb?
Yes.
Sue Welch?
Yes.
And I'll do vice chair and chair last.
So Bridget Morgan?
Yes.
Lucille Classman?
Yes.
Bernardo Ferrari?
Yes.
Cheryl Evans?
Yes.
Greg Leonard, please?
Yes.
You turned it off, Greg.
Yes.
Okay.
Krishnan Dashtar?
Dashtar.
Yes.
Dashtar.
And Michael Grady?
Yes.
I think, Jay, you're up according to our agenda.
Thank you for the agenda.
Yes, no problem, Chair.
So I think because this was the first of what will be many meetings, I don't necessarily
have a formal presentation for the committee, but I have had a series of conversations
with individuals that are interested in this topic.
And I believe that maybe there's some committee members here
that may have some items that they would like to talk about
from a housekeeping perspective,
some perspective that they've seen from other communities
as it relates to work on the housing element,
thinking of Carmel and Portola Valley specifically.
And so one of the things that I've been doing is accumulating materials from members of the community that I plan to send out to this committee so that we can start to look at what those other communities are doing to be able to set some of the hopefully housekeeping procedures.
And then certainly I would welcome any comments or feedback from the committee with some of those ideas that you may have been coming to this committee with and what you'd like to work on.
I think obviously we're all kind of aware of what the charter is for this particular committee and what it's going to be looking and focusing on.
And so with that, I would turn it back to the committee at this point in time.
If there's anything that you'd like us to start to consider for the next agenda,
and we can certainly then start to build that list of what you'd like to discuss.
I just have a question.
Can you possibly provide for every member on the committee a full recent copy of the amended housing element?
I guess it was January that it was amended.
I mean, I printed out some of it, but it's – I don't want to burn up all my tone or
just get – so I would really appreciate it.
You're looking for a hard copy?
Yes, please.
Yes, no problem.
And could we have a –
Is that like 300 or something?
A copy of the charter?
Yeah.
Second.
I've never seen the charter.
I'd like to see that.
We have a charter on this committee.
We do have a charter.
It was adopted in the April 17th meeting of 2026.
It appends the charter for the rest of the standing committees of the town,
and certainly can provide that.
If you're looking for it online currently, you'd see it in Civic Clerk for the April 16th meeting.
Sorry.
And it's an agenda item 6A.
But we'll provide a copy of that as well with the housing element hard copy.
I don't need a hard time.
And could you also provide a copy of the full standing committee resolution that sort of that?
I've always found a very helpful document because it kind of spells out quite clearly expectations, dependence policy.
Certainly.
Finally, we will provide the resolution and the staff report that went along with the
Council's deliberations.
And there may be two staff reports associated with the committee's formation, so we'll provide
both of those.
Okay.
Just to...
Because we didn't even have a standing committee.
Cheryl, you turned yours off.
Look for the red light.
Okay.
We didn't have a standing committee approved back in April.
So how did we...
So the charter was approved.
Okay.
So not the actual members of the committee.
That wasn't until just recently.
Okay.
I think it might be helpful to let all the committee members know,
if they don't already know this,
you're asking for a hard copy of the housing element.
That's 320 pages.
Okay.
So as long as everybody understands that, but...
That's why I want them to print it out and give it to me.
more days reading it so good luck with that well I have a question in terms of
I guess Brown act are we able to conduct study sessions and have more
informal discussions, brainstorming sessions, or as a formal committee do we
have to operate like we're doing now?
Any time that a quorum of the members are
wanting to discuss or have a conversation, have discussion, together
that needs to be in a notice meeting.
So you could have had up to four members within any one meeting,
but then those members could not then go talk with other members of the
committee in series or in other styles of meetings.
So we just need to notice the meeting then.
I'm thinking, for example, if we wanted to have a California
a land trust person come and talk about all the various ways we could do land
trusts. Maybe that's something we could do as a listening session but we could
invite you know the public to come as well. Yeah it sounds like we have to
notice everything and yeah okay. When I was on the Pathways Committee there
were several opportunities for us ad hoc subcommittee to be appointed that was
less than a quorum and we I was sat on one of those subcommittees that met
pretty regularly for over a year and there were no agendas or minutes
required and or that we provided and I'm assuming that's still the case so
So I do believe the clerk and some of the comments that we've heard from the public
about transparency would, I think, move the committee to want to have published meetings,
maybe not necessarily meeting minutes, but maybe action items from a meeting.
Obviously, we'll try to minimize the effort that the Secretary has to do.
But in that vein, then, and certainly, Claire can add color to that as well.
Yeah, so ad hoc committees that comprise the flesh and a quorum they're not
subject to the Brown Act so you the committee the ad hoc committee members
can meet without having to agendize their meetings but one caution of that is
that the ad hoc cannot go and then talk to the rest of the committee because
that would very likely constitute a stereo meeting and that's very a risk
for them to do that. And the other consideration is, you know, like Jay mentioned, the committee
they just want to have these published meetings in order for public participation, you know,
and on the topics if somebody is wanting to make a presentation or if you're studying
a topic, you know, the committee is most likely desires to have that larger meeting
as a public.
Can we assign an individual or a couple of individuals a task of researching something
and then bringing that back to the entire committee at a notice meeting?
You can. The people who are assigned, you know, they cannot be more in the quorum. And one
thing to note is that the ad hoc committee is supposed to be, you know, ad hoc. So
case-by-case basis and they don't have some kind of continuing obligation or
continuing task because then that quickly becomes a standing committee which is
subject to the Brown Act so when you know forming these these groups that you
you want to consider those.
Is there a summary of the Brown Act that all of
same page? Yeah, as we mentioned earlier in the meeting, so we've got on the agenda, you know,
general questions tonight, but there will be a formal Brown Act training that will have a participation
component for yourself specifically that will result in a certification issued by our City
Clerk, which it will meet your state obligations for a duration of time before you'd have to
take the Brown Act training again as an as a refresher. Cool. How soon do we need to
complete that?
Hi Cody here. I'm just jumping in. I wanted, I'll touch base with Erika about
when we could get our legal team to help schedule that meeting. So all these questions that
you're asking could get answered then. And then to, I believe it was Sue's earlier
question. Yes, we do have some cheat sheets already made for the teleconferencing guidelines
lines that, you know, just summarize everything of all the situations that you might find
yourself in to be able to utilize the teleconferencing rules.
So that could also be distributed along with all the requested documents that you have.
But Michael, to your exact question, let me touch base with just availability of the
instructor for the session that we're putting together.
It's something similar to if for the committee members that are on other mitties you've
gone through before. It's going to be an in-person meeting where you could ask all
these in-depth questions. Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's any, you know,
ticking clock that needs to be completed within X number of days of the
initial formation of the committee. I'm back the night of September 20th.
Claire, do you know the... The obligation to take training is a year from
So I think we're going to be okay in terms of time.
Okay.
I did meet with the city attorney yesterday morning and got clarification on certainly the members who are friends of the Hills.
And we summarize that and send it back to him for any edits that he might make to it.
And as soon as we have that, I will circulate it to everybody on this committee.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Thank you, Cheryl.
What did you submit to?
An understanding of what it was he...
Cheryl, you've got to speak into the microphone.
Oh, it was just an understanding of how the Brown Act applies to us.
And so I'll get that to everybody.
We'll review that and, you know, we can provide that to the committee.
And again, this is something we can also cover in the training
about kind of transmitting information to the entire committee, kind
of
serving that role and having everybody else reply to them.
But that's something we can cover.
I am Brown Act certified because I've been on other committees.
Do I have to certify again just for this committee or when I think it's every two
years that you have to certify the Brown Act?
I think I have another year.
But if I don't, I will take it. But if I don't have to, I won't.
You're correct, Carol. You're certified.
What?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great, Carol.
If you are already part of another committee,
then there's no obligation at this point in time until your existing
certification lapses.
And then we would ask prior to that for you to recertify.
As Chair, I'm going to deviate from council's practice and indulge hearing the public out
of order.
Thank you.
Mr. Battagio.
I'll repay the favor at some point.
Thank you.
I will hold you to that.
All right.
I just thought you might want to be aware of one particular issue that's likely to
come up, which is reply all.
If you get an email and you're part of a committee and you reply all, that could be a Brown Act violation.
So it's a good policy to BCC everybody on the committee and just let them know this is going to the full committee.
But I'm BCC-ing everybody. Please don't reply all.
Of course, if you're BCC-ing everybody, that's not really an issue.
But it could be like five of them reply to you.
So generally, we just discourage replies in general.
Thank you, Rajeev.
I think shall we take on the agenda for the next meeting?
I will not be here, but I would like, and Jay,
I hate to load more on to you and the staff,
But I would like kind of an update on where we are tracking kind of a preview of the mid-cycle
review report that HCD is going to get from you sometime early next year or I'm not sure
exactly when they expect it to come.
Yeah.
So it's part of the annual progress report.
So we do that by the beginning of April, end of April, every year.
So I think we've got a very good document in our APR from this year.
The southern cities within California have had to go through the mid-cycle review process.
So the APR has already been geared to respond for those cities in the southern part of the state.
So, if we provided the APR and there's probably one or two tabs of the APR that are most germane to the committee,
which is our housing planning throughput and then our construction throughput,
and then where our programs stand as it relates to implementation.
With those three tabs, there's a few other things that we put into the APR,
but I think those are going to be the things that are most interesting to the committee.
so we can certainly bring those.
That'd be great. Thank you, Jay.
Does that have the addresses of the...
It does have addresses associated with...
Because I think it's really important to go out and look
at some of the ADUs that have been built
and the SB9s that have been built
and see what the impact of that is on our community.
So I would, when it was on planning, I always checked out when something was done to see if it was what I thought it was going to look like, it did look like, or it didn't look like.
And I think that gives you a really good idea of the impact on the community.
I'd like to put on the agenda just brainstorming what resident education would look like and
the questions that we might want to ask residents in terms of their input, like, you know, do
they want multifamily housing concentrated in one area or more spread out through town.
I'm sure there are many questions that we, or at least we would limit it to a few,
but questions that would be helpful for us in terms of understanding what it is the community is wanting.
Surely some of that's already been done.
I'd love to know what – I have other things to do than to redo work councils already done.
We've never had a community meeting.
But maybe if there is something out there, I'd like to see that.
So I do think some of the materials that I'll share with the group do show some of the way that other communities have interacted.
I do think that because there has been feedback on the historic practice limiting public engagement,
that it would be beneficial for the committee to see how other communities have accomplished that particular task.
And it's not something that we've necessarily taken up as a topic between staff or at council's request.
So that is some of the information that we certainly can provide in advance of the meeting that could maybe offer a framework for then how you talk about and look at that engagement piece in the future.
Good. Specifically, I think you're talking about how other communities have attacked the affordable. Yeah, that would be great, Jay. Thank you very much.
Any other thoughts on agenda issues for the next meeting?
Are there any ongoing lawsuits we need to be aware of?
And are we allowed to know that?
Claire, do you want to take this one?
Um, so the, that is not, we don't, we don't provide briefings of the ongoing cases, um,
to, you know, outside of, you know, a closed session with the council.
I would say that's not, that's not information that we, we typically provide.
And so, you know, I think that the committee in deciding what items to discuss should focus
on the information that you receive from staff, that's, you know, maybe that comes from
from HCD, Bolton's, ABAG guidance, and then in the provisions of the housing program and
how best those can be.
Claire, I'm going to stop you there.
I think it's for this committee to decide what it is we want to attack and what we
want to do.
So I don't want to have you tell us what we shouldn't look into.
I will ask you a question.
Is there any reason why this committee couldn't have a closed session with counsel to get an
update on the litigations since that is certainly germane to the solutions on the meeting arena.
Is there any legal prohibition to us having a briefing from Litigation Council on that
in closed session?
The,
and that scope is the implementation of the housing element, you know, it is up
to the city council to decide if that scope would be changed in some way.
And so, it is not our practice to provide that information to bodies that are outside
of the council.
Is there something that you're saying in the resolution establishing this committee that would prohibit that?
If so, I'd like to see it in writing.
Well, my understanding of the committee is not tasked with reviewing these litigations and, you know, coming up with strategies that's not as fast.
That's the task of the committee is the Housing Element Inventation, which is why I offer approaches
that you could look at that issue in discussion of implementing the Housing Element Programs
and goals of policy.
Excuse me.
Claire, is the issue that there are confidentiality issues with related to litigation?
I mean, because otherwise, if litigation has been initiated, all the documents should be
public and go look in the judicial calendars and find the cases that are in file.
So I don't quite understand what it is that you're protecting.
Well, the core doc,
the strategies and the thoughts behind it.
Nobody's asking for strategy.
We're asking to be a briefed on what litigation is there and what the topics are and how it
might impact what the committee does.
We're not asking for legal strategies.
Oh, wow.
I heard differently.
But if you're providing, if you're asking for summaries of the cases, you know,
there are, we, you know, report, we reported them as a part of public meetings in short
form, you know, the documents we can provide them to you. The core documents are public
boundary.
And I could just.
You're just, you cannot, this committee cannot and will not step into dealing with the strategy
of litigation. That is not our job. We can't do that.
I'd like to see, given the issues that have been raised and some litigations that I've
seen, I think it is very germane to
how the town is going to have to solve the housing
element and the arena, how it's going to meet its arena.
Maybe we need to, well, I'll review the resolutions and the charter and we'll leave
that open for further discussion whether we are able to get a confidential
briefing. Yeah
just from an advisory standpoint just let you know as planning
commissioners we don't get to learn about the litigation either. I think
actually you have more privilege as a private citizen figuring some of that
stuff out than we've been. I just had Marco also find the resolution that has
the charter for the committee, and maybe he can display it for you as well.
So you kind of see the marching orders that was in the resolution from April 16th.
I'll take a look at that afterwards, and I want to take the time to do it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Tonight.
But to the chair's point, certainly if there's other communications less sensitive
in nature from HED, things of that nature will provide an update of where we are
at with those forms of communications at the next agenda.
Thank you, Jay.
I was wondering, can we have a roster of the committee members with the emails and telephone
numbers so we have an easy way of communicating?
I believe the clerk has that information, so we'll share that as well.
Thank you.
Is that enough for the next?
Can you hear me?
Yes.
There's a planning commissioner online, Rajiv Patel, asking to speak to the committee.
Sure, Mr. Patel.
Hi, this is Rajiv Patel speaking as an individual.
Just a few points based on what you're talking about.
As you know, there will be a formal Planning Commissioner liaison provided to this committee.
I would say lean on that person to help you with any questions regarding Brown Act or
any items even around housing element because the Planning Commission has been discussing
that for a very long time.
And I'm hopeful that that person should be officially and formally available by your next meeting.
For Brown Act messaging, for instance, what a lot of us on the Planning Commission do is to send a message to either the town staff
staff or Erika and then have that person distribute that message to everyone on the committee.
This helps in preventing any issues with potential Brown Act violations.
So this is just a thought.
If any of you talk outside the meeting with another member, one recommendation I would
also provide is that at the next meeting, talk about who you talked with and make that a public
record so that it's clear that it was not a Brown Act violation. You talk to maybe one,
two, or less than the quorum number of members outside this meeting and you should be good.
So, just some tips on how to, you know, get your work done faster and lean on people who have done this before and it will help you all. Thank you.
Thank you, Ruzi.
If I understand where we are next item on the Agenda Brown Act and meeting procedures, that's coming later.
Well, so you had a lot of those questions that we were hoping to field kind of ad hoc.
So I believe we've addressed that item.
Next is public comment.
Thank you all for being here and does anybody have anything to say from the public?
This is Rajiv again, one more public comment.
It would be great for you to discuss among yourself precisely what your agenda topics
for next meeting are.
That will help your secretary in putting together the agenda.
And it will also clarify to all of you as to what you want to discuss next time.
Clearly, you will be able to add more agenda topics outside the meeting, but it might
be a good start.
Could
I add one more item for our agenda?
And that is just maybe brainstorming the kinds of information that we might need in terms of, you know, having a listening session with a nonprofit developer or a listening session with a community land trust person.
And just kind of a list of things that we might want to explore in future meetings so
that we can then begin contacting those resources or whatever and scheduling them out.
Let me summarize what I think we have for the next meeting agenda.
We were going to get a progress report from staff on kind of where we are in meeting
the housing element and rena numbers kind of up to date.
Cheryl, you had said
brainstorming resident education I think will add resident and committee
education as a discussion session. And these are not necessarily in the same
order. Jay also said he would be providing information on how other communities have dealt
with meeting their arena for affordable housing. And I am still interested in
a status update
on litigation, but perhaps leave that off of this next one since I won't be here.
So those three items, is that sound?
And I think the last one that Shira mentioned about needing to listen to sessions with, like, land developers and or...
Yeah, I just kind of added that into brainstorming.
Sounds good.
We need a resolution to...
We don't need a...
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, are you still in public comment?
Sure.
Can I be a public comment?
No, just to help you guys along a little bit.
There are a couple of really great resources I would recommend everybody on the committee to take a look at.
Our town website specifically has a housing element in the various iterations that we went through, including the final one.
And the town website is kind of a good place to kind of get started.
But I will say I am old school.
I love hard copies.
This is the most current housing element, and you see it's all flagged and tagged.
You just see my municipal codebook.
This is equally as bad.
It just helps because when you're looking at things electronically, you can't go back and forth as easily,
and this just helps you to get more of a visual and organize your brain around.
So sometimes paper's not all that bad.
The other thing I wanted to mention to you too, to think about hearing your next agendas,
is that we have E11 dealing with incentives for lower income housings going to be on our agenda for the next planning commission meeting.
It's pretty complicated. Even us as commissioners really like, you know, we're not specialists when it comes to knowing about how to incentivize developers to create affordable housing.
So that's a great one. We could use some home or gone from everybody.
And another one is program A12, which is the duplex and triplex, which we have are so behind the A-ball, we didn't mean for it.
It's due in Q1 of 2027.
And that's a whole can of worms that we have yet to open up, and we really need your focus on that.
So if you want some extra homework, there you go.
Anyway, thank you.
I have a question.
You're saying that's the housing element in front of you?
Yes.
I just finished reading it online, it was 300 pages.
That is by no way 300 pages.
Yeah, it's close to it.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I've got – well, that is –
You have a really thin paper.
Yeah, this – I basically – this is the last one that – before it changed again.
So it might have gotten a little thicker, but this is close to 280, I think.
But this one here is as of September 25th, 2024.
So it probably has a few more visions to it, but yeah, I didn't want to torture staff and all I want two copies
I want the original one that we had and the latest one that I've been working with which is this is good enough for my purposes
But yeah, they yeah, it just helps to have paper sometimes not always
Yeah, just so I understand the you said E11 and E12
E11, A12
A-12. Yeah. The duplexes, triplexes and incentives.
A-12. Suggesting that we add them to our agenda immediately or that we go read about them.
No, just read about it and start thinking about it because that is going to be our homework assignment.
There's planning commissioners here for the next three to four months.
And maybe Jay can help that that also kind of to the forefront of the discussions that he presents at the next meeting
because we're going to be needing some help, basically.
So the more brains around this, the more we appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
Brigida.
The meeting on the E-11, there's a 1 o'clock meeting next,
and then there's the regular plan.
Yeah, it's an all...
We have, I think we're up to 11 agenda items,
and so we're starting at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
Okay.
We do get an hour break, and then it starts up again at 6.
I think the agenda will be put in such a way where we have certain items assigned
before the dinner hour and certain items assigned for after the dinner hour. And I think Jay can
expand upon that. Yeah, so the E-11 item will be in the morning session, so the 1 p.m. slot.
Okay, thank you. Yeah. Excuse me, what's the date on that? That's
September 3rd. Yes, September 3rd, which is a Thursday, I know.
Jay, I saw on the notice of that meeting that the report on the E-11 incentives would be
available a couple days before or something.
That's not available now.
It'll be ready for Friday's publication, it's still in concept phase.
Yeah, I imagine.
Any way I could ask you to email me a copy directly.
Oh yeah, no problem.
That'd be great.
I will read it somewhere in Europe.
Any more public comments, staff updates?
Jay, is there something on this one?
Well,
so we've already heard about E-11 and A-12.
One of the other ongoing items that we've been talking about, and so just to kind of give some context, the housing element has 60 programs to implement.
We've implemented to date all except for two of the required programs in the timeline, and that's going to be E11 and then A6.
A6 is tied to our inclusionary housing policy, and we receive some information from other
members of the public that had questions as it related to the results of the study,
and then the potential actions that were being recommended to the Planning Commission.
So we do need to come back with that item, though we will not have it prepared on the
September 3rd date.
So what you will see is that we've noticed it with the anticipation that we would be ready.
There's some additional work that we need to do, so you will see that item either continued or withdrawn.
But know that it is something that we are very close to finishing,
but we still need to have a resolution approved by the Planning Commission as well as then two subsequent actions with City Council.
It's been a topic that from the study's perspective has been going on for about a year and a half now.
And we've had multiple meetings with both the Planning Commission committees to other committees and then the City Council as well.
So we had hoped to have this meeting on this item in August, but that's when we ran into some of the public comment
that's caused us to have to do a little bit more analysis associated with that comment and to be able to respond.
So I would just note that those are really where we're at from a implementation of the policies perspective.
Thank you so much for being active.
Which means we're in a fairly decent place as it relates to the overall implementation goals associated with the housing amount.
Can you remind me what's A-12?
A-12 is inclusionary housing. So there is a...
A-12 is the conversion of the...
Oh, sorry. A-12 is duplexes and triplexes. Conversion of single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes.
A-6 is the inclusionary.
Thank you, Claire.
Thank you, Jay.
Any comments from the committee?
We have three land use committees that are very much in need of new blood in them.
We are short.
Most of them are four.
We have four or five members.
And also I'll include history, which is a very interesting.
You've learned a lot about the town.
If anybody has some extra time and would like to join it, we would love to have you.
It's very interesting.
The land use committees, especially, will see almost all the applications over 900 square feet.
So you get a very good perspective of town.
And you learn the different things about drainage and all the other aspects of development.
So I would really think it would be great if a couple of you can join one of our committees.
Okay. If there's nothing else, I think we can adjourn on time, even ahead of time.
Thank you so much.
Good job.
Thank you.