Hello everyone. Good afternoon. The
Hillsboro City Council U meeting is
called to order. Um, city clerk, may we
please have the roll call.
>> Thank you. Mayor Cole Adams
present. Schwang Krick present. Bragdale
present. Cole
>> present.
>> Thank you.
>> So, um, we're here this afternoon. is
300 p.m.
>> Yeah. 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Um the
item on our agenda we're doing in the
study session on proposed fiscal year
2026 2027 budget. um schedule of fees
and charges and proposed revisions to
general fund reserve policy. And that
will be presented by finance director
Jan Cook and assistant finance director
Rich um Santiago and Drew Corbett and
principal um DKG consultants.
>> Good afternoon.
First, we'll be going through the 2627
budget.
Perhaps
we will.
Oh, there we go. Okay.
So, I'll be doing an executive summary
and then we'll have Rich give you some
more of the budget details.
So, first the process starts with a city
council goal session where city council
prioritizes the goals for the coming
year. Then in April we do the financial
advisory study session and they did
recommend the proposed budget and fees
for adoption consideration of adoption.
Today we'll be reviewing the budget
study session for the budget and then in
June the city council will hold a public
hearing and and consider adoption of the
budget.
starting the process is the 26 27 city
council priorities
and there's really five kind of
categories that we've put those into.
First is improving community safety,
emergency preparedness and resilience
efforts. And the first is to improve
access on the telecommunications service
throughout town to prepare wild fire
preparedness building code amendments
for the councelor consideration.
completing the design of the Highline
water project and securing the grant
funding. The good news on that is the
brick uh grant is still on is back on
the table. So, we'll be pursuing that.
The other is advancing the technology
for to improve public safety and
transparency
and ebike education and enforcement.
Next is implementing the housing element
and maintaining compliance with state
requirements. developing the master plan
for the for the Tobin Clark multifamily
housing and the town hall complex and a
comprehensive general plan update for
the safety element and long-term town
planning and implementing the housing
element programs and fees.
The third category is enhanced quality
of life and this would be bolstering the
code enforcement program to address key
issues in the town. Executing the 40
Baywood agreement and work toward
operations
forming formalizing the town's role in
the annual Memorial Day parade.
Update city the climate action plan
pesticide use education efforts and
updating the commercial and special
event regulations.
The next category is ensuring long-term
financial security and that would
include updating the water and sewer
rates, implementing the long range
financial funding analysis and
implementing systems and processes and
training. And the last query uh category
is improving transparency, efficiency
and customer service. And that is
implement programs and software to
improve the internal efficiencies.
review the city council handbook,
evaluate feasibility of paid family
leave pilot program, and evaluate the
feasibility of the internship program.
So those are the priorities for the
coming year and any resources that are
necessary for executing those have been
included in the budget.
Giving some financial position and
context for this coming year's budget.
Some of the opportunities we're seeing
is that the assessed valuation for real
estate, which uh drives the property
taxes, is growing at 5% on the assessed
value role, which is a very uh good
stable number uh for revenue on the
general plan. Also, there was a building
and planning cost of service study that
the city council has studied and will be
considering for adoption, I believe,
tonight. Um and we have included revenue
in the budget for for that opportunity.
And then we just talked about the FEMA
brick grant. So um the focus this year
will be on securing that grant and
ensuring that um the design of the
project is completed this year. Some of
the risks that we're seeing this year
are in the inloo vehicle license fees
and we'll continue to watch that. And
then also there could be some
uncertainty in the marketing economy. Um
we're not seeing that right now
significantly impacting the budget but
we have budgeted conservatively for
that.
Looking at the budget at a glance, total
budget is 82.3 million. That's for all
funds. Uh the primary ones being the
general fund, the water and the sewer
funds, and then the street funds uh for
capital improvements of the streets. And
that's an 8% decrease primarily because
the prior year had uh some capital
improvements um that are higher than the
current year that we're coming into. The
general fund reserve is 26.5 million.
And the budget overall funds the
operations of the town as well as the
city council goals and there's 11.6 6
million of capital spending, which is a
fairly significant amount um mainly in
water and sewer uh operations. There's
no headcount increase.
There's no additional preunding in the
115 pension trust. And that trust covers
about one year of the annual required
contribution for the town's Kalpers's
contribution.
And the water and sewer funds are based
on their projections are based on the
new cost of service studies and rates
that have been studied by city council.
The budget does comply with the
financial policies and debt covenants um
for our our debt reserves.
This is a view of our general fund
reserve projection. On the left is how
it's formatted in the current policy. On
the right is how it's formatted for the
proposed policy that we'll be having a
discussion on later uh this afternoon.
And it's we're not going to spend a lot
of time on that here on this slide, but
I just wanted to show you how it would
look in the budget context. on the left
for the current policy which is how the
budget book is currently prepared shows
that there's a contingency reserve
minimum of 30% of operations to 50% of
operating costs. That gets us to a $19.7
million reserve required by policy. In
addition to that, we have a restricted
reserve for the balance in the 115
pension trust. Those can only be used
for pension related costs and that's 6
million. There's an assigned amount in
here for 750,000
which is proposed uh to help fund the
transition of the general fund when the
safer grant for central county fire uh
is ended in a couple of years. We'll
have kind of a runway to help us with
that budget impact. And then the last is
the unassigned amount for a total
general fund balance of 26.5 million.
On the proposed policy side, the biggest
difference you'll see is really in the
total proposed policy is about the same
amount. However, it's in three different
buckets. And we'll be going into more
detail on that and having a more
detailed discussion about that uh later
in the afternoon.
One of the goals for 2526 and 2627 is to
implement the long range financial
funding plan. And so I wanted to just
quickly update you on that and also tie
that back into what do we have
anticipated in our budget for the coming
year. So the goals of that funding plan
were to address the operational budget
gaps that we had projected, also to
safeguard against revenue volatility
such as the VLF that we're seeing.
Addressing the public safety funding
needs for fire service. We know that
Central County Fire is is growing and
safer grant will be ending and so there
there's an additional cost with that.
The funding of existing capital
projects. An example of that would be
the storm brain capital plan and then
funding new capital projects as defined
potentially being a town hall complex.
Uh Tobin Clark development um are two
examples of that.
So when the city council studied this in
November last year, there were four
areas that we they instructed staff to uh start implementing and one of
those being the building planning fee
study for cost recovery and that study
has completed. We have anticipated that
revenue in the budget for this year
coming year. We've also analyzed the
central county fire department
contribution for finance services that
are provided to central county fire and
have included additional service fees uh
in our revenue for that piece as well in
the 2627 budget.
The third one is considered changing
conditions for CCFT that warrants a
change in the cost sharing formula
between the three cities which are
Berling game, Milbury and Hillsboro. And
the Central County Fire Board is
conducting a study session I believe
it's this week um to review that
operating model and cost sharing uh
opportunities.
And then the last is conducting polling
of the community for revenue via a new
tax and that is in process and this will
be reported out uh I believe in the June
meeting in more detail this whole update
on the long range financial funding
plan. But I just wanted to kind of tie
that back into what's actually in the
budget for this for next year.
With that, we're going to hand it over
to Rich for proposed budget details.
>> Thank you. Good afternoon, Council.
All right. So, um you can see there the
total budget resources for fiscal year
2627 is 83.9 million. Majority of is
from the water and sewer funds uh
revenue as well as property taxes. Those
make up the two primary sources. Um as
Jan mentioned earlier, there was a cost
of service study for building planning.
So, the 5% of permits is an increase uh
shown in the budget for fiscal year
2627.
uh intergovernmental that's made up of
VLF as well as well as um special
revenue funds like measure A, measure W,
gas tax and the police grants fund and
then use of other assets uh primarily as
investment income, rents and franchises
as well.
And then the budget expenditures uh
total 82.3 million. Again, you can see
the majority of it comes from water and
sewer um as well as public safety.
makes up 35% of that as
well.
And then this just slices it up by the
different funds again reflecting the
82.3
million that Jan was mentioning for
general fund. The primary drivers of
that increase are contractual and labor
increases as well as the CCFD uh
contributions that's going up 14% or
about 1.5 million. um as well as funding
city council goals. Um capital and asset
replacements, those tend to fluctuate
just with the timing of capital for
those. Uh water, the increase primarily
is the SFPC rate where we purchase our
water. Uh that's increasing 7.4%.
Uh sewer timing of capital as well. So
that's why you see that one down. And
then all others, uh special revenues,
that's primarily for police grants. Um
this year they're funding for the drone
program uh as well as equipment for
radios and cameras.
And as Jan mentioned earlier, there is
no new um no new uh personal headcount.
And then onto the general fund, you can
see 42.8 million for the revenue um with
strong property tax growth about 1.3
million based on the tax 5% increase. Um
and then also the increase that we
mentioned for the billing and planning
uh revenue for the cost of service study
that was implemented as part of the uh
fiscal year 2627 budget. Um and then the
increases for the expenditures again
it's the labor uh and contractual
increases as well as CCFD contributions
uh ending in a net operating excess of
1.8 before transfers. Um we do have
capital transfers of 2.2 2 million and
that's funding storm drains, uh, various
facilities, phases of the general plan,
uh, as well as the town hall complex,
uh, planning.
And then here's the general fund
revenue. Again, it shows kind of the
different sections. Majority of it comes
from property taxes, which is stable, as
well as the public safety tax. Those two
remain stable. And then the big change
again is the permits u and billing and
planning fees from the cost of service
study.
For expenditures
um again it's personnel with the
majority of the increase um or majority
of the budget as well as CCFD. The 2.2
capital transfers that is um where is
it? It's it's less than the current
fiscal year about 5.7 million. this
current fiscal year, we had two big uh
budget amendments for the Charton Trail
Bridge and the Parkside Bridge um
funding those from the general fund. So
that's why there's much uh of a
difference between what we're budgeting
this year for the capital transfers
and then links to um budget items to
goals. Here's a few of them directly
linked to the city council goals. A few
examples uh for committee service,
committee and customer service improved
telecommunication
uh a dedicated budget for the parade and
looking into establishing a fundraising
foundation. Uh Jen mentioned earlier for
financial stability the uh long range
funding study um for planning continuing
the safety element and uh other regional
partnerships like the chipping program.
And then this is our five-year CIP
overview. Uh you can see starting in
fiscal year 2627 and for the next five
years it's about 60.7
million uh to be funding infrastructure
facility improvements as well as asset
replacements. Uh majority of it is water
and sewer which are for the rateayer
CIPs uh followed by storm drains and
streets.
And then for the current year uh Jan
mentioned 11.6 6 million for water.
Majority of that is water main
replacements as well as other proposed
projects. Uh for sewer, majority of that
is priority basins. Um and then we're
continuing to fund storm drain uh
through the general fund. There is no uh
street resurfacing this upcoming fiscal
year. We go on a bianial uh spending
program and so we did street resurfacing
this fiscal year 25 26 and we'll do it
again in 2728.
Um all of them are based on master plans
that help prioritize spending for each
program uh each year. And then for
facilities and equipments uh fire
station improvements as well as other
equipments uh are proposed. There's also
funding of uh portions of that safety
element um and the town hall complex
remodel that I was speaking about. And
then about 1.2
is to replace vehicles uh IT equipment
and hardware. And then the police
equipment that I mentioned, the drone
program, the cameras, and the radios.
And then uh I think back to you, J.
So in summary, it meet the budget funds
all the operations and the city council
goals and it meets all the policies and
debt covenants that are needed. Um, and
the FAC does recommend the budget for
approval. And with that, we'd be happy
to answer any questions that you have.
And the recommendation is to provide
feedback to staff on the budget in
anticipation of the public hearing in
June.
» Um, thank you. Thank you for the
presentation. Um, I just have one
question before I, um, turn to the
council. Did you say we will hear more
about the reserve of the three buckets?
Would that come after qu questions on
this phase and then we'll
>> Yes, it's it's the third segment. So,
we're we're finishing the budget segment
and then we're going to go to the fees
and then we'll have a whole discussion
on the general fund reserve.
>> Okay. Just one clarification. Thank you.
Um I will turn to the city council and
ask um do any of my colleagues have any
questions based on what's been presented
so far?
>> Okay. Yes, Council Member Kroll.
>> Thank you so much again. a very readable
and thorough budget book. Great job
finance. Um it looks like uh this is
under the city manager um bucket. Um
that we have an IT strategic plan. So my
question is with all the rumblings about
AI being such a threat to cyber
security, do we feel that um this IT
strategic plan takes that into
consideration? Have we have we budgeted
enough for cyber security?
That's a great question and always on
our mind and the strategic plan will u
be very comprehensive
and um but we already have a very robust
cyber program in place. So there's
testing and all kinds of um
firewalls and I'm not the IT expert, but
there's all kinds of things that are put
in place to protect uh anything from coming in. Um and then there's also
testing that we have with employees on
uh emails and education. Everyone takes
an education every year. Um so it is uh
something that we focus on every year.
Um and then the strategic plan will just
be a way to shore that up with more you
know with anything else that we could we
have an opportunity to keep on top of
that.
So if you would like more specifics I'd
be happy to have William
uh provide
more color to that.
Hello. Good afternoon, council members.
Yes, everything Jan said is accurate and
with the strategic plan part of
reviewing our cyber security, our
firewall, our network switches um is
going to be part of the review process
that is well underway. First now with
the department reviews and that includes
our um managed services provider Eaton
and with them they went into detail
about certain um certain checks and
balances we have with our firewall with
our network. you know, how we identify
um bad agents trying to infiltrate our
system. So, that will all be included in
the report and eventually we will uh
come back to the city council and do a
presentation with the results of that
strategic plan.
>> Thank you. I just have
>> Thank you. Thank you, William and Jen. I
just have one additional question with
40 Baywood. Hopefully, we know the
agreement's been signed and hopefully um
that comes online, but we will need to
do some ADA compliance so that we could
um bring the public in hopefully as soon
as possible. Do we need to budget
anything for that or is there a bucket
that those improvements could come out
of?
I think there would probably be a buck a
bucket that those can come out of andor
we would u bring forward a budget
amendment once we know get our arms
around what those those assessments are
um and and also what the whole program
programmatic side would be for Baywood.
So, I think once it's signed, we we'd
have to assess and look at the whole
kind of whole picture and then bring
that back for consideration.
>> Thank you. I think it's signed, but
we're waiting for the property tax issue
to be settled, right? All right. Thank
you very much. That's all I have.
>> Sure. Thank you. Um, any additional
questions from the council?
>> Yes. Um,
sure. Uh ju just to tack on on council
member Kwick's uh comments regarding 40
Baywoods. I think my understanding is
that uh so far the contract has been
signed but there is the pending um
outstanding tax um that uh 40 Baywoods u
foundation or whatn not have to pay up
on that but have the staff an
opportunity to be able to uh walk
through the property and be able to uh
address some of the issues that council
member Kle have talked about. uh the ADA
has that been in place or is it
something that hasn't been done?
>> The staff has been to the property, but
it hasn't been a full assessment of the
property and what it would take to get
uh ADA compliant if that's in fact the
direction we go. So, I would say we
we've been there and seen it
peripherilally, but it'll take a much
deeper dive into it uh once this is uh
passed over. And uh to Council Member
Krollik's point, the the agreement has
been signed. There's just the condition
in the agreement that we're waiting to
be fulfilled working uh with the state
right now. After that point is once we
get to that point, which will hopefully
be soon, we'll have to have the staff
come in there and take a look at it and
then determine uh using our community
partners and and the council as to
exactly how we want to run 40 Baywood at
that point. Whether we bring in a a
third party charitable organization or
we run it as a city or or what condition
we want to do, that'll play a big role
in how what the next steps will be and
what those costs will be. So hopefully
we'll have some budgetary items to
discuss um before the council regarding
the assessments of uh those projects and
the services that we're going to provide
for our community.
>> Yes, I would think uh the way I envision
that would be that we would there'd be a
variety of ways to manage the property
that would be presented to the council.
Each one of those would come attached
with a certain cost and a benefit if you
will and then the council would then
make a decision as to how they think
would be the best way to manage the
property for the benefit of the public.
So when we come back with that that may
include a budget amend amendment as well
in order to cover any of those costs if
it gets to that point.
>> Thank you. And through the mayor if I
may just follow up. Um Rich, you talk
about um at one of the columns there was
a library contribution that is basically
I think zero. What what does that mean?
Is that the account that the funding
remains the same?
>> Which one? Uh sorry.
Right. Right there.
>> Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Excuse me. Yeah. Um
exactly. There's there's just no
projects for that one in particular.
>> I see. So the so the fee the membership
fees that we pay into the both libraries
remain the same as how it reflected
>> right and and this uh is just for
capital programs. So yeah, there there's
nothing related to the libraries for
that for Yeah.
>> So So just for clarification, this is
purely for capital spending, not for the
annual donation that we give to the
library, correct? Yes, I I believe
that's what you're saying. All right.
Thank you. Um any question? Any
additional questions? We have uh Council
Member Adams. Yes.
>> Thank you. Uh yes, I appreciate the
thoroughess of your beautiful budget
books. Uh the question I have is about
the town hall complex. There is it's
hard to figure out exactly what uh that
amount is. And I just want to make sure
we're talking still about planning.
Uh and if you could find out where that
number is.
>> Yes, it's it's still all planning. Um
sorry, I'm just trying to pull it up for
you right here. Um yeah, this is just
the second portion of it that was
budgeted of it. There was an initial
portion in 2526 that was budgeted for
about 400,000 that actually hasn't been
awarded yet as well. So this would be an
additional to it um if they get to that
phase during the fiscal year, but um it
was part of the plan from building and
planning to have that as this the second
phase of the the remodel uh planning. So
first we'll use the money that we've
already appropriated and this is a
contingency in case we want to go
forward correct
>> in some direction. Okay.
>> Yeah. So this fiscal year we transferred
from the general fund 400,000 for that
project and then we're budgeted to do
the second part which is the 420,000 if
we get to that uh in the fiscal year.
» Thank you.
Um before I um turn it to um Vice Mayor
Ragdale, I I'm still not clear on the
numbers for um the town hall, did you
say how much have we spent and how much
is still left in the budget is basically
>> so for the project for the uh town hall
complex remodel in 2526 there was
budgeted 400,000 which has not been
spent yet. Um and then in fiscal year
2627 there's another 420,000.
Um you might be confused with what
they've spent so far as part of the uh
plan uh general plan which they were
doing consulting work with the the whole
campus and I'm not sure if Liz is on she
might be able to answer that better.
Okay. Yes. I think I was conflating the
two. So
currently you have 400,000 that was
approved in last year's budget and
currently another 400,000.
>> Yes.
>> Is that an automatic 400,000 is approved
every year for this project?
>> I'm just
>> No, it was it was added as part of the project uh as a request from um from
building and planning.
>> Oh, from building Yeah.
>> Okay. Um and and that's specifically for
town complex for the town complex
redesign.
>> That's right. Yes.
>> I was not aware of that. So it's Thanks
for clarifying that. Okay. Um go ahead.
Um Vice Mayor Rexdale,
» thank you so much. Um another Mother's
Day spent with your your budget book
that I I greatly appreciate. I I got I
had fun also. Um, not that this isn't
fun, but uh greatly greatly appreciate
um the details, the different ways of
presenting the information with words,
charts, um the graphs. It's it's um it
is a thing of beauty. And speaking of
which, I wanted to make sure to
recognize on page
back at page 13, of course, the budget
award, which you guys get every year for
the um fiscal year that began July 1st,
2025. So, just wanted to make sure we
mention that in um public session. You
guys always win that award. Um I had a I
had a couple of questions. Um the first
is with regard to the um my favorite
topic of the um inloo VLF. Um on page 18
uh you mentioned that page 18 of the
packet that um the budget is prepared on
the assumption that the state will fund
these monies.
Um which is
I mean we just don't know. So, what do
we do? We have kind of contingency plans
in place or or we will once we once we
find out if if we're not getting it.
>> Yes. So, uh the budget includes two
pieces. One is the BLF and one is the um
the amount that is um
» um
>> no it's not okay.
>> Oh 18 of the
>> second
>> okay
under what's it
» yeah it's you have 18 of the the very
beginning of the binder,
>> right? Okay.
>> Yeah, this I'm Yeah, an introduction.
>> Okay. Yeah. So, the the VLF has two
components. One is the part that will be paid because it's not a
shortfall. Then there's the shortfall
piece, which is the question that we
have every year. Last year, they paid
twothirds of what was due on the prior
year's um shortfall. It's a timing
difference, right? So the we won't know
that answer until probably the state
adopts their budget in June last year. I
think it came as a trailer bill maybe
even. So it comes very last last minute.
So uh what we recommend is adopting the
budget uh as it's presented here. uh and
then if it does not come through, we
will need to come back with an action
plan for adjusting the budget should it
be necessary. And I think we would
probably be doing that uh in the midyear
budget review
because we'll be watching you know
what's what's happening with all the
other expenditures and have a better
sense of how the year is going to
complete. And so by mid year we we will
be able to pro provide some decision-
making for you um should it be necessary
in the budget process.
>> So so there is we will get some we think
we'll get some BLF just not all of it.
>> We will get at least a million
>> okay
>> of the 1.7 because that's not the
shortfall piece of it. So the shortfall
piece is the is the part that is always
under discussion.
>> Okay.
>> And just to add a brief comment about
how it's done through the budget. Um
last year and in previous years cities
in San Monteo County had been estimating
different assumptions. No, not getting
the VLF, getting a partial of the VLF or
getting the full VLF. And it was kind of
all over the place. Um, I think there
was concern that the story was going to
be told, okay, if you can if you can
only if you can budget without having
the VLF in your budget, then why do you
need it? Um, if you can budget it with
that 2/3, why should we fulfill the
entire amount? And so, strategically, as
um a coalition of the Sano County
cities, uh, we kind of have a unified
approach to the budget this year of
including the full amount um because
that's what we're fighting for.
>> Okay. All right. So, we're we're
budgeting the full amount because that's what we need.
Okay. Yeah, that's that's very helpful.
I know it's Yeah.
Um let's see the next um Oh, I had one
uh suggestion. So, I think I'm still in
intro. So, page 24 in the intro, I
guess. Did the numbers restart? Is that
what you were saying?
>> They do.
>> Okay. So in the introduction section
page um 24
uh just a suggestion because you were
saying suggestion for when you come back
in June um in describing the general
fund reserve um in that whole paragraph
it talks about the long-term pension
liabilities and the post-employment
benefits um completing the financial
picture. Um,
but if you if you're not really paying
attention, it looks like they're part of
the reserve.
Um, but really what you're saying, I
think, by completing the financial
picture is those are other things we
need to be keeping track of. Those are
other expenses that are that are out
there. So don't look at this reserve and
think, "Oh, you're sitting on all this
money because the true financial picture
is these other things." Um, so I just um
might add another sentence there to make
that to make that clear because when I
first looked at it, I'm like, "Wait,
those are in the reserve." So um,
>> thank you. We'll make that change. I
understand that.
>> Thank you. Um,
>> let's see if I had
Um, okay. I will just ask I think just
one more question. Um,
uh, again, introduction. I did read the
whole thing, I promise. Um, I've got all
sorts of pages marked. Um, page 27 in
the introduction, we were talking about
the storm drain, um, annual fee of $7.34
per parcel.
Is that something we're considering
increasing
or seek go through the voters?
that would also uh require a a full
process. Um and so um this is something
that was has been charged at the same
amount for many many years. Um we have
looked at that in the past with with
councils and I think um it could be
something that we could consider in the
future as well um just in the portfolio
of long-term financial funding plan
items.
Okay.
Thank you.
>> Like a phase two.
» Um I have a few questions. Um some of
them clarifications on what's been
discussed already. Um regarding the
brick um uh grants, do we need to submit
a new application or are they still
operating on the old application and
reassuring us that the funding will come
through?
This is for the old application. So,
they're reviewing that and if we need to
make any amendments or adjustments to
the amount or scope. Uh they've
indicated that it might reset us in the
process. Um but we still are sort of
entitled to that review um based on how
much work we've already put in and our
status of nearly award by by the end
when the program was discontinued. So, it's actually um just a promise that
we're in a process of being reviewed.
It's not a promise that the funding is
coming through. Is that
>> We haven't ever formally been awarded
the grant. We got to the very last step
pre-awward. So, um it's anticipated that
we would get the award, but they're
doing that review once and they have
because of uh the partial shutdowns,
it's taking longer um than they thought
by to get the process reopened.
>> Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that
clarification. And also um regarding BNP
um spending, well, first I I would like
to know since we did the fees studies
and I think it was last month or two
months ago we reviewed it and approved
it. How much um in terms of revenues by
what percent? 10% 5% how much more
revenue did we generate from that?
>> It it's uh will be approved this evening
I believe. Um but in the 262 27 budget
we've added 1.8 million to the to the
fees which is very significant.
>> Right. Exactly. And and I was a bit
confused why the um spending I mean I
just need clarification. What caused the
spending to go from 625 to 775,000?
» I'm sorry which
>> that's BNP building and planning.
>> Are you talking about their department
budget? did spending the spending for
the department. Correct. And I believe
that's on page
25.
Um,
and I think this is where I may be
confused on this. The slide that's in
front of us says 775,
correct? And on page 25, it says 625.
I'm just
>> The one on page 25 is the capital
spending.
>> Oh, is it capital spending?
>> Yes. And I'm assuming the other one is
operating spending.
>> That's right. Yeah, the the 625 um for
this capital spending. That's what we
were talking about the um pretty much
the town hall complex and then um
general plan uh more fun more money uh
transferred for the general plan other
phases of the general plan. So those two
make up that 625 amount
and then the spending is operating
that's separate from it.
>> So the chart that's in front of us for
775
does that include the 625? I think
that's
>> I'm sorry. I'm trying to um add them
together right now. It's the town hall
complex and then the general plan and um
what else is it?
I think on page 25 that's 26 27 and the
chart on the screen is a five-year
capital spend.
>> Yeah, thank you. Sorry. That's right.
Thank you.
>> Oh, so what's on the screen?
>> It's a it's aggregate of fires. Thank
you.
>> Got you. Thanks. Thanks for that
clarification. Um a few other questions.
Um regarding um capital spending for
water and sewer, I think the total it
was I don't remember the slide. I didn't
write down the slide. Sorry. Um it was
early on 11.6 million. I was just
curious what percent of that is water in
terms of spending on out of the 11.6 you
could see it's uh 2.5 as projected for
this year for water and then 5.2 for
sewer and majority of is like water main
replacements and then the priority
basins are majority of the 5.2 for
sewer.
>> Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that
clarification. And regarding the 115
pension trust, does that get funded
eventually and we stop funding it or
what is the timeline on that?
>> There was a one-time funding when it was
established and then it was uh agreed
and instructed that we should look at it
every year in the budget process based
on available funds and priorities. Um,
and the FAC has recommended in the past
having about one year's worth of annual
required contribution in there, which is
where it is right now. Um, and the way
that would work is if the budget if the
budget was in need of additional money
and uh that reserve could be used to pay
for that annual required contribution
and then that money is freed up from the
general fund that could be used to help
with the budget process. So that is one
way that that could be used. Another way
that it could be used, it could be held.
Um, and as we step up the pension
contributions uh that are stepping up
over the the next several years, it
could be used in partially to defay that
budget cost in any one year, just a
portion of it. So, it it's uh has many
could have many uses. Um, but right now,
we're holding it um unless it's needed
for a significant reason.
Okay. Um,
regard under our goals, um, CCFD safer
grant, I know I think we have two more
years on that or one more year left.
>> What is the estimate? Do we have any
idea of that $2 million grant? What
percent will be coming to us as an
obligation regarding funding for CCFD?
So, it's about $2 and half million
dollars a year in total and our share of
that is um 28%. So, it would be about
$800,000
per year step up.
>> Okay, so it's actually it's actually two
and a half, not two. Somehow I had in my
previous notes on something else that it
was two, but yeah, that may have just
been my error. All right. So,
approximately 800,000 will be an
obligation in two years that's going to
be fixed because it's associated with
the I guess it's station 36.
>> Yeah. Yes.
>> Um under priorities
we had climate action plan for 75,000.
Is that a consultant fee? What
Is the climate action plan a document?
What I'm just curious what the estimates
for 75,000 is.
>> The climate action plan, I believe, is a
portion of the of the general plan and
requires a similar activity
like the housing element but related to
climate. And so it requires uh certain
assessments and then that a plan be put
in place related to uh the requirements
of the climate plan. And um so usually
you would hire an expert to help with
that process.
And and is it a long process? Is it is
it something a consultant will work on
for like six months, a year? Do we cuz
the last time it was done I think was
over 10 years ago. Is that
>> I hear I hear something behind
a few months. A few months.
>> A few months. Okay.
All right. I think those are all my
questions for now. Do my colleagues have
any more questions before I go to
public? Yes. Um council member Chuang
>> through the mayor. Thank you. Um so
follow up on the uh page 28 regarding
the community and customer services.
There are estimates of the funding debt
for the project that we the council has
set priorities for. And my question is
um
if in the process
uh we're not spending that much money uh
the funding will go back to the general
fund. Correct.
>> Yes. And is this something that um that
we will get an update on so that we have
some idea or clarity on the sort of the
estimate and whether we have the funding
or is it just these are just sort of the
um benchmark and then you will come back
if if you need additional funding on the
project that we need to enhance.
Yes, we'll be tracking these projects
and can report back at mid year if there
or as needed um throughout the process.
>> All right. And then um just on the page
15 since we're on the intro um on the on
the graph of the flowchart,
I I I just want to say that as much as I
really am very grateful for the advisory
bodies, I do think that um this council
this uh this government uh format is
council
um and the uh city manager. That is the
model. And so I find that this chart,
the way that you place the advisory body
is not quite in line of what we're doing
because I think that the advisory body
should be below the um city manager with
the idea that um the the advisory body
volunteers or committee members are
advising the town and the council, but
it just the sequencing of things. And
also the other thing is the city manager
also is very much engaged uh in the um
central county fire board for that
matters and it doesn't really reflect
that. So I would ask that if we can
provide some kind of edit to provide
that clarity because I do believe the
two cities city manager rotate in terms
of being a CEO and it is uh critical in
the policy uh for the CCFD fire
departments um and the fire board. So
just so that it would reflect that
properly. Um so if we can make some
amendment to that.
>> Yes, thank you. We will. And if I I
could just add just a few things of
clarity before we go to public comment.
One on the advisory committee thing.
They are an advisory committee to you as
the as the board. So that's kind of why
their position is there. We can
certainly make a change and having the
uh CEO thing uh definitely makes sense
as we rotate every few years between
ourselves and Berling game at this
point. And I just want to add a couple
of other things here too on the town
hall project to just make completely
clear. If you remember the 2526
goal setting sessions is really where we
put the foundation in for what we wanted
to do uh with the town hall at least in
the design of it. And at that time it
was brought before the council and there
was 442,000
that was approved in the design and
planning portion of that. At this time
there's 362,000 of that that has been
spent to date and there's 80,000 left in
that originally approved amount. the
next if if it goes you know if and when
we get to the next phase of this this
would be the additional ask uh of the
400,000 which would become the next
budget and also on the CCFD safer grant
uh
if anybody can get the grant approved
twice it's probably our chief poochie uh
that'll be the attempt that's going to
be made to get that done uh we are
having some goal setting that's coming
up this week uh with the uh fire
department and uh through a facilitated
uh consultant there. Uh but that 800,000
a year, I mean, that's a pretty
substantial amount that if once that
safer grant is up and essentially rather
than looking at it as a station 36, it's
12 firefighter staff uh that that pays
for. If indeed that the the T cities are
going to have to make up for that
difference because the safer grant is no
longer going to be there, we in other
words, we don't get it for the the next
three-year period. My advice to the
board and to the other cities would be
that we start funding for that now uh so
that it's not as big of a cliff when we
get there so all the cities aren't all
of a sudden having an $800,000 burden if
we put a little bit away each year uh
and we get the safer grant for a second
time. That's great. You know, then we
can use that money for other resources.
if we don't get that safer grant, we're
not going to be uh get caught on sort of
a cliff of money there with that 800
grand that we're going to have to pay
into it. So, that'll be my advice in the
fireboard meetings that are coming up
and I'll work closely with uh Lisa
Goldman on that as well.
>> Well, thank you and thanks for those
clarifications and I I appreciate your
feedback on both of those issues. Thank
you. Um
>> I just ongoing questions. I'm sorry. Um
Vice Mayor Ragdale have a question or
did you have one? Just wanted to a ask
uh Doug to the city manager to clarify.
I'm sorry I didn't quite get what's the
plan B if the safer grant doesn't come
through. Sorry.
>> If the well if the safer grant uh is not
originally it was a three-year program
that gave a certain amount of money to
cover 12 firefighters. If in the coming
years we don't get an an additional
safer grant, then that that burden will
come on to us, right? The 800,000 of
that. Um, so my advice would be that we
start putting away a little bit of money
each year. Uh, so that when if we don't
get another safer grant, we'll have that
money available to to maintain our
funding of that 800,000. The other
option is we don't do that. And if we
don't get the safer grant, it'll be a
one-time $800,000 a year that we'll be
looking at adding to the budget each
year. Uh, and sorry. And and has that
money come through that that three-year
grant? Have we seen we've received that
money? There's haven't been any problem
receiving that.
>> I believe it's
spend you spend it, you get
reimbursement.
>> Yeah, we don't get it all in one sum.
So, it it goes through like a quarterly
billing that uh is paid for by the
grant. Uh, but to my knowledge, there
hasn't been any difficulty with that at
this point. through the mayor. I I just
want to check with our city manager. I
think that when you're talking about
putting money aside, you're talking
about Central County Fire Board uh
making that suggestions in terms of
their budget. Correct.
>> Yes. I I would say that's one of the
items that's going to be discussed in
the strategic meeting coming up this
week is what do we do if this safer
grant uh isn't renewed in the following
years? How would we like to handle that?
and whatever funding method is fine, but
the three entities that are involved in
central county fire should agree as a
group and how we're going to do it. Uh
rather than for example, the town of
Hillsboro were to set aside that money
each year to use and then when we come
to that point, the other cities haven't
done the same. I don't want to get
caught in a in a funding problem like
that. So, I would I would push that the
three uh entities involved with Central
County Fire come up with an agreement.
That's one of the things that I'll be
bringing up at the meeting this week.
>> Right. And and just uh through the mayor
again, uh I I think that it would be a
tough decisions also for the Central
County Fire Board to make should the
funding does not come through and the
three cities councils do not support the
additional funding to the saber grants,
then that would be a you know a
difficult decision, but that would be
cutting services, which I think that is also on the table.
>> Absolutely. This is one of those ones
that you would bring before the fire
board as anformational process and and
the recommendation would be that uh the
fire board approve us to go to each uh
city council meeting and do a full
explanation to the full city council
because when you're talking about that
type of financial addition into the
budget that needs to be a decision made
by the full council rather than just the
board.
>> Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor Regel. Go
ahead. So, see now I have another
question. Um, so I think you did
mention, Jan, that we did have um
reserves set aside for that to to make
up for the safer grant.
>> If uh you agree with the amount that
we're putting in the reserve for this
year, then yes, we do have that money
saved for one year. And then we did save
an additional amount in the asset
replacement reserve last year. So we
have two years of runway on that.
>> That was the assigned there on this
current slide.
>> Okay. Yes.
>> Um I had a couple of uh more quick
questions that I found. Um in the uh
budget by fund section page 99
under fund fund description the asset
replacement fund. It says these
activities are entirely self-supported
by user charges.
And I wasn't sure what what users those
were.
>> The user charges are charges paid for by
the other funds.
>> Oh, okay.
>> So, if we're replacing a water equipment
vehicle, that's charged from the water
fund to this fund and then it's spent
out of this fund. Same thing if we have
a police car, it's charged out of the
general fund and then it's it's funded
out of this asset replacement fund.
>> Okay. Excellent. Um and then um oh I was
curious uh under department departmental
in information tab uh page 122
the very last thing under the police I
was wondering what an arctic room what's
an arctic room
very last sentence page 122
a real time crime center Okay, that's
very exciting. Um, okay. Thank you. I I
should have looked I should have looked
that up. Um, but thank you. Um, and then
the last thing I wanted to mention um is
uh when I when I first saw where it said
um the amount of money that can be
attributed to the city council goals, uh
it was on one of the slides and it was
in the book. Um,
I guess what I what makes me hesitant, I
would hate to have somebody look at that
and say, "Oh, almost a million dollars
that
city council's just deciding to do
this." I mean, they are goals on behalf
of the town. They're not pet projects.
Um, so I don't know if there's a way to
Yeah. If there's a way to soften that
language that it's to deliver city
council
>> approved goals for the town.
>> Goals are priorities. They're priorities
for the town.
>> For the town.
>> For the benefit of the town.
>> Yes.
>> I don't know. It just it just hit me
looking at that. So, there's a way to
soften that a little bit
>> perception. Good point. Thank you so
much.
>> And u you know, those are mostly
one-time costs.
>> Uh they're not ongoing. And those are
mostly needed for professional services
where there's uh you know technical
expertise that's required for that
subject matter. Uh as we discussed
earlier on like the the state the other
the climate action plan. Um and so yes
we can try to change that language a
little bit.
>> Thank you.
>> In the in the book and
>> um thank you. Oh I'm sorry. Go
>> can I just follow up on that slide that
we're on right now. council member.
>> So now I'm confused again because here
under land use planning we have town
hall campus at $40,000
and the information that we just got was
in fact of the $440 that had already
been approved. There's maybe $100,000
left
uh not the whole 440 420. So, where does
this 40k step in?
>> I think that's a typo. Thank you for
finding our typo, right?
>> Yes. Thank you for finding our
>> a good thing to catch. Okay.
» Um
uh thanks for um commenting on that. And
um one last question before we move on
to the next section. What is the annual?
What is the yearly cost of the drone
program
in terms of operational?
>> Which program?
>> The drone.
>> Oh, the drone program.
>> Yeah.
>> Um,
>> if you have it, it's I was just
>> purchase and then there's an ongoing
subscription fee.
>> I'm I'm familiar with the purchase. I
recall from previous discussions.
>> Um, it's about 150,000 annually. Yeah.
What uh this year? No, because we
already have the drone. So that was just
for the the program and that the
purchase was from last year's for the
equipment.
>> So this just the operational cost
correct per year. Okay, got thank you.
Um I don't have any additional questions
before we turn go to public comments. Do
we have any public comments on this?
>> Oh, and it's it's the RTIC
room, not not an Arctic room. So, so
yeah,
>> it's a real time
>> our
>> crime information center. Yeah.
>> Okay. I read it tic
>> I read it as arctic.
>> It's not a cold room.
>> Uh it because it was written as Arctic.
That's the way you read it as Arctic.
>> I thought it was a a coal punch. Uh
council member Adams and I were just
having a sorry having a side
conversation.
>> What happens when police use too much
lingo and
>> and we all make typos. I I I made a bad
one this very morning in email. It's
Yes. I assumed it was a cooling room for
when it got hot. That's what I That's
what I thought. Oh, it's getting so hot.
>> You first asked the question. I thought
it was an emergency cooling room or
something like that.
>> Now we want one. That's going to be a
council priority.
>> Thanks to Chief Colola uh gave me the
look. She's like, "No, it's not that."
>> Um do we have any public comments?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. We We don't have
no public comment.
>> All right. Well, thanks for those
clarifications. Um, I think we've been
giving feedback as we went through these
questions. Are there additional feedback
the council would like to uh submit to
the finance department?
Seeing none, we can get to the next
section of the presentation. Okay. Um,
I'll move it along uh for the master fee
schedule. Um, just as a reminder, the
sewer and water rates, those are taken
to council and adopted on a separate
resolution. So, um, they're both in the
middle of a 5-year rate series. The 218s
are out. There's a public hearing for
the sewer rates tonight, and then in
June, there will be a public hearing for
the water rates. So, it's separate from
the master fee schedule. Just wanted to
clarify that. Um, but first, there's two
portions of it. First is the water and
sewer connection fee that is taken to
council, adopted on resolution as part
of the master fee schedule. uh it's
annually updated based on a CPI uh index
we get from public works uh from the
engineering news record construction
index cost this year it's a 0.5%
increase so that's the increase you see
from the prior year
and then the overall master fee schedule
for 2627 there are no new or deleted
fees for police engineering or public
works services however there are changes
to all of those fees as mentioned um as
a practice we do now we update them
annually just based on staffing labor
rates just to continue cost recovery for
those services rendered. Um and then the
big change in our master fee schedule is
the building and planning. They
conducted a cost of service study as
part of the long range financial funding
plan. And so the proposed 2627 budget
reflects those changes that were brought
to you in April um as part of the cost
service study and it is now part of our
budget. Um and FAC did take a look at
that as well and recommended the fees
for billing planning as well as the
whole overall uh master fee schedule
and um we can answer any of the
particular questions for the fees you
have um but the um but it will go
tonight uh as a public hearing separate
from the budget for the master schedule.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um any questions from
the council?
Okay. Seeing none. Any public comment on
this section?
>> Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Cole. And no
public comment.
>> Back to the council. No additional
questions. And is that correct? Oh, I'm
sorry. Vice Mayor Ragdale has a
question.
>> Just a a comment. Um, thank you again
for that building and planning study. I
know that was a a big deal to do and
that was done well and um greatly
appreciated. Thank you.
Okay, Council Member Adams have a
question.
>> Uh, I'm pretty sure that uh in our
binder on page 155,
um, we owe you thanks for the tree
removal permits that both uh, Council
Member Krill and myself thought were too
high. I think you have reduced them, but
I want to make sure because
in particular the reason I care about
the tree removal is uh in most permits
people are pretty happy to pay them
because they're going to get something.
This is a permit to take something away
and it is important for the town that it
actually happens. So that's why I think
we both thought it was over $1,000 if I
recall, but I couldn't find it. So I
wanted to check and make sure it's
um that's what we did.
>> Um Council Member Adams, could you just
clarify the previous cost to what it was
reduced to? We having difficulty finding
it is because a different binder. Just
for clarification,
>> it's it's in the other binder. It's in
our
>> You could just tell us the numbers just
so we're all on the same page. the
number. Well, there's several. Oh, it's
visibly dead. It's one
>> and I can provide some clarification for
that. Thank you so much, Council Member
Adams. Um, and I apologize I did not get
to answer the question fully when um I
was here a month ago discussing the
fees. Um, what council member Adams and
council member Krlic brought up was that
in the planning division fee schedule,
there is a tree removal for
non-hazardous or voluntary and the old
fee for that was $386
and based on our fee study that was
going to be increased and is still
proposed to be increased to $1,76.
That does seem like a large jump, but
again that was based on the fee study on
time um assumptions and the use of the
town consulting landscape uh sorry town
consulting arborist. And then these
again are for non-hazardous or
voluntary. So this is somebody just says
I don't like this tree. I want it gone.
And so we need to review that and kind
of review the merits and the um uh
effect that would have on the
neighborhood and the visual aesthetic.
And then when we go to the building uh
division fees, we did still take the
feedback from council, your feedback
about wanting to make sure that we were
not disincentivizing
residents for removing hazardous or
emergency trees. So we did further
granulate those fees. Um, so we do now
have a visibly dead. Um, and we are
indicating that or we're not necessarily
indicating that that requires an arburst
report. So we do encourage residents to
come forward um to show us that they
have a visibly dead tree and we can
evaluate that um at the building and
counting uh building and planning
counter. And that is a very small fee of
$287.
And that's really just to kind of count
account for minimal staff time to
actually issue the permit and then
follow up on its removal. And then we go
up from there with a hazardous removal
with arborist report. So that does take
a little bit more coordination and
review of the arborist report. If it
requires um review by the town
consulting arborists, so that indicates
as needed, then that is build at an
additional hourly rate. And then there's
a very minor $218 permit that
coordinates with uh non-hazardous
planning approval. So you got the
planning approval. Now you get the
permit for those non-hazardous
voluntary.
» Thank you. That really is helpful
clarification.
>> Great. Thank you.
>> I did see the carveout for hazardous and
that that did um answer I think the
question that we had.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um, any public comment
on this section? I don't believe we had
any. Okay, we can move on to the next
section.
» All right. Good afternoon, Miracle,
members of the council. Drew Corbett,
principal DKG Consultants. The item
before you is the uh analysis of the
general fund reserves. Get
>> a little closer to the mic, Drew.
>> Okay. Thank you.
Um, so as we get into the general fund
reserves, I wanted to cover four things
with you. Uh, give you some background
and general context on why reserves are
kept. Uh, talk about some of the
considerations that council may want to
consider when thinking about reserves.
Um, I took on a financial risk
assessment of the town that I'd like to
share and then I'll move into the
reserve policy recommendations.
So in terms of background and general
context um you know keeping reserves
particularly general fund reserves are a
key component to financial stability in
the town. It allows you to mitigate
risk. It allows you to maintain services
during economic downturns or other
emergencies. Um your current reserve
policy is good. So let's let's start
there. You have a good reserve policy.
Um, you know, my assessment of it was
that it could benefit from some
additional definition, and I'll I'll
explain why as we move forward. Um, and
really what this is an opportunity to do
is align with industry best practices
while reflecting the unique and
individual needs and priorities of the
town, which is important for reserve
policy.
So this is your existing policy and as Jan went over in her initial
presentation um you have the policy to
retain 30% of your general fund
operating expenditures in reserve in
your uh ACER or your your annual
comprehensive financial report. You
indicate that you have a goal of 50%.
You're currently meeting that 50% goal.
Um, and the utilization priorities for
the general fund reserve are economic
uncertainties, local disasters, other
financial hardships or downturns, uh,
contingencies for unforeseen needs, and
cash flow requirements. And so, in in
the recommendations that I've made, we
try to address all of those items.
So, this is a look at your existing fund
balance based on last year's uh, 2425
close of the year. Um, and the fund
balance for your reserve calculation was
$25.3 million. So that considers the
fact that there's items that are I would
say are above the line like think like
items that would get considered before
you uh calculate your your reserves.
What that would be your pension trust
and your assigned or non-spendable fund
balance. So as you can see you meet your
50% goal and have uh 5.4 million
remaining as of last year. And that
number obviously is changing
year-over-year, but that's where you
last closed your financials was with uh
your 50% reserve funded with additional
uh funds available.
So GFOA is the government finance
officers association. It's the
preeminent um professional association
for local government uh finance
professionals and they have um best
practices related to reserve policies
and there are sort of four pillars for
their uh for their best practices.
Number one is to establish a formal
policy or policies for maintaining
unrestricted fund balance in your
general fund. They recommend a a minimum
of two months of either recurring
revenues or recurring expenditures. uh
they recommend that you have utilization
conditions as well as conditions under
which you would replenish your reserves
if you utilize them. And then finally,
they recommend that you maintain a
strategy for funds that are in excess of
your policy requirements. And so we will
go through all of those uh as part of
our recommendations.
I also did a little bit of a pure city
comparison. I think it's important here
that comparing against, you know, sort
of your peer cities is a consideration,
but shouldn't be the consideration. Um,
you know, reserves need to be really
tailored to the unique needs of each
agency. They need to be a function of
risk of that agency. And as it relates
to some of your peer cities,
Hillsboro is not necessarily comparable
um from a service level perspective to
these other cities because you provide
police inhouse, you fund central county
fire, you have utilities, right? So, you
know, oftentimes the the comparators
that we use are based on population or
economic conditions, but it's really
important that, you know, again, that your your comparisons as it relates
to reserves are are just one piece of of
a larger uh puzzle for developing your reserves.
So in terms of considerations,
uh I think first and foremost and and
this is where you you try to set
reserves that are really based on the individual needs of of your agency,
which is reserves really need to be a
function of risk, right? That that's
really the the main consideration.
Reserves for specific purposes can drive
uh policy decisions. that can create
some clarity, but what's important is
they don't prohibit flexibility. At the
end of the day, these reserve funds are
all unassigned fund balance and
undesated. And we're designating them
for intent, but that doesn't prohibit
them. It doesn't otherwise restrict
them. Um, again, as I' I've mentioned a
few times and I will continue to
mention, reserves really need to be
tailored to to each agency. um two two
different agencies with similar
populations may have very different risk
profiles. So the reserve needs are going
to be different. And then finally the
opportunity cost has to be considered
there. There is such thing as having too
much money in reserve because you are
then not able to fund other priorities
the more money that you're putting away.
So there has to be a balance there and
you have to consider your your credit
rating and that has to be balanced with
those opportunities costs as well.
So, we'll move right into to the credit
rating considerations. That's always a
big consideration when when factoring in
what level reserves do you want to keep
for your general fund. Um, obviously a a
good credit rating is an indicator of
good financial management and more
importantly, it'll contribute to your
lower lower cost of financing when you
need to finance capital work. You know,
the better your credit rating, the lower
your financing costs. The rating
agencies are going to take into
consideration a number of of factors
when they're when they're developing
your your credit rating. They're going
to look at the local economic
conditions. They're going to look at
your revenue sources. They're going to
look at how diverse your revenue sources
are. They're going to look at how
volatile your revenue sources are. Uh
they're going to look at what what
existing debt you have, what are your
long-term liabilities, what what's your
overall leverage um from a debt
perspective. They're going to look at
your level of fund balance. And they're
going to look at your liquidity. You
know, those are five five of the big
factors.
I pulled a a public publicly available
document from Moody's credit rating
agencies just to give an example of how
they evaluate fund balance with respect
to to making your credit rating. And
Moody's in general, and I will also just
emphasize here, this is a general
document. This is they will, you know,
once they're doing an actual credit
rating for an agency, they're going to
get much more specific. But in general,
Moody's rates your fund balance level at
about they give it a weight of about 20%
of the overall rating. And if you're
over 35% fund balance, that contributes
to a AAA rating for that particular
piece. So you are in good position from
that perspective with your existing fund
balance policy.
As I mentioned though, you know, one of
the things you have to consider is
especially with respect to your your
credit rating is all the competing
interests you have. Um, you have finite
financial resources.
Funding your reserves is an important
aspect of your finite financial
resources, but so is so are addressing
operating deficits as they come up. So
is financing new capital needs and so is
maintaining and rehabilitating your
existing infrastructure. So all those
things have to be considered within this
broader context. So that's what I why I
mentioned there is such thing as as
holding on to too much reserves. It's
really important to have a balance with
making sure you're resilient and and are
able to to properly mitigate risk but
not putting away so much money that
you're you know not maintaining your
infrastructure appropriately or are
carrying large deficits.
So I did do a risk assessment of the
town that I wanted to share. I I split
it out into into operating risks and
nonoperating risks. So their operating
risks are going to be you know cash flow
and me meeting those cash flow needs uh
addressing issues of revenue loss and
addressing issues with spikes in
operating expenditures. Your
non-operating risks are going to be
things like natural disasters,
infrastructure emergencies or public
health crisis. So going directly into
the the operating risks on the cash
flow, you have low risk there overall.
Um, you have strong cash management
practices. You have great access to
liquidity. Uh, at the end of last year,
you had almost $35 million of cash and
investments in your general fund. You
had almost 90 million townwide. Um, in
the event of a catastrophic event,
you've you've got great liquidity. You
do have the ability to borrow amongst
within the funds if you needed to. But
overall, you have you have low cash flow
risk, right? Many many agencies
based on the way they're funded and
based on the volatility of their
revenues have to keep higher reserves
because of of volatility and cash flow
whereas you have a little more steady uh
cash flow in terms of knowing when
you're going to get your funds and being
able to plan for that. So overall you
have a a really low uh risk on your cash
flow position.
larger risk there is is on revenues. Um
but but you're overall in a fairly
stable position. What I did was I took a
look at all of your general fund
revenues by category and and categorize
them as as high, medium or low in terms
of risk. The the good news for you all
is over 60% of your revenue is is very
secure um in terms of your secure
secured and unsecured property tax.
very low risk of of a significant shock
to the system on your property tax. Uh
the big the the large area where you do
have risk and as as was discussed during
the budget presentation is with the VLF.
There's tremendous amount of uncertainty
with what's going to happen there. The
total budget there is 1.8 million as as
Jan mentioned. You know, 1 million of
that is is fairly secure. That is money
that is available. It is the the the the
shortfall that is uh very uncertain. So
there is a high risk there, but it's a
relatively low amount of your of your
total overall budget. The other areas
that I that I determined to be medium
risk would be your excess raff um your
construction permits, your service
charges, and your other revenues. And
those are medium just because they will
typically eb and flow a little bit with
the economy. And for excess raft,
there's a a bit of uncertainty with that
on an ongoing basis. But overall, you
have pretty low risk with your with your
revenues. You're not subject to
volatility the way cities that are
highly dependent on revenue sources like
the hotel tax or sales tax have a much
greater uh exposure to to economic
cycles rather than than the town who's
able to be a little bit more resilient
um through through cycles in the
economy.
>> Yes, Council Member Trunk. Could I just
ask for a clar clarification?
So when you were talking about the risk
assessment and the revenue loss um on
the public safety tax, you actually rate
it low. Is it because we have a
consistent funding mechanism that come
in? Is that is that how you're
evaluating it? Correct. because, you
know, as our personnel cost goes up and
we talk about the pension and the salary
increase and benefits, uh, it's now
outpacing our budget. So, so in in this
chart, what you're looking at is cons
consistent funding sources. Is that how
the evaluation goes?
>> Correct. So, this is strictly on the
revenue side. I'll I'll address the
expenditure side in in another slide or
two. Okay.
>> Right. Because it's a different it's a different evaluation. So there's
higher risk there. But this is strictly
is what's the likelihood that this
revenue is going to come in as expected.
What is the the amount of volatility in
this particular revenue source? So so
the revenue itself is is stable. It's
then the expenditures that it pays for
that that is has a little more
volatility that I'll I'll talk about in
just a minute.
>> Thank you.
So I wanted to to also stress test your revenues as well. And so I put
together a pretty extreme scenario in my
mind for you know what if. So what if
you had a a significant
uh economic downturn that resulted in
you know red a reduction in local
revenues and the state taking action
that impacted your your revenues. And so
the the the the scenario was a 5%
reduction in your in your property
taxes, a lo a complete loss of the VLF,
a 50% loss in the excess raft and and
50% losses in your permitting and your
service charges, and then 25% of all
else. What would happen if that were the
case? So that would actually be a $6.5
million revenue loss. So on a $ 38.7
million base, you would be down to 32.1
million. So your existing reserves would
allow you to to work through that over
the course of a of a few years. So
you're already very resilient for what's
a pretty significant
uh you know stress test scenario for
your budget. So after I did this, the
next thing I did was how likely is this
to happen? So I looked back at the great
recession and the co 19 pandemic to see
how you how you managed both of those uh
financial situations and uh starting
with the great recession
you had one year 20101 where you had a
3% reduction in revenues then 11 12 you
were flat and from there you've been
growing ever since. So in in in the
grand scheme of a of a great recession
that had a a very significant impact on
local governments throughout California
and throughout the country, you all
weathered that storm pretty well. A a
blip in 201011 and flat the next year
and then growth from there. Similar on
the on the CO 19 pandemic, you had one
year where you where you dropped by
about a percent on the revenue side
before starting to grow again
significantly the the subsequent years.
So when you when you look at a a fairly
extreme what if scenario and then what
this what the town has seen in reality
from from the last two pretty
significant economic shocks, you're in
pretty good position from a revenue
perspective. You have relatively low
volatility
and so that's a a big factor as you
think about the reserves that you want
to carry uh for the general fund.
So now move into the risk assessment on
the operating expenditures. So as as was
brought up there there are absolutely
risks on the on the operating
expenditure side. You've got personnel
costs that are are rising every year and
typically what you're finding and most cities and towns are finding that
their personnel costs are rising at a
rate faster than revenues. So revenues
are not keeping up with personnel costs.
So there's absolutely risks with respect
to that. There's risks with respect to
the cost of central county fire general
inflation. So the costs of the things
that you're buying and your contract
services are going up, liability,
workers comp, all of these things are increasing and create some risk. The difference that that I would say for
the expenditure side risk in comparison
to the revenue side risk is generally
with the expenditure side, you're able
to see it coming. So you can plan a
little bit better with the revenues
typically and again less so for the town
because you're you're not relying on
things like hotel tax and sales tax. But
often when those start to take a dive,
you're seeing that months down the road.
You're you're seeing it from the
rearview mirror, not looking at it
perspectively.
On the expenditure side, again, you know
these things are happening. You know
these are conditions. You're generally
able to plan for them. So it's not as if
they're not risks. It's just you're
better able to manage them with with
your through your normal budget process,
right?
So, the non-operating risks, keep this
pretty pretty brief. Um, obviously
natural disaster impacting your
infrastructure, any other general
infrastructure emergency is is a concern
for any agency. Um, obviously there's
some elevated risk due to our geography
and and aging infrastructure. Um there are insurance policies that the
town cover carries that would help cover
and mitigate some of this risk. So that
is a factor as as we develop the the
reserve policy. And then I think as we
saw um you know five six years ago
during the the co 19 pandemic the risk
of a public health crisis having a
significant financial impact on the town
I think is relatively low based on what
happened. I think that the county is
going to bear a lot of that a lot of
that cost and a lot of that that
responsibility. So overall those those
risks are are relatively low.
So now I'll transition into the reserve
policy recommendations. So
recommendations again with with the with
the broad perspective of starting with a
good policy that you have and and
emphasizing that these policy
recommendations are the intent for how
the money should be set aside but they
don't restrict council from from taking
other actions. So the first reserve, the
intent there is to be a contingency
reserve. The idea there is is the intent
for these funds would they would be set
aside and utilized for really
extraordinary one-time events. So things
such as a natural disaster, major
infrastructure failure, or any other
unforeseen emergency or disaster as
determined by the council. And the idea
with this this res reserve the target
would be 25% of general fund budgeted
operating expenditures and it would be
the top priority for for funding. So
what the way these these reserves have
been structured is to sort of waterfall
with a priority list. And so the top
reserve would be the the contingency
reserve. So the first 25% of unassigned
fund balance would go into that reserve.
The second reserve is more intended to stabilize the budget during, you
know, economic uh downturns or other uh
things such as a state takeaway with the VLF.
And the idea with this reserve is
service level retention. So, the ability
to maintain service levels while the
town figured out if this were a
short-term economic shock or if this
were a long-term revenue loss. And the
idea with this reserve is for it to be
at a 15% of general fund budgeted
operating expenditure target with the utiliz or the the replenishment
policy being that when the reserve
actually goes below the the the target
so when it gets below the 15% so when
you're actually utilizing the reserve
the budget the next budget cycle will
articulate an operational plan to res to
return the reserve to the target level
within three years. So as an example, if
there were a you know an economic
recession and you needed to drive dip
into the reserves to maintain services,
the operational plan may be stay the
course, revenues are going to recover
over the next couple years. Whereas if we learn that the VLF is going to go
away and that's a long-term g hole
that's in that's in your budget, the the
budget stabilization fund is again used
to maintain services in the short term
while an operational plan is developed
over the long term to close that that
ongoing gap and this the intent here was
for this to be the second priority for
unassigned balance fund balance. So the
first is the contingency. The second is
for the budget stabilization reserve.
The third reserve, the intent for this
is to be an infrastructure reserve to be
utilized to fund infrastructure needs
that arise during the fiscal year that
were not either budgeted or planned for
in the near term. So the the purpose
here is not to supplant funds that are
intended for the capital uh or the
existing the existing capital plan. The
intent here is for there to be a set
aside for things that come up that were
not planned. So in the in the current
structure, things that come up are not
planned. You you decide whether you want
to go into reserves, you decide whether
you want to uh take money out of other
capital projects and use it for the the
unplanned needs. And the idea here is to
have a little bit of money set aside to be able to address the unplanned
needs as as they come up. But again not
to supplant the existing uh funds that
are used for uh current capital
projects.
The intent here would this one would be
the third priority. So once the
contingency is funded once the budget
stabilization is funded the
infrastructure reserve would then be
funded
and then the remaining funds any any
remaining funds would be an undesated
fund balance. So these are the funds
after the three defined reserves are
funded. Um and they would be available
for appropriation at the discretion of
council. Best best case scenarios, they
would be these would be used for
one-time purposes because they're
one-time funds, but they could be used
for anything that council determined
they needed to be used for. Um and
again, this would these would be the
funds that were left over after the
three other reserves are funded.
And before I go through some of the
numbers, I just want to provide some
just some final policy considerations
here. So, as I mentioned at the at the
beginning of the presentation, defining
these specific reserves for for
unassigned fund balance, it doesn't
restrict that funding. These these funds
remain at council's discretion. These are still ultimately unassigned
funds that get put into reserve,
right? but they are not restricted
otherwise and can be used at council's
discretion.
The the idea here is to create some
definition for their intended use that
allows for an earlier discussion when
they need to be utilized. It allows for
an early discussion about some of the
tradeoffs that may need to to take place
when those funds are used. So for
instance, if you have that
infrastructure need that was unplanned
and you and we've got and there this
policy exists, it's not necessarily an
automatic that it would be used. It
creates the the sort of the the trigger
to have the discussion about do we use
these polic do we utilize the
infrastructure reserve? What happens if
we do that? What are the trade-offs that
might have to happen? Right? So the idea
is here is it's it's to help guide
decision- making by by creating an
intent for these reserves, but it's not
intended to restrict um the decision-
making and ultimately again these these
funds can be used for anything council
chose for them to be used for and the
policy can be written as such.
With that, I'll just go through the
numbers really quickly. The and Jan
already covered these. Um, in under the
current policy for based on the 26 27
baseline budget, the 30% goal would be
met. The 50% goal would be slightly
under under the proposed uh the three
policy reserves would be fully funded
and there would be about $300,000 in
undesated fund balance. That concludes
my presentation. I'm happy to take any
questions.
Um, thank you, Mr. Corpet. Um, I will
ask the council if they have any, um,
questions.
>> Yes. Um, council member Krik.
>> Thank you, Drew. And I did have the
advantage. I was able to see this ahead
of time. So, just to, um, clarify,
you are recommending the same amount of
reserve that we have in our current
policy. It's just a different way of
organizing the reserve funds. Is that
correct?
>> It's close. It's it's it's
a little bit less than the current 50%
policy under under the the current it's
I think closer to maybe 45. Um there
would only be two that were based on a
percentage. So you'd have 40% between
the contingency and the budget
stabilization. And then instead of an
additional 10% it would be uh $3
million. So it's it's close. It's It's
well above the 30% level, but it's not
quite at the 50 based on your 2627
budget.
>> Thank you.
» Yes, Vice Mayor Rexdale.
>> Um, thank you so much. Um, also thank
you for the slides in advance. It's that
was very helpful. Um, I had uh two brief
questions. Um, so going through the the
Moody's rating, which that was very um
helpful. Um do they if we did the
different um reserve uh categories um in
rating us would they just look at our um
amalgamated
uh accumulate accumulate accumulated or
would they look at each?
>> No, they would they would look at the cumulative amount that's that's
unassigned.
>> Right. So, so if you had, you know, as a
as an example, if you had
if your entire fund balance were
restricted for a specific purpose and
you didn't actually have any funds that
were at at council's discretion, they
would they would certainly view that
differently than viewing
undesated fund balance that's at
council's discretion that you've chosen
to reserve in specific buckets.
So, if it turned out one year we needed
to um
go into the infrastructure reserve and
we hadn't
quite replenished it yet, um they would
still look at the overall number.
>> They would look at the overall.
>> Okay. Um and then um the other question
I had is so the contingency reserve
recommended 25% budget stabilization 15%
and then the infrastructure was um not
as a percentage but it was as at a
dollar amount and I was wondering uh the
reasoning behind that.
I ultimately made the recommendation
um you know trying to look at the
available funding sort of setting the
right balance for the fund and looking
at um with the with the infrastructure
you know obviously for for each of these
as your operating budget grows any
expenditure that's a percentage of that
operating budget is going to grow as
well. So each year your contingency
reserve is going to grow, your budget
stabilization fund is going to is going
to grow just naturally as the budget
goes. I set the infrastructure reserve
at a as opposed to as a percent
um just looking at sort of historical
spending um capital needs and and just
trying to trying to get the the right
balance of not setting the reserve too
high. Um but it wasn't wasn't overly
scientific. I just chose that that
perhaps not having all three reserves
that were automatically growing made
sense and that instead you could look at
the infrastructure reserve over over
time and determine what the right level
for that reserve is.
>> Okay, that makes sense. Thank you,
» Council Member Adams.
>> Thank you. Um, I think this is the page
that I had the most trouble with too.
And initially I was really against this
idea because
as much as you and all of us might agree
that these are still fluid funds
over time,
people forget that. And even though this
is our intention, the effect can be that
it is a cap or that it is something that
we need to raise money for in order to
fulfill. And I really think we operate
better with money that we can use at our
discretion and that
we,
for example, have just been looking at a
couple of bridges,
little bridges. We're not talking about
big bridges. This isn't the Golden Gate.
These are little bridges and they're
really expensive
uh to repair.
So in this instance, the reserve here
wouldn't cover those two bridges. So
infrastructure is actually where we
spend a fair amount of our money. I'm
worried that in the future someone will
say yes, but it's we only have $3
million for that, so we'll only fix one
of the bridges. Something like that. So,
I want to make sure that if we go ahead
with this that we insist that it be
labeled as
suggested or something like that. But
then when I thought about it, it also is really not great to walk
into any situation as a town that has a
big wad of money, $30 million or $26
million that isn't assigned to anything.
It makes people think that we have lots
of things we could do and lots of
communities will ask us to use that
because we have that. So ultimately I
came around to exactly what you proposed
with the exception of infrastructure
reserve which what you have here is a a
little less than 7%
and it wouldn't cover what we're looking
at right now. So, I'm just wondering if
we need to either put a percentage in
there or
uh rejigger the money slightly because
our infrastructure is currently the
biggest part actually public works and
streets and sewers that's what we pay
most for. So maybe we don't have the
balance exactly right, but I am
ultimately came around to believe that
it's better to have this as long as we
recognize
in perpetuity
that this is fluid and that we don't
need to raise money in order to fulfill
this. So maybe you could comment on
that.
>> Yeah, I'll take the beginning and then
Drew, you can clean up all the mistakes
I'm about to make if you'd like. Um you
bring up a great point about the bridges
and that's we're looking at two of them
maybe around 6.9 million um for those
types of repairs but again if you
remember we kind of identified one of
them uh actually in both cases as a
public safety emergency as well. Uh so
these are kind of those oneoff things
that we would look at as an emergency
thing that we want to fix because of the
public safety issue. Not so much of a
something we want to get done from
infrastructure. And the $3 million is
pretty much the average amount if you if
you look at what an infrastructure
project cost. It's about $3 million if
you go historically looking over it. So
it provides for one infrastructure
capital improvement project that kind of
was unplanned for. These are the ones
that specifically the bridge I I would
call these more of a public safety type
emergency. And really this comes about
to I mean over the last five years uh
we've had a draw of about 11.6 6 million
um from reserves for capital improvement
projects that we've been working with.
So it it kind of adds a way of sort of
saying this is the amount that we have
there. But as Drew pointed out earlier,
all this does is give us a guideline for
how to use it and where we need to maybe
replace some money, where we might need
to make those decisions of saying maybe
we don't do this particular project this
year until the fund is back up to where
we want it. But it in no way restricts
the council for using all of this money
is available to the council at any time
at the council's discretion. It's just
more of a budgeting tool I think for us.
And Drew, if you want to add anything
>> briefly add I think you covered it very
well. Um when we were having the
discussion about what to where to set
that infrastructure reserve as as the
city manager mentioned, we sort of
landed on $3 million because that kind
of around the historical average. And I
think the scenario that that was brought
up is is a great reason as to why to to
have these reserves in the bucket, but really, you know, articulating that
they are flexible. If you were to get
into a situation where you did have the
two bridges and there's and and they
were unplanned and you had a $7 million
issue that you needed to address between
the two bridges and you're looking at
the reserve and you're saying, "Okay,
well, we have $3 million that we've set
aside for this purpose. Do we want to
use do we want to go into the other
reserves to do this?" Okay, if we do
that, this is this is the trade-off we
have to make, which means we're not
ready. we're not as as resilient for an
economic shock, right? But but sometimes
timing is never good. But it it it
forces that discussion and that
thoughtful decision about do we want to
do this now? Do we need to do this now?
Or do we want to start, you know, do one
of the projects now and hold off on one
of them until we're able to replenish
the funds. But the real purpose is is to
be able to have that conversation early
when it comes up versus, you know, not,
you know, having them sort of just in in
one large bucket and saying, "Yes, we
have the money, but then not having the
trade-off conversation."
» I I think that's a really good point
that it we need to look at the tradeoffs
and and that's so that I I appreciate.
>> Thank you. Um, any additional question
from from the council? All right. I have
a couple of followup and I agree with
the comments by um, council member
Adams. I I do think it does help to have
this bucket because it does um
it sort of diminishes this sense that
oh, we have all this money saved, we can
do whatever we want. It it it forces us
to pay attention how where the monies
are being spent. Um, but one of the
things I'm picking up here is you
pointed out it's less savings overall
whether it's in different buckets or
not. It's it's still 19.7. I just want
to clarify that versus
25. I mean, in other words, why reduce
the target that we've been working
towards? What is the logic behind that?
the target remained
at at 19 because that was the 50%. It's
just last year you closed with more than the 50% amount. So you had a 5.4
for in addition. But because of the
spending this year and and what the
budget is next year with with your again
your reserve your automatic reserve
calculation automatically increasing
because of of operating expenditures
being higher. The the target is actually
at the targets at 19.4 4 million based
on your existing policy
>> of 30% or
>> 50%.
» The the other piece of it is that this
is the fund balance for the reserve
piece of it. Then you add on to this the
restricted
$6 million for the um for the uh engine
115 trust. So this is the nonrestricted
portion of the reserve.
>> Okay. So the 25 includes the restricted
as well. Is that
>> Well,
we want to make sure we're talking about
the same 25.
>> Yes.
» Okay. So there's Yeah,
>> there's two different 25s.
>> Okay. So last year we closed from a
financial statement perspective we
closed at 33.7 million in reserves in
total
» of which 5.7 was the pension trust.
>> So that would get you to a 20
25.3. Okay. So that's the 25.3 if you
also take out the assigned.
The issue is that this year we're
forecasting that we're going to be
drawing on reserves by a significant
amount because of those two projects
like six million or more. And so if you
were to roll that 33.7 forward, that's
going to be a much smaller number. And
that's what gets us to the ending
projected reserve of 25.6
for the budget of which 6 million is the
pension trust and the other 19.7 is the
remaining amount that goes toward
um the policy.
Um, so if you were to take the 19.7 and
25 and 15, I'm just curious about these
numbers in terms of actual dollars. I I
agree. Um, infrastructure this year
alone for the two bridges is 6 million.
I was just worried that the undesated
fund balance that could be determined by
any future city council how it's to be
spent. What percent eventually ends up
in that undesated fund balance or at
least
if they what do they really have
discretion over in terms of not keeping
it in a in a bucket?
So you'll you the council would still
have discretion over all of the funds
that are not that are not in the pension
trust and not otherwise assigned. So
based on where you're expecting to
finish 2627
that's $19.7 million.
under the proposed policy, you would
reserve that into three different
buckets and there would be $300,000
undesated at the time, right? So, you'd
still have your but you'd have your
reserve buckets and the intent of how
they would be used, but ultimately
council could use those funds however
you saw fit. So, you you effectively you
have $19.7 million.
>> Okay. Um,
is this
I'm you know, I'm just curious. Do you
think um Jan this could discourage um
the talk? I mean, if you just look at
those buckets, you've hit it. Do you
think it could potentially discourage
putting more funds into the undesated
let's say we we having an amazing
economy and you know, we have huge um
reserve.
Do you think just from just general
practicing would would people continue
to fund it to this 50% goal
would the fact that a certain bucket has
been filled discourage ongoing funding?
» So looking more at the at the left uh
side you can see that we're not
completely hitting the 50% goal right
now. Right.
>> So, it's a great question. The question
is, will we have an operating deficit
next year and then the next year? Right.
So, and right now, we believe we will if
we're if we continue with our operations
and the capital spending that we are
currently at. And so, it's going to um
be much tighter over time to have an
undesated fund balance. That is that's
the bottom line. Yes. And you don't
think it would cause delay to come, you
will have to come to council each time
you want to move funds from one bucket
to the next, right? Would that cause
delays in from an operational
standpoint? Uh, city manager and or or
not really. You don't
>> So I think think back to uh what Drew
was saying about having the foresight on
the budget and looking at ahead at the
expenditures and then lining that up
with revenue. So that's one opportunity
to do that each year when we set the
budget process. Um and then if things
come up throughout the year, that's
where this prioritization
u may come into play if there's
unbudgeted items.
>> And I would add to that that regardless
if it's an unanticipated item and that's
over my signing authority, it's going to
have to come back to council um anyway.
And with our
amazing department heads that we have
here, I'm I'm never worried about them
not having enough projects that they
want to get done. So, I think that this,
you know, it's not going to I won't see
a discouragement for different pro, you
know,
items that they want to accomplish
within their departments um coming
forward um with with regard to this
budget. the idea will just be like you
know prioritizing and bringing it to the
council as to exactly what we want to
do. Uh but all our department heads are
they have if you were to give them an
unlimited they have a very long list of
things they would like to get
accomplished. So I'm not worried about
them discouraging them from using their
creativity to come forward with projects
>> uh through the mayor.
>> Yes, council member Chuang. Uh the way I
understand this is that uh at the end of
the day the council has the ultimate
decision in terms of you bring the staff
bring forward to uh the council
regarding projects or whatnot or the
deficits but this allows us some
structures for us to review and to be
able to spend accordingly. I think
that's how I understand it. And really
it's it's more um
structure. It it has a much more indepth
in terms of the contingency of the
project and your the 19.7 is really the
projections of how you see going down
the line for this year that you
anticipate that there is going to be
19.7 mill into the reserve and this is
how you divid it up to be if there is a
situation such as the BRF did not come
through that the council then would have
the opportunity need to evaluate this
and look at the the each of the bucket,
right? Is that is that how we look at
it?
>> Yeah, I I think that's exactly how you
look at it. Right. Like this is the
snapshot of under this policy what your
reserve would look like going into the
next fiscal year. And so you're looking
at a situation where you've got all of
your policy reserves funded. You've got
$300,000 of undesated fund balance. So
you're in a good situation. you're not, you know, you're not looking
at having all of your policy reserves
funded and then an extra $10 million.
You've got you're you're you're tight to
your policy and then practically
speaking as you move forward. As the
city manager mentioned, what would
happen over the course of the year is
number one, you're going to be
evaluating your revenues and and making
sure that you know the economy is going
as you think it is. Nothing is is
changing materially based on what you
thought on the revenue side. And then if
you have that uh you have that situation
with an un major unanticipated
expenditure,
it would likely be, you know, if it's if
it's a major unanticipated expenditure,
it' be over the the city manager
spending authority. So they're going to
come back with that item anyways. And
that's your opportunity to to relook at
this in a in a larger context and make
decisions about hey if we if we have to
spend we we had this million dollar
surprise we could fund it out of the
infrastructure reserve and everything
else is is remains funded or whatever it
may be. So it's that it's that
checkpoint on on the plan to see is you
know do we have the capacity that we
thought we had to to fund this
unanticipated need.
>> Yeah. through the mayor. I I I thought
this lends further clarity in terms of
what the council has the options for and and you know with mayor's comments
regarding if we have a good year this
projection of 19.7 is going to go larger
and you know the percentage of the
contributions for each of the category
will be increased. So, you know, um, so, I I do think that it lends clarity
to, uh, provide council the opportunity
to look at it and and see the bucket and
to see how they can, you know, um, put
in more in one of the contingency
funding or to evaluate and says, you
know, the bridges are important and the
infrastructures now we can utilize more
funding for that. Is that right?
>> Thank you. Thank you, Drew. Yes, Council
Member Krill. I
>> I know we're trying to get to um close
session, but I just want to say I agree.
I think this provides flexibility with
structure and clarity, and I just wanted
to note that the uh financial advisory
committee did look this over and
recommends the structure.
Um I was at that meeting as well and the
questions we've gone over were some of
the questions the finance committee
brought up regarding flexibility and
making sure that this is set up in a
manner that doesn't restrict or
constrain not only the city council but
the staff in terms of getting things
done and it sounds like you've addressed
that. Yeah, it's large it's largely a a
behind-the-scenes blueprint for us to
work with internally and it also helps
us bring up the conversation when we
come to council if we're going to look
at spending some of these. We also want
to forecast in the future, you know, is
there a project we may need to delay.
So, we're not just asking to spend a
reserve. We're also saying the
consequence of spending this now may be
that a certain project is delayed for a
period of time. So, you kind of get both
sides of the equation.
>> Okay. Thank you. Do we have any public
comment on this issue before we move on?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. No public
comment.
>> Okay, with that said, um no additional
comments from the council. Um I thank
you all three of you very much for this
um very detailed um presentation and
discussion. We will now adjourn to close
session.
No, it's just a directive
>> when we come back.
>> No. Uh
>> yeah.
>> Uh
>> yeah. Mayor Cold, do you want to go
ahead and call the close session to
order and we'll just
>> Thank you.
>> Um we'll now call the close session um
meeting. Uh it's well, we're running
late. It's 5:00 p.m. supposed to be
4:45. Okay. And the Hillsboro City
Council uh meeting is called to order.
And may we please have the roll call.
>> Thank you. Adams
>> present.
>> Schwang present.
>> Crow present.
>> Ragdale present. Cole
>> present.
>> Um do any of my coun do any of the
council members have a conflict of
interest they need to disclose for the
close session items?
Okay. Let me briefly read the close
session items. Public public employee
performance evaluation. Item B,
conference with labor labor negotiators.
And um do we have any public comments on
the close session items?
>> No public comment. Thank you.
>> Okay. In which case we'll now return to
close session.
» Good evening everyone. The Hillsboro
City Council meeting is now called to
order. It's May 11th. Um the time is
6:01 p.m. Um city clerk, may we please
have the roll call.
>> Thank you. Mayor Cole Adams
>> present.
Kwick
>> present. Bragstone present. Cole
>> present.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay. Could you please stand for the
pledge of allegiance?
Liberty, justice.
Thank you.
>> Welcome everyone. It's wonderful to have
all this distinguished uh guests in the
chambers this evening. Um
the U city, let me um ask our city
attorney Diaz, do we have any report
from close session?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. Just wanted to
announce for the public that the council
did convene in close session earlier
today uh to consider a few items as
listed on the agenda and there was no
reportable action under the Brown Act.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um
like as I stated, we we're very um happy
to see you all in chambers this evening.
Um we are going to our first recognition
is the Hillsboro I voted sticker contest
winner. Before I
move on to talk about our um recipient,
um we have something in medicine and
health and science um called double
blind study, which means the patients
know the researchers know what drug
you're trying to test. They do sort of
this very it's a way of removing bias.
So they look at the outcome, the results
just based on what's in front of them.
The patient is not biased in terms of
their symptoms. the the researchers are
not biased in terms of how they conduct
the study. And when I think of this
award that came to mind when I was
reading just sort of how we went about
getting this winner tonight um and
you'll see what I mean shortly. The city
clerk collaborated with the city of
Berling game city clerk's office on the
town's first I voted sticker design
contest for youth under the age of 18
for the June 2026 primary election. And
we want to thank all of the young
artists who participated. The city clerk
received fantastic submissions. And
while every design brought something
unique to the table, one design stood
out and was selected to be printed and
distributed at the town hall polling
location this year. Our winner happens
to be a talented Hillsboro student
artist who had her artwork included on
the cover of the 2026 Hip Housing
calendar and she was the first place
winner of the 2025 Rethink Waste poster
contest in the elementary school
category.
and um again talk about the coincidence
of picking the right winner each time. I
would like to invite Hillsboro I voted
sticker contest um winner Meline and her
family to the podium and um it's really
amazing that Meline has won all these
awards. There's no nothing is fixed
here. This is authentic winner here. I'm
very proud of her. Um, Meline, would you
like to would you and your family like
to um make some comments.
» Welcome. We're so proud of you.
>> Thank you.
I drew a bald eagle because it's our
national animal and the bald eagle is
standing on a branch. So I decided to
include the three branches of the
government.
>> It is quite impressive. It's so
thoughtful and so like did did you read
a story or book? What inspired you to
use this image? because it's
>> my teacher taught me the three branches
of the government.
>> Ah,
good for you. You getting some great
civic lessons and I would like to invite
any of my colleagues who may want to
make a comment. Oh, I'm I'm part of the
Meline fan club and I have been
privileged to be with her at two awards
ceremonies, but I also coincidentally
already am wearing my I voted uh sticker
from our election. This is so important
and I think you did just a fabulous job.
It has wonderful symmetry, lots of
color, and a message to tell that it's
as smart as a bald eagle to vote. So,
the branches of government, super. Thank
you, Matteline, once again.
>> Yes.
Any additional comments? Yes. Um, Vice
Mayor Rexdale,
>> I just want to say I get it now that you
said that the branches of government and
they're in the See, it takes me takes me
a while. Um, and there are a lot of
adults that are not familiar with the
separation of powers and the three
branches of government and this reminder
is uh very important. Um, and thank you
very much for sharing your talents with
us.
>> Yes. So the certificate of recognition,
the city council of the town of
Hillsboro extends congratulatory
recognition of Meline Woo for being
selected as the town of Hillsboro winner
of the 2026 Town of Hillsboro and City
of Berlin game I voted sticker design.
You are to be admired and commended for
your efforts. I'll give this to you.
Meline just to say that we'll be voting
and we will be wearing your sticker. So
that's pretty cool.
>> Well done. Well done. Thank you. And the
next next item on the agenda is um
mental health um month recognition.
And I believe we have um Eric Valadarees
with us. Um is he available? Is he here
with us? There he is. It was great to
see you a few weeks ago and I remembered
everything you said. I thought, "Ah,
perfect. He's here. Great."
um he's the executive director at family
connections to the po and um I just was
so impressed by the comments you made a
few weeks at that event. I just thought
this is exactly who we need here in
chambers for mental health um
proclamation.
So we are going to read the proclamation
and then we'll present it to you
and we'll uh the entire council is going
to read this and we'll start with
council member Adams.
Thank you. Town of Hillsboro
proclamation mental health month May
2026.
Whereas mental health is essential to
overall well-being impacting
individuals, families, and communities
across the United States. And
>> whereas every day millions of people
face stigma related to mental health and
substance use conditions and may feel
isolated and alone going years before
receiving any help and if left untreated
have life expecties 25 years shorter
than the general population. And
>> whereas despite its prevalence, mental
health remains shrouded in stigma
preventing many from seeking help. And
whereas the 2026 mental health month
theme is mental health is ours
emphasizing community collective action
and holistic support. And whereas mental
health and substance use condition are
treatable health conditions and
individuals with mental health and s
substance use condition can recover and
le full and meaningful lives. And
>> whereas May is recognized nationally as
mental health month, providing an
opportunity to raise awareness, combat
stigma, and promote mental health
resources.
Now therefore, be it resolved that the
city council of the town of Hillsboro
does hereby co proclaim the month of May
2026 as mental health month in Hillsboro
and encourages all residents to educate
themselves and others about mental
health conditions, treatment options,
and available resources. Challenge
stigma by speaking respectfully and
inclusively about mental health. Seek
help if they are struggling with their
mental health and encourage others to do
the same. support organizations that
provide mental health services and
advocacy and create safe and supportive
environments for open conversations
about mental health so that together we
can create a community that feels
empowered to prioritize their mental
well-being and seek help when needed.
Signed by our mayor, Dr. Sophie Cole,
May 11th, 2026.
>> Thank you. We're so honored to present
you this proclamation.
And um our next proclamation is um
Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and
Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And
again, I would like to invite the entire
council to um read this proclamation.
So, Town of Hillsboro proclamation,
Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and
Pacific Islander
Heritage Month, May 2026.
Whereas during the month of May, we
celebrate Asian-American,
Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders
heritage month and pay tribute to the
contribution of Asian-American and
Pacific Islanders who have enriched our
history and been in an integral part of
our community. And whereas the month of
May was selected for ANHPI
Heritage Month to commemorate the
immigration of the first Japanese to the
United States on May 7th, 1843
and to mark the anniversary of the
completion of the transcontinental
railroad on May 10th, 1869 with
substantial contributions from Chinese
immigrants. And whereas Asian-Americans,
Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders
comprise many ethnicities and languages,
and their many achievements embody the
American experience. And
>> whereas according to the federal
Asian-Pacific American Council, the
theme for A&HPI Heritage Month in 2026
is power in unity, strengthening
communities together to highlight the
importance of leveraging collective
power, telling stories, and being
bridgebuilders in communities. And
>> whereas Asian-Americans, Native
Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders
contribute significantly to many facets
of American culture and society,
including science and medicine,
literature and art, sports and
recreation, government and politics, and
activism and law.
Now therefore, be it resolved that the
city council of the town of Hillsbor
does hereby proclaim the month of May
2026 as Asian-American, Native Hawaiian,
and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to
recognize the countless contribution
that Asian-Americans,
Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders
have made to our community. Signed by
Dr. Sophie Cole, our mayor, May 11th,
2026.
And tonight, I would like to um bring
forward um Diane Lou and her daughter.
Uh both are really just avid volunteers
for our community. Come on up to receive
this,
mayor. Yes.
Sure.
Oops.
Thanks again for all the work you do in
the community. Much appreciated.
And our next proclamation is uh National
Public Works Week coming up next week.
Um May 17th to May 23rd.
And I would like to invite our public
works director Paula Willis and deputy
public works director Natalie Gribbin to
the podium to receive the proclamation.
And I will ask um I've asked council
member um Adams uh public works
commissioner to read the proclamation.
>> With pleasure. Thank you. Town of
Hillsboro proclamation national public
works week May 17th through the 23rd
2026.
Whereas public works staff members focus
on infrastructure, facilities and
services that are of vital importance to
sustainable and resilient communities
and to the public health, quality of
life, and well-being of the Hillsboro
community.
And whereas the 2026 theme for public
works week is rooted in service powered
by community to acknowledge that the
roots of service run deep in public
works.
Some work such as building roads and
bridges is highly visible while other
public works contributions such as
maintaining water and sewer systems are
often hidden from view. Together, these
efforts form the foundation of thriving
communities, reminding us that every
project, seen or unseen, powers the
connection between service and the
people it supports.
And whereas the infrastructure,
facilities and services could not be
provided without the dedicated efforts
of the public works team who are
engineers, managers, maintenance workers
and employees at all level of government
and the private sector who are
responsible for rebuilding, improving
and protecting our nation's
transportation, water supply, water
treatment and solid waste systems,
public buildings and other structures
and facilities essential for our
residents.
And whereas 2026 marks the 66th
annual National Public Works Week
sponsored by the American Public Works
Association.
Now therefore, be it resolved that the
city council of the town of Hillsboro
hereby proclaims the week of May 17th to
the 23rd, 2026
as National Public Works Week and urges
all residents to join with
representatives of the American Public
Works Association and government
agencies in activities, events, and
ceremonies designed to pay tribute to
public works professionals, engineers,
ers, managers, maintenance workers, and
employees, and to recognize the
substantial contributions that they make
to protecting our health and safety and
to advancing quality of life for all.
Signed by Dr. Sophie Cole, mayor, May
11th, 2026.
>> Thank you.
We we know you guys are awesome but
and we are just so proud to have the
team the public works team and um it is
our honor to present this to you and
also
» yeah you're welcome to make a comment.
>> So just uh thank you for the
recognition. Um, I'm usually be really
bad at forgetting important people in
this. So, I wanted to thank the council
first, but also it's important to
recognize that uh APWA is a great
organization that we're part of uh along
with all the other municipalities in the
Silicon Valley as well as peninsula. The
current president of APWA is no one know
is actually
Natalie Gribbons. Okay.
>> She uh
she represents all of us very well and
we're very proud of her. Uh we're
certainly proud to be a part of the
team. As we like to say, for us, a job
well done is one where you don't hear
about our work because water is always
moving, sewer is always moving, and we
have the best streets in the peninsula.
So, thank you for thinking of us and
thank you Natalie for for leading us.
>> Thank you.
I I just wanted to add um that I noticed
that it is National Drinking Water Week,
the week of May 3rd through 9th. It's
the first full week of May of every
year. So, um you know, thank you for
that, which is a a huge public service,
our our wonderful water. Thank you.
Yes.
And you know, in my effort to sort of
try to go through the agenda as
efficiently and quickly as I can, I um
forgot to ask um our first recipient um
Mr. Eric Valader to make a comment about
family collections. And if you do,
you're more than welcome to tell us
anything you want to share with us. And
again, thank you for all the work you do
with family connections and all the work
you do in the community.
» Thank you, Mayor Cole. Um, I'd like to
thank you and the members of the
Hillsboro City Council for recognizing
mental health awareness month and for
your continued commitment to the
well-being of children and families in
our community. We are very grateful for
the opportunity to stand alongside a
city that values prevention, compassion,
and early support for mental health. Um,
as they mentioned, my name is Eric
Badaris, and I have the privilege of
serving as the executive director of
family connections where we provide free
early childhood classes, parent
education, and workshops, and mental
health services for families with
children birth through five and
underresourced communities. Our vision
is that thriving children happen through
thriving families. During my time at
Family Connections, especially recently,
I've seen the need for this work
continue to grow. In California, 70% of
children from birth to five with
identified early intervention needs
receive no services, a gap reflected in
rising preschool expulsions. In fact,
250 children uh preschoolers are
expelled every day in this country.
These disparities fall hardest on our
black and brown boys. At the same time,
more children and adolesccents are being
seen in emergency rooms for mental
health services, including anxiety,
depression, and suicidal ideiation.
These trends remind us that mental
health challenges begin early and that
families need support before situations
reach a crisis point. That is why our
work focuses on prevention, early
intervention, and holistic support. By
supporting parents, educators, and
children early in life, we help build
resilience, reduce stigma, and connect
families to care before challenges
escalate. When communities invest in
mental health early, children are more
likely to succeed in school, build
healthy relationships, and grow into
thriving adults. I want to thank you
again for this proclamation and for
standing with families and children
throughout our community. Mental health
is not something any any organization
can address alone and it takes
partnerships, compassion, and a
community willing to show up for one
another. Your support sends a very
powerful message that every child and
every family matters. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
so much for sharing that with
us. It puts everything into perspective
and as you pointed out um mental illness
is another disease and like all diseases
the sooner you start treating it the
better your chances of um surviving.
Right. So thanks for everything you're
doing in the community. Much
appreciated.
All right. The next item um on our
agenda is actually a presentation from
our own chief of police Melissa Ka and
Corporal Christopher Ray um who will be
presenting automated license plate
reader update.
>> Good evening and madame mayor, honorable
council members, town staff and
residents. Thank you for this
opportunity for us to provide an update
on our Flock automated license plate
readers.
Flock is an essential tool that we use
as police officers and it's a tool we
use every day to keep the community safe
and to solve crimes.
I'd like to share a few success stories
for you on our use of flock.
On December 1st, 2025, we were notified
by the district office that there were a
burglary that had occurred in the locked
yard of their district office. Two
vehicles were stolen during that
burglary. We were quickly able to add
the license plates into the flock system
and notice that the first uh captured
video was right at Stone Hedge and
Baywood. We were then able to follow the
flock captures through San Monteo to El
Camino and 92 and then up to 9 101 in
Melbour. Ultimately, the vehicle was
recovered in San Francisco.
On May 5th, 2025, two vehicles were
stolen from uh the 2100 block of
Carmelita.
Using their license plate numbers, we
were able to track the the vehicles in a
nearby city. investigations conducted a
search warrant for the phone carriers
based on the location where the vehicles
were stolen and the location of where
the stolen vehicle was captured on flock
cameras. After reviewing the phone
carrier records, investigations were
able to identify a juvenile subject.
On 629, a residential burglary occurred
on the 2100 block of Forest View in in
Hillsboro. The suspect spray painted
swastikas on the dirt and on a statue of
a woman. Video surveillance was able to
identify the suspect and led our
investigations to figure out the type of
vehicle that was used. And we were able
to locate the vehicle and arrest the
subject.
This one here's a typo. It was 71 and
25. a residential burglary occurred in
Hillsboro.
>> Uh alarm was activated around 2:00 in
the morning. Neighbors had heard uh the
activation called the police. We went
out. Uh they also heard a vehicle
leaving. Their video surveillance was
able to capture the vehicle. We got the
license plate and we um have an arrest
warrant currently for that suspect.
And finally, uh the last one I'll share
with you is on the 17th of 2025 in
December, uh we were responded to the
Berling game Country Club on two
vehicles that were ransacked
early in earlier in that day. Uh while
later, we got a phone call from another
victim who was also a victim of a
burglary around the same time. that
victim had a video surveillance of the
subject and we were able to tie the two
crimes together and there is now a
arrest warrant for that suspect. Now
these are just a few of the cases that I
wanted to highlight for you today. There
have been many many many success for
stories that I could share with you but
these are just a few.
I wanted to show you the burglary trends
uh for the past 10 years and let's
highlight 2021. It's when we started the
uh training and evaluation of our flock
cameras and since then uh residential
burglaries have significantly declined.
In 2023 is when we obtained more flock
cameras and placed them around ingress
and egress of the town. The blue the
blue lines mark the residential
burglaries and the yellow line
represents the commercial and
construction site burglaries.
I'm going to pass the mic over to uh
Corporal Christopher Ray. He is our
flock specialist and he is going to
explain to you how flock works.
» Good evening. Corporal Ray, been the
administrator for the Flock cameras for
approximately five years from the
initial install. Um, what I'm going to
go over today is some claims that people
have against Flock and I'm going to give
the facts behind it. I'm going to go
over how it actually operates and how we
conduct searches and then I'll go over
some policy and some other procedural
stuff that we have uh with statistics.
A big claim we get is that LPRs track
people when in fact they actually just
take a point in space photograph of the
vehicle. We don't know where the vehicle
moves past that image. So, no tracking
of vehicles.
License plates are private information.
They're actually a mandatory item you
install on your vehicle. It's government
issued and it has to be publicly
visible.
Uh, another one is the constitutional
rights. People accuse us using this is
it's a violation of their fourth
amendment, but LPRs do not violate the
fourth amendment right or any other
constitutional provisions.
All four customer this is a big one
that's going around is data is shared
across the c country we choose who we
share with so if we want to share with
Berling game we can share with Berling
game and not share with sato we share
with no federal agencies we share with
just local or other PDs or sheriff
agencies and they share with us at any
time we can stop sharing with them if
they violate any of our policies or
procedures
data sales lock sells the claim was that
they sell all the images out possibly to
federal agencies. This does not exist.
Hillsboro itself actually owns and
possesses the images and that we have a
process of deleting the images.
Uh private customers doesn't affect us
much here, but if someone were to own
that private camera, there's talks that
they can view footages or get our DMV
returns. No customer other than official
law enforcement can view any kind of
return from the flock program itself.
regarding the federal agencies including
ICE having backdoor access. That is not
a thing. It does not exist. And again,
we share with no federal agencies or any
agencies that would share with a federal
agency. So, we just stay in California
as the laws are so strict. We're
protected that way knowing that they're
not going to be releasing it unless they
violate laws.
LPR cameras uh collect personal
information. That's a claim that has
happened. That's not facts. They do not
do anything that claims names,
addresses, social security numbers or
DMB records. It is simply
characteristics of the vehicle or the
license plate which is issued by the
government.
Another claim is flock keeps LPR data
forever. We are the ones that determine
when LPR data is done. That is actually
in our accountability policy and at that
point it'll be removed. Now, if we do
take an image off of the server, we have
to keep it in a controlled environment,
either through an axon, which is a
cloud-based storage and secured
evidence.com, or we put it into a
report, which then will be an also a
controlled document.
I think I have one or two more claims.
Uh, Flock LPR cameras are used facial
recognition, no facial recognition. You
can't track race, sex, any kind of human
characteristics. It is trained to only
take photographs of rear uh the rear of
the vehicle.
Uh, LPR cameras negatively impact
communities of color. Actually, the
Oakland NAACP
endorsed Flock LPR, noting it reduces
biases in policing. Cameras detect only
crime vehicles, removing subjective
judgment to avoid disproportionate
stops, harmful interactions with
residents.
LPRs do another claim is LPRs don't have
impact on crime. As you just saw with
the results we are having, it is a huge
increase just using San Francisco. A 41%
decrease in autothefts and a 46%
increase in autotheft arrests.
All right. So every our policy makes us
do a periodic audit which I try to keep
every 30 days and it covers not only
in-house searches from Hillsboro
officers but any agency that has access
to our cameras. If we do find something
that is annotated as a issue, we'd be
contacting the agency that made that
issue and removing their access
immediately to find out if what exactly
happened. Um,
now I'll go over how we do the searches.
So, this is considered the basic search.
This is what every officer can do
immediately on scene. An example would
be you just got in a hit and run and the
vehicle took off. You tell us it was a
red sedan. This is information. So event
offense type would be a hit and run the
case number attached to it. So we can
refer back if an audit happens and
there's an error and then the reason
would be a hit and run vehicle if we
have a license plate. But if we don't
that's where we can go into the
fingerprint the vehicle fingerprint
technology. The vehicle make the model
the color damage even and we do a search
that way starting close with our cameras
and expanding wider if we need to if
they possibly went to Alamita to get on
92. And then we can choose up to the
past 30 days to search. uh outside of
our city.
Another one we use, it's called, it's an
advanced search convoy. This is
ginormous for residential burglaries
because usually when one car is
committing it, another one's sitting
somewhere watching. So when we find a
suspect vehicle, we can then link that
plate to other vehicles that were
traveling past cameras in a 30 to one
minute time frame. So then it gives us
the secondary vehicle and puts a
connection to them. Another one we use
is a visual search. This is more for say
you take a photo of that hit and run
vehicle and leave. We can actually take
that photo, put it into flock and it'll
run through it to find that vehicle.
Works a little bit better if there's
like an identifying thing like major
damage or rusting is it'll look through
all the cameras to find that vehicle
that match that description. And the
last one we use is a multio. And this is
what we use with Athetherton or Berling
game. Usually when we have a burglary,
they have a burglary. So I can actually
choose the location, Hillsboro and the
time that the crime occurred and then
Athetherton and the time it occurred and
Berlingame and the time it occurred and
we'll search all three cities to find a
vehicle that was in three those three
locations at those times. And if we have
to, we can bring it down just to two,
Hillsboro and Athetherton.
Here's the insight. This is a 30-day
read. 1.6 million vehicles enter
Hillsboro. We have 330 hot list. Hot
list can be from stolen vehicles to
Amber alerts to stolen plates. searches
just in our agency was almost 600
searches that we used and you can see
the peaks out through the times.
The statistics regarding ours. So we
have 22 cameras. 21 are actually
installed. One is a movable one. So if
an area in town is constantly getting
crime in that area, we can install it.
So it just focuses on that street on the
back of a stop sign. Agencies we share
with is 436. Agencies sharing with us is
428. And again, just in California, uh,
official hot list over 365 days was
1,654.
Our custom hot list in a year was 33.
Other agencies using our cameras to get
alerted of a crime vehicle, 1,516.
So that means 1,516 vehicles that
committed crimes in other cities are
coming into Hillsboro.
Stolen plates, we had 1,627 vehicles
enter just our cameras. We had 27 stolen
vehicles and we had a total hot list of
3,23.
At the bottom you'll see that it
confirms we revoked all out of state
sharing.
This is our policy that we follow by
that gives us the shells. It must be for
official reasons. Uh the reasonable
suspicion of public cause is not
required. So we can use it
forformational things. Uh LPR's shall
only be used for official law
enforcement purposes. Uh, and all
members must go through some type of
training prior to using this
information. And the last one that we
like to go over is you should verify an
LPR hit before enforcing action as it
could be a misread.
Accountability. This is where it comes
to how we delete photos and how we
secure them. Um, protected both uh
technologically way. So, we're making
sure that it's a double authentication.
So you type in your password, you're
getting the email or text that then
reconfirms that you have access to it
and then the time period that we delete
the photos.
These are our websites that we use and
what you can view is the transparency
page. It will show you all our
statistics regarding how many vehicles,
the hot list, who we share with, who
shares with us and then also on that
page you'll have the Hillsboro policy
that you can refer to if you have any
questions regarding how we operate.
>> Thank you. Any questions?
>> Yeah, thank you. That was great. I had,
as you were speaking, I was writing out
questions, but you kept answering them,
so I kept checking them off.
>> I like it.
>> You I really like the um claim versus
fact next to each other. That was
extremely helpful. Let me ask my
colleagues, do any of you have
questions? Um, Vice Mayor Rexdale,
>> thank you so much for the presentation.
And I know this has been in the news a
lot lately and my understanding is that
somebody
not in Hillsboro,
you know, made a mistake in the access
when it when um ICE um or other federal
agencies were able to access um and I'm
very confident in our policy and its
execution. Um we very much appreciate
you bringing this forward. Um, and I I
have actually pointed some people to
that transparency page. Um, and I think
people are very happy with it. Um, is it
possible to also put this PowerPoint um,
a link to it on there?
>> Absolutely. We can do that.
>> Very comprehensive and much appreciated.
Thank you.
>> I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Any
additional questions? Yes. Uh, Council
Member Crow,
>> thank you so much. This was really
interesting and I think maybe we could
do something in with the newsletter um
to get this information out and it's
really uh that's a dramatic drop in
burglaries from 2023 till last year and thinking about it I realize that the
chatter about burglaries isn't nearly as
much as it was a couple of years ago. So
I just have a couple questions. Um, are
the bad guys switching plates and does
that have an effect on success? And can
the LPR flag a vehicle with the wrong
plate? Like does it have that kind of
technology if a if if a plate goes by
and it's not registered to that car?
>> Yeah. Uh, it is known for um criminals
to switch license plates. Um, but it is
a good tool to use to get the initial
investigation started and then you can
work backwards to find out, you know,
where the plate originally belonged to.
And we can work backwards in those
cases. And I'll let Chris talk about the
second question
>> regarding the first one. Well, we for we
just had a residential burglary a couple
of days ago. Um, I did a search, found a
vehicle that had a stolen plate. It was
a Mercedes wearing a Toyota plate. Uh,
it was reported on the 9th. The crime
happened a couple days before, so it
didn't alert us right away because it
has to be reported stolen. Now that we
have photos of the vehicle in town, our
detectives can write search warrants to
cell phone dump that exact area at that
second to find out what phones were in
that car driving by, which then lead it
to there. And also, it was stolen out of
San Jose and it's on a street with block
readers. So we can actually go back
through their cameras to see what
vehicle took them there to get that
plate prior to breaking in here. So it's
very effective. Even with stolen plates,
we're able to find them pretty easily.
>> Another question.
>> Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Corporal
Chris. And then um I just have one. How
protected is the data? We talked earlier
in our budget meeting about AI, you
know, making uh IT vulnerability uh more
of a reality.
>> The images are extremely protected. I
have never heard of someone getting into
a license plate reader. I've seen the
live feed cameras be accessed through
multiple companies, but the actual
images taken. I have no record of actual
license plate photos being taken
anywhere.
>> Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I know
that Hillsboro was conservative in their
roll out of LPR that they really took
their time, but it looks like it's very
successful program. I appreciate it. I
will also add on that note um there is a
multiffactor verification to log into
our flock data. So we'll have to enter
our email to gain access and then they
send us a code to allow access into the
system.
>> Yeah, that that's a good question. I I
had that question as well in terms of
knowing who entered the database. Yeah,
you just answered that question.
Appreciate it. Any additional question?
Um, Council Member Chong,
>> thank you. Um, just a comment. Um, as a
commissioner to the police departments,
I work closely with Chief and, um, I
know Chris is our auditor for the flock
cameras and I think that in any of the
news report articles that we have read
about, it is it it does involve human
air. And I, you know, so it's really
comforting to know that Chris is very
disciplined in terms of the monthly
audit, in terms of the physical checking
of the the inspections of the camera and
also the material uh the in terms of the
requests. So that um you mentioned
earlier that if the request is not in
compliance with our policies, they may
not have access to it. And if they are
not in compliance and they behave badly,
you have the opportunity to take away
their privilege to do so. Um however the
um the the sort of the connectivities of
all these police departments that having
the support and the image as you
mentioned about the um what is this uh
Hillsboro Berling game and the other
cities is that
>> yeah that they that you were
collectively be able to you utilize the
tool and the in information to track
down the vehicles and the perpetrators.
So that in that sense is very effective
to solve the crimes.
>> Thank you.
Um again that was an
outstanding presentation and I I agree
if we can um have that on on the sites
for residents it would be great. We'll
refer them and they could take a look at
that especially the slides where you
going through the claim versus the
facts. Those are the questions we've
been having. So extremely helpful,
extremely useful. Um
thank you so much. Much appreciated.
Thanks.
Probably has
school homework. She probably has
homework to do. Um, the next item on our
agenda is the town updates from our city
manager, Doug Davis.
>> Thank you. I want to thank my staff for
allowing me to have a couple of weeks
off in this last uh last month. And I'm
going to turn over the town update to
our assistant city manager, Mandy Brown,
who ran the town excellently in my
absence.
>> She did.
» Thank you. And we're so glad you're
back.
Uh good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and
council members, and a happy belated
Mother's Day and grandmother's day to
everybody.
and just have a very brief update this
month. Um, uh, we talked about this a
bit during the budget hearing earlier,
but, uh, as part of the county's effort
to advocate for the VLF funding in the
state budget, uh, there was a
coordinated bus to Sacramento on April
21st, and I know Vice Mayor Ragsdale was
able to attend and speak in support of
the funding. There was a second bus um
on May 7th and we had um representatives
from our legislative consultants at CPPG
attending on behalf of the town as well
as many other representatives. So just
keeping everyone apprised of this effort
and we'll stay tuned with the proposed
budget when it comes out and make sure
we share that information.
Um another issue of note has been the
horizon center. Um, and there's been
some activity with the Sanonteo County
Board of Supervisors meeting to vote to
purchase the former Star Vista site. Um,
while it's not directly related to the
North one El Camino proposed project,
um, I know many parties are interested
in this. So, these materials have been
updated on the town's website linked to
the county meeting and materials and,
uh, video recording. So, we'll continue
to monitor anything related to this
issue and update the website
accordingly.
Another
topic discussed on that same very busy
county board of supervisors meeting was
uh the ebike ordinance. Uh and so the
these are just a couple of highlights on
what was discussed. Um but uh really
looking at adding local regulations
discussing the enforcement provisions
and we have added those materials from
that county meeting with the proposed
ordinance um to the Hillsboro website.
So hillsbor.net/ebikes /ebikes and this
will be something that we continue to
monitor as they continue their
discussions on this topic.
We've been getting quite a few calls
about the Whimos in town. So, I just
thought I would share um an update
because we we do get questions about
them. Uh they are allowed to operate in
town and through the peninsula. It's not
within the town's jurisdiction. uh they
were approved by the DMV and then they
received further approvals from the CPU.
There was legislation a couple years ago
SB915 that would have provided the
regular authority to local governments,
but it was not successful. Um but we'll
continue to monitor things like that if
they are proposed in the future. If you
do see a Whimo that is behaving badly,
you can email support.com.
Uh but also the Hillsboro Police
Department and the city manager's office
also have a government affairs lays on
that we can we can talk to and um she's
very responsive if there are ever
issues. Um mostly it's just questions of
if they're allowed to operate in town.
Not not too many issues yet.
Another one we've been getting some
questions about is are short-term
rentals allowed in town? Um the answer
is no. And so this is that same slide
that just reminder that they are not uh
they are not permitted in the town of
Hillsboro per our municipal code and
Marcel um our new code enforcement um
staff uh is actively monitoring this and
responding to inquiries and so we have
his email address at the bottom of the
slide. If you do think there there's an
Airbnb in town or a short-term rental uh
you can let him know and he'll look into
it.
Uh we uh had a Hrek meeting um and have
gotten some updates uh from the school
district on the construction beginning
on the Crocker multi-purpose room. Um
it's going to cause uh probably
substantial amount of traffic impacts
and so they're trying to get ahead of
that. Um they actually have these cute
little magnets with a QR code that
they're going to give me some extras of.
Um but I have a couple here. um if you
guys want to take them uh just to make
sure that people know where to get the
updates and so I've put the link up
here. They have a dedicated email
address and we will work closely, the
city manager's office, uh police
department and public works um we've
been working with them um on what
they're going to do to minimize the
impacts and make sure people are aware
of where the construction will be. U but
just so we can um help them spread their
message as the construction gets
underway.
Memorial Day. I'll um probably let this
come out in the council reports at the
end of the meeting as well, but I just
wanted to plug it for Memorial Day
coming up um beginning at 10:00 with the
parade here at Town Hall followed by the
observance ceremony at North School
Field and our wonderful musical festival
and carnival.
Um coming up, June is going to be a
pretty busy uh meeting. So, we have
quite a few things planned. a
presentation from PG&E on the EPSS
outages, uh the Prop 218 hearing on
water rates, a couple other uh big
topics will be an update on Tobin Clark.
Uh we spoke during the budget hearing
about an update on the long range
financial funding plan. Um as well as
some of our larger uh infrastructure
projects, the Parkside Bridge and the
Macadmia access. So, those are all
tenatively scheduled for June and then
we'll continue into July with hopefully
some updates on Baywood and then Town
Hall complex as well. So, um just
looking ahead so we have those on the
calendar.
And this is our uh slide that we' like
to end in on the emergency preparedness
resources. So, you can easily screenshot
it um and refer to it um as needed. And
that's it. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Assistant City
Manager Brown. Thank you. Um
the next item um is actually a public
comment on items that are not on the
agenda. Um city clerk, do we um this is
a public comment. Do we have anyone
either on Zoom or in the chambers on
items that are not on the agenda?
>> Yes. Thank you, Mayor Cole. Uh yes, Ana
Dal and members of the youth commission.
Thank you.
>> Welcome.
hardest working uh artist working youth
commission in the peninsula maybe in the
state.
>> Hi everyone, I'm Anya. I'm the chair of
the Hillsbor Youth Commission. Um so
we're really happy to be giving a quick
update and thank you to the city council
for welcoming us. Um I'll start with the
a friendly subcommittee.
Hi, I'm Ava and I'm reporting for the
age friendly committee. We talked
earlier about our tech day and Samaritan
House coat drive which were both really
successful. And recently on April 25th,
we held our community chess tournament
which saw around or over 20 people
attending which was really successful
and we were really excited about it and
it connected people of all age groups
and we got a lot of positive feedback.
» Hi everyone, I'm Alexa. I'm on the
communications subcommittee um and I'm
here to talk about the Hillsboro
Highlights Initiative um which we were
tasked by Mayor Cole and we have about
five or six interviews published and
here are the most recent ones.
>> I'd love to emphasize that we've only
started with mayoral interviews but we
plan to uh extend to other forms of
media such as an interactive website.
>> Wonderful.
» I'm Brody Friedberg. I'm also on the
communications subcommittee and I'm a
co-ub chair along with Alexa. Uh we're
putting on our pride event on June 9th
uh in in town hall and in front of town
hall. Um there will be more information
posted in uh Hillsboro official media,
but we welcome all residents, staff,
council members to attend.
» Yeah. And then um a few weeks ago we had
an AP study event for high schoolers. We
had about 25 people attend um as seen in
the photo. And then for Memorial Day,
we'll have uh we'll be participating in
the parade as well.
>> Great.
>> Hi, my name is Jesse and I'm a part of
the environmental awareness
subcommittee. Um here are some of our
initiatives from earlier in the year
that I believe we presented in the March
meeting, but recently we went to Crocker
in April and we hosted an Earthweek
event. Um it was a two-day event where
the first day we collaborated with
Rethink waste to provide presentations
and activities about waste sort waste
sorting and management and then the next
day we hosted a thrift store to try to
encourage sustainable consumerism where
we collected clothing donations and then
displayed them for the students to come
and grab. And then we also had a bike
power smoothie display which was really
popular that day.
Hi, I'm Lauraai from the health and
wellness subcommittee and throughout the
year um each year we plan this event at
Crocker where we
um like sorry
um presents different wellness cards
with resources on them and give them out
to any of the students with um different
food and snacks available. And this year
was super successful and all the
resource cards were taken and we got a
lot of good feedback. And every month
we'll post our Instagram post with
information and resources about that
month's connection to mental health. And
I think it's gotten good feedback and is
able to help people in need with those
resources. And then we also put some um
like
pro like support for health care on
Crocker and along different schools.
Um and then these were some of the
pictures of our event at Crocker. And we
also did trivia
um to inform students about different
mental health and wellness objectives.
Um that include how much sleep you
should be getting, the stress levels
that youth usually
um undergo and things like that.
Okay. Um and then just like real
quickly, as um most of you probably
know, we had the HYC team ebike survey
and we um shared some of that data with
Assembly Member Papin and Supervisor
Spear. And we're also working on um uh
writing the write up for some national
conferences. And then we recently um
submitted our brochure to go into the
Hillsboro recreation brochure to um
spread awareness to uh athletes,
coaches, and um parents regarding injury
prevention um especially for female
athletes and what um some simple things
that teens can do. Um and yeah, that's
about it. Um we're wrapping up the year
now year now and we're really thankful
to the town for supporting us and um
just wanted to shout out all the
commissioners for all of the creativity
they have and their execution on all of
their initiatives. So thank you.
>> Thank you.
» Quite impressive. It's amazing. Um we we
have a couple of comments. Yes, council.
>> Thank you so much. I think you're all
going to be um participating in the
Hillsboro Memorial Day parade. And thank
you to all of you who have signed up to
volunteer that day. And if um if there
are any more who haven't signed up who
can volunteer, we can still use
volunteers, especially on the field with
the games. So, thank you so much.
>> And a comment or question from Vice
Mayor Rexdale.
>> Uh just a quick comment. I know we we
tried to squeeze you guys down a little
bit. We're still working on the cadence
of your presentations and uh you guys
did an amazing job. I know we gave you a
little less time because we started at
three today with budget, so we're a
little punchy, but um if if you want to
see how an elected official gets freaked
out with having one minute of public
comment, you can watch the uh
supervisor's meeting and my comment on
ebikes and it was not coherent at all.
And you guys are amazing. Thank you.
>> They are amazing.
>> Thank you for the mayor. It was
fantastic. First of all, the breadth of
the things that you're working on. It's
really clear how well you delegate and
how well each of you take your
responsibilities seriously. It's really
inspiring and I'm just really proud of
all the work that you've done. So, thank
you. Keep it up.
>> Yes, I I echo all those sentiments and
have a wonderful summer. somewhere
around the corner. But we're just so
impressed. You guys are awesome. Keep it
up.
>> Attaching the treats to the mental
health cards. Absolutely brilliant.
>> All right. Thanks again.
» All right. Well, that was very creative.
City clerks.
Wonderful. Yes, we got all the
information. Um, next item, we'll be
moving on to items on the agenda. Do we
have any conflicts of interest on items
that are on the agenda?
Seeing none, we'll move on to the
consent calendar. Item 1, 2, 3, 4,5. Um,
do any of my colleagues wish to
um remove any items from the consent
calendar?
All right. May I have a motion to
approve the consent calendar items 1 2 3
4 five. Second. All right.
City clerk. May we have the vote to
please.
>> Thank you. Mayor Cole Adams.
>> Yes. Schwang.
>> I. Krillic.
>> I.
>> Rexdale.
>> I.
>> Cole.
>> I.
>> Thank you.
Next we have public hearing
resolution authorizing the 5-year rate
series for sewer service um charges for
a 5-year period effective July 1st,
2026. and that will be presented by
assistant finance director Rich
Santiago, Gabe Sasser, project manager
of HFNH consultants and I believe they
are on Zoom with us. Yes.
>> Okay, great. Uh, good evening, Mayor
Cole and Council. Yeah, tonight is the
public hearing adopting the resolution
to authorize the 5-year rate series for
the sewer service charges. Um the last
one adopted was in June of 2021 during
the 218 process and this past July we
adopted the fifth year of that five-year
rate series and so we started a cost of
service study. Um actually Gabe Sasser
can't join us tonight. So actually Rick
Simson uh senior vice president of HF&H
will be online presenting and we also
have Ludvy Karu from the best and crier
online as well.
Um whenever you're ready Rick.
>> Great thank you so much. Uh, good
evening, Mayor Cole, Vice Mayor
Ragsdale, Council members. As Rich
mentioned, I'm Rick Simson, senior vice
president with HFNH. And for tonight,
I'm here to present a summary of the
sewer rate study process and our
recommendations for the rate series. And
this is just a summary of what's been
provided in a more detailed report
that's been provided to the uh council
as well as posted on the town's website
for uh sewer customers to review prior
to this public hearing. So tonight we
are holding the public hearing which if
there's not a majority protest would
culminate in a vote uh after discussion
with the city council whether to adopt
the maximum sewer rates that were
included in the proposition 218 notice
with the first increase becoming
effective July 1 of this year so it
appear on the 26 27 uh tax bills of your
residents and businesses. is
next slide.
So just a brief overview over overview
of what the rate study process is, where
we've been, and where we still need to
go. So to date, uh through a competitive
process, HFNH uh was selected to do a
sewer rate study for the town. Uh we met
with town staff and begun the sewer rate
study in November of last year which
culminated in presenting our preliminary
results and receiving feedback at a city
council workshop that was February 9th
earlier this year. uh followed up based
on the uh feedback that we did receive,
prepared a draft report of those uh
preliminary findings and were presented
in March 9th of this year in which staff
requested council uh to mail the
Proposition 218 notices with the maximum
rates over the next 5-year period. Those
were mailed out March 21st. Uh,
Proposition 218 requires at least 45
days for the mailings before there's a
public hearing that's held in that date.
We are about 50 days out from that date.
So, what is left? Uh, so again for
tonight holding that public hearing uh
tonight to tally any protests that may
have been received and then city council
can discuss and then vote whether to
adopt the maximum rates.
Next slide. What goes into a sewer rate
study? Uh well, first we need to look at
the two most important components. The
expenses to provide the service and the
revenues that are currently generated
from rates. So you'll see about with the
solid black line uh revenues at current
rates uh bring in about 17 million per
year. expenses. Currently, the year is
looking to end in 2526 fiscal year at
about 17.5 million. So, slightly less
than what revenues are being brought in.
But that 17.5 million over the next
5year period is looking to increase
based on projections to 19.6 million per
year. So, the current revenue at current
rates at 17 would not be sufficient to
cover those costs. I'll just briefly go
through what the stack bar is telling us
with regard to expenses. The first uh
bar there, the dark green, are the
general on andm expenses, the labor, the
materials
uh that are incurred to operate the
system. That's increasing to about by
about 3.4% per year. There's no
additional headcount that is
contemplated o over the next 5year
period.
The light blue that is for the treatment
cost. So for the sewage that is
collected uh through the town's
collection system is treated at either a
Berling game treatment plant or Sanonteo
treatment plant. Those costs based on
historical average are increasing about
5% per year over the next 5-year period.
The town does have some debt service uh
for bonds that are outstanding with that
darker green there. uh those will
continue, but you'll see there's a
slight decrease by the time you get to
30 31 in those debt service payments.
And then lastly, the capital
improvements.
Currently in the current year, it's
about uh a $4 million $4.4 million being
spent on capital. And based on
projections and the necessary projects
over the next five years, that'll
increase to about 5.1 million per year.
uh with some major projects for lift
station improvements as well as basin
INI or inflow and infiltration
rehabilitation to reduce uh non- sewward
water getting to the treatment plants.
So some major improvements over the next
5-year period but once again revenues at
current rates are not sufficient to meet
future expenses.
Next slide. The last component besides
uh revenues and expenses are reserves.
Uh so as I mentioned earlier, 2526 is
looking to end about $500,000 short in
revenue compared to expenses, but you
have reserves uh each year to draw from
when there are those shortfalls that are
either planned or unplanned. So the town
had started uh 2425
fiscal year end. So June 30th, 2025 with
about 13 million in reserves. So over
the next few years, even with the rate
series increase that we're suggesting,
it would have been higher if you didn't
have these reserves. We're drawing on
some of those reserves until you get to
2728
where we stabilize the revenues compared
to expenses and just maintain about $1
million in reserves. And that reserve
target is made up of a couple different
components. The minimum reserve uh is
six months of O andM. So for those
dayto-day expenses that you need to
cover because you do bill on the tax
role you get most of your monies in in
December and April. So there are times
obviously between those periods you need
to pay labor expenses capital. So a
minimum amount for that six months of
operating. And in addition to get to the
target res reserve, we add on top of
that O andM the average annual capital
of about 5.1 million. So with the series
of increases we're recommending you'll
stay right at that reserve target so you
have a healthy fund for those unexpected
uh potential capital needs if something
does occur and you can maintain a good
cash flow as you receive most of your
revenues in two chunks during the year.
Next slide, please. So, what does that
result in rates-wise? So, for the town,
there's a set charge per equivalent
dwelling unit. Uh, since 99 more than
99% of your customers are residential.
That just means one .edu is a resident
equivalent dwelling unit. So currently
they're charged $4,311
per year and that will increase over the
next five years to $4,93748
per year.
For those nonresidential customers, they
are also charged on a peru basis. But
what that means is an EDU is about 78
units of water. So how much water is
discharged into the system over a
calendar year? So commercial customers
through uh an affiliation with
California data collective, they're able
to gather the data for each specific
customer uh commercial customer and look
at how much water is sewered. They use a
three-year average to help with
volatility. So for instance, if a
commercial customer uses 156 units of
water on average for that winter indoor
winter water use, annualized water use,
they would be charged two edus. So two
times the 78 units of water is that 156
units of water for a commercial
customer. They would be charged two
edus.
Next slide.
Again, that was a quick overview of the
process. Uh, but what we'll do from here
and we'll I'll pause here to answer any
questions, but we would like to open the
public hearing and receive any remaining
protests that residents or businesses
may bring to the chambers.
Upon uh closing the public hearing, we'd
ask the city clerk to tally the protest
to determine whether there is a majority
protest or not, which would require
roughly around 2,000 protests. And then
if there is not a majority protest, open
it up to city council to vote whether to
adopt the maximum rates as presented and
included in the proposition 218 notice.
So again, with that, I'll pause if
there's any questions.
Um, thank you Mr. Simonson for the
presentation. Um, does anyone on the
council have any questions or clarifying
comments? Go ahead. Yes.
>> Thank you. Um, I have one question. It
may be for Paul Willis, but thank you
very much for your presentation.
Appreciate Appreciate that, Rick. Um,
could there be any future upgrades or
costs that Hillsboro will be obligated
to cover um, regarding the Berling game
and Sanonteo wastewater treatment plants
uh, effects from sea level rise?
>> So, I haven't heard about Berling game.
I know um San Monteo the clean water
program uh they have projected or
constructed it for the next 30 years and
their maximum buildout uh considering
what they've been doing along El Camino
corridor and a lot of their new
construction um they're both near the bay so they have a levy systems to
protect them so similar to what Foster
City did if they do need to plan even
more than what they have now they can
always build those up and use tie gates
to keep sea level from getting back into
the treatment plant. What we are seeing
though with San Mateo is uh there is a
future potential capability. The plant
is uh built so they can produce um uh
recycled water. So we've already talked
to them that in the future if that's a
possibility and they'll be able to plum
recycled water to our border. Then at
that time we'd be interested in finding
out how much if that'll counteract u
some of the cost and allow us to build
because as you know each of our
municipalities have a initial supply
guarantee or daily use of water and to
in order to hit maximum numbers for
future growth uh the use of of recycled
water might be a key to do that.
So in the case of the Sanonteo plant,
they could sell their recycled water and
offset any extra costs that they might
incur as a result of having to protect
from sea level rise. That you're saying?
>> No, that's two separate things. So I
you're just I was just talking about um
what they could in the future charge us
for that we may want to participate.
>> Oh, we might have future charges for the
recycle water part
>> if we'd like to uh purchase into that.
Yes, it usually is a is a lower price
like 75% of the closer to the mic. I'm
sorry.
>> It's usually a lower cost uh for the
water, but it offsets the need for our
potable water if we come against our
maximum daily demand that we're allotted
to from uh SFU.
>> So if they if they do incur costs
because they have to protect both plants
from sea level rise, we're not protected
by our current contract. We would be
That's correct. More pass through costs.
>> That's right. our costs have been
encapsulated in the current projects
that are there now.
>> Thank you, Paul. Through the mayor.
>> Yes. Um, council member Trunk.
>> So, I I think that um Paul, I thought
this would be a good question. Um, Seeel
Water Treatment Plant just built. It's a
brand new facility. It's beautiful. And
so I think that I remember when I went
touring the facility, they talk about
the sea level rises and that was in the
plan in their design.
>> Correct.
>> What you're talking about is the potable
water that the recycle potable waters
that
>> we um at the time did pose to them
whether they would be able to establish
the purple pipes to our border. And that
turned out to be a very costly proposal.
Correct.
>> It's costly. Correct. But the plant is
capable of supposedly producing that uh
recycled affluent that can be used for
certain things. Not for indoor drinking
water, but for one of our biggest needs,
landscaping, irrigation,
>> or dual plumbing, flushing for a lot of
the components for commercials uh
structures now would be dual plumbing.
Uh so they can use that for uh flushing
in the water which would be a good use.
>> Thank you.
>> Any additional questions from the um
councils?
Okay, we will now open to for public
comments or additional protests if any.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. I don't have any
speaker cards and I don't have any
raised hands on Zoom for public comment.
>> All right.
We will close um the public comments
public hearing section. Um city clerk,
do we have a total tally on the protests
to determine whether a majority protest
has occurred?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. Yes, we just
received one protest. So to achieve a
majority, we would have needed to
receive at least 1,953
protests. So a majority does not exist.
>> All right. A majority does not exist.
Does the is there um a motion for um the
city council to vote on whether to adopt
the maximum silver rates included in the
proposition?
>> So move.
>> Do we have a second?
>> Second.
>> City clerk, could you take the roll
call, please?
>> Thank you. Adams,
>> yes.
>> Dwang,
>> I.
>> Crow,
>> I.
>> Ragdale,
>> I.
>> Cole,
>> I.
>> Thank you. Motion carries.
>> Vote carries. 520. Thank you. Our next
item is um resolution setting and
confirming the fees and charges for
fiscal year 2026 to 2027 and resolution
authorizing water and sewer connection
fees for fiscal year 2026 to 2027
effective July 1st 2026
and that will be presented by um it's
going to be presented by assistant
finance director uh Rich Santiago.
>> Good evening again council. Um yes, this
was presented to you earlier in the
budget study session, but now it's the
resolutions to approve setting
confirming the proposed fees and and
charges for fiscal year 2627 and the
resolution authorizing water and sewer
uh connection fees that would be
effective July 1st.
So for the water and sewer connection
fees, that's updated annually with a uh
CPI index from the engineering news
record construction cost index. It's a
0.5 uh percent increase from the prior
year as you could see there. So that's
what's in the proposed master fee
schedule. And then for the overall fees
in um from the master fee schedule,
there's no new or deleted fees for
police, engineering, and public works
special services for fiscal year 26.
However, all of those fees and charges
do have um changes to them just based on
staffing labor rates. We do that
annually just to keep up with um the
cost of services rendered for them. The
big change as we presented earlier in
the budget study session is the building
and planning um fees. Those did get
updated. There was a a cost of service
study that they began at the start of
the year and it did increase the um
services that they cover for those fees
and it's part of the proposed budget for
fiscal year 2627
and that's part of the master fee
schedule. It was also presented to
council in April as well as the FAC in
on April 28th which they recommended
approval and then again you heard it uh
this afternoon during the budget study
session.
So um before we open up the public
hearing um we'll take any questions you
have. Thank you for the presentation.
Any um questions from the council?
>> Council member Crowley. Yes.
>> Uh this is I think a question for Tim.
Um just the building and planning fees.
Um I just noticed that the sub I just
want to make sure this is correct
actually because I know you underwent a
very detailed deep dive study on all of
these to reflect the cost of service.
But I noticed that the substantial
alteration and tear down went up quite a
bit and ended up being more than a fee
for a new dwelling, a full demo. So is
it I just want to make sure that's
accurate. Yeah, through throughout the
process, we were evaluating for how much
staff time went into each one of these
types. And this particular one ends up
being one that uh I guess for simple
words, it just eats up more staff time
to get to the finish line. And
previously, the fee did not have all the
public noticing fees in the main fee.
Those were added on separately. So, the
fee is actually not as far apart as it
looks.
um the vacant lot and full demo, those
tend to go through a lot smoother with
less neighbor comment. It's the large
alterations, second story additions when
we start getting into moving stuff
around and uh setbacks. So, a lot more
neighbor input, so more staff time.
>> Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for
taking a second look. And and just a
note kind of to the public that our
permit fees for building projects come
with expert inspections to make sure
that the work's done right and that
you're getting what you pay for. Thank
you, Tim.
>> Yes, Council Member Adams.
>> I just want to underscore uh what
Council Member Krill just said,
particularly for the public who may just
be tuning into this issue and see pages
and pages of specific fees. I just want
to remind them uh of all the times that
Rich has pointed out, we have reviewed
these. So um my I I just want to make
sure that people know this has taken a
long process but I'd also like all of us
to know is there any uh remedy if we got
one of these many things wrong and we
hear about it and we decide you want to
bring something back to us
>> in regards to anything on the fee
schedule. Yes. I mean throughout the
year it doesn't it normally we do it
obviously during the budget process but
if there's any fee that we need to
adjust or anything you could bring it um
during the year we would just have to go
through the the same uh public hearing
process
>> uh through the mayor.
>> Yes council member
>> uh I think that for the fee studies
whenever that we have to delete or add
new fees you the staff will bring
forward for the council to consider
isn't it?
>> Yes. Yeah. And normally that's part of
it, but we didn't have any this year
other than just the just to the fees
with the billing.
>> Well, well, this is a big undertaking.
And so, um, so is this an annual review,
uh, in terms of just every year because
I recall that every year we we do get a
report on the updates of the fee
schedule.
>> That's right. Yeah.
>> Okay. So that would be another
opportunity for us to reflect and ask
questions if if there's um should we
hear from the residents um considering
some of the fees? Well, I mean this is
the adoption of the fees, right?
>> But yes. Yeah. If you hear anything,
obviously you can voice it to us and we
can look at as staff at the staff level
and consider,
>> right? So there's opportunity for you to
evaluate it and make sure that you know
the the fees are current and it's uh
updated accordingly. Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um I will now open for
public hearing and comments. Do we have
anyone on Zoom or in the chambers? Thank
you, Miracle. I I don't have any speaker
cards and um no members uh of the public
raising their hand on Zoom. Thank you.
>> Okay. Um, I will close public comments
and um,
do we have a motion to adopt the
resolution setting and confirming the
fees and charges for fiscal year 2026 to
2027 and to adopt the resolution
authorizing water and sewer connection
fees for fiscal year 2026 to 2027
effective July 1st, 2026.
>> So move.
>> Do we have a second?
>> Second.
>> Great. Um, could we please have the roll
call?
>> Adams,
>> yes.
>> Schwang,
>> I.
>> Crow,
>> I.
>> Rexdale,
>> I.
>> Cole,
>> I.
>> Thank you.
Motion passes 5 to zero.
>> Um, next item is to receive a report on
town vacancies, recruitment, and
retention efforts in compliance with
Assembly Bill 2561
and government code section 3502.3.
And this will be presented by
administrative services manager William
L.
>> Good evening, mayor, council members.
Um, as the mayor mentioned, this is our
annual report on the town vacancy
recruitment and retention efforts. This
presentation will look fairly similar to
last year's. Uh, just as a quick
legislative recap, this is a requirement
from Assembly Bill 2561 that was
approved in legislation last year.
and it requires a public hearing at a
council meeting on the status of
vacancies, recruitments, and retention
efforts. And this happens prior to
budget adoption, which is why we're
doing it in May before the budget
adoption in June. Um, an invitation was
sent to the bargaining units and the
employee organizations if they wanted to
make a presentation um or provide
comment at this meeting. And if we have
any bargaining unit that has a greater
than 20% vacancy rate, uh we must
provide some additional information um
such as total vacancies, uh total
applicants and um average number of days
to complete hiring process opportunities
um to improve compensation and other
working conditions.
So this was provided in the staff
report. Um we used April 30th last year
as um as the cutoff date. So we're doing
that again this year. Uh one apology for
the typo under unrepresented uh one
vacancy out of 31 is 3.2% not 9.4%
um that was in the staff report
and similar to last year. So I just
wanted to provide a projection. Um this
is what our vacancy count is expected to
look like um towards the end of the
week. So it's just to demonstrate that
um as a smaller agency just one or two
um vacancies or additions really affects
our our number um and a greater scale
than say a county agency that has you
know 5,000 employees.
So some of these changes are the result
of a lateral police officer starting on
May 4th. Um we have a senior building
planning technition starting on June
15th which is not included in those uh
four vacancies in the public works
clerical and um you might notice there's
a slight difference in total FTEES from
the police officer association and the
public works clerical unit. Um the 32
and the 31 were flipped and that's
because in January we reclassified the
code enforcement officer to a code
compliance coordinator and that move the
position from the police unit to the
public works clerical unit.
And just briefly on our recruitment
efforts. So currently at a glance for
this fiscal year um we've ran 11
recruitments with three active and or
continuous. We have reviewed 235
applicants. We've done 38 interviews and
practical exams. And out of those, we
interviewed 119 out of the 235
applicants. And right now, we have six
police officer candidates that have
moved past the command staff interviews
and are in backgrounds or further along.
And then we have two uh non-p police um
i.e. nonsworn
um positions that are in pre-employment
and this is just um a change year
overyear based on what I presented last
year. So the main factor for the change
especially in the number of applicants
is um we done more police officer
interviews this year and less um
maintenance worker interviews for
maintenance workers. um they do more of
a practical exam where they invite a lot
more candidates um to be screened. Um
and in terms of police, there's just
some fewer candidates but more
interviews scheduled.
And this is kind of like a timeline of
our um recruitment process. And I just
want to give a shout out to our HR
management analyst, Elizabeth Zhao, who
started with us last March. Um, she
couldn't join us tonight, but those
recruitments, those applications,
everything I showed on the previous
slide, she's really taken that over and
she's responsible for um basically all
of the coordination with the departments
and um getting the job announcements
out, scheduling the interviews and um as
we move forward with candidates
onboarding them and so on.
So what are some of the recruitment and
retention challenges this year? Um it's
pretty much the same challenges that we
were facing last year. We still have a
very competitive job market and you hear
all the time about you know tech layoffs
and you know in that industry in local
government it's not really affected by
um any sort of mass layoffs at this
point. So it is a really competitive
local government job market. Uh we do
live in a high cost of living area and
there's certain e economic factors such
as you know if if people feel the
economy is unstable they might be less
inclined to um you know reach out and
you know switch jobs or switch careers.
So how are we addressing some of these
challenges? Well, we you did see um we
have a lot more interviews this year.
That's because for police officers, we
are really um engaging in a very
aggressive recruitment cycle. Um, as of
right now, if you go on um the two major
local government job websites, which are
Calops and government jobs.com, if you
search for police officer there, it's
basically every city right now in
locally has an active police um officer
recruitment, lateral um training, um you
name it. And um uh we want to be
aggressive because if we get a very
qualified applicant, it it's a very high
likelihood that they're applying
elsewhere too. So we want to um reach
out um and um get that candidate um
interviewed ASAP
and also leverage our current budget
outlook. We just had the budget study
session and you know we are we are um
being fiscally resp responsible. Um
there are other cities that are facing
um a greater budget deficit. Um and some
are even discussing, you know, hiring
freezes or more savings in their budget.
You know, we never want to, you know,
celebrate other cities, you know, not
doing well. But that does create an
opportunity. Like I mentioned, if you
know it's a very competitive job market,
then um that might lower the um the uh
available position pool a little bit and
you know that allows us to be a little
more aggressive
and also definitely explore new benefits
programs and training opportunities. Uh
we had one of the goals listed on the
council priorities as um exploring a new
paid family leave program. Um, Elizabeth
has also been pushing and promoting a
lot of leadership development, not just
for management and supervisor staff, but
pushing training opportunities um,
available to all staff.
So, that was just a quick um, review of
um, current vacancies and our efforts.
So, this is a public hearing. So, um,
first I'll take any clarification
questions you might have. Then I
recommend opening the public hearing. uh
taking public comments and then closing
public hearing for final Q&A. Um this is
just a report only. So there's no um
action item for the council to take.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you for the presentation. Any
question from the council? Council
member Krollic.
>> Thank you, William.
>> Um yeah, I have a couple questions of
these four public works clerical that
are open, but one you said was code
enforcement, which is under building and
planning. Does does that category kind
of stretch out into other departments
besides public works?
>> So public works, clerical, yes. Um it
basically stretches into a lot of
departments because on the clerical side
there's you know the admin assistants
and um building planning technicians. So
any type of technician uh plus
maintenance workers, lead workers. So it is really encompassing of like the
public works um maintenance worker side
but also kind of like our clerical um
you know journey level tech side as
well.
>> Okay. Thank you. And I just have one
more question. Are are we planning to
keep any of these positions open or
we're working to fill everyone?
>> So we we work with the departments
directly. Um, for example, with the
maintenance worker positions, we we like
to fill it as much as possible, but then
we also have, you know, temporary
maintenance worker recruitments open.
So, in in the case of, you know, um a
maintenance worker resigning or
separating, you know, we have, you know,
active personnel ready to go, you know,
in order to, you know, promote excellent
customer service, continuity of service.
So, it it's really a position by
position basis. Um, but we work closely
with all departments to make sure they
we we get recruitments out as quickly as
possible if they need an urgent position
to fill.
>> So, it sounds like when there is an open
position, that department does kind of
re review to make sure that that's the
best use.
>> That is correct.
>> Thank you.
Any additional questions from
the mayor?
>> Yes. Um, council member Chong,
>> thank you William for your presentation
and um, I'm delighted to hear that you
are very proactive and progressive in
terms of the the job market um,
realizing that there's compet
competitions there and then um, so
really delighted that you're very
proactive about that. Uh my question is
that there is a timeline that you had
the pre-recruitments
then the recruitments then the um
postrecruitments
what is the sort of the the time the
schedule for from the the pre to the
post.
>> So that I I don't want to sound like a
copout answer but it's also you know
dependent on the position. So, for
example, I said we like to be very
aggressive with the police officer
recruitment. So, I know command staff
there are reviewing applications
basically as they come in. So, within 24
hours they're reviewing the application
um and we're trying to identify
candidates. So that window that timeline
from the pre-recruitment to recruitment
that's um that's kind of protracted a
little bit from say maybe like a you
know a senior building and planning tech
position which you know we can stretch
it out a little bit more to 30 days and
that's mainly to you know get that job
announcement out there to get qualified
candidates. Um it not to say that that
position is not also very competitive
and hard to fill. Um but yeah, it it's
based on
job by job, position by position and um
Elizabeth has been very proactive in
reaching out to the departments u when
we have separations, when we have
retirements um and whatnot to really
gauge um their need to go out for
recruitments and um we um we basically
issue them as needed by the department.
And I see that uh Chief Colola is ready
to address some of the issues on the
police department.
>> Thank you. And I I want to say thank you
to our HR department because they do a
fantastic job getting everything that we
need. Um, this slide is probably a
little bit of more about us because we
do have like a a pre-recruitment where they have their oral interviews
and then once we decide to go forward
with an officer they or a dispatcher
they go into a background process and as
you can imagine that process is um
pretty stringent right they have to go
through a background portion and then a
polygraph and if they complete both of
those success successfully, then they go
into a conditional offer, which they
will get the job if they pass a medical
and psych. So, there's four different
stages. And once they get to the medical
and psych department, that's where HR
comes in and they schedule all of that
stuff for us. And
William is correct. It's been very
cutthroat because everybody's hiring and
so to get the background done quickly,
you know, we put a lot of pressure on HR
and like did we get this back and
they've been doing great. So, we're
actually uh putting three in the academy
in June. So, really looking forward to
that. We have uh five in the background
process. So, hopefully those will
continue to move forward. And uh I want
to thank my team because we've done some
amazing jobs with recruitment. We put
together a recruitment team. There's
five officers all ranging in rank. Uh
in May, I'm sorry, in March, they went
to the Travis Air Force Base during
career day and they promoted Hillsboro
Police Department. We also have another
recruitment coming up this month at uh
the police academy in San Jose. So,
we're doing a lot of things. We're
trying to get the word out and trying to
get the best possible people to serve as
officers for Hillsboro.
>> Thank you, Chief.
>> Thank you. Any additional question? Um,
Vice Mayor Rexdale,
>> I just had a question. Uh William, I
think it was the slide right before this
on the comparison to last year. I Yes. I
just wanted So
is the the plus meaning there were more.
Can you what like what's the plus one
mean? Just one more than last year.
>> Yeah. So one more recruitment um at this
point in time than last year.
>> Oh, okay. So then the the 299
Yeah. So last year we had know we
screened over 500 or yeah 500 applicants
just because we had more maintenance
worker recruitments last year.
>> Really I figured I was reading it wrong.
Okay. So there were 299 more last year
>> applicants. Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> I I thought I must be reading it wrong.
Okay. And I'm also just want to say so
happy that Elizabeth is working out so
well. Thank you.
>> Okay. No additional question. Just one
quick question for um police for HPD. Do
we um are all the 32 FTEEs all sorry 31
um are they all fulltime FTEES or do you
have fractionated
full-time equivalents in there? In other
words, halftime, part-time, is it all
full-time? The 31 include uh I believe
they include everyone
but management, right?
» It's all sworn positions. So anyone
lieutenant or uh well all all sworn up
to the sergeant level and then
lieutenant, captain, chief of police are
all um within the unrepresented.
>> Okay, that's that's fine. That's good.
CL a question for me. Um, Council Member
Krillig, yes, you have a question.
>> Thank you. So, um, thank you again for,
you know, this is a big lift and it's
with a small town like ours, every
position is so important and I was just
thinking we we never want to lay anybody
off. We don't, but just as I referenced
before, I'm really happy and I know that
our best practices is to take a good
look at the department, what we really
need. But if if AI is helpful in
reducing headcount, perhaps it could be
a winwin in that the people in that
department would some would they would
get some of that savings. So the town
would get some savings, but the other
people in the department would get some
savings recognizing uh or would get an
increase recognizing that it's even with
AI, it's going to be more of a lift for
them. But hopefully we continue to do
that analysis so that we're as efficient
as we are as we could be.
>> Thank you. Any additional questions? No.
We'll go to public comments.
>> Do we have any public comments on Zoom?
>> Thank you. And let's see. Just give it a
second. But no, we have no public
comment on Zoom and I have no speaker
cards. Thank you.
>> Okay. See no public comment. I will
close public comment. And this um item
has no um no action is required. So we don't have a resolution.
All right. Next item, new business,
which is um resolution adopting two
policies. Thank you, William. That was
great. Um resolution adopting two
policies. Um, policy 421, disruption of
telephonic or internet service during
meetings in accordance with Senate Bill
707.
Two, policy 42:2, public comment
regulations, and that will be presented
by our city attorney, Christopher Diaz,
and city clerk, Miss Satush.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole, and city council.
Christopher Diaz is your city attorney.
Uh, we're going to talk tonight a little
bit about disruption um and public
comment policies. All of this is
generated by SB77. Uh for purposes of
tonight, disruption has two meanings.
One, it means the technical disruption
we might incur with uh the Zoom platform
and then also means disruption of any
agitators that might come from the
outside and provide public comment on
Zoom. We want to provide some tools for
the council to deal with those issues if
they do pop up. I know some agencies in
the past couple of years had Zoom
bombing incidents and so we want to make
sure that we have the tools in the
toolbox to address those issues.
So just an agenda of what we'll talk
about this evening and I have about 20
slides so expect about a 20-minute
presentation but we'll talk a little bit
about the purpose behind SB77 and how it
got generated in the state legislature.
We'll talk about the updates for
eligible legislative bodies which is a
new defined term within the Brown Act
including the disruption policy
requirement that we're here to basically
take action on tonight. We'll also talk
about public comment regulations which
we're proposing uh very simple
regulations which just deal with again
any kind of disruption that occurs from
a commenttor. And then lastly I'll talk
a little bit about a teleconferencing
update that uh came out of SB77. I won't
spend too much time on this but if
council is interested in a future
presentation or just more materials
we're happy to provide those to you so
you understand all the options to
teleconference into a meeting.
So, the first is really where did SB77
come from? Um, it got generated last
year, and I can't recall if it was a
two-year bill or just a one-year bill,
but when it first got generated, it was
primarily designed to, um, give more
tools in my opinion to labor groups and
a little bit of tying of the hands of
local agencies in dealing with those
labor groups. And so, was modifications
to the Brown Act, a little more pro-
labor um, in raiding them. And it wasn't
surprising because the author of the
bill, Dazzo, is a former labor union
organizer. And so she was going that
direction with changes to the Brown Act.
Um there was a lot of opposition to that
bill initially and ultimately what
happened with SB77 like all things in
Sacramento is the bill got gutted and
amended to some extent and it ended up
becoming a bill about modernizing our
technology to deal with greater public
access. And so I think the author of the
bill looked at what transpired during
the pandemic, how much more public
access the public had to meetings with
Zoom, basically zooming in from their
home to get uh to to watch a meeting to
provide public comment. And so they
wanted to build all of those
requirements into the Brown Act. So
again, the updates under SB77 again a
new requirements for specific
legislative bodies and those would be
what's defined as eligible legislative
body and we'll talk about what that
definition is shortly. again that need
to adopt a disruption policy which is
why we're here this evening. It does
change the teleconferencing rules a
little bit but not uh in a major way.
And then there's other cleanup within
SB77.
Now the big update is obviously the
update for what's now defined as
eligible legislative bodies. So as you
know the Brown Act has always defined
what's called the legislative body and
that's basically your city council. It's
your board of supervisors. It's a
special district's board um board of
directors. It's also all of your uh
lower level commissions and committees
that you create at the council level and
appoint those people to commissions.
Those are uh essentially commissions
that advise you and therefore they are
considered legislative bodies under the
Brown Act. What that basically means is
we have open meeting requirements. We
need to publish an agenda. Um but now
the state legislature in their wisdom
with SB77 has a new defined term called
eligible legislative bodies. Now, these
are your larger jurisdictions and so any
city with a population over 30,000. And
again, keep in mind, it's only the
council or the highest level body. SB77.
All the requirements we'll talk about
tonight do not apply to any of your
lower level bodies. It's just you as the
city council. But again, it applies to
city councils with a city with a
population over 30,000. It applies to a
county board of supervisors in a county
with a population over 30,000. It also
includes a city in a county with a
population over 600,000 and that's the
prong that we are subject to. So every
city in Sonteo County is subject is an
eligible legislative body at the city
council level. Um and that's because the
population in Sano County I think is
roughly around 750,000 uh population.
And then it also includes those larger
special districts. So if you have a
special district with a website covering
a uh all of a county over 600,000
population plus 200 employees, they
would be covered. a special district
with a website and a thousand plus
employees, they would be covered and and
so on and so on.
Now, what is the bigger requirement? And
this is not going to be a heavy lift for
the town of Hillsboro because you've
kept the Zoom platform since the
pandemic, since coming back to in
person. You've allowed your residents to
attend via Zoom and provide public
comment. And so, this won't be a big
change for you. But other agencies that
basically went back to in person,
stopped the Zoom platform, and did not
update the technology within their
council chambers, this will be a heavy
lift for them. We do believe that's why
the state legislature made these
provisions effective July 1st. As you
know, most bills when they pass in
Sacramento, they become effective ju uh
January 1st, rather, of the calendar
year. Uh but the state legislature said
some provisions kick in January 1st, but
the heavy lift kicks in July 1st. And so
that's why we're here this evening uh to
walk you through all these new
requirements that will apply to us on
July 1st. So the big requirement, as I
said, is to to basically allow the
public to attend and comment via Zoom or
another platform. Um keep in mind that
requirement only applies if Zoom is
operational at the meeting location. And
so if we're in the chambers, we know it
works here. So that is um something we
would have to abide by. If you're in
another venue and let's say you don't
have internet or phone access, there
might be an open question whether you
really have to u connect the public via
Zoom. Uh just as we do now, the town is
also required to post and provide the
call-in option or the internet link on
for Zoom on the meeting agenda. So not a
change there. A new requirement though
which we have not been doing which is uh
kicking in with SB77 is we have to turn
on captioning on Zoom. And so if someone
has some difficulty hearing or wants to
see the words, we turn on the captioning
and they're able to see that on their
end.
Now, as I indicated, it doesn't apply to
every meeting you conduct, but if we're
in the chambers and Zoom works, we would
have to basically connect the public
that way. Um but again if it doesn't
work at the meeting location you're
meeting at uh off the table. There's
also other uh types of meetings uh in
the Brown Act which uh are laid out here
that are excluded from the Zoom
requirement and that would be if you
attended a judicial hearing, an
administrative hearing in which you're a
party. So if you wanted to go to the
courthouse to watch proceedings take
place as a council, you could do that.
Uh if you're inspecting real or personal
property where the topic of the meeting
is limited to items directly related to
that property. If you're meeting with
federal or state- elected officials in
Sacramento or in Washington DC, that's
allowable and you don't need to connect
the Zoom that way. If you're meeting in
or near a facility owned by the local
agency where the meeting topic is
limited to items directly related to the
facility, then again, doesn't apply
there. So, if you're going up to the
corporation yard or some other facility,
um, doesn't apply in those
circumstances. Then finally, if you're
meeting under the emergency provisions
within the Brown Act.
Now, the the main component of why we're
here this evening is the requirement to
adopt a disruption policy. And what SB77
says is that you want to adopt a policy
as to how you'll deal with the
technology disruption, but it also gives
us more uh language within SB77 as well
as in the Brown Act to deal with
disruptions of public participants. But
for purposes of the technology
disruption, uh what do we need to do and
what does the policy need to lay out?
what basically needs to indicate that
we're going to make if the Zoom fails
for whatever reason or we lose
technology in this in this in these
chambers, we will make a good faith
attempt to restore that service for at
least one hour. Now, the hope is that
you uh fix the issue within that hour.
But if you did not um what do we need to
do, and we'll talk about that shortly,
but keep in mind during that one hour
recess, and it doesn't need to be the
full hour, if you fix the technology
within 15 minutes, you can reconnect the
public and restart the meeting. But if
we did have a disruption, you we must
announce it to the public. So it would
either be our mayor or city clerk
announcing that disruption to the
public. We are required to take a
recess. Um if there is a close session
on the agenda and let's say um and I
know you normally do close session at
the beginning of the meeting, but let's
say there's an unfinished close session
item and you want to reconvene at the
end of the meeting. If we were to have a
technology disruption during the course
of the meeting, you could convene in
close session to finish that close
session during that recess while the
service disruption is being addressed
and then again during that recess making
a good faith attempt to restore the
service.
Now what happens if we can't remedy that
disruption within an hour and we're
sitting here just wondering what to do?
Well, the Brown Act basically says we
have an obligation to either adjourn the
meeting and just basically continue with
business another day, further extend the
recess to try to restore the service.
So, we could take more time or the
council has the option of reconvening an
open session, but we must adopt a
finding by a roll call vote that one,
good faith efforts were taken to restore
the service and two, the public interest
in continuing the meeting outweighs the
public interest in remote public access.
Now, we're not going to know uh
basically from case law because as you
know, the state legislature crafts
language within statute. Um we don't
really know how it's going to be
interpreted until we see that case law
and and there's challenges that come out
of this. But my best guess in looking at
the finding, I would say if there's a
situation where you had something on the
agenda where you needed to conduct the
business, take care of the action item,
but let's say there wasn't a ton of
public interest in the item. Well, in
that circumstance, I think you could
probably successfully make this finding
to say, "Look, we tried our best. An
hour has passed. We have an action item
on this agenda that needs to be acted
upon either tonight or within the next
couple of days. The public hasn't had a
big interest in it, and so we believe
the public interest in continuing the
meeting outweighs the public interest in
remote public access. So, that's at
least an example of how you could make
the finding. Obviously, it's all going
to be fact dependent, and we would look
at the facts that are before the council
in guiding you in making that finding.
Now changing just a little bit of the
gears from disruption of the technology
to more so disruption from a comment and
you have not had these kind of
disruptions from your residents. Uh but
where we've seen the disruptions occur
has often been from the outside and so
uh wanted to to walk the council through
what options exist within the Brown Act
to deal with those types of disruptions.
And this is new law with SB77 as to how
to deal with virtual disruptions. And it
basically indicates that yes, if we had
a virtual commentator who's disrupting
the meeting, and keep in mind disruption
doesn't just mean u uh agitating the
meeting or stalling the meeting, it
would truly need to be somebody who's
stopping you from basically conducting
business. It's a high it's a high
threshold. But if that did occur, what
are our options? Well, the mayor or the
clerk within the policy could provide a
warning consistent with the Brown Act,
basically indicating that the behavior
is actually disrupting the meeting,
stopping us from proceeding with
business. And if they fail to cease that
behavior, it will result in removal.
Under the Brown Act, under the new
virtual comment uh disruption
provisions, it basically says if that
commenttor persists in disrupting the
meeting, we have the option of muting
the speaker, which usually takes care of
the issue from a Zoom perspective. Or
let's say it's video and something else
is going on, then we have the option of
removing them completely from the Zoom
platform and continuing continuing with
the meeting.
Now, the next few slides are really
specific to what I think our city clerk
staff has been dealing with in the
background in implementing SB77. And so,
I want to turn over the next two slides
to Lisa Nushar, city clerk. Lisa,
>> thank you. Yes. So, one of the
additional requirements of 70 SB77 is
that we're required to engage with
underrepresented communities or
individuals or communities that don't
typically participate in our meetings.
We're also required to have an
electronic system for accepting and
fulfilling requests for the meeting
agendas and documents uh through email
or another integrated system on our
website. And uh our website has to
include um uh information about the
meeting process. So, general explanation
of the public meeting process, an
explanation of the procedures for a
member of the public to provide
comments, um a calendar of the public
meeting dates, including the time and
location of the meeting, uh and the
current posted agenda of of the meeting
body. So, we have all of this
information on our website currently,
and it's it's um mostly all in the same
place, but what we're doing now is just
making sure it's all consolidated uh and
consistent with uh SB77 so that all of
that information is available to members
of the public in the same location.
We also have to provide a physical space
near our current bulletin board in the
front of town hall where members of the
public can post their own translations
of the agenda. So, we're working with
public works um to install a smaller
bulletin board next to the existing
bulletin board where members of the
public can post agenda translations. Uh
we do uh plan to put something on the
bulletin board, you know, to indicate
that this uh bulletin board is only for
the purposes of agenda translations. Uh
and it can only be used for that
purpose.
Um, and we also have to, as I mentioned,
make efforts to invite groups that don't
normally participate in our meetings.
Um, so we're just planning to, you know,
continue to promote signing up for our
agendas, signing up for the weekly and
bulletin, all of the kind of, um, uh,
promotion that we do of ways to engage
with, um, engage with the council,
engage with the town, um, reach out to
community groups, um, those kinds of
opportunities that we have when we have
neighborhood groups gathered to just
continue to promote um, ways to to
connect with the council and our council
meetings.
Um, additionally we are required to the
SP77 requires that um eligible um B
legislative bodies are required to
accommodate um translation
interpretation requests. Um so we um
need to provide space and extra time um
not the actual interpretive you know
interpretation service uh itself uh to
members of the public who would like to
have an interpreter. So we have to
provide instructions for how someone who
would like to bring an interpreter to
the meeting um how they would do that.
So we're working to put put that
information in the same place on the
agenda. Um and in addition and this
exists now that if there is someone who
comes with an interpreter and would like
to use an interpreter, they do actually
get double the amount of public comment
time that's available uh to any other
member of the public. So currently if
someone had three minutes they would get
six to allow for that interpretation.
Um also cities um who have applicable uh
languages in their in their city would
be required to translate and post the
agenda into any language that's spoken
um by more than uh 20% um of of the
language language in their city um that
is spoken by um those individuals. and
we actually don't in the town have any
uh languages that apply. So, we won't be
translating um our agenda, but we do um
have to, you know, take a look at that
information annually based on the US
Census Bureau um American Community
Survey to make sure that we're adhering
to those uh to those numbers and making
sure that we're adhering to the
translation requirements.
>> Lisa and I were talking a little earlier
about some cities that don't have to do
any translation and it was kind of
shocking. San Monteo, San Jose, just
cities that you would think would have
20% of of a certain language, but they
don't. So quite interesting how it's
shaking out in terms of the percentages.
So the next policy I wanted to talk
about just is again those public comment
regulations to deal with any kind of
outside agitators, but really limited
comments consistent with the Brown Act.
But I want to talk give it a little bit
of context first. Um, keep in mind under
First Amendment principles, a council
meeting is what's considered a limited
public form. basically means we open up
the form here on government property for
people to come to speak but we also
control it quite a bit. Um we limit
where on the agenda they can speak. We
limit the time that they can speak and
we somewhat limit generally the broader
topic that they can speak about
something within your subject matter
jurisdiction of city council. It's
basically time place and manner
regulations under the first amendment
principles. Keep in mind we can impose
those time place and manner regulations
um and and are it's fully consistent
with the first amendment. The only risk
is we can't limit speech based on
viewpoint.
Now, disruption under the law generally
seeks to regulate disruptive behavior.
And so, if someone's doing something in
this room that's causing us to not
proceed with the meeting for some a
certain reason, and I can give some
context to that, um, we'd want to focus
on that and not necessarily the content
of the speech.
general first amendment principles and
this is all subject to obviously gray
areas within the law but it protects
hate speech generally profanity but it
does not protect against incitement of
violence or obscenity.
Now the regulations themselves are quite
limited but it's really just stuff you
probably have seen elsewhere in other
agencies and we do have some of this
within your city council handbook but I
also know that hasn't been officially
adopted. What the Brown Act indicates is
that uh a local agency and a legislative
body can adopt reasonable regulations,
but you'd want to adopt those. And so I
want to make sure council has some tools
in the toolbox to deal with any kind of
uh comments that come forth or if we had
a large volume of speakers for that
matter. But what what the regulations
lay out is two prongs. First is time
limits. Provides discretion to the mayor
to reduce public comment time down from
three minutes to two or one minute
depending on the volume of speakers and
the amount of business to transact. And
so if you had a room of speakers from
the public that wanted to share
something with you, um you could look at
the room basically ask people to raise
their hands if they're here to speak on
a particular topic. And looking at the
agenda, if you had 20 items on the
agenda to get through, but had 300
people in this room, you do have
discretion to say we need to reduce that
public comment time down so that we can
hear from all of you and get through our
business. The second is limiting total
public comment time on a particular
topic. I like to use this one pretty
sparingly because it leaves some people
out of being able to provide comment,
but in cir certain circumstances, you
could say, um, we have an an item on the
agenda. It will return to the council at
future meetings because this is just an
initial discussion. We want we have 300
of you here tonight. We'd like to limit
the total amount of public comment time
to one hour. You're going to have some
people that are going to be left out in
those circumstances, but the Brown Act
specifically acknowledges that you can
do this, but it would be at the
discretion of the council if you want to
invoke that policy uh to limit total
public comment time on a particular
topic. I usually like to see just the
minutes reduced because it gets
everybody the opportunity to speak. The
second prong is basically Brown Act
applicability. So, um, as you know, for
general public comment periods on the
agenda, we like to have those comments
limited to something that's within your
subject matter jurisdiction, something
that you can take action on at the
council level if you wanted to,
something that's within your
jurisdiction. Now, that term is not a
precise term. It is quite gray. You do
take action on a lot of things. And so,
sometimes there's an open question
whether something is truly within your
subject matter jurisdiction. But I would
imagine if somebody was standing at the
podium providing public comment under
general public comment talking primarily
about the schools um and concerned about
something happening in one of the
schools within town, we don't have
authority over the schools. And so you
could tell that commenttor, look, I'd
like you to comport your comments
consistent with what we can we can hear
and and deal with. Um, but if you have a
concern about the schools, um, the
schools meet on, you know, Tuesdays,
whatever day it happens to be, but let
them know that. And that's an option for
the council to basically steer that
public comment. And then finally, if
they're if someone's commenting on an
agenda item, it should be limited to the
agenda topic on the agenda. And so if
they're talking or spewing hate speech
on something that's uh about uh sewer
repairs, uh, we can ask that person to
comport their comments consistent with
the agenda item.
So, I'm going to cover this quite
quickly because I there's a lot here.
I'll just I'll just say there's more
slides even behind this one. So, if I go
through all of this, you'll be here
quite late. So, I just wanted to cover a
couple of things. Just the updates uh
within SB77 for teleconferencing. You
all should know about the classic
teleconferencing rules as council
members. I think uh most of you have
invoked them one time or another. These
rules have existed since almost the
Brown Ax inception. They basically allow
you to zoom or call into a meeting uh in
the old days before Zoom. Um so long as
you have your location listed on the
agenda, you make your location open to
the public. They should be able to
provide public comment at that remote
location. Um and other requirements, but
those always exist and that's always an
option for council if you need to zoom
into a meeting.
A new one that just kicked in this year
with SB77 is the teleconferencing as a
reasonable accommodation for a
disability. There was a two attorney
general opinions out there on this
topic. One from 2001 where the attorney
general was asked this very specific
question. Does federal ADA law force the
Brown Act to bend to it? Um and this the
AGS at the time basically concluded it
does not. They basically said that the
Brown Act doesn't have an option for
somebody to teleconference into a
meeting because of a disability. Um
therefore agencies you can't accommodate
one of your council members. Well, fast
forward to 2004. I want to say when a
second attorney general opinion came out
on this very same issue this the
attorney general's office had a very
different conclusion and they basically
said yes federal ADA law should force
the Brown Act to bend and even if the
Brown Act doesn't include language that
allows for reasonable accommodation
guess what federal law mandates it and
the AG and all their wisdom they
basically cited to the Zoom platform
everything that transpired during the
pandemic and they said look agencies
have tools to basically allow a council
member if they have a disability to come
into a meeting. And therefore, they had
a very different conclusion about two
decades later. Um, and what you see here
is basically the cotification of that
attorney general opinion into the Brown
Act. And so the Brown Act now says that
yes, if you were to have some sort of
disability that qualifies under the
American with Disabilities Act, we have
to allow you to come into a meeting via
Zoom. you you basically are counted for
as in as quorum and basically in person
for for purposes of the meeting. Um and
then other basic requirements consistent
with what we've seen uh post pandemic
and then I'll cover this slide quickly
but yes there's other updates. The
teleconferencing rules have basically
all been encapsulated into a couple of
provisions. requirements for all of
these are included in one section of the
Brown Act, but basically keep in mind
that during the state of emergency with
the pandemic, we always have the option
to go completely remote. Um, if that
transpires again, just cause, this came
out after the pandemic when the state
legislature saw that people were going
back to in-person meetings, but they
wanted some flexibility in the Brown
Act. If you have a just cause reason to
zoom in or teleconference into into a
meeting and there's very specific ones
included in the Brian Act, you can
teleconference in without including your
uh address on the agenda. Also, eligible
subsidiary bodies, you have the option
of letting your subsidiary bodies, the
CCAC, the ADRB, the FAC to go completely
remote, but you have to adopt findings.
They would have to agree to it as well.
And I it seems to me that most of them
just like to meet in person. So unless
there's a desire to do that, we won't
talk about that further. And then
finally, eligible multi-jurisdictional
bodies. These are your larger agencies
that cover wide territory. Um more
flexibility built into the Brown Act if
you're traveling. I I want to say
there's a mileage uh restriction, but it
has to be it's a quite quite large
amount of miles to basically access this
for teleconferencing purposes, but it
does exist within the Brown Act. And so
if you are on a large
multi-jurisdictional body and you're
thinking about teleconferencing in, you
might want to ask your legal counsel at
that body about this provision.
Quickly, social media restrictions. If
you're not aware, there are social media
restrictions within the Brown Act and
they have been made permanent now by
SB77. They used to have a sunset clause.
Basically means if you see a fellow post
on social media from one of your council
members, don't like it, don't comment on
it, just let it be. If you want to share
the same information, you can do so as a
as your own post, but you don't want to
engage with your fellow council members
post because that could become a Brown
Act violation. Just imagine if one of
you comments on something that one of
your council members posted, then
another council member sees that you
have a majority of the council all
consuming the same information.
Uh, our city clerk did provide copies of
the Brown Act to our city council and
that is a new requirement with SB77.
Another new requirement is if the
council, and I know you don't get salary
here, but if you ever wanted to talk
about benefits for the council, needs to
be done at a regular meeting. As you
know, for local agency executives, we
can't talk about salary or benefits at a
special meeting. So, the same rule now
applies to the legislative body. And
then lastly, I'll just say that yes,
SB77 includes the new prong about
disruptive virtual attendees, and I
covered some of that uh this evening.
And with that, there's the
recommendation to adopt a resolution
adopting two policies. policy 421 as
well as policy 422 and I'm happy to
answer any questions. Thank you.
>> Thank you. You're right. That is a lot.
Um yes. Um I will turn to the council.
Um council member Crowley.
>> Thank you. Thank you for Christopher.
Thanks for doing it at the speed of a
locomotive. So on page 181, the public
comment regulations number one under
time limits. Um, it it talks about how
all public comment shall be limited to 3
minutes or less, but there's there's
nothing in there. I mean, as indicated
tonight, when the youth commission got
up, the mayor basically allowed them
discretion. It um could could it say all
public comment may be limited to three
minutes or less? I mean, can you give
the mayor discretion to let someone have
more time?
>> Yeah. So with public comments, yes, as
long as we equitably reduce the time,
then it is allowable. So yes, it could
be to your point, if you'd like to see
that language, we can do that. But yes,
um there is that discretion. We just
wouldn't want to do it unequally,
>> right? Maybe even adding the mayor has
discretion to allow further time
as long as it's done in an equitable
manner or something. Um that's that was
the only thing that I saw.
Any additional question? Yes, Vice Mayor
Rexdale.
>> Thank you, Christopher. That was a lot
and um very well done. Uh greatly
appreciated. I had a couple of
questions. Um
so,
if we came in, we have Zoom capabilities
usually. If we came in and everything
was working except Zoom,
but at the beginning of the meeting, it
looks to me like we could go ahead and
just have our meeting without Zoom. But
I don't know if that's the way it's
worded. It's it see it's like if there's
no Zoom or telephone, you can go and
have have the meeting.
>> That's a great question. Um I think a
lot of this will shake out as we see
this being implemented. Uh my take on it
is if we come to this room, we know the
Zoom technically works in here, but just
doesn't work on that day. I would take
the position that you've told the public
they can connect via Zoom. We know the
technology works in this room, we just
can't get it to work for some reason. I
would say don't start the meeting until
you get that technology up.
>> I I like that interpretation. Um I I
don't think it's what it says, but I
think that since that's how we had
noticed it, it seems to me the more fair
way to then give it an hour. Um, okay.
Um, and then, um, oh, I was just curious
about the language, um,
spoken as a first language, I would
presume. Um, only because what if 20%
speak French?
>> There's an additional,
>> but it's not their primary language
spoken at home.
>> Yeah. No, that's a great question.
There's an additional prong within the
statute of SB77. says those groups that
don't speak uh or speak another language
in a in a amount of 20% within the
population and then they also need to
not speak English very well. So it's
there's two prongs to that. So it's not
just speaking a second language, it's
that you do truly speak a second
language as your primary language and
then yes, you don't speak English very
well.
>> Okay, perfect. Um
oh um I was curious about this one. So,
the provision where um public comment
can go down from three minutes to two
minutes to one minute at the mayor's
discretion.
Can that be
does that then go for the rest of the
night? For instance, let's say our our
first item um general public comment for
items not on the agenda. There's hundred
people in here for some some reason. Um
so, the mayor says, "Oh boy, how about
one minute each?" They all state their
piece. They they go on their Mayway and
then we have one member in the audience
left. It's it's only 7:30.
We've got we've got something. Can it be
up to back to three minutes for that one
member or is it like the now we're at
one minute tonight?
>> No, it's a great question. I would say
um for the duration of the meeting like
let's say at the beginning of the
meeting we see a ton of people in the
room and and the mayor automatically
limits comment
and let's say the item only has one
speaker. I think the mayor has
discretion to say let's say it's general
public comment and you only have two
speakers yet we know we have agenda item
11 coming further in the agenda and
there's 300 people in the room that want
to speak. I think she could allow public
comment to be three minutes each because
there's only two speakers with the
understanding when you get to item 11,
you ask the question. How many here here
to speak to item 11? You won't know that
until you ask the question. But if
everyone in the room was to raise their
hand, then yes, you look at how much
what look at the the hour of the clock.
You look at how much you have on the
agenda. You see the number of people in
the room. And yes, at that point, the
mayor could make the executive decision
to say, "I'm going to bring that those
numbers down." you know, and your
example I think is is if all those
people were to leave the room and then
we only have one person left that really
wants to speak. I do think in that
circumstance because there's nobody else
here that we're basically um
disenfranchising and they're not getting
the chance to speak or getting less time
to speak. I think she could say, you
know what, everybody left. We no longer
have the need to reduce that comment
time down. You're the last speaker. I'm
happy to give you those three minutes.
>> Okay. Excellent. Um that's very helpful.
I I love this stuff. Um
the
>> um
yeah I had a question. So on the um
policy 422
the very bottom public comments on
agenda items talks about um removal.
Uh also so it says unless a speaker
requests to remove an item. Um,
but also I know sometimes we remove an
item. Um,
and I'd like to build in flexibility
there and and not
say that a speaker can request to
remove. I know some towns don't allow us
a speaker to request to remove um
because it then the meetings never end.
Um, so I was thinking, um, if we could
rewrite that, um, so that fourth line
would say unless
an item,
>> oh, 181,
uh, exhibit B, unless an item has been
removed from the consent calendar,
and I know that's passive voice, which
we don't love, but um, I think that
gives us flexibility.
Um because like again like I said we
sometimes remove and then we're not
explicitly giving permission to the
speaker
the general public to remove something
from consent.
What's your recommend?
>> Yeah, I thought it's automatic that they
have the opportunity to remove an item
>> um
>> the agenda from the from the Yeah,
>> we're allowed. So is the public.
>> We allow that, but they don't
allow that. One thing you could do as an
option to to your point, Vice Mayor
Ragsdale, is right now I don't think we
say on the agenda itself that public
comment on non-agged items relates to
public comment on consent calendar. And
so we should say that and this way if
somebody does stand up there under
general public comment and has a comment
on a consent item that you guys feel
like maybe we should hear this and and
debate it a little bit. You have the
discretion to pull it. Um, and I think
if somebody is there before you raising
concerns, you could decide, is it enough
to pull? Is it enough that we just heard
it and then we can decide on consent?
But that at least gives you a chance to
hear the concern before and then you
could decide to pull it.
>> Just to clarify that, it's my
understanding that the public can remove
an item from the consent calendar.
Correct.
We allow that, but not all towns let the
public request to remove something from
consent.
>> And the only reason I think we have that
language on the agenda is the concern
that the again the public comment period
on non-aggenda items doesn't say this is
the time to comment on consent calendar
items. We say when we get to consent, if
you want to pull an item to discuss it
or raise a comment, that's your time to
do so. But you could change that just
slightly and just say public comment on
non-aggenda items and consent calendar
items. And then if you hear that concern
or comment, council could decide whether
we pull it or not.
But that's an alternative option. We
would just have to update the policy
just slightly. Uh and you give me that
direction tonight. You could adopt it
with that change and then I can work
with our city clerk to implement that
for the language on the agenda as But
that that's a change from our current
policy which is we let the public
>> I'm okay with leaving our policy as it
is our informal policy that we let them
um but just to not tie us down if we
change that language. So it would just
say um public comment for an item will
not be taken unless um an item has been
removed from the consent calendar and
then you're not saying who has the right
to remove it
>> in that way. just just in case um we
could get a member of the public who
comes in and I would like to request to
remove
all the all the items and they could
come to every meeting and say I want to
remove and then I' I've seen it happen
in other not in our county.
>> Well, but but I think uh our residents
are not only accustomed to but they
expect to be able to remove something
from a consent calendar if it's
something of concern to them. they want
clarification and maybe we have been in
different meetings where the subject is
we're familiar with the subject and we
don't have any questions but if the
public has a question and it's
significant and we get to the consent
calendar it's my understanding not only
um should they be allowed to remove that
item but I think it's only reasonable
since we're here to listen to them
>> and and I totally agree with that um I
just think if we put in the policy that
a speaker is allowed to remove that
takes takes away um our flexibility.
It looks like this this way that it's uh
put is that the speaker a speaker
meaning a member of the public could
remove an item,
>> right? Um public comment for an item
will not be taken unless a speaker
requests to remove an item from the
consent calendar for discussion.
>> Right.
But I see what you mean. It it means
that nobody could just stand up and make
a public comment on the consent calendar
unless they want to remove something.
>> No, it means that if we're giving the
public permission to remove items from
the consent calendar, it could go
haywire.
>> But we've been doing it. Well, we've
been doing it.
>> Right. Right. Okay. Well, we can revisit
if that if that if the haywire happens,
sounds like
>> Yeah, I think we we
just to expedite this. I think we should
uh keep our policy and then if we run
into a problem we can revisit the policy
would be my recommendation.
>> Okay.
>> And and council member just the what I
was suggesting um if we just said unless
the item has been removed then we're not
changing our policy.
>> Yeah.
>> That just gives us flexibility and
that's Yeah. Unless
>> because I I like the way we do it. I
just think if we say that has been
removed passive voice but that way.
>> Yeah.
>> No, I agree with that recommendation
both of those.
>> I for the mayor. Can I
>> Yes. Council me one. Yes.
>> Thank you. I think we're talking about
two different things. I think that what
we the our common practice has been that
uh when it comes to the consent calendar
the mayor would ask or council members
would you like to pull something or the
public would they like to pull something
and those items were pulled and then you
know it usually we have we have the
courtesy to say I just want to make a
comments we don't have to pull but the
public would not have that they would
have to hold it or they would they would
have to you know in order to make their
comments. What Christopher is offering
is at the comments that is not on the
agenda to also include the language that
if they want to speak on one of the
items on consent that that's their
opportunity to do so and because of the
comments then the council on the disp
now that I hear it I want to pull it. So
I think
>> in that comment
>> that that is that is the two practices
that we have to decide which way we want
to go by.
>> Okay. Um I think I'm going to ask our
city attorney to review that specific
section and and maybe report out again
to us maybe at a subsequent meeting. Um
unless you have all the answers because
there seems to be conflicting opinions
on this at this time. We can certainly
move on and you can revisit just that
section.
>> Yeah. Council's a little just divided on
which option to choose
>> of interpretation.
>> What I can do is I'll come back at a
subsequent meeting and just with that
one policy and we can talk about
options.
>> Okay. Um one before we close this
section off um council member Adams
>> and this is a quick question. The uh new
regulations
ask us to encourage underrepresentative
citizen groups. It does not say that
they have to be from our town.
Question. uh are they citizens of
Hillsboro or and also uh if they want to
post a new translation of our agenda, do
we check that translation before we post
it? And third, how will this be measured
and will it need to be reported to
anyone?
>> Repeat the first question again just so
I have it. I'm sorry I didn't write it
down.
>> And do they have to be citizens of our
town?
>> Thank you. I I I do believe the
expectation under SB77 is that you
invite the underrepresented groups in
your community to attend the meetings
because the idea with SB77 was let's
create create greater public
participation for all of the cities and
board of supervisors and special
districts. And so it's really getting
people that would attend your meeting
that are served by your essentially
services get them to attend the meeting.
So I don't imagine it's going outside of
the jurisdiction. to your second
question just about checking the
translation. Um, our clerk noted that
yes, we're going to post something that
basically indicates that this is for
true and correct translations. Um, we'd
want to make sure we're not necessarily
checking every translation, but if a
member of the public was to come up to
us and say, "Look, I think that's not a
correct translation. I understand, let's
say, Mandarin. It looks like hate speech
of some sort." We might check it at that
point and then remove it from the box or
the the bulletin board. One of the
concerns that we had about the bulletin
board was does that become a first
amendment form? And so in order to
basically control that as much as we
can, the policy that we're going to post
clearly indicates it's for true and
correct translations. We have the
discretion to remove everything else. Um
and so in other words, we're we're
controlling what the the speech is in
that form. And so that would be the
goal. And then you had one more
question.
>> Well, and also I think with AI, we could
provide our own u assessment of that
translation. And I would say we should
do that before we post it.
>> Yeah. And
>> yeah, it's it's really the citizens that
have the right to post on that board.
And so we might I mean the clerk's
office may want to do a check every so
often just to see what's there and and
to your point using some uh Google
translate or some other option.
>> Yep. And the the third one is how would
that be measured and does it need to be
reported?
>> Great question. uh my understanding and
my recollection of the statute in the in
SB77, it basically indicates that the
agency has no obligation to basically
verify the accuracy of any of the
translations, but at the same time, we
want to make sure stuff isn't up there
that could be hate speech, could be
something else problematic.
>> Um, yes, Council Member Cwley. So, are
you saying that we are precluded if we
put this bulletin board on that that we
can't say that you you put it in the
town mailbox and the city clerk posts
it?
>> I mean, that way all you have to do is
put your phone on Google Translate and
it'll say,
>> "Yeah, the expectation under SB77 is
that we want to provide a place for the
public if we're not required to
translate that they have the option to
translate for their fellow constituents
or fellow people within their
community." And so they get to post it,
but we still get the ability to control
it. And so it's almost like a city
council meeting. It's a limited public
forum. State legislature has told us we
have to open up a form through a
bulletin board, allow the public to
post, but we can still control it to
some extent. It's got to be true. It's
got to be accurate. And yes, to your
point, if we want to look at the
translations to make sure they're
accurate, we have the discretion to do
so.
>> Yeah. It seems to make sense that you
would have to do it through the city
clerk so that somebody can't post
something that says everybody take off
their clothes and run screaming through
Hillsboro.
>> Yeah, I mean that's one of the risk
factors and I think you know uh as this
gets implemented we will probably see
updates from the state legislature. Uh
I'm sure agencies might have concerns
about certain aspects of this and so
that'll start to bubble up. But like all
things in Sacramento, it might take some
time to see some clarity in the law. And I just realized that um with regards
to SB uh 707 um and I'm asking for
further clarification whether residents
can remove an item from the consent
calendar because we wanted some
clarification on that with regards to
this resolution to adopt this motion
specifically. I was just asking for
clarification in terms of can we
continue what we're doing or does this
law restrict us in any ways that says in
order for someone to speak on an item
that's on the consent calendar they have
to remove it. In other words, just
clarification of what the law states so
we can um have an internal understanding
of what what rules were guided by.
>> Yeah. And and I'm happy to clarify that.
Now SB77 doesn't include anything
specific to consent calendar but what
the Brown Act indicates is that the
public has the right to comment on every
agenda item on your agenda and that
would include your consent calendar.
>> Ah well that answers the question then.
So they they will have the authority to
remove an item to discuss it. It's the
only way they can discuss it. Right.
Well, the option I provided was either
they provide the comment by p pulling
the item as we do now or they provide
the comment under general public comment
for non-aggenda items and we'd include
language to say and consent items.
>> But then you will have people I I mean I like the separation of the
non-aggender items and the and the items
on the on the agenda because it it it's
first of all it's a different part of
the whole meeting. It just allows when
we go into the agenda and someone wants
to pull something from the consent
calendar, we can like focus on that
because other council members may be
pulling. But I think to put it all
together could really throw the whole
agenda in the hands of the um the the
public as opposed to running the
meeting. They could potentially be
running the meeting.
>> Yeah, I see your point. I mean, I think
there's options there for the council to
consider, but we're happy to walk you
through those through those again at a
future meeting. You sound questions if you bring this back,
>> can we put it on consent or do you have
to go through the whole presentation
again?
>> So what the what SB77 says is for
disruption policies, they need to be
discussed. They cannot be on consent.
But this second policy is not the
disruption policy. It's something that I
brought forward just as tools in the
toolbox. And so policy 42:2, if we make
further changes to it, it would it could
be on consent.
>> Great question. Appreciate that. Um, so
>> I think I see. Is your hand raised? No,
it is.
>> Sorry. Council Chong, did you want to
Oh, okay. Sorry.
>> It's raised on my computer, but I I did
want to just point out in case you have
any input into 707. Uh, if we could just
have AI translate a
uh an agenda, so could anyone with any
device could translate it without our
having to post it or they're having to
post it. They could just have it
translated. Just might want to think
about that.
>> Yeah. No, that's a good point. And I
think if somebody is inquiring, our
staff can always indicate to them
there's there's a way to do that on your
phone and just bring it to the meeting.
>> Um, okay. Uh, Vice Mayor Ragsdale have a
question.
>> Just one quick uh clarifying question on
page 180 of the packet. Um, so the first uh new policy exhibit A the
very end on 7
B2
uh page 180.
I just I keep rereading it and I'm not getting it.
No, thank you for the question. What it
basically means is that yes, if somebody
is disrupting the meeting, uh under the
Brown Act, our first uh avenue of
controlling that disruption is to mute
the speaker by warning them.
>> If that doesn't work, we have the option
to remove them from the Zoom platform
completely like just take them out of
the meeting.
>> Could we maybe is this wording we have
to use from 707?
Could we maybe make it more direct than
that? because it says or is not
available using the remote access
service. What what isn't available?
That's what what that's the part. It's
the second half that confused me.
» Good question.
>> Looking at that again, yeah, I could
double check just to see if that's an
SB77 requirement. Um I can't imagine it
is. If you just wanted to end it at
remove the individual from the meeting
if paragraph A does not address the
disruptive behavior or disrupting
behavior period.
>> Yes, that that's that's much more clear
to me because I don't know what what is
not available.
>> But we do have to vote on 421 tonight.
Right.
>> Correct.
>> Um policy 421 we can we so this will be
modified the second part of this and
item two will not be part of this what
we are voting on. So, right. And then the amendment I guess the
amendment I'm requesting is on page 180
uh 7B2
simply reads remove the individual from
the meeting if paragraph A does not
address the disrupting behavior
>> and that is part part of SB77
already.
My motion would be that we adopt a
resolution of we adopt policy 421,
disruption of telephonic or internet
service during meetings in accordance
with seven Senate Bill 707 with the
amendment suggested by Vice Mayor
Ragsdale unless the city attorney
determines that that is not in
compliance with 707.
>> Thank you. And I'll just clarify, I'm
reading the language again. I think
what's missing there is the word mute.
So if muting muting the speaker is not
available using the remote access
service, then you can remove them from
the meeting. That's really what I think
there's a missing word there.
>> Oh, I see.
>> Because I'm I'm recalling the statute in
my head and I think that's how it
>> reads. Okay. If muting Okay. So So I
will amend my amendment to just add the
word as declared by our city attorney.
Add the word muting in that
>> uh portion
>> or muting is not available using the
remote access service.
>> Correct. Okay. And I'm not and I'm not
crazy then because I kept reading it and reading.
>> Okay. So, we don't have any amendments.
So, um
>> so, Council Member Kle motion as amended
and I'll second it.
» Um
>> what? No, we did not amend it because he
clarified. Just just correcting the
typo.
» Oh, I see.
>> I'd go to add
council and council member Tronger
comfortable with adding that word muted
and yes.
>> Okay, gotcha. All right, we have a
motion. We have a We have a motion from
um Crow and a second seconded by Chang.
Okay. Um could we take the vote, please?
>> Yes, Adams.
We Schwang
Krillic I Razil I Cole I thank you.
Okay.
Final item is city council items. And do
any of my colleagues have any items they
would like to report?
Starting with Council Member Schwan.
>> Thank you. I have five items, not 20
pages, but five items that I would like
to report. First of all, I would like to
um uh say that the town wide draw on
April 22nd was really well attended with
30 plus um members um attending and I
want to thank my council colleagues for
supporting and in attendance and I would
like to thank Williams lieutenant
culprit
and ming and also central county fire
department's um crews and also chief
puchi
for in for participating in the drill.
Um I'm very grateful um that our
citizens um our residents actually um
spending their Sunday morning u with us
and I think the debrief at the end of
the exercise was extremely rewarding and
helpful. Um, and then on April 30th, I
attended the emergency service council
and the service the ESC adopted the
board of ESC adopted the budget. Um, and
there are in discussions on the
replacement of the hazmat engines. Um,
it does require
a bit of funding. It's like$ 1.5 to2
million dollars to replace the brand new
um to buy a brand new engines for
hazmat. So they're in discussions on
that. And then um May 3rd I attended fun
run and while it was drizzling it was
really well attended and thanks to our
assistant city manager she brought her
family to join us. So it was really
nice. Um
for
um Samr
uh Samr has a um a uh usually displays
students art um in May. And this year we
have again two buses wrapped with
artists student arts um artwork on them.
So um and the theme is time travelers
take the bus. It was they were really
beautiful drawing and renderings and it just really in line to celebrate
Samran's 50th years of service um in the
county. And lastly, I would like to
mention that on May 5th, u Mike Drunk
and I flew down to San Diego
um to re to join Chief Puchi and also
our sir coordinator Kaschow to receive
the silver award
um from the
let's see California Emergency Service
Associations
Coast to chapters. Um this award is
really to um honor the sustainable model
of the Mandrin Chinese instructions
programs and um this is especially
important because um central county um
uh fire uh department is really
supported and thanks to our CEO Doug
Davis also being um very supportive of
the program And this program uh the
award was nominated by the late Dina
Gunning. Um so it was even more
meaningful to all of us in the central
county fire departments. So I thought
I'd join my council colleague to finally
show the picture. There is a a glass um
award that Mike drunk is u holding but
um it was quite meaningful. So really
appreciate that. Thank you.
>> Thank you. I think that deserves a round
of applause.
>> That's great. Congratulations.
Very welld deserved.
And uh, you know, I think all of us are
so proud of that program that Mike
instituted that's getting, you know,
statewide and national attention. So,
>> thank you.
It's wonderful. Okay, I just
have a few things. Parade, parade, My whole dining room table is
covered with little postits that
represent the parade lineup. So, we're
getting close. May 25th, 10 a.m. Many
thanks to to Marie uh for organizing the
observance ceremony and Leslie for
reaching out to all the dignitaries.
Kristen Z is going to be our um our
grand marshall and it will be great and
a special thanks to our city manager and
the city manager department for their
support and HPD and public works as well
as our volunteers. Seems a little early
because it hasn't happened yet, but it's
very exciting as it's all coming
together. Um FAC, we had our budget
study session. Thank you very much to
Jan and Rich and the team. Um, and uh,
we have a town hall subcommittee meeting
coming up. Not much has happened, so
it's not that we're hiding things from
you. Um, but hopefully things will start
to to move along a little more quickly.
And, um, so San Francisco airport
roundtable, we're working on our fly
quiet program, but in case you haven't
read about it in the news, um, two of
the runways are being um, resurfaced
this summer. So that takes the uh the
traffic down and the all of the airlines
had six months to prepare for that and
they did. They adjusted their schedules.
But right before the work started, the
federal government, the FAA, out of the
blue announced that our two runways that
are only 750 ft apart and we've always
been allowed to land two flights at the
same time as long as there was
visibility. we don't do it in fog or
rain or of course at night. Um which is
why sometimes there's delays in those
things. All of a sudden said that San
Francisco wasn't allowed to do that. So
you can all come up with your own
theories on why the federal government
would want to mess with San Francisco.
So it's a little tricky. There are
delays. Most of the delays are they're
holding your flight on the ground um
before you take off for San Francisco
because they don't want you to have to
circle. But but there'll be delays for
the ne for the rest of the summer really
because of this. And that is the end of
that.
>> Thank you for that update. Um Council
Member Adams.
>> Yeah, we my family just experienced this
yesterday.
Wonder why they did that. Okay, April.
Um this is a reporting on the last
month. Next slide. Poppies are in. Uh
spent a wonderful day, Earth Day at uh
Shoreway Environmental Center. All kinds
of kids. Just great great time. Next
slide. Uh and we were able to announce
the winners of the trash to art contest.
And once again, uh a wonderful fourth
grader from Hillsboro. Our artists are
extraordinary. He made this entire scene
of these ships from uh trash that he
found and he won first place and it's
wonderful Reef M who we've seen before.
Very talented young man. So it was
really great to see that and to award
him his award. Next
uh slide. Uh, and I just wanted to
compliment Marie and Mike again on the
H&N townwide drill. It was serious but
fun. And we also had uh Steven Raldi,
who is the vice mayor of Milbury, attend
because he was very impressed with the
things that Hillsboro is doing uh in
terms of engaging the public and he
wanted to see what we were doing. Next,
uh, Celebrate May was fantastic. I think
almost every council member was there.
It was beautiful and well attended and I
wanted to thank public works again for
their part in that. Next,
uh, leadership council is always an
interesting day. Uh this was the climate
sustainability and adaptation day as
part of social dimensions of health. We
visited uh East PaloAlto. The whole
meeting was in East Paloalto. We visited
the pump stations that are available
with our locks to uh actually prevent
flooding and they gave us a
demonstration. Wonderful program. We
also saw some uh rain swailes and rain
gardens in individual homes. Next
uh ad hoc meetings continue uh with uh
Tolman Clark the ordinance for the uh
business license revision and at rethink
waste uh we met once again and we will
met meet once again next week to get the
refresh for the outdoor area next. Is
there a next? No.
>> Thank you. Thanks for that updates. Uh,
Vice Mayor Rexdale.
>> Yes, I have a few. Uh, next slide. Uh,
continuing uh, VLF. We've talked about
it tonight. I did I did get to go up to
Sacramento for one of the days. The
second day was the day of uh, Celebrate
May. So, I didn't go to that one for the
Senate, but I did go to um, testify
before the assembly. We all got 30
seconds.
Um, but it was just a a great
cross-section of people there to testify
and the um the committee was very
supportive. The only person in the room
not supportive was uh from the finance
department who said, "Well, this isn't mandatory and we're not doing
well, but everyone else in the room was
supportive." Um, ebikes. As I mentioned
to the kids, I gave a minute of public
testimony, which was gobbledygook, but I was there all day. Um, there were
various topics that day. Um, anyway,
next slide. Uh, council of cities great,
um, meeting. Uh, I think it was just,
um, uh, council member Schwang and I
were there in Belmont. We got a tour and
update that we got last time uh to see
all the progress that they've made in
there. They've got a huge park there um
and water issues which they have very
brilliantly um taken care of. Um and I
went to and as I'm like mumbling my
words, I went to an executive presence
in clear communication.
So that's good. Um town hydro was
fantastic again. Uh thank you so much.
Um it was um it was very well attended
and we did learn a lot. And next slide.
Um oh I'm going to go to the um
community California community chase
choice aggregators conference uh
starting tomorrow for PCE. Uh we will be
unveiling the West Light Energy name
there uh for the industry. um Hillsboro
Recre. Uh the mayor and I were there and
um you've I'm sure you've read about
this. It's happening all over, but um
because the schools now have to provide
free prek
um the the preschools are all having
difficulty filling filling their spaces.
And it used to be that when they first
started the pre-K, a lot of the kids
would then come across the street uh
like at South come across the street to
do after noon um programs. But they're
finding now that a lot of those kids,
their family still retains a nanny. And
so the nanny is going to pick up that
kid because there's a there's also an
infender toddler. And um they're not
going to the afternoon program. and um
at some point, not now, but they they
might come to the town for an increased
contribution in the JPA. So, just um uh
something to keep in your head. Um ad
hoc ordinance committee. I'm not sure
when we're coming back, but um we are we
are refining. Um we being Mark Hudach is
refining. Uh next page.
Okay. So um for mental health month uh I
went to a session for elected officials.
It was um schoolboard members and
council members and uh county
supervisors with regard to taking care
of our owned mental health for one. Um
and there's some tips here. I won't read
them out but you guys can take a look.
Um and uh it was a really uh supportive
environment. And then the second part of
the training was how to recognize that
um someone you are interacting with
might be uh at some stage of a mental
health crisis and maybe um there are
ways to suggest help for them and uh
again just I won't read this out but um
ways to take care of your own mental
health and to take care of each other
and um for instance just just one
suggestion that they had is um something
kind of dicey comes up and you know the
mayor can tell that it's kind of
affecting a council member emotionally
the mayor could you know suggest a break
right the the kinds of thing I think
that we are we are good about our our
particular council um and I very much
appreciate you guys um and I think that
might be it is there another slide oh
that those are the people who were there
and that's
Thank you for sharing that. Um I'll
follow up on a few items that were
already mentioned. Um I will start with
the uh told Clark um updates briefly. We
next month it's on the agenda for very
um detailed presentation by the
subcommittee. Um it's been five months
since they got on board. I believe they
got on board sometime in midocctober and
they've done a lot of work in the past
five months. So, we'll get an update
from them. And my plan or our plan, the
subcommittee, uh, Council Member Adams
and myself, our plan is to try to
transition from this ad hoc to a
subcommittee, which will be open to the
public within the next few months as
soon as we get um, an update to the
entire council so everybody can be
brought up to speed as far as what the
plans are, recommendations are. With
regards to Hrek, let me just echo again.
There's a decline in um enrollments in
our schools across the whole state, not
just in our municipality.
And um the TK program has caused this
financial crunch within our HRE program.
And um the preschool which used to be
one of the larger revenue stream for HRE
has declined because the students now
have a statemandated TK um program. HRE
is looking at for at least looking for
opportunities to expand or create more
adults, more programs for seniors and
other adults in the community as a as
something that will begin to offset some
of those financial constraints as well
as baby mom type programs. Um those seem
to be two populations where there's real
need questions. People are reaching out
to um HRE asking what services we have
in town. So hopefully as we continue to
make progress in some of the other
issues that are going on in terms of
space, we'll be able to accommodate that
going forward.
Um I believe that's it. FAC, we already
got a very detailed update earlier
today. I don't have anything else to
add. Um any other final addition from
the council? Great. Seeing none, this
meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.
>> All right.