HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-10-12 Human Relations Commission Action MinutesADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
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HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Community Meeting Room
Palo Alto Civic Center
250 Hamilton Avenue
7:00 PM
REGULAR MEETING
ROLL CALL:
Commissioners Present: Alhassani, Chen, Gordon Gray, O’Nan, Lee, Stinger
Absent: Brahmbhatt
Council Liaison: Council Member Kou
Staff: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino
I. ROLL CALL
Chair Stinger: I want to welcome everybody to the Human Relations Commission meeting of
October 12, 2017 and begin with a roll call, please?
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
Chair Stinger: Are there any agenda changes, requests or deletions to the agenda before you?
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Chair Stinger: If not we’ll move onto oral communications. The first card I have is Alison
Cormack. Allison, there is a speaker to the right, thank you.
Ms. Alison Cormack: Good evening, my name is Alison Cormack. We have new neighbors next
door and when I recently went over to welcome them, I thought about how much there is to learn
when you move into a new City, excuse me, in particularly ours. Finding the nearest library and
hours it's open, a personal favorite. Learning to put what in which recycling bin that takes time
and which day your garbage is picked up. Figuring out which park has the best playground for
your kids, knowing who to call if you have a problems with your utilities, understanding how
street parking works, knowing if you have an in the neighborhood emergency preparedness
contact and where they live, if you know a cool block leader, choosing the best bicycle routes,
joining a neighborhood association perhaps next door, choosing the best – understanding what’s
happening in the City and meetings like this, participating in what’s happening in the City,
reading the local newspapers, it’s a long list and I’m coming to the last item, knowing about our
cherished traditions from the May Fete Parade, the holiday lights on Fulton Street to Foothills
Park summer camps. I am here tonight to suggest that the City create a simple online welcome
letter that answers some of these questions and includes a map of the City. Then people like me
can download it, print it out and walk over to share it with our new neighbors. The City could
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
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send it, perhaps by the Mayor whenever the name on utility bill changes or on paper as a link and
then people interested in moving to Palo Alto would be able to read it in advance and know a
little bit more about what to expect when they move here. Let’s try to give out new neighbors a
warm welcome when they arrive. This idea seems really suited to this Commission and perhaps
working with the Chief Commination’s Officer, I really don’t think it would take that long to
implement. I hope you’ll consider creating a helpful welcome letter for our new neighbors, thank
you.
Chair Stinger: Terry McCaffrey:
Mr. Terry McCaffrey: Hello, my name is Terry McCaffrey and I am the area coordinator for
Amnesty International in this area here. The reason I am coming to talk to you this evening is
regarding refugee resettlement and welcoming refugee resettlement. In your August meeting, I
came and I addressed this issue and I distributed a copy of the resolution that we are interested in
having addressed and passed by the Human Relations Commission. Basically, we have an
Amnesty group meeting here and I think we have about twenty people and I sent a letter to the
Commission Chair Valerie Stinger outlining our situation with a copy of co-signed people; about
ten or so people. I am saying at this point in time the other things that I have done in regard to
this issue, I sent a letter – an email to Commissioner Lee, I also sent an email to your Council
Liaison and so this is where I am asking your support. I want to give you a little bit more sense
of this because this issue of refugee or asylum seekers is a big issue right now with Amnesty. It’s
a national campaign and so also, we’re looking at the climate now where we’re not really having
a mat for refugee or asylum seekers to come into this country. It’s reminiscent to me of 1939
where over 800- Jews came to the United States and they were turned back and not allowed to
enter. We have now a climate here where we have a president that is really discouraging people
from coming into this country. With that, I am urging you to consider putting this issue on the
agenda and I have a copy of the resolution here. I did that last time I was here and I spoke to the
details of that resolution. So, with that, I would just like to distribute copies and ask you --
hopefully that you can put this on your agenda and we can have a full discussion on it. Thank
you.
Chair Stinger: Thank you. I see no other oral communication cards.
IV. BUSINESS
1. Palo Alto Mediation Program presentation on their recruitment and update on new
bylaws
Chair Stinger: We’ll move onto our first order of business, thank you, and that’s the Palo Alto
Mediation Program. We have a long history with the Palo Alto Mediation Program and we’ve
contracted with Project Sentinel to provide fair housing and mediation services in the
community. The Palo Alto Mediation Program is nested under Project Sentinel. The HRC
established the mediation program decades ago and we are authorized to approve changes in the
bylaws and to approve the recruitment of new and returning members. We welcome you here
today and are anxious to hear your report.
Ms. Karen Michael: Thanks. I am happy to introduce us; my name is Karen Michael. That is
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access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
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Megan Gorman and we are currently the Co-Chairs of Palo Alto Mediation and of course, I am
sure you all know Paul Hebert who keeps the wheels on the bus for us down in Santa Clara and
Project Sentinel. Megan and I are going to talk to you first about getting you to approve the
results of our recruiting this year and a slight change to our bylaws and then Paul will be giving
the MRP report.
Ms. Megan Gorman: I am just going to give you a brief overview of the outcome of our
recruitment this year. We had three members who renewed; Karen Michael, Elaine El Bizri and
Joyce Davidson. We have one new active member, Erika Harrington and one new emeritus
member, Andrea Werboff. Erika, just to give you a little bit of a background, she has lived in
Palo Alto since 2010. She was a transactional real estate attorney before starting her family and
is currently a stay-at-home mom to two sons who attend Ohlone Elementary. Now that her
children are getting a little older, she has a little bit more time on her hands and wants to add
community mediator to her volunteer efforts. We’re really happy that Erika has joined our panel
of volunteer mediators.
Chair Stinger: Any discussion?
Commissioner O’Nan: I read the bio that she provided on Erika and I was really impressed with
your recruitment efforts. I really like that she is someone who is ready to volunteer in the
community and that she also had a background in the law which I think can sometimes be
helpful when you undertake mediation training so, kudos on being able to identify such great
candidates for the mediation program.
Chair Stinger: We can – if there are no other comments, we can take a vote.
Commissioner O’Nan: I think we need a resolution.
Commissioner Lee: Could I ask them a question? What is the current break down of folks who
rent as opposed to own a home in the people you have on as mediators?
Ms. Michael: We have no idea, we’ve never addressed that.
Commissioner Lee: I think that would be a good question to ask just so that we have a good
representation as mediators and also if they do own homes, how recent they rented and where
they rented? If they had rented elsewhere in the Bay Area that sort of would be a good
perspective to gather.
Ms. Gorman: That’s interesting because our role is to remain neutral so whether they rent or own
is something that we would ask. Did Karen want to add to that?
Ms. Michael: Me? No, I was hoping Paul would say something.
Mr. Paul Hebert: No, I think it’s an insightful question and I think that renters might – if they
were able to know that might appreciate the split but I think that having the perspective available
for our monthly meetings of the renter as opposed to the owner would make a difference too. I sit
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
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and listen to renters all day long and so it is a very different world that they live in than the
people who own. It would be worthwhile so I will find out and get that information to you. It
won’t be difficult because there’s only…
Commissioner Lee: I mean it would be good to know who rents, who owns, who maybe owns
but rents out their properties. I mean it would be good to have that sort of information and maybe
down the road maybe doing en banc thing where instead of one meeting, you do two or three just
to get different perspectives on that potentially since there seem to be quite a few mediators but
not many actual cases opened. That might be a way to utilize some of that perspective.
Mr. Hebert: Our practice is always to have two mediators for a mediation session and the way
that they are assigned is by the availability and if multiple people are available then it goes to the
one that has the least opportunities so far to participate. We try to balance the opportunity to
mediate but we haven’t actively sought to know who’s got that experience or another
background. It would take some good discussion to decide whether that should be used to favor
one mediator over another.
Commissioner Lee: I would imagine that if you have a renter and a landlord as your two
mediators that might convince more parties to participate. If they knew that someone shares their
perspective but there are two of them.
Ms. Michael: I’d like to add
Mr. Hebert: It’s an interesting conjecture.
Ms. Michael: …that I’ve done over a hundred mediations for Palo Alto and it’s never come up or
been an issue. About seventy-five to eighty percent of our mediations are landlord/tenant because
we do have a lot of renters in Palo Alto but we just assign two random mediators to each
mediation and because we are new to all of this, there’s really no discussion. It would be
interesting information to have but I’m not quite sure how it would apply.
Commissioner Lee: I mean if you guys could discuss it and maybe next time you guys meet with
us let us know what where the fruits of that discussion; I would be interested in that.
Mr. Hebert: I am sure we can do that.
Commissioner Lee: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Do we have a motion?
MOTION
Commissioner O’Nan: I’ll make a motion that we approve Erika as the new mediator for the Palo
Alto Mediation Program.
Commissioner Alhassani: Second the motion.
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
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Chair Stinger: All in favor? No opposed? Thank you and thank you for the recruitment effort and
the mediation services that you provide.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY 6-0 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT.
Mr. Hebert: You are very welcome and I should add that we always get really good applicants.
We’re very impressed with the people of Palo Alto who raise their hand to do this so we tried to
bring on three but we could only get the one. That’s because everybody has got so many
opportunities to participate and they have to pick and choose.
Commissioner Lee: Can I make another quick comment? It would be very interesting for me to
know the next time you meet with us in what the demographic breaks down is of the mediators.
Just so that we know that the pool of mediators is representative of the population of Palo Alto
and of the folks who would use your services. Thank you.
Ms. Michael: Do we need to approval for Joyce, Elaine and me?
Mr. Hebert: I think that’s part of the forum.
Commissioner O’Nan: So, can I make a motion then?
Chair Stinger: Please.
MOTION
Commissioner O’Nan: I’ll make a motion then that we approve the new Emeritus member of
PAMP or I mean the renewed, I’m sorry, the renewed,you’re not emeritus, you’re still here.
Renew members, please forgive me, of PAMP which are Karen Michael, Elaine El – I can never
pronounce this, El Bizri and Joyce Davidson.
Ms. Michael: There is one new emeritus.
Commissioner O’Nan: That’s right, that’s where I was confused; Andrea. I would like to propose
that we renew the approval for those three existing members who are re-aping.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I’ll second that.
Chair Stinger: Thank you. We need to vote, all in favor? Opposed? Thank you.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY 6-0 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT.
Chair Stinger: Again, thank you for your work.
Ms. Michael: We are pleased to do it.
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
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Chair Stinger: You do it so well.
Ms. Michael: Well, we try. We do have pretty good success rates.
Commissioner O’Nan: Wait, do we need to vote on (inaudible)?
Ms. Michael: Yes.
Commissioner O’Nan: Finally…
Ms. Michael: Oh, no, she was included in that last one.
Commissioner O’Nan: Oh, she was included in the last? Ok.
Ms. Michael: I would like to talk about the proposed change to our bylaws. During recruitment
this year we found that we have a limit of eight non-voting emeritus members and I knew that
Andrea was going to become emeritus or I suspected it very strongly and we already had seven.
That would fill us up and we had a number of emeritus members who had been with us on that
list for many years but not participating. So, the emeritus members, just like the regular
members, need to re-up every two-years so we had four people who were coming up for review
if you will and three of them did not choose to reapply, one of them had moved out of the area so
she was no longer eligible. In the meantime, we took a look at our application for emeritus and
what it said in the bylaws and there were some discrepancies. So, I don’t know if you guys have
this or if you want me to read it to you but in the current bylaws, what it says about the non-
voting members is that PAMP may also have as non-voting emeritus members up to eight
individuals. Each of whom has served at least one term with PAMP as a voting member and who
wishes to serve as an emeritus member as that member should categorize as described in the
PAMP policies and procedures. First of all, it was not described in our policies and procedures
but more important, we wanted to make sure that emeritus members, even as they moved into the
non-voting category, where still participating. We’ve had some who have done a lot of that.
Nancy Yeend, as some of you may know her because she is very well known, for a long time
was doing a lot of training for us and I know Andrea is who was the one who started our mentor
program and was Co-Chair for many years. I know that she is going to be very active so we
reviewed what was there and what we actually had seen in the application for the emeritus
members and came up with a new proposed section, which are now three paragraphs rather than
one. I am happy to read it if you need it but the essence of it is that people who want to become
emeritus have had to observed three terms, not one and so that’s 6-years. They need to commit to
doing some ongoing activity for us and that’s kind of the essence of it. I can say what the
activities could be for them if you want to hear it. I don’t know if there’s any interest in that. The
terms are the same, we didn’t really change anything except that they needed to participate and
they needed to have more of a 10-year as a voting member before becoming emeritus so that is
what we are proposing to change. We voted on it and got well over our two thirds and it needs to
be voted on by your now.
Chair Stinger: Thank you, when I reread this in the packet that we received, it struck me that this
is a really important exercise in reviewing the policy manuals and procedures on a regular basis
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access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
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to see if they still serve you well.
Ms. Michael: We do that every year.
Chair Stinger: May – yes?
Council Member Kou: Can I ask?
Chair Stinger: Please.
Council Member Kou: Could I hear what the programs are that they have to participate in?
Ms. Michael: Sure. Participation can include but will not be limited to mediations so some have a
mediation request is out there and nobody is able to respond. Then Paul will ask the emeritus
members so they are kind of the last stand for that. Conciliation which is telephone of mediation,
case development, mandatory response program mediation eligibility because they will definitely
be eligible and Paul will talk to you about that community outreach, recruitment, mentorship
training and program advocacy and leadership.
Council Member Kou: Thank you.
Ms. Michael: Sure, Lydia. She’s a neighbor.
Chair Stinger: Is there any discussion?
Commissioner O’Nan: I would say that I think this sounds like a really smart change to the
bylaws because I think organizations and as people move from category to category can
sometimes end up with either an unwheeled or uncontrolled – it’s almost like people hoarding.
We have people in all these categories and you don’t know what to do with them anymore and
sometimes you have to, I hate to say this but cull the herd a little bit. Make sure that everything --
everybody is up to date and ready to go if you need them and people who are not active really
maybe needs to move on or into some other role. I think this sounds like a very intelligent way to
ensure that people who are emeritus. It’s not just a rubber stamp and that they are still
participating in some meaningful way in the organization that gives them the role that they want
to play but also works for the organization. I’m supportive of the change and as I said, I think it’s
a smart change.
Ms. Michael: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: May I have a motion?
MOTION
Commissioner O’Nan: I’ll make a motion that we approve the change the bylaws for the Palo
Alto Mediation Program for the emeritus members.
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access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
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Page 8 of 58
Chair Stinger: And a second?
Commissioner Alhassani: Second.
Commissioner O’Nan: To slow Mehdi.
Chair Stinger: Vote, all in favor? Opposed? Thank you.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY 6-0 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT
Chair Stinger: Can I turn it over to you Paul?
Mr. Hebert: I reckon, thank you. The MRP report, the first thing that you may have noticed is
that it’s going from December or January to December. That has been the typically historical
way that this report has been done. I’m not sure why it was set up that way but that’s what I
stepped into and this past year we didn’t – it slipped by. Things were a little chaotic and I missed
it and so we realized it and we thought alright, let’s make sure that we do that thing. Then when I
got down to creating the report, I realized just how much work there is to produce that report
that’s out of sync with all the other reporting stuff in our database. So, it took a lot of work to do
it and I did not have enough time in the database support to bring it up to October. I decided
alright, since the comparison between the previous year and the current year was already a major
piece of the report, I would preserve the January to December time slice. I did hear that you are
interested in some of the data from this past January and to the present and I did make an attempt
to find that information. I’d like to give just a little bit of backdrop too so that you understand
that things that Project Sentinel have been a little unsettled for the last couple months because we
had a Director of a year and a half and she decided to move along. That was Sandra DeLateur
and we hired a replacement and one week into his 10-year, he died of a heart attack and so we
scrambled. We now have someone new who just started this past week but I’m a little swamped.
Let me just described a little bit what’s in here from the comparison of the two prior years. The
other thing that I think I’ve described each time and I’ll say again is that when people call and
their case could apply under the Mandatory Response Program, which is limited to a subset of
tenant/landlord issues that can be disputed. It’s also limited to landlords who have two or more
rentals within the City. So, some peoples whose issue might be covered by MRP can’t do it
because the landlord only has one door for rent in Palo Alto or they have a duplex and they live
in half of it. There are those pieces and what I tell people is you could demand mediation or you
could ask for mediation and you’re the one who knows your landlord/tenant relationship; I don’t
know it. I don’t know the people who are involved so you’re the one that gets to decide. My first
job here is to make sure that you understand the choice you’re making and I always add in that in
my opinion, it’s easier to start a difficult conversation with a request than a demand. So, that’s
my suggestion to them but if they don’t think their landlord will corporate without that extra
pressure, that’s their choice and I send them the petition. So far since January to now and if you
look at the data here, very few people actually return the petition. So, you will see that I send 20
petition packets out this year and I only got back four. Last year we sent out fewer petitions and
we got back more of them. So, twelve and nice people actually filled out the petitions and
requested the service under that element of the ordinance. My experience is -- the one other thing
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
Page 9 of 58
that I tell them is that there’s not too much hazard to request to making the request for mediation
if there’s a doubt in your mind. If the landlord does not respond to the request, we can turn
around and you can submit the petition. There’s a time limit and as long as that petition comes in
under the time limit, you can escalate to a demand. That’s how I introduce their option to them.
Most tenants choose to make an invitation and most landlords in Palo Alto except those
invitations without much of a fuss. That’s a little bit of backdrop for the numbers that you see.
MRP hardly ever has a lot of cases in any given year. This year it’s down significantly, it’s less
than half the number of cases that were pursued that way. The other thing I would say is that in
this particular time slice, there were some unusual landlord/tenant difficulties and there is one
other provision in the ordinance where if a landlord fails to show up or participate in the
mandatory response request, my job is to notify the City Attorney and let them handle that. So, I
have had to do that once this year and that’s kind of the rare occurrence. I don’t know that you
can draw very many conclusions from such a tiny dataset but my experience sitting in the answer
man chair is that for the most part, Palo Alto landlords are very willing to participate in the
mediation program and they value it. We don’t have to twist their arm and if there is someone
whose arm we do have to twist, they may not anyway so that’s my sense of it. I don’t know –
regarding the distribution, again the data set is so small, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about
trends and things from this. I’d like to just open it up and ask if there are questions about the
report. I haven’t made to many additional conclusions because of that.
Commissioner O’Nan: I had a question about the nature of the cases that you have been asked to
mediate. I know – I think last time that you reported to us, you mentioned that you were seeing
more and more sort of family disputes that were coming to you; out beyond landlord/tenants. Is
that still a trend or are there other trends that we should be aware of?
Mr. Hebert: I don’t think I preserve an escalation this year in the pure community mediation
requests but there are always some sprinkled in there. We get neighbor disputes around
landscaping and fences and occasionally we get around parking. Those are some of the
complaints that happen and these are neighbors that I’ve heard they request for a welcome
package and some neighbors have landed next to someone that they don’t mix well with and that
difficulty they will escalate if they know about us. We do our darndest to make sure that they do
know about us but we don’t still get that many of those. That material – that breakdown is in the
annual report that you will be getting or you just got in July. I didn’t bring a copy of that with me
so I don’t have those numbers in my head. I have almost nothing in my head but I’d be happy to
answer questions if I can.
Commissioner Alhassani: I have one question but also, I’m sure you guys are already on this and
I’ll just differ to Council Member Kou but because City Staff’s email about today, on Monday
City Council is looking at renter protections and maybe doing some rejuvenation renter
protections. I think obviously they would value your experience on – since you have dealt with
renter landlord/tenant issues a lot but two, I’m sure there are implications for the number of cases
that you guys see. Maybe something gets passed like that gives one side more rights and maybe
the phones are ringing more often or something like that. Put that on your radar for Monday but
the question I was going to ask is are you still seeing (inaudible) Air bnb related cases or
something similar to that or not really?
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to
access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with
government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
Page 10 of 58
Mr. Hebert: No, this year I did not see so many of those. The year before they were noticeable
but this year I have not had any that I recall that where related to Air bnb issues. The issues are
typically from the neighbors so that’s one that will show up as a neighbor issue because the Air
BnB activity has a lot of different people going down the street, parking is sometimes a problem,
and parties are sometimes a problem. No, this year I don’t recall any Air bnb cases.
Commissioner Alhassani: Thanks so much again for everything.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I just had a question. How do you see the overall landlord/tenant
relationship given the media buzz about renters and hardship and this is Palo Alto? I’m just sort
of curious the overall mood or relationship.
Mr. Hebert: Well, so I cover in Project Sentinel the Cities of Palo Alto, Los Gatos and Campbell
and all three of them have renter specific ordinances, which are quite different. You may be
aware that Los Gatos has got a rent control ordinance that limits rent increases to five percent
and has some exception clauses that a landlord can use. They have tackled what is being
proposed by the thin that I saw earlier this week. The Campbell ordinance is not restricting rent
in any particular way but it does provide for something akin to what you have here in Palo Alto,
which is a process where a tenant can demand some face time with the landlord. They can also
demand an evaluation from a City panel on the reasonableness of a rent increase. The opinion of
the panel does not constrain the landlord.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Who makes up the panel?
Mr. Hebert: That is constructed on demand and it rarely happens. The Campbell ordinance
provides for conciliation first and then mandatory meetings if the tenant requests it. Then a fact-
finding panel, if the tenant requests that having been unsatisfied with the mediation, the fact-
finding panel really won’t look at a rent increase that’s less than seven or eight percent.
Sometimes tenants will present a complaint that is lower than that. We had one this year and the
City was looking at it and said it’s very unlikely that the panel would ever decide in the tenant’s
favor on such a small increase. There are three different ordinances or sets of ordinances that are
all trying to tackle in some way the same problem. My experience of most large landlords
understands the ordinances, it takes some pains to know about it and they participate willingly in
the program. Where you get more friction is from the small landlords who you know who have
inherited or invested in a property and they are nuvo landlords and they don’t quite take the pains
to learn of that stuff. So, they sometimes are being educated throughout the program but I don’t
find any of them actively difficult or antagonistic towards tenants. I think most of them
understand that the tenants are their business. However, there is always a tension between their
business objectives and the tenant’s stability objectives and when we meditate, that’s in front of
us but we don’t constrain them. Los Gatos does constrain them and occasionally the tenants use
that to their advantage. I don’t know if I answered your question completely. It’s a ranging
question and there will be lots of discussion coming up based on whatever.
Ms. Michael: Can I add something to that? He takes all the phone calls and gets all the problems.
As a mediator and I volunteer a lot, I’ve done quite a few of the Palo Alto cases and I don’t recall
doing anything within the last couple of years related to a rent increase. It’s certainly a large
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Page 11 of 58
percentage of them have to do with security deposits so that is where most of the disputes are;
they are just not coming in.
Ms. Gorman: So last year it was interesting I thought the trend was because there was that vast
amount of rain and so homes tended to become more moldy. That was one of the reasons why
tenant requested mediation because they felt that there where inhabitable issues. That was an
interesting sort of shift what the reason was for mediation is or at least last year. I wonder what it
will be like this winter.
Chair Stinger: Given your experience in the three Cities and maybe familiarity with some of our
other neighboring Cities. Would you find the number of mediations low or high or on par with
the other neighboring communities?
Mr. Hebert: Palo Alto is more active than either Los Gatos or Campbell. Mountain View is a
very special case these days and so it’s really hard to compare there but the Mountain View
program I think is similarly active in terms of mediation. I haven’t even compared the numbers
to Mountain View. Then Palo Alto or Project Sentinel has invited mediators from those few
panels to be part of a general panel that we have to support Cities like Sunny Vale and Santa
Clara who do not have their own panel. Mediations there happen as often as we can promote it.
I’m always, why don’t you try meditating? When I get a call, I tell people the rules and I feel like
an arms dealer and then I stop and I say, however, I find that it’s much better if you are able to sit
down and communicate with your landlord rather than just go beat them up with the rules. We’re
always promoting it and a surprisingly low number of people actually will step into that
unfamiliar space. I don’t think that we’re terribly low. The MRP numbers don’t reflect the
general mediation numbers in Palo Alto so the July report that you just got, that will reflect more
what our norm is. We’re about the way we have been, a little bit lower than last year.
Commissioner Lee: I notice that this year you received 145 phones calls that were potentially
within the MRP scope but of that 145, only 20 had requested the MLP packets. I am wondering
if you had insight as to why that number was so low.
Mr. Hebert: This particular data point is a difficult one to collect. We also have in our database
the type of dispute, whether it was deposits or maintenance or whatever. There are about 20
different things that we have as categories and for it to be a call which is potentially within the
scope – excuse me. My chai is running out.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Hold that thought.
Commissioner O’Nan: Don’t drop dead of a heart attack.
Mr. Hebert: I’m good.
Commissioner O’Nan: Don’t want to lose another one.
Mr. Hebert: So, for it to be potentially an MRP, all it has to be is not about termination and the
landlord has to have two or more rentals in the community. I search the database for that
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Page 12 of 58
combination and I come up with 145. In most of those conversations, I’m the one promoting
mediations as opposed to them asking for it. When I promote it, it rarely goes to the mandatory
question so that’s my understanding of why that number is so different. For the most part, when
somebody calls me and says I need my landlord to sit down with me and talk about this stuff.
Then the MRP conversation will come up. Oh, thank you. So, that’s my explanation and I don’t
have a better one.
Commissioner Lee: It sounds like the majority of the callers that potentially fall within scope,
they are not really asking for mediation services. You’re the one who is suggesting it to them.
Mr. Hebert: Yes.
Commissioner Lee: What sort of help are they asking for when they do call you if they are not
asking for mediation services?
Mr. Hebert: Well, almost every call involves a question about what are my rights? A tenant will
call and ask what are my rights? If you look at the numbers, nearly a third of my callers are
landlords and I attribute that partly to some outreach that we did in the last couple years to small
landlords in Palo Alto. They are asking what can I do about this? So, I have a difficult tenant and
what can I do? That’s where the conversation begins, that’s why I said sometimes I feel like an
arms dealer because they are asking me for how do I resist what my landlord appears to want?
Occasionally, they’re saying I’ve requested this – I’ve identified this problem in the house and
the landlord is not doing anything, does he have to? It’s a very interesting conversation because,
for many complaints, the landlord is not compelled to repair them. Only for those complaints
where it drops the unit below a minimum inhabitability standard, can they be compelled. Then I
go into a description of what it takes to compel. I spend a lot of time educating tenants about
their rights are and how to apply them and landlords about how the civil code requires them to
handle something and my recommendations based on my experience about how they could. One
of them always being you can invite the tenant to mediation so that’s the essence of ninety-five
percent of my conversations at the start.
Commissioner Lee: In terms of capacity, it seems like you guys have a lot of mediators. Do they
have excess capacity right now? Can they handle more meditation sessions or are they…
Mr. Hebert: Yes, I would say we could handle more requests. We have nineteen now? Nineteen
or twenty mediators.
Ms. Michael: We have a count.
Mr. Hebert: Twenty-one, we’ve got twenty-one. I rarely have to ask twice so I – so you
understand, when somebody requests mediation, I send out a letter to both parties and then I tap
the panel and say who’s available to do case development? I’ll usually get at least two or three
hands in the air and then if case development results in a mediation scheduling, then I request for
a co-mediator. Again, there would be two or three hands in the air and sometimes four or five
and six. They – it’s an avid panel so there is extra capacity. If I could convince more people to
request it, then – you know after 4-years I thought I was good at it but I could always get better.
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Page 13 of 58
Commissioner Lee: In terms of when you are doing the majority of your calls where you are
educating folks as opposed to them requesting mediation. Do you find that your conversations
with them prove useful to them?
Mr. Hebert: Yes, the tenants are uniformity grateful that there is that service. A lot of times I
don’t have good news for them so when I get calls – I had a call today about someone who was
terminated and misunderstood the termination notice and so packed up their things and left 2-
week later. That put her in jeopardy of having to pay rent beyond what she hoped and so a lot of
times the education is not what they wanted to hear. They are always glad to know and it’s –
there are a lot of landlords who do not know.
Commissioner Lee: What is your capacity look like right now? Are you – I’m guessing you’re
not – you don’t have excess capacity.
Mr. Hebert: I’m up to here…
Commissioner Lee: That’s what I figured.
Mr. Hebert: … besides the difficulty we had with our Director passing, we’ve had three other
Staff people move on. So, we’re still trying to fill that backup and the missing Director actually
slowed that process down. We actually have an offer being made this week and hopefully that
will get us back up to the Staff compliment we think we need but we’ve been operating below it.
Commissioner Lee: So, when you have a full complement of Staff are you able to respond to all
of the calls? Sort of the educations calls that you get?
Mr. Hebert: Our commitment is to respond within 24-hours. It’s sometimes slipping down to 48
but I never finish a week without getting back to everyone. We have the capacity; it’s less
stressful when I don’t have as many calls as I have right now.
Commissioner Lee: Are you able to leverage any of the mediators who obviously have an
interest in serving in this capacity for some of the stuff that you have been doing?
Mr. Hebert: Some of our mediators have some experience helping out in a voluntary or actually
in a paid way at Project Sentinel when someone takes a vacation and things like that. We have –
and in Palo Alto, the mediators take on the case development so, from the moment somebody
indicates an interest in mediation, I can hand that off. In Los Gatos and Campbell, I do the case
development and so that workload is still with me on those two cities. I would love to have those
cities have panels that were willing to take on that additional load but right now I don’t.
Commissioner Lee: Would they able to answer the calls or anything like that or is that sort of
Chair Stinger: I think we’re into micro, let’s…
Mr. Hebert: Yes.
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Page 14 of 58
Commissioner Lee: Ok.
Mr. Hebert: You’re welcome to call me anytime and I will be glad to have a call that is a happy
caller.
Ms. Gorman: I think it would be important to differentiate Paul’s role as a Project Sentinel
Administrator, compared to the role of the volunteer mediators. They are very different roles and
so he has to – sometimes he wears two hats but he has a distinction between I’m giving you
information and then I am going to do case development. Correct me if I am wrong but you are
neutral from start to finish but with this other role, he’s actually providing information to the
tenants or the landlords that can help them. So, it’s sort of seen as advocacy which is different
than mediation which is completely neutral. We can’t do our jobs well if we show any kind of
favor towards one or the other party. They lose trust in us and we can’t facilitate a dialog that
brings them to a mutual understanding but it’s very different from Paul’s role at Project Sentinel
as an administrator. I didn’t know if you knew that but I also was thinking, I don’t know if you
agree, we could invite you to one of our monthly meetings and you could a lot of about some of
the questions you have.
Commissioner Lee: Great, well thank you so much for spending some extra time.
Mr. Hebert: You’re welcome.
Chair Stinger: Well, with the workload and the two hats, thank you for being such avid – yeah.
Mr. Hebert: We’re all glad to do what we do.
Chair Stinger: We’re very appreciative of your services to the City.
Commissioner O’Nan: Yes, thank you all so much.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
Council Member Kou: On behalf of the Council also, thank you very much.
Mr. Hebert: You’re welcome.
2. Recommendation from Ad hoc Subcommittee for the Human Services Resource
Allocation Process (HSRAP) second funding for FY2018-19
Commissioner O’Nan: Thank you Chair and thank you Minka. This year we had an
extraordinary HSRAP funding allocation process. Normally we send out for our RFPs and we
recommend allocations for funding and then we send them to finance in then to full Council.
This year we had an unexpected withdrawal of a fairly large agency, Adolescent Counseling
Services, and we also had an unexpected increase from Council. That left us with approximately
$156,000 in remainder funds that we had to allocate, which was actually a happy task for us to
finally have some extra dollars that we got to consider. We sent out a second RFP process and
we had eight applicants and the Selection Committee met a couple of times to review all of those
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Page 15 of 58
applications. The funding allocations that we’re recommending are for the smaller agencies, as I
think you all have the sheet in front of you At Places. I’ll talk you through what our thinking was
and we’ll be happy to take questions or comment afterward. We had a new agency PARCA
come to us for the first and we were excited about bringing them into the HSRAP family because
they work with developmentally disabled adults. We have heard many times from the
community that there are parents of adult children who would like their disabled adult children to
be able to live independently and they are very much in need of this type of service. So, we were
excited about bringing this agency on board and we recommended funding for them. We have
also worked over the years with Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. They do great
work in the community and we’re aware that there’s an increase in the need for visual aide
services. We have a growing number of seniors and we have many people who have, for
example, diabetes-related retinopathy who are losing vision at earlier and earlier ages. One of the
key indicators for the people being able to stay independent and in their own homes is the ability
to see. We felt that it was important to fund this at a high level than we have in the past so we
recommended an additional $15,000 in funding for them. Another existing agency is Momentum
for Mental Health, they are unique in that they do outreach to mentally ill homeless people in
Palo Alto. The caseworker spends a certain number of hours per week here in our community
and with the additional grant; we are hopeful that that person can spend a few more hours per
week in our community. Although we couldn’t meet the full funding request, we did suggest or
recommend another $10,000 to funding there. KARA is a new agency to HSRAP and we were
able to give them a very modest $8,000 or approximately $8,000 grant in the first round. They
came back to us in the second round and although they are an unproven agency at this time, we
do have confidence in them and hope that with an additional grant of another $10,000 for a total
of $18,000 between the first and second rounds. They can go out and do some meaningful work
in the community. When we hear back from them after this first HSRAP cycle, we’ll have a
better relationship with them and see where we are in terms of future funding requests.
DreamCatchers and I see Barbara here, is one of our agencies that I think we all feel very proud
of. We took them into the HSRAP family just a few years ago, gave them a very small grant and
over the last few years we’ve watched this agency really blossom. They have done a fantastic job
with their new ED, Barbara Klausner is here, and they submitted a request for an additional
$10,000 to fund a new Staffing position that will coordinate their volunteers and make their
efforts even more efficient. That’s exactly the thing that HSRAP is designed for and all felt very
good about that request so we recommended full funding for that request of $10,000. Then we
had approximately $100,000 left that hadn’t been allocated. These were all of the smaller more
discrete requests and then we had three fairly large requests and we had to grapple with these a
bit more. All three agencies serve vital needs in the community, CASSY was the new agency
replacing Adolescent Counseling Services in the schools and the HRC has had a long-time
commitment to youth well-being and suicide prevention. So, we do feel strongly about
supporting an on-campus counseling program. Community Working Group, we hadn’t worked
with directly before but they are the administering body for LifeMoves, which is an agency
formally known as Innvision Shelter Network which serves the homeless population that we feel
very strongly needs our support. We already support LifeMoves through previous HSRAP and
current HSRAP grants and through CDBG funding but we understand that there are some
administrative needs and budget deficiencies between Community Working Group which is now
going to funnel all of the funding that ultimately goes to LifeMoves; this is our understanding.
That’s obviously a critical need for the community and Downtown Streets Team, which we have
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Page 16 of 58
worked with for many years and whose work we fully support, had a new project which is the
administration of the food closet which is the only source of food for many of the low income
and homeless people who live in the downtown area and other parts of Palo Alto. So obviously
food is a critical biological need that we want to support. So, this was a challenge because all
three agencies really do important work but at the same time, all three applications where
somewhat flawed and somewhat hard to understand at times. We had to go back for clarification
on some issues and try to figure some things out with them. At the end of the day the break down
that we came up with is as follows, we decided to fund a large chunk of CASSY’s request which
instead of $50,000, $40,000 so that they could get started with their counseling mission in the
secondary school level. For Community Working Group, we recommended funding at the
$25,000 level. We’re hoping that that seed money from the City of Palo Alto will also help them
attract grants from the County which will help them make up their budget deficit. For Downtown
Streets Team we recommended funding of $34,600 which is a fairly large chunk of the amount
that they requested and in the hope, that will help them stabilize the administration of the food
closet and be able to keep it open because we do feel that that’s very important. Obviously, there
wasn’t enough money in the pot to fund everybody at the full level that everyone, of course
would love to do but we think that in these distributions that the agencies can all take enough
money from HSRAP to hopefully go out there and do great work in the community. We have so
much confidence in them and so that is what our recommendations are as of now. I’m obviously
open to discussion now from my colleagues on the HRC.
Ms. Minka Van der Zwaag, Human Services Manager: So, I would just have questions at this
point. Questions of clarification and then we’ll go to the comments and then you can have a
discussion and make any decisions about recommendations.
Chair Stinger: That’s where I was going. Any questions to Jill as a representative of the
Committee? Ok, I’ll move onto the speaker cards and then we’ll have a discussion. I have two
people from CASSY or maybe it’s three; Cheryl and Genavae? Genavae, I’m sorry. Not it’s not,
Genavae and Cheryl.
Ms. van der Zwaag: You both can come here and you’ll have 3-minutes or if you each wanted to
take 3 minutes.
Ms. Cheryl Serna: Commissioners, thank you for having us. I just came to give you a few little
notes about what CASSY has been doing since we started at the secondary schools. As many of
you are aware, based on our presentation in our proposal, we have been in Palo Alto for some
time now but we were really fortunate to partner for the secondary schools this year. I just want
to give you an update on kind of how that is going. Within the first two months of school, our
nine Staff members at five of the secondary schools have provided ongoing support to more than
250 students at those schools. In addition to consulting with their teachers, parents, and they’re
supporting the school wellness as a full; being out there for the kids, being out on campus, being
a part of the regular day to day activities that they're going through. We just want to thank the
City of Palo Alto and all of the Commissioners for recognizing this work and being our partners
in the mental wellness of the youth in Palo Alto. We’re inspired by the partnerships that we have
with the schools and the larger community and we really look forward to the opportunity of
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Page 17 of 58
working a little bit deeper in those schools together. So, this has given us that opportunity and we
do appreciate it. I want to introduce Genavae who is one our rock stars. She is our site supervisor
out at Gunn and I thought that just in case you had any specific questions about what goes on
those campuses. I am just one of the people who support these amazing Staff members as the
Director of Operations but she’s one of the people that boots on the ground so if you have any
questions, we’d be happy to answer any questions for you.
Commissioner O’Nan: I have a question for Genavae. I was very, very sad to learn of a suicide
that occurred on the very first day of school at Gunn. My next-door neighbor is a student at Gun
and he didn’t know this student who took his life but he's talking about how down everybody
was to start the school year on such a sad note. I’m just wondered how are you helping the kids
get through that?
Ms. Genavae Dixon: Absolutely. It was a very difficult day, the second day of school, and we
were all new to the school environment as wellbeing CASSY and with ACS being there last
year. We did a lot of crisis intervention and support. We opened up the Wellness Center and the
Wellness Center is open from 8-4; we support before and after school. We’ve also –I, myself,
have done a lot of work with the parents so I attend parent night. I’ve done things with Junior
Parent Network as well to educate just about suicide prevention, about signs of depression, about
adolescent development and the difference is between our normal signs that we see an y more of
our warning signs; things that we need to be paying attention to as parents and as families and
how we support our kids. Then work with the Staff as well and teachers specifically, as well as
the administrative staff and really talking about how are kids presenting in class? What are they
looking like when they are leaving your classroom? What kind of things are kind of going on
around that so that you can send them to the Wellness Center so that we can support and provide
risk assessment and do the additional mental health piece as well. Also, trying to boost morale
around their teachers because it was a big blow for a lot of them. As well as to the kind of have
that happen right at the beginning of the school year and just really feel very thrown off and
anxious and I think we’ve kind of been operating in a very anxious environment for the last
month or so. I think during the last couple weeks things have settled in a little bit and our drop-
ins have reduced a little bit too. Yeah, we offer drop-in support as well as the ongoing council
support services.
Ms. Serna: We have three full-time Staff members – actually three – two and a half.
Ms. Dixon: We have two and a half so I’m full time– yes , we have one more full time…
Ms. Serna: At the high school level but we were also able to deploy additional Staff members out
to the campus that week and
Ms. Dixon: It helped a lot.
Ms. Serna: … crisis so that we can be there to really support so it was a tough way to start the
school year.
Ms. Dixon: Yes, but we were all-hands-on-deck. We even had some support from PALY from
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Page 18 of 58
our CASSY team there and they came out to support us at Gunn as well.
Ms. Serna: I actually think we also invited Kara to come out and provide support not only on the
campus but to our Staff member who may have needed that additional support because it was a
high crisis time.
Commissioner O’Nan: No, thank you so much and thank you for all the agencies for
collaborating and doing such a great job helping the kids and the Staff get settled back down.
Female: Thank you.
Mr. Kyle Morgan: Hi, I’m Kyle Morgan with Downtown Streets Team. I’m the Project Manager
of our Work Experience Program in Palo Alto and you probably know about Downtown Streets
Team. We’re very grateful for all of your support in the past years, this current year and future
years as well. In Palo Alto, we operate a Work Experience Program so we believe that we can
help people step from one place to another place but one of the programs that we have taken on
is the Food Pantry because we also understand there are people who need consistent help day in
and day out. We believe that food is a vital part of life and last month alone we helped about 400
unique individuals at the Food Pantry. One of the things about our funding that we already get
from the City through CDBG and HSRAP and some other sources is they don’t cover the Food
Pantry. We took on operations prior to 2007 and we’ve fundraising for that outside of our other
funding sources. So, this year we’re asking for additional funding to help us with some of the
deficit that we saw last year at the Food Pantry. We’re working on a new development team and
we’ve hired a Director of Development so that we can work on fundraising goals for next year
and future years as well. I wanted to say thank you for your support and your recommendation
for the Downtown Streets Team and we were very grateful for all of your support. Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Barbara Klausner, please.
Ms. Barbara Klausner: I wanted to thank the Selection Committee for the hardy recommendation
to fully fund our request. We really appreciate it. We’re really excited to be able to build on the
HSRAP funding that we’ve gotten in the past as the Chairwomen mentioned. That was really
focused on the lower income middle school students who attend school at Palo Alto Unified and
that has always been the focus of our support and with your help, we’ve really run the program.
It’s an incredibly strong program and now this year, as I say is the year of the tutor, we continue
to focus very carefully on the students but really, we started to realize the benefit to the high
school students who are volunteering and being paired one on one with our middle school low-
income kids and the benefit that they were getting. We were getting these unsolicited comments
about how meaningful it was for the high school students so we are super excited about that. I
really have the sense that you as a Committee and a Commission really do share the vision that
we have. That we’re very excited about for the youth of Palo Alto because putting these kids
together – there are over 100 kids in our community that are building a one on the one-year long
relationship and they are in a group together so it’s not just one on one. We see PALY kids
bonding with Gunn kids with Stanford Students along with the middle school kids that they are
working with. We love it, we see the kids who are similarly at risk for feeling marginalized in
their school communities. Some of them are feeling overwhelmed with school work and
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Page 19 of 58
wondering kind of like what is this all for? We’re giving both them sort of an opportunity to feel
better about themselves and feel like they have some kind of meaning and purpose. I wanted to
mention this because this is my opportunity to share with you a little bit. I love this, I always
mention this in things that I write about which is one of the ways that we try to connect them is
through a technology called Slack. I was just thinking to myself, you know you’re the Human
Relations Commission. You really understand the importance of relationships, which is really
what our program is about but I was thinking, Steve Jobs, is not really good with personal
relationships from what I read in his biography. Thanks to the iPhone and my iWatch and his
technology, we use it heavy to connect our students to each other. There’s this thing called Slack
and I don’t know if you guys have ever used it. Yes, he’s like nodding yes and so we use slack
and what it does is for every single one of our students, this is a list of all of our middle school
students. Of course, I’m not going to really show you what it says but each and every one of
them we have a private posting site. I won’t tell you his name but a student and it’s a thing where
it’s about the middle school student but so here’s what one of our tutors just said. See there are
so many I can’t see them. I’m not sure if it’s a he or she but it says hello, I’m excited to be
working with my student again; so, this is a pair that carried over from last year. I’ve noticed his
binder is kind of falling apart even though he has done as much as he can to keep it together. It
looks like it was definitely a quality binder at one point in time. So, I don’t know if you guys
know but in middle school, it’s really important – your binder is where you have all of your
assignments and you’re supposed to keep it really neat and you’re learning work habit skills and
study skills and time management. She says – he or she says, I was wondering if it’s possible for
us to help him buy a new one. If not, no worries, I just figured I’d ask. Then our program
Director Miguel responds, definitely. This is the level of detail, is it one of those zipper ones or
just a three-ring binder? Then the tutor response, it’s a pretty big zipper one. So, we really mean
it when we say we customize our support and that these are real relationships that are being
developed between these young people. Again, thank you so much for your support and if you
have any other question, I am happy to answer them.
Mr. Jim Santucci: I am Jim Santucci, I am the Executive Director with Kara and I just wanted to
first say thank you for the recommendation for continued support. I really was encouraged when
we were approved in the first round and even more so with the additional amount in the second
round. Many of you know, Kara has been around the community for over 40-years now and grief
work is a very quiet type of work. It’s not like we’re knocking on doors asking people if they
need grief support. My mantra is I want people to know us before they need us and I want to
have really strong partnerships with the community. To answer Jill, to your questions after the
suicide on the first day, something the school district did this was I was very encouraged by they
took the initiative and they reached to us and said we want to help our parents help the kids. We
had two separate education nights for the parents and the community. The first night we had over
40 people for Gunn parents and the next one we had around 20 or 30 for the Pally parents. That’s
a way that we can then provide the parent's tools to help the kids as they help them navigate,
which is a very challenging and difficult time and as our colleague said too, we help train the
trainer. When CASSY is out there on the front lines supporting the kids, they are getting
impacted by that so we can go in and give them debriefings as that third party. One of the things
that I wanted to say too is how encouraged I am at the thoughtfulness of the HSRAP Committee
and thinking about who to fund. Certainly, I’m super excited we are getting funded but I hear a
little bit of the other organizations your funding and it’s all hand in glove. It's working together
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well and we need to be working together because ultimately that’s going to make the community
greater. One of our challenges, I’ll be quite frank; measuring our impact is how do you measure
grief support? We have a self-reported survey and its part of my application was that we use that
on a regular basis and people reflect on their symptoms of grief. The physical, emotional, but
there aren’t really a lot of hard studies except just one came out recently called Peer Support
Services for Grief Survivors. This is a comprehensive in-depth study about peer service and
that’s exactly how we deliver our services. One of the things I’ll mention – that it mentions in
here that I will highlight is that peer support appears to be especially valuable for survivors of
suicide loss. Now there’s a lot more to be done but that’s what we know to be truth or
anitidotically through the work that we do. I just am very grateful for the support. I came to
KARA a client myself after I lost a very important person in my life and I’ve been a part of the
community now for 8-years, 4 ½ of which as the Executive Director. I have a personal passion to
make sure that we’re there for the community and our services for our peer services are at no
cost. That’s why the support from HSRAP is so important so that we can always get – I’ll end
with a quote. I was inspired by my colleague because I wasn’t going to do that but here’s a quote
from one of our families who took part in our youth and family services. She said, ‘Kara was
unequivocally the single more helpful resource for me after I lost my husband and my children
lost their dad.’ Then she ends her survey with ‘I am so grateful’ and that’s really what we were
able to do and help build resilience in a community so thank you. I appreciate the
recommendation and I hope the Commission will accept the recommendations from the
subcommittee. Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Sharon Hudson.
Ms. Sharon Hudson: Hi, I’m Sharon Hudson and I’m with the Vista Center for the Blind and
Visually Impaired. I just came to thank you all for your continued support for Vista Center. I
know you all have been recognizing the growth of, unfortunately, people getting older. We lose
our vision and hearing and other things and the growth of diabetes is also been leading to a much
greater growth of vision loss than we were expecting at much younger ages. Even though we
have hopes that the medical fields will come up with some cures for some of these things, we
have to deal with day to day crisis. I realize you all had the challenge of all these different
organizations and there are a lot of wonderful organizations in the area. Your extra support is
helping us with doing our counseling and living skills; our core classes. Also, one of the exciting
things that have been really blooming for the blind and visually impaired is assistant technology.
The equipment for assistant technology would be prohibited really in cost. For instance, if you
wanted to scan and read something, you would be paying for a $1,200 for not only scanning but
the software program to go with it. Now, that’s something on your iPhone for $99 and it’s an app
that you take with you. So, we’re being able to teach people voice over and zoom and all on their
iPhones – not only iPhones but Androids. I don’t want to be cutting out Androids because
actually, both companies are very good about making sure that things are accessible and that’s
been a turning point for a lot of people at all ages. I just want to say thank you and we’re all very
grateful for your continuous support and for this extra funding. That’s going to make a big
difference in our services, thank you.
Commissioner O’Nan: Thank you, Sharon.
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Page 21 of 58
Chair Stinger: Our last card is Pam Dorr.
Ms. Pam Dorr: I’m Pam Dorr with Community Working Group and we’ve been tasked with
figuring out ways to make the Opportunity Service Center self-sufficient and it’s been running at
a deficit for quite some time through a strategic alliance with Abode Services. Trying to find
ways to do that so we appreciate your funding support. I know this is a pretty fortunate year
where there might be some bond funding on the County side to continue finding the support that
the Center needs. It’s an important service in the community and I think challenging to find
support for it so we do appreciate every dollar and your kindness in asking questions and trying
to understand the complexity of it. It’s much appreciated.
Chair Stinger: Before we turn it over to a discussion I just wanted to thank each of you for
coming tonight, for waiting till we got to this agenda item but most importantly, for your work in
the community. Every year we go through the process and some years we go through it twice but
that doesn’t mean that we aren’t always grateful and overwhelmed by the work that you do so
thank you very much. Discussion and then we’ll have a motion. You all have the Committee
report before you.
Commissioner O’Nan: Well, I thought that I would maybe kick off the discussion by outing
myself as the dissenting member of the Selection Committee. I thoroughly support all the
agencies as I said when I gave my oral report but I did have a concern about the distribution of
that last chunk of funding across CASSY, Downtown Streets Team and Community Working
Group. My feeling is the three agencies all provide critical services that are really, really
important to the community. I would have preferred to see that money distributed equally. I
know this would mean CASSY would take a small hit but frankly, CASSY is probably better
funded and in more stable than the other two agencies and may have more ability to fundraise the
extra increment that you would be lacking. I think the other two agencies really do need the
dollars fairly seriously. I can certainly live with the distribution that we officially recommended
but my preference would have been to, as I said, distribute the funds equally across the three.
Chair Stinger: Any rebuttal or any other discussion?
Commissioner Alhassani: I’m blanking on his name but who is the gentlemen who comes from
CWG usually?
Commissioner O’Nan: Professor Barr.
Commissioner Alhassani: When he came for HSRAP round one he painted a grim picture but he
basically gave us a warning sign saying the money is running dry here. Can you give -- you
talked about how you’re trying to work through some ideas and work Abode. I’d love to hear a
little bit more about what the latest thinking is on it. The Opportunity Center is obviously so
important to the community here.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Pam, can you please – thank you. We want to be able to hear you.
Ms. Dorr: I appreciate the question. I think and I’d love to tell you things are all worked out and
it’s pretty simple and we’ve figured it out but that really isn’t our situation. Before going to the
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Page 22 of 58
County, even if the County gives us what we’ve asked for, we have a pretty strong shortfall of
about $60,000 we have to grapple with. Where we are being still trying to figure it out so I’d
love to say its all set but it’s difficult right now. Sorry.
Commissioner Alhassani: The relationship with the Opportunity Center and LifeMoves. How
does that kind of work?
Ms. Dorr: What we’re hoping to do is streamline because originally LifeMoves thought they
needed five full-time people to do that work. We think we can streamline that down to about 4 ½
just by the economy of scale but getting it beyond that, it would be pretty difficult. What we
hope to do is manage it better and also have less repeat clients coming through and hopefully
moving people through that pipeline into permanent supportive housing more quickly. A lot of
clients have recycled and we would like to see that change so we’re hoping to manage it slightly
differently. I think all of our partners have done an incredible job and all we want to do is kind to
make sure our abode services add to that and streamlines it and not adds another layer of
complexity to it. We’re pretty cautious about every dollar we spend and want to make it really
successful. We know how important it is here.
Vice Chair Chen: I have a question for you. Since the last time when we reviewed the proposal,
we had a question about the diversity about how to raise the funds. What’s the situation right
now? Does the group have better investment diversity in terms of getting more funding?
Ms. Dorr: Do you mean about the original endowment?
Vice Chair Chen: Original, yes.
Ms. Dorr: I think there was some draw down on that original endowment which decreased its
ability to contribute so what we’re hoping to do is create a more sustainable budget year to year
so we’re not depending on that. I think there was such a dependence on fundraising and if that
happened it was great and in those years where there was a shortfall, the endowment suffered.
We’ve been pretty successful with some fundraising but I think we have to find ways to make it
sustainable. It’s one of those funny services where there is no income coming in from the actual
clients. This really is a service so there is no pay for service that we could develop through that.
It’s one of those tough businesses that it’s hard to make balance well.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I can respond to Commissioner O’Nan. The first round of HSRAP,
I was one -- I guess I was the dissenting voice of when we didn’t allocate any money to CWG, I
was uncomfortable with that. I think they’re a vital resource and if that building goes away, three
agencies are an effect or two agencies. I actually thought we should have given them more. I just
wanted to say that. I think my other comment is because I was on the subcommittee both times
and this does not apply to all of you but I think it’s important to look at what are the measurable
results you want funding for. Well always, you know I’ve done this twice but that was twice why
I sent back something; you know I had that question. I think that’s really important how do you
measure; what’s our return on investment? You know we’re making this allocation or we’re
granting the funds so how do we know that we’re getting that kind of return. You know what I
mean? This is not a business but just something to think about that we – they’ll come back if
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Page 23 of 58
they don’t have – if they are not really concrete measurable results. Thank you.
Chair Stinger: I was just going to say is there any more discussion and there seems like there is.
Commissioner O’Nan: I wanted to share that the real challenge for the Selection Committee is
that we’re really bound by our responsibility to be good stewards of the City’s money. This is the
City’s money coming from the general fund and really a requirement for someone to be granted
HSRAP funds is that they have to be a financially stable organization. So, it becomes a kind of
catch twenty-two when an organization is in trouble and needs City funding but then they don’t
seem stable enough. We sort of have to go out on a limb a little bit here and we have some faith
and we really do have faith in the Community Working Group and in Downtown Streets that
they figure out a more sustainable long-term funding model and I think we’re extending that
olive branch to those agencies and hoping that they will take it and pull themselves up and be
able to do great work with the Food Pantry and with keeping the day services open in the
Opportunity Center because we do feel strongly. I did want to just share that that’s a bit of a
burden on us too and having to recommend funding allocations in hope that you’ve got our back
and will fulfill that for us too because it would be awful if we made a big grant and the agency
went under then the City didn’t benefit from our investment in you so that’s part of the struggle
that we come up with. That’s the reality of life and some of the population serving the homeless
and the extremely low-income population is very challenging because there is no way to easily
raise funds or build a business model; like some of the other agencies can charge fees and do
other things and you guys don’t have those options. So, we’re sensitive to that and anyway, I
hope that the recommendations that we’ve come up with will work for you and get you to where
you want to be. Then next time you will share the good news with us which would be awesome.
Chair Stinger: May I have a motion?
MOTION
Commissioner O’Nan: I would make a motion and I didn’t hear support from my colleagues per
say but I would make a motion to amend our recommendations to change the funding for
CASSY, Community Working Group and Downtown Streets Team to I believe it was $32,600
each; that would be my motion.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think it’s $33,200.
Commissioner O’Nan: $33,200?
Ms. Mary Constantino: When I add up the $40,000, $25,000 and $34,600 I get $99,600. If
anyone else can check my…
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right. I think now there would just be time for comment and questions to
Commissioner O’Nan and to see if she gets a second or not. If she doesn’t get a second, you
continue the discussion for another proposal or to go back to the recommendation that is on the
sheet.
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Page 24 of 58
Chair Stinger: Discussion.
Commissioner Lee: So, the one comment that I would make on the motion on the table is my
initial funding recommendation for CWG was actually less than what the Committee ultimately
proposed. I, quite frankly, wasn’t particularly impressed with the application. There seemed to be
many gaps in it and I wasn’t conceived with the long-term viability of their operation. I did agree
to $25,000 given the opportunity to leverage additional funding from the County so I did want to
present them with that opportunity but at this time, I personally wouldn’t be in favor of changing
the allocation. I think CASSY does great work and I actually recommended that they receive
their full $50,000. I would be remising if we had to reduce their funding any further than what is
proposed by the Committee.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Actually, now that I’m reading the fine print, I actually would
agree with Commissioner O’Nan. I like the idea of raising CWG so contrary to my colleague’s
opinion, I would be happy to raise CWG’s funding. So, I would go along with the dissenting
view.
Vice Chair Chen: Actually, I would go along with it as well because CWG you cannot see the
result. You have to go through other organizations which get into a very difficult situation for
you. I think we need to provide a backbone to support the others so I really think that’s worth
supporting.
Chair Stinger: I hear support, may I have a second?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I second.
Chair Stinger: I’m sorry, Shelly. Any other discussion?
Commissioner Alhassani: I agree with the diagnose that we need to figure something out with
CWG. I agree with Commissioner Lee in that I think the difference increase in funding is not
going to solve anything of the problem. It’s actually on a pretty small-scale increase anyway and
the intention is correct but I think the strategy is wrong. For them to get into a better place is
much more dramatic than the ballpark of $8,000 as opposed from the initial proposal. To the
issue that you flagged – by Commissioner O’Nan earlier that there is something about that we
are a steward of the money in the list of funding sources, there’s a lot of zeros in the categories. I
don’t know if I want to propose it. If it’s a proper order to propose a motion to accept as it or do I
just say I – sorry.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I would say at this point, yes. There is a second to the motion, you can
discuss the motion and then at a point the Chair would take a vote. Either it goes forward and/ or
it is moved down and then you move forward with another motion.
Commissioner Alhassani: So, I’ll leave – that’s my comment on the current motion.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Ok.
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Page 25 of 58
Chair Stinger: I haven’t commented because I’m struggling with the two recommendations but
your comment really helped me Mehdi. I don’t think that we could make enough of a difference
in the Community Working Group and I think we could make a difference in the new program
and CASSY. It seems to me that the Community Working Group’s proposal has dramatically
improved from the proposals we saw a year ago and I would encourage you to continue to work
that proposal and come back to us. I – as it stands I would not vote for the motion that’s on the
floor.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: So does it die?
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think you just bring it to a vote and then we’ll be able to have that.
Chair Stinger: The motion on the floor is to…
Ms. van der Zwaag: First and seconded and then you can just take the vote. That would be…
Chair Stinger: I see.
Ms. van der Zwaag: That would be to revise it to $33,200 for CASSY, Community Working
Group, and Downtown Streets Team. That is the motion on the table.
Chair Stinger: All in favor?
Ms. van der Zwaag: That’s three. It’s a tie. So, if it’s a tie it fails.
MOTION FAILED WITH A VOTE 3-3 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT.
MOTION
Commissioner Lee: I move to adopt the Committee’s original proposal.
Commissioner Alhassani: Second the motion.
Chair Stinger: Do I have a call for a vote?
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think you would have a discussion. Just discussion and see if there’s any
movement or any compromises or so forth.
Council Member Kou: May I ask a question?
Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes.
Council Member Kou: Does CASSY get school funding?
Ms. Serna: We do.
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Page 26 of 58
Council Member Kou: And then County?
Ms. Serna: No.
Council Member Kou: No, just school funding.
Ms. van der Zwaag: The overwhelming majority of their money comes from the school district.
Chair Stinger: Let’s see, we have a motion and second. Can I have a vote? All in favor of the
fiscal 2018 proposed budget at printed in our handout. All in favor?
Ms. van der Zwaag: If you could put your hands up, I think that would be helpful. So, we’re still
at three-three.
MOTION FAILED WITH A VOTE OF 3-3 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Jury deadlocked. We need a mediator. Somebody has to break the
tie.
Commissioner O’Nan: As long as it’s not Mike Pence.
Chair Stinger: We don’t have a protocol, do we for a tie.
Ms. van der Zwaag: You could go with both of them to the Finance Committee. They really
would prefer that these issues are worked out at the Commission level because then most to the
discussion that night becomes between mediating between the two HRC decisions or lack of
decision.
Commissioner Lee: At the risk of making folks wait longer, would there be any interested in us
moving onto the next agenda and coming back to this so that we can kind of let it sit away.
Chair Stinger: I think I’d like to have the discussion and decision now. It’s going to be hard later
and I think it just assumes do it now. I guess I would as a Commission I would really like to take
a position to the Finance Committee and I guess I will refrain what you said Mehdi. We’re not
really talking about differences that are very substantial.
Commissioner O’Nan: Well, I hope this is ok to say. So, CASSY has applied for yet another
HSRAP grant and has not been decided and nothing is set in stone.
Ms. van der Zwaag: An Emerging Needs Fund grant.
Commissioner O’Nan: Immerging Needs Fund grant which also though a type of HS – it’s part
of HSRAP.
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Page 27 of 58
Ms. van der Zwaag: It’s not part of HSRAP. It’s not part of HSRAP, no. So, it’s additional
funding that the Council had allocated at the discretion of Staff with input from two members of
the Human Relations Commission to meet new emerging or emergency needs in the community.
Commissioner O’Nan: Ok, so thank you for that clarification…
Ms. van der Zwaag: You’re welcome.
Commissioner O’Nan: …I was thinking it as sort of a HSRAP emergency fund but it’s not.
Ms. van der Zwaag: They are both general fund dollars but they are separate. Participating in one
does not preclude the other. Once someone does get an Emerging Need Grant, they are not
allowed to reapply for 3-years.
Commissioner O’Nan: Ok, that I’ve been concerned about is if CASSY would get both grants, it
would have doubled the amount that CWG is getting from us. That to me widens a discrepancy
in the way that makes me personally uncomfortable because as I said, I think all three needs are
very, very vital in the community. So, it may look like we’re talking about some relatively small
amount of money and it may seem trivial but in the end, one agency may end up being
substantially better funded than another. So, I am not sure that’s the ultimate outcome that’s best
for the community.
Vice Chair Chen: I had another question about CASSY. How much funding do you get from the
school district in regard to the whole project?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: It’s in the applications.
Vice Chair Chen: The applications, I didn’t…
Ms. van der Zwaag: It’s around $650,000. You may respond to that if that was on the budget.
Ms. Serna: About 20 – none of the schools fully fund. Some of them do but not all of them fully
fund so (inaudible) is not fully funded through the school district. So often times we have to
fundraise to close that gap. The specific numbers are in the proposal.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Ok, that might be…
Ms. Serna: I don’t have them memorized by heart because I don’t have my budget in front of me
but they are in the proposal but we do have to fundraise about twenty percent of the funds. One
of the things that I want to point out is we have a very low administrative rate for CASSY that
overall for our budget it’s like less than eight percent, which for a non-profit is very lean. Our
assets are these people here that are out on the front lines so most of what we pay for is salaries
and benefits. That’s basically our labor cost so we have a very lean, mean machine with a lot of
rock stars on the front line so we run pretty lean. Basically, those funds primarily go to salaries to
pay our Staff.
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Page 28 of 58
Chair Stinger: When does the Finance Committee meet?
Ms. van der Zwaag: November 7th but I need to get my Staff report in tomorrow. It’s already
overdue.
Chair Stinger: So, we don’t…
Ms. van der Zwaag: If you don’t make a decision tonight. This would push this out to December
if I can get on that agenda or maybe even into January.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I’ll just say that the discrepancy over the amount and the increase, I
think it’s more symbolic. I think for me it’s about the sort of I guess parity. That one
organization that’s a building is not more important than one organization that provides
counseling. So, I guess that’s why I’m looking at it as I don’t know, I just – yeah.
Commissioner Lee: I would agree with you in that respect but I think there’s a difference in the
quality of the applications that were submitted and in the long-term viability of each
organization. So, while the service that both entities hope to provide are the – equally valuable, I
would say the deciding fact for me was the quality of the application and long-term viability. My
recommendation reflects that thinking.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, I can understand that. I guess I forgive that CWG you could
do a better job with your application and your explanations but I wouldn’t I think the importance
and the value of what they provide trumps that; the poor writing.
Commissioner Lee: Well, it’s not just the applications. Again, I think the long-term viability of
the agency itself is not particularly strong. I think the additional funding that they can get from
the County will be more than sufficient to give them an opportunity to turn things around. I’m
not particularly inclined to allocate more just for the sake of parity given some of the deficits that
we’ve seen in their application in the long-term viability of the agency.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Ok, so we have persuaded each other.
Commissioner Lee: Unless someone wants to give their unallocated funds to the agency.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: What’s that?
Commissioner Lee: Unless someone else wants to gift some of their recommended allocation to
the other agency.
Chair Stinger: I keep hoping something brilliant will happen – brilliant idea will come but we at
an impasse.
Commissioner Lee: The report that the community provided, did that indicate the amount of
funding that we might be able to leverage for the County? Was that number filled in?
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Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, it was. It was $100,000 from the County this fiscal year and possibly
the ability to meet the need of the deficit next year from the County but the County was feeling
pretty good about being able to meet that next year. Staff was hopeful that they can make it
happen but obviously, I am not able to guarantee that nor are they.
Commissioner Lee: Sure.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I felt during our deliberations that if the County was going to grant
$100,000, that we were going to give a certain amount that were actually higher than what we’re
recommending now.
Ms. van der Zwaag: The County was asked and they did not have a specific minimum grant
amount requirement, for lack of better language, for the County to be able to give $100,000.
There was not a specific dollar amount.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Ok but I think we had talked about that we’d allocate this much if
the County was going to grant $100,000. Didn’t we? Am I miss…
Commissioner O’Nan: The County said there wasn’t a hard number.
Commissioner Lee: It wasn’t a hard number.
Commissioner Alhassani: Can you remind me what the process is for the emerging needs fund?
Is that open-ended?
Ms. van der Zwaag: What do you mean the process?
Commissioner Alhassani: I’m sorry, for applying for money for the emerging needs fund.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Can you – I’m still a little confused. What do you mean the process? How
one applies?
Commissioner Alhassani: Is there a deadline or is it open-ended?
Ms. van der Zwaag: If someone has an emergency need – for an instance there’s, I’d hate to say
a fire at this point but a theft of an important piece of equipment, they can apply at any time
during the year. If it’s an emerging need, something that’s new came up. I always use the
example for instance if there’s an emergent of TB that was completely unexpected and the health
care providers said we really need to inoculate a 1,000 more people. We didn’t expect it so that’s
an emerging need in the community. That’s a quarterly deadline so our last quarterly deadline
was September 29th and we had one application from CASSY for an emerging need that they
had. It was presented to them that their organization was handling.
Commissioner Alhassani: I apologize, is it emerging need or is it emerging or ongoing; that’s the
language that’s used? As in it has to be something that we’ve seen an uptick in or if it’s like a
continuous prevalent problem?
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Page 30 of 58
Ms. van der Zwaag: It was in response for service needs and response to the suicide and that was
the increase in needs for services on the campus.
MOTION
Chair Stinger: I am going to make a proposal and its nitpicking but I just want to see if I can get
us to a mid-point. I think you know my concerns and my objective is to come to an agreeance so
that we can go to the Finance Committee as a full Commission. I want to support the three
organizations in a way that gives them substantial predictor of success and I do have some
questions about the Community Working Group’s proposal. I also value what they are trying to
do so my motion is that we fund CASSY at $35,000, Community Working Group at $30,000,
hold Downtown Streets Team at $34,600 and one, two, three, four, five – maintain the
recommendations for the other five agencies which have so well served us. It should add up to
$99,600.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Could you repeat it one more time?
Chair Stinger: $35,000 for CASSY, $30,000 for Community Working Group, $34,600 for
Downtown Streets Team.
Commissioner O’Nan: I would be supportive of the Chair’s proposed amendment to what’s
before us. I think it draws the three agencies into a closer parody. I think CASSY still gets a
substantial amount that they requested and can hopefully make up the $5,000 shortfall. I really
like the idea of giving more to Community Working Group. A $30,000 grant is more robust and
will help them I think in their fund-raising efforts; including with the County. It will show a
significant commitment on the part of the City of Palo Alto which is what I think they need.
Downtown Streets would not be affected but they still got a significant portion that they had
originally requested so I think all three agencies end up at a fairly good place. Although, I’d be
sorry for the slight decrease to CASSY but I think that they are better equipped right now in a
better position to make up a shortfall than the other two agencies which are struggling a bit more.
I think in that way we would come up with I think a kind of a just result.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I can live with that. I think that’s a good counter offer.
Vice Chair Chen: It is a very good proposal.
Chair Stinger: All in favor? Can I move to a vote? All in favor? Opposed?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Ok, it passed.
MOTION PASSED WITH A VOTE OF 4-2 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT
ABSENT.
Council Member Kou: They don’t have to go to Finance, any more right?
Ms. van der Zwaag: Actually, they do so if this was the normal cycle it would have gone into the
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Page 31 of 58
Community Service budget but at this point, they…
Council Member Kou: Because they changed it?
Ms. van der Zwaag: No, they still have to go to Finance. Finance is their vehicle to counsel on
this and so if they go to finance and finance is unanimous, then it will be on the consent calendar
for Council. They do need to go to finance.
Council Member Kou: Thank you.
Chair Stinger: Before the agencies leave, I just want to iterate one time how much I appreciate
your work. Every time we go to the Council or the Finance Committee, we say this is the hardest
thing we have to do and I truly mean it. I think you all do fine work and deserve everything that
we can do for it to help support.
Council Member Kou: If I might just add also, Council is very appreciative of all the work that
you do in supporting the community; especially the vulnerable. I mean you’re the voice for them
so it’s important to have that voice for them so it’s important to have that voice within our
community so thank you so much.
Chair Stinger: The other people who deserve a thank you are the three Committee Members who
struggled with this and made it much easier for us to proceed in our deliberation. If you hadn’t
done as much groundwork and such thoughtful preparation, we’d really be in a muddle so thank
you all.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, on Staff’s perspective I want to thank the Committee as well. Just like
the one in the fall, everybody came prepared, everybody thoroughly read the applications, had
good questions, Mary and I both really appreciate your efforts.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: You’re welcome.
Council Member Kou: Can I ask a question? I notice the Community Working Group as well as
the Downtown Streets with their Food Closet; both offer food for their patrons. Does the
Committee ever suggest that maybe they coordinate or I mean I don’t…
Vice Chair Chen: I know a little bit about that because I do serve Fridays at lunch at the church
about once a month for homelessness. The lunch they serve for homeless is well pre-prepared by
a store in San Jose and they ship it there to the hot foods. So, people come in and we serve food
to them and in the Pantry – the closest, it’s a different room attached to the church on the other
side so they give them like cans, and food to go. They really check them if they have a good
statue and see if they are qualified because they have records for it.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right so at the Opportunity Center as Commissioner Chen said, they have
LifeMoves, they manage the meal program. If you just drop into the Day Center there, they’ll
have food available; it’s breakfast, it’s lunch but the Food Closet, that’s kind of like getting a bag
from Second Harvest Food Bank. They get a bag and if you’re unhoused, it’s food that an
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Page 32 of 58
unhoused person could eat without having to heat it and then if you are a low-income person, and
you’re housed, they give you a different bag of food. There is some overlap but it’s different in
clientele and not a difference in time or day or circumstance.
Commissioner O’Nan: Many of the Food Closet patrons are actually low-income seniors like
from Lytton Gardens so that’s sort of a slightly different population from maybe some homeless
individuals or families who are dropping into the Opportunity Center.
Vice Chair Chen: Actually, they not dropping in the Opportunity Center for lunch, they drop in
at five different churches in the area.
Commissioner O’Nan: I’m sorry through that program.
Vice Chair Chen: LifeMoves is in charge of the program so there’s always one person that still
should work there; to supervise our volunteers for the service.
Chair Stinger: Before we move on to agenda item three, I want to ask you to recall your attention
to a handout at your place on items being considered for the HRC work plan this fiscal year. It’s
a worksheet that may be useful as we go through agenda items three, four and five. I’d like you
to think about the individual items that we have this year and your involvement in them and
when we might do them. I have two comments to make, one is that I just think this is a
horrendously aggressive schedule for a year but it’s what we’ve talked about. I would just like to
be realistic and deliver things to – some to the Council, some to the community – well,
hopefully, all to the Council and all to the community. I’d like to commit to the things that we
can actually deliver. Things that we support and things that we’re passionate about and things
that we can add value too. We all contribute in different ways; some of us are creative, some of
us are fact-based, some of us have senior parents, some of us have Bar exams and we all have
different time commitments. I’d like us to be realistic in what we can take on for the year and
hopefully collapse this into a realistic and meaning and exciting work plan for the year.
Commissioner Lee: One thing that I would suggest, we could collapse the working on diversity
and tech. I think some of the CEDAW stuff that Shelly and I are working would cover pieces of
that. So, we could consolidate those two.
Chair Stinger: That’s a great suggestion.
3. Debrief of the joint HRC/Council Study Session on October
Chair Stinger: Let’s move on to agenda item number three, a debrief of the Council Study
Session. We have no handouts on that but I just wanted to hear what people took away from that
Council Study Session.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Since I wasn’t there, can you give a synopsis or is that not
possible?
Chair Stinger: I think we…
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Page 33 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: They like us very much.
Chair Stinger: Do you want to take on that Theresa?
Vice Chair Chen: Oh, no.
Chair Stinger: Please do.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Come on Theresa.
Vice Chair Chen: Well, I think this – to me
Ms. van der Zwaag: Turn on your microphone.
Vice Chair Chen: …two main things that pop out. The first one is about finding a place for La
Comida to operate and that is a difficult task I think because I had talked to somebody in the
church and then I was told that there’s some difficulty for churches to be able to accommodate
their request for La Comida; that was one thing. The second thing is about finding the overnight
parking place for those campers along the street El Camino. They suggest we should probably
look at that in the ordinance by Santa Barbara and find out a way to be able to set up our own
guidelines to do that. There are many other things but I think those are the two main things that I
thought.
Chair Stinger: Just as background Commissioner Gordon Gray because we don’t get to say that
much longer. We went through the slides that everybody helped prepare. They were well
received and I think we were concise but descriptive. I had people from the community come up
to me afterward and say that it was a good description of what we’ve done. They hadn’t realized
we’d done so much so I think we got a lot of favorable input. The question that I had going into
it as we had an aggressive work plan and I thought we were going to get called on that; being too
aggressive but instead, we had suggestions added. That’s what I think that what we need to
address tonight. Happy for the vote of confidence.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: That was a public event? I didn’t realize that.
Vice Chair Chen: It was.
Chair Stinger: Let me – if there is no other comment, move on to agenda item four.
Commissioner Lee: If I could just say one quick point. I was pleasantly surprised by the
overwhelming support for some sort of action on the folks living in the RVs along El Camino.
The Chair would know that that was an issue that I was particularly interested in and we were
divided as to whether we should mention it during the Council session. So, it was great that I
think six or seven of the Council Members brought it up on their own initiative. Hopefully, they
take formal action to refer that issue to the Commission so that we can work with the City’s
Manager’s Office on that. So, I was pleasantly surprised by that.
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Page 34 of 58
Chair Stinger: Now do we still need a formal recommendation from the Council?
Ms. van der Zwaag: I believe so. I am waiting for direction from the City Manager’s Office on
this topic.
4. Recommendation from Ad hoc Subcommittee to Council’s Resolution on working
towards a diverse, supportive, inclusive and protective community
Chair Stinger: Let’s move on to agenda item four. You should have some slide copy in front of
you. This is a draft that comes from our Ad hoc subcommittee, which at the moment is
Commissioner Gordon Gray, Commissioner Alhassani, and myself with the help of Human
Services Staff and a summer intern. Some of this we went over at our summer retreat. We’ve
developed it a little bit further to have recommendations. I’d like to go over this, go through the
recommendations for you this evening and have a vote that we would take this to the Council in
December. So, we would move from tonight’s slide presentation to a Staff report to this
presentation. Just to walk you through it, we are restating the Resolution, talking about our
methodology moving from statistics census data to a community listening campaign, to linking
an at model programs else ware and some summary of our findings. I’m going to move through
this quickly and I’ll rely on you to ask questions where you have them. The listening campaign,
we heard that some populations segments feel unheard or misunderstood, the community is
changing and that there are model programs that we can work with and there are partners that the
City can use. I really am skimming this for time. I’d like to take you then to the
recommendations. The Committee looked at 75-150 recommendations, we had a huge sheet and
we went through them and clustered them into seven areas and picked proposals from each area
that we thought were valuable, doable and would make a difference in our community. We
didn’t want to be a Commission that makes an important profound statement but doesn’t take
action so under immigration we want to look at SB-54 and work with the City Attorney to see if
it addresses all the questions that we have. Then at a subsequent Commission meeting, we would
develop those questions. One of the things that we found was that the County is a huge resource
to us and they have a lot of training in media campaigns that we could leverage to increase the
visibility of the immigration question in the County. Those are our recommendations for
immigration. For gender identity, we want to assess the needs and aspect – needs and assets of
the LGBTQ community. This would be a program with again, with the County office and I’ve
been speaking with the County Office of LGBTQ Affairs. They are doing a thirteen City survey
and would be willing to include Palo Alto as one of those Cities. Our responsibility would be to
pick a date and place and help with recruitment and they would supply the food and the
moderator and the program and the data analysis. I think that would be an important start to
having a foundation to understanding how we could help families and seniors and employers
dealing with gender identity. The third area that we wanted to look at was hate crimes. Our
proposal here is to collaborate with the County on their hate crime reporting system and to
formalize a policy for graffiti removal. We know that it’s done effectively in the City but it’s not
a formal policy and do you want to chime in?
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, graffiti removal is a formal policy. What was not in the policy was
specific language as to removal of hate language. It was an informal policy that they would go
out within 24-hours to remove any reports and Staff has in dialog with me Staff in that
department has added that to their policy already. Really, this is already completed.
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Chair Stinger: We took…
Ms. van der Zwaag: I don’t know for hundred percent if the top person has signed off on it but
they had a policy, they added to their policy and it just needs a signature to marry that new
sentence into their existing policy for graffiti removal. Staff has always considered that to be a
top priority during the week and on the weekend to remove any hate language or symbols.
Chair Stinger: We took that as a win because it was something that was initiated from
discussions that we were having with Staff. Inclusive engagement is a phrase that we learned or
we’ve been using to talk about the engagement of different ethnic and immigrant communities
particularly wanting the Commission to work with partners who are working on Welcome
American Week programming. There are partners in Palo Alto who could help us make that
week in September more visible to the different groups that live in Palo Alto. We attended an
institute of local government leadership programs and one of the things that we learned that
Mountain View was doing was a Leadership Training for immigrants. We’d like to mimic that
here and we think we have some partners we can do that with. The City-wide diversity learning,
it follows two independent paths. One of our Commissioners had expressed interest in doing a
program on the History of Racism, The History of Otherness and we think that would be a good
program to one, extend the Being Different Together program and also helping with diversity
training. The implicative bias isn’t well written. It says seek communication tools and what we
found within some of our listening campaigns was that the language that we use includes people
but is off-putting. We mean it to be sincere and welcoming but by our very definition, we make
the other feel like another. We know that there is language and cultural adaptation programs that
we’d like to investigate for our different City functions. Then finally under gender, the major
item is to direct strategy for becoming a CEDAW City so that we can take a recommendation to
the Council to become a CEDAW City. I raced through that and I want to open it up to questions
and then ask for a confirming vote to go ahead and peruse further some of the programs.
Commissioner O’Nan: The area that gives me most pause is the hate crimes because as we’ve
heard from the Police Department in the past, there’s very, very little validate hate crime that
occurs in Palo Alto. I know I saw the slide about people have fears and I know that there’s been
racist and anti-Semitic graffiti throughout the City but I don’t know whether it should be called
out at this level.
Ms. van der Zwaag: The County HRC has been tasked with County Staff to work on this. This is
just making sure that we, as Palo Alto, when called come into the County that we can be
involved to a certain extent in the crafting of such a policy but also making sure that they will
allow if we on a quarterly basis say hey, how many calls have you gotten from Palo Alto? Can
you distinguish the types? This is not us doing anything differently. This is us plugging into a
County system that may be up in running at some time in the future just to make sure that they
don’t forget about Palo Alto and there are mechanisms for us to get feedback.
Chair Stinger: When we were looking at some of the data, we found a difference between
incidents and reported crimes and the fear factor. We just felt that as long as the County was
doing this program, it was too good of an opportunity not to be part of it. So, we had protective
coverage going forward and a better database.
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Commissioner O’Nan: The only other area that’s missing for me I think is violence against
women. We’ve had a lot of problems both here and on the Stanford Campus with what’s been
called a rape culture within our schools and our community. Domestic violence is grossly under-
reported in the community, especially against immigrant women who aren’t aware of their rights
or who are too afraid to call the police when it occurs. I really support the CEDAW gender
equality but that may be very symbolic and very middle-class kind of goal to fulfill verses the
real experience of immigrant women in the community. I wonder if under gender we could add
something that really addresses violence against women.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Actually, that could come under the CEDAW ordinance. There are
some examples of Cities that have created a special task force on domestic violence under the
CEDAW ordinance; San Francisco is an example. I can talk a little bit about CEDAW maybe
during the Commissioner’s reports.
Vice Chair Chen: Can I ask a question? For the inclusive engagement here about expand World
Coming America. Do we have the week already set up?
Chair Stinger: I think it comes from the Institute of Local Governments. That is a week that’s
dedicated in September.
Vice Chair Chen: Oh.
Chair Stinger: So, we would just be doing programs during a dedicated week.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right so there’s an organization called Welcoming America and they have
year-round efforts but a real effort in September to have Welcoming America week. Every City
does it differently, some have huge multicultural festivals. Some of them are huge, I mean multi-
day efforts. It’s my understanding that our local YMCA already does something for Welcoming
America week and we could be in dialog to see how we could amplify their efforts. If this is
something the HRC wants to take on, we would look at a very modest proposal. We’re not going
to have a 5-day, multi-stage concert out there in the community but I know there has been little
ideas that have come from the HRC over the years. I know Vice Chair Chen has talked about like
a once a year community welcoming day in City Hall. The ideas can be modest or grand given
your work plan but I think modest would be more advised but it could also be an opportunity just
to collaborate with other efforts that are already in the community. The full depth of that is yet to
be known.
Commissioner Lee: If I can make one quick suggestion on that? When I read this initially I wrote
4th of July so if you are not married too much to the September time frame, I would recommend
trying to do something on the 4th of July. You know it’s a very American holiday so kind of
expanding that sort of definition to be as inclusive as possible, I think might be a good way to do
it.
Vice Chair Chen: Although I agree with that but September is the month and the school year
starts and many newcomers and their children enroll in school so we would be in this optimal
time. I would think September would be more people because summer people go away for
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Page 37 of 58
vacations.
Chair Stinger: One of our objectives, when we were doing this, was to look for partners so I
think we could take that suggestion to a partner and see what they were doing. I know we have
some time constraints, can I have a vote on the recommendations…
Commissioner O’Nan: You mean the Resolution?
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think you need some motion that these would be the recommendations that
you would want included to go forward to Council. There would have to be HRC agreement on
these or if there are concerns by Commissioners for more nuancing of this and to bring back to
the November meeting, that’s your choice as well. We still have to see if we can get on a
December agenda and that would definitely push you off till the January time frame. I think there
has to be an agreement to what is here and you can also decide if you want to give this full
package just to get the Council an idea of what you’re working on. Really what you’re bringing
to Council are specifically to request them to affirm SB-54 and to direct Staff to complete a
report for CEDAW. The rest is in the Commission's hands or in Staff and when we say Staff, it’s
primarily Mary and I but there also have been some good collaboration like I said with the
graffiti policy; that’s Public Works. For some of these collaborations with our libraries and the
Art Center such as a program that was presented to you or the grant opportunity that was
presented last time. I think in your report you would show all those but perhaps at this point what
you need for your recommendation is just the two items that are going to Council.
Commissioner Lee: Could I recommend that we pass along the immigration matter to Council. I
think on CEDAW before we recommend that they direct Staff to do anything on that, I
personally would like to put some more time and work on that. Maybe we just give them an
update that we’re working on it as opposed to having them direct Staff to do anything at this
point in time.
Chair Stinger: This would be a December…
Commissioner Lee: December, yes.
Chair Stinger: …recommendation, is that too soon?
Commissioner Lee: I think for CEDAW it would be unless you disagree Shelly?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: It’s going to be up to you.
Commissioner Lee: Yeah, I feel like I need more time too – yes.
Chair Stinger: Ok so then it would read update Staff on the options for a CEDAW ordinance.
Commissioner Lee: Yes.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, you can just give an update that says this is something that’s on your
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Page 38 of 58
work plan and this is something you intend to bring to them but at this point, you are not
prepared to give them a full briefing. At that point, you would be bringing it to them as a
standalone which might be a better way of discussing the matter anyway. You’d have to be
pretty specific for the SB-54. I mean you have to think about the discussion that you’re going to
have with them. You gave them a flavor at the study session but if you’re going to give this to
them then at that point you have to decide, are we just asking for more feedback or that’s nice. I
think you kind of did that at the study session and at this point part of it is the report but then the
recommended motion part in your report to Council would be something specific. Some
recommended motion for SB-54 so you’d need to decide that and that would have to be in the
Staff report.
Chair Stinger: My sense is that going to the Council with just the immigration issue is perhaps an
unfair use of their time and we should wait until we have a better footing on both
recommendations to Council. Can you give us direction here?
Council Member Kou: I agree with you. I think if you can get as much done as possible, that
would be a lot better than coming with one by one. I know the maker of that resolution…
Ms. van der Zwaag: He wants it back soon.
Chair Stinger: That was the pressure point for me. I really wanted to respond with – at year end
because the resolution was passed at year end and I wanted a response but I also don’t want to
abuse the Council’s time by coming in once and then coming in a second time.
Council Member Kou: We appreciate all of the work that you guys are doing on this and all the
thoughtfulness that you put into it and the research but I really would recommend coming back
with a bigger packet of a more complete package.
Chair Stinger: I think that’s a good recommendation.
Commissioner Lee: My impression though is that the SB-54 and CEDAW, they are both kind of
big pieces on their own and so while they all tie into this inclusive community resolution that the
Council passed last year. It seems like it would be a lot to try to introduce both them at the same
time and I would be hesitant to have SB-54 be held up waiting for CEDAW. My personal
recommendation would be move ahead with SB-54 as one of our responses to the inclusive
resolution and then when CEDAW is ready it’s such a big piece in and of itself, that would-be
part two. I mean pretty much everything the Commission does could fall under the inclusive
resolution so I would be hesitant to try to lump everything together.
Chair Stinger: Right. When you talk about – when you say CEDAW won’t be ready in
December, what is the package that you’re trying to complete?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Maybe I can weigh in here. I like to boil things down and I have
done a lot of research on this but there are basically three components to it that I think would
satisfy the requirement to be a CEDAW City which we talked about this last time. You know
you have to do a gender analysis and out of that, you might make policy recommendations and
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Page 39 of 58
then you have to have so kind of a task force to monitor the outcome of that analysis so here’s an
example that was given. You look at all the Commissions across the City and is there an equal
representation of men and women? Let’s say for example there are more men or the Planning
Department which gets a bigger budget has more men. That might be an outcome, I don’t know
if that’s true but I’m just speculating or I’m just imagining. Then you would say ok, so there’s an
inequity here, what policy change are we going to make? Then you have a task force, it could be
a subcommittee or San Francisco has a Women’s Commission. Maybe the City should establish
a Women’s Commission; you know we don’t have one. The County certainly has a Commission
on the Status of Women. The County is going to pass a CEDAW ordinance by the year so they
are actually working on that. Supervisor Cortese is leading that charge and the Women’s Policy
Office is carrying that out and the Commission on the Status of Women. Basically, if you come
up with one analysis that could satisfy the CEDAW ordinance and it doesn’t have to be
something that’s going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes 6-months. It could be
something as simple as that and then you could appoint a subcommittee within the Commission
or recommend that the Council establish a Women’s Commission or some kind of Gender
Commission to monitor whatever the outcome of that analysis is and whatever policies come out
of that. I – the bottom line is I don’t think it has to be something that’s so heavy, heavy laden and
takes forever. I mean it will take some time but I think there’s a simple way to do it if you
wanted to present that to the Council. I have this all documented and I’ll send it along and good
luck to you.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I’m just doing some more thinking about what really works with that
because I would value Council Member Kou’s opinion but I would agree that bringing two
totally separate items, one immigration, and two women’s issues. That’s two complex
conversations to them and when you had the study session, they had no supporting
documentation. They had no Staff report on it and it was just you know, hey this is something
we’re working on. It sounds good, thanks for working on this. Looks like you guys are working
on it hard. I think the difference of if we just bring a general report and said – and having the
Staff report providing a couple good paragraphs and background information on your efforts but
more thoroughly a little bit on SB-54 and CEDAW for them at that night to be able to say yeah,
that’s interesting. Bring that to us at a later time. I can’t imagine any circumstance in which we
brought this back to them and that night they would say yes, we’re going to do something for
SB-54 and yes, please Staff create this Committee to do CEDAW. I think it would be too much
and I’m not sure Council Member Kou wants to add anything to that. That would be my concern
at this point so it would still be that middle points. So, Commissioner Lee would have to get
enough to have them have an initial conversation to understand it and then direct the HRC to do
what anything more needs to do. I might need to talk with City leadership to get a better
understanding of how they’d like to handle that..
Chair Stinger: Thank you, Jill.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I’m not sure if you have any more Council.
Commissioner O’Nan exited the meeting.
Council Member Kou: I didn’t realize that it was such a big chunk of a topic that we’re going –
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Page 40 of 58
that’s going to come back to Council for discussion but if SB-54 is going to need a lot of
discussions, and then I agree that it might have to do it in two segments. Then it sounds like
CEDAW, you are kind of waiting for what County is going to do. See what their…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Not necessarily.
Council Member Kou: Not necessarily.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I mean we wouldn’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel if we
see what they do but they…
Council Member Kou: But this would be something new that kind of…
Commissioner O’Nan: We have a resolution, we have a CEDAW resolution but we don’t have
an ordinance. It doesn’t have teeth; you know it’s more symbolic.
Council Member Kou: I guess but how does it fit into the Resolution of this one here?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: It’s about gender.
Chair Stinger: It’s our way of addressing gender.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Gender is
Council Member Kou: Gender.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Gender as inclusion. Gender – inclusion of gender is how it’s also
a way to drive good governance. They said…
Council Member Kou: So just not have an action behind what we’re talking about rather than
just having words and no action behind it.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, policy.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right, that was one of the goals of the subcommittee in that they did not
want to bring something forward to Council that was just symbolic because the resolution was
symbolic and they wanted to say that there are things that Staff can do to live this out. There are
things the HRC can do to live this out but the subcommittee wanted to bring items back to the
Council that went beyond the symbolic. That by affirming something that would perhaps have a
change in the way the City operates in whatever topic they’re talking about.
Council Member Kou: You know I’m still thinking that on this subject it might be something
that is much better to come back with both and have it kind of come to a robust discussion on
both. Then have it move forward because it has taken quite a bit of time and I’m still feeling that
way but it’s on your work schedule and you guys have quite a work plan here.
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Page 41 of 58
Chair Stinger: Well, when we talk about…
Ms. van der Zwaag: I would…
Chair Stinger: …this strategy, I guess I was thinking that you’ve identified that we need to do a
budget, a need and monitoring. I guess I thought the presentation to Council would be more of an
elaboration on these is the things we are doing. We wouldn’t have done the budget analysis, you
wouldn’t have done any analysis but it was a strategy to forward. Am I incorrect?
Chair Stinger: To either one of you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Oh, you’re saying we would go to Council with here’s what it cost?
Here’s an example of a gender analysis? Here’s what it’s going to cost? Is that what you’re
saying?
Ms. van der Zwaag: No, I think she’s saying that you would go to Council and say to have a
CEDAW ordinance, these are the five things the City needs to do. These are what other Cities
have done but these are the specific requirements of what they are.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: That’s what I was trying to say.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: But I don’t have any budget. Yes, I don’t know what this cost. I
could not get anybody to tell me what they cost.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think every City that’s different.
Vice Chair Chen: I’m a little confused here. It looks like it’s very much an overlap in our
proposal doing of our tasks for this year.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Right.
Chair Stinger: It is.
Vice Chair Chen: So, it’s two together, huh?
Ms. van der Zwaag: No, it’s just…
Chair Stinger: I pulled one from the other.
Vice Chair Chen: Oh ok, so…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, one of the outcomes of our recommendation for the Council
resolution is to pass a CEDAW ordinance and it just so happens that it’s also part of our work
plan.
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Page 42 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: So, our recommendation here, that means we are going to recommend to
Council that we are going to do it. Is that right?
Chair Stinger: You’re right; I took a leap of faith but
Vice Chair Chen: Because they are overlapping.
Chair Stinger: Yes, these are the work plans…
Vice Chair Chen: Can we do it?
Commissioner Lee: Do we need to be able to tell them what we would like the CEDAW
ordinance to look like at that point in time or just that we should do some sort of CEDAW
ordinance?
Chair Stinger: I was thinking the latter, just that we want to do it. This is the benefit of it and this
is what it – then it would direct us to work on it with Staff’s help.
Commissioner Lee: Oh ok. Well, in that…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I think…
Commissioner Lee: Sure, yes.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I think I kind of spelled it out in here so maybe – but I know, we
should have probably made some time in the agenda for this.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes because I’m not on the subcommittee so I am totally confused but I think I
am not clear so that’s what we are going to do; CEDAW and this. We recommend to the Council
for the HRC to do this.
Ms. van der Zwaag: No, you would not be bringing that other sheet.
Vice Chair Chen: It looks like overlapping.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, it is overlapping in that that’s the HRC’s work plan and if you are
working on something, there are different buckets of what you’re working on and these items fit
into one buck so they end up on your work plan. It’s not that there are other buckets on that sheet
that you’ll be working on as well.
Vice Chair Chen: My question is can we work on this and this and everything together?
Ms. van der Zwaag: That’s a discussion for the next discussion.
Chair Stinger: Which you might miss, Commissioner Gordon Gray.
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Page 43 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: I thought it was on today’s agenda. We didn’t discuss what we’re going to do
next year.
Ms. van der Zwaag: That’s next.
Chair Stinger: We’ll let me just try this. These are the recommendations of the subcommittee,
that we work on seven areas of focus and that we have two recommendations to Council. Two
policy recommendations to Council, some programs from Staff and Commission in those areas.
There are a lot of other things we could be doing. We might come back to them another year or
subsequently but this is where we wanted to start. I’d like to ask for the Commission’s support.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I guess the problem that I am having with it is that some of them
are vague. They are almost like placeholders but then one…
Chair Stinger: Yes, I have more text and I skimmed over it because I knew that we were getting
late.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I mean even though I was on the subcommittee but the ones that
look most concrete are CEDAW, SB-54, the hate crime reporting system, graffiti is already in
process, and I feel like the other ones are…
Chair Stinger: The…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: … more exploratory and still need to be coppertized. I guess that’s
where I am having – that’s my opinion. Do we have to vote on all of them?
Ms. van der Zwaag: No
Ms. van der Zwaag: … you can’t vote on the ones for Staff because the Commission is not able
to direct Staff to do work. Staff is doing this as part of our work plan to further the work of the
Office of Human Services, to further work of library program. So, you cannot specifically direct
Staff to work. You can make a referral to Council and you can decide or not decide to work on
the stuff in the Commissioner column or you can schedule that into your work plan for this year
and incoming work plan. So, it may not look like this when it goes to Council. I mean…
Chair Stinger: No, it definitely won’t.
Ms. van der Zwaag: …this won’t look like this but it was just to give you an idea that there are a
responsibility and opportunity in different sectors in those three sectors.
Chair Stinger: Are there particular questions you have with the work for the Commission?
Vice Chair Chen: I’m the only one that’s not involved in this so I am totally lost but it’s ok; I
don’t vote.
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Page 44 of 58
Chair Stinger: Let me try…
Commissioner Lee: I mean if Commissioner Chen is not going to be voting then we don’t have a
majority right because we need five out of nine but we have
Ms. van der Zwaag: You need four out of seven. The others aren’t here so you need four.
Vice Chair Chen: I’m not voting on this. I don’t understand it that well.
Chair Stinger: Can I take another attempt at explaining what we are doing?
Vice Chair Chen: I understand what you did but this says – I still don’t understand. The
Commission, that means we vote if we agree that the Commission is going to do all this and I
think we are going to be doing this plus what we’re going to do in our priority and together it
would be too much work for us to do. So why are we voting this? We recommend it to the
Council to do this or we say oh, this we are going to do. That’s my problem.
Chair Stinger: You have hit the nail on the head that we have a very aggressive work plan for
this year.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right and not all the things that are on the Commission list are things that
are going to happen this year. So, if you look at your work plan, these are the different items.
Chair Stinger put these all on here to give the Commission an idea of everything you’ve
suggested so far that you have interested in and items here. The next item on your agenda is to
really say ok, what can we reasonably do this year? This list might be half as long at the end of
tonight or if you continue this to your next meeting. These are, as Chair Stinger said before, for
instance on this one explores being different together into new themes. What that really means
on your work plan was an idea…
Vice Chair Chen: It’s on here.
Ms. van der Zwaag: It’s all here so you all need to make a decision what is possible to do and
that is separate from a motion to go forward with these two items for the Council. Really your
motion has – really only has to be whether you as a Commission support bringing these two
recommendations to the Council or not.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: The two being SB-54 and CEDAW?
Ms. van der Zwaag: Right and you have to feel comfortable with the results of this report. Lots
of reports when you study something bring forward a whole plethora of recommendations and
observations. They usually very clearly state which ones, Staff or Commission, are going
forward with. So, you can mention these things and say we noticed this but we don’t have the
bandwidth to do it this year or that’s the kind of thinking that goes on as you transfer from one
document to the other or you transfer to this document to what you go forward with Council.
Vice Chair Chen: So, in this sheet what I understand is that recommendation for seven
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Page 45 of 58
categories, seven and that you are talking about only the first slide immigration, gender identity
and there are some other things as well. Right, one, two, three – you know, there’s four.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think there are categories.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes but is for seven categories. It’s right here in the slide here, the first slide.
The programs and policy recommendation are all in seven categories. So, this one is
immigration, second is gender identity and then as follows hate crimes, inclusive engagement,
and Citywide diversity learning, inclusive engagement and gender. So, there are seven so are we
recommending just the first two?
Chair Stinger: We were looking at programs and policies that would forward our City’s inclusion
and outreach and some of these areas really didn’t have policies so there was no need to ask
Council; to take anything to Council. We would address gender identity for example with a study
that the Commission would do with the County.
Vice Chair Chen: Wait a minute, you said programs and then…
Chair Stinger: Programs we don’t need to take to Council, we only need to take policies.
Vice Chair Chen: Where are the programs? Where are the seven categories of recommendation?
They are not identified on these slides.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, they are. There is some overlap like the
Ms. van der Zwaag: Immigration, gender identity, hate crimes, inclusive engagement…
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, I know but…
Ms. van der Zwaag: Those add up to seven.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: But they are here…
Vice Chair Chen: That’s seven but they are policies or recommendations?
Ms. van der Zwaag: The Policies are the two…
Vice Chair Chen: Oh, ok so…
Ms. van der Zwaag: … and the rest are programs.
Vice Chair Chen: So, the first two are programs – policies.
Ms. van der Zwaag: The only two policies are SB-54 and CEDAW.
Vice Chair Chen: Alright so…
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Page 46 of 58
Ms. van der Zwaag: The rest are…
Vice Chair Chen: They are not labeled so I got lost.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Ok, yes, they are not – well the policy ones, they are listed under Council
because it’s the responsibility of Council to pass policy and the HRC has the authority to
recommend policy to Council for their consideration.
Vice Chair Chen: Ok, so the two policies we don’t have to worry about it. We have to worry
about the rest of the other following it.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, you do have to worry about it in that you have to prepare the Staff
report and defend the request for those policies to Council.
Vice Chair Chen: In addition to that there are four programs we need to work on.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, that’s up to you to decide this year which ones you would like to work
on. These are just identified from all the research that was done. These are the ones that the
subcommittee identified.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Are all of these on this column under the Commission; are they all
on the work plan? Most of them are right?
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, they are and that’s what I wonder.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, so we already agreed to this work plan.
Ms. van der Zwaag: No, you didn’t these are still drafts.
Vice Chair Chen: They are recommendation. We have to agree on this first and then we do this.
Chair Stinger: I did this after the Council study session. I went home and thought its just way too
aggressive and I just needed some way to capture…
Vice Chair Chen: Yes so why don’t we just toss it out and do this only?
Ms. van der Zwaag: But that’s not the full work plan. This does not include HSRAP or CDBG or
your liaison relationships and so forth.
Commissioner Alhassani: If I may?
Ms. van der Zwaag: This is part of this.
Commissioner Alhassani: I think we’re conflating a lot of different things here so let me try to
simplify a little bit this agenda item. The City Council passed a resolution…
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Page 47 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, I know. I understand that.
Commissioner Alhassani: … to be a more inclusive community. They sent it to the HRC to see
what we can do to fulfill this resolution. The Ad hoc subcommittee, along with City Staff and an
intern did research on what different communities do, we listened to members of our community
about what are their complaints and we can up with a lot of ideas. Some of those ideas are
policies, which need the approval of City Council. Some of those ideas are programs which
we’re going to do which we can make our own to do that and some of those things go to Staff to
look into. What this is – the goal of this agenda item is to figure out if we as an HRC want to
send to the City Council the two policies which need City Council approval.
Vice Chair Chen: Oh ok.
Commissioner Alhassani: The two policies are SB-54 and CEDAW so those where the two
primary policies that came out of the research that we think would go towards the City Council
resolution. That’s the only thing I think we need to focus on right now.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes.
Commissioner Alhassani: Don’t worry about the work plan, don’t worry about anything else.
Just these are two policies that we need too…
Commissioner Lee: So, is the recommendation that in December we say to City Council, these
two policies we would like you to have Staff work on these or are we going to have specific
policies for them to adopt in December? I think it’s the first one right; we want to look into these
two policies.
Commissioner Alhassani: Correct. I think we recommend these policies generally but obviously,
I think the City Attorney would have to make sure that that City would be able to do it, be
compliant with it, etc. etc. but yes.
Commissioner Lee: Ok, well if that’s the case then I am ok with saying we would like to do
CEDAW. I mean we don’t have a CEDAW ordinance ready for them to pass in December but
we just want to get the process rolling and I’m fine with that.
Commissioner Alhassani: But find out from the Chair, if that’s what…
Chair Stinger: Thank you, that really – the clarification was very accurate and thank you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: So, we’re basically voting on the two policies that we want to
present to City Council whenever we decide to do that. Is that what’s on the table? I mean are we
ready to make a motion?
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, we are not agreeing about whatever we’re doing yet but only the policies.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Yes, we haven’t flushed it out but those are the two categories.
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Page 48 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: We have to decide on what we are going to do this year before we can say yes.
MOTION
Commissioner Lee: I’ll make a motion then to authorize the Chair to bring forward the SB-54
and the CEDAW policies to Council at the next available meeting. So, December possibly and
asking City Council give us the authority and resources to explore implementation of these two
policy topic areas.
Chair Stinger: I second the motion.
Commissioner Lee: If that’s not confusing.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I think it’s more about the proposal, not an implementation. We’re
not quite at the implementation.
Commissioner Lee: No, no, so request that City Council direct the Commission and City Staff to
explore how we can…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Research and what it takes to become a CEDAW City.
Commissioner Lee: CEDAW City and SB-54.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: In that case I second.
Vice Chair Chen: I want to clarify this. You are not saying tell the Council that we did all the
research and this is what we recommend? No. You just like bring it in…
Commissioner Lee: These are two policies categories that we’d like to…
Vice Chair Chen: To work on…
Commissioner Lee: …to work on.
Vice Chair Chen: …and just work on. Not a complete report yet.
Commissioner Lee: Right.
Chair Stinger: Now that’s important for two ways. We’re going to need Staff help and we need
Council to say…
Commissioner Lee: To authorize that, yes.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes because you don’t have the resources to do that.
Commissioner Lee: Directing the Commission to work on it with Staff’s help.
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Page 49 of 58
Chair Stinger: Or the other way around. However, we get the job done and do what it takes.
Vice Chair Chen: It may take another year.
Chair Stinger: Anymore discussion?
Commissioner Lee: I place the heavy lifting on the Commission with Staff’s support as opposed
to the Commission support Staff because I know that their time and resources are limited.
Chair Stinger: Ok, hold that sentence because our capacity is limited also.
Commissioner Lee: That’s true, that’s true.
Chair Stinger: But for now, our first recommendations – if we vote yes, our first – we’re taking
two recommendations to Council to give legs to the resolution that they passed a year in
December of 2016.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I’m sorry, say it one more time.
Chair Stinger: The vote is whether we take these two policy recommendations to Council.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: With the understanding that it’s going to be flushed out and we’re
going to come back with specifics and how does one adopt a CEDAW ordinance.
Chair Stinger: Yes, we want…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I second.
Chair Stinger: All in favor?
MOTION PASSES 5-0 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT ABSENT.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: A lot of trees here Mary, a lot of trees.
Ms. Constantino: I print as little as possible.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: But you recycle them.
Chair Stinger: I will first apologize, I think I took that to quickly because we’ve been working on
it so long and I was worried about time and I apologize for not setting that up but at the same
time I want to thank two Commissioners; Commissioner Alhassani and Commissioner Gordon
Gray for all the work that’s gone into this and Staff has been on top of it, thank you both.
5. Discussion on HRC Priorities FY2018
Commissioner Gordon Gray: So, now we have to look through the work plan?
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Page 50 of 58
Chair Stinger: You can tune out here.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: What’s that?
Chair Stinger: You can tune out.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I’m still here.
Chair Stinger: If we look at everything on here, we have some things that fall out of programs
from the Council referral and somethings that came up in the Council study session. The first
two, senior nutrition and overnight parking for RV dwellers, are really complex issues asking to
sit on the Commission that studies the Cubberley plan. Initially, it’s probably just a liaison
assignment but will involve work. Identifying new funding agencies, something we haven’t done
before. We have community conversations on the table, community dinner, and online
cyberbullying. You’re right Commissioner Lee that if we can move that to CEDAW that would
be helpful. We have some tactical items, the website I think that includes the welcome letter that
we heard tonight. We have some details to sew up from Being Different Together. Commissioner
Lee, you’ve suggested several times that there’s a recognition we’d like to give to a particular
event and sometimes our Commission meetings come after and don’t allow us time. So, if we
had a calendar of events, we could just develop that and send it to…
Commissioner Lee: Let me just put that together and…
Chair Stinger: That’s an easy one.
Commissioner Lee: That’s an easy one.
Chair Stinger: Then we have our core responsibilities so I’ll start. I think maybe given the hour,
the easiest thing might be to say if the worksheet is clear, maybe everybody could just take it and
come back with the areas that they want to work in. Does that make sense? I think to do a group
consensus at this point without all the Commissioners here is futile.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I second that.
Vice Chair Chen: I thought we had decided in our retreat that we had a table at that time.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, that was I think brainstorming session at that point.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes and I thought we had some sort of thing.
Chair Stinger: We did.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes but this is another one? We should do it over again?
Chair Stinger: The reason I am suggesting that we never really synced both ideas. Just everybody
had an idea and we were defining it and explaining it but we never put it into a work quarter.
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Never thought it about how much Staff time we were taking.
Vice Chair Chen: Right.
Chair Stinger: If people can email me the topic or topics or interests…
Vice Chair Chen: It’s dangerous that we do that because a lot of things people may not want to
take on. Some are difficult and complicated subjects so I mean this…
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think that…
Chair Stinger: I thought I could do a draft if I knew what people were interested in and I could
then come back so we could see what’s covered and what’s not.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think in doing that the danger that you run into is people wanting to do
their individual projects. I think that’s a collective conversation or when people are looking at
this, they are really truly being inclusive of understanding of the core projects need to happen but
what are our two priorities this year as a Commission. You identified that as fostering
community conversations and gender equality. If you identified those two as your two focuses
for the year, then I think you should probably tier it and say ok, our tier one is your core
responsibilities, tier two is those two focus areas that you had and reasonable projects that are
under those. If those you can all get covered then let’s look at tier three of maybe projects that
people what to do because if everybody picks their projects they want to do and none of them fall
under those two focus areas, then you haven’t a reached a goal for the year. That would be a
suggestion that I have.
Chair Stinger: The only amendment that I would make to that is that we had ideas of fostering
community conversations going forward for this year but we didn’t factor in when we said that
finishing the Council Resolution and so I see that as a priority.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I hear you.
Chair Stinger: So, I would consider that a priority for the year; at least some of them.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well, I would consider that tier one, core responsibilities and items that are
continued from the previous work plan.
Chair Stinger: If we look at tier one, core responsibilities pretty much have covered Council
buddies. HSRAP and CDBG, we know we’ll fill those when the deadlines are announced in the
new year. I’ll take responsibility for finishing up the resolution. I’ll take responsibility for gender
identity and that would be quarter three. The Welcome America would be quarter four, I’ll do
that.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: So, you’re asking Commissioners to pick the ones they are going to
work on? Is that what we’re doing right now?
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Page 52 of 58
Chair Stinger: Yes.
Vice Chair Chen: From the first beginning, Council referral items, you’re working on that? The
first part?
Chair Stinger: Yes.
Vice Chair Chen: Ok.
Commissioner Lee: The overnight parking for RV dwellers, you can put me down for that one.
Vice Chair Chen: Oh, where’s that? Oh, I thought we were working on the first one.
Commissioner Lee: Well, I mean she already mentioned that she would take most of those.
Vice Chair Chen: You’re going to take most of those?
Chair Stinger: Yes.
Vice Chair Chen: So, we don’t do this, right?
Ms. van der Zwaag: But that would be based on a Council or referral.
Chair Stinger: Senior nutrition, there are a lot of backgrounds there and I know it’s…
Vice Chair Chen: I don’t know how to tackle the problem.
Chair Stinger: I don’t either. I’m not sure what added value we could have. There’s been so
much work that’s been done. The only thing that might make sense is to look at how other cities
do it and how other communities do senior nutrition or to see if there’s an interest in opening up
the discussion again to have one kitchen supplying north and south Palo Alto. Work on the
shuttle or maybe put together an ideal program and invite the parties to discuss. I’m not sure
what we can add to the current situation that hasn’t already attempted.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: So, should we cross it off? I feel like we should get some velocity
here.
Chair Stinger: Yes, I’m waiting for…
Vice Chair Chen: What is that Cubberley plan?
Chair Stinger: That was a recommendation from Council Member Filseth that…
Vice Chair Chen: I didn’t get it.
Chair Stinger: … the HRC be included in the Committee – in the task force for the Cubberley
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Page 53 of 58
plan so, that’s really a liaison opportunity.
Vice Chair Chen: Ok, what’s the Cubberley plan for now?
Ms. van der Zwaag: That’s a Master Plan for the Cubberley site so that is a site owned by the
school district and part of the property the City owns so the school district and City is on a long-
term lease. They are looking at if the school district makes a decision if they are going to reclaim
the property having discussions regarding what that may look like. Is it just a high school; is it
this grand plan of multiple sectors and agencies using it? It’s a master plan for the Cubberley
site.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: How is that an HRC?
Ms. van der Zwaag: Well I think the HRC because the HRC has the insight of knowing the needs
of non-profits in the community. I mean if it’s a site where people say let’s just have these kinds
of groups there and the HRC says well, we know non-profits and there are groups that need
maybe – could be co-located with other groups. I think it’s good you have the ideas of human
service agencies; you know child care providers and I think looking at it from a different scope.
Not just a nuts and bolts lease agreement and of looking how it could be a multi-use center for
the community or how the school and the City might use that property together. I was not part of
the last process so I am speaking not with a clear knowledge of it. As you know I am at
Cubberley and part of what has made that center a wonderful place is the mixed-use of groups
that are there. There are many that are interested in seeing that continues and understanding the
perspective of different types of groups in the community and I think that’s what the HRC would
bring.
Council Member Kou: There’s also a large number of senior in groups in there. There’s the
stroke…
Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes.
Council Member Kou: The stroke organization.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Cardiac Therapy.
Council Member Kou: So, you know in developing that Master Plan, is there opportunity that it
can be a senior wellness center and then what else can we put in there for the youth? What are
the different groups in our community that might need it in a universal way so that it can change
with the times? The Committee can bring to us on how you see the best use for this location. It’s
one of our last location where we can do something for the community and that’s a very
important aspect. The schools are involved in this too so for the youth, the fields – what are
things that are going to kind of keep them kind of engaged and give them a space to be at so you
know things like that.
Chair Stinger: I think the Avenidas temporary location has driven some interest in having senior
serves in South Palo Alto as well as downtown. So, there might be some ways to explore having
senior activities and we could represent that if we had a seat at the table. I think that was an
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Page 54 of 58
exciting idea.
Commissioner Lee: I’d be open to being one of the liaisons to that since I imagine that process
can take a long time and I’ll be here – living here longer.
Vice Chair Chen: You know that’s right, you could do that. I will be retiring.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I thought you were retired.
Vice Chair Chen: Not that kind of retirement.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Oh ok.
Chair Stinger: I will tentatively explore senior nutrition to see – talk to the parties who are
involved to see if they are open to a different approach. Otherwise, I don’t want to continue on it.
Commissioner Lee: I mean maybe you keep it simple initially and have them do a presentation of
some sort.
Vice Chair Chen: No, you have to negotiate with what they want and then what we can provide.
That is the situation. I think they are very clear what they want that’s not something we could
provide.
Council Member Kou: On the shuttle part here, considering for shuttles, maybe explore also
where most people are coming from that need the services for the shuttles. Also for people who
have functional needs; you know wheelchairs and that sort of thing. How easy is it for them to
get on and off the bus where they are going? Right now, I know that there are people who are not
seniors who are not going to Steven’s House for lunch because they can’t get onto the buses. It’s
just a problem for them to catch the shuttle, put their wheelchair on and there’s not even a space
for shuttle – on the shuttle for their wheelchairs so we want to – maybe perhaps you can look
into that part of it too.
Chair Stinger: Thank you.
Vice Chair Chen: Well, I thought we would also look into the possibility of La Comida in two
places.
Council Member Kou: That’s what the long-term plan, right? That is the long-term plan
although, for the shuttle, there is immediate need if we want to have more folks come and from
all different walks of life.
Vice Chair Chen: How are we going to find out that – about that? We have to go into the shuttle
bus situation and ask the companies?
Council Member Kou: No, no.
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Page 55 of 58
Ms. van der Zwaag: I think that’s beyond the scope of authority of the HRC. It’s just really
understanding the needs to pass onto Staff that they may not have realized and to share those
implications. I mean the City has just completed a pretty extensive shuttle survey which thanks
to Staff and the HRC, got a significant amount of seniors to respond too. I think given the
situation of La Comida right now, there probably some additional questions that could have been
asked in the shuttle survey or when the HRC went out to talk to seniors that might have been
interesting. In this situation, the wheelchair issue, I have heard but there were a lot of
implications or a lot of suggestions that the seniors came up with during that survey that was
passed onto the consultant that we already know that would be positive for seniors if the City
could be able to Staff and find the funding, hopefully through VTA, to implement some of those
recommendations that are already out there.
Chair Stinger: Given the time, I’d like to suggest that I type up what we said and recirculate it,
recycle it for next month.
6. Discussion of the HRC Draft Community Recognition Policy
Chair Stinger: I have a question on agenda item six since we didn’t make an agenda change at
the beginning; it is too late to table that? Community recognition…
Commissioner Lee: Yes, we can just move to table it.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Yes, they decided to move that to the next agenda item due to time.
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, that’s wonderful, yes. We don’t have time for that.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Council does it all the time. They get tired at 2 AM.
Council Member Kou: Yes, we’re not allowed to go past 11.
7. Recognition of Service for Commissioner Shelly Gordon Gray
Commissioner Lee: Should we postpone number seven
Chair Stinger: Ok, I’d like to table number seven and have you come back. No, I don’t want to…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: No worries, only a 2-hour plane ride.
Chair Stinger: I just really want to thank you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: This is number seven?
Chair Stinger: This is number seven and this is your chance to go out. You started in high gear
with the domestic violence program, you help me out with Being Different Together, you really
paid your dues on HSRAP multiple times and I really appreciate it. You’re a great Commissioner
and we’ll miss you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Thank you and I’ll miss all of you. It’s been a hell of an
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Page 56 of 58
experience. I’m going to take it with me to Arizona where they need me.
Commissioner Lee: Are you going to apply for the Human Relations Commission?
Commissioner Gordon Gray: They have Commissions in the City. They have an Environmental
Commission and I might be an option. Yes, it’s been my privilege.
Chair Stinger: I’ve talked about things you did but I also need to address your approach. You’re
very creative and also very efficient and I envy that. You’ve done a lot and when we take
CEDAW to Council in December, we’ll owe you a lot for that.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Thank you.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I also have a proclamation from the Mayor on your behalf for the event that
you were unable to attend a couple weeks ago. The HRC was well represented, well lauded by
Council Member Kou so I just wanted to give you your copy of this part of the proclamation.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Thank you. This will go next to my Ph.D., no, in my new office.
Thank you. I’m flattered, thank you, everyone. Thanks for all you taught me.
Ms. van der Zwaag: We have cookies for after the meeting or maybe even now. Oh, eat them
now so we’ll start with you.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Oh my gosh, this will get me home.
Chair Stinger: To your old former home.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: That’s right but of course if I eat two of these, I can…
Vice Chair Chen: Yes, right.
V. Reports from Officials – Chair Stinger
1. Commissioner Reports
Chair Stinger: Commissioner reports?
2. Council Liaison Report
Chair Stinger: Council liaison report?
Council Member Kou: We really appreciated the presentation with what you are hoping to do
this year and it’s a very aggressive work plan. So, I just want to say that through this year I’ve
been very honored to be part of this and learning from all of you. Each and every one of you
have so much to share and so Council shares the same appreciation. I just want to say thank you
and keep up the good work. All the best to you…
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Shelly.
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Page 57 of 58
Council Member Kou: … Shelly. I was going to say your long name, Gordon Gray,
Commissioner, thank you so much.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: Thank you.
3. Staff Liaison Report
Chair Stinger: Staff report, please.
Ms. van der Zwaag: I didn’t have anything. The only thing that I was going to pass on, which I
did via email, was the notice of the Colleague’s Memo going to Council on Monday night
regarding renter protection. I’ve heard from Mary that got moved, didn’t you say?
Ms. Constantino: Oh, yes it was moved.
Ms. van der Zwaag: It’s 7:15 now not 9:45.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: well, that’s new.
Chair Stinger: I have a note from Greer that says that the voice of the HRC could truly help
move forward an issue that is close to our hearts. I think it would be wonderful if you could
mention that and encourage members of the HRC to attend on Monday night to show support.
So, if some – since it wasn’t an agendize we can’t ask somebody to speak for the HRC but as
individuals, if anybody can attend Monday night that would be great.
Vice Chair Chen: I will attend.
Chair Stinger: I will also.
Commissioner Lee: I had a meeting scheduled for that time but I can reschedule it.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I might be able to come.
Chair Stinger: That would be great. Items for next month?
Commissioner Lee: Am I allowed to ask them to refer it to the Commission or no?
Ms. van der Zwaag: You can just say I am a member of the HRC and we are very interested in
this issue and we are at your service something to that effect.
Chair Stinger: I really appreciate that because it is such an important issue.
Commissioner Lee: This coming Monday, right?
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR MEETING: Thursday, November
10, 2017
Chair Stinger: Items for next meeting, November 10th?
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Page 58 of 58
Vice Chair Chen: Discuss this recognition policy.
Commissioner Lee: Well we skipped – we tabled that.
Chair Stinger: We’ll do it in November.
Vice Chair Chen: Continue to talk about the priorities.
Chair Stinger: Update on immigration and CEDAW.
Commissioner Lee: Can I suggest that we either at the next one or the following one, that this
Amnesty thing on the agenda, please come to us in August and October or at least refer it to a
Committee to discuss.
Vice Chair Chen: How are we going to do that?
Commissioner Lee: I mean we could have someone from Amnesty come and do a presentation
on that. I mean given that he’s come twice I’d like for there to be some action, even if it’s just a
presentation or referring it to a Committee to discuss.
Chair Stinger: I think it needs to be on the agenda.
Commissioner Lee: Ok, yes.
Chair Stinger: On The Table is November 15th and our meeting is November 10th so we’ll do a
final update on On The Table.
Ms. van der Zwaag: Mary also mentioned that usually in November you talk about what you’d
like your December gathering to look like.
Commissioner Gordon Gray: I know it’s everywhere.
Chair Stinger: Ok, hardcore, thank you all.
Commissioner Lee: Move to adjourn.
Chair Stinger: Meeting Adjourned.
VII. ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 10:11 p.m.