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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-09-13 Human Relations Commission Action MinutesPage 1 of 44 HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION Thursday, September 13, 2018 Community Meeting Room Palo Alto Civic Center 250 Hamilton Avenue 7:00 PM REGULAR MEETING ROLL CALL: Commissioners Present: Brahmbhatt, Kralik, Lee, Smith, Stinger, Xue Absent: O’Nan Staff: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino I. ROLL CALL Chair Stinger: Welcome, this is the September 13th Human Relation Commission meeting and beginning of fall and school. Welcome, roll call, please. Commissioner Xue: Where do I sit? Ms. Minka van de Zwaag: Right here. Chair Stinger: Right here. Ms. Mary Constantino: Thank you. Commissioner Xue: Right on time. Chair Stinger: It was just perfect, you couldn’t have done better. Thank you all, I’m really excited to get started this year. It feels like we’ve been away for so long and we have. II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS Chair Stinger: We’ll move to agenda changes, requests, deletions? Any alterations? III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Chair Stinger: Then we’ll go onto oral communications and I have one card, Mark Weiss. Thank you, Mark. 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. 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 2 of 44 Mr. Mark Weiss: Good evening my name is Mark Weiss, I live in Palo Alto on Bryant Street in downtown here. I was actually a candidate for this Board and previously as well in 2015. I spoke Monday on this topic during oral communications, I’m in the events business, I have a company called Earthwise Productions, it started in ’93 here in Palo Alto, and it was originally a spin-off of Earth Day produced by Bay Area Action; which included among its leadership Peter Drekmeier who became eventually City Council Member and Mayor. My company initially did most of its work was at Cubberley Community Center, the municipally operated hall. It was a series mostly of rock and jazz and blues concerts but the purpose of it, following its origin, was initially raising consciousness about environmental concerns and the planet. Also, a huge part of it was not just for the appreciation of music but the idea of building community, even temporarily a couple hours at a time. Getting people out of their homes to see their neighbors incidentally while listening to music or in the lobby or some such. I also think the arts have a capacity to help people think differently about policy issues. So, what I spoke about briefly on Monday was the idea that I’m interested in producing an event that is overlapping with the aims of this Commission as I understand it. What I’m interested in doing is a comedy event – an entertainment event but also has an element of multi-culturalism and it comes out of having met a few years ago a – it doesn’t have to be about this guy but I have spoken with him recently on this topic. His name is Samson Koletkar and he’s from India but he’s also unlike many other Indians he’s not Hindi, he’s Jewish. In fact, there use to be a Jewish street fair in Palo Alto called Two Life on California Avenue so I met him in 2007 or so. He also in addition to doing stand up comedy he produces tours and he’s had something called the – I think it’s called the – it might be the – well it’s a Muslim and non-Muslim comedy tour. I’m forgetting exactly the composition but people all over the world have overlapping anxieties and interests and sometimes when we joke about things it’s a way of bonding or reaching a deeper insight into things. I just thought it would be interesting to produce something in Palo Alto, although I have a history of Cubberley, most it was in the ‘90s but I actually like the new Mitchell Park. I don’t mean to make this a commercial but I am doing, for the first in a while, an event in Palo Alto. A jazz concert, October 18th at Mitchell Park, El Palo Alto Room and so I’m wondering about that same space for a comedy event. Maybe as soon as this fall, maybe a Thursday or a Sunday and I might just unwrite out of pocket but traditionally years ago there use to be capacity for city departments to co-sponsor events and the use of Cubberley once a year for each department. There used to be such a thing, maybe Minka recalls. She can’t talk on it today but I’m sure she knows about these things and if it overlaps with – the other precedent, of course, is Claude Ezran, he was Commissioner in 2009 of this Commission, produced World Music Days, that’s precedent. Chair Stinger: Mark, thank you. Any other oral communication cards. IV. BUSINESS 1. Human Services Resource Allocation Process HSRAP Listening Forum –Presentation by Kate Young, Palo Alto Housing Chair Stinger: Then we’ll move to our business agenda. You’ll recall that we started with an HSRAP learning series some time ago… Ms. van de Zwaag: I think you’re speaking to the CDBG? You’ll have an opportunity to speak 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 3 of 44 when that agenda item comes up so don’t worry. You didn’t miss your chance. You’re welcome. Chair Stinger: So, I was saying that we had begun a listening forum to listen to some of the new programs and new ideas that are coming out of our HSRAP grantees. Kate Young is here tonight to talk about Palo Alto Housing and I’m very excited. I’ve spent one very long afternoon with a great hostess and I really appreciate all that you’re doing so I’m anxious to hear what you have to share with us tonight. Ms. Kate Young: Thank you everyone for the opportunity to come and talk about what we’re doing at Palo Alto Housing. I assume most people know what Palo Alto Housing – what we do. Ms. van de Zwaag: We have some new Commissioners so you might just give a 30-second overview. Ms. Young: So, we’re a non-profit organization that has been building affordable housing here in Palo Alto since 1970. We have buildings all over town, over 700 units of housing for seniors, for single individuals and families. Oak Court Apartments is this one pictured here, 845 Romana Street, Colorado Avenue, Arastradero Road, behind Molly Stones on California Avenue. Varies apartment buildings around town and our mission is basically just to provide affordable housing to folks who are living and working in this community. Many of our residents serve Palo Alto in one capacity or another and are now retired. Many of our current working families are working in at the school district or at Stanford, Stanford Hospital in support positions, nannies, childcare workers, retail, and restaurant employees. All of those kinds of very essential positions that we all rely on every day and so we’re providing affordable housing so that families get a chance to live near where they work, so we feel very passionate about that opportunity. So, in addition to the housing, we provide on-site resident services, just to support people in reaching their goals. Maintaining stable housing which can be an issue for some folks, also connecting with community, building a sense of community within our properties, and then also working on whatever goals that they may have. The needs and the interests and the backgrounds of families and folks in our housing is very, very diverse. Sometimes there can be misconceptions about affordable housing and what it is and who lives there. I can attest that there’s just extreme diversity of backgrounds. So, what we do in Resident Services are three things; support counseling and housing retention so that’s just working with people individually on their individual needs. Educational Programming and Social Services which is where HSRAP helps support some things that we do around that. Then Community Building and Resident Leaderships so looking for opportunities for our residents to be leaders in their community. One of the main things that HSRAP has supported over the years is our Stepping Stones to Success youth program which we serve over 100 of our kids in Palo Alto every year and we do it through four main initiatives. One is Learners to Leaders Afterschool Programs, so kids can come to the community rooms at their apartment building every afternoon and get support with their homework. We do lots of work around leadership development, life skills, communication, respect, and all of that kind of good stuff. Kids in Action -- we have three different programs throughout the summer which I can go into great detail on and it was just tons of fun but we probably don’t have time for all of that tonight. Kids in Action, Entrepreneurs Club Summer Program, and Digital Leaders, every summer the kids go out in front of Whole Foods and sell their homemade candles and all kinds of fun stuff. It’s a lot of fun so that’s one of the things that 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 4 of 44 we’re very grateful for, for having the funding support to keep going every year. What’s neat about our programs is that with our staff – look, I’ve been working at Palo Alto Housing for 15- years, I’ve known kids for 15-years growing up and so it’s ongoing relationships in which we really feel like we can be an impact as a mentor, as a role model, as a guide to a child or a family. We also have Senior Nutrition Boost which is a program at our senior property on Sheridan Avenue where we’re really trying to make sure that folks have access to healthy food options and also reducing social isolation. When we live alone, older adults can sometimes eat alone which I believe eating is a social activity and is better when we do it with friends. Also, we tend to, when we eat alone, not make the best choices, right? So, HSRAP helps support the food express trips which are monthly trips out and about to various grocery locations to help folks make sure that they are getting the fresh fruits and vegetables and can purchase them on their own. We also work with Second Harvest Food Bank and that’s what you can see here; some pictures of this volunteer that’s been working for 30-years to deliver bags of food from the Brown Bag Program. We do on-site cooking classes and also do a lot of social meals. We have big Thanksgiving dinners, tea parties, Chinese New Year celebration and all kinds of things to really bring people together, celebrate together as a community, and make sure that people are having fun and interacting and getting all kinds of emotional wellness along with that. Also, CDBG supports our SRO Support Services which our two SROs are Alma Place and Barker Hotel and there’s a little bit of higher needs populations. We provide a little bit more intensive wraparound holistic case management, so we have an onsite Service Coordinator, Raul. He’s been with us for over 10- years, a background in counseling and then he’s working a lot on housing retention intervention. So, folks may have some behaviors that put their housing at risk at times, you know violation of house rules and stuff so we really want to work with them to make sure that they're able to meet their obligations as a tenant. Then also we do food security through a Food Runners Program which is a neat non-profit, we partner with them to bring food on site. Again, people are living very limited incomes, don’t have full kitchens in an SRO property, Single Room Occupancy, and so we want to bring in some additional food resources for them. So, what’s exciting and new about our programs that I just explained and are ongoing? We’ve been doing it for years and we’re plugging away with it. Some new things that we’re doing are partnering very closely with PAUSD on two initiatives; Family Reading Club and another one on the next slide is Family Leadership Conference. So, we’re trying to really address and look deeply at, of course, we all know about the achievement gap issues and opportunity gap. We’re really looking at what is that? What is the information that’s missing and the challenges that lower income, maybe first- generation families, are having in navigating our highly competitive school system? We’re working with PAUSD to do family reading clubs which are these twice monthly literacy nights for parents and young readers, bringing them together, really creating a culture of literacy. Talking about books, having fun with books, doing reading extension activities, giving books away, incentivizing kids for reading, coming back and they get to spin wheels and earn prizes and all of that. Really modeling strategies for parents on how they can make the most of that reading time with their child. So, partner reading, how to ask a child open-ended questions about what you are reading, discussing character development because that’s what the reading specialist at PAUSD tell us is what kids need most is discussing with someone about what you are reading. We’re really trying to pass on those strategies to our parents and this is tremendously successful. The kids love to come to the family reading night. Of course, we have lots of food, we have lots of fun and talk about reading and try to do costumes and make it really exciting for kids. So we’re about to launch that in September for the third school year so that’s 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 5 of 44 pretty exciting for us. Another thing that we are doing is Family Leadership Conference, so again working with PAUSD. We did our first one in April of 2018 at JLS school and we had over 250 attendees. Our target audience is low income, first generation in families, not only in our housing but throughout the district. The mission is really empowering parents to be advocates for their child’s education. Often times I have – my son is 4-years old in preschool and sometimes I’m a little intimidated to talk to the preschool teacher because she really knows her stuff. As a non- teacher parent sometimes I’m not sure, should I ask this? Should I not ask this? So, what we’re trying to do through Family Leadership Conference is empower parents and families to say yes, you can go ask the teacher. Here are questions you should ask the teacher. Here are things you can ask for. Here’s how to read a report card and really understand what does that mean and then if I see my child is performing below grade level, what as a parent should I do about that? Those are all questions I think that maybe many of us have had and we want to show parents how they can really navigate the school district, where they can go to for resources, who they should ask about academic and emotional wellness. We had this great one-day conference in the spring and parents show up hungry for information, full of questions and saying thank you for doing this, please do this again. We are looking at doing one this December before the holidays and then another one again this spring with PAUSD. So pretty exciting to be able to work with the school district in this way. I just wanted to highlight Stefany, she is one of the young women who, I would say, is one of our success stories -- you know Stefany? Commissioner Smith: Yes, she goes to school in Southern California. Ms. Young: Yes. Commissioner Smith: Yes, I – random, that’s such a random moment. She’s really cool. Ms. Young: Yes, how do you know her? Commissioner Smith: My wife works with Bonnie at PAUSD mentors… Ms. Young: Yes, yes. Commissioner Smith: … and I met them together. Ms. Young: Oh, how lovely, yes, yes. Stefany is – so I’ve known her for 15-years, she just graduated from Pally, is at Cal Poly Pomona and – did you go there? Ms. van de Zwaag: I did. Ms. Young: Oh, how cool, how cool. Commissioner Smith: She’s batting a thousand today. Ms. Young: She is one of the kids that – I’m just so proud of her. I’m so proud of all that she’s accomplished. We were able to mentor her, along with Bonnie and other wonderful people in her life, mentor and support her throughout her career -- pre-college career and refer her to places 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 6 of 44 like AJ Tutoring for free SAT prep, Student’s Rising Above to help her college counseling and just different ways to – where we see gaps, where kids might fall through the cracks, that’s what we do in Resident Services; is try to figure out how we can mitigate that and fill in that gap to help that child blossom and reach their potential. This is a picture of Stefany when she was tiny, she won an art contest and then this is her at her graduation and then her out at school, so proud of her. That’s one of my girls. So, I think that’s about it of what I had prepared if there are any questions I’d be happy to answer them. Commissioner Kralik: Are there new buildings that you are planning? Ms. Young: Yes, we are building currently in Mountain View and Redwood City I believe and always looking for more opportunities. Chair Stinger: Questions? Comments? Thank you, I am thrilled to hear about the programs. Please. Commissioner Xue: A quick question about the affordable housing, how do we define that, affordability? For example, in Palo Alto what’s the price range? Ms. Young: Right, my understanding – this is not my area of expertise but typically my understanding is that it’s somewhat dependent on the funding sources but in general it’s 60 percent of the area median income and below. The area median income defined by the Housing Authority of the county, so we’ll use those numbers. It’s very complicated funding stream and typically a new building would have different units at different income levels. So, there might be a certain number of units that are set aside at 60 percent area median income, 50 percent, 40 - 35 percent and then it’s all based on household size. Commissioner Xue: Thank you, one more question, so the majority of funding is coming from the Federal Government or the local government? Ms. Young: For the building? Commissioner Xue: Yes to be able to be affordable? Ms. Young: It’s – again not my area of expertise but it comes from the tax credit allocation program and city and layer upon layer. Commissioner Xue: Thank you. Commissioner Lee: I was wondering if you were seeing any new trends or issues arising that you feel like we may need to address in the coming years that you haven’t faced or dealt with in the past? Ms. Young: I mean, in general, the housing crisis is putting a lot of pressure on just all of us and in general, I mean our waiting list for housing are astronomical and are often closed because there are just so many people on the waiting list. I’ll always make the pitch for more affordable 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 7 of 44 housing, right? As far as what we see of folks living in our housing and the needs that they face, I think with children it’s along these lines of this achievement gap issues and looking at what supports families could really use in order to navigate the school district and make the most use of that resource. I think we see challenges on the adult side with aging and mental health and just mental health systems in general being challenging to navigate and have lots of holes in them and not always complete for people. Commissioner Lee: Do you find that the perhaps the changing demographics of the city may be posing unique challenges in a way that you maybe serve those communities or anything like that? I mean obviously, the existing problems still need to be addressed but are there any changes in the demographics or other things that are affecting how you deliver those services? Ms. Young: I don’t know specifically, I would say just in general I mean I think we’re seeing the need for affordable housing, just touching a larger group of people and folks that find themselves in homelessness that maybe didn’t before. As far as the services within the housing I don’t see a whole lot of differences or shifts as a reason. Commissioner Lee: Thank you. Commissioner Kralik: Would you mind if I asked you a follow up to my question? Maybe it’s just me but Palo Alto Housing building in Mountain View and Redwood City. Is there a reason why you’re not building in Palo Alto now? Ms. Young: I think that’s a complicated issue question. I think that it’s challenging to – I think there’s a lot of challenges to building in Palo Alto and that there have been some barriers to do that over the last few years. Our development team would be able to answer that question a lot more or maybe others can speak to that on what some of the challenges have been. Commissioner Kralik: Is anyone addressing that challenge or those challenges in Palo Alto? It just strikes me as unusual that some organization with the name that says Palo Alto Housing has given up and decided to go elsewhere. Ms. Young: Well definitely we have not given up. Commissioner Kralik: Ok. Ms. Young: Definitely not given up. Chair Stinger: I think the community soured after Maybell – the vote on Maybell was lost and it took a while to regroup but they are looking at some parcels now I believe which I’ve forgotten where. Ms. Young: There’s one called Wilton Court on El Camino. Commissioner Kralik: Is there anything that we could do to help with that? 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 8 of 44 Ms. Young: I don’t know specifically, again maybe our development team could answer that question better than I could but… Commissioner Kralik: Well maybe that could be brought back… Ms. Young: Yes, yes. Commissioner Kralik: …and give us some information to us because it just strikes me as awfully unusual. Chair Stinger: It’s a hard climate for groups like Palo Alto Housing. Ms. van de Zwaag: I think there are small non-profits that may have started in one community and even have the name of the community, even if there were not local barriers perhaps to land price or community, or neighborhood willingness for a project. I think to diversify their portfolio I think it's just pretty natural to go out into different communities and I know Mountain View has had the opportunity just to have a little bit more redevelopment of some of its properties. I think it seems Palo Alto Housing has taken advantage of for the positive of developing its portfolio a little bit deeper. Ms. Young: Right, I mean our mission is to build affordable housing no matter where we can so wherever the opportunity is we’re definitely going to take advantage and build whatever we can. Commissioner Smith: Thank you for taking on mission impossible. I know this is probably for your development team but I know Habitat for Humanity and some other organizations were looking at redeveloping unused or underutilized church plots. I know there are some because I understand clearly that land price in Palo Alto at an undeveloped acre being about $10 million at this point. That is a significant barrier to building any kind of affordable housing but I know some religious institutions will look at land lease agreements or those kinds of things so that might be a suggestion. Ms. Young: I feel like I’ve heard some discussion on that but I don’t know the details on that. Chair Stinger: Well I have a much simpler question and it’s not even a question it’s just a comment. I was speaking with the Director of Admission at one of the colleges and wanted to know something about success factors. Thinking particularly about public schools versus private schools in this conversation and I expected her to say oh, the math and the access to language learning is just far superior in a private school or the facility, small classes. What she said was the students in public schools, in her experience, just didn’t know how to question – ask if something was put forth as a statement, they accepted it. They didn’t know how to navigate the system and when to ask for further help. If they didn’t understand something they just assumed well that’s the way it is, you're not supposed to understand and giving a child or young people the tools to articulate what they don’t understand and seek help is just a huge gift. That’s great. Ms. Young: Thank you and we just see parents really, as I said, hungry for that knowledge and always feeling a little bit like they don’t feel comfortable and they don’t know what to do or 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 44 what to ask. Finally, we’re giving a platform, we’re just saying it’s ok, it’s ok, we’re here to support and let’s just talk about it. Chair Stinger: Well thank you very much for sharing the new programs that you’re doing and for your 15-year history. Ms. Young: Thank you. Chair Stinger: It’s a real gift to the city. Ms. Young: Thank you so much I appreciate it. Chair Stinger: Thank you. Ms. Young: Alright, have a good evening. 2. Public Hearing Review of Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Chair Stinger: We’re going to move to Agenda Item Two. I know we’ve all received a draft CAPER report. This is a specific format we’ll follow, it is a public hearing… Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Chair Stinger: …and if I understand the process correctly Erum will give us a report, we’ll have a chance to ask questions only of clarity, then we’ll open up the forum to the public and then we can have a chance for public comment and then for our comments. Ms. Erum Maqbool: Sure, yes. Ms. Constantino: The PowerPoint is loading. Ms. Maqbool: I’m sorry. Ms. van de Zwaag: It’s loading, just a second so we’ll have a moment of intermission. Claire, did you want to join us at the table, we can… Ms. Claire Campbell: Oh, I’m fine right here. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok. It always goes slower when you’re waiting. Ms. Maqbool: That’s true. Ms. van de Zwaag: For those of you who think we have all of these lovely up-to-date computers that zip on. There we go. 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 44 Ms. Constantino: Just use this here. Ms. Maqbool: Thank you. Good evening everyone, my name is Erum Maqbool, I’m the CDBG Staff Specialist with the Long-Range Planning Division and this is my Manager Claire Campbell. I would like to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to provide a brief overview of the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, also known as CAPER. Before I start my formal presentation, I would like to bring to your attention that we extended the public comment period from August 31st till September 21st. There was a typo in the ad so we had to republish that ad and we thought it was fair to provide the public more time, so now it’s until September 21st. The CAPER report covers the fiscal year 2018 starting from July 1st, 2017 and ending on June 30th, 2018. The city has 90-days from the end of the fiscal year, which was June 30th, 2018, to submit this report to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and we are planning to submit it by September 28th. The basic purpose of CAPER is to provide a brief summary of CDBG funds expended and accomplishments made the funding during the fiscal year. A little background on the Community Development Block Grant Program, also known as the CDBG Program, it’s a principle federal program and the City of Palo Alto receives annual funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as an entitlement city. The activities funded through the CDBG Program must meet one of the three national objectives. First just benefiting low and very low-income persons, second aide in prevention or elimination of slums or blight, and the third is meet other community needs that are particularly urgent for the low-income community. All the activities funded by the city this past fiscal year met the first objective. This is the slide of the funding allocation for the fiscal year 2017 and 2018. There was a total of $901,415 valuable and the break down to HUD we got the entitlement grant of $436,309 and the resources available from previous years were $329,057 and the anticipated program income $136,049. The city has five funding categories in which to allocate funds, one is Public Services, two is Planning and Administration, the third is Economic Development, fourth is Housing, and the fifth is Public Facilities. As per federal regulation, there is a maximum spending cap of 15 percent on Public Services and a spending cap of 20 percent on Planning and Administration. There is no cap placed on the other three categories. The five Public Services providers the CDBG staff with during the past fiscal year under the Public Services categories are LifeMoves, Catholic Charities, Palo Alto Housing Corp, YWCA, and the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. So, 614 homeless individuals received services through LifeMoves at the Opportunity Service Center, Catholic Charities assisted 369 seniors in long-term care, 142 person were provided services through the SR Resident Program that Kate was just talking about and it’s managed by the Palo Alto Housing Corp. YWCA assisted six people with domestic violence services and SVIL provided improved access to 130 person to decent affordable housing. Under the Economic Development category, the city in partnership with the Downtown Streets Team provided assistance to 32 unemployed individuals in securing jobs and a total of 34 employers participated in the program. For the Planning and Administration category, Project Sentinel with the help of the funding provided for the city through the CDBG Program investigated 20 fair housing complaints and conduct audits to prevent discrimination against community members. Also, under this category, the Staff provided administrative support to the CDBG Program. For the Multi-Family Rehab, we have two projects, one is the Opportunity Center and the Second is the Minor Home Repair Program. Opportunity Center is a rehab program, a total of 88 residents will be benefited from this project. All of them belong to lower rate low-income households and the Minor Home Repair Program is a housing rehab program. 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 11 of 44 The city is anticipating assisting 15 households by granting a maximum of $10,000 grants for repairs. This was basically a brief overview of the specific accomplishments achieved during the past fiscal year all across the funding categories. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer. Chair Stinger: We’ll open it up to questions of clarity in the presentation or in the printed report. Commissioner Kralik: I just wanted to ask a question about the Catholic Charities and long-term care Ombudsmen. Palo Alto actually has an overlap between the counties I guess in terms of volunteer care. I’m actually a long-term care Ombudsmen so I work in San Mateo County on the same thing so I was just wondering what that was that is described there? I visited three facilities and in general, we do monthly visits, we follow up on any kind of complaints, is that… Ms. Maqbool: Yes, it’s the same program. Commissioner Kralik: It’s funding the long-term care Ombudsmen probably of Santa Clara? Ms. Maqbool: Yes so, we specifically take care of three long-term prior residences. One is Lytton Gardens Residential Care, one is Health Care Center and the Palo Alto Nursing Center so we do exactly what you are describing. Commissioner Kralik: Ok, I see, great. Commissioner Lee: I wanted to inquire if staff has received any public comments during the comment period? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, we did, so we received one comment from a resident of Palo Alto but it was basically more focused on the local housing fund and the creation of low- and moderate-income housing. It was… Ms. van de Zwaag: Is that the same gentlemen who CC the HRC? Chair Stinger: In the email… Ms. van de Zwaag: So that would be in your Packet. Commissioner Lee: Ok, gotcha. Chair Stinger: We did get that. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok. Ms. Maqbool: I didn’t know that. Ms. van de Zwaag: No, that happened after he sent it to you. Ms. Maqbool: Ok. 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 12 of 44 Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Is that level of public comment pretty typically for the CDBG Program in Palo Alto? Ms. Maqbool: We basically focus more on the CDBG Program and if they have anything related to funding, how we are spending the funds and all that. This is more related to housing so we usually don’t receive these kinds of comments because our Housing Planner is supposed to answer these kinds of policy questions. Commissioner Lee: So other than the one communication we got there, there hasn’t been any relevant public comments? Ms. Maqbool: No. Commissioner Lee: Is that number pretty typical… Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Lee: … from year to year. Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Is that fairly common in other cities that go through the similar process? Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Do they typically receive no comments on it? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, no comments. Yes, it’s very typical. Commissioner Lee: Gotcha, so really if there are any public comments to be maybe, they’d presumably come from an advisory body like this as opposed to the public directly? Ms. Maqbool: I’ve started working last year but I’ve seen three CAPERS and I haven’t seen any comments from anyone so I’m not too sure. Commissioner Lee: I’d be interested to see if there any communities who actually get community input when they go through the CAPER process. If so, if there are any lessons for us to adopt as a city to encourage great public comments on it. If it’s something that most cities don’t get public comments then maybe the value in having a public hearing itself is… Ms. Maqbool: So, I’m going to write down your suggestion. Chair Stinger: Thinking ahead – oh I’m sorry, please, go ahead. Thinking ahead to our January program I just had a question of clarity. I think you said the CDBG funds that were available 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 13 of 44 were $901,000 and the table on Page 8 has one million sixty-nine and Page 1 was about $800,000 and I don’t want to do any accounting but I kind of got confused in the numbers and wondered… Ms. Maqbool: So, you know the CDBG if we don’t use any funds in the fiscal year they go back to the reserve and then we have to come up with a budget and so, for example, we have all this money available but we can only use the money that was asked in the budget. So that would stay in the reserve and maybe next year when we are coming up with fiscal year 2019-2020 budget, then we maybe we can take some money from there. Then we would present in front of the subcommittee HRC and if we get approved then only then can we expend that money. Chair Stinger: I see. Ms. Maqbool: It is in the reserve but we cannot use it until it’s approved by the Council. Chair Stinger: I want to say I understand but I’m close enough. Thank you. Commissioner Xue: I actually read the whole report, I paid a little bit of attention to the detail on Page 7, Table 2. Thank you very much for providing this summary regarding the visual and the ethnic population distribution. However, when I look at this I did not see aging in distribution. In your presentation, you mentioned the 369 aiding in the long-term seniors living in long-term care. So how many senior people are not living in the long-term care center got assistance? Ms. Maqbool: From the CDBG funding? Commissioner Xue: Yes. Ms. Maqbool: The number that I quoted for the long-term care, the 369 out of the $136,000 were the ones that we assisted. Commissioner Xue: So, it’s basically the seniors that all live in the long-term care? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, yes. Commissioner Xue: Ok, the reason I’m asking (inaudible) questions, we are an aging community so we have to take a look; what’s the trend? So, whether we have the seniors living in a single- family home need to have support and all this kind of stuff, not within the long-term care centers. Ms. van de Zwaag: Right and I think one of the differences is they base the funding to agencies that apply. So, they do try to send it out to the agencies in the community that provide the services that are eligible under CDBG. So, while we might be an aging demographic, if those agencies serving them don’t submit an application then that’s why you won’t see more of them in these numbers. Commissioner Xue: Thank you. 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 14 of 44 Commissioner Smith: If we could go to Table 1, congratulations to the program for outscoring on almost every category except for the housing units rehabilitated. Is there a plan moving forward to address that one deficiency? Ms. Maqbool: Yes so you know for the Affordable Housing Category we have two programs, one is Opportunity Center and the other is Minor Home Repair Program. CDBG runs on a 2-year funding cycle. This is the second year of the funding cycle and the one project which is going to assist 80 persons under the Affordable Housing category is going to be finished by the end of November. Commissioner Smith: What is that project? Ms. Maqbool: Opportunity Center. Commissioner Smith: Ok so you’re rehabilitating the Opportunity Center? Ms. Maqbool: We are providing funds for repairing and reflooring the whole center. Commissioner Smith: Ok and that’s all going to come out in one fiscal year? It's not partial for each year? Ms. Maqbool: No, so this is coming out of the past fiscal year, yes. The money is all coming out of that fiscal year. It was a bit delayed, we were supposed to get done by June but there were some organizational changes and now we are going to be getting done in November. Although we are reporting zero right now but in December we are going to report back to HUD with the revised number for the Housing Rehabilitation category. Commissioner Smith: What’s that projected number? Projected. Ms. Maqbool: 103. Commissioner Smith: No, dollar value. Is that going to be $365? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, yes so $220 is for Opportunity Center and $145 is for Minor Home Repair Program and we are going to assist 15 households. Commissioner Smith: Ok and who’s the agency that’s doing the Minor Home Repair? Ms. Maqbool: It’s Habitat for Humanity. Commissioner Smith: Ok. Commissioner Lee: I have two follow up questions the first one was back to Table 2. I was wondering if you had a sense of what the break down was in terms of gender and whether we are seeing both genders equality served under the CDBG Program? 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 15 of 44 Ms. Maqbool: Actually, no, I have that information. It’s not in the report but I can give it to you if you’d like. Commissioner Lee: That’d be great and then going back to the question that my colleague had asked about the Opportunity Center. I know in the last year they’ve experienced some unexpected issues which caused the project to be delayed. I’m wondering if you could give us an update as to whether all of those issues had been resolved? Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Lee: I mean obviously it’s good to hear that they will be completing their target by the end of 2018 but do we expect any of those issues to linger or affect future performance? Ms. Maqbool: No. There were changes in the Project Management too but we are done with the pre-construction conference. The groundwork actually has started so this is the maximum timeline I’m telling you. Maybe we’ll get done before November so everything is started now and we are hoping that there are no delays anymore. Commissioner Lee: So, we’re not expecting it to impact future years should we provide additional funding to them? Ms. Maqbool: No. Oh no, so because we have worked with them in the past and this was the first time we experienced delays so we thinking this will be just one time and we don’t expect to experience the same thing in the future. Chair Stinger: If there are no other question of clarity – oh is this a question of clarity? Commissioner Lee: Let me ask and you can tell me if it’s a question of clarity. I was wondering if you could provide some context as to what the next steps are? Does this go to the Council for them to approve? Is it informational? How does it fit within the CDBG process that we will be coming up within the next couple months; November, December, January time frame? Ms. Maqbool: So after the public comment period ends, we have to submit it to HUD, and once HUD approves it then I’m going to send the information item to the Council as a – it’s just an information item. Commissioner Lee: Information? Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Ok and then how does it fit within the next steps in the CDBG process? I know November, December, January… Ms. Maqbool: Ok so in November we are going to publish the notice of funding availability, December we do the workshops for the new recipients if they want any help, January is the deadline of the applications, February is subcommittee – HRC subcommittee, March is the full 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 16 of 44 HRC, April is Finance Committee, May is City Council… Commissioner Smith: Can we email this? Ms. Maqbool: Of course, yes, I can. Then June is when the action plan gets approved from HUD. Commissioner Lee: Maybe I’ll ask this now but maybe it’s appropriate to answer it down the line but I’m wondering whether in the November/December timeframe whether there might be an opportunity for the Commission to have input into any additional questions that might be asked in the application process; such that when the applications were submitted, we’re asking and collecting the kind of information that this Commission may be interested in above and beyond what’s required minimally under HUD. Would that be in the November timeframe when we would need, as a Commission, to plant that suggest? Ms. Maqbool: What I can do is I can talk to the Planning Director and see what we can do and then I can get back to you on this. If you would like to see the application beforehand I can certainly provide you that. Commissioner Lee: Great, I think it comes before the Commission but there may be some Commissioners who may be interested in before we publish it… Ms. Maqbool: Of course. Commissioner Lee: …providing some suggestion to staff as to maybe additional things we want to include. Ms. van de Zwaag: I think we’d have to see if that.. Commissioner Lee: If that’s permissible. Ms. van de Zwaag: … is a possibility. It’s my understanding that HUD’s application is used national wide so that is beyond the authority of the HRC and the review process to do. So, I will leave to my colleagues in the Planning Department to find out and they can communicate back to me. Commissioner Lee: Great, so could we maybe get a response by the October meeting so that it’s in advance of that November – is that realistic you think? Ms. van de Zwaag: I’m not sure; I’ll leave it to my colleagues. Commissioner Lee: Thank you. Commissioner Kralik: I just want to follow up and ask a question. There’s a section in the report that identifies the Housing Trust of Silicon Valley and it makes a statement that a provision has been added to ensure the city funds be used exclusively for qualifying affordable housing project within the City of Palo Alto. What’s unclear to me about this section is it’s sighting that different 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 17 of 44 location and I mean when were those locations funded and are there any others that are contemplated because that looks like tremendous support that’s there. Ms. Maqbool: So, you know I’ll have to get back to you on this because this information I got from our Housing Division and I oversee the CDBG Programs. So, if you can provide me some time I can definitely get back to you on this. Commissioner Kralik: Ok. Ms. Maqbool: Thanks. Ms. van de Zwaag: Have the Chair… Chair Stinger: Do you have questions of clarity? Yes, please go ahead. Commissioner Xue: On the part CR35, so it mentioned the Housing Trust has invested over 100k assisting 16 households to purchase a home in Palo Alto through its first-time buyer program so I’m wondering about those first-time buyers. Are they living in or already living in Palo Alto or were they also coming from other cities? Ms. Maqbool: I actually had the same comment, this is the information coming from the Housing Division. I have to also provide you the information when I email the other Commissioner. Chair Stinger: I’m getting confused. If there are no other questions of clarity I’m going to close this section and turn it over to oral communications from the public. Ms. van de Zwaag: So just say officially to open the public forum. Chair Stinger: We will officially open the public forum. Please. I have one card right now and thank you for waiting so patiently. I’m glad you’re here, I appreciate it. Ms. Laura Salcido: Thank you. My name is Laura, I work for Habitat Humanity East Bay Silicon Valley and since I knew that the CAPER part was being presented I thought I would come out and talk a little bit about the Minor Home Repair Program. We are the agency that is managing and overseeing it. It’s something that’s new in Palo Alto so I would say the initial kick off started really in August with more outreach to get the word out to find people who are low-income homeowners in Palo Alto in need of health and safety type of repairs. Mainly when we started doing outreach, definitely partnered with libraries, community centers, and then other agencies like Palo Alto Housing that serve low-income homeowners. Actually, the initial push we did, we did a few presentations with Palo Alto Housing to their residents and we’re happy to see about a dozen people show up to those who were really engaged and who had good questions about how the program could be applied to their certain situations. I thought you might be interested to know the kinds of folks who are using this program. I am seeing a lot of senior homeowners, pretty common with a program like this. Interestingly in Palo Alto of the applicants who are seniors which is the majority of them, I would say three out of four of them are single senior women. A common trend with programs like these is that you’ll find a lot of women who are 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 18 of 44 widowed and maybe their partner took care of the repairs for most of their lives and now they are at a point where they need help with some of these different maintenance issues. Then, of course, being a senior, a lot of folks might be on a fixed income, SSI, and so it’s hard to find the funds to do this. A good example, I think case and point, is this women Estelle. She came out to the presentation that I gave and discussed with me how she’s been in her home here in Palo Alto for over 30-years, she’s in her 80’s now, wants to stay in her community, her ability levels have changed, she’s in a walker now, and the bathtub in her bathroom she can’t get in and out of so we’re updating that. That’s just a typical example of who we’re serving with this program. Thank you again for the opportunity and happy to come back down the road and tell you more about it. Chair Stinger: Thank you, Laura. We can now have a comment from the Commission that is not specific to clarity. Ms. van de Zwaag: That’s true, that’s true but we have to remember that the purpose of tonight’s meeting was that the HRC can convene the public hearing. There’s not – and Erum can certainly take down some comments and so forth. There’s not any vote or direction… Chair Stinger: Right. Ms. van de Zwaag: … specifically that the HRC can vote to give to this process since it’s a very specific government process and the role of the HRC is fairly limitly defined. Chair Stinger: Understood. Pastor Smith. Commissioner Smith: I got a real basic question, how does HUD determine how much to give us because you said it was an entitlement program and we’re very entitled. No, I didn’t say that sorry. Ms. Maqbool: They have a formula and they come up with the numbers on their own every year. Commissioner Smith: Ok, so they come up with the numbers? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, no, no, we don’t, we have no authority. They just tell us at the start of the fiscal year that this is the allocation and then we have to work on that. Commissioner Lee: Are there any factors though that the city can work on that might improve our score in terms to get more funding? Ms. Maqbool: So it’s like 10 percent more or less every year. What I have noticed if we’re achieving all the numbers we usually get a little more, around 10 percent. If we don’t it’s around the same amount or slightly less. It also depends on how much HUD is getting from the Federal Government and that’s how they allocate the funding. Commissioner Lee: Our performance as a city is the only kind of variable that… 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 19 of 44 Ms. Maqbool: Ten percent. Ms. van de Zwaag: Can you use your microphone, please? Commissioner Lee: So, performance is the only variable that we really have control over that might influence funding? Ms. Maqbool: Yes, yes, we have to spend a specific amount of money to show that the community needs this fundings. So, if we are unable to meet that deadline we usually get a warning and next year again, we do the same thing, the funding can get cut down but usually, it never happens with us. We are able to spend all the money before the deadline, so that’s the only thing that we are very specific about it. We have to spend money in order to show them that there is a need of this program in the community. Commissioner Lee: Gotcha, so it’s not like a situation where if the city spent more of its own money on these services they wouldn’t match it or anything like that? Ms. Maqbool: No, no, not at all. Commissioner Lee: Gotcha. Commissioner Kralik: I’m following up on the Chair’s comment in Table 3 about the resources made available and the amount expended. Is it the case that we could have expended? Ms. Maqbool: Have expended more? Commissioner Kralik: Yes, up to the amount made available? Ms. Maqbool: You know we also get the program income and this time it was more than we were anticipating. This time it was around $200,000 so before we start spending the entitlement money we have to spend the program income. I mean, yes, we couldn’t have because we have to spend the program income and then we can touch the entitlement money. There’s no way we can spend more than we have already allocated in the budget. Commissioner Kralik: I know the answer is correct that you gave but it's not jelling with me. What’s the difference between the program income and the entitlement income? Ms. Maqbool: The program income is the loan that the CDBG had provided over the years like to Palo Alto Housing Corp. and then they’re giving us back the interest. Entitlement money is the money that we get from HUD to spend every year. Commissioner Kralik: Why is it that we’re unable to spend beyond the program money? Ms. Maqbool: Sorry, I don’t get your question. Commissioner Kralik: I think the answer was that the program money – we did not spend the program money. 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 20 of 44 Ms. Maqbool: No, we have to spend the program money first and then we spend the entitlement money. If we have money of our own, like Commissioner Lee was asking, it’s actually the other way. We have to spend our money first and then HUD gives their own money. So, program income is our money, we have to spend that because we have given the loan from the CDBG money to Palo Alto Housing Corp and other organizations. We have to use that first and then we can use the entitlement money which is given to us from HUD every year. Commissioner Kralik: Your answer was that we did not expend the entire amount because we never spent the program money first, is that right? Ms. Maqbool: Oh no, we spent all the money that we have, otherwise you wouldn’t have got this entitlement. I mean if we don’t spend the money that HUD gives us, including the program income, then we are not going to get the money from HUD. I’m sorry I think I’m confusing you. Commissioner Kralik: Yes when I look at that chart, the message that comes to me, just to give you feedback, is that there’s a one million sixty-nine thousand available and we spent… Ms. Maqbool: Yes, $5… Commissioner Kralik: …$579,000, is that right? Ms. Maqbool: It’s right. Commissioner Kralik: So, the question that I have and I know you answered it but I’m just wondering can we, in fact, could spend the million sixty-nine thousand? Ms. Maqbool: We can but you know there is a budget and the timeline that I was telling you, we come up with the budget and whatever we have allocated in that budget we can only spend that amount of money. The remaining money is from previous years so for example, when I come up with fiscal year 2019 and 2020 budget, I have to tell them we have this amount of prior year resources so the budget would be higher and then we can spend whatever money that we have. In order to do that, we have to have a lot of recipients applying for different programs. Mary was saying there have to be applicants in order for us to spend money on. Commissioner Kralik: So, the limiting factor is the applicants? Ms. Maqbool: Applicants, yes. Commissioner Kralik: We could get – if we had more applicants we could spend more money. Ms. Maqbool: We could spend more money, yes. Commissioner Kralik: Ok I think that clears it up. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: I think last year when we were looking at the budget we didn’t know that we had that extra from reserves because we were trying to cut down on stuff. 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 21 of 44 Ms. Maqbool: Yes. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: We had no idea that there was all this money from previous years otherwise we would have expanded the budget easily. Ms. Maqbool: Yes, so we can only use the previous year’s remaining money. This year I think we just ended the fiscal year and we just had, I think, less than $10,000 remaining so that money would go in next year’s budget. The program income that we are anticipating would be around $200,000 and the entitlement money would be around $400,000. Then if we come up with a capital project, we have to talk to our HUD rep, tell them that we are coming up with this new capital project and if you can give us an extra $200,000 or $300,000. Then they give us the permission to use that money or whatever is remaining in the reserves for capital projects. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: So, it seems like there’s limitation on how we can use that. Ms. Maqbool: On the spending caps we cannot use more than 20 or 15 percent of the categories. Ms. van de Zwaag: Remember this is a government process, it might be… Commissioner Smith: So basically, they just have set up reserved funds and you can only tap reserve funds per their requirement. Ms. Maqbool: That’s true, yes. Commissioner Smith: So, no matter what we see in the bank, whatever their allocations are is what we can use. Ms. Maqbool: Exactly, yes, and also, they have to approve the projects that we are recommending. Commissioner Smith: Oh ok, thank you. Commissioner Kralik: It sounds like if we were proposed more projects, that they could, in fact, more money available. Ms. Maqbool: Yes so but it’s a federal program and there are a lot of regulations so they have to pass those regulations. I mean there are certain requirements that every project has to meet and if they don’t, they don’t approve the projects. The Opportunity Center project we had to present it in a way that it’s going to provide accessibility to senior citizens and all that. That’s how it got approved so HUD is, of course, the authority to approve funding for all the projects. Commissioner Kralik: Sounds like there’s a lot of strategy involved. Ms. Maqbool: Yes. 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 22 of 44 Chair Stinger: Well this was just a preview to wet your appetites and we’ll delve into it deeper in January. Erum, thank you very much. Ms. Maqbool: Thank you. Chair Stinger: It’s a lot of work. 3. Discussion on 2018 Human Services Needs Assessment Survey process Chair Stinger: We’re going to move on to Agenda Item Four. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok so I think that’s me. Chair Stinger: I counted wrong, Three. Ms. van de Zwaag: So, Three but I still thought it was me so we’re good. Chair Stinger: It is you. Ms. van de Zwaag: We are moving quite expectantly works really well from CDBG to the Human Services Resource Allocation Process Needs Assessment. For those new folks, this grant program the acronym is HSRAP so we usually use that. That is an allocation of General Fund dollars to human services agencies in the community and those are 2-year allocations so the year coming is the HSRAP selection year. We have a public hearing or bidder conference, for more specific city phrasing, for anybody that’s interested in applying for CDBG and HSRAP at the same time. We work closely together and as you know there are three Commissioners on the CDBG process and then three Commissioners on the HSRAP process. Before we do the request for proposals, it’s a very specific process that we work through our purchasing department; they work through their HUD process, we work through our purchasing process. We do an assessment of the needs in the community so that can look different. Over the years that’s been a really extensive one. In 2012 the HRC basically consumed their entire year by doing an extensive analysis of needs in the community with 40 stakeholder interviews, probably 10 focus groups, surveys and such and created a report probably pretty equal to what a consultant would do. Presented it to a very good appreciation to the full HRC and to the City Council. Since that time what we’ve been doing is we do a different type of needs assessment. At times that included some type of survey, it includes doing interviews of the HSRAP agencies, and this year what we are going to be doing is to do a survey with our HSRAP agencies and with human service agencies in the community. So, what I try to do is I try to look at the category of needs that’s currently funded by HSRAP and I look at all the human service agencies in Palo Alto or that I know serve Palo Alto residents and we send them out this survey; usually a Survey Monkey survey. We’re looking at the needs, the gaps, the trends, and the barriers for providing services and receiving services. So, we ask the agencies to speak to their own experiences and those of the individuals that they serve. The process this year will be the distribution of this survey to HSRAP and non-HSRAP agencies. I see that going out in early October, probably due late October. Then Mary on a bi-annual basis, she looks at the demographic information for the community. So, we have different markers, we have income, we have age, we have an ethnic 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 23 of 44 breakdown of the City, maybe seven to eight different factors that she looks at that she’s been tracking that were first tracked as part of the 2012 Needs Assessment so she gathers that. Those survey results come in, usually the HSRAP subcommittee and if you’re on that and you know that you’re on that maybe you can raise your hand. I know it’s Vice-Chair O’Nan, I believe – it’s on here. Ok, so those three Commissioners will just meet with me and I’ll say here’s a compellation of what the results are. Yes? Commissioner Smith: I didn’t get the Commissioners who are on the HSRAP. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok, Kralik… Commissioner Smith: Ok, thank you. It’s on my screen, I missed that, sorry. Ms. van de Zwaag: That’s ok, so they will meet and say let’s look at what that looks like and then we will come in November to the HRC. We’ll say this is what the results were last time, this is what they were this time, this is things that we notice, these are some noticing that we had and we actually went back and asked some more questions of some agencies just to fill in some gaps in information. Then this group comes up with the priority of needs for HSRAP. Now, I will tell you that HSRAP, the priority of needs currently listed for eligibility for the HSRAP Program is pretty deep. It’s pretty hard to find a service category that’s not already included and that’s why a lot of folks love HSRAP because it’s pretty easy, if you’re a human service agency serving a Palo Altan, that you’ll see yourself reflected being eligible to apply. I think there’s always discussion about adding a new category if people do see the need and that’s the vigorous discussion that will happen in November. Then those priority of needs, once approved by the HRC, will go into the grant proposal which we just call an RFP, Request For Proposals, and then the process. The applicants apply and then the subcommittee meets to review those applications, they bring their recommendations back to the full Commission for your consideration and then that goes as part of my department’s budget to the City Council. That’s really an overview of the process and if you had any questions feel free to ask me. Commissioner Smith: Minka, the only question I have is at the survey time is it anecdotal answers or do you require statistical data from the human service agency? Ms. van de Zwaag: We ask – it’s anecdotal… Commissioner Smith: Ok. Ms. van de Zwaag: … you know I look at different models that different agencies do and I think in the type of process we’re asking right now in which we’re trying to encourage as much participation as possible. If you’re asking for how many people did you serve this and this and this demographic, they tend to put those type of survey aside. Now what we try to do is supplement what we’re hearing back from our current HSRAP grantees and we can add that information as a layer into the process that’s discussed but the HRC in November. I will say it tends to be the same three needs; it’s housing, transportation, mental health services. I mean so it’s a lot of the same ones rise to the top. What you’re trying to parse out with that is last time it was more mental health for youth, it seems like maybe that’s within tense effort being covered 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 24 of 44 and there’s more of a concern for a mental health for elders. So that’s, I think, the type of thing we’re parsing out but, in all honesty, all those categories within not any change would be an eligible project already as currently is. It’s kind of a point in time for understanding the needs in the community. At times it’s not really a huge factor into changing the priority of needs just because of its current broad nature. Ms. van de Zwaag: Commissioner Lee. Commissioner Lee: You mentioned that you survey existing HSRAP grantees and other human service agencies in the city. Ms. van de Zwaag: Or that serve Palo Alto. Commissioner Lee: That serve Palo Alto, would that potentially include agencies or non-profits in surrounding communities who may have a desire to expand to Palo Alto? Ms. van de Zwaag: I have not done that, no, in the past. Commissioner Lee: Do you know how likely does that happen where say something in Mountain View or a neighboring community might be expanding and be potentially… Ms. van de Zwaag: Right. Commissioner Lee: …interested in serving Palo Alto? Ms. van de Zwaag: You know it’s an interesting question but the issue that I would have is we’re trying to assess the needs of Palo Alto residents. Commissioner Lee: Needs, I see. Ms. van de Zwaag: If they are coming into the community I’m not sure unless they’ve done extensive looking into the needs, that they would be able to… Commissioner Lee: Gotcha, gotcha. Ms. van de Zwaag: …really with accuracy be able to predict the needs here. Unless, for instance, Mountain View has a service, it’s not in Palo Alto, they are all going into Mountain View for it and they say why don’t we just do something in Palo Alto because all these Palo Alans are coming here? I’m happy to send out the survey to any agency if you have heard through the grapevine or through any of your non-profit connections that an agency might be thinking of doing. There’re probably about 40 to 50 agencies currently on the list that I have in the past sent it to and usually before we do so, Mary and I sit down together and we see if there are agencies that might be missing. So, you can feel free to email if you have any suggestions and I can see if they are already on the list. Commissioner Lee: Would we be soliciting feedback from folks in the community who 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 25 of 44 potentially had no interest in applying for this money but who have insight, sort of on the ground knowledge, about some of those needs? Ms. van de Zwaag: They might want to apply but they know that just because of the limited funding and the history of current grantees being in the process it might be they’d like to apply but they know it’s hard to get in to HSRAP but they are still gracious enough to provide us with that information to better understand the community. I can’t think of the total number but we had a pretty good response last time. I just can’t think of off the top of my head but I know I felt like we had pretty substantial information to work from. Commissioner Lee: Great, thank you. Chair Stinger: Does the survey include any questions to measure change? Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes, yes, it – in the point of is there anything new at your agency in regards to the clients that you serve or what are you doing to respond to those changes? Are there any changes that your agency is facing? Yes. Chair Stinger: I think that sounds great, thank you for doing that. Ms. van de Zwaag: One thing I know I just neglected to say as I looked down at my notes is what else is going to happen this fall is that Mary and I are going to do site visits for all of the current HSRAP grantees. So that’s kind of a layer in addition to what they’ll be providing in their survey. We’re still determining what kinds of questions we might ask the grantees but we will be paying a visit. Commissioner Lee: I wanted to ask, so we certainly as a Commission have observed certain changes in the community; certainly, the again demographic but also the growing Asian immigrant population. At what point in the process might it be appropriate for us to ask current grantees or potential grantees or just folks who are willing to provide the information, what are the issues surrounding those communities? Ms. van de Zwaag: I asked that… Commissioner Lee: Is that appropriate in the survey part or does that come later on? Ms. van de Zwaag: I believe I’m proposing to ask something that speaks to – I ask in the trends section responding to cultural language needs of the clients so we are trying to tease out. I know a couple years ago and I know several of those agencies are putting more resources but for Asian elders being able to have someone in those facilities. Either a social worker or just an information refer worker that speaks those languages so that’s top on the list. Avenidas just hired someone to be able to work more closely with the Asian population. That is something also if it’s not deep enough in here, that Mary and I could parse out when we do the in-person interviews. Commissioner Lee: Thank you. 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 26 of 44 Commissioner Kralik: This sounds like a lot of work and it’s great that you’re doing it. I just wondered could you just characterize the amount of time and effort and also how many people were actually giving you information? I mean it sounds like a big task. Ms. van de Zwaag: Well, you know I have the questions, Mary’s an expert on Survey Monkey, and we have the names except if you add names, and we click the button and we wait for it comes back. A lot of it is Mary’s effort looking at the demographic information and then the great thing about using Survey Monkey is they give you the tables to really look at to be able to do some comparison over the years. I listed a lot of steps but we kind of have it down to a way that we can do it fairly simply. Commissioner Kralik: How many individual responses do you usually get? Ms. van de Zwaag: I don’t recall from last time. Something like 18 or 19 is coming to mind but that’s I did not look at from 2-years ago how many responded. I could go back and look at that. Commissioner Lee: For this particular survey are we only interested in feedback from the professional/experts or does it make sense at all to just make that survey generally available in case any members of the community have thoughts on it? Ms. van de Zwaag: When we did the larger survey we did a big outreach to clients as well but that adds a whole layer of complexity onto it. So, what I would suggest is that we build that into maybe a future cycle to see how on an easier basis. A lot of that is the work of the agencies because they have a client base, getting the survey out to their agencies and we can speak to them regarding getting information about any survey that they already do that they might feel is helpful. Commissioner Lee: But even making the survey available just sort of in a passive way as opposed to actively engaging folks, is there any value in that? Ms. van de Zwaag: Well the questions as they are currently written are more geared towards the professional than the individual. Commissioner Lee: Ok. Commissioner Kralik: It's an interesting thought that Commissioner Lee has and I just wonder is the survey instituted in a way that provides the ability for an organization to give you more than one response and viewpoint? In other words, is it possible that there are, just as an example, several mental health professionals within an organization providing services? Would the survey benefit from permitting individuals to respond as opposed to a group or both even? Ms. van de Zwaag: Right, I can look into that option. Thank you for your suggestions. Chair Stinger: That is a good suggestion. It would be good to pay attention to how many respondents you get from one agency so that we don’t weight the survey. 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 27 of 44 Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct. Chair Stinger: You’re right, it is a lot of work and it’s just the beginning. When we have the applications and we start to read and consider and debate, we’ll really see what work is. It’s the core of what we do so we’re in for it. I’d like to move onto… Ms. van de Zwaag: Mary just gave me a quick – last time we got 27 agencies responded to the survey so that’s 27 out of 40 is pretty good. Chair Stinger: Wow. Commissioner Smith: For the City of Palo Alto that’s a great number. Ms. van de Zwaag: Thank you, Mary. 4. Further discussion on Liaison Roles and Commission Work Plans Chair Stinger: So, we’ll look at our work plan and I want to try something. I went to Mountain View’s HRC on I guess Tuesday last week and they were in a similar place in their planning but I was struck that they seemed to be doing it top down and we’re doing it bottom up. They seem to have defined what projects they’re going to do to meet their strategic goals and then assign people to it. We have our goals but we’re looking for implementation from the different committees. I think we’re going to get to the same place but I just want to go through the work plan today with an eye to what we take on and not over-committing ourselves, overpromising what we can do. I’m going to suggest that we start from the potential projects for the HRC Work Plan in FY 2019. We have, as you recall, voted over the summer and we’ve cut this to a workable number but still some stretch goals. So, I’d like to start at the bottom actually and work our way up to the top. The reason I want to do that is just to facilitate handing out a sheet with some contact information that Mary nicely prepared for us. Some of us have liaison responsibilities and I’ll just open that up. Does anybody have any questions on what it means to be a liaison or what the goal of the relationship is? We have relationships with Healthy Cities and that’s something I’m on or I’m a liaison too. Senior and Dementia Friendly Cities, the PAPD, Avenidas, Project Safety Net and PAMF the mediators. If there are no questions I hope you’ll all contact the agency, get on their distribution list, and begin attending their meetings. Maybe set off some one-off meetings with key people in the agency so that they know you’re available and interested in what they’re doing and interested in sharing what we’re doing. CDBG and HSRAP are our core responsibilities and I’m going to ask Mary to kind of track month by month what we’re going to be doing so we can see tactically what we are committing to strategically and use that as a test. Not to say that we won’t do something, we may adjust it but at least we will have a visual to see how much work hits at which times. CDBG we just heard is… and I completely lost it already. February? Ms. van de Zwaag: February is really the time where the subcommittee would be meeting so… and that would be the same for HSRAP as well. So, February and then coming to the Commission in March/April. 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 28 of 44 Chair Stinger: So, I have done CDBG as Deepali has and it’s typically a pretty intensive couple nights of reading and maybe one or two meetings. HSRAP I think can be, depending on the committee, a little bit more work but it’s the same time frame. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: I think I would like some March and April for CDBG because the full Commission it would be May Chair Stinger: We usually go to Finance Committee to more defend or be responsive to their question. We don’t do a presentation. I guess you do, staff does. Ms. van de Zwaag: Not for… I don’t go for CDBG and HSRAP is part of the city’s budget so I am there at the budget hearing. In all honest questions don’t come up about individual agencies. If there’s a question it’s usually the full dollar amount. Chair Stinger: Each of these programs work on a 2-year cycle so last year the process we went through was a review. Are we still on course? It is important but it’s pretty straightforward and it’s got some bounds on it. This year it’s a little bit more intense because it’s the first year of a 2- year plan and we may have new agencies and potentially change our minds so just a heads up. Commissioner Smith: For point of clarification, when we get the reports from the subcommittees are we voting on their recommendations or are we bringing new things to the table because I just want to make sure the process is very streamlined? We’re just voting on their recommendations, right? Ms. van de Zwaag: You’re voting on their recommendation so you can’t suggest new agencies because those agencies have to apply through a very specific process. So, if you want an agency to be considered you can give Mary and I names to send out applications but you can say– please explain your reasoning why you gave Agency A more money than Agency B. That’s the type of conversation that has there – that happens at that point. Commissioner Smith: Is there anyway before we have that meeting to just see historic funding or what the previous funding rounds looks like because I think that becomes very helpful when we come to the table? Ms. van de Zwaag: Funding – just the full dollar amount or allocations to specific agencies? Commissioner Smith: If we could allocations to specific agencies so that when we come to the table that night and the Committee’s making a recommendation… Ms. van de Zwaag: Sure. Commissioner Smith: …and it’s $10,000 for A and $10,000 for A again, we’re not arguing about that $10,000. Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct and I think that’s a very good point. There is a budget sheet that comes with the previous year. I think we have to realize that sometimes Agency A was getting 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 29 of 44 $150,000, Agency B was getting $10,000 so why are they getting so much more? Well they only asked for $10,000 so there is something more than just why are they getting more than the other. There’s background to that but that kind of information can be provided. If you want to go historically back more than that Mary has already kept those records. Commissioner Smith: Yes, I don’t need that much. Chair Stinger: It is the previous year that is on the sheets and the amount asked, the amount granted, the amount spent as I recall. That’s important not only for our understanding but usually it affects the recommendations or the reasoning of the subcommittee. We will want to share that. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: Yes, so I was enrolled last year and so I had told Chair Stinger that I could do it again this year but if you feel passionate about it I am… Commissioner Smith: I don’t feel that passionate. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: … I’m happy to remove my name and get you on the subcommittee if you want to be on the CDBG subcommittee. Commissioner Smith: I think HSRAP and CDBG are better given to other folks. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: Ok. I just wanted to put it out there, I’m happy to stand down. Commissioner Smith: No, the reason I’m asking these questions is because I’ve been in many budgets and grants in different deliberations and sometimes just basic information, like what was given the year before and what are the trends, saves hours of discussions that are in circles. Chair Stinger: Ok, moving up this chart and I’m moving up for a specific reason. We’re moving up to look at foster community conversations and I think this is an area that is really key to other priorities. I want to talk about what your programs are Commissioner Smith or what your suggestions are and think about it in the sense of we’ve seen on the city surveys a declined sense of belonging. We hear about reduced social capital, civil discourse becomes an issue and this particular topic, fostering community conversation, can feed into our understanding of our goals in subject areas; immigration, gender. I’d like to really understand what we could do this year and were it impacts on it, the line. Commissioner Smith: We’ve come up with a basic framework for what the community conversations as far as calendar wise would look like. We would look at doing something in January, slightly before or after Martin Luther King Holiday area just because I think conversations at that point of the year are very much around issues such as immigration or something with sensitivity towards community. People generally feel more proactive, plus I don’t think starting now we could effectively get something off the ground without holidays and all the other things that happen in the fall. Minka is nodding, she’s… Ms. van de Zwaag: That’d be hard. 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 30 of 44 Chair Stinger: That’s the simplest way of saying it. Commissioner Smith: I think January makes sense and then we are looking at May for a second discourse. It would be early May and the goal of doing it in early May would be we want to do it before the summer and before Tahoe and all those other great… and islands and all the stuff we do in Palo Alto because I think Palo Alto becomes 18,000 people in June and July. Those are the two parts and I reached out to Minka. We did a ton of research 2 or 3-years ago when we did our initial community conversations to look at best practices from around the country. So, by next month I would have read it again and given some suggestions on the framework on that. As a side note as not part of this Commission but I’ll invite the Commission to be part of it, I met with several people in the community from the faith perspective and from the civic perspective. We are tentatively, I haven’t told Minka this, tentatively talking about doing a dialog between the faith community and the civic leaders in the month of February. It will most likely be a Thursday night because we’re trying to get Senator Jerry Hill and Assemblymen Mark Berman there, along with some city folks. I was at lunch with a former city official and they said if there was an issue, they don’t know how the city would work with the faith community. Then I was at lunch the next day with somebody’s that a leader in the faith communities saying if we had an active shooter or earthquake, I don’t know if churches, synagogues, mosque, and other religious institutions would know how to interact with the city. So, we’re trying to frame that discussion in February and I’m on this committee and I’m working on this on the side so I think it’s just for fair discourse to everybody so nobody goes where did this come from? So I don’t want to highjack the agenda of the Committee so we’ll work on it and we can invite everybody to be part of it. Chair Stinger: I just would like to reinforce that I was in a meeting today with Emergency Services… Commissioner Smith: I saw the text. Chair Stinger: … and the comment was made that there’s one officer from Emergency Services who lives in Palo Alto so our ability to become self-reliant becomes extremely important. Commissioner Lee: So, this particular committee are they just developing the framework for the community conversations and then each particular conversation would have its own committee to actually plan and execute it? Commissioner Smith: We haven’t gotten that far yet. We’re still looking at frameworks and then I haven’t gotten to execution yet. Commissioner Lee: Will you two be actually planning the two community conversations or just helping build the framework so that whoever plans it can run with it? Commissioner Smith: I think if I remember the mandate at our retreat the goal is to create something boilerplate so that everybody could go and this I why I didn’t want to bring the faith conversation into that part because that’s not a boilerplate event. 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 31 of 44 Commissioner Lee: Gotcha. Commissioner Smith: Like we go to this room, we turn on the lights, we have this coffee, and we start and it’s these five ways we do it and we do it the same way every time I think is the goal. Commissioner Lee: Great. Chair Stinger: Part of our discussion if you recall was that we thought the community conversations would increase the HRC presence in the community. It could make HRC a go to Commission for serious discussion and civil discourse. I think it’s just really important that we do it not a regular basis like the first Thursday of every other month but the community can count on one to two community forums a year. The topics would have to come from the full Commission. Commissioner Lee: Sure, so if we’re thinking about the first one may take place in January, when would we need the framework in place by because it’s now September or are we skipping January this first year and doing… Commissioner Smith: No, no, no we’re going to do January. You have to remember, you don’t need the framework until January. As we develop the event we might go but if you ask the question, I think as long as we have the topic by October so we can start marketing and framework by November. So, I think maybe the next discussion is what is that topic for the first one and I will present some information on frameworks based on the research we did a few years back. Then maybe in November people can come back and say this is a framework we’re comfortable with. Commissioner Lee: Do we need another Committee to figure out the topic or is that topic going to come from one of the other project ideas? Chair Stinger: We were looking at topics from the discussions that we had before in gender equity, in immigration I think. Commissioner Smith: I have a question and I know I’m probably going to regret doing this. Is there any topics that anybody else on the Committee could see being a viable topic because we both sit at our own different biases in the community? So, having hear from others on the Committee might be helpful to say hey, let’s look at this and see if we can get some traction around it. Chair Stinger: I think the one thing that I would not like to see is us take on something that the Council is specifically discussing right now. I wouldn’t want to… Commissioner Smith: So, you wouldn’t want to do rent control? I’m sorry. Chair Stinger: No. I might do housing or come around at a different way but I don’t want to get in a position of us trying to tell the Council what to do. 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 32 of 44 Commissioner Smith: May I make a recommendation? As Commissioners go through this month, if you want to put together some suggestions and email it to us. Email it to me, I can put together a list and share it. Have Mary send it out before the next meeting so we can parse it out and say hey, this matches some of the programs that already exist, some of the conversations we’ve already had, and the great thing about having this list is even if we don’t get it in January when we get to May we don’t have to go ask the question again. We already have a list that will just need refreshing, not a whole brand-new list. Chair Stinger: Going back to your early question Commissioner Lee, since we were a committee of two, I think that gives us the flexibility to add the target committee member. So, we would be three for each program and play back and forth but we haven’t really gotten that far. We just got to the part of saying yes; we really want to do this. Commissioner Lee: So right now, we’re looking at possibly community conversations in January and May and then nothing for Fall of 2018? So, we’re doing two every year in the first half? Commissioner Smith: That’s a good question and I think we should look at that. Maybe doing something in September but I’m not familiar with this cycle of the committee so I think it’s an excellent point. Chair Stinger: I’m guilty of falling off the end of the cliff. Our calendar year ends in June and we have new Commissioners coming so I didn’t think beyond June but I think you’re right. If we get to spring time we should move to close on what we want to do in September. Commissioner Lee: So maybe some topics which are better in the fall and I’ll talk to you offline about some of those ideas. Chair Stinger: That’s great. Commissioner Smith: At a local coffee shop. Chair Stinger: Monitoring School Board progress on the creation of a Human Relations Committee, do you have any… Commissioner Lee: I don’t have any update on that, I’ll probably reach out to someone to see if – I’m sure the new superintendent is probably still unpacking their boxes. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: I would like to be invited to an event, so I can support Lee on that… Commissioner Lee: Ok great. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: … because I get a lot of the things from the school. There was a meeting to meet the new Commissions. I could have forwarded it to Commissioner Lee but there’s a lot of things going on and I didn’t think about it at that time. Commissioner Lee: I know the group of parents who really pushed for the creation of some sort 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 33 of 44 of Human Relation Committee that they are planning on meeting with the new superintendent or someone on their staff in the next week or two. I can certainly get an update from them to see where they are at, at that point, and if they require any assistance from us or any input from us. Chair Stinger: Great. Commissioner Lee: I’ll keep you in the loop too, that’d be great. Chair Stinger: Commissioner O’Nan had committed to do a backgrounder on the disabled and it was basically researching American Association of Disability, ADA, … Ms. van de Zwaag: American Disability Act. Chair Stinger: Thank you. Ms. van de Zwaag: You’re welcome. Chair Stinger: … standards and I think this is a great model for us to follow. To have one Commissioner or a group of Commissioners do the ground work so that we’re better able to assess at our planning session next fiscal year if this is really viable, a concrete need, something that we can do… Ms. van de Zwaag: May I add something to that, Chair? Chair Stinger: Yes. Ms. van de Zwaag: Vice Chair O’Nan is also on the Age Friendly Cities subcommittee so she actually at the last meeting brought a small brief of an outline of what she is interested in exploring. She presented it to that group and there was some interest in that group assisting her in working on such a project. So that is starting so that could be something that works with the experts because they’re all senior services providers or geriatric specialists on that Committee. We’re exploring if it stays there, she’s using them as subject experts, so she’s not going to be there. We have another meeting on Monday but I suspect that probably for the October meeting or probably for the November meeting actually, thinking how the cycles of those Committee works, she might be able to give an update on that. Commissioner Smith: Just for clarification, what is the Age Friendly Committee? Ms. van de Zwaag: The Age Friendly Committee, so the city has a community committee called Healthy Cities Healthy Communities which is living out recommendations and plans and ideas from a resolution that the Council gave on that topic. One of the goals of that Committee was to become an age friendly community which is a designation by the World Health Organization. An age friendly community is a community which strives through policies and practices to better serve the needs of older adults in the community to be able to age healthily in place. They have a whole realm of seven areas that help older adults be more successful from transportation to social connections and I can name more. So that committee is charged with looking into ways in 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 34 of 44 which Palo Alto can be more age friendly. They’ve done some things already, I think I expressed to this group that they held a training for frontline workers in the city to better serve older adults. We are hosting a film on October 7th for older adults so that’s really that Committee; geriatric specialists; older adult specialist. Vice Chair O’Nan is the HRC rep on that Committee. Commissioner Smith: Ok, thank you. Chair Stinger: I’d like to… Commissioner Smith: I was going to say one other thing. As far as work for HRC, wouldn’t it be better for us to defer that work to a committee that has subject matter experts and maybe us coming back in a year if they have recommendations to us? I’m confused, if they’re doing that and they have subject matter and serve providers, where do we fit into the great equation? Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct and that’s a good question that once we get a little bit deeper that the Committee could actually say you know what, that’s looking a little more like policy recommendations and it’s within the realm of authority of the HRC to recommend policies. I think as they look into their work a little bit more I thin Vice Chair O’Nan can bring it back to the Leadership Team and to this group saying we’ve developed it a little more. Hey you know, it falls more within the realm of the HRC or you know, there’s some program recommendations that really fall within these providers but maybe the role of the HRC would be to forward these policy recommendations to Council. I think it’s a little to early to say but it does make sense to really dig deep into a topic with people who already have subject matter or expertise instead of you all reading all these briefs on the needs of older adults. Commissioner Lee: Is Healthy Cities more of a programmatic body as opposed to policy recommending body? Ms. van de Zwaag: It can be both, at this point it’s been a little more programmatic but there are definitely options. There are two Council Members on that Committee of looking for things that could be policy related in the future. Commissioner Lee: I mean so has that aspect of our jurisdiction been spun off into this Committee temporarily? Ms. van de Zwaag: I think I would say temporarily, yes and one could say it might be completely or maybe just during the fact-finding stage. Commissioner Lee: Gotcha, ok. Chair Stinger: Gender equity, I think that’s a huge question right now until we hear back from Council what our next steps are. Commissioner Lee: I believe that’s been tentatively schedule for the October 1st meeting. Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct, I was going to go into a little bit more in a little bit but that is 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 35 of 44 correct. Commissioner Lee: I think I would guess that probably at least until January there isn’t any action from the Commission on that topic just given that Council is going to maybe see it in October and it’s nothing actionable at that point. Ms. van de Zwaag: It’s a wait and see process at this point. Chair Stinger: No comment, let’s go with the maybe. Asian constituencies in Palo Alto, have you had a chance to give any thought to that? Commissioner Smith: Of course, I had the distinct pleasure of going to the PAUSD Asian Parent Acclamation Program, I actually saw Commissioner Lee there. I managed to get the contact information and was in the process of scheduling with Ann I think her name is? Commissioner Lee: Yes. Commissioner Smith: Then my phone broke so I actually need to get her contact info from you. I’ve already started trying to connect in with communities, any time I see something on the community board that that addresses that community I’m making my self available to go and see and be part of it. I am open to recommendations from my fellow two Commissioners to give me guidance. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: I think part of the Asian or any minority community is a sense of lack of pride because the white race has so much entitlement and privilege. Generally, even in a lot of grownups people are looking up to the white race so I was thinking we could invite the successful members of the Asian community and just have them talk informally, 10-15-minutes, about their success story as to what happened. So, it’s kind of helps them feel proud that it’s ok to be Asian and not to that extent, I’m just probably making it to explicit in some sense but we could invite Asian high school students, even Asian middle schoolers who have achieved in sports, if they are doing well in studies or participated in some chess competition so come and talk about their achievement. Many of the Asians have gone through IPOs or CUs or VCs so we could invite them, what is your story and just have the sense of success around Asian. Chair Stinger: Why don’t think – let you take that offline and come back because those are fabulous ideas and I want to immediately jump in and then thinking no, it’s not my job to jump in. Commissioner Smith: I got two dates I got to figure out and I think we just figured out one. Chair Stinger: Yes there you go. Commissioner Lee: I can’t connect with the entire committee because that would make four but I can connect one or two of them, right? In some of my work on the screening that we did was that last spring? I met some folks and some community groups who may be of help to you all. 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 36 of 44 Ms. van de Zwaag: If you have suggestions you pass them on to me and I’ll pass them on because there’s three of them and you’re giving one of them suggestions, you’ve become a fourth. Commissioner Lee: Ok. Ms. van de Zwaag: Pass them on to me and I’ll pass them on to the Committee. Chair Stinger: Counting to four is the hardest thing in the world. Commissioner Smith: This is like physics right, now right? Phenomenal ideas. Commissioner Lee: There’s some parents who I’ve met through my own work on the school renaming who might be very interested in helping you engage with the Asian communities. Commissioner Smith: We did an event about 2-year ago where we brought a room full of black males together; professors; VCs; Directors. It was the one room where they were the only ones in the room and it was palatable powerful. The fact that they were able to just share stories and have experiences. So, I think what she suggested is so profoundly powerful, thank you. Chair Stinger: That’s great. Part of… Yes, go. Commissioner Xue: Actually, I read some stats of regarding the Asian community across the country. Actually, among all the minorities the Asian immigrant first generation actually has the highest percentage. So, when we use this opportunity I would like to you to invite some of the first-generation Asian immigrant to share their story on how they adapted into this community so how they influenced their case. If you remember I mentioned before there’s a generation gap, culture gap so I think this is a good opportunity to invite some of the first-generation immigrants from Asia, India, Chinese, whatever, Filipino, so I think that’s a good opportunity. Commissioner Smith: This is my last point on this Chair. I think we’re going to have to have a more sophisticated word than the Asian community… Commissioner Kralik: Right. Commissioner Smith: … because it’s almost insulting that you have the majority of the world population and we’ve named them one name. So, I think even as we talk about how we dialog with that, that I think would be a good point. Chair Stinger: We’ll look to you for definition because it is a sore point. I wanted to smudge it but I thought that wouldn’t look good either. We need to have a better titling… Commissioner Smith: Better definition. Chair Stinger: … I have one offline question but since I’d be the fourth I’m going to ask it here. I liked the description that you had of a safe room where people could listen to stories and express the reactions to it. Would that exclude non-Asians? My question is that – it comes from the City 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 37 of 44 Council when we did a study session a while ago, there was a lot of interest in hearing what the Council would take from direction. That was a bare sense. Commissioner Smith: Every person that is entered into a room changes dynamic and so the challenge becomes the second you put ten men in a room with one female it changes dynamics or ten females in a room and one male, it changes dynamics. I think as we take this journey we have to be very conscious that no matter how – I’ll give you a great example. I went to a funeral the other day for a gentleman that was Tongan. Me and my wife were the only two black people in the room and we changed the dynamic in the room. Although we sat in the corner, shed our tears, we were there to support, we were still a shift in the demographic in the room even though we were a sympathetic parties and we were part of the events and we were invited to be there. There was a definite shift like people tried to accommodate us, people tried to make space for us, people were explaining to us what was going on because nothing was in English. So even as they were making cultural references they would explain to me and my wife, so even if we did a group that was mostly Chinese, Japanese, or Indian and I came to the room. I still would through off the demo – I would still throw off the room because I might share some immigrant experience or I might share some racial American experiences but the deep ethnic experiences I have no template for. Chair Stinger: I’m really sensitive to that and maybe I’ll just leave it as a question. When you think of your target groups I think of one program that might be directed to the target audience and they’re advancement or comfort level. Then maybe a subsequent program or some of those lessons could be transmitted to Commission and Council Members who really care and want to change behaviors. Commissioner Smith: I agree. Chair Stinger: When we think of ethnicity and inclusive engagement and those probably weren’t good words either but that was the titling that we used a year ago. We have made some small steps, a lot of our focus in the past – last year was on leadership and wanting to increase civic engagement and civic exposure in more new citizens. We’ve made a couple headways and I’ll just update quickly on that. Well, I’m going to do Welcoming America Week when we talk about Commissioner notes but that is a program to highlight immigrants and new citizens. That will be finished in Quarter 1, it will be finished next week. We’d hope to have a Welcome Packet and staff took that over and has a packet that briefly introduces Palo Alto. Briefly is the wrong word, gives a first introduction to Palo Alto, a very appropriate introduction to people who are coming to the community for the first time. Ms. van de Zwaag: Right so we do have a prototype on the city’s website with resources in six categories. It is an online resource and we do have a printed copy. The first pass we tried to get it done really quickly for the Asian family even that the Parents Club was doing. It’s just going to be built on that, so if people say do you have a Welcome Packet of information I will have some hard copies that I could hand out next time. It’s available online on our departments – Community Service Department’s homepage. We’re still working out some quarks with some of the links and we’re only going to add to it and at one-point hope to have the welcome letter translated into different languages. We’re not there yet but because we had this quick deadline of 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 38 of 44 that event so that can only become deeper. Commissioner Smith: Just a quick question for you Minka, I’m on the Palo Alto Welcome Week website. Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Commissioner Smith: I’m traveling next week so I’m trying to figure out which even to go too. What’s the event at – the difference between the event at the library and the event at the Art Center tomorrow night? Ms. van de Zwaag: Tomorrow night is just a regular event at the Art Center and Lee Pfab the Executive Director from the Y is just there with the purpose of telling people about the event and getting you to fill out a sign that says I’m a welcomer. So, all of you got an email from me, a mass email, that talked about Welcome Week and you can print out the sign that says I’m a Welcomer. So, it’s more publicity of the concept of a Welcome Week in an event that draws a good sector of the community. Most of the events will be on a spur events that were already happening just for the capacity of being able to pull something off. So highlighting things we were already doing but as far as the walking map, that was something that we’re very specifically highlighting. What was the other public event? There were library -- there were book readings… Commissioner Smith: We have library booking readings, self-guided walking tours… Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct and the book at the library, I think is The River Becomes A—I can’t remember the name of the book. The Line Becomes the River or The River Becomes A Line. Chair Stinger: Community… Ms. van de Zwaag: It’s a community read I believe are part of a library series that they are doing on social justice books or it could be Latino – Hispanic Heritage Month? I’m not sure. Monique le Conge Ziesenhenne: That’s this coming Friday? Ms. van de Zwaag: I believe, I don’t have… Monique le Conge Ziesenhenne: I have it here. Chair Stinger: I think since that’s been published we’ve also put together Community Leaders Walking Tour. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok. Chair Stinger: So, I’ll pass these around later. Ms. van de Zwaag: Right. 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 39 of 44 Commissioner Smith: Who put together the tour? Ms. van de Zwaag: That was the Palo Alto Museum, A.K.A the History Museum. Commissioner Smith: I’m going to back away from the table. Chair Stinger: We’ll come back to that. One of the things we really wanted to do last year was have a bridge to civic engagement and to Palo Alto leadership. That became difficult to frame for a lot of reasons but I think we came up with a really good solution. The library does a Welcome to America Program and it has already started. It’s the fourth Thursday of every month and they do different topics every month and they’ve made room in January to do an introduction to government. So, there are people who come to the series of programs and… Commissioner Smith: Can I make a request from staff that they can provide me with the email for the person that put together the walking tours. Thank you. Chair Stinger: Well, we’ll talk about that offline. Commissioner Smith: Its very interesting that we do ethnicity and immigrant and Welcome Week and there’s not one African American or black group that’s in there. Chair Stinger: That’s fair. Commissioner Smith: This area, the black population part of the greatest migration– the second greatest migration in human history came through this place. They started on Ramona Street 100-years ago so if we’re going to be a truly inclusive city… Ms. van de Zwaag: I hear you, I think this is a first year and I think they will learn from it and… Chair Stinger: No, I’m really sensitive to that particularly because the library did do a good book club on September 8th, The Rising Sun? The Sun Rising? Talking about the immigration patterns. Commissioner Smith: You’re talking about Warmth of Other Suns. Chair Stinger: Warmth of Other Suns, sorry. I’m in the middle of reading it now and… Commissioner Smith: Amazing book. Chair Stinger: … it’s a really fabulous read and our library took that on. Again, apologize for – we didn’t see the walking tours until – they went up yesterday. Commissioner Smith: That’s why I asked for who put the tours togethers, I didn’t say it was anybody here’s fault. I just asked for the person’s name so I can launch my complaint not as a Commissioner. 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 40 of 44 Chair Stinger: We think that’s fair. So, we’re talking about two different things, the introduction to civic engagement, that’s part of the Welcome to America Program that the library does. Our program will be in January or it’s not our program. Our suggestion for the program will be presented by – has the City Manager’s Office responded yet? Ms. van de Zwaag: He will be there, so the Assistant City Manager Rob de Geus will be the speaker on that too. He’s an immigrant and to be able to speak with the immigrants that are understanding city government, how they can become involved, and to also learn from new immigrants to the community on how City government can be more responsive so really a two- way street. Chair Stinger: So that’s ethnicity and inclusive engagement and that will fall off, those three things will fall off and our focus in supporting an inclusive community will be to engage the constituencies of the target population in Palo Alto when we have a good name for it. That brings us to gender identity and that is myself and Commissioner Lee and Commissioner Kralik. We had a summer intern who gave us ground work this summer and so our proposal is to look at enhancing community awareness of the LGBTQ population, increase the scope of programing for the LGBTQ youth, adults, their families, and the community and to increase the visibility of that community and our communities understanding of that population. There is a city library and school library – PAUSD Library Committee that is exploring programing right now and they’ve included the Human Relation Commission on that and so we can explore some of our programs with them. We’ve only talked briefly, we’ll come back in a month with some more refined ideas but we’re looking right now at the importance of establishing an advisory body using the Youth Councils as advisors to help us firm up our programing. We do have the report out from the summer intern, it’s a good draft, it’s a good start but we need to kick the tires a bit and we’d like to do that by interviewing a few more stakeholders and making sure that we have the input of key people in the community. Then I think we’ll be ready to promote some programing by other people, not something that we would take on ourselves and maybe look at some events to increase visibility. You had mentioned pop up events, pop up stores, there was a request to do something for Pride Month locally, we’ve talked about having a competition to make a visual sign that says we stand together as a community. That would go beyond LGBTQ population but just some way to just mark that we are an inclusive community and remind ourselves as we walk around restaurants, police cars, city buildings, that we’re inclusive. The way I’m thinking about it right now is that we have October to December to firm up our recommendations and probably have an event in June or competition in June. If you’re looking at the work load does anybody feel like they’ve taken on more than they can… Commissioner Smith: We forgot one thing, the police department and they invited us to the CRC thing; to their Citizen – wait. Chair Stinger: Oh. Commissioner Smith: I’ll pull it up. Chair Stinger: Citizen’s Academy? 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 41 of 44 Commissioner Smith: Yes, I’ll pull it up, Citizen Advisory Committee. The PAPD is launching its new Citizen Advisory Committee on October 10th from 6 pm to 8 pm at Mitchell Park Community Center in the El Palo Alto Room. The Chief just wants us to maintain separately as an individual relationship but however we are welcome to attend the meet and greet and to learn more about the CAC structure going forward. Ms. van de Zwaag: If you send that to me I can send that out. Commissioner Smith: I will forward it to you, thank you. Chair Stinger: That’s great. Based on what we just heard and thinking about your workloads, if there anything we want to adjust? I’m excited about these programs and I would like to see us go forward, I just don’t want to overwhelm anybody. Let’s give it a shot. V. Reports from Officials 1. Commissioner Reports Chair Stinger: I think we can go onto reports from officials. Commissioner reports? Commissioner Lee: I’ll just keep it brief. In my individual capacity I had arranged for a bunch of Palo Alto Officials, a couple Council Members, School Board Members, the Police Chief, Planning Commissioner, and myself to participate in DST’s Downtown Drop Event. So, we repelled down Adobe headquarters last weekend. We raised nearly $11,000, the fundraising page is still open until Saturday so a good effort from the community on that. Commissioner Smith: The pictures look pretty dope on Facebook. Chair Stinger: Yes. Did anybody lose control? Commissioner Lee: No, we’re all pretty good. I was probably the slowest, it took me maybe 10- minutes to get down. Our Council liaison took 3-minutes to get down so he was pretty fast. Commissioner Smith: Who was that? Commissioner Lee: Corey. Commissioner Smith: Oh. Chair Stinger: Council Members had some twisting. I guess I don’t want to add anything. I think we’ve said everything. 2. Council Liaison Report No Council Liaison Report. 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 42 of 44 3. Staff Liaison Report Ms. van de Zwaag: Do you want me to go? Chair Stinger: I do. Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok, the only thing I had and Commissioner Lee alluded to it. The HRC Referral to Council was on the agenda a couple weeks ago. Just due to the nature of the discussion on some other items that evening it was moved and rescheduled to October 1st. There have been a lot of really meaty topics that the Council has been looking at last spring, summer and fall. So, they’ve been really impacted but we’re on again for October 1st at 8 o’clock. It would be great for as many of you that can make it. Chair Stinger will unfortunately be out of town so Vice Chair O’Nan will take over the role of just talking about the HRC’s decision. Usually that involves just making a short statement, I will field the majority of the questions unless there’s on specifically asked to Vice Chair O’Nan. That is that evening and we’ll go from there. Hopefully by the next meeting we can report back or if it is discussed, hopefully it will come to some resolution on the 1st, I will email the Commission afterwards to let you know what happened and we’ll go from there. Thank you. Commissioner Lee: Could I ask a quick question? Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Did we ever hear back about whether the police department will be reevaluating its camera policy? Ms. van de Zwaag: I think I did respond to you and that the answer was that they still have a commitment within the guise of this Committee that’s being set up to do that work within the auspices of that Committee. I didn’t say that will be within the first 3 to 4-months. There was no promise but that would be done but it would be under the authority to have that review by that Committee that the Chief is setting up. Commissioner Lee: Did the Council approve the policy with the understanding that the body… Ms. van de Zwaag: The Council approved the funding for the equipment. They did not need to approve the policy. Commissioner Smith: I sent you an email. Commissioner Lee: Ok, thanks. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: I’m having some surgery next week so I… Commissioner Smith: I’m not here either. Commissioner Brahmbhatt: Ok. 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 43 of 44 Commissioner Lee: I move to adjourn. Chair Stinger: Oh, not yet. Commissioner Lee: Ok, I withdraw. VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR MEETING: Thursday, October 11, 2018. Chair Stinger: Unless we don’t want to have a meeting just agenda topics for October 11th. Ms. Constantino: I think it was Project Sentinel. Ms. van de Zwaag: Project Sentinel is coming and I thought there was something else and now it’s not coming to me. Well we will possibly – no, I don’t think so. The survey will be out during that timeframe. Commissioner Lee: Depending on the CDBG staff person’s response to my question, potentially putting that on the agenda if she comes back with a yes, we can add to the application. If it’s a yes to that question can we agendize that in October? Ms. van de Zwaag: Right yes, we will wait their response. I think then I would prefer that the tenor of the conversation is do we, not what will we… Commissioner Lee: Do we. Ms. van de Zwaag: … because I don’t want to go that’s the will of the full Commission. I would want that only to happen with the full understanding of what’s already on the application or if it’s something that’s possible that it’s something that maybe this group charges the subcommittee. It’s quite a complex application and it asks very specific questions for very specific reason by nature of HUD. If that’s a possibility that the people that do it during the full scope of what is already being asked and what makes sense to ask? We’ll see that staff has to say. Chair Stinger: Community conversations. Commissioner Smith: Yes, that will be on there. Ms. van de Zwaag: There’s usually something that comes up or that Mary and I might not be remembering now but we’ll keep that in mind. I’ll do another ask out to the HSRAP agencies to see if any of them want to come. Depending on if our agendas feel a little looser we can also come up with a new learning series title. I mean if I go out to ask and I don’t get a response again from HSRAP agencies. So, for those that are new, we usually try to tie it to something that the HRC is interested in that may be, for instance, in the future you might want to take action on it but you want to do so in a more informed manner. So that’s why a couple years ago when they did housing and they did homelessness, they really wanted to understand something a little more 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 44 of 44 fuller instead of let’s do this, so that was really helpful. Then we did the mental health learning series and that was extremely helpful and the HSRAP was just something that we came up with. So, if there’s something you want to think about for a learning series to start in the future, we can consider that as well but I’d like to do one more ask. Chair Stinger: I just wanted to comment that by October all of our members will be adults and that’s great. Happy birthday. Commissioner Lee: I’m turning 30 in 11-days. Ms. van de Zwaag: Oh, I was thinking 21 and that just went right over me not thinking you were part of that young of a demographic. Commissioner Smith: Wow. Commissioner Kralik: We all looked at you which is good. Nobody was looking at me. Commissioner Lee: Thank you. Commissioner Smith: I hope you have some good plans. Commissioner Lee: I have a private room at the French Laundry for that weekend. Ms. van de Zwaag: Oh, have mercy. Commissioner Smith: I’m jealous. Chair Stinger: Now I will take your motion. Commissioner Lee: Alright I move to adjourn. Chair Stinger: Great, we’re done. Commissioner Smith: Thank you. VII. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 9:28 p.m.