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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-10-11 Human Relations Commission Action MinutesADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 1 of 55 HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION Thursday, October 11, 2018 Community Meeting Room Palo Alto Civic Center 250 Hamilton Avenue 7:00 PM REGULAR MEETING ROLL CALL: Commissioners Present: Kralik, Lee, O’Nan, Smith, Stinger, Xue Absent: Brahmbhatt Staff: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino I. ROLL CALL Chair Stinger: Can we have everybody around a table? Thank you. Thank you. Mary, roll call, please? II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS Chair Stinger: Any agenda changes, requests? Commissioner Kralik: I just want to mention that on the HRC update agenda I’m listed as a renewal mediator which is not the case. Since I was appointed as an HRC Commissioner, I have mentioned to the Palo Alto Mediation Program that I would be sitting as a Commissioner, and therefore that’s going to change in their agenda. So, I will not be renewing as a mediator, I was appointed as the Liaison of the HRC to PAMP, and I have attended one meeting of PAMP since being appointed as a Liaison. This paperwork for renewal was filed before I knew that I was appointed Commissioner of the HRC and so it makes sense that it be amended to show that I am not being renewed. Chair Stinger: Ok and that amendment is the responsibility of PAMP as I understand it. Commissioner Kralik: Yes, they’ll do that, sure. Chair Stinger: Great, thank you for that Commissioner Kralik. Commissioner Kralik: You’re welcome. III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 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 55 Chair Stinger: I have no oral communication cards in front of me, is that correct? Ms. Minka van de Zwaag: No and we feel very far away from you. Chair Stinger: I know, yes wow. Ms. van de Zwaag: This is our new setup but as we’re sitting her it feels like we’re in the next room so we’ll have to think about that for next time but no, we have not oral communications. Chair Stinger: Thank you. IV. BUSINESS 1. Palo Alto Mediation Program presentation and approval of their new mediators and year-end report. Chair Stinger: Then we’ll go to our business agenda and the first item is the Palo Alto Mediation Program. I’m happy to have you here, thank you and there will be two items for our action and that is the approval of the new mediators and I thought there were amendments to the bylaws. Ms. van de Zwaag: No, that was last year it is the one item – the presentation is more of an informational item and then the vote is regarding the mediators. Commissioner Smith: It’s listed as two different votes, is that correct? Chair Stinger: No. Ms. van de Zwaag: It was not intended too, it is two items but the action is only in regards to the approval of the new mediators. In theory you could approve their or accept their year-end report but I think the only requirement is actually to approve the new mediators. So, I think it’s just looking back is a word choice. Chair Stinger: I’m anxious to obviously hear the presentation, the approval of new mediators and hear about the new mediators. I wanted to ask Jill if you would just give us a little bit of a historical background about our relationship with Palo Alto Mediators, the scope of our authority, the role of our liaison and some of the mutual benefits because it has been a very beneficial relationship? Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, it has and thanks you very much, Chair. So, the Palo Alto Mediation Program has a contract with the City to provide free mediation services to people who live in and work in Palo Alto. The HRC was tasked with two areas of some oversight, one is the annual approval of new mediators and the other is that we are supposed to hear about the Mandatory Response Ordinance which it’s a little bit technical but basically in Palo Alto tenants have the option to force their landlords to mediation. They don’t have to stay for the mediation but it’s considered a mandatory response because the landlord is supposed to at least show up in certain circumstances. So, this is not an ordinance that’s used a whole lot but it was put in place to be another protection for renters in Palo Alto. So, every year the Palo Alto Mediation Program does 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 55 present how many of those types of mediations or calls they have taken that involve the Mandatory Response Ordinance. So, those were our two basic areas of oversight. When they come to update us on the number of cases they’ve handled throughout the year, the idea is not for us to do an extensive audit of their performance; we’re not really here to grill them or to really suggest policy changes at this level. If anyone has questions, comments, concerns, and would like to work on policy issues, that should be all done through our Liaison. Last year our liaison did not participate in workshops so we’ve been a little bit derelict in our duty on the HRC side. So, this year I’m very happy that Commissioner Kralik has agreed to be our Liaison. He’s already attending meetings so we need to rebuild that relationship and work with the Palo Alto Mediation Program to strengthen their role and make sure, of course, that we’re doing out appropriate oversight on the areas where we do have oversight. Commissioner Smith: Two points of clarifications, so if I’m understanding the description you just gave us it’s for us to listen, don’t say anything and then vote. Is that… Vice Chair O’Nan: No, we have an option to ask questions because we were submitted the biographies of all the new mediators so it would certainly be appropriate to ask questions about the new mediators or to simply comment that you like the diversity that you see or any other comments you may have. You may also ask about Mandatory Response Ordinance. In the past, we have wondered why so few cases go to that and we had an explanation that it’s sort of a trigger that doesn’t get pulled very often but it does get pulled sometimes. There are cases that are a result through conciliation rather than mediation and again, that’s a fine point that I would let our PAMP colleagues handle. There are certainly questions about the statistic that they’ve provided, how they handle cases, and sometimes too they’re branching out into new areas. For some time, they were also doing family disputes which they hadn’t done before and historically they had mostly done landlord/tenant but they’ve now gone into some new areas or trying out some new programs. So that’s all for them to really excavate and you’re free to comment or question about any of the things that you hear. Commissioner Smith: Ok I just wanted to clarify and what was the original City document that gave us our oversight scope? Vice Chair O’Nan: I’m not sure the original document was. The history that I’m aware of is that Palo Alto Mediation Program use to be part of HSRAP and so the HRC was overseeing all of HSRAP. At some point several years ago it was broken out into separate line items, so the Palo Alto Mediation Program now has a separate contract and a separate line item in the City budget. So, we no longer oversee it through HSRAP in totality but the City Council at some point had tasked us – I don’t know if whether this is in the bylaws or was a separate referendum that came down from the City but it asked us to keep an eye on the Mandatory Response Ordinance because that at the time was a new thing. Now it’s been in place for quite a while and to approve the new mediators every year just to make sure that recruitment is going well and that we feel that the appropriate people are participating. Again, I ask my colleagues to be mindful that this is a volunteer organization with the acceptation of Paul and now his successor Luis who are employees of Project Sentinel. Everyone is a volunteer and up until recently, they paid for their own training so these are people who are really being generous with the City donating their time, their money, their expertise, and mediation. So, just be mindful of that, this is not a business, this 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 55 is not a business audit, and this is not that type of oversight. Commissioner Smith: The reason I’m asking these questions is because you're so heavily biased to one side to go easy. I’m just trying to figure out what the history is for us to go easy. Vice Chair O’Nan: No, I’m not biasing to go easy, I’m biasing – I’m not biasing. I’m simply trying to scope out where our responsibilities lie. Commissioner Smith: Ok so – and I’m just trying to figure that out too and this is just for my clarification. The reason I’m – mediators, the reason I’m asking so many questions is this is the first time I’m dealing with the mediators. So, before I go in and start asking questions that are inappropriate, I want to make sure what our scope is or what the scope document is, so I was unclear. Chair Stinger: That was the reason I asked – referred to Commissioner O’Nan she had historically been the most involved and could give a better history than I could of… Commissioner Smith: Do – could we-we don’t have to do it tonight but could we just as least find out what the original documentation for us and this group? If we have other groups in the future having that in front… Chair Stinger: The bylaws. Commissioner Smith: Whatever the scope for the City is because sometimes… Chair Stinger: Makes sense. Commissioner Smith: I just want to make sure that I’m reading what I'm supposed to be doing ahead of time so at least I can say I’m not putting people in weird positions or biasing a certain way. Chair Stinger: Good request, I think that’s – we all would echo that foundation. Can I turn it over to the mediators? Ms. Megan Gorman: Do you want to introduce yourself? Ms. Karen Michael: I’m Karen Michael, I’m one of the current Co-Chairs. Mr. Paul Hebert: I’m Paul Hebert and I have been the administrator during the period that the current report was written for. Luis has replaced me in that role starting this past week. Ms. Megan Gorman: I’m Megan Gorman, I’m Co-Chair along with Karen Michael, I’ve been with the project for over 10-years at least and so I’m – it’s something I love doing as a volunteer. I’m going to kick us off talking about recruitment, what we did this prior year to recruit new members. First, I’ll talk about where we were when we started our recruitment, at that time we ended 2018 with 20 members. Of the twenty, 17 terms were ending, of those seventeen 13 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 55 applied for renewal, four members did not apply for renewal and those members are Kitty Clark, Sarah Tkach, Nuria Gonzalez-Martin, Anjali Vishwanath. We advertised for new members in the Daily Post, Next Door in Palo Alto Neighborhood’s Network, we’ve received 10 applications and we interviewed five applicants. The reason we didn’t interview the other five is primarily because the training dates didn’t work for them. We offered positions to all five applicants we interviewed and all five accepted. This brings our total back to members this year to 21. There is no change to emeritus non-voting members, we still have three, and one thing that we wanted to highlight is that this year financial assistance for the 40-hour required training was provided by the City, so training costs $500. It would be more; however, the City provides a training room at no cost. Historically – and it continues to be a barrier, the cost for training for some applicants, so we’d like to request that the City would continue to pay for training going forward so that no good candidates will self-select out of the program because they can’t afford the training. Commissioner Smith: How many candidates are self-selecting out? Ms. Gorman: Well this year we definitely had one person who wouldn’t have been able to be a member and so that was fantastic. Of the group of five who couldn’t make the training dates, I think might have been the issue. One, they couldn’t make the training dates; also they might not have been able to afford it. So, we’ve been very clear with any candidates or applications, they actually must take our training, the community mediation training. So, even if they’ve taken a class during law school or a program that is about mediation but not community mediation we’re very clear that’s a requirement for us so that we all start at the same level. I can’t think of others who may or may not but every year we have folks who might not even apply because they see that there’s a training component and it’s going to cost them a few hundred dollars. When I did it, it was only like $140 through Foothill College so I think the cost has gone up quite a bit and it becomes a problem for people. Mr. Hebert: In on year, I think it was two periods ago, we had somebody who – it wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it but that he objected on principle to the fact that he had to pay for training to volunteer. He thought that was inappropriate and so he selected out on that basis. Commissioner Smith: One other question on the training, does that impact your diversity because socially, economically, or ethnically does that impact your diversity by saying there’s a barrier for people to be trained at the $500 level? Ms. Michael: My guess is it’s economic. Commissioner Smith: No but… Ms. Michael: Generally. Commissioner Smith: I’m not saying – the question is this, does this self-select out, does this -- how best to explain it. Ms. Gorman: Yes, it certainly would affect the socioeconomic diversity, 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 6 of 55 Commissioner Smith: Diversity of your group… Ms. Gorman: Yes, and that’s why… Commissioner Smith: …because there’s a barrier to get in. Ms. Gorman: Of course, and so that’s why the City, this year thanks to Paul working with his colleague, I think it was Minka, we were able to get funding to cover the training which made a huge difference. One woman was a social worker her entire career and she could not have afforded this training of $500, it’s actually quite steep. The year before it was $750 so we’ve gotten our trainers to reduce their price, they actually subsidized it themselves. So yes, we’re doing whatever we can to make sure we can have more people participate because there are plenty of qualified people. We want to sort of capture them and have them give back to the community. Commissioner Smith: Thank you. Ms. Michael: Our five new members, it’s an incredible group. We really didn’t want five because, with 20 to 21 people, we’re not quite getting as much business as we would like. The five people that we interviewed were so outstanding; I’ll give you just a very brief summary. The first one is Adrian Ho. Adrian came to the Bay Area from Boston in the 1980’s, he has a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford, he went from physics into the business world and he’s currently taking, along with his two college-aged children, an adult gap year is what he called it from the corporate world. He is fluent in Mandarin. Christine Ortner is the second one; she is possibly our most international mediator ever. She is Austrian; she was born in Vienna and lived there. She’s also lived in France, Poland, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, Israel, Jerusalem, South Africa, and Seattle. She moved to Palo Alto this year, so she’s only been around a few months and one of the first things she did was apply to be a mediator and we are so happy to have her. She got her MBA studying Vienna and Paris and she has a post-grad degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland, Australia. She has four kids, two girls, two boys, and she is fluent in German and French. The next one is Kristina Vetter, she has a BA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and she has JD and Master of Laws from Duke, and an MBA from the London College of Fashion in the UK. She also has a small fashion company of her own. She moved to the Bay Area from Atlanta 20-years ago, she is currently a part-time tech. general counsel; she also has four children, two in middle school and two in high school. Beatriz Elena Leonard was born in San Francisco at the end of World War II to a returning serviceman and Salvadorian mother. She is retired from a career in social services as Megan mentioned. She raised her two daughters in Palo Alto and she is the proud grandmother of four ranging in age from kindergarten to college. She is fluent in Spanish. The fifth is Marleta Young, she is from Minnesota, she moved to Palo Alto from Southern California in 2009. She has two undergraduate degrees, one is history and ancient languages and then she went totally the opposite direction and got a degree in applied math and computer science. She’s taking a break from her tech career at Apple. She also facilitates an interpersonal dynamics class for the Stanford MBA program. That’s kind of a brief description of our five new mediators who are just raring to go. Our returning members and I do believe that you also vote on these actually because they all need your permission to continue -- Aruna Bellary, Dyane 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 55 Matas, Erika Harrington. In the states Megan gave she included Gabrielle Kralik so he is withdrawing his application. Gail Shulman, Gillian Barsley, Jeff Blum, Judith Stewart, Martin Eichner whom you all know, Megan, Rick Gross, Stan Freedman, and Virginia Feira. We’re requesting that you vote on these members, thank you. Chair Stinger: Did you want to give us the presentation also at this time? Why don’t we do that? Mr. Hebert: So… Commissioner Lee: Chair, just to clarify, are we holding our questions until after the presentation? Chair Stinger: I would like to do that. Commissioner Lee: Perfect. Ms. Hebert: The piece that I’m going to do have these other two sheets that have the pie charts and then this little sheet with the arrows here. The MRP Report use to be done along about January but we talked about this earlier in the year and decided to fold it into the Annual Report. In part, because it’s been a small part, there really aren’t too many statistics that come up each year on it and part of that was part of I think a result of this process that I use. The breakdown of the types of issues really doesn’t show too much change from year to year, although we did get a bit of a bump in neighbor issues that we’re handling this year. We think that’s good news that we’re being able to reach the neighbors. At least a few of them did identify that they heard about us because of information we added to the Palo Alto Utilities billing cycle. So, they provide information on that, so I think that was what caused that bump. When I say regarding MRP, the 105 calls that are in the scope, what that means is that they are – because there’s a subset of landlord/tenant issues that the MRP allows mediate to be demanded over. Notably missing is termination so if someone is being terminated, the MRP does not allow that they can demand their landlord mediate over that and there are a couple of others. Ms. van de Zwaag: Paul may I interrupt? I believe you brought extra copies tonight because the Commissioners are operating from a copy that doesn’t have color in the chart. So, I believe it would be more helpful to them – did you bring the extra copies? Mr. Hebert: We have. Niece Ms. van de Zwaag: We have so but if we could just take a minute so they could follow along with your presentation with something that’s in color, I think that would be helpful. So, I’ve been reminded I get into data in details more than people sometimes. I wanted to make sure and introduce my new Director Elizabeth Guzman, she joined Project Sentinel oh, how long? Ms. Elizabeth Guzman: A year ago. Mr. Hebert: A year now and you don’t get to hear from or see her that often but she decided to come and join us and then Luis we have mentioned. Luis Espinoza Inostroza is also a colleague 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 55 that joined us a little while back and was covering other jurisdictions. We leaned on him a little bit to get him to replace me and I’m really enthusiastic about having Luis step into the role. I feel like you will be in excellent hands. So, with those introductions done, back to data. So, of all those, when I get a call that is within MRP scope I advise them that they have two options regarding mediation. One is to simply request mediation with their landlord and the other is to demand it. To demand it they need to file out a petition which I send them and return it to me completed. When I describe that I let them know or I remind them that mediation is a voluntary communication process. Once you’re engaged in mediation in the room no one is going to be leaning on somebody, their landlord or you, for particular solutions. In order to facilitate a better start, I do suggest that if you think -- and now I’m addressing the tenant typically, if you believe that your relationship with the landlord will support it, I suggest making the request instead of the demand but you’re the one that knows your situation better than I. So, if you believe that the only way your landlord will sit down with you and talk about this is to demand it, say so and fill out the petition. With that kind of an introduction, I have sent out 27 petition packets which include the petition and information about how to fill it out and also a copy of the ordinance. I have only received five back where people actually requested that we do the more formal process. There was a question about the five and I provided a little information through an email I think 2-days ago about what types of cases. Typically, I think there were increases to a couple of them and a couple of them might have been about end of lease arguments about can I stay a couple more months? No. Things like that. I think that it isn’t so much selected – this is my experience just thinking back over the decisions people make about whether to invoke the MRP Ordinance, not so much the type of problem but the state of the relationship when they’re asking. So then the last bit here is three of the cases were resolved through conciliation. The ordinance does specify that the mediator assigned to an MRP case will attempt to conciliate first. I think out of respect for everybody’s time, if it’s possible, for a neutral to smooth things out to a place where they can agree. Then we don’t have to set up a meeting and go to the expense at the time of recruiting two mediators into space. Three of the cases resolved that way, the two cases that did convene in mediation were so entrenched in their positions that we could not achieve an agreement with them. That is the MRP overview. Chair Stinger: I think we have an understanding of the work that was done in the past 6- months and 12-months and the new applications and the returning mediators. I’ll open it up to discussion and questions of our guests. Commissioner Lee. Commissioner Lee: Do you mind if I use this thing so I can face them? Chair Stinger: Yes. Commissioner Lee: I was wondering if you could provide some additional context to the five mandatory response cases. In other Cities that have similar programs how many cases do they typically see on average adjusting for the population? Are five a usually low number? Is it an average number? Is it a high number given the population of Palo Alto and the high percentage of renters? Mr. Hebert: I only have direct experience or knowledge of our Los Gatos contract which also has a required mediation element. That’s part of a fuller process because they can go to arbitration 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 9 of 55 Los Gatos and the numbers in Los Gatos are quite low also. I would say it’s not unusual in the two jurisdictions that I know about. I don’t have any familiarity with the other program’s numbers. Commissioner Lee: I think I would be very interested, if this is possible the next time PAMP comes to us, to have some additional context as to whether these numbers are low or high. It’s hard to judge when I just see five. It seems like a low number and so my initial response would be what can we do to get more folks to participate in the program just given that – what, 45 percent of the population are renters. Chair Stinger: I guess we need to understand that better before we make that request and maybe that’s a job that we would put into one of our subcommittees. Commissioner Lee: Sure. Additionally, I wanted to ask about… Chair Stinger: Let’s see for – let’s start with Ms. van de Zwaag: Just some clarity they have more than five cases, just five of them are through the mandatory response. I just wanted that clarity Commissioner. Commissioner Lee: Yes, no, and that’s why I was asking in terms of other City’s that have similar mandatory response programs if that number is high or low. Chair Stinger: Let’s see if there are any… Mr. Hebert: If I may? It’s an interesting question. There are only five cases where the tenants decided to fill out a petition and return it to me and insist on mediation that way. There are quite a number of cases where they asked for voluntary mediation and things proceeded forward. I don’t capture that distinction in here. I don’t know just how I would capture it with our current database. With that said, we all wish that more people in the City used the mediation program. As Karen mentioned the mediators are hungry to do the work and I can assure you in my role as the guy answering the phone, I was always pushing meditation as a preferred solution. I’ll just take a moment when I get a phone call I have a dual role, so I’m a tenant/landlord councilor at Project Sentinel and in that role, I’m advising people about what their rights are under the Civil Code. Then also what additional recourse they may have based on the ordinances in the City. In Palo Alto, there are two ordinances directed specifically at tenant/landlord and there are other ordinances that impact them like the No Smoking Ordinance. Similarly in Los Gatos there are local ordinance, so I do that and while I’m doing that I’m aware and sometimes, I’ve described to my colleagues, I feel a little like an arms dealer sometimes when I’m doing that because I’m talking also a third of the time to landlords and telling them here are your remedies for this problem, as you see it, according to the Civil Code. So, that’s hat number one and then I try to say and if your relationship is going to continue, I have what I think is a better solution than trying to beat each other up with the Civil Code and I promote the mediation. So, that’s how I’ve been presenting it for 5 or 6-years now and I wish we had more people calling. Ms. Guzman: I can speak to the other programs that we administer and I’m familiar with the 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 55 different rent review programs. We have one in Fremont and I was just at a meeting in Fremont today and they were –I don’t have on the top of my head what the total amount of renters in Fremont is but it’s a pretty high amount. They’re Rent Review Board did 20 cases -- I think less than 20 went to mediation and then one went to their Rent Review Board. That’s – I mean I think that’s dependent on the ordinance itself and that ordinance, it’s non-binding and so you can see that people might not take it all the way to that point. I’m a bit familiar with the City of San Jose’s and they are just starting. They do have a rent registry program so people are required to register as well as in Mountain View and those two programs see a lot higher participation in those because of the, I think, the mandatory aspect. Where we have ordinances where there are not a lot of teeth to it, where there’s no – it’s non-binding to go through a public process it doesn’t – those numbers are very low. I mean just of our total cases for the year was 158 and then our calls is 375 and so those are issues that are separate than the specific rent increase issue and those numbers speak to a lot of other topics people are dealing with. Mr. Luis Espinoza Inostroza: (inaudible) Ms. Guzman: Oh sure, yes. Mr. Inostroza: I have been covering Campbell before this role and I will continue to cover in Campbell and its very similar case. The total calls during the year are about 275 calls but out of those, there are about 140 that become cases because of required extensive counseling. Also, they have the ordinance that when we offer the petition to either protest the rent increase or to protest the service reduction repairs; my internet has not been provided for example. I send the petition but as Paul was explaining barely any return and the point is that over the year two conciliations, no mediation. I just had one mediation a month ago and because it’s an ordinance that my Director said is non-binding. Therefore, people drop it either in the middle because they go through mandatory mediation but then you can go to the fact finding committee which is appointed by the City Council. Then people are no longer for it because they realize it’s non- binding so if we both don’t agree, I don’t do anything. So, in those numbers is zero and have been zero for the last 2 or 3-years . So, it is a tendency, especially when the ordinance has no binding regulation so I would say – well you can compare on your own. Vice Chair O’Nan: I wanted to ask about the language capabilities that you mentioned especially the new mediators. So, you mentioned Mandarin speakers, Spanish, German, French, so do you feel like you could mediate in other languages now because we have a large population of non- native speakers in Palo Alto? Ms. Michael: We can meditate in Mandarin, Spanish, French, English, Russian and Hindi. Vice Chair O’Nan: Wow. Mr. Hebert: And German. Ms. Michael: German. How’d I miss that? Among our new mediators we have one speaking Mandarin, two Spanish, one French and German and then everybody speaks English. 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 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: That’s wonderful. Mr. Inostroza: Also, the last training, because I attended the last training in May for the new mediators, also has a component how we address a different ethnic background, different languages, different cultures. Because you have to address differently because, for an example, I speak Spanish, I was born in South America so I can tell that I hold back a little bit so we have to address also as mediators those cultural characteristics. The last training designed by Roy Gordon and Martin Eichner has that component so in fact, we talked about that in the last training in May. Commissioner Lee: I think it’s great that you all have folks who speak other languages. I’m wondering to what extent are you getting calls from folks who speak those languages or to what extent do people whose primary language is all Mandarin or Hindi or others are aware of the program. I think that might be an interesting avenue to explore to making sure that those communities know that you have folks who can mediate in those languages and that this service is available to them in their native language. Mr. Hebert: I get very few calls, in fact in this past year only one call where the person might be multilingually asked for someone to speak in another language. That was a Russian speaker who had some English and so we were able to begin the conversation but then each time, once it was begun, I got a translator in order to work with her. That is the only instance in the past several years where the people calling felt dependents upon the assistance of a translator. Commissioner Lee: I also wanted to ask about the… Chair Stinger: Let’s… Commissioner Lee: Unless… I’m sorry. Chair Stinger: Let’s just see if there are any other questions of… Commissioner Kralik: I wondered if you could go through the training since I think it’s pretty comprehensive and might give our fellow Commissioners an understanding of how detailed the background is in meditation for the panel members. How long is the training? What are the various elements of that? Thank you. Commissioner Smith: We know it’s expensive. Ms. Michael: I took my training 9-years ago and then this last year I retook the new training so I guess they’re looking at me. It’s a 40-hour training, it’s required and its community mediation so as Megan indicated it’s not a legal mediation. Even if people are attorneys and they’ve taken a lot of mediation they must do this as well. You know an emphasis on our neutrality is very much a part of it. There are several phases of mediation, the first is case development. So, when we get a case we call both parties and we listen to them and have conversations with both to see if mediation can be set up, so we go through all of that. Then we talk about meditation itself and have, oh my gosh, how many days? Luis took it along with me. Four days’ worth of role plays, I 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 55 mean just role play after role play after role play and they were designed from real mediations. We have observers come in and evaluate who are experienced meditators. What part am I missing? Go ahead. Ms. Gorman: Just the emphasis on active listening Ms. Michael: Oh yes, well it really is all about listening. We’re really facilitators so we’re there to make sure that the parties feel safe, that everybody is heard, techniques for making sure that parties are understanding each other, a lot of techniques for that kind of thing and definitely active listening. Mr. Hebert: The one other thing and you can speak to this just fine is that it’s not directive. The reason you insist on the community mediation training is because if you are trained in say at Pepperdine or one of those other law schools, then you will be learning a more directive and consultative style of mediation. There are many ways to approach the mediation process but the community mediation program that we have emphasizes all the mediator's sign an agreement that they will avoid offering elements of the solution themselves. So, they do not participate in generating the solution in order to insist in a way that the parties themselves come up with the solution that they want. The mediators then have this challenging role to sit on their own ideas because if you’ve been sitting in the mediator’s seat for a few years, as many of our mediators have, you’ve seen a lot of these things solved and you have a really wonderful idea for them which you signed a paper saying you won’t offer. Ms. Michael: I’ll give you an example; let’s say parties are negotiating with a security deposit which is really the most common mediation we have. It’s about the numbers generally but not totally about the numbers. There something going on which is not the issue, so part of it is to really find out what’s going on with both parties. Make them feel safe so that they are able to say they have to sign a confidentiality statement, we talk a lot about confidentiality in the training, to let them know that they are safe. They can say what they want in there so they start talking and they start negotiating and we kind of kickback when that happens. If they are talking to each other and it’s going well and they get stuck at $100 apart. They’ve gone from several thousand dollars to $100 dollars and you’re going oh my, can’t they just split the difference. The most we can do is talk to each of them may be individually and say you’re $100 apart. What do you think might be something that you can do with this and they may say uh huh and I’ve seen people walk away with no agreement when they’re $100 apart? That needs to be ok with us. So, we can’t have a stake in it, we can’t make those suggestions. Chair Stinger: Thank you for that. I wanted to ask the Chairs, what do you think is some of the biggest challenges that you have? We’re looking at the diversity in the language but I wonder what you see as the challenges from your standpoint? Ms. Michael: In terms of what? Chair Stinger: In terms of just the program. Is it the recruitment of mediators; is it getting called from the community, having enough time? Where would you put your strategic focus? If you wanted to solve a problem what’s the biggest problem that you see? 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 55 Ms. Michael: Drumming up business. We are a well-kept secret in Palo Alto if feels like sometimes because I know there are a lot of problems out there that people aren’t aware of us. We are addressing that, actually it’s going to be on this month’s agenda with the new mediators with new ideas. One of them has already been working with Luis and us to come up with something to put on Next Door. So, we’re looking at how we can reach the community. Over the weekend I attended a candidate event and talked to a former City Council person who suggested that I can just go to a City Council meeting and fill out a card and at the end give a little plug, so I’m going to do that. We want more calls, we want more business. I mean it’s great if people don’t have conflicts but I imagine there’s quite a few out there that we’re not able to reach so that really, I think is our main thing. Would you agree? Commissioner Smith: I have a question. You talked about the marketing that you did earlier and then you talked about the fact that you meditate in several different languages and then you said nobody ever calls. Do you advertise in non-English formats? Ms. Gorman: I don’t think we do. Ms. Michael: Is our brochure in Mandarin? Mr. Hebert: The brochure and the card that the Police Department has are in multiple languages. Spanish on the brochure and it is available in both languages and there’s a little card that the Police Department and the Animal Control Department because those are two departments that we align with and we make sure they have this information. That has I think also the Chinese characters on it. Ms. Gorman: Oh, can you maybe show him the card? Would you like to see one of our cards? Ms. Hebert: But that does not seem to be getting us those calls and it could be that it gets us the calls and the person calls us in English and so we don’t discover that that was their preferred. If there are able to describe their problem in English then we work with them that way. Ms. Michael: I would just add thank you for bringing that up, we need to consider it. Commissioner Lee: I wanted to… Chair Stinger: I’d like to ask for a motion. Commissioner Lee: I have one additional question. I wanted to ask… Chair Stinger: Question. Commissioner Lee: I wanted to ask about who the mediators are? I think last time you all were here about a year ago, I had requested and I think someone had agreed to put together some general statistics on who are the mediators in terms of gender, age, are they homeowners, do they rent? It just gives us a better sense of who the pool of current mediators are, so I’m wondering if 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 55 you have had an opportunity to do that sort of analysis. Ms. Michael: I did my best with the information that we get. I think you probably have gotten copies of our applications, Commissioner Lee: Ok and there are about 20 or mediators total right? Ms. Michael: Yes there will be 20 mediators. The demographics that I could figure out really quickly, first of all, we all live or work in Palo Alto or Stanford because that is one of our two requirements. The other requirement and we have no others then these two is that everybody completes the 40-hour community mediation training. So, we have everybody’s addresses so the neighborhoods can be calculated and I think Paul may have looked at that a little bit. We talked about the languages spoken. Gender, 5 male, 15 female which is probably pretty much within the range of what typical volunteer gender splits are and we don’t trackage, ethnicity, whether people own or rent because that information is not required to become a mediator. So, that’s not information that we track. Commissioner Lee: I understand that and I respect that. I think my interest last year and it remains an interest now is making sure that our volunteer bodies are representative of our population well definitely gender you’re doing a great job on but also age, ethnicity, also their perspectives. You know 45 percent of this town is renters so I am very interested in knowing whether the pool of mediators represents that break down as well. So, even though it’s not asked for on the application itself I think it would be fairly easy to ascertain that information given that it’s a pool of 20 people just through an email or survey. With all due respect at this point, I’m not going to be comfortable approving new mediators without that demographic break down, especially because I had requested it and the folks who came last year had offered to provide that information. Ms. Michael: We were here last year, the three of us. Commissioner Lee: I remember last year one of you two had offered to provide that information the next time around. Ms. Michael: I did not. Commissioner Lee: Ok well… Ms. Gorman: Steven, I I’m a little bit confused because how can we ask someone whether they rent or own? That seems like a very private piece of information and we shouldn’t be expected to give that out nor.. Commissioner Lee: It certainly can be optional for… Ms. Gorman: How can we do that? I would love your ideas for how to do that. Commissioner Lee: I certainly think it can be optional but the fact that we haven’t tried to collect 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 55 that information is, in my opinion, unacceptable. As a Human Relations Commissioner I think it’s important that we ensure our bodies are representative and so I’m not going to be voting to approve… Chair Stinger: I would like to intervene for just a second; I think we’re mixing up the Action Item in front of us which is approval of five really good applicants and the process. I’d like to separate that discussion. I’m not saying dismiss it, separate it, and first look at the applicants. Then maybe we can suggest that an Ad Hoc Committee work together in our role through the Liaison to resolve your question because I don’t want to dismiss it but I don’t want it to block our ability to recognize five seemingly talented and extremely qualified volunteers. People who have stepped up to say I want to serve this community and I don’t want to deny them their ability that’s not even the right noun. I don’t want to deny them the chance to volunteer. I hear your concern that there may be people in the community who are not recruited and we want to incorporate them into the fold also. I’d like to take that second – not secondarily -- in parallel but I’d like to separate the two questions so that we give them both due respects. Commissioner Lee: I hear you and respectfully I’m going to disagree. I think it’s a fairly straightforward question that doesn’t require too much effort. Chair Stinger: No, I didn’t say… Commissioner Lee: I don’t think an Ad Hoc Committee is necessary. I think this is something PAMP can do on its own fairly easily and so on the action before us tonight to approve new mediators because of the lack of that demographic information I’m going to be voting no on that particular action. My suggestion would be if we’re able to gather that information I would be on board with approving them at the next meeting. I think we have a full slate of folks who handle the cases between now and then. There’s no urgency to approve five additional members at this time. Ms. Gorman: Steven if the information is optional and if we go back to our membership and they have an option, they can tell us whether they rent or own in Palo Alto and we receive zero information back. How will you -- I mean if it’s optional. We’re happy to do this… Commissioner Lee: If it’s optional and they choose not to then I will respect that but I would at least try to collect, not only on that question but on the other aspects of… Ms. Gorman: What are the other aspects? Commissioner Lee: Age, ethnicity, just all the different demographic questions that I had posted in my question in advance of the meeting. I think it’s important that we have a clear picture of who makes up the body of mediators and whether they’re representative of the community of Palo Alto both in… Ms. Michael: So, I have renter, homeowner, landlord… Commissioner Lee: 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 16 of 55 Ms. Michael: and some people can be more than one. Commissioner Lee: Sure. Ms. Michael: Neighborhood… Commissioner Lee: Neighborhood. Ms. Michael: …age, gender we know that. Commissioner Lee: That we know. Ms. Michael: Ethnicity, other languages that are spoken. We have only collected that when they applied and we don’t track it. Commissioner Lee: Sure. Ms. Michael: So, I think we need to re-ask and is there another else that you didn’t include. Commissioner Lee: I think probably length of residency would be interesting as well if folks… Ms. Michael: Length of residency in Palo Alto? Commissioner Lee: In Palo Alto, yes. Again, totally optional but I would like us to at least try to ask those questions. Chair Stinger: Well – let’s see, is that something that needs a vote? Commissioner Lee: I mean the Commission is not directing but I’m saying my vote is tied to answering those questions. Chair Stinger: Let’s… MOTION Vice Chair O’Nan: I’m going to interject here. We can go ahead and approve the mediators and Steven can certainly vote against that. We don’t need to be unanimous so I move that we go ahead and approve the outstanding candidates that the Palo Alto Mediation Program recruited this year and I would ask if anyone would second that? Ms. Michael: And the re-applicant. Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh, and the re-applicants, I’m sorry. Commissioner Smith: One of the things that I have a little bit of a challenge with right now is particularly after watching the national climate, that representation is very critical. Who hears 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 55 you and who hears your voice? I was very grateful to hear in the training that there was something that dealt with how to deal with people from different backgrounds but representation is a serious thing and it should not be glossed over. The one thing I don’t know do you have any African American or black mediators? What percentage is Asian? What percentage are renters? What percentages aren’t? Because as suppose you put it if me and Commissioner Xue have a conversation and we need a mediator. I come from Jamaica, he comes from China, we come from two different perspectives, we have two different educational backgrounds, and sometimes the validity of seeing a mediator that makes that understands that or is there some representative is a critical thing in that case. So, if it’s something as simple as sending a survey that people can op in and out of and it doesn’t slow services down, I’m going to hold my vote until we do the survey because representation for me is a big, big deal. I’m not saying you guys are doing a bad job or whatever I just want to say that maybe next year if we look at the stats and say we might need to do something to recruit specifically; like maybe go to Black House on Stanford Campus and see if we can get more African Americans or go to the Chinese-American Parents Association to get more Chinese-American but we don’t know. Our job is to be representative of a community. Chair Stinger: I just want to respond to that, I just think that’s so well said, and I don’t want to stop at a survey. I think the idea is to expand the recruitments because they are so valuable that to me that’s more valuable than the survey of current mediators. I would like to propose that we offer those ideas and those suggestions but I still think we can separate the Action Item that’s on the table. We have one motion at the table. Commissioner Kralik: I just want to say as the Liaison, I’d be happy to take up the issue of representation in terms of the mediation panel and work with the Commissioners who have voiced their concerns. I’ll do my best as a Liaison to promote a more representative group. I think I am prepared to vote though. Chair Stinger: I would really like to… Commissioner Lee: So, is that a second? Commissioner Kralik: Yes, I am going to second. Chair Stinger: I appreciate that offer because I think there’s too many good ideas on the table to close a discussion without having those ideas Commissioner Kralik: I personally have met each of these mediators twice now and they’re so much different than me and so worldly with a variety of languages and experiences. I kind of feel that given all the work that they have put into applying, training, attending meetings as volunteers that we don’t want to lose them. We do want to get them involved and I do think that as a group they represent an expansive group of people with the better chance at representing Palo Alto. They are from all over the world and they have that experience, including a Mandarin speaker which I think is a critical thing. Commissioner Lee: So, I have a point of clarification. 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 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: Qifeng does Commissioner Kralik: Do you guys – he has the floor. Commissioner Lee: I have a point of clarification. Vice Chair O’Nan: No, he has a question. Chair Stinger: My apologies, I missed the light. Commissioner Xue: I’m new; this is a wonderful program for me to hear. Before then I didn’t even know about this program, so one quick question. If there are limited about this Committee, up to 20? No, so you guys can expand, right? Ms. Gorman: Members. Ms. Michael: Oh, we can have 25 members. Commissioner Xue: Twenty-five members right, so currently we are voting for five new members, 15 renewing members, and right? So, we still have five… Ms. Michael: Twelve. Commissioner Xue: Twelve, you still have… Ms. Michael: Twelve new, five new or 12 returning. Commissioner Xue: Yes, so we are retaining so we still have eight safe empty right so we still can recruit so in terms of trying to find good… Ms. Michael: Five seats. Commissioner Xue: …representatives. Five seats, five extra seats. Ms. Michael: So – oh, I’m on. We have a recruiting schedule… Commissioner Xue: Right. Ms. Michael: …and we start our process in January, we interview people in April, the end of our fiscal year is in June so we make our selection in April. So, we will be doing that and it’s a part of our bylaws that we do it annually. We recruit for 2-years and applicants also are 2-year periods. Chair Stinger: So, we would have from now until January to give you input on ideas. Commissioner Lee: So, I have appoint… 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 55 Ms. Michael: And suggestions of how… SUBSTITUTE MOTION Commissioner Lee: I have a point of clarification. After a second has been made, can a commissioner make a substitute motion prior to the vote on the main motion? Ms. van de Zwaag: I believe so. Commissioner Smith: Yes. Commissioner Lee: I’m going to make a substitute motion to table this item until the November meeting. Chair Stinger: So, does the… Vice Chair O’Nan: Someone has to second his… Ms. van de Zwaag: I believe you would need a second for that and then we would vote on the substitute motion and then we would go back to the main motion. Chair Stinger: Can I have a… do you want to ask for your second? Commissioner Smith: You have to restructure. SUBSTITUTE MOTION AMENDED BY THE MAKER Commissioner Lee: I’m going to modify my substitute motion then to – my motion it to table this item, to bring it back in November on the condition that PAMP goes out and does the survey as requested and it will be optional. Commissioner Smith: I can second that. Chair Stinger: Ok, we’ll take a… Ms. Michael: Can I ask just to clarify? The motion is that you vote on the new members and the returning members in November at your meeting based on us, prior to that time, doing a survey with the items that you’ve requested and coming back to you with that information for your November meeting? Commissioner Lee: That’s correct. Commissioner Smith: I’ll explain the why. It is never a doubt that the work you do is amazing work and I think it is work that is much needed. I know that you have volunteers, trust me I run a volunteer organization. I know the challenges of finding somebody to come up with $500 but our mandate here is to say what does it look like for all of the population of the City and all the 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 55 services we work I’ve seen a lot of – particularly in my Pastoral role, I’ve seen a lot of people get abused in the renter position and get marginalized and get pushed and I’m not saying that’s you’re at fault. I just want to know what the representation looks like and my job on the Human Relation Commission is always to ask the question what does representation look like? I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong, I just want more information because the reality is a great antidotal story and I think Gabe – I listened to your slate, it was great you had somebody that lived about 18 places; you had another person that spoke multiple languages. It sounds like there’s a great diversification happening there but that’s just antidotal. I don’t know the other 12, I don’t and I, in good conscious, if I want to send somebody there that feels marginalized already in this community because they are either black or Latino, they are going to say who’s my mediator and what do they look like and will they really be able to help me? I can’t – yes, go, go. Ms. Gorman: We’re not supposed to be an advocate for one side of the other so we’re neutral. So, even if we’re not the same… Commissioner Smith: It doesn’t – but often times… Commissioner Lee: Judges are neutral (inaudible) Commissioner Smith: There is a sense of how to best explain this? When someone walks into a room that is of a different color, different ethnicity, different thing, and they look at the people that are mediating and working with them. Their previous experience of structure and systems can make it a very difficult moment for them. They have a history and I’m not saying it’s you, I’m just saying it could be a history of issues. Vice Chair O’Nan: I would just like to add, I have met at one time or another all of the mediators because I have attended several of the events at PAMP. They are a very diverse group, I’ve seen white faces, Jewish faces, Asian faces, people with dark skin, people with light skin, people with accents, and people are native speakers of English. When people come to mediation they don’t get to choose their mediator. Paul or now Luis simply goes and finds whoever’s available and that person shows up as a neutral mediator. So, there’s no guarantee, even if there’s representation at the level you’re requesting, that those parties will see someone who matches their ethnicity when they show up. It’s kind of luck of the draw, it depends on who’s available. Commissioner Smith: But you have to have someone in there to draw. Commissioner Lee: I don’t think we’re advocating that you… Vice Chair O’Nan: But it’s based on availabilities, it’s not based on ethnicity because of… Ms. Gorman: Yes. Commissioner Lee: But I don’t think we’re advocating that you should match the mediator to the identity… 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 55 Chair Stinger: Timeout, timeout, this is not turning into a productive discussion. Commissioner Lee: Ok so we have a substitute motion. Chair Stinger: We have a substitute motion. Mr. Hebert: Could I intervene just once? So, I do appreciate the position that you’re describing and although the process described for selecting mediators is as much as Jill said. If somebody asks for a particular gender or something else, a particular language capability, we, of course, will look to our panel for who has that quality. It has happened that if there was a gender feeling or an issue – a feeling that there was a gender issue, and then we would have mediators – certainly at least one mediator of the two in that gender if not both. So, we do attempt to be sensitive to that so that’s point Number One. I think that the training that we have and the people that we have are all very capable of putting someone at ease about the level of service they’ll get but I understand your point. I don’t know if it would necessarily prevent someone from using the program, I don’t know how to assess that. The other thing that I wanted to point out is that this particular delay I’m not sure how to assess the impact because we have five people who are ready to go. If we’re telling them you can’t participate until near the end of the year, whether we could retain them. So, I think there is a risk in that delay for the five people that you heard described. Commissioner Lee: They were selected back in April correct? Mr. Hebert: Yes, the process completed in May. Commissioner Lee: So, they’ve been pending since May? Mr. Hebert: They have and we have been taking steps to get them onboard. They’re term actually begins in July so technically it began and normally this meeting or the approval meeting would have already happened so a variety of things intervened. Commissioner Smith: Our approval – and this is a historical question when the approval meeting usually happens? I’m sorry. Vice Chair O’Nan: In the spring usually. Commissioner Smith: So, we’re 6-months delayed already? Ms. Hebert: We’re a bit delayed, yes and there were a few things that contributed to that. Among them, I think an assumption that wouldn’t be a problem and so I think that is creating an additional set of considerations here and I just wanted to bring that up. Ms. van de Zwaag: I think there was also an attempt to get on our September agenda and I think because of timing and other issues that didn’t happen. I don’t think we had a conversation before then but I know that there was an attempt by the script to get on the September agenda. Chair Stinger: Let start the vote on the substitute motion. ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 22 of 55 Commissioner Smith: Can I… Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, we’re like an hour behind schedule. Commissioner Smith: I understand we’re an hour behind schedule but I didn’t volunteer to not ask questions and not figure this out so I’m going to take my time. I’m willing to vote for this but I would like to make a sidebar agreement that Commissioner Kralik work with you guys and you at least give us the survey so we can at least start having the questions on what the demographics of the current group is. So, as you go into January, whether there needs to a modification, a change, or even if we can make recommendations to find certain groups to help… Ms. Gorman: We would like your advice but we thought we did a really good of recruiting this year. Commissioner Smith: If sounded like you did a great job. Ms. Gorman: We were really proud of it, I’m sorry this is very painful for me; I don’t even want to be in this group anymore. I actually feel like leaving. Ms. Michael: Yes. Ms. Gorman: This is extremely painful Commissioner Kralik: Yes before you… Vice Chair O’Nan: That’s what you’re doing to this group. Commissioner Kralik: Yes before you take that… Vice Chair O’Nan: I hope you’re happy. Commissioner Kralik: … step let me just say that… Ms. Gorman: I feel pain in my heart right now. Commissioner Kralik: Yes but I think one of the misnomers here is that my fellow Commissioners are making an assumption and the assumption is that people of different races, religions, ethnicities cannot apply to be a mediator. That is so far from the truth. The Mediation Panel is open and if that is what is being assumed, it’s just totally incorrect. If you want to recruit more members that are capable of mediating with different groups of people, you should try to find a good mediator without any basis of who they are in terms of their race, religion, or background or rental because what you’re assuming also is the people who are mediators can’t be fair unless they are part of that representative group. That is just so far from the truth of the nature of these mediators. I happen to know them and so those two assumptions I think are really bothering the mediators at the end of the table. You’re saying essentially if I don’t have somebody as a mediator, who’s neutral, who’s part of my race, my background, that I don’t want 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 55 to participate, well that’s too bad. I mean that’s a shame because these are great people who are trained on being neutral. They are trained so that they take cognizant of differences in any type of background and I think if you go through those assumptions and you demand that this panel have that, I think you should open it up to everyone; which is it. You should attempt to get people and recruit them so that you can get more cases. So, that their connections with those communities come into mediation, yes but those two assumptions are really, I think, upsetting to the people that you’re… Chair Stinger: I’d like to speak for just a second. I think we have a lot of pain at the table but I think we also have a lot of good ideas. We have a strong history of beneficial relationships, that’s things you’ve done for the Commission and the Commission has done for you. We have strong evidence of good mediators. We now have a strong liaison to PAMP that we have not had in 12 to 24-months and we have a request to increase the diversity of the mediators which… Commissioner Smith: Let me say one thing. Chair Stinger: Let me finish, please. I think that that request to reach out to different avenues – to different neighborhoods will also bring in more awareness, more clients because we’re walking those communities. I don’t want to lose any of that but I’d like to resolve the pain and I’d also like to call the vote. If it’s something new and evaluated I would really like to hear it but I want to move on. Commissioner Smith: Ok… Ms. Michael: (inaudible) Commissioner Smith: Chair, I don’t know the ethnicity of – everybody keeps telling me that we’re looking for certain representation. I don’t know the makeup of the mediators, I don’t. That was my only question. That was my only question, that’s all I’m asking is what is… Ms. Gorman: Do you want their names? Here, (inaudible) is Indian; Dyane is from Canada, Erica Commissioner Smith: Oh, I didn’t have that paper. Ms. Gorman: These are just their names. Ms. Michael: You have the names. Chair Stinger: We did… Ms. Gorman: Jeff is a lawyer; Judith is a (inaudible) analyst. Commissioner Smith: So, if I had that paper that you have, half my questions would have been answered. Chair Stinger: You have the paper. 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 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: You got all their biographies sent to you in the Packet. Ms. Gorman: Yes, all their bios are included. Commissioner Lee: Of the new members, right? Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes. Commissioner Lee: But not the existing pool. Ms. Gorman: No, the existing pool… Vice Chair O’Nan: Those have already approved. Commissioner Lee: Yes but we’re being asked to reapprove them though right and we don’t know that they’re (inaudible) Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, but they’re grandfathered in so what do you need to know that you didn’t 2-year ago? Commissioner Lee: I’m sorry… Chair Stinger: Timeout please, we have one person speaking. Ms. van de Zwaag: I believe the packet did include a listing of all the current mediators. Ms. Michael: Yes. Ms. van de Zwaag: I’m asking Mary. Mary, look more deeply at the packet. Ms. Michael: It’s on the first page. Ms. van de Zwaag: I don’t believe you got that sir, I mean Commissioner. Commissioner Smith: Ok so… Chair Stinger: One speaker please, yes? Ms. Michael: I just have a comment further to what Gabe said. One of our strongest skills, one of the things that we work on the most and we practice and we have monthly meetings and we have training at those meetings we discuss mediations with each other, what worked, what we might have done better, how we can improve, we do that monthly. Maintaining confidentiality but what we really focus on is helping the parties find common ground; helping them to listen to each other. It doesn’t make any difference what color our skin is or where we were born in order to do that. That is one of the primary skills that mediators have so I just wanted to emphasize what Gabe said. I have a question if you don’t want to vote on our new mediators and the returning 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 55 mediators until you have a breakdown of ethnicity and age but it’s not going to make any difference because we might not have a full picture for you if it’s voluntary. Why do you need that before you vote? We can certainly come back in November and present that information and take your questions… Commissioner Lee: So, with respect, I understand that the mediators are trained to be neutral and I fully anticipate that they are neutral. Judges are also supposed to be neutral as well but that does not mean that representation in our judiciary is not important. So, some of the comments that I’ve heard tonight… Vice Chair O’Nan: They’re not the judiciary. Commissioner Lee: It doesn’t matter, the representation in anybody is important even if the current composition has made a commitment to be neutral. Representation matters and so some of the comments that I’ve heard are disturbing to me as a Human Relations Commissioner and someone with a motion. I’m again, not inclined to vote yes on this, I made this request last year, I, as an individual Commissioner, can’t direct you to do anything but I certainly have made these requests in good faith previously. I think a 1-month delay is reasonable and again, this is a reflection on your efforts or on the good work that you’re doing. Commissioner Kralik: I think we’re getting repetitive. Commissioner Lee: I just need additional information before… Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, you’re getting repetitive, let’s vote. Chair Stinger: I have called for the vote and I will call for it one more time. I’d like to have a vote on the substitute motion… Vice Chair O’Nan: Which is Steven’s – Commissioner Lee’s motion. Vice Chair O’Nan: Who supports Commissioner Lee’s motion that we wait for November? Commissioner Kralik: Not in favor. Chair Stinger: Wait, all in favor? Commissioner Lee: Aye. Commissioner Smith: Second. Chair Stinger: Opposed? Commissioner Kralik: I vote against it, opposed. Vice Chair O’Nan: Opposed. 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 55 Commissioner Xue: Opposed. Chair Stinger: That substitute motion fails. SUBSTITUTE MOTION FAILED 2-4 WITH COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT ABSENT Chair Stiner: The original motion, do you want to repeat it? Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, to approve the new mediators as well as the current mediators? Commissioner Kralik: Aye. Vice Chair O’Nan: Aye. Commissioner Xue: Aye. Commissioner Lee: No. Chair Stinger: Opposed? Commissioner Smith: Abstain. Chair Stinger: 4-1-1 MOTION PASSED 4-1 WITH COMMISSIONER SMITH ABSTAINING AND COMMISSIONER BRAHMBHATT ABSENT. Chair Stinger: Do we need to vote on Commissioner Kralik’s suggestion to be inactive… Vice Chair O’Nan: No. Chair Stinger: …participant? Vice Chair O’Nan: He (inaudible) Ms. van de Zwaag: I think that was – is part of his role. Chair Stinger: I just wanted to (inaudible) Ms. van de Zwaag: If the Commission wants to take any type of further action regarding any of the suggestions, that can be taken on at this time if the Commission has a desire beyond the role of Commissioner Kralik. So, as staff that’s observing this process, that’s the conversation that the Commission can enter into now if it so chooses. Chair Stinger: I don’t want to continue the conversation; I just want to thank you for that. I 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 55 hopefully, we’ll get a picture of the current situation and your challenges and where the Commission may stand with you on a positive direction. I hope we can go – consider this our well and built back to where we’ve been in the past. Ms. Michael: May I request an answer to this question? Are we required to do a breakdown of the information that was requested by Commissioner Lee? Commissioner Kralik: No. Ms. Michael: So, can that be clear for next time we walk in? I don’t want to be told again that we promised something that we’re not delivering. Thanks. Commissioner Lee: You’re certainly not required too but as long as I’m on the Commission I’m going to be voting no unless I get that break down. I think last time I asked it, which is out of courtesy I think, someone had said that they would but if – I certainly – I don’t speak for the Commission but that’s my individual opinion as a Commissioner. Vice Chair O’Nan: I really apologize for how you were treated tonight. Commissioner Kralik: Can I suggest just a 2-minute break just to – it been a long discussion. [The Commission took a 2-minute break] 2. Human Services Resource Allocation Process (HSRAP) Listening Forum – Presentation by Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired Chair Stinger: [recording started mid-sentence] our HSRAP grantees and learn about some of the new programs and some of the challenges that you face so that we are moving along with you. Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired has nicely come and sat and waited for this. Ms. Sharon Hudson: Our pleasure. Chair Stinger: I’m really appreciative of your presentation and happy to meet you. Ms. Alice Turner: Great. Chair Stinger: If you could introduce each other and… Ms. Turner: Sure, I will start my name is Alice Turner, and I am the Community Relations Manager at Vista Center. I have had the privilege of working for this organization for 13-years and Sharon? Ms. Hudson: I’m Sharon Hudson and I’m the Associate Director and I’ve been there a long time, I’ve been there over 34-years. Chair Stinger: Sharon, 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 28 of 55 Ms. Turner: To my right under the table is my guide dog Cora and she’s been working for Vista Center for 5 ½-years. Right after her puppy training she came and has been working by my side. First of all, what I want to do is say that it’s a privilege to be in front of you today. I want to say first and foremost that Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired thanks you profoundly for the support that you have provided to us over the year or over these past years. Really specifically within the last couple of years, you’re funding on the 2-year grant that you have provided to us, that grant was initially to help us to support 50 individuals in Palo Alto that have significant vision loss. We have actually served 94 within this past year and of that 94 the funding that you provided for us has assisted us with 30 of those. We’ll be able to give you a little bit more information about that. I think the most important thing that I tell any individual that comes to our agency -- I speak to many folks because I do the outreach for the organization – is that if you or your family member is experiencing significant vision loss that Vista Center will never turn you away. You will never be turned away from us because of an inability to pay and that’s good news for the Palo Alto that we serve and that makes for very challenging times for us and so we have an extremely dedicated staff and I have to say that I believe that we provide life-changing programs. So, today since its education, I thought what I would do is to give you a little glimpse into what happens when an individual comes to us for services. First of all, again some numbers, we typically serve about 2,600 individuals every year. That is in four counties, that’s San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties. We have a staff that’s less than 50 people and so we are very busy folks. Within that population that we serve there are different age groups. We serve children and we do that in a couple of different ways. We do that through school contracts, so there are many school systems that are not staffed fully for teachers for the visually impaired. So, what we do is we have individuals who are teachers for the visually impaired which means that they have their masters in being able to provide instruction to children who are blind or visually impaired. We contract with the school and we augment their program. We also provide services for youth age 6 up to 22 we call it youth services but really and truly what it is, it is providing these children and young adults up to transition age with experiences and community. So, experiences can be something that’s age appropriate, we don’t usually get 240 of them together. What we do is we group them together in such a way where they are participating in activities that’s life-enriching that they may not have through their family and they may not have through their school system. Last weekend there were nine individuals that kayaked over to Angel Island, they set up their tents, they were able to learn what we call the core skills and then they kayaked on back. For many of them that was the first time that they had ever been in a kayak motored on the water by themselves. Obviously, they were not steering; there was someone else that was their tandem. I’ve done kayaking myself but just to think of what happens as far as the sense of esteem and independence when you have that opportunity. That’s one population that we serve. We also serve working-age individuals and in today economy working age can go on up to 65 but those are individuals who are working or are interested in being employed. Then they come to us because they have experienced significant vision loss or they have moved to this area and they needed services to help them to get back on their feet. Then the third population, which is the most significant and I’ll give you a little reason as to why. The third is our seniors and so in our senior group we service individuals that are seniors over the age of 55 so I am a senior. So, seniors and we have… Commissioner Kralik: Fifty-five did you say? 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 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes. Ms. Turner: Over the age of 55. Vice Chair O’Nan: There’s a few of us who might be. Ms. Turner: Well the good news with being totally blonde is that – oh, not blonde, blind sorry, the good news with that is that for me you can be any age but we clients that go on up to – I met a woman today that was 102. Why that is profound is that is another time, in another day, that individual could have been in a nursing home but she is living in an independent living community. She’s getting the support that she needs to be able to still manage her life. Those are some of the demographics. I’m going to give you two quick scenarios. One is a working age, so that would be someone that has come to our agency. They are in their job and employed and something has happened that has resulted in significant and dramatic vision loss. I was one of those, so I have Congenital Glaucoma and what that means is that I was born with a condition that I was able to maintain my vision through many, many surgeries. What occurs after a period of time is that the optic nerve says you know what? We don’t want to do this surgery thing anymore and so then I profoundly lost vision. I have light perception. My life prior to being exposed to Vista Center was the fear of vision loss rather than really what being blind is all about. If you take a moment and you think about one statistic that I read, people fear vision loss more than cancer or death. The reason for that is that we live in a visual world and folks cannot imagine how it is that they can function with having profound vision loss. I came to this agency through a referral, through the Department of Rehabilitation. I was working at See’s Candies as the Manager of Training, I was traveling, and I was going to our stores as well as our different facilities where I had (inaudible) in LA and in San Mateo County. All of a sudden, I had lights out blindness, so I needed to take a year off of work and I was referred to Vista Center. At that time, it was known as Peninsula Center for those of us that have lived in this area for a long time. In 9 -months I was able to cross streets, at first; I thought El Camino was like crossing the Nile because I had no idea how to do that. So, I had orientation mobility that helped me to be able to travel. I was able to manage money, I was able to cook, and I was able to function as an independent individual participating in our community. I went back to work at See’s Candies for another 9-years. Fully functional, fully enjoying the job and then at one point I just thought, you know what? This agency turned my life around. I contacted the agency and said I think I would like to volunteer. I had known many people at the agency and they said actually we have a position and I didn’t look back except for missing the peanut butter patties. I didn’t look back and that was 13-years ago and it still is a passion for me to let people know that vision loss is not a sentence. It’s not a life sentence; it’s certainly not a death sentence. So, what happened after I got the basic skills? Then I was able to travel, use my computer, facilitate groups just the same way that I did when I was sighted, I learned how to continue to get back to cooking gourmet food that I love to cook, I met a man, I got married, he’s blind, and in addition to that I hike, I kayak, I travel. All of that I can attribute to being a part of an agency that said to me, tell me what you want to do and we’ll help you how to get there. That’s a working age person. That is different than a profile for a senior and so I’d like to give you an example of a senior. This is fictional; however, it’s based on so many experiences that I have in speaking with our clients. Let’s just imagine that there is a client who is 72-years old, lives in Palo Alto, rents, worked very, very long and hard in his life, has been retired, is a widow, has adult children, and then all of a sudden 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 55 Macular Degeneration enters his life. It was the Macular Degeneration that not only progressed slowly but progressed very rapidly. He was not aware of Vista Center and what accorded is what happens when individuals lose their vision; many things occur. One is that they don’t want to tell anyone and they definitely don’t want to tell their adult children because they don’t want to be a burden. They don’t want to travel, they don’t want to go outside because I remember the first time that I stood at an intersection and I couldn’t see the curb on the other side. They all of a sudden don’t know how to organize their food, how to organize what goes on in terms of their closet, how do they pay bills, and it is overwhelming. So, what happens is that if this individual gets referred to us, the door opens and that first door happens by a social worker going to this individual and then they are helping to prioritize the needs for that person. Often times we know that the person is overwhelmed, they’re depressed, they may not even know what to do and they can get to the point and we have experienced this. They get to the point where they don’t see a reason to live anymore. In that process what happens is that we introduce them to programs and services in our agency and outside of our agency. Let’s just name this client Steve, so Steve would first be introduced to our low vision clinic. There are other ways that he could be introduced but we’ll start there. He can be referred to our low vision clinic. It is staffed by specially trained optometrists and for people who have eye conditions and going to the eye doctor is not a happy place. You are not told time and time again I can’t do anything for you. Well, when they come to Vista Center we tell them this is what we can do for you. We are not focused on that E, on that letter chart; we are focused on fictional vision. What were you able to do that you can’t do now and now let’s figure out how to do that? So, what the optometrist does is that they measure equity, yes. They measure their ability and their issues with glare, yes. Then secondly what they are doing is that they are teaching them through an introduction to different aides, magnifiers, CC TVs, I can clarify any of those for you, how it is that they can use the vision that they have. How can they use a concept that’s as simple as contrast? Contrast is when you come into a room and everything is the same color, so if you have any vision at all, it is helpful if you have a dark table, have light chairs. If you have a table that’s dark then put a white placemat on it. Something that makes something pop and what happens is that all of those concepts we are teaching them how to use the remaining vision. The doctor that they may have seen may say this is your diagnosis and this is what is going to occur but they don’t tell them that you know what, you’re never going to have lights out blindness. There’s going to be unless something else goes on with the vision that would cause that, but Macular doesn’t cause that. That’s what our low vision optometrist do, is that they provide hope. The optometrist door is very close to my office and I cannot tell you the number of times when I see a family member and a dad going in there, they come out and they are profoundly thanking our doctors because all they’ve been told is what they can’t do anymore and we’re telling them what they can do. After the low vision optometrist, the next most important thing is are you safe and so in your brochure, you’ll see a description of our programs that are focused on safe and healthy living. Let’s figure out where you travel, how you travel and how are you going to get there? You know what; you can’t drive a car anymore. If someone said to you tomorrow that you can’t drive your car anymore, how would that feel? You might be relieved based on the traffic but for many of our clients, especially the older clients, taking away those keys is taking away their independence. So, what do our instructors do? They all have their masters in rehab which includes orientations mobility. What they’re doing is they are teaching them how to travel safely first within their home, then within their community, then through public transportation. They are teaching them how to advocate for themselves when they get on a bus. If they’re not sure where they’re going 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 55 they learn how to make sure that they get that information from the bus driver. I always say our staff has two main values, one is competence and one is compassion. They are there every step of the way to be able to help that person to regain the confidence that they can leave their house. Orientation mobility is usually a first step, no pun intended but a first step for our clients. Then the next thing is how you manage all of those things in your life. Just take for a moment and think about the things that you did today. You could have fixed food, you could have reviewed bills, you reviewed the material for the meeting today, you came here today, how much of that do you feel it was dependent upon vision and what we will tell you is that with the right tools and with the right skills you can do every single one of those things. So what daily living skills is all about is managing your home and those daily tasks of life. I always tell the clients when I meet them if before you lost your vision if you were disorganized; you’re going to get organized because there’s a proper place for everything in your home. There’s a way that we can help you to manage that. My guide dog will not find my keys for me; I need to remember where those keys are. I need to know exactly where things are and be very disciplined to make sure that they go back in the right place. I need to manage my clothing, I like my clothes to match, and so there are ways that we can teach them how to do that. Every single layer that we are doing here is taking away that feeling of hopelessness and bringing back self-esteem and confidence and then members of the community as well. So daily living skills, then that person may be interested in learning about technology. We are living in the most incredible age to be blind and I know that that sounds funny but the fact is that I have my iPhone. On this iPhone I can do – well she still says try again but my iPhone can do so many things for me and it is all speech activated. So, I get a dollar bill in my pocket, I’m not sure if it’s a dollar or a five, I open up an app, it’s called money reader and it tells me what it is. I’m not sure what color the different top and bottom that I have, I don’t like wearing brown and blue together. So, I can hold it up, take a picture and it tells me what color. I have food that comes into the house that has a barcode. On that barcode, I can take my phone or a device that husband and I have at home which is the ID Maid. You show it to the ID Maid up to the barcode; the barcode reads everything that’s on that item not only, unfortunately, what the calories are but then also how to prepare that food. Every item that goes along with this we as individuals want to be independent. We don’t like to be dependent upon people and when I work with folks that have lost vision I say we are inter-dependent. Let’s find out the tools that will help you to manage your life in the way that you want to manage your life. Then most importantly, how to ask for help and that’s where our social services team comes in. Every person that comes to us is matched with a social service representative. These folks have their masters and they go out and work with the client in their home. That first visit then maps out what is the most important person – I mean excuse me, the most important activity for that person. When I went through the program I was so anxious to get back to work. I was just like boom, boom, boom, boom but we may have a senior that wants to take things slowly. We don’t have a roadmap, we know how to get you where you want to get too but we’re not going to tell you how long it needs to take. We can work with a client for 2-months, 3-months, 6-months, 1- year until that person feels confident in their ability to be able to maintain their quality life, and we are there by their side. What happens with vision loss is that it’s not static. What may happen with that Steve who has Macular is that initially, he may have been able to read print but that goes. Not reading print for some of our seniors is worse than not driving. They feel like they can’t read the newspaper and they can’t listen to books. So, what we want to do is get them connected with the National Library Service and then also other services where through their phone they can listen to the newspaper. It is amazing to see what happens when our clients start 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 55 layer by layer by layer to go from that point of hopelessness to that point of you know what, I not only 72 and I have two adults and some grandchildren but I have happened to be blind and that doesn’t define me. So, the work that we do in the community, the work that we do with the individuals is life-changing, it’s a privilege to be a part of it, and Steve has now decided that he is part of a book group. We have a book group at our agency. He has enjoyed hiking again. We have volunteers that come and we have an individual who arranges outdoor recreation activities for adults. It’s not just the kids that get to do fun things. We go hiking, we go kayaking, and we tap into the community as far as volunteers and then that represents another program. You might have the best technology, you might have a lot of support but you know what, what you want is occasionally one person to come into your house 2-hours a week and do sited tasks for you. I’ll give you a quick example, my husband is able to scan our mail and we’ll get our mail, scan it, put it on the computer, it will read it back to us. Takes maybe about 3-4-minutes for each piece of mail and then I open it and it says Geico is here for you. I spent all that time just reading a piece of junk so well no offense to Geico but I’m not going to use their service. So, what we will do is that we will have a dedicated person that will go to their home and be with them for 2-hours and do whatever tasks and I’ll give you some because I manage the volunteer program. It might mean reading their mail, it might mean reading a book with them, and we have volunteers that have helped an individual to take down notes because she wrote a book. That person might want to go the symphony, they may want to walk around the block but when you feel compromised in vision and no matter how independent I am, I tell you every once in a while, I think if I didn’t have Cora, going around the corner to go and pick up something, is it really worth it? Can I figure out another way of getting it? So, every once in a while, it’s just nice to have someone that doesn’t expect anything and all they want to do is come and work with you for a couple of hours. Then that improves their relationship with their family, they are not sitting there with their adult children or a spouse and every time that they are visiting they are performing tasks as opposed to visiting. We’ve talked about safe and healthy living, we’ve talked about technology, and we have other services in our agency where we partner with transportation to make sure that those audible signals are set up. That the transportation through Para-transit is operating correctly. Yes? Chair Stinger: Excuse me, can I just interrupt for just sec? We have… Ms. Turner: Tell me, am I talking too long? Chair Stinger: Time constraints. Ms. Turner: I can stop. Chair Stinger: Mostly I wanted to make sure that the (inaudible) Ms. Turner: I get excited so I’m going to stop. Chair Stinger: We want to open it up and make sure that people have a chance to ask questions… Ms. Turner: Great. Chair Stinger: … and hear some of the… 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 55 Ms. Turner: I am ready and so is Sharon. If you want to know numbers ask Sharon if you want to know other stuff ask me. Commissioner Kralik: This is Commissioner Kralik… Ms. Turner: Hello. Commissioner Kralik: Alice I just want to say that you’re a compelling speaker and you have a wonderful personal story. I do have an uncle who was an eye surgeon who had Macular Degeneration and so I have watched him over the years dealing with that issue and congratulations to you. I also have friends in our church who attend church who are blind and I do fall within your third group I’m afraid so I am 57, I still try to work occasionally. That seems to be a challenge and I just wanted to ask you how did you do that, go back to work for 9-years? What did you do and what were the changes that you had to do to make that work? Ms. Turner: The biggest change and I say technology levels the playing ground. On my computer I have software first I use Zoom Texts which magnifies and then also has speech factors. Then when I lost more vision I use Jaws which is a screen reader. So, with training that was provided to me by Vista Center, I learned how to use this software. So, once you learn how to use it, any single thing that you are doing on your computer I can do. Sometimes using keys as opposed to the mouse I can probably do it faster. When you learn that for your job, that’s imperative but the second piece is what goes on for how do you tell people? How do you ask for help? How do you educate the employers around you and the employees around you? That’s a process that our agency can also help out with. I was lucky, I worked for an extremely supportive organization and they pretty much said tell us what you need and we’ll try to make it work. You have to be a self-advocate. I hope that answers your question. Commissioner Kralik: It does thanks so much for coming. Chair Stinger: Commissioner O’Nan. Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, so my first question is how could you bare to leave those peanut butter patties? Ms. Turner: It wasn’t easy because the candy makers use to bring them off the belt when they were just warm so I actually conducted training for the multilingual population within our plant as well as our management team. I just loved working for them and I think they got that and so they would come and deliver product to me. Vice Chair O’Nan: My more serious question… Ms. Turner: Yes. Vice Chair O’Nan: … is I’m living in a building with somewhat I would call super seniors, people who are well into their 80’s and 90’s. Ms. Turner: 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 34 of 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: Some of them are experiencing various levels of vision loss and many no longer drive. The unifying theme for them is that they feel very isolated. Ms. Turner: Absolutely. Vice Chair O’Nan: So, is this something that Vista can help with because they are living independently and I wouldn’t consider them blind but they are definitely visually impaired to the point that they can’t drive. Ms. Turner: Very few of our clients qualify themselves as blind. I say that because I just have light perception and sometimes it’s just easier. The majority of the clients that we serve are visually impaired so that can be anything from acuity of a 20/200 or greater. You’d be surprised how much you can see at 20/200, I wish I still had 20/200 but it is that low vision that can be so scary because one, oh I’m not talking on mic? One is that you don’t know if it’s going to get worse and two is how do you manage it? That represents the majority of our clients. So, we would go to that clients, speak with them in the home and then just gently introduce them to all the services that we know that would help to make their life better. I would be happy in any one of the things that I do is I go out to communities and I talk to them about how an agency for the blind and visually impaired helps folks. Yes. Vice Chair O’Nan: Thank you. Ms. Turner: Yes. Chair Stinger: Commissioner Lee. Commissioner Lee: Hi, Alice. Ms. Turner: Hi. Commissioner Lee: I’m Commissioner Lee. I wanted to ask two questions. The first one is regarding the City. How do you think the City is doing in terms of making sure that it’s accessible to the visually impaired to get around the City and access different City services or facilities? How would you say that the City is doing and what could we work on? Ms. Turner: Ok, audible signals, audible signals are my friend. I know how to read an intersection, so what I mean by that is that I can stand at an intersection and listen. I can tell whether it’s controlled by a street light, a stop sign, when the cars are turning and when it’s safe for me to go. Boy oh boy that audible that gives me that reassurance that it is indeed safe to go, my heart is not in my throat when I’m crossing the street. We have an audible signal at the corner of California Avenue and El Camino which is where our office is located. It’s a complicated world in navigating audible signals so some of it is City and some it is also state, depending upon if it’s associated with El Camino. So, to answer your question I would like to see more audible signals and I would like that process to be not as difficult as it is to make it happen. 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 55 Commissioner Lee: Gotcha. Ms. Turner: The other thing is that information to access; I am honored to say that when I access information on the websites for the City of Palo Alto it’s accessible. What I mean by that is that it built in a way for a screen reader so that when I go through it, I can use the shortcut keys that I have to navigate it. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to go to a website and hear button, button, button, menu, menu, menu, and there’s not there that tells me what it is so information is power. Yes, does it require? Yes. Does it always happen at the pace? No, but for the City of Palo Alto, you should be proud of yourself. Chair Stinger: (inaudible) Ms. Turner: Well we too, I’m here. Commissioner Lee: My second question was related to technology. Obviously, we live here in the heart of Silicon Valley. Ms. Turner: Yes. Commissioner Lee: Do you feel like technology is keeping up with the different needs of the visually impaired community and have you gotten a lot of support from tech companies or tech folks to help train or develop technology that may be needed? Ms. Turner: It’s booming and you know why? Baby Boomers. All those that are in technology companies have realized that individuals want to do hands-free and they can’t always see their phone. You don’t have to be blind in order to take advantage of some of the features that are out there. Part of my job is to work with corporations that are technology companies and it’s a win, win basis. What happens is that Microsoft, Facebook, they come to us and they ask me to put them in touch with clients who are visually impaired. They bring out research as well as prototypes. Our clients get a chance to test it and proved them feedback and you know what? They pay us. For a non-profit, I can’t tell you I will run through hoops for that, so they pay me for my time and they pay our clients. Commissioner Lee: Thank you very much, Alice. Ms. Turner: Done? I don’t want to do more time than I'm supposed too. Oh, can I tell them what I gave them in terms of a handout? Chair Stinger: Yes. Ms. Turner: Ok so what you have is you have a brochure; we have a brochure in Spanish as well as Chinese. On the inside of the brochure, you’re going to see a little plastic thing that has a hole in the middle. That’s called a signature guide. I can’t tell you how many times that someone says you need to sign here. Please, help me, where is here? What the signature guide does is you line it up with the line and the person finds that little square and they are able to sign a document. I give this to real estate agents, banks, every person that I come in contact with that may have 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 55 people that’s visually impaired that they can serve. So, it is low tech but I tell you it’s a pretty handy tool. I gave you our business card, my business card, as well as a brochure that summarizes our programs and services. Ms. Hudson: The large print part is what we actually give our clients because a little bitty tiny business card is useless. Vice Chair O’Nan: It’s not going to work. Chair Stinger: Alice, Sharon, thank you very much. Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, thank you, thank you both. Chair Stinger: And Cora. Vice Chair O’Nan: And Cora. Chair Stinger: I remember the Peninsula Center for – and Ms. Turner: Still the same good services. Chair Stinger: Well I just never realized even after all these years how extensive it was and I loved your sentence; tell me what you want to do? We’ll help you get there. Ms. Turner: Yes, thank you. Vice Chair O’Nan: Thank you both for coming and for Cora too. Ms. Turner: Yes, absolutely. She’s happy to answer questions as well but she needs kibble to do that. Have a good rest of your evening. Chair Stinger: We will. 3. Human Services Resources Allocation Process (HSRAP) Listening Forum – Presentation by Downtown Streets Team Chair Stinger: We’ll continue with our Listening Forum. I’d like to introduce Kyle from Downtown Streets Team who does remarkable work and is incredibly patient. Thank you for waiting and I appreciate your answering our question about what’s new? What are your new challenges? What – how – tell us about it. Mr. Kyle Morgan: Just to give you a brief background because I know I’m trying to make up about an hour and a half here. The Downtown Streets Team was founded in 2005 in Palo Alto with the goal of ending homelessness through the dignity of work. We believe that people have a will and they want to end and change their own situation and we also believe that handouts don’t help. So, we believe that by giving people a hand up and empowering them to change their lives, 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 55 they will be more inclined to do so and be more prepared to be more self-sustainable in the future. Our program is essentially a work experience program where people join our team by coming to a success meeting that we have once every week at All Saints Church just around the corner here at 1 pm on Thursdays. You’re all more than welcome to join us for that, it’s every week. People come to our team though and they come to the meeting and they join the team. Once they join the team they get a yellow shirt and then they volunteer in the community. So, we work on beautification projects in partnership with the City of Palo Alto and the Department of Public Works in cleaning up the downtown Palo Alto area and we also do outreach on the team. So, volunteers can volunteer up to 20-hours per week and in return for their volunteer work they get a stipend to cover basic needs like food, hygiene essentials and other needs that they might have. They also get case management employment services so the real benefit to our team members is that they have someone who can focus specifically on their employment goals and their housing goals. Also, their legal goals or whatever else they might be working on. Individuals can stay on our team for up to a year before we ask them to take a break. We also have a ladder of success model in which individuals who are excelling through the program can attend one of our leadership training and then moved into a management position where they supervise a team of volunteers. Our team works seven days a week all through the clock. We don’t generally work in the evening hours but we work early in the morning through the evening time. We work in the garages in downtown Palo Alto along with the alleyways in the downtown area on University, Hamilton, and Lytton. We also do some cleaning for DPW at the Page Mill soccer fields and then we also run with the help of the HSRAP funding and thank you all for helping to support us. We run the Food Closet in Palo Alto and the Food Closet is I would say our first biggest impact program as far as impact is concerned. We effect or we are able to serve about 200 or 400 unique individuals per month in the Food Closet. This last HSRAP contract is a 2-year contract and we were granted about $35,000 per year for extra Food Closet funding which has been fantastic. The Food Closet generally doesn’t see a whole lot of fiscal donations. People see Food Closets as a place that needs food and so they give foods and so a lot of our fiscal responsibilities are often forgotten about by the community. It’s very important to us for continued operations, to have this funding from the HSRAP Committee. I’m excited to announce that we just received a $35,000 grant from the Sandy Hill Foundation for a complete remodel of the Food Closet and so we’ll be conducting that within the next couple months. It really is due to the extra funding that we received from the HSRAP Committee that we were able to focus on something that the Food Closet needed but we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do so we’re very excited about that program. Another program that we run in Palo Alto is the North County Alternative Services Center. A part of the HSRAP funding also funds half of a case manager for that and they are all the North County Outreach Case Manager. They work with the Palo Alto Review Court, the Palo Alto Police Department, and Palo Alto Probation and essentially what happens is if someone picks up a non-violent case. They can be referred to Palo Alto Review Court in which case they would be referred to either our case manages or another organization. Instead of receiving jail time, they would then be able to get connected to mental health services, housing services, the Downtown Streets Team or other services that can help them change their situation. That’s the third program that we run in Palo Alto. I brought a couple of packets that I was going to hand out but they’re both in very draft form so I’ll just talk about two other projects that we’re currently working on outside of what I just mentioned. We just launched our pilot program of a power washing team in Palo Alto. This is something that I’ve been working on for about 9-months now and as a non-profit, when you work on something it generally means I’m 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 55 trying to find funding for it. So, we finally found some funding for this project, we just received a donation of two vans from Google. One of the vans will be used and retrofitted to be used in this power washing program. The general outline of the power washing team is that I was sitting in a business improvement district meeting and Phil’s Coffee was talking about the issues of their sidewalks and the power washing issue. They are paying this much money to have their sidewalk power washed once a week because the Department of Public Works can’t keep up with it. Then looking into the code of the City, businesses are responsible for keeping the sidewalk and if they have a patio they are responsible for keeping the sidewalk up to the curb clean. DPW can’t keep up with that demand and most businesses they aren’t able to or they don’t know that they have options. So, we saw an opportunity to develop a team that could help assist businesses and alleviates some of the pressure on the Department of Public Works. Being the non-profit that we are an economic development we have the ability to charge a fee for service. We can create contracts with businesses to create revenue for the Downtown Streets Team to also have our team of volunteers and go in and power wash. So, we did our first power wash shift 3-weeks ago and we’re conducting another shift on Tuesday of next week. These are going to be the first few shifts as we’re training the team and getting our proper training done and everything kind of lined up. We’re going to be pro-bono for our partners but we intend to turn this into a social enterprise. This is my business plan to basically take this program once it becomes profitable and hire people at a living wage. The Downtown Streets Team, we’ve attempted a social enterprise in the past called Cartman, The Cart with Heart. It was a coffee cart at the Glass House in San Jose. We found out that coffee wasn’t very profitable and there are a lot of things that made that very difficult. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic; there were a lot of things that were working against us on that. We believe that the power washing program is something that will and can be profitable. Once it is we have a budget broken down of how to pay people a living wage and how to expand throughout the Bay Area. So, this is something that we’re very excited to be launching. My team is excited about it, I’m just enamored that it’s happening, it’s fantastic. Another project that we’re working on and that has taken a back seat to the power washing program is the Put Your Change to Work Project. This is a project in which we have meters and initially, we were going to work with the business of Prema District and City Hall to have the meters installed permanently throughout downtown Palo Alto. These meters are branded with Downtown Streets Team logos and we would have marketing material basically to curb panhandling. We’ve seen an uptick in panhandling in downtown Palo Alto. Our case managers have done outreach to panhandlers in Palo Alto and we’ve seen an increase in the number of individuals who aren’t interested in services and only interested in money. So, our belief is that there’s not enough awareness in downtown Palo Alto about some services that are offered. Not only to the individuals in needing and seeking services potentially but to the Palo Alto residents and people who come here for business and work. This is a way to increase awareness about services in the area. We are working with the City and the Business Improvement District to build a mobile meter. The City would not endorse a permit meter being stationed anywhere in Palo Alto for a couple of political reasons; one due to parking issues already happening in Palo Alto which is reasonable right? So, we’re working right now on creating a mobile meter and that has a few hurdles that we have to get over but we’ve also, within the last 6-months, established our first ever Palo Alto Advisory Council. This is something that we’ve done in order to increase our bandwidth in Palo Alto. We have currently three active members and then we’re recruiting about six members actively right now and so we’ll cap that group at about 12 but they’re helping with all of these projects that we’re currently 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 55 working on. The last project that I’m working on and our team is working on is a mobile food closet. This is something that I had written up with the grant for the Food Closet remodel but only a portion of it got approved. We are fundraising for a vehicle to retrofit for a food closet that we can partner with Dignity on Wheels and take into different communities. So, that we can take food to people who wouldn’t otherwise have transportation to get there. So, that’s a very broad overview of all the things that we’re working on but we’ve been building up a lot of steam recently and I’m very excited about the things that we’re able to offer the community and our clients. Chair Stinger: Go ahead. Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh, thank you, so a question that I have is that I know the Food Closet – I think the business model for it had been a bit shaky for a while. There were some concerns about its sustainability so can you comment on how things are shaping up since Downtown Streets Team took over that? Mr. Morgan: Yes, so the Food Closet was for a long time kind of the hot potato of the group within the service providers I think in Palo Alto; you take it, you take it. We took over the Food Closet operations in 2012 and you’re right, the financials behind the Food Closet have been difficult. We are leveraging our partnership with All Saints Church to help with some of the rent costs there and recently we’ve been employing a number of individuals in our development department. So, we’re able to really turn the focus and let development focus specifically on certain topics and certain programs and the Food Closet is one of those programs. It does take a substantial amount of funding to run and the bandwidth of staff within Palo Alto is – it can be limited on other programs that we’re already working on. So, one of the initiatives that we’re currently working on is having more development which comes through our general funding to help assist with overall program funding and more the Food Closet included in that. Chair Stinger: Commissioner Kralik. Commissioner Kralik: Kyle, you’re a wonderful speaker and you’re very passionate and you’re putting a lot of energy into something that really matters and we appreciate that. I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got interested in this area of work. Mr. Morgan: Absolutely. I grew up from a small town in Kansas and so that doesn’t really mean anything but I went to school in Colorado and I studied psychology. I was working a job as a valet at a hotel and I really enjoined hospitality and working with people. So, I knew that was something that I was passionate about but when I graduated I mainly decided that I should put my degree to use. I moved out here for a job in residential care work in Morgan Hill and then that not being a good fit I found a job with Downtown Streets Team which I have loved. In college, though I was involved with a homeless ministry and we were basically every other Thursday or every Thursday we go out and we would serve food to the homeless population. It was through a lot of those experiences that I realized that there was so much more that I could be doing to help the population in need. Giving food to people is great, giving people things that they need is great, and part of the reason that a lot of people do that, including myself, is we give things because it feels good to give things. It feels better to help people change their lives to 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 55 where they can give to themselves instead of having to receive handouts. One of the reasons that I’m in this industry is because I believe that the Downtown Streets Team offers the best model for helping people change their lives without having to receive handouts. Chair Stinger: I just wanted to comment that that – Downtown Streets Team hosted me when we did our site visits last spring and I saw all of that passion. I’m going to ask a really specific question which doesn’t reflect the excitement that I saw throughout. How much garbage do you pick up in the streets? You talked about that when we walked. Mr. Morgan: Yes, so every quarter or so we do a count of how much garbage we collect and it’s a difficult thing to do actually because we could fill up 5-gallon buckets with all of our crews for the week and then project that to the year. We could do it all the time but then you pack the trash down or do you let it be fluffy and how do you do that? At that time, the last count that we did we collected about 1,300 gallons of debris in a week in Palo Alto. Organization-wide when I drafted this up, this power washing program business proposal up about 6-months ago, we had helped over 821 people into housing, 755 people had obtained employment over 90-days, we had 1.9 million cigarette butts collected and recycled, 5.2 million gallons of debris removed from the Bay Area agency-wide and so, our impact within the Bay Area is very great. We like to consider our model a win, win, win in which we’re helping out team members, we’re helping the environment and we’re helping the community. Vice Chair O’Nan: I wanted to follow up with a question about the new Mobile Foot Closet. Can you tell us what kinds of areas in the community you would serve with that? Mr. Morgan: That is a good question and we haven’t fully developed our plan with that yet. It’s in earlier stages and I’m uncomfortable talking about too much but we were looking at East Palo Alto as a good target for the Mobile Food Closet program. One of the reasons for that is because we see East Palo Alto ripe with opportunity. We think they're a lot of people there who are underserved and we believe that we‘re posing by being in Palo Alto to help our neighbors. We believe that a Mobile Food Closet would help us to expand outside of Palo Alto to San Mateo County. Given the nature of the Food Closet, we also think that the Mobile Food Closet specifically could be very flexible. One of the reasons that East Palo Alto would also be a target is because Dignity On Wheels does a lot of work there and they would be one of our primary partners for that campaign. Vice Chair O’Nan: I wanted to mention that in some of my other work as a Commissioner; I frequently come across seniors who are struggling with nutrition and nutritional issues. Many seniors lack transportation or are very low income and so the Mobile Food Closet coming to subsidize senior residences might be very welcome. Mr. Morgan: That’s great input and that’s something that we’ll definitely do more research on, thank you. Commissioner Lee: I think it’s just great all the new things that DST is trying out, it seems very entrepreneurial. You know we live in Silicon Valley and it seems like every week I look and you guys are expanding to a new city in the Bay Area so that’s great. I was wondering, based on your experience, what can the City of Palo Alto do to support that level of innovation and 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 41 of 55 entrepreneurial spirit to try out new models and new initiatives? What can we do to encourage other agencies that we fund to adopt a similar approach and help them expand the scope of their services? Mr. Morgan: That’s a good question and I feel like a good answer would require us to also work a lot harder. We’re doing a lot but I think I would encourage organizations within Palo Alto to have a 5-year plan. I think I would encourage them to have a 10-year plan. I often ask myself how we’re actually ending homelessness. What are we doing to end homelessness because our program is one in which they’ll work itself and in saying that I open myself up to a lot of vulnerability and our program up because it begs the question when will we end homelessness? When will we help everyone? So, for me asking myself what is our 5-year plan, what is our 10- year plan, it begs me to come up with tasks like this and programs like this. We have to be innovative in order to reach our goal and one of the things that I would do is to ask organizations to have and give you a detailed 5-year plan. Commissioner Lee: It seems like funding is the biggest impediment to actually be getting a new initiative off the ground? Is that… Mr. Morgan: It is, yes, so again with the Food Closet remodel, we wouldn’t have been able to ask for that without funding from the City. So, continued support from the City it’s paramount to our success and I think teaming that along or tagging that along correctly with a 5-year plan or something to help organizations think about how they should be expanding. I think all of us in this room know that non-profits can get stuck in a way of thinking that we’re just trying to survive and it important for non-profits to think like a business. Otherwise, their services are being restricted based off funding from both city and private partners and I think it’s important. I mean we’re blessed to be situated in a position where we can charge people for services and so ideally, we would be able to cut off our funding. In the future, we’re trying to move away from City funding so that we cannot be restricted to the areas that we go and to the work that we do and to the people that we serve. Commissioner Lee: Thank you very much. Chair Stinger: Kyle – did you have… Vice Chair O’Nan: No, no, I was just going to say that was great. Chair Stinger: It was thank you. Vice Chair O’Nan: Thank you for bearing with us. Mr. Morgan: Oh absolutely. Chair Stinger: I really appreciate it. I do want to again, thank you for the site visit. I learned a lot and continue to learn a lot about what you’re doing. I think your idea for Strat. Plan and your way to use it to move you forward is exactly what leads to your success. That’s great. 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 55 Mr. Morgan: Thank you. Thank you all. Vice Chair O’Nan: Thank you, good night. Chair Stinger: Thank you so much. Mr. Morgan: Yes, you’re welcome. Chair Stinger: He’s got a commute ahead of him so I really appreciate you sticking around, thank you very much. Mr. Morgan: I need to get out of here. Ms. van de Zwaag: We’re seeing him tomorrow at 9 am. Chair Stinger: Oh. Mr. Morgan: (inaudible – off mic) 4. Report back on Council’s decision on the Human Relation Commission’s recommendation in response to Resolution #9653 – Reaffirming Palo Alto’s Commitment to a Diverse, Supportive, Inclusive, and Protective Community. Chair Stinger: Ok we’ve gone through some discussion, some educational items, now our work – oh, not yet. I turn it over to Commissioner O’Nan. Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh ok. Chair Stinger: Item Four. Vice Chair O’Nan: Item Four, so as you know in December 2016 the HRC received a Referendum from Council to work on Resolutions to create a more diverse, supportive, inclusive, and protective community. So, that work went on for quite some time and at the recent Council meeting, when was that? It feels like a long time ago already. Chair Stinger: October 1st. Vice Chair O’Nan: September – yes, we appeared before Council to recommend that they adopt staff’s recommendation regarding the first five items which involved immigration and resettlement… Chair Stinger: Religious freedom. Vice Chair O’Nan: …religious freedom. Also, to referrer our Resolution regarding CEDAW to Policy and Services Subcommittee for further investigation. That overall went well; Chair Stinger was not able to appear so I read a letter from her in support of the staff recommendation. Commissioner Lee appeared and also supported the staff recommendation. Council discussed it ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org . This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting. Page 43 of 55 and there was a suggestion from Council Member Scharff that we amend the recommendation to include a provision that would require Policy and Services to identify one or two high priority areas and make meaningful progress on them within 1 or 2-years using existing resources. So, there was some discussion around that on what existing resources would mean and whether it would be too constraining and was amended slightly and it ended up being adopted by the City Council. That measure will now be taken up by Policy and Services I think in the next couple of months and from there they will be working with us and staff to develop I think the first couple priorities to focus on to start moving the needle on gender equity. I think it was a really good outcome for us and we will need to remain collaborators with our city leaders to make sure that CEDAW continues to get the attention that it deserves and as we move forward in that process. It could take some time but I think that if we take it incrementally step by step we will eventually get there. Chair Stinger: Thank you. Thank you for representing me, thank you for speaking Commissioner Lee. Any discussion around that? Any update from staff? Ms. van de Zwaag: No, it’s a point of ability to prepare the type of report that Policy and Services want to see and being able to schedule on that calendar. So, that is what staff is looking into at this point. Chair Stinger: Appreciate that, thank you. Commissioner Lee: Will you let us know when they have scheduled it? Ms. van de Zwaag: I certainly will. Commissioner Lee: Fantastic, thank you. Ms. van de Zwaag: Of course. 5. Further Discussion on Commission Work Plans. Chair Stinger: The next agenda item is to look at our potential projects, look at our Work Plan for this fiscal year. I’m just going to go down the sheet and call for updates. I can say that the first is recommendations to Council and we have finally completed that. I don’t see any further action on that. I think it’s just important to remember that while we talk religious registries, immigrants – no, I’m forgetting what we took to them. Immigrant… Vice Chair O’Nan: Resettlement? Chair Stinger: Not resettlement. Ms. van de Zwaag: Refugee… Chair Stinger: Refugee resettlement, immigrant policing, and CEDAW to them that the context of our whole response to the resolution also included LGBTQ, other immigrant inclusion activities, leadership activities, and community dialog. In terms of our recommendations to Council, I see that agenda as finished. I will speak to gender identity; a draft report was 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 55 completed this summer and a Committee which is Commissioner Kralik, Commissioner Lee and myself are doing just some follow-up interviews to refine that. We’d like to present a refined report to the HRC in November with the target of having a working summit probably mid- November to mid-December, avoiding Thanksgiving holid ay. That would be a working group that would basically be answering the questions where should the community put its effort? Who can help us do that? What partners do we probe to move forward on that? A request of staff to do that would be really minimal. Maybe some help with scheduling, getting a meeting room, coffee service but we see it as a working meeting for an hour and a half, two meetings, with a Committee that’s already in place from the city libraries and school libraries. Then we would return to HRC in January with a report out. Commissioner Kralik, Lee, anything to add to that? Commissioner Lee: I think as part of the interview process we may try to schedule visits with the Billy DeFrank Community Center down in San Jose as well as the Pride Center up there to get a sense of how those spaces provide values to their respective communities and how they got started and what programming they offer. Just probe than for general thoughts as to things we might do here in Palo Alto. Commissioner Kralik: On September 27th I actually did meet with Kilani Louis who’s the Community Outreach Coordinator with the Pride Center in San Mateo when it was part of a training session of 90-minutes; which was a fascinating primer on LGBTQ rights and issues. He did report on and I’m using that pronoun correctl y by the way, he did a report on those folks that visit that center. I do think it’s worth a visit because it could be a model that we might want to look too in our own community because it has been successful. Chair Stinger: In carrying that vein forward I’m also working with the Commissioners in Mountain View so that we might look for something that would serve North County with their help. That would increase the viability and sustainability of the center. Commissioner Lee: One thing that I might add since we’re on the topic is I attended the BAYMEC brunch a couple weekends ago and they honored Supervisor Yaeger who was my supervisor when I lived down in San Jose. It’s just the amazing the progress he has achieved for the LGBTQ community since he started. He was a Council Member when I lived in San Jose and then he got elected to the County Board when I went off to college. So, it is great to see the tremendous progress that he’s done and it was sort of a motivation moment for me. Hopefully, as a group, we can advance that even further here in Palo Alto. Chair Stinger: That’s great, just moving along quickly, that is our statues from here until mid- January. I’ll just say that looking at ethnicity and inclusive engagement in Palo Alto, there was a Welcoming America Week mid-September and the Palo Alto Y is doing us a report now on the activities and the success. I think it was a good event for the first year, clearly things we want to mimic in the second year and also some areas where we can improve. Our involvement in that is also completed. Welcome, Packet – really… Ms. van de Zwaag: Can I add something to the Welcome Packet? Chair Stinger: Sure. 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 45 of 55 Ms. van de Zwaag: I haven’t posted it yet but now we have the welcome letter translated into at least five languages, so that will be on the City’s website. Commissioner Lee: Do you happen to recall what languages? Ms. van de Zwaag: I’m trying to remember because I’ve been so busy it’s Spanish, I know we have Mandarin, I believe we have Korean, and those are the only ones I could say but my contact the Chamber translated it into four languages. I thought it was Russian, Korean, Chinese, and maybe another Asian language. It might have been Japanese but we do have it in Spanish. If there’s other suggestion and you have other connections to do so please let me know but when we reposted I think we’ll have it at least in six languages. Commissioner Lee: Fantastic. Ms. van de Zwaag: This is just Phase One of a Welcome Packet so people have lots of suggestions about it but this was something we did fairly quickly and we know it is kind of like the A Version. Then it will continue to get a deeper and better, so please keep that in mind. Chair Stinger: Just expanding on the next line item, intro to civic engagement, you’ll see in the packet of letters I was approached by Palo Alto ESL classes in the Adult Education Program to do a course in civic engagement, voting. It was like that was a little more than I wanted to take on but I did identify some women who are doing voter registration and there’s a chance that they would be speaking at a conversation class on an evening or a Saturday. So, we’re trying to schedule that to encourage people as they practice their language skills to learn more about voting and how to vote, how to register, and what the issues are. I will report back if that is successful. I’ll turn it over to Pastor Smith; can you report on engaging the aging constituencies? Have you had any meetings? Commissioner Smith: I did not have any meetings this month since I was in New York dealing with a family illness with my father so I’ve gone three of the past four weeks. No report today. Chair Stinger: If we could have a report out next time at least to block out sometimes for our involved, staff involvement, that’d be super. Ms. van de Zwaag: Let me add something, the request from Commissioner Smith last time was to get suggestions for community conversation. I’m sorry, I’m speaking too early. Commissioner Smith: (inaudible – off mic) Ms. van de Zwaag: That’s right, that’s what I was going to say. Commissioner Smith: (inaudible – off mic) Ms. van de Zwaag: Ok. Chair Stinger: Gender equity, thank you, we’ve had the update thank you to Council. ADA standards? That’s a research project on your end. 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 46 of 55 Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, we haven’t made a huge amount of progress on that project yet. I have been meeting with the Council on or the subcommittee on Aging – Age Friendly Council? Ms. van de Zwaag: Age-Friendly Palo Alto Committee. Vice Chair O’Nan: Age-Friendly Palo Alto Committee and we did host a phone on aging last weekend which went very well. I think I need to work with Minka to set up a time to meet with Kristin O’Kane and then kick off my disability project. Chair Stinger: I just want to reemphasize what we’ve said in the past, I just think that this is a really good model for us. To have somebody do the groundwork and really identify the needs and the opportunities and then set up a Committee to go forward should we choose to? It gives us a chance to say up or down and what kind of effort. I’m going to continue to move through to fostering community conversation. I understand where the monitoring is – you have to wait for a response but Pastor Smith – Commissioner Smith community conversations? Commissioner Smith: We did ask at our last meeting if any other Commissioners had recommendations to send them in. Staff sent out a request, we didn’t hear anything else back so we’ll move forward this month with our plan. Chair Stinger: Sounds good. HSRAP will be coming up in the New Year I think; any other comments? I’m ready to keep us moving if there are no other comments. V. Reports from Officials 1. Commissioner Reports Chair Stinger: We’ll go to Commissioner Reports, any activities in the month - two people have already commented. Any other Commissioner reports? Can I hear more about the senior film? Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, so the senior film was shown at Channing House, it was called Lives Well Lived and Commissioner Xue was also there with his wife. What was really amazing about this event was that the filmmaker herself was there and to talk about how she made the film and why she made the film. The film actually featured her own grandmother who passed away shortly after the film was completed but the people featured in the film ranged in age from about 76 to over 100-years old. They were all vital, active people who talked about they lived fulfilled lives at their age. It was very striking that many of them had experience severe trauma as younger people. Many of them had lived through World War II and had been in very difficult, traumatic situations. Loss of family members, loss of homeland, having to immigrant under the worst possible circumstance being refugees and yet they had all found happiness in their later lives; had found partners; had raised families; had fulfilling careers; they were artists; they were sculptures; they were musicians; they were just fascinating people. So, the filmmaker was inspired by her grandmother who was an Italian woman who had come to the United States who loved to cook and never wrote any of her recipes down. So, her granddaughter has wanted to film her and from that small beginning, it morphed into this whole project. The audience was very responsive, we spent a lot of time chatting with the filmmaker afterward asking her 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 47 of 55 questions about the subjects in her film, also her own experience with making the film. She’s actually a photography teacher so she doesn’t normally make documentary films so it was an experimental art form for her as well. She really encouraged other people who might want to be documentarians to not be afraid of the medium and she also encouraged us if we knew older people who were living fulfilled lives that we could contact her at her website to share those stories as well. So, it was just very interesting and a very interactive way to see a film instead of the passive way that we so often watch – consumer entertainment. It was just much more entertaining because it was interactive and we had the filmmaker right there in front of us. Channing House was lovely, very gracious, it went very, very well I thought and so I’m looking forward to helping the Age Friend Palo Alto Committee work on other similar projects and do more outreach. Commissioner Lee: Would you be able to send around the website through Minka? Vice Chair O’Nan: Oh, I don’t know if I have the website. Ms. van de Zwaag: I’d be happy to do that, I’ll write that down. Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, I think… Commissioner Lee: Great. Commissioner Xue: So, I… Chair Stinger: Please, Commissioner. Commissioner Xue: Remember we had the Palo Alto Welcome Week and I participated in a few activities. A specific activity that I would like to share among us is the self-guided walk. Actually, that’s not a loop, when they mentioned about 45-minutes, it’s not about 45-minutes. So, from the Art Center and walk to here, how could we get back? Ms. van de Zwaag: Ah ha. Commissioner Xue: That was my suggestion so next time to make the loop. So, it’s amazing to see those landmarks but once we got here and both my wife and I we were… Ms. van de Zwaag: You hitchhike back. Commissioner Xue: Yes so basically how could… Commissioner Smith: So, you Uber back. Commissioner Xue: We walked back so seriously I mean that’s a wonderful experience and both of my wife and I enjoyed walking. We take a walk every day for an hour for us so it is no big deal but for many, it would be very challenging if you didn’t realize how to get back. So, typically it would be a loop and much nicer. 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 48 of 55 Chair Stinger: I did the same thing only I did it on a hot day and I got downtown and I thought I’m going to die. It was time for a huge lemonade for in the middle of this walk. Commissioner Xue: Yes so that’s the only thing I want to share with us but I participated in at least four activities. You know I feel our City is a really wonderful place to live, so welcoming, so everybody is so friendly. I mean you can feel it’s different, I’m proud to be here. Chair Stinger: We’re proud to have you thank you. Commissioner Xue: Oh, can I just one… Chair Stinger: Please. Commissioner Xue: Very short, from the movie what I remember really well is think young… Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes. Commissioner Xue: …act young, and feel young. So, it really hit my heart so basically, that’s where I should start. Chair Stinger: Well I was out most of this month and so I have nothing in the past to report but I do have some things going forward. One thing today, October 11, is National Coming Out Day and it was an opportunity to encourage people to come out and particularly allies to come out to come out as allies. The suggestion was to wear rainbow color which I clearly don’t own but I still would like to come out as an ally and I think we’re doing that in our Commission. October 16th, I have a note from Monique le Conge Ziesenhenne, there’s a program on immigration and journalism at San Jose State University. It’s a speaker, Sonia Nazario who she has heard before and that’s October 16th, 6-8 pm in the evening. She encouraged us to listen to an excellent speaker. A reminder that October 24th is Commissioner Recognition, I hope I see you all next week. Those are always fun and October 27th a program on parenting that Philip Rey is doing. Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Chair Stinger: I think that’s a result of… Ms. van de Zwaag: I think for parents of teenagers. Chair Stinger: I’m sorry. Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes. Chair Stinger: You’re right, parents of teenagers. Those are the notes that I have. 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 49 of 55 3. Staff Liaison Report Chair Stinger: I’ll move to Staff report. Ms. van de Zwaag: The only thing that I had is for the new Commissioners we have a fund called the Emerging Needs Fund. That is money that we get annually from Council to help agencies in the community that might have an emergency need or an emerging need. So, it’s been a year since we’ve gotten an application but I’ve gotten an inquiry that I believe will lead to an application. I don’t want to say the agency’s name but there is a role of review from the Commission for recommending -- let me go back. Review of the application is done by the Human Relations Commission and their recommendation is given to a representative of the City Manager’s staff. I need at least two people to review it. It is one page long; this is a mini- application where they ask six questions. It’s probably would take you 5 to 10 minutes to read, probably 5-minutes and probably at most an hour meeting to review. I mean to come together to review and then that recommendation goes onto the City Manager. Last time we had two folks, I think it’s probably better to have three folks because I think last time there was a difference of an opinion. Then there was yet another difference of opinion when it went to the next step up. Commissioner Lee: Wasn’t there as a staff person who made it three? Wasn’t it you Ms. van de Zwaag: No, I was there but I’m a non-voting… Vice Chair O’Nan: Marina, Marina was there and she… Ms. van de Zwaag: Oh, was she – oh you’re right, thank you. Commissioner Lee: Yes because it was 2-1 and then we… Ms. van de Zwaag: See this proves that it’s been a year, so I will look into that. Yes, I think there was a staff member from my department other than myself. So, thank you, Commissioner Lee, that is helpful. Commissioner Lee: I was the minority in that one. Ms. van de Zwaag: Yes, I think you two remember that for a very similar reason so we don’t need to go there. So, I would like to request a volunteer effort of two of you then, in all reality – thank you, gentlemen. Commissioner Smith: As long as we leave as friends. Commissioner Lee: (inaudible – off mic) Ms. van de Zwaag: I – yes , like I said I haven’t seen the application. I – it’s an emergency need so that means they had to write permission to actually turn in an application. So, I got it today so I haven’t really looked at it but I wanted to take advantage of this meeting to be able to look at that. We can have a discussion on schedules another time, thank you, gentlemen. 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 50 of 55 Chair Stinger: Is there anything else Minka? I just want to be sure before I move. Ms. van de Zwaag: Not that’s it. Chair Stinger: We’ll go back to Commissioner Reports and do it. Commissioner Smith: Oh ok, I thought we got past it already. Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes, we did we passed it already. Commissioner Smith: Oh, ok. Vice Chair O’Nan: You want to go back to it? Chair Stinger: Go – if you have a short statement about it… Commissioner Smith: I wasn’t even there for the entire thing. I was only… Ms. van de Zwaag: No, he was asking about it. Vice Chair O’Nan: Alright, I… Chair Stinger: Oh, I’m sorry, my mistake, my misunderstanding. Vice Chair O’Nan: Yes ok so the Palo Alto Police Department led by our new Chief Johnson has formed a Citizen Advisory Group, CAG, and this is our revival of a format that we had in the past but got cut back due to staffing limitations at the police department. Chief Johnson who joined the department 9-months ago once to reinvigorate this program so he’s relaunched it but on a fairly wide scale and there were quite a few people who volunteered to serve as part of this Community Advisory Group. They come from all parts of Palo Alto and they met for the first time for sort of a meet and greet at Mitchell Park Community Center last night. So, Commissioner Smith was there for part of the time, I was there for the full even and so was Chair Stinger. We were asked not to participate directly in the group, we just simply wanted to understand it, see the setup, see how many people were going to participate and it was a huge turnout. I was very impressed with their recruitment effort. So, the Chief has asked the group to subdivide by neighborhood into I think five or six different subgroups and he would like a member from each subgroup to always be present at every meeting even though realistically not everybody will be able to attend every meeting. He has three particular things that he would like the group to advise the PAPD on. One was the body camera issue that had come before the HRC, one was… Chair Stinger: Traffic control. Vice Chair O’Nan: Traffic control in their neighborhoods and one was to participate in cultivating compassion training, CCT training, which is a form of mindfulness which was 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 51 of 55 launched at Stanford and that he’s urged his police officers to also undertake. So, they have three things that they are going to launch in January. In the mean time, they’re still setting up and organizing but they did a very good job launching it last night. I think from here on out probably HRC will not really attend the meetings because they are not really a public government type meeting. It’s more of a closed meeting but me, as Liaison to the police department and Commissioner Smith who’s my alternate; we can meet with the Chief on say a quarterly basis and get updates on what the group is doing. If the HRC does need to or want to become more involved we can certainly go there depending on what direction the advisory group takes. Chair Stinger: I would just think that to follow up on that and an important conversation for the two liaisons to have as to what our role would be to going forward since he does have a very large, comprehensive citizen advisory group. [the Commission moved back down to tentative agenda topics] VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR MEETING: Thursday, October 11, 2018. Chair Stinger: Then I’ll ask for agenda items for the November meeting. Commissioner Lee: So, I… Ms. van de Zwaag: Can Staff indicate what we already have… Chair Stinger: Yes. Ms. van de Zwaag: …tentatively? Chair Stinger: Yes, please. Ms. van de Zwaag: Go ahead. Commissioner Smith: Can we get a report on the police event last night? Ms. van de Zwaag: Oh, I wasn’t there. [the Commission moved back up to Commissioner reports] Chair Stinger: Moving onto the tentative agenda for November. What we have so far is… Ms. van de Zwaag: Oh, that’s me and I think I just put my piece of paper away. Ok, so we have a presentation by the Palo Alto Unified School District thanks to the idea of Commissioners Smith and Lee about their RISE Committee. That is a Committee that is working on gender inclusion, please help me if I’m not saying this correctly… go ahead. Chair Stinger: My understanding was – well, maybe back up, rightly, or wrongly Commissioner Lee has suggested that we follow up with some of the recent headlines… 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 52 of 55 Ms. van de Zwaag: Correct. Chair Stinger: … and show some support for particularly Professor Ford the women that associated with her and some of the events. Rightly or wrongly as I said, my reaction was I’d like to do something that had more depth and study for us so that we could learn something about our community, what we’re doing going forward, and some of the challenges. Then you wisely identified the RISE group and they are working so diligently to improve the education for teens in what’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior and giving them a venue for change. Commissioner Lee: In specific regards to sort of the sexual harassment cases and just the culture around those issues both in the schools and in the community. Ms. van de Zwaag: Right so Deputy Superintendent Hendricks is coming; also she is trying to get other members of her staff. Possibly her… Commissioner Lee: As a task force? Ms. van de Zwaag: Members of the RISE Task Force, maybe we Wellness staff and other staff to come, so I think they’re going to bring a really rich conversation. Abilities United – next month is the last month for our HSRAP learning series so Abilities United would like to come. We have to discuss the results of the HSRAP Human Services Needs Assessment which affects the setting of the priority of needs. I heard the Chair report back from the LGBT Committee. We also heard today when we did a site visit at YCS, they would like to come but I’m concerned with the four other items because no one else responded other than the agencies you’ve seen tonight, Abilities United and YCS, that they wanted to come. So, I would suggest then maybe just saying to YCS we have a short December meeting, inviting them to come in December or January and limiting the agenda depending on what other folks have or maybe have left unsaid. That seems like a really full agenda already. Chair Stinger: It does seem full. We also, I think have a request from the Art Center for their proposal. Ms. van de Zwaag: We’d have to see. At this point I’m really – as staff I’m really looking at the necessity to come and when. So, looking to past commitments I think Abilities United contacted us quite a while when I first sent out the request again, so I would feel committed to them. I feel committed to the RISE, the HSRAP Priority of Needs has to meet. Then I would just say if the LGBTQ is completely ready to come at that time or if it should come – I’m concerned December because then we have a short meeting, it gets to January, so I think that is fine. The Art Center, unless they have to come, I would put them off… Chair Stinger: I’ll forward you the email they wanted to give us a proposal. Ms. van de Zwaag: That would be my concern for your time. Chair Stinger: If we need to we’ll take the LGBTQ in December. They had a proposal they wanted our endorsement of for… 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 53 of 55 Ms. van de Zwaag: I’ll look to the advice of the people on that sub-committee. Chair Stinger: Ok. Commissioner Lee: With regards to the HSRAP Priority of Needs, would that be a good opportunity if the Commission wanted to discuss not revisions but additions to the application processes before those get released? Ms. van de Zwaag: To the HSRAP application? Commissioner Lee: For HSRAP and CDBG? When do those get… Ms. van de Zwaag: CDBG, I heard from them and they checked with the Planning Director and they made the decision that they want to keep the Palo Alto application the same as other regional CDBG applications. Also, the timing would really be too late to make any additions and the HRC really doesn’t have the actual authority to do so. So, they took the suggestion and they looked into possibilities. With HSRAP I would say yes and no, I – my concern would be is if we have to get that RFP out by –95 percent of the HSRAP application is required by our Purchasing Department because it’s a purchasing process. So, as far as what we ask there’s very little leeway. I think what would be help… Commissioner Lee: In terms of removing things or could we add things? Ms. van de Zwaag: There are some things that we could definitely add, I’m just trying to think of timing and if that might be best to ask those on the HSRAP subcommittee. That’s what we’ve done in the past saying here’s our draft. Mary and I have almost completed a draft; we want to do some changes to two of the pages. Those are really the pages that we have some lee-way and could probably commit to having that done in the next week or so then sending that to the HSRAP subcommittee and have those members give suggestions back. I would say I would be willing for any Commissioner who is just not on that if you want to send me just abstractly ideas. As far as having a full discussion on that – because usually our full discussions ends up with those are some good ideas, come back again. I don’t have the luxury to come back in December again but I’m willing to take ideas but I think I’d really like to leave it for the subcommittee to do any kind of deep dive if they so choose when I send it out. Commissioner Lee: So when should we send those abstract questions to you by… Ms. van de Zwaag: You can send those to me as soon as you’d like. Commissioner Lee: When’s the deadline to send them? Chair Stinger: Yesterday. Commissioner Smith: Tomorrow. 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 54 of 55 Ms. van de Zwaag: I’d say within the next 10-days… Commissioner Lee: Next 10-days, ok. Ms. van de Zwaag: …should be fine but like I said the majority of what’s on there is purchasing because we’ve tried to change things in the past and we have not been able to. Commissioner Lee: I mean this is… Chair Stinger: Something that I might want to consider – excuse me for just a second – is maybe not changing the questions that we print or that we send in the application because some agencies – it would be a task to change the policy. We could put together interview questions and be more vigorous about… Ms. van de Zwaag: Actually, for the RFP we’re only allowed to ask questions that are follow up questions based on the information that’s on their application. So, when we review it, we look at what they’ve written and then we’d say this is a little confusing, can you please clarify or you weren’t clear enough. Commissioner Lee: Ask new questions or… Ms. van de Zwaag: We can’t just ask new questions that aren’t based on a follow-up. Thank you for … Commissioner Smith: So, we don’t get the RFP questions right we can’t ask questions… Ms. van de Zwaag: So, if something is logical like you got that and you saw that it’s logical to ask a follow-up question. If it’s a totally left field question and we’re basing our funding may be on what that left field question is and we haven’t asked every grantee that question and you make your decision going oh, I really liked their answer to that. It helped me understand that a little bit better and we haven’t asked everybody that question that poses a problem. We’ll also have to realize that what they are being asked to do by our Purchasing Department is extensive so we don’t want to make it so burdensome for them. Commissioner Lee: This is sort of why I’ve been asking about this the last couple months in terms of when would be the appropriate time to do it because I don’t want us to miss the opportunity to ask the questions that we’re interested in, in getting answered. Our ability to ask those questions may be limited or those agencies ability to actually put together the information in response to those questions… Ms. van de Zwaag: I hear you. Commissioner Lee: … may be limited and I wanted to give them… Ms. van de Zwaag: Why don’t we do this, if you want to send them to me in the next 10-days? If I feel, and sorry for the analogy, but I feel that they’re so left field that it's not already included 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 55 of 55 doesn’t make sense for something I was thinking anyway, I might run those by the sub- committee but I will take a first pass at all of them. Commissioner Lee: I appreciate that. Ms. van de Zwaag: That will be my due diligence to you. Commissioner Smith: Thank you. Commissioner Lee: Another thing that is required to be on the agenda, I believe when we elected Chair and Vice Chair last time we said that was for 6-months and so that is coming up in November. Ms. van de Zwaag: I think when we did the math we thought January/February when I did it. We were aligning with Council so… Commissioner Lee: Oh, so it was not a 6-month thing, it was with Council? Ms. van de Zwaag: My understanding is when we did it, that we would come back either in January/February. Commissioner Lee: Ok. Ms. van de Zwaag: That we’d – yes, that we’d align with when the change in Council does and when the change in leadership for the other Community Service Department Commissioners happen. They all align those with those changes in Council too. Commissioner Lee: Ok. Chair Stinger: I think that brings us to item number seven, good evening. We are adjourned. Commissioner Kralik: Thanks so much, thank you. VII. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 10:03 p.m.