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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-01-08 City Council Summary Minutes CITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 1 of 35 Regular Meeting January 8, 2018 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 6:15 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Special Orders of the Day Mayor Scharff: I'd like to recognize some of the other elected officials and dignitaries in the audience. First of all, I'd like to welcome Ruben Abrica, Mayor of East Palo Alto, welcome, Mayor Judy Kleinberg, Vice Mayor Rod Sinks—I know I saw you, Rod. There you are. Rod also presides at my leaving party. We had a Cities Association party where Rod ascended to be President of the Cities Association and took my place. Welcome, Rod. Also, Anne Ream, representing Congressman Eshoo, thank you for coming. Former Mayor Nancy Shepherd. Let's see. Is there anyone else I missed walking in? Emily Lo from Saratoga, former Mayor. Anyone else? Thank you all for coming. Thanks to all of you for coming. I see a lot of you at different Council meetings over the year. Actually, you know, I'm going to recognize some of our Planning Commissioners. We have Susan Monk. We have Ed Lauing and Doria Summa. For the UAC, we have A.C. Johnston, and we have Judith Schwartz. Zac Ross from Marc Berman's office. Lisa Chung from Senator Hill's office. Don't be shy if I missed you; stand up. Thank you very much. Next, I'd really like to introduce Irma Mora, who works in the Clerk's Office and has supported me all year and been very helpful, and her sister, Noemi Lazetera. Noemi did the wonderful cake we have. Why don't you come on up? Noemi, I just wanted to personally thank you. I think the cake is fantastic. I think you did a fantastic job. You really did. Irma, thank you for getting your sister in touch with us to get this done. 1. City Manager Year in Review. Mayor Scharff: Our first order of business is our City Manager will do the Year in Review. After we finish tonight, you can have a piece of your favorite Council Member. The other two people I actually wanted to thank, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 2 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 since I get to be Mayor for a little bit longer for the Ordinance, is my family and my two kids who are sitting in the audience. I have Jason Scharff and Emily Scharff. Stand up so people actually know who you are. The next order of business is the City Manager's Year in Review. James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. Last year was 2017, and I thank you for your indulgence in this annual exercise that we undertake. In a performance-oriented, goal-driven town like Palo Alto, the focus is always on what we either didn't do or what we need to do next. We're often just sort of rushing around with all of the things that are on our plate as a City Council, as an organization, as a community. Rarely do really even stop a moment just to look back over our shoulder at the year past. I think it's worthwhile to do that, and this doesn't take too long. It's pretty amazing when we do this to see what a range of effort and accomplishments we achieved. I know that people are here for the reorganization of the Council, and I can assure you that I've done my very best to whittle this down to about an hour-and-a-half presentation. Just kidding, mostly just pictures, pretty pictures and that sort of thing. In some ways, I'll move through this very crisply, but hopefully it gives us enough of a sense of what we have done. It gives me an opportunity to publicly express at least a few of the quirks of my own personality. I apologize for that. Here we have the Year in Review. On the left-hand picture right up there is the Priority setting Retreat that the Council did at the beginning of 2017, when you set your Priorities. The middle picture, of course, is the Comprehensive Plan, which is one of the signature accomplishments of this Council this past year. On the right, City Hall itself just sort of signifying the range and depth of services and efforts that we provide as a City. I'll look at those and then a brief look ahead to 2018. We're in a business that goes way, way back. I'm fond of often quoting Aristotle and other philosophers, etc. This is always a good reminder. The City is a partnership for living well, he wrote 2,300 years ago. The City comes into existence out of the bare necessities of life but continues in existence for the sake of a good life. We do many things as a City that are in the bare necessities realm, whether that's security or energy, safety, those sorts of things. Yet, what we're ultimately really interested in is the good life of a city. When we look at a year, we sort of say what is in a year. We focus on the Council Priorities, which are really just the tip of the iceberg, and most of what we do is actually submerged. That's all that big piece of that iceberg that is both running the City on the one hand and then these other incoming arrows that represent pop-up issues that, despite all of our best plans as to how we're going focus the year, always intervene and present themselves to us as a City. The City Council adopted five Priorities in 2017. I'll use these little symbols and graphics just to connect to some of the accomplishments that you have. They were Transportation, Housing, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 3 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Infrastructure, Budget and Finance, and Healthy City Healthy Community. In addition to those Priorities, we just have the regular business of running the City, whether it's folks working in the dispatch center responding to emergency calls; electrical workers out ensuring that our energy is reaching us or restoring power; customer service with friendly service to some of our customers there at the counter, down in the left-hand corner the golf course itself; firefighters working and putting out a fire; or administrative work by our Staff or Public Works. Quality of life in this community and the good life is fed by our everyday actions. There are things that just occur during the course of a year. Airplane noise, of course, has been with us for several years, but again it rises and falls in its intensity of issues. We've got the small cell wireless node applications; the issue of dewatering; Recreation Vehicles (RV) on El Camino and Code enforcement with that; questions about Castilleja and its application for potential expansion; or with the School District the Epi-Aid, where the Centers for Disease Control came in during the course of a year to look at the conditions and the situation related to our contagion issue in the City. I wanted to organize the report in a little bit of a different way this year and invite you to think about what we invite our Staff to focus on as far as values as a City as a way to say, "What is it that we actually value in our work or service to the City?" If you'd indulge a perspective to say our work is we nourish community through stewardship in the public service rooted in place and enlivened by civics, embracing innovation and thoughtful change. As we look back over the course of the year, I invite you to think about these areas of value. We nourish community, and then I've linked the Council Priorities to these different areas. A great success in housing and maintaining livability in our City with the purchase of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park to preserve that opportunity in Palo Alto. The opening this past year of Mayfield Place, an affordable housing project on El Camino Real. A project at 3001 El Camino that the Council approved in late November, again, that provides a small amount of housing. All your efforts to generate an Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance, again, to provide and respond to the critical need for housing in our City. On the other hand, there is a lot of work with community that is just about engaging people themselves, whether it's through the arts with, for example, the Truth Booth that we had outside of City Hall or teen karaoke night or the Buoyancy Festival again involving a lot of youth in performance or Diwali Festival at Mitchell Park that adds to our other cultural connection events, Chinese New Years and Holi, and bilingual story times that we run increasingly at our Library to action the Council took on the Cubberley Master Plan, jointly funding with the School District the work that will begin this year on how we actually really begin to master plan that as a long-term community center, and then recognitions, for example, in your leadership as a City Council on Healthy Community issues, one as it relates to second-hand smoke concerns related to tobacco and other substances, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 4 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 and the recognition as the best overall Healthy City in all of Santa Clara County this past year. Congratulations, again, in responding on that Council Priority. We're also, in the realm of community, indebted to our partners in the case of the Junior Museum and Zoo, the Friends of the Junior Museum and Zoo who have come together to put the funding to dramatically expand that for us. The folks who participated in the grade separation roundtable discussions down in the left-hand corner to even issues of neighborliness as it relates to Code enforcement issues, the pop-up in a sense that we have had this year as it related to the First Baptist Church and the neighborhood or how we worked as a community to ensure increasingly safe routes to school for our students. You can see just by that graph the dramatic increase over the years in high school students commuting to both Gunn and Paly, a combination of 1,600 students who actually bike to school every day in our City. We nourish community through stewardship, and that stewardship takes many forms. Much of it, of course, is environmental. Again, in the top left-hand corner an infrastructure project we don't even talk about much which is the decommissioning of the incinerator and the building of a new sludge processing plant out at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant. Below that in the left-hand corner is a reverse osmosis project to dramatically enhance the amount of recycled water that the City will be able to produce and the ability to reduce the salinity in that this coming year to be able to effectively deploy that. If you go up to the middle slide, that's just another regular day in the week at our household hazardous waste facility, one of the few to run a weekly drop-off opportunity for household hazardous waste. We've been installing solar now on our various City garages, the solar garage project. This one on Bryant providing distributed generation of solar energy and better parking. Lastly down in the corner here, recognition of our efforts on the environmental areas as it relates to Carbon Dioxide (CO2) reduction and our Climate Action Plan. At the California League of Cities, Palo Alto was recognized as the first City out of 500 cities almost in 58 counties in the entire State to achieve the platinum level award for our overall efforts in the realm of community agency and other reductions in efforts. Other areas in stewardship, continuous events we do to promote our consciousness and engagement with our community. The Earth Day Great Race for Saving Water, it's always a fun thing to try to catch the running toilet. It leads the race. Down in the left-hand corner is the action towards the end of the year, the Council's action adopting the next three-year Strategic Implementation Plan on your Sustainability and Climate Action Plan that will boldly guide where we will go in the future here on the environment. Another infrastructure project in the top right-hand corner, that's the dramatic improvements that we've been partnering with other members of the Joint Powers Authority (JPA), folks from our neighbors in East Palo Alto and Santa Clara Valley Water District. That project is now under construction and will provide really FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 5 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 once-in-a-lifetime flood protection for our City. Just a reminder because budget and finance is an important issue for the County. Stewardship isn't only in the realm of environment, but it's also in our history, in our finances, and how we protect all of our resources as a City. We nourish community through stewardship in the public service, which means serving the public and in public. This year, for example, the Council awarded the construction and the design on Fire Station 3 on Embarcadero and Newell Road in the top corner. You see a picture here of our firefighters on the scene in Sonoma and Napa helping fight the fires. We also sent police officers, animal control officers, and we had proposed to send building inspectors up to assist if necessary. In the middle there's installation of new storm drain improvements. Of course, we went to the voters for a ballot measure this year that passed with 64-plus percent of the vote on approving a new storm drain ballot. Just an example, in the middle one there, of repaving the airport aprons. Since we took over the moribund Palo Alto Airport from the County, of course, we've been in typical Palo Alto fashion making improvements. I'd like to point out in the top right-hand corner you see Public Works Staff as weekend volunteers cleaning up Matadero Creek of the trash. I'm sure we'd be lucky if even a single one of our employees lived in Palo Alto who still volunteer to come in and help clean-up the City's creeks. Just a reminder, public service isn't just in our City. There are many folks who do it. Here's the Mayor greeting one of our speakers at our annual Veterans Day event honoring those who serve in our military. Also in the realm of public service, you see the kind of emergencies we have to respond to. Last year, we had a tremendous amount of rain by this point in time. That's down at West Bayshore. In the bottom right-hand corner, our efforts to revamp the services at our animal shelter and our continuing negotiations with Pets In Need which, I think, will become an infrastructure issue for the City this next year. Our street paving continues to lead the way. We are now at an 84 ranking on the street condition index. Our goal was a ranking of 85; we're going to hit that this year, 2 years ahead of it at least. Again, I'm proud to say that we have the best local road conditions in all of Santa Clara County. Up at the top, we actually had about 10 percent turnover last year. We were able to make some tremendous new hires. Our new Police Chief, Ron Jonsen, there on the left-hand picture. Michelle Flaherty, to his right. Rob de Geus and Chantal Cotton Gaines, all in new positions in our City along with many others. We hired a new Transportation Planning Manager this past year, several Budget Managers, two Assistant City Attorneys, a Utilities Senior Engineer, and numerous police officers, firefighters and everyone else that we have convinced to join us in our efforts here to be a leading City for our citizens and the community as a whole. We nourish community through stewardship in public service rooted in place. The importance of place, nothing speaks that so loudly as the Comprehensive Plan that the Council adopted after pick a number, 10, 12 FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 6 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 years working on it. You set that as a goal; we adopted it; and we did it. You also adopted based on the work of our Park and Recreation Commissioners and our Staff and others a Parks and Rec. Master Plan to guide our planning and investments for the City in the future. Dealing with the impact of parking and neighborhoods, tremendous success in expanding our Residential Preferential Parking Program, (RPP). Catty-corner to that is the schematic design for the potential Downtown parking garage that's underway. Not to ignore the dramatic efforts that we're making on our Bike and Pedestrian Plan and of course recognition from the Arbor Society as a 30-year Tree Society, our focus on the importance of the tree canopy for health, livability, and just sheer beauty. Last year, I showed you a presentation of all the different things that were happening in the Baylands, one small area of our town. Here, this year, the Baylands golf course completed on time, under budget, and spectacularly beautiful. We really think it's going to be a tremendous asset to the City, 30 percent more environmentally efficient, addition of 7 more acres of wetlands, tremendous improvements. Below that, the Baylands Interpretive Center got a facelift. If we go over to the right-hand corner, you see some of our Staff putting the finishing touches on Byxbee Park, the park as a whole. You awarded, above that, the bridge contract to actually begin construction this coming year or the year after that on the 101 bike bridge. Last but not least, the International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) site acquisition that sat there decaying forever. We've picked that up and begun to clean it up and reorganize it. That's just one small part of our City this plays. I remember a comment—I think it was Council Member Filseth—made at one meeting several years ago about our Baylands. I think it's a worthwhile thing to point out. That is, as almost the entire Peninsula fills in with intense office park development all the way to San Francisco, the Palo Alto Baylands will be the only nature preserve along the Bay. It already is, but in the future, it will be a crown jewel for this region, the fact that this park exists. Where these Staff people of ours are standing, it was just a few short years ago that was an operational landfill for the City. Just in a very, very short time, we've transformed it and made our City better and more beautiful. We're rooted in place, and we're enlivened by civics. We call that the Palo Alto process, but in many ways it's more than that. It's actually a recognition that we value and recognize that the City is a partnership for living well, a partnership with our citizens. Little events here, the On the Table coffee house discussions we had in November with citizens around housing issues and the future of housing to the Citizens Police Academy Class of 2017 down below it. Up above it, the Upgrade Downtown Project public outreach, which is going to be a heck of a Public Works project through the core of Downtown over the next year to the open houses we held with the public in the top right around rail to even this summer opening up the City's Municipal Services Center to open houses for kids and families to climb on all sorts of FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 7 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 equipment that we use in running the City to get a better sense for it. Lastly, we do all of this work embracing innovation. Again, the top-left picture shows robots and beams that we're using at our Library along with 3-D printers. Next to that are some photos of the Code: Art festival that we put on this past year through our Public Arts Program that combined technology and art expression and public engagement. The top right, we took delivery a couple of months ago on the first electric refuse truck in the Bay Area and perhaps in the entire United States. That's operational. Down below, the Repair Café is now in its fifth year, but that's a simple innovation that taps the skills and talents of people in our town who can fix stuff for other people. We just have a kind of happening event where they hang out; people can bring their bikes or other equipment or issues and get advice. We continue to be recognized for our work. We're again in our fourth or fifth year at least in the top ten in the Digital City Survey. We were recognized by Government Technology magazine this past year as one of the 25 doers, dreamers and drivers in technology in the government sector, both state and local. Our Library BiblioCommons catalog is online, providing greater functionality, discoverability, and social interaction. Our Library introduced programs such as the sensory story time. Each Friday this focuses on children on the autism spectrum or with other learning issues. Lastly, our smart Sister City partnership that is deepening in many ways, which is an innovation. It's not just by us, but this recognition that as challenging as so many things are at the national and other levels of government in our Country and elsewhere in the world that as cities partner together, as we like to say, building a civic neural network, a kind of brain around the planet, where we share not only best practices and learning with each other along with seeing treaties, if you will, between cities now. That was the year that just passed. The year ahead. You see the great groundwork that was laid in 2017 and our citizenry eagerly looking up for what will occur the next year and the need obviously for us to focus and be as creative as we possibly can as to what we will be able to achieve. In advance of your next Retreat, the Policy and Services Committee did its work. It's required to—we survey the Council and we hear from the public. They preview potential Priority focus, all of which are continuations in one way or another of the Priorities you had in the past year, and that will come to you all in the Retreat, your Priority setting Retreat that you should have in February. There is prioritizing grade separation—we've added these terms—stimulating housing on the right, dealing with transportation issues, one key factor reducing reliance on cars, and focusing on fiscal sustainability, really dealing with budget and finance, especially as it relates to funding our infrastructure program, closing any gaps we have in planning and funding for that, and being strategic and taking some hard looks at our pension and our other post-employment benefits that we have as a City. With your indulgence, I would venture that the challenge of what we will do this next year in 2018 as it relates to grade FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 8 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 separation and Caltrain is a defining—perhaps the defining—issue for our time. The rail itself divides our community physically now. When electrification comes on Caltrain by '21, '22, something like that, the increase in trains is going to dramatically intensify the reality of that division. I will go so far as to say that our community will be irreparably harmed if we don't tackle our individual need as a community to address this issue of not letting that intense railroad in the future really divide this City. The second issue, I think, is housing itself within those four as a key and defining issue. 2017 was another relatively small year for new housing in Palo Alto. I highlighted the efforts that you made to lay groundwork on the Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) and other items. We issued about 80 building permits in 2017 for new housing, and some of those were permits we were issuing for the Stanford housing on Cal. Avenue, which is how we got to it. If we look historically back to 1998, the 1998 Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) period from '98 to 2000, then we had 2007 to 2014, and now we have 2014 going forward, we have historically over that period actually added about 160-170 new homes a year. The new Comp Plan that the Council has adopted projects that we permit, given the range that you adopted, 230-290 units per year. In actuality as we look forward in time from 1998 to the present, our annual production has actually slowed over that period of time, precisely at the point in time of course where affordability has dramatically increased. In this current housing cycle which includes the last 4 years, we've permitted a total of 390 units or a little less than 100 per year. If you think about what's going to be required to match the goals that you set for the Comp. Plan of just 230-290 starting this year, that really means we've got to really invest some effort in how you might accomplish that. The truth is nearby cities are doing much more. As it's been reported, Mountain View approved almost 10,000 homes near the Google campus. Redwood City has permitted over 1,500 units so far in the last 3 years compared to our 390, and they've got many more in the pipeline. One of the first things the Council will face is the Colleagues' Memo that the Council brought forward in November directing us to bring forward a housing work plan. We have that underway, and we'll be bringing that to you in early February to begin these discussions just to signify, again, the importance of housing. There are two other potential guiding Priorities yet to be finally settled on by the Council, budget and finance particularly as it relates to infrastructure to ensure that we can follow through and fund the adopted Infrastructure Plan separate even from our regular Capital Improvement Project (CIP) and again how we will address the pension and other post-employment benefit long-term costs that we have as a City. In transportation, I'll just single out bike and pedestrian projects obviously because the phone and the emails were ringing off the hook as it relates to our first efforts on Ross Road this year. A lot better work on outreach will be done; our team is well aware of that. We do have a lot of changes that will FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 9 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 be coming, that will make the City a much more livable and safer place and actually facilitate the ability to actually get around without cars more than we do now. It's impossible to keep everything exactly the same and have improvements in traffic or have alternate modes without us making some real adjustments and some choices. We'll be doing a lot of that. The Strategic Implementation Plan, we'll have a big focus on what we're doing on Electric Vehicles (EV) readiness, both as far as physical locations and policy changes, and much more particularly as it relates to shifting off of gas as much as possible to other alternatives. There's a whole bunch of other stuff. The Stanford General Use Permit (GUP) is out there that you'll be dealing with shortly. We will have some real changes and, I think, decisions as we revisit the Cal. Avenue garage, the Public Safety Building, exactly look at how we can best provide those. The Palo Alto History Museum, right in the middle, has got a clock ticking this year on its progress. Below that, we have the potential now for really launching the Cool Block Program to build more connectedness between neighbors on blocks and even achieve more grassroots work on our sustainability and other community interests. Top right-hand corner, Palo Alto Animal Services, we're going to actually have to confront in some way how we will ultimately provide a new shelter in and of itself as part of where we're going. The Castilleja issue and the impacts it has on our community and how we address that will be unfolding in some ways. Against all of that backdrop, by the end of the year in November, some of you might be aware that there will be a national election, but there's also a local election. The Council will go from nine to seven, and so that will be a backdrop. I think I have about three more slides. One of the things to keep in mind is how we get all of this work done. These graphs are a little hard to see in detail. The top graph is our Citywide Full Time Equivalent (FTE) growth across all of our—I'm sorry. The top one is across all of our funds; the bottom is across the General Fund, which is the tax- supported portion of the budget. Far left column shows the number of full- time employees that we had 10 years ago in 2008. The straight line, the red line, shows our population growth. The green lines on the far show you what our current employment numbers are. We have fewer employees that we had significantly than 10 years ago. We have a larger population, getting a whole heck of a lot more done. In 2018, we're going to have some key vacancies, as we often do. By the end of the year at least, you're going to have to look and hold recruitments. City Manager is one of them. Our Chief Financial Officer will leave this year, our Director of Public Works, our Director of Community Services position is vacant right now. We have an Assistant Police Chief, the Assistant Director of Administrative Services, our Accounting Manager in Finance, Manager of Utilities Engineering, etc. Some key implications that there are folks we're going to need who are going to have to pick up the baton in the course of trying to accomplish all of this work. One other thing I'll just use. As we get into the budget and we think FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 10 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 about how does all of this happen and how well is the City doing, one of the things I've thought over the year is that complaining about one's city, there's almost always a good point to be made. There are two important things. One is actually complaining about a city, particularly in a small town, is a little bit like being able to talk about weather. It's something everybody can agree that they want to at least talk about or hear. Actually in a maybe heavy-duty way, living in a democracy—really complaining about your government is a reminder that you live in a democracy. You can say whatever the heck you want; you can express your opinion in a way. The truth is we're really fortunate to be in a situation where that's the case. I want to just share a little bit. We provide a lot of value in this City. People will say, "What do my tax dollars go for?" Our General Fund is what funds our general taxes. We have basically three general taxes: property tax, sales tax, and utility user tax on residents, particularly who are homeowners. Even today because of the way Prop 13 works, 40 percent of our homeowners have assessed valuations at $600,000 or lower. What that means, since our City out of a 1 percent sales tax, which most people don't focus on, gets less than 10 percent of the property tax that everyone in Palo Alto pays as property tax. We get 9.4 percent. We get a little bit over $600 for those 40 percent or less. If you throw in typically a really huge purchase, what we do in sales tax and utility user tax is about $1,000 a year for a household. That is less than I would suggest most people's wireless or cable/internet bill is over the course of a year. I would argue there's a good bang for the buck for a great quality of life that we have here in Palo Alto. I can tell you your Staff, as you know supporting the Council and working in partnership with the community, wants to be sure that that's maintained. 2018, I would suggest again is a year of focus. Absolutely, I would ask the Council to recognize what you do know. I intentionally put these two issues with a dividing line down them. The grade separation will divide our future in unimaginable—actually imaginable ways. The effort we're going to have to commit to be able to address it is going to be defining, and it's going to be distinctive for us. Also, on housing we've got to do more. Four or 5 years ago, Richard Florida, Martin Prosperity Institute, starting doing surveys on livability in cities, livability.com. The very first cities they did, the 100 most livable cities in the Country, we were number one. We're no longer number one. As a matter of fact, when we were number one, I had friends in other cities, Boulder, Durham, North Carolina, a few other places. They said, "Congratulations, you guys are number one." I said, "Yeah, I know. We're the number one most livable City in the Country except you can't afford to live here." We have fallen precisely for that reason. I talked to Richard Florida earlier this fall at a conference. He said, "I'll be happy to come out and talk with you guys, but that's precisely what is happening for you guys." That's something we all know. It does seem to me that, like grade separation, this is an issue that is in our hands and is something that FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 11 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 we can do not only for the present but for the future. Finally—I'll end here— we've had a really effective year in 2017. We clearly have big challenges ahead, but we're up to it. There are bare necessities in life, but it's the sake of a good life. Let's not forget that. As Shakespeare said, "What is the city but the people?" Let's work hard, have fun, and little Dewey over here, the robot in the corner, will be making his appearance at your first Council meeting when we come back to set the working part of the year on the right note. With that, thank you for your attention. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much, Jim, for that. 2. Election of the Mayor for 2018. Mayor Scharff: Our next order of business is election of the next Mayor. Before we pass the baton, I just really wanted to thank all of you in the City for making it a great year. As Jim said, it is the people. It is really an honor to serve the City of Palo Alto. I also wanted to say we have a lot of members of the Staff here. Could you guys rise, just stand up? We never get to recognize you. The one thing you do get to see as Mayor is how hard the Staff works. You get an office up in City Hall; you get to walk around; you get to talk to all the Staff members. We have really competent, hard- working Staff. I think that often gets lost because most times people have interactions they don't see it the way I see it. You don't see how hard, the extra hours. I can walk by City Hall sometimes; it's sometimes 7:00, 7:30 PM at night, and there's someone working on something. They're not there because they have to be; they're there because they care. I think that's something that gets lost in the general public. I just really wanted to thank all of the Staff, and thank you all for coming out tonight. Thank you really for making it a great year for me. I really appreciate that. I really wanted to thank my colleagues. It's been a pleasure being the Mayor. You've all been great, and I really enjoy working with you guys. Thanks. Now, onto the next order of business. I shouldn't delay it any longer. The election of Mayor. First of all, what we'll do is we'll collect nominations from the Council Members for the position of Mayor. Council Members may nominate themselves or they may nominate another Council Member. No second is required. After collecting the nominations, I'll invite people to speak in the following order. First the Council Member who made the nomination may speak to the nomination. Then, Council Members who are nominated may speak, and then any other Council Member may comment, and then we'll hear from any members of the public that wish to speak, and then we'll vote. The new Mayor will take my chair; I will move to the Vice Mayor's chair. After we elect a Vice Mayor, I will sit wherever that is. That's what we're going to do for tonight. Any nominations for Mayor? Council Member Filseth. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 12 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Council Member Filseth: First of all, I want to thank the City Manager for his presentation. You articulately looked at not only what we've done but also some of the challenges we've got ahead. We have a lot of work ahead. I want to nominate Liz Kniss. We have only to look around at other parts of our Nation to appreciate the importance of competence, wisdom, and experience in government. Liz has by far the most experience in government of all of us on Council. Not only is she entering her fourth term on Council here in Palo Alto, but she's Chair of the Air Quality Management District, a former County Supervisor, a former Chair of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), and twice former Mayor of Palo Alto. Liz knows how to do this. Palo Alto faces some significant challenges in the coming year and years as we work to balance our resources with increasing demands on our infrastructure, public works, transportation, need for affordable housing, and long-term liabilities. Liz's experience and expertise at both the regional and City levels will be invaluable to us as we do this. She is a supporter of affordable housing. She's been a supporter of the Residential Parking Permit Programs. I'm pleased to nominate her for Mayor of Palo Alto. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you, Eric. NOMINATION: Council Member Filseth nominated Vice Mayor Kniss for Mayor for 2018. Mayor Scharff: Any other nominations? Council Member Fine, you put your light on? Vice Mayor Kniss, would you like to speak to your nomination? Vice Mayor Kniss: As we say, briefly. I appreciate that. I also appreciate your summing up the kinds of things that I have been doing. I hope to have the support of my entire Council with whom I've now worked 5 years, for some less than that, but certainly have enjoyed the time that I have spent, especially with our new members. Should I be elected, I have some more to say. Why don't I say that much for now? If I get that opportunity, I'll go into more detail. I think you know what I concentrate on. I will be looking at housing this coming year with great determination. I am absolutely convinced that we can make that happen. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for all of your work over this past year and your tutelage as well. I'd be happy to support you, Liz, as our Mayor for 2018. As Eric mentioned, you have decades of service to this community, to this County, to this State. I think your distinguished leadership will be very helpful for us moving forward. Personally, I truly appreciate your service and leadership on some of our regional boards, both FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 13 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 past and present. They really speak to some of our challenges here in Palo Alto, whether it's housing, transportation, air quality, and the environment. Finally, I think it's really important that you seem to know everybody. I could ask the audience here to raise your hand if you've ever had a conversation with Liz either here in Chambers or out on the street or at Cuppa Café, and I assume most of your hands would go up. I see people just doing it because that's who you are. I'll be proud to support you in this year and look forward to your Mayorship. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Greg, thanks for all your efforts as Mayor. We had a good year. I've worked with Liz now for 3 years. We've disagreed on a few items; there have been a lot of items where we have agreed. We've worked really well together in Policy and Services in particular. I think you disagreed recently with my efforts to establish some renter protections. I'd still like to come back and set maybe an overall goal for affordable housing. Overall, you have the experience and the demeanor I think we need in the Mayor. I do want to mention I have gotten calls and emails from the community expressing concerns about the Fair Political Practices investigation. Unfortunately, we don't have a ruling tonight before the vote. I think it's important just to recognize the community concern and the seriousness of the allegations, not to ignore it. Transparency in the voting process is important for democracy. A lot of times supporters for a candidate will say that Fair Practices complaints are just sour grapes, but it's fundamental to ensuring a fair process. I do support Liz for Mayor tonight, but I think on completion of that investigation if violations were found, we as a body should reconsider tonight's vote. I think we owe it to the community and to the Council. We've had an Architectural Review Board (ARB) Commissioner resign over a flower pot in the past. I think we try to hold high standards. Right now, we're in a Country where you're innocent until proven guilty. I'm troubled by what I read in the press, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I support you tonight in your vote for Mayor. Mayor Scharff: I wanted to speak a little bit about Liz. I've known Liz as a Supervisor, and I met with her several times when I first joined the Council as a Supervisor. I've met with her, obviously, now that she's been on the Council many times. I've watched Liz—what people haven't said about Liz is she's one of the most gracious people I know. When Liz runs a meeting, it's done in a way that makes people feel really good. In lots of ways, I look up to Liz and say I wish I had her skills. She runs a meeting better than I do. I've watched her do it. I would say that's truthful. We're really lucky to have her. We're lucky to have her skills. We're lucky to have her FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 14 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 experience. She's extremely well thought of regionally. I don't think the community actually sometimes realizes how hard it is to become Chair of the Air Board and how that tells people how well thought of you are, the depth out there of love for Liz basically throughout the region. That's something we're really lucky to have in a Council Member with that much experience. One of the things that Eric failed to mention is Liz actually has more experience than, I think, all of us combined. If we added it up, you do. As Eric mentioned, you've been Mayor twice. You did an amazing job; people tell me what a great job you did. People tell me at the Air Board what a great job you do running there. I know that we're in good hands with you, Liz. I wanted to tell you—also say that Liz was a fantastic Vice Mayor. She was really good. She did a lot of the stuff when I couldn't do a community event or whatever. She was there. I always knew it was good in hands. I just really wanted to thank you for your service, Liz. Thank you for everything you've done. Seeing no other lights, seeing we only have one candidate, we do have some public. Yes, we do. I apologize. Our first speaker is Judy Kleinberg, to be followed by Sea Reddy. Judy Kleinberg: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. My name is Judy Kleinberg, and I'm speaking not in any official capacity. I just wanted to say that I'm delighted that Liz has been nominated to be Mayor again. I've known her since I moved to this community and her first race for elected office. That's many, many years ago. I've seen Liz grow in her positions and her professionalism in terms of her public service over all those decades. Everything that Jim Keene talked about today—thank you for that extraordinary presentation. We are so proud of our City and of our Staff. Amazing. Everything that he talked about, virtually everyone of those things, Liz has her fingerprints on in a good way, virtually every one. We don't get to this point in the wonderful success of our City without decades of work building up to something. I have to just say it's good to see that golf course get redone because that was my idea when I was the Mayor. Thank you for finally—that's 12 years ago. Thank you for finally doing it. Pat Burt deserves support too because he worked on it with me. Liz has not just the experience, but she has the personality and the character. These days in politics you have to talk about that. I won't use any of those other code words that you've been hearing in the press the last few days. Liz is someone you can count on. She's really somebody who can also pull together different points of view. That's really important when you have a divided community in terms of points of view and how to solve some of our challenges. That ability to bridge between opinions and points of view when everybody's well intentioned but pretty fired up about the different ways to go is a tremendous talent that the Mayor has to have. Liz has it. Building bridges is very, very important. Finally, I just want to say that building a bridge to the business community is critical. When you mentioned the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 15 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 property tax and the sales tax and the utility tax, the business community is in large part that economy. That is the fuel in the engine. Liz has reached out to the business community. We didn't have to go to Liz; Liz has come to us and said, "What do you think? I want to hear what you have to say. I'm not sure I understand your point of view." By the way, the business community isn't just one point of view, but many points of view. I appreciate the fact that Liz goes out to do the fact finding and do the hard work. By the way, everyone of you up there knows what kind of sacrifice you make socially and professionally to be an elected official. Liz has made that sacrifice for decades now, and she's willing to do it again, to be the Mayor in a gracious way. She's a wonderful face for our community and a leader for our community. Thank you for nominating her again. Mayor Scharff: Sea Reddy. Sea Reddy: Thank you, Palo Alto. Thank you, Mayor and the Vice Mayor and the City Council that enable me to speak few minutes. I am impressed with Liz. On the other hand, I put together a framework of how do you be a good leader. It's three things I think we need, myself, as parents, spouses including leadership at every level, City level, County level, national level. First thing is innovative. You need to be innovative. Many times we've spoken about innovation. The second most important thing that Tom unfortunately brought up is the integrity. If you don't have integrity, what good is it to serve other people? Think every day about integrity. You can always do better. I can do better in many things that I do. I don't take 25 ketchups so I can only have one at home. A very simple example. Dealing with business association, doing covert things that are not nice but people are looking at. The third one is—I think we all need to be inclusive. That's the greatness of each of us. We need to include ourselves. I put one to ten scale for each one of them; that's 30 points. I've already rated Liz to be 27.5. She can be there, 30, or be less. We can measure each of us at night or wake up in the morning and shower and say, "What do we do? How do we do it?" I recently traveled to (inaudible). There are great cities, but Palo Alto is even better. (Inaudible) is a beautiful town with a lot of wealth and good stuff. There is no comparison to Palo Alto. I came here to United States (U.S.) in 1973, and I came to this town from Texas to Stanford and looked at it and said I need to be here. It took me 40 years to come here. I've been here 5 years. I think we have a great City. If we implement these, integrity and innovation and inclusion plan, we can all work together. We don't need to—what I really hate is all the discussion on Palo Alto Online meanness. That needs to stop. The Editorial Board, the people that run the place, need to calm down, let the people be nicer to each other. This is not New York. This is not the Donald Trump-type fighting between each other. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 16 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 We can be civil. We can be nice. I think we have a great Mayor, and I think we'll have a great Vice Mayor. All of us can improve. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Lisa Van Dusen to be followed by John Kelley. Lisa Van Dusen: Good evening, Council Members and Mayor Scharff. I'd like to thank you also, Greg, to say thank you for your service. It's not an easy job, and you've done it very well in a lot of hard circumstances. I don't have a long set of remarks. It's really very simple. I think Liz is one of a kind in this Council right now in terms of her experience to understand the nuances of a lot of the decisions that are ahead, that City Manager Keene just outlined of what's ahead this year. You have a regional perspective that is unique and is essential because really almost none of those challenges and opportunities are isolated in terms of how they affect only Palo Alto. They are regional in nature. In addition, they are things that have long-term implications. The longevity of your service in this community will serve you in very good stead as a leader to really understand what will happen, what's at stake in these decisions, and how we can navigate it. This is not your first rodeo. We'd be very fortunate to have you as Mayor. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: John Kelley to be followed by Justine Burt. John Kelley: Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, Council Members, I'd just like to echo what Lisa just said about your service, Greg. Thank you very much for what you've done for the community. In many respects it's been a trying year. I hope that 2018 is going to be, as Mr. Reddy said, a much more civil one for all concerned. On the Palo Alto Online note, I'd simply ask that everybody put their names on the things they post. That's, I think, a simple suggestion. I have some other things I'd like to encourage the Council to do to promote greater civility. Having said that, I'd like to respond to some of the comments that have been made in the course of the nominations. Council Member DuBois, you've known Liz for about 3 years or worked with her for about 3 years. I'm trying to put an exact date in my own mind that goes for me. I think we're now at 30-plus years. The thing that I'd like to say, especially about service and about integrity, is it's important to judge one's assessment of another person's integrity, particularly an assessment of another person's integrity as a public servant, by two things that haven't been mentioned here tonight. The first is simply the concern that the person you're judging expresses about the community being served over a sustained period of time. You've already detailed all of Liz's accomplishments as a leader. The thing I didn't hear in those prior presentations was simply the concern and the love that she has expressed for this community. I think that is not only unparalleled but unchallengeable. If people are casting stones or calling into question certain FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 17 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 things about details of intricate finance statements or whatnot, you have to look at the whole person and the whole period of service and ask yourself, "Over a sustained period of time, is there any question about someone's loyalty to the community and about their integrity?" I think the answer is no. The second thing that is particularly important to consider here is what is the basis upon which these challenges are being lodged when they come to values and political decisions. The thing that I think I can speak to about Liz is when I first got to know Liz and when I was here in the Council Chambers 20-plus years ago asking the Council to do something that was extremely important to me, Liz and I were on diametrically opposites sides of that question. I took issue with what she believed, what she said, what she argued, a lot of her factual assertions, all that. Some of those things she was probably right about, and some of those things I was probably wrong about. The important thing to me is that despite all that, I never once had any question about the probity, about the honesty, about the values that she brought to that decision-making process. I think she is not only going to be a great Mayor for Palo Alto once again, I think she's going to be an exemplary one. I would hope that everyone in this Chamber, everyone on the Council, when you're deciding this issue tonight, would just embrace that record of achievement and consider the position from which you're standing if you raise any questions about that record at all. Liz, I support you wholeheartedly, and I wish you great success as our next Mayor. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Justine Burt to be followed by Susan Monk. Justine Burt: I wanted to quickly thank Liz Kniss for her service as Vice Mayor. You've been an advocate for affordable housing and attainable housing for those of us who aren't near the poverty line but still can't afford to buy here. I appreciate all the work you've done on the Comp. Plan over the last several years. I hope to see more progress on transportation in the future and to see Palo Alto add more than 100 housing units per year. I read in the newspaper recently there was 44 units added in the last 3 years. Jim, your comments clarified that. Liz, thanks for listening to all our public comments over the years. I bet it's tedious week in, week out to listen to all of us, but we sure do appreciate it. Finally, Liz, thanks for your openness to listen to various viewpoints. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Susan Monk. Susan Monk: Good evening. I'm Susan Monk as you know. I am on our Planning & Transportation Commission (PTC) as the Vice Chair, but I'm speaking on my own behalf. First of all, congratulations on receiving the nomination with the unanimous support of Council tonight. Mayor Scharff, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 18 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 thank you so much for your service this past year. It's been really a pleasure receiving your monthly updates and seeing you out and about around town. I just wanted to share how I know Vice Mayor or soon-to-be Mayor Kniss. I met her a couple of years ago through our mutual volunteer work with the Women's Reproductive Rights group. She has a long history of serving the community in a variety of ways. I just thought that illuminating her broad community engagement was something that we should all be looking at as a way of looking at her integrity in general. She's also involved in Rotary and other civic groups. She's also been, as we all discussed tonight, a Council Member, a Supervisor in the past. In the last election, she was not only the highest vote earner, she won by a landslide, and the vote gap between her and the second runner up was 3,400 votes. It was unprecedented. Liz Kniss enjoys broad appeal and support throughout Palo Alto. During her campaign, I know that she was endorsed by every organization that she applied to, ranging from Planned Parenthood to the Sierra Club, Democrats and beyond. She's also given back to the community. She was very instrumental in securing the funding along with Council Member Cory Wolbach for Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. She's done a large amount to benefit our community. In addition to the local Boards that Council Member Filseth alluded to as well, I could iterate everyone you said. It's all true. She gives back in a variety of ways, and she represents us in a regional manner that we all really value and need. Having her as our influential leader not just here but in the broader regional community is something we all respect. I just wanted to say that on a personal level I've enjoyed getting to know her. I appreciate her support. She's always available to me. I see her with an open-door policy to anyone that wants to meet with her. She truly enjoys people. She loves this community and is available to bring us into this next year with all the success we need given all the challenges we have. Best of luck and thank you. Mayor Scharff: That's our final public speaker. If we could vote on the board. Congratulations. NOMINATION PASSED: 9-0 3. Election of the Vice Mayor for 2018. Mayor Kniss: I'm going to ask the slightly former Mayor if he would help me do something. Most of you know that I like red; I like red a lot. Thank you to whomever it was who created me with a red jacket. I don't know how she knew to do that. Are you still in the room? I don't see her, but she's probably hearing it in the other room. I want to thank her so much for that. I so appreciate all of you being here tonight. This is an incredible crowd for FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 19 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 what we call an off year because we didn't have a gubernatorial, we didn't have a presidential. Next year will be a very interesting year because we will have our own election going on, but also a very important election for Governor. Having done that, let us move on to the next item. I'm going to flip the page. As you probably know because you've been here before, the new Mayor notes that it's now time to elect the Vice Mayor. I am going to ask for nominations from the City Council Members who may nominate themselves or anybody else. I see that the first light that's gone on tonight is Cory Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'd like to nominate Eric Filseth. NOMINATION: Council Member Wolbach nominated Council Member Filseth for Vice Mayor for 2018. Mayor Kniss: Do you wish to speak to your nomination now? Council Member Wolbach: I'd be happy to. The first thing, the first job of every Council Member is to know how to count to five. The most important job for a Vice Mayor is basically to support the Mayor and, when the Mayor's unavailable, to run a fair meeting. Two years ago, I had the pleasure of serving on the Finance Committee when Eric Filseth was chair. He ran a fair meeting. I don't think it's any secret that Council Member Filseth and I disagree from time to time. I consider the intellectual challenge posed by our disagreements one of my greatest joys of being on this Council. The ability to spar intellectually with somebody who also takes the time to rigorously investigate complex issues that have major ramifications is something I truly appreciate and respect. Over the last couple of years, I've seen Eric grow into the role of Council Member, sometimes though in ways that surprised. Some of them I liked; some of them I didn't. I appreciate that he's always taking time to consider the issues at hand and the impact it's going to have on the residents and the broader community and the region. That ability to learn is really important. I also think we should not ignore that sometimes this has been a contentious place over the last couple of years in the community, on the dais. We all talk about wanting to move past that. We all talk about wanting to see the Council work better together, talking about building bridges. We're not just talking about 101. If I'm going to expect that of others, it's up to me to set an example. I extend the opportunity to Eric. I think the year ahead will be one where we'll work well together, where this whole Council can work together recognizing that we may not agree. As I said at our second Retreat last year, we're all here for the right reason. Eric will do a fine job supporting Liz either in the pre-Council meetings or when she's not available running a fair meeting. It's my pleasure to support him for Vice Mayor. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 20 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Mayor Kniss: I'm not sure what to call you now. Former Mayor? Mayor Emeritus? Council Member Scharff: Call me Council Member. I've been there before. I wanted to say that I strongly support the nomination of Eric Filseth. Eric has shown really strong leadership on this Council. He has twice been Chair of Finance, and I know he can run a meeting really well. He also understands the City's budget very well and the financial challenges we face as a City. I think he understands it better than any of us up here. Eric knows the details of the budget of the City. He knows the weeds, but he doesn't get lost in them. That ability to understand the weeds, while not getting lost in them, and seeing the big picture is really important. It's that strength that makes me feel very happy about having Eric on the team with Liz. He's passionate about ensuring that the City remains fiscally sound so that we can continue as a City to fund the level of services that our community has come to expect. What the City Manager said earlier was really an eye-opener for me, when he said that 40 percent of the people in Palo Alto pay less than $1,000 towards the City's budget. That means that that doesn't come close to sustaining our budget. Our budget, in the General Fund—Eric, what's the number? I actually don't remember. Council Member Filseth: $205 million. Council Member Scharff: That is obviously not funded by people paying $1,000 a year in services. Understand the nuts and bolts of policy, grasping these details without being lost in the weeds is a rare combination, and we're lucky to have it. It's going to be a great team, the two of them. The other thing about Eric is that he's one of the Council Members to have decades of management and business experience. As I've gotten to know Eric, I've been impressed with his judgment. Consistently good judgment is rare. Eric, time after time, to me, has demonstrated sound judgment. He also strongly cares about Palo Alto and what's right for the City. I feel secure with the combination of Mayor Kniss and Council Member Filseth that the City will have strong leadership for 2018. That's why I strongly support Eric for Vice Mayor. Mayor Kniss: Thank you. From these lights, it looks like, Council Member DuBois, you wish to speak and then Council Member Fine. Council Member DuBois: I support the nomination of Eric. Eric's been the mature, analytical part of the Council. He really does consider all points of view. He's made some very balanced decisions. As Greg just said, he's demonstrated extremely strong financial expertise. I know he's dug into the numbers very deeply to understand how our budget works. That's going to FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 21 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 be critical in the next year. We have some structural issues in our budget we need to resolve. Eric's going to help lead us on that. Also as Greg said, Eric has board and management expertise in industry. He brings an engineering, data-driven mindset. You don't see a lot of engineers in City Councils. I think it's a real asset to us. His focus and top priority is Palo Alto. He doesn't have another agenda that he's pushing. I think Eric finally can really help unify this Council in a way that probably no one other person up here can do. Again, I think it's a very nice combination of Liz and Eric. I'm looking forward to 2018. Mayor Kniss: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mayor. Absolutely want to echo what my Colleagues up here have said. Eric, I'll just say a few things. In my year of working with you, most of all I truly appreciate that you run a crisp and efficient meeting. I hope we'll do more of that in 2018. On Finance, you've absolutely been a fair Chair and shown good judgment and instincts to help elevate our Staff and also your fellow committee members. I think that's a really important quality in the role that I hope you'll be taking. Finally, I'll just say you're always prepared. You bring your A game and lots of professional experience, which I truly appreciate learning from. I think our whole community benefits from it. I look forward to supporting you. I look forward to a great 2018. Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Council Member Holman, is your light on? I know you're having trouble talking. Council Member Holman: I'm going to try. It was just too much to pass up. In reference to weeds, I just hope that—referring also to the comments of Council Member Wolbach—we will cultivate in these Council Chambers a very productive and collaborative joint. Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Karen. I know you've been struggling with the bug that has been circulating through Palo Alto. I don't see any other lights on this. If I've missed anyone, would you put up your hand? Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Thank you, folks, very much for all these words. Thank you for this confidence in me. If I'm chosen as Vice Mayor, I intend to take a thoughtful, balanced, and very data-centered approach. I pledge to work to the utmost of my abilities to support the Mayor and the Council as we pursue what I think are some real work ahead of us. Thanks again. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 22 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Mayor Kniss: Thank you. With that, for some of you who are used to us passing ballots out, because there's one nomination we can vote on the board. Would you all do that now? NOMINATION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Kniss: At this time, I would like to say a word or two. Council Member Filseth, now Vice Mayor, you may wish to do the same. Let me start out. Most of you know this. This is the time when the Mayor gets to say just a few words, not a whole lot but just a few. As my notes say here, let me not forget my family first. My family is all in the front row. Will you stand up so they can see who you are and who my support is? While they're standing for just a minute, I want to tell you who they are. Just stand back up a minute so we don't miss anybody. Starting at that end is Caroline, who is Liza's daughter. My daughter, Liza, is in the middle with the long blonde hair. My husband is standing between Caroline and Elizabeth. On this end is Lauren. I'm very lucky to have their support. They live close by, and they are terrific kids. I have a very supportive family including my husband who has, as Judy described it, put up with decades of this. It's very appreciated. Clearly I want to thank my Colleagues on the Council. This is a rare opportunity to get to serve your community three times as Mayor. Although it's taken, as we said, decades to do it, I am incredibly appreciative. It is an amazing community. The kind of support that we have, especially looking at Jim and at Molly, both here, we're extraordinarily lucky. It's a privilege to continue doing this. It really is. I began this journey a number of years ago. It has led me to run for office many times. I have been fortunate; I haven't lost an election. I want to tell you tonight I will not be running for anything again. There's not a prayer. I hope that the years that I have served before will serve well this year. I appreciate the people who came and said kind words. In particular, I want to stress that we all do believe— what did you hold up before, Sea? Why don't you hold it up again? That was very nice. I don't remember all the words, but they deal with innovation, integrity, and inclusiveness. Am I correct? Thank you. I think those words are very important. Thanks for bringing that tonight. I want to talk just a little about as we move forward. Didn't Jim Keene do a fabulous job tonight at presenting things for the City? He really did. I don't think we appreciate what goes on in this City and especially we don't appreciate what goes on in a year. Some of you who were around when I ran for office last year heard me say that we spend 500 hours a year sitting in these chairs. Not just going out to events, not just being present at other things, but 500 hours on these chairs that, frankly, are kind of hard and uncomfortable. One makes an enormous commitment when they run for Council. I am, as I said, committed to all of you who have been so supportive of me but also of the Council in general. We do engage pretty effectively, but we could FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 23 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 probably engage even more effectively. One of the things that I'll do this year is spend as much time out in the community. Let me mention—is our friend Joe Simitian still here? If so, Joe stand up because I just want to recognize you. Here he is. He's the incoming Chair of the Board of Supervisors as of tomorrow morning. As you know, he stays in very close touch with Palo Alto aside from, of course, being a Palo Altan. I'm delighted you're here tonight, Joe, and appreciate your showing up. Talking about engagement, I think Joe does a great job with his sidewalk hours where he does engage with people. While I don't promise sidewalk hours, I promise to be out and about as much as I can. As you know, we all frequent coffee shops. If you want to find us, you'll find us at Pete's or Coupa; those are the two. Three of the Priorities that I have are housing, traffic, and Healthy Cities. Housing, I think you've heard a lot about tonight already. Thank you, Jim, for summing that up. The bottom line of that is we are way behind on providing housing. We are way behind. We wouldn't say that as conclusively other than we have what are called Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) numbers, which are put out by Association of Bay Area Government (ABAG). We also have the Comprehensive Plan that we just voted in, just within the last 6 weeks. That Plan states how many housing units we intend to provide in this community. It is beholden on us, on our integrity to do that. We need to start planning for that this year. I may even think about the idea of having a separate Housing Committee, that has such importance in our community. We need to get more creative with our housing. There are other parts of the Country that are dealing with minimal units, that are dealing with different construction types. The one thing that we really need in Palo Alto is some more senior housing. Our senior housing projects in this community have long waiting lists. We need to look at that. People like living more in the Downtown or in California Avenue. I want us to look at that as a serious project that we could do this year. While we think about that, I always know there's a lot of push-back as we go to the community with that. When this comes up this year, will you think through, "Would I like my kids to live here? Would I like to stay here as long as possible?" I'm saying keep an open mind to us needing to provide more housing in the future. Let's try another quiz question. How many of you think traffic is a problem in town? I wish I could say that we could really solve the traffic problem. As we've talked about before in a kidding way, maybe a good wall going up would stop that. We have traffic coming in from Mountain View, from Stanford, from Menlo Park, and of course now from across the Bay as well. If you walk in the mornings as I do and you take a look at Embarcadero Road, you will see that the traffic streams on Embarcadero coming from off 101 for the next 3 or 4 hours starting at 6:00 PM, also down Oregon Expressway. We have a lot of traffic that goes through town. As somebody once said, if you take a look around, a lot of the traffic is also us. There are ways that we can get someplace differently, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 24 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 but many of us really do like using our car. I would just mention that we have great benefits in our community from Stanford being in our backyard, but we also have great impacts from Stanford being in our backyard. At our next meeting, we will be discussing the General Use Permit (GUP) and how we respond as an elected board to the General Use Permit, which is what Stanford has applied for. I want to again call out Joe Simitian, who will be overseeing that. If you have things that you're unhappy about, he will be the person that votes on the General Use Permit at the County level. I think he's hiding in the side. Next, I want to talk about Healthy Communities. We were so proud to be recognized in December by the Public Health Department of Santa Clara as the healthiest City in the County in relation to our efforts to reduce secondhand smoke, Safe Routes to School, work we've done creating healthier food and beverage options, and so forth. We got the absolutely best overall award for a City from the County as a Healthy City in this community. Karen, I'd like to call you out in particular because you and I have worked on that extensively. I feel that we do make a dent when we do become the healthiest City. It's something I feel very proud about. We also received a designation as an Age Friendly City. We are from the Age Friendly Silicon Valley group. The goal of an age friendly community is not just to accommodate those who are aging; it's to ensure a livable community for everyone. By 2030, one in four Santa Clara County residents will be over the age of 60. In Palo Alto, that number is going to be even higher. Aging is good. We like staying around. It also has its challenges and its problems. That's something else we need to look at as we become older as a community. How do we adjust to that? How do we accommodate those who are aging in our community? Lastly, one of the ways that we are going to demonstrate working together is the way we have just talked about working together tonight. Eric and I have not always been on the same page. I can say that out loud, Eric. We are very compatible with our ability to discuss items together. You'll discover we work very well together. As you probably know, that represents two sides of a divide in our community. When we come together like this, I think you will see a big difference as we go through the year in how we're able to discuss and accommodate each other. We have such divisiveness at the National level, wouldn't it be terrific if we actually at the local level could come together? We come together for the good of the whole community, not simply for a few but for everyone. This year we're going to try to listen to each other, to be able to share, and do that in a very transparent, factual information way. I think that's going to make a big difference. We thrive on dialog. I often wonder if any other City has this many people who come to speak to us on items. I don't know. From what I hear, I'm not sure that that's the case. As you know, we listen, and we listen, I hope, intently and a lot. Let me just make one response just to end on a more sober note. Tom tonight brought up an Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) discussion that has been taking place. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 25 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Unfortunately, the Commission takes anonymous complaints, which makes it possible for people to make allegations that they probably wouldn't if they could be publicly identified. We've not seen this occur before. As someone I've talked to said, almost every return to the FPPC will have some errors in it. We looked at the possibility of reporting other people and decided not to do it. We felt that perpetrating something wouldn't make a great deal of sense and it certainly wouldn't contribute to our ability to function cohesively together. While I heard your comment tonight, Tom, I would tell you that a great many people have been fined by the FPPC, which is a Commission. It is certainly not a judicial body; it is civic. While many people have— someone has found an error in it. I would hardly say that getting a fine is a reason for someone to resign or to be asked to resign going forward. We have cooperated fully, by the way, with the FPPC. Why it has gone on for so long none of us know. I guarantee you that when it comes up, you will know about it because the FPPC is a Commission. Their Agenda is published ahead of time. You will know that that is going to come up. By the way, there are four of us sitting here who have all been referred to the FPPC. With that, I would like to thank all of you again. Thank you, my Colleagues, for electing me. Thank all you for being here tonight. This is a big crowd. As I said, in a non-election year, it is just wonderful to see all of you. I'll call out Rod Sinks, who drove all the way from Cupertino, and Emily Lo, who drove all the way from Saratoga, who came tonight to watch the proceedings. I hope they'll report back. Thank you all again. With that, let me turn to Eric Filseth and see if he would like to make a comment or two in his new role. Vice Mayor Filseth: I don't think I can top that. Thank you all very much for your confidence. I want to thank the outgoing Mayor for his service to the community this last year. Congratulations, Madam Mayor. Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Thank you very much. 4. Resolution 9730 Entitled “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Expressing Appreciation for Outstanding Public Service as Mayor to H. Gregory Scharff.” Mayor Kniss: Now, I have the great privilege of being able to present the Resolution and the plaque to the outgoing Mayor. Then, Mayor Scharff will speak to the Resolution. First, I need to read it. Darcy, are you here? Thank you for coming tonight. Tonight's Resolution, by the way, looks like this. Greg has done so much that this is an enormous Resolution. I will do every attempt to read it, but I won't read it in its entirety. Mayor Kniss read the Resolution into the record. Bear with us as we come forward and approach the mic down there. I will deliver this in person. Having read all FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 26 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 this to you, I am going to present this to Greg. It's his opportunity to say a word or two if he wishes. Council Member Scharff: Thank you very much for those kind words, Liz. I don't think I've ever stood here and addressed the Council this way. I guess this is a harbinger of things to come. I just wanted to thank you all again. Thank you very much. These were very kind words. I really appreciate them. I'm very touched actually, so I'm at a loss for words. Thank you very much. Go eat cake soon. Mayor Kniss: We have some public speakers who would like to comment on—I'm going to guess this is on the Resolution because it appears to all be on Number 4. If you did not put your name in on this, please let me know. I have Lisa Chung. I have Bob Moss. I have Annette Glanckopf. In any order, come on up to the mic. Jackie Wheeler, sorry. Lisa Chung, Senator Hill’s Office: Mayor Kniss, Vice Mayor Filseth, and immediate past Mayor, Council Member Scharff, members of the City Council, my name is Lisa Chung. I come from the office of State Senator Jerry Hill, who wasn't able to come tonight because he's in Sacramento. Senator Hill would like me to bear his best wishes to Council Member Scharff for his energetic and robust leadership over the past year. Fortunately, all the whereas were read so I don't have to go over all of them. Senator Hill's very grateful for your service and would like to pass on his best wishes to you. Council Member Scharff: Thank you very much. Tell the Senator I really appreciate it. I also really appreciate his phone call today, which was very kind of him. Ms. Chung: I had to tell him what the "H" stood for. Mayor Kniss: Annette Glanckopf and then Bob Moss. Bob, are you still here? Jackie Wheeler. Annette Glanckopf: Let me be one of the first to congratulate our new Mayor, Liz Kniss, and our Vice Mayor, Eric Filseth. I really just wanted to in a few words just thank Greg for an incredibly productive year as mentioned in the commendation and also what our City Manager had. Thank you for leading the ship. Although we always don't agree on issues, I just really appreciate the incredible work that you always do to look at every issue. I know when you've taken the time to explain your position, you've almost convinced me that my position is your position. I know it's an incredible number of hours, so I wanted to thank you for the 500 hours that you sit on this dais, the 500 hours that you sit wherever on all of those list of Boards FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 27 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 and Commissions and probably the other 500 hours out in the community. Thank you for leading the ship this year. It's been a great, very productive year. Thank you for supporting emergency preparedness. Council Member Scharff: Thank you very much, Annette. Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Annette. Now, either Bob comes up first or—Bob, come on up, and then Jackie Wheeler. Bob Moss: Thank you Mayor Kniss and former Mayor Scharff. I've, as you know, been participating in the Council meetings for decades and probably interfaced with more than three dozen Mayors. I thought ex-Mayor Scharff did an excellent job running the meetings and performing the type of work that the Mayor has to do. I don't think most people realize how much time and effort it takes to sit on the Council, read the Staff Reports, interface with the Staff and the public. The Mayor does not only that but has to interface with literally dozens of other organizations, other City Councils, and politicians, if you will. It's a lot of work, at lot of time, and a lot of effort. I don't think people appreciate just how much time and effort it takes. You don't get paid very much for it. Fortunately, the stock options make up for that. I just want to let you know that I do appreciate the time and effort that you put in. I thought ex-Mayor Scharff did an excellent job, kept the meetings running effectively and efficiently. He'd obviously read the Packet and understood what was going on. This is not universal. I remember one Council Member back in the '70s—I'm not going to name his name. I don't want to embarrass him even though he may not be around anymore. He would sit down—when an item came up on the Agenda, he asked questions that made it obvious that he had never, ever read the Packet. After several months of this, he asked one rather dumb question. The City Manager said, "That's discussed in detail on the third paragraph of the first Page of the Staff Report." He actually looked a little embarrassed. None of you have had to put up with anything like that. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into preparing for and attending the meetings. Being Mayor has to go well beyond the normal. I appreciate the time and effort you all put in. I thank you for your time and your dedication and your service. Even though, you're not infallible because there are times when you don't vote on my side on issues. It's good to have fine people like you taking care of the community of Palo Alto and working as hard and as dedicated as you did. Thank you again, ex-Mayor Scharff. Council Member Scharff: Thank you very much, Bob. Mayor Kniss: Jackie Wheeler. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 28 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Jackie Wheeler: I will be very brief because by now a lot has been said. As an over-50-year resident of Palo Alto, I just would like to say thank you, Greg, for your service. You've done a great job as Mayor twice and Vice Mayor. Congratulations to Liz. Thrilled that we will have your expertise again as Mayor. Thanks to all of you. As Bob said, it's really incredible service. Appreciate you helping us to be the wonderful City that we are. Thanks. Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Jackie. One final card from Rod Sinks, Vice Mayor of Cupertino. Am I correct? Rod Sinks, Cupertino Vice Mayor: That's correct. I want to thank you and send greetings from Cupertino. Greg didn't manage to stagger his positions. He's just stepped down as President of the Cities Association and been Mayor all in the same year. I just can't imagine how you made that work, Greg. You have been a great leader regionally. People should know that. I heard that earlier, and I wanted to echo that. Liz too, you are completing your year as Chair of the Air Board. There are 24 members from Santa Rosa all the way down to Gilroy. This is a big job. Fortunately, you managed to stagger these roles. I think it'll probably help. I know you spent a lot of time in San Francisco this year. I'd like to honor Palo Alto. We end up chasing you a lot, you guys, on things like sustainability. You became carbon neutral in your electricity supply in 2013. We had to start this thing called Silicon Valley Clean Energy. You all have been leaders in transportation planning, your management associations. The rest of us are trying, and we look forward—I am the new President of the Cities Association. We're looking forward to establishing our priorities on Thursday night to include once again transportation and housing. We look forward to our continued partnership with you in solving the nastiest, thorniest regional problems that we have. Eric, congratulations on your selection as Vice Mayor. Karen, I appreciated working with you as we were both Mayors in 2015 as well. Thank you very much. Mayor Kniss: Thanks very much for being here tonight, Rod, all the way from Cupertino on a rainy night. We appreciate that. Before we vote on the Resolution, would any of my Colleagues like to speak? Greg Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I had the pleasure of working with former Mayor Scharff. It was a great pleasure. I was very impressed. I actually started my first time—I served two terms on the Planning Commission, and I started my first term on the Comp. Plan. That was a long time ago. It's kind of hard to believe that it's finally passed. I think it's largely passed because of your leadership. Thank you for making that happen. I think the community is grateful for that. A lot of you know he also served on the Infrastructure FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 29 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Commission. We also made really good progress on the garages. That's also thanks to your leadership. You've been able to accomplish a lot because you really are able to balance points of view and bring them together. You really deserve kudos for that. Congratulations and thank you for your service. I think you will be missed. I didn't speak much about Liz or Eric. Let me just say a few quick words. For Liz, you are incredibly connected. As you talked about, Palo Alto's not an island. A lot of these problems have to be solved regionally. The way to solve them regionally is to actually work with other cities and our neighbors to make these problems solvable. Also, you stood in as Mayor at a time when Greg Scharff was out. I also appreciate how efficient you run meetings. That's going to be—I'm looking forward to that. Eric, I loved serving with you on the Finance Committee. Your passion about—as you know, I've been very passionate about the Unfunded Pension Liability. I really appreciated your support on that and look forward to making good progress this year. Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Council Member Tanaka. I certainly concur that a good part of the reason the Comp Plan is done is Greg. It's a huge relief to all of us to have it finally voted and settled on. Any other comments? If not, let me make … I have had a really productive time serving with Greg this year. We have some different skills, and that has worked out very positively. Also, Greg is fun to serve with. That may sound trite or maybe just too light, but when you spend that 500 hours sitting in a chair, you want to be involved with people who are occasionally lighthearted and occasionally don't take everything—certainly don't take themselves seriously even though they take the issue seriously. I would say that Greg does meet that beyond-the-norm criteria. It's been a very enjoyable year. I would also say with Jim and Molly, who have been great support, it has been productive as well. Do you want to say something? Council Member Scharff: I just wanted to say thank you very much for that, Liz. It's also been really fun serving with you. As I said, you were a great Vice Mayor. Greg, I wanted to thank you for your words as well. Thank you very much. Mayor Kniss: With that, we actually need a Motion to pass this Resolution. Council Member Wolbach: So moved. Mayor Kniss: Got a second out there? Council Member Fine: Second. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 30 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to approve a Resolution expressing appreciation for outstanding public service as Mayor to H. Gregory Scharff. Mayor Kniss: Would you again vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Kniss: I want to thank you again, Greg. I hope you find a wonderful place to put that. Would you also hand me the other plaque. I also have the privilege of adding a plaque to his store of plaques that I know he has already. This is a particularly nice one that thanks him for his public service in 2017 and is dated January 8, 2018 and has the gavel with it that quite frankly we seldom use. Congratulations to you again. Two things to take home. Thank you all for your comments. Oral Communications Mayor Kniss: At this point, I know this is always difficult, but we do have Oral Communications. I would urge you to wait here. I know there's cake and so forth in the other room. We do have a few of those who want to speak under Oral Communications. Here are those who want to speak on Oral Communications, where you can speak about anything. We're going to give you 2 minutes tonight. We're running really pretty late. I'm going to ask the substitute Vice Mayor if he would run the clock for this. I have Lynn Krug, Bryce Druzin, Richard Brand, and Stephanie Muñoz. As you know, we don't respond. That is in our Charter; we do not respond to public comments, but we're delighted to have you make them. Lynn. Lynn Krug: Congratulations to Mayor Kniss and Vice Mayor Filseth as you lead us into 2018 in a world now confronted with a stunning array of issues. Thank you to all the City Council Members. I appreciate your time and your dedication. My name is Lynn Krug, and I'm Chapter Chair for the Services Employee International Union (SEIU) employees, some 550 people who work and are extremely dedicated to the City of Palo Alto. There are also 150 more who are part-time hourlies. We are fortunate to have a Mayor well versed in a variety of topics. Many of your concerns are ours. As such, we hope to be able to open an inclusive dialog with you. We would love to participate on your Housing Committee. For the City of Palo Alto, our innovative methods, the demands of a changing world and evolving workplace require leaders educated in their fields of expertise and experienced in a variety of work environments. We must be able to hire and retain professionals in the Enterprise Funds and hire experienced and high performers throughout the City who have prior professional expertise in their FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 31 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 chosen field to lead. Most of our hiring issues come down to the lack of affordable housing and extreme commutes. We must be able to acknowledge the rate of inflation far exceeding the rates of pay. The troubling issues that face employees also make it a hard work environment in which to hire and provide a skilled workforce. We must come into the 21st century when it comes to diversity hiring for women in the trades. We must be able to provide an ethical workplace. We must improve when it comes to acknowledging what is appropriate behavior and addressing sexual conduct, favoritism, bullying, and nepotism. We must address the continual need for financing to reinvest in training and succession planning for our Staff. Lastly, we cannot go softly on the needs for safety in all aspects of performance for our City, for the public, for the employees, for equipment, and for existing infrastructure. We must make safety a priority. Thank you. Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. Richard, you're right there. Richard Brand: Happy New Year, Council Members, and congratulations to new Mayor Kniss and new Vice Mayor Filseth. By the way, since both of you have been involved in fiber optics—Eric, I won't let you forget—this should be the year of 2018 where residents of the City have the option to select fiber to their home. As a member of the Citizens Advisory Commission, I'd like to see that happen. I'm going to throw in a plug for that. I think he's not here, Jim. Let's see that happen. We are the birthplace of Silicon Valley. What I want to do is a year in review. I want to say congratulations to Jim and Ed. You two have become a real well-oiled machine working together. I've seen this in several things working on the Rail Committee and things. I appreciate that. One of the things I want to say—this guy escaped from here, but I wanted to give the responsiveness award to one of your Staff members, Jim. A guy came out to my house because I was a pain in the butt. I complained that something wasn't happening around my house, and my neighbors were the same way. What happened was with good leadership, Mike Sartor did a great job of getting the street sweeping. He was handed a problem that the budget was cut back, and he was stuck with a contractor, to be honest, who was doing a lousy job. The trucks were dirty. It was a mess. They were coming in at 1:00 PM in the afternoon. Mike and his guy, Todd Sealy, did a wonderful job of fixing that. I have to say that, with the rain storm today, for the first time in 5 years I didn't have to go out and rake out the storm drain. Last Wednesday, the sweeper had come through early in the morning, and it didn't have to be raked out. Congratulations to Mike and his team. Mayor Kniss: Thanks a lot. Bryce. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 32 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Bryce Druzin: Hi. My name's Bryce Druzin. I've lived in Palo Alto for more than 20 years. I'm here to ask the Council to write and hopefully pass a Resolution endorsing a proposed bill in the United States Congress titled the "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017." You may be wondering what this proposed legislation has to do with Palo Alto and why Council should be concerned with it. I hope to convince you that it is relevant. Like most of us here, I've been deeply troubled and at times frightened by the actions of President Donald Trump, particularly the escalating chances of a war with a nuclear-armed North Korea. Last week Trump directed a tweet at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, stating "I too have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works." Unfortunately, our President is mentally unstable, but you would hope that even he would understand that the use of nuclear weapons, which would kill millions, should be avoided at all costs. Any actions that would increase the chance of that happening should also be avoided. Unfortunately, the President of the United States has the power to unilaterally launch a nuclear strike whenever he wants with no legal mechanisms to stop him at all without any oversight. This Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 would take away that power from the President. The reason it's relevant is North Korea has nuclear missiles, and some experts think that they have the range to reach California, specifically the Bay Area, specifically Palo Alto, which is part of the Bay Area. Why should cities do this? I believe the voice of a mass of cities, because it's the smallest political entity that there is, is a human-scaled political entity. If Palo Alto could pass a Resolution endorsing the legislation, hopefully that could have a ripple effect and hopefully go across the State and—I don't know—the Country. Thank you. Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. I have Stephanie Muñoz, Darcy Paul, and Kirsten Keith. Stephanie Muñoz: Good evening, Mayor Kniss. Congratulations. They say the third time's the charm. I'd like you to think globally, as the man just suggested, about the effect on the Country and the world of just Palo Alto doing the right thing. I'd like you to give special concern to the people who come here. People are born with nothing. They own nothing. Every land is taken up. They know nothing. If they didn't have really good parents, they have no way to make their way in the world. They have to have jobs. The reason Palo Alto is crowded is because you, the City Council and the City Councils before you, have put jobs in Palo Alto. They have to come. It's not a matter of people sitting back in their armchair and thinking, "I'd just like to come to California. I'd love to come." They have to come here because that's where the job is. If they come here and there's no home and they're sleeping in the cars, good. They're doing something for themselves so that FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 33 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 they can live and support their families. You're going to put up a garage. Please put showers in it, toilets in it, and let people rent it out in their cars for overnight until 6:00 or 7:00 A.M. in the morning. You're not using it. You could get a little bit of money, and they have to stay someplace. The Recreation Vehicles (RV), the people have bought little houses on wheels for themselves. Why shouldn't they stay on El Camino Real? They have to live. They have to work. They have to be here. They can't be in Tuscaloosa. The veterans, it's a disgrace to have veterans homeless. The Federal Government could step up to the plate and provide land at Moffett Field for them. Please do your best. Don't forget the teacher housing at Cubberley. Thank you. Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Darcy Paul followed by Kirsten Keith. Darcy? Is he still here? In that case, Kirsten Keith. Kirsten Keith: Good evening, Mayor Kniss. I wanted to come here and congratulate you on becoming Mayor. It's great to see you take the helm here. I know you're going to do a fantastic job. I thank you for being such a great leader in this area and such a great friend. To Greg, I want to say great job last year. It was a pleasure being Mayor with you at the same time and doing the things that we did and getting our bike rides in at the last minute and hanging out with our good buddy, Larry Moody. I really enjoyed it, so I want to say thank you. To all of my other colleagues here in Palo Alto, happy new year to all of you. Eric, congratulations on becoming Vice Mayor. That's very exciting. I know you'll do a fantastic job as well. I look forward to working with all of you on our mutual issues that we have and especially traffic. We've got a lot of work to do. Happy New Year. Council Member Scharff: Kirsten, I just wanted to thank you as well and tell you how much I enjoyed working with you as Mayor of Menlo Park. Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Kirsten and I did the Dish yesterday and discussed our mutual challenge which is Stanford. Darcy Paul's—you're back. I was just going to say that you're going to invite us to something. Welcome. Darcy Paul: I am indeed. Outgoing Mayor Scharff, Mayor Kniss, and Vice Mayor Filseth, nice to meet all of you. Council Members. I want to invite you to Cupertino's State Of The City Address which will be taking place on January 31st. As is traditional, it takes place at our Rotary luncheon, which will start at 11:30 A.M. over in the Quinlan Center. This year I'm trying something new. We'll also be continuing the address over to the evening time for residents who are unable to make it out during the day to speak a little bit to some of the issues of importance to our residents as well. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 34 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Looking very forward to the year, and hopefully we can work together collaboratively and do what's right for the region as well as our respective jurisdictions. Thanks very much. Council Member Scharff: Darcy, are you the Mayor? Mr. Paul: Yes, I am. Council Member Scharff: I wanted us to recognize you as the Mayor. Mr. Paul: Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Mayor Kniss: Thank you, Mayor Paul. I didn't know you were Mayor this year. Congratulations. Thank you for inviting us. Is that a Wednesday? Mr. Paul: Yes, it is. Mayor Kniss: Wednesday, January 31st, and it's at Quinlan. It is your Rotary at the same time. Mr. Paul: I should probably add it's the usual Rotary Club luncheon. They do charge an admission. The tickets are available through our Cupertino Chamber of Commerce's website. The evening session will be free to the public. We seat approximately 250, not being too optimistic, not counting my chickens before they hatch so to speak. It'll be first come first seated at the Quinlan Center in the evening. Thanks very much for the work that you've done over the years, Mayor Kniss, ever since I've been involved, which is a relatively brief decade. I've seen you in all sorts of capacities. Thanks very much for your continued commitment to the community. Mayor Kniss: Thanks very much. I appreciate your coming up tonight. With that … James Keene, City Manager: Liz, could I say something before your adjourn? Mayor Kniss: Just one second. Are there any more cards? Mr. Keene: Just real quickly. Just congratulations to you and to Vice Mayor Filseth on your selection. We're really looking forward to working with you. I honestly think you will continue the fun that we had with Greg, which I would second, but very hard work and extremely effective. I also would point out that as part of our preparation for this year's budget, we actually decided to sell off the edible bobble head dolls to the highest bidder when we get in there. We'll see what happens. Thanks. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 35 of 35 City Council Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 01/08/18 Mayor Kniss: You may not know what we're talking about. A cake that was made by the sister of one of our employees, which is now in the other room just around the corner, has figures of all nine of us. They look a great deal like bobble heads. She did an incredible likeness. Hopefully nobody has eaten any of the colleagues yet. You'll have a chance to look at it. Thank you, Jim, for saying something. Molly, do you want to say something? Molly Stump, City Attorney: I look forward to another wonderful year. Thank you. Mayor Kniss: Perfect. Thank you all. I know we ran a little late tonight. I appreciate everybody hanging in there, especially people coming from other cities to be here tonight and to honor our Council. Thank you all. We are adjourned. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 P.M.