City of Mountain View, CA Highlights, 10 Apr 2023

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From YouTube: 2023 Mountain View City Annual Update

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On Friday, March 31, the City of Mountain View and Mountain View Chamber of Commerce held the 2023 City Annual Update with the theme, "Building Community: Step by Step."

The event featured speeches by Mayor Alison Hicks and City Manager Kimbra McCarthy covering housing, economic development, school collaboration and much more.

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Well good morning and welcome to the city annual update for 2023.

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I'm Peter Katz CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce and your host for the morning. Thank you.

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Well, we all know how crazy things have been literally and figuratively, and it just got a little weirder. Our special guest, the mayor is out ill today, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, she'll be with us via video just a little later on, so stay tuned. Well, sir. We certainly wish her a speedy recovery and, while the past year as a whole, once again has been quite unusual, it was marked by significant progress on the vision and goals set out 12 months ago. Hence our theme building Community step by step.

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The mayor and city manager will be sharing a number of important happenings around town. At the same time, our local businesses have been building the community with important new developments with new inventions with new happenings all over. You saw some of the videos during breakfast and we'll sprinkle, some more highlights in a bit as for the Chamber of Commerce, we've been busy too we're proud to co-host today's event, as well as fuel, our local economy, through information and training. Professional networking government advocacy public forums and economic development.

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In particular, we have these Community Building programs coming up scholarship, Mountain View we'll be awarding fifty thousand dollars worth of scholarships to deserving High School seniors.

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These are amazing young people and we urge your support, and so, if you'd like to donate to this cause, please do um leadership. Mountain View! Let me just see a show of hands how many people have been through lmv I love it and is it the best class ever I'm? Sorry you're wrong I'm, currently in lmv, because my my enrollment was pulled off by a little thing called covid, but now I'm, currently in lmv, so I'm here to say that class 2023 will be the best class ever.

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All right we're taking sign ups for 2024 for those whose hands didn't go up, um so please uh register and uh sign up those that you know who might be interested. And, finally, our big Gala event is the celebration of leaders and Athena Awards and a wonderful way to honor those who make Mountain View the best place to live work and play there's a card on your table that has um you are Excuse, Me, QR code that you can scan for any of the things that I mentioned.

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So if you haven't purchased a ticket, if you haven't donated, if you haven't signed up, you can do that at your convenience. May 4th 5, 30 Computer, History Museum, be there.

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To accomplish all of our goals, the strong supportive relationships are needed with businesses, non-profits government officials and the public at large. We are pleased to gather you all here today and are so grateful for your participation support. Let me start by thanking our presenting sponsors Google, whose video you saw earlier and Intuit with a quick message to kick things off.

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Into it, works for what you work for, whether you're getting paid to do what you love expanding the old family, business with fresh Financial, Insights or even if your family is growing, our Innovative products are with you every step of the way, so you can see what's possible and go for it.

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That's why Intuit works for what you work for.

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You know when you have an event like this. You always say it takes a village. Well, it really does take a village and we're pleased to be at The Villages and want to thank our host sponsor Hyatt Centric I I should mention that a number of people keep coming up to me goes. I didn't know this existed, so we are delighted to be able to be here. We thank the Hyatt Centric and we also say this is why we have events, so we can showcase our city.

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We also want to thank our TV sponsor kmvt, who is taping tonight today.

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A lot of people ask me, you know: will this be available? Yes, that's why we're taping it? We will put it onto the web afterwards.

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And we want to thank the Mountain View voice, our media sponsor for today.

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We're also grateful to the following signature sponsors, Aurora, El, Camino, Health, Greystar, lendlease, LinkedIn, MGO, Miramar, Capital, neuro, Presidio, Bay, Ventures, Recology and Stanford medicine, Children's Health, formerly known as Lucille Packard.

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As well as our partner sponsors, the village of San Antonio, cam, Thibodeau, Consulting synopsis and the Jeffrey, a Morris group.

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You heard from a few of them earlier: here's some some additional good wishes.

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Welcome to Mountain View's City annual update, El Camino health is proud to be a signature sponsor of this event. Many of our Executives and board members are here today and we look forward to hearing from mayor Allison, Hicks and city manager. Kimbra McCarthy at El, Camino, Health 2023, is about connecting with our communities and prioritizing preventative care like heart, health, our award-winning, Norma, melkor, Heart and Vascular. Institute is one of the areas that this is happening after a Hiatus due to the covid-19 pandemic.

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Their heart forum is back and taking place tomorrow as a hybrid event, where attendees have the option to attend in person or online. Also in 2023 we are marking another major Milestone as we prepare to unveil the first phase of Renovations at our Women's Hospital. These Renovations include additional private rooms and an expanded neonative Intensive Care Unit to provide our patients with the best birthing experience in the bay I'm really excited for what's ahead.

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And if we treated kids like adults, flights would be delayed indefinitely. Makeovers would be a disaster and fine dining wouldn't be so fine at Stanford medicine, Children's Health. We know it's important to treat kids differently, so we built an entire network just for kids, with world-renowned pediatric experts and groundbreaking Innovations, specifically tailored for kids, because treating kids like adults is rarely a good.

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Idea, Stanford medicine.

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Children's Health Access to Excellence.

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And I'm Renee Reed and we're from LinkedIn.

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We're proudly headquartered here in Mountain View and we're pleased to sponsor this year's City update.

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Linkedin is the world's largest professional online network with more than 850 million members globally, and we power this robust network from here in Mountain, View.

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The value of being a LinkedIn member is the power of connection that you find there, which is why we focus on building real-life Community connections where we live and work.

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Thank you to our city officials, leaders, appointed Commissioners, our Public Safety and non-profit representatives, and our fellow employees, who are all here today. We're.

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So proud to call Mountain, View home and welcome to the 2023 City update.

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So I think that by watching these videos we really get an idea of the all of the different uh businesses and Endeavors that are going on in Mountain View, um really some exciting things going on um and I just again want to say thanks to all of our sponsors and as Renee and Katie just said, we have a number of individuals in the audience who build and support our amazing Community every day, so we're honored to have our elected officials represented in the office. We have Senator Josh Becker and his team.

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Supervisor, Joe simidian and his team.

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And from the office of congresswoman Anna eshu, we have Nicholas Hargis.

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Going on to the Village from the El Camino healthcare district, we have board chair Julia, Miller.

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Secretary and Treasurer Dr Carol somersil.

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And board member John zoglin.

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From the Mountain View whisman School Board president Laura Laura Ramirez Berman.

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Trustee Laura Blakely and Bill Lambert.

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From the Mountain View Los Altos High School District School, Board trustees, Catherine Vonnegut and theater corns.

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And superintendent Nelly Meyer.

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And from the city of Mountain View, we welcome our speakers today. Allison Hicks by video and city manager, Kimber McCarthy,.

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Vice mayor Pat, Showalter.

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Council member Margaret Abacoa.

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Council member Ellen camay.

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Council member Lisa madichak.

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Council member Lucas Ramirez.

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And council member Emily Ann Ramos.

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We also excuse me, we also recognize members of the city's staff City Attorney Jennifer Logue.

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City clerk, Heather, Glaser.

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Assistant city manager, Aaron Andrews.

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Assistant city manager, Audrey, Seymour, ramberg.

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Assistant city manager, Artie shravastava.

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Fire chief Juan Diaz.

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Interim police, chief, Max bozell.

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Chief Information officer, Roger Jensen.

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Human Resources Director Sue Rush foreign director Tracy Gray.

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Public Works director Don Cameron.

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Communications director, Lenka Wright.

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Deputy communications, director, Brian Babcock.

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Sustainability and resiliency officer, Danielle Lee.

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Economic Vitality manager, John Lang,.

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I know that seems like a long list, but we could have made it longer, but I really think it's important one of the things that people always tell me that they love about these events is meeting people who they normally wouldn't meet or putting names to faces, or, oh, that's, the person I should talk to you now have been named.

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Also. We are very, very proud and grateful to the members of the Chamber of Commerce Board of directory, the assuming Board of directory board of directors who are scattered around the room. Can I ask you to please stand.

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Thank you to our volunteers and ambassadors and, of course, a big thanks to the chamber team for putting on the special event Marisol Malera, Kira, Pasco, Jesse, cupp and Brian Kaczynski. My thanks.

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And now for the formal part of our program last year, the theme was the view ahead this morning, we'll hear from mayor and city manager, as they highlight some of the accomplishments and layout for us. The next steps as we build our community.

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It's now my pleasure to introduce the mayor of Mountain View Allison Hicks, who will join us via video and if there's one thing, we've learned in the last couple of years is that Zoom can be a little bit glitchy. But I really think it's a wonderful presentation and enjoy.

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Welcome everyone.

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Unfortunately, I'm home with covet so a word of warning, covet's less visible, but it's still with us keep taking precautions and stay healthy and now, with a big dose of pax, lovid, ibuprofen and throat, lozenges I think I'll be able to present my city annual update.

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I'll kick us off by introducing you to the city's seven strategic priorities which I'm personally very fond of, as they cover the basic things. A good City should prioritize Council and the community created them two years ago and confirmed them earlier this year. In brief, they are Community for all housing, Mobility sustainability, livability economic vitality and good governance.

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Every year, Council makes a work plan that fulfills these priorities, we'll discuss this plan in April and adopt it in June, and you can join us today. City manager, McCarthy and I will talk about some of the things we're doing to meet our priorities.

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I'm trained as a city, planner I'm, particularly enthusiastic about projects that bring us together as a city into vibrant public places like plazas and Parks I'll talk about those projects and Kimbra our city manager. We'll talk about all the other good things we're working on. First then, some economic vitality and economic development topics.

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The city has begun our economic Vitality strategy, I. Think of economic Vitality in two parts. One is how the city can help, keep our large medium and even small employers, many of them tech companies thrive in the second, is what you see on this slide and on our streets, how the city can help downtown and the so-called Village centers envisioned in our general plan, thriving for me as a planner. It's all about how we can become a 15-minute City.

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A 15-minute city is an increasingly popular concept. It's all about developing a city where people can get their routine needs. Food, dentists, gathering places Etc within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. The city's consultant has done Community meetings, focus groups and a survey to get input on the strategy and we'll bring that information back to council. Soon. These photos are Bloom's, giving our new plant and coffee shop on Castro Street.

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As I'm sure you all know, during the pandemic, we closed Castro Street, our City's historic Main Street to cars, so that people could dine safely outdoors and hang out in what's become a public closet. I have to say it's one of the most popular things we've done since I've been on Council, so we're going through the rather lengthy legal requirements and significant cleanup program chain and program changes and redesign so that we can make it permanent and coordinate it with the upcoming bike and pedestrian underpass that we're doing to accompany Caltrain electrification.

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One of the program changes people most asked for is live music and I. Assure you that's in the plans. I want to thank last year's mayor Ramirez for putting together a Castro, Pedestrian, Mall ad hoc committee, and also thank council members, matacek abekova, former member believer and many interested residents for joining me on that committee.

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To work out details, great Urban public places need public art and to that end, Mountain View has been working with our Visual Arts committee to develop a new public art strategy with many improvements over the old one, including expanding public art opportunities. Beyond the usual Capital Improvement projects and art within private development, you may know we're redoing, our rather old pool facilities at Redstone Park. This photo is of the upcoming artwork for that project.

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It will include exciting artwork like the interactive water drops by artists, Ennis austeris constable in this rendering, as well as wave benches by masako Miki, not in this rendering and holographic artwork by Liz hiccup. There will also be murals in the new bathrooms elsewhere in right stuff. Apart and I can't wait to see in most cities that still have them.

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The historic core is one of the most Lively public gathering spots, the human scale and gritted streets of historic City centers, attract people to stroll and hang out Mountain View's Castro Street, which grew up when the railroad was put in in the 1860s, is no exception.

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Before we closed Castro to traffic pedestrians that flow into the street anyway, on weekend nights, the city is updating its historic preservation, ordinance and register, including incentives to encourage preservation of historic resources.

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In this photo, we have the historic mockby building on the left built by former mayor mock, Bay, Now, eureka. Restaurant and the Farmers and Merchants Bank on the right now, Red Rock Cafe, also very important. This year, we'll be working on our act. Transportation plan active transportation is basically what it sounds like walking, biking, scooting and any other kind of Transportation active like tricycling in this photo. Active transportation is an important part of how cities around the world are cutting their carbon footprints.

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We need to beef up our active Transportation infrastructure biking increases when it's safer and has good roots all over town.

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Also, when we have bike lockers and bike repair stations walking increases when we have wide sidewalks shaded by trees and places, people can walk to do their routine, errands, circling back again to the 15-minute city concept and the importance of our economic Vitality strategy.

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Lastly, I'll talk about our natural environment. The city is developing a comprehensive biodiversity strategy. Bay Area cities are.

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As an important part of their sustainability and climate resiliency work, you may know that species Extinction is one of our most serious environmental problems on par with the climate crisis in terms of its devastating effects.

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What you may not know is that cities are important sites for increasing biodiversity. You'd think the countryside would be the best place to increase biodiversity, but much of our Countryside is Agribusiness with heavy use of pesticides.

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Pesticides, as you know, are designed to kill small creatures, and they do that very, very well, eliminating Birds butterflies and all sorts of creatures that are part of a healthy Web of Life. Thankfully, these creatures and people all Thrive better in biodiverse cities than in concrete jungles. So our strategy aims to preserve and enhance the diversity of plants, trees and wildlife in parks and on other public and privates.

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We will include an urban forestry plan within our biodiversity plan. This plan will replace our existing Community tree master plan. Trees are a valuable resource for Community, Health and well-being, improving air and water quality. Pooling our city, conserving energy, storing carbon and more the urban Forest plan will be a road map for managing, enhancing and growing Mountain View's tree canopy.

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Since the beginning of urban industrialization, Parks have been seen as essential for the physical and mental health of City residents.

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Every great City focuses on Parks, both large and small we've all heard of New York Central Park San Francisco's, Golden, Gate, Park and Mountain View, Shoreline, Park and Wildlife Refuge residents tell me that our neighborhood parks, Shoreline Park and the Stevens Creek Trail are very important to them. They told me that our Parks and Recreation facilities ball fields, playgrounds, pools, tennis and pickleball courts.

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Etc became even more important to them during the pandemic. Our last plan is almost 10 years old. So it's high time for an update. It's great, that we'll be updating it alongside our biodiversity plan and we'd, like you all to get involved.

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Thank you. So much for joining me at our city, annual update, I, hope to see you in person soon and now over to you, Peter and Kimbra.

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Okay, well, thank you mayor and now I'd like to introduce our city manager, Kimber McCarthy,.

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Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna have to figure out how I move this mic. I am someone that talks with my hands. So let me move.

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This, in a way that you can, can you still hear me like this all right, great.

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Okay, I need to turn this on too.

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Well, thank you all for being here. This is exciting. I've actually never been in this room before and it's so great to be here at the Hyatt Centric and see all of you in person and one of the things that I was thinking about this morning when I was coming here was how weird it is to still be excited to see people in person right it should.

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It should be a normal thing for us, but here we are I'm into my fourth year, and this is only the second time, though, that I've had this event in person. So it's really great to see you all I do want to thank our mayor, Allison Hicks, for her remarks.

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I know that she really wanted to be here with everyone today and unfortunately she wasn't able to, but it's great to hear all of the things that that are important to her and to our city and we're very appreciative of her leadership and support of all of our efforts.

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I also want to thank the city's Chief Communications officer, Linka Wright, where Linka, where are you Linka and Peter Katz, for putting on this extraordinary program an event I know that it's a lot of work and really appreciate everything that you've done to make this make this happen.

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So what I want to focus on today really is how the city is doing things across the Spectrum to make things better for all of you. So all of you are Partners our residents, our children, everyone that is in the business, Community, corporate and small, and really talk about how we're trying to move the needle first thing.

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I want to First, acknowledge and thank our city council for their leadership in serving our community and advancing all of the projects and priorities both that you heard our mayor talk about and some of the things that I'll also be talking about. We really do believe that Mountain View is the best place to live, work play and visit and I want to ignore. Yes, that deserves a round of applause. Yes,.

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Thank you so you've heard from mayor, Hicks and I also want to acknowledge vice mayor Showalter, council, member Abe, Koga, council, member kamay, council, member matacek, council member Ramirez and our newest council member Emily, Anne Ramos and I I didn't want to just move off this slide really quickly. I do want to make some remarks about how I feel and how our department head team feels about this Council. We have the best city council I'm, not just saying that, because they are my bosses.

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Okay, um but but I want to talk to you a little bit about how and why this is true in Mountain View. As most of you know, we have a very long-standing history of good governance and Civility, and you saw from the mayor that one of our council's strategic priorities is good governance and organizational strength. So what does that actually mean? What it really means is that, even though our council, members, both now and in the past, may have differences, they may have different political views. They work together to get to a solution.

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They aim to build consensus when they can, they have respect for each other. They have respect for our community members and they have respect for staff, and why does that matter? Why am I even pointing that out to you all and I think that it's really important, because we've all seen governing bodies nearby, not just in cities near us counties near us, Statewide federally we've seen chaos, we've seen a lot of discontent, we've seen a lot of bad behavior and we don't have that in Mountain, View and I.

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Think one of the things that has really eroded over the last several years is trust in government and I think that we can acknowledge that we've all seen that and locally is really where the trust is founded and the trust is is committed, and that is what we have in Mountain View. We have a trust between us.

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We have a trust between staff and the community staff and Council Council, and the community and I want to just highlight that, because you can be proud that this is how we govern in Mountain View, and this is how our city, council and our staff interact- and this is not not usual. So this is really what I want to talk about today is how we have been able to move the needle together.

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So we acknowledge that there's a lot of things that we still want to do, that we haven't been able to get to or some things we may be able to do better or differently, but I think the bottom line is that we are trying we put action behind our words and so I think that it's a really great thing to be able to highlight today and let's just dive into it. Community for all is essentially the council's, for this is crazy. Okay, this is the slide all right.

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Maybe I should have arrived a little earlier to test this community for all. This is council's foundational strategic priority and really what this means is that the city works very hard to promote strategies that affect our diverse community and we are promoting programs and events that bring everyone together. These are really the core values in Mountain View, and these reflect the values of the work that the city does every single day.

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So what you see here on this slide are pictures from our Dia de Muertos event in October and that event was done in conjunction with the city's Monster Bash. So I, don't know if any of you have small children, but Monster Bash and Dia de Muertos are events that we put on annually for children in the community to come, celebrate not only Halloween but play, and this has actually turned into a huge Regional event. We had around 4 000 people attend last October and now we're hearing people coming from all over the Bay Area.

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um So these are pictures from that event, as well as pictures from our Multicultural Festival. This slide is pictures of our lunar near which, as I mentioned, was the very first time we did this. This past January and the great thing about the Lunar New Year project was that this was the brainchild from our very first annual Chinese language, Leadership Academy. So you will see some pictures of our Chinese language, Leadership Academy participants, and that happened last year.

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So this is really just a great example of not just bringing new people into the community and making them feel a part of it, but also them taking action and working with the city to actually Implement a new event. So we're really excited we're going to be doing this every year, along with our Multicultural Festival, so I can't not mention housing. We all know that this is probably the foremost issue in our region that we all have to tackle, not just in Mountain View, but in all of our cities. Regionally.

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So I want to talk a little bit about what we're doing in this space, so you all may have heard of the housing element. Just this little eight-year plan that that every single city in in the state is required to basically plan for new units in Mountain View. We are required to plan for at least 11 100 new units minimally.

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This is a state requirement and this is part of what cities have to incorporate into their General plans. So as part of this process, not only do we have to plan for this number, which you might have heard the term Rena. The arena number that stands for Regional Housing needs assessment, so every city has to try and hit that Arena number, so our staff have been working very closely with city council, with the Planning Commission and with a lot of community groups.

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Probably many of you in this room over the last two years to pass our housing element so I'm very pleased that we have a final draft that all of you may see.

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It is review it's available for the public on mountainviewhousingelement.org, it's provided in English, Chinese and Spanish, and our council is set to consider and adopt the housing element on April 11th, so we're very close to the end of this two-year culmination and we're very pleased with with where We've Ended, not only with Zoning for way more than 11 000 units, but also a lot of really great programs and activities that will be very impactful, so part of that is also affordable housing. This is really how we're moving the needle in Mountain View.

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So the pictures you see here the top ones, are at our La Venita groundbreaking, which just occurred, I believe two or three weeks ago on the bottom left is our Lot 12. This is the city's lot. This is the lot that's very close to City Hall across from the library that lot is going to be turned into affordable housing with the partnership of Alta housing. Randy I saw you somewhere there. You are.

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Right in front of me, of.

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Course so we're very very excited about that project and then the picture on the bottom right are the Luna Vista Apartments, which also recently opened on El Camino Real. So right now we have six affordable housing projects in the pipeline, so the ones that we mentioned. We also have projects at Montecito, the Crestview Hotel on tarabella and Linda Vista. So this is over 200 units of Rapid, rehousing or permanent Supportive Housing units and I also want to acknowledge Senator Josh Becker.

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Where are you Senator I, want to acknowledge his leadership and help in supporting the city in our affordable housing efforts and securing eight million dollars for the city? Yes,.

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Senator Becker's help was instrumental in getting that funding in our annual budget or in the state's annual budget. Also part of that is a large partnership that the city has with the county through measure a so what you see here, this 80 million dollars is an mou that we have with the county to receive 80 million dollars in funding towards our affordable housing projects and I want to thank supervisor samidian for his leadership. Yes,.

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In really supporting Mountain View, not only in this effort for the 80 million dollars, you see me that I wasn't even touching it right. Okay,.

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Getting this 80 million dollars, but also on all the efforts throughout the year. So one of the things that we're really trying to do is build philanthropy with all of our okay I'm. Thinking that this is this laptop, that's here and I'm, probably pressing it, but we're really trying to build Partnerships with our philanthropic Partners. Many of you that are in the community also keep building upon the partnership that we have with the county and really try and move the needle even more for our affordable housing efforts.

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So the other thing that you'll see on the right side of this screen is the displacement response strategy, and this is a huge effort that our community development staff are working on right now, in conjunction with our affordable, our affordable housing efforts. So part of this is to figure out how we can adopt strategies that are going to protect tenants from displacement so as not only affordable, housing gets developed, but as regular development market rate development gets developed. How can we make sure that tenants are not displaced?

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So staff is currently working on quite a few options right now, including requirements for developers to replace demolished units, creating an acquisition and preservation program and also making sure that we're notifying Property, Owners or developers, and also the tenants when property is available and comes online. So the city council is expected to talk about this and hold a study session on Tuesday May 23rd, and this is when they're really going to have the first bite at the Apple.

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We've spent the last several months, working with community members and partners holding a lot of in-person and zoom Outreach events to receive input about this. So this is one area. We're really excited about. What's what's happening right now, so I also want to talk about the impact that our amazing schools have here at Mountain, View and I. Think we can all agree that without a doubt, part of what makes Mountain View so special and why people want to live in Mountain View are are amazing schools.

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One of the things that I want to point out is I also have a child who attends public school at Mountain, View and I see the work of the amazing teachers every single day and it's quite extraordinary, just the amount of work and effort and love and dedication that our Public School teachers have and the administrators in our community. So it's really what makes us special and I want to thank all of the school board members from the districts that are here today. Thank you. So much for your dedication and your support.

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Foreign, the city is very proud to collaborate with our districts on so many amazing programs throughout the year. You see some of those in these pictures. The bottom. The bottom item on the right is from the notice for our 777 middle filled, teacher housing project- and this truly is extraordinary. This partnership between the city and county and affordable housing and, of course, the Mountain View wisman school district, is going to bring over 140 units for teachers to live in and also 20 units for City staff. This is this is just completely extraordinary.

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I think this deserves a round of applause in and of itself just.

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Just and having the ability to do something like this, we also have our state routes, our safe routes, to school program, which you see we host crossing guards with the schools. We have a very robust school resource officer program which you see on the top left. We have a pal mentoring program, there's just so much work that the city does, with our schools and in the bottom left I believe that's one of the Teen or high school activities. We have a view.

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The view is what it's called our teen center, so just a lot of work throughout the year with our schools, and we just we couldn't be a successful Community without our schools, so I want to make sure that they are absolutely acknowledged for the pardon making the city so special.

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So the next thing I want to talk about are the development projects and- and again this is one of the priorities of council to to grow intentionally, so not just to have development all over, but really be intentional about it, and part of that is certainly the projects that we have with Google and most of you probably know about the two major projects that Google is developing in Mountain View right now. The one on the left is the Google North Bayshore master plan, and this extraordinary project is spread across 153 acres in North Bayshore.

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This plan is for 7 000 residential units over 26 Acres of public parks and open space, 243 000 retail usage, 55 000 for different Community facilities and up to three million for office. So this is just quite an extraordinary project that I know has been in the works for many many years well over a decade and I'm proud that the last few years our staff has worked really well with Google to bring this to fruition, and the council is tentatively planning to discuss this and approve the plan in June of this year.

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Also, the Middlefield Park master plan has been something that's been in the work for many years and Council approved this master plan. Just this past November. This plan has 1900 residential units around 1.3 million square feet of office, Seven Acres of Park and 50 000 square feet of ground floor commercial uses, there's also going to be Parks.

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Restaurant, different Community spaces, improvements to streets, bicycle improvements, just a lot of work again similar to the north bay shoremaster plan, but a lot of work for Community amenities and really making sure that these are going to be gems in the community. I should mention that the north bay shore master plan will have a 30-year development agreement and the Middlefield Park master plan has a 20-year agreement.

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That's worth clapping for thank you.

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All right, the next thing that I want to talk about in terms of development is development that the city needs to do for our own facilities. So you all are probably aware of our public safety building. This building was opened in 1980 and, unfortunately, by today's standards does not meet any seismic retrofit standards at all.

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And, of course, the irony is that our 911 call Operations Center is on the bottom floor basement and our Emergency Operations Center, and this building has flooded several times, certainly in the last few months, and it has been apparent for many many years that the city needs to build a new public safety building. So not only does it include the 911 call center and operations that I mentioned, but all of our Police Department operations are emergency dispatch. Our fire department, admin staff and many other essential employees and programs are out of this building.

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So what we've been doing so far is designing it uh right now. Currently, staff is anticipated to come back to council at the end of this year for the design plans and we're hoping to go to bid in 2024 and we're hoping to start construction in 2025.. Now you might be wondering how much does this cost I believe when they started talking about this, maybe a couple decades ago, they thought the cost would be around 40 million dollars. So right now we're inching up over 160 million dollars.

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So what this means is that the city is going to be looking to our community's help and to our to the community to help us we're going to likely need to do a revenue measure in 2024 to really help protect our Public Safety operations and expand this building. So this is something that you'll be hearing about a lot more in the year or two to come.

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Then the next part of what I want to talk about is something that I think has been very near and dear to our city council and many of you over the last certainly couple years during covet and that's really focusing on the most vulnerable members in our community and how we're trying to help people and move the needle in that aspect.

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So what you see here on this slide is are a lot of the programs that we've been working on the last few years and I'd just like to talk a little bit about these programs and how they're making a difference. So the first thing that I want to talk about is our Elevate MB guaranteed income program. So this program actually was launched in the middle of covid, and the idea was that it would serve around 166 families and they would receive 500 a month payments for now for two years.

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Initially, we started out with a one-year pilot, and now it's turned into two years and I want to acknowledge the help and effort of Community Services Agency, our wonderful partner for this. That also deserves a resounding clap.

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A couple couple years of my so much hard work, there were so many partners that we work with not only here in Mountain View, but throughout the country, everyone from the University of Pennsylvania, their Research Center to the Stanford basic income, lab, of course, CSA Community Partners and the folks just received their first payment on December December 15th, and it's already changing lives. We've heard so many stories from the participants.

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Who've said: I was working three jobs now I only have one job that I'm working at I have a little bit more money to take my children someplace on the weekend or do something with them in the evening, because I'm not having to go from one job to the next job to the next job. So we're really excited about just even the first two three months of this program and just how it's helped our community members. So much another thing you all are aware of our safe parking program.

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We have the largest safe parking program in the entire County, we're not the largest city in the county, we're not even the second largest city in the county, but we do have the largest safe parking program right now we have up to 101 spaces and over the next couple months, we're going to actually be adding I think around 17 more spaces. Those spaces are going to be at the shoreline safe parking lot.

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So if you ever go out to Shoreline Park- and you look near where the fire station is to the right of the fire station, you'll see the shoreline safe parking lot there. So we really are really moving the needle and trying to expand where we can. Another thing that I want to mention is our Mountain View solidarity fund. So some of you may have heard about this.

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You may may or may not have heard about this, but this is an all-volunteer multi-racial cross collaboration in town led by working class Latina mothers who started this effort literally around a kitchen table and the solidarity fund advocates for our most vulnerable residents in Mountain View and what the city did during the pandemic was provide the solidarity fund, 1.8 million dollars in direct funding, so that families could receive their money immediately and use it.

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However, they wanted to whether it was on rent or bills or school or whatever their needs were, and I also want to recognize the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation a Dean. Thank you very much. A Dean is a very strong partner of the solidarity fund and their Fiscal Agent and the work and the hours of love and care that they have put into this are quite extraordinary.

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One thing that just happened this week that I wanted to to mention was that the Latino Community Foundation Nationwide LED I, guess you could call it a an effort to take a Latino Community member leaders from around the country to the White House, to talk about the efforts underway and dollars that were received during the American Rescue act, funding that was given away by cities.

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So one of our solidarity fund members was part of that delegation, so they were able to talk about the work that the city of Mountain View did with the solidarity fund to California, Senator, Alex, Padilla, and also senior members of President Biden's Administration. Quite extraordinary work, Mountain View, yes, foreign.

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Yes, and thank you to our solidarity, you want to stand up our solidarity fund members who are here.

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Just extraordinary work from a kitchen table, starting at a kitchen table going to the White House, so the city has been very proud to work with the solidarity fund and the community of foundation on this effort. Now. The next thing that I want to talk about is sustainability and resiliency. We can't do all of this stuff in the future if we don't have a functioning, thriving planet and community. So one of the things that Mountain View is very focused on are our climate. Is our climate actions so to be carbon neutral?

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Most of you may know, but we'll give a little bit of a background here. A city has to achieve Net, Zero, greenhouse gas emissions and that's through a combination of different efforts, so not only trying to remove the ghg emissions from the atmosphere, but also by enacting programs and policies that help lower those greenhouse gas emissions.

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Right now, we either have a goal to exceed the reduction Target of 75 percent, which was our 2005 level, and we can do that through various things like planting trees, making our buildings more efficient, focusing on energy instead of gas and the the goal of the city over the next several years is really to focus on decarbonization. So what you see here on this slide are the efforts that we're really going to be focused on so right now the council has a resolution in place to be carbon neutral by 2045.

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and you've, probably all heard about the goals that the state has, maybe that many other cities have to actually speed that up. So we're working on right now, exploring acceleration of that to implement strategies by 2035 now to really help us achieve achieve those goals and move the needle and part of that is through our work with the Silicon Valley clean energy foundation. So we actually were a founding member of svce and we've been receiving renewable and carbon-free electricity over five years.

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Those of you that live in Mountain View will see that on your electricity bill and I want to highlight some of our energy results just from last year, because I think they're quite extraordinary. So last year alone we had an 82 percent reduction in electricity related emissions. We had almost 800 000 in Bill savings for Mountain View customers. There was almost eighty thousand dollars in cash payments to customers who bought Surplus solar energy.

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So even people who are buying solar, that's really helping move the needle in svce and then there's also around 41 000 households and businesses that receive clean energy from carbon free sources. So we're really really trying to make a debt in this area. We have many actions to where you will be part of, and you'll be hearing about a lot of the things that we're going to be working on in the next couple years towards decarbonization and then I do want to also highlight our wonderful Regional gem Shoreline at Mountain, View I.

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Think we can all agree that this is one of our most treasured resources in Mountain View and the really cool thing that's happening this year is that it's the 40th anniversary of our regional park.

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So what you see here is just some pictures, not only just the trails that are at Shoreline, but also the wildlife, that's so important at Shoreline, and it's it's hard to believe. I think you all may know that this used to be a landfill, a hog farm and a wrecking yard.

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um So this area used to be described as having foul odor a lot of folks never wanted to go there. It truly was just an eyesore, and so in 1968 city leaders had the foresight to purchase this property, and then state law created the shoreline Regional Park Community, and that really was the legal obligation that was set for the city to not only maintain the regional Landfill, which is all underneath Shoreline Park now, but also developed the park and support all of the development of North Bayshore into even back in the 60s.

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They wanted it to be the center of Economic, Opportunity and planned for housing. So a lot of people don't know that even in the 60s there were plans for housing. So it's quite extraordinary that we're now at this point to be able to do this. So one of the other things that Council worked on recently was the North Bay Shore precise plan.

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So this is going to guide the Final Phase of shoreline's development, and so this is not only housing that we've talked about, but also a lot of major infrastructure projects that are going to address transportation and mitigate the impacts of sea level rise, uh something that you all may have seen if you go out on walks around. There are a lot of trucks coming in and Hauling dirt back to where the bay is and those are the Salt Pond areas.

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So the city's been working with the U.S fish and wildlife service and the state Coastal Conservancy commission, it's called the South Bay Salt, Pond restoration, and what this is doing is helping build up the tidal Marsh and the different habitat islands and the marshlands around that area to really help adapt to sea level rise. This is an effort, that's going to help prevent dampening of that Coastal area and any wave impacts to the city Shoreline too. So you might. You might see that when you're out at Shoreline, so that's also a really significant project underway.

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Just recently, the city adopted the shoreline Wildlife Management plan. I believe this was at the meeting on March 14th, and this plan is going to cover all of the different wildlife habitats found at Shoreline and all the different areas where our egrets are and the different birds, and this Wildlife plan is going to be really protective of the species there and it's going to integrate not only with the burrowing owl plan, but also a lot of the other plans that are underway at Shoreline.

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So this this plan is really going to make a special place out of Shoreline, and there were a couple other slides on. This uh doesn't look like they showed up, but let me let me go back here and make sure one of the. Let me just highlight just for purposes here. It doesn't look like they're included on here, but I want to mention that the city is launching a brand new website.

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So if you haven't been to the website in the last day or so, there is a link on the home page that'll, take you to a beta test of our website. We would love you all to go check that out, provide feedback to us and let us know what you think, because we're going to actually be launching this site in the next I think a couple months or so this spring.

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The reason why that's important is because, as we talk about building Community step by step, we really want to make sure that part of that is how we're informing you and how you're getting information about the city, our website's rather old. It's it's not as intuitive. It's, not mobile, friendly right now, so we're really taking that step to help inform our community members a lot better. So please visit our website, give feedback about the beta test, site and I. Believe that's the end of the presentation. Thank you so much for being here and.

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And for supporting the city, thank you to all of you who are here. We will send the QR code it'll. Take you right there to the to the uh survey for the beta site. Thank you very much.

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I want to thank both um our mayor and I want to thank our city manager. I will say one thing about um being with the Chamber of Commerce. Is a lot of people say? What's it like working with the city and Kimber alluded to it earlier? This is a great place to work with. It really is one of the things that sets us apart. Is this sense of community of working together on common goals and, yes, we're all very outspoken, but we do it in a civil fashion and we do it in a collaborative fashion.

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So, thank you all for being a part of that.

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And with that, um we have a few questions that I think are in.

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We just stood up here rather than at the table, I guess, okay!

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So a couple of questions that came in um from a number of our members and others in the city uh talking about construction on Castro, the city has embarked on exciting plans to redesign the first three blocks of downtown and create a pedestrian mall, and you saw a lot of that in the slides earlier today and it's really really exciting, as this project will likely take a few years to complete what efforts will be made to ensure that local businesses are still attractive and accessible during that time,.

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So thank you for whoever asked that question. I think this is what a lot of people are wondering about. What should happen to Castro Street, especially downtown, now that we're we're closing those three blocks and as the mayor mentioned, we have a ad hoc Committee of council members that are addressing this, but, more importantly, just last month in in February.

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Actually it's still march right, yeah, just last month, Council approved a number of funding recommendations that are going to help enhance the Aesthetics of Castro Street, also Furniture improvements, Street improvements, lighting improvements, really try and move the needle with how things look, but, more importantly, we're also going to be working through the economic Vitality strategy on a number of efforts that are very specifically focused on downtown that we know there are vacancies downtown and we're really going to try and address those.

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We also know that there is a lot of of things that will be happening at.

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Of Castro Street, which our mayor talked about the underpass or The Pedestrian underpass, and also for cars to be able to to go, and eventually we want to link that to Moffett Boulevard and really expand downtown through the through, where the transit center is and then even Beyond. So I think you'll start to see that this certainly has been a priority for Council through throughout covid. But we're really going to move the needle and make a lot more improvements, aesthetically and also with the infrastructure, certainly this year. But in the next couple years too.

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All right, thank you for that.

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um One other question on Commerce and that is that downtown gets a lot of quests a lot of attention, and rightly so, especially with the PED mall, but it's only one section of our diverse City. What's the vision for elevating other commercial and social centers, and what steps can we expect to see in the upcoming year.

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So you'll hear us talk about the economic Vitality strategy, a lot, and that's that's really, because what that strategy is going to come up with is basically a to-do list of all the things that we need to do not just downtown but city-wide to enhance our economic Vitality. So you may have heard a lot of conversations before about how we think about our different areas and neighborhoods as having Village centers and so in those various Village centers. We have various retail stores.

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We have various businesses, both large and small, and that's really also going to be a focus of the economic Vitality strategy is how we can help enhance those areas of Mountain View and not just downtown, so we're really going to try and make a lot of efforts that way. That plan is expected to come to council within the next few months. The consultant who actually has done a lot of work on the west coast is still working through the recommendations.

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They have a lot of Outreach and one-on-one meetings with focus groups with individuals with community Unity, Community groups and so they're, really just getting all of that information together to present to council. So we will be bringing that to council fairly soon and we hope to be able to share the results of all that with you, we're going to have a dedicated webpage, or actually it's going to be a website to economic Vitality.

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So part of this new website that I've talked to you about we're going to have a totally new area just for economic development, economic Vitality, we're going to have a separate section just for our Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. There's also going to be a separate web page for all of our development services, which I know people have been wondering about and talking about a lot.

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So the the city's website is going to be very robust and part of that is going to be informing you all better with what we're doing to move the needle for businesses. Thank.

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You thank you very much and with that I want to thank city manager McCarthy again for her time and for her wonderful comments.

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And, of course, for the amazing job that she does running the city along with, thank you, along with our city, council and City staff. Thank you very much for co-hosting this event with us.

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Lastly, I want to thank everyone here in the room here, our sponsors, our organizations, our individuals for being here and for contributing to making Mountain View just the most wonderful place to live, work and play I. Thank you all for your time today go out and have a great rest of the weekend.

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