City of San Jose, CA Transportation & Environment Committee, 4 Oct 2021

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From YouTube: OCT 4, 2021 | Transportation & Environment Committee

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City of San José, California
Transportation & Environment Committee of October 4, 2021.

Pre-meeting citizen input on Agenda via eComment at https://sanjose.granicusideas.com/meetings.

This public meeting will be conducted via Zoom Webinar. For information on public participation via Zoom, please refer to the linked meeting agenda below.

Agenda https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=890226&GUID=3AB8DF2E-A1DA-4587-A6FD-3AC1E6BBF140

A

Corrales esparza, here cohen,.

B

A

Davis here, thank you.

C

Great, thank you all right for our work plan review. We have one item that will be deferred to november. It is this uh city, road map, san jose, santa clara regional wastewater facility, capital improvement program, semi-annual report.

C

um I think we need a motion for that. Is that correct.

D

E

Second, thank you.

C

A

C

A roll call on that.

A

Please foley hi esparza. Yes,.

C

D

C

Davis. Yes, thank you.

C

Thank you. The next item is the consent calendar. There are two items on it. Do I see there are two hands up, um I'm hoping these are for the consent calendar, because I did not think about that three hands up. Okay. So let's go to public comment.

C

If I missed you for the review of work plan, please feel free to roll that into your comment. I.

F

Can just interrupt one of the hands up is council member corrales, who I think is.

G

Brought in as a panelist um tony, can you take care of that.

H

C

Council members welcome.

G

Thank you very much. My apologies. Thank you.

C

um So we'll go to the public tessa.

B

Okay, good well, thank you for noticing that you did not put it up the hand. Can you hear me? Okay, yeah, that you didn't take comment on the last item, so thank you for being more careful about that next time, okay, good and so basically the public the work plan, as well as the downtown san jose. I mean our work plans have got to change in terms of responding to our emergency that we as a city have declared and it's our climate emergency, and we need to change everything has to change.

B

That's what it demands is transformational change, and so we need to be looking at how our infrastructure is going to support the um the changes that we need and the changes that we need need to be hyper local, that we need to be high profile. I guess my timer.

I

Is not working.

B

uh Hyper local, and so there it goes anyway, and so it's really working on putting all of our resources to make our streets, walkable and bikeable needs to be the focus and all these plans, even the big plan for bart needs to be brought way way down. I mean we have to be at zero fossil fuels. By really 2025 I mean you know, everything has changed the whole. um You know the whole dialogue is no longer 2050.. I mean that is so far out. I mean we're experiencing climate crisis.

B

Now I mean california is on fire in southern california. Now and it's not stopping our fires, so you know it's that, that's what they projected and so, and climate change means that nothing we see now is the way it's going to be so there will be flooding, there'll, be fires and droughts that we're having, and so we need to be preparing for that, and it really means to make our uh community walkable and bikeable and to to re-um align all of our plans.

B

Our you know our plans that have much hubris involved in it much fossil fuel involved in it. Like our plan to build, you know to go to have our bart go to santa clara is, is redundant. All the environmentalists have said that and all you know, even if we want to support caltrain the redundancy in that and then to build a you know.

B

So it's that that work plan of of the bard, even though that's outside your purview as a city, but so many of the the san jose council members are on our our vta board and our caltrain board. So that needs to be reworked, but even I was looking at you know when we do these, you know viva cayenne and closing the roads like we did yesterday for a run, we need to leave the roads like that, all the resources that we have spent to to make that happen, you know, needs to be.

J

We need to make those permanent changes.

B

And in top of it you, you see what happened in santa clara, which I've been telling you. You need santa clara to be a bike line, and yet you let let the restaurants put little bulb outs for them. So we know that your priority is our our restaurants and our businesses.

C

Thank you next speaker of lara beekman.

K

Hi ray rickman here, uh thank you for the meeting today to speak to the consent calendar item about the clean community energy commission yearly report. Like most sj commissions, the s the ccec has been trying much to develop, organized good studies and that can make for good examples and how the future of the sj commission process can work. To note, council person mayhem was recently on was on the cce ccec commission.

K

With that said, I asked once again that all parts of the community, including the progressive and east side communities, should be considering the meaning of civic duty and what can always be an interesting evening in attending ccec and other state commission public meetings.

K

I feel the uh the cc uh commission has important goals of green sustainability and open democracy that are simply meant to be inclusive and like sda commissions overall, can help develop a learning process of more open community democratic practices, as we need ways to better address and bridge the current chasm of miscommunication between east and west san jose.

K

I think, as we all will be looking for help for the from the equity roundtable public process. This january, that among its community issues, it can better define the future direction of san jose commissions and a more open, accessible, democratic future for san jose.

K

Another reminder that to put serious effort into our better practices of renewable energy and local procurement. Now this can help ourselves transition easier and return to these more regular good practices and routines after any future. Large natural disaster events or emergencies and to be clear, is renewable, sustainable energy that is our hopeful and more practical future, not nuclear.

K

uh Thank you. I'm actually done with my remaining time uh uh to to offer pam foley at ced last week offered uh to meld the the work plan and consent calendar into one public comment time. I don't know it's a bit efficient and and useful. I don't know if it's totally good, but it's.

C

Thank you next uh speaker is caller ending in 5140.

L

Yeah it looks like another natural disaster, the city council, trying to fix the climate. Please you guys are going to fix the climate you're going to give us infrastructure you're going to give us nothing. You know! Look at the road diet. You did on 11th street what a disaster that is with two lanes, there's ever a major earthquake or anything people trying to get in or out of san jose. It's going to be terrible.

L

Just take a look at the fiasco on hillsdale with the road diet, where it's going to go down to two lanes on each side, yeah think of an earthquake or something else is going to be a problem trying to get away. That's what happened to people in paradise. They had a lot of infrastructure with that uh road diet. They had in paradise. Look what happened! People burned alive in their cars they're not going to save the planet.

L

You guys are more worried about great flavored tobacco or who has a hookah bar or what time somebody buys a beer at the rotten robbie. That's what you guys are good at focusing on you guys, probably focus on the dress code around, so you all do, probably anything you guys can control or find or whatever you know you guys like to control the fences and and the sheds and the flag poles. That's what you guys are good at you're gonna try to save the planet. I don't think so.

L

Take a look at downtown infrastructure is terrible light rail, terrible county transit bus, terrible fart, terrible caltrain, terrible you tell me what is good in the infrastructure of san jose parking, terrible stores. Well, are there any down there? All I see is for rent poor lease for sale. Forget it who's going to go down there if you're going to get rid of the parking like you, people want to do you guys have lost your marbles. You got, you know what you need.

L

This is a term paper and a sophomore you're, a college on on how to screw up a city. That's what you're! That's what you're doing to san jose you're, making it worse than it already is wait.

C

Thank you. Do any of my colleagues have comments on the consent calendar or want to pull an item. I have approval.

G

C

Thank you. I have one question before we uh vote for the the downtown parking board, john um or or a member of your team, though I'm assuming that the revenue for this fiscal year is also down for parking. I know there are I've when I've been downtown and I go downtown fewer days than I have in the past uh each week I see a lot of additional parking in in the various garages and on the streets.

C

Is there a discussion? I didn't see it specifically on the work plan. Is there going to be a discussion about projected short flop falls and how that's going to impact the programs that get funded by the parking program.

M

Yeah, thank you, uh chair davis, john risto, director of transportation. So, yes, you are correct that the uh suspension of paid parking, both in meters and in the parking garages over the pandemic, really put a hard hit on the parking budget where we essentially have had to use all of our planned reserves just to keep the operations going and pay for the absolutely much needed repairs of the system.

M

So it is being talked about and we did review it at the last parking board meeting as well, and it is something that's going to come, always back to council that as we're starting to restore those services, hope we have forecasted out the best five years.

M

We still stay negative in one of the out years, but uh restoring that the services of the parking meters outside of downtown and having the economy coming back so that the downtown is starting to recover, given all that we're still a negative next year in terms of where we are with the budget. So the parking board has seen this they're going to probably want to see it again. We're talking about that with them.

M

We've got a special meeting. Coming up- and I think uh next week, maybe for an additional review by parking board. So quick answer is yes, it's in bad, pretty bad shape. Hopefully, it'll start to get better. Now that we're restoring services but uh yeah, it will take some time to get back out of it and then we'll have to decide what we can and can't fund. As those revenues recover.

C

Right and and even returning to charging there are not as many people driving downtown.

M

That's correct: we've forecasted yeah and again uh we forecast is still going to be in a negative situation, at least for the next year. Okay,.

C

Okay and how will this come back to council? Oh.

M

Well, um it shows up in all every every year when we do appropriations of the the annual budget. So you you see that through all the different programs- and it is the parking hazards, one of its own line, items that describes where we are with the parking program, revenues and uh use of funds as well.

C

Okay, are we going to be using, um or are you talking about using recovery um funds for this? I don't believe it.

M

Yeah, that's a good question. I try to think. I don't believe that we've got any recovery funds that are assigned in there. I will go back and check though, but I don't recall that being the case, though.

C

Okay, thank you. um If any of my, if none of my colleagues have any other questions on the consent calendar, we can go ahead and have a vote.

A

Holy, I morales.

G

A

N

A

O

A

O

C

Thank you and we will go on now to reports to committee item. D1 is labor policies and community benefits best practices for long-term renewable energy contracts. Report lori.

P

Thank you councilmember. um I think we're just going to pull up our slides here there we go great, thank you, so I'm laurie mitchell and I'm the director of community energy and today, I'm really pleased to be joined by jean-soleil.

P

She is our deputy director of power supply next slide.

P

So today we're going to provide an overview of our long-term renewable energy contract, so we're going to provide a summary of the contracts, the labor provisions and then importantly, the workforce development funds that we've obtained from the developers that are constructing these contracts and then we're going to review the labor policies of other ccas and procurement entities um in the cca workspace. So next slide.

P

So now, I'm going to turn it over to jean fruit she's, our deputy director power supply and she's, going to provide an overview of our existing long-term renewable agreements.

I

Good afternoon council members um yeah, so I wanted to start out by giving you some information about the long-term renewable agreements that we have already have entered into. We've been entered into four long-term renewable agreements.

I

um Two of them will begin operations in at the end of this year at the end, basically the beginning of next year, and those include a wind agreement that is 225 megawatts and it'll be a 50-year agreement for wind in mexico.

I

The second agreement- that's going to begin operation at the beginning of 2022, is an innovative solar agreement that requires delivery from seven in the morning to 10 at night. So it includes hours in which solar, typically doesn't develop, doesn't deliver the way that the developer is going to do that is by having batteries, um but the bottom line is their commitment to us is to deliver clean energy from seven in the morning to ten at night. That agreement is a twelve year agreement and that is located in kern county.

I

Then we have two additional solar agreements that will begin in service at the beginning of 2023.

I

There is a solar agreement also in current county by the same developer. That's just a standard solar agreement that is a 15-year agreement for 100 megawatts of solar, and then we have a final agreement located in fresno, california, also a solar agreement, but this one has 10 megawatts of storage.

I

It's got a term of 20 years and as I the owner, there is bdpr, which is a portuguese utility next slide. Please.

I

So our existing agreements do address labor. All of them require contractors to meet applicable laws, including prevailing wage requirements, and we've been informed that all of our suppliers are using union labor, at least for a portion of the project.

I

In addition, all the suppliers that we've been currently agreements with have contributed some community benefits or workforce development funding, and the total amount contributed by the four agreements is approaching: a million dollars 875 000 next slide. Please.

I

So the two agreements with terrigen, uh which is the innovative 62 megawatt solar agreement and the traditional 100 megawatt solar agreements, for that one terrafin, has informed us that it intends to use union labor via project labor agreements and some of the labors um that will be covered by that are the southern california district council of laborers laborers, local 2020, laborers, 220, southwest region, council, carpenters, international brotherhood of electrical workers, local 428 and the ironworkers local 416..

I

Next slide. Please.

I

The edpr sunrisa project, the one that's 100, megawatts of solar with 10 megawatts of battery- um that one there is a requirement that they use union labor. The power purchase agreement requires use of a union labor of union labor for the engineering, procurement and construction contract.

I

That's basically the contractor that will procure the equipment and be responsible for the bulk of construction.

I

We do not yet know who that contractor is going to be, and there is not yet a project labor agreement, because that is not slated to come online until the end of 2022, but it will be with labor agreement because that's a contract requirement next slide. Please.

I

The final agreement is the 225 megawatt mexico, wind agreement, that one is located in new mexico and it will pay local prevailing wages. It supported 650 jobs at the peak of construction, although the wind farm itself is not being built or was not built because it's already been built using union labor. The transmission line, which is needed to bring that solar power to california, was built using union labor organized through local albuquerque and in new mexico ibw 611, and that work supports 156 jobs.

I

Next slide. Please.

I

So, in terms of community investments, each one of the proj each one of the projects has committed community investments. The total to date is 870 000. uh The first round of funding was directed to sj works um and that was 275 000.

I

It covers 150 participants um and I believe that that project works with disadvantaged youth um to get them started on. You know, get them in in a job that will get them started on a career path, we're working with the office of economic development to identify additional uses for the remaining committed funds.

I

One thing about those funds is that the funds need to be connected to clean energy issues, but other than that that money is fairly flexible next slide. Please.

I

I'm going to turn it over to laurie now.

P

Yeah, thank you son, so next I'll discuss um other cca, labor policies and best practices. So it's important to note that all ccas are governmental entities, so they are organized either as a jpa, a joint powers authority or a single jurisdiction, which is how our program is organized and so their labor policies are governed by local state and federal labor agencies and laws, including the california labor department, also important to note that cal state is actually a trade organization and they don't have enforcement authority over cca, labor practices and policies.

P

Their primary focus is to advocate, at the cpuc and in the legislature for favorable regulatory and legislative policies that benefit ccas, and then we did survey a number of ccas that have board adopted labor policies, some of those included peninsula, clean energy mce, which serves four counties, including marin, napa and contra costa county and then san diego community power, which is newly formed.

P

P

So just some highlights from those policies so peninsular, clean energy requires bidders to provide information on their labor practices and then scores bids on whether or not they comply.

P

Mce encourages the use of union members from multiple trades and then they have an agreement with ibew local 302 to use union labor for the solar projects built in their service territory of contra, costa county and then san diego community power has adopted a policy of neutrality between using union and non-union, labor, so next slide and then california, community power. This is a new jpa that was formed in 2020. We are a part of this. You may recall this item came to council. Last year we joined california community power as a joint procurement agency.

P

So this is a new jpa that enters into power supply agreements on behalf of several different ccas, and what they're looking at doing so far is a long duration, storage project.

P

That project has not been contracted yet so there's been a lot of development work focused on that project, so the board for cc power did adopt a labor policy that was applicable to those two solicitations and that included a preference for a project labor agreement and allowed up to five points out of a hundred in a scoring rubric for those projects, and then they required for projects that don't implement a poa.

P

They had, they required an audit to ensure compliance with prevailing wage and to evaluate the use of apprenticeship programs and then finally, the policy encouraged the use of local labor, and it's important to note that cc power is still working on a broader labor and environmental policy, which they likely will consider later this year or into 2022.

P

As that organization gets up and running- and you know, has more resources to focus on these issues. So next slide.

P

So then, we evaluated best practices across many different ccas and identified a few that were common number one. It was very common to ask for developers to provide information on their labor practices and efforts to support disadvantaged communities.

P

It was also a best practice to include supplier contributions to community benefits and local workforce development in the renewable agreements, and then most ccas had adopted flexibility that allows them to balance both labor considerations alongside other factors such as the project, value and price counterparty credit worthiness and the impact on the environment and local communities.

P

P

So in summary, we have followed all of those best practices. We continue to collaborate with other ccas to improve those practices.

P

um All of our ppas do require that contractors meet applicable laws, including prevailing wage, and many of them have used union labor, we've also successfully negotiated favorable, favorable, labor characteristics and all of our agreements, and we've negotiated for almost almost a million dollars in community benefits and workforce development funding.

P

Right now that amounts it's at 870 thousand dollars so next slide. I think that really is the end, and so we are available for questions.

C

Thank you we'll go first to the public.

C

That's a woodman mancy.

B

Okay, good, thank you so much well, thank you for uh our public comment, um tessa with nancy, and basically the comment in regards to you know working on. You know making sure that you know there's union jobs and that's all very nice and good, but our focus as we move forward out of covet and into our future. It has to be all about our the individual and public health and making you know.

B

The whole thing about jobs are is is a distraction from the basic needs of human beings, food clothing and shelter, and one of the issues that in terms of the individual, is our solar charge, and I I wanted to speak to the person who said the cca that you know we employ right now in regards to what the pg e's request that the individual, solar user will pay eighty dollars a month.

B

um I I'm not sure about the details of the whole thing, but I really wanted to speak to that woman who works for us uh in regards to our you know, cca or cce, and basically you know that we need to really push that. We don't pay that 80 dollars, that that would be a disincentive to solar users to be on the um to.

B

I understand that you know if we're using the backup of our pg e as our backup, I'm sure we do have to pay something to have that system in place, but it should, I think, 80 is too much for us to have to pay a month.

B

So I'm hoping that our city really um advocates that the puc to not approve um or the cpuc to not approve pg e's request for 80 a month from solar users and in addition, we really need to be working on getting away from pg e, completely away from the transmission lines and really get our our solar backup to have a solar backup, a solar banks that are, you, know, community, solar, that we can use as our backup and that's what we need. What do you call it? Community batteries?

B

We need a community battery and we really need to be focusing on that.

C

Thank you. Next speaker is bloor beekman.

K

Hi blair here before you start my clark, can I ask a procedural question um that there is a incredibly bad sound like everyone's talking through a wind tunnel? Can I ask the city clerk to mute everyone's microphones? Please, and then you can start my clock over here. It hasn't started yet, but thanks uh just be aware of it, and hopefully you can troubleshoot the issue. uh Thank you for this item. I'll start now. Thank you very much.

K

I hope we can begin uh some serious effort into our better practices of renewable energy and its local procurement. Now this can help ourselves transition easier and return to our more regular good practices and routines after any large natural disaster event, emergencies, possibly again a thank you for all the work of the sjc and community efforts to address pg in issues like ab-1139 at the state level.

K

From this we have to learn to be aware of our own local issues and practices better, as san jose has already developed good beginnings to develop much more reliance on renewable energy and its local procurement, as I've said before, you know to work on renewable energy and local procurement. Now can make a transition easier to return to our more regular practices after uh natural disaster events. Much like open, open public policies can do the same thing.

K

Good practices, just it continues our better selves uh through difficult times uh again. Renewable energy is is obviously way better than nuclear. uh Thank you for your work with unions at this time. A few other thoughts that uh thank you uh to or to look into the work of the east bay community energy. They have four public meetings uh at least a month, and they they offer a really good example for the public, how they can understand the community uh energy process. It's really good meetings, and I know san jose community energy.

K

They have old funding contracts that are really difficult for them to work. Out of I thank you for the efforts that how you are trying to work your best towards good subsidy plans for all parts of the community and uh just an openness how to address these issues. It's a really important way to work that I think we're trying to address how to work. In those terms. Thank you.

C

Thank you next speaker is caller five one, four zero.

L

You guys are living in a dreamland, it's going to be an all-electrical grid someday with no natural gas. Pg e lines have not been repaired or upgraded for decades, if not half of a century and all of a sudden san jose thinks they're going to save the world with some kind of renewable energy. You guys are out of your mind. It's not going to work. Renewable energies are for offsetting what you already have, which is great, but then you want to get rid of natural gas, which your your fantasy came.

L

True because was a state and a county authorized no more natural gas. The price natural gas prices are up, which you guys are probably loving, because all of a sudden people think electricity is going to save the day. How do you think all these electric cars are going to be charged?

L

Take a look at germany right now, they're already predicting blackouts, because they thought that they were going to run their industrial economy on renewable energy and it's been a complete failure. Everyone talks about what happens in europe. Let's do what france does and go nuclear baby. That's what we need when you go to france, their electricity works. You know what else it's totally affordable, but not here not in post-modern california.

L

You guys want to do the most asinine things when it comes to energy. It's unbelievable! How about build a dam? Oh no! Can't do that. How about uh hydro, uh not hydroelectric but other other forms of energy, like geothermal? No, don't do that. You guys think you're gonna run some some chintzy uh electrical grid to your city. I I you know what I wanna see you guys try to do this. I can't wait to watch the power go out like we're in cuba or venezuela or something you guys are.

L

You guys are laughable, you're, the laughing stock of this entire nation, the city. This is california in general. Take a look around. Take a look around.

C

Thank you next speaker's roland.

D

Am I muted now.

C

Yes, we can hear you.

D

Okay, good, so um as a taxpayer and a rate player, this is my first comment. I sincerely hope that whatever policies um you come up with um essentially do not provide the prohibited companies like tesla for bidding for uh renewable energy contracts.

D

Another thing I want um to bring to your attention: it's a lot of people are talking about battery backup, but there are different ways to actually when we have surplus capacity in the system during the day, either through window to solar, whereby we can store that capacity without resorting to batteries.

D

If you look at hydro, if you have got a dam, you know how that works.

D

You drain the water that generates it, a city off you go, but what a lot of people don't know is that you can actually use hydro to use whatever that reservoir is as a storage for energy and the way that works is that during the day when the grid has got surplus capacity, instead of charging batteries, you're actually pumping water back into the reservoir and then at night that water drains, and that's how you generate the power at night and I hope that's one of the solutions that will be considered by this committee moving forward.

D

C

Thank you turning it back to my colleagues, hey.

C

Councilmember perales! Sorry about that.

G

Thank you chair, um so just a question in regards to, um I think the the potential difference from what you listed in the memo on some of the labor policies from other ccas. You uh listed that uh peninsula clean energy pce uh you describe some of their their language and their policy.

G

uh I won't read it, but in the memo on page five and then mce, uh you stated their encouragement for uh direct use of union members, multiple trades and then um obviously those two examples and then for california community power. uh The the jpa that that were a part of um you gave an example there. What I'm? What I'm curious, are what the description of what our our language uh that that board there has voted on. um How are those different? I'm curious?

G

They sound fairly similar to me, but I'm curious how um they may be different and if there's any encouragement, if there are some great differences that we can provide encouragement, we could provide to our uh jpa to try and strengthen our policy.

P

Yeah, it's a great question councilmember. um You know, I think there are a lot of similarities and particularly among mce and peninsula's policy. um You know encouraging the use of of union labor um and you know most ccas do encourage that and in their rfp and solicitation uh um process, and then you know allow some scoring methodology to um evaluate that where there there might be some differences, as uh one is san diego they recently formed and they they adopted a policy of neutrality.

P

um You know regarding the use of union labor, so that's a little bit of a different approach and then cc power. You know they're very new organization, just getting started so they did adopt. You know the policy that we described. That applies to the rfp that they're looking at now for long-duration storage.

P

um So I think, there's there's a lot of similarity in the the approach there. Does that answer your question.

G

Yeah, I I mean I saw the similarities too. I guess on the nuance. Difference is what I was wondering if you had any better understanding of um you know, maybe some nuanced differences and specifically where we might be able to strengthen our policy um to encourage uh the the use similar to mce right, the use of union members um um or, if you know, or like the language that you you described for pce, that it seems as well like it's encouraging of um use it.

G

I think there was a score there as well similar to ours. Where there's a benefit. You didn't put a number, though for pce, so I'm curious, if maybe there's a higher percentage or points given to um or that they provide there for uh union bidders.

P

Yeah, I'm not sure john, do you know that to tell us, certainly something we can look up and get back to you if not.

I

We can look more closely. It's my understanding, with both the policies and particularly pce's policy, is that it's new and they're still working out what it means in practice and there's even you know, people are really working out exactly what it means: they're clear that people need to provide information, um but the question of exactly how that information is then treated in the scoring process is something that there's still a fair amount of discussion about.

G

Okay, um what is the I know we're just accepting the report here. So what is the follow-up of this item? Will be not being hearing another update on this for a year, or is this something that we'd have to request as a one-off.

P

Yeah we didn't intend to have a further follow-up. We do intend to continue to provide information on our procurement in the quarterly reports. The information numbers that we issue each quarter on you know both our long-term renewable contracts, as well as our other power supplies, so we'll continue to follow up and provide information in in that venue, but we hadn't uh anticipated further follow-up. Although another.

P

um What we do expect is, you know, as we continue to operate, we are going to enter into additional long-term contracts that will come before council and so more opportunity to engage with the council, as as we issue additional rfps and provide recommendations on expanding our portfolio.

G

Okay, yeah, I mean, I think I recognize right um the jpa that we're in um that that's really where we'd want to maybe encourage, uh if, if there's possible, for, I think, strengthening the language um and I'd like to see right what opportunities there are there. So if you, if you could in one of those quarterly reports the next one, be able to just provide a little more info, if you can find it.

G

As far as I know, you stated um what five out of uh up to five points out of the 100 within the the category there of labor practices and I'd be curious. How many points maybe are given through pce's bids um again just to try to see how we could have uh or lobby for some stronger language on our jpa so I'll I'll? Take that, though, as if you don't mind providing that as an update in one of the next quarterly reports and then that conversation can continue.

G

But I appreciate the report back um today and I'll move approval.

A

N

P

Great happy to provide that in the quarterly reports. Thank you.

C

Councilmember cohen.

O

Yeah, thank you. um First, I want to follow up on that line of questioning, so our scoring, um let me see if I understand all this correctly. um You talk about the scoring system used by pce and mce, and then our scoring our scoring does not have any points in there for labor practices. Is that correct.

P

uh That's correct john: do you want to describe our scoring process in more detail.

I

At the moment, we do not include points for scoring. um We do sorry points for labor. We do include five points uh for small business and local entities, which I think is consistent with city law.

I

Typically ccas I mean most ucas, even if they don't have a formal policy, do talk to their bidders and encourage their bidders to use union labor and that's pretty much the standard practice for solar in california.

I

But we at the moment have not included points for labor performance.

O

So so, when we, when you that's kind of why I was a little bit confused about the the message, because it wasn't part of the scoring system for these contracts that you described. But then at one point in the presentation um you mentioned that you had, um we had signed these contracts and encouraged the use of of um unionized labor.

O

So um that was part of a conversation, but wasn't necessarily a requirement. Is that right? So we signed these contracts. We got that that labor as part of it, but it wasn't some kind of official scoring that was done as part of that contract negotiation.

P

Right so the requirement was for prevailing wage um and, as jean said, you know, the the city requirements are on local, and so we followed the city's standard procurement requirements and then, as these projects uh you know, have moved into development and construction, we've stayed in contact with them and you know that's how we've understood. You know what union labor, they're, utilizing and john said for the most part, solar projects constructed in california. Do use union labor, usually that's a an issue at the local level as the projects are developed.

P

um So it's something that you know we've monitored and uh you know happy to report out on, but it hasn't been a requirement when we put our rfp out trying to add to that sure.

I

Okay, yeah, no that's correct for we've met the city requirements. We have conversations. I think that you know all developers know that cca strongly prefer the use of union labor. But at the moment we don't have either a requirement four points, except with respect to small and local businesses. Okay,.

O

And the and the prevailing rage requirement requires prevailing wage at the locality where the work is being done. That's correct.

O

And then the um so as far as trying to get, if, if we wanted to try to push for some scoring preference in our scoring system, as councilmember corrales mentioned, we would. We would just have to ask the board of the cce to um consider that as part of the rfp process going forward.

P

For uh well so it's important to note that there's, there's two different procurement mechanisms that we uh procure under one is just our own solicitations that we run as innovate, clean energy and then you're right, we're also a part of cc power, which is a new jpa that jointly prepares new products on behalf of a number of ccas, and so the project they're evaluating right now is a long duration, storage project.

P

And so that's what we reported on that the board adopted the labor policy described there, they're continuing to have conversation um to adopt a broader policy and then that long duration, storage project. We anticipate having a recommendation for council early next year on.

O

They, as the ccp board, has put in place a scoring system that require that that includes points for labor practices in their scoring.

P

O

So for our local rfp process, which doesn't have that in the scoring, we as a council at some point, would potentially have the opportunity to add that to our scoring system. If we wanted to.

P

Yeah we'd have to um you know, have that direction and then work with our city, attorney's office and our procurement offices to implement that type of a policy. So far we have followed uh just the standard city procurement policies. I understand okay,.

O

Okay, thank you.

O

I think that answers all my questions. I appreciate the report, thank you for for bringing back that the detailed information based on that. Thank you so much.

C

Any other colleagues have questions or comments all right. Let's vote foley.

A

Q

N

Esparza, yes,.

A

N

Davis, yes,.

C

Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to item d2 draft community forestry management plan report. John, would you like to introduce the team.

M

Yes, thank you, chair davis, john russo, director of transportation uh yeah this afternoon. We're really pleased to present the draft community forest management plan with me today that will do the bulk of the presentation is russell hanson, he's our city, arborist and ryan allen. The principal author of the report, who works for dudek consultants- and you know I just want to do a little bit of background in some context, setting that what the cfmp is, the community forest management plan.

M

It really was intended to be a technical, independent analysis, really really taking a hard look at how the city is currently managing various tree programs understand the current state of the committee forest and then develop some opportunities for improvement.

M

This really is just the first step in a critical analysis of this issue, a very important issue to us and what we, what we're trying to do is actually set up for success, really the city with this plan- maybe one one thing I could do to just explain- uh maybe some analogy to this plan to previous work that the city has done I'll, give you an example, a little bit of history where a number of years ago, the pavement in the city was actually a pretty poor condition and declining in its condition, so the city set about to do a very comprehensive review of how to reverse that negative trend of the pavement condition.

M

So we identified um and did a com, comprehensive review of all of the resources needed and business practice, changes that would have been needed to actually improve on pavement condition throughout the city. At that point, we identified what resources and practices we needed to change to actually make those improvements.

M

We then presented all those needs and improvements to city council mayor to actually get direction. Then, once that direction and identified the problem was was out there.

M

Then we, the city, along with many of our stakeholder partners and agencies, set about to actually develop resources and new practices to address this issue, and I think you can see the fruits of that now, with with throughout the city, um we're able to we're currently doing about 200 miles per year of repaving of all the city streets using our new practices, new funding that we were able to secure with all those stakeholder partners.

M

We will bring that back that payment plan every year to council to update it and provide new ways of doing it better, and I think that's a really good analogy and comparative um example for what the cfmp is is trying to do, which is again. We've got an issue with our community forest. We wanted to take a very hard look, independent, look at how we can be better, that's both in the city and outside the city.

M

I wanted to develop goals and and objectives and establish a work plan that would would be able to get us into the right place and then bring this, bring that whole plan forward to council for direction and then do so annually. Come back every every year and update the plan uh resources needed what our priorities are so the same thing that we did successfully with the payment program we were able we want to do with the community forest management plan next slide. Please.

M

So this slide is really um kind of goes without saying, but it's the why we want to do this, and this is where um provides all the reasons that we really need to update and improve on our community forest and canopy.

M

uh I think it is pretty self-evident within the slide, but I think the important things that we want to get out of this is is really cleaning our air having some way to mitigate some of the climate change issues that we're being presented with capturing clean water in our new green infrastructure plan and really improve physical and mental health and lower the temperature of neighborhoods and actually really make great places and improving the canopy of the tree. Canopy of the city is really going to go a long ways toward that.

M

You know there have been a number of studies done that try to try to quantify those benefits and all through california, if you add it all up all the economic benefit and value of that it's over three billion dollars annually in terms of the benefit the trees provide to an urban area like this, unfortunately, with where we are right now with the city, our historical budgets have not been able to keep up with the tree maintenance and or the planting needed to get back to that uh another slide they want to get to and thank you for the the large trees versus small ones.

M

I think it's you know it's really important, and I don't think this is any big news to anyone, either that what we're trying to do is get to those large canopy trees, and that takes a lot longer for us to do that and uh to do so, we need to actually start now doing that uh the comparison of trying to get to the large trees versus smaller ones. It's just really much better for carbon sequestration storage, the uh it goes without stating the greater environmental benefit, uh storm water avoidance and definitely more shade.

M

What I'm going to do now is hand over the presentation to russ hanson and then on to ryan they're, going to do the bulk of the presentation and actually expand on many of these things that we've been working on with the plan russ.

H

Thank you, john and council members for inviting us today to kind of talk about all this. So as tana john had mentioned, when it comes to benefits, bigger trees mean bigger benefits and, and that's not just a one-for-one ratio. That is an exponential type situation.

H

So you know we wanted to take a really critical look at our forest, as you can see in the graphics that we've got up here today to share with you the majority of our trees. Almost 70 percent of our trees are in that small to moderate category. They just typically do not reach that I'll, say large to very large canopy size that we're at about 31 percent. Overall.

H

What that really means is that we get less when it comes to the benefits from these trees, we get less shade, less storm water management, less pollution mitigation and just overall less value when we're not able to mature or to maintain our trees to maturity and get them to that large sized canopy. So it really also means this.

H

This slide here really represents to us that when it comes to planting our trees in the future, we really got to be careful and make sure that we're trying to maximize the trees that we're putting in that not everybody can have a crepe myrtle, um but ultimately not everybody can grow a large, mature oak tree either. But you know we got to find a balance. We got to get as large as we can for the location that we're actually trying to plant these trees.

H

So it'll be a lot of consideration on that when it comes to management plan itself, you know again, I think what we really want to get across is this supports other city policies and goals, whether it's in vision 2040, whether it's climate, smart, green storm, water, even dot's own kind of vision, zero program, these the tree program- has an influence on every single one of these. It needs to align with those it needs to kind of raise the awareness of all of that.

H

The plan itself has been funded through a califor cal fire climate investment grant and really consisted of about three different parts. The first part is going to be a strengths, weaknesses, opportunity analysis. The second one will be our strategic work plan and then the third one was an update to our tree policy and best practices manual.

H

So beyond that again, as we get into some of the details, it's been about a three to four year. Effort for us key deliverables again involve that squad analysis of the entire san jose program. It involved the planting of 200 trees within disadvantaged communities, because this is climate investment funded. There was a planting requirement beyond that. We developed the new tree management database within dot to manage our street tree inventory.

H

We're looking to complete our full inventory for city maintained trees. While we did completed our street tree inventory in 2014, we're still lacking when it comes to city facilities and so forth, so with parks, community, centers, libraries etc. We've got to complete that portion of it and that will be done hopefully over the next six to eight months, as we kind of keep moving forward on this and then again updating our tree policy and best practices manual, one of the other key deliverables in all of this.

H

So um beyond that, I guess at this point I'll turn it over to ryan he'll get into some of the more technical aspects. Ryan allen is our consultant from dudek, environmental and I'll go ahead and I'll turn it over to him, so he can get into some of the more specifics for you all.

R

Thank you russell and thank you to all the committee members for giving us the opportunity to talk about the cfmp. The community forest management plan. um Dudek, like russell said, is an environmental, consulting firm and we've been working in california for 40 years now we have over 500 full-time employees all throughout california, oregon hawaii and do projects all throughout the united states.

R

I get to lead our urban force management planning team, I'm an ice international society of abort culture, certified arborist tree risk assessment, qualified and a municipal specialist.

R

Over the last just within the last three years, dudek has led similar urban force or community forest management planning projects with cities all the way from la mesa down by in san diego up to chico and northern california.

R

We've led a very similar project with the city of los angeles. We've worked with beverly hills, downey, so um all throughout california, and lots of lots of experience um leading these efforts.

R

So what we, so? What we have here are are six of our key findings, um the most um pressing issues that we identified in reviewing uh the community forest management actions and and the tree uh conditions and urban forest condition.

R

uh The first point true canopy cover, is declining and has declined from uh 15.3 to 13.5 over a six-year period, and that data was analyzed from the u.s forest service. They completed a canopy cover study of all of every city in california, so we're able to compare those data sets and important thing to point out here is that trees take a long time to grow um recapturing canopy once it's lost, it takes years with the effects of climate change, with increased heat with the drought, with with growing and expanding urban footprints.

R

The need for shade for the benefits of trees is more and more pressing, and while trees are not going to save the world from climate change, it's going to make our cities livable healthy places that people can get to their parks and their street walk down their streets um and go to the stores and and live a healthy life.

R

So it's a very depressing issue for the city right now and with that uh the next full point, those who are most vulnerable to environmental and health impacts from climate change and pollution hazards are almost economically disadvantaged communities and they have fewer trees and lower canopy covered. So there's a pressing need to plant teresa everywhere, but specifically with those communities that are most um disadvantaged and most in need.

R

Getting. There is going to take resources.

R

It's going to take financial and human resources, and currently san jose is low in both of those lacking some of the staffing that's needed and the funding to reach reach some of the goals that are identified in the plan and actively manage the entire population uh street tree and park tree population.

R

Currently, the cities spends approximately four million dollars a year on its community forest program, and we estimate it would need an additional 20 to 24 million dollars to manage all trees in the public realm, so that would include all street trees and all park trees, um and that's one of the one of the recommendations is, you know, is getting to look at how how to make that happen.

R

Urban infill and development practice limits space for trees. We recognize there's housing crisis, there's needs to increase the urban footprint and it can be done with trees in a responsible way and there's a need to look at the practices, that of how things are being built, how trees are preserved um from the beginning of the process and not waiting until the end to then look at a tree, but you can you can get creative.

R

You can do things that incorporate trees into these projects when it's done in the beginning, when everything else like the street lights, sidewalk sewers, when all that's getting looked left looked at, trees need to be looked at at that time as well, so they can be preserved and planned for properly um there's opportunities for the city and in our city forest to continue to its current partnership and strengthen it and expand it.

R

Ocf has been a.

K

R

You know leading community force nonprofit in san jose for for 25 years, they've been able to leverage their resources and helping fund bring more resources to the city to help fund community forest tree planting events, maintenance.

R

There's the opportunity there to look at ways to bring in more funding through joint grant partnerships and other opportunities to build on the great work. That's already being done and then the last point. You need good data to to continue to make good management decisions and understand the current condition of the city trees.

R

The current inventory is not complete and some of it's outdated and that needs to be updated with a full and complete update of the inventory and then subsequently that inventory needs to be.

R

Continually updated on an annual basis um go ahead. uh This next slide shows uh that can be covered by council logistics across san jose, based on 2018 data, while canopy covers low overall for the city, like you said, disadvantaged communities have the lowest canopy cover, um especially on the east side of town, and the inequity of canopy cover is, is really apparent in in this graphic.

R

um You know there there can be some environmental factors with the west side of the city receiving um some more fog and rain um and the east side receiving less, um but but this wouldn't be a significant enough of a different, a significant difference to justify the disparity of of canopy cover.

R

District six has the highest canopy cover at 19, and then this district, along with district 10 um exceeded 20 percent in 2010. Excuse me 2012, but since then it's lost both areas of lost canopy cover um 20 for a 20 canopy cover for a city like san jose is considered a realistic baseline.

R

It doesn't mean that you can't achieve higher canopy cover in in areas throughout the city, and there are census tracts in neighborhoods that have 25 to 30 percent canopy cover, but there's a lot of areas that have eight nine ten percent canopy cover um with homes and roads built, um there's, not necessarily the space to reach an optimal 40, extremely high canopy cover that you only really see in cities that had existing forested lands.

R

So, looking at the 20, we use that 20 percent baseline to help develop some of our targets and goals with with planting trees and increasing canopy cover.

R

This table is a more detailed breakdown of the canopy canopy loss by district. um If you look at the bar graph to the right, the gray bar represents campy cover in 2012..

R

The blue bar shows canopy in 2018, and the brown bar at the bottom reflects the loss of canopy in each council. District canopy is is being lost to multiple factors, including development and densification, lack of maintenance and neglect of the trees and a lack of enforcement of follow-up on preserving trees.

R

Every council district has experienced loss of canopy cover, um though obviously some lost more canopy during the timeline and others have had less just to begin with.

R

So the the swot analysis evaluated the current condition of san jose's community force in management practices, highlighting the challenges and obstacles. uh The six strategies shown on the slide represent the path forward for the city to move towards creating a sustainable community force.

R

Our first item there stream streamline the governance structure.

R

The city's tree governance structure is is cumbersome and confusing for residents, um and they often wonder like which department to go to to seek assistance from, um and this current structure is also adequately and adequate inadequately resourced. um Second point um ensure community for sustainability.

R

The city must invest in its tree program to begin to recover, lost, canopy and and be able to get to that baseline of 20 um and developing a criteria for selecting tree species um that will thrive as a climate changes and to support local habitat and wildlife. We need to plant trees that will be adapted to the future uh environmental conditions of san jose, um so those trees will be adapted and thrive, support, diversity, equity and inclusion.

R

One of our key findings, like we said, is that economically disadvantaged neighborhoods have fewer trees and lower canopy cover increasing canopy cover in these neighborhoods.

R

Should be prioritized one way that the community can get further involved in decisions in the community forest is establishing an advisory committee having more partnerships with community-based organizations and expanding on its current partnership with with our city forest will help it'll help, ensure these communities are engaged and that residents understand the importance and value of a healthy community force funding the community force um like I said. The city's tree programs are severely underfunded and requires an infusion of resources to stop the canopy loss, efficient and effective management.

R

The city needs to allocate resources to, like I said, update its tree inventory on a regular basis, use this data to make key decisions and then finally, standardize and improve planning and development. um Trees must be a priority during development and they need to be considered in the initial planning stages and and not at the end. To ensure maturities are protected and adequate cover is included in the development project.

R

And with that turn it back over to russell.

H

Thank you and I appreciate it so again. What we're going to talk about here is kind of one of the strategies that ryan had just discussed and that's the streamlining of governance structure. As you can see in the graphic that's kind of presented here. You have multiple departments that are dealing with trees and there's very little alignment or coordination collaboration between them.

H

So um we're not quite sure what streamline means that may may ultimately mean we need to do something in terms of combining it into one department or one section, but it also means if nothing else, we've got to do a much better job of collaboration amongst the departments and we've got to make sure that each of the departments is sufficiently resourced bottom line. So you know again, as it sits right now when it comes to private property, trees, you've got three different departments that are involved with it.

H

You've got public works, that's looking at them during development review, you've got code enforcement, kind of working with property owners when there are hazard, trees that aren't being addressed, and then you also have private trees that may be overly pruned or may be removed without a permit. They have a responsibility for the enforcement actions on those building.

H

Department has some influence on it when it comes to new home, remodel or not new home, but home remodels and so forth that don't necessarily rise to the level of the planning department building, looks at their footprints and so forth and makes decisions on trees based off of what the owners are submitting and then planning again when it comes to the bigger projects. When it comes to private tree removal et cetera, they all deal with those on a private side, public trees.

H

You know, parks and recreation has responsibility for all of our parks, community, centers libraries and so forth, as well as once. We complete this inventory over the next six or eight months for their trees.

H

They'll have a responsibility to kind of continue to maintain that inventory so that we have current and accurate data that we can use as far as public works similar to kind of in the other private trees really comes into play when it comes to development services and working through that process, but they also play a part in that when it comes to public works projects that they're doing um that they have an influence on trees, with the work that they're completing.

H

So beyond that transportation, you know obviously street trees, we do permit planting pruning and so forth. We manage our special districts areas of san jose, where owners have paid additional for paid for an additional or elevated level of service when it comes to their trees. Dot is responsible for that and making sure that that work is completed.

H

We have just general maintenance in the public right-of-way when it comes to our own street trees and so forth, and then as well emergency tree response when trees come down within the roadway or otherwise it needs to be cleared. Dot is responsible for that. We have our street tree inventory maintenance, and then we have our heritage tree list as well. That's maintained by dot, even though some of those trees may be private dot.

H

Is the department that's responsible for managing that list and making sure that it gets updated beyond that transportation also works with our city. For us, as ryan had mentioned, they're a very key partner for us. They work with us on tree and establishment planning planting. Excuse me they do outreach and education and as well, they have a community nursery, that's available for helping us kind of select species that may adapt to climate change, but the one key thing on this graphic I'll point out is down at the bottom there again that community forest advisory committee.

H

We fully expect that, should this plan move forward and be adopted by the city, we are interested in forming this community of key stakeholders to where we can get together and really analyze. Some of these little things that we have come up with in terms of our recommendations and so forth. We've really got to get into the details on those, so they will help to kind of guide us and prioritize those, as we report to them and as well back to perhaps gne committee in the future so again talked about our city forest.

H

For us, a very key partner they've, been around since 1994. uh they've helped us to obtain over 15 million dollars in urban forestry grants. They've leveraged another 25 million dollars in volunteer time to the benefit of our forest.

H

They conducted lots of outreach and education when it comes to elementary and middle school students up to almost 40 000 students currently and then again, planting over 80, 000 trees and shrubs city-wide since their inception, and then, lastly, again community nursery real, real key component for us, helping us with species helping us to educate the public on proper planting and everything else that they do so lots of benefits that they provide. We hope to kind of expand upon those in the future.

H

This next graphic that we're going to share with you is, is reflective of the tree pruning cycles that we currently are looking at for the city of san jose on trees, that we're responsible for the the industry standard for all of this is that we should um really be on about a five to seven year pruning cycle when it comes to this overall, the city of san jose, the ones that we are responsible of street trees or those public trees that we're responsible for total about 37, 000 dreams.

H

Okay, in order to really preserve, enhance and grow our community. For us we're going to have to do more in terms of maintenance activity for those so for our 37 000 trees. We only currently have a budget of about 230 or about 200 000.

H

um The majority of that comes with our special districts, but what that really kind of translates to for us, as you can see, on the left hand, side san francisco they're at about a three to five year pruning cycle for all of their trees. They went through I'm going to say about five years ago now, maybe a little bit less and past the ballot measure where they were able to kind of um increased the frequency with their pruning so they're up at a three to five year.

H

Far exceeding the industry standard sacramento is a little bit closer to the standard at five to seven, you get down further towards la where it's a little bigger and they have much more to worry about and manage they're on an 18-year cycle, and if you look way off on the right-hand side there, san jose is at about 123-year pruning cycle, which effectively means there are several cases where trees will not be pruned in their lifetime.

H

When we talk about our street trees that, because ownership changes and and property owners aren't necessarily aware of their responsibility, it just sometimes isn't occurring we. Ultimately, we need to do better with that, so above and beyond maintenance and just pruning what we already have. um You know tree planting if we're ever going to be able to reach uh uh our baseline for the industry standard of about 20 canopy cover it's going to take serious effort to get out there and get a lot of plants get a lot of new trees planted.

H

That will be not just public space that will play a key part, but ultimately, private property will also be a significant portion of this that, if we're going to ever accomplish kind of replenishing our canopy we're going to have to involve private property, but just some quick numbers. If you look on the left-hand side and we establish that 20 baseline for our canopy on the left, um carry that over to the right into the other columns, you'll see approximately the number of trees that we would need to plant on an annual basis.

H

There's four different columns. Ultimately, because if you look at the left, one where it says the 22.75 feet, squared that that is basically our very smallest um tree canopies, where they're about 22 feet in either direction for the canopy, it would take almost 22 000 trees annually to be planted of that size.

H

To accomplish this 20 excuse me this 20 goal within the next 30 years. um If we shift all the way over the right hand, column, we can lower that number to 2000 trees. If we're planting much larger canopy trees, the problem is not every location can accommodate a large tree. So what we really have to do here is is we're going to have to find the spread where we're planting the right tree before the location.

H

um We expect that maybe as many as five or six thousand trees on an annual basis that eventually need to be planted to kind of help achieve this goal.

H

So again, when we get back to maintenance, this graphic is really kind of intended to share what we're talking about when it comes to our street trees and what may be needed to maintain them on a regular five to seven year cycle.

H

The graphic itself is based off of a five year and it also incorporates those trees which are currently maintained by the property owners. So when we start on that kind of that second column there, where we talk about street trees of 270 000., that does include those trees. There's about 230, 000 233, I think, is a little closer in terms of street trees that are maintained by the adjacent property owners.

H

To kind of take those back into the fold continue to or improve the way, we're maintaining our trees that the city of san jose is responsible for there's about 270 000 of those it's going to require almost 7 million dollars, just under seven million dollars just for the pruning work that might be needed as a maintenance on those you start to roll in the parks department, with their 30 000 estimated trees, that's going to require another three quarters of a million, and then you get all the way out to the right.

H

It's about 7.5 million dollars just for maintenance of trees within the public right-of-way and within the park system that san jose has responsibility. For so you know, ryan had thrown out the 20 to 24 million. We realized that's going to be a big ask and it's going to require a lot and and may not happen, but ultimately, in the near future.

H

We can take some incremental steps, and these are some of the numbers that we're looking at that'll help kind of guide us in that direction, and hopefully long term we'll be doing a much better job with our trees that are in the public right-of-way.

H

So um beyond that, when it comes to the outreach and education we recognize. A topic like this, uh uh like trees, um serves passion with a lot of people. So it's important to us that we set out with a deep outreach campaign. Initially, unfortunately, kovid impacted that plan. In march of 2020, we weren't able to conduct a lot of the in-person meetings that we had originally planned on, so we had to quickly pivot over to a virtual format. When we did that virtual format, we had four virtual meetings included spanish and american sign.

H

Language interpretation also had some surveys that we were providing through social media and we had developed a stakeholder list of several hundred individuals as well as not organizations and so forth. That we've been trying to reach out to and kind of coordinate all this work with and get an understanding of where they're at when the the first draft of this plan was first released.

H

We also accompanied the posting, with a blog post on the dot website, where we pushed that out through social media, including nextdoor and so forth, to try and get that to the public so that they knew it was out there available and that we would hopefully be able to kind of receive some feedback from all of them.

H

Subsequent to all of those outreach efforts, we also have spent the last six months kind of conducting in-person meetings with a lot of these individual stakeholder groups. As we moved forward, it really became critical for us to kind of seek some of that output. So you know some of the the groups that we reached out to ultimately were our city forest season, open space authority, aarp, audubon society native plant society spur just to name a few.

H

There were also santa clara league of women voters and from others that have provided us some support letters and so forth, as we've moved through this process, but it it's really the the key point in all of this outreach that we're talking about um is that it's not going to stop upon adoption of this first plan um that we recognize we are going to have to engage the community significantly and provide both them as well as council and this committee, perhaps with updates as to kind of how we move forward with that strategic work, plan and kind of accomplish this long term.

H

So um the last one I will talk to here uh is our work plan, specifically as ryan had kind of talked about. Previously, we've got our strategies outlined on the left-hand column there, where we talk about streamlining, ensuring sustainability, supporting diversity, equity inclusion, etc.

H

As you shift over towards the right, what we have done is outline these kind of key objectives that will match up to those strategies, as we kind of dig into it a little bit deeper. You can see that the ones that are kind of in that teal, blue or green are the ones that we've highlighted for more immediate action as we get into 2022 and into 2024 as we go out a little bit.

H

These are the ones that we feel like need to be prioritized. The ones that are in the darker blue are are the ones that we would expect to perhaps tackle a little bit later in the process. But ultimately, even this is something that we will be regularly updating. As we talk to the community as we form this advisory committee and we move forward.

H

All of these priorities and objectives are subject to kind of reprioritization, as we kind of dig into it. So um those are really the kind of key points. uh Yeah I'll turn it back over to john now, and he can kind of share with you the more immediate steps for the next six months. I'll say.

M

Thank you russ and ryan uh yeah. This is the last slide and I just wanted to recap some of the things that russ was mentioning um with regard to our stakeholders during the process, especially this last year, we did hear from our stakeholders that they wanted a little bit more time in our process and to incorporate changes that they had recommended both in the text and in the content of the plan. So we actually deferred are bringing this to the t e committee.

M

Originally, we were supposed to be here in april of this year, so we put it back to now october, so we deferred that six months to allow some of that community stakeholder engagement to occur and then to take a harder look and a little closer look at some of the comments that we had received from some of the stakeholders, especially our city forest.

M

So we did also retool our whole community outreach program to actually try to reach more people. As russ mentioned some of the stakeholders. We also try to get to general public through more online, more meetings, blog posts, media inquiries and try to answer a lot of questions that way.

M

We hope that that's going to actually continue um all the way through this plan, as we've as russ said, as we form some of the the the advisory committee and do some other work so want to continue that and then obviously bring it back every year to the td committee. Some of the key points that we want to really get done are the objectives over this next year is we we do have some funding to actually go and plant.

M

Some trees is what we really like to do so that will occur in this next year and then russ mentioned it before, but really formed the community forest advisory committee, which is a key next step for us for us to prioritize and for us to get into the details of where how and what we do for preserving and planting of trees.

M

We're going to need more stakeholder assistance and input on that, and then you know to get into the the real things in the in the future is we do need some more both staffing and resources to be able to do these things that we want so we'll be working with our partners and council in terms of budget process and being able to evaluate those funding options that may get us to that ultimate goal of really trying to have all of the trees maintained properly throughout the city and to preserve what we have and then add to and grow the the canopy in the city of san jose back to at least the 20 percent.

M

So I want to just wrap up on that slide and those comments, and I think we'll turn it back over. You chair.

C

Thank you we'll go to the members of the public first, uh the first speaker, cecil, would bency.

B

All right, thank you very much. Tessa wood nancy. Well, the only I appreciated the report. um The issue of putting it into low socioeconomic areas is very good because that is part of our uh community at risk, but to say our neighborhood too, which is the beginning of our community at risk from the pollution. The high pollution starts like on essentially stockton avenue and then going east, and so and most probably it goes down to you know the alameda as well.

B

But if you look at our community at risk that the bay area, air quality management district has designated through their modeling and research, it does. It definitely includes a stockton avenue and that if you model our neighborhood, we see that there's a lot of pollution in the whole neighborhood. There's there's bus depots, there's cement factories, there's highways, so it's all those impacts, and so we want them in our neighborhood too.

B

Even though we're not necessarily a low-income neighborhood and that's what you know makes our neighborhood actually the garden alameda that is part of my neighborhood is, you know.

C

J

Neighborhood of.

B

A not low income but a very high impact on pollution from the location so to include that into the issue. Is the community at risk and the whole designation of that uh area, which absolutely includes the east side as well, and so anyway. That was one issue that I was looking at and then you know how to get the trees um to be put into the neighborhoods. um You know just really uh we see like on stockton and taylor. You know, there's a liquor store with no trees, nothing around there.

B

You know we need to just put those in and we need to be more adamant about it versus having the permission of the of the property owners. um I think think that we need to, and especially like you see, that on stockton avenue in general, in the commercial districts you know and- and the city has done that before when they just put them in and they start watering them themselves, and maybe we can have volunteer.

C

Next speakers, julianna pendleton.

A

Hello, my name is juliana pendleton and I'm the environmental advocacy assistant for the santa clara valley, audubon society. Thank you for providing this report. We supported the cal fire grant to fund the creation of the community forest management plan and with the native plant society, we commented on the plan and participated in meetings.

A

We support the plan's intent to protect and increase community trees and canopy. We think budgets and revised governance are urgently needed to stop the hemorrhage of trees and loss of canopy in san jose planting trees in east san jose is critically important.

A

However, we are disappointed that the plan lacks a biodiversity goal and other goals that would build upon and implement general plan policies, and thus we believe the plan is systemically flawed.

A

For example, envision 2040 ms 21.1 states manage quote: manage the community forest to achieve san jose's environmental goals for water and energy conservation, wildlife, habitat preservation, storm water retention, heat reduction in urban areas, energy conservation and the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. End quote this means managing and including native trees for their high habitat valley.

A

The plan should emphasize habitat value to preserve and enhance wildlife, habitat and work in concert with other plans to achieve the goals the general plan seeks.

A

Finally, it would be helpful if all the submitted public comments for the plan were posted onto the community forest management management plan website in order to increase transparency. Thank you for your time and consideration.

C

Thank you, susan butler, graham.

A

Hi, I'm susan butler, graham a san jose mother and grandmother and volunteer leader with mothers out front silicon valley working toward a livable climate future for all children.

A

I want to address the community outreach effort as it pertains to human health and the importance of engaging community health organizations and organizations representing underserved, neighborhoods and communities in the development of the plan.

A

The health trust sent a letter to the city council last month last month, which states the health trust encourages you to pause. Adoption of the draft san jose community forestry management plan until it reflects greater feedback from diverse stakeholders interested and impacted by it. We approach this topic from the perspective of a local non-profit, focused on building health equity in silicon valley. Tree canopy has a significant impact on human health and health equity.

A

Inequitable distribution.

A

Distribution of tree canopy across the city leads to some neighborhoods, with many trees benefiting from cooler summer air temperatures, reduced air pollution and decreased stress, while communities with fewer trees suffer tree, canopy can promote physical activity as well, by providing shade and a pleasant environment for walking running and bicycling.

A

Given the diversity of san jose, the plan should be well informed by stakeholders from various neighborhoods racial and ethnic groups and income levels. Supported partnerships with community-based organizations could help solicit valuable input for the plan.

A

As the nature conservancy notes, trees are a valuable tool for improving public health in america's cities, given the importance of tree canopy on health and well-being, as well as your interest in approaching policy with an equity lens, please pause this process in order to apply that lens.

A

The need for more transparent and robust engagement is needed prior to adopting this plan and 250 trees is not enough for the east.

C

Next speakers rhonda berry.

J

Thank you for this opportunity. My name is rhonda berry, chief executive officer with our city forest for 28 years we've been working to gross san jose's urban forest and because of city budget shortfalls. We've also raised the funds to pay for most of this work, not just thousands of planting projects but tree care, engagement, job training, tree inventories and nursery and more we're. Clearly a major stakeholder but dot advised us in june.

J

We were just a planting partner and this was to explain why ocf wasn't invited to be part of the process beyond an introductory meeting. Clearly, we have not been engaged as a stakeholder, and that remains true.

J

Today we asked the consultant about why he hadn't reached out, and he did share that he had been directed in as to who to meet with and how often- and we asked eot who are the external stakeholders, then, because we think that they're so important and they wrote back that they had a list, but they couldn't share it with us.

J

Dot now refers to any group or individual in the city as a stakeholder making the word meaningless as far as scope of responsibility, expertise and experience goes, and these facts reflect why the plan remains fundamentally flawed and must be paused. The unvetted draft contains 65 damaging inaccuracies about ocf and was kept online without any corrections, and we learned this misinformation was shared around city hall and it ended up in the city budget message as well.

J

Our planting rate per tree is 150 to 210 per tree, and if we have a state grant, it's free, but that's not what was reflected in the information pointing out omissions in the draft plan has not been received. Well, the omissions remain so we request that you pause the process and see that they get addressed.

J

We also request your direct assistance in mitigating the unnecessary harm cost to our city forest. We are looking to you also for reassurance that a partnership with the city does not have to look like this and will not moving forward. Thank you so much for listening.

C

Thank you next speakers, christina.

C

Christina you can please unmute. If you're on the phone, you may need to press star six.

C

Christina we're going to come back to you next speaker is bob wiebe.

Q

Good afternoon, council members, my name is bob levy, I'm currently a member of the santa clara county planning, commission and formerly a member of the san jose plan commission and san jose parks. Commission, the 95 draft plan is a real improvement over earlier versions. It contains some good information and recommendations.

Q

It is, however, an incomplete plan. It does not reflect engagement of key stakeholders, external stakeholders, stakeholders who own or manage approximately 85 percent of san jose bourbon forest.

Q

I will comment on one just one of the reasons why these stakeholders should be thoughtfully engaged before the adoption of the plan.

Q

Let me clarify that my stakeholder, I'm referring to entities that either own or manage significant eight pages of land or are otherwise responsible for tree planning and maintenance, not individual homeowners or residents or organizations that do not include trees as a key element of their mission.

Q

Some of these external stakeholders have their own expertise and perspective, which serves to benefit the long-term health of san jose's community forest agencies such as valley, water, santa clara county parks, senate, the open space authority, cal, trans pg e, etc. Have a wealth of knowledge and experience on maintaining and planting trees.

Q

These agents should should be at the table to review and add valuable recommendations. Information to the citywide plan before it is adopted. The process missed the opportunity to create buy-in, but the best practices by these entities who have influence on the city's forest that we would like to all share and benefit from. Please take a fresh approach and form a temporary stakeholder steering committee. This allows the city to better understand the bigger picture and will cultivate stakeholder partnerships for greener san jose.

C

Thank you christina we're going to try you again.

C

You should be able to unmute.

C

Okay, christina there may be a problem with your device. um It may be beneficial. This is christina. Can you hear me? Oh yes, we got you good.

C

Please go forward.

S

Hello, this is christina egan. Can you hear me? Yes,.

C

We can hear you, yes, we can hear.

S

You, okay, um I I don't hear anything. Hopefully you guys can hear me. I'm a board member of um our city, forest and our city forest appreciates the city of san jose's, ongoing support which we have been receiving and leveraging since 1994. As mentioned earlier, ocf has also obtained state grants to fund almost all planting projects plus federal funding. We ask that you consider pausing this process to allow for other stakeholders to provide greater perspective on this and other recommendations.

S

We would like to be considered to play more of a role in this whole program and process. One of och's strengths is that we not only are positioned to plant trees for san jose streets and parks, but also for the schools in all 19 school districts, as funding allows. The county of santa clara is also a funder, helping us plant trees in san jose because of this pilot project, we've been able to increase more stipends of our full-time service members from 20 000 to 25, 000 and add more trees in east san jose.

S

We are seeing interest from city staff to start similar programs. Ocf has the the professionalism we have been planting trees in san jose for 27 years. We caution against reinventing a program which could be a much higher cost to taxpayers. We ask for the opportunity to join further in the discussions and assist with planning showing ocf's expertise.

S

Thank you. So much for your consideration and time today.

C

Thank you. Next speaker is lillian.

T

Yes, thank you. You know I had the hardest time finding you guys on my phone, but thank goodness matt mayhem. Can you hear me? Yes, we.

A

Can hear you yes.

T

Yes, thank goodness matt mahan had the you know, um hutzpah as they say to allow people to know that this meeting was taking place, but basically I'm calling in because you mentioned things like pavement paving streets. Well that takes away from um the environmental aspect of planting the the in the good faith of planting trees. I mean you have the money to pave trees, to pay. Excuse me to pave those the streets but not to plant the trees. I'm just calling in because I see a lot of development going on.

T

I see um a lot of areas cornered off by fences. There are a sign, saying, there's going to be something you know developed there, and yet there are heritage trees in those zones.

T

There are ordinance trees in those zones and they will be cut down because, according to what these gentlemen talked about earlier because of the discombobulation of all the different um groups within the city, there's no real um what I call um uh penalty for cutting down a tree, there might be a fine but there's no real penalty, and I watched a program on tv the other day and uh there's a particular city in africa where, if you cut a tree down, you are banished from that city.

T

Now that may sound silly, but we do love our trees. Many of us are hippies way back from the 60s we're called tree huggers. So what they're important to have? I see hundreds and hundreds of apartment complexes going up and not one tree and that's that's a real shame if you call san jose um a tree, loving kind of a city and put it on the map as such and not having any trees, but anyway, thank you, deb davis, for having the highest canopy of all the districts. Thank you so much for that.

C

Thank you next speaker is victoria.

A

Hi, my name is vicki moore, I'm currently the chair of the santa clara county planning commission and thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.

A

I'd like to make a comment focusing on cal fire's role and their grant requirements uh for the plan. um We think that endorsing this and moving this plan forward with some of the glaring omissions and deficiencies originally um identified by cal fire quite a few months ago, is very problematic.

A

There's a little there's a disconnect here.

A

Cal fire, among other comments, said that there needed to be as part of the development, the development of the plan, an external stakeholder uh process, an authentic engagement over a period of time with stakeholders involved in the urban canopy, in that 85 percent of the of the city that we're talking about not under the city's purview and in addition, it is meant to be a comprehensive plan. There's a seems to be a disconnect in that. Currently, the plan is focused almost entirely on the city's own jurisdiction.

A

Comprehensive plan means bringing all the players together who are responsible for 100 of the tree, canopy big disconnect there. um I hope that you all received the coalition to advance urban forestry letter signed by a number of representatives, including state senator cortese, linda lizot, from the valley, water, sierra club, 350, silicon valley, mothers out front, keep coyote, creek, beautiful, etc, and this letter also reiterates not only the breadth of support for pausing the process, but also just shows you the breadth of interest in this very important topic.

A

So we urge you to pause the process and develop a comprehensive stakeholder engaged plan. Next.

C

Speaker is laura beekman.

K

Hi roy beekman here, um thank you uh that you know this was an issue. That's been in the works for a few years now and that had much argument, a previous argument from kerry romanoff uh about the environmental issues of it. I think we're moving past that stage and we're heading into just what can be good tree planting for the east side.

K

um I noticed from your heat map that it it seems that you know uh there's just a natural way that uh you know the heat issues of the west side of san jose are different than the east side and they always have been the way the flora and fauna has grown. Naturally, it's my guess.

K

I hope you can continue to respect what was the flora and fauna of the east side and how you'll be planting the future of trees, and I think there can be ways to create a biodiversity set of ideas that that can create cooling ideas uh with east side practices um or with the east side, foreign fauna. uh You know that was probably there. You know at the time of ohlone time or to consider the the time of baloney time um uh with 48 seconds.

K

um You know with all of this said, I think you know my own I've been offering for months now. The concept of we have to be possibly preparing for uh earthquake ideas in the next few years. So it's like you can do some of these ideas now, but the main uh things of this can be done after the time of earthquake now boy. I just put that out there as a way to understand and describe the situation, is this accurate can? Can I get some help if I start writing to yourselves at city government?

K

Can I start getting some uh facts if I'm offering good help to this idea, you know, so we are understanding how to better talk about this subject. Clearly and not be confused. uh That's my goal in this efforts. Thank you.

C

Next speaker is roland.

D

Thank you now before moving on to my comments, I'm extremely confident about what I heard from my city, forest, which actually quoted to the san francisco border supervisors three months ago as a good example of city, forest management, they're very, very interested um in the price point at 75 to 3 versus I think it was 3 thousand uh and for the record, I'm the one that watered the other baby oak trees on fury drive uh when they planted them.

D

But moving to my uh comments here, where are property owners going to plant trees if we eliminate single family or housing? Second, as already mentioned, trees need water. I haven't heard anything about water in this presentation.

D

Most trees have large root systems which are interiors to adjacent infrastructure. I'll give you two examples: I've just had to pay the city 250 dollars inside work, repairs and the large camera between my neighbor's backyard is called fifteen thousand dollars worth of damage. To my uh to my pool um collaboration with other entities, um you heard about the the county: how about marshall carter? There's 240 acres? There does look like absolute landscape. Why don't?

D

We have a canopy tree, um pg e they're right way to the city of san jose, runs into the sounds of acres and we are unable to grow any kind of decrease under there. If we unground underground at those high voltage fire lines, we will be able to uh grow canopy trees above above them, and that concludes my remarks. Thank you, madam chair.

C

Next, speaker is barbara marshman.

T

Thank you, um barbara marshman, I'm the former uh editorial page, editor of the san jose mercury news and one of the things I've written about for some 30 years is the tree canopy in san jose and the importance of it. um I I'm joining others here to ask you to put this plan on hold and go back and uh engage the serious stakeholders in this. Not people like me who know some facts and and uh care, but the people with with expertise and with money with resources with staffs who can actually help the city.

T

One of the most convincing things about the presentation today was how poor in resources uh the city programs have been and how scattered the management is. At this time, and- um and I I know san jose does not have a huge budget, but but that's all the more reason to engage people like the water district.

T

They do have the money. If you wanted to do a a planning program to allow people to water trees, the way our city forest recruits people to water trees, then the water district are essential partners to have at the beginning at the ground floor, not the same. Going out for advice after the fact very different to develop partnerships at the beginning, so that in starting this daunting new project to finally have a tree program, you can do it with the best resources and the best advice and the best partnerships you can get. Thank you.

C

Thank you, wyan trong,.

Q

C

Hello, we can hear you.

A

Great I'm wayan trung with mother south front silicon valley for a livable climate for all children.

A

In our climate work, we have become aware of how trees play a key role in the health and well-being of the community and help mitigate the heat island effects that will increase with the climate crisis. Redlining has prevented neighborhoods such as east san jose from getting nearly as many trees as as more affluent, mostly white neighborhoods.

A

This makes poorer neighborhoods less walkable in the intense heat of the summer and raises utilities bills for cooling residents, trees, increase foot traffic, which is good for business. In those neighborhoods, it is essential to get input from historically disenfranchised neighborhoods.

A

Additionally, our city forest has done years of good work in this area and should be included in listen to. I urge you to put this process on hold so that genuine community and stakeholder engagement can unfold in a respectful manner. A delay now will mean a far better future for our urban forest.

A

A community education outreach and engagement effort that is reaching out to people where they are in a language they can understand, literally and figuratively, and one and with ample opportunity for members of the public to provide input.

A

It is very important to obtaining a broad base of community buy-in and engagement, particularly from those who have been historically left out. Both stakeholders and community members need to be authentically engaged. Thank you.

C

Thank you, roma dawson.

J

Thank you very much and first I want to thank mr allen and dudek for pulling together uh the swot analysis and this and this uh document it identifies some shortcomings that have frustrated me for decades and it's very satisfying to see it pull together with a work plan. I do wonder if there is possibly a way to move forward with this document.

J

If some council members can step up and provide some very clear direction to staff to correct some of the inequities that exist in it currently, which exists primarily with the lack of appropriate outreach to key stakeholders and to the general public, so I sort of throw that out as an idea and hope some of you can work to make this happen.

J

I very much for me. This is about two things. It's about uh doing what we can on climate change and equity, and happily you are in control of the urban canopy in the city of san jose. This is something you can actually take action to improve.

J

I also want to uh call out the issue of equity and regardless of what happens in this city, it seems to always be district 7. At the bottom of the stack, I also am concerned that there may be inequity in terms of how current street trees are pruned among homeowners, individual homeowners, particularly those first-time home buyers that are stuck with huge bills.

J

I would also like to urge you to expedite the formation of the community forest advisory cfac. I think you're calling it expedite this. It is too long to wait to the end of june 2022.. I think if you got this, going immediately pulled it forward for action. You could solve some of the complaints that you're hearing right now at the end of june 2022.

J

It is too long to wait. I do appreciate greatly the openness to the reformation of the org chart, because the reformation of government structure is so critical. So thank you for that.

C

Thank you call around again five one, four zero.

L

Yeah I like what the previous collared rolling I think said about. You know it takes water, it takes maintenance, it takes money to maintain a tree. I don't think everybody realizes that you need to plant the trees properly and have them deep water. They need to be deep water. There has to be like a pipe that goes. You know subterranean to be able for it. For this whole thing to work, I mean, as for cal fire, you know what cal fire needs to do.

L

They need to learn how to put out fires like at mount hamilton. I had a. I knew, a guy who lived up there. Cal fire couldn't even get up there. They, for whatever reason the guys a lot of his buildings burned down, because cal fire was just not very good, like many things in california, terrible and so yeah. I don't think you people realize yeah you're, going to give out a little bit of money here there to plant some crappy tree.

L

That's going to raise up the sidewalks and ruin people's swimming pools, you don't get it and then the stupid trees that are approved. I mean the one caller in the white neighborhood, hey, hey, come to my white neighborhood and take out a tree that is dropping sap and these little prickly balls and everything else, and I'm really tired about people talking about white. Tell me hey what language do they speak in white? What country is white? Okay, you know it's racist. What people are saying like that?

L

You know I can't help it that in my neighborhood I've got trees. I don't even like them. I wish it would tear them all out because they clog the gutters. They lift up the sidewalks. Like everything I said it drops debris it clogs it drains. Hey. You can come to my white neighbor at any time and enjoy the trees and walk around in this supposed shaded area. Big deal I'll. Tell you what get rid of the trees. We need the water. How about that?

L

I'd like anybody on the on this city council, to answer me the questions about what it's going to cost in the future, to maintain all these trees? Well, here's 75.

C

uh Next, speaker is zoom user.

C

Please unmute yourself.

Q

C

I

Thank you. Oh okay. I guess um I must be the zoom user. I'm trying to find a way to put my name in there. Can you just give me a second here.

C

You can start speaking, you can change it later or just let us know if you'd like to. Let us know your name.

I

My name is richard stewart.

I

Okay, my name is richard stewart. I am a board member of our city forest. Our board, chair, irma balderas, was unable to be here due to her family emergency. So I'm stepping in to read her remarks. Thank you for listening. Today, our city's forest has been working tirelessly for decades to green san jose. I know because in 1995 our city forest planted trees at my school in east san jose, where I was a principal.

I

Through these years, most of our work has been funded by partners. We have brought to help us grow in stuart, san jose urban forests. These are significant partners from the state, federal and county, that's 20 years of competing for grants to help san jose and also doing the work we have performed so well for our great our grantees that these partners continue to want to invest in san jose through us again and again. In our opinion, there is this: is your best urban forest story?

I

It's an effective, fruitful partnership. We can be proud of. Yet our city forest has no seat at the table for this draft plan. Instead, it has its reputation harmed by inaccurate data and misinformation, including a role in the process. This has continued throughout today. This was unnecessary and has prevented you from getting the accurate and helpful information. You need we're asking you to end this and put in place an unbiased process for the better community forestry plan for san jose. Thank you.

C

Next, speaker is virginia holtz.

C

You appear to be unmuted virginia. We cannot hear you.

C

C

I'm going to turn to my colleagues virginia if you'd like to try again, please put your hand up again and I'll after the first speaker I'll, try you again, council member pralis.

G

Thank you chairwoman, so I want to start off by saying um I think, staff and our consultant here on this report a lot of alarming information. Unfortunately, through the report, I think you know I had a surface level. Understanding of I think how poor our tree canopy was, but I was not aware of the dire straits that that were in um and quite frankly, the the loss of coverage that we've had um I'll say that I wasn't surprised on the disparaging uh sort of coverage, canopy coverage from east san jose and west san jose.

G

But when you look at it as a whole, our city is overall doing rather poorly and we've. Each district across the city has lost coverage over the last number of years, and the other alarming statistic here was the investment that we'll have to make to really achieve better coverage, whether it's the 20 percent um or the the annual pruning uh cycles, or that or just a pruning cycle in itself. The dollar investment that that's going to take.

G

Looking at the comparative graph that you showed for san francisco, sacramento um la and really just where we're at um it's uh embarrassing to see how little investment we have identified for our our tree, canopy and maintenance tree maintenance, you name it so the you know the the data that was able to be achieved here in the report to paint that picture.

G

um Although it's a terrible picture, um it was helpful for me to really get a a better, in-depth understanding of the challenges that we face and ultimately um the investment that we're going to have to make.

G

And I know we have discussions going about a bond potentially for for next year parks bond, and I know that I understand that's how um some other cities have uh identified funding for um for their annual pruning budgets, and I think that that's something that obviously we'll have to highly consider as well, especially considering that the small dollar amount we have today allocated to this.

G

um Any improvement would be better, but I think it would be best if we can really identify a number that would get us to to actually achieve that 20 goal um and improve the canopy in uh in each district throughout the entire city. But specifically, I think where we know we we have the greatest need, uh which is uh the entirety of of east san jose.

G

So I just want to say thank you for for that again, uh the feedback, obviously that we've heard- and I've heard this as well. I've had independent meetings with stakeholders that have asked and, as we've heard today, have asked that we hit the pause button um and that we look to gain some more insight from from them from specific stakeholders and and be able to see what adjustments are necessary for the plan itself.

G

And so I did want to ask staff, because my understanding is, we have the cal fire grant here. There there's a timeline there, and I know that we extended it already.

G

So first question is: in regards to that: grant um what kind of extension, what length of extension does staff think is still possible if we were to further try and and get some uh some more input.

M

Thank you, councilmember uh john risto, director again, and so yes to just so to inform everybody. This uh was funded primarily from a cal fire grant, which has grant requirements of what we would incorporate in the plan and what the components of the plan are, as well as deadlines for grants so we're we were running up against that deadline and when we extended this uh plan the sixth month, we were kind of pushing to the end of that grant period.

M

So we've been in contact with cal fire, a number of times making sure we were meeting all of their grant requirements and the timing. Having said that, if there is a need for us to extend right now, we have planned that we would be bringing this to council, I believe, on november 30th.

M

If we need to extend that a little bit, um we could go back to cal fire and you know if it's if it's not an extent, a real long extension. I think they would probably want to make sure that we have the uh all the input needed for council to make the final decision on.

M

So if we wanted to extend it into december in one of the council meetings in december for us to then go and reach out to some of the more recent letter writers, we could probably do that and we could confirm that that would be fine with calfire. So I don't think a couple of weeks or something like that, may make a big difference to them. Hope that answers your question if you're looking for other information on that.

G

Yeah that's helpful. um I think the only thing I'd like to understand further is a more definitive answer in regards to you know how much time would there really be, because I am interested personally I'll tell you in trying to solicit some more feedback from the stakeholders that you heard from today and those that have obviously sent in letters um in in seeing if we can't, you know, obviously gather as much of that that feedback feedback as possible.

G

um This, I think, is a very important plan and report and uh we're getting some criticism, so I think that it's wise to try and pause and and see if we can't uh hear that and then adjust accordingly, but at the same time I don't want to make a demand on you know: hey, let's go out and and spend you know three weeks six weeks whatever it may be, if indeed we're now bumping up against a deadline concern, so I think just a more definitive answer and if you don't have that today, that's fine, but I do think that you know that would be.

G

My interest would be well. You know, let's find out exactly what we think uh this deadline is and and look I I understand at times um it could be flexible right where you ask, and uh maybe uh the the cal fire grantee here says. Well, how much time do you need so understand? It could be um a bit of a back and forth. So I I will just say my interest is that we do um pause at the moment and that we do actually try to go.

G

Have some direct engagement with the stakeholders that we've we've heard from more recently those that we heard from today and then see. If you know, if it's just a couple weeks, we think we can go and have these conversations and come back in december before our december break. I think that would be great and and if we can get that feedback from cal fire to determine, if that's going to affect the grant or not. uh That would be great.

G

But if it looks like hey there's you know, maybe we might need a couple more weeks and that's rushing it and maybe cal fire says look. We can extend it to january. That's the kind of definitive response I'd like to see, and you know I don't think we'll uh we.

G

I guess we do- have an opportunity to come back um next month right, but you can also, I think, resolve it through um just uh outreach to the council to say: hey, you know we were able to pause it for this long, we're going to come back. You know in december to meet the qualification for the grant or we're going to come back in january. So that would be my interest I'll I'll pause on.

G

um You know make an emotion in and would like to hear what my colleagues have to say, but that would be um my interest in my thoughts thanks.

C

Thank you, councilmember cohen,.

O

Yeah, thank you. um First, I want to thank all of the uh I've heard, the staff and and all the work that went into putting this together.

O

um You know this is one of seeing all of this data and all the work that has to be done and and the whole that we're in on this topic is quite a discouraging thing. We have we're in we're in such we're so far behind and where we need to be that it's hard to really uh figure out how we get to where we we need to go.

O

um I did the math, you know when we when I saw this was reading through this report and after the presentation I had with you the discussion I had with you last week. I think if we spend 12 hours a day, planting trees, um we probably have to plant at least one tree an hour every day, seven days a week, all year long um to meet the goals uh and start today.

O

So you know, certainly one of my interest is not to sit here and say: well, let's spend one more month studying what we have to do. We know that one thing we have to do is start planting trees, so no matter what we do starting now, we shouldn't delay planting trees, because you know what we usually do with our tree. Planting is, you know a handful of trees here, a handful of trees. There, that's not going to cut it that that that's sort of thought number one.

O

um We also need to figure out tree maintenance strategy which, which clearly, is I'm not sure how we we go from here to there in terms of how we maintain our trees and we we've kind of. We have there's multiple elements to that. One is the residential tree maintenance issue which it's not I'm not sure we there's a lot of education needs to be done with our residents in the city um as far as what what their obligations are, but also how to make it easier for them to maintain their trees right.

O

It's not just about telling them what they have to do, but how we facilitate that um and then working with businesses in san jose. You know they've got trees too, and and they their trees, need to be maintained and there's an education piece there as well and then- and then um you know the city tree maintenance um program- that's clearly way behind where it needs to be. um It's interesting. I was at the uh league of cities meeting a couple weeks ago and I came upon a a company that does tree maintenance and they said.

O

Oh, you know we used to do all the street tree maintenance for san jose and uh and then the city at some point decided we weren't going to use this kind of services. We were going to leave it up to residents to maintain their own trees and those contracts kind of went away. um You know in the meantime, I'm not sure that that we're you know, as we can see we're we're losing um a large number of our tree cover. I don't know if there's a correlation or not.

O

Obviously we have a lot of various other issues related to drought and water and everything else and tree diseases, um but are we? Are we spending our resources in the right place as far as trying to preserve our street cover right? There's we have um our you know are we are we being pennywise pound foolish uh as far as our contracts for keeping our tree, our street tree maintenance and our uh residential tree maintenance?

O

um So we have to really think a lot of these things through um as we move forward with this plan so anyway, those are kind of my my high level thoughts on this.

O

I want to thank the all of the stakeholders who spoke today and have spoken to me a lot over the course of the last few months on this plan. I know that a lot of them have a lot of great ideas and a lot of knowledge about the subject, and we need to certainly listen to the stakeholders on this topic.

O

I hear things about the the types of tree mix and what types of trees we need to preserve and- and you know, there's discussions about what percentage of oak is the right uh percentage and all those kind of questions that we need to resolve and work on and figure out. um So the first question I have the the plan has an advisory group that will that will be part of the process going forward. Is that right.

M

Yes, that is one of the first steps that we identified in that one of the final slides is is actually form a stakeholder advisory committee. I think it was russ that was going through all the the advice and input in the detail.

M

Some of the things you just mentioned the detail of how we're going to prioritize, where we're going to identify all the plantings, how we're going to there's a lot of best practices that we want to be engaging on on this, but you're right. We were hoping to be able to move forward and start to do these things. Plant trees, set up the advisory committee start working through the work plan and, of course, bring this back on an annual basis to this committee and council.

M

So um all the things you were observing really were something that we wanted to get started with with the work plan and the adoption of the plan.

O

And how and what will be the makeup of that advisory committee and how will that be determined.

M

Well, I think that that is something that uh we we've actually started to have a conversation with our city forest, about that who they would think that they would would think that would make sense to be on that, and I think it would be some of the community uh organized the community um organizations within some of the neighborhood areas, especially those that are the ones that we're really going to need to target some of our funding partners. Perhaps some of the other technical.

M

People that might be of interest to help out with some of the technical decisions on this. So we could. We could have uh a number of different types of groups that could be represented within that. So one of the next things is we're going to be starting to form what the ideas of what that committee would look like and how it might uh function, how often it meets and that sort of thing so we're starting that work. Now and um the sooner we get this adopted and move forward. I think it would be beneficial so.

O

I imagine many of those stakeholder groups that spoke today and that have weighed in on this process would be part of that advice.

M

Yeah and we have spoke- we already have met with a number of stakeholder groups. I think one of the slides pointed that out, um we've been more than happy to meet with then anyone else that is interested in this and, as councilmember prowls pointed out, the signatories on that most recent letter love to meet with them and and go through this too, and I'm sure the folks on that letter probably have a lot of input in terms of what would be make up a really good stakeholder committee as well.

O

Okay and then how final and static is this plan I mean. So if the plan were to get approved, it seems to me there's a lot of elements of the plan that can be fluid, as the committee oh sure,.

M

Right absolutely so remember what what this initially was was really to take that hard look at what we are doing now that isn't really getting us where we want to be so. It was really that independent, hard look at what how the city is addressing us, as well as any of our our partners, so that we can come up with ideas that actually then would be able to implement. So the first part of that was the major effort that that dudak did was really the swot analysis.

M

We do have um some goals and objectives within there too, and then also a work plan, and you saw some of the elements of that on one of the slides. So to answer your question, this is going to be quite cool. We're going to have to bring this back every year for both funding and appropriations from the council further direction on where priorities may be in terms of how we're going to do this, we heard some things about.

M

You know some of the plant diversity, I'm not the expert here good, but that is certainly things that we need to take into consideration. That would then come and be put into our best management practices.

M

So there's quite a bit: that's we could still be working on uh while an annual basis of work goes forward and the plan is implemented and then it's fluidly brought back and change is made as we go.

O

There's a whole lot of budget work that then the council has to do in terms of. Are we going to expand our you know our at an arborist? Are we going to fund more maintenance, or I mean there's so many pieces of this that are going to require so many different pieces of input from different places? Right as we move forward, I mean so I mean my.

O

I don't really want to weigh in on the question of how well were stakeholders engaged, and why did this this communication break down and what were the problems as far as working between all the different groups?

O

But but my thinking is, we move, you know we want to proceed, move forward and get that those stakeholders engaged through this advisory group and and and allow for the for the process to for the plan to be fluid and keep adjusting based on input from stakeholders who have a lot of expertise and and get moving on and implementing some of the things we know we can start with some of the holes we can start to fill and yet you know adjust as we go because we're not going to get to any kind of resolution on our tree cover issue in a month, six months or even two years.

O

So you know it's not it's not clear to me what another month of stakeholder engagement buys us in this process. That won't happen after the plan is, is in place um and then I'm only gonna also just point out and we talk a lot about east san jose. It strikes me that it's interesting to me and and maybe not all that surprising- that north san jose seems to be actually the worst off of any place in the city. um You know, and as somebody who knows it well, you know think about it.

O

There really aren't that many trees up there as you walk around north san jose it's a wasteland of trees, so I hope that we'll focus a lot on that part of the city, especially as we start to build there.

O

This is this makes me think that, as we move forward with development, that an important part of all of our development plans has to be to make sure that that tree cover is really uh integrated into all of the future development plans, as we do more density as we build more apartment complexes as we um as we build out in that area, and so um you know that that bright, red part of the map, which is north san jose district four down below 11 tree cover, there's a lot we can do up there. Also.

O

You know we keep talking about not having enough money to build the parks in north san jose one of the problems with that is that, therefore we don't have enough trees in north san jose, because those parks, those big open spaces which are supposed to be parks in the future, are areas where we're going to have trees someday. But if it takes 10 years to build those parks, it's going to take 10 years to get those trees, so we're going to have to figure out how to fund those parks.

O

So we can get trees up there in north san jose, and I expose other parts of the city that may be waiting for their parks to come too. But these are these things are all connected um and so and then again, that's another part of the city where we need to enlist our business community. Maybe talk to some of our our tech organizations like something about a leadership group and say to them hey. This is important to all of us, their group that I think, would understand the need.

O

I know that google is part of their new campus and alviso is actually taking out part of the parking lot to build a green space with more trees because that's important to them, but that's not true of all the companies up there, and so we need to maybe work with those companies and say you know: can we work with you get some of your financial investment to put trees as an important public service of your business um up in that part of the of the of the city, and that could happen downtown.

O

That could happen in north san jose. That could happen in places where these companies have a lot of campuses with space where we can put injuries. So I think we should be looking at that, as well um as we're talking about improving our tree cover across the city um yeah and then one last question.

O

We've we've built we're building this climate core now for uh cleaning up the city and and paying people to to do environmental work. Can we maybe enlist the climate corps uh to be doing tree plantings um as part of their charge.

M

uh I don't believe that we are, you know um our partner, our city force does engage um a lot of volunteer work and that's how they're able to to get a lot of work done. I don't know if that that core that's being developed through that is part of that group or not, but we can certainly find out and I'm sure they're you know looking for volunteers, there's probably never enough, so any anywhere where we could bring that in. That would probably be beneficial.

O

Okay, all right, that's it for my comments. Thank you.

C

Thank you and I want to go back to virginia holtz, the member of the public, who was not able to unmute earlier. She had her hand up.

C

If we can get virginia.

C

Virginia you need to unmute.

A

I cannot unmute now we can hear you. Oh you can. Yes, that's wonderful! All right! This has been a long afternoon. Thank you for enduring um lots of information community input from the um various interested parties, I'm virginia hulse former parks, commissioner former director, on the open space authority.

A

I just wanted to say one thing that I that I noticed as I was listening to the presentation and the slide that talked about all the different partners and departments in the city that are related and have connections to to the trees.

A

um It just seems that there's a disconnect, because when, when you look at the immediate implementation of the plan or in your goals, it doesn't there's no direct statement that says there will be collaboration, coordination on a regular basis with those departments within the city.

A

It's so easy for cities in each department to become a silo, and I think for the success of this plan and for and for the implementation.

A

It needs all the coordination within that within the city on a regular basis, so that you can hear the disparate voices of what each department is having to deal with and come to some agreement. An advisory committee is wonderful, but they don't have the power to implement, and I think that you need a committed effort of a committee of the council or not the council of the department's heads or their staff to meet on a regular basis. Thank you.

C

Thank you. Turning back to my colleagues, council member esparza,.

N

Thank you. um I also wanted to thank city staff for all their hard work on this, and particularly during covid. I know a lot of the staff members that worked on this were pulled out um to work on covid response and then were pulled back in to do additional work on this, and so that that's very much appreciated.

N

um I wanted to address a couple of things on the meetings have. Did we meet with pg e and valley water, specifically.

M

uh John risto again we received comment letter from valley water. I don't think that my understanding is, I don't think they were really interested and felt the need to meet with us, but we did receive comment. Pg e, I'm going to have to ask russ. If he knows we received anything from pg e. I do not know that.

H

We did not receive anything from pg e. We have semi-regular meetings with them, but ultimately nothing specific to the management plan in detail.

N

Okay, but but they are aware of this work and they chose not to submit comments. Is that correct or no.

H

That is, that is that's what is assumed. Yes, they are aware.

N

Okay, great- um and I also wanted to thank you during that sort of extra time that city staff met with community groups, in particular the sisa puedo collective, and I heard good feedback about that meeting. So I wanted to thank uh thank you for that, and I also wanted to remind um folks that stakeholders include residents right. um I think sometimes somehow that gets forgotten a little bit and that you're a stakeholder, whether you own your own home, whether you live in an apartment.

N

um All of those things make you a stakeholder in your community, in your neighborhood and um and and I bring that up because um you know I have a lot of residents. uh District seven has been really hit very hard by covid. um You know health-wise, but also economically, and um it's already, um a very high needs district before covid and um and so people are focused on survival right now and um and then for those that especially this past year, that have encountered issues with trees.

N

um You know in some cases in my community residents view uh view it cheaper to pull out a tree and pay a fine than to figure out how to keep the tree right and- and we need to change that dynamic, but we need to do it in a way that brings people along. I want more treats right. I want more trees for district 7..

N

Unfortunately, district 4 is the top of of the list when it comes to meeting more in the urban canopy, but district 7 is is number two, and so a lot of my residents also have reached out to me because um they don't have the money to maintain those trees. They don't have the money to water them, they don't have the money to fix sidewalks, and so these things lead neighborhoods who need trees who want trees.

N

It leads neighborhoods to look at trees as being kind of a negative because of the work and the money that's involved, and we need to change that conversation because communities like district 7. um You know- and I notice you know- we have industrial areas in the city that are under canopy, but go to a neighborhood in district 7, ironically named seven trees right and it is 15 degrees hotter there than it is in other parts of the city.

N

uh It you just bake, um and you know, in addition to climate change and all the other reasons why we need trees. You know, having that positive environment says a lot right. It makes you feel better to be outside makes you feel better about your community, so so this is something I really do want to get figured out, and I wanted to give my take on sort of uh the cohort of partners that we move forward.

N

I'd like to see more partners that look like residents district 7. I would like to also see partners where they bring expertise on certain pieces of of how we address the urban canopy. I think councilmember cohen mentioned our businesses or I think both councilmember perales and councilmember cohen, mentioned businesses right, they're, key stakeholders in maintaining swaths of property um in and having particularly business owners. We talk a lot about this at council business owners in district 7 um that may speak english as a second language.

N

The way a lot of our small businesses do business a little bit differently than more established parts of town, and this has been an issue in la placida and little saigon center road, making sure that we get information out to our to those small businesses and property owners, letting them know how we're here to work with them. I think that's really important, um but I just I also want to make sure that we bring on partners who are good at community outreach right. Some partners are good at planting.

N

Other partners are good at the education component. Other partners might be stronger on the business component. I think it's unrealistic to expect any one organization, including the city, to have bring all of those areas of expertise.

N

And so I also wanted to explicitly. I just mentioned it, but I wanted to explicitly mention how important equity is in um in making a difference in our urban canopy and that's not just sort of wagging a finger at somebody. It's how to work with them, how to address their their fears and their concerns um and provide them the support to do that um to bring them on on board to get them to see. You know hey to not worry about surviving, to not worry about paying their water bill to not worry about.

N

um Then it costs a thousand dollars to you know, get some trees fixed. That's that's! That's money. You know a lot of my residents, just don't have, and so um so for me those are aspects of equity that go into adding to the urban canopy, and I I also wanted to make a comment in that.

N

I hope that this process can move forward and we can get more input through the committee so that we can get to a place where we need to be in a parks bond, um and so I think uh at the city we we've talked about the parks bond. Many times at city council about the need to do one in 2022 and to me digging into this a little bit is a key component of being able to support this work because we know we know we just don't have the money right.

N

We don't have the money, and this park bond is an important piece of it and in order to develop a plan and in order to make commitments to voters, we need to be able to dig into it. And so it's um it's with that reasoning. That I'll make a motion to refer this to the full council after dot has some conversations with cal fire and includes in what comes to council.

N

What that input process will be whether it needs to be extended or whether we are able to expand the committee aspect of it to get the kind of feedback that we need and that's the motion.

C

Council, member esparza, when you're talking about committee, do you mean the advisory group of stakeholders? Yes, sorry.

N

The advisory group.

C

Yeah just want to be clear that it didn't that it wasn't going to be coming back here. Correct yeah, thank you for that. Thank you.

C

Councilmember foley.

E

Thank you first, I want to thank the presentation, the city staff, for all the work that you've done and those members of the public who called in with their comments.

E

Before I get to my questions, councilmember esparza. Does your motion include pausing or your? Your motion is authorization to move forward to come to council with the uh november 30th timeline that john risto was mentioning.

N

So I was building on what councilmember perales said in terms of you know, I think some a conversation with cal fire needs to take place, but I do I do feel that ultimately this needs to come to the full council so that this process can move forward. um I think uh along the lines of david councilmember cohen's uh comments, uh so I I want this. I don't want to stop I'd like this to move forward, but I think some conversations need to take place. While that happens.

E

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that then I'm gonna support the motion. I do have some questions. The the report was very detailed. I really appreciate it. It's really alarming that we only have one arborist who deals with all of the trees in the city of san jose. That's just incredible uh that that you can do any work in a city as large, uh geographically large as the city of san jose.

E

I'm a little concerned. A couple two issues concern me well, probably more than that, but a couple that I mentioned, and one is the the governance structure, the how many departments uh are involved in planting trees, maintaining trees that just seems unsustainable.

E

So when this comes to council, will it include a recommendation on how we can streamline the our trees? Yes and the planting.

M

Yeah, that is one of the work plan items is to get a handle of our own selves and uh the reason russ put that slide up to show all the boxes was exactly what you took away from it, which was geez. There's a lot of people involved with a little finger of this and that all over the place, and we do need to figure out a better organization to manage and grow the canopy.

M

So the answer to your question is yes: one of the work plan items is to bring some suggestions of different ways of managing the trees in the city.

E

I think that's really important, because, as one caller mentioned, we have all these silos and all these people all these staff members in these silos are responsible for trees, but for some of them trees may not be their planting. Trees and maintaining trees may not be their number one priority.

E

There may be a hundred other things that they're tasked with, and this and just making sure that trees are are planted is, is one small one, so I think streamlining that and making that more effective and efficient will be a good use of staff, resources and uh and time and money.

E

um So so the proposal includes and we budgeted to plant 250 trees in east san jose, which I completely support, but I'm concerned about. These are trees that will be in the public right-of-way.

M

That's correct.

E

Okay, so then we will be responsible for maintaining them, watering them, making sure that they're they're maintained over time and they survive.

M

Yeah, um I don't yes, the answer is yes, because many of these are going to end up in medians, which is what we we, the city has responsible for that. What I don't know is there may be some locations. That would be a budding. You know property owners that may then ultimately have to but russ can clarify. I don't think we've got fully identified every location of planting yet so I can partially answer your question. Probably can't fully answer it yet, but.

E

Russell did you.

H

E

H

Yeah, I was just going to say real, quick, absolutely as it's laid out. Currently, every single one of those 250 trees is anticipated to be in the public right-of-way, where we would be responsible for maintenance thanks.

E

Chris, okay, that that's important, because I was concerned that they might be in the private right-of-way or the private park strips and that then the homeowner property owner or tenant are responsible for watering the trees and then we're in the dra in a drought, and they will not want to be increasing their water bill by watering trees that someone's the city is requiring that we planned- and I think historically our tree canopy is- is going away because people are saying I don't want to deal with the tree.

E

It dug up my sidewalk and that cost me a lot of money to repair. Now I need to put in a tree that the city says I put in, but that was the problem in the beginning and then I'm gonna have to maintain it. So I'm just gonna pull it out and hope that the city doesn't notice and and much many times the city doesn't notice other times it does so we we need to get a a handle on the pup, the private trees uh tree canopy as well.

E

The map was not surprising where we're lacking trees.

E

The alarming number I mean district 4 district 7, you drive around, and you can see that I didn't know maya our council member esparza that the temperature was so much higher in certain areas. That's makes it very difficult to live and and affects our quality of life and your residents quality of life. So I'm I'm all for increasing the treat the urban canopy I just want to, and I'm glad that uh we're still in that the grant is still available and that cal fire isn't pulling funds.

E

I'm a little concerned about the the relationship with our city forest and um I'm just going to throw it out there. What seems to be a negative relationship right now, but we really depend on each other they're our partners. So how do we make sure that we bring them in as a stakeholder and embrace them? Is the important community partner that they are.

M

uh You're right uh our city forest is, it is probably the key committee uh community partner when it comes to tree planting and and that's what we want to make sure that we organize around that, because they are very key to actually have success in terms of planting um and trying to get to this. So we will certainly do that and that's what we wanted to make sure that that was in our work plan and that was identified as an important element of of success is actually enhancing and expanding.

M

That um relationship with our city force.

E

Okay, great uh that that's important, the the the numbers around pruning. uh I found interesting that um that pruning actually increases the the effects of the urban canopy. I didn't, I didn't know that.

E

Do we have a system to educate property owners or educate businesses on the um correct way to prune, because it seems that pg e comes in and prunes and they cut off the top of the tree and that's first of all, it's ugly. Second of all: it's really not maintaining the the urban canopy. So do we have code restrictions on on tree trimming and how do we get the word out to the businesses who are doing these stream trimming to do it properly?.

M

Unless you might want to do that, one, that's probably something you can handle.

H

Yeah absolutely thank you, john. So short answer is. We are not doing enough that that is just yet another area where we are under resource that our city forest has done the best they can with the resources they have, and we've tried to supplement that we also as a part of our permitting process permits are required when it comes to trees within the public right-of-way, not so much on private property, but I'm public right away. We absolutely require permit if they obtain a permit prior to doing the work.

H

We do our best to include some basic information, some guidelines, some recommendations reaching out to professionals. We try to guide them to isa, certified professionals that are going to be better able to do what's proper. Unfortunately it just no we're not doing enough. I guess that's. The short answer is that we need to improve that program significantly if we're going to leave trees as the responsibility of the property owner in the right of way. We have to expand and improve that program.

E

Yeah, I I absolutely agree with that. Well, I support the emotion I support uh increasing our urban canopy it it looks like we need so much more money than we have available right now. The 250 trees are just a dent. I will mention that in the budget session I requested funding for twenty thousand dollars, which also isn't a lot to create a grant process where residents in the city of san jose could apply for a grant to plant a tree we haven't uh my office is facilitating it.

E

We haven't figured out how to work out the details yet, but much like I had a camera rebate program it'll be much like that, a little bit different than that one that was open only to d9 residents, and this is open to anyone in the city. So when it's available and rolled out, I will let you all know, but 20 000 will not go very far, given the tremendous need, but it again it's it it's citywide and with that. uh That concludes my comments and my questions. Thank you. Chair.

C

Thank you, councilmember cohen,.

O

Yeah just quickly, I was just going to say, I'm going to make it a commitment that when we talk, I talk with developers and businesses and others in my district that I'll just talk about the importance of of this work and the way they can partner with us. um You know always a question. I always ask questions of developers about what they're doing in certain areas and what they're doing to do as far as trees is one of the questions that I ask, and so maybe we can all ask those questions.

O

When we're talking about new developments, I will say that we opened the first dhl in the bay area in our district and what dhl did as far as part of their opening was partner, with our city forest, to give out trees to residents that came by their business on that first day they were open, so they were creative. They thought they came up with that idea, but we can maybe be creative about things that we can do in our communities to get more trees out to residents in the city.

O

So I just wanted to mention some of those things that we should be thinking about as ways that we can do this, not just as a city responsibility but partnering with others in our community.

C

Thank you. um I also want to thank the members of the public who came out to speak on this item and for understanding the the multifaceted benefits of trees not just to people but to the rest of the environment as well, but also to people, and I also want to thank the staff for for this very necessary foundational work. As john you pointed out that this was a first step among many, um and so I very much appreciate us being able to have this discussion. Councilmember, cohen you're.

C

I ask similar questions of developers and I've been I've actually developed a reputation over the years for asking in when they show their drawings and they're they're, usually palm trees outside, because it's easier to see the building for asking. Are you really going to plant palm trees? I don't want to plant. I don't want you to put palm trees, please plant something that is native and drought, tolerant and provides more shade and more benefits, and so people will often come in now and say: don't pay attention to the palm trees.

C

That's not what we're going to be planting, so I should go forward and ask the additional question of okay. Then what are you going to be planting? I'm going to add that to my list, um and it is important to note you know for for businesses like google. I think they understand too, that the benefit of it's not just a public service that they're doing when they tear up parking, lots and actually put put in trees.

C

That's also a benefit for their employees and there's good research. That shows that there is stress reduction in areas where we have urban forests or any kind of greenery really. So um I think that's a great plan and I'm I'm going to continue to do that and also probe a little bit deeper. I did want to ask the the 20 million dollars a year is a very daunting number um and I'm mindful that not everyone can afford to maintain their street trees, and I think the I can't remember the number. It was something like 900.

C

Every five years, I think, is what it came out to be, um but given that we, I think we stopped maintaining the street trees and made it the the property owner's responsibility because of severe budget issues. We all know that 20 million dollars a year is not something that we just have under the couch cushions. um When you come back to us, will you have or is part of the work plan, giving us incremental steps?

C

250 trees is a super inter incremental set, very small micro step and- and I know russ russell agrees with me on that, but something where you know what would it cost to if, if I'm looking at the maintenance funding needs slide, we've got the street trees and the parks trees, the parks, trees, budget, 30, 000 trees, that's 685 thousand dollars.

C

If we did the next incremental step uh of the trees that are not, I think you said, 233 000 of the 270 000 are on um that. We currently have private uh property owners, maintaining so that next incremental step would be about 40, 000 or 37 000 street trees in the public domain um that were so. What amount would that be? Would it be another you know close to the 700k of the parks trees, just knowing the numbers are similar in the numbers of trees,.

H

It's going to be very similar. Yes, it's going to be a little bit lower part when it when it comes to our street trees of those 37 000. Some of those are within those special districts, so they already receive a little higher level of funding. So it won't necessarily be exactly when you talk about thirty thousand in parks and thirty thousand or thirty, seven thousand as street trees. It's not the same, but it's going to be comparable ratio, wise, etc. Yes, it will likely be about half of that.

H

Maybe 400 000 to a half, a million or just city of san jose maintained that are outside of those special districts.

C

Yeah and I wanted to ask um the park trees so we've had I, I had a capital project in on the perimeter of the rose garden and we put in extra money- that's not and and we're basically we're using district six parks. You know regular parks dollars to maintain those trees. um We had to replace all the perimeter trees at the rose garden. um Is that included in these in these numbers?

C

Or is there a separate tree fund that that is being talked about about the you know, emergency maintenance or the emergency removal of trees for parks?

C

Think my point is, I think, we're spending more, it's just kind of buried in the budget in a different way- and I know I saw avi put on his camera. So maybe avi wants to address that.

H

F

Thank you. Member uh council, remember david spear davis for your question: aviotom deputy director of parks and parks, recreation and neighborhood services, so you're right within our department's capital budget. We do have a line item for tree services, citywide, which has been funded uh to the amount of 150 thousand dollars which, uh if we kind of follow the math, is about five dollars per tree based on the estimate of the number of trees in our parks. So that's our proactive budget, but you also hit the nail on the head that the reality is.

F

Our needs are greater. So when emergencies arise, we're confronted with the choice, do we address the emergency and pull the budget from something else, or do we leave it and, of course, as stewards and providers of safe spaces, we address the emergency at hand.

F

So our estimate just for this last year, was we actually spent in reality closer to 400 000, but that meant taking about a quarter million dollars in budget from other efforts in the park system.

C

Right understood so I just want to be clear: we're we're doing we're doing a little bit more than what we're saying. I'm not saying that you know when we have when we have a limited budget, we have to make those hard choices. So I'm not saying that's necessarily the the ideal choice. It's just that we are actually spending more than what we are saying here on this uh maintenance funding needs um just practically speaking. So I just want to be super clear about that. um I do.

C

I would like some incremental steps, something that is a little bit more manageable than you know. Six and a half million dollars a year um to give us little bites that we can pull if we have a little bit of of a projected surplus in in upcoming years.

C

Hopefully that happens, but I think that would be really helpful to me, because 20 million dollars and even six and a half million dollars uh is not those numbers are so big.

C

I mean, I know, they're, not big relative to our budget but they're, so big relative to all of our priorities for public safety and and all the other things that we have on our plate, that it would be great to have some kind of work plan where we're stepping uh our incremental steps, where we're stepping up the budget in a in a manageable way and gives us something that we can actually point to and say, hey now, we're doing all the parks trees.

C

It takes this amount of money additional a year, but we're also I'm guessing our city, attorney's office could say, but we're also decreasing our risk because we have some safety issues and and I've we've we've dealt with that in my in my district over the five years, I've been in office multiple times and we also had, thankfully, a tree that came down and hurt no one, but we've also had trees that came down and hurt people. So there's a there's, a risk issue and a risk mitigation issue as well.

C

That, I think you know, bears some discussion because it's moving a budget item from one to another, and this is a much more proactive way to spend that money and I would prefer to do it that way. um So that's it for my comments.

C

I see no other hand. So, let's take a vote.

C

Yasmin, are you the one doing the vote? The roll call.

C

A

Yeah sorry jasmine's having trouble with the mic.

C

E

Foley, I promise.

D

A

N

A

K

A

C

Yes, thank you we'll go on to open forum for speakers. Tessa woodman see.

B

Oh okay, okay, good!

B

Well, the one thing I was thinking, hello, yes, okay good is that, along with what um council, member davis is trying to work in terms of uh permeability of our of our streets, um I think that's a really great idea, and we need to do that and then we need to be working on traffic calming of our streets and in combination with that, as well as our tree planting like we're talking about today and our climate crisis, the need for trees that we need to put medians in streets like stockton avenue, even though I just discovered today, where a lot of the speeding is happening.

B

Actually, we have a a company that actually makes speeding cars in that works on stockton avenue. So I'm going to deal with that with code enforcement that we need to speak to that um company about their they're, creating a lot of the speeding that's going on because they create steam cars. But in regard you know that that's where, like these cars, that run like 100 miles an hour because they're like testing it after they get into this company's, um you know suping up their engines or whatever.

B

But the the issue of stockton avenue is that it's too wide of a street regardless there's a lot of people who go fast, and so we really need to be traffic calming our streets as a you know, in terms of reducing the speed and reducing accidents and and then we need to put tree-lined medians in the middle to reduce the openness of our streets, and I think that needs to happen in so many places that we're having problems in san jose.

B

um So you know that that's something to think about is creating more medians to create more spaces for trees. um Besides just the um the parking strip and then also like dave davis, was saying to create these permeable um out cuts. You know now onto the street so any way that we can make our streets um smaller, so it encourages um slowing, slowing our traffic and then more trees.

C

Thank you next speaker is alex.

L

Good afternoon, council members, my name is alex lansberg, I'm the research and advocacy director for the san francisco electrical construction industry, I'm calling in because I saw on your agenda earlier today. You you were discussing the labor and labor transparency, environmental accountability, policies for the long duration, storage project of your cca.

L

The the reason I'm calling in is actually we've been involved uh myself, a variety of ibw locals from around the bay area in northern california, as well as a whole slew of environmental and um environmental justice organizations around northern california have been involved in really trying to get the joint powers authority to see the california community power joint powers authority to adopt a a group of uh uh permanent policies, not just for the long-duration storage project.

L

um I think, based on you know, based on what we're uh what we're advocating for is really modeled on what we see in the lds, that's really a precursor of where we're going, but we are looking uh to see some greater transparency and accountability efforts uh through uh through a community advisory committee through um uh uh uh that's that's made up of of regional actors.

L

uh Some making sure that unbundled uh renewable energy credits that that really uh uh that are problematic, I think in in the view of a lot of our environmental allies and and much more permanent uh uh workforce policies for for projects where procurement is happening. I realize that I've only had two minutes to jump on this and to jump on this and and advise you uh of this of this information.

L

But I think it's really important for you all to to keep an eye on on this and really encourage your cca to to take as strong a position in support of strong transparency, environmental accountability and labor.

O

Thank you alex next up is blair.

K

Hi, thank you. Thank you for an interesting meeting today. I hope I can talk to people in the future about uh you know how I feel. Earthquake preparedness planning is an important concept, and what exactly? How do we? How do we talk about this issue more openly, if needed, uh to speak to the many parking items that are part of many council committee agendas? This fall.

K

Thank you in the efforts uh we are trying to consider how to return to the ways to think of our collective, green, sustainable future in a life without fossil fuels or single occupancy vehicles. The theme among parking uh related subjects also tries to uh address.

K

Oh, the the uh yeah. The theme also tries to address the future of parking policies and practices in san jose, safe, responsible, accountable and sustainable, open public policies and practices simply can offer more help, love and care for the future of surveillance technology and data collection, including aopr use. That simply should be more openly considered in these parking policy discussions.

K

Don't forget that alpr data collection used to be held for over a year, good democratic practices based on openness, good civil rights ideas, good civil protections and ideas of peace, not war or harm have developed friendlier, more efficient practices where alpr data now only needs to be kept for six months or even three months.

K

I thank you uh for once again bringing parking issues to council committee agendas as part of a process that can simply bring more important care, heart and understanding to new ai and overall policy questions. This fall. I've been trying to better address these issues with council person, jones and rules of milk and government for the past few months. Now, as I'm feeling and hoping san jose city, government staff is working on ways that ask and connects ideas of what can be our more heartfelt, better, reasoned democratic practices of ourselves. This fall thanks for the meeting.

O

Thank you. uh Next is roland.

D

Thank you, so I'd like to uh make a couple of uh clarifying comments on the things I touched on earlier. So, first of all, I'm a strong supporter of the large canopy trees, because that's what makes it possible for somebody like me to live in a house without air conditioning, even though I'd be very close to morgan hill moving on to palm trees, I'm concerned about some of the comments that were made about palm trees.

D

First of all, palm trees do not need watering, because the roots go straight down to the water table and second, they do not damage any adjacent infrastructure because they do not have any large roots. Their root system is essentially its fibre. It is very small strings of a root system.

D

Now, moving on to water, um I watered the forest city oak trees between um castle road and smell on kiwi drive for three years. It took me every saturday morning during the summer months uh it was back breaking and I can give you the amount of water that you took each tree once a week needed 10 gallons of water.

D

The way I gotta be done, I had the 20 gallon bucket and I had lined up. There were 60 trees. I had lined up six neighbors. I was hitting each one of these neighbors for 100 gallons of water every week you do the math, that's how much it does then, and- and they were okay with it now, with regards to um using um hydro to actually store energy. Lake anderson right now is being completely reconstructed, it's not being repaired.

D

This is a good time to put some hydro in there, but for the system to work, you need some kind of reservoir downstream so that when you got surplus energy being generated by the grid during the day, you can pump that water that's been acclimated downstream and planted back overnight into lake anderson and that's how the system works. Thank you.

O

Thank you, caller5140.

L

Yeah I like to express myself about the color-coded language of people. I don't color code. People like well the city council members do so if you're gonna start dropping the white word, why don't you say what white people really are we're not? We are european americans, okay, we're europeans.

L

So when you start saying brown and black, I don't even know what that is. I know it is african-american hispanic or this new thing latinx. So why don't? I'm gonna give you guys a teachable moment right now, instead of using the word white think before you speak and use a more educated term which would be european. Just like I told you before it's rude, it's racist and and the way it's said I mean if we're going to get into like micro regressions. It's the tone that people use about white. Now, I'm technically not!

L

I look it okay, but I'm not more more of a latino myself. Maybe a latin european would be more. You know. If you're gonna talk about italians, you could say latin europeans, but you know it's a bunch of races down there. You people and the people who call in oh, my god, I mean what if I was to say brown and you know, give some good tone to it. What do you think would happen?

L

What do you think I would like anybody at the city council to do a rebuttal on this call, but you won't. You sit back smirking tackling probably like pamela or kim whatever stupid name is harris the vice president. You guys love down there yeah yeah. I want to see I want to. I want to rebuttal on this from somebody, even a caller. How about someone call in- and you know, try to give me a teachable moment.

O

All right, thanks, michael now, we're adjourned from transportation, environment committee.

O