What's New! June Newsletter

As State COVID-19 restrictions lift, we hope you and your communities are enjoying a healthy and happy recovery. Here are some updates from our June Legislative Action Committee and Board of Directors meetings:

Legislative Positions

Watch the LAC meeting here.

SB 612 (Portantino) – Support

Presentation from Silicon Valley Clean Energy at 33:10 in meeting recording.

SB 649 (Cortese) – Watch

Presentation from San José Housing Department at 12:30 in meeting recording.

SB 9 (Atkins, Caballero, Rubio, Wiener) – Oppose

Request for local government COVID-19 recovery funds from State budget – Support

Presentations

Conversation with Supervisor Mike Wasserman

Board of directors laughing in reaction to Supervisor Wasserman

Supervisor Wasserman congratulated city leaders on the County’s COVID-19 recovery:

78.5% of those 12 years and older have been vaccinated – the highest of any county of 2 million+ in the US
COVID-19 positivity rate down to 0.38%
17,000 vaccination sites
Flu season rates were below measurable
Employees will be able to take masks off at work regardless of whether others are vaccinated

County budget this year is $9.1 billion based on state & federal funding, with 22,000 employees on payroll

Planning Collaborative Update

Presented by Paul Peninger, B&D Planning. Presentation begins at 3:45

Workplan priorities:

Intensive sites and inventory analysis
Outreach and community engagement
Affirmatively furthering fair housing (AB 686) tech assistance + training
Local preferences ordinances templates and best practices

New guidance on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing from HCD here.

AFFH Data Viewer here.
Guidance will be explained at ABAG workshop, where there will also be County-specific breakout rooms

“Let’s Talk Housing (LTH) Santa Clara County” Outreach and Community Engagement

Let’s Talk Housing will be a county-wide effort to reach members of the community who have previously not been represented in the housing element planning process. Providing multiple opportunities for engagement and conducting meetings in the many languages that our residents speak will be crucial to ensuring an equitable housing element update that meets our communities’ diverse needs.

Components of LTH will include:

Sub-county “Intro to Housing Policy” meetings (July-Aug)
Countywide RHNA meeting
Sub-county policies & programs meetings (Fall)
Website w/ landing page for every participating jurisdiction
Equity Advisory Group – advise on best way to connect with community groups and underserved populations
Best practices in community engagement training from B&D Planning accessible here

You can also check out these past presentation slides on community engagement best practices or view recordings of them here:

RHNA Appeals Process Update

Presented by Gillian Adams, RHNA Project Manager

Timeline review

May 20: ABAG Executive Board approved final RHNA methodology and draft allocations.
Next: Appeals phase Summer through Fall, final RHNA plan by end of year

See slides here for RHNA appeals process overview, schedule, allowable reasons for appeals, precedent, hearing structure, and redistribution process. Presentation begins at 30:30

Racial Justice Committee Recommendations (Part 1)

Public Safety Reform

Matrix of public safety reform efforts of Santa Clara County law enforcement agencies

Recommendations & Summary of Key Findings

Support advancing training for our police officers through the utilization of VRDT technology for Crisis Intervention/De-escalation training;
Encourage all public safety departments within the County to complete the training.
Submit letter to member cities encouraging either to participate in VR training, or to obtain the VRDT Simulator if feasible.
Submit letter to POST advocating for the law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara County that have applied to receive the simulator and any future Santa Clara County law enforcement that may apply in the future.

Virtual Reality Decision Technology (VR-DT)

Presentation given by Phan Ngo, Sunnyvale Chief of Police, and Fabian Monge, Police Training Lieutenant

Scenario-based trainings will be required under new standards (e.g. Police Officers Standards and Training aka POST, AB 392, SB 230). Without VRDT, will need 20-40 officers per training to recreate scenarios.
Slides here. Presentation begins at 54:50. Example of system here.

Part 2 of the recommendations regarding housing policy will be voted on next month – cities may wish to discuss and give direction to their board members. Please review the agenda item here.

City News

Milipitas‘ Old Town Main Street is slated for economic redevelopment & revitalization
Sunnyvale approved EIR for development in Moffit Park – 10 million sq ft of office space, 20,000 units of residential and half a million sq ft of retail. The project is moving the city towards walkable communities with support from corporate partners in the area (e.g. Google, Lockheed Martin)
Mountain View received a $450k grant from Destination Home for a safe parking lot program and are seeing success with other support projects for the unhoused, such as their transitional modular housing project, which is housing ~100 people with funding from the State’s Project Homekey.

Don’t Forget!

CASCC’s directory of state and local representatives/staff in the County is hosted on Directory Spot – login instructions can be viewed here. If you have not been granted a DS account previously, please email our Clerk, Audin Leung, at audin@citiesassociation.org.