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CC 02-06-2024 Item No. 11 Cessation of Hybrid and Committee Meetings_Written Communications (2)CC 2-06-2024 Item No. 11 Cessation of Hybrid Commission and Committee Meetings Written Communications From:J Shearin To:City Council; Cupertino City Manager"s Office Subject:Say yes to hybrid meetings for Planning, Parks & Rec, and Bike/Ped (item 11, Council agenda 2/26/24) Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2024 11:44:36 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Mayor Mohan, Councilmembers, and City Manager Wu, I write today as a longtime active resident of Cupertino. Engagement of our residents is a priority, and as such, is one of our top city goals. That is the what is truly under discussion at tonight’s council meeting for item 11. To further work toward this goal, I urge you tonight to have the Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Bicycle Pedestrian Commission meetings livestreamed with public input (hybrid) and recorded. There are several good reasons for this. 1. Many residents have asked that the Parks and Recreation meetings and Bicycle Pedestrian Commission meetings be hybrid. Along with the Planning Commission, these are the meetings that have the highest engagement of residents. Many residents have work or family responsibilities that do not allow them to come to meetings in person. Some meetings are held in unwelcoming locations—such as the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission,. This meeting is held in the locked City Hall—only if someone can find the sign to call the liaison—which is not on the main doors--then they can be admitted. Our population is aging, and driving to meetings at night may be a higher barrier than many younger residents may imagine. 2. Engagement with online/recorded meetings is higher than is what is reported. Though the staff numbers list the number of people in a hybrid meeting, the numbers do not account for the many viewings of the content later. For example, Parks and Recreation meetings are shown to have 3-11 residents engaged in them via the online option (when it was available), but the viewings of the videos were 60-86 people. 3. The cost for allowing this engagement and transparency is reasonable and not very big. If it is necessary to have a full two hours—which is surprising—to allow for a Zoom meeting and recording, this is still a very small cost to meet this city goal. There a technology solutions that do not make this an onerous task for the city staff. 4. An audio recording is not a viable substitute for a video recording. Many of the Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Bicycle Pedestrian Commission meetings include maps, and graphics, which would not be comprehensible to many listeners of the meetings if they cannot see these while listening to the meeting on an audio recording. One note is that the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission meeting already has Zoom running and recorded in Conference Room C for every meeting, except without any participants but the Admin. Safe Routes to School every month has a recorded and hybrid Zoom meeting currently, which certainly does not take two hours to plan/set up. That meeting has panelists (full participants) and also viewers (can watch, but can be admitted). If this is being done still very easily, it seems that this should be possible for P&R and Bike/Ped. For all these reasons and more, I ask that you agree tonight to have the Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Bicycle Pedestrian Commission meetings livestreamed with public input (hybrid) and recorded. Thank you for considering my input. Best Wishes, Jennifer Shearin ----------------------------------- This message is from my personal email account and I only am writing as myself, not as a representative or spokesperson for any other organization. From:Seema Lindskog To:City Council; Cupertino City Manager"s Office; City Clerk Subject:Agenda Item 11 - Cessation of Hybrid Commission and Committee Meetings Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2024 11:11:41 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Respected Mayor Mohan, Vice-Mayor Fruen, and Council Members, I'm writing today to urge you to make sure that the public has easy access to commission and committee meetings by making all these into hybrid meetings where residents can join and participate remotely. Many residents work full-time or have responsibilities in the evening that preclude them from attending meetings in person. Seniors have mobility issues. Children have homework and bedtimes. We need to increase resident engagement, not stifle resident participation and reduce transparency. There are technology solutions available to make sure this is not too time-consuming for staff. Commission members can all dial in via their laptops, for example, like employees of private companies do millions of times daily. If companies can figure out how to allow their employees to use hybrid meetings securely and easily every day, surely we can do so as well, as the city at the heart of Silicon Valley. In the same spirit of open access and transparency, video recordings of the meetings of the more frequently attended commissions should be published. We already publish the Council, Planning Commission, and Parks & Rec Commission video recordings since 2005. We should add the Bike Ped Commission to this list, because of the strong resident interest and the frequent use of audio-visual presentations during those meetings. While I support efforts to reduce staff workload, this is absolutely not the right area to be cutting resources. It sends a terrible message to the community that their participation is unwelcome or unnecessary, and that keeping them informed is unimportant. Warm regards, Seema Lindskog ___________________________________________________________________ "You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi This message is from my personal email account. I am only writing as myself, not as a representative or spokesperson for any other organization. From:Joel Wolf To:City Council Subject:Agenda Item #11, Hybrid Meetings Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2024 2:43:42 PM Dear Mayor Mohan, Vice-Mayor Fruen and Council Members, I am writing you in regard to tonight’s Agenda Item #11, Cessation of Hybrid Commission and Committee Meetings. As Vice Chair of the Bike-Ped Commission, I urge the council to allow hybrid commission meetings going forward. Since the Bike-Ped Commission transitioned to in-person meetings only, I have noticed a drop-off in public participation in our meetings. I think it is important for all commissions to hear as much public input as possible. The democratic process should be as open and transparent as possible. While I personally enjoy the in-person participation, it is not always possible for the public to participate in person, particularly students, many of whom have many demands on their time on weeknights. One of the benefits of the pandemic is that it showed society that remote communications can be very effective and convenient. This type of communication has continued in the business world well after the end of the pandemic. Cupertino should allow this type of access to commission meetings going forward. In addition, I would like to advocate for video recordings of our meetings. The committees receive many visual presentations, the content of which cannot be relayed via an audio recording. Thank you for your consideration. Joel Wolf Vice-Chair Bike-Ped Commission Joel Wolf​​​​ Bicycle and Pedestrian Commissioner JWolf@cupertino.gov From:Herve Marcy To:City Council Subject:Elimination of hybrid meetings and publishing of commission meeting recordings Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2024 2:18:18 PM Mayor Mohan, Vice-Mayor Fruen and Councilmembers, I am writing to you today to ask you to vote against the elimination of hybrid meetings and for the publishing of meeting recordings of the more frequently attended commissions. Hybrid meetings allow the City to lower the barrier for residents to inform themselves about the latest projects proposed by the city and to participate in the decision process. They are a strong enabler for the City to make decisions transparently: my own involvement in the civic life of Cupertino started with a Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Zoom meeting, during which I spoke. Very humbly, I do not think that I would have had the necessary courage to speak in a formal setting in front of an official commission I knew very little about, had it been for that hybrid meeting option. Additionally, the recordings of the more frequently attended commission meetings should be made available to the residents (Planning commission, Bicycle Pedestrian Commission, Parks & recs commission), in a spirit of openness and transparency. Not publishing these recordings lowers the trust of residents in the processes which rule our City. More transparency and trust are required than ever. Thanks in advance, Hervé Marcy Chair, Cupertino Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Herve Marcy​​​​ Bicycle and Pedestrian Commissioner HMarcy@cupertino.gov From:Jeff Whited To:City Council Subject:live streaming of council meetings Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2024 10:47:03 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Honorable Council Members: It has come to my attention recently that soon you will be deciding as to whether or not the live streaming of council sessions should continue. I would like to be placed on record as supporting the continuation of such live streaming. My rationale for continuing this public service is simple and probably quite obvious: the streaming of the sessions allows for greater community involvement as well as a better informed Cupertino populace--and, I would argue, a better informed city council, as you then have a much better feel as to where the citizens of Cupertino fall on the issues. Stopping this streaming would hinder all three. Many reasons exist as to why citizens can't attend council meetings in person: work, children, health issues, fear of speaking in public, etc. Live streaming with the option for the citizens to call in and participate deletes all of these hinderances and boundaries. Should the cost of the current live streaming be a strong consideration for halting the service, please consider a less costly option, such as Zoom or some other group meeting facilitator. It would seem quite backwards for the City of Cupertino, located as it is in the heart of Silicon Valley and its cutting-edge technology, not to provide a remote option for public meeting participation. Thank you for your time and consideration of my thoughts, Jeff Whited Cupertino resident