Milpitas council selects permit-review, city job fair and business-license study as top quarterly priorities

Milpitas City Council on Jan. 21 used its quarterly prioritization process to select three work items for staff attention: (1) an analysis of the city's permit and development-review process, (2) a city careers job fair and recruitment push, and (3) a review of modernizing the city business-license tax schedule for possible placement on a future ballot.

Assistant City Manager Matt Cano summarized the quarterly process and the group of items submitted by council members. Cano said staff had cataloged 33 proposed items; per council policy a portion of those that require limited staff time (under four hours) would be handled administratively while larger items were subject to the prioritization vote.

Council members first each nominated priorities and then voted. Council Member Evelyn Chua moved to approve the prioritized list; Vice Mayor Barbadillo seconded. The roll call was unanimous: Vice Mayor Barbadillo, Council Members Chua, Lam and Lianne and Mayor Carmen Montano all voted "aye." The clerk announced the top three items based on the vote totals: CC-1 analysis of the permit process, CC-2 job fair for city careers, and CC-4 exploring modernization of the business-license tax schedule.

Selected items summarized: - Analysis of permit process (CC-1): Staff said Milpitas previously completed a consultant study in April 2019 with several recommendations; the next step would be additional customer surveys, staff customer-service training and a targeted review of development-review touch points. Staff recommended in-house surveys and training before hiring an expensive consultant.

- Job fair for city careers (CC-2): Human Resources Director Kelly Parmalee and staff said the city typically has about 30 vacancies at any one time (a number that includes most full‑time positions; part-time/seasonal openings in recreation raise the aggregate figure on the public jobs page). The council asked staff to pursue a career open-house format and to consider partnering with regional public employers, county programs and nonprofits; staff agreed to bring back details and a timeline and to accelerate the effort where feasible.

- Modernizing the business-license tax (CC-4): Finance staff said Milpitas' business license structure has not been updated for decades and preliminary estimates from prior work suggested a possible revenue increase if a modernized tax schedule were approved by voters. Staff estimated that researching, polling and placing a ballot measure could cost about $264,000 over two years and that earlier work suggested potential revenue in the multi‑million dollar range (discussion cited a late‑2023 estimate of roughly $23,000,000 annually, subject to detailed study and stakeholder input). Council members emphasized protecting very small businesses (for example, single-owner operations) from disproportionate impacts.

Other items: Council asked that the car-transport fee item (proposed impact fee for vehicle transporters) be withheld because staff advised that design specifications for the affected roadway segments were already intended to account for heavy loads; a separate traffic review at Edsall and Roswell (estimated study cost $10,000) and a pickleball feasibility study for Dixon Landing Park (estimated study cost $50,000) were discussed but did not make the top three.

Vote and motion: The prioritization list was confirmed by motion of Council Member Chua, seconded by Vice Mayor Barbadillo, and adopted unanimously in roll call (5–0). Staff said they will return with recommended timelines, budgets where needed and implementation steps for the three prioritized items.

Why it matters: The prioritized items direct staff time and, where required, budget consideration; they will shape near-term work plans for planning, human resources and finance and may result in council-directed policy changes or ballot measures.

Next steps: Staff will produce scoping and timeline proposals for each prioritized item and include funding needs in upcoming budget/CIP discussions where applicable.