Okay, good evening.

It's the city of Belmont.

We are in the city council chambers, and it is 6 30.

And we will go into close session and return at 7 p.m.

Alright, good evening.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy 2026.

This is the City of Belmont, City Council Regular Meeting Agenda.

It is January 27th, 2026.

We are in our City Council Chambers at City Hall 1 Twin Pines Lane in Belmont.belmont.gov.

And you can also join by Zoom.

Please see our Publish agenda for all the various ways that you can make public comment, as well as our code of conduct and some accessibility, uh, information as well.

We are just coming back from our closed session.

We have no study session today, and uh no special session or other topics.

Item four is where we'll begin right now with the pledge of allegiance.

If you can please rise.

I pledge allegiance to the five of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

All right, thank you very much.

Moving on to a report from closed session, Mr.

City Attorney.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

We did have a closed session tonight.

We were considering four separate uh matters of litigation.

We have no report out on the first three matters on the fourth matter, Belmont Village Community Association versus City of Belmont, San Mateo Superior Court 26 CIV00463.

Direction was given to legal counsel to defend the matter.

This is a matter challenging the council's approval of the 580 Msonic Project.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on to item six special presentations.

One from HIP Housing, the calendar presentation.

And we have Lauren Borrow from HIP, who will present our calendar art winners.

Hi, good evening.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor Mates and members of the council.

I'm Lauren Borrow, a 30 plus year resident of the City of Belmont.

And also, yes, and also a proud member of the Board of Directors of Hip Housing.

And I'm also joined here by James Simmons, who is program director of our self-sufficiency program.

And James also is a resident of Belmont.

And former Parks and Rec Commissioner.

Thanks.

So for over 50 years, HIP Housing has been helping low-income San Mateo County residents to find and maintain housing.

Hip housing is listed in all 21 housing elements in San Mateo, including yours as a trusted affordable housing partner.

Last year we worked with over 4,000 individuals and provided housing to over 1,200 low-income households throughout the county, including 121 Belmont residents.

From Belmont, we received 14 inquiry calls through our housing readiness program, enrolled nine families in our self-sufficiency program, and received applications to our home sharing program from 21 individuals.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with our programs, but I'm just going to quickly review.

Our newest program is our housing readiness program.

This program empowers San Mateo County community members to navigate our complex affordable housing landscape.

This support could include housing resources, assistance, completing housing applications, and other activities that help prepare people to enter housing.

And this program is geared towards adults who are in school and have a goal to increase earnings and become financially independent within five years.

And we provide them housing stipends as long as as well as education and job training.

And I also wanted to mention that we nearly 700 people live in properties that we either own or manage.

Um with HIP Housing and our Affordable Housing Programs.

And as a symbol of our appreciation, I wanted to present all of you with our annual HIPAA housing calendar.

And for the I'm sure many of you are familiar with this.

And the most fun part about this presentation is that we are here to introduce two of our calendar winners.

So as you know, we invite children from across the county to submit drawings of home with a quote of what home means to them.

And we select, excuse me, 13 winners.

And we have two of our winners here today.

So I'm going to invite, excuse me.

Evelyn Chen.

Evelyn, where are you?

Sorry.

I'm losing my voice all of a sudden.

Evelyn, come on up.

And Adeline, Adeline, yay.

Come on up.

Okay, so let's get you guys over here.

Let's get you guys over here.

Okay.

And they are going to read for you their quote about what home means for them.

So Adeline, actually, let's see.

Can you come up in here and read your quote?

What my home means to me is it protects me from the danger of the world.

It is important to me.

And Evelyn, do you want to read it?

Or would you like me to read it for you?

You can do it.

My house is like a rainbow.

And a rainbow house.

It has ice cream.

It has ice cream.

Fish.

Fish.

And lots of colors.

At home.

Home.

I laugh.

Play.

Play.

And get big hooks.

And good big hug.

My home means love.

My home means love.

And happiness every day.

And happiness every day.

So thank you for for giving us the time to present today.

And we again we appreciate your um support.

Great.

Thank you.

So, so before you sit down, Evelyn and Adeline, I just we um wanted to say uh so I'm the mayor here in Belmont, and this is our city council.

We really thank you for coming and sharing um your pictures with us and for participating in this contest.

We have these really special City of Belmont awards that we wanted to give you for participating, and maybe if you wanted, we could take a photograph with you in the city council, and you could keep that if you want.

So if you want, we can come down and take a photo with you and give you your awards.

Stay right there, we're gonna go.

We have we have a step stool we should have wrote.

Oh, okay, I'll have to hear again next year.

Great, thank you.

Moving on to special presentations six B introduction of our new port laureate, and we have our Parks and Rec and Facilities Director, Bridget Shearer with us.

Uh thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, and Council.

I am proud to introduce Greg McCullough, the city's newest uh newly appointed poet laureate.

The City of Belmont has a passion for art, and the Parks and Recreation Department and the Belmont Library are proud to further that commitment through uh the utility box art program, hosting local artists in the manor house and at Barrett, encouraging music in the meadow, thanks to the park boosters, and by continuing the poet laureate position for another three-year term, particularly this one that commences in the city's centennial year is especially important.

Greg's application for this honorary role was filled with energy and ideas for how to creatively bring the art of poetry out into the community for all to enjoy.

During the applicant interview, Greg thoughtfully described the evolution of one of his poetry submissions.

It was this honesty and ease that the review committee felt would inspire others to try their hand at the art of poetry.

His vision for the role of Poet Laureate is one as both an educator and a celebrator of both poetry and our city.

How perfect for our birthday year.

McCullough is a Greg, sorry, is a poet from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Born in Minnesota, he moved to California at an early age and was raised here in Belmont.

He's a graduate of San Francisco State University, where he studied in English literature.

During his tenure at SF State, he was also a frequent contributor to Golden Gate Express, a bilingual student publication.

And before I hit we hand the mic off to Greg, I'm gonna see if uh Chris Liu, my partner in crime on this, wants to say a few words.

Thanks, Bridget.

I did want to share something that stood out with uh with meeting Greg, and it was that he has a deep love for Belmont and for the vibrant caring community that defines this place.

His passion for connecting people through words and through stories and through shared moments of reflection really shine through in the time that we got to know him.

We have every confidence that Greg will be a true champion for poetry in Belmont, and the poetry asks us to share, listen, and to see one another more more fully, and we feel that he embodies that beautifully.

I'm excited to work alongside him and see how his vision and creativity will shape his tenure as poet laureate.

And there's no doubt in our minds that he will do a terrific job in this role, and we can't wait to witness the impact he'll have on the community.

Okay.

Um I just want to say thank you so much, Chris.

Thank you so much, appreciate it.

Um, Madam Mayor, uh, esteemed city council members and members of the public.

Uh I would like to begin by first saying thank you.

It is an incredible honor to stand here before you uh as the next poet laureate of the city of Belmont.

Uh, as Poet Laureate, I hope to continue the work of my predecessors, uh, cultivating a thriving literary community here in our city.

I plan to continue the poetry nights, to continue to expand the annual Martin Luther King Jr.

Poetry and Essay Contest, as well as to continue to promote and support events such as uh celebrate the music and our lunar new year celebration coming up in little more than a week on February 8th.

I also hope to find ways to encourage young people of our city to develop an interest in poetry.

Uh, this would be through outreach to schools as well as uh student-oriented events.

Poetry is a powerful tool, and I hope to show all the people of the city that they have the ability to use that tool, no matter their age or circumstance.

Finally, uh this year marks the centennial of our city.

Um, in honor of this occasion, I hope to engage the people of Belmont with our city's history through poetry and writing, as well as to encourage people to share what their home now turning 100 means to them.

If I may, I would like to now share what that means to me.

Okay.

So this is just a little something I wrote uh called My Home is a Century Now.

My home is 100 years old, and though I have seen but a quarter of its days, still I know I was shaped by each day, each brick that built up this city, each step that carried us through this century.

My friends were shaped, my brothers, my neighbors, any son or daughter of this city, each of us shaped and as we were shaping, loud, out loud, and silent.

And each person's journey is private, so I shall s so I shall, but now speak to mine.

The century taught me to plant an oak sapra, neat the sun and to watch to one day, branches stretched to bear their burden of the sky so that we might lie beneath shade.

It taught me the smallest act of beauty, ensures one's community blossoms, just as the beat of the butterfly's wings will become the soft breeze in summer.

It taught me to sleep so that we might wake and to wake so that we might dream.

But most of all, it taught me to wait through the nights in autumn so to watch when the rains in winter will wash the hillsides green.

My home is 100 years old, and though I have seen but a quarter of its days, still I know I was shaped by this century.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much, Greg, and welcome to Belmont as the city's poet Laureate.

We're really excited to have you, and thank you for sharing your poem with us.

Um, I know that you've got big shoes to fill from our previous poet Laureate, but also sounds like you've got a nice um connection there too, and that's it's just great to have you.

So we look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right.

Great.

Moving on to item six C is our mosquito vector control annual update with the General Manager and Chuck Harton to give us the presentation.

Hi, good evening.

Good evening.

I think we have a presentation.

Great.

Give me just a moment.

All right, good evening, council members, members of the public.

I'm Brian Weber, the district manager of San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control.

I'm briefly going to talk about the services that we provide here on the peninsula and more specifically some services that we provide the city of Belmont.

Okay, so what is the work that we do?

We've been providing the peninsula mosquito control for over 100 years.

Our district is actually one of the oldest in the nation.

So we were founded in 1913.

Mosquito Control is the primary work we do.

You probably see us around the city in the summer in our white jeeps that you see there, spraying the drains.

Sometimes our technicians will be in the marshes that surround your community.

We also inspect the creeks in Belmont.

Some things that we've done recently is with the Twin Pines Restoration Creek Project.

Our staff will work with your public works department to ensure that no mosquitoes are breeding while that goes on.

Other things that we look at in the future is if you do the stormwater retention project here in the parking lot.

We worked with the city of San Mattel to also, while that gets up and running, uh, to ensure it doesn't produce mosquitoes.

We also distribute mosquito fish so members of the public can come to the district and pick up pick up mosquito fish any day, or they can call and have them delivered.

Mosquito fish can only be placed in man-made um containers, so swimming pools, backyard fish bonds.

We don't want them going into natural waterways because they can outcompete native fish.

Insect and tick IDs.

So uh relevant to Belmont, you have a lot of nice hiking trails here.

Uh we often get people who bring ticks in, and residents will want to know is this a tick that can carry Lyme disease?

There are two different kinds of ticks.

So we often ID ticks for residents, but um residents can call the district, either send a picture or actually bring it in.

We get people every week bringing in insects, and we do free identification.

If it is of public health significance, then we'll uh recommend a property inspection and so that we can share a report with the homeowner on how to get rid of that public health pest.

Uh rodent inspections.

This is something we provide residents.

They can call and get a custom tailored report that uh isn't from a pest control operator, and um our our technicians will go walk through with the homeowner and let them know where rodents are getting into the property and things they can do on their property to ensure that they're not attracting rodents.

We also work from time to time with your code enforcement officers.

They'll call us and leverage our expertise to go out on uh certain certain uh challenging calls, we'll say, and um also from time to time we'll do restaurant inspections and give the property owners advice on how also to keep rodents out of their business.

Yellow jacket control.

This is something we had over 100 calls in Belmont alone, as you'll see on the next slide.

Last year was the most yellow jacket calls that our district covered in uh ever since we've been providing yellow jacket control services.

So I think our technicians responded to over 1500 in a year.

So community education in the past couple of years, our outreach coordinator, she attended over 200 schools, many here in Belmont, and that's from kindergarten all the way up to the community college level.

And as far as disease surveillance, many know about Westnell virus and Lyme disease.

So something our lab staff will do is they'll collect ticks on your hiking trails and test them for Lyme disease.

If there's a certain prevalence, we'll put public health materials out there on the trails, such as Water Dog Lake.

We also test mosquitoes for West Nile virus.

It's been about five years since we had Westno virus positive mosquito pools.

I'd like to say that's because we're doing a great job.

But it also takes a community effort to be dumping outstanding water on their property, as you'll see in one of our slides.

And right there at the bottom you'll see that there's no charge for our services.

When somebody calls, services are paid for by property tax revenue.

Okay, so these are Belmont specific.

This is a Belmont specific data set.

You can see there was 199 calls in 2025.

So that's a pretty good awareness of the Belmont residents.

But as I mentioned, 131 of those were yellow jacket removal service, and 37 of those were rotent.

Actually, nine mosquito calls means that that was a pretty low mosquito year for 2025.

We often get more in Belmont.

If you'll see in the light blue, there are 758 inspections.

What those are water sources primarily in people's backyards that our technicians are aware of, and they'll inspect that property to ensure it's not breeding.

You can see that that led to a little over 200 treatments.

And no Westno positive birds or mosquitoes.

Okay, so these are our public slides.

Something interesting in Belmont that we find sometimes is springs will pop up underneath people's homes.

Some have been there a long time, but uh sometimes uh new ones will pop up.

So we'll work with homeowners to make sure it doesn't produce mosquitoes.

And uh here's our slide that we often share with the public.

As I mentioned, dumping standing water containers, things people don't think about, uh bird baths, pet bowls, buckets, tires, and even toys.

Okay, and this is where we need the public's help.

Report biting mosquitoes.

If we don't know that you're getting mosquito bites, we can't respond and resolve the problem.

Our technicians will come out within one business day, 24 hours, and uh we're looking to remove the standing water.

We'll go knock on doors until we find the water source.

We often have to set traps out to see the um what kind of species of mosquito and what the population density is like, and based on that information, we can get a good idea if it's coming from the drains in the street, underneath a house, a backyard swimming pool, and um our technicians are very good at finding those water sources.

Last one, uh I have to advertise our open house.

We've been doing this for a few years now.

It's June 27th, from 12 to 4.

We do that on a weekend to try and increase attendance, but the past few years has been pretty well attended.

There's a lot of things for kids to do and adults, so please come visit us on June 27th.

Questions from the criteria?

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I want to thank Chuck also for all the time that you put on the board and um and representing Belmont and then coming back and letting us know about um all of the things that that we should know about with regard to critters and uh things uh mosquito vector control-wise.

Um I think it's really great that our county has this, um, and I know there are some counties that don't, and so it's just amazing.

If folks don't know about it, I think uh they should absolutely um start using the service.

Uh I've noticed that we we actually stopped taking our dog on the trails because he would come back full of ticks.

Um and now we just take him on the sidewalks and he still has ticks.

So I think Belmont, um, you know, maybe our lawns and some of the weeds and things that grow kind of on the side of our sidewalk seem to have plenty of ticks.

So I didn't know I could bring them in.

So now I'll you'll be seeing me.

I'll be one of those weekly people picking in my text.

And we always encourage the heart guard because when the tick bites the dog, then the tick actually will die.

So, it's not on him.

They're on us.

Oh.

They fall off of him, and then we find them crawling, right?

Because the yeah, the exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, should have I should have said yeah.

Got it.

Um, anyone else have questions or anything else?

Any comments?

Yes.

I have a question.

I I think I turned into one of those inspection things at the request of some neighbors.

There was a person who had a basically abandoned swimming pool in their backyard that was full of green slime.

And um the there was responded quite quickly.

Um I thought the thing that the homeowner was told to do, it would probably was exactly what your regulations allow.

But I I really think it should have been more extensive.

I mean, I it's like, well, you've got this old abandoned swimming pool full of green slime.

We put some mosquito fish in it.

It's like, no, you should get rid of it.

You should either fix it or get rid of it.

Yeah.

So I I just question, you know, how much authority you have in a situation like that.

Maybe you should have some more.

Yeah, so that is a great point.

It's a great question.

Our authority goes as far as preventing the mosquitoes.

We actually don't have the authority to find them for the swimming pool.

That's often um the environmental health department that we have to work with or code enforcement.

Uh pools are a tricky thing because if you drain them, it can damage the pool.

But of course, the homeowner, if they have a pool, they're they're required to maintain it, right?

Um the our pro our procedures are supposed to be a stop gap to uh you know, maintaining maintenance.

Well, I mean, I reported it to Belmont code enforcement as well.

And there seemed to be kind of a gap between the two.

What uh vector control could do and what code enforcement could do.

Uh like I said, I, you know, this person really should have been required to either fix the pool.

If you want to fix the pool, that's fine.

If you don't want to fix the pool, you should be required to take it out, right?

And that couldn't get done by either side of the house.

So I I don't know where we go with that, but it it seems like there might be situations where a little bit more uh aggressive enforcement ought to be written into the regulations, maybe.

Yeah, we we don't disagree.

I just add, I'll bring some flyers down when we get closer to the summer uh open house and we can post those around town.

I highly recommend it.

They are great for kids.

Anybody of all ages actually um if you're fascinated by bugs, we have an amazing laboratory.

Um, the bug lady, forget her name.

She comes out, and you would not believe the stuff she brings with her.

And so it's very educational and it's very interesting, and again, there's a lot of preventative uh information available for you to take home and share with your neighbors and friends.

Thank you so much.

Thank you again, for your comments.

Alrighty.

Moving on then to item seven, public comments and items not on the agenda.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the body on any city matter, not on the agenda.

The period for public comment at this point is limited to 15 minutes with a maximum of three minutes per speaker, and wanted to remind everyone to please uh see our published agenda for um the uh uh uh way uh the the conduct to of to make a public comment.

Madam Speaker, I mean Madam Color uh Clerk, do we have any items on uh the agenda for item seven?

Well, thank you for the promotion, but uh we don't have any slips or raised hands at this moment.

Okay.

So if there are no uh speakers for item seven, we'll move to item eight, council member announcements.

Council members, any announcements yes uh did you oh okay sorry that's not your hand go ahead so as everybody knows 2026 is full of centennial celebrations uh one way to take lasting part in it is to paint one of our fire hydrants in our happy hydrant program mine is done and it was super fun to do it's a rocket ship flying over the earth and the moon and it's down by Taco El Grunese uh kind of by Ralston and Hiller.

Um but now the next round is open so draw a picture of your vision check it out see if it'll work um and then um the you'll submit the application you'll draw it out and then they will release you to paint if it passes muster um second round of applications closed March 2nd so check out our Parks and rec page on our website and get drawing hey any other announcements okay um I had a quick question about that one someone said that when they clicked on the link it says that it they it's not open until March is that right or it closes in March.

Closes in March oh okay good to know um great also reminders that uh the lunar new year celebration is February 8th from 2 to 5 p.m at the twin pine senior and community center it's a free event filled with dance music crafts and more we encourage you to wear red for good luck in the new year and uh coffee with the cop uh Belmont police department February 11th from 7 30 to 9 a.m at Pete's in Belmont on El Camino Real and also the Chamber of San Mateo County is uh hosting the shoot 360 opening located at 23 Caron Road the ribbon cutting ceremony will be on Thursday February 26th at 4 p.m.

And you can RSVP to Alison Fallett at Alison at chamber smc.org.

I also wanted to note that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the 81st anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz and serves as a moment to remember the six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime along with millions of others targeted for who they are including Sinti and Roma people with disabilities LGBTQ plus individuals political dissidents and others deemed expendable this day matters because the Holocaust is not ancient history.

There are people alive today including myself whose families include both survivors and those who are murdered the trauma the loss and the responsibility to remember did not end with liberation it continues today.

We remember not only to honor those who were murdered but to confront what made it possible the Holocaust shows us what happens when hatred is normalized when lies go unchallenged and when people are reduced to something less than human learning this history is essential here in Belmont let us use Holocaust Remembrance Day to reaffirm the values we proclaim in our civil rights resolution safeguarding the civil rights safety and dignity of all people rejecting prejudice racism bigotry and hate in every form and building a community rooted in respect and humanity.

Alright moving on to consent business consent business items are considered to be routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion with no separate discussion on these items unless a member or staff requests specific items to be removed for speci separate action and the city attorney will read the title of ordinances to be adopted so does any council member or staff member want to remove any of these items for discussion question comment?

Which one item D I just have a comment on A D and Anyone else all right and so not removal you just have a quick question or comment I have a question okay let's start with uh questions about A.

Just a comment on the the minutes on the uh for the appointment of the vice mayor there was uh no name uh motion and seconded and it said I think it said I seconded it and I didn't.

So uh the city clerk is gonna make the corrections.

I will make that correction.

Yes.

Great.

And then you said D.

Yeah, um a question and then like a follow-up question.

Um, I think this is on the Hawk crossing outside of um the new development.

Um, what's the um what's the intent of that crossing?

Are is it to facilitate pedestrians getting to the train station from the larger developments there?

Is it intended as um primarily for bikes?

Is it sort of incidentally for bikes?

Well, good evening, Romair and members of the council.

I'm your city, I'm your public works director.

I wanted to introduce our new city engineer that just started on Monday.

Uh so please stand up.

Thank you.

Um, very good questions.

Uh, this particular hawk crossing is part of the bike and ped master plan that was developed, including there it is for pedestrians as well as bicyclists.

Um, there's a quite a bit of different development that's coming up, including the Link project as well as town home projects and one other development.

And in order for us to prepare in advance for the new population to uh live there, this hall crossing is being implemented so that it can serve that community.

The affordable housing in particular has a lack of parking.

It is really focused on using transit.

So being right there at El Camino for the buses, as well as the uh cow trains is very important for them to have that access, and so that crosswalk itself uh would best serve that new community that we're bringing on to Belmont.

And it feels like El Camino and Ralston is just a little bit kind of too far.

It's like it folks might be kind of running across the street to not have to.

Absolutely.

And so when you're looking at crossing at either uh other the crosswalks and on either sides, it's about a 10 to 15 minute walk.

So crossing at that new location will definitely uh save some time for those uh pedestrians.

Um there was a public comment that came in that was concerned that like using that as a main bike path doesn't make a ton of sense because of the hill that's there.

Um but there's nothing that's that um that says we can't do other things for our main kind of bike bike pathways through Belmont.

This is just primarily meant for helping folks from those pro um.

It's fun to watch you like sign.

So our city manager has lost his voice.

So I'm interpreting okay.

In our general plan where we worked out um circulation uh pathways that uh allowed pedestrians and bicyclists to cross at all at an alternative location other than at the intersection of Ralston and um uh El Camino Real, which is a difficult intersection because of all the traffic movements for pedestrians and bicycles to navigate.

So the Hawk location was one location and the uh the other location at O'Neill, and hopefully the underpass at O'Neill sometime in the future is part of our larger design to have an improved pedestrian bike circulation.

Oh great, okay.

And so if there is an alternate route that is better, we would figure that out in the transportation master plan.

But with the Hawk signal, it really needs to serve its purpose for the housing developments that are there.

Correct.

And as far as bicyclists go, while Hill Street is a route and it is steep, there's also an alternate route on Emmett that's much flatter.

So people coming from Ralston have options.

And a lot of times with these bike lanes, um, it's really serving the community, and it really depends on uh the rider's ability, and so if a hill is too steep, there is always another option that's much more flat.

Okay, thank you for mentioning Emmett for great, thank you.

Thank you.

Just uh on that note, thank you for for bringing that up, um, Councilmember Ladder Marlowe.

I I do we did receive a couple of public comment uh regarding this, and I just wanted to maybe suggest to staff that um I think uh a lot of what we do is part of a plan and is definitely something that maybe we are more um cognizant of than the public, and so maybe even just a little more background um on these staff reports to just talk a little bit about that and how um if I because I do think the argument that it makes a difference that folks aren't gonna cross at El Camino and um Ralston if they're going to live in the housing project, they may, but we also want to um discourage people from you know trying to jaywalk and things like that.

Um so maybe just a little bit more robust in the in the background and context of the staff report is helpful as well, but appreciate um appreciate the public works director's um uh response.

And also um we didn't say the name of our new uh engineer, so just wanted to make sure I saw him on camera real quick, so just want to make sure we get his name out there to the public as well.

I do apologize.

Denny Fann is here today, um a little bit of background about him.

He has come from the city of San Francisco.

10 years working on very major developments and capital projects, very uh high profile ones as well.

Multi-million dollar projects.

Has also worked for the City San Carlos earlier in his career.

So that small town feel is something that has attracted him to come to Belmont.

And we're very excited to have him on board.

Great, wonderful.

Welcome to Belmont.

Alrighty.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions about anything for on the consent calendar?

Do we have public comment on the can on the consent calendar?

We do not know public comment.

Okay.

Then we can entertain a motion.

Move approval.

Second.

I have a motion for Councilmember McCune.

Advice Mayor Jordan.

Roll call, please.

Council Member McCune.

Yes.

Councilmember Laudamarlo.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

Mayor Mates.

Yes.

Motion passes 4-0 Pang Menganeris.

I'm sorry, 4-1.

Pang Meganaris absent.

All right.

Thank you.

Next we have item 10, public hearings.

We have none this evening.

Item 11, general business.

These items are considered separately in the order listed, and the chair will call for public comment on each item when the body considers the item 11A is the state legislative advocacy for the City of Belmont 2026 update.

I think we have Dane with us this evening.

Yes, good evening.

How's my audio?

It's a little muffled, but it's okay.

We see two of you, which is kind of cool.

But um, it's a little muffled, but it's okay.

We can understand, I think.

This is right here.

Okay.

How about now?

That's better, actually.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Um good evening.

Uh council.

Uh Dane Hutchings for the California Public Policy Group.

Just wanted to quickly uh provide a uh verbal update on the legislative platform, and I have uh as noted in the staff packet, uh a red line version of the potential uh changes that we would seek this evening.

So really that this item is primarily focused on reaffirming the Belmont state and federal platform, which serves as the policy framework for guiding how we engage on uh uh state legislation uh primarily on items that affect local authority, your fiscal stability and quality of life.

Uh the platform was uh updated in March of 2025 and now in advance of the 2026 uh session.

Uh, we met with all of your department heads on an on-site day long meeting uh and did um targeted review of the platform and made uh some adjustments, uh which I'm happy to uh review um with council, but really the proposed changes are intentionally focused, uh not necessarily a shift in any really major policy direction, but really recognizing both um uh the feedback that we received from your team as well as uh some of the policy trends that we that we anticipated being introduced this year and and and you know wouldn't you know it they're they're coming out uh swinging this year.

Um just to give you a sense of what's happening.

Um one of the issues that we saw um uh last year, and this we are now in the second year of a two-year session in year one, uh uh the assembly speaker and the Senate Pro Tem uh agreed to reduce the total number of bills that could be introduced in the two-year session.

And so what that resulted in is uh instead of bills that uh perhaps did not pass out of their first house last year, and that would just die and you know it would be done because you just you had so many more bills to reintroduce.

Um they've been jamming bills through that died last year in their house abortion.

So, if an assembly bill, for example, didn't make it um last year, it has until the end of essentially this week to get out of the of the assembly and same thing with the Senate.

So they came back and really pushing a lot of bills early on.

Um, so as of right now, uh about there's about 660 bills that are active.

Uh we are tracking approximately 580 of those bills.

Uh the bill introduction deadline is February 20th.

Uh and so we anticipate an additional thousand to 1,200 more bills being introduced between now and February 20th.

Last year we tracked approximately 900 bills, took formal positions on key measures and achieved about a 73% uh overall success rate.

While we didn't receive our entire VLF uh uh um uh uh reimbursement, uh we were uh able to still be able to get 67% uh of that reimbursement uh for this last year, and we are continuing to have uh uh negotiations with Department of Finance, Governor's Office, and then uh are part of a larger coalition within San Mateo County to continue to work on a uh longer term uh fix.

We all absolutely know how critical that is uh moving forward.

Um reaffirming the legislative platform ensures that staff and your advocates can continue to engage uh early and often, communicate uh the city's perspectives when it matters most and respond quickly to legislation.

Um the recommended action tonight is to reaffirm the city state uh federal platform, and um uh which will allow us to continue to engage.

And just before we uh before I um uh pass that to questions, you know, just give you a quick snapshot on what we're seeing so far this year.

Um we're seeing uh uh what's being referred to as SB 79 cleanup, and I can't help it but to do this because it's not really cleanup.

Uh it's a uh pretty pretty massive expansion of the transit-oriented development uh bill that was just passed last year.

I think one of the biggest challenges with SB 79 that that still has not yet been able to get solved, and we're trying to work to solve it is this uh specifically the timing issue around uh the your staff and council's ability to uh uh to draft, adopt, and submit uh uh an alternative plan that can retain some local discretion.

Um uh unfortunately HCD is not required to provide guidance on that until uh uh uh June 30th, however, um uh with the the enforcement mechanism begins January 1 of 2027.

So it you know it's very near impossible uh for someone to be able to pull together a plan, submit it for HCD review when we don't even get guidance on how the process works until uh another five months from now.

And so that's one of the issues that we're really trying to solve.

Um, we are going to see a um an absolute barrage of legislation this year that are going to try to cap, eliminate, delay, or otherwise diminish our ability to assess uh impact development fees, anything on that uh front.

Uh we're seeing it already.

And so um it's a little bit of a brace ourselves here uh on that.

Um one of the issues that we talked about um when we met with the planning uh commission and the council uh uh a couple months ago uh was about the um uh private equity and other folks being able to kind of gobble up these single-family homes.

Well, the governor actually uh pointed it out in his state of the state this uh uh this month and called on the legislature to introduce a measure that curbed or eliminated the ability for um institutional investors or just you know speculators to just gobble up uh this housing stock, and so at least it's good to see there's some acknowledgement of some other issues um you know being addressed.

We're gonna be seeing more things in the World of Brown Act, more CEQA, um, and then uh of course, because of recent events, we're now seeing uh a few bills that are are aimed at at holding uh federal law enforcement to the same standards that we hold our local uh law enforcement, and so um as I said, not a not a dull moment and and really timely to uh ensure that we have an adopted platform that allows us to continue to engage and so uh with that happy to answer any questions and um put the port of discussion.

Thank you.

Great, thank you very much for the presentation.

Uh council, any questions at this time?

I do not have any.

All right.

Um do we have any public comment on this item, Madame Claire.

We do not have any slips or hands at this time.

Thank you.

Okay, bring it back to the council for deliberation.

Any comments?

Uh okay, let me just see if we can.

Okay.

Um that was exciting to hear that the governor pointed out the uh aspect of the private investors.

That's cool.

I hope the legislature moves on that.

That's awesome.

Um and I want to say I support what's in there with the document that you provided for us, but especially I really support the suggested additions around the housing and land use section.

Um for me personally, the areas of returning some level of local control for development is crucial, but specifically for good actor cities like ours.

Like I don't want to fight for bad actor cities, right?

Um, so I think that legislature um enacting some moderation in their policies for cities like ours, ones that are intrinsically motivated and outwardly moving, right, on housing goals uh is really appropriate.

So I just wanted to highlight the paragraph in there around the modification for good actor cities.

If some of the messaging can be like, hey, you're a good actor city, you know, you earn back these pieces of control, you know, a little bit more a little more carrot for those of us who are um who are doing well.

Um or even like these new control levers that are about to happen won't apply to you if you're a good actor city city, would be amazing.

Um so I just wanted to highlight that.

Yeah, we had conver I had a conversation today with uh um chief of staff of the legislator that is very influential in housing and was highlighting that exact point about trying to provide more carrots uh for our good actors uh in this space, and and I um we're hoping that we see a bit of a uh a tidal shift um uh on this topic.

Thanks.

I'm comfortable with all the changes.

Okay, sounds good to me.

Yeah, um yeah, on that point, we've been advocating for more carrots for I think the better part of a decade now.

So it would be great to see legislation passed along that line, those lines.

Let's see how that goes.

I had a quick question.

I I uh support all of the changes.

I think they're uh really well thought out and appreciate uh staff's input.

Um I'm wondering for this supporting legislation authoring job border contracting.

Uh tell me a little bit about that and how that came about.

Um well uh this was actually uh a concept that was that was brought up by city manager and public works department.

Uh one of the um challenges that uh we are seeing is the inability to uh be able to make you know minor improvements, uh, you know, things that are um you know, let's say a pretty uh low threshold of say maybe five hundred thousand dollars or less uh trying to work to get uh these projects done in a timely fashion.

Um and you know, we've had a legislative history of having uh school districts have had this authority, charter uh cities have some of some charter cities have this authority, uh counties have this authority.

So this is not something that is necessarily new.

Last year, Senator Becker uh introduced uh a bill that allowed for SAM trans uh to have a much higher cap, I believe it was five million uh to allow for the um the use of job order contracting.

We want to be clear here that we're certainly not trying to uh support something that would usurp uh using you know skilled labor uh and all of that, but really just allows us to to um uh you know get these jobs done uh in a in a in a faster way and uh in a um in a more timely manner.

So that that came up uh during the um uh deep dive that we had with your your staff over the fall.

We can provide more detail about uh what it does offline.

Okay, that sounds good.

Um especially I know this is a very high level um presentation, just curious and also curious to know if there's actually uh proposed legislation about that now that that we're supporting or if we um but yeah, great, okay.

Sounds good.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Uh still no public comment, sounds like on uh this item.

Okay, um I believe this is.

Let's see, is it informational?

No, I think we do have.

Do we have a resolution?

There's, yeah, uh, it's just the motion to um accept the changes on the platform.

Okay, so moved.

Second.

Second.

So I have a um motion from Laudimer Lowe.

Second from Vice Mayor Jordan.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember Kuhn.

Yes.

Ladimeral?

Yep.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

Mayor Mates.

Yes.

Motion passes 4-1.

Pang Manganaris absent.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to 11B, Redwood Shores Sea Level Rise Protection Project.

Good evening again, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council.

My name is Edward Kwan.

I am your public works director.

Tonight we have an informational item, a presentation on the Redwood Shore Sea Level Rise Protection Project.

It's a regional multi-jurisdictional project led by the city of Redwood City to address shoreline sea level rise risks.

I'm happy to introduce Elizabeth Wada here, who has been representing Beaumont in this effort and will provide a brief introduction to the project.

Hi, Mayor Mates and fellow council members.

Medric mentioned that Pelmont's participating in this multi-jurisdictional project regional effort to adjust sea level rise within Belmont.

Our involvement at this point is limited to exploratory information gathering coordination as shown in the staff report and outlined where in Belmont this may be occurring.

It doesn't oblige the city to any future design funding or maintenance decisions.

So tonight's presentation will expand on the information that has been provided in the staff report and our potential next steps.

At the desk we have Chuck Anderson from Schaffenwheeler, the project's design consultant, and um we also have Summer Bundy in the crowd who's from One Shoreline, who's been supporting the project on a regional level.

So Chuck, you can take it away.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council.

It's my pleasure to brief you on what we're up to in Redwood City.

Um just this gives you an idea of uh who we are working for Redwood City.

And tonight what I want to do is just briefly describe what we're doing in Redwood City, specifically Redwood Shores, and then how Belmont might be involved with that.

So uh first thing to talk about is why is Redwood City started this project.

I'll get into that in a little more detail.

The short story is the water's too high and the lands too low.

So this is very common to the shoreline along San Mateo uh coast, and um we're doing it because there's a lot at risk out there from flooding from San Francisco Bay tides, including critical infrastructure.

Um, this uh provides a general idea of what's out there, and the thing to emphasize this is not just for the people who live in Redwood Shores, it has importance for the city of Redwood City and the region, which includes uh Belmont as well.

Uh, the one main thing to point out is uh all of the waste here in Belmont and San Carlos where I live, and a lot of the areas here go to the Silicon Valley Clean Water Plant, which is out at the point of Redwood Shore.

So there's there's that, there's a San Carlos Airport, uh there's major economic centers, daycares, and so forth.

So it's really important to to protect these areas.

Our project, we're taking a multi-benefit approach.

It's all about flood protection, but when you um use this levy, the trail that's out there, it hosts the San Francisco Bay Trail.

What you all would we're hoping to do, uh I've said this before in other places, it's hard to raise a levy without raising a levy, but you want what you notice, what's what's long lasting in addition to that flood protection is the amenities, the public access, placemaking, and then uh the ecology that's that's out there.

So let's just uh orient ourselves very quickly.

Um what you see in red is the existing levy alignment for Redwood Shores.

And what's important to note, there are a lot of uh jurisdictions involved, and the one thing that water doesn't respect is a dotted line on a map.

It won't stay out because there's a dotted line on the map.

So tonight we're really emphasizing kind of the multi-jurisdictional aspect of this.

And why we need to do this, um, the Redwood Shores levee is already too low.

Um FEMA has issued what they call seclusion, which means Redwood Shores should be placed in a special flood hazard area right now because it does not meet FEMA's current requirements for levee accreditation.

So as I as I introduce this, the top of the levee, you'll see there in cross-section where the people are on top, elevations there are about 10 or 11.

The extreme tide today, if we're to have a what's known as a 100 year tide to be a little over 10 feet.

The tide we just had a couple of Saturdays ago is really close to that, it was about 9.7 feet.

So this is this is a real risk that's out there.

FEMA to pull all those people out of this or prevent them really from being put into a special flood hazard area.

What's known as free board is a margin of safety that needs to be two feet above what they say is a 100-year level.

So a lot of the levy that's out there now is already too low.

Without doing something, homeowners who have federally backed mortgages are going to be required to purchase flood insurance in the future, and that is expensive and a burden on the properties.

The other thing we are really concerned about is uh future sea level rise due to climate change and what might happen down the road if we don't do anything.

So what we've noticed is honestly the bay levels there now are awfully close to the top of the levee in many places by mid-century uh 2050, which isn't that far from now when you think about it.

Many areas that of that existing levee are predicted to be overtopped during extreme tide events, and by the end of the century, that overtopping, if we did nothing, might happen daily.

Where we really are in the project, we're getting ready to go ask Revit City Council to tell us how and when we should adapt to this future sea level rise.

So, as I mentioned, we have existing conditions now with levee elevations between 10 and 12 feet, and we are going to design to the end of century, and there's a couple of ways to do that.

Everyone recognizes it's difficult to build how many times you want to go back out there and do that.

So, there is a uh a benefit of doing as much as you can right now.

So, designing for end of century what we predict the sea levels to be, and and design the levy for that.

The other way to do it is to take more of a phased approach or an adaptive path where we're setting it up to reach that end game of the end of century, but uh we we build that in a number of phases.

So, in the example we have here, we built a lower elevation now, but it's designed that it can be uh added to later, hopefully, you know, without a lot of pain.

So, decision hasn't been made, and that's where that's where we're approaching in the next couple of weeks.

So these couple of slides illustrate that concept, which you see on top, there's a number of ways to do this.

It's a combination of earth and levees, which I think a lot of people are familiar with.

That's mostly what's out there now, and something more of a hybrid approach.

This is walls in some areas.

This is what we did in Foster City.

For those of you who've been out on the trail there, and this is all about engineering design.

Um, one thing to note out in Redwood shores, the soils are not very strong, and you just can't place a lot of dirt time and time again.

So we are going to figure out, depending on whether we uh build all the way to that higher elevation now or phase it.

Um, one of the ways this might look you see on top is with earth and levees, and what you see on the bottom is more of a hybrid approach where the not as much uh earth fill material and using some walls to make up the flood protection elevations.

And again, this is um kind of what that phased, or excuse me, this would be doing it all at once, and everything is subject to again.

I mentioned how soft the soils are and what we can do.

So we are in the very beginning of all this, figuring that out.

Um, in addition to the flood protection, we're very cognizant of the existing ecology there.

The idea here is to protect habitats, improve habitats where we can enhance native ecologies, uh, expand marshes, and um it's uh it's just a really nice place to be in nature, and we don't want to lose that at all.

So a couple of our potential ecological measures, um these show some of the larger scale opportunities out for tidal marsh restoration, perhaps creating some uh beaches, not the kind of sand Tahiti beaches you might think, but a natural gravel uh beach and some seasonal uh pond restorations, in addition to these larger opportunities.

Oh, and the one thing I should mention you see a lot of more shaded green out toward the open bay.

There's already been some mitigation done, we would leave that alone.

Uh, Redwood City for a lot is kind of blessed with some marshes out on the shoreline and again the idea is there is to either enhance them or leave them alone because they they do a world of good and addition to some of those larger uh opportunities we have some um other opportunities that are a little smaller scale for levy setbacks and some of those actually include uh habitat enhancements on Belmont Creek the one thing uh when you're out there you should notice um is that this is the San Francisco Bay Trail it's a we hear a lot of community feedback this is what people love it's uh it's for not only Redwood City residents but people like myself and uh the whole region um walk out out there so we um I don't want to say we'll be forced to do this but we will be forced by the Bay Conservation and development commission to do it but it's the right thing to do.

Really provide improved trail amenities maintain that natural character of the shoreline as I mentioned and we're just gonna we're looking for opportunities to create new open space opportunities.

So this is a map you see now of the bay trail um it's sort of discontinuous out there we are going to do some extensions uh widen the trail significantly to meet some of the Bay Trail guidelines and we even have we're working with the San Carlos Airport and the FAA to actually extend the bay trail there so the idea when you walk all the way around this you don't have to get off and get on the streets and as I said we've recognized that what most people remember at a place like this is how how nice the trail is and what there is to do.

The other thing is to tie it into the community build on existing assets and you recognize very quickly this is really a giant linear park that runs around the entire perimeter of Revit Shore.

So we're going we recognize that and are going to treat it as such and what's ongoing we're meeting with members of the community in fact there's a meeting on Thursday to talk just we're looking at the what we call placemaking and trail amenities and it's a nice balance of things to do when you go out there providing plenty of parking so you don't you know ruin neighborhoods and so forth and again just something memorable in addition to the necessary flood protection.

Okay how does Belmont fit into all this is a I mentioned the tides we had on first weekend of January this is out near uh Farallon looking over towards Foster City we had what turned out to be uh what's known as a 25 year tide so the NOAA's National Oceanographic and atmospheric administration they've had a tide gate in Revit City uh since 1974 the highest tide on record was in 1983 and this tide we had still provisional was within a tenth of a foot of that when you adjust it turns out if you adjust for the sea level rise we've had to date it's about the second highest tide ever recorded so again the point is this is uh this is real and um Revit City needs Belmont talking about multi jurisdictional cooperation I open with water doesn't respect the dotted lines on the map so if you remember we have the existing levee alignment that we're approving in red what I'm showing in the greenish color is um a levee or um floodwall on the south or southwest side of Belmont Creek.

Revit City needs that needs that because if the water gets out there it does what not really a technical term doesn't end around and it it affects residents in Belmont San Carlos and Redwood shores.

But we need Belmont but we can also help Belmont so what I'm showing here in kind of the bluish color this is the where we I just showed you the photo it's it's Island Park it's it's a bit isolated they they are subject to um I'll show you in a minute of regulatory flood risk, and obviously a real flood risk, particularly with sea level rise.

The idea, something needs to be done there.

The idea it's a very heavy lift for that small area to do this all on their own.

It is a much smaller incremental lift for Redwood City by adding that segment onto our project.

Obviously, we need to resolve cost sharing long-term maintenance responsibilities.

But let me just show you now how how that might work.

So again, this is the real risk there now.

This is a little snip from FEMA's map, and where they say what you see in the middle says zone AE elevation 10.

FEMA has designated the 100 year flood risk at elevation 10.

We just had a tide that was within about three tenths of that uh once it's been made per um provisional now once they they confirm that.

And I'm sorry, FEMA requirements is two feet above that for the flood zone.

No fem FEMA's requirement to be out of the map, yeah, is that the elevation, the lowest grade around the perimeter of your house has to just be at or above that elevation.

So Belmont, you might have an ordinance that says your finished floor needs to be two feet above that.

Um but just to be clear, some of the homes there are you know, they're low, they're low.

And um the one thing to note would be that obviously anything we do out there, right now we have a very extensive community outreach in Redwood shores.

If this piece of the puzzle gets added kind of incrementally to our project, um obviously those improvements in Belmont would be designed with input from Belmont residents.

There's always a number of ways to do just about anything.

That's that's really important to note.

And to taking advantage of this opportunity, this is a real conceptual schedule of what we're doing.

So we're we're about in the middle of coming up with what's uh known as a 60% complete design that's grant funded.

Once that design is finished, uh, the end of this calendar year, we'll move into environmental reviews permitting and move on into a final design, and if uh funding becomes available, uh the idea would be to build it in four years or so, beginning in 2030.

The idea would be to have Belmont catch up and then become part of the overall project.

So when we do the overall project, it's you know, single bid, a contractor, it's be it's being run, and this piece that I showed around Island Park happens with the rest of the project.

But right now, um, some work needs to be done, kind of in parallel to that, to catch that up to where we are with the rest of Redwood shores.

So the idea would be that would be done uh through City of Belmont, and then once the cost sharing agreements and so forth are in place, then moving forward when we start our environmental review and permitting.

I mean, think about all the permit applications need to get made, rather than do that on your own, you're you're just part of this larger project.

It just be the economies of scale just are really advantageous.

Once that happens, then it's part of this overall overall project.

Uh while you're here, can you just can you tell me what happened with the catch-up?

Why why was Belmont not part of it in the initial discussion?

Oh, because it's a Redwood City project.

I think it's that simple.

Oh, so they would literally just looking at at Redwood City and didn't realize oh, there's this little piece here that's not our city.

Right, and then to be really candid about it, the little piece.

Um Redwood Shores doesn't need to rely on this little piece for protection, which is what's different with the piece along Belmont Creek.

So this this would protect the residents of Belmont, Belmont alone.

However, you know, almost for the good of the order and for regional cooperation.

Once you started looking at this, how do we tie in?

The real difficult thing out here is finding high ground, as you might imagine.

It became very obvious that we needed to talk about this opportunity, just again in the spirit of regional cooperation.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I will add Belmont has been a part of their uh technical advisory committee since they began um late last year.

So we've been involved and informed of all the different aspects of the scope.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Was there what she said?

What she said, but basically they started because they have to certify the levy.

We don't have a levy, that's why the project started, and then as they've done to studies, it kind of became a part of that kind of bringing all together between us, San Carlos and Redwood City makes sense.

Okay, that does make sense.

Thank you.

Oh, okay.

That's a good presentation.

Awesome.

All right.

Thanks very much.

Very informative presentation.

Council members, any questions at this time?

Councilmember McHugh?

Well, yeah, when we when we had that last set of rains, I think the one photo you showed.

I was kind of down in that area on like Shoreway Road at where Belmont Creek is, where the Nikon building is.

And you know, I'm not used to thinking so much about tides, tidal things.

I mostly think about rain.

And it had been raining, but that was not like a hundred year storm or anything.

And it was raining lightly when I was there, and it had been raining lightly for a few hours.

Creek was totally full.

And it had been out of its banks onto the Nikon parking lot, and it was it was totally filled, filling up the culvert that where it goes under Shoreway Road.

And I could, you know, sight down the creek a long distance, and it was full to the absolute top of its banks as far as the eye could see.

So I don't know where I'm going with this question, but it you know, it's it's a it's a different problem than what we're used to thinking about in terms of getting rid of rainwater.

I I you know, I don't know how much of this is tidal and how much of it is channel, and I haven't studied this problem in great detail.

But that was, you know, it's not the kind of creek condition I would expect to see in something that was maybe a 10-year rain or you know, nothing even nothing approaching a hundred-year storm.

So um, I don't know what my question is.

Other other than um, it it has, you know, we it has to contain all of those perimeters so that we don't get the end around thing.

It can't be a little bit here and a little bit there.

It's got to be a comprehensive deal.

And I I believe the um wastewater treatment plant had some overtopping.

It was pretty minor and they were able to control it, but um they had some uh levee overtopping at the Silicon Valley Clean Water Plant, and so it's not this is not a hypothetical exercise.

No, that's point well taken.

If I might offer some commentary, we were lucky it wasn't raining hard at the same time.

So that was mostly tidal influence.

So think of everything eventually drains to San Francisco Bay.

When the bathtub gets full, it starts backing up, and if it happens to also be raining at the same time, it can be far worse, even.

And one of our challenges is obviously how do you handle Belmont Creek coming off the hills and running into the bay.

Um, so you're right, you're exactly right.

It rained lightly.

Sometimes what happens even when that tide backs up, whatever storm drains out there, nothing can drain because they're you know, and uh we have something we call kind of like one-way flat gates to keep the bay water from running backward up it, but if there's a closed and the bay's high, and you're dry trying to drive water against it, it can rain very little and it just can't go anywhere, it'll just back up in the streets.

But you're yeah, if the the big big big events we've seen over the years have always been a high tide and a big storm at the same time, and that's then that's bunches of problems.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Um, I just had a couple.

Um so the shaded green slide, the mitigations that already happened.

So, what has you said?

I missed that sentence.

So you said there was shaded green areas where mitigations have already happened.

That's right.

So there's um, doesn't really matter, it's called Area H.

Um, someone did a project and they use that for mitigation of impacts for that project.

So the last thing we'd want to do is go in there and mess with it and mess it and mess with it.

So we'll avoid kind of the first, so not quite doctors, but you do no harm, right?

So stay out of what you can stay out.

And you mentioned we are working for Silicon Valley.

They've they've had some problems out there, it has come over the top.

We're trying to fix it so we don't get a hole in the levee and lose the uh alpha, which would not be good.

But there's a around Bird Island, there's already a really nice marsh going.

So the idea would be what can we do?

Is there anything we can do to enhance that?

It does help uh mitigate some of the the waves that come in off the bay.

So those big areas, we're we're just trying to keep those, enhance those, and then whatever opportunities, other opportunities afford themselves, just just to do more with it with ecology, nature, natural features.

Okay, got it.

And then when you were talking about the um hybrid approach where it's earth and wall versus just doing walls of less hybrid poach, is there a significant price difference for those?

Uh there can be, and it might be almost the reverse of what you think.

So there's more earth and levees can be significantly more.

Okay.

Um dirt.

Is that a premium right now?

There's a lot of restoration going on in the South Bay.

There's not a lot of dirt being generated as you as you might think.

Um and the walls can't be much much quicker.

Honestly, though, that'll that'll really boil down to some of the real technical issues about um putting so much when you put that much weight of dirt out there, everything sinks.

We've been tracking it, Redwood Shores is still sinking from when it was originally built.

So a lot of the techniques are to um kind of use lighter lighter weight, and that's the walls help with that.

And and what we found in foster, it goes a lot faster to do the walls than but a lot of people don't like walls, so we're trying not to wall off.

We the last thing we want to do is wall off Redwood shores.

I see.

Um, and then just following up for the mayor's question to make sure I understood the answer.

So the cooperation here is that kind of like we it's nice to be nice and we're all working together.

Um Redwood City needs Belmont's creek levy to prevent the end around, and it was easy for um the island park protection to happen this way, and that's nice for us.

So we're kind of the idea is for us to help each other by including it all in one project and keeping the cost down for everybody.

That's right.

So Belmont Creek is happening, and not just to be kind of candid about it, Redwood City needs it for the end around, so we'll we'll be working with you.

We need to we need to have that.

And then the island park.

If that didn't happen, it doesn't quote affect anyone in Redwood Shores, but we recognize that wow, this is an opportunity, and that is such a difficult thing for that small group of residents to do kind of on their own or find the money to do that.

And you realize incrementally though, it's not trivial, but it's it's just so it's a lot easier to get done.

Wrapped into a bigger project.

Wrapped in a bigger project.

Vice Mayor, I had a couple questions.

Um so I just want to thank you for your presentation.

It was very informative.

So it sounds like the next step is you're going to the Redwood City City Council to determine kind of the path forward if they wanted to do the phase approach or the full approach.

And in terms of funding, I don't know if I missed that portion of it.

Is that where will the funding come from?

Redwood City is funded to continue with design.

We are not funded to build it.

Okay.

So Revit City's looking for opportunities.

Some are with one shoreline is helping us look for those opportunities.

Um, so Redwood City Council is not taking up this Belmont piece whatsoever.

This is strictly for for your consideration.

Um but Rebecca City staff is indicated they're they're amenable to to working to working that out.

Yeah, so dependent on the feedback we received tonight.

Then we would proceed with uh proposal and potential contract with Schaff and Wheeler to do the 30% design to catch up.

Okay.

So they're looking for that direction tonight.

Yeah, so this is just questions now, but it sounds like they're looking for the this is informational, but you're you're looking for direction as to whether or not the council is amenable to to joining on the catch up, and then you would bring something back to us that would be more concrete in terms of pricing and funding and all of that.

Okay, that's correct.

Great, thank you.

Any other questions at this time?

Vice Mayor, were you done on their on your list?

I just want to confirm one more thing that he said.

So the island parkway area would it's more uh it would be helpful to Belmont, but it's not needed for the Redwood City project.

Correct.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

That's it.

I think the idea being that there's so few residents in such a big that it would be yeah, a hard shape.

Yeah.

Maybe I have a question on our scope.

So it's are we willing to move forward to be a part of the looking at the plan, not jumping into the plan.

Is that right, right?

I think you're testing us testing the waters just no pun intended to see if we would be um amenable to having you come back, staff come back with a little bit more detail, but in terms of us joining this uh catch-up on the catch up and then specifically for Island Park.

And I will add that being a part of this project would help us with potential grant funding.

If we were to go on this alone, I don't think it would be very likely.

Thank you.

Uh Madam Clerk, any public comment?

And we should say if you have public comment on this item, please um submit your comment card or raise your virtual hand.

I do have one slip in front of me.

And um Doug Beasley?

Yes.

I think I can add some more words to this.

I'm Doug Beasley, uh 28-year resident of Belmont.

I'm the president of the California Colleges Homeowners Association over in Belmont Island Park.

So there's a lot of history there.

There's a lot of complexity, and thank you for calling out Island Park as this little unique area.

So it's a mixed-use area.

There's a lot of commercial property mixed with residential property.

The levies and all of that responsibility is was contractually set up to be privately maintained by ourselves.

Unfortunately, because of the contract, the Belmont the California Colleges HOA, the Fairline Association.

We are only paying members into the Master Association.

We have no voting rights for this master association.

What happened was Oracle was the prime member of this master association.

The Hyatt House and VW were the commercial residents or are uh commercial members of this master association that had voting rights.

Oracle ceased their membership since they sold the property to Biomed.

The Hyatt House has abandoned any representation, Biomed's not representing there, VW has no representation.

They ceded all control over to Manor Associations, the property management company.

We've looked through our contract, talked to many attorneys over this.

We're contractually obligated to continue to pay into this as a master association, and there is a reserves for levy improvements, also managing the pond there, which has been filling up.

But we have no contractual teeth to actually get manor to react.

They've ignored us, they're taking our money, and they're just they're doing the bare minimum for landscaping, but we're paying uh I think what about $8,000 a month combination between the two associations into this.

Plus the commercial properties have to pay into it as well.

But there's no representation because it's private, we want these levees raid raised.

And I was there on January 3rd.

I went out there, I was on my run, and it's like, oh, can't go to the Foster City today.

Turned around and I took a lot of pictures.

I saw the water was right up to the Faroons uh wall up there, right?

And it's just so complex.

But the private side of this, we have reserve money set aside for this.

We can't get any movement representation from Manner.

Our association management company, the Fairline Management Company cannot get any movement, no attorneys sending letters, nothing.

And Manner has taken this as a rogue, uh, you know, just a rogue entity in all of this, and we really need help, and I don't know what to do.

We can't sue them because we contractually don't have any teeth uh to get any movement, but the pond as well, it's been filling up, and one of the comments was you know, water's rising, but actually the ground is lowering.

When I bought the house 28 years ago, they said over 30 years will settle 18 inches out of Redwood Shores at the end, it's gonna be 36 inches, and so there's a lot of that going on.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your public.

Any questions or because I have a lot of background and depth on this.

Gina and I've talked about this quite a bit, so that's great.

And unfortunately, we can't have back and forth now, but um it sounds like are you also in touch with our staff?

And if not, maybe you can exchange uh just next.

I have been, but it goes nowhere.

So I'm thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, any other public comment?

None at not at this time, no.

Okay.

Uh bringing it back to the council for some deliberation.

Sounds like uh staff is looking for um, as we said, just uh kind of a head nod as to whether or not we'd like to see this come back to us with a little bit more detail and whether or not we want to do the catch-up.

So just looking around for nods, I think at this point.

Nothing that looks like a nod from Councilmember McCune.

Everyone, okay, uh sounds like we would like this to come back if you have um the information you need from us.

Is it time for comments or please go ahead?

Um, so I I do think restoration of the habitats would be really wonderful in the extension of the bay trail.

Um, I was gonna suggest to connect with the homeowners associations there, Doug and Hannah, who runs the Farallon Homeowners Association and the Island Park Association, which is that what um Doug was talking about, which is this kind of commercial and residential hybrid.

I think they they have a lot of color to offer.

Um I definitely would be keen to you know, cooperating and studying how these changes you know benefit us for sure.

Um, I think the so I'm on board.

I think the one other thing I would say about this is um I think there was a really good point that um Councilman Um McCune made, and there was a really interesting discussion about how it is the rainwater that comes down along with the tides that gets the water trapped here.

Um, and just since we have somebody from one shoreline here, I I do think we have a project on our books, the Twin Pines Detention Basin Project that can help everybody.

I think that would help Redwood City and the shores and the flooding there for when those stuff comes, the water comes down the mountain, and for us as a city to get some help as well from the larger entities to, we want to do this project, and we also need help doing this project.

So if we can all cooperate really well, I think that would be awesome.

If I may just gonna add excuse my voice, there's actually three different projects going on right now.

Uh related to shoreline resiliency and sea level rise.

One is the long-standing Belmont Creek collaborative, and we'll continue to work toward bringing that all together.

There's also a recent grant by one shoreline that's looking at sea level rise and critical infrastructure on the shoreline.

And that's a grant that encompasses five cities, correct?

And then there's this effort.

So one of the things we're trying to achieve with One Shoreline is actually taking more focused attention to these three different levels of engagement on Belmont Creek, San Francisco Bay, and sea level rise.

And there's a lot of synergy between those things, but we need the leadership to step up and we're having those conversations right now.

Great.

I mean, I love the idea of cooperation and extending that.

That's awesome.

The only other comment I was going to oh, did you want to try and sure?

Hi everyone, Summer Bundy.

I'm the director of projects with One Shoreline.

Thanks so much for hearing this item and for your input.

So definitely we recognize the importance of the collaborative on Belmont Creek and the Twin Pines project, which would reduce the sediment load to the creek, and there's current maintenance burdens out in the lower part of the creek that contribute to localized fund risks.

So definitely see uh tremendous value in continuing to try and partner to move that forward.

As was mentioned, we did just receive a over two million dollar grant from the Ocean Protection Council Senate Bill that will enable the cities of Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, and East Palo Alto to develop the county's first multi-jurisdictional shoreline adaptation plan under new requirements of BCDC, the permitting agency here.

The benefit of doing that plan, well, first of all, all local jurisdictions on the Bayside are required to do those by 2034, but jurisdictions that do them sooner are able to include projects that are earlier in line for getting resilience funding.

So projects like this one, other projects that might happen as part of work on the lower Belmont Creek area, we'd be able to kind of get those more competitive for funding.

So we're finalizing that grant agreement with OPC, and we'll be kicking that off this summer and really look forward to bringing that information to you all and moving it forward.

And then on the item of the tidal uh influence on Belmont Creek, we we're definitely seeing that as well.

That issue is one that will be picked up in that regional shoreline adaptation planning process.

Uh the tidally influence creeks along this full reach of shoreline are very technically complicated.

They're jurisdictionally complicated.

Uh so we're gonna try and move ourselves forward on understanding the adaptation pathways, the infrastructure solutions, the land use solutions that might help us improve resilience on all of the Bayside Creeks.

So happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any other questions for one shoreline?

Okay.

I just wanted to also mention that uh, you know, I know in your last slide you talk about um community engagement throughout, and so with regard to our public comment, I understand you you may not be able to address all the public commenters' concerns, but uh if we haven't already, once once you bring it back and we kind of uh decide whether or not we're gonna go forward, um, let's also make sure that we include uh everyone from that area and uh you know get them up to speed as well.

So just want to make sure that that happens.

Absolutely, and we'll be doing a lot of outreach now that we have good direction with the project, and we'll I'll get my contact information.

Really appreciate it.

Any anything else you need from us at this time?

No, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thanks very much for the presentation.

All right, moving on to 11C.

Sorry, someone I'm gonna say something.

11C is Calper's 180 day waiting period exception interim administrative services director appointment.

And this is supposed to be aftion, but um you're his ventriloquist, uh Scott, attorney city attorney's.

I got that to talk about the uh Calper's 100-day waiting period uh for the uh interim appointment of the administrative services director of uh Ann Ritzma as an interim appointment.

So Kelper's law um generally prohibits a recent retiree from coming back and working for an agency for a period of 180 days.

There are a couple of exceptions to that.

One is if you have an active recruitment going for uh the position, and that you need that person to hold a position while during the recruitment.

Um we uh we have that exact circumstance.

We're asking the council to uh approve that we're required to do that, not on consent calendar, which is why it's on your uh general business.

So uh and Ritzma is a friend of my client who would give his undying friendship if he would grant us this small favor.

Um I have one, I have a special practice, I handle one client.

That concludes your presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And he likes to hear bad news quickly.

So noted.

Questions from council on this item.

Sounds fine.

All right.

How about public comment?

Any public comment on this item?

None.

Okay.

And I think we can entertain a motion unless anyone else has comments.

Move approval.

Second.

Motion from Councilmember McCune.

Yes.

And Jordan.

Roll call, Councilmember McHugh.

Yes.

Laudamerlow, yes.

Vice Mayor Jordan.

Yes.

Mayor Mates.

Yes.

Motion passes for one.

Peggy Meganaris absent.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh moving on to item 12, I believe.

Um brief verbal reports from members and staff.

Verbal part first from our council members on IGR intergovernmental and subcommittee assignments.

I'm sorry, I know I'm talking so much today.

I have two.

Okay, please.

Um, we had a BRSSD two by two by two meeting.

Um, Robin and I.

Um they discussed the possible plans around the middle schools in the district.

They're doing a major realignment.

Um there are three possible scenarios being discussed.

One leave the middle schools as they are, two, close the middle school at either Sandpiper or at Nesbit, um, or three, close both and create two large schools, so basically two Ralston Middle Schools.

Um, like Ralston in another location.

Um, there's special town hall board meeting on Thursday, this Thursday, the 29th.

Um, and you can find out more at BrSSD.org.

And then we had the first housing and long range planning subcommittee meeting, and it was great.

Uh we discussed how to communicate project updates for the council and with the community um and bounced around and reviews ideas on zoning changes prior to uh prior to it coming to our full council.

What am I missing?

Um I think you kind of got most of it.

It felt very collaborative, I thought, between staff and and council.

Wonderful.

Okay, anyone else with IJR updates?

Yes.

Are you gonna tell us about?

Since we are past the new year, the JPA meetings are back for the vengeance.

I've done a number of things.

Uh the other ones I'll talk about, uh, Peninsula Clean Energy.

Uh PGE's rates have actually dropped uh starting in the new year uh due to some convoluted math.

But uh Peninsula Clean Energy has also reduced their rates so that the potential clean energy rates for generation of electricity will remain 10% cheaper than PGE.

And this is a complicated thing because when you pay your electric bill in Belmont, the generation of electricity portion goes through Peninsula Clean Energy that does contracts with these clean and renewable generation sources like wind and solar, but the amount of money you pay for transmitting and distributing that electricity still goes to PGE because it goes through their lines and their substations and stuff.

But anyway, the bottom line is you know you should see a slight drop in the price you pay per kilowatt hour for electricity.

Um rethink waste board also met and handled the usual routine things, but we had a really good presentation on disposal of batteries, and everybody's encouraged to recycle batteries, partly because we don't want the battery stuff going into the landfills, but partly because batteries start a lot of fires in waste handling facilities.

And this is this has happened at the um at our facility on Shoreway Road, and they've installed some very fancy fire extinguishing equipment so that it doesn't uh cause terrible things, but it still causes slightly terrible things if batteries uh catch on fire in the waste stream.

So everybody is asked to recycle batteries, and the way to do it is save your old batteries.

They have special orange ziploc bags.

Put your old batteries in the ziploc bags and put it on top of your black cart when you put out your trash.

And if you don't have the special orange bags, just put them in a regular ziploc bag, and the drivers should see it.

But anyway, they were handing out orange battery bags.

So I have a bunch of them.

If anybody wants to recycling battery bags, uh I'll leave some here and help yourself.

And that's all I got.

Um, I wanted to ask you though about PCE.

We have some new digs, right?

No, we're we're moving.

Uh, not yes, we will have.

They're not it's not ready yet, but it'll the new um headquarters will be in San Mateo off of uh El Camino, but it'll be a few months before it's good to go.

Okay, but still within 2026.

I think I read just a little bit.

Okay.

Uh I have a couple.

Uh the fire board, we had uh anniversaries and award of award ceremonies last week.

It was a great event.

And also after three years, we had our fireboard rotation.

We have it every year, uh, but I was each year uh appointed fire board chair.

Our new fire board chair is now um uh Rob Newsom, Councilmember Rob Newsom from San Mateo.

So um that happened, and then the library JPA, we're gonna have our meeting, I believe, next week.

Uh we did have some new county reps that were assigned to the board uh after a number of years.

It turns out the new president uh made some new assignments, and so we'll have two new county reps on our library JPA board.

And more to come on that after uh some meetings and later on in the month.

Uh item 12B, verbal report from our city manager.

Good evening, uh Mayor and Council Tom Hagan again.

Uh on behalf of my gentleman sitting to my right tonight.

Tonight we wanted to share uh something pretty special with you a short lapse uh or a short time lapse of the Belmont Creek construction, which was just completed, followed by highlights from our ribbon cutting that mark the completion of the multi-agency project led by our Belmont team.

It's a great snapshot of what collaboration looks like in action and how a lot of hard work behind the scenes turns into real results for our community.

I hope you enjoy this quick look at the journey.

Well, while um our our clerk is keying this up, I'm assuming this will also go on our social media people love our our videos.

Okay, good.

Okay.

Six months ago, some of you were here with us.

We broke ground on the full restoration, and today, thanks to our dedicated city staff and consultant team of experts, we stand in front of a creek that has been completely transformed.

What was once a degraded channel with erosion, falling trees, and poor habitat is now a stabilized, clear, revitalized corridor with thousands of new native plantings and improved ecological function.

We are the most at-risk county in the state for this, and I think we all like to say that this is sort of the San Mateo way to be working together and collaborating.

So I just want to congratulate everyone, and thanks for for doing this.

On a personal note, I uh also am a Belmont resident, and I have spent many, many years here with my own children playing in the creek and enjoying this amazing park.

So, really excited to be here for this ribbon again.

I think it's a project that I've been involved in for the last 15 years, and so it kind of represents uh perseverance, working together, collaboration, and ultimately addressing a community need.

More than 500 feet of the creek has been restored to make this area safer and healthier for our community.

And for the wildlife that depends on it.

More than two thousand new plants and trees are now taking root, helping improve water quality and making this place look and feel more vibrant.

We looked at the kind of the historic ecology, so what was here beforehand and what would grow here, what's appropriate here, and we'd find those species, and then we would replant them here.

So we have a lot of oak trees, we have buckeye trees, we have alders, we have a bush that's kind of locally special, uh, spice bush, which has got a beautiful red flower, which you don't see everywhere, but it's here, and we preserve that actually in the site, and we'll take actual cuttings from that plant and then replant it so that one host plant will become many plants along this project over time.

Belmont is so special because we have this gem of a park right downtown.

It is easily accessible from public transportation near our downtown businesses.

It's a place for the community to come and gather.

Um, and we love that it has been strengthened and improved for generations to come.

Belmont is proud to be a steward of this important creek, a waterway that was cherished long before our city was incorporated and holds continuing significance for our indigenous communities.

We recognize their enduring presence and extend our respect to all communities who continue to care for this region today.

Very cool.

That is really good.

Yes.

I don't know why I got choked up.

I don't know if it's the music or what.

It's a very cool, very cool project, and I know it had a lot of public interest.

So I'm sure this video will be um will be watched.

Is where else are we going to it seems like we should put that other places?

Maybe on our website or something.

Seems like that's uh it's worth folks knowing about regional collaboration, I think we should offer it to, you know, San Carlos and you know, all the other agencies if they want to promote it on their website as well.

Yeah, they definitely definitely got a lot of love and appreciation that day as well.

That's great.

All right, anything else from our uh city manager.

That's it.

Okay.

All right.

Um before we adjourn tonight, I want to pause to honor the memories of Renee Good and Alex Predi, whose deaths in Minnesota have shaken communities far beyond that state.

Their loss comes at a moment when many people across the country are feeling fear, anger, and deep uncertainty about where we are headed, about violence, about power, and about how government shows up in people's lives.

These deaths are not happening in a vacuum.

They are part of a broader national reckoning, and they demand honesty from those of us in positions of civic leadership.

Here in Belmont, we have been clear about our values.

It commits us to leading by example in promoting safety, security, and respect for human and constitutional rights.

They remind us that our responsibility does not stop at expressing concern.

That outrage must be accompanied by vigilance, compassion, and intentional leadership within our sphere of influence.

Silence or inattention is not neutral, especially now.

Tonight, we acknowledge the gravity of this moment in our country, and we reaffirm Belmont's commitment to the values we have named.

Thank you, and we are adjourned.

All