The Redwood City Council met on Monday, October 9, 2023, at 6:00 PM to address a consent calendar, three public hearings, and a study session on economic development. The meeting included a proclamation for Indigenous Peoples Day, a decision on the Stanford Development Agreement 10-year extension, a first reading of citywide fee updates, and a council call-up of a planning commission approval for a home at 636 Toredo Drive. The council also heard public testimony and debated issues of housing affordability, neighborhood character, and cost recovery.
Good evening, everyone. Are we ready to start our meeting tonight? All council members are in the chamber, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call our council meeting to order today of October 9th, six o'clock. However, due to continued recent disruptions during public comment at open meetings throughout our region and state. We want to ensure that the city can continue to conduct the city's business in a manner that allows all residents to participate. We will continue to evaluate our public comment procedures. We want to hear from our community. I want to highlight that the disruptions in other communities have resulted from racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist comments on topics not before the public agency. I, along with my council colleagues, condemn these comments. Our city's vision is to be a community where people of all backgrounds and income levels can thrive. Additionally, Redwood City is a supporter of United Against Hate Week, a call for local civic action to stop the hate and implicit biases that are a dangerous threat to the safety and civility of our neighborhoods, towns, and cities. I will hope you join me and our council in events being scheduled for the week of November 12th. We appreciate your patience as we continue to evaluate our procedures to best facilitate city business. Our public comment procedures are as follows. Public comment will be taken in person during the meeting or in advance via email to public comment at redwoodcity.org. Please be sure to indicate the agenda item number you wish to speak on. In-person speakers will be called in the order in which speaker cards were turned in. Comments that were emailed to public comment at redwood city.org by 5 o'clock p.m. today will be read into the record by our interim city clerk and also made part of the final meeting record. Both in-person and email comments are subject to the two-minute time limit. Before we call the role, I'd like to ask our interim city clerk how many speaker cards have been emailed or turned in that we've received so far for a public hearing tonight. So Jessica, could you let me know or let the council know how many have turned in? Sure. And for which items, please. Absolutely. For the public hearings item 7a, the Stanford Development Agreement, we have a total of three public comments. For item 7b, the first reading and introduction of an ordinance to update fees for various city departments. We have one public comment. And for item 7C, which is the public hearing on the planning, the council call-up of the planning commission approval of 636 Toredo has a total of 22 public comments. Seven C Toredo second, just because of the number of public comments, and then we'll take these third with one public comment so far as colleagues that will be appropriate. Is that okay? Yes. Sounds good with that. We'll take item 7A, 7C, and 7B in the order this evening. So Jessica, I'd like to turn it over to you now to call the roll. Thank you. Councilmember Aguirre. Here. Councilmember Aiken. Here. Councilmember Howard. Here. Councilmember Martina Sabayos. Here. Councilmember Sturkin. Here. Vice Mayor Espino Sagarnica here. And Mayor Chi.