The Redwood City Council held its regular meeting on February 24, 2025, at 6:00 PM. The meeting covered the introduction of a new fire chief, approval of the consent calendar, public comments on encampment issues, a comprehensive budget update, and discussion of fiscal priorities for the upcoming year. The council voted unanimously on mid-year budget adjustments and set the timeline for the FY 2025-26 budget.
Good evening, everybody. It is six PM, so we'll go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining our regular city council meeting of February twenty-fourth, twenty twenty five. We continue to offer in-person and remote options for our city council meetings. The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction. And matters of the public may provide comments in person during the meeting or by email to public comments at Rewood City.org as outlined on the agenda. In-person speakers must turn in a card to the city clerk at the dais to be recognized to speak. Comments that were received via email by five o'clock may be right aloud, time permitting. And in any case, we'll be made part of the final meeting record. If there's a high volume of public comment this evening, we may decrease the time allotted for each comment or limit the total time for public comment. In the event that this occurs, please feel free to send your full comments to the city council at public comments at Redwood City.org. And I'll now turn it over to the city clerk to call the roll. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Chu. Here. Councilmember G. Present. Councilmember Howard. Here. Councilmember Padilla. Here. Councilmember Starkin. Here. Vice Mayor Aiken. Here. And Mayor Martinez Saballos. Here. Thank you. Thank you, City Clerk. Welcome back. And we'll move on to the Pledge of Allegiance. Councilmember, could you give us the honors? Thank you, Councilmember Padilla. Moving on to item number four, presentations and acknowledgments. We don't have any community presentations or acknowledgments this evening, but I do want to welcome our new fire chief who started his first day today. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um we really appreciate the opportunity and a somewhat lighter evening to be able to welcome our new fire chief Barack Ocarta, who did start today, who's had a a full day already of getting to know Redwood City. Um as I know you know, but for the community, uh Chief Carter comes to us after a very distinguished career at Calfire, where he served for over 25 years prior to joining Redwood City, he was one of six deputy chiefs for Calfire in the state and most recently had been assigned to their Santa Clara unit, where also served as the fire chief for the community of Morgan Hill and for the South Santa Clara uh County Fire District. Um as you'll recall, we started the recruitment process last August when we learned of uh Chief Iverson's retirement and that included public engagement to get feedback on uh what hopes the community had related to the fire department and the the new chief, and I'm really delighted that Chief Carter has joined us. I think that he w um brings extensive leadership and management service to our community and a real heart for community service that is going to be really welcome here. So um with that we invite Chief Carter to come forward. Um somebody is I think telling him where the microphone pieces are. So nothing like a little hand opportunity on your first day. Thank you. Uh good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council members, uh, city leadership, uh team members and community members. I am truly honored uh for this opportunity to serve the city of Rarewood, Rarewood City and the City of San Carlos. Uh I look forward to you know forging um positive relationships with not just uh the city leadership but the communities and local stakeholders. Uh I welcome you know the challenge and and look truly truly to look forward to building uh strong relationships with our community and thank you for this opportunity.