The Redwood City Council held a joint regular meeting on March 24, 2025, featuring a State of the City address delivered by Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos and individual councilmembers. The meeting included public comments from five speakers and one written comment, followed by presentations on housing, transportation, community well-being, economic opportunity, safety, and sustainability, each culminating in a "Redwood City Roots Award" to a notable initiative.
Councilmembers each presented a segment of the State of the City address, followed by the presentation of a Roots Award.
Good evening, everybody. It is time we'll go ahead and get started with item one call to order. Thank you, everyone, for joining our regular City Council meeting of March twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-five. Tonight's meeting is a special event as we'll be delivering our state of the city address.org as outlined on the agenda. There will be one opportunity for public comment tonight under item number four. In-person speakers must turn in a speaker card to the city clerk at the days to be recognized to speak. Comments that were received via email by five o'clock may be read aloud, time permitting, and in any case, will be made part of the final meeting record. Here, Council Member G. Present. Council Member Howard here. We'll take public comment on topics on or off the agenda and within the city's subject matter jurisdiction. And I'll turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment. Thank you. We do have five speaker cards, and if anyone else in the audience would like to speak, uh please turn in your speaker card now. And once we begin public comment, we'll be closing the list for public comment. All right, seeing none, we'll first call Carolyn Hoskins to the podium. Carolyn will be followed by Barbara Finnegau. And there is a timer on the podium. The orange blinking light is their 30-second warning, and the red light with the beep means your time is up. Thank you. And the timer will begin when you start speaking. Welcome. Okay. The Domini Hoskins Black History Museum and Learning Center is proud to share our history here in Redwood City. We don't just check the box on diversity. We practice it every day. Everyone is welcome. We had over 1,000 students from the San Mateo and Foster City School District visit the museum. I thank Senator Josh Becker for the two million dollar grant so that we have a permanent location at 890 Jefferson and Supervisor Ray Mueller for his support. I am here today to speak on a review about the museum from a Redwood City residence. So as a 22,000 square foot space that was vacant for years, now have a tenant, a ghost museum that has no visitors ever, cost a fortune to visit, and zero real artifacts and zero ties to local history. Senator Josh Becker basically got vacant subsidies from the Loki from the lucky business owner. What kind of kickback or tilt or tat is going on here? And since when does Redwood City promote Black Lives Matter? Is Redwood City community value of our tax dollars? I don't care about the political agenda. And everything in this review is a lie. So please don't attack me or the museum with lies. But for me, it's not a big deal because it shows an education and stupidity. So I will continue to let my voice be heard loud and clear. And where do you go to visit this museum? You come to Redwood City. So again, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this message with you. And I also invite you to come and let me share my history with you. You are somebody. Every race and nationality has contributed to make America what it is. America is not great. You can ask a lot of people through history to know that. But each and every day, we strive to make America have respect for each and every one. So everyone is important.