Redwood City Council Meeting - July 21, 2025: Anti-Camping Ordinance and Transit Funding Debate

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Good evening, everybody.

It is past six o'clock.

We're gonna go ahead and get started.

Thank you all for being here.

It's a big evening.

Um, it is our regular city council meeting of July 21st, 2025.

We continue to offer in-person and remote options for our city council meetings.

The city welcomes public comment on topics within these cities' subject matter jurisdiction, and members of the public may provide comments in person during the meeting or by email to public comment at revencity.org as outlined in the agenda.

I'd also like to share that we plan to reinstate virtual public comment later this summer, which will allow members of the public to provide comments via Zoom again.

Please check future published agendas for instructions on how to provide comments at the meeting.

Please be sure to indicate the agenda item number which you wish to address.

In person speakers will be called in order, which you uh submitted your speaker cards and comments that were received via email after five o'clock today, uh, excuse me, after the agenda publication through five o'clock today, maybe read aloud time permitting, but 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 comment at roadcity.org.

And I'll now turn it over to our city clerk to call the roll.

Good evening.

Councilmember Chu.

Councilmember G.

Present.

Councilmember Howard.

Here.

Councilmember Padilla.

Present.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here, Mayor Martinez Aballos.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, City Clerk.

We'll now move on to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Howard, can you give the honors?

Please join me in honoring our flag and our country.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands our nation under God.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

With that, that brings us to presentations and acknowledgments, starting with the swearing in of our newly appointed board, commission, and committee members.

We're so excited to have all of you here in person.

On the screen, you'll see the names of the newly appointed or reappointed members of the following BCCs.

So please make sure to make your way to the front of the dais as your group is called.

And we'll be starting with the architectural advisory committee, moving on to Historic Resources Advisory, Housing and Human Concerns Committee, the Library Board, Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Commission, Planning, Police Advisory Committee, Transportation Advisory Committee, but we will start with the Architectural Advisory Committee.

So if you all could please come up to the front, and I'll pass things over to our city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

It's an honor to administer the oath of office.

If I can ask any of our newly appointed and reappointed board commission and committee members to please come to the center of the dais for your swearing in.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else being sworn in tonight?

Everybody at the same time.

Sorry about that.

We are good.

Okay, we're all gonna take the oath together.

I'm gonna ask all of you to raise your right hand.

You'll repeat after me.

As we start, I'll ask each of you one by one to state your name.

Okay.

I.

Do solemnly swear, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California.

That I will take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation, or purpose of evasion.

And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

Congratulations to all of you.

Congratulations again, everybody.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for your time and your service.

I know the city council looks forward to working with each and every one of you, so thank you again.

Our next item is to recognize the month of July as disability pride month, a time to celebrate the disability community and culture and recognize the achievements, experiences, and challenges faced by individuals with disabilities, promote inclusion, and challenge ableist attitudes.

I'll now read a few whereas from the proclamation.

Whereas Disability Pride Month is recognized every July to mark the anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, on July 26, 1990, landmark legislation that broke down barriers to inclusion in society.

And whereas there are many ways to advocate for those with disabilities, learn about the disability experiences, share your own disability story, bring awareness to local policymakers, and excuse me, teach your children to acknowledge and include disabled people and hire people with disabilities.

And whereas the City of Redwood City amended its strategic plan in 2020 to include equity as a foundational guiding principle, and the city continues to strive to support inclusion, engage stakeholders, and advocate for the disabled community as we advance this important principle.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Martina Sabayos, Mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council and the people of Redwood City do hereby proclaim July 2025 as disability pride month and encourage all residents to participate in the recognition and celebration of the disabled community and help spread awareness for how we can collectively improve the quality of life for all disabled people in Redwood City and beyond.

And I'd like to now welcome our Redwood City Arts Commissioner and Center for Creativity Steering Committee member Pamela Swint to share a few words.

And while she's making her way to the podium, I'd like to also just quickly share.

So with that, thank you for being here, Pam.

Thank you to Mayor Martina Sarbayos and the City Council members for recognizing Disability Pride Month.

I'd like to accept this recognition on behalf of the disabled residents in Redwood City.

So why disability pride month?

Why are we even doing this?

We are celebrating the achievements of the ADA and the disability rights pioneers that came before us, while also recognizing that so much more work needs to be done for inclusivity and equity.

In the words of Ardur Shepherd, historically, people with disabilities have not been encouraged to consider their worth.

Disability Pride Month means that all bodies have value.

And if we don't celebrate disability pride month, we are contributing to the idea that disability makes us less than, and that's a toxic message to put out into the world.

We are not ashamed of our bodies.

Cultivating Pride helps create a community that has the sense of worth to demand reform and the strength in numbers to make it happen.

And thank you for mentioning the uh inclusion festival later on this month.

Um, and also the disability pride flag is flying at the corner of Veterans in Middlefield right now.

And thank you again for the Arts Commission.

Let's celebrate this moment and continue to work towards a more inclusive and equitable city for everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Pamela, for being here.

And I have a proclamation to present to you, and if the council, those of us here in person can take a quick photo, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Commissioner Swint, for being here.

Before we move on, I know it'll be a long meeting, but I want to acknowledge that we're adjourning tonight's meeting in memory of two different individuals.

Um, the first being Mr.

Stan Silverstein, a longtime Redwood City resident and business owner.

And I'd like to invite Councilmember Howard to say a few words.

Thank you, Mayor.

Born on September 4th, 1937, Stan Silverstein was a proud graduate of Sequoia High School and a legendary figure in real estate in Redwood City for over 60 years.

He helped countless families and businesses find their homes, spaces, and futures.

Knowing for his unwavering integrity and strong work ethic, he was a member of the Million Dollar Club, Chairman of the Board of Presidents Committee, CAR, and president and lifetime director of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

Stan was a man of honor, and he earned the trust and admiration of clients and colleagues alike.

He especially enjoyed engaging in community events, driving in parades, and escorting many beautiful Miss Californias and his family's studio S.

Broadway dancers in his iconic excaliber.

Stan had a vibrant personality and a deep love for life.

Stan was fortunate to find love, love again after Barbara's passing with his dear companion Deanna Dooley, whose company brought him continued happiness, friendship, and joy.

Above all, Stan's greatest pride and joy was his family.

He was a devoted father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who always made time for those he loved.

He is survived by his daughters, Pamela Bergman, Deborah Starkman, Sharon McLeod, and his ten grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, his brother Gary and sister-in-law Janet and his partner Deanna.

Stan will be remembered for his generosity, wisdom, and the deep love he poured into his family and community, and he will be truly missed.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard, and our condolences to Mr.

Silverstein's family.

And I'm also saddened to share the news of Councilmember G's mother's passing a few weeks ago, and would also like to adjourn tonight's meeting in Helen G's memory as well.

And I'd like to invite Councilmember G to share a few words.

Thank you, Ms.

Mayor.

I'm just gonna read some of the excerpts from the service that we had for mom a couple weeks ago.

With some of her favorite music playing in the background, Johnny Mathis, the Carpenters, and the Bee Gees.

Mom peacefully left her lives on Saturday, June 21st, after a sudden and brief illness.

She was born on February 4th, 1935 in Phoenix, Arizona.

She was the only daughter of Tang Ching, we call him T C, my grandfather, and Yi Shi Tang.

She grew up in my family's grocery business with her parents established in the late 1930s.

Alongside her brothers Howard, Bill, Davis, Bobby, and Tommy.

Mom dedicated her life, her youth to the store, stocking shelves, working the cash register, sweeping floors, and contributing to its busy life.

As a proud alum of Phoenix High School, she built a wide circle of friends in the Phoenix area.

In 1956, her life took a wonderful turn when she was introduced to my dad, Richard, sparking a romance that led to their marriage in 1957, and their subsequent move to the city of San Francisco.

In 1966, Dad purchased a home in Belmont.

We moved.

In 1966, there were not very many Asian families in Belmont.

You can count us all in one hand, maybe two.

And to preserve our culture and our ability to speak Cantonese, mom enrolled us in Chinese school.

I was told my Cantonese was pretty good then, but uh it's gotten not any better since 1966.

As I made it through my high school years, I used to have hair.

Um, and there used to be a lot of it.

Um, so much that I had it permed.

Big curls.

Sometimes it was done at hair expressions in San Carlos on Alchemy Real.

But more often, mom did it at home.

In 1990, when dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's, mom leaned in and committed herself to taking care of dad.

Without hesitation, she became his sole caregiver, selflessly setting aside her own needs and opportunities to ensure his comfort and well-being.

Her dedication was exemplified by her refusal of a necessary hip replacement, unwilling to compromise her ability to care for dad.

Their love sustained them through 64 years of marriage till dad passed in 2021.

Last November, mom was in the hospital for about a week.

We were not sure she was gonna make it home.

My mantra to mom at that time was eat, drink and move.

So mom was able to eat, drink and move and came home in December.

And we were able to celebrate her 90th birthday in February of this year.

And that's the picture of mom at her 90th.

Unfortunately, that episode in November damaged mom's kidneys.

So when my sister, younger sister, we have four of us, I'm the eldest, took my mom to the hospital on June 19th, the morning of Thursday.

The damage was already done.

She kind of knew.

And so when the doctors told her of her diagnosis on Friday, she asked to meet each one of us personally to tell us what her decision was.

And it was take me home.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to honor mom's request to take her home, her home for almost 60 years.

But we were there by her side when she took her last breath.

There's four of us that survived mom, myself, my two sisters, Tara, Susan, Eric, and our husbands and wives.

She has nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

As my sister, younger sister and I were waiting that last night, about mom going to heaven and joining dad and her brothers Howard, Bill, Davis, and Tommy.

I was also reminded about Coco, Eddie, Sinbad, Pudgy, Moy, and Jasper, all the dogs mom had.

They're all waiting for her when she got there.

Mom birthed us, she raised us.

She put bandages on our knees when we fell, celebrated when we were celebrations.

She taught me how to crochet all the good things that we'll live on and mom.

Mr.

Mayor and Council, thank you for your words of support and sympathy and encouragement to the hard time, and thank you for allowing us to adjourn in her memory.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember G for sharing those words, and thank you to the community for being here with us, as we acknowledge two really important River City residents here too, this council.

With that, we'll now move to item five public comment on the consent calendar and items not on the agenda.

We'll take items, public comment on items that aren't listed on tonight's agenda.

So if you'd like to speak on item 8a, which is regarding the proposed anti-camping ordinance or item 10a, the discussion on Senate Bill 63, public comment will be taken on those items when called.

And so I'll now turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time, we have three in-person speakers.

So last call to the audience for any public comment on the consent calendar or items not on the agenda this evening.

Okay, seeing none, we'll move forward with the three in-person speakers, and we also have three written comments as well.

I'll call speakers two at a time.

You'll have two minutes to speak.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

There is a timer on the top of the podium.

It's a series of three lights.

Orange blinking light is your 30-second warning.

The red light with the beat means your time is up.

We'll start with Kent Manske, who will be followed by Warren Dale.

Greetings, Council members.

I'm Kent Manske from the Center for Creativity.

As you know, we opened our doors in the historic Hotel Sequoia on March 3rd.

Here's a quick update.

In our first two months, we welcomed 1,400 people to our temporary community-focused art space.

We introduced five new gallery spaces to San Mateo County District 4, and it exhibited work by 10 Redwood City artists, with artist talks taking place at our closing receptions.

We launched three community projects, including a sewing circle, a weaving project, and a summer youth mural project.

We held hands-on art making events, including painting, embroidery, printmaking, stenciling, and weaving.

We held performance events, including live music, poetry, ceremonial food, storytelling, and puppetry.

All but one of these events were free to the public.

Eleven people walked off the street to play the piano in the rotunda.

Imagine that.

Here in our third month of operation, we opened brand new exhibitions.

Looking ahead, in August, we launch our Art and Sound on Broadway monthly events.

In September, we open The Art of the Community, a juried exhibition of Redwood City artists.

In conclusion, the public has spoken with their engagement.

They have communicated they desire to connect with others through art.

We are excited about our plans for a future permanent art center in San Mateo County, and many hope it will be here in Redwood City in District 4.

I wish to acknowledge support for the Redwood City Arts Commission and the incredible volunteers who for 11 years have driven this initiative and opened the doors.

As we remind everyone, this is your community-focused arts space.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kent.

Our next speaker is Warren Dale, who will be followed by Toby Lewitt.

Council members.

First of all, I'd like to say to the city manager, Ms.

Stevenson Diaz, thank you for your leadership and your partnership with our city.

Now, as a member of a bicycling group called Senior Spokes, with our members ranging in age from 70 to 92, I'm here to make a hopefully small but uh impactful request.

Our group frequently rides from the port of Redwood City down Seaport Boulevard past Chesapeake Drive, past the boat ramp, to behind the Aralaga Stanford Boathouse, where we enter the wonderful bike and walking trail along the levee.

See uh photo number one.

I pass that uh we have letters for each of you as well as the three photos.

At any rate, you can see that there's accessibility there.

We travel the full route of the trail, and at the end, uh at 301, and I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this, Penobscot Drive, where we try to exit.

There is no off-ramp.

So there's a little trail, but there we have to dismount from our bikes, get over the curb, and then remount.

Um, so that's photo number two.

There's also photo number three, which shows that there are several trails that come off of the trail, but again, they stop with the curb.

So there's no accessibility.

So people who are on bikes, people who are on uh using walkers, people who are in wheelchairs cannot access or leave those that particular trail.

So what I'm asking is is to have some kind of an accessibility cut both at the end and somewhere in the middle so that people can make better use of that wonderful trail with such great vision along the waterway there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Toby Lewitt.

Good evening.

My name is Toby Levitt, and I'm the executive director of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

I'm here to invite you to the show.

Free Shakespeare in the Park begins performances in Red Morton Park in just three weeks.

We will perform at 6 p.m.

on Saturdays and Sundays from August 9th through August 24th.

The play this year is The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare.

It's meant supposed to be his first work, and it starts uh as a fun comedy that follows two friends as they journey from home to a faraway land.

There, these two gentlemen meet two ladies, and well, you'll just have to come to find out.

Uh, this would not be possible without your leadership.

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to this council for your support and advocacy.

I would also like to thank the parks, recreation and community services department from the gardeners to the department director and leadership.

They're a terrific team, and my terrific team could not do it without them.

Uh, you can help by spreading the word.

There's a downloadable flyer on SF Shakes' website, sffshakes.org, and an event you can share on Facebook and Eventbrite.

Thank you so much.

I look forward to seeing you in the park.

Thank you, Toby.

We'll now move on to our three written public comments.

First one is from Russ Moller.

I'm a longtime resident of Redwood City, living on Union Avenue.

I'm writing to bring urgent attention to a persistent, deeply disruptive noise issue that has remained unresolved for over six months, despite repeated efforts to seek help through all proper channels.

Beginning in 2024, my family and I began hearing loud, explosive-like sounds coming from the nearby apartment complex, 926 Woodside Road.

These noises occur unpredictably at all hours, including two, three, and four in the morning, disturbing our sleep, creating anxiety in our home, and negatively impacting our quality of life and of our neighbors as well.

The sound is intense enough to startle us awake and has been described by neighbors as similar to a blast or a violent mechanical slam.

One neighbor even reported seeing a burst of steam shortly after one of these sounds, suggesting a potential safety concern related to steam pressure or malfunctioning mechanical systems.

We were told by the building supervisor that the noise is related to a trash chute.

However, this explanation doesn't align with the severity or timing of the disturbances.

It seems highly unlikely that residents are throwing trash down the chute with enough force to cause these types of noises in the middle of the night on a regular basis.

And even if so, this would point to a structural or mechanical flaw in the building system that needs correction.

The building has caught fire in the past, and I believe lives were lost.

Over the past several months, I and other neighbors have contacted Johnny Guzman of Redwood City Code Enforcement, the mayor's office, Redwood City Police Department, Redwood City Fire Department, the Building Manager and Ownership.

Despite these efforts, the issue continues.

And we still have no clear explanation or meaningful resolution.

We have also documented the noise with time-stamped audio and video clips that show the consistency and disruptive nature of the sound.

We're appealing to you as city leaders to help find help us finally resolve this matter.

Next comment is from Krista Hinton.

I am a neighbor who is also affected by this maddening sound.

My husband and I are seriously considering moving because of the helplessness we feel and the extent to which this nuisance is affecting our quality of life.

Like Russ, we've contacted this same list of people to no avail.

It is on average reading 80 decibels when we hear this sound.

We're at a considerable distance from the source source, probably at least 200 feet.

This one is taken during the day, but the same noise happens at the same levels during all hours of the night, as Russ said.

For instance, last night I heard it at multiple times around 11 p.m., once at 1 a.m.

and twice very, very loud at about 5 a.m.

I'm trying to put my baby to sleep right now, and I've heard it twice from the other side of the house.

It's 1020 p.m.

Also, I would like to just say that while it seems very likely that the noise is coming from 926 Woodside, there are other apartment buildings in the same block, and it very well could be from another one.

I've wondered if it could be the one that is new construction, 910 Woodside, because the first time we heard this sound back when back then it was quite infrequent and not a significant problem, coincided more or less with when those units were complete and becoming occupied.

Next comment is from Gita Dev.

This is Gita Dev of the Sierra Club Local Chapter.

BCDC's regional shoreline adaptation plan guidelines are now required to be the guiding principles for sea level rise adaptation, including using natural bay assets to help keep the bay ecosystems alive.

This is an introduction to bay ecosystems that require nature-based solutions to stay alive.

Thank you.

And we'll play a short video provided by Gita.

Lucky to live near the natural wonder of San Francisco Bay.

In fact, we all depend upon a living bay whose shallow water habitats like wetlands provide many invaluable services that we often don't see.

They support a multi-million dollar fishing industry by serving as a nursery for fish.

They clean our water and our air.

But here's the problem.

By the end of this century, we will experience three to six feet of sea level rise, drowning much of our shallow water habitats, changing the entire character of our bay.

If we don't act now, we risk to have a bay surrounded by seawalls without the natural shoreline and services that we depend on.

A new state law, SB 272, requires all shoreline communities to adopt sea level rise plans by 2034 that comply with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission's BCDC's new regional shoreline adaptation plan guidelines.

Plans that follow these guidelines can reduce risks to our communities, ensure equity for vulnerable communities, preserve our shallow water habitats, and address shoreline contamination.

This is your moment to step up and create a sustainable and just seek.

Items on the consent calendar are routine in nature and are approved in one motion.

Are there any items on consent from which council members are recused?

Mr.

Mayor, I'm going to reacuse myself from item six e the art commission grants.

I am on the governing board of Casa Security, one of the award recipients.

So I will be recusing myself from that item.

Great.

Thank you.

Are there any other recusals for consent?

Not seeing any, is there a motion?

So moved.

Perfect.

Motion from Councilmember Howard.

Second.

And a second from Vice Mayor Aiken.

Could we get a uh roll call vote, please?

Thank you.

Certainly.

We'll start with Council Member Chu.

Council Member G.

Yes, except for item six E.

Thank you.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry, I might have missed that, but um, can you what was the motion?

Was it motion for the entire consent calendar or the consent calendar minus the recused item?

I I I thought I heard, but I'd like to clear it up.

Uh all items accept.

I'm guessing that what we should do is all items except except item six E, and then vote on six E.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for clarifying.

And is there a second motion for item six E.

So moved.

Great and seconds.

I second that we vote on item six E.

Perfect.

And that was a motion from Councilmember Howard, and second from Vice Mayor Aiken.

And could we get another roll call vote, please?

We'll start with Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes, Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember G recused.

Great.

Thank you, everybody.

And typically I would read each consent calendar item that was just approved.

However, in an effort to just streamline our city council meetings, we are going to move away from that practice.

If you'd like to review the full list of consent calendar items, please pick up a copy of the agenda there available in the back of the room.

But that's the full list there.

So we're saving quite a bit of time.

We almost got to Z this week.

And with that, we will go on to item seven.

We don't have any public hearings this evening, so we'll move on to item eight staff reports, beginning with consideration of an anti-camping ordinance to regulate camping on public property.

So we do have Spanish interpretation available for this item.

Instructions to hear the meeting in Spanish are listed on our screen, and our interpreter will also make a announcement as well.

Thank you, Gonzalo, and City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz will now introduce tonight's item and assistant city manager Patrick Heisinger will give the presentation.

And we also have two special guests.

We have County Manager, excuse me, County Executive Mike Calaghi and Assistant County Executive Eliana Rodriguez, who have also joined us here to answer any questions if needed.

So thank you again for being here.

Great.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

And I will be kicking off the presentation this evening.

I wanted to provide just a few uh couple minutes about context for the item that's before you this evening.

As as you know, but perhaps not all in the community know, the city has been working on issues of housing instability and homelessness for quite a few years.

And we have always heard, I would say, in the last 10 years, when we have asked residents for their top concerns about the community issues around housing and homelessness have consistently been top of mind for residents and have been top of mind for the council, has been part of your top strategic priorities for nearly a decade.

Seven years ago, I formed an interdepartmental team among city departments that were all working in different ways to address homelessness and to try to find better paths forward.

You as city council and your predecessors on city council have been actively engaged throughout this time, challenging us as staff to make sure that we were researching and implementing the very best possible approaches to help us end homelessness and support our community.

Throughout this time, there's always been an intention to strike the best possible balance in the challenging values that are at play in these issues.

On the one hand, you have urged us to be people-centered and to be focused first on those who are experiencing homelessness and aware of their needs and their liberties, and at the same time to address community impacts, health and safety impacts that can be associated with homelessness.

During this time we worked very closely with the County of San Mateo as well as service providers, and over time have found our approaches have been very effective and have enabled us to attract significant outside funding to help us tackle this with ways to significantly reduce homelessness in Redwood City.

At this time, though, after several years of learning and implementing new approaches with your support, it does appear that our service first approach has some limits, and that we do have a portion of our population who are not willing to accept services.

So I appreciate that unprecedented level of support.

With that, I'd love to turn it over now to our assistant city manager, Patrick Heisinger.

Great.

Thank you, Melissa.

Uh Patrick Heisinger, Assistant City Manager.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council.

I'll have a few uh opening remarks as well before we dive into this.

Um I did want to thank staff.

There are most department heads are here tonight and have been actively engaged in supporting members of the Unhouse for many, many years.

So appreciate that.

I also want to acknowledge Liz Lang, our management analyst who's been doing a lot of uh data behind the scenes and really helping facilitate this entire process.

And finally, I want to thank the community.

You know, we did a lot of outreach and um we'll have a slide on outreach, but um it was just really great to engage with the community and never once did did things get contentious, maybe spirited, but but not contentious and always respectful and and really really always appreciate that.

So welcome members of the community um that are here tonight.

So I will jump in.

Um overview.

I'm gonna provide a little bit of background.

Well, first we'll do the the questions of council and then uh do some background uh really it's a lot of data, kind of how we got here.

Um it'll it'll talk about uh efforts at the federal level, the state level, the county level, and then locally on all things homelessness.

Um then we'll talk about we'll do examples of what other jurisdictions are doing for other anti-camping ordinances, and then we'll get into the recommendation and the proposed, sorry, the proposed ordinance and then the recommended action.

So just a couple of questions to frame um the discussion for council.

Number one, does the city council have any questions about the city's current efforts to address homelessness?

Two, does the city council have any questions about the potential elements that could be included in an anti-camping ordinance?

And finally, does the city council have any questions about the county's anti-camping ordinance?

Great.

So jumping in, like I said, um, this will be a a denser presentation than we typically do, but I'll try to go through it.

Um I will not rush, but I'll try to I'll try to be somewhat quick.

Um I would like to point folks to there's a very, I think it's 18 or 19-page staff report with seven or eight really beefy attachments in there.

So in some of the slides really tried to pull out kind of the highlights of of those attachments.

So what the the next two slides really show is really from 2018 to 2024 and the city's efforts and commitments or successes during those times.

There were the city of Redwood City did uh support homeless programs prior to 2018, but as a city manager I'd mentioned it was really around 2018 when um not just Redwood City, but many cities were really seeing an influx.

And so um the key things to focus on this timeline over the next two, the next two slides are really the number of encampment cleanups and the calls for services, but then how the city's way in engaging and working in homelessness changes.

So it looks in the beginning, you know, 2018, you know, the HIIT group is formed and there's 10 encampment cleanups.

2019, you could see 18 cleanups, it really starts to ratchet up, then hire a full-time position.

Uh, but when you start to get to 2020 is when you really see things really start to really get going.

The RV safe parking program was approved.

The city started getting involved into rental assistance programs.

It's pretty rare for a city of our size.

Um, you can see again the encampment cleanups really started to move up as well as the calls for services moved up.

In 2021, you see some um big accomplishments in partnership with the county as well.

The Pacific Emergency Shelter opened, um Shores Landing opened, but as well the calls for service continue to increase.

In 2022, you can see the city starts going after and starts being successful at receiving uh various pots of state funding to increase to uh increase the supply of I would say to help uh the homeless population.

2023, Casa Esperanza opens, the navigation center opens.

Um you can see that the city directly housed 152 households via subsidy.

Again, pretty rare for a city to actually be doing the intake, the income qualification, working with property owners to to house folks.

So very uh good work by the team there.

Um in 2024, again, the city was still actively engaged in rental subsidy programs.

The encampments continue to move up, the calls for service continue to move up.

Finally, we're only halfway through 2025, but you can see the city's still at it.

The mayor established the ad hoc on homelessness.

Um we did officially move the homeless the city's homelessness function into the city manager's office.

And to date, uh, done 26 cleanups, and we've had about 1,200 calls for services.

What this slide is trying to do is really trying to distill all the data into one into one place.

So, to date, um, we estimate the city spent about 16 million dollars on homelessness since 2018.

Now I will say when you look at the calls for services, whether it's police, fire, or public works, it is tough to tease out the costs.

Anytime you have approximately 20,000 calls for service, one could assume it's probably more than 16 million, but we really just want to focus on the data that we have readily available.

To date, 316 encampment cleanups.

The 460 units created is probably what we are most proud of.

Again, very dependent on county support, but 460 units created solely for members of the unhoused.

That's not all the other affordable housing developments that the city's been working on.

That is clearly places where members of the unhoused population can move into, and you'll you'll see how some of the successes to date are clearly tied to that figure there.

I mentioned just over 19,000 calls for services.

Um helped 233 households with subsidies, and then uh finally on the cleanup side, we've done 10,695 cubic yards of debris cleared.

And um, for anybody who's who's interested, it's about let me see.

It's we tried to kind of I didn't know what a cubic yard was.

Obviously, I I had heard about it, but um it's about let me see if I have my note here.

It's about 1,100 full garbage trucks that we've cleared over you know six years.

So trying to get a different way to picture that.

But despite those, despite those successes, there are still issues that folks see every day.

So I'm gonna go through a series of photos here.

These photos are um photo, you know, images that folks see.

A lot of them might be in areas you might not um visit a lot in Redwood City, but as you can see, there are still sidewalks, some sidewalks covered up.

So we have some ADA considerations.

Um, this is the recent encampment that was under the Jefferson Bridge.

Um we still get many calls about folks uh living in RVs or vans, and then folks that are that are living in those areas, but also encamping on an adjacent sidewalk, other very similar images.

Um this photo was taken from a recent fire we had under highway 101 that you know shut down part of the 91 communication uh system for several hours.

Um so in there are utilities, a fire got in there and um burnt.

I don't know if it was the cables or whatnot.

Um, but a very uh a very uh scary situation there.

And then, as folks, as I've probably seen, we've had several fires along highway 101.

So this isn't isn't a surprise to anybody.

Just really trying to show that despite the successes, there are still you know, real day issues that we are wrestling with.

Um, here's another fire that was uh right behind the sports basement.

So now looking kind of more San Mateo as a whole, here's here's some data to help kind of establish some context here.

As of June uh last month, there's a about 1,900 folks in in San Mateo County that are homeless.

And then the two slides right there are sorry, the green and the blue break it down by 948 of those are currently sheltered, 938 are unsheltered, so roughly about 50 percent.

When you look at the unsheltered population, 544 of those folks are actively receiving outreach and engagement services.

That's great.

So that's the county hot teams out there.

Folks are open, they're you know, they're it takes a while to build rapport with them, but over time the county is slowly, you know, kind of building rapport and then eventually hopefully um we'll lead them into housing.

159 of those are receiving intensive case management.

So that's that's really like the gold standard right before moving in.

Our folks are actively engaged and they're very close to hopefully accepting um housing.

And you have about 25% of the unhoused that are refusing services altogether.

Um, one thing I want to note before we move forward is the county for the most part has been offering housing to members of the unhoused population for years now, you know, at least the full year.

Um, and so I don't want to say the county's at functional zero.

I'll definitely let the the county rehab speak on that.

But there are folks right now in that 25% number that are actively refusing to take housing.

Now, they might say, Well, that housing is not ideal for me, right?

Maybe they don't allow pets.

So there is that whole discussion there, but just want to kind of set some framework.

So you could focus on the 25%, which might be negative, but 75% are actively engaged, and that's great.

That's way above the national average.

So again, we really appreciate the the county's work in that area.

Now, kind of drilling down a little bit closer here in Redwood City.

This slide shows the numbers from 2019 to current.

So as you can see back in 2019, the number was 221.

Then it spiked up to 245 in 2022, and has slowly started to come down since to the current number of 141 unhoused individuals in Redwood City today.

Again, a big testament to the county's work, the city's work, but really to create those housing opportunities to be able to place folks is probably you know the number one factor there.

Nobody, nobody that we've interfaced with during the outreach process has disagreed that permanent supportive housing is really the gold standard of getting folks into housing, but producing those other types of housing, whether it's a navigation center or some of the Casa Sbronza has really helped here in Redwood City.

Now looking at some key demographics of those folks currently unhoused in Redwood City.

Um about 83% are male, about 80% have a disability.

About 70% would identify as Hispanic, uh, 55%, 45 uh years or older, 35% would uh have a serious mental illness, and then about 23% have some type of substance use disorder.

When you look at the data between encampments or RVs, it's about two-thirds of the population here in Redwood City reside in encampment or then about a third in vehicles.

And that number is held held true over the last couple years as well.

So it's about that one-third to two-thirds.

Now, looking at encampments, uh, I'll have a two slides after this that'll show some of the encampments.

Um this month, um, this deviates a teeny bit from the staff report.

Apologies, we got some updated data.

Uh, but this month, there's 29 total encampments in Redwood City.

The yellow is on city property, this will make more sense when you see the map.

Nine on Caltrans property, and then the purple or six is private property.

Currently, using current city customs, it takes about 90 days to clear each encampment.

Um, so 90 days of constantly going out there and and going through the city's process.

And the average population of encampments, three people.

I think a lot of people think that the most encampments are really large.

Most of them are very small, so they average about three people.

We have had some larger ones uh cleared over over the years, but for the most part, it's usually one, two or three, maybe four folks.

Sometimes people will think there's a big encampment, but technically speaking, there might be multiple encampments in an area.

Um, just the way that um the numbers are tracked.

So right here, uh going back to the the legend that I talked about, the yellow are the the city encampments, and then the blue are Caltrans and the purple are the um what the ones that are on private property.

Many times an encampment might look like it's on private property, but might be on public property, it all depends on what you know what you know who owns what and whatnot.

But um I had mentioned that there's 29 currently.

That's actually a spike.

It's a lot higher than mostly it usually averages about 20, but this last month and the current numbers it did shoot up to two nine more.

You could see heavily along the 101 corridor, Seaport Volt uh Boulevard, and then on the next slide here, you know, 84, pretty much the predominant place that we've been having encampments over the last six years.

So how'd we get here?

Um there's definitely been some key cases or directives uh dating back to 2018-2019.

Um, but starting with the Martin versus Boise case in 2019, that really made it real difficult for cities to enforce anti-camping uh bans.

Um anti-camping ordinances are not new, but Martin and Martin v.

Boise really brought it out and and made cities have to go through a really long process to make sure to give cities the authority to clear encampments.

So I worked for a different jurisdiction at that time, and in many jurisdictions at that time, basically what everybody said is like let's pause and time out and figure this out.

There wasn't really a lot of um active uh encampment engagement at that time.

Everybody was trying to figure out how the law was gonna was gonna settle.

Um, and then when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there was clear guidance from the CDC of not to sweep encampments.

Reason being is they were really worried about putting folks from encampment that might be uh that might have COVID and moving them to a facility, then the entire facility.

So again, folks were really hands-off.

There was a lot of employees that were not in the office.

And so you could see how the numbers really spiked, not just at Redwood City, but I would say statewide, the numbers really spiked over those over those times.

Fast forward to 2024, the grants passed versus Johnson case.

That's what abrogated the Martin v.

Boise, and abrogated is a very uh good legal technical word, uh, but it's a beautiful word because it is uh more accurate than overturned.

But if overturned is it's a little bit more helpful for me, but the grants pass case really did overturn the Boise case, which did allow jurisdictions to uh effectively engage with encampment cleanups a little bit more on a straightforward um basis.

Essentially, you can clean encampments even if housing is not available.

So, what's been going on at the state and county efforts?

Well, in January of 2024, the county passed the Hopeful Horizon ordinance.

That was actually before the grants pass decision.

Um in July of 2024, uh Governor Newsom issued an executive order to every state department that has encampments on their property to start developing a plan to figure out how to mitigate those encampments.

In October of 2024, the state did something they rarely do, where they actually put some money behind uh policy that they're very interested in.

They allocated a billion dollars for uh jurisdiction cities to go after to help with encampment cleanups.

Now it is centered around assisting the the member of the unhoused population, uh so you could do rental subsidies, you could do um, you know, some funding for cleanup.

There's definitely also an overlap where if you were willing to help clear encampments on state property, you got some extra points.

You know, really what the state or I should say the governor was trying to do is is try to be a a better partner in some of these.

It used to be very difficult to get the state to engage.

I would say the relationship is much better now.

So we appreciate that.

In uh February 2025, Senate Bill 569 was introduced.

This is legislation specific to CalGrans.

Uh Caltrans has the most encampments in the state of California of any other public of any single public agency.

Um, and so you can see here it's about 50% here in Redwood City, where 50% are in Redwood City jurisdiction land, and then 50% are on usually on Caltrans.

So it's around 101 and 84.

Um, as you can see, we did just put an asterisk there from last week.

We did learn that despite going through two committees and having bipartisan support, that bill has now been placed on the on the two-year cycle bill.

So we're not sure on if that will be obviously it won't be taken up for this year, but it's now gonna go to a two-year process.

And then in May, the governor did issue did put out what we're referring to as a model ordinance.

Really, it's policy directive that says if your jurisdiction is looking to uh create an anti-uh camping ordinance.

Here are some elements you should think about.

So you should make it available, you know, should require housing, should store belongings.

So again, the the governor's office is really signaling from that office that they are looking to help with these um with these uh plans at a local level.

Obviously, the governor's office can't have land use authority over the city and how it's like implemented, but it's more guidance, and you'll see that again as we as we compare other policies.

Um, and then just another plug to the to the county.

Just last fiscal year, the county allocated 60 million dollars towards um assisting members of the unhoused population.

Similar to what I talked about the city's costs and talking about the county, those costs are probably more than 60 million, but that's what was approved in the budget, and we just want to keep a real transparent number there.

I will say, and there's a really good attachment in the staff report that lists all the programs that the county funds, the county did just issue a NOFA for 40 million dollars more in capital for new affordable housing developments.

Last year was 20 million, so I don't think they'll always go up, you know, 100% each year, but we again we appreciate going from 20 million to 40 million.

So that's another huge investment, and hopefully that will fund other developments here in Redwood City.

Now, getting down to Redwood City specifics.

So the mayor established the ad hoc on homelessness in uh January of this year.

And the the group was put together to help to evaluate whether the city should consider establishing an anti-camping ordinance.

And as the city manager had mentioned, they there's been a lot of time commitment uh for the ad hoc.

So we met on six separate occasions.

What this slide goes to is really the first meeting.

And one thing I appreciate about our council here in Redwood City is they always ask staff, what do you think?

Um and so the first meetings, you know, staff said if an ordinance is gonna be considered.

Here's our here's our thoughts is one, we do think it should be linked to the availability of shelter.

Um we do think it should have robust noticing and outreach procedures, um, has a way to protect sensitive people and sites that really gets into, you know, folks who have who might be more burdened by fires that have come up, but some way of trying to protect those um those sites somewhat.

Um, and one thing we really appreciate about the county's program is they do have access to a diversion program.

Um, we're not sure if other cities or other counties out there have a diversion program, but the county has stood by this.

It says anybody who might be cited or um or cited or goes through this process, there is a diversion program where they could clear their record or whatnot.

So we thought from an empathetic view, staff said, hey, it can't ad hoc.

We think that's a a good element.

Um we do think it makes sense to align with other public agencies.

So like I talked about Caltrans earlier.

Um there are other cities in San Mateo Counter County boarding uh on the border of Redwood City that are also looking at the county.

And then finally, uh we think there's big benefits to partnering with the county because it increases efficiency.

The county right now already funds a lot on outreach.

The county has access to many of the units.

Um, so rather than us reinventing the wheel and trying to do our own outreach and trying to put folks into units, we think it makes a whole lot of sense to if an ordinance were approved to definitely partner with the county.

So let's get into some of those other examples.

So right now, I think if you watch the news or whatnot, you're hearing a lot of cities are uh approving many different things.

So what we did is we tried to pull out some of the more the more local um options close to Redwood City, and then also some other jurisdictions that have maybe some more unique options, really, to kind of show the gamut of what's out there.

Um I'll start with Millbury and Fremont.

Both of those ordinances do not require that housing be available.

I should say, in talking with especially Fremont, um, they do have a custom where they do offer housing, but legally they are not obligated to require um housing, and they can remove encampments at any time.

Millbrae's ordinance actually extends extends a little bit more past anti-camping and actually gets into loitering as well.

Um so that's a key difference that we didn't see in many other um programs.

San Diego's is very similar, I would say, to the county of San Mateo, however, they have a lot of sensitive areas.

Um, so uh different rules around schools, parks, around public transportation, uh, and really what that does is it really makes a um it really makes it where there's very few places that members of the unhoused population can go.

Um Senate Bill 569, that's the one specific to Caltrans that is now a two-year bill.

Um really all that was was slated to do was to provide Caltrans with um uh with direction that they really just need to identify folks that local jurisdictions can interface with and partner with.

It wasn't anything the policies wasn't anything more than that.

Um, and I would say Caltrans has done that.

We are working really close with them.

Um I'm not sure if it's like that outside of the Bay Area region or not.

Um, there's been a lot of talk about San Jose's ordinance.

San Jose's ordinance is a little bit different.

It's it's a series of ordinances that that was updated mostly on their anti-trans uh trespassing law.

Um, there is policy direction on that, has not been approved yet.

It's mine understanding they'll take it up next month.

Um, but housing is required, but if you if you refuse housing three times, then you could be arrested.

And then the governor's model um definitely requires housing be required, noticing period of 48 hours.

So under the governor, it would be two days uh when folks would have to either accept housing or clear out.

And it does have a lot of language about these policies, really need to be crafted.

What works for uh local cities, and what I mean by that is you may want the governor did say you may want to look at sensitive areas differently as it pertains to to your own city.

Now diving a little bit more uh deeper into the county's ordinance of Hopeful Horizon.

So the the key element for us is housing required.

Yes, absolutely.

Um, how does the process work?

Uh so really at hour zero, as we call it, that's when the county would make the first offer of shelter, as well as the first warning to you know move on, basically saying accept the housing please, or you might have to move on.

At the 24 hour mark is when the second offer of housing comes, and then the second warning.

Um if applicable, the hour 48, the citation can be given, um, and then an hour 72, the hour the uh encampment can be cleared.

It does have an exigent circumstances clause, and what uh exigent circumstances clause means is there is language in the county ordinance that says right now it's it's about a 72 hour program.

However, if there's an encampment near a utility or in a fire prone area, they can clean they can clear it immediately.

We have similar policies and procedures currently, it's not as uh direct as that, but this would be if if somebody saw an open flame in a fire prone area in September or you know, or October, it would be like notice is not required, we're gonna move in and remove it immediately.

Um the county is willing to store personal property for up to 90 days, um, and there are penalties, and what those penalties are um is a maximum financial penalty of $500 or up to six months in jail.

Um, and then the final um element to the county's program is there is access to a uh diversion program.

I will say, as I mentioned before, as the program was approved in January 2024.

The county has done uh many cleanups countywide, and to date there hasn't been one citation issued, there hasn't been one arrest.

Um, and again, we could let the the county rep representatives speak on that.

So again, I think the county's intent is to work with folks as much as as much as they can.

What we're trying to do here is kind of show a range of how the county, how the cities compare when you look at two key criteria.

One, whether or not they offer housing, and then two, what are those penalties if um if individuals don't comply?

Um you could see Fremont and Milbrae are are off to the left somewhat because housing is not required.

And then San Mateo, the governor's proposal, San Diego, San Jose, off to the right, just went by alphabetical order, but essentially trying to visually show that we do think, you know, from a values perspective that you should offer housing before you do um enforcement.

And then when it comes to penalties for non-compliance, Fremont, Millbrae, San Diego, San Jose all have roughly about the same, which is a maximum fine of a thousand dollars and up to six months in jail.

Uh the county of San Mateo to the right, a little bit different, up to 500 and a maximum of six months in jail.

So just going into outreach to date, we've done six different outreach meetings.

Uh, the first four were before we had received direction from the ad hoc, which I'll get into, I think in the next slide.

Um, but like I like I mentioned, my open remarks, um, very humbling experiences.

This is a tough topic, you know, and um it was a heavy topic for some some of the folks that came into some of those rooms and we appreciate it.

Um so to date, 175 people have participated um in the process, and again, just really appreciate it.

Um the first four were done in April when a lot of the presentation I've done tonight was was in that presentation, and then uh July 1st and 2nd is when there was actually uh recommendation to show to the community.

So, what are some of the elements we heard during the engagement process?

A lot of empathy.

Um, even when we met just with with the businesses, um, the businesses really started.

Hey, we really want to help the people.

Um, and before they talked about how they had been impacted by homelessness again, it was we really want to help.

What can we do?

Um, we're happy to have a great partner like the county.

Um, on the other hand, there was definitely strong support for some level of enforcement.

Um, even when we met with um members of um that are either unhoused currently or formerly unhoused.

Um, we're saying, yeah, you know, we think that could help help a program.

We could talk about some of that more as we move forward.

Um, everybody agrees more housing is good.

Um, so folks were saying, let's not lose sight of the fact that we need to continue to build, put pressure on other cities to keep building and whatnot.

Um definitely questions about what is a real what is the relationship between the city and county look like, who does what?

Um, very valid question.

Um, then a list of some of the the stronger concerns I would say is a lot of concerns about criminalizing homelessness.

Um, how does it work to store property?

Can people find their property?

Um, what if they're not there when the encampment's cleaned up?

Very good question.

Um, a lot of folks were concerned about what does it mean to force people into shelter?

Um, and then finally, we've heard a lot about the fire and safety issues, especially from the Bear Island neighborhood.

I would say I think folks from Bear Island were at every single outreach meeting.

I know several here tonight.

Again, appreciate um the support.

So getting into the ad hoc recommendation.

So the ad hoc by way of a two-on vote, um, did recommend that the city move forward with adopting the county ordinance with a sensity with a sensitive area provision for schools.

And what that means is um if there's an encampment within 200 feet of a school, that encampment could be cleared in two days, not the three days.

Um, that's where the 48 hour notice is there.

Um, the ad hoc also said they wanted to reduce the maximum financial penalty in the county ordinance from $500 to 100.

Um, and then um towards the the bottom one there.

Sorry, the flag is blocking me a little bit, but also then said, hey, whatever happens if it gets approved, we definitely want the city council to review this.

So um return to the city council within two years of adoption with a comprehensive review of the implementation and outcomes associated with the ordinance.

Almost there, almost there, getting there.

Thanks for holding on.

Um so that was what was presented at the meetings on July 1st and 2nd.

For those who attended the meetings on July 1st and 2nd, we had uh I think seven total polling questions.

Um the last two questions are shown here on this slide.

All the questions are in the staff report um in one of the attachments.

But uh 90% of those who attended did support the city adopting some form of an anti-camping ordinance, and then 83% of meeting attendees supported the city adopting the ordinance that I just went through that the ad hoc had recommended.

So just wrapping up here, so what does it look like?

What is the relationship with the county look like if approved?

Um, and so this is really to help clarify roles a little bit.

Um it would be the city who prioritizes which sites are cleaned up.

Um what the county does, and they have two primary uh duties, and it they look somewhat innocuous, but to me they're everything.

Uh, the first one is is the county reserves the housing for those in an encampment before the cleanup happens.

So if the city identifies an encampment, then we then we contact the county, we say there's a campment, they look through their whole network.

Yes, we got the beds, yes, we got the rooms, great.

Then we can move forward with the process.

That is huge.

To have the access to those units puts Redwood City at a competitive advantage of any other um city who have yet to adopt the ordinance, but just having access to those units is so so important.

And then the county will facilitate the the noticing process, it's really the offering of the housing and the noticing uh process.

The city, we would be responsible for the cleanup of the encampment.

Um, as far as our police department, um, there'd be more of a support role.

So they would be at each of the the cleanups or the interactions, but more of a silent partner, and uh the Redwood City PD would not engage only if they had to um if the circumstances uh called for it.

So now we're just revisiting the two illustrations we showed earlier.

Is if what I just said were approved, where does Redwood City fit in what you know compared to the other jurisdictions on whether or not housing is being offered or um penalties for non-compliance?

Again, the top one, whether you offer housing or not, it's it's really pass-fail, so we're in there and it's alphabetical order.

Um, but as you can see on the lower penalties, just slightly to the right of San Mateo, who would have a maximum penalty of 500.

Um, and the city of Redwood City will have a maximum of 100, still with the caveat of up to six months in jail if there was a misdemeanor.

I believe this is my final slide.

Um, this is a reminder of the council.

So back in the on June 9th, we had a study session.

Um, at the end of the study session, the mayor brought up uh the idea and several other city council members, individual council members, I think agreed with with an approach, but was interested at looking at proposition one funding and what what we could bring into the the community.

Uh, for those who don't know, Prop 1 is a is a large statewide bond on the 20 bond uh primarily for uh housing members of the unhoused uh population.

Um, and then when the budget was approved, we did insert a goal into the budget document, and I'll just read it here just to get on on the record uh to further the city council's housing priority by evaluating opportunities to apply for Prop One funding for permanent supportive housing in Redwood City.

Um, immediately we started uh connecting with the county to see what their goals for Prop One were.

Most Prop One funding applications do come from counties because they have the services to offer with the housing.

Um so the county is currently vetting several options, and and those are really good conversation.

As noted in the staff report, we'll provide the city council with an update as soon as we know more.

So with that, um, I will just uh hit some highlights on the recommended action.

Um, but the city council ad hoc committee on homelessness, by way of a two-one vote, recommends that the city council take the follow-in action.

One, waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance, adding chapter 49 to the Muni Code and anti-camping ordinance modeled after the county of San Mateo's ordinance, with an added provision authorizing the city to remove an encampment within 48 hours notice if it is located within 200 feet of a school, and further directing staff to return to the city council within two years of adoption of the ordinance with a comprehensive review of its implementation outcomes since adoption, and direct staff to return to the city council with a proposed memorandum of understanding with the county of San Mateo that would memorialize the roles and responsibilities of both parties on enforcement of the ordinance.

And then the final slide is just the questions for council, which I won't go over again.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to the mayor.

Thank you.

Patrick, thank you for all this information and the great presentation.

That was lots of data to collect and lots of work leading up to all of this.

So thank you for your leadership.

Okay, with that, we will now excuse me take public comment on this item, and I'll turn it over to our city clerk to help facilitate.

Thank you, Mayor.

I do want to let you know that we have 21 speaker cards at the moment, and I'll do a last call to the audience for any public comment on item 8a this evening.

Consideration of the anti-camping ordinance.

Once we start calling speakers, we'll close the speaker list.

So last call.

Okay, thank you.

And we do have 31 written comments, Mayor.

How would you like to proceed?

Let's it's a full agenda, and I think a lot of those comments came in in advance of the meeting.

So why don't we prioritize the in-person speakers and if we can send out the complete list of the written comments at council?

I think that'd be good to have.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay, and before we start public comment, if I may just for the record, identify that all 31 written public comments will be made part of the official record.

Absolutely.

And that per the agenda, the city, the mayor has the discretion not to read out all of the written comments when there are so many public comments.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll call two speakers at a time.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

There's a timer on the podium.

30-second warning is the orange blinking light, red light with the beep means your time is up.

We'll start with Tony Crapo, who will be followed by Kathy Miller.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name's Tony Crapo.

I'm here tonight on behalf of the Bear Island residents to speak about the urgent and ongoing fire danger we face.

We live on a literal island with only one way in and out, East Bayshore Road.

In the past three and a half years, there have been 13 fires caused by homeless encampments in the small stretch between the Whipple Avenue on ramp and the Docktown Marina.

Each of these fires occurred within a few hundred feet, less than a football field from our homes.

Four of those fires happened within the last two months.

No other neighborhood in Redwood City lives with this level of repeated fire risk.

Given our extremely limited evacuation routes and the frequency of these fires, this is not just a nuisance, it's a public safety emergency.

Under the proposed ordinance, the situation on Bear Island clearly qualifies as an exigent circumstance, and enforcement should already be possible.

But this is not a one-time emergency.

That's why I'm urging you to take the next step to designate this section of Bear Island as a sensitive area, just like you're doing for schools, so the encampments can be cleared within 48 hours before another fire breaks out.

As the elected body responsible for protecting the health and the safety of residents, the council has both a moral and a fiduciary duty to act, especially when the risk is preventable and well documented.

The danger truck community is real, it's growing, and it's unique to our part of the city.

Please don't wait for another tragedy on Bear Island to force your response.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kathy Miller.

Kathy will be followed by Jim Crampton.

Good evening, Council.

Um, I am a 13-year resident at one marina homes.

My question to City Council is what is happening to the downtown streets team.

We were told by some team members that Redwood City was not using them.

This team employs the previous unhoused and were called out to clean up the camps that lingered for 90 days because of the 90-day rule imposed by Redwood City Council.

They always did an excellent job cleaning existing sites and managing the litter from polluting Redwood Creek.

They also assisted in removing 32 shopping carts from our section of Redwood Creek alone.

Now I am wondering if this work by the downtown streets team is now considered cost prohibitive.

And I want the assembly to be aware that our assistant manager received a 40,000 dollar raise, and our manager received a hundred thousand dollar raise.

So I would like again to ask the city council the same thing that Patrick Heisinger requested the residents, and that is empathy.

You have to remember these teams get their hands dirty.

They clean up the camps and they do a good job.

And they also act, um, this crew is willing to get their hands dirty, and they provide an excellent interface between the residents and the encampments, and they keep uh they keep us safe, clean, and ecologically up to standards.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kathy.

Our next speaker is Jim Crampton, who will be followed by Nancy Crampton.

Good evening, uh Jim Crampton, uh co-chair of the Redwood City Neighborhood Association.

I got a point of that, I guess, because I talk too much at council meetings and anyway.

Uh I'm gonna shorten my talk from what I originally planned and just hit on two principal issues.

One, again, I think related to the street teams.

If you drive and enter the Bear Island neighborhood, and you come down East Bay Shore, you're suddenly confronted today with tons of trash that is growing out of what had been homeless encampment there before, but which had previously been cleaned up by the streets teams.

Now it is just horrible, and I don't know who's gonna clean it up.

It's city property, primarily and some Caltrans property.

Uh the other thing about safety issues and that sort of thing, the current homeless encampments on the uh far side of Redwood Creek, which are the ones we deal with the most, right along the main bike path.

If you're gonna ride a bike, particularly kids riding bikes over in that area, you come about five feet from two major homeless sites.

And a lot of neighbors are now avoiding riding their bikes in that area because it's not deemed super comfortable.

And that's all I'm gonna talk about tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Crampton, who will be followed by Clara Jekyll.

My name's Nancy Crampton.

I live at One Marina, and for those of you who don't know, one marina is a development that is between Redwood Creek and Bear Island Road after you've gone through the roundabout.

And we have had some real problems with the homeless.

Since Docktown has mainly been cleared out, there are many homeless across Redwood Creek from us, and there's a bridge to nowhere that connects us with that part of Redwood City too.

Um we've had such a problem with things being stolen.

We have a lot of people who have those um doorbells that have a camera on it.

And every day on our Facebook page, there's a picture of somebody who's come into the little entryway and looks around.

Nothing there, they leave, looks around, pick up packages.

And most of them are homeless people, because we've had several incidents where something big has been stolen, and then we've go over and look around and walk up and down Redwood Creek and see it's in this encampment or it's in that encampment.

Our painters had tarps and stolen, and we walked down and found they're covering an encampment down off of 101 near Woodside Road.

So we really need an ordinance that will help get the uh homeless people the help they need, and stop the kinds of things that happen because they have no money and need certain things.

I think whatever happens, homeless shelter or homeless encampments should not be allowed near neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods have a lot of homes with things that you need for your day-to-day life, and we've had a lot of trouble with robberies.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Clara Jekyll, who will be followed by Roberto Tito Alvarez.

My name is Clara Jekyll.

I'm part of Faith in Action Bay Area and the ACLU Cemateo County chapter.

I'm very troubled by this proposal for a city anti-camping ordinance.

Our city vision is a community where people of all backgrounds and income levels can thrive.

But how can we achieve that if we arrest people just for being unhoused?

That's just wrong.

I urge you to continue working to connect people with shelter and permanent housing without adopting this harsh and counterproductive approach.

All the accounts I've heard from outreach workers say that successfully connecting unhoused people with services starts with building a relationship of trust.

This requires multiple contacts and making a real effort to find services that meet that person's needs.

Adding the threat of arrest for camping does nothing to help.

Instead, it motivates people to evade contact and refuse to speak with outreach workers, making it even harder to build the trust needed for a positive outcome.

Also, anti-camping regulations do nothing to solve the root issues of the high cost of living and lack of affordable housing that place people in an impossible bind.

Just the opposite, increasing people's involvement with the criminal justice system makes it even harder for them to access services, be approved for leases, or be hired for jobs, which creates new barriers for them to access permanent homes.

The best thing we can do to create a more stable community for both housed and unhoused residents is to provide more affordable housing.

I urge you to focus efforts there to be a truly welcoming city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Clara.

Our next speaker is Tito Alvarez, who will be followed by Shishir Bat.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, and community members.

My name is Tito Avrez.

I'm the founder of Chase Love, a grassroot organization based in Redwood City that uses art, culture, and direct outreach to support our unsheltered neighbors.

Chase Love has worked closely with unsheltered residents, many who are long-term Redwood City locals.

They are grandparents, veterans, and disabled community members simply trying to survive in a city where housing has become out of reach for far too many.

This ordinance this ordinance as written will push them further into the margins, deepening trauma, breaking trust, and making it even harder for them to access the services they need.

We don't need policies that punish people for being poor.

We need policies that censor housing services and dignity.

That means continuing to build real partnership with organizations already on the ground invested in trauma-informed outreach, transitional housing, and mental health support.

We know that this ordinance will likely pass, and this doesn't mean that we give up on making it better.

So that's why I'm urging you to revise section four to include that the City Council directs housing and human service committee to review the implementation and outcomes of the ordinance every six months and return to the city council every per year for the recommendation for the recommendations.

This revision ensures transparency, accountability, and the opportunity to access to assess the real life impacts on this decision.

Let's not look away from the harm this could cause.

Let's keep ourselves accountable and let's make it better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shishir Batt, who will be followed by Andrea Gill.

Good evening.

For first of all, all the outreach and the thought that's gone into this process of the anti-camping ordinance.

My comments tonight are twofold.

One is that there are many studies out there that show a very strong correlation between the cost of housing in a region and the rate of homelessness, both sheltered and unsheltered people, whether they're able to find housing.

And I realize the city is already fully on board with this in their own vision, but I encourage us to keep looking for ways to build housing for people.

That is the root cause here.

The reasons I don't even want to name, but primarily it's an issue of the cost of housing.

The second is that when I was at one of the community meetings on this anti-camping ordinance, I talked to an individual who was homeless for many years in the area.

And his story was enlightening.

He told me that the thing that finally got him cleaned up and what was able to turn his life around was the fact that he was sent to jail, which was shocking to me as somebody who was always on board with this idea that criminalizing homelessness was something that was always going to be detrimental to the person who was being arrested.

But I after talking to him a lot after the community meeting, I realized that there are a lot of services that people can access that they can't if they're on the street, but they can when they're in an environment where they are forced to do so for lack of a better word.

So I believe that this ordinance is necessary, and I thank you for the work.

Our next speaker is Andrea Gill, who will be followed by Raymond Goyas.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez and City Council members.

My name is Andrea Gill, and I'm a senior program coordinator with the Youth Leadership Institute.

I have the honor to lead a cohort of young people to bridge their relationship with local government and re-examine Redwood City through their eyes to uncover the solution that matters to them the most.

This past year, you've conducted direct outreach to the unsheltered and felt a loss of words with the direction of the anti-camping ordinance.

I'm here today to address the policy that is being considered in the agenda.

Thank you for years of investment to build solutions and pairing with all experts in the community to meet the needs of the unsheltered.

The ways we handle encampment intervention should be handled through care and dignity.

History has shown us that criminalization of public health issues is never the solution and may ripple effect into more trauma and distrust of the system.

And the staff report, I would like to note a large demographic belong to males, Hispanic communities, and fell within the ages of 35 to 64 years old, and about 79% had a disability.

At times where folks are living in fear and our community livelihoods are being threatened, I encourage the city council today to still safeguard and culture responsive practices when engaging with those who are unsheltered.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my public comment and level of transparency for the future of this ordinance.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Raymond Goyas, who will be followed by Rebecca Keeler.

Good evening, thank you.

I'm speaking for Raymond.

Raymond uh Gones is the Secretary of the Black Democratic Club from Santa Clara County.

He could not be here tonight and asked me to read this.

Good evening.

My name is Raymond Gones.

I'm someone who stands firmly against the ordinance that works for to publish to punish poverty.

I am formally unhoused, and my reasoning for not wanting to be subject to any housing that was provided to me is one that is not unique to me.

Redwood City is taking the Trump approach and doing the same thing to the homeless population that Trump is doing to our immigrant population.

Both objectives are to eradicate a population at the expense of these people, harmony harming a community where we should be focusing on healing.

I understand now these things, how these things go, and the system that chooses to harm over healing will win.

So if County Pants passes this ordinance, I request that the City Council direct the Housing and Human Concerns Committee to review the implementation and outcome of the ordinance on a quarterly basis so we can get ahead of the problems and address them before they become something which will ruin generations of someone's family and return to the city council once every six months to provide recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are you also Rebecca Keeler?

I am.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Rebecca Keeler.

I grew up here in San Mateo County, and I've been a resident here in Redwood City and uh consultant on a consultancy for the last 20 years.

Um I thank you for your service to Redwood City, and I want to acknowledge the difficulty of this issue that we're dealing with.

Um I am definitely opposed to this ordinance because it's not a solution, and we're seeking a solution.

Let's be clear.

That's where we need a solution.

Um I do not, I do not think that finding people who are poor and have no money, even the hundred dollars.

If they had the hundred dollars, they wouldn't be in the place they're in.

It's not a solution.

And giving and arresting someone and giving them a an arrest record, which means that they're gonna have more difficulty in life, is also not a solution.

It's kicking the can down the road.

It's not just Redwood City that's doing this.

I fully recognize that this has been done in the county, it's been done in the state, and it's been done in the country.

But we need a better solution.

Nonetheless, it's clear that you're going to be passing this resolution this evening, and I have a request for a couple of amendments.

Keep specific metrics on fines, incarceration, and spending of the expensive this expensive ordinance.

And number two, direct housing and human concerns committee to monitor and review the implementation and the outcome on a quarterly basis so that we can adjust in real time, and hopefully end up with some kind of positive outcome to this.

And I also would ask the council how are we going to staff this issue?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Elizabeth Prado, who will be followed by Susan Rowinski.

I see no.

Good evening.

My name is Elizabeth Prado, and I'm a teenager living here in Redwood City.

I'm speaking.

Sorry, I'm speaking today because I care about how we treat our people in our community.

I strongly believe that we should not introduce the anti-camping ordinance.

Unsheltered people aren't breaking the law by needing a place to sleep.

They're simply living in a place that has failed to provide long-term affordable housing, safety, and support.

Many refuse placements because shelters feel unsafe, inflexible, or isolating.

That doesn't mean they deserve illegal punishment.

As someone who is growing up in this community, I want to be proud of my city, not for hiding the problem or punishing people who are struggling, but for finding real problem-solving solutions.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Susan Rowinski, who will be followed by Carter Pole.

Crystal, could you put up the first slide?

Yeah, and if you could, okay.

Is it a way to expand that a little bit?

Could you go to the primary?

Yeah, that was slightly a little larger.

Okay, and could you toggle?

I just oh thank you.

Um can you also just toggle it?

Make sure we just go to the second picture.

I'll show up to the okay.

Hello, my name is Susan Rowinski.

I'm the founding president of the Bear Island Aquatic Center.

Since 1999, the Bear Island Aquatic Center has offered Redwood City residents access to the San Francisco Bay via the use of rowing shells, kayaks, and dragon boats, and other human-powered vessels.

We currently have 300 members, of which 25% are under the age of 18.

We offer lessons to kids and seniors on how to use rowing shells and kayaks and dragon boats.

We also partner, for years we've been partnering with the Redwood City Park and Rec, and we offer a dozen programs out of our facility for Redwood City Park and Rec.

Since 1999, the Bear Island Aquatic Center has been located at 1450 Maple Street, Redwood City.

Our neighbors include the San Mateo County Navigation Center, the soon-to-be-built strata development, and three homeless encampments that are shown on the attached overhead in the red box.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows a recent break-in by the homeless using wire cutters into our fence and stealing three boats.

We did find our boats at a neighboring encampment.

Office windows broken.

We have been our members have begun undergone verbal abuse.

We have defecation outside of the homeless population surrounding our main gate.

I encourage you, thank you, to support staff's ordinance.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carter Pohl, who will be followed by Kyla Valenti.

Good evening.

My name is Carter.

I work for Faith in Action Bay Area in Redwood City, but I'm here tonight as an elected delegate to the California Democratic Party of Assembly District 21 in San Mateo County.

As an elected member of the California Democratic Party, I feel it's an obligation to keep our residents from being on the streets in the first place.

We shouldn't be punishing those most vulnerable, but instead asking how do we prevent people from being there in the first place?

The cost of living is too high and the rent is going up too fast.

We need solutions, not punishments.

Rent control to lower the cap, the rent cap, tenant protections to prevent unjust evictions, and we need more affordable housing.

These are three solutions we could do to make things to prevent people from being on the streets right now.

We need to make sure people have safe, affordable, and dignified housing.

The question we should be asking is what are we going to do to make sure no one has to sleep on the streets, not how do we keep kicking this can down the road.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kyla Valenti, who will be followed by Paul Bocanegra.

Good evening.

My name is Kyla Valenti.

I work and live here in Redwood City, and I'm also a benefits analyst at the county of San Mateo, processing assistance, a public assistance applications.

And I'm an activist with faith in action here tonight.

Before I got my job at the county, I was also among the most vulnerable myself.

Less than two years ago, I was still in the midst of a crisis, involving struggles with mental health and long COVID, was underemployed and uh relied on the same programs that I now administer, including Medical and SNAP.

During those months, I had sometimes been so low on funds that I even sold a necklace in desperate desperation belonging to my grandmother to make my own rent here in Redwood City.

And now every day I review the cases of folks who are just like me who are either at risk of losing their housing or have experienced homelessness firsthand.

I believe all of us in the room are closer to experiencing that kind of hardship than we would sometimes like to think that for most of us it only takes a couple bad months or a big emergency or life crisis to be in the same boat.

All of that said, I think those of us drawn to public service are here for a reason to make our communities more welcoming and safe for everyone and to develop policies and communities that are resilient and compassionate for everyone who lives and works here.

Personally, I was just made to learn about this ordinance and feel deep concern for the unhoused residents of our city and county whose circumstances I hear about daily.

I hope the housing and human concerns committee will consider alternatives, including adding a sunset clause for this ordinance and other ways to remove barriers to housing rather than adding additional stressors such as policing and fines.

I believe this will be expensive to enforce and will intensify the challenges faced by unhoused residents rather than helping uplift our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Paul Bocanegra, who will be followed by Arnold Morales.

Good evening, uh Mayor Martinez and Council members.

Thank you for the work on this very complicated issue.

My name is Paul Bocanegra.

I'm also an elected delegate to the Democratic Central Committee, a juvenile justice and delinquency prevention commissioner, and also executive director of unlocked futures.

I work with many of the system impacted peoples in the community, and I have to say, just listening uh to both sides of this uh the uh Bear Island, like I I'm sorry that you guys are going through this.

Um of us want this on the side of our homes.

I live here with my family in Eagle Hill.

None of us like to see what's happening.

This is an extremely complicated issue, and I heard a lot of data regarding cleanup, um, homeless and camping, anti-camping.

A lot of this language is coming down from the current administration in Washington.

And right now, while there are coalitions forming in the community that I'm also part of, uh preparing to protect ourselves from what is coming uh from the ICE agency and other agencies that are collaborating with them.

We have to come together to defend our community members.

These are village members.

Again, this is very complicated.

And you know, I've been hearing that this is gonna pass.

And uh, you know, I'm I'm urging you to reconsider if it's gonna pass, or maybe with some amendments, because you have some very good um solutions here, you know, even lowering the restitution or the fine down to a hundred dollars.

That's awesome.

Six months of incarceration.

Um I spent 25 and a half years in a cage for a crime I did not commit, and it fathoms me that someone can come to a six-month deadline where people will learn their lesson.

My community saved my life.

Um they came to the rescue, and that's why I'm here with all of you today.

Uh, and we should do the same for these people rather than enforcing the law on them.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Arnold Morales, who will be followed by Izzy Sennert.

Good evening, Council members.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

I am a member of this community.

I have been for the last 40 years, and it saddens me to hear about this ordinance.

I work um directly with some impacted people, uh, a homeless family composed of about five members, and um it just seems cruel to uh to want to criminalize people who are already in disadvantage um fifty dollars to eat or a hundred dollars or five hundred dollars, what we're talking about is just an unbearable um burden for some of the folks.

We we hear here, I um I hear the community talking about the issues that they have about uh uh, you know, encampments near their home, and that's understandable.

And I think that um, you know, we wanna we want to leave and we want to leave uh peacefully and and safe.

Um, but we gotta think about these people.

They're not just uh unhoused, they're people, and we're talking about numbers and and it just feels like uh we're not thinking that these are people, we're talking about their children with to begin with.

There's there's mental issues, it's not just you and me where they're like, hey, I just need to get a job.

Homelessness is not a choice, they're not picking to be in that situation, and I think that we in Samateau County can do better.

We all know we are one of the richest counties in the country.

And I heard I'm I'm not sure I'm not a mathematician, but you know, I heard 60 million dollars uh that are for this year for our county.

Um I think we can do much better.

I think that the issues with uh rent control that we made efforts to to pass, uh that you know what we're gonna try to do that again.

I think that's something to think about.

That's what makes people homeless, and that's what we need to think about.

The solutions for people, not just refer to them as homeless people.

They're our community, they're veterans, they fought for us, those veterans, when you think about them as people.

I thank you for your time.

Appreciate your comments.

And if you have any other comments, please feel free to email us.

We'll review.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Izzy Sennert.

We'll be followed by Ruby Salazar.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Izzy Sayner.

I am a member of the Youth Leadership Institute, and I have been a San Mateo resident for five years.

I'm here tonight in front of you to discuss item 8A, the anti-camping ordinance.

I am here to speak on behalf of the unhoused people in our county, people who are often judged, ignored, or criticized instead of supported.

I've lived in areas with high rates of homelessness, and I've seen the reality.

More people are becoming unhoused every day, not because they're lazy or dangerous, but because of rising costs, job loss, and a lack of affordable housing.

These people didn't choose this life.

They're doing their best to survive with what little they have.

There is a harmful stereotype that homelessness looks one specific way, but that just isn't true.

Over 20% of unhoused individuals are 25, and many are families with children.

Women, the LGBTQ plus people, and especially trans women of color face high rates of violence and discrimination on the streets.

Black and Latino individuals are more likely to experience homelessness despite making a smaller portion of the overall population because of generations of systematic inequality.

This is why ordinances like the Redwood City anti-camping ban are so wrong.

Finding or arresting someone just because they have nowhere to to do to go doesn't fix the problem.

It moves it somewhere else and makes life and makes life harder for people struggling.

We need to stop criminalizing poverty and start addressing its root cause.

The housing, healthcare, and compassion.

Homelessness is a social failure, not a personal one.

And that is time we treat, and it's time we treat it that way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ruby Salazar, who will be followed by Kate Heaster.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Ruby Sausar, and I work with the Youth Leadership Institute, a nonprofit organization providing programs to youth across San Mateo County, including Redwood City.

I'm here to express my concern about the potential anti-camping ordinance currently currently under discussion.

Punishing people for surviving in public spaces did not solve the issue, but rather puts them at higher risk to be in crisis.

The penalty of a misdemeanor along with the 100 fine is not an adequate remedy, even with the diversion programs that can have their own barriers, like cost, transportation, admission of guilt with distrust in the justice system, and lack of treatment that may affect participation in these programs.

This punishes them further into the margins, pushes them further into the margins, making it harder for outreach workers to build trust and harder for unhoused individuals to engage in supportive programs.

Even with two warnings and offers of shelter, the treat the threat of a dismissemeanor charges can traumatize and disabolize people who have already survived who are already surviving under incredible difficult conditions.

Instead of focusing on criminalization, we encourage Redwood City to become a leader in compassionate evidence-based approaches that treat people not as problems to be managed, but as neighbors deserving dignity, opportunity, and care.

Solutions like affordable housing, low barrier transitional housing, mental health care, and outreach workers with lived experience are what truly creates pathways out of homelessness.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kate Heaster, who will be followed by Max Disher.

Good evening.

My name is Kate Heaster.

I live in Redwood City and have served on the Housing and Human Concerns Committee for more than eight years, including on the RV safe parking ad hoc.

I am speaking on my own behalf tonight.

Brian Stevenson said the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice.

This ordinance is exactly what he means.

I'm in strong opposition to this ordinance, which criminalizes homelessness.

Throughout its materials, the city cites the desire to be humane, but fines and incarceration of unhoused people is not a humane solution.

As a reminder to us all, most of the unhoused population of Redwood City became unhoused when they lost a job.

Most were housed residents of Redwood City before they became unhoused.

And 79% reported having a disability.

Fines and jail time will only make it harder for these individuals to secure stable housing and employment.

As someone who worked with incarcerated people in this county for years, you need to know that, in spite of the existence of our care courts, diversion is in no way guaranteed for folks facing these punishments.

In comparison to my experience with the RV safe parking ad hoc, this process has been extremely hasty.

Is you have failed to consider the many alternatives raised by community members, and it's unsupported by clear evidence that this ordinance will work as you say it will.

You should not pass it.

However, if you insist on passing this ordinance tonight, I respectfully request that you actually hold yourselves accountable.

Clearly define the benchmarks for success and failure for this ordinance's effectiveness, ensure that data is actually covered, collected, require regular public reporting on those benchmarks, and establish a sunsetting clause to end the program should it fail.

If you want to claim a humane stance, then these changes should raise no concerns.

They are literally the least you can do.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Max Disher, who will be followed by Nicole Noga.

Good evening, counsel mayor.

Thank you.

My name is Max Disher.

I serve on the Housing and Human Concerns Committee.

I do come to this issue with many years of experience on homelessness law, policy, and advocacy.

And I do want to express my appreciation to the city staff for engaging in what I believe is a very arduous task of navigating our city through an incredibly difficult issue.

I would be remiss if I did not share that my expert opinion on this subject is that criminalizing homelessness is incredibly expensive and counterproductive enforcement will drain police resources and burden our courts.

Citations and arrests will push people even further from housing stability.

Housing, as so many of my peers and neighbors have already stated, is the solution to homelessness as a problem, not punishment.

Humans are complex, and I also want to reiterate that shelter is not a one size fits all solution.

We could instead be investing in expanded real durable solutions, housing programs, safe parking and respite zones, mobile hygiene and outreach, upstream investments and mental health and tenant stabilization to address real roots of poverty.

However, if the council decides to move forward, despite my concerns, I urge you at a minimum to please revisit section four of this proposed ordinance.

Please require myself and my colleagues on the housing and human concerns committee to review the ordinance's implementation and outcomes every six months.

Please urge us to track the data responsibly and report to you on the council at least once per year with any recommendations based on those outcomes that we've reviewed.

Our routine attention should track those impacts, identify any unintended consequences, and ensure transparency with our community.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Nicole Noga.

Hello, city council.

I am here tonight to speak in opposition to the proposed anti-camping ordinance.

Research has repeatedly shown that campment and sweeps, encampment sweeps, and uh criminalization are ineffective at best.

At worst, they are actively harmful to those experiencing homelessness.

While I appreciate the complexities of the housing crisis and the difficulties in providing services to those without permanent addresses, if our main concern is actually helping people achieve stability in housing, this is not the way to do it.

By Redwood City and the county's own measures, homelessness is down in recent years.

The number of encampment sweeps and the number of emergency services calls so far in 2025 is down compared to the trends from previous years.

If what we've been doing is working and it seems to be, we need to double down on that.

The work that we've been doing as a city and a county without this anti-camping ordinance has been working.

Let's continue to find ways to provide support services, build affordable housing, and create quality and safe temporary shelter.

Let's figure out why 25% of folks are saying that they don't want the shelter that is being offered to them.

If they are refusing shelter beds, they have a good reason for that.

What is that reason and how do we address it so that they can say yes to the housing that's being offered to them and leave their encampments on their own?

Imposing fines, adding criminal charges to people's records, and or forcing them to engage with the bureaucratic labyrinth of a diversion program, will do nothing but add barriers to housing and stability for these folks.

All of these things make it harder to get a job, make it harder to have your rental application accepted, made it harder to save up money for a down payment for or uh a security deposit for an apartment.

We need to be removing barriers to housing and not creating additional barriers.

Even if our primary concern isn't helping a folks to achieve housing and stability, we need to uh think about the public safety of it all.

If you are going to um call 911 for a fire for a medical emergency, for even just a place safe place or throw away your sharps, are you going to do that if you're risking being displaced, being fined, and being thrown in jail?

Probably not.

Thank you.

And that concludes our speakers, as the mayor mentioned earlier.

All the folks who wrote in uh will have their comments shared with the council, and they're also posted on the city's website on the city council agenda speech.

Back to you, Mayor.

Great.

Thank you, City Clerk.

And again, thank you to each and every one of you who came to provide your thoughts, your perspective, your shared experience.

It's it's so important, and I wish we could have this kind of attendance at every public meeting, but we'll take it.

So thank you.

With that, we will um turn it over to my council colleagues for any clarifying questions.

We also have county executive Mike Calaghi, Deputy County Executive Eliana Rodriguez here, and Supervisor Gauche, who's I wanted to make sure, caught her shout-outs, but isn't here to answer any questions.

So, Councilmember G.

Mayor, thank you.

And before we begin our our comments, perhaps we might invite both our county executive and and Mike and Ileana just to talk about hopeful horizons and their experiences over the last two years or a year and a half and the metrics and things like that.

So Mike, thank you for being here and with your permission, Mayor.

Oh.

Is that on now?

Oh, very good.

Uh as I said, it's an honor to be here tonight uh with the council.

And uh I do want to also give a shout out to Supervisor Gaucher, who's been a leader in ending homelessness in this county first as a council member and now is a certainly as a board member.

Uh and to really your staff.

I mean, you couldn't ask for a better staff with the uh city manager and your assistant city manager and the rest of the staff working on this with the county.

Uh you guys have done a tremendous, tremendous job here at the city level to address homelessness, and you've been outstanding partners.

Uh Hopeful Horizon um has worked for us.

Uh we had uh five encampments in the unincorporated area of the county, uh and really we wanted to use it as a proof of concept to see if uh if it uh in fact worked.

Um we have a team that goes out uh first a hot team goes out and engages folks uh in the encampments and offers them um addiction services programs, mental health uh programs, um, medical uh treatment uh for a variety of um illnesses that they may have.

But I've got to say that uh in the 21st century, allowing people to live in that type of atmosphere is inhumane.

There's nothing dignified, there's nothing safe, there's nothing humane about these encampments that we have seen.

So once all of those uh original measures failed, we went out with our enforcement team who are uh trained mental health uh providers and uh or clinicians.

They uh engage them and uh express that we have available space for them, and we're gonna hold that space for them over the next uh 72 hours.

I checked our statistics yesterday.

We have currently 64 beds available in this county for shelter.

That's a 50 of 51 uh congregate and 13 shelter beds, individual rooms available every single night as of late, and that's why I do say that we're at functional zero.

We have between 60 and 75 beds available that are going unused in this county.

We uh have been successful in the five encampments that uh we've engaged with.

Uh we've gone out to all of them, and uh uh like Patrick indicated, there are in three to two to three members in each.

Uh in those five encampments, there were 12 individuals, uh, and we were able to um convince 10 of them to avail themselves of housing, which I think is a remarkable statistic.

These folks who were prior living in those unsafe, unsanitary conditions are now housed with resources, and I think that's the key that uh I'd like to impress upon the council.

When you get into housing, you get all of the opportunities that go with along with it to move on to more permanent housing.

So uh with the medical, uh, as you know, at the navigation center, we have dental services, we have uh clinicians to work with mental health, we have job placement, we have the ongoing seven-day-a-week medical uh center there to help people uh with their ailments.

Uh and you're right.

Uh, you know, we we do need to build more housing, and we are building more housing, but this is the step getting them off the street to an interim step to get them to housing uh has worked well for us.

Um and Ileana, um would you like to add anything?

No, you're covering.

No, okay, great.

Great.

But uh and Ms.

Rodriguez is uh the czar of housing in our office, she's done a tremendous job.

She's working with our staff every single day.

I get a uh a list every single day of the amount of people on the on the waiting list and the amount of people on uh that uh the beds that we have available.

We do have, unfortunately, though, 48 families in this county uh who don't uh have shelter.

We don't we don't have shelter space for them.

Uh and uh 45 percent of those uh families do not have any prior connection with the county.

So those are just some of the statistics.

Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, County Executive Calague, for being here again.

Um, I I don't really have a question.

I would like to turn to my colleagues here.

But Mike, I I want to amplify something.

You know, I'm blessed to be able to travel and work across the state.

And the relationship between Redwood City and the County is exceptionally unique.

That is not the norm in California.

Counties and cities don't work together.

That's the norm.

They don't.

It's it's really unprecedented, uh, council member.

It is uh something that uh we enjoy, and I and I really you know attribute that to the council that we have and the city manager, assistant city manager and the staff that we have working here.

It really is unprecedented.

In fact, typically, you know, I talk to a lot of my colleagues, they work at odds.

Uh and but uh in this county, we believe the San Mateo County way is to work collaboratively, and that's how we get things done.

I just also want to note, and I'd be remiss if I didn't.

Our our goal is to never cite anyone.

We hope that we never have to cite anyone.

Certainly in these situations, we didn't we haven't had to cite anyone.

But if we do, and I can't really imagine that situation where that would occur because I think most people are gonna avail themselves of the opportunity for housing or move on.

Uh, the diversion program.

Uh we've worked through with the DA's office of courts, the uh the private defender program, that they would uh get an opportunity to divert out of that.

And again, it's all about trying to get them to the safe, secure area of uh interim housing that can get them back on the track of being a productive member in a housing situation.

Correct.

And again, the norm I've heard is cities and counties are usually fighting each other, and that's not the case here.

That doesn't mean we don't always agree, but we disagree in an agreeable way.

So I don't know many families that never disagree, so I I think we have a great relationship, but thank you.

Um can and between you and Ileana, how many citations have been issued to date with helpful horizons and how many have been incarcerated?

Uh zero.

And we hope to never issue a citation or incarcerate anyone.

Very good.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you for being here.

Thank you for the partnership, Miliana.

Thank you.

I'm gonna let my colleagues ask any questions.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I saw Council member Howard.

Thank you so much.

Um Mr.

Callaghy, it's a pleasure to see you again.

It always is.

I'd like to let people in the community know that uh when we hit COVID, we were all standing around trying to figure out where do we even begin to tackle this difficult problem that we'd never been faced with before.

And this gentleman organized the county from day one.

We had calls almost every day, definitely every week.

And all of us tuned in to find out how we could work together.

That was the whole idea.

Have people work together, collaborate together, who has resources, who doesn't, sharing of that.

I will never forget that experience as long as I live.

I mean, we are a county seat, so I think you feel a little bit special about Redwood City because we are the county seat.

Um, and I just uh felt that we had a partnership that was unbeatable.

I mean, helping us with the different programs, the navigation center, the RV safe parking program, there were so many things we collaborated on, and it just made us much more effective in working together.

Sharing money and resources and everything else that was going on.

We certainly couldn't uh have done it without all of you.

You guys are absolutely tremendous and so easy to work with and uh and really visionary in this space, so we we want to thank all of you.

Well, thank you.

It it just was a very rewarding experience for me personally of serving as mayor, and I will never forget it as long as I live, how much I learned, and it was all about listening and working together.

Don't think you're gonna solve these problems by yourself.

And this is the same thing.

I mean, you've had tremendous success.

What I see here is we're talking about the hardcore, 25 percent.

That's where I'm focused right now because I know we have done the bathing, washing programs, we've offered services up and down, and we'll keep doing that.

We're gonna keep building more housing.

We have an obligation with our housing um element that we've promised that we will do this.

But I'm talking about the 25 percent that refuse any help whatsoever due to conditions that I feel awful.

I mean it could be drugs, could be alcohol, could be family, it could be mental illness, but they're not capable of saying, I can trust you, I'm gonna accept the help.

So these things continue to get kicked down the road.

As long as you don't address the 25%, how can you have successes?

So I am very anxious to see how this program might work.

I agree we should be accountable.

We should be keeping statistics.

We have no problem with that.

We have a wonderful housing and human concerns committee that's already offered to do that and help us do that, and I'm sure your the county's gonna do that also, so we should share those resources.

But that 25% has been such a difficult problem that with everything we have to offer, it's still not enough.

So this is the next step, and I'm hoping it will work.

I'm hoping it will.

Absolutely, and we we share that sentiment uh that that relationship is something that you'll always have control over.

This will be your program.

We're just there to help out uh and lend resources to it, but you'll get to staff will get to pick through the through the council where they want to focus, who they want to focus on, uh, when they want to go to the final citation, if they ever want to arrest anybody, that will not be done in a vacuum.

That'll be done um collaboratively.

So you wouldn't have a problem if we did have regular check-ins, whatever that turns out to be.

Maybe we should coordinate that, and if we do have an MOU memorandum of understanding, we probably could incorporate that language in there.

Absolutely.

That'd make a lot of sense.

And uh, and thank you to our supervisor um Lisa, thank you for being here.

Really appreciate it.

I I just feel like we're in good hands because we've got good partners.

Thank you.

And it's worth a try.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember Padilla and then the vice Mayor.

Thank you.

I just wanted you to, I just wanted to clarify.

You just could you you gave a statistic.

I just want to make sure I have it right.

You said that of the forty-eight families with no shelter space.

Did you say that forty-five percent of those families have no prior connection to San Mateo County?

I think forty six percent is that forty-six percent.

Is that 46%?

But it but it is correct of those of that of that cohort.

Yeah, of that group.

Thank you.

And we'll go to the vice mayor.

Mr.

Calaghi, thank you so much.

Uh I echo what my other partners have said.

I I have other questions, but I'm gonna start with my questions of the county.

Um so let's see here from your perspective.

I I saw with Mr.

Heisinger's report that the the homeless problem really um that train really started going really fast down the track during COVID.

And the the state recommendation saying don't break up encampments and and don't, you know, just and then of course the economic and so that really raised the numbers in 21 and 20, 21, 22.

From your perspective of what you're seeing in the county, are those numbers coming down?

They are, and uh and we're really proud of that.

And it's because of the relationships and and the collaboration that uh we have with the cities, especially Redwood City, that we're seeing for the first time now.

We have more housed than unhoused in this county.

And uh, like uh Councilmember Howard's indicated, it is a situation now where we're down to the to the hardcore group who doesn't want to come in and uh won't avail themselves of services even though we have beds available every single night.

Um, and it may be because of addiction, it may be because of mental health services, but uh we know that the best place to serve people who have addiction and mental health service and mental health issues and give them those services is when they're housed, not on the street.

It is very, very difficult to treat addiction and mental health while people are living uh uh unhoused.

Thank you, and Mr.

Calaghi, I I really appreciate what I what you're saying.

I I wish I heard this more often of where you said you drive the bus, you're in charge, we're just here to give you resources when you need them.

My goodness, uh I wish every government agency said that to us.

Yeah, free of charge too.

We want to make sure that people know that.

That's the we're gonna.

So I feel like I'm dreaming right now.

And so again, thank you.

You one of the things that the county has that the city doesn't have is is um the health department, you know.

Um so you you're gonna do a lot of that work for us with the treatment and and so forth.

Is there any way that you can anything we can do to make that job of yours easier on the health side?

Well, you guys, I mean you're already doing that with the with the hot teams uh being out there and uh us breaking them up into north uh central south and uh and the coast side um because they're the the front line of defense, they're the ones who are the the the most likely to encounter someone who's unhoused and uh and try to inquire what it will take to bring them indoors and we work with them for a while uh in that uh in that effort to have them voluntarily come in, and it's just now and and they've been very successful as some of the speakers spoke to.

They've been we've been successful in that space, but now we're down to that element who for whatever reason uh doesn't want to come in.

And and Mr.

Callague, um I would imagine it takes a certain type of um public servant to do this kind of work, um, that the health work and the outreach work.

Are you fully staffed?

And how how are you working on that?

That's that's a good question.

Let me uh let me see if Ms.

Rodriguez has that answer.

Through the mayor, there's actually three teams that we deploy.

Hot is one of the outreach teams, but we have a street medicine team.

Think of it, the medics with the backpack in the field, and they're providing the diabetes treatment, high blood pressure, uh wound care.

That's provided by the health department.

And in addition to that, through our behavioral health, we have what we call the HEAL team.

It's the mental health component of the team, and they too have been divided up into the four quadrants throughout the county.

So they deploy Hop may reach out to any of those two teams and request an assist, or that the client is uh willing to accept medical support or mental health services, and they're providing clinical services in in the uh on the street.

So it's three teams.

We are fully staffed.

I think health will say they always can use more, but we do have four unique teams.

Thank you very much.

Just a couple more questions.

And uh again, attachment F of the staff report, which details in the last fiscal year the 61,000 that the county devoted to um to this issue of the unhoused and and um just just thank you.

I it was really gratifying to read the the compassion and the intelligence and the hours and hours of work and just so impressed.

Just a couple more questions.

No problem, but I just would uh remiss it be remiss if I didn't mention it.

It really is a board priority, and and they've really set the tone on this, and that's why they've invested such an incredible amount of money into ending homelessness, and they're committed to being uh the first uh county in San California that that really substantially ends homelessness.

Well, you've you've got a really sharp team.

Can you can you just talk a little bit about diversion?

Um, that means well, tell me what that means.

Basically, at the beginning of uh any criminal proceedings, it can be diverted out of the criminal justice system and become more of a um contractual type of relationship where they are asked to do certain things.

It could be to seek employment, it could be to uh to avail themselves of housing, it could be to go get their license.

And really the court would be trying to work uh and our folks would be trying to work on accomplishing those things for someone who is unhoused.

Um, if they were able to accomplish that, they'd be completely diverted out of the criminal justice system.

There wouldn't be no conviction uh on their record.

There would be no indication that they were convicted of a crime.

And again, it's to really help them.

Uh we don't want to we don't want to see any anybody end up with a record uh because of this, but um but it is it has been an effective tool to get people in inside uh in-housed um Mr.

Calaghee, a lot of the people, a lot of the folks that spoke tonight during public comment talked about what I believe is true, and I think a lot of us also agree is true, is that we need more affordable housing, and and uh we need more housing at all levels, and we just need more housing.

I recall it was maybe a m a year ago now, uh I heard you speak at uh somewhere or other, and you talked about the county's ability or the county's work in purchasing buildings or purchasing um land, per purchasing real estate to put into use for providing more housing, and you you talked about uh that you have a very um talented negotiator staff person who's just a really good real estate person.

So I want to ask you, are are you still doing that?

Buying land, buying buildings, and and converting it into working on that, and how's that going?

Yeah, the board's just authorized uh over the last uh six months purchase of of uh a property in uh on Walnut Street, an incredible piece of property and a great location that'll become affordable housing uh along with workforce housing.

Um and uh we're looking to uh certainly remember that there's uh middle income people that can't afford to live here and and are on the verge of uh losing their housing, and we want to keep those workers here, and we're focusing on that also.

But you know, I've got to say Redwood City's been an incredible leader in this space um in working with us uh in creating um affordable housing permanent affordable housing shores landing is incredible when you think of all the seniors out there in Casa Esperanza uh I don't know where we would be without that partnership uh I can tell you we'd be about um a hundred and eighty units light of uh of housing and these are things that we're able to convert readily and put resources in and have people live in a dignified uh respectful way uh and they're thriving they're thriving in these adversaries what we what we have found though that a lot of people in fact most of them who are have been out unhoused for a long time need in interim housing first it's it's so difficult to go from the streets to permanent housing many many of them wash out very quickly because they're not used to that structure it's way better for us to have an interim step where we can get them the resources they need to deal with the very issues that cause them to become unhoused and and that's what we're finding in our in navigation center and other um interim housing options I think I'm done well um I I guess one two just really quick questions um uh what um in an ideal world what is the one thing that in your experience and in the the um board of supervisors' experience would be the most effective thing if if you had a magic wand to decrease homelessness.

Yeah I mean I I it's a great question I would love to see more options to move people quicker out of interim into permanent housing and and that that's difficult.

I mean it it's great to house them but that's that that housing uh or that whole system relies on turnover so that we can you know get more people in at the beginning stage at the interim housing and then out exit to uh to more permanent housing options and that's where we're really I'm gonna have to concentrate and that's why the board has put 40 million dollars into the NOFO that'll be going out um for additional uh affordable housing and we're making we've got a lot in the pipeline I guess the other area is just uh you know to to expedite those somehow to to be able to get them through the system quicker so they can build quicker those are the those are the areas that concern me but um I think right now we're pretty good on the interim housing I mean we've got you know sixty to seventy five beds a night available well again thank you so much mayor we'll go to council member circuit thank you mayor um thank you uh county manager Caleghi and uh deputy county manager uh Rodriguez and Supervisor Gauche as well for being here tonight and for sharing about the uh progress so far uh with the Health Horizons ordinance just a couple of quick questions um what happened to the two people who declined shelter they moved out of the shelter and um moved on I don't think we've encountered them again uh they could have left the county they may still be in the county but we haven't encountered them okay and we don't we don't know we don't know okay and then for the 10 people who uh were housed uh did you mention that was interim housing so that was interim housing and I maybe Ilean I knows do you know how many of them are still housed or all of them are still all of them are still housed but in interim housing yes okay and what's the time limit for them to be in interim housing well we have um unfortunately some people that have been there uh a year or or longer I mean we that's that's part of that pipeline that's so important to to move them out to permanent housing and and we try our best when they come available um the Sobrato affordable housing uh complex uh that that is on count on uh Redwood City land that we hope to to build at some point next to the shelter.

I mean that's another 100 units that people would aspire to move out of the navigation center and into permanent housing.

So those are the type of projects that we really need to move people out of interim housing.

Absolutely, yeah.

So there's a challenge with there not being many places to go from the interim housing after that you know one year mark hits, right?

And yeah, finally, there's no guarantee that people will be placed in the navigation center in Road City, right?

Could be, you know, Safe Harbor in South City, it could be okay.

Although we do have the five on-demand beds.

That that is true.

And you know, we we typically try to place people um where we find them, uh, depending on the on the beds, but that is something we would certainly endeavor to do because it's obviously more attractive for them to move off the uh the streets that way.

So that's kind of the first um area that we try to go to, and uh to the extent we're not successful, and sometimes quite frankly, uh, with with some of these folks, it's it's good to get them out of their environment and into another environment uh that's maybe safer or away from some of the um things that brought them into um uh homelessness.

Thank you, County Manager.

Thank you, Councilmember Sherkin.

Councilmember Chu.

I know we have a you online, just want to make sure.

I didn't have any questions at this time, just wanted to express my appreciation, but no questions at this time that weren't addressed by others.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember.

No other questions?

I'll jump into mine.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike for being here.

Thank you, Ileana, and um, you know, appreciate all of the all of the hard work and coordination with our staff.

I know it's a complicated and complex issue with not just one solution, right?

So I appreciate all the the forethought you've done.

Um you know, I'm curious uh about a few different things, but first I know that before you know this process gets initiated that your team is bringing together folks um called a multidisciplinary team that's the health department, everyone who is you know law enforcement, everyone who is maybe interacted with this person coming to a table to kind of do a holistic analysis of that person's experience and how to make the the best I guess pitch towards housing, right?

But what's that been like it's been good and uh and I think that that uh is probably the best way to approach these so we don't so we have a full picture of the individual and the individual's needs because they're all so diverse and and uh um and we want to make sure that we we give it our best shot to to get them housed voluntarily, uh in that in that space it works well, and then we then uh every quarter we bring all our providers together and really talk about um what's working, what's not working, and uh we want to hold them accountable.

Um, they're being paid to do a job, and uh we want to make sure, and certainly you know we want to hear back from our cities, and and I know that Melissa's on one of uh one of our committees that meets quarterly and gets updates and and gets feedback for the region.

So we got these regional meetings too.

So we want to try to get as much information from everyone uh as possible so we can make the right decisions.

Uh and uh we feel that everyone working in the you know, rowing in the same direction and working collab really certainly is the best way to approach this very very complicated situation of homelessness.

Thank you, Mike.

And I know that the city would be leading the process and you know going through um each of these phases, but would our county partners be a part of I guess the multidisciplinary teams that the city will pull together since county health might be involved or sure.

I I think that would make a lot of sense to do that.

Absolutely.

That's great here, Mike.

Yeah, I um I mean I think that is such a powerful tool to kind of determine what's going to convince that person to maybe finally get to a yes and accept housing, um, and it's really looking at that, you know, individual and not just kind of custom uh or I mean, I'm sorry, just kind of painting with a broad uh brush there, but um the other thing I wanted to kind of ask about was, you know, it's incredible that nobody has been sighted, that no one's been arrested and has gone through the enforcement process.

Um I am curious if we find ourselves in that position.

Um, you know, how does the logistics of it?

How does somebody sort of get sighted?

Um, is it at the encampment and how do they make it to the courts or you know how that process looks like?

Yeah, it's a really good question.

Um there's several ways that we could do it, but we could work uh with your staff to have our folks issue those uh citations to people that are um out there and and these are uh folks with mental health backgrounds uh and they were former law enforcement, so they they really understand uh this population and how to deal with them.

Um and law enforcement is in the background.

Uh there, you know, we hope to never have them engaged uh in it, but if they are issued a citation, um it could be by by the Redwood City Police Department or our folks doing it on behalf of the Redwood City Police Department, and that would be something that we'd negotiate and or really work on the MOU because we want to have the authority to do that if you if you desire that.

But um then they would get a court date and uh they would be told, you know, to appear uh on this date in in court.

Uh and our hope is that they would show up and we'd we'd tell them about the diversion program, um, and we would, you know, the city, I can speak when the county does this, we when we end an encampment, we safely store their uh belongings and the Redwood City would be doing that also and telling them where they could pick up their belongings.

Okay, and you know, if um in the event that somebody doesn't have transportation to come to county center for their court date, um, have there been any workarounds that have been looked at?

Does the hot team do that at all?

Do we know, Ileana?

I think they've helped us with transportation to the shelters, but we gotta have to address that.

Anyway, I can I can tell this council if someone needed transportation to show up to a court, we would glad I would go get them if I had to.

I mean, we would gladly bring them to court because it's just better for the whole system.

So we would find a way if if they needed transportation to court, we would get them to court.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

And I had heard from, you know, a couple of different public commenters around diversion not being very straightforward and maybe a little complex.

Um, and I know the uh some of my colleagues have asked, but what is um what does that process look like, and you know, how quickly are folks able to enroll into a diversion program and start that process?

Yeah, it's something that we've really worked through with the district attorney's office and the courts are very interested in this also and really trying to get that individual uh back on the on the track of being housed, and uh it would almost be immediate um uh upon the first uh court appearance that they would be diverted out uh during that appearance, um, based on what the agreement would be that they would need to accomplish to see this case go away.

Okay, and is there sort of standard things that are a part of that agreement through the courts to I would really say it depends on the individual what that individual need is, is it addiction services, is it mental health services, is it job training?

Is it they need to get their license and get some uh warrants cleared up?

And then that was one of the things that one of the judges spoke to me about that they were very interested in getting rid of some of the barriers that prevent folks from getting their license that will allow them to go to work, uh, and they felt that that could be done during this process.

Okay.

And does the multidisciplinary team have any involvement in how the judge formulates what that agreement looks like?

Do they get that level of detail of what's been done and I mean I think that we would we'd have somebody familiar with the case, particular case or clinician, uh working with the district attorney's office um and the courts on a situation like that.

Thank you, Mike.

Um, and then my last question was just I, you know, I think that the this program really um it all its success is really based on how carefully we implement something like this, right?

Um, and I know that we'll be our staff will be taking the lead on something like this.

I just wonder um would it be possible to have maybe um a, you know, some sort of advisory role for the county, at least for the first handful of clearances that we do so we get you know an understanding of how the multidisciplinary teams have worked, what sort of things have happened when the county has done something um through Hopeful Horizons, like that level of expertise side by side with our city staff as they roll this program out.

Right.

I'd leave that up to the city manager and staff.

Uh we're happy to work on that uh with them and really try to accommodate uh staff any way we can.

I mean I our all our collective objective is to treat everyone fairly humanely and get them housed.

That is everyone's objective.

And and we're certainly open to um any suggestions that uh may help us achieve that collective goal.

Thank you, Mike.

And um I have a few questions for our city staff, but um also want to open this up to the council again if anyone has comments they want to get into.

If not, okay.

Go ahead, Mayor.

I will keep the show going.

Patrick, thank you.

Um, really quickly.

I um also really curious around um a few different points.

I'll start with um, you know, we saw three private properties had encampments.

Um, you know, what's the process been like for property owners who might be seeing this kind of issue?

Yeah, typically on private property things are handled a lot more quickly because folks call the police and then PD will go out there and say you're trespassing, and folks usually do move move along a little bit more quickly.

Sometimes there's been uh it's been difficult to to know what's private versus public, especially when you get out by the the different maple street properties, but for the most part, the private properties are handled pretty pretty quickly through traditional avenues.

Okay, thank you.

Um, the other thing I was curious about was the difference in the maximum fee that we can what the ad hoc is proposing.

Is there any change in the diversion program?

And this might have been a better question for Mike, but does that change sort of the routes that folks might be experiencing?

Uh nope, nope, it would not.

Okay, um, you know, the ad hoc also recommended sensitive sites that were mainly just school sites, um, for an expedited timeline.

Did the ad hoc look at any other sort of facilities as a part of that?

Yeah, and and one of the reasons and looking at other jurisdictions, so San Diego's the jurisdiction that looks at a lot of of sensitive areas.

So when we brought that up, other sensitive areas were were discussed and and the city has a history of other sensitive area discussion, whether we're talking about you know, tobacco or or firearms or or whatnot.

So there are other standards.

When we looked at other sensitive area maps, um, so child care facilities or whatnot, and essentially because there's so many child care facilities, essentially made almost 90% of the city as a uh be a 48-hour uh notice city.

So very few it basically would have made it a completely different ordinance than what the county is pushing.

I know what's being recommended tonight slightly differs from the county, and every time we talked about a potential change from the county, we checked with them.

Would you still partner?

But something like that would be a substantial shift.

Great.

Okay, thank you, Patrick.

Um, you know, I am kind of just seeing that I would love to see um you know uh the navigation center be included as a sensitive site.

I'm curious to see if um how that kind of works with the um the legal components to that, but um the other sort of question I had was just around the ERF grant funding.

I know that's gonna be the main way that we fund implementation of the program.

Could you speak more about you know the different ways that we've proposed using the ERF grant funds and um yeah, yeah, yeah, appreciate that.

So the ERF funding, um the city actually applied for it before many of these changes at the county and and statewide were were in effect.

Um if we were to apply today, I think the application would be a lot different.

Um and the reason why I say that is when you look at the city's application, it really has a line item replicating everything the county does.

So there's funds right now for outreach, there's funds right now for cleanups, um, rental subsidies, short-term rental subsidies, shelter subsidies, um, and that's really where the redundancy the county's already doing that work.

The county also got a very large ERF grant uh grant award from the state as well.

Um so right now we have the ability to use the funds in those areas also to help with some of the cleanups and for city admin.

Now the state is um amenable if the city wanted to revisit what what the eligible uses are for.

If the ordinance were adopted, you know, I think we'd want to look at what is the best way to use the funding.

If the county is placing folks into shelter, then do we really need I think it's 1.8 million for that?

It'd be very difficult for us to spend 1.8 million in subsidies if the county's already subsidized before the the the end of the grant or whatnot.

So I think we would want to have a discussion, like again, if it's if it were approved and the in the MOU eventually were approved of the county is what need are we not serving by this funds?

2.85 million that could go that could go a long way.

Um I will tell you that the grant allows capital to to buildings that have uh shelter, so Casa Esperanza saw some capital needs.

They could apply for some funding.

They allow you to pre-fund operating reserves, which is massively important for this type of of housing.

So um so we are having those internal discussions, but we didn't want to get too far down the road until you had discussion tonight.

Thank you, Patrick.

That's super good to know.

I um have ideas about how we can kind of rework that money, right?

Of course.

Um, you know, I think the more that we can do to help make the transition into housing, right?

Whether it's interim or permanent supportive housing is is helpful, right?

Um, and I know rapid rehousing funds have sort of been inconsistent and shaky, right?

So I hear from the community that's typically the the resource that they're looking for, right?

So, um I think those kind of service uh incentives also um would be really helpful, but perfect.

Okay.

I will leave my questions there.

Does anyone have any comments?

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Uh Patrick, I have a question for you.

Uh it was mentioned by a prior speaker about the downtown streets team not being visible uh whereas we it was very visible before.

Um I know the work that they do, they reach out to the most difficult people and really try to reach them and bring them into services.

Are we still working with the downtown streets team?

So the most recent agreement we had downtown streets team did expire on June 30th, so just a couple weeks ago.

Um we are having internal discussions on should we look at expanding that service?

I think really what we want to do is see again where did the city council want to go with regard to an amplify camping ordinance, and then I think we could better assess it.

They did apply for uh we had put out a recent RFP uh for uh encampment abatement services.

They were one of the firms that applied.

The only thing is they don't do hazmat removal, and so whatever entity or firm we we partner with need to have the ability to do hazmat, they didn't have that, so they were not uh recommended for award.

But we are having discussion with our public works group is should we look at another contract with them?

It was great to hear the feedback tonight.

Um, so I think it's a question.

The other thing is is other funders do fund downtown streets team as well.

And so I just want to make sure that um another entity isn't funding them within Redwood City.

I don't think they are, but we'll look into that and report back.

Also, is that something that uh maybe have a conversation with the county on how can they be useful in this going forward?

The plan going forward, if this is passed, maybe they can have another use, because I I see them out there all the time.

Sure.

Well, not lately, honestly, but um especially Sequoia Station.

They really try hard to engage people who are just really difficult to reach.

And that's because they all have the experience of having been through this before.

So if there's a role they can play, I suppose we could we should investigate that.

Sure.

Thanks.

I oh, yes, Patrick.

I was wondering what about I know that you said the sensitive areas and we said 200 feet from schools, but what about our public parks?

How how do how do they work into that?

Yes, so currently, uh camping is already prohibited in in city parks.

So I probably should have led with that.

So now I would say um it it's definitely hasn't been as enforced as you know, I think when all the legislation went down is similar rules were were applied there, but currently parks are uh currently prohibited unless you have uh a permit allowing you to camp in the park, but yeah, so uh but right now um I think we would utilize the same.

I'm looking at our city attorney, she might have some thoughts on it, but or Ellen, no.

Do you want to think that?

Um, I just wanted to clarify that's overnight camping that's prohibited in parks.

And so just following up on where Patrick uh where where you were going and answering Councilmember Badia's question.

Um currently, as the ordinance is drafted, um it would require a 72-hour notice uh within 200 feet of a park or a park.

So um that's not the park is not uh identified as a sensitive area.

Thank you.

Okay, I so I I have some thoughts on that.

I think if we're going to be keeping that area around our schools, I think we should also keep our parks uh safe and for our children and families as well.

So I would actually I think did you say could we look back?

Did San Diego actually mention parks in their ordinance because when Eleanor mentions overnight camping, I just see some gray area where where we might need to move more quickly.

Thank you.

So the San Diego ordinance defines parks as a sensitive area if the city manager determines that that part, it would be a health and safety risk for an encampment to be in that park.

So not every park in San Diego, there has to be that additional element of the city manager making that determination.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Go to Councilmember Howard.

Um, thank you for bringing that up because I can think of two schools right now that are in parks.

So that really would be a conflict.

So it's something that we should probably look at.

I'm sorry, you were going to add something.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just going to assure you, Council Howard, Councilmember Howard, that if where a school is within 200 feet of a school, whether wherever they're located, um it would be subject to the shorter 48-hour notification period.

So generally the way the ordinance is written, you would have a 72-hour notice.

Within 200 feet of sensitive area, it would be a 48-hour notice.

And of course, in exigent circumstances when there's true fire or health and safety concerns, no notice required under the ordinance as currently prepared.

And the navigation center that I hadn't even thought of that, but that seems to be where a lot of the encampments do set settle into, um, is something we could look at.

I mean, I'm not saying we vote on that tonight, but just maybe would that make sense?

Uh would it help the county with the navigation center if we made within 200 feet, you cannot be, because they're right up against all the fences and and that makes it really unsafe.

So the city council could decide to include the San Mateo County Navigation Center, located at 275 Bloomquist Street in Redwood City as a sensitive area, and then any encampment within 200 feet of that navigation center uh could be cleared with 48 hours notice.

I think that might be helpful.

I see, yes, thank you.

I think it's a great suggestion, and the more I thought about it, I said, yeah, that's probably worth doing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Vice Mayor.

I just on the theme of park.

Um, I had a question about the parks.

Um, and that question is, and and and maybe it's addressed in the map, but currently of our encampments that we have, how many are on in our parks or what percentage?

Do you know the answer to that?

How many are in parks?

I'm not aware of it.

One or two for the most part.

So that's because that one of the categories is city city property.

So then what is what where are the encampments on city property other than parks?

Basically city ride away.

So any city ride-away.

So any um sidewalks and streets.

Correct.

Yeah.

So that's really where the where they are, not so much in the parks.

Correct.

You know, there's definitely ev's and flows.

We we've had issues with Little River Park in the past, you know, the the park near the library in the past, and there's definitely some folks residing there currently.

So it definitely goes ebbs and flows.

I would say the longer folks stay and it accumulates, they definitely grow.

So right now the average uh encampment cleanup's 90 days.

Keep in mind when Little River Park started, it was two or three people, and then eventually balloon, I think to 27.

So, but right now there's not a massive amount in various parks throughout the city that I'm aware of.

Thank you.

And then I guess since my microphone is on, I'll just ask, I think I just have one more question.

Um, you know, the exigent circumstance where you don't need to give any notice, you can just clear immediately because of public health.

Um, where along that spectrum of, you know, zero notice, 48 hour notice, 72-hour notice.

Where along that spectrum in terms of like public health, would you know trash in the bay, trash in the river, trash in the wetlands?

Is that considered a public health under this ordinance and how that how is that dealt with?

Yeah, and and I do think it gets a little subjective, but what I would say is I would say absolutely.

I mean, the waterways are very important for several reasons.

Um, one for the environmental issues that you just raised.

Um I I think that's super important.

But I look at it from the city's regulatory perspective of we have permits that require us as a city to keep the bays clean, and there are other cities that have been litigated from the state or or whatnot, and we had just talked a little bit about the navigation center.

What's unique about the navigation center is if you go out there right now, most of the encampments that I've seen are in the riverbed.

I would make an argument that you could clear those out immediately, right?

From a from an environmental perspective.

Um so yes, I personally would say, is one of the reasons why we took action at Little Little River Park is there's a ton of debris and other stuff in in that waterway.

So yes, I I would make the argument that if it's affecting that, other things like utilities, um, you know, what would would rise to that level?

And the ordinance, forgive me, the ordinance just is a little bit all inclusive and not particularly specific to this issue.

Is that accurate?

I would say there's a broad definition of exigent circumstances that that captures things like you had talked about, but also util we've learned a lot.

So things around utilities, especially the the recent fire that that was had and um the things that but also things that are obvious that that a reasonable person would say yes, we think that is exigent or you know, serious.

Well, thank you, and and that's wonderful.

And so I just would say for the record that I I'm really focused in as we all are on making sure that our waterways and our bay and our wetlands are um hygienic.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Councilmember Padua.

Thank you.

Patrick, I have a question.

Um back to encampments.

What about if the car that is clearly not running is parked in a in a park parking lot?

So like let's say Hoover.

Let's say perhaps I see you know a cab parked there for weeks at a time, or cars parked there where someone is clearly living there.

Would that constitute as an encampment if one or two individuals is in that car in that parking lot?

It may, but I think we have another way of of dealing with it here at the city of Chief Bell, if you want to come up and let us know how you or Catherine Gunnerson?

Appreciate it.

Um because you get when you get to in-ops and a bunch of different stuff, uh, I let Catherine Gunderson.

Who I don't think I've ever seen out of uniform.

So thank you, sir.

Good evening, Council.

Um, yes, we do uh as you're well aware we have the RB safe parking program, so anybody who's living in an RV, obviously we don't allow that anymore.

And if they're dealing if they're living in vehicles, we treat them essentially as encampments.

So uh if they're staying there and they're staying overnight, currently right now we're treating them in the exact same way.

And if you were to pass this ordinance, I would expect that we would continue to do the same.

Thank you.

Councilmember Surgeon.

Thank you, mayor.

Uh, since we're discussing sensitive uh areas, um there was some public comments made about um encampments along Redwood Creek.

And so, is there any way that we can where encampments have been found, and where there have been a record number of fires, can we designate um those areas as sensitive areas as well, like particularly Reboot Creek east of 101 or along the bay trail that abuts Bear Island uh Bear Island?

It's my understanding that the city council can.

I think the question is is it better to go through the approach of exigent like we had like we had discussed?

So it's my understanding that we could, but um sometimes in some of the outreach, there was some residents who had said you guys aren't enforcing a lot of things that are on the books are ready when it gets into a little bit of nuance.

So then sure, I believe we can.

However, if an ordinance was approved, could the could the exigent circumstances be utilized a little bit more effectively is the is is a question I think to ponder.

Thank you.

Um and then I have other questions.

Uh so with regards to uh the posting of notices, uh, that your encampment will be cleaned up and or that your belongings have been, you know, stored and this is where you can find them.

Uh it's my understanding that we know we our hot team, our uh homelessness outreach team collects data on preferred language uh for folks who are living in encampments, and so do we know, like we have data in the staff report about the age, race, and gender uh people in encampments, but do we know the preferred language?

Uh just so we don't keep a data statistic on it, but I would say more qualitatively the hot teams go out and they will know if uh if a notice has to be given.

Um, and we checked with the county on this uh early, is they could serve any language that may need to be served.

So if there's customized notices based on language, they could definitely do it and uh but that feedback happens from the hot team, the hot team knows they're building rapport, and so if it came to the point of issuing a notice, as well as the offer of housing, right?

You want to make sure that's in their their preferred language, um, that we have full capability to address any language that we'd potentially see.

And that doesn't increase the duration of time by which they are noticed in their preferred language, right?

There's no oh I see.

Um, not as written.

So I think what you're saying is is there longer time given if it's in that is that what you're asking?

Yes, yeah.

No, it's it's pretty much um standard.

I will say, um, you know, talking with the county, kind of how they do their program, is you know, 72 hours is gonna be pretty tough to achieve anyway.

Um, you still have to figure out which ones you're gonna do.

Then you have to line up the county folks, you have to line up PD.

So, as folks who who um you know working on a line of work, is your it's 72 hours would be a great, it's probably gonna be longer than that, you know, if we average it, definitely not the 90 days.

And so we do think there will be time.

The other thing I'd like to say is there'd be discretion built in.

You know, if you go out there and if you're building rapport and whatnot, that necessarily have to, you know, give certain notice at time or or give the notice, but if you go back at the 72 hour, doesn't mean you automatically have to cite somebody and move them on.

They say I need one more day.

The county is giving us feedback that they're constantly working with folks in camp it's, give them an extra day or or two or whatever.

So there's a lot of discretion that folks at the local level would have to, you know, give give more time if needed thank you that's encouraging and with the storage of personal property so you know in exhibit a page one it's mentioned that personal items could be cleared in exigent circumstances of course but then also even if someone is just blocking the sidewalk so that's that that timeline reduces to zero is kind of my understanding is that correct if it's if it's exigent yeah if it if it's immediate yeah okay and so why has it taken 90 days you know on average or up to 90 days I should say to clear encampments currently yeah um currently there's a methodical process that the that the city goes through um to see if uh an encampment achieves a certain um you know there's there's what we refer to as a matrix certain scoring criteria to to clear um and so it it could take a long time before you and again it's it could be subjective somebody can look at an account and go that there is absolutely life safety threatening you know issue there currently um others can go out there and say you know what they're at six points is not the full 10 yet to clear so but there is a process that that goes through those processes were utilized by a lot of cities before the Supreme Court had settled um the the case you know the grants case now moving forward is jurisdictions wouldn't have to utilize a scoring criteria there so it's one of those things that's kind of um odd in that it has to get so bad before you can intervene and and remove it um for it to be cleared so that's why it's taking up to the the 90 days there's encampments I see around town right now where I say that looks but it's really PD who's out there who's going out there and like you know getting with like nope we went out there and there's no they don't have a barbecue pit out there's no fire pit out there so that would really trigger it but from the outside it might look like it but it really goes through that process to make sure that you know it achieves those those points or scoring I should say.

Thank you.

And then in terms of metrics so one of the metrics of course is that people become housed what does what is the definition of being housed would be accepting the city's sorry um the the county's acceptance of interim uh shelter um and then as part of the ERF process we have to track clients throughout whether they go shelter or interim housing to eventually into to permanent so I think at the staff level we would say short term would be getting them from outdoors indoors that was the the governor's key criteria on the housing is that needs to be indoor um so we think that would but then tracking them and a year later are they in permanent you know supportive vouching that would be a huge win.

Right now we recently toured the navigation center folks are staying at the navigation center I think 230 days on average um the folks at the navigation center want to get that more down to 150 um but that's what it's taking about 230 days to stabilize somebody before they're ready for their own independent living situation not in all cases but on but on average um so I would say key criteria would be getting them off off the street and then but then how long can we measure before they are into a permanent unit a lot of that a lot of that stuff's outside of our control right that that requires every other city to keep building those permanent you know supportive housing units and sure we have plenty in the pipeline or or whatnot but um there needs to be a place for folks to go.

Thank you.

Two hundred and thirty days yeah wow yeah and then thank you mayor for uh humoring me here um how would a misdemeanor arrest affect someone's ability to qualify for housing a misdemeanor excuse me misdemeanor arrests initially or through the the process like after you're saying after diversion court or assuming they aren't eligible for diversion or they for some reason decline diversion because they can't get there or uh because of the cost or whatever may be how does that uh affect their ability to qualify for housing it would make it more difficult you know individual property owners do have so like a a midpen housing has their own uh selection criteria they got to make sure they abide by all fair housing um but but credit worthiness and and criminal history is a is a key factor on those you know so definitely um I will say that uh the county has access to certain units and could be able to place and then with this big NOFA going out they might get access to other units where they'd have the ability to where the coordinated entry system would would essentially point folks but yeah I mean um I think that would go part of the screening criteria in most properties.

And I appreciate you you know enlightening the the council on that I mean I encountered that you know personally when I was uh home sharing coordinator with sacred with uh hip housing I almost said my current employer uh with human investment project housing because I would have to disclose to I would have to disclose the potential home providers um that a one you know a potential housemate they were considering calling had a misdemeanor or felony on their record and that um definitely had mixed results I'll say um those are my questions for the time being that I have some comments thank you thank you council member Sturkin we'll go to council member Chu.

Um so first of all thank you um for all of your hard work uh on this incredibly important and complex topic um I did want to sort of circle back and and you know most of my questions have already been uh posed by my colleagues um while we're discussing sort of uh exceptions or or sensitive areas are there any particular rules around um transit and libraries because I think about where sort of children congregate um so it's you know schools uh libraries parks and and to an extent transit um are there any particular rules around libraries or transit that are different than other areas not as currently um written San Diego is the only one we saw with transit it might be that San Diego controls their own transit agency I'm not I'm not sure um but no but they yeah but here what's being proposed just school to the extent there's a school adjacent to a park that I would I would say that would probably be the only uh the only time here with what's being proposed okay thank you thank you council member any other questions clarifying questions if not who would like to get us started with some comments councilmember howard well I I almost feel we should wait I was about to make a motion if that's okay and if someone wants to make comments then I'll hold on the motion I just want to be sure that everyone's had a chance to speak to the comments.

Thank you.

Any comments?

Councilmember Chu thank you.

Um so um I I um comments at length but um I first of all wanted to thank everyone who came and spoke um and acknowledge um that many you know many of you clearly understand the core issue that the key driver of homelessness is poverty and a lack of housing it's a housing shortage issue and I think Redwood City um and the county of San Mateo really acknowledge that and have worked very, very hard uh to both add to the housing supply at all levels of affordability.

I mean, we see in the data that you know it's not just about affordable housing, it's about abundant housing, and places that have a lot of housing um have much better housing affordability and much lower rates of homelessness, even as they have higher rates of poverty and drug addiction and things like that.

So I just wanted to acknowledge uh that that is correct.

Um however um for a certain segment of the population, housing is necessary but not sufficient.

And that's really what this ordinance is intended to address.

I think I wanted to also clarify a few other things.

So I think there can be an impression that you know this is criminalizing homelessness, and it's not doing that.

Like there are multiple, first of all, it requires that housing's available.

So, you know, a person who has nowhere to go would not be cited.

There are multiple offers of housing given, and then they're given a lot of time, and there's a lot of room and discretion to be patient, to work with the person to kind of ensure that they're successful in becoming sheltered.

Um the second thing is uh I actually had the opportunity along with council member Padilla to visit the navigation center, and I was blown away.

They have dental care, they have medical care, uh, even the architecture and the way that the navigation center was built was very trauma-informed.

Every individual there is able to secure their possessions, their person privacy and security is hugely emphasized because a lot of unsheltered individuals feel you know just very afraid of you know not being able to lock a door or protect themselves in that way.

Um they're able to be to go to the navigation center with their pets, with their partners.

Um, there's all kinds of enrichment activities, and so I feel like the navigation center conscientiously addresses the whole person and is an unhoused person's best opportunity to become sheltered.

Um, and then I just wanted to share sort of my arc with this.

Um, I thought at first that I would be very opposed to such an ordinance.

Um, and then I started really looking at what happens to people when they're unsheltered, and and really um thinking about the outcomes.

Um, so and you know, I think we all go through periods in our lives where if there's not exotic, you know, if somebody doesn't intervene, we will have very bad outcomes and probably die.

And that's when we're very young, when we're very old and when we're very sick, that people become helpless in those situations to make good choices for themselves, and they become dependent on others to intervene to protect them.

And uh unsheltered homelessness, I was doing a literature review, have much higher rates of premature morbidity and mortality.

They die much younger than even homeless individuals.

Um, there was one paper, it was a review article.

Sorry, um, that uh the there was a four times odds ratio of mortality compared to other homelessness individuals for the unsheltered, uh and two times odd ratio for health issues, and that's compared to other homeless individuals.

Another paper found that the mortality rate was three times higher and a tenfold higher uh mortality rate than than the general population.

And so when you have a population of unsheltered individuals, they tend to get hospitalized and they tend to die if we don't intervene.

And I feel a responsibility as a city council member to protect the health and safety of everybody in our city, including unsheltered individuals, and for those individuals, being sheltered is their best chance at survival.

Uh, and the conditions which lead to being unsheltered often severely impair the ability to make good choices that will get them out of that situation.

So, for example, if somebody has a severe mental health crisis or a substance use disorder, it becomes much harder to make choices, which will get them out of that situation.

Um, finally, um the other group of stakeholders is not just unhoused individuals, but it's the whole community.

We have a responsibility to the whole community.

We've heard tonight from individuals who've dealt with multiple fires.

You know, I had a lovely nonprofit reach out to me because their employees were routinely uh cleaning up, you know, human feces, uh, drug paraphernalia, um, things like that.

And so I think when we don't address this issue, um, it gets pushed on to everyone.

Um, and so this this ordinance is intended uh to really address the safety and the health of the whole population, but particularly those who are unhoused.

It's done in a compassionate, thoughtful way, uh, that gives these individuals their best chance at survival and a better life.

Um, so I I um will be supporting it tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting us started, Councilmember Chu would like to go next.

Go next.

Councilmember G.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Before before I add my comments, um, or to our city manager, I know Elain Lancaster's online.

No, this we there are some speakers saying that we need to do more about housing and affordable housing, but we have been not just this council, but the several councils before.

So with the city managers' approval.

Lynn, could you just share with everyone kind of what's in the pipeline and what we have done with regard to housing and affordable housing because the council's prioritize housing, especially at the lower income levels?

Good evening, uh saying council members.

Alin Lancaster here, housing leadership manager.

Um, and I don't have all the exact numbers, you know, right in front of me at this moment, but you know, we have upwards of a thousand, you know, affordable units in our pipeline.

Um, and these vary from 100% affordable housing projects as well as market rate projects that are providing a portion of their units um as affordable units.

Um, and we've as the council has seen recently, we've also negotiated projects in partnership with office developments.

So, recent examples that have been approved by the council are 847 Woodside and 920 Shasta, which are 100% affordable housing projects where the land has been is going to be donated by um office developers.

We also have a housing preservation fund.

Um, so trying to preserve and extend uh units in our city that are what we've called naturally occurring affordable housing and making sure that they become deed-restricted affordable housing.

Uh, we recently completed um our first project in partnership with the housing endowment and regional trust.

Um, and we still have additional funding available for that.

So we are working kind of not just on the new production but also the preservation uh end of things as well.

Well, Ellen, thank you.

I really appreciate that.

I mean, this council, and again, the several councils have prioritized housing in our city and at the very low and low income levels, and so that has been happening, and there's more units under construction right now.

So I just want to make sure that's out there, and everybody knows that.

No, I I want to just add my comments because we still have several more items on the agenda, but I want to thank um Council Member Stirkin and Council Member Chu.

We and staff.

I mean, we had six meetings in six months on this topic, and we heard from the county, we heard from the DA's office, we learned about the CARES program, CARESCORP program, and we didn't come to this point lightly.

We we had conversations, we did our homework.

Um, you know, the the true measure of success though is the partnership with the county.

I mean, together at San Mateo County and Red Way City, we have together partnered in creating affordable housing at all levels of income with a focus on the lower income levels.

The dynamic though, here is as councilmember Howard shared, the 25% that consistently says no.

The success is getting folks inside with wraparound services and having them available to those services, whether it be mental health, medical, drug, whatever it is, those services and being inside are the keys to helping them stay off the street and transition into permanent housing.

We didn't come, at least I didn't come to this conclusion lightly.

It was with deliberation and intent that we want to be compassionate and help those individuals and identify them that have needs, but at the same time, they can't keep saying no, that we we have invested significantly at the city level in these services, and we're not the safety net provider.

That's one of the primary roles of the county.

When we look at the amount of money we've invested, it's not sustainable.

We cannot keep doing this indefinitely.

And so we have to find a way, and we have a great partner here in the county called San Mattel County who is going to partner with us.

That's the part that people forget.

They see number one, and we've heard it today and tonight, criminalizing those that are unsheltered.

But most important for me is number two, for our city and our county to become partners and helping these individuals find the services and the shelter and the housing they need to have them get back on the path to productive lives, and that is the true difference maker here.

It doesn't happen anywhere else in the state.

That is what is happening here in San Middle County, and that's what is going to make the difference.

And the data and the staff, you know, has the data in the county.

And thank you to our supervisor, supervisor Gaucher, thank you for being here this late.

Um, there are investing county funds, and the biggest difference is if every city in this county did their part, and there are cities in this county that are refusing to do their part, and Mike knows this very well, and I've told that mayor to go put it in a dark place, because if every city did their part, this problem wouldn't be as bad as it is.

It goes back to the same thing with housing.

If every city in this county did their part to provide affordable housing, if every city did their part to provide interim housing, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing, we could be at functional zero in a lot shorter amount of time.

We can't do it alone in Redwood City, but we can help make a difference in San Mateo County together.

So I will be supporting this.

I will be looking for the metrics of success, and if we need to pivot and make an adjustment based on the data, we'll make that adjustment, but we can't keep doing the same old thing and expecting different results, and this I think is a great step in trying to get different results and positive results.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

We'll go to Councilmember Circa next.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I really appreciated the uh county presenting about the progress of the ordinance thus far.

Kind of gives us a snapshot of what could be in Rabbit City, right?

Um, you know, I'm sure we'll see more of that in Rubbit City, unfortunately.

And I think to Council Member G's point, I'm not sure we're gonna see our neighbors necessarily open up their doors uh with you know open arms to receive them, and so it really is our job as a city to take care of them.

And for the 10 people who did get housing, interim housing rather, if they don't find permanent supportive housing or affordable housing or market rate housing even by the end of their stay in the navigation center, they're gonna end up back on the street.

And 39% of people who go into our shelter system, as we've heard many times, end up back on the street.

So for some it works, for others it doesn't, and it's a revolving door.

Not to discredit the hard work that the county's doing, because it is working for some, and then there's those like those two people who left the area who will just evade contact with outreach workers with our police department out of fear of what is to come.

And even for those who do accept interim shelter, there's no guarantee they will end up in the navigation center.

That's just not how the system works.

It's depending on what that is available and where.

So the navigation center is amazing and the wraparound services that are provided there and the amenities and having your own room and bathroom even, but that's no guarantee that we have the right shelter available at the time that it's needed.

And ultimately, it's been discussed that the ultimate solution is more housing availability, right?

You know, a lot of people are about $400 away from losing their housing in Silicon Valley.

One of my neighbors uh mentioned that they uh she and her family have foregone uh medical coverage because they couldn't afford their rent otherwise, and so she and her family are just one medical emergency away from losing their housing.

And we've seen in the presentation the staff report that it has been because of Project Home Key, because of the navigation center, because of interim and permanent housing solutions that we've actually seen the number of encampments and the number of people who are on a house in Robo City go down, not because of enforcement.

And I want everyone to understand who's listened in, who's made comments, you know, in support of this measure, that this isn't going to solve homelessness, and we're not going to see a drop in the number of encampments overnight.

It's only going to decrease when there is shelter available, so upon shelter availability, and upon people complying uh with the ordinance, it won't get rid of all encampments.

My concern is that we're setting ourselves up for failure and over-promising and will underdeliver.

But I recognize you know that there is probably full council support for this ordinance, and I did hear that there was interest in or at least acknowledgement of housing human concerns, appetite for data following the implementation of this ordinance, as well as uh for reporting uh from housing human concerns committee to council.

So I would really like to ask my colleagues if you would consider an amendment that was requested by a number of public commenters to amend Section 4.

I think I heard it if I heard it correctly to have the city council direct housing human concerns committee to review the implementation and outcomes of the ordinance every six months and return to the city council once per year if they have recommendations.

If I didn't hear that correctly, please feel free to step in.

But I think with us being implementing this for the first time and potentially enforcing for the first time, since we don't have evidence of what that process looks like from the county at this time, I think we really do need to take to keep a close eye on the implementation and outcomes of this ordinance and task our housing human concerns committee who has experts on its committee that we have appointed with that job.

So that way you can make informed decisions in the future and make changes as needed.

Where maybe we have blinders, or maybe where we don't have that firsthand experience and expertise.

And you know, I also do have a question about how much this is gonna cost, and nobody's really discussed that.

We've talked at length of it being 18, excuse, excuse me, uh sixteen million dollars over the past several years that we've spent as a city, but what is it gonna cost to implement this uh going forward?

I'm not sure if that's question has been answered.

But again, I recognize that there's majority support for this ordinance.

But I think the least we can do is incorporate robust monitoring and reporting to the city council.

So that way we can make adjustments as needed and make informed decisions because.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sirkin, for your remarks.

Before someone else jumps in, I did just want to invite Patrick up.

Um I know I had asked about how much the clearances typically cost and that sort of calculus.

Yes, so I appreciate the question.

And and you know, when you look at it over the next two years, we've we have a funding source to help offset.

So I'll touch on the next um two years.

But when you look at encampments, there's really, and I appreciate TK for giving me the data.

There's really small, medium, and large.

The smaller encampments cost about 800 to 1,000 of cleanup.

Um that's really uh pretty quick.

When you look at a mid-size, you're looking at about you know, up to about 2,000, and then the larger encampments, which are rare, uh, get upwards of 20,000 or more.

Um so when you look at the cost, it's not really the the cleanup cost of the cost of ministering, it's it's pretty much the cost of coordinating, right?

Is really identifying which encampments there are that would be done out of the that would be done out of the city manager's office.

Right now, it's done by the police department.

I mean, there are thousands of hours of police department activity dedicated to it right now.

Um, and those positions are are expensive, as are you know, other other positions.

Um, we think over the next two years the cost would be cheaper, you know, but we have to see what the data looks like.

Anytime you replace PD or FIRE as a lead on on anything and make it civilianized, the cut the costs tend to come down.

Now, make no mistake, PD has to be out all the interactions and whatnot, but currently PD has full-time officers that are only dedicated to driving around checking the encampments or whatever.

That would all be done by the county.

So that's that's great.

So the total cost with the county's cost might be more, but the city's costs and and our expectation would probably be less, especially for the next two years.

After that, once the ERF grant is gone, it would be a different conversation potentially.

Great.

Thank you, Patrick.

Any other comments?

No, no, you'll go for it.

That's okay.

You might go on.

It's okay.

Okay.

Okay, I'll I'll do mine.

I was writing it.

Okay.

I will be supporting the anti-camping ordinance as a proactive step towards helping those experiencing homelessness get the support they truly need.

Living in an encampment is not safe, healthy, or sustainable.

This ordinance is not about punishment, it's about creating real opportunities for people to access housing, mental health care, addiction treatment, and other essential services.

I understand that some forms of care are hard.

Offering help can mean making difficult choices, but we have to think about the health and well-being of our entire community, including those who are unhoused and those affected by the growing number of unsafe encampments in our community, especially those that surround our children.

With the right resources and commitment and accountability and support, this policy can help people move towards stability while restoring safety and access to our public spaces for all.

But I I am happy to enter I I am all for transparency and pulse checks and checking in.

So I am open to any amendment that involves the housing and human concerns committee as well.

Great.

I'll um, do you have comments.

I just want to thank the ad hoc committee, six six meetings in six months, wonderful work for the reasons stated.

Um I also by all my colleagues who gave beautiful explanations.

This ordinance is an additional tool.

We have a lot of carrots.

Yes, this ordinance, which is backed up by a United States Supreme Court case, gives us a stick.

Um it's just a tool.

We don't have to use this stick.

Um as we've heard tonight, there are so many creative ways that these very skilled um public servants are utilizing now to help unhoused people, and this ordinance just codifies and um makes the process a little more clear, and um the the ordinance includes a stick, but it but it it can be it's just a tool.

I will be supporting this ordinance.

I am very comfortable with the amount of expertise we have heard tonight, the varying public servants that are doing such excellent work.

I don't feel a need to have additional reporting by the housing and human concerns.

There is accountability, it's written into the ordinance.

I am perfectly happy with the way the ordinance is now, and I plan to support it.

Great.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I will um not seeing any other hands, I'll go ahead and give my comments.

Um, first of all, thank you to the ad hoc for your all of your effort.

I know that um, like it was said, six meetings in six months is is not easy, so thank you for for your due diligence.

Thank you to uh county executive Mike Calaghi, Eliano Rodriguez for being here to provide some helpful responses.

Um, you know, I and thank you to the community for engaging in this process.

This was not only one opportunity for people to make comments.

There has been several community meetings where people have been invited to participate, understand, learn more, and also share their perspective.

So thank you for for joining us on this process.

Um, you know, the issue that we're describing tonight and talking about is at the bottom line a just a human issue, and it's not unique to Redwood City.

Um, it's a social issue that's rooted in economic instability that's exacerbated by the lack of housing that we've historically failed to build to beat the community's growing needs, right?

Um, and it's rerouted people's lives.

Um, it's rerouted families' lives, right?

The people who um are related to the folks who are unhoused also experience um obstacles that come along with caring for that person, right?

Um, and I've in my own way have experienced part of that and have had family members who have struggled and with drugs and have fallen um at risk of becoming homeless and are living in motel room to motel room.

Um, and you know, I and so when I see folks who are are living unhoused and unsupported in our community, um all I could think is that you know this is a policy failure.

We have um we are seeing gaps play out in real time in our community, right?

And this um, and so much of it starts at the state level, right?

Where we talk about um what the definition of competency is and what um what it means to be able to care for oneself, right?

But we are the safety net, local government is the safety net, and so I think when I'm here us discuss this ordinance, this is really providing an additional tool and not the first one to use and take out of the toolbox, right, and use widely.

This is really um, you know, one of the last resorts.

We don't want to have to go through the process.

And um, I mean, we've heard tonight the different ways that the city and the county have prioritized and taken action on homelessness over the last few years, and I'm proud that we haven't simply just decided that it's good enough to push people out of Redwood City.

That's not good enough for us, and that's not a real solution.

And so, you know, I'm grateful that we have county support into looking at future permanent supportive housing sites through maybe Prop One.

Um, they're doing great work with the NOFA to look for existing affordable housing sites.

Um, I think we can add more to the toolbox.

This isn't gonna be a one solution fixes all.

Um I also see this as just um a place for us to continue the work.

We can also continue to build on our legislative platform to identify future gaps we see as we roll this project out.

We can encourage our partners around the county to build affordable housing at the rate that we are, and also to work with the county on policies like this that will integrate a solution and build a pipeline into housing, and again, not simply just sweep this problem under the rug or to places where most of the community won't see it.

That isn't gonna solve this problem, it's not gonna result in better health health outcomes for the people who are living on our streets, and so um Councilmember Sirkin's proposal around you know bringing in the HHCC is um similar to what I was thinking.

I you know think that um I would love to see our ad hoc or some version of it continue its work and get quarterly updates on how this work continues.

Um I think just carefully watching the implementation and the cost of these programs is gonna be important, but also pivoting where we can, and we've discussed in the ways that enforcement hasn't really been hasn't been rolled out, um, in the way that we expect, so that could be an opportunity for us to get ahead of problems to talk about those issues and come up with a Redwood City solution to that.

Um, additionally, I mentioned, you know, I would love as we formulate the MOU with the county for us to have a uh a close counterpart that we can bring into the implementation of the program, at least you know, the first few, maybe five in camping clearances so our city staff can understand the process that the county has been going through, and also maybe share advice on what's been successful to getting people to say yes and avoid that process.

I think that level of partnership would be incredibly helpful.

Um, and then you know, I think the ERF ERF grant funding, because the county is going to be our outreach partner and take the lead on that, that frees up quite a bit of funds that we had proposed to the state through the ERF grant.

I would love for us to look at ways for us to smoothen the transition into permanent supportive housing.

I mentioned you know, rapid rehousing, but there's also tenant subsidies.

There are ways where people can use or ways that people can use these funds to help make that process successful and keep them housed, right?

Um, and then just lastly, you know, this is again one tool in the toolbox, and I think the gold standard for housing these neighbors is permanent supportive housing, it's having housing sites where wraparound services exist and can support these folks day in and day out.

So, very grateful that the county is working with us on exploring Prop One funds, but that shouldn't be the only next step or the only other opportunity we have.

We should continue to really think about how we house these most vulnerable neighbors that we see in our community.

Um, so that's all to say that the work will continue.

Um, these discussions have highlighted gaps and also shown the community's interest in building more affordable housing and creating and bringing online more wrap around services like we've seen at the Navigation Center in Casa Esperanza.

Um, so again, I appreciate the dialogue tonight.

I I hope that we'll continue to engage the community as we look at this process.

But um with that, I'll make a motion if no one else would like to.

Um, Councilmember Sir, we'll quote you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, okay.

So I just want to make sure I heard you correctly.

So you supported referring this to Housing Human Concerns Committee and having them.

Would you please clarify now?

Sorry, thank you.

I am proposing instead extending the length of our council's ad hoc, right?

Our homelessness ad hoc or creating a committee outright based on uh, well, the ad hoc is running out of its time.

So just outright creating a brand new committee focused on homelessness that meets on a quarterly basis to get information from our city staff from our county partners on how the process is rolling out, and then having the ability to bring that to the full council if there's policy questions that come from that.

Um just a clarification from our city attorney, an ad hoc is a single purpose committee with a limited duration.

It doesn't have to be 12 months, but it's single issue with a limited time.

So you could say to continue the ad hoc for another eight, I shouldn't even say this, another 12 months if you wanted to, just to see the first year of implementation.

Am I understanding the per the rules of an ad hoc correctly?

That's correct.

So I mean the ad hoc, as soon as it's finished its business and provided its recommendation to the city council, it automatically disbands.

Now the ad hoc committee could be converted into a standing committee.

And I think maybe the mayor, that's that's what you're saying.

Um and so it definitely can do that.

We can prepare the documentation, bring it on consent for the council if that's of interest.

It also could be extended for many reasons, but um, but that's probably more what you were thinking, mayor.

And the to be super clear, the makeup of a new committee wouldn't have to be the same folks who served on the ad hoc in case that was maybe too much of an ask.

That's correct.

I mean, you know, really the ad hoc, as soon as the council acts on an ordinance, the ad hoc um has disbanded and it's it's it it has served its purpose as as you appointed it.

And so when the committee resolution comes, then that's when those position can positions can be filled, and then of course, with the mayoral appointments, they can be updated.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So council member, that's sort of what I'm proposing to have a new committee that would continue to meet quarterly.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, would that be something that would need to be incorporated into the motion, a city attorney?

I think um I think you the city council could um by motion or or you know direct us to bring a resolution uh for the city council to consider.

It wouldn't be it wouldn't be happening as part of this ordinance.

But if that's this is something that they would want that the council would want to act on, it's definitely something that you could incorporate into the motion should there be an interest in introducing the ordinance tonight.

Thank you.

I would very much be interested in introducing um a standing committee on homelessness or homelessness initiatives or whatever it may be, whatever the mayor wants to title it as part of this ordinance.

So how would you like me to word that?

Um, shall I make a motion?

Oh, I see Council Member Chu has their hand up.

Maybe I'll hold it.

Council member, Councilmember Chu, please go.

I just wanted to express I think that's a terrific idea.

I think you know it gives us the opportunity to just monitor the progress of this, um, refine our ideas and and potentially improve them.

So I just wanted to echo support for that idea.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Appreciate the support.

We'll go to Vice Mayor.

What what I heard is what I heard is so I um what I heard is that we are voting on this ordinance, and that staff has heard direction to create a standing committee which is separate from the ordinance.

So I move that we approve this ordinance as written.

Unless you'd like to do that, Mayor.

Do I have a second?

I can second that, but I did want to know we the discussion included the navigation center.

I uh that's what I heard several people mention.

So part of it says uh 48 hours notice.

If it's located within 200 feet of a school, I'd like to add and the navigation center, if that's okay.

Because we said I thought I saw nodding heads and might as well get it in writing.

Definitely.

And I thought I heard staff mention that maybe that was something that had to be looked at and brought back later to include the navigation center.

So I'm sorry, I'm not sure where we are on the motion.

Um, but I I'm happy to answer the question for you, mayor.

Um, the navigation center including it as part of the ordinance.

If the council is interested, we could do that right now by adding it as a sensitive area.

And so if there's a motion to introduce the ordinance as proposed by the ad hoc committee, um, but with a modification to add as a sensitive area, the San Mateo County Navigation Center located at 275 Bloomquist Street in Redwood City.

We would then that would be the first reading, and you'll see it in the second reading in black and white.

Great.

I think thank you, city attorney.

Um, then I'd love to make the friendly amendment to include the navigation center.

I I second the motion.

I have a question.

I have a question before we go.

Um could we I know that when we talk about the navigation center, we were talking about particularly the environment and waterways.

So is there a way that we could even encompass more protection of the environment in terms of where flowing water is and keeping encampments from those areas?

If I may, Mayor, um so yes, you could.

We haven't had an opportunity, there's a very big difference between a navigation center, which I can very clearly identify for you today, um, what we're going to add and where we're going to insert it.

Um waterways is an ambiguous term.

We're gonna have to think through what our waterways we would want to protect, what is the scope of it, and we'll add that into the ordinance.

So it's not something that we could do a first reading on today, because I don't believe staff have thought through that.

Okay, and and I don't mean to put you on the spot for it either.

I I think that's fair.

Uh what I would proffer is some waterways are more obvious where the exitant circumstances would would come into effect, but when you get nuanced, yeah, I think it requires further.

And by not, you know, you're asking about including waterways as a sensitive area.

That is possible.

I just can't do it today for you.

Um, and as our assistant city manager mentioned, there are.

I mean, our waterways, because of the environmental concerns, um, many encampments, contamination of our waters, um, waste going into our waterways, is a real concern that would deem it an exigent circumstance.

Um, and in fact, the city, even without an anti-camping ordinance has in the past gone to court to remove an encampment that was located on a culvert bank because of that exact same concern.

So I would think that we would treat it the same way today.

Thank you.

Council Mr.

Sirkin, thank you.

Just two quick questions about the standing committee.

So just to clarify, there's no need to direct staff to form that, it's by the mayor's appointment.

Correctly.

Yeah, I I believe I'm hearing majority support for this.

So it would be even clearer if the motion were to include that.

I know we now have a lot of things that are in the motion and a little confusion over friendly amendment, but um ultimately the the mayor does have the ability to establish committees.

We could bring that back to council for action, just to be very clear.

Thank you.

And the second and final question, those since it would be a standing committee, those would be open to the public.

Yes, that would be a brown eye body open to the public, correct?

Thank you.

I think we're ready for a vote.

Oh, Council Richard, before we vote, I see your hand is raised.

We'll go to you.

I was gonna make a you know, as since um it was noted that it would be clearer if we included the standing committee in the ordinance.

Um did I understand that correctly?

Would you like us to include would it be uh helpful to include the standing committee in the ordinance or no?

I just wanted to clearly understand.

I think the part that got a little confusing was that um the original motion maker um did not modify the motion to include the navigation center location.

It was then I think a friendly amendment from the mayor instead of Vice Mayor Aiken, and then Vice Mayor Aiken seconded the friendly amendment.

So I believe we need a motion, or we need a vote on the friendly amendment.

Oh, right.

Okay, we need to vote, I mend the is that correct?

Correct, sorry.

Great.

Thank you for double checking, council member.

We'll go ahead and do a roll call vote for the friendly amendment to include the navigation center at 275 Bloom Quest, as a part of the sensitive sites list.

Who I'm a little bit lost.

Who was the original motion maker?

That was the Vice Mayor.

Vice Mayor, you were the original motion maker.

Who was the second?

Maybe they accept the friendly amendment.

Councilmember Howard.

So mayor, you asked for a friendly amendment to include the navigation center.

We don't need a full vote yet, but I do need both the motion maker and the second to accept the friendly amendment, and then you can go for a vote on the on the motion as amended.

And I'm happy to repeat the motion as amended if if you need clarification.

It's okay with me.

Thank you.

I accept the motion and the friendly amendment.

And now we can do a roll call vote.

Thank you, City Clerk.

We'll start with Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

No.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Savallos.

Yes.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Sturkin opposed.

Great.

Thank you to my colleagues and thank you to the community for sticking with.

Mayor, what about item number the next item on it?

Directing staff to work.

That's important.

Probably the most important thing.

Do we need a vote for that though?

Yes.

Can I make that motion?

Then I I direct staff to return to the council with proposed MOU memorandum of understanding with the uh county of San Mateo that would memorialize the roles and responsibilities of both parties on enforcement of the ordinance.

Second.

Thank you both.

And could we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with council member Sturkin.

No.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Sturkin opposed.

Okay.

Thank you, everyone for sticking with us.

We'll move on to item nine, which is notification to city council for items 9A and 9B related to parcel maps.

These are notification items for the council only.

And there won't be a staff presentation, public comments or council action needed for these items.

So we will probably best for me to read each item right.

Just so nope.

Okay.

We'll move on to item 10.

Matters of council interest beginning with 10A, city council referral.

Resolution of support for state legislation, Senate Bill 63, Wiener, uh San Francisco Bay Area Local Revenue Measure.

We'll now hear a council referral regarding the consideration for resolution in support of SB 63, the San Francisco Bay Area Local Revenue Measure for transportation funding.

If you'd like to speak on this item, please be sure to turn in a speaker card to the city clerk at this time.

And our city manager will give a presentation of the referral process and uh the city's legislative consultant Dane Hutchings from California Public Policy Group is available for questions.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

So just for the community's benefit and as a reminder to the city council, the referral process is a process by which an individual council member asks for your concurrence on the remainder of the council to direct staff to analyze an issue and bring it back for city council consideration.

There's also a provision in the referral process for the city council to take final action and to essentially skip the step of additional staff analysis.

And that can occur if there's been enough information provided to the city council that you feel like you have enough information to act, and if there's been enough information provided in the agenda packet so the public has an understanding of what the action would mean.

So in the case of the evening, I'm sorry, the item before you this evening, and Councilmember Sturkin has asked for the city to council to consider approving a resolution of support for Senate Bill 63, which would authorize a regional transportation funding ballot measure for the San Francisco Bay Area.

The staff report with uh significant help from our legislative consultant Dean Hutchings did provide an update on the current status of that bill.

It has been considered three times by the governance committee, which is currently directing that we take a watch position on it, which means that we watch closely the evolution of the bill, but have not taken a position to support or to oppose it.

With that, I will kind of end my comments on it, and then uh after the public comment, typically the council member making the referral is is the first to make comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Melissa.

We'll now take public comment on this item, and I'll turn it over to the city clerk to help facilitate.

Thank you.

At this time we have six speaker cards.

So last call to the audience for anyone else wishing to speak on item 10A this evening.

All right, seeing none, we will start with Shishir Fat, who will be followed by Sebastian Petty.

You'll have two minutes to speak, and the timer will begin when you start speaking.

There we go.

All right.

Good evening again, Council.

What a night.

Um we just went through a few hours of talking about our city's issues with uh our homeless population, and I believe most of council, all of countless acknowledged that at root cause this is caused by a lack of good housing options at all levels in the area, not just in Redwood City, but in surrounding communities that have been falling behind too.

Um and it would be disastrous for any sort of housing plan to be viable if we were to gut transit at this time.

I am a very large user of transit myself.

I think council member Sturkin saw me run into the Cal Train this weekend.

Um if I recall correctly, um, if SB 63 were to not pass, the Caltrain would have to likely cut service from every half hour to every one hour on weekends.

Um, I cannot tell you who came up with that stat.

I believe it was from CalChain themselves.

Um we've seen in the past two years that with the electrification of the Caltrain at least, and we could talk about SAMTrans and other services that we get.

Um, that has almost double the ridership with the double frequency.

Um, this is an amazing achievement that was only possible through the transit funding that we got from COVID and all this additional post effects of COVID.

So I would heavily so I would heavily recommend the council support SB63 as it's vital to keep our region viable for housing and transit.

Our next speaker is Sebastian Petty, who will be followed by Nicole Noga.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Sebastian Petty, and I'm here representing Spur, the San Francisco Urban Planning and Research Association.

Spur is a strong supporter of SB 63, and we appreciate your consideration of this important bill.

Stated simply, our region's largest transit operators, operators that carry more than 80% of the region's transit riders are at extreme risk of financial catastrophe without new funding.

SB 63 provides a solution by authorizing a 2026 ballot measure so that voters can weigh in on a new temporary sales tax that would provide desperately needed funds.

Putting together a regional funding legislation is a complex, excuse me, putting together a regional fund, putting together regional funding legislation is complex and there are still details to be resolved.

I also understand that it's difficult that it's a difficult time to contemplate new taxes.

Nonetheless, I want to emphasize how deeply essential this new funding is for the future of transit.

Without it, buses and trains will grind to a halt, our roads will become more congested, our era will be dirtier, and our ability to grow and house our communities will falter.

I'm deeply appreciative of the consideration that Redwood City and the whole of San Mateo County are providing to this issue, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nicole Noga, who will be followed by Adina Levin.

Hello again, City Council.

Um I'm Nicole Noga.

I am a member of the Transportation Advisory Committee, but I'm speaking on my own behalf tonight in support of Redwood City supporting SB 63.

The idea of additional taxes at this time, and particularly in this, you know, very expensive corner of the world seems ridiculous, right?

But allowing public transit to enter the death spiral of insufficient funding, reduced service, and reduced ridership is even worse.

Public transit is critical everywhere, but especially in Redwood City, and I think we all know that.

The reason that the city is successful and vital and you know has hope for continued success and vitality is in no small part due to the fact that we are located on an important uh Caltrain stop and along this important corridor of El Camino Real.

We need to help fund transit in order to uh continue to grow and be vital as a community.

Uh, wanna I know uh Councilmember Sterkin and others will probably talk about this, but you're not voting right now to uh increase taxes, right?

You're voting for San Mateo County to join this regional ballot measure where we can consider this.

We talked a little bit about tonight how other communities need to um step up and support housing and support homeless services in our region.

San Mateo County needs to step up and support this transit funding in order for it to work across the Bay Area.

So uh try to keep it short or short-ish.

I would endorse the city supporting SB 63.

Thank you, Nicole.

Our next speaker is Adina Levin, who will be followed by Jordan Grimes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

I'm Adina Levin, representing Seamus Bay Area and Friends of Caltrain.

I uh live uh one stop uh down the line in uh nearby Menlo Park, and would like to very strongly encourage the city council um to be um supportive, um, including being supportive of San Mateo County joining the regional funding measure.

The role that a city has to play in taking this position is different from the really critical role that SAMTRANs is going to play, which is going to take the vote to about whether to join the regional measure, and it's different from the role that CCAG will have to play in doing an advisory role to SAMTrans and taking that vote.

But what the city council can do in taking a position is communicate just how critically important it is for the city of Redwood City for some of the reasons that some of the community members have just said in terms of making sure that not only Redwood City, but the other cities in the county and the region can continue to move forward with housing, can keep pollution out of the air, can keep congestion off the roads.

The um there are uh a number of um policymakers were watching for the polling in San Mateo County, which did show that joining the regional measure is something that won't be easy but can be um viable and an alternative that's just a local measure, reauthorizing would clear two-thirds, but at the cost of really cannibalizing the street repaving and other safety investments that we also um depend on.

Um we're, you know, here in the south part of the county, uh, even further south in Menlo Park, the people are uh the city is using the Bay Pass program, one of the um coordination.

Forty percent of people from Menlo Park, I'm finishing this up, use BART and use use Muni.

So even in the south part of the county, we benefit from keeping the entire system running.

Thank you.

Thank you, Adina.

Next speaker is Jordan Grimes, who will be followed by Dylan Finch.

Good evening, Council, Honorable Mayor Jordan Grimes here in my capacity as a staff member of Green Belt Alliance, uh, environmental nonprofit, as well as a community member uh in support of SB 63.

Um, and just really want to urge the council to get behind the measure.

Um a couple key points I want to make sure come across tonight.

Um, like the previous issue on the agenda, this is an issue that San Mateo County just quite simply cannot solve alone.

Um we exist regionally, we are connected to each other regionally.

Um we need each other, and we need to be collectively uh part of ensuring public transportation not just survives but thrives in the Bay Area.

Um I am one of thousands of people uh who take public transit in this county several times per week, and have been since grade school.

Um I don't just rely on Caltrain to do that.

Um I go out of my house, I walk to uh the Hayward Park Caltrain station, and then I get off at Mowbray, and I get onto BART, and I get off at 12th Street in Oakland and go to my job.

Um, so many people rely on multiple systems uh in this in this region.

And if we only save one system, that is a recipe for regional failure.

Um environmental standpoint, this is uh an imperative.

It is essential that we get people out of cars.

More than 40% of transportation uh of emissions of greenhouse gas emissions in the state come from transportation.

Um that number explodes if we don't save public transit.

We need to be lowering that number, and and failure to get behind this is quite frankly not an option from a climate standpoint.

Um, lastly, I'll just say in this county, we have seen there's tremendous desire um for a fast, frequent, comprehensive transit system.

We know this from Caltrain electrification that people love transit when it is fast and it is clean and it's efficient.

Uh, we need to fund that system and we need to fund it regionally.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jordan.

Our final speaker is Dylan Finch.

Uh hello, council.

Uh, my name is Dylan Finch.

I'm on the planning commission, but I'm just speaking for myself today.

Um I think that Caltrain is critical for our downtown's vibrancy, um, and easy access to San Francisco's downtown via the train makes Redwood City a desirable place to live.

And I think the quality of life for both transit riders and drivers would get worse as more people have to switch from taking transit to driving, and the roads get uh even more congested.

And um I also use the train all the time, so personally a big fan.

Um, and uh polling shows that the funding measure could pass.

Um, while it's not perfect, I think it as of now it's uh our best chance to pervert preserve Caltrain and public transit ridership in the county.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that concludes public comment, Mayor.

Great.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you to our public commenters for sitting through this late hour.

And I'll bring it back to the referral originator of Council Member Sirkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, everyone who uh made public comment as well.

Appreciate you waiting for this item come up.

So, you know, this I understand that this bill isn't perfect, but we shouldn't let perfect become the enemy of the good.

And I know there have been concerns uh regionally about return to source and making sure that the dollars that Sanito County and Rabbit City specifically contributes uh come back to Revit City to be reinvested, and I just want to emphasize that there are three avenues for that to happen with this bill.

You know, one is that direct allocation from uh the revenue source to Caltrain, as well as that kind of commission that is created by the bill would fund transit initiatives that can serve Redwood City and Samito County, and then finally, there are remaining proceeds that I think that five percent of the total revenue that uh would be distributed to the counties, including Samato County, and then could be passed on to Redwood City.

So I know there's no guarantee, it's not set in stone yet, it's not finalized yet, but we do really have an opportunity to fund and ultimately save transit in Sancho County and in Rebot City.

And it was you mentioned a few times in the public comment, but you know, our transit system is very much interconnected and interdependent, and people are taking multiple forms of transportation in order to get to where they need to go.

I think um a stat I just heard was that some 40 percent of people in South County, you know, are using Muni and BART.

I didn't know that.

Um, and that really speaks volumes to the multiple forms of transit that people are using to get where they need to go and and how each one needs to be funded adequately.

And even if we don't get all the dollars that we deserve, I'll I'll put it that way.

You know, those dollars are still going to good use and will benefit our residents, if not directly, indirectly, and speaking to Redwood City's prosperity, you know, that multi-track station that Caltrain hopes to build in Redwood City one day that the transit district, all the time we spent making that a reality will be for naught, would be in vain if Caltrain ceases to exist altogether.

And I understand that there are concerns around the revenue source, especially it being a regressive sales tax, and that there have been uh suggestions for other sources of revenue, such as the gross receipts tax, but as we saw when we initially recommended a gross receipts tax here in Redwood City, there was stiff pushback, and so it seems based on the polling and based on our personal experience here in Rabbit City that the most valuable revenue source would be sales tax.

So I just wanted to frame the conversation with with those thoughts and happy to entertain any questions, and I think we also have um Mr.

Petty available for questions, if I'm not mistaken as well.

Um, so thank you, and I'll turn it back over to the mayor for discussion.

Okay thank you, Councilmember, for getting us started providing that background.

Who would like to share some thoughts?

Just a clarification.

Just a clarification, Councilmember Skirken.

There's no return to source.

Um the return to source is intended for transit.

Let me back up.

The intent of SB 63 is to fund transit operations.

The second piece is if there is any return to source it will go back to the transit properties for transit oriented capital improvements.

There's no money in this SB63 for streets or anything like that.

So just to be clear the author's intent um centers Ergine and Wiener is it is intended to fund the operational shortfalls.

And if there's any funding remaining is for transit oriented capital improvements only.

No other monies available to cities for streets or potholes or anything like that.

And that is a misnomer out there, but that's the authors have been very clear is that's the two two prong intent of that bill.

The five percent is for MTC for transit transformation but that is not going for streets and sidewalks and potholes.

Thank you, Mayor I didn't initiate this conversation to discuss funding streets and potholes we just did that with our budget but I mean that what you described does sound good to me so um would Mr Petty like to provide any further clarity as well around um what it looks like to I actually had a question there it's really about can you tell us exactly how revenue from this measure would be reinvested locally please um so I I want to be very clear I'm not one of the bill's authors I and while I'm familiar with the bill process I can really only speak to what's currently in print in the bill language.

So I believe that council member G is correct the author's intent is that the the revenue the proceeds of this bill would go to fund transit operations.

So in the case of San Mateo County money that was not going to fund some of the other named operators would come back to the county for funding for SAM trans the the county's transportation provider.

As uh councilmember G noted there would also be up to five percent off the top of the bill that would be going to regional transit transformation programs.

Thank you and I recognize I'm not an expert in this area by any means in councilmember G is experience on the you know joint powers uh board and and you mr petty are the experts um I just didn't quite understand where the potholes and sidewalks came in so I understand that it's for uh transit operators to maintain operation and that is exactly the goal of this referral so I think I hope that clears everything up for everybody thank you thank you.

And mayor might uh suggest if we wanted to bring on Dane Huddenchings who is our legislative consultant and has been tracking this and advising the uh committee he might have additional comments as well that'd be great.

Thanks for being here Dane good evening.

Um yeah I from from um uh I can simply talk uh perhaps we're at the process um you know where the measure stands uh vis-a-vis um the legislative session um I think that council member G is uh spot on his assessment and we did a note in the analysis that um there is not a specific uh guaranteed return to source um I I don't foresee that being um necessarily amended to the bill, it looks as though they've they've struck their their uh allocations uh through these latest rounds of amendments.

Um the one thing I will note as is pointed out in the analysis uh is that the uh um the legislature did approve uh a 750 million dollar loan that was uh allocated in the budget, the state budget process.

However, that that allocation is contingent upon this measure passing.

Um, and so that is yet another uh part of the calculus that we did want to ensure that council was made aware of.

Um again, uh, you know, uh while we do and while I do engage with with the county on a on a number of items.

This is not something that I have a sense on where they're at on this.

Um at the end of the day, um if if the county decides to opt in, then it opens up these options.

If the county does not opt in, um the city is not uh eligible uh or I should say it's transit agencies aren't aren't necessarily eligible to receive these funds, and so um it does depend on where the county is uh and if they decide to opt in before um on or before August 11th of this year, um just real briefly from that from the um from a process standpoint.

The state legislature has adjourned for its summer recess.

So we they they um uh took off on uh Thursday afternoon.

Uh they will be back on Monday, August 18th.

So I imagine we'll have some resolution at that point uh whether or not uh the county has decided to opt into the measure.

Um I will say that uh because the way the bill is structured is that it's a majority vote bill.

Uh so it's not a two-thirds vote bill, it's a majority vote bill.

Uh we and it is my expectation that uh the measure will uh advance through the legislative process and be uh signed by the governor.

Um uh uh unless you know the the core stakeholders here somehow uh have uh the fraction.

Uh but I do believe that the bill will uh advance now.

Once the bill advances, you now are left with this regional measure, which has a higher vote threshold, uh, as you all know.

Um, but it is a majority vote to establish um the regional body uh to um then put the uh measure on the ballot.

Thank you, Dane.

And we'll go to the vice mayor.

I don't have any questions, I just want to comment.

I want to thank everyone that came here today to talk on this.

It's 10 20 at night, and um this I just start by Shakespeare.

Shakespeare says timing is all.

This is an extremely complex uh issue.

We have been tracking it with Dane on the government subcommittee, which is um Mayor Martinez Sabayos and um Councilmember G.

We've been tracking this all year.

I'm extremely pro um public transit, but this is not the time.

Um we don't know what's going to be in the bill.

We can always uh chime in on this at any time on August 18th in November.

This won't be voted on for a year and a half.

It is extremely complex.

Um also the other saying about location, location, location.

I don't think this is the location.

This is a state ballot.

Um, this is a county decision.

I will be um abstaining from this vote.

I'm extremely in favor of public transportation, but I just don't know why we're talking about this here and now.

Any other comments, questions?

May I I do have a question, according to the analysis.

Am I right?

It says uh San Mateo and Santa Clara can opt in, but must opt in by August 11th.

So it's kind of weird that the uh elected officials upstairs won't even be back in office until August 18th.

So the county has to opt in.

Well, no, but I'm just saying there's a deadline.

And the deadline is.

When nobody's up there to take the opting in, it's very um vague.

The whole thing to me is very vague, and I'm I'm an extreme supporter, as we all are of public transit advancing public transit.

But nothing's been written about where who collects the money, how the money's gonna be spent and distributed.

How is it in going to impact our community?

Especially vulnerable families when you add more onto the tax role.

I know gross receipts will never fly because we've had that exercise and it and I'm glad you brought that up that that was something that was not going to oh I think Councilmember Stirkin brought that up.

So I I'm wondering if we if any of us wanted to support this measure could we do it with contingencies?

Because just outright saying I support something so vague I have no idea what it means for our city and I feel a little bit um like I I I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing that.

People will look at me and say well I just support it.

Because I support public transit but what does that mean to these people so maybe we put in contingencies that if it does get to the point where it goes to ballot it must include who's the agency how much they collect where does it go all of the questions being answered although I don't think that holds any weight really once it's on the ballot they can do whatever they want with the wording so I'm kind of stuck in the middle on this one.

I I just I don't have enough information.

And they're not offering it sorry.

Thank you Councilmember Howard and I see Councilmember Chu's hand is raised.

Um I had a couple clarifying questions.

One is um do we have a sense of how likely it is that San Mateo and Santa Clara County will sign on to the bill um have you gotten any inklings of if I mean what would be I mean i if assuming it's funding for transit given that we have sam transit and I believe cow anyway uh you know I my assumption is they'll sign on but i if there is hesitation or reasons they may not if if you have any insight into what you think the county will do and why council members that question for me yeah yeah sorry okay oh no no problem no problem um uh you know as I I mentioned really on my open is that I while I do work with the county counter my county counterpart the um contract firm that represents the county um our work really overlines on the the some of the revenue issues around VLF um I we have not discussed this um uh and and um uh so I don't have any indication on on as to where the county is on this.

Uh I do know the timing is a bit a bit um it's a bit odd uh the original date to opt in was July 31st the bill was amended to extend the deadline to August 11th and I'm not sure if that is a timing perspective to give perhaps another you know an extra bit more time before the next board meeting um but I don't have any indication as to as to um where they're leading on this.

Okay.

I'll hold my comments until others have had a chance to ask questions.

Thank you council member any other questions oh council member Piduo's some I just have I guess more some things I'm I'm wondering about BB concerns.

I know that Councilmember Stirkin spoke to the regressive impact but I just want to make sure that we know how if right now if this is considered as a sales tax I just think that it's very um important for us to realize that lower income households will pay a larger percentage of that so that will could have intended effects on the same communities what we're trying to protect.

They'll bear the burden of that tax and then I I worry about small businesses.

You know we're trying economic development to be competitive.

If what will this could push our sales tax over 10%?

And that means people won't shop here.

Maybe not just people won't come here, but people will shop online.

They'll go to San Carlos.

They'll buy their big purchases not here in Redwood City.

So I think that's something we should also consider is what does that do to our sales tax in our community in our business community?

And it would just make us less attractive to consumers and business investment.

Especially when l writership from what I have seen is since the pandemic has gone down.

So I think that sometimes things have to scale, and it might be uncomfortable, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to put that burden on the taxpayers.

It's given especially that San Mateo County, I just think it's premature for us to weigh in.

I feel uneasy.

I think, like Councilmember Howard mentioned, just without the county opting in yet, it seems it just doesn't seem like that it's the time.

I think we should maintain a watch position.

I just think it's premature.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

Should I?

Councilmember G.

Councilmember Sturgen, thank you for bringing the referral.

Um I'm gonna be abstaining from this item just because I am neck deep into SB 63, and I have three more votes coming up to determine if San Mateo County opts in and at what level.

It is a very unusual piece of legislation, and the authors did give the added time so that the public transit operators on the peninsula could figure out a number of different things, um.

It is, I think, Vice Mayor, you said it is complex, and it really is complex in the sense of um, let's just talk about the San Mateo County process.

The Caltrain Board will take this matter up at a special board meeting on Wednesday, and concurrently in San Mateo County C CAG will take make an advisory recommendation as well as the TA.

Ultimately, Sam Trans will make the final vote of either opting in or doing something different at their August 6th board meeting.

Concurrently, part of the SB 63 language allows the three Caltrain partners, San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County on how to divide up the projected deficit operating deficit for Caltrain, which is currently targeted about an average of 75 million dollars.

That negotiation is ongoing right now, and that is part of the amendment that will be in the SP final version of SB 63.

Will it be one third, one third, one-third?

Probably not.

Is it gonna be something else?

Probably yes, and those negotiations are very heated and underway right now.

And I just had another meeting right before I came to council.

We all understand what it means from a consequence standpoint, but we are required by the authors to come up with a division of that 75 million dollars between the three partners.

Can we get that done?

It won't be done because it goes to the Caltrain board, but then the respective boards.

VTA and Santa Clara County, Sam Trans and San Mateo County, and SFMT and the City and County Board of Supervisors in San Francisco ultimately all have to agree about what that split is.

Another amendment is underway, or where how's the money flow?

Does it go to MTC?

Does it go through the TAs?

Um, how does that mechanism work as well as um what are the accountability metrics for uh all the transit operators?

Well, Councilmember Sturk and you recited some of the polling results.

One of the clear high ranking polling results is the voters want accountability from the transit operators.

And what does that look like?

That is still being discussed right now.

Um, as the last time it was chair of the JPB, I sat with the board president for BART and asked that we coordinate our connections at Millbrae.

And the board president said yes, we will.

But they didn't do it once in the same year they did it twice, where they unilaterally changed the BART schedule at Millbright without telling anybody.

And that is the kind of accountability that the voters want, is how can you if we're gonna give you money, how can you unilaterally disjoint connection schedules?

Now the operators are working better right now at that, the conversations are better, but how do we hold operators, whether it be Caltrain, BAR, AC Transit, if we're going to ask the voters for funding of this magnitude to be accountable for the money they receive, and that mechanism, those metrics are still in conversation, and they all have to land by August 11th, and that's the tough part right now.

Because as well, I've had six meetings and six months on the ad hoc homeless committee.

I've probably had 20 meetings on the regional measure and the governance issues with Caltrain in the last six months because of the detail, the complexity, and the history of the relationships through between the three partners.

I can go deeper, but I don't need to.

I think that's you know, kind of what's going on right now.

There is an intent to land this by August 11th, constantly in conversation with the partner agencies as well as the authors, as well as my Sam Trans board members without violating the Brown Act, but I cannot guarantee, I have no inclination of where this is going to wind up from San Mateo County's perspective.

Well I will guarantee of all the boards I've mentioned, there will be no board that votes unanimously, yes.

I can guarantee that right now, based on comments made by individual board members in VTA, San Francisco, and even Sam Trans, because of all the different issues and the complexity and the history.

But we have to count to as we have to count on this council, we have to count to four, and for most of the boards, we have to count to five to see what happens.

But like I said, I have three votes coming up in the next two weeks, and I will not be voting on this, I'll be abstaining on this tonight here.

Everyone's saying, Thank you, Councilmember, and for your service on those transit bodies too.

I see council member Chu's hands raised.

Um, so first of all, Councilmember G, thank you so much for all of that context.

I think it's extremely helpful.

Um, and to um council member, I mean, you know, like everyone else, I I rely on transit for transportation.

I use BART, I use Caltrain, I use the bus, you know, SAMTRANs all the time.

Uh, don't particularly take BTA a lot, but uh, you know, we subsidize driving um hugely, and and all transportation requires subsidies in order to um survive.

Um, it just happens to be more um visible to people when when we need to subsidize transit.

Um, so I would my default is to support this bill.

Um I think uh the the hesitation of the the agencies is is definitely a concern.

Um I don't know if I can I mean if you can't answer those questions, um, is your sense that the hesitation has to do with the agencies not believing the money will come to them, or do because they think there's a better way to raise money for transit real large.

That's a question for council member G.

Like just so I have a sense of what the concern is.

Um, there are probably two major concerns right now.

One is accountability.

Right.

You know, what does that look like?

And how do you measure it and whether the consequences if you don't live up to the metrics?

Um that that mechanism hasn't been defined yet.

Uh number two, when it comes to inserting the language about how San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County will divide up that 75 million, the only guarantee I can give you is it won't be one third, one third, one third.

It's gonna be something different than that.

And how we land that is just brass knuckles negotiation right now, and and it it's not fun.

Okay.

Thank you for doing that uh on behalf of all the transit writers in San Mateo County.

Um, I appreciated um council member Howard's suggestion of making our um endorsement of this uh bill contingent on and perhaps I misunderstood uh San Mateo County joining.

Like if Sam McKay, if all of these issues could be resolved and the county is satisfied that this is a good bill for our county, um I would be very supportive of supporting this measure.

Um you know, we we have to get find a mechanism to fund transit, and even if it doesn't necessarily come to our county, um, you know, I agree that transit is a regional issue, and everybody who rides transit benefits uh when transit is well funded, um, particularly low income individuals, lower income individuals are much more likely to rely on walk, bike, and and transit than higher-end income individuals.

Um, so I would be, you know, very supportive of this contingent on San Mateo County signing on to it.

I think those issues have to be resolved.

I don't know if that's an option.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

And if I can sort of correct Councilmember Chu's question, if we wanted to work on more nuanced language like this, that would be in a letter or something like that.

Would that be best to go to governance for a fuller conversation or potentially?

I mean there isn't another committee meeting scheduled at this point, and I this time of year is harder to schedule committee meetings just um in light of travel.

So theoretically, I guess we could potentially add another meeting.

I think a concern is really just when that would be and what meaning we'd have at that point, because it sounds like negotiations will be going up to the 11th hour, and so I'm not sure how much influence we would have at that point.

Okay, councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

We don't have a council meeting after this one until well, we have a meeting, but it's for something else.

But we don't really have a regular council meeting until the end of August, do we?

That's correct.

Yes, not until after the timeline.

Okay, and we have a couple of weeks if we wanted the governance committee or the legislative committee to get together.

It's the governance committee, isn't it?

Thank you, uh, to get together and discuss this.

I it's it's an 11th hour thing, and we just I don't have enough information.

So I was going to say that uh they're not looking for us to sign on.

They're looking for the county to sign on.

So I'm wondering if what we should do is stay in close touch with the county and try to get information on.

Are you going to be signing on by the 11th?

I'm sure Councilmember G will be right there in the mix and he can let us know as soon as it happens.

I don't see the benefit of us signing on when the county hasn't even weighed in yet.

I'd like to see what they're gonna do, but suggest to them we should do contingencies.

If you're gonna sign on county, maybe you'll want to do contingencies to ensure that we're being honest and open with the taxpayers and that we're gonna be transparent and all the things we just talked about.

I'd feel better about that than being a leader here when we're not asked to be.

It's the county and Santa Clara, those are the two they're waiting for for August 11th, I believe.

We'll go to the vice mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Yes, and let's let's just remind I I agree with um what you said um, councilmember um Howard, and just just that let's remember that this ultimately would be a vote in November of 2026.

So we have plenty of time to weigh in in support of public transit in support of funding public transit.

As council member Howard said, no one is asking us to weigh in.

So I I think our resources are better spent on other things, and we have a year and a half.

Um, thank you both.

We'll go back to Councilmember Sturkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think one thing I want to mention, I appreciate the concern for um vulnerable families as you put it, Councilmember Howard and low-income families as you put it, um, Councilmember Vadia.

Those same families use public transit in this county, especially the majority of SAM trans users.

So I just want you to take that into consideration.

And also the county looks to Redwood City, and if we support this measure, that may give them a little nudge to follow suit.

And then secondly, thirdly, rather, I would happily uh support Councilmember Chu's uh suggestion to add a contingency that we support this measure if the county supports it.

If that gives the council some reassurance that the makers of this bill and and otherwise will be held accountable.

So that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sturgen.

Um I'll chime in here and say that, you know, I know the history around cow train and bar funding has been a battle to just, you know, uh there's no other better way to describe that, right?

It's been an ongoing push and pull, um, and it's been an issue of governance, um, most recently than I've been, you know, a part of a part of this council, and so um I hear the concerns around the death spiral, and um I mean what what an image I think that just really is the bottom line for me, and what is sort of guiding my interest in this, aside from also serving on CCAG and in a week or two making a vote on behalf of all of us, right, on how we feel about this complex piece of legislation.

So that was why it was important for me to just hear everyone's input, so I appreciate that.

Um, but I worry about what happens if Sequoia Station starts to falter, right?

Um, not in terms of just the environment there, which people are already worried about, but in terms of the services about why people go there.

Um, so I I have fears around sort of what a death spiral will mean for Caltrain.

I um and I also think we can strike the balance of a nuanced letter that has contingencies that says, you know, this is what we want our legislators to be fighting for us and championing right as they're in these negotiations and in these, you know, closed closed fist fights.

Um so I do think we can strike that balance.

Um, so I, you know, would be open to Councilmember Chu's suggestion that Councilmember Howard also suggested contingencies, um, putting that on paper just to let our our legislators know what we're worried about.

Um, you know, I've been in a CCAG conversation, um, where we just previewed this legislation really um, but the sort of um the concerns around why not to support the legislation were just very different from the concerns I'm hearing from our colleagues about equity and impact on our small businesses, our low income residents.

Um, I'm hearing concerns around speaking to the history and previous battles, and why does San Francisco get this, but we don't get that.

And um, and so I just you know, on a level set that we need to be thinking about the system and what it means for the end user.

Um, and so I think you know, uh a letter that speaks to those points would be would be really helpful in this moment.

Um so I would you know support that suggestion around contingencies, but with that's um give back to the council.

Councilmember Sirkin.

I would be happy to amend uh my recommendation here to include Councilmember Chu's uh amendment.

Friendly amendment, I might call it to consider approving a resolution of support for Senate Bill 63, which would authorize a regional transportation funding ballot measure for San Francisco Bay Area contingent upon Samato County Board of Supervisors opting in.

Um is that no, I see.

No, that doesn't quite cut it.

Okay.

But the the action originally before you tonight is to consider resolution of support, so it would not be that.

I think what I was hearing suggested was essentially that the council tonight might ask the governance committee to develop a letter that could be sent to legislators uh indicating Redwood City's perspectives on this legislation.

That's what I think I was hearing.

Right.

And I think I was yeah, because we wouldn't have the opportunity for resolution language to come back for the council that it makes sense to do that way.

And I see Dane's hand is also raised virtually.

I uh it's and I in and my apologies, I just want to ensure that I'm understanding the action for from my end here on next steps.

Um so when we you when you position on a piece of legislation, there are really a couple of adopted positions that you can take.

It's uh uh support, you know, oppose, oppose must amended.

Um we can certainly uh uh if given direction by the council draft a letter that indicates to our lawmakers sort of this nuanced position, but with respect to sort of formally positioning on a piece of legislation, we can't submit a support letter that's contingent upon another local government agency support.

Um so I just I want to be clear because when when we talk about and I know one of some of the questions have come up about who's officially in support and who's not, when you submit a letter to of support uh uh on these measures, you're you're a part of the official public record and have and and are indicated on either a uh a floor analysis, a uh committee analysis of of the state legislature, um, but that that position um so all that to say we can we can draft a letter uh certainly inform your your delegation and and let them know sort of the nuance here, but um I taking an official action, it it won't be reflected on the on this on the public record.

So I just I did want to just make that comment with respect to to the nuance of of uh of the direction here.

So I'm gonna um answer any questions on process, yeah.

Yeah, thank you, Dane.

And my thinking was more this letter would just go directly to the legislators themselves just to let them know where we are rather than it being submitted through the legislative portal and being read aloud at a committee or something like that.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate the direction.

Thank you, Dane, and we'll go to Councilmember Howard.

Well, I just want a clarification.

Um I hear what you're saying, Dane, um, and I I would agree, I think I would agree that uh I'm not ready to support something based on a list of things that we're not really able to demand.

And you're saying we wouldn't want necessarily be put on record as saying we support it, but because what if somebody only reads the first sentence you're supporting it?

I'd feel uncomfortable with that because then all the amendments would be meaningless, but I would be okay with a letter saying we've reviewed this at our meeting on this night.

We had so many questions and concerns, and we wanted to let you know what they are.

Just as simple as that, that we we've had our governance committee work on it, and they're taking a watch uh attitude um stance, I should say.

Uh just a letter saying we we've looked at this and we have a lot of questions and concerns, and we understand that it's up to the county to sign on, but we just wanted to let you know what our concerns are.

Not putting a position in either way can we do that would it make sense they don't do they do they want to hear from us uh well you're I mean your your delegation certainly wants to hear here from Redwood City in particular you um as I know it's been mentioned the city really is a leader on on so much within the county um uh you know I I think uh we can certainly convey the conversation um and and I I would couch it more as a sort of a like an open letter uh to your delegation informing um you know informing them where the city stands um I mean you can even indicate that you have some support for the measure predicated on the county opting opting in we can we can get into some of that nuance what I I what I simply wanted to convey was that um I want to be sure that there wasn't an expectation from council that we would be showing up as support on on the official public record given the nuance of the position so that that's all I was trying to to to um clarify.

Thank you.

Councilmember howard it looks like council member G has let me try to help the council out here a little bit the the the legislative body that's going to make the decision about opting in is Sam trans.

That's it because they're the signatory to the JPB Caltrain agreement so if there's any letter supporting SB 63 it's should be written to the SAM trans board of directors.

My suggestion is that there be a letter from the mayor to SAM transing the board to strongly consider opting in to SB 63 um to um deal with the what basically saving public transit in the region and just leave it as simple as that the SAM trans board's gonna deal with all the nuances I can guarantee that but what as that what is at issue is two issues one the fiscal cliff for the public transit properties particularly the four that are listed Bart Muni AC Transit and Caltrain.

And Sam Mattel County opting in to SB 63 those are the two issues and so just a simple letter from the mayor to the samt board if the council would want to do that should be to ask the board to seriously consider opting into SB 63 to preserve public transit in the region and the samt board will take it from there.

Thank you council member councilmember Chu um I would be very supportive of that for for two reasons number one I think it's a letter where we actually have sway I mean to to Mr Hutching's point um you know Redwood City is a leader we do have a marquee train station in the center of our downtown that really anchors it and so I think a letter to the county to Sam trans would probably actually matter um and then the second is just the tenor of the letter that we deeply value transit that it's incredibly important to us that it's you know we we really support them um joining this um so I just wanted to I think that's a terrific idea and I would be very supportive of that.

Thank you council member councilmember I would be very supportive as well.

Right and I will add my support to that idea as well.

Any other final thoughts before we take a vote council's reaching I think we need a new motion then right okay um okay so please disregard my previous motion and I would like to make a motion to do exactly what councilmember G said it was the mayor yes I just translated it.

So that was a motion to write a letter to the Sam Trans board describing our support for 63 um a balanced letter, also expressing sort of our concerns there too.

Our support or encouraging them or go ahead, city attorney.

If you're the you're the motion maker, if you would like to clarify it, please feel free.

Thank you, Mayor.

It wasn't a letter of support.

We are not taking a position.

We are simply uh as council member G put it.

Uh emphasizing the importance of transit to Redwood City and encouraging the San Trans board to opt in to opt into SB63.

So was that clear?

Thank you, Councilmember G.

Great.

Thank you for the clarification.

I promise I wasn't trying to sneak anything in.

It is just it's getting late.

But with that, we'll uh do an electronic vote, please.

Thank you.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Abstain.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Abstain.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with five votes.

Councilmember G and Councilmember Padilla abstained.

Great.

Thank everybody for that discussion.

With that, we will now move on to item 10B, which is City Council member report of uh meetings attended, conferences attended.

Does anyone have anything they'd like to share out?

Not seeing anything.

Okay.

We will go on to 10 C, City Council Committee reports, beginning with our equity and social justice subcommittee.

And Councilmember Padilla has an update.

We met on June 27th and provided feedback on two presentations.

The first was a review of the first five years of the city's equity work, pulling together data from all departments.

The review identified the strengths and gaps in the city's approach to advancing equity, helping us plan effective ways to deepen our commitment to fair and just opportunity for all in the future.

The second presentation covered the draft economic mobility action plan.

The plan sets tenure goals for the city and calls for updated strategies and reports to council every two to three years.

Staff expect to bring the economic mobility action plan to council for approval on November 24th.

Our next equity and social justice subcommittee meeting is scheduled for October 17th.

Thanks.

Great, thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

And I have a quick update from our governance subcommittee.

On our state budget and budget trailer bills, the vehicle license fees or VLF, and the city's positioned bills.

The subcommittee unanimously voted to oppose assembly bill 1337 ward, which would remove the exemption for local agencies in the information practices act and would expand the definition of personal information in the act.

The next meeting of the governance subcommittee meeting will be uh scheduled August 18th.

And we will move on to Transportation and Mobility Subcommittee and Councilmember Chu has an update.

I'm so sorry, I cannot find the note.

Um, I got you covered.

Council members.

I think they're I think they're on my chair.

So I did just forward them to you by email, Councilmember Chu, unless somebody else wants to report up.

I don't know.

If they're in my inbox, I can.

Let's see.

Let me refresh.

You know, for the lateness of the hour, okay.

Yeah, I was gonna say, why don't you go ahead and read in?

I don't want to step on your toes, but yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, my toes are fine.

The transportation and mobility subcommittee is comprised of myself, Councilmember Chu, and Councilmember G.

We met on July 17th.

The subcommittee received updates and discussed and provided feedback on the following items.

The Vision Zero initiatives, including background on the city's Vision Zero plan, current Vision Zero projects and activities, and the police department's educational and enforcement activities related to traffic safety, the status of Caltrans uh Woodside Road Construction Project, and we also received an update on the shared micro mobility program uh in Roadwood City, noting that BERD is going to end its operations in RoboT City uh in the coming weeks.

The next Transportation and Mobility Subcommittee meeting is scheduled for November 13th.

And I'll send things over to the city manager for her update.

And actually, I'll forego the update in light of our need to attend a closed session.

Thank you.

Great.

And our night is still not done.

We're moving into closed session, and we are uh meeting and just in anticipated litigation as identified on the agenda.

Before we convene closed session, I'd like to ask the city clerk if there are any public comments on closed session items.

No public comment on the closed session mayor.

Okay.

We'll now adjourn to closed session as this is the last item on tonight's agenda and no reportable action will be taken.

The meeting will be adjourned immediately following the conclusion of closed session, and the council will not return to the dais.

Thank you again for joining us tonight.

Okay, you've got it done before eleven.