Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for joining our special city council meeting of August eighteenth, twenty twenty-five. We're gonna go ahead and get started. It is six oh one. We continue to offer in-person and remote options for our city council meetings. The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction, and members of the public may provide comments in person during the meeting or by email to public comment at Rugwood City.org as listed in the agenda. In-person speakers must turn in a speaker card to the city clerk at the dais to be recognized to speak. In person speakers will be called in the order in which their speaker cards were turned in. Comments that were received via email after public agenda publication through five o'clock today, may be read aloud, time permitting, and in any case will be made part of the final meeting record. And I'll now turn it over to our city clerk to call the role. Present. With that, we'll move on to item number three, Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. We do have two in-person speakers. He'll have two minutes to speak. Red light with the beep means your time is up. So I'll call up Mary Joe Palumba first, who will be followed by Olivia Oster. Night and early morning, dogs barking. I've called the police with no avail. And um I just want our park back for neighbors to enjoy. Thank you very much. You can leave it. No problem. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Olivia Oster. Welcome. Good evening, Council Council members. My name is Olivia Austin, and I reside at ten ninety Main Street, Redwood City. I am here regarding the recent encampment at the area adjacent to the downtown Redwood City Library. Provides me with a clear view from my balcony to a walkway, a park bench, a park picnic table with a bench in that area. At one time residents and visitors could walk through that area, stop and sit for a bit, enjoy on either banks, and feel safe. That is not the case any longer. What you have now is trash strewn about the area, shopping cards in the walkway, and other times homeless person sitting on the lawn with their legs extended on the walkway, making it uncomfortable for anyone to walk there. I also hear yelling and screaming at night, which starts in the late evening hours and goes until early morning hours, and just lately a dog barking off and on all hours. Residents of ten ninety Main Street have called the police many times regarding this issue, but it still remains the same. One possible method to end to deter the homeless from setting up an encampment is to fill the back area, beginning with the Changling fence facing Elena's Cafe, which extends to Pennsylvania Avenue facing the library back parking lot, and fill that entire area with large cemented boulders and rocks so that any sort of tent, canvas, mattress cannot be set down. Posha's restaurant at uh 837 Jefferson has a Boulder Rock Garden in the back. That's it. Thank you very much. And uh no written public comment this evening, Mayor. So that concludes public comment. Wonderful. Thank you for our public speakers this evening. We'll now move on to our closed session items. The City Council will now convene to close session regarding public employee evaluation and initiation of litigation as identified on the agenda. As these will be the final items on tonight's agenda, there will be no reportable action. The meeting will be adjourned immediately following the conclusion of closed session, and the council will not be returning to the dais. We thank you again for joining us, and our next city council meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 25th, 2025 at six o'clock. So it won't be too long before you see us again. And uh we hope you all have a great evening and week ahead.